Warbird Information Exchange

the movie 633 squadron will be on the history channel tonight!! don't miss it as it doesn't get aired to much!!! 8 pm eastern time. i haven't seen that movie in at least 30 years!! it will be nice to see, as cliff robertson just passed away within the last month or 2.

_________________
tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

I have the 633 Squadron on the Military Channel at 8&11 PM.

thanks i just realized my mistake. thanks for posting the correction. i hope alot of people caught your correction soon enough!! hope i didn't screw up anybody!!!

_________________
tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

At the completion of filming they pushed all the MOSSIES together and set them on fire to film crash and flame footage to use elsewhere in the movie, leaving a huge pile of charcoal and several heat treated MERLINS

_________________
Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Yup. They didn't want them any more.

_________________
Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

This was the first time I was able to view "633" in it's entirety and was quite impressed. I've always admired Cliff Robertson as an actor and an aviation supporter and his website is an excellent source of his devotion to flight. An excerpt pertaining to "633":
While in England filming “633 Squadron” for United Artists, Robertson became interested in the de Havilland Mosquito bomber. “ In the film, we had probably the very last Mosquito bombers left,” he said. “We had five. I tried to buy one, so I could bring it back to America, but I was subverted by someone who will remain nameless, who screwed things up so nobody got them.”

Robertson said that during the filming, one Mosquito bomber was destroyed; the scene called for an airplane to hit a truck. “ To make it genuine, they had to make this bomber explode on the ground,” he said. “Nobody was in the cockpit, of course, but they had this special-effects guy running behind it with long wires, so he was able to trigger it off when it hit this truck. It exploded. That broke my heart. Then we watched it burn. It was called the ‘wooden bomber,’ because a lot of it was made out of wood, which made it very light, and fast. That central spar was made of very highly compressed wood. I watched it burn for over three hours, and that spar was still intact. It was amazing how strong it was.”

Although he wasn’t able to acquire a Mosquito, while filming, Robertson learned that the Belgium Air Force owned three Spitfires, another aircraft that attracted his interest.

http://www.cliffrobertson.info/aviation.htm

I have a question. Why was Robertson wearing an Eagle Squadron patch? If he was an American ex-Eagle squadron member, why was he in the RAF? He could have been Canadian but I didn't think there were Canadians in the Eagle Squadrons. Of course it could have been just some movie fluff to make him look more heroic or something.
And it looked like Harry Andrews had two RAF DFC ribbons.
Somebody enlighten me please.

Mudge the confused

Lordy the Mossies are beautiful.

_________________
Land of the free because of the brave

Not quite, old myths die hard.
Only two aircraft were wrecked during filming, and they used film of RS718 of it twice in this film (from different angles) as well as in its sequal. Neither 718 or TA724 (which they riged to taxi into a fuel truck) were airworthy at the time, and given the state of aircraft preservation atthe time, faced uncertain futures.
Another non-airwothy plane, TA 642, was accidently wrecked when its gear collasped before filming.
No airworthy aircraft were destroyed for the films, though one of the flyers, RR299 was destroyed in a fatal crash in 1996.

The cockpit and fuselage sections kept at the film studio were recoveed by the late Stuart Howe, author of Mosquito Surviviors and other books on the Mossie.

Aircraft used in the film are (or were in 1996) at Duxford, the Norwegian AF Museum, Week's example at Oshkosh, The NMUSAF, The Mosquito Museum, and the RAF Museum.

So next time you're at Dayton, take a good look at the Mossie RS709, because according to many, it doesn't exist.
It ws also used in Mosquito Squadron...

_________________
Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Wow..I knew that two aircraft were intentionally destroyed during the production (which
makes it difficult for me to watch) but I didn't realize that all the rest had been preserved.

Weeks' and the NMUSAF example are the only Mossies I've seen in real life. Wait..I did catch a glimpse of the one at the Canada Aviation Museum in Ottawa, but it was in the storage building behind several over aircraft, and all I could make out were the wheels and a bit of the tail..

Hey "Thunder Over Michigan," here's an idea for a theme: Merlin Madness. You could get Mustangs, Spits, Hurris, the Lanc, and maybe Yagen will even have n airworthy Mosquito by then.

SN

JohnB,
Thank you for clearing up that, as you say, old myth. I still get wigged out over the burning of the airplanes in '633' as well as the burning of the MOSSIES in 'The Purple Plain' that starred Greg Peckory ( ) as a conflicted pilot in S.E. Asia during WW2

_________________
Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Love the film, especially the flying scenes and ground ops with the Mossie's.
The music score theme is strong and rousing, a true classic.

I know I might be performing a sacrilege here, but there are times in the film where I feel that that "633" theme is over powering, over used and not well placed, especially during the attack sequence. I'm a student of film scores, and I do understand the "scoring trends" at the time (mid-'60's), but it seems to me that every time the planes are running or flying, they play the main theme, with no variation of tempo or style. I think a more dramatic use music could have been done to greatly enhance some of those sequences in the film. Even a change up on the main theme.
i know it's hind sight, but it just seems to me that about half the film has the main theme behind it.
My two cents....but I still LOVE the theme and the film!
Jerry

_________________
"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

Screenplay by James Clavell, where have I heard that name before? Oh yes the author of Noble House and others, former POW in Singapore.

_________________
GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Press "1" for English.
Press "2" to disconnect until you have learned to speak English.

Interesting that the artwork on the poster faithfully depicts the overpainted bomber nose glazing of the film aircraft. I'm sure the artist probably knew little or nothing about Mossies, and was just working from some stills provided by the production company.

SN

They usually paint posters using production stills as a reference. Take a close look at the "Pearl Harbor" poster version with the Kate flying by the battleship. The artist actually painted the camera and camera mount that was placed behind the torpedo for some of the filming!!!! They only mounted the camera under one Kate, but that's the one the artist used as his subject!
Jerry

_________________
"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

It is interesting how the privately developed Mossie was greeted by the British establishment, vs what happened in America with the Hughes H-1. Look at a P-35 and the H-1 side by side. The P-35 also kept the P-36 out of service for a critical period of development. I've never heard of a P-35 ace, there were several P-36 aces in the Battle of France.