Pre-Pearl Harbor Navy

[priestyboy]

I just got a copy of the 1941 movie "Dive Bomber" on DVD. I had seen it a long time ago and I guess forgot it was in Technicolor.

The only reason I mention this is it is amazing the actual footage of many of the lost Naval aircraft of the early war such as the TBD Devestator, Vultee Vindicator and the Brewster Buffalo. These aircraft were great in their time but were soon shown to be far outdated and obsolete when the Japanese took them on in 1942. These aircraft were blown out of the sky (Torpedo Squadron 8) and quickly forgotten and upstaged by their successors the TBF Avenger, SBD Dauntless and the Grumman group of fighters...etc.

Very little is left of these aircraft as the Naval Museum has one Buffalo they are still restoring and a Vindicator. There are no restored Devestators anywhere. I think I read where someone knows where one under water is. I guess the movie being in color really drives the impact home of these lost legends.

Additionally, being in color really shows off the uniforms of the day and even the civilian clothes and styles popular at that time. I additionally loved the shot of The Hotel Coronado and other scenery. I do a Navy pilot Impression and have found a good resource for uniforms in this movie. Just a little tidbit. The eagle emblem on the service caps in the movie has the eagle looking right. This is different to WWII styles as this was changed after the start of the war. The right looking eagle is correct for the pre-war period and a great find on Ebay if you can snatch one.

Anyway, that's my happy news for the day...yes, I'm easily entertained.

 

[Fletch]

Great pic...a little talky and play-like, but hey, all but the best movies were then.

IIRC, it was mostly shot during 1940, when Navy planes were still in their "wings of gold" scheme. The sea grey came in during '41.

 

[Twitch]

Those planes were truly 30s in design and mindset as to what the brass expected the next conflict to bring. We must remember that the sourge of the Pacific, the Zero, was a brand new aircraft and it opponents took a while to produce tactics to successfully combat it. Initially its victims played easily into the Zero's strengths and lost.

When logic took over and inferior planes such as the even early P-40 were used to avoid the Zero's fight and fought their fight, they were successful.

Another factor was simply the fact that aero engines progressed by leaps and bounds so great that powerplants 2 years old were almost obsolete.

But we must realize that the Japanese counterparts of the Devestator, Vindicator, Vengeance, Buffalo and even the Dauntless were brought down in wholesale numbers by P-40s and F4Fs. The Val, Kate, Jill, Nate, and Betty, Nell and such were lightly armed and armoured.

 

[Absinthe_1900]

IIRC, it was mostly shot during 1940, when Navy planes were still in their "wings of gold" scheme. The sea grey came in during '41.

By the time Dive Bomber was filmed, most of the Naval aircraft were already sea gray, (you can see this in the background shots, esp. with the F2A's) the older silver fuselage & chrome yellow winged aircraft were used for the main shots, with the Navy having to gather up the remaining early colored aircraft to use in the film.

It's a nice time capsule to see the last of the early pre-war colors & markings.

 

[dhermann1]

Wasn't it the Brewster Buffalo that Pappy Boyington was so fond of?
I love this movie. When I watch it, I try to imagine it seeming modern and even futuristic, which it was for its time, rather than quaint and old fashioned, which is how it seems now.
Likewise, when I saw "On the Threshold of Space", around 1956 (age 9), I thought it was so ultramodern. And of course it looks archaic today.

 

[Twitch]

I don't recall Boyington loving the Buffalo but he may hive been fond of the P-40 when he associated it to his times with the Flying Tigers.

I know Gabby Gabreski loved his times in Hawaii flying the P-40 the best of all his flying times despite the P-47s and al lhis kills. Once when I interviewed him he just got off on Hawaii and the P-40 like crazy.

 

[Fletch]

Boyington might not have been nuts about the F2A, but he probably logged time in them. After the Navy got the F4F they fobbed the Buffaloes off on the Marines, as per the old tradition of giving that service the fuzzy end of the budget lollipop.