The Wild Blue Yonder

With the launching of a million-dollar, 26-part series called Air Power (Sun. 6 p.m.), CBS this weekend wraps up the most exhaustive research project in TV history--the story of flight. For more than two years, Air Power scouts combed through picture vaults of all the U.S. armed services. They trekked across 14 foreign countries to cull some 60,000 miles (edited down to 60,000 feet) of film, even shot much of it themselves. One Soviet plane sequence was taken from the Red border by a Western cameraman (armed with a 100-in. lens) after the U.S. Air Force refused to declassify its Russian film. Another was part of a heretofore unopened shipment sent from Japan to the U.S. at war's end. Associate Producer James Faichney pried the rusted cans open with pliers and a can opener, but had to put on a gas mask to protect himself from the nitrate fumes of dis integrating film. The result was some fine shots of the attack on Pearl Harbor, as the enemy saw it. Japanese pilots had simply set their radio compasses on Hawaii's commercial programs--one of which, ironically, was called Dawn Patrol.

Feat & Defeat. Using captured Nazi films never before released, Air Power also tells the story of the German Luftwaffe. The U.S. Air Force's great air-fleet battle over Schweinfurt, with 60 U.S. bombers lost out of 291 engaged, was recorded on film by the gunsight cameras of a Focke-Wolf 190 and found recently at the Italian retreat of a former Luftwaffe colonel who had shot down several U.S. B-17s in the fray.

"The rise of air power," explains Producer Perry (Adventure) Wolff, 35, "is fortunately coincidental with the rise of the motion picture. All major events in the history of the airplane were photographed--from the Wright brothers to the thermal barrier." To narrate his series.

Wolff corralled a baker's dozen of top commentators, actors and aviators, including Walter Cronkite, Michael Redgrave, Eddie Rickenbacker. Air Power also pulls off a rare TV feat: its sponsor (Prudential Insurance Co. of America) has dropped the middle commercial. "Otherwise," says Wolff, "I'd have had something like. 'The Russians are coming --and now a word from Prudential.' "

Error & Problem. After months of whacking away futilely at the guarded precincts of the Pentagon. Wolff finally won full cooperation from the Air Force. "They wanted a flag-waving show at first. We wanted objective reporting." As a result. Air Power pulls no punches, bluntly records the error committed by the late Brigadier General Uzal G. Ent in overruling a navigating lieutenant on the run to Ploesti, which resulted in the U.S. bombers being directed instead to Bucharest--headquarters of the German Air Defense Command. The enemy was alerted, and the U.S. lost all element of surprise, as well as 30% of its force. The Schweinfurt story also details the serious morale problem of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, virtually paralyzed by weather, high losses and pilots demanding to be transferred to the infantry.

The series' takeoff, The Day North America Is Attacked, authentically chronicles the defensive action that would be taken by the U.S. in the event of an air attack at home. It is slightly marred, however, by a raft of unexplained gadgets, some eight warnings to the viewer that "an attack is NOT taking place--this is a military exercise." and the studied listlessness of Air Defense Commanding General Earle Partridge. As the enemy's approaching bombers are about to blow Washington to kingdom come. Partridge says dryly to A. F. Chief of Staff General Nathan Twining: "As you know. Nate, the country has gone on an air defense readiness." Producer Wolff, an infantryman, says: "In documentary work, you mustn't let personality intrude."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.