Sky played a blinder, their commentator calling the RAF March the Dambusters march, I do despair sometimes

P-N - have to take issue with you on that one. I dont see that the numbering of German casualties was at all inappropriate, indeed I think a record of them has been incorporated into the memorial itself. In fact British civilian casualties were also numbered in the commentary. As for describing the Bomber Command offensive as "controversial" - well it would be naive to say otherwise. You and I and most contributors to this thread may have no problems with the bomber offensive as it happened, but no-one could seriously assert that our views are, or have been, held universally.

I agree that the BBC News Channel was excellent, both technically and in the extent of coverage, for it was broadcast without interruption. The execution of the ceremony by all those involved, both at the Memorial and in the Fly Past, was impeccable and I congratulate them all. This was a stirring and fitting dedication to the memory of those who fought and died in the WWII Bombing Campaign of RAF Bomber Command.
So no quibbles? I'm afraid that there will always be those where the Beeb's need to "balance" kicks in, as Pontius says. In the ever necessary speech over required of all OBs where the event cannot simply be allowed to speak for itself, we were informed that "many of the survivors now feel guilt" at their actions. Even when this was challenged to the extent that some had been made to feel that way since, the point was not taken but merely passed over. The BBC default verdict had been made, yet again!

Speaking from the perspective of someone who's been behind a camera on this sort of event:

- Yes you will get better coverage by waiting. A large part of the problem with the Jubilee is that it's just a bunch of boats floating down a river, and guess what, it isn't interesting for six hours. This forces people to ad-lib and fill in desperately, which is extremely difficult to do well if it isn't your specialist subject. Edited down you can create a worthwhile and informative precis of the topic which is much better use of airtime. Unfortunately, most of the major news broadcasters have people whose specific job it is to make a note of when their competitors get a story on air; this leads to ridiculous second-by-second counting and champagne all round if we do it faster than the other guys for a week, regardless of the quality of coverage. It's pathetic.

- The presenters (and the crews, and the individual directors) are either not culpable or not that culpable. Most television these days is produced at the dictat of a fairly rarefied band of upper-middle-class yes-men with very little life experience and degrees in sycophancy. These people target television at a sort of imaginary audience of stupid people which probably doesn't exist and would be the end of invention if it did.

As a result we have a media that is specifically designed to snub logic and critical thinking at its roots; a sort of analgesic lozenge for the brain that does its level best to turn us all into good little consumers.

Which is why I don't shoot news anymore.

You may be able to tell I'm not having a very good day.

"This forces people to ad-lib and fill in desperately, which is extremely difficult to do well if it isn't your specialist subject."

And they call themselves professional ?

What ever happened to research, preparation etc or the six P's.

So how did Raymond Baxter manage it then ?

I don't know, I haven't seen much of his work, but I suspect by doing things that would not be tolerated by modern television directors.

Inasmuch as it's possible to be a professional commentator on something that's never been done in living memory, I suppose so.

But really my purpose is not to try to excuse the behaviour of the on-screen talent, which I'll agree could have been better, but to elucidate why it was shambolic. The decision to try and make a five or six hour flotilla into a five or six hour piece of television is a bad one, because no matter how well prepared you are it simply isn't interesting for that long. None of this is anything to do with the talent, the crews, or the individual link directors. It's a mistake to assume that the people in front of the camera have much if any sway - it's a rather similar mistake to assuming that everyone in the RAF is a pilot, or that Bomber Command crews had any choice what they bombed.

P

I quite agree with you. For a start he knew what he was talking about.

In fairness today's performance was way better than the Jubilee events.

Phil R, I'm quite sure that your professional take on the shambles that was the Thames Jubilee event is shared by one and all. I'm not sure that it was doomed from the start though, simply because:
I rather suspect that was the Beebs take on it and why they treated it so off handedly. Any one of the old school, Richard Dimbleby, Raymond Baxter, and a host of others would have wedded their own deep knowledge of our Nation's history, with an emphasis on Naval and Maritime events, with the scene being played out before them. They would have researched each and every vessel involved; why it was involved, where it had been, and what it had done, who were on board it and why, and how that all related to this great flotilla.
In short they would have done their job to the best of their ability.
The modern Beebs men and women did neither, mainly I suspect because they are too ignorant and uninformed too even know how to start out on such a challenge. I'm afraid I take issue with your portraying such people as being not culpable for it is their very words that always create the complaints aired here. I have no issue with the technical competence of the crews for they usually, as today, produce a superb product. It is the "voices over", alternately uttering inanities (ie borne of ignorance) or the Corporation "take" (ie propoganda). Fortunately today we were spared the "special salute" drivel of the Trooping and the commentator made sure he knew who everyone was and why they were there. We weren't spared the latter though, and it interesting that some here think that this occasion was one in which the tired old clichés should once more be trotted out. Why?
The Beeb is the British Broadcasting Corporation, not Parliament, not The Archbishop of Canterbury, or any other body we might expect to continually pronounce on what it perceives to be rights and wrongs. It is merely a broadcaster, yet we have grown so used to its editorial pronouncements, be it in OBs, documentaries, studio interviews and discussions that it has become the norm. Why?
It may well accord with some who find themselves in agreement with its pronouncements, but they should perhaps ask themselves how they would feel if they were not. Still obliged, under threat of a Criminal Record if they demure, to pay for it by direct taxation, and yet continually aggrieved by its pronouncements. If one bunch of people can take control of it, then any bunch can. It is the national broadcaster and should simply satisfy itself with being just that, to the best of its ability, and stop trying to get us all thinking in the same way as the "Chattering Classes".

Phil

I disagree. Chugalug summed it up well.

"They would have researched each and every vessel involved; why it was involved, where it had been, and what it had done, who were on board it and why, and how that all related to this great flotilla.
In short they would have done their job to the best of their ability.
The modern Beebs men and women did neither, mainly I suspect because they are too ignorant and uninformed too even know how to start out on such a challenge."


The depth and breadth of boats from around the world lent itself a great commentary, sadly which was lacking.

Here is a quick example of an opportunity lost.
At 0.50, the presenter says "this is a dutch barge that is twice as wide as a narrow boat" yet doesn't explain what a narrow boat is so how can you compare.

And what about all the Dunkirk boats ? That opens up a whole wealth of historical information and photos that could have been shown.

And the boats from Commonwealth countries, that also presents an opportunity to expand on the boat, country, people etc.

Anyway, I just don't think they care and so it won't change.

Did anyone see Who Betrayed the Bomber Boys? on the Yesterday Channel last night? It was narrated by Stephen Fry who, given the script, would not have taken the job if he didn't agree with its sentiments. No doubt his (probably very thorough) research on 617 Sqn has influenced his views.

Great contributions, too, from Robin Gibb and Jonathan Dimbleby. The programme's title says it all. Doubtless it will be repeated...

... at 1pm today (Friday)

Whilst I agree that this memorial is long overdue, and that Bomber Command was sidelined in many ways after the war, there is one oft-repeated assertion that needs to be clarified.

Once again during yesterday's commentary it was stated that "Bomber Command was denied a campaign medal". This needs to be clarified, as many have understood this to mean that Bomber Command aircrew were uniquely denied campaign medals, a misunderstanding that one look at the chests of those attending yesterday should have dispelled.

The simple fact is that Sir Arthur Harris felt that in addition to the campaign stars awarded to his crews (Aircrew Europe or France & Germany Star), a medal should be struck which would only be awarded to Bomber Command crews. This was refused on the grounds that all the stars were theatre awards and no other formation in the armed forces had been awarded a special medal and to create a precedent would open up demands from many other deserving cases. Thus there was never an official Bomber Command Medal, but neither was there a Submarine Service Medal, a Commando Medal, or many others you might think of.

I saw 'Who Betrayed the Bomber Boys' and I thought it was excellent. It said everything that needed to be said...........about 60 years too late!

I am reminded (by the image a couple of posts up of the gormless 1980s has-been "personality" Anneka Rice getting a part in the Jubilee programme) of how the BBC (and other broadcasters) work nowadays.

The programme is approved, and it becomes known that there is a budget of say £300k for it. There are myriad personalities, all represented by an equally myriad labyrinth of agents, who all say on learning of any budget "that's mine", and launch into an overwhelming, not to say murky, lobbying routine of the relevant production staff. The agents have no interest in whether their client has any ability for the programme, they just want the job for their person, and their percentage. If they can stick one over on the production team, so be it. Their person shows up, they get the money. If they're useless, pocket the money and on to the next person they represent.

Anyone who understands aviation, the military involved, etc (getting back to subject) probably doesn't have an agent and so gets nowhere near any of this. There are also BBC staff who just won't consider anybody contributing who doesn't have an Equity card.

That may or may not be true, but that's not really the point. The issue is not what could be done, but what is desired to be done by the people who design this sort of broadcasting. Of course they could get people with the requisite knowledge if they wanted to, and most of the presenters they used are more than capable of doing the research - there's just no desire to produce that sort of programming, at least at the executive level.

I am of course building something of a straw man here, but I suspect that proposals to produce a broadcast along the lines of what's being discussed in this thread - involving a factual review of the history of the vessels involved - would be received, after the laughter had died down, of being far too much of a lecture, far too dictatorial in tone and inappropriate for something that was supposed to be a celebration (and I might agree, to some extent). In a wider sense, due to "the unique way in which it is funded", the BBC is often terribly self-conscious about its public service remit (much more so than the other PS broadcasters in the UK) and has a terrible tendency to overdo things like audience participation, even when that participation involves monosyllabic responses to a presenter's questions from a clearly-uncomfortable member of the public. At risk of sounding like Richard Littlejohn, there would very likely have been a review process (that's a "debrief", mil types) after the event at which some chortling exective producers would have given themselves a slap on the back every time a member of a visible minority appeared in shot. I have been in meetings like this. It is very horrible.

To be clear, I'm not supporting this state of affairs, much as the citizenry of this board doesn't necessarily support the fact that Typhoon is many times over budget and ten years late; nevertheless, this is the situation, and it is not the fault of the presenters. In general it's worth giving TV presenters the benefit of the doubt, as in many cases they're paid talking machines. They bear a much-reduced responsibility for what they're saying than, say, a politician.

What's much more interesting is to discuss what the correct solution would have been, and this is a matter of opinion. I get the feeling that my audience here is mainly retired and serving RAF officers, their friends and families, and associated people, a largely male, upper-middle-class group likely to be the most tolerant of a four-hour lecture on the small boats of Britain. Nevertheless, I suspect if you'd seen it, you would probably have complained that it was a bit dull and failed to make the most of the situation, and you'd have been right.

I'd wholeheartedly agree that the BBC's choice to go completely to the other end of the spectrum, for the imaginary audience of stupid people I mentioned above, was just as much a mistake. The best approach, as so often, would seem to be somewhere inbetween.

P

But a bar for a theatre medal or star with the legend "Bomber Command" would have gone some way to mitigate the fact that no unique medal was awarded.

Certainly a clasp for the 1939-45 Star for the pilots, observers and air gunners who flew operationally in the Battle of Britain had already been authorised and this distinguished the very small number of aircrew who took part in that campaign (as you might define it) from the very large number from all three services who received the 1939-45 Star. In the case of the Aircrew Europe Star, the majority of the recipients of this star were from Bomber Command, making a clasp 'Bomber Command' somewhat redundant. What was regrettable, however, was the decision to make D Day the cut-off date for the award of the Aircrew Europe Star, and thereafter award the France and Germany Star in its place.

My point remains. Once you make a special case for one formation, however deserving, you invite it from others, and there is no end to it. If you dont agree, look at the thread on the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal, with all the whingeing from those who feel they have been denied a medal!

I've just finished reading "No Moon Tonight" by Don Charlwood.

This book should be compulsory reading for all of the objectors to the Bomber Command Memorial. It gives a real insight into what young men were called upon to do for their country.

I was very fortunate to have been trained by some ex Bomber Command pilots during my time with Cambrian Airways, the best training I ever experienced in 35 years of civil aviation.

They wore their medal ribbons with pride.

MP

Each and every one of those Dunkirk boats had a story to make your hair stand on end if it were told properly. Dull they are not. The fact is the presenters couldn't be bothered to read the histories of the boats and make something of them. Raymond Baxter would have been in his element with something like this and his enthusiasm would have captured the most ordinarily disinterested viewer. That is what a professional presenter is supposed to do.

And that is what is missing in the culture of the current generation of BBC presenters.

PhilR:
I don't think that I could have written a more damning verdict on the Beeb and its benighted presenters than you have. You paint a picture of a bureaucratic agenda bound monster that had failed before it even began the River Pageant OB. There is a well worn cliche regarding RAF Officers' Annual Assessments that goes:
"This officer sets himself abysmally low standards and consistently fails to attain them"
That is where we seem to be with BBC OBs, where "Celebrity" presenters who know little and say even less that is worthwhile are forever being cut to, and hence away from the subject of the broadcast, to stick a microphone under someone's nose and ask them what they think of it so far. The Beeb, like most other institutions that were named "British" something or other, is too big and too remote from the real world. Cocooned in a safe assured state of guaranteed survival they have lost their way. The need to be shown it, ie the way out. It is no longer the colossus it was, rather it is a shambling muttering old has been. Time to remove the life support!

I finally got to see the footage yesterday, thought it was absolutely fine.:ok:

Just an aside.
I hope the NZ and Australian contingents landed at Military airfields, to save them the embarassment of passing through the Aliens' entry at Heathrow.

Is the BBC any worse than the Royal Air Force?

The vast majority of the veterans and those who gave their lives on operations all those years ago are snubbed by the Royal Air Force Club in Piccadilly, which will not allow them to step inside the front door.

It's worth bearing in mind that there would be no RAF Club if the aforementioned brave souls had failed to carry out their duty all those years ago.

How many air marshals and other senior ranks have campaigned for the injustice to be rectified?

ALL who have served in the Royal Air Force are members of the larger Royal Air Force Club.

It is disgraceful that the snobbish minority snub the decent majority.

Hypocrisy!

Tragic, isn't it.

Read this board for ten minutes, though, and you'd say the same about the RAF.

...a bureaucratic agenda bound monster... no longer the colossus it was, rather it is a shambling muttering old has been...

Have you been talking to Mrs W - rather how she describes me...............

Phil R:
Not sure what you're saying here, old chap. If it is that I, for example, am:
point taken and I stand fearlessly four square with Wander00 in stating "guilty as charged".
So what? The subject of this thread is the BBC and I sincerely believe it is past its sell by date. It has kicked the bucket, passed over, shuffled off its mortal coil, joined the choir invisible, rung down the final curtain and is an ex-Aunty. Having designed, built and settled into a brand new purpose built HQ it has gone through all the identifiable stages of corporate decay. The decent thing now is to put it, and us, out of misery.

If on the other hand it is that the post war RAF has shown a disgraceful distancing of itself from the defence of the WWII RAF Bombing Campaign and the 67 year campaign to properly pay tribute to those who gave their lives in it, again point taken. Churchill's betrayal was unforgivable but par for the course from a politician. In contrast, the acts of commission and omission by succeeding Air Boards are utterly beneath contempt.

I was thinking more of the service itself - read a few posts on this board and you'd believe that all we had left was a couple of Cessnas.

About TV, though: veering wildly offtopic here, the problem with the BBC seems to be that its metric of success is simply audience numbers, which is of course exactly the same way that all broadcasters judge themselves. Because of this, the BBC ends up just doing the same thing as everyone else, which defeats the object of their special status. The entire purpose of funding the BBC in the way that it is funded, at least these days now there are commercial broadcasters, is to ensure there's a broadcaster who does not have to chase the whim of the audience, that is not required to be populist to survive. I think the dissatisfaction that's felt is because they are failing to take advantage of this privileged position.

It is a very good idea in principle and for a very long time it ensured that the UK produced the best television in the world. This is no longer a title on which we have a firm grip, and because the BBC is now effectively indistinguishable from the commercial broadcasters, I agree that the purpose of the current BBC, as it exists today, is unclear (my opinion is that Channel 4 now do a rather better job of some things, notwithstanding their tendency toward voyeurism).

As to putting it out to pasture, I would much rather the BBC clean up its act and start using its unique position for the common good, as opposed to joining the headlong rush downmarket that's characterised the world of TV ever since digital television and the internet changed the way things work. Disestablishing the BBC would not solve the problem of there being no good public service broascaster. I just wish they'd do a bit more to justify why they deserve their special status.

I'm sure I could bore you to death with my opinion on current TV but, as always, I'm very much aware of being a guest on this forum and I don't want to bore everyone to death with my offtopic ramblings.

P

No offence, but why do I get the impression that some of the still-spluttering critics of the BBC's coverage didn't bother to watch it?

As a still splutterer, Baffman, may I point out that:

1. at Post #43 I made it clear that I had watched the live coverage on the Digital BBC News channel and commended it, with the proviso that the Talk Over comment that "Many of the Veterans now feel guilty about what they did" was intrusive and unwarranted, though of course par for the course.

2. The OP point that the BBC snubbed the BC Memorial unveiling by not covering it live on BBC 1 or 2 still pertains.

3. Phil R saw fit to act as Devil's Advocate for the Beeb (Apologies PR, a bit of Editorial Spin there. See what I mean?) and discussion moved onto the Thames Pageant fiasco and why it happened.

4. All the above tells me that the Beeb is quite capable of putting out a quality product (vis Trooping, Cenotaph and the BC Memorial) but often feels compelled to put its spin into the commentary. My point is that it should be devoid of spin and cover national events as a National Broadcaster, letting us perceive them as we wish and not as the Beeb decrees.

5. Having been around long enough to see it descend from the Olympian heights which it attained in WWII to the levels that draw so much adverse comment here for example, the words Leopard and Spots come to mind. The BBC is set on a one way journey that will end in its extinction, sooner rather than later hopefully so that we can move on into sunny uplands.

6. I asked you elsewhere what BAFF is doing on behalf of soldiers being made redundant days before they qualify for full pension rights. Now that we have your attention could you please answer on the appropriate thread?
http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...sion-date.html

The episode of Things We Forgot to Remember about Bomber Command is now available as a podcast.

BBC - Podcasts - Things We Forgot to Remember

From my MP:
My reply:
Contact your MP now at WriteToThem - Email or fax your Councillor, MP, MEP, MSP or Welsh, NI, London Assembly Member for free
Make a fuss now and so save these courageous gentlemen needless worry.

BS1000. I surmise you must be Australian as you clearly have a chip on both shoulders!

And, by the way, membership of the RAF Club has absolutely nothing at all to do with what I consider to be (very belatedly) a fitting tribute in Green Park to the exceedingly brave members of Bomber Command, of all ranks - my father and father-in-law included.