audio now. call 202-626-8888 to hear forums, listen to a recap of the day's events at 5:00 events at p.m. eastern on washington today. you can also hear audio of the five network sunday affairs programs. c-span radio on audio now. 202-606-8888. long distance or phone charges may apply. in the fourth of a five-part look at hollywood directors who made films for the u.s. government in world war ii, we feature director william wyler and thunderbolt, a 42-minute documentary he made for the u.s. army air force about a squadron of p-47 fighter planes stationed in italy. he also directed the documentary the memphis belle, filmed inside

bombers on missions over nazi germany. first, to provide context, we speak to author and film historian mark harris. >> a new book out by author mark harris, five game back, a story of hollywood and the second world war, and among the directors featured is william wyler. mark harris is joining us to explain this book and this director in world war ii. thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> who was william wyler? what's his background? >> of the five directors about whom i write, wyler was the only jew. he was an immigrant from a small town called mulose, which was in a region of france that when he was a boy and a teenager, had been at various times either french or under german occupation. so when he came to hollywood and worked his way up and eventually before the war became known as

one of the most sophisticated and meticulous and mature craftsman in hollywood with movies like jez abell and the letter and the little foxes and dodsworth. he was also very conscious of his status as an immigrant and as a jew who was trying to help get dozens of family members and friends out of europe before the war crashed down. >> let me follow up on that point because as an immigrant, you also featured frank capra in your book. his family coming to the u.s. from italy. take us back to the mindset of the late '30s and early '40s and how this might have affected the psyche of directors like william wyler. >> one thing that it's really hard to recapture now is the

idea that before the war, the relationship between hollywood and washington, d.c. and in fact between hollywood and much of america was very suspicious. there were many isolationists in america and in fact in congress, and in the government. there were certainly many anti-semites in america, and there was a considerable overlap between isolationism and anti-semiti anti-semitism, although there were certainly isolationists who were not anti-semites and a lot that were. and the way that played out was this suspicion that this kind of grubby, seedy business where there was mob infiltration of the unions, where most of the men who ran these studios were first or second generation immigrants. most of them were jewish.

there was a suspicion that's, you know, these people were not real americans. that they were fomenting an appetite for war that they were creating, essentially interventionest propaganda in their entertainment movies with an eye toward dragging america into a war to protect their financial interests and to protect their relatives in the old country. that's the level of kind of paranoia and suspicion and contempt with which many in hollywood were viewed by many in america and by many in congress. and the heat was particularly on people like wyler, who were jewish and constantly under pressure to assert their american identity above all. you know, they would get

pressured by -- wyler got pressured by warner brothers at one point to make a contribution to the hollywood community chest, a local charity, and he said, i can't. all of my money is tied up right now in trying to get people out of europe and warner basically said, i sympathize, but i don't care. it's really important for us to show that we care about, you know, not just our relatives but our community here. so there was great pressure to assimilate, great pressure to be american. great pressure to mute one's jewishness or mute one's foreignness. >> in terms of the timeline of his life, he became a u.s. citizen, as you pointed out, back in 1928. he then served as a major in the u.s. army air forces between 1942 and 1945. and put together three documentaries, including the 1947 film "thunderbolt." explain.

>> well, wyler had made a really powerful documentary called "the memphis belle, the story of a flying fortress" which was the first war time documentary to show what it was like to fly missions in a bomber over france and over occupied germany. and unlike many documentaries from the war, there was no restaging in this. wyler and his men trained to fly. they went over to europe. they flew five missions. they were shot at. and all of that commitment led to this documentary, which was made with great attention to various military. he really wanted to create a kind of "you are there" experience. >> one of the most important instruments is the interphone. >> there's four of them. 1:00 high. >> they're coming around. watch them.

>> coming in. >> 2:00, watch it. >> an engine on fire. >> out of control, 3:00. >> come on, you guys, get out of that plane. bail out. there's one. he came out of the bombay. >> i see him. >> there's a tail gunner coming out. >> watch out for a fighter. keep your eye on him, bill. >> see any parachutes? >> 9:00. >> that movie and the acclaim for it led to wyler wanting to make a different movie about another kind of bomber called "thunderbolt." and it was during the filming of

extra footage for "thunderbolt" a little more footage that wyler wanted to get of the italian coastline that he experienced this real personal tragedy, which is that he got out of the plane and had gone deaf in the air. you know, wyler was shooting in unpressurized cabins. it was freezing cold up in the air. the noise from the engines was, you know, ear drum shattering. and he finally ultimately lost his hearing, and with that, literally overnight, his army service was over in this very unexpected way. so the completion of "thunderbolt" became terribly important to him, even though by the time he was recovered enough to finish the movie, the war was over and there was simply no use for this kind of propaganda film anymore about u.s. military

might. so that's why you have the anomaly of a movie like "thunderbolt" which was intended for war time consumption, not being shown until 1947. and then, even then, being barely seen. when wyler finished his print and took it to washington and showed it to army brats, a general stood up after the screening and said, willy, what is this movie for? and he really had no answer because the timeline of world war ii had just outraced him. >> it is a 42-minute film. and it's titled "thunderbolt" from director william wyler. mark harris, thanks for being with us. now a chance to see the film in its entirety.

♪ this picture was photographed in combat zones by cameronmen of the mediterranean allied forces and by pilots of the 12th air force who joined missions against the enemy, operated automatic cameras in that plane. behind the pilot, shooting forward and back. under the wing. in the wing. timed with the guns. in the wheel well. in the instrument panel. photographing the pilot himself. >> the commander counter of the united states air force is

general carl spots has asked me to tell you something about this picture. i don't think i can do any better than just to read from his telegram to me. thunderbolt was made in 1944. ancient history. it was made about one fighter bomber group in the italian campaign. it happens to be an american group. the same story could well be told of the royal air force grouped which participated so gallantly in the same air offensive. as a matter of fact, the story belongs to all men who fought for freedom and did it a long way from home. signed spots. thank you. >> to the italian man in the street, or what's left of the

street, this is the fulfillment of a promise. the promise of the fascists to build a 20th century roman empire conceived in tyranny and dedicated to the proposition that some men were meant to be slaves of other men. special victims were the childr children. they saw things not meant for children's eyes. from the air, italy is more remote. the airmen never sees the face of the people, only the face of the country. from the air, you look down at the mountains. look down and wonder how our men on the ground ever got through.

mountains and rivers. a lot of american blood in that one. natural barriers made other campaigns tough, too. exhausted elephants, sesar's legions. for the air men, the ground war is remote. the only war you really understand is the air war. you can see a pattern to it. lots of the country never been touched. little towns that walked the ridges, like tightrope artists to keep from falling off. this one didn't matter. when something did matter, that was another story. this is how we changed the face of italy from the air.

they boasted italian trains ran on time. not these. this is what we did to the face of italy. there's a story behind why we did it and how we did it. the story starts on an island 60 miles off italy's coast. the island of corsica. >> corsica, rugged, primitive, mountainous, malaria. here, they still remember a local boy who put corsica on the map. 150 years ago. this island part of france is liberated by the french in september '43. but you can still find a few germans left by the wayside where they fell in the shadow of our air drones.

alto air base. sunday morning. here, sunday is like monday, and monday is like every other day in the week. a working day. the engines wake you at dawn. in your sack, you can hear the crew chiefs pre-flighting their planes. getting them ready for the day's missions. this is how you live when you're an airplane driver, fighting an air war. 20 minutes from the germans in italy. you're used to it. you have been washing out of your helmet since july of '42. and the holy land to africa, across the desert, egypt, to

libya and tunisia. 1500 miles. you move when the infantry moved. sicily and italy. 58 moves in two years. now, corsica. this is the best year you ever had, call it the country club. >> when you talk about air color, this is what you mean. you mean spanking manda of new mexico, squadron operations officer. not a desk job. over 170 missions working for 200. he's 22. you mean captain howard hickok

of ames, iowa. he's your flight leader. 30 days in the states, time to get married and come back. he's 23. or in his italian general's trailer, gill weimann, louisville, kentucky, hardly old enough to vote, but he's boss of a squadron. he signed his letters lieutenant air force commander, the old man. he's 24. sunday morning. for the 57th fighter group, three squadrons, 1,000 men, another day begins at alto air base. you can close your eyes and see it this way. spread out like a diagram. home sweet home for some time. good steel map runway, 150 x

6,000 feet. tower call sign is break neck. lots of jokes about that. we share the view with a french fighter group. don't speak the same language, but we fly the same airplane against the same enemy. each lost men yesterday. we get along. group commander lieutenant cu colonel archie j. night, he's 27. first mission today is a 6-5 squadron show. briefing right after breakfast. informal, short, to the point. park yourself on a bomb crate and get your escape kit. enemy money, instructions to get you back through the lines, just in case. the s-2 tells you about your target. he doesn't have to draw it for you. you do this every day, sometimes

two or three times a day. gill will lead the show. so he lays out the job. that's the nurse's hat. his girl's. wears it for luck. you need all you can get. the brass upstairs plans the war. they want something done. they pick up the phone. you do it. don't always know why they send you out on a mission, but always care. but you know there's a reason, a good one. >> today, the missions are going out because the italy armies have been stopped cold at the gus toff line, across the narrowest and most mountainous part of the peninsula. u.s. fit bombing, british 8 bombing, stopped for five months. 100,000 men sweating it out. we couldn't move. stalemated. march 15th, we bombed cassino,

our immediate objective. good job of bombing. didn't work. our infantry didn't advance. it was the wrong use of air power. wrong because we were not taking advantage of the airplane's greatest asset, its ability to get behind the enemy. that's what the air planners wanted to do, get behind him. lieutenant general commanding all the air in the mediterranean, british, french, and american. major general john k. cannon, uncle joe, commanding the 12th air force, and brigadier general gordon p. civil, 12th contactical command.stairs who air wall. they said let's not hit them here. let's hit him here. let's isolate the battlefield. let's weaken the entire german front. by depriving it of supplies,

fuel, food, ammunition, re-enforcements. they call the plan operation strangle. this is what we want to do with airplanes. how? a lot of railroads in italy. this is the enemy. keep the trains from getting through. a lot of rivers in italy and over 700 major bridges. we figured if a train came to one and it wasn't there, it would be kind of tough to get across. medium bombers got many of the important ones, but bridges are long, narrow targets, difficult to hit and destroy. took a lot of trips, bombs, planes, men. we started to use a special weapon, a fighter bomber, the p-47 thunderbolt. one engine, one man.

one bomb on each wing. extra fuel tanks for range. 6-5's crew chief taxi from the dispersion points at the end of the runway. light up the squadron. all the pilots have to do is climb in and take them away. if you're a crew chief, you get your own p-47. sometimes you think of it as your personal airplane. but pilots are lended to every day. you let him fly around in it and you expect him to bring it back in good condition. no bullet holes or flack holes. after you've been lending your airplane to one pilot for a long time, you get attached to him, too. if you're a pilot, no matter

what your rank or how many hours you've had, what counts here is the combat flying you've done. unless you've done plenty, you're a beginner. you'll called a spraug, and you remain a sprog until you're wise to the tricks of the trade. after you have put a few missions behind you, you become a sport. and then with plenty of action, 50 or 60 missions, if you're still around, you're promoted. you become an old sport. a veteran. the big shots like gill wiminute are called wheels. no one knows exactly why. this fellow's a wheel, too. says so on his plane. major richard hunziger of tucson, arizona, had 279 missions. your crew chief can't go along, so you always like to tell them what you're going to do. got a triple threat mission today. each section's going after a

bridge. i'll come in on a course of about 40 degrees. same old thing. go out there and dodge around. dive bomb out of the left-hand turn, and then carry the bombs right on down. we're flying top cover on the other two sections while they bomb and then we go in ourselves. weather is supposed to be careful so maybe we'll have a good show. all set to go. but you don't. you wait. you wait for five minutes. that's the way it's planned. time to settle down. relax. you'll be busy later. so if you've got any thinking to do, and who hasn't? now is the time to do it.

[ engines start ] >> here, lay it back. take-off is always rough. thunderbolts are heavy airplanes. besides, you've decorated it like a christmas tree. tank, rockets, guns. 500-pound bombs. cameras. >> hello, break neck.

clear to take the runway for a takeoff, over? >> roger, you're clear number one to take off. >> roger, breakneck, thank you. >> the mile of steel runway would shrink to nothing under you. halfway down, by the tower, you'll be committed. that means you can't slam on the brakes and stop. once you're committed, you usually go up. first pair, weimann and gustofson. >> first pair off. second pair taxis out.

klaas and bridges. made it okay. man and richardson. >> smith and atwood. come on. air up. hickok and mauro.

last pair. wells and hunzinger. the squadron is airborne. over corsica, then out to sea. on the deck. >> 60 miles east, to italy.

flying from corsica, you go only 60 miles and you're 150 miles behind the german front. turn again at that castle. now you're heading north. into the mountains. leader section. red section. black section. formation flying. a game of follow the leader. the squadron leader. he navigates. makes the decisions. doesn't tell you what to do. does it. you follow. wing tip to wing tip. he turns. you turn. he climbs. you climb.

>> climbing still to 10,000. through the clouds. >> getting close. start looking for the target. stuck down there in one of those ravines. all look alike. wingman, he's back. keep the formations spread out.

>> there's a checkpoint. that road, follow it down to the river. the first bridge should be down there somewhere. there it is. pass over it. come back and attack from the opposite direction. one of the tricks you've learned. leader section goes into loose string formation. one plane behind the other. then weimann peels off. the rest of the section follows at two-second intervals.

last man goes in. no bomb site of the p-47. pilot does his own aiming. bomb bursts from the planes ahead. a couple of misses. a direct hit. hope your aim is good. from yo drop your bombs. pull out. they black you out for a second. blood drains from your head, but you're young. it comes back fast. you're all right now. leader section reforms. top cover.

watch his red section bomb. a miss. another miss. a hit. black section goes down. strat straddle the target. this should do the trick. no more bombs. still got plenty of gas, plenty of ammo. go on the prowl. ease down on the deck. see what you can find.

>> railroad tracks. follow the tracks. not a bad way to find a train. you spot one. kick her over. give it a few squirts. might kill somebody. bust the locomotive first. train can't move now. let's see what's in those boxcars. 12 of you. you'll all crisscross in. everybody takes a few passes. try the cars one at a time.

might be something interesting in them. usually is. got it burning nicely now. take another pass for luck. they spread the squadron over the sky. every man, his own general. looks like we're out of trains. lighthouse out there. wonder if i have any ammo left. yep.

radio station. blow out a few tubes. somebody in that field. don't know who they are. no friends of mine. see any vehicles parked in that farmyard. more in back. must be a headquarters. houses around here look kind of suspicious. might be something in them. nothing in that one. nothing in that one. could be wrong, but -- uh-oh, what do you know? back at alto, no one is sweating out 6-5 squadron.

6-6 is taking off. no one will sweat them out, either. too many missions. nine for today. when you don't fly, you've got thing sas to do, try to make so sort of life for yourself. in trying, you improvise an american community. step off the field, you're in corsica. step back on, you're in america. this is part of the war, too. the endless detail of living. the dust is a problem. dust is good for the laundry business. hand laundry. branches everywhere. community laundry. three-day service. and for the rugged

individualist, water supply, pu pump, heating unit, washing machine. the sergeant gives you salaries. he's keeping his hand in. the barber shop. and for the next customer, always something to read. never more than a year old. bus line, lunch time special. and for the intellectually minded, it's time for the most serious things like practicing your yo-yo. if there's anything you want, don't ask for it. build it. build as though you'll be here forever, knowing you may get

orders to move tomorrow. 6-6 found this canyon, made it their living area. nobody said they couldn't. nobody says you can't have a house. build it. nobody says your squadron can't have a beach club. build one. nobody says you can't dam up a river and make a swimming hole. this american community has everything. when you come off your shift and somebody else is carriliying th ball, you try to relax, enjoy yourself. in danger a couple hours a day. the rest of the time, you're out of it. beach club's a busy place. so is the mediterranean. mussolini once called it our sea. but that was yesterday.

the yachtsman, a wind tank and a few odds and ends make quite a boat. the crew chiefs scrounge parts. scrounge is polite for steal. scrounging from wrecked planes, banged up italian cars, old parachutes for sails. they use only the best-quality junk. sometimes when you can get the ration of beer, you drink it. then you look like this. alto is the best deal you ever had. the country club. a lot of land, a lot of sun. your american community has everything. except the things you really

want. there are times you would rather be flying than waiting around, killing time. because when you're flying, you don't have that feeling of the day, a week, and months slipping by. slipping by and leaving you standing still. these are your years. years to get started, find yourself, your job, profession, get married, kids, home of your own. these are the years that count. so you have your pets, to give and receive affection. in return for affection, c

reactions. as always in affairs of the heart, some have peculiar tastes. 6-6 squadron heading out. 6-5 squadron heading home. a meeting in the air comes and goes fast. 6-5 lead er section. one plane light. when you reform after scraping, you noticed it. nobody saw it happen. maybe he spun in, maybe he bailed out. you will think about it later. now you're waiting for that first sight of home. that's the air base. that's bovinca. you're on your own street.

alto's first turn, three fields down. keep your formation tight. when you fly over those other outfits, you want to look good, show them how it's done. alto, home. you come in low and peel up. you peel up to reduce speed, space the planes 20 seconds apart for landing. second and third flights go on past the field. they'll circle back when the first flight is down. drop your gear.

second flight peels up. third flight will circle again. this is all the flying the ground crews see. you like to give them a kick. sometimes you're tired, land them rough. it's embarrassing. the colonel's not happy about the flack holes. new airplane. his crew chief will be mighty sore. and how will you explain this away? then after the interrogation, you relax. grab off some doughnuts and coffee. jive with the red cross girl who meets every mission and fly the

show all over again on the ground. weimann goes back to work, at being a colonel. missing an action report to sign. a telegram from the war department has to start somewhere. >> by mid-april, every rail line in italy was blocked. we drew a line of interdiction across the country. no train could move south of it. south of it, the railroad system was dead. but the german had to keep the supplies moving, still had highways. he took to the roads so we took to the roads. this is what ingermans fear most. we don't blame them. this is the way ronald got it. he isn't the only one. when you clobber a highway, you burn plenty of ammo.

cyclic rate, 800 rounds a minute. you have eight guns, 106 bullets a second. rockets. those aren't just trucks and germans. you're stopping ammunition before it's piled on the fifth army front. and you're doing it 200 miles behind that front. in the weeks that follow, from corsica to italy was like a trip to the corner drugstore. you could do it in your sleep. >> we averaged eight, nine missions a day at the 57th. the french flew about as many. the 86th over in italy. the 79th next door.

it was good to look up and watch them go by. but there were other things. there were those pillars of smoke. never knew when you would see one. that's a wreck. a p-47 cooking, and there's a man in it. when they hit like this, there's nothing to do but let them burn and stay clear of the exploding ammo. keep on landing. you have to. no place to park up there. why did it happen? engine cut out for a second. 200 yards from the runway. 200 yards from home. flack damage might have caused it. you'll never know for sure. all you know is the sum of war is expensive. you wish that people back home could at least see it.

>> we kept up the pressure. and by the beginning of may, the roads were practically closed. if one man on a motorcycle appeared on a highway by day, he was a dead pitcher. the german took to the sea. two months after we started, the strangle was on. the germans had barely enough supplies for two weeks. that's when our ground forces attack. allied troops took cassino. we linked up with a beach head at anzio and in three weeks we're in rome.

>> the men on the ground push north. and as they moved up, they saw what had been done to help them. 10,000 enemy vehicles destroyed or damaged. in every town they took, they mark the yard. how many german tanks went out of business because of the gasoline these trains never carried? they advanced, and they saw the bridges. how many german shells were never fired because they couldn't get across the river?

the ground forces exploited their breakthrough. in plain language, they sought and killed germans. and they ate up the country, almost 250 miles in one nonstop offensive. the ground forces won a battle, but they still had a war to fight, and you were still flying missions. up from first flight to last light. only the coming of darkness would stop you. only the coming of darkness would bring the last missions home to alto. then the long work day would end. some men hit the sack early. and some spend another quiet evening at the club, colonel weimann's country club for

airplane drivers. ♪ ♪ stay in bed till half past 9 ♪ at the club colonel weimann's country club ♪ ♪ you and me i love thee >> from director william wyler, the film released in 1947 titled "thunderbolt." joining us from new york the war came to an end, what was next for director wyler? >> well, wyler of the five directors i wrote about, was the only one to come back as a

disabled veteran. he received a disability check for the rest of his life. something he was very proud of. he poured all of his experience into what i think still stands as a true american masterpiece and the greatest movie about the aftermath of the war, which is the best jeers years of our lives. the best yearsf our lives is the story of three soldiers who are coming home. different classes, different ages, different ranks within the war. and it's about their adjustment to an america that had gone on without them. the extraordinary thing about this movie is that wyler put himself with the aid of his really brilliant screen writer robert sherwood into all three of these characters. one of the men was like wyler, a family man, who was middle aged and had left cushy and comfortable circumstances and

was now coming back to a wife and children that he really didn't know that well anymore. and trying to find his place back in his comfortable world. another of the soldiers was very angry, had seen horrible things in the war, and came back really not knowing what he was going to do. that tapped into the fact that wyler had a temper that sometimes got the better of him, and in fact, was almost court-martials during the war for throwing a punch at an anti-semitic civilian. and the third character in the movie, a young veteran who had hooks for hands, who had lost both of his hands during the war, an actor named harold russell played him, who himself was a veteran who had lost both hands during the war. and of course, wyler certainly identified with russell because he, too, was disabled.

and uncertain about how he would regain his place and his life. and you know, it's very hard to convey now what a seismic impact the best years of our lives had. this was the dawn of a new age of social realism in american movies when american movies started dealing in a more head-on fashion with the day-to-day realities of what people were going through, whether it was alcoholism or nervous breakdowns or in this case, something that all of america was exposed to, which was the readjustment issues faced by returning veterans and faced by the people they were returning to. by the end of its run, the movie, which swept the academy awards the year it came out, was, you know, the third or fourth highest grossing movie in hollywood history. and wyler went on to an extraordinarily distinguished career throughout the 1950s and '60s making movies like the

harris and detective story and b benhur. in fact, his career goes all the way back to 1970 when he retired just before making the movie that he had really hoped to be able to make, which is the movie that became "patton." >> mark harris is the author of five came back, a story of hollywood and the second world war, and among the directors he features, william wyler. thank you very much for being here with us on c-span3's american history tv. >> thank you. >> each week, american history tv's reel america brings you archival films that help tell the story of the 20th century. in the last of a five part look at hollywood directors who made films for the u.s. government in world war ii, we feature director john huston and the battle of san pietro, a 32-minute u.s. army film depicting the 1943 battle at