Some interesting color footage of WWII guncam film mixed in with some great shots of Jugs flying in formation.
http://betapundit.blogspot.com/2006/06/wwii-color-guncam-footage.html
First time I have seen video rather than caps. Wow. There’s an instructive passge in Clostermann’s The Big Show where he talks about how guncam film was analyzed post-op, very interesting.
One thing occurred to me though- in looking at the strafing film, there are any number of instances where aircraft fire naturally sprays the surrounding countryside/village. For the civilians near a target it must have been terrifying, not to mention deadly.
I can’t remember the name , but there was a color movie about a P-47 unit (I’m guessing it was made in the 50’s) that used alot of similar looking color gun camera footage. Doea any one recall the name of the movie?
I did some quick research on some movie sights and came up with Fighter Squadron (1948) with Robert Stack.
No, but i would assume the guncam film was “colorised” to go with the movie. I would think original guncam film was the cheaper black & white.
WW2 “collateral damage” is not much discussed & the numbers are only estimates, partly because nobody was counting civilian casualties. (See: http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/jobrien/reference/ob62.html )
The Allied mass slaughters of German civilians from the air are treated implicitly as justified because WW2 is seen simply as a struggle between Good & Evil, instead of examining its roots, which involve US & British bankers & businessmen doing much to foster the rise of the Nazi state.
As a result, commercial media & most written presentations of the war give a misleading image, since they focus almost entirely on military casualties. The scope of deliberate & accidental losses to civilian life & property is glossed over, distorted or ignored,( 6 million non-Jewish Poles were murdered by the Nazis (the Poles as Slavs were considered to be “subhuman”) but nobody has ever made a film or TV movie about that) with the military being glamorized & portrayed in an uncritical way. So the lessons of history are buried & we are doomed to repeat them. Some of us learn.
This is not the place for political debate, but I can’t help but respond! Why limit the topic to Allied bombing runs, or US and UK businesses? The Swedes, Spanish and Swiss all did business with the Nazi regime as well, as did many other countries. The Russians had a pact dividing up Poland. There were plenty of civilian deaths caused by the German invasion as well. I don’t think any of those deaths were glossed over. The death camps were not limited to the “Jewish Question”, though that by far gets the largest share of interest, most likely due to the systematic and well documented manner in which the Nazis performed the “Final Solution”.
There are many cases in which non-Nazi civilians of occupied Europe gleefully loaded the cattle cars with their fellow citizens on their way to Sobibor and other camps. Nor were there ever any cases of Lebensborn in the UK or US!
I’ll clamber off the [soapbox] now!
Another great flick is the wartime short “Thunderbolt” from the director William Wyler. Shows lots of gun cam footage, all in color.
Well put, and neat footage.
I really don’t think the civilian deaths were ignored at all, even at the time. Bombing campaigns were heavily scrutinized. Please try to bear in mind that this was a WORLD WAR. This war involved the entire planet and its population. The duality of war is often forgotten when thinking of the “innocent” people caught in the middle. While there are dissenters in a nation, however, what nations do is a collective effort whether or not everyone agrees. There are cases where governments can be blamed, but such was not the case in Germany. Civilian deaths are tragic, sometimes necessary parts to ending war and limiting overall casualties. That is part of the duality of war. Something bad must happen for the greater good. The only acurrate numbers were kept by the Western powers for their militaries because it was a matter of strategic importance. The Russians counts are estimated. There was no possible way to maintain records of all the death from that war. Nobody knows how many people are actually in any country at anytime. Consider the scope of the conflict. The US had nearly 16.5 million soldiers and sailors fight over a four year period. This was a small fraction of the combatant forces. How many people lived in Europe?
Ok, no more political stuff, back to topic.
Thanks Bill, Some neat stuff. it’s diffrent to see that in color too.
I’m not too sure of the color on that 109 though, not quite right.[;)][:P]
Thanks for the footage . Nothing looks better than a Jug at tree top level.
Thad
Except maybe a Typhoon Woooo Hooooo!!!