Chapter Overview

Indy takes to the skies in this highflying thriller. The French Secret Service dispatches Indy to the Lafayette Escadrille to aid the allies in aerial reconnaissance of the German lines. Danger lurks as Indy faces off with the legendary ace of aces Manfred von Richthofen, known more commonly as the Red Baron. Indy’s secret mission then takes him behind enemy lines to lure aircraft designer, Anthony Fokker, into defection to the allies. This dangerous mission becomes all the more important when Indy discovers a powerful secret weapon that Fokker has designed for the Germans.

People and Topics

Documentary Previews

Below you will find information about each documentary that supplements Attack of the Hawkmen.

War in the Third Dimension: Aerial Warfare in World War I

When World War I began, the rival armies charged into battle with frightening new weapons that seemed ready to change the very nature of war. One promising new piece of military hardware -- the airplane -- wasn't quite ready to hit its mark. That didn't stop a few passionate advocates from making big plans for airplanes, or from dreaming up ways to use them in war. By the end of the war these visionaries would transform the flimsy airplanes of 1914 into powerful and dependable weapons, and take war where it had rarely gone before: beyond the two dimensional realm of our planet's surface, into the third dimension of the air above. Produced by Mark Page and Jennifer Petrucelli. Written by Mark Page. Running Time: (0:27:34)

Blood Red: The Life and Death of Manfred von Richthofen

Today, historians and aviation buffs still celebrate the Red Baron as the ideal fighter pilot. A daring knight of the sky who helped write the book on aerial combat during the world's first air war. For the man behind the myth, however, the real story is a tale of disillusionment; a blood red saga in which ancient ideals of chivalry, honor and duty came crashing down in the fires of modern war. Produced and written by Mark Page and Jennifer Petrucell. Written by Mark Page. Running Time: (0:27:43)

Flying High for France: The Lafayette Escadrille

In a war that claimed millions of lives, most who served in the military fought because they had no choice. But the high flying men of the Lafayette Escadrille were different: they didn't have to be there. They were American adventurers who volunteered for World War One long before their country joined. They were lawyers, authors, heirs to banking and railroad fortunes, Ivy League graduates, friends of royalty, sons of privilege. All they wanted was a chance to fly. The young pilots came to the war with romantic ideas of adventure and heroism. They had no idea what they were in for. Produced and written by Karena O'Riordan. Running Time: (0:26:13)

Anthony Fokker: The Flying Dutchman

On November 11, 1918, the Germans laid down their arms, finally ending World War I. In the surrender agreement, the Allies listed the numbers of cannons, machine guns and other weapons that Germany had to turn over. Yet of 1,700 airplanes demanded, only one type was so feared that it was mentioned by name: the D-7. The deadly machine was the masterwork of a 28 year-old Dutchman who had become Germany's most skilled -- and unconventional -- plane maker: Anthony Fokker. Produced and written by Mike Welt. Running Time: (0:27:31)

Indy Connections: Attack of the Hawkmen

Below are current event articles that relate to events, topics, and people found in Attack of the Hawkmen.

The Most Loved and Hated Novel About World War I

Smithsonian.com

6/16/2015

On December 5, 1930, just over 12 years after the end of World War I, German moviegoers flocked to Berlin’s Mozart Hall to see one of Hollywood’s latest films. But during the movie, a cadre of 150 Nazi Brownshirts, nearly all too young to have fought in World War I, were led into the theater by propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Spewing anti-Semitic invective at the screen, they repeatedly shouted “Judenfilm!” as they tossed stink bombs from the balcony, threw sneezing powder in the air, and released white mice into the theater. A somewhat shocking turn of events, considering the movie was the highly anticipated adaptation of countryman Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the blockbuster novel that had transfixed the nation months earlier.

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Sunken Wrecks Of Epic WWI Naval Battle Revealed

news.sky.com

6/16/2015

They show the battered wrecks of several of the 25 warships - 14 of them British - that were blown up during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May, 1916. Among them is HMS Invincible which was torn apart by a German shell, killing more than 1,000 sailors. HMS Defence and HMS Queen Mary were also scanned during the survey.

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Will the Search for Amelia Earhart Ever End?

Smithsonian.com

1/1/2015

Do you want to see it?” Ric Gillespie asks, reaching for a black portfolio resting on the floor of his Pennsylvania farmhouse. He extracts a sheet of aluminum, about 18 by 24 inches—bent, dented, scratched and crisscrossed by 103 rivet holes, whose size, position and spacing he has studied for almost 25 years the way assassination buffs pore over the Zapruder film. And with good reason: If he’s right, this is one of the great historical artifacts of the 20th century, a piece of the airplane in which Amelia Earhart made her famous last flight over the Pacific Ocean in July 1937.

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Chocks away! British and German fighter planes from the First World War unveiled as part of new RAF Museum display

dailymail.co.uk

11/27/2014

The Royal Air Force Museum is set to open a new permanent exhibition to commemorate the role British airmen and aircraft played during the First World War. The First World War in the Air exhibition, which opens a week today, will tell the incredible stories of men and women who served and protected our nation with the air force.

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World War One time capsule discovered in Germany

telegraph.co.uk

11/21/2014

A hundred years after the outbreak of the First World War, builders renovating a historic castle in Germany’s Ruhr valley have found a time capsule that appears to have been left in memory of soldiers who died in the conflict.

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WWI Canadian soldiers' remains identified

cbc.ca

10/5/2014

Nearly a century after they died in battle, the remains of unidentified Canadian soldiers who fought in the First World War are still being found in Europe.
Today the Department of National Defence released the names of four who died during the Battle of Amiens in August 1918.
Their resting place was discovered in 2006 by then 14-year-old Fabien Demeusere, while digging in his back garden in Hallu, France, 120 kilometres north of Paris.

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Trench Warfare in World War I Was a Smarter Strategy Than You Realize

io9.com

9/22/2014

History remembers trench warfare as wasteful, futile, and uninspired, but in reality it was a deeply thought-out system that underwent constant revision. Here's how it worked during World War I.
Top image: A painting by Captain Kenneth Keith Forbes shows a Canadian 6-inch howitzer supporting British troops in the attack on Thiepval on 16 July 1916 during the Somme offensive. Via Canadian Artillery in Action.
It was around this time 100 years ago that the mobile battlefield along the Western Front ground to a screeching halt — a 440 mile stretch that barely moved in the ensuing four years.

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The Legend of What Actually Lived in the "No Man's Land" Between World War I's Trenches

Smithsonian.com

9/8/2014

During World War I, No Man’s Land was both an actual and a metaphorical space. It separated the front lines of the opposing armies and was perhaps the only location where enemy troops could meet without hostility. It was in No Man's Land that the spontaneous Christmas truce of December 1914 took place and where opposing troops might unofficially agree to safely remove their wounded comrades, or even sunbathe on the first days of spring.

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First World War: how Telegraph readers saw it

telegraph.co.uk

9/2/2014

Everyone knows about the horrors of life in the trenches of the First World War, but it’s only recently that the anxieties of people back home in Britain have started to be talked about.
At long last, those feelings are being aired more widely, thanks to a new anthology of letters written, at the time, to The Daily Telegraph. The message these missives impart is of a nation that was desperate to provide support, of any kind, to our brave boys fighting on just the other side of the Channel.

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The Blockbuster World War I Film that Brought Home the Traumatic Impact of War

Smithsonian.com

8/21/2014

The United States had entered the war with high hopes and dreams—aiming to make the world “safe for democracy” as President Woodrow Wilson would proclaim, but by the 1920s there were strong feelings that the U.S. should never have gotten itself involved in the byzantine affairs of the European powers. Isolationist sentiments grew across the country especially after the rejection of the Versailles Treaty by the U.S. Congress in 1920. These feelings of bitterness and disappointment found their fullest expression in the literature of the day, written by members of what has become known as the “Lost Generation,” most notably John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

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Suggested Lessons

• Images at War