Bbc Crossbow

The heroic tales of World War II are legendary, but Operation Crossbow is a little-known story that deserves to join the hall of fame: how the Allies used 3D photos to thwart the Nazis' weapons of mass destruction before they could obliterate Britain. This film brings together the heroic Spitfire pilots who took the photographs and the brilliant minds of RAF Medmenham that made sense of the jigsaw of clues hidden in the photos. Hitler was pumping a fortune into his new-fangled V weapons in the hope they could win him the war. But Medmenham had a secret weapon of its own, a simple stereoscope which brought to life every contour of the enemy landscape in perfect 3D.

Fiona Bruce and the team are at Newcastle's 1960s Civic Centre - an iconic building where everything from the modernist architecture, public art, carpets to the chandeliers was conceived by one man. Art specialist Frances Christie discovers a painting by a local coal miner, Norman Cornish, who packed in his job down the pit to become a respected professional artist. Paul Atterbury values a vast collection of design plans for RMS Mauretania that were saved from the skip. While militaria specialist Bill Harriman values what he calls 'the finest crossbow I have ever seen in all of my years on the Roadshow'.