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The story of how this documentary was made is an epic in itself. It all began in 2009 with a practical joke ... a wonderfully funny two-part series in Afloat magazine in Australia by “Associate Professor Kojihiro Matsuda” purporting to tell the story of the submarine raid and its aftermath. In fact it was a clever parody of my writing style. I loved it and wrote a letter to the editor of Afloat taking the joke a bit further. As a result of this “Professor Matsuda” (a.k.a. Gary Jackson, computer animator superb and all-round good guy) and I got to meet. We worked together on the documentary for the better part of 10 years. We tried all the usual channels for funding and support, and mostly were listened to politely before being told to sod off. So we went ahead and did it ourselves. The result has been very well received by those who ought to know including various Maritime Museums, the Australian War Memorial and so on. They have all been happy to stock it and sell it. Very gratifying.
The DVD runs for about 48 minutes, You can watch a trailer by clicking here. You can also buy the DVD from WW2AUSTRALIA priced at AU$29.95 plus postage.
This documentary won the Australian Film Producers Association award for Best Documentary 2012 as well as setting all sorts of viewing records for The History Channel. It is, strictly speaking, a drama documentary because it uses actors as well as archive newsreel film. You can watch a trailer by clicking here. The full DVD plays for 55 minutes 30 seconds. You can buy the DVD from WW2AUSTRALIA. It sells for AU$35 plus postage
The background picture on this page deserves a note of its own. The thin rocky wall on the centre-left is part of an écluse, whose literal translation from French to English is 'lock', as in the lock in a canal. However in this case it is a gigantic man-made fish trap. As the tide rolls in, unwary fish swim over the wall and into the big, enclosed pool of the écluse. When the tide goes out, they can't find their way out and are caught. It is a method of fishing almost unique to our French island of Oléron, although it is also practised on the Japanese island of Ishigaki, the most southerly of the Okinawa Group.