Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:00For their homelands, for adventure, for revenge, the Internationals joined the battle for the sky.
00:00:10We had no doubts in our minds about who the good guys and the bad guys were.
00:00:16You have to see the white of their eyes to be sure to kill them.
00:00:22We were keen to fight.
00:00:30We were keen to fight.
00:00:59Spearheaded by the Luftwaffe, German armies occupy Poland, the Low Countries, Norway, and France.
00:01:08Only Great Britain and the Royal Air Force stand between Hitler and victory.
00:01:13The captive nations reel under the weight of a German occupation.
00:01:23Devastation, humiliation is the fate of millions.
00:01:28Some vow to escape.
00:01:29They live for the chance to take vengeance on the conqueror, to fly alongside the pilots of the RAF.
00:01:38They will be known as the Internationals.
00:01:43Johnny Johnson, RAF, will command one of the first international squadrons.
00:01:48Usually, the best squadron we found, the best fighter squadron, was a squadron made up of mixed nationalities.
00:01:59A couple of Poles, a Norwegian, a Canadian, an Australian, a couple of English and so on.
00:02:04That was the best mixed squadron.
00:02:06Johnson is quick to recognize the courage of these pilots.
00:02:10There was an Australian and his squadron commander was shot down and had to, were bailed out.
00:02:20And the Australian, whose name escapes me at the moment, said,
00:02:23The CO can't get in his dinghy.
00:02:26He was off Cherbourg somewhere, in those icy waters.
00:02:29And he said, I'm going to give him a hand.
00:02:31And he bailed out too, to try and help his CO.
00:02:35And I thought that was the most remarkable act of bravery, really.
00:02:39None of them were I ever seen again.
00:02:44I was leading my squadron back from a sweeper or an escort over France.
00:02:49And, uh, I saw these two aircraft in front of me.
00:02:55Wilfred Duncan Smith, a seasoned RAF commander, will score 19 kills.
00:03:01And one on the right, his starboard, sorry, his port wing must be, must have been out of action
00:03:08because his chum had his wing underneath him and he was holding him up,
00:03:12which was a very dangerous thing for him to do because, you know, it was almost in a dare collision.
00:03:17And he carried him all the way, as far as he could inland, and then gave him time to bail out.
00:03:26The internationals flew with a clear sense of purpose.
00:03:33Miroslav Mansfeld's father was killed after the occupation of Czechoslovakia.
00:03:37But we were trained to kill.
00:03:44It was for my mother.
00:03:47That was it.
00:03:48And then came my country.
00:03:51Barely 17, Ragnar Dogger escapes from Norway and makes his way to England.
00:03:58I think being a refugee from Norway or any other country made us more like professional fighters.
00:04:07We didn't have to go home for dinner and your mother didn't tell you, be careful and all that.
00:04:13Fighter pilots from around the Commonwealth pay their own way to get into the fight.
00:04:17Andrew McKenzie, Canadian, will score eight kills over Britain and Europe.
00:04:22We were so keen to fly and so keen to seek out the Hun and destroy him that the whole spirit in the squadron was remarkably high.
00:04:36The United States is neutral, but a handful of Americans feel that this is also their war.
00:04:41They volunteer to fly with the Eagle squadrons of the Royal Air Force.
00:04:46James Goodson will score 15 kills.
00:04:48He is among those Americans in London ordered to return to the United States when war breaks out.
00:04:55So I rather reluctantly got on the first ship I could, which happened to be the Athenia.
00:05:06A few hours after war was declared, it was torpedoed.
00:05:10And I found myself in the Atlantic.
00:05:12I was fished out of the Atlantic by a Norwegian tanker and taken to Southern Ireland and then made my way back to Scotland.
00:05:24And there I saw the English building a recruiting station for the RAF.
00:05:30So I asked them if an American could join their RAF.
00:05:34And eventually they said, yes, he could.
00:05:36But because of the strict neutrality of the United States, we were warned that I would lose my American nationality, which indeed I did.
00:05:47The internationals had some special problems.
00:05:50To fly together, they had to talk together.
00:05:52To start with, it was a hell of a thing to learn to speak English.
00:05:59Boy, I could have never seen anything like this before.
00:06:01It's all right.
00:06:05Four thousand pounds had just gone up.
00:06:07Good job.
00:06:08We were never allowed to use our own language.
00:06:12And we had to use the RAF slang all the time.
00:06:17The internationals are deadly in combat.
00:06:22Miroslav Mansfeld is on patrol in a usually quiet sector over the Irish coast.
00:06:28Ground control alerts him to an approaching gaggle of German planes.
00:06:32The first one, I came sort of 90 degrees on him.
00:06:36So I couldn't fire, really.
00:06:38So he escaped just, I was firing just a little bit in front.
00:06:42But this next one, he came right behind him and started to fire.
00:06:54And he blew up right in front of me and then down.
00:06:59Mansfeld gets three kills in the battle.
00:07:01As the internationals hone their hunter skills, a brotherhood grows between them.
00:07:06That brotherhood, beyond nationality, is forged in fire.
00:07:12The internationals will help change the course of the war.
00:07:28Putting their lives on the line for a common cause,
00:07:31the internationals and the pilots of the RAF develop mutual respect and admiration.
00:07:38We learned to admire the stiff upper lip of RAF.
00:07:43Because they were very calm and cool on their radios.
00:07:47We got any of those things we've been hit personally.
00:07:49Hello, sir.
00:07:51We've been holding the brand brand.
00:07:53And we picked that up.
00:07:55So even if you were badly shut up or scared to death,
00:08:01you sort of took 30 seconds and then you yourself came on the radio very calm and like an RAF pilot.
00:08:12I was told when I went to take over the Canadian wing in the beginning of 1943,
00:08:17and they were based at Canada, they were wild men and they got drunk and long air
00:08:22and they wouldn't take kindly to an Englishman and so on.
00:08:24And they were all disciplined, never shaved, nothing.
00:08:27They were a marvellous bunch of people.
00:08:28They were first class.
00:08:30Peter Brothers begins flying at age 15.
00:08:33He's a seasoned fighter pilot when the Battle of Britain begins.
00:08:37So I had the very good fortune former Australian, all Australian Spitfire Squadron.
00:08:44They were a super bunch of characters.
00:08:46No problems.
00:08:47And they were a splendid bunch of chaps to have.
00:08:51Once we've engaged them, I want you to go straight in home and try to keep together.
00:08:58They were resilient, quick to react, and of course they all had wonderful eyesight.
00:09:05At first, the British are hesitant to use foreign volunteers in combat.
00:09:10Desperate for pilots, the RAF activates Polish Squadron 303.
00:09:15Their performance ends all doubts.
00:09:17Of course, the Poles were very, in 1940, were very bitter and they fought with an extreme sort of bitterness and cynicism and that sort of thing and showed no mercy and often gave up their own lives when they rammed people and so on.
00:09:35Polish ace Stanisław Skalski will score 18 kills over Europe and North Africa.
00:09:41I will use some silly expression.
00:09:45I mean, we were sportsmen only.
00:09:50In this sport come one thing you each one have to remember.
00:09:58That's you fighting for your life as well.
00:10:01So you're not to kill somebody, but to win.
00:10:04Francis Gabreski flies in the Pacific, but looks toward Europe.
00:10:08As a Polish-American, the exploits of the Polish pilots flying with the RAF give him special pride.
00:10:15Reading the papers, I said, the Polish squadron, the Polish pilots in the Battle of Britain were shooting down airplanes.
00:10:23And I said, gee, that's Polish.
00:10:25I can speak Polish.
00:10:27I can understand Polish.
00:10:28I can read Polish and so forth.
00:10:29If I could find some sort of good way to get into the European theater, I could possibly get some good and valuable training on the hands of the Polish pilots.
00:10:41Gabreski manages to get his transfer to England, where he flies with the fabled Poles.
00:10:46And they were a bunch of little tigers, but they knew the strong points of their aircraft, they knew the weakness of their aircraft.
00:10:56And above all, they had respect for all the German pilots.
00:11:03Seven Americans fly in the Battle of Britain.
00:11:10The ranks of the American Eagle squadrons begin to swell.
00:11:15And they undergo a quick baptism of fire.
00:11:18They had a very accelerated training.
00:11:24And I think, probably looking back on it, for propaganda reasons and other reasons, they were probably thrown into combat a little too early.
00:11:34Therefore, the third Eagle squadron, 133, they went off on a mission escorting bombers to Morlaix in France.
00:11:43And none of them came back.
00:11:48And it was a very dramatic scene when I went to Debden and went into the officers' sleeping quarters and went into room after room.
00:12:04They hadn't had time to clean up the personal effects.
00:12:09And here were half-written letters, dear mom, everything's fine.
00:12:13And the toothbrushes and the shaving cream and so on.
00:12:18It really brought it home, all these empty rooms.
00:12:22In September 1942, the Eagle squadrons become part of the U.S. Army Air Forces.
00:12:28Flying under their own flag means a lot to the Eagles, in pride and in pay.
00:12:33The extra money provides an unexpected advantage.
00:12:36The Englishmen used to go off to the pub and drink beer, and we'd go off with their girlfriends.
00:12:44And they used to make the comment that the trouble with the Americans was that they were overpaid, oversexed, and overhear.
00:12:55The American Eagles discover a special use for the May Day emergency radio channel.
00:13:00And sometimes coming back, I used to switch on to that channel, and instead of hearing what I had expected to hear, I heard these people saying,
00:13:11Would you please telephone Daphne on May 3637 and tell her I'll be a little late for our date at the Savoy?
00:13:20We were always full of fun, full of jokes, full of enthusiasm, and, of course, it was always the other guy that was going to get shot down, not you.
00:13:32The Internationals take on the Luftwaffe in every combat theater.
00:13:44As Allied might grows, dreams of revenge turn to thoughts of victory.
00:13:50Robert Spertle, a New Zealander with the RAF.
00:13:53One day, we were very lucky to intercept the last raid by JU-87s against England,
00:13:59and their fighter escorted foolishly, gone above a cloud layer,
00:14:03and our Squadron 74 caught these Germans coming in, and it was just straight slaughter.
00:14:14But it was a marvelous thing to, for once, catch them and really give it to them.
00:14:21Fighter pilots take pride in their skill, bravado, and the planes they fly.
00:14:26They also develop a keen respect for old-fashioned luck.
00:14:31You know, during the war, I was saying,
00:14:37Napoleon used to say,
00:14:39if you want to go on war, you need three things.
00:14:44First of all, money.
00:14:46Second, money.
00:14:48Third, money.
00:14:49I used to do the same thing to the war.
00:14:54Luck, luck, and luck.
00:14:57I was shot down twice during the Battle of Britain, even.
00:15:01I don't know how I'm still alive.
00:15:04So luck is with me.
00:15:07Colin Gray, a New Zealander, gets lucky when a Messerschmitt bores in for the kill.
00:15:12Somebody said, Bandits.
00:15:15I managed to get on the tail of one of them, and it gave him a good burst,
00:15:21and I was surprised to see him pull up and bail out.
00:15:27And while I was watching him do this,
00:15:29there was a hell of a clatter,
00:15:31like somebody running a stick along a corrugated iron fence,
00:15:35and I realized I was being shot at.
00:15:37And this gave me a bit of a fright.
00:15:39But perhaps fortunately for me,
00:15:43one of the cannon shells hit the port wing
00:15:47and jammed the ailerons in the up position
00:15:51so that the aircraft flicked over into a dive.
00:15:55I couldn't have devised a better escape maneuver.
00:15:59Desmond Sheen, Australian, will score seven kills in his Spitfire.
00:16:04His luck holds during a furious battle.
00:16:06I was sent up to attack a formation of Deer 215s.
00:16:11I was attacking this when I was shot down,
00:16:15and I had to bail out over Kent.
00:16:17This was about 12,000 feet.
00:16:19And I had a grandstand view of the whole of the battle
00:16:22because there were bombs falling in London,
00:16:25others over Dover,
00:16:27and there were dogfights overhead,
00:16:29and an ME-109 went down in flames quite close to me.
00:16:35I bailed out and landed as light as a feather in the field.
00:16:39Early in 1943, the momentum of the war turns.
00:16:44The fight is carried to the enemy
00:16:46in the skies over Fortress Europe.
00:16:49We began sweep operations over the channel.
00:16:55They weren't extremely popular with us
00:16:57because we had to fight over enemy territory now,
00:17:02and they were fairly hairy operations.
00:17:05Now on the defensive,
00:17:13German forces are spread thin
00:17:15over Europe, Norway, Russia, the Balkans,
00:17:18Greece, Italy, and North Africa.
00:17:21The Luftwaffe rushes new pilots into action.
00:17:25Most are no match
00:17:26for the combat-savvy international squadrons.
00:17:30Ragnar Dogger is over Germany
00:17:31and looks up at a formation of Luftwaffe bombers.
00:17:34We attacked from below
00:17:38and shut down 12 of them
00:17:41and didn't lose any.
00:17:43But later we found out
00:17:45that these planes were flown to forward bases
00:17:48by inexperienced pilots.
00:17:51So it didn't take very much to shoot them down,
00:17:55which was a pity.
00:17:56The Luftwaffe is short of planes,
00:17:59but the pilots are long on discipline and courage.
00:18:02I remember a case of getting on the tail
00:18:07of two aircraft.
00:18:09As you know, in the fighter world,
00:18:11you fly in pairs,
00:18:13and the number two looks after the number one.
00:18:16And they were so well-disciplined
00:18:18that I was lining up my aircraft
00:18:22to shoot down this number two,
00:18:25and I was only about 50 feet away from him,
00:18:28and he was, instead of breaking off
00:18:31and leaving his number one
00:18:32to be shot down,
00:18:35he preferred to die.
00:18:40Beginning in 1943,
00:18:42Allied bombers attack enemy targets
00:18:44around the clock.
00:18:45Francis Gabreski will use his experience
00:18:51with the Polish squadrons to good advantage.
00:18:56Flying escort to American bombers,
00:18:58Gabreski is at the controls
00:18:59of a new P-47 Thunderbolt.
00:19:03I was just like a kid with a new toy.
00:19:05I was very excited.
00:19:06I was over France during that period of time.
00:19:09And as I looked down,
00:19:13saw a bunch of 109s
00:19:15in the area milling around.
00:19:18And I was in perfect position then
00:19:22because I was between the sun and the 109.
00:19:25So I came in with altitude to my advantage,
00:19:29and I caught this 109 in a climb,
00:19:32came in from behind,
00:19:34and I didn't slow down.
00:19:36I just went right on by
00:19:38with my eight guns blazing
00:19:40and practically blew up the airplane.
00:19:43The airplane went over on the side,
00:19:44and he hit the ground.
00:19:49As the war in Europe
00:19:50enters its final phase,
00:19:52air superiority belongs to the Allies.
00:19:56The internationals sense
00:19:58that their flags will rise again in triumph.
00:20:02But more fighter pilots will die
00:20:04before victory is won.
00:20:07I was privileged to fly
00:20:09with some very outstanding,
00:20:11unique, and wonderful people.
00:20:14And a lot of them, of course,
00:20:16didn't survive the war.
00:20:17And after the war,
00:20:18I felt that was very tragic.
00:20:20I went to see their next of kin,
00:20:22and I realized that these boys
00:20:24had no grave, no memorial.
00:20:26They'd just been blown away.
00:20:27It's very difficult to explain the spirit
00:20:36that you found throughout the war,
00:20:39that it was a pretty hard going,
00:20:42a lot of people got killed,
00:20:43but everybody got made the best of it.
00:20:47We had,
00:20:48the camaraderie was terrific.
00:20:50Because I think that to begin with,
00:20:52the Mishmas,
00:20:52they had all nationalities,
00:20:54made it,
00:20:55it went for a huge,
00:20:56marvelous spirit,
00:20:57and it was a magnificent sort of feeling
00:21:00of esprit de corps engendered
00:21:02by the multitudes of nations
00:21:04all gathered together
00:21:05with a common cause.
00:21:06The international volunteers
00:21:08spoke a universal language
00:21:09of courage and dedication.
00:21:12Theirs is a special kind of glory.
00:21:15piano plays softly
00:21:45piano plays softly
00:22:15We were flying over the top of the bombers.
00:22:24I could see the fighters going through
00:22:26with fluttering flashes from their guns.
00:22:30All I could think of
00:22:30is they're hurting our boys.
00:22:36The German fighter pilots
00:22:37were making kind of buzzsaw runs.
00:22:41And the old gang spirit came up,
00:22:43and all I could think of
00:22:45was I've got to try and stop that.
00:22:46The man who had a class in a room
00:22:48Mm-hmm.
00:22:49TV
00:23:14January 1943, the Allies unleash a new kind of air war, round-the-clock bombing, aimed
00:23:23at crippling Germany's ability to fight.
00:23:28It is the RAF by night, raining wholesale destruction on German cities, and the U.S.
00:23:35by day, launching precision attacks against industrial and military targets.
00:23:42For American bomber crews, the strategy proves deadly.
00:23:47The bombers were very vulnerable in daylight bombing.
00:23:52Clayton Gross, six kills, one of hundreds of green American fighter pilots sent to England
00:23:57to protect the bombers on their dangerous daytime missions.
00:24:01They were given a target deep in enemy territory, and they had to maintain a straight and level
00:24:09of course, and the enemy fighters were able to pick and choose the areas where they could
00:24:16attack, and the bombers' losses were tremendous.
00:24:19Remember, our job today is support of bombers.
00:24:24We're to take these bombers into the target and bring them home.
00:24:28Our primary mission is getting there and getting them back.
00:24:33We were the little friends, the bombers were the big friends.
00:24:37The job pits Allied fighter pilots against the Luftwaffe's best in aerial combat.
00:24:47It guarantees an early death to hundreds of aviators.
00:24:54Terry Brown, five plus kills.
00:24:57The first time we saw enemy fighters and more flack was about the end of October, and we
00:25:06lost three or four in our group from being bounced by enemy 109s.
00:25:17It taught us a good lesson as to what we were going to be up against, because there was only
00:25:22about a half a dozen of them, and they tied up a whole group of fighters.
00:25:28Well, I think generally, everybody in the group was, like me, scared to death, of course,
00:25:34to start with.
00:25:36Bud Mahurin arrives in England with the 56th Fighter Group to fly the massive P-47 Thunderbolt.
00:25:43The pilots affectionately call their fighter the jug.
00:25:46Others call it the seven-ton milk bottle.
00:25:49When we first landed our P-47s at a Royal Air Force base, the RAF pilots came out and said,
00:25:57you guys better go home with those trucks.
00:25:59You'll never survive.
00:26:01And so it was kind of a terrifying experience.
00:26:06The critical need for fighter escorts is driven home during one of the first daylight raids
00:26:11deep inside Germany.
00:26:13On October the 14th, 1943, a day 8th Bomber Command will remember as Black Thursday.
00:26:21More than 300 American heavy bombers set a course for the critical ball-bearing works at Schweinfurt.
00:26:28Allied fighters, unable to match the long range of the bombers, are forced to turn back before
00:26:33reaching the target.
00:26:35After most of the 900-mile round trip, the bombers are on their own.
00:26:50Walter Beckham, 18 kills.
00:26:53I think on the Schweinfurt raid, 60, about 60 of our bombers are shot down, 10 people in
00:26:59each bomber.
00:27:00So, lo and behold, there's 600 people.
00:27:03Almost nobody ever got back to England.
00:27:05The slaughter at Schweinfurt is as heartening to the Luftwaffe as it is discouraging to the
00:27:19American crusaders for daylight precision bombing.
00:27:25Johannes Mackey Steinhoff, Luftwaffe, 176 kills.
00:27:30The Americans stopped bombing for three weeks.
00:27:37The American Congress debated on whether or not to stop daylight bombing.
00:27:41The Americans had lost 800 personnel.
00:27:45Our belief was we could stop the bombing and bring an end to the pulverization of German
00:27:49cities.
00:27:57Despite heavy losses, the Americans decide to continue the daylight bombing campaign.
00:28:03The lives of thousands of bomber crews will depend on the skill and courage of the fighter
00:28:08pilots.
00:28:23When you see them come home shot up, people that you know are injured and whatnot, then
00:28:28the camaraderie comes in.
00:28:29Then you realize that you're really protecting lives and you've got a mission to do and the
00:28:34best thing to do is to do it the best you can.
00:28:36I was just lucky that they put me into fighters.
00:28:40I would have been frightened to death of flying bombers.
00:28:45My principal job in World War II was to escort four-engine bombers, B-17s mainland liberators,
00:28:53B-24s.
00:28:54And those poor guys, when they're attacked, about all they can do is pray.
00:29:01When we saw them coming back, it was quite heart-rendering.
00:29:07Douglas Benham, Royal Air Force, 11 plus kills.
00:29:11These flying fortresses were showing signs of very heavy damage.
00:29:18Not being able to keep up with their formation and straggling back and losing height.
00:29:24We would perhaps send two spitfires to look after each straggler while the rest of us would
00:29:30stay with the main force.
00:29:32Occasionally, bomber crews get the chance to thank their escorts in person.
00:29:37Just last week, one of my boys, speaking of all the spitfires, came up to me and said,
00:29:42Colonel, there's only one thing wrong with the spitfires.
00:29:45Well, what's that?
00:29:47And he said, they don't fly close enough for me to kiss them.
00:29:51Drawing on the bitter lessons of Schweinfurt, Allied leaders devise new strategies to protect
00:30:07the bombers.
00:30:08One is the shuttle, with a relief squadron picking up where an earlier one leaves off.
00:30:14So the big friends have different sets of little friends during the round trip.
00:30:20The other is drop tanks, holding additional fuel that allows P-47 Thunderbolts to reach
00:30:28farther into Germany.
00:30:31And when we start hitting the targets in Germany, that really hurts.
00:30:36Thunderbolt pilot Francis Gabby Gabreski, 28 plus kills.
00:30:41The P-47 was a good airplane.
00:30:45It was built to give escort.
00:30:47We had a tremendous advantage.
00:30:50The bombers had a tremendous disadvantage.
00:30:52But our advantage turned out to the bombers' advantage, because we could shoot down the
00:31:01German airplanes as they were going in to attack the bombers.
00:31:08We were about the only long-range fighter group that could take the bombers into the targets
00:31:17that they were attacking at that time.
00:31:19There were about four or five P-47 fighter groups escorting the bombers, both B-17s and B-24s.
00:31:29And they would take them to the limit of their range.
00:31:34And then we would pick the bombers up after them, escort them to the target, and then bring
00:31:40them back.
00:31:41And then P-47s would then pick them up and bring them home.
00:31:44Another hot rod.
00:31:45Colonel Francis Gabreski from Pennsylvania joined the fight.
00:31:48In the same outfit was Indiana's Major Walker McCurron.
00:31:54With greater numbers and increased range, Americans by the dozens become aces during a period of
00:32:00relentless man-to-man combat.
00:32:02Split-second reflexes determine life or death.
00:32:07This is Gabby Gabreski's gun camera film, the day he shoots down two Messerschmitts at very close
00:32:12range, barely avoiding collision.
00:32:15Oil and debris from one of the Messerschmitts splatters his plane.
00:32:21On another mission, Gabreski finds the tables turned.
00:32:26I was deep in Germany and saw a 109 go underneath me, and my fuel was running a little bit low.
00:32:35I had to get home.
00:32:36I looked at the 109.
00:32:38I let him go.
00:32:40But he didn't let me go, and he started after me.
00:32:44And just at that moment, I heard an explosion in my car.
00:32:49My rudder was shot away, my boot was torn, and my airplane lost speed.
00:32:59I, in turn, rolled the airplane over as steep as I could to get to a cloud level beneath
00:33:06me, trying to get there before the 109 could finish me off.
00:33:12I was frightened.
00:33:15That night, I didn't sleep very well, thinking of what could have happened that didn't happen.
00:33:23German fighter pilots face a dual menace.
00:33:27Guns from both the fighter escorts and the heavily armed bombers.
00:33:36Fritz Loskeit, Luftwaffe, 68 kills.
00:33:41Think about fighting the four-engine bombers.
00:33:48They had four machine guns in the tail, four machine guns on top, four machine guns on both
00:33:53sides.
00:33:54That's three times four machine guns, twelve machine guns, all firing at one fighter.
00:33:59Then you've got three neighboring aircraft, each with a dozen machine guns.
00:34:03That's 36 guns shooting at you.
00:34:05You don't see anything but trace it.
00:34:10At the beginning of 1944, American strategic air power becomes awesome.
00:34:15A new aircraft is introduced that will change the outcome of the war, the P-51 Mustang.
00:34:23We got the P-51 Mustang, which had this extraordinary performance and this enormous range.
00:34:30Eight and a half hours we used to fly in that plane.
00:34:34James Goodson, 15 kills.
00:34:37In a P-51, Goodson leads the first escorted mission over Berlin.
00:34:42It was a remarkable plane.
00:34:45And of course, being right over Berlin, I think Goering said when he saw our red-nosed Mustangs
00:34:52over Berlin, he knew that the air war was lost for Germany because we could escort the bombers.
00:34:59As American bombers and fighters carry the air war to the heart of Germany, the Luftwaffe sends
00:35:06fully two-thirds of its fighter force to stop them.
00:35:12In the skies over Germany, the stage is set for bloody conflict.
00:35:25Berlin becomes an inferno.
00:35:27Intense bombing shatters the city, while vicious dogfights rage overhead.
00:35:37Many aces will be born in these battles, and many will die.
00:35:44Jack Ilfrey, eight kills.
00:35:46We got jumped by what we estimate a 50 to 60 gaggle of German fighters.
00:35:53I had a real good shot at an ME-109, and he burst into plane.
00:36:01Right at that time, somebody screamed on my radio, said, Jack, look out.
00:36:06Somebody's right under you, trying to ram you.
00:36:09And I thought, oh no.
00:36:13And my right wing went across the cockpit of that ME-109, tearing off about four and a half to five feet of it.
00:36:21And it knocked out that gas tank for that engine and threw me into a spin.
00:36:28Now that upsets your constitution.
00:36:34I looked down and I could see the shadow of my airplane, and there was a great long trail of smoke following me.
00:36:40And so I knew something was wrong.
00:36:42And all of a sudden there was an explosion and fire started to come out through the cowling of the engine.
00:36:47And at the same time, the group leader called and said, watch it, boy, you're on fire.
00:36:52And as the last word I heard was fire as I was going over the side, and of course went over the side and bailed out.
00:36:59Even among pilots lucky enough to make it home, the daily struggle for survival takes its toll.
00:37:08At the end of a mission, whatever, I was always dead tired.
00:37:13I'd get back home and park the airplane and I'd feel like lying down on the concrete.
00:37:18It's nervous exhaustion.
00:37:21I'm sure it's tension.
00:37:25Between missions, a rare chance for young fighter pilots to relieve tension and blow off steam.
00:37:31For the Germans, there is no escape.
00:37:59The Americans didn't know what burnt out meant.
00:38:04They flew for a limited period of time, and then they'd return home.
00:38:08Whereas our pilots were constantly on duty.
00:38:11A service record of 500 to 600 sorties among those who survived was perfectly normal for us.
00:38:17But the Americans didn't have anything close to that many, not even close.
00:38:22The winter of 1944 finds Germany reeling under the relentless onslaught of Allied air attacks.
00:38:33Bomber command presses the advantage, sending armadas of a thousand bombers and more to crush the German war machine.
00:38:40The Luftwaffe's fighter arm is stretched to the limit, trying to defend the German heartland.
00:38:47Hans-Joachim Jobs, Luftwaffe, 50 kills.
00:38:52At that time in the war, there were no more German fighter aircraft stationed on the Western Front.
00:39:02They had been pulled back to Berlin due to the American daylight bombing raids to protect Berlin against enemy attacks.
00:39:09German defense increases in ferocity.
00:39:13Losses are heavy on both sides.
00:39:15Daylight raids are harrowing for the ten men trapped inside a bomber.
00:39:20And the fighter pilots feel deeply for their big friends.
00:39:23I, as a fighter pilot, seeing those bombers disappear in clouds of black flack kind of upset me,
00:39:35knowing that there was ten men on each one of those bombers.
00:39:38And here I am in a fighter.
00:39:40I can evade and get around, but they couldn't.
00:39:44They had to stay on their course and drop their bombs.
00:39:48When I saw big bombers go down, I felt terrible, because you knew there were ten men in each one of those.
00:39:56And we watched a lot of them go down.
00:39:59By the spring of 1944, the Allies achieve air supremacy.
00:40:06Bombers and fighters in ever-increasing numbers roam over Germany, driving the Luftwaffe to the ground.
00:40:12The Americans would send out as many as a hundred or a hundred and twenty escorts to protect the four-engine bombers.
00:40:22And we had, at most, twenty or thirty.
00:40:25Very seldom were we equally matched.
00:40:27Usually, they had numerical superiority.
00:40:30And their escort pilots were mainly excellent.
00:40:33And that's air supremacy.
00:40:38So that there's just no way that those poor bastards could continue to fight.
00:40:44There's just no way.
00:40:46They still had good pilots.
00:40:48They were still producing as many airplanes as they had been, but they were running out of pilots.
00:40:55Gunther Rau, Luftwaffe, 275 kills.
00:41:04My last mission encountering the enemy was on May 12, 1944.
00:41:09I was engaged with a large American fighter, a Thunderbolt.
00:41:13I was successful at shooting it down.
00:41:16Then I was chased from a height of eight thousand meters.
00:41:24My plane was totally shot up.
00:41:26My thumb was shot off.
00:41:28And I had to get out.
00:41:29This was my last encounter.
00:41:34General Adolf Galland, Luftwaffe, one hundred four kills.
00:41:39There came a time when Goering was expressing himself about the alleged lack of bravery of German fighter pilots.
00:41:50He cursed the fighter pilots and claimed that they didn't deserve their decorations.
00:42:00So I was very angry.
00:42:02I tore my decoration from my collar and banged it on the table.
00:42:06By late spring 1944, the Luftwaffe is all but destroyed.
00:42:11The major industrial centers of Germany's heartland lie in ruins.
00:42:18The worst experience I had was the bombing of my wife's hometown, Magdeburg.
00:42:23I was flying above and knew that my family was down there.
00:42:28Magdeburg was a burning inferno.
00:42:30It was a horrible experience.
00:42:36I saw the destruction of German cities and realized that with this much devastation on the ground,
00:42:48then Germany could never prevail and win the war.
00:42:51I realized that we were fighting only to postpone the end of the war.
00:42:55But a victory was now unthinkable.
00:42:58Air supremacy is won at heavy cost.
00:43:1740,000 Allied airmen die in combat over Europe.
00:43:21The big friends and their long-range little friends will continue their furious assault.
00:43:29Until Hitler's once feared and mighty Third Reich becomes a wasteland.
00:43:34And the last time they were here, they were coming to the wasteland.
00:43:35The most recent years, they were now in the wasteland.
00:43:37The most recent years, they were coming to the wasteland.
00:44:38The Americans may have laughed at our technology.
00:44:46They could control their planes from ships.
00:44:48We relied on human eyesight, luck, and miracles.
00:44:53From 1940 through 1945, the relentless quest for excellence in aircraft performance and equipment is carried out by both sides at an astonishing pace.
00:45:02When they put Rolls-Royce engines in the P-51, it made it into an unbeatable long-range fighter.
00:45:09If we had 200 or 250 jet fighters, we could have stopped the American daylight raids.
00:45:17World War II.
00:45:46Spectacular duels are fought in hostile skies.
00:45:49The battle is for control of the air.
00:45:51Another war, an invisible war, is fought behind locked doors of top-secret rooms.
00:45:57Designers and technicians are in a frantic race to develop new equipment to win the edge.
00:46:02Only 30-odd years since man first experienced flight, the fighter plane has become one of the deadliest weapons in the history of combat.
00:46:11It will soon be deadlier still.
00:46:12In the Pacific, reeling from the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, America quickly realizes that its fighters are no match for Japan's light, fast Zeros.
00:46:25The U.S.
00:46:26The U.S. faces a new kind of war, fought from moving aircraft carriers.
00:46:31It will require new techniques and new technologies.
00:46:33The only fighter available to the American pilots in the Pacific in any quantity is the stubby Grumman F-4F Wildcat.
00:46:43Navy pilot Butch Voris flies a Wildcat from the USS Enterprise.
00:46:46It was a little mid-wing, looked like an elongated barrel.
00:46:51It had .50 caliber machine guns.
00:46:55It was built almost like an iron machine.
00:46:59I think that's why Grumman got the name the Grumman Ironworks.
00:47:02They built their machines that were rugged, they were tough.
00:47:05They could take the stress of carrier work, and they could take a real pounding or battle damage in the air and still survive.
00:47:13The Wildcat can kill, but it is no aerobatic match for the lighter, tight-turning Japanese Zero.
00:47:21The Zero was very easy to control.
00:47:24It didn't accelerate, well, because of its small engine, but it was very maneuverable, and it had 20-millimeter cannons.
00:47:31This was an advantage.
00:47:33The Zero had weak points, though.
00:47:35They had no defensive armor, and when they were hit, they easily caught fire.
00:47:39For all its limitations, the Wildcat is a heavily armored, tough bird to down.
00:47:46Anyone that flies airplanes knows that the lighter one can maneuver faster than the heavier one.
00:47:53Now, we had them beaten on firepower and armor, and they had us beaten on speed and maneuverability.
00:48:01If you got tangled up with a Zero at slow speed, especially a slow climb, they were like a hummingbird.
00:48:08They'd whip around and get on your tail, and you'd buy their lunch.
00:48:13Captain Ken Walsh is so taken with the Zero's grace that he nearly forgets that it's the enemy.
00:48:19A Zero came right down in front of me, and for a split second, I couldn't but marvel at the beautiful configuration.
00:48:27The first time I ever saw a Zero that close up, and the color was a sort of a tan gold color.
00:48:33It was clean and wax, and...
00:48:36But this was a kill, and I lined up my gun sight on him within range, and he went down in flames.
00:48:46During an attack in 1942 on Dutch Harbor, Alaska, a Zero is forced down intact.
00:48:51The Americans caught one Zero fighter in Dutch Harbor.
00:48:58They brought it back and studied it.
00:49:00I think then the Americans realized that the armor was very weak.
00:49:04They often shot from the front.
00:49:06When we went behind them, they dove and kept some distance, then attacked from the front.
00:49:11We remodeled the Zero, but we had no real defense against the American fighters, and that was fatal.
00:49:17Hit and run is the American strategy.
00:49:23Don't dogfight with the nimble Zero.
00:49:28Summer 1942.
00:49:30A new American fighter is operational.
00:49:32The twin-engined, supercharged Lockheed P-38 is the first U.S. fighter to exceed 400 miles per hour in level flight.
00:49:39The American fighter that surprised me the most was the P-38.
00:49:46It was too fast for us.
00:49:48When it attacked from above, I flew away.
00:49:50It kept turning, and it attacked again.
00:49:53I did not expect the P-38 to be able to move so fast.
00:49:56The P-38 is joined by the Vought F-4U Corsair, nicknamed Hosenose by the Americans, whistling death by the Japanese.
00:50:07With this fighter, with that engine, we could break 400 miles an hour in straight and level flight.
00:50:13Beginning February 1943, we were deployed with the Corsair to take the offensive.
00:50:20This is where the tide turned.
00:50:21Another deadly fighter, the F-6F Hellcat, joins the U.S. arsenal.
00:50:27Powerful, fast, long-ranged, a match for the Agile Zero in a go-for-broke shootout.
00:50:35The F-6F Hellcats appeared in 1943.
00:50:40I felt they were better than our Zeroes.
00:50:42When we used to attack the older F-4s, they flew away.
00:50:46They avoided the Zeroes, but the Hellcats were so good that even if they were at a disadvantage, they still attacked us.
00:50:53Now, the F-6F Hellcat was a tremendous fighting machine.
00:51:00It had six .50 calibers.
00:51:02It was responsible, I believe the number was 75 or 76 percent of all aircraft shot down in the Pacific during World War II.
00:51:15So it was the mainstay of our fighter machine.
00:51:21U.S. factories turn out swarms of new planes.
00:51:24New pilots wait to fly them in combat.
00:51:27In contrast, continual bombing depletes Japan's capability in the air.
00:51:32Shortages of raw materials and fuel plague efforts to reinforce beleaguered island garrisons.
00:51:37During the battles in the South Pacific, many skillful pilots died.
00:51:45I think around that time, Japan started becoming inferior to the enemy.
00:51:49And the shortage of aircraft on the Japanese side accelerated the change in the tide.
00:51:55Japanese aces lead attack after attack, and they are the first to die.
00:51:59Novice pilots rushed into battle are no match for American veterans.
00:52:03Desperate young pilots channel frustrated courage into suicidal missions.
00:52:09An ancient Japanese tradition is reborn.
00:52:12The kamikaze, or divine wind, is the phrase for the fighter who trades death for a flare of glory.
00:52:22The war in the Pacific will go on, but for Japan, it is a struggle without hope.
00:52:27The U.S. wins the war of technology as her production overwhelms Japanese resistance.
00:52:33In Europe, the struggle for air supremacy begins in 1940 over Great Britain.
00:52:44German technology has perfected the sleek, powerful ME-109,
00:52:49a design proven in the skies over Spain, Poland, and France.
00:52:56Friedrich Oblisser, Luftwaffe, will score 127 kills in his ME-109.
00:53:02For me, as a fighter pilot, the ME-109 was the plane.
00:53:10I flew many versions of it.
00:53:12We used this plane a great deal, and those that did fly it considered it to be the best plane of its kind.
00:53:20Britain's Royal Air Force, vastly outnumbered, pins its slim hope on a fighter evolved from a racing seaplane
00:53:26and developed, despite an obstinate bureaucracy, the Vickers' supermarine Spitfire.
00:53:32The Spitfire has a classically beautiful shape, and everybody wanted to fly Spitfires in 1940.
00:53:39They looked marvelous.
00:53:40The Spitfire was a few miles now faster than the 109.
00:53:43The RAF's other mainstay is the hurricane, tough, dependable, and deadly.
00:53:51But it is the Spitfire that gives the Luftwaffe its worst headache, matching the performance of the 109.
00:53:58Though slightly faster, the Spitfire's Rolls-Royce Merlin engine is not fuel-injected,
00:54:03like the Daimler-Benz-engined ME-109.
00:54:06This technical edge gives the Germans an early advantage in combat,
00:54:10where gravity forces, commonly known as G-forces, cut off the flow of fuel to a normally carbureted engine.
00:54:17For RAF pilots, that tiny edge is the difference between life and death.
00:54:21When we started the war, if you got behind a 109, it's the best maneuver to get away from you.
00:54:33Shove the stick forward and do that.
00:54:36Whereas we had a rollover.
00:54:38We couldn't take negative G in our Rolls engines.
00:54:42The solution, a plate over the Merlin's carburetor to keep the fuel flow constant.
00:54:47America provides the RAF with 100-octane aviation fuel.
00:54:53By comparison, the Germans must supplement their meager supplies with synthetic fuels that limit engine performance.
00:55:00In spite of this, German research again tips the balance.
00:55:04The Focke-Wulf 190, with a 1,700-horsepower engine built by BMW, can outperform the Spitfire.
00:55:11I remember when I first ran into a Focke-Wulf.
00:55:15I was jolly lucky to get home.
00:55:17Harry Broadhurst reports his encounter with a new Luftwaffe fighter.
00:55:21Eyebrows are raised.
00:55:23Command doesn't believe his story about a German fighter that can outperform the Spitfire.
00:55:28Unfortunately, one of the chaps flying a Focke-Wulf landed in England.
00:55:33We got a complete Focke-Wulf.
00:55:35We were able to test it.
00:55:37The Focke-Wulf challenge is met when Rolls-Royce introduces superchargers
00:55:42that make Merlin engines the equal of German technology.
00:55:45The Spitfire's combat ceiling is doubled from 15,000 to 29,000 feet.
00:55:50As America enters the air war over Europe, U.S. pilots are provided with the P-38,
00:55:57already proven in the Pacific and North Africa.
00:56:00It has the firepower and performance to take on the Luftwaffe, but its range is limited.
00:56:05Early 1943 sees the arrival of the P-47 Thunderbolt, called the Jug by her pilots.
00:56:13Massive, powerful, and well-armed, this fighter can reach the frontiers of the Reich.
00:56:18The Thunderbolts prove their worth.
00:56:29However, they still cannot provide bomber escort deep inside Germany.
00:56:34A long-range fighter must be found quickly.
00:56:37American designers produce the P-51 Mustang, powered by the British Merlin engine.
00:56:42It is an incredible fighting machine.
00:56:47Equipped with drop tanks, the P-51 has a remarkable duration in the air of eight hours.
00:56:53In March 1944, the first Mustangs appear over Berlin.
00:56:59Allied bombers now have the protection they need.
00:57:01I had a lot of respect for the Mustang.
00:57:10Its performance, armament, and equipment were superior to ours.
00:57:14They had better sighting equipment.
00:57:17Their sights could automatically compensate for our movements.
00:57:20In high-speed dives, they'd fly through our formation
00:57:23and still be able to pull out at low altitude,
00:57:26thanks to their high-performance engines.
00:57:28We really had to look out for those Mustangs.
00:57:31They had the best skulls against us.
00:57:33If I remember correctly, one of the best American pilots scored 20 kills with the Mustang he flew.
00:57:41It is the Mustang with its combination of firepower, speed, and range
00:57:45that assures Allied domination of the skies over Europe.
00:57:49Mustangs alone will account for almost 5,000 combat kills.
00:57:57Technology and production breakthroughs unite.
00:58:00The Allies grow more powerful.
00:58:02The Luftwaffe learns that courage and skill are not enough
00:58:05to stem the massive Allied buildup.
00:58:11Germany will make one last attempt to win the Battle of the Blueprint.
00:58:15A revolutionary new fighter is on the drawing board,
00:58:17the ME-262, the first combat jet.
00:58:21Long-range Mustang fighters and Allied bombers by the thousands rain destruction on Germany.
00:58:39The Luftwaffe is ordered to consolidate its remaining fighters to defend the fatherland,
00:58:43but the raids cannot be stopped.
00:58:45We, as pilots, were experiencing great gloom.
00:58:54We had only one thought.
00:58:56When will we get a better fighter so we can stop the bombers?
00:59:00The fact of the matter was that the only way to counteract the absolute superiority
00:59:09in sheer numbers that the Allies possessed was a technical superiority.
00:59:13The Germans turn to a new technology, the jet fighter.
00:59:20Professor Willie Messerschmidt's top-secret project, the ME-262,
00:59:24a twin-engine turbojet fighter whose performance will eclipse anything in the sky.
00:59:29Incredibly, the brilliant design has been on the drawing board for four years
00:59:32before it is seen as urgent.
00:59:39By May 1943, I was able to fly the first jet fighter.
00:59:45This was a prototype.
00:59:46This was something completely new for me,
00:59:49and it was a really grandiose experience.
00:59:51This was the beginning of a completely new age,
00:59:54a new generation of aircraft and a new technology.
00:59:57The ME-262, the fastest plane yet flown by man,
01:00:07is presented to Adolf Hitler.
01:00:09Germany will have an unbeatable fighter,
01:00:11but Hitler issues an astonishing order.
01:00:14I was present in 1944, before the invasion,
01:00:23when Hitler was shown the Messerschmidt 262 at Innsbruck in East Prussia.
01:00:28It was very impressive,
01:00:30achieving about 510 miles per hour in level flight.
01:00:34Then Hitler asked Messerschmidt,
01:00:36can this plane carry bombs?
01:00:38He answered, yes, mein Fuhrer, a 500-pound bomb.
01:00:42Good, Hitler said.
01:00:43Then this is the Blitzbomber,
01:00:45with which I will beat back the invasion.
01:00:47Then a struggle began to try to use this aircraft as a fighter,
01:00:51where it had enormous potential,
01:00:54instead of a bomber, for which it wasn't at all suited.
01:00:57Hitler's decision to limit the use of the new jet
01:01:01is one of the costliest in the history of war.
01:01:04The ME-262 fails as a bomber.
01:01:07In the last desperate months of the Third Reich,
01:01:09Hitler agrees to use the plane as a fighter.
01:01:12Galland is ordered to create an elite interceptor squadron.
01:01:15He turns to Johannes Steinhoff.
01:01:17Galland turned to me and asked,
01:01:24would you like to form a jet fighter squadron?
01:01:27Tomorrow morning, then.
01:01:29I went to Brandenburg and formed the squadron.
01:01:32We got the planes from Bavaria and assembled them,
01:01:35and we began to fly them.
01:01:37This was flying in a new dimension.
01:01:39It was fabulous.
01:01:43Walter Krupinski is one of the aces chosen by Steinhoff
01:01:47to fly the jets in combat.
01:01:53Colonel Steinhoff stood on the wing and said to me,
01:01:56she flies just like any other bird,
01:01:59except it takes forever until you're up to speed,
01:02:02and you need just as long to lose speed when you want to land.
01:02:05That was all the instruction I had.
01:02:08I taxied over to the runway and took off.
01:02:11You had the feeling that the gods were shoving you skywards.
01:02:15Germany's first jet fighter squadron is airborne.
01:02:19Allied pilots are in for a shock.
01:02:20And this jet came down through our formation,
01:02:26and that's the first jet I'd ever seen in my life.
01:02:30I flew right at them and wanted to shoot,
01:02:32but our closure rate was too high.
01:02:35I flew right through the formation without firing.
01:02:38I saw this thing go by.
01:02:39It just went dashing through the formation.
01:02:43Didn't even fire its guns.
01:02:45We couldn't do any combat with them
01:02:49because they were here and gone.
01:02:52The high rate of closing speed was an advantage,
01:02:56but it was also a disadvantage
01:02:58because you closed on the formation so quickly
01:03:00that you only had a couple of seconds
01:03:03in which you were able to fire.
01:03:11The plane was superbly armed.
01:03:14By the end of the war,
01:03:15we had 12 rockets on each wing.
01:03:17You had to fly close to the bomber
01:03:19so that at 1,000 meters,
01:03:21you were sure that the 24 rockets
01:03:23would cover the entire length of the bomber.
01:03:26When the rockets were fired,
01:03:28the bomber was destroyed.
01:03:34Although jets begin to take their toll of Allied bombers,
01:03:37only about 20 or 30 of the 1,400 jets produced
01:03:40are operational at any one time.
01:03:43Severe fuel shortages keep many of them grounded.
01:03:46Allied fighter pilots must hunt the nests of the new menace.
01:03:52When the jets and rocket planes turned up,
01:03:57they went 500 or more miles an hour,
01:04:00we realized the only way we could catch them
01:04:03was on the ground.
01:04:04From takeoff,
01:04:11it took the 262 almost five minutes to reach battle speed.
01:04:16American fighters would keep a lookout over the airfields
01:04:19and take advantage of this vulnerable moment
01:04:21when they knew they could get us.
01:04:22We found an airfield with two jets on it,
01:04:32and I went down to take them out.
01:04:35We were very worried
01:04:36because we thought they could produce these planes very fast,
01:04:40and there was no way we escorting fighters could catch them.
01:04:45The astonishing new technology,
01:04:48though a serious threat to the Allies,
01:04:50is a classic case of too little, too late.
01:04:53Even as German resistance collapses,
01:04:55General Galan's squadron fights to the end.
01:04:58These were selected pilots,
01:05:04and they fought to the last day
01:05:06until we destroyed our own planes,
01:05:09the Messerschmitt 262s.
01:05:11We blew them up in front of the American tanks.
01:05:14We didn't do this to win the war
01:05:16or to gain better conditions for peace
01:05:18or negotiate positions.
01:05:20No, we fought because we did have a superior weapon.
01:05:24Yes, we were faced with greater numbers,
01:05:26but we could still hold our own.
01:05:28We could not surrender before the German people
01:05:31while we still had these superior planes.
01:05:34This is the reason why this unit perished in flames.
01:05:40Out of the carnage of war,
01:05:42a new technology is given life.
01:05:44Jet aviation takes flight across a new horizon,
01:05:48and other horizons wait to be conquered.
01:05:50To fly higher,
01:05:53faster,
01:05:54farther is the goal.
01:05:56The prize,
01:05:57new means to challenge the limits of human endeavor.
01:06:00will devour.
01:06:00loved by the南 Man
01:08:01All very, very secret, you know, we were going overseas.
01:08:06Despite careful security measures, American and British pilots sense that something big is in the wind.
01:08:12David Cox, RAF.
01:08:14I remember they were saying, right, the rumor is West Africa, we're going to invade Casablanca and round there.
01:08:21A massive American force, supported by British naval and air power, storms ashore at Casablanca, Oran and Algiers.
01:08:31The Allies gain a quick beachhead, but they face immediate challenge from the veteran Luftwaffe and a hardened Africa Corps, commanded by General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox.
01:08:42The action is nonstop and lethal.
01:08:50Jerry Collingsworth, United States Army Air Force, finds himself in a Western-style shootout over the desert.
01:09:11His motive is revenge.
01:09:13I was not shooting with the express purpose of killing anyone.
01:09:20I was shooting for the express purpose of shooting that airplane down.
01:09:23If he got killed in the process, that's what the game was about.
01:09:26Except this one time, and this day I was after the man, because by sheer luck, this Focke-Wulf 190 failed to get me, and he got my wingman, who was a close friend.
01:09:40We were flying low level in bad weather in Tunisia.
01:09:49I remember thinking, friends of me aren't about to outturn this Spitfire, because I knew he couldn't.
01:09:56So I rocked over to keep him in sight.
01:10:00I rocked this way, because we were in this kind of a turn.
01:10:02I rocked this way, and I see him explode.
01:10:08And you might say the adrenaline was flowing pretty good.
01:10:12Jack Ilfrey, one of America's first World War II aces, scores a kill over the desert.
01:10:17The three men in the ME-110 that I shot down jumped out and started running.
01:10:31And I thought to myself, to God knows where out here.
01:10:33It was just real desert-y, you know.
01:10:36So just as a lark and frivolous or devilish, whatever, I circled around, and I set that ME-110 on fire.
01:10:44And then I headed toward that crew.
01:10:47They were running one behind the other.
01:10:50And I gave them a few short bursts, just off to the side.
01:10:54I wasn't about to shoot them.
01:10:56They fell down, and they raised their fists at me, and I just got the biggest kick out of that in the world.
01:11:02Made me laugh.
01:11:03Yeah.
01:11:04For fighter pilots, the desert war is relentless.
01:11:12Smoldering sand and scorpions on the ground, death in the air.
01:11:16One of the things that we found a great strain was not only the living conditions.
01:11:26We all lived in one tent, 20 of us, with our sort of feet to the middle.
01:11:32But the Luftwaffe used to send a couple of 88s, and they used to go round and round the airfield and drop one bomb about every call of an hour.
01:11:41Only a small one, but still, it was a bomb.
01:11:44And obviously, he didn't get any sleep.
01:11:46It made us all very irritable, and obviously, you know, for morale, it didn't do much good.
01:11:51General Rommel's Afrika Korps is squeezed by the British from the east and the Americans from the west.
01:12:00The Desert Fox begs Berlin for supplies and reinforcements.
01:12:07But his army is strangled by an uncanny Allied talent for finding top-secret German convoys.
01:12:14Harry Broadhurst, RAF.
01:12:16Oh, they were in a mess.
01:12:20We were doing to them in the desert what they'd done to us in France.
01:12:25We had Ultra, which we helped us to sink their ships with petrol and oil and ammunition and so on.
01:12:35So they were being pretty hard-pressed.
01:12:40Ultra, the war's best-kept secret.
01:12:42The British have broken the German code.
01:12:44Harry Broadhurst is one of the few with access to ultra-alerts.
01:12:49He reads Rommel's dispatches and knows the route of German air transports.
01:12:55Just before the end of the war in Africa, they were flying the stuff in
01:13:00and signalling the time of take-off and where they were taking off from to their headquarters in North Africa.
01:13:13This started to come into me and it didn't take me long to work that one out.
01:13:18And we absolutely slaughtered them.
01:13:20March 1943.
01:13:27Short on supplies and ammunition, the once-elite Africa Corps crumbles under Allied attack.
01:13:36Hugh Cocky Dundas, British Desert Air Force.
01:13:39I was cruising around in my jeep just looking about and I came across a great amphitheater in the ground somewhere outside Tunis.
01:13:51And there must have been 15 or 20,000 German soldiers there who were assembled being organised into imprisonment of war things.
01:14:03And I'd always remember just sitting there in my jeep and looking down and seeing these people and thinking,
01:14:08well, my God, that's something which I didn't know that I'd ever see.
01:14:13Very different-looking lot from what one envisaged German soldiers as being
01:14:20when they were taking part in the Blitzkrieg in spring 1940, you know.
01:14:23By May, the Luftwaffe is withdrawn.
01:14:33Rommel leaves Africa and returns home to face Hitler's rage.
01:14:38The Afrika Korps surrenders.
01:14:50With North Africa won, the Allies looked north.
01:14:53toward Sicily, stepping stone to Fortress Europe.
01:15:10July 1943.
01:15:12The U.S. 7th Army, under old blood and guts, General George Patton,
01:15:23and the British 8th, under Field Marshal Bernard Monty Montgomery, overrun Sicily.
01:15:29We were on the doorstep of Europe again, and the next moment we were in.
01:15:34That was, there was real elation about that.
01:15:37One felt good about that.
01:15:38A month later, General Dwight D. Eisenhower launches the first Allied invasion of mainland Europe
01:15:49at Salerno, Italy.
01:15:50September 1943.
01:15:56The Allies are back on European soil.
01:16:01Jerry Collinsworth scores a kill and watches the frantic pilot try to escape a flaming plane.
01:16:06He jettisoned his canopy.
01:16:10Now, a Focke-Wulf canopy just slides directly back, and it missed me by about 30 feet.
01:16:17So, when he did that, I figured he was going to bail out, and I stopped shooting.
01:16:21And he did.
01:16:22He bailed out.
01:16:23And as I went by him, I was really surprised to see his chute harness come loose from him.
01:16:31And so his chute went one way, his airplane went one way, and he went another way.
01:16:36That's what the business was about.
01:16:47From the air, the shattered town of Casino was little more than a name on a map.
01:16:51After six months of savage battle for this key bastion on the road to Rome.
01:16:59Churchill describes Italy as the soft underbelly of Europe.
01:17:03In fact, the battle for the Italian boot will prove one of the war's bloodiest.
01:17:08Allied fighters fly treacherous ground support missions against deadly German AK-AK fire.
01:17:13The ground attack work, it became something of a fascination, as a matter of fact.
01:17:25The army had a very, very tough job in Italy, because the terrain, as you know, is far from easy.
01:17:32And the Germans were fighting every inch of the way.
01:17:43Mike Russo, United States Army Air Force, is one of two survivors of a group of 47 pilots who trained together.
01:17:50One time I was on an observation mission, and I saw a troop of Germans marching down the street in north of Rome.
01:18:00And I'm sure they saw me, and I saw them, but I didn't do anything about it, and they kept on marching.
01:18:06And then I turned over on my back like I was going to dive bomb, and I dive bombed toward the road in the directions they were coming.
01:18:12And I just flew down the top of the street, so they didn't see me coming.
01:18:15And as soon as I saw them, I strafed the road and killed some 300 men.
01:18:23I got back, and they gave me the title of a killer.
01:18:28American heavy bombers fly from North Africa and over Italy to attack the oil fields in Ploesti, Romania, a crucial source of Luftwaffe fuel.
01:18:42Eric Hartman will become the war's top fighter ace, with an incredible 352 confirmed kills.
01:18:57In Romania, we defended an oil area.
01:19:00The Americans would come every day exactly at 11 o'clock, like a train.
01:19:05They had 1,000 bombers and 500 fighters.
01:19:09We fought against them.
01:19:10There were four of us.
01:19:11We were completely overwhelmed.
01:19:24They flew out of North Africa.
01:19:27They flew over Naples, Rome, Milan.
01:19:31When you wanted to attack the flying fortress, the best tactic was to attack them from behind, at a higher speed,
01:19:37rather than be exposed to the firepower of 30 to 40 machine guns.
01:19:43Because they flew in formation, it was like flying through a snowstorm of projectiles.
01:19:49And you would close your eyes.
01:19:51Our younger pilots could survive on the average of only two such attacks, and then they were dead.
01:19:57The bombs from these giants are a drumbeat, signaling the death of the Third Reich.
01:20:17June 4, 1944, Rome is liberated.
01:20:32The countdown to D-Day, the invasion of France, has already begun.
01:20:39June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord.
01:20:58D-Day.
01:20:59D-Day.
01:21:00The assault on Hitler's fortress, Europe, begins.
01:21:02An Allied force of 3 million men, 12,000 planes, and more than 6,000 ships will test Hitler's vaunted wall of steel and fire.
01:21:13People of Western Europe, a landing was made this morning on the coast of France by troops of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
01:21:24This landing is part of the concerted United Nations plan for the liberation of Europe.
01:21:30Pilots flying over the vast invasion force see a sight they will never forget,
01:21:34an astonishing armada stretching from horizon to horizon.
01:21:39Geoffrey Page, Royal Air Force.
01:21:42On the morning of D-Day, at first light, what was called HR, I was leading my squadron of Spitfires,
01:21:50and our particular mission was to fly a beach cover over the American beaches of Omaha and Utah.
01:21:59I must say that to have been there at HR on D-Day was the most fantastic experience,
01:22:05seeing all these ships and these troops going ashore on the beaches.
01:22:12It had a particular significance for me because I had flown at the time of Dunkirk
01:22:16and watched the remnants of the British Army being taken off by rescue ships.
01:22:24So to see them going back and American allies and Canadians, everybody else, it was a great thrill.
01:22:31It was the most spectacular thing I have ever seen.
01:22:35The thousands and thousands of boats converging in prongs, and we were sitting there as top cover for the bombers
01:22:44that had been in a few minutes earlier to do everything they could before the ground troops landed.
01:22:51Hair trigger tension is the mood over the Normandy beachhead.
01:23:01Andrew McKenzie, RAF.
01:23:04The whole Navy, who was protecting the beaches, started shooting at us.
01:23:09And at the time, Lloyd Chadburn was leading our squadron, one of our famous Canadian wing commanders,
01:23:18and he called to them over the radio and said,
01:23:22you know, Christ, chaps, it's the Spitfires from England to cover the beaches.
01:23:27Stop firing.
01:23:29And they didn't stop.
01:23:30I guess they were so, uh, maybe a little bit trigger happy that they were shooting at their own airplanes.
01:23:39But that happens in a war, you know, and people make mistakes.
01:23:43James Goodson, one of seven Americans who fought in the Battle of Britain,
01:23:47flies with the U.S. Fourth Fighter Group.
01:23:50We had to eliminate the Luftwaffe when the troops were coming in, which we did.
01:23:55Only two Luftwaffe planes got through to the beachhead.
01:24:00Walter Kropinski, Luftwaffe, sees his squadron decimated.
01:24:07My strongest memory is when your D-Day started in France.
01:24:12We moved from Germany to France,
01:24:14and we had just filled up the whole group with aircraft and pilots.
01:24:18So I flew out with 68 aircraft and came back one month later exactly with no aircraft and two pilots.
01:24:30One of them was myself.
01:24:36When you're the fighter pilot and you see a target,
01:24:40be it an enemy fighter or an enemy bomber,
01:24:43only one thought gets through your mind, and that is to attack him.
01:24:47Never, never, never do you think of, you know, go home and fly another day.
01:24:57So, um, hunting is a great game.
01:25:01The beachhead secured.
01:25:14Allied fighters probed the sky over France, seeking the enemy.
01:25:19Peter Brothers, RAF.
01:25:21The opposition, funnily, was awfully disappointing.
01:25:28One felt rather sorry.
01:25:29Um, I got tangled up with some 190s,
01:25:33and the chap I shot down obviously didn't know the first thing about it.
01:25:38He was just gently turning from left to right,
01:25:41as though he was peering over his left shoulder and right shoulder,
01:25:44wondering what to do.
01:25:45It was rather sad.
01:25:50I wondered whether he was on his first sortie or one.
01:25:54Well, we'd allowed for the Luftwaffe being there.
01:25:58Uh, but they weren't.
01:25:59And they were stretched to hell, and we had air superiority.
01:26:02But nevertheless, we expected they would oppose the invasion,
01:26:06particularly on the beaches.
01:26:09But they didn't.
01:26:11Adolf Galland, general of the Luftwaffe fighter pilots,
01:26:14witnesses the methodical destruction of the fighter forces he helped create.
01:26:20Where was the Luftwaffe?
01:26:22Where was the Luftwaffe?
01:26:24It cannot be excused by stating that the pilots were cowards,
01:26:28that they were afraid.
01:26:29This was claimed later on by Goering and the leadership,
01:26:33and Hitler as well.
01:26:34The Luftwaffe overstretched itself.
01:26:37The Luftwaffe overextended, overtaxed itself.
01:26:40For this reason, the Luftwaffe could no longer be present in many areas.
01:26:46As soon as a German plane appeared in an airfield,
01:26:48immediately there was an allied fighter group on top of it.
01:26:52All our airports were bombed.
01:26:55All few tanks destroyed.
01:26:57Our defense industry capability was destroyed.
01:26:59By the time of the invasion, we were completely bled white.
01:27:07We were simply swept from the skies.
01:27:15Fortress Europe was effectively without a roof over its head.
01:27:19August 25th, 1944.
01:27:37Allied forces reached the outskirts of Paris.
01:27:40The honor of liberating the City of Light is left to the Free French Troops.
01:27:51General Charles de Gaulle leads a victory parade along the Champs-Élysées.
01:28:04Elation of victory soon gives way to grim reality.
01:28:07Their homeland now in peril.
01:28:09The Germans fight with renewed determination.
01:28:15Allied armies aim their thrust at the Rhine,
01:28:18gateway to the heart of the Reich.
01:28:39The ancient
01:28:59For this fight against the U.S.