Anyone looking forward to this one? Dave's been waiting on it for quite a while now...
Indeed I am.
My Great Uncle died there 1.6.1940. 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards. He is buried in St Sever Cemetery in Rouen. His brother was killed a week later on HMS Glorious when it was sunk by the Gneisnau in controversial circumstances.
Frankly not too impressed with the trailer.
I liked the trailer so am looking forward to the film.
Definitely looks interesting to me
Meh.
It's like I've already seen this before (BBC Dunkirk series and Atonement), so it doesn't seem that interesting.
Eric
Oh I don't know; there's nothing we Brits like more than a successful defeat.
I wonder where it was filmed as when they did Attonement it was filmed on my home town beach (Redcar) just a few miles away from Pendraken HQ :D :D :D :D :D
Part of it was filmed in/near Urk in the Netherlands, but I don't think that was the beach scenes.
Quote from: skywalker on 16 December 2016, 09:46:41 AM
I wonder where it was filmed as when they did Attonement it was filmed on my home town beach (Redcar) just a few miles away from Pendraken HQ :D :D :D :D :D
Indeed! A couple of friends worked as extras in that one as well.
13 seconds into the trailer there is a Union Flag and it is wrongly made.
If they can't get a Union Flag correct then heaven help them with the rest of the details.
Quote from: jimduncanuk on 16 December 2016, 05:23:55 PM
13 seconds into the trailer there is a Union Flag and it is wrongly made.
If they can't get a Union Flag correct then heaven help them with the rest of the details.
"The broad white stripe of St Patrick should be running towards the pole"
Quote from: Sunray on 16 December 2016, 06:55:32 PM
"The broad white stripe of St Patrick should be running towards the pole"
Nope, that's not correct either.
My first thought was
"where's all the French then?"
looks like more anglophile myth BS to me
Quote from: jimduncanuk on 16 December 2016, 05:23:55 PM
13 seconds into the trailer there is a Union Flag and it is wrongly made.
If they can't get a Union Flag correct then heaven help them with the rest of the details.
The broad white stripe, which is atop the red saltire branch going to the top of the pole, should then be followed by thin, thick, thin, thick, thin whichever direction you go, clockwise or anti clockwise.
Mollinary
Quote from: Zippee on 17 December 2016, 09:50:40 AM
My first thought was
"where's all the French then?"
looks like more anglophile myth BS to me
The more likely response to a blockbuster is surely, "Where's all the Americans then?"
1. We will believe Dunkirk was a small village in Scotland.
2. Putting the French in it would only further confuse us.
3. We make no distinction between the 1707 flag and the 1801 flag (in freeze frame it looks correct - the one on beach in beginning).
We know you guys are the ones with the red, white and blues crosses and X's.
I will see the movie because I remember reading in the 1950's (in Readers Digest I think) "The Miricle of Dunkirk" and was very taken by the story.
Nosher, thanks for sharing your family history - hard price.
Oops - on further study you are right! About the flag! Apologies.
At first I thought it was upside down - but no OR fly and staff reversed - not that either - Chinese knock-off?
Quote from: d_Guy on 17 December 2016, 03:48:51 PM
Oops - on further study you are right! About the flag! Apologies.
At first I thought it was upside down - but no OR fly and staff reversed - not that either - Chinese knock-off?
It's easy enough to fly the Union flag upside down, I see them like that all the time, even in the UK, it's just plain ignorance.
There are also flag making companies who make them wrongly and that is worse than ignorance, it's insulting.
At least ours is unmistakable upside-down or reversed but from time to time I see the star pattern (and/or count) incorrect for the proported period. Even now an occasional 48 star will show up (and much rarer, a 49). That's more thrift than ignorance but poor protocol none the less.
To quote Abe Simpson"The flag only has 49 stars because I refuse to acknowledge Wisconsin."
There a lot of that going on at the moment :)
When it comes to Brexit I think that for once the Americans trumped it!
Quote from: Leman on 17 December 2016, 02:09:40 PM
The more likely response to a blockbuster is surely, "Where's all the Americans then?"
So true - of course Dunkirk is their fault - bloody late a usual :D
To be fair, it wasn't that long after that the USN steamed its battleships up and down the North Sea looking for an accident to happen so they could enthusiastically apply the principle of armed neutrality.
Probably the best scenario for getting USN battleships to fight Kreigsmarine battleships tbh :D
My Grandad was a tad unlucky in the Battle of France and Dunkirk. His unit was patiently waiting for pick up (he was a cobbler in the service elements of 51st Highland), when they heard over the BBC radio that the last British soldiers in France had been successfully picked up the night before and were safely back in the UK, HUZZAH! Needless to say the rest of "his war" was spent in rather unpleasant circumstances in German PoW camps. Or later, being marched starving and barefoot around Eastern Europe.
Interesting in both cases, Pixie. Another unheralded benefit of the forum is many of the personal stories.
The USN "hello, do you mind us parking battleships here? How about here? Was that a sub? Oooo nearly ran it over. How about we sail riiiiight alooooong here, no no, we're not doing convoy escort, just happen to be cruising along locked and loaded next to them" might have been '41, to be fair :D
There's a very good book written by another PoW about his experiences, which were pretty much the same as my Grandads. I've a copy upstairs in the book pile somewhere, think it's the Longest March or Last March? Never managed to finish it as it's actually a bit close to home in places!
My first platoon sergeant/minder was a Dunkirk vet. 96 Royal Marines were sent into Calais as a rear guard "the Sacrifice Army"
His story is on line at WW2talk.com . Churchill ordered it. They held out until 26 May.
Bill was a professional soldier and after sojourn in a POW camp resumed his career with Royals. He served in Korea and a lot of other minor scraps. Bill died in 2011 aged 88. I am proud to have served with him, and to have enjoyed the comradeship of that generation.
Crikey, he was young then. Join up at 17, get posted, get sacrificed?
Quote from: toxicpixie on 22 December 2016, 08:22:25 PM
Crikey, he was young then. Join up at 17, get posted, get sacrificed?
Quite, Bill was 16 years and 6 months when he was attested at Deal in June 1939. He completed his basic training and passed out with Kings Squad at Chatham in December of that year.
His "watch" was deployed to first cover the embarkation at Boulogne and then to Calais where they held out for 72 hours in what was called the Citadel.
Bill believed that a lot of the BEF were saved thanks to those 72 hours of reckless gallantry.
The British Army were still deploying seventeen year olds to active service as late as 1973
Hi Pixie
I have a copy of a book published in 1946 by a guy who was in 51st Highland Division and captured in St Valery in 1940 called 'We Missed the Boat' about his experiences as POW during the war. He was, for a time at least, in the same prisoner of war camp as my dad who was also in the BEF and captured during the retreat to Dunkirk. He was also on the 'Death March' across Europe in 1945. I also have a book by Sam Kydd, 'For You the War is Over', the actor who some people may remember, who was also in the same camp as my dad.
Small world!
Cheers Paul
Quote from: Sunray on 22 December 2016, 09:09:50 PM
Quite, Bill was 16 years and 6 months when he was attested at Deal in June 1939. He completed his basic training and passed out with Kings Squad at Chatham in December of that year.
His "watch" was deployed to first cover the embarkation at Boulogne and then to Calais where they held out for 72 hours in what was called the Citadel.
Bill believed that a lot of the BEF were saved thanks to those 72 hours of reckless gallantry.
The British Army were still deploying seventeen year olds to active service as late as 1973
Weren't we accidentally deploying them very recently, as I recall - the UN complained at our usage of child soldiers. Although as I understand it the recent ones were a bit of an admin cock up as they shouldn't have been deployed outside the UK until they were 18+...
And yes, Bill may well have been right, but it's not much fun being the forlorn hope :/
Quote from: T13A on 22 December 2016, 09:14:02 PM
Hi Pixie
I have a copy of a book published in 1946 by a guy who was in 51st Highland Division and captured in St Valery in 1940 called 'We Missed the Boat' about his experiences as POW during the war. He was, for a time at least, in the same prisoner of war camp as my dad who was also in the BEF and captured during the retreat to Dunkirk. He was also on the 'Death March' across Europe in 1945. I also have a book by Sam Kydd, 'For You the War is Over', the actor who some people may remember, who was also in the same camp as my dad.
Small world!
Cheers Paul
Small world indeed, they're likely in the same camp and on the same marches.
In another small world turn of fate, just before he died my Grandad was in hospital, and the chap in the bed opposite said to my Gran "Is that Ronald Hxxx? Last time I saw him was when I got on the boat in 1940 on the evening and said I'd see him in Dover when he got the morning evacuation run the next day".
They'd lived in the same town for sixty odd years.
Sadly he was non-compos mentis by then, although as he was always very very quiet about that period of his life, I dunno if it would have good or bad to have understood :/
Quote from: toxicpixie on 22 December 2016, 11:04:00 PM
Weren't we accidentally deploying them very recently, as I recall - the UN complained at our usage of child soldiers. Although as I understand it the recent ones were a bit of an admin cock up as they shouldn't have been deployed outside the UK until they were 18+...
And yes, Bill may well have been right, but it's not much fun being the forlorn hope :/
Fusilier John McCraig , (aged 17) 1st Batt. Royal Highland Fusiliers was abducted and murdered by Martin Meehan (Provisional IRA) on 10 March 1971. The law was then formally changed to prevent deployment of under 18s to active service.
I do hope the movie reflects these sacrifices by the Royal Marines AND 150th ( French) Infantry Regiment
The law was changed, but we kept on - deployed 17y/o's to the Gulf in '91, and Kosovo in '99. Then we changed the rules to stop deploying them where there was the possibility of active combat but twenty odd under 18's served in current Iraq and Afghanistan "in error". With what, a quarter of recruits being under eighteen it must hard to get enough blokes together who ARE old enough to serve. Mind, it was worse a couple of decades back - something like 50% of recruits were 16-17 in about 2000 :/
If an American made film about Dunkirk even mentions the entire British Armed Forces at all I'd be impressed :D If it differentiates between British Army, Royal Marines AND mentions the French as anything other than depressingly inaccurate whipping boys I'll be gobsmacked ;)
There were child soldiers packing shopping bags in Waitrose yesterday.
If it was anything like my local Asda yesterday, that's a bloody brave move and deserves an active service medal!
It's the season of goodwill and cheer and elbows and ignorance, it seems.
Quote from: Leman on 23 December 2016, 10:07:55 AM
There were child soldiers packing shopping bags in Waitrose yesterday.
Quote from: toxicpixie on 23 December 2016, 10:18:03 AM
If it was anything like my local Asda yesterday
I think one will find that Waitrose is never like Asda. ;)
We went to Morrisons this morning - busy but more from random wandering with trolleys and families in tow. They had no Turkeys. >:( One quick trip to Tesco later, who had many Turkeys, and that near disaster was averted.
Are you sure?
http://southendnewsnetwork.com/news/police-called-as-waitrose-southend-coffee-machine-fight-ends-in-9-arrests/
Satire, before anyone goes weird :D