Liberty Bomber Today

Posted by Strangely Freedom Add comments

Jul 092008

The BBC have a little video piece today about a B17 Flying Fortress, The Liberty Belle, which is visiting the UK, today. Within the piece is a link which I urge people to follow through to this page, http://www.libertyfoundation.org/history-photos.html

Please watch all the pictures through in the slide-show. Anyone with any trace of empathy for fellow sentient beings or a sense of history and how past events have shaped our world cannot fail to be moved.

As now, people arm themselves as best they can when they go killing. But there is something extra in the slideshow. I can feel the awe that the young men experienced high above the clouds. I can see the terror that must have existed inside those machines. There are miraculous shots of barely flyable airplanes so it’s amazing that anyone was alive to fly the things. We see the bombs drop and can sense the terror in the people below. We see bombs drop onto airplanes below.

It’s all absolutely awful and absolutely awesome at the same time.

Links below are about the Memphis Belle and the film(s) made about it:

http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/oldstuff/belle/belle.htm – the making of the film, 8 airplanes in one place!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1920520#back13 – neat factual article

http://www.memphisbelle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=35 – true B17 stories. There are tales just like these for Heinkel crew, Lancaster crews etc. It’s the way it is.