Search - Bennett DVD Pleasure Boating Power & Sail on DVD

Disappointing

David McEldery | Plains, MT USA | 11/14/2001

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The B-25 Mitchell bomber was arguably WWIIs finest, medium bomber. Designed for a payload of 3,200 lbs of bombs and eight .50 caliber machineguns, in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, the B-25 often carried 4,000 to 6,000lbs of bombs. The G and H models sported a 75mm canon in the nose. Some J models had as many as eighteen .50 caliber machine guns, the most powerful gunships until the AC-130 Puff the Magic Dragon of Vietnam fame. The Doolittle Raid against Tokyo was assuredly a morale booster and a heroic, suicidal mission, but this video spends too much of its time on this event. The B-25 was a major weapon in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific. Both theaters are sold short. The B-25s of the 12th Air Force fought a major tactical battle against thousands of German and Italian flak guns in the Italian Alps from November 1944 until March 1945. It is known by a few as The Battle of the Brenner Pass. No footage is shown of this pivotal battle. B-25s also reduced American casualties in the Invasion of Southern France in August 1944 by carpet bombing the heavily-mined Antheor Beach-head prior to troop disembarkation. This was a far cry from the D-Day landings at Omaha and Utah beaches, thanks to the 12th AF B-25s. The bombing of Monte Cassino is impressive, but the footage is too short, and the dropping of parachute bombs on Rabaul in the Pacific gives just a taste of what might have been a better documentary."