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This World War 2-era film – originally titled as "The fight for the Sky: Our Fighter Pilots Versus the Luftwaffe in Western Europe" – is a propaganda documentary produced by the United States Army Air Forces. It was released in 1945.

The film depicts the activities of the 8th Air Force Fighter Command in Europe prior to the allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. It documents heroism of American fighter pilots who flew escort missions during bombing raids over Germany.

The film details the Allied forces air strategy, specifically the way in which fighter planes accompanied bombers, and the tactics which eventually overwhelmed the German Luftwaffe. The film is primarily made up of gun camera footage both German (captured) and American, with many images of Luftwaffe planes like the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. It also features stunning footage of P-47 Thunderbolts, P-51 Mustangs, P-38 Lightnings and other Allied aircraft in action.

No actors are used and people like General James Doolittle play themselves.

There are two versions of this film, one running around 20 minutes and another running slightly over 40. (We uploaded to YouTube the longer version.) The shorter version narrated by then-Army Captain Ronald Reagan was played in theaters and later on television. The longer film is narrated by the American actor Reed Hadley who narrated several other WW2-era documentaries as well.


HISTORICAL BACKGROUND / CONTEXT

The air warfare of World War 2 (1939-1945) was a major component in all theaters. Germany and Japan depended on air forces that were closely integrated with land and naval forces; they downplayed the advantage of fleets of strategic bombers, and were late in appreciating the need to defend against Allied strategic bombing. By contrast, Britain and the United States took an approach that greatly emphasized strategic bombing, and to a lesser degree, tactical control of the battlefield by air, and adequate air defenses. They both built a strategic force of large, long-range bombers that could carry the air war to the enemy's homeland. Simultaneously, they built tactical air forces that could win air superiority over the battlefields, thereby giving vital assistance to ground troops.

In mid 1942, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) arrived in the UK and carried out a few raids across the English Channel. The USAAF commanders in Washington, D.C. and in Great Britain adopted the strategy of taking on the Luftwaffe (the German Air Force) head on, in larger and larger air raids by mutually defending bombers flying over Germany, Austria, and France at high altitudes during the daytime. Both the US government and its Army Air Forces commanders were reluctant to bomb enemy cities and towns indiscriminately. They claimed that by using the B-17 and the Norden bombsight, the USAAF should be able to carry out "precision bombing" on locations vital to the German war machine: factories, naval bases, shipyards, railroad yards, railroad junctions, power plants, steel mills, airfields, etc.

In late 1943 the USAAF realized that strategic bombing against a technologically sophisticated enemy like Germany was impossible without air supremacy. (The B-29s did not need escorts against Japan to the extent that the B-17s and the B-24s needed them over Germany.) Major General James Doolittle fully appreciated the new reality. He provided fighter escorts all the way into Germany and back, and used B-17s as bait for Luftwaffe planes, which the escorts then shot down.

In February of 1944, Doolittle turned loose his fighters for the first time to go after the Luftwaffe where they stationed. This marked a radical change in strategy from the disastrous tactics of 1943 that kept escorting fighters chained to bombers. Instead of waiting to be attacked, US fighters probed deep into enemy territory and targeted German airfields catching the opposition on the ground. This new tactic marked a turning point in the air war over Europe, and contributed to critical total air superiority over the beaches of Normandy during the Allied invasion in June 1944.


US Fighter Pilots vs. the German Luftwaffe | World War 2 Documentary | 1945

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NOTE: THE VIDEO DOCUMENTS HISTORICAL EVENTS. SINCE IT WAS PRODUCED DECADES AGO, IT HAS HISTORICAL VALUES AND CAN BE CONSIDERED AS A VALUABLE HISTORICAL DOCUMENT. THE VIDEO HAS BEEN UPLOADED WITH EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. ITS TOPIC IS REPRESENTED WITHIN HISTORICAL CONTEXT. THE VIDEO DOES NOT CONTAIN SENSITIVE SCENES AT ALL!

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