When the Japanese are heading towards Pearl Harbor, there is a shot of a pilot waving to kids playing baseball. This is a true story as the pilot was trying to get them away before the attack started.
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Rafe: Ma'am, I'm never gonna be an English teacher, but I know why I'm here, to be a pilot, and you don't dogfight with manuals, you don't fly with gauges, I mean it's all about feeling and speed and lettin' that plane become like it's apart of your body, and that manual says that a guy who's a slow reader can't be a good pilot... that file says I'm the *best* pilot in this room... Ma'am, please... Don't take my wings
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When the Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor and we see Danny and Rafe driving toward an airfield, there is a photographer in the backseat who says his line. In this shot he is not holding onto his hat, but in the following shot he is.. See more...
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When the Japanese are heading towards Pearl Harbor, there is a shot of a pilot waving to kids playing baseball. This is a true story as the pilot was trying to get them away before the attack started.
During the attack, when the guys are in the control tower waiting for Danny and Rafe to lead the Japanese planes past them, one man says, "I'm cocked and locked." The phrase is also used during the Doolittle raid. The expression is unique to the Colt government-model .45 cal. semi-auto pistol and its clones. It means the hammer is cocked, but the safety is ON; it is how you carry a loaded .45 so it won't go off accidentally. A "cocked and locked" weapon CANNOT be fired.
When the bombers crash land in China more than one crew member is killed. In real life only 1 man from the raid was killed. 71 escaped and 8 were captured, four of whom were executed as war criminals by the Japanese.
On 7 Dec, 1941, there were 8 battleships in Pearl Harbor: The U.S.S. Arizona, California, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Of all these warships, the least damaged was the Pennsylvania, as it was not moored along with the other 7 sister ships on Ford Island. After the main attack, smoke covered so much of the targets that the enemy turned its attention to the Pennsylvania, which was moored on the mainland side. They only succeeded in slightly damaging it.
The huge battle ship that capsized and turned turtle was the USS Oklahoma. Though successfully raised, it never again was put back into action. It was sold for scrap, but while being towed back to the west coast, a storm came up and sank the bulk.
Captain Fuchida Mitsuo, who lead the first raid that morning with a wave of 183 planes, had a very interesting turn in his life after the war; he would convert to the Christian faith after 1949 and later become a very respected Protestant minister until his death in 1976, following diabetic complications.
The Japanese did not use planes only on 7 December; 5 midget submarines were dispatched to Pearl Harbor as well, though the planes were far more successful. Of the five submarines, two were sunk, a third ran aground and a prisoner was captured, the fourth was damaged and sunk before it could fire even one torpedo, and the fifth submarine's final disposition remains a mystery.
Despite the treachery of the attack, fallen Japanese pilots were buried along with full military honors.
Despite the numerous historical errors and gaffs in the movie, the only historical "fact" the filmmakers managed to do research on (and admit to supposedly) is that they consulted bottle collectors on what types of bottles to use during the battle scenes to administer blood.
When Danny and Evelyn are flying to see Pearl Harbour, they actually don't get one glimpse of it.
When the film was shown in Japan, certain scenes were omitted (an example is the showing of geishas) and anti-Japanese slurs were not translated into Japanese.
When Rafe has crashed in the English Channel, he breaks the glass of the cockpit and it makes a hole in the shape of a heart.
You may also like: Titanic | Twilight | Saving Private Ryan | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl | Apocalypse Now
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