Another myth you might have addressed is that the Spitfire won the Battle of Britain. Yes, it was the first British fighter plane that could go head to head with the ME-109, but at the start of the battle it was a relatively new aircraft, and there were few of them. The bulk of the fighting during the critical days of the battle was done by the Hawker Hurricane.
@@madogmedic It should be. The Japanese planners of the attack helped with it's creation, and a Japanese production team handled the Japanese half of the film.
I too have the book and agree that the movie is superior to the representation in 'Pearl Harbor'. The way it is done in the modern telling of 'Midway' (I like the original movie and see the new one as supplemental since it contains things the original did not and skips things that are in the original) did it right. They have the protagonists on the other carrier watching Doolittle's Raiders launch.
Exactly - portraying something in a movie does NOT equal a "myth". Here's an actual myth from WW2: US fighters were inferior to Japanese fighters because they were weighted down with numerous layers of lacquer, as opposed to Japanese fighters, which were often bare metal. Another myth: Colin Kelly, a US B-17 pilot, sank a Japanese battleship off the Philippines in December of 1941. Here's another myth: the guys who made this video did research.
Another Michael Bay-ism from Pearl Harbor that I thought was stupid was in the Battle of Britain aerial combat scenes, where ME-109s explode violently in fiery balls of flame as soon as bullets touch the wings. Just...no. Even if he is Batman.
Fun fact: My sixth grade math teacher served for the marines and was leaving Pearl Harbor on a ship and they were actually filming the movie Pearl Harbor at the time, so he stood on deck of the landing craft watching the WW2 planes dive down near his ship.
No one will probably read this, but... I'm some old guy whose father was a C.O. of a Night Fighter Squadron in the Pacific from 1943 to 1945. I really felt relieved when I heard the opinions expressed about the movie Pearl Harbor. You hit every point on the nose! I am in Afghanistan right now, and my roommate (a retired EOD colonel) keeps repeating "It's only a movie." every time I mention that historically based films should stick to the facts (which are usually far more interesting). Check out three books: "Pappy Gunn" by Paul Irvin, "Jungle Ace" by John R. Bruning, and "A Spy in Their Midst" by Richard Sakakida. Hollywood would NOT be able to make THESE stories up... AND THEY'RE ALL TRUE!
Thank you for your service! Seconded for all three books mentioned above. For a Mud Marine level view of the war, I recommend "With The Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge. For an idea of what an invasion of Japan might have looked like, I can highly recommend the fictional, but well thought through "Light as a Feather." If you can find a copy.
The B-25s of the Doolittle Raid were never intending to return to the carrier group as it was not possible to land a medium bomber back on the carriers. The plan was to lift off, bomb Japan, and carry on to Chinese airfields. The bombers were launched early and father away from Japan due to fear of having been spotted by a Japanese boat. This caused most of the bombers to run out of fuel at the China coast. Resulting in a lot of bailouts and crash landings. It was not a suicide mission. Surprise was to be a large factor in this attack. All 16 planes survived the initial attack, but all planes were lost due to lack of fuel (1 landed in Russia). Some were captured and some die in captivity.
It is really not necessary to use flush rivets in all locations on a plane if the standard rivets are used in location where smooth airflow is not important.
Right. I was going to post this myself. If they had launched where planned, they would have made it to t Chinese airfields, but had to launch prematurely, as they thought they had been sighted.
Actually, Yamamoto really did want the carriers. It's also why he pushed so hard for the attack on Midway. It's true the rest of the Japanese navy big wigs didn't get it.
Yes, the video is incorrect. Yamamoto wanted the carriers because they were the only things that could strike the Japanese islands as well as check their expansion in the Pacific. I could go on, but I’d suggest reading some more history books.
@Incog Nito yeahhhh, my history textbooks were bad enough on most things that I've actually researched properly after-the-fact that literally no information would've been better. so a vaguely relevant comment I'll forget in a few days really is a trade up. ...heh: by that reasoning a aggravatingly blatantly incorrect comment that prompts me to go research something is even better.
That is not correct. Pearl Harbor was intended to be a "shock and awe" operation so the attack orders prioritized the highly symbolic battleships first and the cruiser force second. Carriers were way down on the target priority list. The airmen planning and leading the attack (Genda and Fuchida) and the squadron commanders tasked with carrying it out naturally but unofficially promoted the carriers higher on the list because they recognized the true threat but the carriers weren't there in any case. The video is wrong in that Yamamoto wasn't there. Admiral Ozawa led the raid and made the decisions, like not to send a third wave. Oh, and the mythical third attack wave wasn't in the plan either. There may have been some talk of improvising one after the first two waves but they decided to stick with the plan and go home.
Daniel Stickney we were talking about Midway in 42, not Pearl Harbor in 41. I think the biggest issue with the Japanese was thinking that they could get one decisive victory in and the US would then not have the heart for a protracted war and would sue for a peace of some sort. They vastly underestimated the US willingness to fight and wage war to the end.
Man I hated the Movie Pearl Harbor. How can you take such a historically significant event which needed ZERO additional hollywood flair to make it an engaging and amazing movie......and turn it into the bullshit drama fest that it was. And I am not even talking about the love triangle.....I just mean the b.s. air combat and ground to air combat.
whole thing was fucked up from every angle.. They covered the event with Tora Tora Tora..there was really no need for a 2.0 follow-up to that fine film..
Not to mention how do you take a P-40 pilot and just throw them into a B-25? The way the pilots were moving around in the cockpit like it was a fucking video game was just stupid. Those sites when you move left right up or down, it changes your sight picture and your point of aim. They wouldn't have been able to hit the broadside of a barn.
It was a love-story ... ...hyped up as a testosterone movie. It had "High Hopes" because FINALLY, a movie made for MEN was being released, but turned out to be just another chick-flick love story slightly attempting to cater to the male audience. Yeah. It not only sucked, but it was poor on ALL levels (except the acting.)
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer They weren't just thrown into the Mitchell bombers hence all the training scenes that it shows. Don't forget the Doolittle Raid was months after the Pearl Harbor attack. Don't get me wrong, the movie is trash, but at least they did that part well.
@Justin Last But this shouldn't have been made a date night flick. It's the wrong topic altogether, and entirely too important to be made into a drama/romance
Why does everyone forget about Phil Rasmussen as the 3rd pilot to get a plane up durin Pearl Harbor? He took off in a P-36 at the same time as the P-40s. I'm glad you actually mentioned Rasmussen
My adoptive grandfather flew with Dolittle during the raids. He went deaf in one ear after a flak shell whizzed past his ear. The funny thing is I found out a few years ago my biological grandmother was Japanese-Hawaiian.
Pearl Harbor is a pretty bad movie. They even have a shot of destroyers at anchor in Pearl Harbor but they are modern missile destroyers not even CGI old destroyers pre Fletcher Class. The only cinematic value is the photography, otherwise is a terribly inaccurate movie and overacted. Alec Baldwin is miscast as LTC Doolittle with his abundant hair, young looking face and cursing dialog. Jennifer Garner plays a nurse and is easily the more noticeable even though she in the film for less than a minute and had just couple of words of dialog. Tora, Tora, Tora is more faithful to the story but is not free of some mistakes, like the portrayal of the radar on the hill incident. In addition, there was no CGI back then so it was all live action and it was very realistic.
when i 1. saw the bombing scene i thought: "waiiiiit a minute!!! those ships aren't from WW2/ Pacific War, those are probably Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers from well NOW" turns out that i was right...
Holy shit! There are other people who've watched Tora! Tora! Tora! Remember the scene where the bomber crashed on the run way, yeah that was an actual malfunction with the remote controlled airplane that made it drift off course
Even as the red white and blue blooded American that I am, I love Tora! Tora! Tora!'s perspective on the attack of Pearl Harbor. It really shows that these young men aren't just evil robots, they're people with lives, conscience and morals. If only more movies would portray the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe that way.
There are several of them out now but not big ones. It takes money to make big ones and they all want a guaranteed box office - which they are not going to get making Nazi's look like human beings.
@@BobSmith-dk8nw Not all German soldiers were nazis... Nazis were the ruling political party, it'd be like calling all soldiers Democrats when Obama was president.
George Corbett Japan also had massive resource issues necessitating, in their minds, the march across the pacific, China et al. They were isolated, we may not have believed them to be capable in part due to that. I’m not saying racism did not play a role, I am saying that these days we tend to look at one data point to find evidence of racism ignoring all context.
You're assuming that the Irish are drunk ALL of the time. That is not at all true. They are simply drunk most of the time. Sleeping it off doesn't count.
"...it was not until the extremely brutal Battle of Britain in the early 1940s that plane designers on both sides began including these safety measures...." Not accurate. The Spitfire, Hurricane and 109 all had pilot armour and self-sealing fuel tanks in the Battle of Britain, which means their designers incorporated them in the designs before the BoB.
If you read on in those forums you'll see what I think is the general position. That new spits had them and the old ones were slowly (and it was slowly) upgraded. But i'm pretty sure the majority were't done till near the end of the BoB [Note the lower tank is what we are talking about here the upper was never sealed afaik - not that it needed it really - but it was armored.
The H was much much more vulnerable than the spit in a fire. It was after all more canvas/wood than metal in key areas. The majority of all burns were in H's not Spits. The H could catch fire in as little as 10 seconds. Hard to bail out of that without burns. I'm certain from reading up and checking the boards that duringthe BoB they were fitting new SPits/H with them but that reterofit took longer. What I can't find is a 'finished' reterofit date. Given rates of losses in wartime it may have just solved itself such that no-one really needed to bother with a 'finish' date.
The structural integrity of the A6M was actually excellent, despite its light weight. Grumman engineers who evaluated an A6M2 captured early in the war were impressed by the rigidity of the airframe, which resulted in precision handling, as well as tight turn radius and high rate of climb. The Rei-sen was very light, and this restricted its maximum dive speed (due to both airframe stresses and a simple matter of mass). But the notion that the Zero was a fragile aircraft is yet another myth.
the stuka divebomber had a propel/siren to make the screaming sound when it's dive... that startede the movie myth that all plans make that screaming sound when they are going down, either it's shot down or engine failure
Jerichos Horn, its basically a psychological warfare instrument, and got into the comment thought that when your plane (even on things like aicraft investigations) if your in an uncontrollable dive you hear that whiiirrrrrring noise
Most planes made a screaming sound when they dived, due to airflow over the gun holes in the wings. The mustang is especially known for it. However yes you are right, the Jericho siren was fitted to stukas to make a much more shrill and loud sound
This predate the Stuka if you watch old movies. The sound was in these was Hoolywoods version of the wind noise of wind the the wires and struts of biplanes....
Navy dive bombers had dive brakes, literally panels on the wing with holes in them to keep from exceeding maximum dive speeds and also causing noise from airflow through and around the panels.
Yea, it takes only 5 kills to become an ace.. because shooting down enemy planes is not easy.. THey had potential fighter cover, and rear gunners. There were only two of them... Heroes.
1. Even if the Doolittle raiders could have reached the carrier again, there was no way to land a B-25 on a carrier. 2. The main reason the planes didn’t have the fuel to reach the Chinese airfields was that they launched early due to a Japanese ship spotting the task force. If they had been able to launch on schedule, they would have been much more likely to reach their destinations.
Prototype Spitfires were built with flush rivets. "Oh bollocks" said an engineer one day, "The bloody production plane will use bumpy rivets. Buggar". So in English spirit they glued split peas to the rivets to simulate the aerodynamic drag. Created the second greatest allied fighter of the war, second only to the incredible Hawker Hurricane.
the hurricane was a bad aircraft, they lost more fights to italian BI-planes then thr biplanes lost to them, like seriously. they were also extremely easy to shoot down (probably why they were able to loose to biplanes) they were not really fighter planes but interceptors and ground attack, as an anti-bomber plane it was decent but as a ground attack or vs enemy aircraft it was sub par. the spitfire is very good, but argueably certain german, italian and american aircraft are just as good.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 the Hurricane however wins out for being far easier to repair and faster to produce. If you look at the numbers built compared to losses you'll see that loads went down because they made up the bulk of single engine British fighters.
The Hurricane, not matter how bad or good, held against the German onslaught, until the Spitfires started coming online. It was the most numerous fighter/interceptor the RAF had at the time. The Spitfire was just being introduced during the Battle of Britain.
Of course, not only did the Hawker Hurricane shoot down more enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain than the Spitfire (bombers or not) it shot down more enemy aircraft than all the other forms of air defence combined including night fighters, anti aircraft artillery. Not bad despite its apparent shortcomings for Hawker's first go at a monoplane in the mid 1930s.
The hurricane shot down more aircraft because there were more of them, they were easier to make, and the spitfire came into the war later. The spitfire was the better aicraft though
Myth or Fact the tuft of hair in the middle of my head gives me stability at high speeds? In all seriousness tho we don’t hate Michael Bay, we just like it when he does movies about fictional events... for example a rogue asteroid is heading for earth and we need to send a team of oil drillers to take it out.
michael debolt The F6F Hellcat was designed based on test flights of a Zero captured in the Aleutian Islands campaign. Grumman’s test pilots flew it over and over and found weaknesses that could be exploited in. a dogfight.
@@chandlerwhite8302 Wrong. U.S. pilots didn't get their hands on the Aluetian Zero until September of '42. The prototype F6F had already flown the previous June. Work on the Hellcat had already begun before the war had even started.
Jnl B And the plans for the Hellcat were changed from the prototype to production phase in order to exploit the weaknesses which the Navy rest pilots found flying the rebuilt captured Zero. Re-read your sources.
@@chandlerwhite8302 Don't be a condescending ass to me. I know about the Hellcat. And your very words were that it was DESIGNED as an answer to the Zero. Read your your own words. It wasn't! Period. The biggest change made to the airplane was a bigger engine because of suggestions by Thach, and other pilots who had fought the Zeke. "Reread your sources" my ass!
The best thing about the film Pearl Harbor was Kate Beckinsale in a nurse's uniform - my God she's beautiful. Also, it was good to see that the guy who sneaked her into the Comms room survived the attack and went on to fly a glider on D Day, taking in part of the 101st. ......downward slope, an all, we were, we were just too God damn heavy...... FUBAR? Yes, FUBAR.
My great grandfather helped modify the b-25s for the Doolittle Raid. I have been told that he would say that he was confused why they wanted more fuel tanks for longer range on a plane that already had a relatively long range.
Hollywood, among other entities, give the impression that the Zero was the only Japanese fighter available during WWII. As a kid who was fascinated with WWII fighters, I learned about the KI-84, KI-100 and the J2M Raiden (Jack) fighters that could hold their own against the Hellcat, Corsair and P-51 Mustang. But even if these excellent planes had been produced in in greater quantities, they could not have overcome the industrial might of the United States. Two other non-German morning Axis fighter that could hold it’s own against the P-51 was the Italian Macchi C.205 and the Reggiane Re.2005. Oh wait, Hollywood don’t do movies on the WW2 Italian Air Force.
About the Italian planes. Sadly, the major problem these planes had was that they were not nearly as fast and manuverable as a P-51, mainly because the latter was introduced later in the war. A more fair aproach would be G55 vs P-51
Well the "Industrial Might of the US" wasn't all that mighty. The P-51 had a pathetic engine which limited its capabilities. After Britain installed the Rolls Royce engine, the P-51 began its journey of fame and glory. I think both countries were and are lucky to have each other as allies. Yeah..im done now...good day to you sir/madam
Hussain C True that, with the original Allison engine the P-51 was just ordinary. If I recall correctly it was mostly used as a fighter-bomber but it’s long range capability was was already known. However, when I mentioned industrial might it was in reference to the industrial output of the United States. The United States just overwhelmed Japan. For comparison, think of a wolverine vs a 1500 lb (680 kg) grizzly. The wolverine may get in a few nasty bites but it will eventually get dispatched. The wolverine has a nasty disposition, has relentless determination and is strong for it’s size. But if the big bear decides to take out the wolverine, it is a foregone conclusion.
yeah, that carrier thing he said is wrong, yeah the Japanese were more interested in sinking some big battleships than carriers that can and did bring navy's to their knees. geez
Not to mention the role in the sinking of the Bismarck when its steering was crippled by torpedo bombers, or the crippling of the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto at the battle of Matapan in March 1941 (although she survived that, and the attack at Taranto). All with obsolete aircraft as well. Those early British carrier planes were lacking a lot.
The American carriers were a priority target at PH. The Japanese knew of their significance. They wanted to knock out the battleships but they wanted the carriers too.
Steve Jones allegedly they were so slow that guns designed to shoot down faster. more modern aircraft had problems tracking them. Taranto was an amazing effort, but apparently a significant part of the damage was from the Italians blindly firing on their own ships because they thought they were still under attack after the raid had finished.
Also, Ben Affleck was apparently the first American pilot to be shot down, rescued by the French Resistance and returned to Britain. Also, due to plot device, somehow returned to the US and his former squadron. Actually, I found Pearl Harbor entertaining, but yeah, it's not good to think about it too much.
Actually, it was Admiral Nagumo, not Yamamoto, who commanded the Pearl Harbor strike force and received the intelligence report telling him that the American carriers, as well as all American heavy cruisers, had left Pearl Harbor. (Yamamoto and his staff planned the attack, but Nagumo commanded the strike force.) Admiral Nagumo received that report at 1:20AM on December 7, and it was the last bit of information regarding the American ships present in Pearl Harbor that he received prior to the attack. It is entirely reasonable that Admiral Nagumo would have been deeply troubled by the absence of American carriers and heavy cruisers in Pearl Harbor. They had been getting intelligence information from spies at Pearl Harbor and they knew the American carriers and heavy cruisers were in the area, and the carriers were, in fact, considered to be prime targets, according to Yamamoto's plan, right along with the battleships. Nagumo's attack depended for its success on secrecy and surprise, and the fact that the American carriers and heavy cruisers had left Pearl Harbor could have been an indication that his strike force had been detected and the Americans were readying a trap for them. Cruisers and carrier aircraft were the scouts for the fleet, and if the Americans knew that Nagumo's strike force was in the area and they were searching for it, those are exactly the forces they would have been using to do so, so his unease at hearing they had sortied was well founded.
also probably explains why he didn't send in the last wave (with the oil tanks as the target) as he may have feared getting attacked by the US carriers
@@matthiuskoenig3378 That's EXACTLY why Nagumo chickened out and ran for home--he thought he'd walked into a trap. I say "chickened out" because 1. The attack on the US Fleet was an ALL or NOTHING gamble by definition. By chickening out at the last second, he would have been better off not attacking at all. The half-finished Japanese attack on the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor accomplished ZILCH for Japan. They would have been much better off just ignoring the US Fleet AND the Philippines. 2. Nagumo ended up walking right into the actual "trap" at Midway six months later, which by then, was no longer even a viable operation, let alone one worth risking his fleet over. Which he only did because he knew he'd chickened out at Pearl Harbor.
Thanks for the great summary. On the Doolittle raid. It was not supposed to be a one-way mission, but the carrier group was spotted and it was decided that launching the planes early was less risky than encountering a stiffer defense by getting closer.
5. Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi was commanding officer of 1st Air Fleet in Akagi for the Pearl Harbor raid. Admiral Yamamoto Isoruku was commanding officer of the Combined Fleet in flagship Nagato back in the Inland Sea
Yamamoto WAS concerned about the carriers because their unknown location represented a potential threat to their strike group. Not because they were a primary target in the attack. He was well aware that if the strike group was located by American scout planes, especially in the middle of their attack, it could be disastrous.
I would love to see any US politician try anything even remotely like this. I doubt most of them could even climb into a P-40 without shattering a hip or getting lost in a dementia fog on their way to the air field.
Finally, great job, Allan. Mitsubishi actually did purchase an American trainer from which it could develop the A6M. However, it didn't have the same materials in quantity for exact duplication. When a Zero was recovered in the Aleutians, by the US Arny Air Corps, mechanics were stunned by the complexities of it's engine. Flight research provided new training techniques for American fighter pilots. The Marianas Turkey Shoot was a positive result of our efforts.
Excellent video Alan. When my wife and I saw "Pearl Harbor" at the movie theater, being a pilot myself, I made the same point to my wife about taking highly trained fighter pilots and putting them in an aircraft requiring highly trained bomber pilots(Jimmy Doolittle being the exception to the rule, it's well documented that he could fly anything known to man at that time). I'm going to watch some more of your videos. 👍
How can you make the argument that Admiral Yamamoto wasn't concerned about the absence of the US carriers and that, by extension, they were not a force to be reckoned with when he was attacking Pearl Harbor with... aircraft carriers. Not only would Yamamoto be versed in Taranto as mentioned above, but because he spent time at West Point, he would also know about Billy Mitchells sinking of a captured WWI German battleship demonstration in 1921.
At 2:41, that's gun camera footage of an F-86. It's following a MiG-15, which DID have an ejection seat, so the example of "tilt to the side..." is inaccurate.
I skimmed through several comments and didn't see a glaring mistake GF made. Admiral Yamamoto was not with the Pearl Harbor task force, Admiral Nagumo was the TF commanding admiral.
*facepalm* 1) The green camo on the A6M in the scene of Pearl Harbor was, oddly, the ONLY accurate thing on that godforsaken movie. Both white and green camo was used by all kinds of Mitsubishi A6M and those Zeros that did attack Pearl Harbor was in fact all in green as during that time, the A6M2 were used and all was in green camo as the A6M3 configuration wasn't ready yet until the Battle of the Coral Sea where the A6M3 really see action and they're painted in both green and white camos. Only the A6M2 stayed green. 2) The Zero was outclassed but it never lost its fangs. In fact, even after Japan surrendered, the armistice haven't been passed yet till September and during that period. the Zero, despite being clearly outmatched, managed to wreck havoc on Corsairs and Hellcat squadrons by killing close to 30 planes of each model until the actual armistice has passed. 3) The reason why the bombers from the Doolittle Raid had to go to China was not because of the fuel issue but because it is god damn fucking impossible to land a B-25 on a fucking aircraft carrier! That's why when some smuck came out with the plan and FDR agreed on it, Nimitz, the general commander of the whole Pacific fleet, thought the idea was god damn nuts to throw B-25s on the carriers but orders being orders, the B-25 was loaded up on the carriers and off to the coast of Japan they went. Flying off the carriers is easy as it's the same as many other naval planes or even conventional land planes but landing such a big aircraft was god damn impossible on a tiny aircraft carrier let alone without arrestor hooks so of course any sane man would send an order for those bombers to land in China which was at that time under Claire Channault's control rather than to risk their silly life after the raid to land on the carriers to risk the pilots, the crews, the planes and most importantly, the ships. 4) Of course Pearl Harbor got it shitfaced wrong but you too got it wrong. Those in Eagle Squadron are "civilians". Why did I put quotations? Because they WERE ex-pilots in the USAAC (US Army Air Corp). It's the same for Claire Channault's AVG (American Volunteer Group). In order for pilots to join the Eagle Squadron or the AVG, they have to quit their piloting jobs in the USAAC and during the time of both the Battle of Britain and the whole Second Sino-Japanese War, America was still neutral so quitting army life was still easy and these pilots quit and joined the war overseas. What? You think the Brits would just allow civilians to waltz into an airfield and fly a sophisticated fighter aircraft, waste time and train them just to allow them to piss themselves infront of a German BF-109? Hell no. Of course the Eagle Squadrons are all ex-military pilots who knew a thing or two flying MILITARY aircraft. Jesus christ! 5) The carriers were not new technology but in fact it was Britain who created it in the 1920s then deemed it as undesirable while the Japanese and Americans perfected it. In fact, during the whole Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto himself knew trouble was brewing when his intel came in that the carriers he thought was there, wasn't there. His 2nd in command, Nagumo (This prick actually doomed the whole IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) and the whole war effort), reminded that the aim was to destroy the Pacific fleet so whatever ship was in the harbor, they'll have to conduct the mission and bomb it. Despite doing so, Yamamoto wasn't pleased that they did not get the secondary objective, the most vital one in his own opinion and thus after the whole thing happened, he was infamously recorded to have said that "I'm afraid that we have just woken up the giant".
He wrote it in his diary. He said that Nagumo not listening to his advice in knocking out the fuel depot with a 3rd sortie that he had called for was the biggest mistake of his career and that caused his whole fleet to be wiped out where he quote "We have awaken the giant".
Civilians did sign up and get tossed into the Eagle Squadron but they're not many as Canadians were also roped in to serve in the RAF as manpower was lower in a lower count than planes that the RAF had in total when the whole Battle of Britain started so the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) never actually trained many US civilians to fly planes as the Eagle Squadron have more than 99% of pilots in that Squadron alone that had earned their baptism of fire or should we say.. "Combat Wings" back home flying with the USAAC. As I said, with the war being hotter than an klin, the Commonwealth just don't have time to take normal civilians, train them to fly as minimalistically as possible and toss them into a sophisticated fighter plane and just watch these civilian-turned-fighter pilots piss themselves and lose even more precious plane that the RAF can't afford so no, they did not take civilians or actually, "non-combat trained civilian pilots".
Yep, Reagan was your typical chickenhawk, just like that coward John Wayne. Both talked shit, both encouraged others to die for their country, while both stayed home and banged hookers in Hollywood. Unlike REAL heroes such as Jimmy Stewart & Henry Fonda who both served in forward combat and did not bang hookers in Hollywood during WWII.
Ted Wojtasik don’t forget Clark Gable. Insisted on being front line and was a gunner on a B17. Jackie Coogan child star flew gliders in Army Air Corps.
@@tedwojtasik8781 President Reagan actually enlisted in the military reserve before the start of the Second World War. Reagan enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Officers' Reserve Corps of the Cavalry on May 25, 1937,. Lieutenant Reagan was ordered to active duty on 19 April 1942. Due to eyesight difficulties, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas. His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason, California, as liaison officer of the Port and Transportation Office. Upon the request of the Army Air Forces (AAF), he applied for a transfer from the Cavalry to the AAF on 15 May 1942; the transfer was approved on 9 June 1942. He was assigned to AAF Public Relations and subsequently to the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California. On January 14, 1943, he was promoted to first lieutenant and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is the Army at Burbank, California. He returned to the First Motion Picture Unit after completing this duty and was promoted to captain on July 22, 1943. In January 1944, Reagan was ordered to temporary duty in New York City to participate in the opening of the Sixth War Loan Drive, which campaigned for the purchase of war bonds. He was reassigned to the First Motion Picture Unit on November 14, 1944, where he remained until the end of World War II. He returned to Fort MacArthur, California, where he was separated from active duty on December 9, 1945. By the end of the war, his units had produced some 400 training films for the then Army Air Force. --- John Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34) and family status (classified as 3-A - family deferment). Wayne repeatedly wrote to John Ford saying he wanted to enlist, on one occasion inquiring whether he could get into Ford's military unit, but consistently kept postponing it until after "he finished just one or two pictures". Wayne did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing him since he was their only A-list actor under contract. Herbert J. Yates, President of Republic, threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract, and Republic Pictures intervened in the Selective Service process, requesting Wayne's further deferment. U.S. National Archives records indicate that Wayne, in fact, did make an application to serve in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the modern CIA, and had been accepted within the U.S. Army's allotted billet to the OSS. William J. Donovan, OSS Commander, wrote Wayne a letter informing him of his acceptance into the Field Photographic Unit, but the letter went to his estranged wife Josephine's home. She never told him about it. Donovan also issued an OSS Certificate of Service to Wayne. Wayne toured U.S. bases and hospitals in the South Pacific for three months in 1943 and 1944 with the USO.
An interesting tidbit: Clark Gable was relieved from active duty as a major on June 12, 1944 at his request, since he was over-age for combat. Because his motion picture production schedule made it impossible for him to fulfill Reserve officer duties, he resigned his commission on Sept. 26, 1947, a week after the Air Force became an independent service branch. Fellow actor Captain Ronald Reagan signed his discharge papers (Reagan's Reserve Commission automatically terminated on 1 April 1953).
It wasn’t racism that feared the American military into thinking the Japanese weren’t capable of creating a deadly aircraft. It was more the fact that they hadn’t built anything as affective up until that point. Seriously it’s just all about the buzz words these days.
Except they had. The Ki43, the G4M, the Ki27 were all advanced aircraft and the Allies knew about them. The problem was that most of the combat prior to Pearl Harbor had occurred over China where the Japanese had faced less trained Chinese pilots in largely I-15 and I-16 aircraft. The Japanese mostly flew Ki27s, which were maneuverable and roughly equivalent to the Rata.
@@mogaman28 That's true to a point. The AVG didn't actually become operational until December of 1941. Chenault had figured out a way to use US Aircraft effectively against Japanese equipment and pilots and was successful but unfortunately many on the Allied side didn't take his advice. They had to figure it out on their own. The US and Britain actually adapted their tactics pretty quickly, partially because people started as early as a few months after Pearl Harbor. Chenault did contribute to that.
That and a decent amount of their hardware was commissioned for production overseas. Some of their more modern BBs and CBs, for example, if memory serves.
I enjoyed this. Totally agree. Amazing how many movies are almost maliciously ignorant and inccurate in these days where technology can produce literally anything on the screen. There's still a lot of room at the top for an accurate portrayal of WW2 in movies.
You can say that again.. CGI has been completely bungled in its use, even though it offers amazing opportunities if written right, instead of by 10YO video gamers.. Battlefield violence they still do not really have right, as evidence by the fighting on something like 'Hacksaw Ridge"..
In the skies above the isle, Aces in exile prevail From near and far they arrived, joined the force Ready to serve the allied command Sent into training though they already earned their wings They were ready fly, they were fit for the fight Once in the air, the battle begins They have proven their worth, now they fly for revenge Fighter pilots in exile fly over foreign land Let their story be heard, tell of 303rd Fighter pilots from Poland in the battle of Britain Guarding the skies of the isle Even at night shadows cover the ground And the fighting goes on from dusk until dawn With the claw of the Reich with the claw of the eagle They were ready to fly, they were ready to die Up in the air the battle goes on They have proven their worth, now they have their revenge Fighter pilots in exile fly over foreign land Tell their story again, tell of 310 Men from Czechoslovakia in the battle of Britain Guarding the skies of the isle Over the battlefield brave men long way from home Few are the chosen ones sent to the sky to die Over the battlefield brave men long way from home Few are the chosen ones sent to the sky to die Fly, it echoes in history Turning the tide in the heavens above Oh, fighter pilots in exile fly over foreign land When the battle has been won, tell of 401 Fighter pilots from Canada in the battle of Britain Guarding the skies of the isle On wings of history they turned from home to live eternally skybound they roam In all of history, never before was more owed to so few Fighter pilots in exile!
10:48 Also, this footage shows Ben Afflick flying a Spitfire upside down, which, due to the way the plane's engine was designed, should have caused the engine to cut and streams of black smoke to pour out of the exhaust pipes
That's not quite right. I saw "Pearl Harbor" years ago, and don't recall if he flew inverted for a long period, or whether it was part of a maneuver. Carburated aircraft without inversion systems will have fuel supply issue when flying at negative G. Not necessarily when they're upside down. Centripetal forces can cause positive G conditions while a plane is inverted, for example, when performing a loop. Someone else mentioned the film from the sixties, "Battle Of Britain." Near the beginning of the film there is a Hurricane (used the same engine as the spitfire) that did a victory roll above Expeditionary forces retreating to Dunkirk. As he rolled over, the engine sputtered and ran rich, making smoke. This was a real Hurricane doing a real snap roll. Not a bad film, but the effects were sometimes... underwhelming. Because they couldn't always fire the guns under filming conditions, muzzle flashes were "effects" consisting of razor scratches on the celluloid. Not very convincing.
Boyington resigned his commission to fly with the AVG. After the U.S. entry in WWII he returned from China and got his commission reinstated. He ended up forming the 214th fighter squadron, commonly called the Black Sheep, but were first called Boyington's Bastards. I read Boyington's book.
What should have actually happened during dolitle attacks President " I want to attack japan with huge bombers from a small aircraft carrier" Military expert - "it Can't be done" *President rises with crippled legs* "Don't tell me what can't Ben done" Military expert "raising from a wheelchair doesn't equal to what you are asking so STILL CANT be done"
Just a quick side note here: the military actually came up with the idea of Dolittle raid and FDR thought it's crazy and refused to agree with it at first, but military convinced him finally. So no wheelchair scene.
@@sunnyniu3849 interesting,,, it actually makes sense... No president would come up with such idea at that time. Most of the military experiments started within... But still that scene doesn't make sense .. just because a guy can stand from a wheelchair doesn't mean a complicated and never tested military maneuver is going to work. Hahaha but then again that movie is FULL of wrong stuff just like saving Private Ryan
Bruno gomes sentone Yeah I know, this whole movie sucks... though my statement above may come from nowhere, I just remember this piece of information... also I personally believe that Saying Private Ryan did a better job in terms of historical accuracy than Pearl Harbor, at least the previous one wouldn't make you feel terrible about the love scene in the movie...
I think from my readings the design of the A6M owed a lot to a light pre war 'sports plane' design by Curtis which the US Govt rejected as a candidate for a warplane. The Nihonese innovations were making the cabin and wings in one unit with the tail section and front with engine being added on. This gave the resulting plane the stiffness needed to be light but strong enough. Add as powerful an engine as they could and the result was the zero, a fast, manoeuvrable and dangerous attack aircraft. The lack of protection for the pilot and self sealing fuel tanks was probably more a point of philosophy. The Nihoni favoured all out attack and to be fair they swept all before them until people started to shoot back. Not so well after that.
It wasn't planned to be that way, but because of the possible discovery by a Japanese fishing boat, Doolittle and his Men had to go sooner than planned.
@@wesdog8975 It still wasn't a suicide mission. They planned on making it back, and there was still a good possibility to do so even though they wouldn't be able to complete the mission as originally planned.
@@wesdog8975 it still wasn't a suicide mission. They still planned on surviving the mission. If they didn't, they wouldn't have brought parachutes with them.
Every fly in an unpressurized airplane in night clothes? Didn't think so. I did find it interesting that the pilot felt the ONE piece of equipment he needed to take with him was his sidearm. Also, in one of the short photos scenes depicting other pilots, there was a P-36, which was basically a P-40 with a radial engine. I think this video also suffers from "myths" regarding aircraft design which aren't necessarily derived from film. That is, that the P-40 was some sort of lumbering throwback. It wasn't. Certain versions were very well armed for the day (with as much firepower as a Hellcat or a Corsair, or a Mustang). The P-40 was a very successful lend-lease plane, flying as the "Kittyhawk" for the British in North Africa, and against the Germans on the eastern front with the Soviets (who knows why, but they preferred the P-39, which was one odd duck). The P-40 is also as old as the Zero and had similar problems, mostly stemming from engineering limits in the mid-30s, when most early war aircraft were designed. Both aircraft, for example, saw significant performance changes at speeds over 250 knots. The zero lost much of its maneuverability as its large control surfaces became difficult to deflect. The P-40 tended to pitch down at higher speeds, and also developed a roll moment at those speeds. Manageable issues, but they do add to the workload of the pilot. Both the P-40 and P-39 were designed to engage bombers at high altitudes. The shared the same engine, an Allison V-12, which performed poorly in thin air, and so neither were very effective in their design role. I'm starting to get into more detail than I intended to at the start of this reply, sorry. Just one final point: If the video identified the actor in the film, I missed it. That was Ronald Regan. Once it was common knowledge among political junkies or aviation history nuts that he starred (poorly) in a WWII USAAF training film. I'll have to look it up, but I think he did a submarine film too.
@@tananam9782 he participated in Many Army Air Corps movies. They made them to assist Bombadiers and Navigators identify terrain using a mix of photographs and models. Not Propaganda movies, Training movies. A few still exist, I saw one back in the 90's
The Doolittle raid forced the Japanese to pull back a large portion of their navy to protect the homeland. The Japanese didn’t realize that their was no way the US could repeat the raid on Tokyo.
The last part is complete bull shit. Yamamoto was one of the strongest advocates for carriers in Japan and is actually documented saying that only a complete destruction of the us navy and carriers in particular would provide Japan with a chance to win in the Pacific. Oh and FYI, the Bismarck, Litorio (not sunk by carrier planes) and Prince of Wales would like to have a word about your claim of air vs sea not being battle tested.
Whoa - cool your jets. Yes, there are undoubtedly more aspects to cover, but you remarks are not strictly accurate - at least your remarks do not contradict the video. It takes YEARS to design and build a new type of ship or a new type of aircraft. The sinking of the Bismark, Hood, Prince of Wales (et al.) were WAY too recent (just 5-sh months; and Prince of Wales was sunk AFTER Pearl Harbor) for any changes to be seen in strategy planning, ship/plane design, or construction - let alone changing any Old School Generals' and Admirals' and politicians' minds. You're about 3-4 years off.
the sinking of Repulse/PoW is the only example of those where a decisive result vs a large warship actually at sea were achieved.. the second Bismarck Stringbag attack was critical, as we know, but only indirectly..and also involving a last-minute stroke of good luck.. It was still smashed in conventional way by other surface ships....
The early strategic planning of the Japanese was around center force (clue in the name) revolving around the 2 battleships Yamato and Musashi and still considered important assets even after Perl harbor. Perl Harbor was a turning point in both the US and Japanese strategic planning, but it took time to define military doctrine. Only after 1942 did both Japan expedite the creation of aircraft carriers, and in the case of the Yamato class ship Shinano converted to one of the largest aircraft carriers in the war. In the battle of Midway in 1942 it became a close battle regarding the "last available" aircraft carrier assets at that moment in time in the pacific and representing a turning point for the US and certainly at that time the aircraft carrier doctrine had become the strategic primary weapon in the Pacific war. The US focused on building of new aricraft carriers and the Japanese on converting cruiser and battleships to aircraft carriers after 1942. Although single admirals in the Japanese navy may have believed in the carrier that is fundamentally different on military doctrine. So your both correct and incorrect : in the Pacific theater the battleship was king initially, though this became superseded by the carrier, and certainly by the end of 1942 - the doctrine was completely changed. The Atlantic war revolved around UK and German historical navel doctrine, and the former was around the battleship/cruiser forces, and the latter with the pocket battleships (dictated by tonnage treaty). After 1942 the German doctrine was more focused on submarines since the allies hunted down all German surfaces forces. In the case of the convoy war, the allied main assets were the destroyer and destroyer escorts. Although the Atlantic war involved a small number of aircraft carriers on the British side they were only equipped with biplanes (swordfish) as they were not considered important, and they were surprisingly effective as they were so slow the automated AA of the Germans could not calculate their trajectorys, they were low and also fabric. The aircraft carrier was never a strategic asset in the Atlantic war. The UK converted some fighters for use on carriers for the pacific war(eg seafire from spitfire) but these were never as practical as the US carrier planes or the zero's since the british never really tried. Ie UK military doctrine never considered the carrier important during WW2, and Germany had the Graf Zeppelin - and tried to convert ships from 1942 but never successfully create a useful ships for fighting.
Phillip Rasmussen had the first official US fighter kill of WW2. The last official fighter kill was in the last hours of WW2 when the P-61 Black Widow "Lady in the Dark" manoeuvre killed a Japanese Ki-43 "Oscar" over the Pacific Ocean.
From what I know, for the movie "Pearl Harbour", they didn't even asked the real pilots who took off during the attack for consulence. That's one of the things that I dislike the most of movies like Pearl Harbour and Red Tails, as you said, there were real people, real heroes but "mhu Hollywood" and no one cares of what really happened.
One reasons why I liked HBO's Band of Brothers, they worked VERY closely with the surviving members of Easy Company, and featured interviews with them on the boxed set, which were really interesting. Made the series more powerful in many ways. I found Pacific a bit more disjointed though, as it was several different authors in several different units, not bad, but different......
Yea but " TOP 5 MYTHS ABOUT" videos just get soooooo many more views. More broad the title, the more views. Its just business, something you obviously know nothing of, LMFAO😂🤣🤪😭😅
Phillip Rasmussen is my uncle’s father. I have a signed model of the P-36 he flew. Auntie and Uncle Michael asked him to sign it for me before he died. He was a wonderful man and an amazing artist. Thank you for highlighting his contribution to our country.
One thing that is glossed over in this video regarding the Doolittle Raid is that by some measures you could legitimately say the B-25 was more of a large twin engine fighter. Many historians make this commentary. This is what made it perfect for the situation
Matt King Yes? I think it was supposed to be an overview of how WWII aircraft have been inaccurately portrayed in film which used "Pearl Harbor" as an example. I think that "Pearl Harbor" might be seen a a typically inaccurate film was lost in the narrative, which pretty quickly became a critique of only one film. I'm not sure this was the original intent when this video was conceived.
HE MENTIONED THE F4-U CORSAIR!!!! NOBODY EVER TALKS ABOUT THAT BEAUTIFUL PEICE OF AVIATION TECHNOLOGY! YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW HAPPY I AM AT THIS MOMENT!!!!
4:30 Why was it racist for them to think japan didnt have the technology, when in reality, in the span of just the war, entirely different tanks, aircraft, and other weapons of war were developed, the true beginning of the technological era.
02X - your comment doesn't make any logical sense - but to inform you on the accusation of racism - white america did think other races weren't capable of flying planes much less creating advanced technology - we only need to look at the comments about the capability of american blacks flying planes before the tuskegee airmen to know that some whites were blindly racist - it was a prevailing view of asians too - the opening months immediately after Pearl Harbor where the japanese quickly overran asia was a nasty wakeup call for those with that attitude - and once the war began to turn around after midway - the technological capabilities of the japanese had to be recognized and kept in mind during the carnage that followed
Fun fact...the Ki27 Nate and Ki43 Oscar( both army fighters)could both turn inside the A6M. Also the Oscar was misidentified as zeros,being of similar shape,supposedly seen over Central China and Burma when the naval fighters weren't even there. Perl Harbor was a sh#t show,TORA TORA TORA all the way! Research is the key. Also like the Aussie marked Spit on the thumbnail too.🇦🇺
@@millerbob918 The ki43-3 Hei did have 20mils in the nose replacing the MGs,for taking on B29s but only the dedicated Home Defense units, some even had 30mils but not many. The biggest difference was the Oscar had rubber sealant in the walls of its tanks and an armoured seat, but not like Allied aircraft. I'm a bit of a Japanese fighter fan and have both books and built models of all the major and minor aircraft used by both Services. My next model build will be a KI-102a Randy with a 37mm in the nose.Sword kit 1/72 scale.
I spoke with one of the last Doolittle Raid survivors who told me the take off from the Hornet wasn't as difficult as sometimes thought. The Hornet was doing close to 30 knots into a wind of about the same speed, so air over the deck was about 60 knots in total. The crews had practiced on land and those had limited to no wind coming at them. In the group picture shown, Tom Griffin is seen just over Doolittle's shoulder looking to the left side of the picture.
The P-40 outclassed the A6M. In 1941. The AVG didn't get a 40:1 K/D ratio just from picking off bombers. . . (not that the Zero didn't have some fine qualities)
The AVG did not face Zeros. They fought in China/Burma and against the Japanese Army Air Force, not the navy. Instead the AVG faced off against the Ki-27 "Nate" and the Ki-43 "Oscar" and later, as the war progressed the Ki-44 "Tojo" and the Ki-84 "Frank". The Oscar though it had less firepower than the Zero was every bit as maneuverable. It was not so much that the P-40 was superior, it was the tactics of the pilots, who were trained by their leader, Gen. Claire Chennault, in how to fight them. By the time the improved Ki-44 and Ki-84 came on the scene the former AVG (now the 14th Air Force) were flying Mustangs. The pilot is always the most important piece of equipment on the aircraft and his tactics are always the most important performance specification of the aircraft.
Don White ...But it wasn't in the movie! I expect, though, that a P-38 dogfight wouldn't be all that exciting on film. In fact, it's not really a dogfight. As the P-38 was faster than the Zero, and the first allied plane to match it in climb rate, the tactic was typically to make a slashing attack at high speed, climb out of range at speed, then come in again. It takes a long time to set up, and if done right, all the important bits happen pretty fast. Also, this ability meant that P-38 pilots didn't really have to engage the Zero. They would attack whatever the Zero was guarding, and fly away knowing the Zero couldn't pursue. This was an adaptation of tactics used by other American fighters during the war, with the exception that the P-38 could climb away, where other American aircraft could dive away, but after that, they were pretty much out of the fight. Later Zeros (the A6M-3 and A6M-5) had more powerful engines, and could carry more ammunition, but their development was terribly outpaced by American industry. The N1K1 was meant to be a replacement, and it showed promise, but by the time it was ready, Japanese industry was pretty well flattened, and frankly, the IJN had few pilots left skilled enough to fly it.
They were still getting the bugs out of the p38 Dec of 41 the lighting didn't enter combat till fall of 42 with the Brits and without the turbosupercharger it was called the castrated lightning
@classiccarz "Better?" One might argue that until the advent of the P-51 in the Pacific, the allies didn't have a "better" fighter, and even then, that argument is marginal. Before you conclude that I'm a Mustang nut, let me be clear: It's interesting, but I think that angle is played and boring. My "favorite" among American aircraft vacillates between the P-40 and P-47. That said, the only fighter that matters is the one that's there. That is to say, with a combat radius nearly three times that of contemporary early war allied fighters, the Zero could "be there" when allied planes could not. It doesn't matter if the F6F was tougher, or the F-4U was faster, or the P-38 had lotsa guns and could climb as well and was faster, if none of them were there. (Yeah, ok, the F-4u and F-6 were later, but with three times more planes, the three times greater range of the Zero was nullified, the F-4 Wildcat, contemporary to the early Zero, had about the same range of the F-6). With superior range, the Zero could be in a space where other fighters might be absent. Indeed, early intelligence suggested that there were three times more Zeros in the Pacific than there were. This was a direct reflection on the fact that the Allies presumed an effective combat range similar to their own. Indeed, the Zero had three times the typical Allied combat range (1200 miles versus some 400 miles). Man, I can't imagine a sortie that included some 2400 miles of flying, with combat somewhere in the middle. Oh, and don't get lost! Your home is a fast moving cork float somewhere in the pacific! Anyway, the Zero was a nexus of strained resources and the Imperial Warrior Ethos. Make more with less, and aggression will win the day. That is to say, maximize attack potential. If you get them before they can get you, there's no need for defensive technology. That means weight and space otherwise used for armor and defensive apparati can be redirected toward combat prowess and range.
Well actually the zero was “invincible” at the beginning of the war especially in the eyes of the Chinese. Also towards the end of the war with the introduction of the F6F and F4u the zero literally became a flying coffin doused in gasoline. It was very flammable if you hit it aft of the wing root (where the fuel tank was) and often times the plane caught fire and the wing blew off. Mind you it didn’t take many bullets on target for this to happen because of how lightly armored they were. So essentially the invisibility and it being a flying coffin isn’t necessarily a myth, I’d just call it an over exaggerated misconception
It wasn't invincible, it was the most maneuverable and best dogfighter, tactics can beat it, plus it had no armour and was less than 1mm thick and no self sealing tanks.
M Williams that’s literally what I said lmao I said zeros were lightly armored and also when I referred to them being invincible I put it in quotations solely because that was more of a viewpoint of the Chinese, as I said, and other aircrews who fought the zero in the beginning of the war before more capable allied aircraft came out.
@@ryanp5790 The Flying Tigers put up a good score vs Zeros in China in their Kittyhawks. Sorry I only read your first sentence and then was distracted. The Zero was a huge leap for the Japanese, but its success lead to its over reliance and a replacment lagged. The Shiden Kai was prettt bad ass.
M Williams the flying tigers would be an exception because they really dug the Chinese out of a hole but other than their performance if we looked at the Wildcats and buffalos the Americans flew and the Russian made I-15s and I-153s the Chinese flew at the start of the war the zero was superior in all aspects. So I saw what you meant by they weren’t invincible because in a literal sense they weren’t so I do agree with you
At War's end, it was Ben Affleck that rode the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki while waving a cowboy hat. Hartnet's character signed the Peace document on USS Missouri.
Pearl Harbor (the movie) is largely trash. Tora Tora Tora is a much better one at depicting the events leading up to the attack and its battle scenes are just a good as any in the Michael Bay movie (though it also has some historical inaccuracies, most of them minor). It is thought by historians that the reasons for withdrawing before carrying out a third strike largely came down to: One, the element of surprise was lost. Any further action would result in unacceptable losses, two, the task force was running low on fuel and couldn't afford to loiter for much longer, three, the main objectives have been met and last the location of the American carriers were unknown. Again considering that they were low on fuel, they couldn't risk more engagements. As for the Zero, even before planes like the Hellcat and Corsair flew, pilots flying Wildcats were able to develop effective tactics to counter the Zero's turning abilities. They flew a pattern called the Thach weave. Pairs of Wildcats would fly in loose formation. When a Zero engaged them, they would turn into each other and weave back and forth until one of them would have a shot at the Zero trailing behind the aircraft being engaged.
They also didn't know where our carriers were. They were the main target of the attack. Just look what happened during the first big battle of the war at Midway. By the time the war was over every ship that took place at Pearl Harbor ended up n the bottom of the ocean.
An interesting note, the Thach weave wasn't developed for use with Wildcats, It was developed for use with the Brewster F2A Buffalo. A design which, in 1940, the RAF had deemed to be useful only for training, and for fighting against the Italians.
Well done! I am a bit of a history nut, and movies portraying events such as those you brought up, drives me crazy. The idea of fighter pilots, flying bombers, as in the Doolittle Raid is ridiculous. Fighter pilots are notoriously conceited, yes, I have known a couple, and wouldn't willingly fly a bomber, or, god forbid, a cargo plane (they call such planes "trash haulers").
I appreciate that you care enough about historical fact enough to make videos centered on that. Thank you. I found this video to be enjoyable as well as learning a bit more about the Japanese Zero.
Dated a woman, her dad flew Wildcats/Hellcats in WW 2. When he came back from the Pacific he flew under the Golden Gate Bridge. Side note, her brother was also a Navy Pilot and Commander of the Space Shuttle (Frank Culbertson Jr)
The green camo was only adopted later in the war. The A6M2 version that flew during Pearl Harbor, Midway et al. off the Kido Butai carriers was indeed painted white.
Ah crap guys big mess up Bush senior is not dead don’t know why I thought that.... I need to sleep more I think
That's the trouble with doing videos - you fuck up and evvvvvveeeeeerrrryyyybody gets to see it ...
.
Lol yup
So long as you aren't a Joe Biden and get a little to close to your coworkers daughters on live TV you should be fine!
Even you young ‘uns need sleep.
Do a video on the Naval ships of WWII!
Another myth you might have addressed is that the Spitfire won the Battle of Britain. Yes, it was the first British fighter plane that could go head to head with the ME-109, but at the start of the battle it was a relatively new aircraft, and there were few of them. The bulk of the fighting during the critical days of the battle was done by the Hawker Hurricane.
Hawker hurricanes with polish dudes
Well, Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor is a terrible movie. If you want to watch a good movie about pearl harbor, watch Tora Tora Tora
Tora, Tora, Tora, is, I believe, the best movie ever done about the subject of Pearl Harbor.
Mitchell Martin..The movie Pearl Harbor was dogfights at 10’ altitude
No watch midway
so you watch history buff huh?
@@madogmedic It should be. The Japanese planners of the attack helped with it's creation, and a Japanese production team handled the Japanese half of the film.
"30 seconds over Tokyo" with Van Johnson is a far more accurate movie about the Dolittle Raid.
I have the OG book hahaha
And, there’s the book, too. I read it about 50 years ago.
Loved that movie as a kid.
I too have the book and agree that the movie is superior to the representation in 'Pearl Harbor'.
The way it is done in the modern telling of 'Midway' (I like the original movie and see the new one as supplemental since it contains things the original did not and skips things that are in the original) did it right. They have the protagonists on the other carrier watching Doolittle's Raiders launch.
Love that movie
This is less about WWII Fighter Planes and more about the movie "Pearl Harbor". I wanted to see a wider range of material here.
Exactly - portraying something in a movie does NOT equal a "myth".
Here's an actual myth from WW2: US fighters were inferior to Japanese fighters because they were weighted down with numerous layers of lacquer, as opposed to Japanese fighters, which were often bare metal. Another myth: Colin Kelly, a US B-17 pilot, sank a Japanese battleship off the Philippines in December of 1941.
Here's another myth: the guys who made this video did research.
Another Michael Bay-ism from Pearl Harbor that I thought was stupid was in the Battle of Britain aerial combat scenes, where ME-109s explode violently in fiery balls of flame as soon as bullets touch the wings. Just...no. Even if he is Batman.
I have to stop reading these comments - I'm spitting all over my screen :)
Pearl Harbour is an awful film. Not realistic at all and just going around making every American sound like some kind of fucking god.
@@RyanTheHero3
It's a rah rah rah film. That's it's job. Sorta like Top Gun.
Fun fact: My sixth grade math teacher served for the marines and was leaving Pearl Harbor on a ship and they were actually filming the movie Pearl Harbor at the time, so he stood on deck of the landing craft watching the WW2 planes dive down near his ship.
No one will probably read this, but... I'm some old guy whose father was a C.O. of a Night Fighter Squadron in the Pacific from 1943 to 1945.
I really felt relieved when I heard the opinions expressed about the movie Pearl Harbor. You hit every point on the nose! I am in Afghanistan right now, and my roommate (a retired EOD colonel) keeps repeating "It's only a movie." every time I mention that historically based films should stick to the facts (which are usually far more interesting).
Check out three books: "Pappy Gunn" by Paul Irvin, "Jungle Ace" by John R. Bruning, and "A Spy in Their Midst" by Richard Sakakida.
Hollywood would NOT be able to make THESE stories up... AND THEY'RE ALL TRUE!
Thank you for your service! Seconded for all three books mentioned above. For a Mud Marine level view of the war, I recommend "With The Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge. For an idea of what an invasion of Japan might have looked like, I can highly recommend the fictional, but well thought through "Light as a Feather." If you can find a copy.
@@Corsair092 THANKS! I will start searching online as soon as I get back from HKIA today!
Japan: it needs to be elegant light and honorable
America: stick a big ass engine in it and add some 50cals and we good
Or in the case of the P-38 2 big ass engines, some 50 cals, and a 20 MM cannon.
If it aint broke, dont fix it.
to which we later make a really big 30mm cannon, and create a plane to fly that gun around and b̶l̶o̶w̶
shred tanks :)
Just like Americans, not letting stupid ideology get in the way of efficiency
MarineForce Recon peace through superior firepower
The B-25s of the Doolittle Raid were never intending to return to the carrier group as it was not possible to land a medium bomber back on the carriers.
The plan was to lift off, bomb Japan, and carry on to Chinese airfields. The bombers were launched early and father away from Japan due to fear of having been spotted by a Japanese boat.
This caused most of the bombers to run out of fuel at the China coast. Resulting in a lot of bailouts and crash landings.
It was not a suicide mission. Surprise was to be a large factor in this attack. All 16 planes survived the initial attack, but all planes were lost due to lack of fuel (1 landed in Russia). Some were captured and some die in captivity.
It is really not necessary to use flush rivets in all locations on a plane if the standard rivets are used in location where smooth airflow is not important.
Right. I was going to post this myself.
If they had launched where planned, they would have made it to t Chinese airfields, but had to launch prematurely, as they thought they had been sighted.
Kevin Chappell The Iron Armenian would like a word with you
The B-25 was the wrong variant in Pearl Harbor clips. Those would have been I believe B-25 Bs. Those shown in the clips were B-25 Js
Could you imagine how much more effective the tigers woulda been with the mitchell's?
Actually, Yamamoto really did want the carriers. It's also why he pushed so hard for the attack on Midway. It's true the rest of the Japanese navy big wigs didn't get it.
Yes, the video is incorrect. Yamamoto wanted the carriers because they were the only things that could strike the Japanese islands as well as check their expansion in the Pacific. I could go on, but I’d suggest reading some more history books.
when youtube comments are more reliable than your history textbooks...
@Incog Nito yeahhhh, my history textbooks were bad enough on most things that I've actually researched properly after-the-fact that literally no information would've been better.
so a vaguely relevant comment I'll forget in a few days really is a trade up.
...heh: by that reasoning a aggravatingly blatantly incorrect comment that prompts me to go research something is even better.
That is not correct. Pearl Harbor was intended to be a "shock and awe" operation so the attack orders prioritized the highly symbolic battleships first and the cruiser force second. Carriers were way down on the target priority list. The airmen planning and leading the attack (Genda and Fuchida) and the squadron commanders tasked with carrying it out naturally but unofficially promoted the carriers higher on the list because they recognized the true threat but the carriers weren't there in any case.
The video is wrong in that Yamamoto wasn't there. Admiral Ozawa led the raid and made the decisions, like not to send a third wave. Oh, and the mythical third attack wave wasn't in the plan either. There may have been some talk of improvising one after the first two waves but they decided to stick with the plan and go home.
Daniel Stickney we were talking about Midway in 42, not Pearl Harbor in 41. I think the biggest issue with the Japanese was thinking that they could get one decisive victory in and the US would then not have the heart for a protracted war and would sue for a peace of some sort. They vastly underestimated the US willingness to fight and wage war to the end.
Man I hated the Movie Pearl Harbor. How can you take such a historically significant event which needed ZERO additional hollywood flair to make it an engaging and amazing movie......and turn it into the bullshit drama fest that it was. And I am not even talking about the love triangle.....I just mean the b.s. air combat and ground to air combat.
whole thing was fucked up from every angle..
They covered the event with Tora Tora Tora..there was really no need for a 2.0 follow-up to that fine film..
Not to mention how do you take a P-40 pilot and just throw them into a B-25? The way the pilots were moving around in the cockpit like it was a fucking video game was just stupid. Those sites when you move left right up or down, it changes your sight picture and your point of aim. They wouldn't have been able to hit the broadside of a barn.
It was a love-story ...
...hyped up as a testosterone movie.
It had "High Hopes" because FINALLY, a movie made for MEN was being released, but turned out to be just another chick-flick love story slightly attempting to cater to the male audience.
Yeah. It not only sucked, but it was poor on ALL levels (except the acting.)
@@JohnRodriguesPhotographer They weren't just thrown into the Mitchell bombers hence all the training scenes that it shows. Don't forget the Doolittle Raid was months after the Pearl Harbor attack. Don't get me wrong, the movie is trash, but at least they did that part well.
@Justin Last But this shouldn't have been made a date night flick. It's the wrong topic altogether, and entirely too important to be made into a drama/romance
I read a book called "A Higher Call" a story about a Luftwaffe pilot risked his own life to save a B-17 Bomber pilot.
I would highly recommend No Bullets Fly by Sabaton. It's a song about that event. The youtube channel Sabaton history also did a video about that.
As did The History Guy on History that deserves to be remembered
_ DU_NUT_TUCH_ME _
Traitor
You can just watch a youtube video about the incident and save your self hours of reading
MiniDonut well reading can be nice sometimes
Why does everyone forget about Phil Rasmussen as the 3rd pilot to get a plane up durin Pearl Harbor? He took off in a P-36 at the same time as the P-40s. I'm glad you actually mentioned Rasmussen
If you want a good Pearl Harbor movie, watch "Tora! Tora! Tora!"
Yeah.
I seen avideo on best ww2 movies and they had a trailer for it its bad ass.
Agreed. and follow it with Battle of Midway
Also a great WWII movie about the Pacific campaign is In Harms Way
And if you want to have ptsd watch Hackshaw ridge
My adoptive grandfather flew with Dolittle during the raids. He went deaf in one ear after a flak shell whizzed past his ear. The funny thing is I found out a few years ago my biological grandmother was Japanese-Hawaiian.
MSWarrior I'm half Martian and half salamander
I'm half German and half shepherd.
Bebe Reyes my girlfriend tells me that in a Weiner dog, is that good?
Maybe you're not adopted after all?
A common saying in the early years of WWII in the Pacific. "It's a P-400. A P-400? What's that? That is a P-40 with a Japanese zero on its tail."
Mmh, I see the pun but the P-400 is an US plane that really existed
@Jefferson Tong a 20mm nose cannon version
That's beautiful.
Hahahahahagagagshahs
The flying tigers beg to differ
Pearl Harbor is a pretty bad movie. They even have a shot of destroyers at anchor in Pearl Harbor but they are modern missile destroyers not even CGI old destroyers pre Fletcher Class. The only cinematic value is the photography, otherwise is a terribly inaccurate movie and overacted. Alec Baldwin is miscast as LTC Doolittle with his abundant hair, young looking face and cursing dialog. Jennifer Garner plays a nurse and is easily the more noticeable even though she in the film for less than a minute and had just couple of words of dialog. Tora, Tora, Tora is more faithful to the story but is not free of some mistakes, like the portrayal of the radar on the hill incident. In addition, there was no CGI back then so it was all live action and it was very realistic.
Tora Tora Tora is a much better pearl harbour movie
when i 1. saw the bombing scene i thought: "waiiiiit a minute!!! those ships aren't from WW2/ Pacific War, those are probably Arleigh Burke Class Destroyers from well NOW" turns out that i was right...
They also damaged the planes of fame’s bf 109 and is still under restoration
Holy shit! There are other people who've watched Tora! Tora! Tora!
Remember the scene where the bomber crashed on the run way, yeah that was an actual malfunction with the remote controlled airplane that made it drift off course
@Ron Lewenberg
Baseball was for flag waving. The rest of the world shake their heads as it is so cringeworthy.
U don't need to stroke the ego.
Even as the red white and blue blooded American that I am, I love Tora! Tora! Tora!'s perspective on the attack of Pearl Harbor. It really shows that these young men aren't just evil robots, they're people with lives, conscience and morals.
If only more movies would portray the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe that way.
'Battle of Britain' did a good job of doing that as well.
There are several of them out now but not big ones. It takes money to make big ones and they all want a guaranteed box office - which they are not going to get making Nazi's look like human beings.
@@BobSmith-dk8nw Not all German soldiers were nazis... Nazis were the ruling political party, it'd be like calling all soldiers Democrats when Obama was president.
Good old war movies...
The Luftwaffe didn’t see enough action against the US for us Americans to care, they mainly engaged the British and Soviets.
It’s not racist to believe a country likely can’t develop advanced fighters. No one believes Ireland could make an F-22
Conor Tobin literally took the words out of my mouth.
George Corbett Japan also had massive resource issues necessitating, in their minds, the march across the pacific, China et al. They were isolated, we may not have believed them to be capable in part due to that. I’m not saying racism did not play a role, I am saying that these days we tend to look at one data point to find evidence of racism ignoring all context.
Japanese didnt. They stole the design from Howard Hughs.
@@JordanYoung.4.21.92 Took the words right out of my mouth too
You're assuming that the Irish are drunk ALL of the time. That is not at all true. They are simply drunk most of the time. Sleeping it off doesn't count.
Watching Perl Harbl I was amazed Ben & Josh wasn't around to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and later walk on the moon.
Had to leave something for Forrest Gump.
-and take the 'magic' bullet (one for each of them) for JFK
That was going to be the sequel.
Forrest Gump never walked on the moon: this Service Module exploded during Apollo 13, he barely made it back...
And serve in Desert storm
"...it was not until the extremely brutal Battle of Britain in the early 1940s that plane designers on both sides began including these safety measures...." Not accurate. The Spitfire, Hurricane and 109 all had pilot armour and self-sealing fuel tanks in the Battle of Britain, which means their designers incorporated them in the designs before the BoB.
Research my friend
Fairey battle had sealing tanks in '37. Not all aircraft had them in the BoB there was an ongoing upgrade. New aircraft did.
Not sure if we're disagreeing but my reply to the earlier post was that not all Spits/Hur had them in the BoB only the newer ones or those upgraded...
If you read on in those forums you'll see what I think is the general position. That new spits had them and the old ones were slowly (and it was slowly) upgraded. But i'm pretty sure the majority were't done till near the end of the BoB [Note the lower tank is what we are talking about here the upper was never sealed afaik - not that it needed it really - but it was armored.
The H was much much more vulnerable than the spit in a fire. It was after all more canvas/wood than metal in key areas. The majority of all burns were in H's not Spits. The H could catch fire in as little as 10 seconds. Hard to bail out of that without burns.
I'm certain from reading up and checking the boards that duringthe BoB they were fitting new SPits/H with them but that reterofit took longer. What I can't find is a 'finished' reterofit date. Given rates of losses in wartime it may have just solved itself such that no-one really needed to bother with a 'finish' date.
The structural integrity of the A6M was actually excellent, despite its light weight. Grumman engineers who evaluated an A6M2 captured early in the war were impressed by the rigidity of the airframe, which resulted in precision handling, as well as tight turn radius and high rate of climb. The Rei-sen was very light, and this restricted its maximum dive speed (due to both airframe stresses and a simple matter of mass). But the notion that the Zero was a fragile aircraft is yet another myth.
It's skin was incredibly thin so in many respects it was fragile.
The B-25 raid was sound !! But they were spotted early and had to launch many miles to early !! Facts please.
the stuka divebomber had a propel/siren to make the screaming sound when it's dive... that startede the movie myth that all plans make that screaming sound when they are going down, either it's shot down or engine failure
Jerichos Horn, its basically a psychological warfare instrument, and got into the comment thought that when your plane (even on things like aicraft investigations) if your in an uncontrollable dive you hear that whiiirrrrrring noise
Most planes made a screaming sound when they dived, due to airflow over the gun holes in the wings. The mustang is especially known for it.
However yes you are right, the Jericho siren was fitted to stukas to make a much more shrill and loud sound
The whistles on the stuka actually slowed it down
This predate the Stuka if you watch old movies. The sound was in these was Hoolywoods version of the wind noise of wind the the wires and struts of biplanes....
Navy dive bombers had dive brakes, literally panels on the wing with holes in them to keep from exceeding maximum dive speeds and also causing noise from airflow through and around the panels.
"Only destroyed 6 Vals" ... ummmm yeah, heroes in my book ... P40's with Zero's providing cover? Fantastic bravery!!!
Yea, it takes only 5 kills to become an ace.. because shooting down enemy planes is not easy..
THey had potential fighter cover, and rear gunners. There were only two of them... Heroes.
Anyone who expects Hollywood to make an historically correct movie about anything or anyone is daydreaming.
Or high
MIDWAY ( 2019) is right on the money
Most of the Hollywood movies are stolen British SAS missions, changed to be done by Americans.
Ben Affleck served in Pearl Harbor, bombed Japanese facilities, and fought with the RAF.
Do you know how?
“Because I’m Batman!!”
Falcon1 it all makes sense now
No that’s Christian bales Batman!
Generation Films but what if they’re one in the same?
And when he draws his pistol to shot Japanese soldiers. Ben's pistol growls, (or hisses depending on the version of the film)
Falcon1 if there was an actual person who did all those things, there would already be a movie about him
1. Even if the Doolittle raiders could have reached the carrier again, there was no way to land a B-25 on a carrier.
2. The main reason the planes didn’t have the fuel to reach the Chinese airfields was that they launched early due to a Japanese ship spotting the task force. If they had been able to launch on schedule, they would have been much more likely to reach their destinations.
Prototype Spitfires were built with flush rivets. "Oh bollocks" said an engineer one day, "The bloody production plane will use bumpy rivets. Buggar". So in English spirit they glued split peas to the rivets to simulate the aerodynamic drag. Created the second greatest allied fighter of the war, second only to the incredible Hawker Hurricane.
the hurricane was a bad aircraft, they lost more fights to italian BI-planes then thr biplanes lost to them, like seriously. they were also extremely easy to shoot down (probably why they were able to loose to biplanes) they were not really fighter planes but interceptors and ground attack, as an anti-bomber plane it was decent but as a ground attack or vs enemy aircraft it was sub par.
the spitfire is very good, but argueably certain german, italian and american aircraft are just as good.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 the Hurricane however wins out for being far easier to repair and faster to produce. If you look at the numbers built compared to losses you'll see that loads went down because they made up the bulk of single engine British fighters.
The Hurricane, not matter how bad or good, held against the German onslaught, until the Spitfires started coming online. It was the most numerous fighter/interceptor the RAF had at the time. The Spitfire was just being introduced during the Battle of Britain.
Of course, not only did the Hawker Hurricane shoot down more enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain than the Spitfire (bombers or not) it shot down more enemy aircraft than all the other forms of air defence combined including night fighters, anti aircraft artillery.
Not bad despite its apparent shortcomings for Hawker's first go at a monoplane in the mid 1930s.
The hurricane shot down more aircraft because there were more of them, they were easier to make, and the spitfire came into the war later. The spitfire was the better aicraft though
Myth or Fact the tuft of hair in the middle of my head gives me stability at high speeds? In all seriousness tho we don’t hate Michael Bay, we just like it when he does movies about fictional events... for example a rogue asteroid is heading for earth and we need to send a team of oil drillers to take it out.
Spitfires and hurricanes were royal air force not army air corps
That was a bad film 😂
TheSoleSurvivor yea eagle squadron was raf
Generation Tech ya, that was fun
Be glad you still have a tuft of hair!
Zero was a beast but aged like planes do. Marianas turkey shoot really hammered this home.
Toss in the F6F hellcat ripping it a new asshole
michael debolt The F6F Hellcat was designed based on test flights of a Zero captured in the Aleutian Islands campaign. Grumman’s test pilots flew it over and over and found weaknesses that could be exploited in. a dogfight.
@@chandlerwhite8302 Wrong. U.S. pilots didn't get their hands on the Aluetian Zero until September of '42. The prototype F6F had already flown the previous June. Work on the Hellcat had already begun before the war had even started.
Jnl B And the plans for the Hellcat were changed from the prototype to production phase in order to exploit the weaknesses which the Navy rest pilots found flying the rebuilt captured Zero. Re-read your sources.
@@chandlerwhite8302 Don't be a condescending ass to me. I know about the Hellcat. And your very words were that it was DESIGNED as an answer to the Zero. Read your your own words. It wasn't! Period. The biggest change made to the airplane was a bigger engine because of suggestions by Thach, and other pilots who had fought the Zeke. "Reread your sources" my ass!
The best thing about the film Pearl Harbor was Kate Beckinsale in a nurse's uniform - my God she's beautiful.
Also, it was good to see that the guy who sneaked her into the Comms room survived the attack and went on to fly a glider on D Day, taking in part of the 101st.
......downward slope, an all, we were, we were just too God damn heavy......
FUBAR?
Yes, FUBAR.
I thought the BoB scenes were the best.
But what about the droid attack on the wookies?
Kikkeli
🤔
Good relations with the Wookiee’s I have
@Derrick Flyr
At least he has an excuse. What’s yours?
My great grandfather helped modify the b-25s for the Doolittle Raid. I have been told that he would say that he was confused why they wanted more fuel tanks for longer range on a plane that already had a relatively long range.
There was an autobiography by one of the pilots titled 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. What they went through is BRUTAL.
Hollywood, among other entities, give the impression that the Zero was the only Japanese fighter available during WWII. As a kid who was fascinated with WWII fighters, I learned about the KI-84, KI-100 and the J2M Raiden (Jack) fighters that could hold their own against the Hellcat, Corsair and P-51 Mustang. But even if these excellent planes had been produced in in greater quantities, they could not have overcome the industrial might of the United States. Two other non-German morning Axis fighter that could hold it’s own against the P-51 was the Italian Macchi C.205 and the Reggiane Re.2005. Oh wait, Hollywood don’t do movies on the WW2 Italian Air Force.
About the Italian planes. Sadly, the major problem these planes had was that they were not nearly as fast and manuverable as a P-51, mainly because the latter was introduced later in the war. A more fair aproach would be G55 vs P-51
Commander Prinz Eugen G55 😍
I wanted to add it but apparently I'm too late.
Riccardo Balbo It's a lovely aircraft
Well the "Industrial Might of the US" wasn't all that mighty. The P-51 had a pathetic engine which limited its capabilities. After Britain installed the Rolls Royce engine, the P-51 began its journey of fame and glory. I think both countries were and are lucky to have each other as allies.
Yeah..im done now...good day to you sir/madam
Hussain C True that, with the original Allison engine the P-51 was just ordinary. If I recall correctly it was mostly used as a fighter-bomber but it’s long range capability was was already known. However, when I mentioned industrial might it was in reference to the industrial output of the United States. The United States just overwhelmed Japan. For comparison, think of a wolverine vs a 1500 lb (680 kg) grizzly. The wolverine may get in a few nasty bites but it will eventually get dispatched. The wolverine has a nasty disposition, has relentless determination and is strong for it’s size. But if the big bear decides to take out the wolverine, it is a foregone conclusion.
12:30, you forget the aircraft carrier HAD been tested, a few months prior in Taranto. That's where the Japanese came up with the idea.
yeah, that carrier thing he said is wrong, yeah the Japanese were more interested in sinking some big battleships than carriers that can and did bring navy's to their knees. geez
Not to mention the role in the sinking of the Bismarck when its steering was crippled by torpedo bombers, or the crippling of the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto at the battle of Matapan in March 1941 (although she survived that, and the attack at Taranto). All with obsolete aircraft as well. Those early British carrier planes were lacking a lot.
The American carriers were a priority target at PH. The Japanese knew of their significance. They wanted to knock out the battleships but they wanted the carriers too.
Steve Jones allegedly they were so slow that guns designed to shoot down faster. more modern aircraft had problems tracking them.
Taranto was an amazing effort, but apparently a significant part of the damage was from the Italians blindly firing on their own ships because they thought they were still under attack after the raid had finished.
For someone constantly hammering a film about historical accuracy his own contribution wasn't much better oh the irony.
Also, Ben Affleck was apparently the first American pilot to be shot down, rescued by the French Resistance and returned to Britain. Also, due to plot device, somehow returned to the US and his former squadron. Actually, I found Pearl Harbor entertaining, but yeah, it's not good to think about it too much.
Then theres 6'2 200lb Alec Baldwin playing 5'6 150 lbs soaking wet Col. Doolittle.
Actually, it was Admiral Nagumo, not Yamamoto, who commanded the Pearl Harbor strike force and received the intelligence report telling him that the American carriers, as well as all American heavy cruisers, had left Pearl Harbor. (Yamamoto and his staff planned the attack, but Nagumo commanded the strike force.) Admiral Nagumo received that report at 1:20AM on December 7, and it was the last bit of information regarding the American ships present in Pearl Harbor that he received prior to the attack. It is entirely reasonable that Admiral Nagumo would have been deeply troubled by the absence of American carriers and heavy cruisers in Pearl Harbor. They had been getting intelligence information from spies at Pearl Harbor and they knew the American carriers and heavy cruisers were in the area, and the carriers were, in fact, considered to be prime targets, according to Yamamoto's plan, right along with the battleships. Nagumo's attack depended for its success on secrecy and surprise, and the fact that the American carriers and heavy cruisers had left Pearl Harbor could have been an indication that his strike force had been detected and the Americans were readying a trap for them. Cruisers and carrier aircraft were the scouts for the fleet, and if the Americans knew that Nagumo's strike force was in the area and they were searching for it, those are exactly the forces they would have been using to do so, so his unease at hearing they had sortied was well founded.
also probably explains why he didn't send in the last wave (with the oil tanks as the target) as he may have feared getting attacked by the US carriers
@@matthiuskoenig3378 That's EXACTLY why Nagumo chickened out and ran for home--he thought he'd walked into a trap. I say "chickened out" because 1. The attack on the US Fleet was an ALL or NOTHING gamble by definition. By chickening out at the last second, he would have been better off not attacking at all. The half-finished Japanese attack on the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor accomplished ZILCH for Japan. They would have been much better off just ignoring the US Fleet AND the Philippines. 2. Nagumo ended up walking right into the actual "trap" at Midway six months later, which by then, was no longer even a viable operation, let alone one worth risking his fleet over. Which he only did because he knew he'd chickened out at Pearl Harbor.
In realty all the carriers were doing was ferrying aircraft to outlying bases (airstrips) Wake, Midway Islands?
Thanks for the great summary. On the Doolittle raid. It was not supposed to be a one-way mission, but the carrier group was spotted and it was decided that launching the planes early was less risky than encountering a stiffer defense by getting closer.
5. Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi was commanding officer of 1st Air Fleet in Akagi for the Pearl Harbor raid.
Admiral Yamamoto Isoruku was commanding officer of the Combined Fleet in flagship Nagato back in the Inland Sea
On the day the movie "Pearl Harbor" released the critics said "it was a day that will live in infamy". They were right. It was terrible.
Yamamoto WAS concerned about the carriers because their unknown location represented a potential threat to their strike group. Not because they were a primary target in the attack.
He was well aware that if the strike group was located by American scout planes, especially in the middle of their attack, it could be disastrous.
Don’t make politicians with the same stuff nowadays. “Dan Crenshaw laughs with one eye”
I would love to see any US politician try anything even remotely like this. I doubt most of them could even climb into a P-40 without shattering a hip or getting lost in a dementia fog on their way to the air field.
The is NEVER any reason to insert Ben Affleck into a movie. Based on true events, or not.
"I'll sue Ben Affleck... Do I even need a reason?" - Wierd Al Yankovich
hes that duck right?
Finally, great job, Allan. Mitsubishi actually did purchase an American trainer from which it could develop the A6M. However, it didn't have the same materials in quantity for exact duplication. When a Zero was recovered in the Aleutians, by the US Arny Air Corps, mechanics were stunned by the complexities of it's engine. Flight research provided new training techniques for American fighter pilots. The Marianas Turkey Shoot was a positive result of our efforts.
Excellent video Alan. When my wife and I saw "Pearl Harbor" at the movie theater, being a pilot myself, I made the same point to my wife about taking highly trained fighter pilots and putting them in an aircraft requiring highly trained bomber pilots(Jimmy Doolittle being the exception to the rule, it's well documented that he could fly anything known to man at that time). I'm going to watch some more of your videos. 👍
Great book about the Doolittle Raid - Thirty Seconds over Tokyo. 🛬
The carrier was not untested by Pearl Harbor. The Japanese would have been well versed in the British victory at Taranto.
How can you make the argument that Admiral Yamamoto wasn't concerned about the absence of the US carriers and that, by extension, they were not a force to be reckoned with when he was attacking Pearl Harbor with... aircraft carriers. Not only would Yamamoto be versed in Taranto as mentioned above, but because he spent time at West Point, he would also know about Billy Mitchells sinking of a captured WWI German battleship demonstration in 1921.
It was Taranto that gave the Japanese the idea for Pearl Harbour. They found an almost identical bay in the home islands for practise.
At 2:41, that's gun camera footage of an F-86. It's following a MiG-15, which DID have an ejection seat, so the example of "tilt to the side..." is inaccurate.
Ben afleck and josh hartnet planted the flag on iwo jima
They also bombed hiroshima and nagisaki
I thought this was about fighter myths. What's with this damned movie review?!
BAH!!
Artistic license, eg. "Why let the truth get in the way of a good story." Michael Bey's motto for movie making.
I skimmed through several comments and didn't see a glaring mistake GF made. Admiral Yamamoto was not with the Pearl Harbor task force, Admiral Nagumo was the TF commanding admiral.
Admiral Yamamoto was not with the assault force at Hawaii he was back in japan
I guess they're only myths if you've never done any reading about the war......
By all means list some corrections.
*facepalm*
1) The green camo on the A6M in the scene of Pearl Harbor was, oddly, the ONLY accurate thing on that godforsaken movie. Both white and green camo was used by all kinds of Mitsubishi A6M and those Zeros that did attack Pearl Harbor was in fact all in green as during that time, the A6M2 were used and all was in green camo as the A6M3 configuration wasn't ready yet until the Battle of the Coral Sea where the A6M3 really see action and they're painted in both green and white camos. Only the A6M2 stayed green.
2) The Zero was outclassed but it never lost its fangs. In fact, even after Japan surrendered, the armistice haven't been passed yet till September and during that period. the Zero, despite being clearly outmatched, managed to wreck havoc on Corsairs and Hellcat squadrons by killing close to 30 planes of each model until the actual armistice has passed.
3) The reason why the bombers from the Doolittle Raid had to go to China was not because of the fuel issue but because it is god damn fucking impossible to land a B-25 on a fucking aircraft carrier! That's why when some smuck came out with the plan and FDR agreed on it, Nimitz, the general commander of the whole Pacific fleet, thought the idea was god damn nuts to throw B-25s on the carriers but orders being orders, the B-25 was loaded up on the carriers and off to the coast of Japan they went. Flying off the carriers is easy as it's the same as many other naval planes or even conventional land planes but landing such a big aircraft was god damn impossible on a tiny aircraft carrier let alone without arrestor hooks so of course any sane man would send an order for those bombers to land in China which was at that time under Claire Channault's control rather than to risk their silly life after the raid to land on the carriers to risk the pilots, the crews, the planes and most importantly, the ships.
4) Of course Pearl Harbor got it shitfaced wrong but you too got it wrong. Those in Eagle Squadron are "civilians". Why did I put quotations? Because they WERE ex-pilots in the USAAC (US Army Air Corp). It's the same for Claire Channault's AVG (American Volunteer Group). In order for pilots to join the Eagle Squadron or the AVG, they have to quit their piloting jobs in the USAAC and during the time of both the Battle of Britain and the whole Second Sino-Japanese War, America was still neutral so quitting army life was still easy and these pilots quit and joined the war overseas. What? You think the Brits would just allow civilians to waltz into an airfield and fly a sophisticated fighter aircraft, waste time and train them just to allow them to piss themselves infront of a German BF-109? Hell no. Of course the Eagle Squadrons are all ex-military pilots who knew a thing or two flying MILITARY aircraft. Jesus christ!
5) The carriers were not new technology but in fact it was Britain who created it in the 1920s then deemed it as undesirable while the Japanese and Americans perfected it. In fact, during the whole Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto himself knew trouble was brewing when his intel came in that the carriers he thought was there, wasn't there. His 2nd in command, Nagumo (This prick actually doomed the whole IJN (Imperial Japanese Navy) and the whole war effort), reminded that the aim was to destroy the Pacific fleet so whatever ship was in the harbor, they'll have to conduct the mission and bomb it. Despite doing so, Yamamoto wasn't pleased that they did not get the secondary objective, the most vital one in his own opinion and thus after the whole thing happened, he was infamously recorded to have said that "I'm afraid that we have just woken up the giant".
Jun Kitami oh my god... a person who knows their history...
God bless you my friend
He wrote it in his diary. He said that Nagumo not listening to his advice in knocking out the fuel depot with a 3rd sortie that he had called for was the biggest mistake of his career and that caused his whole fleet to be wiped out where he quote "We have awaken the giant".
I'm fairly positive that it was actually a very pale gray color. Actually, I'm absolutely certain.
The "white" camo? No it's just white. It's just that when it was under the sun, it becomes gray.
Civilians did sign up and get tossed into the Eagle Squadron but they're not many as Canadians were also roped in to serve in the RAF as manpower was lower in a lower count than planes that the RAF had in total when the whole Battle of Britain started so the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) never actually trained many US civilians to fly planes as the Eagle Squadron have more than 99% of pilots in that Squadron alone that had earned their baptism of fire or should we say.. "Combat Wings" back home flying with the USAAC.
As I said, with the war being hotter than an klin, the Commonwealth just don't have time to take normal civilians, train them to fly as minimalistically as possible and toss them into a sophisticated fighter plane and just watch these civilian-turned-fighter pilots piss themselves and lose even more precious plane that the RAF can't afford so no, they did not take civilians or actually, "non-combat trained civilian pilots".
3:00 This is also how the famous "Star of Africa" German ace Hans Marseille died. Hit his head on the rudder and never deployed his parachute.
Ronald Reagan took part in many training films during World War II.
Hollywood movies too. Check the WW2 Drama, "The Hasty Heart"
Yep, Reagan was your typical chickenhawk, just like that coward John Wayne. Both talked shit, both encouraged others to die for their country, while both stayed home and banged hookers in Hollywood. Unlike REAL heroes such as Jimmy Stewart & Henry Fonda who both served in forward combat and did not bang hookers in Hollywood during WWII.
Ted Wojtasik don’t forget Clark Gable. Insisted on being front line and was a gunner on a B17. Jackie Coogan child star flew gliders in Army Air Corps.
@@tedwojtasik8781
President Reagan actually enlisted in the military reserve before the start of the Second World War. Reagan enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Officers' Reserve Corps of the Cavalry on May 25, 1937,.
Lieutenant Reagan was ordered to active duty on 19 April 1942. Due to eyesight difficulties, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas. His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason, California, as liaison officer of the Port and Transportation Office. Upon the request of the Army Air Forces (AAF), he applied for a transfer from the Cavalry to the AAF on 15 May 1942; the transfer was approved on 9 June 1942. He was assigned to AAF Public Relations and subsequently to the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California.
On January 14, 1943, he was promoted to first lieutenant and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is the Army at Burbank, California. He returned to the First Motion Picture Unit after completing this duty and was promoted to captain on July 22, 1943. In January 1944, Reagan was ordered to temporary duty in New York City to participate in the opening of the Sixth War Loan Drive, which campaigned for the purchase of war bonds. He was reassigned to the First Motion Picture Unit on November 14, 1944, where he remained until the end of World War II. He returned to Fort MacArthur, California, where he was separated from active duty on December 9, 1945. By the end of the war, his units had produced some 400 training films for the then Army Air Force.
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John Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34) and family status (classified as 3-A - family deferment). Wayne repeatedly wrote to John Ford saying he wanted to enlist, on one occasion inquiring whether he could get into Ford's military unit, but consistently kept postponing it until after "he finished just one or two pictures". Wayne did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing him since he was their only A-list actor under contract. Herbert J. Yates, President of Republic, threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract, and Republic Pictures intervened in the Selective Service process, requesting Wayne's further deferment.
U.S. National Archives records indicate that Wayne, in fact, did make an application to serve in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the modern CIA, and had been accepted within the U.S. Army's allotted billet to the OSS. William J. Donovan, OSS Commander, wrote Wayne a letter informing him of his acceptance into the Field Photographic Unit, but the letter went to his estranged wife Josephine's home. She never told him about it. Donovan also issued an OSS Certificate of Service to Wayne. Wayne toured U.S. bases and hospitals in the South Pacific for three months in 1943 and 1944 with the USO.
An interesting tidbit: Clark Gable was relieved from active duty as a major on June 12, 1944 at his request, since he was over-age for combat. Because his motion picture production schedule made it impossible for him to fulfill Reserve officer duties, he resigned his commission on Sept. 26, 1947, a week after the Air Force became an independent service branch. Fellow actor Captain Ronald Reagan signed his discharge papers (Reagan's Reserve Commission automatically terminated on 1 April 1953).
It wasn’t racism that feared the American military into thinking the Japanese weren’t capable of creating a deadly aircraft. It was more the fact that they hadn’t built anything as affective up until that point. Seriously it’s just all about the buzz words these days.
Except they had. The Ki43, the G4M, the Ki27 were all advanced aircraft and the Allies knew about them. The problem was that most of the combat prior to Pearl Harbor had occurred over China where the Japanese had faced less trained Chinese pilots in largely I-15 and I-16 aircraft. The Japanese mostly flew Ki27s, which were maneuverable and roughly equivalent to the Rata.
They had intelligence reports from the Flying Tigers and they totally ignored them.
@@mogaman28 That's true to a point. The AVG didn't actually become operational until December of 1941. Chenault had figured out a way to use US Aircraft effectively against Japanese equipment and pilots and was successful but unfortunately many on the Allied side didn't take his advice. They had to figure it out on their own. The US and Britain actually adapted their tactics pretty quickly, partially because people started as early as a few months after Pearl Harbor. Chenault did contribute to that.
That and a decent amount of their hardware was commissioned for production overseas. Some of their more modern BBs and CBs, for example, if memory serves.
Yes and no you are mostly right, but the US was very racist
I enjoyed this. Totally agree. Amazing how many movies are almost maliciously ignorant and inccurate in these days where technology can produce literally anything on the screen. There's still a lot of room at the top for an accurate portrayal of WW2 in movies.
You can say that again..
CGI has been completely bungled in its use, even though it offers amazing opportunities if written right, instead of by 10YO video gamers..
Battlefield violence they still do not really have right, as evidence by the fighting on something like 'Hacksaw Ridge"..
In the skies above the isle, Aces in exile prevail
From near and far they arrived, joined the force
Ready to serve the allied command
Sent into training though they already earned their wings
They were ready fly, they were fit for the fight
Once in the air, the battle begins
They have proven their worth, now they fly for revenge
Fighter pilots in exile fly over foreign land
Let their story be heard, tell of 303rd
Fighter pilots from Poland in the battle of Britain
Guarding the skies of the isle
Even at night shadows cover the ground
And the fighting goes on from dusk until dawn
With the claw of the Reich with the claw of the eagle
They were ready to fly, they were ready to die
Up in the air the battle goes on
They have proven their worth, now they have their revenge
Fighter pilots in exile fly over foreign land
Tell their story again, tell of 310
Men from Czechoslovakia in the battle of Britain
Guarding the skies of the isle
Over the battlefield brave men long way from home
Few are the chosen ones sent to the sky to die
Over the battlefield brave men long way from home
Few are the chosen ones sent to the sky to die
Fly, it echoes in history
Turning the tide in the heavens above
Oh, fighter pilots in exile fly over foreign land
When the battle has been won, tell of 401
Fighter pilots from Canada in the battle of Britain
Guarding the skies of the isle
On wings of history they turned from home to live eternally skybound they roam
In all of history, never before was more owed to so few
Fighter pilots in exile!
👍 reminds me of Kipling, good poem!
Lets not forget the Poles and Czech's who also flew for the RAF.
See the poem above.@@philgiglio9656
10:48
Also, this footage shows Ben Afflick flying a Spitfire upside down, which, due to the way the plane's engine was designed, should have caused the engine to cut and streams of black smoke to pour out of the exhaust pipes
Elcey Van Winkle any engine with a carburetor, not just the Rolls Royce they put in the spitfire would starve if turned.
That's why they needed fuel injection like some of the German fighters
I believe that that could be seen in the film Battle of Britain
Look up Miss Tilly’s Orifice. That prevented the over rich condition that results from a floated carb going inverted.
That's not quite right. I saw "Pearl Harbor" years ago, and don't recall if he flew inverted for a long period, or whether it was part of a maneuver.
Carburated aircraft without inversion systems will have fuel supply issue when flying at negative G. Not necessarily when they're upside down. Centripetal forces can cause positive G conditions while a plane is inverted, for example, when performing a loop.
Someone else mentioned the film from the sixties, "Battle Of Britain." Near the beginning of the film there is a Hurricane (used the same engine as the spitfire) that did a victory roll above Expeditionary forces retreating to Dunkirk. As he rolled over, the engine sputtered and ran rich, making smoke. This was a real Hurricane doing a real snap roll.
Not a bad film, but the effects were sometimes... underwhelming. Because they couldn't always fire the guns under filming conditions, muzzle flashes were "effects" consisting of razor scratches on the celluloid. Not very convincing.
Boyington resigned his commission to fly with the AVG. After the U.S. entry in WWII he returned from China and got his commission reinstated. He ended up forming the 214th fighter squadron, commonly called the Black Sheep, but were first called Boyington's Bastards. I read Boyington's book.
@@scottloar I read it in the mid 1970's. I still have it. I wish I had the hardcover for my library.
A green Zero isn’t the wrong color, the Zero’s like the mod 11 and A6M3 were white. While the A6M5 ko and other varients of the A6M5 were green
It's not only about the variant. Late in the war, most zeros were painted green. There were even green A6M2s flying around Saipan, for example.
What should have actually happened during dolitle attacks
President " I want to attack japan with huge bombers from a small aircraft carrier"
Military expert - "it Can't be done"
*President rises with crippled legs*
"Don't tell me what can't Ben done"
Military expert "raising from a wheelchair doesn't equal to what you are asking so STILL CANT be done"
Omg that would’ve been so epix
Just a quick side note here: the military actually came up with the idea of Dolittle raid and FDR thought it's crazy and refused to agree with it at first, but military convinced him finally. So no wheelchair scene.
They were wrong
@@sunnyniu3849 interesting,,, it actually makes sense... No president would come up with such idea at that time. Most of the military experiments started within... But still that scene doesn't make sense .. just because a guy can stand from a wheelchair doesn't mean a complicated and never tested military maneuver is going to work. Hahaha but then again that movie is FULL of wrong stuff just like saving Private Ryan
Bruno gomes sentone Yeah I know, this whole movie sucks... though my statement above may come from nowhere, I just remember this piece of information... also I personally believe that Saying Private Ryan did a better job in terms of historical accuracy than Pearl Harbor, at least the previous one wouldn't make you feel terrible about the love scene in the movie...
I think from my readings the design of the A6M owed a lot to a light pre war 'sports plane' design by Curtis which the US Govt rejected as a candidate for a warplane. The Nihonese innovations were making the cabin and wings in one unit with the tail section and front with engine being added on. This gave the resulting plane the stiffness needed to be light but strong enough. Add as powerful an engine as they could and the result was the zero, a fast, manoeuvrable and dangerous attack aircraft. The lack of protection for the pilot and self sealing fuel tanks was probably more a point of philosophy. The Nihoni favoured all out attack and to be fair they swept all before them until people started to shoot back. Not so well after that.
American pilot: "I'm not flying without a self-sealing gas tank!"
Japanese pilot: "Hold my saki"..
I'll bet zeros were fueled with saki. That stuff tastes like kerosene.
@@ciciro6 ; I tried some saki. Once.
Who is the actor you keep bringing up in the video?
The Doolittle raid wasn't a suicide mission.
It wasn't planned to be that way, but because of the possible discovery by a Japanese fishing boat, Doolittle and his Men had to go sooner than planned.
@@wesdog8975 It still wasn't a suicide mission. They planned on making it back, and there was still a good possibility to do so even though they wouldn't be able to complete the mission as originally planned.
@@ALRIGHTYTHEN. they had to strip their planes of most weapons and ammo, and put on cans of fuel just to make it to the China coast.
@@wesdog8975 it still wasn't a suicide mission. They still planned on surviving the mission. If they didn't, they wouldn't have brought parachutes with them.
The bomber version of the British wooden built Mosquito had minimal defensive armament. Just as the A6M Zero, it relied on speed to get the job done.
Now that's being comfy. Dog fighting while wearing your pajamas.
Every fly in an unpressurized airplane in night clothes? Didn't think so.
I did find it interesting that the pilot felt the ONE piece of equipment he needed to take with him was his sidearm.
Also, in one of the short photos scenes depicting other pilots, there was a P-36, which was basically a P-40 with a radial engine.
I think this video also suffers from "myths" regarding aircraft design which aren't necessarily derived from film. That is, that the P-40 was some sort of lumbering throwback. It wasn't. Certain versions were very well armed for the day (with as much firepower as a Hellcat or a Corsair, or a Mustang). The P-40 was a very successful lend-lease plane, flying as the "Kittyhawk" for the British in North Africa, and against the Germans on the eastern front with the Soviets (who knows why, but they preferred the P-39, which was one odd duck).
The P-40 is also as old as the Zero and had similar problems, mostly stemming from engineering limits in the mid-30s, when most early war aircraft were designed. Both aircraft, for example, saw significant performance changes at speeds over 250 knots. The zero lost much of its maneuverability as its large control surfaces became difficult to deflect. The P-40 tended to pitch down at higher speeds, and also developed a roll moment at those speeds. Manageable issues, but they do add to the workload of the pilot.
Both the P-40 and P-39 were designed to engage bombers at high altitudes. The shared the same engine, an Allison V-12, which performed poorly in thin air, and so neither were very effective in their design role.
I'm starting to get into more detail than I intended to at the start of this reply, sorry.
Just one final point: If the video identified the actor in the film, I missed it. That was Ronald Regan. Once it was common knowledge among political junkies or aviation history nuts that he starred (poorly) in a WWII USAAF training film. I'll have to look it up, but I think he did a submarine film too.
Casey I think we’ve all had those memories of playing World War II games from the safety of our living room in our pajamas.
@@tananam9782 he participated in Many Army Air Corps movies. They made them to assist Bombadiers and Navigators identify terrain using a mix of photographs and models.
Not Propaganda movies, Training movies. A few still exist, I saw one back in the 90's
I do it in my underpants every night playing IL-2 1946 😆
The Doolittle raid forced the Japanese to pull back a large portion of their navy to protect the homeland. The Japanese didn’t realize that their was no way the US could repeat the raid on Tokyo.
The last part is complete bull shit. Yamamoto was one of the strongest advocates for carriers in Japan and is actually documented saying that only a complete destruction of the us navy and carriers in particular would provide Japan with a chance to win in the Pacific. Oh and FYI, the Bismarck, Litorio (not sunk by carrier planes) and Prince of Wales would like to have a word about your claim of air vs sea not being battle tested.
Whoa - cool your jets. Yes, there are undoubtedly more aspects to cover, but you remarks are not strictly accurate - at least your remarks do not contradict the video. It takes YEARS to design and build a new type of ship or a new type of aircraft. The sinking of the Bismark, Hood, Prince of Wales (et al.) were WAY too recent (just 5-sh months; and Prince of Wales was sunk AFTER Pearl Harbor) for any changes to be seen in strategy planning, ship/plane design, or construction - let alone changing any Old School Generals' and Admirals' and politicians' minds. You're about 3-4 years off.
the sinking of Repulse/PoW is the only example of those where a decisive result vs a large warship actually at sea were achieved..
the second Bismarck Stringbag attack was critical, as we know, but only indirectly..and also involving a last-minute stroke of good luck..
It was still smashed in conventional way by other surface ships....
The early strategic planning of the Japanese was around center force (clue in the name) revolving around the 2 battleships Yamato and Musashi and still considered important assets even after Perl harbor. Perl Harbor was a turning point in both the US and Japanese strategic planning, but it took time to define military doctrine. Only after 1942 did both Japan expedite the creation of aircraft carriers, and in the case of the Yamato class ship Shinano converted to one of the largest aircraft carriers in the war.
In the battle of Midway in 1942 it became a close battle regarding the "last available" aircraft carrier assets at that moment in time in the pacific and representing a turning point for the US and certainly at that time the aircraft carrier doctrine had become the strategic primary weapon in the Pacific war. The US focused on building of new aricraft carriers and the Japanese on converting cruiser and battleships to aircraft carriers after 1942.
Although single admirals in the Japanese navy may have believed in the carrier that is fundamentally different on military doctrine.
So your both correct and incorrect : in the Pacific theater the battleship was king initially, though this became superseded by the carrier, and certainly by the end of 1942 - the doctrine was completely changed.
The Atlantic war revolved around UK and German historical navel doctrine, and the former was around the battleship/cruiser forces, and the latter with the pocket battleships (dictated by tonnage treaty). After 1942 the German doctrine was more focused on submarines since the allies hunted down all German surfaces forces. In the case of the convoy war, the allied main assets were the destroyer and destroyer escorts. Although the Atlantic war involved a small number of aircraft carriers on the British side they were only equipped with biplanes (swordfish) as they were not considered important, and they were surprisingly effective as they were so slow the automated AA of the Germans could not calculate their trajectorys, they were low and also fabric. The aircraft carrier was never a strategic asset in the Atlantic war. The UK converted some fighters for use on carriers for the pacific war(eg seafire from spitfire) but these were never as practical as the US carrier planes or the zero's since the british never really tried. Ie UK military doctrine never considered the carrier important during WW2, and Germany had the Graf Zeppelin - and tried to convert ships from 1942 but never successfully create a useful ships for fighting.
0:55
Right color, wrong theatre
The IJA used the color scheme
devildog1982z that’s what he said
Phillip Rasmussen had the first official US fighter kill of WW2.
The last official fighter kill was in the last hours of WW2 when the P-61 Black Widow "Lady in the Dark" manoeuvre killed a Japanese Ki-43 "Oscar" over the Pacific Ocean.
From what I know, for the movie "Pearl Harbour", they didn't even asked the real pilots who took off during the attack for consulence. That's one of the things that I dislike the most of movies like Pearl Harbour and Red Tails, as you said, there were real people, real heroes but "mhu Hollywood" and no one cares of what really happened.
One reasons why I liked HBO's Band of Brothers, they worked VERY closely with the surviving members of Easy Company, and featured interviews with them on the boxed set, which were really interesting. Made the series more powerful in many ways.
I found Pacific a bit more disjointed though, as it was several different authors in several different units, not bad, but different......
Red Tails at least gave the actual pilots special showings
I was expecting 5 Myths of Fighter plans in WW 2. Not you debunking "Pearl Harbor". The title is so misleading.
Debunking the movie Pearl Habor.
cant debunk Tota tora tora
Yea but " TOP 5 MYTHS ABOUT"
videos just get soooooo many more views.
More broad the title, the more views.
Its just business, something you obviously know nothing of, LMFAO😂🤣🤪😭😅
Constable Dodo not really. You didn’t debunk his point
When Generation Film says “myths” they really mean movies.
Phillip Rasmussen is my uncle’s father. I have a signed model of the P-36 he flew. Auntie and Uncle Michael asked him to sign it for me before he died. He was a wonderful man and an amazing artist. Thank you for highlighting his contribution to our country.
Generation Film, what about spy myths and Shaolin (and asian monks) myths?
Would like to see a movie about the salvaging of ships at pearl harbour
Not a movie, but if you haven't seen it, search for Drachinefel pearl harbor salvage (I can't post the link for some reason)
One thing that is glossed over in this video regarding the Doolittle Raid is that by some measures you could legitimately say the B-25 was more of a large twin engine fighter. Many historians make this commentary. This is what made it perfect for the situation
Is this a talk about fighter planes from WWII or a review of the movie Pearl?
Matt King
Yes?
I think it was supposed to be an overview of how WWII aircraft have been inaccurately portrayed in film which used "Pearl Harbor" as an example.
I think that "Pearl Harbor" might be seen a a typically inaccurate film was lost in the narrative, which pretty quickly became a critique of only one film. I'm not sure this was the original intent when this video was conceived.
I'll just point out that Nakajima built the KI-43 Oscar for the army
mmm..
HE MENTIONED THE F4-U CORSAIR!!!! NOBODY EVER TALKS ABOUT THAT BEAUTIFUL PEICE OF AVIATION TECHNOLOGY! YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW HAPPY I AM AT THIS MOMENT!!!!
4:30
Why was it racist for them to think japan didnt have the technology, when in reality, in the span of just the war, entirely different tanks, aircraft, and other weapons of war were developed, the true beginning of the technological era.
02X Nanner
Because white man bad.
02X - your comment doesn't make any logical sense - but to inform you on the accusation of racism - white america did think other races weren't capable of flying planes much less creating advanced technology - we only need to look at the comments about the capability of american blacks flying planes before the tuskegee airmen to know that some whites were blindly racist - it was a prevailing view of asians too - the opening months immediately after Pearl Harbor where the japanese quickly overran asia was a nasty wakeup call for those with that attitude - and once the war began to turn around after midway - the technological capabilities of the japanese had to be recognized and kept in mind during the carnage that followed
Fun fact...the Ki27 Nate and Ki43 Oscar( both army fighters)could both turn inside the A6M. Also the Oscar was misidentified as zeros,being of similar shape,supposedly seen over Central China and Burma when the naval fighters weren't even there. Perl Harbor was a sh#t show,TORA TORA TORA all the way! Research is the key. Also like the Aussie marked Spit on the thumbnail too.🇦🇺
Oscar didnt have the speed or the 20mms in the wings but other than that there wasnt my difference between the two.
@@millerbob918 The ki43-3 Hei did have 20mils in the nose replacing the MGs,for taking on B29s but only the dedicated Home Defense units, some even had 30mils but not many. The biggest difference was the Oscar had rubber sealant in the walls of its tanks and an armoured seat, but not like Allied aircraft. I'm a bit of a Japanese fighter fan and have both books and built models of all the major and minor aircraft used by both Services. My next model build will be a KI-102a Randy with a 37mm in the nose.Sword kit 1/72 scale.
I spoke with one of the last Doolittle Raid survivors who told me the take off from the Hornet wasn't as difficult as sometimes thought. The Hornet was doing close to 30 knots into a wind of about the same speed, so air over the deck was about 60 knots in total. The crews had practiced on land and those had limited to no wind coming at them. In the group picture shown, Tom Griffin is seen just over Doolittle's shoulder looking to the left side of the picture.
The P-40 outclassed the A6M.
In 1941.
The AVG didn't get a 40:1 K/D ratio just from picking off bombers. . .
(not that the Zero didn't have some fine qualities)
The AVG did not face Zeros. They fought in China/Burma and against the Japanese Army Air Force, not the navy. Instead the AVG faced off against the Ki-27 "Nate" and the Ki-43 "Oscar" and later, as the war progressed the Ki-44 "Tojo" and the Ki-84 "Frank". The Oscar though it had less firepower than the Zero was every bit as maneuverable. It was not so much that the P-40 was superior, it was the tactics of the pilots, who were trained by their leader, Gen. Claire Chennault, in how to fight them. By the time the improved Ki-44 and Ki-84 came on the scene the former AVG (now the 14th Air Force) were flying Mustangs. The pilot is always the most important piece of equipment on the aircraft and his tactics are always the most important performance specification of the aircraft.
You never mentioned the P-38? The killer of Yamamoto
I saw a documentary on that, it would make an excellent movie.
Don White
...But it wasn't in the movie!
I expect, though, that a P-38 dogfight wouldn't be all that exciting on film. In fact, it's not really a dogfight. As the P-38 was faster than the Zero, and the first allied plane to match it in climb rate, the tactic was typically to make a slashing attack at high speed, climb out of range at speed, then come in again. It takes a long time to set up, and if done right, all the important bits happen pretty fast.
Also, this ability meant that P-38 pilots didn't really have to engage the Zero. They would attack whatever the Zero was guarding, and fly away knowing the Zero couldn't pursue.
This was an adaptation of tactics used by other American fighters during the war, with the exception that the P-38 could climb away, where other American aircraft could dive away, but after that, they were pretty much out of the fight.
Later Zeros (the A6M-3 and A6M-5) had more powerful engines, and could carry more ammunition, but their development was terribly outpaced by American industry. The N1K1 was meant to be a replacement, and it showed promise, but by the time it was ready, Japanese industry was pretty well flattened, and frankly, the IJN had few pilots left skilled enough to fly it.
They were still getting the bugs out of the p38 Dec of 41 the lighting didn't enter combat till fall of 42 with the Brits and without the turbosupercharger it was called the castrated lightning
@classiccarz
"Better?"
One might argue that until the advent of the P-51 in the Pacific, the allies didn't have a "better" fighter, and even then, that argument is marginal.
Before you conclude that I'm a Mustang nut, let me be clear: It's interesting, but I think that angle is played and boring. My "favorite" among American aircraft vacillates between the P-40 and P-47.
That said, the only fighter that matters is the one that's there. That is to say, with a combat radius nearly three times that of contemporary early war allied fighters, the Zero could "be there" when allied planes could not. It doesn't matter if the F6F was tougher, or the F-4U was faster, or the P-38 had lotsa guns and could climb as well and was faster, if none of them were there.
(Yeah, ok, the F-4u and F-6 were later, but with three times more planes, the three times greater range of the Zero was nullified, the F-4 Wildcat, contemporary to the early Zero, had about the same range of the F-6). With superior range, the Zero could be in a space where other fighters might be absent.
Indeed, early intelligence suggested that there were three times more Zeros in the Pacific than there were. This was a direct reflection on the fact that the Allies presumed an effective combat range similar to their own. Indeed, the Zero had three times the typical Allied combat range (1200 miles versus some 400 miles).
Man, I can't imagine a sortie that included some 2400 miles of flying, with combat somewhere in the middle. Oh, and don't get lost! Your home is a fast moving cork float somewhere in the pacific!
Anyway, the Zero was a nexus of strained resources and the Imperial Warrior Ethos. Make more with less, and aggression will win the day. That is to say, maximize attack potential. If you get them before they can get you, there's no need for defensive technology. That means weight and space otherwise used for armor and defensive apparati can be redirected toward combat prowess and range.
Probably wasn't mentioned, because there isn't one in a movie, or a myth built around it....hence the title of the video.🤔
for the Doolittle raid, the idea actually came from a Submarine Commander, not from a Surface ship commander
Superb criticism of Pearl Harbor movie....and exactly why I hated it, too.
Well actually the zero was “invincible” at the beginning of the war especially in the eyes of the Chinese. Also towards the end of the war with the introduction of the F6F and F4u the zero literally became a flying coffin doused in gasoline. It was very flammable if you hit it aft of the wing root (where the fuel tank was) and often times the plane caught fire and the wing blew off. Mind you it didn’t take many bullets on target for this to happen because of how lightly armored they were. So essentially the invisibility and it being a flying coffin isn’t necessarily a myth, I’d just call it an over exaggerated misconception
It wasn't invincible, it was the most maneuverable and best dogfighter, tactics can beat it, plus it had no armour and was less than 1mm thick and no self sealing tanks.
M Williams that’s literally what I said lmao I said zeros were lightly armored and also when I referred to them being invincible I put it in quotations solely because that was more of a viewpoint of the Chinese, as I said, and other aircrews who fought the zero in the beginning of the war before more capable allied aircraft came out.
@@ryanp5790 The Flying Tigers put up a good score vs Zeros in China in their Kittyhawks. Sorry I only read your first sentence and then was distracted. The Zero was a huge leap for the Japanese, but its success lead to its over reliance and a replacment lagged. The Shiden Kai was prettt bad ass.
M Williams the flying tigers would be an exception because they really dug the Chinese out of a hole but other than their performance if we looked at the Wildcats and buffalos the Americans flew and the Russian made I-15s and I-153s the Chinese flew at the start of the war the zero was superior in all aspects. So I saw what you meant by they weren’t invincible because in a literal sense they weren’t so I do agree with you
@@ryanp5790 Yeah besides the Tigers, the Zero had a field day in China. There is a really good two part A6M Zero documentary on here you can find.
At War's end, it was Ben Affleck that rode the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki while waving a cowboy hat. Hartnet's character signed the Peace document on USS Missouri.
What's with that sound at the end? o.o
Pearl Harbor (the movie) is largely trash. Tora Tora Tora is a much better one at depicting the events leading up to the attack and its battle scenes are just a good as any in the Michael Bay movie (though it also has some historical inaccuracies, most of them minor). It is thought by historians that the reasons for withdrawing before carrying out a third strike largely came down to: One, the element of surprise was lost. Any further action would result in unacceptable losses, two, the task force was running low on fuel and couldn't afford to loiter for much longer, three, the main objectives have been met and last the location of the American carriers were unknown. Again considering that they were low on fuel, they couldn't risk more engagements.
As for the Zero, even before planes like the Hellcat and Corsair flew, pilots flying Wildcats were able to develop effective tactics to counter the Zero's turning abilities. They flew a pattern called the Thach weave. Pairs of Wildcats would fly in loose formation. When a Zero engaged them, they would turn into each other and weave back and forth until one of them would have a shot at the Zero trailing behind the aircraft being engaged.
They also didn't know where our carriers were. They were the main target of the attack. Just look what happened during the first big battle of the war at Midway. By the time the war was over every ship that took place at Pearl Harbor ended up n the bottom of the ocean.
An interesting note, the Thach weave wasn't developed for use with Wildcats, It was developed for use with the Brewster F2A Buffalo. A design which, in 1940, the RAF had deemed to be useful only for training, and for fighting against the Italians.
That maneuver was also used by the Flying Tigers in China
Coral Sea was the FIRST big battle
Mike Grossberg Technically it was Midway
Well done!
I am a bit of a history nut, and movies portraying events such as those you brought up, drives me crazy.
The idea of fighter pilots, flying bombers, as in the Doolittle Raid is ridiculous. Fighter pilots are notoriously conceited, yes, I have known a couple, and wouldn't willingly fly a bomber, or, god forbid, a cargo plane (they call such planes "trash haulers").
11:33 "American officer title" Do you mean his commission?
I appreciate that you care enough about historical fact enough to make videos centered on that. Thank you.
I found this video to be enjoyable as well as learning a bit more about the Japanese Zero.
Dated a woman, her dad flew Wildcats/Hellcats in WW 2. When he came back from the Pacific he flew under the Golden Gate Bridge. Side note, her brother was also a Navy Pilot and Commander of the Space Shuttle (Frank Culbertson Jr)
Not even a minute in and as I understand they are saying that the A6M was never painted green? That is very false.
The green camo was only adopted later in the war. The A6M2 version that flew during Pearl Harbor, Midway et al. off the Kido Butai carriers was indeed painted white.
@@TLTeo Yes, but I honestly didn't stick around long enough to tell that he wasn't going to go into detail on later parts of the war.
@@barnstormer546 sounds like a you problem