Best attendance

[Mr. Ypsi]

CAREFULLY handled, fiction can be an excellent tool in history - I think 'counterfactuals' (i.e, what ifs) can be a great learning tool.

The danger, of course, is that fiction and fact can end up confuted.  I probably have numerous instances of historical 'facts' that actually are from novels or movies.  One of the more (in)famous examples comes from the late President Reagan, when he (on more than one occasion) described a bombing run he did across the English Channel (no Ron, that was a movie role, you were in Hollywood for the duration)!

[Gregory Sager]

The danger, of course, is that fiction and fact can end up confuted.  I probably have numerous instances of historical 'facts' that actually are from novels or movies.  One of the more (in)famous examples comes from the late President Reagan, when he (on more than one occasion) described a bombing run he did across the English Channel (no Ron, that was a movie role, you were in Hollywood for the duration)!

Ironically, you aren't remembering that anecdote properly, Chuck. 

It was part of Reagan's address to the Congressional Medal Of Honor Society in 1983. He described a WWII incident in which the captain of a B-17 that had been too badly damaged to return to its carrier told his wounded gunner, who had been unable to parachute to safety with the rest of the crew, "Don't worry, we'll bring this down together," and voluntarily died in the crash alongside his subordinate. The incident actually took place in the penultimate scene of the 1944 film A Wing And A Prayer.

But Reagan never said that he himself was aboard that plane. Moreover, Reagan wasn't even in that film. The doomed flight officer in question was played by Dana Andrews. And the scene didn't take place above the English Channel; it took place in the South Pacific. Also, the CMH Society dinner in '83 is the only time Reagan ever made that gaffe in public. It's obviously not the sort of thing that the press would let someone get away with twice.

To return to the main point, The King Must Die is an excellent piece of historical fiction. Renault researched it very carefully, and it doesn't play fast-and-loose with the facts. It's actually an attempt to postulate a possible core narrative of fact from whence the myths surrounding Theseus, the Minotaur, and ancient Crete sprang. And Prof. Hawkinson made it very clear in class that the book was fiction, and was to be read on those terms.

[Warren Thompson]

He described a WWII incident in which the captain of a B-17 that had been too badly damaged to return to its carrier ....

WOW! That must have been one extra-huge carrier. The B-17 was a large, four-engined bomber with non-folding wings. Doubtless one of FDR's secret weapons that shocked the Imperial Japanese Navy .... 

[Knightstalker]

It was actually most likely a TBF Avenger that Dana Andrews was trying to land, although due to the time period that the movie depicts the planes should have been SBD Dauntless (the movie review is incorrect in this respect) , the predecessor to the Avenger.  Seeing this was filmed during WWII the big one, the studio had to make due with what the Navy could provide.

[Warren Thompson]

It was actually most likely a TBF Avenger that Dana Andrews was trying to land, although due to the time period that the movie depicts the planes should have been SBD Dauntless (the movie review is incorrect in this respect) , the predecessor to the Avenger.  Seeing this was filmed during WWII the big one, the studio had to make due with what the Navy could provide.

And the SBD had a crew of two, pilot and rear gunner. The TBF/TBM usually had three:  pilot, rear gunner, and rear belly gunner. Or might it have been a Helldiver, the SB2C, with a pilot and rear gunner? This plane was notoriously difficult to fly, very unforgiving; pilots claimed that SB2C stood for "Sonofabitch, 2nd Class."

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

It was actually most likely a TBF Avenger that Dana Andrews was trying to land, although due to the time period that the movie depicts the planes should have been SBD Dauntless (the movie review is incorrect in this respect) , the predecessor to the Avenger.  Seeing this was filmed during WWII the big one, the studio had to make due with what the Navy could provide.

Now this is the kind of intimate knowledge of, well, everything, that you don't get on d1 boards.

[Warren Thompson]

It was actually most likely a TBF Avenger that Dana Andrews was trying to land, although due to the time period that the movie depicts the planes should have been SBD Dauntless (the movie review is incorrect in this respect) , the predecessor to the Avenger.  Seeing this was filmed during WWII the big one, the studio had to make due with what the Navy could provide.

Now this is the kind of intimate knowledge of, well, everything, that you don't get on d1 boards.

Indeed. It's the result of a sound D3 liberal education. How many D1 posters would have even the slightest knowledge of an SBD or an Avenger? 

[Knightstalker]

Actually my knowledge comes from a complete fascination with WWII and especially the Navy and Marines and the Pacific war, although Europe is also fascinating.  I actually had my American History teacher in HS apologize to me in front of the entire class once.  He and I argued for an entire period about the battle for Guadacanal.  I would not back down and he went home and researched the issue and the next day told the class I was correct.  I got an A for the year, and he became one of my favorite teachers ever.

Warren, the Helldiver was not in active service with the fleet until December 42 and the movie takes place in the months leading up to the Battle of Midway, it would have had to be Duantless'

[Warren Thompson]

Warren, the Helldiver was not in active service with the fleet until December 42 and the movie takes place in the months leading up to the Battle of Midway, it would have had to be Duantless'

Well, then, to continue our little game ... perhaps it was a Douglas Devastator or a Vought Vindicator, two of the obsolete models the USN had to use, with predictably bad results, early in WWII. 

[Knightstalker]

Warren you are correct, the torpedo plane was most like a TBD Devastator.  These were the torpedo planes that got basically annihilated at Midway.

TBD

[Pat Coleman]

Indeed. It's the result of a sound D3 liberal education. How many D1 posters would have even the slightest knowledge of an SBD or an Avenger? 

Oh, probably many of them. But that's because there's so many more D-I fans.

[Warren Thompson]

Indeed. It's the result of a sound D3 liberal education. How many D1 posters would have even the slightest knowledge of an SBD or an Avenger? 

Oh, probably many of them. But that's because there's so many more D-I fans.

Or maybe they have close friends who are D3 fans. 

[Gregory Sager]

Actually my knowledge comes from a complete fascination with WWII and especially the Navy and Marines and the Pacific war, although Europe is also fascinating.  I actually had my American History teacher in HS apologize to me in front of the entire class once.  He and I argued for an entire period about the battle for Guadacanal.  I would not back down and he went home and researched the issue and the next day told the class I was correct.  I got an A for the year, and he became one of my favorite teachers ever.

Warren, the Helldiver was not in active service with the fleet until December 42 and the movie takes place in the months leading up to the Battle of Midway, it would have had to be Duantless'

I'm something of a WWII buff myself, and I thought that the B-17 was a large land-based bomber rather than a carrier plane ... but in the end I went with the Washington Monthly's description of the CMH Society incident and the movie scene that inspired it. Serves me right.

To bring this full circle, the North Park prof in question (Zenos Hawkinson) served with the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific during the war, and after I mentioned to him one day that I had just finished reading Richard B. Frank's magisterial tome Guadalcanal he and I had several long discussions about what it was like to be serving in the fleet back during those dark days of '42. One of my grandfathers was a tin-can swabby in the South Pacific during the war, but to his dying day he refused to talk about it to anyone.

[Warren Thompson]

Greg:

Herewith another B-17 story. George "Rinso" Marquette, former LVC basketball coach and Dean of Students, was a B-17 radio operator based at Eye, United Kingdom. One day in 1944 he was on a training flight for a new navigator, and since it was a non-combat flight, the pilot had allowed some ground-crew mechanics along for the ride. The day was heavily overcast and the rookie navigator got lost.

After flying around unsuccessfully looking for a "hole" in the clouds, the pilot decided to drop down through the overcast. He did so ... and was promptly greeted by heavy flak and took some hits; it seems the plane was over Occupied France, and the German gunners in the neighborhood were only too happy to concentrate their efforts on a lone B-17.

Fortunately, they somehow made it back, carrying a group of terminally frightened mechanics, none of whom ever wanted another sightseeing flight.

[Knightstalker]

The only multi-engined combat plane to fly off carriers in WWII was the B-25 Mitchell bombers that participated in Doolittles raid of Tokyo that was launched from the USS Hornet.

Regarding WWII vets, I know that the guys in my VFW post will tell you what unit they were with and what battles they fought in but everything else is mostly stories about the down time.  My uncle was wounded on Iwo Jima and everybody thought he got shot in the butt, so he went along with it.  He never told what really happened, nobody except his oldest grandson knew until after he died what really happened and that he also earned the bronze star.

I just finished a really good book about Iwo Jima, it is called Flags of our Fathers.  It is about the six men, five Marines and one Navy corpsman who were in the famous picture.  It really explains a lot about how a lot of these men feel.  I highly recommend it.