Cold Blue' Shows the B-17 Bomber Like You've Never Seen It Before

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a27442948/cold-blue-b17-documentary/

Despite hundreds of hours of newsreel footage and its appearance in innumerable documentaries and big budget Hollywood films, however, no one has ever managed to capture what it was like to actually fly a mission in a B-17—dropping bombs on German cities while being attacked by Luftwaffe fighters and anti-aircraft fire.

That changes on May 23 with the nationwide, one-night-only theatrical screening of The Cold Blue, an extraordinary new documentary that makes use of recently discovered battle footage and miraculous film restoration technology. The film is the astounding result of a three-year labor by documentarian Erik Nelson, whose four-decade career includes producing Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man, Discovery Channel’s Unsolved History series and numerous World War II documentaries, including Anne Frank’s Holocaust.

Here's a link to find a screening nearby...
https://www.fathomevents.com/events/the-cold-blue

 

Thanks for the heads-up. I saw this at about 4:30 today, immediately found a showing nearby and attended a 7:30 screening in a fairly-full theater.

It's essentially a much-expanded and decidedly cleaned-up version of William Wyler's 1943 "Memphis Belle", with additional footage found a few years ago in the National Archives. Wyler's daughter and the late Paul Allen were two of the executive producers. Most of the voice-over commentary was by a group of 90-something veterans of the missions, who were very entertaining. The showing included some "making of" footage, including the unveiling of the restored "Memphis Belle" at the NMUSAF, where the film was premiered. If you missed it, hopefully this one-day screening will be repeated sometime.

 

Damm, wish I had seen this earlier.
Looks like it will be out on HBO soon though.

 

Respect and eternal gratitude to those honored in this film.

 

Too bad there was such short notice about this, I would like to see it. There is no Hollywood film that can come close to what the bomber crews experienced in '42 and '43. I speak not as one who has experienced missions over enemy territory but I did experience some non combat 6 hour round robin training missions over the U.S. They had everything but flak and fighters. Non-stop loud howling wind noise in the waist position that was without windows and wide open . Relentless cold that always found a way into your body through multiple layers of leather and wool. Electrically heated wool suits worked sometimes and burned you when they didn't, from broken wires in the elbows and knees. Breathing oxygen through an ill fitting rubber mask for long periods often dehydrated the crewman and always generated snot that froze when it dripped out. The crewman was swathed in 50-60 pounds of fleece-lined leather flight suit , winter flight suit, electrically heated suit, electrically heated leather gloves, long johns, Mae West, chute harness, fleece-lined leather helmet, and fleece-lined heavy rubber boots. While carrying all this you had to operate a cal. 50 machine gun that was prone to freezing if the wrong oil was used. To relieve one's bladder required serious consideration regarding how long you could hold it, should I try to disassemble 30% of this straight jacket to pee when there might be a fighter attack? God help you if you had the "G.I.'s". That often ended up in the flight suit. All of this was temporarily put in the back of your mind when you were under fighter attack by fighters that out- shot you and out-ranged you when they were equipped with 20 and 30mm weapons. Flak was feared as much as the fighters and it also took a heavy toll of the bombers. In 1942 and 1943 "a tour" was 25 missions. Very few aircrew made that many. They were lucky to survive 10-12. At Langley Field I bunked with many of those who survived . Some had survived too many missions and usually ended up in the Section 8 Ward in the hospital. There is no adequate reward.

 

To add more.
I have mentioned before that I was friends at Boeing with the photographer that was based at the same field as the "Belle". He was there when the " Memphis Belle" thing got started and he filled me in on a few things. Sort of like Paul Mantz telling us about Amelia Earhardt (spl). According to him, the MB was not the first B-17 to reach 25 missions, many did before her. He also said that the crew was not highly thought of, nothing special, but they did their job. He felt that the film was the product of an ex-advertising guy and his friend Wyler who was a film producer. My buddies at Langley never mentioned it. I suppose that I'm coming across as a spoiler but I have heard this story in other venues.
I lived with, served with, and flew with some great people during the war and after the war and it matters little what branch of the service had it easier than others sometimes but when it came to being shot up in a battle, it was all the same . As I said before, there isn't enough of anything to repay those who put their lives on the line. I find it difficult to see how many young people don't even know when the War started or where it was fought. I don't think that the schools are teaching anything about it anymore .

 

Now I'm curious, will have to ask my nephews (16 and 19, both public school educated) what they know about WWI and WWII. What, where, why, how.
I'm sure at least something about both wars was taught, how much was truly grasped and retained is another question... There are a LOT more things competing for kid's brainpower these days then when you or I were kids Bob
I can't say that I remember all that much from High School History class 30 odd years ago, but something piqued my interest enough to read a decent amount about it years later (in particular Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Berlin Diary, Massie's Dreadnought and Casltes of Steel, Buchheim's Das Boot etc).

PBS has some nicely done lesson plans for grades 9-12, examining a variety of salient WWII topics:
https://www.pbs.org/thewar/edu_lesson_plan.htm

Will have to watch Cold Blue with my father (ret Air Force) when it comes out on HBO.

 

Aside from teaching about the wars themselves, their place in the overall scheme of history needs to be divulged to the young. To me, the Franco-Prussian War begat World War I, which begat World War II, which begat the Cold War, and so on and so forth.

Back in 2000, when Time magazine picked their "Person of the (20th) Century", they picked Albert Einstein. My personal pick was Adolf Hitler (recognizing that this "Person" did not have to be a positive character) since what he did has really influenced much of world history ever since 1945. If Hitler hadn't started his conflagration in 1939, today's world would look very different indeed!

 

My Uncle, now deceased, was a B-17 Aircraft Commander in the war around '43 I believe. He told a story of being over the target area one day and getting jumped by fighters. He said for some reason, in previous missions, the top turret had never fired directly over the cockpit. Well this time the gunner swings the turret around and opens fire with the twin 50's right over the cockpit. He said it scared the **** out of em..his exact words.....he said dirt and crap came falling out of the overhead panels and confusion reigned!
He also said they lost a bunch of planes by having mid air collisions, when stacking up over a lone radio beacon, before heading to Germany.
My Mom's brother was lost in Sardinia in a Martin B-26..just a couple of missions before being able to come home. And my Dad who flew B-25's in the Pacific was shot down but made it home.

Every time I see footage of those guys going down I feel helpless, sad, proud, and really, really lucky. I just wish kids now a days could appreciate what our fore fathers did for us.

 

Good friend, just deceased (94 yo) was in a B-17 shot down over what is now Czechoslovakia... parachuted. Family hid him for several days, but when Nazi troops started patrolling the vicinity, he voluntarily left (they would have killed the family).
Was captured a couple days later; prison camp for the duration (1.5 years).

He visited 'his family' there and they came over here several times... their toddlers are now grandparents.

 

How neat!

 

I just learned that the "Memphis Belle" pilot was also the pilot of "Dauntless Dottie", the lead B-29 to bomb Tokyo. I was good friends with his flight engineer when we both worked at Boeing. Amazing world. I have connected with the families of several men with whom I was in the USAAF: Joe Frank Jones, Leo Stoutsenberger, and several more.

 

Slightly off topic but sticking with new footage recently there is some newly restored film in 4k from 1962 aboard the USS Shangri-La aircraft carrier. It's incredible as if filmed yesterday.



Also newly restored film to 4k, for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. Alot of footage I've never seen. Here is a long trailer

 

I used to think it would have been pretty cool to be a bomber pilot in ww2 then I read “Masters of the air” twice. About the B-17 program from beginning to end. There was nothing glamorous or cool about it. They lost more crews to frostbite and mental issues than to actual combat. Incredible book if you haven’t read it.


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat

 

There is work going on for a miniseries of "Masters of the Air.
Third in the series by Spielberg and Tom Hanks after "Band of Brothers and "The Pacific."
They're spending a LOT of money on it.

http://footstepsresearch.org/2018/12/what-we-know-hbos-masters-of-the-air/

 

There were 48,000 casualties in the 8th Air Force during the war. Bleeding out from a fatal wound at 30.000 feet at -70 deg wasn't very glamorous. Surviving at 30.00 feet at -70 deg wasn't either. Adding a gun fight didn't help.

 

And breathing 100% O2 for long periods of time...and I read of waist gunners during the fight that would get their O2 hoses shot and die from lack of Oxygen.....

 

I wonder how B-29s might have done over Europe....

 

I have thought of that, also. If the war endured a bit longer the Germans would possibly have the DO-335 operational and they already had the FW-190D. I think that between flak and the new generation of fighters that had been developed, the B-29 would have had a tough time

 

Not to mention the ME-262...

 

They were running out of pilots by Spring 1945. With fighter sweeps over nearly every airfield throughout the day, it was very difficult to get any pilot training done. Difficult to recover fighters, too. We were operating out of airfields in France early in 1945, and that put them in range of nearly all of Germany. Just like in 1918, there was a shortage of fuel, too.

 

My father was a B17 pilot ,stationed at Polebrook 351 bomb group .He flew 10 missions from 4-2-45 to 4-20-45 . He never mentioned lack of training or fighter sweeps. He spoke frequently about his service. Regards, Edward

 

Back in 2012, I took a ride in a Liberty Foundation B-17 and shot this video from cockpit during the landing at KOLV (Olive Branch, MS). I took off my hearing protection for the last five minutes or so to get the full effect of those massive Wright Cyclone radials in action. Wow. It's a wonder anyone who flew in them had any hearing left.

 

A lot of aircrew men didn't have any hearing left. Especially when they started firing their weapons. The impact on the human body from the cold, noise, physical impact of the environment, stress from attacks, stress from flak, and the commitment to duty took a heavy toll. I might add that there was never any crew that turned back in the face of the action that they were encountering. I am thankful that I was spared from it. Some of my schoolmates weren't.

 

Since I don't believe that the B-29s attacking Japan encountered that many fighters - I think most of their losses were to flak - I wonder how the advanced remote gun-firing stations on the B-29 would have coped with the German masses. Certainly the pressurized cabins would have been very welcome to bomber crews!