Pearl Harbor Historical Accuracy

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Pearl Harbor
Hollywood has made many films based on historical events. Sometimes they can be portrayed accurately. Other times they can be portrayed inaccurately; sometimes very inaccurately, such is the case with Michael Bay’s 2001 film, Pearl Harbor.
The movie stars Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett as a pair of pilots in the pacific fleet. The film doesn’t waste any time being inaccurate. In the opening scene alone it already has a huge oversight. It shows the two protagonists as kids flying one of their father’s crop dusters. In 1923. In real life, crop dusters weren’t commercially available until well into the 1930s. Clearly the film makers never checked their facts. And this is far from the worst inaccuracy.
The actual attack on Pearl Harbor …show more content…

Other stuff aside, it had a moment where, when Roosevelt was discussing the Doolittle raid, he stood up out of his wheel chair to prove nothing is impossible. Yet another thing that never happened in history, this time to the point where it’s almost cartoony. And to top it all off, the Doolittle raid. In the movie while not the worst represented part of the film, they still got certain aspects wrong. For starters, historically they launched the bombers 250 miles away from the main island after being spotted by one Japanese boat, while in the movie they launched from 216 miles away after being spotted by many boats. Beyond the movie portraying us attacking more industrial targets beyond Tokyo, the worst part of the movies raid is what happens after they bail out of the planes. Historically, after the pilots of the Doolittle raid were forced to bail due to lack of fuel, they landed in Japanese occupied Chinese territory. Some pilots were captured by the Japanese or died in crashes. Others, such as Doolittle himself, were helped by Chinese, who sheltered them and helped them escape. The Japanese slaughtered over 250,000 Chinese for their role in helping the pilots escape. In the movie, after the pilot’s crash, they have a fire fight where the Americans emerge victorious, and don’t even bother mentioning how so many Chinese people were killed for helping us. The worst thing about it

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