"Falkands Lite": Channel 5 documentary last night

[LotusOmega375D]

Anyone else watch it? The entire conflict compressed into about 45 minutes of TV.

Good job Channel 4 are covering Black Buck on Sunday: there was not a single mention about it last night. Even the Harriers barely got a mention. Nothing about the Exocet procurement deception, the requesitioning of famous cruise ships for the troops etc. The latter was particularly galling for me because I had an educational school trip to the Holy Land planned that summer aboard the SS Uganda, but General Galtieri ruined that for me! I never did get there.

Anyway the next in the series is about the Slapton Sands D-Day rehearsal fiasco. Fortunately that has been covered in detail on TV before.

[Simpo Two]

LotusOmega375D said:

Even the Harriers barely got a mention... the requesitioning of famous cruise ships for the troops etc.

That seems ridiculous - but the script was probably written by people who weren't born in 1982.

How can you possibly cover the war without Hanrahan 'counting them all back', dour MOD spokesman McDonald and the SS Canberra with 'We are sailing' in the background - to name but a few?

I was a student in 1982. What I found staggering was that, having grown up on a diet of WW2/BoB books and peacetime, here were British forces fighting a real war for the first time I'd been aware of. British pilots really shooting down enemy aircraft. Cycling to work and seeing a poster outside the newsagents saying 'HMS Coventry sunk'.

[Yertis]

LotusOmega375D said:

I had an educational school trip to the Holy Land planned that summer aboard the SS Uganda, but General Galtieri ruined that for me! I never did get there.

I was supposed to be going on an air experience flight in a Victor during April 1982. That was spannered up too.

[ninja-lewis]

Simpo Two said:

That seems ridiculous - but the script was probably written by people who weren't born in 1982.

I think the script was written by the talking heads they had (3 Commando Brigade, Commando Logistics Regiment, Paras, bomb disposal, bomb disposal chap, historian and token Welsh Guardsman) and using other sources out of context to create a "shocking revelations" of "lions led by donkeys" theme.

Lots of criticism of 5 Infantry Brigade by the 3 Commando folk - overlooking that 5X only had the two Guards battalions taken off public duties because 3X had taken their two Para battalions earlier and that arguably the Paras were more responsible for Bluff Cove than the Welsh Guards. Mentioning the loss of various ships without explaining that some of them were very deliberately put in harm's way (the warships outside San Carlos that soaked up many of the attacks; Coventry and Broadsword for example).

There was no real attempt at taking an independent view of the overall conflict - it was very much a case of people saying that they thought at the time of others that "we wouldnt have done it that way" without actually explaining why it had happened that way. Yes, it might be hard to do in only 45 minutes but they (Channel 5) didn't try hard enough. It was as if they had used 'One Hundred Days' and Sharkey Ward's 'Sea Harrier over the Falklands' to describe the Carrier war rather than refering to a dispassionate source that weighed up both sides such as the Official History

[Simpo Two]

Oh dear. So many 'documentaries' are just interviews edited together. Well it's cheaper, and saves anyone having to do any research.

Pretty poor seeing as it was only 30 years ago.

[RizzoTheRat]

Yertis said:

I was supposed to be going on an air experience flight in a Victor during April 1982. That was spannered up too.

We were supposed to be getting a new Combine, they used to ship a batch across every year on the Atlantic Conveyor. D'Oh.

[shed driver]

Day by day timeline of the conflict with documents, sound and video clips. Does need some tidying up - God is it 5 years since I did that page! - http://www.rna-10-area.net/falklands.html

Anyway - how about HMS Glasgow closed up at action stations under attack by A4 Skyhawk - http://www.rna-10-area.net/files/audio/Bombed.mp3

SD