Warbird Information Exchange

I think you may have missed the point entirely. The Tuskegee Airmen receive attention because of their fight for the right to fight for their country. You ask if a black pilot in WWII was any different from any other pilot. Uh, yeah, yeah they were! Did white pilots face the blatent racism and discrimination that black pilots did? Nope. There were sometimes cases of city boys and country boys causing problems for each other, or confrontations based on what part of the nation one was from, but for the most part, white pilots weren't forced to prove themselves all the more because of the color of their skin. IF they wanted to fight and were up to the physical and mental requirements, they were allowed to fight, or in many cases, forced to with the draft. It's been fairly well documented that the physical and mental requirements that blacks were forced to meet were substantially higher than what white applicants/draftees had to meet to fly. On top of that, ALL the Tuskegee Airmen were volunteers.

Yes, it has been fairly well proven that the 332nd DID in fact lose some bombers under their watch, 25 or so if memory serves, BUT all in all they had an exemplary service record. But again, this part of the Tuskegee story is really secondary to the story of how they came to be and the fight it took for them to be able to serve their country. Telling their story is no more glorification than Band of Brothers telling the story of Easy Company.

Sorry for the thread drift...

Zack

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Curator - EAA Aviation Museum, Oshkosh, WI
"Let No Story Go Untold!"
http://www.timelessvoices.org

Peter Jackson needs to give it a try if he can make stuff like this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpTHFVBlm_A

No CGI here! As soon as he's done making movies with short guys with furry feet though.

This has to be the dumbest statement I've ever seen on this forum and there have been some dumb ones over the years.

I'd suggest doing a little historical research on your own and return when you have at least a little bit of a clue. Right now you clearly don't have one and your own inherent racism is showing.

Yes, but those WWI replicas cost maybe $20,000 each to build. A P-51 costs at least a million if you can find the parts and even more to build from scratch. If you want to use existing aircraft, good luck getting the owners to give you permission to beat the living daylights out of their planes to replicate aerial combat scenes, not to mention the costs of repainting them all. Then try to get the B-17s (and repaint them), and finding more than 1 or 2 Fw-190s and Bf-109s to fly against them.

I.E. - you're not going to make a film about WWII with real airplanes anymore. There just aren't enough of them out there. You'll have to use at least some CGI and once you make the models, the cost of using 100 copies or 10 copies is the same, thus why spend the extra on mixing the two?

Do you even have the beginning of an inkling of a clue as to what you are looking at here?

If so, please tell me where I can get a fully authentic S.E.5a replica, built to the original plans, with correct period instrumentation and the original engine, for $20k.

+1

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Ok, ok, let's stop the straffing of this thread and stay on target.

Unless you have seen the movie, please keep any "It Sucks" opinions to yourself. I just came back from seeing it and saw it for what is was, a movie on a rainy day.

It could have been better than it was, but, it was just a movie to fill seats and entertain. I thought it was ok but my lady friend really liked it! I stopped at the store to get some things and the cashier asked what I was up to today and I told him I had just gone to the movies, he asked what, i told him Red Tails. He asked if it was good, so I asked him if he knew of the Tuskegee airmen, he said no, so I said, you are going to like it! This kid is about twenty years younger than me, and I hate saying that, but he probably has never really studied history like you and me!

The point being, we are not the target audience!!! The movie has Action, Drama and some Romance, but not 100% accuracy or it would bore the average person to death to know this!!

I asked my friend what she liked about the movie and she said the interaction between the characters, the romance and then the action! She had no idea what any of the planes where! And the average person does not know either!!

So either you do or do not see it, but stop judging something you have not seen or taken part in.

Maybe this is why Lucas just retired.

If it was going to be some great action/ adventure flick, it would have hit theatres in May or December. Clinkers go to the cinema in January.

Astute observation!

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Curator - EAA Aviation Museum, Oshkosh, WI
"Let No Story Go Untold!"
http://www.timelessvoices.org

OK, I am a StarWars nut, but I'm also fully able to say George Lucas only decent writing was American Graffiti and that was basically his life story of him growing up as a teenager.

His directing is on par with most current college students, in short, HE SUCKS AT IT.

He's known for StarWars, which was originally known for its special effects, not writing or directing, most of his money comes from Industrial Light and Magic, and his StarWars royalties and sales.

His ego gets petted way to much.

Thats why we got the prequels, I think we are on the 4th version of the first 3 star wars films, I'm sorry, anything he does besides bankroll, I'll wait till I can rent it at redbox.

Cole

The thing that has made Lucas has been good editors. Both American Graffiti and Star Wars where watchable because of great editing by the same people!

He had his heart in the right place, but the execution suffered quite a bit. Major rewrites, director changes and trying to say to much in too short of a space are the biggest problems here. It is a great story just poorly told.

BTW, was there a THX 1138 hidden in there somewhere? I did not see one. If you know Lucas, you know what I am talking about.

On 25 June 1944, a group of Tuskegee Airmen flying P-47s sank a German destroyer, I assume in the Med.

I am not racist and why is my statement dumb?
Where did I write anything negative about African Americans?
Too quick to judge. you just want to jump on the bandwagon to start something.

I have nothings against Red Tail pilots.
I am not of the opinion that only certain groups in ww2 wuz more important. All were important!
Is my point more understandable now?

Getting treated like second class citizens in their own country when they were doing the most glamorous job that existed in WW2 makes for compelling history and great drama. Same as the Nisei (second generation Japanese American) soldiers who fought in the Army. It was hard enough to fight in WW2 when you looked like everyone else, but THESE guys really had it tough on top of that!
Now, that said, I haven’t seen the movie yet but I really hope they don’t make it look like the Tuskegee Airmen won the war all by themselves. It’s what I call the “Band of Brothers syndrome” where a movie or TV series makes it seem like one small unit bore the greater brunt of the war. While what the Tuskegee Airmen did on personal levels was amazing, there are plenty of other units that did just as well, if not better, in combat in WW2.
I will always consider, “A Soldier’s Story,” and “Glory” to be THE best films ever made on the subject of blacks in the service. I hope to be proven wrong, but I can’t imagine that “Red Tails” will be at the level of these fine films.

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Life member, 91st BG Memorial Association
Owner, 1944 Willys MB #366014
Former REMF (US Army, O3)

Not to get picky, but the 506th PIR E Company was chosen to be the subject of the book becasue they DID get hit with a very large part of the war. Other units were considered, but Ambrose went with the unit that saw the most action, and had the most documentation. Not saying that they won the war by themselves by any means of course, but they did see alot of action.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager