| |||||
|
|||||
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Sorting fact from fiction in Pearl Harbor
Epic movies aside, attack remains intensely personal for some
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii -- What began as a beautiful December day in Hawaii 60 years ago quickly turned into a disaster of historic proportions. Shortly before 8 a.m., 181 Japanese fighter planes and bombers buzzed over the island of Oahu, honing in on the U.S. Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor. Ill-prepared American servicemen fired anti-aircraft guns in a desperate attempt to save their ships -- and lives -- as bomb after bomb rained down. The Japanese attack killed 2,388 U.S. military personnel and civilians, wounding another 1,178. Gunners shot down 29 Japanese planes, while 323 U.S. aircraft ended up damaged or destroyed. The most dramatic scenes took place at sea: the USS West Virginia sank in a flash, the USS Oklahoma capsized and the USS Arizona exploded, entombing thousands of Navy sailors off Pearl Harbor.
The attack's first few hours were a special effects spectacular -- except the effects were all too real. Hollywood's high-profile, big-budget recreation of this epic disaster as a romantic epic, "Pearl Harbor," opens at theaters across the United States on May 25. Wary of criticisms the film aims to profit rather than pay respect to the thousands involved and killed in the attack, its stars have publicly called the movie a tribute to fallen servicemen and civilians -- and a lesson to all people today.
"I think the message is not about the United States or Japan or the Second World War, right or wrong," actor Ben Affleck told the Associated Press. "It's about the terrible cost it is for people to have to go to war and what a terrible thing it is." A lavish launch, a sad storyDisney's summer blockbuster premiered in true Hollywood fashion on Monday. Media, stars and former servicemen watched the movie from the flight deck of the USS John C. Stennis, an aircraft carrier turned party ship. "It is sort of 'wow' factor," said Paul Dergarabedian, of Los Angeles-based box office tracking firm, Exhibitor Relations Inc. "The point is to create this on such a grand scale that it can't be ignored." The celebratory tone of the $5 million premiere, which producer Jerry Bruckheimer described as "one of the biggest fireworks displays ever," didn't sit well with everyone. The carrier-turned-theater was moored just a few hundred meters from the sunken USS Arizona, as well as the floating memorial to 945 servicemen still buried in the ship. But Disney executives tried to return the focus on World War II veterans by including some of the battle's survivors, as well as active U.S. Navy sailors and Marines, in the premiere. In fact, members of the Pearl Harbors Survivors' Association -- some crossing the red carpet in wheelchairs -- got louder cheers than any actors or actresses at the film's first screening. "Seeing all these people, it's like coming home again," said Yuell Chandler, 83, who was a 22-year-old Army sergeant stationed off the Pearl Harbor channel during the attack. "I wish all (those) guys that's in the Arizona (were) up here instead of me. And all the thousands that got shot that day. It was a mess." Not totally on targetGiven the roaring success of war movies like "Saving Private Ryan" and disaster dramas like "Titanic," a movie about "Pearl Harbor" was hardly a surprise in Hollywood. But the blockbuster film's ornate sets, mega-salaries and exact, outlined scripts fly in the face of what U.S. servicemen experienced on December 7, 1941.
From the American perspective, there was nothing planned about that day. And the film's final cut didn't reflect all the attacks' facts, or represent them all accurately, according to an upcoming National Geographic Channel documentary. U.S. Admiral Husband Kimmel, head of the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, had received warnings about an attack but, thinking them vague, did not put his forces on full-scale alert, according to the documentary. The "Pearl Harbor" movie portrays Kimmel as a leader railing against Washington's apathy about the Japanese threat. Affleck plays a U.S. military flyer who volunteered for the British Royal Air Force (RAF) prior to Pearl Harbor, as part of the so-called Eagle Squadron. But the National Geographic documentary says no U.S. servicemen did, or could, join the RAF -- though civilians could. But some real-life characters in Pearl Harbor did make it into the blockbuster movie. Cuba Gooding Jr., for example, plays Dorie Miller, an African-American mess attendant on the USS West Virginia who was gathering laundry when the attack began. Like Gooding in the movie, Miller found a twin-barreled anti-aircraft gun and began firing at Japanese planes.
Survivors rapidly dwindlingBut other real-life Pearl Harbor characters didn't make the movie's cut -- and aren't around to tell their own stories. Thousands of U.S. servicemen who survived the December 7 attack have since passed on, easily outnumbering the nearly 2,400 who died in the attack itself. Some, such as Lewis P. Robinson, asked to be reunited with their comrades when they died. Last December, on the battle's 59th anniversary, Robinson became the 16th U.S. serviceman to have his ashes interred in the sunken USS Arizona. Bob Kronberger, 83, of Big Bear City, California, was aboard the USS West Virginia that fateful day. Today, he is president of the national Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.
"We still have about 8,200 members, but we're losing them pretty fast," Kronberger said last December. "We've lost about a thousand in the last year." Some hope the movie "Pearl Harbor" will revive interest in the exploits of World War II veterans on the Pacific front, just as Stephen Spielberg's World War II epic "Saving Private Ryan" spurred national reflection. But for now, Pearl Harbor remains intensely personal for a few, rapidly dwindling number of people. Jim Edwards was one of them. He dropped out of high school at age 17 to join the Navy, earning $21 a month as a gunner's mate on the USS New Orleans. His gun crew began returning fire within two minutes of the Japanese attack -- not enough to be scared, Edwards said. "I started out that morning as a boy. That afternoon, I was a man," he said last December. "It was like that for a lot of us."
The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: In the cineplex, summer's where the action is RELATED SITES: 'Pearl Harbor' movie site | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
Terms under which this service is provided to you. | Read our privacy guidelines.