Title:EXERCISE THUNDERHEAD, ITALY, GREECE AND TURKEY, 25 JUNE TO 28 JUNE 1956 [Allocated Title]
Film Number:NAT 1531
Other titles:SHAPE FILM LIBRARY [Allocated Series Title]
Summary:Coverage from across NATO's Mediterranean members of aerial defence exercise.
Description:(1) Italy. Jet aircraft are serviced, checked, painted and prepared at an Italian air base; an engine is removed from one aircraft. Planes taxi on runway; one is refuelled from a bowser. Air compressor is driven next to the aircraft. The starter battery is fixed and checked. Meanwhile, pilots are briefed in classroom before putting on flying suits and climbing into their planes. A Very pistol (flare) is fired; aircraft takes off (viewed from control tower). Aircraft, in flight, watched by observers.
(2) Greece. Observers and Greek officers look at radar range. Simulated alert: Greek soldiers run out of tents into trench and use field telephone. Soldiers come up from trench with ammunition boxes; Bofors gun is loaded and "fired" at aircraft passing overhead.
(3) Turkey. Turkish general briefs officers. Aircraft refuelling operation; hose is played out and connected to plane. Pilot clamps himself into cockpit and the aircraft taxies and takes off, the control tower relaying instructions to the plotting room at İzmir. Activities in the plotting room are observed by US General Grussendorf, who watches the plotting table and talks with a technician.
Alternative Title:SHAPE FILM LIBRARY [Allocated Series Title]
