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Fighter pilots have become legends. As World War I turned into a standoff in the trenches, pilots soared high above like the chivalrous knights of centuries past.
U.S. News Video: The War Aces goes back to those early days of military aviation, using archival films to show how pilots, the best of whom earned the distinction of "ace," changed military strategy forever. In World War II, fighter planes became even more important, as Hitler's proposed invasion of England was thwarted during "The Battle of Britain," when British fighter pilots made a lonely but inspired defense against Germany's mighty Luftwaffe. The format of this video also uses a first-person narrative by a representative pilot to present the viewpoint of American pilots who flew over the European and Pacific theaters of operation in World War II, as well as an American who made the leap into the modern era of fighters by battling MiGs in the Korean War. The fact that some archival footage doesn't always match up with the narration (at one point a snippet of a training film featuring a young Ronald Reagan incongruously surfaces) may annoy sticklers for detail. But the production succeeds in portraying a broad overview of how fighter planes have been deployed and how pilots have engaged in aerial heroics.
--Robert J. McNamara
