Film horrors

Graham–

Sorry about that…should’ve written “runway accident”…memory’s foggy on that incident since I only saw the ref in a magazine at the time. Quite sure it was F-BEEA though…

Frazer Nash–

Here’s the link…some very melancholy recent photos of what was once RAF Binbrook…

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=88500

S.

The Canadian(?) History Channel recently had a series where they first put on documentaries explaining the current historical knowledge about an event followed immediately by the “dramatized” version in the film. I especially appreciated the insight it gave into the film “U571” which created such a stir due to it’s inaccuracies.

Interesting to learn that Memphis Belle didn’t complete 25 missions, I never knew that. I did enjoy the movie though, same as I enjoyed Pearl Harbor (with one of my favorite girlfriends- Kate Beckinsale….:p)

I think I currently fall into the category of movie goer who want’s to be entertained first and worries about the exact history of the event third. However, it sure would be nice if there were short descriptions at the end of all historical movies saying what was fact and what was fiction, plus it might help save us from those who only view of History is what they have seen at the movies.

(That U571 movie still really annoys me though…)
(second is seeing more of my favorite leading ladies surrounded by WWII aircraft)

One good one, not immediatley obvious, is in “Airport ’79” where the
Concordes taxis about the airport for seemingly ages while the crew
has visitors to the cockpit and talk about what they did the previous
night…. which goes on for ages, then they decide to take-off for
New York.

Anyone whose seen / read about Concorde operations I’m sure would
find this amusing.

F-BEEA also has another film link, being the camera ship for filming the ‘Arctic’ scenes in Dr Strangelove. That brings us nicely around to more film whoopsies, as its shadow is clearly seen under the superimpossed B-52 – accident, not bothered because public won’t or Kubricks sense of humour?
Similar thing happens in Full Metal Jacket, Jet Ranger shadow under Wessex flying over Romney Marshes.

OK… I’m being picky here, but it was a take-off crash, not a crash landing and it was Foxtrot Alpha, not Echo Alpha. To quote myself…

In a strange echo of life imitating art, during the afternoon of July 25th, the Institut Geographique National B-17 F-BEFA Chateau de Vernieuil – aka Baby Ruth – started its take-off run along runway 21 in the hands of pilot Jean Gattegno when, as the speed began to build up, the aircraft suddenly began to pull to the right.

Sorry, but it was definitely F-BEEA and the name is spelt “Château de Verneuil”. F-BEFA was an Air France DC-3!

http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1137645/
http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1111750/

That’s why myself and Dr Harry Friedman spend the last 30 years researching and 3 years writing a 536 page hardback book – to put the record straight!

Well, you live and learn!

I thought the only thing Memphis Belle ever became famous for was being the first aircraft/aircrew to complete 25 missions?

That’s why myself and Dr Harry Friedman spend the last 30 years researching and 3 years writing a 536 page hardback book – to put the record straight!

The script went through many stages – I have four distinct versions on file and there was a myriad of detailed ‘re-writes’. Enigma employed a number of ‘Historical Advisors’, including Roger Freeman and the finished movie contains what is best called a ‘montage’ of events that ‘may’ have happened to 8th Air Force crews – to say that they happened to the ‘real’ crew over the 25 missions, is incorrect, if only because the aircraft never actually flew 25 combat missions!

I thought the only thing Memphis Belle ever became famous for was being the first aircraft/aircrew to complete 25 missions?

OK… I’ll try and answer this as best I can, and I hope I am not taking the thread too much off-topic – but the background to the script – and the movie – is complex. Again, to quote myself…

The Memphis Belle remake – released in 1990 – came about when in 1986, English film-maker David Puttnam, the new head of Columbia Pictures recruited William Wyler’s daughter Catherine as his new Senior Vice-President of Production, responsible for developing non-fiction properties for feature films. Catherine had previously had experience in television administration and production, first with Warner Brothers and then with the US Public Broadcasting Service.
In her new job, one of the development projects was a movie about Eighth Air Force bomber crews, similar to the 1943 film her father made. After a screening of the 1943 original, Puttnam asked Catherine to proceed further. As Catherine Wyler said in an interview after the film came out; ‘I’ve known about the Memphis Belle all my life because my father made the documentary during the war. It’s about the crew of a B-17 – the first crew to make twenty-five missions. And basically it’s the story of that twenty-fifth mission.

But it wasn’t – that’s one of the many myths that surround the aircraft, films and crew which is what we have tried to put straight in the book. To continue:

Puttnam’s career with Columbia was short-lived and in 1987 he returned to Great Britain. The Eighth Air Force project was not abandoned however, and he proposed that his own company, Enigma Films, take it on, and that Catherine Wyler join him as co-producer.
It might be worthwhile to explain here that ‘Producers’ have the final responsibility for all aspects of a film’s production. They are frequently the first to become involved in a project; they participate directly in all the main producing phases; and see the project through production, to post-production, marketing and distribution. The Producer’s role is to turn story ideas into profitable cinematic entertainment, and to persuade others to share in their commercial and creative vision. Producers usually report to the production company, or to the Executive Producers appointed to supervise the production on behalf of the financiers and Distributors. The ‘Director’ on the other hand, is the person who sets the tone of the movie and interprets the script as he sees it. They typically see the story as a whole and gives it their own stamp. They instruct the actors on how to say their lines, their facial expressions and tone. Virtually anything that happens on a movie set is subject to the approval of the Director. The final product is the direct result of decisions made by the director – therefore if it turns out wrong – blame the Director!
To make a movie, you need many things, one of the most obvious being a script, so young US playwright Monte Merrick was hired. As for the filming locations, they were dictated by the availability of aircraft and Catherine had located at least eight airworthy B-17s in the USA, including one owned by her uncle, restaurant chain owner David Tallichet and wartime B-17 pilot with the 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk. It was initially proposed to film all airfield and aerial sequences in the USA, with studio work shot in England.
The Director was to be Michael Caton-Jones, who would be making his second movie after attending the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England. Michael Jones had married Beverly Caton and they both changed their surnames to Caton-Jones. Puttnam’s instructions to Caton-Jones was simple: ‘Please – amaze me’!
Production Designer Stuart Craig and Associate Producer Eric Rattray scoured the USA to find suitable locations for filming – and even visited Memphis to see and measure up the real aircraft – but found nothing that satisfactorily represented either East Anglia and Bassingbourn. There were also problems with a number of the US-based B-17 operators refusing to accept the fees offered. Negotiations were then conducted with the operators of the three European-based B-17s with much more favourable results so, it was decided that if they could get two of the US B-17s flown over, then all the filming could be done in the UK.
Stuart Craig’s first task then was to find a main location site that could be used as a replacement for Bassingbourn, for that airfield had already been ruled out. By 1989 Station 121 was now an British Army Camp with associated access problems created by levels of security. It had lost at least 50% of its runways and what remained of the airfield site was being used as a training range and leisure area for the Army with an artificial ski-slope by the old 324th dispersals and a huge lake by the old bomb dumps! The remainder had either been returned to nature or used for agriculture. Predannack and St Eval airfields in Cornwall were considered but rejected as the surrounding landscape was not correct. Then Craig heard of the recently-vacated airfield at Binbrook in Lincolnshire. It had a similar layout to Bassingbourn, the same C-type hangars and was remote enough not to have modern developments close by. Permission was then sought and gained to use the Cambridgeshire County Council and Imperial War Museum airfield of Duxford as a base for all the main flying sequences, for it had all the engineering and technical facilities present that were essential to keep the aircraft flying.
Space inside a B-17 fuselage is somewhat at a premium – there is certainly not enough room for the actors and a film crew, so a complete mock-up interior that could be split into six sections was built by Bill Welch and his team at Pinewood. This mock-up was to incorporate as many pieces of authentic equipment as possible.
In addition to the B-17s, the script called for a number of enemy and Allied fighter types. The Luftwaffe could only be represented by a number of Hispano Buchons, Spanish-built versions of the Messerschmitt Bf-109s but fitted with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines which gave a different nose profile. Enigma decided to use P-51 Mustangs as fighter escorts.

The script went through many stages – I have four distinct versions on file and there was a myriad of detailed ‘re-writes’. Enigma employed a number of ‘Historical Advisors’, including Roger Freeman and the finished movie contains what is best called a ‘montage’ of events that ‘may’ have happened to 8th Air Force crews – to say that they happened to the ‘real’ crew over the 25 missions, is incorrect, if only because the aircraft never actually flew 25 combat missions!

Incidentally, we interviewed William Wyler who made the original 1943 movie before his death and discovered that it was never really intended to be a feature film – nor was it to feature the aircraft or the 91st BG! Quoting myself again:

In Wyler’s files there are two film outlines; one called ‘Rendez-VoUS’ that was to be a joint US/RAF film story. The second is a draft script from Beirne Lay’s 8th Air Force Film Unit dated October 11th 1942 that was revised November 23rd 1942. titled ‘Phyllis was a Fortress’. This, we have discovered, is linked to an article published a few days later after the the date of the draft script – on Monday, Oct. 19, 1942 – by TIME Magazine called ‘Phyllis the Fortress’. The article detailed a USAAF raid some time earlier on the Potez aircraft factory in Meaulte, France when some 30 German fighter aircraft had fiercely attacked this B-17, forcing the pilot, Charles Paine to belly-land it at an airfield in England.
The draft script and subsequent TIME article were both subject to wartime censorship, but it has been possible to discover that the events identified as to a raid that took place on October 2nd. One participant was the 301st BG, who had 41-24397 named Phyllis assigned to the 352nd BS, 301st BG at Chelveston. On this day the aircraft crash-landed at RAF Gatwick – now London Gatwick Airport – while being flown by Lt Charles Paine Jnr, where the nose had to be cut off to release a crewman. 16 cannon shell and over 200 bullet holes were later counted in the aircraft.
On November 4th Wyler wrote to the Assistant Chief of Staff, Eighth Air Force: ‘Among the Film Unit’s plans for future production is a film based on the experiences of Lt Charles Paine and crew of B-17F (‘Phylis’) on the bombing mission to the Potez factory at Meaulte, Occupied France, on 3rd October 1942. The scenario for such a film is now in preparation and when in satisfactory form will be submitted to the Command for approval. Actual production can begin as soon as adequate equipment and personnel become available.
It seems that Wyler was still looking around for projects – and whether it was the difficulties in re-creating the entire Phyllis incident or his failure in stopping the crew being transferred to the 12th Air Force – that movie was never made.

And even that was not the end of the story – For many months what eventually emerged as the ‘Memphis Belle Movie’ was going to be a 10-minute documentary ‘short’ called ’25 Missions’. It was not until well into the editing process that the length was extended to 43 minutes, and it was not until the finished film was shown to President Roosevelt that the name was finally changed to ‘Memphis Belle’.

Well I have to admit I still enjoy Memphis Belle; you could take the view that overall it is no less accurate than BoB, the latter, whilst sticking to the actual events, still includes ficticious characters and a condensed storyline (which admittedly is all a film of 2-3 hours length can offer), and ofcourse the mkIX Spitfire wasn’t available in 1940.

I’m sure everything that happened in the film actually happened to someone, there were so many B17’s flying, over here, that it must have; maybe even that crew, just not all on the last mission!

I always thought that all of the many emergencies that Memphis Belle encountered in the film all happened at some stage in the crews 24 other missions. Can anyone confirm this or was the whole film a case of artistic licence?

Well I have to admit I still enjoy Memphis Belle; you could take the view that overall it is no less accurate than BoB, the latter, whilst sticking to the actual events, still includes ficticious characters and a condensed storyline (which admittedly is all a film of 2-3 hours length can offer), and ofcourse the mkIX Spitfire wasn’t available in 1940.

I’m sure everything that happened in the film actually happened to someone, there were so many B17’s flying, over here, that it must have; maybe even that crew, just not all on the last mission!

Frazer Nash–

Yes; the last “working” B-17, IGN’s F-BEEA, crashlanded and was burnt-out during filming of “Memphis Belle” in 1989-90. The accident was not, of course, part of the film project!

S.

OK… I’m being picky here, but it was a take-off crash, not a crash landing and it was Foxtrot Alpha, not Echo Alpha. To quote myself…

In a strange echo of life imitating art, during the afternoon of July 25th, the Institut Geographique National B-17 F-BEFA Chateau de Vernieuil – aka Baby Ruth – started its take-off run along runway 21 in the hands of pilot Jean Gattegno when, as the speed began to build up, the aircraft suddenly began to pull to the right. By the time it reached the perimeter track, it was travelling at about forty-five degrees to its original course and just became airborne. Unfortunately the #4 propeller impacted with a large pile of stone chippings that had been deposited on a disused aircraft parking stand. This had the effect of slewing the aircraft around to the left, causing the port wing to strike the branches of a tree. The aircraft then crossed the airfield boundary fence, over a depression and came to a stop in a field of ripe wheat. There were ten people on board.
Luckily nine people managed to evacuate with the wreck with some speed and only a few cuts and bruises, One of the IGN crewmembers suffered a broken leg and one of the passengers a broken collarbone. One of the girl passengers remained on board strapped into her seat – Mike Woodley of classic aircraft operators Aces High Ltd was one of the first on the scene, having driven straight through the perimeter fence. Mike, along with a IGN crewmember and a another passenger re-entered the wreck and brought the girl out before a fire, which had started in one of the engine nacelles, took a firm hold and totally destroyed all but the engine blocks and tail. It was thought that the accident was initially caused by a binding brake or failed wheel bearing.

By the way, much of the problems with the Wyler/Puttman movie was the insistance on the use of the name ‘Memphis Belle’.

When myself and Harry Friedman were putting together ‘Memphis Belle – Dispelling the Myths’, because of our own direct involvement in that movie, we were able at last to tell the correct version of events. Again, to quote ourselves…

The movie may have started out under the title of ‘Memphis Belle’, but it then went through a name-change to ‘Southern Belle’, for a whole set of complicated reasons. As with the original 1943 film, the movie storyline follows the supposed 25th and final mission of the ten-man crew of a B-17 who are scheduled to be returned to the US. The rest of the plot of the Wyler/Puttnam movie is a pure flight of fantasy, with fictitious crewmembers and engineered drama. As the script created only tenuous links at best with real people and events, it was decided to separate things even further, for the lawyers were concerned by using the name ‘Memphis Belle’ and 91st Bomb Group markings it might become possible for an unknown veteran to claim that he had been portrayed in a defamatory way. Thus the title was changed to ‘Southern Belle’ and the unit represented was no longer the 91st Bomb Group.
This situation was, however, to change again after Warner Brothers signed up to back the production, for when their legal team took a closer look at the ‘Southern Belle’ concept they decided that in using that name, the matter was even worse! They thought there were at least three B-17s wearing that nickname and that there may well have been well over one hundred veterans with association to these aircraft – all of whom could sue if they did not like the way ‘their’ aircraft was portrayed! Our own research indicates that it could have been even worse, for there was the likelihood of five B-17s by the ‘Southern Belle’ name in England: ‘283’ and 41-24445 from the 92nd BG, 42-30376 from the 94th BG, 42-29694 from the 95th BG and ‘17’ from the 285th BG. As all the surviving members of the original Memphis Belle’s crew had read and more importantly already approved the script – despite apparent misgivings when the film eventually premiered – and there was only one Memphis Belle, the name was changed back.

Historical accuracy vs dramatic license.
Film-makers dismissively and somewhat scornfully refer to people who have objections as to the historical accuracy of their products as being ‘purists’ – and use the word in a derogatory manner. Well, these purists had a number of things to object to in the Wyler/Puttnam movie. All of the ‘objections’ come about as a result of using the name ‘Memphis Belle’, for it is the very use of that name which firmly locks into place the timescale, organisation and detail. Use of any other name would have made the movie complete fiction and remove all possible reasons for complaint. However, Enigma – and Warner Brothers – insisted on using the name.
On some levels Enigma went to incredible lengths and spent a very great amount of money to ensure historical accuracy. Vincent Hemmings, who at the time was Curator of the East Anglian Aviation Society’s Tower Museum at Bassingbourn, remembers the company borrowing, amongst other things, an authentic beer bottle and wooden beer-crate so as to be able to reproduce the label on all the beer bottles that would sit in replica crates which appear in an early sequence at the hangar dance – as if anyone would be able to read them! They made a large photo-print of a flak-area map that was on display in the Tower Museum. Enigma also spent £32,000 building a complete new control tower at Binbrook on the edge of the apron, as Binbrook’s tower was of the wrong design. They then screwed that idea up by building a balcony on the replica, something the building at Bassingbourn never had at that time!
All the B-17s were re-configured where required to visually match the external B-17F appearance, replacing the tail gunner’s position with the correct model, and fitting ball and upper turrets where required, at the same time removing and blanking off the chin turret position. When the modification programme was finished and the aircraft painted, they were almost indistinguishable from true B-17s of spring 1943 vintage. The five B-17s were each to represent an individually named aircraft in the storyline, but they were also to represent the thirty or so aircraft that made up a Bomb Group. The Art Department applied one set of identity markings to one side, and a different set on the other. Only one aircraft – David Tallichet’s N3703G – appeared in genuine B-17 markings Memphis Belle, 41-24485 and DF:A. All the others wore tail numbers a few removed from genuine F-model serials of the correct period. In addition to the authentic 324th BS code letters of DF, the aircraft wore spurious code letters DP, MJ and ZQ.
So, as can be seen, the Wyler/Puttnam movie was to become a montage of high accuracy, spurious detail and fantasy drama before even a single frame had been shot. From all of that comes one main area of highly contentious historical deviancy. This was the choice of using P-51 Mustang fighters as escorts. Historically, to pursue the Memphis Belle storyline, the spring of 1943 would have seen RAF Supermarine Spitfires and USAAF Republic P-47 Thunderbolts used as escort fighters. Use of Thunderbolts was not possible for there was only one airworthy aircraft in the UK at the time. Spitfires were available – and in copious numbers – but it seems that the type was not acceptable to the production committee because ‘…the viewing public associates Spitfires with the Battle of Britain’. This may well have been the official line, but one suspects that the real reason was that the financial backers wanted to pander to the American film-going public and make the USAAF look totally self-sufficient and capable of defeating the Nazi’s by itself! Interestingly though, as late as July 1989 the screenplay and shooting script was still using the word ‘Thunderbolts’ as escort fighters!
Nevertheless, Enigma contracted five airworthy P-51Ds to appear, even though the use of this type was totally alien to the story timeframe. To put this into accurate historical context, the P-51 Mustang as a type did not appear in USAAF operational service in the United Kingdom until late 1943 and the actual model P-51Ds used in the Wyler/Puttnam movie were not available to the USAAF until early 1945! It seems that despite Enigma having numerous ‘historical advisers’ on board, their opinions and advice was overruled by the Directors decisions.
Air Vice Marshal Ronald Dick, CB, RAF (Retd) was hired by Enigma as one of the Air Advisors and wrote to Harry Friedman on December 6th 1989: ‘It was good to get my hands on a B-17 again and I found the process of making a movie absolutely fascinating, even through the film people could be infuriating over innacuracies in the script. They were scrupulous about getting our five B-17s to look exactly right, but they insisted in using P-51Ds as friendly fighters – Mustangs they said would be better box office than Spitfires! I despair of the crass commercialism which drives such decisions – however, the flying sequences should be worth seeing’.
Then there is the matter of the Memphis Belle’s nose-art. Since the movie came out, many people wondered why, since the original aircraft must have been the most photographed B-17 of World War Two, was the name written in script writing, not block capital letters? One popular reason oft-quoted, was that it allegedly originated from the merchandising department, who thought that ‘script letters look better on the jackets, hats and posters we are going to sell!’ Although that as a potential reason it is perfectly feasible – in fact, highly believable – the real reason is much more mundane.
Enigma sought and gained permission from the Memphis Belle Memorial Association, custodians of the original aircraft to use the name and artwork, and it was agreed that in order to differentiate between the movie and the original, the style of script would be changed.

Hey! Don’t shoot the messenger.

I was merely explaining.

Sunday afternoons in 1950s England were a world apart from present day.

Black and white television had just started to gain a foothold and those who had sets were the envy of others. The fact it was more ‘dark grey and light grey’ television didn’t seem to detract.

Just about the only time a film was seen on BBC (The only channel available) was on Sunday afternoons. And with all shops closed and church the only alternative a culture grew up of families getting together in the afternoon for ‘tea’

This was generally white bread sandwiches containing tinned tuna, tinned salmon if you were posh, hard-boiled egg and cress if you were not, or Shipphams sandwich spread which, from memory, seemed largely composed of crab.

This was followed by tinned fruit and evaporated milk, home baked sponge cake, and tea with lots of sugar in it. Sugar only came off ration in about 1952 so when freely available it was used with reckless abandon as a contrast to the war year shortages.

The highlight would then be clustering around the tiny, flickering screen to watch the film, almost invariably it seemed a tale of the recent war.

Most the adult males in the family would have done some kind of war service and suffered the hardships that entailed. Even if you weren’t in a role that involved combat, things like servicing the four Merlins on a Lancaster, out in the open on a windswept Lincolnshire airfield through the bitter winters had hardly been pleasant, frozen knuckles grazing against filthy oil covered metal, poor, inadequate food, forced separation from home and loved ones.

It was they who would invariably discuss Objective Burma. Yes it rankled with them that much. You can’t imagine the resentment. You also have to remember the sour taste left by the ‘late-arriving’ US servicemen having adulterous relationships with British women whilst their husbands were away in the forces, pregnant teenagers abandoned and all the other angst the ‘Over paid.. etc’ friendly invasion brought with it.

The older males were of course role models. We short-trousered Brit schoolboys with grazed knees and ‘pullovers’ made from wool that had been used in an earlier garment, unpicked, then loving re-knitted by aunts and grandmothers, took our lead from them. They were our heroes and if they were scathing about Hollywood’s effort to rewrite history, so to would we be.

Like I say it’s folk memory.

What you say is generally correct JB. But that sort of opinion is hard to shift with rational argument.

Moggy

Somewhat the equivalent of the UK making a film in the late 1960s about a handful of SAS troopers routing the Vietcong.
Moggy

We could have used the help!
They would have given the Aussies someone to tease.:D

Your point about Objective Burma is well taken but that was a long time ago (and Hollywood, righly, felt the need to “buck-up” US audiences because their sons and brothers were fighting the bad guys too..and good news about the war against the Japanese was in rather short supply).
Don’t forget the pro-English propaganda Hollywood put out…Mrs Miniver, anyone? Plucky British lady holds her family together in the Blitz, holds German pilot at Gunpoint, husband takes his motorboat to rescue Tommies at Dunkirk, daughter killed, Son becomes Spitfire pilot…all while living in a huge California-style house.

And don’t forget the countless Betty Davis/Errol Flynn costume dramas supporting the idea of UK beating all enemies. Hollywood went out its way to be pro-British in the war.
And there aren’t many hard feelings about James Bond, UK civil servant, saving the world.

Hollywood has never been known for historical accuracy.
Producers everywhere (even in the UK) have never let the facts get in the way of a good story…rather like the tabloids.
It’s just when Hollywood falls short, Americans don’t think it’s a national insult or a sinister plot to rule the world. 🙂
In fact, Hollywood makes more anti-US (by that I mean there is an evil government plot or bad guy capitalists) films than pro.

As I said relax, it’s just a film. If you want history, read a book. 🙂

Steve, I just had a bit of a look and couldn’t find that Binbrook ghost posting….can you offer some guidance please?

Frazer Nash–

Yes; the last “working” B-17, IGN’s F-BEEA, crashlanded and was burnt-out during filming of “Memphis Belle” in 1989-90. The accident was not, of course, part of the film project!

Unless I’m mistaken, incidentally, that accident happened at RAF Binbrook, for recent photos of the “ghost” of which see the relevant thread on this forum at the moment. Time, very plainly, really does fly…

S.

Agreed, but I don’t count PH as an aviation film.
More like history in the hands of schoolboys.

“Pleez dun tayg mah wingz ma’am….”

I’d be more worried about her taking his Actor’s Equity card, on general principles!!

Yes, but fun to look at.
Perhaps it should be celebrated as being perhaps the last aviation film to use real airplanes? 😀

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but was there a B17 written off during the filming of this film?

My votes for favourite would have to include The Sound Barrier and The War Lover. (even though this is well off-topic)

Great thread!

I can’t believe you guys, for a nation as historically acute as the Brits are, you seem to resent anyone making a film about anyone other than Tommies and the RAF fighting the war.

Are you so insecure that you can’t accept anyone else did fighting?

There is some history here.

At a time when British and Empire / Dominion / Commonwealth troops were fighting valiantly and dying in quantity in Burma with little or no US presence, Hollywood saw fit to release the Errol Flynn epic Objective Burma in which he and a handful of GIs routed the entire Japanese Army in that benighted country.

Somewhat the equivalent of the UK making a film in the late 1960s about a handful of SAS troopers routing the Vietcong.

Memories are long and each successive bit of nonsense (U547 being the prime example), merely stirs up resentment and folk memories.

Moggy

Agreed, but I don’t count PH as an aviation film.
More like history in the hands of schoolboys.
BTW: the DC-3 had a very visable skydiver handrail over the aft fuselage. 😮

Good point! :p

Never noticed that on the DC-3, though!

Also, a minor blooper in PH – the Spitfire serial numbers are all one digit too long – although they did make an attempt to get those right, at least!