War Films : Best films centered around BRITISH soldiers fighting against Nazis?

I have seen many films where the United States is front-and-center. Now, I desire a change of perspective when it comes to the Western Front.


It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .

well, vs Nazis, or the Western Front?

I don't think it was ever officially called "Western Front" in WW2.

the desert ones are probably the best British Ww2 films to see,
classics are 'Tobruck" , "Ice Cold in Alex" and 'Play Dirty"..

Only a few come to mind with actual combat. The ones pfarnell mentions and DESERT RATS, DUNKIRK, THE RED BERET and A BRIDGE TOO FAR you could add. There are plenty of POW films with Brits behind wire. I'll have a look at my lists and see what other titles I can come up with.

They Were Not Divided, Attack on the Iron Coast (not v good IMO), Tarnished Heroes, Sea Of Sand, Cockleshell Heroes.

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

Yes, good adds, SEA OF SAND in particular. THE STEEL BAYONET can be added as well.

"Sea of Sand" and 'cockleshell Heroes ' are both great ads, actually..

I'd add 'Naked Brigade' although it is mainly Greek partisans fighting the Nazis, plus one nice-looking British woman who gets suck with them, and one British commando in a rubber-boat who does not last long when the Germans wake up..
the other problem with this film, is actually finding it.

ie, 'stuck'not 'suck'..

Trailer for "Our Father":

Unfortunately it looks a rather low budget effort. A lack of attention to detail is evident too- a soldier using a Sten in 1940? The first ones weren't issued until 1941. And troops using the No4 Lee-Enfield? There were a very few issued in 1940 AFAIK but most British soldiers used the venerable old MkIII model.

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

---

a soldier using a Sten in 1940?

---

I did not spot that, if I had, yeah, I'd have called bogus on that right off..


bit like opening scene of "Battle of Britain", where you have a German tank with long-barreled 75mm or 88mm with rings around barrel advancing through French town 1940..

they made a similar mistake on 'Heavy Water War" series with the STENs..this time, it SHOULD have been STENs, but was Thompson's with drum magazines equipping airborne commandos

Yes, the "German " tank is actually a US made M37 Howitzer Motor Carriage, with a muzzle brake added- the vehicles were presumably loaned by the Spanish Army which is where the Dunkirk scenes were shot- the extras look very Hispanic, more like waiters (Manuel!!!) than stormtroopers!. The half tracks of course are the usual American M3 series ones. Nothing too unusual there as there was so little German armour available by then, although oddly enough only a few years earlier Spain still had a few Panzer IVs in service.
Regarding the Thompsons, the Commandos preferred the Thompson to the Sten- more reliable and better stopping power, and while there were some drum equipped Thompsons with the foregrips issued to the British Army earlier in the war I don't know if the Commandos on the Heavy Water raids used them but it isn't impossible.
My annoyance at goofs as in Our Fathers is that it is an easy enough thing to get right, there's no shortage of Lee-Enfield MKIIIs nor even of early Thompsons to use as props, I don't know where Our Fathers was shot but Bapty & Co. supplies most of the weapons used in British film and TV productions and they have everything so why get it wrong? Sloppy uniforms with wrong insignia annoy the hell out of me too- there is so much reference books out there its just laziness to get it wrong these days.
There is a recent- very bad- British movie which had British paratroopers with the normal issue British helmet rather than the paratrooper rimless one and wearing British battledress tunics with the wrong insignia instead of Dennison smocks.
As for SS officers in black uniforms

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

---

There is a recent- very bad- British movie which had British paratroopers with the normal issue British helmet rather than the paratrooper rimless one and wearing British battledress tunics with the wrong insignia instead of Dennison smocks.

---

yeah, familiar with the Red Devils style helmet, nothing like the pudding bowl..jumping with the steel pudding bowl on your 'ead probably inviting broken necks or decapitation..

Fallschirmjager helmets (Army and Luftwaffe separate models) are sort of art-deco versions of the standard infantry helmet tooactually in some ways they sort of remind one of the original German WW1 helmets
then you have those late war infantry ones as seen with the camo smocks, as seen in 'Fury" and on the cover of some Sven Hassel/Leo Kessler novels..

Sitting under a shade listening to the wireless waiting to take a few with you is one of the more stylish screen deaths, second only to the colonel at the start of Ice Cold in Alex.

Marlon, Claudia & Dimby the cats 1989-2010. Clio the cat, July 1997 - 1 May 2016.

My favourite is Bitter Victory (1957), which is both very brutal and very anti-war, plus it has a cowardly officer who takes the credit Kurt Jurgensand a noble officer who is an accomplished killer, Richard Burton. It also has Christopher Lee as an SAS sergeant and a whole host of other British cats playing the type of military toughs who got the job done whilst making mocking and sneering remarks at each othergood stuff.

Hi Squeethie! Yeah, I like Sea Of Sand, quite a good representation of the LRDG, even if the real LRDG spent the majority of its time on recce missions rather than hit and run attacks. G Patrol by Michael Chrichton-Stuart is a good read about the Guards operated unit.
Someone made a real effort to make the trucks look like LRDG Chevys with the cut down cabs, stowage and machine guns, even if a couple of them are actually (very similar) Dodges. Shooting the movie in Libya helped a lot too, nothing like the real desert for authenticity rather than shooting on Camber Sands in Sussex like Carry On Follow That Camel! (Which to be fair never looked like it was in Sussex!)
The only silly bit in Sea Of Sand to my mind is the bit where they knock out a German armoured car with a Bren gun- howja do that? If they'd had a Boyes anti-tank rifle- often at least one LRDG truck mounted one- it would have made sense.

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

what is the LRDG man seen driving in opening scene of 'Play Dirty", as Lili Marlene plays on radio, with KIA slumped in seat next to him?

was that one of those CWT Dodge/Chevy truck things, or just a JEEP?

It's a Jeep but I don't know who the actor is- probably an unknown extra as he doesn't exactly have much of a role
I haven't got Play Dirty yet. Don't know why as I collect war movies both good and bad (and boy, are there some stinkers in there!) It's a bit of a odd fish as war movies go, obviously inspired by The Dirty Dozen's cynicism. The vehicles are quite a good attempt at a desert patrol vehicle but rather oddly are post war Dodge M37s converted to vaguely resemble Mercedes Benzs but the patrol is supposed to be Italian- yer what? They are using Spanish Star machine pistols as well as a few MP40s here and there, I actually thought the Stars were MP40s fitted with a perforated barrel surround until someone put me right on the Play Dirty board.
http://world.guns.ru/smg/sp/star-z-45-e.html
I don't think the protagonists are supposed to be LRDG BTW, but just another bunch of irregular forces- there were quite a few in the desert- the LRDG of course and the SAS and Popski's Private Army. It seemed to be a breeding ground for mavericks.
The Italians actually did have an equivalent unit to the LRDG and they used the rather swish (to my eyes) Sahariana:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPA-Viberti_AS.42

A rather handy website for what weapons were used in movies:
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Category:Movie
WARNING! It is easy to spend hours on this above website, I know I have!

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

wowfamiliar with some of the Italian armies desert vehicles and trucks,and armour, captured FIAT trucks were often pressed into British service (and there are probably other makes, Isotta or something maybe) but never seen that thing b4..what a beastfirst glance reminded me of a mini version of US DUKW duck style thingee..

Yeah, Italian softskins were generally very good, in total contrast to their appalling tanks. They were very popular with the British as you've said and with the Germans too. Also the Germans liked Allied vehicles, in particular British and Canadian trucks as they were better suited to the desert than their own. Other than the specially designed military vehicles (like the Light and Heavy Passenger Cars such as Stoewer and the Horch) many German softskins were just militarised civilian vehicles not well suited to desert conditions.
The Sahariana does sort of vaguely look like a DUKW but of course wasn't amphibious- not that much use in the desert!

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

Germans suffered from quantity and quality deficiencies in trucks throughout warit was a strange fact in face of the common perception of a completely mechanized armyit actually never was..was still a horse-drawn armyyeah, even British lorries like Bedford seemed better then their own..let alone something probably fairly good like Canadian Chevrolet Blitz (the Australian army and air force in Pacific was full of those things, I've seen some still working to this day in car junk-yards with cranes and stuff on back..)

the only German WW2 lorry I can really name is OPEL Blitzmodel companies like Tamiya even covered that one, only reason I can name it..

there was am allegation in some books, not sure if it was ever proven true, that Germany proposed a deal to give safe passage to all Jews in the camps,out of Europe presumably to US and British commonwealth, in exchange for 10000 US-brand trucks..

The thing is though the Bedford, Canadian built Chevrolet, Opel Blitz and the US GMC "Deuce and a half" 2 and a half CCKW all use what was essentially the same engine- the "Stovebolt 6" six cylinder. Also all sides used Fords with the "flathead" V8- even the Bren Carrier used a Ford V8. This meant that repairing trucks with knackered engines was pretty easy.
After Dunkirk for example, the Germans captured loads of Bedfords and simply re-engined them with Opel sixes. The British troops that abandoned them had been told to drain the water and oil from their vehicles and leave them running causing the engines to seize.
Ideally they should have been damaged further and even burnt out but it wasn't also possible.
The main problem with the civilianised German vehicles was they weren't sturdy enough- they were designed for normal roads, not military use and their twin rear tyres- in the desert stones would be forced up between the rear rims damaging the tyres and causing punctures.

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

---

and their twin rear tyres- in the desert stones would be forced up between the rear rims damaging the tyres and causing punctures

---

interestingI had not heard of that angle..

I should have added 'a Bridge too Far" actually, forgot it,
it suffers from epic-itus as films like 'midway' and 'Battle of Britain' do, but definitely worth seeing.

Battle of Britain" itself is worth adding to a see-list for a newbie, of course.

'the Red Beret" I think that I do not know, actually..what is it?

I am STILL waiting to see this short-movie 'Our Fathers" which is set during the BEF campaign France Belgium 1940it was completed 2 years back almost, the shorts of it looked very good, but they kept dithering about releasing itthe preview of it is on youtube..looks quite stylish..

oh, umm, add 'Sink the Bismarck", definitely..

it is an entertainer, great lines and what not, even though it takes liberties with the factslet's just say it is not a documentary..

I guess since we just went to sea, we need to add 'Battle of the River Plate".

oh, and 'Gift Horse" and 'Cruel Sea"and "in Which We Serve".

and 'the Kings Sailor'even though I think that is WW1, not Ww2 ?

Went the Day Well? (actually the women get stuck in)

Target for Tonight

Desert Victory

Overlord

The Way Ahead


Marlon, Claudia & Dimby the cats 1989-2010. Clio the cat, July 1997 - 1 May 2016.

Play Dirty

A Bridge too Far



Marlon, Claudia & Dimby the cats 1989-2010. Clio the cat, July 1997 - 1 May 2016.

THE LONG DAY'S DYING 1968 can be added to the list. I caught it a few years back on one of its few airings.