Thunderbolt

This picture was photographed in combat

zones by cameramen of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces

and by pilots of the 12th Air Force,

who during missions against the enemy

operated automatic cameras in their planes.

Behind the pilot shooting forward and back,

under the wing,

in the wing, timed with the guns,

in the wheel well,

in the instrument panel,

photographing the pilot himself.

The commanding general of the United States Army Air

Forces General Carl Spots has asked me to

tell you something about this picture.

I don't think I could do any better than

just to read from his telegram to me.

Thunderbolt was made in 1944, ancient history,

It was made about one fighter bomber group in the Italian campaign.

It happens to be an American group.

The same story could well be told of the Royal Air Force groups,

which participated so gallantly in the same air offensive.

Matter of fact, the story belongs to all men who

fought for freedom, and did it a long way from home.

Signed, Spots.

Thank you.

To the Italian man in the street or what's left

of the street, this is the fulfillment of a promise.

The promise of the fascists to build a 20th century

Roman Empire conceived in tyranny and

dedicated to the proposition that some

men were meant to be slaves of other men.

Special victims were the children.

They saw things not meant for children's eyes.

From the air Italy is more remote.

The airmen never sees the face of the people,

only the face of the country.

From the air you look down at the mountains,

look down and wonder how are men on the

ground ever got through.

Mountains and rivers, the Volturno,

a lot of American blood in that one.

Natural barriers made other campaigns tough too.

Exhausted Hannibal's elephants, Caesar's legions.

For the airmen the ground war is remote,

the only war you really understand is the air war.

You can see a pattern to it,

lots of the country never been touched.

Little towns that walk the ridges,

like tightrope artists to keep from falling off.

This one didn't matter.

When something did matter that was another story.

This is how we change the face of Italy from the air.

They boasted Italian trains ran on time, not these.

This is what we did to the face of Italy,

there's a story behind why we did it and how we did it.

The story starts on an island 60 miles off Italy's coast,

the island of Corsica.

Corsica, rugged primitive, mountainous, malarial.

Here they still remember a local boy,

who put Corsica on the map 150 years ago.

This island part of France was liberated

by the French in September '43 but you

can still find a few Germans left by the

wayside where they fell in the shadow of our eardrums.

Alto Airbase, Sunday morning.

Here Sunday is like Monday and Monday is

like every other day in a week, a working day.

The Indians wake you at dawn, in your sack you can hear

the crew chiefs pre-flighting the planes.

Getting them ready for the day's missions.

This is how you live when

you're an airplane driver, fighting an air war.

20 minutes from the Germans in Italy.

You're used to it you've been

washing out of your helement since July '42.

From the Holy Land to Africa, across the desert,

Egypt and El Alamein, to Libya and Tunisia.

1,300 miles, you moved when the infantry moved,

Sicily and Italy, 58 moves in two years.

Now Corsica, this is the best deal you ever had,

call it the country club.

When you talk about air power this is what you mean,

you mean Spanky Manda, Major Francis S. Manda

of Mentmore New Mexico, squadron's operations officer.

Not a desk job.

At over 170 missions working for 200, he's 22.

You mean Captain Howard Hickok of Ames Iowa, he's a flight

leader, just to had 30 days in the States,

time to get married and come back, he's 23.

Or in his Italian generals trailer Gil Wyman,

Louisville Kentucky, hardly looks old enough to vote

but he's boss of a squadron.

He signed his letters Gilbert O. Wyman,

Lieutenant Colonel Air Corps, commanding.

The old man, he's 24.

Sunday morning for the 57th Fighter Group,

three squadrons, a thousand men,

another day begins at Alto Airbase.

You could close your eyes and see it this way,

spread out like a diagram and home sweet home for some time.

Good steel mat runway, 150 by 6,000 feet,

tower call sign is Breakneck, lots of jokes about that.

We share the field with a French fighter group,

don't speak the same language but we fly the same airplane.

Against the same enemy.

Each lost a man yesterday, we get along.

Group Commander Lieutenant Colonel Archie J Knight.

West Point 1940, he's 27.

First mission today is a 65 squadron show briefing right

after breakfast, informal, short, to the point.

Park yourself on a bomb crate and get your escape kit,

hand any money, instructions to get you

back through the lines, just in case.

The S2 tells you about your target,

he doesn't have to draw it for you, you do this every day.

Sometimes two or three times a day.

Gil Wyman will lead the show so lays out the job.

That's a nurse's hat, his girl's, wears it for luck.

Need all you can get.

The brass upstairs plans the war they want something

done they pick up the phone, you do it.

Don't always know why they send you out on a mission,

you don't always care but you know there's a reason,

a good one.

Today the missions are going out because in Italy our

armies have been stopped cold at the Gustav Line.

Of course the narrowest and most mountainous

part of the peninsula.

US 5th Army, British 8th Army, stopped for five months.

At Anzio a hundred thousand men sweating it out.

We couldn't move, stalemate.

March 15th we bombed Cassino, our immediate objective.

Good job of bombing, didn't work.

Our infantry didn't advance.

It was the wrong use of air power, wrong because we were

not taking advantage of the airplanes greatest asset,

its ability to get behind the enemy.

That's what the air planners wanted to do, get behind him.

Lieutenant General Iris C. Acre commanding

all the air in the Mediterranean,

British, French and American.

Major General John K. Cannon, Uncle Joe,

commanding the 12th Air Force and Brigadier General

Gordon P Saville 12th Tactical Air Command,

the brass upstairs who run the air war.

They said let's not hit him here, let's hit him here.

Let's isolate the battlefield,

let's weaken the entire German front by

depriving it of supplies, fuel, food,

ammunition, reinforcements.

They call the plan Operation Strangle.

This is what we want to do with airplanes.

How?

Lot of railroads in Italy,

this is the enemy, keep the trains from getting through.

A lot of rivers in Italy and over 700 major bridges,

we figured if a train came to one and it

wasn't there be kind of tough to get across.

Medium bombers got many of the important ones

but bridges are long narrow targets, difficult to hit

and destroy, took a lot of trips, bombs, planes, men.

We started to use a special weapon,

a fighter bomber, a P47 Thunderbolt, one engine, one man,

one bomb on each wing, extra fuel tanks for range.

Six fires crew chiefs taxi from the

dispersal point at the end of the runway.

Light up the squadron.

All the pilots have to do is climb in and take them away.

If you're a crew chief you've got your own P47,

sometimes you think of it is your personal airplane,

the pilots a fellow you lend it to everyday.

You let him fly around in it and you expect him

to bring it back in good condition.

No bullet holes or flak holes.

After you've been lending your airplane to one pilot

for a long time you get attached to him too.

If you're a pilot, no matter what's your rank

or how many hours you've had,

what counts here is the combat flying you've done.

Unless you've done plenty you're a beginner,

you're called a Sprog and you remain

a Sprog until you're wise to the tricks of the trade.

After you put a few missions behind you become a Sport,

then with plenty of action 50 or 60 missions,

if you're still around you're promoted,

you become an Old Sport, a veteran.

The big shots like Gil Wyman are called Wheels,

no one knows exactly why.

This fella's a wheel too, says so in his plane.

Major Richard O. Hunziker of Tucson Arizona,

got 179 missions.

Your crew chief can't go along so you always

like to tell them what you're gonna do.

Got a triple threat mission today,

each sections going after a bridge,

I'll come in on a course of about 40 degrees.

Same old thing, go out there and dodge around

on the yack yack, dive bomb out of a left-hand

turn about and carry the bombs right on down.

We're flying top cover on the other