Every sunday at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern here on American History tv. Wed like to hear from you. Follow us on twitter cspan history. Connect on facebook at facebook. Com cspan history where you can leave comments and check out our upcoming programs at our website, cspan. Org history. In the fourth of a fivepart look at hollywood directors who made films for the u. S. Government during world war ii we feature director William Wyler and thunderbolt, a 42minute documentary he made for the u. S. Army air force about a squadron of p47 fighter planes stationed in italy. Mr. Wyler also directed the popular world war ii documentary the Memphis Belle filled inside b17 flying fortress bombers on missions over nazi germany. First, to provide context, we speak to author and film historian mark harris. A new book out by author mark harris five came back a story of hollywood and the second world war, and among the directors featured is William Wyler. Mark harris is joining us to explain his book and this director during world war ii. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. Who was William Wyler . Whats his background . Of the five directors about whom i write, wyler was the only jew. He was an immigrant from a small town called malouse which was in a region of france that when he was a boy and a teenager had been at various times either french, or under german occupation. So when he came to hollywood and worked his way up and eventually before the war became known as one of the most sophisticated and meticulous and mature craftsmen in hollywood with movies like jezebel and the letter and the little foxes and dodsworth. He was also very conscious of his status as an immigrant and as a jew who was trying to help get dozens of family members and friends out of europe before the war crashed down. Let me follow up on that point because as an immigrant, you also featured frank capra in your book. His family coming to the u. S. From italy. Take us back to the mindset of the late 30s and early 40s and how this might have affected the psyche of directors like William Wyler. One thing that is really hard to recapture now is the idea that before the war, the relationship between hollywood and washington, d. C. And in fact between hollywood and much of america was very suspicious. There were many isolationists in america and in fact in congress, and in the government. There were certainly many antisemites in america, and there was a considerable overlap between isolationism and antisemitism, although there were certainly isolationists who were not antisemites and a lot that were. And the way that played out was this suspicion that this kind of grubby, seedy business where there was mob infiltration of the unions, where most of the men who ran these studios were first or Second Generation immigrants. Most of them were jewish. There was a suspicion that, you know, these people were not real americans. That they were fomenting an appetite for war that they were creating, essentially interventionist propaganda in their entertainment movies with an eye toward dragging america into a war to protect their financial interests and to protect their relatives in the old country. Thats the level of kind of paranoia and suspicion and contempt with which many in hollywood were viewed by many in america and by many in congress. And the heat was particularly on people like wyler, who were jewish and constantly under pressure to assert their american identity above all. You know, they would get pressured by wyler got pressured by Warner Brothers at one point to make a contribution to the Hollywood Community chest, a local charity, and he said, i cant. All of my money is tied up right now in trying to get people out of europe and warner basically said, i sympathize, but i dont care. Its really important for us to show that we care about, you know, not just our relatives but our community here. So there was great pressure to assimilate, great pressure to be american. Great pressure to mute ones jewishness or mute ones foreignness. In terms of the timeline of his life, he became a u. S. Citizen, as you pointed out, back in 1928. He then served as a major in the u. S. Army air forces between 1942 and 1945. And put together three documentaries, including the 1947 film thunderbolt. Explain. Well, wyler had made a really powerful documentary called the Memphis Belle, the story of a flying fortress, which was the first major wartime documentary to show what it was like to fly missions in a bomber over france and over occupied germany. And unlike many documentaries from the war, there was no restaging in this. Wyler and his men trained to fly. They went over to europe. They flew five missions. They were shot at. And all of that commitment led to this documentary, which was made with great attention to various military. He really wanted to create a kind of you are there experience. In a running battle one of the most important instruments is the interphone. Theres four of them. 1 00 high. Theyre coming around. Watch them. Coming in. Trouble out at 2 00, watch him. An engine on fire. Out of control, 3 00. Come on, you guys, get out of that plane. Bail out. Theres one. He came out of the bomb bay. I see him. Theres a tail gunner coming out. Watch out for a fighter. Keep your eye on him, bill. See any parachutes . 9 00. Su sr that movie and the acclaim for it led to wyler wanting to make a different movie about another kind of bomber called thunderbolt. And it was during the filming of extra footage for thunderbolt a little more footage that wyler wanted to get of the italian coastline that he experienced this real personal tragedy, which is that he got out of the plane and had gone deaf in the air. You know, wyler was shooting in unpressurized cabins. It was freezing cold up in the air. The noise from the engines was, you know, ear drum shattering. And he finally ultimately lost his hearing, and with that, literally overnight, his army service was over in this very unexpected way. So the completion of thunderbolt became terribly important to him, even though by the time he was recovered enough to finish the movie, the war was over and there was simply no use for this kind of propaganda film anymore about u. S. Military might. So thats why you have the anomaly of a movie like thunderbolt which was intended for war time consumption, not being shown until 1947. And then, even then, being barely seen. When wyler finished his print and took it to washington and showed it to army brats, a general stood up after the screening and said, willy, what is this movie for . And he really had no answer because the timeline of world war ii had just outraced him. It is a 42minute film. And its titled thunderbolt from director William Wyler. Mark harris, thanks for being with us. Now a chance to see the film in its entirety. This picture was photographed in combat zones by cameramen of the Mediterranean Allied Air forces and by pilots of the 12th air force who, during missions against the enemy, operated automatic cameras in their plane. Behind the pilot, shooting forward and back. Under the wing. In the wing. Timed with the guns. In the wheel well. In the instrument panel. Photographing the pilot himself. The commanding counter of the united state the commanding general of the United States air force is general carl spotts has asked me to tell you something about this picture. I dont think i can do any better than just to read from his telegram to me. Thunderbolt was made in 1944. Ancient history. It was made about one Fighter Bomber group in the italian campaign. It happens to be an american group. The same story could well be told of the Royal Air Force groups which participated so gallantly in the same air offensive. As a matter of fact, the story belongs to all men who fought for freedom and did it a long way from home. Signed spotts. Thank you. To the italian man in the street, or whats left of the street, this is the fulfillment of a promise. The promise of the fascists to build a 20th century roman empire conceived in tyranny and dedicated to the proposition that some men were meant to be slaves of other men. Special victims were the children. They saw things not meant for childrens eyes. From the air, italy is more remote. The airmen never sees the face of the people, only the face of the country. From the air, you look down at the mountains. Look down and wonder how our men on the ground ever got through. Mountains and rivers. A volcano. A lot of american blood in that one. Natural barriers made other campaigns tough, too. Exhausted hannibals elephants, caesars legions. For the air men, the ground war is remote. The only war you really understand is the air war. You can see a pattern to it. Lots of the country never been touched. Little towns that walked the ridges, like tightrope artists to keep from falling off. This one didnt matter. When something did matter, that was another story. This is how we changed the face of italy from the air. They boasted italian trains ran on time. Not these. This is what we did to the face of italy. Theres a story behind why we did it and how we did it. The story starts on an island 60 miles off italys coast. The island of corsica. Corsica, rugged, primitive, mountainous, malaria. Here, they still remember a local boy who put corsica on the map. 150 years ago. This island part of france is liberated by the french in september 43. But you can still find a few germans left by the wayside where they fell in the shadow of our air drones. Alto air base. Sunday morning. Here, sunday is like monday, and monday is like every other day in the week. A working day. The engines wake you at dawn. In your sack, you can hear the crew chiefs preflighting their planes. Getting them ready for the days missions. This is how you live when youre an airplane driver, fighting an air war. 20 minutes from the germans in italy. Youre used to it. You have been washing out of your helmet since july of 42. And the holy land to africa, across the desert, egypt, to libya and tunisia. 1500 miles. You moved when the infantry moved. Sicily and italy. 58 moves in two years. Now, corsica. This is the best year you ever had, call it the country club. When you talk about air power, this is what you mean. You mean spanky manda, major francis s. Manda of mexico, squadron operations officer. Not a desk job. Over 170 missions working for 200. Hes 22. You mean captain Howard Hickok of ames, iowa. Hes your flight leader. 30 days in the states, time to get married and come back. Hes 23. Or in his italian generals trailer gil wyman. Louisville, kentucky, hardly old enough to vote, but hes boss of a squadron. He signed his letters gilbert o. Wyman, Lieutenant Colonel air corps, commander, the old man. Hes 24. Sunday morning. For the 57th fighter group, three squadrons, 1,000 men, another day begins at alto air base. You can close your eyes and see it this way. Spread out like a diagram. Home sweet home for some time. Good steel map runway, 150 x 6,000 feet. Tower call sign is break neck. Lots of jokes about that. We share the view with a french fighter group. Dont speak the same language, but we fly the same airplane against the same enemy. Each lost men yesterday. We get along. Group commander Lieutenant Colonel archie j. Knight, west point, 1940. Hes 27. First Mission Today is a 65 squadron show. Briefing right after breakfast. Informal, short, to the point. Park yourself on a bomb crate and get your escape kit. Enemy money, instructions to get you back through the lines, just in case. The s2 tells you about your target. He doesnt have to draw it for you. You do this every day, sometimes two or three times a day. Gil wyman will lead the show. So he lays out the job. Thats the nurses hat. His girls. Wears it for luck. You need all you can get. The brass upstairs plans the war. They want something done. They pick up the phone. You do it. Dont always know why they send you out on a mission, but always clear. But you know theres a reason, a good one. Today, the missions are going out because in italy our armies have been stopped, cold, at the gustav line across the narrowest and most mountainous part of the peninsula. U. S. Fit bombing, british abombing, stopped for five months. At anvio, 100,000 men sweating it out. We couldnt move. Stalemated. March 15th, we bombed cassino, our immediate objective. Good job of bombing. Didnt work. Our infantry didnt advance. It was the wrong use of air power. Wrong because we were not taking advantage of the airplanes greatest asset, its ability to get behind the enemy. Thats what the air planners wanted to do, get behind him. Lieutenant general acre commanding all the air in the mediterranean, british, french, and american. Major general john k. Cannon, uncle joe, commanding the 12th air force, and Brigadier General gordon p. Civil, 12th tactical command. The brass upstairs who run the air war. They said lets not hit them here. Lets hit him here. Lets isolate the battlefield. Lets weaken the entire german front. By depriving it of supplies, fuel, food, ammunition, reinforcements. They call the plan operation strangle. This is what we want to do with airplanes. How . A lot of railroads in italy. This is the enemy. Keep the trains from getting through. A lot of rivers in italy and over 700 major bridges. We figured if a train came to one and it wasnt there, it would be kind of tough to get across. Medium bombers got many of the important ones, but bridges are long, narrow targets, difficult to hit and destroy. Took a lot of trips, bombs, planes, men. We started to use a special weapon, a Fighter Bomber, the p47 thunderbolt. One engine, one man. One bomb on each wing. Extra fuel tanks for range. 65s crew chief taxi from the dispersal point to the end of the runway. Light up the squadron. All the pilots have to do is climb in and take them away. If youre a crew chief, you get your own p47. Sometimes you think of it as your personal airplane. But pilots are lended to every day. You let him fly around in it and you expect him to bring it back in good condition. No bullet holes or flak holes. After youve been lending your airplane to one pilot for a long time, you get attached to him, too. If youre a pilot, no matter what your rank or how many hours youve had, what counts here is the combat flying youve done. Unless youve done plenty, youre a beginner. Youre called a sprog and you remain a sprog until youre wise to the tricks of the trade. After you have put a few missions behind you, you become a sport. And then with plenty of action, 50 or 60 missions, if youre still around, youre promoted. You become an old sport. A veteran. The big shots like gil wyman are called wheels. No one knows exactly why. This fellows a wheel, too. Says so on his plane. Major richard hunziger of tucson, arizona, got 179 missions. Your crew chief cant go along, so you always like to tell them what youre going to do. Got a triple threat Mission Today. Each sections going after a bridge. Ill come in on a course of about 40 degrees. Same old thing. Go out there and dodge around. Dive bomb out of the lefthand turn about and carry the bombs right on down. Were flying top cover on the other two sections while they bomb and then we go in ourselves. Weather is supposed to be taboo so maybe well have a good show. All set to go. But you dont. You wait. You wait for five minutes. Thats the way its planned. Time to settle down. Relax. Youll be busy later. So if youve got any thinking to do, and who hasnt . Now is the time to do it. Here, lay it back. Takeoff is always rough. Thunderbolts are heavy airplanes. Besides, youve decorated it like a christmas tree. Belly tank, rockets, guns. 500pound bombs. Cameras. Hello, break neck. Clear to take the runway for a takeoff, over . Roger leader from break neck youre clear number one to take off. Roger break neck, thank you. The mile of steel runway would shrink to nothing under you. Halfway down, by the tower, youll be committed. That means you cant slam on the brakes and stop. Once youre committed, you usually go up. First pair, wyman and gustafson. First pair off. Second pair taxis out. Goss and burgess. Made it okay. Manda and richardson. Smith and atwood. Come on. Get her up. Hickok and mauro. Last pair. Welby and hunziker. The squadron is airborne. Over corsica, then out to sea. On the deck. 60 miles east, to italy. Flying from corsica, you go only 60 miles and youre 150 miles behind the german front. Turn again at that castle. Now youre heading north. Into the mountains. Leader section. Red section. Black section. Formation flying. A game of follow the leader. The squadron leader. He navigates. Makes the decisions. Doesnt tell you what to do. Does it. You follow. Wing tip to wing tip. He turns. You turn. He climbs. You climb. Climbing still to 10,000. Through the clouds. Getting close. Start looking for the target. Stuck down there in one of those ravines. All look alike. Wingman, hes back. Keep the formations spread out. Theres a checkpoint. That road, follow it down to the river. The first bridge should be down there somewhere. There it is. Pass over it. Come back and attack from the opposite direction. One of the tricks youve learned. Leader section goes into loose string formation. One plane behind the other. Then wyman peels off. The rest of the section follows at twosecond intervals. Last man goes in. No bomb site of the p47. Pilot does his own aiming. Bomb bursts from the planes ahead. A couple of misses. A direct hit. Hope your aim is good. Drop your bombs. Pull out. They black you out for a second. Blood drains from your head, but youre young. It comes back fast. Youre all right now. Leader section reforms. Top cover. Watch his red section bomb. A miss. Another miss. A hit. Black section goes down. Straddle the target. This should do the trick. No more bombs. Still got plenty of gas, plenty of ammo. Go on the prowl. Ease down on the deck. See what you can find. Railroad tracks. Follow the tracks. Not a bad way to find a train. You spot one. Kick her over. Give it a few squirts. Might kill somebody. Bust the locomotive first. Train cant move now. Lets see whats in those boxcars. 12 of you. Youll all crisscross in. Everybody takes a few passes. Try the cars one at a time. Might be Something Interesting in them. Usually is. Got it burning nicely now. Take another pass for luck. Strafing spreads the squadron over the sky. Every man his own general. Looks like were out of trains. Lighthouse out there. Wonder if ive got any ammo left. Yep. Radio station. Blow out a few tubes. Somebody in that field. Dont know who they are. No friends of mine. See any vehicles parked in that farmyard. More in back. Must be a headquarters. Houses around here look kind of suspicious. Might be something in them. Nothing in that one. Nothing in that one. Could be wrong, but uhoh, what do you know . Back at alto, no one is sweating out 65 squadron. 66 is taking off. No one will sweat them out, either. Too many missions. Nine for today. When you dont fly, youve got things to do, try to make some sort of life for yourself. In trying, you improvise an American Community. Step off the field, youre in corsica. Step back on, youre in america. This is part of the war, too. The endless detail of living. The dust is a problem. Dust is good for the laundry business. Hand laundry. Branches everywhere. Community laundry. Threeday service. And for the rugged individualist, water supply, pump, heating unit, washing machine. The sergeant gives you salaries. Hes keeping his hand in. The barber shop. And for the next customer, always something to read. Never more than a year old. Bus line, lunch time special. And for the intellectually minded, its time for the most serious things like practicing your yoyo. If theres anything you want, dont ask for it. Build it. Build as though youll be here forever, knowing you may get orders to move tomorrow. 66 found this canyon, made it their living area. Nobody said they couldnt. Nobody says you cant have a house. Build it. Nobody says your squadron cant have a beach club. Build one. Nobody says you cant dam up a river and make a swimming hole. This American Community has everything. When you come off your shift and somebody else is carrying the ball, you try to relax, enjoy yourself. In danger a couple hours a day. The rest of the time, youre out of it. Beach clubs a busy place. So is the mediterranean. Mussolini once called it our sea. But that was yesterday. The yachtsman, a wind tank and a few odds and ends make quite a boat. The crew chiefs scrounge parts. Scrounge is polite for steal. Scrounging from wrecked planes, banged up italian cars, old parachutes for sails. They use only the bestquality junk. Sometimes when you can get the px ration of beer, you drink it. Then you look like this. Alto is the best deal you ever had. The country club. A lot of land, a lot of sun. Your American Community has everything. Except the things you really want. There are times you would rather be flying than waiting around, killing time. Because when youre flying, you dont have that feeling of the day, a week, and months slipping by. Slipping by and leaving you standing still. These are your years. Years to get started, find yourself, your job, profession, get married, kids, home of your own. These are the years that count. So you have your pets, to give and receive affection. ] 7n in return for affection, crations. As always in affairs of the heart, some have peculiar tastes. 66 squadron heading out. 65 squadron heading home. A meeting in the air comes and goes fast. 65 leader section. One plane light. When you reformed after strafing you noticed it. Nobody saw it happen. Maybe he spun in, maybe he bailed out. You will think about it later. Now youre waiting for that first sight of home. Thats the air base. Thats bovinca. Youre on your own street. Altos first turn to the left, three fields down. Keep your formation tight. When you fly over those other outfits, you want to look good, show them how its done. Alto, home. You come in low and peel up. You peel up to reduce speed, space the planes 20 seconds apart for landing. Second and third flights go on past the field. Theyll circle back when the first flight is down. Drop your gear. Second flight peels up. Third flight will circle again. This is all the flying the ground crews see. You like to give them a kick. Sometimes youre tired, land them rough. Its embarrassing. The colonels not happy about the flak holes. New airplane. His crew chief will be mighty sore. And how will you explain this away . Then after the interrogation, you relax. Grab off some doughnuts and coffee. Jive with the red cross girl who meets every mission and fly the show all over again on the ground. Wyman goes back to work, at being a colonel. Missing in action report to sign. A telegram from the War Department has to start somewhere. By midapril, every rail line in italy was blocked. We drew a line of interdiction across the country. No train could move south of it. South of it, the Railroad System was dead. But the german had to keep the supplies moving, still had highways. He took to the roads so we took to the roads. This is what the germans fear most. We dont blame them. This is the way ronald got it. He isnt the only one. When you clobber a highway, you burn plenty of ammo. Cyclic rate of fire, 800 rounds a minute. Youve got eight guns, 106 bullets a second. Rockets. Those arent just trucks and germans. Youre stopping ammunition before its fired on the fifth army front. And youre doing it 200 miles behind that front. In the weeks that followed from corsica to italy was like a trip to the corner drugstore. You could do it in your sleep. We averaged eight, Nine Missions a day at the 57th. The french flew about as many. Lafayette. At 324, the 86th over in italy. The 79th next door. It was good to look up and watch them go by. But there were other things. There were those pillars of smoke. Never knew when you would see one. Thats a wreck. A p47 cooking, and theres a man in it. When they hit like this, theres nothing to do but let them burn and stay clear of the exploding ammo. Keep on landing. You have to. No place to park up there. Why did it happen . Engine cut out for a second. 200 yards from the runway. 200 yards from home. Flak damage might have caused it. Youll never know for sure. All you know is the sum of war is expensive. You wish that people back home could at least see it. We kept up the pressure. And by the beginning of may, the roads were practically closed. If one man on a motorcycle appeared on a highway by day, he was a dead pitcher. The german took to the sea. Two months after we started, the strangle was on. The germans had barely enough supplies for two weeks. Thats when our Ground Forces attacked. Allied troops took cassino. We linked up with a beach head at anzio and in three weeks were in rome. The men on the ground push north. And as they moved up, they saw what had been done to help them. 10,000 enemy vehicles destroyed or damaged. In every town they took, they mark the yard. How many german tanks went out of business because of the gasoline these trains never carried . They advanced, and they saw the bridges. How many german shells were never fired because they couldnt get across the river . The Ground Forces exploited their breakthrough. In plain language, they sought and killed germans. And they ate up the country, almost 250 miles in one nonstop offensive. The Ground Forces won a battle, but they still had a war to fight, and you were still flying missions. Up from first light to last light. Only the coming of darkness would stop you. Only the coming of darkness would bring the last missions home to alto. Then the long work day would end. Some men hit the sack early. And some spend another quiet evening at the club, colonel wymans country club for airplane drivers. Have a good time stay in bed till half past nine get around at colonel wymans country club yo ho ho you and me how i love thee from director William Wyler, the film released in 1947 titled thunderbolt. Joining us from new york is author mark harris. As we look at the work of William Wyler and four other leading directors from world war ii, as the war came to an end, what was next for director wyler . Well, wyler of the five directors i wrote about, was the only one to come back as a disabled veteran. He received a disability check for the rest of his life. Something he was very proud of. He poured all of his experience into what i think still stands as a true american masterpiece and the greatest movie about the aftermath of the war, which is the best years of our lives. The best years of our lives is the story of three soldiers who are coming home. Different classes, different ages, different ranks within the war. And its about their adjustment to an america that had gone on without them. The extraordinary thing about this movie is that wyler put himself with the aid of his really brilliant screen writer Robert Sherwood into all three of these characters. One of the men was like wyler, a family man, who was middle aged and had left cushy and comfortable circumstances and was now coming back to a wife and children that he really didnt know that well anymore. And trying to find his place back in his comfortable world. Another of the soldiers was very angry, had seen horrible things in the war, and came back really not knowing what he was going to do. That tapped into the fact that wyler had a temper that sometimes got the better of him, and in fact, was almost courtmartialed during the war for throwing a punch at an antisemitic civilian. And the third character in the movie, a young veteran who had hooks for hands, who had lost both of his hands during the war, an actor named Harold Russell played him, who himself was a veteran who had lost both hands during the war. And of course, wyler certainly identified with russell because he, too, was disabled. And uncertain about how he would regain his place and his life. And you know, its very hard to convey now what a seismic impact the best years of our lives had. This was the dawn of a new age of social realism in american movies when american movies started dealing in a more headon fashion with the daytoday realities of what people were going through, whether it was alcoholism or nervous breakdowns or in this case, something that all of america was exposed to, which was the readjustment issues faced by returning veterans and faced by the people they were returning to. By the end of its run, the movie, which swept the Academy Awards the year it came out, was, you know, the third or fourth highest grossing movie in hollywood history. And wyler went on to an extraordinarily distinguished career throughout the 1950s and 60s making movies like the