Weak emotional exploitation, historical content minimal

World War II veterans recall the extraordinary detail of their battles beginning with the D-Day landings.

Anna Thomson

D-Day

The use of the cliché &apos;Heroes&apos; in the title is a clue to the approach of this &apos;documentary&apos;, which provides almost no information about D-Day beyond the recollections of the veterans interviewed. No attempt whatsoever is made to tie their words into the bigger picture of what occurred in June 1944, and by omission and implication, viewers are actually misled. The gratuitous graphics and editing, which vacillate between whizz-bang &apos;stuff blowing up&apos; and trite ultra-close ups of the men interviewed, is tedious.

The producers have clearly decided to make this for the disengaged public. A VERY disengaged public. An example is the map provided: it has five arrows for the five Allied armies, and that&apos;s it for any detail: France is a brown void, the &apos;German&apos; army is a random series of Nazi eagles stamped along the coast, and one city is marked: Caen, which is repeatedly cited as the first-day objective. No other towns, no terrain or rivers, and the map is not used to show the extent of Allied penetration. German forces are ignored beyond the random eagle stamps. Can&apos;t overwhelm the poor, dim public I suppose.

To reinforce the dumbness, we are given constant re-runs of a little pyrotechnic effort the producers made, blowing up some mock defences. This, it was claimed, was to let us &apos;really see what they saw&apos;. Apparently, they saw the same plaster pill-box explode in slow motion, over and over again. Saves having to use the actual D-Day footage, I suppose, of which there is a minimal amount. Footage of German forces is randomly selected and repetitive, and mostly early war stuff including railway guns. There is no attempt to differentiate the conditions on the separate beaches, and the hard landing on Omaha is implied to represent the entire experience, of landing into the teeth of a prepared and little-suppressed defence.

Taking an a priori &apos;horror of war&apos; position, viewers are told about the terrible mistakes of &apos;the generals&apos;. One is reminded of Montgomery Burns running for governor, blaming all problems on &apos;those bureaucrats&apos;. Chapters in the show cover the various defences: &apos;Mines&apos; tells us all about mines. Well, only really that they blow people up, sadly nothing about the many ways the mine threat was dealt with on the day. This is especially disappointing as one of the veterans interviewed was from the 22nd Dragoons, which used engineer tanks specifically designed to overcome beach defences and whose success was one of the great stories of D-Day. All we need to know about concrete bunkers is that the way to destroy them was to lob a grenade inside, Commando-comic style.

In all, lame, simplistic, and.... dumb.

So what&apos;s good? The interviews with the veterans are excellent, and very moving. Harold Baumbach from New York, wounded five times before being evacuated, is especially compelling. But any attempt by them to explain broader issues is edited out in the &quot;Tell us how you FELT when...&quot; tabloid tradition.

A problem our peaceful generation has with war memorial is a tendency to elevate elderly veterans to &apos;hero&apos; status, and emphasise their immediate experiences and emotional reactions to the exclusion of trying to understand just what is was they achieved, what they were involved in, and why. &quot;The Last Heroes&quot; is another instantly forgettable addition to what Richard Holmes called &quot;historian as copy-writer&quot;. A cheap product for a ready market, I&apos;m sure it made easy money for someone.

The use of the cliché 'Heroes' in the title is a clue to the approach of this 'documentary', which provides almost no information about D-Day beyond the recollections of the veterans interviewed. No attempt whatsoever is made to tie their words into the bigger picture of what occurred in June 1944, and by omission and implication, viewers are actually misled. The gratuitous graphics and editing, which vacillate between whizz-bang 'stuff blowing up' and trite ultra-close ups of the men interviewed, is tedious.

The producers have clearly decided to make this for the disengaged public. A VERY disengaged public. An example is the map provided: it has five arrows for the five Allied armies, and that's it for any detail: France is a brown void, the 'German' army is a random series of Nazi eagles stamped along the coast, and one city is marked: Caen, which is repeatedly cited as the first-day objective. No other towns, no terrain or rivers, and the map is not used to show the extent of Allied penetration. German forces are ignored beyond the random eagle stamps. Can't overwhelm the poor, dim public I suppose.

To reinforce the dumbness, we are given constant re-runs of a little pyrotechnic effort the producers made, blowing up some mock defences. This, it was claimed, was to let us 'really see what they saw'. Apparently, they saw the same plaster pill-box explode in slow motion, over and over again. Saves having to use the actual D-Day footage, I suppose, of which there is a minimal amount. Footage of German forces is randomly selected and repetitive, and mostly early war stuff including railway guns. There is no attempt to differentiate the conditions on the separate beaches, and the hard landing on Omaha is implied to represent the entire experience, of landing into the teeth of a prepared and little-suppressed defence.

Taking an a priori 'horror of war' position, viewers are told about the terrible mistakes of 'the generals'. One is reminded of Montgomery Burns running for governor, blaming all problems on 'those bureaucrats'. Chapters in the show cover the various defences: 'Mines' tells us all about mines. Well, only really that they blow people up, sadly nothing about the many ways the mine threat was dealt with on the day. This is especially disappointing as one of the veterans interviewed was from the 22nd Dragoons, which used engineer tanks specifically designed to overcome beach defences and whose success was one of the great stories of D-Day. All we need to know about concrete bunkers is that the way to destroy them was to lob a grenade inside, Commando-comic style.

In all, lame, simplistic, and.... dumb.

So what's good? The interviews with the veterans are excellent, and very moving. Harold Baumbach from New York, wounded five times before being evacuated, is especially compelling. But any attempt by them to explain broader issues is edited out in the "Tell us how you FELT when..." tabloid tradition.

A problem our peaceful generation has with war memorial is a tendency to elevate elderly veterans to 'hero' status, and emphasise their immediate experiences and emotional reactions to the exclusion of trying to understand just what is was they achieved, what they were involved in, and why. "The Last Heroes" is another instantly forgettable addition to what Richard Holmes called "historian as copy-writer". A cheap product for a ready market, I'm sure it made easy money for someone.

bappamtv

D-Day

🎬 Technical Specs

🎯 Categories

⭐ Featured Review

📖 Synopsis