The Rear Gunner (1943)
Documentary-style drama on training of aerial rear gunners in World War II. Private PeeWee Williams, a Kansas farm boy, transforms his home-grown shooting skills into those necessary to an aerial gunner in the tail turret of an American bomber. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.
- Date of release
- 1943-04-10
- TMDB
- 6.4 / 10 (7)
- Runtime
- 26m
- Genres
- Drama, War
- Director
- Ray Enright
Casting
- Burgess Meredith — Pvt. L.A. Pee Wee Williams
- Ronald Reagan — Lt. Ames
- Tom Neal — Instructor Sargeant
- Dane Clark — Benny
- Jonathan Hale — Commanding Officer
- Knox Manning — Narrator (voice)
Interesting facts
The Rear Gunner is a 1943 American short instructional film, directed by Ray Enright and produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. Previously, Warner Bros. had produced three short documentary films, Winning Your Wings (1942) starring Jimmy Stewart, Men Of The Sky (1942) and Beyond the Line of Duty (1942).
Production
The Rear Gunner was produced with the full cooperation of the USAAC. The film begins with the strains of the fourth verse of the "Air Corps Song":
The bomber aircraft featured in The Rear Gunner is a B-24 Liberator although Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers are also seen. Other aircraft that are in the film include the Douglas B-18 Bolo, Martin B-10, Lockheed Hudson and North American T-6.
Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.
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