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00:00During the Second World War, an entire generation recorded their personal experiences for posterity.
00:08Combat cameramen braved enemy fire to send home moving images, many of them in color.
00:15They captured history, and in the process they captured ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events,
00:22bearing witness to the color of war.
00:30Music
00:43Music
00:50Of all the assignments a serviceman might find himself undertaking during World War II,
00:55flying seemed to offer the greatest promise of glory.
01:00The world's air forces were relatively new and elite.
01:04Aviation was the wave of the future,
01:08and new aircraft were built that employed equipment and designs that were on the cutting edge of technology.
01:15Many strategists even predicted that air power would be the decisive factor in the waging of modern warfare.
01:25What was not apparent to anyone in the early years of the conflict
01:29was that flying would become the most dangerous job of the war.
01:37Indeed, a flyer had less chance of survival than any other serviceman in any other branch of the military.
01:47This was an aspect of the air war that no one had anticipated,
01:52especially the men who flew the planes.
01:56Music
02:05Air combat was an experience unique to the 20th century.
02:09Never before had a serviceman been able to get out of bed, have breakfast, and go to war hundreds of miles away.
02:18Flying from bases in England, an aviator could return from his mission at the end of the day,
02:23visit London, drink at the officer's club, and return to furious combat the next morning.
02:29Aircraft sounds
02:34To document this experience, Army Air Force cameramen, using new, portable 16mm cameras and color film,
02:42risked their lives to record air combat right in its very center.
02:48They were aided by numerous Hollywood filmmakers who had joined the war effort by enlisting in the Army Air Corps,
02:54including Academy Award winning director Major William Wyler.
03:00Wyler and his cameramen flew with the U.S. 8th Air Force, which was based in England.
03:05The 8th required its airmen to finish 25 missions to complete their tour of duty and return home.
03:13Dale Van Blair was a B-17 tail gunner on his way to Europe when he met some veteran bomber crewmen
03:19who had just completed their 25 missions.
03:22He was not reassured when he asked them what he could expect.
03:28I was told that flak could be very heavy and accurate.
03:31Enemy fighters were plentiful and effective, and our fighter escort was inadequate, though improving.
03:37They had no official stats, but based on their experience, reported that less than half the crews finished their missions.
03:44I wondered if they might be exaggerating, but I had the impression they were not.
03:51Few of these young men had ever been far from home.
03:56Now they were overseas, stationed on vast air bases, often in remote locations.
04:03Because of America's sudden entry into the war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
04:09accommodations at the bases had been thrown together quickly, with a minimum of comforts and no luxuries.
04:17B-24 crewman Bart Kirker found himself living in a drafty tent on a makeshift base in one of the most isolated parts of Italy.
04:27My dear folks, I hope the weather back home is better than it is in this mud hole of a place.
04:33The food here is pretty good, except I'm afraid I'm going to get pretty tired of C-rations.
04:38While I'm on the subject of food, for God's sake, don't ever send me a can of Spam.
04:43We even have Spamburgers.
04:49Most American heavy bombers, such as the B-17 Flying Fortress, flew with a crew of ten,
04:55including two pilots, a bombardier, a navigator, a flight engineer, and several gunners.
05:02It took over a year to train each of these men.
05:06But no amount of preparation could diminish the anticipation crews felt while waiting for their first combat mission.
05:16Dear folks, I'm still sweating out that first mission, and I'd wish that they'd hurry it up and send us on one.
05:22I'd like to go out on one to find out what I'm really up against.
05:25They say it's tough, and I don't doubt their word, but I don't think that there's too much to worry about,
05:30and all the boys get back one way or another.
05:36A few days later, on his second mission,
05:39Bart Kirker's bomber became lost in low clouds and flew into a mountain.
05:46All aboard died instantly.
05:53During the war, one out of every five deaths in the Allied bomber forces was caused by accident,
06:00a total of nearly 22,000 men.
06:07In England, thick fog was a constant problem.
06:11The heavily laden planes, their pilots blinded by low visibility they called the soup,
06:17often risked collision with other bombers as they slowly climbed to their operational altitude of over 20,000 feet.
06:25At this height, almost five miles straight up, the crew needed to breathe oxygen to survive.
06:32If the oxygen system malfunctioned, the crew would lose consciousness after only 60 seconds.
06:38After 20 minutes, they would die.
06:42The extreme cold at this altitude was another serious hazard.
06:46Temperatures commonly dropped to minus 40 degrees.
06:50The men were dependent on newly designed electrically heated flight suits, which were often faulty.
06:56Removing gloves to make repairs or to treat the wounded was risking frostbite.
07:03American bomber crews had been trained to fly in daylight,
07:06so they could precisely locate and destroy enemy targets, such as factories and oil refineries.
07:13But flying during the day also allowed the enemy to see them.
07:17German fighter pilots were skillful, experienced, and fiercely determined to defend their homeland.
07:27In spite of fighter escort, we were attacked by Me 109s,
07:31and the plane flying on our right wing, piloted by Lieutenant Foster, was shot down.
07:37Only two of the crew were seen to bail out.
07:41Loss of a plane flying next to ours caused me to reflect on the role luck was going to play
07:46in our completing the required 25 missions.
07:54Tail gunner Van Blair's luck ran out on his 16th mission.
07:58He was gravely wounded when his bomber was forced to ditch in the North Sea.
08:04He never flew combat again.
08:10By the middle of 1943, German air defense forces were shooting down
08:14as many as 20% of American bombers on some missions.
08:18As a result, the American Army Air Corps canceled flying missions deep into Germany.
08:25But only a few months later, these long missions resumed
08:30when American fighter planes such as the P-51 Mustang became operational.
08:36Their role was to protect the bombers from enemy fighters.
08:40Because of the Mustang's advanced design and extra fuel capacity,
08:43it had the range to fly with the bombers on their longest missions,
08:47missions that could stretch up to 1,500 miles from start to finish.
08:53The bomber crews called these long-range fighter escorts little friends,
08:57and they changed the entire campaign.
09:01ME-110s made one pass and were hopped by a vigilant fighter escort,
09:05Viva la Posse of P-51s.
09:08Few, if any, of the Hitler Youth got back to the fatherland.
09:12Our ship picked up some mean flack holes.
09:14One very near the ball gun.
09:16Me, by the way.
09:22Combat correspondents also risked their lives over Axis territory.
09:27One of them was United States Air Corps Sergeant Jack Westerly,
09:31who made this recording of his first mission over Italy.
09:36We are flying over German-held territory in the north of Italy.
09:43Our target is a large chemical plant in the Brenner Pass.
09:49This is it.
09:51We're in the bomb run right this minute.
09:55There's the target.
09:57I can see it.
09:59Here comes smack.
10:01That was close.
10:04This is a terrific drill.
10:06There go the bombs.
10:08Bombs away.
10:13I'll try and describe the hits for you.
10:16Oh, boy.
10:18Right on the nose.
10:20We really hit it.
10:22We walked on bombs right over the target.
10:25There's a terrific explosion.
10:28It's going up in smoke.
10:30The whole thing is going up in flames.
10:33It's burning.
10:37But not all the bomber missions were successful.
10:40Even when the planes did fly with fighter escorts,
10:43they were vulnerable to flak,
10:46which was the term for anti-aircraft artillery.
10:49Flak was nearly as deadly as fighter attacks,
10:52but it took an even greater psychological toll
10:55since there was no way for the bomber crews to fight back.
10:59It was nothing airmen such as gunner Hugh Jones could do
11:03but fly right through it.
11:05Munich. This one was rough.
11:07Flak was terrible.
11:09But luckily, no fighters.
11:11Three ships shot down and two were safe.
11:17LB's crew, Smalley, Stevie, Nagle, Saniskoy, Everett
11:21all went down over Germany.
11:27Eight chutes got out.
11:29The barracks looks empty tonight.
11:31Loss of weight from warring has me worried about worry.
11:34Must be getting neurotic.
11:36But Hugh Jones was right.
11:38Must be getting neurotic.
11:40But Hugh Jones was luckier than many of his comrades,
11:43and he knew it.
11:45Dear Mom and Dad, I have completed my missions
11:48and am awaiting my turn to come home.
11:50The highest I get off the earth now
11:52is when I crawl into my upper bunk to sleep.
11:55Even then the height frightens me.
11:57I walk around in a stoop position
11:59just to be that much closer to dear old terra firma.
12:02I'll end now and get my first good night's sleep
12:05since I entered this forsaken idy land.
12:10As American airmen like Hugh Jones slept,
12:13another formidable aerial armada was just taking to the air.
12:17The Royal Air Force of Great Britain
12:20bombed Germany under the cover of darkness.
12:23The experience of the British crews
12:26was every bit as harrowing as that of the Americans.
12:36Life in the squadron was seldom far from fantasy.
12:40We might at eight be in a chair beside a fire,
12:43but at ten in an empty world above a floor of cloud.
12:47Or at eight, walking in town with a girl
12:50whose nearness denied all possibility of sudden death at 12.
12:55Contact number three.
12:57Early in World War II,
12:59Royal Air Force bombers attempted daylight raids over Germany,
13:03but the results were disastrous.
13:06Their best bomber, the Lancaster,
13:09could carry 18,000 pounds of bombs
13:12over twice the load of the B-17.
13:15But it was only a matter of time
13:17before it was too late.
13:21But it gained the extra bomb capacity
13:24at the expense of defensive armament.
13:27Instead of carrying ten or more heavy .50 caliber machine guns
13:31like the B-17,
13:33it only had eight much less powerful .30 caliber guns.
13:37Partly as a result of this relatively light armament,
13:40German fighters shot down so many of the bombers
13:43that they were redirected to fly their missions at night
13:46under the cover of darkness.
13:49Flying these sorties in the dead of night
13:52was an exercise in physical and mental endurance.
13:55In the blackness and freezing temperatures,
13:58each Lancaster bomber had to find its own way to the target
14:02and back home.
14:04As with the Americans,
14:06the numbing cold of high altitude was a constant challenge.
14:09It took the navigator six minutes
14:11to complete his calculations and do the plotting.
14:14That had left him six minutes
14:16to try and warm his hands on the heater behind him,
14:19haul on various layers of gloves,
14:21and then, after a pause, peel them off for the next round.
14:24This was the procedure carried out continuously
14:27over the whole period of a seven-, eight-, or nine-hour mission.
14:32The protection offered by darkness was only temporary.
14:35As the war progressed,
14:37the Germans developed a formidable force
14:40of radar-directed night fighters.
14:44By 1944, the air war had become a bloody cat-and-mouse game,
14:48as both sides developed countermeasures
14:51and constantly changed their tactics.
14:54While on a return flight from Germany,
14:56I had the unhappy experience
14:58of seeing no fewer than five aircraft shot down around us
15:01in the distance over a period of about an hour.
15:04It was grimly fascinating to see in each case
15:07the shortened burst of twinkling horizontal tracer,
15:10without any answering fire, unfortunately,
15:12so each must have been taken completely by surprise,
15:15then a slow, curving fall
15:17to a final vertical plummet earthwards.
15:22For most of the war,
15:24the Germans were destroying so many British bombers
15:27that an airman could only expect to complete ten missions
15:30before being shot down.
15:32Crews knew the odds were against them
15:35and developed a fatalism that was only intensified
15:38when their commander, Sir Arthur Harris,
15:40had all the armor plate around the crew compartments removed
15:44so the planes could carry a few more pounds of bombs.
15:48The Lancasters were not designed for either comfort or escape.
15:53Because of the cramped quarters,
15:55crews had no room to wear their parachutes,
15:58instead flying with them stored near their stations.
16:01Consequently, only one out of five British airmen
16:04ever escaped from a falling bomber.
16:07And fall they did, by the thousands.
16:10Over the course of the war,
16:128,600 British bombers were lost over Europe.
16:16The cost in lives, even in our small unit, became appalling.
16:21Most of the familiar faces vanished from about us.
16:25New men appeared, but we seldom learned their names.
16:28Men fully trained often did not have time to unpack their kit
16:31before they, too, were lost.
16:34But every six weeks we were granted six days' leave.
16:38To live until his next leave became the greatest hope of each man.
16:43This unique footage,
16:45the only colour footage shot of British night bombers in action,
16:49was the work of documentary filmmaker Illith Cousins.
16:53Cousins was able to film every aspect of these dangerous operations
16:57because he also happened to be station commander
17:00of this airfield in Helmswell.
17:04Back at headquarters, each mission was carefully tracked.
17:08Women played important roles in this process,
17:11as they did throughout British bomber command.
17:14Their job performance exceeded all expectations
17:18and freed thousands of men for combat operations.
17:22But one thing they couldn't do
17:24was protect the bomber crews from flak and enemy fighters.
17:29Inevitably, many of these young men broke under the strain of the missions,
17:34the constant likelihood of death
17:36and the grinding fear of letting their comrades down.
17:40But even those men who had already completed dozens of missions
17:44before reaching emotional collapse were treated with little sympathy.
17:52They were permanently labelled LMF,
17:55which stood for Lack of Moral Fibre,
17:58stripped of their rank and reassigned to the most demeaning and menial tasks.
18:04One officer bitterly described the experience of a fellow crewman.
18:09I was worried about Tim, our navigator.
18:12He appeared nervy.
18:14An evening later, Tim walked into the crew hut and said straight out,
18:17I'm sorry, boys, I can't go on.
18:20I'm having nightmares about being shot down in flames.
18:23I can't do my work properly, and that's not fair on all of you.
18:27Nobody said a word.
18:29He put his head in his hands, and that was that.
18:32Within hours, Tim disappeared from our lives.
18:37In these extreme conditions,
18:39bravery for airmen was reduced to ignoring the reality around them.
18:44Since the night bombers could not possibly see specific targets,
18:48such as individual factories in the darkness of blacked-out Germany,
18:52Bomber Command would instead designate a huge city as the target.
18:56At the height of the campaign, up to a thousand bombers at a time
19:00would drop combinations of explosives and incendiaries
19:03on cities like Hamburg and Cologne
19:06in an effort to start firestorms that would burn them to the ground.
19:11I would try to tell myself that this was a city,
19:14a place inhabited by beings such as ourselves,
19:17but the thought would carry little conviction.
19:20A German city was always like this,
19:22this hellish picture of flame, gunfire and searchlights,
19:26an unreal picture because we could not hear it or feel its breath.
19:31Perhaps if we'd seen the white, upturned faces of people,
19:34as over England we sometimes did,
19:37our hearts would have rebelled.
19:44The British bombers would return before sunrise, if they returned at all.
19:49Often they would land on runways enshrouded in the same fog
19:53the American bombers dealt with on take-off.
19:56Some airfields experimented with burning aviation gasoline to disperse the fog.
20:02Yet no matter what the weather conditions,
20:04landing after the long, stressful missions was always difficult.
20:10You return to base to pull off a smooth landing.
20:13Someone in the crew makes a joke about it and you are pleased.
20:18Then into debriefing where, over a steaming mug of coffee laced with rum,
20:22you go over the whole trip for the record.
20:26Then back to the mess and bacon and eggs.
20:29If the worst has happened and one of your friends has failed to get back,
20:33you may, by prior agreement, have his eggs as well as your own.
20:40Out of the 125,000 men who served in RAF Bomber Command during the war,
20:46almost half, 60,000, were killed.
20:51By the time of the surrender in May 1945,
20:54they had succeeded in burning almost every major German city to the ground.
21:00How effective this type of bombing was in winning the war has been debated ever since.
21:06But for the bomber crews, simply surviving was a victory in itself.
21:11During the conflict, they were sustained in part by an intense sense of camaraderie.
21:19You have no idea how close the crew feel to each other.
21:22The warmth of unacknowledged friendship.
21:24That's very strong in air crew.
21:26There is such a thing as friendship among men passing the love of women.
21:31There's a seal on it and the seal isn't blood.
21:35It's sealed with tension shared.
21:37Tension long past the screaming point.
21:42Dear Dad,
21:43We work seven days a week so I can't tell Sunday from any other day.
21:48If I didn't have several forms to fill out every day,
21:51I would never know what the date was.
21:54The plane I'm on has been flown a lot.
21:56It's like a second-hand car.
21:59There's always something wrong with it.
22:12Aircraft Carrier
22:15Of the thousands of personnel at each air base,
22:18only a tiny fraction, less than 10%, actually left the ground.
22:25This new high-tech air war required huge numbers of skilled specialists,
22:30all working to get the pilot and his crew their few minutes over the target.
22:38Ground crews worked under great stress.
22:40They were aware that the success or failure of missions rested on their shoulders.
22:47A gun jamming at the wrong moment,
22:50an improperly installed carburetor,
22:53a misinterpreted weather report,
22:55all might spell death for an air crew.
23:01After a flurry of intense activity to ready the bombers for their flights,
23:05there was nothing to do but wait.
23:10A mission could take up to eight hours.
23:13The men often tried to distract themselves.
23:19But the same thought was on everyone's mind.
23:22If his plane didn't return, could it have been his fault?
23:26They called this sweating it out,
23:28and it reached a peak when the first bombers returned.
23:32Everyone counted the planes to see how many were coming back.
23:36Flares dropped from the planes meant wounded were aboard.
23:40They landed first, and there were always damaged aircraft.
23:47While some crews worked from established air bases
23:49and lived a comparatively comfortable, if predictable, existence,
23:53others had to operate under the most appalling conditions.
23:57Among the worst were those found on the far-flung islands in the Pacific theater,
24:01which could be hell holes of constant dampness and disease.
24:06Everything we needed had to be arranged by us after our arrival.
24:10That meant latrines, establishing water supplies, creating a healthy mess.
24:15So arrival on a new island home was always a gut-wrenching affair,
24:19during which no one got much sleep for several days.
24:25It was in these circumstances that the American G.I.'s capacity for improvisation came to the fore.
24:31Fighting not only against the enemy, but the weather, supply shortages, the jungle,
24:36and finally the Army's own red tape.
24:40These citizen-soldiers begged, borrowed, and as a last resort,
24:44stole whatever was necessary to get the job done.
24:52These young airmen were very far from home, isolated on their island bases,
24:57desperate for any contact from the outside world.
25:00They fully appreciated any gesture that reminded them of America and its simple pleasures.
25:08The chewing gum came in a package from home and I've really been enjoying it.
25:12Chewing gum is one thing that I thought I could take or leave alone.
25:16But naturally, when I couldn't get it, I craved it.
25:20The package has really been a lifesaver.
25:23The real sign that a base had become permanent was the appearance of Red Cross women.
25:28Traveling to the front lines to help aid the war effort,
25:31these intrepid ladies tried to greet every returning flyer with a little coffee,
25:36donuts, and even some conversation.
25:39A simple gesture, but one that had a powerful effect on morale.
25:44By the way, we have a Red Cross lady now.
25:47She hands out her red tape to all of us,
25:50By the way, we have a Red Cross lady now.
25:53She hands out lemonade, hot chocolate, gum, and cigs after missions.
25:58First lady I have talked to in four months.
26:01I said to her, I'll have a lemonade.
26:05Despite the base's ramshackle appearance and the men's informality,
26:09they did a remarkable job of maintaining the planes.
26:13Dear Dad, in the States we complain about having to work 12 hours.
26:18But in the war zone it's different.
26:20You work till the job is done.
26:22Some days it's only a few hours, and others it's 24 hours.
26:26You work just as long as you can,
26:28and then if you're not finished, you work a little longer.
26:33The ground crews knew their jobs were important,
26:36even if their contributions were sometimes overlooked.
26:40Craig Crippen served with the Army Air Corps from Pearl Harbor until the end of the war.
26:46He wrote home about keeping things in perspective.
26:50Being service forces, we aren't able to get any medals.
26:54But I've got sort of straightened out on that hero business.
26:57I thought that a guy had to do something really great to earn a citation.
27:02I can see now that it often takes more guts just to do your duty
27:06than to do something spectacular.
27:17February 3rd, 1945.
27:19This is hard to believe, but I sure am happy here.
27:23We have a swell place to live,
27:25are lucky enough to be in the good old screaming red-ass squadron,
27:29and the guys that were here already are pretty swell.
27:32We all get along fine.
27:35The flying, when the weather permits, is the best.
27:39Dive bombing is okay, and strafing is truly a lot of fun.
27:44I'm sure lucky to have gotten into fighters.
27:46What a life.
27:59While the Allied four-engine heavy bombers were five miles high over Germany,
28:04American fighters, not engaged in escort work,
28:07buzzed enemy-occupied territory at treetop level,
28:11looking for trucks, trains, and other targets of opportunity.
28:16One of the best aircraft for this job was the P-47 Thunderbolt.
28:21It had been designed as an escort fighter for daylight bombers such as the B-17,
28:26a role it filled extremely well.
28:28But its ruggedness also made it an excellent ground-attack plane.
28:33It was armed with eight powerful .50 caliber machine guns,
28:36which it was said could cut down a tree with their concentrated firepower.
28:41It also often carried a lethal mix of high-explosive bombs, napalm, and rockets,
28:47which it used to devastate enemy troops and vehicles.
28:51Hollywood director William Wyler,
28:53who had so successfully filmed the American bombing campaign in Europe,
28:57now turned his cameras on this deadly duel
29:00between the American Thunderbolt fighters and German ground forces.
29:04Mounted cameras right inside the airplanes
29:07recorded combat directly from the pilot's point of view.
29:12Pilots called the type of missions that Wyler's cameras captured
29:15flying down on the deck.
29:17It was an extremely dangerous enterprise.
29:20German anti-aircraft fire was accurate and plentiful.
29:24To be hit while on a strafing run meant almost certain death.
29:28There was little chance to escape from an aircraft
29:31that was flying only a few feet off the ground.
29:35In his letters home, Delbert Wilder, like many other combat servicemen,
29:39was very concerned not to write anything that might worry his parents or loved ones.
29:44For this reason, he adopted a devil-may-care tone
29:47that was directly at odds with the hazards he was actually facing in combat.
29:55March 16, 1945.
29:57Dearest folks, don't worry, Mom.
29:59We in the Air Corps aren't taking too much.
30:01Fact is, most of us are having a wonderful time, and I mean it.
30:05The boys in the infantry and the Marines are the ones that are having it rough.
30:09Flew my own airplane today, and boy, was it ever great.
30:13The guns are perfect.
30:15Caught a whole truckload of Jerry soldiers. Much fun.
30:19Well, I'll close this now so I can go out and save democracy this afternoon.
30:24I'll write again tonight.
30:26All my love, Deb.
30:31We're clear to take the runway for a takeoff, over.
30:33Roger, solar leader from Breakneck.
30:35You're clear number one to take off.
30:37Roger, Breakneck. Thank you.
30:57March 30, 1945.
31:00Dearest folks, Hoopy and I strafed a marshalling yard,
31:04and suddenly four of the boxcar's sides fell off,
31:07revealing 20mm AKAK which bladded away at us.
31:15These activities caused Hoopy to become highly angry with the whole proceedings.
31:19Imagine, someone shooting at us.
31:21So we went up to 6,100 feet and came straight down for them.
31:25Boy, was that fun.
31:26They were peppering away at us, and we were peppering away at them.
31:30What happened?
31:31Well, we left four guns that were very, very silent.
31:35Biggest thrill I've had in days.
31:38Hoopy is still angry about it tonight.
31:43Despite his best efforts as the war progressed,
31:46Delbert couldn't hide all the dangers he and his comrades confronted.
31:56May 1, 1945.
31:58Dearest folks, well, we called ourselves the Lucky Seven.
32:05Jim, Wegg, Wilkie, Sam, Steve and I.
32:08We'd flown over half our tours without a casualty.
32:12I suppose it had to happen sooner or later, though.
32:15It was the first flight I'd ever led.
32:17We flew over a lot of bad weather and found some stuff to strafe.
32:21Steve forgot where he was strafing, I guess, and ran into a church steeple.
32:29I flew over the wreckage and then came home with a heavy heart.
32:36Yesterday, Wilkie, Wegg and I packed his things.
32:40As Dad would say, he was a hundred percenter, and he fought a good war.
32:45All of us are almost as close as brothers.
32:50Losses like these were sobering.
32:52But pilots like Delbert Wilder had no doubt that their sacrifices were helping to win the war.
33:01Delbert even received a letter from a grateful ground soldier he'd met on arrival in Italy.
33:07Hi, Deb. You know, I watched P-47s with red A's on their tails dive again and again at those crowds.
33:14You did one hell of a swell job, and I just hope you'll be with us again.
33:18Nothing makes an infantryman more happy than to see those planes come over.
33:21If any shells were coming in, they'd stop immediately.
33:27Perhaps it was because of this friendship that Delbert was able to appreciate
33:31how different his experience of war was from those in other branches of the service.
33:37Conventional wisdom has it that war ages the individual.
33:41Sobers him, makes him serious and responsible.
33:45That may be true for some, especially for those who had seen the horrors of war.
33:50But we had none of that.
33:52We flew separately, isolated in our cockpits from one another.
33:56We strafed and shot rockets, usually without seeing the details of the havoc we created.
34:01When we lost one of our friends, we didn't see his dead body,
34:04shot and bleeding or mangled by shrapnel.
34:09Even though Delbert and his fellow pilots had a great friendship,
34:13even though Delbert and his fellow pilots rarely came face-to-face with the carnage of war,
34:18their thoughts were sometimes tempered by deeper reflection upon the destruction they were inflicting.
34:26Did you ever get extremely interested in psychology?
34:30I wonder if it can ever be explained why man,
34:33who detests the act of killing in peacetime and detests violence,
34:37can think it's fun to fight a war and enjoy it.
34:40We had boys who'd almost get sick if they killed a horse,
34:43but everybody thought the best targets were trucks loaded with humans.
34:49Even if the pilots couldn't see, the Army Air Force cameramen on the ground could.
34:55Risking their lives to film as close as they could to the sharp end of war,
34:59they didn't flinch when they found it.
35:02May 3, 1945
35:08A week after the war ended, Delbert was finally able to express his true feelings about his time in combat.
35:18May 3, 1945
35:21Dearest folks, now that the war is over,
35:24I guess it's all okay to tell you that they shot at us a lot over there.
35:29And Jerry was very good with Ak-Ak.
35:33There were many times when I was scared to death.
35:36I feel, and all the rest of our gang feels, that we're lucky to be alive now.
35:43They all got hit.
35:45But me.
35:52Looking down, you could see flames coming from house windows,
35:55and the smell of burning debris was bad.
35:57But as we moved on further and opened our bomb bays,
36:00we were sickened by the sweet smell of burning human flesh.
36:03It was nauseating.
36:05I missed at least two meals before I could eat anything again.
36:18In 1945, the air war came to a climax in the Pacific.
36:22The United States had a brand new bomber, the B-29,
36:25which was a generation ahead of anything the world had seen.
36:29With a top speed of 358 miles per hour,
36:32it flew higher and faster than many fighters of the day.
36:36And its maximum bomb load of 20,000 pounds
36:39was over three times that of the B-17 Flying Fortress.
36:44Not surprisingly, they called it the Super Fortress.
36:49B-29
36:53Because of the enormous distances in the Pacific,
36:56B-29 missions often stretched for 20 hours or more.
37:00Almost all that time was spent flying over vast expanses of empty ocean.
37:06These hours of tension were punctuated by ten minutes of furious combat
37:10as the bombers approached their targets.
37:13Air Corps Staff Sergeant Hal Brown
37:15described the experience of one of these missions
37:18for a radio audience in April 1945.
37:22This is a daylight mission,
37:24and the weather is crystal clear for a beautiful sunny day.
37:29One minute to our bomb run.
37:32No flak, no fighters as yet.
37:37Things are too peaceful and we are uneasy.
37:41Suddenly the sky exploded around Sergeant Brown's plane
37:45as the Japanese shot flak at them,
37:47dropped phosphorus bombs from above,
37:50and bore in with the few fighters they had left.
37:54We are running into a curtain of anti-aircraft fire at the present time.
37:59A fighter is coming in at bore.
38:02Another fighter has been reported.
38:05Our giant bomb bay doors have just yawned open.
38:10This is it, we're starting in.
38:13Bombs away.
38:19Anti-aircraft fire is all around us now.
38:24Bomb bay doors are closing.
38:28That's us answering the fighters.
38:31There's a fighter at 11 o'clock.
38:33Our tail gunner is after him.
38:37We are trying now to dodge the anti-aircraft fire.
38:42Another burst from our guns.
38:44I am reporting this as I hear it on the intercom.
38:49We got him.
38:53There goes one, we got him.
38:55On that last burst we got a fighter.
38:58The fighter just made a pass at us directly ahead.
39:03We're still over Japanese territory.
39:07There goes a fighter to our right, spiraling down, smoking.
39:12There's some up here at 9 o'clock, reported by our gunner.
39:18We're just passing over the Japanese coastline again,
39:22and out to the open sea.
39:24And that water looks awfully good.
39:26We want to put miles and miles between us
39:29and the Japanese island right now.
39:36Besides flak and fighters,
39:38another deadly threat to the bombers was the weather.
39:41An upper atmospheric condition known as the jet stream
39:45had only recently been discovered.
39:48And it was particularly fierce over Japan,
39:51making accurate bombings of individual targets
39:54from high altitude impossible.
39:58Nowhere else is there such turbulence,
40:01such unpredictable and sudden changes.
40:04Miles high over Tokyo,
40:06gales blow harder than any other place in the world,
40:09including Mount Everest.
40:11They reach a velocity of 200 miles per hour.
40:15As a result, General Curtis LeMay,
40:18newly arrived from commanding bombers in Europe,
40:21ordered a radical change in tactics.
40:24Adopting the approach Britain had used against Germany,
40:27the B-29s would now fly at night
40:30at lower altitudes of 5,000 feet
40:33and drop napalm and explosives
40:35into the centers of Japanese cities.
40:38Since these metropolises were constructed mainly of wood,
40:41the results were devastating.
40:43Large cities, including Tokyo,
40:45were transformed into flaming cauldrons
40:48of death and destruction.
40:50The fires were so intense
40:52that they became a threat to the bombers themselves.
40:55Powerful thermal updrafts,
40:57caused by the burning cities,
40:59tossed superfortresses around like paper airplanes.
41:02Some were literally flipped on their backs.
41:05Others disappeared into the flames.
41:08If a B-29 was damaged on one of the raids,
41:11its crew faced a long and perilous flight home.
41:17My greatest worry during all of combat
41:21was thinking of ditching in that dreary ocean.
41:24Those long hours returning from the target area
41:27are the most haunting of all my memories.
41:31Emergency landing stations for stricken B-29s
41:34were built on islands throughout the Pacific.
41:37These rough and ready airfields
41:39on places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa
41:42saved thousands of airmen.
41:51The Army Air Force went to extraordinary measures
41:54to give its flyers the best chance possible to survive.
42:00But not all of them made it.
42:02There was only one survivor from this crash.
42:10Yet most of the superfortresses survived,
42:13and one by one, almost every major city in Japan
42:17was burned to ashes.
42:19The death toll was staggering.
42:22These fire raids killed almost 500,000 people,
42:25over four times the number that perished
42:28as a result of the two atomic bombs.
42:32They said that we burned all their schools,
42:35shrines and hospitals.
42:37It's no doubt that we did,
42:39but that wasn't all that was burning.
42:41I know.
42:43Doesn't hurt my conscience that we killed a lot of people.
42:47Even children and women.
42:49It may sound bloodthirsty to you,
42:52but you would feel the same way if you were here.
42:55Love, Bud.
42:58During the war, over 130,000 allied airmen were killed.
43:03Those who survived were permanently changed by the experience.
43:09Dear Mom and Dad,
43:11there were moments when I was so darn scared
43:14I shook and my knees knocked together so loud
43:17they sounded like a bowling alley.
43:19I have a few gray hairs, no medals,
43:22and a very thankful attitude
43:24for still being a member of this Earth.
43:31Air power was not the decisive factor in World War II,
43:35but for most of the aviators who fought in this great conflict,
43:38it was the decisive moment of their lives.
43:43Their perseverance in the face of daunting circumstances
43:46is a testament to the strength and resilience of the human spirit.
44:13World War II
44:17The end of World War II
44:21The end of World War II
44:25The end of World War II
44:29The end of World War II
44:33The end of World War II
44:36The end of World War II
44:39The end of World War II
44:43The end of World War II
44:47The end of World War II