Masters of the Air-Crew Cold Exposure Clips Historical Accuracy Review - Correct and Questionable
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- Опубліковано 28 лют 2024
- In the WWII Masters of the Air Series several B-17 crew members experience injuries due to the cold environment. One crew member touched bare metal and his hand froze on the surface, ripping off skin. The ball turret gunner experienced frostbite due to breakage of the turrets sighting window and likely failure of the rheostat. The video will address the extreme environment, what steps the 8th took to reduce frostbite injuries and review the masters of the air series for accurately representing the extreme cold environment.
- Наука та технологія
My father had bought a pair of those 3 finger outer layer gloves sometime after WW2. I wore them out as a young kid growing up in the 1960's. I would get all bundled up & play outside in the snow for hours at a time. Those gloves were so warm & plush, & gave me immense super powers. Getting wet from making snowballs & snowmen really did the leather in. They were lined with the same fur that the bomber jackets were constructed with. One can only imagine the amount & variety of surplus military equipment that was available on the market for mere pennies on the dollar.
Indeed - I've seen photos of the small ads in the back of the magazines of the day selling surplus/unissued A-2 type jackets for $9.95!
Your videos on this aspect of the war is priceless. I learn so much from you and appreciate all of your videos thank u
Your videos*
Thank You*
Always bringing out the most interesting and unusual facts just Brilliant
From a french guy.
Your studies are of the most priceless made on youtube. You are giving your life to reporting the truth about bombers and crew. You are more useful than every episode of Masters of the air.
I think they make an excellent supplement to the series which is actually pretty damn good IMO. I hope those that enjoy the series find channels like this and learn more for themselves.
Masters of the Air: entertainment
WWII US Bombers: history
What's sad is how many people these days don't know the difference
@@SoloRenegade Getting people interested is a good start. Don't lose hope. 😉
@@SoloRenegade I especially appreciate this historians dedication to facts and sources.
@@haitolawrence5986 oh, I completely agree with that. I once knew very little about WW2 and other history as well, and not all that long ago either. It's when people CITE master s of the air as their "evidence" that i'm annoyed with.
My grandfather was the left waist gunner on the B-17, Virgin's Delight. He suffered frostbite on his feet. He thankfully completed his 25 missions and rotated home, but had problems with his feet for the rest of his life.
I find your channel an order of magnitude more interesting than Masters of the Air. ❤
Masters of the Air is pretty good...even great at times. Remember most people living know nothing at all of this history. Hopefully it brings a new generation to channels like this to learn more actual detail. Cheers.
May be the greatest WW2 UA-cam channel in history. Thank you for preserving and spreading this valuable information!
mark felton should do a video about this channel
Mark Felton Productions is 46x the size of WWIIUSBombers, by subscribers.
@@ToddChaddingtonEsq Definitely!
@Bombers But not as good as you. You cite your sources and backup everything you say better than anyone. Mark Felton has been proven wrong multiple times. Sometimes egregiously so.
Subscriber count =/= quality nor accuracy
@@WWIIUSBombers Felton's bigger, but this channel is far more deserving of a large audience. A sad truth is most people value entertainment over education. I certainly hope you stay on the "research over fluff" path...
In 1971 I was a student at a Jr. Highschool in Oxen Hill MD. A history teacher, a gentleman who was in his late 70s at the time was a B 17 pilot during the war. He explained to the class that many wounded men returning from bomb runs died from shock when their wounds were not necessarily life threatening. Only later in the war did they understand what shock from loss of blood was and how important it was to keep the victim warm. RIP Mr. Cook, thank you for your service to the country. Thanks for being an awesome history teacher.
Good history teachers are priceless. Few things are as valuable in the making of a good and informed citizen as understanding the history and consequences of those events of your country and its neighbors.
Sleep peacefully Mr Cook.
We appreciate your efforts, Sir.
As a numbers nerd I love seeing the records they kept and the data analysis findings. It’s fascinating.
Your content is always next level mate! I've been interested in the subject since I was a boy but I learn new things every time you post. My 90 year old Dad was a young English boy (born in 1933) then but remembers them heading out in formations and then returning as singles often battle damaged. I guess he's one of the last living witnesses to this amazing history. Thank you for keeping it alive. 👍🏻
I hope your dad has written or recorded some of those tales, they need to be preserved!
@4:05 - i knew that they were kneeling but that position for the rear gunner looks far more uncomfortable than i'd pictured it
Great presentation, and the facts presented makes it ever more clear just how awful the conditions were, and how heroic/stoic the crews were in performing their missions.
I really learn alot from your videos. I don't watch movies or this series in particular for its historical accuracy, its entertainment. If they are close to the truth that is a big plus. As long as it is not super outragous or obvious fake then I really don't care. I do like how accurate this series is trying to be. Lets face it, in some aspects being completely correct with a war film, especially wounds and battle injuries, it would drive away alot of viewers.
The amount of research you do is inspiring.
I like this type of video. Looking at these small human elements provides a unique perspective on this time in history.
You make an important and often overlooked point about eye protection. While I was deployed to Afghanistan, we never went outside the wire without body armor, helmet and ballistic eye protection. Ballistic eye protection can save one’s eyes in case of fragmentation from exploding ordinance.
Eye protection - not just for industrial purposes. And thanks for your part in helping protect America!
Sir, you are a data monster. Brilliant, fact-based research and information.
This is a very important fact. A frozen gunner or navigator or pilot can prevent the whole mission and lives. The fils give always a warm temperature feeling. Thanks very much for this aspect.
Currently building a model B-17, and watching MotA every Friday, this is right up my alley. Loved this plane since I was a kid 40 years ago. Saw one take off from the end of the airstrip 100' above my head after coming straight for us about 10 years ago and got teary eyed. Love this plane, in my opinion, GoaT!
Wonderfully detailed and concise videos, you have a great talent. Hope your channel keeps growing!
Incredibly informative. Thanks for putting this together.
Excellent video, as always. I am glad that UA-cam lets you share your encyclopedic knowledge of this part of history with us !
This channel is a treasure trove for accurate military information 👍🏻
great video, dialogue and scholarship all in one ... gold standard of WWII production.
Another 🔥 video as usual.
I’m hoping he produces a video on how the decision/reasoning on how the bomb group letters were picked for each group. Example: 305th, triangle “G” was Chelveston. Why was that letter picked, and the same goes for the squadrons, KY, JJ, XK, WF. Great channel! Thank you…
Excellent presentation. My dad was a navigator with the Fifteenth Air Force. In one of the letters to my mom, he described in great detail what he had to don in order to fight at 24,000 feet.
I hope those letters have been preserved, if so perhaps you can get them to a museum before they're lost? Or better still, online...
I've scanned all of them, including his individual flight records, movement orders, equipment receipts, &c. I am transcribing and annotating them with an eye towards publication.
@@jonparkin2546 Terrific! Thanks for letting us know.
Dad was a B-24 pilot in the 15th Air Force, 376th BG, 512 sqdrn.
One thing he would not tolerate after the war were cold temps, when it could be avoided!
If the flak didn't get them, then you got fresh frozen. Huge risk. Astounding courage. Very informative report. Thx
Damn… this is very good research.
The B17’s altitude is higher than Mt Everest so it’s no wonder the crew required oxygen and cold protection. Though they would not have been subjected to the extreme wind conditions that can plague mountaineers the threat of irreversible cold injury and/or death from hypoxia would have been serious problems.
Even worse a/c where semi static moutaineers very very active
B29s depressurized over target zone for safety the crew werent using B17 cold weather kit ??
@@Eric-kn4yn The B-29 probably remained warm enough even when depressurized. You can depressurize by opening the outflow valve that retains pressure and still retain the inflow of conditioned air.
I don’t understand why you would touch the top of the 50Cal to unjam it with your bare hand because either way it’s going to be really really cold because you’re 30,000 feet in the air or it’s going to be super hot because you just let off couple hundred rounds trying to shoot the attacking fighters
QUESTION: What exactly did radiomen do? Masters of the Air implied they sat at their radios doing nothing. Did they often double as gunners or bombadiers? Thank you for your time, dedication, and all the boring bits that go into posting videos.
Radiomen were gunners when not sending Morse code messages. Morse code was used then because the signals traveled farther than voice, also the Morse code messages were encrypted.
@@dfirth224 Thank you, dfirth!
My grandfather was a radio operator on a B17, shot down (but survived) the disastrous raid on Schweinfurt. One of the reasons he got that job was because he was ambidextrous. This was not a modern radio you think of… It was a difficult set to operate and you had to study and know a lot of math, electrical, physics and math to be good at it. The radio operator was a complicated job critical to navigation air, and ground communications. In addition, the earlier models of B17 had them double as gunners during combat. Some also had to do aerial photography.
When my grandpa was shot down, the civilians “kicked the shit out of him”; he never told me about it because I was too young but told my older brother. I found out after he died from cancer. He only survived the civilians because the German MP’s showed up and put a stop to it.
He had health problems from his time as a POW due to the neglect (which was eventually, grass soup, bad water, and harsh conditions). What was messed up about it was that this was being treated “well” because the aviators were segregated from other prisoners. He was 17 when he was shot down.
@richardvennel9679 Thank you, Richard! My family member went on to become an aeronautical engineer, then to father a gaggle of happy math, physics, and chemistry nerds (girls included). He solved puzzles - 2D and 3-D - for fun, lit up when a kid showed an interest in math, chemistry, or physics, and, true to engineer form, performed elaborate magic tricks for kids. His IQ was certainly over 150, and I say this as someone qualified to make that call.
It made no sense to me that he'd have spent the war listening to white noise, with a mind that was such an asset. Thank you for giving me a clearer picture of what he likely did during the war. ❤️
From what I've read in the past, those blue bunny suits were basically electric blankets and those things were and are fragile. The wires will break if they are constantly wrinkled and bent. I once fell asleep with a heating pad when I was sick and woke up with a nasty burn. It amazes me that the original B-17 design did not have sealed windows for the gun stations since it was designed as a high altitude bomber from the beginning. The series also almost completely ignores the risk and effort of the fighter escort groups that gave them cover over France from early on. The Luftwaffe did cover France and men fought and died protecting those bombers from the beginning.
The early B-17s (B through D) did; note the sleek teardrop gun positions. Presumably, all the open positions were installed in a rush to get as many guns into the planes as possible, as well as making production easier.
The B-17 was designed as a naval patrol aircraft and bomber, funnily enough. So not originally intended for the very high attitude applications it later found as its bread and butter.
@@kirotheavenger60 Just don't let the Army see you call it a 'naval' aircraft. 😜 Good point, though, since that's how they rationalized the aircraft as a long-range counter-invasion fleet bomber, making it palatable to the isolationists. Some say this was where the 'Flying Fortress' name came from, as an extension of the Army's coast defense fortresses.
Of course, when they actually tried to bomb ships at sea, they failed miserably. 🤔
They were mixed, B17-C,G,E ECT throughout the war! My Neighbor John Mass, was a recovery mechanic with 8th! He went out to crashed bombers, cleaning out blood and body parts, repairing them in farmer's fields, put JATO rockets on them popping them up, back to flying again! 😢 Haunted him, till the day he died! Asked to work in aircraft maintenance, he worked on boats, after the war!
My uncle Elvin was a tail gunner, horrible PTSD, loud noises set him off! He was a friend of Snuffy Smith, (Maynard Harrison "Snuffy" Smith was a United States Army Air Forces staff sergeant! "Medal of Honor" receiver"
"Couldn't do a Damm thing right, except when it counted!" Elvin said.
(Snuffy too, suffered terrible PTSD!) When Secretary of Defence, came to give Smith his medal, they couldn't find him? He was on KP. peeling potatoes, punishment detail!😅 (Wikipedia covers this, kind of!)
I really have to watch this show...in as much as my uncle was actually in the friggin' "Bloody Century" in 1943!
A B-17 Navigator veteran told me of one mission, one of his electric boots stopped working. He said he danced all the rest of the mission.
My friend bomber Bob was a nose gunner on a b24. His heated suit caught fire once.
this as always is incredible. as to the time/technology - seems like it should have been an easy fix by today's standards, but the evolvement of technology and also that humans had never operated in the lower stratosphere ever makes this this time incredibly violent and dangerous
Yo - lemme axe sumbuddy sumpmm.
How was the oxygen delivered?
Was it under pressure from a tight fitting facemask or just a small flow at ambient cabin pressure?
Was an inoperative suit heating control panel before flight a no-go item?
Would a inoperative heat control panel be deferred?
Great video
Treating bullet wounds shrapnel very difficult with cold weather gear to peel off
There was no mention of the M-1 Latrine. 😊
Hello first again you should do a video on the evolution of bomber armaments throughout there models. For example b-17E has 11 guns b-17G has 13 but I’ve seen b-17F have anywhere from 11-13 guns. Would be a cool video in my opinion, thank you for your consideration
I do not know the specific video but I know for a fact that he as addressed the chin turrets that evolved over the years multiple times. So the details are out there on his channel but I do not recall if there was a specific video for it.
He covered that in one of his videos.
@@dukecraig2402 which one
This is something I never considered.......and I grew up knowing several veterans of both pacific and European theater aviators/bomber crew among all the WWI, II, Korea, and Vietnam Vets my dad knew at the Legion/VFW. I just figured they layered up, and the leather jackets were just the outside layer. You don't get the idea that it's -50, or how cold it really was up there. That altitude sickness was a real danger along with frost bite.
Have you done any historical consulting for movies/shows/video games with bombers?
Something tells me he will be in the future.
There's a guy who has a channel called Dearly Departed Tours, even before UA-cam it was the name of his business in Hollywood where he gave tour's of where famous movie stars are buried and along the way talked about their death's, as everyone knows many Hollywood death's are surrounded by mysterious circumstances and or are quite notorious like the Tate/Labianca murders carried out by the Manson Family, years back Scott made a documentary video about them that's considered by most to be the most accurate and the definitive documentary about the Manson Family and the murders, as a result Quinten Tarantino came calling on him to be a technical advisor on the Manson Family when he made the movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
Anyone who makes a movie in the future about US bombers during WW2 would smart to look this guy up to be a technical advisor on their film.
EXCELLENT
1 in _14_ airmen were lost to frostbite...
Holy moly.
I bet those suits got real hot when the adrenaline from combat kicked in.
The suits were like an electric blanket. That may be where electric blanket idea came from after the war.
ive been looking for a proper sheepskin jacket for camping on the west coast here in Ireland. It isnt a tropical; coast - its wild, cold and awesome with the full brunt of the Altantic Ocean coming at you. I see those dudes had sheepskin pants... Nice!
well done
Very interesting
Lancaster had heating for some crew
With so much advanccement in aircraft design and technology from WWI to WWII I have ALWAYS BEEN CONFUSED why the waist gunner stations did not have or were not fitted with bullet proof glass with a gun port to allow gunnery not to be compromised. It seems the open waist gunner positions not only flooded the fuselage with sub-freezing temperatures, high winds but also created extensive drag on the aircraft...There is NO WAY someone did not attempt to address or resolve these issues in the construction of the B-17s...Do you have any information regarding these issues? Thanks in advance.
Weight, they only armored the most necessary areas, if they put more armor on the plane would be slower and remain in the flak killbox for longer
It would also use more fuel
They did, starting with either the F or G model (I think G) the waist gunners .50 cals were on mounts that folded inward when not in use and there was a removable plexiglass window that fit into the opening, as far as it not being fixed in place there's all kinds of issues you'd have to overcome to solve that problem including some kind of flexible boot to seal everything where the .50 cal stuck through it, the gunner losing visibility if it spiderweb cracked from being hit along his visibility being distorted in the first place looking through something that made things appear wavy which would affect his accuracy, I think it was the first variant of the F4U that had a plexiglass windscreen at the front of the cockpit that was curved that caused distortion and affected the pilots gunnery accuracy.
As far as bullet proof plexiglass being used for it that'd be way too heavy using a piece that thick for an opening of that size, and it has to be that big for the sake of visibility otherwise the gunners field of view would be greatly diminished.
Im curious about the effects of the time spent at high altitude. The altitude they flew at is in what mountain climbers call the death zone.
With supplemental oxygen, like climbers they are generally fine.
Does anyone know if the cockpit was heated at all?
Interesting to see the USAAF understanding that Celsius is a superior system as far back as WW2 😮
It's not superior per se, it's just a more universal standard in avaition. I don't recall ever seeing an aircraft manual or an aircraft instrument that referenced temperature in Fahrenheit.
There's nothing "superior" about the Celsius scale of temperature over Fahrenheit just as there's nothing superior about Meters over Yards and has nothing at all to do with why US military aviation was using it by WW2, they did it because US aviation as a whole had already gone to it, the simple reason for that is because even before WW2 aircraft flew from one country to the next as often as people drive from town to town, and since just about every country that US air services flew into used Celsius it's easier just to use it then to have pilots trying to convert things over when getting weather and conditions reports while approaching the airports in other countries, they have enough to do at the time without worrying about converting things over from one scale to another, since the US military drew people from US civilian aviation they'd switched over to it for the same reason, simply so everyone would be on the same sheet of music, not because it's more accurate or better, it isn't, both scales are exactly repeatable which is all that counts and means one isn't better than the other.
@@dukecraig2402Before 1968 Celsius was called Centigrade. Still used the "C". There was an international conference of scientists in Switzerland. Changed several names. Besides changing Centigrade to Celsius, they also changed the name for frequency. From "Cycles" to Hertz. Changes were made to honor inventers. I was 18 then and I still tend to think in terms of the old names. If you see items made before 1968 you will see the old terms used on the labels, such as motors and radios.
@@dfirth224
Ok, and that has to do with the claim that it's superior how?
@@gort8203
I have a dual cylinder head temperature guage from an aviation source I placed on my motorcycle that's in Fahrenheit, you can buy them in either one, it's just a different face on the guage.
And although I had my aviation maintenance training before they existed I'll bet that the "glass cockpit" instrumentation will switch between the two for whoever's preference.
Question, sort of unrelated: while a crew member was in the plane, flying to or from a target, what was the procedure for their parachute? Did they wear it at all times?
From what I heard, no.
Ball turret gunner had no room to wear a parachute so he didn't wear it even during active combat. He had to craw out, put on the parachute and then jump out..
@@dabda8510 WWII US Bombers mentioned that the whole process could be done in about 60 seconds if all went well.
These guys were tough s.o.b.s . They went through hell and back to do their jobs. It's surprising that any of them survived.
I know this isn't part of your channel, but did fighter pilots doing high-altitude missions have to dress the same way? Cockpits for some types of planes were heated, but many weren't.
Yes, I'm sure they did. I've toured a B-17 at the museum in Chino, CA. You see the flight suit heater controls when walking through the plane.
Because of this video, I looked up heated jackets.
It feels strange that I have never seen the crew put on the flak jacket and helmet in the show.
I really wanted to like it, but the series just isn't that good. The CGI is particularly bad.
@@arobb4481 the CGI scenes is overly done for dramatic effects, it results unrealistic feel and making some of the battles look like Star Wars in WW2 unfortunately. I like the old Memphis Belle movie which is shot with real aircraft, but it’s understandable it’s pretty hard to find enough real B-17s for the production these days.
The show will sputter out .but your channel will continue to do great.
I never knew they were electric close to heat themselves them
06:51 ''...the viewer would not be able to tell one (crew) from another.''
More likely is that the actors wanted their faces to be seen!
It is a real shame that this series does not portray just how difficult life was when flying at high altitudes.
It briefly touches on frostbite - the crewman in the medical centre. But why not use the narrator to tell us more? For example, your comment at 07:07 about more casualties from frostbite than combat.
Yup. Plenty of ways to do characterization without showing people's faces. If they spent more time focusing on the men and not doing quick cuts inside outside upside down the aircraft you would probably come to know the crews better. The weirdest part is how inconsistent it is because I thought they did a great job of this in Ep5 with both Bucky and Rosie's crews.
Regarding the comments ref recognition of the actors vs historical accuracy for need of ox masks...I should note that the FX network version of "Shogun" has the Japanese actors speaking in Japanese with English sub-titles while the key English sailor speaks in English...I think it does add an additional level of realism to the action but would have been unrealistic in the context of MOTA
Shogun is fantastic. Having said that I watch a lot of anime and prefer the subtitles over the dubs anyway. You get used to it and voice acting is a real art form in Japan. You really get the emotions and expression. I scan the subtitles and then concentrate on the visuals without any problem. Just a bit of practice but well worth it.
"Tora, Tora, Tora" was one of the first movies in 1970 to have the Japanese actors speak Japanese with English sub-titles. The movie Patton had the German actors speaking German with sub-titles. Tora, Tora, Tora was the best movie about Pearl Harbor, and was historically accurate.
I have my GPAs A-9A gloves
And yet the British bombers flew at night when it would be colder and had no heated suits, how did they manage?
sweet, go out, get lunch and bam, new WW2 bombers video.
Wow! ALL the hollywood air war movies lied to us!
That is a lot of weight to wear.
Basically a 1940s version of an early space suit. Add to that the fact that people are trying to kill you...and they're very good at it! 😲
Supposedly,the German fighters werent built for comfort either
also don't lick any cold metal surfaces, even if someone triple dog dares you.
What about the 50 caliber machine guns on the bombers? How did the cold affect them?
Woth correct oils/lubricants it would not have been a problem?
Memphis belle showed the crew taking off their masks too often and for too long
It was a pretty good movie that at least brought the history some attention...but it's kind of a cartoon at times. 😉
The show overall just does not depict the cold in any respect, its as if everyone involved on the production has never been in a real winter. Ep7 when it is winter in the POW camp there is not a molecule of visible breath from anyone ever. You dont see any ice. Nobody is acting like they are genuinely cold. They competely fail to sell that its actually winter.
They crapped in their pants
Wool next to skin...got war is hell
Nobody invited them to devastate my country!
And nobody asked A.H. to invade our countries and kill millions of people !
Actually hollyweird actors are worry more about face time than technical or historical accuracy that why most aviation movies are ridiculous bad.
I hear what you're saying but when trying to tell a dramatic story about individuals in stage, film or TV productions facial recognition is pretty important. Hopefully many who watch the series and enjoyed it will want to learn more and visit channels like this to get the authenticity. Cheers.
The stories are about characters, not technology, and the audience wants to see which character is doing what. They would have to put a subtitle under each actor with the character's name if the audience could recognize them. I would prefer that myself, but I'm sure I'm in the minority of television viewers.
@@gort8203 That's an interesting take. I'm not sure how effective that slow motion scene of the disastrous Schweinfurt / Regensburg raid would be without seeing the eyes of the nose gunner watching the full horror unfold though. It's difficult to emote from behind a mask and we get so much from facial expression.
Completely unrelated but Straker was the Boss!!! 😎
@@haitolawrence5986 I'm sure most viewers would agree with you. Hollywood films sacrifice realism for drama for a reason.
I’d love to hear how such extreme cold affected the gun performance. It’s hard to imagine that it really was really that cold and that they had to be alert and high functioning or they’d be dead.
Why the fuck did they have completely open windows on the waist and radio room in the first place?? I can’t believe they put people up there in such a hostile environment with the howling wind running straight through the plane. It seems like a no brainer to put plexus glass over the gun hatches.