MEMPHIS BELLE I watched the Memphis Bell again last night, it seems to gets better each time. For sure there isnt a bigger tear jerker ending out there IF YOU’RE GOING TO WATCH IT READ NO FURTHER! The badly shot up Bomber limps home with many injuries, one of the crew members is dying and needs immediate medical attention to save him. To top it all they are down to running on one engine! The Memphis Belle is in a huge multilayered American bombing formation sent to bomb a German industrial complex, but low cloud cover and a storm of anti aircraft fire has forced them to hold onto their bombs and go around the target for a second bomb run. They are all absolutely shitting themselves as masses of flak explode all around them blowing pieces and holes out of their fuselage. In their headphones they hear the screams of friends who are crewing the other aircraft and watch and listen as they descend to their deaths in flaming pyrogenic cartwheels. A bomber in the higher layer over them is hit by cannon fire from a passing Messerschmitt fighter and explodes splattering their windscreen with the blood and internal organs of one of the poor crew members that has been blown apart. There are pieces flapping and great holes in the fuselage everywhere, smoke is still belching from the three shut down engines and fuel is leaking and running over one of the wings threatening to ignite. Eventually the lower cloud layer clears and they can see enough of the target to release their bombs. They turn and start the long limp home which is looking like an improbability as three engines have packed up but are still belching smoke and threatening to ignite into engine fires. They are down to the last remaining engine! They have other severe problems that go deeper as they know that the injured crew member will die before they get home. Should they strap him to a parachute and hope the Germans find him before its to late? They pass the stage of pure terror and unbuckling the dying crewmember from his parachute decide that they all either live or die together. After they break formation and head home they are attacked 2 or 3 more times by fighter formations but eventually limp thru these and soon the English Channel appears below them. Miles out from their airfield they start preparing for landing, but find that one of the wheels is jammed (huge drama at the end) They get the waist gunner to start manually crank the ailing wheel down into position but this requires several hundred turns of the handle and the airfield is within sight. Meanwhile the other surviving bombers have landed. On being alerted to the smoking limping Memphis Belle approaching the airfield all the ground crews turn out to watch the Belle land. It is at this point that a rather nice rendition of “Oh Danny boy” starts to herald the arrival. Anyway they get the other wheel down three seconds before they touchdown and manage to make a safe landing. The strains of Danny Boy send a chill up your back and make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck as the badly injured crew are stretchered out of the smoking hulk to safety. Never mind Jayne Ayre and Heathcliffe this ending brought the chill of pure triumph thru pain and adversity to me. Steve Jones
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 16:14:04 +0000
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