More sad news last week at the passing of 448th veteran Leroy Engdahl on 8th Feb. He was 90 years old.

I interviewed Leroy on camera at a group reunion in Orlando, Florida in May 2007. He was frail but in good spirits and was able to regale us with his stories. At one point Leroy was visibly upset during the interview as he described seeing the Statue of Liberty on his return to the States by ship into New York harbour. I think this is one of the enduring images I took from those interviews and definitely something I want to put up on screen.

The amazing thing about Leroy’s story (apart from his military service) is his efforts post-war to help get the old airfield control tower at Seething up and running as a memorial and a museum. I suppose if it weren’t for him I might never have become interested in the subject or started this project because the museum was the starting point for me.

Read an obituary here (with a few typos unfortunately)

And a little more info on Leroy here from The Liberator Legend: the plane and the people By Turner Publishing, Philip A. St. John

This is one of my favourite photos of Leroy, talking to local children from Seething Primary School (I think), taken in 1984.

Courtesy of Patricia Everson.

I am stalked by the memory of a school teacher who declared that I had some wonderful ideas but rarely followed them through. So here are a few of them and in time you can be the judge.

• Create your own history page

I’ve had some interest from people willing to write a few lines, perhaps include a photo of a relative or friend that served in the AAF. This ‘page’ is submitted to me and included on a DVD release of the film. Thought it would be a good way for people to contribute to the DVD in some way.

• Interactive map

Create an interactive map detailing the significant places in England of the 448th BG. To include photos, icons, sound clips etc. Could be expanded to include all groups of the 2nd Air Division or 8th Air Force.

• Become an exhibitor

Make the film available as a free download and provide instructions and resources to enable audiences to put on their own screenings for veterans groups, schools etc

Yesterday I ran out of space on the new drive i bought. Gutted. I was about to start digitising all the interviews I’d recorded with 448th veterans at one of their last reunions. This is something I should have done a long, long time ago and too late did I understand that these talking heads are the backbone of the film, they drive the story. I’m also finding it difficult to seperate the act of producing this short film with my love of the subject.

I’ve gathered some decent material for the project and thought it was high time I shared some of it, these stories really deserve to see the light of day so below is an excerpt from an interview with Edward Paretti a B-24 tail gunner of the 448th BG.

The subject of German jet fighters in combat with prop-driven American bombers really catches the imagination. The disparity in technology is fascinating. The 262 reportedly had a top speed of around 500 mph against the B-24s 300 mph. This made encounters with one of these wonder weapons an uncomfortable experience for B-24 and B-17 crews alike. Usually, mention of the 262 includes a nod to the late implementation of the aircraft as an attack fighter and as a missed opportunity for the Luftwaffe. A quick glance at the figures for numbers of aircraft produced ( 18,482 Liberators Vs. 1,430 Me262s) tells it own story.

(Figures taken from Wikipedia)

Click to watch

On that mission did you see any jet fighters?

Well this is – I’m gonna tell you this story and I just can’t remember the mission although I do have an air medal that’s dated April 5th and that aeroplane that’s cut in half we were flying a group ahead of that. Now that flight back there was Ed Chu’s flight and I always tried the best I could to get around some of the facts on this. And I watched those jets come down to my right, circle that group and shoot the hell out of them. And one jet came right at us and we were flying in the low right what they call the coffin corner and that jet came at me. And as far as everybody in my flight knows I was the only one shooting at him. And to make a long story short it was posted on the squadron bulletin board that that was confirmed kill. Now I got a call to go into CQs office the next day to go in there. And this guy said he was a gunnery officer whoever the hell he was. Wanted to know if I would appear at the post theatre the next night to give a talk. And at that time I was reluctant to talk because I wasn’t a public speaker and I said I don’t go over there so took off and took a walk around the base I never did go there. Now that’s a true story. And the only ones that now this story – my co-pilot when I talked to him in Texas he said “Oh jeez, I tell everybody about how you shot down a jet!” Now the crew that was up on top of that flight, second on the left, the top gunner he said he couldn’t get a shot at him and he says that that aeroplane went down. Now I didn’t see him go down I’m not gonna say he went down all I know is what was on the bulletin board and that they wanted me to appear.

Can you describe what that was like when that was coming at you?

We was very, very scared and when the gunnery office said to me you know you’re supposed to start firing at 600 yards. He said “when did you start firing?” “it must have been 3 miles out” I said “I started firing when I assumed he was gonna come towards me and I never let up” he said “Good boy!” that’s all he said. I never let up and as I’m sitting here he came right over and you can see him and he was smoking like hell. Now whether that was smoke from the jet engine I don’t know.

Could you see him in the cockpit? Could you see the pilot?

Pardon? Oh yeah! Yeah he was that close! And Ed Chu tells the same story he could see the pilot. Ed Chu opened up, he emptied his machine gun on the guy. Now whether that’s the same one that came towards us or even whether it’s the same flight? It has to be the same flight because Charlie Cup was  the one that got – did you talk to Charlie Cups daughter? He’s the one that got out. It’s the same flight that they claim I shot down a jet.

Happy holidays, that is if you are lucky enough to be on holiday yet.

I feel like apologising for not posting enough content in 2009 (content is king, content is king) but I won’t make excuses and instead will pledge to leap into the New Year, and resolve to say more, post more and generally be more productive. I’m hoping that an iphone will help and with apps that support wordpress and tweetdeck I’m sure it will.

What else?? …. Well, I’m hoping to get a nice, big, widescreen computer monitor which will free final cut and my timeline from it’s 15 inch home. I also need to complete all the transcripts for my veteran interviews as they will likely form the backbone of the film. Sorry to say I’ve had these interviews since 2007 so really need to crack on. I’ve considered farming this work out to someone else but thought that I am probably best placed to know exactly what was said plus it means I watch all the interviews again so should trigger plenty of thoughts about the film’s content, structure etc…Other ideas are give-aways of some kind via twitter, and putting a few people together to help out as there is just so much to do.

Here’s proof that Santa served in the ETO.

Merry Christmas.

One of the great things about this project is the goodwill that emanates from pretty much everyone connected with the 448th and it’s history.

Some are the sons and daughters of 448th veterans, and on a deeply personal level they of course have strong feelings about their Dad, their Uncles, their brothers. They’ve probably heard the war stories many times over and they want people to re-tell them because they know how much those stories mean to their loved one. There is huge support in England for the shared Anglo-American history of the 448th Bomb Group, the 2nd Air division and the 8th Air Force. Good people volunteer a lot of time to help out at various events throughout the year and many of them have helped me in numerous ways from monetary donations to tours of old airbase buildings to a table to put my computer on! So thank you to all the people that have chipped in and for the package that I received in the post today. It included photographs and video tapes and put a big smile on my face. I’m looking forward to working through them and hopefully I’ll be able to put some of it out in the coming year.

This years bonfire night and firework display was another good opportunity to head over to Seething to shoot some more material for the project. It shows another way in which the old airfield is still used by the local community and gives me the option of using fireworks footage as illustration for VE Day perhaps.

Production continues as I attempt to juggle a DIY film and self-distribution with our baby boy. The recent addition of Mac G4 and an older copy of Final Cut means I am now finally digitising all my material and can start to make a rough assembly.

Tiny clip below.

Click to watch

Saturday 5th September marked this years Charity Air Day at the control tower museum and the site of the old airfield.

Drizzle and mud might have been more authentic but happily the weather smiled on us offering sun and no rain with good conditions for the flyers. The highlight was the Battle of Britain memorial flight as a British Lancaster bomber and Hurricane made a couple of passes over us.

I was hoping to get some good photos to post here but experienced a hideous camera jam and soon realised I hadn’t loaded the 35mm film properly, curses!  It then dawned on me that i was surrounded by hundreds of people with better equipment than mine so I’m going to track a few people down and see if they will allow us to use their photographs. I also took a hand held sound recorder with me, the idea being to sample some of the sounds of the day and then match them up with photos. When I got home and had a listen to my recordings they suffer from a bit of wind noise that could have been avoided with a better mic.

I did at least get a recording of the destinctive sound of the Lancaster and Hurricane fly past albeit with the sound of me winding on my compact camera.

Listen to the recording here.

I have added some of the better photos to the stills page.

Great news from the States this past week as research by John Beckwith leads to DNA identification of a lost 448th pilot’s remains.

He will now be reburied in his hometown of Akron, Ohio.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/08/world_war_ii_pilots_remains_fi.html

Here’s an interesting flickr set about a PB4Y crash during the Second World War in China.

Great shot from the top turrett of the Collings Foundations B-24 Liberator

This liberator has teeth.

And another great flickr set this time about Belle of the East.

Would you like to honour a USAAF veteran? Did a member of your family serve during the Second World War? Perhaps you are a veteran and you would like a friend to be remembered?

As part of a Happy Warriors DVD release we are asking for short biographies which, will appear on our DVD.

Create a one-page document. You can be as creative as you like using text and images.

Email your document to happywarriorsfilm@gmail.com and we will reply with further details.

Please make sure you are not infringing copyright by using images or text that does not belong to you.

The forecast for Sunday was heavy rain which, was potentially disasterous as I had arranged to meet a USAAF reenactor and to film him driving his jeep up and down the lanes by the control tower.

Happily the infamously changeable British weather served up a fairly pleasant day and I spent the morning trying to film some shots for reconstructions whilst not falling out of the vehicle.