Midway: A battle, a book, and two movies

I miss the old movies from the 60s and early 70s. My dad loved them, we'd watch them together and I actually learned a lot of military history from watching those Saturday reruns (some of that history I admit had to be corrected). One of those was the 1976 movie Midway with Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda. This was on our list of classic war movies, so I bought a copy on DVD for my dad a few years ago. When the new version of Midway came out in 2019 with Woody Harrelson as Admiral Nimitz, I had to see how it compared, so I added a copy of that version to my collection.

Which version is better you ask? Tough question. Right off the top, I’ll tell you I liked the older version better. But for the life of my I couldn’t figure out why. Is it because the Charlton Heston version used real aircraft and historical footage? (the onboard carrier scenes were filmed on the USS Lexington.) Maybe the computer-generated battle scenes in the 2019 version were a turnoff. That and a bit of overacting? Maybe? Just a little? Amazon customers couldn’t help. Both movies are well received with thousands of reviews. Well, maybe we should ask which one was more historically accurate. And that’s where the book comes in.

I admit that I am not nearly as familiar with WWII naval history as I am with the land-based battles. I did not know a great deal about the Battle of Midway. When I don’t know about something, I can’t just take Wikipedia’s word for it. I have to go find a book. No disrespect to Wikipedia, it’s a great resource for background information. I just have to have a book. I chose “The Battle of Midway” by Craig L. Symonds. The book was really good. I’m not the only one who thinks so, it has 4.7 stars on 590 reviews. The book begins with Admiral Chester Nimitz taking over as CincPac in the days following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We’re given all of the background we need that leads us up to the battle, including the Battle of the Coral Sea, the breaking of Japanese codes, and the Doolittle Raid. The book then provides a blow by blow telling of the Battle of Midway that occurred just six months after Pearl Harbor. I enjoyed reading it.

Which movie was more historically accurate? First, ignore the storyline in the first movie involving Heston’s fictional character and his son. Then I would say with the broad-brush strokes they are both historically accurate. But I have to admit that when it comes to details and character portrayals, the 2019 Woody Harrelson version beats out the 1976 version. For example, Joe Rochefort, the officer in charge of breaking one of the Japanese codes that were so instrumental in the American victory was portrayed in the 1976 movie as eccentric and unconventional. That is not a true description of this brilliant officer, and he was more accurately depicted in the 2019 movie. As it turns out, the 2019 movie did a much better job of showing the real men who played integral parts in the battle. McClusky really did damage his lungs with a faulty air tank, and Admiral Yamaguchi did, in fact, choose to go down with the Hiryū. As it turns out, it seemed like the 2019 movie of Midway was based on Symonds’ book.

I know I haven’t helped you choose just one of these. But hey, while you are socially distancing yourself you’ve got time to enjoy all three. My recommendation, as always, is to read the book first. 😉

Recommendation: Make Your Own Documentary

I really enjoy watching documentaries. Heck, I like the American Experience better than most movies that have come out lately. I was seriously thinking about writing Ken Burns an email and telling him he's not working hard enough; I'm tired of waiting so long between premieres. So it shouldn't come as a shock to you that I (and I suspect there are many others out there) have always had a closeted desire to make documentaries myself.

Geek that I am, the first thing that I do when something bright and shiny floats by in my mind is to go to Amazon or the library and look for a book on the subject. Like my dad told me when I was a kid: "Anything you can think of, someone's written a book about it. In the library you can learn how to do anything." A few months ago I picked up the book "Making Documentary Films and Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries" by Barry Hampe. I've had it on the shelf for a while and I recently picked it up and read through it. You know how it goes, more bright shiny things distracting me, but I can honestly say I wish that I had read it sooner. Why? Because, along with technique, the book gives you an appreciation for how much work goes into producing, writing, filming, and production of the simplest of documentary films.

Right out of the gate let me say that this book is not for those who want to make a two-minute short for YouTube. The author acknowledges that with the technology available to us today, just about anybody can become a documentary filmmaker. But the book is written for those who might want to work on a production that rivals a full-length film, like Mr. Burns' Prohibition. That's not to say that there isn't a great deal of useful information for those of us who want to do short videos.

Probably the most valuable part of the book for me was Chapter 20 The Script. I'm proud to say that I've written a book and a number of articles, but I had no idea how to write a script for a documentary. Trust me, from my limited experience in playing with my little handheld Panasonic Video Camera, and Pinnacle Studio for editing and voice-over, I know that the end result will be tremendously more professional if you write down what you are going to film and what you are going to say long before you start filming. The author devote sixteen pages to writing and formatting the script, which is all I really felt I need. (Although I know that there are many volumes dedicated to the art and science of script writing.) The "Two-Column Script Format" (pg 201)  just makes sense. The book includes a chapter sample of a script and a full treatment of a couple of documentary scripts is included in the appendix.

The author, Barry Hampe, has had a long and full professional career having participated in the making of over 200 documentaries. He talks to his reader in a forthright and straightforward style. This book is about no-nonsense information, presented in an interesting and palatable form. This might not be the sole-source for you if you want to make documentary films but I think it should be on your reading list. After all, I now know what "shooting B-roll" means. ;-)

What are you reading?

I have a book problem. I never met a bookstore, library, or book club I didn’t like. I have stacks of unread books and magazines around the house, most of which are nonfiction, most of that, history. I'll get around to them all one day. Once in a while I pick up a work of fiction. As you might imagine, it's almost always historical fiction. The more accurate the better; I hate catching an author with a historical inaccuracy. It turns me off for the rest of the book. From then on I can’t trust any historical “facts” presented in the story. After that, it’s just brain candy. Admittedly, fiction is my guilty pleasure just the same. But I don’t feel like I’m learning anything.

I’ll give you a couple of examples. I picked up the book Faded Coat of Blue by Owen Parry in a used book store. It is actually part of a detective series set within the backdrop of the Civil War. I enjoyed the character of the heroic sleuth, Able Jones, who was a Welsh immigrant making his home in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Since I was living in that area of the country at the time, I saw that the author was dead on historically accurate with the history of the coal mining region of Pennsylvania. I really enjoyed the book, but I was upset when the author had the main character secretly meet President Lincoln, who asks him to work for him as a secret agent. Thus the stage is set for a detective series within the Civil War. Okay, so I read a few more books in the Able Jones series. It's a fun read, but as I said: brain candy.


One of the books that really turned me on to military history was The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. I read the book the first time as an assignment for a military history class when I was in ROTC. Since then I’ve read the book three more times and I must have watched the movie version, Gettysburg, at least a dozen more. One of the reasons I like the book so much is the attention the author paid to historical accuracy. All of the characters in the novel are historical personalities. The only thing made up in the book is the conversations the characters have with each other. Michael Shaara’s son, Jeff, has taken up the family business. Jeff Shaara writes with the same standard of historical accuracy and now has a long list of titles on Amazon. He has done a prequel and a sequel to the Killer Angels, and done works on the Revolution, the Mexican War, World War I and World War II. I just yesterday finished The Steel Wave, Jeff Shaara’s second volume about WWII. I liked it so much, as I do all of his work, I mailed it to my dad to read. It’s not brain candy, or even brain fast food. Think of it as a healthy brain sandwich.

The bottom line is that I think we can learn a lot from historical fiction, whether by reading a novel, or watching a movie. It doesn’t just have to be about military history. Movies (that are almost always books first) like Seabiscuit and A Beautiful Mind were box office successes AND historically accurate. Or at least these works are historically accurate enough to teach the story while entertaining. These works should not be discounted as a way to learn history. I find history exciting. It's unfortunate that many others don't. History makes for a good story. Why can’t we get people interested in, and excited about, history by presenting it as the drama that it is?