One of the best WWII documentaries I've seen...aviation oriented.

Thanks for sharing. i'm not even in my mid 40's yet but fascinated by all things WWII, probably due to my grandfather fighting in it.

In my limited knowledge, it's crazy all the things that ended up going the allies ways toward the end. which could have easy fell the other way :no:
 
If I could go back in time and chat with any aces id chose Billy Bishop of my country with 72 kills and Eddie Rickenbacker of the U.S.A. at 26 kills.Just a few short years before they flew, planes were just getting off the ground.No parachutes allowed ! Shows you just how stupid the high command was.Bishop was number 3 in wwi aces behind only the red baron and Rene Foch of France.Id love to fly one of those planes .
I've a 1917 Western Electric radiophone receiver as used in these primitive warbirds in my collection. I can only imagine the context of it's use a hundred years ago whenever I look at it.
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Very cool.Does it or can it function?What kind of collection do you have?Military,radios?
I'm assuming it could, if the missing cartridge resistors were replaced and powered up.
Quite an assortment of stuff, too many to list tho' modest. Ranging from a couple WW-2 military to 1920s and later to Crystal sets and a few horn speakers, the WW-1 WE is the premier piece.
 
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It's amazing to be an ace in a P-51D.

It's an altogether different scenario to be flying what is essentially a weaponized kite. My love goes out to Frank Luke, who was an impossibly bad ass badass. Read this -

Luke's final flight took place during the first phase of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. On September 28, after achieving his 14th and 15th victories, he landed his SPAD XIII at the French aerodrome at Cicognes where he spent the night, claiming engine trouble.[5] When he returned to the 1st Pursuit Group's base at Rembercourt the next day, he was confronted by Captain Alfred A. Grant, his squadron's commanding officer (C.O.). Despite being under threat of arrest by Grant for being AWOL, Luke took off without authorization and flew to a forward airbase at Verdun, where his sympathetic group commander, Major Hartney, canceled the arrest order and gave Luke tacit approval to continue his balloon hunting.[5] That evening Luke flew to the front to attack three balloons in the vicinity of Dun-sur-Meuse, six miles behind the German lines. He first dropped a message to a nearby U.S. balloon company, alerting them to observe his imminent attacks. Luke shot down the enemy balloons but was then severely wounded by a single machine gun bullet fired from a hilltop above him, a mile east of the last balloon site he had attacked.[1] Luke landed in a field just west of the small village of Murvaux—after strafing a group of German soldiers on the ground—near the Ruisseau de Bradon, a stream leading to the Meuse River. Although weakened by his wound, he made his way toward the stream, intending to reach the cover of its adjacent underbrush, but finally collapsed some 200 meters from his airplane. Approached by German infantry, Luke drew his Colt Model 1911 pistol and fired a few rounds at his attackers before dying. Reports that a day later his body was found with an empty gun and a bullet hole in his chest, with seven dead Germans in front of him were proven erroneous.[1] According to author Skinner, the fatal bullet, fired from the hilltop machine gun position, had entered near Luke's right shoulder, passed through his body, and exited from his left side.

RESPECT.
 
If I could go back in time and chat with any aces id chose Billy Bishop of my country with 72 kills and Eddie Rickenbacker of the U.S.A. at 26 kills.Just a few short years before they flew, planes were just getting off the ground.No parachutes allowed ! Shows you just how stupid the high command was.Bishop was number 3 in wwi aces behind only the red baron and Rene Foch of France.Id love to fly one of those planes .

I too would also like to feel the rush of the noise/wind in my face, but it had better be a good day to fly. Those old biplanes were so underpowered and unpredictable.

Just a random thought this day.

Q
 
Having flown in ultralights, one is very much beholden to winds and weather in these things.
 
Thanks for sharing. i'm not even in my mid 40's yet but fascinated by all things WWII, probably due to my grandfather fighting in it.

In my limited knowledge, it's crazy all the things that ended up going the allies ways toward the end. which could have easy fell the other way :no:
Having Hitler over rule deployment decisions helped the allies.
ME 262 could have been in service much earlier.
 
I too would also like to feel the rush of the noise/wind in my face, but it had better be a good day to fly. Those old biplanes were so underpowered and unpredictable.

Just a random thought this day.

Q
The SPAD XIII with the 220hp Hiso is the same size and weight as my Great Lakes but with 40 more hp. Speeds are very close to the same as well. Granted the flying qualities of my GL may be more civilized it still shows how advances in aviation were made in just 3 or 4 years during a war.
 
@Quadman2 Douglas Bader's life would make a hell of a movie, as would Adolf Galland, Pappy Boyington, Francis Gabreski, and all those old school aces.

I was lucky enough back in November of 1996 to attend a Bowling Green Prayer Breakfast, and the speaker was the late Joe Foss (26 kills in the South Pacific, if memory serves).

I shook his hand, and got my picture with him, still on the wall. What a sweet, kind man.
It already is - check out 'Reach For The Sky' ;)

Here https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049665/

Talking of British WW2 Aces - ever heard of John 'Cat's Eyes' Cunningham ? ;)
 
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If I could go back in time and chat with any aces id chose Billy Bishop of my country with 72 kills and Eddie Rickenbacker of the U.S.A. at 26 kills.Just a few short years before they flew, planes were just getting off the ground.No parachutes allowed ! Shows you just how stupid the high command was.Bishop was number 3 in wwi aces behind only the red baron and Rene Foch of France.Id love to fly one of those planes .



Ah yes, "The Red Baron"...Snoopy's arch enemy.:D

This German flyer of WWI was the top air ace, Allies included, with 80 kills. He was a clever strategist with one intent in mind as it was reported. However, war propaganda made the most of his feats in sky at the time.

He came into the war as a dedicated Prussian aristocrat with riding skills due to his extensive hunting. But the modern war tech changed the use of the cavalry, so he joined the fledgling German air force at the time. Within a short time he had honed his skills as a deadly flyer, one that was to be respected for his ability in a dogfight.

After reading his diary, which he thought was on the arrogant side, (it comes off this way), he received a grazed head shot in an encounter with a Brit, suffering severe headaches thereafter. Toward the end of WWI, while flying low over some Australian trenches, a machine gunner opened up, with a Canadian plane blasting away behind Von Richthofen...and he was hit by a single bullet. The Red Knight managed to land his plane, but was dead when the French soldiers got to him.

To this day, there's controversy as to who fired that fateful shot. However, the ballistics people say that the angle of the bullet indicated that the score should have gone to the Ozzies, but I think the Canuck claimed this kill. What I did find strange was, four funerals were eventually held in Manfred's honour. He was honoured by three countries.

Anyways, just a thought for the day.

Q
 
Thank you for posting this. I was spellbound the whole time. Talk about a humble man with a extraordinary career.

As an aside it was the British who figured out how to land a F4-U Corsair on a carrier. They showed the US how to bring it in sort of sideways so you could see the deck of the birdfarm. The nose was so long you had virtually no forward vision. The wing was gull shaped to allow clearance for the huge prop. It was 13' and change.

Here's the write up on how the British landed on a carrier.

It was the British who finally worked out a method of landing the Corsair on their carriers in spite of the visibility problems caused by the long nose. Instead of the normal downwind-crosswind-final approach method, the British simply turned downwind, then made a slow, continuous curve which aligned the Corsair with the deck only at the last second before the aircraft touched down and trapped. This method allowed the pilot to keep the Landing Signals Officer in view right up to the moment the plane was over the fan-tail where the LSO gave the sign to either "cut" or make another attempt.

Taken from this page.
http://www.aviation-history.com/vought/f4u.html
The "Gull" wings primary benefit was first to intersect the round fuselage at 90 degrees so as to obtain the lowest drag. Second to shorten the gear legs so they could be fitted between the wings spars and being shorter allows the legs to withstand carrier use without excess weight. Vintage aircraft pilot and engineering geek here.
 
Sweet we have it for free. Full length. Good video quality.
You guys really ought to watch this; it's 2 hr. 10. min long (don't believe the 3 plus hour marker).

Muriel Pavlow, the female lead, passed away just 3 weeks ago, at the age of 97.

She was a bonafide fox when the movie was made in 1956.

The special effects are pretty good regarding Captain Bader's missing legs. Not sure how they did it.
 
Having Hitler over rule deployment decisions helped the allies.
ME 262 could have been in service much earlier.

That would’ve then prompted the British and Americans to push production of the jets they had waiting in the wings. So there would’ve had hordes of jets rolling off American and British assembly lines rather than hordes of Mustangs, Spitfires, Typhoons and Thunderbolts.
 
Having Hitler over rule deployment decisions helped the allies.
ME 262 could have been in service much earlier.
This is just one example of Hitler's dictatorial know-it-all incompetence undercutting his vision of a "Thousand Year Reich". Twelve years of World-wide devastating disruption, and a costly legacy of lessons soon disregarded and forgotten to show for it.
 
My favorite is "A Fighter Pilots Story" It's about a P47 pilot. I saw it once on PBS. A highly moving story well told. He described about how a buddy's plane was slowly going down but too low to jump. When he said that before his friend went into the trees he looked up at him and waved goodbye I was weepy eyed. The family sells the DVD and it takes a bit of searching to find them.

Here's a little bit of the documentary.
 
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