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finale Part of the World War II television trilogy has arrived on Apple TV+, with early episodes that are graphically and visually stunning. masters of the air They have already made some dubious claims about the US bombing campaign against Nazi-occupied Europe.
Produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the nine-part series returns for the first time in 26 years. private ryan (1998) was a hit in theaters and set the standard for subsequent series on HBO TV. band of brothers (2001) and pacific ocean (2010).
Their realism, casting, cinematography, and attention to detail changed the trajectory of wartime filmmaking. masters of the air It follows this formula with a compelling story, visually stunning scenes, and, by most accounts, dead-eye detail.
Based on the voluminous book by historian Donald L. Miller and written by John Orloff, the film follows two members of the 100th Bomb Group, 8th Army, John (Bucky) and Egan (Callum). The story tells the story of America’s daylight bombing campaign through the experiences of a major. Turner) and Gail (Buck) Craven (Austin Butler).
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But from the beginning, the series makes bold claims about the effectiveness of American air power and the accuracy of the much-hyped Norden bombsight. The narrator calls it the second secret of war after the atomic bomb.
That claim is not true. The atomic bomb may have been the best-kept secret of World War II, but the code-breaking in Poland and subsequent code-breaking at London’s Bletchley Park was one of, if not the, best-kept secrets. It’s true that we came in second place by a very small margin.is known as ultradeciphering German communications saved countless lives and helped turn the tide in the crucial Battle of the Atlantic.
The German military was so confident in the ability of their Enigma machines to generate unbreakable codes that they spent much of the war, never imagining that the Allies would ever know of their plans. It was.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s achievements recognized ultra It is nothing but the defeat of Nazi Germany. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, said: ultra as “decisive” of Allied victory. Harry Hinsley, a Bletchley Park veteran and official historian of British intelligence during World War II, says that without the magic of code-breaking the Allies would have won, but “the war lasted two years.” It was probably about three years,” he said. It was probably four years longer than that. ”
That’s true Norden was considered top secret long before the war, but that designation appears to have been exaggerated.
In his 2012 book Hell on Earth: The incredible true story of a World War II American bomber commander and his co-pilot who was ordered to kill him., author Stephen Frater states that the bombsight cost US$1.1 billion (wartime dollars) to develop and manufacture. That’s two-thirds the cost of the Manhattan Project and more than a quarter of the production cost of all 12,731 Boeing B-17 bombers.
But Norden wasn’t really that secret. ultra: both UK SABS and Germany rotfern roll Seven bomb sights worked on a similar principle, and details of the Norden were known to the Germans even before the war began.
Nevertheless, bombardiers were required to take an oath during training to protect Norden’s secrets with their lives. If the aircraft crash-landed on enemy territory, the bombers were supposed to shoot at vital parts of the equipment.
After completing a mission, bomber crews routinely bag their bombsights and store them in a safe known as the “Bomb Vault” in a secure facility known as the “AFCE and Bombsight Shop.” did. Usually located in Nissen or Quonset. Hut.
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Bombsight shops were operated by non-commissioned officers who were members of supply base service groups attached to each bomber group in the USAAF. They were responsible for guarding and maintaining bomb sights and were considered a highly skilled ground job. It was the unit’s top secret mission.
In fact, during a visit to Germany in 1938, German spy Herman Lang, who worked within Karl L. It was composed.
In 1941, FBI agents arrested Lang and 32 other members of the Duquesne Spy Ring, a Nazi spy network led by Frederick (Fritz) Duquesne that infiltrated U.S. workplaces to gather intelligence and sabotage. A German agent was arrested. The case remains the largest espionage prosecution in U.S. history, and all were convicted and Lang was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
As the war drew to a close, authorities gradually downgraded the secrecy of the Norden bombsight. It was first opened to the public in 1944.
norden measured Aircraft ground speed and direction could previously only be estimated through lengthy manual procedures. It also improves on older designs by using an analog computer that continually recalculates the bomb’s point of impact based on changing flight conditions, and an autopilot feature that responds quickly and accurately to changes in wind and other influences. It was equipped with
A popular boast at the time was that high-flying American bombers could drop bombs into pickle barrels. In 1940, Norden President Theodore H. Barth said that if bombers were using his company’s new M-4, “we would have a 15-foot by 15-foot target that would be very difficult to hit from 30,000 feet.” I’m not thinking about it,” he said. Bomb sight connected to autopilot.
“It was quite a burden,” John T. Correll wrote. Aerospace Forces Magazine “In routine training in 1940, the average score for the squadron’s bombers was a circular error of 400 feet.” [122 metres]and that was from a relatively forgiving altitude of 15,000 feet [4,500 metres] instead of 30,000 [9,100]”
In fact, American planners knew all along that the pickle barrel boast was a hoax. According to training and exercise data, the probability of a heavy bomber hitting her 100 square foot target at an altitude of 6,100 meters was 1.2%.
“About 220 bombers would be needed to have a 90 percent probability of destroying the target,” Correll reported. In 1941, Plan No. 1 of the Air War Planning Division predicted that 251 battle groups would be needed to achieve the desired destruction of Germany’s infrastructure, industry, and industry. german air force.
National Museum of the U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia
However, post-war analysis indicates that the overall accuracy of Norden’s daytime precision attacks is about the same as that of radar bombing.
The 8th Air Force landed 31.8 percent of its bombs within 300 meters from an average altitude of 21,000 feet (6,400 meters), the 15th Air Force averaged 30.78 percent from 20,500 feet (6,200 meters), and the 20th Air Force landed 30.78 percent of its bombs at an average altitude of Dropped. 31 percent from an altitude of 16,500 feet (5,000 meters).
at that time masters of the air Beginning in 1943, approximately 20 percent of the bombs dropped by the Eighth Air Force hit within 1,000 feet (300 meters) of the aiming point.
Cloud cover was often responsible for relatively poor results, but even under favorable conditions, performance did not improve. Over Japan, bomber crews noticed a constant high-altitude wind, or jet stream. The Norden bombsight worked only with minimal wind shear.
Furthermore, although bombing altitudes over Japan reached 30,000 feet (9,100 meters), most of the experiments were conducted at altitudes much lower than 20,000 feet (6,100 meters). Higher altitudes had a compounding effect on variables, and differences in bomb shape and paint also changed aerodynamic properties. At that time, calculating the trajectory of a bomb that reached supersonic speeds was a mystery.
On the other hand, the British Air Force Bomber Command’s Air Force Commander Arthur (Bomber) Harris, who had developed his own bombsight design, had no illusions about pinpoint accuracy, opting instead for nighttime area bombing and the mass destruction of German cities. did.
Regional bombing commands instructed air crews to “concentrate attacks on the morale of enemy civilians, especially industrial workers; in the case of Berlin, harassing attacks to maintain fear of raids and impose ARPs. [air raid precautions] countermeasure. “
by US strategic bombing investigation, more than 1.4 million Allied bombers flew out, dropping approximately 2.45 million tons of bombs over Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe. The number of Allied fighter aircraft amounted to approximately 28,000 aircraft. 1.3 million people served in air combat command.
The combined forces of the United States Air Force, Royal Air Force, and Imperial Air Force eventually controlled virtually all of Germany’s coke, ferroalloy, and synthetic rubber industries, 95 percent of its fuel, hard coal, and rubber production capacity, and 90 percent of its steel production capacity. , writes David L. Bashaw.in Soldier’s Blue: How Bomber Command and Regional Bombing Contributed to Victory in World War II.
An estimated 350,000 to 500,000 German civilians were killed in this operation. Approximately 3.6 million homes, or approximately 20% of Germany’s housing stock, were destroyed or severely damaged. The number of homeless people was approximately 7.5 million.
IWM/Wikimedia
in masters of the air, much has been made of the “suicidal” nature of daylight bombing. The numbers suggest that this is also somewhat of an exaggeration, but certainly American troops were shot down at a higher rate than their allies at night.
Whether American or British-led, the cost of lives and aircraft was prohibitive. 79,265 Americans (half of them in the Eighth Air Force) and 79,281 British and Imperial aircrews were killed during bombing operations in Europe, America’s survey states (other sources) Bomber Command The department’s figure is estimated at 55,573, or a mortality rate of 45%. More than 18,000 American and 22,000 British and Imperial aircraft were lost or damaged beyond repair.
By another measure, some sources estimate the average lifespan of a Lancaster crew to be 21 missions. The B-17 crew was expected to survive only 11 years.
Remember, Americans didn’t enter the war until December 1941. The Eighth Air Force launched its first heavy bomber mission against targets in occupied Europe on August 17, 1942. Bomber Command had been carrying out air raids since May 1940, more than two years earlier.
Apple TV+
America’s claim Determining the exact location didn’t last long. By the end of the war, U.S. planes commanded by Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay had indiscriminately incendiary-bombed Japanese cities with napalm, incinerating hundreds of thousands of people, before dropping the most secret atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. and ended the war completely. .
The most common estimate of Japanese military casualties from the Pacific incendiary bombing campaign is 333,000 killed and 473,000 wounded. During a six-hour period on the night of March 9-10, 1945, American napalm bombs killed as many as 100,000 people in Tokyo alone. This is almost four times the generally accepted estimate of the number of people killed in the incendiary bombing of Dresden on February 13-15, 1945. ,Germany.
撮影：石川光陽
したがって、アメリカの爆撃機乗組員の自慢とイギリスの同乗者たちの当惑とは対照的に、 マスターズ・オブ・ザ・エア 1943 年当時の特定の態度や信念を歴史的に正確に反映している可能性がありますが、彼らの主張の一部は、よく言っても疑わしいものです。
カナダの視聴者は、健全な懐疑心を持ってこのアメリカの作品を鑑賞することをお勧めします。そして、爆撃作戦をよりバランスのとれた視点で、現場にいた人々からの洞察を得るために、このドキュメンタリーを覗いてみることをお勧めします。 ランカスター Netflixで。
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