Red Tails the movie

[mik]

I recently saw the movie red tails. This is a remake of an earlier film about the first all negro American flying unit. I enjoyed both movies. I have seem much worse movies which others have raved about. I was disappointed to see that the new movie got what I thought was a poor review in an aircraft magazine.

First let me say I'm proud to be BRITISH despite my Italian ancestry. IF I AM A RACIST MY BRAND OF RACISM DOES NOT ALLOW ME TO PERSECUTE THOSE OF A DIFFERENT NATIONALITY. My view of the film was it was a bit racist because the film would give anyone without a wargamer's knowledge of history the wrong impression. The red tails had an enviable and deserved reputation, I believe they never lost a bomber while they were responsible for the escort. My objection and the racism bit is, right from the start the white flyers were glory boys only interested in chalking up more kills, not protecting the bombers. I don't really know how the red tails did it, that's not the issue. Going after the Germans was what they were there for. German Battle of Britain pilots complained when ordered to stick close to the bombers, they thought they could do a better job by intercepting Spitfires before the got near the bombers or better still hit them on the ground.

I thought American tactics were to have a close escort with the bombers and have a percentage of planes tasked with breaking up German Fighter formations before they got near the main bomber stream. EVERYBODY UP THERE WAS DOING THE SAME JOB NO DOUBT ABOUT IT THE RED TAILS DID GOOD.

Mik the stick

[wargamer]

Not having seen the review you mentioned, but... racism was not the issue with Red Tails. Reality was. Shooting down aircraft that never were engaged and other problems. Unrealistic portrayal of the pilots as Harvard yahoos was somewhat amiss. The first movie was much closer to the mark while the second was a modern version of blaxplotation imho.

The difference between white glory boys and the red tails was that the white and most of the air force was that doctrine was attack, attack, when in doubt attack. Killing the enemy was job one. This meant that escort fighters were often drawn off by groups of enemy aircraft - which meant that they would tend to miss rendevous or fail to regroup or just wander off in hopes of finding some targets. 8th Air Force started issuing orders that the fighters could not deviate or wander off until the bombers had dropped their bombs, which helped in late 44 and 45. But that was up north. The red tails worked with the 15th Air Force, which added B-24's to the escort pile along with B-17's. Something not mentioned, is that most of the targets of 15th Air Force were in the south of Germany and the Balkans - Ploesti as one of the major ones. Basically, the Germans were defending against bombers in England primarily. Those that came from the south not so much. The bombers of 8th Air Force picked up the Abbeville boys just over the channel, less than 30 minutes from their base, in comparison, the bombers out of Africa and later Italy got a couple of hours to form up before being intercepted. By many accounts, it just wasn't as tough flying for the 15th. That being said, the 15th seemed to have the worst planners in the US Army at the time - witness the disasters of the Ploesti raids.

Rant off, enjoy Tuskegee Airmen, avoid Red Tails.

[mik]

Thank you for your information I agree Tuskegee Airmen is the better movie. It is difficult to get information sometimes, I have a beautiful book on the P51 full of lovely pictures including a a profile of a red tail. It was never mentioned that the pilots were negro. I know it's not what the book is about but at age 20 I never thought about it.

mik the stick