Revealing: When the Japanese planes fly over the hill towards the harbor to bomb it, you can see a cross on the hill. That cross was not there back in 1941 during the raid. It was put there afterwards as a memorial to the point where the enemy planes first came over the hill.

Factual error: The Zeros in the movie are not the right model for the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ones featured in the film are exact replicas of A6M5 Zeros which can be denoted by looking at the engine exhaust ports. The A6M5 did not come out until later in the war. The correct model should be the A6M2.

Other: In the scene where the U.S.S. Oklahoma capsizes, she clearly rolls to the port side. When the bow comes into the air, one can see a hole on the starboard side; obviously from a torpedo. This cannot be. The starboard side was facing the U.S.S. Maryland and thus protected from arial torpedoes. That hole should not be there.

Continuity: This mistake takes place in the scene where Rafe is in the train, trying to get Evelyn's attention. When he first notices her outside the window, the camera pans and zooms on him. For a brief second, you see a young woman wearing a red hat is sitting next to him. After Rafe fails to get Evelyn's attention, he looks at the person sitting next to him. The young woman is now an old man with a gray hat on. You can also spot the same lady in the train station when Rafe is with Danny. She seems to be buying her ticket.

Continuity: Just after the shot of Evelyn sitting on the rocks, it cuts to Rafe in England. The first shot we see that the pint of lager on the bench is half empty, but it refills itself in the next shot.

Continuity: When Rave and Danny take off during the attack their canopies are open. In the next shot from behind you can see that the canopies have closed themselves.

Factual error: In one scene before the battle starts, a crew member is having his P-40 decorated with noseart. However, before late 1942, noseart wasn't allowed by the USAAF, unless you had a commander who really didn't mind. Lieutenant General Walter Short, who was in charge of the P-40's at Pearl Harbor, wasn't one of those commanders.

Revealing: In the scene where Rafe returns from England, Evie is busy with something. Camera slowly zooms out from Evie and moves right to show Rafe's reflection on the window. Look carefully. You can clearly see the red light of the camera reflecting back, not from the window that reflects Rafe, but the mirror on Evelyn's right.

Continuity: Near the beginning when Rafe is in a train seat looking out the window at his girl, she is standing next to a stainless steel round end observation car with the name "Silver Horizon" in plain view.  This car was built for the California Zephyr which didn't begin service until 1948.  As Rafe's train begins to move, you can see the car's California Zephyr car number also.

Other: In the scene where the USS Arizona is going down sideways, there is water pouring down the deck. This should not happen considering that the ship is sinking the other way and the water wouldn't be bursting out of the cracks in the dock.

Continuity: The bomb that hits the hospital produces a really big hole in the wall. A car is thrown through the air. But there are some people standing on the stairs two or three meters away and they keep standing there. Some minutes later Rafe and Danny are thrown to the ground by a detonation about ten meters away.

Revealing: When Evelyn is on the porch of the dispensary, as Danny drives up with the telegram about Rafe, there is a modern three-prong grounded electrical outlet visible on the wall behind her.

Continuity: When Rafe's plane takes off from the carrier (as the second), you see the totally empty deck of the ship, even though there ought to be 14 planes left.

Continuity: In the club, Danny and Rafe and their friends are having a drink after Rafe came back from the dead, and Rafe punches Danny for going out with Evelyn. In the first shot Red goes up to Danny and he is over Danny's right shoulder, but in the following shot Red is now over Danny's left shoulder.

Factual error: As Danny and Rafe prepare to depart for Florida to train for the Tokyo raid they board a DC-3 to take them to the mainland, with the nearest point 2,400 miles away. It would have been a wet trip: the DC-3 had a range of 1,600 miles. Military transport to the mainland in early 1942 would be by ship, " Clipper" seaplane or a stripped-down bomber.

Revealing: Other users have commented on the placement of the island on the Japanese carriers. If you watch the launch scene very carefully (as one squadron of planes flies over another of the carriers), the carrier is a modern, angled deck carrier, but the planes are all lined up backwards. As the shot moves over the ship, you can plainly see the bow of the carrier (with the protrusions for the catapult water brakes, and Japanese planes lined up on the bow, facing the stern. As the shot progresses down the ship, you will see the angled deck amidships, with the island where it belongs, and the planes taking off over the stern.

Factual error: In the scene where the Japanese aircraft are launching for the attack on Pearl, an officer on one of the carriers holds a white flag in his right hand just as the planes are about to take off. Look carefully; the wind is blowing from the stern of the ship towards the bow (as evidenced by the position of the aircraft in the background). The flag should be moving in the opposite direction, as the carrier would be turned into the wind and moving forward at top speed to launch aircraft.

Deliberate "mistake": The B25s the Doolittle Raiders used were heavily modified for the mission. One modification was removal of the radios, both to save weight and to eliminate the chance of an accidental transmission giving them away. Another was that the only guns on the planes were a single .30 cal machine gun in the nose and a .50 cal gun turret on top of the plane. Tail guns were never part of the plan, since a B25 could outrun most fighters. In the movie the planes seem to have more guns than they did, not to mention radios.

Factual error: Doolittle's B25s were an early version, while in the scene aboard the carrier, they have side gun mountings and four-point fifties in bulges on both sides of the nose. These were implemented in much later B25G versions.

Other: When the battleship Okalahoma rolls over, it appears to be rolling exactly about a non-moving longitudinal axis, like a broiler chicken on a barbecue spit. In reality, the ship should be sinking down while it rolls over, since after all it is taking on water.