Re: 8 - I did not know that about Wayne meeting wounded Marines. Interesting.
They Were Expendable was a very good movie. There was not a happy ending - the nurse played by Donna Reed was ostensibly stranded at Bataan, as when she says goodbye to Rusty, that was it. Nothing more. In fact, the Captain who was talking with Rusty at the airfield opined that maybe she was prisoner. I thought that was a very real and sobering admission to be made in what was still considered a wartime movie.