Thanks Rob!
Supplying footage of incorrect planes is understandable; there is little accurate footage available, so sometimes substitutions are made, but to hire (pay appearances fees to) "experts" who don't know their own subject is unforgivable!
It is possible that the editing process resulted in their comments being shown out of context (eg the
Kido Butai consisting of 4 aircraft carriers - there were 6 on the Pearl Harbour operation, 5 on the Indian Ocean raid and 4 at Midway, so the number of available aircraft would have varied) but someone must have reviewed the final edit, and failed to spot all the errors.
Sometimes the script for the narrator is exaggerated for greater impact of the audience, and sometimes the omission of a single word can produce an entirely misleading result; my personal pet hate for this is Operation "Overlord".........
Many programmes falsely claim that this was "the biggest invasion in history" - 40,000 men in a single day.
What they
SHOULD have said is "the biggest
AMPHIBIOUS invasion in history"!
Operation "Barbarossa" saw more than 1 million men cross the Soviet border on the first day, with nearly 3 million in the first two weeks! "Overlord" can hardly be called bigger than that, and yet some programmes do, for want of proper research and wording of their script.
This "Wings of War" programme did not err in the same way (except perhaps in the comment with the Battle of Midway being "the greatest naval encounter the world had ever seen" - what they mean by "greatest" is up for debate), but getting the basic facts about the aircraft wrong (whether or not they had a bomb bay with doors, or whether or not they carried a torpedo) is inexcusable, particularly in the internet age, when huge amounts of information are clearly and easily available.
It seems the programme has confused the Dauntless and the Avenger, assigning a bomb bay with doors and the capacity to carry a torpedo to the Dauntless, when both were true of the Avenger.
It's not just TV programmes which do it - films are frequently presented as "historically accurate" (yet I have known Historical Advisors/Consultants silenced and/or fired from the Set for pointing out errors!), and even stamps and coins are poorly researched and incorrectly presented.
In my "History of the Royal Navy" silver coin collection, the "Ark Royal 1933" coin is accompanied by a full colour information card portraying the "Ark Royal 1980", complete with service record and beautiful artwork!
In my "World War Two" silver coin collection, the Spitfire on the "Battle of Britain" coin is a Mk IX!!!!! In the "Halfaya Pass" coin, the British 6pdr anti-tank guns are shown fending off Tiger tanks (prototype barely out of the factory, and CERTAINLY none present in the North African Western Desert in 1942)!!!!
The coins are beautifully engraved, but just plain WRONG! Sadly, the general public are blissfully unaware...........................
Blimey, seems it really DOES get my goat!
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