We still have World War I programs appearing on the C-SPAN networks. Here are this weekend’s programs, and as usual, all time are Central.
C-SPAN2
–Douglas Mastriano: Thunder in the Argonne. 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning, December 9th.
C-SPAN3
–American Artifacts: U.S. Army World War I Exhibit. 5:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon, December 9th. Repeats at 9:00 p.m. Sunday evening, December 9th.
A project is ongoing to search the battlefields around the Ypres Salient to detect WW1 archeological sites using LIDAR technology. Perhaps you’re not familiar with the term LIDAR?
‘Lidar (also called LIDAR, LiDAR, and LADAR) is a surveying method that measures distance to a target by illuminating the target with pulsed laser light and measuring the reflected pulses with a sensor. Differences in laser return times and wavelengths can then be used to make digital 3-D representations of the target. The name lidar, now used as an acronym of light detection and ranging (sometimes light imaging, detection, and ranging), was originally a portmanteau of light and radar.’ From Wikipedia.
Peter Jackson, the director of the WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, was interviewed for the recent issue of TIME Magazine:
http://time.com/5466475/peter-jackson-they-shall-not-grow-old/
We’re passed the Armistice, and everything seems to be slowing down as far as events go. We have three movies in December on Turner Classic Movies that touch on World War I, including two that are truly classic . Times given here are Central.
–Paths of Glory (1958). The classic Stanley Kubrick film with Kirk Douglas and Adolph Menjou. 9:15 p.m. on Monday, December 10th.
This weekend at the annual Army – Navy Game the Army football team will be sporting uniforms honoring the 1st Infantry Division, the “Big Red One,” which today is headquartered at Fort Riley, Kansas. It is also a tribute to the Division in the Great War.
Not long after the Armistice the grim job of finding the fallen on the battle fields began. Shown above is a small part of a British Imperial War Graves Commission Body Density Map. The numbered map squares are 1000 yards on a side or about 207 acres. Each is divided into four smaller squares that are 500 yards on a side or about 52 acres. The blue penciled amounts are the number of bodies or distinct remains recovered in the 52 acre plot. Although supervised by British personnel, the actual recovery and reburial work was performed by the Chinese Labour Corps.
We’re now seeing if WWI programming will be sustained on the C-SPAN networks now that we’re past the centennial of the Armistice. This week we’re down to one specific program on C-SPAN2. Time is Central, as usual.
–Douglas Mastriano, Thunder in the Argonne. Airs on Sunday evening, December 2nd, at 9:30 p.m.
In the 1970’s a set of 34 photographs known as The Cockburn-Lange Collection and claimed to have been taken by a British pilot in actual WW1 combat were donated to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
In 1985, in an article in the enthusiast magazine Cross and Cockade, the British Society of WW1 Aero Historians revealed that these photographs were faked by an American named Wesley D. Archer, who had served briefly in the Royal Air Force in 1918 and later embarked on a career in model-making. They even uncovered a photograph of Archer actually staging one of his fakes.
Largely through the efforts of British Maj. Gen. Sir Fabian Ware (1869 – 1949), a Royal Charter created the Imperial War Graves Commission on May 21st, 1917.
In 1960 the name was changed to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) to reflect modern reality.
They Shall Not Grow Old, Sir Peter Jackson’s stunning WW1 documentary featuring computer-refined film footage from WW1 is coming to the U.S., with special showings on Dec. 17th and Dec. 27th in selected theaters. Click here to find a theater near you and purchase advance tickets. This link is showing theaters near my home but you can enter another zip code to find other locations.
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