Wings.Of.War.S01E01.Bombers
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00:00For over a hundred years, battles have raged in the air for command of the skies.
00:09If you don't have air supremacy, you're in trouble.
00:13Since its earliest beginnings in World War I, the airplane is the supreme weapon of the
00:18armed forces.
00:19This was a real battle for civilization, for humanity.
00:24It revolutionized battle and changed the ways war was fought and won.
00:28The F-117 has obviously changed how we design aircraft and air campaigns.
00:34War drove innovation in the skies.
00:36What we hear from the Air Force is, when the F-35 wasn't there, all others died.
00:41When the F-35 was there, they reigned supreme.
00:44Aircraft bred a new kind of hero.
00:46The fate of entire nations depended on the bravery of a handful of men.
00:51An appreciation of the extent to which young men were willing to put their lives on the
00:55line for an ideal is something we need to remember more often than we do.
01:00In this episode, a new kind of warfare is unleashed.
01:06Blitzkrieg that pulverizes entire cities in hours.
01:11They bombed and cleared the way for the ground units.
01:15Britain takes the fight to Germany's towns and factories in a raid on its dams.
01:20It was a remarkable technical achievement.
01:24The American's B-17 Flying Fortress helps turn the tide of war against formidable odds.
01:30As romantic as that period might be, it was a very dangerous, treacherous mission.
01:36And finally, at the height of the Cold War between the superpowers, the B-52 Stratofortress,
01:43with its massive payload, goes toe-to-toe in a global face-off.
01:47We're talking about tens of thousands of pounds of bombs dropping in an area.
02:18Today, in any battle, bombers like the iconic B-52 are typically in the vanguard of every
02:28major military operation and critical to any warfighting strategy.
02:40The most famous story of all time involving bombers revolves around a daring mission into
02:46the heart of Germany.
02:48Operation Chastise, also known as the Dam Busters Raid.
02:56Operation Chastise was an operation to attack the water supply for Ruhr industry in Germany.
03:03The intention was to breach the dams, the water would all disappear and German industry
03:10would be brought to a halt for a number of months.
03:13The dams were so important because they regulated inland shipping and provided the rivers and
03:19canals with enough water for all transports.
03:29Leading the British charge, the Avro Lancaster.
03:34Capable of carrying 22,000 pounds of munitions, it had the largest payload of any World War
03:40II bomber.
03:43Powered by four Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, the Lancaster could fly for nearly 2,000 miles
03:48without refueling.
03:50More than enough range to strike at the heart of Germany with devastating force.
04:00Over 7,000 Lancasters were built.
04:03They and their brave crews distinguished themselves, flying over 150,000 sorties during the course
04:11of the Second World War.
04:14German cities were being bombed night after night by the RAF, sending very large numbers
04:17of bombers in a long bomber stream, hitting the city centre with incendiaries, intended
04:22to do a very wide amount of damage to the central residential areas.
04:27A fleet of 19 Lancaster bombers were selected and a new squadron was formed to carry out
04:33the Dam Busters Raid.
04:39A series of three dams were identified as the primary targets, Moner, Eder and Sorper.
04:46The plan for Operation Chastise was clearly a risky one, a very small number of aircraft
04:51attacking well-defended targets at night.
04:57The chief obstacle was the famous cannon of the line.
05:00This was a line of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, night fighter stations and radar, which was
05:06set up right across northern Germany and the northern coast of Belgium and France.
05:14The dams were also heavily defended.
05:17German anti-aircraft batteries were stationed all around.
05:21If they did make it to the dams, in order to complete their mission, the bombs they
05:26dropped somehow needed to circumvent the torpedo nets underwater.
05:35The construction of the dams themselves made them virtually impregnable.
05:41The first dam, Moner, was 850 yards long, 120 feet tall, 100 feet thick at the base
05:51and 25 feet at the top, and just for good measure, made of granite masonry.
05:56There's no doubt that if they'd attacked the dams with regular bombs from a great height,
06:02the chances of hitting them were slight.
06:08They needed a bomb they could guide and drop at the base of the wall.
06:12It would then sink, blow up at depth underwater and spark a pressure wave that would breach
06:18the wall.
06:21What they needed in short was a smart bomb, and that didn't exist in 1943.
06:30The Allies' answer?
06:32The bouncing bomb.
06:34This ingenious invention was the brainchild of British engineer and explosives expert
06:39Barnes Wallace.
06:42Barnes Wallace's bouncing bomb really was an extraordinary invention, it was a bit like
06:48playing ducks and drakes where you throw a stone on the waves and hope that you'll see
06:51it bounce once, twice, three times.
06:53That's really what the bouncing bomb did.
06:56Wallace developed the idea, experimenting by bouncing marbles across a water tub in
07:01his back garden.
07:03He found that spinning the marble or bomb backwards as it was released was the best
07:08way to make it skim or bounce over water.
07:13The British now had a bomb that could bounce.
07:17But that was just half the battle.
07:19To hit the retaining walls and blow the dam wide open, the Lancasters' approach run
07:25had to be spot on.
07:27The bouncing bomb had to be dropped with extraordinary accuracy.
07:31You had to fly in over the water at just the right level and release the bomb at exactly
07:36the right moment so that it would bounce the number of times it needed to bounce before
07:39it reached the dam.
07:41They had to practice this again and again and again.
07:45For the bomb to bounce, strike and explode at exactly the right spot, the pilot has to
07:51first fly level at precisely 60 feet.
07:55No more, no less.
07:58To get the exact height, they fixed two spotlights to the undercarriage, one on the nose and
08:04one at the rear.
08:06When the two beams aligned and touched the water, they knew they were exactly 60 feet
08:11high.
08:14The new bomb also required its own aiming device that used triangulation to target the
08:19dam.
08:21As the plane approaches the twin towers of the dam, the bombardier waits until they're
08:26in the crosshairs' sights.
08:28Then the bouncing bomb is released.
08:31So all they had to do was keep the beams aligned, fly straight at precisely 232mph, aim, drop
08:39the bouncing bomb and hope for the best.
08:50Late March 1943, the new squadron was ready for the raid.
08:55It was led by 24-year-old Wing Commander Guy Gibson.
09:00Guy Gibson had a fine reputation as a bomber pilot.
09:03He was not all that popular with his men.
09:06He could be quite tough with them, but everybody realized he had a great deal of experience
09:11and if anybody was going to be chosen, he was almost certainly the right one.
09:21On May 16th 1943, Operation Chastise was launched.
09:27At 9.28pm, the squadron of 19 Lancaster bombers and 133 airmen took off in full moonlight
09:36to fulfil their mission.
09:40They crossed the coast into Holland and headed towards the Rhine River and Germany's Ruhr
09:45Valley.
09:49Guy Gibson was flying in the first wave.
09:55As Gibson and his young crew approached the dams, they came under fierce fire.
09:59It's a lunar dam where the Germans have a strong flag and this was a difficult problem
10:04for the Royal Air Force.
10:05The difficult thing for this small unit was it had to get through without being shot down,
10:14get to its target and make its way back.
10:18Of the 19 Lancasters that had left England, only 11 were in position to attack the dams.
10:25At this point the men had no idea what had happened to the other crews.
10:32The chances of a successful mission were now dwindling.
10:37With the dam looming large and under withering flak, Gibson commits to the bomb run.
10:45On May 16th 1943, the squadron of Lancaster bombers sent to destroy the German dams in
11:00the Ruhr Valley was under heavy anti-aircraft fire.
11:09At 12.28am, Gibson commits his crew to the final bomb run on Mona Dam.
11:31The remaining aircraft, still to drop their bombs, then attacked the Eder Dam, which finally
11:37collapsed at 1.52am.
11:40Meanwhile, aircraft from the other two waves bombed the Sorper.
11:45It remained intact.
11:48But the damage was done.
11:49Two out of three dams had been breached and 330 million tons of water was unleashed, causing
11:58flooding for about 50 miles across the Ruhr Valley.
12:12The 19 Lancasters set off, in the end only 11 aircraft attacked the dams.
12:16The others crashed or turned back or were shot down.
12:18And those 11 aircraft were able to achieve a remarkable amount, they breached two dams
12:23despite all the difficulties.
12:32Of the 133 aircrew that took part, three became prisoners of war and 53 men were killed.
12:44Considering the many odds that 617 squadron faced, actually getting there, dropping the
12:49bomb in the right place, breaching those two dams, was a remarkable technical achievement.
12:57With the dams breached, German industry ground to a halt in the Ruhr Valley and almost 1,300
13:03were killed in the resulting flooding.
13:06But the attack on the dams didn't slow Germany down for long.
13:13The Germans managed to repair both dams within just four months.
13:17So they could go on supplying water and energy.
13:21The greatest success for the British was the success of the propaganda, because it was
13:26an avid masterpiece, which was very good for the moral in England.
13:35For a nation under siege, the Dambusters raid was a tonic.
13:39It proved that bombing your enemy with strategic precision could have huge impact in battle.
13:47But it wasn't a new idea.
13:51The concept of dropping munitions on your enemy from above took hold in World War I.
13:59However, at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, aircraft were not considered suitable
14:06for the military.
14:08There were substantial numbers of generals, in fact, later Allied Commander-in-Chief General
14:15Ferdinand Foch, when asked just before the war what was the worth of aviation, he said
14:22c'est zéro, it's zero, in other words, he didn't even take it seriously.
14:28At the beginning of any conflict, commanders fight using the tactics from the last war.
14:34And that was especially true in World War I.
14:38Then both sides were still using horse and cavalry.
14:43Some of the more enlightened commanders realized that once the war settled into trenches, cavalry
14:49were useless for reconnaissance.
14:51The airplane was the one vehicle they had left to be able to do reconnaissance and artillery observation.
15:01Once they were up there and they could see these targets, it was only a matter of time
15:06before it was decided that, well, they might as well arm them with bombs and bomb the targets directly.
15:12As the war continues, what you see is that both sides begin to develop airplanes that
15:19are specifically designed for aerial fighting and for bombing.
15:25Necessity being the mother of invention, both sides of the conflict adapted existing aircraft
15:31to create their own fleet of bombers.
15:36The French developed a very high-altitude bomber version, it was the Breguet 14.
15:45Breguet's design first flew in November 1916.
15:50The first mass-produced aircraft to have a metal frame, it was much lighter than wood-framed aircraft.
15:57Relatively fast and agile, the Breguet 14 was able to outrun many of the fighters of the day.
16:04The Breguet 14 was eagerly taken up by the French and United States Army Air Service.
16:10The airplane is now truly a weapon of war.
16:17By 1918, strategic bombing entered the lexicon of aerial warfare, and the bomber was here to stay.
16:27It had a massive influence on the way wars were fought.
16:30Tactically, on the battlefield, it meant that you could switch aircraft from one front to another sector very quickly that was under threat.
16:39It also extended the range of artillery, they could bomb targets beyond the range of artillery.
16:44In World War I, the Germans had dropped over 300 tons of bombs and killed nearly 1,500 civilians.
16:52The British, in comparison, dropped 600 tons, twice as much as the enemy.
17:01Signed in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles ended World War I and was meant to ensure peace in Europe.
17:12But the terms were seen as unjust by Hitler.
17:16In 1935, Germany broke its edict and rapidly rearmed its military.
17:24The way wars were fought was about to change dramatically,
17:27with the invention of a new type of bomber that allowed Germany to create new battle tactics to match.
17:34The Junkers Ju 87, also known as the Stuka.
17:44Stuka translated in English, it means dive bomber, and the German word is Sturzkampfbomber, and the short word is Stuka.
17:54A dive bomber is an aircraft that is not flying straight and then dropping a bomb.
17:59This is a kind of bomber that carries a bomb and it dives with the bomb to allow the pilot to hit a target very exactly.
18:13It was its extraordinary dive capabilities that made the Stuka a unique threat in the combat zone.
18:20At its optimum cruising altitude of 15,000 feet, the pilot located his target through a bombsite window on the cockpit floor.
18:31Then the pilot moved a lever to the rear that activated the dive brakes.
18:36The plane rolled 180 degrees, automatically sending it into a nosedive.
18:42At a 60 to 90 degree angle, the pilot kept the Stuka at a constant speed between 310 and 375 miles per hour.
18:52Then, at the right moment, the bomb was released.
19:01Stukas were not only deadly, hard to shoot down and laden with bombs, they trumpeted their presence with a spine-chilling scream.
19:13This aircraft was equipped with a siren called the Gericho trumpet.
19:20This equipment had absolutely no military use, it was only made for terror reasons.
19:31Before the onset of World War II, Germany had about 300 of these planes built, and they needed to test them out.
19:42General Francisco Franco was fighting for fascist rule in Spain, and the German National Socialist Party was taking control with the help of the German Führer.
19:54When the Spanish Civil War erupted in 1936, Hitler almost immediately sent his Luftwaffe to help Franco in Spain.
20:04On April the 26th, 1937, the Luftwaffe went into action in the skies above the small town of Guernica, in the Basque region of Spain.
20:15They just bombed small houses, just to look if it is working or not.
20:21Spearheaded by German bombers, the relentless campaign over the small Spanish town of Guernica lasted three hours.
20:34By some estimates, as many as 300 civilians were killed.
20:43The Luftwaffe left nothing in their wake.
20:47The town was reduced to rubble.
20:52For the man in charge of the air force, German World War I flying ace Hermann Goering, Spain was proof, at the dawn of World War II, that the Luftwaffe was ready to rule the battlefield.
21:05The air force was just built for one purpose only, it was a huge attack force.
21:09So the idea was, you build a huge air force, and the most part of this air force was made of bomber forces.
21:15With a fully armed and retooled German air force at his back, Hitler takes the world to war.
21:39Emboldened by their success bombing small towns in the Spanish Civil War, on September 1st 1939, the Germans invade Poland.
21:49The Second World War had begun.
21:54Adding to the lessons learnt in the Spanish Civil War, the Germans employ a deadly new tactic, that has the air force and the ground troops acting in unison.
22:05The Blitzkrieg.
22:07The idea of Blitzkrieg is that it is a strategy of overrunning a nation and its army in a very short time, with very maneuverable moving ground troops and a very agile air force supporting the ground troops.
22:21It was very much a case of bombers punching a hole in the enemy's defenses, saturation bombing past the enemy's lines.
22:32Blitzkrieg, which means lightning war in German, featured a large concentration of offensive weapons along a narrow front.
22:41The forces would then drive a breach in the enemy's defenses, causing shock, panic and chaos.
22:49The Stuka was part of the Blitzkrieg. It was a symbol for it. And it's destroying targets which are just hard to fight for the ground troops.
23:07My father was a 15 year old lorry driver for a company called Wilsons out of Liverpool.
23:14And was delivering flour in Poland on the day the Germans invaded.
23:20A Stuka dive bomber blew the back of his truck off.
23:28Between 1939 and 1941, the Germans swept through Europe, taking Poland, Norway and France.
23:37In the face of the Stuka's relentless bombing, country after country fell to German control.
23:43The Germans were very, very happy and they were also very proud and they thought, nobody can hit us and nobody can fight against us, nobody can win against us.
23:54By 1940, the Germans had chased the Allies all the way to the French coast.
24:00On the 24th of May 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to stop the escape of the British at Dunkirk, at all costs.
24:31The British and French troops were in a desperate position. The strip of territory they were holding was very narrow, it was only 6 miles deep.
24:41They were coming under constant bombardment from the Luftwaffe.
24:45With the Stuka's leading the Nazi charge, some 240 Allied ships and 84 RAF fighters were lost at Dunkirk.
24:55But in the end, 338,000 troops were liberated from Dunkirk, in the greatest evacuation in military history.
25:05The miraculous rescue would prove to be a turning point in the war against Germany.
25:11But why Hitler ordered his troops to halt, when he had a chance to wipe out almost the entire British army, is a mystery.
25:24Among historians, we came to the conclusion that Hitler never really wanted a great war with Great Britain.
25:30Hitler's main enemy, right at 1940, was not Great Britain.
25:33Hitler's hesitation would cost him dearly.
25:39In the wake of Dunkirk, Great Britain's ally, the United States, rapidly mobilized and brought Hitler's troops to Dunkirk.
25:47But Hitler was not alone.
25:50Hitler was not alone.
25:53Hitler was not alone.
25:56Hitler was not alone.
25:58In the wake of Dunkirk, Great Britain's ally, the United States, rapidly mobilized and brought to the front a new bomber.
26:06The B-17 Flying Fortress.
26:09Top speed, 287 miles per hour.
26:13And a range of 2,000 miles.
26:22The primary purpose of the B-17 was to serve as a strategic bomber.
26:26As a heavy bomber, it could carry loads of around 4,000 to 6,000 pounds of bombs.
26:31That's typically its usual load.
26:35The B-17 was the mainstay in the heavy bombardment campaign over Europe.
26:41It carried more bombs, more missions and all that.
26:45Just a tremendous weapon.
26:48The first American flown B-17s land on English soil in May 1942.
26:54Ready to defy the odds and take the fight to the enemy.
26:59It's just amazing how well built it is.
27:03It is such a strong, tough, durable airplane.
27:07Just look at battle damage pictures of B-17s that made it home.
27:11And you see the airplane not just shot up, but missing pieces in the air.
27:15And the airplane still came home.
27:18The B-17 flies at 26,000 feet and carries out bombing missions during daylight hours.
27:25Although faster than much of the German air force, the B-17s aren't totally impervious to attack.
27:33In addition to enemy fighters attacking them in the air,
27:37the B-17 crews are also prey to ground attack from anti-aircraft guns.
27:43As romantic as that period might be, with the flyboys and everything else,
27:49all the aviators and flying, going off to combat in the airplanes,
27:53I think all the romance of it left when the gear came up after takeoff.
27:57Because it was a very dangerous, treacherous mission.
28:00After studying the wreck of a downed B-17,
28:03the Germans discovered that the best way to bring the bomber down
28:07is to hit the rear of the plane with about 20 shots.
28:12The lighter and faster German fighters were able to outmaneuver the bigger B-17s.
28:18The B-17s were able to take down the B-17s,
28:21and the B-17s were able to take down the B-17s.
28:24The lighter and faster German fighters were able to outmaneuver the bigger B-17s,
28:30and that made the Americans easy targets.
28:43Having to maintain a constant height and stay in a straight line,
28:47the B-17s were at their most exposed on a bomb run.
28:54When the P-47s and P-38s and the other fighter aircraft escorts had to turn back,
29:00things got really hard for the bomber groups
29:03due to the German fighters, the flak and everything else.
29:06Not having the fighters take them all the way to the target and back
29:09made the loss rates very high.
29:12It's almost up to 30%.
29:15To increase the B-17s' survival rate, the Allies decided to change tactics.
29:21The U.S. Air Force came up with the box formation.
29:26You'd have anywhere from 18 to 54 airplanes that would fly in a box formation
29:31with a high group, a medium group and a lower group kind of in a stack formation.
29:36And that would help the B-17s survive.
29:39The most famous B-17 of all, the Memphis Belle,
29:43flew all of its 25 missions over Europe between November 1942 and May 1943.
29:52At a time when the average B-17 pilot was about 50 years old,
29:56the B-17s were the most powerful aircraft in the world.
30:00They could carry up to 100 people.
30:02They flew all over Europe between November and May 1943.
30:08At a time when the average B-17 crewman had a 1 in 4 chance of survival,
30:13the Memphis Belle's achievements were worth celebrating.
30:17They did that early in the war, so that was a big deal.
30:23It wasn't just that the crew survived 25 missions,
30:27but none of the crew were killed during these 25 missions.
30:30In fact, not one of the crew was even seriously wounded during these 25 missions.
30:35Now, this was almost unheard of.
30:38And this is probably why the Memphis Belle had a particular place
30:42in the hearts of the American public.
30:45With the B-17s striking Germany by day and the British bombing at night,
30:50the enemy was finally on the back foot,
30:53and their air force, the Luftwaffe, had been found wanting.
30:56Well, the main problem of the Luftwaffe, I think,
30:59in the Second World War was that it was built as a tactical weapon.
31:02It was built to support the ground troops
31:05in attacking a nation like Poland and France,
31:08but it was never built for a strategical air war.
31:11For a strategical air war, you have to have big bombers,
31:14four-engine bombers with thousands of kilometers they could fly,
31:17and the Luftwaffe didn't have these bombers.
31:20With the B-17 heavy bomber,
31:23the Allies pressed home their newfound advantage.
31:27In October 1943, Operation Point Blank is launched,
31:32a mission to strike deep into the heart of Germany.
31:36They were going after a lot of the manufacturing targets in Schweinfurt
31:41with the ball bearing plants and all the other material manufacturing plants
31:45that they had in that area.
31:46It was a mission fairly deep into German territory.
31:50By targeting Germany's critical infrastructure,
31:53the Allies and their bombers aimed to drive the enemy
31:56further and further away from British shores,
31:59and ultimately win the war.
32:05This was a real battle for civilization, for humanity.
32:10It wasn't just against an enemy, it was to save the world.
32:14The German Army
32:17The German Army
32:20The German Army
32:23The German Army
32:26The German Army
32:29The German Army
32:32With Allied bombers strategically striking the German heartland
32:35in Operation Point Blank, with seeming impunity in 1943,
32:39the German Army was forced to retreat.
32:41With seeming impunity in 1943,
32:44Hitler came up with a last desperate attempt to win the war.
32:48Called the America Plan,
32:51it required the construction of a German long-range bomber
32:54capable of striking mainland USA.
33:03The contract went to Junkers for the 319.
33:06This was a big six-engine aircraft
33:08that could carry 4,000-5,000 pounds of bombs to New York
33:11and come back again.
33:16By 1944,
33:19before the Ju 390 could go into full-scale production,
33:22the tide of war had turned decisively against Germany,
33:26and Hitler's America Plan was dead in the water.
33:30This is a red alert. Repeat, this is a red alert.
33:36As World War II gave way to the Cold War,
33:39the East squared up to the West in a nuclear face-off
33:42that would redefine the role of the bomber for the Atomic Age.
33:48To deter the Soviet Union from attacking the West,
33:51a new super-sized long-range bomber,
33:54the Junkers,
33:56was built by the United States,
33:59the B-52 Stratofortress.
34:03It's an awesome weapon and an awesome airplane.
34:06Capable of carrying a massive payload of nuclear
34:09as well as conventional weapons,
34:12the huge new plane would be a formidable addition
34:15to America's aerial arsenal.
34:18As well as a massive payload,
34:21the jet-powered B-52 could fly over the Atlantic Ocean
34:23further than any bomber had gone before.
34:26The B-52's initial range was 8,800 miles.
34:29It could reach the Soviet Union very quickly without refueling.
34:32The new bomber would be the cornerstone
34:35of a bold new military strategy.
34:40The plane's conception in 1946
34:43coincided with the creation of the Strategic Air Command in 1946,
34:47and the Strategic Air Command was created
34:49as a deterrent to the Soviet Union.
34:52The man championing the new long-range bomber
34:55and how it would be deployed
34:58was Lieutenant General Curtis E. LeMay.
35:01General Curtis LeMay was a visionary,
35:04and he really came up with the concept
35:07of a nuclear bomber fleet keeping it airborne 24-7
35:10throughout the period of the Cold War.
35:13By 1955, the B-52 was ready to go.
35:15It weighed 185,000 pounds,
35:18it measured 159 feet long,
35:21and had a wingspan of 185 feet.
35:24The Stratofortress was as wide as a football pitch
35:27and almost as long.
35:30Capable of carrying 70,000 pounds of bombs,
35:33the B-52 is a beast of a plane.
35:40The B-52 was the first British bomber
35:42to fly a B-52.
35:47Flying the enormous bomber
35:50tested seasoned pilots to their limits.
35:53I'll never forget, my instructor said,
35:56you're going to have to stop flying this thing like an airplane.
35:59It's not an airplane, it's a B-52.
36:02You'd pull out on the runway,
36:05and as the airplane accelerated,
36:08and you pull back on the yoke,
36:10you'd have a magic speed, call it unstick,
36:13and then literally the tail would fly first,
36:16and the nose would go down.
36:19Most airplanes, when you take off, the nose goes up,
36:22and now the airplane's nose is down and you're climbing.
36:28By 1960, Cold War tensions
36:31between the West and the Soviet Union
36:34had reached fever pitch.
36:37In response, the US sent its B-52s
36:40to the Soviet Union.
36:43Called alert patrols,
36:46the bombers, fully loaded with nuclear weapons,
36:49would fly between 30,000 and 40,000 feet
36:52and maintain a constant presence
36:55on the borders of the Soviet Union
36:58for almost a decade.
37:01The B-52 becomes a strategic instrument of warfare,
37:04constantly on patrol,
37:07ready to carry out horrendous missions
37:10The groundbreaking strategic bomber
37:13contributed to a new military reality.
37:18Both sides knew that if they attacked first,
37:21the retaliatory strike would be devastating
37:24on the population of both countries,
37:27so it was what we call mutually assured destruction,
37:30which really was mutually assured that they wouldn't do it.
37:34Loaded with nuclear weapons
37:37and able to travel thousands of miles,
37:40there was no threat too great for the B-52.
37:44All that was about to change, though.
37:48A new type of warfare was on the horizon.
37:51Guerrilla warfare.
37:54As the tactics of war changed in the Vietnam theatre,
37:57so too did the role of the B-52.
38:01We were doing low-level bomb runs at 500 feet,
38:04so you're taking an airplane that was designed to fly high
38:07and you're flying it very low and very fast
38:10in turbulent air and thermals,
38:13and it would beat you up severely while you're that low.
38:18In June 1965,
38:2130 B-52 bombers headed for a communist stronghold
38:24near the Ben Cat district of South Vietnam.
38:28Instead of exclusively carrying nuclear weapons
38:31as a Cold War deterrent,
38:34B-52s were now deployed with conventional weapons
38:37and tasked with providing close air support
38:40to ground troops.
38:43Operation Arclight was underway.
38:46In Vietnam, that was really the first large-scale use of the B-52.
38:50They were used in strategic bombing.
38:53They would attack enemy troop concentrations
38:56and also supply areas of the enemy.
38:59But they really supported the ground troops of the United States
39:02to give them more maneuverability.
39:05During the Vietnam War, it was almost harking back
39:07to the strategic carpet bombing of the Second World War,
39:10in that we weren't talking about any kind of notion
39:13of striking precise targets,
39:16but actually really instilling shock and awe on the ground
39:19and just pulverizing the landscape, really.
39:24Flying low meant that the B-52s were vulnerable to enemy missiles.
39:29Tropical humidity and turbulent air streams at low altitudes
39:33could also seriously undermine the structural integrity
39:35of the big aircraft, as Tim and his crew discovered.
39:39One morning we took off, and we're climbing out,
39:42and I think we were at 28,000 feet,
39:45and the airplane started shaking violently.
39:48I could not read the instruments because the vibration was so intense,
39:52everything was blurring.
39:55I thought the airplane was coming apart.
39:58We rolled the airplane and we broke formation,
40:01and we told the flight that we were having a flight patrol problem.
40:03And we returned to base.
40:06What Tim Plunkett and his crew didn't know
40:09was that a small connecting rod between two trim tabs on one of the wings
40:13had rusted and broken away.
40:16It was enough to cause the entire wing to vibrate
40:19and, in turn, destabilize the whole plane.
40:24Fully loaded with fuel, landing was not an option.
40:29We didn't know if we would be able to land the airplane.
40:31We didn't know what was going to happen.
40:39Tim circles the Indian Ocean,
40:42desperately trying to burn off fuel.
40:45Throughout this whole time,
40:48we were just waiting for the airplane to flip over or fall out of the sky.
40:51Having burned off enough fuel,
40:54Tim decides he's light enough to attempt a landing.
40:57Even though the B-52 has shed almost all of its fuel,
41:01the heavy bomber lives up to its name.
41:04It still weighs over 80 tons.
41:07What's more, Tim doesn't yet know what damage his plane has sustained,
41:12and that means he can't be certain that he can land it safely.
41:20Finally, Tim Plunkett successfully puts the damaged plane down.
41:25Everyone was safe,
41:28and the B-52 was still in one piece.
41:32We made it back alive,
41:35and we all went to the bar and had a lot of beer.
41:38But that was pretty scary.
41:41The B-52 continued to fly Arclight missions,
41:44providing close air support to ground operations throughout the Vietnam War.
41:49But their low-level bombing role came at a price.
41:54We had a lot of losses in B-52s.
41:57During Arclight, many of the airplanes took missiles through the wings
41:59and blew holes through the wings.
42:02In all, some 31 B-52s were lost in Vietnam,
42:0618 from hostile fire and 13 from technical malfunctions.
42:11But their sacrifice was not in vain.
42:14Really, the credit goes to the Air Force and the B-52
42:17for providing that air superiority to support the ground troops and save their long lives.
42:23The Vietnam War, perhaps more than any other conflict,
42:28really exposed the limitations of trying to conduct a war predominantly from the air,
42:35in that without occupying the territory and simply bombing from the air,
42:41the objectives simply aren't going to be met when you're fighting a guerrilla force.
42:47In January 1973, President Richard M. Nixon called for a cessation of all hostilities
42:53that eventually led to the end of the Vietnam conflict.
42:57The end of hostilities
43:04Today, the B-52 fleet has been massively overhauled,
43:08so it can still play a part in modern combat.
43:12It has been an extremely successful design,
43:16and the proof of the pudding is it's still here.
43:19For nearly a century, bombers have determined the way wars are waged.
43:24From the early aircraft of World War I to the heroes of World War II,
43:29including the Dambusters and the iconic B-17s
43:33to the B-52 Stratofortress that held the line in the Cold War,
43:38bombers have evolved to play a vital role in all the major conflicts of the 20th century.
43:55World of Warships
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