Celebrate the end of WWI as our victory, Army hero tells BBC
A DECORATED British Army hero has taken a swipe at the BBC, saying this year’s coverage of the centenary of the end of the First World War should celebrate a glorious victory.
Colonel Tim Collins lamented the BBC’s coverage of the Passchendaele anniversary last year, saying it was “saturated in grief”.
As commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, Colonel Collins gave a famous inspirational eve of battle speech to his troops in Kuwait in 2003, saying: “It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive.
“But there may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign.
“We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.”
Writing in the latest issue of Radio Times, on sale today, he said that with the centenary looming people might not realise from TV series recalling those “momentous times” that Britain and her Allies had won the war. The public, he said, were fed “woe and horror”, with the now widely accepted version that America pushed the “incompetent armies of the old world aside” and singlehandedly beat the Germans.
“Last year’s BBC coverage of the Passchendaele anniversary was a prime example,” he said.
“While paying appropriate tribute to the sacrifice of the many soldiers who lost their lives, it was saturated in grief, in the horror and pity of war. When the time comes to mark 100 years since the Armistice later this year, I am calling on the BBC to also note that we are marking a victory.”
During the Great War soldiers from across the Empire served alongside British troops on the Western Front and in the Middle East, Africa and Gallipoli, Turkey.
The war resulted in the death of 10 million soldiers and a similar number of civilians, with more than 20 million wounded.
The horrors of the conflict were so appalling it became known as “the war to end all wars”.