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Seventy years ago one of the greatest amphibious assaults in history was launched from here on the south coast of England. And within a matter of hours, 7000 vessels had landed 156,000 troops on the beaches of Normandy. It was a manoeuvre that changed the course of the war and tested innovations in science and engineering for the first time. On this programme, engineer Rob Bell looks at the nuts and bolts which made such a staggering invasion possible. From giant troop carrying gliders to tanks that could drive on water. How necessity really did become the mother of invention. Like all new inventions - not all of them worked and resulted in devastating consequences. We find out why. This is the science of D-Day.
Status
Released
Original Language
EN
The heroic tales of World War II are legendary, but Operation Crossbow is a little known story that deserves to join the hall of fame: how the Allies used 3D photos to thwart the Nazis' weapons of mass destruction before they could obliterate Britain. This film brings together the heroic Spitfire pilots who took the photographs and the brilliant minds of RAF Medmenham that made sense of the jigsaw of clues hidden in the photos. Hitler was pumping a fortune into his new-fangled V weapons in the hope they could win him the war. But Medmenham had a secret weapon of its own, a simple stereoscope which brought to life every contour of the enemy landscape in perfect 3D. The devil was truly in the detail and, together with extraordinary personal testimonies, the film uses modern computer graphics on the original wartime photographs to show just how the photo interpreters were able to uncover Hitler's nastiest secrets.