War Films

mmm said:
What about everything that happened before 7th Dec 1941?????

North Africa? Stalingrad? The Americans weren't everywhere.
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The Americans were in North Africa. I could be into that. That's story not often told.

Stalingrad? I don't really care to watch the Russians and Nazis because I am a selfish American. (although I enjoyed Enemy at the Gates) :evil: :happy:
 
Thanks David. I personally would love to tell the story of Wake Island.

I'd tell the story of the unidentified civiliian worker (obviously a lot of Artistc Freedom is in play). This could be a sort of Thin Red Line / Band of Brothers / Papillon story. Have this one American worker be the central point of the story and we follow him from pre-invasion, during the fighting and siege to capture and imprisonment to escape and then death...

The Battle of Wake Island

On December 8, 1941 the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor (Wake being on the opposite side of the International Date Line), 16 Japanese medium bombers flown from bases on the Marshall Islands attacked Wake Island, destroying eight of the twelve F4F Wildcat fighter aircraft belonging to Marine Corps fighter squadron VMF-211 on the ground.

Early on the morning of December 11, the garrison, with the support of the four remaining Wildcats, repulsed the first Japanese landing attempt by theSouth Seas Force including two troop transport ships containing 450 Japanese marines.

The U.S. Marines fired at the invasion fleet with their six 5 inch (127 mm) coastal artillery guns, sinking the Hayate. The Japanese force withdrew before landing. This was the first Japanese defeat of the war. After the defeat, when asked if he needed anything, the US commander said "Send more Japs".

But the continuing siege and frequent Japanese air attacks on the Wake garrison continued, without resupply for the Americans.

The second Japanese invasion force, on December 23, composed most of the same ships from the first attempt with some new additions, plus 1,500 Japanese marines. The landings began at 02:35 hours where, after a preliminary bombardment, the destroyer transports P-32 and P-33 were beached and burned in their attempts to land the invasion force.

After a full night and morning of fighting, the Wake garrison surrendered to the Japanese by mid-afternoon.

The U.S. Marines lost only 49 killed during the entire 15-day siege while three U.S. Navy personnel and at least 70 civilians were killed. The Japanese losses were recorded at between 700 to 900 killed with at least 1,000 more wounded, in addition to the two destroyers lost in the first invasion attempt, as well as at least 20 land-based and carrier aircraft. The Japanese captured all of the men remaining on the island, of whom the majority were civilian contractors.

Japanese Occupation and Surrender

On February 24, 1942, USS Enterprise attacked the Japanese garrison on Wake Island. The United States forces bombed the island from 1942 until Japan's surrender in 1945.

On October 5, 1943, carrier planes from USS Yorktown conducted an extremely successful raid. Two days later, fearing an imminent invasion, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of 98 captured American contract workers remaining on the island who had been doing forced labour for the Japanese. They were taken to the northern end of the island, blindfolded and machine-gunned. One of the prisoners (whose name has never been discovered) escaped the massacre, apparently returning to the site to carve the message 98 US PW 5-10-43 on a large coral rock near where the murdered Americans had been hastily buried in a mass grave. This unknown American was re-captured within a few weeks, after which Sakaibara personally beheaded him with a sword.
On September 4, 1945, the remaining Japanese garrison surrendered to a detachment of the United States Marine Corps. In a brief ceremony, the handover of Wake was officially conducted.

I could tell any story from this campaign but this would be interesting (thinking out loud also). Were there any females on Wake pre-invasion?
 
Tae Guk Gi was sucessful but in own rights won tons of awards but was only seen mostly through asia. It was only relased on dvd here.
 
Or...if we could work out a plot element that allowed a camera to be on the island, (maybe one of the civilians was a film maker?), we'd have a "Blair Witch Project" on our hands. As it is, we've got a pretty decent "CSI: Wake Island" setup.
 
Wake Island is a great idea. It's got the civilian angle that I was going for, but in a WWII setting which predominantly seems to be the favored war.

Cool idea, John. :thumbsup:
 
Tae Guk Gi looks solid. I havent seen it yet; Ill get around to it (That whole forgotten war thing :/)

krestofre - there was a commerical plane that left the island only to be called back at the news of peral hardbor; i wonder who was on this plane? Apparently it followed a weekend 'leave'. The more I start reading into Wake the more I like it.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-M-Wake.html
 
Good point. In the USMC it is said that a "Top", or Master Gunnery Sergeant, is "a twenty-year Marine who never smiles...not even when he's getting laid". (There are two enlisted ranks above Master Gunny: Sergeant Major, and Sergeant Major of the Corps. The latter rank is held by one man at a time, as he serves directly under the Commandant of the Corps, who in turn answers to the Chief of Naval Operations).

Seem to remember you guys had a sub penned in at Karlskrona(?) a few years back, that invaded the base and wouldn't surrender but wasn't allowed to leave unless it did. Did it ever get made public whose boat that was? That might be an interesting Cold War story...a neutral country holding a bunch of supposedly-not-at-war guys in their sub until they surface and fly their colors. As an ex-nav-intel guy I know says, "We didn't know just how cold the Cold War was until we got in it".
 
John_Hudson said:
The Americans were in North Africa. I could be into that. That's story not often told.
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Yeah..and Americans flew in the Battle of Britain of Britain well before Pearl Harbour too, but I was making the point that there were plenty of events where the US was not present. I just hope that the new Tom Cruise Film "the Few" doesn't make out that America won the Battle of Britain for the British.

Brits get really pissed of with that kinda thing. There was quite a backlash against U571, as the major Enigma captures were by the British...didn't bother me too much though - it doesn't pretend to be a true story, so...

Filmmakers need to trend careful with historical accounts, that's for sure.
 
I have seriosu reservations about that film. I know it is based on actual events (as you mentioned) but god I hope it isn't some LAST SAMURAI type story or any kind of sensationalism.

I'll hold my breath (It is MANN and CRUISE however)

I did not mean anything by my last comment by the way; was not sure if you realized that was all.

2006 has alot fo activity in WW2 coming OUT:

The Pacific War (HBO - Damn I cannot wait)
Flags of our Fathers
The Few
Inglorious Bastards (Hoping 2006 but not holding breath)
 
dont forget there are a few asian one as well.
let me find it but there is one about the japanese invasion on chinese territories it looks pretty good. plus isnt there like a morgan freeman film coming out with him a in a war i heard?

yea found it still underway i suppose.

Untitled Morgan Freeman WWII Project (2006)
Poster Not Submitted Writing credits
Gregory Allen Howard


Plot Outline: A drama focused on the 761st Tank Battalion, the first black armored unit to see combat in World War II, and the intense relationship between two men -- a black soldier and a white officer.
 
bob_schubring said:
Good point. In the USMC it is said that a "Top", or Master Gunnery Sergeant, is "a twenty-year Marine who never smiles...not even when he's getting laid". (There are two enlisted ranks above Master Gunny: Sergeant Major, and Sergeant Major of the Corps. The latter rank is held by one man at a time, as he serves directly under the Commandant of the Corps, who in turn answers to the Chief of Naval Operations).

Seem to remember you guys had a sub penned in at Karlskrona(?) a few years back, that invaded the base and wouldn't surrender but wasn't allowed to leave unless it did. Did it ever get made public whose boat that was? That might be an interesting Cold War story...a neutral country holding a bunch of supposedly-not-at-war guys in their sub until they surface and fly their colors. As an ex-nav-intel guy I know says, "We didn't know just how cold the Cold War was until we got in it".
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You are refering to the "Whiskey on the rocks" incident. The true story was that a russian sub managed to run aground just outside our biggest navalbase. They claimed they missnavigated there but strangely the maps the sub had was about twice a detailed as our own map...

Of course this led to one of the biggest standoffs in our history when the russian fleet set sail to with force to release the sub. And our coastal artillery had orders to fire at the russian fleet if they came to close to our shore. This eventually settled the diplomatic way when our fleet towed the sub out to sea. (Chickens ;) )

Well the entire story is very intresting and if anyone wants to shoot that incident i can film the locationshots with my DVX. :) All you have to do is find a whiskey class submarine...

Go here for more info and pictures

http://www.compunews.com/s139/sp2.htm
 
I was just curious if any women at all were Wake Island with it's mentioning of Civilian workers. Have you no faith?
 
There actually might have been. There was a Pan-American Clipper stop there and I think some sort of medical facitlity, so there might have been women.
 
I just finished watching Saints and Soldiers and was blown away. What they accomplished with a $1 million budget was awesome. I loved the cinematography of the film.
 
Rasquachemedia said:
I just finished watching Saints and Soldiers and was blown away. What they accomplished with a $1 million budget was awesome. I loved the cinematography of the film.
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I've been very hesitant to check this out. Films like this win a bunch of awards but if they're so good then why hasn't anyone heard of it, ya know? Maybe they were just better than the competition at said festivals? Why wasn't this in distro? Straight to DVD? Is it really that good?
 
John_Hudson said:
Stalingrad? I don't really care to watch the Russians and Nazis because I am a selfish American. (although I enjoyed Enemy at the Gates) :evil: :happy:
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Eh? Russia lost almost 50 mil people during WWII.... 50 MILLIONS... Stalingrad mentioned above (which, btw, was 1942-1943, mmm) was the largest single battle of WWII, lasting over 180 days, that became one of the turning points in the course of war along with Battle for Moscow and Kursk battle...

Not to dis ya for your selfishness, but that's a whole load more of potential stories than the (comparatively) small amount of what US went through during that war has to offer.
And I guess that's why new war movies will keep coming out as long as there are movies out there. And that is why we'll keep watching 'em... There are just so many human lifes, stories, that deserve to be told, left in each and every damn war of the past.
 
Of course!

That is what the Winky was for (and the admittance of being selfish). I was kidding!

But in all seriousness; my personal interests lie in the motherland (and there is nothing wrong with that is there?). The Russians were some bad mo-frains in WW2; Hitler was a dummy.
 
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