Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
BATTLE OF ARNHEM: TOUR OF DUTY
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
This new reality show aims to put several teenagers through the Arnhem campaign of this doomed but bravely-fought battle, fought between the British/Polish Paras and the Waffen SS in August 1944.
Can it ever be anywhere near the real experience (bullets excepting)? -
Message 2
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
How can they take a bunch of teenagers and in 10 days expect to train them then understand what it was like. This is an insult to those who did it for real. Heavens, even in wartime the new recruit spent more than this learning which foot was which before doing his basic training. Then he was allowed to volunteer for the likes of paras. Then only the best were excepted. Are they going to be shot at for real? Nom so how can they think this will show them. Really it is just a TV show, and nothing more. What next, send a bunch of teenagers out to Afghanistan for a TV show so for a few minutes they get to know what it is like. Or more likely send them to that mock village in East anglia so they can pretend to be real soldiers.
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Message 3
Posted by Big Nose Kate (U2898677) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
First of all Operation Market Garden was in September 1944 not August. This so called Reality Show won't be anything like what British Airbourne went through in Arnhem as they won't have the stress, fear and pure adrenaline of being in a combat zone. the sights, sounds and smells can't be re-created either. It is just another TV show for entertainment
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Message 4
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
A few years ago Channel 4 made the 1940s House, where a family lived in London surburbia for a couple of months or so as though it was wartime London. Although they freely admitted they couldn't recreate the Blitz and doodlebugs, everything else was very well done and authentic as much as possible (this programme was a sequel to the 1900s House, equally as interesting and authentic).
Having people "recreate" a front-line experience however is much much more difficult. I guess they could recreate the living conditions, lack of sleep, mud and/or dirt, lack of food etc, but also the discipline. But a conflict like World War Two with quite a fluid situation (especially one like Market Garden) will be difficult to recreate authentically. Short of having guns with blanks going off, controlled explosions and recordings of explosions being played through speakers, not sure how they can do the fighting aspect. Perhaps with some sleep deprivation you can give the participants a scary-enough experience though.
Perhaps the above would be easier to recreate in a First World War trench warfare situation, with some people in a confined muddy trench for weeks on end. -
Message 5
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Friday, 12th November 2010
Having watched part one, I was dismayed at the vetting of the youngsters taking part. In real life most of them wouldn't have made the first stage. One on meds. one sniffing whatever, another with an old ankle injury. They would have been better recruiting all of them from the cadet forces. At least they would have had a better idea of what to expect. In fact all this is, is another reality show. The men who did it for real in both the second world War and wars after that must be calling these people names I couldn't use on this site.
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Message 6
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 12th November 2010
Hmm ... parachuting "reality stars" out from 10,000 ft ... I'd like to see it done.
Any plans for glider deployment? -
Message 7
Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Friday, 12th November 2010
Well i still have my glider pilots licence from my days in the ATC in the 60s. Mind you these days they cheat. The cadets learn to fly in gliders with engines on. Where is the fun in that? I crashed one at RAF Sealand, and took the wings clean off. Heavens the paperwork...
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Message 8
Posted by RobinBal4 (U14700342) on Wednesday, 24th November 2010
I watched this last night having recorded it when broadcast. It was riddled with inaccuracies, most of them basic errors that could have been avoided simply by using a researcher who had any competence whatsoever. The basic premise was flawed, as others have pointed out. To experience what the real men of Arnhem went through is impossible. It simply cannot be recreated. That said, of course, the viewer knows this and can compensate for this by just watching the programme as an entertainment.
Sadly, even this was marred by the abject lack of knowledge shown by the young people taking part. Most had no knowledge of the war, who Churchill was, or who took part in the original operation. The captions put up alongside the veterans who appeared meant nothing. For a start there was no second Parachute Brigade at Arnhem. !st Para Brigade and 4th Para Brigade took part. The veteran who was a 'Pathfinder' would have been from the 21st Independent Parachute Brigade. Such inaccuracies ruined the programme for people genuinely interested in the subject.
Finally, and this is the one crumb of comfort from such an exercise, it appeared that the group of youngsters finally got the point of it all as they met the veterans in Arnhem and Oosterbeek on the day of the parachute drop. You could see that they had genuinely realised what it was all about and what tremendous sacrifices were made, and quite how it still affects the Dutch, and the veterans who are still alive. In this, at least, the programme managed to achieve something. -
Message 9
Posted by RobinBal4 (U14700342) on Wednesday, 24th November 2010
Sorry, they've got me at it now...! I meant, of course, 21st Independent Parachute Company, commanded by Major "Boy" Wilson.
Apologies all
Robin
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