earlier this year "five came back: hollywood and the second world war. among the directors featured by author mark harris is george stevens and john ford, john houston, william wyler and frank capra. thank you very much for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> you've been watching a special presentation of our reel america series. join us every sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern for more archival films by government industry, and educational institutions. watch as these films take you on a journey through the 20th century. that's reel america every sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern here on american history tv on c-span3. we'd like to tell you about some of our other american history programs. join us every sunday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern for a special look at the presidency. learn from leading historians about presidents and first ladies, their policies and legacies. and hear directly from our chief executives through historic

archival speeches. every sunday at 8:00 p.m. and midnight eastern here on american history tv. we'd like to hear from you. follow us on twitter @c-span history. connect on facebook at facebook.com/cspan history where you can leave comments and check out our upcoming programs at our website, c-span.org/history. ♪ in the fourth of a five-part look at hollywood directors who made films for the u.s. government during 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. mr. wyler also directed the popular world war ii documentary "the memphis belle" filled inside b-17 flying fortress 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 came 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 during 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 malouse 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 jezebel 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-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 interventionist 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 major wartime 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. >> in a running battle 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.

>> twoubl trouble out at 2:00, watch him. >> 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 bomb bay. >> 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. ♪nqdyz

this picture was photographed in combat zones by cameramen of the mediterranean allied air forces and by pie lots of the 12th air force who, during missions against the enemy, operated automatic cameras in their 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 commanding 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 groups 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.v83ñ special victims were the 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 volcano. a lot of american blood in that one. natural barriers made other campaigns tough, too. exhausted hannibal's elephants, caesar'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 moved 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 power, this is what you mean. you mean spanky manda major francis s. manda of 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 gil wyman. louisville, kentucky, hardly old enough to vote, but he's boss of a squadron. he signed his letters gilbert o. wyman, lieutenant colonel 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 colonel archie j. knight, west point, 1940. 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. gil wyman 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 clear. but you know there's a reason, a good one. >> today, the missions are going out because in italy our armies have been stopped cold at the gustav line across the narrowest and most mountainous part of the peninsula. u.s. fit bombing, british a-bombing, stopped for five months. at anvio, 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 acre 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 tactical command. the brass upstairs who run the air war. 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, reinforcements.

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 dispersal point to 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 flak 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're called a sprog 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 gil wyman 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, got 179 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 about and 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 taboo 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.

>> here, lay it back. take-off is always rough. thunderbolts are heavy airplanes. besides, you've decorated it like a christmas tree. belly tank rockets, guns. 500-pound bombs. cameras. >> hello, break neck. clear to take the runway for a takeoff, over?

>> roger leader from break neck you're clear number one to take off. >> roger break neck, 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, wyman and gustafson. >> first pair off. second pair taxis out. goss and burgess.

made it okay. manda and richardson. >> smith and atwood. come on. get her up. hickok and mauro. last pair.f2s welby and hunziker.

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 wyman 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. 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. 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. strafing spreads the squadron over the sky. every man his own general. looks like we're out of trains. lighthouse out there. wonder if i've got any amo 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 things to do, try to make some 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,

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 carrying the 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. &óv 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 px 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-rations. 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 leader section. one plane light. when you reformed after strafing 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 to the left, 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 flak 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. wyman 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 the germans 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 of fire, 800 rounds a minute. you've got eight guns, 106 bullets a second. rockets. those aren't just trucks and germans. you're stopping ammunition before it's fired on the fifth army front. and you're doing it 200 miles behind that front. in the weeks that followed 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. lafayette. at 324, 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. flak 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 attacked. 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 light 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 wyman's country club for airplane drivers.

♪ have a good time stay in bed till half past nine ♪ ♪ get around at colonel wyman's country club ♪ ♪ yo ho ho you and me how i love thee ♪ >> from director william wyler, the film released in 1947 titled "thunderbolt." joining us from new york is author mark harris. as we look at the work of william wyler and four other leading directors from world war ii, as 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 jeer years of our lives. the best years of 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-martialed 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 8n-p=9y rujpá 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 det