Target For Tonight | WW2 Movie - bomber operations over Europe (1941)
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- In this WW2 recruitment dramatisation, the German city of Feihausen is selected as "target for tonight" after recce photos reveal new oil installations.
Aircrews are briefed then as evening falls planes take off and climb above the clouds. Tense heroic music suggests the dangers of their mission but the courage of the crews is never in doubt.
Diving through the heavy flak, "F for Freddie" releases its bombs on target, but the wireless operator is wounded and the oil level drops dangerously low. Crew display exemplary calm and confidence during hazardous homeward journey and unanimously choose to attempt a (dangerous) landing rather than parachute to safety.
Accident services stand by as the drone of the approaching plane grows louder, then "F for Freddie" makes a perfect landing and tension is finally diffused by the Captain's remark "I hope we haven't kept you waiting, Sir".
My dad lead a crew to maintain all electrical, bomb aiming and wireless equipment. Funny thing but they made him a gunnery instructor but he was so short sighted he could hardly see the sights at the end of the rifle. Bless him gone but never forgotten!
This film was mentioned in the excellent BBC series The Secret War. The crew of F for Freddie were a real bomber crew and none of them survived the war.
The pilot was Percy Pickard who was killed on the Amiens Prison raid in 1944.
Lest We Forget!
The Navigator from F for Freddie in the film (James Mccloy) did survive the war as he was in the RAF Museum's Wellington explaining about the navigation for bombers before and after the introduction of the GEE system in the episode that had the clips from the film (To See a Hundred Miles). The second pilot, Gordon Woollatt also survived the war. What the TV narration did say is neither the Wellington, or its Pilot (Pickard) survived the war.
@@joylunn3445in fact Charles Pickard led the Amiens raid. He only got shot down because he hung around to make sure everything went according to plan. There was a German fighter airfield very close to Amiens and they were scrambled as it was in progress started and that's how Picard and his navigator were shot down and killed.
RIP all the 55,573 volunteers of Bomber Command air crew killed during the war. Brave souls all.
@@samrodian919 The high-risk Mosquito missions claimed a lot of big names. Incredibly brave men, all.
This is awesome. My Great Uncle flew Wellies and then Lancs with the RAAF in the Med and over Europe. He died over the Dutch coast. As a pilot myself in my 30s I can't imagine what a flak barrage would be like. Tough blokes.
A friend of mine was a radio operator and navigator on a B-24. He flew 26 daylight missions over Germany. He told me that the flak bursts sounded like huge dogs barking at your plane by the thousands. The most frightening part of the mission was the bomb run over the target when the pilot had to fly straight and level through the flak. The bombardier had control of the plane then and all you could do was hunker down and pray. At least when fighters attacked you could shoot back... All should tip a glass to your Great Uncle. He was a very brave man and a member of the Greatest Generation. Cheers.
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Teaching in Canada and around world impressed the sense of ‘cousin’ Brit, Aussie, kiwi would be happy one big country again. And they live next to USA.
Sadly feminizing the monarchy ruined plans for reunification. When teaching in Hong Kong we learned you could not only go the British embassy or consulates in trouble or passport etc replacement, but Canadian, Australian and New Zealand too.
American colleagues actually jealous.😉
Shame won’t happen now especially high hopes after Brexit.
I'm sure that you are very proud of your Great Uncle - rightly so! I suppose you're aware that Barnes Wallace designed the Vickers Wellington? He designed some 'other stuff' too 😉.
@@stargazer5784I find all of this a bit weird, my parents, aunts & uncles were part of what you call 'the greatest generation', my grandparents great Aunts, Uncles the Great War generation yet because I & my siblings were born in the fifties & sixties prepared for nuclear war we are decried as 'boomers'?!
My late father was flying Wellies as a WOP/AG out of Mildenhall, 149 sqdn (OJ lettering) .It's now a USAF base. In Dec. 1939 they had a daylight raid over the Kiel canal. They lost 10 planes from the 22 that attacked the target , most were shot down over the North Sea on returning to base. This is why they went to night ops. Another good movie to watch is , "One of our aircraft is missing".
Perhaps Millerton in this film is supposed to represent Mildenhall ?
It's very difficult to watch. Those guys knew they were outgunned, outclassed, outnumbered and would be lucky to return alive. I am also a pilot and know that if I had an emergency, everyone on the ground would be there to offer assistance. The crew of those bombers knew that everyone on the ground over enemy territory was doing their best to kill them, but they still went.
Depended at what time of the war. By the end of the war, the most experienced German air crew were exhausted. They were not spelled like the Brits.
And they were losing so many pilots that many were getting half the training that the early men got, let alone previous experience before the war started.
Many of the new.German boys had little hope of surviving.
What a fine movie! It always astounds me that, during that immense tragedy of WW2, it was possible to produce such good films!
Wonderful film. My Great-Uncle was RAAF, and a WOp/AG in a 70 Squadron RAF Mk X Wellington flying out of Foggia in 1944. Unfortunately he and crew were killed over Hungary on the night of October 20/21, 1944, on their ~34th mission (the limit was higher than the 30 for crews based out of the UK).
They were shot down by Josef Kraft, then of 7/NJG6, who ended the war with 56 kills, and was the 13th ranked night fighter pilot. He had three kills that night.
It's a great tragedy that Bomber Command never really got to grips with the night-fighter threat; particularly the underside attack (which they denied for the longest time was happening, despite some survivors and rumors gathered from smuggled POW intelligence). The night fighters and their ghastly shrage-musik attack were completely unopposed.
Always pleasure watching this film. My father flew a Wellington (Serial no. DV600) on the first two Thousand Bomber raids, Cologne and Essen. He was between tours of ops, training others to fly at 25 O.T.U. RAF Finningley. As maximum effort raids, everyone was roped in, so he gathered a scratch crew and off they went. His first tour with 61 Sqn was on Hampdens and Manchesters, the second on Lancs. The language is accurate for the time. My father was well-spoken, but not as affected as a few depicted in the film. Nice to see some VR (Volunteer Reserve) insignia on a few collars. My father wore his for most of the war. I still have them, along with his Irvin Jacket, caps, gloves and much other kit, even his white overalls and flying helmet with Gosport Tubes from his early training days, flying Hawker Hart, Hind and Audax biplane. So much I would like to ask him now if he were still here...
That's a nice collection to remember you father by sir.
Its good to know those artifacts are still rightfully cherished. My father's lifebelt that saved his life after the sinking of his ship HMS Dorsetshire in the Indian ocean on 5th April 1942 is proudly on display in the Merseyside maritime museum.
@@samrodian919 Thank you very much indeed. My son will look after them after I'm gone, which is nice to know.
These things could fly home with large patches of the fabric skin burnt off and the geodetic framework exposed. Barnes Wallace was such a bloody genius. Awesome aircraft.
A Jewish chap, whose name I have shamefully forgotten, was the genius who realised the most important things to note, was the damage on all the planes that returned, AND THEN REINFORCING THE AREAS OF THE PLANE NOT DAMAGED.
As he pointed out, those damages still got the planes home. What was needed, was reinforcing areas damaged that meant the planes did not return.
What a wonderful find. The film was in Incredible condition. Trying to make the whole operation look simple and just a 'matter of fact'. The 'Wellies' did so much of the bombing, especially at the early part of the war, then the Lancaster became the truly 'heavy' bomber.
For all these commenters referring to "wellies", that's waterproof rubber footwear. These aircraft were known almost universally as "Wimpeys"! Named after a character in the Popeye cartoon strip. They served throughout the war and even after. I think the last operational flights were into the 1950's!!
The many accents show the international composition of the RAF: English, Scots, Canadians, Australian, Welsh, Irish, etc. Many of the senior officers speak in the now-rare RP.
I was about to ask, so I looked it up: "RP" is the "Received Pronunciation", which I tend to call the upper class / Cambridge - Oxford / Public School / BBC accent.
When you are talking about Oxford/Cambridge, together, you can shorten that to Oxbridge.
There are still little differences, but in general, you can put them down as Public School, which of course, in the US, and most other places, is Private Schools.
The captain is my father, 407 asw sqdrn. i have his log book that details an attack on two u-boats.
Superb. I watched this a few years ago -- and thank you Armoured Carrier -- but came back after watching "Masters of the Air", the series about the US 100th Bomb Group. Just wanted to see this again, to see the real people. Incidentally, my Uncle Ivan was a waist gunner on a B-17, so, in a way, this movie helps to keep alive all my uncles and my dad: he was an aviation machinist's mate in the USN, so all of Armoured Carrier's posts about FAA are more than just history.
Have you listened to the podcast episode with a chap who was involved with Masters of the air - forgive me if I get the name wrong. I don't have a tv. The episodes on the Mighty 8th and some of the old episodes might be enjoyable for you, too.
Angus Wallace's WW2podcast is very good, too.
I Just love those accents. I am from Southern England (The Home Counties), possibly the home of the posh accent , in my early 60s ,but I have never heard anyone talk like that and I was brought up in a military officer´s upper middle class family. Were these actors? Judging by the stilted talking I doubt it but it's hard to believe that all officers spoke like that. It seems then that when that generation died the accent died with them.
These were the actual pilots and crew and ground crew in this movie.
The crew of F-Freddie did not survive the war.
That accent survived the war in South Africa at least, I recall it from my childhood in the 1970's.
It's gone now, though, along with that generation.
If you read the introduction, it stated that the people in the film were in fact serving RAF personnel doing their normal duties and playing their own rank.
Ronald shiner should have taught them how to speak properly
Gives a good insight into the backroom boys and girls who all played their part in the final victory!
Such a cracking program !
Great film !
The RAF sure had their own way of doing things...
If I recall correctly, the WAAF doing the Photo interpretation is none other than Constance Babbington-Smith, who wrote the wartime history of RAF Photographic Intelligence 'Evidence in Camera' - named after an internal magazine within the RAF PR community of the same name.
If you search carefully online, you will find the 1970s BBC documentary series "The Secret War". In one of the episodes (covering the development of advanced German aircraft during WW2) you will find an interview with Constance, discussing her work with RAF photographic intelligence.... She was in her 70s then but her mind was STILL as sharp as a razor.
@@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684 Yes, I've seen that series. She shows, using her WW2 gear, how she identified the V1 and V2 'vengeance weapons' from covers of Peenemunde where they were developed and tested and which lead to the famous air raid on the site by Bomber Command. R. V. Jones also appears. He wrote 'Most Secret War' which detailed his experience as head of scientific intelligence for the UK during WW2 and was the first to explain in detail, amongst other things, the role of Bletchley Park and the decryption of the Engima and Geheimschreiber devices which until then, had remained, 'Most Secret'. It also demonstrated that the UK had the first true computer, 'Colossus' which was dedicated to the Geheimschreiber, (Fish machine) beating the US which believed it held that record, by some years.
Yes I thought so too. She was the one to discover the first sight V1 on a trailer at Penemunde
What!? Am I seeing things, choke was a 'pillow' over the intake?
It was a rolled up engine cover, but yes. That was SOP in certain conditions! Lol
All the advances in design and technology shown here have contributed to the civil aero planes of 21 st Century.
Good film. Interesting how accents have changed so much.
I like the real English spoken in those days.
Traffic controller. Heathrow. Today. Ok BA off you off you good chaps. Thank yo
8:36 Percy Charles Pickard
'pick' Pickard. Died on the Amiens raid flying a Mosquito.
@@jonathansteadman7935 Leading the raid as a Group Captain. Equivalent Army rank of Colonel
aren't these Halifaxes?
Wellingtons ?
Lancaster first flown January 41.
First introduced in.active service, July? 1942
This is a 41 film.
I think they mention wellington a few times.
Amazing how the diction of the English language has changed. Not for the better I may add
Fantastic film ....I just had to watch Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Mahine with Terry Thomas doing the aristocratic gentleman thing and lording it over his underling manservant.......so typically British.
Is that Norman Wisdom at 11:40
I looked at the wrong spot but then checked again. I don't think so.
11:40.
I think hé was in India throughout The war
Where is Feihausen ?
It's a fictional generic town - but probably based on the Ruhr district.
The film actually mentions Freihausen, on the right bank of the Rhine, 15 miles north of Freiburg, which is in the Black Forest of Southern Germany. The Ruhr is in Western Germany (Duisburg, Durtmund, Essen, Hamm area).
Tally ho, chaps! 😂
That's the fighter pilots. Bomber boys were more likely to say: "Wizard show".
@@philipr1567 By Jove, that's spiffing! 🤣
Actually old boy, it'd be a Wizard Prang! Don't forget the line-shoot. "The flak was so thick, I could get out and walk about on it!" 😂
@@PercyPruneMHDOIFandBars Then he pranged the bally kite!
Tally Ho! was shouted on definitely identifying a German plane.at a distance. It was a matter of pride to be first - but you would look really stupid, if you got it wrong.
You also had Bandits sighted.
Cor blimey guvnor! What blinking language are they speaking in. It looks like you have to say things between a slitted mouth. Especially the WAAFs.
That was how many people spoke in those days. It does sound odd now, but it does have the merit for me at least of being readily understood, unlike today's jabbering.
It's hard to speak 'normally' with a stiff upper lip!
Over-enunciating was rife (Celia Johnson and Ralph Richardson were two of the best) - that was the way people spoke in films, on the BBC, and in many public schools, copied by middle class people who wanted to appear posh..
@@philipr1567Quite right. My father was public school educated and his father was an English teacher, so he was well-spoken, but not with as affected an accent as some.
I know a an ex pom now in '24 who still talks a little like that.
I think the RAF speech was in line with the sort of speech you can hear in recordings from the '30s. Actors certainly copied and exaggerated it, as they did with working-class speech. I have no record of my own speech from the '50s but suspect that my public school speech was somewhere between that on the film and today's RP.@@philipr1567
I so wanted to see this movie but I had missed a day of schooling (Cold or something.) and Mum wouldn't let me go!
Mentioning Searchlights:
Did any one devise a heat seeking missile that would go for them?
They remain pretty hot so switching them of would be too late.
Fajny film
Anyone remember an episode of the goon show about “cloth bombers”? That s wellies I think
The Goons were great, but I don't remember the episode. Certainly, the Wellington was covered with varnished fabric over a geodetic alloy frame.
Not much protection from flak unfortunately
The Officer who played the principal pilot was Percy Charles Pickard he was a very experienced pilot with over 2000 hours flying time in WW2. Pickard and his Navigator, flying a Mosquito were later shot down and killed by a FW190 whilst attacking the Prison in Amiens...
And Germany actually believed they were going to beat us! #OurHistory
Well said, sir! We don't give up, even against the odds. It's a British thing...
@@petehall889 Even if it takes us a long while to get started we have shown repeatedly what we are capable of and I encourage all to remember this. #respect
Barnes Wallis of the bouncing bomb.
He also designed Tallboy and Grand Slam. The biggest non-nuclear bombs dropped!
I have heard the chaps of F for Freddie so many times on audio cd, quite odd seeing them. Jock looks much younger than he sounded. These films are a window in time and I never tire of them.
Every time I see movies about these bombers I think of my landlady telling me about her son being killed on his last bombing mission during WW2. This was back in the 70's.
My uncle died in February 1945, he had flown right through the war only to get shot down at nearly the end of the war.
This is great, haven't finished the movie yet, all black &white,
Perfect British manners in the office, in fact a British movie!
Definitely watch these movies with a different view point as a pensioner that I did as a teenager.
Thank you for this lovely print of this classic made in a now long vanished era of confidence, patriotism and stiff upper lips. That dates it more than the special effects (!) How many people know there was a pretty successful commercial airliner version of the Wellington after the war: the Vickers Viking? You had to step over the wing spar in the middle of the cabin if seated in the rear!
You're right about the Viking, several variations including one fitted with Nene jet engines flew to France and back in 1948
The Lancaster was twiddled with, post war, to produce the Lancastrian, to fly commercially.
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First rate. Thank you.
Jean-Jacques F NDE 7/17/2024 brought me here.
I had to see this for myself and it looks just like I imagined it would:
23:36 - "He is also seen in a caravan with a transparent dome, directing the departure of each of the bombers."
In 1941 the British government's own Butt expert report found that only one in four crews dropped bombs at night within five miles of their target.
Yes, it's quite right that bombing in the early years was pretty inaccurate. My father was always keen to bomb on target. In 1941 over Aachen, his Hampden Bomber was held by about 20 searchlights, then attacked by a JU88 nightfighter, sustaining significant damage to his starboard mainplane and engine. He still made four runs over the target at low level before making sure the bombs were dropped on target. He landed on one wheel when he returned, as the other had been shot away by canon fire. His letter to his father about the incident gives a great first hand account, corroborated by his official immediate DFC award citation. All aircrew were brave volunteers, whom we should never forget...
The most useless bomber the RAF had ...weak bomb load poorly armed ....and the speed of a snail ....the crews were as brave as hell flying that bag of bolts and deserve so much credit
Thank you 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩💖💖💖💖
Enjoyed the video
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