Battle of Britain: 3 Days That Saved the Nation - Channel 5 UK, Tues 7th July, 9pm
 

Channel 5 Tuesday 9:00 pm, 7 July 2020
Season 1 | Episode 1 | Length 1 hour
Dan Snow and Kate Humble relive three days which changed the course of history. The 15th August 1940, the day when the Battle of Britain started in earnest.

Oh for the days of Raymond Baxter.

Quite..
Most of it good, but the presenters......

I thought it was pretty dire really.........very disjointed presentation, and terrible presenters, or rather terrible script and production. Quite why they thought Kate Humble would be a good choice for this is anyone's guess!!
Apart from the Duxford warbird footage including the in-cockpit shots of John R flying the Blenheim etc., I really didn't think there was much to write home about.

I have no strong feelings either way about Kate Humble, she's a professional rentagob presenter, but I guess her dad being a test pilot for Hawker meant she was top of the list.

Oops, sorry, grandfather.

Quite a long time ago Kate Humble did a programme on Bill H, her grandfather, which was fine. What I saw of the programme this week was pretty dire, I agree, but I keep having to remember that we aviation people are not the target audience of those programmes, so we shouldn't expect too much.

Only seen 30 mins so far, but as they featured 3 people who actually took part, and not just the well known names was good to watch. 99.99 % of all the people are only known to their direct families and was good to see the 'small; cog featured.

I agree that it makes a change to hear about some lesser known names. The presenters are simply ghastly, maybe Jeremy Clarkson could have made a better fist of it !

What grips me is the presenters constantly wittering on about the 'Nazi' aircraft......what is wrong with referring to the enemy as the Luftwaffe!

I thought that Gordon Ramsay was lined up to present this programme .....

I thought we were at war with Germany not a political party!!
I think this use of Nazi has become prevalent on T.V.
After all we wouldn't want to offend the nice Germans. It was those nasty Nazi's that were the problem.

Any HD TV clips featuring those gorgeous Mk1a Spitfires from Duxford do, and probably always will, give me goosebumps. But, oh deary deary me who in their right mind chose those presenters ?

Yes I can't stand that either. We were at war with Germany because of what its government had done and was doing. That it was a National Socialist (Nazi) government did not mean that all Germans were members of that party, any more than not all the UK citizens of today are members of the Conservative party.

I often wonder what kind of a fist the armchair critics on here would make of a programme with this remit. I could hazard a guess and it isn't favourable.

Don't forget, most of us on here know more about it than Joe Public. But the programme wasn't made for us. If it brings an appreciation of the history and sacrifice before a new, and younger, audience, the programme has done its job.

Indeed. One recalls a programme (probably BBC) which included Chamberlain's famous "declaration of war" broadcast.

The recording was cut short, so it read: "I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war." The final two words: "with Germany." were cut!!

Dan Snow, the snowflake historian - Having previously admitted to telling his daughter that women fought in Spitfires during the war because he couldn't face telling her that they weren't able to fly with the RAF, if she watches the programme she'll be asking him why they weren't featured....... :E Idiot. Maybe his daughter could have done a better job, couldn't have been much worse.

I have no particular beef with Dan Snow - although I didn't know about what he did or didn't tell his daughter - but it always bugs me when he's described as a "Historian".
He's not, he's got a History degree from Oxford, which is a far higher qualification than I've got, but it doesn't make him a historian.

I wonder why he didn't tell her about the fantastic contribution made by the A.T.A who flew anything and everything that had wings.
Probably never heard of them!!!

Episode three and luvvie Dan is at it again.....we were at war with GERMANY !

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! What a letdown on this last episode. Some great snippets in the last half hour especially re: the polish pilots and the VC recipient.But the presenters reminded me of my earlier years watching Blue Peter! Great vintage aerial shots though, shooting down the "Nazis".I noticed towards the end that they described them as "Germans" or the "Luftwaffe"
As an aside I remember being in Biggin in around 81 or 82 and having a long conversation with "Jacko" Jackson and I think his son was "JImbo" in the wonderful King Air flying club bar. If I remember both at that time were flying with the BBMF. Jacko flying the Lanc and Jimbo flying the Hurricane. If I am wrong someone here will correct me I am sure. Happy days!

They would have been far better with James Holland and Stephen Bungay. I agree with the comments here about the description of Nazi instead of German, irriitated me greatly from the start.

Humble and Snow were both dire in this. The one done by the McGregor brothers a few years ago was far better.

Quite so. Apart from the unexpectedly fine Spreading My Wings by Diana Barnato Walker, I like the fictional moment in Len Deighton's Bomber, in which an A.T.A. pilot delivers a new Lancaster to a base, single handed. When she gets home, her mother asks her if her work isn't rather dangerous. "Only after I've landed," she says. But Walker's book would be much better to recommend to a modern girl than telling her fables: it is a fascinating account of how a remarkable woman (also remarkably rich and remarkably well-connected) coped with limiting stereotypes, and flew Spitfires.

From today's Times. "Almost half of Britons cannot identify the Battle of Britain with more than two thirds of 18-24 year-olds confusing the Second World War aerial campaign with other historic episodes such as part of the English Civil War. A survey of 2,135 adults by the RAF Benevolent fund found 44 percent were unaware of the RAF's successful defence.". For all its faults, if this programme helps raise awareness, it will have helped.

TBH, the programme was not designed for pilots or enthusiasts. It was rather like a glossy coffee table book full of pretty pictures but little actual content.

In some respects we in this country are our own worst enemies. We are subjugated by political correctness and lectured to constantly by revisionist commentators and 'historians'. In WW2 we apparently fought the Nazi party rather than a Germany led Axis. The Americans won Overlord on their own, Bomber Command never hit anything apart from obliterating the innocent city of Dresden. The Holocaust was a figment of our imagination and so it goes on.

I live about five miles from the battlefield at Naseby. A more pivotal battle in English history on English soil you would be hard to find other than the Norman Invasion. Go there today and there is precious little to see and if you make a comparison to Gettysberg the contrast is astonishing.

I for one have become rather fed up being told that I should be embarrassed by our history.

Yes, the 'Nazi bombers' irked me too, particularly as he never once referred to "the UK coalition fighters'.

confusing i thought
 

Well at least the 'Warbird Brigade' got some work out of it. Not sure what audience this was for as you got all sorts of items like a Hurricane attacking a Blenheim which may have confused those that had little knowledge beforehand. No doubt DS has his fan club but I do not find the style in keeping with the subject. Plenty of scope to do a 'then and now' of certain locations that were involved, and everything looked so clean and tidy (especially the aircraft).A re-enactment of visits to the White Hart followed by the night club would have been quite appropriate if they wanted to go for reality. Of course these programs are largely in the hands of researchers who just use computers, but at least we did not get a squadron of Miles Masters going off, and they used pretty accurate Lloyd Loom chairs this time. Not a hit with me as Kenley missed out.

'REPEAT PLEASE REPEAT PLEASE' Always like that bit in 'The Film' whether it actually happened or not it captured the spirit of the Poles who just wanted to kill Germans.


addA

I didn't watch this television programme. I gave up on programmes such as that many years ago. When I want my history, I go to books. These allow me to choose something of an academic nature, leaving behind the glossy 'coffee table' volumes that have more weight than substance, whereas on television generally one has only the flim flam that is doled out. But out of interest, did the presenters call the aeroplanes 'planes'?

"It's an aeroplane, Mr. Bader"

"Blessed is he that expect-eth nothing for he shall not be disappointed" … it should be the BBC's new motto.

I always have a quiet chuckle when some of you get your knickers in a twist about folk saying 'planes'. Do you grumpy gits say car or motor-car, bus or omnibus etc ,no , I thought not.

As for the idea of having Clarkson to present the programmes, Heaven forbid! Not sure about the McGregor brothers either - Ewen is okay but his brother's voice is awful. I bet ATC were always asking him to say again!

It was on Channel 5 not the BBC...?

Jezza wouldn't have been my choice either, but James May would have been a very good choice. Very good presenter, and has a keen interest in the BofB as a subject as well.

Here's one from the "I'm so old..." series (starting with "I'm so old I can remember when Qantas was a good airline"):

I'm so old I can remember when Clarkson was funny.

That is all.

I quite like Clarkson anyway but also feel he could well have been a good choice.
I suspect the people who are discounting him out of hand may have not seen any documentaries he's presented.

I recall Brunel, in the 100 Greatest Britons series, one about the Arctic convoys and another about the raid on St. Nazaire.
They were all excellent.

I'm quite impressed with James Holland, who somebody mentioned earlier, but a presenter that says "wiv" really grates!

Yes, forget the appalling "Top Gear" (if one ever could) and you'll find that he is making a much better job of "Who wants to be a millionaire" than Tarrant ever did.

Looks like someone can't recognise irony when it's smiling in his face! :=

These days they usually call them 'airplanes' which causes a great deal of snarling and gnashing of teeth here.

From the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre;
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8dba0e5643.jpg

Have you watched any of Clarkson's "War Stories"? I don't care what you think of his "Top Gear" or "Grand Tour", he is quite simply excellent as the presenter in War Stories.
Unfortunately, since he and BBC parted ways in rather unpleasant fashion, I doubt he'll have such an opportunity in the future unless Amazon decides to let him do what he's apparently best at.