Zeno's Warbird Video Drive-In July Newsletter: A 4th of July Triple feature plus a free download of a Supermrine Spitfire II pilots manual now playing at Zeno's Warbird Video Drive-In
Hello All --
You are invited to drop by Zeno's Drive-In (
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com) and catch our latest World War II aviation features for free online video viewing. This month "At the Matinee," we're showing the return of two Drive-In favorites,"The Fight for the Sky" & "Combat America," and the debut of an exciting new feature, "Mission to Rabaul."
And for Spitfire fans everywhere, we've just adrd a new download, an RAF pilot's manual for the Spitfire Mk, II A&B! THe Me 262 Pilot's handbook we added last month has already proven to be extremely popular.)
"Fight For the Sky." In February of 1944, General Jimmy Doolittle "turned loose" his fighters to go after the Luftwaffe where they lived. This marked a radical change in strategy from the disastrous tactics of 1943 that kept escorting fighters chained to bombers. Now, US fighters, including the P-51, P-38, & P-47 probed deep into Germany, catching the opposition on the ground, inflicting mortal damage. This feature combines thrilling combat footage filmed by 8th Air Force combat cameramen with some of the most action packed, down and dirty World War II gun camera film you'll ever see. This is the original, uncut 40-minute version of "The Fight for the Sky" featuring twice the rock 'em sock 'em action of the heavily edited postwar release previously shown at the Drive-In.
The island of Rabaul, located in the southwest Pacific, northeast of the large island of New Guinea, was one of the two strategic lynch pins for the Japanese. (The other was the naval base at Truk.) From Rabaul, the Japanese could project force throughout the region, support their forces in New Guinea, and block the advance up the Solomons. They poured tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of airplanes, and thousands of tons of supplies and material on to Rabaul to make it a mighty fortress. Douglas MacArthur brilliant solution to the Rabaul conundrum was to isolate it, slowly starve it, and bypass it, rather than directly assault it. One of the key steps in this strategy was to seize airfields in northern New Guinea to base Army P-38 fighters that could escort bombers on long range missions against the heavily defended Japanese stronghold. By the end of the War, once mighty Rabaul was cut off and reduced to a virtual prison for the starving Japanese.
"Mission to Rabaul" shows step-by-step how each piece of this classic campaign culminated logically and inevitably in the first escorted, massed bomber strike on 12th October, 1943. ("Air Operations Lae Salamaua," shown recently at the Matinee, focuses in more detail on one segment of this operation.) The film's footage was shot as it happened by courageous 5th Air Force combat cameramen and is accompanied by a range of stirring music (including Holst's "The Planets) and a dramatic narration. "Mission to Rabaul" focuses on the decisive and revolutionary impact of the air component, including high & low level attacks, parachute drops, and resupply. Like "Air Operations Lae Salamaua," this film contains some amazing on the deck footage of attacking A-20s and B-25s.
"Combat America" This warm hearted documentary was produced, written, directed, and narrated by movie star Clark Gable while he was on assignment with the 8th Air Force, developing a gunnery training film. Though it contains plenty of combat footage and doesn't flinch in showing the high cost of war in the air, in many ways, it's more of a warm home movie than a hard bitten, wartime "information" film. Gable chronicles the experiences of the men of the 351 Bombardment Group from the cool early morning mists of Colorado to the frigid skies over Germany. His affection and admiration for these men comes through loud and clear. This film is like a Kodachrome album out of the past, giving us snapshots of life on a front line air base in 1943.Though he doesn't mention it in the film (and generally keeps himself in the background) Gable flew combat missions with the Group until he was ordered to stop by "the brass" He was 42 at the time and of course, a Hollywood Star. But, he felt he couldn't accurately portray the air war unless he shared the experiences of the men who fought it . He did. It shows. I can't think of a better film for the 4th of July.
If you haven't stopped by Zeno's Drive-In before, we also feature 1940-45 vintage WWII Army & Navy films on how to fly the F4U, F6F, P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47, P-51, P-61, TBF/TBM, AT-6/SNJ, B-17, B-24, B-25, A-20, A-26, B-26, B-29, Stearman N2S and a different WWII documentaries every month "At the Matinee." That's over 14 hours of rockin' props for free viewing over the internet. And We just added new exerpts from a P-40 pilot's manual to our "More Neat Stuff" section, which includes pilot manual performance charts, systems diagrams & detailed photos for 13 World War II fighters & bombers.
Finally, we've revised, expanded, and updated our "Control Tower" links page, which has the largest collection of World War II Aviation links on the 'net
So drop your flaps & drop in!
That's
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.comZeno
