World War II at the Movies

Volume II

Virginia Lyman Lucas

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781646280292
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

As rich in history as World War II at the Movies, which commemorates in chronological order World War II major battles and pivotal events and captures the spirit of frontline heroes and strategist leaders, World War II at the Movies, Volume II, is as different in content and format. These compelling major motion picture films, blockbuster thrillers, and fascinating supplemental data elucidate and elaborate on top secret commando missions, challenges that wounded veterans faced adapting to civilian life with life-changing disabilities, and innovation, development, and advances in war weaponry technology, which led to the Allied victory over tyranny. You will find out:whose naval career was depicted and portrayed by Cliff Robertson at the time he was a sitting president of the United Stateswho was the youngest World War II veteran (who enlisted in the Navy at the age of twelve)who was the oldest World War II veteran (who died in December of 2018 at the age of 112)which "lady" came to England's financial aid when they couldn't fund the spitfire's entry in the Schneider race (the winner of which would be awarded funds to further advance airplane design)who invented Germany's enigma code machine

Innovation

Bombardier

(1943)

Director:	Richard Wallace	Screenplay and story:	John Twist
	Lambert Hillyer (Aerial Sequences)	Story:	Martin Rackin

The conflicts which arise over diverse bombing methods in the United States Army Air Forces, precursor to the United States Air Force, are depicted in this 1943 film regarding the new role of the bombardier.

Brigadier General Eugene L. Eubank, commander of the first heavy bombardment group of the US Army Air Forces to see combat in World War II, introduces the film with the statement:

“I want you to know about a new kind of American soldier, the most important of all our fighting men today. He is most important because upon him, finally, depends the success of any mission in which he participates. The greatest bombing plane in the world, with its combat crew, takes him into battle, through weather, through enemy opposition, just so he may have thirty seconds over the target. In those thirty seconds, he must vindicate the greatest responsibility ever placed upon an individual soldier in line of duty. I want you to know about him, and about those who had the faith and vision and foresight to bring him into being, to fit him for his task, long months before our war began.”

The introduction of the Norden bombsight elevates war weaponry to new heights, allowing bombs to be dropped from altitudes of 24,000 feet, with pinpoint precision, as opposed to the more dangerous and prevailing method of dive bombing in order to get as close to the target as possible.

These two methods were embodied in the mind-sets of the two main characters of this informative, action-filled, and historical war drama, Major “Chick” Davis (Pat O’Brien) who argues that a bombardier, using the top secret American bombsight, will be the spearhead of their striking force, and Captain “Buck” Oliver (Randolph Scott), who after a year of observing the Royal Air Force fight the German Luftwaffe, is not convinced a bomber can get “so close that a bomb can’t miss,” and that training new pilots is the priority.

After Major Davis wins a “bombing duel,” Oliver, using a dive bomber, misses the stationary target with all his bombs, while Davis, bombing from twenty thousand feet in a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, succeeds in hitting his target with his first bomb. A civilian-flying school in New Mexico is transformed into a bombardier training center with a highly specialized, scientific, detailed program which would produce bombardiers who would play a critical role in destroying enemy armament production, fuel depots and major supplies, and in so doing, help end the war much earlier than it would have otherwise concluded.

Major Chick Davis is head instructor, and Buck Oliver arrives with the next cadet class, that includes Tom Hughes (Eddie Albert), Joe Connors (Robert Ryan), and “Chito” Rafferty (Richard Martin).

So secret is this “big ball of concrete and iron” at the time of this film that it is referred to as the American bombsight or, by its nickname, the “golden goose.”

So secret is this “little miss big eye” that we only see the cloth bag in which it is carried.

So protected is the Norden bombsight that it is guarded by armed military men twenty-four hours a day.

So highly classified is this bombsight that new recruits take an oath upon arrival:

“I do solemnly swear and affirm that I will accept the trust placed in me by the Commander in Chief. I solemnly swear to keep inviolate the secrecy of any and all confidential information revealed to me and in the full knowledge that I am a guardian of one of my country’s most valuable assets. I do further swear to protect the secrecy of the American bombsight if need be with my life, so help me God.”

After weeks of intensive study and scientific demonstrations in preflight ground school, the students proceed to the bombing trainer, which is a huge room-sized apparatus that lifts the students twelve feet high—the purpose of which is to familiarize students’ operations of bombsight methods of solving the bombing problem without going into the air. Motion of the trainer across the floor simulates the airplane in flight. The four-wheel electrically driven boxlike affair on which the target is placed simulates wind. The bombsight is mounted on the trainer, and data is set by the bombardier. The speed of the trainer to target simulates ground speed. The bomb on the trainer is an electrically operated plum bomb dropped at the proper instant to hit the moving target.

On a training flight with Captain Oliver piloting the plane and Major Davis as wingman, Oliver radios instructions to the bombardier, and Major Davis corrects him and states that the bombardier will calculate and then instruct the pilot. It is Major Davis’s opinion that one day the pilot will just be the taxi driver that will transport the bombardier to the proper location. Captain Oliver refuses to take them seriously because they will become sergeants upon graduation, not commissioned officers. But through Major Davis’s solicitation with the War Department, the policy was changed, and upon graduation, they did become commissioned officers.

The film follows the flight progress and individual challenges of the cadets and culminates in a night mission to bomb an aircraft factory in Nagoya, Japan. Oliver’s assignment is to bomb with incendiaries to set the target on fire a half hour before the arrival of the bombardier group, but his plane is shot down. Joe Connors, Oliver’s bombardier, remains at his post, sacrificing his life to destroy the bombsight, fulfilling an oath he took upon entry into Bombardier School. Oliver and the remainder of his crew are captured. Their Japanese captors execut...

Table of contents

• Animal Heroes
• Commando Missions
• Generals
• Innovation
• Miscellaneous
• POW Camps
• Presidents
• Tanks
• Veterans