Tuesday, February 14, 2012

A fascinating piece of aviation and military history


Thanks to an e-mail from a reader who wishes to remain anonymous, I was led to a 35-minute propaganda/documentary film called 'The Last Bomb'. It was shot in 1945 by US Army Air Force personnel, and shows a raid on Japan by B-29 Superfortress aircraft based in the Mariana Islands. It was nominated for an Academy Award in the same year, in the category 'Best Documentary Feature', but did not win the Oscar.

If you have time to watch it (as I said, it's 35 minutes long), I've embedded it below - or you can download it from its home page at the Internet Archive. It's in the public domain, so there are no copyright issues involved.







That's a remarkable piece of history on film. My sincere thanks to the reader who brought it to my attention. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.

Peter

5 comments:

Ed Jones said...

I spent my time in Guam in the early 70's. Computer and radar tech B52's. We launched 135 B52's in one 24 hour period, Dec 72. Each B52 cared 86 to 102 500lb bombs. Thank you for the link.

Don said...

Great documentary. My Dad was one of the P-51 pilots.

PapaMAS said...

Pretty cool. I have seen this before, but not in awhile. Thanks for posting it!

trailbee said...

This is an incredible piece of film. Thank you.

Larry said...

I remember flying to Guam on a Lockheed C-121 (Super Connie) as a small child in late 1965 (facing backwards, just aft of the starboard wing). California to Hawaii to Midway to Wake To Guam. And then circling for 45 minutes at the end as B-52s returning from Vietnam were landing (I think we had had good winds and arrived early). Saw a lot of B-52s and Navy EC-121 "Hurricane Hunters". I'm sure there were others, but those and the sky-blue (civilian) 707s from some forgotten airline.