WEBVTT

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Over the course of World War II . The

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strategic bombing campaign was critical

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of the allied battle plan to retake

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occupied Europe . And the whole purpose

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of that bombardment campaign was to hit

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key nodes of their industry in order to

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bring the German war machine to its

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knees . That effort required tens of

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thousands of bomber crew members and

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many of them trained here at mcdill

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bomber tactics techniques and

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procedures changed tremendously going

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into World War II . And by the

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conclusion of the conflict , those

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bombers went into enemy controlled

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airspace without fighter escorts

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because of the tactics , techniques and

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procedures and the equipment that we

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were using at the beginning of the

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conflict , we really needed to have a

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lot of bombers fly over an enemy target

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in order to score a direct hit . So

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that changed when we changed our

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altitudes did daylight , low level

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bombing , but it resulted in humongous

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casualties among our bomber force .

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Yeah ,

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we introduced more fighter escorts . We

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got better control of enemy air space

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and we ended up improving our tactics

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and techniques and procedures when we

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started employing our bomber force more

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effectively as it became abundantly

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clear that we were losing a lot of crew

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members . It became clear to third air

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force that we needed to have an

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aggressive replacement training

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pipeline for crew members . And so

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mcdill factored heavily into that and

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was responsible for minting tens of

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thousands of crew members that were

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required to continue the offensive .

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These tens of thousands of mcdill

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aviators were actually seeing their

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casualty rate decrease the

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effectiveness of their bombing increase

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and a lot of that was spearheaded here

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at mcdill from U pens to ball bearing

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factories to oil fields . You'll see

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mcdill bomber crew members involved in

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the campaign to lay waste to those key

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industries and several others . So it

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made the invasion of Europe a lot less

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rife with casualties because by that

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point in time , a lot of the air cover

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that the lift WAFA had provided to its

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ground forces had been reduced , its

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access to strategic petroleum reserves

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had also been eliminated . And

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ultimately , they were left with just a

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hollow force that they started World

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War II with . And that ultimately saved

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allied lives hitting the beaches at

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Normandy and really continuing the war

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all the way till its conclusion in 1945 .