Zeno's Warbird Video Drive-In April 2006 Newsletter
You are invited to drop by Zeno's Drive-In
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com and watch this month's World War II aviation features for free online video viewing. " At the Matinee," we're showing four great flicks. In “Winged Artillery” you’ll see awesome 75mm canon equipped B-25s take on the Japanese. (Great color footage!), “P-47 Combat Operations, ” is an exciting orientation film for new Jug pilots, narrated by "The Gipper.” In “Introduction to Dive Bombing” you’ll discover how US Navy pilots gained the outstanding accuracy that sank four Japanese carriers at Midway. Finally, in “Mission to Rabaul, you’ll witness MacArthur’s revolutionary air campaign in New Guinea that neutralized Japan’s most powerful asset in the South Pacific.
And we’ve just added excerpts from an TBF/TBM “Avenger” pilots manual to our “More Neat Stuff” archive, joining free downloads of manuals for the Spitfire Mk IX, XI & XVI, the IL-2 "Sturmovik," the De Havilland Mosquito FB V1, Spitfire II and the Me-262 jet fighter
* Winged Artillery. Nine 75mm canon firing B-25Gs of the 48th Bomb Squadron, 7AAF, based on Apamama in the Gilbert Islands, conduct a hair raising tree top level strike on the Japanese air base on Mille. Also features amazingly well preserved and very rare color footage of daily life of air and ground crews. As a bonus, you'll watch Sea Bees using heavy equipment to transform these hard won tropical atolls into fully functioning air bases and crews maintaining the Mitchell's massive canons.
* P-47 Combat Operations. This film was shown to fledgling Jug pilots before they shipped out to forward air bases around the world. This engrossing video features a half dozen real pilots flying missions in a variety of roles in all theaters of war, including very rare footage of Thunderbolt napalm attacks against Japanese pill boxes in the Pacific. You'll hear the action described in their own words, including a liberal sprinkling of vintage pilot slang. Another fine narration by Ronald Reagan
* Introduction to Dive Bombing. Before you leave the deck in that Dauntless, you'd better learn how to dive bomb properly. The US Navy pioneered dive bombing techniques after World War I and it shows in this informative film, produced by the Department of the Navy in 1943. You'll learn everything from the basic theory of dive bombing to how to put your egg on a real target, including ships at sea. Navy SBD "Dauntless" dive bombers delivered fatal blows against the Japanese carrier force at the battle of Midway using the same techniques you'll see in this film. A must for history buffs and virtual combat pilot's alike.
Mission to Rabaul. The island of Rabaul, located in the southwest Pacific, northeast of the large island of New Guinea, was one of the two strategic lynchpins for the Japanese. They poured tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of airplanes, and thousands of tons of supplies and material into 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 how each piece of this classic campaign culminated inevitably in the first escorted, massed bomber strike on 12th October, 1943. The film focuses on the decisive and revolutionary impact of the air component, including high & low level attacks, parachute drops, and re-supply. You'll see amazing on the deck footage from attacking A-20s and B-25s.
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 different WWII documentaries every month "At the Matinee." That's over 14 hours of rockin' props for free viewing over the internet.
Regards,
Zeno
Zeno's Warbird Video Drive-In
World War II Aviation Videos Playing Online 24/7
http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com
