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The Great Escape

Heads up - A new programme on The Great Escape on Channel 5 at 2100 tonight.

Watched it but wasn't overly impressed. The reconstructions of certain activities were all very pristine and didn't reflect the conditions endured. What really grated with me was the actor playing Roger Bushell who seem to be wearing an AG brevet rather than wings, despite them relating how he was shot down while flying a Spitfire :ugh:

Conversely they did acknowledge the American, German and other nations' contributions to the escape effort

Quote:

Originally Posted by CAEBr (Post 11146492)

Maybe stop grating a bit - by the time he got there he had already escaped from a train earlier, and spend several months in Prague before being recaptured, so there's a pretty good chance he did not have any of his original uniform. So the depiction was probably even more accurate than it might have been, as borne out by this (Robert Stanford Tuck on left has no brevet at all!):https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...gerBushell.jpg

Slightly obtuse - but I have always wondered about the scene in the movie of the same name where the British prisoners dried out teabags so they could be re-used. Nonsense right ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fonsini (Post 11146534)

Slightly obtuse - but I have always wondered about the scene in the movie of the same name where the British prisoners dried out teabags so they could be re-used. Nonsense right ?

why nonsense? Sounds highly probable I think

An old workmate of mine was captured at Arnhem told me that (in the POW camp) they dried these out on a ledge in the Sun sometimes several times. They then traded them with the Germans because all they got by then was 'acorn coffee.' It was called 'Sun kissed tea. !
mmitch.

Aaagh!

Quote:

wearing an AG brevet rather than wings

Quote:

has no brevet at all

It’s a FLYING BADGE, always has been in King’s Orders, Queen’s Orders, King’s Regulations and Queen’s Regulations. Never, ever, a brevet apart from misguided sub-orders that get corrected from time to time for their error.

Current QRJ206 refers: “Flying Badges - Wearing of.”

Also, RAF IBN16/20 recently gave this update:

Quote:

Use of the term ‘Flying Badge’. With acknowledgement to the work of the RAF Historical Society, it appears that sometimes the word ‘Brevet’ has been incorrectly used. Ever since the 1912 report on Aerial Navigation, and a subsequent King’s Order, the correct term has been ‘Flying Badge’ and not the incorrect term ‘Brevet’. The word ‘brevet’ is, in fact, French and means a ‘diploma’ or ‘certificate’. It is thought that the error crept in through the years via the confusion when aircrew were presented with a brevet (a certificate) at the same time as a flying badge. All documentation with erroneous use of the word ‘Brevet’ shall be corrected forthwith.

Contemporary photo of Bushell shown on the programme shows him wearing a single wing badge.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmitch (Post 11146634)

My mums uncle was taken PoW in France in 1940 so spent around 5 yrs in the camps. For the rest of his life he would never allow any food to be wasted in the house, no food left uneaten at the table or thrown away.

Still nothing compared to those captured by the Japanese.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 212man (Post 11146555)

why nonsense? Sounds highly probable I think

I expected that after a couple of uses there would be no actual “tea” left in the leaves. And now my wife thinks I’ve gone senile because she found 4 teabags drying on the windowsill.

I know that the actors are the same age as the real participants were at the time, but the actors do look so much younger than the contemporary photographs of the individuals portrayed. Or is it just because I have got old?

The actors look younger because they have not been exposed to the high stress environment that the POWs experienced.

Probably wearing more makeup, too.