CAF Centex and how the Movies helped us!

Thank goodness for Hollywood, for arguably providing one the most important assistance in our efforts of aircraft preservation and history education.

Several of these movies have accomplished a great deal in presenting the critical bond between pilots and their machines. 

Their pilots' own lives and many Nations futures' have depended on their combined performances. These unsung heroes, battling in distant lands who helped keep our country free. Their stories, told in these movies, have achieved an almost mythical status.

Several our own fighter planes were acquired from movie production companies when filming finished. Scores of B-25 were used and rehabilitated during the production of several iconic films. Hollywood's large production budgets and their finished movies have helped to keep the stories of our planes and pilots alive. 

Here are three of the better known films.

"Catch 22"

The 1970 Movie "Catch 22" is Mike Nichols' masterful adaptation of Joseph Heller's darkly comic masterpiece. "Catch-22."is perhaps the largest assembly of B-25s since WWII and will arguably never take place again. Below are several video clips showing the important B-25 sequences.

"CATCH-22" - Music video of a well-known Andrew Sisters song - "Straighten Up and Fly Right."

" catch 22 " - the official movie trailer - 1970.

A great clip of the B-25s big take off scene. The famous egg scene and probably the best stunt ever filmed (at the end)

Clip showing the bombing scene, It also shows the decisive power welded by the bombardier and the plane's controlling Nordom bomb sight. Subtitles en Español.

"catch 22", 1970 first half of the movie - 53 minutes 

TORA! TORA! TORA!

The 1980 movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" was actually political millstone, Japan and the United States, once bitter enemies collaborated on this film together. Below is the movie trailer.

Tora Tora Tora, the Movie trailer.

PEARL HARBOR

The 2006 movie " Pearl Harbor", produced in this era of "computer generated images" (CGI), none the less required real B-25s. Below are the impressive Doolittle re-enactment sequences (although technically not accurate.) Additionally there is a short documentary on the difficulties faced making this film.

View Doolittle Raid Preparation. From the Pearl Harbor Movie, Alec Baldwin plays Col. Doolittle. (9 minutes.

Here is the subsequent 9 minute video of the actual Doolittle Raid from the same 2006 movie, it shows the take-off from the USS Hornet and bombing run over Japan. Again, Alec Baldwin plays Lt. Col. Doolittle and Ben Affleck plays one of the pilots.

From the same movie. This sequence shows the B-25s crash landing in China after raid, (9 minutes.)

A short documentary showing the filming of Doolittle Raid on an actual aircraft carrier. (9 minutes)

For More in formation on The Central Texas Wing of The Commemorative Air Force 

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