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Posted on 05/29/2003 5:36:02 AM PDT by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. We hope to provide an ongoing source of information about issues and problems that are specific to Veterans and resources that are available to Veterans and their families. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.
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The First Motion Picture Unit, US Army Air Forces Culver City, California Approximately a year and a half before the War, Warner Bros. Studios were contacted by the Army Public Relations in Washington with an official request that a series of short subjects be made, released in theaters throughout the country, for the purpose of orienting the public with the various branches of the military. It should be remembered that, at this time, the American public was totally unaware of the importance of such branches as the Armored Forces, the Engineers, Cadet Training of the Air Corps., Etc.  The Hal Roach Studio Jack L. Warner accepted the responsibility with enthusiasm and acute awareness for the necessity of the job to be done. He went into conference with Gordon Hollingshead, of his Short Subjects Department, who, in turn, called in Owen Crump, a writer at the studio. Thus the plan materialized and the work began. The result, after Crump~had visited and done research at various military installations and Headquarters throughout the country, was a series of eight two~reel subjects in Technicolor, and were at that time, a completely new innovation in the short subject field. Once the Army Service pictures were released in the theaters, similar requests were received from the Navy, Marine Corps arid the Coast Guard. Up to the time when War was declared, the Shorts Subjects Department of Warner Bros. was devoted to this pre-Pearl Harbor orientation campaign. It was natural then that General "Hap" Arnold, head of the Army Air Forces, realizing the tremendous necessity for training films, orientation films and inspirational subjects, to keep pace with the almost unbelievable growth of the Air Forces, should request Jack Warner to come to Washington. Warner took Owen Crump with him, since he had accumulated much knowledge of service picture problems. It should be noted then that General Arnold was at that time anticipating the division of the Army Air Corps into a completely separate service branch, no longer a part of the Army. Previously, the Army Signal Corps Photographic Section had made all the train ing films for the air arm, but now General Arnold saw the immediate necessity of organizing and activating his own film unit to serve the particular needs of the new Army Air Force.  “Little Hal” Roach (left) in 1937. In that first meeting the General explained the situation.... "If we (the Army Air Force) set out to form a unit of highly professional film makers, where do we get them? We certainly couldn't train them. We wouldn't know how, and the time it would take to get some capable personnel into the set-up and get a film-making Air Force Table of Organization working, is just unthinkable.... unless you people in the film industry take on the job and do it for us. And that's what I am asking you to do. We haven't any time. Training of Cadets and of Technical crews are just examples of the monumental problems we are facing with this great expansion going on and training films could shorten the amount of time it would take to accomplish this. The outcome of this meeting, and others in the War Department, resulted in Jack Warner being commissioned a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force. A short time later Owen Crump was commissioned a Captain. Their primary assignment was quite simply to organize the First Motion Picture Unit of the US Army Air Force. Of immediate necessity, however, was the demand for a two-reel short subject aimed at speeding up enlistments in the Army Air Force Cadet Training Program. General Arnold felt this to be the most urgent need since the Army Air Force, at that time, could not draft men for Cadet Training and was in a position where more than 100,000 young men must enlist voluntarily within a three month period.  From left; Jack Warner of Warner Bros Studio, Fred Sutterlin and Horace Varian (100th Photo Archives) Colonel Warner turned over all facilities of Warner Bros. studio to the project. Work was carried out on a twenty-four hour basis. Owen Crump wrote and directed the film. Within fourteen days it was written, photographed, edited, dubbed, scored. Jimmy Stewart, then Lt. Stewart (later to become a Brigadier General Stewart)played the leading role. The picture was promptly released in most of the theaters throughout the United States. Its effect was immediate, intense. More than 150,000 enlistments were directly traced to the effect of the picture, which was called "Winning Your Wings". How do you start? Well, obviously you need technicians in almost every category of film making, and you need enough of them to turn out the film quickly and with a high standard of quality. So you have to have the best and the best were working in the studios. then, too, you have to find someplace to make the films, like a studio. Start with that. Jack Warner offered the Vitagraph Studio, in East Hollywood. It was empty with no equipment whatever and no filming or picture making activity of any kind had been done there for a long period of time. But it did have sound stages, storage space and some empty rooms for offices. General Arnold sent out one Lieutenant and two Sergeants to help with the military paper work that would properly activate the Unit and give it the means to operate, acquire supples etc. Crump put up a large chart representing an operating studio with all departments indicated. Then he began to fill in the categories of personnel and the number of each for every department, from studio grip to producers.  To spread the word, he gave the story to the trade papers, and the response was almost unbelievable. By then, fortunately, we had help from a few other experienced motion picture people who were in other units of the Service and were immediately transferred to the new "Unit". Applications were received from every studio, representing almost every type of craftsman. It's true, of course, that many of them were eligible for the draft, but very many simply wanted to serve their country in a way they knew best, (Remember that in those early days after Pearl Harbor, patriotism was rampant) and many of the ap plicants were past middle age and these dedicated men were, as the film industry knows, the most skillful. Now the very idea of direct enlistment into a particular unit was practically unheard of in the military. But General Arnold agreed to it, and saw that it was permitted, because it was the only way such a complicated organization could be put together in a hurry. An appointed committee carefully surveyed the applications and the qualifications of every applicant and also, since the unit would be dealing with some highly top secret subjects,. each applicant's name was also given to the F.B.I. for processing.  Quickly the number of personnel grew. After four weeks of basic training in other parts of the country, they returned to sleep on cots on the sound stages and to eat in the commissary, which was not too bad, considering the initial problems of getting it started. It was soon evident that because of wartime priorities on equipment, it would be necessary to find a location where a studio, completely equipped for the making of motion pictures was available. There was a stroke of luck. It was learned that the Hal Roach Studios were not in production and had no plans in that direction. Washington was immediately contacted and in a matter of days the Studio was leased by the Army Air Force. At that time the number of men in the unit was about three hundred. One week, exactly, after the men marched on the Hal Roach property, and dispersed to their assigned departments, shooting the first picture began. A six reel picture titled "Live and Learn" that illustrated, with a lot of flying, the unnecessary, thoughtless mistakes, young cadets make (some fatal) in their flight training. Within two months the number of pictures proposed by the Training Aids branch of the Army Air Force in Washington amounted to one hundred fifty, with priorities on those most urgently needed, Subsequently, three hundred pictures were in some process of planning, writing, research, shooting, cutting, dubbing or scoring.  U.S. Marine Corps WW-II The range of subject matter was so varied as to include "Operation of the Bomb Sight", "Land and Live in the Jungle", "How to Survive in the Arctic" (after crashing), "Lessons in Aerial Gunnery", Mental Attitude of a Soldier", "Recognition of the Japanese Zero". (The first Zero captured intact was immediately flown, in a cargo plane, to Burbank so the Unit could photograph it in the air doing a series of maneuvers with a technical narration and with the highest priority the film was flown to all Air Forces and other installations in the Pacific. During the life of the First Motion Picture Unit more than 400 films were made. Because of the extent of the operation the Table of Organization was increased several times by Washington. In the end, there were 1110 men, not counting the Combat Camera Training and the units in the field. Also, not counting persons on special assignment, as Technical Advisors, or other personnel on temporary duty from coordinating Army Air Force units. The list of players who were also members of the unit (With other assigned duties when not acting) represented stars and feature players from nearly every studio.... for example, Captain Ronald Reagan, who was in the Cavalry Reserves when the War started, but was transferred to the First Motion Picture Unit because of his combination of military and motion picture experience. To continue with "names", Sergeant Alan Ladd, Sergeant George Montgomery, Captain Robert Sterling, Captain William Holden, Sergeant Lee Cobb, Sergeant Arthur Kennedy, to name but a few. Directors and producers from all studios were also represented as well as some of the finest writers in the Industry.  Signal Corps combat cameramen Sgt. Carl Weinke, left, and PFC Ernest Marjoram wade through a stream while following infantry troops at Red Beach 2, Tanahmerah, New Guinea, during an Allied invasion April 22, 1944. One of the most notable projects undertaken by the Unit, and one whose secret had been kept necessarily of top classification, was the building of a huge miniature of the main island of Japan, exactly to scale. This was done approximately six months before the first bomb was dropped by the B-29's. The miniature covered an entire sound stage and more than 100 men worked on it at all times. With the camera's eye moving over the island, to perfectly depicted targets, briefing films were made which were run later on Okinawa for pilots to bomb Japan. Thus the crews of the B-29's could sit in their chairs and see the trip they were to make, pick out check points and the target. Some of the men connected with this work in the Unit knew the exact dates, time and hour and locations for the actual bombing of the Japanese Islands weeks before the first bomb was dropped.
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Air Power |
After early US Navy experience in the Pacific in the early months of WWII, and after consultation with Allied air forces in the European theater, Grumman began to develop a successor to their Wildcat fighter, to be called the Hellcat. Major design changes from the Wildcat included a low-mounted wing, wider landing gear which retracted into the wings, more powerful engine, improved cockpit armor plating, and increased ammunition capacity.
The Navy ordered four prototypes of the new airplane, each with a different engine for test and evaluation purposes. Less than a year later, on 26 June 1942, the first prototype (the XF6F-1, with a Wright R-2600 Cyclone engine) flew for the first time. Before much meaningful evaluation of the various engines could be made, however, the Navy decided to press the Hellcat into production by fitting the XF6F-1 prototype with the most powerful engine available, the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp. (This turned it into an XF6F-3. The XF6F-2 and XF6F-4 were never evaluated.)
The first production model, the F6F-3, first flew in October 1942, and deliveries began four months later with squadron VF-9 on the USS Essex in the Pacific. Extremely robust, powerful and maneuverable, the Hellcat was a potent force against the Japanese, and was credited with over three-quarters of the US Navy's air-to-air kills in the war.
The UK's Fleet Air Arm received 252 F6F-3s (designated Gannet Mk I) beginning in 1943. Meanwhile, in the US, over 200 Hellcats were modified as radar-equipped night fighters. During the F6F-3 production run, which lasted until April 1944, Grumman had developed an improved Hellcat, the F6F-5, which utilized a redesigned engine cowl, new ailerons, a strengthened tail, and a water-injection system for the engine, which added 10% to the takeoff performance and increased its armament-carrying capabilities. The F6F-5 was first flown on 4 April 1944, and production continued through November 1945. Over 900 more "Dash-5" Hellcats were delivered to the UK under the Lend-Lease program under the designation Hellcat Mk II
By the end of World War II, the Hellcat had achieved a kill ratio of 19:1
Specifications:
Primary Function: Naval Fighter
Contractor: Grumman
Crew: One
Unit Cost: N/A
Powerplant: One Pratt-Whitney R-2800-10W Air Cooled Radial 2,000 hp (1,492 Kw)
Dimensions:
Length: 33 ft 10 in (10.31 m)
Wingspan: 42 ft 10 in (13.05 m)
Height: 14 ft 5 in (4.39 m)
Weights: - Empty: 9,060 lbs (4,110 kg) - Maximum Takeoff: 15,413 lbs (6,991 kg)
Performance:
Speed: 380 mph (612 km/hr) at 23,400 ft
Ceiling: 37,300 ft (11,369 m)
Range: 1,530 mi (2,462 km) -- maximum
Armaments:
Six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) Browning M-2 machine guns with 2,400 rounds mounted in the wings.
Later models could substitute two 20 mm guns for the two inboard .50 calibers.
All photos Copyright of VectorSite F6F Hellcat page Ken's Aviation Dave James' Combat Aircraft page
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Welcome Home, Marines
 Staff Sergeant Phillip Harrison Jr., a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, is greated by his wife, son as he holds 6-month-old baby Jordan in his arms at Riseley Pier on Onslow Beach aboard Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, May 26, 2003. The marines returned after deployment in the war against Iraq . REUTERS/Randy Davey  Sgt. David Dial of Newnan, Ga., a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, holds his 3-week-old son Logan for the first time as his wife Sandi, right, looks on, Monday, May 26, 2003, at Camp Lejeune, N.C.  Staff Sgt. Phillip Harrison II of Chicago, a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, smiles as he holds his 5-month-old son Jordan, for the first time, Monday, May 26, 2003, at Camp Lejeune, N.C.  From left to right, Katie Wegmueller, Erin Wilson and Rachel Bartelt, who are the wives of members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, cheer as helicopters full of Marines fly over New River Air Station before landing. Members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived back at Camp Lejeune on May 26 after nine months of deployment. REUTERS/Ellen Ozier  Cpl. Marco Workman, who is a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, holds his son Austin, age 3 months, for the first time after arriving at New River Air Station, May 26, 2003.  Cpt. Greg Pawson (R), who is a CH-46 helicopter pilot with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, kisses his wife Kristen after arriving at New River Air Station May 26, 2003.  Cpl. Hans Wegmueller (L), who is a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, embraces his wife Katie after arriving at New River Air Station, May 26, 2003.  Cpt. Greg Pawson (R), who is a CH-46 helicopter pilot with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, kisses his wife Kristen as he holds his son Tyler (R), age eighteen months, after arriving at New River Air Station, May 26, 2003  Navy Chief Petty Officer Michael T. Boner hugs his son Jacob, 3, while wife Lynn (C) looks on, after returning to New River Air Station near Jacksonville, North Carolina, May 26, 2003 after a nine month deployment. Boner is a part of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit that served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. REUTERS/Randy Davey  Corporal Hans Wegmueller hugs his wife Katie after returning to New River Air Station near Jacksonville, North Carolina, May 26, 2003.  Lacy McRae cries as she greets her husband, Lance Cpl. Jonathan McRae, after he arrived with a group of Marines from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, Monday, May 26, 2003.  Hanna Roberts, 4, hugs her father, Lance Cpl. Travis Roberts, as he arrives with Marines from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, Monday, May 26, 2003.
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Ronald and Nancy Reagan "Hellcats of the Navy" publicity shot 1957
BTW.... something I found very interesting in this months Reader's Digest I thought I'd pass along.....send a check for $10 to RD, they will send a donation subscription to overseas military forces. "All copies the troops receive include an appreciation message and the customers' names on a gift announcement cards."
Anyone interested can send a check to RD to the following address:
Armed Services Gift Subscription, Reader's Digest, Box 8288, Red Oak, Iowa 51591-1288.
and, Sam.... you and snippy keep up the good work.
Some of the original WWII Aviation Training Films are available at the above link, including:
"The Hog" "The Ensign Eliminator" "Ba Ba Black Sheep" Pappy's bird The Vought F4U "Corsair" (1944,B&W)
"The Jug" How to Fly the Republic P-47 "Thunderbolt" (1943, B&W)
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