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CNN 10

Modern Technology Taking Footage To Help People Envision World War I

Aired November 09, 2018 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: 10 second trivia, veteran`s day originated with an observance that marked the end of what war? The U.S. Civil War, World

War I, World War II, or Vietnam War? The holiday observed on November 11 recalls Armistice Day, which marked the end of World War I.

As its widely quoted, the armistice that ended the Great War went into effect on the 11th hour on of the 11th day of the 11th month. So this

Sunday is the anniversary, and it will be exactly 100 years since the guns fell silent in the war to end all wars. Sadly, it didn`t live up to that

name, with a larger, more brutal conflict of World War II beginning just 21 years after the First World War ended. But at the time, World War I ran

from 1914 to 1918. The world had never seen a conflict like it.

Millions of people from across the planet were killed, even a century after the war ended, some battlefields in France and Belgium still showed the

crates made by the shells. Some areas are still closed to the public because they`re filled with unexploded bombs and mines, tanks, machine

guns, fighter planes, chemical weapons, they were all used on a large scale for the first time. So the war made history, both for the destruction it

caused and the technology used to carry it out.

Now, modern technology is taking footage like this and helping people envision World War I and to look to those who fight it. This report by

Nick Glass helps bridge the past with the present.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK GLASS, CNN JOURNALIST: The trains of course are so much faster now, just whistle through the station at (inaudible) some 40 miles north of

London. The station building itself hasn`t changed that much in a century or so, the big difference on that summer`s day way back in August, 1914,

was the main platform was crowded with men in uniform going off to war. The way we remember the Great War has suddenly changed. The images have

been tinted. We`ve begun to see the war in color for the first time.

DAN HILL (ph): This is Private Walter Splanders (ph) and Private Phil Johnson (ph). They had a tragically short war, in that these two chaps

were both killed by the same shell, buried alive.

GLASS: (Inaudible) Dan Hill (ph) is trying to identify all the men on the platform to find out what happened to them.

HILL (ph): This is Corporal Arthur Ernest Bordman (ph), he`s the very first man to fall.

GLASS: So far, Hill (ph) has identified 11 of the men in the photo, eight of them never came home. Their names are on the war memorial just 50 yards

from the railway station. Corporal Bordman (ph), Private Splanders (ph) and Johnson (ph), among the long list of other causalities.

Just colorizing old black and white stills obviously makes this story more accessible to a younger generation. During the same to moving footage has

been infinitely more dramatic.

UNKNOWN: It just brings it to life. I mean, some of these hit (ph) a long term interest (inaudible) all this last. Two or three years, when we`ve

been restoring this footage has been incredibly exciting.

I`m stunned you see the faces, you see the people, you see the humanity.

GLASS: Peter Jackson`s documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old, give us a rare insight into what is was like to fight in the trenches on the western

front. Both electrifying, funny (ph) and sobering, a film about comradery and animal savagery; we learn what it was like to be an ordinary soldier.

This is the Welch grandfather Peter Jackson never met. Sergeant William Jackson was machine gunned at the battle of the Somme in France in 1916.

He was a lucky one. He survived. Private Ted Ambrose (ph) didn`t. He was 19 when he died. His suitcase was returned from the Somme to his mother in

England, she could hardly bear to open it. It was quickly consigned to her attic for most of the 20th century. Ted`s (ph) pipe and tobacco, his

cigarettes, including Army-issued red Hussars, a locket with pictures of himself and his sweetheart, and the service medals he never lived to

receive. The artifacts amount to a rare discovery, a poignant time capsule.

We began the centenary of the Great War in 2014 with the moat of the Tower of London filled with a sea of surrounding poppies. Some of them have now

migrated across the Thames to the Imperial War Museum, a cascade, a weeping window spilling down the building. Britain`s poet laureate, Carol Ann

Duffy has written a new poem to mark the centenary of the armistice. "The Great War," she writes, "is the wound in time. Will we ever remember it

with quite so much intensity again?" Nick Glass (ph), CNN, London.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AZUZ: Well, from technology used to color film from the past, here`s an idea of how NASA is using tech to get extremely high definition views of

the international space station. Now I said an idea, and not a look. The reason? This is video in 8K. That means it has 16 times the number of

pixels that an HDTV has, it`s just too bad that for people, they can`t actually see this in 8K, because there aren`t a lot of monitors around that

have the ability to show it.

So while NASA can record in 8K, you`re probably just viewing this HD; which for some, will be the very high definition of disappointment. They`ll need

to see the problem come to a resolution before they`re 8-OK with it. They can mono-torn apart if their vision stops at a 10-peak from which they just

can`t pixel it to be anything better.

The issue liquid-crystal clear, someone will have to take the screen-time to sharpen it. I`m Carl Azuz, and Friday`s are awesome. CNN 10 wishes all

of you a wonderful Veteran`s day weekend. And to the veterans in our audience and those currently serving in the military, thank you for your

service.

END