Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire WW2 Aerial footage over Japan

Be sure to watch the entire video there are some breaks but it continues after the breaks.


AMAZING WWII FOOTAGE - B-29s over Japan with P-51s

Make sure to wait the few seconds between film sections, when it re-loads. Here is some fly-boy history. THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME. AND IT'S ALL REAL. I strongly urge you to take the time to watch these authentic live footage clips of the air assault on the Japanese mainland, just before A-Bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Absolutely fantastic footage of what many consider to be THE GREATEST GENERATION! Riveting, to say the least.

To think of 600 B-29s all taking off to bomb Japan at one time, is beyond the imagination. We hear so much about the Atom Bomb raids on Japanese cities by B-29s that we forget these raids took place before that...... This is video from the color film archives, so it is of rather poor quality, compared to modern days....especially at full screen. The narration (audio) isn't too bad. Please notice it is the Army Air Corps.

This is spectacular live footage of the (3,000 mile round trip) air assault upon the Japanese mainland, with three bomber wings and a host of P-51's. This is the real way to end a war. No matter what war footage you ever saw before, this is the real deal and will keep your undivided attention. The P-51 & B-29 footage is remarkable. The strafing runs by the P-51 pilots were incredible . There are several breaks as the film canisters are changed, just wait for the count down.

Very few of these brave men are still among the living.

MAGA!

Wow. Incredible footage. Thanks for posting

Thanks for posting that. My dad graduated HS in May 1942 and was drafted shortly after. He was trained as a medic and served in the Army Air Corps spending most of the war at an air base near Hobbs NM where bomber crews were trained. Crashes weren't unusual and he had to deal with injured airmen on occasion. In the Fall of 1944 he was transferred to the infantry and sent to Parris TX for infantry training. Dad said they never told him anything, but my guess is that they were being trained for the invasion of Japan. The thinking at the time was that the war in Europe was almost over.

Dad finished training just a few days before the Battle of the Bulge began. His unit was put on trains to NYC, rushed onto the Queen Mary which was being used as a troop ship. They landed on the West coast of England, crossed by train and on to France by LST. He was in France by early January. They were loaded onto cattle cars and rushed to Belgium by train as replacements.

Dad was issued a brand new Garand in France, but when he got to Belgium they took it away from him and sent him to the motor pool where they painted a red cross on his helmet. He was attached to a field hospital, that stayed just a few miles behind the front and spent the rest of the war driving an ambulance to the front to pick up wounded and bringing them back to hospitals. He once told me the one thing that scared hm the most was driving across the Rhine on a pontoon bridge while being shelled by Germans. No room for error and shells exploding around was a huge distraction. Fortunately the Germans had no forward observers to direct fire so they were shooting blind.

When the war ended in Europe dad was certain he was going to Japan next. There was a lot of celebrating when they got word of the "A" bomb a few months later. Dad stayed in Europe after the war as part of the occupation forces getting home in April 1946. We lost him in Feb. 2013, one week before his 90'th birthday. Anyone who actually served before the war ended would have to be at least 90 or 91 today.

Damn! That was impressive! It's hard to believe that very few of those great men are still around. For my part, I hope to be worthy of their efforts and sacrifice.

Japan got off easy. Had operation Downfall went through the projected death toll of Japanese was 5-10 million. As it was they lost a maximum of 226,000 in the two bombs.

General Curtis LeMay showed no mercy. Japan was due no mercy.

Idared's and my father during a B-29 bombing mission from Tinian. Dad was ground radio for the 40th Bomb Group from West Field.

This photo was taken during a mission. Note the "dress" of the day..........Tinian was hot! Dad was one of the "older group"......he was 28 in this picture. Prior to coming to Tinian, he was stationed in India in the CBI Theater.

👍

+1

Wow! What an amazing effort! Many thanks to all the folks that made that effort possible.

One documentary on Netflix showed all the many costly steps needed to get our bombers there - with escort... And a couple different strategies of high elevation strategic bombing that were 'missing the mark' - so they went to firebombing - 100,000 killed the first night I think it was. I think that firebombing is referenced at the 21 minute mark thus before this film's timeframe, with the escort fighters. Great strafing footage. Hopefully nothing this scale is necessary again. Thanks for sharing.

It was this: World War 2 in Colour (episode 13 ) Victory in the Pacific
Netflix Link

At wars end, most of the left over supplies on those islands was thrown in the ocean. Nealy every thing at destination or already in the supply train it was "too expensive" to return.

The OP was really good although I think they hyped LeMay a bit much.

Great movie! Fantastic!

My dad flew in C47 over the Hump in India.

I believe it was in the book "Flyboys" where a general was quoted about the atom bomb. IIRC "It didn't do anything that we couldn't do with a few hundred B-29's". Or words to that effect.

Sure put an azz whooping on them