Depictions of War in Movies and Shows

Hollywood is not the only movie place in the world and many firms have produced some memorable "War" movies over the years. There are movies that are gripping from start to finish and some where only parts of it are actually good and the rest is forgettable. The same is true for television shows. "Combat", "Black Sheep Squadron" and "12 O'Clock High" are three that come to mind that aired in the US depicting World War 2. More recent wars had TV shows for it like M.A.S.H for the Korean war and "China Beach" for Vietnam War.

One of my college classes was "Movies: Mirror on America". This course showed movies from the earliest 1900 movie (that survived) "Man in the Moon" till Star Wars. You viewed the movies in the context of when they were made to see how the values of America (according to the movie producers) are reflected in the movie. The only movie we saw that was filmed during WWII was "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943, Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan; produced by Henry Morgan) However, this movie was very allegorical to the question of punishment toward the Italians, Germans and Japanese after the war is over. The basic message that it forcefully showed was not to rush to judgment on people till all the facts are in.

The general opinion of this era of American movies is that there are very few good movies produced during the war. Yes, there are exceptions (Casablanca, A Walk In The Sun), but overall, most movies made during WW-II were written and filmed to lift morale and provide escapist topics for the movie going public. They made them fast so the movie studios did not have the luxury of spending lots of time trying to get it "just right."

A book that you can purchase that has basic info on a few thousand (?) war movies is Brassey's Guide To War Films. Not all inclusive, but does list many of the worlds war movies. Some entries only have the barest facts, others have a paragraph about that movie.

Movies Do not Always Reflect History

One of my online flying friends posed these questions after watching the movie "Pearl Harbor" right after it came out. My comments are in italics.

How did two kids start an airplane by turning a switch ? Was it electric ?
Electric starters were new and novel but only before 1925 or so. Electric starters on WACO were common by 1935. To be pilots by 1940 they had to have two years of college before joining the Army Air Corps which would place it 1938 when they began pilot training at 20 years of age. But a backwoods crop duster would not have the most current plane in 1930-32 so it is unlikely they could.

Where are the hills at Mitchell Field?
Hollywood films where it can and thus a flat existing WWIIish airbase stood in for it.

Why was a Navy nurse giving eye tests to army pilots ?
It was common to pool service personnel and detach people back and forth where the needs were. The military back then had no spares of equipment or people. Uncommon but it happened.

If he couldn't read 20-20 what was he doing flying?
He was dyslexic - he would mix up the letters in words that he did read. Thus, trying to read the letters in sequence he would fail but reading words would be no problem. Memorizing the eye chart got around the problem.

At the R.A.F. field, why were all the Spitfires coded RF M ? Wouldn't that be confusing?
There are squadron IDs and aircraft IDs. RF would be the squadron and the M the aircraft ID. I think they just used the same stencil over and over again to ease production.

If he was in the Eagle Sqd. how come he was the only American in it . Flying a Spitfire IX in 1941? They came out in late 1942.
The first Eagle Squadron was formed in Oct of 1940. Prior to that Americans were assigned to whatever unit needed a pilot. There were only 10 Americans in the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Hollywood in this case used the name to evoke the memory of the squadron prior to the actual start of the squadron. Not enough Spitfire Is in private hands to fly in a movie. They used what a/c are available: in this case 99.9% of the people don't know the difference between a Spitfire I, V, Vc, IX, XII, XIV, or XXI.

Who was sitting on whose lap in the P-40 sightseeing over Pearl?
Continuity error.

In Dec. 1941, we did not know the Japs had the Zero.
Again, Hollywood using collective conscious memory of people outside the facts. Select few had heard of the Zero but discounted the claims about it as not possible given the Japanese technology. The General public and military flying personnel did not know about it, only people in the intelligence community knew about it.

Recruiting fighter pilots to man the B-25s.

The Doolittle B-25 pilots were not fighter pilots. All were bomber pilots. The B-25's had the tail guns removed and replaced with broomsticks in the states, before they were loaded on the Hornet. They bombed Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo, and Yokohama. Each plane carried three 500 lb. demolition bombs and one 500 lb. incendiary cluster. All planes were lost. Eight crewmen were captured, three were beheaded, one died in prison and the other four survived the horrible Japanese POW camps (on a par with the German Concentration camps in brutality and survival rates).

The B-25's on the Hornet didn't have "package guns" on them. They were add on .50cal guns, that were mounted under the cockpit. I believe the squadrons didn't start those, until a year or so later. And they wouldn't have had them on the Doolittle raid anyway, to save weight. Also some of the ships shown at anchor, in the middle of the bay, durning the Pearl Harbor attack were too modern. The sharp bows and superstructers were not like that, on era ships. They used a shot of the USS Bon Homme Richard CVA-31 coming into Pearl, to show the carriers coming back, after the attack. (Thanks to Steve Robinson for this.)

Why did the nurse get the Purple Heart ? Did I miss when she was wounded?
All the nurses at Pearl Harbor were officially awarded Purple Hearts for their work that day and immediately afterwards.

A pilot killed in China, and they carried his body back to Hawaii?
Only in Hollywood - to further the story line.

In the attack on the Army airfield, the pilots in the P-40's were talking to the ground on Walkie-talkies?
Walkie-Talkies were not out of the labs yet if I remember correctly. By 1944 ground personnel could talk to a/c but only if they had a special 80lb unit to lug around, the equipment was bulky. Walkie-Talkies were everywhere but none could talk to an aircraft and everyone carried two spare batteries.

Three Zeros on the tail of a P-40, and the P-40 gets away on the deck, only in Hollywood.
In the real air combat that day there was a case of two Zeros chasing a P-40 and the P-40 got away - but only by diving through a cloud deck and the Zeros broke off. The Curtis P-40B/C models that were at Pearl could never outturn a Zero in a slow (less than 200 MPH) fight. Claire Chenault proved that P-40s could survive but by fighting on the dive down, make a single pass, zoom away and do it again. In trouble just out dive the A6M2 Zero.

Common Errors seen in Many Military Movies

Movie Mistakes - Top Technical Mistakes Seen in Military Movies

Since the beginning of movie making there has been technical and historical inaccuracies in movies. Some cannot be helped (there are no WW I Zeppelins flying so it is hard to film one, though the Zeppelin Company still exists and does build Zeppelins) while other problems crept in due to unwillingness to pay for the correct piece of gear or to "enhance" the movie.

Here are some of the most obvious that I remember seeing over the years.

Naval Pictures

The crew members in the sub hear the SONAR (ASDIC) pings both COMING and GOING. Sorry, when you are in a sub you can only hear the PINGs that miss you and the PINGS that hit you - you cannot hear the return echo going back to the destroyer!

Torpedoes always seem to be running in 20' of water over a sandy bottom in the middle of the ocean.

A torpedo hitting a ship causes a fireball (modern occurrence, older movies just had small explosion and then a resulting fire). Most freighter ships do not burn, they just sink with lots of steam coming out of their holds caused by holed steam pipes. Though boilers may explode, that does not cause a fireball!

Depth charges exploding next to a sub does not sink it. If a depth charge explodes within 10' of a sub it is gone.

Land Warfare

WW II German armor units most always have American "Patton" tanks and M-3 half tracks. A lot of German equipment was captured but was never used in movies. Some of the newer movies do strive for historical military equipment but almost all working pieces of equipment are privately owned!

British Centurion tanks double as "Tiger I " tanks.

In many westerns, carbines are 2/3 scale of the real rifles used in the West.

Using dynamite before it was invented. "In 1866 Alfred Nobel successfully mixed nitroglycerin with silica which turned the liquid into a paste. This paste, which could be formed and shaped as desired, made it possible for safe transportation. The new material was patented in 1867 under the name "dynamite." He also invented a blasting cap (detonator) also patented, which could be ignited by lighting a fuse." (Info was found in a news discussion group, aliased e-mail name was author, so unknown.) Watch the Clint Eastwood movie "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly." It is set in the US Civil war in the west - and the only time any large battles were fought there was in 1864 during the Red River Campaign. He uses dynamite to blow up a bridge and of course, it had not been invented yet!

Air Warfare

P-51 Mustangs double as Bf 109s. (Would get away with it if they used the "B" or "C" model and not the "D".) B/C models were misidentified as 109s and shot down by friendly a/c in the war. A C-46 cargo transport was misidentified by a Spitfire pilot as a FW-200 "Condor" and shot down near Ireland during WWII (it was carrying 300 P-38 speed flaps modifications. The next P-38 shipment came by ship and it was sunk by a u-boat!) Sometimes ME-108s are painted up as 109s. The canopy of these aircraft are wrong, but from the side they do look like 109s. They used 108s in "Von Ryan's Express."

Pilots take off their oxygen masks for minutes at a time above 20,000 feet. (You can likely get away with it for 30 seconds, a minute if you routinely can hold your breath for that long.) American bomber crews always wore O2 masks above 10,000'. Really needed once above 14,000'. After two minutes without O2 above 18,000 feet you will lose consciousness. 15 minutes later you are usually dead.

My Reviews on Some Military Movies

"You're talking about winning the war, and I am talking about winning the war and keeping alive."
" Exactly," Clevinger snapped smugly. "And which do you think is more important?"
" To whom?" Yossarian shot back. "It doesn't make a damn bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead."
" I can't think of another attitude that could be depended upon to give greater comfort to the enemy."
" The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on."
— from Joseph Heller's book "Catch-22"

Short list of Movies that I have seen and my observations concerning these movies about Military History.

• Black Book. 2007. Based on true events, a Jewish woman hiding on a farm in the Netherlands is suddenly forced into the Dutch Reistance when her hideout is destroyed by a wayward B-17. Gripping story, good acting, and very realistic portrayal of life in 1944 / 1945 in the Netherlands. The Dutch resistance movement was talked about in the book "Between Silk and Cynanide" of Leo Marks of the problems they had in the Netherlands.
• The Greatest Raid. 2005. Based on true events, but only made after the book "Ghost Soldiers" was published first. The movie is around 90% accurate in the telling of the raid by the 6th Ranger Battalion Alamo Scouts (recon units of the Army) and Phillipine Scouts (guerrillas to the Japanese) to rescue 511 Americans (and a British Citizen) in the Japanese POW camp at Cabanatuan on Luzon in the Phillipines at the end of January 1945. The story of the Phillipines Scouts is downplayed, but they had a more important part in getting the raid started and having it conclude sucessfully than what the movie depicts. The camp originally held over 5000 POWs but the healthy ones were shipped off to Japan in 1944 to work as slave laborers (about 1/3 of them survivied) which is why the POWs are only in 1/4 of the camp area when the raid occurred. A list of Japanese POW camps.
• A Very Long Engagement. 2004. French (with subtitles) . Tells the story of 5 French soldiers (via flashback) about to be "executed," one who is the fiance of the woman telling the story. She does not believe he actually died and hunts for him in 1920 France. The film depicts how miserable life in the trenches was in January 1917, the thoughts of many French soldiers (since they had policies about it, it was rampant), and how some coped to survive the war. Front line trenches in 1917 were not that well manned as seen in the movie - only in times of active defense and attack, else too many would get killed. 2nd and 3rd lines is where the majority of troops were at in close support of the front line trench.
• Troy. 2004. A Hollywood epic of the Homer story of the Trojan War. Large battle scenes all staged wrong - you will not see any cohorts or shield walls here - though ocassionally in the small scale actions you find accurate tactics. The movie takes the 10 year war and compresses it into a month to move the story line along. The movie pacing, after a required slow start, is surprisingly good.
• Hell Boats. 1970. A team from Britain steal a Kriegsmarine E-Boat in order to penetrate and destroy a German U-Boat base.
• Son of the Morning Star. 1991. (Made for TV). Follows the life of Armstrong Custer through his military career till his famous tactical mistake at The Little Bighorn. Historically accurate.
• Carve Her Name With Pride. Is about Violette Szabo, executed at Ravensbruck in 1944, who was an agent trained by SOE and dropped into France. Leo Marks helped train her as well as other agents like Forest Yeo-Thomas - "The White Rabbit" - and Noor Inayat Khan (Leo is the man who came up with the British one time sheets on silk code system in 1943.) They tried to dissuade her from joining since she suffered from the handicap of being taught never to lie. She lasted 1 day in Paris.
• PT 109. 1965. True story told in the matter of fact way that John Kennedy's tour of duty in the South Pacific actually happened. Good performance by Cliff Robertson. Very little dramatic license was taken in the movie. PT 109 was sliced in half while the engine was in idle and out of gear. Standard practice. On a PT boat the skipper telegraphed the engine man to manually put engines in gear. The time delay prevented the 109 from getting out of the way in the 10 seconds before impact. After the board of inquiry (standard when a naval ship is lost) they changed the rules and told all PT boat commanders that engines must always remain in gear when on patrol.
• Shining Through. 1994. A woman translator falls in love with her boss before WWII - who is actually in the (future) OSS and has been going to Europe since 1939 as a spy. In late 1943 she talks her way into being sent to Berlin to replace a spy who was discovered and killed. Told in a TV interview flashback method. The US spies were really sometimes this ill prepared.
• Cold Mountain. 2003. US Civil War that is told in flashbacks about 1861-thru 1863 till both come to the present in the winter of 1864. A Southerner joins the fight out of duty but after three years is disillusioned and deserts after being wounded at Petersburg in summer of 1864. His sweetheart meanwhile battles the elements and the local law which is more dangerous than the war is. Battle scene at Petersburg is based on a real event. Other scenes depict what is does to people, what some will do to survive, and corruption of power. Also some short insights into motives of various people in this era.
• Master and Commander. 2003. Set in Spring of 1805 during the Napoleonic age. A British captain is ordered to follow a privateer to Brazil but pursues it into the Pacific after the enemy captain outsmarts him twice in a row. Very historically accurate sailing, shipboard life, combat and repair of a sailing ship.
• Dark Blue World. Set in the skies over Europe in WWII. Czech pilots who escape from the continent and come to the UK to join the RAF to continue the fight against Nazi Germany. Enough came that eventually an entire RAF wing was formed. They fought against Germany throughout the war. Fiction and fact mixed into the story line. Good flying sequences and some humorous and true land training sequences.
• The Pianist. 2002. Director Roman Polanski was in charge of this 2 1/2 hour movie based on a true story of Wladyslaw Szpilman who died in 1998. A powerful story of his survival in Warsaw from 1939 when war starts till his return to playing on the radio after the war. Most people will miss some of the subtle differences in the fighting between the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1942 and then the Polish Home Army uprising in 1944. The reality is on a level above that of Schnindler's List.
• Windtalkers. 2002. Nicolas Cage starts in this movie inspired by the use of Navajo code talkers by the Navy and Marines in the Pacific during WWII (and a few were used in the ETO as well). This is the story of a troubled marine who after a combat tour in the Solomons is assigned to guard a code talker in the front lines of combat on Saipan. A pure Hollywood movie with some major gaffs in dialog that were done in order to push the story along none-the-less it is a good movie.
• The Patriot. 2001. Mel Gibson plays a soldier who fought in French and Indian War with the British (like George Washington did) and has seen his share of combat who wants to sit out the American Revolutionary War (only 5% of men who could fight in the war on either side did) but gets drawn into it anyway when his son, and British Regulars, comes into his southern rural farm area and forces him to fight.
• Captain Corelli's Mandolin. 2001. Set in the Greek islands from 1940 thru 1944 (mainly) it tells of the occupation of this Greek island by the Italians and then the Germans by using an educated Italian Artillery Captain who plays the Mandolin and his relationship with a very pretty (naturally) Greek woman in whose house he is billeted. From a very friendly beginning that occurs when the Italians occupy the island it then goes into (lightly) the problems faced by both the Greeks, Italians and Germans as the war progressed. Near the end it shows this by the revenge, the pity, and the nobel deeds and misdeeds done by all sides in the war.
• The Lost Battalion. 2001. This movie was made for AMC (American Movie Classics) tells the true story of the 507th Infantry Battalion in World War I who was led by a New York Lawyer. He was assigned an objective far behind the enemy front line, obtained the objective, was lied to by his commander and then his command was subsequently cut off from the rest of the division by the Germans when both of his flank units failed to advance like he did (but was told by his commander that they had). His 500+ men then held off the German counterattacks for 5 days before his division could finally break though the Germans and relieve his command. Less than 200 were left alive at the end. This movie tells it like it is with no romantic distractions thrown in like a la Hollywood style formula movie.
• Black Hawk Down. 2001. This movie is based on the real incident that occurred in Somalia in 1993. In "Saving Private Ryan" you get 30 minutes of intense combat at the beginning then an hour of quiet talk and some minor action till the very end where again you get 30 minutes of intense WW II combat. In "Black Hawk Down" you get 30 minutes of quiet introduction to Somalia then an hour and a half of intense "you are there" combat. Does a very good job of showing how confusing combat can be to the foot soldier and how politics can mess up any combat mission.
• Hart's War. 2002. Another example of a Hollywood movie. Some parts accurate, some purely fictitious, with some modern issues all wrapped around a World War Two context. In this case a captured Infantry Lt. sent to a POW camp deals with greed, bigotry, murder and saboteurs. Still a pretty good flick. Points to note that are wrong: Flyers were never put into Infantry Camps (They went to Stalag Luft ones); officers were not housed with enlisted in the same camps; Hart goes to the 106th Division in the morning (stationed around St. Vith in Belgium) in the daylight (German attacks started from 3:30 to 4:30 AM, and daylight is around 9:30 in the Ardennes) so his HQ would have known that the "Battle of the Bulge" was on. He takes the boots off of a dead soldier then in later he arrives in camp without the boots! And I was not even looking for errors.
• Destination Tokyo. This is a good Pacific submarine adventure that is made up of strung together true stories that occured on board US Navy subs during World War Two. The surgery performed in the movies happenned on board the USS Seadragon in 1942 in the South China Sea by Corpsman Wheeler B. Lipes.
• The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan; produced by Henry Morgan; directed by William A. Wellman; written by Lamar Trotti; Fox studio. Set in the West in the 1880s it is an allegory on what happens to a group of men who are falsely accused of a crime. Basically, it was telling the audience do not rush to judgment on German and Japanese soldiers too quickly once the war is over. Did not work too much on German soldiers and politicians, did work in Japan. Two years passed before trials were begun thus most got off with low, or no sentences.
• Chicken Run. What is an animated movie doing this list? Well, watch "The Great Escape" then watch this. Chicken Run is a tribute to that movie.
• The Thin Red Line. 2001. This follows the life of an Army soldier on Guadalcanal after the Marines had left and the Army was "mopping" up the island. Two good combat sequences in the movie. Watch whom they do NOT kill as they overrun the last main Japanese base. Based on the book by James Jones, who was an Army infrantryman in WWII. 1st remake after one made in the early 1960s.
• The War Lover. 1962. A B-17 Pilot who lives to die. Steve McQueen and Robert Wagner as pilot and copilot respectively as they fight over tactics in the air and a woman on the ground. Main story is the combat missions and unlike in many movies of this type involving a woman - this one works.
• Charge of the Light Brigade. 1936. Like most military actions, highly overrated! Errol Flynn leads the unit on the famous charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava during the Crimean war of 1853-56. The real impact of the charge is that it is in the collective western memory due to Tennyson's poem and not the military impact that it had. Also, this was the first war that was photographed and reported quickly by telegraph. Movie focused on members of the unit bent on revenge toward an Afghanistan warlord who had killed their friends and family members while they were stationed along the India / Afganistan border, who subsequently fled and joined the Russian side during the Crimean War. Watch the 1936 movie version and not the 1968 one.
• 12 O'Clock High. 1949. Gregory Peck takes over as the CO of a "Hard Luck" outfit. He then starts to have the problem of command identification to the men. Based on some true experiences of the two men who wrote the screenplay of their time serving in B-17 unit. Real clips of combat fights plus some restaged shots. The opening scene is a classic. (And the stunt pilot got to keep the plane afterwards!) The CO of the unit the two writers were in who wrote the screenplay wrote his own book called "Screaming Eagle."
• Sole Survivor. 1970. Richard Basehart and William Shatner star. A B-24 navigator panics and bails out of his bomber at night over the water on the return of a mission to Italy - however he fails to tell the pilot about a tailwind so the crew and plane ends up deep in the Libyan desert where they die. 15 Years later the plane is found and the story takes on haunting tone as the story is told from the perspective of the crew (as ghosts), the navigator and the investigators. Inspired by the true story of the "Lady Be Good" found in 1959 in Libya.
• The Longest Day. 1964. D-Day in France June 6, 1944. The best sequence in the movie is an aerial shot showing the British storming through a coastal town. (Arromanches?). I've been to Normandy and to every location named / depicted in the movie. The Pegasus Bridge scenes that deal with Major Howard was done at the real site. (see picture of Major Howard who I met in 1994 to the right.) Every story line in the movie is true and really did happen to those involved.
• Saving Private Ryan.1998. Intense battle scenes, very realistic. Some scenes even show American troops killing Germans trying to surrender. (Never saw a single comment in any news article about that!). Intense emotions possible when watching it. Hitting the beach on Omaha is very gripping. Used the newsreel style of filming to film that initial scene like the real photographers did during World War II. Story line inspired by the fate of the Sullivan Brothers killed on the AAA cruiser Juneau in August 1942 after the battle of Salvo Sound off of Guadalcanal.
• The Sullivan Brothers. 1943. True story of the five Sullivan brothers who all served on the same ship at Guadalcanal on the USS Juneau. They were all killed when it was sunk as the task force was returning to Australia by a Japanese submarine after the Battle of Salvo Sound in 1942. The Juneau was already damaged. One brother actually lived for a day in the water before exposure killed him. The US and Australian navies lost 5 cruisers that night. Never released during the war since it was too intense and depressing for the public at that time. Their story is mentioned in the film Saving Private Ryan and is the reason / basis for the mission in the movie by Spielberg.
• Schnindler's List. 2000. True story of how a German manufacturer saved Jews from the gas chambers by getting them classified as crucial war workers for his plant. Filmed in B&W.
• The Memphis Belle. 1943 and 1990. The first is the U.S. Army Air Corps

  Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress

  documentary about the first bomber to complete 25 combat missions against Germany. There were actually three B-17 crews close to finishing, so they filmed all three and the Memphis Belle won out. (Though technically another ship actually finished their 25th mission a few days before the Belle did.) They hedged their bets. The odds of a B-17 being shot down on any one mission was 6%. Considering 25 missions x 6% loss rate per mission = 150% combat loss in a unit during a tour - the odds were not too good. The 2nd movie is a total fictional story of the crew on their final mission. (In real life a milk run.) The writers did use some of the things that happened on various real missions to liven it up. Some good combat scenes. The scene where a Bf 109 does a head-on attack against their formation was done using a real Messerschmitt Bf 109, it also was also used in some other scenes.
• A Bridge Too Far. 1977. Field Marshall Bernard L. Montgomery's battle plan to end the war in 1944. Almost worked. The original speech given by the CO of 30 Corp was three hours. Many scenes are recreations of actual happenings. They mention the real facts and reasons of who did what during the movie. Field Marshall Montgomery was never good at fast battle planning let alone operations in fluid situations and this is why the operation failed. If it was not for ULTRA he never would have won a battle at all during the war.
• Castle Keep. 1969. Burt Lancaster stars as a Major who during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium in December, 1944 pulls together a random group of and makes a stand along a main road in a moated small castle. Only movie where you can see someone explain how to use a 50 cal machine gun to try and shoot down an observation aircraft.
• Bridge on the River Kwai. Fictionalized movie of what Australian, British, other commonwealth soldiers (plus a few Americans) were forced to endure in a Japanese POW camp while building a railroad through Thailand and Burma. The actual Kwai bridge took 6 months to build (there were two really) and only 6 British died doing it. They were the closest to the food supply. In 1945 B-25s destroyed two spans of the bridge - while it was filled with 300 POWs that the Japanese marched onto the bridge in order to stop the allied planes from bombing it - and after the war it was rebuilt. Still in use today. 16,000+ POWs are known to have died building the railroad while under the Japanese military out of the estimated 60,000+ involved. 125,000 other laborers were also used in building the 200 mile long railroad (some forced) of which half died (best estimates) during the three years of construction and use.
• Empire of the Sun. A long movie follows a 9 year old boy who is an internee of the Japanese. The boy goes from admiring and emulating the Japanese to rooting for the Allies as Japan starts to lose the war. Truely a slow movie with almost no dialog in two hours of time. A 30 second clip of a P-51D strafing the Japanese base is all the action you will see in this whole movie.
• Stalag 17. William Holden stars. Good gripping drama. From what I have learned talking to real POWs the depiction of camp life is basically true. In this movie POWs try to escape but they are always thwarted. The story: There is a spy in the camp. An officer is passing though on the way to another camp, tells of how he sabotaged an ammunition train by luck using matches. The Germans find out and now he has to hide so he can escape to avoid being shot. At the same time everyone has their idea who the spy is.
• The Great Escape. 1963. directed by John Sturges. Mostly true story of how British POWs launched a mass escape from Stalag Luft III in March of 1944. Three actually made it to freedom. 2 to Sweden and 1 via Spain to Britain. 50 were recaptured and shot by the Gestapo as a "lesson" to others to stop escape attempts. That part worked for quite a few months. Late in the war escape attempts resumed but very very few. Then in January 1945 all organized efforts to escape were ordered stopped by the Allied High Command. A few people ignored that order and still escaped anyway. A Computer game came out in fall of 2003 concerning this true event. One of my 8th AF Historical Society Oregon member was part of the escape group. He was a digger. In real life the escape occured in March of 1944 and there was snow on the ground complicating things.
  In 1949  Paul Brickall authored "The Great Escape." The story of Jackson Barrett Mahon (d.1999 at 78) who was an American fighter pilot. In 1999 Arthur A. Durand published "Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story."
• Battle Hymn. 1957. Based on a true story. Rock Hudson is a fighter pilot who, near the end of WW-II, shakes off a "hung" bomb from his P-51 that kills orphans in Germany. Rependant, he becomes a minister but stays in the Reserves training pilots. Recalled for Korean War, he is put back into a front line combat unit out of necessity and must come to peace about his past, his current role, and the men and Korean civilians that depend on him.
• Target for Tonight. 1941. British movie follows a crew from briefing, takeoff, fighter attacks, flak, bombing, more flak and then the return flight home in a Wellington on a night mission to Germany. Overall done well. Does give you the feeling as if you are part of the crew observing them.
• One of our Bombers is Missing. 1942. A British film depicting a raid by a light bomber to Germany. It then takes a twist and follows the adventures of the crew after being show down in their attempt to make it back through Germany to England. The nighttime bombing scene (a model) is still used by some dumb network news, and history video editors, as a depiction of a nighttime bombing mission to Germany.
• All Quiet on the Western Front. 1932, 1978?. An anti-war movie. WW-I from the German point of view. Idealistic German boys join the Army (one reluctanly) and find out how the mud and dying is like in France. The 1932 version is the one to see not the 1970s remake with Ernest Borgneign.
• Dawn Patrol. 1936. Earl Flynn and David Niven flying outdated aircraft against the Germans during "Bloody April" in 1916 France. Great flight scenes. Asides from "Wings" from 1927, started the depiction of fighter pilots of hard drinking, hard playing men on the gound while serious in the air. Also delves into the problems of command and training of flyers.
• The Blue Max. Fictionalized account of an infantry soldier who gets out of the trenches to fly in the German Air Service in WW-I. Great flying scenes.
• They Were Expendable. John Wayne as a Naval commander in the South Pacific. Best part I like is after a plane is shot down a clerk comes forward to ask how to account for the loss of the plane. Political intrigue, military mis-haps, PT Boats, a love story, a son who hates his father and more.
• The African Queen. 1952. Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn pair up in a leaky boat to try and sink a German gunboat that militarily dominates Lake Victoria during World War I. The Germans really did haul in pieces a ship over land and assembled it on the lake during WWI. Later sunk by the British.
• The Sands of Iwo Jima. John Wayne. One of the best performances he ever did. Should have won an Oscar for it. Does a good job of showing how a Marine is trained and how a squad functions in combat.
• To Hell and Back. Audie Murphy's true story. His comment about the movie: "It was a lot easier in the movie than what I went through in real life." As a replacement soldier to the unit he rises to being a Lt firing a 50 cal machine gun on top of a burning tank to stop an infantry attack inside Germany and winning the Medal of Honor for it. Plus a whole bunch of others. Most decorated soldier in the US. When the war finished he still was not old enough to vote (had to be 21 to vote.) The hip wound kept him from a military career.
• Glory. True story of Black solders in the Civil War. Lead by white officers the unit is mishandled by the upper echelon of command while fighting and proving their individual and unit ability is equal to any other comparable unit.
• Stalingrad. 1995 German movie about the great battle in Russia 1942 / 1943. A unit is transferred from North Africa and find they are fighting a different kind of war in Russia. 330,000 German, Italian, Rumanian, Hungarian solders are surrounded during the Russian counteroffensive. 96,000 surrendered in February of 1943. 6,000 returned home after the war.
• Battle of the Bulge. Mostly fiction but occasionally some good scenes of how combat was like in the Ardennes in 1944. History was sacrificed for story line in many cases.
• Battle of Britain. 1968. Historical account of July thru October 1940 aerial campaign of the Luftwaffe against the RAF. Story line wrapped around some great flying scenes. Most poignant is the scene of a German Kampfgruppen (KG = bomber squadron) crew mess at the start of the battle then again near the end of the battle.
• Das Boot. Likely the best submarine story filmed. German U-Boat in the Atlantic in 1943. See the German version with English subtitles. Much better than the English dubbed version. The Book "Das Boot" was written by Sonderfuher-Leutnant Lothar-Gunter Bucheim, a war correspondent, based upon the 7th War Patrol of the U-96 commanded by Kapitan Lehmann-Willenbrock (he died in 1986) on which he did a patrol on.
• Anzio. Mostly of dubious historical validity. The most telling combat scene is when they are trying to get back past a German sniper in the sand dunes. The Allies try to get to Rome fast and fail when the Germans react as expected. The invasion commander is given vague orders and goes on the defensive quickly after the invasion at Anzio because of the warnings by his superiors to avoid another Salerno. If he had gone to Rome they would have lost the lot.
• Cockleshell Heroes. True story of the British raid to France to sink supply ships in Bouglogne Harbor in the Bay of Biscay. They used what now would be called kayaks to accomplish this feat.
• Full Metal Jacket. 1987. Combat in Vietnam from Marine training camp at Parris Island to in your face combat. The title comes from not any body armor, but the type of rounds used by the miliary. Each bullet has a "full metal jacket" - FMJ - around the lead bullet exposing only the tip.
• The Dam Busters. True story of 617 Squadron flying Avro Lancasters (Six One Seven Squadron - You do not say Six Seventeen Squadron) on "Operation Chastise" raid on the Ruhr German Dams in May 16/17 of 1943. In the movie they say they dropped from 60 feet. Actually it was 40. G for George! Guy Gisbon was shot down and killed in 1944 after flying a pathfinder Mosquito on a raid and is buried in Holland.
• Sink The Bismark. The British win the engagement but they leave out a few important items that allowed them to win. Loss of the Bismark is directly attributed to the Bismarck Captain who transmitted a useless message to Naval HQ which allowed the RDF (Radio Direction Finding) unit to pinpoint the Bismark for a final Swordfish torpedo attack that hit the rudder which sealed the fate of the ship.
• Midway. Another romance tale wrapped around history to make a story. A couple good flying scenes. Lots of clips used from Tora Tora Tora as filler.
• Tora Tora Tora. The attack scene is great. The scene where the prop of a P-40 flies off as it tries to get airborne then it veers off into a line of aircraft was an accident during the filming. It was so good they left it in. The people running during that scene really WERE running for their lives. Historically accurate.
• Operation Petticoat. 1959. A comedy set on board a US submarine in the Pacific. The boat is falling apart, the CO wants to see action, but is ordered to rescue nurses and take them back to a safe area complicates his desire to risk the boat to sink Japanese ships and the need to keep the nurses safe.
• Tobruk. Fictionalized take of a raid to Tobruk to destroy fuel in mid 1942. Several good good battle scenes. The Long Range Desert group poses as a German unit transporting British and American prisoners to the rear to pass through the German lines. Some clever plot twists. The strafing scene is good. The most realistic is when they come across German Field Police while in convoy.
• Casablanca. Likely the most "classic" movie ever produced. Great cast with Humphrey Bogart, Ingred Bergman and a host of others; good timing of the release, memorable scenes, good music and the list just goes on.

  Capitaine Renault: "What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?"
  Rick: "My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters."
  Capitaine Renault: "The waters? What waters? We're in the desert."
  Rick: "I was misinformed."

  A ex-Patriot American, Rick Blaine who had fought against the Germans in Spain, is wanted by the Germans so he leaves Paris on the day it fell - "You wore blue, the Germans wore gray." - and makes it to Casablanca and opens a bar — Rick's Cafe American. His past catches up to him and he is forced to make choices he does not want to make. There really is a Rick's American in Casablanca now - run by a woman.
• Patton. Some parts are pure fiction (Montgomery and Patton meeting in Messina - never happened) some true (his slapping the soldier in Sicily). Does capture the main essence of his command style and his personality. The main story action happens in HQ though there are a few good battle scenes. In the movie he talks about Rommel's book.
• Destination Tokyo. The movie combines what happened on many American submarines and puts it all into one movie. The story line weaving them all together is pure fiction, but each scene depicted actually did happen.
• 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. Story of the Doolittle Raid to Japan in April of 1942. Based on the book of the same name by Capt. Ted Lawson. Good training and flying scenes of B-25 Mitchells.
• Mister Roberts. What it is like to be on a rear echelon ship when you want to be in the front line of combat in the Pacific in WWII and the ships career captain hates that he is not fighting also but not willing to buck the system to ask for it so takes it out on the crew.
• Run Silent Run Deep. Some fiction, some true, life of a US Sub in the Pacific. Based on the book written by a US WWII sub commander Edward Beach.
• The Three Kings (1998). Fictional story that takes place after the fighting stopped during the 1991 Gulf War. What is does do is make you think of what war is really about and how a politicians policy impacts soldiers in the field. On a tip they head out to find stolen gold and get involved and not involved in Iraqi politics.
• Guadalcanal Diary. Based on the true story of the same name. Dramatic license taken at times. Small unit action in the jungle in August / September 1942. Written by Richard Tregaskis, who was a war correspondent during WW II.
• Action in the North Atlantic. Pure fiction but it does depict the desperate months in 1942 sailing in the North Atlantic. However, no German sub ever machine gunned crews from torpedoed ships. Pure propaganda. Read about Convoy PQ17 and this movie comes off as making it easier to sail across than it really was. The last line of the movie tells it all.
• The Enemy Below. Robert Mitchum. One of the best movies to depict the "Cat and Mouse" nature of submarine warfare. Told from the perspectives of both the DD captain and the u-boat captain.
• Von Ryans's Express. This occurs in August 1943. An American fighter pilot is shot down and sent to a Italian run POW camp. The camp is filled with British POWs who have been there since 1941 or so. He then leads them on an escape by train to Switzerland. Great adventure.
• Rules of Engagement (1999). Thought not a true war movie it does have some good info and insight on rules of engagement on when US troops are allowed to fire their weapons. Troop are now politically controlled and told under what specific conditions they are allowed to fire back. Some of this also occurs in Black Hawk Down at the beginning. The initial combat scene is very realistic.
• The Big Red 1. This movie follows the career of a soldier of this famous division from WWI through WWII. Division was created in WWI. It starts off on Nov 11, 1918 in the afternoon then moves to WWII. Takes the tough old career experienced combat Sergeant, add some green recruits, and throws away the chance of being a good movie due to heavy editing for release thus a bit broken in continuity. See the director's cut and not the theathrical release. A counter plot is of a German sergeant who happens to be opposing them from North Africa to Germany. The 1st Division fought in North Africa (Tunisia), Sicily and lead the assault on Omaha Beach (along with the 45th Division) and fought till the end of the War in Europe. I think it ended up in Czechoslovakia.
• Lawrence of Arabia. Politics and war go hand in hand in the Middle East - 1917 is no different than today. No other movie has really depicted the battles fought in Iraq, Palestine, and Turkey during WWI time frame as well as this.
• Battleship Potemkin. Soviet movie made during the silent era of the Sailors on the Russian Battleship Potemkin who rebelled against the Czar. Very well done movie. Without even reading Russian you can follow the story.
• The Four Feathers. 1936. This is a classic war / adventure movie set in the 1880s in England and the Sudan. 4 Officers, 1 is labeled a coward for not joining his regiment to go fight in the Sudan. The story unfolds of how he redeems his honor. Set against the uprising when Khartoum was captured by Arabs. It has been made now a total of 6 times.
• The Four Feathers. 2001. Remake with some twists. Battle scenes are better but that is about all. If you want a sense of adventure and duty that was part of being British in the 19th century watch the 1936 version (two silent B&W versions out there somewhere).
• Gunda Din (1939). Set in India in the 1870s (?) this has some great scenes played by Cary Grant. It is another British garrison fighting against rebelling natives.
• Beau Geste (1939). French Foreign Legionaries fight against overwhelming odds - they lose and win in the end.
• Galipoli. Australians join the calvary to fight in Europe but instead get sent to Turkey and end up as infantry in a botched invasion "end run" around fortifications guarding the entrance to the Black Sea. The next 9 months is spent trying to survive endless sniping, Turkisk and their own attacks and inept British officers. Campaign was a good idea gone very bad. Shows the mentality of many British upper level officers on tactics right up through late 1917. 1918 leaders were not much more enlightened.
• The Charge of the Light Brigade. 1936. Fictional story of a member of the Light Bridge in the 1857-1859 Crimea War. Earol Flynn rides into the Valley of Death with 599 other soldiers. About 180 survive.
• The Devil's Brigade. 1968. Some good combat scenes plus what an idea of what it was like to train for combat in WW-II. Most US Divisions spent two years training before going into combat. This is also a mostly true story of the Canadians and Americans fighting in Italy in 1943. The ending is pure fiction for the plot.
• The Guns of Navaronne. 1961. Based on another true tale of what the British did with a commando type raid against a German fortification guarding escape routes from Crete and other islands in 1941. David Niven and Gregory Peck do a great job of acting.
• Force 10 from Navaronne. Harrison Ford stared in this. The follow-up story after the initial mission "The Guns of Navaronne". Pretty good combat scenes and it also depicts the problems of fighting in Yugoslavia. Tito fielded a good sized army that at times fought in a very conventional manner both against the Germans and against other German local allies. Harrison's first movie after Star Wars.
• Where Eagles Dare. Fictional tale but good. Clint Eastwood is an American OSS agent outsider that is brought into a British operation who therefore can be trusted by a British agent sent to ferret out a German double-agent.
• South Pacific. 1958. A musical set in the South Pacific threatre of war in 1943. The music blends in well with the story line of a French planter, who they want to become a coast watcher for the allies and go on a mission behind Japanese lines.
• Wings. 1927. Winner of the very first Academy Award for Best Picture. World War I air combat. Still good today. Filmed over Texas and the planes you see crashing are full scale with the stunt pilots at the controls. Silent with English cards.
• Hell Divers. 1930. World War I aerial combat. Some of the flight scenes are still talked about. Howard Hughes had the film made due to his love of aviation. Orginally done as a silent movie, then redone into a talkie before being released with spot color done dyed into the film. Inspired the Germans to create the Stuka Dive bomber.
• The 7th Cross. This is a movie about a concentration camp before the start of the World War II. Seven prisoners escape and the commandant vows that that each will be caught and, if alive, placed on a their own cross outside the camp gate to die or be placed there as an example. Filmed in black and white (1960s?) pay close attention to how the common citizens react to what they see and the comments they make. It highlights the deceptions and false rumors that were given to the German public as to what was going on with the people in the concentration camps.
  As a side note, remember that the majority of people in concentration camps before 1940 were German political prisoners!
• The White Rose (Dove?). This film (1996?) depicts the German resistance movement. Siskal and Ebert reviewed this movie and panned it. The sequence they showed was when one member of the group, Sophie Scholl, (both her and her brother Hans were students at the University of Munich), who belonged to a small resistance movement known as White Rose, went to the post office and asked for 50 stamps. She was to use them to send out the resistance newsletter. Siskal and Ebert panned the suspense of the scene asking how in the world could there be anything suspenseful about buying stamps - but that is the WHOLE point - even something this simple was bound to raise suspicions and be reported. Caught distributing anti-Hitler propaganda, they were turned in by the superintendent of the university and decapitated in February, 1943. A book 'The White Rose: Munich 1942-43', was published by their surviving sister Inge Scholl. A British TV show reviewed German war records and it was discovered that most suspected people who were reported to the Gestapo were turned in by neighbors who were acting as good citizens. There was, on average, only 1 Gestapo agent per 10,000 people. So one of the goals of the Nazi party was to get people to report on other people who were not acting like "Good Germans." It worked.
• U-571. 2000. Total fictional account of how to capture a German U-Boat to get an enigma coding machine. There are some glaring errors in steaming times to get to the U-boat but overall a good flick. Some good underwater scenes and tactics. At the end of the movie they name the three U-boats that WERE captured during the war and who captured them. Two by the British: in 1941 and 1942; and by the US in 1944. The British subsequently lost both boats during dive tests. The U505 is in Chicago. It sits outside neglected and is used to attract people to the museum where they charge admission to it separately from the rest of the museum — but the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry has never spend ANY money that has been collected for it maintaining it. In 2003 the museum put out a call to fix it up with donations to restore it -- after neglecting it for the past 50+ years - and squandering all the money collected for it on 'touchy feelly' projects that no one but the directors wanted. Basically another Chicago gangster style rip-off by the museum. The museum follows the example Mayor Daley and most prior mayors of Chicago who did it all the time - which they mostly still do - to run the city. The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry even had their JU-87 Stuka FALL from the ceiling one year due to basic maintenance neglect by siphoning money off to elsewhere from admissions to the museum.
• Enemy At The Gates. 2000. Filmed in Europe and released in 2000 it tells the story of a Russian sniper and a German sniper trying to kill each other and others during the Battle of Stalingrad which started in August of 1942 and lasted through February of 1943. This story line is an excerpt of one chapter from the book "Stalingrad: Enemy At The Gates." The book is a very much tell it as it was and is one of the definitive books on the battle. The film is sometimes true, sometimes fiction, sometimes gripping as it weaves a love story into the sniper battle. Even the love story is somewhat true. The first 30 minutes of the film has the most impact. The end is total fiction done for the movie. In real life the German sniper picked a spot under a metal plate that had been there since the battle started in an open piece of ground; his gun smoke was spotted and the Russian killed him with a bullet through the helmet.
• Life is Beautiful. 2000. This Italian movie won as best film at the Academy Awards for the 2000 movie year. (Only 2nd time a foreign made film has won best film). In Italian with English subtitles it tells the story of a man who meets a woman many times by accident, falls in love with her, marries her and they have a son. Pretty normal except this takes place in Italy in 1939-1945 and he is Jewish. In 1944 they get shipped off to a slave work camp and the father tries to hide what is really going on in the camp from his son by making a game out of it all.
• Wake Me When The War Is Over. Don Knotts stars as a pilot who bails out and hides in a countess's house in this comedy. She falls in love with him so she hides from him that the war is over to keep him from leaving. Others later help keep him convinced that the war is still going on so he does not leave.
• Fighter Squadron. 1948. Raoul Walsh directed Henry Hull, Edmond O'Brien, Walter Reed, Robert Stack, Tom D'Andrea, John Rodney about Americans fighting a series of missions against the Luftwaffe in World War II Europe.
• None But The Brave. 1965. A transport plane carrying both veterans and green troops to the front lines in the Pacific is shot down onto a Japanese held island. It depicts the combat, friendship, duty, and honor on both sides as both sets of combatants work to survive, cooperate and fight each other at the same time. Frank Sinatra gives a fine performance and he directed too (only time he ever directed).
• The Beguiled. This Clint Eastwood movie is about a wounded Union soldier that gets taken in by an all girl's school in the South and who hides him from the Confederate forces. He then makes a big mistake and takes a liking to one of the pretty young women with fatal consequences.
• Kelly's Heros. 1970. Clint Eastwood plays Pvt Kelly - once Lt. Kelly - busted down to private as a scapegoat for following orders in leading an attack that went bad - learns of a hoard of gold behind German lines and organizes a private assault to get it with the rest of his squad - and as a byproduct of organizing it gets his division to follow. Good small unit combat scenes, accurate tactics of Shermans vs. Tigers (British Centurion tanks really) and command issues. Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Carroll O'Connor, Don Rickles, also star in it.
• Angles One Five. 1952. 100 minutes long. It deals with the Battle of Britain. Used real hurricanes (X Portuguese) and models for the German a/c. It seems to have been released somewhere since people seem to have a copy of it, but then they may have taped it off TV one time. I have not seen it but people seem to like it a lot.

Movie Listing

Here is a long list of movies. A few in here I have seen but mainly I have not (or even knew about till I searched a movie database):

TV shows

• Over There. 2005. First TV show that I know of that is being filmed / broadcast while combat is still going on. Depicts US troops fighting in Iraq after traditional combat was completed.
• Black Adder. The very last set of episodes takes place in the British trenches of WW-I. Comedy and gallows humor in this whole series. The very last episode of the Black Adder series is very powerful.
• Piece Of Cake. RAF Spitfire pilots from Sept of 1939 through August of 1940. Some of the best flying scenes ever filmed. Also gives a good perspective of both British pilots and command philosophies during this time frame.
• Combat! 1962-1967 Various stories. Some are quite good. Don't take the tactics they use in the show too seriously. Like all movies / TV they have to compress the land 'footprint" that the actors are in to show everyone and the action itself. Vic Morrow was the star along with Rick Jason. Who actually only was seen in about 1/4 of the shows.
• Black Sheep Squadron. The Movie "Flying Misfits" started the series off. Pappy Boyington steals a squadron, VMF 214, breaks the rules and wins both air battles and command battles. First episode is mostly true. Rest of the stories are based on things that happened during the war. Boyington was shot down in January (the 3rd I believe) of 1944 and spent the rest of war in a Japanese POW camp. He was in the same POW camp as submarine commander Dick O'Kane of the "Tang."
• Danger: UXB. Set in 1940 London where an inexperienced officer gets to dismantle unexploded bombs dropped by the Germans. Every episode till the last is gripping. The last one looks like they rushed to finish it and had no idea what kind of ending they wanted. The episodes are based on true facts.
• 12 O'Clock High. This concerns the a fictitious 8th US Army Air Corps Heavy Bomber Group (B-17s) and the problems they faced in England and over the skies of Europe. Most combat scenes are from real combat footage taken during the war. TV show was inspired by the movie of the same name with Gregory Peck.
• McHale's Navy. Set in the South Pacific with PT (Patrol Torpedo) boats this comedy used stock footage in the combat scenes. Mainly dealt with the monotony and the idiotic commands issued by a career Naval Officer"Capt. Binghamton." Lots of stories lifted from true things that happened. Later they get transferred to Italy (yes, PT boats also operated in the Med) for their final season on the air.
• Mr. Roberts. This TV show was modeled after the movie. Life aboard a rear area ship where the captain of the ship has dreams of combat grandeur and takes out his anger of his assignment on a Liberty Ship on the crew.
• China Beach. Life in the rear, and sometimes front lines, of a hospital in Vietnam. Won awards and critics but not enough viewers.
• Hogan's Hero's. Ah life in a POW camp. This comedy had a mixed group of the various allied nations solders all in the same camp (each with their own skill) with officers and enlised (never done) as a spy / sabotage team in Stalag 13 (aviatiors were always in Stalag Lufts, infantry were in Stalags). Caricatures of the various NAZI and allied soldier types. Actually pretty funny show. Sgt. Shultz, Major Hoffsetter (sp?) Colonel Hogan and along with Colonel Klink were the main characters that carried the show.
• Tour Of Duty. Life of a platoon of soldiers in Vietnam doing their one year "Tour of Duty." Good action, fine acting, and good story lines. Like China Beach aired on TV too soon after the war to get a new audience.
• Roll Out. 1973-74 - aka "Red Ball Express." This was a single season show that featured trucks and their drivers - predominately black - that supported Patton's Third Army for three months in the summer / fall of 1944. Based on the true convoy system set up to keep supplies rolling to the front. In real life lots of accidents occured along with enemy ambushes as Patton bypassed German troops on the way to the Rhine river.
• M.A.S.H. Set in Korea, but on during the Vietnam Era, this anti-war show was also about a surgical hospital like China Beach. Difference between it and China Beach was that the war happened long ago enough to be abstract to 70% of all viewers. This meant enough time had passed between history and the shows depiction of it to be acceptable to watch. Even thought the show talked about current issues it being set in the past it was not as much "in your face" as China Beach was and thus more acceptable for people to watch.
• Rat Patrol. Inspired by the exploits of the British LRDG — Long Range Desert Group — two jeeps with .50 cals run around the desert destroying German convoys, depots, and other missions defeating the Afrika Korps in every battle in Libya. The German Kommander never seems to get a jeep in his sights even at 50' with a tank.
• Young Indiana Jones. A good portion of the series takes place during the First World War starting out in East Africa. The story lines are actually fairly accurate and deal with little known facets of the war in Africa then onto Europe. The flying scenes of aircraft were filmed in Oregon using models designed by Proctor Enterprises based near Aurora. One of my Oregon Barnstormer club members was the pilot for those scenes.
• North and South. TV Mini-Series. Dramatization of the battle as told through two families - of course one fighting for the North and one for the South. Story line starts in the 1850s and lasts till 1865. 8 Principal leads to follow for the movie. More action occurs off the battlefield following the politics, mental state of the people, and their relations than on the battlefield.

• The Winds of War
  War and Remembrance - Volume 1 - Parts 1-7	War & Remembrance - Vol. 2, The Final Chapter: Parts 8 - 12

  Winds of War / War and Rememberance. TV Mini-Series adaptation of Hermon Wouk's epic novels. Follows the family of a Naval Commander, son, the son's wife who is Jewish, from before the war to the end. Only two really good combat scenes out of the whole deal. A few of the best scenes that could have been put into the movie depicting combat from the book never were (North Africa and Outside Moscow). Deals with the politics of war more than the war itself. Tries to depict how the Jews in Europe saw themselves, the NAZI party and rules imposed on them, and related items.

War Movie Productions

I've noticed that the heyday of war movies and shows are usually 15 to 20 years after a war has ended. Just like the heyday of WW-I movies were in the 1930s. If they had waited to do TV shows about Vietnam in 1995 thru 2000 more would have been done and been successful.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Oscar winners database.