Bomber: Memphis 'war hero' inspires film

Some war heroes are remembered by their families with Facebook posts, mantelpiece shrines or gravesite pilgrimages.

Sixty years after the Memphis pilot was hit in the heart with a Nazi bullet during a bombing raid over Bremen, Germany, Army Air Force pilot Arthur Hawkins Allen Jr. has received a more substantial and presumably longer-lasting testimonial.

Allen — who was 23 when he was killed on July 26, 1943 — is the focus of "Ramblings of a Bomber Pilot: The Story of WWII Hero Arthur Allen Jr.," a feature documentary that also functions as a tribute to the so-called "Greatest Generation" of Americans who served during the war; a history lesson for those unfamiliar with the air war over Europe; and a salute to the remaining survivors of that era whose stories and memories provide a last living link to a conflict that engulfed the globe.

The "Ramblings" of the film's title include not just Allen's wartime travels but the thoughts the young pilot expressed in the candid letters he wrote to his loved ones in Memphis. These letters provide unusual insight into the state of a mind of a soldier who faced death on an almost daily basis.

Read aloud in the documentary by an offscreen narrator, Neil Allen (voice-acting the role of his great-uncle, Arthur), the letters also provide sturdy narrative support for the film, as Arthur Allen ruminates upon what he calls a "godless war" that caused him and his fellow soldiers to lose "more close friends than we can count on our fingers and toes."

"There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how men die," Allen wrote.

Directed by local filmmaker Austin Rich, "Ramblings of a Bomber Pilot" begins a weeklong run Friday, Sept. 15, at the Malco Cordova Cinema. The Malco booking follows an impressive July 26 preview at the Forest Hill Cinema that packed two auditoriums.

"I am generally not a dreamer, but I have been dreaming about this for 15 years," said Arthur Allen's nephew, Frank Allen, 71, a lifelong Memphian who is the film's primary producer and whose father (Frank Allen Sr.) was Arthur's brother.

"Every since my dad died, I just wanted to take up the torch and honor Arthur's life somehow," Allen said. Referring to his siblings (Anita Black, Patricia Bertagna, Jim Allen and Mike Allen), who helped produce the film, he added: "We wanted to produce something for future generations so he won't be forgotten and all those who served won't be forgotten."

Characterized as a genuine war hero by his fellow soldiers, World War II historians, and the U.S. government, which posthumously awarded him the Purple Heart and two Distinguished Flying Crosses, Arthur Allen was a pilot on a B17, the so-called "Flying Fortress" of WWII — a type of aircraft most famously represented by the Memphis Belle, the first heavy bomber to complete 25 missions over Europe. (Immortalized in both documentary and narrative films, the Belle for many years was on display in Memphis, including in a pavilion on Mud Island; it is now at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.)

Judging from the biographical evidence presented in the documentary, Arthur Allen was a man of action but also an extraordinarily thoughtful person who articulated his hopes and worries — his "impressions" and "ramblings," he called them — in the letters he sent home to Memphis from his Army training camps and air bases, notably, Rougham Airfield in England.

Some of the dispatches are melancholy, while others read like passages from an action novel. In the aftermath of one air battle, Allen wrote: "The enemy fighters flocked in for the kill... We limped across the channel with our gas rapidly disappearing... We had a total of 169 holes..."

Said Frank Allen: "He talked about his crew, he talked about his missions, he talked about where his heart was." The letters "told so much of a story that even though I never got to meet him I feel I'm meeting him now through his writings. It's straight from Arthur's heart and straight from his mouth."

The combination of action and intellectualism apparently always had characterized Arthur Allen Jr., at least since his days at Messick High School and the University of Memphis (back when it was the Memphis State Teachers College).

At both locations, Allen was a sort of golden boy, excelling at football, tennis, debate and journalism. At the future U of M, he was editor of the student newspaper, the Tiger Rag (now known as The Helmsman), and he apparently carried his school pride with him always, as if it were part of his Army kit bag.

After being drafted in 1941, he composed this rhyme and mailed it to the Tiger Rag, for publication: "So we'll fight for the red, white and blue like we did for the blue and the grey — fighting Tigers — fighting men — in the true Memphis State way."

Such writings, along with the Allen family's photos and memorabilia, helped convince director Austin Rich, 24, that he could expand Allen's story into a feature. The 109-minute film augments such material with vintage wartime footage, new interviews, and, crucially, new segments shot overseas.

A professional videographer and sometime filmmaker, Rich was approached by Frank Allen for the project on the strength of Rich's short documentary, "The Beekeeper," about Rich's grandfather.

The Allen family provided the premise and the inspiration (with much of the funding coming from Frank, a retired financial adviser), but it was Rich who conceived the ambitious structure of the movie, which rambles from Memphis to England to France and to Germany, to trace Arthur's footsteps — or "flightsteps," considering that much of the pilot's time in Europe was spent in the air — in his last days.

In England, the filmmakers visit The Eagle, a pub in Cambridge that was a favorite of "Yankee" flyers, and the Rougham Airfield, where 91-year-old airbase historian Clifford Hall shares boyhood memories of meeting Arthur.

Another interview subject is John "Lucky" Luckadoo, who, like Arthur Allen, was a B17 pilot — and is now 101 years old. Also notable is a dramatic sequence, shot in the fall of 2022, in which Frank Allen takes a flight from a Houston airfield on one of the few B17s that was still airworthy, a plane named Texas Raiders. (Tragically, the plane made national headlines not long after, on Nov. 12, 2022, when it collided in midair with another WWII-era aircraft. Six people were killed.)

Rich said he was primed for the challenge of the documentary by what he calls a "life-changing event" that occurred in Collierville in 2020, when he was beaten at gunpoint in a parking lot by a gang of robbers attracted by his laptop and video camera.

"Literally, within the next couple of days, I decided I needed to do more with my life than I had been doing," he said. "The stress of the injuries and everything else was not near as bad as the thought of spending the rest of my life doing the same old thing every day." The themes of the Arthur Allen documentary seemed a perfect fit for Rich's new determination to create work with a meaningful, positive message.

Frank Allen said Arthur Allen's story is relevant not just to the Allen family but to everyone with a stake, past and present, in the battle against Nazis and other tyrannies. "To me, this story is our story," he said.

Advance tickets for "Ramblings of a Bomber Pilot" can be found on the Cordova Cinema link at malco.com. According to Frank Allen, 25 percent of ticket sales will be donated to Forever Young Veterans, an advocacy group. Allen will introduce the 7:10 p.m. Sept. 15 screening, and other family members and Arthur Allen associates will be on hand, to meet moviegoers and answer questions.

John Beifuss is a Commercial Appeal features writer who specializes in pop culture. He can be reached at john.beifuss@commercialappeal.com

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Bomber: Memphis 'war hero' inspires film