Just give the facts

“Sensational titles have accompanied several documentaries about the Second World War lately,” writes a Craigie regular.

“One purported to have revelations about the complicity of Churchill and Roosevelt over Pearl Harbour, implying that Roosevelt did nothing to prevent the Japanese attack because he wanted Americans to agree to coming to Britain’s help against Germany.

“What actually happened in the course of the programme was a series of unsubstantiated suspicions about Roosevelt’s actions and Churchill’s collusion, followed by a gradual return to the accepted view – that the USA’s failure to prepare for a Japanese attack was the result of a belief that the Japanese had neither the resources nor the nerve to attack America.

“In fact, the programme even showed how several friendly nations, including the British, had warned the Americans repeatedly that a Japanese attack was imminent. So why the sensational publicity?

“Another such documentary concerned Dunkirk and the RAF’s contribution to the miracle.

“A number of Army veterans of the evacuation repeated the same old chestnuts about the RAF being nowhere to be seen over Dunkirk, leaving the soldiers and sailors to the mercy of the Luftwaffe.

“The programme went on to prove that our fighters were there, but either further inland to catch as many German bombers and fighters as possible as they arrived or fighting air-battles so high over Dunkirk that soldiers on the ground could not see them. This was all presented as new findings, when it was nothing of the sort.”