Saturday 7th
Channel 4 - Day of the Kamikaze - "
The kamikazes were Japanese pilots who made the ultimate sacrifice: to carry a new and incomprehensible weapon of war; a final mission that would result in certain death; to dive and crash into enemy ships.
As the Second World War entered its final stages, Japan faced utter ruin and total defeat. As the Allies crept ever closer to the Japanese mainland, a Japanese High Command under increasing pressure sought desperate measures.
Surviving kamikaze pilots and the families of those who died reveal how military leaders, Japan's increasingly grave situation, and their country's proud history each played a part in persuading men to sign up to sacrifice their lives for their country.
The tactic permeated the nation's conscience as an entire generation prepared for kamikaze attack should their homeland fall into enemy hands.
By the summer of 1945, 1,900 kamikaze pilots had been sacrificed to sink 27 Allied warships. Fewer than two out every 100 pilots put a ship out of action, but more than 3,000 Allied naval men perished in kamikaze attacks.
Interviews with surviving American and British sailors reveal the horror of facing the daily suicide tactic for the first time. Original US archive colour film shows the deadly dives made by the pilots into Allied vessels and the horrific aftermath of the attacks on the ship and crew. Japanese footage and drama sequences also reveal how the pilots trained for their final mission and prepared for death."
More 4 - Making War Horse - "Michael Morpurgo's War Horse is set at the outbreak of World War I, when Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. Joey is soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert, who's still not old enough to enlist, can't forget Joey and embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home. Making War Horse features exclusive rehearsal and backstage footage of the stage production, interviews with the production team, the actors and the puppeteers, and extracts from the award-winning show."
Sunday 8th
BBC 2 - William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice - "An adaptation of Shakespeare's play about a Jewish moneylender who seeks to forfeit a literal pound of flesh from his Christian nemesis. Starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons."
BBC 4- War Grave - "The graves of those killed in action are something very special. For the families, friends and comrades of those who fell they evoke a unique moment in time - memories of childhood, missed youth or first love. This documentary features personal stories of loss in conflicts from the First World War to the Falklands."
BBC 4 - The Children Who Fought Hitler - "Documentary telling the forgotten story of a heroic battle fought by the children of the British Memorial School to help liberate Europe from the Nazis.
The school served a unique horticultural community of ex-First World War soldiers and their families living in Ypres in Belgium who lovingly tended the war graves. Steeped in ideals of patriotic service and sacrifice, many pupils and ex-pupils refused to surrender to the invading Nazi forces.
Three surviving school pupils tell their extraordinary stories of resistance, illustrated with rare archive film. Elaine Madden dramatically escaped to England where she joined the Special Operations Executive and was dropped into Belgium to work as a spy and saboteur. Jerry Eaton joined the RAF taking on especially dangerous missions over Europe and would later become a wing commander. Stephen Grady joined the French resistance where, as a young teenager, he became adept in sabotage and secret attacks on German troops.
The film is a much deserved tribute to the courage, sacrifice and heroism of the Memorial School children."
Monday 9th
BBC 1 - Panorama : Assault On Justice - "A man given a beating in his own home. A young woman bitten and punched by a man. A bottle smashed onto the head of an innocent bystander in an argument. Three victims, all violently assaulted - yet their attackers escaped prosecution, receiving cautions instead.
Half of all criminal cases brought to justice in England and Wales are now dealt with out of court. It's fast justice...but is it fair?
The government says out-of-court punishments, like cautions and fines, are helping to unclog the overburdened courts system and deal swiftly with antisocial behaviour. Critics say it is simply justice on the cheap, letting some serious criminals off the hook and, crucially, denying victims their day in court.
Shelley Jofre investigates whether these decisions, made behind closed doors instead of in open court, are tough on crime or the causes of crime."
BBC4 - War Heroes: Section 60 Arlington Cemetry - "Documentary focusing on Section 60 of the historic Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia - the 'saddest acre in America' - where US service men and women from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are buried.
An intimate look at the impact of lives lost too soon, the film bears witness to the rituals and traditions of the family and friends who come from around the country to visit the graves."
More 4 - True Stories: Dancing With The Devil - "
With unprecedented access to Rio de Janeiro's dangerous backstreets, Oscar-winning filmmaker Jon Blair provides an unflinching look at one of the bloodiest urban conflicts in the world, which leaves more than 1,000 people dead each year.
What has previously only been portrayed in fictional films like the famous City of God is now on screen and for real, as Blair follows the lives of three very different men.
'Spiderman', a 28-year-old drug lord, patrols the shadowy streets of Coréia, the sprawling favela he controls.
Inspector Leonardo Torres, a muscle-bound cop from Rio's drug squad, inches through the alleys of another shanty town, pursuing dealers and dodging bullets.
And Pastor Dione dos Santos, a reformed gangster turned evangelical preacher, trawls the slums looking for souls to be saved on his quest to broker peace among all parties and end the city's drug conflict."
Wednesday 11th
BBC 4 - Michael Portillo: Digging Up The Dead - "A personal journey for Michael Portillo into a story which may come as a shock to people whose knowledge of Spain comes from taking holidays on the beach.
Lying just beneath the surface of the ground, all over Spain, are the bodies of tens of thousands of people in unmarked and very often mass graves. For most of the last seventy years, since the end of the Spanish Civil War, these were known as the 'Graves of Forgetting'. The country was ruled by a dictatorship until the late 1970s and no-one dared speak out about the dead and the disappeared, of whom there could be as many as 200,000.
It is only now that Spain is getting to grips with its past - recognising the terrible crimes that were committed under General Franco's dictatorship and encouraging people to speak about their memories and the loved ones they lost. Many of the graves are being excavated and the bodies removed for reburial, while others will be turned into memorial parks. One excavation is taking place just moments from the beaches and bars of Malaga.
No Spanish family was untouched by the civil war and the repression that followed, and Michael Portillo's family is no exception. His father supported the democratic government and when Spain fell to Franco, Luis Portillo spent the rest of his life in exile.
As Michael discovers, while his uncles were fighting and dying for Franco, his father fought, unarmed in order to be certain that he could not kill a brother, for the republic. This is a journey into a place we thought we knew so well, but discover, through the stories told by a variety of characters, that we hardly knew at all."
BBC 2 - Natural World - Andrea: Queen of Mantas - "Manta rays are one of the most intelligent creatures in the ocean and, at up to seven metres long, one of the largest. Yet despite their size and curious nature, almost nothing is known about their lives.
Young marine biologist Andrea Marshall has given up everything for a life in Mozambique, diving amongst these beautiful animals. Superb underwater photography reveals new manta ray behaviour including breathtaking footage of their ritual courtship dances.
The film follows Andrea as she studies these endangered animals up close. With the discovery of a giant new species and remarkable insights into mantas' secretive lives, Andrea's findings are already rocking the world of marine biology."
BBC 2- Armistice - "Professor David Reynolds takes a fresh look at the extraordinary events and personalities that brought about the armistice of 1918, venturing beyond the familiar British account of Remembrance Day to unravel how the other side, the Germans, plunged to total defeat in just a few months at the end of the war.
In a journey that takes him through command centres and battlefields, he uncovers a story of wounded egos, mental illness and political brinkmanship as statesmen and generals haggled over the terms of peace, while, at the front, the soldiers fought on with sustained brutality.
For many Germans, the armistice was a betrayal of all they had fought for and it caused lasting resentments that would eventually fuel Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Reynolds argues that the bitter endgame of the 'war to end all wars' tragically sowed the seeds of even more appalling conflict to come."
Friday 14th
Channel 4 - Unreported World - Nepal: The Living Dead - "Unreported World highlights the tragic plight of Nepal's child widows, some of whom are as young as thirteen. Many face abuse and servitude for the rest of their lives, ostracised by their families and communities, and are often forced to sell their bodies to provide food and shelter for themselves and their children."
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* This applies to staff members at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
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