Posted on 11/10/2019 5:56:14 AM PST by US Navy Vet
Perhaps, but if you are occupied chasing, you are not even going to begin to climb. I think the view of Fuchida’s book on Midway holds.
After Midway he was sent back to the states and assigned to a new destroyer and which was sent to Guadalcanal and was in the pacific for the duration on the war which has a great story in of itself as a highly decorated ship, USS Saufley DD 465.
Awesome. My grandfather was on a plank owner on a Fletcher, too. ‘43-’45 in the PTO. Battle of Philippine Sea was his big battle. He would never talk about combat. Only silly stuff like lighting farts on fire and how much he enjoyed “shore partrol” in the red light district of Honolulu. Even that was only with the grandkids. He never ever talked about the war with his kids.
Just got back from seeing Midway. Great movie and it will be considered a classic of it’s genre. No doubt in my mind.
Good assessment. It reduced 1000 bomber raids to a single plane.
Richard Rhodes, who wrote “Making of the Atomic Bomb”, said in a book signing I attended for a later work that Curtis LeMay had the worst job of the Cold War. Essentially to make sure that NO bombers got through. LeMay, based on his experience in Europe and Japan knew that bombers always got through.
The movie looked like this to me.
https://i.imgur.com/cEuEBzi.jpg
Just saw the movie, good movie. It showed the greatness and incredible bravery of the US Navy. It was a factual telling of the incredible victory we won over the Japs.
Not really happy the Chinese had a part in financing the movie. They did however suffer greatly under the brutal Japanese aggression.
My father almost never spoke of it and as kids we knew not to ask, only the lighter and comical things were revealed. I learned more after he passed when my mom gave me his records including a copy of the ships DD465 action reports. I found a book written by anther plank owner on that ship called Tin Can Man which was also an interesting read.
They truly were the Greatest Generation.
In the credits at the begining of the film, there is a co-produced credit for a Chinese company. I was wondering what their angle was going to be. It comes in with the depictions of the aftermath of the Doolittle raid. The Japanese were brutal.
Midway 2019 is FAR superior to Midway 1976. Saw it Sunday. Midway 2019 is not only a great war film, it’s a great movie, period.
It’s historically accurate, offers interesting character studies of dive bomber hero Richard Best and military intelligence commander Ed Layton, and it incorporates the key new research from “Shattered Sword.”
And there’s no political correctness or apologist taints. “Japs” is uttered quite a bit, and why not? That all happened.
Midway 2019 is a story of American exceptionalism, determination, and heroism. It depicts the forbidding landscape and dire straits of late 1941 aand the first half of 1942. It tells the tale brilliantly of how we created one of WW2’s three “hinges of fate.”
It shows how we got knocked down, got off the mat, and then delivered a haymaker that crippled a huge enemy.
Against all odds, the underdog USA, our citizen pilots and sailors, triumphed in one of the greatest victories of all time. And that’s what this movie shows.
Midway 2019 is FAR superior to Midway 1976. Saw it Sunday. Midway 2019 is not only a great war film, it’s a great movie, period.
It’s historically accurate, offers interesting character studies of dive bomber hero Richard Best and military intelligence commander Ed Layton, and it incorporates the key new research from “Shattered Sword.”
And there’s no political correctness or apologist taints. “Japs” is uttered quite a bit, and why not? That all happened.
Midway 2019 is a story of American exceptionalism, determination, and heroism. It depicts the forbidding landscape and dire straits of late 1941 aand the first half of 1942. It tells the tale brilliantly of how we created one of WW2’s three “hinges of fate.”
It shows how we got knocked down, got off the mat, and then delivered a haymaker that crippled a huge enemy.
Against all odds, the underdog USA, our citizen pilots and sailors, triumphed in one of the greatest victories of all time. And that’s what this movie shows.
Read this one - LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay
When he arrived in Europe, the bombing campaign wasn’t working at all because no bombs were reaching the targets. His assessment was “why bother” sending planes out if they weren’t hitting targets.
His design of organized formations of bombers changed all that. He was a civil engineering graduate of Ohio State, and applied that education to methodically solve problems.
I saw it last night.
It was great, no reservations - well, maybe one.
The 1970 movie was only about the battle. In the same time frame, this movie did Pearl Harbor, the Marshall Islands raids, the Dolittle Tokyo raid, and Midway.
If you are a Midway semi-expert (i.e., if you’ve heard of Shattered Sword and you know who John Waldron was and what he did) you will think they left stuff out.
But, all in all, a great picture, CGI wasn’t “off” at all, I took four of my kids who know only the barest facts about the setup and the battle and now they know a lot more.
And, my PC detector was set on “highest”, and I didn’t find any. Not one shred.
Nicely done.
I greatly enjoyed the movie but I would have made a few improvements if given the chance.
— Kudos for mentioning Nagumo’s failure to bomb the fuel tanks at Pearl (or the dry docks). I thought the Pearl Harbor part of the movie was good.
— The raid on the Marshalls ... okay. Why was it included? I missed the connection to Midway.
— Doolittle Raid, just about the only positive news between Pearl and Midway. Good coverage.
— Battle of the Coral Sea ... we learned the Yorktown was damaged. Coral Sea is worth a full-length movie all by itself. But I don’t think Dennis Quaid was the best choice to play the cantankerous William “Bull” Halsey. Just my opinion.
— Midway. I don’t think the movie adequately portrayed the losses of men and machines in the opening phase of Midway. Our guys got wiped out, with nothing to show, until the dive-bombers made history. History knows the sub USS Nautilus only for delaying a Japanese destroyer, which means the sub got too much screen time.
Without that delayed destroyer hustling back to the fleet at just the right (wrong) time, the dive bombers don't find the fleet and do their thing ... The saw her, rightly guessed what she was up to, and followed.
It wuld be great to see full length movies about Doolittle and his Raiders and Chennault and his Tigers. These stories need to be introduced to new generations that know nothing of these American giants. I really don’t care if the Chicoms pay for it. They are just giving Hollywood our money back, anyway.
I really enjoyed this movie. I highly recommend it. It was a straightforward patriotic movie. No Hollywood anti-Americanism that I could detect.
I’m convinced the Hand of God was present at Midway, as it was at many other points in American history. From the fog that allowed Washington’s escape from Brooklyn Heights to the storm that provided a lifesaving tailwind to Doolittle’s Raiders, there are many examples.
That's certainly a defensible position to take.
Felt so badly for Bruno Gaido and the pilot
I read a book some years ago where several Japanese historians concurred that it was the proper decision.
Whenever I am encounter an idiot spouting the , "We were wrong to drop the bomb" crap I simply ask them\, "If it was so wrong, why did we have to do it twice before they surrendered?"
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