Posted on 05/29/2016 7:24:33 PM PDT by doug from upland
pilots, meaning aircrews.
Thanks. I’m going to order a copy.
Midway was a disaster for aircraft vs ship warfare. Entire squadrons attacked the Jap fleet without so much a scratching a ship. It was shocking.
The role of the USS Nautilus, a submarine, doesn’t get the press it should. Near the end of the battle, the Nautilus found herself under the Jap fleet and was detected. A Jap destroyer dumped depth charge after depth charge on her, while the Nautilus hugged the bottom of the sea. The destroyer stayed in the area to finish off the Nautilus as the two carriers and their support ships sailed away at about twenty knots.
The destroyer kept the Nautilus pinned down but didn’t sink her. Needing the rejoin the Jap task force, the destroyer flung her final depth charges and lit out after the fleet.
Trying to catch up to the task force, the destroyer went balls to the wall, generating a wake that was easily seen from the sky, and with the destroyer acting as arrow head, looked just like a giant arrow pointing in the direction the destroyer was traveling, ie, in the direction of the task force.
American fighter bombers saw the destroyer and, rather than attack it, lit out in the direction the arrow was pointing.
Because of all the ineffective but attention-getting raids from two American squadrons, the task force wasn’t prepared for the attack that came from the Nautilus incident, and suffered back breaking losses.
I gotta agree. That romantic subplot was unnecessary and distracting. But the goofiest part for me was when Charlton Heston, playing a navy captain, comes down from the bridge, climbs into a plane, and personally flies off to fight the Japanese.
Really? After watching that I half-expected to see Nimitz cruising by in a PT boat.
Midway, a good movie ruined by silly, fictional scenes that should have been deleted.
I really like Tora, Tora, Tora. You of course know what is going to happen but there is tension seeing things come together. And I liked that the dialog on the Japanese side was in Japanese with subtitles. I thought that added realism. It gave me a creepy feeling like I was a fly on the wall watching them plan and prepare for the attack.
I always get a thrill of the Jap pilots still on the 4th carrier looking at three burning Jap carriers. It smells like—Victory!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensurround
I actually had my mom drop me off at the theatre to see it as a kid in “Sensurround”.
Basically the theatre had a bunch of powerful subwoofers to give extra ‘boom’ to the action scenes with much of the effect below the range of human hearing and made the theatre vibrate.
Turned out to be a powerful laxative for me, I had to run for the bathroom shortly after those 3 carriers getting blowed up.
But even as a kid Heston running to the plane and jumping in was just goofy, and that horrible tacked on romantic plot made it a horrible experience.
This movie’s closing epilogue is a quote from Winston Churchill. It states: “The annals of war at sea present no more intense, heart-shaking shock than this battle, in which the qualities of the United States Navy and Air Force and the American race shone forth in splendour. The bravery and self-devotion of the American airmen and sailors and the nerve and skill of their leaders was the foundation of all.” ‘Winston Churchill’
All: please check out my counterfactual/what if book “Halsey’s Bluff” where the Japanese win the Battle of Midway. It’s on Amazon from Winged Hussar books.
A forty dollar paperback???
http://www.amazon.com/Halseys-Bluff-Larry-Schweikart-2016-03-07/dp/B01FKTYEOI/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1464581181&sr=1-2-catcorr&keywords=%E2%80%9CHalsey%E2%80%99s+Bluff%E2%80%9D
You are looking at a collector’s edition. $16.21
http://www.amazon.com/Halseys-Bluff-Larry-Schweikart/dp/0996365737?ie=UTF8&keywords=halsey%27s%20bluff&qid=1464581597&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1
That movie is 40 years old, and I only saw it once. Yet I still remember my disbelief at seeing Heston running to that plane.
So I can remember my reactions to a 40-year-old movie, but I can't remember where I put my car keys this morning.
Yes, but who “dropped THE bomb on Pearl”? As dear leader once said.
I made the mistake of watching it again some years back with a friend that was really liquored up.
I was laughing about the film having the wrong ships and wrong planes and the awful dialogue and then he said that the Americans were using the island to hide from Japanese radar.
I think I busted something laughing so hard, I’m not invited to watch movies with him anymore...
Soryu, Hiryu, Kaga, Akagi. Known them since the fourth grade.
Because one of the cruiser floatplanes couldn't take off, there was a gap in the dawn search pattern - exactly where the US carriers were.
Yamamoto elected to let the seaplane be repaired.
If he had decided to fill the gap by detaching one of the strike force bombers, the US carriers would have been detected in time to cancel the strike against Midway, rearm the first wave with SAP bombs and torpedoes, and send them (with his best pilots)against the carriers. Leaving the second wave Zeros on his carriers ready to defend against any counterattack.
I still liked the part where Heston the father admonishes his sulking son smitten with his Japanese girlfriend:
“Well, you’d better get your head out of the cockpit, tiger, or else some hotshot Jap pilot’s gonna flame your ass!”
BTW, whatever happened to the original footage of a Jap flying boat getting shot to bits by our Navy fighters?
I bought two copies of Ensign Gay’s book from the man himself at an air show.
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