tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-106592752024-03-13T14:12:47.559+00:00Memorabilia AntoninaThis is my blog for posting material of academic interest (to me). Expect to see stuff about Greek and Roman history, archaeology, Classical literature, the Ancient Near East, historical films, teaching, the reception of the Classics in science fiction, the abuse of history, science fiction criticism, Doctor Who, and occasionally other historical stuff, or just things that I'm interested in. Expect spoilers at all times.Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.comBlogger380125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-38682017228931682452024-01-14T23:05:00.001+00:002024-01-14T23:49:16.934+00:00Screening Britannia: Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans<i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNKPlimmrMS3mhreK1EyxCT-wi0knxSkC_5WGnnkrfZWPlQq37CoJaZY868hy0QdD5P8tqhlW5Ls93Dt8njREx_S2Byz5vESYVQ4nG1VCOjxRKEbCts0iWo4kZ_8wu4ujPqr64SlCm1t2-gT1swa4rht_7pABVNq3aUHNsWiT6wqqDv_prxQ/s700/6000.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Four Roman officers, of various levels of seniority, around a map table, in front of a large white tent." border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="700" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNKPlimmrMS3mhreK1EyxCT-wi0knxSkC_5WGnnkrfZWPlQq37CoJaZY868hy0QdD5P8tqhlW5Ls93Dt8njREx_S2Byz5vESYVQ4nG1VCOjxRKEbCts0iWo4kZ_8wu4ujPqr64SlCm1t2-gT1swa4rht_7pABVNq3aUHNsWiT6wqqDv_prxQ/w320-h192/6000.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans</i>. UK. Directed by Dominic Brigstocke. Screenplay by Jessica Swale with Giles Pilbrow and Caroline Norris. Starring Emilia Jones, Sebastian Croft, Nick Frost, Craig Roberts, Kate Nash, Rupert Graves, Alex Macqueen, Lee Mack, Warwick Davis, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Alexander Armstrong, Chris Addison, Derek Jacobi, Kim Cattrall, and Rattus Rattus. Amazon, Ingenious, Silver Reel, BBC Films, Attitude Film Entertainment, Citrus Films, Scholastic Entertainment Inc., Lion Television. 2019.<div><br /></div><div>I showed this to my Roman Britain students at the end of 2022, and again at the end of last year. The first time, they had asked for <i>The Eagle</i>, but I could find neither my own copy not that of the university library (both have since turned up). They nevertheless enjoyed this replacement, as did I. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Horrible Histories</i>, for those who don’t know, originated as a series of humour books detailing the funnier and grosser elements of history for an audience of children. It became a successful television comedy series for children, and then in 2019 a movie. Interestingly, the movie relies less on the regular TV cast, who are mostly in background roles, if there at all; instead, it turns more to stars who have been brought in for this occasion – the biggest coup is Hollywood's Kim Cattrall, but there's also Lee Mack, Rupert Graves, etc. (And even, in a small role, Ncuti Gatwa; truth be told, he’s a bit anonymous in his role as a legionary, but in the behind-the-scenes feature, star quality pours out of him.)</div><div><br /></div><div>The topic chosen for this movie is Roman Britain, specifically the revolt of Boudica in 60/61 CE. It’s quite a bold move to treat the Boudica story as a comedy. Unless one is to count a brief mention of her in <i>Carry on Cleo</i>, the only other all-out comedic treatment I am aware of is an episode of the TV <i>Horrible Histories</i> called ‘Bolshy Boudica’ (2015), where the Iceni Queen is played by Lorna Watson (the one of Watson and Oliver who didn’t get to be on <i>Doctor Who</i>), from which this naturally recycles some material, but surprisingly little (and which I really need to watch again). Other than that, the most light-hearted portrayal is in an episode of <i>Xena: Warrior Princess</i> (‘The Deliverer’, one of the grimmer Xena eps).[1] Other versions tend to be extremely bloody and violent, and wallow in the nastier elements of the story. </div><div><br /></div><div>As a consequence of being a comedy, and even more as a consequence of being made for children, albeit for children expected to revel in the grosser parts of history, some of the more horrific moments in the story are toned down here. There’s no room for the rape of Boudica’s daughters, nor is the battle of Watling Street the bloodbath that Tacitus describes, though, from a distance, we do see lots of dead bodies lying about. Rather than dying in battle (the common cinematic outcome) or taking her own life (Tacitus’ account), Kate Nash’s Boudica quietly slips away when it’s obvious that the battle is lost. There is then a reconciliation song-and-dance number between Britons and Romans. (Oh yes, this is a musical, drawing upon styles as diverse as modern rap and Celtic folk.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Elsewhere, the violence of the revolt is touched upon, but skirted around. Colchester is seen in flames, as is London (from a distance), whilst the destruction of St Albans is merely mentioned. None of the violence in the narratives of the ancient sources is depicted; you don't see any civilians being slaughtered. Nor is there the common link into the English folk horror tradition that Boudican stories often have, because the role of the Druids is very much reduced here. They <i>are</i> present, fought by Rupert Graves’ Suetonius Paulinus, and all looking like refugees from an Eisteddford (though fighting like ninjas). But they are only seen at Anglesey. There are no Druids around the court of Boudica herself, as there often are in movie versions (see, for example, 1927’s <i>Boadicea</i>, 1967’s <i>The Viking Queen</i>, and 2002’s <i>Boudica</i>). </div><div><br /></div><div>Other than that, a lot of standard elements of the Boudica story do make their way in. It is the avarice of Catus Decianus (Alexander Armstrong) that provokes the revolt. A common issue in these productions is the fact that, even in these post-imperial days, a British audience wants to identify both with Boudica, as a British heroine and proto-Elizabeth I, and with the Romans, since there’s a long tradition of the Britons seeing themselves as heirs of the Romans. It is common to negotiate this divide through the provision of bad Romans, who provoke the revolt, and much more sympathetic good Romans, who try to avoid conflict, and only very reluctantly take part in the battle. Here, the good Roman is Attilius Minus, known as Atti, played by Sebastian Croft in a performance that owes more than a little to that of Tom Rosenthal in <i>Plebs</i>. The bad Romans are Decianus, Nero (Craig Roberts), and Agrippina the Younger (Kim Catrall, relishing the opportunity to do some serious scenery-chewing). </div><div><br /></div><div>Another standard device is to have a romance that crosses the divide between Roman and Briton; <i>Boadicea</i> and <i>The Viking Queen</i> both do this, and so does <i>Horrible Histories</i>, with Atti falling for precocious villager Orla (Emilia Jones); the difference here being that Atti and Orla’s romance has a happy outcome, culminating in the big song-and-dance number that unites Britons and Romans. Also, because the characters are young adults, the romance never gets much beyond them being BFFs. (A thing I have recently come to notice in screen stories of Roman Britain is the preponderance of child or young adult protagonists; fully understandable here, but also to be found in <i>Britannia</i> and other productions aimed at a more adult audience.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Like most comedies set in the ancient world, a lot of the jokes rely on the placing of modern stereotypes and situations into ancient dress. So, for instance, the build up to the Battle of Watling Street is presented as if it were a modern sporting event, whilst there are also ancient traffic reports by Chris Addison, where the eye-in-the-sky is merely up a tree. But there are a surprising number of gags that seem aimed at an older audience. Rupert Graves’ Suetonius Paulinus talks about himself in the third person, much as Julius Caesar does in his <i>Commentaries</i>. There’s a marvellous moment in which it becomes obvious that the person impersonating Derek Jacobi’s classic turn as Claudius is in fact Jacobi himself. Lee Mack's character, Decimus Maximus (albeit that his full name is, I think, never stated on screen, only in the behind-the-scenes feature), is surely meant to recall Maximus Decimus Meridius in <i>Gladiator</i>.<i> </i>I also suspect that the sequence where Atti is in search of gladiator’s sweat, whilst being one of the ‘weird but true’ facts on which <i>Horrible Histories</i> prides itself, perhaps also owes something to the mare’s sweat running gag in <i>A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum</i>. And there is more than one call back to <i>Life of Brian</i>. All of this raises the question that <i>Movies We Dig </i>brings up in their <a href="https://www.movieswedig.com/podcast/horrible-histories-the-movie-rotten-romans-2019-with-emma-coffey/">episode</a> devoted to this movie; who is it actually for, given not everything is aimed at children?</div><div><br /></div><div>There are also some of the standard jokes about the remoteness of Britain. Nero initially thinks that the outline of Britain on the map was actually a weird stain, and refers to Britain as ‘the stain’ for the rest of the movie. And of course some soldiers form the <i>testudo</i>, because they always have to in Roman movies.</div><div><br /></div><div>I like the movie much more than <i>Movies We Dig</i> do, but they do raise some legitimate issues. They make the interesting point that the movie has difficulty negotiating the transition from a sketch show to a longer narrative. The selling point of <i>Horrible Histories </i>was the weird bits of real history displayed in a funny fashion, and the educational element of the show was always underlined by telling the audience which bits were true. There’s hardly any of that commentary here, just a couple of brief segments at the end where the sources for Boudica's death are mentioned, and some stuff about Agrippina and Nero. A lot of other examples, such as Sycophantus (Alex MacQueen) explaining to Nero that one cannot crucify Roman citizens, and that sewing someone in a sack with a snake, a dog, a rooster, and a monkey and throwing them in the Tiber is the punishment for killing one’s own father, are only really noticeable if you're attuned to <i>Horrible Histories</i>' way of presenting this sort of material. (It’s perhaps also worth noting <i>Horrible Histories </i>can be a bit imprecise when it comes to the things that are true. For instance, there is a reference to dogs licking wounds being a recognised medical technique, which it was, but as far as I can find out this was the case in the Greek and Roman worlds, whereas here it is attributed to the Celts.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Another point <i>Movies We Dig</i> make is how traditional this all is. The final song is essentially all about how, in the end, the Roman occupation of Britain is a good thing, because of all the benefits it brings, even if some concessions to the essential brutality of Roman rule are made. This is very much the mid-twentieth century picture of Romanisation. Equally traditionally, the Britons are universally referred to as Celts, a term that has rather gone out of fashion amongst archaeologists, though popular television programmes still use it. But, as Gideon Nisbet <a href="https://www.academia.edu/543120/Prolegomena_to_a_Steampunk_Catullus_Classics_and_SF">said</a> a long time ago, popular culture remains very firmly rooted in ideas that most academics abandoned a long time ago.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Nevertheless, I still like this movie, and would recommend to to anyone.</div><div><br /></div></div><div>If you’re interested in learning more about Roman Britain on screen, I’m running <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-britannia-roman-britain-in-film-television-whole-course-tickets-777717101787">a course</a> from mid-January. </div><div><br /></div><div><small>[1] About
which I have a chapter coming out this year.</small></div><div></div>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-89008704725328381942024-01-04T17:16:00.001+00:002024-01-04T17:16:35.490+00:00Obituary for John M. Burns.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5aS9yeHg67iqrOGhoX0_PZBQn_wz0FMpVZtmzzgp5ZR2zTe2J_8GzOnn6W3b_K39q3VZTqwGpBQcJ2aeZpemRumemT4oAQiqmbK795JAmlgaUsvgellb-jDiBjQuMWkTLAx1IKwHRxYhdg85w1mSX6iGsGIpmQnrROWp1Hj7Iy5MArXqazI/s1600/14.7.11.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A page of John M. Burns comics, for The Bionic Woman." border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1197" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5aS9yeHg67iqrOGhoX0_PZBQn_wz0FMpVZtmzzgp5ZR2zTe2J_8GzOnn6W3b_K39q3VZTqwGpBQcJ2aeZpemRumemT4oAQiqmbK795JAmlgaUsvgellb-jDiBjQuMWkTLAx1IKwHRxYhdg85w1mSX6iGsGIpmQnrROWp1Hj7Iy5MArXqazI/w239-h320/14.7.11.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>There's a new post by me (with a little help from Will Morgan) on <i>FA-The Comiczine</i>: <a href="https://comiczine-fa.com/news/john-m-burns-1938-2023">An obituary</a> for John M. Burns.<p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-33176040322227190102024-01-03T21:15:00.003+00:002024-01-03T21:22:11.333+00:00My Spring 2024 MANCENT teaching<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTWbJhJskrWFwhM52YiNS06FUhfMr-1wOrDHAxTF0OqozK7FuEHeQ2JZJn_j_Hi-4F2eNy8rQGypYp3LPjUaPe6N4WZwaeiYRI-rcqOGgQEEulmTcVx-HWs39e9aZthzD2Aj1uy36M1uGQsYuujTwi4qLnoFKXL2e04QpBcL3j-nyZuwGj18A/s1920/horriblehistories.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A group of Roman legionaries determinedly marching up a hill, led by Lee Mack as a centurion. The Fifteenth Doctor is somewhere at the back." border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTWbJhJskrWFwhM52YiNS06FUhfMr-1wOrDHAxTF0OqozK7FuEHeQ2JZJn_j_Hi-4F2eNy8rQGypYp3LPjUaPe6N4WZwaeiYRI-rcqOGgQEEulmTcVx-HWs39e9aZthzD2Aj1uy36M1uGQsYuujTwi4qLnoFKXL2e04QpBcL3j-nyZuwGj18A/w320-h180/horriblehistories.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I'm repeating my <a href="https://mancent.org.uk/">Mancent</a> online course on Screening Britannia from this January. Anybody who fancies joining, <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-britannia-roman-britain-in-film-television-whole-course-tickets-777717101787?aff=oddtdtcreator">you can sign up through Eventbrite</a>. Anyone who pays the full course fee will get the recordings. Alternatively, you can book for individual sessions <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-britannia-roman-britain-in-film-television-individual-events-tickets-777765366147">here</a>. <div><br /></div><div>I'm also doing <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-greek-roman-mythology-walk-around-london-iii-pall-mall-and-st-james-tickets-777758796497">a London mythology walk</a> for MANCENT, going down Pall Mall and towards Victoria. </div><div><br /></div><div>And finally, another walk I'm doing for MANCENT is <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-walk-around-roman-colchester-tickets-777737221967">a visit to Roman Colchester</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div> MANCENT's full Spring 2024 prospectus can be found <a href="https://mancent.org.uk/?page_id=5386">here</a>.</div>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-20723434022282933612024-01-03T15:47:00.002+00:002024-01-03T17:31:53.727+00:00New post on FA-The Comiczine: An obituary for Ian Gibson<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiDnaThWAFOo-GlWIEsygjin5ywTp60rtNphhe8WEbsFdUVhhvJvzRjbccEbcU5djw1h8gMD2t9a3Pl2Qf2-nrP1vl0A2xY_cVYqVkNcQH-rlsjOtaZ83cGqDagInk-FjP4Q1HXllQNlp_R0KC9MIgcGoyJyowtwa4-jRXkhsFPolDqmbuW7s/s960/xfch5z1n12c31.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="635" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiDnaThWAFOo-GlWIEsygjin5ywTp60rtNphhe8WEbsFdUVhhvJvzRjbccEbcU5djw1h8gMD2t9a3Pl2Qf2-nrP1vl0A2xY_cVYqVkNcQH-rlsjOtaZ83cGqDagInk-FjP4Q1HXllQNlp_R0KC9MIgcGoyJyowtwa4-jRXkhsFPolDqmbuW7s/s320/xfch5z1n12c31.png" width="212" /></a></div>There's a new post by me on <i>FA-The Comiczine</i>: <a href="https://comiczine-fa.com/news/ian-gibson-1946-2023">An obituary for Ian Gibson</a>. <p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-77704226698406310902023-12-31T23:31:00.002+00:002023-12-31T23:34:28.064+00:00Journey Planet with a photo-essay by me<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaPLuUtDhXt7ptszht02VYlkWlc9G8-B64vNvTGlT3TzZdMTPCUApdw3veqoOo8bGmoC7xtcH0P01cvqmL6bat__PJBHhi2kOUG3iWwzuhkfVgPd3xgkfCK-i_FlrNn_6ng9cVjOw0n-_VAyypugPRMInjA40-fYxbDu4gsG-4wTacCeRYzuk/s4080/IMG_20231017_174059890.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The corner of Mitre Square, City of London." border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="4080" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaPLuUtDhXt7ptszht02VYlkWlc9G8-B64vNvTGlT3TzZdMTPCUApdw3veqoOo8bGmoC7xtcH0P01cvqmL6bat__PJBHhi2kOUG3iWwzuhkfVgPd3xgkfCK-i_FlrNn_6ng9cVjOw0n-_VAyypugPRMInjA40-fYxbDu4gsG-4wTacCeRYzuk/w320-h241/IMG_20231017_174059890.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>There's a new <i><a href="http://journeyplanet.weebly.com/uploads/1/5/7/1/15715530/jp_78_-_jack_the_ripper_in_fiction.pdf">Journey Planet</a></i> out, on Jack the Ripper in fiction. It includes a photo-essay by me on Ripper locations, then and now. This is, I think, the first time I've been in <i>JP</i> since <a href="http://journeyplanet.weebly.com/journey-planet---2021-hugo-nominee/journey-planet-57-arthur-king-of-the-britons">the Arthurian issue</a> in 2021. <br /><p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-72835919393627602832023-12-07T22:00:00.002+00:002023-12-08T13:44:17.015+00:00Doctor Who comics reviews<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUhRORrnHdxRG6ubbJm0FLusmI5cYY8iZCbE3y5V25x23MqvIvQniN5WLkNo1B9hyphenhyphengv4xK2ab041BQ0exY2XUK13PvbYTT-Zo6Ms78BzOqgG3xO5s9bdL9qVf2SDMo2rcZAdp0l3bIowuaMBOgtowjpOrwKCww4cdJksClo8sZI_MZhyphenhyphenygkcs/s1129/Doctor%20Who%20The%20Fourth%20Doctor%20Anthology%20cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cover of Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Anthology, with the Fourth Doctor and scenes from the comics. Credits: Pat Mills, John Wagner, Steve Moore, Steve Parkhouse, Dave Gibbons, Mike McMahon" border="0" data-original-height="1129" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUhRORrnHdxRG6ubbJm0FLusmI5cYY8iZCbE3y5V25x23MqvIvQniN5WLkNo1B9hyphenhyphengv4xK2ab041BQ0exY2XUK13PvbYTT-Zo6Ms78BzOqgG3xO5s9bdL9qVf2SDMo2rcZAdp0l3bIowuaMBOgtowjpOrwKCww4cdJksClo8sZI_MZhyphenhyphenygkcs/w213-h320/Doctor%20Who%20The%20Fourth%20Doctor%20Anthology%20cover.jpg" title="Doctor Who The Fourth Doctor Anthology cover" width="213" /></a></div><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">So I had a series of reviews of <i>Doctor Who</i> comics published on <i><a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/">The Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide</a></i> this week. The big one is <a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/doctor-who-the-fourth-doctor-anthology/"><i>The Fourth Doctor Anthology</i></a>. This contains 'Doctor Who and the Star Beast', the basis for the first of the 60th Anniversary specials. Also: the 1986 <i><a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/doctor-who-1985-summer-special-classic/">Summer Special</a></i>, which reprints 'Doctor Who and the Iron Legion'; <a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/doctor-who-classics-volume-1/"><i>Doctor Who Classics </i>Volume 1</a>, which includes most of the Mills and Wagner strips in colour; <a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/doctor-who-classics-volume-2/"><i>Doctor Who Classics </i>Volume 2</a>, which is mostly Steve Moore scripts, with Dave Gibbons artwork; <i><a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/doctor-who-dave-gibbons-collection/">Doctor Who: Dave Gibbons Collection</a></i>, which brings together all of Dave Gibbons' work on <i>Doctor Who</i>, covering the Fourth and Fifth Doctors; and finally, <i><a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/doctor-who-the-tides-of-time/">The Tides of Time</a></i>, which collects all of the Peter Davison/Fifth Doctor comics stories.</span><br /> <p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-75934382221228136772023-11-23T23:14:00.002+00:002023-11-24T23:25:10.535+00:00Doctor Who, 'The Eaters of Light'<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHoUES05fVTxYw7IDoCBSOQNGWgDkbL8hB_xy9p13RoCUWPFMWU3lC3bR8KiDcp7lrACWeU6kYCtK0Dd3enX8qTFRnwJbnwXOQteqLzv-z1A9y-5vJSUNkWiS_LXl9rCuNcx1IVPnXtjJa9Ay-RlF7JMeePMHZTkpC-wHCOakYuJlhiGAW6w/s1200/Eaters%20of%20Light.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A painted Pictish Warrior and Bill Potts pointing swords at the viewer and shouting." border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHoUES05fVTxYw7IDoCBSOQNGWgDkbL8hB_xy9p13RoCUWPFMWU3lC3bR8KiDcp7lrACWeU6kYCtK0Dd3enX8qTFRnwJbnwXOQteqLzv-z1A9y-5vJSUNkWiS_LXl9rCuNcx1IVPnXtjJa9Ay-RlF7JMeePMHZTkpC-wHCOakYuJlhiGAW6w/w320-h180/Eaters%20of%20Light.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i>Doctor Who</i>, 'The Eaters of Light' (UK, dir. Charles Palmer, scr. Rona Munro, starring Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, and Matt Lucas, BBC, 2017)<p></p><p>Roman Britain is one of the historical periods that is fairly central to the British imagination, so one might have expected <i>Doctor Who</i> to have visited there quite a bit. But, as I argue in a piece in the latest <i><a href="https://doctorwhottz.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-terrible-zodin-issue-25-15-years-in.html">Terrible Zodin</a>, Doctor Who</i>, at least in its early years, went out of its way to avoid the obvious historical periods. It is true Malcolm Hulke, co-writer of the successful <i>Target Luna</i>/<i>Pathfinders</i> sf serials for ITV, submitted an outline for a serial set in Roman Britain (referred to as 'Britain 408 AD', a purely descriptive title), which at one point was planned to be the sixth serial in the first season. But even that avoided the standard periods for Roman Britain on screen (which I discuss <a href="https://mancent.org.uk/?p=5486">here</a>), instead setting itself in 408 CE (or 400 according to a summary David Whitaker wrote in September 1963), at the end of Roman Britain. When the final years of Roman Britain do appear on screen, they are generally connected to the reign of King Arthur (who will then be treated as a historical figure), but David Whitaker's summary of Hulke's story makes no mention of Arthur. In any case, Whitaker changed his mind about this serial, feeling it was overcomplicated, with an ending too like that of 'An Unearthly Child' (the full story), and instead commissioned Hulke to write up another submission, 'Hidden Planet', about a duplicate Earth the other side of the Sun. This was in turn abandoned in 1964. Hulke resubmitted 'Britain 408 AD' in 1965, for the second season, but it was rejected by new script editor Dennis Spooner, because by this point the programme had already made 'The Romans', and Spooner didn't want to repeat himself. (Hulke would have to wait until the Patrick Troughton era and 'The Faceless Ones' for an onscreen credit.)</p><p>Over much of the show's existence, Roman Britain was something only vaguely alluded to. The Doctor and his companions are thought to be from Britannia in 'The Romans' (1964), because Vicki and Barbara are overheard talking about London/Londinium. Similarly, in 'The Fires of Pompeii' (2008) Donna is thought to be Celtic/Welsh when she tries to speak Latin. You could argue that the Romans who menace the Doctor at the end of Episode Two and beginning of Episode Three of 'The War Games' (1969) are in Britain - it's not stated, and the zones in 'The War Games' are from conflicts from all over the planet, but the sequence was filmed in Sussex (the Doctor says the Roman time zone was 2,000 years ago, which would rule out Britain, but it's not clear whether he is being precise, and whether he means that in relation to 1917, the time zone from where they crossed over). In 'The Stones of Blood' (1978) the Doctor makes reference to having read Caesar and Tacitus on the Druids when discussing Druidism with sect leader De Vries. And in <i>Battlefield</i> (1989), the Doctor gets mixed up with post-Roman Arthurian legends, though suggesting that they had their origins in the eighth, rather than fifth or sixth centurires.</p><p>But the first actual definite television visit of the Doctor to Roman Britain is in 'The Pandorica Opens' (2010), where the Doctor meets River Song at Stonehenge in 102 CE. Even this doesn't engage closely with the typical periods of Roman Britain on screen, and has to be treated as one of the outliers, along with things like <i>Chelmsford 123</i>. The typical periods have been engaged with by non-television <i>Who</i>; so audio adventure 'Wrath of the Iceni' takes place at the time of the Boudican revolt (and is a fully-fledged 'pure' historical, with no aliens interfering with history), and another audio, 'Living History', takes place during Julius Caesar's invasion (a rare non-comedic treatment of Caesar's landing, perhaps due to the presence of a Dalek).</p><p>All of which is an excessively-long preamble to talking about 'The Eaters of Light', the point at which <i>Doctor Who</i> most closely engages with the tropes of Roman Britain. It engages with the supposed 'disappearance' of the Ninth Legion. As you may know, there are essentially two theories about what happened to the Ninth. Theodor Mommsen suggested that it was destroyed in some battle in the north of Britain. The discovery in the twentieth century of evidence suggesting that part of the Ninth was present in Nijmegen until <i>c.</i> 120 CE called Mommsen's theory into question (and it's hard to believe that, had he known of the Nijmegen material, he would have ever come up with the idea in the first place), so while the disappearance of the Ninth in Britain continued to fuel popular culture in the form of Rosemary Sutcliff's 1954 novel <i>The Eagle of the Ninth</i>, or the 2010 movie <i>Centurion</i>, the scholarly consensus rejected the notion. However, in recent years, scholars such as Miles Russell, Neil Faulkner, Nick Hodgson and Simon Elliott have come out in favour of the Mommsen idea.</p><p>Interestingly, Rona Monro has the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and his companion Bill (Pearl Mackie) take different sides of the argument - Bill, who did a school project on the Ninth, believes that they left, whilst the Doctor says they were wiped out. The Doctor is, of course, proved right, though, being a modern <i>Doctor Who</i> story, they were destroyed by an alien menace.</p><p>Ninth Legion stories are often connected with Hadrian's Wall, but not here. The location of the action is moved to somewhere near Aberdeen (far further north than most people think the Ninth might have penetrated). But that location, as Juliette Harrisson has observed, allows the episode to be a love letter to Scotland, from where star, showrunner and writer all hail (though Monro is the native of the Granite City, Capaldi and Steven Moffat coming from Glasgow and Paisley respectively). A series of standard Scottish jokes about the weather are trotted out ('It's Scotland. It's supposed to be damp.'); but these also fit a standard trope of Roman Britain, where it rains all the time. Another standard trope of Roman Britain is its remoteness from the rest of the empire; here this can be linked to the perceived remoteness of Scotland from the rest of Britain. </p><p>Other standard trope are to be seen. The Picts around Aberdeen (Picts are actually anachronistic for the second century) all have their faces painted. There is a Boudica equivalent in teenager Kar. The use of child protagonists is also something I have realised is to be seen a lot in Roman Britain tales.</p><p>And then there's folk horror (here, I am in considerably sympathy with Louis Bayman and K.J. Donnelly, who argue in the introduction to their edited collection on <i>Folk Horror On Film</i> that the defining characteristic of folk horror is that the horror arises from the people, customs and practices of the folk themselves, rather than anything outside that). <i>Who</i> has, of course, engaged with folk horror on many occasions, starting with 'The Dæmons' in 1971, continuing through 'The Stones of Blood' and 'The Awakening' (1984), through to more recent fare such as 'Human Nature'/'Family of Blood' (2007, directed by the same man who does the job here). So, much of 'Eaters of Light' takes place in dark woods, and though the threat is external, it is bound up in the Picitish traditions. Nobody mentions Druids, but there is a stone circle and a cairn, the Devil's Cairn, in fact (a name with echoes of Devil's End from 'The Dæmons'). <i> </i> </p><p>There is also a great deal to enjoy and appreciate. The Roman survivors are ethnically mixed, as they might well have been. They have names like 'Cornelius' and 'Lucius'. Which are the sort of names screenwriters give randomly to Romans, but they are actually the sorts of names, citizens' names, that members of a legion would have. That Bill is considered a bit weird not for being a lesbian, but for not being bisexual is a nice moment, though I'm not sure how rooted it is in Roman social mores. But I did enjoy the callback to the speech of Calgacus from Tacitus' <i>Agricola</i>: 'They make deserts and they call it peace.'</p><p>The Doctor claims to have lived in Roman Britain, to have 'governed, farmed, juggled', all presumably in adventures not seen on screen (but perhaps even now being written for Big Finish). He also claims to have been a Vestal Virgin, second class. Given that this is before it had been established that the Doctor had been a woman in the past, one wonders precisely what is meant by that. </p><p>In general, there is a lot of food for thought in this episode. The main issue with it is that, like much of modern <i>Who</i>, the story doesn't really have time to breathe properly. It could have done with a second episode.</p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-55414437418334558882023-11-23T12:09:00.005+00:002023-11-23T12:09:35.841+00:00Writing about Doctor Who<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaqtQ36BsHNIklpWWvkvFXkB4SFY_gHte1JcNO4D5AFmPmKIrdXZxPKirk3jPPrwqpTMWOfUqtXid0PLptZ-t7hKqC4K_qgfrLUdMSiaZ3Vbslrh-YRsRHrwaqYebArdF-_QlLY1zh416EP5hHXBmXlEddmrkyLi8wauGb43xzlKdeFnQ5K7s/s510/doctor-who-the-reign-of-terror-dvd-review.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="510" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaqtQ36BsHNIklpWWvkvFXkB4SFY_gHte1JcNO4D5AFmPmKIrdXZxPKirk3jPPrwqpTMWOfUqtXid0PLptZ-t7hKqC4K_qgfrLUdMSiaZ3Vbslrh-YRsRHrwaqYebArdF-_QlLY1zh416EP5hHXBmXlEddmrkyLi8wauGb43xzlKdeFnQ5K7s/s320/doctor-who-the-reign-of-terror-dvd-review.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There's <a href="https://doctorwhottz.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-terrible-zodin-issue-25-15-years-in.html">a new issue</a> of <i>The Terrible Zodin</i> out. I have a piece in it on history in the first season of the show, and contribute to sixty great things about <i>Doctor Who</i> (with a series of answers that are very '70s-centric). </span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And while we're on the subject of <i>Doctor Who</i>, I also have a piece in the upcoming volume 6 of <i>Vworp Vworp!</i>, which you can pre-order <a href="https://www.vworpvworp.co.uk/volumes/vworpvworp-volume-6">here</a>. (My piece, which didn't make the highlights list, is on the history behind the Stone Age episodes of 'An Unearthly Child'.) </span></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-78463601945331302172023-11-03T23:25:00.001+00:002023-11-03T23:25:07.175+00:00<p><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", "Fira Sans", Ubuntu, Oxygen, "Oxygen Sans", Cantarell, "Droid Sans", "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Lucida Grande", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">So this is a thing I've been working on for the last couple of weeks, the show guide for the upcoming NMRS show. https://www.nottingham-modelrailway.org.uk/showguideautumn2023.pdf</span></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-79025925333706037282023-11-01T21:34:00.001+00:002023-11-01T21:42:11.036+00:00#AcWriMo and Screening Britannia<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmpcx-xDql9fwAzXZsMA6rHVlkchzhf_MWUxIVYOxOHY7kP1pAXc3hiTf4I_COWydnmL6WrgRYcq7Rfnh2HQauU21rPrSk-lFsyqXz3-VixqN2sWhdBU6J76MHbK9ebBm6JJw6AUmGd1aGkDMkDfXsaWKPJ7OebSjRa063EO2iOfMnGjmstSc" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmpcx-xDql9fwAzXZsMA6rHVlkchzhf_MWUxIVYOxOHY7kP1pAXc3hiTf4I_COWydnmL6WrgRYcq7Rfnh2HQauU21rPrSk-lFsyqXz3-VixqN2sWhdBU6J76MHbK9ebBm6JJw6AUmGd1aGkDMkDfXsaWKPJ7OebSjRa063EO2iOfMnGjmstSc" width="320" /></a></div>It's November. For many people, that means <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Novel_Writing_Month">#NaNoWriMo</a>, writing the first draft of a novel in thirty days. I sometimes think of that, but whenever I get started, I always end up after a few days declaring everything I have attempted to be utter shit. However, there's an equivalent for academic writing, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Writing_Month">#AcWriMo</a>. I did a bit of that last year, and made some progress on a book project that I probably still can't reveal. This year, I'm going all out, but aiming at completing much of the first draft of my book on Roman Britain on screen. I hope to write about 1,000 words a day.<p></p><p>However, I have built up a backlog of Screening Britannia blogposts recently, as a result of teaching my <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-britannia-roman-britain-in-film-television-full-course-tickets-678280474157">online Screening Britannia course</a> (which you can still book onto and receive all the past recordings of the class up to this point). I'm really enjoying teaching this material, and it's opening up new perspectives that I might not otherwise have fallen upon. In particular, I am starting to realise the importance of the English folk horror tradition to the portrayal of Druids, and to why Roman Britain narratives so often use the Druids. Fortunately, there's a new <i><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Folk-Horror/Edgar-Johnson/p/book/9781032042831">Routledge Companion to Folk Horror</a> </i>just come out, which is even affordable as an ebook. Anyway, since those posts and my planned book are intimately interrelated, I am going to write them, and count them against my daily word count target. This is the first. </p><p>A couple of months ago I finally put up the 2015 version of a paper entitled '<a href="https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:59367/">A Wild West hero: Motifs of the Hollywood Western in four movies about Hadrian’s Wall'</a>, which considers four movies, <i>King Arthur</i> (2004), <i>The Last Legion</i> (2007), <i>Centurion</i> (2010), and <i>The Eagle</i> (2011). The paper is incomplete, especially in the references, which will be fixed when I rework the material for the book. But for now, at least it's out there.</p><p>As part of preparation for my course, I rewatched <i>Boadicea</i> (1927), which I wrote about in <a href="https://tonykeen.blogspot.com/2020/02/2020-movies-2-boadicea.html">2020</a>. At the time I thought it was the earliest screen version of Roman Britain, though I have since discovered that there is an earlier version of <i>Cymbeline</i>, from 1913. But I also discovered something about <i>Boadicea</i>. The version I watched on <a href="https://youtu.be/LuozZByU1kY?si=Ahwt_xuyrY_SLVOR">YouTube</a> is not in fact the full movie. This version is less than half an hour, but it is obvious from <a href="https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150018040">this description on the BFI website</a> that the full movie was about ninety minutes. All sorts of extra details are lost. Two people seen at the beginning starting a fight with the Romans about paying taxes actually have names in the full version. There's also a love subplot between one of Boadicea's daughters, here named Emmelyn, and a good Roman by the name of Marcus. (One of the ways Boudica narratives reconcile an audience that wants to be heirs to the Iceni queen's British heroism and at the same time the 'virtues' and values of Roman civilization is by including good Romans, who essentially want to live in happy co-operation with the Britons, and bad Romans, who provoke the revolt.) This love plot idea is later picked up in fake-Boudica movie <i>The Viking Queen</i> (1967), and I wonder if John Temple Smith, who devised the story for the latter movie, was familiar with Sinclair Hill's silent epic.</p><p>Unfortunately, while the BFI does possess the archive materials for this movie, so it is not, technically, 'lost', they do not have a viewing copy, so it has so far proved impossible for me to see the full-length <i>Boadicea</i>.</p><p>I was able to watch <i>Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves</i> (1991). This is, of course, a pretty silly movie; one can quite see why Mel Brooks thought it ripe for parody in <i>Robin Hood: Men in Tights</i> (1993). My reason for mentioning it here is the notorious scene in which, it is commonly stated, Robin (Kevin Costner) goes from Dover to Nottingham via Hadrian's Wall. And actually, this isn't a fair criticism. By all means, have a go at the movie for suggesting that one can get from Dover to Nottingham in a day on horseback. But, whilst scenes with Costner and Morgan Freeman playing Robin's Moorish ally Azeem were filmed up at Sycamore Gap, by the famous tree (sadly recently <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-66994729">chopped down</a>, for reasons that are currently obscure), at no point does anyone say they are at Hadrian's Wall. Indeed, diegetically, the movie is quite clear that the scene is taking place on Robin's own lands, not far from Nottingham. The Wall happens to be a convenient location to suggest a degree of antiquity. We should no more read it literally as Hadrian's Wall than we are meant to believe that the medieval city of Nottingham is actually at Carcassonne, or that Nottingham Castle is actually at Bodiam. Both of these were locations used in the movie, but these pass without comment.</p><p>I was delighted when the four missing episodes of <i><a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1377989/index.html">The Complete and Utter History of Britain</a></i> (1969) turned up unexpectedly. Unfortunately, this has little effect on my work, as the only Roman Britain sketch was in the first episode (and then cut for broadcast), which has long been available on DVD. Still, at least we can now watch Michael Palin playing Elizabeth I as a bawdy music-hall drag act, which justifies the whole series on its own.</p><p>Finally, there are a couple of books coming out that are going to be relevant to my work. Jen Williams new fantasy, <i><a href="https://www.sennydreadful.co.uk/talonsister">Talonsister</a></i>, is set in a fantasy version of immediately pre-Roman Britain; sadly, there's not going to be time for me to read it before <a href="https://novacon.uk/">Novacon</a> next week, where she's the guest of honour. And in December, my friend and former Open University colleague <a href="https://www.winchester.ac.uk/about-us/leadership-and-governance/staff-directory/staff-profiles/soar.php">Katy Soar</a> has edited a collection called <i>Circles of Stone</i>, an anthology of weird tales of Britain's pagan past. I feel sure there will be Druids.</p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-65007069333255304542023-09-14T12:15:00.004+01:002023-09-14T12:15:56.998+01:00The ancient civilisation that inspired US democracy<p><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", "Fira Sans", Ubuntu, Oxygen, "Oxygen Sans", Cantarell, "Droid Sans", "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Lucida Grande", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipoiWYjC7wsTnj_y0-zLE1ZtzWfrZfckhXpY6PVYQBseKMTebF8SimUIqbxPHKRRD_LblGMF0-6fcLMR7jPDo2KT-L-HOKiAk_i0Cbbz7Izbh6p7Qe5GtQ70_Zwqb8xi2ZwhNksR3ROcmTFv4WtwSMHcf4Xv38IIBkr0iGul3eFjlyKflqQ84/s1920/1920px-Tomb_of_Amyntas_2020-03-15-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1920" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipoiWYjC7wsTnj_y0-zLE1ZtzWfrZfckhXpY6PVYQBseKMTebF8SimUIqbxPHKRRD_LblGMF0-6fcLMR7jPDo2KT-L-HOKiAk_i0Cbbz7Izbh6p7Qe5GtQ70_Zwqb8xi2ZwhNksR3ROcmTFv4WtwSMHcf4Xv38IIBkr0iGul3eFjlyKflqQ84/s320/1920px-Tomb_of_Amyntas_2020-03-15-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />A couple of months ago I was interviewed by Alistair Gill for an article about the Lycian Way. I don't get many requests arising out of my work on Lycia, and I was happy to do this. The article has finally appeared. I'm only quoted once, but I think quite a lot of what I said informed what Alistair wrote about the historical background. <p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Fira Sans, Ubuntu, Oxygen, Oxygen Sans, Cantarell, Droid Sans, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol, Lucida Grande, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230906-the-ancient-civilisation-that-inspired-us-democracy</span></span></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-16749028285762716042023-09-11T22:06:00.002+01:002023-09-11T22:06:20.724+01:00An Introduction to Greek and Roman Mythology<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqphGuZvjiDtQ05JQzRLjEOiOGQnnga4NcmJBurKl6-QMjkLQCVtbsr9BYP2KnZ6zd24XxYErw-8eQjq-7I-X3gMUVvOrDjV3NkKume2Iu-htZ267SivNkpCANGWTtxvW0xOagTaYuQNhdMuPeoZGDoqx2NnmevVT4DO5D_KWjSEI4xIFhe1Q/s998/IMG_20230422_101438109%20(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="998" data-original-width="466" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqphGuZvjiDtQ05JQzRLjEOiOGQnnga4NcmJBurKl6-QMjkLQCVtbsr9BYP2KnZ6zd24XxYErw-8eQjq-7I-X3gMUVvOrDjV3NkKume2Iu-htZ267SivNkpCANGWTtxvW0xOagTaYuQNhdMuPeoZGDoqx2NnmevVT4DO5D_KWjSEI4xIFhe1Q/s320/IMG_20230422_101438109%20(2).jpg" width="149" /></a></div><br />A bit late to publicise this, but I'm teaching another online Notre Dame course for high school students. Applications close on Friday. <span style="color: #050505; font-family: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><a href="https://precollege.nd.edu/courses/an-introduction-to-greek-and-roman-mythology/">https://precollege.nd.edu/courses/an-introduction-to-greek-and-roman-mythology/</a> </span></span><p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-11614762212764826112023-09-10T16:21:00.003+01:002023-09-10T16:36:17.370+01:00A Walk around the Roman Walls of London<div class="separator"><div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gl_EGgg-OwkWeiPVG7N6m3vzjgI21EH6a_wXaScWrMbqcVQDJcK-W6B49s_XiewfBXTmu3yK71E3aqxoQE2nyP5jN6ldjCUOdgn1j8WTY6Zb1x4UWCT0NvHhq72x9wkggz_ZKrf_G4RmRNEbWQxhsr2DteS1zA3ZBYpVOT6q3hma_02F2YI/s940/https___cdn.evbuc.com_images_593318919_196293743673_1_original.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="940" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gl_EGgg-OwkWeiPVG7N6m3vzjgI21EH6a_wXaScWrMbqcVQDJcK-W6B49s_XiewfBXTmu3yK71E3aqxoQE2nyP5jN6ldjCUOdgn1j8WTY6Zb1x4UWCT0NvHhq72x9wkggz_ZKrf_G4RmRNEbWQxhsr2DteS1zA3ZBYpVOT6q3hma_02F2YI/s320/https___cdn.evbuc.com_images_593318919_196293743673_1_original.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />On October 14, I'm leading a walk for LRAC around the Roman Walls of London. Tickets: <a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-walk-around-the-roman-walls-of-london-tickets-715966183127">https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-walk-around-the-roman-walls-of-london-tickets-715966183127</a></div><div><br /></div></div><p></p><p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-57764525135984794152023-09-03T21:35:00.003+01:002023-09-03T21:35:12.795+01:00Screening Britannia course update<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyAdVqBK-uZgZ3s2T1gL8pVNG00yDt1UCn1PjQkF6UbBxAoFZG2njX0uvmRO_31im3tenJnuNtyjcnZpAnxAuXYm8N1q1Mes13Xk2PxQwTwU0rHTJ_vFUZxkevOriSox21Kdng8bpP7kL1tCyMJmncKror8Ujy-0ay0Dx0JgVROG_DbhTf0dc/s900/tony-keen-900x515.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="515" data-original-width="900" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyAdVqBK-uZgZ3s2T1gL8pVNG00yDt1UCn1PjQkF6UbBxAoFZG2njX0uvmRO_31im3tenJnuNtyjcnZpAnxAuXYm8N1q1Mes13Xk2PxQwTwU0rHTJ_vFUZxkevOriSox21Kdng8bpP7kL1tCyMJmncKror8Ujy-0ay0Dx0JgVROG_DbhTf0dc/s320/tony-keen-900x515.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9); font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", "Fira Sans", Ubuntu, Oxygen, "Oxygen Sans", Cantarell, "Droid Sans", "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Lucida Grande", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I have delayed the start of my MANCENT course on Roman Britain on film for two weeks, due to health reasons. It will now run 18 September - 27 November. Tickets still available. All sessions recorded, so you don't have to attend live if it's inconvenient.</span><p></p><p><a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-britannia-roman-britain-in-film-television-full-course-tickets-678280474157">https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-britannia-roman-britain-in-film-television-full-course-tickets-678280474157</a></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-28697824155230090172023-08-25T11:21:00.004+01:002023-09-03T21:32:07.909+01:00Autumn MANCENT programme<div style="font-family: inherit;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="x1iorvi4 x1pi30zi x1l90r2v x1swvt13" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" id=":rle:" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px 16px;"><div class="x78zum5 xdt5ytf xz62fqu x16ldp7u" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="xu06os2 x1ok221b" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" color="var(--primary-text)" dir="auto" style="display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9375rem; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; word-break: break-word;"><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The Autumn MANCENT programme is out. My course on Screening Britannia starts a week on Monday. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1fey0fg" href="https://mancent.org.uk/?page_id=5363" original_target="https://mancent.org.uk/?page_id=5363" rel="nofollow noreferrer" role="link" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0" target="_blank" waprocessedanchor="true" waprocessedid="kgnkh">https://mancent.org.uk/?page_id=5363</a><div mcafee_wa_ann="{"category":["ed"],"flags":0,"key":"mancent.org.uk","trust":70,"ttl":86400,"originalUrl":"https://mancent.org.uk/","timeCached":1692957841363,"url":"mancent.org.uk","dossierUrl":"https://mancent.org.uk/?page_id=5363"}" style="cursor: default; display: inline-block; float: none; font-family: inherit; padding: 0px 0px 0px 4px; position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: 1;" waprocessedid="kgnkh"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJNaSroRRWIf_mlgRYBHaBDCrfV8TkCcr0pJy9CK-4rKDNVL1Wg6DeUkD3RniplW_Vvm8C_OeUNe8NMvpo_Aixebu3fM1bV0Egqr2ooRkN3iPXCoTZP5V6VxTSuzdbpSe3K6N5wC5CCu-6qrFoSqz9py5v2JSLaTX2u6PUL3NJtJeheBLng1A/s940/https___cdn.evbuc.com_images_391557759_18078962023_1_original.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="940" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJNaSroRRWIf_mlgRYBHaBDCrfV8TkCcr0pJy9CK-4rKDNVL1Wg6DeUkD3RniplW_Vvm8C_OeUNe8NMvpo_Aixebu3fM1bV0Egqr2ooRkN3iPXCoTZP5V6VxTSuzdbpSe3K6N5wC5CCu-6qrFoSqz9py5v2JSLaTX2u6PUL3NJtJeheBLng1A/s320/https___cdn.evbuc.com_images_391557759_18078962023_1_original.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="mcafee_green" id="0DE9E47C-871A-4F90-8440-B190C216800A_2" style="background-image: url("chrome-extension://fheoggkfdfchfphceeifdbepaooicaho/images/annotation/green_icon.svg?secret=lne6wv"); background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: contain; font-family: inherit; height: 16px; outline: none; width: 16px;" tabindex="0"><br /></div></div></span></div></div></span></div></div></div></div><div class="x1n2onr6" id=":rlf:" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative;"><div class="x6ikm8r x10wlt62" style="font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden;"></div></div></div>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-89104063034428230722023-08-03T20:40:00.002+01:002023-08-03T21:14:56.888+01:00A Greek and Roman Mythology Walk around London II: Embankment<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Vg5anxELtAyGuzu0Qoi4nOpf9DtsYPhsAsVD5RJRxDHg31X0Nv-R9pMDgdWo89Ol7JYuvAQD7ON99lvNpgWClEXyzqyj_4g-C7lyHKYObMunAOePGSswsm9d4kAr9O9rWp6XXi477vfulCXApEbTJ7bGbCdWTZpn2XWCSUjWfaIaO7PNRWQ/s940/https___cdn.evbuc.com_images_555326269_18078962023_1_original.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="940" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7Vg5anxELtAyGuzu0Qoi4nOpf9DtsYPhsAsVD5RJRxDHg31X0Nv-R9pMDgdWo89Ol7JYuvAQD7ON99lvNpgWClEXyzqyj_4g-C7lyHKYObMunAOePGSswsm9d4kAr9O9rWp6XXi477vfulCXApEbTJ7bGbCdWTZpn2XWCSUjWfaIaO7PNRWQ/s320/https___cdn.evbuc.com_images_555326269_18078962023_1_original.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If you're around London and at a loose end Saturday afternoon, there are still places available for my Manchester Continuing Education Network London mythology walk. </span><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: Segoe UI Historic, Segoe UI, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-greek-and-roman-mythology-walk-around-london-ii-embankment-tickets-678177947497">https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-greek-and-roman-mythology-walk-around-london-ii-embankment-tickets-678177947497</a></span></span></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-36272071322853495592023-07-01T05:57:00.004+01:002023-07-04T14:57:51.968+01:00Classical Presences, the North-East, and Vera<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCh3_WKYUJ-gRJqmYDVwEqprrDyca7Sx3WA0-oadbhakxO4oMpWZGprE1_oOYQeKL93QPRncOGbdqzNMB1g-TV93OasZXJlRO0pkDsCuCF0pyvXmGk1zrryiMwecuWlP-xzHP7jVtLXwxbh8kfyENGDWhyfiis6aTosgS81JDp-LRVTRLk3HM/s1240/R%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1240" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCh3_WKYUJ-gRJqmYDVwEqprrDyca7Sx3WA0-oadbhakxO4oMpWZGprE1_oOYQeKL93QPRncOGbdqzNMB1g-TV93OasZXJlRO0pkDsCuCF0pyvXmGk1zrryiMwecuWlP-xzHP7jVtLXwxbh8kfyENGDWhyfiis6aTosgS81JDp-LRVTRLk3HM/s320/R%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I'm speaking next week at the conference <a href="https://antiquityinmediastudies.wordpress.com/2023/06/23/july-7-8-2023-hybrid-conference-classical-presences-in-north-east-england/">‘Classical Presences in North-East England’</a>, at the University of Durham, the brainchild of Edith Hall. My paper is on Saturday morning, and is entitled ‘“There’s your emperor”. Hadrian’s Wall Country in <i>Vera</i>’. I got very excited when I first came up with this idea, as it is one of the wackier notions for a paper that I’ve had, and yet one I really wanted to do. Fortunately, the conference organisers agreed with me. <p></p><p>If you want to attend the conference in person, contact Edmund Thomas (<a href="mailto:e.v.thomas@durham.ac.uk">e.v.thomas@durham.ac.uk</a>). The conference will also be available for virtual attendees; again, contact Edmund.</p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-10674299578184163522023-06-22T12:10:00.000+01:002023-06-22T12:10:01.701+01:00John Romita, Sr., 1930-2023<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ct5h9Vhh8IYANWAsQrsiAz00VUBsZ7_EUYUCAgxbbyW1wvagWAECboIzM5cf16zIbWu0yGuGnhz9eZffoAcjzRsldsIg7yL66Be9eEOqIAEKy7emW-FdAaxwms562V-3E6ghMWsBFUS101qbOaFixBYzzOuVUG15A4NBgiQrrAVfU9bSFYE/s462/347404893_737316431733218_7843106493199554618_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="322" data-original-width="462" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ct5h9Vhh8IYANWAsQrsiAz00VUBsZ7_EUYUCAgxbbyW1wvagWAECboIzM5cf16zIbWu0yGuGnhz9eZffoAcjzRsldsIg7yL66Be9eEOqIAEKy7emW-FdAaxwms562V-3E6ghMWsBFUS101qbOaFixBYzzOuVUG15A4NBgiQrrAVfU9bSFYE/s320/347404893_737316431733218_7843106493199554618_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I wrote a <a href="https://comiczine-fa.com/news/john-romita-sr-1930-2023">short obituary</a> for John Romita, Sr., for <i>FA Online</i>. <p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-87135752077927962382023-06-08T20:53:00.002+01:002023-06-08T20:53:20.790+01:00Mastodon<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #0f1419; font-family: TwitterChirp, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I have finally got myself on Mastodon: @TonyKeen58@archaeo.social</span></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-74171000809007275502023-06-07T22:56:00.002+01:002023-06-07T22:56:14.591+01:00Review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEireB97GW1rLWxVc4zz1ccdkItHAsqZ7U8OXJWSc0KZ6CRvAnMmZn6swEwxdAWD8Kj6PtH5RONPf0qJeBiOjOaYn4cNAxQR7BubHGeA1ugOAIi_fltYc3tSX86SlTCYM9-9244sTnmT8WBTmxBXBQCYAXb7j7uNv23Ho7RjjsbrYkmKL9VC/s385/Spider-Man-_Across_the_Spider-Verse_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="259" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEireB97GW1rLWxVc4zz1ccdkItHAsqZ7U8OXJWSc0KZ6CRvAnMmZn6swEwxdAWD8Kj6PtH5RONPf0qJeBiOjOaYn4cNAxQR7BubHGeA1ugOAIi_fltYc3tSX86SlTCYM9-9244sTnmT8WBTmxBXBQCYAXb7j7uNv23Ho7RjjsbrYkmKL9VC/s320/Spider-Man-_Across_the_Spider-Verse_poster.jpg" width="215" /></a></div><br />Another <a href="https://comiczine-fa.com/reviews/spider-man-across-the-spider-verse">review</a> by me, this time of <i>Across the Spider-Verse</i>, which I liked, but not as much as everyone else seems to have done.<p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-5841482731885970232023-05-30T18:01:00.003+01:002023-05-31T12:31:58.044+01:00Review of Fairy Tales of London<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiUuyczf3Gtz9UbC5OsO4EeLkZnGZMZEQ6VA__C8th045IkqBIWZ0zUAMSd1UYvPg2v3gsTqAcK4ijSsbsH9wi-61luVqPBE87NTQCFAlcyU_O9UYRwyN4JeN7gYlNgBmP0hu0T80C9vMx3Ioy9d3L7Mt0CEP1IUBHGOdlovuEpVGs5yqG/s648/5ebc690c-f2fa-4078-8396-776bc8415834_1.c03d30361e260c71fd4517b5b4793994.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="432" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiUuyczf3Gtz9UbC5OsO4EeLkZnGZMZEQ6VA__C8th045IkqBIWZ0zUAMSd1UYvPg2v3gsTqAcK4ijSsbsH9wi-61luVqPBE87NTQCFAlcyU_O9UYRwyN4JeN7gYlNgBmP0hu0T80C9vMx3Ioy9d3L7Mt0CEP1IUBHGOdlovuEpVGs5yqG/s320/5ebc690c-f2fa-4078-8396-776bc8415834_1.c03d30361e260c71fd4517b5b4793994.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><br />There's <a href="https://www.fantastikajournal.com/volume-7-issue-1-may-2023">a new issue</a> of <i>Fantastika Journal</i> out, which is the first issue of Fantastika Review, and I have <a href="https://www.fantastikajournal.com/_files/ugd/25b7cd_affb1186f71d46fabf9add45ede8a0c2.pdf">a review</a> in it, of Dassi Elber-Aviram's excellent <i>Fairy Tales of London</i>.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-75700928177215128832023-05-17T22:40:00.008+01:002023-05-30T16:50:29.165+01:00Apres moi le déluge<p>[Like
many men of my age, I have been fascinated by Operation Chastise, the May 1943
Dams Raid, at least since seeing the 1955 movie about it.[1] From my late father I inherited copies of Guy
Gibson’s <i>Enemy Coast Ahead </i>(London: Michael Joseph, 1946) and Paul
Brickhill’s <i>The Dam Busters</i> (London:
Evans, 1951). To mark the sixtieth anniversary of the raid, I wrote a largely
unresearched piece for my LiveJournal (remember that!), followed a year later
(April 2004) by a piece in a mailing of the APA <i>Acnestis</i>, in
which I read all the Dam Busters[2]
literature I owned or could get through the local library, and commented on it.
To mark (just) the eightieth anniversary of the raid, I present below, in
somewhat modified form, that piece, which incorporated my original Live Journal
entry. Whilst revising the piece, I revisited Brickhill and John Sweetman
(with David Coward and Gary Johnston), <i>The Dambusters</i> (London: Time Warner
Books, 2003). I also consulted Sweetman’s <i>The Dambusters Raid </i>(London:
Arms and Armour, 1990), his more scholarly account, <i>The Dambusters Raid</i>, which in 2004 I had not read, but was
available in the Cassell’s Military Classics series, and the shorter <i>Dambusters </i>(London: Carlton
Books 2013), as well as Max Hastings’ <i>Chastise
</i>(London:
William Collins 2019), as well as his <i>Bomber Command </i>(London: Joseph, 1979), and the June 2023 issue of <i>Flypast</i>. I was going to write all that
reading up as well, but this piece is already chapter-length, so I have decided
not to make it even longer. Other than some editing, I have tried
to largely leave the original piece untouched. Where my views have changed, I
generally, though not always, have indicated this in a footnote. Though matters
of history will be touched on in what follows, this is not intended as a
historical study of either the Dams Raid or No. 617 Squadron, but as a survey
of some of the literature around both. If you wish to read a full account, then
I would direct you to one of the books by John Sweetman, either <i>The
Dambusters Raid</i>, or the shorter <i>Dambusters</i>, for the raid itself; there is also James Holland, <i>Dam
Busters: The Race to Smash the Dams, 1943 </i>(London: Penguin, 2012), which I
have not read. For the subsequent wartime operations of 617 Squadron, I suspect
the go-to text now is John Nichol, <i>Return of the Dambusters: What 617
Squadron Did Next </i>(London: William Collins, 2015), which again I haven’t
read. Nevertheless, Brickhill’s, <i>The Dam Busters</i>, for all its faults, is still worth a read for the casually interested. </p><p>This whole piece is
dedicated to the memory of all aircrew of 617 Squadron who have died on active
service, 1943–2023, and to the many more
people who died as a result of the bombs they dropped.]</p><p>
<img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="862" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV0hPN11sXge1cq2P16jNdY5bO1MS8JDXccGruRSfFJkmsR6Auxoopw3uBWC6q-tNsedud47Hqxwp5SWuC5eewEKEPITH7XiUlUpu29mPPixydZ3eg1XvIbznEcnys5_ujJic1a5OQb1wrFp58LGVV76zT5imkDHrrffJdRqTHbdbvbVHh/w486-h208/DamBusters%201.jpg" width="486" /></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="break-after: avoid; line-height: normal; margin: 12pt 0cm 6pt; text-align: justify;"><i style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">A Type 464 Provisioning Lancaster, the modified aircraft for the Dams Raid.
This example has no Upkeep ‘bouncing bomb’ (the bombs did not arrive until some
time after the planes), and has yet to acquire its squadron identification
codes. It would become AJ-T for Tommy, the reserve aircraft flown on the raid
by Flight Lieutenant Joseph McCarthy, an American serving in the Royal Canadian
Air Force, a route followed by many Americans who wished to fight Nazism when
the United States was still neutral. This was one of the two Lancasters to
attack the Sorpe dam. Note also that the ventral turret has yet to be removed,
as can be seen from the projecting machine gun (see text).</span></i></p>Back in 2003–2004, I had been doing quite a bit of reading around the Dam Busters raid, and watched the 1955
movie again. The origins of this activity lie in the following, largely
unresearched piece that I wrote in my LiveJournal, and later reprinted in the
August 2003 <i>Acnestis</i> (I’ve added a few more notes, where what I
originally wrote may well be wrong).<o:p></o:p> <div><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sixty years ago tonight [16<sup>th</sup> May 1943],
nineteen specially-modified Lancasters took off from RAF Scampton, and flew
into legend. Their mission that night in 1943 has become the single most
celebrated operation in the history of RAF Bomber Command.[3] </span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">It has become fashionable in recent years to denigrate
Operation Chastise, the Dams Raid, to suggest that it was only a propaganda
success, that its effects on German production were minimal. I have even seen
it stated that the main result of the raid was the loss of fifty-six
experienced aircrew (617 Squadron was recruited from men who had completed
their standard tour of duty;[4] eight of the Lancasters
failed to return).
</span></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Some years ago, Channel 4’s myth-debunking series <i>Secret
History</i> took a look at the Dams Raid, and reached much that conclusion.[5] However, as often with the<i> Secret History </i>series, I felt that enthusiasm
for debunking had resulted in an unbalanced historical picture. The raid was undoubtedly costly. A near-50% loss rate
(to say nothing of the aircraft that returned damaged) was unsustainable, and
this is why no subsequent attack was ever mounted on the Ruhr dams.[6]
</span></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">To view the raid as ‘only’ a propaganda success is hardly
telling the whole story, however. In Spring 1943, Bomber Command was suffering
punishing losses in the night campaign against German cities (they could lose
in a single night more aircrew than were killed in the whole of the Battle of
Britain). The US Eighth Air Force was on the verge of being driven from the
daylight skies over Germany. Neither part of the strategic bombing offensive
was having an appreciable impact on the Germans’ willingness or ability to
carry on the war. Joseph Stalin, as ever, was questioning the western Allies’
commitment, due to their failure to open the Second Front. A spectacular
propaganda victory was exactly what was needed, and the Dams Raid, which made
front pages across the world and was described by Joseph Goebbels as a ‘disaster’,
delivered that in spades. As the US proved in the Second Gulf War with the
rescue of Jessica Lynch, there is nothing like a daring mission widely-reported
to restore the faith of one’s people, media, and allies.
Undoubtedly the Dams mission did not have the
catastrophic effects on industry in the Ruhr that had been hoped for, partly
because only two dams out of five targets for the night were successfully
breached; one which escaped destruction was the Sorpe, most important of the
lot.[7]</span></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">But it did have effects. Production <i>was</i> disrupted, and electricity supply not properly
restored until the end of the year.[8]
That this did not have more of an impact is down to the same reason that
contributed to area bombing of industrial targets not crippling Germany—unlike
Britain, in 1943 German industry was not working at anything like full
capacity. And, as <i>Secret History</i> conceded, slave labour that
might have been more profitably employed on the Atlantic Wall was diverted to
rebuilding the dams, and anti-aircraft guns taken from elsewhere to defend
targets that were never attacked again.[9]
</span></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">What the Channel 4 programme did not look at was what
I consider to be two of the most significant outcomes of the raid; the
subsequent history of Barnes Wallis, designer of the ‘bouncing bomb’, and that
of 617 Squadron itself. Wallis only worked on the bouncing bomb because he had
been unable to raise any Air Ministry interest in what he really wanted to
design, a ten-ton ‘earthquake’ bomb.[10] With the success of Operation Chastise, official attitudes to Wallis changed,
and he was able to develop, first the 12,000-pound ‘Tallboy’, and then the
22,000-pound ‘Grand Slam’.[11] These weapons were used with great effect against railway tunnels and viaducts,
U-boat pens, and canals. They were a significant addition to the RAF’s arsenal,
which might not have existed without the Dams Raid.
</span></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Of course, these weapons required more accurate
techniques than the area bombing usually practised by the RAF. To be
effectively employed, they needed a squadron trained and experienced in
precision attacks. As a result of the Dams Raid, the RAF now had such a
unit—617 Squadron. I do not believe it to be an exaggeration[12] to say that the RAF strike tactics standard in the twenty-first century,
low-level precision attacks, have their origins in the formation of that unit
and their first operation in May 1943. (The USAF, meanwhile, keeps alive the
tradition of indiscriminate area bombing, in the shape of the B-52.)
</span></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><span style="font-size: x-small;">The <i>Secret History</i> programme ended by saying
that 618 Squadron, formed at the same time as 617, but equipped with De
Havilland Mosquitos employing ‘Highball’, a smaller version of the bouncing
bomb, never got to attack its intended target, the battleship <i>Tirpitz</i>.
The <i>Tirpitz</i> was sunk by other means. True, but unfairly the programme
left it there, and did not tell the whole story. For what finally sunk <i>Tirpitz</i>
were Tallboys, dropped by aircraft of 617 and 9 Squadrons. Thus, even though
Barnes Wallis’ bouncing bomb was not employed, nevertheless the sinking of this
ship was[13] a direct result of the
success, sixty years ago this night, of the attacks on the Möhne and Eder dams.
</span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="150" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXgKIjHdPAZC4e5ZZYQNNxqwk-e2l7kFtDi2rqcUQ3gzKBnX8To_pA7l21WLp_yzrewnqjyC_PTTNiPNxDnvI__9FwypGQGqhA0iG6mcVkEM-xxBDATutIE-zb3m86edpKf7aVsRCMijsy4t_BMtK0pjFjrVdot4kSJlI-KVAfUA7rTMJY/s1600/DamBusters%202.png" width="150" /></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 2.85pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The crest of 617 Squadron.</span></i><o:p></o:p></p><div><br /></div>
Actually, it’s not quite true that my thinking on 617 was first prompted by
the sixtieth anniversary. I’d already started mulling over the Dams Raid in
summer 2002, as a result of reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Unsurprising
Stories</i> 7, one of science fiction author Christopher Priest’s contributions
to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Acnestis</i>.[14] In
this, when talking about the research conducted for his 2002 novel <i>The
Separation </i>(London: Simon & Schuster), he talked about Paul Brickhill’s
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dam Busters</i> (he and I had the
same 2/6 Pan edition),[15] and
a 1959 novel by actor Robert Shaw,[16] <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hiding Place</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"> (filmed in 1965 as the comedy </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Situation
Hopeless… But Not Serious</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">, changing
the British bomber crew for an American one)</span>.[17] The
central part of what Priest was talking about was a passage in Shaw that
plagiarises an account in Brickhill of Wing Commander Guy Gibson’s Lancaster
crossing the Dutch coast on the night of the raid. But Brickhill himself
plagiarizes in this account, which is at least partially fictionalized, as none
of the aircrew concerned survived the War to be interviewed by him.[18] An
exchange in Brickhill where Gibson asks his wireless operator to turn the heat
off is taken directly from <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Gibson’s
own <i>Enemy Coast Ahead</i></span>, but in the latter book the conversation
took place on Gibson’s last op <i>before</i> the Dams Raid. <o:p></o:p>
What really set my mind in motion was Priest’s view of the effect of the
raid—‘most of the damage was superficial.’ That reminded me of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Secret History</i> programme, and my
reaction to that, and I was waiting for an opportunity to set my views down.
The sixtieth anniversary of the raid gave me that chance. I then returned to
the topic, reading what books I had in my collection and could borrow from the
local library.<div><br /></div><div>Even before seeing the movie,[19] I probably first encountered the Dams Raid in
the pages of <i>Airfix Magazine</i>, which in August 1973 ran <b>‘Dambuster Lancaster’</b>, a piece by Gerry Preece showing how to
convert an Airfix Lancaster model into the modified version used by 617 on the
raid.[20] When
I originally wrote this article in 2004, all my old copies of <i>Airfix Magazine</i> had long been thrown
away, but in 2023 the magic of eBay means that I can get hold of a copy.[21] The
article details how to convert the Airfix Lancaster to a B. III (Special)[22] (and, along the way, how to improve the overall standard of the Airfix Lanc). </div><div><br /></div><div>However, by the time the article was published, it had been overtaken by
Revell’s 1971 release of kit of a Dam Buster Lanc. I myself built one of these
(or more probably got my father to make it). I was forever puzzled by the twin
machine guns in a ventral turret (a ‘dustbin lid’ style mounting rather than a
full glazed turret such as elsewhere on the aircraft), which I never saw on any
other Lancaster plans, pictures or models. (Though I can now see it in the
drawings that accompany the <i>Airfix
Magazine</i> article.)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">
<img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="436" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX0wg__Zi3WUF0sMVa8sjDwWRoB9lKiVODwmLqWKfzv80maGp7hXttVSZ9eUcLX2MMVJXnvA08d9kq9qM4VnWXZlreIttFizIfi5oELhG1Adhc7JdKsclt-amw-OhKs26GmZLS7lpfbBaytoLEpDvPmyodgyaOViSNK5MqN3uXnrZHI7Oh/w448-h261/DamBusters%203.jpg" width="448" /></div><div><i style="font-size: 10pt"><p>The box artwork for the Revell 1:72 scale Dam Buster Lancaster. The artist
has made the dam wall convex, rather than concave (most dams are concave in
order to better resist the weight of water, though convex dams do exist).
Consequently, at first glance it appears as if the plane is suicidally flying
below the top of the dam. Also missing are the sluice gates both the Möhne and
Eder dams possessed. Note also the ventral turret, depicted by the artist
inaccurately with two machine guns rather than one, but not actually fitted on
the mission.</span></i><o:p></o:p></div>
<p>I finally discovered in the early 2000s that early Lancasters had single or
twin ventral machine guns as a factory fitting, with a periscope to allow a
gunner to see to operate it. This was generally removed in operational service
(due to the lack of a gunner dedicated to this position, and the difficult in
operating it through the periscope), and later discontinued. The ventral turret
appears on blueprints outlining the modifications to be made for the B. III
(Special). To save weight and gain power, the mid-upper turret was removed, but
the ventral turret seems to have been retained, though reduced to just one
machine gun.[23] In the end, since this
particular operation was intended to be conducted all the way at very low
level, opportunities to engage the enemy below the aircraft would be
non-existent. Moreover, the mid-upper gunners, who would have operated the
ventral turret, for this mission flew in the front turret, normally operated by
the bomb aimer. This left the ventral turret with no-one to operate it, and
meant that it was dead weight with no benefit. So it made sense to remove it,
whatever the merits or otherwise of leaving Lancasters in general with no
downward-firing weaponry. </div><div><br /></div><div><o:p></o:p>
My 2004 reading started with <b>John
Sweetman (with David Coward and Gary Johnston) <i>The Dambusters</i></b> (London: Time Warner Books, 2003), written to
accompany a Channel 4 series. It is a book of two halves; one, by Sweetman, is
a history of the raid (based upon his more scholarly account, <i>The Dambusters Raid</i>; indeed, some of the
text is identical), and the other, presumably by Coward and Johnston, describes
Channel Four’s assembly of a modern crew to replicate the Dams mission. In my
2004 notes, there is no mention of this second part of the book, and I wonder
if I just didn’t read those chapters (most unlike me), or decided that they
were irrelevant to what I wanted to write about. I did discuss the series
itself, as you can read later.<o:p></o:p>
<p>The prefaces of this book, one by Sweetman and one, a producer’s preface,
by Johnston, led me to suspect some of what I said in the LiveJournal piece
reprinted above was repeating commonly-held myths, and might need correction.
For instance, I wrote that the
crews were all recruited from personnel who had completed their standard tour
of duty of thirty missions—this turns out to be true of many, and others were
near completion, but some of the aircrew had flown as little as seven missions.
This myth has its origins in <i>Enemy Coast Ahead</i>, where Gibson claims to have hand-picked all the
pilots from people who met the qualifications; he certainly hand-picked some
pilots, but not all of them.[24]</p><o:p></o:p>
<p>Many myths have
their origin in the movie. For example, there is the story that Air Ministry
officials, resistant to Wallis’ request for a Wellington, were surprised to
find he designed it; I first came across this in what was supposedly a factual
account, albeit one aimed at children, the first proper account of the raid I
read (which I have long since lost). Another myth the movie promoted was that
the idea of using spotlights to judge the aircraft’s height came from Gibson’s
watching a show in the theatre. The truth is that the Royal Aircraft
Establishment, Farnborough, came up with the idea, based on experiments already
carried out with Coastal Command Sunderlands. The way Gibson tells this story
in <i>Enemy Coast Ahead</i> (subsequently
reported by Brickhill in <i>The Dam Busters</i>)
is that his crew claimed, when the solution was presented to them, to have had
the idea already from watching spotlights at a strip show—but they may have
been winding their CO up. Nevertheless, a variation on this was thought to be
better cinema than the truth. Other myths, such as Gibson’s entire crew
following him from 106 Squadron into 617 (only his wireless operator did)[25] come from Brickhill’s book.</span></p>
<p>However,
Sweetman’s book is not as myth-shattering as it first appears. Barnes Wallis’
activities up until early 1943, around which many of the myths have arisen
(fostered by the movie) are skimped over pretty quickly—they warrant better
attention. The book does, though, have sensible things to say in its
conclusions, noting that the Dams Raid was not as ineffectual as a number of
post-war assessments have stated. Sweetman makes the entirely sensible point
that the raid’s success needs to be judged against the expectations of those
who planned it, not the exaggerated claims of the contemporary pro-Allied and
neutral press. But I wanted to see more on the post-raid careers of Wallis and
617 Squadron, both of which, as I stated before, were given a serious boost by
the success of Operation Chastise. Sweetman’s book is a very thorough account
of the raid itself and the eight weeks of intense preparation that led up to
it. Sweetman also makes the less well-known crews, those who didn’t survive the
raid, come alive in a way other accounts haven’t.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p>Sweetman is, however, also not entirely free of
error; he asserts in his preface that the movie fails to cover the Eder, which
is not true, as the movie includes the Eder attack, and even mentions the
Sorpe, albeit briefly, the third target. In a television documentary on the
bombing offensive as a whole, Sweetman says sixteen Lancasters took part in the
raid, instead of nineteen—sixteen, however, is a number Gibson mentions,
apparently as the number that actually crossed into Germany, after two planes
had been forced to turn back and one shot down in the sea, and Sweetman may
have meant this.[26]</p><o:p></o:p>
<p>I had to get from a completely different source[27] the
information that illuminates Sweetman’s comment about Flight Lieutenant (F/Lt)[28] Les
Knight. Knight was killed (on a later raid against the Dortmund-Ems Canal) after keeping
his stricken aircraft in the air long enough for his crew to get out; he got a
Mention in Dispatches, when his crew thought he should have got a Victoria
Cross. It seems unjust that such an act of bravery should only be rewarded with
a humble Mention in Dispatches, but apparently, that was the next highest award
after the VC that could be given posthumously.</p><p>To understand the legend of 617 Squadron, however, I still think <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Brickhill’s <i>The Dam Busters</i></b> (1951), which I read in
parallel with Sweetman,[29] is a
good starting point. (So it seems odd that this was the first time I had read
the book cover-to-cover, having owned it for nearly thirty years). <i>The Dam Busters</i> was Brickhill’s third
book, after <i>Escape to Danger </i>(London:
Faber & Faber, 1946, co-written with Conrad Norton), and <i>The Great Escape </i>(London: Faber, 1950).
Both of those were about prisoners-of-war in Germany; Brickhill had been a POW
himself, and been barred from the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III due to his
claustrophobia, a decision that probably saved his life.</p><p><i>The Dam Busters </i>was
fifty-two years old when I read it, and reading it in the twenty-first century,
the prose seems incredibly archaic. Today, there’s no way you could get away
with saying things like: ‘Memory is like a woman; it was only when he put it
out of his mind that it sneaked insidiously back to him.’ Nor can you describe
someone as a ‘gay, chunky little navigator’ and have it mean what Brickhill
meant.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p><i style="font-size: 10pt">An ‘Upkeep’
bouncing bomb loaded on AJ-G for George, Gibson’s Lancaster. This photo was
taken on 30 April 1943, and shows a practice Upkeep, filled with inert
material, for a test drop on the beach at Reculver in the Thames Estuary.
Upkeep was originally spherical, with the central cylinder surrounded by wooden
staves; wood was used because of a shortage of steel. The outer casings
invariably disintegrated on hitting the water, and the cylinder bounced
perfectly well without them, so they were abandoned.</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt">Two points strike me about the book. First, the
degree to which Brickhill was bound by official secrecy. When he wrote, details
of the ‘bouncing bomb’ were still classified, and were to remain so for another
two decades. His book therefore contains no illustrations of the weapon. There
are odd circumlocutions; an unnamed character is described as ‘a great
scientist who had access to Churchill’. Clearly this must be Frederick Lindemann,
Lord Cherwell, Churchill’s chief scientific advisor, but Brickhill leaves him
in anonymity, because he was lukewarm at best to Wallis’ scheme (there is no
mention of Wallis or the Dams Raid in Adrian Fort’s 2003 biography of
Lindemann, <i>Prof</i>). Brickhill couldn’t even use the true codename for the
attack, Operation Chastise—he calls it ‘Operation Downwood’. This term is still
found in some online sources, no doubt derived from Brickhill, and originates
in Gibson’s account, where it is the codeword for both the operation and the
weapon; presumably, unable to use the actual codeword while the war was still
going on, Gibson came up with ‘Downwood’ as a variation on the actual codename
for the bouncing bomb, ‘Upkeep’. Still, overall <i>The Dam Busters</i> is considerably
less restricted in what it can say than Gibson’s own <i>Enemy Coast Ahead</i>, which
could not even name Barnes Wallis.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The second observation is that Brickhill appears
to be giving more weight to personal anecdote than official record. I noted
above how he claims that all of Gibson’s own crew joined him in 617, when it
was only the wireless operator. A simple check of records, you might have
thought, would have put him right. Things are said that don’t match up with
Sweetman’s account. When the Lancaster of F/Lt Bill Astell (whose mother, I
have discovered from Alan Cooper’s book mentioned below, lived in
Chapel-en-le-Frith in Derbyshire, where I was brought up) was lost on the raid,
Brickhill writes: ‘They [the crews of the two Lancasters in formation with
Astell] did not see him again.’ Yet Sweetman includes a description of Astell
being shot down by flak, as reported by a crew member of one of the other
bombers[30] (Gibson too includes a description of Astell’s Lancaster going down, perhaps
drawn from the same eyewitness). The mystery is compounded by Brickhill placing
Astell in a different formation from that in which he actually flew, an error
corrected by the time of the movie, but which derives from Gibson’s own
account. To further confuse the issue, the Channel 4 series that Sweetman’s <i>The
Dambusters</i> accompanies states that Astell hit an electricity pylon, as do
Jonathan Falconer’s and Alan Cooper’s books mentioned below, as well as Tobin
Jones, <i>617 Squadron: The Operational
Record Book 1943–1945 </i>(Bicester: Binx
Publishing, 2002), though Jones also reproduces the view held by the RAF at the time that Astell was shot
down.[31]
Possibly what happened was that Astell was hit by flak, and then hit the pylon
on the way down. A similar fate may have befallen F/Lt Norman Barlow, where
again there are differing accounts, the British saying he was shot down, the
Germans either that he hit a pylon or crashed while trying to crashland his
aircraft.</p><p>Max Hastings’ helpful timeline of the raid in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chastise </i>illuminates a comment in
Brickhill. The latter writes that, on his way back from the dans, Gibson saw a
Lancaster going down in flames near Hamm. ‘It may have been Burpee. Or Ottley.’
Both of these were shot down on their way out to the Dams, but they were part
of the reserve wave, which had taken off more than ninety minutes after Gibson,
and some of the first and second wave were already on their way home before the
reserves reached Germany. From Hastings’ timeline, it must have been P/O Warner
‘Bill’ Ottley’s C for Charlie that Gibson saw; he went down near Hamm,[32] and when P/O Lewis Burpee’s S for Sugar was hit, Gibson was still over the
Eder. (Sweetman’s <i>The Dambusters Raid</i>
already makes this point.)</span></p><p>There were aircrew Brickhill did not talk
to—there were, for instance, survivors from two of the lost Lancasters, but their accounts do
not inform anything Brickhill wrote. On the other hand, there’s Brickhill’s
report that Squadron Leader (S/Ldr) ‘Dinghy’ Young sent a message that he was
ditching before his plane ended up in the North Sea (Falconer’s book includes a
photograph of the wreckage of a Lancaster washed up on the Dutch coast,
probably Young’s aircraft). Sweetman makes no mention of this, but nor does he
explicitly deny it, and I am inclined to accept that this might be true. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Brickhill covers the entire history of 617 at
war, including the <i>Tirpitz</i> raids, and other attacks. For the period
after the Dams Raid itself, I had in 2004 no corrective to him readily to hand.
So I had to take what is said at face value, but with the knowledge that
Brickhill is not wholly reliable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>On the morality of bombing, Brickhill certainly
feels that area bombing of civilian targets should be avoided, where possible,
but accepts that some civilian deaths are an inevitability of war. There’s no
serious criticism of Air Chief Marshal ‘Bomber’ Harris’ policies, bar Harris’
reluctance at first to accept Wallis’ ideas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Brickhill makes up in readability for a lot of
his lapses in accuracy. I remember as a boy starting <i>Reach for the Sky</i>
(London: William Collins, 1954), his biography of Douglas Bader. I got no
further than his account of Bader’s mother’s childhood in north-west India,
because Brickhill’s evocative tales of mysterious maybe-burglars and faces
appearing at windows terrified me.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Jonathan
Falconer’s <b><i>The Dam Busters: Breaking the Great Dams
of Western Germany 16–17 May 1943</i></b> (Stroud: Sutton 2003) is a short,
but heavily illustrated, popular account. It includes a chapter on the 1955 movie.
The cover cunningly airbrushes off the mid-upper turret of the Battle of
Britain Memorial Flight’s Lancaster, so that it resembles a 617 Squadron
machine. This book adds further alternative versions of events. In Brickhill’s
account, as Young made his attack on the Möhne, Gibson and F/Lt Harold ‘Micky’
Martin, who had already dropped their bombs, flew either side of him to
distract the German flak. This is how it is portrayed in the movie (albeit with
Gibson and Martin flying together above and to the right of Young), and in
other popular versions, such as a painting Falconer reprints. According to
Falconer’s text, however, Martin alone accompanied Young in this fashion, while
Gibson engaged the flak from beyond the dam wall. Falconer must be correct, as
his text tallies with Gibson’s account. For the final attack on the dam (that
of F/Lt D.J.H. Maltby), however, both Gibson and Martin came in from ov>er the lake to provide cover. (Martin, incidentally, survived the war, and
went on to become an Air Marshal in the RAF.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Falconer’s account doesn’t add too much new, but
the archive illustrations are fascinating, including German drawings of the
Upkeep weapon after they had captured an example, and an impressive aerial
reconnaissance mosaic showing the almost-empty Möhne lake. There is Gibson’s VC
citation, which notes that he attacked first ‘thus taking the full brunt of the
anti-aircraft defences while still at their best’. This may well have been
Gibson’s intent, but in fact he made his run when the Germans were too
surprised to even shoot in the right direction—when the second plane, F/Lt John
‘Hoppy’ Hopgood’s AJ-M for Mother, attacked, the flak gunners had woken up, and
shot him down.[33]
Too many details of illustrations, however, disappear into the join between
pages on double-page spreads. Oh, and Falconer reports that his aircrews called
Harris ‘Butch’, without adding that civilian press reports called him
‘Butcher’.<o:p></o:p>
<p>I said earlier that I didn’t have access to
another history of 617 post-Dams Raid with which to judge the later chapters of
Brickhill. <b>Tom Bennett’s <i>617
Squadron: The Dambusters at War</i></b> (Wellingborough: Stephens, 1986)
is not that book. It does deal solely with events after Operation Chastise, but
it is not a history, but a collection of anecdotes concerning individual
aircrew, assembled in no particular order, by someone who served briefly with
the Squadron when they had their own Mosquitos. It’s a good source of material
for anyone wanting to write a history of the Squadron, as the anecdotes are
plainly drawn from direct interviews with the personnel concerned. But Bennett is
a rather dull writer. He is probably more accurate than Brickhill, though. An
instance: Flying Officer (F/O) ‘Billy’ Duffy, who joined 617 after Chastise, was killed, together with his
navigator, in one of the squadron’s target-marking Mosquitos, when it broke up
in mid-air during a non-combat flight. According to Brickhill, Duffy and his
crew had just been taken off operations, and this was one last flight for Duffy
and his navigator before they left the squadron. According to Bennett, however,
Duffy had been regularly flying ops with the Mosquito (leaving most of his
regular Lancaster crew behind), and practising target-marking techniques on the
bombing range at Wainfleet. And on the day of the fatal flight, his regular
navigator cried off the practice flight, and it was another navigator who
perished. There is no mention of the crew having completed their tour of
operations. Bennett is almost certainly correct here (for one thing, he had
actually spoken to the regular navigator concerned), and it highlights again
the issue of Brickhill’s diligence (or rather lack of it) with sources.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><b>Alan W.
Cooper, <i>Born Leader: The Story of Guy Gibson V.C.</i></b> (Bromley:
Independent Books, 1993) does exactly what it says on the cover (which,
incidentally, actually depicts Martin’s Lancaster over the Möhne, with Gibson’s
in the background), telling the story of Gibson. Unfortunately, it too is very dull, due to the inclusion of
just about every single detail you could imagine. The result is more like a
catalogue than a biography. At times, it also gets close to being a
hagiography, both of Gibson himself, and of Bomber Command and all its works.
Excessive respect for various senior officers leads Cooper to mishandle
documents. When Gibson was recommended for a Bar to his Distinguished Service
Order, Cooper states that this was endorsed by both the Air Officer Commanding
(AOC) 5 Group, Air Vice-Marshal the Hon. Ralph Cochrane, and by Air Marshal Arthur
Harris, who remarked that any officer with Gibson’s record deserved two DSOs,
if not a VC. The documentation Cooper actually prints tells a different story.
Whilst commending Gibson’s record, Cochrane felt that it was too soon after the
first award of a DSO to give Gibson another, and instead recommended a second
Bar to his Distinguished Flying Cross. Harris in his remark was actually
over-ruling Cochrane in re-instating the original recommendation. Whether this
disagreement had any role in Gibson’s selection to command 617 (Cochrane’s
suggestion in Cooper, Harris’ in Brickhill) can never be determined. (Also,
Cooper clearly knows more about the RAF than the army, suggesting at one point
that Brigadier Orde Wingate led the 14<sup>th</sup> Army, rather than merely
being part of it.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The book displays its small-press origins in the
way it is somewhat carelessly laid out, most obviously in the presentation of
two air combat reports from Gibson’s time as a night-fighter pilot, where the
second pages are attached to the wrong first pages. It also has the most unintentionally
ironic line that I came across in my reading: ‘whenever the story of the
Dambusters and Guy Gibson is told the name “Nigger” will always be part of it.’
This was disproved in an early twenty-first century ITV showing of the movie,
where all references to the dog’s name were excluded.[34]</p><o:p></o:p>
<p>The author has apparently written widely on
Bomber Command and on 617, including <i>The Men who Breached the Dams: 617 Squadron ‘The Dambusters’</i> (London: Kimber, 1982), <i>Beyond the Dams to the Tirpitz: The Later Operations
of 617 Squadron</i> (London: Goodall, 1991), and <i>The Dambusters
Squadron: Fifty Years of No. 617 Squadron RAF</i> (London: Arms and Armour, 1991).[35] But, as a review of <i>Born Leader</i> by Lloyd Brodrick in <i>Sabretache</i>
37 (1996) identifies, Cooper is not much of a critic or historian—rather he is
a storytelling enthusiast. This makes him blind to some of Gibson’s
faults—for instance, though popular with the people with whom he flew, Gibson could be a
martinet to ground crews, and was unloved by them as a result.<o:p></o:p>
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<p><i>A frame from a
cine film showing a Lancaster B. I (Special) piloted by F/O P. Martin,
releasing a ten-ton ‘Grand Slam’ against the Arnsberg Viaduct in 19 March
1945; the first such bomb had been dropped on the Bielefeld Viaduct five days
previously. In order to accommodate the bomb, a great deal of equipment was removed,
including the bomb bay doors, front and mid-upper turrets, and two of the guns
in the rear turret (Allied air superiority by this stage of the war was such
that Lancasters did not need as much defensive armament, even in daylight), and
uprated Merlin engines with wide ‘paddle-blade’ propellers were fitted. Even
then the bomb-laden aircraft barely got into the sky. 617 was the only squadron
to deploy this weapon. 617’s usual squadron code was AJ, but Grand Slam
carrying aircraft had the code YZ.</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p>A brief diversion now, to consider some <b>science-fictional versions of Guy Gibson</b>. First, Christopher Priest, <i>The Separation</i> (2002).
Christopher Priest briefly postulates that Gibson went into politics after the
war, becoming an MP and then a PPS in the Home Office. It is true that the real
Gibson was, briefly, prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for
Macclesfield. However, it seems to me that he was pushed into accepting the
candidacy because the Conservatives felt his fame would be an electoral asset.
Gibson decided in the end he didn’t like politics, and forced his way back onto
operations (where he swiftly got himself killed). His pre-war ambition was to
be a test pilot, and he had joined the RAF as a means to that end. Harris, in
his introduction to <i>Enemy Coast Ahead</i>, says that ‘Gibson was not a
professional airman’, but what he means by that is that Gibson was not a
professional serviceman. A professional flyer was exactly what Gibson wanted to
be, and his short-service RAF commission was intended as the first step in his
career. I can see a Gibson who
survived the war and became famous as a result of it going into politics.
However, I suspect a Gibson who was not made famous would have pursued his test
pilot dream.</span></span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Secondly, in issue 10 of <i>The Ultimates</i> (July
2003), a dark and cynical take on the
Marvel superhero group the Avengers, there is a flashback to 1945, and Captain
America attending a secret briefing. Part of that briefing is given by an RAF
officer. The officer is not named, but from the artwork it is clearly Gibson. It seems that
either writer Mark Millar or artist Bryan Hitch are suggesting that Gibson’s
death in September 1944 was faked (there are some odd aspects to Gibson’s
death, of the sort that appeal to conspiracy theorists) in order for him to undertake
top secret work.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>I did some related television and video
watching. The Channel 4 series <b><i>The
Dambusters</i> </b>spent more time on putting a crew of modern RAF personnel
through a computer simulation of the raid than it did telling the full story. However,
the reconstruction and the historical account did complement each other, and led
to a greater understanding on my part. <i>The Dambusters</i> was considerably more
successful in this respect than <i>Spitfire Ace</i>, an earlier attempt to do
the same for the Battle of Britain, where the footage of veterans and
historians describing the Battle and that of modern flyers learning to fly
Spits tended to get in the way of each other. Moreover, <i>The Dambusters</i> did have some nifty CGI
reconstructions of the raid itself—even if I could have done without the
accompanying music.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>In November 2003, I also caught another documentary, <b><i>The Dam Busters: The True Story</i></b>,
on the History Channel, but as I was working from home, and then had to leave
to properly observe the two minutes’ silence for Armistice Day, I wasn’t able to concentrate on
it as fully as I’d like. However, I was able to note that it dated from 1993,
and interviewed two of the then-surviving pilots, David Shannon and Ken Brown
(both sadly now deceased). I thought at first that it was the <i>Secret History</i>
documentary I originally referred to, but this isn’t actually the case, as its
conclusions were much more favourable to the operation, noting the enhanced
credibility given to Wallis and the resultant development and effective
deployment of the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>The <b>1955 movie</b> is still the form in which most people are familiar
with the raid. As noted throughout this piece, it gives rise to a number of
myths about what actually happened, and is stirringly heroic (if largely
unsentimental). What struck me in particular is how <i>British</i> it is. America had been in the war over a year by the time
of Chastise, yet the USA is hardly mentioned. I don’t think even ten or fifteen
years later the movie could have been made in this way, and certainly not
today. Today there would have to be more emphasis on Joe McCarthy, the American
pilot in the Squadron, and I can imagine Hollywood producers being unable to
accept that all he achieved was to damage the parapet of the Sorpe, while Brits
and Aussies breached the Möhne and Eder. (But perhaps they would make more of
Young’s Californian heritage. Assuming, of course, that they just didn’t make the whole thing an American operation anyway, <i>cf.</i> 2000’s <i>U-571</i>.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwBrgAc82x9ioNi2l2nU8jZ-0Z-Xe0ahMCZIoDn-cZuy6NJzuzRoYdb8pUxEQ235AbH_Xk6DUc-ahXVZPSS_4WXvozGuAsHKmqLuj8z8ifr0rWg_XPMbkdlmxA0mPsEbdlIebz8TWZ814PDffKRNbUkJVwj4zTce1U1Bn-NugMzajZhNKs/s720/DamBusters%206.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="720" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwBrgAc82x9ioNi2l2nU8jZ-0Z-Xe0ahMCZIoDn-cZuy6NJzuzRoYdb8pUxEQ235AbH_Xk6DUc-ahXVZPSS_4WXvozGuAsHKmqLuj8z8ifr0rWg_XPMbkdlmxA0mPsEbdlIebz8TWZ814PDffKRNbUkJVwj4zTce1U1Bn-NugMzajZhNKs/s320/DamBusters%206.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<p><i>Still from </span></i><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The Dam Busters<i> (1955). Note the mock bomb carried; because Upkeep was
still classified in 1954, the movie-makers had to come up with something that
conveyed the idea of the bouncing bomb. Ironically, it looks more like Wallis’
original idea for a spherical bomb.</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p>I also note how anonymous everybody is. It’s sometimes difficult to tell the aircrew from one another. Even the
actors who later became well-known, George Baker as F/Lt David Maltby, pilot of
AJ-J, Robert Shaw as Gibson’s flight engineer, Sgt John Pulford (fifteen years
later Shaw would be in a Spitfire in <i>Battle
of Britain</i>), and Nigel Stock as Gibson’s bomb aimer, P/O Fred ‘Spam’
Spafford (thus playing an Australian!), are sufficiently young as to blend into
anonymity. There are scenes of empty rooms the morning after the raid; one really has to have been paying attention to know that these are the rooms of Young, Hopgood, and S/Ldr Henry Maudslay, and we saw them in their rooms before the raid. And by ‘aircrew’, I realize that I’m actually mostly talking about
the pilots. In most of the literature mentioned above, the pilots get much more
coverage than the other aircrew. Usually, only Gibson’s crew emerge with any
individual personalities, and that is the case in the movie as well. (An exception to this is Bennett’s book, since each
of his anecdotes usually concerns a single aircraft, so the reader gets to know
the crew of that aircraft.)</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p>I also glanced at the Internet in 2004, but the quality of information soon
went into a sharp decline, such that even a BBC feature could suggest that
F/Sgt. Bill (or Peter in Gibson—perhaps some editorial confusion with the
fighter pilot who was later Princess Margaret’s suitor?) Townsend’s mission on
the Dams Raid was to fly over minor dams to distract the Germans from the true
targets. It was nothing of the sort. Townsend belonged to the mobile reserve,
to be directed to primary or secondary targets as felt appropriate. He attacked
what he thought was the Ennerpe (but was probably actually the Bever), dropping
his bomb successfully, but not breaching the dam. The inaccurate version
probably is a distortion of something Gibson wrote, when he suggested that the
prime task of those aircraft assigned to attack the Sorpe was to act as a
diversion. Again, this is not true—the importance of the Sorpe as a target is
shown not only by the five aircraft assigned to it, but also the fact that any
mines left from the Möhne/Eder force were designated for the Sorpe. But Gibson
was writing after only two aircraft had managed to reach the Sorpe, and failed
to breach it, but when the war was still on and public admission of failure bad
for morale. Better to suggest that it wasn’t that important after all.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>And so, finally, to <b><i>Enemy Coast Ahead</i></b>(1946)</span>, Gibson’s own account of his war
service up to Chastise. It has been demonstrated, by Richard Morris in <i>Guy Gibson</i> (London: Viking, 1994, with Colin
Dobinson),[36] who saw the original manuscript) that this volume was Gibson’s own work,
without the aid of a ghost-writer, though some of what he wrote was toned down
in the editing process. Even so, he was a little coarse for the mores of 1950s
Britain. Before the raid, Young asked Gibson if he could have Gibson’s next egg
if Gibson didn’t return. In the movie, Gibson’s response is to say, ‘Okay, I’ll
have yours if you don’t.’ What he actually said, as Gibson makes clear through
some transparent circumlocutions, was, ‘Bugger off and go fuck yourself.’</p><p>One actually gets a better idea of what Gibson might have been like as a
person from this book than from Cooper’s; as Max Hastings later notes in <i>Chastise</i>, Gibson reveals a remarkable
sensitivity in these pages. Of course, anyone writing their autobiography may
slant things in their favour, and not be fully aware of how other people see
them, but a personality leaps out at the reader far more here than from
Cooper’s dull record. Though Gibson’s upbringing inclined him naturally towards
Conservatism, had he pursued that career he would have been very much on the
left of the party. Early on he complains about how mistakes in British
leadership have led to the War, and makes the following plea: ‘in order to
protect our children let the young men who have done the fighting have a say in
the affairs of State.’ One can imagine Ted Heath thinking that, but not Maggie
Thatcher.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>One also gets an impression that Gibson was a man often on the edge of
great events, even if he were not always in the thick of it himself. For instance,
Gibson’s squadron took part in the attack on the Dortmund-Ems Canal that earned
Bomber Command its first VC (Gibson himself was on leave at the time.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>There is of course, much that Gibson cannot tell, and much that he does not
know—he seems, for instance, to have no idea of the appalling casualty rates of
the USAAF’s daylight bombing offensive. (And odd mistakes—e.g. Martin flew AJ-P
for Popsie, not AJ-T for Tommy, which was McCarthy’s plane.) Much of what he
includes are anecdotes, possibly apocryphal stories of the sort servicemen
always tell. But, refreshingly, Gibson’s well aware of this, and one suspects
that many of the stories he includes that don’t concern him personally are not
just there to fill out the account of a man who was not a habitual diarist, and
so suffered from a shortage of material about himself. Gibson wants to give an
impression of the sort of tales that would be heard around an airbase.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>When he considers Bomber Command policy, he has no doubts about its
morality. The ‘Hun’ deserves this, as repayment for all the times in the last
150 years they have taken war to other nations. (That 150 years is an odd
figure, as from when Gibson was writing it takes one back to Napoleonic times,
when the German states were Britain’s allies against the French.) But he is
firmly of the belief (in contrast to Harris) that bombing cannot win the war on
its own—it is a necessary precursor to a land invasion. Gibson is also capable
of presenting an imagined ‘typical’ raid in which he shows both the RAF and the
Luftwaffe side, and reveals himself more sympathetic to the enemy’s point of
view than in his more forthright statements. (His view of the night defence of
Germany is no doubt partly informed by his own time as a night fighter pilot.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>Local connections raise themselves. For me, it’s the mention of Ringway, to
where Gibson is sent in the winter of 1939, which later became Manchester
International Airport, with which I was once quite familiar, and West Malling,
where he served part of his time as a night fighter pilot, which is near to
where my wife’s mother lives. For you it may be something different.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p>This is a
lost world that these books and programmes describe. Even when I first read of
the Dams Raid, in the early ’70s, the crews had seemingly outrageous names:
Burpee, Ottley, Maltby, Astell, names you no longer seem to come across.[37] I
wonder what this says about the generation that fought the war, and those
following. At the end of all this, I come away with a renewed respect for the
men of 617 Squadron, their bravery and professionalism, and their achievements.<o:p></o:p>
<p>It occurred
to me on 2004 that there needed to be a definitive and well-written wartime
history of 617, covering the Dams Raid and subsequent operations, that also
deals with Wallis and his special weapons, including ‘Highball’, the
Mosquito-borne anti-shipping version of Upkeep, hardly ever touched upon in
these works.[38] I’m not
sure if Alan Cooper’s other works might fit the bill—I suspect they would be
good reference material, but too meticulous and stylistically boring to provide
the popular history that is needed.<o:p></o:p>
<p>However, Chris Ward, Andy
Lee & Andreas Wachtel, <i>Dambusters: The definitive history of 617
Squadron RAF at war 1943–1945</i>, published in 2003, looks much more likely to fill that role, and
certainly, from its publicity, thinks it does—but sadly I haven’t seen a copy.
As noted earlier, I would now turn to John Nichol’s <i>Return of the Dambusters</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
The copyright date on the DVD is 1954, but the film was not actually first
shown to the public until 1955.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 8.0pt;"> </span>There is no apparent consensus on
whether ‘Dambuster’ is one word or two. I have chosen two, as that seems to
have earlier authority, though the RAF now has it as one on their official documentation.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
In this piece I take for granted a familiarity with the principal details of
the raid.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
This, as I note later, was not, in fact, the case. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Curiously, Channel 4 marked 2003’s sixtieth anniversary weekend with a showing
of Battle of Britain film <i>Angels One Five</i> (1952), though in fairness
they had earlier in the month shown the 1955 classic <i>The Dam Busters</i>,
and a new two-part documentary-cum-reconstruction, <i>The Dambusters</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
This is not quite true, as the Sorpe dam was later attacked, unsuccessfully,
with ‘Tallboys’.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
And more-or-less impervious to the ‘Upkeep’ bouncing bomb.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a> This is what I wrote in 2003, but it may not be entirely true. Different accounts give different perceptions<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">—</span>this comes from the Channel 4 <i>Dambusters</i> series, but
Jonathan Falconer in <i>The Dam Busters: Breaking the Great Dams of Western Germany
16–17 May 1943 </i>(Stroud: Sutton 2003) says that electricity was restored in
a matter of weeks; this is also Sweetman’s conclusion. One could add to this
list of effects that the dams were never used to full capacity for the rest of
the war, to hinder a repeat attack.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
But see the preceding note on a later attack on the Sorpe.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
When I originally wrote this in 2003, I was still very much buying into the
myth of Wallis as the genius frustrated at every turn by the bureaucratic
establishment. The reality was far more nuanced; Wallis did face opposition,
notably from Air Marshal, later Air Chief Marshal, Sir Arthur Harris, C-in-C of
Bomber Command, but he also had plenty of support at the Air Ministry,
including that of the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles
Portal. Had it been otherwise, Wallis’ ideas would never have got anywhere, and
a lot of the objections were practical, e.g. the RAF did not have an aircraft
capable of carrying the ten-ton bomb to 40,000 feet, what Wallis believed was
the most effective altitude (though Wallis offered to design such a bomber),
nor much hope in 1941 or 1942 of delivering such a weapon with sufficient
accuracy. The success of Chastise nonetheless probably did make Wallis’ life
easier.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn11" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Though still not the high-altitude Victory bomber to deliver them.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn12" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Or at least, not <i>too much</i> of an exaggeration.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn13" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Or could be argued to be.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn14" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Chris was enthusiastic about this piece as originally published.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn15" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
I subsequently replaced this with a later edition, as my original was falling
apart through multiple readings; but I may still have the original somewhere.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn16" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Shaw appeared in <i>The Dam Busters</i>, playing Gibson’s flight engineer,
Sergeant John Pulford.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn17" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
I have neither read Shaw’s novel nor seen the movie.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn18" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Most of Gibson’s crew were lost when Gibson’s successor as CO of 617, Wing
Commander George Holden, was shot down by flak (German anti-aircraft fire) on
16 September 1943, during a disastrous raid on the Dortmund-Ems Canal, in which
five out of eight Lancasters were lost. Pulford (despite what Paul Brickhill
says) had transferred to another crew before this, but was killed when his
Lancaster crashed in a flying accident on 13 February 1944. Rear gunner Flight
Lieutenant Richard Trevor-Roper had also transferred, to 97 Squadron, and was
killed on 31 March 1944, when his Lancaster was shot down by a German night
fighter. Gibson himself was killed when flying a Mosquito on 19 September 1944
on a raid against Bremen.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn19" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
The movie was first shown on British television in 1971. I don’t know when I
first saw it.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn20" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
The Upkeep bouncing bomb was only fully declassified in 1973, though enough
data had been released in October 1962 to attempt a model. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn21" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[21]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
It is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">very</i> nostalgic, full of
features I remember poring over as a child, about modelling the Charge of the
Light Brigade, or the Eighth Army in the desert, or a Russian SU-152 assault
gun.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn22" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[22]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
The modified aircraft was termed the Type 464 Provisioning Lancaster, sometimes
referred to as an Avro Lancaster B. III (Special); the B. III was identical to
the standard Lancaster B. I, except that US-built Packard Merlins replaced the
Rolls-Royce Merlins of the B. I. For simplicity’s sake, I shall refer to the
Dam Buster Lancs as the B. III (Special), though the term was not employed
until after the raid.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn23" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[23]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
This is not quite what I thought in 2003, where I suggested the ventral turret
was an addition to Lancs that otherwise would not have had it.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn24" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[24]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Also it was the original
intention of Bomber Command to select the crews from people who had completed
their tours.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn25" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[25]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Flight Lieutenant Robert Hutchinson. Sweetman’s 2013 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dambusters</i> states that Gibson came with a navigator, but Pilot
Officer Harlo Taerum actually came from 50 Squadron. <o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn26" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[26]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Though Gibson gets
confused, and sixteen later appears in <i>Enemy Coast Ahead </i>as the number
that crossed the coast. That figure only works if you discount P/O Vernon
Byers’ plane, shot down as it crossed the Dutch coast—but Gibson then says that
of the sixteen, eight were shot down, a figure that must include Byers.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn27" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[27]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Twenty years later, I have no idea what that source was.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn28" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[28]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
I’ve adopted the abbreviations in use in the war for the RAF’s ranks. Newer
works sometimes follow the RAF’s current practice, in which, e.g., Flight
Lieutenant is abbreviated as Flt Lt.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn29" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[29]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Where I cite ‘Sweetman’
in what follows, I am referring to the 2003 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Dambusters</i>, except where noted.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn30" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[30]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Flight Sergeant (F/Sgt) Robert Kellow, wireless operator in AJ-N, piloted by
Les Knight, who was looking back through the Lancaster’s astrodome.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn31" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="mso-pagination: widow-orphan;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[31]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
That Astell hit a pylon is also the view in Hastings, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chastise</i>, and in Tom Allett’s ‘Eight of the Lancaster are missing’
in the June 2023 issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">FlyPast</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn32" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[32]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Rear gunner Sgt Fred Tees survived the crash, though with severe burns, one of
three survivors from the crews of the eight Lancasters lost.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn33" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[33]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> A thing I learnt from the
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">FlyPast</i> articles, not covered in
detail in any other book I’ve seen, though Sweetman’s 2013 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dambusters</i> briefly mentions it, is that Hopgood’s aircraft had been
hit by flak on the run in to the Möhne. Front gunner Flying Officer (F/O)
George Gregory had been seriously wounded, probably killed, and Hopgood himself
was nursing a head wound.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn34" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="break-after: avoid; mso-pagination: widow-orphan; page-break-after: avoid;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[34]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
The name has also been removed from the dog’s gravestone, though it has now
been restored in the movie, together with a warning about the language used. I
use it here strictly for historical accuracy, whilst recognising that it is a
racial slur, and ought to be avoided in most contexts.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn35" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[35]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> To this can now be added <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Dam Buster Raid: A Reappraisal, 70 Years
On</i> (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Aviation, 2013).<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn36" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[36]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
Still considered by most to be the definitive Gibson biography.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn37" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[37]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Though in fairness I have
come across several Maltbys, including a Professor of Latin at Leeds and the
author of a book on Hollywood cinema.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<div id="ftn38" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/Tony%20Keen/OneDrive/Documents/dambusters%202023.doc#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn38;" title=""><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="FootnoteCharacters"><span style="font-family: "Liberation Serif",serif; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">[38]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a>
There is rather more on Highball in Max Hastings’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chastise</i>.<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
</div><p></p><p></p></div>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-89557391403929296342023-05-16T11:32:00.003+01:002023-05-16T11:32:35.342+01:00Captain Carter review on The Slings and Arrows<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGKFlvFdooQjMvrp8HaBfVtkiIduhdIsG5fP391pVjwuUu22CSvF37wqFK0YAmVnOs0f3s0yrp5zi9LebZnuYwIudZ-WRc6_YuYSTaRBR-RUWi_kuqtx292ud4K4aISv2FBDBnfRcL0c5tXaOLQEEiDUWljCucc7enOUf93Pqgkz5nRaCr/s500/Captain%20Carter%20review%20cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGKFlvFdooQjMvrp8HaBfVtkiIduhdIsG5fP391pVjwuUu22CSvF37wqFK0YAmVnOs0f3s0yrp5zi9LebZnuYwIudZ-WRc6_YuYSTaRBR-RUWi_kuqtx292ud4K4aISv2FBDBnfRcL0c5tXaOLQEEiDUWljCucc7enOUf93Pqgkz5nRaCr/s320/Captain%20Carter%20review%20cover.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: "Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't do reviews for <i>The Slings and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide </i>as often as I'd like, but I did manage to write one recently. The subject is Jamie McKelvie and Marika Cresta's rather nice <i>Captain Carter: Woman Out of Time</i>.</span><br /> <p></p><p><a href="https://theslingsandarrows.com/captain-carter-woman-out-of-time/">https://theslingsandarrows.com/captain-carter-woman-out-of-time/</a></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-12070425357887834312023-05-15T17:58:00.003+01:002023-05-15T18:14:06.224+01:00Vapour Trails: Klaus Voormann special.<p><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFAdQbCGGMmPi3A42kQ_PZZxpq2eh6U0ekWb0VeHSc9q5WhQlz8MmNt5Npw0-kSLhHB-Bjxe8noSF-QRdE9SV7PguINfDygRjUegBV9Gg1XBAdhMbJFNXgvhtzYSc-hPiSzJAGZVh4ne_DX5VqQiRFZKAOplXYh7iUtRVhnRjsIZr5kwYa" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="620" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFAdQbCGGMmPi3A42kQ_PZZxpq2eh6U0ekWb0VeHSc9q5WhQlz8MmNt5Npw0-kSLhHB-Bjxe8noSF-QRdE9SV7PguINfDygRjUegBV9Gg1XBAdhMbJFNXgvhtzYSc-hPiSzJAGZVh4ne_DX5VqQiRFZKAOplXYh7iUtRVhnRjsIZr5kwYa" width="262" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Klaus Voormann's drawing of the Plastic Ono Band rehearsing on the plane going over to their first gig in Toronto in 1969, as discussed in the programme.<br /> </td></tr></tbody></table><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have done another of my internet radio appearances, this time discussing the career of Klaus Voormann. Thanks to Steve Brooks for allowing me on the air again.</span><div><br /></div><div><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.spreaker.com/user/radiolewes/vapour-trails-220-11th-may-2023-tony-kla">https://www.spreaker.com/user/radiolewes/vapour-trails-220-11th-may-2023-tony-kla </a></span></div>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10659275.post-17159058411258865842023-04-13T23:32:00.006+01:002023-04-13T23:54:28.540+01:00New article on Doctor Who by me<p><span face=""Segoe UI Historic", "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh4sgs4YaScGlCpPduaDZSdhLI8OigOF2hbWEX5szx2vzc1u4EXXPJN16CLPOzgzoCJG6rcw6HOwcJlz_NEN7ExY40Xd6mzCPhlrEZ-FHgwx_Vf77ByHwU0rD9rNTWivyrrSIFmfMFaipzKLfugXZz2l_Fm7exjUep8Q8Oar4rVMoQw0XO3" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="330" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh4sgs4YaScGlCpPduaDZSdhLI8OigOF2hbWEX5szx2vzc1u4EXXPJN16CLPOzgzoCJG6rcw6HOwcJlz_NEN7ExY40Xd6mzCPhlrEZ-FHgwx_Vf77ByHwU0rD9rNTWivyrrSIFmfMFaipzKLfugXZz2l_Fm7exjUep8Q8Oar4rVMoQw0XO3" width="240" /></a></div>There's <a href="https://doctorwhottz.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-terrible-zodin-issue-24-spring-2023.html">a new issue</a> of <i>Doctor Who </i>fanzine <i>The Terrible Zodin</i> out, the penultimate issue. I have a piece in it, on why <i>Doctor Who </i>is a mythology, and how that affects the way in which we approach the show, and in particular issues of canon and continuity. <p></p>Tony Keenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07125792825206480340noreply@blogger.com0