RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: All But One Of Our Aircraft is Missing - the UK's shambolic D-Day sequel, starring Grant Shapps
In 1942, British cinema audiences were captivated by a classic Powell and Pressburger propaganda film called One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing.
It centres on the heroism of a Wellington bomber crew forced to bale out over occupied Europe and their escape home across the Channel with the help of members of the local resistance.
The movie — which starred among others, Eric Portman, Bernard Miles and Googie Withers — helped raise morale during some of the darkest days of World War II.
At the height of the war, the RAF had 108 squadrons and UK factories were turning out 25,000 aircraft a year. The title of the film was taken from regular news bulletins on the wireless reporting in sombre tones that one or more planes had failed to return from a mission.
If they remade it today, the film would have to be called All But One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing. Plans for a mass parachute drop to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day have been scaled back drastically because the Ministry of Defence can only rustle up one plane.
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All But One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing. Makes you proud to be British, writes Richard Littlejohn
The Parachute Regiment had expected to send over 450 men in four aircraft, but have since been told that just one is available. The rest are deployed on Nato duty and relief efforts in Gaza.
The Government, not the RAF, is to blame since the Ministry of Defence decided to pension off 14 perfectly serviceable Hercules C-130 transport planes, despite knowing that their replacement fleet of Airbus A400Ms would not be fully available until 2025.
Former Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood wrote in The Mail on Sunday: 'As things stand, the Paras' hopes of putting on a large-scale multi-plane parachute drop have been limited to a single aircraft and just 100 of them jumping out.
'The issue demonstrates a sad and simple truth — today's RAF lacks heavy lift capacity after all the Hercules transport fleet, which served our nation so well for more than 50 years, was scrapped to save money.'
A senior source in the regiment told the MoS that the lack of aircraft was 'an insult to those who made the ultimate sacrifice'. Ex-Armed Services Minister Mark Francois, whose father fought on D-Day, said: 'That generation of heroes defended our freedom against Nazi Germany and they deserve to be properly commemorated in return.
'This just shows what a chronic mistake it was to retire the C-130, which performed this role successfully, for decades.'
Par for the course, sadly, on the part of the useless bureaucrats running the modern MoD, who consistently put short-term cost-cutting and virtue-signalling above the defence of the Realm.
These are the same clowns who, on Gordon Brown's orders, built two state-of-the-art aircraft carriers but forgot to order any planes to fly from them.
Meanwhile, the new carriers keep breaking down and a couple of months ago a Trident missile from one of our nuclear submarines misfired and landed in the sea off Florida. Heaven help us if Ukraine falls and the Russians decide to press on across Europe.
We're no better equipped to repel an invasion than was the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard to defend us against the Nazis at the start of WWII.
Bang-two-three!
We can't even stop the daily flotilla of rubber dinghies crossing the Channel, illegally dumping thousands of migrants on the Kent coast, let alone mount a counter-offensive in the event of a full-blown shooting war.
The MoD would probably halt any proposed fightback because the rainbow lanyards and hi-viz jackets hadn't been delivered and there was no disabled access on the beaches in Normandy.
If this lot had been running the War Office in 1942, we'd all be speaking German today. If they can't find more than a single plane for the Paras, how the hell would they ever have mounted a 1,000-bomber raid?
This week's Defence Secretary Grant Shapps is now scrabbling round trying to rustle up at least one more plane to take part in the D-Day ceremony.
Apparently, there's an old Halifax bomber at the RAF Museum in Hendon which could be brought out of mothballs in an emergency and used to tow a few hang-gliders over the Channel.
A proposal to attach Amazon-style drones to paratroopers' helmets has been dismissed as unworkable.
Plans to use Ryanair planes have also been dropped after ministers decided they couldn't afford to pay exorbitant online booking and priority boarding fees and excess baggage charges for the parachutes.
Meanwhile, the Americans are sending over six, fully manned Hercules C-130s for the anniversary. Polish and Canadian paratroopers will also be taking part. But King Charles, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Parachute Regiment in 1977, will have to stand alongside President Biden and watch our embarrassingly diminished contribution, courtesy of typical MoD incompetence.
All But One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing. Makes you proud to be British.