The Cold Blue

WW2 planes... https://www.fathomevents.com/events/the-cold-blue

Thanks for that, hadn't heard of it. 7:30 pm here on the 23rd. I'll be there....

Ben and I are going to go. He was interested when he heard too.

I hope I printed my ticket correctly. It's pretty hi-tech, just printed out one of those 'code blocks' that you scan with your phone and present the paper to the box office to get the ticket. But there is a confirm # too so they should be able to see that I've paid.

The ticket process worked okay. 50-60 people in the auditorium, pretty good crowd considering the subject and the lack of knowledge about that subject among the general population.  I thought it was well done, using Wyler's old footage restored and adding sound. The explanation of how they did that was interesting. Interviewing the 9, 90-something survivors was a nice touch.

Because the Wyler films were made before fighter escort was a standard procedure we didn't see any of that and the interviewees didn't mention it. At first they used P-47s which had the range to escort them only about as far as the German border then had to turn back, but by early-mid '44 the P-51Ds came into service which were able to escort the bombers all the way to Berlin and back. It is said that when Goering saw P-51s over Berlin he knew the war was lost.

Some of the similarities between the realities of their missions and the fictional missions depicted in Catch 22 was interesting, although the flak depicted in Catch 22  is impossibly heavy and the patterns are wrong.

Why they put the restored Memphis Belle up on stands with the gear retracted in the A.F. Museum is odd.  Usually almost all museum aircraft displays are with the gear sitting on the floor in its usual manner. I thought maybe they had built a 'cat walk' around the cockpit area so that viewers could see in more easily, but I didn't see one in the film. Of course the Memphis Belle was not restored to flying condition, that is a much more extensive job.  All the other B-17s still in existence are flying or are in flying mode restoration. The "Aluminum Overcast" owned by the EAA, that I got a flight in, was restored from an already flying example so they didn't have to do a 'ground up' restoration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_Overcast

Several scenes of the bombardiers  station showed the Norden Bombsight which was a highly secret device at the time. Crews were instructed to destroy it if possible if they were going to crash over enemy territory. The Aluminum Overcast has a complete unit installed in its normal position.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norden_bombsight

There was a pretty good turnout at our showing of it too. Usually these fathom films don't get that much public interest. I liked the point they made that at first the Americans were not that warmly received but as time went on...and the many missions the Yank pilots flew...our relationship was really bonded.

What was the scariest thing for a German soldier to see during WW2?

Paul Hosse, Post Graduate Certificate Change Leadership, Cornell University (2012)
Answered Oct 21, 2018

From my discussions with former German soldiers and sailors over the years, it wasn’t what one might expect. Some would say the sight of hordes of advancing Soviet troops or rolls of tanks was the scariest. Others might think it was seeing the Allied landings at Anzio, Sicily, or maybe Normandy. However, most of the individuals I’ve known over the years said there were two things that really shook them to the core.

The first was the waves after waves of Allied bombers and escort fighters flying over head. They knew where they were going—-home to Germany, and that meant destruction of their towns or villages. It meant German civilians were dying and they were powerless to do anything to stop them. It also might have meant that their family or friends—-perhaps their wives and children—-were about to die and all they could do was watch the means of their deaths fly far overhead.

Seeing those bombers and fighters also meant there was nowhere to hide for them either. No tank, building, or grove of trees would protect them from the falling bombs. They just had to hope that the bombs would fall somewhere else, but not there; not where they were, but that also meant someone else would die.

The other thing which they said was frightening was looking in their knapsacks for food and finding it empty, and then learning that supplies were “delayed”…again, or simply not coming. The same for their ammunition. They were all as tired as the other guy. Always on the move. Very little sleep; no quality sleep. Men slept when and where they could. Some even leaning on the side of a building or in a muddy ditch. They were all just as filthy; washing the dirt and dust from their faces when they could find a stream. Meanwhile, rain only provided a temporary reprieve. An opportunity to refill canteens, collect water to clean their hands and faces,; maybe make coffee…if any could be found, Then the reprieve turned into deep thick mud and it started all over again.

It was the idea that it was a never ending cycle to desperation, intense combat, seeing comrades fall and all the gore, sounds, and smells of war, followed by indescribable exhaustion, a search for anything of use—especially food, coffee, ammo or even socks. Whenever they came across enemy dead, they searched the bodies for food or perhaps packets of tea or coffee first.

Then came the search for items of clothing (socks, gloves, etc) or any usable ammo and weapons (it wasn’t uncommon to use the enemy’s weapons and ammunition since it saved on their’s). Maps or other strategic information was almost always last. Of course, items such as gasoline was always important, as were carts…if there was something to pull them available.

I guess, in a word, it was the despair which they found to so scary. The lack of supplies, reinforcements (of if they did get them, it was their ages and lack of training and experience), seeing their comrades die one by one, and knowing that no matter how hard they fought, they simply couldn’t overcome the advancing numbers and equipment that the enemy brought. A lot of the guys I spoke with had long started to tear up by the time we got that part. I suppose that in their minds, time had momentarily reversed itself and memories—-and the faces—- became real again. I would never press them any further.