Pearl Harbor Day

I have long wondered why Hollywood decided to make a blockbuster film about the attack on Pearl Harbor. I am talking about the 2000 movie starring Ben Affleck and Alec Baldwin. The film was awful on many levels and it is not my intention to rehash the manifest reasons why that is so. Rather, I would like to address the reasoning behind the decision to spend much money and effort to recreate an event that was an overwhelming tactical victory for Japan. If you are determined to make a movie about the Pacific War, why not make it about the Battle of Midway? They did make a movie about Midway in the 1970's and it wasn't bad at all. There was also an earlier movie about Pearl Harbor called Tora! Tora! Tora! and that was a pretty good flick as well.

So, why the decision to go with the attack on Pearl Harbor, and not the overwhelming American victory at Midway? I have no idea really. Perhaps the people behind it thought they had a better story line with Pearl Harbor, although the logic of that eludes me. How could you do better then a battle that resulted in four of the six Japanese Carriers, that made up the Pearl Harbor Strike Force, being turned into blazing wrecks by American Dive Bombers? In a matter of minutes, the outcome of the Pacific War was decided. Yes, I realize that it took three more years to settle the matter and Japan's Navy still had plenty of fight left in it after Midway. However, any chance that Japan might have had of coming out of that war with something short of utter ruin was lost forever on that June day in 1942.

I recall that the US Navy lent their full cooperation to the filmmakers during the production of Pearl Harbor. Why wouldn't they at least insist on a battle that we won? I mean, Pearl Harbor wasn't exactly the Navy's finest hour. Given the state of affairs in the world at that particular moment, there was absolutely no excuse for being as unprepared for war as they were that Sunday morning. Earlier that same year, the British had executed a nearly identical attack on anchored Italian battleships lying in harbor. The Japanese studied the lessons of that very well and incorporated what they learned into their plan of attack. Did we pay any attention at all? Apparently not.

Maybe it has something to do with our fascination with last stands and hopeless causes. Think of the Alamo, and Custer at the Little Bighorn. I may be on to something here. Who remembers the name of the battle where Santa Ana was defeated? I certainly don't. But everyone remembers the Alamo.