Post by Don Gieseke on Dec 8, 2016 6:31:27 GMT -6
In a scene reminiscent of WW II, the Confederate Air Force (now known as the Commemorative Air Force) had asked for volunteers for a dangerous mission. Another movie was in the making, and once again, the CAF was asked to participate.
It was a simple enough request: all they wanted were a couple of Zeros and three pilots to fly to Key West, Florida for three or four days of shooting.
The entire Tora, Tora, Tora group was assembled and the mission outlined. When the time came to ask for volunteers, all but Mack Sterling, Archie Donahue, Charles Hutchins and Tom Gregory stepped back. With volunteers in hand, Headquarters proceeded to finalize plans with Aspen Productions of California.
Rapidly expanding in scope, the CAFs involvement grew to three Zeros and all 4 pilots, with one of them being held in reserve. The CAF was also informed that the actual shooting could take as long as twelve days. (We were to realize later why they needed extra Zero and pilot. They assumed they would “use up” at least one of each.)
“The Final Countdown” is the name of the movie, and stars Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Ron O’Neal, Charles Durning and Katharine Ross.
Set for release in the spring of 1980, it has been two years in the making at a cost of over $10 million, and is produced by Peter Vincent Douglas, son of actor Kirk Douglas.
The movie’s basic action unfolds as a modern aircraft carrier, the USS NIMITZ, is caught in a violent storm and thrown back through a time warp to the Pacific Ocean on 6 December 1941 - one day prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In his role as skipper of the NIMITZ, Kirk Douglas has both the wherewithal and unquestionable military superiority to intervene in the advent of World War II and possibly change the entire impact of this single histroic event.
What happens in the scenes to follow involves human drama, intrigue and mechanically amazing feats of aviation wizardry to produce a surely spectacular motion picture, and one in which the Zero aircraft and pilots of the Confederate Air Force, along with the United States Navy play major roles.
Director Don Taylor and 2nd Unit Director David Jones were both experienced in the realm of eliciting effective action, suspense and character portrayal from their actors, bringing an added bonus to the movie and is further assurance of its success. Their use of air-to-air combat footage involving the 6,000 lb. Zeros and the 60,000 lb F-14 Tomcat fighters, and actual shipboard drama scenes all add up to a compact reel of very intense adventure.
The drama that was to unfold in the skies 40 miles off the coast of Key West was to be filmed in June. However, the CAFs involvement began on May 6th, when the four CAF Colonels went aboard the USS NIMITZ as guests of the U.S. Navy. They met with the Navy pilots they would be flying with from VF-84, “The Jolly Rogers.” They were Lieutenant Commander “Fox” Farrell and Andy Dambekaln, along with their Commanding Officer, Commander Emory “Skipper”Brown. In the following weeks, these men and the CAF Colonels would be participating in some of the most unbelievable flying operations ever attempted.
Captain Batzler, Commanding Officer of the NIMITZ, gave the Colonels complete run of the ship during the four days they spent at sea. According to Col. Mack Sterling, CAF Executive Director, “Those four days will always be
remembered by the four of us. We were very surprised to find out how many of the Navy personnel were fully aware of the accomplishments and goals of the Confederate Air Force. One of the evenings while pilots were being qualified in A-7s and A-2s, the Captain made the Admirals Bridge available to us exclusively, and we were able to take many outstanding photographs of flight operations.”
One month later, at 5 A.M. on June 4th, the four weary Colonels were ready to depart Galveston for their trip to Key West NAS. They had just spent two days of flying at the Galveston Airshow, and were it not for the excitement that had been mounting for the past month, would have rather stayed in bed. If they had only had any way of knowing what the day held in store for them, they would have stayed in bed.
It was still dark as they took off with Col. Sterling leading the way - a manuever necessitated by the fact that he was the only one with lights. Due to arrive at Key West at 8 A.M., they set their heading for due east and were swiftly swallowed by the night. In what seemed like hours, the sun came up revealing a layer of fog and clouds, extending from 1500 ft. to the ground all the way from Mobile to Jackson, Mississippi. They were past Lafayette when they discovered the weather, so, pushing their visions of aerial combat with the F-14s from their minds, the intrepid aviators headed back to Galveston.
Setting down in Galveston in pouring rain and thunderstorms wasn’t exactly what they had planned, but set down they did until 9:30, when the weather cleared enough for them to take off again. Forging steadily onward, the men and planes that would soon be challenging the U.S. Navy for supremacy of the skies off Key West, made it as far as Beaumont (56 nautical miles!!) before Col. Hutchins’ plane quit.
The first bright spot of the day appeared when they landed in Beaumont. A man who turned out to be CAF Colonel J. K. West’s brother, Earl West, Jr., with another mechanic that he rounded up, immediately went to work on the plane. It seems that the rain in Galveston had gotten into the wiring harness, and it had to be completely removed. After the water was drained and dried off, the three Zeros were back in the air again.
While all of this was going on, Colonel Griffin at CAF Headquarters in Harlingen, began receiving regular panicky telephone calls from Key West, informing him that neither the Zeros, nor the pilots for that matter, had arrived. Colonel Griffin, who had absolutely no idea who was where, and due to the fact that it was a Monday, wasn’t sure where he was, decided to take the initiative after about the tenth call and told them this: “The Zeros were ordered by CAF Operations to land and hold at Jackson, Mississippi because of weather. The CAF has a strong policy about letting any of its aircraft fly in less than favorable conditions. They are not nearly as well equipped as 747s, and are therefore holding at one of our forward CAF bases to await a break in the weather.” As he put down the phone, Col. Griffin was heard to mutter, “I don’t know where the h— they are! With only one compass between them, they could be anywhere.”
Meanwhile, the determined pilots and their Zeros flew over Gulfport, Mississippi where they were once again flying over clouds and more lousy weather. Forging ahead, they made it to Tampa, Florida where it was already dark. They landed with Colonel Sterling in the lead once again, because, as you recall, he was the only one with lights. Upon landing, they were admonished by the tower, who told them to turn on more lights. Colonel Donahue only got halfway thru a long drawn out explanation as to why two of the planes didn’t have lights, when the tower told him to forget it.
Rising early the next morning, the Colonels only had one thing on their minds. Forgetting about that however, they decided to turn all of their efforts to getting to Key west, hopefully, that very same day. When they took off, Mack was still in the lead, and the new crew in the tower told them to turn on more lights. Once again, Archie started to explain the problem, and once again the tower told him to forget it before he could finish. Archie never did get to tell the whole story.
At exactly 10 minutes to eight on the morning of June 5th, exactly 23 hours and 50 minutes later, the three Zeros and three CAF Colonels arrived at the Naval Air Station on Key West, proudly proclaiming to be 10 minutes early. The Colonels went into an immediate briefing.
The Navy pilots and the filming crew also went into a briefing, with the only difference being that the Tora, Tora pilots were being briefed by a taxicab driver as to the exact time and place that the night life started in Key West.
Colonels Sterling, Donahue and Hutchins needed time to recover from their rough flight from Galveston, and were sure that they would not have to start working until the next day, especially since Colonel Gregory wouldn’t be arriving until later that day via commercial transportation. With that thought in mind, they prepared for the day’s leisure activities.
Nothing had gone right since the trip started, and as the trio of aviators headed for the pool in their swimming suits with their eyes on a bevy of bikini clad beauties, they found that their luck had held.... still nothing was going right.
Informed by the movie company that “production was already behind schedule, the Colonels broke formation and returned to change into their flying gear, leaving their primary targets for others (who probably didn’t even know how to fly) heading for the briefing, Archie Donahue reassured Sterling and Gregory that they’d surely be back to the pool by lunch time for a couple of good reasons. He told them that the film crew would only work until noon because of the heat, and secondly, they’d more than likely be finished shooting by then.
Colonel Donahue was to be proven wrong on both counts.
Upon entering the briefing room, the three of them were issued “Mae Wests.” Each was afraid to ask the question, “Why?” They looked at each other in complete silence and shared the same thoughts, “Weren’t we here at Key West to shoot a few aerial scenes? And if we’re just going to be flying around the island, why do we need the life vests?” Colonel Mack Sterling is the Tora, Tora leader and the other two turned to him, urging that he find out what was going on at his earliest convenience. Considering that a direct order from his men, he stood up tall and straight, and instantaneously calling forth all of his poise and leadership ability, held up his hand for the briefing officer to see. Several minutes later, when he was able to get the officers attention, Col. Sterling held up the “Mae West” and said, “What in the hell are we suppose to do with these?” Disregarding the briefing officer’s advice because of the apparent physical discomfort that would go along with his recommendation, Mack proceeded further: “If we’re going to be flying around Key West, why do we need these things?”
It was at that point that the CAF Colonels really began to find out what was in store for them. The briefing officer replied, “The water off Pearl Harbor is very blue, and your first flights will be over water, 75 nautical miles out in the ocean, where we will be able to duplicate the waters of the Pacific. The Tora, Tora pilots were given other information at that point, but Colonels Sterling and Gregory were too busy trying to revive Colonel Donahue, and didn’t pay much attention. Archie had become a fighter ace during the war in the Pacific, but he had been flying new high performance Corsairs at the time and now, they wanted him to fly over water in a 40 year old T-6 Texan.
The whole story of what they would be doing was even more unbelievable. They would be flying two of the zero replicas 75 miles off Key West to take part in the shooting of combat scenes with the Navy’s newest fighter, the F-14 Tomcat.
Since the Navy had mid air refueling capability of the Tomcats, only the Zeros would have to return the 75 miles to Key West to refuel. All this in aircraft that were not equipped for over water navigaion, and only one of the planes had an operational compass. They were assured by Commander “Skipper” Brown however that if they had to ditch, the spot would be marked and surface ships would come to the rescue. Donahue said, “Yeh, the spot will be marked by a big oil slick.” Key West NAS had a Search & Rescue helicopter on alert at all times, and each Zero had its own discreet transponder code squawking as assigned by NAS Radar Control.
Filming the first day was uneventful as they just wanted footage of the Zeros’ flying formation, low over the water, atthree feet. A lot of that footage would be captured by Mr. Jerry Costello of Grumman Aircraft, who was in the A-6 camera plane piloted by Lt. Cdr. Ron Langford. The camera plane also served as the refueling aircraft for the Navy Tomcats. There was also a Jet Ranger helicopter, piloted by second unit director, David Jones, that was doing some of the filming, but they really hated to get out of sight of land. The Tora, Tora pilots really felt sorry for them. On numerous occasions, the Zero pilots escorted the chopper in because the World War II aircraft could fly at the low speeds required to stay with it.
The basic scenes would take several days of filming, and contrary to Colonel Donahue’s remarks the first day, went on throughout the day, with few breaks and no regard for the heat. Whenever the Zeros had to return for fuel, the F-14 pilots always gave a heading back to NAS Key West, and could give vectors if the Zeros wandered off course. According to Mack Sterling, “in utilizing the exotic radar and electronic gear about the F-14, we began to depend very heavily upon these men.” Colonel Sterling also stated, “We always had to watch Cuban air space as we were sometimes only 15 miles away. On one occasion, Cdr. Andy Dambekaln, back seat man for Cdr. ‘Fox’ Farrell in the F-14, radioed for us all to make an immediate 180 and move out fast. His radar had indicated three blips taking off from Cuba with the speed of Mig 21’s. I’ve often wondered if they would have risked an international crisis by shooting down two Japanese Zeros.”
After several days of intense flying, everything was ready for filming of the “action” shots for the movie “The Final Countdown”, and the four Colonels of the Tora, Tora group were ready. These movie people were smart, as they had lulled the CAF Colonels into a false sense of serenity.
The Colonels had spent a few days just flying around over the blue waters off the coast of Key West while the film crews took standard footage of the Zeros in low level flight. A few hours of flying, then swimming in the pool, a few drinks with the Navy and film crews. It couldn’t have been any better...or so they thought.
When the day came that they were told it was time to start filming the combat scenes, all four of these devil-may-care Zero pilots had the same strange feeling in the pits of their stomachs. The realization that their stay in Key West wasn’t going to get any better came when the director told the Colonels they were going to be shot down by the F-14 Tomcats. They knew instinctively, because of their low animal cunning, things were going to get worse.
The director explained the basic story line they would be involved in during this part of the shooting. They made it sound so simple that the Zero pilots half-heartedly believed them. The plot went like this: two Zeros would be flying low over the water on a scouting mission, one day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Aboard the carrier, the Nuclear powered USS Nimitz (a modern carrier that had gone through a time warp during a storm and ended up in the South Pacific on December 6th, 1941), two blips are spotted on Radar, and two F-14s are scrambled to search out and identify the blips. The Tomcat pilots report back that
“you’re not going to believe us, but we’re tracking two Japanese Zeros.”
The year is 1980 how- ever, and the Zero pilots...two brave CAF Colonels, with two more Colonels in reserve on the beach, listened intently to their instructions. Colonels Donahue and Sterling would be the first to fly, and their minds were racing ahead, trying to figure some way out of this deal. Col. Sterling had the passing thought that maybe they could get the director to change the movie theme to a European one, then the CAF could get Colonels Carl Payne and Gerald Martin to fly the ME-109s against the F-14s.
Nothing was going to change however, and the Zero pilots headed for their first face to face confrontation with modern 60,000 lb. fighters of the U.S. Navy. The Zeros would fly at 200 ft. above the water, and in the initial footage, the Tomcats would pass by them and observe them. This was what the Colonels had been told and, had they been told what was really going to happen, would have been too nervous to handle a routine take-off. Following the words of the director, Donahue and Sterling took off and headed for the blue water. Reaching their assigned position, they flew in formation at 200 ft. and waited for the pass by one of the Tomcats. What happened next would cause Col. Donahue (a WW II Ace who flew in the South Pacific) to say when the filming was all over, “The flying I’ve done to make this movie has been more nerve wracking and hazardous than anything I did in the Pacific.”
With full afterburners going, the two F-14 Tomcats roared in from behind and below the Zeros, and upon passing underneath pulled up directly in front of them, and in an explosion of sound, disappeared. The Zero pilots had been told to rock their planes, but as the turbulence from the jets enveloped them, the Zeros were rolled upside down and pitched sideways. Both pilots used every instinctive move in their bodies to keep from losing the aircraft in the ocean. When they finally recovered and were flying straight and level, the director told them what a great job they had done, and how they had made the rolling and pitching of the Zeros look real. The director probably doesn’t realize to this day how close he came to becoming a late casualty of World War II. During one of the attemps to film this scene, the director radioed the A-6 camera ship to keep filming, because in his words: “We’ve got a Zero going in inverted.” The pilot of the Zero in Question decided to foil their hopes for a spectacular shot by recovering a few feet above the ocean.
This type of filming went on for several days, and after each narrow escape, the Colonels tried to tell everyone that they weren’t doing that fancy flying on purpose. On one occasion, when Col. Donahue’s Zero flipped in the wake turbulence of a Tomcat, his headset blew right out of the cockpit, snapping the earphone cords. His wristwatch also cameo
ff and ended up in the deep blue ocean.
Even the F-14 pilots had thier harrowing moments. The most spectacular came during the filming of a scene that called for Cdr. Fox Farrell to be chasing Danahue right down on the deck from a distance of about 150 ft. as he lined the Zero up for the kill. Then Donahue was to abruptly snap roll and fall in on the tail of the Tomcat, with the Tomcat then doing the same thig to get behind the Zero at which time it would fire a missile. They practiced that maneuver over and over, starting at 3,000 ft. and gradually working down to the altitude of 200 ft. for the actual take. All of the other planes orbited above them at about 1,000 ft. to observe what they knew would be a spectacular sequence.
They were not disappointed.
Just as was called for in the script, the chase started. Donahue snap-rolled the Zero beautifully onto the tail of the pursuing F-14 Tomcat and immediately Cdr. Farrell pulled the nose of the big jet fighter up, kicked right and snap-rolled in behind the Zero. The low speeds required made this a very difficult maneuver for the F-14, and on film, it proved to be a most spectacular sequence. The big jet fighter’s nose fell through, then Cdr. Farrell hit full afterburners and rotated smoothly to a vertical climb and the F-14 Tomcat rose dramatically. With a tremendous burst of power, the ocean surface became a crater as the fire and water mixed in a violent explosion of spray, and the Zero was successfully set-up for the kill. A tribute to the extreme wide range of power, speeds and maneuverability of the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, and the superb flying skill of a Naval Aviator.
One of the final Zero scenes called for Col. Gregory in the Zero, to explode in a ball of flame after being hit by a missile. Special effects people designed a Napthaleen bomb to be unreeled behind a Zero 40 or 50 feet. It would then be detonated into a huge ball of flame, and it would look from behind like the Zero had exploded.
Several days were spent perfecting the bomb, the distance from the Zero that it should be exploded, and many other technical details. The end result was that the director wanted a special effects man to operate the electric winch which controlled the bomb deployment, and to do the actual detonation on radio signal from the director. This called for a pilot and a crewman in a single seat fighter. This was accomplished by locking the special effects man in the luggage compartment where his equipment and highly explosive bomb were stored. The luggage compartment is small at best but he was stuffed in and the system checked out. Colonel Gregory offered him a fire axe to carry just in case of ditching at sea, since he could not exit from inside the luggage compartment. Looking through the small door opening, he declined the offer with big sad eyes saying; “If you’re going to crash, don’t tell me, just let it be a surprise!”
Colonel Hutchins had the dubious honor of flying the Zero camera plane. It had a huge movie camera mounted on the leading edge of the right wing and a Sony TV monitor mounted in the wind screen, completely blocking all forward vision, except what was seen on the TV screen, which was what the camera was seeing. While this handicap alone would have kept most pilots on the ground, it was discovered on the first test flight that the right wing stalled at 108 knots indicated air speed. The normal stall speed was around 55 knots. Colonel Hutchins came back from the first test flight trying to explain what a spin looked like as viewed through a Sony TV! From that point on, Col. Hutchins landed the Zero at 110 to115 knots which kept him “current” on proper landing techniques with little room for error.
There would be 3 or more weeks of getting special shots, but the Colonels of the Confederate Air Force had been truly tested in battle, and could be very proud of their accomplishment. They had taken three 40-year-old aircraft, and working with a crack modern day Naval flight team, had successfully put together one of the most outstanding aerial displays ever attempted. There was total professionalism on the part of everyone involved from ground crews and production personnel, to the pilots and support teams.
The movie “FINAL COUNTDOWN” is one that everyone should see, and while you won’t recognize the men in the Japanese Zeros, rest assured, the Confederate Air Force was there.
Reproduced Courtesy of the Commemorative Air Force
First published in CAF DISPATCH ©1979 All Rights Reserved. Stills Courtesy of The US Navy
Thanks to Gregory Cooper
It was a simple enough request: all they wanted were a couple of Zeros and three pilots to fly to Key West, Florida for three or four days of shooting.
The entire Tora, Tora, Tora group was assembled and the mission outlined. When the time came to ask for volunteers, all but Mack Sterling, Archie Donahue, Charles Hutchins and Tom Gregory stepped back. With volunteers in hand, Headquarters proceeded to finalize plans with Aspen Productions of California.
Rapidly expanding in scope, the CAFs involvement grew to three Zeros and all 4 pilots, with one of them being held in reserve. The CAF was also informed that the actual shooting could take as long as twelve days. (We were to realize later why they needed extra Zero and pilot. They assumed they would “use up” at least one of each.)
“The Final Countdown” is the name of the movie, and stars Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Ron O’Neal, Charles Durning and Katharine Ross.
Set for release in the spring of 1980, it has been two years in the making at a cost of over $10 million, and is produced by Peter Vincent Douglas, son of actor Kirk Douglas.
The movie’s basic action unfolds as a modern aircraft carrier, the USS NIMITZ, is caught in a violent storm and thrown back through a time warp to the Pacific Ocean on 6 December 1941 - one day prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In his role as skipper of the NIMITZ, Kirk Douglas has both the wherewithal and unquestionable military superiority to intervene in the advent of World War II and possibly change the entire impact of this single histroic event.
What happens in the scenes to follow involves human drama, intrigue and mechanically amazing feats of aviation wizardry to produce a surely spectacular motion picture, and one in which the Zero aircraft and pilots of the Confederate Air Force, along with the United States Navy play major roles.
Director Don Taylor and 2nd Unit Director David Jones were both experienced in the realm of eliciting effective action, suspense and character portrayal from their actors, bringing an added bonus to the movie and is further assurance of its success. Their use of air-to-air combat footage involving the 6,000 lb. Zeros and the 60,000 lb F-14 Tomcat fighters, and actual shipboard drama scenes all add up to a compact reel of very intense adventure.
The drama that was to unfold in the skies 40 miles off the coast of Key West was to be filmed in June. However, the CAFs involvement began on May 6th, when the four CAF Colonels went aboard the USS NIMITZ as guests of the U.S. Navy. They met with the Navy pilots they would be flying with from VF-84, “The Jolly Rogers.” They were Lieutenant Commander “Fox” Farrell and Andy Dambekaln, along with their Commanding Officer, Commander Emory “Skipper”Brown. In the following weeks, these men and the CAF Colonels would be participating in some of the most unbelievable flying operations ever attempted.
Captain Batzler, Commanding Officer of the NIMITZ, gave the Colonels complete run of the ship during the four days they spent at sea. According to Col. Mack Sterling, CAF Executive Director, “Those four days will always be
remembered by the four of us. We were very surprised to find out how many of the Navy personnel were fully aware of the accomplishments and goals of the Confederate Air Force. One of the evenings while pilots were being qualified in A-7s and A-2s, the Captain made the Admirals Bridge available to us exclusively, and we were able to take many outstanding photographs of flight operations.”
One month later, at 5 A.M. on June 4th, the four weary Colonels were ready to depart Galveston for their trip to Key West NAS. They had just spent two days of flying at the Galveston Airshow, and were it not for the excitement that had been mounting for the past month, would have rather stayed in bed. If they had only had any way of knowing what the day held in store for them, they would have stayed in bed.
It was still dark as they took off with Col. Sterling leading the way - a manuever necessitated by the fact that he was the only one with lights. Due to arrive at Key West at 8 A.M., they set their heading for due east and were swiftly swallowed by the night. In what seemed like hours, the sun came up revealing a layer of fog and clouds, extending from 1500 ft. to the ground all the way from Mobile to Jackson, Mississippi. They were past Lafayette when they discovered the weather, so, pushing their visions of aerial combat with the F-14s from their minds, the intrepid aviators headed back to Galveston.
Setting down in Galveston in pouring rain and thunderstorms wasn’t exactly what they had planned, but set down they did until 9:30, when the weather cleared enough for them to take off again. Forging steadily onward, the men and planes that would soon be challenging the U.S. Navy for supremacy of the skies off Key West, made it as far as Beaumont (56 nautical miles!!) before Col. Hutchins’ plane quit.
The first bright spot of the day appeared when they landed in Beaumont. A man who turned out to be CAF Colonel J. K. West’s brother, Earl West, Jr., with another mechanic that he rounded up, immediately went to work on the plane. It seems that the rain in Galveston had gotten into the wiring harness, and it had to be completely removed. After the water was drained and dried off, the three Zeros were back in the air again.
While all of this was going on, Colonel Griffin at CAF Headquarters in Harlingen, began receiving regular panicky telephone calls from Key West, informing him that neither the Zeros, nor the pilots for that matter, had arrived. Colonel Griffin, who had absolutely no idea who was where, and due to the fact that it was a Monday, wasn’t sure where he was, decided to take the initiative after about the tenth call and told them this: “The Zeros were ordered by CAF Operations to land and hold at Jackson, Mississippi because of weather. The CAF has a strong policy about letting any of its aircraft fly in less than favorable conditions. They are not nearly as well equipped as 747s, and are therefore holding at one of our forward CAF bases to await a break in the weather.” As he put down the phone, Col. Griffin was heard to mutter, “I don’t know where the h— they are! With only one compass between them, they could be anywhere.”
Meanwhile, the determined pilots and their Zeros flew over Gulfport, Mississippi where they were once again flying over clouds and more lousy weather. Forging ahead, they made it to Tampa, Florida where it was already dark. They landed with Colonel Sterling in the lead once again, because, as you recall, he was the only one with lights. Upon landing, they were admonished by the tower, who told them to turn on more lights. Colonel Donahue only got halfway thru a long drawn out explanation as to why two of the planes didn’t have lights, when the tower told him to forget it.
Rising early the next morning, the Colonels only had one thing on their minds. Forgetting about that however, they decided to turn all of their efforts to getting to Key west, hopefully, that very same day. When they took off, Mack was still in the lead, and the new crew in the tower told them to turn on more lights. Once again, Archie started to explain the problem, and once again the tower told him to forget it before he could finish. Archie never did get to tell the whole story.
At exactly 10 minutes to eight on the morning of June 5th, exactly 23 hours and 50 minutes later, the three Zeros and three CAF Colonels arrived at the Naval Air Station on Key West, proudly proclaiming to be 10 minutes early. The Colonels went into an immediate briefing.
The Navy pilots and the filming crew also went into a briefing, with the only difference being that the Tora, Tora pilots were being briefed by a taxicab driver as to the exact time and place that the night life started in Key West.
Colonels Sterling, Donahue and Hutchins needed time to recover from their rough flight from Galveston, and were sure that they would not have to start working until the next day, especially since Colonel Gregory wouldn’t be arriving until later that day via commercial transportation. With that thought in mind, they prepared for the day’s leisure activities.
Nothing had gone right since the trip started, and as the trio of aviators headed for the pool in their swimming suits with their eyes on a bevy of bikini clad beauties, they found that their luck had held.... still nothing was going right.
Informed by the movie company that “production was already behind schedule, the Colonels broke formation and returned to change into their flying gear, leaving their primary targets for others (who probably didn’t even know how to fly) heading for the briefing, Archie Donahue reassured Sterling and Gregory that they’d surely be back to the pool by lunch time for a couple of good reasons. He told them that the film crew would only work until noon because of the heat, and secondly, they’d more than likely be finished shooting by then.
Colonel Donahue was to be proven wrong on both counts.
Upon entering the briefing room, the three of them were issued “Mae Wests.” Each was afraid to ask the question, “Why?” They looked at each other in complete silence and shared the same thoughts, “Weren’t we here at Key West to shoot a few aerial scenes? And if we’re just going to be flying around the island, why do we need the life vests?” Colonel Mack Sterling is the Tora, Tora leader and the other two turned to him, urging that he find out what was going on at his earliest convenience. Considering that a direct order from his men, he stood up tall and straight, and instantaneously calling forth all of his poise and leadership ability, held up his hand for the briefing officer to see. Several minutes later, when he was able to get the officers attention, Col. Sterling held up the “Mae West” and said, “What in the hell are we suppose to do with these?” Disregarding the briefing officer’s advice because of the apparent physical discomfort that would go along with his recommendation, Mack proceeded further: “If we’re going to be flying around Key West, why do we need these things?”
It was at that point that the CAF Colonels really began to find out what was in store for them. The briefing officer replied, “The water off Pearl Harbor is very blue, and your first flights will be over water, 75 nautical miles out in the ocean, where we will be able to duplicate the waters of the Pacific. The Tora, Tora pilots were given other information at that point, but Colonels Sterling and Gregory were too busy trying to revive Colonel Donahue, and didn’t pay much attention. Archie had become a fighter ace during the war in the Pacific, but he had been flying new high performance Corsairs at the time and now, they wanted him to fly over water in a 40 year old T-6 Texan.
The whole story of what they would be doing was even more unbelievable. They would be flying two of the zero replicas 75 miles off Key West to take part in the shooting of combat scenes with the Navy’s newest fighter, the F-14 Tomcat.
Since the Navy had mid air refueling capability of the Tomcats, only the Zeros would have to return the 75 miles to Key West to refuel. All this in aircraft that were not equipped for over water navigaion, and only one of the planes had an operational compass. They were assured by Commander “Skipper” Brown however that if they had to ditch, the spot would be marked and surface ships would come to the rescue. Donahue said, “Yeh, the spot will be marked by a big oil slick.” Key West NAS had a Search & Rescue helicopter on alert at all times, and each Zero had its own discreet transponder code squawking as assigned by NAS Radar Control.
Filming the first day was uneventful as they just wanted footage of the Zeros’ flying formation, low over the water, atthree feet. A lot of that footage would be captured by Mr. Jerry Costello of Grumman Aircraft, who was in the A-6 camera plane piloted by Lt. Cdr. Ron Langford. The camera plane also served as the refueling aircraft for the Navy Tomcats. There was also a Jet Ranger helicopter, piloted by second unit director, David Jones, that was doing some of the filming, but they really hated to get out of sight of land. The Tora, Tora pilots really felt sorry for them. On numerous occasions, the Zero pilots escorted the chopper in because the World War II aircraft could fly at the low speeds required to stay with it.
The basic scenes would take several days of filming, and contrary to Colonel Donahue’s remarks the first day, went on throughout the day, with few breaks and no regard for the heat. Whenever the Zeros had to return for fuel, the F-14 pilots always gave a heading back to NAS Key West, and could give vectors if the Zeros wandered off course. According to Mack Sterling, “in utilizing the exotic radar and electronic gear about the F-14, we began to depend very heavily upon these men.” Colonel Sterling also stated, “We always had to watch Cuban air space as we were sometimes only 15 miles away. On one occasion, Cdr. Andy Dambekaln, back seat man for Cdr. ‘Fox’ Farrell in the F-14, radioed for us all to make an immediate 180 and move out fast. His radar had indicated three blips taking off from Cuba with the speed of Mig 21’s. I’ve often wondered if they would have risked an international crisis by shooting down two Japanese Zeros.”
After several days of intense flying, everything was ready for filming of the “action” shots for the movie “The Final Countdown”, and the four Colonels of the Tora, Tora group were ready. These movie people were smart, as they had lulled the CAF Colonels into a false sense of serenity.
The Colonels had spent a few days just flying around over the blue waters off the coast of Key West while the film crews took standard footage of the Zeros in low level flight. A few hours of flying, then swimming in the pool, a few drinks with the Navy and film crews. It couldn’t have been any better...or so they thought.
When the day came that they were told it was time to start filming the combat scenes, all four of these devil-may-care Zero pilots had the same strange feeling in the pits of their stomachs. The realization that their stay in Key West wasn’t going to get any better came when the director told the Colonels they were going to be shot down by the F-14 Tomcats. They knew instinctively, because of their low animal cunning, things were going to get worse.
The director explained the basic story line they would be involved in during this part of the shooting. They made it sound so simple that the Zero pilots half-heartedly believed them. The plot went like this: two Zeros would be flying low over the water on a scouting mission, one day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Aboard the carrier, the Nuclear powered USS Nimitz (a modern carrier that had gone through a time warp during a storm and ended up in the South Pacific on December 6th, 1941), two blips are spotted on Radar, and two F-14s are scrambled to search out and identify the blips. The Tomcat pilots report back that
“you’re not going to believe us, but we’re tracking two Japanese Zeros.”
The year is 1980 how- ever, and the Zero pilots...two brave CAF Colonels, with two more Colonels in reserve on the beach, listened intently to their instructions. Colonels Donahue and Sterling would be the first to fly, and their minds were racing ahead, trying to figure some way out of this deal. Col. Sterling had the passing thought that maybe they could get the director to change the movie theme to a European one, then the CAF could get Colonels Carl Payne and Gerald Martin to fly the ME-109s against the F-14s.
Nothing was going to change however, and the Zero pilots headed for their first face to face confrontation with modern 60,000 lb. fighters of the U.S. Navy. The Zeros would fly at 200 ft. above the water, and in the initial footage, the Tomcats would pass by them and observe them. This was what the Colonels had been told and, had they been told what was really going to happen, would have been too nervous to handle a routine take-off. Following the words of the director, Donahue and Sterling took off and headed for the blue water. Reaching their assigned position, they flew in formation at 200 ft. and waited for the pass by one of the Tomcats. What happened next would cause Col. Donahue (a WW II Ace who flew in the South Pacific) to say when the filming was all over, “The flying I’ve done to make this movie has been more nerve wracking and hazardous than anything I did in the Pacific.”
With full afterburners going, the two F-14 Tomcats roared in from behind and below the Zeros, and upon passing underneath pulled up directly in front of them, and in an explosion of sound, disappeared. The Zero pilots had been told to rock their planes, but as the turbulence from the jets enveloped them, the Zeros were rolled upside down and pitched sideways. Both pilots used every instinctive move in their bodies to keep from losing the aircraft in the ocean. When they finally recovered and were flying straight and level, the director told them what a great job they had done, and how they had made the rolling and pitching of the Zeros look real. The director probably doesn’t realize to this day how close he came to becoming a late casualty of World War II. During one of the attemps to film this scene, the director radioed the A-6 camera ship to keep filming, because in his words: “We’ve got a Zero going in inverted.” The pilot of the Zero in Question decided to foil their hopes for a spectacular shot by recovering a few feet above the ocean.
This type of filming went on for several days, and after each narrow escape, the Colonels tried to tell everyone that they weren’t doing that fancy flying on purpose. On one occasion, when Col. Donahue’s Zero flipped in the wake turbulence of a Tomcat, his headset blew right out of the cockpit, snapping the earphone cords. His wristwatch also cameo
ff and ended up in the deep blue ocean.
Even the F-14 pilots had thier harrowing moments. The most spectacular came during the filming of a scene that called for Cdr. Fox Farrell to be chasing Danahue right down on the deck from a distance of about 150 ft. as he lined the Zero up for the kill. Then Donahue was to abruptly snap roll and fall in on the tail of the Tomcat, with the Tomcat then doing the same thig to get behind the Zero at which time it would fire a missile. They practiced that maneuver over and over, starting at 3,000 ft. and gradually working down to the altitude of 200 ft. for the actual take. All of the other planes orbited above them at about 1,000 ft. to observe what they knew would be a spectacular sequence.
They were not disappointed.
Just as was called for in the script, the chase started. Donahue snap-rolled the Zero beautifully onto the tail of the pursuing F-14 Tomcat and immediately Cdr. Farrell pulled the nose of the big jet fighter up, kicked right and snap-rolled in behind the Zero. The low speeds required made this a very difficult maneuver for the F-14, and on film, it proved to be a most spectacular sequence. The big jet fighter’s nose fell through, then Cdr. Farrell hit full afterburners and rotated smoothly to a vertical climb and the F-14 Tomcat rose dramatically. With a tremendous burst of power, the ocean surface became a crater as the fire and water mixed in a violent explosion of spray, and the Zero was successfully set-up for the kill. A tribute to the extreme wide range of power, speeds and maneuverability of the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, and the superb flying skill of a Naval Aviator.
One of the final Zero scenes called for Col. Gregory in the Zero, to explode in a ball of flame after being hit by a missile. Special effects people designed a Napthaleen bomb to be unreeled behind a Zero 40 or 50 feet. It would then be detonated into a huge ball of flame, and it would look from behind like the Zero had exploded.
Several days were spent perfecting the bomb, the distance from the Zero that it should be exploded, and many other technical details. The end result was that the director wanted a special effects man to operate the electric winch which controlled the bomb deployment, and to do the actual detonation on radio signal from the director. This called for a pilot and a crewman in a single seat fighter. This was accomplished by locking the special effects man in the luggage compartment where his equipment and highly explosive bomb were stored. The luggage compartment is small at best but he was stuffed in and the system checked out. Colonel Gregory offered him a fire axe to carry just in case of ditching at sea, since he could not exit from inside the luggage compartment. Looking through the small door opening, he declined the offer with big sad eyes saying; “If you’re going to crash, don’t tell me, just let it be a surprise!”
Colonel Hutchins had the dubious honor of flying the Zero camera plane. It had a huge movie camera mounted on the leading edge of the right wing and a Sony TV monitor mounted in the wind screen, completely blocking all forward vision, except what was seen on the TV screen, which was what the camera was seeing. While this handicap alone would have kept most pilots on the ground, it was discovered on the first test flight that the right wing stalled at 108 knots indicated air speed. The normal stall speed was around 55 knots. Colonel Hutchins came back from the first test flight trying to explain what a spin looked like as viewed through a Sony TV! From that point on, Col. Hutchins landed the Zero at 110 to115 knots which kept him “current” on proper landing techniques with little room for error.
There would be 3 or more weeks of getting special shots, but the Colonels of the Confederate Air Force had been truly tested in battle, and could be very proud of their accomplishment. They had taken three 40-year-old aircraft, and working with a crack modern day Naval flight team, had successfully put together one of the most outstanding aerial displays ever attempted. There was total professionalism on the part of everyone involved from ground crews and production personnel, to the pilots and support teams.
The movie “FINAL COUNTDOWN” is one that everyone should see, and while you won’t recognize the men in the Japanese Zeros, rest assured, the Confederate Air Force was there.
Reproduced Courtesy of the Commemorative Air Force
First published in CAF DISPATCH ©1979 All Rights Reserved. Stills Courtesy of The US Navy
Thanks to Gregory Cooper