Pearl Harbor Movie Historical Accuracy
The movie Pearl Harbor is based off of the true event of when the Japanese attacked Hawaii’s Peal Harbor on the island of Oahu on December 7th, 1941. The producers of this movie were more focused on the audience’s relationship to the characters and the way they felt rather than how accurate according to history the movie was. The movie gives you a good idea of the tragedy and how devastating it was to the people, but it does not accurately depict how the attack was played out.
In the movie there are two main characters, Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker. Now these two names are not known historically but they are based off of two men, Second Lieutenant George Welch and Kenneth Taylor. They may not have been life long best friends but they did drive in a Buick to an airfield while Japan attacked, and they were also the first two pilots to take off into the air. They also were accountable for taking down six of the Japanese planes like in the movie. The personality of the characters was way more Hollywood than historical. Also, the dramatic love triangle with the nurse never happened. Welch and Taylor were combat pilots, not bomb pilots, so they were not asked to be apart of the Doolittle Raid, however, in the movie they were a huge part of this event.
The way the Japanese approached and snuck up on the Americans is pretty historically accurate in the movie. They were able to flood airways and announce an attack, but they did not give anything away about where. America knew they would strike along the Pacific Coast but no one was sure where, making it hard to be prepared for battle. This made it easy for Japans surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
The end result of the attack was portrayed accurately. The devastation, confusion, and all the blood were real. The nurses writing M for morphine, C for critical and F for fatality on the injured men’s foreheads was also something that the nurses did on that day. Everything was...