Pacific Milk Run | SBD Dauntless dive bombers against the Gilbert Islands (1944)

A United States Marine Corps propaganda film talking up the service of Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers containing Japanese forces in the Gilbert Islands once they had been bypassed in the island-hopping campaign towards Okinawa.
The narrative takes the viewer on a 1944 bombing mission out of Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands along with F4U Corsairs and B-25 Mitchell bombers.

[@Antigonus.]

I was in CIC, just spending my time
Off of the schedule, not earning a dime
When a captain steps up and he says “I suppose,
You fly a Dauntless by the cut of your clothes?”
He figures me right, “I’m a good one” I say
"Do you happen to have me a target today?"
Says yes he does, “a real easy one,
No sweat my boy, it’s an old time milk run”
I gets all excited and ask where it’s at
He gives me a wink and a tip of his hat
“It’s one-sixty miles, some thin strips of dirt,
The small peaceful islands we call the Gilberts”
“Oh, you’ll love the Gilberts!”
I go get my flight suit and strap on my gun
Goggles and gloves, out the hatch on the run
Climb in the Dauntless and take to the air
Two’s tucked in tight, we haven’t a care
In under an hour we’re over the land
From twenty-two thousand we’re diving as planned
Arm up the switches and dial in the mils
Rack up the wings and roll in for the kill
We feel a bit sorry for folks down below
Of destruction that’s coming, they surely don’t know
But we never forget how our battleships burnt
On down we scream for the peaceful Gilberts
Unsuspecting, peaceful Gilberts!
Release altitude and the sight isn’t right
I press just a little and lays them in tight
I pickle those beauties from two-point-five grand
Starting my pull when it all hits the fan
A black puff in front and then two off the right
Then six or eight more and I suck it up tight
There’s small arms and tracers and heavy ack-ack
It’s scattered to broken with all kinds of flak
I jink hard to left and head out for the blue
My wingman says “Lead, they’re shooting at you!”
“No bull!” I cry as my course I revert
Still comes the fire from the bloody Gilberts
Dirty, deadly Gilberts!
I make it back home with six holes in my bird
With the captain who sent me, I’d sure like a word
But he’s nowhere around, though I look near and far
He’s gone back to Midway to help run the war
Well I’ve been round this ocean for many a day
And I’ve seen the things that they’re throwing my way
I know there are places I don’t like to go
Like over Akagi and in tally-ho
But there’s no jock so daring, and this I assert
He could keep all his cool when he’s at the Gilberts
Oh, don’t fly the Gilberts!

[@steveb6103]

My Navy F6F pilot father would have approved of the landing. He made landings like that with his Piper Supercub until he was in his 80s.

[@egocyclic]

@10:35 "They got some planes up this time.....all kinds: Zekes, Nates, Tonys" What's fun is that none of the aircraft shown between 10:35 and 10:48 match those Allied code names. In fact, while the code names listed are for three different fighter planes from both the IJA and IJN, what's shown are a light bomber and a divebomber. The Aichi D3A "Val" is easy to identify, but I had to use Google with the search words "Japanese", "V-12", and "bomber" and then an image search to figure out what that plane was. I honestly had never heard of the Kawasaki Ki-32 "Mary". Considering that the Ki-32 served with the IJA primarily in China and was withdrawn from combat roles by the end of 1941, it is doubtful that F4U Corsairs ever encountered them,
I guess it was a different era then. War-time propaganda film-makers probably didn't worry about internet nerds popping off with a "Well, actually..." in the comments section 80 years later.

[@guaporeturns9472]

Was very different in that you have at your fingertips access to more accurate information about anything on earth than the planets entire collection of journalists.

[@JGCR59]

The footage of japanese planes (except the gun camera footage) is from pre war stock footage available in the US from pre WW2, hence you only see obsolete planes.

[@iatsd]

@@JGCR59 Yup. All looks like it was taken in pre-1941 China, which would explain the types shown and also how the US propaganda film makers would have been able to access it.

[@geordiedog1749]

Love the ‘hep cat’ jazz talk, baby!

[@asdf9890]

I was imagining if they did that with today’s young people slang 😂 “Bruh, your milk run was based!”

[@MsZeeZed]

2:07 - Really odd idea of a “Milk Run” (get back if you can?).
In W.Europe this term was applied to dropping sea mines at night off the North Sea coasts of Denmark and Germany. This task was given to crews training up and supposedly meant no flak, searchlights or fighters, if you hit your night navigation marks. Losses still happened, but I’m not sure how dive bombing is ever a “Milk Run”?

[@JGCR59]

At 2:04 there's B-24 or some derivative stuck in the ditch near the runway.

[@predictivestupidity]

Thank you. The Americans first landed on Eniwetok on February 19, 1944 and declared the atoll secured on February 21, 1944.

[@ArmouredCarriers]

Thanks very much for the heads-up. I have now corrected this.

[@DaveSCameron]

Superb history. 📚

[@SGusky]

SBD-5s ?

[@patrickrichards2577]

✨🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿✨🥰✨👍✨♥️✨🤗✨.