Warbird Information Exchange

In addition I am looking for a list of planes and any other supporting intel , pics etc that were used in the movie A Bridge Too Far and the HBO mini Series Band of Brothers.

Thank You

I don't have a list and you may have already thought of this, but...
HBO should be able to get you pointed in the right direction for "Brothers".
United Artists should be able to do the same for "Bridge".

Just a thought.

Mudge the semi-helpful

Both have turned up nil. HBO a few years ago had some info on the BOB planes but it has been retired to Cyberspace . Universal ha even less info presently. The search goes on Thank You Mudge!

Jiggersfromsphilly

I don't know iif this helps but......Years back at Blackbush near Camberly, Surrey, UK I hung around with a chap who had gone out to Nigera to fetch a (one of more I can't remember) DC3 from one of the regional "airports" (Joss??). I think he was at a bit of a loose end after an Air America contract and a couple of other client airlines. The only dyslectic (seriously) US registered CPL I have ever known.

The machine was in a sorry state and the bloke he went out with also a Laos vetran was, shall we say, not too impressed with the natives and told them so. My chap however was as polite and charming (creep actually but was a great scrounger, no I'm being unfair) as ever and as a result ended up being fed, watered and had a troup of bag carriers wherever he went whereas his co-pilot was shown the bush.

He seems to have impressed them so much that when they could not get one of the engines to fire up and had the bright idea of taxying up and down the deserted runway at high speed as soon as they released the brakes they suddenly found themselves in motion with 25 or more of these characters trying to "push start" the aircraft. I can see the logic, just.

He seems to have been arrested at every airfield they passed through, got lost between Sudan and Egypt and had a Iranian Airways SP747 Captain searching for them in the desert, almost bent Mt Olympus in Crete and landed at the wrong airstrip, but eventually made it back after spending a couple of nights in the pokey in Swizerland.

From what I understand the paratroops used in the jump sequences were Belgian and in his opinion quite nuts, quote "I can't see the point of geting into a perfectly serviceable aircraft, getting airbourne and then jumping out of the bloody thing". I'm actually wondering if the Belgians had a Foreign Legion at the time because they seem to have been often referred to as that. Logic again I suppose.

When certain Spanish military heard of the film and interest of the film company they moved in and bought up the surplus Merlin engined Heinkels 111's and Me109's from the military and then tried to charge the film company a fortune for them. I think they got pretty dusty replies and had to settle for less than the crock of gold they were hoping for. One of the reasons Spain was chosen for many of the scenes was its alleged similarity to WWII France and the weather of the period. Rather hot and dusty during the summer months something that Heinz Knocke refers to in his book when stationed in France.

A lot of the out-takes and other un-used scenes were subsequently used in a Czech film call err....umm...."Something" Blue, Deep Blue, Dark Blue about two Czech Battle of Britain pilots and their love for a girl. What was wrong with the aircraft....far more reliable.

There we are a source of mindless information and if your really unlucky I'll probably remember some more in due course.

Where websites go when they retire, or change.

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I don't know the registrations but there was an article in Flypast magazine about them which did. I seem to recall Aces High were involved so perhaps they were their Daks??

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Ah,
Bridge too Far. Some facts. The DC-3s were a mix from within Europe - I have an article (somewhere - not to hand, I'm afraid) in an Aircraft Illustrated in the 1970s written by the chap that arranged the jump scenes. Most of the ground troops were Dutch, and IIRC the airborne were a mix of Dutch and British - but I'll have to check. Wonder where it is?

There was a thread on the Flypast Forum about one of the Daks, trying to establish if it was in 'both' Market Garden (real & film) opps.

Edit - Thread here. Why they didn't post the full list of aircraft...
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1644

If you are interested in the film and original story, there's an excellent magazine 'After the Battle' special on a Bridge too Far, with lots of behind the scenes stuff. Also a book on the making of the film with interviews with the original warriors and the actors, as well as the Cornelius Ryan book which the film was based on.

Bf109K4 - Great post. Couple of footnotes - The Spanish stuff was 'The Battle of Britain' film, 1967, while Bridge (the para stuff) was 1970s. The Czech film (highly recommended - go see / get) was 'Dark Blue World' which used out-takes from Battle of Britain. Much of the Battle of Britain film stuff is well covered by various books, including two modern ones by Robert Rudhall, and a contemporary (with the film) one 'Making of... IIRC.

More when I've done some checking.

Nothing on Band of Brothers, I'm afraid.

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Raven

Raven your quite right how I got the two films garbled I'll never know and my apologies. But I swear Friday night and not a drop.........oh well. Funnily enough my freind WAS a Dutchman and I recall that he insisted that the troops were Belgians as he was one of the pilots of a DC3 in the film.

At the time he had been involved in procuring aircraft (DC3's) from much farther afield than Europe as there was simply insufficient of the right configuration that could be painted in drag and used for the duration of the film. There was no CGI box in those days so to create massed formations required the real thing and/or a lot of cute camera angles. The massed troop drop being the most difficult to pull off without the numbers of aircraft present.

I recall a lot of in air camera work was done using a B25. A lot of romantic stuff was kicked up at the time to raise the profile of the film and I recall sitting in some nearby hostelry (to Blackbushe) whilst a few reviews and articles etc about the film and subject matters around it were guffawed at etc by chaps directly involved in the film, but I cannot remember the Flypast article which I assume was a lot later.

I think my confusion arose due to the one time owner of Blackbushe, Douglas Arnold at the time of "A Bridge" having purchased one of the Spanish Heinkels and having a hand in other procurments plus trying to chase my mate off the airfield for some reason. Due to his dyslectic condition he did the dictating and I worked the teletype. A right Laurel and Hardy.

Still all was right when he hit the big time and taking a fat commission for locating three stretch DC8-63's for the Mecca pilgrams and the Haj (topical at the moment) and then going out and buying some massive BMW 7 series whilst paying off whatever bills were about. Rum old days but I would not have missed them for the world!

A suppose a footnote to that was that both Arnold and the Heinkel was lost in Spain in later years and a very sad loss it was. I'd always itched to hitch a ride in it but it was never to be and its owner was a sad loss to historic aviation.

I believe one of the C-47's used in Band of Brothers was owned by South Coast Airways, and registered G-DAKK.
Jerry

Three or four Finnish AF Dakotas were used in A Bridge too Far, and I think some Danish AF ones as well.

It sure sounds like the late Doug Arnold, however your last remark's a bit muddled I think. Doug only died a few years ago, while it was the great Neil Williams that was killed ferrying the Casa2111 back from Spain.

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Raven

Hmmmm.....Raven.....my use of english could be better there it was not trying to convey "at the same time", "together" etc perhaps that dyslexia is conveyed through the fingers. I think I'll go and lie down in a cool dark room for a while.

I thought the majority were Danish AF as they still operated them in sufficient numbers at the time & in still in camouflage.
On a side note I met a guy last year who said he was one of the pilots for A Bridge...., he later was the manager of White Waltham airfield .

Yes that was Neil Williams , world aerobatic champion, my ATC CO was a good friend of his ,they had served in the RAF together.That would have been about '76.

Could be, I do not know how many Danish AF ones were involved. In any case all of them were painted in original (or whatever was close enough to original) camouflage for the filming. I also know personally at least two pilots who were flying the Finnish AF DAks for ABTF, this is a small country, you know. As I understand the Finnish AF pilots really enjoyed being seconded to the film crew...

BTW the website acted up and I had to change to Finny2, but still the same guy...