PQ17: An Arctic Convoy Disaster (BBC presented by J. Clarkson)

[jakeXT]

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It's an extraordinary and terrible story, of plucky, ill-equipped merchant seamen in dirty British coasters with salt-caked smoke stacks, taking tanks and aeroplanes and just about everything else to Russia, sent from Churchill to Stalin, if not with love, then with hatred and fear of the Germans who were marching ominously north, as well attacking our boys in their tramp steamers – from the air, from the sea, from under the sea. Our boys who might have literally been boys, or old men, but who never signed up for this.

It's also the story of the warships – British and American – that flanked the convoy, shepherding the vulnerable, shooting at the German planes when they came, firing torpedoes at their ships, throwing depth charges at their U-boats. And it's the story of First Sea Lord Dudley Pound, the man back in charge at the cosy Admiralty in London who, ignoring his advisers, made the inexplicable and catastrophic decision to order the withdrawal of the warships while the merchant ships pressed on, scattered and unprotected. To be picked off by the Germans, who couldn't believe their luck. Of the 35 cargo ships that set off, just 11 made it. No wonder Churchill called it "the worst journey in the world".

You can take the man out of Top Gear but you can't totally take TG out of JC. He stands on the deck of another ship – a modern British warship – and somehow gets them to pull a handbrake turn for him. Just for the hell of it. "Oh yeah," he whoops, as the Royal Navy performs high-speed sea-doughnuts for his pleasure. "That's … oooh my God, look at that, that's … bloody hell." Type 23 frigate, Ferrari 458, Nissan GT-R or whatever, it's all the same.

Plus he gets boyishly excited about the weaponry, specifically the 15-inch guns of the Tirpitz, the German battleship that so terrified Sir Dud the dud. "The bigger warships of PQ17 could fire a shell this size 16 miles," he says holding up a big blue phallic shell. "Whereas Tirpitz could fire a shell this size 22 miles," he adds, standing next to a considerably bigger one, unmistakably impressed. "So before you were close enough to unleash your virtually harmless peashooter, you'd have been blown to kingdom come." Shame Jezza wasn't around back then; he could have reclined on the foredeck, aimed his very own 15-inch weapon at the Tirpitz and blown it to kingdom come. Careful of the ice again though – it could end in an adult version of that Dumb and Dumber frozen-tongue moment … Eurgh, sorry about those thoughts; Clarkson can do that to a man – turn him into a schoolboy idiot.

We're getting sidetracked. Apart from the occasional descent into Top Gearism, JC actually does a splendid job.
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http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jan/03/pq17-arctic-convoy-disaster-tv-review