Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress

Here's a video that I found fascinating last weekend while I fed and burped Blake. It's a documentary/propaganda piece released in March of 1944 featuring the Memphis Belle and the war effort around it.

What is particularly interesting is how our information of the war effort is shaped by the film. It's telling that, for all the effort, our understanding of the effect of the war was summarized by a few pictures of the aftermath of the bombardments and that's it. That's all they had and certainly all they would release to the public.

To put it in perspective, these were the dark days of the aerial strategic bombing campaign. The 8th Airforce alone would account for 6% (26,000 men) of all the dead soldiers for American forces. The loss rate of any mission was around 5% and up until the Memphis Belle ('43) no bomber air crew could complete a tour of duty.

They all died.

And the year before this film was release was the worst ever for American airmen. Such was the casualties, over a third of all participating aircraft, in the Schweinfurt ball bearing plant raid that the campaign halted temporarily and the entire campaign's purpose was reconsidered.
But things were turning around in March of '44. Long range fighter escorts had begun paving the way for allied bombers and cleaning up in earnest.
Despite it, public support was faltering. And with the death toll its easy to see why.

We didn't have boots on the ground nor certainly the hind sight we have now. They didn't know much of what effect the strategic bombing was having. And with the incredible cost in lives for a unknown or questionable effect, this film had to really sell home that it was worth it. It can't do it with raw data for a variety of reasons. So naturally it works like good propaganda, it appeals to a more poetic or theoretical nature by dramatizing and extrapolating a potential, but completely unconfirmed, result.

The color combat footage really helps empathize with just what is going on as well. Otherwise, the deaths of countless crewmen would come across as a horrendous statistic back home and bring up the question of competency regarding military command.

The additional filming and release of some of the more horrifying moments says a lot about the attitude toward death then. Our military's public relations would throw a fit if there was a movie with 10 minutes of exploding hummers and burning wrecks- much less one released by the government itself. We can thank the callous and irresponsible reporting during Vietnam for that.

And regarding what happened then, I don't really blame them for being reserved now. Our society has somewhat of a weaker stomach for death and that's not entirely a bad thing.

Weathering Examples

I can't stress enough about having a good photo reference.

It's the advice I usually don't take either and my poorer paint jobs usually result from it. So here are some of the best examples of "dirty tanks" from my own pic collection to serve as reference for myself or anyone else.

Tweaking photos, lighting

Those pics of the tanks I last took? They suck. Really. I follow a mantra in miniature photography that there can never be too much light. And in those pictures, this is plainly evident as some colors come out more than others as I use the last non-baby requisitioned lamp I had available. This last lamp I use for painting and is incredibly bright. I saturates EVERYTHING.

It doesn't really do the job and is something I have to remediate.
I also want to redo some of the colors. The boxes look to much like mohagony or some other wood you'd never use as an ammo box.
The mud effects vary as well and I need to bring them into uniform.
And lastly, the highlighting I think leaves something subtle to be desired.

Until then, I fooled around in Gimp to get the effect of this photo,


onto this miniature pic.


It kinda works.

Workbench: Tanks-ahoy

My that's a lot of tanks.

FORESHADOWING?

I'm working out the specifics of painting them... but I think they are coming out acceptably so far. I'll accept any tank that shows improvement from the last.

In the above pics, all those are new except the last 3 in the conga line of death.

The littlest gamer

So what does a middling miniature painter and professional procrastinator do in his free time?



Reproduce, apparently. My son Blake Murdoch Wilson was born at 9:15pm November 2.

He's adorable and incredibly difficult to take a bad picture of. That is to say he's photogenic. He's also not that hard to take care of. Perhaps its best described as just time consuming and, in a lot of ways, brings me back to my baby sitting days. Only this time, I'm not getting paid.

I look forward to raising a third generation wargamer should he show interest.

Workbench: Tommy Cookers

This is one of those odd situations where the photos don't do it justice, but the tanks came out fantastic aside from some glare from the battlefront decals.

I won't be using them again. They came off the sheet hard, broke frequently, and persistently glare beside it all.
My hands are good enough to paint a white square.


I particularly like the tank on the left. The crew packaged a baseball bat, among other things, to the stowage.