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The Real Twelve O'Clock High: The Classic Motion Picture Is Not As Fictional As You Might Think
The Real Twelve O'Clock High: The Classic Motion Picture Is Not As Fictional As You Might Think
The Real Twelve O'Clock High: The Classic Motion Picture Is Not As Fictional As You Might Think
the popular Davenport and replaces him Eaker and Spaatz, noting similar sloppy
with Savage. conditions and loose policies elsewhere
Savage incurs the immediate enmity of around the base, agreed that the group
both aircrews and support people when commander, Col. Charles B. “Chip”
he clamps down on discipline and deals Overacker, would probably have to be
harshly with slackers. Among the first to relieved.
feel his wrath is the guard at the gate who “Eaker waited six more weeks, during
carelessly waves Savage through, neither which the group’s record, measured by
saluting nor checking his ID. number of bombs on target and by B-17s
Resentful of the new order, all of the lost, became the worst in VIII Bomber
pilots ask for transfers out, but Savage Command,” according to James Parton,
sticks to his principles. As the group re- Eaker’s aide and later his biographer. Par-
covers its focus and combat effectiveness ton had also been along on the November
improves, the pilots change their minds trip to Thurleigh.
and rally to the support of Savage, who On Jan. 4, 1943, Eaker—by then pro-
leads the 918th on a big mission over the moted to major general and moved up to
German heartland. succeed Spaatz as commander of Eighth
The B-17s inflict severe damage on the Air Force—returned to Thurleigh. With
target—a big ball bearing plant—but a him were Beirne Lay and Col. Frank A.
second strike is necessary to finish it off. Armstrong Jr., former commander of
Frank Armstrong Jr., as a lieutenant
As Savage attempts to board his aircraft the 97th Bomb Group. Eaker had used general.
to lead the restrike, he suffers a mental Armstrong before to tighten up loose
breakdown from the accumulated strain. organizations. Like Savage in the movie, (Schweinfurt, thinly disguised) and the
However, he has done his job well and his he had led the first B-17 mission over Messerschmitt fighter plant at “Bonhofen”
crews are now strong enough to fly the Europe in August 1942. (Regensburg). Neither city was mentioned
mission successfully without him. They This time, Eaker’s car was waved by name in the movie.
clobber the target, and the 918th moves through the gate by a sentry who failed Like Savage, Frank Armstrong led the
on to new leadership. to salute. “As we visited hangars, shops, Jan. 27 mission into Germany. Bartlett,
and offices, I found similar attitudes who was a friend of Armstrong’s, talked his
Eaker and Overacker as seen at the front gate,” Eaker said. way aboard one of the B-17s that day and,
The actual “hard-luck” group was the Behind closed doors in Overacker’s according to some accounts, persuaded the
306th Bomb Group at Thurleigh, which office, Eaker said, “Chip, you’d better bombardier to let him toggle the bombs.
(multiplied by three) became the 918th at get your things and come back with Armstrong was not there for the
Archbury in the book and movie. me.” Turning to Armstrong, he said, Schweinfurt-Regensburg missions. Like
In November 1942, Eaker (then VIII “Frank, you’re in command. I’ll send Savage, his time at the group was short.
Bomber Command commander) and your clothes down.” With matters at Thurleigh in hand, Arm-
Spaatz (Eighth Air Force commander) “In the next 40 days, Armstrong’s strong returned to VIII Bomber Command
visited Thurleigh. Sy Bartlett, in his strong, steady, disciplinary hand turned headquarters Feb. 17 and was promoted
capacity as Spaatz’s aide, went along. the 306th around completely, making it the to brigadier general.
There was no MP in sight as they drove best group in the VIII Bomber Command Beirne Lay, on the other hand, was
onto the base, and their entry was not and the first to drop bombs on Germany there for the double mission. He was a
challenged. itself,” Parton said. fully qualified aviator, having served for
However, unlike Savage, Armstrong several years in the Air Corps in the 1930s.
did not crack up. That was one of the few He initially came to Eaker’s attention
major departures from fact in “Twelve as the author/screenwriter of I Wanted
O’Clock High.” For years thereafter, Wings. In 1943, he aspired to a combat
Armstrong was regularly asked about command and flew as many missions as
his nervous breakdown in England. he could in preparation. In the strike on
Even though that part of the script was Regensburg, he was copilot of the B-17
a disservice to Armstrong, the incident Picadilly Lily, which became the name of
was not altogether fictitious. According Savage’s airplane in the movie. He wrote
to Lay, the breakdown had happened to of the experience in “Regensburg Mis-
another “very fine commander who had sion,” published in Air Force Magazine
been on four rough missions in a row.” in December 1943.
“Twelve O’Clock High” took some
creative license in time shifting and com- Who Was Who
binations of events. The Big Mission in Collaboration on the novel began in
the book and movie was a composite of 1946, with Lay entering the project at
the first B-17 mission into the German Bartlett’s urging. Bartlett contributed ideas
homeland (flown in actuality Jan. 27, 1943) and energy, but it was Lay who “put the
and the famous “double mission” against book on paper.” Bartlett’s wife, actress El-
Schweinfurt and Regensburg Aug. 17, len Drew, named the story. “She heard us
1943. The novel specifies that the targets discussing German fighter tactics, which
Ira Eaker, as a lieutenant general. were ball bearing plants at “Hambruecken” usually involved head-on attacks from ‘12
AIR FORCE Magazine / January 2011 71
Ben Gately, the pilot of Leper
Colony—the B-17 to which slackers,
incompetents, and malcontents were
consigned but which goes on to glory
in the end—was also fictional. He was
primarily the creation of Sy Bartlett.