For the History buffs...Berlin, 1945

[wayfarer]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/R5i9k7s9X_A

[Don Coatney]

Great film clip, Thanks for sharing.

[Niel Hoback]

That's fantastic. I could watch those films all day. Being in color makes it quite rare and even more fascinating. Thanks very much for posting.

[pflaming]

No sound, yet captivating. I clearly remember that war. I remember the rationing(tires, fuel, sugar, white flour, ) the squadrons of airplanes, 40 planes per flyby, sometimes for an hour or more, several days a week, we knew the sounds before the could be seen, B 29's, later B 47's, P 51's, and our favs, the p38's.

We forget all too soon. TKS for the reminder.

Edited October 15, 2015 by pflaming

[Todd B]

Amazing history, thanks for sharing.

[pflaming]

A year ago I read "The American Ceasar ( King ), a very long biography of Douglas McArthur. What Japan didn't know because of FDR's bluff was that after Pearl Harbor our left coast was defenseless. Mac kept Japan out of Manilla harbor for two years and that gave us time to salvage and build ships.

Back to my life, we lived in western Nebraska. Those squadrons of planes were unarmed, I think they did that in LA. With nothing but the plane and the pilot, women pilots, those planes were fast, especially the fighter planes. What was really thrilling was the sound of 40 B 47's all at the same rpms. It was like one gigantuate engine. We would lie down on the warm side of a hay stack and watch.

[TodFitch]

A year ago I read "The American Ceasar ( King ), a very long biography of Douglas McArthur. What Japan didn't know because of FDR's bluff was that after Pearl Harbor our left coast was defenseless. Mac kept Japan out of Manilla harbor for two years and that gave us time to salvage and build ships.

Back to my life, we lived in western Nebraska. Those squadrons of planes were unarmed, I think they did that in LA. With nothing but the plane and the pilot, women pilots, those planes were fast, especially the fighter planes. What was really thrilling was the sound of 40 B 47's all at the same rpms. It was like one gigantuate engine. We would lie down on the warm side of a hay stack and watch.

Before my time (my father was an electronics tech on a LST in the Pacific) but I guess I'd have to re-read a bunch of history books as this is quite different that I thought. . . It was my understanding that Manilla and the Philippines fell pretty quickly. Use of the harbor was delayed because of the force under Gen. Wainwright on Corregidor but that fell in May of 42, about six months after the Japanese attacked the US forces in the Pacific, not two years.

 

And the B47 was introduced in the early 1950s, after WW2 was over. Since they were jet powered I am not sure that a formation of them "at the same rpms" would be quite the same as the earlier WW2 era bombers with radial engines.

[pflaming]

I stand corrected omn the B 47's but still remember the two and four engine bombers' sound even though I misspoke on the planes' number. Regarding Mac Arthur, I will reread the account of the tme preceding the fall in order to clarify what I read and what I remember from what I read, so got some homework to do.

Edit: I've been reading this morning about the WWII bombers. Born in 1938 I was but a lad during that war but I do remember the airplane flights. Boeing was located in Kansas and Lockheed/Douglas in Southern California so then why were airplanes flying above Wetern Nebraska? Don't have an answer yet but will find out. I thought they were built in Chicago and Detroit.

The P 38 was a FAST airplane and could fly at high altitudes. More reading required.

Edited October 16, 2015 by pflaming

[TodFitch]

. .  so then why were airplanes flying above Wetern Nebraska? Don't have an answer yet but will find out. . . .

Could have been ferry flights, delivery of aircraft from western factories to the east coast and Europe. I've heard that a fair number of the crews for the ferry/delivery flights were women.

 

And there seem to have been a huge number of smaller military airfields all over the west. Could have been training flights out of those too.

[Ulu]

Paul they were probably heading for Larson or Spokane:

 

check this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larson_Air_Force_Base

 

We were stationed at larson which was within the SPADS (the SPokane Air Defense Sector) in 1960 & '61.

 

The bombers you saw were most likely B24s and not B47s. They look nothing alike.

[pflaming]

My airplane history has been bugging me. So I've been renewing my memory. The WWII bombers and the P 38 were high altitude planes so crossing the Rocky Mts was a non issue. A straight line from Detroit to LA crosses over where I grew up. Very interesting reading.

[Don Jordan]

how very sad that we don't seem to learn from the past

[Dan Hiebert]

Thanks for posting.   My brother was an MP stationed in Berlin from '79 to '82, so he was there when Berlin was still "occupied".  Since that was still "only" 34 years after the war ended he ran across a lot of neat stuff left over from WW2 in the course of his duties - weapons caches, unexploded bombs (which they still find on occasion), etc.  When I was stationed in Germany, I got to visit him a couple times.  Very interesting to see the contrast between immediate post war and 30-years on.  I'd seen photos, but no film.  The Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate both still have battle scars, but there isn't much else in the city that does.  Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.  

[Niel Hoback]

That's something that surprised me, too. About a month ago or so, we travelled around Germany and crossed the old east/west border looking for signs of it. That's all we could find, a rare, small, roadside sign saying "This is where the border was". It's almost like it never happened.

[ggdad1951]

was in Berlin 2 years ago...a few of the older buildings still have bullet scars I could see, but many have either been replaced or repaired in typical German fashion.  I also visited a guy who restored a B1B (he's on FB but not here) where he lived in old East Germany and the difference in building construction was amazing when you saw the USSR imposed structures.