Posted on 03/26/2009 5:49:43 AM PDT by DFG
It was film night in Stalag Luft III and the dwindling band of surviving PoWs was marking the 65th anniversary of the daring breakout by watching The Great Escape. Even though this is Hollywood’s celebration of their story and ensured their enduring fame, it wasn’t the Nazis they booed — it was Steve McQueen and his motorbike.
“We were not impressed when that film came out,” said Reginald Cleaver, 86, a flight engineer who had been shot down over the Netherlands and who helped to make disguises for the escape. “The bits about the way the tunnel was dug and how things started was quite accurate, but the later bits were nonsense.
“The Americans played no part in the escape. To have Americans riding motorbikes was ridiculous.”
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Ten American pilots flew with units under the command of RAF Fighter Command between 10 July and 31 October 1940, thereby qualifying for the Battle of Britain clasp to the 1939-45 British campaign star. There were 10 Irish, 13 French, 20 south Africans, 21 Australians, 29 Belgians, 84 Czechoslovakians, 86 Canadians, 98 new Zealanders, and 139 Poles that fought in the Battle of Britain.
Three Eagle Squadrons made up of exclusively of American pilots and formed between September 1940 and October 1941. These were No 71, 121 and 133 Squadrons. The Eagle squadrons operated as part of the RAF Fighter Command on convoy escort duties and fighter sweeps over France. All three were involved in the intense battle of Dieppe on 19 August 1942. All the Americans who flew in the Eagle Squadrons - 244
On the other hand, with the exception of the CIB theater, the US did 99% of the fighting against Japan.
I shouldn’t have said “hundreds”, but I got excited.
Pick up a copy of Max Hastings’ new book, “Retribution,” on this theater of the war. Hastings is a British historian and has some surprising things to says about the Allies, most remarkably the Australians. One of his take-away points was the Brits, French, Belgians and Dutch fully expected to have their holdings in Africa and Asia “returned” to them at the war’s conclusion. The Americans had no such understanding and this difference in outlook created much suspicion and mistrust.
Oh, heck no! The movie would have sucked without Steve McQueen!!
Greatest movie ever!
In The Longest Day Richard Todd acted in scenes with Peter Lawford, who played Richard Todd.
When I was four (early fifties) in the newly minted suburbs of LI nearly every kid’s dad had a WW2 story to tell (mine was 15th Air Force in Libya and Italy). I have a strong memory that the guy across the street had everyone trumped...he was one of Merrill’s Marauders.
Goggled “The Little Big Inch,” Interesting .
http://www.eaglespeak.us/2007/12/sunday-ship-history-big-inch-and-little.html
My dad flew in the China-Burma-India Campaign as a civilian pilot, in C-46 aircraft. An uncle flew as an AAF navigator from England and then later from Benghazi. He was decorated.
I should add that he was in a crash landing in India, received treatment at the Army burn center in San Antonio, but never received veteran’s benefits or recognition.
bookmark
And Audrey Hepburn didn’t do her own singing in “My Fair Lady”.
Hollywood isn’t known for accuracy.
His younger brother was a tank commander in a recon company of the 14th Armored Division in Patton's Third Army. He had 187 days on the line.
Another brother was a Marine who saw action on Okinawa.
At theend of the war they all moved back to the family's house in Queens. Late in his life my grandfather (who was a WW1 Marine Gunnery Sgt.) told me that every night the house was filled with his sons still fighting the war in their sleep.
“That was when American aircrews were being rotated back to the U.S. after 25 or 30 missions.”
“To belittle Britain’s WWII effort, especially the RAF, tells me you are one very ignorant individual ... a poster boy (or girl) for Americas fine educational system.”
You shouldn’t leave the impression that you are belittling the American aircrews either.
“The United States Army Air Forces incurred 12% of the Army’s 936,000 battle casualties in World War II. Over 90,000 airmen died in service (52,173 killed in action and 37,856 non-battle deaths, including 13,093 in aircraft accidents). Only the Army Ground Forces suffered more battle deaths. 63,209 members of the USAAF were wounded in action and over 21,000 became prisoners-of-war. Its casualties were 5.1% of its strength, compared to 10% for the rest of the Army.[73]
Combat losses of aircraft totalled 22,948 world wide, with 18,418 loss in theaters fighting Germany and 4,530 lost in combat in the Pacific.[74] The USAAF credited its own forces with destroying a total of 40,259 aircraft of opposing nations by all means, 29,916 against Germany and its allies and 10,343 in the Pacific.[75]
The cost of the war to the USAAF was approximately $50 billion, or about 30% of the cost to the War Department,[76] with cash expenditures from direct appropriations between July 1942 and August 1945 amounting to $35,185,548,000.[77]
Total sorties flown by the AAF during World War II were 2,352,800, with 1,693,565 flown in Europe-related areas and 669,235 flown in the Pacific and Far East.”
They truly were the Greatest Generation.
This is odd.
When the movie was being made the real pow’s were SPECIFICALLY consulted on the fact that the americans who worked on digging the tunnel were transfered a week or so before the escape.
This “outrage” is a bit of yellow journalism fakery since the fact the americans were never part of the escape has never been a big secret.
The motorcycle scene was a contractual provision for steve mccqueen. He had it in his contract that there would be a motorcycle scene.
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