Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
Golden Boy
  • 9/6/2024
Transcript
00:00♪♪♪
00:10♪♪♪
00:20♪♪♪
00:30♪♪♪
00:40♪♪♪
00:50♪♪♪
01:00♪♪♪
01:10♪♪♪
01:19This is a battlefront.
01:22A battlefront like no other in the long history of mankind's wars.
01:28This is an airfront.
01:58♪♪♪
02:08♪♪♪
02:12The working day begins, as it will end, with the ground crews.
02:16As much a part of the fortress as her wings.
02:19If you're a mechanic, you've got your own bomber.
02:22You get attached to it.
02:24But you know when your ship goes out on a mission, you may never see it again.
02:28So you do your work as well as it can be done.
02:31Perfectly.
02:33Because you wouldn't want anything to go wrong that would be your fault.
02:36♪♪♪
02:51Today the bombs will be taken from these bomb dumps somewhere in England
02:56and delivered to specific points in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
03:00♪♪♪
03:07To deliver them is the job of the 8th Bomber Command.
03:10Just a hauling job.
03:12Yet one of the most difficult and complicated of military operations.
03:16♪♪♪
03:40General purpose demolition bombs.
03:42Impact velocity as high as 750 miles an hour.
03:46Pierce five inches of armor plate.
03:48Destroy a freight.
03:50♪♪♪
03:53Briefing at 0800.
03:55Pilots, bombardiers, and navigators take their places.
03:59The group commander, Colonel Stanley Ray, steps up to the target map
04:03and for the first time you learn where you're going.
04:06Sometimes your face turns white when you find out.
04:09Sometimes the feeling you won't come back tightens your insides.
04:13Not so long ago you were sitting like this in a college or high school classroom.
04:18Not listening too hard.
04:20Perhaps even a little sleepy.
04:22But you listen here.
04:24And as you listen you don't have time to think of yourself.
04:27Fear fades.
04:29You concentrate on the mission.
04:31Type of formation.
04:32Assembly point.
04:33Zero hour.
04:34Route to target.
04:36Weather.
04:37Enemy fighters.
04:38Enemy black.
04:39Route back home.
04:40If forced down in enemy territory, destroy equipment.
04:43If taken prisoner, give no information.
04:45Name, rank, and serial number.
04:47That's all.
04:48♪♪
05:17These are the passengers with one-way tickets.
05:21And this is the crew of the Memphis Belle.
05:25324th Squadron, 91st Heavy Bombardment Group.
05:29Just one plane and one crew in one squadron.
05:33In one group.
05:35Of one wing.
05:36Of one Air Force.
05:38Out of 15 United States Army Air Forces.
05:42Well, fellas, we've never had an easy ride over there yet.
05:46And today won't be any different.
05:48No escort except unfriendly.
05:50So keep your eyes peeled.
05:52Don't get excited and yell when you're talking on the intercom.
05:55Save your ammunition and make your shots count.
05:57And let me know what goes on back there, Quinlan.
06:00Yes, sir.
06:01Stay on the ball, gang, and she'll bring us back like she's always done.
06:05Okay?
06:06Let's go.
06:07Let's go.
06:13They have completed 24 missions in this, the toughest theater of air war.
06:18The big league of sky fighting.
06:20Their experience is priceless.
06:23And so if the Memphis Belle comes back this afternoon,
06:26they will be sent to bring the vital lessons they have learned
06:29to thousands of air crewmen in training at home.
06:33Home is America.
06:37Home is America.
06:57This is a battlefront like no other in this or any war.
07:02No monster armies, no booming cannon.
07:06This is the sound of the bombers pounding through the quiet English countryside.
07:11This is an air front.
07:36This is an air front.
08:06This is an air front.
08:36This is an air front.
09:06The wheels of the Memphis Belle leave the soil of England for the 25th time.
09:11The friendly soil of England, with its ordered farms and rural hamlets,
09:16its country estates surrounded by formal gardens and well-kept parks.
09:21The England these Americans knew only from classical music.
09:25This is an air front.
09:28This is an air front.
09:31This is an air front.
09:34The England these Americans knew only from classics they had to read in school.
09:38The England of the towns and cities,
09:41whose people have defended their island's freedom for over a thousand years.
09:46But today their countryside has changed.
09:49Today their island has been converted into a gigantic bomber field,
09:54a super aircraft carrier anchored off the shores of fortress Europe,
09:58with hangars and machine shops, with hundreds of dispersal points,
10:02perimeter tracks and concrete runways.
10:05This is England in its fifth year of war.
10:13And this is the new battle front, the air front,
10:16from which we seek out the enemy.
10:19Not his infantry or his artillery, not his panzer divisions,
10:22but the greater menace, the industrial hut of his nation,
10:26the foundation on which the Nazi empire and its armies stand,
10:30the power behind the German lust for conquest,
10:34the steel mills and refineries, shipyards and submarine pens,
10:38factories and munitions plants,
10:41pinpoints on the map of Europe which mean rubber,
10:44guns, ball bearings, shells, engines, planes, tanks, targets,
10:49targets to be destroyed.
10:53And these are the destroyers, each with a belly full of bombs,
10:58and ten men like the crew of the Memphis Belle.
11:02Pilot, Captain Robert Morgan, industrial engineer from Ashe, North Carolina.
11:06He's flown this ship across the Atlantic.
11:09The other pilot, Captain Jim Varenis, business administration student
11:13at the University of Connecticut.
11:15Radio operator and gunner, Sergeant Bob Hanson,
11:17construction worker from Spokane, Washington.
11:20Navigator, Captain Chuck Layton, chemistry student at Ohio Wesleyan.
11:25Engineer and top turret gunner, Sergeant Harold Locke,
11:28from Green Bay, Wisconsin.
11:30Used to be a stevedore.
11:32Besides keeping the bell in order, he covers the sky above.
11:36Tail gunner, Sergeant John Quinlan of Yonkers, New York.
11:39Clerked for a carpet company, but he quit December 8, 1941.
11:44Ball turret gunner, Sergeant Cecil Scott,
11:47pressman for a rubber company in Rahway, New Jersey.
11:51Pilot to crew, 10,000, put on oxygen.
11:56They're climbing higher now, 300 feet a minute.
11:59The strain on the planes and on the men is mounting.
12:04The rest of the crew, bombardier, Captain Vincent Evans,
12:08operated a fleet of trucks in Fort Worth, Texas.
12:11Waste gunners, on the right, Sergeant Bill Winchell,
12:14chemist for a paint company in Chicago.
12:16And on the left, Sergeant Tony Nostal,
12:18used to repair washing machines in Detroit when he was a kid.
12:21Now he's 19 and has 2 Nazi fighters, confirmed.
12:32It takes all of a pilot's strength
12:34to keep a 30-ton fortress in tight formation.
12:37But the formation is the bomber's best defense
12:40against enemy fighters.
12:42The planes are deployed to uncover every gun,
12:45stepped up and down.
12:47Echelon to the right and left.
12:50Arranged to overcome the danger
12:52of gunners firing into friendly ships.
12:55Arranged so concentrated cones of fire
12:58from the caliber 50 machine guns
13:00cover the sky for 1,000 yards in every direction.
13:11The friendly coast of England
13:13slips by below.
13:15It doesn't look like much now,
13:17but in a few hours when you come back,
13:20if you come back,
13:22this will be the most beautiful view in the world.
13:27Higher and higher,
13:29climbing to reach your best operational altitude,
13:3225,000 feet, 5 miles straight up.
13:35So high you can't be seen from the ground with a naked eye.
13:39So high that after 1 minute without oxygen,
13:42you lose consciousness.
13:44After 20 minutes, you're dead.
13:52From now to target, you go about your routine duties,
13:55plot your course, check your equipment,
13:58and wait and think.
14:02Higher and colder, temperature 40 degrees below zero.
14:06Take off your glove and you lose some fingers.
14:10You look out at the strange world beyond,
14:13reflections in plexiglass
14:15like nothing you ever saw before outside of a dream.
14:27Higher and higher into the lifeless stratosphere
14:31until the exhaust of the engines mixing the cold thin air
14:34condenses and streams the heavens with paper trails.
14:40To the men in the ships, they're far from beautiful,
14:44for they point like beckoning fingers to the formation,
14:48signposts in the sky for the enemy to spot us.
14:59For these bombers to accomplish their mission,
15:02a plan is needed.
15:04Carefully worked out, timed to the minute.
15:07The job is to bomb Wilhelmshaven,
15:09effectively and economically.
15:11The enemy is strong, skillful, determined to stop us.
15:15Here are his defenses.
15:17Air drones, well-dispersed.
15:20Each plane indicates a staffel or squadron of fighters.
15:24Heavy anti-aircraft, highly trained and accurate,
15:28all along the coast and defending his vital installations.
15:32Radar to warn him of the enemy.
15:35Radar to warn him of our coming.
15:39Here is our plan to divide his defenses
15:42and weaken his opposition.
15:44At 1330 hours, shortly after takeoff,
15:47six groups of planes will be heading toward the enemy coast
15:50from six directions.
15:52The blue force, 100 B-24 Liberator four-engine bombers.
15:57The white force, 300 B-17 Flying Fortresses.
16:02Green force, 300 B-17s
16:05with an escort of six squadrons of P-47 Thunderbolts.
16:09A force of B-26 Marauders,
16:12two-engine medium bombers
16:14with six squadrons of RAF Spitfires escorting.
16:17Almost 1,000 planes and over 8,000 men in the air.
16:21The enemy alerts all his air drones.
16:24But which is our main force?
16:26What are our targets?
16:28Where should the Nazi controllers send their fighters?
16:31It's our job to make them guess and guess wrong.
16:35A half hour later at 1400 hours,
16:38the blue force will be heading east across the North Sea
16:41with the white force following.
16:43These enemy fighters are tied down, waiting to meet them,
16:47and will not be able to attack the green force.
16:49These fighters must come up to attack the green force
16:52and thus will be no threat to the blue and white forces.
16:56The B-26s and Spitfires will bomb and strafe
16:59a key rail junction,
17:01diverting the 6th Staffel and preventing the enemy
17:04from concentrating too many fighters on the green force,
17:07which is scheduled to bomb an aircraft factory at Hanover.
17:15At 1430 hours, the blue force will threaten
17:18this entire coastal area of northwestern Germany.
17:23Which target will it be?
17:26Flensburg?
17:28The Kiel Canal?
17:30Or will it turn suddenly and bomb Hamburg,
17:33Wegersack, or Emden?
17:35Actually, it carries no bombs at all.
17:38It's a decoy and keeps the fighters from the northern area
17:41busy while the white force, the main effort,
17:44heads for the submarine pens of Wilhelmshaven.
17:48At 1500 hours, while the white force is over its target,
17:52only a fraction of the available German fighter strength
17:55of the area can intercept it
17:58because of the blue force diversion
18:01and the simultaneous bombing of Hanover by the green force.
18:06This is the plan of battle for today,
18:09drawn up by the Combined Operations Plan Committee
18:12and approved by the commanding general.
18:17The white force.
18:19Lead group, low squadron.
18:22We've crossed the invisible line of enemy radar.
18:25The Hun is expecting us.
18:35Steel helmets go on.
18:37Watchful eyes strain.
18:40Formations are held tighter still.
18:44Tense gunners more alert because here it comes.
18:48The inner coast.
18:53From up here it looks the same as any other.
18:56Houses, roads, green fields, factories, waterways.
19:00But they are the houses and fields of those who invade and oppress.
19:04They are the factories and roads of the people
19:07who twice in one generation have flooded the world with suffering.
19:11Suffering in such quantity as the history of the human race has never known.
19:15Brought torment and anguish into countless American homes.
19:19Gold stars and telegrams from the War Department.
19:28The first flak.
19:30Just harmless-looking silent puffs of smoke.
19:33Only each puff is a shell exploding, throwing shrapnel around the sky.
19:38Exactly the range.
19:40Accurate flak by radio prediction.
19:43Five miles down Nazi anti-aircraft batteries
19:46have calculated the altitude, speed and course.
19:49Where will the next one hit?
19:51You try not to be there.
19:59Docks and submarine pens of Wilhelmshaven.
20:02Approach to the target starts.
20:05No smoke screen can protect it.
20:13Now the enemy knows the path of your approach
20:16and walls that path with a flak barrage.
20:18But you fly right through it.
20:20Flak so thick you can get out and walk on it.
20:32Morgan changes course every 15 seconds.
20:35Evasive action to confuse the flak batteries.
20:39Bump site set for correct altitude and speed.
20:42Bombay doors open.
20:44The bombing run begins.
20:47Pilot to Bombardier.
20:49Okay, you've got it.
20:52Now Evans flies the Memphis Belle,
20:54controlling it through the bomb site.
20:56And now we are most vulnerable.
20:59Committed to our bombing run, we can't dodge flak or fighters.
21:03Here's the first.
21:12Top turret fires at him.
21:15Evans must ignore the battle.
21:17Crosshairs lined up on target.
21:19Adjustments for wind drift made.
21:24Two more fighters diving from 9 o'clock.
21:28Flak now has the range too.
21:33They've hit this fort, but he keeps on his bombing run.
21:37As lead Bombardier, Evans's aim must be good.
21:40Every other ship in the group will drop its bombs when he drops his.
21:45Now one pointer on the bomb site moves toward another stationary pointer.
21:50The instant they touch, bombs will release.
21:53They touch.
21:56Bombs away.
22:07Now the other two will drop their bombs.
22:11They touch.
22:14Bombs away.
22:23Bombs away.
22:27Bombs away.
22:30Bombs away.
22:33Bombs away.
22:36Bombs away.
22:39Bombs away.
22:42Bombs away.
22:45Bombs away.
22:48Bombs away.
22:50Bombs away.
22:53Bombs away.
22:56Bombs away.
22:59Bombs away.
23:02Bombs away.
23:05Bombs away.
23:08Bombs away.
23:11Bombs away.
23:14Bombs away.
23:17Bombs away.
23:20The first half of the mission is over, the easy half.
23:24Now to get home.
23:32The flak stops.
23:34That means fighters out there somewhere.
23:37A staffer lurking behind that cloud.
23:39Or hiding up in the sun where the glare blinds you,
23:42and you can't see them, waiting to dive down on you.
23:45Fighters at six o'clock.
23:47This is what a gunner sees.
23:49A speck in the sky. That's a fighter.
23:51And then a blink. That means he's firing at you.
23:542,300 rounds a minute.
24:02In a running battle, one of the most important instruments is the interphone.
24:10There's four of them. One o'clock high.
24:12They're coming around. Watch it.
24:17Two fighters, six o'clock up, coming in. Diving out, chief.
24:21P-17 in trouble out at two o'clock. Watch it.
24:24Got an engine on fire.
24:32There's two more diving through the 94th.
24:34Three planes, nine o'clock, coming around.
24:36Keep your eye on them, boss.
24:39Coming around to ten.
24:41Watch them, Chuck. Keep your eyes open.
24:43They're breaking at 11. Breaking at 11.
24:45I got them.
24:47Two o'clock. I got those two at two o'clock.
24:50Watch them, Scotty. I got my sights on them.
24:52Check it, P-17, Chuck. Three o'clock.
24:54Loader's smoking. Fighters, 10-30, coming around.
24:5710-30 up or lower.
25:04P-17 out of control at three o'clock.
25:11Come on, you guys, get out of that plane. Bail out.
25:14There's one. He come out of the bomb bay.
25:16Yeah, I see him. There's a tail gunner coming out.
25:18Watch out for fighters.
25:22Keep your eye on them, Bill.
25:23See any parachutes, Quinlan?
25:24Two parachutes, over.
25:25Flight at nine o'clock.
25:30Eight men still in that P-17.
25:33Come on, sir. Get out of there.
25:36There's three more ships.
25:37Flak, 11 o'clock.
25:38Fighters, six o'clock.
25:39M-E-109 at three o'clock.
25:41Keep after them, Mitchell.
25:42I see them. I'm on them.
25:46Come on, use...
25:53I got him.
25:54Quinlan, confirm that fighter.
25:55He got him, Chief. Look, he's coming out.
25:57Don't yell on that intercom.
25:59Fighters, 10 o'clock.
26:00Watch those 212 vans. They're coming in.
26:02They're coming in, Scotty.
26:04Get that ball turret out of there.
26:09Save the ammunition as much as possible.
26:16Watch that fighter coming in at three o'clock.
26:18He's coming in in a half roll.
26:20Pull her up, Chief. Pull her up.
26:32This fortress is hurt.
26:34Engine on fire, losing airspeed and altitude.
26:37Drifting into the flak, alone and helpless.
26:40A straggler.
26:41In a minute, Nazi fighters will swarm in like buzzards for the kill.
26:45You can watch, but you can't go down to help.
26:49You keep your formation.
26:56Here, too, the mission is being flown.
26:59Nonetheless real for being in the minds and hearts of these men behind.
27:03Ask anybody who's been to a field in England,
27:06or anywhere else our bombers are based,
27:08and he'll tell you that there's drama here, too.
27:11Waiting to see who's coming back.
27:14To watch them, you might not realize how tense these ground crews are.
27:19But they are tense and plenty worried.
27:24Air Force talk this waiting is known as sweating out the mission.
27:28These men know the flight plan.
27:30Their watches told them when the bombers were running into enemy flak,
27:34when they were over the target,
27:36when they left the enemy coast.
27:38When they left the enemy coast.
27:40And now their watches tell them the bombers should be nearing the field.
27:45Every ear strains for the first sound of the engines.
27:49And then somebody hears them.
27:51And somebody sees the first faint specks in the distant sky.
28:00Every face turns to see.
28:02And count.
28:04The watches try to read the numbers on the ships.
28:09These planes have priority to land first.
28:12The colored flares mean wounded aboard.
28:15In the hospital window, these watching men know what that means.
28:20They know what it feels like to lie on a bouncing fortress floor.
28:24Hundreds of miles through the frozen stratosphere.
28:27In great pain.
28:29With the other men in your crew fighting to keep you alive until they hit the floor.
28:33To keep you alive until they hit the field.
28:36The field.
28:38Home.
28:40It'll be okay then.
28:42Because there'll be medical care.
28:44The best.
28:45As soon as the wheels of your plane stop rolling.
28:59Head wound.
29:02Blushing.
29:05Twenty millimeter kinshell exploded in his radio compartment.
29:09Shock.
29:11Internal injuries.
29:13He'll be all right then.
29:16Flak bursts scattered flying shrapnel.
29:19He's full of steel splinters.
29:23This pilot's leg is not a pretty sight.
29:26Neither are the docks at Wilhelmshaven.
29:28These men will all get the Purple Heart.
29:33And this man too.
29:35Posthumously.
29:42A transfusion right at plane.
29:46This gunner's too weak to be moved.
29:49The new life-giving blood flowing into his veins
29:53might be the blood of a high school girl in Des Moines.
29:56A minor in Alabama.
29:58A movie star in Hollywood.
30:00Or it might be your blood.
30:02Whosever it is.
30:04Thanks.
30:09Thirty-six planes left this field this morning.
30:12Now six more arrive.
30:13That makes twenty home.
30:15And this one's twenty-one.
30:17More wounded aboard.
30:26Twenty-two.
30:28Coming in with his left inboard engine dead.
30:35Twenty-three.
30:37With a feathered prop on his left outboard engine.
30:42Twenty-four.
30:43Southern Comfort.
30:44With a chunk of tail gone.
30:47Twenty-five.
30:49They flew home on their luck.
30:52Twenty-six.
30:54Not a scratch.
30:58The control tower learns that two more landed
31:01at a British field to the south.
31:03One a crash landing.
31:05Crew safe.
31:06That makes twenty-eight.
31:08Twenty-nine.
31:10A rough landing, but her pilot's badly hurt.
31:13It's a wonder he brought her back at all.
31:18Twenty-nine planes back.
31:20So far.
31:22Twenty-nine out of thirty-six.
31:25Our losses were heavy.
31:27But the enemies were far heavier.
31:30We destroyed a German aircraft factory,
31:33a rail junction, submarine pens,
31:35docks and harbor installations.
31:37That's specific, known damage.
31:39But who can tell the number of German torpedoes
31:42that will not be fired,
31:44the number of our convoys that will get through now,
31:47the soldiers and seamen's lives that will be saved,
31:50or the battles that will be won instead of lost
31:53because of what these bombers and airmen did today?
32:07Pilot and tail gunner.
32:09They can laugh now.
32:12Fire on the abort engine did this.
32:15Flames streaked back and burned the stabilizer, too.
32:18Another crew luck brought back.
32:35Here's old Bill.
32:37A pretty good airplane when it took off.
32:40Lost its nose.
32:42Lost its navigator.
32:44Bombardier wounded.
32:46Bombardier wounded.
32:48Top turret gunner and pilot hit.
32:51Hydraulic system shot out.
32:53No brakes, no flaps.
32:56But old Bill came back.
33:05Now, among the returned crew members,
33:08talk flows like a river,
33:10talking out every detail of the mission.
33:13These are the faces of combat.
33:16Faces of Americans who have watched their comrades die.
33:20Faces that can never forget the enemy.
33:23And they're in no mood to have their picture taken.
33:30In the control tower, Colonel Ray, the group's EO,
33:34is still watching and waiting.
33:37And then he spots the last flight.
33:39Three more planes.
33:41And one of them is the ship everyone's been pulling for.
33:47The Memphis Belle.
33:51The last few miles of this trip have been a joyride.
33:54The strain is over.
33:55They can leave their guns now.
33:57Now they know they're going to go home.
33:59To Spokane, Green Bay, Asheville, Detroit,
34:02Chicago, Fort Worth, and Yonkers.
34:11The Belle comes in for a landing.
34:14But First Morgan buzzes the field,
34:17cuts the grass with a giant fortress.
34:20It's against the rules, but this is a special occasion.
34:41The wheels of the Memphis Belle
34:43come back to the soil of England for the 25th time.
34:46The wheels of the Memphis Belle
34:48come back to the soil of England for the 25th time.
34:51The wheels of the Memphis Belle
34:53come back to the soil of England for the 25th time.
35:21¶
35:31¶
35:41¶
35:51¶
36:00This is a day they will never get.
36:03¶
36:08Another great day soon after,
36:10Brigadier General Hansel visited the field
36:13and presented the Distinguished Flying Cross
36:16to every member of the crew.
36:27And then there was another day.
36:33¶
36:51The Majesties, the King and Queen of England.
36:54¶
37:22Hansel never thought anything like this
37:24would happen to him when he left Yonkers.
37:27¶
37:34The ground crew were a little self-conscious
37:36about being dressed in fatigues,
37:38but the Queen thought they were very nice.
37:41¶
37:49Finally, two more visitors came.
37:51Brigadier General Hansel,
37:53Commander of the 8th Air Force,
37:55and General Devers,
37:57U.S. Commander of the European Theater.
37:59The Belle crew received them in flying clothes.
38:02As General Aker read the order
38:04for what he called their 26th and most important mission.
38:07Return to America to train new crews
38:09and to tell the people what we're doing here.
38:12To thank them for their help and support
38:14and tell them to keep it up so we can keep it up.
38:17So we can bomb the enemy again and again
38:20and then we can all come home.
38:23¶
38:33¶
38:43¶
38:53¶
39:01To the men of the 8th Air Force
39:03who are now flying deep into Germany,
39:06bringing destruction to targets
39:08almost a thousand miles from their bases.
39:11Destruction like this.
39:15And who have never once been turned back by the enemy.
39:18To those men, this film is gratefully dedicated.