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Aces High is a piece of orchestral music by Ron Goodwin in a military march style for the 1969 soundtrack of the film Battle of Britain .
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2017) |
Aces High is a piece of orchestral music by Ron Goodwin in a military march style for the 1969 soundtrack of the film Battle of Britain .
The Aces High March was originally entitled Luftwaffe March [1] from the Battle of Britain. In the USA, the title of the composition was Aces High. The music is published by Faber Music.
In the film, the music is played during the opening sequence [2] with fifty Heinkel aircraft, which were actually aircraft built by Spain's CASA. These aircraft had been flying in Spain's air force until 1968. These Spanish bomber aircraft also had Rolls-Royce Merlin engines; the aircraft during the war had Daimler-Benz engines. The aircraft had been obtained by Group Captain T.G. 'Hamish' Mahaddie. The famous opening sequence of the film was shot in March 1968 at Tablada Aerodrome (Seville Airport) in Andalusia, southern Spain. [3]
The film was produced by United Artists. There is a scene showing the deserted British Army vehicles at Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo), and a BBC Radio news broadcast (on 18 June 1940) announces In the House of Commons this afternoon the Prime Minister Mr Churchill said - What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin, after which the Aces High or Luftwaffe March begins. The main titles were made by Maurice Binder. The German commanding officers inspect the fictional II./KG 545 bomber unit or kampfgeschwader (part of 2. Flieger-Division).
The composition is mainly played by military bands and brass bands, and less-frequently by orchestras too, at gala concerts. When the Queen opened the new £35m UK Berlin embassy on 18 July 2000, [4] the band of the Royal Tank Regiment played the music, which was viewed as a faux-pas . The music is popular when performed.[ citation needed ]
The style of the music is distinctively and intentionally German to represent the Luftwaffe. The composition starts in four flats (A flat), then three flats (E-flat), four flats again, five flats (D flat), and finishes in four flats.
The Luftwaffe was the aerial-warfare branch of the Wehrmacht before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the Luftstreitkräfte of the Imperial Army and the Marine-Fliegerabteilung of the Imperial Navy, had been disbanded in May 1920 in accordance with the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which banned Germany from having any air force.
The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom (UK) against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. The British officially recognise the battle's duration as being from 10 July until 31 October 1940, which overlaps the period of large-scale night attacks known as the Blitz, that lasted from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941. German historians do not follow this subdivision and regard the battle as a single campaign lasting from July 1940 to May 1941, including the Blitz.
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Ronald Alfred Goodwin was an English composer and conductor known for his film music. He scored over 70 films in a career lasting over fifty years. His most famous works included Where Eagles Dare, Battle of Britain, 633 Squadron, Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple films, and Frenzy.
Battle of Britain is a 1969 British war film documenting the events of the Battle of Britain, the war for aerial supremacy between the German Luftwaffe and the defending Royal Air Force waged over British skies during summer of 1940. The nature of the subject drew many respected British actors to accept roles as key figures of the battle, including Laurence Olivier as Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, Trevor Howard as Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, and Patrick Wymark as Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory. Directed by Guy Hamilton and produced by Harry Saltzman and S. Benjamin Fisz, it also starred Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, and Robert Shaw as Squadron Leaders. The script by James Kennaway and Wilfred Greatorex was based on the book The Narrow Margin by Derek Wood and Derek Dempster.
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This is a list of aviation-related events from 1936:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1940:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1943:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1941:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1942:
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Karl-Heinz Greisert was an officer in the Luftwaffe. He served in the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War. During the Second World War he participated in the air battles over France and England. He was made commanding officer of II Gruppe of Jagdgeschwader 2. For three months he served as acting commander of JG 2 after his commander had been killed in action. Following the Battle of Britain he remained in the west and was involved in a number of air battles over the English Channel and northern France. In June 1942 he was transferred to the eastern Front where he took command of III Gruppe of JG 3. A month later he was killed in action in the course of a low altitude air battle. He was credited with 34 victories, and was a recipient of the Spanish Cross and the German Cross in Gold.
Hans-Joachim Jabs was a German officer in the Luftwaffe during World War II. Jabs was the rare case of a pilot who found success in two distinctly different forms of aerial combat. He was one of the few pilots to obtain Experte while flying a heavy daytime fighter. Surviving the Battle of Britain, he later became one of the most successful pilots in the night fighter force. The skill sets for the two operations were completely different. Through 510 combat missions he was credited with 50 victories, 31 of them achieved at night. Following the war he became a successful businessman in the field of heavy agricultural equipment.
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