David Berry

sorry La Brea....you cannot carbon date a diamond ring......let's keep it real...

We just caught the movie "Midway". I have read probably five books about the battle and I went in skeptical about authenticity. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by the accuracy. The salute thing is always overdone in these war films. The fact is, onboard ship, except in port, you rarely salute, except assuming a watch or attention to colors. Otherwise, of course there is the fictional stuff to make the story interesting and human, but overall a very well done, and very heartfelt film about a lot of sacrifice (on both sides). The scene where US survivor picked up by a Japanese ship were killed is true.as told by a Japanese sailor after the war. The film also depicts the Film Director John Ford filming the air raid on Midway Island. Most of the color footage was taken after the air raid, not during. All in all, if you were in the Navy, go see the film, I think you'll enjoy it, especially if you were in the Aviation side of the Navy..they even snuck a pre-jet age FOD walkdown into the film. The CGI was very good, and I, along with others thought the concentration of tracers in the movie was probably heavy handed. Tracers are typically every third round, not every round, since they would burn out a barrel otherwise. The Japanese extensively used 40 mm Bofors cannon for anti aircraft as shown. I wish they had shown more of the sacrifice of the flyers stationed on Midway Island, like the F2A Brewster Buffalo pilots, the SB Vindicator and the F4F pilots who ventured out to stop the Japanese air raid. Almost all were lost to Zero fighters, causing the F2a to be withdrawn from service almost immediately after the battle. Zero fighters (Mitsubishi A6Ms) BTW DID have two 7.7mm machine guns on board along with a two 20 mm cannon. Richard Best's landing technique was exaggerated big time. In real life he would have swam or ended up part of the landing ramp. all in all though, the movie left me inspired by the sacrifices of these stalwart men.