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Combat America was a 1943 film produced by the United States Army Air Forces and starring Clark Gable.
The film is unique among military documentaries of the period, for it contains very little actual combat footage. Instead, the focus is almost entirely oriented to life back at their base in England. The films "plot" begins when the Henry H. Arnold, Chief of Staff of the US Army Air Force commissions Clark Gable to make a movie about a specific squadron, the 351st Bombardment Group. We see the men of the squadron as they are about to leave for Britain, flying over mountains and getting their last look at America, the narrator reminding the audience that this is what they are fighting for. Once they reach England by plane, they get settled at an RAF base and try to adjust to the local customs, particularly the monetary differences.
There is no combat footage until three-quarters of the way into the movie, instead life at the base is chronicled, interrupted by short humorous vignettes starring Gable and the airmen, including an interview with one wounded airmen and his nurse. The battles are presented through the eyes of the air crew, watching the pilots take off in the planes they have worked on, then anxiously counting them when they return to make sure they all got back, and if not, whose was missing. The progress of the war is marked by a wall poster with names of bombed targets being added and swastika stickers beside them to indicate confirmed kills. Only at the end is footage taking during a raid of Nazi occupied Europe incorporated into the film with some interesting footage of a couple of ME. 109s being shot down.
The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed for the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC). Competing against Douglas and Martin for a contract to build 200 bombers, the Boeing entry outperformed both the other competitors and more than met the Air Corps' expectations. Although Boeing lost the contract due to the prototype's crash, the Air Corps was so impressed with Boeing's design that they ordered 13 B-17s. The B-17 Flying Fortress went on to enter full-scale production and was considered the first truly mass-produced large aircraft, eventually evolving through numerous design advancements, from B-17A to G.
The B-17 was primarily employed in the daylight precision strategic bombing campaign of World War II against German industrial, civilian and military targets. The United States Eighth Air Force based in England and the Fifteenth Air Force based in Italy complemented the RAF Bomber Command's nighttime area bombing in Operation Pointblank, to help secure air superiority over the cities, factories and battlefields of Western Europe in preparation for Operation Overlord. The B-17 also participated, to a lesser extent, in the War in the Pacific, where it conducted raids against Japanese shipping.
From its pre-war inception, the USAAC touted the aircraft as a strategic weapon; it was a potent, high-flying, long-ranging bomber capable of unleashing great destruction yet able to defend itself. With the ability to return home despite extensive battle damage, its durability, especially in belly-landings and ditching, quickly took on mythic proportions. Stories and photos of B-17s surviving battle damage widely circulated, boosting its iconic status. Despite an inferior range and bomb load compared to the more numerous B-24 Liberator, a survey of Eighth Air Force crews showed a much higher rate of satisfaction in the B-17. With a service ceiling greater than any of its Allied contemporaries, the B-17 established itself as a superb weapons system, dropping more bombs than any other U.S. aircraft in World War II. Of the 1.5 million tons of bombs dropped on Germany, 500,000 were dropped from B-17s.
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World War II B-17 B-24 USAAF RAF Bomber Command U.S. Germany United States Army Air forces
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