A short, magnificent film...

[Hauksbee 103]

A 10 minute long film detailing a Battle of Britain incident. Outstanding CGI work, gorgeous photography on the ground, and an ending you'll not expect.

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/short-film-the-german-nick-ryan.php

[+JonathanRL 973]

Seen it before and all it does is make me start up Cliffs of Dover

But yes, it is truly a masterpiece.

Edited December 11, 2011 by JonathanRL

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Brilliant!....and a history lesson I never knew about

[Olham 164]

Great CGI, and a really surprising end indeed. But the German was played quite ridiculous.

No idea what dialect he is speaking - German it is not. Only German words.

And would you say in the same sentence "Please put the gun away, we are the same - you Scheisskerl*"?

I wonder why they didn't do it with a German actor - would have been much more believeable.

 

(* sh*thead)

 

I also never knew about this - must have happened through all the clouds, I guess?

They did their history bits right after all - JG 26 "Schlageter" was really one of the Jagdgeschwader

at the Channel coast.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Olham

[Von Paulus 8]

It's true Olham, even I, that don't speak German could see that he was not German.

But alas, it's a short film, probably with very low values in production. No money to hire a German actor.

It's quite good.

Thanks Hauksbee, for sharing.

[Tamper 9]

At the risk of proving my own ignorance, does anyone know for certain that Cliffs of Dover was used to produce the 'CGI' segments in this film?

 

Impressive short; like some others here, I also had no idea about Ireland! Interesting, thanks

[+elephant 36]

Never heard of that, Tamper...(use of Cliffs of Dover).

I have seen the film too, some aerial sceenes look great but,

I found many "holes" in the script-story itself...

 

Why to collide with the German in the first place and risk his life?

Like where he was going to go, in that state, if as he seemingly believed, they were over Britain's soil?

Out of vengeance for his friend?

(I also don't believe that such a collision with wing break would have been survivable, anyway!)

Pretty dumb!

Edited December 11, 2011 by elephant

[Dej 17]

 

...

 

They did their history bits right after all - JG 26 "Schlageter" was really one of the Jagdgeschwader

at the Channel coast.

 

Nearly right, except for the Mk. V Spit. Why do today's film makers always show bloody cannon-armed Spits in the Battle of Britain? Fine, it could have been a No. 19 Squadron aircraft but then it would have been cannon only, not cannon and MGs. Unimportant to most viewers but it does p*ss me off that they can't get the BoB's most iconic aircraft right... notwithstanding it was more statistically likely to have been a Hurri anyway.

[Tamper 9]

Hi elephant...I don't know CoD was or was not used for this, just wondering if it was, I should have worded the question better. Post above by JonathanRL made me think perhaps it was well-known that CoD was used in this film.

[Von Paulus 8]

Out of vengeance for his friend?

I'm afraid, elephant, that in the middle of the combat, our judgement is not the same when we are at home watching a film comfortably in our chair.

Certain things, are valued more and others quite the opposite from what happen in our daily life.

No, I don't fee l surprised by that. Not at all.

[Wels 2]

Well i always wondered why someone who was shot down, or made an emergency landing, would draw his pistol to fight on (like Frank Luke). In this film the reason seems to be revenge, but indeed this brave Spitfire pilot shot down another 109 before, so all had a good reason like "Hitler is a maniac" or "England declared war on us".

So "they certainly hated each other" ?

 

But this is not true. I have read lots of german and a few english and american books, and at no time were they boasting to have shot once downed or disabled aviators, on the contrary they tried to help once the enemy was out of action.

(It is like shooting at shipwrecked, and despite propaganda and films still made in Hollywood depicting german U-boats shooting at shipwrecked, it did not happen - it did once. But then don't ask what US crews did to japanese shipwrecked)

Again certainly, fanatics are everywhere and propaganda made all believe in the devil when it came to thinking about the enemy.

 

(B.t.w. how would a 109 reach Ireland ? They had 2 minutes fighting time over England, until they had to fly back due to fuel ? Yes i know it's the message that counts, not reality)

 

Some time ago i found this short film - different theme, but a good capture of the climate and state of mind of pilots in WW2, as i read it in a lot of books:

http://www.youtube.c...u/1/9WKK1RQoewM

 

If someone does not know Mr. Saint-Exupéry, he was a brilliant french writer ("The little prince", "Wind, sand and stars" etc.), and also an aviation pioneer making lots of record flights, who was indeed shot down in his Lightning, over the mediterranean in WW2 -

Edited December 11, 2011 by Wels

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Never heard of that, Tamper...(use of Cliffs of Dover).

I have seen the film too, some aerial sceenes look great but,

I found many "holes" in the script-story itself...

 

Why to collide with the German in the first place and risk his life?

Like where he was going to go, in that state, if as he seemingly believed, they were over Britain's soil?

Out of vengeance for his friend?

(I also don't believe that such a collision with wing break would have been survivable, anyway!)

Pretty dumb!

 

Sorry Elephant...but it happened more than once, where Pilots deliberately rammed enemy aircraft...the most famous cases being...

 

On 18 August 1940, RAFVR Sergeant Bruce Hancock of No.6 SFTS from RAF Windrush used his Avro Anson aircraft to ram a Heinkel He.111P; there were no survivors.[7]

Also on this day Flight Lieutenant James Eglington Marshall of 85 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to ram the tail unit of a Heinkel He 111 after he had expended the last of his ammunition on it. The Hurricane's starboard wing tip broke off in the attack and the Heinkel was assessed as 'probably destroyed.'

On 15 September 1940, Flight Sergeant Ray Holmes of No. 504 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to destroy a Dornier Do-17 bomber over London by ramming but at the loss of his own aircraft (and almost his own life) in one of the defining moments of the Battle of Britain. Holmes, making a head-on attack, found his guns inoperative. He flew his plane into the top-side of the German bomber, cutting off the rear tail section with his wing and causing the bomber to dive out of control. The German crew were killed in the crash, while the injured Holmes bailed out of his plane and survived. As the R.A.F. did not practice ramming as an air combat tactic, this was considered an impromptu manoeuvre.

On 7 October 1940, Pilot Officer Ken W. Mackenzie of No.501 Squadron RAF used his Hawker Hurricane to destroy a Messerschmitt Bf 109. His Combat Report read "... I attacked the three nearest machines in vic formation from beneath and a fourth enemy aircraft doing rear-gaurd flew across the line of fire and he developed a leak in the glycol tank. ... I emptied the rest of my ammunition into him from 200 yards but he still flew on and down to 80, to 100 feet off the sea. I flew around him and signalled him to go down, which had no result. I therefore attempted to ram his tail with my undercarriage but it reduced my speed too low to hit him. So flying alongside I dipped my starboard wing-tip onto his port tail plane. The tail plane came off and I lost the tip of my starboard wing. The enemy aircraft spun into the sea and partially sank...".

 

On 2 November 1940, Greek Air Force pilot Marinos Mitralexis shot down one Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bomber, then, out of ammunition, brought another down by smashing its rudder with the propeller of his PZL P.24 fighter. Both aircraft were forced into emergency landings, and Mitralexis used the threat of his pistol to take the four-man bomber crew prisoner. Mitralexis was promoted in rank and awarded medals.[8][9][10]

[edit]Kingdom of Yugoslavia

On 6 April 1941, the first day of Invasion of Yugoslavia 36th group of the 5th fighter regiment of the Yugoslav Royal Air Force, equipped with obsolete Hawker Fury biplanes scrambled to defend their airfield, Režanovačka Kosa, from a strafing attack by approximately 30 Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Bf 110s. In the ensuing uneven dogfight at least three Yugoslav pilots—Captain Konstantin Jermakov, Captain Vojislav Popović and Lieutenant Milorad Tanasić—each rammed a German fighter with fatal results on both sides.

 

 

C/O Wikipedia

 

Obviously, the film is a mish-mash of these various stories

Edited December 11, 2011 by UK_Widowmaker

[+Nightshade/PR 7,714]

This was truly an amazing piece of work. Thank You.

[+elephant 36]

I know Widow, but in the known cases you've named there was a purpose for the ramming!

In the film the German seems almost ready to conduct an emergency landing...at the time of ramming.

I didn't claim it never happened, I just couldn't see the purpose in the film story...

(except from artistic licence, of course)...

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Well i always wondered why someone who was shot down, or made an emergency landing, would draw his pistol to fight on (like Frank Luke). In this film the reason seems to be revenge, but indeed this brave Spitfire pilot shot down another 109 before, so all had a good reason like "Hitler is a maniac" or "England declared war on us".

So "they certainly hated each other" ?

 

But this is not true. I have read lots of german and a few english and american books, and at no time were they boasting to have shot once downed or disabled aviators, on the contrary they tried to help once the enemy was out of action.

(It is like shooting at shipwrecked, and despite propaganda and films still made in Hollywood depicting german U-boats shooting at shipwrecked, it did not happen - it did once. But then don't ask what US crews did to japanese shipwrecked)

Again certainly, fanatics are everywhere and propaganda made all believe in the devil when it came to thinking about the enemy.

 

(B.t.w. how would a 109 reach Ireland ? They had 2 minutes fighting time over England, until they had to fly back due to fuel ? Yes i know it's the message that counts, not reality)

 

Some time ago i found this short film - different theme, but a good capture of the climate and state of mind of pilots in WW2, as i read it in a lot of books:

http://www.youtube.c...u/1/9WKK1RQoewM

 

If someone does not know Mr. Saint-Exupéry, he was a brilliant french writer ("The little prince", "Wind, sand and stars" etc.), and also an aviation pioneer making lots of record flights, who was indeed shot down in his Lightning, over the mediterranean in WW2 -

About fanaticism, the movie reminded me of a story about a Soviet ace pilot in WW2. Shot down just after having destroyed a 109, he went down to the ground in parachute just next to his last victim. Once both arrived on the ground, the Soviet ace, lacking a pistol, charged at the German pilot and strangled him to death with bare hands! Mutual hatred was an usual fact on that front, unlike the Channel font. Robert Stanford Tuck stated that he had machine-gunned a German airman fallen in the Channel, but only through mercy, having checked that he wouldn't be rescued before the cold had killed him.

 

About St-Exupéry, his "Little Prince" made him even better known in the USA than in occupied France in 1942; and it happens that he dedicated "Terre des Hommes" ("Wind, sand and stars" in US edition) to my grand-uncle Henri Guillaumet, a former pilot of the Aéropostale like him, and the surviving hero of one of the most moving tales from the book. The wreckage of St-Exupéry's P-38 has been recovered and authentified just a few years ago. His fall was illogical, as he flew at low altitude a reco Lightning designed to be almost unreachable at very high altitudes, thus becoming an easy target. Some said that he wanted to see again his house on the Southern Coast, some others that it was a form of deliberate suicide, as he did not intend to survive that war that had puzzled him so much as a true patriot (Fall of France, British vs French, French vs French...).

[Von Paulus 8]

Your grand-uncle was Henri Guillaumet?!

Enchanté Capitaine,

Since a boy that I love the Aéropostal's stories.

It's a pleasure to know a relative of Henri Guillaumet.

 

Capitaine, could you help me in finding the tile of the French documentaries series, maybe from the 70's or 80's, about the Aéropostal's history.

I remember to have seen on TV. I hope not to be messing my memories with Daniele Costelle's Histoire de l'aviation.

I'm pretty sure there was such series.

Edited December 11, 2011 by Von Paulus

[abyss 1]

I know Widow, but in the known cases you've named there was a purpose for the ramming!

In the film the German seems almost ready to conduct an emergency landing...at the time of ramming.

I didn't claim it never happened, I just couldn't see the purpose in the film story...

(except from artistic licence, of course)...

 

During a battle it's truly amazing the amount of not making sense activities which truly take place

 

We just know that Capt. Bloodandguts failed to return to base that day

 

We surmize that he was shot down . . that's not always the case

[Olham 164]

Here is a German short film about the "Final Flight" of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - or rather the "heroe" who shot him down.

I have also seen an interview with the real German pilot, who claimed to be a reader and big fan of literature.

When he tried to talk about that moment, when he heard the name, his voice still broke, more than 60 years later.

Moments like this make you wake up from a very bad dream.

 

[Hauksbee 103]

Here is a German short film about the "Final Flight" of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - or rather the "hero" who shot him down.

Another very good, if brief, film. Thanks Olham.

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Your grand-uncle was Henri Guillaumet?!

Enchanté Capitaine,

Since a boy that I love the Aéropostal's stories.

It's a pleasure to know a relative of Henri Guillaumet.

 

Capitaine, could you help me in finding the tile of the French documentaries series, maybe from the 70's or 80's, about the Aéropostal's history.

I remember to have seen on TV. I hope not to be messing my memories with Daniele Costelle's Histoire de l'aviation.

I'm pretty sure there was such series.

Actually, my grand-father was Henri's first cousin. And as they had been born the same year 1902 in the same village, he was also his classmate and one of closest friends during all of their childhood. The village is Bouy, which is a usable airfield in OFF, ESE of Reims. It's on this field that Henri Guillaumet fell in love with aviation, at 6, seeing many Farman flying birdcages take off from there to break several world records.

 

I have gathered many biographies and articles about Guillaumet and the Aéropostale, but I don't remember of TV documentaries. A fine video document about Henri's journey is Jean-Jacques Annaud's "Wings of Courage", first 3D-Imax fiction movie ever in 1995, with Craig Sheffer as my grand-uncle and Val Kilmer as pretty boy Jean Mermoz. I experience problems to send the link, but the plane displayed on the American teaser really looks like the Potez 25 with which Guillaumet fell in the Andes.

 

 

[Wels 2]

Here is a German short film about the "Final Flight" of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - ...

 

i just posted this link above, must have been the same idea ;)

( and nobody else saw it lol)

Edited December 11, 2011 by Wels

[77Scout 3]

A quick Google search indicates to me that pretty much all the combatants interned in Ireland were navy personnel, not fliers. It seems a bit silly to imagine a Spitfire and an ME109 ending up in Ireland - I can just look at a map and tell it couldn't happen.

 

 

[+elephant 36]

Too much artistic licence...

[Von Paulus 8]

A beautifull site about the Aéropostale: http://www.airfrance-80ansaeropostale.com/episode1/

 

It's possible that it wasn't a documentary, but a docu drama. I think it was this:

Edited December 11, 2011 by Von Paulus

[Olham 164]

Damn, you're right, Wels. I had read the name of St.Exupery in one post, and searched for this film I had seen before.

But you were first, definitely.

You can see quite well though, that I have studied Graphic Design and Visual Communication - mine was seen.

 

Damn, so much more interesting stuff written in between - must read it all through now!