Eyes of the Navy

MGM produces this 20 min educational industrial film for the United States Navy. It's a call for service to America's young men. It's a year before Pearl Harbor and this is not a dire war cry. It touts the training in Pensacola, Florida although there are probably footage from the west coasts. It was nominated for an Academy Award. There are lots of planes and a very crowded aircraft carrier. It's a bit primitive as some of the training still takes place with biplanes. There is some good action as they practice dive bombing. Without a shooting war, this doesn't have the urgency. That is to come later.

By 1940 a lot of Hollywood studios were making preparedness films as anyone with half a brain knew that sooner or later we would be involved in those unpleasant events in Europe and Asia. Wings Of The Navy at Warner Brothers and Flight Command at MGM dealt with naval aviation as did this Oscar nominated short subject Eyes Of The Navy.

There is some acted sequences by Russell Wade, Warren McCollum and Charles Middleton, but the majority of the film is documentary footage some of it clearly from MGM's Flight Command. Even some of the background musical score is from that film.

The pilots then and now are the glamor profession of aviation. This shows what goes into making a Top Gun back in 1940. Looking at it I still marvel at the advances in aviation made during those World War II years. I think today's viewer will agree.

A must for aviation buffs.

This was a very timely short produced by MGM to inspire the home front about preparing for what looked like America's certain entrance into WWII a year before Pearl Harbor.

Ensuring the future of America by training its young men for war is the theme of the short. Peace, Security and Progress are mentioned by the narration. The film opens at the Pensacola Air Station where the U.S. Navy and Marines trained airmen for future assignments in the air.

Scenes of formation flying, men trained in mockup planes, and shooting weapons on the firing range are shown, among battle plans drilled in classrooms and actual landings on carriers as well as dive bombing at speeds of 500 miles per hour. In twenty minutes, the short covers a lot of ground in the kind of training involved.

Obviously the film was used to promote enlistment in the armed services as America entered the WWII phase and it does a good job of doing exactly that.

With America's involvement in World War II looking inevitable by 1940, the country started gearing up for yet another European bloodbath. Hundreds of films were made during this period to show the public what america was doing in order to achieve victory as fast as possible and with as few losses as possible, and this is a good example of it. In this film, we see how those from all across the US register for service in the Navy. While this was the case for all the other military branches as well, the navy is the focus here. Recruits attend courses in which they're taught the strategies of being a pilot on an aircraft carrier. You really see how unprepared america's carrier fleets were for ww2 when you realize the carrier decks are full of biplanes. Later in the war, even advanced monoplanes would be used for training purposes. Pilots also undertake training at Pensacola air station in northwest Florida, which has been a naval base for over a century. Aircraft carriers are not the only type of warship that carry aircraft. Some battleships are fitted with steam catapults to launch biplane scouts towards the sea. The catapult accelerates the plane to 70 miles an hour in about half a second. When the plane's reconnaissance is completed, it lands alongside its parent ship and is hoisted aboard with a crane. At a shooting range, future navy pilots undertake pistol training with Colt 1911s and shoot clay pigeons with shotguns. The latter is especially important since being a gunner in the rear of a dive bomber isn't easy: you're trying to hit something that's moving from something that's moving. We're then shown biplanes shooting at a large fabric target towed by another biplane. After the exercise, the fabric is examined for bullet holes, and the pilots find too many to count, proving they don't just have the wings of eagles, but the eyes of them too. The recruits that do really well are sent to a base in San Diego to undertake more training, this time under actual naval conditions. Later, we're shown a biplane is nosed over on purpose in order to make sure response teams and damage control personnel know what to do in a crash landing scenario. While use of parachutes for airborne landings is typically the Army's concern, the parachute is still essential safety equipment for the navy. Next is one of the most grueling things a navy pilot can train for: actually landing on a carrier. A relatively small stretch of field is laid out to simulate the deck of the ship, and a signal officer coaches each pilot with arm movements as they start their approaches. Carrier landings are extremely difficult, even for seasoned pilots, and depending on exactly how you land, the plane can flip over or slide off the ship completely. Finally, we see biplanes take off from a carrier in order to partake in a dive bombing mission. This short was ok. It's not really anything out of the ordinary when it comes to ww2, but I thought it was interesting to see this since america wasn't involved yet. By this point, it was only a matter of time before we got involved, and most here didn't want it. I liked seeing the PBY Catalina flying boats at the naval base, since that entire class of aircraft is something you never see anymore. Essentially a seaplane, but the entire hull is boat shaped. A far less impressive plane we see in this short is the Douglas TBD Devastator. Its name couldn't be more wrong as during the Battle of Midway, over 40 of these obsolete deathtraps were sent out to hunt for Japanese aircraft carriers, and all but 6 were shot down. This horrendous loss led to the navy replacing it right away with the Grumman Avenger, as this company has a long history of making great naval planes. As this short shows, tactics in war keep evolving, and while things like dive bombing seemed state of the art at this time, it's completely unnecessary today due to things like laser guidance and drones. Those serving in the navy right now stand on the sacrifices of the men in this film.

I agree with most of what has been said in the previous reviews. But one review stated that dive bombing was carried out at 500 mph. This is just a bit off, as the SBD Dautless had a top speed of 255 mph and the SB2C Helldiver's velocity not to exceed (Vne) was 295 mph. And these were the top of the line fleet aircraft used during the war. The lines about "open and airy barracks" and "lots of time off" may have been thought of as necessary to snag young men, but all that was really needed was the footage of aircraft in action to attract any young male into the Navy. It was interesting to see the 1940 footage of Pensacola, Miramar and North Island as I operated at all of those Air Stations during my career.

Retired Naval Aviator.