B-24 Liberators Go to War DVD

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Photo of crew members of the Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber War Cloud, 98th Bomb Group, based in Benghazi, Libya, taken shortly before the Ploesti Raid in World War 2.

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The B-24 Liberators Go to War DVD New
Three Memorable Films
The 98th Bomb Group: Liberators Over Africa

Liberators Over Europe, 1942-45

1st Air Division Bombing Highlights, 1944-45

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Exclusive production. This recently discovered footage shows Medal of Honor winner Col. John R. "Killer " Kane and the men of the 98th Bomb Group in the Summer of 1943, shortly before the heroic, costly Ploesti mission, at their desert base in Benghasi/Benina, Libya. You'll see legendary B-24s like "The Vulgar Virgin," "The Sandman," and "War Cloud." Sadly, several of these ships were filmed here for the last time before they were lost over Romania. There's an unexpected gem too. Soon after the Axis surrender in Tunisia, 9th combat cameraman Jim Bray hitched a ride on a B-24 and filmed all the major North African targets the 98th had hit from the air, from El Alemein to Tunis. You'll see Tobruk, Tripoli, Benghazi, Bizerte and more from the air, the way pilots and crew saw them during the Desert War. And the big Liberator goes in low too so you can take in sunken warships, clamoring liberty ships unloading their cargoes, and bombed out harbors that have long since been rebuilt. This is a priceless time capsule.

* Liberators Over Europe, 1942-45 (1945, B&W, 22:00)

A remarkable film produced by the Eighth Air Force from combat camera footage showing B-24s in action over Europe. From Ploesti to Berlin, you'll discover memorable Liberator scenes not found anywhere else, including pulse pounding air attacks. You'll see B-24 crews up close too, along with their ships.

* First Air Division Bombing Highlights 1944-45 (1945, B&W 28:00)

Another priceless film produced by the 8th Air Force to document the War as it happened. This film has some shots of B-17s of the 1st Air Division followed by extensive footage of actual bomb drops on numerous targets in Germany. It’s included here because we believe its the best visual record of actual bombing missions over Germany, regardless of the featured aircraft. During the last six month of the conflict in the ETO, ball turret gunners were given 16mm cameras and told to film what they saw on bombing missions over the Third Reich. Most documentaries, like "Target for Today," concentrated on what happened leading up to and then after the bombs were dropped. This film focuses on what happened directly over the target. You'll see bombs fall on Berlin, Luneberg, the U-Boat pens at Bremen, Muenster, Ingolstadt, Regensburg, and many more cities, including the only known footage of the controversial bombing of Dresden on Feb 14th & 15th, 1945. These scenes of concentrated destruction, shot from bombing altitude, are by turns fascinating and horrific. Some of the chain reaction explosions shown here are the largest and most destructive recorded before the atomic bomb. There are also unflinching shots of deadly Luftwaffe fighter attacks and US bombers going down amidst incredible forests of FLAK. (This film was not shown on the home front.) The video transfer was taken from the only surviving copy of this important document and is often very grainy, but still watchable. If you are serious about educating yourself about World War II bombing as it happened, you should see this film.

Bonus film Captured Luftwaffe film shows the downing of 9 US bombers one at a time by FW 190 fighters. You may have seen snippets of this gun camera film in documentaries. This is the original source.