Originally posted by Drongo
For everything you need to know about WWII naval combat in the South Pacific.
I would highly recommend the movie "McHales Navy". It gives you a great feel for conditions in the South Pacific Theatre. It covers in accurate detai,l both allied and Japanese combat tactics.
Until I saw it, I was not aware of just how much difficulty allied base commanders faced in day to day operations, especially in command control.
The movie particularly highlights just how inventive the allies were by showing how a Japanese Fleet could be thrown into chaos by the ingenius use of a C-47, a jeep and a long cable. You don't realise just how stupid the Japs were historically. Matrix, take note.
A must see.
Drongo...that's hilarious. Any Navy that could design a shallow draft vessel like a PT boat that would NOT capsize with Ernest Borgnine at the helm deserves credit. Can you imagine a TV exec trying to "pitch" the show...."see..there is this small torpedo boat called a PT boat, which was used in the war to go up against more potent Japanese warships, often at night, at great risk to the crews....so wouldn't it be hilarious if we did a show about an incompetent crew and a pencil-neck base command.....and the funny part is the Japanese are even more incompetent...hey the 50 cal. machine Gun would be good for a thousand gags...and the production costs would be low..all we need is a couple of banana trees, a Quonset hut and for the "at-sea" shots we just project the same ocean shot behind a little wooden mock-up of the bridge"
Of course you know the adults were trying to have a serious discussion about art
