I know what you mean. My mother's collection of Better Homes and Gardens mags was peppered with these ads. As we lived in Australia, however, their threat was remote at best.

Son, you're on your own.

Didn't stop him charging up Omaha Beach on D-Day!

It's a helluva series. It's actually still available along with other BBC WW2 docos in a boxed set, the BBC History of World War II. The set was released a few years back, so there aren't many around. Highly recommended.

Ealing Studios, usually.

If you get the chance, check out the BBC documentary The War of the Century. Some excellent first-hand testimony from both German and Soviet sources, but it is sometimes extremely harrowing.

Think this more or less clinches it;

And that fucking siren as the Stuka goes into its dive - that must have put the fear of god into anyone on the receiving end.

"Damn! Turned up to the wrong bally War! I say, you there, which way to the Somme?"

I blame the Neolithic Revolution. Bloody farmers.

The US Navy turns up to do most of the heavy lifting following some unfavourable test screenings in the Midwest. "After U-571, we thought it best to go with that minor plot change."

The sergeant has to be a beefy WWI vet who shouts a lot but who is fiercely protective of his lads. Cheeky Cockney will typically be a private soldier or a corporal. A couple of Northerners and a West Country yokel can round out the squad.

"L'infer, c'est les autres"

Hey, I was watching bad movies back before hipsters were popular.

Somebody cursed you. "May you forever misuse the subjunctive!"

We got given Sartre, and before you could say "L'enfer, c'est les autres", we were all smoking thin black cigarettes and rejecting the triune God.

What, that came up organically!

And the less said about the punctuation, the better.

Anything that is a favoured taunt of asshats should probably be allowed to fade from usage and die off.

Fair point.