Watch The Royal Air Force at War The Unseen Films 1940 1944 online: Episode 1 1940

Bits of Our Aircraft Are Missing: This half-hour drama intended for the general public tries to be a rounded entertainment. It has music, nightclub scenes and an entire secondary plotline about the romances of R.A.F. pilots. But the message is that civilians need to stop hunting souvenirs from downed aircraft. A special investigator must track a flawed elevator hinge back to some school kids, to find out what's killing good pilots. The movie makes its point -- the little brats cough up a hardware store of stolen "bits", while the handsome pilot marries knowing he'll be paralyzed for life. Discipline and Morale: This training movie seems rather desperate. The way it keeps drilling the need for teamwork, cooperation, adherence to rules and following orders, you'd think that airfields were staffed with lazy layabouts and malingerers! Or perhaps it was shown to green recruits, country yokels who just have no idea of what military discipline is all about. Enemy Interrogation of Prisoners: A fascinating POW story. It's a teaching tool explaining why fliers must tell the enemy nothing should they be shot down. German intelligence interrogators -- looking and speaking like Englishmen and wearing really unconvincing German uniforms -- easily trick enlisted dopes and "sophisticated" officers alike into volunteering everything they want to know. No waterboarding is necessary. Some of it is very funny now, for all the right reasons. Gun Turret Drill (Fraser-Nash) and The Boulton Paul Turret: Watch these two epics and you'll be ready for a career as a ball turret gunner. Every detail of loading ammo and prepping the two kinds of turrets is covered. I have to say that just seeing the gunners cram themselves into what amounts to a small goldfish bowl gives me claustrophobic shivers. The likelihood of getting out of one of those things in an emergency feels very remote. That fact must have been a strong motivator to shoot the **** out of any plane that came anywhere near! Local Boy Makes Good: Crude animation with a sharp message, this was probably received with laughs and applause at the "aerodromes". A bomber pilot ignores instruments telling him to properly sequence fresh oxygen bottles to his crew's high-altitude masks, and everybody passes out! The little Oxy meter rebels, rips itself free of the instrument panel and fixes the damn problem on its own! Mission accomplished -- local boy makes good! Extra: R.A.F. Fighters Ever On Alert

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