Posted on 04/12/2019 2:57:42 PM PDT by Coronal
Was just at the Air Force Museum last Saturday and commented to my brother about Richard Cole’s goblet being the last one that was upright...
http://www.doolittleraider.com/the_goblets.htm
“This was recreated for the film “Pearl Harbor” with actual flesh and blood (figuratively speaking) B-25J Mitchells taking off from the deck of the USS Constellation...” [Coronal, post 13]
Yeah, it was pretty obvious that they weren’t B-25Bs, like the bombers actually flown on the raid.
And anyone with the slightest familiarity with historic footage of the actual launch from USS Hornet ought to laugh aloud, as the real launch day was overcast (not sunny), the sea state involved waves so high that the flight deck was pitching up and down more than 30 feet, and the relative wind over the deck - ambient wind, added to Hornet’s forward speed - was over 60 mph.
The launch officer had to calculate the acceleration and run-time of each B-25, and match those to the duration of the wave cycle, to command break release at the right instant, so that each bomber would reach the forward end of the flight deck just when the Hornet’s bow was reaching maximum upward motion. Thus the launching bomber would be given one last upward boost as it left the ship.
If the weather at the launch point in April 1942 had been sunny & calm, there was a good chance the bombers would never have made it into the air.
No technical mistake the filmmakers made can match the miscasting: Alec Baldwin is about twice as big as Jimmy Doolittle was, and Alec’s full head of hair looked ridiculous, as Jimmy himself was bald in 1942. Anyone who has so much as peeked into a B-25’s cockpit cannot take seriously any possibility that the beefy, corpulent Baldwin could even fit. Army Air Corps height & weight standards used to limit max height for entry to pilot training, for a reason.
But the most ridiculous premise the writers wanted viewers to accept was that fighter pilots would have been allowed anywhere near a bomber.
As fighter pilots, Hartnett’s & Affleck’s characters would have had no experience whatsoever with multiengine aircraft, the flying characteristics of which differ radically from single-engine aircraft. They’d have been worse than useless for a risky & sketchily proven evolution like launching such large aircraft from a carrier - and during every other phase of the strike mission. Fighters did not drop bombs then.
In sum, a boring, absurd, contemptible, inaccurate, and thoroughly execrable film.
No argument there. Still, it’s exciting to see Mitchells taking off from a carrier deck again, even if it’s clearly not a Yorktown class, or even an Essex.
The Doolittle raid was mostly about morale: ours and theirs. I'll never forget my own elation when I learned we'd hit the enemy on his home ground. And I'm sure Japanese morale was affected, knowing we could hit back hard. I've thanked Doolittle and his brave raiders in my heart many times over the years. Thank you sir, and all your comrades. RIP.
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