FROM HUBRIS TO HORROR: THE AMERICAN WARS

OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND HOW THEIR

DEPICTION IN FILM EITHER REFLECTED

OR INFLUENCED PUBLIC OPINION

______

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University, Dominguez Hills

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

Humanities

______

by

Michael Drake

Fall 2019

THESIS: FROM HUBRIS TO HORROR: THE AMERICAN WARS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY AND HOW THEIR DEPICTION IN FILM EITHER REFLECTED OR INFLUENCED PUBLIC OPINION

AUTHOR: MICHAEL DRAKE

APPROVED:

______Matthew Luckett, Ph.D Thesis Committee Chair

______Tim Caron, Ph.D Committee Member

______Jacqueline Shannon, DMA Committee Member

Dedicated to the men and women of the American Armed Forces who proudly served

and to those who made the ultimate sacrifice in World Wars I and II and Vietnam.

PREFACE

The study of the evolution of warfare, and especially the great wars of the twentieth century, along with their depiction in film, combined several passions for me personally. I have been a student of military history since childhood and have a vast collection of books on the subject. I am also a veteran with twenty-five years of military service and a deployment overseas during one of the last century’s conflicts.

As long as I can remember I have also been a fan of movies and fondly remember the days when twenty-five cents got you a ticket to the Wildey Theatre in the small southern Illinois town where I grew up. I remember well when my father, a veteran of World War II, took me to see The Longest Day, and the impact it had on me. This passion for movies ultimately led to work in film production.

For a final project I wanted to combine these lifelong interests of military history and film. More specifically, I wanted to examine how warfare and in particular how the various combatants were depicted in films of the twentieth century. I wanted to determine how films embedded with propaganda messages correlated to public opinion, and how films of the great wars either reflected or influenced public opinion of the time. I wanted to explore why the great pendulum swings in public opinion toward war and our military shifted the way they did and the influence film had upon those changes.

Soldiers, sailors and Marines returning from World Wars I and II were welcomed home as heroes and feted in victory parades across America, while those returning from Vietnam were often met with public disdain and open hostility, spat upon, and called horrific names. Many customarily discarded their uniforms at the airports where they landed before venturing out in public to avoid this public scorn. Then less than twenty years following the withdrawal of troops

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from Vietnam, those returning from another overseas conflict, Operation Desert Storm, found themselves once again being cheered as they proudly marched in victory parades down Main

Street America. However, leading off many of these parades were the Vietnam vets with service ribbons and medals and even the silver and blue Combat Infantryman Badge pinned to their tattered and battle-worn fatigues. They were much older now than in the Polaroid pictures taken when they were “in country.” The years had passed, but they finally, got their own “welcome home.” The pendulum of public opinion had shifted once again,

Today, despite United States involvement in two more overseas conflicts, one now going on eighteen years, public attitudes have for the most part remained positive. Men and women in uniform are frequently approached by strangers and thanked for their service with hearty handshakes. Returning from overseas, they are greeted in airports with placards, banners and applause. In restaurants those in uniform are often treated to free meals by anonymous strangers

(examples taken from personal experience).

This thesis, culminating in several years of work, not only gave me greater insight into the major conflicts of the twentieth century, but also how film reflected, and often influenced public attitudes toward warfare and our returning veterans.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE………………………….……………..…………………………………………….. IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS……….…..……………..…………………….……………….…….. VI

ABSTRACT………...…………………………………………………………………………..VII

1. INTRODUCTION…...………………………..….…………………….…………………….. 1

2. WAR AND MASS MEDIA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY…………….….………….. 3

3. WORLD WAR I……………….………………………….………………………………….. 9

Hubris to Horror……………….………………………………………………….…….. 10 The Advent of War in Cinema………………………………………………………….. 15 The Pendulum Shift…….……………………………………………………………….. 23

4. WORLD WAR II

Nationalism and Forgotten Horrors……………………………………………………. 24 Winning the Hearts and Minds…………………...………………………...... ………… 29 The War in Film: Hollywood Enlists………………………...…………………………. 33 The War in the Pacific…………………………………….……………………………. 34 The War in Europe……………………………………………………………………… 58 Duty, Honor, Sacrifice: The Story of G.I. Joe …..……………………………………... 67

5. VIETNAM

Into the Quagmire……….…………………...……………………………….………… 73 Oh, The Horror………………………………..………………………………….…..…. 76

6. SUMMARY

Pendulum Swings of Public Opinion ……………….……………………….…………. 81

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ABSTRACT

This paper examines the evolution of warfare in the twentieth century, its depiction in film, and how motion pictures of the century’s wars either reflected or influenced public opinion.

It explores the pendulum shifts in public attitudes toward United States involvement in overseas conflicts starting with World War I, through World War II and ultimately Vietnam. It discusses the differences in these conflicts, specifically changes in weaponry and tactics, how they were depicted in film, and the role film played in shaping public attitudes. It explores how films about

World War I depicted the absolute horror of the battlefield, while films produced during World

War II portrayed the valor of the American warrior fighting for a just cause, and how the films about Vietnam once again showed the horror and insanity of an unpopular war.

Research for this project included an extensive personal collection of books on warfare and specifically the major conflicts of the twentieth century. Authors range from John Keegan, to

Henry Kissinger, and David Kennedy, and from Anthony Beevor to E. B. Sledge, author of With the Old Breed. Additional research included viewing and a comprehensive analysis of many of the films made during or shortly after the conflicts they portray.

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Warfare has been an integral part of history since early man began assembling in tribes and ultimately nation states. The evolution in warfare and especially weaponry ranges from stones and spears to cruise missiles capable of hitting targets hundreds of miles distant with pinpoint accuracy and atomic weapons capable of destroying entire cities. Propaganda has been an integral part of warfare and is as old as organized warfare itself. The ancient Egyptians and

Maya carved images of their rulers standing over their defeated enemies. The Romans painted images of bloody-beaked Roman eagles and legionnaires standing victorious over their decapitated enemies on stone slabs along the Antonine Wall in northern England in the mid- second century CE. In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Temüjin, later known as

Gengis Khan, sent messengers ahead of his advancing Mongol armies warning of the horrible fate that lay ahead for those who resisted. As warfare evolved with more sophisticated and deadly weapons, so did the means of propaganda, ultimately expanding to film and other mass media in the twentieth century.

While warfare is older than the pyramids, film has had an evolutionary process of barely more than a century. Since Georges Méliès stuck a rocket in the face of the moon in his 1902 short, A Trip to the Moon, film has been a major source of entertainment for millions. Before the advent of television, film also served as a source of news and information, as well as a major source of propaganda in wartime.

Propaganda took many forms during both world wars. Mass media, to include posters, newspapers, and film, portrayed the enemy as barbarous, bloodthirsty and evil, while the

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American fighting man was depicted as brave and heroic, fighting for a just cause with ultimate victory assured. Hollywood, working with the Office of War Information during World War II, incorporated other messages in its films in support of the war. In addition to supporting our troops, these messages included incentives to work in factories producing munitions and armaments, compliance with rationing, and buying war bonds.

Although reluctant to become involved in overseas conflicts initially, the American public ultimately supported the war effort in both world wars. The question then arises, what influence did war films of the twentieth century have on public opinion? Did these war films shape public opinion, or reflect existing sentiment? What influence did film have in the pendulum swings of public opinion in support of or opposition to war?

These are questions that have special significance today, especially in light of the dramatic changes in attitudes that have taken place toward our military and our nation’s involvement in conflicts overseas. Veterans returning from World Wars I and II were considered heroes while those who were fortunate enough to return from Vietnam were often met with public contempt.

In the twentieth century, the pendulum of public opinion toward warfare shifted back and forth several times, depending how that particular conflict, the enemy and our own combatants were portrayed. Could it shift once again as America grows tired of another overseas conflict-- the longest in our history? And what role, if any, will mass media, and in particular film, play in that pendulum swing?

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CHAPTER 2

WAR AND MEDIA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

The twentieth century saw the greatest evolution of warfare in the history of mankind.

The development and use of these more powerful weapons during the Technology Wars--the world wars of 1914 to 1918 and 1939 to 1945--produced appalling and previously unimaginable casualties numbering in the tens of millions. Used against military targets as well as population centers, this weaponry produced indescribable destruction that leveled entire cities and left nation-states and even empires in total ruin.

In World War I killing became industrialized when eighteenth century battlefield tactics collided with twentieth century weaponry. Full frontal assault by thousands advancing through devastating artillery barrages and directly into entrenched enemy machine gun fire, along with poison gas, produced casualties in the tens of thousands in a single day. In many campaigns, civilian casualties rivaled those in uniform.

In World War II, the fighting was not limited to two fronts, but took place throughout much of Europe, the Soviet Union, North Africa, and the Pacific. Ships numbering in the thousands, planes in the tens of thousands, and combatants in the millions produced predictable results of death and destruction. Ultimately, a single weapon with the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT leveled two entire enemy cities and brought about the end of the conflict. The atomic age had begun. Warfare had changed forever.

Warfare in the twentieth century also became impersonal. Except in extreme circumstances of close-quarter fighting, combatants no longer engaged an enemy in face-to-face combat. In World War I soldiers became dehumanized and shot at distant targets referred to as

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“them” rather than other human beings. In World War II, for the first time in history, sea battles were fought without ships firing upon each other or even within sight of each other, but in the air from distant aircraft carriers (Battle of the Coral Sea, May 1942). German rockets were randomly fired at cities across the English Channel exacting heavy casualties and terrorizing British civilian populations.

The airplane, used initially for observation and later for limited often ineffective bombing in the first world war, played a major role in the second world conflict. Day and night high- altitude carpet bombing by hundreds of planes in a single mission laid waste to entire cities.

Incendiary bombs created raging firestorms so intense they created their own weather systems.

Tens of thousands died.

The twentieth century also saw the advent of Total War--where all industrial and population resources are used in an effort to achieve victory--at any price. However as civilians and industry became engaged in the war effort, they also became targets. Planes dropped thousands of tons of bombs on industrial complexes and population centers in order to deprive the enemy of war materiel.

Attitudes and public perceptions toward war, as reflected in film, changed as dramatically as warfare itself in the twentieth century--back and forth as if on a pendulum. Motion pictures produced immediately after World War I showed the horror and brutality and absurdity of war.

Those produced during and immediately after World War II showed the gallantry and heroics of

American forces fighting for a noble cause, and those on the home front supporting the war effort. Films produced in the aftermath of the Vietnam War once again reverted to the brutality of war, casualties, and the futility of fighting for a lost cause.

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Hollywood played a major role and its leading stars fulfilled critical functions during both world wars. Film stars helped sell hundreds of millions of dollars of war bonds. In World

War II, numerous movie stars enlisted and actually served in combat operations; others put on shows for the troops overseas to boost morale, while other actors made movies in support of the war effort.

Film was used extensively as a propaganda tool in both world wars, especially in World

War II. Movies such as Since You Went Away contained messages to support our troops and the war effort by working in wartime industries, rationing and recycling, and buying war bonds. Yet another message presented in the same film was that many servicemen would not return.

Films of the early 1940s represented a strict sense of nationalism, the American cause as just and its armed forces as heroic, fighting not only to protect America but to save other peoples of the world from tyranny. The enemy, on the other hand, was depicted as evil, treacherous and capable of inhumane acts, unwilling to abide by the rules of war as set forth in the Geneva

Conventions.

Vietnam was an entirely different type of conflict and was presented in a different perspective. Where America responded to an unprovoked, surprise attack in World War II,

Vietnam was instead initially portrayed as America helping a weaker nation determine its own destiny, to stop the spread of Communism. There were also no massive overnight enlistments as in WWII, rather an escalation of combat forces, many of them unwilling draftees.

Coverage of the conflicts also changed during the century. During World War I, due to extreme censorship, there was virtually no coverage, save for the listings of casualties in newspapers. Bad news was seldom reported while good news was frequently exaggerated. News of battles during World War II took one to two weeks to hit the movie theater newsreels, and it

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was not until midway in the war that images of war dead were shown. During the Vietnam Era, movie theatre newsreels had disappeared, replaced by nightly television reports that showed the intensity of battle, atrocities on both sides, and casualties. Reporters and photographers were often embedded with combat units and as such there was limited censorship.

Because of television, Vietnam had more immediacy than previous conflicts. It was the first “living room war” with footage of battles, severely wounded and dying soldiers, along with widespread destruction broadcast on the evening news (Berinsky 39).

Vietnam also produced deep divisions in the American fabric. As the war dragged on and casualties mounted, support for the war waned. More American men, and even women, were returning home in coffins--typically 300 or more each week. Some refused military service and left the country rather than face the possibility of being maimed or killed in an unpopular war half a world away. Anti-war demonstrations erupted across the country growing in number and intensity. Many who were previously indifferent toward the war joined the ranks of those opposed to it. Ultimately, in August 1967, with mounting casualties and no end to the conflict in sight, polls showed the majority of Americans opposed the war and wanted it to end. Walter

Cronkite, “the most trusted man in America,” finally editorialized during his news broadcast one evening and voiced his support for a negotiated settlement. That in turn cost Lyndon Johnson the presidency and ultimately led to an ignominious withdrawal of forces by the United States. Films of the Vietnam conflict, like those of World War I, reflect the carnage and the absurdity of the conflict. The pendulum had swung back again.

Following Desert Storm, the pendulum of public opinion shifted and support for the military was once again high. Although no major films were produced during the actual conflict, partly because it was so short-lived, television once again played an important role in keeping the

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public informed and maintaining public support. Media embedded with American combat forces showed overwhelming battlefield victories. This, along with the fact the war lasted a mere 100 hours and there were only 151 American deaths, most of them non-combat related, contributed to public support which remained high. Positive sentiment was also evident in the public jubilation at victory parades held throughout America to honor returning troops. Just as crowds had cheered the departing troops in World War I, celebrations across America welcomed home the conquering heroes of Desert Storm--partly to celebrate a quick, easy victory, but also to compensate for the treatment of Vietnam-era vets who now marched in faded uniforms at the front of many of these welcome home parades they had originally been denied. Their time for recognition, and parades, in large cities and small towns across America had finally come.

Film during the First World War was in its infancy; thus there is limited footage of actual combat. There are also few films about The Great War compared with other subsequent conflicts, especially World War II. One film, however, made shortly after The Armistice of 1918 set a standard for showing the folly and futility of war. All Quiet on the Western Front depicts the horror of war and the dramatic change in attitudes from the onset to the conclusion. Because war on such a scale had never before been experienced, the previously unimaginable carnage and devastation came as a crushing shock. Many vowed that such an atrocity would never again happen--a promise that would prove to be short lived.

Because America had been attacked at the beginning of World War II and was literally forced into a declaration of war with a pronouncement of war by another belligerent (Germany) a day later, public sentiment supported the war effort. Also, because the American mainland and its cities were not under constant bombardment, as was much of Europe and ultimately the

Japanese home islands, life continued with more normalcy, albeit with a certain degree of

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hardship and sacrifice such as rationing, than elsewhere in the world. These factors also contributed to a lack of condemnation of the war. Much of this positive public sentiment was also attributable to the portrayal of the American fighting man in the movies of the early and mid-1940s, seen as brave and heroic. War, especially in film, was seen as justified, and necessary to rid the world of evil.

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CHAPTER 3

WORLD WAR I

World War I was the most cataclysmic event of the early twentieth century. It was an unnecessary war begun by a radical and misguided sense of nationalism, fueled by an escalating arms race and nation alliances. It was also commanded by incompetent military and political leadership and executed with horribly outdated battle tactics. It was the first industrialized war in which weapons technology far exceeded battlefield tactics. In the end it was costly beyond comprehension in lives lost, devastated cities and even vanquished empires. It was mankind’s first encounter with Total War, a conflict that commits the economic, industrial and population assets of an entire nation in an attempt to attain victory--at any cost.

War in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a means by which nations settled diplomatic disputes. As Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz stated in Vom Kriege (On

War), “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” More importantly, war was looked upon as a rite of passage for the individual. It was honorable, seen as a means of cleansing and achieving manhood. There was glory and honor in war.

By 1905 it was readily apparent that war was on the horizon. The European powers had been engaged in massive military buildups since The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 when victorious German troops rode through the Arc de Triomphe. In his 1910 book, Germany and the

Next War, General von Bernhardi wrote “nations must progress or decay … there can be no standing still, and Germany must choose world power or downfall.” He concluded by saying,

“Conquest thus becomes a law of necessity” and (thus) “war was a biological necessity”

(Tuchman 13). However, in France, Norman Angell’s book, The Great Illusion, presented the

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argument, ultimately proven after The Great War, that victors and vanquished alike would suffer, that war had finally become unprofitable, “therefore no nation would be so foolish as to start one” (Tuchman 13). But war did start in the aftermath of alliances, military buildups, and

Germany touting for years how it would invade France by advancing through neutral Belgium.

Europe in 1914 was a powder keg. The spark that ignited the fuse to the conflict was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, of the Hapsburg Dynasty (the

Austrian-Hungarian Empire) by Gavrilo Princip, a member of The Black Hand, a Serbian

Nationalist terrorist group. As a result, Austria made impossible demands upon Serbia and when those demands could not be met, immediately declared war. Russia, in an alliance with Serbia, declared war on Austria. Following the terms of their alliances, France, Germany, and England mobilized their forces and fell into line with their own declarations of war. Within days, five million Germans, four million French, and one million British forces marched off to war to the wild cheers of their respective citizenry. Once the troop trains were in motion, the march to war could not be stopped.

Hubris to Horror

None of the combatants were prepared for an extended conflict or thought the war would last very long. Germany believed it would be no more than four months as that was the extent of its war materiel. Many Russian officers packed their dress white uniforms for the victory parades that would surely follow within weeks, if not days. French troops went to war in red pantaloons and plumes in their hats, their sabers held high. However as troops in their clean, pressed uniforms arrived at the battlefields the reality of industrialized killing quickly set in. No one foresaw the years of carnage that lay ahead, the suffering, the casualties and devastation it would require for all sides to finally say, “Enough.”

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What began with grandiose plans for rapid conquest quickly turned to stalemate. The

German advance, following Chief of Staff Count Alfred von Schlieffen’s plan to invade France through neutral Belgium and encircle French troops in a pincer movement before Russia could fully mobilize its forces, was halted by the British Expeditionary Force at Lorraine. (England was a guarantor of Belgium’s neutrality--another alliance.) Their advance stopped in its tracks, the Germans withdrew to the Aisne and dug in. Trench warfare had begun.

Previous wars had normally been confined to a single battlefield. Opposing forces would assemble in formations based on the Greek phalanx and march toward each other, swords and spears at the ready. Upon command, in more modern times, the ranks would stop and fire at the advancing foe. A combatant armed with a musket could fire, at most, three rounds per minute.

An infantryman with a rifle could fire up to fifteen rounds per minute. In 1914, a three-man machine gun crew could fire 600 rounds per minute. Thus massed attack across no-man’s land with its machine gun fire and artillery shells exploding everywhere had both terrifying and devastating results. Hundreds of combatants were literally ripped apart in a matter of minutes, tens of thousands in a single day--of which there were many. Across the front, barbed wire stretched across a no-man’s land with defensive trenches on either side. The glory of battle had quickly been replaced by the grim realities of modern warfare.

On the extended front, advances in weapons technology far outpaced battlefield tactics.

The Allies employed Napoleonic strategies espoused by nineteenth century military strategist

Baron Henri de Jomini of “rapid movement, covering fire, advancing troops and a final bayonet charge.” Yet in spite of initial horrendous losses by machine gun fire, military planners refused to alter long-held procedures of the full frontal assault.

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Outdated tactics and inept, obstinate commanders resulted in catastrophic losses. At the

Battle of the Somme, 50,000 artillery gunners fired a million and a half rounds in an eight-day period before a major infantry assault. The shells had a penetrating effect to fifteen feet; the

Germans had dug in to twenty two feet with reinforced concrete bunkers. When the cannon fire subsided, the Germans emerged from their bunkers, set up their machine guns and fired at

120,000 British troops marching “at a steady, easy pace” into the gun placements. Twenty-two thousand died on the first day.

The killing was just as senseless in other battles. The First Battle of Ypres became The

Kindermord bei Ypren--the Massacre of the Innocents--as Germany threw fresh, untrained recruits against the British and lost 50,000. Although it held no strategic importance for either side, the historic French fort at Verdun was stubbornly defended by General Henri-Philippe

Pétain. After ten months of fighting, French losses were 360,000. German, 400,000.

At Gallipoli, Anzac forces valiantly tried to secure a narrow spit of beachhead as Turkish forces rained down machine gun fire from rock outcroppings above. After 200,000 casualties, the sea ran red with blood. Only then was a withdrawal ordered.

War was no longer fought with honor at close quarters. The machine gun became the mechanized instrument of war--indiscriminate in its killing against advancing troops. Other weapons contributed to the carnage. Large guns such as Germany’s 42cm howitzers could devastate trenches and even entire forts. The Paris-Geschultz Gun could propel a shell 120 kilometers--a distance that took three and a half minutes from muzzle to impact. Firing from thousands of artillery pieces along the front was often intense and continuous. During the nineteen-day British bombardment at Third Ypres in 1917, more than 320 train cars of shells were expended.

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Then there was the gas, first used by the Germans at Ypres in 1915 despite the Hague

Conventions that outlawed its use. The gas mask made chlorine gas ineffective, so it was replaced by phosgene and ultimately mustard gas--invisible and deadly, and without warning.

Other offensive weapons were introduced as the war dragged on. The tank, initially introduced in 1916 with disappointing results, was eventually used to overcome obstacles of wire and trenches. The airplane originally used for reconnaissance was later employed to support ground forces and ultimately for bombing military and even civilian targets. Germany used the submarine in an attempt to halt the flow of supplies to the Allies (470 ships lost in three months in 1917). However this unrestricted U-boat warfare and attacks on shipping would backfire for

Germany as it induced America to finally join the effort on the side of the Allies in 1917.

On the battlefield, territory was continuously traded back and forth, but with little progress. Except for the German offensive in the spring of 1918, in four years of war the lines on the Western Front moved less than ten miles in either direction, in some areas less than 400 yards. Yet losses continued to mount. Postings in English newspapers of those killed in battle at one point surpassed 120 pages. By the end of 1915 there were 1.9 million French casualties, one third of them fatalities. German battlefield losses were 1.2 million in 1916 alone. In just the first two major offensives of 1918, Britain sustained 240,000 casualties. France lost 92,000, Germany another 348,000. In spite of its late entry into the war, America would lose nearly 117,000 during the conflict.

As the war dragged on with no end in sight, shortages of civilian goods became rampant.

Everything from fuel to metals to fabrics was rationed. In Germany, church bells that had rung in small villages for 300 years were and melted down to make munitions. Even metal pipes were dug up from under the streets. Civilians were subjected to long work-days in war factories to

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produce the armaments, uniforms and supplies needed on the battlefield, often at the expense of providing the essentials the civilian population needed. In Germany, and especially Russia, there were critical shortages of bread. Turnips became the common staple.

As hardships escalated, public discontent with the war and with governments intensified.

Those who had cheered their soldiers off to a grand campaign, as well as soldiers in the trenches, now wanted an end to the madness. Demonstrations and riots erupted throughout much of

Europe. In Germany they were brutally suppressed. In Russia, the masses were ultimately successful in their revolt, overthrowing the czar and ending centuries of Romanov monarchy

Yet even as casualties mounted and the countryside turned into wasteland, all sides felt they had come too far to turn back. Too much had been sacrificed to settle for anything less than total victory. In the end, however, many did.

When the Armistice finally came on November 11, 1918, and the guns fell silent, ten million men in uniform lay dead--an entire generation of scholars and artists, teachers and doctors was gone. Many of those who did survive were so physically and mentally scarred with the horror of war they were but former shadows of their prior selves.

But the casualties were not just those in uniform. There were an estimated additional ten million civilian dead. Cities lay in ruin. Three world empires--the Austrian, Russian, and

German--were gone. Another, the Ottoman, would soon disappear. The British Empire had been severely crippled, ill-equipped to fight the next global conflict a mere two decades later. The old world order had disappeared forever.

In just over four years, the Great War had totally changed the concept of glory and heroics in battle. The war to end all wars, the war that had begun amidst cheers and with an air of

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arrogance, had deteriorated to one of despair, and finally concluded with an abhorrence of warfare.

The Armistice that finally came in November 1918 silenced the cannons, but also presented a false hope for the future. The final Treaty of Versailles was not drafted so much as to end the conflict and bring about peace, but to punish Germany, laying all blame on it and demanding compensation for all losses including pensions for servicemen. The Versailles Treaty was not the final chapter in a conflict, but merely the prologue for the next one. The treaty would emerge a mere twenty years later as an impetus for revenge, and once again Europe would be ravaged by another global conflict--this time on an even greater scale and with even more carnage and devastation.

The Advent of War in Cinema

Propaganda to support of the war effort during both world wars was critical. In subsequent wars, including Vietnam and Desert Storm, reporters were actually embedded with combat troops and regularly filed dispatches from the front. That was not the case in World War

I where reporters were banned from the front lines. News during The Great War came from military operatives, was tightly controlled, and highly slanted, if not outright false. Any good news was grossly exaggerated and bad news was downplayed or even banned outright by censorship. Authorities claimed it was critical to maintain morale and that victory was always within reach.

Cinema was in its infancy During World War I, but with the growth of silent movies came the beginning of the propaganda war film. In April of 1913, President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order creating the Committee on Public Information, the CPI. Headed by

George Creel, a former newspaper editor, the CPI came to be known as the Creel Committee and

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was tasked with providing patriotic information to every person in the land. Some 75,000 volunteers were trained to give four-minute presentations on supporting the war effort to include registering for the draft, rationing, buying war bonds and even performing Red Cross volunteer work. They spoke at movie theaters across the country where it required four minutes to change movie reels. They also spoke at churches and lodges, union halls, and anywhere there was a public gathering. In addition, the Creel Committee issued three feature length propaganda films during the Great War--Pershing’s Crusaders (May 1918), America’s Answer (to the Hun)

(August 1918), and Under Four Flags (November 1918) (Doherty 89). Germany, and specifically, “The Hun,” was already perfidiously depicted in other mass media as the common enemy. As such, the Hun also became the target of propaganda films including Cecil B. De

Mille’s Joan the Woman, The Little American and Till I Come Back to You. “All three motion pictures depicted the Huns as barbaric, uncivilized and depraved men who only wanted to violate

America’s favorite sweetheart, Mary Pickford” (Doherty 2).

By the time the Armistice took effect on 11 November 1918, ending the greatest conflict man had seen to date, “American audiences had seen dozens of silent propaganda pictures that justified their nation’s intervention into the global conflict” (Doherty 3).

But with The Armistice also came a dramatic change in attitudes. During The Great War silent propaganda films focused on showing the enemy as wanton beasts and extolled the virtues of American involvement. However, by 1925 attitudes toward the conflict had changed, and films began to show the horror of the war. Many post-war films accurately depicted the mood and spirit at the beginning of the conflict when excitement of war was contagious. But they also captured the despair and horror that took its place when the harsh realities of twentieth-century warfare set in.

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Some of the more notable post-WWI films include Wings, directed by William Wellman in 1927; Howard Hughes’ 1930 attempt to outdo Wellman in his production of Hell’s Angels in

1930; and A Farewell to Arms with Gary Cooper in 1932. Also, The Lost Patrol in 1934 by noted western movie director, John Ford; The Road to Glory by Howard Hawks in 1936; and finally the film that was banned by Nazi party leader, Joseph Goebbels, the 1937 production of La

Grande Illusion by French director, Jean Renoir--all pictures done by directors who would achieve great fame in subsequent years.

One of the earliest films of World War I and the last war film of the silent era is The Big

Parade by King Vidor made in 1925, just seven years after The Armistice. Written by Harry

Behn from a story by Laurence Stallings who based his wartime writings on actual experiences as a US Marine in France, it also offers very accurate depictions of battle to include gas attacks.

Although intertwined with a love story, it is the narrative of three soldiers from different backgrounds. Two of them are killed and one is badly wounded, not once but twice, attempting to save his buddy. He returns home an amputee--his life greatly altered by the war. The Big

Parade is considered by many to be one of the greatest and most accurate of war films of the era and was the first major success of the newly formed MGM Studios.

Another film, although made nearly five decades after the war that also realistically portrays the absurdity of World War I is Stanly Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. The film is based upon the 1930 novel by Humphrey Cobb that documented actual events of the war. It is the story of a

French general’s quest for a second star by ordering an attack against heavily fortified German positions in spite of the fact casualties are projected to exceed fifty per cent. When some French soldiers refuse to leave their trenches he orders his own artillery to open fire on them, which the artillery captain refuses to do without written authorization. When the attack fails, and French

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soldiers retreat, he orders 100 of them to be court-martialed and executed for cowardice, a number that is later reduced to three--one from each company. This, he believes, will serve as an example to others and will instill a renewed fighting spirit in the men. The three are executed, despite the pleas for mercy by their defender, played by Kirk Douglas, who immediately afterwards receives orders to return to the front lines with his men.

The film demonstrates French Chief of Staff General Ferdinand Foch’s strongly held idea that victory could only be achieved by full frontal assault and the failure to comprehend the absurdity of employing centuries-old tactics of ground advance against twentieth century weaponry--throwing thousands of men against entrenched machine guns. Using soldiers as pawns in their game of war, cost tens of thousands of lives each in a series of attacks and counterattacks throughout the more than four long years of war.

Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) is another film of World War I, made by a French production company and released by Sony Classic Pictures nearly a century after the great conflict. While it also depicts the ravages of war, it is one film of the conflict that offers a brief glimpse of humanity amidst the insane killing. The story is about the brief truce along sections of the Western Front during Christmas 1914 when soldiers sang Christmas carols and actually left their trenches, ventured out into no-man’s land and exchanged gifts with enemy troops followed by a game of soccer. While the film takes great liberties, the event it depicts is part of documented history. It was, unfortunately, a truce that would occur only once in the four years of warfare.

The film begins as a priest and altar boy in Scotland are preparing for mass when another lad rushes in and excitedly proclaims that war has been declared. The two boys rush out as one,

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caught up on the moment, excitedly says, “At last something’s happenin’ in our lives” (Joyeux

Noel). Foreshadowing dark times to come, the candles are all suddenly blown out.

Soon the lads find themselves in the trenches enduring endless artillery bombardment, their excitement now transformed into despair. Charges against the enemy result only in massacre. When one is killed, his friend refuses to leave him, and later is found clutching the frozen corpse.

Christmas Eve, 1914, the Germans reluctantly permit Anna Sörensen, a well-known opera singer, to entertain the men at the front where her lover, Nikolaus Sprink, another famous performer, is stationed. As Sprink sings a carol for the German troops in the trench, his a cappella singing is rejoined in accompaniment by the soft playing of bagpipes across no-man’s land. Other pipes and other voices join in. Sprink emerges from the German trench, a small lighted Christmas tree held high. Ultimately all the men leave their trenches and gather on the once-deadly battleground where they exchange English biscuits (cookies), German chocolates, and French champagne. They view pictures of each other’s families. The Scottish priest performs a very moving mass, with combatants of all sides sitting together.

The next day the three commanders meet and agree to extend the truce in order to bury their dead. Later, the German officer informs them of a scheduled bombardment. “Our artillery will shell you in ten minutes. I suggest you come shelter in my trench.” As German shells rain down on the French lines, all three sides are huddled together in the German trenches. The

French then persuade the Germans to take shelter in their trenches as French artillery are sure to respond to the German barrage--which they do.

As word gets out of the informal truce, the Scottish priest is severely reprimanded by his bishop and removed from service. The French unit is dispersed to other units along the front and

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its commander, a young lieutenant, reassigned to Verdun as punishment by his own father, a

French general. (Verdun is where 360,000 French were killed defending a fort with no strategic value.) The German forces are shipped to the Eastern Front. As the train moves eastward the men inside the closed boxcars are singing the carol they learned from the Scots during their few hours of regained humanity.

By order of higher command, the Christmas Truce of 1914 was never to be repeated during the remaining years of carnage and war. Only the shelling and killing would continue.

The film that is described as the most accurate portrayal of the patriotic fervor that prompted so many to march off to war, as well as the brutality and slaughter of machine guns, artillery and trench warfare of World War I is Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front.

Based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque, a German soldier who survived the carnage, the film version, with screenplay by George Abbott, follows the exploits of Paul Bäumer and his classmates, literally hypnotized by their college instructor and goaded into enlistment. First they endure basic training under the tutelage of a brutal sergeant, and then as they experience death on the front lines.

All Quiet on the Western Front begins with the prologue that also opened Remarque’s book: “This story is neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war” (All Quiet on the Western Front).

The first scenes are of German soldiers, the ubiquitous spikes on their helmets, marching off to war amidst the cheers of flag-waving crowds throwing flowers in their path. The camera pulls back into a classroom where Professor Kantorek lectures several boys about nationalism

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and the glory of war. He states they must “give every ounce of strength to win victory before the end of the year,” and that this “will be a quick war with few losses.” He preaches with great intensity of the “honor of wearing a uniform,” and the “adulation of heroes” in such a noble quest as fighting and dying for the fatherland. His elation is heightened as the boys are caught up in his fervor and individually stand and proclaim they will fight. They march about the classroom and ultimately out the door singing “Das Deutschlandlied,” joining the uniformed troops on their way to war.

At the front the “honor of wearing a uniform” as proclaimed by their professor is quickly replaced by the horror and insanity of war. Allied forces charge the German lines directly into machine gun fire amidst exploding artillery shells. It appears all will be killed, yet miraculously some reach the German trenches where hand-to-hand combat breaks out. Ultimately, the

Germans retreat, only to turn and counterattack into machine guns now turned in the opposite direction by Allied forces who now occupy the German trenches. The scene reinforces the fact that lines along the entire Western Front moved but yards at a time, and but a mere 10 miles during four years of fighting.

At dinner the men start talking how the war stated. “The English must have started it,” says one. However, at this point no one really knows how it started; they only care how it will end. “I don’t want war. They don’t want war ... We didn’t want it. The English didn’t want it, and here we are, fighting.” The statement that summarizes the insanity of it all and the inability to comprehend how it started comes when one of them says, “It’s a kind of fever. No one wants it in particular; then all at once, there it is.”

Battlefield losses mount in the company, reducing its number from 160 to 80, then 32, and finally to a few friends. Paul, in the midst of yet another assault in madness toward the

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enemy lines, finds himself in a shell crater. A Frenchman also caught up in the back and forth assault and retreat lands in the hole with him. Paul immediately stabs the man who dies slowly.

Searching his pocket and wallet, Paul finds a picture of the man’s family, then realizing his loss of humanity, tries to save him. “Oh God, why did they do this to us?”

The end of the war is now near. Most of Paul’s comrades are dead. Rumors of an armistice are rampant. Paul wonders how he will be able to survive in peacetime; all he has known is war and death. Then, in a field of death, he sees a hint of beauty and peace--a butterfly just out of reach beyond the sandbags. As Paul attempts to reach over the sandbags to the butterfly, a sniper’s bullet finds its mark. While the book describes a final look of peace on his face, Milestone chose to depict Paul’s death with the sound of a shot and a close up of Paul’s outstretched hand going limp just out of reach of the butterfly. Just as he tried to recapture a small part of his humanity, he lost his life to the insanity of the war. Paul, like his comrades, had not found the glory of war and “adulation of heroes” that Professor Kantorek described, only the experience of “dying for the Fatherland.”

The film closes with a series of flashbacks of all the students in uniform marching off to war. Each in turn looks back at the camera, one final look back at life, their innocence, and a world they left behind--a world that was now gone forever.

All Quiet on the Western Front was the first anti-war film following the advent of sound in motion pictures and was awarded three Academy Awards including best picture.

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The Pendulum Shift

World War I was described “as an epic of senseless violence committed toward no identifiable purpose” (Jennings, Brewster 238).

The films about WWI depicted the futility of advancing across no-man’s land into machine gun fire with artillery raining down in misguided attempts to push an entrenched army back. The films also portrayed the overblown sense of nationalism and the belief that there was glory and honor in dying for one’s country, when in reality there was only death and destruction in a war that should never have been fought--certainly not with the outdated battlefield tactics that were regularly employed against such deadly weaponry.

Following the release of the various anti-war films, public opinion toward the war shifted. Polls taken in the 1930s showed that Americans felt it had been a mistake to enter the war, that it had been a tremendous waste and carried too great a cost in American lives and treasure. American sentiment dictated that the horrors of war would not soon be relived. As

Thomas Doherty writes, “the retrospective Great War films produced prior to World War II was elegiac in tone, pacifist in purpose, and cynical in perspective” (Doherty 91-92).

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CHAPTER 4

WORLD WAR II

Nationalism and Forgotten Horrors

World War I had begun with crowds caught up in nationalist fervor cheering wildly as soldiers marched off in their fresh uniforms to the glory of battle. It ended with the stark reality of carnage and death, cities in ruin, and graves, marked and unmarked, of millions. Yet barely two decades after The Armistice, the memories and images of the conflict that had inflicted such casualties, such destruction, somehow faded to be replaced by renewed visions of glory in war.

Former ABC newsman, Peter Jennings, and co-author Todd Brewster summed up the shift in attitude in their work, The Century, by writing:

Knowledge of The Great War may have tempered the Second World War soldier’s

enthusiasm for battle, but it did not remove it completely. War is funny that way. The

horror fades, recast by memory into the adventurous anecdote or tidied up in the heroic

narratives of literature (and, now, the action-packed Error Flynn film). For too many of

the men who had fought and survived the First War, battle was the one event that had

given their Depression-filled lives meaning, and to their children, Dad’s tragic tales,

honed and shaped over the years, had begun to sound, if nothing else, like a life

experienced more fully than their own, a vitality to aspire to. War was a horror, yes, but,

oh, to have witnessed such horror! (Jennings and Brewster 247)

In the European Theatre the conflict that had destroyed empires and changed the world forever was replaced once again by nationalistic fervor and dreams of world conquest. The horror of war, of conflict engulfing nations had been forgotten. As Thomas Doherty writes in

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Projections of War, “The Great War was seldom a preferred subject for film treatment much less the direct celebration later engendered by the Second World War. The carnage was so brutal and senseless, the outcome so shattering and disorienting, that it resisted celluloid rehabilitation”

(Doherty 88-89).

While the first world conflict arose primarily because of nation-alliances and a misguided belief in the glory of battle, the second global conflict came as a result of territorial expansions of three nations--Germany, Japan, and Italy--advocated by militarists and persuasive madmen who had seized power.

In Japan, the political leadership was now dominated by the military with Hideki Tojo, a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, as Prime Minister. Following years of industrialization and a massive arms build-up, the Empire of Japan emerged from the cocoon of a feudal state to become an industrial and military power. In order to fuel its insatiable hunger for natural resources needed for further growth, the Imperial Japanese Army, against the orders of The

Emperor, invaded Manchuria in September 1931. In a matter of days, all along a nearly 700-mile line, cities fell like dominoes. Next was the invasion of China in July 1937, followed by the conquest of Indo-China and finally, British Malaya and Dutch Indonesia with its rubber and oil in December 1941. A spirit of invincibility, along with a renewed reverence for its emperor, now swept over Japan.

In Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, rhetoric of national supremacy and of retaking their rightful place in the world stirred crowds at massive rallies to fever pitch. Once again, the two nations embarked on a massive arms build-up in violation of signed treaties. They signed new agreements of mutual assistance with one another. They launched armadas of warships and

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aircraft numbering in the thousands. And once again crowds cheered as uniformed troops and columns of tanks and artillery passed by bound for intended glory.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini promised his people a rebirth of the glory that was once

Rome and domination of the Mediterranean. Following the Abyssinia Crisis of 1934, and knowing the League of Nations lacked the power or the will to stop him, he dispatched his armies south to North Africa. Armed with spears and vintage rifles, the Ethiopian cavalry was no match against aerial bombardment and artillery barrage.

In Germany, Adolph Hitler rekindled patriotic fervor and ideas of nationalist supremacy with fiery oratory and massive rallies. This was supplemented in part by what has been described as the greatest propaganda film ever produced, Triumph des Willens or Triumph of the Will, produced, directed, edited, and co-written by Leni Reifenstahl. The highlight of the film, commissioned by Hitler, was the 1934 Nazi Party Congress gathering in Nuremburg attended by

700,000 marching and cheering Nazi supporters.

After building up his military from three regiments--as stipulated in the Treaty of

Versailles--to thirty-eight divisions, Hitler seized The Rhineland, Sudetenland, Anschuluss, and other territories Germany had surrendered following its ignominious defeat in the First World

War. A year after Mussolini’s incursion into North Africa with no repercussions, Hitler dispatched his Stuka bombers in support of the rebels in the Spanish Civil War--a practice run for the Nazi attack on Poland that would come a mere three years later. On September 1, 1939, he launched the Blitzkreig attack--Lightning War. Again, cavalry and lances were no match for

Stuka dive bombers, and Poland fell in a matter of days. After the capitulation of France in June of 1940, he annexed Alsace-Lorraine. Then in June 1941, despite the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of non-aggression signed in 1939, he turned eastward, and attacked the Soviet Union. There the

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Wehrmacht encountered two enemies--the dogged resistance of the Soviet army and the Russian winter.

Despite the military expansion and conquests of weaker nations by the Rome-Berlin-

Tokyo Axis, the United States maintained its spirit of isolationism and stayed out of the conflict, even though it provided aid to the besieged Soviets and tiny England, now engaged in the war with Nazi Germany. Most Americans wanted no part of “that European conflict.” The war films produced in the 1920s and 30s that depicted the horror, brutality and futility of war fueled that spirit of isolationism. The nation would not, and could not become embroiled in another war overseas.

That abruptly changed on December 7, 1941, with the Japanese surprise attack on the

American fleet based at Pearl Harbor. Immediately, a renewed sense of patriotism swept across the country as isolationists transformed into nationalists.

The next day, the American president proclaimed a “state of war has existed between the

United States and the Japanese Empire.” But for a single dissenting vote cast by Congresswoman

Jeanette Rankin, the vote for war with Japan was unanimous. Days later, following declarations of war by both Germany and Italy, demonstrating American solidarity but in line with her beliefs, she voted “present” for war against Nazi Germany.

At the onset, the United States was ill-prepared for war. Still trying to recover from the

Great Depression, America had a greatly reduced Navy and only the seventeenth largest army in the world, one poorly equipped at that. However, World War II quickly became a unified national effort. Across the country, lines at recruiting stations immediately formed around the block as thousands volunteered for military service. Millions of others soon followed after receiving their draft notices. At the height of the war, 12 million were in uniform; another 15.3

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million supported the war effort by working in factories providing armaments and other war materiel.

While Germany, Italy, and Japan had been building their armies and producing armaments for years to support their conquests of Europe, North Africa, and the Far East,

America had been manufacturing cars and refrigerators and sewing machines. Now with a war on, manufacturing in America converted, almost overnight, from producing consumer goods to turning out planes and tanks and ships. Factories that had produced sewing machines now turned out machine guns. A corset company made grenade belts. Tanks and jeeps rolled off assembly lines that had previously produced Chryslers. The car company also produced 60,000 Bofors

40- millimeter cannons while other automakers such as Hudson and General Motors produced

124,735 Oerlikon cannons that fired 450 seven-inch shells per minute and were used against

Kamikaze attacks (National Museum of the Pacific War).

Shipyards also went into overtime. Cargo ships that had previously required a year for construction were now built and launched in just seventeen days. Henry J. Kaiser revolutionized his shipyards by constructing ships in sections and then welding them together, ultimately launching a new Liberty ship at the rate of one a day. Bombers rolled off the lines in Washington

State and southern California seemingly at the rate cars had rolled off the lines in Detroit. At the

Consolidated plant in San Diego by 1943, a B-26 bomber was rolled out every hour, in all nearly eighteen and a half thousand planes. During the war American industry produced, nearly two and a half million military vehicles and 325,000 military aircraft--more than Germany, Japan and

Italy combined.

But the changes were not limited just to the products of the factories and shipyards. The face of the American workforce also changed just as dramatically. As millions of men joined the

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armed services and left for war, women who had previously stayed at home took their place in the workforce and became riveters and welders and assemblers--working in airplane factories, shipyards, and munitions factories. Rosie the Riveter became the icon of the new American worker--the woman. During the war, women in the workforce increased by 37 percent, three fourths of them married. The change in a once serene and stable way of life was dramatic and overnight. Men were on the battlefield and on the ships. Women were in the factories. America was engaged in total war, dedicating all industrial, commercial and human assets to the effort.

On the battlefront World War II started badly for the United States. Enemy victories were overwhelming. Within weeks and even days of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Wake,

Bataan, Corregidor, Manila and all of the Philippines, and even Singapore, pride of the British

Empire in Southeast Asia, fell in rapid succession. As Elmer Davis advised the president, “We could lose this war.”

Something had to be done and done quickly. It wasn’t enough to build up a military and convert peacetime manufacturing from consumer goods to war materiel. Roosevelt had to also reassure the American public that victory could, and ultimately would be achieved. The

American president took the initial step of that reassurance in his Day of Infamy Speech, “With the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph--so help us

God” (Roosevelt).

Winning the Hearts and Minds

At the onset of war the United States government faced several immediate challenges: to quickly build up its military, provide armaments, and instill a patriotic spirit in the American people for their full and unconditional support of the war effort. It turned to American industry

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for war materiel. It turned to Hollywood to help win the hearts and minds of the American people.

In the inter-war years, especially in the 1930s, Hollywood was definitely anti-war and anti-propaganda. The Hays Office, under the direction of film czar William Hays, “regulated the contents of all motion pictures … published page after page of proscribed subject, terms, events, and sounds ... Propaganda, of course, was basically verboten” (Fyne 9).

Joseph Breen, the ultra-conservative head of the Production Code Administration (PCA) suspected that “Jews in Hollywood, chiefly writers, were trying to use the Nazis’ treatment of

Jews to make propaganda pictures” (Koppes and Black 22). Approached by the German consul about Jack Warner’s film, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Breen sent a letter to the producer warning the film “could face difficulties” and risked political censorship at home and abroad. (The film was ultimately banned in Germany, Italy, Spain, and at the behest of Germany, banned in

Ireland, Switzerland, and several Latin American countries. The London censor deleted several scenes.) He reminded Warner that the code specified that the “the history, institutions, prominent people and citizenry of other nations, shall be represented fairly” (Koppes and Black 29). The

Hays office also would not allow Hollywood to make a movie critical of Mussolini. Likewise,

Charlie Chaplin was warned against making The Great Dictator, a film spoofing Hitler,

Mussolini, fascism, and the Nazis. It turned out to be a huge commercial success--Chaplin’s biggest.

Another film made just before the outbreak of the war, Sergeant York, starring Gary

Cooper, is the story of Alvin York, a conscientious objector and incredible marksman who killed several German machine gunners, captured 132 enemy soldiers, and was awarded the

Congressional Medal of Honor in World War I. It was one of the most popular films in the

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summer of 1941 (ultimately the highest grossing film of the year) yet it inflamed isolationists,

Senator Gerald Nye among them, who charged, in a speech broadcast from St. Louis, “movies have ceased to be an instrument of entertainment,” and instead had become agents of propaganda designed “to drug the reason of the American people” and “rouse the war fever in America”

(Koppes and Black 40-41).

That isolationist, anti-war movement came to an abrupt halt with the Japanese attack on

Pearl Harbor. Now, America was at war! Not only were manpower and war materiel needed, but also two types of propaganda. White propaganda would instill a new sense of patriotism and convince the American public to support the war effort with the argument our national survival was at stake. Black propaganda would depict the enemy as “heinous, evil, and not human, (a foe) that would stop at nothing” (National Museum of the Pacific War). These messages would be disseminated through various media to include newspapers, magazines and books, posters, and radio. But in this war another medium would be included in the mix: the movies. The American

President called movies “a necessary and beneficial part of the war effort” (Doherty 134). In the late 1930s and early 40s, more than half the American public went to the movies on a weekly basis. Not only were the movies a pre-eminent entertainment medium, but various newsreels also served as a major source of news and information.

To take advantage of this medium and its vast audience, the Office of War Information

(OWI) was formed, headed by Elmer Davis, a former newspaper man. His mission was to

“coordinate government information activities, and to handle liaison with the press, radio, and motion pictures” (Koppes and Black 59). The OWI issued guidelines and Hollywood films became propaganda tools with a combination of “information, patriotism, and hero-worship”

(Fyne 10). Hollywood was all too eager to oblige. “No other period in cinematic history equaled

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the output of propaganda films produced during World War II. Hollywood’s effort contributed to the nation’s morale by capitalizing on America’s love affair with the movies” (Fyne 13). To improve communication and facilitate government assistance, a liaison office was established in

Hollywood in April 1942, headed by Nelson Poynter, a staunch interventionist and publisher of

The St. Petersburg Times. The question for each film was, “Will this picture help win the war?”

The Hollywood films of the war era, produced in conjunction with the OWI both reflected and inspired the resolve of a nation to fight and sacrifice. War films showed the

American fighting man as heroic, the American cause as just, and victory assured. And for nearly four years, that message would be carried to darkened theatres across the nation. It was this depiction of the American fighting man, workers at home doing their part toward the effort, the portrayal of an insidious enemy that violated all morals and must be defeated at all costs, and the messages of assured victory that permeated the war-era films and helped inspire a nation to achieve final triumph.

However, just as the battlefield changed over time, so did the message of the American war film. The message in early war films was that no one wanted this war, that America had been thrust into it against its will. Once engaged, however, everyone had to do their part-- warriors and civilians alike. As the war progressed, the theme evolved from depicting the reluctant hero to the daring heroics of the American fighting man.

As America went to war on two fronts, there were distinct differences in how the enemy was depicted in film. On the European front the war was against an ideology and its German leadership, while the war in the Pacific was against a nation, Japan. In film, “The Nazi villain appeared as a buffoon, a gangster, or a heel-clicking martinet ... Members of the Third Reich were caricatured as strutting clowns in a manner that seem both callous and macabre” (Fyne 74).

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The Japanese enemy, “because of size, pigmentation, and facial differences, lent itself to caricature” (Fyne 31). The Japanese enemy was shown as buck-toothed, insidious and without conscience. The Jap was “the beast in the jungle.”

Fanned by this portrayal and other propaganda, a sense of outrage against a treacherous and cunning enemy grew. And despite mounting casualties overseas and hardships and shortages at home, these films infused a nation with a sense of moral courage along with a determination to achieve a final victory.

The War in Film: Hollywood Enlists

One of the first films out of Hollywood and made for the sole purpose of recruitment was

To the Shores of Tripoli, produced by 20th Century Fox and directed by H. Bruce Humberstone.

The screenplay by Lamar Trotti, with a story by Steve Fisher, is a typical “boy meets girl, boy falls in love and wins girl” The story set against the backdrop of the US Marine Corps Recruit

Depot (MCRD) at San Diego just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. John Payne plays

Chris Winters, a smart-mouthed college boy sent to the US Marines and drill instructor Dixie

Smith by his father, a former friend of the elder Winters. During his basic training at MCRD

Chris Winters meets the beautiful nurse, Mary Carter, played by Maureen O’Hara. There is not a single frame of combat footage in the film, or even any footage of Marine Corps basic training

(perhaps intentionally so as not to dissuade recruits from enlisting in the Marines) save for some footage of Marines marching in perfect close-order drill, ostensibly to highlight the uniforms and pageantry of the US Marine Corps. In the end, just as Private Winters has had enough of the

Marine Corps and is going to “take that desk job back in Washington,” the news bulletin comes across the radio of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

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Chris jumps out of the car driven by his once again current girlfriend when he sees his unit marching toward their ship (which in San Diego would be a long walk as Naval Base San

Diego is several miles south of the MCRD and the other naval facility, Naval Air Station North

Island, is across the bay on Coronado Island). He falls in step with his former comrades in the parade but is told by Gunnery Sergeant Dixie Smith, Chris’ former nemesis and mentor, that he cannot even get on the ship without a uniform, at which point Chris starts stripping off his civilian suit, throwing his clothes into the cheering crowd while changing into his US Marine

Corps uniform he just happens to have with him in his suitcase. As with Milestone’s classic war epic, it is men in uniform marching off to war as the crowds cheer wildly.

Aboard ship Chris is reunited with his favorite nurse, Mary Carter, as the elder Winters, standing dockside and finally proud of his son, wipes away the tears. The crowds on the dock cheer and the music swells into the “The Marines’ Hymn.”

To the Shores of Tripoli is the original war recruiting film. Already in post-production, its ending was changed just after the attack on Pearl Harbor and before the film was released. The film’s message was join the Marines, march off to war, and make your father proud--and perhaps find love along the way.

The War in the Pacific

One of the early films to highlight the Japanese treachery and illuminate the differences in the two nations was Destination Tokyo, the story of the USS Copperfin under the command of

Captain Cassidy played by Cary Grant. In the spring of 1942, the Copperfin’s mission is to pick up a meteorologist off the Aleutian Islands and deliver him inside Tokyo Bay. He and two others from the sub crew will scout defenses of major industrial centers and take weather reports in advance of the Doolittle Raid.

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Scenes in the film alternate between war action and personal interaction of the crewmembers. Dialogue throughout the film reinforces the point that America is not fighting for its survival, or to preserve freedom, but to stamp out tyranny. Cassidy also reads a letter from his wife, emphasizing the love and families our fighting men will return to when the conflict is over.

Ultimately two Japanese fighters attack the sub while surfaced in the Aleutians and are downed. One enemy pilot bails out and swims to the sub. Mike, a sub crewmember, goes over the side and attempts to pull the man on board, but when his back is turned, the enemy pulls out a knife and fatally stabs him--the only casualty during the entire dangerous mission.

The Greek refuses to attend Mike’s funeral, and when the other crew members berate him for it he explains he cannot attend funerals. He relates the story of his uncle, a teacher of philosophy in Greece, “a real high class guy.”

“So they killed him, them Nazis. They stood him up against a wall, you know why?

Because he had brains. Because everybody got to be their slave and them that won’t, like my uncle, they kill” (Destination Tokyo). At this point he becomes very emotional, and in a deftly crafted script tells his fellow crewmembers, and the audience, that we are not fighting just for our own survival, but for the survival of the world.

So I don’t forget my uncle. I read where an American flyer gets killed and I think of my

uncle. I see pictures of those little Chinese kids getting bombed and I think of my uncle. I

read where a Russian guerilla gets hanged and I think of my uncle. And I see Mike lying

in there dead, from a Jap killer, and I think of my uncle. And I ain’t got no room in here

(thumping his chest) to see one of our guys get buried. Not yet. Not till I’ve done

something to even up the score.

Captain Cassidy talks of the differences between them, the Japanese, and us.

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He tells of Mike getting roller skates for his five-year-old, compared to presents typical

Japanese kids receive. Instead of roller skates, “they get a dagger. At seven, a Jap kid is taking martial arts instruction. At thirteen he can put a machine gun together blindfolded. So that Jap, the one who killed Mike, started twenty years ago to putting a knife in Mike’s back.”

Destination Tokyo, like other early war films, contains a forewarning of the sacrifices ahead. Cassidy continues. “There are lots of Mikes dying right now, and a lot more Mikes will die, until we wipe out a system that puts daggers in the hands of five-year-old children.”

The crew then discuss the lack of basic freedoms in Japan. The meteorologist, who grew up in Japan, tells of a democratic movement in Japan after the last war. “The leaders were assassinated. Starvation is the big stick. They have no unions, no free press. Nothing. They do what they’re told ... They’ve been sold a swindle, and they’ve accepted it.”

The talk now turns to how young girls in Japan are sold to work in factories or even into prostitution, some even as pre-teens. “Females are useful there only to work or have children …

The Japs don’t understand the love we have for our women, they don’t even have a word for it in their language.”

The mission is successful. Intel is gathered from Tokyo Bay and sent back. The final scenes from Destination Tokyo include actual footage of B-25 Mitchell Bombers taking off from the deck of the USS Hornet as they begin the Doolittle Raid on Japan--a daring mission that invigorated American morale in the early dark days of the conflict.

Another early war film intended to instill a fighting spirit and hatred of the enemy, but also to prepare the country for the inevitable casualties to come, was Wake Island. In December

1941, just four days after Pearl Harbor, tiny Wake Island was attacked by a Japanese naval force of three light cruisers, six destroyers, and two patrol boats along with 450 Japanese Imperial

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Forces. Miraculously, the initial attack was repulsed and two Japanese ships were sunk. The 443

US Marines on the island held out for fourteen days against constant bombardment by the

Japanese ships and aerial attack by Japanese fighters and bombers, running out of food, fuel, medical supplies and ultimately ammunition. The final Japanese assault of December 22 was successful and the remaining American forces surrendered, only to be executed by the Japanese in October 1943.

Wake Island, produced by Paramount Pictures in 1943 and directed by John Farrow, is the story of that episode in the war. However, the screenplay by W. R. Burnett and Frank Butler, while drawn from actual records of the United States Marine Corps, has a somewhat different outcome.

A newsreel approach adds stark realism to the film, and with the title crawl at the opening presenting the defenders as heroes, sets the stage for what is to come. The opening narration states that America has long been used to victory, despite some dark hours, and recalls several famous battles, where “small groups of men fought savagely to the death because, in dying, they gave eternal life to the ideas for which they died ... This is the story of the men who defended

Wake Island against the Japanese onslaught, fighting to the last bullet and the last man” (Wake

Island).

Wake Island was a stopover for the Pan Am clipper defended by a small garrison of 443

US Marines armed with rifles and five-inch guns, and a few Grumman aircraft.

The film starred William Bendix, who would make several appearances in films throughout the war. In Wake Island he plays Private Aloysius K. Randall. He represents the typical American fighting man, someone from a working-class background who aspires not to great success or riches, but just to live the American dream--a regular life with his wife and

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family and a good job. Aloysius (the name of Bendix’s character in other war films as well) is called “Smacksie” by his friends. He is about to muster out of the Marine Corps and has a ticket on the next Pan Am Clipper departing the island. Yet, when the Japanese attack comes, he purposely misses his plane, requests to reenlist (which is easily done as his discharge papers were never completed by his commander) and remains with his unit until the island is finally overrun.

Wake Island, like so many other early war films, depicts the Japanese as evil and sinister.

Prior to the attack, a special Japanese envoy arrives at the island on his way to Washington claiming his mission is to deliver a message of peace from his Emperor. He is cartoonishly villainous, with the huge round glasses and extended buck teeth. Through an obviously disingenuous smile he proffers a toast at the evening dinner.

“Gentlemen,” he says grinning with a devilish smile, “lasting peace is my country’s wish to preserve. There have been some small misunderstandings, but it is the Emperor’s desire to show the heart of the Japanese people. He will find no thought of war, but rather a yearning for a lasting peace. I ask you to wish me God speed.” He raises his glass in a toast and flashes the sinister, buck-toothed grin to all gathered in the room.

Americans watching this charade after the actual events of December 1941 were well aware that while the Japanese peace delegation was making their disingenuous overtures before

Secretary of State Cordell Hull in Washington D.C., a Japanese strike force consisting of six aircraft carriers, 342 planes, and other support vessels was steaming toward Pearl Harbor for an unprovoked surprise attack upon the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

This portrayal of an ominous enemy continues throughout the film. In repeated attacks on the island, Japanese pilots turn toward the camera and flash a sinister, evil smile through crooked

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teeth in an overt display of absolute joy in the death and mayhem they are inflicting on a grossly outnumbered defensive force. Several attack scenes in the movie are intercut with actual combat footage, adding to the gritty realism of the film.

In between the attacks, the Americans care for their wounded and bury their dead. At a graveyard ceremony held at night with the silhouette of dozens of crosses in the background,

Major Caton, the Marine commander, reads a Bible verse with the help of a flashlight. “Nearer

My God to Thee” plays softly as background music.

As pages fly off the calendar--an often-used means of depicting the passage of time--a newspaper headline flashes by of Wake Marines repelling the eighth Japanese attack.

Finally, Captain Patrick, the last remaining pilot lands back on the island and tells Caton of enemy transports coming in. He takes to the sky once again against overwhelming odds in a clear suicide mission. Japanese planes get behind his Grumman and open fire. Patrick bails out however one Japanese fighter pilot sees the chute and dives in for the kill. The Japanese pilot flashes his evil grin to the camera as he opens fire with his machine guns killing the defenseless pilot as he slowly descends to earth.

As the Japanese landing craft hit the beaches, enemy troops emerge and overrun the

Americans foxhole by foxhole bayonetting the hapless defenders. As the last gun position is overrun, the film dissolves to shots of hundreds of armed, uniformed American fighting men marching in formation to the strains of the “The Marines’ Hymn.” Revenge is on the way.

The narrator closes the film, driving the point home even further, “These Marines fought a great fight. They wrote history. But this is not the end. There are other Leathernecks, other fighting Americans--140 million of them, whose blood and sweat and fury will exact a just and terrible vengeance” (Wake Island).

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Wake Island showed Americans they were fighting a capable, sinister enemy, and that the road ahead would be tough. On tiny Wake Island, the enemy was victorious against a vastly outnumbered defensive force. Such would not be the case in the next film with William Bendix.

It would show that Americans could be victorious against the odds.

Guadalcanal Diary, produced later in 1943 by 20th Century Fox used a unique and extremely persuasive method to make the cause for war. Rather than rely upon the words of politicians or generals, screenwriter Lamar Trotti used the dialogue of a common soldier huddled with his buddies during an enemy attack where fear and uncertainty about their very survival hang like the dust in the air.

William Bendix plays Corporal Aloysis T. “Taxi” Potts, an older, out-of-shape Marine now engaged in the battle for Guadalcanal. He again is the perfect example of the blue-collar

American who has left family, home, and job to serve his country in time of war. Trapped in a bunker with several others during an especially heavy enemy bombardment, his admission of fear presented in a very low-key demeanor adds to his credibility and likeability. However his resolve, expressed in this same low-key manner, especially at such a time when death is imminent, cannot help but motivate others.

“I’m no hero, I’m just a guy,” he says huddled with several others in the darkened bunker as enemy shells explode all around them outside (Guadalcanal Diary).

I come out here because somebody had to come. I don’t want no medals. I just want to

get this thing over with and go back home. I’m just like everybody else (the key phrase

here) and I’m telling you I don’t like it. Except maybe I guess maybe there’s nothing I

can do about it. I can’t tell them bombs to hit somewhere else. Like I said before, it’s up

to somebody bigger than me, bigger than anybody. What I mean is, I guess it’s up to

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God. And I’m not kidding when I say I sure hope he knows how I feel. I’m not going to

say I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. When you’re

scared like this, the first thing you do is start trying to square things. If I get out of this

alive, I’ll probably go out and do the same things all over again. So what’s the point in

kidding myself.

As the barrage continues and dust fills the air, with shells seeming to explode within feet of their tiny earthen cocoon, he continues. “The only thing I know is, I didn’t ask to get in this spot.” Now there is a pause as a very loud explosion just outside the entryway shakes the earth.

“If we get it, sure looks that way now, well then I only hope He figures we’ve done the best we could and lets it go at that. Maybe this is a funny kind of praying, guys, but it’s what I’m thinking and praying.”

His speech--his prayer--has a chilling effect. It is an admission of fear, a reluctance to be there but a resolve to see it through, and an expression of faith in a higher power who will understand they gave it their best.

Unlike Wake Island where the defenders died to the last man, Taxi Potts and his comrades are victorious. At the end of Guadalcanal Diary US Marines are moving out as US

Army forces are marching in. In a final shot the camera pans to a sign that reads “Tokyo 3380 ½ miles” symbolizing that the goals for victory are now clear and victory is in the future, albeit a far distant future. Nonetheless, “Victory is that-a-way.”

While most Pacific War films were based on actual events and contained combat footage, some films took great liberties in order to present the OWI message. These incorporated just enough of a footnote of history for credibility. Air Force is a film directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Warner Bros. Studios intended to revive sagging American morale so prevalent

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in the early days of World War II. The film follows the exploits of the Mary-Ann, a US Army

Air Corps B-17 bomber and her crew as America transitions from peacetime training to actual wartime bombing missions--all during a single flight. The Mary-Ann is part of a flight of B-17 heavy bombers that depart San Francisco on a peacetime flight on December 6, 1941. Nearing

Hawaii, they hear radio transmissions of Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field under attack by

Japanese planes. Once over the island they stare in disbelief at the destruction below them.

Flying without ammunition, and low on fuel, they are forced to land amidst the total devastation and chaos. The crew is immediately ordered to fly on to Clark Field in the Philippines to help repel Japanese forces there with a fueling stop at Wake Island where US Marines are positioned to defend the island against imminent enemy attack.

On the way to the Philippines the plane is severely damaged by enemy fire and its captain mortally wounded. With the Japanese takeover there imminent, command orders the remaining five B-17s burned. However, the crew has been cannibalizing parts from the other bombers in order to repair the Mary-Ann. They complete the repairs and refuel the Mary-Ann by means of a bucket brigade just as Japanese forces close in and attack the airfield. Flying to safe harbor in

Australia they spot a Japanese invasion fleet and radio in the coordinates. Fighters and bombers from other airfields converge on the Japanese fleet and attack, sinking several ships and inflicting heavy damage on others. Now at the controls of the Mary-Ann is a fighter pilot who previously expressed a disdain for such aircraft and was catching a lift when suddenly thrust into the captain’s seat of a bomber. However, when he and his crew sink a Japanese destroyer and bomb a carrier, his attitude toward bombers changes.

Despite incorporating actual combat footage, including aerial footage of B-17s, the film has numerous flaws. Models of bombers and Japanese ships are severely lacking in realism and

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literally disintegrate when hit. The timeline is also inconsistent with history. In the film, the raid on the enemy fleet happens within days of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines

(December 7 and 8 respectively). However, there were no major attacks on Japanese naval forces in December 1941. The only Allied action against a Japanese fleet in the region was the Battle of the Java Sea on February 17, 1942, which met with disastrous results for the Allies. A subsequent engagement, the Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942, was also a tactical victory for Japanese forces with the loss of a single light carrier, Shoho, but a strategic victory for the

Allies as it prevented the Japanese from landing an invasion force at Port Moresby, Papua New

Guinea.

Still, the film serves its intended purpose of showing the valiant American fighting man going several days without sleep in order to deliver war assets half a world away and then effectively engaging the enemy through perseverance and innovation. It was a cinematic morale booster even though far from accurate in depicting actual events.

One of the better-known films of the war and one based on actual events was Thirty

Seconds Over Tokyo, the story of the Doolittle raid on the Japanese home islands in April 1942.

The raid had no strategic value, other than to provide a psychological boost to American morale in the early dark days of World War II.

After the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor that sank or severely damaged all eighteen

American battleships and left 85 percent of the Pacific Fleet out of commission, hope was in short supply.

Despite advance warning, the American Far East Air Corps had also been destroyed.

Guam, heroically defended by 700 US Marines, had been overrun by a force of 6,000 Japanese in just two days. Tiny Wake Island, defended by just 400 held out for fifteen days before falling.

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Hong Kong fell on Christmas Day; a week later Manila. Seventy-five thousand American and

British troops were in retreat to Bataan, which ultimately turned into a death march to Japanese internment with thousands dying along the way. Singapore came under siege and fell with its

70,000-man garrison in mid-February. General Stillwell, cut off in Burma, made a forced retreat to India. The Allied force dispatched to counter the Japanese invasion of Java, critical for its oil, had been destroyed--again with another 100,000 prisoners force-marched to concentration camps. America and her allies needed a decisive victory--something, anything, to lift fallen spirits.

Captain Francis Lowe, a Naval submarine officer, had seen the outline of a carrier deck painted on an airfield. He and Captain Donald Duncan came up with an idea and proposed their daring plan how to strike back at the Japanese. Aircraft carriers would sail to within 500 miles of

Japan (just outside of the patrol perimeter), then launch specially modified B-25B Mitchell medium bombers at night, each carrying four 500-pound bombs (three explosive and one incendiary) to attack the Japanese home islands. Because a return flight and carrier landing would be out of the question, the planes, with just enough fuel remaining, would continue southwest over the Yellow Sea and land in daylight at air bases in unoccupied China.

It was outlandish in its audacity, would require highly skilled aviators to embark on what could surely be called a suicide mission, and would endanger two critically needed aircraft carriers and other support ships. The mission would also inflict little physical damage on the enemy; however, it may be just the psychological boost America needed. President Roosevelt agreed. US Navy Fleet Commander, Admiral Ernest J. King and US Army Air Corps General

Hap Arnold tasked Lt. Col. James “Jimmy” Doolittle with the mission.

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Hand-picked crews practiced short take-offs until they could be airborne in 500 feet. The bombers were modified with additional fuel tanks for the long flight. With weight a critical consideration, machine guns in the tail section were replaced with painted broom sticks to dissuade any enemy aircraft approaching from the rear, but nonetheless leaving the aircraft defenseless from rear attack.

The mission was cloaked in so much secrecy that even the Hornet’s commanding officer,

Captain Marc Mitscher, did not know of his assignment until just before sixteen B-25B Mitchell bombers were being loaded onto the flight deck. Because the bombers had non-folding wings it was impossible to stow them below, so they were secured in two rows on the carrier deck in the order they would take off. As the first off, Lt. Col. Doolittle would have the shortest runway.

On April 2, the USS Hornet, with cruiser and destroyer escort, put to sea from San

Francisco, to be met two weeks later in mid-ocean by the USS Enterprise, sent to provide air cover near Japanese waters. After refueling on April 17, Hornet and Enterprise and four cruisers left their escort destroyers and tankers behind to speed westward toward Japan.

However early on April 18, several hours short of the planned take-off and still some 670 miles from Japan, the carrier group was spotted by a Japanese patrol boat. The enemy boat was promptly sunk, but not before it had radioed in coordinates. The planes would have to take off immediately. Launched with the timed upheaval of the ship in heavy seas and against a 40mph headwind, Task Force 16 began its historic mission toward Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Kobe.

Flying first over water and then at treetop level, they climbed to 1,500 feet as they approached their targets, and encountering no air defenses or anti-aircraft fire (despite portrayals in the movie) they dropped their bombs. Ironically, Tokyo was in the middle of a practice air raid drill.

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Fuel was now critical. The planned landings deep inside China would be impossible. One crew diverted to Vladivostok and landed safety (the only plane to do so) where their plane was confiscated and the crew was interred by the Soviets to ultimately escape through Iran in 1943.

The other fifteen planes continued on toward China. Now flying in darkness, with fuel running out, four aircraft crashed landed or ditched at sea. The other eleven crews bailed out. Three were killed, but most were rescued by local Chinese who later paid a heavy price for their efforts by vengeful Japanese. Two crew members were killed when their bomber crashed off the coast of

China; the remaining eight were captured by the Japanese and held in Shanghai where ten days later three were given a mock trial and executed. One later died in captivity; the others were tortured and starved until they were freed by American troops in August 1945.

The Doolittle Raid was one of the most daring missions in military history. And while the damage inflicted was minimal at best, it was a major turning point in the war effort, not for a military victory--that would come with the Battles of Midway and Coral Sea--but with the psychological boost the nation so desperately needed. The intrepid raid had had an electrifying effect on American morale.

The Hollywood production, for the most part, accurately depicts the events from the training to the daylight raid to the nighttime crash landings and escape from the Japanese with the help of Chinese guerillas. While Americans were not informed of the specifics of the mission, all were familiar with the story; therefore the film could take only limited license. But the film went far beyond the depiction of heroics. It relayed the message to the American people that the United States could not only wage war, but it could take the war to the enemy’s doorstep.

Furthermore, victory would come at a cost.

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The film, like so many others of the early war, opens with a narrator setting the scene.

“One-hundred and thirty-one days after December 7, 1941, a handful of young men, who had never dreamed of glory, struck the first blow at the heart of Japan. This is their true story we tell here” (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo).

The primary goals of the Doolittle Raid on Japan in April of 1942 were to demonstrate that America could strike back, to lift American spirits and instill hope. While it inflicted insignificant physical damage, it infused a new sense of vulnerability and fear upon the enemy.

The Japanese had already conquered and now occupied most of the western Pacific and much of mainland China. Thus their homeland was impervious to attack, beyond reach of enemy bombardment. Following the Doolittle Raid they spent considerable effort trying to determine the “secret base” from which the American bombers were launched. (Roosevelt said at one point they had taken off from Shangri-La, the mythical paradise in James Hilton’s Lost Horizon.)

Fearing future attacks, Japanese leaders immediately recalled three fighter wings from forward combat operations and retained them for defense of the home islands, effectively altering the course of the war.

The film, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo portrays the determination and valiant efforts of

American bomber crews. But it is also a love story set against the backdrop of war. Ted Lawson, played by Van Johnson, is a young pilot married to Ellen, the all-American girl-next-door. She is pretty, sweet, and supportive--the perfect example for American wives to emulate in supporting their husbands dispatched to war.

After completing their bombing run, Lawson’s plane, now short on fuel from the early take-off, crash-lands in Japanese-controlled China. He and his crew are rescued by friendly

Chinese, who, at great risk, hide them from Japanese forces. However Lawson’s injured leg must

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be amputated. This “became a moment of triumph rather than defeat … This was the sacrifice necessary for total victory” (Fyne 62).

Back in the states following their repatriation, Lawson is reluctant to inform his wife of his return and his injury, afraid she will no longer want him. Yet when she appears at his hospital room--a visit set up by newly promoted Brigadier General Jimmy Doolittle--Ellen is ecstatic he has returned alive and assures him of her undying love. In the end he repeats the phrase often used in the film, “How did I get such a cute girl as you?” To which she replies, “I had to be, to get such a good-looking guy like you.”

The message for the American moviegoer in this film was that the United States can wage war, victory will come at a cost; “some would die and others would be wounded, but their women would remain steadfast” (Fyne 62).

Another film of the Doolittle raid depicted the aftermath of the mission and tells the story of those who had been captured by the Japanese. However, unlike Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo where the crews make their escape from the Japanese and our hero returns to the arms of a loving wife, The Purple Heart is the highly fictionalized story of the mock trial one American crew faced following their capture. Like other early war films, it depicts the Japanese as sinister and insidious caricatures of evil, acting in total disregard of the Geneva Convention.

The Purple Heart produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for 20th Century Fox, stared Dana

Andrews, Richard Conte, Farley Granger, Kevin O’Shea, Donald Barry, and Trudy Marshall It was directed by Lewis Milestone, who also directed the World War I classic, All Quiet on the

Western Front, and would later helm, A Walk in the Sun. It the story of American fliers enduring the taunts and brutality of their Japanese captors, refusing to disclose information about their

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mission (specifically their point of departure), choosing instead to persevere even to the point of marching bravely to their ultimate fate.

The film contains no combat footage, shows no aerial bombardment or other battle scenes. Instead all the action takes place in a Japanese courtroom and in the prison cell where the

Americans are held. It opens in the courtroom where the American flyers are to be tried for “war crimes,” specifically for bombing hospitals and schools, machine-gunning innocent civilians.

(This specific charge immediately tells the audience that their trial is a farce as it would be impossible to machine-gun enemy personnel from bombing altitude--a point not lost on the foreign correspondents who attend the trial.)

The lead tribunal in the case is an elderly, bearded judge in ornate traditional Japanese robes. A panel of international journalists, all sympathetic to the Japanese cause, also observe the proceedings. Two other journalists, one from Telemundo in Los Angeles and another from a

Lisbon newspaper, are identified as unsympathetic to the Japanese and are turned away when they attempt to enter the courtroom.

When the formal charges are ultimately read, the foreign journalists display astonishment and universally acclaim, “These are false.” Later. when a film of the damage inflicted during the raid is shown in court, the journalists immediately recognize it as a training film, produced long before the war. Yet, the Japanese use it as evidence against the American fliers. Then the

Japanese tribunal tells them all charges will be dropped and they will all be placed in a prisoner of war camp if they reveal the base where the mission originated and the names of commanding officers. In a secret vote, the fliers unanimously decide not to cooperate with their enemy and are immediately found guilty of war crimes.

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As the illegal sentence is about to be imposed, Captain Ross, the senior American officer speaks to the tribunal. His speech is eloquent and again conveys the message of ultimate victory:

It’s true we Americans don’t know very much about you Japanese, and never did. Now I

realize you know even less about us. You can kill us. All of us, or part of us. But if you

think that’s going to put the fear of God into the United States of America and stop them

from sending other flyers to bomb you, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. They’ll come by

night. And they’ll come by day. Thousands of ‘em. They’ll blacken your skies and burn

your cities to the ground and make you get down on your knees and beg for mercy. This

is your war. You wanted it. You asked for it. You started it. And now you’re going to get

it. And it won’t be finished until your dirty little empire is wiped off the face of the earth.

(The Purple Heart)

The men cheer knowing full well their fate, but proud they have stood up for their beliefs and the integrity of the American fighting man.

The tribunal pronounces a sentence of death upon their bodies. The men leave the courtroom and as the camera pans from one face to the next, each man’s expression is one of resolve and satisfaction. As they march in-step to their fate and the background music of “Off

We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder” builds to a crescendo, their pace quickens, their collective gaze is straight ahead. They are proud, defiant. The film’s message is now clear: “This war was far from over. One of these days the Japanese would be paid back in full--just wait and see”

(Fyne 63).

Early war films showed the struggle that lay ahead and helped prepare Americans for the losses it would suffer. Many were based on a book or even a specific military campaign. Among them was a true-to-life documentary, shot by Naval Reserve Captain John Ford (of later Western

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movies fame). The Battle of Midway shows the valiant defense of Midway Island in June 1942, a time when Americans needed hope and reassurance. However, like the fictionalized movies of the time, it also casts the Japanese adversary as ruthless and cunning, almost inhuman.

The film begins with the music, “America” and then the “The Marine’s Hymn.” The opening narration tells the audience this is the story of “the greatest naval victory of the world to date” (The Battle of Midway). With shots of birds walking about the beaches and Marines scanning the horizon and the distant storm clouds, the announcer says, “The birds seem nervous.

There’s something in the air. Something behind that sunset,” the point being that Japanese attackers would come from the west and out of cover of the clouds. As if on cue, the sound of far off rolling thunder, foreshadowing the battle to come, fills the track.

“Suddenly, from behind the clouds, the Japs attack!” The emphasis is on the word,

“attack.” Men at gun emplacements fire furiously at attacking aircraft, knocking several out of the sky. After one plummets into the sea, the Rising Sun emblem is clearly visible on the burning wreckage.

As a choir sings softly in the background the narrator states, almost sotto voce, “Yes, this really happened.” Then, over a montage of planes taking off, “Our warships stalk the Jap fleet.

Then suddenly, the trap is sprung. Navy planes roar from the decks of our carriers, Army bombers, Marines, thunder destruction over a 300-mile battle area.”

This demonstrates that Americans, although surprised with devastating losses at Pearl

Harbor, can and will retaliate. “The invasion forces were hit, and hit, and hit again.” Once again, the music swells as the action builds.

As the planes return and pilots disembark the narrator says, “Men and women of

America, here come your neighbors’ sons, home from the day’s work. You want to meet them.

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There’s Jimmy Patch, seven meatballs on his plane” (a reference to the Japanese flag). Others are similarly introduced and hold up fingers for their number of downed planes.

“The Battle of Midway is over. Our front yard is safe. But a big job is still to be done.

Day after day our planes search for survivors ... search for men who fought to the last round of ammunition, flew ‘til the last drop of gas and then crashed into the sea. Eight days, ten days without food or water.”

As “Onward Christian Soldiers” plays in the background track, the narrator congratulates the American defenders, again stating names so that Americans back home can identify with them and take pride in their accomplishments. “Well done, Mathew Hughes, Logan Ramsey,

Frank Fesler. That’s 13 for Frank,” referencing the number of enemy planes he has shot down.

To further demonstrate enemy treachery, the smoking ruins of a hospital fill the screen,

“on its roof the red cross plainly marked, the symbol of mercy, the enemy was bound to respect.”

The point is once again made, now in a documentary fashion, the enemy has no regard for the rules of war and will not abide by the Geneva Conventions.

The scene shifts to burial detail. “The next day we buried our heroic dead.” Again, the soundtrack reinforces the sentiment of the scene with “America the Beautiful.”

The film’s final scene presents a series of scoreboards. The first title card shows “4

Japanese Carriers sunk,” at which point a paint brush appears and paints a huge red X over it.

The next title card reads, “28 Jap battleships, cruisers, destroyers sunk or damaged.” Again the paintbrush paints a huge X through it. The final scorecard shows 300 Japanese aircraft destroyed.

This time the huge paintbrush paints it out with a huge red V--for victory.

The Battle of Midway was a widely celebrated and much needed success for America-- the nation’s first major sea victory in the war. It exacted revenge and demonstrated that America

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could be victorious over the Imperial Japanese navy--the one that had so savagely decimated the

Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. It was also a major turning point in the war as it effectively halted any further Japanese advance in the Pacific and ended their plans for an invasion of Hawaii.

Much later in the war, as Americans were advancing across the Pacific and had already landed in Fortress Europe, another film glamorized the victory of Midway even further. The movie trailer for Wing and a Prayer: The Story of Carrier X features an excited announcer,

“Here it is, bursting with the fury of battle, the true, electrifying story of America’s greatest naval victory! The mighty story of Aircraft Carrier X ... This is the ship that knows but one course--into enemy waters” (Wing and a Prayer). Various titles flash across the screen, common in the film previews of that day. One among them states, “Action that rocks the deck with crushing shells.”

Wing and a Prayer was directed by Henry Hathaway and starred Don Ameche, Dana

Andrews, William Eythe, Charles Bickford, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. The story and screenplay are by William Cady. The film is a composite of The Battle of Midway where a trap was set for the Japanese navy, and The Battle of the Coral Sea when the Japanese were led to believe the

American carriers were scattered about the Pacific.

The timeline is three months after Pearl Harbor. “Where is our Navy? Why doesn’t it fight?” Few films began by questioning the American will to fight. Yet, Wing and a Prayer posed the question, not only in the storyline, but answered it with resounding glory at the end.

Miraculously, while the surprise attack decimated much of America’s Pacific Fleet including most of the Navy’s battleships, the four aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped damage. Nonetheless, even with most of the carrier battle groups intact, it would have been impossible to engage the enemy in a massed force--except in a surprise attack.

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After the Japanese codes were broken, American war planners knew an attack was imminent. The question was: where and when? The US Navy broadcast false message traffic stating Wake Island had a problem with its water purification system. When the Japanese forwarded the intercepted traffic of water problems, and included the code word for Wake Island,

Naval planners knew.

In the film, the plan is to lull the Japanese into a trap, to make them believe American forces are scattered across the Pacific and even afraid to engage the enemy.

Carrier X is ordered to appear at various locations, and its aircrews to turn and run when engaged by Japanese fighters. Some American planes are shot down and morale of the naval aviators, eager to engage the enemy, suffers to the point of near rebellion.

That changes to a spirit of celebration when the order comes through, and the captain issues the plan over the ship’s public address system:

We suffered many casualties, dead and wounded; we’ve been humiliated; we’ve had to

avoid combat ... (and not engage) the enemy and all the while we’ve wanted to go aloft

and knock them clean out of the sky. We asked ourselves why we were not permitted to

fight, why we could not avenge our dead and strike back in our own defense. After Pearl

Harbor our country was faced with the greatest disaster in its history. Our Navy pinned its

hope on one thing ... We knew their next move would be to capture Pearl Harbor …

Meanwhile we would secretly concentrate our naval strength at Midway. That was our

trap, you men, this carrier and her escort were the bait to that trap. And I’m happy to tell

you the strategy has worked. The trap has been sprung. Believing us scattered all over the

ocean, the main Jap force is headed for Midway. They’re going in for the kill, and so are

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we. We’re through running away, we’re through pulling punches. Our mission is

accomplished, and from here on in we fight. (Wing and a Prayer)

There are cheers throughout the ship as the music builds with, “Anchors Aweigh.” Actual war footage shows ships racing through the ocean, wakes being thrown up, planes being rolled out, ammunition being delivered and bombs being loaded. One of the bombs has the message chalked on it, “When you hear the noise, one of your carriers is missing.”

“The battle of Midway must be won in the air,” the commander tells the aviators in the briefing room. “This is the battle we’ve been praying for. We’ve got it on our own ground, on our own terms. Good luck.”

Again, actual US Navy footage shows planes taking off and with the sounds of aerial combat broadcast over the ship’s radio, the viewer is thrust into the middle of the battle.

“They got Hank. Two chutes … Nice work … you got him square in the belly.”

Close-up shots of the American air crews are superimposed over a rear-screen projection of actual combat footage to add realism and drama.

Heroics abound in the film. In one scene a Japanese sub launches a torpedo, but an

American pilot sees it heading toward his ship and crashes his plane into the torpedo in order to save his ship and shipmates. This selfless sacrifice was repeated in other films: Flying Tigers,

Pilot No 5, a Guy Named Joe, and The North Star where “pilots in blazing aircraft nosedive into ships, convoys, or bridges as a final flaming act of courage” (Doherty 111). In the end, the

American plan works and what remains of the Japanese fleet turns back to Japan.

Once again, the reminder to support the war effort appears in the closing credits with the message to buy war bonds.

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While there were casualties both leading up to the chase across the Pacific and during the battle, Americans realized a great victory at Midway. Japan lost four carriers against the

American loss of the carrier USS Yorktown. With the success of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo the month before, the Battle for Midway seemed to even the score somewhat for the disaster at Pearl

Harbor. Both events, and their accompanying films, gave new hope and raised American spirits to new levels.

Other films highlighted heroics and hope. The Fighting Seabees is a story about the engineers trained to fight as they build installations across the Pacific. They Were Expendable, is about the development of the Patrol Torpedo (PT) boat program immediately following Pearl

Harbor and during the siege of Corregidor.

Although They Were Expendable was released just after the conclusion of World War II, it was still timely in its depiction of the sense of duty exemplified in the American fighting man, and woman.

The film was directed by John Ford, a captain in the US Naval Reserve and who would direct John Wayne in many of his post-war Western films. Other cast members included Robert

Montgomery and Donna Reed.

The film opens at Manila Bay 1941 as US Navy brass watch PT boats piloted by Rusty

(John Wayne) and Brick (Robert Montgomery) launch their torpedoes in a practice exercise. This type of boat is a new and untried concept, and both men are confident in their potential.

However, at the end of the exercise the Naval commander says he prefers “larger ships,” especially with a war coming. The tactics of hit and run for which the PT boat is designed will not be employed and more boats will not be built.

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Afterwards the PT boats and their crews are put to use first running messages between

Manila and Corregidor, and later in swift attacks on the “larger ships” of the Japanese Imperial

Navy. Ultimately they transport General Douglas MacArthur and his aides in their escape from

Corregidor.

A romance develops between Rusty and Sandy, the nurse, played by Donna Reed.

However, Rusty loses contact with her when Bataan falls to invading Japanese forces.

In the end, some of the PT crews are ordered to Bataan to help defend against advancing

Japanese. Rusty and Brick are ordered to take the last plane out. They are to return to

Washington to advance the cause of the PT boats. Brick tries to give up his seat on the plane to another, but is ordered back on, leaving several men stranded.

A commander tells him, “Look son, we’re going home to do a job. And that job is to get ready to come back. Check?”

The men who remain behind watch as the plane disappears into the sunset as “The Battle

Hymn of the Republic” plays in the background. The men, and the audience, know their fate.

The film carried the message that sacrifices had to be made--men (and women) were left on the island so that others could build the American arsenal and return to fight.

Four years after the war John Wayne would appear in yet another war film, one of his most famous, The Sands of Iwo Jima. Wayne was specifically asked to do the film in an attempt to save the US Marine Corps, deemed as no longer necessary and slated for demise by the

Department of Defense. His portrayal of Sgt. Stryker, a driven, no-nonsense US Marine Corps drill instructor who expects much of his recruits, in training and ultimately in battle, is iconic even today of his later film characters, and of the US Marines.

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In the movie Stryker battles internal demons of a failed marriage and estranged children, and instead devotes his attention on The Corps and his recruits. His influence is so overpowering that at the end of the movie, when he is killed by a Japanese sniper, his men are in a state of disbelief, never realizing he was indeed mortal. Then the next in line takes charge and orders the men forward emulating Stryker’s demeanor and power of command.

Throughout the war treachery and brutality of the Japanese was a common theme in film.

“Americans being captured, brutally tortured and painfully killed by the Japanese was a common feature of wartime films” (Fyne 42). In Guadalcanal Diary a scrawny Japanese soldier, pretending to offer surrender of his fellow soldiers, leads the Americans into an ambush. The

Japanese then defile the American bodies by numerous bayonet thrusts. In Warner Brothers’

Objective Burma, Captain Errol Flynn discovers the mutilated corpses of one of his squads in an

Indo-China hut. In both films, the Americans exact their revenge, and march on toward final victory.

The War in Europe

While many political and military leaders saw a future war with Japan as inevitable, especially considering its military buildup and invasions of Manchuria and China, they were also concerned about the rearming of Germany. Yet despite the growing threat with its involvement in the Spanish Civil War, its conquest of surrounding territories and the rise of the Nazis, the general mood in America was to “stay out of that European conflict.” The memories of World

War I were still fresh, reinforced by the films that followed the war.

But with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor America was thrust into war and the anti- war sentiment changed overnight. With dual declarations of war, and fighting on two fronts, there were now two enemies: the Japanese, unlike most Americans and easily caricaturized as

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barbaric; the other, German, similar in appearance to most Americans, but no less cruel. Once again Hollywood answered the call in disseminating propaganda depicting a brutal and determined enemy.

Action in the North Atlantic shifts the storyline to the war with Germany, in particular the threat German U-boats posed upon Allied shipping. It characterizes the German enemy just as evil as the Japanese were portrayed in earlier films. Action, like so many other war films, has overt propaganda messages--one being that the war is an Allied effort. It also defends America’s decision to go to war. It contains an almost identical line from William Bendix in one of his war films, “We didn’t ask for this war. I know I didn’t. None of us did. And now all of us are in it”

(Action in the North Atlantic).

Released by Warner Bros. in June 1943, barely a year and a half after Pearl Harbor, the film is the story of merchant marine ships and their crews delivering critical war supplies to the

American allies. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, in one of his many war films, as Joe Rossi, a merchant marine sailor. The film was directed by Lloyd Bacon, the former head of the US Navy film unit in World War I, with a screenplay by John Howard Lawson.

Action in the North Atlantic begins with a statement by the American president, Franklin

Delano Roosevelt. “It is the will of the people that America shall deliver the goods. It can never be doubted that the goods WILL be delivered by this nation, which believes in the tradition of damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!”

The film opens with a tanker loaded with gasoline, “the stuff that drives planes and tanks,” making its way through heavy night fog, In the crew quarters men talk about torpedoes, and “when your time is up.”

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The scene shifts to a German submarine stalking the tanker. The background music is ominous. To make the German enemy appear even more sinister, enemy faces are lit from underneath, a technique normally associated with horror pictures. The German U-boat torpedoes the tanker which explodes into a ball of fire and begins listing. Amid heavy black smoke, panic is rampant on the decks. More explosions rip through the holds. Men frantically attempt try to save others. Lifeboats are launched. The U-boat surfaces and a German sailor begins filming the survivors with a small hand-held camera.

“They’re taking pictures to show Hitler,” cries one of the American sailors aboard the lifeboat. “Take your pictures you murdering pirates.” All the men in the lifeboat give the thumbs up. The German sub then rams the lifeboat, crushing it, and throwing the men into the water.

One is cut to pieces when he goes through the submarine’s propeller. A few others swim for a raft and climb aboard.

As the German sub moves off without attempting a rescue, the men on the raft hear the

German crew laughing. The American skipper shouts with clenched fist, “Go on and laugh. But I swear to God our time is coming. We’ll pay you back. We’ll hunt you down and slice you like a piece of cheese,” an ominous warning of what is to come.

Days pass. The men are eventually rescued and taken to New York where they are treated as heroes and besieged by media. Allen Hale, as a crewmember, says he has a message for

Hitler. “Personally, my dear Adolph.” He then gives the raspberry into the microphone.

The rescued sailors go to the union hall to sign up for another ship. A reluctant younger member tells his friends he has a wife and a baby on the way and does not want to return to sea.

He would be content on the Staten Island Ferry. Again, Allan Hale, as the patriotic spokesperson, tells him he would not like the job as he would have to pass the Statue of Liberty going each

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way, “And you may not be able to look her in the face.” Another crewman befriends him, but yet reminds him, and the audience, of what we are fighting for--Liberty.

“If that’s the way you feel, you got a right to say it. That’s what we’re fightin’ for ... Go ask the Czechs, the Poles, and the Greeks. They were figuring on safe jobs. They’re lined up in front of guns digging each other’s graves.” The reluctant sailor reconsiders and joins his friends.

The message is clear: sign up, do your part.

The men receive their new assignments aboard Sea Witch, one of the new Liberty Ships, loaded with trucks, missile launchers and other war materiel. As they sail into a Canadian port to pick up even more supplies, they are hailed by an international welcoming committee. Sailors line the railing of an assortment of ships from all over the world and shout out greetings in their native tongues, ostensibly to demonstrate the war is a unified, allied effort. The captain then points to the ships and tells everyone “We’re going to sail them right into Wilhelmshaven and

Bremen and Hamburg.”

With the convoy at sea on their way to Russia to deliver the critical war supplies, Rossi

(Humphrey Bogart) reminds Parker, a fellow crewmember--and the American audience--of the importance of what they are doing.

“There’s no job bigger than this. No matter how many planes and tanks and guns you pile up, no matter how many men you got. It doesn’t mean a thing unless the men get the stuff when they need it. It’s your job and my job to see they get it.” They may not be fighting men (at least not yet), but they play a critical role in the overall war effort.

The next day German submarines torpedo one of the ships in the convey. The other ships disperse as the American destroyers go after the enemy subs at flank speed, dropping depth charges. Underwater miniatures show the German subs in wolf pack formation. One by one they

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are destroyed. German crews are seen screaming inside their compromised subs on their way to a watery grave. One sub, however surfaces, and reminiscent of the initial scenes, attacks a lifeboat alongside a sinking cargo ship. However, this time an American destroyer turns and runs over the sub. The German crewmembers run screaming to the deck and jump overboard.

Meanwhile, the Sea Witch is distanced from the rest of the convoy. The captain tells

Rossi and the crew they are on their own. And worse, a German sub has been tailing them and will be within torpedo range in two hours. Now begins a cat and mouse game.

Rossi orders everything shut down so the enemy sub cannot hear them. The German sub crew loses contact with Sea Witch, however the German skipper calls in the Luftwaffe. German seaplanes find the Sea Witch, and in several strafing runs, kill the American Navy gun crew on board and seriously wound the captain. The merchant marine sailors spring into action, man the deck guns and shoot down the German planes demonstrating the initiative and competence of the

American crews.

The ship’s engineer informs Rossi, now as captain, the Sea Witch cannot take much more. They cannot outrun the lurking German U-boat. Rossi orders fires to be set on deck in order to make the German sub commander believe the Sea Witch is sinking. As the sub begins to surface, the U-boat captain looks through the periscope only to see the Sea Witch bearing down on his sub at full speed. Just as the sub is about to dive to depth, Sea Witch rams her, cutting the sub in half. Screaming German sailors now abandon their own ship. The promised revenge,

“slice you like a piece of cheese,” has arrived.

Outgunned and outmanned, the will and wits of the American Merchant Marine are still capable of destroying a German sub.

As the film closes, the narrator reinforces the resolve:

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From the freedom loving peoples of the United Nations, to our merchant seamen on all

the oceans. We owe our everlasting gratitude. With their aid, we shall build a bridge of

ships to our allies, over which we will roll the implements of war. We shall see to it that

man and materials will be delivered where they’re needed, and when they’re needed.

Nothing on land, in the air, on the sea, or under the sea shall prevent our complete and

final victory. (Action in the North Atlantic)

Another notable film made during the war and starring Humphrey Bogart is Sahara.

Released in 1943 by Columbia-TriStar, its message once again demonstrated Allied and

American resolve against an overwhelming force. The screenplay by John Howard Lawson is based on a story by Philip MacDonald, and directed by Zoltan Korda.

The film opens with the title card: “A detachment of American tanks with American crews joined the British Eighth Army in North Africa to get experience in desert warfare under critical battle conditions. They learned their lesson well” (Sahara).

Sergeant Joe Gunn, played by Bogart, is the tank commander after the fall of Tobruk in

1942 North Africa. Over the radio the crew is advised to retreat and head toward Allied lines.

They complete a hasty repair on the tank and set off across the desert. Along the way they pick up a coalition of forces--individual soldiers from Great Britain, France, South Africa, and Sudan.

However, Gunn orders an Italian POW to be left in the desert, assigning him to certain death, because there is no more room on the tank. As the tank pulls away, leaving the helpless and hopeless Italian stumbling after it, Gunn reconsiders and reluctantly agrees to take him along.

When a German fighter makes several strafing runs on the tank, the crew shoots it down and captures the pilot. Now there are two POWs.

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Eventually, they arrive at a small abandoned encampment with a well that trickles a small amount of water yet enough to enable the men to fill their canteens. The well is a metaphor for what they are fighting for--freedom. Soon an entire battalion of German soldiers arrives, its men on the verge of dying of thirst. They must capture the well to survive. However, they are unaware the well has all but dried up, dribbling only a few drops of water. Still, Gunn and his men will not surrender the well. He tells the German commander, “Guns for water.” Surrender your guns and we will give you water, all the while knowing the well is useless.

Like Action in the North Atlantic, this film demonstrates German treachery. Under a white flag of truce after the German commander and Corporal Lereau, “Frenchy,” walk out to neutral ground to parlay, the German commander suddenly jumps back into his trench and orders his men to fire on the Frenchman, killing him.

“Frenchy was right. We don’t know the Nazis. They did shoot him in the back,” says

Gunn.

Despite being surrounded by hundreds of battle-hardened German troops, the men under the leadership of Sgt. Gunn, resolve to fight on to the last man.

During a nighttime lull in the fighting, Bogart talks with Doc about running out of ammo.

He describes the four of them, all that are left of the squad, holding off several hundred Germans as a miracle.

Doc: “If we do run out (of ammo), what are we going to fight with?”

Gunn: “Bayonets, gun butts, fists.” Meaning, we’ll fight with whatever we have, but we will fight. Again, it’s the resolve to fight on, no matter the odds or what may come.

Doc: “How can four of us keep on that way?”

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Gunn: “I don’t know, Doc. I know it sounds impossible. We got to do it. Somebody will have to work a miracle.”

Doc: “Seems to me, four of us holding off several hundred of them is nothing short of a miracle.”

Then the conversation turns to what distinguishes the combatants, not only in what they are fighting over presently, the well, but the war in general. The meaning is not lost that the overall battle, the war itself, goes far beyond this small encampment in the sand.

Doc: “Because we’re stronger than they are. I don’t mean in number, I mean in something else, you see, those men out there have never known their dignity or freedom.”

Gunn: “Dignity. A funny way of putting it. Maybe you got something.”

Doc: “We’ve all got something.”

In the end the Germans launch one final assault, throwing everything they have, including hand grenades and mortars, at the Allied forces defending the well (freedom). The

Germans begin to advance; however, as they move forward they throw down their weapons in surrender. Their need for water has overcome their will to fight. The battle-weary four hold their fire, and as the Germans arrive at the well they find water gushing from the earth. An explosion from a mortar round has opened it up. Allied resolve has triumphed and the once seemingly overwhelming force has surrendered.

Doc says, “It’s a miracle.”

In the final scene Sgt. Gunn marches his German POWs to the rear. When the commander of an American tank unit asks Gunn, “How did you get them? Gunn replies, “They just walked in.”

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Then the commander informs Gunn that Rommel’s forces have been stopped at Al

Alamein. An American soldier, referring to the fallen members of his squad says, “Too bad they didn’t know.” Gunn pulls out the dog tags he has collected from his fallen men, and begins naming them. “Yeah, they’d want to know,” he says. “We stopped them at El Alamein.”

The film is heavily infused with propaganda from the OWI. It advances the idea of coalition forces fighting together under a unified command (Sgt. Gunn and his mixed lot). It motivates everyone to continue the fight, no matter the odds--even if it requires a miracle. And it clearly demonstrates that victory can be achieved against overwhelming odds. The American and

Allied forces defeated the enemy at the well, and at Alamein, and these same forces fighting for freedom, will, in the end, prevail.

Sahara was nominated for three Academy Awards: best sound recording, best cinematography, and best actor in a supporting role.

Not all propaganda films, however, focused on the battlefield with the common themes of heroics and valor, and sacrifice; another was to showcase political will--the courage to stand up to your enemies. A war film that remains ever popular even to this day is the 1942 Warner Bros. production of Casablanca. Based on the at-the-time unproduced stage play, Everybody Comes to

Rick’s, the film was directed by Michael Curtiz and stared Humphrey Bogart as Rick, Ingrid

Bergman as Ilsa Lund, and Paul Henreid as her husband, Victor Laszlo, an escaped resistance fighter.

Casablanca is the story of Rick Blaine, an embittered expatriate and owner of Rick’s

Café Américain in Casablanca where Nazis, Vichy French and refugees hoping to escape to neutral Portugal and eventually America gather almost nightly. Rick refuses to take sides in the conflict--he has been on the losing side in previous ones. Ultimately he must choose between

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either reuniting with a Ilsa, whom he still loves or joining the fight. The two had a passionate affair in Paris before the Germans marched in. She had been told her husband had died in a Nazi concentration camp, but just when she and Rick were to leave Paris together, she learned her husband was indeed alive, leaving Rick standing alone on the train platform. Now, she must also decide between the two men. Laszlo, knowing that Rick has hidden away two German letters of transit, asks him to take his wife away to safety. In the end, the gallant Rick puts Ilsa on a plane with Lazlo, shoots the German Major Strasser when he tries to stop their escape, and walks off into the fog with Louis Renault, the now reformed Vichy prefect of police. They will now join the fight together.

One of the most powerful scenes in the movie is when German officers, drinking in the club, begin to sing “Die Wacht am Rhein” (The Watch on the Rhine). Laszlo walks up to the band and orders them to play “La Marseillaise.” They hesitate until they get a nod from Rick.

Laszlo starts singing alone, but is joined by the crowd of French patriots and sympathizers who drown out the Germans in patriotic fervor. The scene is genuine in its deep-rooted emotion as several of the cast members and extras had actually escaped Germany in the 1930s. That scene was one of the most powerful and memorable in any of the World War II films. “The Germans might be conquerors, but they could not crush the people’s desire for freedom” (Koppes 289).

Duty, Honor, Sacrifice: The Story of G.I. Joe

Films made during World War II went through several phases. Initially films stressed the reluctance, but absolute necessity of America to fight. Humphrey Bogart in Action in the North

Atlantic, “We didn’t ask for this war, I know I didn’t. None of us did.” William Bendix in

Guadalcanal Diary, “I’m no hero, I’m just a guy. I come out here because somebody had to come.”

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Early films also prepared audiences for the sacrifices that would have to be made, and for the inevitable losses: Ted losing a leg in the Doolittle Raid, Rossi naming the men he lost going through the collected dog tags, and Sandy in They Were Expendable. Ultimately, after scattered victories such as Guadalcanal and Midway, and the American advances across the Pacific, films featured the heroics of the American fighting man: Cunningham who crashes his plane into a torpedo saving his ship and shipmates, William Bendix as Smacksie Randall who purposely misses the last plane off Wake Island in order to stay and fight, and ultimately die, with his fellow island defenders.

However one film made very late in the war centered on the emotional toll rather than the heroics of combat or the physical losses previously featured in war films. The Story of G.I. Joe is told from the perspective of Ernie Pyle, a Pulitzer prize-winning war correspondent, who traveled with C Company of the 18th Infantry.

G.I. Joe was released in July 1945, two months after Victory in Europe and barely a month before the war with Japan ended. Made by Lester Cowan Productions, the screenplay was written by Leopold Atlas, Guy Endore, and Philip Stevenson. The film was directed by the famous William Wellman and starred numerous combat veterans from campaigns in North

Africa, Sicily, and Italy as themselves.

War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins C Company in the desert of Tunisia and then travels with them as they slog their way across Italy. The film contains little combat footage, or reenactments, but instead focuses on the war-weary men, their hopes of ending the war and what they will do when they return home.

In one scene that shows the importance mail has on the morale of the fighting man, a jeeps pulls up with the announcement, “Mail call.” Everyone runs up to get their letters and

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packages from home. One receives a tie and holding it up he wonders what the hell he will do with a necktie in a combat zone. Another gets a pair of sandals. Some share their mail with fellow soldiers. One announces proudly he is now a father. The contents of the packages--ties, sandals--is immaterial. It is something from home. They are not forgotten, which was also a critical message often repeated in other war films starting with the 1943 release of Guadalcanal

Diary when a young Marine dejectedly walks away from mail call after receiving no mail. The message: Support our troops with mail.

One of the soldiers, Murphy, falls in love with a nurse. He will ship out soon, so they decide to marry--immediately. The ceremony, such as it is, takes place in the ruins of a bombed out church. As they are about to complete the ceremony, enemy planes begin a strafing run showing there is no respite from war even for the most sacred of human events.

Fellow soldiers and nurses escort the couple to a Red Cross wagon decorated for the special occasion. Everyone watches as the newlyweds retreat into the wagon and pull the curtain shut. Their faces reveal each individual’s longing for home.

Inside, Murphy, physically spent from all the fighting, can do nothing but immediately fall asleep as his new bride gently pulls the covers over him. It is a powerful scene that depicts the hardships of war and the longing for home, juxtaposed with the camaraderie of fellow soldiers and their humanity.

Later, the Americans are bogged down by German artillery from a mountaintop monastery high above them. Rain and mud make living conditions intolerable. They live in small holes carved into the hillsides. One soldier stumbles into his hole after a patrol, reaches for his boots to unlace them and immediately falls asleep from exhaustion.

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As the men huddle in their holes in the pouring rain, enduring seemingly constant artillery barrages, Pyle remarks in voice-over, “The G.I. lives so miserably, and he dies so miserably” (The Story of G.I. Joe). They commiserate about the conditions. “Why wasn’t I born

4F (ineligible for military service from physical conditions) instead of good looking?” Yet no one has regrets about being there, indicating once again they all feel what they are doing is necessary. They have a job to do.

Incessant patrols go out but return with fewer men. Their commander, played by Robert

Mitchum, must write the letters home how they died. As Mitchum calls for yet another patrol, one soldier constantly steps forward saying, “I’ll go.” Mitchum tells him he’s done enough patrols, to which the soldier replies, “Every step forward is a step closer, sir, to going home.”

After American bombers destroy the German artillery, the men make a final assault on enemy positions, the only actual combat footage in the film.

Later, with the weather now turned to late spring or early summer, the men relax by the roadway on their march toward Rome. A train of mules comes down the mountain transporting bodies, which are then unloaded and lined up alongside the road.

One of the men recognizes one of the bodies as their captain, killed in action. One by one, they slowly and tiredly get up to pay their final respects to the man who had led them through so much. In a very deeply moving moment, the soldier who always volunteered for the patrol, and whom Mitchum struck once when he started to go crazy, cradles the dead man’s arm, stroking him, mourning the loss. Finally, he straightens Mitchum’s collar, and very gently lays his arm down. He stares at his former commander for a moment, then gets up, picks up his rifle and moves off with the others to rejoin the fight. There is only so much time for mourning, no matter whom it may be for. The war goes on.

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In the final scene, Pyle, who has come to know these men, stands against a silhouette of

American crosses. A look of resoluteness is etched across his face. After a moment of reflection, he turns and runs after the group as they continue their march up the hill. His voiceover at the end says:

That is our war, and we will carry it with us as we go from one battleground to another

until it’s all over. We will win. I hope we can rejoice with victory, but humbly. That all

together, we will try, try out of the memory of our anguish to re-assemble our broken

world into a pattern so firm and so fair that another great war can never again be possible.

And for those beneath the wooden crosses, there is nothing we can do except perhaps to

pause and murmur, Thanks, pal. Thanks. (The Story of G.I. Joe)

This was the message of one of the last films to come from Hollywood during the war era--that challenges of remaking a world following such devastation, such madness, such losses, lay ahead. But that we owed it to all those who had fallen to make it so. It was our mandate and we owed it to them.

The films of World War II carried the message that while war was ugly and brutal, this one was necessary. The enemy was sinister and evil. The American fighting man was heroic and valiant. Our cause was just and our victory, in the end, assured.

While the First World War had been fought out of false nationalistic pride, lacking any sense of rationale or true moral reasoning, the Second World War had clearly defined moral objectives and purpose. It was to rid the world of fascism. Spurred on by the films of Hollywood,

Americans almost universally rallied behind that cry.

Hollywood played an integral role in defining the American acceptance of war after most initially opposed it. It validated America’s entry into the conflict, prepared the public for losses

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that were surely to come, and instilled a sense of patriotism in Americans urging them on to “to their part.” The war, although horrific, was depicted as morally just and necessary.

It would not be the same in the films about Vietnam.

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CHAPTER 5

VIETNAM

Into the Quagmire

Two decades after World War II, the United States again found itself engaged in a foreign war, and one that was rapidly escalating. In 1954, following the defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu, the Geneva Accords partitioned Indo-China into Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and two Vietnams temporarily divided north and south at the seventeenth parallel. A small number of American military personnel had been serving in advisory capacities in South

Vietnam assisting the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) against communist insurgents from the north, the Viet Minh, also known as the Viet Cong.

As the Viet Cong launched more daring attacks upon the south, American advisors became casualties and the combat effectiveness of the South Vietnamese forces came into question. Finally in March 1965, despite promises by the American president not to send

American boys to fight and die in a foreign war and against the advice of Ambassador Maxell

Taylor, Lyndon Johnson authorized the deployment of two battalions of United States Marines at

Cam Ranh Bay to protect the American airbase at Da Nang. They were quickly followed by the deployment of 3,500 United States Army personnel in May. In the ensuing months, at the urging of General William Westmoreland, Secretary of State McGeorge Bundy, and Defense Secretary

Robert McNamara, a steady flow of combat troops, support personnel, and war materiel was deployed to Vietnam. By the end of year, the force had escalated to nearly 184,000 American servicemen. At the height of the war, more than half a million combat and support troops would be deployed to Southeast Asia.

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Now, despite previous admonitions over the course of several years to the French not to become involved in a land war in Southeast Asia, the United States found itself, instead, engulfed in a full blown war effort in the region. As American involvement, combat missions, casualties, and demands for yet more troops escalated, so did anti-war protests on college campuses across America.

At the time of the first troop deployments, 80 percent of the American public supported the war effort in Vietnam as a means to stop the spread of communism. The Domino Theory, espoused by war hawks in Washington, held that as one southeast Asian nation fell, so would the others in quick succession, and at the height of the Cold War, this was seen as an ominous and unacceptable threat to American security. However, as the costs of the war, both in blood and treasure, escalated and more and more Americans came home in body bags, typically three hundred a week--four and five hundred in other weeks, American sentiment began to shift.

Public opinion polls taken in August 1967 showed that for the first time, more Americans opposed the war than supported it (Berinsky 19).

That opinion would solidify in January of 1968 when the Viet Cong launched the Tet

Offensive--a series of well-planned, well-coordinated attacks throughout South Vietnam extending into the city of Saigon where even the well-protected American embassy came under attack with enemy combatants on the grounds and in the buildings.

Tet was a staggering military defeat for the insurgency; yet it was a tremendous propaganda victory for the enemy and cemented American opposition to the war effort. After personally visiting Vietnam, Walter Cronkite, managing editor and anchor of the CBS Evening

News and “the most trusted man in America,” said a military victory in Vietnam was an impossibility and the only way out now was a negotiated settlement, “not as victors, but as an

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honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could”

(Cronkite, CBS Evening News). The die was cast.

In the end, after 58,220 American war casualties, the United States withdrew its last remaining combat forces from Vietnam in March 1973, eight years almost to the day when the first ones stepped ashore. On April 30, 1975, tanks of the North Vietnamese army rolled into

Saigon and onto the grounds of the former American embassy. Vietnam had fallen.

Television played a major role in the reversal of support for the war effort. It was films made after the war that again cemented an anti-war sentiment. In World War I coverage of the war was virtually non-existent due to severe military censorship. During World War II,

Americans received much of their information about the progress of the war through five commercial newsreels: Paramount News, 20th Century Fox’s Movietone News, RKO-Pathe

News, MGM’s News of the Day, and Universal Newsreel. These eight-minute films, produced in conjunction with the Office of War Information, were updated twice weekly and played in two thirds of the nation’s 16,500 movie theaters. However with the delay of shipping the film, processing, writing, and editing, and then distributing to the movie theatres, news was severely dated.

A generation later, battlefield reports were much more timely. During Vietnam, television sets were in most American homes and delivered scenes of combat and bloodshed, military atrocities (on both sides), and body bags directly into the American living room with more immediacy and on an almost nightly basis. The glory of battle and Allied victories had been replaced by the horror of warfare in the jungles and rice paddies of a country most still could not place on a world map.

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There were few films produced about Vietnam during the fighting. Americans did not want to see in movie theatres the horror they saw on their television sets at home. Thus it would be several years after the last US servicemen left Vietnam before a major film about the conflict would be made. Those films that were released, for the most part, depicted the combat casualties and focused on the traumatic impact the conflict had upon those who served during their time in- country and upon returning home.

Oh, The Horror

Two of the earliest and best known films about the conflict are Michael Cimino’s The

Deer Hunter and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Both show the insanity of the war, the horrors of battle, and the traumatic effects it had on those who were there.

The Deer Hunter, made in 1978 and the winner of five academy awards, is about three friends from Pennsylvania who enlist, their transformation in the jungles of Vietnam, and their psychological damage and personal struggles afterwards. Even before they depart, the tone is set when they encounter a Green Beret in full dress uniform at a bar who can only say, “Fuck it.”

Overseas, the three are captured by the North Vietnamese and are kept in bamboo cages mostly submerged in a river. They are brought out individually to engage in rounds of Russian roulette for the amusement of their captors. As Michael (Robert DeNiro) and Nick (Christopher Walken) face each other in the deadly game, Michael sees the only chance for their escape. He will up the stakes with three bullets in the revolver. The captors agree and the betting increases. Michael puts the gun to his head. The first fall of the hammer is on an empty cylinder. The gun is passed to Nick who is terrified, but urged on by Michael, and after being slapped repeatedly by guards, places the gun to his head and pulls the trigger, only to hear a loud click once again. Michael

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now takes the gun, and laughing insanely puts it to his head, but then turns and begins firing at his captors, grabbing another’s AK-47 to kill the rest.

Floating downriver on an uprooted tree, they are spotted by an American helicopter crew.

Rescue appears imminent. However, only Nick makes it on board. Stevie cannot hang on to the skids and drops into the river, followed by Michael who jumps, intent on saving his friend.

Later at a United States medical facility in Saigon, Nick suffers such severe post- traumatic stress syndrome he can barely speak. Believing his two friends are dead, he disappears into the quagmire of Saigon’s alleys and backstreets.

Michael and Stevie return to Pennsylvania. Stevie, having lost both legs, is bitter about the war. He tells Michael of large sums of money being sent from Vietnam--money that can only come from Nick. Michael returns to Vietnam to fulfill a promise made to Nick not to leave him over there. He ultimately finds his friend, now beating the odds playing Russian roulette.

Michael gains a seat across from him and tries desperately to get through to him, begging him to come home. Realization slowly sets in for Nick, but he implores, “One shot, Mikey. Just one more.” He raises the gun to his head, pulls the trigger smiling, and puts a bullet in his brain. The war has taken its toll.

Apocalypse Now is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, and

Michael Herr’s Dispatches of his Vietnam experience with overtones of Joseph Conrad’s Lord

Jim. The film, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and nominated for Best Picture, tells the story of United States Army Captain Benjamin Willard’s venture up the Nung River deep into Cambodia to find and kill a Green Beret colonel who has gone rogue and now commands his own Montagnard troops. Made in 1979, just six years after the last combat troops left

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Vietnam, the epic film, and especially the lengthy director’s cut, shows the insanity and carnage of war.

With the music “Ride of the Valkyries” blasting from their airborne loudspeakers, helicopters of the 7th Calvary Air Assault attack a small coastal village in order to clear the way for its members to surf. An American patrol boat, riverine (PBR) crew going upriver panics while searching a native sampan carrying only produce and opens fire killing everyone. Making their way farther upriver, the American crew is attacked by unseen forces in the jungle foliage with machine gun and mortar fire, by tribesman with spears and arrows, and even a tiger.

When Willard finally arrives at Kurtz’s Montagyard redoubt, he finds the mad colonel, played by Marlon Brando, as well as the missing Captain Colby, dispatched earlier on the same mission, and now nearly catatonic. Willard is also nearly driven to madness when he finds the severed head of a boat crewmember in his lap. Ultimately, as Kurtz is dying at the hand of

Willard, the colonel can only express the theme of the film, and the war itself, repeating, “The horror. The horror.”

One of the most realistic films from the Vietnam era is Oliver Stone’s 1986 Platoon, based on his personal experiences of combat. Stone had great difficulty getting financing for the film because Hollywood still thought the American public was not yet ready for films about the

Vietnam War, in spite of successes of The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now already in release.

Platoon ultimately won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Platoon is the story of Chris Taylor, an eager college dropout, and his transformation as an Army private under brutal conditions of jungle patrols and combat. The film shows not only the horrors of battle, but also the struggle of good and evil between two sergeants--Barnes who will kill innocent villagers during interrogations, and Sergeant Elias who still demonstrates traces

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of humanity. When the two are alone during one intense battle, Barnes seizes an opportunity to shoot Elias, fearing he will inform military command of previous atrocities that would result in a court martial. Barnes then tells Taylor that Elias has been killed in action, that he saw the body.

However, as the helicopters evacuate the combat zone, Taylor sees Elias running through the jungle below with the enemy in close pursuit. Elias is shot several times, falls to his knees with arms outstretched to the sky as if in supposition. As Taylor looks over to Barnes in the chopper, he realizes the truth. In the end, he exacts his own revenge, shooting Barnes following an enemy attack. In the final scene, as Taylor is being choppered out, he looks down at the carnage and bodies below, his narration says we were not only fighting the enemy in Vietnam, but ourselves as well

Hamburger Hill is another film about the futility of the Vietnam War. Released just one year later, it is a story about repeated attempts by soldiers of B Company, 3rd Battalion of the

187th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division to take a heavily fortified hill held by a massive force of dug-in North Vietnamese regulars in the deadly A Shau Valley, also known as the Valley of Death, in May of 1969.

Ap Bia Mountain, or Hill 937, is called “Hamburger Hill” by the troops because they are literally “chewed up like hamburger” as they try to advance uphill into enemy fire--reminiscent of assaults against withering enemy fire in World War I. Finally, after ten days of heavy fighting, horrendous casualties and even accidental bombardment of napalm by a United States warplane, the hill is captured, only to be abandoned several days later being of no significant strategic value. It is yet another example of American lives lost, not to gain territory, but solely for the purpose of enemy body count.

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Another film of 1987, is Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, based on the novel, The

Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford. Told through the viewpoint of wise-cracking, Joker (Matthew

Modine), it is the story of US Marine recruits undergoing basic training at Paris Island under a sadistic drill sergeant, who is ultimately killed by a recruit driven mad. Dispatched to Vietnam, the troops are pinned down in the ancient capital city of Hue during the Tet Offensive. Several are killed by a sniper, and when the sniper is finally killed it’s revealed to be a young woman.

The insanity of war is reinforced after the troops leave the scene of battle singing “The Mickey

Mouse Clubhouse Theme.”

The general themes of these and most other films of the Vietnam conflict are not of heroism and bravery and the necessity of the war, but of the horror and absurdity of war, and fighting for a lost cause. Like Born of the 4th of July they also reflect the public attitude toward the Vietnam War that ignited protests across America, including returning Vietnam vets. The pendulum had swung back again to an anti-war sentiment.

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CHAPTER 6

SUMMARY

Pendulum Swings of Public Opinion

Warfare changed dramatically in the twentieth century. Just as dramatic were changes in public attitudes toward war. Like the swinging of a pendulum, public opinion shifted back and forth, against and then in support of United States military involvement in overseas conflicts.

The anti-war sentiment in the aftermath of World War I with more than 100,000

American casualties was fueled by that war’s subsequent films that showed the futility and absurdity of war. Americans believed United States involvement in The Great War was a mistake, in spite of the fact the infusion of American forces in 1917 helped turn the tide of the war and ultimately resulted in victory for the Allies. That anti-war sentiment held steadfast right up until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor when public opinion shifted overnight. Films made during World War II both reflected and further influenced beliefs that while we did not ask for war, our involvement was necessary. Working with the Office of War Information (OWI),

Hollywood created films that highlighted the heroics and bravery, and even self-sacrifice of

American fighting forces. These films with their strong propaganda messages helped build and maintain public support of the war, both on the battlefield and on the home front urging the civilian population to do their part by working in war industries, rationing, and buying war bonds. After the war, veterans returning from the European and Pacific theatres marched in victory parades, were cheered, and held in high esteem by the civilian population. They were heroes who had saved the world.

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In the opening days of the Vietnam War public sentiment remained, for the most, in favor of the war effort. However, save for The Green Berets made in 1968 with film legend John

Wayne, there were few films about Vietnam that showed the heroics of battle.

Instead there was almost nightly news coverage of American troops fighting a guerilla war against an unseen enemy in a country most knew little about. Instead of images of heroism and gallantry in movie newsreels with clear propaganda messages provided by the OWI, television images were of the combat, and the dead and dying in the jungles and rice paddies of

Vietnam. Thus, Americans once again grew tired of involvement in a war in a distant land for a cause most did not understand or believe in. They grew tired of its costs in blood and treasure with little or nothing to show for it except a constant flow of flag-draped coffins and demands for yet more troops and promises of a “light at the end of the tunnel.”

During Vietnam, public opinion reversed once again from a majority of Americans in support of United States involvement at the beginning of the war to strong opposition. Anti-war protests grew in number and magnitude. Some became violent. Within a single conflict, the pendulum had swung back again. Subsequent films of Vietnam, like those of World War I depicting the all-to-real horrors of combat and casualties, reflected the insanity of war and reinforced an anti-war sentiment--one which prevailed for several years, until victory in Desert

Storm.

The pendulum of public opinion had swung first in one direction against war following

World War I, then back in support of a war effort and American involvement during World War

II, and finally with Vietnam, had swung back yet again--public sentiments that reflected and were even influenced by films of the twentieth century.

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