Flying Fortresses through the lens of Luftwaffe gun cameras
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
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Compilation of various USAAF Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers under attack by the Luftwaffe from 1943-1945. Some known historical context:
0:18 - B-17F 42-29859 "The Annihilator" shot down on May 14th 1943 over Belgium. Waist gunner Leroy Donaldson and Ball turret gunner Albert Jensen KIA, rest of the crew captured.
0:36 - Probably B-17G 42-97502 of the 527th Bomb Squadron shot down by Werner Gerth flying a Fw 190 A-8 on May 13th 1944 . 6 of the crew were KIA.
00:59 - B-17G 42-97571 of the 457th Bomb Group targeted by Siegfried Schubert of Jagdgeschwader 400 flying a Me 163 on September 11th 1944. 5 of the crew were KIA.
1:05 - B-17G 42-102609 again attacked by Schubert in a Me 163 on August 16th 1944, in this case the bomber was able to make it back to base although Ball turret gunner Sergeant Donald E. Gaugh and Waist gunner Leroy B. Marsh were KIA
1:21 Probably B-17G 42-37866 (2 of the crew KIA) and B-17G 42-31144 (9 of the crew KIA) of the 708th Bomb Squadron shot down by Werner Gerth flying a Fw 190 A-6 on 29th April 1944.
1:55 B-17G of the 447th Bomb Group shot down by Willi Maximowitz flying a Fw 190 A-7 on 29th April 1944.
1:36 B-17 shot down by Oberleutnant Horst Haase in a JG3 Fw 190 A-8 July 18th 1944 
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My uncle was a B-17 tail gunner. When he got home he kissed the ground and swore he'd never fly again. He didn't fly again for over 50 years until his son's wedding.
Man... tail gunner, mostly the first too shoot and die...no wonder he swore never fly again.
@@werewolfx51 He never talked about it to me so I have no idea what he went through. But judging from these interviews it must've been hell, although you'd never know it from his personality, he was very happy and friendly.
Same my dad's best friend was a bombadier on B24, he never flew after the war.
Wait a minute. Just how old was his son when he got married? For 50 years? Either he had a son in late middle age or his son got married quite late.🤔 Assuming your uncle was in his 20s during WW2 he was in his 70s 50 years later.
@@florinivan6907 He was 21 when war ended and 41 when son was born.
Every time I've ever watched the short sequence included here at 2:34 I've found it particularly sobering. There is no return fire coming from either the tail or ball turret gun positions and the ball turret's guns are pointing downwards with no movement. To my mind, this must surely indicate that those two gunners are already incapacitated and that the aeroplane is therefore completely defenceless to attack from the rear. What a terrifying position to be in!
Usually when the ball turret guns were pointed straight down, he was out of the ball and in the fuselage somewhere. Not 100% sure what’s happening with those men in that clip, but it wasn’t fun, that’s a fact…
Or they ran for “cover” if there was such a thing in those tin cans.
the pilot in that clip was also incredible. accurate shots into both the left engines to cripple the plane.
MDog, I agree. Or we can hope that the decision to bail out has been made, & the crew has mustered in the middle of the plane to jump through the bomb bay…pilots holding straight an level.
This is Luftwaffe footage from B-17 test trials, only the pilot was in the aircraft.
Being at the receiving end of a 30mm armor piercing cannon round during those missions must've been a horrible experience for those twenty something young men who manned the tail, waist and ball turrets. Torn to pieces beyond recognition by those explosive rounds is something I cannot fathom. Ground crew used to hose out what was left of those poor boys at the airfields back in East Anglia. Great generation indeed.
Cool story bro
4 rounds is all it took from the 30mm
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly 'til my wet fur froze,
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters,
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
'Death of a Ball Turret Gunner' by Randall Jarrell
Now we have tik tokers that would loot amd protest instead of fighting for their country
@@kingssuck06 saddening isnt it
Terrifying for both the bomber crews and fighter pilots.
guarantee they hated those bombers!
Plus the people in the cities below which the Americans are dropping bombs on
@@frez777 they certainly did not appreciate the hundreds of thousands of dead Germans killed by American bombs
@@frez777 You're not wrong mate. Very tough for all concerned.
@@randbarrett8706 finally someone knows the truth about the allies
Lets not forget that those bombers were dropping incendiary bombs on civilians.... War is such a nasty thing. Both young airmen and scorched civilians down paid so horribly......
Pro nazi
Let's not forget that nearly every Air Force was doing that very same thing. Including the Nazis. They were also sending buzz bombs into civilian areas for the terror of it just for the fun of it.
@FJoe Biden The bankers in NYC? FDR and his fellow communists?
@FJoe Biden FDR and his buddy Joe.
@@minnesotamarine9861 BS all that happened after the good old brits and americans targeted German cities that's why they call them revenge weapons. Read some real history.
German's pilots were doing their job. They were defending their homes, families. We can't blame them. We can only blame politicians.
Where were these brave defenders when they bombed civilian targets over Britain, that's right, they were the bombers. I have no sympathy for such vermins, modern Europe is weak because what these barbarians did, the fact that Germany still lives is the most unjustified.
I can't believe how close the attacking fighter gets
Apparently it was incredibly tough to fight over long distances with machine guns so they would close in to 100 meters and below
@@milotura6828 You are correct, but another reason was the Germans used their Cannon from close range to save ammo. The Cannons would just tear the B-17 apart with just a few shells. That is why the RAF changed the Spits from Browning MG's to Hispano 20mm Cannons. More damage with fewer shells. I saw a video were they compared the MG's and the Hispano tore a BMW apart in 30 shots, whilst the Browning used 250 shots. Cheers
@@BatMan-oe2gh well that is quiet a difference in power damn.
@@milotura6828 Sure is, very scary how those Cannons tore planes apart. Cheers
@@BatMan-oe2gh even worse, is how they tore the crew members apart. Terrifying.
Lots of 20mm and 30mm shells flying around. I found that initial head-on sequence the most impressive.
Until the appearance of the new b17 model that had a pair of guns under the nose, it was a common tactic of the Luftwaffe to attack the bomber head on when there was no return fire from it at all. Other than that other effective tactics included a German fighter enduring the tail gun fire for a few seconds and focusing on taking out the tail gunners first. An even more safe tactic would be to climb higher and dive on the bombers from above. But the problem here was obvious for the short range bf 109s especially without the belly fuel tank. Climbing to the altitude of the bombers which was usually well over 20.000ft meant the it took over 30 mins of continuous climb at full throttle, so the fighter had to climb between 2000-4000ft above the bombers’ altitude to make a high speed dive. In such a high speed attack the bombers’ machine gun fire was largely ineffective, but the fighter had one chance to shoot down a bomber, then it would find itself well below the bomber stream and reclimbing to a high vantage point for a second high speed dive attack was impossible because there would be no fuel for that.
A friend of mine was a B17 pilot from Flint, MI and is still alive (1/22), with 34 missions over Europe, including Cologne. He met Günther Rall at a post war air show and asked him why German fighters always attacked him and then rolled upside down, thinking that there was better armor beneath the plane. Rall said, No! It was because the fighter pilots wanted to get the hell away from the Forts!
This is truly dramatic footage. For me, though, the real eye-opener was when I had the chance to be INSIDE the B-17 on exhibit at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, OR.
This thing is made of aluminum just a few tenths of a millimeter thicker than the aluminum of a beer can: you can literally punch through the skin of it with a screwdriver.
I had the "tactile" sensation of being a worm in a tin can. Thinking about being up there at 5000 meters scared sh*tless, half frozen and being fired upon with explosive shells and to keep doing it time and time again, it's just mind boggling. Bomber crews of ALL sides simply can't be praised enough.
Think of the poor civilians (mostly women and children )on the receiving end burning to death.
Truly terrifying to think about the rigors these airmen went through in our first and only bomber war! Read 'Masters Of The Air' by Donald Miller.
@@skyrizione8811 Actions have consequences. When you bomb the shit out of purely civilian targets in England you MUST expect repercussions. Form the histories I've read it was the Brit's who bombed the civilian targets like Dresden, the American's concentrated on military targets. ...which often were staffed by civilians.
@@weffyj6427 read the correct history. The brits and Americans started it .check the dates. That's why the German weapons were called revenge weapons
@@weffyj6427 I don't agree with what you said.
British Invaded and occupied Iran, A netural country in both WWs. They used the country's resources for their own army. those actions In the first WW caused a nation wide famine which resulted in the death of ~9M Iranian. Now, did Britian suffered any consequences for their actions?? Hell no. No one know that this event even happened.
My Uncle was a B-17 bomber pilot in the 549th
Bombardment Squadron, also known as " The Bombing Devils," He was
one of the original "kindergarten pilots" because, as squadron
commander, he led numerous missions over France and Germany before his
twenty-fifth birthday. For his valiant service to his country, including
missions flown during the Battle of Normandy, he was awarded the Distinguished
Flying Cross, Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, Presidential Unit
Citation, and EAME Theater Ribbon with three Bronze Service Stars.
Ha ha your uncle was awarded for dropping explosives on civilians
okay.
Why would he be awarded medals for comitting war crimes? That says a lot about a society. Being a murderer is not something to be proud of. It is something one should be ashamed of, not something to glorify. Why did he drop bombs on women and children? On toddlers and on elderly people? On dogs and cats? Humans with a sense of morality and true christians would reject murdering defencless civilians, because that is the work of the devil
@@MrYourentertainer You people are defending nazis and citizens who did nothing and watched the Jews taken from their homes like cowards. Neighbors turning on one another. It’s public knowledge that the citizens of Germany knew what was going on back then it was in front of their face. I Feel sorry for the manipulated then and today. USA.
@@muletown9768
I am not defending Nazis, but I am defending my grandmother, who was a 7-8 year old girl at the time and who told me stories about how she would scream in terror as bombs exploded in the vicinity of her elementary school. She told me how the kids were guided into the basements when the sirens went off, pale with fear, and wincing every time when a bomb exploded and dust trickled from the cellar ceiling.
I am also defending my grandmother's grandmother, who was a 70+ year old lady at the time and was too sick and too slow to make it downstairs to the bunker, so she stayed upstairs in her apartment, where she was murdered by the allied war criminals, when they dropped a bomb into her living room.
Ignorant statements such as yours make me pissed off beyond reckoning.
Nobody is claiming that the Holocaust was a good thing or that all germans were innocent victims.
But there is no doubt about the fact that the allied bombing campaign was a murderous warcrime, because it explicitly targeted women and children.
FUCK THE NAZIS. FUCK THE USA.
WW2 must have been a hell of a thing to live through, there has got to be at least 1 soldier who has fought in a majority of all the major battles and lived. The stories that were lost must have been crazy.
It must have been truly apocalyptic unlike anything I can begin to imagine. Blessed are we for the sacrifices of the brave souls
My Dad was a US Army infantry captain fighting the Japanese in the Philippines. Yes he went thru hell but survived. His own Dad and brother both with the Philippine army, were killed in action.
Incredible footage, some of these attacks I have never seen before! Where did you find it and the so detailed information on description?
a combination of data from the source and comparison with the excellent b17flyingfortress.de database
if you havent seen these before then you couldnt have seen much ww2 stuff at all...
@@1Roamingwolf thanks Ken Burns
@@1Roamingwolf : Some of them I havent seen either. And I search for this reguarly
As a very inexperienced glider pilot I find almost impossible how accurate these guys are with their fire, you can aee that they hit the engines as they wanted and the head-on attacks… blows my mind that they can do that accurately.
the guns are usually angled in such a way that the bullets will cross paths at a certain range so they know exactly how far away they need to be to get accurate fire
@@alexio1942 or they are nose mounted as is the case in later BF109 variants.
@@tuomasheikkinen9251 109 always had nose mounted guns... -_-
@@Leon_der_Luftige true but I was referring to the nose mounted cannons from F series onwards. Earlier models had engine mounted mg's or wing mounted 20mm cannons as was the case in some E series. And the engine mounted machine guns were probably not as accurate or effective due to engine vibrations and small calibre. I'd argue that the widely used motorkanone configuration from F-series onwards where the 20mm fires through the propeller hub gave enough accuracy for the job as seen here. Should not have been so straight forward in my previous comment.
@@tuomasheikkinen9251 no problem. I dont even think vibration was an issue because (as I far as I know) there was no connection between the gun barrel and the engine block. They just shoved it through.
If you have a look at a DB 603, you can simply look all the way through it. But that's just speculation.
Should look more into it....
The 20mm guns on the Messerschmitts could really rip a B17 to pieces.
Both adversaries had the possibility to turn to dust each others plane, 20mm explosive rounds against concentrated bursts of .50 bmg in a fighter plane
Messerschmitt 109's also had a 30mm cannon in the propeller nosecone.
Yep.
@@Jones607: Still lost in the end
@@0Zolrender0 The shell did fire through the hub but was actually mounted behind the engine.
My great-uncle was a pilot on a Messerschmitt 109 and has been missing since the end of 1944. I have absolute respect for all WW2 pilots regardless of the nation.
Wow, this is some incredible and horror inducing footage. Thanks both for uploading it and for the contextual information.
Damn, they are getting ripped to shreds
That's what Cannon shells do. Just take huge chunks of the plane and engines. Devastating fire power.
What these clips can't show are those occasions where the B-17 gunners shot first and knocked down the German fighter, especially in tail attacks. In the 1980s I interviewed many B-17 crewmen for a book I was writing. And the kills were confirmed because multiple crewmen saw a fighter wing blown off, the fighter pilot killed in a very short-range burst from the tail, or the fighter exploding. Tail attacks were dangerous for the Germans, because of the extra time it took the fighters to approach and attack from the rear. It's one reason why the Luftwaffe turned to nose attacks. Also, the heavier armament of many of these fighters put them at a decided disadvantage when encountering long-range USAAF fighter escorts. There's no question that this kind of attrition warfare decimated the Luftwaffe's fighter force, and made flak the predominant threat bombers faced in late 1944 through to the end of the war.
Thanks for the information
On the other hand, gunners’ claims were massively overstated, Luftwaffe losses being only a fraction of claims, and on the occasions they were unmolested by fighters the Germans’ Sturmbock FW190s made mincemeat of the US bombers with few losses of their own attacking from the rear. Furthermore, on issues of fact, the Germans used head-on attacks before, not after, turning to rear attacks (because few pilots were able to handle the high closing speeds of the former) and the Luftwaffe was shot out the sky by fighter escorts, with relatively few losses from bomber gunners.
The Eastern Front Brought Goliath down.
@@Dalesmanable I don't disagree with what you say, other than to say that the fact B-17 gunner claims were overstated doesn't mean that some claims weren't valid. I would also point out that Sturmgruppe aircraft like the FW 190A8/R2 were extremely vulnerable to P-51s due to their lack of maneuverability resulting from their heavy armor and armament. The Wiki article on JG 300 notes that "On 11 September 1944 II. (Sturm)/JG 300 lost 13 Fw 190s to P-51 Mustangs, with 10 pilots killed and two wounded. They claimed nine Mustangs, actual Mustang losses was just one 339th Fighter Group P-51, damaged by Flak and shot down by an Me 262. I. /JG 300, flying top cover lost 13 Bf 109s without claiming a kill."
There's no doubt that Sturmgruppen were deadly when they caught bomber formations without escorts. The B-17 Group I wrote about (the 303rd) lost 9 aircraft to such attacks on the August 15, 1944 mission to Wiesbaden and 11 on the Magdeburg mission of Sept. 28, 1944. But ultimately, I see the Sturmgruppen units as a sign that the Luftwaffe had lost control of their own airspace. They could inflict serious losses on individual formations but the Luftwaffe was overwhelmed and destroyed by the numbers of Allied aircraft flying against them. It was a brutal war of attrition in 1944.
@@Jones607 Except that 'precision bombing' was a myth. We now know that 'precision bombing' was no more effective at hitting military targets (and sparing civilians) than the RAF's radar guided 'area bombing'.
Thank you, for not having some ridiculous musical accompaniment to this footage.
They wont show this one on the history channel
History channel, what a joke it is nowadays...
@@jukkalappetelainen2161 100% agree ....but then not if you like bigfoot. History channel my eye!
A lot of this footage was shown in the World At War series from Thames Television made in 1973. They put a lot of it to music e.g. Glenn Miller, I guess to lessen the impact but it's even more eerie here.
My grandfather was a B17 pilot with the 490th bomb group in the 8th airforce. He started with B24s and then transitioned to B17s. Flew 43 missions over Germany/Europe during the war. I still have his flight log book where he details things such as getting engines shoot out by flak, seeing an me262 fly by, and casualties. I have a photo of his plane flying along and you can see the black clouds from flak. He flew lead bomber on multiple missions including the lead A in the bombing of Dresden. Sadly, his war time photo album is lost to history. I do have his bomber jacket though, and medals. Dad said he never talked about the war. Funny thing of note, there is a letter to my grandmother he wrote saying England was not worth visiting because of how much it rained, and the cold lol.
Dresden...He better get a vampire bite or he go to the deepest place in hell.
@@spakloppeii5912 My 24 yr old grandfather being one of the most experienced b17 pilots was asked by Eisenhower one day "son, where do you want to bomb?" and my grandfather said "jee, I really hate Dresden lets just level the city." For what its work his brother died at Kursk.
Thanks to all those who set us free from the krauts and nazi-scum in any possible way......
War is hell... Rip
The Luftwaffe used excellent 20mm HE rounds with contact exploders. Each round would explode just hitting the thin metal skin of any plane, sending splinters everywhere and doing much more damage than the .50 caliber round. Still, the air cooled Pratt and Whitney radial engines could absorb tremendous damage. One ace Luftwaffe pilot instructed his students to 'close their eyes' when firing from behind to help with their fear of the tail gunner's bullets.
a lot of metalpieces flying around , but at 0:26 its definitely a crew member bailing out...
Yes, as per the description it is 351st Bomb Group 510th Bomb Squadron B-17F 42-29859 "The Annihilator" shot down on May 14th 1943 over Belgium with two KIA (Waist gunner Leroy Donaldson and Ball turret gunner Albert Jensen) with the rest of the crew being captured.
Sehr gutes Video. Für die deutschen Jagdflieger war der Frontalangriff die beste Option auf die Bomber. Die Rasanz und Trefferwirkung der 20 und 30 mm MK Minengeschosse war vernichtend. 3-5 gute Treffer von einer MK 108 reichten um einen Bomber vom Himmel zu holen.
Die von den Bombern angegriffenen Zivilisten in den Städten konnten sich gegen die Terrorangriffe der Angloamerikanischen Flieger nicht schützen. Sie verbrannten im Feuersturm, ob in Hamburg oder Dresden. Heute sind es unsere “Freunde” und Verbündeten im Krieg gegen Russland.
Saw a documentary where they were exploring a base in England. Under a small overgrown concrete building was a pile of 0.50 casings, under that was a complete skeletal arm.....Really makes you think.
Those 20 mm cannon shells are devastating.
@tacfoley - some of them yes. Me-262, Me-163.
B-17's were great bombers, but when singled out by a Bf-109 with 30mm cannon rounds they really got chewed up. This was because they were flying day missions mainly, not a fault of the aircraft or crew.
Nope, it was just something they had to deal with, mission after mission.
Yup ,at least flying during daylight , a modicum of bomb accuracy could be met ,which was the point of being there in the first place. RAF bomber crews suffered as high casualty rate , but were doing well if they managed to drop their load within 13 miles of their target. The 8th Airforce also simultaneously destroyed the Luftwaffe fighter force.
@@michellebrown4903 lol.....13 miles, source for that blatant lie there bub?
@@michellebrown4903 Yeah if you drop 1000 bombs, some might hit the target, would not call that accuracy....
The Tuskegee airmen never lost a bomber. Seeing this footage really makes one appreciate that accomplishment.
They did lose but their cup of bombers was unique.
@@Dejaelvicio507 they never lost a bomber.
@@shallah777myth
@@astupiddvdcase prove it
It looks simple. The fighter is diving through the formation of bombers and r fired at by anti aircraft guns from the bomber from all sides. This is a slow motion. Actual speed hats off to the fighters
Play it at 1.25x
The young Americans who flew these missions were courageous beyond the imagination. But, they kept coming back time after time until the Luftwaffe could no longer hurt them. The debt can never be repaid.
Without doubt,the greatest generation.
Yes
Yeah, you're right The debt can never be paid to all those women and children that died at the hand of those bombers. Salutes to the Luftwaffe for doing all they could to shoot down as many of those murderers as possible.
@@gh87716 and the Luftwaffe never bombed civilians? The SS never murdered innocent civilians? The Kriegsmarine never killed civilians?
@@therodfather0498 The war has no heroes, only injured poeple!
My great uncle was a B-17 pilot with over 10 missions flown during WWII. These were some of the toughest planes and crews to ever serve.
And in warthunder they break in 1 hit
You're great uncle is in Hell for his warcrimes.
yea it must be hard carpet bombing civilians, you need a lot of courage to have to answer to angry fighters
We got nazis in here
@@johnmadara1252 Wow, did you come up with that all by yourself? My great uncle took out strategic Nazi targets (supply line bridges and ammunition factories). Neither you nor I can even fathom what it must have been like for a 20+ year old pilot to fly into such chaos. “Carpet bombing civilians”…nice generalization prick. Now GTFOH 🤡.
What's more crazy is that, more U.S servicemen died bombing germany than their entire casualties in the Pacific theatre
Not quite. The 8th AF bombers had more casualties than the USMC in the pacific. Not in the entire PTO.
Then, they got what they diserve
It's amazing the amount of battle damage a B-17 could take and still keep flying.
Boeing in those days is the literal definition of Built tough
This just seems so unreal... Can’t imagine being in either position.
incredible that those bombers are still flying and engines still spinning after receiving so many hits.....
Very graphic and chilling ! You suddenly realise there was nothing romantic about war ! This should be compulsory viewing for all those who play war games !
Recent war games are making the war something that looks like a joke. In these videos you are looking at the last moments of a lot of people who had loved ones waiting for them, dying in horrific ways because those explosive shells ain't leaving you with the possibility of an open casket funeral. I hope that the future can become something more peaceful
@@zeta1960 these people are killing thousands and thousands if lnnocent people including children with their indiscriminada bombardments
Only the dead know peace in war.
A lot of people who play games have seen footage like this and much worse than this even. Why else would they be playing war themed games if they weren’t interested in the concept? Not all games are run and gun shooters. You got your tank battle games. Your ships and naval warfare. Your battlefield commander level games moving troops around. Your air war dogfights and flight simulators. Down to your first person shooters. Ever since I was a kid in the 90s playing war games and shooters and doing bombing runs etc. I aways knew what war could be like. When I wasn’t playing games I was also reading and researching the wars and conflicts. Like I said for most they go hand in hand. Not sure why you assume all gamers are inept and blind to the effects of war. You almost make yourself sound like the boomers who tried to say Marilyn Manson and video games cause gun violence.
@@Stopes. yes
The ball- and waist gunner positions were the most vulnerable ones on the B-17. Those were the first being hit.
Good to see the German pilot stopped firing at the B-17 with lowered landing gear. Usually this was a sign of surrender.
The hydraulics have been smashed and cut so wheels fall to landing position
Well, not necessarily. The Germans figured out that the best way to kill ("healthy") Bombers was the head-on attack pioneered by German Aces George-Peter Eder and Anton Hackl with 36 and 34 Heavy Bomber kills respectively.
I just saw a video of a still living b17 gunner. He said the tail Gunner was usually the first to get shot. Never heard of the landing gear down was the sign of surrender. What are your sources? I'm interested in researching those details. Thanks for the info.
@@kevadams1964correct but waist gunners still had the highest fatality rates in the war. Usually due to flak.
whats the point in "surrendering" an airplane by lowering gear? bailing out would be surrendering, which fighter pilot would let a bomber fly back home because it "surrendered"?
Thanks for the footage! I love the information you put in the description. Thanks once again!
I imagine how horrible it must have been to be on board that aircraft getting hammered by those guns. Those guys were getting slaughtered.
Why are the gunners in the B-17s not firing back?
More than 75 years since the end of WWII and this is still sad and horrible to watch. So many young lives wasted, most just in their late teens or early 20's. :-(
Because of politicians. Dodging the Vietnam draft was the most intelligent thing I ever did 👍
Those American airmen were murdering innocent civilians in Europe.
@@adambane1719 nazi boy!
@@adambane1719 AND WHAT DO YOU THINK THE NAZIS WERE DOING TO INNOCENT CIVILIANS, INVITING THEM OVER FOR TEA?!
@@motleyhoople3657 Only the allies specifically targeted civilians. Maybe you should turn off the History Channel and read some real history.
I wonder if any of those Bombers were my Great Uncles plane with the 99th BG? They got shot down on April 30th 1944 over Italy. He died as a POW trying to escape.
R I P
War is bad!
@FJoe Biden The POW's were on a forced march by the Germans. My Great Uncle with two others took off and later two of three were killed. They didn't find the bodies until after the war in 1949.
Meh
My grandfather shown me the movie Memphis Belle when I was a little shit kicker. And even when I was little I couldn't understand how those bombers flew with all them bombs n balls of steel weighing it down.
You can see some of the guys bailing out still under the fire...
0:26 They dumped the waist gunner !
Respect and thank you for your service. RIP german soldiers.
That’s why the brits flew night missions in the Lanc’s, after the success of the pathfinder missions, things eventually began to look up .Americans called them flying Fortresses and were sorely put to that word suffering 1 in 3 losses due to the heavy cannon of the Germans ‘mine rounds’. Only once allied aircraft turned the air superiority over, did daylight bombing become more successful for both.
The loss rate was about the same for both sides - but the Germans couldn’t replace the experienced pilots they lost.
Actually, by late 1943 , Luftwaffe fighter pilot standards/ competence, was plummeting . Allied pilot proficiency got better and better. So l very much doubt fighter vs fighter losses were equivalent.
A P51 could go all the way to Berlin and back and outfight anything it might meet on the way ... until the arrival of the Me 262 , which killed more of its pilots than the Allies did .
@@michellebrown4903 Bf 109 K series was at least equal. The climb performance of the 109 was absolutely superior.
@@DilophoMS yes, but there were other factors, manoeuvrability, rate of roll etc.
The P51 was predated by the 109 by 5 or 6 years . I don't know much about the K variant other than altitude and speed performance. But if it was anything like the last marks of Spit ,which could also go like a bat out of hell ,but turned like an oil tanker, and was only fit really for photo recon .
@@michellebrown4903 The luftwaffe and flak guns did serious damage to allied air power.
@@michellebrown4903 The Dora variants of the Fw 190 could also go toe to toe with the Mustangs but like the 109 K's were too few, too late and had too little experienced pilots to do much.
To have the tenacity to go up again and again in those planes just boggles the mind!
It just shows how soft and we have become
@@bluemm2852 hard times make strong men who make easy times who make soft men who make hard times, over and over throughout history.
After the war despite them trying to kill each other they became friends & both agree never again.
Amerika is busy being at war with itself now!
@@openroad6522 Amerika has been selling perpetual war for over 100 years.
@@adambane1719 you're just mad that your Fuhrer didn't succeed.
Hervorragende Arbeit.
Unbelievable. A battle 5 miles in the sky.
Man I cannot even imagine how being tail gunner while enemy is firing at you from those big ass cannons must felt like
Viermots falling from the sky. Imagine the adrenaline rush as the terror bombers disintegrated into flying pieces of shrapnel.
I’m sure the terror bombers over London, Coventry, Rotterdam, Warsaw and Guernica didn’t think much about it.
@@Gromit801 I guess they felt exactly the same as the British/US lads flying towards Germany.
What's really sad is that those rounds are tearing the crew members to pieces. That had to be the most terrifying job in the war.
The worst was very likely a submarine under attack!
@@norbertsiewert3917 I think a submarine had better odds than a bomber, although at the time of being attacked, yes!
@FJoe Biden US submariner losses in WW2 was about 3500 men. The 8th air force alone lost 26,000 men, plus 28,000 more taken prisoner. Percentage wise, submarine losses were higher, but the sheer number of bomber crews lost and captured was staggering. I once talked to a WW2 submariner . He said overall, he felt much safer because they weren't affected by artillery, snipers, land mines, aircraft(as much), ambushes, etc. I personally would NOT have wanted to be on a sub!
I'm 70 and I used to watch this same footage as a young kid and I always have
Thought how terrifying and horrible to have to go thru these attacks.....and then to return to base with some deceased
Crew members and then having to go back thru the same thing as few day's later.....my god these young men were courageous to say the least.....and just think how terrible this world would be today If America and the American military
Never exsisted. These brave crew are exactly what American exceptionalism is.
I thank God for my Father's generation
Because they were
Righteous for what they accomplished by defeating the Axis
Powers of the time.
It's astounding that of 291000 American KIA in WW2, about 26000 of those KIA fought with 8th AF.
@@stanleyw.marynowskijr.112 8th Air Force alone lost more men than the entire Marine Corps did in the Pacific.
If America and the American military didn’t exist most of the wars of the second half of the century wouldn’t have occurred.
@@cesarcamba1 you do know that Germany, Japan and Italy basically started ww2...with Germany invading Poland and the other 2 Axis powers came in a few months later...so your comment makes no sense
@@cliffnelson1174 read your history war gueerentees to Poland by the US helped get things started in Europe and oil embargoes on Japan by you guessed it the good old US ofA got things stirred up in the pacific so please spare us the juvenile history BS
Bless them all.
You can see the minengeschoss impacts quite clearly in the footage
Makes you realise just how over-speeded the combat scenes in 'Masters of the Air' are
Incrível! É de arrepiar!
I've had the amazing opportunity to fly in "Yankee Lady", a B-17G from the Yankee Air Force in Michigan. I can remember looking out the window in the raido room and seeing all the little individual panels flexing from the wind passing over. That being said I can't imagine what it would be like to be able to do nothing but fly straight and level and take hits from something as devastating as a Fw-190 or other German fighter.
Amazing that any of those bomber crews made it back in one piece. Especially considering American crews typically flew daytime raids, so they were easily sighted by enemy AA and fighters.
They could defend themselves via the ball turrets and were difficult to shoot down, also helped that the Luftwaffe was pretty depleted by 1944 and almost nonexistent in 1945.
0:16 I don't think there were too many gunners left alive after this one.
Note that almost all of these show lone bombers, somehow separated from the relative safety of the squadron. Alone, they were sitting ducks.
Wicked stuff
Никогда не видел эти кадры, что-то новое.
It is amazingly scary how we have this footage today, ready for us on the internet
Attacking a formation of B-17's, even without fighter escort, was no turkey shoot and Luftwaffe pilots didn't relish the task. One German ace is quoted as having said "against 20 Russians trying to shoot you down or even 20 Spitfires, it can be exciting, even fun, but curve in towards 40 Fortresses and all your past sins flash before your eyes." Additionally, the B-17 was capable of absorbing tremendous amounts of punishment. Luftwaffe pilots estimated that it took approximately twenty 20mm cannon hits to down a fortress; considering that on average only 2% of _all_ rounds fired scored hits, it required expending around 1,000 rounds to finish the job. B-17 formations bristled like porcupines and Luftwaffe pilots immensely respected the concentrated firepower of literally hundreds of .50 caliber BMG's.
Yeah those .50 bmg aren't a joke, a concentrated fire from a formation can desintegrate a whole plane in seconds
Perhaps. However, in reality, the Eighty Air Force was almost forced out of the War by mid 1944, due to the unsustainable nature of the losses being incurred. It was readily apparent that year, that the 'self-defending bomber' doctrine, that underpinned US strategic bombing up to that point, was an unmitigated failure.
@@haroldgodwinson832 Actually, by mid-1944 the Eighth Air Force had established air superiority over Germany (the "Big Week" had occurred in late February of 1944 which proved to be a decisive turning point). Also by then the "G" model B-17's with chin turrets had shown up, addressing the proclivity of the Luftwaffe to engage in head-on assaults. Granted, the daylight bombing campaign had reached its nadir in August of 1943 during the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission as well as the follow-up attack on Schweinfurt again that October. Missions were curtailed (not called off entirely), but by December the first P-51B's were delivered to the Eighth, which allowed for complete and comprehensive fighter escort to and from deep within Germany. So yes, unescorted B-17's were vulnerable and the Luftwaffe did inflict serious losses in late 1943, but once again, German pilots didn't think the task was particularly easy nor did they enjoy the work; B-17 formations (as well as B-24's) bristled with literally hundreds of .50 caliber machine guns and were regarded (quite respectfully) as airborne hornets nests. The bombing campaign was far from an "unmitigated failure" and certainly by mid-1944 the Luftwaffe had been seriously degraded to the point that whatever resistance it could offer was negligible at best. Also, by that point the heavy-caliber weaponry the Germans had mounted on their aircraft to contend with the tough B-17 airframe (e.g. Rheinmetall-Borsig MK 108 30mm cannons mounted on the FW-190) negatively impacted overall maneuverability and both P-51 pilots and later P-47 pilots (when the Thunderbolt was outfitted with drop tanks) had a field day chewing through these overloaded Luftwaffe fighters.
@@jimbo6413 Sorry, I was being a bit loose with my timeline. That said my point is nevertheless accurate. B17s were effective enough when escorted. Without an escort, which is to say late '43 to early '44, (when they started to fly over Germany) they lost their war with the Luftwaffe. Romanticists and armchair warriors can pretend otherwise if it makes them feel better, but it's the truth. Unescorted daylight raids over the Reich by B 17 and B 24s were unsustainable, and adding chin turrets didn't change that. Escort fighters changed that.
@@haroldgodwinson832 I can go along with the assertion that continuing unescorted raids would've ultimately proven unsustainable, but to my original argument, there's a general presumption that the Luftwaffe regarded massed formations of B-17's and B-24's as easy pickings and nothing could be further from the truth. Luftwaffe fighter pilots themselves have spoken at length about just how onerous a job it happened to be given the sheer volume of lead they'd have to fly through while trying to score hits. Americans mastered two things in particular during the Second World War; first was true excellence when it came to employment of field artillery and second was the prodigious use of machine guns (and the B-17 was chock full of machine guns). Luftwaffe pilots had great respect for the Flying Fortress and didn't regard attacking the aircraft as an easy chore.
Germans were tough soldiers to fight. My dad under Patton’s Army leading a Tank unit (a certain number of tanks) had a rough time there.
Os Alemães nos seu aviões que atacavam as fortalezas usavam metralhadoras e canhões com munição altamente explosiva e de fragmentação, cada explosão de impacto podia matar mais de um tripulante.
You never seem to be able to detect any defensive firing.
Sehr schön, leider viel zu wenig!
20 year olds in machines of death in the skies. Hypnotic and terrible.
The hull of those B-17's are thinner than credit cards. Insane respect for the lads that flew those bomber missions.
man worked with my Dad was a Tail gunner on a B 17 - had some stories to tell
This is like the part on Memphis belle when the CO had the PR man read the letters of airmen’s families who were KIA
God bless those bomber crews🇺🇸
About 4,000+ B17s were shot down, about 1/3 of all those produced. The casualty rate was horrific. But these raids also were instrumental.
All those fine young men.
What a waste of a generation.
The older I get, the sadder I feel.
Same, it was pointless. Just like ww1
@@SgtSteel1 it was not pointless. The amount of warcrimes that americans did was quite impressive
@@synthfur05 I'm talking in general. They should never have happened. Look at who financed them.
@@SgtSteel1 Always follow the money and the nose shall be found
@@sumtingwong2138 invariably yes, the vast majority of the time
Sure wish the P-51 could have been produced sooner. Those poor crews.
Lol, the "poor" crews murdered hundreds of thousands civilians.
@@DilophoMS And who started bombing whose civilians first? Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, Nanking, Stalingrad, and hundreds of other civilian cities and towns? Oh, don't forget that Hitler used the most advance weapon of the war, V1's and V2's to terrorized British civilians instead of targeting military units and facilities.
If the Germans and the Japanese didn't want to tick-off everyone by starting wars and murdering people with genocide, slavery, torture, conducting inhumane experiments on prisoners, ignoring the Geneva convention treating POWS , then they should have never messed with attacking nations that did them no harm. You cannot expect people not to become angry and treat the opponent that did to them the same way. The restraint we demonstrated was incredible compared to what they did to us and everyone else.And only by a massive response did they get the message, becasue violence was the only thing they understood.
Sadly, there is no longer any "Off Limits" to civilians anymore. 9/11 proved that along with other places that terrorists attacked. Whether you like it or not, the only way we keep Russia, China, and Kim Jong at bay is guaranteeing we turn their countries into glass parking lots with massive nuclear retaliation. If we didn't have nukes, you can bet they would do us first because they can, just like the Germans and Japanese thought in WW2.
It is amazing i have never seen this amazing footage before
I wonder, are there any accounting's of the damage and loss of life from all these bullets and shells being fired over populated areas? They all have to land somewhere and it seems a lot of houses and people may have been hit indiscriminately. I know when I"m hunting in the woods I worry about carryover from even 1 round. I cant imagine what may come of all these rounds.
When what you're trying to do is shoot down about 25 tons of heavy bomber, a few stray bullets are not a concern by comparison.
@@hw97karbine Unless your having breakfast at your farmhouse and a bunch of 20mm shells come thru the roof/walls killing your wife and son....
Good of you to be concerned and curious. The bombers were on their way to destroy both military, and many innocent civilian targets. The could not have cared less about who was killed or what was damaged. That would be a 'war crime' by definition, but not for the allies. Sad, but true.
@@kevincook1618 west is still this way ESPECIALLY with non-white races
It was a real concern. Many of the cannon shells had "self destruct" fuses that would explode after 3 seconds. If you look at 1:25, you will see the white "puffs" ahead of the left wing of the aircraft.
...brilliant ! 🤩
This is terrible incredible. Some footage here I haven't seen before.
That 20mm nose cannon is just pure destruction.
It was all fun and games until the Mustangs showed up.
Yup, during one of his post-capture interrogations Goering was quoted as saying “the day I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the jig was up.”
2:35...gunners dead,...no such a motion to move those turrets at all....Crazy time it was,...war is hell.....
I see some B 17s lowering their landing gear, but I don’t know if this is actually a sign of surrender…are there cases of captured B 17s? Where would they land? How would they get landing coordinates? How would they navigate through AA fire? Doesn’t seem likely to just follow a fighter to an airfield…the field would then have to be cleared…I wonder if the lowered landing gear is just a sign the B 17 is asking for mercy to be left alone…another consideration is when your shoot down a large bomber it might crash into heavily populate areas
Or the fact the b-17 was so fu**ed up, that the plane controls was crazy.
Severed hydraulic lines maybe? Well, I wouldn't expect it to be a plea to be left alone, but I don't know
Man, tailgunners and ballturret gunners must have been in the worst place ever
THANK YOU FOR THE FOOTAGE!
They must have slowed down the real time speed of these images, normally they had only a couple seconds in reality, hence why they eventually dropped the 20mm for less rounds of the more powerful 30mm mk 108 cannon that had a lower velocity but a very high rates of fire for a 30mm.
Looks like it was hard to shoot it down. There were direct hits on the engine but it continued flying
Those Minen rounds really did a number. Jesus.
Must have been 1943-early 1944.
2:46 Guys i think the Ball turret crew is dead🙁🙁 he is not aiming anymore
2:52 LUFTWAFFE, THE GENTLEMENS OF SKYES.
i guess, cuz there is no tail gun active, the gunner is dead or left the post?
Say what you want about the Luftwaffe, but they had some amazing combat pilots.
The best combat pilots. The top 200 plus aces (minimum) of WW2 were all German; 198 with over 200 kills and some with scores into the 300s!!! God knows how many with kills in the 100-200 range. However by 1943 they had many, many, more inexperienced and poorly trained pilots, and by 1944 they were mostly inexperienced with low flying hours.