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5.0 out of 5 stars
"Pick" at Dishforth, April 29, 2008
This review is from: Target for Tonight Deluxe Edition featuring Target Germany! (DVD)
Wing.Co. Pickard "Pick", who stars in this film, "Target for Tonight" was my father's C.O. in 1942-2 at Dishforth in Yorkshire. He was a star, an ace, and everyone idolised him. I had the great fortune to be invited with my parents to Pick and his wife's house on the station once, for tea to meet Lord Londonerry - I forget what Lord L's RAF rank was, but Pick must have thought a lot of him because it was with him he left a letter about how he wished his son Nicholas to be brought up in the event of his not coming back from 'ops' one day.
I would love to know whether Nicholas is alive and well today. He was a baby when I was 12, so should be his late sixties.
Pick was totally unassuming, relaxed, a natural leader, very laid back and utterly charming. See the body language in the film as he slouches into the briefing and debriefing, hands in pockets of his flying jacket. I was 12 or 13 and had an enormous crush, obviously. But all the qualities that made him what he was in wartime might have made him quite a daunting father after the war, had he survived and not been killed after he had bombed Amiens prison to allow French Resistance people to escape. It was said afterwards that he was not really used to low level bombing such as that and may not have been a wise choice. But I believe the squadron achieved what they set out to do, albeit with inevitable loss of life in the prison as well as to themselves.
I found the film gripping. I had seen it about twenty years ago with my son and this time with my son and his partner. We were all sitting on the edge of our seats, although we knew this was not a real-life raid. However, "F" for Freddie was indeed the name of Pick's aircraft and the name used in the film and it came across as very real.
Strongly recommended.
By the time Pick was killed my father, who had been an Intelligence Officer in the ops room for so many of those bombing raids on Germany, was in the Tunisian desert, but he was terribly upset when he heard. I found the film moving, too, because while my father, George Lindley "Lyn" Sparkes, was not actually in it I could see the kind of thing he would have done so many times with Pick and all the other boys in the squadron. I hate the way those brave men's memories have been tarnished by uninformed 'bashing' of the job they had to do. I'm afraid they had no alternative. It was either 'us' or 'them' in those dangerous days.
A lot of rubbish has been written.
DLW
Dawn Lowe-Watson
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5.0 out of 5 stars
very interesting historic films from the war, June 14, 2007
This review is from: Target for Tonight Deluxe Edition featuring Target Germany! (DVD)
this is a pretty nifty collection of films. frankly i enjoy watching this stuff better than watching the history channel since these were made during the war to show the public what was going on, and keep morale up. you cannot exactly expect them to show war in all of its dirty and dark aspects, but you still get a strong flavor of what it was like for these men. i highly recommend this and the companion film, target for today, and also there are many similar films that are much more famous like memphis belle and combat america.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
CLASSIC COMBAT FILMS FROM WWII, June 6, 2007
This review is from: Target for Tonight Deluxe Edition featuring Target Germany! (DVD)
This is one of the all time great WWII combat films in the air, Target for Tonight. It is thrilling to see it again, as I had not seen it for over forty years. This is a classic, following the crew of the bomber "F for Freddie" as they fight for survival over Germany. The bonus film, which is called "Target Germany" is one I had never seen before, and which was also gripping.
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