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U.S. History 1877-Present Videos 173 videos
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U.S. History 1877-Present 6: Raoul Lufbery 73 Views
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Description:
People like Raoul Lufbery were heroes who flew planes made of wood and canvas into war. Wood and canvas carrying big tanks of fuel and mounted with giant guns. Yikes. It doesn't get much more flammable than that.
Transcript
- 00:04
When we study history we're mostly stuck studying the dudes in
- 00:07
suits and weird white wigs who were in charge of everything but the people most [Wig lands on mans head]
- 00:11
of us have never heard of are the thousands of early American settlers who
- 00:15
helped make America what it is just as much as old George did we know Woodrow
- 00:19
Wilson by name but not the soldiers on the front lines who actually fought the [Woodrow Wilson and soldiers appear]
Full Transcript
- 00:23
war let's take a sec to zoom in on an average guy who gave his all for the war
- 00:27
meet Raul luff ferry a pilot during World War one
- 00:31
while war in general is pretty horrifying anyway we slice it love Barry [Man walking and skeleton startles him]
- 00:36
had a particularly terrifying job because planes were nowhere near as
- 00:40
advanced during World War one as they are today the planes of love Terry and [Plane crashes through world war one plane]
- 00:44
his friends were flying were made of wood with canvas wings it's pretty hard
- 00:48
to imagine a contraption like that lifting off the ground let alone going
- 00:52
into combat these days kids make paper airplanes that are more stable but none [Man flying in the air on paper plane]
- 00:56
of that stops Plus Barry he first got involved with planes while he served as
- 01:01
his friend Marx who pays mechanic when poor pay died in 1914 left Barry decided
- 01:06
to learn to fly for himself so he joined the Lafayette Escadrille
- 01:10
a group of fighter pilots in France that eventually combined with the American [Fighter pilots taking photograph]
- 01:14
air forces when America finally decided to join World War one well the newbie
- 01:19
American pilots weren't as good as the Lafayette Escadrille pilot since the
- 01:22
French had been fighting a lot longer than the American soul of fair unit
- 01:26
cohort became teachers for the new guys the other pilots looked up to la ferry [Raoul teaching boy how to fly]
- 01:31
he knew what he was talking about and they liked to ask his advice
- 01:34
one day captain Eddie Rickenbacker and American ace asked love ferry a pretty
- 01:39
dark question if his plane caught on spire would you jump out of it or land [Plane on fire and man jumps out]
- 01:45
to try to put out the fire note that they didn't have parachutes back then so
- 01:49
jumping that's pretty much certain death but on the other hand it would be a
- 01:53
quicker way to die than burning alive while trying to find somewhere to land [Plane crashes into the ground]
- 01:57
well in the end left Barry declared that he'd stayed with the plane after all he
- 02:00
said there was always the possibility of landing unharmed or even putting out the
- 02:04
flames in the air and then may 19th 1918 at Loch Barry was having a nice chill [Man putting out fire mid-flight]
- 02:10
day on his Air Force Base when all of a sudden German
- 02:12
flew overhead on a recon mission one of the American pilots quickly hopped into
- 02:16
his plane to try to take down the Germans but ran out of ammo before he [US plane firing at german plane]
- 02:19
could it is target seeing that love fairy spring into action and jump into a
- 02:24
random plane that was not even hid chasing after the German plane laughter
- 02:29
sustaining shots with fuel sank his plane burst into flames and despite what [German plane bursts into planes]
- 02:32
he had told the other pilots left berry jumps it was 200 feet in the air in a
- 02:37
machine moving at 120 miles an hour there was no way he could have survived
- 02:41
that fall there are a few things we can take away from left berry story the more
- 02:46
subtle messages that war is complicated and confusing and even the people in [Raoul flying plane while burning]
- 02:50
charge don't always know the right thing to do more obvious messages that pilots
- 02:54
in World War one were crazy courageous and maybe just you know slightly crazy [Man with boxing gloves fighting a bear]
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