Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Ross (A) on November 10, 2019 at 15:16:02

In Reply to: RE: 'Midway': Boomer's Delight . . . posted by Billy Wonka on November 08, 2019 at 15:30:26

History and the c1976 movie.

Basic facts are we fought to a stalemate at Coral Sea. Moved heaven and earth to have a carrier fleet ready within a short period of time.

We previously broke the Japanese Imperial Navy Code, and got lucky in determining that Midway was their next target.

We were VERY lucky in how weather fronts developed, and in malfunctions of Japanese recon planes.

We almost blew it in our first wave as our planes were blown from the sky.

We were EXTREMELY lucky to have our 2nd wave attack as the Japanese were refueling and rearming their dive bombers. We caught them flatfooted as was said at the time.

We suffered HEAVY losses and had the Japanese realized this they could have attacked again, possibly in the Aleutians where they would have been unopposed. Instead they went back to Japan, having lost 3 carriers.

We worked hard, and got lucky. You need luck in war.

Those are the facts as having been relayed to me by military historians, and mostly conveyed in the c1976 movie.

The 76 movie had the whole Charleston Heston, son, interned Japanese love interest sub plot. It was also a vehicle for Hollywood stars as was the trend at the time, to cram as many stars into a movie as possible.

Hope they don't screw it up in the remake. Midway was a good movie (sub plot issues aside), that was mostly accurate to the facts.