Color WW2 Dogfight Footage

...to which Jason has added Iron Maiden's "Aces High" as a soundtrack.

More... but without any Iron Maiden.

Posted by: Ace at 05:24 PM

Comments

1 That's freaking awesome. I'm a WWII buff, especially fighters. The 47 was the WWII equivalent of the Warthog as far as groundpounding, but it was also an excelllent fighter.

Posted by: CraigC at June 25, 2006 05:52 PM (8xho0)

2 LOVE guncamera footage... Just love it.

Esp the ground attack stuff. Die Nazi scum, Die!

Posted by: John at June 25, 2006 06:20 PM (W2doh)

3 That's part of the reason there were so few color Hollywood movies made in the war years. Most of the movie film production was bought by the government for gun camera film (mostly in the Pacific, from what I remember).

Posted by: cirby at June 25, 2006 06:36 PM (Jz5P1)

4 That was excellent

Gotta love those pilots, I'd have loved to be a flier then.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at June 25, 2006 07:01 PM (Pwzb0)

5 Cirby, I don't know where you got that idea. Gun camera film was always B/W. This stuff is colorized.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 25, 2006 07:05 PM (+rSRq)

6 I had the honor of knowing Cpt. John Ard the number two ace in the European theatre, I believe. He flew both the Warhawk and the Mustang, but prefered the Warhawk. He claimed it had more usable power and that it could out climb the Messerschmidt, rotating on its axis, due to the high engine torque. He said most sorties in the Warhawk were close ground air support in nature and he held the record for the most number of locomotives destroyed.

Posted by: Bill at June 25, 2006 07:07 PM (uBp5r)

7 The WWII in color website from where some of this stuff came is awesome. I could kill an hour or two looking at all those pictures.

Posted by: The Warden at June 25, 2006 07:26 PM (cMMJ/)

8 Those guys were good, too. On one of the documentaries on TV, an old pilot talked about how they used to ricochet their .50 cal rounds off the roads to hit the bottom of Tiger tanks. Only place they could hurt them!

Posted by: John at June 25, 2006 07:38 PM (W2doh)

9 And wouldn't you know, here's that very clip (from the WW2incolor site The Warden linked to):
http://video.gogle.com/videoplay?docid=-6635752499311348219&q=wwii

(google, instead of gogle)

Posted by: John at June 25, 2006 07:44 PM (W2doh)

10 During one WW II battle there was one known as THE GREAT MARIANAS TURKEY SHOOT becuase american fighter pilots shot down so many japanese aircraft

Posted by: spurwing plover at June 25, 2006 08:07 PM (0eEOk)

11 Hey Spurwing! Did your dad serve in WW2? And if so, where?

Posted by: shawn at June 25, 2006 08:20 PM (jA48G)

12 Yes my dad served in WW II in the navy and was in the BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA aboard the USS LEXINGTON which was lost and picked up by a DESTROYER and i had a uncle in the SEA BEES and another in the COAST GUARD

Posted by: spurwing plover at June 25, 2006 08:41 PM (0eEOk)

13 Cool! I remember you posting something about the USS Lexington being assigned to Pearl but out on manuvers on 12/7 and therefore escaped being sunk by the japs. Is that true?

Posted by: shawn at June 25, 2006 08:47 PM (jA48G)

14 Spurwing,

Coll about your dad. Mine was in the Navy too. He took part in the D Day invasion as captain of an LST. He would never talk about it though and now it's too late.

Posted by: max at June 25, 2006 08:52 PM (EhDj0)

15 The Lady Lex, Sara, and The Big E were all out of Pearl on 12/07/41 doing various missions (deliverying aircraft to island installations, IIRC). Enterprise was due in at Pearl and some of her scout aircraft got tangled up in the attack, getting hit from both sides.

Lady Lex only got to dance at Coral Sea. Sara kept catching torpedoes (Torpedo Junction). The Big E went through the war, with twenty battle stars (major engagements) to her name. The fightenist ship in the navy was Enterprise.

Saratoga lies at Bikini Atoll, a test ship for the a-bomb. The Big E was scrapped. Her sisters lie off of Midway (Yorktown) and off of the Santa Cruz Islands (Hornet).

In a class all her own was Enterprise.

Posted by: Mikey NTH at June 25, 2006 10:01 PM (rXMcL)

16 Wow. Great footage, great song. Steve Harris is a incredible bass player. Iron Maiden = metal gods.

Posted by: drolmorg at June 25, 2006 11:38 PM (ad2Uy)

17 steve harris' finger-picked triplets formed the base of iron maiden. that said, i'm still a true believer in geddy lee - though i used maiden as the soundtrack of this vid (that i stole), rush fucking rocks - even if they are from canada.

Posted by: jason at June 26, 2006 03:15 AM (yZ81L)

18 "Gun camera film was always B/W. This stuff is colorized."

The majority of footage was B&W...however, a lot of footage survived that was shot in color. You can buy DVDs full of the stuff at Amazon, find clips all over the 'net...it's not hard to dig up 4 or five minutes of actual, legit color dogfight footage.

I don't think that video was colorized. It's obvious when color is added to B&W: that footage all looked like natural, over-saturated 40's filmstock, and since it's readily available...Occam's razor.

Posted by: JimK at June 26, 2006 03:42 AM (D23F0)

19 Nice mix of early Jug and late Jug applications. Before the P-51 got to the theater the Jug was the best thing we had for bomber escort, thus the air-to-air stuff. After the Mustang came on scene the Jug was put to use as and air-to-mud tank killer (and anything else that looked like a target, as you can see from the footage). I wonder if the pilot that got that big secondary knew what he was shooting at.

Speaking of shooting, watch some of those strafing sequences and look for the AAA coming up at those guys. The Germans knew how to shoot back.

One final note: My brother, a Marine A-4 pilot, pointed out to his son just after he had seen "Top Gun" that you don't hear all that rock music in your headset when you're in the middle of a fight.

Posted by: George at June 26, 2006 02:41 PM (MjbpF)

20 During WW II a japanese ZERO crashed in the ALUTUENS and we fond it intact and used it as a model for the F6F HELLCAT

Posted by: spurwing plover at June 26, 2006 10:44 PM (u2whF)

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