Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Midway, 1976

Re-watching it now. Very easily a favorite of mine.
Chuck Heston, Glenn Ford, Hank Fonda, all are right up there with Duke for me.
Not accurate to the history from most of what I’ve read, but a great movie nonetheless!
One thing that always tore me up about most war movies is the complete lack of military haircuts!😀
This one is no exception. Even Admiral Nimitz (Fonda) hair is over his ears! Hal Holbrook is even worse!😀
Top would have tore me a new one if I missed haircuts like these guys!🤬
Patriotic, great movie though.
“The annals of war at sea present no more intense, heart shaking shock than this battle. I’m which the qualities of the US Navy and Air Force and the American Race shone forth”
48 years ago, Hollywood and Americans could say that. Try it now!😒
Other than the island itself, this was a Naval victory all the way.
For the real story, one must read “Shattered Sword”. It will give you the true story, and drive home the fact that the IJN really sucked at damage control on a warship!
Reon

Good movie enjoy.

A helluva lot more to this picture than what you see. Great actors sure.
The reason why I love it, though is the history it portrays.
Midway. They were there
The Old Man, at this time, 1942 was going through training, on his way to Europe in ‘43.
He was always my hero. He told me that half the time, he was scared to death.
We owe the Greatest Generation something we can never repay.
Reon

Shattered Sword: A Great book.

Great movie. One of the greatest battles of the war. The Pacific war was turned upside down in one day. Japs lost 4 carriers, and hundreds of the most experienced combat pilots in the world.

Navy pilot Dusty Kleiss put bombs right through the decks on two Jap carriers.

People miss out on the lift the Navy did in WWII. ETO gets hype due to our European foundings but by January 1945, the Navy had 61,045 vessels including 23 battleships, over 100 aircraft carriers, 59 cruisers, 425 destroyers, 400 destroyer-escorts, 237 subs and 54,000 landing craft and assault ships, plus 37,000 planes.

USN did A LOT of work in 4 years.

Imagine the pilot of a Jap dive bomber. He flew over the ocean and dropped his bomb on Yorktown, which later sank. He flies back to the Jap fleet to land, and he sees that his carrier is gone! He has to ditch in the ocean and hope that some ship picks him up. Every Jap carrier was sunk. Jap pilots became shark food.

Ian Toll’s trilogy about the war against Japan is a top notch collection.
He says that the IJN pilot corps wasn’t hurt that badly at Midway. Most weren’t shot down, the carriers were sunk from under their feet!
The drawn out battle of Guadalcanal is what truly put the screws to their pilots. We were shooting them down faster than they could train new pilots!
Somebody on the ‘fire suggested I read “Shattered Sword”. Been a couple years since I read it, but it points out that the American understanding of Midway is based on a myth that we lured the Jap carried to their demise. Unfortunately I don’t recall the whole story.
But this movie, with a great cast, has always been one of my favorites, and I usually watch it every year. I’ve only seen parts of the remake in 2004. Looked like a lot of CGI enhancements, which I don’t care for.
Reon

WWII…the last war the US was legitimately involved in. All since then have been contrived to launder tax dollars through the military to enrich the military/industrial complex (Eisenhower warned us about) and their politician lap dogs.

Brave men, we stand on the shoulders of giants.

One of Tom Selleck's first movie parts. He's on Midway.

“The annals of war at sea present no more intense, heart shaking shock than this battle. I’m which the qualities of the US Navy and Air Force and the American Race shone forth”



Remember thet? I sure do.

I was 12 years old, travelling through Texas in July with our local airgun shooting team. Spornsors thought we needed to spend a couple of hours in some air conditioning. It was awesome. Both the movie, and the air conditioning.

LHS

Yes, that was my favorite part of the movie.

Thanks for the derail. Everybody loves a turd in the puchbowl.

7mmbuster: I also greatly enjoy that version of the Battle of Midway.
And I enjoyed and concur with your comments on what could be said back when but what can't be said (tolerated) today!
Sad that.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

My most sincere apologies to everyone on here who suffered intellectual or emotional harm from my post which was, admittedly, only peripherally germane to the topic at hand. I will do better in the future.

Fonda’s cut isn’t far off from some images of Nimitz. Mitchum and Heston definitely needed cuts. Not too sure about Holbrook’s character. He appeared well groomed in all the pictures I saw, but who knows during the time depicted. Could have spent weeks in his office and not took time to get a haircut.