"MEN FROM THE SKY" 1942 WWII ARMY AIR FORCES CADET TRAINING & PROPAGANDA FILM HAP ARNOLD 66674

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This 1942 Warner Bros. propaganda film, directed by B. Reeves Eason, gives viewers a look at a reenactment of the training of U.S. Army Air Forces cadets. The film opens with Lt. General Henry H. Arnold climbing out of a plane at an airfield. He looks over a group of graduating cadets at the start of the wings-awarding ceremony. Arnold speaks to the graduates about their roles in the current climate (01:52). The graduates stand at attention, surrounded by what appear to be Vultee BT-13 Valiant planes (03:51). Arnold pins wings on the aviation cadets. The film then cuts to shots of the cadets prior to attending the academy (telling their stories): a young boy plays with a model airplane in a garage (04:24); a young man crunches budget numbers at the kitchen table, then is shown sitting on the front porch with his young wife; 06:40 a college student greets his family on a campus (06:40); another young man picks violets for his sweetheart (07:50), then he is shown kissing her goodbye at a train station. The new cadets get off a bus at the academy and walk onto the airfield (08:55). A Commanding Officer speaks to the new cadets. Cadets sit in a classroom and learn about aerodynamics. Several cadets are shown the instruments in a mock cockpit. Cadets fly bi-planes (likely Stearman Model 75s, also known as the PT-13 Kaydet) with their flight instructors. A training plane lands and totters on its landing gear. The film features several shots of young pilots in the cockpits of planes and writing in their flight record books. The cadets move onto bigger planes as they march to a squadron of BT-13 Valiants (12:20). Dozens of the planes’ engines fire up, and the planes are shown flying through the air. Footage shows the planes doing aerobatics and flying in formation. A cadet fires a machine gun from the cockpit of grounded plane during target practice (13:30). General Arnold salutes the new graduates. Footage shows a Lockheed P-38 Lightning taking on the ground (14:25), followed by Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses flying in the sky. There is a panning shot of an air base on the West Coast (14:48). Air raid sirens sound and men run to their battle stations, some readying anti-aircraft guns. B-17s land on an airstrip (16:06). Several air crewmen climb out of one of the bombers and walk into an office to speak with a colonel. The B-17 crews board the bombers and taxi out onto runway to take off. The ships are shown flying through the sky. There are several brief shots of the homes of the pilots, including the front of a Quinn Hotel (18:24), several people exiting a church, kids playing in a front yard, a farmer tilling the soil, and well-dressed people on a city street looking up at the sky as the bombers pass overhead. P-38 Lightnings fly in formation, and the film concludes with a shot of other planes flying in formation off into the sunset.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFi...

[@bikerasuka2550]

I live for stuff like this. What a nice piece of history to preserve and remember. Don DeFore went on to become Mr. B in the old Hazel TV show.

[@PeriscopeFilm]

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[@6h471]

Hap Arnold was one of the first 3 army air corps pilots, and took flight instruction from Orville Wright.

[@cards0486]

I love all the WW II shorts. Propaganda they might have been, but everyone felt pride, love for country and supporting “the boys”. I’ve always liked the “home front” shorts. Tom Brokaw was right, they were The Greatest Generation.

[@sarjim4381]

The biplane trainer was the Boeing/Stearman PT-13/17. They were what almost all military pilots used in the first phase of training, and over 10,000 were built. The low wing monoplane was the Vultee BT-13 Valiant, the next step up from the biplane. The next step was not shown in flight, but the T-6 Texan retractable gear trainer was shown facing the cadets in several shots. They were the planes at 13:39 being used to sight in their machine guns. The T-6 was built to be a lead in for single engine fighter training. The T-6 was easily the longest lived in service of any of the aircraft seen. It wasn't retired by USAF as a trainer until 1959, but a few served as counter insurgency aircraft in Vietnam, while others flew in the same role in places like Algeria and Angola. The last T-6 in military service was retired from the South African Air Force in 1995. Several hundred are still flying today as warbirds and in air races. The twin engine craft In the row facing the cadets are Cessna AT-17 Bobcats. This was the standard twin engine trainer of AAF for the whole war. Generally, pilots who weren't successful as single engine fighter pilots had the chance to fly multi engine aircraft instead. Some, wanting to be bomber pilots, chose to go to multi engine training as soon as basic flight training was completed. Almost 6,000 AT-17s were built, and they were commonly used as "station hacks" for the CO and XO to keep up their flying hours, and general transports for other pilots from the base. Pilots being trained at March Field in Riverside reputedly used AT-17s to visit brothels across the border in Nevada, many of which had their own airstrips. Some went for the swimming pools, horseback riding, tennis, and excellent meals, along with gambling in the small casinos of the larger brothels. The single rooms each had comfortable beds with top grade mattresses, a radio in each room, big bathtubs and showers, plenty of hot water, and, most importantly, air conditioning. The price of a room without female accompaniment was only $2 a night, and that included a steak dinner at some of them. That was a pretty nice way to spend the weekend after barracks life. The madams knew what to do to make sure the pilots would keep coming back. Of course, others went for more nefarious purposes, but the pilots of March field were setting the scene for the resort hotel casinos of the Vegas we know today. The fighters were were twin-engine Lockheed P-38 Lightning and the Bell P-39 Airacobra. The P-39 was already obsolescent by mid-1942 and was only used for training in the US, although we sent thousands to the USSR on Lend Lease. It was a well loved airplane there. The four engine bomber was, of course, the famous B-17 Flying Fortress. It was in use from before the war all they way to the end of it and after. The film must have been made in late 1942. The red "meatball" that was in the center of the star marking was removed in May 1942. The B-17s shown are F models, not put in squadron use until June, 1942. The film was careful not to show our more modern fighters like the P-47 Thunderbolt or P-51 Mustang

[@mightaswellbe]

6:17,, that's a Curtiss AT-9 twin trainer you can in the distance between them. Not an easy plane to fly. If you mastered that you went on to the P-38 or B-26 Marauder. My dad flew them as an Instructor and said it was very unforgiving airplane.

[@paoloviti6156]

Thanks for the heads up as I didn't know that the Curtiss AT- 9 was a difficult and unforgiving trainer to fly...

[@mightaswellbe]

@@paoloviti6156 Oh yes, none were sold surplus for flying. Either in museums or to mechanic schools. All else were scrapped. It was that dangerous.

[@paoloviti6156]

@@mightaswellbe hardly surprising that non of them has survived with such a bad reputation....

[@mightaswellbe]

@@paoloviti6156 Yes, I remember him telling that the doors, one on each side at the pilots elbows, had a habit of popping open in flight. That really screwed with the stability of the aircraft and was virtually impossible to close by the pilot sitting next to it because of ergonomics and air loads. He said the guy sitting on the other side had to reach over and give it a good yank to close it. He had much more leverage reaching across the cockpit ( it wasn't very roomy ). Engine out was tricky too. I think I will hunt up the flight manual for that aircraft just to read the emergency procedures.

[@mightaswellbe]

@@paoloviti6156 Just found this and ordered it. All I know about the AT-9 is what my father told me. So now I have another source. mmpbooks.biz/ksiazki/428

[@Wall2000x]

He forgot General Billy Mitchell.

[@steveshoemaker6347]

This is a good one... Thanks very much...!

[@adriandaff5369]

Information recently received says the award ceremony was filmed at Santa Ana (CA) Army Air Base, but that has not been verified.

[@Miatacrosser]

I believe the award ceremony was filmed at Minter Field, Shafter, Ca. The topography looks familiar

[@paulpski9855]

Wonder what number of these men being pinned in 1942 were still around in 1945?

[@danielburgess7785]

A propaganda piece to get parents to "encourage" sons into the Army Air Corps. It worked.

[@danielburgess7785]

@Ray Lat The AAC was turning down thousands of volunteers. Propaganda was not needed in this section of the war effort.

[@thomasbinninger1355]

I must be color blind.

[@hobonickel]

Men OF the Sky

[@peterjohnson617]

for crying out loud the name of the thing is "Men of the Sky"

[@raghavay9678]

Where do I find the transcript

[@tom7601]

Brought to you in living Techni- oops, Monochrome!

[@peterk2455]

It was normal to print the master in colour, and copies made in colour for theatrical release. B&W prints were produced for use in training establishments, overseas such as UK, Australia, NZ etc

[@estebanwedontneednostinkin9969]

I thought it was supposed to be in Technicolor

[@PeriscopeFilm]

Our print is b&w

[@willi032471]

Cuando la aviación era romántica. When aviation was romantic

[@paoloviti6156]

Very interesting propaganda film. Despite all the propaganda you can see pride to fight...

[@hh-dh6qj]

へぇー・・この人が映画のグレン・ミラー物語に出て来るアーノルド将軍か

[@KCOliver1960]

"Men, we are at war!" No s**t, Sherlock.

[@scottweldon8212]

Its men of the sky. Not from the sky. I'm embarrassed for you

[@Minong_Manitou_Mishepeshu]

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