Bombardier (film) - Production and Background Notes

Production and Background Notes

RKO Pictures began Bombardier as a project in 1940, with several rewrites to incorporate changes in world events. With full cooperation of the United States Army Air Corps, the film was in production from October 12 to December 18, 1942, with six weeks of the filming done on location at Kirtland Army Air Base. All the aviation cadets in training at the baae were used as extras, and veteran aircrews assigned to the school as instructors flew the B-17s used in formation shots at the end of the film. At Kirtland, filming featured live action photography of training aircraft including Beech AT-11 Kansan trainers, as well as Boeing B-17C and E Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator, Douglas B-18 Bolo and North American B-25 Mitchell bombers. A Junkers Ju 87 and Vought SB2U Vindicator dive bombers were briefly seen at the beginning of the film. The production moved to Midland, Texas to film the Japanese bombing scenes.

Notable members of the film crew included Robert Wise as film editor, and Robert Aldrich as second assistant director. Lambert Hillyer directed filming (uncredited) of an aerial sequence, while Joseph F. Biroc completed the cinematography work begun and credited to Nicholas Musuraca.

The central conflict between competing points of view over the importance of specialized bombardier training in Bombardier reflected an actual doctrinal struggle within the U.S. Army Air Corps between 1939 and December 1941, when, as in the film, the proponents of specialized training won out. Three attempts at developing a school had been tried since July 1940 at Lowry Field, Colorado; Barksdale Field, Louisiana; and Ellington Field, Texas, before the permanent school was established at Kirtland by Col. John D. Ryan as the first step in meeting a wartime goal of training 30,000 bombardiers.

Albuquerque Army Air Base (renamed Kirtland in February 1942) was constructed from January to August 1941 on the site of the former Oxnard Field (a private airport) in Albuquerque, at which time the 19th Bomb Group (commanded in combat by Col. Eugene Eubank, who introduces the film) completed training for deployment to the Philippines. A permanent Bombardier Training School, the first of 10 in the southwest United States, opened in December 1941 at Albuquerque AAB and eventually graduated more than 5,000 bombardiers.