First movie in a long time I’ve committed to seeing no questions asked. The video in the post is also very interesting and is of course, nothing you’d ever hear or learn about in the public schools.
First movie in a long time I’ve committed to seeing no questions asked. The video in the post is also very interesting and is of course, nothing you’d ever hear or learn about in the public schools.
I hope they have George Beurling as a character.
George “Screwball” Buerling was an amazing pilot, but was killed on the way to Israel to join up in 1948,so I doubt he’ll be mentioned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Beurling
We learned about Buerling and a lot of other Canadian soldiers in grade school, wonder if they still teach those things that made Canada so great nowadays.
This is one movie I will definitely see.
I remember sitting in high school history classes watching ‘Canada at War’ documentaries. A complete history of the WW II war effort. So much of our society today have little or no idea of what our fathers did.
I highly doubt this movie ever sees the inside of a school or university. The one pilot said he went because Arabs were saying that Hitler had nothing on what they would do when they over ran Israel. One can only imagine what they would have done.
Buerling died in the company of three ex-Luftwaffe pilots who were also on their way to fight for Israel.
I noticed they showed Canada’s George “Buzz Beurling”. Beurling was Canada’s highest scoring Ace of WWII (33 kills I believe) and was arguably the greatest marksman to fly the Spitfire into combat. He was killed landing in Israel after accepting to fight. Beurling was the one painting the crosses on his spitfire at he beginning of the film.
Cappy, what’s with the “no questions asked” line?
Are you too busy?
What are the grounds for this a priori waiver?
And on the videos that you ultimately decide to ask questions prior to watching, can you quote top 3 of those questions please?
As a conservative FOI, It will be on my list. My DVD
library already has a number of these titles;
Sword of Gideon
Raid On Entebbe
Genesis
Operation Thunderbolt
Follow Me
Cast A Giant Shadow
Pre Israel:
Ben Hur (Including the B/W silent movie)
Masada
Buerling may have been a great Mustang driver, but the
best American Mustang Ace was no slouch either:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Preddy
The trailer did show Beurling. It was him painting tiny iron crosses on the fuselage of a fighter, probably the one he used to become an ace defending Malta.
Correction: Preddy was the best Mustang at the time
he was shot down and killed by an American M2 quad
AA gun at the Battle of the Bulge. After a slow start,
this guy was on fire, taking out 6 Nazi fighters in
one engagement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Preddy
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem reportedly complained to the Nazi leadership that they weren’t killing Jews fast enough.
That wouldn’t be surprising…
http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/beurling/beurling.htm
“October 14 was another of his flying days. Fifty fighters and eight bombers were heading toward the island. This time two whole squadrons of Spitfires scrambled. In the melee, Beurling snared one Ju-88 and two Bf-109s. But he forgot about his own tail, while going after his next victim. His Spit got peppered with cannon shells and plunged 16,000 feet down. Wounded in chest, leg and heel again.(he never even met Achilles!) Semiconscious, he managed to escape from burning cockpit and pulled the ripcord. Thus, he barely survived his fourth crash. Next two weeks he spent in hospital. He received another “gong”: Distinguished Service Order, and was also told to pack up and get ready to go home for a bond tour. He was extremely agitated by this, since he would do anything for flying. During the farewell party, he said that he would fly even for Germans, rather then be a prisoner or not being able to fly at all.”
…
Beurling continued to be rebellious and obstinate. He could not accept his place in a back row, where he wasn’t greatly appreciated. Thus, he showed-off. Beurling accepted a promotion to Flight-Lieutenant just because it made him responsible for the squadron’s Tiger Moth, and Godefroy became main target of his hostilities. He violated direct orders and using this trainer, he performed a lot of stunt flying. In result he was put under open arrest. Still, there were people willing to put-up with him. In November, “Buzz” got transferred to 412 Squadron, stationing in Biggin Hill. Massive fighter sweeps which the squadron flew, did not “turn his crank” and he continued to play a lone-wolf. In December he got his last (32?) victory; a Fw-190.
Sounds like a ‘kick ass’ kind of guy who often rubbed superior authorities the wrong way…which I kind of appreciate.
Ironic and hilarious, that the newly minted IAF were using surplus ME-109s and Luftwaffe uniforms in 1948, which makes me laugh as my grandfather was an officer in the Luftwaffe.
I think I will be pouring a long tall drink this evening…as everything comes full circle.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
The “Messerschmitt Bf109” variants the Israelis acquired were Czech-built examples with Junkers Jumo bomber engines. They were real beasts to fly and were nicknamed “Mezek”, meaning “Mule”, by the Czechs who weren’t sorry to see them sold to Israel.
Thanks–great video–heartwarming!!
Beurling was going to Israel, but the crash in which he died occurred at an airfield in Italy.
My uncle Bill Davis flew Typhoons out of Holland. He was killed on his to be last trip.A week or so before Hitler did himself in. Just 21, I heard an interview with him from over there on a CBC tape. He sounded like an old man. I have his log book here. Very dangerous planes to fly, but the Germans soiled their shorts when they heard them coming.
I want to see this film too, though I suspect that it will be about how Americans saved the world again. I think Beurling’s score was 29 over Malta and 2 over France.
My roommate purchased an MG34 machine-gun in 1991, just before Kim (spit) Campbell outlawed them. It had a very strange stamp on the receiver that he eventually discovered was an Israeli armourers stamp. It turns out that the Haganah smuggled ex-Wehrmacht arms and ammunition into the Palestine Mandate prior to independence so the new state of Israel was defended with weapons that the Nazis had used.
Good for my library.
Lest we forget.
Both my father and uncle were aircraft mechanics in England thru 1944-45. By the pictures it looks like Liberators. My father never talked about it to me other than one time. I cannot remember the circumstance but he was upset about something. He told me the worst job they had was cleaning body parts out of shot up airplanes that made it back from Germany. My uncle always got very upset with any Hollywood version of WW II. Always said it was never like that.
My mother’s two cousins, one with the 1st Canadian Scottish Regiment was killed in Holland in April, 1945 and the other (RCAF) who survived the war but went down flying a simply ferry mission from Germany back to England. They never found the plane.
None of these guys were 25 years old at the end of the war. In the case of my mother’s cousin with the Scottish Regiment he was the youngest ever battlefield commissioned Lt. at 21. He was with the Rocky Mtn Rangers at Adak, Aleutions to help the Americans liberate them from the Japanese, landed on D-Day and died at Wagenborgen, Holland.
I recall all this stuff because I have never considered myself half the man these men were who served. My generation has never been called the way they were. It is this isolation from that reality that makes today’s society no judge of what those who have to struggle and fight for their existence. This film honours those pilots who came when Israel needed them but their sacrifice will be recognized by Israelis far better than we could ever dream. Israel has stood and stands today for their right to live.
The main thing this reveals is the bizarre reality that while the hostile arab nations could readily, openly acquire whatever they could pay for, the Israelis only had access to used/obsolete/castoff/surplus military equipment, that they then had to smuggle in and refurbish.
The army of Trans-Jordan, the Arab Legion, was staffed with British officers….and had new British Centurian tanks….openly.
Even after 1967, new fast attack craft, built and paid for, had to be clandestinely spirited out of Cherbourg after France abruptly embargoed them.
The inconvenient truth, that the Soviets were Israel’s most important enablers is often ignored. Why else was Czechoslovakia a source of so much material? The Soviet intent was to destabilize the ME….
Kate,
I am flattered that you linked to my post at The Real Revo.
I also was fascinated by the story of the volunteer airmen who saved Israel in 1948. Their story needs to be told.3tka36
True, because he knew that Hitler’s actions would only swell the numbers of Jewish refugees seeking to enter Israel, thus out numbering the Arabs. The dumb haji praised Hitler, who sowed the very seeds of Israel’s eventual rebirth.
My kind of film.
Sasquatch, it even worse than that. Most of the equipment
the Israelis had were the were the most obsolete hand-me-
downs imaginable. How this rag-tag band of poorly armed
people managed beat back multiple Arab armies 3 or 4 times
always had me a bit puzzled.
When the Arabs took a town or village, they killed every
last man, woman, child and even slit the throats of babies
in their cribs. They made the conflict existential. To
have lost any one of these conflicts, would mean they would
all be dead. There were no POW camps. When a loss meant
everybody dies, the Israelis had to get just as barbaric as
their enemies.
Golda Meir once said that she could forgive them for waging
war against us, bit I could never forgive them for what they
made us do to win.