Accuracy and Information

Flight Journal, Apr 2005 by Davisson, Budd

THE WORLD OF INFORMATION IS SCARY, PARTLY because it's expanding at an exponential rate and partly because it's hard to know who you can trust anymore.

Back in the 1950s, when television started to make its mark and so many of us were just coming of age, two of the biggest sources of wartime history were "The Big Picture," an ongoing WW II documentary series that was largely Army-oriented, and "Victory at Sea." Even though WW II had ended only 10 years earlier, veterans sat glued to the TV sets because they wanted a better understanding of what they had just been through. A dogface knew the battles only as far as they had affected him and the guys in the foxholes around him. A pilot knew exactly what he had experienced, but the rest had to come out of Stars and Stripes. There was then, as there is now, a national hunger for history.

Today, there's a never-ending battle between competing cable channels that try to out-do one another in serving up history in a bewildering variety of ways. Was Hitler gay? Did Tojo eat spaghetti? Battles are fought and refought. Hardware is examined and reexamined.

One of the truly great things about this competition is that we're at last seeing coverage of events and items most of us knew little about. For example, we just saw a tremendously detailed examination of the immense evacuation at Dunkirk. Fascinating stuff!

Sometimes, there is so much information that we feel as though we're trying to drink from a fire hose. Most of us love it, but occasionally, something happens that shakes our faith in the entire system.

Most of us are not knowledgeable enough to judge the accuracy of what's appearing on screen. Once in a while, however, you'll see something portrayed or said that you know for a fact is wrong, and quite often it is basic stuff. Commentators talk about the Spitfire's Allison engine or the Mustang's 20mm cannon. Or they praise the B-17 at great length while portraying a B-24. At that point, you remember that TV programs are produced by TV people-not by historians or pilots. And definitely not by individuals who were actually involved in the events depicted.

TV producers readily admit that they have neither the experience nor the knowledge to determine whether what they are presenting is right or wrong. They usually rely on "technical advisors," but sometimes it's obvious that they didn't run the final product through such advisors, or some of it would never have made it to the screen.

In many ways, we at Flight Journal understand the plight of TV documentary producers. As much as we try to get it right, we know that sometimes errors slip through and we aren't as accurate as we would like to be. We would love, for instance, to be able to bounce our story on the Chance Vought 173 off old Charlie Zimmerman, the designer, and have him check it for accuracy, but we can't. He's long gone. That's why we love it when we get firsthand accounts from folks such as Tom Murphy ("Cargo Flights to Dien Bien Phu") because he was actually there. There is simply no substitute for a first-person narrative.

Quite often, after we run an article, those who were part of the action send us notes to add their perspective. When we can, we share those letters with our readers. Not only do they keep us honest, but they also fill in information gaps, and that's how history is passed on. So, friends and neighbors, for the sake of future generations, keep those cards and letters coming in.

-Budd Davisson, Editor-in-Chief