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(somber music plays)

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(airplane engines roar)

(suspenseful militaristic music plays)

(suspenseful militaristic music continues)

(airplane engine hums)

(suspenseful militaristic music continues)

(airplane engine roars)

(suspenseful militaristic music continues)

(upbeat music plays)

(upbeat music continues)

(gentle music plays)

(horse hooves clop)

- [Narrator] This is a battlefront,

a battlefront like no other

in the long history of mankind's wars.

This is an air front.

(dramatic music plays)

(dramatic music continues)

The working day begins as it will end with the ground crews,

as much a part of the Fortress as her wings.

If you are a mechanic, you've got your own bomber.

You get attached to it,

but you know when your ship goes out on a mission,

you may never see it again,

so you do your work as well as it can be done,

perfectly,

because you wouldn't want anything to go wrong

that would be your fault.

(dramatic music continues)

Today the bombs will be taken from these bomb dumps

somewhere in England

and delivered to specific points in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.

(dramatic music continues)

To deliver them is the job of the 8th Bomber Command.

Just a hauling job,

yet one of the most difficult and complicated

of military operations.

(relaxed harmonica music plays)

(suspenseful music plays)

General purpose demolition bombs,

impact velocity as high as 750 miles an hour,

pierce five inches of armor plate,

destroy a factory.

Briefing at 08:00.

Pilots, bombardiers and navigators take their places.

The group commander, Colonel Stanley Ray,

steps up to the target map

and for the first time you learn where you're going.

Sometimes your face turns white when you find out.

Sometimes the feeling you won't come back

tightens your insides.

Not so long ago, you were sitting like this

in a college or high school classroom,

not listening too hard,

perhaps even a little sleepy.

But you listen here

and as you listen, you don't have time to think of yourself.

Fear fades.

You concentrate on the mission,

type of formation,

assembly point, zero hour,

route to target, weather,

enemy fighters, enemy flak,

route back home.

If forced down in enemy territory, destroy equipment.

If taken prisoner, give no information.

Name, rank and serial number, that's all.

(emotive music plays)

These are the passengers with one-way tickets

and this is the crew of the Memphis Belle,

324th Squadron, 91st Heavy Bombardment Group.

Just one plane and one crew,

in one squadron, in one group

of one wing of one air force

out of 15 United States Army air forces.

Well fellas, we've never had an easy ride over there yet,

and today won't be any different.

No escort except unfriendly

so keep your eyes peeled.

Don't get excited and yell

when you're talking on the intercom.

Save your ammunition and make your shots count.

Let me know what goes on back there, Quinlan.

Yes, sir.

Stay on the ball, gang,

and she'll bring us back like she's always done.

Okay, let's go.

They have completed 24 missions in this,

the toughest theater of air war,

the big league of sky fighting.

Their experience is priceless.

And so if the Memphis Belle comes back this afternoon,

they will be sent to bring

the vital lessons they have learned

to thousands of aircrew men in training at home.

Home is America.

(propellers whir)

This is a battlefront like no other in this or any war.

No monster armies,

no booming cannon,

only the roaring engine sound of the bombers

pounding through the quiet English countryside.

This is an air front.

(propellers whir)

(airplane engines growl)

(airplane engines roar)

(airplane engines continue to roar)

(airplane engines continue to roar)

The wheels of the Memphis Belle leave the soil of England

for the 25th time.

The friendly soil of England,

with its ordered farms and rural hamlets,

its country estates surrounded by formal gardens

and well-kept parks.

The England these Americans knew

only from the classics they had to read in school.

The England of the towns and cities

whose people have defended their island's freedom

for over 1,000 years.

But today their countryside has changed.

Today their island has been converted

into a gigantic bomber field,

a super aircraft carrier

anchored off the shores of fortress Europe

with hangers and machine shops,

with hundreds of dispersal points,

perimeter tracks and concrete runways.

This is England in its fifth year of war.

(airplane engines roar)

And this is the new battlefront, the air front,

from which we seek out the enemy.

Not his infantry or his artillery,

not his Panzer divisions,

but the greater menace,

the industrial heart of his nation,

the foundation on which the Nazi empire and its army stand,

the power behind the German lust for conquest.

The steel mills and refineries,

shipyards and submarine pens,

factories and munitions plants,

pinpoints on the map of Europe which mean rubber,

guns, ball bearings,

shells, engines,

planes, tanks, targets,

targets to be destroyed.

And these are the destroyers,

each with a belly full of bombs

and 10 men like the crew of the Memphis Belle:

Pilot Captain Robert Morgan,

industrial engineer from Asheville, North Carolina.

He's flown this ship across the Atlantic.

The other pilot, Captain Jim Verinis,

business administration student

at the University of Connecticut.

Radio operator and gunner, Sergeant Bob Hanson,

construction worker from Spokane, Washington.

Navigator, Captain Chuck Leighton,

chemistry student at Ohio Wesleyan.

Engineer and top turret gunner Sergeant Harold Loch

from Green Bay, Wisconsin, used to be a stevedore.

Besides keeping the bill in order,

he covers the sky above.

Tail gunner Sergeant John Quinlan of Yonkers, New York,

clerked for a carpet company but he quit December 8th, 1941.

Ball turret gunner, Sergeant Cecil Scott,

pressman for a rubber company in Rahway, New Jersey.

Pilot to crew, 10,000, put on oxygen.

They're climbing higher now,

300 feet a minute.

The strain on the planes and on the men is mounting.

The rest of the crew, Bombardier Captain Vincent Evans,

operated a fleet of trucks in Fort Worth, Texas.

Waist gunners, on the right, Sergeant Bill Winchell,

chemist for a paint company in Chicago

and on the left, Sergeant Tony Nastal,

used to repair washing machines in Detroit

when he was a kid.

Now he's 19 and has two Nazi fighters confirmed.

It takes all of a pilot's strength

to keep a 30-ton Fortress in tight formation,

but the formation is the bomber's best defense

against enemy fighters.

The planes are deployed to uncover every gun,

stepped up and down,

echelon to the right and left,

arranged to overcome the danger of gunners

firing into friendly ships,

arranged so concentrated cones of fire

from the caliber 50 machine guns cover the sky

for 1,000 yards in every direction.

(airplane engines hum)

The friendly coast of England slips by below.

It doesn't look like much now,

but in a few hours when you come back,

if you come back,

this will be the most beautiful view in the world.

Higher and higher,

climbing to reach your best operational altitude,

25,000 feet,

five miles straight up,

so high you can't be seen from the ground

with the naked eye,

so high that after one minute without oxygen

you lose consciousness.

After 20 minutes, you're dead.

(airplane engines hum)

From now to the target, you go about your routine duties,

plot your course, check your equipment

and wait and think.

Higher and colder, temperature 40 degrees below zero.

Take off your glove and you lose some fingers.

You look out at the strange world beyond,

reflections in plexiglass

like nothing you ever saw before outside of a dream.

(airplane engines continue to hum)

Higher and higher into the lightless stratosphere

until the exhaust of the engines

mixing with the cold, thin air condenses

and streams the heavens with paper trails.

To the men in the ships,

they're far from beautiful,

for they point like beckoning fingers to the formation,

signposts in the sky for the enemy to spot us.

For these bombers to accomplish their mission,

a plan is needed,

carefully worked out, timed to the minute.

The job is to bomb Wilhelmshaven

effectively and economically.

The enemy is strong, skillful,

determined to stop us.

Here are his defenses:

airdromes, well dispersed.

Each plane indicates a Staffel or squadron of fighters.

Heavy anti-aircraft,

highly trained and accurate all along the coast

and defending his vital installations,

radar to warn him of our coming.

Here is our plan to divide his defenses

and weaken his opposition.

At 13:30 hours, shortly after takeoff,

six groups of planes will be heading toward the enemy coast

from six directions.

The Blue Force, 100 B-24 Liberator four-engine bombers,

the White Force, 300 B-17 Flying Fortresses,

the Green Force, 300 B-17s with an escort of six squadrons

of P-47 Thunderbolts,

a force of B-26 Marauders,

twin engine medium bombers

with six squadrons of RAF Spitfires escorting,

almost 1,000 planes and over 8,000 men in the air.

The enemy alerts all his airdromes,

but which is our main force?

What are our targets?

Where should the Nazi controllers send their fighters?

It's our job to make them guess and guess wrong.

A half hour later at 14:00 hours,

the Blue Force will be heading east across the North Sea

with the White Force following.

These enemy fighters are tied down,

waiting to meet them,

and will not be able to attack the Green Force.

These fighters must come up to attack the Green Force

and thus will be no threat to the Blue and White Forces.

The B-26s and Spitfires will bomb and strafe

a key rail junction,

diverting these six Staffel

and preventing the enemy from concentrating

too many fighters on the Green Force,

which is scheduled to bomb an aircraft factory at Hanover.

At 14:30 hours the Blue Force will threaten

this entire coastal area of Northwestern Germany.

Which target will it be?

Flensburg?

The Kiel Canal?

Or will it turn suddenly and bomb Hamburg,

Vegesack or Emden?

Actually, it carries no bombs at all.

It's a decoy

and keeps the fighters from the northern area busy

while the White Force, the main effort,

heads for the submarine pens of Wilhelmshaven.

At 15:00 hours,

while the White Force is over its target,

only a fraction of the available

German fighter strength of the area can intercept it

because of the Blue Force diversion

and the simultaneous bombing of Hanover by the Green Force.

This is the plan of battle for today,

drawn up by the Combined Operations Planning Committee

and approved by the commanding general.

The White Force, lead group, low squadron.

We've crossed the invisible line of enemy radar.

The Hun is expecting us.

(airplane engines roar)

Steel helmets go on.

Watchful eyes strain.

Tight formations are held tighter still.

Tense gunners more alert because here it comes,

the enemy coast.

From up here it looks the same as any other,

houses, roads,

green fields, factories, waterways,

but they are the houses and fields

of those who invade and oppress.

They are the factories and roads of the people

who twice in one generation have

flooded the world with suffering,

suffering in such quantity

as the history of the human race has never known,

brought torment and anguish into countless American homes,

gold stars and telegrams from the War Department.

(exploding shells bang)

The first flak, just harmless-looking

silent puffs of smoke,

only each puff is a shell exploding,

throwing shrapnel around the sky,

exactly the range,

accurate flak by radio prediction.

Five miles down, Nazi anti-aircraft batteries have

calculated the altitude speed and course.

Where will the next one hit?

You try not to be there.

(exploding shells bang)

The docks and submarine pens of Wilhelmshaven.

Approach to the target starts.

No smokescreen can protect it.

(exploding shells bang)

Now the enemy knows the path of your approach

and walls that path with a flak barrage,

but you fly right through it,

flak so thick you can get out and walk on it.

(exploding shells bang)

Morgan changes course every 15 seconds,

evasive action to confuse the flak batteries.

Bomb site set for correct altitude and speed.

Bomb bay doors open.

The bombing run begins.

Pilot to Bombardier, okay, Vin, you've got it.

Now Evans flies the Memphis Belle,

controlling it through the bomb site.

And now we are most vulnerable.

Committed to our bombing run,

we can't dodge flak or fighters.

Here's the first.

(gunfire rattles)

(airplane engines whine)

Top turret fires at it.

Evans must ignore the battle,

crosshairs lined up on target,

adjustments for wind drift made.

Two more fighters diving from nine o'clock.

(gunfire rattles)

Flak now has the range too.

(explosion bangs)

They've hit this Fort,

but he keeps on his bombing run.

As lead Bombardier, Evans' aim must be good.

Every other ship in the group will drop its bombs

when he drops his.

Now one pointer on the bomb site moves toward

another stationary pointer.

The instant they touch, bombs will release.

(airplane engine roars)

They touch,

bombs away.

(exploding bombs bang)

(airplane engine hums)

(exploding bombs bang)

(airplane engine continues to hum)

(exploding bombs bang)

The first half of the mission is over, the easy half.

Now to get home.

The flak stops.

That means fighters out there somewhere.

Are Staffel lurking behind that cloud,

or hiding up in the sun where the glare blinds you

and you can't see them waiting to dive down on you?

Fighters at six o'clock.

This is what a gunner sees, a speck in the sky.

That's a fighter, and then a blink.

That means he's firing at you,

2,300 rounds a minute.

(gunfire rattles)

(airplane engine roars)

(gunfire rattles)

In a running battle,

one of the most important instruments is the interphone.

(gunfire continues to rattle)

- [Crew] There's four of 'em, one o'clock high,

they're coming around.

(gunfire rattles)

Two fighters, six o'clock up coming in, firing at you.

- [Crew] B-17 in trouble our two o'clock,

watch it.

- [Crew] Got an engine on fire.

(gunfire rattles)

- [Crew] There's two more, diving through the 94th.

- [Crew] Three planes, nine o'clock, coming around.

Keep your eye on 'em, boys.

(gunfire rattles)

- [Crew] Firing at 10.

- [Crew] Watch 'em, Chuck, keep your eyes open.

- [Crew] They're breaking at 11, breaking at 11.

(gunfire rattles)

- [Crew] There we go at two o'clock, watch 'em, Scottie.

- [Scottie] I got my sights on 'em.

- [Crew 3] Check that B-17, Chuck, at three o'clock.

The motor's smoking.

Fighter at 10:30, coming around.

- [Crew] Are those 10:30 upper or lower?

(gunfire rattles)

- [Crew] B-17 out of control at three o'clock.

- [Crew] Come on you guys, get out of that plane, bail out.

There's one, he come out of the bomb bay.

- [Crew] Yeah, I see 'em.

- [Crew] There's the tail gunner coming out.

- [Crew] Watch out for fighters.

- [Crew] See any parachutes, Quinlan?

- [Crew] Flak at nine o'clock.

- [Crew] Eight men still in that B-17.

Come on, get out of there. - [Crew] Come on, bail out.

- [Crew] There's three more 'chutes.

- [Crew] Flak at 11 o'clock.

(airplane engines roar)

- [Crew] 109 at three o'clock.

- [Crew] Come on, you son of a bitch.

(gunfire rattles)

- [Crew] He got him, chief.

Look, he's bailing out.

- [Crew] Damn it, don't yell on that intercom.

- [Crew] Fighters, 10 o'clock.

- [Crew] Watch those two, they're coming in.

- [Crew] They're coming in.

- [Crew] Let's get that ball turret on them.

(gunfire rattles)

- [Crew] Save the ammunition as much as possible.

(gunfire rattles)

- [Crew] Watch that fighter coming in at three o'clock.

(airplane engine roars)

(gunfire rattles)

- [Crew] He's coming in on a half roll.

Pull her up, chief.

Pull her up, hurry.

(gunfire rattles)

- [Narrator] This Fortress is hurt,

engine on fire, losing airspeed and altitude,

drifting into the flak alone and helpless, a straggler.

In a minute, Nazi fighters will swarm in

like buzzards for the kill.

You can watch, but you can't go down to help.

You keep your formation.

(pensive music plays)

Here too, the mission is being flown,

none the less real for being

in the minds and hearts of these men behind.

Ask anybody who's been to a field in England

or anywhere else our bombers are based,

and he'll tell you that there's drama here too,

waiting to see who's coming back.

To watch them, you might not realize

how tense these ground crews are,

but they are tense

and plenty worried.

In Air Force talk, this waiting is known

as sweating out the mission.

These men know the flight plan.

Their watches told them when the bombers were

running into enemy flak,

when they were over the target,

when they left the enemy coast

and now their watches tell them

the bombers should be nearing the field.

Every ear strains for the first sound of the engines

and then somebody hears them

and somebody sees the first faint specks

in the distance sky.

(pensive music continues)

Every face turns to see

and count.

The watchers try to read the numbers on the ships.

These planes have priority to land first.

The colored flares mean wounded aboard.

In the hospital window,

these watching men know what that means.

They know what it feels like to lie

on a bouncing Fortress floor for hundreds of miles

through the frozen stratosphere,

in great pain,

with the other men in your crew fighting to keep you alive

until they hit the field.

The field,

home.

It'll be okay then

because there'll be medical care, the best,

as soon as the wheels of your plane stop rolling.

(engines hum)

(pensive music continues)

Head wound, concussion.

20 millimeter cannon shell exploded

in his radio compartment.

Shock, internal injuries.

He'll be all right, though.

Flak bursts scattered flying shrapnel.

He's full of steel splinters.

This pilot's leg is not a pretty sight.

Neither are the docks at Wilhelmshaven.

These men will all get the Purple Heart

and this man too, posthumously.

A transfusion right in the plane.

This gunner's too weak to be moved.

The new, life-giving blood flowing into his veins

might be the blood of a high school girl in Des Moines,

a miner in Alabama, a movie star in Hollywood,

or it might be your blood.

Whosever it is, thanks.

(airplane engines hum)

36 planes left this field this morning.

Now six more arrive.

That makes 20 home

and this one's 21,

more wounded aboard.

(airplane engine hums)

22, coming in with his left inboard engine dead.

(airplane engine hums)

23, with a feathered prop on his left outboard engine.

24, Southern Comfort, with a chunk of tail gone.

25, they flew home on their luck.

26,

not a scratch.

The control tower learns that two more landed

at a British field to the south,

one a crash landing, crew safe.

That makes 28.

29, a rough landing but her pilot's badly hurt.

It's a wonder he brought her back at all.

29 planes back so far,

29 out of 36.

Our losses were heavy,

but the enemy's were far heavier.

We destroyed a German aircraft factory,

a rail junction, submarine pens,

docks and harbor installations.

That's specific, known damage,

but who can tell the number of German torpedoes

that will not be fired,

the number of our convoys that will get through now,

the soldiers' and seamens' lives that will be saved

or the battles that will be won instead of lost

because of what these bombers and airmen did today?

(heroic music plays)

Pilot and tail gunner,

they can laugh now.

Fire on the inboard engine did this.

Flames streaked back and burned the stabilizer tool.

Another crew luck brought back.

(heroic music continues)

Here's Old Bill,

a pretty good airplane when it took off,

lost its nose,

lost its navigator,

bombardier wounded,

top turret gunner and pilot hit,

hydraulic system shot out, no brakes, no flaps,

but Old Bill came back.

Now among the returned crew members

talk flows like a river,

talking out every detail of the mission.

These are the faces of combat,

faces of Americans who have watched their comrades die,

faces that can never forget the enemy,

and they are in no mood to have their picture taken.

In the control tower, Colonel Ray, Group CO,

is still watching and waiting.

(heroic music plays)

And he spots the last flight, three more planes

and one of them is the ship everyone has been pulling for,

the Memphis Belle.

The last few miles of this trip have been a joy ride.

The strain is over.

They can leave their guns now.

Now they know they're going to go home,

to Spokane, Green Bay, Asheville,

Detroit, Chicago,

Fort Worth and Yonkers.

(airplane engine hums)

The Belle comes in for her landing

but first Morgan buzzes the field,

cuts the grass with a giant Fortress.

It's against the rules, but this is a special occasion.

(airplane engine roars)

(suspenseful music plays)

(braking wheels squeak)

(joyous music plays)

The wheels of the Memphis Belle

come back to the soil of England for the 25th time.

(joyous music continues)

(joyous music continues)

This is a day they will never forget.

Another great day soon after,

Brigadier General Hansell visited the field

and presented the Distinguished Flying Cross

to every member of the crew.

(car engine hums)

And then there was another day.

(military drum rolls)

(majestic music plays)

Their Majesties, the King and Queen of England.

(majestic music continues)

Johnny Quinlan never thought anything like this

would happen to him when he left Yonkers.

The ground crew were a little self-conscious

about being dressed in fatigues,

but the Queen thought they were very nice.

(military drum roll plays)

Finally, two more visitors came.

General Eaker, commanding the 8th Air Force,

and General Devers, US Commander of the European Theatre.

The Belle crew received them in flying clothes

as General Eaker read the order

for what he called their 26th and most important mission,

return to America to train new crews

and to tell the people what we're doing here,

to thank them for their help and support

and tell them to keep it up

so we can keep it up,

so we can bomb the enemy again and again and again

until he has had enough.

And then we can all come home.

(triumphant music plays)

(airplane engine roars)

(triumphant music continues)

(airplane engines roar)

To the men of the 8th Air Force

who are now flying deep into Germany,

bringing destruction to targets

almost 1,000 miles from their bases,

destruction like this,

and who have never once been turned back by the enemy,

to those men, this film is gratefully dedicated.

(serene music plays)

(serene music continues)

(serene music continues)

(serene music continues)

(serene music continues)

(no audio present)