Friday, November 11, 2011

Point Du Hoc

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13 comments:

chickelit said...

Here is what those men faced and why it was so costly. The machine guns in that film seem to fire more slowly than the real thing.

November 11, 2011 at 1:02 PM
edutcher said...

The only good thing was the guns hadn't been mounted, but a Ranger patrol found them inland later in the morning, all ready to fire.

The rocket-propelled grapnels they used in the assault were considered one of the war's secret weapons.

chickenlittle said...

Here is what those men faced and why it was so costly. The machine guns in that film seem to fire more slowly than the real thing.

Actually, the majority of Ranger casualties came defending the position until the rest of the Ranger force, 3 companies of the 2nd Battalion and all of the 5th, could get there two days later.

November 11, 2011 at 1:29 PM
Fred4Pres said...

Dirty Dozen (obviously an inspiration to Quentin Taratino) waws a fun film. But it would suggest it is not a Veterans Day film. But there are some serious war films and shows worthy of watching today.

Saving Private Ryan was not a good film, except for the Normandy invasion scene which is one of the best war scenes ever made. The Pacific and Band of Brothers are great. Longest Day is a very good film. Glory is excellent.

November 11, 2011 at 1:43 PM
windbag said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
November 11, 2011 at 3:13 PM
windbag said...

One of my best friend's mom landed on Normandy three months after D-Day. She was a nurse. His dad (a German) served in WWII and Korea. His mom was Puerto Rican, one of three children. Her widowed father had to choose which of his three kids would get sent to NYC to live with an aunt. He chose my friend's mom. Fate is good when its winds are blowing your way. It's people like that who make this nation what it is today.

Thanks to all the veterans who did what they did so that we can do what we do. You guys are the greatest.

November 11, 2011 at 3:14 PM
dbp said...

We had some longtime family friends who served in the Army. We knew them because a boy a couple of year's older than my dad, lived across the street when they were kids. They just stayed in touch and we would get together a few times per year.

The guy's wife had been a nurse in the army, but never talked about it and we all assumed that her career was pretty uneventful. I came to find out, only after she had passed away, from reading her obituary that she had been one of the few women who had been "in the shit". This tiny woman who I had mostly seen in her housedress, cooking tasty, bad for us items, had won a Silver Star for service on Okinawa in WW II.

November 11, 2011 at 3:56 PM
edutcher said...

One of the things wrong with the landing scene in Ryan is that Spielberg took every ghastly vignette he could find in many landings and put them in that scene.

Omaha was rough, to be sure, but Spiel's blood fetish has always turned me off.

Interestingly, some of the better war movies were ones made during WWII. "A Walk In The Sun" is pretty good and "Objective Burma" is an excellent retelling of the ordeals faced by Merrill's Marauders and the Chindits.

November 11, 2011 at 4:02 PM
dbp said...

I have to revise my earlier claim. I remember the obit saying silver star, but now that I am researching it, I see multiple reports that it has only been awarded to a woman twice. So the obit is wrong, or I misremembered it.

She did however serve heroicly and win some kind of combat medal as portrayed here:

"-- Mildred Moen, who died April 27, served in the Army Nurse Corps during World War II and the Korean War. She was one of a handful of women to receive a combat medal, that award made for service on Okinawa while the battle still raged."

November 11, 2011 at 4:09 PM
ricpic said...

Did I ever tellya about the heroic KP I pulled? 23 hours. Upchucked right over the center drain in the kitchen. At about the 21 hour mark. No muss no fuss. And I lived to tell the tale! Audie and me: to hell and back.

November 11, 2011 at 5:28 PM
dbp said...

As much as Marine boot camp sucked, the only time I ever entertained the notion of going AWOL was the end of one day of KP in Yuma AZ.

November 11, 2011 at 6:48 PM
blake said...

edutcher--

Spielberg's blood fetish?

Can you name another film of his that has ANY blood?

I think he did it because we'd had 50 years of nearly bloodless WWII flicks and somehow Vietnam seemed worse by sheer coincidence of coming after the fall of the Hays Office.

November 11, 2011 at 8:27 PM
chickelit said...

I detect enmity within.

November 11, 2011 at 8:43 PM
MamaM said...

"Now Eisenhower stood watching as the planes trundled down the runways and lifted slowly into the air. One by one they circled as they assembled into formation. Eisenhower, his hands deep in his pockets, gazed up into the night sky. As the huge formation of planes roared one last time over the field and headed toward France, NBC's Red Mueller looked at the Supreme Commander. Eisenhower's eyes were filled with tears.

Minutes later, in the Channel, the men of the invasion fleet heard the roar of the planes. It grew louder by the second, and then wave after wave passed overhead. The formations took a long time to pass. Then the thunder of their engines began to fade. On the bridge of the U.S.S. Herndon, Lieutenant Bartow Farr, the watch officers and the NEA's war correspondent, Tom Wolf, gazed up into the darkness. Nobody could say a word. And then as the last formation flew over, an amber light blinked down through the clouds on the fleet below. Slowly it flashed out in Morse code three dots and a dash: V for Victory."

The Longest Day, C Ryan.

November 12, 2011 at 3:25 AM

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