U.S. Propaganda in War Movies?
Steve Gordon
Classics, cable channel, directed by Howard Hawks. It's a great action film
about the Flying Fortresses in the Pacific. It's not entirely realistic,
though, as it had the bombers flying from Pearl Harbor to the Phillipines
and being used defensively to fight off Japanese fighters.
The surprising ("propaganda?") part of the film though was that it showed
the flight of B-17s from the mainland approaching Pearl Harbor just as the
Japanese attacked on Dec. 7 1941. The bombers have to make emergency
landings on other Hawaiian islands, where they are fired upon by civilian
snipers, apparently Japanese residents from the Islands. For safety they
take off and land at a devastated Pearl Harbor, where they learn that U.S.
fighters had been sabotaged by civilian "vegetable trucks from Honolulu"
that smashed the tails off the U.S. planes, while civilian truck drivers
elsewhere shotgunned soldiers in jeeps.
Isn't it now known that no such fifth-column sabotage by Japanese-Americans
took place? And wouldn't that have been clear by 1943, when the film was
made? Was this theme fictionalized as part of a propaganda war effort (the
sneaky enemy everywhere) or just a thoughtless dramatic device?
Do any readers have other examples of blatant fictional propaganda in
WWII-era movies?
Todd Kunioka
>
> A movie named "Air Force" (1943) was shown Wednesday night on Turner Movie
> Isn't it now known that no such fifth-column sabotage by Japanese-Americans
> took place?
Yes.
> And wouldn't that have been clear by 1943, when the film was made?
Yes.
> Was this theme fictionalized as part of a propaganda war effort (the
> sneaky enemy everywhere) or just a thoughtless dramatic device?
Perhaps the movie makers believed the early [false] reports of
fifth column activities in Hawaii. Or perhaps they were trying
to justify the mass incarcerations that had occurred on the
mainland.
TK
John Lansford
>The surprising ("propaganda?") part of the film though was that it showed
>the flight of B-17s from the mainland approaching Pearl Harbor just as the
>Japanese attacked on Dec. 7 1941.
Well, that part is at least correct. There was a flight of B-17's that
were to land at Hickam Field right as the Japanese attacked. To save
weight none of them had their machineguns installed, so they were
unable to defend themselves. Only one was destroyed; the others landed
at various airfields all over Oahu.
John Lansford
The unofficial I-26 Construction Webpage:
http://users.vnet.net/lansford/a10/
HistoryBuff
> take off and land at a devastated Pearl Harbor, where they learn that U.S.
> fighters had been sabotaged by civilian "vegetable trucks from Honolulu"
> that smashed the tails off the U.S. planes, while civilian truck drivers
> elsewhere shotgunned soldiers in jeeps.
> Isn't it now known that no such fifth-column sabotage by Japanese-Americans
> took place? And wouldn't that have been clear by 1943, when the film was
> made? Was this theme fictionalized as part of a propaganda war effort (the
> sneaky enemy everywhere) or just a thoughtless dramatic device?
I believe in the postscript to the film, the commentator stated that this was
erroneous information. He's right. People believed it then, and why not.
Years of propaganda about the mythical "fifth column" had prepared them well.
--
Steve Fox
E-mail: st...@humboldt1.com
Ph/Fax: 707-839-1919
WWW: http://humboldt1.com/~stfox
df
but they requested (as was customary) the commercial radio
station in Honolulu to remain on the air, to provide a homing
signal. Which signal, of course, proved very useful to the
Japanese carrier planes vectoring to Pearl Harbor.
Or so the story is told. Perhaps the station would have been on
the air again by 7 a.m. Sunday morning in any event.
It was of course customary to make Hawaii flights overnight, so
as to land with daylight beginning instead of ending. The Pan Am
Clippers did the same.
- Dan Ford
See "Nothing New About Death" at http://www.danford.net
and the message board at http://www.delphi.com/annals/
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