Our two films were Windtalkers (2002) and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). Each of these two movies were about the Americans and World War II. In Windtalkers, the main character Sergeant Joe Enders is tasked with protecting a Navaho code talker, Ben Yahzee. He is then sent into combat by the Marines to Saipan, a heavily defended Japanese island. On the other hand, Tora! Tora! Tora! focuses on the Japanese and American sides of the events during and leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It mostly depicts the behind-the-scene events, including the American breaking of the Purple Code, the ignorance of command at Pearl Harbor, and the intents and motives of the Japanese.
While watching Tora!, we found it interesting that the Japanese were not entirely eager for war. At the beginning, when Admiral Yamamoto takes over the command of the Japanese fleet from Yoshida, they discuss the possibility of entering a war with the United States. However, instead of supporting it, they both say that winning is impossible, and Yamamoto urges Yoshida to fight against the Army and the politicians, who are pushing for war. Yamamoto also says later that the only way to win a war with the US is to not only destroy the navy or conquer Hawaii, but to invade the country and take the White House, which he says cannot be done. Despite the commander of the Japanese fleet objecting to the use of aggression, the government clearly had its own agenda – the war was mainly started by a small group of radicals who held enormous power.
It was also interesting that the Americans weren’t portrayed in a very good light. Captain John Earle at Pearl Harbor, after receiving news that a Japanese submarine was sunk close to the entrance to the harbor, demanded co...
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...hrower tank is ignited by a bullet and he bursts into flames. Enders kills him to put him out of his pain. Another instance was when Whitehorse’s protector, Sergeant Anderson, is decapitated while attempting to save Whitehouse despite his previous orders to kill the code talker in order to save the code.
In all, the two movies, released thirty-two years apart, had huge differences. Tora! Tora! Tora! was based on the facts that were known as of 1970, and tried to follow them as closely as possible. However, Windtalkers was more of a Hollywood film, trying to be exciting while sacrificing historical accuracy. Regardless, they were both interesting to watch, especially when compared to what actually occurred in history.
Works Cited
“Tora! Tora! Tora!” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia, n.d. Web. 8 Jun 2010.
“Windtalkers.” Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia, n.d. Web. 8 Jun. 2010.
To begin, the attack on Pearl Harbour was devastating to U.S. naval capabilities in the Pacific at the onset of their entry into the war. Japanese officials had grown tired of the U.S. oil embargo, which was meant to limit their territorial expansion and aggression in South-East Asia as well as China, and as negotiations weren’t reaching any conclusions they decided that the only course of action was a first strike on the aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbour to cripple U.S. naval capability in the Pacific (Rosenberg 1). The attack, which lasted about two hours, had resulted in the sinking of four battleships, among ...
President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to December 7, 1941- the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor- as “a date which will live in infamy.” This description has continued to be accurate, nearly 70 years after the attack on American soil. However, not many people have the same emotional connection to the events at Pearl Harbor, as does the former Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, the man who was in the position of “Commander-in-Chief” at Pearl Harbor. The events of this day caused his rank of “Admiral” to be removed.
First off, they are both science fiction stories. “A Sound of Thunder” is a story about time travel, while “Nethergrave” is about virtual reality. Another similarity is that the main characters in both the stories die in their “real worlds.” One is the result of a chain reaction from stepping a butterfly, the other by choosing to remain in a virtual reality. Finally, in both stories the characters leave their real worlds for new and different experiences. Eckles leaves to go on a great hunting expedition, while Jeremy leaves to escape the loneliness and isolation he
America was not the only one who suffered casualties during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan lost five midget submarines and nine of the men who piloted the small, war submersibles. The tenth man, Ensign Sakamaki, became our first Japanese WWII prisoner of war. Jap...
“Now It’s the Japanese Who Will ‘Remember Pearl Harbor’.” Daily Boston Globe 7 June 1942: D1 ProQuest. Web. 13 March 2014.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America was at last forced to officially enter World War II. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt officially declared war on the Japanese and in his famous radio address to the American people, he professed that December 7 was a day that would live in infamy. Americans and Japanese alike, still remember Pearl Harbor Day, but how many remember the gallant, fighting Marines who served on a tiny atoll in the Pacific by the name of Wake Island?
America’s initial response to the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 was that of disbelief and shock. This attack took place on a Sunday morning and what surprised many was the fact that a tiny island nation situated in the Asian mainland could bring out that kind of a feat thousands of miles away from its actual homeland. A major part of this shock and disbelief was based mainly on the stereotypical view that the Americans had on the Japanese people – short people with oriental features that appeared exaggerated.
Prange, Gordon W., Donald M. Goldstein, and Katherine V. Dillon. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. New York: Penguin Books, 1981. Print.
There were many events that led up to Japan making the decision to bomb Pearl Harbor. It all started with Japan wanting to expand their power. Japan was an island nation, it was isolated from many other nations, and Japan chose to be that way. But by the beginning of the 1900’s Japan was starting to fall apart as it was starting to become short of raw materials. Japan figured if it wanted to survive it would have to expand to get more materials. (O'NEAL 410-413). Japan started trying to take over Asia; they landed in the east coast of China in Manchuria and stationed troops there in order to try to take over northeastern China. ("Japan Launches A Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941"). In reaction to Japan’s landing and hostility towards China the United States, who wanted to keep the open-door policy with China, placed economic sanctions of Japan to slow down Japan’s advances in China. (Higgs). President Roosevelt hoped that these sanctions that the United States put on Japan would lead them to making the mistake of declaring war on the United States (which would also bring Italy and Germany into the attack too since they were all allied) the reason why Rooseve...
On December 7,1941 Japan raided the airbases across the islands of Pearl Harbour. The “sneak attack” targeted the United States Navy. It left 2400 army personnel dead and over a thousand Americans wounded. U.S. Navy termed it as “one of the great defining moments in history”1 President Roosevelt called it as “A Day of Infamy”. 2 As this attack shook the nation and the Japanese Americans became the immediate ‘focal point’. At that moment approximately 112,000 Persons of Japanese descent resided in coastal areas of Oregon, Washington and also in California and Arizona.3
Allen, Thomas B. Remember Pearl Harbor: American and Japanese Survivors Tell Their Stories. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2001. Print.
American society, like that of Germany, was tainted with racial bigotry and prejudice. The Japanese were thought of as especially treacherous people for the attack on Pearl Harbor. The treachery was obviously thought to reside in ...
It was a Sunday morning, on December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor, US naval base located on Hawaii, was attacked by the Japanese. They caught unguarded the whole nation, and for that, this attack is considered one of the top ten failures of the US intelligence. The Japanese were able to attack Pearl Harbor by surprise because of the mindset of US officials, whom they saw Japanese as a weak enemy, who wouldn’t risk attacking US territory, caused by a supremacy factor; As well as the not good enough US intelligence efficiency to encrypt Japanese codes, and the handling of such information. After the negotiations between the Japanese and the United States ended, there was no doubt that they would make an attack, but they didn’t know the target of it.
In the first story i read the sound of thunder the technology was more advanced than the others i have read. Also in the second one i read the foghorn the location was in the present and on earth not located in the past. Lastly the story all in a summer day was different because the characters were not dealing with a beast they were each just dealing with time. This proves that each of the stories had many differences.
The author of this essay is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was the president of the United States at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. The purpose of this speech was to inform the entire United States about what had happened the day before at Pearl Harbor. The nation was to be warned that the United States was going to declare war against Japan. The intended audience is everyone in the United States. President Roosevelt ef...