Quote:
Originally Posted by Bikewer
Interesting to see positive reviews.
I’ve only watched the trailer, and it seemed a typical god-awful depiction of air combat as we saw in the dreadful “Pearl Harbor”.
Dogfighting Dauntless dive-bombers? On-the-deck strafing of enemy ships?
Maybe they just chose a few unfortunate bits for the trailer.
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The Douglas SBD Dauntless was equipped with two forward-firing Browning M2 .50 cal. machine guns synchronized to fire through the propeller. They were intended to be used for either defensive or offensive fire. There were many historical instances of Dauntless bomber crews protecting themselves by defensive dogfighting. It was, in fact, typical and expected for the dive bomber crews to strafe ships that they passed over at the end of their hair-raising 19,000 foot dive. Lt. Jack Kleiss does, in fact record holding his dive on the Hiryu until his pull-out put him at wave-top height. The action in the trailer that shows Dick Best in combat going vertical, pulling back his throttle, and falling off on a wing, accompanied by a star-wars chop-chop slow-down sound, was only for the trailer. He was portrayed doing that in training without the futuristic sound. The Dick Best "flying down the flight deck of the Hiryu before releasing his bomb at the bow" scene was inaccurate in both technique and historical fact. Lt. Jack Kleiss was the pilot who dropped on the bow of the Hiryu with the resultant explosion 'curling up the front edge of the flight deck like a taco.'
There is also a scene at the beginning where Dick Best does a dead-stick, flapless landing on the Enterprise. The event was portrayed with far too high an angle of attack but with proper opposing stick and rudder technique. The point in all of this was to show Best's character change from being a hot dog at the beginning to a responsible leader during the battle.
The actions of aircraftsman Bruno Gaido, portrayed by Nick Jonas, might be considered by some to be over the top and unrealistic. However, a little historical study reveals that he did, in fact, jump in the gunner's position of an SBD sitting on the flight deck while the
Enterprise was being attacked by a kamikaze in February 1942. He did, in fact, single-handedly shoot down the kamikaze. The kamikaze did, in fact, pass through Gaido's plane and cut it in half as he was shooting and then went over the side of the flight deck. Gaido then grabbed a fire extinguisher and calmly put out the fire coming from his plane. He then he went below decks to hide because he knew he had abandoned his action station in order to jump in the plane and shoot (not portrayed). He was, in fact, promoted on the spot by Bull Halsey.
So yes, there are inaccuracies of execution but not of result. Some things are pushed a little over the top but many of the things portrayed
actually happened.
Bob