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Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

Researcher Georgina Leslie's diary on the making of the Timewatch programme Bloody Omaha.

25 June 

I have touched base with Joe Balkoski, another D-Day expert and the official historian for the 29th Division, recommended by Simon. What is exciting about Joe is the work he has done on casualty figures for Omaha. The received history is that 2,000 Americans became casualties (killed, wounded and missing) at Omaha on D-Day. But Joe has for the first time come up with a more exact count – and astonishingly it is more than double the accepted figure, nearly 5,000. This makes Omaha even more bloody than people have thought. What I find astonishing – coming from a generation where information is so readily available – is that such a fundamental and important figure could have taken more than 60 years to arrive at – and even then only after such painstaking work in the archives as Joe sifted through thousands of documents counting names. Joe agrees to be interviewed for the film in his archive rooms at the Fifth Armory in Baltimore. 

28 June

Today I ring one of the Ranger veterans on my list called Ray Tollefson. I know almost immediately that he is just the person we are after for eyewitness testimony. As one of the Rangers who trained for the assault on the cliff top position Pointe du Hoc but who was diverted to come in on Omaha beach itself, he is at the very heart of our story. As part of 2nd Rangers ‘A’ company, he also ended up coming in at the very worst sector of Omaha beach – Dog Green, near the Vierville draw – where casualties were particularly high. Ray tells me he lost many of his close friends in the assault and he himself was badly wounded, hit twice through the arm by machine gun fire. But what really gets me about Ray on the phone is his candour and genuineness. He tells me about cliff training in England and how much he hated it because he was scared of heights. He is the very opposite of gung ho – he is frank and very human, which makes me really emphathise with him and thus feel his story that much more powerfully – an important factor for a TV contributor. Ray says he has never really talked about what happened to him on D-Day not even to his wife – but when I ask whether he would be willing to be interviewed on camera, to my delight, he accepts.

About the author

Timewatch is the world's longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC's flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

Researcher Georgina Leslie's diary on the making of the Timewatch programme Bloody Omaha.

21 June

I have tracked down the head of the veteran Rangers old boys’ network, a lovely quietly spoken man called Frank South who was himself a veteran of Omaha beach. He kindly provides me with a long list of veterans’ contact details and recommends a few on the list who he says have good stories including Ike Eikner, who was the communications officer under Rudder for the Pointe du Hoc assault. It is now a question of calling each of these men to hear their stories. Ike proves to be a good starting point. He’s 93 but his mind is still razor sharp and he tells some good anecdotes about climbing the cliffs under grenade fire and using pigeons to send messages. Some of the veterans I speak to are pretty hard of hearing and it’s not easy on the phone. My colleagues in the Timewatch office have to put up with me shouting my questions repeatedly down the phone!

18 June

I am tasked with talking to other historians about Omaha to find out their views on Maisy and also to see if any other new evidence has come to light recently. Dr Adrian Lewis at Texas Uni has done some interesting new work on the planning side of things and believes that Omaha came close to disaster because it was a compromise between British and American doctrines. He also talks well about how the Americans had an over-inflated view on the accuracy of their bombers convinced they could drop a bomb “into a pickle barrel” – but on the day they missed their targets. We all feel that it has some interesting resonances for operations today in places like Iraq. What is great about Lewis is that he’s not your average academic. Not only is he one of only two African American military historians in the States but he also served most of his career as a soldier in the US Army before turning to academia. This means he is able to talk with some authority about what a soldier feels and how a soldier behaves when he sees the slaughter of the battlefield for the first time – which many of those landing on Omaha would have experienced as green GIs. It is really quite chilling the way he explains it.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

Researcher Georgina Leslie's diary on the making of the Timewatch programme 'Bloody Omaha'

Wednesday 13 June

We have been in talks with Gary on the phone and have agreed access to his Maisy site and to film some excavation work there with a digger. Today James and I go to meet Dr Simon Trew, deputy head of war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the editor of the Battlezone D-Day book series. We discuss the programme and some of the angles that we should focus on. Simon says a new emphasis is on the Rangers at Omaha itself and how they turned the day. The arrival of this intact batallion of 500 plus men on the beach, diverted from Pointe du Hoc, came at a pivotal moment and helped turn near disaster to victory. It is a nice irony that this group of men effectively ended up in the wrong place at the right time. James likes this angle because it puts people at the heart of our story – and he wants this to be a film driven by human stories rather than military discussion. Simon is a great find – highly knowledgeable yet also young, enthusiastic and full of energy. This must come partly from years spent taking young Sandhurst cadets on battlefield tour guides. We ask him to be the main historian for the programme and as part of this he will conduct a peer review on Maisy.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

Researcher Georgina Leslie's diary about the making of the Timewatch Bloody Omaha programme.

Thursday 7 June

James Hayes [Producer/Director] and I meet John Farren [Timewatch Commissioning Editor] to talk through the programme. The idea to make a Timewatch on Omaha was prompted by news that an English military enthusiast by the name of Gary Sterne had dug up a forgotten German gun battery near the landing beach. It caused quite a splash in the press – and Gary’s theory is that this Maisy battery could have contributed to the high casualty rate on D-Day. John wants us to investigate this, taking a historian out to visit the site to see what he makes of it. Meanwhile it gives us the opportunity to revisit the incredible story of Omaha, the training for mission impossible and what happened on the day itself through the stories of people who were actually part of it. James and I go away to do some background reading – it’s a big subject to cover and there’s a lot to get our heads round. Best of all, I get to re-watch the epic opening scenes in Saving Private Ryan and call it work.

About the author

Timewatch is the world's longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC's flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.

Blogging about

Timewatch

The BBC's flagship history series, from Gladiators to Genghis Khan, Bog bodies to Bloody Omaha, find out more in Timewatch.

The Timewatch Team diary about the making of the Wreckers programme.

Friday 1 June

The past week has been taken up with the online when the programme goes through several technical steps to ensure it is of tip top quality for broadcast. This includes the “dub”, where the sound is perfected, and the “grade” where the picture and colours are tweaked. The final thing today was the commentary recording when Michael Praed (ex Robin Hood!), the voice of Timewatch, recorded the programme’s commentary. The programme is finally finished. I think we are all pretty pleased with the result, and hope our viewers will enjoy the journey around our British coast as well as gaining a fascinating insight into coastal life through the centuries and understanding how modern-day lifesaving was actually born out of something more unsavoury – wrecking.

About the author

Timewatch is the world’s longest-running history series, having started in 1981, and is the BBC’s flagship history series. Here, members of the production team share the highs, and lows, during the production process as they make some of the next series of programmes.