Posted on 08/05/2022 6:51:05 PM PDT by Az Joe
“We lost our WW II Marine uncle four years ago. He never spoke of the horror but his eyes showed it.”
We often forget that many of these Marines were just in their teens and early 20s. Many witnessed wounds to human bodies that literally became the stuff of nightmares that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
My dad was in an anti-aircraft unit in Europe so he was spared most of the more gruesome stuff. But a couple of times the unit had “battle fatigued” infantry assigned to them.
One, who must have been subjected to heavy artillery bombardment, became a nervous wreck any time the big guns started firing. He would pace non-stop for hours and never sleep. The other one was nearly as immobile as a Gumby doll. Whatever position you put him in he would stay in. It was obvious to everyone around them that they weren’t faking it and eventually the Army sent them back to the States.
Outlaw Josey Wales
The Longest Day, Von Ryan’s Express
99 posts to get The Guns of Navarone.
Admiral Halsey was a flawed man. But I feel that all great men have flaws. Patton was flawed. Churchill was flawed. But Halsey, early in the war, was the right man for the right time.
I loved the story about how Halsey took command of the Guadalcanal Campaign, and when he relived Admiral Ghormley (who was a good friend and classmate at the Naval Academy) he was astonished to see Ghormley cooped up in a little windowless compartment on a ship tied to a pier. When he asked him why he hadn’t acquired any facilities on the shore for his headquarters, he was told the French said there weren’t any, and weren’t helping find any.
Halsey had one of his subordinates put together a unit of armed sailors, and had them march over the to the French Governor’s mansion. When they got there, the Governor was out, so they simply requisitioned the mansion, and that was that.
No wonder his men loved him. He made mistakes with Typhoon Cobra and the Okinawa Typhoon, not to mention his leaving his transports unprotected in Leyte Gulf, but...early in the war, when we NEEDED someone, he was the one who stepped into the breach.
YES. Great reference, spot on.
I loved the performance by Jose Ferrer. Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Thanks! Will put it at top of my list, too. Sounds really good.
Let me hear your guns!
All time classic movie
I only learned recently that the actor who played Willie, died in a plane crash a few years later. I always wondered why I never saw him in any other movies.
“I’m a lot drunker than you are, so it’ll be a fair fight.”
I loved it. Again, a movie about leadership.
And I loved how Gregory Peck’s character scared the hell out of people, offended people, and drove them, but in the end, when he broke himself...his subordinate tenderly ministered to him as he lay in his bunk.
With love. Love of a man who broke himself to save his men.
“Battle of the Bulge”
I hope you don’t mean the one with Henry Fonda.
“My only quibble was the darn sounds - nobody seems to be able to recreate the sounds of rifle fire and nobody apparently ever used grenades.”
It might be too loud for most audiences.
Capt. Dale Dye was the military advisor on the Pacific and Band of Brothers and he’s a major reason that those shows are so realistic.
Dye also worked on Platoon. A buddy of mine who had been in heavy firefights in Vietnam went to see Platoon and he said that the firefight scenes were so real it made his hair stand up. He was scared the entire time he was in Vietnam and Platoon scared him too.
Me too-after the last time I watched it, I wondered, and looked it up. Well, that explained it.
So many great performances in that movie. Fred MacMurray. Wow. Did he ever nail that part.
Red Dawn
Have watched that film many times. It told a story that needed to be told. The 8th Air Force losses were catastrophic , at least 50%. The fact that we had men willing to fly and even die is amazing to me even today.
The story is somewhat true in some ways, Lt. General Frank Armstrong is the real General Savage. Armstrong was one of the original people to go England and be with General Ira Eaker. Eaker and Armstrong did have a troubled Air Group, they both went to see what was going on and the commander was relived and Eaker told Armstrong he was to take over and that he would send him his stuff.
My wife’s uncle served in the Pacific as a coxswain on landing craft, and he never talked about it, and he never went in the water, even in a swimming pool.
The Enemy Below
Dark of the Sun
“The Best Years of Our Lives”
One of my favorite movies. Period.
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors wouldn’t be the great story that it is if Halsey hadn’t left the tiny Taffy 3 battle group all by themselves to take on the main Japanese fleet
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