An excellent newsreel from Cinesound, focusing on the Battle of the Bismark Sea, when Australian and American pilots tore into a Japanese convoy. Damien Parer - who was essentially promoted as the star of these newsreels - turns in some superb work with exciting footage shot from a plan actually going into action... we go with a plane going right in there, firing away... it's thrilling.
There's also a scene where a plane strafes a life boat of Japanese survivors, the commentary says a lot of thing like "take that, Nips". And there's some charmingly awkward banter at the end between American and Australian pilots. I so wish Ken G Hall (who produced all these newsreels) could have made an Aussie fighter pilot feature. I guess there was Smithy.
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