Dambusters film

[aeropilot]

nicanary said:

aeropilot said:

nicanary said:

jmorgan said:

Richard Todd had an interesting life. Part of the relief for the Pegasus Bridge. In the Longest Day film he played Major John Howard (who led the glider assault). Not sure who played himself.

Peter Lawford played Lord Lovat, who led the relief troops who linked up with Howard, which would have included Todd.

No, Todd was a member of the 7th Para's who were dropped into the areas around Pegasus Bridge very shortly after the Ox and Bucks gliders landed as reinforcements to them to hold the bridge, the first members of the 7th reached the bridge only some 30 mins after the Ox and Bucks had secured the bridge, and some 5 hours before Lovat's Commandoes had even landed on the beaches, let alone relieved the 6th Airborne at the bridge.

I think therefore that Hollywood has yet again taken the mickey. In the film Lovat relieves the bridge captors. Nothing like a bit of drama to get in the way of fact.

Not really, they were just compressing 2 days into 2 hours, so you have to take liberties with the real time scales. The film does give the impression that it was only the troops from the gliders that held the bridge alone until relieved by the troops from the beaches, rather than several hundred members of 6th Airborne, but if you know about what happened, and know what to look for in the film, they weren't taking the mickey as such.
This still clip from the film, prior to Lovats Commandos reliving them, note the Para beret badge on officer next to Todd....

[Dr Jekyll]

Eric Mc said:

It was only recently that I discovered that Todd was a Dubliner.

As an asian mate of mine insists on pointing out, Guy Gibson was Indian.

[Eric Mc]

Not to mention Cliff Richard.

It's amazing what ancestries we sometimes have. My great great grandmother was Anglo-Indian.

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

Not to mention Cliff Richard.

And Joanna Lumley.

[unrepentant]

aeropilot said:

Eric Mc said:

Not to mention Cliff Richard.

And Joanna Lumley.

Ted Dexter was born in Milan. My Grandad bombed Milan in his Lancaster.

[Ayahuasca]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6xgX0edfugU

Found it! I think the crashing aircraft (Havoc?) is taken out by its own bomb bouncing into its tail.

Lots of bravery on display here.

edit - the crashed aircraft was a USAAF Douglas A-26C Invader, the incident happened off Florida. Never knew the Americans tested bouncing bombs too.

Edited by Ayahuasca on Tuesday 24th January 14:25

[Hainey]

Dr Jekyll said:

Eric Mc said:

It was only recently that I discovered that Todd was a Dubliner.

As an asian mate of mine insists on pointing out, Guy Gibson was Indian.

My Yorkshire Terrier was born in a stable.

I have not, to date, measured it for a saddle.

[mybrainhurts]

unrepentant said:

Hitler was a dog lover.

And he had a pigeon called Stuka...

Not a lot of people know that.

[Deptford Draylons]

The BBC TV news article on his death was quite moving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K6Txr1SLf8

Also a news clip with Todd on the dismantling of Pegasus bridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kvPHQ_Gf-8

[Eric Mc]

Ayahuasca said:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6xgX0edfugU

Found it! I think the crashing aircraft (Havoc?) is taken out by its own bomb bouncing into its tail.

Lots of bravery on display here.

edit - the crashed aircraft was a USAAF Douglas A-26C Invader, the incident happened off Florida. Never knew the Americans tested bouncing bombs too.

Edited by Ayahuasca on Tuesday 24th January 14:25

I first saw that clip on a Channel 4 documentary on the Dambuster raid, broadcast in 1993.

The Germans also had a go - with added rocket power (naturally) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1JBYIClEd0

[Vocal Minority]

Johnnytheboy said:

It's like a microcosm of western civilisation, and how it's going down the stter.

Next time we have a war, as a nation we'll be more worried about the identity politics implication of dog names than designing war-winning weapons.

Hardly. The only people on here worrying are the ones getting offended about something (the omission of a dogs name) that didn't happen anyway - it took them ten pages to cotton on.

And there are other metrics to mean a nation is thriving other than the design and manufacture of 'war winning weapons' - or are we just extending this total fking nonsense about the younger generation not being able to rise to the task? Every older generation in history thinks the youngsters aren't up to (insert thing here). It was bks then and it's bks now.

And I say all these things as a military historian (by university education not profession, granted)

Someone makes an interesting point about a slightly 2 dimensional portrayal.

But at the end of the day it's giving people what they want. The 1950s didn't want or need a 'horrors of war' piece - they'd had rather enough of that during the war. They wanted some eagles comics style derring do. Dambusters provided this as did Bader. People weren't interested in the complexities of the people - that's understandable - what was needed especially as posh war austerity dragged on for nearly a decade was a big of good old fashioned Brotish heroism and to mix escapism with a sense it was all worth it and they just needed to tough the austerity out.

These days, you may get a big more traction with the idea that like all people, Gibson and Bader were a mixture of light and dark peraonalities wise. I understand that Bader was, what one may describe as, a bit of an ahole. But he achieved an awful lot against adversity and was a good symbol of all the positive aspect of determination and fortitude in the face of difficulty and Gerry! That's what the fifties needed.

[Dr Jekyll]

Vocal Minority said:

I understand that Bader was, what one may describe as, a bit of an ahole. But he achieved an awful lot against adversity and was a good symbol of all the positive aspect of determination and fortitude in the face of difficulty and Gerry! That's what the fifties needed.

But the main adversity he suffered was the direct result of him being an ahole. Apparently he once said in a rare moment of reflection 'never do something just because you've lost your temper'.

[Hainey]

Dr Jekyll said:

Vocal Minority said:

I understand that Bader was, what one may describe as, a bit of an ahole. But he achieved an awful lot against adversity and was a good symbol of all the positive aspect of determination and fortitude in the face of difficulty and Gerry! That's what the fifties needed.

But the main adversity he suffered was the direct result of him being an ahole. Apparently he once said in a rare moment of reflection 'never do something just because you've lost your temper'.

My grandfather was a BoB fighter pilot and met Bader briefly. He wasn't awfully impressed by his attitude, namely his being quite unpleasant to the NCO pilots. The fact they took the same risks in their Sptifire as he did in his didn't cut any ice with him.

It says a lot for him that as a child I thought Bader was some sort of demigod and it was only when I'd grown up he informed me of the reality. All children need their heroes as he put it.

[Eric Mc]

I would think that having your legs removed fairly unpleasantly as a young man might colour your view on life.

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

I would think that having your legs removed fairly unpleasantly as a young man might colour your view on life.

Nothing to do with it.....Bader was as equally unpleasant before the accident as after it.

[Hainey]

aeropilot said:

Eric Mc said:

I would think that having your legs removed fairly unpleasantly as a young man might colour your view on life.

Nothing to do with it.....Bader was as equally unpleasant before the accident as after it.

Exactly that; it was his innate arrogance that led to his injury and not vice versa. Oddly the arrogance was quite unjustified as he was also very lucky to complete initial course without removal as while he had good stick and rudder skills it seems he wasn't the brightest when it came to paper and pencil.

[Halmyre]

Hainey said:

aeropilot said:

Eric Mc said:

I would think that having your legs removed fairly unpleasantly as a young man might colour your view on life.

Nothing to do with it.....Bader was as equally unpleasant before the accident as after it.

Exactly that; it was his innate arrogance that led to his injury and not vice versa. Oddly the arrogance was quite unjustified as he was also very lucky to complete initial course without removal as while he had good stick and rudder skills it seems he wasn't the brightest when it came to paper and pencil.

He had some odd notions when it came to equipment. Didn't like the 20mm cannon on aircraft as he thought it induced pilots to fire from further away from the target. When the gyro gunsight came in he thought pilots spent too long looking through it and not concentrating on their surroundings.

[Dr Jekyll]

Halmyre said:

He had some odd notions when it came to equipment. Didn't like the 20mm cannon on aircraft as he thought it induced pilots to fire from further away from the target. When the gyro gunsight came in he thought pilots spent too long looking through it and not concentrating on their surroundings.

Wasn't his one of the few units operating Spitfire Is or IIs with cannon, which kept jamming because the wing flexed with the recoil? I though that was what put him off cannon, still flying Mk Vs with machine guns when everyone else's Mk Vs had cannon.

[Eric Mc]

Because of the thinness of the Spitfire wings, the cannons had to be installed on their sides - which initially caused jamming problems. It was later rectified.

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

Because of the thinness of the Spitfire wings, the cannons had to be installed on their sides - which initially caused jamming problems. It was later rectified.

They had to be installed on their sides because the Hispano Mk1 was drum mag fed (60 rd drums) so it was the clearance for the drums mags that meant the guns had to be turned through 90deg as it was designed to work as a gravity fed system, which when turned through 90 deg.....err, no longer had the benefit of gravity to fed the rounds in and drop them out, and it wasn't so much the feed causing the jams, its was the problems with the ejected rounds.
It was Martin-Baker that redesigned it to be a belt fed system, which became the Hispano Mk2.....and the rest as they say, is history.