It's 1945 and it's in the USofA

[Invader26]

Great stuff with flying German aircraft in USA in 1945


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1723870789084

[Jerry O'Neill]

Cool stuff! Was that "Strawberry Bitch" I saw on the ramp?
Jerry

[The Inspector]

I hope that's on a DVD because the nitro filmstock is starting to disolve (7:30) I wonder if anyone there realized the leap in technology while walking between the V-2/Me-163 and the SPITFIRE. Great peek into the past! THNX

[Pathfinder]

Freeman was the site of the Foreign Evaluation Division of USAAF. (The FE on the tail numbers) Hap Arnold established the facility there with the mandate to get and assess one of everything that bad guys had in inventory. (They also evaluated allied equipment) Later he wanted to establish Freeman as the site of the Air Force Museum, but the locals wouldn't have it. So that idea moved to Dayton.

The foreign inventory was eventually parceled out to museums, civilian aerospace companies and other military departments. The inventory ran the menu from rivets to rockets. An inventory of material at Freeman (with pictures) used to be in the USAFM files and I remember one very curious item inventoried was Luftwaffe Mobile Dentist Office...

Lou Thole did tons of research on Freeman. I got together with Lou in the late 80's and we found out that what was not sent off for evaluation was loaded in freight cars and buried on site. There were three guys who did the bulldozing. One verified the location of the dump sites for us. One of the others sons told us that his dad would talk of digging a hole at the end of one of the ramps and pulling a German plane over the hole and then running the dozer over the plane until it collapsed into the hole. He identified the plane as a Stuka. We made the initial pitch to the local aviation authority to dig on site and also secured the use of one of the remaining hangers to store whatever we found. We didn't find much on our attempts...all we had were shovels! We did strike water at about four inches below the surface which did not bode well for stuff that may have been buried down deep. Excavations at Freeman have passed through several hands since those days and quite a bit of material has been found. I don't know about the mobile dentist office....

What impresses me about this film is that all together it runs over ten minutes. Whether it was 8mm or 16mm that is one heck of a lot of FILM! When you consider that the cameraman took long steady shots it is amazing. The editing between shots are DISSOLVES which has to be done between two source reels in a studio, so we are seeing an edited finished product. Hopefully whoever put this together with sound mastered it right off the film. You can't bet on a second showing of original film at that age!

The General (four star) seen toward the end of the film is Gen. Walter Krueger who had commanded 6th US Army in the Pacific.

[CWBuff]

Now that was groovy... that's some of the nicest vintage film-work I've seen. I really dig the low passes by the Jugs and B-25s... something which I was able to see only in the very early years of my airshow-going. Nowadays, forget it. And apparently our cameraman had an eye for the pretty gals, too... lol

Anyhoo, the Ju 290 named 'Alles Kaputt', which is shown landing and taxiing in at the very beginning of the film, has an interesting bit of not-so trivial trivia associated with it... as I'm sure many of you are aware. Apparently, while the aircraft was being dismantled for scrapping, it had some sort of explosive device in one of the wings, undoubtedly placed there by some of the less than happy foreign 'conscript' workers who had a hand in the aircraft's construction. Thankfully the detonator was defective!

Again, groovy film... thanks for the link!


Fade to Black...

[Mudge]

Somebody PLEASE get that restored and onto a DVD.

Oh, for a time machine!

Mudge the envious

[DC3R4DC47]

I love this country

[redvanner]

Great film! Never have seen so many different WWII German types before. If only today 1 or 2 of each kind were airworthy and flown...... What a dream!! But you don´t have to go back that far. How many modern types are extinct because they are of no use any more, just scrapped. Maybe in 30, 40 years people will say: how could they do that? Not preserve any? Just a thought....

Michael

[Obergrafeter]

The heck with the German aircraft, did anyone else notice the B-32? Only one I ever saw was on the Moon. And that's the way to view an airshow, just walk out to the edge of the tarmac and watch. No roped off displays either....sweet!! Does anyone know what the round object to the left of the V-2 was (in front of the tower)?

Last edited by Obergrafeter on Fri Sep 30, 2011 9:41 am, edited 2 times in total.

[Lightjug]

Now that was groovy... that's some of the nicest vintage film-work I've seen. I really dig the low passes by the Jugs and B-25s... something which I was able to see only in the very early years of my airshow-going. Nowadays, forget it. And apparently our cameraman had an eye for the pretty gals, too... lol

I was thinking the same thoughts on the low fly bys and the camera man's roving eye
Great stuff!

[Warbird Kid]

Never knew they started to paint B-29s black on the underside that early on. Awesome Video!!!!

[Chappie]

The heck with the German aircraft, did anyone else notice the B-32?

I noticed that too! My wife was watching over my shoulder and I pointed out the fact that not a single example of that aircraft was saved.

Fantastic piece of film!!


Chappie

[Todd Hackbarth]

At the end of the film, if you watch very closely, you will see that Gen. Walter Krueger is standing next to B-17G Flying Fortress 44-83547. Looking up this serial number in the book: "The B-17 Flying Fortress Story" by Roger Freeman and David Osborne, I discovered that this aircraft was assigned to the 20th Air Force Headquarters on Guam, used by Gen. Krueger and named "Billy".

Todd

[Pathfinder]

The interesting thing about the American planes displayed at Freeman was that they had been captured by the enemy during the war and used in their service, so they qualified as "foreign" aircraft.

[hang the expense]

Very cool video and the music is tops.