Season 10

2012-03-06 · 44m

The bizarre story of a forgotten propaganda film made by the Nazis about the sinking of the Titanic. Made at the height of World War II, this film was conceived as the ultimate propaganda movie with the famous disaster recast as a story of Allied weakness and German courage. At the time it was one of the most expensive and ambitious movies ever filmed. The story of its creation rivals a Hollywood movie script with tales of betrayal, murder and massacre. It featured military personnel moved from the front to act as extras, the director was arrested and possibly executed on the orders of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and, in the last days of the war, the ship used for the filming was sank, as the Nazis tried to cover up the horrors of the Holocaust. For 60 years, the film was shrouded in secrecy. Now, using Goebbels’s private diaries, unseen home-movies shot behind-the-scenes during the production and the original production design book, we reveal for the first time the extraordinary story of the Nazi Titanic.

2012-03-13 · 44m

On April 2nd 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, in the South Atlantic, 8,000 miles from the UK. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to send a naval taskforce to liberate the islands. In this programme, senior officers who served in the campaign, among them Major-General Julian Thompson, reveal how appalling weather, overstretched British air defences, poor communications and even incompetence sometimes stacked the odds heavily against the British. Veterans of some of the bloodiest battles talk us through the fighting. Their personal accounts reveal how professionalism and sheer courage overcame these problems. The film reveals chilling parallels with current government budget cuts. In 1982, Defence Minister John Nott was on the brink of scrapping Britain’s amphibious warfare capabilities. If the Argentinians had invaded just eight weeks later, the ships and equipment needed for the operation would already have been decommissioned. There are also shocking accounts of British warships destroyed by Argentinian bombs, men burnt alive, bombs crashing through the decks of ships, night attacks up mountainous slopes and merciless hand-to-hand fighting, all made worse by unsuitable equipment and shortages of helicopters. By explaining the hair-raising realities of individual battles, this programme sheds new light on a decisive and historic British victory.

2012-03-20 · 44m

How did a rehearsal for D-Day on a sleepy stretch of the Devon coast turn into a bloodbath resulting in the death of hundreds of Allied soldiers? 'Exercise Tiger' was the Allies' worst training disaster of the 20th century - a combination of allied incompetence and enemy infiltration that was hushed up until 1984. Survivor and eye-witness accounts, top-secret documents, film archive and findings from underwater excavations help to reveal the secrecy and conflicting evidence that persists to this day.

2012-03-27 · 44m

The story of how a small band of pioneering aircraft designers and engineers invented modern warfare in the four years between 1914 and 1918, turning the aeroplane from an eccentric novelty to the decisive weapon of modern conflict. The programme includes a series of dazzling aerial experiments, as present-day test pilots push the meticulously re-created planes to the limit. On both sides of the war, experimental engineers scrabbled for superiority of the skies, with British pioneers like Geoffrey de Havilland competing to out do Anton Fokker, the Dutchman whose planes helped Germany to dominate the sky. These were men working in the dark with a brand-new technology, battling the scepticism of their superiors while the fate of thousands of men rested on their ability to beat the enemy to the next engineering breakthrough. Demonstrations and experiments with the aviators show the mechanical evolution of military air power by the Allies and Germany to reveal how visionary technology saw the emergence of the first fighter planes and a major shift in modern warfare. The rivalry between German and Allied engineers pushed the planes to new heights. We see how the need for accurate sketches led to changes in planes, how complications with air-to-ground communications led to advanced radios and, crucially, how the need to protect the pilots led to race for plane armament and the development of the first all-purpose fighter plane. With no living survivors from the Great War, the experiences and knowledge from the Vintage Aviators flying and making these machines provide an opportunity to reveal these unsung heroes of World War I, and how the most pioneering branch of the military played a crucial part in winning the war.

2012-08-30 · 44m

Find out how a group of experts pieced together the complex history of a priceless gold Celtic cauldron found at the bottom of a lake in Bavaria, and its connections with a number of notorious historical figures. They examine why it may be linked to Adolf Hitler's search for the Holy Grail and Heinrich Himmler's shrine to the SS as well as the Mafia and an international fraud trial where millions of dollars are at stake.

2012-09-06 · 44m

In the late 16th century Europe was in the grip of a ferocious witch hunt, where thousands were tortured and burnt at the stake. The church was fully behind this terrifying crusade against the imaginary enemies of Christianity. In France and Germany alone up to 40,000 people may have been killed as witches. But England and Scotland were almost untouched by witch persecutions until King James himself decided to launch his own, personal war on witchcraft. In 1597 King James VI of Scotland published 'Daemonology', a handbook on how to recognise and destroy, witches. The book explored the threat that 'those Detestable slaves of the Devil', posed to James himself. It fuelled waves of witch hunting throughout Britain. The legacy of James' 'Daemonology' continued throughout the 17th century, and led to the torture and execution of hundreds of women in a series of infamous witch trials. No-one knows exactly how many men and women died in these trials, such as the Pendle trial of 1612, or how many others were killed in cases that never came to court. The documentary reveals the purges in many areas of Britain drew directly on King James' book. Also for the first time, remarkable new archaeological evidence from Cornwall, suggests that witchcraft was actively practiced for centuries, even during the most intense periods of witch-hunting. Experimental archaeologist Jacqui Wood has excavated strange pits lined with swan's feathers, and filled with animal skins and human remains. She believes the pits were ritual offerings inspired by witchcraft beliefs.

2012-09-25 · 44m

As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, this film reveals an unnerving and long-hidden side to the events of October 1962. Today, the public remembers Kennedy and Khrushchev's public battle of wills. However, away from the spotlight of global politics, this programme reveals a shocking drama on board a Russian submarine, which brought the world closer to World War III than anyone had ever thought. As the world held its breath, four Soviet submarines sailed for Cuba while the might of the US Navy was unleashed to hunt them down. On 27th October, with the crisis at its height, the two made contact. Surrounded by hunter-killer groups depth-charging his submarine to drive it to the surface, Captain Savitsky panicked. Unable to contact Moscow and fearing the war had begun, he ordered the launch of his 'special weapon' – a nuclear torpedo with the same payload as the bomb that devastated Hiroshima. Along with Savitsky, two other men had to authorise the fire – the political officer Masslenikov and the chief of staff, Arkhipov. With temperatures reaching 120ºF and CO2 levels growing dangerously high, Masslenikov agreed. All they needed to unleash nuclear Armageddon was the say-so of one man. The story of what happened that fateful day remained hidden for decades, only emerging in Russia in recent years. With brand-new eye witness accounts, the first ever TV interview with Arkhipov's widow and dramatic reconstruction, this documentary reveals the actions of Vasili Arkhipov, the man who saved the world.