B-17 The Bloody 100th Bomb Group - Firestorm in Dresden / Documentary

[Music] more than 12,000 b-17 bombers were built during World War two fewer than a dozen still flying the flying fortress was designed to fight its way to the target drop its bombs and fight its way back home [Music] today the bomb bays are empty the guns are silent the crews long gone except for a lucky few [Music] isn't that a beautiful aircraft it's like a piece of sculpture but this looks familiar Robert Rosenthal was a b-17 pilot and is a survivor of 52 missions you're coming in here with your parachute on and your Mae West and it was a little tight of course I was much thinner at that time by 1943 America's 8th Army Air Force began to fly bombing missions to Germany Robert Rosenthal flew with the 100th Bomb Group [Music] these are the controls for the four Indians and you see there each one can be manipulated separately and you try to adjust the engine so that they're all synchronized [Music] heavy bombers from 41 bomb groups were stationed in Great Britain the b-17 was slow it was unpressurized it was unheated as a result it was difficult to operate that being said nobody else had anything much better the one hundredth bomb group became operational in June 1943 and was based just north of London thirty b-17s and their crews were posted there they were made up of 300 young Airmen supported by 3,000 other personnel from ground crews to officers and pilots [Music] bless these crews amen this base became a temporary home a base whose sole objective was to bomb Germany [Music] one of the original crewmen of the 100th Harry Crosby aimed to become a pilot but eventually became a navigator [Music] on the one hand it was glamorous to be part of the original and and on the other hand who he was not habit-forming of the original crews who went over the only 14 percent got the 25 missions 86% were shot down by the end of World War 2 the 100th Bomb Group suffered great losses after dropping some 20,000 tons of bombs on Nancy Jeff [Music] [Music] [Music] inevitably as time moves on there are fewer to remember bygone days some of the 100th gather to look back and identify old photographs I survived 25 missions you and we were known as survivors we weren't known at this having completed the tour in just eight missions the 100th bomb group lost more than 80 crews earning the nickname the bloody 100th the b-17 originally had been foreseen as a bomber that was fast enough to be able to outrun any enemy aircraft of course by 1940 41 42 the the aeronautical revolution had spread to fighters and they were now fast enough to catch the b-17 fighters like the American peace and aboat and British Spitfire protected the Bombers but couldn't fly further than the German border without these escorts the b-17s were extremely vulnerable to the German air force the Luftwaffe the only solution was to put machineguns on and then this b-17 now became the Flying Fortress with thirteen fifty caliber machine guns bristling each gun has a range of 1,500 meters most of the crewmen on a b-17 spent a part of their time in the air as Gunners [Music] there were two waist Gunners a ball turret gunner a tail gunner and the top turret gunner who was also the crew chief the navigator also doubled up as a gunner the radio operator had a Top Gun and the Bombardier had nose guns to recruit Gunners the Army Air Force commissioned the actor Clark Gable to make an enticing film we have the privilege to meet general acre commanding general ain't there boy captain gable our Gunners are already the best in the business but if they were all a 10% better at it cost the Germans another hundred fighters a month generally frequently pushed for better bombing unlike the British who bombed at night believing it was safer the Americans bombed during the day when industrial and military targets could be seen and hit with some precision but Churchill wanted the Americans assistance during night bombing raids however it was decided that both air forces couldn't fly in the same airspace at the same time and continuous bombing would give the German defenses no respite so in a mutual agreement it was decided that the Americans and the British would bomb Germany around the clock [Music] the Americans were continent that daylight precision bombing would work because they had the Norden bombsight packed with Jaros motors and gears [Music] the nor dam site took into account wind temperature and drift everything was planned about dropping bombs accurately and if you screwed that up there was no point that going you were exposing people to danger without accomplishing anything so the crucial part of the mission was those last minutes as you approach the target and we would turn the plane over to the control of the lead Bombardier every squadron of 100th bombers had a lead plane with a lead Bombardier who had an or damn bomb sight at the crucial moment the bomb sight took over and flew the b-17 on the bomb run straight and level to the target holding speed at 240 kilometers per hour I remember the way the Bombardier was sat up in front of me and was hunched over that and I remember every time when when when he dropped the bomb she raised his hat his left hand and say bombs away when the lead plane dropped its bombs it was the signal to the others to toggle their bombs away and then somebody always say well let's get out of here Airmen claimed that the Norden bombsight was astonishingly precise the Americans were counting on pinpoint accuracy to defeat Hitler without the horror of trench warfare [Music] in a combined effort the British and the Americans launched the first round-the-clock bombing of a German city Hamburg the mission was called Operation Gomorrah the British targeted the areas where the workers lived and the Americans aimed for the shipyards the so called precision bombing came to nothing however a huge firestorm totally destroyed 25 square kilometers of land killing 50,000 people three weeks later anxious to prove that precision bombing could work the Americans decided to attack the target highest on their list the town of shine foot it was here that 50% of Germany's ball bearings were made [Music] it was thought that with Apter the Nazi war machine would grind to a halt [Music] Frankfurt was well beyond the range of the fighter escorts in an effort to confuse the Luftwaffe a double strike was planned 230 bombers would hit fine foot 146 aircraft including 21 from the 100 were to bomb the Messerschmitt Factory at Regensburg then fly on to North Africa [Applause] [Music] the Germans had some very competent fighters in war me-109 s and fw 190s they also had some very good pilots who were responsible for downing many Allied fighters [Music] we should get tail tax sometimes when we have heavy contrails they'd sneak up in the contrail you wouldn't even know they were there they'd shoot you shoot you up there tailgunner Bruce all's house nicknamed curly volunteered for gunnery service not fully appreciating the dangers of aerial combat they always say there's no atheists in the foxholes I don't think there are any atheists in the airplane on the shine foot Regensburg mission crosby's crew found it particularly difficult to stay on course and deposit the two hundred and twenty five kilo bombs on the Messersmith Factory at Regensburg [Music] in response the Luftwaffe fighters swarmed around them for more than two hours they used up three boxes of shells so and as the shells came out of the belt and the spent cartridge just came out they were all over them the good they floor just he couldn't walk it was murder and then we just we just got hit all the time our plane was really hit badly the 100th lost nine planes but Crosby's and six others escaped south across the snow-covered Alps and the Mediterranean Sea to the sands of North Africa [Music] these home movies show a group of carefree young men far removed from the recent aerial fighting [Music] but the painful reality is that the double strike mission cost both Air Force's dearly of the nearly 400 fortresses dispatched 60 were lost 600 men gone their fate unknown [Music] precision bombing is a relative term in World War two a bomb landing within 300 meters of the aiming point is on target [Music] typically a group of b-17s dispatched their bombs at the same time leaving a carpet of destruction on the ground [Music] world war 2 entirely altered previous attack strategies the ancient art of war soldier fighting soldier a close-range was disconnected by miles of altitude we were fighting in an arena we had virtually no information on other than the few experimental test pilots who'd been up there and these guys were up there all eight nine ten hours at a time [Music] there was no heat in these air balloons guys were freezing to death - 50 - 60 degrees Fahrenheit up there the prime combat casualty of World War 2 among Army Air Forces personnel was frostbite despite these shortcomings the b-17 with its thousand horsepower right cyclone engines could carry 1,800 kilos of bombs to a range of nearly 3,000 kilometers unfortunately most airborne time was spent in hostile airspace unless courted after the losses on the schweinfurt Regensburg mission night missions by the Americans were once more considered replacements for the 100th were needed for the 90 men missing in action one of the newcomers was relatively old at the age of 24 Robert Rosenthal also known as Rosie had recently finished a law degree he was very opposed to Nazism but sometimes lie in bed looking up at the stars at night and wonder if I would survive and I prayed that I would survive and live to be the right the old age of 45 years as the Allies prepared for d-day control of the Seas became increasingly crucial this made the port city of Bremen crammed with ship and u-boat yards an obvious target [Music] on October the 8th the men of the 100th flew a routine flight northeast over the North Sea anxiously watching for signs of attack [Music] when nature called condoms were put to imaginative use we used to use the helmet liners it frees it up and then when you were letting down over England you'd crack it against a bulkhead and throw it out the window that's not funny we rode it out over Germany and we called and blivet bomb space was severely restricted especially for the gunner in the tail [Music] well there's a lots of feeling there's no doubt about dad several times I'd get all to somebody to make sure that all the engines were functioning correctly cuz they had my back to the front of the aircraft you had a couple little pants put your knees on on each side he sat on a like a bicycle seat they had twin 50 caliber browning machine gun mounted on one mount and I had a piece of armour plating in front of me probably about that wide and I had to reach around that that's the position you were in for well sometimes 7 & 8 hours for that same position without moving every b-17 had its place in the bomber formation beginning with its V of three two V's made a squadron [Music] three squadrons made a group one leads one high one low [Music] three groups made a combat wing 54 planes or more spread-out more than a kilometer wide each wing following the next at four minute intervals a thousand bombers took two hours to cross a single point flying the tight formations these guys flew was extremely dangerous you're absolutely glued with this guy a few feet away and you're jogging the throttles and you're moving this wheel which takes about 50 to 100 pounds of force to move you're very very tired secondly you can run into that guy and there were many midair collisions many many many where he just ran together then you had the friendly fire problem the guy would be excitedly tracing a 190 coming through and any stitch the guy next to him collisions and friendly fire were serious threats to survival over Bremen the fighters and flak were even worse you could just walk on the flag they were just this one was black popping these missiles and you'd see them then there would be a hole there and a hole there and hold there and you'd maybe be a fragment there and you thought how on earth did I escape this some pilots had a knack for dodging flak one such man was John Lakota nicknamed lucky his fortress survived Brennan seven others were not so fortunate we were in the purple heart corner the low squadron of the low group any black coming up from ground we would be more vulnerable to it than people higher up in the formation secondly the fighters were prone to try to pick off the fringes of the formation the position where you start your attack is very important out of the Sun out of altitude all things like that but you are not always able to select a position because you and think the battle for air superiority was being fought in the skies over Germany Luftwaffe pilots were now forced to defend their homeland [Music] fighters were pressing their attack even through their own flak which we had never experienced before in such a desperate attempt to drive a soft target the Germans tried every angle in search of any weakness they could exploit [Music] occasionally reming's occurred the resulted by the frustration or selflessness JavaServer you know I myself am the reming's was the last resort I want to say it's the last resort certainly for the pilots that was the frustration of your guns not working and so you rammed a slit system in geometry you lost your head you didn't think and you only saw you go I came down in my parachute and said to myself you'll never do that again [Music] the loss rates at that the worst part of the bombing campaign hovered just below 50% and the time you average it all out it comes somewhere around 10% the infantry loss rates were under a percent all right you guys two days after the raids on Bremen Munster was targeted breakfast at 3:00 briefing at 4:00 Rosenthal and his crew were tired having flown a 13 hour mission the day before Munster was their third mission in as many days [Applause] at the briefing crews were told that there to target the homes of railway workers many Airmen have seen the indiscriminate German bombing of London now Americans will bomb civilians a pilot remembers I was disappointed the smug assertion that we aimed only at military targets was comforting others held very different views the Seventeen's went off to war with this idea that war can be short it could be quick it can be relatively bloodless and yet what they found in the skies over Europe was just as awful as the trench warfare in World War one when we arrived into Germany over occupied France we were hit by waves of fighter planes that kept coming at us there was several hundred of these planes here this b-17 that I attacked burns fairly quickly and I didn't expect anyone to still be alive in there but in the middle of what we call the cheese cover the gunner sitting in the top bubble there were two or three meters that weren't burning yet and since I was only 20 meters away the gunner turned his guns on me and fired so much my plane started groaning - so in the hughster first I had to do what a German pilot no any fighter pilot should never do I had to bail out at 24,000 feet [Music] the Luftwaffe swept through our group and shut down every plane and the group except our plane the bloody one-hundredth lost 12 claims over Minster we had two very seriously wounded waist Gunners had a rocket hole through the wing two engines were knocked out and we went to the target alone and dropped our bombs and as we left the target whole gaggle of German fighter planes started to queue up I did various maneuvers Shondells and lazy asses and some violent maneuvers to get them away and when they left this i ordered the crew to throw everything overboard to lighten the plane [Music] and we fired flares as we landed to alert the ground crews that we had wounded on board the ambulances came and took our wounded away the 100th was severely depleted 120 crewmen were dead there was an eerie silence there nobody seemed to approach us as some of the members of the crew were pretty shaken up by the experience and I tried to comfort them and and we went on with our lives after that the bombing of Munster left 500 civilians dead and 25,000 homeless by the end of the war as many as 600,000 Germans died in bomb attacks along with 30,000 American airmen made us all give second thoughts as to what our chances of survival individually might be remember we were 19 20 21 year old lads who were into something that we didn't really know how to cope with morale was a big problem and so the minute any time my buddy was shot down they immediately cleared the barracks and brought another crew in literally it was this abrupt just bang you never saw an empty bed you never saw an empty spot by the end of 1943 the American bombing campaign was in crisis bomber losses were too high and the Luftwaffe was getting stronger the Americans decided to wait for the new long-range escorts the p-51 Mustangs to arrive the Americans took this opportunity to regroup [Music] it's about the same time the order was sent out that we're not supposed to try to camouflage the aircraft anymore we wanted shiny aluminum so the Germans can find us if the bombers aren't there the German Air Force has no reason to come up and fight because only the bombers can do damage on the ground so in a way they're bait [Music] formations increased from several hundred bombers to more than a thousand this attracted the Luftwaffe but the Mustangs were there to greet them [Music] a little friend would come up and say big friend I'm with you they had wing tanks and you'd be watching them and if you could see a glitter of the light you knew that they were dropping their wing tanks which means they were that they saw bogeys and we'd tune in on them and we would hear them yell with glee as they'd go after those guys [Music] [Music] the Bombers were relentless the Americans were desperate to achieve air superiority believing that without it any land invasion was doomed on the morning of March the 4th 1944 a new target was announced when they had the briefing and they pulled the curtain back in there and the tape went all all the way to Berlin it's a big B they call it boy they first it was just stunned silence and then just a shout glory that they were going with Berlin was protected by thousands of flak guns operated by boys [Music] answering was just 15 years old this wise I'm Google it was an incredibly impressive picture to see the American combat boxes approach with the contrails on trailing behind them and you could hear the end the sounds of the American engines when they came me it was amazing [Music] [Music] there was a rough mission I was scared me after death [Music] we got shot up pretty bad on the way back a lot of holes in your fortunately there were none in the tail yeah we fired about 150 200 shots per cannon and were lucky enough to have participated in the shooting down of three American bombers [Music] we set up 31 that day and we lost 15 out of 30 wanna be a 16 bag and us glad it was my last mission Bruce olds house Kearney earned his membership in the lucky Club Burrell and how would you like to go back again two days later Rosenthal bombed Berlin on his 25th mission some of the crew urged me to buzz the airfield and celebration if we return I decided well they had had a rough tour and I was going to give them a buzz job the plane was really lower than the top of the tower and I could see the people observing the tower hit the deck glad that somebody said did you know that general Huglin who was the wing commander was up in the tower and he hit the deck and he messed up his uniform and I said all Rosenthal you've really you've really screwed up this time and that was general Huglin walking toward me and my heart sank he came over and grabbed my hand he said one hell of a buzz job Rosie instead of going home Rosenthal signed up for a second tour the Americans had been running daylight bombing raids for more than a year by the spring of 1944 the bombing was routine though hardly precise the Allies had gained air superiority they invaded Normandy and advanced upon Germany [Music] the poison here come from a sluice he to get my training but Hitler stood firm Rosenthal signed up for a third tour on September the 10th 1944 on a mission to Nuremberg his plane was hit over the target and three engines conked out we looked around for a field to crash-land and there was a very small field out there and we chose that struggling to fly on a single-engine Rosenthal's b-17 crashed in France and I just remember waking up in the hospital in Oxford England you could lose three engines and get home you could lose half of your vertical stabilizer on the tail and get home you can lose money Airlines and get home you could literally have a hole in the fuselage that you could have a whole bunch of people walk through and still get home [Music] upon being discharged from hospital Rosenthal was transferred to a ground job in command headquarters but Rosie wouldn't have any part of that he insisted that they put him back and give him another crew give him another airplane and he'd go on flying his tour most guys only want to do like me is fire missions go home No and Rosie he wanted to keep on flying keep on keeping on by now Germany was on the brink of collapse but would not surrender On February the 3rd 1945 the Americans delivered a massive air raid upon Berlin in hopes of ending the war [Music] the bloody one-hundredth was selected to lead the third division Rosenthal flew in the lead for the 100's and I remember going there and the Sun was shining and I almost dozed off with no problems at all on the way to the target we were hit by flak the plane caught fire thought it might blow up at any time when the the entire crew had bailed out I decided I'd better get out myself and when I left the controls the plane went into a spin according to the official log of the 100th major Rosenthal went down today over Berlin on his 52nd mission Rosenthal is a legend here the entire base feels bad about it and I pushed my way out of the front hatch cleared the plane and opened my chute I hit the ground very hard and broke my arm began amidst and in the state of shock from hitting so hard and I looked up and I saw three soldiers coming at me with guns one of the soldiers raised his gun and was about to strike me and I noticed the Red Army symbol and I yelled American ski Roosevelt Stalin Churchill Pepsi Cola Coca Cola Lucky Strike they recognized me as an American and they then embrace me the capital of the Third Reich was ruined but aerial bombardment did not win the war running out of targets the Allies decided to crush German morale by attacking one of its most beautiful cities Dresden was full of refugees fleeing the advancing Russian army on the eve of Pascha Wednesday 1945 the British attacked twice within centuries ten hours later the Americans launched their bombs into the firestorm the old American idea of marksmanship of aiming for a target no longer applied to the bombing of Germany that's what makes the bombing of Dresden if you want to talk irony there's the real irony that a nation so committed to precision bombing would turn to Arab area bombing it was a terrible stench over all of Dresden of burning and ashes and burnt corpses Asian as well it was horrible beasts vomited in angriff until 1945 I feel that the Allied bump offensive was completely justified also morally but in 1945 after the war was lost - even then drop all those bombs like maniacs on civilians was you're absolutely incorrect cloven ished dustman I don't believe anyone place the blame all the people flying the planes flew mom each clove a man had Mia I believe the people blamed the holy war as the second world war drew to a close major Rosenthal reached Moscow he cabled the 100th saying hold my job open I'll be back in a few days our intelligence officer said Rosenthal you stupid he said if you hadn't come home you would have had the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously but now you're not going to get it [Music] instead Rosen Tarr was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross after Germany surrendered he stayed in Europe as a prosecutor for the Nuremberg trials [Music] the bloody one-hundredth dispersed most survivors never flew the b-17 again me when I got there the odds to finish the tour was no fast very relief well you couldn't go in a bar buy a drink so many buddies every time [Music] of course with every drink you shoot down a couple more fighters [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: WAR - HISTORY - DOCUMENTARIES

Views: 155,021

Rating: 4.788372 out of 5

Keywords: world war, documentry, warships documentry, b17, b17 bomb group, 100th bomb group, airforce, B-17 The Bloody 100th Bomb Group, the bloody 100th, Firestorm in Dresden, us airforce, us airforce ww2, Luftwaffe, b-17 flying fortress, bomber, flying fortress, world war 2, aircraft, second world war, 100th bomber group, world war ii, 100th bomb group memorial museum, wwii, second world war documentary, us military, military, united states

Id: owL2cUCp-5w

Length: 47min 44sec (2864 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 13 2017