Unbroken

[willysmb44]

Yeah, and I have no idea why the Allies collectively covered their ears and yelled, 'LALALALA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" while those who did it snuck away, never to be hunted down.

[TLHSS]

Not to justify the actions ... but I think you can chalk it up to the start of the Cold War.

 

America wanted another ally in the region to fight the spread of Communism. America choose Japan to be that ally. The prosecution of war criminals in Japan was highly unpopular. So the trade-off was made.

 

This isn't the first time in our history that we looked the other way on questionable acts in the name of national defense.

 

Again ... not justifying the actions. But it does happen. Maybe those who have to make these kinds of decisions based on the big picture see things in another way. I don't know ... I know I couldn't make these hard choices.

 

Tim

[strawberry 9]

Also, don't forget about the horrors of Japanese Unit 731 in Manchuria. Look it up.

W

 

There is a very real hatred by China for Japan today for things that happened over 70 years ago. My wife's family is Filipino and her grandparents were in Manila during the occupation. They still hate Japan and will not associate with Japanese. A big part of it is because Japan will not acknowledge their actions during the war.

[BROBS]

A big part of it is because Japan will not acknowledge their actions during the war.

That would just be the salt in the wound.. for sure.

 

At least Germany (for the most part) has stood strong knowing that what happened during the war was wrong.

-Brian

[Wharfmaster]

You must BELIEVE what you did was wrong before you can admit (to the world) what you did was wrong.

 

 

 

W

[AnDuc49]

Went and watched it with my family and my friend who was a Iwo Jima vet. At some of the POW scenes you could see tears dripping down his face, so later I asked that if he knew anybody that was a PTO POW. He said that on Iwo Jima, the japanese dragged one of his best friends off into a cave and that they found him a few days later brutally tortured.

[fstop61]

Saw it this afternoon-showing was sold-out. My date and I really enjoyed the film. Despite the handful of inaccuracies, I would definitely see it again.

[dogface44]

Saw it tonight and I liked it. The Air Force part is really well done and worth watching several times. And the sharks!

One thing that struck me is when Louie has to hold that beam at the end. There's a close-up shot of the back of his shoes

and the soles are brand new, which was a bit unrealistic. Overall a great movie and some really nice photography and landscapes.

The background with the cliffs in the early "coal" scenes is impressive. Great Job Angelina and thanks for keeping it alive!

[Too Much WW1 Militaria]

I shouldn't of read the book first....... Man, they cut a ton of pretty important stuff out. Still, other than the fact that the "Bird" never faced justice, a great story. If the movie would of had the detail of the book, it would be an 8 hour day!

 

John

[Patchcollector]

Man, they cut a ton of pretty important stuff out.

 

 

Makes you wonder how much ended up on the "cutting room" floor. Many movies nowadays are heavily edited,but there is hope..

When the DVD is released it may come packed with alot of "extra" stuff,which is a way to get people to buy the DVD after they've seen the movie in the theatre.

[JDK]

 

Makes you wonder how much ended up on the "cutting room" floor. Many movies nowadays are heavily edited,but there is hope..

When the DVD is released it may come packed with alot of "extra" stuff,which is a way to get people to buy the DVD after they've seen the movie in the theatre.

 

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

JD

[scottplen]

Great movie ! Should have been nomiated for an oscar imo !

[ken88]

Good movie (some graphics could have been better), touching story.

[TLHSS]

The movie came to our local rural theater this weekend, so I was able to see it. I'd read the book a month ago, and never know what to expect when a movie is adapted from a very good book.

 

All in all, I thought it represented the book and Mr. Zamperini's war time experience very well. With the PG-13 rating, there were lots of teenagers in the audience, and you could tell from the "gasps" during the movie that they had little knowledge of the fate of POWs in the hands of the Japanese during the war. So a very effective educational moment, IMO.

 

My only disappointment was not including more on his struggles after the war, so the audience never sees the big picture. You really don't get the sense that he came home "broken" with a drinking and anger problem, and at one time wanted to head back to Japan and hunt down and kill "The Bird", but found salvation in a very unlikely place .... the tent revival shows of Billy Graham. His new found faith, and the ability to forgive that came with it, truly made him "unbroken".

 

Still a very good experience ... Tim

[juvatwad]

I finally rented it. It was OK, but the raft part was way too long, and I wish they hadn't cast a lady boy for the Bird; the actor was just too feminine for that role.

[BROBS]

I thought the actor was perfect, honestly...

An effeminate upper class Japanese aristocrat skipped over by the military for a promotion with a chip on his shoulder.

 

-Brian

[cutiger83]

I thought the actor was perfect, honestly...

An effeminate upper class Japanese aristocrat skipped over by the military for a promotion with a chip on his shoulder.

 

-Brian

 

I agree....

[AFCMNAP47-81]

I will have to see if I can find that documentary! That would be a good one to watch.

 

It highlights what I am trying to say. The fact that those vets recorded what it sounded like gave those of us in a later generation a chance to hear it. If that had not been done, we would only be able to guess what it sounded like.

 

Kurt

I have viewed the Rebel Yell veterans video in distant past, I believe there is more than one. The voices are 50 to 75 years afterwards, so not completely capturing the ferocity and fervor of the battlefield. Remembering tidbits from all the history books etc down through many years, not able to place the exact page or paragraph: MacKinlay Kantor's work of historical fiction "Long Remember" about Gettysburg, describes hearing the Rebel Yell from some distance away-as an eerie far away sound as I recall, anyway stuck with me for over 60 years now. I am thinking Bruce Catton (maybe Tucker/many others) described dusk at Chickamauga when the Rebel Yell began on one side of the battlefield and almost encircled the Yankees, also eerie and coming for miles throughout the swamps, creeks, and forest land. From Wikipedia (cross referenced with other sites) is Yankee Ambrose Bierce's description of the above noted Rebel Yell. "At last it grew too dark to fight. Then away to our left and rear some of Bragg's people set up 'the rebel yell'. It was taken up successively and passed around to our front, along our right and in behind us again, until it seemed almost to have got to the point whence it started. It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope..." Narrative of then-Lieutenant Ambrose Bierce, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, XXI Corps, Army of the Cumberland, at the Battle of Chickamauga (Last Union defenses on Horseshoe Ridge, September 20, 1863

[AFCMNAP47-81]

I keep hoping to see a good movie someday about the POW camps on the Eastern Front. You wanna see some chilling POW stats? Even the Japanese were rank amateurs in terms in numbers, for the Russians who died in German hands, or the percentages in Russian POW camps once the fortunes of war were reversed (and arguably even more horrific when you consider how many German probably died in Russian hands years after the war was over).

I'm reading Siegfried Knappe's book, 'Soldat' right now, and it's no wonder German soldiers feared fighting the Russians and were terrified at the idea of being captured by them. And of course, the Russians fared worse earlier in the war at German hands.

 

More than chilling, have read a good many books on that part of WW11. However I recommend a book, not necessarily about the war but what one can find in Russia today. "Aftermath the Remnants of War" Copyright 1996 by Donovan Webster. Probably not for the squeamish or those that can't grasp what happened around Stalingrad and other places. War is Brutal. In a chapter titled "Ghosts" the author was shown several places in the farmlands during winter, where German bones by the tens of thousands creating a vista across the horizon, including complete skulls and other large parts lying about. At night their bones glistened in the snow-plows were reported as still clogging up with bones during farming operations. His Russian guide stated the bone fields were so vast they would never disappear in his lifetime, nor his grandchildren's. These are the bones of German soldiers and airmen, caught up in the maelstrom of war, not necessarily hard core Nazi's. He also saw much German helmets, boots, insignia etc, apparently against Russia law for its citizens to sell. The numbers at Stalingrad are indeed horrific-91,000 surrendered, 50,000 dead within a few months. Only around some 5,000 plus ever made it back to Germany! Another chapter details WW1 France-Horrible casualties here also. I couldn't pin it down in the chapter (titled "A Forbidden Forest") but something like millions of acres was or is still off limits. There are active people working daily to locate weapons/bombs/shells etc-when they have a pallet full they explode them in the English Channel-some 360 tons annually. Farmers still are being killed by explosives when plowed up. At Verdun, an Ossuary is visited, walking over bones of 130,000 men, describes visible bones by the thousands of pieces made up of all the combatants including Americans most likely.

[AFCMNAP47-81]

I want to make sure you know sir I don't admire one era of vets more than another. Taking the step to join the military, much less a unit assured of seeing combat is brave no matter what year. I didn't seek to degrade. Bless and thank you to your nephew.

 

My uncle was at the Pentagon. I remember the unity after 9/11, but you don't see it lasting. If we had been asked, I'm sure it would have happened similar to after PH. But the same enemy hasn't left and only intensified, and I see ignorance. I speak not of all my generation, but most with whom I have asked about history and current events.

 

If unity had not existed since December 8th 1941, we wouldn't have won. Large number of active duty does not win a war alone...we had far fewer than Hitler and Japan, yet we won. We were backed by our loved ones rather than divided as we are now. Politics should be off the table when freedom is attacked in such horrific ways. A division which briefly vanished in the days following 9/11. Personal is the Imperial Japanese Navy struck us before declaring War, is being attacked using planes loaded with civilians as weapons. The difference between those attacks and 12/26/14 is a lack of understanding...how soon the average citizen forgets. I hope the movie contributes to understanding and transcends the many years since those events.

The unity not lasting: Right on, I was attending a class at local Technical school when the Enemy did their deed in New York. Yes, folks raised a crowd and held hands around the flag pole at the school. I, along with my Vietnam Veteran instructor wanted nothing to do with it, knowing within two weeks it would be over. It was, the nation's majority has moved on, the dolts in charge import gross numbers of the enemy into our nation-a culture that cannot possibly deal with our Constitution (not that the dolts do either much). It takes far more than holding hands and singing "God Bless America", placing flowers, burning candles, holding vigils etc. History is lacking in schools, at least any real history, revised maybe exists. As for US winning WW11, NO, one must not forget the British Commonwealth along with Russia and other nations that all contributed. Russia was Hitler's objective, speculate what would have happened if he had not attacked the West, only went to Russia, once he and Stalin got out of each other's bed.

[AFCMNAP47-81]

Just goes to show how we treated war criminals of the Japanese v/s those of the Nazis.

Could you imagine a German who'd done all that, being allowed to live a normal life just because he was smart enough to lay low during the Nuremburg trials? Yeah, no gonna happen, GI!

Scarier still, the US government voided the rights of former POWs of the Japanese to sue the Japanese government for pain and suffering. I'm no lawyer but I didn't realize anyone can void someone else's rights entirely, especially those who were civilians not connected to the US government at all, like the contractors nabbed by the Japanese at the start of the war...

I have read "Unbroken" a few years back-I recall some mistakes in it, probably technical along the lines of something about the B-24, would have to review to bring it back in detail. I haven't saw the movie, will eventually, as anything Hollywood turns out based on a book is Loosely based! In a similar vein to "Unbroken" most folks have viewed "Bridge over the river Kwai" great entertainment but lacking in most historical facts. I highly recommend a read of "The Forgotten Highlander" copyright 2011 Alistair Urquhart. As a young man at the beginning of WW11 he was called up and joined the Scottish regiment "Gordon Highlanders". Surrendered by the Generals at Singapore, imprisoned by the Japs (750 days) sent to work on the railroad in Thailand. Similar to the Germans loading railroad cars with the Jews and transporting them to concentration camps-the Japs did the same, except it was 95-100 degrees and they traveled for something like 5 days/900 miles to Thailand in these steel cars. The beatings/sufferings/starvation/working non the less as described are horrific. This was working on the river Kwai railroad/bridges, no Colonel Bogey march, non of the movie stuff. Eventually the Japs moved many POW's to Japan-he winds up in the holds of the "Kachidoki Maru" (capturedAmerican "President Harrison"). On this and sister ships men drank their own urine, killed each other to drink blood, other unsavory descriptions of the horror he endured. Torpedoed by the US submarine Pampanito-he was washed out of the hold into the sea (240 prisoners died in this caper). After floating around some amount of time, picked up by Japanese ship and brought to Japan. Imprisoned there, feels the heat of the Nagasaki blast. War eventually ends-crosses US via railroad arrives in England, no crowd, no well wishers, nothing. AS others have alluded to-tis shocking that the British/US government had the ex POWs sign documents that they wouldn't sue or do anything (Alistair used a fake name to do so). Many of the "Japanese beasts" he names were either shot or hanged by the British. One name however, he was incredulous that the British only sentenced him to 10 years-General Takuma Nishimura. Nishimura served 4 years in Singapore and was on way back to Japan for the rest of sentence when in the finest tradition of the Israelis (Adolf Eichmann) the Aussies grabbed him in Hong Kong, tried him, hanged him in 1951! I also recommend the movie "The Railway Man" about a British Soldier imprisoned by the Japs, Very good Movie.

[willysmb44]

Many of the "Japanese beasts" he names were either shot or hanged by the British. One name however, he was incredulous that the British only sentenced him to 10 years-General Takuma Nishimura. Nishimura served 4 years in Singapore and was on way back to Japan for the rest of sentence when in the finest tradition of the Israelis (Adolf Eichmann) the Aussies grabbed him in Hong Kong, tried him, hanged him in 1951!

 

Wow, I'd never heard of that before. I just looked him up on Wikipedia.

Just goes to show you really can learn something new every day. I'm glad to hear the Aussies wouldn't allow that to stand.

[Garandomatic]

Big ups to the Aussies... I had no idea...

 

Railway Man was pretty hard to watch. I felt like they got the brutality right from what I have read...

 

Another decent piece regarding that railroad is Ship of Ghosts by Hornfischer. Details the men of the USS Houston that also worked on the railroad.