What a shame. For an aircraft that’s not very old, and unique and highly educational, grounding it is a poor choice.

Hitler, My Part in his Downfall has been made and was an excellent film. Jim Dale played Spike, and Spike played his father. Great cast all round. What’s needed is a sequel to it.

since RAF Bomber Command flew at night, why use real planes when CGI would work just as well?

The RAF flew probably as many daylight raids as they did night raids. It’s a misconception that they only flew at night. Everything from Blenheims, Wellingtons, Bostons and Msquitoes right through to Halifax and Lancasters flew daylight raids regularly throughout the war.

As for this proposed new Flying Tigers film, John Woo has never made a film worth looking forward to, and is overrated and simply dreadful. No doubt he’ll cast the equally poor Nicholas Cage in the lead role… :rolleyes:

That’s a great set of photos there.

While I’m no FAA expert, it’s pretty certain the Swordfish is carrying censored RP-3 anti-submarine rockets. The ASV radar wasn’t fitted below the wing, the space is too small for the Leigh Light or larger depth charges, Creeking Door rightly spotted one rocket dropped behind (I agree anyway!) and it’s carrying the smaller D/Cs on the outer racks. So by a process of elimination…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP-3#Royal_Navy_Fleet_Air_Arm

I’m no expert though I am learning a lot fast about the Fleet Air Arm in WWII right now because I am currently making a documentary film about the New Zealanders who flew with the RN FAA. I have been interviewing veterans and one of the chaps I interviewed last week gave me the same series of Swordfish shots, so they were probably crown official shots. Ralph Cocklin was onboard the same ship, HMS Tracker, and was a Swordfish pilot. He later flew off Macships and is one of the last survivors of such, certainly the last known kiwi Macship man.

The difference with Ralph’s photos is the censor didn’t get to them.

Does that help any?

If anyone can help me with Fleet Air Arm photos from World War Two, any theatre of war, any ship, any aircraft type (the kiwis seem to ahve been involved in the lot) I’d be most grateful. This film project is a shoestring venture, done off my own bat because the opportunity arose to meet some of these wonderful veterans at their last reunion a few weeks back, and I realised no-one has ever made a film about NZ’s involvement in the FAA before. tehir stories are superb. I have talked with and interviewed in the past two weeks men who flew in Swordfish, Flumars, Albacores, Chesapeakes, Seafires, Hurricanes, Corsairs, Hellcats, Tarpon/Avengers, Fireflies and many more in training and combat. Super guys, super stories, and a very important project I think. I have the support of the New Zealand Fleet Air Arm Musuem (Auckland) who’ve been helping me track down veterans. Off tomorrow morning to interview a chap on a FAA secret squadron, and he then flew Wildcats and Hellcats…

By the way, Ralph was there when that Swordfish went into the drink and I have filmed him telling the story of how it happened. The pilot’s name was Cliff. I have to go through the footage to find the details and get his last name, sorry. Too many stories filling my head to remember.

Dave, though the film was manipulated to make it more appealing to the general masses, much of what was featured happened at one time or another, that is except for the bike ride and the plane crash,

It’s still a fine film in itself, very entertaining and I have it on DVD, but I object to the film makers simply making up their own characters and heroics and spectacle just to please some Yanks in the audience. The tunneller getting clostraphobia was a nonsense, suggested to them by the actor himself (was it Charles Bronson?) because he had the fear of enclosed spaces himself. The forger going blind and then getting killed was also nonsense. And the two American characters, Garner and McQueen, were as I understand it totally fictional. Are real British or Commonwealth characters not interesting enough to make as the lead rather than some faked Yanks? An interesting true story is one of the 50 murdered escapees was a Maori bomber pilot, how he thought he’d get away through Europe is beyond me and that takes great courage. The whole scenario of how the tunnel was discovered during the mass escape was also fudged.

My opinion is make it a factual film or a fictional film but not both.

It’s high time a decent film was made about The Great Escape, telling the true story and not the hyped up Hollywood nonsense of the 1960’s version with motorbykes and plane crashes and closterphobic tunnellers and make-believe American charcaters. The true story is better thanthe fiction.