BBC - Digging for Britain Series 8 (2019) Part 4 WWII

Professor Alice Roberts returns with the eighth series of BBC Four’s Digging for Britain. In the first episode, we explore this year’s finds in the west of Britain.

Part 4 WWII

The team are on an archaeological hunt of our more recent past as they follow the search for artefacts from World War II. They join marine archaeologists in the Solent as they raise the once-in-a-lifetime find of a Fairey Barracuda dive bomber. More than 2500 Barracudas were in service during the war, but not a single complete plane survives today. Naoíse Mac Sweeney joins the post-excavation to reveal how the find could help bring this rare aircraft back to life.

Also featured, a dig in the Lake District that tells the moving story of the Windermere Boys and the role the area played in rehabilitating these children liberated from the Nazi concentration camps after World War II.

In Aldbourne, Wiltshire, the search is on for the most famous American unit of the US army, 'Easy Company', whose paratroopers were stationed there in 1943 and 1944. Archaeologists are particularly looking for any personal items of this renowned regiment to gain insight into the lives of its soldiers in the months and days leading up to the D-Day invasion.

And off a beautiful beach in Devon, divers plumb the depths to discover more about a secret wartime military exercise that may have remained buried from view if it hadn't been for the curiosity of a local amateur archaeologist.

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