they had a band to play us in. an english army band full of chimes. "i'm dreaming of a white christmas" they played. it was a nice gesture. >> funny thing, on the way over, you felt like you were the whole works. all over the uk you saw things that made you begin to realize you were just part of a big proposition. all kinds of things.

♪ >> i was a premed student. now i do know a little something about anatomy. and i say it is scientifically impossible for the human body tostand stand up to the training we received. an absolute impositive blt. muscles and tendons and bone structured is not designed to withstand that battering. don't ask me how we did stand up to it. it has no scientific explanation. >> here, listen to this. one of those army captains.

to a young man, soldiered in the army of today offers exceptional advantages and opportunities such as physical training, foreign travel, sport, and many other facilities which are normally denied to those engaged in civilian occupations. the majority of occupations in civil life become to say the least. but in the army, life is so varied that there's little or no prospect of a monotonous or irksome time. >> guard it with our highest honor, and while they earned the lethal arts of war in small and secret rooms, the planets met to watch their work mature. beyond our view, the german proud and confident stood calm on the armored coast. the war was not yet one of men and blood, the weapons were the factories speaking in the hidden

light. season by season, all our plans advanced and those few men on whom the massive war rested work ed ceaselessly. >> i used to wonder whether the millions of people doing their various jobs realized they were part of it all, paving the way for the invasion. >> we kept bashing away at german targets, hamburg, battle of berlin. >> things were getting tougher every trip. more crews not coming back. >> we got away early in the morning. sometimes we'd see land casters coming back. sometimes we took up the same targets they did. it was a service day and night, 24 hours a day. >> we dropped agents over france. must be awful to have to keep it

secret. >> one man submarines. we used them all to bring back cups full of sand for analysis. >> it had to be quick drying with a solid clay foundation. it would have to support 30-on to tanks. >> i must have photographed every field in france. >> we dropped stuff armed, ammunition, sabotage materials and so upon then taught them how to use it. >> we hadn't the least an idea what kind of gadget it was. >> it was vital to know about the same tides and retrain to negotiate the tides and landing craft. >> german sea power in preparation for the day. >> the special study of the weather along the coast. >> miles of beaches, 7,200 per day. >> with an underwater pipeline to carry to france. white stars the emblem. >> new ships pouring from the stocks. old ships adapted. listening to the german radio output for fresh intelligence.

>> it was just part of the preinvasion work. by december' 43 the plan was set and we took it for final discussion. >> our russian forces advancing from the east and invasion from the west. and then the date was set. >> i assume command is safe with the best all around team for which a man could ask. some have already been working for months in england. others i brought with me from the mediterranean. we adopted first a master plan and then had to coordinate every last detail of the ground, sea and airplanes. while this was going on, we led off with an air show designed to make the landing points as soft as possible to batter the german communications and to make

certain we'd have control of the air. it was quite a show. those airmen did a magnificent job. >> we had polish, czechs, the only way they could make up was marshaling the arts. >> we used to ask each other, have you cut any good bridges lately? finally there was only one bridge left between paris and the sea. >> down in the late spring through the wounded towns of england moved the mass made by our patients. two precious years of plans were put away. the offices were empty. all the maps were on the walls. paper had come alive. across the channel, our resolve the germans stood beside our guns. they were prepared, their might

was poised. they looked across the sea and grinned. they would on the beaches and even death himself would stand amazed. yet faint across the groaning of the sea came the thin thunder of a massive power. drawn from the great peoples of the earth, it gathered in the ancient ports of england. ♪

>> it was a funny sort of feeling marching down to the ships. we had done it plenty of times of course, on the scenes and that sort of thing. they didn't tell us this was the big show. might have been another exercise. some of the chaps cracked gags. i think we all guessed. the general feeling was get in there and get it over with. even waiting for a bus, never could stand it. well, after a bit our ship found its place in the middle of all the rest. there we stayed for days.

>> they gave us the final briefing then. we knew what to do and how, they told us where and when, that's a briefing. i listened to every word. wrote it down in my head like a record and it kept playing over and over again. beach in the morning. ever since i became a soldier, they were getting me ready for this. protect i protecting me. now the time had worn away and there were only a few hours left. in the morning i would have to face it. i had tried to imagine how much i would have. i suppose everybody else was wondering the same thing.

>> nobody said anything official, but all of a sudden the ship got much busier. and over the amplifier the chaplain said he would be saying mass at 1830 hours. i don't think i ever believed that the invasion was going to come off. and a voice in the loud speaker said, men who wish to take their anti-sick sea pills should take their first one now. that did it.

♪ ♪

>> i was tugging a glider. three airborne division. just before the glider pilot cast off, they wished us good luck over the radio. seemed inadequate thing to say. >> as supreme commander, let me break in at this point to say just a word about the navy. from the moment of em bar indication, the full burden fell upon the navy and our fleets. they had to sweep the mines, bombard the coastal batteries, protect the transports along the

coastline, and finally, man the small boats that carried the soldiers to the beach. on that day, there were more than 8,000 ships and landing craft on the shores of normandy. it was the most intricate task and a vital one for the success of our plans. the courage, fidelity and skill of the american navies have no brighter page in their histories than that of june 1944. ♪

♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> back in london, only a few people knew. it was a world kept secret. around daybreak, we told correspondence and they told.

♪ >> they called our beach omaha. don't ask me why. i never been to omaha, in nebraska i mean. if it's anything like omaha, france, you can have it. i understand omaha was the roughest spot. we lost some good men, took a few prisoners. it was a lousy trade. we've been told what to expect so it wasn't like a surprise or anything. it just, well, when it really happens, it's different. for awhile, they were pinned down. the other beaches were going better so we got a little more than our share of the old teamwork. navy come in and the air guys

and finally we got moving good. we hear a lot about how long it takes to make battle hardened soldiers out of green troops. i got to be in one day. that day. >> so they lurked and reached the roads. rich green pasture, the three airborne divisions. and loud across the crater face of france came german reenforcements. a voice cried out an ally before another day burned a hole in history. the armies clashed. our first objective, then, was to merge all into one and 50 miles of men drive on together beyond the red sands through the broken wall.

>> it wasn't too bad getting ashore. for keeping it like you'd been told. chucking a few hundred grenades and rush them. we would kill more than them. they were regular fortresses. our own men while they would wait for artillery support. the navy was still with us too chucking in shells ahead of us. in the days, we advanced seven miles. then we were told to stand fast and dig in. next morning they heard the news from the bbc. it sounded great. we joined up all along the bridge head. there was 45 miles of it. we had got a foothold. we were in.

>> a portion of the film "true glory" and joining us is mark harris who has been researching the directors from this period. as you look back at that film, what are your impressions? >> you know, the english film makers, the men in the british army film unit were really pureless at putting together these documentaries. not only did home front audiences in england find them very stirring, but they played well in america too. the england had a head start on the film making effort in the war and their documentaries including early ones like desert victory really sparked a sense

of competition in u.s. film makers. there was a lot of open discussion in the war department and with people like frank capra saying why aren't our movies this good? why isn't the material we're getting as strong as this british material? so the true glory in the hands of carol reid, a really great director, is a good example of how the english knew what they were doing on this front. >> in setting up our conversation about this film, we touched briefly about the concentration camps and what george stevens saw throughout germany. he put a film together on the concentration camps. what did you learn about that? >> yeah, stevens did not go home quickly after the war was done. he lingered in germany and he was in uniform and on duet. his traffic was to prepare two films to be shown at the trials

later that year. one of them was called thety plan, which was intended to demonstrate that, in fact, this was a well calculated, systemic effort. in a way to prove intent and conspiracy and the other film "nazi concentration camp" was to document the atrocities that stevens and his men had seen when they went through the gates and filmed there. >> i, george p. stevens, colonel, army of the united states, hereby certify that from the 1st of march, 1945, to the 8th of may, 1945, i was on active duty with the united states army corps. >> both of the movies were shown at the trial themselves and since the defendants were, you

know, were present, they were forced to watch these movies. by the accounts of people who were there, it was really a fascinating experience that at first they didn't understand that the crowd that the room was horrified by this. they were so infatuated with the footage of hitler that one of them said, you know, after this even the americans will want to join up. the films, in fact, had just the opposite of the impact that the german defendants had hoped. they so repelled and horrified the room that afterwards some of the defendants' lawyers said they found it almost impossible to be in the same room with the people they were representing. by the time the second of the two films was shown, the defendants really understood

that it was over for them. that the films had provided evidence that was more damning and more painful than any spoken testimony could be. >> finally, george stevens left the army in 1946. what was his post world war ii career like? >> stevens' post world war ii career was great. it did not include comedies because he felt incapable of making funny films after what he had seen. he became a very serious director who was hugely respected throughout the 1950s for movies like "giant" and "a place in the sun" and "the diary of ann frank." the interesting thing was stevens felt that the closest thing he had made to a world war ii movie after the war was actually not a war movie but a

western. it was "shane." and "shane" was inspired because stevens when he was in post war germany was horrified to see little children running around in cowboy outfits shooting cap pisto pistols. he wanted to make a movie that made audiences aware of what a bullet really did. what the impact of shooting someone really was and he said that in the movie, i believe the words he used was for our purposes in this movie, a single shot is a holocaust. and even today, "shane" stands as one of the most sober and painful westerns from that era. >> george stevens, one of the five directors featured in the

new book out by mark harris titled "five came back." joining us from new york city, here on "american history tv," thanks very much for being with us. >> thank you. each week, "american history tv"'s reel america brings us films that tell the story of the 20th century. in the third of a five-part look at hollywood director who is made films for the u.s. government during world war ii, we feature director john ford. in the 18-minute documentary he made for the u.s. navy about the june 1942 battle of mid-way. the film presented a victory in vivid color to an american public eager for good news in the year following pearl harbor. but first, we speak with author mark harris about john ford. >> in his book, author mark harris focusing on hollywood and the second world war and five leading directors at the time including john ford, who serve

ed in the u.s. navy during world war ii. mark harris, thanks very much for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> what can you tell us about the work of john ford? >> ford was one of the most respected directors in hollywood. probably thee most respected before the war. between 1939 and 1941 he went on kind of an unmatched tear in hollywood making "the grapes of wrath", "stagecoach" one of the first important westerns, "young mr. lincoln", just a set of movies that gave him the reputation as one of the most intelligent and serious-minded directors. . he was also the most presentation of the five directors i write about in realizing that war was inevitable. in fact, three months before pearl harbor, ford was already in uniform.

he felt that war was coming and that he also understood that hollywood really needed to be prepared. he had gotten the navy to agree almost a year before the war to let him create something that came to be known as the field photo unit. it was a sort of intended as an axillary in which he recruited cameramen and soundmen and film editors from hollywood studios who would spend their weekends and nights training to do things like develop film on a listing ship and, you know, shoot film under wartime conditions. in some ways, it was kind of a lurk. forward really loved ceremony and military procedure and dressup, but this unit became absolutely crucial during the war when it was called into

action to shoot documentaries. >> two of the most significant events, d-day where john ford witnessed the events unfold on omaha beach and the battle of midway in which he was wounded, correct? >> yes, the battle of midway was the first time that a major american film maker was there to film engagement. it was the middle of 1942 the war in europe was not happening yet as far as the u.s. was concerned. so all of the news, all of the concentration, all of the effort was spent in the pacific trying to hold off the japanese in various places while the navy attempted to rebuild its fleet to full strength after the damage done to pearl harbor. and most of the news in the six months after pearl harbor that

had come out of the war was not good for the u.s. there weren't a lot of victories being tallied in the newspapers. there was a lot of valor in terms of allies holding the line for a very, very long time before, you know, baton or the philippines fell. but midway was the first point at which we won a successful, major engagement. and ford was there. he had been put aboard a ship from hawaii and taken to midway without know iing that a battle was coming. . he said later that he assumed that he was there to make a documentary about life at a remote navy base. he learned that a japanese attack was eminent and that the u.s. was prepared. so on the morning of midway, he

was stationed on the roof of a power house with a camera and a couple of men from his unit, who also had cameras, perfectly positioned to capture incoming japanese zeros. and he was alternating shooting footage and being on the phone to the naval officers below just telling them what he was seeing. he shot until a piece of shrapnel hit him in the arm and knocked the film in his camera out of its sprokts. >> we're going to see his work titled "the battle of midway." for our audience watching in a moment, what should they look

for? >> well, it's impossible to overstate the impact that this movie had. by the end of its run because it's a short movie, it didn't show instead of the hollywood features. it showed in addition to them. by the end of its run, it had played in three quarters of all of the movies in the united states. what you should look for in this movie is the fact it was made in color. we take that for granted now, but it was shocking and unprecedented for audiences then to see real events like this in color. the color had been reserved for fantasies like "the wizard of oz" or fashion shows or lavish musicals. black and white was considered oddly as it may sound, more realistic. so this was one of the first examples of color realism. also if you listen to the movie, you'll hear that there are four

off camera voices. he has a really interesting technique of kind of alternating narration and commentary. and two of the voices you'll hear, which are sort of a surrogate elderly woman and young man, maybe her son, who are sitting in the audience. those are the voices of henry fonda, whom ford had just used in "the grapes of wrath." so it's a fascinating mixture of hollywood technique in terms of the narration and pure raw footage, especially in the middle of this movie when the narration drops away and the battle begins. >> mark harris, thanks for being with us. from 1942 with john fofrd, this 18-minute film titled "the battle of midway."

♪ ♪ >> the patrol plane, routine patrol. only behind every tower may be an enemy.

midway island, your front yard. ♪

>> these are the natives of midway. they have sworn to liberate them. the birds seem nervous. there's something in the air. something behind that sunset.

♪ >> excitement this morning. the dawn patrol sighted an enemy fleet. forces had landed a midway. and the historic council of war is upheld. ♪ >> is that one of those fortresses? >> yes, ma'am, it is.

>> why that's young will. he's from my hometown, springfield, ohio. he's not going to fly that great big plane. >> that's his job. he's a skipper. >> his dad is an engineer. 38 years on the railroad. and his mother, she's just like the rest of us mothers in springfield or any other american town. and his sister patricia, she's about as pretty as they come. >> i'll say so. >>.

>> good luck. god bless you, son. >> suddenly from behind the clouds, the japs attack.

♪ >> yes, this really happened. ♪

>> warships reached the fleet. >> then suddenly, the trap is sprung.

navy planes from the decks of our carriers. army bombers, marines, under destruction over 300 miles.

>> the invasion forces were hit and hit and hit again. men and women of america, here come your neighbor's sons, home from the day's work. you want to meet them. there's jimmy fetch, seven meatballs on his plane. >> how many more today, skipper?

♪ >> back at midway, liberate the neighbors. >> just as free as they ever were. ♪ >> the battle of midway is over.

our front yard is safe, but a big job is still to be done. day after day, planes search for survivors. every tiny coral reef, every distant mile of sea. flew to the last drop of gas and never questions to recede. eight days, nine days, ten days without food or water. >> his first cigarette. that first drag sure tastes good. >> 11 days, well done. >> logan ramsey.

frank kes ler, that's 13 for frank. ♪ >> get those boys to the hospital. please do, quickly. get them to clean cots and cool sheets. get them doctors and medicine. a nurse with soft hands. get them to the hospital, hurry, please. >> there was a hospital, clean,

orderly, 100 beds. among its roof the red cross plainly marked. the symbol of mercy the enemy was bound to respect. >> the next morning divine services were held beside a bomb crater that had once been a chapel. at even tide, we buried our heroic dead. the last salute from their comrades. >> captain of the navy, colonel,

major roosevelt. ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ >> the 1942 film "battle of

midway" by director john ford. joining us is author mark harris. how did john ford view his service in the u.s. navy? >> ford was really proud of his service. he was the oldest of the five directors i write about. in fact, he became a grandfather during the war. e he had been old enough to serve in the first world war, although he didn't. so for ford, i think the war was a proving ground. he really wanted to test his courage, and although he was at least once directly in the line of fire, i'm not sure that ford ever believed that he was courageous. in fact, at one point he said all i know is that i'm not a brave man, that it i'm a coward. that was after he had been at d-day. so ford was really proud that he

had served and in fact, when he completed his sort of decommissioning papers, he said he would do it again if called upon. one of the things ford did right after the war was farm, which was sort of a combination rest home, clubhouse, barroom, getaway for the men in his field photo unit. and it was a place that he decorated with every medal and recognition that he had ever won during the war. that was something he was really obsessed with. it was a huge part of his identity. he kept it in operation for almost 25 years after the war. >> i just wanted to ask you about his work and how it now lives on in the films he put together. how important was it to the allied efforts and to the american people who saw these films in the 19450s? >> ford's war work was

tremendously important. i mean, especially the battle of midway, which was the first visual evidence that home front movie going audiences had that the u.s. could win this thing. it was the first really good news that movie theaters brought about the war. and also i think beyond any one movie that he put on screen, ford will always have a place in the history of world war ii film making efforts because he was the first of anyone whether in hollywood or the war department to realize and believe and act on the conviction that there should be a wartime film making effort. he understood that it was going to be absolutely essential to document this war and that film, which at the time we should really remember was sound film

was only 10 or 12 years old. it was newer to americans by far than the internet is to us today. ford really understood that this fledgling medium would play an important part of the perception of the war. >> a story of hollywood and the second world war and among the directors featured by author mark harris is george stevens and john ford, john houston and frank capra. thanks for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> some live events to tell you about on the c-span networks. the international institute for strategic studies is hosting a discussion on the situation in syria and how the surrounding region is being affected by the events taking place there. that's live at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span 3. and on c-span 2, a look at how energy policy is being impacted by the conflict in ukraine. former u.s. ambassadors to

russia and georgia will be among the speakers. that's live at 10:30 a.m. eastern. i tell the story about how i, whose every aspect of whose identity is in one way or another a threat to israel. my gender is male, my religion is muslim, my citizenship is american, but my nationality is iranian. my ethnicity it persian, my culture is middle eastern, everything about me sends off all the warning signals for israel. and so the experience of an iranian-american single man trying to get through the airport in the 21st century is a reminder to everyone that despite the way globalization has brought us closer and has diminished the boundaries that

separate us as nations, as ethnicities, as people, as cultures, despite all of that, all you got to do is spend a few minutes trying to get through this airport to know that those divisions, those things that separate us are still very much apparent. >> reza aslan will take your phone calls on the war on terror and the instability in the middle east, live for three hours, sunday at noon eastern on book tv's weekend of nonfiction books and authors starting this friday on c-span 2. book tv, television for serious readers. now you can keep in touch with current events from the nation's capital using any phone any time with c-span radio on 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 that destroyed the town of san pietro,ilitial pietro,ilitially. praised at the time for the battle that killed over 1,000 americans, the film was composed

of almost entirely re-enacted scenes. we speak with film historian mark harris. >> the book is titled five came back, a story of hollywood and the second world war. joining us from new york is mark harris. as we look at some of the leading directors from this time period, including john huston, what can you tell us about him? >> well, huston was a really fascinating, larger than life figure. his career in hollywood was just starting when the war broke out. he had had a kind of never do well adolescence and early 20s. he had been involved in a few car crashes. he fled to paris at one point. his reputation was really not great. and then he came back to hollywood, started to build a reputation as a screen writer, particularly with the help of william wyler, who was something of a mentor and very good friend to him. and then just before pearl

harbor, had his breakthrough success with the first movie he directed, the maltese falcon. and you know, he had a chance to make about one and two thirds more movies. he had to leave for the war and his service in the war before completing a movie he was making which reunited the cast of the maltese falcon, called "across the pacific." >> so much focusing on the post traumatic stress of those returning from vietnam or more recently from iraq and afghanistan. i want to ask you about one of two films he put together. this one from 1945, let there be light. what did he bring to the american audience about this condition and these servicemen, mostly men, who returned from world war ii and what they faced? >> well, let there be light is a remarkable documentary. huston was tasked with making what the army felt would be a propaganda film about psychologically scarred veterans

in an army hospital after the war. the propaganda element of this was that the movie was intended to show that these men could recover incredibly quickly, and it's almost specifically intended to be aimed at american small and mid-sized businesses who needed to be told that it was safe, in fact, to hire returning veterans. that it would be easy to reintegrate them into society. huston took that assignment eagerly and in fact wanted to make that movie, and the last two thirds of "let there be light" which focused very heavily and smalt credulously on miracle cures, overnight someone's hysterical paralysis, for instance, is cured under hypnosis. >> you're back here now. you're away from oakkinawokinaw. you have forgotten it, but you remember who you are. who are you? >> that's right.

full name now. >> dominic. >> that's right. >> he really did the propaganda job in that movie, but the first portion of "let there be light" is an absolutely searing and nonpropagandistic portrait of just how shattered these men were by their war experiences. you see these young men in their in take interviews with army psychiatrists, and they're just devastated, empty-voiced, hollow-eyed. >> you feel conscious, that is, are you aware of the fact you're not the same boy you were when you went over? do you feel changed? >> yes, sir. >> how long were you overseas? >> 11 months. >> 11 months. were you in any combat at all? >> six months.

>> this would have been the most vivid and by far the most and bt look that any american audience had ever gotten at the psychological trauma that's caused by war. i say would have been because the army suppressed the film. after huston completed it, the army did everything in its power to prevent its release and in fact, the movie was not shown public lal until 1981. huston spent decades after the war trying to get it shown and finally only succeeded thanks to the intervention of walter mondel. >> that 35 year period and the censorship that he faced, was that unusual for directors in this time period? >> let there be light was the only movie to have been suppressed over a very long term. while they were making films for the army, these directors

constantly battled restrictions, accusations from the war department that they were going off message, that they couldn't include footage for instance of american bodies. that they had to always show american soldiers as brave and confident. very rarely -- those fights often resulted in changes in movies. very rare did they result in the movie being suppressed all together. >> we're going to show the movie, the battle of san pietro that came out in the 1980s. >> it was shot by john huston in italy. it was intended to be a document commissioned by frank capra of the successful u.s. effort to free small ancient village with

villagers emerging from their hiding places with wine and cheese to greet the victorious americans. huston got to the place and found the right town but the battle was already over. the town had been retaken. there were no villagers in sight and it was mined german traps. so what he did with the full knowledge and enthusiastic cooperation of the army, was to restage the battle. it is fake. it is all reenactments done on that location and with actual u.s. soldiers but none of it was real. it was very successfully passed off to the american public as predominately actual battle

footage. the army put out press releases who say huston and his men were so brave that they actually preceded the army men on the front so that they could turn around and film the soldiers approaching which is one way that you know that a documentary has been faked because film makers don't go first. what's interesting is that even though it is a big fakery, only a minute or two is real footage. it also helped make a vocabulary for what it looked like. huston didn't make the movie because he wants to pull one over on the american public but it was the only way to convey the realities of ground combat and ground troops advancing which is something that had not