Interesting WWII stuff - Some good camera footage

[oldmansquipper]

My A/C recognition may be a bit suspect these days - but I think I saw at least two "Blue on Blue" (A Spit & a Mossy) - but I guess its artistic licence...

Fight for the Sky - 1945 World War Two Fighter Pilot Educational Documentary - YouTube

Those interested will see I have removed the first "tongue in cheek" sentence of my original post. I apologise if it offended anyone.

[Traffic_Is_Er_Was]

Be picking the grass out of the radiators at 29:40, plus the the "kill" at 31:12 looks a bit "allied".

[Wensleydale]

Blue on blue was most usual! 602 Sqn spitfires from Drem shot down two of 44 Sqn's Hampdens in December 1939 despite recognition flares being fired - sadly, one crew member lost his life. And, at the risk of thread drift - Adrian Warburton ordered his gunner to shoot down a Malta based Hurricane that persisted in attacking his Glen Martin on return from a mission. The gunner duly obliged although I do not remember whether this "kill" is one of the 9 accredited to Warburton. Interestingly, both Bader and Gibson (from the same school as Warburton) were also probable victims of Blue on Blue.

[Courtney Mil]

Great! Now I've got hours in the cine room with the old QWI gizmo to look forward to. Spotted a few 'line high', 'angle off fouls', 'inside min range', 'dive angle' and 'relaxing through the burst' already.

Seriously, though, some great footage. Great to see! :ok:

[HighTow]

https://imageshack.us/a/img59/368/captureiun.jpg

Guess it was one that never made it home :( Think I spotted a PRU Mossie on one airfield too. Definitely one Spit and a Mossie copped it air-to-air. Still in all the chaos and confusion mistakes happen when you have to make a split decision.

[uffington sb]

12:40 looks like it might have been a bit interesting for the cameraman. Between the prop and the mainwheel!!:eek::eek::eek:

[Brian Abraham]

You don't see much on the Beaufighter. Here is a 1:30 doco on the aircraft in New Guinea, and interviews with crews.

Beaufighter - Whispering Death, The Forgotten Warhorse - YouTube

[Duncan D'Sorderlee]

Some excellent footage! And, at least they ended the film with the National Anthem :O

Duncs:ok:

[SASless]

`How the Yanks won the war`

Envy is such a sad thing to see when on display.

[glad rag]

Sad to see.

[Secret1]

Could have been a much better film had John Wayne's heroic exploits been included. Such a missed opportunity.:bored:

Where on earth were RAF Fighter Command's Spitfires, Hurricanes, Tyhoons, Mosquitos, et al??? I have always understood that a chap in a RAF air(o)plane zapped Rommel's car, not a 'boy from Boise' Idaho or downtown Denver..:(

[Scuttled]

What a fantastic film. Lovely stuff, filmed by Americans and for Americans during a fight far from home, which many of them weren't awfully keen on joining in on in the first place. Genuinely stirring stuff, especially if viewed in the context of the time it was put together.

Can we leave out the sad little anti-Yank jibes please? It's embarrassing. This isn't a film about Fighter Command, British Propaganda or British air power at all.

Thanks lots.

[Brian Abraham]

Can we leave out the sad little anti-Yank jibes please? It's embarrassing.:ok: Lets not forget that some 6,700 Americans were accepted for RAF or RCAF service prior to the USA entering the war. By the time the US entered the fray some 100 American pilots had been killed, were missing, or POWs.

[SASless]

Where on earth were RAF Fighter Command's Spitfires, Hurricanes, Tyhoons, Mosquitos, et al???

I can tell you where the RAF Fighter Command was not.....over Germany!:E

Folks....the film was made by the US Army for consumption by the US Army primarily. It did not claim the US Army had "Won" the War single handed.....as we all know the RAF did that.:=

Give it a frigging break and enjoy the film. This is the Military Aircrew Forum.....not the RAF Forum as some seem to think.

You want to see your side's equivalent...post it.

Shame most of you that hold that attitude were not around to know what the real situation was in those days. Perhaps a walk up the access ramp to the American Hangar at Duxford might give you a small hint as to the price we paid to see the end of the Second War in Europe that we got involved in fighting.

I suppose there is a reason there is an American Hangar at Duxford....that stems from our participation in that War.

I am having Lunch today with a neighbor who flew Lanc's out of Teeside with the RCAF....sadly he is very much on the decline. He was flying combat before his Country entered the War...and is very much my Hero....who I looked up to as a Role Model when I was growing up and still do. He is so very typical of those who served in those years.

[Fareastdriver]

I'm 100% behind SASless on that. The USAAC made some excellent morale boosting filns during the war. The original 'Memphis Belle' and a film about Thunderbolts in Italy are two I remember well. The Britsh never could make films like that; their's were fictional and done in studios.

[Wensleydale]

The Britsh never could make films like that; their's were fictional and done
in studios.


Not so.... "Night Bombers" is a colour film made in 1944 - it is a day in the life of RAF Hemswell and gives lots of really good footage not only about the aircrew and the build up to the raid but also about the engineering day to day tasks etc. Includes footage of FIDO as a bit of a bonus. The featured crew have ficticious names, but are real non-the less.

[Schiller]

I think you'll find they ended the film with "My Country, 'tis of thee",which is sung to the same tune as GStQ.

[VinRouge]

Looks to me as if they were denying the lanc. It has a load of oil behind the no. 3.

[t43562]

z-cVw7Xb6Nk

[polecat2]

Night Bombers was made by the then station commander of RAF Hemswell who made it entirely on his own colour movie camera. He did this in a private capacity making use of his official position at a time when all private photography of anything military was strictly forbidden.

A film such as this should have been officially sanctioned and shot, but wasn't.

Polecat

[polecat2]

Secret1

Where on earth were RAF Fighter Command's Spitfires, Hurricanes, Tyhoons, Mosquitos, et al??? I have always understood that a chap in a RAF air(o)plane zapped Rommel's car, not a 'boy from Boise' Idaho or downtown Denver..http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/sowee.gif

For some really good action footage of the RAF in WW2 I suggest you acquire the DVD box set "War in the Air", a series of 15 half-hour episodes screened by the BBC in the early days of black and white television.

It's intensely pro-British (which probably explains why it's not been screened since) but includes some great footage from all combatants.

It's still available from Amazon.

I remember seeing some episodes when I was a trainee in the early 60s.

Polecat

[Courtney Mil]

I continue to be amazed by the response from some to really good items, links and comments on this site. I wonder if it's some sort of inferiority thing that no one else ever did it as well as we do/did? Brits having a poke at the Americans, Americans hitting back (maybe fair enough in this case), lots of people piling in and questioning the French, one service smacking another (unless it's Sharkey, obviously, when it's fair game), etc, etc. Why? In this case, I thought we were all on the same side.

Not meant to be a rant, just an observation.

[SASless]

A quick look at some of the Experimental Airplanes in the USA during WWII.

US experimental aircraft during WW2 - YouTube

[MightyGem]

I'm afraid I only watched about 3/4 of it. I found it rather depressing to see aircraft after aircraft getting shot out of the sky. Guess I'm getting old. :(

[Courtney Mil]

It's a funny thing, but in more than 50% of the cases you can just tell that a lot of experimental designs are never going to work. Just by looking at them. Still, worth a try.

[Waddo Plumber]

You surely can't mean the Flying Flapjack?