I had just started reading Most Secret War b R. V. Jones, and then I came upon this treasure. I got to see him tell the story about which I had just read, in his own words!! THANK YOU!!
Totally agree , great book . Another is Operation Crossbow , the true story of the photo reconnaissance department based at RAF medmenham . It puts a slightly different spin on ‘Most Secret war’ in fact at one point criticising RV Jones . Yes agreeing with another comment, this clip shows how brilliant the BBC once was , it’s an absolute disgrace now . We don’t have a television in the house getting our current affairs from other less bias sources.
I saw these when first broadcast. It changed my life and I became obsessed by it, reading everything I could get my hands on. Now much older, I can appreciate as well the quality of way the episodes were put together and narrated.
Prof. R.V. Jones sounds like one of those brilliant British boffins without whom the war would have been over in six months - with a very different outcome. Hats off to you, sir.
I said before there should be a statue to Tommy Flowers in Trafalgar Square but because he wasn't a Cambridge or Oxford man his contribution was never properly recognised.
To be fair there weren’t statues of any of the leading lights. Any academic knows they’re nothing without a good technician. A good technician makes theory fact. The whole team was greater than the sum of the parts.
There should be statue of R V Jones and one of Robert Watson-Watt in Trafalgar square. But the wokists want to put a statue of a Nigerian woman or some sort of monument to trans sex workers there. What the hell has happened to this nation?
RV Jones was a phenomenally smart guy. After the war he became professor of Natural Philosophy at Aberdeen University . I studied there from 1969 -72 and he gave us lectures on a wide variety of topics including computer programming in Fortran. He was a great experimentalist and devised an experiment that measured how much the city of Aberdeen dropped when the tide came in!
Your good fortune for sure! I read the Wizard War about 30 or 40 years ago and found it waaaaaaay good. Some large parts of this video match up with some large parts of this book, but either my memory fails or some large parts do not. Thus, I consider the video, despite its length, a welcome worthwhile wizardly supplement to the book.
R.V.Jones is a classic English archetype, seems on first look to be a bit of an old buffer, but good grief I'm extremely glad he was on our side, the bloke is a stone cold killer, very very dangerous indeed! Respect.
Remember watching this when I was a lad. Fantastic series with expert knowledge and input from those who were actually involved in this top secret work. All hosted by a presenter who really knew his subject matter.
Speaking of Top Secret, now that i've watched this a few times i realize there are a few instances of Sabotage that's not being spotlighted. Missing equipment on the night to be implemented, a plane crash killing Scientists of the program. and opposition in Command towards developing the system.
As an Australian visiting the UK and Europe for the first time in 2019, I found that the once severely wounded HMS Belfast is a part of the Imperial War Museum moored over the river from the Tower of London. Although only in London for 3 days, I made sure I visited the Belfast. It was recalling "The Secret War" series how the magnetic mine had broken the back of the Belfast and only added to the urgency of finding a solution to the magnetic mine that made the visit to the ship that much more special.
With the advent of all that I have watched on You Tube and now this series I must say You Tube is invaluable as an educational tool. Thank you so very much.
Absolutely FIRST CLASS documentary. With many of the people involved giving their first hand accounts and all held together by the excellent William Woolard of "Tomorrow's World" fame. Thank you for this fantastic post.
A brilliant series made at a time when those who’d been involved in the war were still alive and able to contribute. The thing I remember most vividly is the Oslo Report passed to the British embassy in Norway by German scientist Hans Ferdinand Mayer. We owe him a massive debt of thanks.
Thanks for putting this up the RDF/Radar was fascinating. I always wondered why my father who was a MW A & G and went from AC2 to a W/O in 2 years. The RAAF sent him to the UK and then back to Australia. His service records show a lot of attachments to various airfields & squadrons but none near any front line.
I was a technician for US Marine Corps electronic warfare aircraft in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. These stories form the history of the life I led. Indeed, forty plus years later these stories are still an important part of electronic warfare heritage.
This was a really interesting series when first broadcast. It seems even more valuable now when you realise just how many first- person accounts it managed to capture. Probably the last opportunity to get so much information and opinion from those who were directly involved.
One of the very best documentaries on the subject extant. Although clearly very Anglo-centric, it’s brilliant and timeless with its inclusion of so many of the actual key participants of the British and German war efforts. Brilliant!
Wonderful, so glad I came across this. Saw it when originally broadcast and was fascinated by it all. Since then, so much more, in particular aspects of Bletchley Park have come to light. Parts of it have been refurbished and saved for posterity and turned into a museum. Thank you for saving and making this available to us all. de GW8TVX
One of the best doc i saw on the tube , a lot of technical infos (not just general concepts ). Coventry bombardment is a real misery to see . Humanity has to not go to war ...@ any cost of compromises , fight back only for survival ...as Allies did for nazees.
This is absolutely brilliant - I remember this as an 8-year-old vaguely and my brother bought the book to accompany the series. Well done for getting it on youtube! They don't make series like this any more. William Woollard shows his enthusiasm. I thoroughly recommend this.
Steve M ..I used to make a point of watching this excellent series...No means of recording in those days, so you had to be in front of the T.V. , on transmission time.
I still have the hardback book. I remember aged 12 crawling out of my bed in hospital after having my appendix removed to go to the TV lounge and watch this.
@@grahamfigg5817 Hello Graham. Yes I still have my hardback copy too of the secret war. Ive read it cover to cover many times and learn something new each time. I'm sat in my lounge watching the series right now about Battle of the beams . The UK at its best when we WERE Great Britain.
Really good series first shown by the BBC in 1977. Bill Woollard is now 80 & like his colleague Raymond Baxter from Tomorrow's World were both former RAF Pilots.
"The blue light of the "master searchlight" was a fiction of the bomber crews themselves as was proven after the war. After a while, during the war the command gave up trying to convince them of the non-existence. 😎 I got this from a fantastic book by Gavin Lyall "The war in the air, the RAF in WW2". I've read many 100's of WW2 books and this may be my favorite. The format is completely different. He takes the view of the pilots themselves, maintenance, security, etc. No generals or battles, moving divisions and the like. I'm not doing it justice here. I highly recommend it to any serious student of WW2.
The Germans DID use radar directed 200cm "master searchlights" with a number of smaller 150cm searchlights to hold individual bombers in a triangulated web of light.
One of the most wonderful documentary series ever made by the BBC. I watched it on Monday nights on the BBC in the late 70's (probably 1977) it made me want to be a scientist.
Sir ! Thank you for posting this series, considering the political situation at present, students of 20th Century History should watch this along with other documentaries made in the 70s about how WE fought tooth and nail for our freedoms. Don't piss it all away to the Communists.
A fantastic documentary to understand the more technical aspects of the war particularly with radar. Back when these doc's were on the telly, you knew if William Woollard was presenting it, then it was going to be good. I still have a copy of a great series on nuclear energy presented by WW and I try to adopt his style when asked about the subject. Thanks for the upload, I watched it till' the end. Cheers!!!
@@amonra915 For sure you might run into copyright problems... GOOD FOR YOU THOUGH, keep them safe sorry I'm unable to give advice regards uploading( I upload some of my own DRIVLE just short talking-head vids) videos that are long running and if you've not yourself created it I don't know what hoops you'd need to jump through.
First time seeing this and I’m staggered. So much footage I had not seen, and I’m absolutely hooked. As many have said already: it’s a genuine shame that documentaries like this are no longer made; especially by the bbc. A lot of the footage is used in the series: ‘secrets of world war two’ and ‘gladiators of world war two’. Both narrated by Robert Powell and are also a fantastic watch.
The interviews with those having direct experience of the events portrayed in very useful to the understanding of the subject matter. No modern documentary can now achieve because of the passage of time and the passing of the interviewees. This makes history interesting and relevent.
Thank you very much for posting this. I read the companion book and Most Secret War by RV Jones about 20 years ago. It was terrific with seeing the actual people involved talking about it rather then actors recreating the scenes as modern shows do. Only the last two episodes didn't seem as well done as the others. Still, very much worth your time watching it.
A truely fantastic documentary! Regarding the last episode and the deciphering of the ”fish” cypher, it is worth mentioning the brilliant work done by Arne Beurling who cracked such a machine as far as I understand. From wiki it says: ”In the summer of 1940 he single-handedly deciphered and reverse-engineered an early version of the Siemens and Halske T52 also known as the Geheimfernschreiber ("secret teletypewriter") used by Nazi Germany in World War II for sending ciphered messages.[3] The T52 was one of the so-called "Fish cyphers", that, using transposition, created nearly one quintillion (893,622,318,929,520,960) different variations. It took Beurling two weeks to solve the problem using pen and paper. Using Beurling's work, a device was created that enabled Sweden to decipher German teleprinter traffic passing through Sweden from Norway on a cable. In this way, Swedish authorities knew about Operation Barbarossa before it occurred.”
Because 'in the main' it was virtually an all 'British' secret war front. The German cypher machine was in fact the Lorenz Z40/42 series. Which we know much, much more of how it was cracked today, than we were told back in 1977.
Stunningly amazing and interesting....a masterpiece series and an invaluable source of information from the people that actually lived and survived those epic and terrible days.....by far the best documentaries I 've ever seen. Thank you very much.
Very well said. I watched the original TV transmissions in 1977, and bought the VHS set, in the early 80's, then the DVD set, more recently. Unfortunately the last ( 7th) episode was edited, and squeezed into the 6th Disc. I kept my VHS tapes, it is still good quality. The great William Woollard was narrator, none better.
At about 50 minutes, the Graf Zeppelin being unable to detect British radar…….this minor mystery was because the Germans were using radar themselves at much higher frequencies than the British. They never thought we would use such low frequencies for our radar.
Thanks for posting this. Very interesting.There are a few inaccuracies, but that is merely a consequence of more information coming to light since this documentary was made. My favourite quote from this presentation would be: "The Germans had developed 10 cm radar, but by then all they could detect was defeat."
I would understand that you have questions about accuracy but please consider that when this series was make way back in the 1970s, much of the detail was still secret and subject to the official secrets act. Many years later there have been revelations that enlightened younger students, and even older students....the series was considered accurate at the time of its production. PS. Also consider that many contributors were bound by the Official Secrets Act and would possibly have faced imprisonment if they revealed what they knew. Respects to them all.
Added bookmarks to make it easier to find individual episodes Episode 1: "The Battle of the Beams" 00:01 Episode 2: "To See for a Hundred Miles" 49:27 Episode 3: "Terror Weapons" 1:39:20 Episode 4: "If" 2:28:00 Episode 5: "The Deadly Waves" 3:17:20 Episode 6: "Still Secret" 4:06:38
There were originally seven episodes in this series: the seventh being The Battle of The Atlantic which for some unknown reason, was missed off the DVD release. However, it was included in the 1980s BBC VHS release.
This is pretty great. I love how it was able to interview major participants and leaders from respective cabinets, and militaries. Thank you for this gem!
Superb. There are some real heavyweights here - men who were directly involved and who know what they're talking about. Combine that with William Woollard's professional presentation, and the fascinating facts of history, and you have a series that could hardly have been bettered. Thank you for posting.
Steve Augarde, I remember watching this as a teenager (I think), but no matter how old I was it sparked a lifelong interest in History, and mechanical engineering, a profession I was lucky enough to hold for 24 years. Even though war is a disaster for those involved, but many many advances in fields not dedicated to the military machine, Radar, Jet Engines, medicine, and communications to name but a few. Fantastic series that I will be very happy to watch again, but this time I will be able to understand all of it, and not having to ask my dad what they talking about, he was a mechanical engineer as well. Thanks dad.
This documentary is shockingly good. I have seen a *lot* of WW II footage, yet this documentary reveals clip after clip after clip of video I've never seen before. And of course, it is put together in that typically English way - which means it is logical, comprehensible, and all-around excellent.
It's the best war documentary series. In fact I think it's the best documentary series ever made full stop. They had two advantages, firstly by 1977 many classified documents had just been released under the 30 years rule. Secondly it was based around R.V.Jones's book 'Most Secret War', A.J.P.Taylor said it was the best book on WW2.
Thank you for a good programme. Please note that a war (and thus WW2) can only officially start with a declaration of war. UK declared war against Germany on 03 September 1939 and not on 01 September 1939 - with the unilateral hostilities - attack - of Germany on Poland
A most captivating and very well-documented - if not outstanding - informative series. As a long-standing (WWII) 'war expert', I'm surprised I've never come across this excellent documentary in the past - much of which I've never even heard of before. Certainly one of the more often-overlooked aspects of military confrontation, I think *The Secret War* should be required viewing (and/or reading of R.V. Jones acclaimed book, *Most Secret War* [or, *The Wizard War* - US publication title]) for anyone with at least a cursory interest in the history behind the Second World War. So I guess then, ss the 'old saying' goes - either towards history, war, or to anything else of interest in between: The more one acquires knowledge of, the less (it seems) that one actually knows anything about [it] ... And such as it is in just about everything else we endeavour to undertake in life: may it be within ourselves, our families, our pastimes, our place in the world we live in, or of the greater universe - or even of the nature of weapons & warfare [history] itself (that [sadly] essentially shapes us [and quite literally defines us] into how we not only largely [now] relate amongst other ['neighboring'] nations today [and of the past], but more so, of the mere madmen that we've since become [because of it], associated with this acquired ['secret'] knowledge) - we, within the contextual analogy of the aforementioned proverbial aphorism, certainly and conclusively do not gain anything from it, except but to senselessly destroy ourselves within the continuum of the process; it is _that_ 'acquired [evolutionary] process' with which we have yet to fully comprehend as human beings on this planet, and one in which the narrative poses no 'real secret' but for a hidden [global] agenda, that will perhaps soon and ultimately 'define' us sometime within this century ... And by bloody-well 'sure-rights', people - _that's_ the way *_I_* see 'it' ... And you'd goddamn-well better _believe_ it, _'mister!'_
One of the reasons you've not found these documentaries is because BBC Worldwide's lawyers persue those that dare to break their client's copyright, despite the Corporation's apparent disinterest in these programmes themselves. AJP Taylor thought that Most Secret War was the best book about WW2.
James Faulkner II, Your statement is ignorant in that you're replying to a thread that didn't mention the US. The US is the new superpower empire ever since England wasted their's on Sugar, Tea and whatever else the Queen is addicted to. Sex for her spawns, for instance. As someone who knows the USA quite well, I can tell you that too much of the population IS in fact, ignorant but it is largely not their fault. Just like England turned Race against Race by for instance; using taxpayer funded incentives to settle Northern Ireland with Scots, a move that ignored many land claims (common when this sort of thing happens). Funny too because how much closer can you get to being related than Scottish and Irish? There was a motive involved: Distraction. Keep the people fighting amongst themselves while the King (or Queen, if that's all you've got) steals land and other resources. It didn't ever make the news on even the BBC that the fighting in Northern Ireland during the heydays of the IRA was not even targeting the locals but the Crown herself and "her" government, at Westminster Abbey and 10 Downing. "Don't take over Ireland, we're independent from your empire." The BBC also kept the world misinformed when it blamed "ethnic violence" for clashes that split Sudan into 2 countries, only one of them new. They never mentioned that Sudan had oil contracts with China but the newly founded South Sudan had all the oil. It was a USA run, Europe backed coup leaving Sundan smaller and ruined but still partnered with China and no oil. So, the ignorance in the USA is purposeful, it is a deliberate act by fascist sympathetic people who seek power and influence and need to get people to either ignore or obey. Think of it as a country that was set free once. Their monarchy was overthrown but the people were tricked into not ruling by the power of an informed public but rather, leave it in the hands of a group of retards who spit out a new and future "leader" after gestating it for 9 months and all on the back of the taxpayers.
@@roxyraccoon8856 I know murca well as well, I defended it for 16 yrs. Of course the fascists have always sought control and now they have a fascist president. Other than that, have you ever been diagnosed? You may want to have your pattern seeking checked.
James Faulkner II, A British TV series, yet you mention the US? No one else did. No, I'm fine. Recently a narcissist did claim I was narcissistic so, you were saying?
The Armed Forces at the time were chock full of heroes - men who did staggeringly brave and courageous things at great risk to themselves. But there are men in this video who were also heroes, because they managed to make leaps of knowledge and faith, great intellectual bounds that the rest of us couldnt possibly have made. R V Jones was one of those men, as was Tommy Flowers, a mere GPO engineer who turned out to be smarter than his contemporaries thought. I also note that at the time this was made, in the late 1970's, it was still a secret how the Lorenz Machine (Fish) was cracked, and there is no mention of Alan Turing. That remained a secret for another 30 years.
Of course they isnt any mention of him?? , this was filmed in 1977 so it was still under the timeline of secrets act, so couldn't be declassified then, for somebody who's supposedly into ww2 history!,then they should know this? , or unless their pretending they do so they can virtue signal instead?? and now they look pretty stupidly clueless for writing it...
excellent, wonderful, extraordinary, elucidated, bright, smart and clever... no joke, folks - no shit! if you only can find some time to watch it - (download it with some browser plugin, then watch) or simply watch it on-line whenever you've got some leisure time... this is c.a. 1970/80 doc, made with no stupidity in mind, for normal socie ty, normal, educated people (and, btw - I am an Electronics Engineer, so...) pls, do not let it fade
This is the most informative series, and seeing the pioneers of radar (at about 1:00) is real history! How they measure WAVELENGTH is a CLASSIC PHYSICS DEMONSTRATION. 73 DE W8LV BILL
In 2002 I wrote to Fisher Dilke, director of Still Secret, the final episode in the series and below I paraphrase from his reply: 1. Brian Johnson conceived the series and I only worked on Still Secret. 2. A teacher training college was at Bletchley Park in 1976/77 and the huts were empty. 3. Still Secret was produced by Dominic Flessati and Sue Bennett had researched. Realising the potential I was hired because of my mathematical background and eventually I was appointed director. 4. I did all the interviews. 5. People were surprised that I wanted to film in the huts. 6. I planned and scripted it very carefully at the start, discussing it with Johnson and Woollard. Time had to be allowed for props to be made and Brian Johnson directed at TV Centre for a day at the end. The programme had to be made in just five and a half weeks. 7. The Polish Colonel (4:10:00) was at the Sikorski Museum. Beak and Lynch had been involved in building Heath Robinson and built a model for us. 8. BBC teleprinter did repair the Enigma machine (4:14:02) and the other props were broken up after the recording. The Thyratrons (4:50:00) came from the original manufacturers, M-O valve at Hammersmith. 9. R.V.Jones wrote his own piece (4:53:20) having seen the programme he wanted to wind up the series. 10. It got a big audience and a lot of people wrote to me about the Ultra stuff. A book would have required more information that would have been difficult to acquire. 11. I enjoyed going up in the helicopter to film the opening sequence (4:55:45). 12. It was a terrible slog to make, Four other remarks: 1. I visited the Sikorski Museum, their Enigma looked like that in the programme. You'll notice that it's not QWERTZU. 2. I recall a programme made by James May in which he paraphrased Dilke's script, something like: 'Which was the best car? Porsche? Mercedes? Ferrari? No none of those....' I'd love to find it, it wasn't Top Gear. 3. Last year the Royal Institution released their Christmas Lectures which in 1981 were presented by R.V Jones and are on youtube, 'From Magna Carta to microchip'. 4. R.V.Jones should surely merit a Blue Plaque or maybe they should go the whole hog and put his statue on the 4th plinth because next to The King and Churchill he probably did more to win the Second World War than anyone else.
@@christianluts810 Yes. Well Lindeman represented the old guard. Jones was 27 in 1940 and had a more modern, questioning outlook. That, together with being very hands-on and in a team of one gave him the edge. In Most Secret War I think he writes somewhere that he made them nervous, they didn't like him proving them all wrong so easily and ensured he got sidelined after the war. Aberdeen couldn't be much further away..
What impresses me about this series is how often the story turns to having to overcome the inertia of some high ranking fossil in order to make any progress.
Churchill designed it that way, although lindemann may not have been a knowing participant. This ensured, churchill's got a thoroughly well tested and argued case... ..Lindermann was smart...but a resolute pessimist lol
I don't think Churchill designed British society; stratified by class and top heavy with conservative old nobs. But I guess I see what you mean, any idea that broke thru the old fart layer and came to his attention was worthy of his consideration.
Pay attention to the fossils coz that is what all the young have to look forward to. What burns even worse is knowing they will become a fossil "only" if they do well and don't die too soon. Not everyone will achieve "fossil" status in life. Being "fossils" have nothing to do with it. It is all about making selfish decisions for personal gain or preservation. The young do the exact same things in principle.
I think that's not the whole story. While fossils have gotten in my way at times during a long life as an innovator, they've also stopped me from doing things that in hindsight, would have been stupid and I'm grateful they did - those are seemingly always left out of the story as no one really finds that side of the coin all that pleasant. But if you're honest...you remember some times when a fossil saved your butt by saying no, too - even making progress, if it's not in the best direction and uses resources, can be going backward in the big picture because those resources weren't infinite and were needed elsewhere. Of course, just as often the fossil is just wrong and self-absorbed about it.... but there is more than one side to most of the stories. These guys had nothing on our Army's chief of ordnance back in the day (machine guns useless waste of money and ammo, smokeless powder too dangerous, no new calibers and so on).
An update. R.V. Jones met the author of the Oslo report mid 1950s. It was: Hans Ferdinand Mayer, who was for some time the director of the Siemens & Halske research laboratory in Berlin. In accordance with Hans F. Mayer, R.V. Jones did not reveal Mayer's identity in conjunction with the Oslo document before Mayer and his wife had both passed away (1980s). Thank you Hans.
Great show, thank you. So many points to warrant remarks, but nevertheless just one; the kind of art that with a few pertinent observations we are given an understanding of a protagonist's nature, with neither the desire nor need to voice malediction. I'm thinking particularly about Mr Sandys, and our Virgil, Dr Jones.
How good documentaries/ history on tv were made. No multi presenters, forced PC inclusion & irritating types, Dan Snow comes to mind! Loved Chronicle series also. Tomorrow's World sadly missed.
This series is so informative and detailed that you can watch it many times over pick up something new each time. Another plus is that you never feel like they’re trying to convince you of anything. They just lay it out there and leave it up to the viewer to draw their own conclusions, or to just watch it for pure entertainment or to be better informed about a fascinating part of the largest human endeavor in the history of the world. No PC BS or oppressed group of victims who must be made whole or a guilty conscience will be your price of viewing. Just believable sources from both sides of the conflict who were actually the people that are responsible for much of the subject matter being shown or were at least caught up in it.
Fantastic documentary. It’s the perfect balance of archive footage , interviews with genuinely important and interesting participants and re-enacted scenes told in an understated , serious style. Don’t make them like this any more.
It's highly factual and not dumbed down. It assumes the audience is intelligent and interested. Part of a Horizon series an excellent science documentary series from the BBC running since 1964 although now dumbed down with celebrity presenters FFS.
@@duncan8238 One of my brothers has a signed copy I am really envious. One of his customers was a maths professor who worked with R V Jones after the war and was given a copy by the great man.
I was fortunate to work in the house of RV Jones on a couple of occasions. I had no idea who he was. He was in a wheelchair and quite frail but his mind was a as sharp as a pin! I was fitting two gas fires with quite long pipe runs and he asked me if the diameter of the pipe could supply enough gas to the two appliances! I had never been asked that before by a customer! Fortunately I knew my gas flow tables and explained to him that the pipe could cope. He sat and chatted for a good while. His Batman wheeled him away and came back later to talk to me. He told me all about RV and his book. Now, honest truth, later that week I worked in another house that was owned by Aberdeen University, as was RV's, and I told the gentleman, Mr. Tindal was his name, about working at RV's and how impressed I was with RV. He went to the book shelf and gave me a copy of "The Most Secret War" . I was mesmerised by the story and the man. The second time I went back to work for RV I had read the book and had a great chat with him. He was fascinating to listen to. One of life's little treasures.
How about the most secret reason for the war? You will not get that info from the victors. But you will get it from the most forbidden documentary ever published in history and banned from YT in its entirety: "Europa The Last Battle" at archive-dot-org
@Jake Thaiman It's British, from the 1970s. During the weekend our news channels mostly show American documentaries and it annoys me how they repeat every simple fact multiple times, while never touching the really interesting parts... Greetings from Germany.
Why can't the BBC make intelligent documentaries like this anymore? I saw The Sky at Night for the first time in years recently, and it was like a kids programme.
Britain absolutely outpaced the German's in scientific research and development. The V weapons programme and a couple of other high profile projects dominated the post war debates. The British government may have been less flamboyant with it's Ideas and processes but that lead to a steady steam of improvements and upgrades throughout the war. Example, the difference in the night boomers accuracy from 39 to 45. The results we astonishing.
Dr R.V. Jones made significant and monumental work as a Scientist involved in scientific intelligence during WW2. So significant was his work along with his discoveries that Churchill nominated him for a Knighthood. The Civil Service intervened and stopped his Knighthood on the grounds that he was a civilian, during the war, but not a military man. Hence Dr Jones never received a Knighthood. Today, the same Civil Service organisation has supported the Knighthood to be awarded to a Prime Minister who many accuse of committing war crimes, aka Tony Blair...what can one say ??...perhaps, "Rise Sir R.V. Jones".
This is a brilliant documentary as it goes into depth with facts and great detail! The powered Gigant was a fiasco. A RAF P40 pilot whose squadron attacked a group of these crossing the Med said it was the only time he ever felt sorry for the Jerries, such was the slaughter. But those British experiments at about 02:40:00 are comical and you have to wonder which genius came up with some of those! I met Ben Drew (04:45:10) in about 1985 in South Africa where he lived at the time, running an air charter service using DC3 aircraft out of Grand Central Airport near Johannesburg. He told a great - and true- story about downing those Me262s! Great guy with a great sense of humour! The mining of the English coastal shipping lanes mentioned at 04:55:40 reminds me of one of those round contact mines being on permanent display on the seafront at Seaburn, N.E England when I was a kid. Kids used to hit it's contact-plungers with rocks to "see what happened" - luckily for them it had of course been disarmed! Interestingly the last part dealing with the Enigma machine etc. talks about the many secrets of WW2, which were still secret when this doccie was made in I guess, the late 1960s or early 1970s. I discovered that even what might be considered mundane stuff of little value today is still classified, such as certain details of cooling systems of high-power piston engines for aircraft - building such an engine I found that to be the case just 15 years ago!
It was made in 1977 and the Enigma effort only really started to come out in the 80s. Many people took what they did on Enigma to the grave decades later.
Brilliant upload, thanks for sharing this interesting and informative documentary series with us. And how young does William Woolard look, I was only young myself when this was first broadcast, makes me feel old seeing it again. 👍 P.S I do wish that the “theatrical humiliation of the French” at Combiene was not described as Armistice, it was a surrender, or more accurately Capitulation, the French old guard Generals had plenty of assets left to deploy, but due to their dyed in the wool belief in static trench warfare being the only way to fight a war they Capitulated, leaving the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and other allied forces to be evacuated (saved) from the beaches of Dunkirk, and in the process leaving the rearguard and masses of equipment to fall into Hitlers greedy evil 👿 hands. If those stuffed shirt Generals had not capitulated but fought a mobile war then the course of the war would have been so much different, even curtailed, but hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I will never change my opinion, the French Generals betrayed not only their own people but virtually the whole of Europe as we know it today.
Bloody well damn it all, quarter to twelve on a Sunday night and I find a five hour video of some TOP NOTCH documentary. I must be strong. I'll share to FaceBook so I can catch it later.
Absolutely top quality stuff, very technically detailed, they just do not make them like this any more, everything is so dumbed down these days. I remember I read R.V Jones book years ago, it's great to actually see and hear the wizard himself!
There's a fair few documentaries of this calibre produced here in England but I think they will remain under the *blow up scale of the current vacuous fare until they're called upon and on that day the rest of the good folks on earth at the time shall also see what smart and selfless folks came BEFORE the *influencer generation. #OurHistory 😎🙏☘️
I like that they take interviews from the German perspective. So many of these documentaries completely ignore the German perspectives and only tell the stories from the allied point of view
Albert Speer is quite interesting. He was quite intelligent in the sense that he fooled the judges of the Nuremberg Trials into thinking that he did not really know about anything. I think he got some 20 years of prison in the end. After his sentence he tried to establish himself as a kind of "gentlemen Nazi" who wasn't really involved at all. Today we know that he knew everything.
Beyond Birthday oh yeah there’s almost no physical way he could occupy such a high position in the Reich and somehow not know about the genocide. After all, he certainly knew about the slave labor aspect of the Holocaust being that he was in charge of manufacturing of war materiel. It’s usually the apologists who believe his claim
@@punman5392 You are right. After all he was on very good terms with Hitler (due to Hitler's interest in architecture and arts). For me it's an important thing to point out, because Speer was really successful with his "innocent Nazi" image in Germany during the 1970s. (I'm German btw, but born later, in 1988). Dealing with this past is generally a difficult thing in Germany. The biggest danger I see is this "it cannot happen anymore" thinking. People are quite aware about the Nazis and the war today, yet at the same time aren't able to abstract this knowledge to the point that they're able to use the past as a warning for today's problems.
I'm thoroughly addicted to history, especially any content digging into WWII. But there's something about a couple of the old boys who are being interviewed at different points of this long film that are putting me into a drooling stupor. Good thing there's a bunch of freshly roasted coffee beans in the pantry waiting their turn in the grinder! ☕ 🧐😎
There is a reason why this generation is called " The Great Generation ". What these people did and those who sacrifice will never be known is almost over. Not a lot left from this era of the human race. God bless them all.
Watching this again it's amazing that the original inventors are demonstrating their inventions. The cavity magnetron was a major advance. You will find one in a microwave oven but the device you are watching this one only works because of high frequency data links made possible by it.
NOTE: As the programme dates from 1975, information concerning the secret establishment at Bletchley Park was still mainly secret in 1975. So some of the information in that section falls short of the reality. i.e. We now know the British had actually built the worlds first electronic computer at Bletchley Park to help decipher the German Enigma codes rapidly.
Incredible and fascinating details - my parents had the book, I recall, but I didn’t read it. Glad I ran across this documentary - thanks for uploading. Fascinating to learn from the interviews of the internal politics among British intelligence and science boffins concerning discovery and countermeasures against the V2 rockets.
Incredible memories of these humble WW2 warriors; now in their old age, who with their skills and knowledge, did so much to help defeat the Nazis .. and change our world forever. Of course today, much of what they did is more commonly known. Bits of Bletchley are now a museum .. as is Alan Turing's story and his part in it.
Why is it so hard to find "Secrets of WWII", it's not on any pay streaming services in the US and you can't even buy or rent it in the US on prime. Maybe, 10 of the 20+ episodes are around UA-cam. But it's sad you can't find that series. I loves it. It uses to play on the military channel just like world at war did. I had them on my dvr with dish years ago, but had to switch to another years ago.
This is always an entertaining and informative history show to watch, thanks for posting. Its entertaining because the sound track has a lot of explosive effects to it. I wonder why about the V2's they didn't mention the huge V2 base Hitler made that the Allies blew up, or the V3s. Maybe its because the USAAC blew it up in daytime raids? Also, its been documented that a gunner on an American bomber shot at and downed a V2, although the British Officer is a great story too. Oh well, its from the 1980ish and geared for a strictly Anglo audience market. Oh and one last thing, this narrator is great but he does remind me of Michael Palin, lol. I am wondering when the deadly joke weapon is going to be discussed.
Yes, this series is astonishing. Men who had been active in the contest were still living when this was made. Commentary of R. V. Jones is particularly interesting.
The VT proximity fuze, invented by British scientists and brought to production by Americans, was used against V1 flying bombs, Kamikaze aircraft, and ground troops. Of course it was useless against the V2 rockets. 2:25:54 great story!
I had just started reading Most Secret War b R. V. Jones, and then I came upon this treasure. I got to see him tell the story about which I had just read, in his own words!! THANK YOU!!
It's a brilliant book, isn't it?
Totally agree , great book . Another is Operation Crossbow , the true story of the photo reconnaissance department based at RAF medmenham . It puts a slightly different spin on ‘Most Secret war’ in fact at one point criticising RV Jones .
Yes agreeing with another comment, this clip shows how brilliant the BBC once was , it’s an absolute disgrace now . We don’t have a television in the house getting our current affairs from other less bias sources.
@@martingray4005 I suggest you seek a copy of Evidence In Camera written by Constance Babington-Smith 2:01:36
I saw these when first broadcast. It changed my life and I became obsessed by it, reading everything I could get my hands on. Now much older, I can appreciate as well the quality of way the episodes were put together and narrated.
Brilliant program showing how good the BBC once was
Prof. R.V. Jones sounds like one of those brilliant British boffins without whom the war would have been over in six months - with a very different outcome. Hats off to you, sir.
I recall watching this in 1977 / 78 when I was 13 and being fascinated by it
I'm born in 1985 and agree. I've shown some of this to my nephew born in the 2000s and he keeps asking me about it.
"we felt on top of the world, at that moment" god these old English guys are the best.
I said before there should be a statue to Tommy Flowers in Trafalgar Square but because he wasn't a Cambridge or Oxford man his contribution was never properly recognised.
The man has been criminally overlooked
There is a statue to him at Guelph University in Guelph Ontario Canada. He taught there and is buried with his wife near by in the countryside
To be fair there weren’t statues of any of the leading lights. Any academic knows they’re nothing without a good technician. A good technician makes theory fact. The whole team was greater than the sum of the parts.
There should be statue of R V Jones and one of Robert Watson-Watt in Trafalgar square. But the wokists want to put a statue of a Nigerian woman or some sort of monument to trans sex workers there. What the hell has happened to this nation?
@@johncostello3174 yes but I guess that the precedent has been set now. If you don’t like it then topple it. Sauce for the goose and all that. 😂
I was obsessed by this in 1977 and still am. Got the book and 'Most Secret War' by RV Jones.
RV Jones was a phenomenally smart guy. After the war he became professor of Natural Philosophy at Aberdeen University . I studied there from 1969 -72 and he gave us lectures on a wide variety of topics including computer programming in Fortran. He was a great experimentalist and devised an experiment that measured how much the city of Aberdeen dropped when the tide came in!
Robert Watson Watt was at Aberdeen.
And...? How much did it drop?
@@mikehiggins946. By the height of the tide !! Pretty obvious really 😳🤔🤫
Your good fortune for sure! I read the Wizard War about 30 or 40 years ago and found it waaaaaaay good. Some large parts of this video match up with some large parts of this book, but either my memory fails or some large parts do not. Thus, I consider the video, despite its length, a welcome worthwhile wizardly supplement to the book.
R.V.Jones is a classic English archetype, seems on first look to be a bit of an old buffer, but good grief I'm extremely glad he was on our side, the bloke is a stone cold killer, very very dangerous indeed! Respect.
Remember watching this when I was a lad. Fantastic series with expert knowledge and input from those who were actually involved in this top secret work. All hosted by a presenter who really knew his subject matter.
Speaking of Top Secret, now that i've watched this a few times i realize there are a few instances of Sabotage that's not being spotlighted. Missing equipment on the night to be implemented, a plane crash killing Scientists of the program. and opposition in Command towards developing the system.
@@hellboundrubber4448 Those weren't sabotage. It was just fortunes of war, bad luck or a lack of understanding.
As an Australian visiting the UK and Europe for the first time in 2019, I found that the once severely wounded HMS Belfast is a part of the Imperial War Museum moored over the river from the Tower of London. Although only in London for 3 days, I made sure I visited the Belfast. It was recalling "The Secret War" series how the magnetic mine had broken the back of the Belfast and only added to the urgency of finding a solution to the magnetic mine that made the visit to the ship that much more special.
A-OUCH I SAY!
Great post mate. Amazing they patched the Belfast back up. If the Luftwaffe didn’t drop that mine in the Thames…….
The mine recovered, the mine used in the reconstruction and the mine today displayed on board Belfast are all the same one.
With the advent of all that I have watched on You Tube and now this series I must say You Tube is invaluable as an educational tool. Thank you so very much.
Absolutely FIRST CLASS documentary. With many of the people involved giving their first hand accounts and all held together by the excellent William Woolard of "Tomorrow's World" fame. Thank you for this fantastic post.
A brilliant series made at a time when those who’d been involved in the war were still alive and able to contribute. The thing I remember most vividly is the Oslo Report passed to the British embassy in Norway by German scientist Hans Ferdinand Mayer. We owe him a massive debt of thanks.
RV Jones reveals this in Reflections On Intelligence.
Thanks for putting this up the RDF/Radar was fascinating. I always wondered why my father who was a MW A & G and went from AC2 to a W/O in 2 years. The RAAF sent him to the UK and then back to Australia. His service records show a lot of attachments to various airfields & squadrons but none near any front line.
I was a technician for US Marine Corps electronic warfare aircraft in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. These stories form the history of the life I led. Indeed, forty plus years later these stories are still an important part of electronic warfare heritage.
I watched this series when it was first broadcast. Still brilliant.
This was a really interesting series when first broadcast. It seems even more valuable now when you realise just how many first- person accounts it managed to capture. Probably the last opportunity to get so much information and opinion from those who were directly involved.
Great documentary. Prof RV Jones is a genius, William Woolard a great presenter/narrator.
One of the very best documentaries on the subject extant. Although clearly very Anglo-centric, it’s brilliant and timeless with its inclusion of so many of the actual key participants of the British and German war efforts. Brilliant!
Hands down, this is absolutely among the very best WW 2 documentary series I've ever seen. Thank-you
That was outstanding. Thank you so much for the opportunity to watch it.
Wonderful, so glad I came across this. Saw it when originally broadcast and was fascinated by it all. Since then, so much more, in particular aspects of Bletchley Park have come to light. Parts of it have been refurbished and saved for posterity and turned into a museum.
Thank you for saving and making this available to us all. de GW8TVX
One of the best doc i saw on the tube , a lot of technical infos (not just general concepts ).
Coventry bombardment is a real misery to see . Humanity has to not go to war ...@ any cost of compromises , fight back only for survival ...as Allies did for nazees.
Fabulous. Thanks a million for making this available to everyone.
This is absolutely brilliant - I remember this as an 8-year-old vaguely and my brother bought the book to accompany the series. Well done for getting it on youtube! They don't make series like this any more. William Woollard shows his enthusiasm. I thoroughly recommend this.
A lovely comment.
Steve M ..I used to make a point of watching this excellent series...No means of recording in those days, so you had to be in front of the T.V. , on transmission time.
Steve M agnh
I still have the hardback book. I remember aged 12 crawling out of my bed in hospital after having my appendix removed to go to the TV lounge and watch this.
@@grahamfigg5817 Hello Graham. Yes I still have my hardback copy too of the secret war. Ive read it cover to cover many times and learn something new each time.
I'm sat in my lounge watching the series right now about Battle of the beams . The UK at its best when we WERE Great Britain.
Really good series first shown by the BBC in 1977. Bill Woollard is now 80 & like his colleague Raymond Baxter from Tomorrow's World were both former RAF Pilots.
"The blue light of the "master searchlight" was a fiction of the bomber crews themselves as was proven after the war. After a while, during the war the command gave up trying to convince them of the non-existence. 😎
I got this from a fantastic book by Gavin Lyall "The war in the air, the RAF in WW2". I've read many 100's of WW2 books and this may be my favorite. The format is completely different. He takes the view of the pilots themselves, maintenance, security, etc. No generals or battles, moving divisions and the like. I'm not doing it justice here. I highly recommend it to any serious student of WW2.
The Germans DID use radar directed 200cm "master searchlights" with a number of smaller 150cm searchlights to hold individual bombers in a triangulated web of light.
One of the most wonderful documentary series ever made by the BBC. I watched it on Monday nights on the BBC in the late 70's (probably 1977) it made me want to be a scientist.
So did you? It's never too late.
@@velvetfish1 yes, I am now a glorified teacher at a university. no opportunity to research though
@velvet fish🎯✔️vetfish1
Excellent! I remember this when it was on TV. Thanks for the upload.
Sir !
Thank you for posting this series, considering the political situation at present, students of 20th Century History should watch this along with other documentaries made in the 70s about how WE fought tooth and nail for our freedoms.
Don't piss it all away to the Communists.
Excellent comment, unfortunately, they're not listening.
@@russellloomis4376 .
There are non so deaf as those who will not listen.
A fantastic documentary to understand the more technical aspects of the war particularly with radar.
Back when these doc's were on the telly, you knew if William Woollard was presenting it, then it was going to be good. I still have a copy of a great series on nuclear energy presented by WW and I try to adopt his style when asked about the subject. Thanks for the upload, I watched it till' the end. Cheers!!!
I followed this series from day 1. More years ago than I can remember.
What an incredible series that, sadly, would not see modern airwaves. Interviews with the men who’s finest hour saved civilization.
Hopefully someone some where is begining to notice people will watch long-form documentaries.
@@danielmarshall4587 ive got all the episodes for this series but i not shore i can upload to youtube ???
@@amonra915 For sure you might run into copyright problems... GOOD FOR YOU THOUGH, keep them safe sorry I'm unable to give advice regards uploading( I upload some of my own DRIVLE just short talking-head vids) videos that are long running and if you've not yourself created it I don't know what hoops you'd need to jump through.
First time seeing this and I’m staggered. So much footage I had not seen, and I’m absolutely hooked. As many have said already: it’s a genuine shame that documentaries like this are no longer made; especially by the bbc. A lot of the footage is used in the series: ‘secrets of world war two’ and ‘gladiators of world war two’. Both narrated by Robert Powell and are also a fantastic watch.
The interviews with those having direct experience of the events portrayed in very useful to the understanding of the subject matter. No modern documentary can now achieve because of the passage of time and the passing of the interviewees.
This makes history interesting and relevent.
Hit the nail on the head. So very true.
Thank you very much for posting this. I read the companion book and Most Secret War by RV Jones about 20 years ago. It was terrific with seeing the actual people involved talking about it rather then actors recreating the scenes as modern shows do. Only the last two episodes didn't seem as well done as the others. Still, very much worth your time watching it.
A truely fantastic documentary!
Regarding the last episode and the deciphering of the ”fish” cypher, it is worth mentioning the brilliant work done by Arne Beurling who cracked such a machine as far as I understand. From wiki it says: ”In the summer of 1940 he single-handedly deciphered and reverse-engineered an early version of the Siemens and Halske T52 also known as the Geheimfernschreiber ("secret teletypewriter") used by Nazi Germany in World War II for sending ciphered messages.[3] The T52 was one of the so-called "Fish cyphers", that, using transposition, created nearly one quintillion (893,622,318,929,520,960) different variations. It took Beurling two weeks to solve the problem using pen and paper. Using Beurling's work, a device was created that enabled Sweden to decipher German teleprinter traffic passing through Sweden from Norway on a cable. In this way, Swedish authorities knew about Operation Barbarossa before it occurred.”
Because 'in the main' it was virtually an all 'British' secret war front. The German cypher machine was in fact the Lorenz Z40/42 series. Which we know much, much more of how it was cracked today, than we were told back in 1977.
Stunningly amazing and interesting....a masterpiece series and an invaluable source of information from the people that actually lived and survived those epic and terrible days.....by far the best documentaries I 've ever seen. Thank you very much.
Very well said. I watched the original TV transmissions in 1977, and bought the VHS set, in the early 80's, then the DVD set, more recently. Unfortunately the last ( 7th) episode was edited, and squeezed into the 6th Disc. I kept my VHS tapes, it is still good quality. The great William Woollard was narrator, none better.
At about 50 minutes, the Graf Zeppelin being unable to detect British radar…….this minor mystery was because the Germans were using radar themselves at much higher frequencies than the British. They never thought we would use such low frequencies for our radar.
Thanks for posting this.
Very interesting.There are a few inaccuracies, but that is merely a consequence of more information coming to light since this documentary was made.
My favourite quote from this presentation would be: "The Germans had developed 10 cm radar, but by then all they could detect was defeat."
I would understand that you have questions about accuracy but please consider that when this series was make way back in the 1970s, much of the detail was still secret and subject to the official secrets act. Many years later there have been revelations that enlightened younger students, and even older students....the series was considered accurate at the time of its production.
PS. Also consider that many contributors were bound by the Official Secrets Act and would possibly have faced imprisonment if they revealed what they knew.
Respects to them all.
@@oldgitsknowstuff Local bod said that though?
A lot of the information in this series had only just been de-classified on the UK's 30 year rule.
Added bookmarks to make it easier to find individual episodes
Episode 1: "The Battle of the Beams" 00:01
Episode 2: "To See for a Hundred Miles" 49:27
Episode 3: "Terror Weapons" 1:39:20
Episode 4: "If" 2:28:00
Episode 5: "The Deadly Waves" 3:17:20
Episode 6: "Still Secret" 4:06:38
There were originally seven episodes in this series: the seventh being The Battle of The Atlantic which for some unknown reason, was missed off the DVD release. However, it was included in the 1980s BBC VHS release.
This is pretty great. I love how it was able to interview major participants and leaders from respective cabinets, and militaries. Thank you for this gem!
Superb. There are some real heavyweights here - men who were directly involved and who know what they're talking about. Combine that with William Woollard's professional presentation, and the fascinating facts of history, and you have a series that could hardly have been bettered. Thank you for posting.
Steve Augarde, I remember watching this as a teenager (I think), but no matter how old I was it sparked a lifelong interest in History, and mechanical engineering, a profession I was lucky enough to hold for 24 years. Even though war is a disaster for those involved, but many many advances in fields not dedicated to the military machine, Radar, Jet Engines, medicine, and communications to name but a few. Fantastic series that I will be very happy to watch again, but this time I will be able to understand all of it, and not having to ask my dad what they talking about, he was a mechanical engineer as well. Thanks dad.
Best yet. Some surprises. Had it on as background, ended up sitting down to concentrate on it.
Thank you very much for uploading this doc!! compared to the guff about ww2 that we get nowadays this is amazing!!!
This documentary is shockingly good. I have seen a *lot* of WW II footage, yet this documentary reveals clip after clip after clip of video I've never seen before. And of course, it is put together in that typically English way - which means it is logical, comprehensible, and all-around excellent.
It's the best war documentary series. In fact I think it's the best documentary series ever made full stop. They had two advantages, firstly by 1977 many classified documents had just been released under the 30 years rule. Secondly it was based around R.V.Jones's book 'Most Secret War', A.J.P.Taylor said it was the best book on WW2.
best days of real documentary film👍
the best detailed documentary iv seen in years so good im going to save it and watch again
I grew up watching this series!
Cheers from Italy
Thank you for a good programme. Please note that a war (and thus WW2) can only officially start with a declaration of war. UK declared war against Germany on 03 September 1939 and not on 01 September 1939 - with the unilateral hostilities - attack - of Germany on Poland
A most captivating and very well-documented - if not outstanding - informative series. As a long-standing (WWII) 'war expert', I'm surprised I've never come across this excellent documentary in the past - much of which I've never even heard of before. Certainly one of the more often-overlooked aspects of military confrontation, I think *The Secret War* should be required viewing (and/or reading of R.V. Jones acclaimed book, *Most Secret War* [or, *The Wizard War* - US publication title]) for anyone with at least a cursory interest in the history behind the Second World War.
So I guess then, ss the 'old saying' goes - either towards history, war, or to anything else of interest in between: The more one acquires knowledge of, the less (it seems) that one actually knows anything about [it] ... And such as it is in just about everything else we endeavour to undertake in life: may it be within ourselves, our families, our pastimes, our place in the world we live in, or of the greater universe - or even of the nature of weapons & warfare [history] itself (that [sadly] essentially shapes us [and quite literally defines us] into how we not only largely [now] relate amongst other ['neighboring'] nations today [and of the past], but more so, of the mere madmen that we've since become [because of it], associated with this acquired ['secret'] knowledge) - we, within the contextual analogy of the aforementioned proverbial aphorism, certainly and conclusively do not gain anything from it, except but to senselessly destroy ourselves within the continuum of the process; it is _that_ 'acquired [evolutionary] process' with which we have yet to fully comprehend as human beings on this planet, and one in which the narrative poses no 'real secret' but for a hidden [global] agenda, that will perhaps soon and ultimately 'define' us sometime within this century ...
And by bloody-well 'sure-rights', people - _that's_ the way *_I_* see 'it' ... And you'd goddamn-well better _believe_ it, _'mister!'_
One of the reasons you've not found these documentaries is because BBC Worldwide's lawyers persue those that dare to break their client's copyright, despite the Corporation's apparent disinterest in these programmes themselves. AJP Taylor thought that Most Secret War was the best book about WW2.
Brilliant series. Informative and entertaining without dumbing it down to pander to its audience, unlike so many modern-day docs.
Couldn't agree more
Well in general the US population is ignorant
James Faulkner II, Your statement is ignorant in that you're replying to a thread that didn't mention the US. The US is the new superpower empire ever since England wasted their's on Sugar, Tea and whatever else the Queen is addicted to. Sex for her spawns, for instance.
As someone who knows the USA quite well, I can tell you that too much of the population IS in fact, ignorant but it is largely not their fault. Just like England turned Race against Race by for instance; using taxpayer funded incentives to settle Northern Ireland with Scots, a move that ignored many land claims (common when this sort of thing happens). Funny too because how much closer can you get to being related than Scottish and Irish?
There was a motive involved: Distraction. Keep the people fighting amongst themselves while the King (or Queen, if that's all you've got) steals land and other resources. It didn't ever make the news on even the BBC that the fighting in Northern Ireland during the heydays of the IRA was not even targeting the locals but the Crown herself and "her" government, at Westminster Abbey and 10 Downing.
"Don't take over Ireland, we're independent from your empire."
The BBC also kept the world misinformed when it blamed "ethnic violence" for clashes that split Sudan into 2 countries, only one of them new. They never mentioned that Sudan had oil contracts with China but the newly founded South Sudan had all the oil. It was a USA run, Europe backed coup leaving Sundan smaller and ruined but still partnered with China and no oil.
So, the ignorance in the USA is purposeful, it is a deliberate act by fascist sympathetic people who seek power and influence and need to get people to either ignore or obey. Think of it as a country that was set free once. Their monarchy was overthrown but the people were tricked into not ruling by the power of an informed public but rather, leave it in the hands of a group of retards who spit out a new and future "leader" after gestating it for 9 months and all on the back of the taxpayers.
@@roxyraccoon8856 I know murca well as well, I defended it for 16 yrs. Of course the fascists have always sought control and now they have a fascist president.
Other than that, have you ever been diagnosed? You may want to have your pattern seeking checked.
James Faulkner II, A British TV series, yet you mention the US? No one else did. No, I'm fine. Recently a narcissist did claim I was narcissistic so, you were saying?
The Armed Forces at the time were chock full of heroes - men who did staggeringly brave and courageous things at great risk to themselves. But there are men in this video who were also heroes, because they managed to make leaps of knowledge and faith, great intellectual bounds that the rest of us couldnt possibly have made. R V Jones was one of those men, as was Tommy Flowers, a mere GPO engineer who turned out to be smarter than his contemporaries thought. I also note that at the time this was made, in the late 1970's, it was still a secret how the Lorenz Machine (Fish) was cracked, and there is no mention of Alan Turing. That remained a secret for another 30 years.
Of course they isnt any mention of him?? , this was filmed in 1977 so it was still under the timeline of secrets act, so couldn't be declassified then, for somebody who's supposedly into ww2 history!,then they should know this? , or unless their pretending they do so they can virtue signal instead?? and now they look pretty stupidly clueless for writing it...
RVJones and Tommy Flowers are my all time heroes
excellent, wonderful, extraordinary, elucidated, bright, smart and clever... no joke, folks - no shit! if you only can find some time to watch it - (download it with some browser plugin, then watch) or simply watch it on-line whenever you've got some leisure time... this is c.a. 1970/80 doc, made with no stupidity in mind, for normal socie ty, normal, educated people
(and, btw - I am an Electronics Engineer, so...) pls, do not let it fade
Get RV Jones book! It's great.
This is the most informative series, and seeing the pioneers of radar (at about 1:00) is real history! How they measure WAVELENGTH is a CLASSIC PHYSICS DEMONSTRATION. 73 DE W8LV BILL
This is a goldmine of primary resource material. Fantastic!
In 2002 I wrote to Fisher Dilke, director of Still Secret, the final episode in the series and below I paraphrase from his reply:
1. Brian Johnson conceived the series and I only worked on Still Secret.
2. A teacher training college was at Bletchley Park in 1976/77 and the huts were empty.
3. Still Secret was produced by Dominic Flessati and Sue Bennett had researched. Realising the potential I was hired because of my mathematical background and eventually I was appointed director.
4. I did all the interviews.
5. People were surprised that I wanted to film in the huts.
6. I planned and scripted it very carefully at the start, discussing it with Johnson and Woollard. Time had to be allowed for props to be made and Brian Johnson directed at TV Centre for a day at the end. The programme had to be made in just five and a half weeks.
7. The Polish Colonel (4:10:00) was at the Sikorski Museum. Beak and Lynch had been involved in building Heath Robinson and built a model for us.
8. BBC teleprinter did repair the Enigma machine (4:14:02) and the other props were broken up after the recording. The Thyratrons (4:50:00) came from the original manufacturers, M-O valve at Hammersmith.
9. R.V.Jones wrote his own piece (4:53:20) having seen the programme he wanted to wind up the series.
10. It got a big audience and a lot of people wrote to me about the Ultra stuff. A book would have required more information that would have been difficult to acquire.
11. I enjoyed going up in the helicopter to film the opening sequence (4:55:45).
12. It was a terrible slog to make,
Four other remarks:
1. I visited the Sikorski Museum, their Enigma looked like that in the programme. You'll notice that it's not QWERTZU.
2. I recall a programme made by James May in which he paraphrased Dilke's script, something like: 'Which was the best car? Porsche? Mercedes? Ferrari? No none of those....' I'd love to find it, it wasn't Top Gear.
3. Last year the Royal Institution released their Christmas Lectures which in 1981 were presented by R.V Jones and are on youtube, 'From Magna Carta to microchip'.
4. R.V.Jones should surely merit a Blue Plaque or maybe they should go the whole hog and put his statue on the 4th plinth because next to The King and Churchill he probably did more to win the Second World War than anyone else.
.... and beside it, there should be a plaque stating "Frederick Alexander Lindemann 1st Viscount Cherwell, wrong about everything all the time"
@@christianluts810 Yes. Well Lindeman represented the old guard. Jones was 27 in 1940 and had a more modern, questioning outlook. That, together with being very hands-on and in a team of one gave him the edge. In Most Secret War I think he writes somewhere that he made them nervous, they didn't like him proving them all wrong so easily and ensured he got sidelined after the war. Aberdeen couldn't be much further away..
Absolutely brilliant❤
What impresses me about this series is how often the story turns to having to overcome the inertia of some high ranking fossil in order to make any progress.
Churchill designed it that way, although lindemann may not have been a knowing participant. This ensured, churchill's got a thoroughly well tested and argued case...
..Lindermann was smart...but a resolute pessimist lol
I don't think Churchill designed British society; stratified by class and top heavy with conservative old nobs. But I guess I see what you mean, any idea that broke thru the old fart layer and came to his attention was worthy of his consideration.
Pay attention to the fossils coz that is what all the young have to look forward to. What burns even worse is knowing they will become a fossil "only" if they do well and don't die too soon. Not everyone will achieve "fossil" status in life.
Being "fossils" have nothing to do with it. It is all about making selfish decisions for personal gain or preservation. The young do the exact same things in principle.
I think that's not the whole story. While fossils have gotten in my way at times during a long life as an innovator, they've also stopped me from doing things that in hindsight, would have been stupid and I'm grateful they did - those are seemingly always left out of the story as no one really finds that side of the coin all that pleasant. But if you're honest...you remember some times when a fossil saved your butt by saying no, too - even making progress, if it's not in the best direction and uses resources, can be going backward in the big picture because those resources weren't infinite and were needed elsewhere. Of course, just as often the fossil is just wrong and self-absorbed about it.... but there is more than one side to most of the stories. These guys had nothing on our Army's chief of ordnance back in the day (machine guns useless waste of money and ammo, smokeless powder too dangerous, no new calibers and so on).
Lindemann comes across almost as a German agent, whose job was to hinder the progress of British scientific intelligence.
An update.
R.V. Jones met the author of the Oslo report mid 1950s. It was: Hans Ferdinand Mayer, who was for some time the director of the Siemens & Halske research laboratory in Berlin. In accordance with Hans F. Mayer, R.V. Jones did not reveal Mayer's identity in conjunction with the Oslo document before Mayer and his wife had both passed away (1980s).
Thank you Hans.
Great show, thank you. So many points to warrant remarks, but nevertheless just one; the kind of art that with a few pertinent observations we are given an understanding of a protagonist's nature, with neither the desire nor need to voice malediction. I'm thinking particularly about Mr Sandys, and our Virgil, Dr Jones.
How good documentaries/ history on tv were made. No multi presenters, forced PC inclusion & irritating types, Dan Snow comes to mind! Loved Chronicle series also. Tomorrow's World sadly missed.
And they were nice big juicy 20 plus episodes long
This series is so informative and detailed that you can watch it many times over pick up something new each time. Another plus is that you never feel like they’re trying to convince you of anything. They just lay it out there and leave it up to the viewer to draw their own conclusions, or to just watch it for pure entertainment or to be better informed about a fascinating part of the largest human endeavor in the history of the world.
No PC BS or oppressed group of victims who must be made whole or a guilty conscience will be your price of viewing. Just believable sources from both sides of the conflict who were actually the people that are responsible for much of the subject matter being shown or were at least caught up in it.
"...forced PC inclusion..." Duz dat beez all RAYCISS 'n sheeit, mang? Gnomesane?
Got to agree. I hate the way current generation of documentary makers / narrators try to insert themselves into the story.
No dumbing down as is very much the case now.
Fantastic documentary. It’s the perfect balance of archive footage , interviews with genuinely important and interesting participants and re-enacted scenes told in an understated , serious style. Don’t make them like this any more.
The world at war is right up there too
fizz wanger , totally agree, The World at War presented the war in all its horrible events, and the Secret War in all its technical glory.
Too right. Today there'd be dramatic music the whole way through, which I find extremely annoying.
gazraman g if they did it now they would tick every diversity box they could
It's highly factual and not dumbed down. It assumes the audience is intelligent and interested. Part of a Horizon series an excellent science documentary series from the BBC running since 1964 although now dumbed down with celebrity presenters FFS.
"Most secret war" by R.V. Jones and "Instruments of darkness" by Alfred Price are both excellent reads on this subject.
Yep, I remember reading "Most secret War" years ago. Fantastic stuff.
@@duncan8238 One of my brothers has a signed copy I am really envious. One of his customers was a maths professor who worked with R V Jones after the war and was given a copy by the great man.
Both available on Amazon Kindle
I was fortunate to work in the house of RV Jones on a couple of occasions. I had no idea who he was. He was in a wheelchair and quite frail but his mind was a as sharp as a pin! I was fitting two gas fires with quite long pipe runs and he asked me if the diameter of the pipe could supply enough gas to the two appliances! I had never been asked that before by a customer! Fortunately I knew my gas flow tables and explained to him that the pipe could cope. He sat and chatted for a good while. His Batman wheeled him away and came back later to talk to me. He told me all about RV and his book. Now, honest truth, later that week I worked in another house that was owned by Aberdeen University, as was RV's, and I told the gentleman, Mr. Tindal was his name, about working at RV's and how impressed I was with RV. He went to the book shelf and gave me a copy of "The Most Secret War" . I was mesmerised by the story and the man. The second time I went back to work for RV I had read the book and had a great chat with him. He was fascinating to listen to. One of life's little treasures.
How about the most secret reason for the war? You will not get that info from the victors. But you will get it from the most forbidden documentary ever published in history and banned from YT in its entirety: "Europa The Last Battle" at archive-dot-org
Excellent Videos !
Great documentary. I like the way it doesn't talk to the viewer like they're stupid.
Get the book by RVJones. Its superb, I have read it many times.
@Jake Thaiman It's British, from the 1970s. During the weekend our news channels mostly show American documentaries and it annoys me how they repeat every simple fact multiple times, while never touching the really interesting parts... Greetings from Germany.
Why can't the BBC make intelligent documentaries like this anymore? I saw The Sky at Night for the first time in years recently, and it was like a kids programme.
Britain absolutely outpaced the German's in scientific research and development. The V weapons programme and a couple of other high profile projects dominated the post war debates. The British government may have been less flamboyant with it's Ideas and processes but that lead to a steady steam of improvements and upgrades throughout the war. Example, the difference in the night boomers accuracy from 39 to 45. The results we astonishing.
said this before but brilliant series and well done
Dr R.V. Jones made significant and monumental work as a Scientist involved in scientific intelligence during WW2. So significant was his work along with his discoveries that Churchill nominated him for a Knighthood. The Civil Service intervened and stopped his Knighthood on the grounds that he was a civilian, during the war, but not a military man. Hence Dr Jones never received a Knighthood. Today, the same Civil Service organisation has supported the Knighthood to be awarded to a Prime Minister who many accuse of committing war crimes, aka Tony Blair...what can one say ??...perhaps, "Rise Sir R.V. Jones".
His book "Most Secret War" is an awesome read.
@@daniellarge9784 Yes it is, I have read his book.
Thanks for posting this, its superbly done.
This is a brilliant documentary as it goes into depth with facts and great detail!
The powered Gigant was a fiasco. A RAF P40 pilot whose squadron attacked a group of these crossing the Med said it was the only time he ever felt sorry for the Jerries, such was the slaughter.
But those British experiments at about 02:40:00 are comical and you have to wonder which genius came up with some of those!
I met Ben Drew (04:45:10) in about 1985 in South Africa where he lived at the time, running an air charter service using DC3 aircraft out of Grand Central Airport near Johannesburg. He told a great - and true- story about downing those Me262s! Great guy with a great sense of humour!
The mining of the English coastal shipping lanes mentioned at 04:55:40 reminds me of one of those round contact mines being on permanent display on the seafront at Seaburn, N.E England when I was a kid. Kids used to hit it's contact-plungers with rocks to "see what happened" - luckily for them it had of course been disarmed!
Interestingly the last part dealing with the Enigma machine etc. talks about the many secrets of WW2, which were still secret when this doccie was made in I guess, the late 1960s or early 1970s.
I discovered that even what might be considered mundane stuff of little value today is still classified, such as certain details of cooling systems of high-power piston engines for aircraft - building such an engine I found that to be the case just 15 years ago!
Nonetheless, one cannot imagine that anyone actually could believe these desperate plans had a hope of working!
It was made in 1977 and the Enigma effort only really started to come out in the 80s. Many people took what they did on Enigma to the grave decades later.
Nice and educating documentation, thank you.
Watched many many documentations, but this one delivered many new things i not yet knew :)
Excellent TV series.
RIP Dr. Jones.
Fun Fact Air Vice Marshal R.S. Blucke in Episode 1 was the pilot of the Heyford Bomber in the Daventry Radar Experiment in Episode 2.
Indeed a very good documentary. Interesting and well made.
This is absolutely brilliant - what a find!
William Woolard AND Raymond Baxter. Reminds me of Tomorrows World!!
Brilliant upload, thanks for sharing this interesting and informative documentary series with us. And how young does William Woolard look, I was only young myself when this was first broadcast, makes me feel old seeing it again. 👍
P.S I do wish that the “theatrical humiliation of the French” at Combiene was not described as Armistice, it was a surrender, or more accurately Capitulation, the French old guard Generals had plenty of assets left to deploy, but due to their dyed in the wool belief in static trench warfare being the only way to fight a war they Capitulated, leaving the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and other allied forces to be evacuated (saved) from the beaches of Dunkirk, and in the process leaving the rearguard and masses of equipment to fall into Hitlers greedy evil 👿 hands. If those stuffed shirt Generals had not capitulated but fought a mobile war then the course of the war would have been so much different, even curtailed, but hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I will never change my opinion, the French Generals betrayed not only their own people but virtually the whole of Europe as we know it today.
Bloody well damn it all, quarter to twelve on a Sunday night and I find a five hour video of some TOP NOTCH documentary. I must be strong. I'll share to FaceBook so I can catch it later.
Absolutely top quality stuff, very technically detailed, they just do not make them like this any more, everything is so dumbed down these days. I remember I read R.V Jones book years ago, it's great to actually see and hear the wizard himself!
AJP Taylor said that Most Secret War was the best book he'd read on WW2.
There's a fair few documentaries of this calibre produced here in England but I think they will remain under the *blow up scale of the current vacuous fare until they're called upon and on that day the rest of the good folks on earth at the time shall also see what smart and selfless folks came BEFORE the *influencer generation. #OurHistory 😎🙏☘️
@@chrisst8922 Agreed - I've read it and it is excellent.
Excellent documentary about some bloody excellent people.
I like that they take interviews from the German perspective. So many of these documentaries completely ignore the German perspectives and only tell the stories from the allied point of view
The real history is hiddend from us. Please chek out EUROPA-the last battle.Then you chose what to belive.Greetings from Portugal
Albert Speer is quite interesting. He was quite intelligent in the sense that he fooled the judges of the Nuremberg Trials into thinking that he did not really know about anything. I think he got some 20 years of prison in the end. After his sentence he tried to establish himself as a kind of "gentlemen Nazi" who wasn't really involved at all. Today we know that he knew everything.
Beyond Birthday oh yeah there’s almost no physical way he could occupy such a high position in the Reich and somehow not know about the genocide. After all, he certainly knew about the slave labor aspect of the Holocaust being that he was in charge of manufacturing of war materiel. It’s usually the apologists who believe his claim
@@punman5392 You are right. After all he was on very good terms with Hitler (due to Hitler's interest in architecture and arts). For me it's an important thing to point out, because Speer was really successful with his "innocent Nazi" image in Germany during the 1970s. (I'm German btw, but born later, in 1988).
Dealing with this past is generally a difficult thing in Germany. The biggest danger I see is this "it cannot happen anymore" thinking. People are quite aware about the Nazis and the war today, yet at the same time aren't able to abstract this knowledge to the point that they're able to use the past as a warning for today's problems.
@@wuloki Especially given the lamentable state of education especially in the developing nations.
I'm thoroughly addicted to history, especially any content digging into WWII. But there's something about a couple of the old boys who are being interviewed at different points of this long film that are putting me into a drooling stupor. Good thing there's a bunch of freshly roasted coffee beans in the pantry waiting their turn in the grinder! ☕ 🧐😎
😉👍
Lovely! I saw this the last time when I was very young! Thank you so much!
The music get me hooked every time
Pictures at a exhibition by Mussorgsky
Up there with the world at war as brilliant documentaries
thanks for posting, I found the book about this bbc series in a shop in london, best book on wwii I ever read
There is a reason why this generation is called " The Great Generation ". What these people did and those who sacrifice will never be known is almost over. Not a lot left from this era of the human race. God bless them all.
Outstanding
Watching this again it's amazing that the original inventors are demonstrating their inventions. The cavity magnetron was a major advance. You will find one in a microwave oven but the device you are watching this one only works because of high frequency data links made possible by it.
NOTE: As the programme dates from 1975, information concerning the secret establishment at Bletchley Park was still mainly secret in 1975. So some of the information in that section falls short of the reality. i.e. We now know the British had actually built the worlds first electronic computer at Bletchley Park to help decipher the German Enigma codes rapidly.
First computer was targeted at the Lorenz cipher, not Enigma. Enigma cracked by an electro-,mechanical device
1977
BY ALAN TURING WHICH HE WAS A VERY SHARP COOKIE
Correct, it's not what you know, it's the old school ties that matters. It was that way then, and still that way today.
Incredible and fascinating details - my parents had the book, I recall, but I didn’t read it. Glad I ran across this documentary - thanks for uploading. Fascinating to learn from the interviews of the internal politics among British intelligence and science boffins concerning discovery and countermeasures against the V2 rockets.
Which was resolved through humour! Not too much laughter going on around Hitler I can tell you.
Incredible memories of these humble WW2 warriors; now in their old age, who with their skills and knowledge, did so much to help defeat the Nazis .. and change our world forever. Of course today, much of what they did is more commonly known. Bits of Bletchley are now a museum .. as is Alan Turing's story and his part in it.
Why is it so hard to find "Secrets of WWII", it's not on any pay streaming services in the US and you can't even buy or rent it in the US on prime. Maybe, 10 of the 20+ episodes are around UA-cam. But it's sad you can't find that series. I loves it. It uses to play on the military channel just like world at war did. I had them on my dvr with dish years ago, but had to switch to another years ago.
I have the same issue with Crash Files: Inside The NTSB.
It is the greatest Second World War documentary series ever produced.
It's the greatest documentary series full stop.
@@chrisst8922
You might well be right. I saw this series when it was first shown in 1977, its a good now as it was then.
This is always an entertaining and informative history show to watch, thanks for posting. Its entertaining because the sound track has a lot of explosive effects to it. I wonder why about the V2's they didn't mention the huge V2 base Hitler made that the Allies blew up, or the V3s. Maybe its because the USAAC blew it up in daytime raids? Also, its been documented that a gunner on an American bomber shot at and downed a V2, although the British Officer is a great story too. Oh well, its from the 1980ish and geared for a strictly Anglo audience market. Oh and one last thing, this narrator is great but he does remind me of Michael Palin, lol. I am wondering when the deadly joke weapon is going to be discussed.
More than once or twice I spat out my cornflakes when I saw the interviewees. Wow.
Yes, this series is astonishing. Men who had been active in the contest were still living when this was made. Commentary of R. V. Jones is particularly interesting.
Excellent
The VT proximity fuze, invented by British scientists and brought to production by Americans, was used against V1 flying bombs, Kamikaze aircraft, and ground troops. Of course it was useless against the V2 rockets.
2:25:54 great story!