4 HN users recommended this documentary8 months2019–2025score 10
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN readers recommend it as a detailed, intelligent documentary about wartime technology that assumes viewers aren't stupid.
A compilation of the 1977 BBC series The Secret War, a documentary on British scientific and technical efforts in WWII, including radar, German navigation beams and V-weapons. It features interviews with people who were there, including Albert Speer.
“It's very long, very detailed but well presented - in a style that assumes you aren't stupid.” (HN, 2019)
I spam this everytime WW2 engineering is mentioned and I'll do it again: [this video] The secret war is a documentary about exactly that (amongst other things e.g. the magnetic mine): WW2 RADAR and radio navigation, and the intellectual battle between the Brits and Germans as they tried to locate beams and steal (genuinely!) entire German ground radar stations It's very long, very detailed but well presented - in a style that assumes you aren't stupid.
Detailed, well-presented documentary on WW2 radar and the intellectual battle.
Anyone who browses HN regularly will probably enjoy the book "Most Secret War" by R.V. Jones (or the accompanying TV show "The Secret War"). Jones was a physicist working for Churchill directly by the end of the war. Everyone has heard of Bletchley park and the Manhattan project, but Jones's book covers the game of genuinely deadly cat and mouse that was played throughout WW2 as each side learned and adapted to eachothers scientific intelligence. Radar, Sonar (ASDIC at the time), Magnetic mines, etc. Its easy to think of it as an intellectual game of chess but it is telling that when the Allies bombed Peenemunde (Nazi area 51) they flew straight over the laboratories to bomb the houses of the scientists. The TV adaptation is brilliant - thoughtful documentary production, not dumbed down, and most of the people were still alive when it was filmed. [this video] Edit: for anyone reading the book look out for mentions of any members of the Cambridge five - Jones was shunned after the war so he is perhaps overly kind to Kim Philby. The same system that allowed the KGB to run wild wouldn't recruit Jones into intelligence work for being of the wrong sort (apparently - according Peter Wright)
Brilliant, thoughtful documentary adaptation featuring people still alive at filming.
For more R V Jones goodness, watch "The Secret War" from 1977. The two first segments, "The Battle of the Beams" and "To See for a Hundred Miles" should be of interest, but all of it is great, really. [this video] Bonus: It includes interviews with Albert Speer. More info about the series: [link]
Great 1977 series with interviews including Albert Speer.
One thing a lot of people forget because war movies don't show them, is that by the end of the war allied and German aircraft were absolutely loaded with electronics. The story of Radar on the ground is well known, but the story of systems like [link] (so named apparently because it was a smell that no one had discovered before) is not so well known. Similarly a lot of these British efforts were more at risk to their own commanders that the Germans at the beginning, because the engineers were having to go through utterly ridiculous hoops to justify basic physics to their superiors. Sometimes their scientific superiors... [this video] is a very very good documentary about this kind of thing. Made before the scientists were dead, so lots of gossip. Randall and Boot should be known by more people, but magnetrons are not as awesome as the nuclear bomb.
Very good documentary made while scientists were alive, full of gossip.
He also features a lot in the 70's BBC Series, 'The Secret War'. A compilation of it seems to be on YouTube (for the time being). The Battle of the Beams is the first segment : [this video]
BBC series with the Battle of the Beams segment first.
For anyone else interested in WW2 reverse engineering and design etc., [this video] "The secret war" is a huge documentary covering british efforts to counter german electronic warfare and V-weapons.
Huge documentary on British efforts against German electronic warfare and V-weapons.
For fans of tomorrow's world: "The secret war" is another William Wollard show about the technology that Britain used in the war. If you like hackernews, you'll probably like it [this video]
Show about British wartime technology that HN readers would like.
There's an episode of the 1970s BBC documentary series "The Secret War" about the miscellaneous technology projects that sound obviously crazy now, or may have been cancelled to soon: [this video] The whole series is worth a watch, including episodes on radio location finding, radar and radar jamming, Jet engines, the V1/V2 rockets, and Ultra/Enigma etc. Many of the participants (both British and German) are interviewed - including Albert Speer.
Episode on crazy-sounding wartime projects; whole series worth watching.
He was also the principal interviewee in the 1977 BBC Documentary series "The Secret War". There's a YouTube compilation of the six episodes here : [this video]
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