Richard Holmes - The World at War: The Landmark Oral History

All film-makers shoot more footage than they use; The World at War was no exception. We always knew we had more good stuff than could conceivably be crammed into twenty-six hours of commercial television each 'hour' only fifty-two minutes, thirty seconds long, to be precise. We never kept a strict tally, but I'd guess the ratio of newsreel printed to that used was about fifteen to one; for interviews it was higher still, well over twenty to one. The first assemblies of strong, relevant material ran at over three hours; hard choices always had to be made to get each episode down to transmittable length.

We shot, from the outset, for the series and for the record. What was omitted was left, not on the cutting-room floor, but in the Imperial War Museum (IWM). Thames Television, at its all-round best the finest of the ITV franchise holders, sturdily footed the bill.

In a way, the money Thames spent was public money. The ITV companies, fifteen of them, enjoyed near monopolies, in their own areas, of television advertising revenue. In February 1971, after years of pressure, the government agreed to change the basis of the special levy on ITV franchises the price they paid for their monopoly from a tax on revenue to a tax on profit; their income would no longer be taxed at source. The condition was that the companies spend, and be seen to spend, more on programmes. I went at once to my bosses at Thames and suggested we make a history of the Second World War. A few weeks later, on AprilFool's Day 1971, we started work. Our principal collaborator was the IWM; its director, Noble Frankland, our historical adviser. It was a condition of the contract that all the original footage we shot be deposited in the IWM's archive. There it has lain to this day.

The World at War's key ingredients were the image and the word, newsreel and eye-witness interview. Music and narration held all together. Some programmes went short of pictures; there is little visual record of war at sea, or acts of resistance, or of genocidal gas-chambers. Those episodes relied on interviews. One episode, on Stalingrad, used no witnesses; no Red Army veterans would face the camera in 197273, at the height of the Cold War. But those were the exceptions. For the most part we reckoned to use newsreel and interviews, split fifty-fifty; so only about thirteen hours of interview made it to the screen.

Some voices are heard only for a moment. An American paratrooper, who dropped in France before the D-Day landing, tells us: 'I was afraid. I was nineteen, and I was afraid.' I hear him still.

Others, particularly the leaders, talked at greater length. What interviewer, researcher or producer, facing a Supreme Commander, a presidential aide, the Foreign Secretary, an SS General, could resist seeking an overview, a tour d'horizon? It might serve in several programmes, after all. As you read these pages, remember The World at War's interviewers; they did a fine job.

The World at War took fifty of us three years to make: we talked to hundreds of survivors and printed a million feet of film. When it was finished the final episode screened in May, 1974 we made three lengthy specials from the ample surplus to hand. Then, the team broke up; each moved on to other things. Making The World at War took over our lives, but we never thought of transferring what we'd done to other media. Now, triumphantly, the voices we recorded speak again on the printed page. Rereading the transcripts today, I am impressed by how successfully, in skilled hands, they transfer to print; vivid, articulate, revelatory.

Television history is narrative history. Several interpretations of a strategic decision may be worth considering, but the film-maker must choose one, and stay with it. On the page, there is time and freedom toreview the options. On complex issues, a wealth of opinion is easily displayed, and differing experiences related. In commissioning this oral history, Ebury Press has taken a visionary initiative. Richard Holmes has done a superb job of selection, and of organising the mass of material. On many topics he presents a broader and more nuanced account than did TV's linear narrative. His book deserves a vast readership. I salute him.

Jeremy Isaacs describes the making of The World at War in Look Me in the Eye: A Life in Television, published by Little Brown 2006.