[Milsurplus] Midway conclusion

[Hubert Miller]

So I saw this movie Sunday last. I myself would rate it 2 out of 4 stars. Mostly I downrate it for some amateurish dialog and ( what I felt was ) some
inauthentic character types. But I mostly went to get the "feeling" of the time and place anyway, and I do not at all feel my time was not spent well.
One member of our groups commented "too many rapid scene changes". Yes, probably so. Maybe people have shorter attention spans now and
expect that, are used to that? I don't know.

I noticed right up front there was a credit to some Shanghai film studio or company. I read that 25% of the $100M production cost was provided by
Chinese investment. For me this maybe explains some scenes where Doolittle's men after bailing out over China, are guided by Chinese guerrilla forces.
After a village is bombed by Japanese planes, one of the Chinese comments something like "the Japanese are making war on the Chinese people". I
mean the implication was that it was not only a war for territory. Of course we know that there lives on, and understandably so, a great deal of anti-
Japanese resentment in Japan's former colonial projects.

The episode of the execution of the American pilots I thought not quite accurate, not supportable. Certainly American pilots were routinely executed,
but whether captivity or execution varied by time and place. My argument with these scenes is that the method shown in the film was unlikely.

Now back on - topic. As Brian Harrison has commented, the producers were offered the correct Navy radios for the radio room scenes, but replied
that production was too far along to change plans now. The British air forces R-1155 does light up very nicely, and the Hallicrafters SX-25 also has nicely
lighted dials. Of course, both sets are "wrong" for such actual U.S.. Navy station. I note that also there is no reason for the radioman's typewriter to have
the typewriter carrying case behind it on the desk. No reason to have a portable typewriter at your radio desk.

We are "picky", aren't we? But - that's our job, right ?

There was also the Zenith Trans-Oceanic, first model, "bomber style", radio shown playing 'Radio Tokyo'. Yamamoto's home is also shown, with the
family listening to some multiband table radio, one with the typical tuning dial city markings as you maybe are familiar with on German tables radios
and such. ( I am pretty sure Yamamoto family did have a multiband home radio and I seem to recall a 1930s U.S. radio magazine photo showing the
children at home listening. ) ( Yes, I was surprised  to see that photo, too !! )

I thought in another scene I saw a VERY short glimpse of an AN/URR-35  VHF receiver, but it went by too fast to be sure. At some time in the future,
I may or may not freeze the movie and do some screen shots of particular scenes of interest.

I saw one item I suspect very few viewers picked up on. The flight suits of the Japanese aviators seemed to me quite realistic. BUT I was very surprised
indeed so see in one front - on view, the Japanese pilot had a particular microphone on. This was a short cylinder type thing that fastened over the
flyer's mouth. Of course, such device precluded any use of oxygen, so this limited the maximum operational altitude. The particular model of this
microphone attachment seemed to have a 'voice tube' exiting from the front of it. This 'microphone' is correct for the time but a single pilot fighter
plane of course has no use for a voice tube. I think there was also a similar model microphone attachment but equipped with electrical element. I
believe I have one of those. It truly is a mystery why those particular things are so very rare now ! There had to be a big supply just lying around, at one
time. In the same scene, which also passes by very fast, it looked like the pilot reaches down to flip a switch on what looks to me like a Type 99-3 voice
radio transmitter. You only see the corner of the radio, and very momentarily, but I thought I recognized the radio package and control markings.
Again, right equipment for the time, but wrong place - not used in 'Zero' fighter.
-Hue Miller









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