Produced by Warner Bros. in cooperation with the United States Navy in 1940, “The Eyes of the Navy” is a pre-WWII recruiting film that portrays the exciting life of young aviators. The film features basic naval aviator training in Pensacola, Florida (2:30) and advanced training at Naval Air Station San Diego, California (9:50). Various phases of instruction are shown, from classroom work and ground school,, to instrument training in a Link trainer (5:24), solo flight and carrier landings and take-offs from USS Enterprise (CV-6). Some other highlights include machine gun practice and skeet shooting (6:54), fixed gunnery practice (7:00), bombing and dive bombing practice, and simulated air-to-air combat. At 11:50 parachute training is shown. Features a bevy of pre-WWII aircraft including the venerable the Vought Corsair biplane, TBD-1 Devastator torpedo plane, and Catalina PBY Flying Boat. At 4:58 a catapult-launched scout float plane is shown launched from a platform. At 13:45, USS Enterprise is seen conducting recovery of aircraft. At 15:46, a war game is shown with dive bombers making drops on a range. The film ends with a remarkable montage and a flight of aircraft forming the word “USA”!
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
