Astir 8 wrote:
"It's the documentaries on TV that upset me. The number of times that incorrect bits of film get trotted out - Spit V's & Fw 190's appear in the Battle of Britain with monotonous regularity! Now the people who make those programmes really ought to know better, or hire someone who does."
A couple of years ago I was engaged by the BBC to advise on their show celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain.
We determined to find some new archive footage to avoid the cliche stuff such as the chap ringing the scarmble bell etc. A visit to the Imperial War Museum Archive and we found tons of excellent stuff, mainly German stock that I had never seen.
Dornier formations low flying, Me110s and a superb shot from an RAF Spifire as it tracked across behind a ginormous formation of He111s, literally dozens, all stepped up from the front.
The problem is that even the BBC could not afford the high rates of the IWM; from memory its about £5 a second or something. sadly much of the footage was deleted as they could not afford it. So that is one of the reasons you see so much rehashed stuff.
At least I stopped them putting in "some nice colour stock we found of a Messerschmit being shot down over the Channel".
It was a Zero going in at Midway
