**Play World of Warships: Legends for free here** wo.ws/3AtZgK1 Thanks to Wargaming for sponsoring the video. Corrections: 03:17 It's Pratt & Whitney R-1830, not Wright. Thanks to viewer 'MrYoung' for spotting this
As a Pilot of many small aircraft ( Aquila, PA28s, PA44) and since 2019 the Boeing 737-800... Jeez when some Pilots hit the moving deck with their SBDs/TBDs/F4Fs ...wow I feel like my hardest landing was softer than that :D You can almost feel being slammed into the seat by them controlled crashes :D Grüße
Just a side note on mistaken Identity friendly fire, my father was a WWII SW Pacific theater veteran, and when I was a child (I'm 62 now, his youngest son) we used to make model planes together, and he told me while we were making a Dauntless model, that Dauntless' suffered more friendly fire incidences because from below their silhouette closely resembles that of the Zero. He then grabbed the Zero model we had made earlier, and he showed me, holding both planed above me. It was pretty amazing how similar they looked, and with inexperienced personnel manning the anti-aircraft batteries I could imagine in the heat of battle the confusion this similarity could cause.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory could you do a video on pilot training throughout the war and maybe also what each person does in all the different aircraft along with the equipment that was used/ technology progression
I absolutely love when people upload ww2 footage to RUclips saying it's "Rare". It ain't rare if it's been digitised and available to purchase in HD for years. Also another pet peeve of mine is ww2 footage being uploaded to RUclips looking like ass. My guess would be DVD rips and then countless re uploads and downloads. WW2 footage can look amazing and very high detailed if taken from the right source. 😀
Agreed. So many RUclipsrs out there who just want to be a YT "Star". They upload something they just found that's been uploaded many times before, say that this is "Real Footage from X", then a few people just come across it, do a "Dude, this is the best thing EVER! Never seen anything like it" & off they go, thinking they are on their way, posting more & more dross. (Plus the posters who, sadly, just want a "Heart" from that YT channel, because then they have been "recognised")
@@slartybartfarst55 Agreed. I want to avoid the obvious clickbait, but sometimes one has to grit their teeth and watch, hoping for some new info to be gleaned. BTW, good use of the word dross. Dont see that one used much except in crossword puzzles, lol.
I never knew about that navigation board in the aircraft, seems a lot more handy than the maps on your leg routine or the clip board that could fly around in the cockpit. It's all these little details which are cool about looking at archival footage that isn't much talked about by shows/documentaries/movies who focus on the "big picture".
Happy to hear that you found it interesting, yes, documentaries tend to gloss over this sort of detail, since a TV is less suited to it, but that is the nice thing about being able to do it ourselves here on ze internet
@@neilwilson5785 Yes I agree they did find them while the rest of the Hornet fliers did not but only by effectively committing insubordination by abandoning the rest of the flight and going their separate way without even telling Cmdr. Stanhope Ring. As a result they were entirely without fighter cover and doomed when they flew in.
Authentic "Combat Photography" of all sorts was not usually intended for public consumption up to the end of WW2. Anything in the way of sound effects are usually bogus, such as explosions at some distance with the bang and flash in synch instead of separate.
Yup. Felton's videos can be full of those. But because you seem the same sequence of armored cars on a road, artillery guns, shermans between hedges etc etc every time, it's clear it's meant as 'stock footage' to illustrate the action rather than accurately depict it. So apart from the horrible sound fx and the overly excited 40s narrators, I don't ind too much.
No no, I'm sure they were just surprised during some officers' only party or something and still thought it was just a drill when they went up on deck for a look. Totally legit.
At 21:30 you see AA guns explosions at low altitude. When these large gun's projectiles explode (black puffs) directly under them are the splashes of shrapnel hitting the water. Watch these at slower speed, you can see it plainly. This type of projectile is two for one so to speak, an enormous explosion shock-wave followed by thousands of pieces of metal blown in all directions.
@@hanoitripper1809 It's certainly live-fire footage. However, it is possible that it's target practice footage and that biplane was a drone used to provide a more realistic target than something like a sleeve.
@@hanoitripper1809 I think so. I don't think drones had too much of a problem with slight changes in altitude like that. It was more simulating a full on dive bombing attack that was the issue. I could be wrong, though. My main reasoning is that that aircraft is a land-biplane, not a seaplane, and there's only one of them. The only land-biplanes Japan had at Midway were the B4Ys on Hosho, which provided ASW coverage for the main body and never got near the US carriers. Also, an attacker would likely come as part of a wave of aircraft instead of by itself. A scout plane would be alone, but it would also have no reason to get so close to a carrier.
One of the saddest things about Midway is the lack of film footage or photos. That's why most of the time, when we see movies or documentaries about Midway, usually the carriers shown are Essex-class, which has always annoyed me.
The issue of how many .30s the rear gunners on SBDs and TBDs had was interesting too. One thing I learned was that Waldron had copped a couple of SBD mounts for VT8's TBDs.
In addition to incorrect film footage I look for reversed film. When you see the bolt handles of US weapons (with the exception of the BAR) on the left side, a group of left handed soldiers throwing grenades, awards worn over the right shirt pocket you know you have reversed film and whoever screened the footage was, at best, sleeping on the job. Many times you will see the 'positive' version of the same film a few minutes later. Hopefully the producer did not pay twice for the same scene.
I was thinking about doing a video about this just the other day. A great deal of 'not Midway' footage is used. Six TBFs of VT-8 were at Midway and were commanded by Lt. Langdon Fieberling. 5 were lost and one returned to be written off. They got the name Avenger after the battle in honor of their losses.
I was watching a doco on the History Channel the other day regarding the battle of Stalingrad. The bulk of the footage used was from the Battle of Berlin by Soviet troops later in the war. When you have buildings & street signs in German with German architecture, it isn't hard to know where it is. Another of the stuff ups is the Liberation of Paris footage. You always get American narrators saying it was US forces that liberated Paris & you'll see American tanks & what looks like American troops. They were Leclerc's 2e Division Blindée (2nd French Armoured Division) with Free French unit markings on the tanks with the white star. The same with British & Canadian armoured columns in NW Europe. American narrators saying it's US Forces but clearly (besides the white star) it has British unit markings & you'll see a couple of Churchill tanks among a column of Sherman tanks.
One of my pet peeves regarding military footage is when the subject of the video is one thing there is all kinds of other footage that is spliced in to fill the void. The RUclips channel Dark Skies is great for this. Movie director John Ford was a USN reserve officer during the war producing films for the Navy. He was on Midway when the IJN attacked the island and filmed parts of it. In terms of aircraft that made attacks on the IJN carriers and surface ships at Midway it ranges from SBDs on up to B-26s and B-17s flying out of Midway.
Fascinating video, very detailed. I often find myself shouting at TV documentaries when they get archive footage horribly wrong, but this is a thing of beauty.
I'm glad you brought this up because, yes, many documentaries feature footage out of context, and that does distort historical reality. Sometimes it's because of lazy, or poorly researched projects. On the other hand there are some iconic images that not only captured the war and made an impression on those who actually fought, they pretty much have to be included because they ARE icons that are easily understood. So yes, Germans marching, French guy crying, Japanese soldiers yelling "banzai" etc. are going to be in every film because the images themselves are a key part of the story that informed us then and now, even out of context. Can they be misused or create further distortions? Of course. But consider that the same can be said of certain sound effects. Most combat films were shot without sound. The effects were dubbed in later for news reels and later film documentaries. Hollywood introduced talking pictures in the US in 1929. By 1939, there were sound effect libraries on 78 rpm records that were used to score films. There's a dive bomber sequence that was made pre-war (in the US) that you've heard dozens of times in films, newsreels, TV and major motion pictures. Same with a particular artillery gun firing, a specific large explosion, bullet ricochet, Stuka siren, Pacific Island jungle bird, etc. These are used to illustrate every army on every front and yes, they've also become iconic. Thank you so much for the review and conversation on this topic and others. Subscribed.
Great video! I hope you do many more like it. I have watched a lot of documentaries and I have noticed a lot inconsistencies as well. So much so that I often find myself asking "is this footage placed at this point to represent the actual battle or is this footage actually from the battle?". The fact that the sounds of battle are usually made in a studio because recordings made during battles were very rare, can also be very misleading.
Yet a superb look and breakdown of time period footage. Never knew that the F4F had the navigation board underneath the instrument panel though, that was cool to learn. Fantastic work as always Bis.
The footage makes it look like you’re actually there! Absolutely amazing that they captured this in the heat of battle! Almost like how the battle of the Denmark strait was captured on film as well in exceptional detail!
One thing that gets missed with the Devestator, and the replacement cycle. There were only 150 TBD Devastators built. The vast majority of those fought in the Battle of Midway. By day 2 at Midway Spruance had 3 remaining Devastators capable of flight. And the entire Navy only had 39 remaining. With pretty much all of those being on the Saratoga, which just missed the battle by 48 hours, and the Wasp which was a few days further out. The first 6 Production TBF Avengers literally rolled out the factory doors in Bethpage NY, took off, flew cross country to San Diego, then flew straight to Pearl Harbor, just missing their rendezvous with the Hornet, and instead went directly to Midway Island to join the land based aircraft. All with the paint still wet.
I already knew footage was not accurate, and often reused in many projects. I learned a bit more about aircraft markings which were a bit before my time. Thanks!
I appreciate what you are doing to try to straighten out what is authentic footage and what is not. I've seen many videos RUclips and even on some of the mainstream cable channels that are just BS. Wrong airplanes, wrong battles, and even wrong sound effects. My father flew a SBD at Midway in VS-8 and the only photo on the internet identified as VS-8 is not.
Love the breakdown of the footage. I noticed some of these aspects when watching archive footage but missed some others. So always nice to see what someone else noticed. But generally I just watch them for fun rather than trying to break them down. I might break them down more often now though. I only done something like this on occasion. Oh and somehow you make the advertisement fun to watch without any fancy storytelling and transition. Just good old air superiority and targets does the rick.
I think all combat footage should be authenticated for its time and date, and only used in those periods that are accurate. This video has been great! Please do more.
When a carrier would go into port it would fly off it's aircraft to shore airfield. Can't launch or recover anchored or docked. Would explain no bombs or torps.
As someone who just started a WWII aircraft RUclips channel earlier this year, I’ve been hesitant to use archive videos and sometimes finding public domain images can be tough. This was an Interesting video, keep up the great content!
So first, I have to say that Chris has really upped his game as far as the ads go. Quite the salesman! If I hadn't already been playing WoWS for years, I'd certainly jump on it now to get my free carrier and aircraft and go nuke a bunch of defenseless ships! Aside from that, I did notice the dress uniforms in the footage, which I thought was odd for battle conditions, and also wondered which ships were doing the launching--that might be another clue as to when the footage was created. As always, an informative, very enjoyable video!
I was in the US Navy a long time ago (73-76, USS Midway) and one of the most confusing things to me was and is when to wear a cover. The general rule was wear a cover outdoors, which meant all the weather decks, and included the hangar bay. The ship modified that to never wear a cover at sea. Once they announced "underway, shift colors" we never wore a hat until back and tied up at the dock. I manned the rail coming into port many times and do not remember now if we wore a hat, and inspections always included the cover. I never knew if this was because we were an aircraft carrier and they worried about FOD, or just being a ship period. Look at old pictures and films and you often see half a gun crew or loading party wearing hats, half not. What was the rule then? This applies to WW II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and more recent stuff.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005 Just a guess but when at sea especially when conducting flight operations the head gear would have a hard time staying in place 😱 Aside from the Snoppy headgear the flight deck personnel wear.
@@mpetersen6 I understand the flight deck operations, but the rule was no hats, period, from the time we left the pier until we came back. And then you see WW II videos showing crew at see, half wearing covers, half not, in combat, lounging around, all sorts of situations. Never did understand all the variations.
The older markings used at Coral Sea also extended to rudder with red white red pattern. And that. The markings used at Midway until 1943 where they where replaced with iconic stars and bars with red outline before being replaced with more iconic stars and bars with a blue outline which was derived from USAAF emblem which used the emblem from 1943 until the USAF’s creation in 1947.
Sitting here with my 101 year old grandpa who flew off of the Lexington, Wasp and the Hornet who participated in the Battle Of Midway said that those boards @28:50 would be a like a current E6B that today's pilot have to measure time, distance, fuel burn per hour and your orders of the day. You start off with a LAT/LON of the ship and you plot courses and the little wheel is the E6B like I stated above. My grandpa still has the mind of a 30 year old, he remembers EVERYTHING where as for myself at 50 years old is more forget full. My grandpa can remembers flying the Buffalo to the F4F
This was one of your best videos! Thank you very much. It also reminds us of how crude the equipment was relative to the task at hand. Courage and brains were absolutely required. It makes you wonder if the video game jockeys could do it if they were required to go out on the ocean in those rickety airplanes with navigation boards on their laps.
Chris you're precisely correct on the torpedos.. I was watching a documentary on the Guadal Canal on History channel. One of the pilots said he was approaching a Japanese destroyer and was upset because the sea was rough and he had to wait for a swell to drop the torpedo in to. He said that if he just dropped it, the possibility of hitting the peak of a wave would redirect the torpedo causing a miss. Hence he had to spend too much time under antiaircraft fire waiting for the perfect swell! I can only imagine how difficult it would be in an already langsam torpedo plane!
Learned a lot, thanks. What has always annoyed me about all these edited combat films is the added sound effects being out of sync. You'll see and hear a distant explosion at the same time, when reality dictates the sound coming tens of seconds later. I've noticed other combat footage showing the wrong planes, even from the wrong country, including different types of planes in scenes which are supposed to be just seconds apart -- bombers vs fighters, nationality, even jet vs prop.
Yes, often it is also quite difficult to tell what sound was added in post 'at the time' and what by the documentary makers. Add to that that the majority of combat footage is often staged, something especially prevalent but not limited to videos from WW1 and WW2. It can be used as a approximation of what it might have looked like in reality, but only that. That's why I like some of the scenes I show here, like the take-offs and landings - not much that can be different then, it's just the same everytime it happens.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory The accuracy of 'realistic' footage used in TV history documentaries has been very low for years. I can recall the 'Victory at Sea' series of the 1960's being much more fastidious - probably because at that time, there were so many people around in all professions who'd lived through the WW2 events shown or even been participants. Since then, the industry watchwords have been 'cheap, quick and sensational'. The low point for me was a recent documentary about the Battle of Britain that included footage of Ilyushin IL-2's strafing ground targets. Likewise, so many scenes in Russian battles are clearly the staged versions filmed soon after the event for propaganda purposes. Excusable when actual battle footage was too hectic to present a coherent storyline, perhaps! However, the final edit always showed the Russians fighting facing to the left, and the Germans to the right. Left-handed riflemen and back-to-front aircraft insignia are the usual giveaways. ps My other interest is railways, where out-of-context historical footage is even worse!
Great video! I learned a few things, especially about markings. One note, though. Part of the Torpedo 8 had recently acquired Avenger torpedo bombers and were detached to Midway. They actually attacked before their shipborne counterparts. They didn't fare much better, though, with only Ensign Albert K. Earnest and Radioman 2nd Class Harry Ferrier surviving. Earnest would joke about being one of three "sole" survivors later in life.
Great Video! It was extremely informative. I learned a lot about US naval aviation by watching this footage. Thank you for posting. I hope that you can do more of this type of analysis of older film footage.
Very interesting. Saw these tracking charts in the TV series "War and Remembrance" (episode no.3) years back. Now I know why exactly why they were used. Looks like the guys who did that show did their homework nicely. :) Enjoyed the video, thank you very much!
There's a pretty good WWII Era movie, with Don Ameche, Richard Jaeckel, etc., which is a propaganda piece. The move is from '44, IIRC, but... It's filmed aboard an aircraft carrier and we do get to see a lot of the procedures aboard, including paddles. It's called' On a wing and a prayer, the story of carrier x'. I highly recommend it.
I remember seeing some crazy footage in a Japanese film about the sinking of the Yamato. I seem to remember thinking that they had cut in some footage from battle, but I could have been mistaken. Loved this video.
I love military history, and so have seen these clips many times in forty or so years. But, not being an aircraft enthusiast, my ability to distinguish between models is limited. All that said, you did a great job breaking all this down in detail, and in simple terms. Congratulations on a job well done! ... Note: you list “Henry Ford” at one point in the video description. Don’t you mean “John Ford”?
excellent video, I have interested in this type of stuff most of my life and yet you pointed out several things in the vintage footage I never noticed before. Thanks for the upload
Danke Bismarck! Having watched WW2 footage since childhood I quickly became aware of the same footage being employed over and over again, and not always used in the context of the story being told. The LSO footage was a confirmation of the surmises I had made earlier about what the waggling arms were meant to convey to the incoming pilot
Regardless of the theater of operations, all video footage shows all types of aircraft that existed at the time. One of the funniest things seen so far was the gun cam of a P-51 that was shooting at a Mosquito 😆
@@tonykeith76 It wasn't just Americans. A famous example is the C-54 (carrying P-38 parts) that the RAF shot down, thinking it was an Fw200. Friendly fire...isn't.
Love it mate. Really interesting format. Are you planning more of these? There are so many details in old footages that is worth of digging in and discuss!
Also note the old style battle helmets on the Chicago Piano gun crews. That dates this footage to early in the war. Sharper heads than me can date it more precisely.
Incorrect. At the time of Midway they were transitioning from the old to the newer helmets. There are photos where you can see both at the same time on Midway, Yorktown and Hornet.
Actually i am going to challenege you at 18:30. The upper left aircraft is an SBD the lower tight is a TBD. Look at the shape of the trailing edge of the wing (TBD trailing edge is smooth, SBD has a 'kink') and the shape of the horizontal stab (SBD has no cut out on th elevator for the rudder, TBD does).
Your discussion of the LSO reminds me of this story: A CVE was conducting flight operations in the Atlantic, and an aircraft (TBF/M or F4F) was coming in for a landing. The LSO's talker reported that the tail hook wasn't down. The LSO, not paying attention, gave the cut anyway. The plane, of course, crashed. As the LSO was standing looking surprised, the talker turned to the LSO and said, "Sir, that hook still isn't down."
22:04 explosion in the center of the frame definition of a “kill “ . Also my dad was a gunner with VT-10 in the turret of aTBM-1 he was shot down in WW 2 during the battle of Leyte he survived however his crew mates did not. I am thankful for all of the men who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom.
FYI At 27:30 there is footage of a Wildcat pilot getting out of the cockpit. This is Yorktown Fighter ace Elbert S. McCuskey. He shot down 5 planes during the battle of Midway. He had another previously at the battle of Coral Sea, so explains his 6 victory markings on display just outside the cockpit.
Great episode. Brilliant analysis. I would love to see more such episodes. The author's perceptiveness proves that he has passion and knowledge and does what he likes. It does it well, broadening the knowledge of even those who thought they were at the expert level.
I remember watching a colour documentary where the narrator captions a piece of footage as Japanese aircraft attacking Pearl Harbour. Except those were SBD Dauntless’s and the editors recoloured them in green with Japanese roundels superimposed on the US markings
oh wow, that would be a step too far in my opinion. Sometimes you lack the footage you need, so you make due with 'represenative' footage, but actively reediting is not on!
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Wouldn't be too surprised though... some people were very aware of the power of video for both morale and support from the general populace. I bet not trick was deemed too far, as long as it created that multi-senses story you mentioned in a coherent way. Remember, lots of filmmakers got away with using vastly different airplanes in movies well after the war... T6 trainers with Bf-109 paint schemes and such. WWII propaganda makers would've had exceptional integrity -- in other words, would've been crazy -- not to use similar tools to get their important job done.
Great, informative video. Watch enough TV documentaries and you see the same stock footage over and over. There's only so many pieces of film out there. I can pretty much predict which piece of stock footage will be shown by now.
Quite an effort figuring out what your actual position is with the nav chart/air computer after just having experienced a disorientating 15 minute air battle. :)
27:30 I think the Corsair in MSFS2020 was updated to include that pull-out board with the map. From the reviews I've seen, in the sim it's implemented as a "screen" (as in glass cockpit) that shows your live map, but looks like paper. Pretty cool.
Thank you Chris! That was fascinating. I've been studying this battle for over 50 years and picked up all kinds of things I didn't know. The fact that they had their chart boards inserted below the instrument panel as a little pull out table I had no idea. Sorry to say - but - your clientele here has a large number of History Nerds (like me) in it and they just love little things like that. Two things. 1) At that point in the war - it was part of Air Group Doctrine that attacking aircraft would be designated to carry smoke generators for the purpose of providing a smoke screen to cover the attacking air group. They stopped doing that but some of the aircraft in the attack (iirc) did in fact carry smoke generators. I wonder what they were dropping in the water - but it may have been those smoke generators. 2) I believe the burning ship was IJN Mikuma. It looks like her. As to their documentaries being ... somewhat an artistic creation ... just look at the one they did on Pearl Harbor. They've got SBD's with their markings filled in to look like Japanese Markings but they are plainly SBD's. They've also got shots of an Avenger dropping a torpedo and _A_ torpedo streaking through the water that is obviously an American Torpedo. In any case - when they made the "documentary" they didn't have a lot of (if any) actual footage of Japanese Aircraft so most of the planes are American. Now - Ford does have some actual combat footage of the attack on Midway as seen from the ground, including shots of a wrecked Japanese aircraft - but - yes - you really would need to look at all of it with a critical eye in trying to determine if it is actual "combat footage" or not. And yes - this is common place throughout documentaries where in they just throw together what ever shots they happen to have in their film footage libraries and cover it with narration. Now - I can't say how much different it was - but the US Marines did have Combat Cameramen. They were instructed - even if they ran out of film - to keep pretending that they were still filming. The idea was - that people who thought they were being recorded - would fight harder. Because of this, there is a tremendous amount of footage of Marine operations. One film from this was the Landings On Tarawa - which actually has a few seconds of Japanese troops running from one bunker to somewhere else. Now here - one factor in that - was that the Army tended to believe that the Marines should be disbanded as they could and did conduct more amphibious operations (they being much larger) than the Marines. Because of that - the Marines were _always_ publicity conscious in trying to avoid disbandment. There is a documentary called Five Came Home - about film makers such as Ford and Huston that went to war to document it. Huston's The Battle of San Pietro is excellent - but - it came out later that while everything in it actually happened - some of the footage was staged after the battle for the cameras. There is also a documentary on the _making_ of the film. One thing in the film that was not staged - was close up footage of the American Dead, just before they were buried. Huston had interviewed some of these men and they had talked about what their plans were - for after the war. He initially thought about playing the sound track to those interviews over the shots of their corpses - but decided it was to maudlin and didn't do it. .
Watch the PT Boat movie "They Were Expendable". One scene has the two stars, Robert Montgomery and John Wayne, at the helm coming in to port. Watch how they handle the helm. Robert Montgomery had been a real PT Boat skipper during the war and knew his business, and the difference is amazing. Then there's the old joke about what "secure" means to the different branches. Ask each to secure a building. The Marines will storm it, throw grenades everywhere, shoot up everything, and tell you the building is secure now. The Army will lay siege, bring up the heavy weapons, and eventually declare it secure. The Navy will empty the trash, turn out the lights, and lock the front doors. The Air Force will sign a three year lease with an option for two more.
Outstanding video and extremely well researched. I have read every book I think there is to read about this battle and this was a healthy supplement my own knowledge. I applaud your attention to detail and you’ve earned a new subscriber. Well done mate.
The first set of footage: the Dauntlesses are probably going out on "Inner Air Patrol", close flights around the task force looking for submarines. The 100 pound bomb was if they found one. Surprised they didn't have 2 bombs. The TBD's might be going out on scouting duties. According to Walter Lord the first time some of these pilots ever took off with a torpedo was at Midway. The overall size of the star markings changed more than once too. Some planes actually ended up with larger markings covering up the small ones, part of the smaller still being visible.
That is very interesting to see that footage beginning around 20:25. I have never seen that. John Ford had a camera team aboard the carrier Hornet. It is possible some of that carrier footage is from that ship. As far as I know, the only Navy footage from the actual battle was from Yorktown.
A comment on the fin stripes on the SBDs: I have seen the stripes described as identifications of which flight or division the plane belonged to, to help flights form up in formation. It might be an aid for the LSO as well, but I think he would depend more on other cues when waving in planes
Ensign Gay was the only survivor of the Devastator flight. Don’t forget the other two “only” survivors of VT8, Ensign Albert K. Earnest and Radioman 2nd Class Harry Ferrier. They where the only two to survive the TBF flight.
In clip three, towards the end, the camera is undercranked, that is, the frames per second is deliberately lowered in order to make the action (briefly) go faster. This was probably done in the editing of the film. Small additional point: it wasn't shot in Technicolor, in spite of what it says on the titles. That was a cumbersome process, and it's more likely that the colour film was Kodachrome 35. A lot of the Pacific War was actually shot in colour.
1:06 I feel much better about my landings now. Some have been rough over the years but at least none have managed to shatter my spine like that one must have.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Yes, it happens to all us. Had it not been the only time LSO was defined in the video, I wouldn't have bothered. I watch lots of your stuff learning bits here and there. Keep it up!
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Do something on the IJN landing system, I think it was the basis for systems currenttly in use, and yet they are ignored as "inferior".
Chris got his die cast airplanes all lined on the book case. Good Job! Not being an expert in aviation warfare, I'd think in a combat situation, there is little time to be taking video's or even a photo of a buddies aircraft. Exception, is a photo reconnaissance for battle damage assessment.
More, more, more, please. I want to see as much of the archival video I can. Raw video would be good. But I liked how you identified the different planes. I am not a trained observer, so don't recognize most the radial engine plans unless I can see the markings (Star, or Meat Ball). I always thought there must be millions of frames of ww2 war footage, but most videos I have watched for the last 50 or so years show mostly the same thing over and over. That driving jeep on fire at Midway comes to mind.
You did very well and I don’t really remember anyone bringing up the splicing of footage. Even as a child, before my 30 years of Naval aviation, I would dissect every movie/historical film for this “filler”. Look back and look what the ship is doing in each splice. No hard turns, straight wake and set condition. Bravo on your post!
I enjoyed this very much. I have never found an explanation to USN a/c markings in '42 before. I also assume that the red/white bars on the rudder vanished at the same time as the red dot in the star?
A very interesting presentation. I agree with your assessment that some of the footage was from a US Navy exercise. John Ford had limited naval footage of the Battle of Midway so added the training footage to help tell the story. A couple of points; the US National Archives did not intentionally mislabel the footage. I believe the footage was labeled Battle of Midway by the Navy because of its use in the John Ford film. I recommend you share your observations with NARA and they may add it to the catalog. There were six TBFs at the Battle of Midway; there were a detachment of VT-8 based on Midway Island and flew sorties on June 4. One last item, the navigation board is the origin of the knee board used by fighter pilots even today.
John Ford used to write letters to John Wayne and tease him that he wasn't taking part in the war. Ford is lucky he wasn't captured at Midway and then died as a Japanese POW. If US navy intelligence hadn't figured out the Japanese were going to attack Midway and set a trap, Midway would have fallen immediately. Hello by the way. You are often on Paul's WW2TV channel Chat sidebar.
@@ToddSauve Thanks for sharing. John Ford took a risk but the footage he took during the attack on Midway is amazing. Look forward to seeing you on future WW2TV sidebars!
One thing I watch for is control positions. It's also interesting to see how much rudder is required for each aircraft to counter torque/p-factor/gyroscopic precession on take off.
If the SBD "B-11" was from VB-6, then that aircraft was lost returning from the main strike approximately 10 miles from the US Fleet (ENS T.W. Ramsay, and ARM2c S.L. Duncan were seen getting into their raft but were never rescued). BTW, the "navigation board" of the pilots is called "plotting board" (in the surface fleet we call it "Maneuvering Board").
Thanks for the analysis of these videos. I have watched these videos since I was a little kid when was reading everything I could find on WW2. I never believed these videos were 'live' at Midway. The narrative of the action was exaggerated and not believable. Neither was the images of the AAA firing. Until the first attack on Yorktown, the Japanese air arm was not attacking the US Fleet, so there was no need for "Ack-Ack." The red-white horizontal stripes on the rudders of the SBD's looks very pre-war. Most of this appears to be training videos, made either right before the war or shortly after the war began.
A lot of this footage was used for newsreels,a massive cinema pull for the latest news before home TVs were a thing. I don't think I'd classify it as "propaganda" in the strict sense, but there was a genuine desire for the "folks back home" to use the American phrase, to know what was happening. All sides used it for domestic consumption, and no doubt the "artistic licence" of using US aircraft to show action footage was not frowned upon. I have seen these clips many times over and the obvious shape of both the Devastator and Dauntless is an immediate give away. It's a shame those 1.1" guns weren't as good in reality as they looked on the film....good video as always,well until you got the sponsor and it all went out of the window.
Very well done! I enjoyed it and learned a lot from your analysis. It was slightly disheartening to learn some of the sequences I’ve been watching since childhood were not from the actual battle itself but were probably from training and normal daily carrier ops. Now I’ll have to watch all WWII footage with a gimlet eye! Lol. BTW....at 18:07 we can see the Chicago pianos firing and a sailor, NOT in combat gear, nonchalantly leaning on the railing watching the proceedings. Definitely not shot during battle but spliced in later for effect I guess.
That was an exceptionally interesting episode. I always enjoy your videos, but the analysis of the footage was great. More of these please! (And I loved your excited description of WOW Legends - I don't have an X Box or Playstation, but if I did you'd have sold me on trying this version of WOW!) 😊
The oddest bit of midway footage I notice, was the officers in tropical uniform rather than battle dress, which to me pointed to this was not a live fire situation. Particularly the laughing at something.
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Corrections: 03:17 It's Pratt & Whitney R-1830, not Wright. Thanks to viewer 'MrYoung' for spotting this
Five comercial breaks in half an hour!
As a Pilot of many small aircraft ( Aquila, PA28s, PA44) and since 2019 the Boeing 737-800... Jeez when some Pilots hit the moving deck with their SBDs/TBDs/F4Fs ...wow I feel like my hardest landing was softer than that :D
You can almost feel being slammed into the seat by them controlled crashes :D
Grüße
Just a side note on mistaken Identity friendly fire, my father was a WWII SW Pacific theater veteran, and when I was a child (I'm 62 now, his youngest son) we used to make model planes together, and he told me while we were making a Dauntless model, that Dauntless' suffered more friendly fire incidences because from below their silhouette closely resembles that of the Zero. He then grabbed the Zero model we had made earlier, and he showed me, holding both planed above me. It was pretty amazing how similar they looked, and with inexperienced personnel manning the anti-aircraft batteries I could imagine in the heat of battle the confusion this similarity could cause.
This is an excellent coverage of the details of WW2 period film footage :)
Why thank you :)
So when are you two going to make a video together? lol
@@juno1915 they have
Ohh you two, get a room.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory could you do a video on pilot training throughout the war and maybe also what each person does in all the different aircraft along with the equipment that was used/ technology progression
I absolutely love when people upload ww2 footage to RUclips saying it's "Rare". It ain't rare if it's been digitised and available to purchase in HD for years.
Also another pet peeve of mine is ww2 footage being uploaded to RUclips looking like ass. My guess would be DVD rips and then countless re uploads and downloads. WW2 footage can look amazing and very high detailed if taken from the right source. 😀
Yeah, I agree. If it's on RUclips, it's probably not that rare
Agreed. So many RUclipsrs out there who just want to be a YT "Star". They upload something they just found that's been uploaded many times before, say that this is "Real Footage from X", then a few people just come across it, do a "Dude, this is the best thing EVER! Never seen anything like it" & off they go, thinking they are on their way, posting more & more dross. (Plus the posters who, sadly, just want a "Heart" from that YT channel, because then they have been "recognised")
That 100% depends on what camera was used to shoot it.
@@slartybartfarst55 Agreed. I want to avoid the obvious clickbait, but sometimes one has to grit their teeth and watch, hoping for some new info to be gleaned. BTW, good use of the word dross. Dont see that one used much except in crossword puzzles, lol.
You forgot the obnoxious watermark for the YT channel.
I never knew about that navigation board in the aircraft, seems a lot more handy than the maps on your leg routine or the clip board that could fly around in the cockpit. It's all these little details which are cool about looking at archival footage that isn't much talked about by shows/documentaries/movies who focus on the "big picture".
Happy to hear that you found it interesting, yes, documentaries tend to gloss over this sort of detail, since a TV is less suited to it, but that is the nice thing about being able to do it ourselves here on ze internet
Still that did not really help the pilots from Hornet where only Waldrons VT-8 found the Japanese but were annihilated
@@Kim-the-Dane-1952 Guess that happens when you fly 265
@@Kim-the-Dane-1952 the board helped if they flew where they were assigned and made it back to their carrier
@@neilwilson5785 Yes I agree they did find them while the rest of the Hornet fliers did not but only by effectively committing insubordination by abandoning the rest of the flight and going their separate way without even telling Cmdr. Stanhope Ring. As a result they were entirely without fighter cover and doomed when they flew in.
Authentic "Combat Photography" of all sorts was not usually intended for public consumption up to the end of WW2. Anything in the way of sound effects are usually bogus, such as explosions at some distance with the bang and flash in synch instead of separate.
@Matt Horkan only the part of is that is above water was supposed to be below water :D
Yup. Felton's videos can be full of those. But because you seem the same sequence of armored cars on a road, artillery guns, shermans between hedges etc etc every time, it's clear it's meant as 'stock footage' to illustrate the action rather than accurately depict it. So apart from the horrible sound fx and the overly excited 40s narrators, I don't ind too much.
@Matt Horkan
The Admiral Hipper is also above water... But buried beneath a nice park during the expansion of the waterfront at Kiel.
It's the only German capital ship not testing on the bottom of the ocean.
“ the torpedo isn’t great “
That’s a very big understatement
admiral King: *blood pressure rising*
Isn’t great aka useless. Lol
@@Treetopflyer777 It wasn't useless. You could sink american submarines with it.
@@GilbMLRS haha I actually laughed out loud!
@@vaclav_fejt Semper Irratus! 😉
The BIPLANE at 22:06 is a USN remote controled target drone like a TG-2
Was just thinking the same. A biplane getting closer and closer to being shot - and flying all alone didn't seem right. :)
Good comment. A biplane in this situation would not make sense.
I would suspect that as well. A Japanese recon plane would have no need to get that close.
I don't imagine naval officers would be smiling in their dress whites if they were being bombed. @16.02
Bingo!!!!
No no, I'm sure they were just surprised during some officers' only party or something and still thought it was just a drill when they went up on deck for a look. Totally legit.
@@LesSharp Very funny. Right, they had no idea they were in a combat situation, and decided it was a good time for frivolity. Not.
Agreed. The moment I saw those dress whites and guys standing around not doing anything important I knew it wasn't combat.
At 21:30 you see AA guns explosions at low altitude. When these large gun's projectiles explode (black puffs) directly under them are the splashes of shrapnel hitting the water. Watch these at slower speed, you can see it plainly. This type of projectile is two for one so to speak, an enormous explosion shock-wave followed by thousands of pieces of metal blown in all directions.
Anyone know why there are white burst every once in a while?
So that is real footage then?
@@hanoitripper1809 It's certainly live-fire footage. However, it is possible that it's target practice footage and that biplane was a drone used to provide a more realistic target than something like a sleeve.
@@Ralph-yn3gr did they have unmanned drones that could move like that tho
@@hanoitripper1809 I think so. I don't think drones had too much of a problem with slight changes in altitude like that. It was more simulating a full on dive bombing attack that was the issue. I could be wrong, though.
My main reasoning is that that aircraft is a land-biplane, not a seaplane, and there's only one of them. The only land-biplanes Japan had at Midway were the B4Ys on Hosho, which provided ASW coverage for the main body and never got near the US carriers. Also, an attacker would likely come as part of a wave of aircraft instead of by itself. A scout plane would be alone, but it would also have no reason to get so close to a carrier.
One of the saddest things about Midway is the lack of film footage or photos. That's why most of the time, when we see movies or documentaries about Midway, usually the carriers shown are Essex-class, which has always annoyed me.
The markings discussion was very familiar as a model builder.
Trying to find a consistent marking schemes is very difficult for Malta Spitfires.😂
The issue of how many .30s the rear gunners on SBDs and TBDs had was interesting too. One thing I learned was that Waldron had copped a couple of SBD mounts for VT8's TBDs.
Try finding a book called 'Spitfires over Malta' lots of very good archive pics.
In addition to incorrect film footage I look for reversed film. When you see the bolt handles of US weapons (with the exception of the BAR) on the left side, a group of left handed soldiers throwing grenades, awards worn over the right shirt pocket you know you have reversed film and whoever screened the footage was, at best, sleeping on the job. Many times you will see the 'positive' version of the same film a few minutes later. Hopefully the producer did not pay twice for the same scene.
If you see it twice, once each way round, it's deliberate. They pay once (if at all), and show it twice. They hope you won't notice.
I was thinking about doing a video about this just the other day. A great deal of 'not Midway' footage is used. Six TBFs of VT-8 were at Midway and were commanded by Lt. Langdon Fieberling. 5 were lost and one returned to be written off. They got the name Avenger after the battle in honor of their losses.
I was watching a doco on the History Channel the other day regarding the battle of Stalingrad. The bulk of the footage used was from the Battle of Berlin by Soviet troops later in the war. When you have buildings & street signs in German with German architecture, it isn't hard to know where it is.
Another of the stuff ups is the Liberation of Paris footage. You always get American narrators saying it was US forces that liberated Paris & you'll see American tanks & what looks like American troops. They were Leclerc's 2e Division Blindée (2nd French Armoured Division) with Free French unit markings on the tanks with the white star. The same with British & Canadian armoured columns in NW Europe. American narrators saying it's US Forces but clearly (besides the white star) it has British unit markings & you'll see a couple of Churchill tanks among a column of Sherman tanks.
@Daniel Large Really!?! I didn't bloody know that! I thought it was the USSR.
@Daniel Large so?
Bonjour de France. Always a wonderful job you do and a real pleasure to watch and learn new stuffs from this incredible moment in time.
Merci beaucoup!
This is one of your best videos because you used your passionate knowledge to analyze key things in the film clips most would never see.
Wow, thank you! So happy to hear this
This was extremely interesting and it made you feel like you were there seeing it for real. Please keep doing this type of video and analysis. Great!
Every body uses "stock footage"
Germany wasn't the only one to dabble in propaganda
The little bombs are practice bombs.
They are taking off to do a training exercise.
One of my pet peeves regarding military footage is when the subject of the video is one thing there is all kinds of other footage that is spliced in to fill the void. The RUclips channel Dark Skies is great for this.
Movie director John Ford was a USN reserve officer during the war producing films for the Navy. He was on Midway when the IJN attacked the island and filmed parts of it.
In terms of aircraft that made attacks on the IJN carriers and surface ships at Midway it ranges from SBDs on up to B-26s and B-17s flying out of Midway.
The Cold War channel is also regularly guilty of using footage that doesn't match what they're talking about.
The B-17 crews didn't get a hit. Poor considering that the B-17 was originally designed as a coastal defense aircraft
@@dalecomer5951
Did any of the land based aircraft get a hit?
@@mpetersen6 Not absolutely sure but I know someone who should know.
Very nice dissection of the video. I used a related "nav computer", in the 1980s Navy; the maneuvering board.
Fascinating video, very detailed. I often find myself shouting at TV documentaries when they get archive footage horribly wrong, but this is a thing of beauty.
I'm glad you brought this up because, yes, many documentaries feature footage out of context, and that does distort historical reality. Sometimes it's because of lazy, or poorly researched projects. On the other hand there are some iconic images that not only captured the war and made an impression on those who actually fought, they pretty much have to be included because they ARE icons that are easily understood. So yes, Germans marching, French guy crying, Japanese soldiers yelling "banzai" etc. are going to be in every film because the images themselves are a key part of the story that informed us then and now, even out of context. Can they be misused or create further distortions? Of course. But consider that the same can be said of certain sound effects. Most combat films were shot without sound. The effects were dubbed in later for news reels and later film documentaries. Hollywood introduced talking pictures in the US in 1929. By 1939, there were sound effect libraries on 78 rpm records that were used to score films. There's a dive bomber sequence that was made pre-war (in the US) that you've heard dozens of times in films, newsreels, TV and major motion pictures. Same with a particular artillery gun firing, a specific large explosion, bullet ricochet, Stuka siren, Pacific Island jungle bird, etc. These are used to illustrate every army on every front and yes, they've also become iconic. Thank you so much for the review and conversation on this topic and others. Subscribed.
Learn something new from each of your videos. I had no idea what the diagonal stripes on the vertical stabilizer were for. Keep up the great work!
Great video! I hope you do many more like it. I have watched a lot of documentaries and I have noticed a lot inconsistencies as well. So much so that I often find myself asking "is this footage placed at this point to represent the actual battle or is this footage actually from the battle?". The fact that the sounds of battle are usually made in a studio because recordings made during battles were very rare, can also be very misleading.
Yet a superb look and breakdown of time period footage. Never knew that the F4F had the navigation board underneath the instrument panel though, that was cool to learn.
Fantastic work as always Bis.
The footage makes it look like you’re actually there! Absolutely amazing that they captured this in the heat of battle! Almost like how the battle of the Denmark strait was captured on film as well in exceptional detail!
There was probably somebody filming on board the Hood.
@@mpetersen6 Yeah that’s possible. If there was the footage was lost in the inferno.
@@stevenmoore4612
There was probably cameras being used on Prince of Wales and the cruisers trailing Bismark.
One thing that gets missed with the Devestator, and the replacement cycle. There were only 150 TBD Devastators built. The vast majority of those fought in the Battle of Midway. By day 2 at Midway Spruance had 3 remaining Devastators capable of flight. And the entire Navy only had 39 remaining. With pretty much all of those being on the Saratoga, which just missed the battle by 48 hours, and the Wasp which was a few days further out. The first 6 Production TBF Avengers literally rolled out the factory doors in Bethpage NY, took off, flew cross country to San Diego, then flew straight to Pearl Harbor, just missing their rendezvous with the Hornet, and instead went directly to Midway Island to join the land based aircraft. All with the paint still wet.
As a private pilot with an interest in military history I found this a very interesting piece. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Sean!
I already knew footage was not accurate, and often reused in many projects. I learned a bit more about aircraft markings which were a bit before my time. Thanks!
I really love what you've done here with this. I wish this was done more often and in more theaters.
I appreciate what you are doing to try to straighten out what is authentic footage and what is not. I've seen many videos RUclips and even on some of the mainstream cable channels that are just BS. Wrong airplanes, wrong battles, and even wrong sound effects. My father flew a SBD at Midway in VS-8 and the only photo on the internet identified as VS-8 is not.
Love the breakdown of the footage. I noticed some of these aspects when watching archive footage but missed some others. So always nice to see what someone else noticed. But generally I just watch them for fun rather than trying to break them down. I might break them down more often now though. I only done something like this on occasion.
Oh and somehow you make the advertisement fun to watch without any fancy storytelling and transition. Just good old air superiority and targets does the rick.
I think all combat footage should be authenticated for its time and date, and only used in those periods that are accurate. This video has been great! Please do more.
When a carrier would go into port it would fly off it's aircraft to shore airfield. Can't launch or recover anchored or docked. Would explain no bombs or torps.
As someone who just started a WWII aircraft RUclips channel earlier this year, I’ve been hesitant to use archive videos and sometimes finding public domain images can be tough. This was an Interesting video, keep up the great content!
5:21 AFAIK, this is also why Commonwealth forces in the Pacific theatre switch to the blue/white roundel.
Yup :)
So first, I have to say that Chris has really upped his game as far as the ads go. Quite the salesman! If I hadn't already been playing WoWS for years, I'd certainly jump on it now to get my free carrier and aircraft and go nuke a bunch of defenseless ships!
Aside from that, I did notice the dress uniforms in the footage, which I thought was odd for battle conditions, and also wondered which ships were doing the launching--that might be another clue as to when the footage was created. As always, an informative, very enjoyable video!
As far as I can tell, and I doubled checked with a few others that know their ships, it's Enterprise and Hornet
I was in the US Navy a long time ago (73-76, USS Midway) and one of the most confusing things to me was and is when to wear a cover. The general rule was wear a cover outdoors, which meant all the weather decks, and included the hangar bay. The ship modified that to never wear a cover at sea. Once they announced "underway, shift colors" we never wore a hat until back and tied up at the dock. I manned the rail coming into port many times and do not remember now if we wore a hat, and inspections always included the cover. I never knew if this was because we were an aircraft carrier and they worried about FOD, or just being a ship period.
Look at old pictures and films and you often see half a gun crew or loading party wearing hats, half not. What was the rule then? This applies to WW II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and more recent stuff.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005
Just a guess but when at sea especially when conducting flight operations the head gear would have a hard time staying in place 😱
Aside from the Snoppy headgear the flight deck personnel wear.
@@mpetersen6 I understand the flight deck operations, but the rule was no hats, period, from the time we left the pier until we came back. And then you see WW II videos showing crew at see, half wearing covers, half not, in combat, lounging around, all sorts of situations. Never did understand all the variations.
@@grizwoldphantasia5005 On board your particular ship could it have been the Captains preference or was it standardized for every ship?
I heard long ago that there was no Navy film from the Battle of Midway and now you just proved it.
Not accurate. Midway was filmed. Hollywood director John Ford was there in person and wounded.
@@WALTERBROADDUS He was on the island; not on a ship at sea.
@@WALTERBROADDUS Ford's filming was on Midway itself. He was not aboard the carriers.
Incorrect. There is footage on Yorktown of the dive bomber attack and aftermath.
The older markings used at Coral Sea also extended to rudder with red white red pattern. And that. The markings used at Midway until 1943 where they where replaced with iconic stars and bars with red outline before being replaced with more iconic stars and bars with a blue outline which was derived from USAAF emblem which used the emblem from 1943 until the USAF’s creation in 1947.
Sitting here with my 101 year old grandpa who flew off of the Lexington, Wasp and the Hornet who participated in the Battle Of Midway said that those boards @28:50 would be a like a current E6B that today's pilot have to measure time, distance, fuel burn per hour and your orders of the day. You start off with a LAT/LON of the ship and you plot courses and the little wheel is the E6B like I stated above. My grandpa still has the mind of a 30 year old, he remembers EVERYTHING where as for myself at 50 years old is more forget full. My grandpa can remembers flying the Buffalo to the F4F
EXCELLENT video! Really enjoyed the detail put into some older footage
This was one of your best videos! Thank you very much. It also reminds us of how crude the equipment was relative to the task at hand. Courage and brains were absolutely required. It makes you wonder if the video game jockeys could do it if they were required to go out on the ocean in those rickety airplanes with navigation boards on their laps.
Chris you're precisely correct on the torpedos.. I was watching a documentary on the Guadal Canal on History channel. One of the pilots said he was approaching a Japanese destroyer and was upset because the sea was rough and he had to wait for a swell to drop the torpedo in to. He said that if he just dropped it, the possibility of hitting the peak of a wave would redirect the torpedo causing a miss. Hence he had to spend too much time under antiaircraft fire waiting for the perfect swell! I can only imagine how difficult it would be in an already langsam torpedo plane!
Excellent footage and the chat was stellar. Just love the small details,!
Learned a lot, thanks. What has always annoyed me about all these edited combat films is the added sound effects being out of sync. You'll see and hear a distant explosion at the same time, when reality dictates the sound coming tens of seconds later. I've noticed other combat footage showing the wrong planes, even from the wrong country, including different types of planes in scenes which are supposed to be just seconds apart -- bombers vs fighters, nationality, even jet vs prop.
Yes, often it is also quite difficult to tell what sound was added in post 'at the time' and what by the documentary makers. Add to that that the majority of combat footage is often staged, something especially prevalent but not limited to videos from WW1 and WW2. It can be used as a approximation of what it might have looked like in reality, but only that. That's why I like some of the scenes I show here, like the take-offs and landings - not much that can be different then, it's just the same everytime it happens.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory The accuracy of 'realistic' footage used in TV history documentaries has been very low for years. I can recall the 'Victory at Sea' series of the 1960's being much more fastidious - probably because at that time, there were so many people around in all professions who'd lived through the WW2 events shown or even been participants. Since then, the industry watchwords have been 'cheap, quick and sensational'. The low point for me was a recent documentary about the Battle of Britain that included footage of Ilyushin IL-2's strafing ground targets.
Likewise, so many scenes in Russian battles are clearly the staged versions filmed soon after the event for propaganda purposes. Excusable when actual battle footage was too hectic to present a coherent storyline, perhaps! However, the final edit always showed the Russians fighting facing to the left, and the Germans to the right. Left-handed riflemen and back-to-front aircraft insignia are the usual giveaways.
ps My other interest is railways, where out-of-context historical footage is even worse!
@@edwardsadler7515 It cracks me up how in movies and even documentary sound effects added any plane diving is equipped with Jericho's Trumpet.
Great video! I learned a few things, especially about markings. One note, though. Part of the Torpedo 8 had recently acquired Avenger torpedo bombers and were detached to Midway. They actually attacked before their shipborne counterparts. They didn't fare much better, though, with only Ensign Albert K. Earnest and Radioman 2nd Class Harry Ferrier surviving. Earnest would joke about being one of three "sole" survivors later in life.
Great Video! It was extremely informative. I learned a lot about US naval aviation by watching this footage. Thank you for posting. I hope that you can do more of this type of analysis of older film footage.
Very interesting. Saw these tracking charts in the TV series "War and Remembrance" (episode no.3) years back. Now I know why exactly why they were used. Looks like the guys who did that show did their homework nicely. :)
Enjoyed the video, thank you very much!
nice!
There's a pretty good WWII Era movie, with Don Ameche, Richard Jaeckel, etc., which is a propaganda piece. The move is from '44, IIRC, but... It's filmed aboard an aircraft carrier and we do get to see a lot of the procedures aboard, including paddles. It's called' On a wing and a prayer, the story of carrier x'. I highly recommend it.
Really enjoyed the analysis. Had always considered this battle footage to have been "Hollywooded" and now I know. Thanks.
I remember seeing some crazy footage in a Japanese film about the sinking of the Yamato. I seem to remember thinking that they had cut in some footage from battle, but I could have been mistaken. Loved this video.
I love military history, and so have seen these clips many times in forty or so years.
But, not being an aircraft enthusiast, my ability to distinguish between models is limited.
All that said, you did a great job breaking all this down in detail, and in simple terms.
Congratulations on a job well done!
...
Note: you list “Henry Ford” at one point in the video description. Don’t you mean “John Ford”?
excellent video, I have interested in this type of stuff most of my life and yet you pointed out several things in the vintage footage I never noticed before. Thanks for the upload
Danke Bismarck!
Having watched WW2 footage since childhood I quickly became aware of
the same footage being employed over and over again,
and not always used in the context of the story being told.
The LSO footage was a confirmation of the surmises I had made earlier about
what the waggling arms were meant to convey to the incoming pilot
Regardless of the theater of operations, all video footage shows all types of aircraft that existed at the time.
One of the funniest things seen so far was the gun cam of a P-51 that was shooting at a Mosquito 😆
Not so funny for the Mosquito crew...
@@ryanh.3192 Sadly, american pilots fired to many friendly planes... Typhoon mainly
@@tonykeith76 It wasn't just Americans. A famous example is the C-54 (carrying P-38 parts) that the RAF shot down, thinking it was an Fw200. Friendly fire...isn't.
@@ryanh.3192Friendly fire is a problem even today.. Have a good week end
Love it mate. Really interesting format. Are you planning more of these? There are so many details in old footages that is worth of digging in and discuss!
Also note the old style battle helmets on the Chicago Piano gun crews. That dates this footage to early in the war. Sharper heads than me can date it more precisely.
Incorrect. At the time of Midway they were transitioning from the old to the newer helmets. There are photos where you can see both at the same time on Midway, Yorktown and Hornet.
Actually i am going to challenege you at 18:30. The upper left aircraft is an SBD the lower tight is a TBD. Look at the shape of the trailing edge of the wing (TBD trailing edge is smooth, SBD has a 'kink') and the shape of the horizontal stab (SBD has no cut out on th elevator for the rudder, TBD does).
Very interesting analysis there sir.I have seen pictures in books from those films and bits and pieces of film before.
Your discussion of the LSO reminds me of this story: A CVE was conducting flight operations in the Atlantic, and an aircraft (TBF/M or F4F) was coming in for a landing. The LSO's talker reported that the tail hook wasn't down. The LSO, not paying attention, gave the cut anyway. The plane, of course, crashed. As the LSO was standing looking surprised, the talker turned to the LSO and said, "Sir, that hook still isn't down."
22:04 explosion in the center of the frame definition of a “kill “ . Also my dad was a gunner with VT-10 in the turret of aTBM-1 he was shot down in WW 2 during the battle of Leyte he survived however his crew mates did not. I am thankful for all of the men who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom.
FYI At 27:30 there is footage of a Wildcat pilot getting out of the cockpit. This is Yorktown Fighter ace Elbert S. McCuskey. He shot down 5 planes during the battle of Midway. He had another previously at the battle of Coral Sea, so explains his 6 victory markings on display just outside the cockpit.
Great episode. Brilliant analysis. I would love to see more such episodes. The author's perceptiveness proves that he has passion and knowledge and does what he likes. It does it well, broadening the knowledge of even those who thought they were at the expert level.
I remember watching a colour documentary where the narrator captions a piece of footage as Japanese aircraft attacking Pearl Harbour.
Except those were SBD Dauntless’s and the editors recoloured them in green with Japanese roundels superimposed on the US markings
oh wow, that would be a step too far in my opinion. Sometimes you lack the footage you need, so you make due with 'represenative' footage, but actively reediting is not on!
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Wouldn't be too surprised though... some people were very aware of the power of video for both morale and support from the general populace. I bet not trick was deemed too far, as long as it created that multi-senses story you mentioned in a coherent way.
Remember, lots of filmmakers got away with using vastly different airplanes in movies well after the war... T6 trainers with Bf-109 paint schemes and such. WWII propaganda makers would've had exceptional integrity -- in other words, would've been crazy -- not to use similar tools to get their important job done.
Great, informative video. Watch enough TV documentaries and you see the same stock footage over and over. There's only so many pieces of film out there. I can pretty much predict which piece of stock footage will be shown by now.
Quite an effort figuring out what your actual position is with the nav chart/air computer after just having experienced a disorientating 15 minute air battle. :)
Thanks for the amazing work as always! I started learning deutch because of you hahah
27:30 I think the Corsair in MSFS2020 was updated to include that pull-out board with the map. From the reviews I've seen, in the sim it's implemented as a "screen" (as in glass cockpit) that shows your live map, but looks like paper. Pretty cool.
The biplane being shot at could be a Curtiss N2C-2 Fledgling biplane target drone. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_Fledgling
Thank you Chris! That was fascinating. I've been studying this battle for over 50 years and picked up all kinds of things I didn't know. The fact that they had their chart boards inserted below the instrument panel as a little pull out table I had no idea. Sorry to say - but - your clientele here has a large number of History Nerds (like me) in it and they just love little things like that.
Two things.
1) At that point in the war - it was part of Air Group Doctrine that attacking aircraft would be designated to carry smoke generators for the purpose of providing a smoke screen to cover the attacking air group. They stopped doing that but some of the aircraft in the attack (iirc) did in fact carry smoke generators. I wonder what they were dropping in the water - but it may have been those smoke generators.
2) I believe the burning ship was IJN Mikuma. It looks like her.
As to their documentaries being ... somewhat an artistic creation ... just look at the one they did on Pearl Harbor. They've got SBD's with their markings filled in to look like Japanese Markings but they are plainly SBD's. They've also got shots of an Avenger dropping a torpedo and _A_ torpedo streaking through the water that is obviously an American Torpedo. In any case - when they made the "documentary" they didn't have a lot of (if any) actual footage of Japanese Aircraft so most of the planes are American.
Now - Ford does have some actual combat footage of the attack on Midway as seen from the ground, including shots of a wrecked Japanese aircraft - but - yes - you really would need to look at all of it with a critical eye in trying to determine if it is actual "combat footage" or not. And yes - this is common place throughout documentaries where in they just throw together what ever shots they happen to have in their film footage libraries and cover it with narration.
Now - I can't say how much different it was - but the US Marines did have Combat Cameramen. They were instructed - even if they ran out of film - to keep pretending that they were still filming. The idea was - that people who thought they were being recorded - would fight harder. Because of this, there is a tremendous amount of footage of Marine operations. One film from this was the Landings On Tarawa - which actually has a few seconds of Japanese troops running from one bunker to somewhere else.
Now here - one factor in that - was that the Army tended to believe that the Marines should be disbanded as they could and did conduct more amphibious operations (they being much larger) than the Marines. Because of that - the Marines were _always_ publicity conscious in trying to avoid disbandment.
There is a documentary called Five Came Home - about film makers such as Ford and Huston that went to war to document it.
Huston's The Battle of San Pietro is excellent - but - it came out later that while everything in it actually happened - some of the footage was staged after the battle for the cameras. There is also a documentary on the _making_ of the film.
One thing in the film that was not staged - was close up footage of the American Dead, just before they were buried. Huston had interviewed some of these men and they had talked about what their plans were - for after the war. He initially thought about playing the sound track to those interviews over the shots of their corpses - but decided it was to maudlin and didn't do it.
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Watch the PT Boat movie "They Were Expendable". One scene has the two stars, Robert Montgomery and John Wayne, at the helm coming in to port. Watch how they handle the helm. Robert Montgomery had been a real PT Boat skipper during the war and knew his business, and the difference is amazing.
Then there's the old joke about what "secure" means to the different branches. Ask each to secure a building. The Marines will storm it, throw grenades everywhere, shoot up everything, and tell you the building is secure now. The Army will lay siege, bring up the heavy weapons, and eventually declare it secure. The Navy will empty the trash, turn out the lights, and lock the front doors. The Air Force will sign a three year lease with an option for two more.
Outstanding video and extremely well researched. I have read every book I think there is to read about this battle and this was a healthy supplement my own knowledge. I applaud your attention to detail and you’ve earned a new subscriber. Well done mate.
The first set of footage: the Dauntlesses are probably going out on "Inner Air Patrol", close flights around the task force looking for submarines. The 100 pound bomb was if they found one. Surprised they didn't have 2 bombs. The TBD's might be going out on scouting duties. According to Walter Lord the first time some of these pilots ever took off with a torpedo was at Midway. The overall size of the star markings changed more than once too. Some planes actually ended up with larger markings covering up the small ones, part of the smaller still being visible.
Kudos on the video. Your narrative and insight is so enlightening. Many thanks!
That is very interesting to see that footage beginning around 20:25. I have never seen that. John Ford had a camera team aboard the carrier Hornet. It is possible some of that carrier footage is from that ship. As far as I know, the only Navy footage from the actual battle was from Yorktown.
A comment on the fin stripes on the SBDs: I have seen the stripes described as identifications of which flight or division the plane belonged to, to help flights form up in formation. It might be an aid for the LSO as well, but I think he would depend more on other cues when waving in planes
Ensign Gay was the only survivor of the Devastator flight. Don’t forget the other two “only” survivors of VT8, Ensign Albert K. Earnest and Radioman 2nd Class Harry Ferrier. They where the only two to survive the TBF flight.
Thanks. Just watched doco on Midway and found the same footage to be confusing! All clear now. Valuable analysis, thanks.
In clip three, towards the end, the camera is undercranked, that is, the frames per second is deliberately lowered in order to make the action (briefly) go faster. This was probably done in the editing of the film. Small additional point: it wasn't shot in Technicolor, in spite of what it says on the titles. That was a cumbersome process, and it's more likely that the colour film was Kodachrome 35. A lot of the Pacific War was actually shot in colour.
1:06 I feel much better about my landings now. Some have been rough over the years but at least none have managed to shatter my spine like that one must have.
That landing gear is made of stern stuff, apparently.
LSO is Landing Signal Officer, not Landing System Officer.
Yup, I say Landing Signal officer, but misspeak at least once to say System. It happens
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Yes, it happens to all us. Had it not been the only time LSO was defined in the video, I wouldn't have bothered. I watch lots of your stuff learning bits here and there. Keep it up!
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Do something on the IJN landing system, I think it was the basis for systems currenttly in use, and yet they are ignored as "inferior".
Chris got his die cast airplanes all lined on the book case. Good Job! Not being an expert in aviation warfare, I'd think in a combat situation, there is little time to be taking video's or even a photo of a buddies aircraft. Exception, is a photo reconnaissance for battle damage assessment.
Great video and research on your part. This is the kind of explanation and sharing we need to really appreciate history.
More, more, more, please. I want to see as much of the archival video I can. Raw video would be good. But I liked how you identified the different planes. I am not a trained observer, so don't recognize most the radial engine plans unless I can see the markings (Star, or Meat Ball).
I always thought there must be millions of frames of ww2 war footage, but most videos I have watched for the last 50 or so years show mostly the same thing over and over. That driving jeep on fire at Midway comes to mind.
You did very well and I don’t really remember anyone bringing up the splicing of footage. Even as a child, before my 30 years of Naval aviation, I would dissect every movie/historical film for this “filler”. Look back and look what the ship is doing in each splice. No hard turns, straight wake and set condition. Bravo on your post!
I enjoyed this very much. I have never found an explanation to USN a/c markings in '42 before. I also assume that the red/white bars on the rudder vanished at the same time as the red dot in the star?
A very interesting presentation. I agree with your assessment that some of the footage was from a US Navy exercise. John Ford had limited naval footage of the Battle of Midway so added the training footage to help tell the story. A couple of points; the US National Archives did not intentionally mislabel the footage. I believe the footage was labeled Battle of Midway by the Navy because of its use in the John Ford film. I recommend you share your observations with NARA and they may add it to the catalog. There were six TBFs at the Battle of Midway; there were a detachment of VT-8 based on Midway Island and flew sorties on June 4. One last item, the navigation board is the origin of the knee board used by fighter pilots even today.
John Ford used to write letters to John Wayne and tease him that he wasn't taking part in the war. Ford is lucky he wasn't captured at Midway and then died as a Japanese POW. If US navy intelligence hadn't figured out the Japanese were going to attack Midway and set a trap, Midway would have fallen immediately.
Hello by the way. You are often on Paul's WW2TV channel Chat sidebar.
@@ToddSauve Thanks for sharing. John Ford took a risk but the footage he took during the attack on Midway is amazing. Look forward to seeing you on future WW2TV sidebars!
@@scottgrimwood8868 You too Scott!
@@scottgrimwood8868 John Ford's "The Searchers" is one of my _very_ favourite movies! Have you seen it?
One thing I watch for is control positions. It's also interesting to see how much rudder is required for each aircraft to counter torque/p-factor/gyroscopic precession on take off.
If the SBD "B-11" was from VB-6, then that aircraft was lost returning from the main strike approximately 10 miles from the US Fleet (ENS T.W. Ramsay, and ARM2c S.L. Duncan were seen getting into their raft but were never rescued).
BTW, the "navigation board" of the pilots is called "plotting board" (in the surface fleet we call it "Maneuvering Board").
Thank you for doing this excellent in depth video- your work is is very much appreciated!
I love this channel. Also, I cannot get enough content on the SBD. More please.
Thanks for the analysis of these videos. I have watched these videos since I was a little kid when was reading everything I could find on WW2. I never believed these videos were 'live' at Midway. The narrative of the action was exaggerated and not believable. Neither was the images of the AAA firing. Until the first attack on Yorktown, the Japanese air arm was not attacking the US Fleet, so there was no need for "Ack-Ack." The red-white horizontal stripes on the rudders of the SBD's looks very pre-war. Most of this appears to be training videos, made either right before the war or shortly after the war began.
I always thought that shot of the dauntless at 7:57 is one of the coolest things ever
WOW the red dot in the whit star is a question I never wonder and never thought I will be so happy to learn about it!
A lot of this footage was used for newsreels,a massive cinema pull for the latest news before home TVs were a thing. I don't think I'd classify it as "propaganda" in the strict sense, but there was a genuine desire for the "folks back home" to use the American phrase, to know what was happening. All sides used it for domestic consumption, and no doubt the "artistic licence" of using US aircraft to show action footage was not frowned upon. I have seen these clips many times over and the obvious shape of both the Devastator and Dauntless is an immediate give away. It's a shame those 1.1" guns weren't as good in reality as they looked on the film....good video as always,well until you got the sponsor and it all went out of the window.
Very well done! I enjoyed it and learned a lot from your analysis. It was slightly disheartening to learn some of the sequences I’ve been watching since childhood were not from the actual battle itself but were probably from training and normal daily carrier ops. Now I’ll have to watch all WWII footage with a gimlet eye! Lol. BTW....at 18:07 we can see the Chicago pianos firing and a sailor, NOT in combat gear, nonchalantly leaning on the railing watching the proceedings. Definitely not shot during battle but spliced in later for effect I guess.
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My father was a radioman/gunner on Grumman TBM Avenger in USN WW2, I was helicopter radio/navigator US Coast Guard ..
..good stuff, Bro
Thank you
That was an exceptionally interesting episode. I always enjoy your videos, but the analysis of the footage was great. More of these please!
(And I loved your excited description of WOW Legends - I don't have an X Box or Playstation, but if I did you'd have sold me on trying this version of WOW!) 😊
The oddest bit of midway footage I notice, was the officers in tropical uniform rather than battle dress, which to me pointed to this was not a live fire situation. Particularly the laughing at something.
The clip at 19:10 is all most certainly the Mikuma! Wow, never seen that before!