Posted on 11/16/2014 4:15:48 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
As a youngster around 8-10, this movie fascinated me. I can also remember as a teenager in Dayton, Ohio the Raiders reunion was held there sometime in the late fifties. At that point many or most of the 82 (I think) raiders were alive and were there. The papers were full of interviews and the even then before talk radio, they appeared on several stations. I was just Agog.
Now I think there are only 2 or three of the wonderful, brave men left and I think David Thatcher, played by Robert Walker in the movie is one of the three.
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww58PQ2_LVY
One of my all time favorite movies. I love the part where Ted Lawson finds out he is a new dad, and they sing rock-a-bye-baby as the plane rocks from side to side in the sky...
One of my all time favorites.
From what I understand the original B-25 loaned by the Army to MGM to portray the “Ruptured Duck” has been found in storage. It was an older model B-25, and the military never asked for it back after the filming. It was disassembled and has been passed around for years.
Along with “30 Seconds” I like “The Best Years of Our Lives,” the ultimate coming home movie.
Actual combat footage of the raid was used in the bombing run sequence and the “special effects” are fantastic for that era. Great film, daring raid, heroes all...
“Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” movie trivia from IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037366/trivia?ref_=tt_ql_2
When Lawson’s plane arrives in “Tokyo” and sees the fire and smoke from the previous bomber, Davy Jones, we are not looking at a special effect. During the making of the film, there was a fuel-oil fire in Oakland, near the filming location. The quick-thinking filmmakers scrambled to fly their camera plane and B-25 through the area, capturing some very real footage for the movie.
The real Ted Lawson showed-up the day the scenes of Van Johnson’s character (Ted Lawson) was having his leg amputated. The mood around the set was quiet and tense.
Twice while the Ruptured Duck is flying over Japan the crew spots Japanese fighter planes and tenses for an attack, but both times the fighters ignore them. This is factual. In an unbelievable coincidence, the Japanese had planned a major air raid drill for the same time in Tokyo, and the fighters thought the American B-25s were part of the drill until the bombs started exploding. Also, according to the book upon which the movie is based the planes’ crews were told prior to the mission that there was a slight chance that the Japanese would not recognize them and react because the Japanese air force had a bomber very similar to the B-25.
The Japanese fishermen fired on by the U.S. Navy escort ships did in fact have time to alert Tokyo, but their transmission was ignored. An urgent report of two American aircraft carriers so close to Japan by understandably hysterical “ignorant” fisherman was scorned as ridiculous by Japanese authorities.
The scars visible on Van Johnson’s forehead at the end of the film are not makeup, they’re real. He was involved in a near-fatal car accident the previous year just after filming A Guy Named Joe (1943). The filmmakers chose to accentuate rather than hide these scars for the post-mission half of the movie, since his character Ted Lawson was quite banged up, too. They’re particularly evident in the last scene of the movie when he’s on the floor talking with his wife.
I remember that movie. A little. I guess I could watch it again.
didn't the Japanese buy the plans for it or something?
I rented this movie from Netflix during the summer of 2013. Sometimes it is best to have lowered expectations when watching an old movie like this, but I was very impressed with the quality of this film. Highly recommended, especially for those who take pride in American history.
Thanks — I’ll be watching it later today!
Dad came up with the idea of using water injection on the engines as they used on the spitfires to boost horsepower. In addition they tuned the engines to the Nth degree. If they could not get a consistent 110% performance from an engine, my Dad's crew pulled the engine and replaced it with a new one. His mention in the book by Ted Lawson came when Dad's crew was working on the Ruptured Duck. The Duck was tethered to the ground and Dad was revving the engines beyond the red line. Lawson was livid at what was being done to his beloved plane, unaware of his future mission and why theses mechanics were "abusing" his aircraft. Lawson went after my dad for the abuse.
Dad also worked on the Enola Gay and Bockscar.
One of dad's young crewmen, who lived on our block, worked on a camera chase plane shortly after it had flown through the mushroom cloud of the Nagasaki bomb, and even though they had been strongly warned to not touch anything on the plane that could leave any residue on them, made the mistake of wiping his hands on an oil rag he found in the plane. Twenty years later he started having severe problems with tumors on his hands. The tumors only developed where he had wiped that rag and no where else. His doctors were convinced the tumors were related to that incident with the rag.
“Dad also worked on the Enola Gay and Bockscar. “
Cool ! Those guys were something.
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The scriptwriter, Dalton Trumbo, was a member of the CPUSA and was one of the blacklisted writers later. At this time, however, the commies were fully supporting the U.S. military as we were allied with their beloved Uncle Joe.
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