The Fight for the Sky

I saw the fleshed-out ~40 minute version on YouTube, I think. The first third shows us pilots of a Thunderbolt unit in England horsing around, sleeping, and generally enjoying themselves until the early-morning briefing, when everyone is serious. The remainder of the film consists almost entirely of gun camera or other combat footage. It was probably a novelty at the time, but much of it will be familiar now. Every time I see that same stick of bombs plowing through the same orchard, I begin to feel sorry for apples.

The uncredited narrator with the sonorous baritone is Reed Hadley, who also narrated "Guadalcanal Diary" and a number of other films in the post-war period. He had some minor roles on the screen as well. For the most part, the narration avoids flag waving and name calling The Germans may be "Jerries" but only once are they "the Hun." By the time of this release the war was virtually over and there was little need for that sort of thing.

The viewer gets to see a multitude of enemy targets being strafed and blown apart. The one gun camera shot that is almost always missing is the one in which a French farmer in a little dog cart is racing his horse along a dirt road and farmer, carriage, and horse disappear in a cloud of dust as the target is peppered with .50 caliber bullets. Locomotives okay. Horses no. There's no need to suggest that any innocent animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture.

Motion pictures of combat are always exciting. What we're witnessing, after all, is a life or death struggle. But some of the most amazing incidents were never captured on film. The German pilot, for instance, who bailed out of his disabled airplane and whose body smashed into the spinner and propeller of the P-51 behind him, splashing his inner organs all over the American's windshield. (He vomited after landing.) And the German pilot who bailed out and zipped past his American pursuer in an upright position, holding a salute.

The most thorough and candid book I've read about these pilots is "Thunderbolt" by Robert S. Johnson. The most personal and honest documentary I've ever seen is "A Fighter Pilot's Story," by Quentin Annensen, who flew P-47s on ground attack missions. It exhumes emotions that "The Fight For The Sky" only touches on.

There are two versions of this film, one running around 20 minutes and another running slightly over 40. The longer film features footage of fighter pilots relaxing while off duty and more extensive coverage of the briefing before their mission. Both films are packed with gun camera footage of aerial combat and strafing runs.

Ronald Reagan narrates the shorter version, which probably played in theaters and later on television. The narrator of the longer film isn't identified, though his is a familiar and very professional voice.

Reagan's narration refers to the unit shown as the 62nd Fighter Group, which did not exist. The airfield footage most likely was of the 56th Group. In one scene in the longer film a truck is seen bearing that outfit's designation on its bumper.

Images of several fighter aces appear at the end of both films. All shown survived the war, though some as POWs.

Either version of "The Fight for the Sky" is a fine tribute to those who flew and fought so valiantly in the skies above Western Europe in World War 2.

In response to the previous commentator the version I've seen is the one lasting 41 minutes and was quite surprised by the impressive picture quality of something almost 70 years ago

The documentary fills us in at the start on what the Americans were using for air escort , namely the Thunderbolt , Lightening and Mustang , all familiar names to schoolboys of my generation who couldn't read enough about the second world war . Interesting that for the British and Americans fighter pilots had an almost mystical fascination while in the Soviet Union it was the snipers who were the poster boys ( In some cases girls ! ) while in Germany it was the U-Boat crews who were the media stars

The documentary then shows the rest and recreation elements of fighter crews then shows us the strategists and briefings of the fighter crews . Interesting that no actors are used and people like James Doolittle play themselves . Even more noticeable is that how stilted they seem to an audience brought up on feature films . The fighter crews take off and go on their mission of escorting bombers over occupied Europe

One thing I did find out is the high ration of fighters to the bombers they were protecting . Since a fighter moves faster and uses more fuel as many one thousand fighters may have to be used to protect as few as 40 to 100 bombers and American fighters might be outnumbered as 2 to 10 by the Luftwaffe . It does miss out the point that the Germans used entirely different pilot strategy . The Luftwaffe had a " fly till you die " strategy where a pilot would continue frontline missions until the war was won/lost or until he died . The USAAF and RAF used a different technique where pilots spent time on frontline duties then was rotated to teaching at flight school . This technique meant Luftwaffe top aces had kill rates of over 300 victories while top allied planets had a tenth of that . The downside was this technique was inefficient and in the attrition of the second world war the quality of German fighter pilot quickly dropped

The second half concentrates on the thrill of air battle and could be classed what is known today as " war porn " but as someone who watches a lot of war documentaries on the history channel it's exciting to watch . The only flaw is it's obvious that the shots inside the cockpits are obviously made in a film studio and not a real aircraft which jars with the real life footage . That aside this is a good film for the history buffs interested in air combat