The Dambusters. If you enjoyed the ‘bouncing bomb’ documentary on Channel 4 earlier this month then you will be pleased to know that the engineers involved, Hugh Hunt and Hilary Costello, will be speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival on Sunday 12 June. Filmed and put together in the summer and autumn of 2020, the first part of Channel 5’s new three-episode documentary The Dambusters Story was shown on UK television tonight. My favourite picture from that time is the shot of Dambuster Grant MacDonald (rear gunner in Ken Brown’s AJ-F) visiting the site of the shoot. I am happy to report that four of the aircrew who took part in the raid in May 1943 are alive and well. These were added to with heavily repeated use of the few bits of archive newsreel footage featuring Gibson, and also with stock wartime film of Lancasters in flight and RAF chaps going about their business. He was the rear gunner in Ken Brown’s crew in AJ-F. Also living in Canada is Fred Sutherland, front gunner in the crew which dropped the bomb which broke the Eder Dam, Les Knight’s AJ-N. This film has interviews with relatives and friends of the men in the Dambuster Squadron. The only pilot still with us is Les Munro, who captained AJ-W on the raid. Back in 2006 the producer Peter Jackson announced that he was to remake the classic 1955 film, The Dam Busters. He used the aircraft both as a prop – a pat on the fuselage, a push on the propellor – and as a stage from which to address the camera, sitting in the cockpit and the front and rear turrets. It visits various sites that were part of the WW II mission. We will never share email addresses with anyone else. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe dams in Nazi Germany with Barnes Wallis 's bouncing bomb . More details and video can be found in the article. The raid was largely successful, but 53 of the 133 men who took part were killed. In my view, Holland’s programme was a well researched and presented documentary. May 18, 2020. In short, the raid was indeed a catastrophe for Nazi Germany, and a triumph for the British. There was tremendous loss of life on the ground, with hundreds of captured women forced into a labour camp being the most egregious. Nichol’s journey takes him to France, Germany and Finland to see for himself where the Dambusters changed the course of history – including former Nazi weapons sites which have been out-of-bounds since 1945. Jackson and several other sources have said several times that the project is still ongoing. A three pipe problem, indeed, for today’s band of TV historians to get stuck into. The myth that Gibson “hand picked” the crew is something that has crept into the story from his book, Enemy Coast Ahead, but as this section of the book is based on an article in the Sunday Express which was ghost written for him, it is not a reliable account. David Maltby, for example, had just come back to 97 Squadron to start a second tour, and had been allocated a new crew, not long out of training. Series Cast. Several of the squadron’s wartime veterans took part in this documentary, and there are also contributions from German combatants, and modern day historians amongst whom, I might modestly add, is myself. Language: e; Production Country: United Kingdom; Networks: Channel 5; Director: Jamie Simpson 2. He lives in his native New Zealand, and has been reported as being involved in the Jackson remake project as a technical advisor. The whole point of their swift reconstruction “underlines just how important they were to Germany”, and the men and material required had to be diverted from elsewhere. David is buried in St Andrew’s Church in Wickhambreaux, Kent. If you live in the UK — and have access to Channel 5 — you can catch a new three part TV documentary this week. With so much already written and broadcast about the Dams Raid it is not surprising that little new information emerged. He points out the few fictional aspects in the 1955 movie, "The Dam Busters." A director, Christian Rivers, was assigned to the project, and a script was commissioned from British national treasure Stephen Fry. Race Against Time. BBC2 is to screen yet another documentary about the Dams Raid next Tuesday, 8 November at 9pm. Using once classified secret documents and log books, Nichol chronicles this mission and other precision bombing operations that 617 Squadron carried out after they attacked and breached the dams in the heart of Germany, which created their legend and earned them the nickname – The Dambusters – and helped win the war. We were told about Cyril Anderson and his crew who returned with their bomb and were then sent back to their original squadron, “in disgrace”. Flying a 30 ton aircraft a thousand miles through hostile territory just 100 feet above the ground required enormous concentration, exceptional skill and tremendous luck. DamBusters. The Dambusters (2020) Documentary, War & Politics 45m User Score. The script stuck heavily to the familiar narrative. What is happening to the remake of The Dam Busters? Lesser known is the role played by the elite squadron of British bombers known as the Dambusters, whose elaborate diversion convinced German high command that the assault was happening somewhere else. One, Grant MacDonald, who lives in Vancouver, Canada, visited the Windfall Films/Channel 4 team while they were making the documentary last October. Airing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 9pm each night it is presented by Dan Snow with contributions from Max Hastings, Robert Owen and Victoria Taylor amongst others. ... Genre: Documentary, War & Politics. On June 6, 1944, British, American and Canadian troops landed on the beaches of Normandy as part of largest amphibious assault in military history: D-… - The Dambusters Story (2020) HDTV | 1920x1080 | .MKV/AVC @ 4332 Kbps | 3x~45min | 4.27 GiB Audio: English AAC 123 kbps, 2 channels | Subs: English Genre: Documentary Dambusters Story: A Battle Against Time will document historian Dan Snow as he relives the countdown to Operation Chastise, one of the most daring bombing raids in history. TVT Productions to produce a special documentary exploring the role of the iconic RAF ‘Dambusters’ bomber squadron on D-Day, to be shown on Smithsonian Channel in the UK and US to mark the 76thanniversary of the Allied landings in June. If you live in the UK — and have access to Channel 5 — you can catch a new three part TV documentary this week. Of course, there was much that we got wrong, but we also got many things spectacularly right. TVT Productions to produce a special documentary exploring the role of the iconic RAF ‘Dambusters’ bomber squadron on D-Day, to be shown on Smithsonian Channel in the UK and US to mark the 76thanniversary of the Allied landings in June. Joy Galane and David Royle serve as executive producers for Smithsonian Channel. Journal Impact IF 2020-2021| Analysis, Trend, Ranking & Prediction - Academic Accelerator The background to the documentary was extensively covered in this blog at the time it was shot, in October 2010, and when it was released in the UK, in May 2011. Wallis tries to get his revolutionary bomb to work, which will require the invention of a new aiming device. David Royle, Smithsonian Channel, New Freeview slot for Smithsonian Channel, Smithsonian Channel on myTV SUPER in Hong Kong, Research: Pandemic sees digital consumption rise 30%, Report: US linear TV viewing time falls 14% in Q1, Research: China 5G adoption drives smartphone demand, Fightzone launches streaming service with Red Bee. Presenter Dan Snow uses a pipe to channel the spirit of Guy Gibson while sitting in his Scampton office. Holland’s analysis will no doubt draw its detractors, perhaps inspired by a politically fashionable thinking that seeks to denigrate just about every British success during the Second World War. Go back to the posts from those two months if you want further information. How many of the original Dam Busters are still alive? There were some things that jarred. November 30, 2020. When you consider the odds it is no real surprise that eight of the 19 aircraft failed to return. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. D-Day and the Dambusters is a TVT Production. With Martin Shaw, Barnes Wallis. 1. Catch it again on iPlayer while it is still available! Such damage can hardly be considered “little of substance”. Vast tracts of land had also been devastated by the tidal waves that had thundered up to eighty miles from the dams.” The series was filmed in lockdown conditions earlier this year. But their crews may not have been. You may well have arrived here after watching the Channel 4 documentary on Monday 2 May, in which modern engineers rebuilt a working ‘bouncing bomb’. ATV@ Sony 4kUHD Theatre MIP TV. This film, directed by Matthew Wortman, looks at what the squadron did between June 1943 and May 1945 when they took on some of the war’s toughest targets, such as the Antheor and Belfield viaducts and the Tirpitz, and became the first squadron to drop the giant new bombs devised by Barnes Wallis. There are now only two surviving crew members of the Dambusters missions. 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