United News Newsreel Gen. Eisenhower inspects the 9th Air Force base in England. Marauder bombers blast German railroad yards by day and R.A.F. Lancaster bombers return by night.
Aug 292011
Target For Today (1944)
Aviation Comments Off
Aug 162011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_for_Today
Target for Today is a 1944 documentary film billed as being filmed by and acted by the United States Army Air Force, all while under fire. It was directed by William Keighley. The film documents the October raids made by the Eighth Air Force on targets in Anklam, Marienburg and Gdynia in Poland, all industrial centers for the Nazi war machine.
The raids were made by B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers. General Hap Arnold called the series of attacks “the greatest strike ever”. According to Arnold, they helped cripple German aircraft production and signaled the beginning of the end for the Luftwaffe.
The documentary documents these three air raids from planning, to briefing, preparation, and then reveals in unparalleled sequences the brutal battles waged at 30,000 feet.
Sep 292010
The Hap Arnold Story – The Big Picture
National Archives and Records Administration
ARC Identifier 2569701 / Local Identifier 111-TV-437
Big Picture: The Hap Arnold Story
The birth and growth of our Air Force into the powerful fighting unit it is today began within the United States Army. During this period, for almost his entire forty-six years of service, General “Hap” Arnold, Commanding General of the Army Air Force, completely dedicated himself to building America’s strength in the skies. America owes much to him for this development and for the air supremacy and victory in World War II. This is his life, brought to the television screen on THE BIG PICTURE series, as a modest, hard-working and good-natured man. The documentary begins in 1909 when a Frenchman by the name of Bleriot flew a frail contraption across the English Channel. A few weeks after, a young American lieutenant saw it and began to wonder even then about the military effects of many flying machines in the air at the same time. That young lieutenant, Henry “Hap” Arnold, was to be come the Commander of the greatest Air Force in history — two and a half million men and seventy thousand aircraft.
