387: Memphis Belle with Joshua Donohue

Dan LeFebvre
00:01
Hello, and welcome to Based on a True Story, the podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. Today, we’ll uncover the true story of Memphis Belle. Released in 1990, Memphis Belle was directed by Michael Caton Jones with a screenplay by Monty Merrick. And in case it’s been a little while since you’ve seen the movie, let’s kick this off as we always do with a quick synopsis. It’s May 1943, and the crew of the B-17 Flying Fortress named Memphis Bell is one mission away from going home after surviving 24 bombing runs over Nazi-occupied Europe. If they’re successful in their 25th mission, they’ll be the first bomber crew in the 8th Air Force to survive a full tour of duty and return home. Everyone knows this is their last mission, and is that the bad luck that means they don’t return home? The movie opens with the crew on the ground, where we get to learn about each crew member’s personality and see how they deal with the nerves as the tension builds. Once airborne, the crew faces flack, enemy fire, and mechanical trouble. Every man has a job, and every moment matters. Through it all, they have to keep their cool and trust each other if they want a chance to make it back. Returning to the podcast to separate fact from fiction and the movie is military historian Joshua Donahue. You might recognize his name from previous episodes of Based on a True Story, when he’s helped us learn about the true story behind movies like 13 Days, Black Hawk Down, and We Were Soldiers. Joshua is working on a new book, so I’ll be sure to ask him about that, And make sure to hop in the show notes to find links to his previous work too. Before we bring him back on though, let’s set up our game for today’s episode. And if you are new to the show, since Based on a True Story is all about separating fact from fiction in the movies, you’ll get to practice your skills at separating fact from fiction in this podcast episode with a game of Two Truths and a Lie. So I’m about to give you three facts that we’re going to talk about in this episode. Only two of those are actually true though. And one of them is just an all-out lie. Are you ready? Okay, here they are. Number one, the real Memphis Belle flew more than 25 missions. Number two, the characters in the movie were based on the real crew of the Memphis Belle. Number three, the 25th mission was actually bombing submarine pens in France. Got them? Okay, now as you’re listening to our story today, see if you can figure out which one of those is a lie. And if you’re watching the video version of this, you can see I’m holding up an envelope. This has the answer inside, so we’ll open that up at the end of the episode to see if you got it right. And now, it’s time to connect with Joshua Donahue about the historical accuracy of 1990s Memphis Belle. I’m excited to jump into some of the details for our movie today, but before we do that, let’s take a 10,000-foot view of the movie. If you were to give the overall movie a letter grade for its historical accuracy,

Joshua Donohue
02:53
what would it get? Memphis Belle I think it’s a B plus and the grade is for just a few historical inaccuracies which we’ll get into I can’t take too many points off because it’s a terrific film with an incredible cast and what I’ve always liked about Memphis Belle is its attention to character development which we’ll also get into you really identify with the members of the crew and their individual personalities which is really one of the main reasons why the film is as good as it is. And if you’ve seen the film, seen all the series by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, Band of Brothers, of course, The Pacific and Masters of the Year most recently, the third series with the two, I found myself often comparing Memphis Belle and Masters of the Year because it kind of represents, you kind of get a bit of an evolution in filmmaking from 1990 all the way till the early 2020s when the series came out. So really for me, Memphis Belle is just has an overall feel to it that you really don’t have in Masters of the Year. And again, not to knock the series, I think they did a terrific job, but in terms of character development, I think that Memphis Belle really drives home what these crews went through during the Second World War. So the soundtrack to the film is also worth mentioning because Michael Caton Jones, the director, focuses and really centers a lot of the music compositions on the song Danny Boy and Amazing Grace. also, you hear that in the film, in different sort of compositions, the men singing, and of course, musically. George Fenton scores this film, and the most famous scene where they have the dance before their last mission, where Bell’s beloved tail gunner, Clay Bigsby, played by Harry Connick Jr., sings that unforgettable version of Danny Boy when he’s at the piano, and it turns into that sort of up-tempo number that’s typical of a 1940s sort of big band sound. So one of the most notable films about B-17 raids over Europe is the film 12 O’Clock High, starring Gregory Peck in 1949. You also have another terrific film in the early 1960s, starring one of my all-time favorite actors, Steve McQueen, called The War Lover, and also another one called The Thousand Plane Raid. That one had some inaccuracies, but most notably, as I’ll get to throughout, you see many scenes from the original Memphis Belle film and the scenes that were shot by him during these missions, shot by William Wyler. And to also clarify, and many of those out there just to sort of alleviate any confusion, another important aspect is that the Belle actually was not the first bomber to complete 25 missions. It was the only one that made it back stateside with its somewhat original crew together. The first bomber actually to reach 25 missions in Europe was a consolidated B-24 Liberator named Hot Stuff. It was actually on its way back to the United States for the tour when it hit bad weather and crashed in Iceland. Piloting that aircraft was General Frank Andrews, who was killed. Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland is named in his honor. So the crew of Hell’s Angels was also considered the first 8th Air Force B-17 to complete 25 combat missions. However, there’s been recent research among the 91st Bombardment Group Memorial Association and the curator of the National Museum of the United States Air Force confirming that the Delta Rebel No. 2, a 91st Bombardment Group, same group as Memphis Belle, had 25 credited missions on May 1, 1943. actually in the European theater, and again, to complete that feat, two weeks before Hell’s Angels. So Delta Rebel No. 2 was shot down during the August 12, 1943 mission over Gleiskirch in Germany when six of its crew were captured as prisoners and four were killed in action. So the bell actually had a bit of PR luck on its side going in its side as well because the name itself, Memphis Bell, was much more appealing than Hell’s Angels. William Wyler even made a comment to the Bell’s pilot, pilot Robert Morgan, that the name Memphis Bell has a mystique to it. He just loved the way it sounded. So really by tragedy and luck, the Bell is the plane that is selected to return to the U.S. in June of 1943. So the Bell’s crew also plays a role here as well, since the majority of the crew members are also credited with being the longest serving crew for one aircraft on 25 missions.

Dan LeFebvre
07:36
Well, that’s fascinating. Mentioning the crew, and that leads right into my next question, because according to the movie, we see the Memphis Belle crew, there’s 10 men, and I’m going to list them off. There’s the pilot, Captain Dennis Dearborn, co-pilot, First Lieutenant Luke Sinclair, bombardier, First Lieutenant Val Kozlowski, which I probably butchered his last name. But he also doubles as the crew’s medic, which we’ll talk about later because that is important to the movie’s story. There’s the navigator, First Lieutenant Phil Lowenthal, engineer, top turret, Staff Sergeant Virgil or Virge, who I also probably butchered. You got it. I think at the beginning of the movie, they’re like, what kind of name is that?

Joshua Donohue
08:12
You’re doing really well. That’s right.

Dan LeFebvre
08:15
There’s the radio operator, Staff Sergeant Danny Daly, tail gunner, Staff Sergeant Clay Busby, waist gunner, Staff Sergeant Eugene or Jeannie McVay, the ball turret gunner, Staff Sergeant Richard or Rascal Moore. And then the 10th, the Waste Gunner, Staff Sergeant Jack Bocce. Was that the real crew of the Memphis Belle?

Joshua Donohue
08:35
It was not. The names and the characters in the film are all fictional. They’re not based on any of the actual, the names and obviously the situations and everything is pretty much about the film is different than the real crew itself. The only character that I would say is loosely based on an actual one is the one played by Captain Dennis Dearborn, the character Captain Dennis Dearborn is played by actor Matthew Modine so he’s loosely based on the pilot of the Memphis Belle who is Captain Robert Morgan who’s later Colonel Robert Morgan Modine actually met with Morgan during the production to get a sort of overall sense and a feel of what it was like and again not only the man who he was going to be portraying but what it was like to be a captain of a B-17 during the Second World War and as I mentioned earlier the film does a great job introducing the audience to each character uh starting with the enlisted men is that scene you were just referring to when uh john lithgow and david strathairn are overlooking you know the enlisted men and you know he’s going one by one and reading off their names and saying where they’re from and sort of what they’re like and their tendencies and things like that so again there’s that great football game that they’re playing at the very beginning of the film And that game itself is great because you really get a sense of the character’s essence, each one of them. And again, the descriptions being read aloud by Army Publicist, Colonel Bruce Derringer, who’s played by actor John Lithgow. That scene is great because you have where he talks about Rascal, the ball turret gunner, he has a reputation of being a ladies’ man. At least that’s what he says. And then you get where he talks about Jeannie McVeigh from Cleveland. There’s always one from Cleveland. Of course. And again, he’s always coming down with something. He shows where he gets tackled on the ground, and he’s kind of laboring to get up, and everyone’s kind of trying to push him back up there. The other one I like is Jack Bochy, the waist gunner. He’s just this fiery, hot-tempered guy, as you see, screaming at everybody in the football game. And he kind of has that rivalry going with Genie, his other waist gunner that’s obviously right behind him there, as you see during the film. So the young men assigned to the Memphis Belle represented a typical Eighth Air Force, again, heavy bomber crew in Europe. They ranged in age from around 19 to 26, and they came from states across the U.S., including New York, Washington, Indiana, Texas, and Connecticut. And like their Eighth Air Force counterparts, and contrary to popular myth, they flew most but not all of their missions together. Some of the crew actually did fly their entire combat tour on the Memphis Belle. Others, including Morgan, would go on to fight and fly more missions in World War II, Morgan’s case in the Pacific Theater, which we’ll get to later on. So during the course of the combat tour, the Memphis Belle crew had three different top turret gunner engineers, Levitas Levi Dillon, Eugene Adkins, and Harold Locke, four waist gunners. Arrowlock would later move up to the top turret position. You had Staff Sergeant Casimir Tony Nostal, who replaced E. Scott Miller on the War Bond Tour because Miller would stay in England. Bill Winchell and E. Scott Miller were also, again, rotating gunners there. Several different pilots, co-pilots, I should say, also flew with the Memphis Belle and their normal crew. The Bell’s navigator captain, Charles Chuck Layton, flew his whole tour with the Memphis Bell. Technical Sergeant Robert Hansen, who was the radio operator, also flew his entire tour with the aircraft, along with the Bell’s tail gunner, J.P. Quinlan. Quinlan actually would be serving the Pacific. He would actually be shot down, be captured as a POW, and later on escape with the help of some, again, friendly Chinese. His tour goes from bad to worse and gets obviously better when he’s able to escape. So from the sixth mission from the Bell onwards, Morgan’s crew and that of the Bell would change each time. Verinis, who acted as the first pilot on a sortie in a submarine installation mission at Lorien on 30th of December 1942, Morgan actually sits out this mission. He was not feeling well. Thereafter, Varinus was given his own ship, nicknamed the Connecticut Yankee. He flew 19 missions in his B-17 and won a plane called Our Gang for a total of 26. So with the departure of his co-pilot, Varinus, neither the Bell nor Morgan seemed to really have a truly regular co-pilot again, none being in the second seat for more than five missions, one fewer than Varinus. So he had a waist gunner, Staff Sergeant Bill Winchell flew his entire combat tour with Memphis Bell. After the Warbond tour, he was then commissioned as a second lieutenant. The other waist gunner, Tony Nostal and Cecil Scott, the ball turret gunner Cecil Scott was, did 16 missions with the Bell and had to stay in England to finish his 25 missions. So the Bell’s crew, obviously different. All the cast there is everyone’s completely different in name. But again, it represents in some way, shape or form what a typical Eighth Air Force crew would look like during that time.

Dan LeFebvre
14:06
Well, it sounds too like, I mean, the movie just, movies do this a lot, you know, to simplify it, have it be the same crew for all the missions, even though in real life it’s a little more complex than that. And it’s not always going to be the same people flying the plane, which makes a lot of sense.

Joshua Donohue
14:19
Yeah. So you have this sort of, there is a core kind of a group of members of the plane, Morgan, Nostal, J.P. Quinlan, Evans, the guys who are in the plane the longest. But you have an interesting point, too, to make is that the Bell flies its last mission on, they say in the film, and in really popular belief, has it on May 17, 1943. The Bell actually flies another mission two days after that with an entirely different crew. And then after that mission, then the original crew, Morgan and company, get in and they fly back to the United States. So some little known facts and figures that people may or may not realize about the Bell’s mission and how fate kind of plays a role there as well. And how actually there was one more mission after that, quote unquote, last war.

Dan LeFebvre
15:12
Well, that, again, leads right into my next question, because the core of the movie’s plot revolves around this 25th mission. And according to the movie, if they complete that, then they’re going to be the first crew in the 8th Air Force to complete their tour of duty, and they get to go back home. And as you were saying, it’s not necessarily the case, but I’m sure this could be an entire episode by itself. But those first 24 missions happened before the event in the movie. So can you give us an overview of the Bell’s missions before the timeline of the movie?

Joshua Donohue
15:44
Yeah. So the Memphis Bell was attached to the 8th Air Force’s 324th Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bomb Group, based out of RAF Basingborn in England. And the Bell’s first mission was on November 7th of 1942, when it participated in a raid against the German U-boat pens over Brest, France. Morgan was at the controls. And the Bell’s second mission was a strike against the U-Boat PENS at St. Nazaire, France, an area in and around the PENS was heavily defended by German anti-aircraft fire, since they knew that this was going to be a prime target of opportunity. And that’s typically what the Germans would do, is they would concentrate their heaviest firepower in and around targets of opportunity they felt that were going to be hit by. Not only, you know, keep in mind that the daylight raids are being, and Lefkow’s character, Derringer, mentions people back home are starting to think daylight bombing is a big mistake. And then he’s corrected by David Strathairn’s character. And he says, no, this is the only way we’re going to win this war. So the RAF was actually bombing at night. So the Germans, again, by once it goes into 1942 and in 1943, those raids are stepped up considerably. So the Germans would bring in extra 20mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns. The RAF raid, again, the RAF, I should say, gave St. Nazare its infamous nickname, Black City. According to Morgan, they counted 63 holes in the plane when they returned. In Robert Morgan’s book entitled The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle, He describes in detail how things, quote unquote, got hairy after their third mission on November 17th, 1942. Once again, they were bombing the submarine pens at Saint-Mazaire, France. A flak burst took off part of the Bell’s left wing, but Morgan was able to wrestle the Flying Fortress back and hold it in formation, which, again, you’re trying to wrestle this giant lumbering four-engine bomber. I mean, it’s easier said than done. They were attacked by a heavy concentration of German fighters, and Morgan mentions in his book that a B-24 squadron, which was also flying with them on a separate part of the mission, was also pretty badly shot up on that particular one. So this is also the first confirmed damage kill by one of Bell’s gunners when J.P. Quinlan makes a kill. And the Bell is actually undergoing repairs and misses the next mission that is conducted by the 91st Bomb Group. Morgan actually comments that he often wondered how the Bell would have fared because this particular mission was particularly brutal. Many of the bombers either did not return home or came back heavily damaged. So on December 6, 1942, Bell’s crew is on its fourth mission over Lille, France, near the French-Belgian border with the railroad marshalling yards as their target. On that mission, Morgan describes seeing a B-17 just simply falling out of the sky right in front of them. And you have that one scene in the film where you have a windy city and it’s on fire, comes right across and just explodes. So those types of things, and you even see in a lot of the film, the footage taken from those missions, bombers are just simply falling out of the sky. And you just wonder, there’s 10 or so crew in there, and you have to wonder if they all got out. So he also remarks, Morgan does, that most of the bombs in these early missions would be missing their targets. These missions were aimed at disrupting Germany’s supply lines, their infrastructure, which were critical to its war industry. And again, this is what exactly they’re trying to aim to stop. The Bell’s fifth mission is a large airfield and factory located at Ramilly-sur-Seine, France. During this raid, the bomber formation faced massive resistance from an estimated 300 German fighters, making it one of the most intense aerial battles that the crew experienced during a tour of duty. Morgan is actually forced to set out the Bell’s sixth mission on, as I mentioned, the December 30th, 1942, when the 91st attacks the submarine Pensate Laurian with co-pilot James Verena’s taking over from Morgan. The Bell’s 7th and Morgan 6th mission is over St. Nazaire once again on January 3rd, 1943. And it’s also important to note that Morgan, and even Morgan makes this point in his book, that the United States was still in a state of mobilization throughout 1942. So the 8th Air Force was more or less operating on a shoestring budget until 1943, where missions were now driving deeper into Germany with larger numbers of planes on missions. So once the United States and Great Britain were able to maximize the performance of their bombers, which are meant to destroy Germany’s capacity to wage war, but especially as we see in 1944 and 45, whole cities by this point are being leveled with the aim of breaking the will of the German civilian population, who, of course, are operating and working in these manufacturing and industrial centers. So you also notice that the majority of the missions are also against German U-boat pens. 1942 proved to be a disastrous year for the Allies operating in the Atlantic. The German submarine menace was wreaking havoc on Allied shipping, and by January of 1942, German submarines had moved into American coastal waters that posed a serious threat to U.S. and three months of 1942, German U-boats sink more than 100 ships off the east coast of North America and the Gulf of Mexico in the Caribbean Sea. Some of those ship losses are literally within sight of land. You can see the smoke columns over the horizon. Over 6 million tons of cargo will be lost in 1942, which marked the most successful year for the German submarine. So following a gap in 10 days. The Memphis Belle then notched its eighth mission over Lille, France on January 13th, Morgan back at the controls with the group commander Colonel Stanley Ray acting as co-pilot. It was the lead ship for the first time, and things proceeded smoothly with no damage, no claims on enemy aircraft, but that would all change with Belle’s second mission in the lead, its ninth in all, which took place on January 23rd, 1943, bringing Morgan’s tally up to eight. So the It was, again, submarine pens at Lorient. The B-17 received moderate damage. And as Morgan was pulling the Memphis Belle out of its bomb run, a German Focke-Wulf 190, shells were intended for the nose, shot the entire tail off the Belle. It was on fire. Chunks of it were falling off. And Morgan mentions it. I actually saw an email that he wrote to a critic of the film that he had to make a 5,000-foot dive to burn out the fire when they were left with the tail almost completely, the whole thing was completely missing. So it brings a little bit of truth to that dive scene that we see later on in the film.

Dan LeFebvre
22:52
Wow. I couldn’t imagine just the terror of any of that, but also seeing your comrades up there getting, like you’re saying, B-17 just falling out of the air. you don’t know when it’s your turn. Like you don’t know when one of those, that anti-aircraft is going to hit you. And I mean, I know you, I’m sure you just try to put it out of your mind, but also it’s going all around you. It’s going to be impossible to put it. I just, it’s one of those, I just can’t wrap my head around what that.

Joshua Donohue
23:26
The one thing that, you know, must’ve been most difficult is, you know, you fly your first mission and you really get the experience of how dangerous and how harrowing these missions are. And guess what? you know, two days later or the next, whenever it comes, you got to be right back up there again, going through an entirely different scenario, whatever, fighters or anti-aircraft. And as you’re pushing into Germany, obviously those missions become more and more dangerous. And they say in the film that, you know, hopefully we’re going to be on a milk run to France and it’s going to be not a big deal. But these early missions over France were, you know, considerably dangerous as well. I really wouldn’t qualify a lot of these French missions over France as quote unquote milk runs, they had their fair share of danger, but obviously as they’re pushing into Germany, you’re getting much stiffer resistance as they’re approaching into the heart of Germany.

Dan LeFebvre
24:19
Yeah, I guess what they consider a milk run is not what I would consider safe by any means, but compared to what they’re also facing in other missions. Wow. Pales in comparison. Yeah. Well, the bulk of the movie’s timeline is the day before and the day of the 25th mission on May 17th, 1943. And according to the movie, the mission is 360 bombers targeting a major factory for the ME-109 fighter planes in Bremen, Germany. We’ll talk about how the mission goes in the movie in a moment, but how accurate was the movie’s version of what the 25th mission was supposed to be?

Joshua Donohue
24:51
Great question. So I vividly recall seeing the 1990 film when I was young and not realizing that the actual events were fictitious, really for the most part. And I thought to myself, man, these guys barely made it back for their 25th mission. they were the last plane. Everyone was starting to turn and walk away thinking that it’s over. And then they hear the distant hum of the low one engine that it’s flying on. And not long after I saw the 1990 film, I just so happened upon the 1944 film that William Wyler shot. And again, this was more of a documentary of the Bell’s final mission. And it was actually meant more so to be a training film for bomber crews to learn from as well. So it kind of had a dual purpose. So it Turned out that the last mission wasn’t nearly as harrowing as the 1990 film depicts that you see. They didn’t have to go into a dive to put out an engine fire, although, as I mentioned, Morgan does have to do this. Not on the last mission. The ball turret wasn’t shot out from under the gunner, and he’s left hanging by his safety strap for over 30,000 feet over Germany. They didn’t have to go around on a bomb run. They didn’t have to crank the landing gear down as they approached the runway at the end. So none of those things happened on the actual last mission. The Bell’s last mission was against the submarine pens at Loriant. But what the film does so well is it gives you a real glimpse of what life was like for an average B-17 crew during missions. And as I just mentioned, the dangers were seemingly everywhere, not just from enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire, but from mechanical failures, which were pretty common during this time. The engines would have issues. The plane was performing. It was sluggish. Crews often had to, in some cases, many lost their lives due to mechanical failure, not to take away from what those ground crews did during the war. They did a phenomenon. And that’s another great thing that the film shows as well, is the ground crews and how active they are in getting those bombs in the plane, getting the crews, the crew teams, getting the engines all primed and prepped. So the B-17 was one of the toughest and most durable aircraft that’s ever been produced, again, of course, by Boeing. You had to deal, of course, the elements. You’re at 30,000 feet, anywhere from 20 plus and higher to 1,000 feet in the air, and you’re in an unpressurized aircraft. And many crew experienced altitude sickness, like hypoxia. That would be fairly common. He had to wear heavy wool jackets, gloves, goggles, because temperatures, of course, at that altitude reach well below zero. And it’s depicted in the film where he says if you touch your guns, your bare hands are going to freeze right to it. I don’t want anyone losing any fingers up here. And that was frostbite. And again, this was something that did happen fairly often. And of course, he says, don’t take your mask for frozen saliva. Ice gets down there. You can choke. I mean, won’t anyone, you know, when the rascal makes the comment, in short, don’t drool. And he’s correct where he says, in short, check your mask. So another danger also is with a film you see when the mission begins, and there’s that sequence where they’re flying through the clouds, and they nearly collide with another B-17 that’s directly in front of them when they come out of the cloud bank. And, of course, Dearborn pushes the bell directly underneath. They have that scene. So that was also a real danger. Mid-air collisions were fairly, you’re putting sometimes, you know, hundreds and even in some cases, a thousand planes in the air at the same time. You know, you’re going to have those things happen. Sometimes bombers, another danger that crews experience, would inadvertently drift underneath another while bombs were being released. There’s a scene where Colonel Craig Harriman, played by David Strathairn, gets word from his adjutant that John Lithgow’s character, As I mentioned, Army PR man Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Derringer is already preparing the party on base for the Memphis Bells crew before the planes even come back. This is obviously fictitious, but again, it adds more drama and tension between the characters as we see running throughout the film. So you have the tension between Matthew Modine’s character and Lieutenant Sinclair, played by, not D.B. Sweeney, I’ll come back to that. I remember his name. So the pilot and the co-pilot have their rivalry. The two waist gunners, right, Genie and Jack Bochy, are very much rivals. You have the rivalry between Verge Hoogastager, the top turret gunner, and Rascal Moore, the ball turret gunner. They have that rivalry there as well. And, of course, the bombardier and the navigator and that nose together and the tension that’s between, of course, Billy Zane’s character, the bombardier of Kozlowski, and D.B. Sweeney’s. And Tate Donovan, by the way, is the guy I was referring to. Tate Donovan, the co-pilot, of course. And they have those, you know, when they’re pre-flighting, they’re getting all, okay, we’re going to make this our best mission yet. Okay, we’re going to check the brakes. And he goes, yes. And they had a check, yes, no, and the whole thing going on there. So the one scene I was referring to where Harriman finds out that the party’s being planned, and he goes into his office, and he dumps out those letters onto his desk and says, start reading. And then it gets to that serious part where it flashes back, and you see the gun camera footage scenes of those B-17s just absolutely being just shot to pieces by the German fighters. It’s an important part of the film because it shows how deadly these missions were. And as you see one B-17 being shot down after another, after another, you see Lithgow’s face completely just almost turned white when he’s reading these letters. And again, that’s really one of the most important scenes in the film right there because there was so many ways that you could be either injured or killed on these missions over France, Belgium, Germany, and other places.

Dan LeFebvre
30:53
It sounds like, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like the movie itself is kind of a composite overall, and not necessarily telling the story of the actual Memphis Bills 25th mission, or really any of the missions, but perhaps elements of it, like the dive, elements of theirs, but also elements from other B-17 missions and things like that, and throwing them all into this could be how it goes, or this is kind of a composite story.

Joshua Donohue
31:23
Yeah, and that’s a great way to describe it because you literally cover so many different aspects and so many different scenarios of things that could go wrong and things that actually did happen in certain instances. Again, Hollywood takes liberties with all of these things, especially with history films. They all have that part that’s going to be a bit dramatized. But again, it really shows at that point, you know, that, you know, while it didn’t happen in real life, what was funny about it is, is that, you know, these, reading Morgan’s book, you know, he describes how in a lot of ways, the difference between Matthew Modine’s character and the real pilot, Robert Morgan, how different they are as, you know, Matthew Modine’s character, Dennis Dearborn is sort of really strict, straight-laced, wants to do everything, check everything twice. And he makes that joke, and that was one of the funnier parts, where they’re talking about what they want to do after the war, and he still says, hey, I got this furniture company back home. You could all come back home and work for me. And they’re all like, no. It’s just that kind of, how the rest of the crew almost, they respected him, but at the same time, they were pretty well aware that he was the guy in charge. and the one who was going to get them to and from these missions. But Morgan was funny because Morgan, if you kind of get a sense of what he was like, he had a bit of an ego. He had a bit of a wild side to him. He liked to buzz the field. That was one of the things that, you know, similar to Maverick in his F-14 buzzing the tower in Top Gun. And they show in the Wyler film too that he buzzes the field on several occasions. That’s one of the things he’s known for. And he kind of see the smirk on his face in the cockpit. So he was a little bit more ego than Matthew Mordine’s character. But I think there are some similarities between the both of them, which we get to later on as well.

Dan LeFebvre
33:28
I mean, I guess if you’re going through all of that, I know you’re not supposed to buzz the field, you’re not supposed to do that. But give him a break. Let him blow off some steam. Yeah, exactly.

Joshua Donohue
33:38
They need a tension breaker because it’s just losing their friends all the time. You know, that scene in the beginning where the plane explodes on the crash landing and the Memphis Bells crew, they’re prying open their buddies, you know, foot lockers and trying to take out all the stuff they don’t want to send back home. You know, all sorts of stuff. They don’t want their families to be embarrassed and all that. So that was a very real thing that, you know, it was fairly common. You’d be on, you know, hanging with your friends in one night and the next mission, you’d be out there and you come back and they’re gone. And it was, you know, it became more and more difficult. Morale definitely suffered, especially in those early months, especially in 1942 going into 1943. The height of the bomber campaign was still yet to really occur. But again, as I mentioned, once the United States is able to mobilize and send more planes, more trained crews overseas, the tide begins to turn. Well, you might have already answered my next question, but if we go back to the movie, the bomber taking the lead in that 25th mission is Windy City.

Dan LeFebvre
34:39
Unfortunately, they get hit and go down. So another bomber called C-Cup takes over for the lead. And then that bomber gets hit and goes down. And that’s how the Memphis Belle ends up taking over the lead for the mission, which means everyone else is going to drop their bombs when the Belle does. Was that how the Memphis Belle became the lead bomber for the mission after two others went down?

Joshua Donohue
35:00
So it’s somewhat similar, somewhat different. So the Belle was actually the lead plane on her last mission and was often the lead plane over the course of its operational history. As I mentioned, those first two times early on as Morgan flies them, but not really how it’s sort of portrayed in the film. In his book, Robert Morgan talks about the second mission over Brest, France, where the bell is the lead plane and what was known as the lowest of the three groups, which was split apart from two other groups that were both stacked up at 18,000 and 27,000 feet. So the higher groups were meant to be decoys. And if you see in the Weiler film that this is a tactic that is used fairly often to try and throw off German defenses, try and break apart the concentrated German fighters, we’re sending the white forces going here, the green forces going here, the blue forces going here. You have B-24s on this part of the mission. You have B-17s that will split off and they’ll fly out and they’ll back converge again. So there were all sorts of different methods that the 8th Air Force would employ to try and break apart the resistance that they would face on this mission. So the higher groups, as I mentioned, were decoys in order to draw the German fighters and the flak away from the three lower groups. While it was successful in terms of drawing the fighters away, they would encounter a large concentration of flak on that second mission. Morgan made the comment that it must have been flak day in occupied France. Another strategy also would help bomber crews to defend against fighters was the tactical formation known as the combat box. And this was a standard 18 aircraft box that could literally bring over 200 Browning M250 caliber machine guns to bear on German attacking fighters. Gun positions were really designed to cover all approach angles, meaning any German attacking fighter could face a wall of concentrated fire. And these box formations were also effective in terms of overall bombing accuracy, because since the lead group had to drop their payloads on the orders of the lead aircraft. So to make the formation bombing work, really the wings needed well coordination and really in terms of the pilot, the navigator, the bombardier. All of this had to be developed. And to that end, it would be bomber command directing the establishment of special overturned lead crews in each squadron and each station. So squadrons had to identify their best bombardiers and they joined with a specifically selected navigator. And these lead crews alone would be responsible for identifying the target, leading the unit on the bomb run, and locating the release point, giving the orders to release. And then the lead crew pilot was chosen for his ability to fly smoothly, to make changes gradually, to keep the formation together. And only three other planes in each group, the wingmen, the lead plane, and the leaders of the high and low squadrons, carried bomb sights in case the leader was shot down. The mission of the other crews was to stay in tight defensive formations and release their payloads when the leader released. So the lead crews underwent intensive training so they could act as group squad or lead crews on combat missions. So they often carried an additional navigator. Usually the tail gunner’s position was occupied by an officer pilot who advised the pilot of the state of the formation. And finally, lead crews were only to participate in combat as the lead crew in their tour would be shortened by five missions. So in addition to these crews, two very reliable B-17 aircraft in each squadron were designated as lead bombers and equipped with every device for accurate bombing. I should say bombing of a target as it became available.

Dan LeFebvre
38:58
It makes me think when you’re talking about that, it makes me think of like the Blue Angels or something, how they fly in formation like that, except of course, B-17s are a little less maneuverable. Yeah, slightly. But that would just add to the difficulty level of it all too. I mean, you have the benefit of, again, as you were saying that too, I was also thinking of like, you know, the Greek phalanx where they’re kind of getting close together and this formation for defensive purposes. But then when you’re talking about B-17s getting close together, you’re talking about midair collisions, that’s just going to increase that level of difficulty. And it’s like,

Joshua Donohue
39:33
wow. It’s not simply a matter of you’re just taking off, get up to the cruising altitude, and you just hold it there. I mean, you have to deal. And one of the things that the higher up the commanders of the Eighth Air Force, one name I’ll mention too, we’ve talked about when we did 13 days, General Curtis LeMay. He is actually flying missions for the Eighth Air force during World War II in both the European and Pacific theaters during the war. And he is, in a lot of ways, chiefly responsible for creating the morale and the tight-knit group that they need to be. And he is actually telling crews at this time, no evasive action, you’re flying straight through the target. This is the most effective way we’re going to do it. And when he would go to the Pacific can fly in B-29 missions as Robert Morgan would as well. The tactics there, especially when it came to the firebombing raids in 1944 and 45, that would be, you know, LeMay’s, you know, you know, his idea to attack Japanese cities, especially Tokyo at lower levels. So tactics are constantly changing, right? Even right up to the very end of the war. It seems that really strategic bombing is in its infancy still at this point in time. It hadn’t really been perfected during the interwar years between the First and Second World War. So it’s still very much you’re learning on the job and you’re learning from the mistakes. And many of those mistakes oftentimes are fatal ones.

Dan LeFebvre
41:04
Yeah, yeah. Well, that makes me wonder too, because in the movie we see some Allied fighters offering some supports, but they don’t stick around for too long since they can’t fly as far as the bombers. What sort of air support was typical for a mission from UK to Germany in 1943?

Joshua Donohue
41:19
Especially in the early days, it wasn’t uncommon for a lot of these bombers to go unescorted, just to fly missions with no fighter support and come back. And as they found out, this was a deadly proposition. There’s actually, in the film, there’s one of the more glaring historical inaccuracies in the film. And many people, fans of the film, historians, even people who kind of have a casual knowledge of aircraft. the part where Virgil Hoogastegger, the top turret gunner, says, little friends, three o’clock high, and you see a flight of four P-51 Mustangs joining the formation. So in 1943, the Mustang was in service, but it had entered World War II with the British in January of 1942. There wouldn’t have been Mustangs flying S-Core missions in 1943. That would have really fallen to the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, which was a single-seat fighter similar to the Mustang, really in that regard only. You would also have escort missions carried out by the RAF. Spitfires would be used, and Morgan actually talks about that a couple of times too. So the P-47, even with external fuel tanks, really was not able to escort the bomber formations all the way to and from their targets, and that’s really one of the biggest problems that they faced in the war. depending upon where that mission was, you would have seen a much larger presence than just four fighters as well. The P-51B and C models would enter the European theater of operations in December of 1943. They were quite effective as the British Merlin engine was the difference maker, and the P-51D was one of the finest aircraft produced of the entire war. It was the perfect marriage of American and British engineering. And still to this day, many people say that that plane in particular is just still among your favorites. Even I mentioned Top Gun. He had that opening scene where in Top Gun Maverick, Tom Cruise is working on his Mustang. I think that’s actually his actual Mustang in real life that he flies. So that aircraft is still just revered and just cherished, especially by private owners. There are air shows all the time. So for this particular part, you would see not so much the P-51. That would happen a little bit later on, 1944, 1945. So the P-47 and certain numbers, I believe the P-38 Lightning was also used for escort missions as well. But as I mentioned, early on in the war, it would not be uncommon for these bombers to be flying without any escort missions whatsoever.

Dan LeFebvre
44:02
I mean, I know that they’re not able to go the entire way or maybe they’re not able to help, but still like, well, I wouldn’t want to go at all, but I wouldn’t want to go without any support, like any escorts or anything like that because you have this mission you’ve got to focus on and at least get them off my tail for a little bit.

Joshua Donohue
44:22
Yeah, and it’s also, again, a testament to how durable and rugged the B-17 is. I’ll mention as we go a little bit, further in that there are several instances where these bombers that just, just, you wouldn’t think that they’d be flyable. I’ll, I’ll mention a couple of stories as, as we go along, but you know, the, the plane itself brought back countless crew members and were, you know, a lot of other planes simply wouldn’t have been able to make it back, you know, flying on, you know, three engines, two engines, one engine, it wasn’t, you know, a common thing, but it was done, I believe by at least one crew that was able to sort of use, you know, it’s a bit of a stroke of luck and a little bit of, you know, good weather and wind direction to keep that thing airborne otherwise. And like I said, it’s also worth mentioning that it was not also not uncommon if you were getting low on fuel, that crews would take all their guns, whatever was loose and just throw it out of the airplane, the light and the load as best they can. And you see that as they’re flying back over the English channel back to their base at the end of the mission towards the end of the film.

Dan LeFebvre
45:27
The next question that I have, again, might be one that you’ve already answered based on not, this was not really what their 25th mission was. But in the movie, we see that there’s this smoke screen that’s covering the factories that is their target. And so they have a decision to make, drop the bombs anyway, and hope that they’re on target along with everybody else’s bombs because they’re the lead. So everybody else is going to drop theirs at the same time. Or they can circle around for another pass and hope that the smoke screen clears. And the problem with that, of course, is anytime in the air, you’re exposed to anti-aircraft, enemy fighters for even longer. In the movie, Captain Dearborn decides to make another pass. So they circle around, and the target is still covered with smoke until just at the last moment, the smoke clears just enough for the bombardier to see the factories and let the bombs drop. And then all the other bombers follow the bell’s lead, dropping the devastation on the ground below. You just see all these explosions. And as I was watching that, I couldn’t help but think that, you know, the last second smoke clearing a little, maybe a little too much Hollywood timing. But sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. How well does the movie depict the bombing run for Bell’s mission?

Joshua Donohue
46:34
It’s not too far off because just to mention again, the Bell’s last mission, they didn’t have to go around and they weren’t even bombing Germany on their second to last mission. They were in the Bill of Sovn. But again, they were, you know, a laureate on their last mission. So it’s not the way it actually happened. But as I mentioned earlier, The Germans also would use a lot of other defensive methods in addition to aircraft and anti-aircraft fire from below. They would use smoke screens. That was a widely used tactic that the Germans would have. I did a podcast a while back about Hitler’s house at the Berghof in British Garden, and he actually had smoke screen machines in front of his house in case any Allied planes came over. And there’s footage of him walking around. You can see the smoke behind him. So he’s monitoring the tests there. So smoke screens. Again, ships obviously are using them to great effectiveness out to sea. But the Germans would use them to high targets of opportunity. And as you’re seeing through the lens of the Norton bomb site, fog was also an issue at times. In the beginning of the mission, remember, the jeep pulls up and tells them, you’ll be able to night-dense cloud cover the target. It’s a strong chance of the blowover. So fog, really natural weather phenomenon, was also a major. You’re not talking about autonomy. You’re able to effectively bomb with all this sophisticated technology and infrared sensors and laser guidance and all that stuff going on. So when the bombardiers were first on their – it would hit their runs on what was known as the IP or the initial point, they would be through the lens of their Norton bombsite, which was, again, the northern bombsite itself, which I’ll get to in a moment, was really a top-secret technology at this time and was one of the most important technological breakthroughs of the war because it really helped hone accuracy and enabled bombing crews to really strike targets at really high altitudes. It was not a perfect invention. It has plenty of its critics and detractors, But I do like that scene in particular because it gives you a sense of what they were seeing. And many times, bombardiers and even ball turret gunners would be able to see the Germans shooting the rounds up at them. They could see them spiraling up at them in the formations. So you really had a bird’s eye view, literally, of what was coming at you. So the Norton bombshell, as you see Billy Zane’s character, Valentine Kozlowski, has the plane under his control. And that was what would happen when you see Dearborn flips the switches. I’m turning the plane over to you. You’re flying the plane from here to target. And that’s really what it was like. The Norton bomb site was flying the aircraft from there to target. So in a lot of ways, it was kind of like you had autopilot. And when you’re on that bombing run, you simply had to stay on target. There was nothing you can do unless your plane was hit or you had to deviate for some other reason. But yeah, those bombing runs where the planes were really at their most vulnerable.

Dan LeFebvre
49:44
Now, you mentioned the targeting, and that leads into my next question, because one of the reasons that the movie gives for the captain’s decision not to drop the bombs through the smoke was because there were civilians nearby. They had to be as accurate as possible to avoid civilian casualties. And of course, they didn’t have targeting bombs like we do now. But can you share a little bit about the bombing technology and how did they help ensure accuracy to avoid civilian casualties like

Joshua Donohue
50:08
we see in the movie. So as I mentioned, the Norton bomb site was really the deciding factor, and that would really, in this technology, would enable crews to hit the pickle barrel, as they say in the film. So the basic problem with high altitude bombing is a pretty obvious one. You’re flying in a certain plane, you’re flying at a certain speed, you’re at a certain altitude with certain wind conditions, dropping bombs that are certain sizes and shapes and weights. So you need a formula that combines all of these variables and to tell you where exactly the plane needs to be and exactly when to drop the bombs. All of this together, again, there’s so many things that can go wrong, so many variables. So we learned through really enough during the First World War to know that this was a problem that we really needed to figure out. And the technology that I mentioned, the strategic bombing was still very much in its infancy. So we were still very much, by this point in the war, still learning on the job. So World War II was to be a war of industry and bombing of the enemy’s industry capacity to wage war. And as American engineers worked on new bomb sites, German engineers also did the same. They both knew the problems well. Both knew the same basic way to solve them. And they were what was called the gyroscopically stable bomb sites communicating, and if this makes sense, gyroscopically stable autopilot systems for the aircraft. The goal for both sides was to develop a bomb site, which the bombardier could calibrate and then enter in all of these variables into the site itself and then spot the bombing target through this telescopic site. And if all went well, the plane would stay on target, close in, and automatically release the bombs at exactly the right time and place. A lot of things can go wrong, unfortunately. During the bomb run sequences, you see, again, Bombardier Val Kozlowski, played by Billy Zane, looking through his bomb site and his plane is nearing the target. This is, again, improving the overall success of bomb accuracy. You also notice in the film that both bomb run sequences where Captain Dearborn flips those switches and tells the bombardier, because I mentioned, you’re turning on the autopilot, you’re flying, she’s all yours. So this certainly wasn’t perfect by any means, because you’re dealing with a variety of other factors. It did have some early flaws in even some of its detractors, as I mentioned, but you still, really, in most conversations about its overall effectiveness, I believe that the Norton bomb set at the end of the day performed the job that it was meant to do. And again, when you’re dropping bombs with hundreds and sometimes thousand plane raids, and you’re expecting every single bomb to drop right on its target, it’s just not something that’s realistic. So thinking about how strategic bombing evolved since World War II, nowadays a single aircraft can accomplish what took hundreds of B-17s or B-24s or B-29s, multiple missions, as you can see with the 91st Bomb Group, having to hit the same targets with tons of ordnance. They bombed Wilhelmshaven at least three times, Lorient, Brest, St. Nazareth, all at least four or five, sometimes six times. So the bomb group having to hit the same targets with tons of ordnance, you have all these sophisticated guided munitions nowadays, you can achieve all these same results in just one mission and not put nearly as many pilots and crew at risk.

Dan LeFebvre
53:36
It really just, it showcases how different it was back then, you know, putting yourself into a historical context of what it was like then, not aside from everything else that we’ve talked about there too, but even just everything could go perfectly right. and you could still miss. Yes.

Joshua Donohue
53:54
Yeah. I mean, it was, when they show the scene where they unveil the target when they’re going to Bremen and they’re showing the, you know, the pictures of the target and here’s the building. There’s a couple of buildings here. Here’s a school and a playground right next to it. It’s like to have to be able to negotiate it, no pressure at all. Every bomb has to hit this target. Again, That’s what is on Dennis Dearborn’s mind as he’s going through that part where he can’t see it. My scope’s sitting him over the target, but that’s not letting me, I can’t see anything. And then makes that fateful decision to flip the switches, take control of the plane and go back around again. So that was not too common, but there were instances where that did happen. Again, as Lieutenant Sinclair makes the comment, that’s like asking the Nazis to blow us out of the sky.

Dan LeFebvre
54:49
Speaking of Lieutenant Sinclair, there is a moment in the movie while the bell is circling for a second pass on the target. The co-pilot, Sinclair, goes back to the tail gunner to give him more ammo. At least that’s what he tells Captain Dearborn. In reality, he goes back to shoot the gun because they’re going home after this mission and he wants to kill some Nazis before the war is over. And he does. He hits an ME-109, which goes down, and it takes out a nearby B-17 named Mother and Country on the way down. That bomber was manned by a crew that the movie refers to as the rookies. Is there any truth to that whole scenario? Is it mostly just drama for the movie?

Joshua Donohue
55:26
It’s a bit dramatic. That part’s a bit dramatic, you know, where they’re screaming on the radio and you sort of, you know, you see the plane kind of sitting there and the fighter spiraling down. It’s split in half, right? This was not uncommon, though, and from a different sort of reason. there were instances where German Luftwaffe fighters purposely rammed their planes into B-17s. And what was known as the, yeah, and it wasn’t really meant for the pilot to die. It was meant that he was supposed to get his plane to where it damaged the plane enough and then hopefully you bail out. But chances are that may or may not happen. But what was known as the Sonderkommando Elbe, in April of 1945, the Luftwaffe formed this specialized task force for the goal of bringing down heavy allied bombers, such as the B-17 Flying Fortress, by ramming them. In a mid-air collision on February 1st, 1943, between a B-17 and a German fighter over the Tunis dock area became the subject of one of the most famous photographs of World War II. An enemy fighter attacking a 97th Bomb Group formation went out of control, probably with a wounded pilot, and then continued crashing his descent into the rear fuselage of a fortress named All-American, piloted by Lieutenant Kendrick R. Bragg of the 414th Bomb Squadron. When it struck, the fighter broke apart, but it left some pieces in the B-17. The left horizontal stabilizer of the fortress and left elevator were torn away. Two right engines were out. The left had a serious oil pump leak, and the vertical fin in the rudder had been damaged. The fuselage had been almost completely through, only connected by about two fuselage spars on the frame. The radios, the electrical and oxygen systems were all damaged. There was a hole in the top that was over 16 feet long, four feet wide, and its widest split in the fuselage went all the way to the top turret. The tail actually bounced and swayed in the wind and twisted when the plane turned. So with all the control cables severed, except for one single elevator cable that was still working, the aircraft still flew. The tail gunner was trapped because there was no floor connecting the tail to the rest of the plane. The waist and tail gunner used parts of the German fighter and their own parachute harnesses in an attempt to keep the tail from ripping off the two sides of the fuselage. And while the crew was trying to keep the bomber from coming apart, the pilot continued on his bomb run and released the bombs over the target. So when the bomb bay doors opened, the wind turbulence was so great that it blew one of the waste gunners into the broken tail section. And it took several minutes for crew members to pass him ropes and parachutes to haul him back into the forward part of the plane. When they tried to do this for the tail gunner, the tail flapped so hard that it began to break off. So the weight of the tail gunner added some stability to the tail section. They made him stay in his position, and they somehow brought the plane back together. That story, to me, is just one of the most remarkable. And as I mentioned, the B-17 was quite a durable airplane, and you can just do anything to this aircraft. Other than, you know, short of shutting all four of its engines down and still might have somehow means to fly. But that story alone, just I read about that. I was like, this is I have to tell this story. It’s unbelievable.

Dan LeFebvre
59:03
That’s like you think of the ground crew sees that and they’re like, what’d you do? How are we supposed to put this back together?

Joshua Donohue
59:12
And it’s just I could not be just being on a mission like that and having to just make those kinds of decisions. You know, you know what? Stay in the back of the plane. The weight of you is going to keep us, you know, stable from falling apart. And it’s just at any given moment, you know, your life could be over. And whether it be from a direct hit from a flak shell, a fighter or again, whatever, you know, one of the other many things that was dangerous up there at 30 plus thousand feet. But yeah, just remarkable stuff and heroism and courage that’s just unparalleled.

Dan LeFebvre
59:46
Well, I think you mentioned this earlier, but it reminds me, going back to the movie, there’s a point where Rascal’s ball turret at the bottom of the plane gets stuck and he yells to Verge for help. And then an enemy fighter is shooting directly at his gun. And he manages to get there just as the turret gets blown completely off. Rascal is hanging on for his life and he survives, managed to pull him up, but it’s a close call. Did that happen to the Bell?

Joshua Donohue
01:00:10
It did not happen to the Memphis Bell on any of its missions, but it did indeed happen. And this There’s some interesting ball turret stories I’ll share with you. One ball turret gunner named Alan McGee, and this story is almost unbelievable. Staff Sergeant McGee was a 24-year-old ball turret gunner from Plainfield, New Jersey, on the B-17 Flying Fortress, prophetically nicknamed Snap, Crackle, Pop, after the three cartoons of the Rice Krispie cereal. On January 3, 1943, McGee’s B-17 was on a mission over St. Nazare, Also on that same mission was Memphis Belle, its sixth mission. McGee’s plane was hit and was on fire. His ball turret wasn’t shot out from beneath him. He was actually in the process. He was getting out of the ball turret and inside the plane. And when he was doing this, he was thrown from the plane without a parachute and fell 20,000 feet and lived. Ball turret gunners didn’t have a whole lot of room to wear parachutes in the tight confines of the ball turret. That’s why you have that conversation where he talks about parachutes. There’s not enough room to breathe in here. Rascal Moore makes sense. He goes, and Dearborn says, put your safety strap on. Oh, it hurts. Do it. And it saves his life. So most of the parachutes were stored in the fuselage. So they had to physically get out of the ball turret to get the parachute. So McGee’s parachute was either damaged or he simply didn’t have enough time to retrieve it. He ended up crashing through the glass ceiling at the St. Nazare train station. I have actually been there. He was found dangling from the steel girders above the station, and they said that the glass somehow softened the blow and just how his body landed. He was seriously injured, obviously, but he was treated and recovered during his time as a prisoner of war. That story, again, while not being shot out of a ball turret, there were other instances where ball turret gunners found themselves stuck inside the turret. The landing gear is easy. You show if you have to make a belly landing and the ball turret gunner’s in there, it’s over. And also, too, where I’ve seen other instances that ball turret gunners were targeted by German planes. And again, because the ball turret covered the front lower and the entire lower part of the aircraft from front to side to side and to back. So the ball turret had a wide range, again, to shoot at to protect the bomber from below and all sides on either side. So, yeah, it was also a dangerous, and if you were the shortest guy in the group, that was your job.

Dan LeFebvre
01:02:53
Literally the short straw.

Joshua Donohue
01:02:54
Yeah, literally the short straw, yeah.

Dan LeFebvre
01:02:56
Glass does not strike me as something that would soften a – I mean, I guess technically, yeah, but – wow. That’s crazy. Yeah. Crazy story. Yeah.

Joshua Donohue
01:03:07
Many, many, many stories like that. It’s just you think that these guys have been through enough, and there’s another story that just tops them all. And, again, there was just so many – as you see, many times men are just shot from airplanes. They have blown right out of the plane where they’re trying to get out. And it’s one of the directives of the crew. And they make a good mention, you know, don’t yell on the intercom. And they have a specific set of instructions that they have to do. If you see a B-17 going down, you know, which one is it? Do you see any parachutes? So the gunners were always constantly looking for these types of things, in addition to the fighters they’re shooting at and they’re being shot at.

Dan LeFebvre
01:03:44
Well, I know you already mentioned the dive, but we are at the point in the movie where the bombers are trying to make it back and then shot out from all angles. One of the Bell’s engines catches fire. And then we see the two pilots, Dearborn and Sinclair, agree to go into a steep dive to let the wind put out the flames. It’s a gamble, but in the movie, they managed to pull it through. And I know you’d already talked about that. Was there anything else to add to that story? So as far as the diving goes,

Joshua Donohue
01:04:09
that it was not, it didn’t happen to the Bell on her last mission, as I mentioned, but this did happen, as I mentioned, on the January 23rd mission over Lorien. This also did occur with other crews. Diving was indeed a tactic that was used to put out engine fires, but obviously at a tremendous risk. In the high-speed dive, as you see in the film, the massive amount of airflow against the engine would basically, over the passing air, blow out the burning fire and then starve the fire from oxygen with the intention that it was going to blow it out completely. But this was only used as a last resort. A dive, as Lieutenant Luke Sinclair, the co-pilot played by Tate Donovan says, we’re going to lose the wing. You also had to worry about pulling out of the dive if your aircraft sells adequate power and, of course, altitude. Another reason that they would use this tactic as a last resort was for bomber crews in the 8th Air Force due to the fact that a low-flying and a slow-moving B-17 that was damaged in some way was simply a sitting duck to German fighters who might spot it. These bomber crews would often have to watch helplessly as damaged planes and their comrades who are lagging behind would just get pounced on by Luftwaffe aircraft from ME-109s to FW-190s, BF-110s, JU-88s. And of course, towards the end of the war, bomber crews are also introduced to the first German jet-powered fighter planes when they begin to see the ME-262 and the ME-163. So it’s often mentioned that if Germany had these jet-powered aircraft in great numbers at the beginning of the war, the losses would have been catastrophic. But for the Bell and its crew, they never have to experience really this, you know, as far as, you know, fighting against jets would, again, that would have been just an absolute decisive advantage to have especially against slow-moving planes and obviously you’re going to be countering their fighters as well. So again, the diving part of it was indeed used, but again, as a last resort because the stresses of that could literally rip the plane to pieces. I mean,

Dan LeFebvre
01:06:14
but maybe the B-17 would still be able to fly.

Joshua Donohue
01:06:17
It would just be like the frame of it and just the crew inside of it and like nothing else on the plane. And somehow they would just like plop on the ground, like two feet off the ground and they survive. Of course that’s, that’s obviously an exaggeration, but you know, thinking about it, it’s not too far off.

Dan LeFebvre
01:06:36
Wow. Well, after the close call with the dive in the movie, the bell is hit again and Danny is badly injured. The crew calls for the bombardier. Valentine, who’s supposed to be the medic, only to find out he lied about having medical training. He says he only spent two weeks in medical school before enlisting, so he doesn’t really know how to help Danny. He suggests dropping the unconscious Danny from the plane with a parachute so that he will purposely be captured by the Germans so he can get to a hospital. It’s a long shot. He’d survive the fall. It’s survived being captured or even get medical treatment by the Nazis. But there’s a time crunch because they have to do it before they’re over the English channel, as dropping him in the water would be certain death. They decide not to do it in the movie, but it makes for some tense moments on the plane. How much of that happened?

Joshua Donohue
01:07:22
So tales occasionally circulated about crews pushing mortally wounded men out of planes so their parachutes would deploy and they could land in enemy territory with the hope that they would receive life-saving hospital care rather than dying in a burning plane. So while a desperate thought, you know, occasionally considered by airmen under the most horrific circumstances, most military historians in Eighth Air Force Historical Society confirm that this was not standard protocol or really even a practice policy. As with their counterparts on the ground, bomber crews who fought over Europe and Japan also had a no-man-left-behind tradition. So the idea of taking a wounded or unconscious comrade and dropping out of the plane is certainly ludicrous. It’s for argument’s sake that this is based on an actual event. If you’re faced with so many different scenarios or outcomes, you don’t know if they can even deploy the parachute, as we see in the argument between Billy Zane’s character, Valentine, and the Bell’s navigator, Phil Lowenthal, played by D.B. Sweeney. I find that scene particularly striking because it’s that inner conflict that we see Kozlowski dealing with. Since the crew, as you mentioned, thinks he’s a doctor with all this experience and he can somehow snap his fingers and Danny’s going to come back. you know, it’s going to be fine again. That’s sort of what, you know, what the impression is. It’s like, it tells them, you know, what do you want from me? Oh, I have a stupid medical kit. You know, he needs a hospital, right? So when, you know, it’s, when mentioned in this scene, some of the, you know, some often wonder, you know, what happens to the airmen when they bail out over Nazi-occupied territory. The outcomes were different. In many instances, airmen were captured by the townspeople or by the German military or the Gestapo, whatever the case is, and they became prisoners of war, And that experience is also seen in the series Masters of the Air. Others are simply killed outright by angry German citizens who are already enraged about the relentless attacks against their homeland. This happens on quite a few occasions. Not uncommon for 8th Air Force bomber crews to land in a hay bale and a farmer’s pitchfork is going straight through them. So that was fairly common. Other times, crews are luckier. They were able to avoid capture and find their way back to allied lines. And many times with the assistance of resistance groups that are operating on the ground, and that was also something that was fairly common as well. And that really the directive is if you’re captured in a POW camp, one of the things that you should try to do is escape. And many do make it across allied lines. Some simply are captured and brought back to POW camp. And again, the conditions are quite harsh on them, of course. There’s a big difference between the way POWs are treated in Germany as opposed to how they’re being treated by the Japanese. It’s a little bit more harsh in terms of the civic theater of operations. But again, crews, you know, weren’t exactly safe if they got out of the planes on parachutes, if they were conscious or not. Again, oftentimes you would, you know, many crews would fall victim to German civilians on the ground.

Dan LeFebvre
01:10:37
I guess every, I mean, the dive is a last ditch effort. And I mean, everything seems like there’s an element of luck. I mean, you just got to do what you, I mean, and also the time aspect of it too. I mean, because you’re only going to have split seconds to make these decisions that will affect your life.

Joshua Donohue
01:10:57
Yeah, it’s just remarkable, you know, the level of training that these crews had to go through. And especially the early part of the war, which, you know, the bell starts its first missions in November of 1942. And again, at that point, you know, strategic bombing was just starting to get more and more momentum in the early years. And as Morgan talks about in his memoir, they had something like an 82% casualty rate. It was just absolutely astronomical what those crews had to go through. And again, chances are the average maybe was 10 missions, 15 missions at the most, and that was about it. So you really had to have a lot of luck on your side. And Morgan even says this. That one mission that the Bell didn’t fly on, he often said, that could have turned out differently if we were on that mission. And again, seeing planes around him shot down and the Bell’s able to really get through its combat tour relatively unscathed. I mean, bombers suffer damage generally on every mission, but they just simply have a combination also of experience. Morgan is experienced flying him, and he’ll continue to fly missions in the Pacific Theater also. He is actually the first pilot in a B-29 to fly over Japan since General Doolittle did it in 1942 during the Doolittle raid, which was the first air raid over Japan of the war.

Dan LeFebvre
01:12:24
I mean, yeah, there’s the experience element, but you have to have enough luck to survive to get that experience.

Joshua Donohue
01:12:29
Yeah, exactly. That’s why these crews were so revered because the odds were so stacked against them, especially in these early phases of the war. The Germans had just a formidable anti-aircraft system in place with all 88s, 105-millimeter guns, 20-millimeter, 40-millimeter. And they knew how to concentrate their fire over the targets that they were going to be defending. And the German Luftwaffe, again, they had early on in the war, and again, a lot of their pilots, their more experienced pilots, would be lost over the Eastern Front and, of course, over time, over Europe as well, during against the RAF and the United States Army Air Force as well.

Dan LeFebvre
01:13:13
That’s true, I guess, because Germany had been in the war a lot longer than the United States had.

Joshua Donohue
01:13:19
Yeah, and they had already taken considerable losses on the Eastern Front in terms of ground power, manpower, and air powers.

Dan LeFebvre
01:13:28
Well, I have a feeling I know what the answer to my next question is going to be. Because we know that the 25th mission for the Bell is not like what we saw in the movie. But at the end of the movie, everyone is back at base, starting to welcome the surviving B-17s back home. Meanwhile, the Bell is over the English Channel and out of the range of the German fighters. But they’re flying on only two engines, so they ditch their guns, anything else, and weighing them down. You talked about that earlier, throwing all that stuff out. She’s badly crippled, but the Bell and her crew managed to make it safely back to base. Was that really how the 25th and final mission? Well, I guess not final missions. I did another one. But was that really how that mission ended for the Bell?

Joshua Donohue
01:14:06
No. As I mentioned before, the Weiler film is the best piece of footage which accurately shows the Bell’s final mission. Weiler and Morgan actually makes this comment. Weiler used footage from the Wilhelm Sovind mission, which was Bell’s second to last mission on May 15, 1943. because he, and what Morgan suspects, that mission contained a little bit more action, because at that point, they were on, you know, the French missions were probably a little bit more of an actual milk run mission. So the missions over Germany, from a PR perspective, again, you want, you know, the crews to say, this crew flew over Germany in Wilhelm Saab, and again, one of the more heavily defended cities. There was only one slight injury ever to Eddie Bell crewman. That was John Quinlan, who was the tail gunner. He had a slight shrapnel wound on the 28th of March, 1943, after you were in France. He got the Purple Heart. He was actually embarrassed to take it because his wound was so slight. And even a little piece of the Bell’s history that some people might not know about, and again, as I mentioned earlier, is that Bell flies that 26th mission on May 19th, 1943, flown by Lieutenant Clayton Anderson’s crew, successfully attacking the turbo engine and engineering workshop in Kiel, Germany. Morgan and crew then fly the Bell back to the United States for the Warbond tour. And another interesting fact, and people probably just assume that the Memphis Bell, of course you see, is Captain Dearborn’s wife in the film. Margaret Polk is the actual Memphis Bell, who obviously is Captain Morgan’s interest. They never actually get married, as I later found out. During the War Bond tour, she surprises Morgan in Cleveland, Ohio. There’s a picture of them together. Life magazine actually publishes the photo of them together on August 2nd, 1943. But what Morgan kind of describes is all of the publicity and all of that stuff kind of strained their relationship to the point where they just kind of drifted apart and never really found each other again. But they would remain friends and they would reunite from time to time with the Memphis Bell, most notably well after the war. So interestingly enough, as I mentioned, Morgan will fly missions over the Pacific and he will marry his wife Dottie. Dauntless Dottie is the name of his B-29 super fortress that he flies from Saipan to attack targets in Japan. He flies another 25 missions over Japan. In those critical years, in those last remaining months of the war in 1945, where they’re attacking the industrial heart of Japan, really for the first time in mass, once the Mariana Islands, and of course, once Iwo Jima is taken, he actually lands at Iwo Jima with a damaged airplane, he mentions, during his time in Japan as well.

Dan LeFebvre
01:17:13
I’m noticing a trend of the pilots naming the planes, and it just makes me wonder what the guy’s wife was that he named it Hell’s Angels.

Joshua Donohue
01:17:22
Yeah, Hell’s Angels probably was a little bit too edgy for the 1940s. Memphis Belle had a much nicer sounding mystical name to it. So I can see why the American public would kind of gravitate towards the Memphis Belle name more than Hell’s Angels.

Dan LeFebvre
01:17:38
Well, you mentioned the actual footage in that documentary, and I know we’ve talked mostly about the 1990s. dramatized movie today, but there is that documentary called Memphis Belle, A Story of Flying Fortress. And normally, I think we assume that documentaries are always accurate, but this particular documentary was released in 1944 while World War II was still raging. And obviously, a lot of wartime media kind of leans towards some propaganda, maybe instead of being entirely accurate. Was there anything about the 1944 documentary that stood out to you as being inaccurate or was it a pretty accurate telling of the Belle’s true story?

Joshua Donohue
01:18:11
So Hollywood director William Wyler flew on multiple combat missions to film his 1944 documentary, but there were some were aboard Memphis Belle. Robert Morgan says there were about five of the missions he was on the plane with them because Belle was undergoing repairs from battle damage. His first filming mission was aboard the B-17 Jersey Bounce during a February 26, 1943 raid on Wilhelmshaven. So Weiler frequently rode in another B-17 acting as a camera ship, and the B-17 bad penny during an April 5th, 1943 bombing run on Antwerp. There was another interesting thing that happened to Weiler during his time over the skies of Germany and France. Harold J. Tannenbaum was working as a cinematographer for William Weiler. He was making war documentaries with the 8th Air Force Combat Film Unit While working on the Technicolor documentary, the Memphis Belle Story of a Flying Fortress, Tannenbaum’s plane was shot down on April 16, 1943. Several crew members bailed out of the plane, and it was reported that Tannenbaum bailed out but slipped out of his parachute and fell to his death. So the William Wyler film was about as real and honest as it gets, and it does have that sense of drama with all the music and all of that. And again, I like where at the beginning, this is an air front. And the camera shifts from the farm side, and it shows the B-17 on the other side of the head draw there. I love that part. It does have that sense of drama there. And filmmakers like Weiler, John Ford, and even Hollywood celebrities like Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable flew missions over Europe and the Pacific. Stewart flew 20 missions in a B-24 Liberator as a flight commander. Clark Gable flew five missions over Nazi-occupied Europe between May and September of 1943. So another interesting connection between the 1944 Weiler film and the 1990 film Memphis Bell is that Catherine Weiler, William Weiler’s daughter, she worked on the film as a producer. You see her name in the opening credits. She’s kept her father’s legacy alive with appearances, lectures about her father’s work during World War II, keeping the Memphis Belle’s legacy alive. And at the same time, I believe she was also working in a 4K version of her father’s 1944 film. So in Morgan’s book, The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle, and these are the stories that remind me of when Matthew Modine is talking to the Belle after the dance, when he walks out for the dance. And Morgan has these same conversations with the Belle. He would go visit the plane once a year and have these same types of things. you see Modine’s character have where he leaves the party and has that quiet moment with the plane. Morgan has those very same conversations with Bell and was on display for several years at Mud Island River Park in Memphis, Tennessee from 1987 to 2003. Morgan would pass away in 2004. The Bell was then, of course, I sent you the story about that, was brought to the Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. And right before Morgan passes, he’s made aware that the plane is going to be brought back, restored, and put on display at the Air Force Museum. So for Morgan, that’s a full circle moment right there, really from the time he gets in that plane at 22 years old, from the time he passes away, that plane is just a part of his life, and he stays attached to that plane from that time he comes back from the war until the time of his death.

Dan LeFebvre
01:21:52
Wow. Yeah, I know you sent me that. And for anybody watching this, I’ll make sure to add a link to that in the show notes so they can check out as well. I knew that Jimmy Stewart and Clark Gable had flown. And obviously nothing in war is safe. But I was kind of always under the impression that one of the reasons they were pilots, other than that’s perhaps their expertise, but it’s a little safer for these Hollywood stars to do that than be infantry. But after our discussion today, I mean, I don’t know about that. I mean, it seems like it’s just nothing. It’s not safe. I mean, not that war, again, nothing in war is safe, but wow. Yeah.

Joshua Donohue
01:22:29
Yeah. I mean, there was just so many things that could go wrong up there. I mean, just not even counting the German fighters or the flack. The plane mechanically could have issues. Or again, you could have bombs being dropped above you and knocks your stabilizer off. You know, you could have, you know, crewmen that are, you know, injured. As you see, the Memphis Belle, most of the crew was, you know, as they show in the film, nicked in some way, shape or form. You know, they show Jack Bochy gets hit a little bit. And you have that scene where he says, you scream it like a stuck pig. And it’s just a scratch and all that stuff. And, you know, you have the interaction between those two. Then, of course, when Danny gets hit as well. So, again, this was a danger that all of these crews faced in some way, shape, or form. And it could be high altitude sickness. It could be someone accidentally loses their hand or their fingers, accidentally touching a piece of metal. And, again, there was just so many things that could possibly go wrong. And that these missions, and when I first started watching the film, I was so taken by it because I had never really known this part of World War II, really was even, you know, that involved. And over time, getting the real story of it, and then about a year or two after seeing the film, seeing the Wyler film, getting the real sort of, you know, insight and introspect on those missions, it just, I couldn’t believe it. And just seeing what these guys had to go through on a day-in-and-day-out basis is just remarkable.

Dan LeFebvre
01:24:09
Wow, yeah. I mean, yeah, it’s, I’m glad I don’t have to do that. I mean, I’m glad they did that for our sake. But man, yeah.

Joshua Donohue
01:24:19
Strategic bombing has come a long way since then, that’s for sure.

Dan LeFebvre
01:24:24
Well, before I let you go, let’s shift gears a little bit away from the movie to another major event from World War II. That’s the topic of your new book, The Baton Death March. Can you share some more information about your book and why you decided to write about The Baton Death March?

Joshua Donohue
01:24:37
So this is a project that’s turning into one of those times in life where the opportunity just literally just falls in your lap. A dear friend of mine and I were talking on the phone a little bit about World War II, and she mentioned that a great uncle of hers had fought at the Battle of Bataan and also at Corigador. Corigador was a small island that was located at the mouth of Manila Bay. And during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, the American and Filipino forces who fight there are, again, are forced to surrender. And then the Baton Death March, this 65-mile march begins where you’re not allowed to stop, you’re not allowed to eat, drink, rest, anything. If you simply fall behind, if you fell down, chances are you’re going to be beaten severely or in most cases killed. So this immediately piqued my interest. And now that I’ve written three articles and my third is coming out hopefully by the end of this year, I’ve also contributed to two books as well. I started to think about what’s next. I kind of want to keep pushing the bar a little bit higher. So once this story dropped into my lap and in the form of literally his diary, and he kept a meticulous record of every single thing he did, not even just during the war, but also before the war, during the Depression years, where he was just bouncing from one job to the next, when he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, when he went to college at Washington State University. from his time working in Alaska, working in mines, and just trying to find his way through. And then he eventually joins the Army and becomes a second lieutenant with the 194th Tank Battalion. So when I read the story, it was just one of those things where I just, I said, I have to do this. This is a story I have to tell. So it’s the story of the second lieutenant named John Hummel, as I mentioned, who’s with the 194th Tank Battalion in the Philippines. They’re an outfit that is from Brainerd, Minnesota. And he describes, as I mentioned, as I’m reading his diaries, and I’m not even fully through it yet, describes his life during the war and also certain things that he had to do that literally traumatized him for the rest of his life and things that he had come down with malaria and just dysentery and just seeing his friends die all around him and And being able to actually, one of the coincidences that I found was that he was interned at a POW camp in Japan called Zensuji. Now, Zensuji was also another pilot who fought at Wake Island named Paul Putnam. So they were in the same POW camp together. So when I saw that, I was like, okay, now I really have to write this story because it’s just too good to be true. And I just started kind of writing it on maybe about 50 or 60 pages or so into it. I still got quite a bit ways to go. It’s my first ever foray into the book publishing world. But so far, it’s going well. I’m really, really excited to see the finished product.

Dan LeFebvre
01:27:42
Yeah, well, I’m excited to read it when it does come out. And not out by the time this episode will be, but if you’re watching this in the future, be sure to check the show notes anyway, because it’ll be there. I’ll make sure to add a link to that as soon as it’s available. and in the meantime, I’ll add a link to all your current articles as well. So you can check all of those out. Thank you again so much for your time, Josh.

Joshua Donohue
01:28:02
Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me back.

Dan LeFebvre
01:28:15
This episode of Based on a True Story was produced by me, Dan Lefebvre. Hop in the show notes or head on over to basedonatruestorypodcast.com slash 387 to find a link to Joshua’s latest work. And while you do that, let’s find the answer to our two truths and a lie game from the beginning of the episode. And as a quick refresher, here are the two truths and one lie again. Number one, the real Memphis Belle flew more than 25 missions. Number two, the characters in the movie were based on the real crew of the Memphis Belle. Number three, the 25th mission was actually bombing submarine pens in France. Did you figure out which one is a lie? I’ve got the envelope with the answer, so let’s open that up. And the lie is number two. As we learned, the characters in the movie weren’t really based on the Bell’s actual crew, with the exception of the captain, as Joshua pointed out. As always, thank you for your continued support listening to, and if you know someone who you think would enjoy this episode, share it with them and let me know what they think. If you’re watching the video version of this, stick around for the credits. If you can find out my cat’s name and email it to me, I’ll send you a sticker. Thanks again for watching, and I hope to hear from you soon.