The First World War From Above

00:00:03 'This is the story of a remarkable journey

00:02:27 'when I meet the daughter of the airship pilot of 90 years ago.'

00:05:09 This heavily defended line of trenches stretched for 400 miles

00:07:29 and the other three, four, five on the other side of the zig-zag were safe.

00:09:45 These look like trenches under construction.

00:12:06 Flying these planes over the Western Front was phenomenally dangerous.

00:14:46 The camera was big. The air speed was high. You've just experienced it.

00:17:05 Once the British commanders saw the flower beds

00:19:08 they had to get out of the trench and go across No Man's Land and that was just lethal.

00:21:36 photographing the German front lines.

00:23:43 So what you had to do was to walk through a stream of lead.

00:25:53 - This path takes us up to the German front line from where they could easily have seen the British. - Yeah.

00:27:48 To create this mine, what did they have to do?

00:29:54 Tunnels are always dug on a slight upward angle for drainage purposes

00:33:00 The audacious British plan was to dig tunnels for over a year

00:35:44 By the time the last one went off

00:38:10 'as one farmer's wife discovered to her terror.'

00:40:24 The Battle of Passchendaele would be defined not by trenches or tunnels, but by weather.

00:43:02 And that's for something that looks like a relative success.

00:45:24 Eight people with a gallantry award, which is a testament to the repeated bravery that they showed

00:48:42 but they did find one thing under the ruins of the house.

00:51:17 men who now looked to the future for adventure and challenges

00:53:49 And my father was pretending he was a shopkeeper

00:55:49 Yes.