Pearl Harbor: Three films

History Extra

“December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy,” declared President Roosevelt on the day after the Japanese attack on the main US naval base in the Pacific. Hundreds of Japanese planes took the base by surprise early that Sunday morning, sinking or disabling 21 warships, destroying nearly 200 planes, and killing over 2,000 people. It was a rude awakening for a country that had seemed determined to find its own path in the global conflict. Hollywood immediately seized on the topic in a number of low budget films about how America came to be ‘stabbed in the back’ by Japan. Since the war, the events of that fateful day have been dramatised on a much larger scale, but in strikingly different films.

 1) From Here to Eternity (1953)
 Directed by: Fred Zinnemann With: Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed

This is by far the most acclaimed and admired of all Pearl Harbor films. Its appeal lay, in part, in its timeliness: eight years after the end of the war, audiences were ready to look back without the flag-waving or moral certainties that characterise wartime films. Thus, in From Here to Eternity the attack on Pearl Harbor does not serve as the springboard for revenge scenarios or for exposés of Japanese treachery. Rather, it represents an awakening from the malaise and drift of the prewar period.

Today the film is best remembered for the image of Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr) and Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) kissing on the beach. Their story is just one of the plot lines that reveals the dissolute morality that precedes the attack; Holmes is married to Warden’s commanding officer. Captain Holmes (Philip Ober) is a weak leader interested only in gaining promotion through the army ranks. Private Maggio (Frank Sinatra) is a childish hothead who eventually dies at the hands of a sadistic stockade guard (Ernest Borgnine). Private Robert E Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is a champion boxer who refuses to fight in the army’s boxing league and is therefore abused by Holmes and his subordinates. Prewitt’s only solace is found with Lorene (Donna Reed), a ‘hostess’ in a Honolulu ‘social club’.

When the Japanese finally arrive, the attack itself is portrayed only briefly, but it has the effect of restoring order and purpose to the characters’ lives. The men are galvanised and become fighters. The women are sent back to the mainland, looking forlorn but also ready to live respectably.

 But is it accurate?
The film was based on a bestselling novel by James Jones, who served in the army and was stationed at Schofield Barracks, where the film is set, at the time of Pearl Harbor. Jones’s portrait of service life had to be toned down considerably for the film. The army would not agree to co-operate with the filmmakers unless it was portrayed more favourably. Hence, while Captain Holmes is actually promoted in the novel, in the film he is made to resign for his misdeeds. The Hollywood censors required prostitutes to be hostesses, brothels to be social clubs, and other elements of the Honolulu nightlife to be eliminated altogether.

Accuracy: 5/10 2)

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
Directed by: Richard Fleischer, Kinji Fukasaku, Toshio Masuda With: Martin Balsam, Soh Yamamura, Joseph Cotten, Tatsuya Mihashi, Jason Robards

In the midst of the Vietnam War, Twentieth Century Fox produced this ambitious, two-and-a-half hour semi-documentary account of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film was intended as a warning against complacency in the Cold War and also as a means of affirming the current state of good relations between the USA and Japan.

Both sides of the story are presented to the viewer, and this is essentially two different films intercut with one another. The Japanese perspective briefly explains Japan’s ambitions in Indochina, and therefore the need to strike at the USA’s Pacific fleet, but much more screen time is spent on the planning and preparation for the attack. The American perspective shows that cryptologists presented government and military leaders with an array of warning signals, but that complacency and bureaucracy ensured that none was heeded. The film’s two sides come together in the attack itself, which is recreated with some obvious limitations in special effects and sets.

The problem with Tora! Tora! Tora! is neither the special effects nor its quest for historical accuracy. Rather, it is that the filmmakers failed to invest the film with any compelling qualities. The photography and sets are surprisingly lacklustre for a production that reportedly cost $25 million. The story is told in such a fragmented manner that the principal figures are scarcely characterised at all. Even veteran actors such as Jason Robards and Joseph Cotten cannot speak their lines without sounding as though they are reading from a textbook. And it does not help that, after the two-hour build-up, there can be little suspense about the ending.

But is it accurate?
Admiral Yamamoto (Soh Yamamura), who planned the attack, reflects in the ending on its potential consequences. Despite its immediate success, he gravely observes: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” This is the best line and the most memorable moment in the film, but there is no record that Yamamoto actually said it. A larger complaint would be that the film fails to set the conflict in a wider political context. Japan’s invasion of China and its alliance with Nazi Germany are mentioned, but in its eagerness to offer a balanced account, the film skates over these contentious points.

 Accuracy: 7/10 3)

 Pearl Harbor (2001)
Directed by: Michael Bay With: Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Voight, Alec Baldwin

In May 2001, four months before the 11 September terrorist attacks, this inflated, three-hour blockbuster was released. Yet it was far too superficial and self-congratulatory to serve as a meaningful reflection on past events. It is chiefly concerned with a love story that is meant to echo the classic melodramas of the war era, but they were seldom as shallow as this tale of pilots Rafe (Ben Affleck) and Danny (Josh Hartnett), and the romantic triangle that ensues when they both fall in love with a nurse, Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale). The far-fetched plot unravels amid clichéd dialogue, wooden acting and the kind of slick photography associated with advertisements for lingerie and perfume.

The attack on Pearl Harbor is vividly recreated – in detail and at length – with computer generated effects that are entirely convincing. Hence, we see the mass of planes swoop in over the island, and a myriad of explosions, fires, and casualties as the action reaches a frenzied climax. The film’s signature shot – a bomb falls from a plane high above the harbour, descends through the air, and pierces the decks of the USS Arizona – is nothing short of spectacular, but therein lies the problem. Pearl Harbor treats the attack as entertaining spectacle, and it has all the feeling and humanity of a computer game. The filmmakers did not want to end their story in defeat, and so the saga continues with Rafe and Danny embarking on the Doolittle Raid and bombing Japan in April 1942. This is recounted in broad brush strokes and with little regard for authenticity or explanation. Worse, the contrived story continues as the pilots reconcile when their planes are downed in the rice fields of China.

But is it accurate?

The characters of Rafe and Danny are loosely – very loosely – based on two real army air force fliers, George Welch and Kenneth Taylor, who were stationed in Oahu and on their way home from an all-night poker game when the attack on Pearl Harbor began. They were quickly airborne and shot down seven of the attacking planes. The film is not content with such straightforward heroism, though, and so Rafe is seen fighting not only at Pearl Harbor but also in the Battle of Britain (as a member of the Eagle Squadron) and in the Doolittle Raid. There are many other ridiculous aspects to this simplistic film. However, a saturation marketing campaign sparked the public’s interest, and the film quickly recouped its extraordinary production costs ($135 million) at the box office.

Accuracy: 3/10

Three other films about Pearl Harbor

Wake Island (Dir: John Farrow, USA, 1942)
An early Second World War combat film, set in the Pacific and beginning just before the attack.

December 7th (Dir: John Ford, USA, 1943)
This was shortened from a film to a documentary when the subject proved too difficult for wartime sensitivities.

1941 (Dir: Steven Spielberg, USA, 1979)
A post-Pearl Harbor comedy in the manner of Animal House (1978), and a bizarre misstep for its director.

Mark Glancy teaches film history at Queen Mary University of London.

12 things you (probably) didn’t know about Pearl Harbor

History Extra

The deadly surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, launched without a declaration of war, made 7 December 1941 “a date which will live in infamy,” declared President Franklin D Roosevelt. Early that Sunday morning, hundreds of Japanese planes sank or damaged 21 warships and destroyed more than 150 planes on nearby airfields; more than 2,000 Americans lost their lives

1) Pearl Harbor was not the beginning of the Pacific War
Japanese forces landed in northern Malaya, then a British colony, a couple of hours before the Pearl Harbor attack; meanwhile a larger Japanese force was disembarking off neutral Thailand. What the Japanese called the Hawaiian Operation was a supporting attack; the main blow was the Southern Operation, directed against Malaya, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. And Japan had already been engaged in a full-scale war against China for four-and-a-half years.

2) Pearl Harbor was not the Japanese response to the Hull Note

 On 26 November 1941, the American secretary of state Cordell Hull had presented a note to the Japanese. This was not, as is sometimes suggested, an ultimatum; rather it was a statement of what was required for normalisation of relations. According to the note this required the withdrawal of Japanese troops from China and Indochina.

By the time of the Hull Note, Japanese forces were already in motion to carry out the Southern and Hawaiian Operations. Japanese warships of the Pearl Harbor attack force began moving to a forward base in the Kurile Islands in the north of Japan on 17 November; they sailed for Pearl Harbor on the 26th.

3) The Pearl Harbor operation was an extremely difficult and risky one
It was also one of the best-planned and best-prepared operations of the Second World War. Involved was the secret passage of an entire fleet including six aircraft carriers, two battleships and three cruisers over a distance of some 3,700 miles across the North Pacific. The escorting destroyers burnt fuel oil rapidly, and refueling at sea was a new technique that could not be carried out in rough weather. If any of the Japanese ships were damaged during fighting off Hawaii it would be extremely difficult to bring them home. There were strong reasons why American military leaders thought an attack on Hawaii was impractical.

4) Senior officers in the Japanese Navy opposed a full-scale Pearl Harbor attack
The operation was inspired by Admiral Yamamoto, commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the Combined Fleet. The most important critic was an officer senior to Yamamoto; this was Admiral Nagano, the chief of the Naval General Staff. Nagano had less confidence in air power and he was wary of risking so much of the fleet in a distant operation. He was especially reluctant to risk the entire carrier force so far from Japan at a time when Japan planned attacks thousands of miles away against Malaya and the Philippines. Yamamoto demanded the use of all six big carriers, and had to threaten resignation to get a decision in his favour.

Admiral Nagano. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

5) Japanese submarines were supposed to play a major role in the Pearl Harbor attack
 Some 26 Japanese ‘cruiser’ submarines were concentrated around the Hawaiian Islands, their mission to pick off any American ships that survived the main air attack. In the event they achieved nothing during the main attack, although an American carrier was damaged near Hawaii in January. Five small two-man submarines, launched from larger submarines, attempted to enter the harbour early on 7 December but failed. An American destroyer sank one of the boats off the entrance to Pearl Harbor about an hour and 15 minutes before the air attack began, and nearly cost Japan the element of surprise.

6) Neither in Washington nor in London were political and military leaders surprised by the outbreak of war with Japan
This, paradoxically, was a major reason for the failure of American and British intelligence to foresee the Pearl Harbor attack. Much information was gained from ‘intercepts’ of diplomatic correspondence about Japanese preparations. It was assumed these related to a move against Thailand, Malaya or the Dutch East Indies, rather than Hawaii or the Philippines.

The American commanders in the Pacific were sent a war warning on 24 November. President Roosevelt also provided the British with informal assurances that the United States would give support if Britain and Japan went to war. There is no evidence that either President Roosevelt or Prime Minister Churchill had advance warning of the Pearl Harbor attack.

7) The failure to patrol the approaches to Pearl Harbor was partly the result of American offensive war plans
There were a large number of US long-range aircraft in the Pacific, but they were not used to safeguard Hawaii. A force of B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers had been sent by the US Army to the Philippines. The 80 PBY Catalina flying boats available to the Navy were assigned to the Philippines or earmarked for offensive actions against the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

8) The Pearl Harbor attack did not destroy the American Fleet
 In the attack on ‘Battleship Row’ on 7 December, two elderly battleships, the Arizona and Oklahoma, were damaged beyond repair by bomb or torpedo hits. Of the 2,026 American sailors and marines killed in the attack, 1,606 had been aboard these two ships (only 218 army personnel were killed in the raid.) Three more battleships (the California, West Virginia and Nevada) sank upright in the shallow water of the harbour. They were salvaged, but two of them did not return to service until 1944 – partly because they underwent comprehensive modernisation.

Three more vessels (the Pennsylvania, Maryland and Tennessee) suffered only minor damage. They were in dry-dock or moored inboard on Battleship Row. In any event, none of the six survivors was fast enough to operate with carrier task forces in later wartime operations. The Pacific Fleet’s three aircraft carriers were away at sea on 7 December, and none of the heavy cruisers were damaged. Three modern carriers were available to the US Navy in the Atlantic, as well as two modern battleships and six older ones.

Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

9) Admiral Nagumo made the correct decision when he did not mount a third attack on Pearl Harbor
 The Japanese plan involved two waves of attacking planes, separated by half an hour. Nagumo, commander of the task force, was criticised for not rearming his returning aircraft and sending them back to finish off damaged American ships and oil storage tanks. But Nagumo was obeying his instructions to make a swift getaway. The attack had always been a high-risk enterprise: the elite and well-trained Japanese naval air force was limited in size, and higher losses could be expected if the Americans located the task force. Nagumo did not know where the three US Navy carriers were, nor did he know how many American planes had survived the first attacks.

10) The American commanders at Pearl Harbour were not scapegoats
Admiral Kimmel, C-in-C of the Pacific Fleet, and General Short, C-in-C of US Army forces on Hawaii (including air defence forces) were dismissed a few days after the attack. Some months later, the first US government enquiry found there had been dereliction of duty on the part of these two officers, and that they had made errors of judgment. Consequently, they were retired from their respective services.

Although many writers have attempted to defend Kimmel and Short, the two officers did bear responsibility for the unreadiness of the forces under their command, especially as they had been given a ‘war warning’ [on 24 November]. On the other hand, misjudgments made by superiors of Kimmel and Short in Washington did not come in for open criticism, and Admiral Bloch, a senior admiral responsible for the naval defence of Hawaii, escaped open censure. Poor coordination between the US Army and US Navy was a systemic problem, not one caused by Kimmel and Short.

Admiral Kimmel. (Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images) 11)

Hitler’s declaration of war on the US on 11 December was not a result of Pearl Harbor
President Roosevelt suggested openly that when they attacked Pearl Harbor the Japanese had been following German instructions. In fact, Hitler and German military did not know about the proposed Pearl Harbor strike. They were, however, aware that the Japanese were preparing actions in Southeast Asia that would probably lead to war with Britain, and possibly with the US.

Under the Tripartite Pact, signed with Japan and Italy in September 1940, Germany was obliged to go to war only if the USA attacked Japan, not if Japan attacked the USA. But just before the outbreak of war the Germans secretly agreed to support the Japanese if they went to war with the USA for any reason, including a Japanese attack on American territory. President Roosevelt knew about this agreement from intercepted Japanese diplomatic correspondence. As a result, when he asked Congress for a Declaration of War on 8 December Roosevelt requested action only against Japan. In view of isolationist sentiment in the United States, the White House deemed it advisable to let the Germans make the first declaration of war, which Hitler announced in the Reichstag on 11 December. After this the president turned again to Congress and received a unanimous declaration of war against Germany and Italy.

12) For Japan, Pearl Harbor was both a success and a failure
The attack did change the strategic situation. The pre-war military strategy of Britain and the US was to assemble strong forces in the west (at Singapore) and the east (at Hawaii), to deter Japan by threatening a two-front war. Pearl Harbor removed the American part of the deterrent. It made possible the rapid conquest of Malaya, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies.

On the other hand, Admiral Yamamoto had hoped to destroy the American carrier force, and this did not happen. And by mounting a surprise attack without a declaration of war, on a Sunday morning and killing several thousand Americans, the Japanese put American public opinion totally behind the war effort.

Evan Mawdsley is professor of history at the University of Glasgow and author of December 1941: Twelve Days that Began a World War (Yale University Press, 2011).

Pearl Harbor Day 73rd Anniversary To Be Broadcast Live Via Webcast, December 7, 2014 - online registration required

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, December 7, 2014 the National Park Service and the U.S. Navy will host a joint memorial ceremony commemorating the 73rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ceremony will take place on the main lawn of the Pearl Harbor Visitor ...

 

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii, Nov. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Park Service and the U.S. Navy will host a joint memorial ceremony commemorating the 73rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 2014 on the main lawn of the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center, looking directly out to the USS Arizona Memorial, at the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.
 

The ceremony will be attended by more than 2,500 guests, including Pearl Harbor survivors and WWII veterans, and will be broadcast live via webcast so that those who cannot travel to Hawaii can still participate and honor the sacrifices made by the "Greatest Generation." The webcast will include a special behind the scenes look at the ceremony and will feature live interviews with Pearl Harbor Survivors.
 

Online registration to view the event is required. All those interested in watching are encouraged to visit the following link to sign-up: http://bit.ly/LiveBroadcastDec7
 

This year's Dec. 7 ceremony will be co-hosted by Paul DePrey, Superintendent, National Park Service, WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument, and Rear Admiral Richard Williams, Commander, Navy Region Hawaii and Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific. The keynote speaker will be Gen. Lori J. Robinson, Commander, Pacific Air Forces.
 

Highlights of the ceremony will include music by the Navy's U.S. Pacific Fleet Band, morning colors, a Hawaiian blessing, a cannon salute by members of the U.S. Army, wreath presentations, echo taps, and recognition of the men and women who survived the attack and those who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country on December 7, 1941. A moment of silence will be observed at 7:55 a.m., the exact moment the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor began. A U.S. Navy ship will render honors to the USS Arizona, and a flyover will be conducted above Pearl Harbor.

To read more about the USS Arizona Memorial and the 73^rd anniversary commemorative ceremony, visit the Pacific Historic Parks website at www.pacifichistoricparks.org.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141125/160961

SOURCE National Park Service

PR News Wire

 

Pearl Harbor Day: December 7, 1941 'A date which will live in infamy'