Lay, the principal author, was either a direct participant in or an eyewitness to the main occurrences in the story.
He was one of six officers who went to Europe with Brig. Gen. Ira Eaker in February 1942
to establish the advanced element of Eighth Air Force.
Bartlett was there, too, as the aide of Maj. Gen. Carl Spaatz, and like Lay, he was directly involved in happenings depicted in the film ...
"Twelve O'Clock High" took some creative license in time shifting and combinations of events.
The Big Mission in the book and movie was a composite of the first B-17 mission into the German homeland
(flown in actuality Jan. 27, 1943) and the famous "double mission" against Schweinfurt and Regensburg Aug. 17, 1943.
The novel specifies that the targets were ball bearing plants at "Hambruecken" (Schweinfurt, thinly disguised)
and the Messerschmitt fighter plant at "Bonhofen" (Regensburg). Neither city was mentioned by name in the movie ...
Beirne Lay, on the other hand, was there for the double mission.
He was a fully qualified aviator, having served for several years in the Air Corps in the 1930s ...
In 1943, he aspired to a combat command and flew as many missions as he could in preparation.
In the strike on Regensburg, he was copilot of the B-17 Picadilly Lily, which became the name of Savage's airplane in the movie.
You don't have to read these unless you wish to ...
... but there are some organizational things to think about
While the movie is about leadership, a subtle story about organizations is being played out in the background.
Think about what the characters are thinking about in terms of their particular situations,
as well as in the evolution of the organization itself.
On 20 June 1941, to grant additional autonomy to the air forces and to avoid binding legislation from Congress,
the War Department revised the army regulation governing the organization of Army aviation ...
(the air war plan) laid out a strategic plan for the daylight bombing of Germany by unescorted heavy bombers ...
Unfortunately the B-17 bomber command of the U.S. Eighth Air Force had only flown six relatively unopposed missions
(and the mistake) of disregarding the need and feasibility of long-range fighter escorts was repeated.
Both plans called for the destruction of the German Air Force (GAF) as a necessary requirement
before campaigns against priority economic targets.
(There were) four target sets in order of priority ...
placing U-Boat facilities first, followed by transportation, electricity production, petroleum production,
and rubber
Things we may talk about
We will spend our time seeing if we can understand the 1940s in terms of the 21st century lives we are living.
Something else
a Minha Casa
Cristina Branco,
born in 1972, did not start out to be a fado singer,
but she has studied the poems from which major fado lyrics are taken and
continues to work on her fado repertory, accompanied by Custódio Castelo on guitar and as composer.
From the Last.fm entry ...
She grew up far from the fado houses of Lisbon and nothing suggested that she was predestined for the fado.
Like almost all young Portuguese born after the revolution of 1974,
she was interested in folk music, jazz, blues, bossa nova but not in fado.
She regarded it as a genre for a different generation.
This lasted until her 18th birthday,
when her grandfather gave her the album Rara e Inédita
by Amália Rodrigues.
Suddenly, Cristina Branco discovered all the emotions that the genre could offer in the close connections
that arose among voice, poetry and music.
The amateur singer - then studying communication sciences and still full of her ambition to become a journalist -
began to develop her vocal technique and to take her new vocation seriously.