Midway Movie Review

Midway 2019 (my film review)

I went to see the movie Midway released today, prior to seeing it the only thing I heard about was the disgust that some people had on about Harrelson playing the role of Chester Nimitz in retrospect that may be one of the few bright spots of the entire film.

This film used computer graphics for all of the scenes so there was accuracy on the ships and aircraft that were present that day, with one notable exception there was no Grumman Wildcats to be seen, no Brewster Buffalos and no B-17s all which participated at Midway on some level.

The battle scenes at pearl harbor were inaccurate in entirety, the first sign of an attack was during the playing of colors and a bomb landed on the seaplane ramp on ford island, there was also a strafing run at the sub base early on… this film had a strafing run on battleship row (which never occurred) and it never got any better after that during the pearl harbor scenes.

On December 7th 1941 the USS Enterprises aircraft flew into pearl that evening, several of those American aircraft were shot down by friendly fire… in this film those aircraft were shot down by Japanese aircraft (which never happened)

During the attack on Pearl Harbor the first assault on battleship row was from Japanese torpedo aircraft. They sank the battleships Oklahoma, West Virginia, California and forced the Nevada to beach at wiapo point. (No Japanese torpedo planes were shown in this film) this film also failed to show the onslaught against the air bases in which over 350 American aircraft were destroyed.

If historical accuracy is a thing for you this part of the film will be an aggravation.

The Doolittle raid was seen, but the film missed the mark on it’s importance and the significance of the raid, it was mentioned but in passing, another point of a missed opportunity.

There was also a totally fabricated scene of a Japanese aircraft being shot down by a rear gunner of a dive bomber while on the deck of the Enterprise (this never happened) not ever in the entirety of the war, total Hollywood bullshit)

The Coral Sea battle was mentioned, the Enterprise showed up in time to see the Lexington sink, (the Lexington was not portrayed accurately) the Enterprise was never at the Coral Sea battle either, more Hollywood revisionism.

The Midway battle was just as bad, The Yorktown was actually hit on three separate occasions the last time by a Japanese submarine which sank her and the destroyer Hammon (much of this was never seen or heard)

Hornets torpedo squadron 8 was the first squadron to attack the Japanese carriers at Midway, they were wiped out (only George Gay survived, he was seen in this film but never mentioned, also John Waldron skipper of Torpedo 8 was never mentioned, both omissions are a gross oversight by anyone’s standards.

In this film torpedo 6 struck first from Enterprise, (which was not true) torpedo 5 from Yorktown was never mentioned, but they attacked with torpedo 6) all but six of those two squadrons aircraft were shot down.

When the American dive bombers attacked led by Wade McClusky (this was depicted) the Japanese did not see them until they were already screaming down on them, quickly three of the 4 Japanese carriers were hit and turned into flaming cauldrons.

Max Leslie from bombing 5 was never mentioned either or the faulty American arming switches.

Also never mentioned was the Japanese scout planes and how they missed sighting the American fleet, a crucial mistake for the Japanese.

The Japanese did not shoot down any of the dauntless dive bombers, The wildcats were with them (not seen in this film) but the Japanese fighters were off chasing what was left of the American torpedo planes.

The Japanese antiaircraft fire was depicted as withering fingers of fire hitting SBD’s left and right, BUT the truth was that the Japanese barely got off a shot off at the dive bombers and were stunned by the suddenness and destruction of the American dive bombers (the movie was entirely inaccurate here)

In this film at least a dozen Japanese aircraft were shot down by rear gunners of the dive bombers (they the rear gunners did not shoot down any Japanese aircraft at Midway)

If Historical accuracy is important to you than this part of the film will drive you bonkers.

There was also a scene when two surviving American airmen were captured by the Japanese one was murdured in the film, while the Japanese were known to toss injured prisoners overboard during the war and were brutal to POW'S in general, there is no record of this ever occurring at Midway.

There was more details that I found annoying and untrue, overall this is a dull film, and not at all memorable. The first midway film was awful, but it was and I CANT BELIEVE I AM WRITING this overall a better movie.

If you want to know what happened at Midway look for the book: INCREDIBLE VICTORY by the Pulitzer prized author Walter Lord…

There is no better book on this subject.

It is unfortunate that many people learn about history from movies, this is one of the examples as to why this is a problem...