Mills of the Goods: Viet Nam

Papos e avisos genéricos para a comunidade simuleira.
Post Reply
21_Sokol1
Veterano
Veterano
Posts: 15493
Joined: 01 Aug 2003 21:00
Location: Uberaba-MG

Mills of the Goods: Viet Nam

Post by 21_Sokol1 »

Documentário produzido para a TV Canadense em 1965, ainda em P&B.

https://vimeo.com/85955788
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0236500/

É interessante porque já no inicio do envolvimento oficial das forças americanas a situação mostra que estavam "no mato, sem cachorro", apesar da confiança em "derrotar os commies" de alguns entrevistados.

A parte mais interessante é quando um reporter acompanhou uma esquadrilha de (4) Skyriders num ataque a bunkers do Victor Charlie na peninsula de Ca Mau, e o entusiasmado piloto além de descrever o ataque se mostra exaltado com os resultados "Look at this burning!", "Fantastic"... "Outstanding".

O documentário foi montado com um filme anti-war.

O piloto, Lt Colonel Thomas A. Dwelle é o mesmo que comenta as "camera pod" neste vídeo, que tem uma bela sequencia aos ~10:50 - a camera traseira do pod, um tanque de napalm com uma camera apontada para frente e outra para trás, registra um segundo Skyrider lançado outra bomba de napalm com a coluna de fumaça de outra explosão de napalm como pano de fundo. "The war is hell".

https://youtu.be/NcbcHJpIHU0?t=654

Sobre sua filmagem divulgada no "Mills of the Good" ele justifica, dizendo que foi influenciado pelo reporter:

" This was mid 1965 and about 100 missions into the 270 that I ended up with. We lost 31 of our 100 A1E Skyraiders and 29 "Brothers" during my one year tour.

I flew the F-106 'Delta Dart' Air Defense interceptor during the Cuban Missile crisis, so I was very experienced by 1964 when I trained in "Counter insurgency" to be an "Air Commando". We were "bad ass".

The right seat was always empty except for the odd newsman and some of the new guys getting their first area familiarization ride. I flew 10 missions with Larry Burrows, Life Magazine, in the right seat and he loved it. I guess the word went out that I was experienced and probably wasn't likely to get anybody killed...and generally a lot of fun to be around. I was exuberant, and still am at 81, so the press gravitated to me. I took on all comers.

OK so this Canadian photographer wanted a ride and off we went. I think we were #3 , element lead, in this four ship Skyraider mission. The briefing was great and I took pains to explain what we were likely to experience. I included parachute training and a quick brief on escape and evasion.

It all went well as you can hear until the Viet Cong (VC) broke and ran for the trees. At this point my Canadian started yelling at me to "be excited".

I said "What" ? "BS, you are going to get us killed" YGBSM! (you gotta be kidding me).

He got more agitated and I couldn't shut him up. OK, here we go...you asked for it "Toyota".
I remember I missed a couple of radio calls acting for this guy...which caused me to be chastised during the debrief. A combat debriefing can be brutal...and rightly so.

My Canadian was totally excited at all this and could hardly wait to hand this film to the Canadian Lady who produced an anti war movie with my film. Shit! In all fairness, a lot of stuff was put in this film which didn't happen on my watch.

I had seen a few snippets of this film on History channel, but today is the first time I have seen the whole thing. Thanks to George Mihal and his Office of Image Archaeology. I expected some kick back from the "Head shed", but it never happened. I have 30 minutes of color gun camera film which I should start releasing.
Post Reply