Major History Error

Aw !

    Now you went and spoiled it .I thought John Wayne played that part ! lol.lol.  T.B.

jtilley

 

Today almost all college undergraduates, and virtually all high school students, were born since Operation Desert Storm.

 

 

Well, Desert Storm was January thru March, 1991. 25 years ago! I sure hope that there are no 25 year olds in High School as students. Most College kids now should have been born during the Balkan War ops of Deliberate Force in 1995 over Bosnia and Allied Force in 1999 over Kosovo. And grown up in our current GWOT/Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedom/Inherent Resolve etc. of the past 15 years... Of course with only 1% of the current population serving or having served recently and no real war related hardships at home they have a far different relationship to earlier wars with draftees, rationing, far higher casualties, etc.

I was 12 the year of the Tet Offensive. I won't forget that one, or that horrible year in general, ever.

Now, I've a good friend whose father, since deceased, was in the Ottoman Army in WW1. That was a first for me.

templar1099

 

jtilley

I also think there's a problem of, for want of a better term, distance in time. Here are some interesting figures

 

 

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Relativity. Also it's certainly not taught at the lower grades, at least out here, it's parceled out in " social studies" now. It is true that those who forget history.... 

 

And a perfect example is both sand boxes now........another quagmire we are stuck in just like Vietnam was back in my day.  The powers to be back in DC have forgotten the lesson that should have been learned and writ large in stone about that one.  And that was only 40-50 years ago.

jtilley

I also think there's a problem of, for want of a better term, distance in time. Here are some interesting figures

Relativity. Also it's certainly not taught at the lower grades, at least out here, it's parceled out in " social studies" now. It is true that those who forget history.... 

I also think there's a problem of, for want of a better term, distance in time. Here are some interesting figures.

Today almost all college undergraduates, and virtually all high school students, were born since Operation Desert Storm. To a 12-year-old, World War II has been over for 71 years.

When I was 12, in 1962, WWII had been over for 17 years. WWI had been over for 44 years. The Spanish-American War had been over for 64 years. And the country was in the midst of the Civil War centennial celebrations.

When my father was 12 years old, in 1924, WWI had been over for six years. And the Civil War had been over for 59 years.

That 71-year gap since WWII is pretty big - and getting bigger. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that so many people know so little about it. The Doolittle Raid is now more distant than the Battle of Gettysburg was to my father - or the Battle of Jutland was to me when I was a kid.

Here's another one. In my college military history courses, I give an assignment that requires each student to interview two people who went through some important event in American military history. I made that assignment for the first time in 1984, and a few of the students interviewed WWI vets. This year they had an awful time finding WWII vets. (Thank goodness for nursing homes.) these students are the grandchildren of Viet Nam vets. Some of their parents served in Desert Storm.

I feel old.

Never mind Bunker Hill.

Sailor Steve

I wish I had a dollar for every error I've seen in books, including "official accounts". It usually seems to be sloppy editing.

 

That's what I like to call job security!

the Baron

I'm not a fan of remakes, but I would like to see a serious movie about the Battle of Midway, sticking to the actual events, and making use of current technology for special effects.

The Japanese did a movie recently about Admiral Yamamoto that covers Midway somewhat (and not overly accurately compared to mainstream current knowledge of that battle) but the visual look of the battle by CGI is sweet...

in order... the sequences here focus more on Admiral Yamaguchi like in the old Toho movie about the 1st Carrier Striking Force with Toshiro Mifune

the Baron

 

But the public wants to see Alec "Angryman" Baldwin playing Jimmy Doolittle...

 

Personally I can see Bruce Willis being a good Jimmy Doolittle

And speaking of errors in books, I have a copy of The Army of Frederick the Great, by Christopher Duffy, and it's full of typos, and paste-up errors, for example, where a piece of text is just missing.  I was so excited when I got the book, but in the 20 years or so since I bought it, I've marked it up with red pen, and there are probably still some errors lurking, that I read right past.  I've thought about sending my copy to Professor Duffy, but I never follow up on that.  If I were an author, I would be embarassed that I had caught the errors myself, but I'd also be furious with my editor and with the publisher, for such poor quality control.

Well, speaking of kit inaccuracies, Aoshima has come out with a kit of the Wasp (CV-7) in 1/700, injection-molded styrene (thereby covering one of my perennial suggestions on polls for "Kit's We'd Like to See").  The air wing includes SBDs, with folding wings.  Each little Dauntless is molded as the fuselage and a center section of wings, and left and right external wing parts.  Oh, and the vertical stabilizer is squared off.  And this is a kit that was released a couple of months ago.

It doesn't bother me too much, since I'll replace the kit planes with Trumpeter's, but still...

Archangel Shooter

Like the scene in the film Midway where Charlton Heston plane was shot up and as he was making his final approach, he was flying 5-6 different planes before crashing on the flight deck.

Oh, Midway is absolutely awful.  Tons of mismatched stock footage.  The scene you mention uses the footage of a Hellcat crash-landing on the second Yorktown's flight deck and bouncing off the after 5" twin turret.  And using reversed images of the remaining Essexes for the Japanese carriers.  It's even more disappointing, considering that Tora! Tora! Tora! was released a couple of years before, and the special effects were serious and well-planned.  (Yes, Midway re-used some of TTT's footage, too).

And the added ficitional bits make the movie even worse.  I think that the actual events provide a good enough story on their own, an example of heroism, bravery, as well as some of the worse aspects of our nature, that they need no embellishment.

And I think we could have gotten by with Japanese dialogue, with subtitles.

At least Henry Fonda resembled Chester Nimitz a little bit, just as Toshiro Mifune resembled Yamamoto.

I'm not a fan of remakes, but I would like to see a serious movie about the Battle of Midway, sticking to the actual events, and making use of current technology for special effects.

But the public wants to see Alec "Angryman" Baldwin playing Jimmy Doolittle...

Hi , Stik !

   Listen , I have found errors like this all the time on Decals. Now on Instruction Sheets it's another ball game . Some years back I obtained what looked like a Gearing Class destroyer in 1/350 .

   What it turned out to be, based on the equipment aboard was a modification to a Fletcher ( i/e the Proto for the Gearings and Sumner class .) The instructions had you building a straight out Gearing with parts that didn't belong .

     You know what , it still built into a fine looking model though . Thank Goodness , I spent three years on a Gearing , both before and after FRAM . ( That was before my enjoyable " Bird-Farm " Days ).       T.B.

You mean like this?

Torpedo 8 Midway Detachment had the earliest production TBF-1s with the smaller rear fuselage side windows and single cowl mounted .50, not -1Cs, a mid war version with wing mounted .50s. And no drop tanks, nor late war 5" HVARs...

Here is an example of a major error by either Hobbyboss or Squadron in their listing.  The 1/72 USAF UH-1F Huey is shown to have a serial number 84-0493 from 1976.  That helo didn't exist in 1976, as the 84 stands for Fiscal Year 1984 when the money was first appropriated to buy the Huey.  The other one is 83-1238 from 1979 which is also in a timewarp.  Maybe they launched into "The Final Countdown".

goldhammer

Then he would have had both dates wrong.....bad enough with the error he had on the Tokyo raid.

Wonder if thedate he gave is not close the the raid on Wake........ I know Enterprise went back after it fell for a raid and felt they were getting some back since they were coming back from ferrying some Marine fighters to Wake when Pearl was hit.  I think the Wake raid was a month or so after Pearl.

 

The Wake raid was in February 1942. It was one of several carried out across the Central and South Pacific by the three remaining fleet carriers of the USN in the Pacific in early 1942. Saratoga was torpedoed by a IJN submarine in January and would not return to duty until just after Midway in June.

Then he would have had both dates wrong.....bad enough with the error he had on the Tokyo raid.

Wonder if thedate he gave is not close the the raid on Wake........ I know Enterprise went back after it fell for a raid and felt they were getting some back since they were coming back from ferrying some Marine fighters to Wake when Pearl was hit.  I think the Wake raid was a month or so after Pearl.

the Baron

 

 Have you ever noticed on the History channel or something of the same how often they speak of a particular vehicle and/or action while showing film of something different or that wasn't used in that action... 

Like the scene in the film Midway where Charlton Heston plane was shot up and as he was making his final approach, he was flying 5-6 different planes before crashing on the flight deck.

Putsie

...it's just the way of the world.  As a history/political science teacher for 40 years (now retired) I was often amused by the errors I would find when reviewing sample copies of textbooks we were considering for adoption.  Have you ever noticed on the History channel or something of the same how often they speak of a particular vehicle and/or action while showing film of something different or that wasn't used in that action...

Hey, accuracy is important but in the end it doesn't change the price of eggs in China...

Don't you see this as a general erosion in the knowledge of history, and as a retired history teacher, don't you think that it's a serious issue for a society to lose its knowledge of its past?

Hi guys !

It's just the way of the world.  As a history/political science teacher for 40 years (now retired) I was often amused by the errors I would find when reviewing sample copies of textbooks we were considering for adoption.  Have you ever noticed on the History channel or something of the same how often they speak of a particular vehicle and/or action while showing film of something different or that wasn't used in that action.  And doesn't it inflate your ego a bit when you catch them in an error ?

Hey, accuracy is important but in the end it doesn't change the price of eggs in China.

See ya !

Aha !

     Now you see why I try to not get carried away . I have found the same. Even in Catalogues that are intended to generate sales .Example .One lately listed a model car . They described it in glowing terms .Then identified it as the wrong car !

     So , where do we go from here ?    T.B.

Sailor Steve

I wish I had a dollar for every error I've seen in books, including "official accounts". It usually seems to be sloppy editing.

 

It is especially bad in magazines these days.  I occasionally write for another modeling magazine where the owner got rid of the editor and is responsible for editing as well as publishing.  But, he does not edit!  He relies on the writers, for substantive facts as well as spelling and grammar.  Many of the big time popular mags these days apparently seem to be following the same policy, thinking that running the file through the spelling and grammar checking software is enough :-(

no matter what, we all know what  jimmy dolittle did for aviation.

Wow, seems like it was only yesterday...

Sounds to me the author pushed the editor to get the book out without verifying a key fact. 

GAF

 

the Baron

You mean Jimmy Doolittle didn't look like Alec Baldwin?

 

 

 

Of course not!  Everyone knows he looked like Spencer Tracy.

https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?&id=OIP.M20edbc94bf9350c46ac915a0c9122e89o0&w=299&h=224&c=0&pid=1.9&rs=0&p=0&r=0

Gary

 

And how many noticed/remember the branch and huge hornet nest behind him in the briefing room on board the carrier.

the Baron

You mean Jimmy Doolittle didn't look like Alec Baldwin?

Of course not!  Everyone knows he looked like Spencer Tracy.

https://tse1.mm.bing.net/th?&id=OIP.M20edbc94bf9350c46ac915a0c9122e89o0&w=299&h=224&c=0&pid=1.9&rs=0&p=0&r=0

Gary

You mean Jimmy Doolittle didn't look like Alec Baldwin?

Yep April 18th was the date.