00:00:00:26 – 00:00:21:27
Dan LeFebvre
Let’s kick this off by getting an overall look at the Manhattan Project. Because if I were to try to summarize the movie’s depiction, basically it seems like a top secret program by the US military at the end of World War two to create an atomic bomb. Can you give us an overall explanation of what the Manhattan Project actually was?

00:00:21:29 – 00:00:55:27
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, it was a project, as you say, during World War Two, to build an atomic bomb. And this is work that, played out mostly in the United States, but it involves scientists from Britain and from Canada as well. As well as is this is something we see really clearly in Oppenheimer, many, many European scientists in exile in the United States who are working on the project, who had been, you know, involved in, nuclear physics, who were bassists or chemists, you know, before they fled the United States and who were involved in the project, you know, working at places like University of Chicago, working at Los Alamos, etc..

00:00:55:29 – 00:01:23:02
Alice Lovejoy
And the basic idea behind the bomb is something that Oppenheimer details well, which is the idea, the discovery, really, that if you could split the nucleus of an atom of uranium atom, nuclear fission, you could create a chain reaction, a great amount of energy that would create a chain reaction that would split other atoms. And so this could be the basis for an extremely powerful weapon, really more powerful than any weapon that existed before.

00:01:23:04 – 00:01:51:26
Alice Lovejoy
So that’s the kind of science behind it. But the, the actual project itself, was huge for the size of atoms. Atoms are really, really small. And on a scale large enough to make enough fissionable material for a bomb, you needed, government and scientific cooperation and investment across multiple factories and multiple places. And so in Oppenheimer, we are focused on Los Alamos for the most part in New Mexico, which is where, our Oppenheimer worked.

00:01:51:28 – 00:02:22:04
Alice Lovejoy
It’s where a lot of the physicists were. But there was a huge amount of production work happening in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in Hanford, Washington, which were cities that were built for the Manhattan Project. But they didn’t exist before, as well as in Washington and then in university centers like Berkeley, which we do see in the film, and the University of Chicago, which we see briefly as well, underneath the football field, and in New York, places like Columbia and here at places like the University of Minnesota, it really was really across the, across the country and, universities.

00:02:22:04 – 00:02:24:19
Alice Lovejoy
But there were some that were more involved than others.

00:02:24:21 – 00:02:41:20
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it definitely in the movie, it definitely focuses on Los Alamos, which is, I mean, it’s Oppenheimer, so it’s mostly focus on him. There is a scene in the movie, I think it’s a madman’s version of General Leslie Groves. He talks about buying like 1200 tons of uranium and how it’s being processed in a facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

00:02:41:27 – 00:03:00:21
Dan LeFebvre
But we don’t ever see Oak Ridge in the movie. It just kind of shows like two glass bowls. One of them is supposed to be Oak Ridge. One of them, I think, is Hanford. And one of them is the uranium in Oak Ridge. And then the other one is plutonium in Hanford. So they’re talking about making a fission bomb and a hydrogen bomb.

00:03:00:23 – 00:03:10:27
Dan LeFebvre
And so the impression I got from the movie, it sounds like not only are they doing something that’s never been done before and building an atomic bomb, but they’re trying two different ways to do it. Is that true?

00:03:10:29 – 00:03:35:12
Alice Lovejoy
So yes, I think there’s some nuance there. I think the the film gets that scene in the film is great because it gets at not just the scale. Right? How small the this the amount of materials that Hanford and Oak Ridge are able to breathe are so small. And yet they’re so hard to make. Yeah. And the scene gets at the fact that the Manhattan Project was working on two different kinds of fissionable materials for the bomb, so uranium and plutonium.

00:03:35:19 – 00:03:51:29
Alice Lovejoy
And this is all for the same kind of bomb, which is efficient bomb, and Oak Ridge, and Hanford were the places where this was happening. But because this was a project that was happening at such speed, because the war was ongoing, they were afraid the Germans would get the bomb, which is something that the film shows very well.

00:03:52:01 – 00:04:15:06
Alice Lovejoy
There was there were numerous ways of creating this material that were happening at the same time. So in Oak Ridge there were three plants. One of them was using the electromagnetic separation process, to separate fissionable uranium 2005 from uranium 2008. And then there was a gaseous diffusion process at another plant at Oak Ridge and at Oak Ridge.

00:04:15:06 – 00:04:38:03
Alice Lovejoy
There was also another plant that was transforming, spent uranium fuel slugs into plutonium. And then Hanford was working fully on plutonium. So we see a little bit of the electromagnetic separation process in Berkeley and an early scene in the film where, Josh Hartnett, who is playing Ernest Lawrence, shows us that machine. And that is what was operating a large scale at Oak Ridge.

00:04:38:03 – 00:04:57:25
Alice Lovejoy
And the electron and the white, all the electromagnetic separation plant. But the hydrogen bomb is something different. And this is a thermonuclear weapon. This is something that comes up in the film because, Edward Teller, the, physicist who kind of is at odds with Oppenheimer, throughout their time. And Los Alamos is really invested in this.

00:04:57:25 – 00:05:18:24
Alice Lovejoy
And hydrogen bombs work through, through fusion and not through fission. So thermonuclear bombs, hydrogen bombs, where something that became a reality in the 50s, and they were very, very dangerous. They’re much more powerful. They are much more powerful than the kinds of bombs that were being worked on at Los Alamos. And so I think this is part of the moral story.

00:05:18:27 – 00:05:37:00
Alice Lovejoy
Right, that’s operating in Oppenheimer at the same time as sort of scientific and industrial story, which is about what are the costs of working on a bomb this powerful. And so Teller’s character is there and to sort of, show what he would do later, which is accurate, right. Working on the hydrogen bomb really being responsible for a lot of that science.

00:05:37:02 – 00:05:54:18
Alice Lovejoy
But also to, to set up the, the, the ways in which this project would evolve and in, unforeseeable ways, right in the future that these bombs that they were making in Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, and Hanford would lead the way for things that couldn’t be seen at that point.

00:05:54:20 – 00:06:15:00
Dan LeFebvre
So because, yeah, they kind of they kind of talk a little bit about that. You know, I think the concept of the bomb just becoming a never ending explosion and that sort of thing is, is that kind of what you were referring to is, you know, some of the, the moral elements of it more than just, you know, World War Two, we want to end the war.

00:06:15:02 – 00:06:18:15
Dan LeFebvre
But what’s going to happen after that and that, that whole concept.

00:06:18:18 – 00:06:43:25
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, I think that’s part of it. One of the the key parts of this film for me is that, is Oppenheimer is grappling with the the intersection between the scientific work he’s doing and the politics of this work and the real world consequences of this work. And we see that, as something that’s shared with the scientists as well, when they have a meeting, at Los Alamos and they say, hey, Germany has capitulated, why are we still making this bomb?

00:06:43:27 – 00:07:03:25
Alice Lovejoy
Right? You know how many people are going to be killed? And what does this mean for the future of humanity? That’s something that Niels Bohr, the, who the physicist who comes in earlier in a later in the film says, like who? What is going to happen with this? Are you going to destroy humanity with this? So it’s not just about the possibility that the film deals with, which is an uncontrolled chain reaction which could really destroy the world.

00:07:04:00 – 00:07:21:13
Alice Lovejoy
It’s also about, thinking forward to the arms race and to whether this would be used. And this is sort of one of the key debates of the Cold War, whether the existence of nuclear weapons would prevent countries from going to war or whether they would just create, more and more danger for the world.

00:07:21:16 – 00:07:50:00
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned with Germany, the other the possibility of Germany doing it, too. And this is outside the scope of anything that we see in Oppenheimer. But it would they have the thought of, well, if somebody is going to do it, it might as well be us first, right? I mean, I know that’s a simplification, perhaps, but, you know, if they were afraid that Nazi Germany is going to be building this, then I could see how they’d be like, well, we want to do it first.

00:07:50:03 – 00:08:11:14
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. And that is the logic right in there. And there was a logic behind this too, that, you know, there were people that this could end the war, it could end all war. And that we don’t want the Nazis to have, to be the ones to get there first, because it could be quite dangerous. And as we learn in the film and this is accurate, they were the Germans were not as advanced as people had feared, even though they had their Heisenberg.

00:08:11:14 – 00:08:30:09
Alice Lovejoy
And they had these, you know, great scientific minds working on the project. The allies were much more advanced with it. So it wasn’t, as much of a threat as had been feared. But there was a breakdown in scientific communication at this moment, too. Right. So people weren’t publishing in these international journals, as much there wasn’t as much circulation of knowledge.

00:08:30:09 – 00:08:48:18
Alice Lovejoy
And this is a real question, you know, in the history of 20th century weapons, it goes back to poison gas, right? Then the question of whether in poison gas for World War One was really the most destructive weapon. It was the thing that raised the most moral, qualms as well. Right? Because it’s a weapon of mass destruction.

00:08:48:20 – 00:09:05:25
Alice Lovejoy
And so there were discussions about whether this is, a weapon whose, development and circulation should be known about widely, so nobody else would develop it. Right, so the world could be protected. But those kinds of networks of scientific communication, which built up after World War One and after poison gas had really broken down by this point.

00:09:05:28 – 00:09:25:07
Dan LeFebvre
When you’re talking about how much goes into creating, you know, going back to the glass bowls and those being filled up, can you fill a little bit more? I mean, I, I don’t know much about what actually goes into creating those, but, I mean, it’s one thing that we see in the movie I it’s called Oppenheimer. Right?

00:09:25:07 – 00:09:45:09
Dan LeFebvre
So he’s he’s the main character, but it does kind of talk a little bit about what you’re, talking about before with what it takes to create these materials. You know, even at Los Alamos, which the movie focuses on, they talk about building a town, churches and schools and building this whole thing. You talked about, you know, Oakridge and Hanford being towns that they built in other areas.

00:09:45:09 – 00:09:50:18
Dan LeFebvre
So can you share some more historical context around the size of the Manhattan Project?

00:09:50:21 – 00:10:12:28
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, it’s a great question because it was huge. And we see this, early in the film when I think, it’s a scene between when Leslie, our Groves, meets Oppenheimer for the first time, and Oppenheimer says, well, if we’re going to do this, we need to have these four spaces, and they need to be coordinated. And the the difference in scale between the number of marbles, you know, these tiny little marbles that you need to make enough charge material for a bomb.

00:10:12:28 – 00:10:36:09
Alice Lovejoy
And the the scope of the project across the United States is really a good way to look at it. So let’s just think about Y-12, the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, which is the one that I know the most about my my recent book, deals and in in detail with the history of Y-12. And it was run by the Tennessee Eastman Company, which was the main chemical subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak Company, the photographic and film company.

00:10:36:11 – 00:11:07:07
Alice Lovejoy
And at its height, there were 22,000 employees working for Y-12, 22,000, and this plant was only one of three at Oak Ridge. The plant itself was, at the time, I think, around 800 acres in size, which is, if we’re going to go by a football field, around 600 football fields, I think. And so there were multiple buildings within it, multiple calutrons, which are these, machines that separate, uranium 235 from uranium 238.

00:11:07:09 – 00:11:33:29
Alice Lovejoy
And all of these huge factories were what was needed to make this very small amounts of fissionable material. But that’s only part of it. Right? So it’s an engineering project. It’s a factory project. It’s a chemical engineering project. And you have major U.S. companies and, and, Canadian companies involved in this. Right? So not just Eastman Kodak, but DuPont, Stone and Webster Engineering for many, many other well known companies.

00:11:34:01 – 00:11:57:03
Alice Lovejoy
And, so this is a good example of the big science of World War two. And, and you bring up towns and that’s part of it too, right? Because big science and big industry is, something that, as they say, we can’t attract top scientists without bringing their families. So we need to make whole cities, that kind of company that can accommodate, these families, you know, these, civilians, really.

00:11:57:09 – 00:12:17:15
Alice Lovejoy
And so overnight, these cities are built and, since this is a podcast about movies, I can give you a statistic that at Oak Ridge there were seven cinemas plus a film society that were built to accommodate the 75,000 people who lived there at the town’s peak. And so the film society was showing all sorts of things.

00:12:17:15 – 00:12:48:02
Alice Lovejoy
They were showing 39 stops. They were showing Sergei Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, there. And this is just part of the leisure offerings that the town, offered at the time. So bowling alleys, baseball leagues, etc. people were working 24 hour, the factories were working 24 hours a day. There was a patchwork of shifts. So you see these towns built very, very quickly out of nowhere, really, to accommodate these massive industrial projects, which is where I think Oppenheimer doesn’t quite get this right.

00:12:48:02 – 00:12:54:21
Alice Lovejoy
It doesn’t quite get at the massive industrial scale of what’s happening because it it really is a film about, about Oppenheimer himself.

00:12:54:24 – 00:12:57:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. It’s it’s not called Manhattan Project. Right, exactly.

00:12:58:01 – 00:12:59:10
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah.

00:12:59:12 – 00:13:31:00
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, that’s it’s mind boggling the amount of work and effort to create, like you said, just this tiny little that you splitting atoms literally, like, and and the amount of effort. And then on top of that, being top secret, I mean, I can’t imagine you have you said there’s 22,000 people working and then 75,000 overall. So all these, all these families, were they essentially locked in?

00:13:31:00 – 00:13:44:28
Dan LeFebvre
They’re like locked it. I’m thinking of like a military base. You know, there’s there’s housing on base. But, I used to work in a military base and you could go in and out. You had to have credentials, obviously, but you can go in and out. It’s not like you’re you’re stuck in there. But base wasn’t top secret.

00:13:44:28 – 00:13:54:26
Dan LeFebvre
And dealing with this top secret things in the middle of a world war. And so what was it? I mean, again, this is way outside the scope of acting either, but it’s just fascinating how much goes into it.

00:13:54:28 – 00:14:14:01
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. And I think they were closed me people came to work from outside Oak Ridge as well. And, you know, there were busses that went long distances and, and, you know, labor was a huge issue because you have to remember, this is the draft is happening. They’re relying primarily on to a large degree on female labor because that’s what’s available.

00:14:14:03 – 00:14:31:03
Alice Lovejoy
And so, people are, you know, coming in and out, the secrecy works in part through something that comes up a lot in the film, which is called compartmentalization. Right? The idea that one area doesn’t know what the other area is doing and very, very few people have a sense of what the whole is of the project.

00:14:31:10 – 00:14:40:03
Alice Lovejoy
And so, that was really important. And, you know, many, many people who worked at places like Oak Ridge didn’t know what they were involved with until the bomb was dropped.

00:14:40:06 – 00:14:49:14
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, okay. Okay. Would that be why they had Los Alamos and Oak Ridge and Hanford? I mean, they’re not close to each other geographically at all.

00:14:49:16 – 00:15:07:19
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, that’s a great question. I don’t know the answer to that. I think part of it was about available space and proximity to and really remote spaces, right? Was what they were looking for. And so, in Oppenheimer and I don’t know exactly the story behind this, he, he has a personal relationship to this area near Los Alamos.

00:15:07:19 – 00:15:13:17
Alice Lovejoy
And so they they put the project there. In the case of Oak Ridge, it was, through farmland and towns.

00:15:13:19 – 00:15:28:00
Dan LeFebvre
One of the other famous people that we see in the movie is Albert Einstein. And from the movie’s depiction, it doesn’t really seem like Einstein is involved in the Manhattan Project itself. But he does help Oppenheimer with some calculations. When we were talking about earlier, you know, the thought of triggering a chain reaction that destroys the world.

00:15:28:03 – 00:15:37:24
Dan LeFebvre
But in the movie, it almost seems like Einstein is just someone that everybody’s going to know. And so they just kind of throw him in there. Was Einstein involved in the Manhattan Project at all?

00:15:37:26 – 00:15:56:07
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, I agree with you that it seems like he’s put in there just because, you know, we know his face, we know his hair, we know what it looks like. But he didn’t play a direct role in the Manhattan Project. But he did, however, and this comes up in the film, he famously signed a letter written to President Roosevelt by the physicist, Leo Szilard.

00:15:56:07 – 00:16:13:16
Alice Lovejoy
Edward Teller, who we see in the film and at Zealand as well, we see in the film, and Eugene and Victor, who are all, Hungarian scientists, I believe, in exile, warning Roosevelt that it was possible that the Germans would create an atomic bomb and explaining what that kind of a weapon might be and what its dangers were.

00:16:13:18 – 00:16:41:23
Alice Lovejoy
I think as a film scholar, my reading of Einstein’s role in the film, goes beyond the fact that he is so well known. I think, you know, in my reading, Oppenheimer is a great man film great. It’s not a Tatian of the biography. American Prometheus, about Robert Oppenheimer, and one of the key dramatic arcs in the film, beyond this kind of story of the bomb and how it’s created, is the tension between Louis Strouse and Robin Robert Robert Oppenheimer.

00:16:41:25 – 00:17:04:20
Alice Lovejoy
Right. And so to give some background here, for those who might not have seen the film recently, the film cuts back and forth between the story of Oppenheimer’s education, how he comes to the Manhattan Project, the process of creating the bomb, and then, what happens afterwards when the Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss, attempts to discredit Oppenheimer?

00:17:04:23 – 00:17:27:26
Alice Lovejoy
Who has since the bomb was dropped, develops very strong moral qualms about, the potential of this weapon and what and what it represents. And so, you know, Oppenheimer wrote this for this point has developed cloud. He’s developed a certain amount of power. And Strauss, I think, finds this threatening. And Strauss also has different political, you know, idea of what bombs can do than Oppenheimer.

00:17:27:26 – 00:18:05:00
Alice Lovejoy
Right? He’s he’s more conservative. He’s a Republican. And again, party, the party questions don’t work exactly like they do now. But, that he was, somebody who advocated for, building up the U.S. nuclear arsenal and for using weapons like the hydrogen bomb, which were quite destructive. So the film intercuts between these two stories, and it ends at the end of the film when Strauss loses his bid to become secretary of commerce, and Congress, because it comes out that he has orchestrated this, essentially a closed door show trial against Oppenheimer that’s designed to discredit him and show to prove that he was a communist.

00:18:05:00 – 00:18:30:10
Alice Lovejoy
And remember, this is McCarthy, and this is the moment of McCarthyism. It’s a second red scare, etc.. So this brings us back to Einstein, because there’s a key moment in the film at the very beginning where Oppenheimer and Einstein have a conversation on the grounds of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Strauss is working there at the time, and Strauss has invited Oppenheimer to consider coming to work as well, which he eventually does.

00:18:30:12 – 00:18:56:03
Alice Lovejoy
So Strauss doesn’t hear what the two physicists say to one another. But, as we learn at the end of the film, he’s paranoid that they’re talking about him. And, it turns out they’re not talking about him. They’re talking about something entirely different. And what they’re talking about is that Eisenstein. I like Eisenstein to me, Einstein, is offering Oppenheimer a warning about what happens when you reach such achievement as he has.

00:18:56:03 – 00:19:23:06
Alice Lovejoy
Right. He says that this kind of achievement is followed by great punishment, public punishment, which we’ve just seen him endure in the film. And so there’s a frame right at the end of film where we see the three men, Strauss and Einstein, and often hammer together right in against the same background. And we can see how much this is a story about power, about the costs of ambition and about the idea of the great man, which is something that this film was playing with a lot.

00:19:23:09 – 00:19:43:18
Alice Lovejoy
And how it’s sort of, created in contexts that are complicated, right, that do have to do with power and other people’s ambition. And so Einstein, I think, is kind of a foil to these two men, Strauss and, Oppenheimer, who has relationships to what we might think of as greatness are very different. Right. Oppenheimer is a very ambivalent.

00:19:43:18 – 00:19:54:03
Alice Lovejoy
At least the film shows it to the idea of being kind of a great man, whereas Strauss, wants that, right? He wants power. He he is very, very ambitious. And ultimately it’s not about him.

00:19:54:05 – 00:20:06:15
Dan LeFebvre
It’s the mere fact that he thought that they were talking about him when I, when I when he said that in the movie, I was like, oh, this is one of those guys that thinks the world revolves around him. Everything is about him. So they must be talking about him.

00:20:06:18 – 00:20:20:12
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. And so I think that’s I think that’s one of the, the key points of why Einstein is there. Because he is a great man, right? He is sort of somebody that everybody recognizes and knows. And it’s sort of yeah, puts that into relief and interesting ways.

00:20:20:14 – 00:20:42:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if you have back to the movie’s timeline, there is immense pressure to use an atomic bomb to end World War two. And in the movie, we see that the movie, their military has a list of like, love and Japanese cities. They want to drop bombs on two of those cities. And there’s a tight deadline. So first, they need to detonate an atomic bomb for the first time ever to make sure it works one and then gather data about it.

00:20:42:20 – 00:20:52:01
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s how we get in the movie. The Trinity test. And quite in the movie, at least, it seems to be a massive success. How well do you think the movie did depicting the Trinity test?

00:20:52:04 – 00:21:13:09
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, I think what is effective about the way Oppenheimer depicts the Trinity test is that it really drills down on two things. The first, that no one there knew what they were doing or if it would work. Right. So this is a scientific experiment, much like a laboratory experiment. But but it’s operating on a huge scale with huge consequences.

00:21:13:12 – 00:21:49:28
Alice Lovejoy
And so that’s the second thing really, that perhaps somewhat unusually for these kinds of laboratory experiments, this lack of knowledge meant a lot. Right? So the film has already shown us again, that at this point, Germany has already capitulated. So there’s this question of whether it makes sense to use the weapon. And then, and I don’t know the accuracy of this timeline right before the test, General Leslie R Groves, played by Matt Damon, speaks with Oppenheimer about the non-zero chance that this explosion is will set off a chain reaction that will destroy the world and, I think that’s a moment where it’s a little too late, right, for those consequences

00:21:49:28 – 00:22:13:11
Alice Lovejoy
to become clear. And so, in a cinematic sense, it really makes sense to shoot this scene in a very stark, dark way, right? Because it’s, it’s all shot in at night. I mean, it was happening very early in the morning. The sound, is taken away. There’s no sound or very little sound. In the moments around the explosion, it goes into slow motion.

00:22:13:11 – 00:22:37:22
Alice Lovejoy
So it’s really telescoping. The moments around the explosion into a longer period. There’s low contrast until we get to the explosion, which is very, very bright. So I think what the film so that the film shows us a depiction of the Trinity test that is about Oppenheimer and his own experience of it and these sort of like these moral accompaniments to the scientific questions.

00:22:37:24 – 00:22:53:28
Alice Lovejoy
But, you know, in fact, this this test had been planned for over a year. The planning was meticulous. You know, the film shows us, a moment where they say, oh, we have to hurry. We have to get this thing tested in time for the Potsdam Conference. But in fact, it’s been in the works for for a while.

00:22:54:00 – 00:23:18:29
Alice Lovejoy
And so part of the goal here was not just to see if it worked, but also to document its effects and to study it. Right. This is a scientific, feat as well as a military, endeavor. And so part of this documentation involved cameras. There were 55 cameras, at the tests. Most of them motion picture cameras, which were designed to be started by the same mechanism that trip the bomb.

00:23:19:01 – 00:23:47:01
Alice Lovejoy
And so they were recording what happened. And so we don’t see a lot of that right in the scene. It really you just go into the, the, the, the moral, ethical, psychological questions that surround it. And I think it does a very good job of that. And I think this is also why we get that quote from the Bhagavad which, Bhagavad Gita coming up at the end, that Oppenheimer first encounters with Jean Tatlock earlier in the film.

00:23:47:03 – 00:24:01:03
Alice Lovejoy
Now I am become death. The destroyer of worlds. Right. So in reality, this is a much more planned, you know, carefully documented event. Even if it does have all this moral significance.

00:24:01:06 – 00:24:24:11
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like, again, I mean, kind of what we were talking about with the Manhattan Project. There’s a lot more than what we see in the movie. But again, the movie is called Oppenheimer. It’s also not called Trinity Test, you know? So, you know, it’s showing it. But, from, I’m gonna say from his perspective, but more from his perspective than from anybody else’s or from, you know, the test itself or any of that.

00:24:24:13 – 00:24:44:29
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Well, during the Trinity test, the movie does show everyone’s watching the explosion using glasses to shield their eyes. Some of them take their glasses off, watch huge ball of flame. A moment later, the shockwave hits. And as I was watching this in the movie, I was thinking, what about the radiation? The movie doesn’t really talk about that that much.

00:24:44:29 – 00:25:04:03
Dan LeFebvre
And, you know, we think of the knowledge that we have now, you know, knowing that the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, more recently, like Chernobyl or Fukushima, you know, these disasters on nuclear scale that, you know, the radiation is a huge thing. Was radiation a concern for the scientists working on the Manhattan Project?

00:25:04:06 – 00:25:27:09
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, the radiation, dangers of radiation were known. There was something that the Manhattan Project had studied. The historian Kate Brown has written about this in her work on Hanford, showing that the project studied, what radiation could do to animals, even in a very small doses. But there was a prevailing sense that there was a level under which radiation was essentially harmless.

00:25:27:09 – 00:25:48:02
Alice Lovejoy
And this is known as the tolerance dose, at the time. So, you know, we do see them talking about the dangers of radiation earlier in the film where the scientist Lilli Hornick, who is, a woman working on Oppenheimer’s team, is sort of told you shouldn’t be working on this. It’s dangerous to your reproductive system. And she says to one of the men most equally dangerous to yours.

00:25:48:04 – 00:26:05:26
Alice Lovejoy
Which is true. And, and this might be why, in the scene of the Trinity test, we see most of the project scientists just lying out in the open, right? That there was the idea that there was a tolerance dose might explain this. You know, they’re lying down, so they’re not knocked over by the shockwave.

00:26:05:29 – 00:26:30:00
Alice Lovejoy
And they have welder’s glass to hold up against, the the explosion, which is the same thing that we used to look at eclipses now, but, and then there’s one person, I think it’s Edward Teller who puts on what looks like sunscreen against the explosion. But, you know, this also gives a sense of just how little was known about, they knew it was dangerous, but but they didn’t have a sense of what the explosion would bring.

00:26:30:02 – 00:26:49:20
Alice Lovejoy
But there’s something else here. Which is the scene ends as the sun comes up. The sun comes up, it’s in the desert. They’re all celebrating, or most of them are celebrating, and, the wind is coming up. All right. So, this is something that’s, crucial here, but it’s not discussed, because even though the wind just seems like atmosphere at this moment.

00:26:49:20 – 00:27:22:25
Alice Lovejoy
Right? It’s the desert. There’s wind. That wind is really crucial because, as the project would find out later, the same wind was carrying radioactive fallout from the test site across the country. So the effects of this, were, of course, particularly stark near the test site. And this is something that, especially as testing moves in about in a desert, we know the really horrible cases of who were called the people called the Downwinders, who developed really terrible cancers and other health issues from being, in proximity to radioactive fallout.

00:27:22:27 – 00:27:44:02
Alice Lovejoy
But one of the things that I talk about in my book is that the radiation from these tests and from Trinity tests, the Trinity test as well, the radiation traveled much farther than the test sites themselves, even though the AEC and the Manhattan Project thought that they couldn’t. Right. So they were found, in Indiana. They were eventually found in the East Coast and beyond.

00:27:44:04 – 00:27:58:19
Alice Lovejoy
And it was traveling the fall. It was traveling on the same wind that we see start up there. So I see that as a really important kind of moment in showing the the effects of these weapons that went well beyond what anybody had imagined just from the explosion.

00:27:58:22 – 00:28:06:07
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Yeah. You don’t really think about I mean, that’s one of those things. It’s a.

00:28:06:09 – 00:28:42:09
Dan LeFebvre
You don’t see it. So you don’t think that it’s something that will that will do. And I could see how, you know, back then this is one of those moments in the movie where it’s, it’s difficult to put myself back in the historical context of what it was like then, because we know so much. I don’t know a lot about the nuclear world, but, you know, things like Chernobyl and Fukushima, you know, hearing about that and learning about those, you hear about things like, I think with Chernobyl, if I remember right, you know, one of the reasons they learned about it was because other countries in Europe were detecting these things from the radiation

00:28:42:09 – 00:28:57:17
Dan LeFebvre
on the wind, you know, stuff like that, that obviously they knew more about then. But we’re talking, you know, in the 1940s, first, first time, I can’t imagine how much there was that. They weren’t they weren’t tracking it. So they would know basically. Right.

00:28:57:19 – 00:29:21:26
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, exactly. And this is where Kodak comes in an interesting ways because, in after the Trinity test, Kodak realizes that there are spots of black spots or spots of radiation that are showing up on unexposed film. So film that’s been sitting packaged for a while, and they trace it back to, microscopic particles of radiation in the packaging material that’s containing the film.

00:29:22:02 – 00:29:38:05
Alice Lovejoy
And they realize that that material is from Indiana, and that it must have been harvested, it was made of straw, or it’s kind of straw bore that they had turn to after, cardboard waste paper during the war ended up having a lot of radium in it. Right. So they couldn’t use that either because it would expose the film.

00:29:38:05 – 00:30:01:08
Alice Lovejoy
So they started making the straw board and then the straw has radiation in it. And that is coming. They trace it back to the Trinity test. So that happens, in the late 1940s and then and the early 1950s, Kodak becomes really the first industrial site to alert the Atomic Energy Commission to just how far radiation is traveling, because our film factories are so attentive to radiation to begin with.

00:30:01:10 – 00:30:11:20
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. I mean, so that wasn’t even the you just mentioned. There were a lot of cameras there at Los Alamos. That wasn’t even the film that was there that was filmed. That was thousands of miles away anyway.

00:30:11:22 – 00:30:29:03
Alice Lovejoy
That’s right. Yeah. The film that was there was singed. It was burned. And so it definitely was affected by it. And they were doing everything they could to protect the film, you know, whether that was through glass or led led, cases for cameras. But this is something different where it shows up, really, as you say, invisibly.

00:30:29:05 – 00:30:33:01
Alice Lovejoy
And film becomes a way to, to track it that they didn’t, they weren’t expecting.

00:30:33:03 – 00:30:51:03
Dan LeFebvre
In the movie, the very next scene, after the successful military test, we see some military guys, saying with respect, Doctor Oppenheimer will take it from here. And then with that, they just pack up a bombs and drive away. It happened. So quickly in the movie. It’s almost as if, okay, we had this successful test and now Manhattan Project is over.

00:30:51:06 – 00:31:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
We don’t really see what happens to the town. Of course, we didn’t really see a lot of the town anyway, so we don’t really see what happens. We don’t see anything about what happened with Oak Ridge or Hanford. So can you fill in some more history around how the Manhattan Project actually came to an end?

00:31:05:15 – 00:31:20:08
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, I think that’s I think you’re right that this is a moment that seems abrupt because it I think that’s what it feels like to Oppenheimer. Right. He’s all of a sudden this is a political thing. It’s a government thing. It’s no longer a scientific thing. And that’s really one of the tensions in the film, right, between Strauss and Oppenheimer as well.

00:31:20:11 – 00:31:46:01
Alice Lovejoy
But the, you know, all of the moral and scientific complexity that goes into this is kind of flattened by politics, right? You know, you have Germans saying, this is my weapon. You know, it’s my it’s mine now. And, and, you know, one of the thought things that film does, I think very well is to show us all of the sophistication of Oppenheimer’s thinking and how he was working within a context that had to do with modernist art, and that had to do with reading in multiple languages.

00:31:46:01 – 00:32:04:11
Alice Lovejoy
That had to do with poetry. That was really drawing on, multiple ways of thinking about the world. Whereas the world of politics is much more about power. Right. And Oppenheimer is not part of that world. So, we see that moment. I really think that’s a great scene because it just the weapon goes away and all of a sudden, it’s out of his hands.

00:32:04:11 – 00:32:23:16
Alice Lovejoy
It’s not his anymore. So the successor to the Manhattan Project was the Atomic Energy Commission, which Strauss was the commissioner of between 53 and 58. And the impression that we get from the film is that the AC was more directly politicized in the Manhattan Project, and I think that was true. Right. This is, again, the context of the Cold War.

00:32:23:16 – 00:32:43:22
Alice Lovejoy
The early 50s is the moment when, you know, the Soviets have the bomb. And so there’s the arms race. There is the anti-communist hysteria with McCarthyism in the US. And this really, changed, the context, right, for the kind of work that the Manhattan Project had been doing, which wasn’t about the Soviet Union, really at the time.

00:32:43:24 – 00:33:05:26
Alice Lovejoy
And so at the end of the film, we see this kind of abrupt ending, but it isn’t quite it wasn’t quite that abrupt. The Manhattan Project continue to work, continue to exist for a while. The AEC was founded on August 1st, 1946 with the Atomic Energy Act, and by 1947, the Manhattan Project’s work had been fully absorbed by the AEC.

00:33:05:29 – 00:33:30:29
Alice Lovejoy
But the Manhattan Project, was involved, for instance, with the atomic test Bikini Atoll in 1946, the operations crossroads tests, and eventually all of the infrastructure that the Manhattan Project had built. So at Oak Ridge, at Hanford, at Los Alamos was transferred to the AEC. And those installations still exist. And they’re a really important legacy of World War Two’s big science.

00:33:31:01 – 00:33:52:11
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s not like the the Manhattan Project name went away, mostly. But the technology or obviously the technology still exists. But, you know, a lot of even the facilities and things like that were just essentially transferred to, oh, now we had this new technology. Would it make sense? They wouldn’t have an EEC. There’s no Atomic Energy Commission prior to atomic energy not even being a thing.

00:33:52:11 – 00:33:56:10
Dan LeFebvre
So having that set up, I guess that makes sense. It just transitioned into that.

00:33:56:16 – 00:34:19:16
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. So it’s really a governmental I mean, it’s it’s a it’s a movement from a wartime exigency. And an agency that is built really swiftly during the war by the Army Corps of Engineers, among others. And that’s coordinating things through this question of how do we institutionalize this now that we know we have this technology that’s both for weapons and for energy, and that’s the other part of the story that, you know, is crucial to how the AEC evolves.

00:34:19:18 – 00:34:48:06
Dan LeFebvre
Obviously, my audience is made up of a bunch of film lovers, and as I’m sure film lovers are aware, Christopher Nolan used Kodak’s 65 millimeter large format film to shoot Oppenheimer, and it was released and various other Kodak film formats for Imax in theaters around the world. So from a historical perspective, though, I found that kind of ironic that they used Kodak film to tell the story of how America entered the atomic age using technology from a company that was so closely tied to it all, Kodak.

00:34:48:13 – 00:34:58:24
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s something that you talk about in your book. Is it true that the actual Kodak film company was involved in the chemical production of weapons grade uranium back in the 1940s?

00:34:58:26 – 00:35:18:08
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, yeah. And this is really at the heart of, of my my new book, Tales of Mines and Chemistry, which talks about how Kodak and specifically the Tennessee Eastman Company, which was its main chemical subsidiary. So how those two companies really one company, but two branches of one company came to run the Whitehall plant at Oak Ridge.

00:35:18:10 – 00:35:35:19
Alice Lovejoy
So again, Y-12 is a huge part of Oak Ridge. It has many, many buildings. It’s running the electromagnetic separation process. So why this Kodak, which is a company that we know for its film and for its cameras, is really the key figure in the history of photography, maybe globally. How does this come to play such a crucial role?

00:35:35:19 – 00:36:00:09
Alice Lovejoy
And the Manhattan Project and what’s interesting is that the answer to this stretches back to, the history of safety film. So the less flammable cellulose acetate film that has been basically universally used since the early 1950s and as a successor to cellulose nitrate film, which is, basically the same thing as nitrocellulose and was used in the first part of the 20th century, to make film based.

00:36:00:09 – 00:36:24:26
Alice Lovejoy
So the plastic that goes under film emulsion and what I point to in the book is that, so again, as you say, Oppenheimer, which is a story about one of the men behind the Manhattan Project, was shot on 65 millimeter, which is the Kodak format, on cellulose acetate that’s used, do one up to 70 millimeter production prints and 65 millimeter is the film that requires the largest amount of cellulose acetate.

00:36:24:26 – 00:36:48:07
Alice Lovejoy
And that’s the material that brought Kodak to the bomb. So there’s an industrial connection here that goes very quickly through weapons. Because safety film is made using cellulose acetate, safety film is made using the chemicals acetic acid and acetic and hydride. Those chemicals brought Tennessee Eastman from safety film to making the anti-submarine explosive RDX during World War two.

00:36:48:09 – 00:37:08:28
Alice Lovejoy
And this was happening at the Holston Ordnance Works in Tennessee, the world’s largest ammunition plant at the time, again operated by the world’s largest film manufacturer. And this is a project that was run by Leslie R Groves and the Army Corps of Engineers. And so Groves sees how well Tennessee Eastman is able to sort of build and operate the Holston Ordnance Works at the same time.

00:37:08:28 – 00:37:20:18
Alice Lovejoy
And he says, okay, this is a company that’s going to do a good job, running Y-12. They know how to put these projects together. They know how to operate factories. So let’s ask them to do it.

00:37:20:21 – 00:37:43:15
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Yeah. So it wasn’t completely random at all. It was they were already doing something beforehand. And then. Yeah, Groves comes in and asks him, wow, it’s fascinating. Well, after everything we’ve learned today, it seems obvious that Oppenheimer is just giving us a small peek at the true story surrounding the Manhattan Project. So let’s say you’re put in charge of making a movie all about the Manhattan Project.

00:37:43:15 – 00:37:49:12
Dan LeFebvre
It’s not called just Oppenheimer. What’s one approach that you would take to telling the story on screen?

00:37:49:15 – 00:38:08:29
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, and it’s a great question because I would take a different approach in the great man approach, which I think Oppenheimer does really well. I think it goes into this all these questions, as I’ve said with Einstein, with Strauss as the foil, etc. it’s a really good adaptation of the biography, but I think the smaller stories are stories of smaller or less famous people are equally important.

00:38:09:01 – 00:38:37:03
Alice Lovejoy
Because these are stories that were crucial to shaping the Manhattan Project and making it what it was. So one of the characters that I follow in my book is a man, named Alfred Dean, who is, known as the Kodak Spy. So slack was an employee of Kodak who, started in the Rochester, New York factory, moved down to the Tennessee Eastman factories in Kingsport, Tennessee, eventually moved to the Holston Ordnance Works, and then works at Y-12.

00:38:37:06 – 00:39:03:09
Alice Lovejoy
And from his time in Rochester onward, he was spying for the Soviet Union. While he was at Kodak, whether that was giving the Soviets color film technology formulas or whether it was, in the case of Holston Ordnance Works actually giving them samples of RDX, this explosive. So slack was not a spy, though, in a way, we might want to show a spy, if you’re like a the genre of the spy film, right?

00:39:03:09 – 00:39:20:07
Alice Lovejoy
He wasn’t in it for the politics. He was in it for the money. He really didn’t want to be doing it. He was kind of like stuck in this relationship. He wasn’t a very good spy. He kind of like, talk too much. And there are these, you know, things said about him at the plant where he would, you know, he would chat about the atomic bomb even though you were supposed to be doing that.

00:39:20:10 – 00:39:50:01
Alice Lovejoy
And I think that story is interesting because he paid for this. I mean, he went to prison in 1915, again at the height of the Red scare. And his story doesn’t really neatly fit into Cold War narratives because, again, his betrayal was pretty mild compared with people like class folks who we do see in Oppenheimer, who was a Soviet spy who was there, or David Greenglass, who was also at Los Alamos, and who worked for the same Soviet handler as Alfred Dean slack.

00:39:50:03 – 00:40:08:01
Alice Lovejoy
And he’s also slack is also interesting because he’s one of those many, many thousands of people who are working on the industrial processes of the Manhattan Project who don’t have these kinds of big names, but were equally important. And there’s been some wonderful work done to by historians on the women who worked on the Manhattan Project, whose roles were were absolutely crucial.

00:40:08:07 – 00:40:16:26
Alice Lovejoy
But I think the smaller story is the stories of people like slack are, interesting. And they tell us they tell us a lot about the nuances of that period.

00:40:16:28 – 00:40:37:07
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. That’s fascinating. I guess. You know, there’s always there’s always people that, don’t love their jobs. But you can I think of, you know, as spies. You don’t think of a spy as somebody that. Why would you be a spy if you don’t want to? If you don’t love what you’re doing? It’s such a high risk. But I guess the reward, if the reward is there and it’s monetary and that’s what you want, then.

00:40:37:09 – 00:40:52:28
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. And I think he was persuaded. Right. I think there was there was persuasion. And that happened by convincing handlers and so yeah, it’s it is one of those odd stories. And he really gets stuck in jail for quite a while. His life is and is ruined by this. And, you know, to be fair, he did spy right?

00:40:53:02 – 00:41:02:24
Alice Lovejoy
He he did it. But it is, in the context of early 50s, where everything is so heightened as we see in Oppenheimer, it can have these consequences that might not have occurred at a different moment.

00:41:02:26 – 00:41:24:21
Dan LeFebvre
That would be a fascinating movie. Speaking of other movies, is it all right if I shift the conversation away from the Oppenheimer movie for a moment? Yeah. I’d like to get your take on current events that I’m sure will be a movie in the future. As a history podcast, it talks about movies and TV shows. We have covered a lot of political events in history, from the Watergate scandal in all the president men to the more recent Nuremberg movie.

00:41:24:23 – 00:41:41:04
Dan LeFebvre
And even with today’s topic, as we talked about Oppenheimer, his political views impacted not only his own life and career, but also impacted how we view his part in history. And all of that is to say, this is not a political podcast, but I think the current events of today will end up in the movies at some point in the future.

00:41:41:09 – 00:41:57:19
Dan LeFebvre
And when it does, I’m sure the events that took place in Minneapolis will play a big part. So as a film historian who lives in Minneapolis, what do you want the filmmakers of the future to know about the true story right now that they should make sure to include in their movies?

00:41:57:21 – 00:42:20:20
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. Thanks. That’s a great and a really important question because I think, there is a widespread sense, among those of us who live in Minneapolis, in the Twin Cities, and Minnesota, that we are living through history in a way that is, very pronounced right away. That’s not too different from what happened in 2020 after George Floyd was murdered.

00:42:20:22 – 00:42:47:04
Alice Lovejoy
In a lot. It’s playing out in the same area of Minneapolis, in south Minneapolis. So I think what’s interesting about this moment, watching it from the inside, is that there’s so much documentation, there’s so many cameras everywhere showing what’s happening, whether these are, observers, legal observers, with cameras, whether these are, body cameras on federal officers, whether these are drones coming out with their photojournalists.

00:42:47:06 – 00:43:09:28
Alice Lovejoy
And there’s also a lot of national and international media coming here, right, flying in to document what’s happening. And what a lot of what we see in the media is pictures of, physical brutality. We see a lot of pictures of, tear gas, federal forces, use of tear gas and pepper spray, chemical munitions, and all this is happening.

00:43:09:28 – 00:43:33:09
Alice Lovejoy
It’s as accurate, but it also leads to the war zone comparisons that are made by, many media outlets, which are not incorrect. Those are those are correct in many ways, but they’re, the media isn’t able to get, to aspects of what’s happening that I think are fundamental but are less, less, attractive as subjects of documentation of filming.

00:43:33:11 – 00:43:55:25
Alice Lovejoy
One is and I will say, some journalists have done a very good job with this. One is the experiences of people who are in hiding, who cannot go to school or cannot go to work, can’t buy groceries, can’t seek medical care because, they’re afraid of being detained, many simply for the color of their skin. And so this is a less again, it’s a less, it’s a harder thing to document, right?

00:43:55:25 – 00:44:28:22
Alice Lovejoy
When you’re on the streets, when you’re when you’re somewhere that you haven’t been before. Because these are stories of isolation and fear and often deep need. And they’re playing out, you know, in the space of a house or an apartment. They’re one of the central stories of this moment. The second thing is, I think the deep and really extraordinarily, supportive and enthusiastic networks of people who are just there supporting their neighbors and their communities, whether that’s through helping people with rent, helping people with food, and so on.

00:44:28:24 – 00:44:48:17
Alice Lovejoy
There’s a lot of solidarity and, cooperation that’s just about taking care of your neighbors. That’s less dramatic. And it’s also quieter. But I think it’s also an essential story to the moment. So I would hope that future filmmakers, can see that the war like aspects of what’s happening here are one part of the story.

00:44:48:18 – 00:45:10:07
Alice Lovejoy
It’s real. It’s happening. But, I would encourage them to have the courage to make a film that can be quieter and less dramatic. And that would also see all of what’s happening with and longer histories of racial injustice and of community organizing, in Minnesota that are really informing what’s happening here. And we’re not that far off from 2020.

00:45:10:09 – 00:45:30:21
Alice Lovejoy
And I say courage because. Right. More films sell. They sell better. They’re, you know, they’re easy to picture. It’s easy to to, you know, to make these kinds of dramatic images. But it’s harder to make a film that is quieter, right, that is playing out inside a house or an apartment or that’s about neighbors just working together.

00:45:30:23 – 00:45:46:27
Alice Lovejoy
I will say this film could still be made on 70 millimeter. I would love to see a quiet film about, a changed everyday life made on 70 millimeter because you can include so much detail, even everyday detail. But would it be a great man story? It would not be a great man story. And I think that’s the point, right?

00:45:46:27 – 00:45:50:29
Alice Lovejoy
That this is a story that’s holding out, in everyday life in many ways.

00:45:51:01 – 00:46:15:27
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah, it’s it is easier to throw up, you know, action movies and explosions and, and big things that you see in war movies and, get an audience that way, as opposed to not saying the films can’t tell good stories, but it is difficult to tell a good story. And when you can just make big explosions, you know.

00:46:16:01 – 00:46:35:21
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah. I think there’s a commercial, right. There’s a, there’s a, you know, how do you make money making movies, too, is one of the questions. And I think, what happens if we make a movie that’s less dramatic but no less, urgent? Right. In terms of what’s actually happening? So I think it’s a great question, and it’s a question about and an accurate portrayal of reality that is many things at once.

00:46:35:21 – 00:46:37:21
Alice Lovejoy
And that’s hard to do in a film.

00:46:37:24 – 00:47:01:05
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. I’m just curious because something that we see in a lot of, historical movies especially, you know, talking about something like Oppenheimer, that’s, during World War II, you know, many decades ago is they use a lot of documentation. And for something, it’s I think it’s easier to do, like in a military film where the military documents everything.

00:47:01:07 – 00:47:21:14
Dan LeFebvre
So would you have a recommendation for what people now can do to help document some of those lesser known stories that aren’t going to get documented by, the military or the, you know, like in Oppenheimer. You know, they have documents of everything that happened there that filmmakers can then go back to, what do you think?

00:47:21:14 – 00:47:26:09
Dan LeFebvre
What would you recommend as being able to document some of those smaller stories for feature filmmakers?

00:47:26:12 – 00:47:48:27
Alice Lovejoy
Yeah, and I think part of this is about communities documenting their own work and individuals documenting their own work. We know that diaries have played a huge role. Written diaries have played a huge role in this over time. And Frank’s diary being sort of the most famous example of this. And, I think that the amount of, footage that’s being made every day will be crucial as well.

00:47:48:29 – 00:48:07:18
Alice Lovejoy
I think that, you know, the way we use images has changed a great deal, right? Images are being I as a huge part of this. But also the way images are being slowed down and analyzed forensically and used for identification and all sorts of things, you know, that law enforcement wears them too, like there’s all sorts of different ways that images are being used now.

00:48:07:25 – 00:48:21:24
Alice Lovejoy
And I think that’s part of the truth of the moment to the reality of the moment is that there are so many different ways it’s being, shown and represented. And the more that can be done to preserve them and to sort the I from the rest, I think that’s crucial too.

00:48:21:27 – 00:48:57:04
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about the movie Oppenheimer. Even though we’ve mostly talked about one movie today, it’s worth remembering that the entire cinema industry exists because of the chemistry and technology that made motion pictures possible. And when we’re watching a movie, a war movie like Oppenheimer, I think most people don’t really think about how the technology that made the movie itself possible intersected with war time weapon development, but that’s a connection that you’ve explored in your book called Tales of Militant Chemistry The Film Factory in a Century of War, and I’ve got a link to that in the show notes for everyone to pick up their own copy.

00:48:57:11 – 00:49:04:16
Dan LeFebvre
And while they do that, can you share something that you came across in your research that would come as a surprise to the average moviegoer?

00:49:04:23 – 00:49:30:22
Alice Lovejoy
Great question. I think beyond the fact that the Manhattan Project was so closely tied to Eastman Kodak and to film manufacturing, I think we can go back a little bit and think about George Eastman again, the founder of Kodak, somebody who was closely involved in, the the way that cinema evolved in the way it developed, that he, you know, he grew cotton, on a kind of gentleman’s farm in North Carolina.

00:49:30:22 – 00:49:54:20
Alice Lovejoy
Now, cotton as as many of your listeners will know, is a crucial ingredient in film. It’s, source of the cellulose that goes into much motion. Picture film. And it’s a it’s a material with a very, dark history, racialist history in the United States that goes back to, to, chattel slavery and, and to, to many, many other, you know, plantations, etc., and the United States.

00:49:54:20 – 00:50:20:12
Alice Lovejoy
And so thinking about those connections that, that existed between the, really the founder of film, somebody who made it into the mass of industrial products that became in the 20th century. And these materials is something that I wasn’t expecting to find. But that underscores for me just how, closely tied this material is to events in the 20th century that go beyond cinema.

00:50:20:12 – 00:50:34:06
Alice Lovejoy
Right? Which is something we see in Oppenheimer, to which we see, you know, the links between nuclear weapons and film is not something that we necessarily think of, but in my view, they are two of the most important technologies of the 20th century atomic weapons and film.

00:50:34:08 – 00:50:37:13
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I’ll make sure to add a link to that in the show notes. Thanks again so much for your time, Alice.

00:50:37:15 – 00:50:38:23
Alice Lovejoy
Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

The Movie

The movie fades up to the sounds of rain pattering as Cillian Murphy’s version of a young J. Robert Oppenheimer watches. Then, with a cut to a massive explosion, we get some text on the screen that reads:

“Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.”

Then, just as quickly as it cuts to the quote, it cuts back to an older J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The True Story

As you can probably guess, that comes from Greek mythology. It’s not really a direct quote of anything, though, but rather it’s more of a paraphrased synopsis of the Prometheus myth.

The whole story is thousands of lines of text, so I won’t include the whole thing here either, but I’ll add a link to it in the show notes if you want to read it all. The movie’s summary is pretty good, though, considering they’re breaking it all down into just a couple lines.

Prometheus was a Titan who was bound by Zeus’s servants Hephaestus, Power, and Force as punishment for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to the humans. That’s how humans were able to progress to a more civilized society with technology thanks to harnessing fire. When he was bound, Prometheus’s torture was basically being exposed to the scorching sun by the day, freezing at night, and then an eagle would eat his liver. The next day, the liver would regenerate and the cycle repeated itself.

The Movie

Back in the movie, we see Oppenheimer going to Europe to study under Patrick Blackett in Cambridge. He’s played by James D’Arcy in the movie. While Oppenheimer is there, the movie focuses on a rather curious moment when Oppenheimer injects Blackett’s apple with potassium cyanide. Then, the next day, he seems to have a change of heart and when he rushes back to the classroom while Neils Bohr is talking to Blackett, and Oppenheimer knocks the apple down just in time, claiming there was a wormhole in the apple.

The True Story

While the movie doesn’t really focus on Oppenheimer’s time as a student in the United States as it does in Europe, it is correct to mention him going to Europe to study under Patrick Blackett at Cambridge.

To back up for a moment, though, what we don’t see much of in the movie is Oppenheimer’s time at Harvard. He went there in 1922 when he was 18 years old and majored in chemistry. That’s how he got interested in physics, when one of his professors named Percy Bridgman taught a course on thermodynamics that interested Oppenheimer. And so, after graduating summa cum laude in 1925 after only three years, Oppenheimer went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, to study physics.

More specifically, that was at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physics. Oppenheimer was there for about a year from 1925 to 1926.

And that scene with the poisoned apple? That really happened!

The movie implies that Oppenheimer was rather clumsy in the lab, and that’s a bit of truth that frustrated Oppenheimer. On top of that, Professor Blackett was an incredibly demanding teacher. This grew into a resentment for Blackett and by the time the autumn of 1925 rolled around, the then-22-year-old Oppenheimer was struggling badly and feeling incompetent with his lab work.

So, Oppenheimer used chemicals from the lab and injected them into an apple on Blackett’s desk. There’s some debate around exactly what he used and how much—after all, it’s not like this is the kind of thing that gets documented—but we know it happened because he confessed what he’d done to one of his friends. It was most likely cyanide, and probably wasn’t enough to kill him, just to make him sick.

But, that’s irrelevant, because just like we see in the movie, Blackett never ate the apple. Although the movie shows Oppenheimer having a change of mind and rushing back to toss the apple before Blackett can eat it, and that part of the movie seems to be a bit of dramatic license.

The sources I saw merely mentioned that Professor Blackett simply tossed the apple without ever knowing it had been poisoned. There’s nothing I could find that suggested Oppenheimer had a change of mind and rushed back, or that he was even there when the apple was discarded.

The Movie

Going back to the movie, during the apple scene we also see Oppenheimer talking to the visiting lecturer Neils Bohr. In that conversation and due to Oppenheimer’s lack of skills in the lab, Bohr recommends Oppenheimer go to Germany to study theoretical physics under Max Born because there’s no lab work required for that.

The True Story

Since we already learned the poisoned apple story didn’t happen exactly like that in the movie, it’s probably not a surprise to learn this other side of it didn’t happen the same way either.

What is accurate, though, is that the Oppenheimer did meet the Danish physicist Neils Bohr. While the movie doesn’t really mention much about who he was other than to suggest Oppenheimer was looking forward to hearing him speak. He won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922, so when he visited Cambridge just a few years later, I can only imagine how excited Oppenheimer must’ve been to meet one of the most respected minds in his field.

Unlike what we see in the movie, though, it wasn’t Neils Bohr who recommended Oppenheimer go to Germany to study under Max Born.

As you might expect, Max Born was a German physicist and he was also highly respected in the 1920s, and after World War II went on to become one of the people who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics.

So, probably the biggest change is the movie simplified the events.

In the true story, Oppenheimer actually met both Neils Bohr and Max Born while he was at Cambridge. Not necessarily at the same time, though, so it makes sense why the movie simplified it all. But amidst Oppenheimer’s depression from his poor lab work, and I’m sure the whole apple debacle didn’t help, but Oppenheimer decided to leave Cambridge to go to the University of GURT-in-en (Göttingen) in Germany so he could study theoretical physics under Max Born.

GURT-ing-en

Unlike his time in Cambridge, Oppenheimer flourished in his theoretical studies. Just six months after moving to Germany, Oppenheimer graduated with his PhD and co-authored the Born-Oppenheimer approximation with Max Born. He was making a name for himself.

The Movie

After studying in Germany, the movie talks about Oppenheimer returning to the United States where he sets up the theoretical physics department at the University of California, Berkley. Then after all of this setup of Oppenheimer’s education and early career are taking place while we see black and white sequences with Robert Downey Jr.’s version of Lewis Strauss hiring Oppenheimer to work at what the movie only calls “the Institute.”

The True Story

This is where we really start to see the movie bouncing around in the timeline, because Oppenheimer wasn’t appointed as the director of the Institute for Advanced Study until 1947. That’s clearly after World War II and the Manhattan Project. Since we’re following the movie’s timeline of events, we’ll be bouncing around a bit as well, but here is a quick overview of Oppenheimer’s timeline in the true story.

After graduating with his doctorate from the University of Göttingen in Germany in March of 1927, Oppenheimer stayed in Europe for post-doc studies where he spent time in Leiden and Zurich studying under the great minds of the day.

In the fall of 1929, he returned to the U.S. and accepted a position as an associate professor at UC Berkley. He stayed there, but in the spring of 1930, he also started teaching at Caltech. For the next twelve years he went back and forth, splitting time teaching as a full professor at UC Berkley while also being a full professor at Caltech, although he had a special agreement with UC Berkley to release him for six weeks out of the year to teach at Caltech for a term.

This is the time that he built UC Berkley’s theoretical physics program into something of renown that we hear Robert Downey Jr.’s version of Lewis Strauss mention in the movie. But that was in 1947 when Oppenheimer joined the Institute, as we talked about before.

So, from 1930 until 1942, he was splitting time at UC Berkley and Caltech. In 1942, he was given leave to work on the Manhattan Project, and then he returned to Caltech in 1946. He resigned both Caltech and UC Berkley in 1947 to take the job of director at the Institute for Advanced Study.

The Movie

Speaking of the Institute for Advanced Study, in the movie that’s where we see another famous scientist: Albert Einstein. If we’re to believe the movie’s version of history, Oppenheimer seems to think Einstein is a has-been. For example, there’s a line of dialogue early in the movie when Strauss tells Oppenheimer that Einstein is the “greatest scientific mind of our time.” Oppenheimer replies by saying, “Of his time.”

The True Story

While I couldn’t find anything in my research to indicate this exact line of dialogue about Einstein being the greatest scientific mind of “his” time, but the movie is correctly capturing the essence of the relationship between Einstein and Oppenheimer. Before he worked at the Institute, Oppenheimer visited Princeton in 1935. After that, he wrote a letter to his brother where he said, “Princeton is a madhouse: its solipsistic luminaries shining in separate & helpless desolation. Einstein is completely cuckoo.”

About ten years later, Einstein said of the theory Oppenheimer was primarily focusing on, “The quantum theory is without a doubt a useful theory, but it does not reach to the bottom of things. I never believed that it constitutes the true conception of nature.”

Despite these differences, they still had a mutual respect and were cordial with each other. After Einstein passed away in 1955, Oppenheimer wrote publicly that, “…physicists lost their greatest colleague…”

The Movie

Heading back to the movie’s timeline, there’s a line of dialogue from Lewis Strauss as he’s showing Oppenheimer around the Institute when he says the position comes with a house for his family: His wife and two children.

And that introduces us to the next major plot point, because the movie doesn’t focus on Robert Oppenheimer’s personal life a lot, but we do see two relationships that he has…and according to the movie they overlap. First, he has a girlfriend named Jean Tatlock, but then he gets a married woman named Kitty Harrison pregnant. Since Kitty is pregnant, Robert leaves Jean while Kitty leaves her husband to marry Robert. But then, later in the movie, we see Robert having an affair with Jean again.

The True Story

This back-and-forth sort of relationship that we see in the movie does a pretty good job capturing what J. Robert Oppenheimer’s personal life was really like. The key thing the movie does, though, is to mess with the timeline because once again it’s jumping around.

Remember, Oppenheimer’s job at the Institute was in 1947. So, his wife at that time was the woman we see in the movie: Kitty Harrison. She’s played by Emily Blunt.

Kitty’s surname in the movie is actually from one of her husbands before Oppenheimer. Her maiden name was Vissering. She married Frank Ramseyer in 1932, then had that annulled in 1933. The next year, she married Joe Dallet. That lasted until he died in 1937, and then in 1938 she married Richard Harrison. They were divorced in 1940 when she married J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The two children Robert and Kitty had together, Peter and Toni, were the only kids either of them had.

The Movie

In the movie, we see Robert having an girlfriend in Jean Tatlock. But he sleeps with Kitty Harrison, who was a married woman as we just learned, and gets her pregnant. So, Kitty divorces her husband, Robert breaks things off with Jean, and then Robert and Kitty get married.

The True Story

Once again, the movie gets the essence of the story correct, but the timeline was sped up and changed from history.

So, here’s a quick rundown to unravel the historical timeline.

Robert Oppenheimer met Jean Tatlock in the Spring of 1936 when he was teaching at UC Berkley. She was a student there, and it didn’t take long for a romance to blossom. And if you’re wondering, since he was a teacher and she was a student, he was 32 and she was 22. Their relationship developed quickly and Jean had a big influence on shaping Robert’s left-leaning political views. Robert proposed to Jean twice, both of which she rejected, and then in the Spring of 1939, she broke it off with him.

A few months later, in August of 1939, Robert met Kitty Harrison at a party hosted by another physicist. At that time, she was 29 and he was 35. Almost immediately, an affair started. They didn’t hide it, either, as there were reports of Robert and Kitty driving around together in the open.

In the summer of 1940, there was a notable event when Robert Oppenheimer invited Richard and Kitty Harrison to his ranch in New Mexico. Richard Harrison declined the invitation saying he was too busy with work, but Kitty accepted. So, another physicist named Robert Serber along with his wife Charlotte, picked up Kitty in Pasadena and drove her to Oppenheimer’s ranch in New Mexico where they found Robert’s brother, Frank, and Frank’s wife Jackie there.

So, again, the affair wasn’t really a secret. Oh, and at that time, Kitty was pregnant with Robert’s child…who would be Peter, their firstborn.

Well, you can probably see where this is going.

On November 1^st, 1940, Kitty divorced her husband. The very next day, on November 2^nd, 1940, she married Robert Oppenheimer.

But…things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows, because only a couple months after marrying Kitty, who should show back up in Robert’s life? Jean. She reconnected with him and the historical record shows that Robert’s first New Years celebration as a married man, he spent it not with his wife Kitty, but Jean Tatlock.

For the next few years, Robert and Jean maintained contact a couple times a year. While we don’t know the specifics of what happened each time, it’s probably safe to say they were romantic connections.

Despite this, from what we can tell, Kitty knew about Robert’s affair with Jean, and she seemed to tolerate it. Although, to be fair, some have debated just how much she knew. Maybe she only knew them to be friends at first. We don’t really know for sure where that line was crossed, but we know from the FBI tapping their lines in 1943 that Oppenheimer himself said he told Kitty about the affair with Jean, so we can assume she at least knew by then.

The Movie

Speaking of Jean, I’ll throw out a quick content warning here, because something else we see in the movie is a suicide. It happens when Oppenheimer tells Jean that he can’t do the affair anymore, she gets depressed and takes her own life. Robert is shaken by this, but Kitty tells him that he doesn’t get to commit the sin and then make other people feel sorry for him.

The True Story

Unfortunately, that’s true. That was in January of 1944 when Jean was discovered in her bathtub in San Francisco. There was an unsigned note that suggested suicide, and officially it was ruled to be the result of ingesting sedatives and alcohol.

The movie makes it seem like she did it because Robert broke off their affair, but there’s been a lot of controversies surrounding her death.

For example, the note was unsigned. An autopsy suggested she’d eaten a full meal before she died, which the doctor at the time found curious since it’d slow down the effect of the drugs she’d ingested. Her body was discovered by her father, John Tatlock, who moved it from the bathtub to the sofa and then burned a bunch of her letters in the fireplace before calling the funeral parlor—it was the parlor that contacted the police some four hours after she’d died.

Curious things, perhaps, and to be fair as with many debated events in history, not all of those are documented as well as others. But, if there was a conspiracy around her death, that begs the question: Why?

Well, to go down that road, we’d have to remember the timeline. January of 1944. At this point, Robert Oppenheimer was working at the top-secret Manhattan Project. Jean Tatlock was a known member of the Communist Party. If you recall, a moment ago I mentioned the FBI tapped Oppenheimer’s line in 1943 and those revealed that he talked to Kitty about the affair with Jean. The whole reason the FBI was tapping his lines to begin with was because of his association with the Communist Party. They started that in March of 1941, even before he was recruited into the Manhattan Project. Of course, it didn’t stop once he was heading up the top-secret project, so that’s why some think perhaps there was a government coverup to kill Jean Tatlock to keep atomic secrets from getting into the hands of the Soviets.

Then again, Oppenheimer himself believed Jean committed suicide. She was clinically depressed, and she worked as a psychiatrist, so she had access to sedatives pretty easily.

What do you think? If you have any other details or research you’ve done, let me know!

The Movie

For now, if we head back into the movie for the next major plot point, it’s Oppenheimer being recruited into the Manhattan Project by Matt Damon’s version of General Leslie Groves.

But the way we see this happening in the movie, Groves tells Oppenheimer that his name didn’t even come up in the search for a project director even though it was Oppenheimer who brought quantum physics to America. So, the impression I got from the movie was basically if it wasn’t for Groves then Oppenheimer wouldn’t be involved in the Manhattan Project at all.

The True Story

In the true story, that’s not really how it happened. To know what really happened, let’s go back to around the time of Oppenheimer marrying Kitty in late 1940, and then Peter being born in May of 1941. While that was going on in his personal life, in his professional life, Oppenheimer was collaborating on a radiation lab with Ernest Lawrence, who won the 1939 Nobel Prize in physics. That lab was where Lawrence had invented the cyclotron, a particle accelerator he’d patented back in 1932.

After the United States entered World War II, Lawrence recruited Oppenheimer to work on fission and fast neutron experiments at the UC Berkley lab. As you recall, he’d built the theoretical physics program there, so from July to September of 1942, Oppenheimer assembled a group of theoretical physicists to come up with the principles of a bomb design. Seeing as Oppenheimer was the one who built the theoretical physics program at UC Berkley anyway, over those few short months he became a leader of that group.

So, all of that is to say:

That is why U.S. Army General Leslie R. Groves recruited Oppenheimer on October 15^th, 1942 to head up something called Project Y. About a month later, the two men visited Los Alamos, New Mexico for what they called Site Y.

The Movie

And that leads us into something else about the movie, because for a movie called Oppenheimer, it makes sense to focus on him as the main character. We do see a few others, like Isidor Rabi and at one point Robert brings his brother Frank in on the project, but the movie also mentions having to build a town with churches and schools and such, so it’s obviously not showing us the full scale.

The True Story

Now would be a good time to clarify the term “Manhattan Project” and why I’m referring to something in Los Alamos, New Mexico. This project was a lot bigger scale than what we see in the movie.

So, General Groves was from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and in August of 1942, they created something they called the Manhattan Engineer District, or MED. On the surface, it was routine construction in New York City. The true purpose was to cover up the work required for the atomic bomb project.

Over time, that name morphed from the Manhattan Engineer District to the Manhattan Project even though the project itself had sites around the country. As we just learned, Los Alamos, New Mexico was considered “Site Y,” while Oak Ridge, Tennessee was “Site X” and Hanover, Washington was “Site W.”

The Los Alamos location was where the primary work for the bomb design. That’s where Oppenheimer was at, along with about 6,000 workers. The other sites, Oak Ridge and Hanover, were more for providing the materials needed and they were much larger in scale than Los Alamos. There were about 50,000 people working in Hanover that focused primarily on producing plutonium, while Oak Ridge had another 75,000 people focusing on enriching uranium.

So, all in all, the Manhattan Project was a lot larger than what we see in the movie. But again, it’s called “Oppenheimer” and not “Manhattan Project.”

Actually, if you want to learn more about this, I’ve got another companion episode to this one with historian Alice Lovejoy that focuses more on the movie’s portrayal of the Manhattan Project. You can find that over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/oppenheimer.

The Movie

Back to the movie now, and something that’s very easy to do when we’re watching a historical movie is to look at it from today’s perspective with the knowledge we have today. With that in mind, I thought Oppenheimer did a good job doing was helping us get a sense for what it was like before the nuclear age, because we see Oppenheimer having a major concern that an atomic bomb might start a chain reaction that would just keep going and going until the entire atmosphere has been destroyed and, by extension, everyone and everything on the planet would die.

The True Story

While the movie dramatizes the specifics of it, it’s very true that Oppenheimer and other scientists working on the Manhattan Project considered the possibility that detonating a nuclear device might start an unstoppable chain reaction that’d basically ignite the Earth’s atmosphere and end the world.

Although, as scary as that sounds, it’s often described as more of a “nonzero” risk. So, technically it’s not zero percent chance, but a miniscule chance that from a practical perspective is basically zero.

Except, we’re talking about the end of the world here, so you can understand why even a “nonzero” risk is still worth making sure it doesn’t happen.

The fear was mostly from the physicist Edward Teller, who was worried that a fission bomb would ignite the nitrogen in the atmosphere, or perhaps the hydrogen in the ocean, and just keep using that as fuel to burn. That was as early as 1942.

So, they did the math.

It wasn’t until 1946 that two other physicists at Los Alamos named Hans Bethe and Emil Konopinski formally published a paper that proved the reaction couldn’t continue on forever due to dropping air density and temperature thresholds. That was after the Trinity Test in 1945, but they’d obviously been working on it before then and from what we can tell, they had the math figured out by the time of the test, just hadn’t published the formal paper before it.

The Movie

Speaking of the Trinity Test, let’s head back to the movie because we’re at the point of the test itself. According to the movie, there’s an immense pressure to just use the atomic bomb to end World War II. The military has a list of 11 Japanese cities, and they want to drop two bombs on two of those cities. With a tight deadline, they need to detonate an atomic bomb to make sure it works and gather data like what’s a safe operating distance.

That’s how we get the test. In the movie, Groves asks Oppenheimer what they should call the test, and Oppenheimer says, “Batter my heart, three-person’d god.” Groves replies, “What?” to which Oppenheimer replies, “Trinity.”

It’s the first time an atomic bomb has been detonated and according to the movie, the test appears to be a massive success. As he’s watching this is when we see Oppenheimer use the now-famous quote, “I am become death. The destroyer of worlds.”

The True Story

In the true story, there wasn’t really a list of 11 Japanese cities like we see in the movie. There was actually about 16 cities that were considered by what the U.S. called the “Target Committee,” which was made up of 12 people at its height. Oppenheimer was the chair of the committee, along with members of the military and other scientists in the Manhattan Project.

By the spring of 1945, the 16 Japanese cities were narrowed down to five cities: Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kokura, and Niigata. They were chosen for size, military value, surrounding terrain to help amplify the bomb’s effects, as well as minimal previous bombing so they could see what effect the atomic bomb would have compared to other bombings.

Then came Monday, July 16^th, 1945. The day of the Trinity Test.

The name itself is something the movie alludes to when we see Oppenheimer say, “Batter my heart, three person’d God.” That’s a line from the 17^th-century poem from John Donne called Holy Sonnet XIV, which refers to the Christian Trinity. Much later when Groves asked him about the name, Oppenheimer said he wasn’t entirely sure why he picked it other than to think that “Trinity” might fit in with common Western-style names like “Three Rivers,” “Three Peaks,” and so on.

So, he must’ve thought the name “Trinity” wouldn’t attract much attention. Until it exploded, of course.

And the way see the Trinity Test itself happening in the movie is a pretty good re-enactment of what really happened that weekend. There were about 425 people at the Trinity Test site, which was roughly 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico. That broke down into about 250 scientists and engineers running the test, another 150 or so military as security, and between 20 to 30 VIPs. That included General Leslie Groves, who joined Oppenheimer at the primary command bunker that they called S-10,000 because it was 10,000 yards south of ground zero. That’s about 5.7 miles.

There were also scientists at N-10,000, and W-10,000, but there were mountains to the east so there wasn’t an E-10,000 post.

As for the goggles we see in the movie, those were real as well. The standard gear was dark lenses that filtered UV, and people were ordered to lie face-down, backs turned and put your arms over your eyes. Of course, not everyone did that. Most famously, Richard Feynman chose not to wear goggles and instead watched through the windshield of a truck.

At exactly 5:29 a.m. Mountain Time, the “Gadget” as they called it, detonated on a 100-foot tower. To say the blast exceeded all expectations was an understatement.

Radiation was higher than expected and people at the posts some 5.7 miles away were knocked over by the blast’s shockwave, although there weren’t any major injuries.

That brings us to the line, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

That’s a line from the Bhagavad Gita, a 700-verse Hindu scripture that Oppenheimer paraphrased into that now-famous quote. Chapter 11, Verse 32 says, “I am Time, the destroyer of worlds, grown great, come to consume the worlds.”

Oppenheimer never uttered those words aloud, but in a 1965 documentary for NBC, Oppenheimer recalled that seeing how successful the Trinity Test was, he recounted that he remembered the Bhagavad Gita verse.

The Movie

Heading back to the movie’s version of events, the very next scene after the successful Trinity Test is some military guys saying, “With respect, Dr. Oppenheimer, we’ll take it from here.” And with that, they pack up a bomb and drive away. It happens so quickly in the movie, it’s almost as if that seems to be that they had a successful test, so that’s immediately the end of the Manhattan Project overall.

The True Story

That’s not really what happened. At least not nearly as fast as the movie makes it seem. So, once again, let’s unravel the true story’s timeline.

The Trinity Test was July 16^th, 1945.

About three weeks later, on August 6^th, the uranium gun-type bomb called “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima, resulting in between 70,000 and 80,000 deaths instantly. The movie shows Oppenheimer finding out about the bombs through the radio, but he still worked at Los Alamos, where he found out that evening along with everyone else. Cheers erupted among the teams at Los Alamos on hearing the news, and Oppenheimer joined in the champagne toasts. Although, despite the celebrations, he also had moral qualms with the news.

Three days later, more news. The plutonium bomb “Fat Man” was dropped Nagasaki, with between 35,000 to 40,000 deaths instantly. Back in Los Alamos, there weren’t the same kind of celebrations. Oppenheimer was reported to say, “No, this is too much.”

On August 14^th, 1945, Japan announced their intent to surrender. That’s U.S. time, in Japan it was August 15^th. This effectively ended World War II, although the official surrender document wasn’t signed until September 2^nd.

Then, on October 16^th, exactly three months after the Trinity Test, Oppenheimer resigned from his position in Los Alamos. The Manhattan Project continued on without him, though, until it was disbanded on August 15^th, 1947. As for Oppenheimer, he returned to Caltech where he resumed teaching, but quickly realized his heart wasn’t in it anymore.

The Movie

That leads us right up to Oppenheimer’s meeting with President Truman that we see in the movie. You know, the one where Oppenheimer says, “I feel that I have blood on my hands.” Truman replies with, “You think anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives a shit about who built the bomb? They care who dropped it. I did.”

Then, as Oppenheimer is shown out of the Oval Office, we can hear Truman in the background saying, “Don’t let that crybaby back in here.”

The True Story

That was a real meeting that took place on October 25^th, 1945, not long after Oppenheimer resigned from Los Alamos. And the movie is correct to show that Oppenheimer told President Truman that he feels like he has blood on his hands. Truman’s reply was a little different than the movie, albeit with the same effect. Ray Month’s book called Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center quotes Truman as saying, “Blood on his hands; damn it, he hasn’t half as much blood on his hands as I have. You just don’t go around bellyaching about it.”

Then, he called Oppenheimer a crybaby and said, “I don’t want to see that son of a bitch in this office ever again.”

Except, unlike what we see in the movie, all of that supposedly happened after Oppenheimer had already left so it’s not like it was something he heard as he was leaving like the movie shows.

The Movie

After leaving the Manhattan Project, the movie circles back to something it shows throughout with Lewis Strauss answering to Congress about hiring Oppenheimer for the Institute.

While I was watching that play out in the movie, it gave me the impression that despite Oppenheimer’s contributions to the war effort, his reputation was almost immediately tarnished after the war because of what the movie calls “left-wing associations” and being tied to communism. The movie also seems to imply that Strauss was orchestrating it all, which is quite a turn for the guy who hired Oppenheimer at the Institute.

The True Story

For the most part, the way the movie shows this happening is pretty accurate. It’s dramatized, naturally, but the core elements are there.

What the movie skips are a few years between that meeting with President Truman at the end of 1945 and Oppenheimer’s 1946, when he consulted in Washington on atomic policy and was appointed to the Atomic Energy Commission, or AEC. That leads us up to 1947, which actually takes us back to the beginning of the movie when we learned that Lewis Strauss recruited Oppenheimer to be the director of the Institute for Advanced Study.

What started out as a good relationship turned sour mainly due to Oppenheimer’s Communist ties, such as his wife Kitty and his brother, Frank, who was a confirmed member of the Communist Party USA from 1937 until around 1940.

After World War II, Oppenheimer was famous, but as the Cold War sparked what we now know as the Red Scare, people started to grow suspicious of him. Rumors spread, and anyone with top secret clearance like Oppenheimer had for the Manhattan Project was called into question.

As for Lewis Strauss, that relationship started to sour a couple years after he recruited Oppenheimer. In fact, now that the Manhattan Project is a National Park, here’s a quote from the National Park Services’ website to explain the exact moment Strauss stopped liking Oppenheimer:

Robert Oppenheimer, testifying before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy including Lewis Strauss in 1949 on the military usefulness of Iron 59 said in part, “You can use a shovel for atomic energy. In fact you do. You can use a bottle of beer for atomic energy. In fact you do.” These and other comments by Oppenheimer, who was known for making biting remarks, caused people to laugh. Strauss looked foolish and was furious. “There was a look of hatred there [on Strauss’ face] you don’t see very often…” said one observer.

It wasn’t just that one comment, though, as you’ll notice that article talks about “other comments.” The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s website has another article that discusses another comment from Oppenheimer in that same hearing:

Strauss believed that radioactive isotopes had military value and argued against exporting them. However, with little patience for those he considered intellectually inferior, Oppenheimer publicly humiliated Strauss by saying, “My own rating of the importance of isotopes . . . is that they are far less important than electronic devices, but far more important than, let us say, vitamins.”

In response, Strauss didn’t hide his look of hatred. Oppenheimer had publicly revealed that Strauss knew little about physics, particularly nuclear science.

After that hearing, Lewis Strauss held a grudge against Oppenheimer. So, as Oppenheimer’s public image started to deteriorate into the Cold War era of the early 1950s, Strauss certainly didn’t want to do Oppenheimer any favors. Quite the opposite, actually, because Strauss asked the FBI to track Oppenheimer in 1953. They did, and delivered a report to Strauss on November 20^th, 1953, which Strauss sent directly to President Eisenhower. Upon reviewing the report, Eisenhower decided to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance. That happened on December 21^st, 1953, and Oppenheimer was given the choice to resign or appeal. He appealed the decision, which was heard by a three-man panel. They voted two-to-one not to reinstate the security clearance.

And with that, Oppenheimer’s government career was effectively over. But even though the movie doesn’t talk much about the rest of Oppenheimer’s life, let’s fill out the rest of the true story.

Despite his government career effectively coming to an end when his security clearance was revoked, Oppenheimer was still the director at the Institute for Advanced Study, but in 1954 he started taking vacations with his wife and daughter to the small island of Saint John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. They enjoyed sailing together, and they must’ve loved it there because in 1957, Oppenheimer bought some land and built a vacation home there.

He continued working for the Institute for Advanced Study and in March of 1963 he was awarded the Enrico Fermi Award. That’s kind of a lifetime achievement award for scientists with the medal physically given by the President of the United States. Oppenheimer winning that award was a big deal considering how he’d been shunned by the scientific community.

Unfortunately, though, JFK was assassinated before he was able to give the award to Oppenheimer, so President Lyndon B. Johnson formally gave him the award in December of 1963. Jackie Kennedy attended the ceremony and told Oppenheimer how much her husband wanted him to have the medal.

Oppenheimer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1965. He tried radiation treatment, but it was unsuccessful, so he resigned from the Institute for Advanced Study in 1966 due to his health. Then, on February 18^th, 1967, J. Robert Oppenheimer passed away in his sleep at home in Princeton at the age of 67.

I thought I’d end our story today with more recent news from just before the movie’s release in 2023. Because in 2022, the U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm issued this press release:

Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer occupies a central role in our history for leading the nation’s atomic efforts during World War II and planting the seeds for the Department of Energy’s national laboratories—the crown jewels of the American research and innovation ecosystem.

In 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked Dr. Oppenheimer’s security clearance through a flawed process that violated the Commission’s own regulations. As time has passed, more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed. The Atomic Energy Commission even selected Dr. Oppenheimer in 1963 for its prestigious Enrico Fermi Award citing his “scientific and administrative leadership not only in the development of the atomic bomb, but also in establishing the groundwork for the many peaceful applications of atomic energy.”

The Department of Energy has previously recognized J. Robert Oppenheimer in other ways including the creation of the Oppenheimer Science and Energy Leadership Program in 2017 to support early and mid-career scientists and engineers to “carry on [Dr. Oppenheimer’s] legacy of science serving society.”

As a successor agency to the Atomic Energy Commission, the Department of Energy has been entrusted with the responsibility to correct the historical record and honor Dr. Oppenheimer’s profound contributions to our national defense and the scientific enterprise at large. Today, I am pleased to announce the Department of Energy has vacated the Atomic Energy Commission’s 1954 decision In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

00:00:02:01 – 00:00:23:08
Dan LeFebvre
Hello and welcome to based on a True Story. The podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. The new Year is upon us, and this is my first time talking to you in 2026, so I thought it would be appropriate to go back into the vault for a classic episode about the topic that got me interested in history to begin with, The Legend of King Arthur.

00:00:23:11 – 00:00:40:22
Dan LeFebvre
Now, I’ll share a little bit more about how that tale got me interested in history, as well as an update for 2026 at the end of the episode, if you want to hear about that. But let’s jump into today’s movie. And there are a lot of King Arthur movies out there, but one of them marketed itself as being a more historically accurate adaptation of the story.

00:00:40:24 – 00:00:59:26
Dan LeFebvre
So that’s why today we’re going to be learning about the 2004 movie starring Clive Owen and Keira Knightley. And let’s start by refreshing our memory of the movie with a quick synopsis. As the movie starts, we quickly learn why this is a little different than other King Arthur movies because Clive Owen’s version of Arthur isn’t a king at the legendary Camelot.

00:01:00:00 – 00:01:28:11
Dan LeFebvre
Instead, he is a Roman trained commander leading a band of some marching warriors stationed in Britain near the end of Rome’s occupation. Their years of service are supposed to be over, and they’re eager to finally earn their freedom papers and go home. The twist comes when Rome orders them on one last mission ride north of Hadrian’s Wall into dangerous territory to rescue a Roman family before a ruthless Saxon army sweeps down and destroys everything in its path.

00:01:28:14 – 00:01:54:20
Dan LeFebvre
That decision pulls Arthur and his men straight into the collision between Rome’s empire, invading Saxons and the native Britons caught in the middle. Arthur’s soldiers in the movie are many names that we’re familiar with from the legends Lancelot, Gwyn, Galahad, Bors and Tristan. They reluctantly accept the mission, knowing that it might be a suicide run. And in the movie, we see them battling brutal weather, ambushes and the constant pressure of the advancing Saxon forces.

00:01:54:22 – 00:02:16:29
Dan LeFebvre
Along the way, they encounter two other familiar characters from the legend Guinevere and Merlin. In this version of the story, Guinevere is a world warrior rather than the courtly queen that we might expect, and Merlin appears to be more of a tribal leader than a wizard. As alliances shift, Arthur is forced to choose between his duty to Rome and his growing sense that Rome has abandoned Britain.

00:02:17:02 – 00:02:38:18
Dan LeFebvre
The story builds to a large scale showdown when Arthur and his soldiers decide to make a stand alongside the Britons instead of retreating with the Romans. The Saxons launch a fierce assault, and the battle claims the lives of some of Arthur’s closest companions, but the defenders ultimately repel the invaders. And in the aftermath, Arthur marries Gwen and steps into the role of King.

00:02:38:24 – 00:03:04:09
Dan LeFebvre
Not by divine sword or mystical prophecy, but by leading the people who chose to stand and fight with him. So you can start to get a sense of how 2004 is King Arthur is trying to be a more realistic version of the Arthurian legend, but how well does it do from a historical perspective? Today’s episode is with Dorsey Armstrong, a medieval literature professor at Purdue University who specializes in Arthurian legend.

00:03:04:12 – 00:03:35:15
Dan LeFebvre
And you might recognize her name from her great Courses lectures, like one of my personal favorites called King Arthur History and Legend. She’s also the editor of the official quarterly journal of the International Arthurian Society called Arthurian. Before we start uncovering the true story behind King Arthur, though, let’s set up our game for today’s episode. Now, if you’re new to the show since based on a true story, it’s all about separating fact from fiction in the movies, you’ll get to practice your skills at separating fact from fiction in this podcast episode with a game of two truths and a lie.

00:03:35:18 – 00:04:02:23
Dan LeFebvre
So I’m about to give you three things that we’ll talk about in this episode. Two of those are true. And one of them, well, one of them is just an all out lie. Are you ready? Okay, here they are. Number one, the famous Round Table appears in early fifth century Arthurian stories. Number two. Merlin was not associated with Arthur until the 12th century.

00:04:02:25 – 00:04:22:10
Dan LeFebvre
Number three. No Romans lived in villas north of Hadrian’s Wall. Got them. Okay, now, as you’re listening to our story today, see if you can figure out which one of those is a lie. And if you’re watching the video version of this, you can see I’m holding up an envelope. This has the answer inside, and we’ll open this at the end of the episode to see if you got it right.

00:04:22:13 – 00:04:35:29
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Now it’s time to connect with Dorsey Armstrong. All about the historical accuracy of 2004 King Arthur.

00:04:36:01 – 00:04:54:09
Dan LeFebvre
As longtime listeners of based on a true story. No, I always like to kick things off with an overall historical letter grade just to get a sense of how accurate a movie is from a ballpark perspective. So with that in mind, today we are looking at the 2004 King Arthur movie. What letter grade does it get.

00:04:54:11 – 00:05:08:09
Dorsey Armstrong
As far as a letter grade for its historical accuracy? I think that you would have to break it into sections, and some parts would get an A, and many parts would get an F.

00:05:08:12 – 00:05:10:17
Dan LeFebvre
That’s quite a gap.

00:05:10:19 – 00:05:39:14
Dorsey Armstrong
So yes, it it’s there are moments that, are so carefully, scrupulously paying attention to what would have been going on in the fifth century and what we know about early chronicle accounts of who King Arthur was, that pay attention to details and then others. There are other moments where they’ve just thrown everything out the window and they’ve, you know, done something kind of crazy with the story.

00:05:39:14 – 00:06:15:02
Dorsey Armstrong
And so but I will say this, what is great about this film, the further away I get from it in time, the more I like it, because despite what it gets wrong, it gets the idea of Arthur right. So even if it’s not an accurate historical representation of King Arthur, the character who is noble, good, beloved by his men, willing to sacrifice himself, all of those are the elements that we find in the Arthurian legend that have made it so popular.

00:06:15:04 – 00:06:32:17
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like the movie is more about capturing the essence of the character instead of specific historical events, which we see a lot in movies. So that gap makes a lot of sense. But as a movie, it still has to pull details from somewhere for us to watch. So let’s start digging into those exactly the same way the movie does.

00:06:32:21 – 00:07:01:03
Dan LeFebvre
I’m going to quote the movie. This is a direct quote from the movie quote. Historians agree that the classical 15th century tale of King Arthur and his knights rose from a real hero who lived a thousand years earlier, in a period often called the Dark Ages. Recently discovered archeological evidence sheds light on his true identity and, quote, so the movie specifically says historians agree instead of some historians or even most historians.

00:07:01:06 – 00:07:14:06
Dan LeFebvre
And that to me implies that the movie is suggesting this is just accepted fact. So having the chance to talk to a historian about this movie, I have to ask, do you agree with the movie’s opening statement?

00:07:14:08 – 00:07:47:14
Dorsey Armstrong
Again, it’s like my grade that I gave the movie parts of it. Get, any parts of it get enough. So yes, absolutely. The 15th century hero that we know probably has his origins in a real person, possibly persons who lived during the fifth century. And I will say as much as medievalist, hate the phrase dark ages if there ever was a Dark Age, fifth century Britain after the Romans have withdrawn, is it?

00:07:47:15 – 00:08:23:06
Dorsey Armstrong
It really does count as a dark age. So that part is true. The idea that recent archeological discoveries have located the Arthurian legend, in the north. That’s a little less plausible. I will say that every time a fifth century or thereabouts. Archeological discoveries made, no matter where it is in the British Isles, people attempt to connect it to King Arthur or the Arthur type figure on which he was based.

00:08:23:08 – 00:08:34:18
Dorsey Armstrong
But generally speaking, as far as the legend goes, most of Arthur’s exploits and tales and stories and legends are focused much more towards the South in the southwest.

00:08:34:20 – 00:08:56:08
Dan LeFebvre
Something that stood out to me in that opening statement was the mention of recently discovered archeological evidence. Of course, we have to keep in mind that the movie came out in 2004, so was there some sort of discovery around the 2004 time frame that sort of broke open? Who the real King Arthur was that the movie’s referring to?

00:08:56:11 – 00:09:25:07
Dorsey Armstrong
I what I believe happened in the years before that. Is that up near Hadrian’s Wall, there had been some archeological discoveries, that indicated that a local leader had remained in power and had consolidated a base of power there. After the Romans had withdrawn. But you can say the same about other parts of Britain as well. There are there are several people, understandably, who tried to step into that vacuum of power.

00:09:25:09 – 00:09:36:03
Dorsey Armstrong
And we don’t know much about them, which is why almost every one of them could be considered a candidate for the historical Arthur or, as I like to call him, an Arthur type figure.

00:09:36:06 – 00:09:59:29
Dan LeFebvre
Going back to the movie, we also get an explanation for another of the famous characters from the Arthurian legend, Lancelot. And according to the movie, in 300 A.D., the Romans were expanding their empire to the east. And that’s where the Samaritans live. The Romans defeated them, but they were so impressed with the bravery of the cavalry that they let them live in exchange for each generation of Somalian boys joining the Roman military as knights for 15 years.

00:10:00:01 – 00:10:18:12
Dan LeFebvre
And then fast forward to the year 452 A.D. then we see a young Lancelot being taken from his home to join the Roman military, and he is stationed under Arthur in Britain to defend what you just mentioned, Hadrian’s Wall. The movie describes that as being a 73 mile wall that’s separating the native fighters in the north, where Roman controlled Britain to the south.

00:10:18:14 – 00:10:35:13
Dan LeFebvre
And then, of course, the movie fast forwards 15 years after that to 467 A.D. and that’s kind of the timeline for the rest of the movie. So that’s how the movie sets up everything that we see in the movie itself. How well does the movie establish the timeline prior to the events that we see in the movie?

00:10:35:15 – 00:11:01:04
Dorsey Armstrong
So that’s an interesting question, because on the one hand, yes, wherever the Romans went, they did tend to try and co-opt or bring into the empire, or I’ll just say it, exploit, people who had skills that they thought were valuable and especially useful in fighting. And it is true that at one point very early on that included the formations to the east.

00:11:01:06 – 00:11:29:11
Dorsey Armstrong
But what’s really interesting about this film is that the summation theory, as far as King Arthur goes, is a theory, put forward by Linda melker and C Scott Littleton. And they wrote a book called From Scythian to Camelot. And in that book, they posit that there was no historical Arthur figure, that what happened is the summations are conscripted into the Roman army, which which we know happened.

00:11:29:13 – 00:12:01:27
Dorsey Armstrong
They ended up in Britain so that also did happen. But then their theory is that they’re there in the second century, serving under a Roman leader named Lucius Sartorius. Cassius, and that it is a mix of summation mythology with the reputation and the idealized figure of this leader that, centuries later, would get mushed together to create Arthur and many of the legends, that are associated with him.

00:12:02:03 – 00:12:23:21
Dorsey Armstrong
So it’s interesting that the movie says this is true, whereas the book argues that what a study of the summation question proves is that there was no Arthur and that he wasn’t a real person who lived in the fifth century. And so it puts those two things together in sort of uncomfortable juxtaposition. It makes for a good film.

00:12:23:23 – 00:12:42:01
Dorsey Armstrong
Absolutely. So part is partially true that there were summations, they were incorporated into the Empire. They did make it all the way to Britain, most likely. And they did serve in the second century under someone named Lucius. Our Tory is Cassius, where we get that Arthur name and his middle name.

00:12:42:03 – 00:12:48:15
Dan LeFebvre
That sounds like a perfect example of the contrast between the A and the F letter grade that you gave the overall movie.

00:12:48:18 – 00:13:10:00
Dorsey Armstrong
So I will say this again. The further away I get from the original screen of that film, the more I like it and the more I like what it does in how it encapsulates the essence of why Arthur has become such an important figure for, 1500 years.

00:13:10:03 – 00:13:34:22
Dan LeFebvre
One of the characters from the Arthurian legend that we see in the movie is Merlin. He is not the stereotypical wizard character from a lot of the other Arthurian legend, but in this movie, Merlin is set up as being a world leader. The first interaction that he has with Arthur’s soldiers is actually a fight against them. Although there is a line of dialog they call my year, I think it was Lancelot describing Merlin as a quote unquote dark magician.

00:13:34:24 – 00:13:40:15
Dan LeFebvre
Can you fill in a little more historical context around what we know about Merlin?

00:13:40:17 – 00:14:10:14
Dorsey Armstrong
So this is a really interesting question, because the Merlin character does not get associated with the Arthurian legend, until the 12th century, when a guy called Geoffrey of Monmouth, takes what he knows about one or possibly two figures upon which he bases his Merlin and decides to put it together with the Arthurian legend. Now, we do think that there are possibly two historical figures upon which this Merlin figure is based.

00:14:10:16 – 00:14:34:25
Dorsey Armstrong
One is Merlin Caledonia’s, who was a warrior who went mad and lived in the woods, and the other, is Merlin Ambrosius, who in some of the texts, fought by Arthur’s side early on and had skills maybe not necessarily of magic, but he was a great builder, a great engineer. And so what he did kind of looked like magic.

00:14:34:25 – 00:15:09:20
Dorsey Armstrong
And it appears that Geoffrey of Monmouth, riding around 1136 or so, puts what he knows of this Welsh bard slash warrior wandering through the forest and creates a merlin character, and then moves that Merlin character into the Arthurian legend. So before the 12th century, Merlin is not a wizard who’s in any way associated, with King Arthur and his story, which bums my students out so much every time I tell them that because they really want to believe that at least these two figures are true.

00:15:09:20 – 00:15:19:11
Dorsey Armstrong
And I say, you know what? They’re both probably fifth or sixth century. So they’re they both exist at the right time, but we don’t see them together until the 12th.

00:15:19:14 – 00:15:30:19
Dan LeFebvre
I suppose when it comes to a movie called King Arthur, people are going to expect to see Merlin in a movie about King Arthur. So maybe that’s why the filmmakers decided to add a merlin character.

00:15:30:21 – 00:15:51:25
Dorsey Armstrong
What I would say is that anyone who’s trying to make an historical King Arthur movie is going to run into the huge problem of audience expectations. If you hear Arthur, you’re going to expect that there better be a merlin, there better be a Lancelot. And as far as we know, Lancelot seems to appear fully formed in the 12th century.

00:15:51:27 – 00:16:18:04
Dorsey Armstrong
He’s not there in the original fifth century. If you’re going to have an historical Arthur film set in the fifth century, you can have an Arthur, you can have a Guinevere, you can have a bit of ear, a K, and an early version of Sir Gawain. Walk me. But that’s it. You can’t have a Lancelot. You can’t have a Bors.

00:16:18:04 – 00:16:39:11
Dorsey Armstrong
You can’t have a Galahad. You can’t have Merlin. So you can imagine that if you’re trying to tell the historical story of Arthur in the fifth century and people come to see this film, if there’s not a Lancelot, I think people are going to be very upset. So I sympathize with all movie makers who are trying to wrestle with that question, because it’s a hard one.

00:16:39:13 – 00:16:56:29
Dorsey Armstrong
Because for hundreds of years now, we have come to associate figures like Merlin and Lancelot with King Arthur. To such an extent that they’re really inextricable from each other right now. And you would disappoint your audience if you didn’t have them in the movie.

00:16:57:01 – 00:17:11:03
Dan LeFebvre
One of the concepts I gathered as I watched the movie was that Merlin’s people, the worlds, are a nomadic people who are fighting against the Roman occupation of Britain. Can you share a little more historical context around the words from the movie?

00:17:11:05 – 00:17:44:06
Dorsey Armstrong
So the worlds are based on, a real people, called the pick’s Picts, and their name comes from Picardy, which means painted because they did paint themselves blue before they went into battle. And the dye that they used is called woad. And so I think that’s where the movie gets that word. The reason that Hadrian’s Wall is built in the first place is because there are some really scary blue people up beyond it, and the Romans have said, no, thank you.

00:17:44:08 – 00:18:08:18
Dorsey Armstrong
South of here is good. We’re not going to mess with that up there at all. And so another way that the movie stumbles is that if they’re so scary that there’s a wall keeping them out of the South, why is there a Roman senator living in his lovely summer estate north of the wall, in the most dangerous territory in Britain at the time?

00:18:08:21 – 00:18:11:18
Dan LeFebvre
That’s a really good point. I don’t think they really even talk about that in the movie.

00:18:11:22 – 00:18:14:06
Dorsey Armstrong
What is he doing up there?

00:18:14:08 – 00:18:34:08
Dan LeFebvre
Just a summer home, right? Apparently heading back to the movie’s version of events, let’s shift focus from some of the legendary characters that we talked about so far. Instead, focus on an object that the movie shows from the Arthurian legend the Round Table, according to the way the movie shows the Round Table. Of course, we talked about Lancelot.

00:18:34:08 – 00:18:52:16
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned Gwyn and Galahad and Tristan and all of these other knights from the legends. And there’s this scene in the movie where Bishop Germanus makes a big deal about needing to sit at the head of the table, to which the Knights reply with something like, of course you can sit wherever you want. And then he enters the room and there’s a round table there.

00:18:52:16 – 00:19:00:15
Dan LeFebvre
There is no head of the table, which obviously doesn’t make him happy. Do we know if the round table that we see in the movie was an actual thing?

00:19:00:18 – 00:19:23:26
Dorsey Armstrong
So it is when the legend starts to pick up in the 12th century. But again, as you may have noticed, there’s a theme here. A lot of what we think of as the foundational elements show up in the 12th century. Now, that does not mean that they weren’t present, perhaps in some form in earlier texts or stories that have been lost.

00:19:23:29 – 00:19:49:17
Dorsey Armstrong
It is just that we only have evidence for their existence in the 12th century. What’s interesting is, that this idea comes from somewhere, and that’s pretty early in the legend, this idea that Arthur, it’s a 12th century writer named Wass who says Arthur sat at a table. He was first among equals, but it was a round table, so no one was above anyone else.

00:19:49:19 – 00:20:15:02
Dorsey Armstrong
And that’s a remarkable idea for the 12th century. So I would like to imagine, that there might be some basis, or it might be an ancient memory of when this Arthur type figure gathered with his warband, because that’s what they would have been. They weren’t knights in the fifth century. They would have been his, his warband that they gathered in, a circle to discuss.

00:20:15:02 – 00:20:29:10
Dorsey Armstrong
And so it really it could have an origin there that they’re gathered around a fire or a half. But as far as a physical table, we don’t have any evidence of that. For sure before the 12th century.

00:20:29:12 – 00:20:46:21
Dan LeFebvre
That makes a lot of sense. I mean, thinking of whether or not a physical object would have survived that long. It’s it’s hard to know. But other than the physical object, there’s just a concept of it. I think we’re all familiar with, you know, the concept of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. We’re familiar with that in the legend and in this movie.

00:20:46:21 – 00:21:02:15
Dan LeFebvre
The impression that I got for how it presents that scene with the Bishop is basically kind of saying that Arthur sees everyone as equals. Nobody is above anyone else. Do we know if the historical Arthur had that concept of equality?

00:21:02:18 – 00:21:42:02
Dorsey Armstrong
So in the fifth century? That’s a really hard question to answer. If we’re talking about sub Roman Britain and the historical Arthur figure, would have been, as far as we can tell, if he existed. I think someone who was the basis for this figure, who had a name similar to Arthur, did exist. He might not have been all on board with the idea of equality, but whoever this person was based on archeological evidence that shows a Celtic warband led by a leader in the right time and the right place for the historical Arthur, this person must have been an amazing warrior.

00:21:42:04 – 00:22:09:06
Dorsey Armstrong
He must have been charismatic, and he must have just been a really good guy. Given how clear it is that in the wake of Rome pulling out, he was able to rally to his side. Something like a community of over 700 people. It’s estimated, when the average warband at that time. And so say the historians who know such things would have been more like 35 people.

00:22:09:09 – 00:22:35:19
Dorsey Armstrong
So he must have been a great leader, a great warrior, a good ruler, a just person. And I imagine that if you’re going to achieve that measure of success and maintain that level of leadership when the rest of the world is in chaos, that making people feel as if they are valued, even if it’s not actually that they’re being treated as equal with you, would have been important.

00:22:35:21 – 00:22:41:18
Dorsey Armstrong
So I think that there’s a little bit of truth hiding in there.

00:22:41:21 – 00:23:02:00
Dan LeFebvre
Speaking of the bishop, that makes me wonder about another plot point that we see in the movie regarding the Knights and their religion. The movie seems to say that the Knights are following the faith of their forefathers. In other words, they are pagans and not Christians as the Romans are. But they’re still fighting for Rome and the Roman Church, historically speaking.

00:23:02:03 – 00:23:07:17
Dan LeFebvre
Was there a tie between Arthur and the Roman Church like we see in the movie?

00:23:07:19 – 00:23:37:02
Dorsey Armstrong
So probably, most certainly since the Romans had firmly conquered most of what we think of as Britain or England today by the middle of the first century. And they were in power there until 410. So as the Empire went, so went all of the outposts within the Empire. So when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, all Roman citizens would have been expected to do the same.

00:23:37:05 – 00:24:08:04
Dorsey Armstrong
And so by the time we get to Arthur’s lifetime, Rome had been Christianized for well over a century. And so we think that that’s the case, he certainly would have been a Christian as far as the tolerance for other faiths. It’s doubtful it is. It is doubtful, that as a Christian leader, anyone would have been tolerant of what they believed to be blasphemy or anathema.

00:24:08:04 – 00:24:32:28
Dorsey Armstrong
But at the same time, we have to remember that this is the early days of Christianity. So many of its rules, its regulations, its orthodoxy, they don’t exist. Yet. We see a great example of this. What I really liked was the use of, Pelagius. And Pelagius was, for a time he was he was a British monk in the sixth century.

00:24:32:28 – 00:24:59:11
Dorsey Armstrong
So he’s a little later than than Arthur would have been. And he was ousted, from the ranks of the church and declared a heretic because he believed and he preached, what came to be called the Palladian heresy, which was essentially do good works, and you’ll get to go to heaven on the face of it, that seems to make sense.

00:24:59:13 – 00:25:21:17
Dorsey Armstrong
But ultimately, when the church had to decide, they declared this a heresy because in the end, humans cannot earn their way into heaven by doing good. The final decision rests with God. Only God gets to decide who gets in and who doesn’t. So it doesn’t matter what you’ve done yourself during your lifetime, it’s God who makes the final call.

00:25:21:23 – 00:25:49:22
Dorsey Armstrong
But anything that’s a heresy we have to remember only gets called the heresy because a lot of people are believing in it and following it. So for quite some time, people would have believed in the message of Pelagius and, and striven to adhere to it and, and thought, I will do good works to get into heaven. And it’s only when the church decides, no, we can’t have this, this, this is contrary to our doctrine that he becomes a heretic.

00:25:49:22 – 00:26:07:09
Dorsey Armstrong
And so the idea that Arthur is a Palladian Christian is a great idea. I think that makes total sense. And that he is so upset when he discovers that Pelagius had been executed when he returned to Rome. Also makes sense.

00:26:07:12 – 00:26:17:18
Dan LeFebvre
Since you mentioned Pelagius near the end of the movie, I seem to recall that we find out Bishop Germanus is the one who had Plagueis executed. Is there truth to that, then?

00:26:17:21 – 00:26:42:12
Dorsey Armstrong
Yes. Palladio was declared a heretic. Any who believed in the pillage and heresy were, declared heretics. He might be subject to execution or torture and all kinds of nasty ways. And we know that this is a problem, for centuries afterward, because it’s such a popular idea that even in the 14th century, we have the church still trying to root out the Palladian heresy, in all kinds of places.

00:26:42:15 – 00:26:50:27
Dorsey Armstrong
Because who wouldn’t want to believe that if one does good, one gets rewarded. So, it’s an ongoing problem.

00:26:51:00 – 00:27:11:08
Dan LeFebvre
Maybe you already answered this question earlier, but we’re at the point in the movie’s timeline where it makes a big deal out of this final order from Rome to Arthur and his knights. And it’s the final order, because the movie’s concept is they will be done with their service to Rome after this mission. And the mission is for them to go north of Hadrian’s Wall to rescue a Roman named Marius.

00:27:11:11 – 00:27:30:01
Dan LeFebvre
As the movie explains it, one of the reasons that this mission is a big deal beyond just rescuing a Roman citizen is that Marius, his son Leto, is supposedly the Pope’s favorite godson. And then to top it off, there’s a timeline to it because there’s an approaching Saxon army, so Arthur and his knights have to rescue Marius, elected and his household before it’s too late.

00:27:30:03 – 00:27:36:13
Dan LeFebvre
Is there any truth to the scenario set up by the movie for Arthur’s final order?

00:27:36:16 – 00:27:43:00
Dorsey Armstrong
This is where I the the history goes off the rails.

00:27:43:02 – 00:27:46:28
Dan LeFebvre
This is the part of the historical let a great house.

00:27:47:00 – 00:28:10:15
Dorsey Armstrong
Yeah, yeah, the f. So first of all, there are no Romans in their luxurious villas north of Hadrian’s Wall. Also, when the Saxons invade, they are not invading up there. They’re invading much further south, in what’s England? So they wouldn’t have been up there to begin with. And so the movie is, is moving people around and creating a conflict.

00:28:10:17 – 00:28:32:00
Dorsey Armstrong
So there’s a family in distress. They just create a scenario which causes them to be in distress, which is the most implausible scenario, that I can think of. And then we have to add an extra, enemy in the form of the Saxons. Who? These were the people that the historical Arthur figure did rally against.

00:28:32:00 – 00:28:56:15
Dorsey Armstrong
Did fight against. Seems to have stopped and pushed back. And their encroachment across southern Britain from the east to the west. But they’re not up north. Threatening romance that that’s not happening at all. So, yes, Arthur versus the Saxons, but the geographic location is absolutely incorrect.

00:28:56:17 – 00:28:59:28
Dan LeFebvre
So not at all the way the movie portrays it.

00:29:00:00 – 00:29:02:15
Dorsey Armstrong
Right. Sorry.

00:29:02:18 – 00:29:21:22
Dan LeFebvre
There’s another element of Arthur’s mission I wanted to touch on, because in the movie, when Arthur finally gets to Marius is a state, we can see that Marius is using his position as a Roman to subjugate the people of the town. He’s telling you he’s a spokesman for God and it’s a sin to defy him. And then Arthur comes in and he tells the people that they are all free from their first breath.

00:29:21:24 – 00:29:43:15
Dan LeFebvre
And he goes on to try to rescue as many of the townspeople as he can, not just Marius, his family. That was the core of his mission. So in my mind, as I was watching this, it kind of goes back to the movie’s portrayal of the round table concept that we talked about earlier. Work. Arthur seems to favor equality because Arthur gets there and he kind of puts his money where his mouth is, so to speak.

00:29:43:15 – 00:29:58:07
Dan LeFebvre
It’s a stark contrast to the way that the Roman Marius is acting. So would it be fair to assume that Arthur was much more honorable as a person than most others were in that time period of history?

00:29:58:09 – 00:30:26:01
Dorsey Armstrong
I mean, I think yes, he as I said before, given the extent of what we think was his following in the number of people who flocked to his side and the length of time, he was able to rule and restore peace for a couple generations. He must have been a very just person at the same time, another area in which this film gets an F is this idea of all men are born free.

00:30:26:03 – 00:31:07:14
Dorsey Armstrong
No, in the Middle Ages, if you went back in time to the Middle Ages and you asked anybody, would you like to be free, or would you like to be beholden to this Lord, or and subject to him? The first question that anyone would ask would probably be how much land comes with either of those options? And generally speaking, everyone would usually have chosen to be not free because this society depended upon a hierarchy in which lords ruled over people.

00:31:07:14 – 00:31:34:21
Dorsey Armstrong
The people served their lords, and in return for that, they got the Lords protection. They were part of a social network. There was a safety net. So, for example, in times of famine, it would be expected that the Lord would find a way to help his people, to keep them from starving in times of warfare, in exchange for working his land, the Lord would take everyone he could into his fortress or stronghold or castle to protect them.

00:31:34:24 – 00:32:02:10
Dorsey Armstrong
If you are free and you are cut loose from this structure, who’s going to help you? You are alone in the world. How do you farm your land? Because much of farming was cooperative back then. So the villagers would come together to plants, to harvest. And so being all on your own. Well, what’s not impossible would not have been considered a desirable situation to be in at all.

00:32:02:12 – 00:32:35:22
Dorsey Armstrong
In fact, we have accounts, from some parts of the Middle Ages in which during a time of famine, people approached a particular lord and made themselves his slaves, on purpose, because in exchange, they would get fed. They would be clothed, they would be housed. And the seemed to have been a temporary arrangement, but they were happy to to give, you know, their lives up into the service of the Lord and be obedient to him as long as it meant protection for them and their family.

00:32:35:24 – 00:33:00:08
Dorsey Armstrong
So the idea that I am a free man, is absolutely incorrect. As far as the Middle Ages would go. But every age, I like to say makes an Arthur that that age needs. So in 2004, that’s that’s what we wanted to hear, that it’s all about freedom. It’s all about individual freedom. And that’s just it’s not the case.

00:33:00:08 – 00:33:02:02
Dorsey Armstrong
It’s historically inaccurate.

00:33:02:04 – 00:33:15:27
Dan LeFebvre
Speaking of freedom, that’s almost like what I mentioned a moment ago. With this being Arthur’s final mission, it’s his final mission because they were going to be given their own freedom afterward. But it sounds like maybe that wasn’t the case.

00:33:15:29 – 00:33:39:08
Dorsey Armstrong
That that would not have been something they wanted. They would not have wanted. First of all, no one gets papers of safe conduct to go through the Roman Empire in the fifth century. That’s not a thing. There are not checkpoints everywhere. There aren’t even enough people who can read to, you know, to tell you what this thing says that you’re carrying, that says you have the right to move throughout the Roman Empire.

00:33:39:10 – 00:34:02:24
Dorsey Armstrong
And so while they may have if we’re going with the summation theory, they may have wanted to go back to their homeland. They would not have wanted to be cut loose, from the Roman bureaucracy. In fact, the sack of Rome, which started around 410, and then the Empire sort of staggered to its final collapse around 476.

00:34:02:27 – 00:34:27:07
Dorsey Armstrong
The people who attacked Rome were, first of all, attacking, not because they wanted to conquer Rome, but because they wanted to get in. They said, yeah, give us some of that. So many of these people, these were, what we think of as the Germanic peoples that lived north of Rome. Many of them had already been fighting for the Romans as mercenaries.

00:34:27:09 – 00:34:55:25
Dorsey Armstrong
And they saw all the benefits that Roman citizens got. And they said, well, we don’t want to just be your hired hands. We would we would like roads and baths and, you know, reliable food and a functioning government. And so I doubt that many people would have wanted to move away from Rome or felt like Rome was somehow oppressive.

00:34:55:27 – 00:35:20:13
Dorsey Armstrong
And that’s one reason why the Arthur type figure, from what we know from many of the texts, is that apparently his parents had been Romans of some rank in Britain. And then after the Empire collapsed and the legions are withdrawn and called back to Rome, it is someone who has claims to Rome who can rise up and rally the people.

00:35:20:13 – 00:35:27:11
Dorsey Armstrong
And that’s what they were looking for, some sort of vestige of what Rome had done for that.

00:35:27:13 – 00:35:48:26
Dan LeFebvre
So I guess maybe the idea of Marius being the one that is oppressive to his people. I mean, I’m sure there were some leaders that were oppressive like that, but it seems like, historically speaking, that dynamic would have been very different because it’s beneficial to the Lords to have their people doing well.

00:35:48:28 – 00:36:15:11
Dorsey Armstrong
You are exactly correct. So I have no doubt that there, and history shows us that there were some terrible lords and that especially in the 14th century, much later, when there’s, a population crisis and, there’s no more land to be worked. And the Lords are trying, in this case, trying to oppress the people, to keep them on their land, to keep them beholden to them.

00:36:15:13 – 00:36:42:07
Dorsey Armstrong
We have the Peasants Revolt in England in 1381. And part of this is because after the black Death, the first wave of the Black Death swept through and killed up to half of the European population. What had been the land crunch suddenly became, a land free for all. And so there was plenty of land for the taking, so people didn’t need to remain on their particular plot of land.

00:36:42:07 – 00:37:00:18
Dorsey Armstrong
They weren’t so bounded by tradition, and history, because the world had changed overnight, practically. But up until that point, yes. For, for most, it would be considered a mutually, a mutually beneficial situation.

00:37:00:20 – 00:37:20:25
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to the movie, there’s another character from the Arthurian legend that shows up at the village where Marius is at. I’m speaking, of course, about Guinevere. When she’s first shown in the movie, she’s actually a prisoner who must be sacrificed along with any of the, quote unquote, sinners. Again, going back to Marius, basically saying that anyone who defies him is defying God.

00:37:20:28 – 00:37:36:13
Dan LeFebvre
So in the movie, there’s actually two prisoners that Arthur and his men save. One is a little boy, and then Guinevere, who in the movie is a world woman. Is there any historical truth to the way that we see Arthur and Guinevere meeting in the movie?

00:37:36:16 – 00:38:05:27
Dorsey Armstrong
And a lot of that is really, really, lost in the mists of time. But there have been some suggestions that certainly the Arthur Gwenn of Year marriage, would have been, at that point, politically motivated, even if there, there was affection at the same time. And there seems to be, a situation that suggests that he married more than one woman named Guinevere.

00:38:06:00 – 00:38:10:27
Dorsey Armstrong
That was a very popular name. It’s the early version of Jennifer.

00:38:11:00 – 00:38:12:26
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay.

00:38:12:28 – 00:38:42:12
Dorsey Armstrong
So, so. And Gwen avere, in some instances, appears to possibly have come from north of where Arthur was. So closer to Scotland, probably northern Wales. She has a Welsh name. But as far as her being a pagan who lives north of the wall and is a Pict probably not.

00:38:42:14 – 00:39:02:18
Dan LeFebvre
Well, with that in mind, I’m just going to guess that the movie’s connection tying Guinevere to Arthur and Merlin is not correct. Remember, the movie shows Merlin as a world leader, so then Arthur and Guinevere start to kind of fall for each other. And then the movie strong suggests that that is why Arthur starts to ally with Merlin’s people instead of Rome.

00:39:02:24 – 00:39:17:27
Dan LeFebvre
After all, he’s about to be freed by Rome anyway, so might as well ally with Guinevere as people. At least that’s how the movie tells the story. But is there any connection between Guinevere, Arthur, and Merlin in the historical record?

00:39:18:00 – 00:39:41:06
Dorsey Armstrong
No, there is not. But I think we can safely say that, whomever the Arthur type figure married, that would have been a marriage that brought together, peoples, united them, and created, you know, a larger, network of support against the invading Saxons. So I think it would be safe to assume that.

00:39:41:08 – 00:40:07:07
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you mentioned the Saxons. And if we go back to the movie’s version of events, the first confrontation that we see with Arthur and his knights in the advancing Saxon army takes place on an ice covered light. Arthur and his knights decide they’re tired of running, so they’re going to stay behind and hold off the Saxons while all the civilians that they’re rescuing remember they’re going beyond just Marius and his family trying to rescue as many of the townspeople as they could.

00:40:07:09 – 00:40:28:04
Dan LeFebvre
So all these people, they’re going to try to give them a head start and hold off the advancing Saxon army. I call it a head start because the movie says that it’s seven knights against like 200. Well, I guess there’s eight of them because Guinevere joins the fight. But you have eight people against 200 Saxons in this battle, so they don’t really expect to win.

00:40:28:06 – 00:40:42:10
Dan LeFebvre
Except it’s a movie, so they find a way. But the way that this happened in the movie is by breaking the ice. So the Saxons fall into the icy waters. Is there any sort of historical truth to this battle on the like that we see in the movie?

00:40:42:12 – 00:41:05:20
Dorsey Armstrong
No. And in fact, that fight scene owes a lot to an earlier medieval film called Alexander Nevsky, which had a very similar scene. And I actually wasn’t aware of that film until after I saw the King Arthur film. And I was commenting to someone about how much I enjoyed that fight scene and how clever it was.

00:41:05:20 – 00:41:29:16
Dorsey Armstrong
And, people who know medieval film better than I do said, oh, no, that that’s lifted straight from Alexander Nevsky. That fight scene. And so then I went and checked and. Yes, indeed, it’s still a great scene. But no, there’s no historical basis for that, except for, in the sense that another movie did it before this one.

00:41:29:19 – 00:41:49:00
Dan LeFebvre
Earlier in our chat, we were talking about the kind of person that Arthur was, and we see this again in action during the lake battle, there’s a scene where Arthur is willing to sacrifice himself for one of his injured men. Arthur rushes out and breaks the ice under the Saxons, and then, as he’s exposed to enemy fire, he pulls the injured knight away from the icy waters.

00:41:49:02 – 00:41:54:24
Dan LeFebvre
Do we know if he would have sacrificed himself for his men like we see happening in the movie?

00:41:54:27 – 00:42:04:00
Dorsey Armstrong
We can only surmise. But again, my guess would be anyone who was able to,

00:42:04:03 – 00:42:29:24
Dorsey Armstrong
Arouse so much loyalty, from his people. Must have been someone who made clear that he was willing to fight and die alongside his men. And that is another thing the movie does get right is that in the Middle Ages, kings and leaders are not like modern day generals who are back looking at maps and plotting strategy.

00:42:29:27 – 00:42:36:08
Dorsey Armstrong
You’re right, they’re at the front lines with your men. Otherwise they wouldn’t have considered you, a leader worth following.

00:42:36:10 – 00:43:03:12
Dan LeFebvre
At the very end of the movie, Arthur is freed from his commitment to Rome. Guinevere convinces Arthur that her people are his people, so Arthur decides to stay and fight the main force of Saxons. After initially leaving with the Romans and the rest of the knights come back and decide to stay and fight with Arthur. So that’s how we end up having this big battle at the end between Arthur’s knights alongside Guinevere and Merlin’s woad army against the full Saxon army.

00:43:03:14 – 00:43:18:13
Dan LeFebvre
What’s interesting about this battle is that the movie actually mentioned it by name. It’s called the Battle of Baden Hill, and since it mentions it by name, I have to ask, was that a real battle and how well did the movie do showing what happened?

00:43:18:16 – 00:43:48:00
Dorsey Armstrong
The Battle of Baden Hill comes from a ninth century chronicle in. And we do believe it was a real fight. But at the same time, it wouldn’t have been at Hadrian’s Wall. People have been trying to find Baden for a while. And we think it’s in the south of, of Britain, somewhere in the south. And this supposedly was one of the key battles in which Arthur, the leader, pushed the Saxons back.

00:43:48:02 – 00:44:14:12
Dorsey Armstrong
But also the same text tells us that there were 12 battles. And he’s victorious at this one. In the final battle, which is at Hamlin. And no one can find Camelot. Exactly. There have been lots of theories, people trying to pinpoint it. That is where he is finally killed and defeated at the end. But, as far as the Arthurian legend goes, the Battle of Mount Baden.

00:44:14:12 – 00:44:34:04
Dorsey Armstrong
Yes, was attested very, very early on in the chronicles. Now, where it was exactly not so clear, but but it does show up. So naming that final battle after the battle in the Chronicles makes sense.

00:44:34:06 – 00:44:49:14
Dan LeFebvre
If we’re to believe the movie’s version of this battle, we see Arthur’s men die. Namely, Tristan and Lancelot are the main characters who die in that battle in the movie. And then that leaves Arthur with just four knights along with the World Army. Do we know what happened with his men?

00:44:49:16 – 00:45:16:17
Dorsey Armstrong
No. I mean, we know almost nothing about him from contemporary documents. That would be, you know, from the fifth century or, you know, even a century or two later. That’s as close as we can get. So, we can assume, though, that when Arthur passes away, certainly along the way, some of his men would have also been killed.

00:45:16:19 – 00:45:39:17
Dorsey Armstrong
But again, remember, they’re not knights. They’re warriors. He wouldn’t even have been called king. Probably. And tell maybe the end of his reign. If then. But earlier on, he would have been called either by a Roman title, like a Duke’s Balaram, a war leader. Or you might have been called, comas count. And not early on.

00:45:39:17 – 00:45:52:13
Dorsey Armstrong
Would he have been called King Arthur. And so one thing the movie does get right is that if he’s going to be called King, it wouldn’t happen until very, very late in his life if it ever happened at all.

00:45:52:15 – 00:46:19:17
Dan LeFebvre
That’s a great catch on my using the term knights. I’m so used to the legend of King Arthur and his knights, I just refer to them as his knights, even if they’re not actually that. But switching gears a little bit to another piece of the Arthurian legend from the movie, it’s about this point in the timeline that we see the legendary sword in the Stone, and in the movie, it’s shown in a flashback to Arthur’s childhood, when his mom is killed by Merlin’s people attacking their village, which is initially why the movie explains why Arthur didn’t like the world.

00:46:19:24 – 00:46:38:00
Dan LeFebvre
But in the flashback, Arthur pulls the sword from the stone so he can go and kill Merlin to have revenge for his mother’s death. And then the movie. Merlin says that it was Arthur’s love for his mother that allowed Arthur to pull the sword from the stone. In other words, it was not the hatred for Merlin, but it was love.

00:46:38:03 – 00:46:42:28
Dan LeFebvre
How well do you think the movie does telling the story of the sword in the Stone?

00:46:43:00 – 00:47:06:08
Dorsey Armstrong
So if we if we go to the 15th century and Sir Thomas Malory, which is my main area of study, what we learn then, and that’s sort of where the, the stamp is put on this part of the legend is that there is a sword in the stone, and it appears by magic, and Merlin helps to set it up and the stones in an anvil that says, who?

00:47:06:09 – 00:47:39:00
Dorsey Armstrong
Whosoever shall pull up the sword from the stone is right, wise, born king of all England. But that’s not Excalibur. Excalibur is a sword of Arthur’s very, very early on as well, especially in early Welsh legends. But it comes from the lady of the lake, so it comes out of the water. So she emerges from the water with the sword for him, and he is considered worthy of the sword, because she deems it so.

00:47:39:07 – 00:48:06:24
Dorsey Armstrong
So there are two swords, and later on they get conflated into one that Excalibur is the sword in the stone, but the idea of a sword being pulled out of a stone. I’ve seen a documentary on Arthur. I’ve seen several, actually historical Arthur. And one theory is that in early metalworking, you would use a stone mold and you would pour the metal into it to make, a sword.

00:48:07:01 – 00:48:35:25
Dorsey Armstrong
And that perhaps the legend comes from it being stuck in the stone mold and someone of great strength pulling it out, intact. So that could be the origin of the legend. But the magical sword Excalibur, it’s called Caliban. Or in Welsh or Caleb Burness, which means, cut steel. And, that shows up early on. There’s no mention of it being pulled out of a stone.

00:48:35:25 – 00:49:06:21
Dorsey Armstrong
If anything, it is gifted to Arthur by this mysterious faerie woman who has otherworldly power. And so that is how Arthur is sort of threading this needle between the real and the supernatural. And he has this sort of ordination, that he is meant to rule because he’s favored by people in the, in the fairy world. And he’s also, lauded and praised and held up to be a leader by real human beings.

00:49:06:24 – 00:49:13:04
Dan LeFebvre
So it sounds like, once again, the movie is mixing together a lot of different things to tell this story.

00:49:13:06 – 00:49:36:23
Dorsey Armstrong
Well, what I would say is that if you were doing an Arthur movie, you better have a sword in the stone or the audience is terrible. And so I thought that making it the marker on the grave, made a lot of sense that he is still withdrawing it from, you know, something that could be considered partially stone from the earth.

00:49:36:26 – 00:49:46:27
Dorsey Armstrong
And so that made that made a lot of sense to me to try and figure out how to represent this motif, the theme that is so important in the Arthurian legend.

00:49:46:29 – 00:50:08:15
Dan LeFebvre
At the very end of the movie, there’s a wedding ceremony that we see. Merlin is officiating the marriage of Arthur and Guinevere, uniting the people, and everyone is happy. It’s kind of a happily ever after. And in the movie, that’s when he is proclaimed to be King Arthur. Is there any truth to this single marriage ceremony proclaiming the leader?

00:50:08:18 – 00:50:13:23
Dorsey Armstrong
No. That is. And in fact, that wasn’t even supposed to be the original end of the movie.

00:50:13:26 – 00:50:15:21
Dan LeFebvre
Oh really? How was it supposed to end?

00:50:15:24 – 00:50:46:19
Dorsey Armstrong
That is an alternate ending. Originally, the movie ended with the death of his dies, and it ended on a much more down note. Which I think would be much more true to the legend. And I guess in test screenings the audience said, well, this is not how we want this to end. And so, they did what movie makers have done in order to bump up the happy factor for their audience and close with a wedding.

00:50:46:19 – 00:51:00:18
Dorsey Armstrong
And better yet, let’s have it out a fake Stonehenge, right? So all of that, all of that is, is made up. I understand why it’s there, but it is a it’s a bit over the top.

00:51:00:20 – 00:51:21:16
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like kind of what we were talking about throughout our chat today, how a King Arthur movie has to have Merlin in it and has to have the sword in the stone. It has to have the round Table. Well, it’s King Arthur and he hasn’t been a king throughout the whole movie. So the movie audiences expect there to be an explanation why it’s King Arthur instead of just Arthur.

00:51:21:18 – 00:51:45:12
Dorsey Armstrong
And I don’t think you have any choice if you’re going to make a successful Arthurian movie, unless you choose to just go completely dark and historical, and it wouldn’t be a happy movie, I don’t think, and I don’t know that anyone would want to go see it. It’d be more like an art film, rather than any sort of popular blockbuster film.

00:51:45:15 – 00:52:06:22
Dan LeFebvre
Speaking of things that audiences expect, I’ll do a variation of what the movie did for my own audience, because even though we talked about the 2004 movie today, there’s been so many stories about King Arthur throughout history in all sorts of mediums, movies and TV, of course, but obviously plenty of books and writings long before movies and TV even existed.

00:52:06:25 – 00:52:17:23
Dan LeFebvre
What’s something that most people might think they know about the theory and legend, but when they learn the true story, it’ll surprise him.

00:52:17:25 – 00:52:40:11
Dorsey Armstrong
Well, I can tell you, what I tell my students every time I teach Arthurian literature. And what’s fascinating is I ask them to tell me on the first day of class, and many of them have not encountered the Arthurian legend in any sort of systematic way. So they haven’t read the early texts. They’d maybe have seen a film or read a story.

00:52:40:18 – 00:53:01:00
Dorsey Armstrong
And so I asked them to tell me everything they know about the legend. And I write it all up on the board. And so they’re telling me, Merlin, and he’s married to Gwen Vivier, and Guinevere commits adultery with Lancelot, and Arthur has knights, and they sit at a round table and they go on quests, including for the Holy Grail.

00:53:01:03 – 00:53:26:27
Dorsey Armstrong
And he lives in a big stone castle called Camelot. And then I have to tell them it’s the fifth century and Rome has left. So unless they’re occupying Roman structures, no big stone castles that smoky little huts. Although it’s possible that, you know, Roman buildings that were left behind could have been reused, reoccupied. That’s possible. We’re not sure where Camelot was.

00:53:27:00 – 00:53:49:24
Dorsey Armstrong
As I’ve said earlier, there’s no Merlin. There is a a vere, but there’s also no Lancelot. The idea of the Round table comes much later. The sword in the stone comes much later. Although he does have a sword with a name like Excalibur from very early on. And the Holy Grail shows up in the 12th and 13th centuries.

00:53:49:26 – 00:54:09:27
Dorsey Armstrong
And that’s another, it’s actually a French writer who says this is a great idea. Arthur’s knights need to go on a quest. What’s the best thing, like a quest for the Holy Grail? And so that wasn’t part of the original legend either. And so I usually have a student yell from the back of the room. Stop it!

00:54:09:27 – 00:54:39:17
Dorsey Armstrong
You’re ruining it. But then by the end of the semester, I think that they have learned to have a deeper appreciation for how and why the legend accreted, to it. All of these elements. Because I say the Arthurian legend is like a magnet. And as time goes by, is there a hero over here who’s fantastic? For example, sir Tristan Tristan had a long history as, a legendary figure all his own.

00:54:39:19 – 00:55:00:19
Dorsey Armstrong
But at some point late in the Middle Ages, someone said, you know what would be great? Let’s make him a knight of the Round Table. And then all of his adventures are connected to Arthur. And so he’s brought in. Same with the Holy Grail. It becomes a quest for the Knights. So you’re three legends like a giant magnet that attracts to it all the cool stuff.

00:55:00:21 – 00:55:20:12
Dan LeFebvre
And it makes some great stories along the way. Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about King Arthur. I’m such a huge fan of your work. It’s an honor to get to talk to you. One of my favorites is King Arthur History and Legend. I picked that up from one of the audiobook services, so I’ll be sure to include a link to that one in particular in the show notes for my audience to learn even more about the true story.

00:55:20:14 – 00:55:26:15
Dan LeFebvre
But before I let you go, can you share a bit more about that one, as well as where they can find more of your work?

00:55:26:18 – 00:55:53:00
Dorsey Armstrong
So, the King Arthur, history or legend is a series of lectures I did for the Teaching Company, which is now part of Wondrium. And you can get those lectures. There’s 24 lectures. It’s about the evolution of the Arthurian legend from its origins to the modern period. It’s available on DVD. You can also download it online or you can purchase the book that goes along with the lectures.

00:55:53:00 – 00:56:24:12
Dorsey Armstrong
It gives some detail and bibliography. So that’s the easiest way to access that. My other books tend to be, more for a scholarly academic audience. They have lots of footnotes, if you like footnotes. Great. But one thing that I have done is I translated Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur into modern English, because every time I taught that text, I was not happy with the translations that were available to me, that I was sharing with my students.

00:56:24:12 – 00:56:54:02
Dorsey Armstrong
And I finally decided, well, I’ll just do my own. And it’s Malory’s text more than any other at the end of the 15th century, that gives us the shape of the legend that sort of codifies it, puts the template down for everything that comes after. And so that’s now available in a modern English translation. And, my goal was to make it as accessible as possible so that people could enjoy the, this huge book.

00:56:54:04 – 00:57:19:03
Dorsey Armstrong
It’s a massive work that took years for Malory to write, and in fact, it took me longer to translate it, I realized, than it took him to write it, which is a moment that when I hit that point, I realized, oh, well, I’m a little bummed out right now, but, I’m really proud of it. And I think that it conveys, the sense of the time and the culture while still maintaining, accessible language that anyone can read.

00:57:19:06 – 00:57:21:22
Dan LeFebvre
Thank you again so much for your time.

00:57:21:25 – 00:57:28:18
Dorsey Armstrong
Is my pleasure. I’m always happy to talk about King Arthur. Invite me back any time. Next time a movie comes out, invite me back.

00:57:28:20 – 00:57:33:09
Dan LeFebvre
We’ll have to make that happen.

00:57:33:11 – 00:57:43:22
Dorsey Armstrong
It was a pleasure chatting with you.

00:57:43:24 – 00:58:01:24
Dan LeFebvre
This episode of based On a True Story was produced by me, Dan Lapham. If you want to learn more about the legends of King Arthur and the true story behind them, I cannot recommend Doctor Armstrong’s work enough. I have links to that in the show notes so you can check it out. And actually, that leads me right into my own history that I was talking about at the beginning of this episode.

00:58:01:24 – 00:58:27:12
Dan LeFebvre
So the interview that you just heard with Doctor Armstrong was originally published in January of 2023 on based on a true story, and it’s obviously been remastered. I actually rerecorded my entire site to update both the audio and video quality for today’s version, but the origin of how this episode came to be started long before that. When I was in middle school, my mom used to take my siblings and me to the local library to help with researching for our homework.

00:58:27:14 – 00:58:44:24
Dan LeFebvre
One day we were at the library. I can’t remember the specific homework assignment that I had, but I remember going through my usual routine. I would look up the book and at the computer, well, whatever the topic was that I needed, and then I would write down the Dewey Decimal number so I could find the book in the aisle that it’s in.

00:58:44:26 – 00:59:02:19
Dan LeFebvre
Well, this particular day, as I was looking for the number, I happened to see a book about Camelot and the legends of King Arthur. You know the old adage, don’t judge a book by its cover, but obviously something about this book stood out to me. So I grabbed it. And then I continued to find the book that I actually needed for my homework.

00:59:02:21 – 00:59:16:28
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I ended up spending more time reading that book on King Arthur than whatever the book was for my homework assignment. Obviously, I can’t even remember what the book was for my homework assignment, but I do remember being fascinated by the legend of King Arthur, and that was the first day that I was.

00:59:16:28 – 00:59:17:14
Dorsey Armstrong
Actually.

00:59:17:14 – 00:59:36:27
Dan LeFebvre
Interested in something historical. I mean, I had done other homework assignments that required me to read history. It wasn’t my first time reading anything in history, but it was the first time that I remember doing it just for the fun of it. And over the years, that fascination grew into a love of medieval history. Overall, I used to spend countless hours as a child.

00:59:36:27 – 00:59:56:27
Dan LeFebvre
I would sketch out castle designs or mapping fictional land and coming up with various countries. Before long, that love of medieval history blossomed into a love for other historical time periods ancient Egypt, World War Two, Classical Greece and the Roman Empire, and so on and so on. So that’s why the legend of King Arthur has always held a special place for me.

00:59:56:27 – 01:00:17:12
Dan LeFebvre
It was the spark that started my love of stories from history at a young age. And this actually ties into today’s episode even more, because many years before I started, based on a true story, I picked up a few of Doctor Armstrong’s great courses over on audible, and I absolutely love them. I love learning about King Arthur and the real history behind the legend of King Arthur.

01:00:17:14 – 01:00:39:05
Dan LeFebvre
So after I started based on a true story, Doctor Armstrong was on my short list of people that would love to talk to, and it was an absolute honor to get to pick her brain about one of my favorite historical subjects. And I hope you had as much fun learning from her as I did. I’ll add a link to some of my favorite work from Doctor Armstrong in the show notes, so you can learn even more about the historical King Arthur.

01:00:39:08 – 01:00:55:02
Dan LeFebvre
And of course, as always, all of those links will be on the show. His home on the web over at. Based on a True Story podcast.com/381. Okay, now it’s time for the answer to our two truth and a lot game from the beginning of the episode, and it’s a quick refresher. Here are the two truths and one lie again.

01:00:55:05 – 01:01:21:12
Dan LeFebvre
Number one, the famous Round Table appears in early fifth century Arthurian stories. Number two Merlin was not associated with Arthur until the 12th century. Number three no Romans lived in villas north of Hadrian’s Wall. Did you figure out which one is a lie? I’ve got the answer in the envelope here. Let’s open it up. And the lie is number one.

01:01:21:15 – 01:01:39:07
Dan LeFebvre
As we learned from Doctor Armstrong, the legend of the Round Table actually starts around the 12th century, along the same time as Merlin enters the picture. At least as far as we know. As always, when you’re talking about history and legends that are that old, there’s a very good chance that there are some things that have been lost to time, or we just don’t have documentation of yet.

01:01:39:09 – 01:02:01:09
Dan LeFebvre
But that wraps up our look at the historical accuracy of the King Arthur movie before I let you go, though, since this is the first episode of 2026, I thought I would throw out an update on what my release schedule will be for the new year, and well, there isn’t one. If you are a long time listener based on a true story, you’ll know that there has not been a defined release schedule for many years now.

01:02:01:12 – 01:02:28:21
Dan LeFebvre
When I first started the podcast, I used to release every other week. That was back in 2016 when I first started the show, and then I went to a weekly release schedule, and then I think it was in 2019 that I officially announced the schedule would be when I get an episode completed, that’s when it gets released. And since then, I have had times where I’ve been fortunate enough to work on the podcast full time to crank out 1 or 2 episodes a week, and then other times it’s been 1 or 2 episodes a month.

01:02:28:24 – 01:02:47:25
Dan LeFebvre
But in 2026, I am sticking with the release schedule of as soon as I get an episode completed, that’s when it will be released. The biggest change this year from last year that I’ve gotten a new day job this year, so I can’t work on, based on a true story, full time anymore. But the podcast is not going anywhere, and I’ll keep releasing episodes as soon as I get to complete it.

01:02:47:28 – 01:03:04:24
Dan LeFebvre
Actually, I’ve already got some fun episode planned for 2026, so I’m excited for what this year will bring. And as always, you can reach out to me at Dan at based on a True Story podcast.com if you have any questions or comments. Thanks again for your continued support. Listening to based on a true story. Now chat with you again really soon.

 

00:00:02:01 – 00:00:23:27
Dan LeFebvre
Hello and welcome to Based on a True Story, the podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. Today, we’ll be learning about the 2013 movie directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Tom Hanks, that simply called Captain Phillips. I’m sure you’ve seen it, but the movie did come out a while ago, so let’s refresh our memory with a quick synopsis.

00:00:24:00 – 00:00:50:02
Dan LeFebvre
The movie is named after Captain Richard Phillips, who was the commander of a container ship called the Maersk Alabama. It was on a typical route along the coast of Africa in 2009. The catch, though, was that route also included traveling through pirate infested waters near the country of Somalia. Despite receiving warnings of heightened pirate activity, Captain Phillips decides to take a shortcut closer to the Somali coast to save time and fuel.

00:00:50:04 – 00:01:15:26
Dan LeFebvre
This decision proves fateful. Two skiffs carrying Somali pirates attack the Maersk Alabama, and the crew executes security protocols by attempting to repel the attackers using fire hoses and evasive maneuvers. And at first it works, but then the pirates return in a stronger boat and they manage to successfully board the vessel. Phillips remains on the bridge and is captured while the crew retreats to the engine room.

00:01:15:28 – 00:01:41:25
Dan LeFebvre
Eventually, the pirates evacuate to a small lifeboat and take Captain Phillips hostage, along with $30,000 in ransom money. The U.S. Navy intercedes with multiple warships, including USS Bainbridge and Navy Seal teams. After intense negotiations and tactical positioning, Navy Seals execute a precise rescue operation, convincing one of the pirates to board their ship and then eliminating the three remaining pirates and freeing Captain Phillips.

00:01:41:28 – 00:02:02:24
Dan LeFebvre
The movie ends with Phillips being rescued and receiving medical treatment aboard the Navy destroyer. How much of that really happened? Today we’ll be joined by none other than Bryan Beckham, the trial lawyer who represented the crew of the Maersk Alabama. In the wake of the events that we see in the movie. So through his work on the trial, he knows the ins and outs of exactly what happened.

00:02:02:28 – 00:02:25:28
Dan LeFebvre
And he’s here today to help us separate fact from fiction in the movie. Bryan is also a podcaster whose wonderful podcast shares insights from a wide range of inspiring leaders. So just do a search for Brian’s podcast called lessons from Leaders with Bryan Beckham, or hop in the show notes for a direct link. Before we get started with Bryan’s breakdown of Captain Phillips, though, let’s set up our game for today’s episode.

00:02:26:01 – 00:02:41:13
Dan LeFebvre
Now, if you’re new to the show since based on a true story, it’s all about separating fact from fiction in the movies, you’ll get to practice your skills at separating fact from fiction in this podcast episode with a game of two truths and a lie. So I’m about to give you three things that we’re going to talk about in this episode.

00:02:41:15 – 00:03:09:12
Dan LeFebvre
Two of those are true, and that means one of them is just an all out lie. Are you ready? Okay, here they are. Number one, Maersk Alabama sailed within the range of known Somali pirates. Number two, the $30,000 on Maersk Alabama was intended as ransom money. Number three, Captain Phillips tried to escape from the pirates at the first chance he got.

00:03:09:15 – 00:03:23:07
Dan LeFebvre
Got him. Okay, now, as you’re listening to our story today, see if you can figure out which one of those is a lie. And if you’re watching the video version of this, you’ll see I’m holding up now. This has the answer inside. We’re going to open this up at the end to see if you got the answer right.

00:03:23:10 – 00:03:38:05
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Now it’s time to connect with Bryan Beckham about the true story behind Captain Phillips.

00:03:38:07 – 00:03:55:13
Dan LeFebvre
Even though no one expects movies to be entirely accurate, each movie takes different creative liberties to tell the story. So before we dig into some of the details, if you were to take a step back and give Captain Phillips an overall letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get?

00:03:55:15 – 00:03:56:14
Brian Beckcom
C minus.

00:03:56:14 – 00:03:59:14
Dan LeFebvre
C minus.

00:03:59:16 – 00:04:18:16
Brian Beckcom
You know, it’s funny Dan here people. When the movie premiered, people were asking me like, what did you think of the movie? What did you think of the movie? I mean, I went I was there opening night. I mean, it was packed. And I said, just like Forrest Gump, it’s a fantastic movie starring Tom Hanks. But none of it’s true.

00:04:18:18 – 00:04:36:14
Brian Beckcom
It is actually so. And in reality, here’s what’s true about the movie. There was an American ship called the Maersk Alabama. It was attacked by Somali pirates. The captain’s name was Captain Phillips. And everything after that is basically made up.

00:04:36:17 – 00:04:59:26
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, well, we’re going to dig into some of the details. According to the movie, at least, and at the beginning of the movie, we’re introduced to Tom Hanks version of Captain Richard Phillips as he takes command of a container ship named Maersk Alabama. And in the movie, his job is to sail it from Oman to Mombasa, Kenya. And for some geographical context, that path takes it around the east coast of Africa, past Yemen and Somalia before reaching Kenya.

00:04:59:29 – 00:05:19:21
Dan LeFebvre
And even though Captain Phillips receives warning of pirate activity in the waters off Somalia, he decides to save time by going like 350. I’m sorry, 250 or 300 miles instead of the recommended 600 miles. This is all according to the movie. How well does the movie do? Setting up the situation with Captain Phillips and the Marshall, Alabama.

00:05:19:24 – 00:05:45:13
Brian Beckcom
Fairly good. Fairly good job of that. And you know what? The movie. What I wish the movie did a little better job of at the beginning in terms of the setup, is putting in context how dangerous these waters were at the time. I mean, we’re talking about I don’t know the exact number, but I want to say like tens and tens, if not hundreds of pirate attacks on both commercial and noncommercial vessels.

00:05:45:13 – 00:06:02:27
Brian Beckcom
In fact, I think there was a naval vessel from Yemen or something that was attacked by pirates. And, you know, the other thing is we got to I don’t know if the movie does a good job of this or not, but this is at the at the time we’re dealing with Somalia or off the east coast of Africa.

00:06:03:03 – 00:06:30:28
Brian Beckcom
Somalia, for all intents and purposes, is a failed country. They have no economy that, you know, they have no really functioning government, and they have a bunch of people there have to eat. And so the people that were, going out and taking these people off of these, ships, either taking them, for ransom, taking them back to Somalia or a lot of these ships carried cash specifically to pay off, quote, pirates.

00:06:31:00 – 00:07:10:21
Brian Beckcom
What what we got to keep in mind is these are not, like, highly trained military style pirates. These are fishermen. I mean, these are Somali fishermen that some of whom are teenagers, who realized that if these commercial ships got within a certain range of the Somalian coast, they had no self-defense and they were easy pickings. And so if you were in that situation, I mean, I don’t blame these Somalians in many respects, like if you are in a failed country and you had to feed your family and you have the choice of going out catching fish all day long and selling them for nothing, or you could go out and make a quick score off

00:07:10:21 – 00:07:34:28
Brian Beckcom
an unprotected American vessel where they basically carry money specifically to pay you. I mean, what would you do? So and that was what, in my opinion, kind of made it worse is not only did they know that at the time this these were literally the most dangerous waters in the world. I mean, maybe 1 or 2 other areas you could compare two, but certainly top 2 or 3.

00:07:35:01 – 00:07:54:03
Brian Beckcom
And everybody knew nobody had any weapons. Right? Nobody had, you know, nobody had any self-defense and everybody knew it. So it’s kind of like, you know, you walk into a really crappy part of town and you hold up your $20,000 Rolex and you start waving at everybody. I mean, what do you expect going to happen? Right?

00:07:54:05 – 00:08:18:00
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, knowing that the movie focuses more on the ship itself, it doesn’t really talk much about what’s going on in Somalia at the time. But I like that context that you gave because it’s it makes a lot more sense why it was happening. But also like even in the beginning of the movie when before the pirates go out, it almost looks I mean, there’s a bunch of them around, almost like, you know, they’re looking for a job for that day.

00:08:18:06 – 00:08:23:01
Dan LeFebvre
And, you know, they’re they’re wanting to feed their families.

00:08:23:03 – 00:08:46:10
Brian Beckcom
Absolutely. Like it’s like in America, sometimes you go to Home Depot and there’s a bunch people outside waiting to get hired, like, do you blame them? Do you blame, where do you fall politically on the immigration issue? If you lived in Mexico and your family was getting threatened by drug cartels, if you were in that violent circumstance, what would you do?

00:08:46:13 – 00:09:12:18
Brian Beckcom
Like, you know, so so in a way, it’s really hard to blame these poor fishermen from Somalia for doing what they do, for doing what they did, especially when we were just basically kind of you know, attempting them, just tempting them to do it, just saying, here’s a bunch of money, here’s a ship with that carries $30,000 in petty cash for every one of these trips that they’ll just give to you.

00:09:12:21 – 00:09:38:12
Brian Beckcom
What do you expect? And by the way, after this case, one of the things that I’m most proud about this case is there hasn’t been a single successful pirate attack on an American, commercial vessel since my case. And there’s a good reason for that. All of the ships are armed. Now, I don’t know if you’re curious to know why they weren’t armed before, and they’re arm now, but there’s a there’s actually a pretty simple explanation for this.

00:09:38:14 – 00:09:45:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. I mean, I am curious because there was going to be one of my question too, because they, there’s they don’t have any weapons on the ship.

00:09:45:24 – 00:10:16:22
Brian Beckcom
None. Zero. Like no, no weapons at all. And now they do by the way. But the so when I filed this case, one of the things I said was, if you are going to require these sailors to go into these pirate infested waters, you should let them defend themselves with weapons. All these ships, for the most part, are insured by, London based insurance companies or insurance syndicates or similar type of insurance syndicates.

00:10:16:24 – 00:10:45:23
Brian Beckcom
And they went the insurance syndicates went crazy when I filed this case and said, you need to arm these guys because what they’re worried about, guess what? Big surprise. They worried about sailors. They’re worried about what’s on the ships making the money. Right. And what they were saying was they were saying, look, if we provide seamen with pistols or other sorts of weapons to protect, to protect themselves, they might kill each other or they might blow up our cargo.

00:10:45:26 – 00:11:07:20
Brian Beckcom
That was their excuse. Okay, I know it’s hard to believe and I was like, I just don’t think that’s true. And have you seen a single report of a U.S. ship blowing up because they had pistols on the ship? Or have you seen any of those reports? Of course you haven’t. And because it was a bad it was a really bad idea.

00:11:07:20 – 00:11:32:27
Brian Beckcom
So anyway, it was a it was interesting to see because at the time, again, remember the context. I mean, we’re talking about pirate attack after pirate attack. I mean, we’re talking about almost on a weekly basis. And so it was super dangerous. And we also knew by the way, you know, these nautical miles staying a certain number of nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, that was extremely specific.

00:11:32:27 – 00:12:09:27
Brian Beckcom
There’s a very specific reason for that. And that is, by and large, these fishermen are fishing boats, and they cannot go out past a certain, distance. And so, like there’s it would be impossible for any of these ships to have gotten attacked past a certain distance by these fishing vessels because they can’t get out that far. What Phillips decided to do, literally, in the face of countless international security warnings, was he basically decided to take a shortcut and go twice as close as he was told to go to save fuel.

00:12:10:04 – 00:12:12:14
Brian Beckcom
That was basically what happened.

00:12:12:17 – 00:12:17:09
Dan LeFebvre
So it was to save time. And money basically was the reason for it, despite the obvious risks.

00:12:17:12 – 00:12:42:26
Brian Beckcom
That’s exactly what it was. That’s, absolutely, exactly what it was. And, you know, people often ask me, how do you get this case back? I’m like, like, how does a lawyer even get this case? And there’s real specific reason for that, too. So this is long before anybody this was international news when it happened. But at the at the beginning, nobody had any idea there was going to be a movie starring Tom Hanks.

00:12:42:28 – 00:13:09:03
Brian Beckcom
So Phillips basically causes the problem. He’s the captain. He’s in charge. He makes the decisions that lead to his crew getting captured. And then what happens afterwards? They all come back to America. The crew gets together with Phillips and says, we want to write a book and maybe do a story about our experience. And Captain Phillips tells tells them, I don’t want to have anything to do with you.

00:13:09:03 – 00:13:28:10
Brian Beckcom
I’m going to write my own book. And they were like, well, hold on a second. You were the one that caught your it was your fault that we did this. So they were like, if he’s going to write a book trying to whitewash all the screw ups that he made, we need to make sure people really know about it.

00:13:28:13 – 00:13:50:22
Brian Beckcom
And so that’s what generated initially, at least the desire of the crew to make sure the true story got out. And, you know, I’ll give you an idea. I can give you an example after example. But there were four pirates. Three of them got killed by Navy Seals. One of them was captured. That pirate is now Fort Wayne, Indiana federal prison.

00:13:50:24 – 00:14:16:17
Brian Beckcom
As the only prisoner in the United States that’s been convicted of piracy in the last 100 years, there’s a question about whether, when he was convicted, whether he was even an adult, because, not surprisingly, the birth records in Somalia are horrible. So it was really hard to figure out his age. But some of your listeners may remember the perp walk when the prisoner was walking down the stairs of federal courthouse.

00:14:16:17 – 00:14:44:04
Brian Beckcom
He had a big eyepatch on like a medical eyepatch, and that was because my unarmed crew took utensils out of the kitchen, and one of my clients stabbed one of that pirate in the eye with a spoon. And so it really, truly was, the crew that was heroic. And the Catholic captain that was the numskull that kind of led these guys into this situation to begin with.

00:14:44:06 – 00:14:55:24
Dan LeFebvre
I can understand, I guess, from his perspective, from the captain’s perspective, then why he would want to write the book that told his version of, you know, to kind of make himself seem better.

00:14:55:26 – 00:15:13:16
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. I, you know, that’s human nature. I think we’ve seen that so many, you know, throughout history, we see that again and again. You know, Winston Churchill, one of my heroes, has a great saying. They said one time they said, what do you think history’s going to say about you, Mr. Churchill? He said, history is going to treat me well because I’m going to write it.

00:15:13:23 – 00:15:15:17
Brian Beckcom
Yeah.

00:15:15:19 – 00:15:17:14
Dan LeFebvre
And I’ll say whatever I want it to say.

00:15:17:16 – 00:15:25:18
Brian Beckcom
Right. History, like history is a story of the victors perspective. Yeah. Pretty much. Right. Yeah.

00:15:25:20 – 00:15:45:11
Dan LeFebvre
So one thing we see in the movie, after Captain Phillips gets the warnings of pirate activity, he runs the crew through some security drills that include exercises for what to do if they encounter pirates. That drills like attaching fire hoses to shoot high pressure water, the attackers making sure cages and doors to sensitive areas are locked, things like that.

00:15:45:13 – 00:16:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
But then, while they’re running through the drills, Tom Hanks version of Captain Phillips notices something approaching on the radar. And they’re actually two small boats approaching not to get too far ahead of the movie’s timeline, but we all know what happens in the movie. So obviously those security drills didn’t seem to work. Can you unravel the security drills on Maersk Alabama?

00:16:03:18 – 00:16:08:02
Dan LeFebvre
What were they supposed to be, and did the movie accurately show it to us?

00:16:08:04 – 00:16:44:16
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. So every single ship that sails internationally like that is supposed to have something called a VSP. VSP Victor, I forget what SS VSP stands for Vessel Security Protocol, and in fact they have to file that with certain international agencies. And those are top secret. And I’m not going to get into the details of any of those, because when I have cases with vessel security plans, I usually have an agreement with the vessel owner that we’re going to keep this confidential because it’s important for the safety of the sailors.

00:16:44:19 – 00:17:08:14
Brian Beckcom
We wouldn’t want that information getting that public. But every single I can talk about it in general terms, every single vessel then and now has a VSP, and they have to execute and practice that VSP on a regular basis. The problem was at the time the security protocols were basically worthless. I mean, like those water cannons you saw on the movie, not they didn’t exist.

00:17:08:16 – 00:17:29:29
Brian Beckcom
There was. And there are a lot of different. I mean, again, think about what we’re talking about. These are these are fishermen, okay? They’re not highly trained pirates. I did a pirate case off the coast of West Africa, where an American marine who was retired, but he was captaining a bow, got got kidnaped by mercenaries from Boko Haram.

00:17:30:06 – 00:17:57:28
Brian Beckcom
Those guys are dead. Those guys are bad news. Like you could be armed and the Boko Haram guys could still get you one weapon. One pistol against these fishermen is enough to make them go to the next vessel because they’re they’re looking at they’re looking for targets of opportunity. They’re looking for the softest targets. But they certainly, in every vessel, including this one, had security practices, security protocols.

00:17:57:28 – 00:18:07:29
Brian Beckcom
They have security drills. The problem is, when you’re drilling something that doesn’t stop anybody, you’re just wasting your time, if that makes sense.

00:18:08:02 – 00:18:15:17
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. No, that that makes a lot of sense. And it goes back to would really help if they were armed.

00:18:15:19 – 00:18:37:15
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. Well they are now like I said like I said they are now. And it’s really made a dramatic difference. I mean have you seen any story you remember back then there were Italian ships, you know, ships from all these different kind of German cruise ships, all these ships getting attacked and boarded, and that just doesn’t happen anymore, at least off the coast of East Africa.

00:18:37:17 – 00:18:57:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movies version of events, the security drills turn into real world. When the crew on Maersk Alabama see those boats approaching, and they know there’s no way that a huge container ship can outrun the two smaller pirates skiffs. So Captain Phillips tries a few tactics to try to discourage the pirates. At first he tries the US maritime emergency line, but there’s no answer there.

00:18:57:27 – 00:19:15:16
Dan LeFebvre
He reaches out to the UK maritime trade operations to let them know what’s going on. They think, yeah, it’s probably just some fishermen so they’re not really much help. So then Captain Phillips pretends like he’s talking to the US Navy on the radio, requesting air support, knowing that the pirates are close enough to be listening to their radio traffic.

00:19:15:18 – 00:19:34:02
Dan LeFebvre
And that seems to work according to the movie. It movie shows one of the two boats turning around because of the radio communications, but then the other boat keeps coming and so Captain Phillips orders the limit on the engine was removed, and the huge ship starts kind of zigzagging so that they can make big waves for the tiny pirate boat to try to overcome.

00:19:34:05 – 00:19:42:00
Dan LeFebvre
And then after a while, that seems to work too, because the single engine on the tiny pirate skiff just loses power and dies. How much of that actually happened?

00:19:42:02 – 00:20:10:25
Brian Beckcom
Not much. Not much. I mean, it is. It is. That movie is highly dramatized. And, you know, to be clear, I’m not complaining about that. Like, that’s what Hollywood does. I mean, they tell stories and sometimes actually all the time they dramatize those stories. So, most of that stuff is either never happened in real life or it happened, but it’s but it’s highly, highly dramatized.

00:20:10:25 – 00:20:33:14
Brian Beckcom
Like, I don’t know if you remember that scene in the movie where Captain Phillips basically gives himself up to the kidnapers that didn’t happen. That. I mean, you like like he he basically went kicking and screaming, like in the movie, they make it sound like he’s heroic and he’s like, I’m giving myself up for the crew. It was actually the opposite.

00:20:33:14 – 00:20:52:11
Brian Beckcom
The crew was the one who was fighting back. He was hiding, trying to figure out a way to get out of this and save his skin. And the pirates just took him. And I tell you something else, it’s really strange about this. And if any of your listeners know the answer to this, please call me, because I still haven’t figured this out.

00:20:52:14 – 00:20:58:05
Brian Beckcom
The $30,000 in bounty money that was on that ship has never been found.

00:20:58:07 – 00:21:06:27
Dan LeFebvre
Did they? I mean, in the movie, I think they give it to the pirates. Did they not do that or do we not know what happened to it? Just kind of disappeared.

00:21:06:29 – 00:21:25:18
Brian Beckcom
We don’t know that there were theories that the Navy Seals took it. There were there were theories that, the pirates got it. There were theories. Maybe Captain Phillips knows what happens to it, but I don’t know. That’s the point. Like nobody ever figured that out. Quite frankly, if the Navy Seals took it, I’m like, I don’t care.

00:21:25:18 – 00:21:45:12
Brian Beckcom
I hope those guys spend it on fun stuff because of what I mean, what they did was, was remarkable. The, the scene where they show, like, as I recall the movie, it’s like boom, boom, boom and the pirates are dead kind of thing. It was more like.

00:21:45:15 – 00:21:46:17
Brian Beckcom
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

00:21:46:19 – 00:22:10:06
Brian Beckcom
You mean it was more like there was a lot more? It wasn’t quite as precise as it’s depicted in the movie, but but again, you’re not going to the movie, to learn history. You going to movie to be entertained. So I’m not faulting Hollywood or Tom Hanks or anybody for dramatizing a dramatic movie. But when you’re in the courthouse, in fact, I’ll tell you a good story about that stand.

00:22:10:06 – 00:22:31:00
Brian Beckcom
Once I found out there was a movie, then Tom Hanks was going to play. Captain Phillips immediately went to the court. I went to the judge. I said, hey, judge, this is a real problem. Everybody loves Tom Hanks. Like, and it’s going to prejudice my clients because truly, the person that made the most mistakes in this case was Phillips.

00:22:31:02 – 00:22:51:00
Brian Beckcom
Everybody’s going to associate him with Tom Hanks and it’s going to really hurt my client. So would it be okay, judge, if we went to trial before the movie came out? So Maersk lawyers come up. Oh no, no, no, we can be told we can make sure that we get fair jurors and they won’t let any of that stuff influence their decision.

00:22:51:00 – 00:23:14:28
Brian Beckcom
And we need a lot of time. So anyway, the point is that the judge listened to the defense lawyers and not me, and he didn’t let me go to trial early. And then the movie comes out and all of a sudden I got 5 to $10 million of free marketing publicity. And I still get it. I mean, even today I’m on a podcast 15 plus years later talking about this case.

00:23:15:00 – 00:23:38:06
Brian Beckcom
I get something like 16,000 website views a month, 15 years after the fact. And I tell people I’m like, sometimes it’s good not to get what you want, because the fact that I lost that request ended up being way better for my clients and my firm.

00:23:38:09 – 00:23:53:08
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I mean, everybody loves Tom Hanks, though, so I understand that that I mean, I don’t know how you not be have some a little bit of bias, I guess, if you never even saw it. But I mean, it’s a Tom Hanks movie. He’s he’s not going to want to see that.

00:23:53:11 – 00:23:54:05
Brian Beckcom
He doesn’t like Tom.

00:23:54:05 – 00:23:55:08
Brian Beckcom
Hanks.

00:23:55:10 – 00:24:10:00
Brian Beckcom
And I and I by the way, I took Captain Phillips deposition for two days and up in the northeast, that’s it’s confidential, sealed and stuff like that. But let me just let me just put it this way. He ain’t Tom Hanks.

00:24:10:02 – 00:24:10:27
Brian Beckcom
Well.

00:24:11:00 – 00:24:14:01
Dan LeFebvre
To be fair, none of us are. There’s only one Tom Hanks.

00:24:14:03 – 00:24:25:04
Brian Beckcom
That’s true, that’s true. But but but again, I don’t think any of us are comparing our. So if true Tom Hanks maybe playing me in a movie. He ain’t playing you in a movie.

00:24:25:06 – 00:24:43:27
Dan LeFebvre
Fair point, fair point. Well, if we go back to the movie, speaking of, despite failing the first time around, the next day the Pirates try again and the leader of Douala, Musa, returns with a more powerful boat. This time the crew on Maersk Alabama. They try basically the same thing. They try increasing the engine power, doing the hard turns.

00:24:43:27 – 00:25:01:05
Dan LeFebvre
That seemed to work last time, but this time it doesn’t because the Pirates have a slightly bigger boat the movie focuses on. It has two engines instead of one, and then the only other manner of defense are the fire hoses that we talked about earlier, that the crew on Alabama run around the whole ship, making it hard for the pirates to get close.

00:25:01:05 – 00:25:21:08
Dan LeFebvre
You have the water shooting out, but then one of the hoses slips. So we see, I think his name was Shane Murphy. Going to fix it. One of the crew and the Pirates start shooting at him. So then Phillips orders him to get to safety. And that’s how the Pirates managed to attach a ladder to the side of the ship, climb up, and then take over the boat.

00:25:21:10 – 00:25:36:24
Dan LeFebvre
And from Captain Phillips perspective, according to the movie, he knows that his men don’t have the firepower to defend against the pirates. Again, no guns on the ship, so he orders Shane to go down to the engine room with most of the crew to hide where they can lock themselves in, and then cut the power to the ship so the pirates can’t move it.

00:25:36:27 – 00:25:47:14
Dan LeFebvre
And then Captain Phillips and two other crew members stay on the bridge, where they’re captured by the four Somali pirates. Was that ultimately how the pirates were able to take control of Maersk Alabama?

00:25:47:16 – 00:25:50:29
Brian Beckcom
No. No. And,

00:25:51:02 – 00:25:52:24
Dan LeFebvre
I had a feeling it would be something like that.

00:25:53:00 – 00:26:06:12
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, that’s not really what happened. Although I will say this, one of the ways that the Pirates figured out how to get some more distance from the coast is to use kind of a bigger mothership.

00:26:06:15 – 00:26:07:26
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. We see that in the movie. Yeah.

00:26:07:28 – 00:26:34:21
Brian Beckcom
Right. Yeah. They would have these, they would have these larger fishing vessels that could actually get out farther and then they would deploy smaller vessels once they got out to where they wanted to go. So that part of it’s true. And again, it’s, it’s like I don’t know how to put this, but it’s like there’s enough truth in the movie for it not to be like a completely fictional story, but everything is.

00:26:34:21 – 00:27:08:22
Brian Beckcom
So, I keep saying the word dramatized, exaggerated as to as to basically be not true, if that makes sense. Like the idea they were, you know, they’re doing. So I mean, it reminds me of Star Wars when like, Luke Skywalker is being chased and an X-Wing fighter and he’s doing all these crazy dodges and he’s, you know, the idea that they were around, they had this giant fishing or this giant commercial vessel in the middle of the ocean doing these, crazy evasive maneuvers while they’re shooting water cannons out the back.

00:27:08:22 – 00:27:44:03
Brian Beckcom
And Captain Phillips is standing there like George Washington crossing the, what was the river? He crossed the Brandywine or whatever on the front of the boat is. I mean, it’s just it’s Hollywood. That’s what it is. And, enough of that happened to where you can say, well, they didn’t totally make it up. But the timing, the sequence, the substance, the procedure is, is, is, by and large, so, so overly exaggerated and overly dramatized as you could, it is to say that that that’s not the way it happened.

00:27:44:07 – 00:27:47:19
Brian Beckcom
I mean, you could probably confidently say that.

00:27:47:21 – 00:27:57:06
Dan LeFebvre
Did they end up, splitting like the movie shows where there were some in the bridge and then some of the crew in the engine room kind of separated like that?

00:27:57:09 – 00:28:20:21
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. You know, that’s an interesting piece of the case. So the crew actually, evacuated as, as they were supposed to to it’s essentially a safe room and, and bolted themselves. And that was one of the, and this didn’t apply just to Maersk Alabama. But generally speaking, in the maritime world, there are rooms that you can seal.

00:28:20:21 – 00:28:53:11
Brian Beckcom
And like if you’re getting attacked, you can use them as safe rooms. In fact, that’s what happened in my marine west coast of Africa case. He went into a room with his crew, bolted themselves. And the problem is that those pirates had, saws that could, like, literally cut through the steel. And then once they made a little hole, they stuck their machine guns through the hole and said, we’re going to start firing this thing into this room, and bullets are going, I mean, everybody’s going to be dead within 10s, right?

00:28:53:13 – 00:29:11:09
Brian Beckcom
Well, so my crew ended up evacuating and they, they they stayed in that room. The pirates locked them in this room for like 18 hours. I think it was 120 degrees the whole time. They had no water and food. So it was it was a it was a pretty bad situation.

00:29:11:12 – 00:29:12:27
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Wow. Yeah.

00:29:12:27 – 00:29:36:17
Brian Beckcom
That’s they do have safe rooms is the point though. Like on these boats, one of the things I’ll often do is say everybody because think about it. On these boats you’ve seen these like they have doors that they can and seal shed. Like if you’re in super bad weather and you need to make the ship at least parts of the parts of the ship watertight, you can go into these rooms that you can you can really, really seal tight.

00:29:36:17 – 00:30:02:24
Brian Beckcom
So that that is a pretty common, defense mechanism. And then what you do is the idea is you get in there and you buy enough time to where the posse can come get you, right? Like you don’t have to stay in there for a week. You just get in there, you send out a distress signal, you get in that room, you seal yourself in, and you hope that the posse will be there within two, three, 4 or 5 hours, something like that.

00:30:02:27 – 00:30:18:21
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movie, the pirates start searching the ship to try to find the rest of the crew, and Captain Phillips is trying to get the pirates to look in the cargo deck. But the Pirates leader, Musa knows that there’s a problem with the ship’s power, so he wants to go to the engine room.

00:30:18:24 – 00:30:37:09
Dan LeFebvre
Meanwhile, the crew’s hiding away in the engine room and they devise a plan to fight back against the pirates. As Phillips is leading the pirates around the ship, he’s kind of giving little hints here and there. He’d say things like, well, we better hope the emergency power stays on, because if it won’t, then we’re not gonna be able to see anything if it goes off.

00:30:37:11 – 00:30:54:03
Dan LeFebvre
And things like be careful in here with bare feet because you can climb on almost anything. And then over the radio, the crew kind of picks up on some of these. They break some glass to lay a trap for the barefooted pirates. And that works when one of the pirates, a guy named Bilal, I believe it gets badly cut.

00:30:54:05 – 00:30:58:22
Dan LeFebvre
Did the Maersk Alabama crew try to fight back against the pirates like the movie shows?

00:30:58:24 – 00:31:24:19
Brian Beckcom
Absolutely they did. In fact, what I was mentioning earlier is they grabbed utensils and were using those as weapons. And in fact, the one pirate that survived got stabbed in the eye with a spoon. And that’s why he had an eyepatch on. That was one of my clients that did that. I would actually, the way I would say, if you want to be as close to the truth as possible, once the pirates got on the ship, the crew pretty much did exactly what they were trained to do.

00:31:24:21 – 00:31:47:19
Brian Beckcom
Captain Phillips, on the other hand, did not get to where he was supposed to get to, and what ended up happening? It ended up causing the entire security protocol to get thrown off kilter, because now all of a sudden, the Pirates have access to Phillips and all his knowledge, plus the money, and they can use that to leverage what they want to leverage against the crew.

00:31:47:20 – 00:32:10:15
Brian Beckcom
Had the captain come in there like he was supposed to and executed a security plan. You don’t have all these other, outstanding issues that the Pirates can basically use a captain as a as a negotiating, piece. Like, you don’t want to do that like my cam and my, like, again, my, it’s funny because in this case, not funny how it funny ironic.

00:32:10:15 – 00:32:41:10
Brian Beckcom
It’s funny because in this case, the the the person that screwed up was the captain like Phillips, there is no question at all that the reason that these men got kidnaped and taken hostage and put in a room there was 120 plus degrees for more than 18 hours, no food and water. The reason is Captain Phillips and then also the company for letting him deviate so, so wildly from the recommendations.

00:32:41:12 – 00:33:04:28
Brian Beckcom
But in my in my West Coast pirate case, I represented the captain like the captain did everything he was supposed to do. Like, you know, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom made the distress call that Boko Haram pirates coming, highly trained, highly armed, gets all his crew into the safe room, locks it up, does everything precisely right. And, and he’s.

00:33:05:00 – 00:33:29:23
Brian Beckcom
And by the way, like I said, they drilled a hole to the steel door, put the gun in there and so that he basically he had to say, look, I’m coming out, leave my crew alone, I’ll come out. And so he actually came out, gave himself up to the pirates and was taken into the jungles of West Africa for 18 days and then ultimately released after some really bad stuff happened to them.

00:33:29:25 – 00:33:40:21
Brian Beckcom
But my point is, he did everything right. He still got taken, but he did everything he was supposed to do. Captain Phillips basically didn’t do anything he was supposed to do.

00:33:40:24 – 00:33:52:15
Dan LeFebvre
If he had followed protocol, if Phillips had followed protocol instead of staying up on the bridge, he should have gone down in the room, basically with the rest of the crucial. The entire crew was in there after sending out the signal. Is that right?

00:33:52:17 – 00:34:02:03
Brian Beckcom
Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, and there was multiple different areas on the ship where you could use as a secure location. He should have been in one of those.

00:34:02:11 – 00:34:05:08
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So not necessarily with the crew depending on what he could get to.

00:34:05:08 – 00:34:10:10
Brian Beckcom
But yeah, depending on where he was at the time. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay.

00:34:10:13 – 00:34:29:03
Dan LeFebvre
Well in the movie Musa gets captured by the crew down below. And in particular the movie focuses on, I think it’s the chief engineer, Mike Perry, who subdues him with a pocket knife. So the movie kind of sets up this tension of the pirates holding crew hostage on the bridge, including Captain Phillips. And then they have their own injured leader held hostage down below.

00:34:29:05 – 00:34:52:05
Dan LeFebvre
And that’s when we see Tom Hanks version of Captain Phillips offer the Pirates $30,000 in the ship’s chief in exchange for them leaving on one of the Maersk Alabama lifeboats. And ultimately, that’s what they agree on. So the plan is for the crew to get Captain Phillips back while the Pirates get their leader back. Musa. So then they can leave with the money, and we’ll talk about what happens with that deal in a moment.

00:34:52:05 – 00:34:58:09
Dan LeFebvre
But was the movie correct to show that there was this deal between the Pirates and the crew.

00:34:58:12 – 00:35:20:13
Brian Beckcom
Now and again? Like I said, nobody knows what happened to that money. Like like nobody knows. I mean, I’d love for somebody to call me up and say, I figured out what happened. In fact, there was something really strange that happened a few years afterwards. Two Navy Seals were on, as I recall, was the same vessel and died of a drug overdose.

00:35:20:13 – 00:35:39:13
Brian Beckcom
And there was all sorts of questions about, first of all, why were there two Navy Seals on that vessel? Why was there heroin on that? There was some really weird stuff going on. Where was the where was the ransom money? My period, a name I haven’t heard in quite some time. So he was one of the few crew members that decided not to join the case.

00:35:39:13 – 00:35:46:10
Brian Beckcom
So he was aligned with Captain Phillips. He is, as I recall, was he the first mate?

00:35:46:13 – 00:35:50:00
Dan LeFebvre
I think they mentioned him being the, word chief engineer.

00:35:50:00 – 00:36:07:04
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. So chief engineer is a is a high ranking position on those ships that would put you, you know, depending on how it staff that would that that was certainly put you in that chain of command at least. I mean you’re probably the number one guy on most ships in the engine room. Plus you’re usually an officer.

00:36:07:04 – 00:36:21:27
Brian Beckcom
So he was a real high ranking person. What I found then, and I think most of your listeners that this won’t surprise him is when when company management screws up, company management circles the wagons.

00:36:21:27 – 00:36:26:15
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I mean.

00:36:26:17 – 00:36:44:10
Brian Beckcom
What I, when I like when I want to know the truth about what happened. I’m not asking the CEO or the CEO like I want to ask the line level workers. Hey, guys. What happened there? So Perry Perry was one of the he was very vocal in not wanting to join the case. Totally his decision. And totally, totally fine with that.

00:36:44:10 – 00:37:13:09
Brian Beckcom
But not surprising considering he was he was at the at the level, the managerial level where where you might be able to start saying, well, what were you doing, Mike? Like I what why, why, why did he why didn’t you stop, captain? I mean, again, a lot of this stuff is confidential, but there’s internal communications from Phillips and other people that talk about the decision to go to to go more than twice as close as was recommended.

00:37:13:11 – 00:37:19:20
Brian Beckcom
And I’ll just I’ll just put it this way. There’s a reason that Mercer doesn’t want this released.

00:37:19:23 – 00:37:21:11
Brian Beckcom
I mean, that’s fair.

00:37:21:13 – 00:37:22:08
Brian Beckcom
Yeah.

00:37:22:10 – 00:37:33:08
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you talked about the the 30,000. Was that something that they had as specifically for pirates like you were talking about earlier on Alabama? That was specifically for pirates?

00:37:33:11 – 00:38:12:28
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, absolutely. And that, that that is that is and I actually I don’t know if that’s true or not, I, I have a strong suspicion that they carry that kind of money on ships. Now, the back at the time, it was why that was a widespread practice. And, you know, it’s it’s interesting because it’s really there’s something called a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in America which prohibits, among other things, American companies from negotiating, ransoms like or paying bribes or, you know, things like that.

00:38:12:28 – 00:38:41:24
Brian Beckcom
So it’s really close to the line when you’re talking about and of course, the idea is, you know, the whole we don’t negotiate with terrorists idea like, because that’ll encourage more terrorism. That’s the idea. Like, we don’t want companies paying bribes because encourage more bribery. We don’t want ransoms because paying ransoms is going to encourage more kidnapings. And so it’s you got to be super careful as an American company about how you deal with those situations.

00:38:41:24 – 00:39:17:27
Brian Beckcom
In fact, like in my West Coast case, you date the the captain was ransomed from the pirates, but he was not ransom by the American company like, they go through, intermediaries usually located in the UK in places like that, that then go through intermediaries that then take care of what they need to take care of. There’s in fact, there was a movie, I think, called Proof of Life or something like that, which kind of depicts some of these specialist kidnaping, a ransom, companies that will go in and take care.

00:39:18:00 – 00:39:41:18
Brian Beckcom
But the problem is, is like Exxon, let’s say they have an employee off the coast of, West Africa that gets kidnaped. Exxon can’t they’re it’s illegal for them to pay ransoms. It’s a legal for them to negotiate with terrorists like that. That is explicitly illegal under United States also. So they got to be real careful about how they do it, you know?

00:39:41:21 – 00:39:56:09
Brian Beckcom
But on the other hand, they want take care of their employees if they can like and good for that. I hope they figure out a way to do that. I mean, if you got billions of dollars, you should you should spend some of that on your on your people.

00:39:56:12 – 00:40:13:10
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. I mean, in, in that context, you know, you know, in this particular case, you know, like $30,000 for the Alabama and the crew, I mean, it’s it’s worth 30,000. Like, I mean, to for their safety.

00:40:13:13 – 00:40:14:23
Brian Beckcom
Yeah.

00:40:14:25 – 00:40:35:01
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you mentioned the ransom. And if we head back into the movie, the exchange of, Captain Phillips and Mousa doesn’t go as well. It doesn’t go as planned. I should say. And instead, as the pirates are leaving the ship, they don’t let Phillips leave the lifeboat. He was in there kind of showing them how it works. And then the lifeboat is launched from Maersk Alabama with all the pirates inside and Captain Phillips as their hostage.

00:40:35:03 – 00:40:44:10
Dan LeFebvre
And the movie suggests that the pirates weren’t happy with the $30,000 from the safe, so they wanted to ransom Phillips for even more money. Did that happen the way the movie shows it?

00:40:44:12 – 00:41:10:02
Brian Beckcom
Not really. And again, there was some really strange questions about. So the money, far as everybody knows, that the cash went on to that, lifeboat with Phillips and with the, with the pirates. Now the pirate that didn’t get killed wasn’t on the lifeboat. He stayed on board. But that money was on that lifeboat and was has never been found.

00:41:10:02 – 00:41:40:11
Brian Beckcom
There’s there’s theories that the Navy Seals did something with it. The precision of the operation that’s depicted in the movie was not how quite as precise as that in real life. Like there was a lot more stuff going on, but but look, I mean, again, Phillips was taken out alive, but he didn’t give himself up. He was taken against his will, basically kicking and screaming for all practical purposes.

00:41:40:14 – 00:42:01:29
Brian Beckcom
And the Navy Seals did come in there and the Navy Seals did it. Badass job getting them back. So all that stuff is true. But again, the details are. So I’m just kind of like, what’s the movie? Saving Private Ryan? Remember, the beginning scene is Saving Private Ryan. Like, how intense that was. That is so highly dramatized.

00:42:01:29 – 00:42:22:24
Brian Beckcom
It’s ridiculous. All that stuff. Like, there were men that stormed the beaches that were men. They got killed. All that stuff happened, but they have to compress like that event into something that you can digest on a movie screen in about five minutes, or however long that scene took, ten minutes or whatever it was in the Maersk Alabama.

00:42:22:24 – 00:42:47:24
Brian Beckcom
I think that scene takes five minutes, and then you’ve got Tom Hanks afterwards doing the Tom Hanks thing where he’s breaking down all that stuff. But I’m talking about the actual operation of rescuing him was significantly longer, and they got to compress the time and they got to make it interesting and stuff like that. So, the basically the details of the movie are, are all made up.

00:42:47:29 – 00:43:00:02
Brian Beckcom
That large picture of what happened is true, but the details are just and I’m not again, I’m not criticizing Hollywood or anybody like that, that that’s what they have to do.

00:43:00:04 – 00:43:22:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. Again, movies are for entertainment. Well, you talked about the the Navy, and we’re at the point in the movie’s timeline where the Navy starts to, come into the picture after all of this escalation. We see the US Navy getting involved. They send multiple ships to deal with the hostage situation with Captain Phillips. The primary ship in the movie is a destroyer called USS Bainbridge.

00:43:22:03 – 00:43:41:06
Dan LeFebvre
In the movie, the US Navy has identified the Somali mothership that we talked about briefly earlier. It’s a they say it’s a Taiwanese fishing ship that was hijacked by pirates a year earlier under a Somali warlord named Garrard. And then we kind of get a little bit of a little, almost a little backstory that captain, the captain of Bainbridge, recognizes Garrett’s name.

00:43:41:12 – 00:43:59:29
Dan LeFebvre
He’s somebody who apparently just wants money. So they think they can negotiate for Captain Phillips. But the clock is ticking because the Pirates are trying to reach the Somali coast. There’s two more Navy ships that are coming, USS boxer and USS Halliburton. They’re sent with the Navy Seals. And the way the movie sets this up, basically, Bainbridge is their first.

00:44:00:04 – 00:44:10:09
Dan LeFebvre
And if they can’t resolve the situation before the Seals get there, the Navy Seals are going to take care of it. Can you share what the situation was like as the Navy entered the picture?

00:44:10:12 – 00:44:46:08
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, that the the Maersk Alabama was actually lucky in a way. I mean, I had to I had to say lucky given what happened. But they were lucky that there were American naval ships that were so close by. That’s that’s almost never the case. And so at that point, there really is nobody and I mean, Captain Phillips, at some point loses command of the vessel, like the most famous saying, you know, maybe if I’m the captain now, I mean, how many times that there’s basically a that’s a, that’s a meme now.

00:44:46:08 – 00:45:10:21
Brian Beckcom
And by the way, I’ll tell you a cool story about that. That was completely ad libbed. And that actor, it was not a professionally trained actor. Like he’s Somalian, but they, they they did a casting call in Milwaukee where there was a huge Somali community, and they picked those four guys and they’re not actors. They had no training at all.

00:45:10:21 – 00:45:32:04
Brian Beckcom
When he comes up there and he says, I’m the captain now, that’s completely ad libbed. And that’s the most famous line in the movie, and probably the most famous line of any movie, or at least top five over the last 15 years. Right. I’m the captain now. But in any event, once the. So there are and I got to be a little bit cautious about.

00:45:32:05 – 00:46:00:11
Brian Beckcom
I don’t want to give up any confidentiality, but there are people in Africa who, serve as conduits between commercial and governmental interest. And these pirates or terrorists or whatever you want to call them. And it’s like, I like we were talking about just a few minutes ago, there’s a foreign corrupt practices that got me super duper careful about running afoul of that.

00:46:00:13 – 00:46:28:22
Brian Beckcom
But like, there are local, warlords and chieftains, there are people like Russell Crowe on the movie Proof of Life who specialize in dealing with those people. There are back channels that oftentimes you can utilize to get stuff done. But on the flip side, the more you do this, the more you encourage more attacks. I mean, the more to, the more ransoms that are paid, the more kidnaping.

00:46:28:22 – 00:46:51:14
Brian Beckcom
And so it’s a really, really tough problem. I mean, if it was your family or a family member that was kidnaped, you would God wouldn’t care how much you pay him or whatever they want. I want my family member back. But the policymakers have to look beyond just the one individual events. They have to look at, kind of a broader.

00:46:51:17 – 00:47:09:19
Brian Beckcom
And so, boy, it’s a it’s a tough call. But then once you’ve once you’ve got once you’ve engaged the United States military, they’re in charge like that, that at that point you’ve lost, you’ve lost control. Like once you send them in, they’re going to they’re going to do what they’re going to do. And there’s not anything anybody can do to stop it.

00:47:09:19 – 00:47:11:07
Brian Beckcom
Quite frankly.

00:47:11:10 – 00:47:13:00
Dan LeFebvre
They’re the captain now okay.

00:47:13:02 – 00:47:16:15
Brian Beckcom
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

00:47:16:17 – 00:47:17:20
Brian Beckcom
And perfect.

00:47:17:20 – 00:47:40:27
Dan LeFebvre
Love it. Well, the movie kind of it focuses then kind of shifts to talking about, you know, with Captain Phillips and that hostage situation. But we do see a brief scene where the Navy, there’s some Navy who go on the Alabama, and there’s there to escort it to Mombasa. Did they actually did that happen? Did they get a Navy escort basically to make sure they made it there safely the rest of the way?

00:47:40:27 – 00:47:41:12
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah.

00:47:41:12 – 00:48:05:24
Brian Beckcom
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And again, it was kind of luck as I recall. And you can fact ship me on this. The reason that we were able to, use Navy Seals to rescue these guys is because they were in close proximity. And the reason they were in close proximity is I think we were doing some aggressive military exercises over there, and they were able to divert some assets and take care of this pretty quickly.

00:48:05:28 – 00:48:25:06
Brian Beckcom
So people criticize Obama all the time for not going to war with Syria and a lot of other things he did. But I’ll tell you what, he made some tough calls like that Navy Seal thing could have gone sideways. And I like they could captain Phillips could have been killed. The crew could have been killed. That thing could have gone sideways in a heartbeat.

00:48:25:08 – 00:48:43:11
Brian Beckcom
He made the call. Well, let’s go in there and get him that. You know, that stuff is the way that all that Special Forces stuff is depicted in movies is super clean and almost antiseptic, that it is not like that in real life, like it’s nasty. I mean, when they went in, got bin laden and one of the Black Hawk helicopters crashed, right?

00:48:43:11 – 00:49:02:24
Brian Beckcom
It was a mess like it was did did not go the way they planned at all. But but it was fortunate as I recall again, people can fact check me. The military was doing some sort of exercise, some sort of joint exercises over there, and so they were able to get over there quickly where that’s that’s usually not the case, unfortunately.

00:49:02:27 – 00:49:26:23
Dan LeFebvre
That. Yeah, that makes sense. And in the movie they show the the other ship start arriving with, with Bainbridge. But we see Captain Phillips, he tells his captors that he has to pee, and they let him go outside and then Phillips pushes that one of the pirates is watching him below. He pushes him into the water, and then he jumps into trying to escape, and he starts swimming towards the Navy ships.

00:49:26:23 – 00:49:44:06
Dan LeFebvre
But then the pirates turn around the lifeboat. They start shooting at him in the water, and so they bring him back and bring Captain Phillips back into the lifeboat, and they start beating him pretty severely. Pretty much at that point you get the impression from the movie that he tried to escape, and because they beat him so badly, he’s not going to try to escape again.

00:49:44:08 – 00:49:47:15
Dan LeFebvre
Is it true that Captain Phillips tried to escape like we see in the movie?

00:49:47:18 – 00:50:07:28
Brian Beckcom
No, that is complete. That is this. So again, that that’s that was it. And that was part of the I was that was what that’s the kind of stuff that worried me the most because it basically inverted the real story. The real story was Captain Phillips screwed up, Mer screwed up, and the crew made the best of it.

00:50:08:03 – 00:50:32:08
Brian Beckcom
I mean, that’s really what the crew was heroic, and I could tell story after story. But we already told you about Spann against AK 47. That was not Phillips. That was the crew. And and the way the the part of the movie that you’re talking about is the part that I think bothered my clients the most because it really was the opposite of what actually happened.

00:50:32:15 – 00:50:55:21
Brian Beckcom
Phillips he wasn’t beat up. He didn’t jump in the water and try to escape. None of that happened. I mean, that is completely and totally not what happened. And it makes it look like the crew was a bunch of idiots and Captain Phillips is some sort of heroic figure, and it was like it was the complete opposite, like I said.

00:50:55:21 – 00:51:00:23
Brian Beckcom
And so that that part is definitively not true.

00:51:00:26 – 00:51:13:07
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah, it definitely does make him seem more heroic when, you know, he’s trying to escape. He’s doing doing these things and taking this. But I guess that’s Tom. You have Tom Hanks in a movie. You gotta be Tom Hanks sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

00:51:13:07 – 00:51:34:01
Brian Beckcom
Well yeah, that that’s exactly right. And again, they’re not trying to win a lawsuit in this movie. They’re trying to entertain people who have come to sit in a seat for two hours and be entertained. And so I don’t blame Hollywood for doing any of this stuff. What I had to be careful about and what my job was and still is, is to protect my client’s interests.

00:51:34:01 – 00:52:01:12
Brian Beckcom
And so what I was concerned about, and I’m very proud, quite frankly, the fact we’re able to do this, I’m normally not taken on $1 billion, international corporation with multiple billion dollar insurance companies behind them. I do that all the time. But then what I don’t do is have Hollywood and the Hollywood publicity machine on top of that talent, a narrative that hurts my case.

00:52:01:12 – 00:52:37:29
Brian Beckcom
That was the hard part of it. Right? So I had to I mean, going against these big insurance companies, these big corporations. That’s a Tuesday for me. Going against Hollywood in their publicity machine was a completely new experience. Fortunately, I was we did a fantastic job of like, everybody basically knows, I think that that movie was a good movie, but there’s questions about the accuracy of it, and that was because we were able to go on, you know, nowadays you can get on social media, you can go websites, you can put up videos, you can put up all this information even 15 years ago.

00:52:38:02 – 00:52:59:23
Brian Beckcom
You know, I have a degree in computer science. I’m a technically pretty competent. I was able to use that to get our news out there to get on Nightline, Dateline, London’s Daily Telegraph, you know, New York Times, when you looked up Captain Phillips The Movie to two lengths below, it would say the truth about Captain phillips.com. That would take you to my website.

00:52:59:23 – 00:53:23:06
Brian Beckcom
So that was really the the most difficult, part of the case. I mean, like proving what happened. That’s right. In my wheelhouse. I do that on a daily basis, proving what happened without letting Hollywood and all the publicity completely hijack the narrative. That was that was a little bit more challenging.

00:53:23:08 – 00:53:49:28
Dan LeFebvre
While the movie ends with a whirlwind of events, the Seal team arrives. They take over command and communication with the pirates, and immediately they confuse the Pirates by listing off all of their names and where they’re from. They go on to say that they’ve spoken to their tribal elders, and the elders are being flown in to negotiate and exchange Captain Phillips for the money, and while that happens, they need someone to go aboard Bainbridge to negotiate the deal with the elders, and they’re going to tow the lifeboat to the exchange spot.

00:53:50:01 – 00:54:12:20
Dan LeFebvre
Moussaoui agrees to do this. The tow line is attached and to attach the lifeboat, I should say. And then Musa goes to Bainbridge for the meeting with the elders. And that leaves the other three pirates with Captain Phillips on the boat. Meanwhile, the Navy ship turns on these really bright lights because I think it was like, oh, 400 so early in the morning, dark out, and they tell the pirates that’s just for towing them to the exchange spot.

00:54:12:20 – 00:54:30:04
Dan LeFebvre
But really what they’re doing is they’re getting the snipers into position. We see Phillips start fighting against his captors. They subdue him, tie him up, blindfold him, and then that moment that you talked about before, you see the three Navy Seals, just perfectly timed shot, you know, three shots to kill the remaining pirates at the exact same time.

00:54:30:07 – 00:54:50:28
Dan LeFebvre
And then back on Bainbridge. Moussaoui is taken into custody. There’s no elders, no negotiation. And then, as the only pirate left alive, he’s going to face trial for piracy in America. Captain Phillips returned safely in Bainbridge. And that’s where the movie ends as he’s getting medical treatment. How well does the movie do showing the way the whole situation came to an end.

00:54:51:00 – 00:55:24:12
Brian Beckcom
It does a decent job of that. I mean, the way Tom Hanks depicts Captain Phillips breaking down is all Tom Hanks. That is nothing at all like captain. I mean, that is Tom Hanks at his best. Okay, the Navy Seals would never allow Hollywood to show their trade secrets. So some of the stuff that they basically it was like a bait and switch is what’s depicted in the movie.

00:55:24:12 – 00:55:48:18
Brian Beckcom
We’re going to put the pirates are going to be looking this way, and we’re going to be doing stuff over here. They do that kind of stuff all the time. The actual operational details, are not same because again, there’s all sorts of different security issues involved in this. I mean, people probably don’t appreciate. I went on an inspection at Los Angeles Harbor two weeks ago.

00:55:48:18 – 00:56:13:06
Brian Beckcom
I brought a friend of mine, and she could not believe how dangerous we were on huge commercial cargo ship doing an inspection with 18 wheelers trains. It was raining. We have these cargos, you know, going over. I couldn’t believe how dangerous it was. What what people don’t realize is how every time one of these huge ship comes into a port, it’s like an enormous bomb.

00:56:13:06 – 00:56:42:03
Brian Beckcom
Like those things are so, tempting. These big commercial ships for bad actors that the security plans and the security protocols are, like, extra critical. And we don’t want people knowing about them publicly. So a lot of the stuff that the military does or that the companies do, they won’t talk about publicly, but she can talk about it on or on the edges.

00:56:42:03 – 00:57:10:14
Brian Beckcom
So, yes, the Navy Seals did a fantastic job. Yes, they ended up rescuing Captain Phillips. But the surgical nature of this depicted in the movie is nothing. Nothing like it actually happened. In the movie, there’s three shots, right? But they did a, they did a, naval investigation afterwards. And that there was at least 20 rounds fired.

00:57:10:16 – 00:57:30:28
Dan LeFebvre
A little more, a little not as a surgical precision as you know. Yes. As a VC in the movie. Yeah. No. Wow. Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about the movie Captain Phillips. Aside from being a trial lawyer who represented some of the Maersk Alabama crew, after the events we see in the movie, you’ve got a fascinating podcast of your own called lessons from Leaders with Bryan Beckham.

00:57:31:00 – 00:57:40:27
Dan LeFebvre
Now, if you’re listening to this, check the show notes for a link to Brian’s podcast so you can cued up after we’re done here. And while they do that, and before I let you go, Brian, can you give us an overview of your podcast and where they can learn more about you?

00:57:41:00 – 00:58:07:05
Brian Beckcom
Yeah, lessons from later started and started in middle quarantine features. People that are positive leaders that maybe, a lot of people don’t know about, mainly military sports. That’s so New York Times bestselling authors, and it’s a focus on people that are doing really, really cool things that maybe not, maybe don’t get quite the publicity that they deserve.

00:58:07:05 – 00:58:26:20
Brian Beckcom
So, it’s a great show, and I think you’re you’re it kind of ties in a little bit with this. Like, you’re getting a true story of, like, leadership on the ground. So, you know, we have all these leaders on TV or so-called leaders on the we see all these all the time. But my theory is the real leaders, you don’t really hear much about them.

00:58:26:20 – 00:58:29:09
Brian Beckcom
And those are kind of people I try to feature on my show.

00:58:29:12 – 00:58:31:27
Dan LeFebvre
Fantastic. Well, thanks again so much for your time, Brian.

00:58:32:00 – 00:58:43:26
Brian Beckcom
Thank you. It’s been a it’s been a real, real joy. A lot of fun.

00:58:43:28 – 00:59:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
This episode of based On a True Story was produced by me, Dan the Fan. Thank you once again to Bryan Beckham for sharing his time and expertise to help us separate fact from fiction in the movie Captain Phillips. As you’ve seen from Brian today, he has a ton of knowledge that he’s happy to share, and beyond that, he’s also a podcaster who’s great at harnessing the knowledge of his guests.

00:59:03:23 – 00:59:20:17
Dan LeFebvre
So go subscribe to Brian’s podcast called lessons from leaders. I’ve got a link to that in the show notes as well as on the shows home on the web at based on a True Story podcast.com/380. Okay, now it’s time for the answer to our two tours and a live game from the beginning of the episode. And there’s a quick refresher.

00:59:20:19 – 00:59:45:08
Dan LeFebvre
Here are the two truths and one lie again. Number one, Maersk Alabama sailed within the range of known Somali pirates. Number two the $30,000 on Maersk Alabama was intended as ransom money. Number three, Captain Phillips tried to escape from the pirates at the first chance he got. Did you figure out which one is a lie? Got the answer right here in the envelope.

00:59:45:08 – 01:00:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
So let’s open that up. And the lie is number three. Brian, explain how the scene in the movie where we see Tom Hanks version of Captain Phillips jumping to the water, trying to escape from the pirates was completely fictional. Thank you so much for sticking around to the end. If you’re watching the video version here, in a moment, you’ll see the credits roll.

01:00:05:20 – 01:00:25:26
Dan LeFebvre
If you want to get your name in the credits for the next video and on the website at. Based on a True Story podcast.com/credits, you can learn how to become a based on a true story producer using the link in the description or at based on a true Story podcast.com/support. Once again, that’s based on a true story podcast.com/support.

01:00:25:28 – 01:00:31:18
Dan LeFebvre
Until next time. Thanks so much for spending your time with Brian and I today, and I’ll chat with you again really soon.

 

00:00:02:01 – 00:00:30:17
Dan LeFebvre
Hello and welcome to Based on a True Story, the podcast that compares your favorite Hollywood movies with history. Today is December 7th, which means exactly 84 years ago is when the United States was violently rushed into World War Two with a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. Now, if you’re a long time fan of the show, you’ll know that we’ve covered numerous movies depicting this event over the years, from 1970s toward toward Tora, and 2001 Pearl Harbor to 2000 and nineteenths midway.

00:00:30:19 – 00:00:53:03
Dan LeFebvre
Today, we’re going beyond what the movies show us, because most movies talk about the surprise attack at the harbor itself. But in the true story, that was just one part of the Japanese offensive on December 7th. And to do that, we’ll be looking at a range of different movies to get a sense of when and where the numerous attacks took place on that day, not just in Hawaii, but around the world.

00:00:53:05 – 00:01:15:11
Dan LeFebvre
Returning to based on a true story to help us unravel the true story beyond Pearl Harbor in the movies is Joshua Donahue, the adjunct professor of history at two different colleges, Suffolk County Community College and Farmingdale State College. Before we get started, though, let’s set up our game for today’s episode. Now, if you’re new to the show since based on a true story, it’s all about separate fact from fiction in the movies.

00:01:15:13 – 00:01:34:11
Dan LeFebvre
You’ll get to practice your skills at separating fact from fiction in this podcast episode with a game of two truths and a lie. So I’m about to give you three things that we’ll talk about in this episode. Two of those are true, and one of them is just an all out lie. Are you ready? Okay, here they are.

00:01:34:14 – 00:02:04:29
Dan LeFebvre
Number one, Wake Island was attack just a few hours after receiving word of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Number two, Phil Rasmussen went up in his P30 six wearing pajamas and landed with about 500 bullet holes in his plane. Number three in addition to military targets, the Japanese attacked numerous civilian targets around Pearl Harbor. Got him. Okay, now, as you’re listening to our story today, see if you can figure out which one of those is the lie.

00:02:05:02 – 00:02:28:09
Dan LeFebvre
And if you’re watching the video version of this, you’ll see I’m holding up this envelope. This has the answer inside, and we’ll open it up at the end of the episode to see if you got it right. Okay. Now it’s time to connect with Joshua Donahue to go beyond Pearl Harbor in the movies.

00:02:28:11 – 00:02:51:11
Dan LeFebvre
Today’s episode is a little different than the typical episode of based on a true story, because we’re not talking about just one movie’s timeline. Instead, we’re flipping it around to focus on the timeline of events before, during, and after the attack at Pearl Harbor and then pulling from an array of movies about Pearl Harbor to get a deeper understanding of history beyond what we see in the movies.

00:02:51:13 – 00:03:16:03
Dan LeFebvre
So let’s start today with a classic film from the year 1953 starring Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr and Frank Sinatra called From Here to Eternity. Most of this movie depicts life before the surprise attack at Pearl and it shows what life was like for the US military in 1941. And if we’re to believe the movie’s version of events, things in Hawaii before the attack were calm.

00:03:16:06 – 00:03:41:28
Dan LeFebvre
The movie throws in some internal drama among the men stationed there, but it’s soldiers chasing promotions and women. There’s no mention of the conflicts going on around the world, so after watching that movie, I was left with the impression that basically the average person on Pearl before the attack lived in their own little bubble. Is that a fair assessment of what it was like for the military before the attack at Pearl?

00:03:42:00 – 00:04:11:08
Joshua Donohue
Yes, it absolutely was. And you just mentioned the movie really kind of focuses more so on the, the love story. And as it really it compares in a lot of ways to, the 2001, Michael Bay film, of course, starring, Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale. So, going into the film here, eternity, it’s a I really enjoy this movie and it has plenty of drama to it.

00:04:11:15 – 00:04:31:29
Joshua Donohue
And really with the backdrop and the climactic event, you know, I was thinking, you know, it’s the Pearl Harbor films are almost like in a lot of ways, it’s like the Titanic. All right. You know, you know what’s coming. But there’s all this buildup and all this drama that happens before it so gets to sort of, you know, pander to different audience, cater to different audiences, I should say.

00:04:32:04 – 00:04:54:18
Joshua Donohue
But from what I read, the novel is between 80 to 90% accurate. And it would take private James Jones’s. And it’s based on his memoirs, A Full Decade from the writing in the publication, from his first novel, From Here to Eternity, in the autumn of 1951. So the central narrative of the book draws upon Jones’s two years at Schofield Barracks.

00:04:54:25 – 00:05:23:15
Joshua Donohue
And this would, of course, culminate with the attack on Pearl Harbor. So he was a boxer or a bugler. Those things are touched upon in the film. And Ken played by his character, Robert Lee Prewitt. So there is definitely an air of confidence where I would say overconfidence that existed on Oahu. And what you notice in From Here to Eternity that you usually don’t see much in regard any way of concern, for a potential Japanese attack to occur.

00:05:23:18 – 00:06:00:18
Joshua Donohue
While the film largely centers on the two really separate romantic, themes between, Sergeant Milton Warren, played by Burt Lancaster, and Karen Holmes, played by actress Deborah Kerr, the other between Montgomery Clift character Robert E Lee Prewitt and the actress, binary, who plays Alma Lorene Burke. So what I did like about the film itself is this authenticity of especially the scenes that Schofield you see the military, mustering in the training and again, the marching that you see in the film, again, taking place on the parade ground and Schofield Barracks.

00:06:00:20 – 00:06:22:27
Joshua Donohue
So since the film was released in 1953, barely ten years after the actual attack, it really does. Well, as far as its authenticity of military light both on and off the off the base. So the men have the proper period gear. You see the World War One era, the Brody helmet, the 1903 Springfield rifle. That was period correct.

00:06:23:00 – 00:06:48:29
Joshua Donohue
The uniforms, the gear, etc.. Any sort of, you know, history nerd like myself is really going to appreciate those little details. And films. So Army life at Schofield was very regimented, as you see in the film. Revelry at 6 a.m.. Roll call at 630. Breakfast barracks detail, uniform inspection, calisthenics, Infantry drill, mail call, noontime lunch after work duties and 5 p.m. retreat.

00:06:49:06 – 00:07:11:06
Joshua Donohue
And then, the ceremonial lowering of the flag. Evenings were free, so Jones and his comrades would hang around the base or went into the neighboring village, of Louis. Wally, I should say, to drink and sort of view, you know, carouse and everything that they were doing in the film. So the, the men really made few trips to Honolulu since the bars.

00:07:11:06 – 00:07:38:26
Joshua Donohue
They’re really too expensive for the humble enlisted men. You know, maybe the officers went into town there. Schofield life there really emphasize also intramural sport, which is also a theme with each company fielding football, baseball, basketball, track, boxing, boxing. You see, as a theme as well. You can also reference that to the Pearl Harbor film of 2001, Doris Miller, the character played by Cuba Gooding Jr.

00:07:39:03 – 00:08:04:12
Joshua Donohue
And and all the heroics that, again, is also portrayed in Tora Bora. Tora miller was the, boxing champion heavyweight champion on this ship, the USS West Virginia, which was sunk, at Pearl Harbor. So during Jones’s time at Schofield Barracks, his company won three regimental championships, athletic mediocrity. You know, notwithstanding, they took part in boxing.

00:08:04:12 – 00:08:27:06
Joshua Donohue
Football. He would hurt his ankle in the latter. And this injury would continue to bother him for several months. So it also captures the typical nightlife in Oahu, in Honolulu with Oahu, the bars there, the, the brothels, etc.. Hawaii was far from home for the servicemen who were stationed there. So they wanted to make most of their time.

00:08:27:13 – 00:08:46:12
Joshua Donohue
It was a great obviously post during the there were a tropical, place. So the scene where the men were eating breakfast at the mess hall at Schofield Barracks, which was two miles, from Wheeler Army Airfield, which was again based on the accounts, Private James Jones, you see the great scene there where they’re having breakfast on the Sunday morning.

00:08:46:12 – 00:09:14:08
Joshua Donohue
They’re at Schofield, barracks, mess hall. And all of a sudden, you hear, the explosions, taking place, outside. And what I also really enjoyed about the film is that you see actual footage of the attack happening. Oh, the the Arizona exploding, which is obviously the most famous image, captured of the attack. So it’s, I think the the film does a good job really capturing what it was like.

00:09:14:08 – 00:09:22:07
Joshua Donohue
It really was not a whole lot of, you know, fear. And as it was after the attack, it was completely different climate altogether.

00:09:22:09 – 00:09:40:17
Dan LeFebvre
It puts a whole new spin on it. And we all know it as, you know, a surprise attack. But just the, the, the contrast of what we see in, you know, from here to eternity. And, and it’s like you’re saying a post to a tropical location. It’s, it almost seems like they’re on vacation and, you know, there’s really nothing to worry about.

00:09:40:17 – 00:09:45:11
Dan LeFebvre
And then all of a sudden they’ve got stuff to worry about. You know, a.

00:09:45:13 – 00:10:13:18
Joshua Donohue
Whole new ballgame. It’s it’s no longer a tropical, you know, I’ll get into a little bit later. But yeah, after the attack, the entire life on Oahu changes 180 degrees. And it goes from this, you know, great nightlife and great post and, and kind of getting into trouble and drinking women, all these sorts of things to blackouts, to drills to, you know, a martial law which will be declared, following the attack.

00:10:13:20 – 00:10:32:23
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you mentioned Tora, Tora tours. So let’s move on to that one. It’s a 1970 film, just probably one of the most common movies depicting the attack on Pearl Harbor. The first half of that movie is all about the events leading up to the attack, and we find the U.S. military trying to figure out where the Japanese are going to attack.

00:10:33:00 – 00:10:57:08
Dan LeFebvre
They think it might be the Philippines, or maybe Thailand or maybe Borneo. They don’t seem to think the attack will be at Pearl Harbor, which of course we know from history factored into why it was such a surprise attack like we were talking about, because the movie then focuses mostly on the surprise attack at Pearl. It seems to imply that perhaps those other locations that just mentioned weren’t targets.

00:10:57:09 – 00:11:09:20
Dan LeFebvre
Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the Japanese also launch attacks in other locations? Other than Hawaii, such as Wake Island? Can you give some more context around the scale of the Japanese offensive in December 1941?

00:11:09:22 – 00:11:42:11
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, that’s absolutely correct. And it at that point in time, the Japanese military between the ground, sea and air operations were seemingly everywhere in the Pacific, especially following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Keep in mind the midway, another film that depicts the attack, obviously, you know, fast forwarding into June of 1942, while that climactic battle will take place, actually, midway is struck also, during that that time period as well, that morning, by a pair of Japanese destroyers, you know, nominal damage.

00:11:42:11 – 00:12:09:03
Joshua Donohue
But again, it’s it’s again a multi-pronged attack. Wake Island, as you mentioned, located about 2000 miles, to the west of the Hawaiian Islands, was struck about four hours after receiving word by radio from Pearl Harbor that it was under attack. So all of these locations, really from, wake on over the Philippines, Hong Kong, obviously. Or it’s December 8th, 1941, since it’s lying on the other side of the International Date Line.

00:12:09:06 – 00:12:40:07
Joshua Donohue
So the story of wake itself is often forgotten amidst the attack on Pearl Harbor and bases on Oahu. The 1942 film starring Brian Dunne, Levy, Robert Preston and McDonnell Carey was the first time that Americans really had a visual sense of of somewhat what happened there. Although it was not accurate in many ways, especially the ending part, where the Japanese who says basically come and take, you know, come and get us and, you know, the island falls and the Americans fight to the last man.

00:12:40:09 – 00:13:13:06
Joshua Donohue
That’s obviously not what happened. Most of the wake veterans who later saw the film, after they returned home from Japanese P.O.W. camps, didn’t really think too much of it just due to the just the overload of inaccuracies in it. And, of course, wake would fall to the Japanese on the 23rd of December, 1941, after a fierce 16 day battle work in the American garrison, there was about 450 Marines, about 1200 civilians who are in charge of, you know, building, the government contract with the base facilities, road networks, these types of things.

00:13:13:06 – 00:13:42:26
Joshua Donohue
So, the island falls and the Japanese will capture and will be held, all the way through until the end of the war. So the, the Japanese forces also began landing, in the Philippines. And on December 8th, 1941, they would seize most of the island of Luzon by December, December 24th and more than 120,000 Japanese troops were committed during, the battle and against a force of about 150,000 American and Filipino defenders.

00:13:42:28 – 00:14:09:07
Joshua Donohue
So amphibious landings were there, were supported by air attacks, fighters and bombers, coming in from the island of Formosa, which is modern day Taiwan. So these air attacks devastated the Far East air Force, much of which was destroyed on the ground, as we see happened to Pearl Harbor. All of those aircraft just parked out in the open wingtip to wingtip, for fear, obviously, that was going on with Jack with, you know, fear of Japanese sabotage.

00:14:09:12 – 00:14:37:18
Joshua Donohue
So Japanese, you know, aviators were just looking at these targets out in the open. All they had to do is simply just press the trigger. So the invasion force that was sent to the Philippines consisted of, the Japanese 14th Army under the command of general Masaharu Homma. And at about 3:40 a.m. on December 8th, 1941, The Fallen Ring, Lieutenant General Douglas MacArthur’s lavish apartment atop the Manila Hotel.

00:14:37:21 – 00:14:57:15
Joshua Donohue
It was MacArthur’s chief of staff telling him about the news about Pearl Harbor and that MacArthur, again as the commander of American forces in the Philippines, he had sort of wrestled what what to do next? Should he attack Formosa? Should he not? And there was bad weather in the area which actually prevented the Japanese from attacking.

00:14:57:20 – 00:15:23:24
Joshua Donohue
So MacArthur doesn’t really seize the initiative here before he authorizes the strike. It’s it’s far too late. So, the Japanese, you know, would again eventually take the Philippines and again, you would have the fall of Corregidor, soon after the fall of Bataan. They had again occupied Korea, Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Formosa, and large portions of the Chinese mainland.

00:15:23:24 – 00:16:08:14
Joshua Donohue
And they would also occupy, the Solomons, the Gilberts, the Marianas, the Carolinas, the Marshall Islands. So there were literally, no bases between Hawaii and Japan. And the first Japanese landings also would take place in December 8th in northern Malaya, in southern Thailand. So, General Yamashita, on the 10th of December, had penetrated the Malayan frontier all the way, to the city of kata and eventually sinking the Japanese, to the two British battleships, I should say the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS repulse, which enabled the Japanese now to continue landing their troops, establishing bases in Malaya with really without any limit, really limited Allied interference.

00:16:08:21 – 00:16:46:01
Joshua Donohue
So they, had again advanced all over Southeast Asia and in places all around, they continued. Then by February the 15th, the defenders had driven back to the suburbs of Singapore. And again, food and water supplies were low and that evening, British general Arthur Percival would surrender to the Japanese. So again on 8:00 on this eighth, December 1941, eight hours after the Pearl Harbor attack, again, it had been a disaster, and it would continue to be one bad piece of news after another.

00:16:46:04 – 00:17:07:10
Joshua Donohue
Guam would also be attacked and it would fall. Hong Kong, it would also form what would be termed, Black Christmas. When Hong Kong was surrendered to the Japanese on December 25th, 1941. So pretty much from, you know, the beginning of December, right from the Pearl Harbor attack on the Japanese were were everywhere. And really, we were really, really on the ropes.

00:17:07:13 – 00:17:30:27
Dan LeFebvre
And it sounds like, from everything happening on December or December 8th across the International date line, like with Wake Island and the Philippines, one unique thing about Pearl Harbor, other than being, you know, part of the United States instead of, you know, a territory, is they didn’t have boots on the ground like they did in some of these other places.

00:17:30:27 – 00:17:49:15
Dan LeFebvre
And so it seems like almost I mean, I don’t want to make it seem like Pearl Harbor wasn’t a devastating attack, but, you know, they didn’t land boots on the ground and and actually capture it and take it over, like they did in Wake Island. So, I mean, just the logistics of that of of all of that at once.

00:17:49:15 – 00:17:56:12
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, the logistics of the attack at Pearl Harbor alone. But the logistics of, of all of that just had to be massive.

00:17:56:14 – 00:18:28:04
Joshua Donohue
Yeah. And that’s that’s really where America found itself when Pearl Harbor was attacked. And again, things could have been much worse. A lot of people don’t really think about it as much of a disaster as the attack really seemed. And again, there was you didn’t have the real time information that we have nowadays, and news sort of still traveled really slowly back and, you know, 1941, but once the smoke starts to clear, the, you know, the Japanese didn’t sick of the aircraft carriers.

00:18:28:04 – 00:18:50:24
Joshua Donohue
Luckily that day there were, you know, the USS Lexington was, bringing fighters to midway at the time, and the USS enterprise was coming back from Wake Island. It had delivered the, forward echelon of VMF to 11, under, a major Paul Putnam. Those 12 fighters were b the only Air force that Wake Island would have throughout the the entire siege.

00:18:50:26 – 00:19:10:03
Joshua Donohue
Seven of them were completely destroyed on the ground when the Japanese hit. They really only had four aircraft. Really that the most at a time. And little by little, those numbers were kind of whittled down as the attack went on. They were literally scavenge scavenged, salvaged parts from, you know, derelict planes to put them on usable ones and fly them.

00:19:10:03 – 00:19:31:10
Joshua Donohue
And just the, the engineering and the ingenuity, on the ground there at wake in the stories I’ve read about the accounts there, it’s just it’s almost like a heavyweight fight and just two boxers just going at it, you know, the Marines being, you know, the the unmanned underdog. But they just kept fighting and fighting and fighting until the Japanese, you know, just, you know, brought everything to bear.

00:19:31:11 – 00:19:52:28
Joshua Donohue
They actually thwarted an amphibious invasion three days after that, sunk a, a destroyer. Henry Elrod sunk another following, few hours later with small bombs from little Wildcat fighters. And that’s how the that how much the fighting spirit you would get the, you would receive the Medal of Honor for that. He would not actually survive the battle.

00:19:53:01 – 00:20:03:28
Joshua Donohue
He was killed on the very last day in the morning, and from Japanese fire. So in the wake story, you know, it’s it’s tied to Pearl Harbor in many ways. And, it’s it’s pretty remarkable.

00:20:04:05 – 00:20:24:10
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to Hawaii and back to to water to the first wave of Japanese planes that we see there, in the movie take off from their carriers as the sun is rising on December 7th, 1941. And we see them flying across Oahu’s farmland and right to Pearl Harbor, where they ultimately commence the first wave of attacks at Pearl.

00:20:24:12 – 00:20:43:00
Dan LeFebvre
And while the movie does show a few other things like USS firing on a Japanese sub just outside Pearl and the B-17s, it got mixed up in the raid on Pearl. Those are all tied to the attack at the base at Pearl Harbor. So I can see how someone watching that movie might think that Pearl Harbor was the only place surprised by the attack.

00:20:43:03 – 00:20:49:04
Dan LeFebvre
Were there any other military installations in Hawaii that were surprised by a Japanese attack on December 7th?

00:20:49:06 – 00:21:16:06
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, and the Japanese first attack, wave, was assigned many fighters and bombers, specifically, purpose for the air base, suppression of all the fighter bases around Oahu. So the fighters set the planes afire with the machine gun and cannon fire. As I mentioned, they’re all parked out in the open. And all of the, you know, all the installations across, you know, every one Wheeler, every field, Kaneohe Bay, all out in the open again.

00:21:16:06 – 00:21:35:07
Joshua Donohue
There’s that fear of the Japanese sabotage. So they want to have visual, you know, a look at every single plane that’s out there. And it turns out to be an absolutely terrible decision. So literally all of the Japanese pilots have to do is just fly right in a straight line. And for the wing tanks and the planes are destroyed.

00:21:35:10 – 00:22:01:07
Joshua Donohue
The second attack wave also had airfield strikes among its tasks. So the subject of my latest article in World War two, history magazine, which is on newsstands now, I wrote about the attack on the Marine Corps Air Station at, Mooring Mast Field. It’s about seven miles to the west of Pearl Harbor, home to several squadrons of clothing, as I mentioned, a VMF 211, which was the, again, the same squadron sent to Wake Island.

00:22:01:07 – 00:22:20:29
Joshua Donohue
And lo, we fought the very last aircraft, after the initial seven were destroyed on the ground and the initial Japanese raid. So the base there was attacked that morning, a few minutes prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, by the feared Mitsubishi A-6, m2 zero fighter, which at that time was the most dominant fighter in the skies.

00:22:20:29 – 00:22:51:11
Joshua Donohue
At that point, the Americans had no, real answer for it at the time. So any zero or, D3, a Val dive bomber, which and expended its ordnance at Pearl Harbor against the ships and the other the targets there would fly back and use whatever, ammunition or bombs that they had against every field ever field, unfortunately, had the luck, the bad luck of being located right near where the Japanese rendezvous point was when they were going to form up to fly back to the ship.

00:22:51:12 – 00:23:16:17
Joshua Donohue
So all of that activity flying out of Pearl Harbor, going in and coming out ever was really caught in the middle of that maelstrom. So you also had Wheeler Army Airfield in central Oahu, which was Hawaii’s main fighter base. It was also heavily attacked. Some 140 planes were on the ground there, merely P40 and P30 six pursuit planes, nearly two thirds were destroyed or put out of action.

00:23:16:19 – 00:23:41:18
Joshua Donohue
So a similar, proportion of B-17, B18 and A20 bombers at Hickam Army Airfield, which was located right next to, just looking to the east, or Pearl Harbor Navy in that Navy yard. It was also wrecked and damaged enough to keep all of them grounded. So many of the men, killed at Hickam when the Japanese bomber barracks, smaller Bellows Field was on eastern Oahu, was also hit.

00:23:41:24 – 00:24:22:23
Joshua Donohue
Just really mostly straight. I the a couple of Japanese, zeros. They destroyed a couple of P-40s trying to take off. Two pilots actually tried, into the teeth of that enemy onslaught. It was a, you know, again, an active it just, you know, courage and bravery. So the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps air stations on Pearl Harbor, Fort Island, at and ever and the West Pearl at Kaneohe, Bay near Bellows Field, again received all sorts of concentrated attention from the Raiders and was aircraft complement mainly carrier bombers and fighters, was reduced to nearly 50 operational planes to less than 20.

00:24:22:23 – 00:24:45:23
Joshua Donohue
So nearly every plane was either damaged or destroyed. So Fort Island in Kaneohe were also home to several squadrons of long range PBY patrol. Sea planes also attacked heavily, with Fought Island losing about half its planes in Kaneohe, all but a few. So the Naval Air Station, at Kaneohe Bay was bombed very, you know, particularly hard.

00:24:45:26 – 00:25:08:17
Joshua Donohue
It’s to the on the east coast of Oahu. It’s a major Navy ship, sea patrol plane base. And one of the main reasons why the Japanese would target these bases is because they didn’t want to have the risks run the risk of having any long range planes. Follow them all the way back out to find where the carriers were, and then you know exactly where they’re at, and they can send war attack planes to out against them.

00:25:08:24 – 00:25:31:06
Joshua Donohue
So it was imperative to the Japanese that they were attacking every single plane on the ground. And you also touched upon, the USS Woodward and the B-17s depicted, in Tora, Tora, Tora, these events truly what makes that film so true to life? Because there are really otherwise other really overlooked and other films about Pearl Harbor.

00:25:31:14 – 00:26:03:09
Joshua Donohue
They’re important because of the sinking of the Japanese mini sub, by the ward’s gunners. Again, it was contrary to popular belief, but it was was the Americans who actually fired the very first shot at Pearl Harbor. And again, the the tour. Tora, Tora! You know, with the P-40s, you know, we talk about them with the, both the George Welch and, Kenneth Taylor, as we see in the film itself and loosely portrayed in the 2001 film as well, we loosely, loosely portrayed.

00:26:03:09 – 00:26:28:23
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, for a variety of reasons. Yes. Yeah. Michael Bay gets a little carried away with those scenes. But the one, the one scene in Tora, Tortuga, which always blows me away, is the one seen at Wheeler Field, where you have the P-40 that’s hit and it crashes in to the flight line of other P-40s. You actually see it from different scenes, shot from different angles, but it’s the same scene.

00:26:29:00 – 00:26:45:27
Joshua Donohue
That was actually an accident, that that scene was not supposed to happen the way it did. And you see the way that you see those guys running for their lives, they’re really running for their lives in that scene. So look at that scene again. That was not some not meant to happen the way it was supposed to.

00:26:46:01 – 00:27:06:21
Joshua Donohue
Total. Luckily, no one was injured. But yeah, that was that was an interesting one. Also to note, and just in addition to those other bases, Kaneohe Bay, Hickam Field, Wheeler Bellows, Ford Island and ever you also have a lot of smaller coastal defense, forts that are in and around the Pearl Harbor area.

00:27:06:27 – 00:27:29:02
Joshua Donohue
You have Fort Armstrong, you have Fort Barrett. A soldier there was killed by a strafing Japanese plane. Fort de Russie, you have Fort Kamehameha. Seven men were killed or four wounded there. A soldier was also killed at nearby Fort Shafter, by an errant U.S. Navy shell, which was meant for a Japanese plane, but would unfortunately not explode until it hit the ground there.

00:27:29:06 – 00:27:50:09
Joshua Donohue
So the Japanese didn’t really specifically target these in of these installations, but the men there were fighting back with everything they had. They really only had coastal defense guns, so they couldn’t aim them up in the sky and shoot them at the Japanese planes. But if there was a rifle or a machine gun to be had and loaded, you know, the men, they were going to be fighting back with everything they had.

00:27:50:12 – 00:27:59:15
Dan LeFebvre
And I have to go back and watch to our to our to Oregon now. Yeah. I mean, I guess it’s a war movie. So I guess if something like that happens and all your props are destroyed, you mind, you got to throw it in the family got it.

00:27:59:17 – 00:28:18:02
Joshua Donohue
And what’s great is they, they they had the wherewithal to shoot it from different camera perspectives. And if you look, they shoot that scene and, and put it in from different angles. So it looks like a different scene, but it’s actually taken from the same scene. I mean, you had to use that material because that you cannot capture that kind of drama.

00:28:18:02 – 00:28:22:10
Joshua Donohue
And, and in normal, normal, rehearsed kind of settings. So. Yeah.

00:28:22:13 – 00:28:44:16
Dan LeFebvre
Wait, we you talked a lot about the planes on the ground and something else that we see in some of the movies about Pearl Harbor are American planes that are already in the air when the attack happened, we talked about the B-17s. We touched on those, from Twitter, Tora! And 2019 midway. We see Clarence Dickenson casually flying his plane back to base when he notices explosions in the distance that he might be artillery training.

00:28:44:19 – 00:29:02:26
Dan LeFebvre
That changes a moment later when he shot it by the Japanese planes. In in towards moratoria again, there’s, actually a trainer. It’s that’s surrounded by the Japanese planes on their way to the attack. They don’t shoot at the trainer because it’s not a military plane. But then there’s movies like 1960s Storm Over the Pacific or 2001 Pearl Harbor.

00:29:02:27 – 00:29:18:06
Dan LeFebvre
We don’t really see any American planes in the air when the attack happens. So there seems to be a mixed message from the movies when it comes to planes already in the air at the time of the attack, can you unravel the historical side of things? Were there American planes already in the air when the attack took place?

00:29:18:09 – 00:29:38:19
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, there were and they were mainly civilian. That really, really ruined any military. The really the only military planes really in the air were the ones that were coming in. The B-17s were coming in from the West coast, from California, from the 38th and 80th Reconnaissance Wings, just a mixture of B-17 simply there were 12 of them.

00:29:38:21 – 00:30:09:06
Joshua Donohue
And recall that it was also on a Sunday before 8 a.m.. So really the only planes airborne that morning were were mainly civilians. So you mentioned the scene in Tora to our Tora. And that actually did did happen at John Rogers Airport, which is, current day Daniel K in a way, airport. This is just really, you know, right to right below where, Hickam Air, Army Airfield is just where the battleships were at the top of the target list.

00:30:09:09 – 00:30:34:28
Joshua Donohue
A Hawaiian Airlines DC3 had just boarded passengers as was preparing to depart. Local attorney, Roy V to second his son Martin, who was 17, were circling the airport about 800ft and ATC 65 and Aaron Cook, rented from what was was the Gambo Flying Service, one of three flight schools that had been established on the airfield to provide instruction under the civilian Flight training program.

00:30:35:01 – 00:31:00:18
Joshua Donohue
So the owner of that school, Marguerite Gambo, was teaching a student, in a myers OT biplane flying near another Japanese target, kind of yohe. So plumes of smoke rising now from Kaneohe made it clear to Gamboa at this point that the war planes were not American. Her and, her airplane was actually buffeted by the turbulence of the fighters pulling up from their strafing runs as they’re nearing her.

00:31:00:18 – 00:31:35:23
Joshua Donohue
So the fighters didn’t engage the biplane as accurately as you see in the film. However, Gambo, whose encounter was likely the one depicted in the film Tora, Tora, Tora, albeit the wrong aircraft. Again, there’s that history nerd stuff again. The it turned and raced towards John Rogers Airport. There were also a pair of Piper cubs that departed, John Rogers that morning at 740 and headed northeast, flying just off Waikiki Beach towards Diamondhead before turning west and then bound for, camp mahala Callaway on the other side of the island.

00:31:36:00 – 00:32:10:19
Joshua Donohue
And this was where the soldiers of the California National Coast Guard, 251st Coastal Artillery Regiment were based at that time. So the Cub pilots was a passenger of one of the aircraft. Were all members of that unit? So Sergeant Henry Blackwell, corporal Clyde Brown had both been taught to fly, in their off duty hours, by, Robert Tice, who was the, co-owner of the Katy Flying Service, one of three civilian schools and based at John Rogers Airport, and then Sergeant Warren D Rasmussen had come along for a sightseeing, excursion.

00:32:10:25 – 00:32:34:01
Joshua Donohue
So Tice and his wife and the had meanwhile arrived at the airport, not long after the Cubs departed and minutes before the fighters began to strafe the field. So Tice was standing next to his wife on the ramp and was hit in the head, in the first moments of the attack and killed instantly. And this would be one of the first of between estimates, I’ve heard between 47, 54 I’ve heard.

00:32:34:01 – 00:33:09:24
Joshua Donohue
And the number I see most is 68, civilians, struck down. So the soldiers had trained, and were flying about two miles offshore and at around 500ft, headed towards their base. And the V the sects were also circling overhead, having returned, from their flight. And they were, also again, another instructor, Cornelia Fort, was flying Interstate S1 a cadet with a local student, the defense worker and the cadet was approaching John Rogers Airport to practice touch and goes.

00:33:09:27 – 00:33:42:12
Joshua Donohue
So a sailor aboard a Navy tugboat whose account included in the Honolulu Star Bulletin story, which was published on December 20th, 1941. Had sworn in a deposition that they recalled seeing, two yellow cubs flying offshore about 500ft when the Japanese aircraft pounced on flight. There were about seven enemy warplanes, in that number, one Cub plummeted into the ocean, while the other circle for a moment also, before diving in the water, presumably hit, and the only really small fragments were ever found.

00:33:42:14 – 00:34:05:24
Joshua Donohue
So there were a number of, again, military aircraft around, Oahu’s airspace, as I mentioned, of course, the B-17s that were trying to land at Hickam Army Airfield, they’re low on gas. There are. Even when they see the smoke, there’s still not quite sure what they’re seeing until they start seeing Japanese planes flying all around them. It’s about as accurate as it gets when it when it’s shot.

00:34:05:24 – 00:34:30:07
Joshua Donohue
And Tora, Tora, Tora with major Truman landing and he’s trying to land. But he has got one real up, and the plane actually skids to a halt. That the plane they’re probably depicting is the one that’s actually, shot, a zero strafed as it’s landing, it’s splits in half and you see just the upright portion of it sticking up the the tail is completely you know, away from the plane.

00:34:30:09 – 00:34:52:24
Joshua Donohue
That photograph is quite, you know, you see that quite common. There’s also the story of the crew of the San Antonio Rose, B-17 e of the idiot Reconnaissance Squadron, who ended up landing on the seventh fairway of the Kahuku Golf Course on Oahu’s north eastern side. And I always think to myself, if I ever get a chance to play golf on Oahu, I’m going to play golf there.

00:34:52:27 – 00:35:12:24
Joshua Donohue
Or the one next to ever feel that might never come back. Yeah. So they’re that most of the many, you know, the planes were in the air were civilian that morning. And again, the among the first casualties, especially, as I mentioned, those military members who had lost their lives in that one civilian aircraft, were the first, to lose their lives that morning.

00:35:12:27 – 00:35:34:08
Dan LeFebvre
I think it was a I think it was in Tora, Tortuga when the B-17s, the pilots like, what a what a heck of a way to fly into a war or something like that as their, as they’re flying in. I mean, I can only imagine how terrifying and terrifying it would be. But also, like you look at it like there has to be moments of is is this real?

00:35:34:08 – 00:35:54:18
Dan LeFebvre
Like what is what is like just pure disbelief, especially for, you know, trainers and you know, that there’s, military. So you might not know if the military is doing exercises or like with Dickinson and in many ways, like, you know, maybe they’re doing artillery training and they’re I think one of the his, copilots like, oh, that’s, you know, it’s a weird time to do training, right?

00:35:54:18 – 00:36:00:03
Dan LeFebvre
And then they get shot at. So obviously it’s not training, but, can’t imagine what’s running through people’s heads.

00:36:00:05 – 00:36:23:14
Joshua Donohue
And there’s a, there’s a story even from wake Island, when the, when they first see the that flight of Japanese bombers approaching out of a low cloud bank only a few thousand feet off the ground, and they start dropping bombs. Some of the observers say, oh, look, they’re dropping their wheels. They’re, you know, they’re friendly planes. They’re dropping like, no, they’re they’re dropping bombs, open fires.

00:36:23:14 – 00:36:35:20
Joshua Donohue
So, yeah, I mean, right up until that, until the bombs literally started falling, people just couldn’t understand or comprehend that this was even possible. And here it here it was unfolding right before their eyes.

00:36:35:22 – 00:36:54:26
Dan LeFebvre
I’m reminded of you talking about, you know, dropping the wheels. I, I was it towards I think it was toward toward where, where, there is, a plane that’s flying over Pearl Harbor. Japanese plane. And the officer is like, I’ll get that guy’s name. We’re gonna write him up, right? And then they see the bomb start dropping and and it’s like, obviously, you know, so it’s like, yeah, that disbelief, that.

00:36:54:26 – 00:37:28:18
Joshua Donohue
Scene is actually very accurate to to that’s, that’s that’s actually based on, the very first bomb that’s dropped on Ford Island is what that scene is. And again, they’re they’re all in mourning, you know, the, the flag ceremonies, the other bands playing that was going on exactly at that moment. And when you see that first plane, a Val drop a bomb and explode, that bomb is actually on is dropped on hangar six, which is the very which is the seaplane base at the very, southeastern end of Fort Island.

00:37:28:24 – 00:37:32:09
Joshua Donohue
So that actual scene is based on reality.

00:37:32:12 – 00:37:55:07
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you might have already answered this question, but some of the movies about the attack show airfields away from the harbor itself. Toward toward. Toya shows an attack on what I believe is Wheeler Field. 2001 Pearl Harbor has a scene that I think might also be Wheeler Field, that it it doesn’t really mention it in the movie, because I think that part of the movie is mostly just an excuse to get Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett’s characters in a plane to take off and fight back.

00:37:55:09 – 00:38:07:27
Dan LeFebvre
So for those of us who haven’t been there, can you give us, a bit of geographical context and an overview of the American airfields on Oahu in 1941, and then which ones of those were attacked?

00:38:08:00 – 00:38:32:27
Joshua Donohue
Yeah. So as I mentioned, Wheeler, you mentioned Wheeler Field, and that was the route that is the main fighter base Wheeler is on. The airfield is located in central Oahu, about 12 miles to the north of Pearl Harbor. And Wheeler again was the site of several major historic, actually aviation events, including the first, nonstop mainland to Hawaii flight by Army Air Corps Lieutenant Lester J.

00:38:32:27 – 00:39:03:07
Joshua Donohue
Maitland and Albert Helgenberger in 1927. There was also the great Gold Derby air race from Hawaii, California to Hawaii. Also in 1927, the first trans Pacific flight in the United States to Australia, the Australian squadron leader, Charles Kingsford Smith in 1928 and the first Hawaii to mainland solo flight in 1935 by none other than Amelia Earhart, who flew from Wheeler Field to Oakland, California.

00:39:03:09 – 00:39:36:12
Joshua Donohue
Amelia Earhart also, had an accident on Ford Island’s airstrip, which was, formerly Luke Field. She ground looped, her aircraft there. And we just completely just flipped it over and, you know, it was was again, very obviously active, in that area and during many of her, her flights and this again, also brings us to, every field, in is often pronounced Iowa field, but it’s actually every field, it’s that is several miles as I mentioned, to the west from Pearl Harbor.

00:39:36:14 – 00:39:57:23
Joshua Donohue
You also again have Hickam Army Airfield, which is just situated to the east of Pearl Harbor. That was hit hard during the attacks and again possessed longer range aircraft. It could potentially locate the Japanese carriers and attack them. So this is where the B-17s arriving from California were landing. Most of them were. Again, they were all meant to land there.

00:39:57:23 – 00:40:19:05
Joshua Donohue
All but I believe four landed there. So Tour Territory does a great job depicting the scene. So since Hickam set really to chase into Pearl Harbor, it was hit severely and it had the highest number of losses in comparison to ever Wheeler, bellows, Kaneohe and the Escort Island. So nice. Pearl Harbor lies directly in the middle of Pearl Harbor.

00:40:19:12 – 00:40:41:17
Joshua Donohue
There’s a little tiny island there, if you look on a on Google Maps, and the airstrip is actually still there, but it hasn’t been used many years. The battleships were lined up all along side for four islands the eastern side, the Nevada, the Arizona, the Vestal, the West Virginia, the Tennessee, Oklahoma, Maryland and California. The USS Neosho as well.

00:40:41:20 – 00:41:10:11
Joshua Donohue
The on the western side of Fort Island, you have the light cruisers USS Detroit, USS Raleigh, the former battleship USS Utah, which was converted to a, a target ship. Utah is actually one of the first ships that’s torpedoed. They actually initiated the Japanese, torpedo planes that attack Utah. Some of their pods think it’s actually an a carrier is parked there, and they mistake the Utah for me care, because normally a carrier is parked on that side of the island.

00:41:10:17 – 00:41:31:25
Joshua Donohue
So they, the Utah rolls over and capsizes, kills about 58 men inside of it. So in Tau Tau Tau, when the first wave arrives, you get to you just mentioned that great part about, you know, dropping the bomb and getting that guy’s number on the seaplane ramp. That, again, is depicted, at Ford Island on, the seaplane ramp there.

00:41:32:02 – 00:41:56:21
Joshua Donohue
And another lesser known base I mentioned it earlier was, Bellows Army Airfield. This is really a sub post for Wheeler Army Airfield until it became its own separate military post, in July of 1941. And it’s located on the southeastern side of Oahu. And it’s during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th. Again, there were, two military members killed and six wounded at bellows.

00:41:56:28 – 00:42:17:01
Joshua Donohue
They didn’t kill three, included three pilots of the 44th Pursuit Squadron, who were at bellows for gunnery training and attempted to take off in their P-40s. Again, one was killed climbing into his play, in the second was killed, shot down immediately after getting into the air. And the third, Samuel Bishop took off in his P-40, but actually got shot down.

00:42:17:02 – 00:42:42:18
Joshua Donohue
Actually had to swim back to shore after his plane was damaged and crashed into the ocean. So if you really look at a Wahoo from a defensive perspective, because I mentioned they have a lot of other, coastal artillery defense, positions that were built, they had positions built in the side of mountains. There were casements. There were, you know, fire control bunkers all over the island.

00:42:42:18 – 00:43:17:16
Joshua Donohue
So Oahu is in a, in essence, a floating, land based, battleship. And it was bristling with guns, especially concentrated very heavily around the mouth of Pearl Harbor, because obviously, you have, you know, ships coming in and out of there. You have aircraft for Kamehameha was really the buffer, and fought Fort Armstrong with being the other, being two of the major, you know, strategic, coastal artillery positions that were again assigned to protect anything that was coming in and out of the harbor, anything that was coming out from the sea.

00:43:17:19 – 00:43:29:05
Joshua Donohue
You know, if this Japanese had ships that they were going to invade, Oahu that morning, those, you know, those sides would have been, you know, firing away at those ships and trying to, as many as they possibly could.

00:43:29:07 – 00:43:47:07
Dan LeFebvre
But you might have already answered my my next question because you talked a little bit about the, collateral damage, I’ll say, for the you know, civilian getting shot, movies tend to focus on what’s happening in the harbor itself, of course, but some of them do cut away to show scenes from a distance. First comes to -2019.

00:43:47:07 – 00:44:09:24
Dan LeFebvre
Midway shows Patrick Wilson’s character at Layton as he pulls his car over on the side of the road. For a moment, just to end. He sees, you know, numerous ships ablaze as more Japanese planes continue their attack. 2000, which Pearl Harbor also shows civilians around the island watching the planes fly over as the attack unfolds. And the way that these sequences in the movies play out, it almost seems to imply that the attack is at Pearl Harbor.

00:44:09:24 – 00:44:31:18
Dan LeFebvre
And you talked about some of the other airfields and stuff, but, maybe anybody who is now in one of those areas that’s a target must be safe, because they’re watching these explosions go from what seems like to be a safe distance. Can you help explain what the morning of December 7th, 1941, was like for people who were on Oahu, but maybe not actually at Pearl Harbor, even one of the targets themselves?

00:44:31:20 – 00:44:55:19
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, the, the it was not only an absolutely terrifying few hours and especially in the days, weeks and and really years after there were the blackouts, there was martial law declared on the entire city of Honolulu, was basically on lockdown. There were air raid drills, gas attack drills. You couldn’t go out at night. So life on Oahu was never really the same after the attack.

00:44:55:22 – 00:45:16:02
Joshua Donohue
And most civilians who had heard or saw the Japanese planes coming over just assume that it was another drill by the US Navy or the US Army Air Force, you know, conducting practice sorties, you know, and even with the the when the bombs started dropping and the explosions in thinking from here to eternity even say, okay, they must be blasting the coral heads.

00:45:16:05 – 00:45:37:01
Joshua Donohue
And then all of a sudden the explosions were right outside the window. Okay. Maybe not. So, I can going back to that, that this scene also in from here to Eternity and where they see the planes themselves and assuming that they’re American. But yeah, it’s odd for a Sunday. What are they doing? And again, it’s that scene in Tora, Tortuga where the flying over to get that guy’s number.

00:45:37:07 – 00:45:55:27
Joshua Donohue
They just couldn’t really imagine, you know, the Japanese, you know, attacking like that in, in the 2001 Pearl Harbor movie. Josh Hartnett’s character, Danny, makes a similar comment when he and Ben Affleck’s character are walking on the ice of the attack with a sleeping on the back of their car and said, why is the Navy running?

00:45:55:29 – 00:46:19:27
Joshua Donohue
You know, running, you know, drills on Sunday? And I think about also Daniel Inoue’s quote from a Ken Burns series when he when he sees the anti-aircraft fire and smoke coming from Pearl Harbor, he calls his dad out at that moment, sees three planes fly over, presumably zeros over their house. And in a way, he said, at that moment, he knew exactly what was happening.

00:46:20:00 – 00:46:41:18
Joshua Donohue
He was a 17 year old, you know, volunteer for the Red cross and had just the grim duty of having to recover. A lot of the civilians were killed that morning. So during the attack, there were incredible acts of courage and bravery taking place. Civilians were working alongside military personnel at all of the military installations which were attacked that morning.

00:46:41:18 – 00:47:07:28
Joshua Donohue
So they were exposed to the same dangers as the soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines. So really, the most the most civilians that were killed by Japanese bullets were against civilians who were working in and around military installations. One story was George Walters, who was, civilian dockworker. He was a crane operator at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard.

00:47:08:01 – 00:47:33:12
Joshua Donohue
The battleship USS Pennsylvania was in drydock directly in front of him with the two destroyers, the USS Carson and the USS Downes, ahead of the Pennsylvania drydock. So when the attack occurred, he positioned his crane directly over the Pennsylvania in an effort to shield the ship and its crew from the attacking planes. He would be injured by a bomb and struck, that struck the battleship, but only caused minor damage.

00:47:33:18 – 00:47:57:03
Joshua Donohue
So the cast and the downs were both hit by bombs that were seriously damaged. As a result, a lot of the, if you see a lot of them moving and, you know, the the the photographs of the attack, the biggest were some of the biggest columns of smoke, obviously coming from Battleship Row, but it as it goes over, further, you see the USS Shaw, which is on fire, and the castle and the downs and all of the, the planes, on the Hickam Field flight line.

00:47:57:10 – 00:48:34:00
Joshua Donohue
So again, you see a lot of this, take place, again, during the attacks. So smoke columns are coming up, everywhere. And more than anything else, there was this sort of unshakable belief amongst the civilian population that the Japanese were going to be back in some way, shape or form, whether that be another attack wave of planes and even rumors were flying at that night that Japanese soldiers are landing on Hawaii, that there are paratroopers that had been seen, though the rumors and the misinformation and the things that people don’t know and that that could be, you know, a dangerous thing, too.

00:48:34:02 – 00:48:56:15
Joshua Donohue
I especially felt for the Japanese Americans whose lives were really, again, completely upturned and again, and the events that occurred during Pearl Harbor and after you really notice it in Tora Bora tours, where the attack is going on, it’s almost over. And you see that one scene where there was an officer has that interaction. He was that male and with that young Japanese boy.

00:48:56:19 – 00:49:25:19
Joshua Donohue
And it gives him that real stern kind of like, you know, just, you know, just that his face is just all contorted. And the young boys just looking at him like just, you know, you can kind of paralyzed. But, you know, for civilians, it was, a scary situation and, a number that the majority of the civilians who were killed that morning are actually not killed by Japanese bombs were bullets, but by American shells that are being fired from Pearl Harbor.

00:49:25:23 – 00:49:57:11
Joshua Donohue
They’re not exploding in the air. They’re continuing to arc until they land. And many of those shells land in Honolulu and surrounding areas. So there’s about I would say, there was a one, person who did some research on and said it was about 57 or so impact sites in and around the city area. That again, you know, the stories of civilians who are, watching the attack, the planes or they’re standing outside and all of a sudden an explosion happens right down the street.

00:49:57:18 – 00:50:19:12
Joshua Donohue
And, you know, there was one where, there was a Packard that was driving was for, civilians inside of it. And a navy shell landed right next to it, and it just blew the car apart and killed all four of the civilians inside of it. Not only that, a piece of the shrapnel from that explosion kill the young girl who was standing on her front porch, watching it happen with her family.

00:50:19:15 – 00:50:44:16
Joshua Donohue
Her family doesn’t realize what happened to get her inside, and she just, you know, dies right there. So, Yeah, it’s for the civilians again. The Japanese aren’t targeting them. But there are instances. I mean, I even talk about, you know, look at, Ken Taylor and George Welch, the two P-40 pilots, as they’re driving from Wheeler to to Holly Eva field, which is on the North Shore where they get their planes, they’re strafed by Japanese planes.

00:50:44:19 – 00:51:08:04
Joshua Donohue
Colonel Claude Larkin, who’s the CEO. Whatever field he’s dragging from Honolulu to the base, he has the ditch his car twice because planes are strafing him all the way around. And the car still running. He’s lying in the ditch, waiting for the planes to pass away. Perhaps over, I should say so. The. You know, whether it be military, civilian, you know, if it was, you’re in a vehicle and you’re moving, you know, it was a dangerous place to be that morning.

00:51:08:06 – 00:51:26:21
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you mentioned something. They’re saying that that they weren’t targeting civilians. And, if we go to 1953 In harm’s Way, starring John Wayne and Kirk Douglas, when we see the first wave of Japanese planes attacking, part of the plot point finds Kirk Douglas, his wife, played by Barbara Bush, having an affair on the beach when the attack starts.

00:51:26:23 – 00:51:44:18
Dan LeFebvre
And then. But from the movie’s perspective, it’s obvious this was a key part of the plot. But as as I watched when I was watching, that is kind of like, well, from the Japanese pilot’s perspective, they’re just strafing it around a man and woman on the beach. So from their point of view, they’re just to civilians, but they’re clearly targeted because there’s nobody else around on the beach.

00:51:44:25 – 00:51:55:22
Dan LeFebvre
Otherwise it just be an empty beach and planes are shooting at them. So it’s not really a strategic military target. So would it be correct to say, yeah, the that there were no civilian targets that morning.

00:51:55:24 – 00:52:15:09
Joshua Donohue
Yeah. That’s correct. And there was you know, there were the civilians were really in the line of fire that morning, but they weren’t quote unquote targeted. But that didn’t stop a few of the pilots from attacking civilian areas. You know, out of 353 planes used that morning, you can expect every single one of them is just going to avoid civilians.

00:52:15:09 – 00:52:44:29
Joshua Donohue
It was the temptation to see a large kind of juicy target, whether it be, you know, a, you know, some of the plantations that were actually attacked ever being one of them right outside the base gates. So, some sources claim, that these were accidental. And ever feel, for example, just outside the base, one of the youngest victims of the attack, six year old, Yoko Lillian Oda was was the very last civilian to die from the attack.

00:52:44:29 – 00:53:23:11
Joshua Donohue
She passed away from a piece of shrapnel, which struck her in the head just outside of the ever field gate. She passed in February of 1942. So a few of the Japanese POWs likely saw, especially as I mentioned, the plantation, the sugar mills, which were located on these plantation villages, seeing those as targets of opportunity, one of the Marines outside the base, it ever was hit along with, I shouldn’t say that the, Marines, but one of the, civilians, killed on the town of Hawaii who it was, two sugar plantations was, the one there in the one it ever.

00:53:23:15 – 00:53:46:18
Joshua Donohue
So another thing to consider here is that there were also civilian workers in and around the epicenter of the attack. So there were civilians killed or wounded just due to them really being at the wrong place, at the wrong time. So the again, as I mentioned, the commanding officer ever, Lieutenant Colonel Claude Larkin, was driving his 1930 Plymouth, from his home to ever and again had to ditch his car on two occasions.

00:53:46:24 – 00:54:10:04
Joshua Donohue
And again, you mentioned that George Welch and Ken Taylor, pilot, the two three P-40 pilots were nearly killed as they make their way up to Oahu’s North Shore. So, as I mentioned earlier, there, between 49 and other estimates have 68 civilians who lost their lives during the attack. Most of the casualties, again, were caused by, falling anti-aircraft shells that were fired by the ships in the, the guns of Pearl Harbor.

00:54:10:06 – 00:54:45:25
Joshua Donohue
The fuzes on the shells were a time that properly so instead of exploding in the air at a predetermined altitude, they would simply continue to arc into the city of Oahu and other residential areas. And again, some of them would just explode on impact. So, as I mentioned, that one, where the, the the scene with the Packard, is, destroyed in, in Pearl Harbor, the 2001 will be again, one of those scenes that gets a little bit carried away where they’re just flying raw and just strafing people, just, you know, just in cold blood.

00:54:45:27 – 00:55:11:06
Joshua Donohue
That’s not really what’s going on. So, yeah, there’s there’s another instance where, and this is, this is quite, quite, striking, jutsu Ohara Saki, who is a 48 year old Japanese American who ran a restaurant in Honolulu on the morning of the attack. He was at his diner with his family when a five inch shell from a navy, ship explode, came to the window and exploded.

00:55:11:09 – 00:55:19:17
Joshua Donohue
Harris Sakai was killed instantly, as were his three children, 14 year old cousin and seven young men who just happened to be eating breakfast that morning.

00:55:19:19 – 00:55:41:03
Dan LeFebvre
Wow, wow. I mean, I, I would assume and correct me if I’m wrong, but I would assume that with the anti-aircraft, the fuze is not being set correctly. And then, of course, shooting towards a populated area. I imagine a lot of that was just from the confusion of everything that was going on and rushing to get to shoot it, whatever you could basically.

00:55:41:03 – 00:56:00:11
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, because a lot of their ammunition was locked up. They had to go through, you know, you know, bust open, you know, at every field and other places that I read stories where, you know, they’re basically trying to scramble to get these guns prepped and loaded. It’s a multi-person effort to get especially the larger caliber guns, that they have to fire it.

00:56:00:12 – 00:56:31:18
Joshua Donohue
It’s not just one person out there you’re doing this. All in all, it’s a it’s a time consuming process. And in that process, you’re probably not thinking, oh, yeah, let’s just try to maybe have the fuze explode and it would a preset altitude and the Japanese planes are going to be they’re just shooting blindly. And this would happen really throughout the attack, especially as we see with some of the military planes coming in, the planes from the enterprise and other P-40s and that are coming in and around, they’re taking you off trying to find the Japanese planes.

00:56:31:21 – 00:56:44:05
Joshua Donohue
They’re now being shot at by their own gunners on the ground because there’s stur, you know, there’s there’s such a frenzy of confusion and trigger happy gunners on the ground. They see something flying. They’re going to shoot first and ask questions later.

00:56:44:07 – 00:57:10:10
Dan LeFebvre
It’s Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting. I mean, it goes from assuming that the planes that are flying over must be doing some drill, and then all of a sudden it becomes anything flying in the air is a target. It must be the enemy. It’s just that that flip, that the chaos of war, I mean, I can, I can thankfully, I’ve never been in that situation, but I can I can understand how that, confusion is just everywhere and rampant.

00:57:10:15 – 00:57:29:27
Joshua Donohue
Yeah. And it kind of was just, you know, the streets of Honolulu were, you know, there were there were fires. There were they were having the civilians there. Again. It must have been terrifying. And they’re not thinking, of course, at the time. Oh, these are probably shells coming from Pearl Harbor, they think, and this is the Japanese trapping and bombs and killing, you know, innocent civilians.

00:57:29:27 – 00:57:54:07
Joshua Donohue
So thinking about that and and what happens, as I mentioned, after, you know, the fallout, especially for Japanese Americans who are living in Hawaii and, of course, on the West Coast and everything that happens with, you know, later on in World War two with the Japanese internment camps. And there’s that overall anti-Japanese sentiment. It’s starting to really build, I think of, Grace to Kuno.

00:57:54:09 – 00:58:13:08
Joshua Donohue
I believe her name was she was a student at Berkeley, in California when the attack happened. And she was going to, to a school that I get off the bus that morning. And the radio was just given the all the information about Pearl Harbor. And she’s looking around her, and everyone’s looking right at her and staring here and giving that that look, I was telling you, all extraterritorial.

00:58:13:15 – 00:58:23:14
Joshua Donohue
It was just instant. Like, all of a sudden, you know, everyone’s. It’s just the whole climate changes, literally with those, those, you know, in a matter of a few hours.

00:58:23:16 – 00:58:44:11
Dan LeFebvre
Well, one of the common themes in movies about Pearl Harbor is how the attack rallied American morale in support of joining World War two. Perhaps the most famous movie quote is at the end of Tora tour Tora! When Admiral Yamamoto says, I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.

00:58:44:13 – 00:59:02:18
Dan LeFebvre
Of course, as we’ve talked about a lot today, the movies mostly cover the attack at Pearl itself instead of the things going on elsewhere that we talked about. You know, like with Wake Island and such. But back in 1941, was there a lot of coverage for any of the other attacks that we’ve talked about today outside the base at Pearl itself?

00:59:02:21 – 00:59:24:28
Joshua Donohue
Yeah. And it’s it’s you think about, you know, the information, how quickly we get it nowadays. So we haven’t really the palm of our hand just was not the case back then. Americans in those days were getting their information via newspaper, radio or the newsreels that they would see being shown at local movie theaters. And newsreels would be shown before the film started.

00:59:24:28 – 00:59:49:19
Joshua Donohue
So American audiences were getting, you know, all the information that, you know, that was available to them at the time. So they’re getting an actual visual, not just, you know, hearing it and reading in the newspaper. So, as I mentioned, they were, you know, audiences were getting nothing but bad news from what was going on between Japan’s offensive, which we talked about earlier, all of their operations in the Pacific, but also what’s going on in Europe as well.

00:59:49:22 – 01:00:09:22
Joshua Donohue
And it unlike the professional armies of Germany and Japan, the US armed forces were completely unprepared to fight a major war. I think they said in 1940 the US Army was smaller than that of Romania and of about 174,000 men in uniform. I think they said there were more men in the NYPD than there were in the Marine Corps.

01:00:09:25 – 01:00:33:07
Joshua Donohue
So, the Army still own tens of thousands of cavalry horses. And so, you know, the war was so far away, it simply didn’t occur to most Americans that such an attack was even possible. And in the events of the outside world, which is seemingly impossibly far away, especially due to the fact that the country was still in the midst of a Great Depression and were now just trying to pull itself out of it.

01:00:33:09 – 01:00:50:21
Joshua Donohue
The country that really been hit hard, especially in the Midwest and a lot of the farming areas. So Americans would go to movie theaters where, again, they’d see these newsreels because you’d see what was going on with, you know, with Hitler coming to power. Then you can fast forward to, you know, the civil war in Spain in 1936.

01:00:50:21 – 01:01:20:11
Joshua Donohue
We see, you know, civilians being attacked and then the Nazis seizing Czechoslovakia in 1938, invading Poland in 1939 and officially starting the Second World War from that event, when both England and France would declare war on Germany. Then you, of course, would have the fall of France. You you you’d you’d see the news with Dunkirk, for example, with the massive retreat of the forces of the British and the French there, Denmark, Norway, Holland fell, Belgium was crushed.

01:01:20:13 – 01:01:46:11
Joshua Donohue
Fans of France would fall in 1940. Britain would fall under attack during the Blitz in 1840, British cities at Cannes being attacked relentlessly by the, the air, by German warplanes and other, you know, terror weapons like the V-1. And you’ll American we had reporters. Edward R Murrow was in London reporting on these attacks and giving Americans a real just an awful glimpse of what was going on.

01:01:46:18 – 01:02:08:22
Joshua Donohue
So the overall feeling in the country at that point was similar to that of the of the, you know, before the First World War, that was isolationism. You know, Americans were hoping that the country could stay out of the war. And from December 1941 until June, I would say, of 1942, Americans were getting nothing but bad news coverage, in all, in every way, shape or form.

01:02:08:24 – 01:02:27:02
Joshua Donohue
And once Pearl Harbor happens, you can. It really makes the news more and more urgent. It can. The Japanese were on the offensive in the Pacific. The Americans were starting to make some small gains in the interim. Again, you had the fight at wake that happens. And that kind of bolsters, America’s, you know, spirits a little bit.

01:02:27:08 – 01:02:54:16
Joshua Donohue
But once the island was surrendered, it was again, once, once again, back to a low point. But as you start to see, over time, you know, the Americans begin to turn the tide. The you, of course, have the, Doolittle raid on April of 1942, which again, is not a is depicted in, torture in, 2001 Michael Bay film, you know.

01:02:54:16 – 01:02:57:18
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, yeah.

01:02:57:20 – 01:03:00:04
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. It’s all you need to say on that one, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

01:03:00:06 – 01:03:05:27
Joshua Donohue
And I there’s there’s this there’s some liberties that were taken.

01:03:06:00 – 01:03:07:12
Dan LeFebvre
That’s a nice way to put it. Yeah.

01:03:07:15 – 01:03:32:16
Joshua Donohue
But, you know, but over time in really this, you have to sort of, you know, Americans start to see the gains that we’re making. You know, the Doolittle Raid as we the first major event that you have, the battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942, which is really a some people would say a draw, a tactical victory for the Japanese, but more of a, you know, a sense of America’s navy is beginning to catch up to the Japanese.

01:03:32:16 – 01:03:53:09
Joshua Donohue
We lose a carrier. The Japanese, would lose, a carrier as well. And once you get to the Battle of Midway, which takes place in June of 1942, as we see in that and that film, again, we we, we have picked ourselves back up again. We are again using intelligence, breaking the Japanese code. We know where they’re going to be.

01:03:53:15 – 01:04:11:22
Joshua Donohue
You know, we have the proper people in place, intelligence gathering. You have, you know, Admiral Nimitz out there, you have a Bull Halsey at you have some great admirals out there who are again, going to take what’s left of the US Navy after the attack and bring it to the Japanese. And of course, we see what happens at midway.

01:04:11:22 – 01:04:23:08
Joshua Donohue
And, again, it’s it’s the decisive battle of the Pacific, I believe in the Pacific theater from the at that point in time and from really from that point on, the Japanese would never really recover.

01:04:23:11 – 01:04:42:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, speaking of midway, the movie at least, a common theme that we see in a lot of movies about the attack at Pearl is how it ties into other battles after it, like in In Midway after the attack at Pearl is is at the beginning of that movie, then it obviously covers the Battle of Midway, the 1960 Japanese film storm of the Pacific does the same thing.

01:04:42:22 – 01:05:04:17
Dan LeFebvre
2001 Pearl Harbor you talked about, goes from the attack of Pearl to the Doolittle Raid. Interestingly, the main characters in those movies seem to also take part in the other battles. Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m pretty sure Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett characters in Pearl Harbor are fictional. Yeah, we still see them as pilots during the attack at Pearl and then going on to take part in the Doolittle Raid in 2019.

01:05:04:17 – 01:05:23:24
Dan LeFebvre
Midway, we see pilots like Dick Bast and Clarence Dickinson taking part in the Battle of Midway after having lived through the attack at Pearl. So the impression that I get from the movies is that many of the American pilots who survived Pearl Harbor went on to some of America’s most decisive naval and air battles later on in the war.

01:05:23:26 – 01:05:27:21
Dan LeFebvre
Is there any truth to that concept? The movie seems to suggest so.

01:05:27:21 – 01:05:57:15
Joshua Donohue
To go back to the 2001 film, the characters played by Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett, they’re really in that film. Are loosely based on George Welch and Ken Taylor, the pilots, you see that they’re actually portrayed as they are in Tora, our Torturer. And, you know, we’ll get into that in a moment. So those, the actions of those P-40 pilots, again, as I mentioned, that happened there, that that particular film, as I mentioned, offers the most accurate portrayal of their actions.

01:05:57:15 – 01:06:15:18
Joshua Donohue
So one thing to note is that neither pilot took part in the Doolittle Raid, as we see later on happening in the film with, you know, Affleck and, you know, Josh Hartnett piloting the B20 fives with, you know, Alec Baldwin and who was playing Jimmy Doolittle in the in the famous raid.

01:06:15:18 – 01:06:18:09
Dan LeFebvre
And they’re all planes are the same. You can just pilot. Yeah.

01:06:18:11 – 01:06:36:00
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, yeah, no big deal. Just we’re just going to go on to the carrier getting the planes and just here you go. But some of the, some of the, the story of that was in the film that you see is actually true. They had to lighten the load as much as possible, right down to, you know, having broom handles for aircraft.

01:06:36:04 – 01:06:56:11
Joshua Donohue
You know, any aircraft, you know, 50 caliber machine guns, I guess you could say. But as far as the the the real story of the pilots of George Welch, one of the, you know, the P-40 pilots who got up in the air and helps you down a number of Japanese planes that morning, he would actually go on to earn, the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on December 7th.

01:06:56:13 – 01:07:21:26
Joshua Donohue
He would later go on to claim 16 victories in 348 combat missions. Malaria would actually end his war. He would later be killed in 1953, after his, aircraft. I believe he was flying a F-100 Super Saber. Would disintegrate, during a test. So a lot of these abuses, said I, Chuck Yeager, was another good example.

01:07:21:28 – 01:07:44:16
Joshua Donohue
Would go on to fly, you know, test out some of, you know, America’s newest, jet fighter planes. So Welch’s wingman and friend, Kenneth Taylor, he would go on to fight in the skies over Guadalcanal. He was later wounded in a Japanese airstrike on Henderson Field in 1943. He was able to down two more aircraft while he was stationed there, which would bring him to ace status.

01:07:44:19 – 01:08:09:16
Joshua Donohue
Another aviator who gained fame after the Pearl Harbor attack was a guy named Phil Rasmussen. He earned the name the Pajama pilot. He was literally in his pajamas when the attack happened. He jumped into his P 36 fighter and fought Japanese aircraft over Kaneohe Bay, where the naval air station was under attack. I think when he landed, they counted like 500 holes in his airplane.

01:08:09:22 – 01:08:12:29
Joshua Donohue
The tail wheel was shot away. I mean, how he was able to get.

01:08:12:29 – 01:08:14:01
Dan LeFebvre
He still landed?

01:08:14:03 – 01:08:40:28
Joshua Donohue
Yes. He somehow landed, at Wheeler Field. So after shooting down one plane, he was attacked by two more zeros, more shells and, 20 millimeter cannons and go! Fire blew away the canopy, destroyed his radio, severed the hydraulic lines, the water cable. He would sort you seek refuge in the cloud bank and begin flying back towards Wheeler and again, counting more than 500 bullet holes.

01:08:41:04 – 01:09:04:24
Joshua Donohue
And he is actually in the Air Force Museum. There is a, a p 36. That is, the paint scheme is just like his, like a silver. And as the 86 on the side and, Yeah. The other pilots you mentioned, Dick best and Clarence Dickinson, in midway. That’s more of an actual, you know, accurate portrayal of what happens.

01:09:04:24 – 01:09:42:26
Joshua Donohue
Dickinson’s plane is shot down by a Japanese zero as he is flying his SBD Dauntless from the Enterprise to Oahu. So his wingman was shot down. His plane was taking fire. He bailed out his rear gunner, William Miller, who had already claimed one zero, was presumably killed by, a second one. And he went down, with the plane, actually at every field, and number, including Clark, and witnessed this, they start to see, planes, Japanese planes and American planes, you know, kind of, you know, going into the skies just low over the over the field, a, I believe Revelle and a Dauntless, one of the Dauntless from the

01:09:42:26 – 01:10:15:28
Joshua Donohue
enterprise collide and crash right outside of Ever field, and going on to, the midway battle. You have, Clarence Dickenson, landing a bomb on the deck of the Kaga during the Battle of Midway. He would later earn three Navy Crosses, the first to do so, along with fellow aviator Lieutenant Noel Gaylor. So, many of the pilots has, you know, we mentioned especially Welch and Taylor, not taking place in the Doolittle raid, but they would again go on and fly, you know, missions and serve with distinction.

01:10:16:00 – 01:10:23:09
Dan LeFebvre
I just assume the, the uniform for pilots after that would just be pajamas, right? I mean, because apparently that’s what it takes to.

01:10:23:11 – 01:10:43:13
Joshua Donohue
Well, Welch, Welch and Taylor when they were tuxedo. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, yeah, they were, they were, they were partying the night before, you know, that just that’s kind of how, when Affleck and, Josh Hartnett were waking up from that, you know, they were fighting each other, drinking the night before. So it is similar to the circumstances of what Welch and Taylor did, you know, had to deal with that morning.

01:10:43:17 – 01:10:49:22
Joshua Donohue
And they. Yes, they were in their, their tuxedo, pants and whatever they else they had on from the night before.

01:10:49:22 – 01:10:58:28
Dan LeFebvre
Wow, wow. I guess it just goes to show, I mean, it was such a surprise. And then again, at being so early in the morning on a Sunday, I mean, yeah, you’d expect to sleep in.

01:10:59:00 – 01:11:02:10
Joshua Donohue
Exactly. You know, you expect to be talking about the Japanese. That’s.

01:11:02:12 – 01:11:04:13
Dan LeFebvre
Which is probably why they did it then.

01:11:04:18 – 01:11:06:10
Joshua Donohue
Yes. But,

01:11:06:12 – 01:11:11:01
Dan LeFebvre
Are you open to doing, a hypothetical what if type of question from a movie we haven’t talked about yet?

01:11:11:02 – 01:11:12:03
Joshua Donohue
Yeah, let’s do it.

01:11:12:06 – 01:11:37:12
Dan LeFebvre
The storyline of 1980s The Final Countdown follows the nuclear powered USS Nimitz as it goes through a storm that takes them back in time to December 6th, 1941, and they have the option to stop the attack before it happens. Ultimately, the time traveling storm come back before they’re able to do that. But let’s say the US did have a nuclear powered carrier like USS Nimitz during the attack.

01:11:37:15 – 01:11:47:26
Dan LeFebvre
Would that have been enough firepower to stop the attack, and if so, how do you think stopping the attack would have changed the course of history?

01:11:47:29 – 01:12:20:03
Joshua Donohue
That’s a good question. And, it would be interesting to see in one of those sort of war game simulations, those scenarios that play out, that they put. What would the most likely outcome of this type of, you know, hypothetical, what if scenario B, so if hypothetically, we you know, we can we had all of the advanced tech say if it’s just a carrier minus the task force, because especially if it’s a carrier and it’s task force, you’re going to wipe out that that opposing force pretty much a no problem at all.

01:12:20:03 – 01:12:41:07
Joshua Donohue
Because just a just based on your reach alone. Just what missile technology, how far it had come. So you could theoretically wipe out, I would say an entire Japanese task force with a few pursues and strikes, especially with guided missiles, advanced and advanced radar systems by this time. So you could really, you know, reach out and touch the enemy without them even knowing you’re there.

01:12:41:07 – 01:13:11:15
Joshua Donohue
You to the miles away. And again, missiles are starting to hit your ships and your the your aviators can’t land. You know, you’re going to lose all your air, your air support again. You’re going to attack the support ships as well. So I believe especially the biggest difference from the end of the Second World War, if you think about it, were you really have until it going up to the 1980s and the advances and guidance systems, you know, targeting systems and ordnance and things like that, things we’ve done with trial and error.

01:13:11:15 – 01:13:33:05
Joshua Donohue
You even had, drones in World War Two. Most people don’t realize that there’s actually a famous picture of Marilyn Monroe building a drone, I think, in Burbank, in the 19, 1944, I believe. So they were already experimenting with, you know, unmanned planes, guided weapons systems were already being, you know, like the Germans. I know we were very active with that.

01:13:33:10 – 01:14:04:02
Joshua Donohue
So you would need hundreds, in some cases, thousands of bombers on a single mission using these sort of unguided bombs, which is simply falling out of your bomb bay. You’re not guiding this ordnance to Earth. They’re just falling and causing untold casualties, especially in civilian areas, which, you know, of course, we find out later on, you know, that, the bomb damage assessment is, again, it’s considerable because you really wanted to, you know, have a precision strike.

01:14:04:07 – 01:14:42:06
Joshua Donohue
But when you’re putting up this many bombers at once and trying to drop, you know, thousands and thousands of tons of, you know, ordnance on a target, you there were times where they wouldn’t even be successful. It’s bad weather if they’re using smoke screens on the ground. And this would this would happen throughout the war with advanced systems on the, you know, with the planes that we have especially it’s maybe say go to 1984, 85 around that time and say you what runs how the movie was out, you had the F-14 Tomcat, you had the A-6 intruder, you have the, the E2, C Hawkeye, which with its radar dome, could detect threats from hundreds and

01:14:42:06 – 01:15:14:17
Joshua Donohue
thousands of miles away. So you could again reach out and hit the enemy. They would never even know you were there. And if it was it for it to be decisive, weapon and changed the course of the war. Yeah, I got to believe, you know, and again, in a hypothetical sense, that with the advancements that had been made really from the beginning of, you know, World War II to all the way through to the mid 1980s, and again by that time also, it was, you know, the 1980s were still like those last Cold War years.

01:15:14:24 – 01:15:39:00
Joshua Donohue
You know, the US military’s undergoing, you know, just a complete, you know, overhaul from, you know, the, from the end of the Vietnam War with new planes, you know, new bombs, new, you know, new theories, all of these things were just, you know, are always constantly changing and being upgraded, improved. So, hypothetically. Yeah, I think it could have been a decisive, decisive, outcome.

01:15:39:02 – 01:15:41:21
Dan LeFebvre
It would switch the surprise to being on the other side.

01:15:41:25 – 01:15:47:14
Joshua Donohue
Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Flipping that, flipping the script and flipping the tables on that literally.

01:15:47:16 – 01:16:05:19
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on to cover a lot of the things that we don’t see in the movies about the attack on Pearl Harbor. For anyone wanting to learn about another little known piece of history, you have a fantastic new article about the embattled Marines Air Station. Eva almost pronounced that you are, It takes a.

01:16:05:19 – 01:16:05:26
Joshua Donohue
Bit.

01:16:06:03 – 01:16:18:07
Dan LeFebvre
It takes a bit. I’ve got that linked in the show notes for everyone watching this to check that out. And while they do that, what’s something that you learned? One writing that article that might surprise someone who has only seen the movies about Pearl Harbor?

01:16:18:09 – 01:16:38:11
Joshua Donohue
There were, you know, once you start to get down to, you know, the individual stories. And when I was researching, I, I’d done quite a bit of research, as I do for all my written projects. I like to know that the little stories, the things you don’t normally hear about, you know, the things that were going on in Honolulu with the civilians were dealing with during the attack.

01:16:38:13 – 01:17:04:11
Joshua Donohue
One particular individual, and this took place at every field, was a marine who actually lost his life at the hands of his, his fellow Marines. His name is William Edward. Lou Sean. He was a marine, who was stationed at ever that morning. And there have been, many stories about and, about what really happened.

01:17:04:11 – 01:17:27:03
Joshua Donohue
There were, eyewitnesses who were there, you know, inside the base. Outside the base, from what, I found out, this particular marine that once the attack started to happen, the base starting to be hit. If he had maybe upset someone, if he had, you know, there would have been, you know, who knows what really happened.

01:17:27:06 – 01:17:54:22
Joshua Donohue
But from what, I read and researched, he was. They tried to apprehend him for whatever reason they thought he was helping the enemy. I’ve heard people say it was because of his German last name. His parents were German. That that had something to do with it. He was trying to help the Japanese. And this is kind of ridiculous, this story that he was running out into the cane fields, burning arrows into the cane field to help direct the Japanese planes towards ever.

01:17:54:25 – 01:18:23:22
Joshua Donohue
That’s probably not going to happen. But, what happens is he eventually, finds a weapon and the marine, his fellow Marines, and they go into a shootout towards the entrance of the base. Lushan is eventually killed as believe. What happens is they send a car, literally, like almost. This is something that kind of a Dick Tracy comic there in the back of the like a like a Packard with a Tommy gun, you know, out the window at them.

01:18:23:22 – 01:18:53:09
Joshua Donohue
And the one of the one of the, Marines who was there was Albert Caselli was one of the Marines who took part in the actual, the killing of Lucia and says he was filled with so many holes, we had no idea which one was the one that killed them. So that I looked into that and a solution was buried at a, a military cemetery, which in even, Claude Larkin Ebsco makes referenced in his report that there was one exception.

01:18:53:15 – 01:19:18:06
Joshua Donohue
Everybody else fought hard. And all this except with one exception, basically Lushan. And it’s not really known the circumstances of. So what happens is it was it it was he trying to collaborate that we did. We didn’t really get the full picture of what happened. I looked later on and it said that he was cleared of all wrongdoing and again, was, you know, it was, you know, buried in the military cemetery.

01:19:18:06 – 01:19:49:18
Joshua Donohue
So we don’t really we know, but we don’t know, kind of what happened in that in that case, another thing that people may not realize is that there was a second attack on Pearl Harbor. This takes place in March of 1942, and what’s known as operation K, the Japanese will send two, colonies a k Emily flying boats filled with bombs to try and hit Pearl Harbor at night, to try and disrupt the salvage and, the repairs going on there.

01:19:49:20 – 01:20:13:00
Joshua Donohue
They are unsuccessful. Oahu was under a total blackout, which proves effective. The bombs land either in the Pacific Ocean or on the side of a an extinct volcano. I think there was, I think Roosevelt High School. I think the windows were blown out or something like that, but they don’t get even close to their intended target. So kind of little stories that you find out as you’re doing your research, it’s it’s pretty interesting stuff.

01:20:13:03 – 01:20:15:28
Dan LeFebvre
Not so much a surprise anymore in 1942.

01:20:15:29 – 01:20:25:00
Joshua Donohue
Exactly. We were ready. We’re we’re ready this time. Or they actually had radar. They they believe the radar operators this time around, unlike the first time around.

01:20:25:02 – 01:20:30:22
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I’ll make sure to add a link to that in the show notes. And, before we started recording, you mentioned some things that you’re working on now.

01:20:30:26 – 01:20:55:15
Joshua Donohue
Yeah. So I am currently working on the sort of the last, phases of finishing my article about my uncle who fought in Vietnam. He was with the 17th Cav, 198th Light Infantry Brigade, the 23rd of Macao. He fought, from August 1968 to August 1969. So it’s it’s going to be focusing on his time there.

01:20:55:17 – 01:21:13:27
Joshua Donohue
And although I’ve interviewed a bunch of the veterans who knew him and they just, you know, they all rave about him. He actually passed away, about ten years ago. So it’s definitely a personal story. He was somebody I admired and looked up to my whole life, and he never spoke of the war. You know, I never once asked him about it.

01:21:14:00 – 01:21:42:15
Joshua Donohue
And, you know, now, hearing about what, you know, all of his exploits and how well-respected he was amongst his men in Vietnam was just saying, look, I have to write this story. It’s just it’s just too good not to. I am also in the early phases of writing my first book. That is going to be about a soldier, John Hollar, Lieutenant John Hummel, who fought, during the Battle of Bataan when the Japanese invaded the Philippines.

01:21:42:18 – 01:21:58:01
Joshua Donohue
So he was with the 194th Tank Battalion. And it’s about his story. And, it’s it’s remarkable. I was reading through his memoirs and the some of the stuff that I read, I was like, I have to tell this story. It’s just just too good not to.

01:21:58:04 – 01:22:07:26
Dan LeFebvre
Wow, I can’t wait for those. And for anybody watching this, check the show notes, because as soon as those are available, I will make sure to add those in there. But the Iva article is available right now. Thanks again so much for your time.

01:22:07:26 – 01:22:17:08
Joshua Donohue
Josh, thank you so much for having me on. Appreciate it.

01:22:17:11 – 01:22:35:23
Dan LeFebvre
This episode is based on a true story was produced by Dan the Fab. Thank you once again to Joshua Donohue for helping us learn the things we don’t get to see in the movies about Pearl Harbor happened in the show. Notes. To find a link to Josh’s latest work as of this recording, that is his article entitled Embattled Marines at Air Station Iva.

01:22:35:25 – 01:22:55:11
Dan LeFebvre
We talked about that throughout this episode, but if you’re catching this episode later, Josh talked about some of the things that he’s working on right now as of this recording. So as soon as those are available, I’ll be adding those to the show notes as well. As always, you can find the links to everything over at. Based on a True Story podcast.com/379.

01:22:55:14 – 01:23:20:10
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, now it’s time for the answer to our two tours and a live game from the beginning of the episode. And as a quick refresher, here are the two truths and one lie again. Number one, Wake Island was attacked just a few hours after receiving word of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Number two Phil Rasmussen went up in his 36 wearing pajamas and landed with about 500 bullet holes in his plane.

01:23:20:12 – 01:23:33:07
Dan LeFebvre
Number three. In addition to military targets, the Japanese attacked numerous civilian targets around Pearl Harbor. Did you figure out which one is a lie? I’ve got the answer in the envelope, so let’s open that up.

01:23:33:09 – 01:23:54:06
Dan LeFebvre
And the lie is number three. As we learned from Josh, there were not any civilian targets around Pearl Harbor. But that’s not to say that there weren’t civilian casualties. Josh told us stories of some of those civilians caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. And we also learned that many of the civilian deaths were actually caused by friendly fire and the chaos of the surprise attack.

01:23:54:06 – 01:24:15:21
Dan LeFebvre
Anti-Aircraft rounds shot by Americans in the harbor ended up landing in and around Honolulu. Thanks for sticking around to the end. If you’re watching the video version here, in a moment you’re going to see the credits roll, and if you want to get your name in the credits for the next video and on the website, you can learn how to become a base on a true story producer using the link in the description or over at based on a True Story podcast.

01:24:15:26 – 01:24:27:15
Dan LeFebvre
Combat support once again, that’s based on a true story podcast.com/support. Until next time. Thanks so much for spending your time with Josh and today, and I’ll chat with you again really soon.

 

00:00:00:21 – 00:00:14:17
Dan LeFebvre
Before we talk about some of the details in the movie, let’s take a step back and look at the movie overall. So if you were to give Young Guns II a letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get?

00:00:14:20 – 00:00:39:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I think I’d probably go with C+. It’s not the most historically accurate movie ever made. It is probably more accurate than a lot of the other Billy the Kid movies, and I think they really, like, captured the essence of Billy the Kid is personality, just kind of the way he was. This is mischievousness, I guess. So for that alone, I’m going to give it a c-plus.

00:00:39:26 – 00:00:53:13
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah, that’s pretty good. Especially being a sequel as well. Sometimes that well, well throw because they’re kind of tied to the inaccuracies of the first movie and then yeah, tying ins. I’ve had that be an issue before too. So I see plus it’s not bad actually.

00:00:53:15 – 00:01:12:27
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And it’s one of the better sequels that have ever been made. You know, a lot of times the sequels are pretty lackluster. The young guns, too, definitely lived up to the, the legacy of Young Guns one. So and I grew up with these movies, man. I used to play Young Guns at recess in, elementary school. So I was all about young guns.

00:01:12:29 – 00:01:17:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. Nice. I’m sure that helped influence what you’re doing now.

00:01:17:21 – 00:01:39:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there’s a few works of art, I guess that definitely. If it wasn’t for. If it wasn’t for the book Lonesome Dove, and if it wasn’t for Young Guns one and two, I probably would not be doing this podcast. It really instilled in me just a love of history in general. All was history. And with young guns.

00:01:39:09 – 00:01:52:20
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Billy the Kid, man, he he’s just the guy I keep going back to out of everybody I cover on my show. All the mountain men and gunfighters and outlaws. Billy the Kid is just the guy I keep coming back to.

00:01:52:23 – 00:02:07:03
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movie at the very beginning, a Young Guns two were introduced to an older man going by the name of Brushy Bill Roberts, and he claims to be Billy the Kid. And he’s proving his claims by telling the story to a lawyer. And that story is basically the plot of the entire movie.

00:02:07:03 – 00:02:26:26
Dan LeFebvre
So we’ll be talking about that throughout just our discussion today. And then, of course, we’ll circle back to Brushy Bill himself when we see him at the end of the movie. But one of the most common things for movies to do is to just make up characters. So for those of us who have only seen the movie, is it true that there was someone named Brushy Bill who claimed to be Billy the Kid?

00:02:26:29 – 00:02:48:14
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yes, that is absolutely true. Brushy Bill Roberts, his real name was Oliver Roberts, but he did come forward in the 1940s claiming to be Billy the Kid. And he wanted that pardon? Just like he says in the movie at the beginning. The main difference I would say the movie, it looks like they filmed it at White Sands, New Mexico.

00:02:48:14 – 00:02:58:12
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I’m not entirely sure about that, but that’s what it looks like to me. That’s not how the meeting went down. It actually occurred at Roche’s house in Hiko, Texas. Okay.

00:02:58:13 – 00:03:03:02
Dan LeFebvre
Other than that, yeah, it was kind of a weird location just in the middle of the desert. Yeah, the side of the road.

00:03:03:04 – 00:03:17:15
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I guess it they they were kind of going for the effect of, you know, he was still, a wanted outlaw, just a desperado living in the desert. But now, at that point in time, Brushy Bill Roberts was definitely living in just a normal Texas town.

00:03:17:18 – 00:03:35:29
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, interesting. Yeah. Well, we’ll circle back to him, but, if we go back to the 1800 storyline in the movie, we get introduced to some other characters as the members of Billy the Kid’s gang. So, I’ll list off the four who I consider the four main characters. Feel free to add more if you’d like, but there’s Doc Scurlock.

00:03:35:29 – 00:03:55:07
Dan LeFebvre
He’s played by Kiefer Sutherland, Arkansas, Dave Ruta by who’s played by Christian Slater, Chavez Chavez, played by Lou Diamond Phillips. And then someone that, is pretty popular. Pat Garrett, another one of those popular ones, he’s played by William Petersen. Were those characters based on real people who rode with Billy the Kid?

00:03:55:09 – 00:04:21:12
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yes, with a couple of asterisks. So Pat Garrett never actually rode with Billy the Kid as far as outlaw activities or anything like that, that’s they they really kind of strayed from the truth in that aspect. In the movie, Pat Garrett and Billy were friends. Pat. Pat was a buffalo hunter in Texas. He moved to New Mexico. I’m not exactly sure of the exact year.

00:04:21:15 – 00:04:41:16
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And he settled down, at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and he just ran different businesses. He had, he was a bartender for a little while. He had, like, a butcher shop for a while, and he and Billy would hang out whenever they were together. They would gamble together. They would dance with the senior items, all that stuff.

00:04:41:19 – 00:05:09:12
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
We we can kind of circle back to how close their friendship was later on. But yeah, Pat Garrett absolutely was a real person. He he was involved in Billy the Kid’s life, but there’s really not much evidence that he participated in outlaw activities. Now, everybody stole horses back in those days. Everybody stole a few cows. Every now and then, even the most respectable of people, you know, had a few stolen, some stolen livestock in the past.

00:05:09:15 – 00:05:33:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There are allegations that Garrett was selling stolen livestock out of his butcher shop. He himself may have gone and rounded up a few had here and there. I wouldn’t doubt it. But as far as him going out and, you know, killing bounty hunters with Billy the Kid or, just basically doing any illegal activities with Billy other than maybe possibly buying and selling stolen livestock.

00:05:33:06 – 00:05:59:29
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There’s really no indication as far as, the others docs Gerlach and Jose Chavez each others, those are both real life people. They were more involved in Billy’s life. If anybody’s ever seen Young Guns part one, where they basically cover the Lincoln County War, that’s when Scurlock and Chavez were riding with Billy the Kid. They were. They were Lincoln County regulators.

00:06:00:01 – 00:06:24:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
After the Lincoln County War, they kind of drifted apart. Chavez stayed down in Lincoln County for a while. He would end up going to prison later on. Doc Scurlock, he would settle up at Fort Sumner. So he and Billy still remain close. But doc started distancing himself. By the time the events unfold that we see in Young Guns, too, Doc Scurlock was already living in Texas.

00:06:24:28 – 00:06:49:14
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
You left the whole thing behind. He got buried, he settled down, became an honest man. Dave Rude, a bore also very real person. He was never known as Arkansas Dave, though historically, I’m not really sure where that nickname comes from. There are stories that I’ve been unable to corroborate that he may have stolen cattle in Arkansas years prior.

00:06:49:16 – 00:07:08:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I actually reached out to John Fusco. This was a few months ago. John John Fusco was the guy who wrote and directed Young Guns one and two. He’s done a lot of great movies, and I thought maybe he had a source on that that I wasn’t familiar with. So I reached out like, hey, man, where did you find this information about him being called Arkansas?

00:07:08:09 – 00:07:31:04
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Dave, is that something you just made up? According to him, he could be completely pulling my chain, but he says he just made it up. He said it sounded you had a better ring to it than dirty. Dirty Dave. Rude about what he was actually known as, believe it or not. So I guess Arkansas Dave sounds cooler than Dirty Dave, but, any even that dirt, even that Dirty Dave nickname I.

00:07:31:06 – 00:07:47:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I may be mistaken here, but I believe it only comes from one source. At one point, Dave was arrested and taken to Las Vegas, New Mexico. And, there was a journalist there. A local paper published an article saying that he was wearing the same clothes that he had been wearing the last time he was in Vegas.

00:07:48:00 – 00:08:06:03
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So I guess that’s where the dirty thing comes from, whether or not he was unhygienic, I honestly don’t have any idea. But, yeah, he was the real deal. He was really more of an accomplished outlaw than any of these guys. He was a few years older than Billy the Kid. He had, he had been, caught robbing a train in Kansas.

00:08:06:05 – 00:08:27:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He spent time, like I said, in Las Vegas, New Mexico, sort of as a crooked lawman. And he eventually, participated in the killing of a jailer. So by the time him and Billy link up, Dave was wanted for murder. But, yeah, all these guys were real. The other two members of the gang that are that you see in Young Guns, too.

00:08:27:00 – 00:08:45:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
You got Tom Foley or. Oh, weird. Depending on which version of his last name you want to go with. He too was a real life person. He wasn’t a 14 year old kid like they show in the movie, but he was real. He was a member of Billy’s gang. The other guy you see, Henry French, he’s sort of a composite character.

00:08:45:14 – 00:08:54:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There was a real guy named, Henry Newton French that Billy rode with.

00:08:54:20 – 00:09:18:26
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
They I guess they just kind of made, like, a composite character out of a few different people. But in all reality, in the events that we see in Young Guns to Billy, the kids main core group was Dave Root of Ball, Tom folly, and two other guys named Billy Wilson and Tom Pickett. Those seem to be his main outlaw buddies at that time.

00:09:18:28 – 00:09:45:21
Dan LeFebvre
Maybe it’s just me, but when you have a nickname like Arkansas Dave, I assume that either he’s from Arkansas or he made a name in Arkansas before joining Billy the Kid. And I guess throughout the movie, he’s also kind of trying to he, he’s trying to be the one that everybody knows who he is. So I’m was just assuming that he made a name for himself in Arkansas somewhere as a, as an outlaw beforehand or something.

00:09:45:24 – 00:10:06:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And, you know, Dave was Dave got around, man. Dave. Dave knew he rub shoulders with a lot of famous people from the Old West, like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday. He knew all those guys. So, I, how, you know, I’ve heard people say that Ruta Ball was the only man that Billy the Kid feared.

00:10:06:25 – 00:10:30:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I don’t know if that’s true, but like I said a minute ago, he was a few years older than Billy, so I’m not sure how much of it was just him. Just straight up taking orders from a 19 year old rather than them just working together, you know what I mean? But yeah, he’s a really interesting guy. If anybody’s interested in learning more about him, I, I do have a full episode just on Dave Root about.

00:10:30:26 – 00:10:47:03
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, awesome. Yeah, I’ll make sure to add a link to that in the show notes so people can check that out. If we go back to the movie, New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace convinces Billy the Kid to testify against the Murph and Dolly faction who murdered, Murphy Dolan, I should say faction who murdered John Tunstall in exchange for a pardon.

00:10:47:03 – 00:11:06:18
Dan LeFebvre
That was kind of the context of the first movie, but then. So Billy the Kid and this one, young guns to Billy the Kid agrees and allows Wallace to arrest him so Wallace can protect Billy from anyone who wants to kill him before he can testify. But then Billy’s double crossed when the prosecuting attorney sides with the Irish politicians running Lincoln County.

00:11:06:26 – 00:11:29:14
Dan LeFebvre
Instead of going along with the pardon, he intends on taking Billy to trial, where he will surely be hanged. And while the movie doesn’t really mention it here, the impression that I got was this is the pardon that the older Brushy Bill mentioned wanting at the beginning of the movie. Is there any truth to the movie’s storyline around the pardon for Billy the Kid being offered?

00:11:29:16 – 00:11:51:25
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yes, that that’s also based on a true story. Billy was offered a pardon from Gov Jim. Governor Lew Wallace a little bit different. What they show in the movie, Billy actually reached out to him, as opposed to Wallace reaching out to Billy the Kid at that time, mostly due to the Lincoln County War, that area was in complete disarray.

00:11:51:25 – 00:12:17:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Like matter of fact, whenever Lew Wallace was, was made governor right around the same time, then president it was Rutherford because he, gosh, what do they call it when you you martial law. What did he something martial law. Anyway, he he, Gosh, I’m I’m blanking on the word. He imposed martial law on Lincoln County.

00:12:18:00 – 00:12:37:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I mean, there was a there was a lot of outlaw tivity going on at that time, a lot of lawlessness. But also at the same time, Governor Lew Wallace sort of issued a blanket amnesty for people on both sides, as long as they didn’t have any active indictments against them, which that didn’t apply to Billy. He was wanted for murder.

00:12:37:09 – 00:13:00:17
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So were several of his close friends. So I guess he wanted in on a little bit of that amnesty action. So that’s why he reached out to the governor. They did meet in Lincoln like they show in the movie. They met in secrecy. They sort of hammered out the details and yeah, Billy left that meeting convinced that he was going to receive a pardon, and he agreed to testify.

00:13:00:19 – 00:13:24:14
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, I guess it’s that’s why they call it the Wild West, right? I mean, just, you know, everybody’s got some sort of crime that they’ve done, like you’re talking about before. So I don’t know what what what was just the general public opinion of these pardons being offered, like because Billy the Kid at that point was he, well, like a well known outlaw that then offering a pardon to him would have affected.

00:13:24:20 – 00:13:37:02
Dan LeFebvre
I’m trying to think of, you know, politicians today offering a pardon and the public reaction to who they offer the pardon to. Was that kind of a thing back then, too, or is is am I projecting today’s, politics back then?

00:13:37:05 – 00:14:03:04
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
You know, I’m not sure how that applied to, at the at the time frame when Billy and Governor Wallace agreed on the pardon, I’m not really sure what the public sentiment was. Billy was nowhere near as famous in his lifetime as he is nowadays. I mean, a lot of these famous figures from the Old West, their fame comes from bestselling novels and movies that followed the books later on.

00:14:03:07 – 00:14:35:01
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He wasn’t a he was notorious. He was well known in, in that area of New Mexico, certainly. And as his fame grew, you know, he would be reported on papers as far away as New York City or even Paris, France, you know, but he wasn’t necessarily a household name, I can tell you that. Spoiler alert, when he when he was killed later on, there were so many grateful people that the guy that killed him ended up receiving several thousand dollars just in donations, just from people that were glad to be rid of Billy the Kid.

00:14:35:01 – 00:15:01:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So as far as the public sentiment, you know, I’m not entirely sure that the public was aware that he was being offered a pardon. That’s another thing. There’s there’s not really any anything written down in black and white saying Lew Wallace absolutely guaranteed ability to get a pardon. It was more of an agreement. You know, there’s some people that think maybe the Billy read more into Wallace’s words than he should have.

00:15:01:21 – 00:15:11:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Maybe he put a little bit too much faith into Wallace. But as far as I’m aware, this was not excuse me, this was not a known thing that was just reported on the newspapers.

00:15:11:21 – 00:15:14:06
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, okay. More of an under the table type.

00:15:14:09 – 00:15:26:15
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Right. And, you know, when they arrested Billy, they had to stage an arrest so that they he didn’t just, you know, walk in one day, they arrest me. They had to stage an arrest to make it look legit.

00:15:26:18 – 00:15:37:05
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. The movie kind of alludes to that. I don’t remember actually seeing it happen in the movie, but it alludes to, oh, we gotta stage this to put on the appearance that we’ve actually caught you. Yeah.

00:15:37:07 – 00:15:39:02
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Right. Right. Yep.

00:15:39:04 – 00:15:58:24
Dan LeFebvre
Well, after he realizes in the movie, after he realizes he’s not going to get the pardon, Billy slips out of his handcuffs. Thanks to, as the movie puts it, a historical and biological fact that he had small hands and big wrists. Then he proceeds to escape and comes back, pretending to be part of a lynch mob. He there they have faces covered.

00:15:58:26 – 00:16:15:04
Dan LeFebvre
Law enforcement just hands over Doc and Chavez, assuming that they’re going to get killed by this lynch mob. But then, of course, the real vigilantes show up and there’s a huge shootout before Billy and his gang can escape. Did this escape from the Lincoln County Courthouse really happening the way that we see in the movie?

00:16:15:07 – 00:16:37:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Absolutely not. You know, it was nothing like that. Billy was not in chains. He was not locked behind bars. He was basically under voluntary house arrest during that period. So there are kernels of truth in there. You know, they show everybody being thrown into like a pit in the ground. That was a real thing. There was a pit jail in Lincoln, New Mexico.

00:16:38:01 – 00:16:59:21
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I a matter of fact, Billy had been thrown in that pit, back at the very beginning of the Lincoln County War. So he had actually spent time in there. I may I may not be, I’m not exactly sure about this, but by the time he comes back to Lincoln, I think they may have had an actual jail at that point, but, no, there was no gunfight with a lynch mob.

00:16:59:21 – 00:17:23:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Nothing like that. Billy stuck around, and, you know, they gloss over a few things. Billy did testify in real life. He, he testified in quite a few trials against a lot of his old enemies. And, he spent. Man, I want to say 2 to 3 months there in Lincoln, basically under a voluntary house arrest. And once he figured out that pardon wasn’t coming, he just got on a horse and rode out.

00:17:23:12 – 00:17:27:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
That was it. No gunfight, no dramatics, nothing like that.

00:17:27:11 – 00:17:33:21
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, okay. Well, that wouldn’t be as fun in the movie.

00:17:33:24 – 00:17:55:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Oh, yeah, I know, I know, you know, one thing you touched on was the big wrist and tiny hands. I’ve never I’ve always struggled with this because I’ve never seen anybody with wrists bigger than their hands, you know what I mean? But it is an undeniable fact that Billy was able to slip out of his chains on multiple occasions.

00:17:55:11 – 00:18:06:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He was able to slide out of them. So he may have had abnormally tiny hands. I really don’t know. But that is a true fact. In this instance, though, he was he was not shackled or in chains or anything like that.

00:18:07:00 – 00:18:28:10
Dan LeFebvre
I touched on it briefly too, but the movie does make a point to say that there’s one thing an outlaw feared in New Mexico Territory, and that’s lynch mob justice. And that to me, as I was watching the movie, it implied that they didn’t necessarily fear law enforcement, though. So is it true that outlaws in the Old West feared vigilantes wanting to lynch them rather than actual law enforcement?

00:18:28:13 – 00:18:53:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yeah, they feared both. So vigilante justice was a very real problem in the Old West, particularly in places like around that area of Lincoln, New Mexico. And part of it came from the law enforcement officials themselves being just as corrupt as the outlaws. So a lot of times they would just arrest their enemies as opposed to the people that were really committing the crimes.

00:18:53:03 – 00:19:20:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So on one hand, you had sheriffs and town marshals that weren’t doing anything about the crime. So the only recourse for justice in a lot of situations were these lynch mobs. And at the same time, if you were arrested, you know, I’ve covered a lot of these guys, man. So many times, I can tell you there would be is the stone cold killer like John Wesley Hardin or King Fisher Clay Allison, and they would gun somebody down in cold blood.

00:19:21:00 – 00:19:43:04
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
They would make it to trial and they would get off, and they would just get off with a plea of self-defense or something like that. Nine times out of ten, if you made it to trial without being lynched by vigilantes, you would just get off scot free. So that was another reason why the vigilantes were so prevalent. They knew, if you know, this guy actually goes before a judge, he’s just going to get a slap on the wrist.

00:19:43:04 – 00:20:05:20
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And most so if we want justice be served, we’re going to have to do it ourselves. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of innocent people also got lynched. No due process, you know, no, jury of your peers or anything like that. So it was not a good situation. Billy would have definitely been afraid of mob justice. He knew all about mob justice.

00:20:05:22 – 00:20:26:21
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
In fact, I mentioned a moment ago they had a staged arrest. He was very particular in who he was going to allow to arrest him. And he was basically worried that if the wrong people arrested him, air quotes, then he would get shot in the back while once again attempting to escape. You know, and you know him and his buddies.

00:20:26:21 – 00:20:51:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
They did the same thing during the Lincoln County War. They murdered a couple of guys who they claimed later on were attempting to escape. More than likely, it was just an execution. He knew the same thing happening to him would be a very real possibility, but if it was a legitimate if it was like a legitimate sheriff that arrested him, that was half ass honest, he would have been all right.

00:20:51:00 – 00:21:01:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He just didn’t want any of his enemies to. A lot of his enemies also wore badges because they would have killed him in a heartbeat. No doubt about it.

00:21:01:11 – 00:21:09:15
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it sounds like the justice system wasn’t really great back then and then serving justice.

00:21:09:18 – 00:21:28:10
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
You. Well, you know, I, I, I’ve thought about that before. I was you know, it almost seems like they aired on the side of justice, almost like, okay, we’re not going to convict this person unless we know without a shadow of a doubt that they’re they’re guilty, right. So a lot of times I think people think of Old West justice like it was very harsh.

00:21:28:13 – 00:21:38:26
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
You get caught stealing a horse and you’re going to be executed. Nah, they would just send them to jail for a little bit or let them go. If a lynch mob didn’t get them, they were just fine.

00:21:38:29 – 00:21:56:21
Dan LeFebvre
So then is it maybe that they did? It just wasn’t proof. I mean, everybody didn’t have phones and be able to take pictures and video and stuff like that. So it’s pretty much it sounds like a lot of he said, she said type, evidence. And so if it’s really hard to prove, then they could get away with it.

00:21:56:23 – 00:22:15:02
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yeah. I mean, if you if you get in a gunfight with somebody in a saloon and enough of your buddies are willing to say that the other person drew first, you’re fine, you’re going to get by with it. And that’s that’s what I’ve seen happen time and time again with a lot of these guys. They just had really good lawyers and, some pretty good friends to testify under oath.

00:22:15:04 – 00:22:32:24
Dan LeFebvre
If you go back to the movie after escaping, Billy and his gang plan to go to Old Mexico. But they need some money first. So they go to the richest man in New Mexico Territory, John Chisum. And the movie sets it up that John Chisholm was the financial partner for Tunstall and McSween, which makes him a friend of Billy the Kid.

00:22:32:26 – 00:22:52:02
Dan LeFebvre
But once Billy gets there, he demands $500 and Chisum refuses to pay. So instead Billy kills a couple of Chisholm’s men, and that basically turns Chisolm into an enemy. So then Chisum decides to use his money to finance the hunting of Billy the Kid. Was that really how Billy the Kid turned John Chisholm against him?

00:22:52:05 – 00:23:15:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yes or no? He didn’t kill his men like they show in the movie. He did try to basically extort money from Chisholm. That much is true. Chisholm refused to pay, at which point Billy started stealing cattle from him. Now, was Billy already stealing cattle from him? Probably. Would he have stolen cattle even if Chisum had paid him the money?

00:23:15:20 – 00:23:36:20
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Probably. Billy. Billy was a thief, man. He stole horses and he stole cattle. That’s what he did. You know, Billy the Kid never robbed a train. He never held up a stagecoach. He never, robbed a bank. Nothing like that. He was just a cattle thief and a horse. The. A lot of people at that time were stealing Mr. Chisholm’s cattle.

00:23:36:20 – 00:23:54:17
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
A lot of people, Billy got the brunt of the blame, though he was the more well known of the people that were out there robbing with both hands. And even there were even certain killings that he was not involved in, that he was blamed for. And then that kind of leads back into what we were talking about earlier.

00:23:54:17 – 00:24:17:22
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
As far as his notoriety goes, as his fame grew, he just got blamed for pretty much everything that occurred in New Mexico Territory at that time. But yeah, as soon as he started stealing cattle from Chisum, that’s when Chisum and there was actually another guy named. Well, we’ll get to him in a minute named Joseph Lila. And they were both a let me correct that.

00:24:17:22 – 00:24:39:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I’m not entirely sure I’m saying his last name correctly, Joseph Lee or Joseph Lee. But, they were both really fed up with Billy the Kid just stealing from everybody. And, but yeah, it was primarily the stealing of Chisholm’s livestock that turned him against Billy the Kid. Now, there is another story. It’s a little bit apocryphal.

00:24:39:26 – 00:25:03:26
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Supposedly, John Tunstall, not John Tunstall. John Chisum showed up at, Fort Sumner one day in the saloon there, in the cantina, and Billy held him pistol, gunpoint and basically demanded, I want $500 right now. Chisum said, hey, I don’t have my checkbook on me. I don’t have any money on me. Let me go back to my ranch and I’ll send you a check in the mail.

00:25:03:26 – 00:25:23:17
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Basically. Billy ended up. Let him go. Now, whether or not that actually happened, I don’t know. Doesn’t sound like something that Chisum would agree to. I think Chisum would have probably told him to go to hell, but the source on that is a guy named Paco. Ennio who? Who did know Billy the Kid. But, you know, sometimes Paco, like, stretched the truth.

00:25:23:17 – 00:25:30:19
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
A little bit. But yeah, as far as the animosity between Billy and, Chisum, that was absolutely true.

00:25:30:21 – 00:25:49:03
Dan LeFebvre
Were they ever allies then? Because when they ride in the movie, when they ride up to Chisum, it gives the impression that, in the events of the first movie, the first young guns that Chisum was an ally of, of Tunstall and McSweeney. So perhaps he and Billy were friends at one point. That’s the impression I got from the movie.

00:25:49:03 – 00:26:07:16
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
At least they probably weren’t friends just because at that time frame, when the Lincoln County War was going on, Billy would have been 17 or 18. Chisum was, you know, a middle aged man by that point, he probably didn’t even know about Billy the Kid during the Lincoln County War, but he would have certainly known about him at this point.

00:26:07:21 – 00:26:30:26
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And, yeah, Chisum was somewhat aligned with, Billy’s former boss, Tunstall and Tunstall’s partner, Alexander McSween. Chisum really didn’t take part in that conflict, though. But he was he was sort of, you know, the the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Basically, Chisum was kind of opposed to the same people that Tunstall and McSween were opposed to.

00:26:30:28 – 00:26:45:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
But as far as any as far as Billy’s claims that Chisum owed him money, I think he like I said, he was basically just trying to extort some money from him, which he would have stolen from him anyway. I’m 100% positive of that.

00:26:45:07 – 00:26:48:28
Dan LeFebvre
And, I mean, it sounds like. Yeah, stealing cattle was a thing.

00:26:49:00 – 00:27:08:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And Chisum stole cattle. Everybody back in those days was a it was a livestock thief. Chisum used to, send his men over to the Mescalero Apache reservation and steal their livestock because he knew they couldn’t do anything about it. No, he’s not exactly, you know, the purest of souls either.

00:27:08:07 – 00:27:30:29
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Okay. I guess, do unto others as you would have done unto you. And he’s. He. It’s happening. It’s happening, is happening. Well, you might have already, answered this some, but if we go back to the movies, versions of events, at this point, John Chisum decides to hire a thief to catch a thief. So then throughout the movie, we get Pat Garrett going from being friend and riding with Billy the Kid to wanting to settle down.

00:27:31:01 – 00:27:52:23
Dan LeFebvre
And Chisum hears about this and offers Garrett the chance to settle down by making him Sheriff Pat Garrett, giving him $500 cash up front, the men and resources to hunt down Billy the Kid, and then a guarantee of $500 cash. Once Garrett kills Billy and if were to believe the movie’s version of events, Garrett accepts the job offer and the hunt for Billy the Kid begins.

00:27:52:25 – 00:28:03:10
Dan LeFebvre
Does the movie accurately portray this swing in Garrett’s character arc, going from being Billy’s friend to then being hired by Chisum as the sheriff to kill him?

00:28:03:12 – 00:28:23:13
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Well, you know, there’s, there’s a several different caveats there. You know, Chisum had no authority to make anybody a sheriff. So really, all all he did was convince Pat Garrett to run for sheriff. He still had to be elected and all that stuff. He still had to go out on the campaign trail. Excuse me. What happened?

00:28:23:20 – 00:28:49:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Garrett got married. I want to say it was in January of 1880. Not long thereafter, he moved, to Roswell, New Mexico, which at that point was part of Lincoln County. Back in those days, Lincoln County was massive. It was it was way bigger than it is nowadays. So Roswell, New Mexico was still Lincoln County, while he was there in Lincoln, he gets buddy buddy with John Chisum and the guy I mentioned earlier, Joseph Leia.

00:28:49:07 – 00:29:15:15
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And they basically convinced him to run for sheriff. I don’t know where they got the $500 up front and $500 after. I don’t believe that either one of those guys paid Garrett anything to run. You know, he Garrett wanted to become a respectable man. You know, that was, a big goal of his. You. He had spent a lot of time at Fort Sumner, sort of cavorting with people that maybe had a little bit of loose morals.

00:29:15:18 – 00:29:36:27
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He was a married man. Now he was going to raise a family. He wanted to make a name for himself. And, yeah, they convinced him to run for sheriff. I don’t think they there was any money exchanged. Later on, Billy would have a $500 bounty placed on its head. Maybe that’s where they’re basing it from. But that bounty was never from Chisum or, Joseph.

00:29:36:27 – 00:29:41:06
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Leia. That was actually offered by, the Wallace, the governor.

00:29:41:08 – 00:29:59:22
Dan LeFebvre
In the movie. The impression I got was that Chisum convinced Garrett to to be sheriff, specifically to hunt for Billy the Kid. Was that basically the reason why he became sheriff then? To hunt for Billy? Or was it more that he became sheriff and then. Well, now there’s this this outlaw, and that’s that’s your job?

00:29:59:24 – 00:30:24:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
No. Yeah, that was his problem. You’re all right about that. That was his primary reason for running for sheriff. That’s why they wanted him to run for sheriff. And you know, part of it, like you say, it takes a thief to catch a thief. While there’s not necessarily in any indication that Garrett and Billy had rode the hoot off trail together, anything like that, he was still very familiar with Billy’s mannerisms, with Billy’s various hideouts, with his habits.

00:30:24:27 – 00:30:48:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So he was intimately aware of Billy the Kid. Now, as far as their friendship is concerned, this is something that historians still debate about all the time. There’s some people that try to downplay it and say they were. They were just acquaintances, you know, there’s other people that go with, basically the same route they went in the movie that they were just the best of friends, almost like brothers.

00:30:48:26 – 00:31:13:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. If, Paulina Maxwell, she was, one of Billy the Kids gal pals. If what she said is any indication, they were extremely tight. They were very good friends. But that friendship doesn’t really seem to have extended outside of Fort Sumner now. Paul Lita would later, decades later, she would say that when they found out that Garrett was running for sheriff, it came as a big shock to them.

00:31:13:24 – 00:31:27:03
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Like they didn’t think he would turn on on his friends like that. And, that’s basically that basically severed their friendship from that point on. You know, if they came face to face, there was probably going to be some violence.

00:31:27:05 – 00:31:32:12
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So it wasn’t like Garrett ran with Billy the Kid, though, like we see happening in the beginning of the movie.

00:31:32:14 – 00:31:57:17
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
If anybody can find any historical evidence showing this might. I’m all eyes and ears, but I have never been able to find any indication that they did outlaw activities together. Now, when Garrett won, the matter of fact, Billy actually campaigned against him during the during the election, he would travel out. Yeah, he would travel out to, like, the, local Hispanic communities and tell them, hey, don’t vote for this joker.

00:31:57:19 – 00:32:11:21
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Won enough. Garrett had the backing not just of Chisholm and Leah, but he had, his cronies up in Santa Fe, the Santa Fe ring. They were back in his play. Now, interestingly enough.

00:32:11:23 – 00:32:34:16
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
You know, it was just like, nowadays you can win an election, but you’re still not going to take hold of that office until the following year, right? So if you’re elected in November, you’re not going to take office until January. February. It was the same thing with Pat Garrett. However, the guy who was the sheriff, the incumbent, the guy that he beat in the election, he was a he basically went ahead and deputized Garrett and in step back.

00:32:34:16 – 00:32:56:02
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So for all intents and purposes, Garrett was sheriff in just he was basically sheriff at that point as soon as he won the election, he may not have been sheriff in name, but he was a deputy with the power of the the Lincoln County sheriff. He also received a commission as a deputy US marshal is Fort Sumner where Billy the Kid like to spend time?

00:32:56:02 – 00:33:05:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
That was not in Lincoln County. So even a sheriff, he would not have jurisdiction up there. But with that marshal’s badge, now you can go in anywhere.

00:33:05:07 – 00:33:17:20
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, ink. So maybe maybe that’s kind of in the movie because they hand him the badge right away. So maybe that was kind of a nod to that of, pretty much becoming a sheriff. Right away. It sounds like, even if it’s not official by title, but.

00:33:17:22 – 00:33:28:01
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And he did I mean, as soon as he as soon as he got that badge, he went on the hunt. That was that was his primary goal. Not necessarily to kill, but to arrest Billy the Kid.

00:33:28:04 – 00:33:43:15
Dan LeFebvre
In the movie, after he becomes sheriff, we see Pat Garrett hiring, journalists to tag along and record the hunt for Billy the Kid. So then he can turn it into a book. And then at the end of the movie, there’s some text on screen saying it. The book was called The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, and it was a failure according to the movie.

00:33:43:22 – 00:33:47:19
Dan LeFebvre
Did he really write that book and was it a failure or was it any good?

00:33:47:21 – 00:34:06:07
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yeah, it was a failure at the time. But yeah, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid was published, I believe it was in 1882. So very, very soon after the events that are portrayed in the movie. And the guy that you see there, Ash Upson, he was hired by Pat Garrett basically to be a ghost writer.

00:34:06:14 – 00:34:23:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So as far as his, you know, I have a love hate relationship with that book. You can tell the parts that Ash Upson wrote, and you can tell the parts that Pat Garrett wrote. Ash ups him. He was he was a little full of it. He never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

00:34:23:28 – 00:34:47:03
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Right? Ash Upson even went so far, he didn’t know Billy the Kid’s actual birth date, so he just substituted it with his own birth date. Like stuff like that. You know, he would just make stuff up. You can kind of sorta tell where ash ups and stops writing and Pat Garrett takes over, because the parts were where Pat’s talking about, especially towards the end of the book.

00:34:47:05 – 00:35:05:10
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There’s a lot more accuracy there. So it’s one of those sources that you got to take with a grain of salt or a grain of salt. You definitely need to corroborate a lot of the stuff in the book with other sources, but it’s, to me, it’s a must read for anybody who’s a fan of Billy the Kid history.

00:35:05:12 – 00:35:23:11
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like there’s well, I guess like movies. They they they, you know, never get the truth, get in the way of a good story. It just sounds like that’s the case, too. There. Well, in the movie, while they’re on the run, Billy and his gang end up in the town of White Oaks at a brothel run by Jane Greathouse.

00:35:23:13 – 00:35:48:01
Dan LeFebvre
And she’s. She’s played by junior, right, in the movie. And she seems to be an old friend of Billy’s. And then that night, a mob of townspeople carrying torches started to burn the building down. If Billy the Gang don’t give themselves up, a local lawman guy named Deputy Carlyle goes inside, tries to talk to Billy, tries to get him to come out peacefully, but instead Billy tricks Carlyle into putting on Travis’s hat and coat and then pushes Carlyle out of the front door and the mob is waiting there.

00:35:48:01 – 00:36:06:07
Dan LeFebvre
They just open fire and kill him, thinking that it’s Chavez. But of course it’s not. And then when they realize their mistake, the town scatters. And that’s how Billy gets out of that one. Even though the older Brushy Bill says that he got pinned with Carlyle’s death, how much of that event really happened?

00:36:06:09 – 00:36:09:20
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Some of it.

00:36:09:22 – 00:36:12:10
Dan LeFebvre
Never left the truth anyway.

00:36:12:12 – 00:36:32:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Never let the truth. And, you know, I, I used to love that scene when I was a kid. I had the biggest crush on Jenny right at that time. But, yeah, she never existed in real life. Jane. Great. Else was actually. Jim. Great house. It was a man. They call him Whiskey Jim because he used to illegally sell alcohol to Native Americans.

00:36:32:27 – 00:36:52:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He ran a roadhouse. It wasn’t actually in White Oaks. It was about 40 miles to the north. And it was. It wasn’t necessarily a, House bill repute. It was basically a place where you could go and get a meal, a couple of drinks and a place to sleep for the night. Whether or not he had any soiled doves working for him, that I can’t say.

00:36:52:05 – 00:37:09:04
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I’m sure he did, but I honestly don’t know about that. But it was sort of a hangout for Billy and several of his buddies. There’s a lot of people that think that that’s where Billy first met Dave Root. The bar now on the on the day in question, it was Billy the Kid, Dave Root of Ball and Billy Wilson.

00:37:09:07 – 00:37:31:19
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So Chavez and Scurlock and the others that you see in the movie, they were not there for this. But yeah, they they were surrounded by a posse. Deputy Carlyle. He wasn’t like an he wasn’t like a full time deputy. He was a blacksmith, believe it or not. He was just deputized to be part of this posse. And, the reason he went inside is because he knew some of those guys.

00:37:31:19 – 00:37:56:08
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He was on friendly terms with them, so they sort of swapped it out. So, Jim, great house. He goes outside and he’s basically the posse’s hostage while Deputy Carlyle is inside trying to talk everybody into surrendering. Well, Billy’s not going to surrender to a lynch mob, so he’s steadily pouring whiskey down. Deputy Carlisle’s mouth gets him stumbling drunk.

00:37:56:11 – 00:38:18:04
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
The posse outside keeps tossing out ultimatums. They finally they say, we’re going to give you five minutes. If you don’t come out and surrender, we’re going to kill Jim Greathouse. There’s a shot, and he gets fired. Supposedly, Billy the Kid would later claim the shot was fired from the outside, at which point, drunken Carlyle freaks out, jumps through the window.

00:38:18:07 – 00:38:40:07
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Okay, so as he jumps in the window, he’s gunned down by his posse. That’s according to Billy the Kid. Later on, gave root a ball, allegedly told somebody that he, Billy Wilson and Billy the Kid, that all three of them shot Carlisle in the back when he jumped through the window. Where the truth lies, I don’t know.

00:38:40:09 – 00:38:59:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
However, just like they show in the movie, Billy the Kid would definitely get the blame for that particular killing. And, you know, that kind of, that kind of lost him a lot of goodwill to, a lot of people, because Deputy Carlisle was well-liked and well-respected. So a lot of people didn’t appreciate the way he was gunned down.

00:38:59:23 – 00:39:20:14
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Whether or not was the posse or not that did it. Billy still got a lot of the blame for it. And as they show in the movie, Carlisle or not Carlisle, Great Houses Roadhouse was burned to the ground the next day. That is something that did occur. I don’t know that he got on his horse naked and rode out of town, but like, the lady does in the movie.

00:39:20:14 – 00:39:23:15
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
But they definitely did burn this place to the ground.

00:39:23:18 – 00:39:42:19
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, I guess it just from, as you were explaining, the two different versions of what could have happened with Carlisle, I it sounds like maybe both could be true, like they could have shot him as he went in the back, shot him as he went out the window. And then also the posse opened fire on him. And I mean, who knows?

00:39:42:21 – 00:39:51:21
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, yeah, I guess that kind of goes back to I was talking about it could be like, you know, starts to get into he said she said in the evidence and what really happened. And, you know, I don’t know.

00:39:51:23 – 00:40:09:21
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yeah, yeah. It’s one of those and, you know, come to think of it, you would think that if he was shot in the back as he was coming through the window, somebody would have made note of it, you know? But, I’m not aware if there’s any, contemporary reports that specify where his wounds were. I need to check into that.

00:40:09:21 – 00:40:12:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
That’s a that’s a good idea.

00:40:12:02 – 00:40:29:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we head back to the movie’s timeline, Pat Garrett and his men finally catch up to Billy and his gang. And this leads to the big climactic shootout where doc Spurlock is hit badly. He sacrifices himself so everyone else can escape, but it doesn’t really work because Billy finds himself surrounded and captured, and then he’s sentenced to hang.

00:40:29:20 – 00:40:51:00
Dan LeFebvre
But before that gets carried out, Jane Greathouse comes back and she sneaks a gun into the outhouse so Billy can use it to make his escape. In the process, he kills some of the bad guy deputies that we’ve grown to dislike throughout the movie, and he rides off to join the rest of his gang. Once he’s there, we find out that Chavez was mortally wounded, and I know there’s a lot in there, but all of that happens in the movie.

00:40:51:00 – 00:41:04:01
Dan LeFebvre
It’s just like ten minutes of screen time. So it really seems like the movie is rushing through a lot of events to kind of wrap up a lot of these different storylines. Is there any truth to those things that we see happening in that fast paced sequence of events?

00:41:04:03 – 00:41:29:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
A little bit of truth in there. So like you said, it’s, they, they gloss over a lot of stuff. So, okay, at this point in time, after the debacle at, White Oaks, Billy’s on the run. Pat Garrett, hunt him down. And, you know, it wasn’t just Pat Garrett that was after him. There was, contingent of cattlemen from the Texas Panhandle who were also on the hunt for Billy.

00:41:29:03 – 00:41:50:04
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
What Billy was doing at this period following the Lincoln County War. Basically, he was still in horses in New Mexico, trailing them all the way up to the Texas Panhandle, selling them to ranchers there. And then on his way back to New Mexico, he was still a bunch of cattle and sell them to people here in are there in New Mexico.

00:41:50:06 – 00:42:11:12
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Sorry about that. And my alarm going off. But, so you had Pat Garrett hunt him down. Believe it or not, there was actually a Secret Service agent who was in New Mexico at that time hunting Billy down together. He was connected to a counterfeiting ring, and, yeah, the cowboys from Texas. So. And even the military was on the hunt for Billy the Kid.

00:42:11:12 – 00:42:31:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So a lot of people were looking for him. His sort of a safe place was Fort Sumner, where you see Fort Sumner a lot throughout the movie. The the part where he’s hanging out with the guy he keeps calling Beaver. That was a real life guy named Beaver Smith. They had a cantina there at Fort Sumner, but, Billy felt safe there.

00:42:31:12 – 00:42:55:11
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
It was a predominantly Hispanic area. He was very friendly with the Hispanics. He got along amazingly with them. He spoke their language fluently, was very assimilated into their culture. So he felt safe there. Well, as soon as Garrett gets the badge, he he ends up linking up with those cowboys from Texas. And they lie in wait at Fort Sumner and set up an ambush.

00:42:55:14 – 00:43:12:02
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So one day, Billy and the boys are riding up Billy the Kid just so happens to be riding sort of in the rear of the column. When they get right up to the to the gates, Garrett yells out from the halt, Billy’s friend. Tom, follow your goes for his pistol! They blasted out of the saddle. Kill him!

00:43:12:04 – 00:43:17:03
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Billy and the others are able to will their horses around and escape.

00:43:17:05 – 00:43:38:19
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Get bad. A couple of days later and the rest of the what’s called the the Stone house at a place called Stinking Springs wasn’t very far away from Fort Sumner at all. And, it was just an old, abandoned, just tiny one room building made of rocks. Basically. That’s kind of what you see in that scene where, they show Scurlock being gunned down.

00:43:38:21 – 00:44:01:08
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So basically three days later or may have been four days later, Garrett and the posse track them down to the stone house surrounded in the middle of the night. And the next morning, one of Billy’s good friends got him. Charlie Beaudry steps outside. He’s wearing, a big, sombrero of the kind that Billy the Kid also was partial to.

00:44:01:10 – 00:44:27:19
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He’s mistaken for Billy the Kid. Garrett gives a signal rifle sound and Beaudry shot the pieces. Charlie Beaudry was a Lincoln County regulator. He did help Billy still in live stock after Gotti wore, but at this point he too, he was kind of pulling a Doc Scurlock. He was distancing himself. He had gotten married. He was trying to settle down.

00:44:27:21 – 00:44:48:14
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
That was the last person they wanted to kill. Garrett. And then it was a it was a complete accident. So in Young Guns two, when you see Doc Scurlock being gunned down, that never happened. Doc, was living in Texas at the time. That is actually, portrayal, pretty accurate portrayal of the death of the very real life Charlie Beaudry.

00:44:48:17 – 00:45:12:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There was a siege. Believe it or not, Garrett actually brought in a wagon. They started cooking breakfast outside to lure the boys out, and it worked. They ended up. They all surrendered. So it was. It was Billy the Kid, Ruta Ball, Tom Pickett and Billy Wilson. All of these guys ended up coming out. They surrendered. They were arrested and taken the Las Vegas in New Mexico and placed in jail.

00:45:12:20 – 00:45:30:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Billy was in jail for a while. He was actually tried and convicted for murder during this period. He’s then taken to Lincoln to await, execution. So that all the stuff that you’re saying they glossed over. Absolutely. You know, they you don’t we don’t get to see him. Well, you do see the trial. We do see that in the movie.

00:45:30:24 – 00:45:59:10
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I forgot about that. The judge says he’s going to hang by the neck until he’s dead. Dead, dead. And Billy tells him you can go to hell, hell, hell. But but yeah, it they did sort of gloss over a few things. It wasn’t Scurlock who was killed. It was actually a guy named Charlie Beaudry. Now, if anybody is not familiar with any of these people and, you’re a little morbidly curious, do a Google image search for Charlie Beaudry, and you’ll find the photo of him and his wife.

00:45:59:10 – 00:46:14:19
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
It was actually taken off of his body. Still has the bloodstains on it. Really cryptic image. But, he was he was a real deal outlaw. Very tough guy. And unfortunately, he was trying to go straight at the time. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That deal.

00:46:14:21 – 00:46:32:01
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. Yeah. I mean, I guess that kind of goes back to. Yeah, they don’t have I know they wanted posters, but they don’t have, you know, mug shots and photographs and things like that to know what somebody actually looks like. So they’re going it sounds like what you said they were going off Garrett’s recognition of him. Right? Garrett gave the give the shot.

00:46:32:05 – 00:46:41:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Or gave it? Yeah. That’s what it seems to be. It seems to be the case to me as well. I mean, Garrett Garrett just they it was a case of mistaken identity, you know?

00:46:41:07 – 00:47:04:12
Dan LeFebvre
Well, throughout the movie, I really felt like it could have benefited from some titles clarifying dates and locations and perhaps that that sequence, there’s perhaps the most obvious at the end, because the whole time they’re talking about going to old Mexico. And there’s one line of dialog after the shootout where Arkansas Dave asks, the a couple of guys nearby if he’s in old Mexico and they simply nod.

00:47:04:12 – 00:47:20:24
Dan LeFebvre
So he seems to think that he’s finally made it. And since the whole gang talked about going to old Mexico, the entire movie, that led me to believe, as I was watching it, that maybe finally they they made it to old Mexico after this big shootout. Can you clarify the actual locations where these events in the movie took place?

00:47:20:24 – 00:47:23:24
Dan LeFebvre
I’m assuming not in near Old Mexico?

00:47:23:26 – 00:47:41:21
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yeah. You know, there is some indication that Billy was planning on going to Mexico and one of his buddies would would have write a book. Gosh, man, it was one of the Cocos. And he was either Frank or George Coe, who said that Billy was planning on going to Mexico and laying low. He just had to settle some business there.

00:47:41:21 – 00:48:04:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Fort Sumner I think. I do think that’s pretty plausible. He just dragged his feet too long about doing it and he got got. But Dave Root Ball would flee to old Mexico like they show in the movie. It wasn’t immediate like that. He would live for several more years. But yeah, he would eventually find his way to Mexico, to a place called Parral, Mexico.

00:48:04:25 – 00:48:32:06
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And he got crossways with the wrong guys. They shot him dead, and they cut his head off and placed it on a pike so that that part was real. I think, you see him kind of sharpening the machetes and get ready to take care of him. It just didn’t happen. As immediate as they show in the in this in the in the movie, most of the movie is going to take place either in Lincoln, New Mexico or Fort Sumner, New Mexico, maybe.

00:48:32:08 – 00:48:51:15
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Oh, excuse me. The scene where they show Garrett meeting with, John Chisum and being offered the job of sheriff, maybe that’s supposed to represent the capital of Santa Fe or maybe Roswell. I’m not sure, but I know what you’re talking about. It does sort of seem like they’re just on the run towards New Mexico the entire time around.

00:48:51:15 – 00:49:00:01
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Answer I’m sorry, old Mexico, but no, in most of what you’re seeing, there is either taking place at Lincoln or Fort Sumner or the surrounding areas.

00:49:00:03 – 00:49:08:25
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense because, yeah, I got the impression that, yeah, they’re trying to trying to make it there, but they never really seem to make it there.

00:49:08:28 – 00:49:13:09
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
The route about did, but, I’m sure at his final moments he wished he hadn’t.

00:49:13:12 – 00:49:30:29
Dan LeFebvre
At the very end of the movie, Pat Garrett is alone when he finds Billy the Kid, and he seems to regret being in the position of killing his old friend, according to the movie. Garrett says this hurts him to do it, but he’s in a place that he can’t get out of and Billy says he’s going to make it easy and then turns his back to Garrett.

00:49:31:01 – 00:49:52:18
Dan LeFebvre
There’s a gunshot, but the movie never really shows Billy getting hit. And then in the next scene, we see a casket being lowered into the ground with Garrett and Chisum, and they’re watching this going on. And then the movie cuts back to the elderly Brushy Bill telling his story to the lawyer from the beginning. So from the movie’s perspective, it seems to suggest that Pat Garrett helped Billy the Kid fake his death.

00:49:52:21 – 00:50:15:07
Dan LeFebvre
And then he lived out the rest of his days as Brushy Bill Roberts. There’s even some text at the end of the movie that says, Brushy Bill went before the New Mexico governor, Thomas Mabry, on November 29th, 1950, and despite identification by several surviving friends of the notorious outlaw Brushy Bill, was discredited. Finally, I’m going to quote this last bit of text from the movie.

00:50:15:07 – 00:50:34:02
Dan LeFebvre
So this is a quote from the movie. It says, quote, whether or not Brushy Bill Roberts was Billy the Kid remains a mystery. End quote. Can you help unravel the history that we know from the movies version of this guy named Brushy Bill Roberts, living in the 1950s, actually being Billy the Kid?

00:50:34:05 – 00:50:53:22
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yeah. So I’m glad you included that quote, especially the the word mystery. There is a lot of mystery, you know, taking taking Brushy Bill out of the equation for now. There’s a lot of mystery surrounding Billy the Kid’s life. There’s a lot of stuff that we make assumptions about that we don’t know for certain. We don’t know when he was born.

00:50:53:24 – 00:51:17:15
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
We don’t know where he was born. We don’t know how old he was when he died. We don’t know his his father’s name, his mother’s maiden name. There’s so much we don’t know about Billy the Kid. His death is probably the least mysterious aspect of his entire life. So once again, there’s a lot of misconceptions surrounding his death.

00:51:17:18 – 00:51:37:25
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
To be frank, there’s a lot of false information that people put out there. I’m really not sure why, but, one of the things that people seem to, to think is true, that’s not true, is that Garrett killed Billy the Kid without anybody else seeing what was happening, and then buried his body before anybody could get a good look at it.

00:51:37:27 – 00:52:02:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
That could not be farther from the truth. So Garrett had two deputies with him at the time, Kit McKinney and John Poe. They snuck into Fort Sumner under the cover of Dark. They and they eventually made their way to the home of P Maxwell. So Fort Sumner used to be a legitimate military installation. A guy named Lucian Maxwell bought the fort from the Army.

00:52:02:22 – 00:52:29:06
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I want to say, in the late 1860s. Could be wrong about that date. Lucian Maxwell ended up passing away. Everything went to his widow and his kids. His son was Pete Maxwell. So by the time these these events are unfolding, Pete Maxwell basically had to run to Fort Sumner. Lady I mentioned earlier, Paul Lita Maxwell, that was Pete’s sister, and also Billy, the kid’s alleged girlfriend.

00:52:29:08 – 00:52:44:29
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So if anybody knew where Billy the Kid was, it was going to be Pete Maxwell, right? Pat and his deputies make their way once again to the middle of the night. It’s dark. They kind of sneak their way inside the fort. They go because they want to talk to Maxwell. Basically, they ask him, hey, have you seen Billy?

00:52:44:29 – 00:53:06:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Do you know where Billy could be? They were not expecting to find Billy the Kid there. Matter of fact, both. You know, Garrett obviously would write his book, The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, John W Poe. Decades later, he would write his own book called, The Death of Billy the Kid. And they’re both very clear that they kind of felt like they were on a wild goose chase at this point.

00:53:06:26 – 00:53:31:17
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
They knew Billy was in the area. They just didn’t think he would be, for lack of better words, I guess naive enough to actually be inside Fort Sumner itself when he was such a wanted man by this point. And they definitely didn’t think he’d be at Pete Maxwell’s place. Right. So Garrett goes inside to question Pete Maxwell. He leaves his two deputies outside on the porch.

00:53:31:19 – 00:53:47:13
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
This happened very quickly, like in less than a couple of minutes. Right at that moment, Billy the Kid comes strolling up. He’s he doesn’t have his boots on. He’s in his he’s in his stockings, as they call them. He’s got a pistol in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. He’s going to get a midnight snack.

00:53:47:15 – 00:54:03:20
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He’s. There was a slaughtered steer. He was going to cut a piece of meat off of it, take it back to a friend’s house. They were going to cook him a midnight snack and he was going to go to sleep. So he wasn’t expecting Garrett either. It was all it was. It was the perfect storm. He’s almost on the deputies.

00:54:03:22 – 00:54:24:21
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
When he notices them, he immediately raises his pistol and starts asking them in Spanish. Once again. You know, it was a predominantly Spanish area. He’s asking them, Kens, who is it? DNS kidnaps as he’s back in. As he’s doing that, he’s backing into Maxwell’s bedroom. The layout of Fort Sumter was a little strange. There’s a lot more involved here, Pete.

00:54:24:26 – 00:54:45:14
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Only he did not have an interior door going to his his room where he where he stayed. It was an exterior door. So Billy just backed into it. He. Pete, who are those guys outside? At the same moment, he sees a shadowy figure standing next to Pete Maxwell’s bed, lifts his pistol again, says kidnaps. And that’s when Garrett shoots him and kills him.

00:54:45:17 – 00:55:04:29
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So right off the bat, you’ve got an eyewitness and Pete Maxwell. The whole entire town converged on that building. As soon as soon as this happened, he, Maxwell, did not live alone. His mother, his siblings, other relatives all live in that house. They came to his room. They saw Billy the Kid lying there dead. Everybody else was looking in the window.

00:55:04:29 – 00:55:29:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
They saw Billy the Kid’s body lying in their dead. Things were so tense that Garrett and his deputies had to follow it up inside of Maxwell’s room for the rest of the night. They were expecting the mob to attack them just to avenge Billy’s. That the attack never came. The next morning, a coroner’s jury was formed. Every single one of the people that were in the coroner’s jury where people who personally knew Billy the Kid, they saw the body.

00:55:29:27 – 00:55:54:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
They interviewed Pete Maxwell, they talked to the deputies, they talked to Garrett. They issued a, coroner’s jury report. It was basically the same thing as a death certificate back in those days, describing the entire event and explicitly saying that, yes, Billy the Kid was shot and killed by Pat Garrett. Later on that morning, they released Billy’s body to the citizens of Fort Sumner.

00:55:54:27 – 00:56:17:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He was a very popular figure there. A lot of people loved him. Not everybody loved him, but a lot of people did. They dressed and cleaned his body or they cleaned his body. They dressed it in new clothes. Other people dug the grave. They held a public wake, like there was a literal public wake. So many, many, many people saw Billy the Kid’s dead body.

00:56:17:21 – 00:56:44:12
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
The funeral was attended by nearly everybody in town. According to Polly, the Maxwell. And that was it. And of course, Billy the Kid was never seen again after that happened. So there is a lot of evidence coming from multiple sources that Pat Garrett did indeed kill Billy the Kid. There was no photograph taken. A lot of people are under the false impression that every dead outlaw had their pictures taken back in those days.

00:56:44:14 – 00:57:01:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Once again, nothing could be further from the truth. I know what people are thinking of because there are a lot of. I hate to sound say it this way, but a lot of cool photos of dead outlaws from the old West. They would prop them up, take pictures of them, turn them into postcards. That is something that did happen on occasion.

00:57:01:27 – 00:57:24:01
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
But I mean, we only have like maybe 15 to 20 of those type of photos. At the same time, there is probably a thousand outlaws at any given time roaming the West. There’s a lot of people like Dave Root Ball, for example. We don’t have any photos of him while he was alive. Right. And he was a much more accomplished outlaw than Billy the Kid ever was.

00:57:24:03 – 00:57:44:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There was a lot of people that we don’t have photographic evidence of their death. Right. But some people will point to that and say, that’s how we know that Pat Garrett did not kill Billy the Kid because we don’t have a photo. Well, number one, he didn’t have to provide photographic proof. He had all the proof he needed in the coroner’s jury report and all the eyewitnesses.

00:57:44:03 – 00:58:09:02
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And we know that because he was paid the reward eventually for killing Billy the Kid, and there was no photographer that lived in Fort Sumner. This is a very tiny community. I want to say it was less than 300 people. Yeah. No, no, photographer probably within about 2 or 3 days riding, Fort Sumner. Okay. So.

00:58:09:04 – 00:58:29:07
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Oh, and one more thing historians have been able to identify. At least I always forget on the exact number it was. It’s over two dozen people by name who saw Billy the Kid’s dead body. A lot of these people live for a very, very long time. I’m talking up until the 1920s, 30s. Some of these people wrote books.

00:58:29:13 – 00:58:50:19
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Some of them had had their journals published. Many of them were interviewed by historians and journalists. And, you know, there may be certain details that people get wrong, just like any, you know, if if there’s a carjacking and a police officer shows up, somebody is going to say it happened at 115 in the afternoon, somebody else is going to say, no, no, it was after 2:00.

00:58:50:19 – 00:59:12:18
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Somebody is going to say the guy was wearing a green shirt. Somebody else is going to say, but they all agreed. That guy definitely stole that car, right? It was the same thing with Billy’s death. Not all the details lined up. Maybe not everybody agrees on the timing, but the one thing that they all maintained for literally the rest of their lives, even after Pat Garrett was long gone, was that Garrett absolutely killed Billy the Kid.

00:59:12:20 – 00:59:36:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So there’s a ton of evidence showing that it’s kind of all the all the mystery, the supposed mystery surrounding the kid’s death is pretty much much ado about nothing. By contrast, there is zero evidence that Brushy Bill Roberts was who he claimed he was. It’s a cool story, man. I, I when I was a kid, I believe that Brushy Bill Roberts was Billy the Kid I want.

00:59:36:06 – 00:59:56:02
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And to this day, if there was a new discovery that definitively that definitively prove that brushy was Billy the Kid, I would be ecstatic. You know, I don’t look up to Billy the Kid as a hero. Like a lot of people, I’m pretty neutral on the people I cover on my show. They were just historical figures, you know?

00:59:56:04 – 01:00:13:01
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
But he is a very sympathetic character, and he’s a very. He was a likable guy when he was alive. He was fun loving. He, if mean, you got in the time machine right now and were whisked back to Fort Sumner, we would be in no danger. Billy the Kid is not just going to shoot you like a dog in the street.

01:00:13:07 – 01:00:36:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He wasn’t a he wasn’t a psychopath. A lot of the people I cover on my show were definitely psychopaths. Billy was a young kid who got caught up with the wrong people. He probably had a little bit of, you know, he aversion to authority, but he wasn’t an evil person. And we don’t like the idea of him just being killed in the dark like that at the hands of Pat Garrett.

01:00:36:00 – 01:00:51:27
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Somebody that used to be his friend is not a it’s not a fairy tale ending. You know, we never get to see Billy the Kid grow up to be Billy the Man, essentially. You know, so I think a lot of people just don’t want it to be true. They don’t want Billy to have been killed the way he was.

01:00:52:01 – 01:01:16:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Somebody like Brushy Bill Roberts comes along. It’s a very compelling story. It’s surface level. So people just, you know, they buy hook, line and sinker and now brushy. Like I said, on the surface, it’s very compelling. The story goes that Brushy had all the same scars as Billy the Kid that he had. He he was fluent in Spanish, just like Billy the Kid.

01:01:16:23 – 01:01:34:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He was ambidextrous, could shoot just as well with both hands that he had tiny hands and big wrist, just like Billy the Kid. He knew things about the Lincoln County War that nobody could have possibly known unless they were Billy the Kid, or very close to Billy the Kid. And yeah, I think he sort of touched on this earlier.

01:01:35:01 – 01:02:01:13
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There were people who knew Billy the Kid that vouched for Brushy Bill Roberts. Sounds very compelling. If any of that that I just said was true, I would be convinced. But if you dig just a little bit deeper, it all falls apart. So we can start with the multiple gunshot wounds. Brushy Bill. Well, let me just. Have you ever known a pathological liar?

01:02:01:15 – 01:02:02:01
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah.

01:02:02:03 – 01:02:28:08
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Unfortunately, a lot of times they don’t know when to stop, so they’ll they’ll they’ll take, a tiny lie and it’ll snowball until it’s just this fantastical, unbelievable fairytale story. Brushy Bill was the same. He, the the stories he told were. If you tried to print them as a fiction novel now, you’d be laughed out of the publishing house like, we’re not going to we’re not going to print this.

01:02:28:08 – 01:02:49:06
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
This is too silly. This would be a comedy story, you know? But. So, Bryce, he didn’t just say that he was shot a couple of times. He had been shot. I want to say 30, 34 times. He claimed he had 34 various bullet wounds and knife wounds over his body. Did he have the same scars as Billy the Kid?

01:02:49:06 – 01:03:12:02
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Well, how many times was Billy the Kid shot when he was still before Pat Garrett killed him? Possibly once. There’s some evidence. He took a bullet to the thigh when they ambushed and killed Sheriff Brady. Even that’s not, like, proven for a fact, because just a couple of days later, Billy was on his feet, participating in a completely different gun gunfight at Blazer’s Mill.

01:03:12:09 – 01:03:30:15
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So we think he was possibly wounded. It may have been a grazing wound, at one point in his life, but he certainly wasn’t riddled with scars like Brushy Bill. Roberts claimed that he was. So no, he didn’t have any of the same scars. The ability to kill because we don’t know what scars bleed to get. Have number two.

01:03:30:18 – 01:03:51:07
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There is no evidence that Brushy Bill Roberts had any scars. You know, there’s a lot of photos of Brushy Bill Roberts out there, but neither he or his lawyer ever thought to document any of these supposed scars. A lot of people are under the false impression that there is, autopsy report out there documenting the scars. There’s no autopsy report.

01:03:51:09 – 01:04:13:10
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He died of a heart attack. You know, when an old man dies of a heart attack, they don’t necessarily perform an autopsy. So the only evidence we have of brushy scars comes only from his attorney, William Morrison. I don’t think I’ve said it yet, but after Brushy passed away in 1950, a couple of years later, Morrison actually published a book sharing brushy story.

01:04:13:10 – 01:04:17:06
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
It’s called, Alias Billy the Kid.

01:04:17:09 – 01:04:38:29
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
As far as the supposed inside information that Brushy Bill Roberts said that nobody could possibly know, there has been nothing that he said that wasn’t already common knowledge. So there was a guy named Walter Noble Burns in the, early 1920s. He kind of made the rounds there in New Mexico, and he interviewed a lot of people that knew Billy the Kid back in the day.

01:04:38:29 – 01:05:03:03
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He talked to Paulina Maxwell, Billy’s old girlfriend. Another dear friend of Billy’s was a lady named Del Vino Maxwell. He talked to her. You interviewed a lot of people, and he published a book called The Saga of Billy the Kid in 1925 or 26. This book is is one of the main pieces of works that kind of catapulted Billy into superstardom.

01:05:03:06 – 01:05:24:12
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
The book was a huge bestseller. Everybody had it. I need to double check on this. I may be wrong here, but I believe it was one of the first book of the book of the month books or but late book of the Month Club books, right? It was sold. It was such a popular book that it was serialized, and they ran in newspapers all over the country.

01:05:24:14 – 01:05:52:17
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Brushy Bill Roberts definitely read the saga of Billy the Kid, because while it is a very cool book, not everything, it’s historically correct in it. Burns did make quite a few mistakes. Brushy Bill Roberts also happens to make the same exact mistakes, almost word for word, that Burns made. So basically all of his insider knowledge, he was just copying off of other people, and it was information that was that had been known for decades.

01:05:52:19 – 01:06:16:07
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
The affidavits Brushy Bill Roberts and his attorney were able to obtain five signed and sworn affidavits from people that supposedly knew Billy the Kid and boots that Brushy and Billy were one of the same. Once again, you just got to dig a little bit deeper. Out of those five people, three of them never knew the historical Billy the Kid ever.

01:06:16:09 – 01:06:32:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
One of them wasn’t even born yet in 1881 when Pat Garrett shot Billy the Kid. So if he wasn’t even alive at the time, how could he possibly know of Brushy Bill? Roberts and Billy the Kid were the same. The best they could do was there were these two old men they had that had, lived in Lincoln, New Mexico.

01:06:32:26 – 01:06:53:13
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
They had allegedly known Billy the Kid when they were young children. I’m talking like 12 years old. They weren’t Billy the Kid’s friends. They weren’t his outlaw buddies. They weren’t Old West lawmen. Nothing like that. These were two old men who, 70 years after the fact, they may have possibly known Billy the Kid and even one of them when he first met up with Brushy.

01:06:53:13 – 01:07:13:27
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He goes, now you’re way too young to be Billy the Kid for whatever reason, he changed his mind a couple of days later, but that’s the best they could do. So whenever, Brushy Bill proponents will try to say that people who actually knew Billy the Kid vouched for him kind of nothing. None of Billy’s old associates ever vouched for him.

01:07:13:27 – 01:07:37:12
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
None of his Lincoln County regulators ever vouched for Brushy Bill Roberts. Once again, the best they could find were two old guys who possibly knew Billy the Kid when they were very, very young. So every other aspect of Brushy story falls under the same purview. I mentioned earlier that he was kind of he kind of went a little bit too far in his exaggerations.

01:07:37:15 – 01:08:00:11
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
In addition to being the most famous outlaw of all time, he also claimed to have been a Pinkerton detective. He said he was a deputy U.S. Marshal under Hanging Judge Parker. He lived with three different Native American tribes at three different times. He, he fought in Cuba as a Rough Rider with Teddy Roosevelt. He fought as a mercenary in Mexico with Pancho Villa.

01:08:00:13 – 01:08:28:22
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
On another occasion, he survived a running gunfight with 2000 Mexican soldiers. He, chased after horse thieves in Oklahoma. He was a gunfighter in Idaho. He was a professional boxer. He was, rodeo champ toward all over the place. He worked for Buffalo Bill Cody on his ranch, breaking horses. He’s claimed to have had his own Wild West show that toured extensively across the United States, putting on, you know, those reenactments of Old West, events.

01:08:28:24 – 01:08:55:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He caught wild horses in South America. I could go on and on with all the. He was a lookout for the famous lady bandit Belle Starr. There’s a million stories that Brushy Bill Roberts told, and I cannot stress this enough. There’s no evidence for any of it. By contrast, the evidence we do have, which is legion, shows that Brushy Bill Roberts was a toddler when the real Billy the Kid was shot and killed.

01:08:55:25 – 01:09:31:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So Rush’s real name was Oliver Roberts. You can find him on every single census from 1880 all the way to his death in 1950. Every single census. We have marriage certificates, we have divorce decrees. There is a family Bible that shows that he was born in 1879. There’s, there’s even a World War One draft registration. We know what Brushy Bill Roberts did where he lived, what his occupation was, the names of his wives, the name of his parents.

01:09:31:07 – 01:09:52:14
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
We know dang near every detail of his life. And in no point was he allowed law at no point did you live in New Mexico. Like I said he was. He was one and a half, two years old when the real Billy the Kid was gunned down. The, Now, you may be wondering, why do people believe in Brushy Bill’s story if there’s that much evidence?

01:09:52:16 – 01:10:14:05
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
The one tiny thread, the one tiny little string that holds his entire story together? He never gave a date on this, but he claimed that later in life, he, was in Oklahoma and he came across, a couple of law men who had just killed what they thought was a horse thief. Well, it wasn’t a horse thief.

01:10:14:05 – 01:10:48:17
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
It was an undercover police officer who just so happened to be Brushy Bill Roberts cousin, Oliver Roberts. Okay. His much younger cousin, Brushy took his belongings back to Texas, to his family. Oliver’s mother mistook him for Oliver, and he just went with it. At that point on, he kind of slid into that new identity of Oliver Roberts, which is why Brushy Bill proponents will say, well, that’s why he he’s so much younger on all the census data and all the records, because he wasn’t really Oliver Roberts.

01:10:48:19 – 01:11:13:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He just kind of slid into his, identity after he died. Once again, there’s there’s no evidence of any of this occurring. I don’t know about you, but if if my brother died and my cousin returned his belongings, I wouldn’t let my grieving mother think that that was her. Her dead son. You know what I’m saying? Like, there’s just so many fantastical angles to his story.

01:11:13:03 – 01:11:33:02
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And when you add them all up, they’re just completely unbelievable. You can even just Google pictures of Brushy Bill Roberts. There’s a lot of pictures of him out there, and none of those pictures does he look anywhere near 90 years of age. In all reality, he was 7071 when he dropped out of that heart attack. But yeah, there’s there’s no evidence that he was Billy the Kid.

01:11:33:02 – 01:11:58:16
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Some people will try to tell you that there was a DNA test proving that they were, the same person. No, Billy has never been exhumed. There has never been a DNA test done on Billy the Kid. Never happened. So with. I can tell you, with, you know, there’s a lot of mysteries in the Old West. I can tell you with 110% certainty that Brushy Bill Roberts was definitely a frog, and he hung out with other frogs.

01:11:58:19 – 01:12:20:29
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
There’s another guy that’s, there was also, an old West fraudster named J. Frank Dalton. He claimed to be Jesse James, and he and Brushy were best friends. They would hang out together. They would go to they, they, Billy, Brushy Bill Roberts, I think, attended, J. Frank Dalton’s 100th birthday. So they were thick as thieves and they were just telling lies.

01:12:20:29 – 01:12:22:22
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Man.

01:12:22:24 – 01:12:40:13
Dan LeFebvre
So in the movie, it suggests that the reason why Brushy Bill is coming forward is because he wants that pardon that we, we see happening, to Billy the Kid. And that seems to be the impression that I got was that’s why he came forward near the end of his life. He’s like, I finally want this. This pardon that I’ve been promised.

01:12:40:19 – 01:12:56:27
Dan LeFebvre
Was that really what he was going for? Or was the real Brushy Bill, just as you said, you know, just telling lies and couldn’t stop? And or was he trying to sell his own book or was he trying to make money off of it? Like, what was his motivation? I guess it would be my question.

01:12:57:00 – 01:13:24:07
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
You know, I, I an acronym that I like it’s mice in Missy. So it’s a good way to kind of figure out someone’s motive money, ideology, coercion and ego. I don’t think Brushy Bill was doing this on ideological grounds. I don’t think somebody, somebody was coercing him or blackmailing him into telling these lies. I think it was a mixture of money and ego.

01:13:24:09 – 01:13:46:22
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Now, now, Brushy, had a very long history of telling tall tales, even even before he was claiming to be Billy the Kid. He used to tell people he was like a scout, an old army scout and a frontiersman. There’s even an old newspaper article. Gosh, man, I want to say from the 1920s. So we’re talking decades before he claimed to be Billy the Kid.

01:13:46:24 – 01:14:13:17
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
In this newspaper article, he’s making this wild claim that he saved a group of Texas Rangers from machine gun wielding gangsters. So he had a history of telling these type of stories. I do know that he was he was living in poverty in his later years. So I think money certainly played a role in it. Like I said, he was good friends with J.

01:14:13:17 – 01:14:34:22
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Frank Dalton, J. Frank Dalton was kind of being wined and dined by people. He was living rent free. He was taking trips to New York City. I think maybe Brushy wanted a little bit of that limelight. And he really did meet with the governor. That is, something that occurred. He basically got left out of there. I mean, he he forgot key details.

01:14:34:24 – 01:14:55:19
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He couldn’t answer very simple questions. And it was just a big joke. And about a month later is when he just fell dead of a massive heart attack. But, you know, I people people will ask me, well, why would he possibly lie about that? I don’t know, man. I don’t I don’t know why anybody would lie about that, but I have known people that told similar lies.

01:14:55:19 – 01:15:15:19
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I’ve known old men who told similar lie. You know, there was, there was a movie, a few years ago, The Irishman with Robert De Niro, the Scorsese movie. And that was based on, a book called We Paint Houses. I believe this guy, you know, he claimed to have killed Jimmy Hoffa and claimed to have done all this stuff.

01:15:15:21 – 01:15:34:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
A lot of the stuff that that guy claimed to have done, we know that he absolutely did not do well. Yet. He was a dying old man, and he still told these stories that were lies. Why? I don’t know, but I do know it’s it’s human nature. It is something that does happen.

01:15:34:02 – 01:16:01:14
Dan LeFebvre
Well, like you said, there are, you know, compulsive liars out there too, that once you get get started on that, I imagine the money part aside, the ego, like just feeling, people asking you these questions and people focusing on you, it’s, I mean, today, you know, it’s a dopamine hit, right? We know that. But that that’s one of those things, I would imagine that he might not have known even why he did it himself.

01:16:01:14 – 01:16:12:23
Dan LeFebvre
Just that I like being Billy the Kid right? I like when people think I’m Billy the Kid. So keep telling those stories to keep more people thinking that, yeah, that’s the only hack I could think of.

01:16:12:24 – 01:16:36:28
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
You know, it’s the same way nowadays. People will lie about stolen valor. People that were never in the military will claim to be Navy Seals and stuff like that. It happens all the time. Why? You know, and especially in Bryce’s day, there wasn’t the internet, so we couldn’t just immediately fact check the guy, right. All of those records weren’t you couldn’t get on Ancestry.com in 1950 and look at all the census records.

01:16:36:28 – 01:16:40:16
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
So there he he probably was able to convince quite a few people.

01:16:40:18 – 01:16:54:23
Dan LeFebvre
Especially if you’re something like you mentioned, you know, with, with the wounds, like, we don’t really know what Billy the Kid wounds were. So how like, how can you how can you how would you know? Maybe he has the same wounds, but we don’t know what Billy the Kid had. So how would you know?

01:16:54:26 – 01:17:18:29
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And you know, I was talking to, one of my buddies about this the other day. My father. Was it my father? Recently turned 80 years old. He was in the Vietnam War. He was, in a combat intensive unit during the Vietnam War. But he was never wounded. Thankfully, my dad came home and spent the rest of his life raising a family, but he lived kind of a rough life.

01:17:18:29 – 01:17:40:21
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
My dad grew up on a cotton farm. No electricity. I mean, he he grew up pretty rough. If if my dad wanted to start telling stories and say that he has all these war wounds, people would probably believe him because he looks like he has war wounds. He’s missing a a couple of fingers. He, he was in a hunting accident when he was younger and got got shot in the face with a shotgun.

01:17:40:24 – 01:17:59:21
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He could easily lie and say he got all these wounds in the Vietnam War, which he was in the war, but they were just. These are just injuries that he’s accumulated during that throughout the course of his life. I think Brushy Bill Roberts was a lot was much the same because Brushy Bill, he spent the vast majority of his life as a laborer.

01:17:59:24 – 01:18:17:26
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
He did a lot of blue collar work, farming, you know, I think he was working on oil rigs later on in life. Like this guy, this guy would have definitely been he would have looked rough. He would have certainly have had scars and marks of his own that were most likely work related injuries that he could have. Hey, hey, look at this.

01:18:17:26 – 01:18:37:01
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
This is where I got shot back in 1885. Would really, you know, he he was he got kicked by a mule when he was 12. You know. So I don’t doubt that he did have, markings that may have appeared to be scars, the uninitiated. But as far as him ever getting any type of gunfights and stuff like that.

01:18:37:04 – 01:18:39:23
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Absolutely.

01:18:39:26 – 01:18:57:07
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you mentioned the name, Jesse James and a lot of people are familiar with Jesse James. Billy the Kid, you know, because there’s so many movies that have been made about them. But let’s say you’re given the budget to make a movie about someone from the Old West that hasn’t had a movie made about them yet. Who would you pick and why.

01:18:57:09 – 01:19:20:24
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Is it so hard to choose? Because there’s so many great stories that have gone completely untold. What’s fresh on my mind right now? Because I’m currently doing a series on it right now. But Chief Joseph and in this purse war. Wow. I mean, just you hear a lot of stories about people having their, you know, the indigenous peoples having their land stolen and being screwed over and stuff like that.

01:19:20:26 – 01:19:41:08
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
I’m not sure if there’s as much of a clear, just open and shut case of them being screwed over. As much as the Nez Perce were in the events that led to the Nez Perce War, I mean, these were a very peaceful people. They weren’t raiding the American settlers or anything like that. It just basically came down to, hey, we want your land, so you have to leave now.

01:19:41:11 – 01:20:09:29
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And by the way, we’re going to kill some of your people until you leave, and they eventually push them to the limit. And the war broke out. But it’s a very fascinating story. And just the the way the Nez Perce, it was basically a 1400 mile running gunfight with the U.S. Army. There was maybe 250 Nez Perce warriors with hundreds of women and children, old and sick, against thousands of U.S. troops.

01:20:10:01 – 01:20:37:00
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
And they still held them off. Time and time again were able to defeat them in battle time and time again. It truly is an amazing story, and it’s a heartbreaking story because it doesn’t end well for the Nez Perce people, but I would love to see something like that. Not necessarily a movie. I, I would love to see that made into like an HBO mini series or something, you know, something that could they could really, you know, put about 8 or 9 hours into telling the story.

01:20:37:02 – 01:20:59:23
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Dive a lot deeper into the story for that. Yeah. Wow. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show to talk about the true story behind them, guns, too. For anyone who wants to learn more about the history of the Old West, I highly recommend they check out your podcast called The Wild West Extravaganza. You obviously do a ton of research and do a great job bringing the stories of the Old West to life.

01:21:00:00 – 01:21:04:10
Dan LeFebvre
So thank you. Can you give my audience a peek into your podcast and where they can find it?

01:21:04:13 – 01:21:20:15
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Yeah, I have a YouTube channel, The Wild West Extravaganza. It’s also available wherever else you listen to podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, audible, or you can go to my website, Wild West extra.com. But yeah, I mean, everywhere where you listen to podcasts.

01:21:20:17 – 01:21:24:24
Dan LeFebvre
Fantastic. I will add all those links in the show notes for this episode too. Thanks again so much for your time, Josh.

01:21:24:27 – 01:21:26:11
Josh from The Wild West Extravaganza
Thank you man. My pleasure.

00:00:00:25 – 00:00:17:26
Dan LeFebvre
Before we dig into some of the key plot points from 2009. Amelia, let’s take a step back and look at the movie from an overall perspective and how it captures Amelia Earhart story. If you were to give it a letter grade for its historical accuracy or what it get.

00:00:17:29 – 00:00:46:03
Chris Williamson
Start off with the hard questions. Dan. You know, that’s a tough one. Maybe a C+ or B-, if I’m feeling really generous. It really depends on the day. You know, the film covers the basics. It covers the Atlantic flight, covers her marriage to Putnam. The election, her disappearance. Wow. It was only cover the disappearance, but it kind of like, preludes it in kind of a precursor for the disappearance and kind of ends on that, which is kind of, you know, haunting, it kind of simplifies who Earhart was.

00:00:46:03 – 00:01:00:02
Chris Williamson
You know, her heart was a very complex person. She’s a very complex woman. She had a lot of different, you know, sides to her. And, some of the events are sort of, according to me, sort of a little bit overly tweaked and overly analyzed and maybe kind of a little bit of movie magic is kind of thrown in there.

00:01:00:02 – 00:01:18:27
Chris Williamson
And they’ve taken some liberties, which you can’t really, but it is a historical piece, but you can’t really, you know, there’s there’s there’s so much of a mystery to this. It’s hard to not take some kind of historical liberty a little bit here and there, especially when it comes to some of the characters that came in and out of her life, specifically toward the end, like Fred Noonan and stuff, which I’m sure we’ll get into, as we get further in the conversation.

00:01:18:27 – 00:01:21:27
Chris Williamson
But, yeah, you know, a c-plus maybe a B-minus.

00:01:21:29 – 00:01:38:29
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah, that’s I mean, like you said, I mean, again, it is movie and entertainment, but, you know, every movie makes different changes and the creative decisions that they do to, to tell a historical story. So I’m always curious just kind of get that overall general sense. Where is the ballpark here on this.

00:01:39:01 – 00:02:02:21
Chris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah. They they did a they did a good job with it. You know overall I mean it wasn’t again historical accuracy is is picked apart I think in every film. I think it’s very rare that that film gets it like you know spot on or pretty close to spot on. This one, obviously, Amelia’s life was, one of our guest, Laurie, who just has a book out, currently said, you know, Amelia’s first few years of her career was like the first reality show.

00:02:02:21 – 00:02:21:12
Chris Williamson
She was like, cast, you know, cast in this and this part, which will, of course, get into probably the next few questions. But yeah, it’s it’s it, you know, when you have stuff like that, it takes a lot of creative liberty to sort of tell the story, especially when you have limited sources and limited time. And, and her movie studio that I’m sure wants to put certain things into the film and all that.

00:02:21:12 – 00:02:45:19
Dan LeFebvre
So you mentioned what my next question is going to be, because at the very beginning of the movie, we learned that a man named George Putnam, he published Charles Lindbergh book in 1927. And then George gets financing from a socialite named Amy Guess to find a woman to be the first to fly across the Atlantic. And there’s a contract here that we learn about in the movie to tell this woman’s story in The New York Times and also to write a book about it.

00:02:45:25 – 00:03:13:00
Dan LeFebvre
But all that money is going to go back to Mrs. Guest as the financier. And then George finds Amelia Earhart, and that’s how she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1928. Although the movie shows Amelia being a passenger, the pilot is a man named Bill Stultz and navigator is Slim Gordon, but according to yeah, according to George in the movie, the pilot signed a deal to say that Amelia is the commander, so it kind of makes it sound like she was the one in charge.

00:03:13:00 – 00:03:23:20
Dan LeFebvre
Although when we’re riding along in the movie, it also shows that Amelia is pretty much just along for the ride. How well does the movie do? You set up Amelia Earhart Trip across the Atlantic in 1928?

00:03:23:22 – 00:03:43:00
Chris Williamson
Yeah, it gets it gets a lot of the again, a lot of the basic foundational stuff. Right? I mean, Putnam was involved with with Lombard’s book prior, he had made a name for himself prior to Earhart walking into his office. Annie Guest is a really interesting woman. Amy. Guest. You think about the time, you know, this is 20, 27, 28.

00:03:43:02 – 00:04:07:26
Chris Williamson
This woman was a billionaire with a B. So at that time, you know, she was she really wanted to go on the flight herself. The whole vehicle was, was initially meant to be for her. Amy Phipps guest wanted to be the first woman across the Atlantic. And her family or kids specifically said, hell no, you’re not going to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic because so many people have already died, women included, trying to attempt this.

00:04:07:28 – 00:04:25:28
Chris Williamson
And so credit to Amy Gast, who didn’t poo poo the entire who saw the bigger picture. It didn’t poo poo the fly just because she wasn’t going to be the star of the show. She, you know, asked George Putnam and and to come up with, you know, the right American pilot or the right woman, you know, to to do this.

00:04:25:28 – 00:04:45:03
Chris Williamson
And and Earhart at the time was in 28. You have to understand, she wasn’t, you know, her flights and she was flying for the fun of it, but she was flying a lot of that time to promote, you know, the the Dennison house and the social work that she was doing in Boston. And she wasn’t really about the she wasn’t looking for her next big step.

00:04:45:05 – 00:05:02:10
Chris Williamson
But when it came, it was kind of out of left field. And, you know, there’s a lot of a lot of infamous, interactions between, you know, her first interaction with George Putnam wasn’t very positive. She thought he was a pompous. You know, I can’t know if I can cuss on the show, but she thought he was a pompous asshole, you know?

00:05:02:10 – 00:05:30:01
Chris Williamson
And she really didn’t. You know, she really didn’t feel like he was, you know, a very, very, a very good guy, calling her the commander. Yeah, it definitely was a PR move. They wanted. They wanted Earhart, though, to feel like she had some power in the flight. And she did exercise that power. You know, there she had a lifelong issue with alcoholism and drinking, and she despised really people that did and, you know, went all the way back to her father when she was a little girl.

00:05:30:03 – 00:05:48:16
Chris Williamson
It will appear again with Fred Noonan as we get further into this conversation. And it appeared here in the, in the 28, the friendship flight. And, you know, they were drunk, these guys were drunk. And she was just, you know, she was beside herself and she really took it seriously because to her, this wasn’t just another flight to her, this was her chance at making history.

00:05:48:23 – 00:06:04:13
Chris Williamson
And these guys were kind of sort of, you know, not taking it as seriously as she would have liked it. But yeah, that’s that’s all fairly accurate. I mean, Putnam, you know, he comes her husband later, he plays a big role in her public image. Obviously. We talk about that a lot today. But calling her the commander wasn’t.

00:06:04:15 – 00:06:11:19
Chris Williamson
It wasn’t about deception, necessarily, but it it definitely was a PR move to help sort of launcher into the stratosphere, which, you know, he was right.

00:06:11:21 – 00:06:42:17
Dan LeFebvre
I think we do see a little clip of that in the movie. There’s a scene I remember even before they took off, one of the guys was drinking and and Mayo comes in and basically tells him off. You know, she clearly doesn’t like that he’s drinking and he’s, you know, and when I was watching that, I guess I if I think she remember she mentioned something about her father, but the impression that I got was, also like, you’re going to be flying this plane and my life is on the line here, and, you know, do your job, and they.

00:06:42:18 – 00:06:59:24
Chris Williamson
Say, I don’t want to die. Yeah, I don’t want to be another statistic. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, she was very serious about it. She had dreamed about this moment, but she had kind of put it away, you know, and then it kind of came roaring back into her life and, in a very earth shattering way, and, you know, in the form of the 28 flight.

00:06:59:24 – 00:07:04:21
Chris Williamson
So, yeah, it changed everything for her. And she took it very seriously. She was not happy with them drinking on that flight.

00:07:04:24 – 00:07:20:19
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned earlier, kind of being cast in and in the movie, George basically tells Amelia that he picked her to be the pilot, not because of her skills, because, as the movie puts it, pretty girls command more attention. So is it true that Amelia was recruited for basically her looks over experience like the movie suggests?

00:07:20:21 – 00:07:36:02
Chris Williamson
Yeah, I think so. I mean, at first she definitely was, you know, they wanted an American girl. Like I said earlier in the chat, I mean, it was a reality casting it was an early phase of reality casting. That’s really what it was. They were looking for somebody that would fit the bill. That would look the part.

00:07:36:08 – 00:07:55:27
Chris Williamson
You know, the whole Lady Lindy thing was a real thing. He wanted to he wanted to basically copy Charles Lindbergh. And just make a female version of Charles Lindbergh. And, you know, he was definitely successful at that. The man, you know, was brilliant when it came to PR and kind of, you know, what he was doing.

00:07:55:27 – 00:08:12:15
Chris Williamson
He knew exactly where he wanted to go with Amelia. And I think, you know, she sort of had that tunnel vision that a lot of people maybe didn’t around him, other than maybe Amelia herself. Once they got together, that was like a whole nother, whole nother thing. He kind of supercharged her career, so. But, yeah, I would say it’s it’s it’s largely right.

00:08:12:15 – 00:08:27:09
Chris Williamson
I mean, looks played a role in it. She looked like, you know, she was a pretty woman. You know, she, had all these jobs. She had all this top, these ties into the backbone of America. Like, it just made a lot of sense and a lot of different ways. But I’d be lying if I said looks wasn’t a big part of it.

00:08:27:09 – 00:08:28:15
Chris Williamson
Of course. Yeah, yeah.

00:08:28:17 – 00:08:49:27
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that leads right into my next question. Because in the movie, after after the successful trip across the Atlantic, when Amelia returns to the U.S., she instantly becomes a celebrity and in addition to the book deal, now we start to find out that George seems to have turned the trip into other moneymaking opportunities. You mentioned the Lucky Strike Cigarets that he kind of snuck in there, and not to get too far ahead of where we are in the movie’s timeline.

00:08:49:27 – 00:09:18:09
Dan LeFebvre
But about halfway through the movie, we also see Amelia doing things like commercials for her own brand of luggage and clothing. And we see then George talking about how he convinced Purdue University to pay 80,000 for the electric plane that Amelia flew around the world. That, of course, we’ll talk about later in our discussion. But the impression that I got then was, as I was watching the movie here was basically Amy guess financed the first flight, but then after that it was kind of George Putnam, who basically secured sponsors to finance both himself and Amelia’s career.

00:09:18:11 – 00:09:21:27
Dan LeFebvre
Is that really how Amelia Earhart earned money for her flying career?

00:09:21:29 – 00:09:39:00
Chris Williamson
Yeah, it’s pretty spot on. Earhart don’t, you know, worked a lot of jobs, worked a lot of jobs before she became famous. And that didn’t change when she became famous. Just the job type changed. That’s all it was. You know, he was obviously, you know, the the best of the best of publicity. He wasted no time.

00:09:39:00 – 00:09:56:04
Chris Williamson
He got into, like, as you mentioned, speaking gigs, endorsement deals, magazine features, the Lucky Strike ad that you mentioned. She wasn’t happy with that. She kind of later regretted that, you know, tying her her face and her her likeness, her name to cigarets. But, you know, that was all sort of part of, like, this, this large branding effort.

00:09:56:04 – 00:10:16:15
Chris Williamson
I mean, they wanted to explode her into the stratosphere. They wanted to make her paste her face everywhere. It’s really not unlike what they do with, you know, celebrities today when you see certain names and they’re just they’re everywhere. All of a sudden they’re advertising for everybody. You know, it’s a I compare kind of very different, but I compare it to when Patrick Mahomes were, you know, around Kansas City here when he became really big.

00:10:16:23 – 00:10:35:24
Chris Williamson
I mean, he was he’s advertising everything out here in Kansas City. It’s everything banks and Whataburger and like just all kinds of things, you know, you name it. So it’s not like it’s not very different. I think, George, I’m just kind of was, was doing it in the 20s, you know, and doing it in the 30s, up until Amelia disappeared.

00:10:35:26 – 00:10:55:08
Chris Williamson
But she wasn’t just along for the ride. I mean, I think she, you know, she we’ve talked about this a lot on the show. She helped shape her own image. She was a very, strong woman. She had a lot of goals. You know, she had no problem, you know, doing what she needed to do to to achieve those goals.

00:10:55:10 – 00:11:12:25
Chris Williamson
You know, she had her own luggage set, her own clothing line. She was a editor for cosmopolitan. I mean, this woman was everywhere. And, you know, the Purdue connection to to just kind of wrap it up. It’s legit. She was brought in by the then president, Purdue. I’m forgetting Eliot. I forgot his name for a second.

00:11:12:27 – 00:11:33:00
Chris Williamson
He saw her. She had already been speaking on the lecture circuit, and he saw her, and he was like, Holy shit. This woman is, like, amazing. You know, this woman is amazing. She’s she’s garnering, you know, all of this following and all these people are just mesmerized by her, I think to to Eliot’s credit, he saw that and brought her into to Purdue, and helped her fund her.

00:11:33:00 – 00:12:00:16
Chris Williamson
You know, her electric. They even called it the the flying laboratory. She was given a special designation, a career counselor for women, if I’m not mistaken, or something along the lines of that. This is a woman who was in classrooms in Purdue in the 20s, 100 years ahead of her time talking about things like Stem, you know, science, technology, you know, engineering mathematics, trying to get a lot of women and men really, for that matter.

00:12:00:18 – 00:12:18:12
Chris Williamson
But women specifically to say, look, you don’t have to get a general degree and go back into the home, and, well, now you got to go get married. No, you can fly. You can do, you know, you can get in mathematics, you can be an engineer, you can be a mechanic, things like that. So a lot of that is very, the groundwork that the movie lays is, is very good, is very solid.

00:12:18:12 – 00:12:21:13
Chris Williamson
And, it hits a lot of the big strides. You know.

00:12:21:16 – 00:12:41:03
Dan LeFebvre
I can understand in the movie, you know, just not getting into that side of it, you know, there would be a lot of time to, to get into her, promoting that kind of stuff. But it’s fascinating that she. You’re talking about you on reality show ahead of the time, but it sounds like she was really ahead of her time, too, like in and what she was promoting there with, women in Stem and stuff like that.

00:12:41:03 – 00:12:44:20
Dan LeFebvre
I can imagine that was very popular back in the 1920s.

00:12:44:22 – 00:13:06:29
Chris Williamson
Yeah. And it was very important to her, very important to her. She was a champion of of women. She was a champion of aviation. You know, she wanted to be on the front line. She saw no problem with, really the fame that she, you know, she was a sort of a double a walking, double edged sword. I mean, she loved to, she loved her privacy.

00:13:07:01 – 00:13:19:07
Chris Williamson
I think there was a man that she dated to go to take it back a little bit, and I know we’re jumping around, but to take it backwards a little bit before she met George, there was a man and I. I’m remiss if I didn’t say this, that she, that she met, that she was engaged to. His name was Sam Chapman.

00:13:19:09 – 00:13:41:06
Chris Williamson
And Sam Chapman was, in my opinion, was really the love of her life. And he was, you know, if you look him up, he was fiercely private. He protected that privacy. There were, moments in the middle of Earhart’s career, early in her career, where they were still together. This is before she, you know, got engaged and started having an affair with George and Mary.

00:13:41:06 – 00:14:05:09
Chris Williamson
George, where they would spend time together, they would drive up the coast after she got back from a flight. And it spent 3 or 4 hours together before she had to be rushed back to her, her schedule, you know, the rest of her stuff. But she was very much in love with Sam, to the point that if she had trusted him, specifically with, you know, what to do with everything after she died, if she didn’t make it across, you know, the transatlantic flight or her solo.

00:14:05:09 – 00:14:24:22
Chris Williamson
I mean, she was really. She really loved him, really trusted him. So Sam was, I think, the love of her life. But George Putnam was just a natural fit. And it, you know, it just kind of worked out for for Amelia, when it comes to the publicity side of things that she happened to be with, you know, have somebody in her pocket that was, probably the best she could have at the time.

00:14:24:25 – 00:14:45:13
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I wonder if some of that leads into my next question. Because if you go back to the movie, we see George and Amelia, it’s it their relationship transitioned from a strictly professional one to a romantic one as well. And he’s the one that seems to be more entirely smitten with her and wants to get married. And even though she does seem to eventually love him, she doesn’t want to commit to a marriage.

00:14:45:13 – 00:14:59:07
Dan LeFebvre
And maybe some of what you were just talking about kind of alluded to that. But then skipping ahead in the timeline of the movie a little bit later on, George eventually does convince her to marry him. Do you think the movie does a good job telling the true story of George and Amelia’s relationship?

00:14:59:10 – 00:15:26:11
Chris Williamson
It gets the broad strokes right. You know, it’s such a deep relationship. There’s a book, I will promote it. It’s not mine. It’s you’ve probably heard of it. It’s called The Aviator and the showman. It’s by Lori King Shapiro. It just dropped. We just had Lori was the most current episode of our show, and, you know, that relationship, if you really want to know the the the gritty, nitty gritty details, you know, read that book because it there’s so much more to that relationship.

00:15:26:13 – 00:15:46:24
Chris Williamson
And Lori did a fantastic job of uncovering some new information that hadn’t been previously known, historically, but it does get the the broad strokes, for the most part, fairly accurate. He was very persistent. He pushed. I mean, I can appreciate that. I, as soon as I saw my wife, I, I told my friend like, that’s my wife, she doesn’t know yet, but I’m going to marry her.

00:15:46:24 – 00:16:23:10
Chris Williamson
And it took me a little while, but I was very persistent. So I can I can admire that persistence, in Mr. Putnam. But she was obviously much more hesitant. She, you know, she valued her independence, really, above anything else, her flying, her public life, all her private relationships and things of that nature. And, and, you know, she wrote a really famous letter to George, and I’m paraphrasing, but she talks about her reluctance to marry him, and, you know, that marrying him sort of shatters any chances, in work and her work, which really meant, more than anything, getting women in aviation out there.

00:16:23:10 – 00:16:41:21
Chris Williamson
And really, the mission, the cause was the most important thing to her more than anything else. And, you know, she tells him famously in that letter, you got to let me go in a year. If if we don’t find happiness, you know, even though it’s an attractive cage, I can’t stay in a cage. And you got to promise you’ll let me go in a year.

00:16:41:23 – 00:17:06:16
Chris Williamson
I won’t hold you to any medieval, you know, marital obligations. And you don’t hold me to any marital obligations, either. And she was again, what, 100 year? I mean, people, I mean, this is way off topic, but if you look at like the the status of like marriage, now, you know, just how much open marriage is there, how much that, you know, this is in the Jazz age, a hundred years ago almost.

00:17:06:18 – 00:17:34:18
Chris Williamson
And, you know, open marriage. It’s weird how it comes around in circles like that was a very common thing at that time, and it just wasn’t really talked about. But the people that were really well known that were sort of in those circles, like Amelia Earhart and George Putnam, I once those things started to get out, I mean, people were like, well, of course, you know, it was because it was the Jazz Age and it was everybody was having affairs and everybody was sleeping around and everybody was, you know, had the sort of loose lips kind of look at marriage and long term relationships.

00:17:34:18 – 00:17:42:02
Chris Williamson
So, you know, people could argue that she was way ahead of her time or people could say that, well, just everybody was doing that at the time. That was just kind of the way the world is.

00:17:42:02 – 00:18:01:12
Dan LeFebvre
Since we are on the topic of Amelia’s personal relationships, another one that we see in the movie is Jean Vidal, who also works with Amelia for a little bit while, and we don’t really see them sleeping together in the movie, although there is a scene where we see Jean and Amelia kissing in an elevator. So the impression that I got was that Amelia probably had an affair with Jean while she was married to George.

00:18:01:15 – 00:18:05:28
Dan LeFebvre
Was there a romantic relationship between May and Jean?

00:18:06:00 – 00:18:24:17
Chris Williamson
Maybe. You know, we don’t have we don’t have any there. So I will tell you this. There’s no definitive proof. So the film does take liberty there with the elevator kiss I, which I’d forgotten about. I just remember that, as you told me, was like, oh, yeah, she did. Yeah, she did sneak a kiss in the elevator. There’s no definitive proof that they ever had a relationship.

00:18:24:17 – 00:18:52:15
Chris Williamson
They were friends. They were close as a you know, she was with a lot of people. He was Jean was obviously, he was the, the father of of, Gore Vidal, the who was a writer. And Gore is, really the one that sort of, kept this rumor alive, for lack of a better phrase. But, you know, Gore was a fantasy writer, and he was a kid, you know, when he would have seen Amelia with with Jean.

00:18:52:22 – 00:19:08:24
Chris Williamson
And, you know, doesn’t mean that if we’re, you know, six, seven years old, we don’t remember things that we see, you know, definitively. But, you know, you sort of take that into consideration that in combination with there never being a physical or any any kind of proof or any letters between the two of them, then that would, that would say, you know, hey, we were romantic together or anything like that.

00:19:08:27 – 00:19:23:09
Chris Williamson
There’s just no, there’s to use a term from the disappearance. There’s no smoking gun for that. So, you know, it’s it’s rumor and innuendo to to which there is an awful lot, when it comes to Amelia Earhart, both pre death and certainly post death.

00:19:23:15 – 00:19:44:28
Dan LeFebvre
So it sounds like maybe the movie and a movie do this a lot. You know, you have this one little, little fact you’re talking about, open relationships being a bigger thing. And then this other element of it and they’re like, okay, we’re just going to connect these dots and just kind of fill in some of those gaps, even if there’s not, a dot in the middle of of proof that we know, but it’s a movie and we have that creative license to do that.

00:19:44:28 – 00:19:46:07
Dan LeFebvre
It sounds like that’s kind of what they’re doing there.

00:19:46:14 – 00:19:51:08
Chris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s that’s kind of what Hollywood does with a lot of. So yeah. Yeah.

00:19:51:08 – 00:20:18:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, speaking of Amelia Earhart, supporting other women, one of the other women aviators in the movie that we see is Eleanor Smith. And the movie shows Amelia being very supportive of Miss Smith and really, any other women fighters that she comes across. But when Amelia isn’t around, George tries to convince Eleanor to purposely let Amelia win a derby flight from Santa Monica to Cleveland to as the movie puts it, benefits women fliers everywhere.

00:20:18:26 – 00:20:41:26
Dan LeFebvre
And of course, the sponsorships that the movie shows, I’m sure would also benefit him financially too. But then we see Amelia coming in third behind Louise Hayden and Gladys O’Donnell. Anyway, so the movie is really unclear if George’s influence had any effect on that outcome. Does the movie accurately portray the different perspectives that Amelia Earhart and George Putnam had on other women fighters, like Eleanor Smith?

00:20:41:29 – 00:21:16:18
Chris Williamson
Yeah, it does. So I will tell you, it’s it does portrayed accurately. Amelia, you’re right 100%. Amelia was very friendly with all of her compatriots, the people that, you know, fellow 90 nines people that she was flying with, people in the air, dirty races, other female aviators. She was very sweet. And I think if you look at any of the, documentation that’s out there, you’re going to be hard pressed to find, an instance where Amelia ever, like, cussed another female aviator out or any or anything like that, or, you know, she showed more than minor frustrations, you know, of of things.

00:21:16:21 – 00:21:37:04
Chris Williamson
But it wasn’t with anybody in particular. Eleanor Smith was an absolute animal when it came to fly. She was one of the best fliers ever. She was a fantastic aviator, and she was technically a much more skilled pilot. Admitted by Amelia herself. Amelia has said several times on record that, you know, she’s not the most talented pilot.

00:21:37:04 – 00:22:03:13
Chris Williamson
If you talk to, a lot of aviation history historians, they’ll tell you about people like Pancho Barnes. They’ll tell you about Florence Clayton Smith. I’ll tell you about Ruth Elder Ruth Nichols, Eleanor Smith. I mean, there’s dozens and dozens and dozens of women, that were incredible fliers. George, while that particular event, with the the, the Air Derby race with Eleanor Smith, that particular event was fictionalized.

00:22:03:13 – 00:22:22:25
Chris Williamson
It was more of a representation of kind of what he would do. So, you know, yes, he did, try to influence negatively and pressure a lot of the other women and try to tell them things, like, you know, they wouldn’t have a career if, you know, they didn’t allow Earhart to do dot, dot, dot or whatever.

00:22:22:27 – 00:22:40:17
Chris Williamson
Now, Earhart and, and, and Putnam were sort of at odds with that. But Earhart obviously didn’t know a lot of a lot of that stuff. I think that, you know, or that were instances where Earhart found out that George Putnam was pressuring people and she would go talk to George and tell them, like, look, this is important. You know, you can’t be talking to women like this.

00:22:40:17 – 00:22:59:21
Chris Williamson
You can’t be, you know, talking to my compatriots like this. So, yeah, I mean, that particular moment. No. But did that stuff happen all the time? Absolutely. I mean, George was fiercely competitive and wanted Earhart to be the woman, the face of aviation. And, you know, to his credit, we’re still sitting here talking about her.

00:22:59:21 – 00:23:01:27
Chris Williamson
And so he must have done something right.

00:23:02:00 – 00:23:15:25
Dan LeFebvre
I guess sometimes. Yeah. When you’re, in PR like that, you got to kind of do what you got to do, and he’s doing his job. But then Amelia being, you know, married to her job, it sounds like, you’re going to but has an end be at odds. Sometimes it seems.

00:23:15:27 – 00:23:32:11
Chris Williamson
Yeah, sometimes I mean, it it’s it’s, you know, he was he was brutal, but I don’t I don’t think George had a problem being the bad guy. You know, when it came to that, if it if it resolve the mission and if it got them to where they needed to be, I, I really don’t I don’t think he had a problem with that.

00:23:32:11 – 00:23:36:05
Chris Williamson
He just wasn’t the kind of guy that had a problem with that. You know, it was just business. It was a personal.

00:23:36:11 – 00:24:02:06
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movie after being the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger, the movie then shows Amelia wanting to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. And that happens in 1932. We see her leaving new Jersey with the plan to arrive in Paris, and then there’s some issues with the storm and icing along the way, and the movie shows her landing successfully in Gallagher’s pasture, which just seems to be a random farm in Ireland, as she’s greeted by Shepherd and his sheep.

00:24:02:09 – 00:24:19:00
Dan LeFebvre
But still, it’s a successful flight across the Atlantic and makes history for the first nonstop solo flight for a woman. And the only. This movie mentions the second person, following Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight. How well does the movie do? Showing Amelia Earhart historic flight across the Atlantic in 1932?

00:24:19:03 – 00:24:44:28
Chris Williamson
Yeah. It’s pretty it’s pretty accurate. For the most part. As far as everything you laid out, where she landed, where she started from, you know, the inclement weather, to say the least. I mean, she was in an open weather cockpit, so. I mean, that Vega. So, I mean, you weren’t in an Electra like she was, you know, in 37 where she had some cover, so she was just getting dumped on with everything that, you know, the good Lord was throwing at her, while she was going across the Atlantic.

00:24:45:00 – 00:25:06:02
Chris Williamson
And, you know, so this is this is the the this is the flight that if the French friendship flight made her world a world star, this shot her into the stratosphere. It earned her the Distinguished Flying Cross. You know, she was obviously, as you mentioned, the the, you know, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic right after, Lindbergh.

00:25:06:04 – 00:25:33:19
Chris Williamson
But the the the historical accuracy of of sort of like what she dealt with and kind of, you know, how she, handled the flight and the things that she sort of encountered was, was largely accurate. And, yeah, she did. The weather was so bad, it did blow her way off course. And she did end up in an Ireland in a cow pasture and, and, you know, it’s, you know, it’s one of those really famous stories that sort of makes her, America’s sweetheart, you know, keeps, gives, gives her that status of America’s sweetheart.

00:25:33:19 – 00:25:49:05
Chris Williamson
You know, she arrives, you know, in Ireland and, and the guys, like, you know, when you come far and she’s like, come from America. You know, she she knew she was she knew what she was doing. She knew she had made it. I can’t imagine whether you land in the right spot or not just to touch ground.

00:25:49:05 – 00:26:04:22
Chris Williamson
After what she went through, I got to imagine you. She made it technically, even though she didn’t end up on the same spot that she planned out to be. She did, you know, make it across the Atlantic. And I can’t imagine the weight off her shoulders and really the vindication, right, that she probably must have felt, internally at that time.

00:26:04:22 – 00:26:20:27
Chris Williamson
You know, maybe we’ll never know because she never really talked about herself in a, in a really, like, a pompous way or anything. If she talked any kind of business at all, it was just about women in general, women in aviation. And women can do the things that men could do, and all that jazz. But yeah, I mean, it largely gets it, right.

00:26:20:27 – 00:26:27:09
Chris Williamson
I mean, for the most part, again, broad, broad strokes, but pretty accurate for what she had to endure.

00:26:27:11 – 00:26:48:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I could imagine what that would be like, especially because that first flight she was mostly a, I mean, a passenger you mentioned, you know, she did have some some control there too, but not she wasn’t the pilot, which is what she wanted to do. And then I can imagine with, people like Eleanor Smith who was actually a great pilot, and I, I could imagine internally, you’re starting to feel like, can I actually do this?

00:26:48:22 – 00:26:57:23
Dan LeFebvre
Like, is this something I could actually do, starting to have some of those doubts. So just imagine. Yeah, that has to be a huge weight off. Like, yeah, I, I can do this.

00:26:57:26 – 00:27:22:18
Chris Williamson
You can do it. And in that Vega which is a gorgeous planet. And the Smithsonian, I’ve stood underneath it. It’s such a beautiful plane. And, you know, a very strong plane for its time. But by today’s standards, it’s, you know, very basic, very unforgiving, very loud. Imagine navigating a flight like that with, you know, no GPS, no modern instruments, you know, near freezing temperatures, rain dumped on your face and then doing it alone.

00:27:22:18 – 00:27:38:18
Chris Williamson
Right? I mean, doing it alone. You have nobody you can really talk to. You have no one to lean on. It’s just you and that ocean. And, it must have been horrifying. But she was, you know, she she loved it. It’s all she ever wanted to do from the first moment she saw it. And it clicked for her.

00:27:38:18 – 00:27:55:27
Chris Williamson
It was what she wanted. And I think, she just didn’t see, you know, she saw the fear. But I don’t know. I can’t really explain her fearlessness. It was kind of different, which makes her very final moments historically recorded, that much more haunting, which we’ll get to toward the end. Yeah.

00:27:55:29 – 00:28:16:25
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. I love that you mentioned, you know, as you were saying, I was like, I gotta I gotta use GPS to get to the grocery store, right? I mean, these days we just rely on it, right? It’s just so right. You just comin. You just doesn’t matter. You just get used to that and just follow that line. Or, you know, when you’re falling asleep while you’re driving, I’m gonna roll the window down a little bit and be a little cool, but that’s a whole other level of just an open cockpit and and altitude and.

00:28:16:25 – 00:28:17:21
Dan LeFebvre
Oof! Yeah.

00:28:17:23 – 00:28:27:22
Chris Williamson
How loud? Yeah. And how loud. It must have been the whole time. And you’re, you know. Yeah. All that, just all that together would have been very difficult to overcome at that time.

00:28:27:25 – 00:28:47:04
Dan LeFebvre
Well, in the movie there are a few achievements that are really just mentioned only briefly. There’s a headline that says Amelia took an auto gyro of 19,000ft to set a new altitude record. There’s another one that mentions her being the first to achieve a solo flight from Hawaii to California. These are all just kind of headlines that we see passed by very quickly in the movie.

00:28:47:04 – 00:28:54:13
Dan LeFebvre
But can you fill in some more historical details around some of the aviation records that Emily Earhart set in the movie, that it doesn’t really show us?

00:28:54:16 – 00:29:15:20
Chris Williamson
Yeah. The Autobots, I mean, I can flesh it out a little bit. The auto gyro is one of my favorite stories. It was sort of like this. It was sort of like a helicopter. It was like a like a prototype helicopter kind of aircraft. She took it up. 19th hour. Not quite nice about it was a little over 18,000ft, but pretty close to 19,000ft, you know, promptly crashed it.

00:29:15:22 – 00:29:34:26
Chris Williamson
You know, came down after the crash was fine. It was like. Yeah. You know, your auto gyro needs some improvements. But she said. But she set a record in it. So, you know, she did that, obviously. Big one. First woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 32. We talked about that. You know, it was the Distinguished Flying Cross was a big deal across of the night of the Legion of Honor.

00:29:35:02 – 00:29:56:15
Chris Williamson
From France. I want to say, and, you know, she received a lot of awards for that, a lot of accolades. You know, first person, as you mentioned, a fly from Hawaii to California, a much, much funner flight than going across, the Atlantic. But, you know, it’s still very dangerous, 24,500 miles of ocean, I’m not mistaken.

00:29:56:18 – 00:30:11:23
Chris Williamson
And, you know, not even Lindbergh had done it, you know? So, like, she was, she was now. So she had done what Lindbergh had done. And she’s like, all right, now I’m going to take this five steps forward now, and I’m just going to make the history books, not forget about Charles Lindbergh, but I’m going to dwarf Charles Lindbergh.

00:30:11:25 – 00:30:28:18
Chris Williamson
You know, she really I felt that she really wanted to do that because she wanted to do it for women. She, you know, I mean, it was the. I think that was the first. It was the first flight from the from the mainland US to Hawaii, if I’m not mistaken. I could be wrong, man or woman, but I think it was the first flight.

00:30:28:21 – 00:30:46:17
Chris Williamson
She flew across the, in 32. She also flew across the US, the United States, the continental United States, a Los Angeles to New Jersey, which is soon, which is interesting when you look at the the, disappearance stuff and some of the theories, and, speed records, you know, lots of speed records and other distance records.

00:30:46:24 – 00:31:10:10
Chris Williamson
She won some races, you know, she really boned up her navigation skills over time. And the for in those couple of years, you know, from 28 to like 32, 33, 34, 35, really try to get better. She flew from Mexico City to New Jersey, I believe, as well, and Los Angeles to Mexico City, like, so a bunch of, like a little, little flights, not little flights, but a bunch of smaller flights.

00:31:10:13 – 00:31:38:08
Chris Williamson
But she was just racking up records and racking up altitude records and speed records and all these things all along the way, and just becoming a better, you know, pilot. And then she sort of shifted into becoming sort of, this bigger than, bigger than just a pilot face, for women in aviation, for women in general, not just in aviation, but, aviation was sort of the, a launching pad for, for women to do things in general that she felt, they should be already doing.

00:31:38:10 – 00:31:59:17
Dan LeFebvre
I’m curious how much of that was pressure from George as PR because you think, you know, with PR, it’s s easier to to sell our new record a new something. And you know how much of that was her wanting to push, beyond Lindbergh and and promote women in aviation? How much of that was George B like, oh, we gotta top what we did last time.

00:31:59:17 – 00:32:01:18
Dan LeFebvre
Make a new record, do this?

00:32:01:21 – 00:32:25:22
Chris Williamson
Yeah. Both. Both. Sure. She she had her own reasons, certainly, for doing it. You know, don’t get me wrong, she, she loved, the fame, but I think she loved the fame for different reasons. I really think she saw the fame as a catalyst to get what she ultimately wanted, which was a women into the forefront of, you know, what would become modern day aviation at the time.

00:32:25:24 – 00:32:49:23
Chris Williamson
So, you know, George certainly pushed for more records, more flights, you know, it bumped up her lecture costs. It bumped up her, you know, more books. It bumped up, you know, more appearances. She was everywhere christening the cars. I mean, doing all kinds. I mean, the blimps, you know, she’d come out, she’d make an appearance somewhere, like a planned appearance.

00:32:49:25 – 00:33:07:24
Chris Williamson
And, you know, there would be 10,000 people there to see her. I mean, you know, insane for this is, you know, in the 20s and the 30s. So this is, you know, you think, you think this would be someone that was modern, but this was like a Taylor Swift before Taylor Swift. This was like, you know, think pick any real famous female celebrity now, and you think I’m a celebrity.

00:33:07:24 – 00:33:24:04
Chris Williamson
Really? And it’s really she is that before them, which is really kind of interesting. She kind of set the groundwork for it. And then, you know, I think that kind of rolls into her role with Purdue kind of to kind of take it back to Purdue. I mean, that was when she really started speaking a lot more in the lecture circuit.

00:33:24:04 – 00:33:46:29
Chris Williamson
That’s when Edward Kelly comes along, sees her speaking, brings her into Purdue. You know, she’s, the first woman to receive a National Aeronautic Association license. You know, she’s one of the now, not the but one of the very first female instructors in aviation at her role at Purdue. Like, really amplifies that. And not to mention, she’s the president and the co-founder of the 99, which was is still going right now.

00:33:47:03 – 00:34:08:07
Chris Williamson
So, I mean, it’s, you know, not bad for someone whose career. But when you think about this, when she met George Putnam was 1928. She was gone in 37. So not even ten years later, she was gone. And, what’s really interesting about Earhart and what they try to maybe I’ll touch more on this at the end is, you know, we never really got to see her age.

00:34:08:10 – 00:34:29:27
Chris Williamson
We never got to see her become like this old, feeble woman. We didn’t see her die. And, you know, as an old lady in a bed, we just kind of saw her fly off into the sunset, and we don’t have a period on the end of that sentence, which is what makes films like 2009. Amelia was, you know, the one we’re talking about today and and flight for freedom and all those other films that that have been made over the years that have tie to Earhart in one shape, one way or another.

00:34:30:00 – 00:34:40:01
Chris Williamson
You know, it makes them very significant. And, you know, Amelia is one of those films I think that probably did it, probably did it best, you know, so far out of all the films. But, you know, there’s always room for improvement. Of course.

00:34:40:03 – 00:34:58:28
Dan LeFebvre
What were her lectures like? Was she teaching more like, teaching how to be a pilot? Because also we learned earlier, like her experience as a pilot was she admitted, was not as great as some others. Or was she more just kind of recounting her adventures? Well, I call them adventures, but, you know, terrifying adventures in some of them.

00:34:58:28 – 00:35:04:04
Dan LeFebvre
But, you know, these flights was was it more just kind of here’s what I’ve done or is it more teaching?

00:35:04:06 – 00:35:21:22
Chris Williamson
I think it was a little bit of both. She talked on the lecture circuit for sure. For sure. She was talking about her, her adventurous, great work. I mean, that’s exactly what she would probably have used. And, you know, but when it came to being in the classroom, I mean, this is a woman who, you know, gritty was in the classroom, spent time, you know, she ate at Purdue.

00:35:21:23 – 00:35:49:04
Chris Williamson
She lived, you know, she stayed at Purdue. I mean, she was there. She was all in, and in the classrooms. I think it was more of a, you know, talking to women, motivating women, being in the classroom, being one on one, with female students, male students, they also had built she had also gotten Purdue to build a, a mechanics lab, an aviation mechanics lab that was going to be there, that was going to be, was going to sort of take the spotlight when she returned from the world flight.

00:35:49:09 – 00:36:19:18
Chris Williamson
And it was just, a lab that, you know, anybody, male or female, could go in there and tinker with engines and could, you know, look at the ins and outs of the mechanics of how airplanes worked. And not just airplanes, but just, you know, other things. They called her the Electra, the flying laboratory, because she was going to take, you know, air samples, water samples, land samples from all around the world and bring those back to Purdue, so they can sort of study maybe parts of the world that hadn’t really been heavily traveled yet, or at least by modern people.

00:36:19:21 – 00:36:36:09
Chris Williamson
And, you know, that, again, ties into some of the theory and some of the some of the disappearance ideas and stuff. But, you know, she was definitely she was lecturing, broad spectrum, broad strokes, talking about her adventures. And then in the classroom, it allowed her to get into the more nitty gritty and get, you know, one on one with people.

00:36:36:09 – 00:36:40:04
Chris Williamson
And she did both very well to a very, very high degree.

00:36:40:06 – 00:36:47:06
Dan LeFebvre
That ties right into what you’re talking about, you know, her wanting to push women in Stem, I mean, lead by example, right? It seems like that’s exactly what she was doing.

00:36:47:09 – 00:37:06:16
Chris Williamson
Absolutely. She was the definition of like, you know, the say like a real leader is, is going to be there with you. They’re not going to be shouting instructions. They’re going to be doing it. And she she was doing it. I mean, she wasn’t you know, this is a woman who had God, I couldn’t even tell you how many different jobs that she had to, to, to support her flying.

00:37:06:18 – 00:37:25:28
Chris Williamson
Now again, there has been some new information that’s come out, that would, maybe make you look at things a little bit differently. But, you know, I would say that wasn’t in the movie, for instance, it’s part of Laurie’s book. I it’s it’s kind of a big spoiler, but the book’s out now, so people can kind of can read it for themselves.

00:37:26:01 – 00:37:48:10
Chris Williamson
But Laurie’s one of Laurie’s big revelations in the book is that Amelia Earhart had, And this is her word, not mine. Had a sugar daddy. I had a much wealthier, older guy who actually bought her cars and bought her, you know, some of her plane. Not not her Electra, of course, but early in her career. And, so, you know, the whole idea of her having all these jobs and everything, that certainly did happen.

00:37:48:10 – 00:38:12:13
Chris Williamson
But, you know, she was a woman, and she knew how to use her, you know, her feminine wiles to use a term I hate. A but I just don’t have anything else to say, to kind of come up with. That’s better. I would say that she knew how to how to sort of flip that switch. I compare her a lot, to a Marilyn Monroe type figure where if you look at Marilyn’s history, Marilyn, and in the films and books and all that stuff, Marilyn could turn it on like a switch.

00:38:12:16 – 00:38:32:13
Chris Williamson
You know, she was very, very kind of a quiet, private person. But when she was in front of the media, it’s like, you know, okay, got to turn it on, got to go to work. And that’s kind of what what Earhart did. But she had, you know, she used everything in her power that she had to be able to acquire again, mission first, more than anything else, she had a she had a dream and she wanted to achieve it.

00:38:32:13 – 00:38:34:25
Chris Williamson
And damn, whatever she had to do to do it.

00:38:34:25 – 00:38:52:28
Dan LeFebvre
Well, we’ve talked a lot about the events, but something we haven’t really talked about much, a little bit here, but obviously everybody. Well, spoiler alert, we know what’s going to happen. But throughout the movie interspersed, we see Amelia’s flight around the world with Fred Noonan, and it’s not really till the end of the movie that it starts to focus on that flight.

00:38:52:28 – 00:39:13:07
Dan LeFebvre
So there’s a lot we can talk about with that. But according to the way it’s set up in the movie, it starts in Miami, June 1st, 1937, and that’s when Amelia meets Fred for what looks like in the movie. The first time. The movie suggests that he was hired for the flight because he’s the best celestial navigator of that time, and for Amelia’s flight around the world to be successful.

00:39:13:09 – 00:39:30:07
Dan LeFebvre
There’s one part that she’ll really need his help with, and that’s finding this tiny island called Howland Island, which is positioned roughly halfway between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. The problem, according to the movie, is that Howland Island is less than two miles long, no, no taller than 18ft, making it next to impossible to see in the expanse of the ocean.

00:39:30:14 – 00:39:48:03
Dan LeFebvre
But that’s why it’s important to find, because, according to the movie, again, refueling mid-air is something beyond Amelia’s skill level. So they’d have to land to refuel and then finish the journey. Does the movie correctly set up the reasons why Fred Noonan joined Amelia Earhart as her navigator for the flight around the world?

00:39:48:05 – 00:40:06:26
Chris Williamson
Yeah, it doesn’t go into a lot. It touches on certain aspects of of Noonan’s character and who he was. You know, you put it perfectly. I couldn’t put it better myself. I say this all the time in media. If you were going to do a flight of that magnitude, that would be the guy that you would want to have on board the flight with you.

00:40:07:00 – 00:40:29:21
Chris Williamson
No question. If you look at his history, he was a big, big reason why Panam was was able to map so much of the Pacific that they were able to map, in the Atlantic as well. He was, a skilled, skilled celestial navigator, and he was the best in the world. And she believed in him. And, you know, it was it was important for Noonan.

00:40:29:21 – 00:40:52:14
Chris Williamson
He. This is a guy who was newly remarried at the time of of the flight, and he had dreams of his own. I think he he wanted to ultimately wanted to set up a navigation school post-World flight. I think he again, not only Amelia, but Fred and of course, and George Putnam, they were all looking at this flight as a way to basically set their life, for the back half of their careers.

00:40:52:16 – 00:41:16:21
Chris Williamson
And so, you know, it largely gets, you know, Noonan accurate. He did have a drinking problem. We talk about this all the time on the show. We’ve debated it heavily, unvarnished. A lot of experts now will tell you that a drunk Noonan is was probably better than 90% of sober navigators at the time. And, that Noonan was sort of a functional alcoholic.

00:41:16:21 – 00:41:39:04
Chris Williamson
So he could drink. You can get kind of plastered the night before, and he could show up for work and do his job, you know, to a very high ability, the next day. Now, Erhard didn’t like that. He drank. Clearly, it takes us back to the friendship flight. Takes us back to her. You know, her days with her father when you know they want to play cowboys and Indians and, you know, he would stumble in the house drunk, obviously, and they wouldn’t be able to, you know, play with them.

00:41:39:04 – 00:41:59:15
Chris Williamson
And he had to go pass out and, you know, so she really I mean, the alcoholism ran really deep, with her when it came to, you know, men and alcoholism. So, you know, Noonan, was a very excellent navigator, but he, you know, he had some demons. He had some issues. He respected Earhart. Earhart respected him.

00:41:59:18 – 00:42:17:13
Chris Williamson
I think they respect each other’s professional abilities. And, there’s even a quote somewhere in Oakland. I think early, or maybe even it was in Miami. And maybe I had him thinking about it where she was asked, about Fred Noonan, about navigation or about being lost, you know, making sure that Howland was something that they could hit.

00:42:17:15 – 00:42:37:27
Chris Williamson
Excuse me, could hit. And her response, I’m paraphrasing, was, I brought the best navigator in the world to make sure that that doesn’t happen, that, you know, we hit Howland, that we make it, we we finish our flight and we come home. She believed in him. Very much so. Yeah. How he met her, how he convinced her, you know, sort of the way they they talked and had their conversations.

00:42:38:00 – 00:42:47:20
Chris Williamson
He he was her best bet, and she knew it, and, she took a gamble, and it turns out it didn’t work out, you know? So, but, yeah, she believed it 100%.

00:42:47:27 – 00:43:02:28
Dan LeFebvre
So. Well, you touched on something briefly that we see in the movie, because the last stop in the movie that we see before Howland Island is in Papua New Guinea. And while they’re there, Fred and Amelia grab drinks a little bar to rest for the evening before taking off the next day. And then, of course, watching the movie.

00:43:03:01 – 00:43:24:24
Dan LeFebvre
We know what’s going to happen. It’s like watching the Titanic. You kind of know how you know what is going to happen at the end. But as I was watching this scene, I couldn’t help but pick up and at least two red flags that seem to suggest that there’s a problem. And one is that the movie implied Fred had a drinking problem, although he did flat out tell Amelia at one point in the movie that, his drinking has never affected his work.

00:43:24:24 – 00:43:44:04
Dan LeFebvre
Which kind of goes back to what you were talking about being a functional, alcoholic. But then secondly, after Amelia and Fred take off from Papua New Guinea, the guy at the airfield, a guy named Mr. Balfour, radios George Putnam to say that the headwinds were stronger than a million. Fred thought. So their plane had to use about 9% more fuel than they calculated.

00:43:44:06 – 00:44:00:22
Dan LeFebvre
And then on top of that, Mr. Balfour tries to hail them on the radio to let them know about this, but he’s not successful in doing that. So that tells me that perhaps a million Fred would be surprised by running out of fuel faster than they expected. Is there any truth to these potential problems as they left Papua New Guinea?

00:44:00:25 – 00:44:20:09
Chris Williamson
Oh yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot, the, the, Tom Detweiler, who was on our show, who was the operations manager for Titanic. And his resume is insane. He told me something that’s always stuck with me. And I say it every time I get the chance to say. And a lot of these accidents. It’s not. It’s never just one thing.

00:44:20:09 – 00:44:46:25
Chris Williamson
It’s the sum of a lot of little things that lead up to the end result. What we have. Right. One of those, surely. We’ll talk about a few of them. One was. Wait, they were really, really concerned about the aircraft. Amelia, was it has been quoted in papers leading up to that takeoff in particular. They have the take off in life or Howland she kept saying she was flying it weighted capacity, which is an interesting way to say it.

00:44:46:27 – 00:45:13:00
Chris Williamson
And they were throwing out everything you can imagine, including the raft, including some things that you would. That kind of boggles the mind. She left her pistol there. There’s a lot of things. They were counting the ounces, essentially, because they knew that, Lockheed’s specs, were meant that the the plane couldn’t weigh, more than a certain amount on a paved runway with a certain length to take off.

00:45:13:00 – 00:45:27:25
Chris Williamson
And they were they weren’t on a page from the way they were on a grass runway. As a matter of fact, there is footage of that last takeoff. You can see it on YouTube of them, actually. People at least shooting them, taking off, getting up onto the aircraft and taking off. By the way, Fred Noonan does not look drunk.

00:45:27:25 – 00:45:46:15
Chris Williamson
Not in the slightest. When they do that, and I will say, and I did mean to say this, I apologize. This is my fault. The the you did ask earlier, the movie does indicate that they met on, in Miami. They had flown previously together, so they that that is inaccurate. Technically, they had met each other and they he would he had been involved earlier in the flight.

00:45:46:15 – 00:46:04:22
Chris Williamson
They had the whole ground loop incident had a reverse course. That’s kind of a whole nother thing. But again, some of a lot of little things. Right. So, the headwinds certainly, the fuel certainly. That’s a big, big, big point of contention when it comes to theory. How much fuel did they actually leave late with?

00:46:04:24 – 00:46:27:04
Chris Williamson
Everything you’re talking about when it comes to Harry Balfour is 100% accurate. He tried to get in touch with them. He tried to, couldn’t receive the the, the Earhart. Noonan couldn’t receive his transmissions. They finally did receive his transmissions. And, they seemed to sort of, you know, make the adjustments and necessary adjustments needed to, to combat headwinds and things of that nature.

00:46:27:04 – 00:46:43:03
Chris Williamson
But, you know, we don’t know what was going on in the aircraft, essentially. That’s kind of the that’s kind of the rough part. And yeah, you’re right. If they had not anticipated those headwinds, now, a lot of people would say that the headwinds were, well, well known, in that in that part of the world at that time.

00:46:43:06 – 00:47:15:02
Chris Williamson
And there’s about half the people that would say that they weren’t discovered. Those headwinds that had been shipped wasn’t discovered until like five years after they were in the area. So headwinds would have been a big, factor in the end result and so would have obviously fuel and the lack of fuel. Which brings us to sort of, you know, the end of the of the film when there, you know, she’s saying all these really well known, historically famous lines, like we must, you know, we must be on you, but I cannot see you were on one five, seven, three, three, seven flying north and south, you know, all that stuff.

00:47:15:02 – 00:47:24:21
Chris Williamson
And her last word that she ever spoke on record was the word wait, which is an interesting, interesting word to choose as your last word.

00:47:24:23 – 00:47:44:02
Dan LeFebvre
Obviously the weight has would factor into the fuel, but would it also factor into speaking of of Howland? Just being a smaller island, being able to take off when you, as you were saying, that was part of the concern of weight, not as much getting there, but being able to take off from the island again.

00:47:44:04 – 00:47:58:19
Chris Williamson
Yeah, I think so. Taking off, in both cases from not only from Lee, but, you know, trying to anticipate Howland. Howland would have given him a little bit more run, a little bit more room to to run, to kind of get up off the ground and take off. And as you said, it was 18ft off the ground.

00:47:58:19 – 00:48:17:13
Chris Williamson
You know, lay was certainly not if you look at, them taking off and lay a lot of the, the bystanders, the witnesses said that it looked like they just the flame just went right off the cliff. And luckily she was able to like, you know, pull that stick and there was able to bear I mean, they barely they were in circles over the water until they were able to get enough, you know, between them on the water to get up off of it.

00:48:17:13 – 00:48:46:25
Chris Williamson
They almost died right there. You know, so Howland would have been a different situation because it’s obviously not the same, topography. And it’s not the same, you know, high three thing. But they had they also had the Itasca there, you know, off the coast of Howland, that’s also portrayed in the film. The Itasca was there and that they were there to do their job, which was to bring them in, help assist, bring them in, help them with R&R, get them, you know, rested up, refueled, and get them off to Hawaii to finish the last leg of the flight.

00:48:46:27 – 00:49:12:26
Chris Williamson
And, even with the Itasca there, you know, and the Itasca pulling the signals that they were pulling and all that stuff like they talked about at the end of the film, or that they show you at the end of the film. It’s it’s one of history’s greatest mysteries when it comes to why they couldn’t communicate with each other and why they couldn’t see each other, and why when Leo Ballard stepped outside the radio room expecting to see her coming right over on top of the Itasca, he didn’t see them anywhere.

00:49:12:26 – 00:49:23:10
Chris Williamson
And that was kind of mind boggling to the radio room operators, you know, as especially when they were pulling consistent signal strength and, like they were at the end of the film.

00:49:23:12 – 00:49:43:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. I want to ask you about some of the details that we see in the movie, because we do see the Itasca, US Coast Guard cutter, anchored at Howland. And then they can hear Amelia’s transmissions, but she can’t seem to hear the replies. The attempts for Morse code don’t work either. According to George Putnam in the movie, they didn’t even take the receiver in a way, perhaps because of the weight thing.

00:49:43:24 – 00:50:09:15
Dan LeFebvre
So, it’s mostly a one way conversation. But then, to make matters worse, in the movie, someone accidentally left the direction finder on the Itasca on overnight. So the battery is dead. That means they can’t pinpoint her plane’s location. And then after a few communications from Amelia to Itasca, there’s a there is a brief moment where Amelia does seem to hear something back from Itasca, along with Itasca, is blowing smoke in an attempt to send a visual signal for their location.

00:50:09:18 – 00:50:27:10
Dan LeFebvre
And then the final radio transmission to Itasca in the movie says they’re on position line 157337 and they’re running north South. Itasca hears this and immediately radios back. If she can receive their transmissions and the radio is silent, is that really how Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappeared?

00:50:27:12 – 00:50:49:01
Chris Williamson
That’s right. Yeah. The some of a lot of little things. Right. I mean, it really it really ended up being, just a very unfortunate set of events. You know, Leo Belle Arts was, flabbergasted by it. And he was, you know, he kept that with him his whole life. He was the last real eyewitness. You know, he was talking.

00:50:49:01 – 00:51:05:06
Chris Williamson
He wasn’t making, as you mentioned, two way radio communication with them, but he was speaking to them and he could hear her speaking. So they, you know, they just couldn’t hear each other. You’re right. And, you know, again, to take it all the way back to the ground loop, you know, it wasn’t always just Earhart and Noonan.

00:51:05:08 – 00:51:21:19
Chris Williamson
It was actually going to be a larger crew. And one of the people on the crew was a man by the name of Harry Manning, who there was also remember that Earhart had slept with and had an affair with earlier in her career. But he was an expert at Morse code, and he could have given them a lot more options.

00:51:21:23 – 00:51:40:09
Chris Williamson
You know, he could have Noonan could have done the navigations while he took the radios. You know, that’s kind of what they did on the flight over from Oakland to Hawaii, which was the first leg of the original flight. This is prior to March 20th of 37, when she ground loops of the aircraft in Hawaii, and they have to change directions and rebuild the aircraft and all that jazz.

00:51:40:11 – 00:52:03:21
Chris Williamson
But she, you know, if they had had Manning on board, we might not be sitting here having this conversation right now. It might be a very different historical you know, piece right now. Right now, though, we have really no oil slick, no wreckage, no, no evidence of of anything other than the had the original Itasca call logs.

00:52:03:23 – 00:52:28:25
Chris Williamson
My co-host for vanished, Jen Taylor. You know, I love she says this, and I love it. If this is a modern day domestic violence murder case, the Itasca call logs are the final text messages between the couple. Like, that’s that’s basically kind of what we’ve got. And then we’ve got, about 88 years, almost 90 years, some couple of years now, of theory, of theory, all over the world.

00:52:28:27 – 00:52:54:03
Chris Williamson
That puts them in all kinds of different, you know, situations all over the world. And so, you know, the film kind of. So the film is largely based off of, a book or the work of a gentleman by the name of Elgin Long, who was a, a pioneering aviator and, one of the really if there was going to be a mount Rushmore of of Earhart researchers, he would be one of the four for sure.

00:52:54:05 – 00:53:23:01
Chris Williamson
And it was based a lot on his work. And in the his theory was that they did just run out of gas. And they did they did just fall short of Howland. And they are somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, 16 or 18,000ft down. And, that it will be it will be recovered one day, whether it’s by one of these people that are out here searching for it specifically, or whether it’s by some, like fiber optic cable company that’s going to map the underwater ocean and just kind of stumble across the aircraft one day, you know, but it was largely based on Elgin’s, Elgin’s, research.

00:53:23:01 – 00:53:44:19
Chris Williamson
And they posit that she ran out of gas. A lot of people agree with that. And, a lot of what we have in that, some of a lot of little things kind of adds up to them running out of gas and just ending up on the water. The question is, you’re looking for, an aircraft that’s got a 55.5ft wingspan, 39.5ft long in an area that’s roughly the size of Texas at about $2 million a day.

00:53:44:21 – 00:53:53:20
Chris Williamson
So it’s it’s very, very difficult to to search an area of that big, and, you know, that’s kind of where we are now, you know, 88 years later.

00:53:53:22 – 00:54:09:07
Dan LeFebvre
Which is even more I mean, in the movie, they’re talking about how hard it would be to find Howland, and that’s an island that’s, you know, miles long. I mean, just a couple of miles. But, that’s more than an airplane in the same expanse. Right? So that was the whole difficulty. Yeah, I can imagine.

00:54:09:07 – 00:54:31:15
Chris Williamson
Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of people, a lot of the theories, you know, whether that you believe in Japanese capture or crash and sink, you know, they believe the plane’s a buka, or do you believe the plane’s never going to be found? It’s under a runway in Taipan. Or, you know, whatever you subscribe to. You know, everybody kind of kind of tends to agree on on on that point, you know, they, they, they, they just ran it a lot of, a lot of bad stuff that day.

00:54:31:15 – 00:54:49:13
Chris Williamson
And, you know, we just don’t have an ending to it. So that’s kind of that’s kind of what leaves us, to this point leads us to this point rather 88 years later. And then all the the fallout around her disappearance and their disappearance, I should say, you know, in 1937, July of 1937. So just a few weeks ago, we just had the anniversary now.

00:54:49:13 – 00:55:11:06
Dan LeFebvre
So what the movie does end with the disappearance. But as you as you mentioned before, I mean, the 2009 version might be the best one, but let’s say you’re that’s still like 16 years ago as of this recording. So let’s say you’re in charge of directing the next biopic about Earhart’s life. What’s something you want to make sure got included that we don’t get to see in the 2009 movie?

00:55:11:08 – 00:55:51:27
Chris Williamson
You know, there is a so there’s a presentation, I just attended. It’s and it’s I’m biased because it’s by a really good friend. Her name is Doctor Margie Arnold, and, she does a presentation, and, we just attended at the Earhart Birthplace Museum, during the Earhart Festival. And it her presentation concentrates on the four years leading up to the moment that she is selected for transatlantic, and that she, in Margie, gives incredible detail about not only her relationship with Sam Chapman, who I kind of teased about earlier in the conversation, but everything that Amelia was setting herself up to be and do and maybe an alternate career as a social worker,

00:55:52:04 – 00:56:14:26
Chris Williamson
Margie states. And I tend to believe her that she would if she really had a chance at being like the next Jane Addams. Like she really could have been. I, you know, I think that, Earhart was a woman that, you know, she was pre-med at one point at Columbia. You know, she was a nurse’s aide and World War one, she was a photographer, a truck driver, also, obviously an aviator.

00:56:14:26 – 00:56:37:27
Chris Williamson
I mean, she did, you know, all kinds of stuff. And, you know, that’s just the kind of woman that we’re dealing with, you know, here at the center of of all this. But I would probably concentrate, I would build that that film, and concentrated on those four years I would cast as Sam Chapman, would do all of that stuff, and I would look into the nitty gritty details of the moment before, and I would end the film.

00:56:37:29 – 00:57:00:23
Chris Williamson
On her walking into Platinum’s office and being selected for the transatlantic flight, because everybody kind of knows from 28 on to 37, you know, it’s there’s always more room to cover, but that that nine year period is like really covered, aggressively. This four years, not so much. So I think that would be really fun. How Laurie’s book did a great, great job of diving into some of that as well.

00:57:00:23 – 00:57:05:06
Chris Williamson
But I think a real hard concentration on that would be would make a really fun film.

00:57:05:09 – 00:57:17:18
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I have a couple of follow ups on that one. From everything you’ve learned about Millie Earhart, how well do you think Hilary Swank did bringing her movie to life and for your biopic, who would you cast in that role?

00:57:17:21 – 00:57:36:07
Chris Williamson
I would cast a young Amelia. Her name is Sophia Lillis. I don’t know how old she is now. She is 23 now. And I, I found her, I saw her first in the it films, the remake, the when they did the, you know, back in 20. Oh, I don’t know when I was 2017 or something like that.

00:57:36:09 – 00:57:51:29
Chris Williamson
And she was excellent on those films. And I thought, man, that’s an Earhart. Like, if you wanted to take a young Earhart like a younger version of her and make, you know, kind of build to that 28 flight or, you know, take her through her, her young or her late teenage years and maybe her early 20s. That would be a really she would be perfect for it.

00:57:52:01 – 00:58:09:10
Chris Williamson
As far as Hillary, you know, I think she did it. I think she did a fantastic job. I also thought Diane Keaton did a really good job in her film. I mean, I think everybody sort of brings something to Earhart specifically. She’s got a lot of little nuances and things. I think Earhart got a lot of the ticks down, I think.

00:58:09:10 – 00:58:25:04
Chris Williamson
I’m sorry. Hilary Swank got a lot of the ticks down. For Earhart. I think she got a lot of her. Her cadences down, her nuances. Just, you know, some of her facial expressions were pretty on point, like a few, because there’s a lot of video and a lot of pictures of Earhart out there. So it’s it’s not somebody that we don’t have anything.

00:58:25:04 – 00:58:39:14
Chris Williamson
She’s not a ghost. She was at the time she disappeared. The most photographed person on the face of the earth. So, yeah, I think Hilary Swank did a good job. I mean, she’s a two time Oscar winner. I mean, I, I when I saw that she was being, you know, she was going to do the role, I thought it was a good fit.

00:58:39:16 – 00:58:52:08
Chris Williamson
I’ve seen. And the Earhart Birthplace Museum has a bunch of her outfits, as a matter of fact, the the one on the poster with the A.E., the jumpsuit that she has, which she never really had, but it was a it was a jumpsuit that they put her in for the movie and just for the promo and stuff.

00:58:52:08 – 00:59:05:28
Chris Williamson
That’s in the Birthplace Museum. The one that Hilary Swank wore in the film and stuff. And so that’s kind of cool. We got to, you know, shoot a bunch of our documentary stuff on that backdrop of her, her suits and her stuff that she wore in the film. So, but I liked it. I thought, I thought they did a good job.

00:59:05:28 – 00:59:12:28
Chris Williamson
I thought Richard Geer was great as platinum. Richard Gears got that really great. He can he can be charming, but he could also be, you know, a jerk.

00:59:13:00 – 00:59:18:28
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Sounds like George Putnam being interviewed. You got. You decide. Yeah.

00:59:19:00 – 00:59:41:27
Chris Williamson
Yeah. There’s a there’s a there’s a double. There’s two sides to that for sure. But, you know, I thought she did a great job. Hilary Swank is a fantastic actress. I mean, her catalog is really great. And, you know, it’s a hard role to play. She’s a very, Earhart’s a very complex person. And, I so if I was directing, I would love to bring somebody in, like, Sophia Lillis and just have her just go to town on it and just do a young version of it.

00:59:41:27 – 00:59:59:07
Chris Williamson
You know, when she was when she was a social worker, when she was doing all that stuff. And because I think she forms a lot of those relationships that that end up being, valuable to her, you know, seven to 8 or 9 years later. Right? Right up until the point she disappears. That are really formed and built foundationally in those four years leading up to the transatlantic flight.

00:59:59:07 – 01:00:00:25
Chris Williamson
So I would focus on that.

01:00:00:27 – 01:00:19:03
Dan LeFebvre
Well, the 2009 Amelia movie ends with the disappearance, but I know there have been numerous times where people have claimed to have found Amelia Earhart plane, so correct me if I’m wrong. As far as I know, it hasn’t been found yet, but I know you’ve been doing years of research for the Chasing Earhart project, so I have a two part question for you as we wrap up our discussion today.

01:00:19:06 – 01:00:28:13
Dan LeFebvre
First, can you share an overview of the current status of finding Amelia Earhart plane? And can you tell my audience more about the chasing Earhart Project and where they can learn more about your work?

01:00:28:15 – 01:00:47:12
Chris Williamson
Oh, yes, I’d love to. So just a very, very quick, quick, the short, short version, there are several active investigations, all over the world, right now going on. I just got off the phone yesterday with, with our group, that’s going to be looking at this aircraft out in Boca, to try to rule it, rule it out and get it out of the way, or maybe, maybe roll it in.

01:00:47:12 – 01:01:18:23
Chris Williamson
We’ll see. There are deep ocean searches going on. There was a there’s a search going on, with, the Archeology channel and Doctor Rick Pettigrew. That has made a lot of headlines lately because Purdue got involved in that expedition, and they’re going out to Nick Morocco. I want to say in November, they’re going to go out there and they’re going to look at something called the Soraya object, which is an object that was found by brothers Mike and Robert Ashmore several years ago via some satellite imagery in a lagoon on the island of Nikumaroro.

01:01:18:26 – 01:01:35:17
Chris Williamson
Now, the folks at Tiger, a lot of the folks on what put words in their mouth. But I’m just basing this off sort of like media and things I’ve seen and watched and people I’ve talked to. Of course, there is a kind of a divide within, you know, the international Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery there. It’s part of Tiger.

01:01:35:17 – 01:01:53:23
Chris Williamson
Ric Gillespie and his and those those folks believe that, you know, hey, we’ve kind of we’ve kind of gone over this already. It’s not there. But Doctor Pettigrew and his team believe it’s it’s certainly warrants being looked at, and, Purdue’s in tow. That’s a big feather in their cap. And, they’re going out in November, so they’re going out in November.

01:01:53:29 – 01:02:11:24
Chris Williamson
We’re trying to go out sometime around that time as well for Buka. So hopefully we have some good final finality and clarification on two major theories at the end of this year. You never know though, with their heart stuff because it’s, it’s it’s all about money. It’s all about funding. It’s all about what Earhart was doing back in the day with her new funding and trying to get dollars raised.

01:02:11:27 – 01:02:33:12
Chris Williamson
So excuse me. So, there’s three different acting investigations going on right now. And there’s also, a lot of work going on for Japanese capture behind the scenes. It’s a little bit more of a slow burn, but that is is something that’s going to be, you know, uncovered in archives and things like that. It’s not going to be you’re not going to go out on some island and find an aircraft or anything.

01:02:33:14 – 01:02:49:18
Chris Williamson
If you believe in Japanese capture, you likely believe that the aircraft was destroyed and is buried under a runway in Sai Pan and is on a billion pieces that will never be found. So if that’s the case, then, you know, you’re you’re never going to find it. You’re just going to find some kind of, anecdotal or, documentation, you know, evidence.

01:02:49:18 – 01:03:08:23
Chris Williamson
So that’s being worked on. And then, you know, there’s always a few other things that are going on when it comes to Earhart. I’ve got projects coming out. Regarding some really exciting things I can’t talk about publicly yet. Really, I wish I could, but like, in a couple months, they’ll be released. But I would say just watch the Chasing Earhart podcast space and you’ll you’ll have all you need there.

01:03:08:25 – 01:03:29:11
Chris Williamson
As far as the show, just to wrap it up here, we’ve been going for, gosh, 140, 50 episodes ish right now. And, Lori, Gwen Shapiro’s our most recent episode just came out a couple of weeks ago. You can you can catch that on any pod catcher, any anywhere you listen to your podcast or, you know, we’re everywhere, pretty much.

01:03:29:13 – 01:03:48:00
Chris Williamson
And, the podcast aims to just sort of give a platform to everybody. That’s in the Earhart case, whether they’re on the disappearance side or the legacy side, whether they’re an author or a scientist or a historian or whatever it is, I, I don’t care. I want to hear from all of them. And, we’ve talked to pretty much everybody who’s anybody.

01:03:48:00 – 01:04:05:25
Chris Williamson
There’s a few notables that we haven’t talked to for specific reasons. But we will keep going. It’s it’s, you know, something? I rebranded this thing like 30 episodes or 40 episodes ago, and I was only trying to do 3 or 4 episodes, you know, back. And we just kept people kept coming forward and new stuff kept breaking, as it tends to do in this case.

01:04:05:25 – 01:04:23:25
Chris Williamson
And, I think that’s what we’ll have until the cases ultimately resolved, satisfactorily. That’s the big key question. Is it going to be satisfactory to everybody who has an idea about what may have happened to Earhart or Noonan on July 2nd? So that’s what the podcast is all about. I’ve also got a book out called Rabbit Hole The Vanishing of Amelia Earhart.

01:04:23:25 – 01:04:47:04
Chris Williamson
Fred Noonan, which was basically season one of our podcast, vanished. It’s unlike any book you’ve ever read on the case. I can guarantee you that it’s the format’s different. We’ve got over 60 collaborators all over the Earhart case in that book and in that podcast. It’s the largest collective, effort ever. On the disappearance of Earhart and Noonan, and that’s in bookstores right now, and it’s on Amazon and then Barnes and Noble and all that stuff.

01:04:47:04 – 01:04:52:02
Chris Williamson
So you can pick that up or listen to the podcast, or you can go check out Chasing Earhart.

01:04:52:05 – 01:04:58:13
Dan LeFebvre
Fantastic. I’ll make sure to add all those links in the show notes for this for anybody who’s watching. Thanks again so much for your time, Chris.

01:04:58:15 – 01:05:00:04
Chris Williamson
Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Dan. Appreciate it.

 

00:02:01:28 – 00:02:25:24
Dan LeFebvre
The movie starts off in Hong Kong in 1949. Since we know from history that Bruce Lee was born on November 27th, 1940, we can assume he’s 8 or 9, depending on when in 1949. This is happening in the movie. But almost right away we see the young Bruce Lee start training one on one with the IT man. Can you give us some background on Bruce Lee as a child?

00:02:26:00 – 00:02:30:07
Dan LeFebvre
And when he started training with Japan, like we see in the movie?

00:02:30:09 – 00:02:49:09
Matthew Polly
Sure. But first I just want to correct one thing that really annoys me about the first part of this movie and annoyed the Lee family, which is that, he wasn’t an only child living along with his father. He had a mother. He had three older siblings and a younger brother. So they were a, a big family.

00:02:49:12 – 00:03:09:03
Matthew Polly
And so this movie depicts him as almost being, you know, an orphan child with just a father around. So that’s the first thing that they, for some odd reason, decided to do. The second thing was, yeah, it. Man, he didn’t begin formal study of martial arts under it, man, as his master until he was 16 years old.

00:03:09:06 – 00:03:41:15
Matthew Polly
So they pushed this up very early. That’s fine that they did that. As far as Hollywood biopics go. This isn’t the worst, poetic license that they took. But no, he, the reason he started studying, kung fu was actually because he was in a gang, like, kind of a middle class gang. We weren’t, like, selling drugs or anything, but, he loved getting into fights, and so they would go around and start trouble on the streets of Hong Kong, which back in the 1950s was a much rougher place than it is today.

00:03:41:18 – 00:03:59:15
Matthew Polly
And he met this older boy by the name of William Chung, who was a better fighter than he was. And Bruce was so competitive, he hated the idea anyone was better, so he wanted to see why. And the reason was because William Chung was studying Wing Chun under it. Man. And so Bruce Lee said, hey, can I learn with you?

00:03:59:17 – 00:04:16:01
Matthew Polly
And he went, man. And Wong Shu Long, who was your senior student? And he said, I want to study with you. How long before I can beat up William Chung? So his his purpose in studying Wing Chun was not to like, protect himself from bullies. It was to become a better street fighter.

00:04:16:01 – 00:04:25:04
Dan LeFebvre
So it had nothing to do with in the movie. It’s like his father is the one that leads him there and kind of hold his hand. Yes, to the to the training. So not that at all.

00:04:25:06 – 00:04:52:02
Matthew Polly
Not that at all, in fact. So what is interesting is when Bruce was 7 or 8, his father tried to teach him tai chi because Bruce was a hyperactive kid. I joked that if he’d been born later, they’d have put him on Ritalin. So, Bruce didn’t like tai chi because it was for old people. And in fact, when he went to study Wing Chun, he didn’t tell his father because his father was so upset with him already for getting into all these fights.

00:04:52:05 – 00:05:00:04
Matthew Polly
And so he kept it a secret. And when his father found out, he was studying Wing Chun, he was furious. So it’s the complete opposite of how they told it in the story.

00:05:00:07 – 00:05:20:17
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned, getting into a fight. And that leads into the next question, because according to the movie, this is, I think 1961, there’s a fight and a scene at the text on the screen tells us it’s at the Lantern Festival, and there’s some soldiers there. One of them happens to be the nephew of the assistant police inspector of Kowloon.

00:05:20:20 – 00:05:41:24
Dan LeFebvre
And Bruce gets into this fight with them. He ends up sending this sailor to the hospital with a punctured lung after getting into a fight. And this is when Bruce’s dad. And it’s. It’s interesting that you mention that there’s no other family around because, yeah, again, you don’t see anybody else. It’s just him and his dad. They’re talking, and he tells Bruce that he has to leave Hong Kong.

00:05:41:27 – 00:06:03:29
Dan LeFebvre
And this is when, in the movie, we see he takes Bruce to this, like, secret room or secret area. And, here’s a birth certificate. Your name is Bruce Lee, and you have to go to America now. And he mentions, I should say, he mentions that he was on tour there with the, Cannes Opera Company in 1940.

00:06:04:01 – 00:06:09:02
Dan LeFebvre
So is that why Bruce Lee left Hong Kong to go to America again?

00:06:09:02 – 00:06:27:03
Matthew Polly
What they do a lot in this movie is they take some elements that are true, and then they stretch it to the point of breaking, and then they kind of put it back together. So Bruce’s father did tours, with the Cantonese opera troupe in America in 1940, and Bruce was born there. So he was an American citizen.

00:06:27:06 – 00:06:47:06
Matthew Polly
He knew that before. Before the great reveal. But they, you know, they didn’t make a big deal. It didn’t matter to him. He didn’t think about it very much. What had happened was that Bruce Lee, after he started studying Wing Chun, wanted to go learn how to be better at it. And so he would go on the streets of Hong Kong and bump into people.

00:06:47:08 – 00:07:08:20
Matthew Polly
And if they got angry, then he’d start a fight with them. And so he was basically this punk who was like starting fights with people. This show, how good he was. And also to practice and get better. And one day he bumped into this Chinese teenage kid, and the kid fought back and he beat him up. And the kid’s father was an important person.

00:07:08:20 – 00:07:20:00
Matthew Polly
And that kid’s father went to the police. He didn’t fight in the British soldiers. He had a lantern festival and beat up five of them doing acrobatics. Which, by the way, he didn’t know how to do Acrobat.

00:07:20:00 – 00:07:22:23
Dan LeFebvre
Ripping his shirt off in the process. He forgot that.

00:07:22:25 – 00:07:45:03
Matthew Polly
Yeah, you ripped up her off, and then the, like, several backflips. So that was like Jackie Chan. Bruce Lee was a Wing Chun guy, and they didn’t do flips. But anyway, so he didn’t fight white guys. It was some Chinese kid from an important family. So the police had heard about Bruce. He had been in so many street fights that his name was on a list.

00:07:45:06 – 00:08:03:24
Matthew Polly
And so finally, the police went around to his parents and to his mother, actually, and said, if you don’t straighten him out, we’re going to have to arrest him. And that’s when they had the conversation, which you see in the movie. But it was the mother and father saying, look, things are going well. Bruce was failing out of high school.

00:08:03:27 – 00:08:14:14
Matthew Polly
It didn’t look like he had any job prospects. So they said, why don’t you go to American, straighten yourself out. And so that aspect is true. But, through the distortion of, Hollywood magic.

00:08:14:16 – 00:08:23:02
Dan LeFebvre
Why go to America then? Because in the movie, it’s like, oh, you love American cars, you love American things. So obviously America is is where you’re going to go.

00:08:23:04 – 00:08:45:15
Matthew Polly
It was America because he had an American passport. And so that was somewhere he could go. But also there was another reason, which was at that time, every American male of 18 years of age had to sign up for the draft. It was a law. And so if Bruce Lee didn’t sign up for the draft, his American citizenship could be revoked.

00:08:45:18 – 00:09:06:23
Matthew Polly
And so they also wanted to make sure that he secured this, because for people living in Hong Kong, which at that time was very third world, an American birth certificate, a citizenship had great value. And so if he secured that, then the family could theoretically move to America with him. And so this was something they didn’t want to lose.

00:09:06:26 – 00:09:11:01
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah. The movie doesn’t mention any of that side of it. No.

00:09:11:03 – 00:09:12:12
Matthew Polly
No.

00:09:12:14 – 00:09:33:19
Dan LeFebvre
Well, once Bruce arrives in America in the movie, he’s in San Francisco, and we see him as a dishwasher in a restaurant called gussy Yang’s here almost right away. He attracts the attention of a waitress named April, which then leads to a fight. Another fight where he’s outnumbered, with the cooks. They’re led by someone named Mr. Ho.

00:09:33:21 – 00:09:55:02
Dan LeFebvre
Of course, vers is a much better fighter than the cooks, so he defeats them pretty easily. But Miss Yang gets upset, fires Bruce, but then gives him two weeks pay, two weeks severance on top of that, and then hands him some extra money as a loan. She suggests that either he can just go blow his money and then wind up.

00:09:55:02 – 00:10:11:27
Dan LeFebvre
There is a dishwasher. I think she says something to the effect of I can always use a good dishwasher, or he should go get an education. Now, if were to believe the movie, Bruce seems to go to America and then get in trouble right away. Is any of that true?

00:10:12:01 – 00:10:31:11
Matthew Polly
One thing I do like about that scene is the, owner of the restaurant. And it’s true, he did work as a dishwasher in a restaurant called Ruby Chiles, and the owner was a woman by the name of Ruby Chao. And on screen, she’s played by Nancy Kwan, who is a famous Hong Kong actress who was also a personal friend of Bruce Lee.

00:10:31:14 – 00:10:58:17
Matthew Polly
So it was it’s nice to see a personal friend of Bruce Lee play a character in the movie. That’s the best part of that scene, actually, Bruce came to America. And Ruby Chao, husband was friends with Bruce’s father. That’s how he got a job in the restaurant. They put him up there. But Bruce, actually, because his father and the owner’s husband were friends, thought he would just go nuts live there.

00:10:58:18 – 00:11:18:15
Matthew Polly
He didn’t realize he was going to have to do scut work. And so he was refused this. But he had to do the worst jobs and the restaurant dishwashing, cleaning up. And that they treated him like a servant because he actually came from a well-to-do family in Hong Kong, and he never had to do. He had servants in Hong Kong, so he never had to do any of this kind of work.

00:11:18:18 – 00:11:41:00
Matthew Polly
And so he would complain loudly that he was being treated like an indentured servant. And all the other cooks were annoyed by this because they didn’t come from this kind of rich background, and they thought he was a snotty little brat. And so there were a couple times where he said something and apparently once one of the cooks picked up a knife and threatened him, and Bruce said, come on, come get me.

00:11:41:03 – 00:11:52:19
Matthew Polly
And then it ended there. So they took that moment, which is true. Which is? Bruce shot his mouth off, and somebody challenged him with a butcher’s knife, and then they turned it into a whole fight scene.

00:11:52:25 – 00:11:57:20
Dan LeFebvre
Going out and in the alley behind the restaurant. And this whole whole fight scene there.

00:11:57:22 – 00:12:16:06
Matthew Polly
Exactly. And that’s actually one of the things Bruce Lee’s life has been turned into many different sort of projects, and they inevitably try to turn his life into a kung fu movie. And that’s one of the problems, is like, he want to turn it into a genre kung fu movie. So you take things that are kind of true, and then you turn it into these big fight scenes.

00:12:16:10 – 00:12:23:11
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, you have to find somewhere in there to to throw in those fight scenes to keep the action in the movie, because people are expecting it at that point.

00:12:23:13 – 00:12:29:26
Matthew Polly
So they have such generic constriction that they’re they’re forced into, and so they try to bend the biography to the genre.

00:12:29:29 – 00:12:55:08
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, I see, I see well, in the movie, we never to my recollection, I don’t remember seeing or hearing any dialog necessarily about where Bruce goes to get an education. After this, we see him on some sort of a college campus, and then there’s another another fight here. And it happens with somebody named Joe Henderson. Bruce is working out in the gym one day and Joe comes in.

00:12:55:15 – 00:13:14:14
Dan LeFebvre
He spurts some racist remarks and picks a fight with Bruce. Bruce again pretty easily defeats Joe and the three other guys that he’s with. He’s always outnumbered in these fights. And then after the fight, a couple of the guys come up to him and ask, can you, can you teach me how to fight? I want to learn. Learn what you did.

00:13:14:16 – 00:13:44:07
Dan LeFebvre
A little bit later, we see, Linda Emery. She enters the movie as the only woman in Bruce’s class. That’s kind of how the movie sets up that he goes from, not basically. He was a dishwasher, and then he goes to get an education, and then he starts teaching. And then, of course, meeting Linda. So how accurate was that where he went from not teaching to teaching his his martial arts to then meeting Linda?

00:13:44:07 – 00:13:47:28
Dan LeFebvre
Was she one of the first students that he had in the US?

00:13:48:00 – 00:14:12:08
Matthew Polly
No. So, they again, they play with the time frame. So what happened was when he first got to America, he was already intent on going to college. They signed him up for a essentially a remedial or vocational high school to get his high school diploma because he hadn’t graduated from high school, Hong Kong. So he went to this high school for older students, vocational education.

00:14:12:10 – 00:14:32:24
Matthew Polly
And in, in his class was, a man, African-American by the name of Jesse Glover. Who later shows up in the movie is it’s kind of best buddy. He actually is the first student of Bruce Lee, and he had wanted to learn kung fu, but other Chinese teachers wouldn’t teach him. And he heard that Bruce Lee knew it.

00:14:32:26 – 00:14:57:13
Matthew Polly
And so he befriended Bruce Lee. And Bruce Lee actually didn’t really want to teach him that much, but because no one else, he didn’t have anything else to do but washing dishes. Jesse Glover became his first student, and Jesse loved him. He thought he was great. So Jesse told his, roommate, who became Bruce Lee’s second student. And then they told a couple other friends, and they became Bruce Lee’s third and fourth student.

00:14:57:16 – 00:15:14:08
Matthew Polly
And then Bruce started doing things like going and giving demonstrations at high schools to gain more students. And at these demonstrations, he would invite a tough guy in the crowd up on stage and say, hey, try to hit me. And they would try to hit him and he would block all their punches and tie them up in knots.

00:15:14:11 – 00:15:40:07
Matthew Polly
And then those people would become his students. So they took that and turned that into a fight scene on the college campus. But before he got to college and he went to the University of Washington, he had already had about 10 or 15, students who were also best friends, and they trained in parks, etc.. And then he opened a school in his first year when he was at the University of Washington, and he had a school running.

00:15:40:09 – 00:15:49:07
Matthew Polly
And one of Lynda’s friends, female friends was one of his students, and she told him about Bruce Lee, and that’s how she became one of its students.

00:15:49:14 – 00:15:54:26
Dan LeFebvre
But she did eventually become one of his students there, but introduced through one of her friends. That was. That’s right.

00:15:54:26 – 00:16:06:06
Matthew Polly
Okay, so that’s absolutely true. And they and they did. She was one of his students. And he started to take a shine to her. And she was sort of gaga for him from the very beginning. And that’s how they ended up dating.

00:16:06:09 – 00:16:27:09
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. So then that leads into the next part, because in the movie we see when once they start dating, the movie very heavily implies that it was Linda’s idea for Bruce to actually start his own school, not just students, but have his own school. We see like a a rundown building that, Bruce is going to fix up.

00:16:27:09 – 00:16:41:08
Dan LeFebvre
And in the in the movie you see on the the glass pane of the door, it says it’s the Jun Fan Gung Fu Institute. Was it Linda’s idea for Bruce to start a school? I’m assuming not in San Francisco, but perhaps in Washington.

00:16:41:11 – 00:17:15:15
Matthew Polly
No, it wasn’t her idea. So, and one thing you have to know is that, how this movie came about, which is, Linda Lee ran the Bruce Lee estate and Universal Pictures bought all the rights to Bruce Lee from her as part of an overall deal. So the movie rights, the TV rights, the game video game rights, the image rights, and also the her book in order to turn it into this movie, because they were going to make Bruce Lee part of, you know, like Spider-Man, one of their franchises.

00:17:15:17 – 00:17:43:20
Matthew Polly
And so because it’s based on her book, this is really her story of who Bruce Lee was, and it’s from their perspective, which is why this is kind of a romance, because this is Linda’s version of Bruce Lee, how she met him, how it did. And of course, with Hollywood magic, they make her sort of a, you know, a kind of feminist in the 1990s model as opposed to what she was, which was like kind of an Eisenhower girl who was very strong but quiet.

00:17:43:23 – 00:18:02:24
Matthew Polly
And so, you know, Lauren Holly, who’s beautiful place her is this kind of spunky thing. But actually, Linda was much quieter as a person. Bruce Lee already had opened a school. She went to the school that he had opened, and he already had the idea of making it like McDonald’s, like a franchise across the country.

00:18:02:26 – 00:18:09:02
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah, because that’s something that she mentions to the McDonald’s key there of franchising it.

00:18:09:04 – 00:18:13:07
Matthew Polly
So they gave that to her to make her sort of a stronger female lead.

00:18:13:07 – 00:18:40:24
Dan LeFebvre
Basically. Okay, okay. Well, once he starts the school, this kind leads back to something that you had talked about earlier. Bruce, he gets in trouble for teaching what they call Galo or Westerners. The. We never really find out who they are, really. But the other Chinese martial arts teachers around just. He goes into some room and they’re playing poker or something around, you know, around the table.

00:18:40:24 – 00:19:01:03
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah, they’re playing around the table and, yeah, you can’t you can’t teach non-Chinese ways. Yeah. I think the movie just calls them the elders, you know, and they’re going to enforce this rule. And the way they’re going to enforce it is by pitting Bruce Lee against who we presume is their fighting champion, Johnny Sun.

00:19:01:06 – 00:19:24:03
Dan LeFebvre
And in this fight, Bruce beats Johnny. But then at the very last moment, just as Bruce is walking away, Johnny has kind of a cheap shot. He kicks Bruce in the back, breaking his back and sending Bruce to the hospital. That’s how the movie sets this up. Did this fight with Johnny Sun actually happened because Bruce Lee wanted to teach anyone who wanted to learn?

00:19:24:06 – 00:19:40:12
Matthew Polly
Yeah. So again, this is one of those this is one of the great myths of Bruce Lee, that this is why this happened. It’s it is one of it. The fight did happen. It is one of the most famous, kung fu fights ever. The real story is that Bruce Lee was, opening a school in Oakland.

00:19:40:12 – 00:20:03:14
Matthew Polly
He had one in Seattle. And this was going to be a second part of his franchise, part of his great empire. McDonald’s kung fu empire that he was going to build. And he was having trouble getting students to Oakland because all the country students were in San Francisco, because that had the largest Chinatown. Now, there were people who knew that he was teaching white people, and there were people who didn’t think it was a good idea.

00:20:03:17 – 00:20:34:11
Matthew Polly
Chinese people at that time, for example, Ruby Chao told him not to do it, but they there was no elders there that Chinatown didn’t have a system of elders who enforce their laws. They were just people who like, you know, between each other. We’re saying that’s really stupid, that you shouldn’t teach Grillo. What actually happened was he was giving a performance in San Francisco at a Chinese theater with a large crowd, and he was demonstrating his version of kung fu wing Chung, his style.

00:20:34:14 – 00:20:57:17
Matthew Polly
And while giving the demonstration, he said, my style is better than everybody else’s style. And he also said, you’ve got a lot of old masters. These old tigers have no teeth, basically, that their styles are useless and mine’s the best. So you should come study with me now. Every martial artist thinks his style is the best, but you’re not supposed to say it out loud because it gets people pissed off.

00:20:57:19 – 00:21:17:24
Matthew Polly
And that’s what happened. They got pissed off. And so there were a couple of young 20 something kids who were mad that Bruce Lee had said this. And so they started talking amongst themselves, and they got this waiter who also studied kung fu and wanted to open his own school by the name of Wong Jack man to challenge formerly challenged Bruce Lee.

00:21:17:26 – 00:21:34:07
Matthew Polly
And so they went over and they challenged him and Bruce Lee said, yeah, I’ll fight him, but you have to fight me at my school. Another thing, the movie gets wrong. And so they went over to his school. And by the way, when they went over to a school, his wife was there, his friend was there.

00:21:34:07 – 00:21:55:11
Matthew Polly
He didn’t sneak off and had this fight. And he won the fight fairly quickly. It was within three minutes, at the end of the fight, though, he beats up that he beat up Wong deck man. Wong Jack man didn’t break his back, but that’s a total fallacy. What happened was later many like 4 or 5 years later, Bruce Lee was doing an exercise.

00:21:55:11 – 00:22:16:15
Matthew Polly
He hadn’t warmed up for it, where he’s picking dead weight off the ground. And, he strained his back. So he did have a back injury. They just collapsed the time frame, and then they had Wong Jack man sneakily break his back at the end of a fight that he lost. And so they’re combining several elements in order to sort of make the story more exciting.

00:22:16:16 – 00:22:25:16
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. So that’s a common technique that a lot of movies do to compress a timeline of an entire lifetime into just, you know, an hour, hour and a half or so.

00:22:25:22 – 00:22:34:24
Matthew Polly
I should say, though, that, when Wong Jack Mann saw the movie, he was so furious that he sued Linda Lee and Universal Studios for $2 million.

00:22:34:24 – 00:22:35:20
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, wow.

00:22:35:22 – 00:22:58:26
Matthew Polly
So that went to court. And the court ruled that he was somewhat of a public figure, so they threw it out. But he became a very respected, martial arts instructor in San Francisco. And for his whole career, he became the guy who broke Bruce Lee’s back in a fight. And so but his his students hate this movie, and they hate like Bruce Lee.

00:22:59:03 – 00:23:05:09
Matthew Polly
So this has become a lot like within this little world. This is like a really contentious issue. What actually happened at that fight?

00:23:05:12 – 00:23:28:12
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So as far as the movie is concerned and I it sounds like he did have some sort of a back strain, not necessarily a broken back, but there’s a montage in the movie where Bruce is in rehabilitation and as he’s in rehabilitation, he can barely move. And he takes this idea of a new form of martial arts to Linda.

00:23:28:17 – 00:23:54:18
Dan LeFebvre
And this is where we get, you know, Linda’s taking notes, sketches. We see her typing it out on a typewriter. I pause the movie to see the title of it, just called The Book. And we know from history that, of course, Bruce Lee really did write a book called Tao Ju Ji Kondo. But the publication date on that I looked was in 1975, after Bruce Lee’s death.

00:23:54:20 – 00:24:13:03
Dan LeFebvre
And we see a scene in the movie where Linda is so excited she comes and you can see the book is, you know, oh, your books, your books here. So how accurate is the movie in depicting this montage of how Bruce Lee came up with Jeet Kune Do by dictating it to Linda while he was in rehabilitation?

00:24:13:06 – 00:24:34:29
Matthew Polly
Yeah. So again, time frame and compression, they tried to get all of this into a very tight space. Bruce Lee came up with the idea of G condo in 1967, 1968, and his injury wasn’t until 1969. So he had already had the idea himself, and he’d been working on it for actually the Wong Jack man fight when that ended.

00:24:35:02 – 00:24:56:26
Matthew Polly
That’s true. He was upset by how it did, and that led to his break with Wang Chong and his desire to form a new style. So for maybe 3 or 4 years, he’d already been taking notes about GI Kondo, and he had the name for it, and he had already started teaching it before he had his injury. That, said, Linda Lee was extraordinarily helpful to his career.

00:24:56:26 – 00:25:17:22
Matthew Polly
She supported him all the way. She was one of his students. He was a pretty good martial artist. So they’re giving her a little more credit or specific credit than she deserves for this. But she was very much part of his life. And I think what’s interesting, people should know, the Daljit Kondo’s the bestselling martial arts book of all time.

00:25:17:24 – 00:25:39:15
Matthew Polly
I’ve written three. It’s none of them have sold anywhere near what that has so all respect. But, basically what happened is they went through and they found a box full of notebooks, and they just took those notebooks and splice them together. And that’s the book after he died. So he never finished the book? He didn’t write it.

00:25:39:15 – 00:25:54:20
Matthew Polly
It’s not. If you look at it, it’s not actually a book. It’s just a series of notes and sayings that he scribbled through, like, you know, eight notebooks as you do when you’re prepping to try to write something. But he never got around to the actual writing of it. He just got to the research phase.

00:25:54:25 – 00:26:21:14
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, okay. Yeah. Again, that’s a very different picture than him dictating it all and and having it all typed out and and published and received back in his lifetime. Okay. Okay. So I’m assuming based on what you had had said before because after this we see Bruce Lee go proving his new fighting style. And he does this going to you know, pretty much it.

00:26:21:17 – 00:26:39:07
Dan LeFebvre
Remember if it was a high school auditorium or where it was. But he goes to this auditorium, he’s like pretty much pick out the I’ll fight anybody in this room, prove that my style is better. And you mentioned something earlier similar to that. Of course, the movie uses this as an example of bringing Johnny Son back and he defeats him in under 60s.

00:26:39:07 – 00:26:44:12
Dan LeFebvre
I’m assuming that particular instance didn’t happen.

00:26:44:14 – 00:27:10:23
Matthew Polly
Now. So he, from the moment he opened his first school, he would go give demonstrations. And what I think is interesting about that is that’s how he created the Bruce Lee character that we see on screen is he did it in essentially like a stand up comic working his material. He would go on stage and give demonstrations of what his style was, and he would tell jokes and he would be funny, but he also be serious and invite somebody up.

00:27:10:25 – 00:27:34:18
Matthew Polly
And he got to see from the crowds what worked and what didn’t. And he invented himself as Bruce Lee, the kung fu master, on the sort of small stages of Seattle, Oakland and L.A. And so when you understand who Bruce Lee was, you understand somebody who had honed this persona, which was part him, of course, like any standup, but was also, were reaction to the crowd.

00:27:34:18 – 00:27:57:18
Matthew Polly
He knew what worked because he tested it. So he did go around and give these demonstrations. But he never he was always in control. And it was always like, throw a punch, I’ll block it. And never turned into a full fight. He did have a few fights with people who didn’t like him. There was a Japanese master, mat master, a Japanese karate student.

00:27:57:22 – 00:28:26:01
Matthew Polly
He fought and beaten like 20s. So Bruce Lee was a real fighter, and he could fight, but he never fought the Jackson Wong Jack man guy ever again. The guy who didn’t actually break his back. So, what? And and that scene leads up to him, his discovery in Hollywood. Right. What actually happened was he gave a performance in, Long Beach outside of LA, and there was a hairdresser there.

00:28:26:03 – 00:28:48:11
Matthew Polly
Who was a famous Hollywood hairdresser. And he saw the performance and was impressed by Bruce Lee. And then by the name of Jay Sebring. And Jay Sebring had a TV executive who was one of his clients talking about a new TV series he wanted to do with a Chinese actor who could do action. And so Jay Sebring put the TV producer together with Bruce Lee.

00:28:48:13 – 00:28:55:27
Matthew Polly
So one of his demonstrations did lead to his Hollywood career. But it wasn’t, 62nd fight to the death with someone.

00:28:56:00 – 00:29:17:08
Dan LeFebvre
I think it was, Bill Krieger was. Yes. Happened to be watching. One of the performances is, oh, hey, can you do this stuff in front of the camera? I’ve got a show called The Green Hornet. Let’s let’s do this. That’s pretty much how the movie shows his transition from martial arts to acting. Did he? When when he made that transition to acting, what happened to his schools?

00:29:17:08 – 00:29:26:29
Dan LeFebvre
Did he did he kind of put that part of his chapter of his life behind him and kind of shift over to acting? The movie kind of seems to imply that he did.

00:29:27:01 – 00:30:02:22
Matthew Polly
So he actually, after he got offered the role of Kato in The Green Hornet, he opened the school in Los Angeles. He did close his Oakland school because it didn’t have enough students. And then he had a friend running his Seattle school. So for the early parts of his Hollywood career, he basically still had two schools going, and, he did he did spend a fair amount of time initially, which is a lot, Los Angeles school because L.A. based school and taught some of the students there and that was he sort of had a bifurcated life.

00:30:02:22 – 00:30:10:21
Matthew Polly
He had his Hollywood life, and he still kept up his students. But eventually, by the time he becomes world famous, he closed all of the schools down.

00:30:10:25 – 00:30:33:17
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, okay. Yeah, that’s a lot of different irons in the fire to to keep going, especially spread across the different locations. Now, there’s one scene I want to ask you about because there’s Bruce Lee. He started his acting career, and we see a scene where he’s walking with Bill Krieger, and the two of them are coming up with an idea for a new show.

00:30:33:22 – 00:30:59:15
Dan LeFebvre
They’re talking back and forth, and as they’re doing that from the dialog, we start to get this idea that starts to take shape. It’ll it’ll be a Western starring a Chinese immigrant. He’s searching for his brother. Except he doesn’t use a gun. He uses kung fu, and they’re both just excited about this show. And then later, we see Bruce and Linda sitting at home watching a new TV show called Kung Fu starring David Carradine.

00:30:59:18 – 00:31:21:00
Dan LeFebvre
And you can you can just see that Bruce feels betrayed, like they they cast David Carradine and instead of him. So that’s how the movie sets up this idea that Bruce Lee and Bill Krieger came up with this idea for the show, and then it very heavily implies that David Carradine was cast over Bruce Lee for the lead role.

00:31:21:02 – 00:31:22:05
Dan LeFebvre
That happened.

00:31:22:07 – 00:31:46:00
Matthew Polly
So no, again, this is again, as this is one of the most annoying myths that continue to this day based on this movie. So the TV series Kung Fu was written by, two Jewish Brooklyn from Brooklyn, comedy writers from Brooklyn by the name of, Ed Spielman and Howard Friedlander. They came up with the original idea. They sold it to, Warner Brothers.

00:31:46:02 – 00:32:07:00
Matthew Polly
And the producer was, Fred Weintraub, who is the Bill Krieger character. So he had this idea. He went to Bruce Lee and said, I have this idea. I hear you know, you, Ben Kato, what do you think about playing the lead? And then the idea is a movie died, and later got revived as a TV series.

00:32:07:00 – 00:32:35:02
Matthew Polly
It was originally supposed to be a feature movie. And so it got revived as a TV series. But by this time it was 1971, and Bruce Lee had already gone back to Hong Kong and made the big boss. And so after he finished The Big Boss, he flew to Hollywood and auditioned for the role. And the TV producer in charge decided probably didn’t want a casting agent guy anyway, but he felt that Bruce Lee’s accent was too thick.

00:32:35:04 – 00:33:00:09
Matthew Polly
And so the role went to David Carradine. So this wasn’t his idea? He didn’t write the script. He auditioned for the role and didn’t get it. There may have been some racism why he didn’t get it, but he didn’t leave Hollywood because of it. He’d already left Hollywood and gone to Hong Kong. So all of this is mixed up, and it’s becomes this huge myth which everyone tells, which is Hollywood was so racist.

00:33:00:11 – 00:33:13:03
Matthew Polly
Bruce Lee had to leave because they gave Kung fu to David Carradine and go to Hong Kong, and that it just doesn’t fit the chronology. Hollywood was racist. He did face racism, but this wasn’t the example that drove him to Hong Kong.

00:33:13:10 – 00:33:16:16
Dan LeFebvre
What what was his reason for going to Hong Kong then?

00:33:16:18 – 00:33:38:13
Matthew Polly
So, he was really frustrated with, the fact that he couldn’t get roles and the roles he was offered were really stereotypical, terrible roles, which you can imagine at that time. And so, he got offered, a two movie deal by a man named Raymond Chow, who had started Golden Harvest Studios, which was this upstart studio.

00:33:38:15 – 00:34:03:27
Matthew Polly
And initially Bruce blew him off because he still thought his Hollywood career was going to come to fruition. And then after a couple of years of it not going well, he changed his mind and signed the deal. But as soon as he signed the deal, he got this role in Long Street, which did really well. And so he felt like Hollywood was going to work out for him, but he needed the money.

00:34:03:29 – 00:34:28:01
Matthew Polly
He had bought a house in Brentwood that was too expensive for him. And he’d also bought a Porsche because his student, Steve McQueen, had a Porsche. And he wanted to be cool like the other cool kids. And so, he basically was out of money. And so he went, he signed, he agreed to go to Hong Kong, and he planned on going for like 2 or 3 months and filming these two movies, getting a cash infusion.

00:34:28:08 – 00:34:44:07
Matthew Polly
And then he was going to go back to Hollywood and continue his TV career, which right before he left, looked like it was very promising. So, it’s and that’s like a confusing storyline, and that’s why they simplify it and make it just a simple racism story.

00:34:44:09 – 00:35:03:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I think there’s little hints as you’re talking there. There’s a little hints of those types of things. There was, I think one scene where we see Linda looking at some pass do notices and some, you know, Bill like the giving the impression that they need the money. And there’s a scene, I think, where where Bruce has a I don’t know if it was a Porsche.

00:35:03:19 – 00:35:09:23
Dan LeFebvre
I didn’t look, I don’t remember specifically, but it was a pretty nice car that he was he was driving around in.

00:35:09:26 – 00:35:13:12
Matthew Polly
And she’s gets that seat. When he pulls up in it, she gives him a look like, what are you doing.

00:35:13:16 – 00:35:36:27
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Right. Yeah yeah. Which leads into another aspect of it because the implication I got from from that side was they may have had financial troubles, but maybe Bruce didn’t really know about that. It I guess the impression I got was that Linda. Linda knew about it. She kept track of the finances, but Bruce went off and bought this expensive car.

00:35:36:27 – 00:35:42:12
Dan LeFebvre
And when they when they need the money, was that kind of that dynamic between the two of them?

00:35:42:15 – 00:36:01:25
Matthew Polly
No. He knew about all the financial difficulties. There’s letters where he sends home. He sends letters. He had to borrow money from friends. And so he was like, writing letters, saying, I’ll get you your money. Now, or I’m really sorry I’m late with the money. So, No, but one thing that did happen was when, it.

00:36:01:25 – 00:36:22:04
Matthew Polly
Right at this period when he had, the house that was too expensive. And the Porsche, that’s when he injured his back. And he could and he couldn’t work for six months, and he was making his money teaching martial arts to Hollywood stars like Steve McQueen, who were paying him the equivalent of $1,000 an hour. And he could no longer teach them.

00:36:22:06 – 00:36:43:27
Matthew Polly
And that’s when their financial difficulty got much worse. And so Linda had to take a job, which she had never done before because it was very 1950s. She looked after the kids. He brought in the money. And so she did have to support the family during his period of convalescence. So I don’t want in any way underplay her importance to Bruce Lee’s success.

00:36:43:29 – 00:36:49:23
Matthew Polly
It’s just they they polish it up and turn it kind of 1990s version.

00:36:49:25 – 00:37:11:20
Dan LeFebvre
Well, that touches on something else I want to ask you about. And that is the overall way that Bruce is portrayed in the movie as a family man. And in the movie, we see Bruce Lee. It seems like he, you know, he loves Linda and his two kids. He’s a workaholic. But it looks like throughout the movie, he’s really just trying his best to provide for his family.

00:37:11:22 – 00:37:25:14
Dan LeFebvre
Toward the end of the movie, he says something along the lines of, I just want to spend more time with my kids and stop breaking my wife’s heart because, you know, I’m I’m working all the time. What was the Lee family dynamic like?

00:37:25:16 – 00:37:53:23
Matthew Polly
So. And certain ways. That’s very true. Which is he did love his wife. They were great friends. He adored his children. And he was a workaholic. But he was also a Hollywood actor. And the era of free love and, his friends are like Steve McQueen. And so, he had a little things on the side here and there, that no one ever reported before.

00:37:53:23 – 00:38:14:08
Matthew Polly
I wrote my biography about him. And, for him, he didn’t I it was just that, you know, he was a Hollywood actor in the late 60s. They all cheated. And he did as well. That didn’t mean he didn’t love his wife. It just he was doing what they all did. But the movie comes out and makes him the perfect family man.

00:38:14:11 – 00:38:46:04
Matthew Polly
And maybe that’s what a 1969 perfect family man look like. But that’s not what we think a perfect one does. And so they whitewashed his history in order to to make him, you know, it was Linda’s book that they turned it into. They didn’t want to get into it. And, you know, what’s interesting is in the original screenplay, they had a scene where he’s in Thailand filming the movie, and there’s an actress who’s hitting on him, and he’s awful tempted, but at the very end he says, no, I can’t because I love my wife too much.

00:38:46:06 – 00:39:02:28
Matthew Polly
And they ended up feeling that was too racy and they cut even that suggestion that they’re a hint that he might have been tempted away from, you know, heart and home. And the truth was, he he had multiple affairs over, over the years. Once he became a Hollywood actor.

00:39:03:00 – 00:39:07:12
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Yeah. That’s a that’s a little bit of a different dynamic than we see in the movie then.

00:39:07:15 – 00:39:26:00
Matthew Polly
Yeah. Very much. It was he was much more like Mad Men, you know? Okay. Like when you think about Mad Men, you think about these guys who loved their wives, came home and whatever. But when they were off at work, they did. They had sex with the secretary or whatever, and it just didn’t interfere. And that’s that double standard was what he grew up with.

00:39:26:03 – 00:39:32:23
Matthew Polly
And so it’s just a different dynamic than those of us who grew up kind of post 80s, where that’s just not acceptable.

00:39:32:25 – 00:39:54:20
Dan LeFebvre
That’s a that’s a good way to phrase that in another, another TV show example. Yeah. Another theme throughout the movie that I wanted to ask you about was this concept we see of the demon. It starts at the very beginning, right at the very beginning of the movie, with Bruce as a child, all the way to what I thought was a very specific date.

00:39:54:22 – 00:40:24:12
Dan LeFebvre
The 32nd day of shooting Enter the Dragon near the end of the film, and then, it’s during that last vision that Bruce sees his own grave. And on the grave is the date July 28th, 1973, engraved on it. Can you give a little more insight into the historical accuracy of this idea of the demon that Bruce Lee how if he’s hallucinating or how he’s seeing these visions in the movie?

00:40:24:14 – 00:40:30:16
Dan LeFebvre
But then how well did the movie do depicting the end of Bruce Lee’s life?

00:40:30:18 – 00:40:52:23
Matthew Polly
So they took again, they took some element of truth, and then they, they, they ran with it, which is, before Bruce was born, the first male child, that his parents had did die, I think, before was one year old. And in Chinese culture, that’s considered a bad omen. And so it’s a kind of superstition.

00:40:52:25 – 00:41:11:13
Matthew Polly
Any child, any male child born after that is supposed to be given a female nickname, and dressed up in female clothes. And so they didn’t do that with Bruce Lee. In fact, they even pierced his ear and gave him an earring when he was a little baby. And so this is a, Chinese custom from that period of time.

00:41:11:15 – 00:41:32:24
Matthew Polly
But that’s it. Like, that’s that’s the end of the demons. He never he never came up again. Bruce Lee never had visions of a demon. His father never warned him that the demon was going to get him. So you’d have to run off to America. And, Bruce probably had some bad dreams every once in a while, but it wasn’t of a demon.

00:41:32:27 – 00:41:57:08
Matthew Polly
And that was the one you interviewed. The director’s been interviewed, and he said I wanted to, you know, use that artistic license to speak about his inner struggle. But they also had another problem, which is, how to deal with Bruce Lee’s death. And Bruce Lee died in another woman’s bedroom. That’s that’s how we know that he wasn’t a purely faithful husband.

00:41:57:10 – 00:42:25:16
Matthew Polly
And when that scandal, when that came out, it was a huge scandal and ongoing press, and it was very tough on Linda. And so one of the things that she wanted to make sure in the years since is that no one really dug into this situation involving Bruce Lee’s death. And so any Bruce Lee estate product, any anything that comes that’s associated with the Bruce Lee estate pretty much avoids the the gritty details of his death.

00:42:25:18 – 00:42:40:23
Matthew Polly
And so using the demon was another way for them to kind of skedaddle by what actually happened, which was he was spending the afternoon with his mistress. And for some reasons that are still under debate, he ended up dying in her bedroom.

00:42:40:26 – 00:42:47:29
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, well, I could I could see that then, because that would go against the family man that they set up throughout the entire movie.

00:42:48:01 – 00:43:10:28
Matthew Polly
Yeah, it it would just I mean, this is really the version they’re doing. It’s Bruce Lee, the Family man, but also the romance. And I think they do a wonderful job of getting that part of it. But he was a more complicated person, with more flaws. And they just decided to, you know, scrub those away. And the death obviously would make that much more complicated, a storyline.

00:43:10:29 – 00:43:31:18
Matthew Polly
So him dying in that sort of almost mythical way is a way for them to escape that. But, you know, one of the things that was spooky about the movie is that, they had asked Brandon Lee if he wanted to play his father, Brandon being Bruce’s son. And he said no. He took the part in The Crow.

00:43:31:21 – 00:43:50:12
Matthew Polly
And that last scene, Bruce is fighting the demon, and then the demon goes after his son. And Bruce has to kill the demon in order to protect his son. And within a year, Brandon had died. Actually, six months, I think, had died on the set of The Crow Under, like, really weird circumstances.

00:43:50:12 – 00:43:57:11
Dan LeFebvre
That was like a blink or something like that, wasn’t it? That that I don’t remember the specifics of. But I remember when that happened. Yeah.

00:43:57:13 – 00:44:19:20
Matthew Polly
Yeah, yeah. Very creepy. And so this movie came out and it’s got this whole demon thing about a family curse, and then Brandon dies. And so in the public’s mind, there is this idea that somehow Bruce’s family has actually been cursed. I’ve actually had producers in Hollywood call me and say, we’re doing the curse. The Lee family.

00:44:19:21 – 00:44:38:13
Matthew Polly
Will you participate in that? And I’m like, no. Oh. However, because it there’s no curse on his family, but they’ve had two really tragic deaths, the father and the son. And part of the reason people believe this is because, unfortunately, they use this demon sort of, mythos in the movie itself.

00:44:38:16 – 00:44:50:23
Dan LeFebvre
Well, we’ve talked about some of the, the big myths that come out of the movie. Are there any other major myths about Bruce Lee that people believe because of Dragon, the Bruce Lee story?

00:44:50:25 – 00:45:10:25
Matthew Polly
I think we had the main ones. I was rewatching it this afternoon, and, he never drove a motorcycle. That’s not a big myth. But it is funny, because all of his friends said he was a terrible driver, like he was. He was like, he drove too fast. He scared the heck out of them.

00:45:10:27 – 00:45:36:12
Matthew Polly
So they, the idea of him on a motorcycle, is kind of foolish. I think the biggest myth that the movie sets up, which is because they start with him training with it, man, they make it seem as if he was a martial artist who accidentally became an actor. You know, so his whole everything up to this moment where he’s fighting Jackson, he’s just this martial artist.

00:45:36:14 – 00:45:59:27
Matthew Polly
And then accidentally, Hollywood discovers him. Actually, Bruce Lee’s father was a famous, opera singer, which they mentioned in the movie. But Bruce Lee was also a child actor and appeared in 20 Cantonese movies before the age of 18. And he was kind of like the Macaulay Culkin of Hong Kong. And so when Hollywood called, he was ready.

00:46:00:00 – 00:46:21:02
Matthew Polly
Like he already knew how to act. And that’s why he succeeded, because he was a great martial artist who also had a strong background in acting. And most martial artists who get cast like Chuck Norris don’t know how to act. Bruce Lee is the only one who could do both, and that’s why he succeeded as a star, because he was an actor.

00:46:21:04 – 00:46:44:19
Matthew Polly
And then he became a martial artist, and then he combined the two. And this movie sets up the idea of Bruce Lee, the pure martial arts genius, perfect father. And he’s actually like an actor who became a martial artist who was not perfect. But combine those two skills. And I think if they had just had one scene where they showed him as a child actor, it would have filled out his story much more.

00:46:44:21 – 00:47:06:18
Dan LeFebvre
I’m wondering, just as you’re saying, that it it lends back to watch something that you mentioned earlier where he kind of thrown into, well, this has to be a kung fu movie because it’s about Bruce Lee. And so if he was an actor, would he know how to fight the four cooks in the alleyway? And, you know, the sailors and, you know, all these scenes that we have to set up for him?

00:47:06:20 – 00:47:23:06
Dan LeFebvre
Well, he has to be a martial artist then at that point, because he already know how to fight. And so I’m wondering if that’s kind of how they why they why they did that in order to, tell the story, but mix up quite a few things along the way to do that.

00:47:23:08 – 00:47:45:18
Matthew Polly
Yeah. You know, that’s part of the issue. And to be fair, I, I’ve seen much worse biopics than this one. Like, as biopics go, it’s a perfectly decent version. It’s a huge inaccuracies, but that’s sort of part of the part and parcel. Part of the reason, though, is I think this it’s based on Linda Lee’s book.

00:47:45:20 – 00:48:03:12
Matthew Polly
And for her, she fell in love with Bruce Lee when he was a martial artist, and she fell in love with her martial arts teacher. And I think for her, that’s the most important aspect of him. And I don’t believe she was ever particularly happy with him when he went back to being an actor.

00:48:03:14 – 00:48:08:06
Dan LeFebvre
Do you think some of the affairs had something to do with that? I mean, that’s part of that lifestyle or.

00:48:08:08 – 00:48:26:04
Matthew Polly
I think the lifestyle. Yeah. And so after he died, very interestingly, she never she pulled away from it. She kept her kids away from it. She didn’t want her son to be an actor. She was a quiet person who never cotton to that world. And I think this was Bruce Lee’s dream to be a great star.

00:48:26:12 – 00:48:46:14
Matthew Polly
Her dream was to marry a guy who had the McDonald’s chain of kung fu studios. And so I think those two aspects of Bruce Lee, what’s interesting is when you hear her versions of the story, she recognizes he was both, but she emphasizes the part that she loved that she fell in love with. And this movie does as well.

00:48:46:16 – 00:48:54:25
Matthew Polly
And that’s created this image of Bruce Lee is this kung fu master and that sort of accidental actor, when it’s actually the opposite.

00:48:54:27 – 00:49:06:10
Dan LeFebvre
Now, if you kind of put yourself in the director’s chair for a moment, if there was one thing you wish that was in the movie and they didn’t put it in there, what would that be?

00:49:06:12 – 00:49:40:01
Matthew Polly
It would help if they just showed. I think Jason Scott Lee did a good job of catching Bruce’s emotional range, like his charm and his anger. But they should have showed his flaws, and they should have had one scene where he was not the perfect husband. They still had one affair, because I think that would have shown a more complex adult version of him and allowed us to appreciate, you know, the fact that he was a flawed human being who was also able to achieve greatness and that would have made it less a child story and more an adult story.

00:49:40:04 – 00:50:08:19
Matthew Polly
And every time someone, you know, there’s recently been a documentary that came out, ESPN is doing and again, they skipped the death. And they, they skip the affairs and they focus on Bruce Lee’s accomplishments only, and they turn him into a saint and almost a demigod. And I and I really think it’s important for us to appreciate him as a human being because as a flawed human being, his successes are more impressive.

00:50:08:21 – 00:50:27:13
Matthew Polly
But if you treat him as a demigod, then, you know, of course he can beat 50 people from the get go. He never lost a fight. He was perfect. And this, this. I don’t know why we feel the need to treat Bruce Lee as perfect. We have movies about other iconic figures where, you know, Martin Luther King had affairs like it’s not.

00:50:27:18 – 00:50:41:10
Matthew Polly
These aren’t things that we can’t deal with as a culture. So that’s the thing that annoys me about these films in general, which is this, this desire to make Bruce Lee a saint. He wasn’t a saint. He was a great man, but he wasn’t a saint.

00:50:41:12 – 00:50:59:16
Dan LeFebvre
Was a human. I think you put you you said it really well, like, I mean, we’re all human. We all make mistakes. And they’re going to, I mean, perhaps be different mistakes and the ones that he made. But, I think that would make for a lot more, a lot more character depth there and a lot more relatability to it.

00:50:59:19 – 00:51:10:00
Dan LeFebvre
I can’t go out and do what Bruce Lee did by any means, any way you look at it. But, you know, I guess more human relatable ends up being a much more relatable character on screen.

00:51:10:02 – 00:51:26:28
Matthew Polly
I think so, and so I’m hopeful that someday they will do a more human version of Bruce Lee on screen. And this was I feel like this was the kind of the kids starter version of the Bruce Lee story, where they mix a bunch of stuff up and unfortunately, no one else is correct in it.

00:51:27:00 – 00:51:46:01
Matthew Polly
And so when I wrote the biography, I felt in many ways I felt like this movie was the thing I was writing against because there were so many things that were wrong that I didn’t know when I started, because the movie’s been reinforced by magazine articles, etc. and so while it’s a perfectly fine movie, it’s, it’s it is pretty terrible history.

00:51:46:08 – 00:52:07:08
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you mentioned your biography, and hopefully at the end of the day, everybody listening to this realizes that it is a movie. It’s going to be a movie. It’s not going to be historically accurate. So with that in mind, anyone listening to this that wants to learn the true story, can you share some information about your book and where they can get a copy?

00:52:07:10 – 00:52:29:08
Matthew Polly
So the title of the book is Bruce Lee A life, by Matthew Polley. It’s available everywhere, so you can get it on Amazon. It’s in most bookstores. Still paperback versions come out. It’s being adapted into a documentary. It may be a movie someday. We’re working on that. So who knows, maybe we will get the story straight and, in Hollywood.

00:52:29:11 – 00:52:34:15
Matthew Polly
But until that day, the books, books there, and it’s, available everywhere.

00:52:34:17 – 00:52:37:00
Dan LeFebvre
Thank you again so much for your time, Matthew.

00:52:37:03 – 00:52:43:28
Matthew Polly
I really appreciate it.

00:02:13:01 – 00:02:40:00
Dan LeFebvre
Let’s start this off on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. In the movie, we find out from some text on the screen that we’re at Dog Green Sector Omaha Beach. And this is where we join Tom Hanks, his character, Captain John Miller, and the other soldiers as they’re heading toward the beaches and landing vehicles. This is an interesting look at what it might have been like for soldiers as they were nearing the shores.

00:02:40:02 – 00:03:11:26
Dan LeFebvre
They can’t see over the sides of the vehicles. All they can hear are the guns and explosions getting closer. There are splashes from the explosions that rain water down on top of them. Then, as it’s time to go, we see the front ramp lowered and the front soldiers are almost immediately mowed down by machine gun fire. Miller starts yelling for his men to jump over the sides, which causes even more problems because as they do, their way down by their packs, some of the men manage to get out of their gear underwater and make it back to the surface.

00:03:11:29 – 00:03:23:12
Dan LeFebvre
Others don’t. Can you give us a little more insight into the location that we get in the movie of Don Green Sector, Omaha Beach, and these moments up until landing on the beach?

00:03:23:19 – 00:04:07:29
Marty Morgan
Yeah, what they’re depicting is the moment of the greatest intensity during the battle for Omaha Beach. I would just mention that Omaha Beach was really six separate battles, each battle functioning separate and almost entirely autonomous, and disconnected from one another for the first half of the day on D-Day. And what the screenplay writer in the movie did was, he chose the battle that provided the greatest amount of drama because the U.S. Army Fifth Corps landings in the dark green sector of Omaha Beach, and those are landings primarily carried out by two battalions of the 29th Infantry Division and

00:04:08:02 – 00:04:42:28
Marty Morgan
Then, with a few Rangers thrown in. That is where the entire assault goes entirely wrong. In fact, the the the historical quote that I think most effectively communicates how bad it was there is what happens to a company of the 164th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division, a company landed with 164 officers and men, and within five minutes of combat in front of the German Resistance Master Bunker complex at Dog Sector, they had suffered 91 killed and 65 wounded.

00:04:43:00 – 00:05:08:25
Marty Morgan
So that literally in the span of five minutes, an entire infantry company was reduced to complete ineffectiveness. And that’s a significant detail because the Yoma, the first wave at Omaha Beach, consisted of nine infantry companies spread out over the entire length of the beach and Omaha Beach is five miles wide. Out of the nine infantry companies that conducted that preliminary assault.

00:05:08:28 – 00:05:14:24
Marty Morgan
One of them is destroyed entirely in front of the defenses at Dark Green Sector.

00:05:14:26 – 00:05:25:08
Dan LeFebvre
I know you mentioned the number of, division, but just getting a sense of how many people are storming the beaches this five mile stretch of beach, how many people were there overall that were involved in the invasion there?

00:05:25:10 – 00:05:39:11
Marty Morgan
Or if you consider just the first wave? And of course, there were far more than just one way during the day on June 6th. But if you consider just the first wave nine infantry companies just as approaching 1800 to 2000 men.

00:05:39:13 – 00:05:40:00
Dan LeFebvre
Wow.

00:05:40:02 – 00:06:18:03
Marty Morgan
They’re going up against Germans and basically 13 resistance nest or bunker complexes. And the total number of Germans that were immediately in those fighting positions ready to resist the landings at right after dawn on D-Day. So the number of Germans is about 600. So our assault force, even with just the first wave, possesses numerical superiority. But the German defending force was behind concrete and then also, in positions that were built into terrain so that they had elevation over the battlefield.

00:06:18:05 – 00:06:40:14
Marty Morgan
The bluff at Omaha Beach is about 100ft tall. German positions were, at the water level, and they were on top of the bluffs. And the the effect of the elevation, the use of terrain, and the use of concrete fighting positions function as a force multiplier. That made it possible for those German defenders to inflict heavy casualties for a brief period of time.

00:06:40:14 – 00:07:05:03
Marty Morgan
A point I love to make when discussing the movie Saving Private Ryan is that you can go just a few hundred meters to the east, down the length of Omaha Beach, where you’re encountering US troops that are landing first waves, and they’re receiving a little bit of harassing fire at long ranges to where the fire is not entirely effective.

00:07:05:05 – 00:07:33:06
Marty Morgan
And in other words, you could you had Americans that landed that were just a few hundred meters to the east of dark Green Sector, and almost everyone gets out of the landing craft, gets, through the beach obstacles and makes it to the stand called the shingle with light casualties, that stands in strong contrast to what happens at Green Sector, which is, of course, what’s depicted in the opening scene of the movie, where you have effectively cataclysmic casualties.

00:07:33:08 – 00:07:55:09
Dan LeFebvre
The impression I got was that was essentially what was going on everywhere, because of course, that’s the only thing that we see is this just mass rain of of fire. As these people are getting out of the, the landing vehicles. And so I just assumed that that was happening everywhere on the beach. But it sounds like very, very different experiences.

00:07:55:11 – 00:08:26:21
Marty Morgan
That’s absolutely correct, because the movie will teach you the impression that it was a five mile wide slaughterhouse, and it simply was not that. It just wasn’t that at all. I make the larger macro argument that the depiction of the moment of the greatest chaos and casualties, it sort of fits something that’s been going on in the overall narrative of the war movie as a genre and cinema for at least 50 years now.

00:08:26:23 – 00:09:00:27
Marty Morgan
And I argue that the era of Vietnam introduced certain levels of disenchantment and cynicism to the way that Americans comprehend the experience of war, and that the Vietnam era changed the way that we understand war, and that we always think of it as being led by fools. Thing bureaucratically led to the point of producing a massive ineffectiveness. And we at a point I like to make do is that it takes up to the victimization of the lowest ranking people.

00:09:00:29 – 00:09:27:27
Marty Morgan
And so, in other words, since the era of Vietnam, we like to imagine sat, catch corrupted high ranking officers that are far removed from the experience of fighting on the front, who are planning of, planning the battles in which the best and brightest of American youth are slaughtered needlessly on the battlefield and Private Ryan, I find, is a movie that, at its core is very patriotic.

00:09:27:29 – 00:09:52:06
Marty Morgan
Which is why it came as such a surprise to me when the movie came out and I caught it for the first time in the theaters, it really felt like a change of gears, because it’s a movie that, in the end, is very patriotic, very, very romanticized. But at the same time, I find that it selects from some of what tropes that really characterize the era of the Vietnam War movie.

00:09:52:08 – 00:10:17:20
Dan LeFebvre
After the soldiers land on the beach again, going back to the movie, we get a look at how they advance inland. First, there’s some metal obstacles that the Germans set up to prevent vehicles from landing on the beach, but they use that as cover. Much cover, but it’s better than nothing. And one of the lines of dialog, as they’re getting shot at, they’re kind of struck me as interesting.

00:10:17:27 – 00:10:36:22
Dan LeFebvre
There’s a soldier that yells to Tom Hanks, his character, Captain Miller says something like, what are your orders, sir? And he replies, get your men off the beach. Like they had to be told not to just hang out there as as they’re being slaughtered. But from here, we see soldiers managed to take, berm in the sand.

00:10:36:22 – 00:10:57:11
Dan LeFebvre
They use that as cover, and then they use what they call Bangalore’s, which look like long metal tubes. You see them put an explosive in one end and then basically just throw the entire thing over. Almost seems like movie magic to me because it’s just like they throw it over, there’s a massive explosion, and then the men are able to advance closer to the machine gun nests.

00:10:57:13 – 00:11:19:27
Dan LeFebvre
And the next step of this advance inland here is on the movie is, Barry Peppers character, Jackson. He’s a sniper, so they use covering fire to get him into position to take out the men and machine gun nest. And then from there, the American soldiers make their way to the German bunker. They use a mixture of grenades and, flamethrowers to clear out the bunker.

00:11:19:29 – 00:11:45:26
Dan LeFebvre
And, of course, you know, we see the soldiers on the other side tell the other soldiers not to shoot them because they want them to burn up with the flamethrower, that, act of cruelty there. But, after this, we see Captain Miller sit down to survey the beach, and it’s just a very high level overview of how the movie shows, basically the troops gaining a foothold on D-Day.

00:11:45:28 – 00:11:55:11
Dan LeFebvre
How accurate is that depiction of how the soldiers advance from their landing craft to establish a foothold? How accurate was that?

00:11:55:14 – 00:12:32:15
Marty Morgan
Let me put it this way. It is the most accurate cinema depiction to date. That’s as nice as I can be. Because once you once you begin to pick this scene apart, with what’s with some advanced, like with an advanced course and knowledge and the history of D-Day invasion? It’s hard not to acknowledge the fact that there are some substantial errors and authenticity and the way that the scene is depicted, it feels almost wrong for me to harp on those, and I try to stay away from them as much as possible.

00:12:32:17 – 00:12:55:06
Marty Morgan
But because I believe that the scene I think that’s the most memorable takeaway of the entire motion picture, that whole first 20 minutes of that film is what galvanized everyone. It’s what grabs you by the throat and pulls you into that story. It’s such an effective moment in filmmaking, and it, I remember the first time I sat through it.

00:12:55:12 – 00:13:40:12
Marty Morgan
I mean, it was it took my breath away. It was it’s such an impactful, moment in cinema. With that said, it’s got lots of problems. And let’s just start with, the flamethrower. Don’t shoot. Let them burn. There is absolutely no use whatsoever of the flamethrower on Omaha Beach on Tuesday, June 6th, 1944. So right there, we got a big problem because, as a person who leads tours to Normandy many, many times every year and has been doing so for over 20 years, I have basically been doing so in the era since the movie Private Ryan came out, because it came out what was July 24th, 1998.

00:13:40:15 – 00:14:02:28
Marty Morgan
It’s been almost 22 years since the movie came out. I’ve been leading tours during that era. That’s sort of something that comes up basically with every tour. And I’m not saying that we did not conduct the interviews landing without flamethrowers. There were flamethrower was used on D-Day, just not on Omaha Beach. It was used in the British Canadian sectors, for example, with great effect.

00:14:02:28 – 00:14:41:07
Marty Morgan
They were used on armored fighting vehicles, particularly with great effect, not in the American sector and definitely not on Omaha Beach. So a scene that I believe provided this lasting impact for the viewer. Ammo, I should say a moment that provides a lasting impact for the viewer is built around a core level historical inaccuracy that I personally have to spend kind of a lot of time dealing with when I’m on the scene on Omaha Beach, taking people through the advanced course of what actually happened on D-Day, because what I’m finding is that people have maybe read a little bit about June 6th.

00:14:41:10 – 00:15:07:15
Marty Morgan
They’ve watched the movies, they’ve watched Private Ryan, and they come to Normandy. And it’s almost like when they get to Normandy, then the actuality of the learning experience can begin again. I feel like Saving Private Ryan did wonders for this subject. I think it created the era where there’s an enormous thirst for knowledge about D-Day. It put Normandy kind of back on the map as a tourist destination for Americans.

00:15:07:15 – 00:15:30:04
Marty Morgan
I can speak to that with authority because I might not have that tour guide work were it not for that movie. In other words, if Steven Spielberg had not decided that this was his next passion project, I might be working at the post office. But instead I spent. I get to spend a great deal of time on Omaha Beach every year, and I absolutely love every bit of it.

00:15:30:07 – 00:16:03:09
Marty Morgan
And I have to acknowledge and thank the movie Saving Private Ryan for making all that possible. Because these movies really offer such a powerful tool for getting people interested in the subject matter and getting people enthusiastic about the subject matter. So it feels. I feel bad when I harp on things like no flamethrowers on Omaha Beach, horses landed on Omaha Beach with flamethrowers, but a major moment for the landings of the US Army Corps on Omaha Beach, is that the troops are, for the most part, landed.

00:16:03:09 – 00:16:28:09
Marty Morgan
The troops of the first wave are landed for the most part on a sandbar off shore. That compelled them as they waited ashore to wade through water that got deeper and deeper. You can see this in this famous photograph that was taken by U.S. Coast Guardsman Bob Sergeant. And the sergeant. Photos show a group of men from 16th Infantry Regiment, first Infantry Division, landing in front of the easy Read sector of Omaha Beach.

00:16:28:12 – 00:16:47:28
Marty Morgan
And there’s a photograph that shows them on the landing craft right before they land. And then there’s a photo of the ramp down in the LCP, and the men are wading through water that comes all the way up to their chest. That, I think, provides a really powerful piece of evidence as to why things went wrong with things like flankers.

00:16:47:28 – 00:17:20:28
Marty Morgan
And also radios is where pieces of equipment that were never meant to be submerged in salt water, and yet they were submerged in salt water on D-Day. Which is why for the most part, radios and flamethrowers do not work on Omaha Beach. So you’ve got a big problem there with the flamethrower scene. Something that attaches nicely to the flamethrower point is that the depiction of the bunker from the don’t let them burn moment, that bunker is not something that appears anywhere on the landing area.

00:17:20:28 – 00:17:58:07
Marty Morgan
The 50 mile wide stretch of beaches in northern France, where the multinational coalition landed on D-Day. There is no bunker like that. There are none. Absolutely not. It’s a complete falsehood. There are bunkers that look like that, that are in the overall German system of of prefabricated design. But you don’t have one like that on Omaha Beach, so that when you see the flamethrower come into the back of the position and then he hits the flame and you see, a hardened position that’s on the face of the bluff, looking straight out to the water.

00:17:58:09 – 00:18:19:05
Marty Morgan
What? That looks more like an observation position than anything. You don’t have that on Omaha Beach. What you have are a series of fighting positions that present a much more modest profile. And when I say that, I mean a profile that’s a little bit harder to shoot and destroy. Their basic with two types, I should say three types of fighting positions.

00:18:19:05 – 00:18:44:27
Marty Morgan
On a small beach, there are fighting positions or heavy weapons like anti-tank guns, 88 millimeter guns, 75 millimeter guns, 50 millimeter guns. Those positions are, for the most part, oriented not out to sea, but oriented to direct info, lighting, fire gun, the length of the beach. And all of them have a traverse wall that protects the armature, which is the opening through which the gun points.

00:18:45:00 – 00:19:07:09
Marty Morgan
Then there are a series of fighting positions for automatic weapons. They’re much smaller in overall scale, and those fighting positions in some cases do point out to sea. But the Germans, also on Omaha Beach, had a large number of fighting positions that were, basically improvised, meaning they were dug positions that use logs and sandbags to to reinforce them.

00:19:07:11 – 00:19:48:18
Marty Morgan
Then you also have positions that concrete underground positions for mortars. And since I just spoke that word, I feel like I should jump ahead real quick and just address one other subject. There’s a there’s a very arresting moment in that opening scene of Private Ryan where you see an LCD landing craft on the beach. The camera perspective is over the right shoulder of a German MG 42 gunner, and that gunner is, just dumping a built of eight millimeter ammunition straight down through the ramp into the landing craft and slaughtering everybody on board the landing craft.

00:19:48:20 – 00:20:12:22
Marty Morgan
I’m not saying that there’s, a basic problem with that depiction, but I would say this, it has led people to believe that there were a very large number of MG 42 machine guns on Omaha Beach on D-Day, and it has led people to the further misapprehension that the MG 42 was a decisive weapon against Americans landing on Omaha Beach.

00:20:12:25 – 00:20:54:13
Marty Morgan
It certainly was not. That is definitely not what happened there. There were there was an assortment of different types of automatic weapons on Omaha Beach. Not all of them were MG 42. In fact, the minority of them were Ng 42 and the MG 42. Well, I should say this. The engine 40 and all of the other different types of automatic weapons, many of which were foreign, by the way, those weapons were far less effective than the opening scene of Private Ryan would have you believe, because what they what that scene but lead you to believe is that the entire area, everyone’s being slaughtered because the entire area is being swept by machine gun fire.

00:20:54:16 – 00:21:17:01
Marty Morgan
And it makes you furthermore think that the entire Al-hol Beach area was being swept with a machine gun fire and energy for it. There were MG 40 twos. They were the minority of all of the different diverse types of automatic weapons that were there. And automatic weapons fire did not produce anywhere close to the total number of casualties that the actual big killer on D-Day did.

00:21:17:03 – 00:21:32:20
Marty Morgan
And the big killer on Omaha Beach was a German model like 1934 80 millimeter mortar. That weapon does most of the dirty work against American forces landing during those early hours of June 6th.

00:21:32:22 – 00:21:50:05
Dan LeFebvre
There was a moment there, I think it was Tom Hanks, his character, when when the when the, I don’t remember the soldier’s name. I was talking to him, asking him what the orders were, but, he made a comment where they’ve cited in every inch of this beach, and I’m assuming that was referring to the mortars. Would that be correct?

00:21:50:07 – 00:22:17:26
Marty Morgan
That would be correct. And I should just mention this, that the one cool thing that Private Ryan does is that it borrows from stories from a number of actual living people, because I can see why Spielberg made the movie the way that he did, and I appreciate the movie that he made, and I like the movie that made, but he didn’t want to make a 100% pure and actuality based documentary the way that The Longest Day was.

00:22:17:26 – 00:22:40:29
Marty Morgan
For example, he wanted to create a story that he had some freedom to be flexible with, to create circumstances, to create tension between characters. He did the things that storytellers do, and it was all based on the story of Tuesday, June 6th, 1944, and a few days thereafter. One of the things he for the Tom Hanks character, he borrows from a few different people.

00:22:40:29 – 00:23:07:15
Marty Morgan
I’ll probably mention them as we continue speaking, but since you mentioned the quote of get your men off the beach, I would just say that in that moment, they borrowed from the story of the man who commanded the U.S. Army’s 16th Infantry Regiment on D-Day. His name was Colonel George Taylor and Colonel Taylor, and landing noticed that there were that the assault toward the beach had largely lost momentum.

00:23:07:17 – 00:23:29:24
Marty Morgan
And the reason that that momentum was lost was because that as men came off of their landing craft, they found that they were vulnerable to enemy small arms fire and more importantly, fragmentation from enemy mortar fire. The men then moved quickly through the built where the obstacles were located. And they found that when they reached the beach itself.

00:23:29:26 – 00:23:50:17
Marty Morgan
I’m not talking about the water line, but they’re reaching the basically the high water line. Because we landed at low tide as the tide was beginning to come in and at the high water line on Omaha Beach back then. It’s not like this today. But 75 years ago, there was this thing that they called the shingle, and the shingle was riprap.

00:23:50:17 – 00:24:16:27
Marty Morgan
So they were they were river rocks about the size of your fist by the millions. They were poured right at the water’s edge to prevent scouring of the beach from seasonal winter storms. The the shingle will as a result of wave action. It will sort of take the form of a little bit of a ledge. And there are only two places that I know of today on the overall length of Omaha Beach, where there’s a little bit of shingle still left.

00:24:16:27 – 00:24:38:13
Marty Morgan
The shingle has largely been removed. So the Omaha beach that you see today looks quite a bit different than the Omaha Beach did on June 6th, 1944. But what George, Colonel Taylor was finding was that as men came off the landing craft, as they made it up to the beach obstacles, they were being, hit by small arms fire and fragmentation from mortars.

00:24:38:15 – 00:25:02:28
Marty Morgan
The men pressed forward from there, and when they reached the shingle, they found that this ledge, created in the shingle by wave action, provided a degree of shelter, meaning that when the men reached that ledge at the shingle, that the enemy automatic weapons fire could no longer get to them, and the only way that the enemy could get to them would be to drop mortars and right on top of them.

00:25:03:00 – 00:25:28:04
Marty Morgan
And so what Colonel Taylor noticed was that the men had gotten off the landing craft, gotten through the obstacles, reached the shingle, and then the entire drive inland lost momentum right there because the troops had cover, ahead, cover and concealment. And I can’t say that I blame those men for stopping at the point where they were at least out of the small arms fire and the mortar fire.

00:25:28:06 – 00:25:49:18
Marty Morgan
The only problem was that the enemy could then begin dropping mortar fire in on them. And Colonel Taylor realized that so that when Colonel Taylor came off of his landing craft, as he moved across the beach through the obstacles, and when he reached the shingle and looked around and saw that nobody was moving inland, he realized, okay, we can’t stay here, because if we stay here, they’re going to get us.

00:25:49:18 – 00:26:17:28
Marty Morgan
They’re going to stop, start dropping mortar fire on us. And that’s where you see the first movement, the first moment that Tom Hanks’s character, John Miller, is inspired by something that was done by an actual historical character. And in this case, Colonel George Taylor and Colonel Taylor, he he he provided this quote right then that became memorable and is often cited in the quote was, there are two kinds of people who are staying on this beach.

00:26:18:00 – 00:26:39:28
Marty Morgan
Those are those who are dead and those who are going to die. Now let’s get the hell out of here. And that quote, as time goes by, has has changed and merged a little bit. And to a certain degree, it informs the Captain Miller character’s quote when he when he instructs Sergeant Horvath to get your men off the beach.

00:26:40:00 – 00:26:50:15
Marty Morgan
But there you have a moment where his experience is based on someone who actually survived the Battle of Omaha Beach on D-Day. There will be a few more, before the scene is over with.

00:26:50:17 – 00:27:07:27
Dan LeFebvre
Would you say it’s fair to say that what what they did and Doug Green Sector in the movie was basically take all of these different experiences that were happening on D-Day and, and compress them into as if they all happened in this one location.

00:27:07:29 – 00:27:36:17
Marty Morgan
It is a fair assessment. In fact, I would I would say that what happened there is I live in Louisiana and everything gets compared to a gumbo. It is a gumbo. It’s everything all mixed together to create a scene that provides the absolute greatest possible, tension, suspense, action and drama. I mean, and that’s the sign of good storytelling and therefore good filmmaking.

00:27:36:19 – 00:27:45:06
Marty Morgan
But we should also be careful that when someone tells a story well and provides excellence in filmmaking, we should understand it’s not a documentary.

00:27:45:09 – 00:28:04:09
Dan LeFebvre
Now, I’m curious because I did time it mentioned the first 20 minutes or so, and it was about 2020 one minutes or so, depending on where you start and stop, from when the landing craft drops the ramp to when Captain Miller is surveying the beach. How long did it actually take for them to establish that foothold?

00:28:04:12 – 00:28:25:24
Marty Morgan
It changes from place to place. I hate to give you typical story and answers because historians like to qualify things, but I recognize basically six battles for Omaha Beach. And in those six battles, you can mark how in each one of these pods of action men land, get off the beach, get up to the top of the bluffs.

00:28:25:24 – 00:28:52:21
Marty Morgan
And typically the point where we acknowledge that they’ve reached the end of the line is when they reach the top of the bluff, the first force to make it off the beach to the top of the bluff on D-Day. That was a cumulative period of time of, I’d say, a little over two hours approaching three, which says something powerful about what happened on Omaha Beach.

00:28:52:24 – 00:29:19:14
Marty Morgan
Because the plan was not that we would spend almost three hours bogged down by enemy machine guns and mortars. The plan was that we would land, overwhelm the enemy and move quickly into the interior, bypassing the enemy’s beach defenses, because we knew that once you move beyond the beach and you moved into the interior, the enemy’s ability to defend was greatly undermined by density of defensive forces and terrain.

00:29:19:16 – 00:29:45:04
Marty Morgan
We, in other words, we were not planning to lose a lot of great people trying to punch through the beach defenses. And that’s that’s what happened. So the first force is up and off the beach, way down at the far left, the far eastern end of Long Beach. And that is a force that was led for the most part by a lieutenant by the name of Jimmy Montes Lopes, on which Monteith gets his men off the beach.

00:29:45:04 – 00:30:20:00
Marty Morgan
He actually leads to Sherman tanks up the cardboard draw. They engage in intense action against a German bunker complex. At the top of the cardboard draw, the far eastern end of Omaha Beach in the Fox sector, a place called in 60. And they’re up some point between 9 and 9:30 a.m.. They’re the first off the beach, the air, the place where you get the men, the last group to get off the beach or to the top of the blast, that’s turning, that’s happening in the area, 16th Infantry Regiment.

00:30:20:03 – 00:30:38:15
Marty Morgan
And the eighth entry. That’s just to the, to the east, Green Sector. So that by 10:00, basically the entire first wave assault force has achieved the objective of getting off the beach and reaching the summit of the bluff behind the beach.

00:30:38:17 – 00:30:52:03
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So it sounds like not only did they compress everything as far as the events themselves, but also the timeline was compressed some as well to tell. Like you said, end of the day, it’s not a documentary, but to tell the story.

00:30:52:06 – 00:31:14:11
Marty Morgan
Precisely like a great example of how it’s done. And another project that’s worked quite famous is people love to talk about episode two of the HBO mini series Band of Brothers, and in that episode, it depicts this battle at a place called Breaker Manor, where Lieutenant Dick winters leads his men in an assault on a German gun battery.

00:31:14:13 – 00:31:45:03
Marty Morgan
And in the HBO in episode two of the HBO series That attack unfolds over about a 20 minute time period when in actuality, the battle at Break Manor goes on for almost six hours during the day. On June 6th. Film making requires you to strip down timelines and compress fat, and that process of compression is something, but it exerting itself on the movie, Saving Private Ryan in a powerful way in that early scene.

00:31:45:05 – 00:32:23:14
Marty Morgan
But I would I would just say this, because as much as I like to go, actually, but and then point out a bunch of, of obscure facts that nobody cares about. So the fact that you do get a scene that is effectively 20 minutes of nothing but, combat and action, for all of its shortcomings, I would say that there is no living filmmaker on this planet that could get away with doing that, except Steven Spielberg, because any other filmmaker would be under the supervision of studio executives and studio executives.

00:32:23:14 – 00:32:44:17
Marty Morgan
One would want the film to conform to a more traditional action movie format. You can look at other movies that came out in the aftermath of Private Ryan movies that I always like to say, live in the shadow of Private Ryan Rubin’s movies that just didn’t perform like that, like that film movies that didn’t create the legacy that Private Ryan created.

00:32:44:20 – 00:33:06:04
Marty Morgan
I think of movies like, a movie that I actually really like, The Thin Red line. It just didn’t live up to the Private Ryan, like legend, the movie win talkers. I think it’s a great example that a film where the director was under a lot of studio pressure to conform to certain tropes of what an action movie, what they believe an action movie is supposed to be.

00:33:06:07 – 00:33:30:08
Marty Morgan
And the movie’s just it’s not memorable. It’s got a lot of problems with it, and it’s kind of not a good movie on every level. Private Ryan, on the other hand, is Steven Spielberg, who at the point in his career 22 years ago when he sat down to make this film, he was thinking about making that film almost 25 years ago when Spielberg sat down to make that movie.

00:33:30:08 – 00:33:51:02
Marty Morgan
He was at a point in his career where he could do whatever the hell he wanted to do. And it’s, it’s good to be the king, and I’m thankful for that because Spellberg, he did not have studio executives pressuring him to make the movie that they wanted him to make. He was making the movie he wanted to make, and he wanted that 20 minutes to do something to the viewer.

00:33:51:09 – 00:33:53:28
Marty Morgan
And I think it succeeds magnificently.

00:33:54:00 – 00:34:07:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, for sure. Even though there are some historical inaccuracies in there, it was. It throws you in the action and it, if nothing else, at the end of it, it makes you want to find out more about what actually happened.

00:34:07:03 – 00:34:34:01
Marty Morgan
And if I had to indicate an overall greater good served by the movie, that’s got some historical accuracy problems. I think you’ve just identified it. And that is that that flashed that flicker to like that movie caused interest and enthusiasm to flicker to life at a time when interest and enthusiasm in the Second World War was dying off pretty quickly, that movie breathe a new breath of longevity and true enthusiasm for World War Two history.

00:34:34:01 – 00:34:45:12
Marty Morgan
And I just wish that Steven Spielberg would make another World War Two movies as man, that that gave me 20 solid years of work. I could use another 20.

00:34:45:15 – 00:34:49:09
Dan LeFebvre
There you go. Well, it’s Steven if you’re listening to this and yeah.

00:34:49:11 – 00:34:53:15
Marty Morgan
Yeah. No listening. So no, better get out there and get to work with me.

00:34:53:18 – 00:35:15:20
Dan LeFebvre
There you go. All right. Well, after speaking of the movie, going back to it after the invasion, we see these events lead to what is it? What is the main storyline and the title of the movie, Saving Private Ryan. And it starts when we see some of the bodies of the soldiers lying on the beach. And one of them it kind of the camera focuses in on is S Ryan.

00:35:15:22 – 00:35:32:17
Dan LeFebvre
And then from there were taken to rows of desks where women are typing away on typewriters. They’re writing letters to families back home, letting them know that their loved ones are gone. One of the women notices something, and then before long, she’s heading with three letters to one of the offices, and we see some of the names here.

00:35:32:17 – 00:35:59:29
Dan LeFebvre
It’s it goes up the chain to, Colonel Bryce to General George C Marshall, who is the United States Army’s chief of staff. And then we find out that there are three Ryan brothers who have died. Two of them died at Normandy, one in New Guinea. And Colonel Brice explains to General Marshall that the four Ryan brothers, three of them, have passed, but they were all used to be in the same company in the 29th Division.

00:36:00:01 – 00:36:16:09
Dan LeFebvre
But then when the Sullivan brothers died on the Juneau, the Ryan brothers were split up. We don’t get a lot more context around that. He just mentions that in a lot of dialog there. And then he says that the last one left alive. Or maybe he’s alive. We don’t really know. It’s James Ryan and he’s part of the 101st airborne.

00:36:16:11 – 00:36:43:27
Dan LeFebvre
He was dropped about 15 miles inland near Neuville, which is behind German lines. And then that sets in motion the whole plot of the movie. General Marshall pulls out a letter from President Abraham Lincoln, addressed to a woman named Mrs. Bixby in Boston that he’s apparently been keeping stashed away in a book in his office, and after reading the letter, he decides they’re going to go on this mission and try to bring Private Ryan home.

00:36:43:29 – 00:36:55:05
Dan LeFebvre
So that’s how the movie sets up this entire mission. That’s pretty much the whole, plot of the entire movie. How much of that actually happened?

00:36:55:07 – 00:37:27:19
Marty Morgan
All of that is based on effectively two tragic stories. And that’s the stories of the Niland brothers and the Sullivan brothers. It’s most closely associated with what happens to the Niland, because the Niland, the Niland brothers family story has a pretty significant rendezvous with destiny in the Normandy invasion, and now ends with four brothers Edward, Preston, Robert and Fritz.

00:37:27:21 – 00:37:58:24
Marty Morgan
Those four brothers were all serving in uniform. Edward was serving with the B-25 crew in in the Pacific. Preston was serving as a as a platoon leader in the fourth Infantry Division. He landed on D-Day, up in Ireland, was serving in the company of the five Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, and Fritz was serving in in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

00:37:58:26 – 00:38:32:17
Marty Morgan
The four brothers, they have. Their story comes to the significant point on June 6th, and that’s because Edward was thought to have been killed in action. He was actually his B-25 was shot down, and he was captured on May 16th, 1944, right before D-Day. Preston Niland, who landed on Utah Beach with the fourth Division, was actually killed in action in the fighting in front of the the Chris Peck Battery, the largest of the German coast artillery batteries in the Normandy invasion area.

00:38:32:20 – 00:39:02:09
Marty Morgan
He was killed in action on June 7th. Bob Niland, Robert, who, jumped in, jumped in with D company of the Five Oaks, fifth. He was killed in action on June 6th. I mentioned the three of them because the Mrs. Niland was therefore in a position to receive three telegrams informing her of how Edward was missing. Preston was dead, and Robert was dead.

00:39:02:12 – 00:39:27:12
Marty Morgan
Fritz was initially missing in action because when he jumped into Normandy, the process of the experience of scattering of airborne units was such that not everyone reported in quickly. And so there was a period of several days during which Fritz was not even fighting with, what, 130? It ended up mixed in with the 82nd Airborne Division, and he was therefore carried as missing in action briefly.

00:39:27:14 – 00:39:55:13
Marty Morgan
And so what was therefore potentially going to happen was that Mrs. Ireland, back in Tonawanda, New York, was going to receive for, she’s going to receive four telegrams announcing the deaths of her four sons. Although, as it turns out, Edward survived eventually. But, Preston and Bob were both killed in action. And for a period of time, it looked like Fritz was also missing.

00:39:55:13 – 00:40:23:24
Marty Morgan
Just like Edward was. The story is loosely based on that. That story was told. It was a story that was well known before the 50th anniversary of D-Day. But the story was was recounted in Stephen Ambrose’s book D-Day The Climactic Battle of World War Two. And it was that book which compiled the stories of a large number of people from the German side, from the US, from the British side, from the Canadian side.

00:40:23:26 – 00:40:59:19
Marty Morgan
It was that book that Steven Spielberg gave to his screenplay writer. Robert wrote it and said, I want you to give me a screenplay that incorporates all of the elements that make this book great. And, and Mr. Spielberg and wrote at both recognized that the Niland story was powerful. It has and has some parallels with and it is influenced by also the story of what happened to the five Sullivan brothers and those five brothers George, Francis, Joseph Madison, and Albert, or L.

00:40:59:21 – 00:41:26:29
Marty Morgan
Those brothers were all serving aboard the, the the Atlantic class light cruiser USS Juneau. And that ship was sunk on November 13th, 1942, during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal and Pacific Theater. All five of those brothers were lost with the sinking of Juneau. It was permitted in US naval service prior to that moment, or brothers or family members served together.

00:41:27:01 – 00:41:52:22
Marty Morgan
In fact, there were brothers and there were husband. I’m sorry. There were fathers and sons serving on board the USS Arizona, for example. And here you have five brothers serving on the same light cruiser. It’s lost in action, and all five brothers are lost. They become, something that patriotic spirit in the United States in the aftermath of the naval battle, Guadalcanal rallies behind.

00:41:52:24 – 00:42:22:13
Marty Morgan
We begin to wreck. Another country begins to recognize that that was an especially, precious sacrifice for our family to have made for the war effort. And that’s why, you see, you see posters that feature the Sullivan brothers during the war and the combination of the story of the Sullivans and the story of the islands come together to form the story of Ryan’s and the movie Saving Private Ryan.

00:42:22:15 – 00:42:37:23
Dan LeFebvre
I can’t imagine what that would be like to receive telegrams like that. I mean, that is such a any loss is horrible, but if you think of five losing five brothers at the same time.

00:42:37:25 – 00:43:02:19
Marty Morgan
I agree with you because I love to meditate on this idea of how times today are so very, very different. The wars that we fight today are wars that are characterized by significantly lower most. You have, you know, states now has 50 years of wars that are fought with relatively like casualties and with effectively no interruption of the civilian economy.

00:43:02:19 – 00:43:24:02
Marty Morgan
So it’s possible to be an American living during a time of war from 1969 to present. And there’s a war being fought and you can live your life with without having any, without experiencing any effect from that war. It’s it’s possible to live in the United States today without knowing anyone currently serving in the United States military.

00:43:24:04 – 00:44:13:04
Marty Morgan
In other words, the experience of the modern era has insulated us from of a powerful truism of the experience, the American homefront experience of World War Two. And that is that almost every single family in this country, during that conflict, they experienced loss. On some level. It was either a husband, brother, father or son, or it was someone who was a part of your extended family or the husband, brother, father, son of the next door neighbor to to some level, I don’t believe anyone in this country was not affected by loss during the Second World War, and I believe that is that’s something that Americans share in the 21st century.

00:44:13:06 – 00:44:40:22
Marty Morgan
I believe that we have to struggle to attempt to empathize with that and to comprehend that we had people killed in action last week. It gets it gets what I believe. I’m trying not to be cynical, but it’s, I believe, a passing mention in the news cycle only to be buried quickly by the other palace intrigues and high drama that goes on on a daily basis in this country.

00:44:40:24 – 00:45:04:04
Marty Morgan
And I mentioned the point only because I, I, I like to I’m, I spend most of my time trying to comprehend as best I can the American experience in World War II, you and the American experience. Conflict today is completely different because it’s possible to live your life today, being totally detached from the fact that the United States is fighting a war.

00:45:04:06 – 00:45:10:29
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, you have to put yourself in a different mindset in order to really understand the time. Back then.

00:45:11:02 – 00:45:31:00
Marty Morgan
Everyone was affected to some extent, and if you didn’t lose someone in your family or or among your friends, you were affected by gas rationing, food rationing, or you were part of the wartime economy to some extent, everyone, no one was overlooked in being affected by that conflict. And I believe that Saving Private Ryan addresses that subject powerfully.

00:45:31:00 – 00:45:38:21
Marty Morgan
But I creating the fictional Ryan family based on the violence and and inspired partly by the solvent.

00:45:38:23 – 00:46:06:15
Dan LeFebvre
Speaking of the characters there, I’m curious about some of the other characters that we see in the movie. You mentioned Miller, Captain John Miller, Tom Hanks, his character, being based on a few different people, but there are eight men in the squad that are sent out to find Ryan. There is Captain John Miller. Then there’s Sergeant Horvath, there’s Private Ryan, Private Jackson, Private Mellish, Private Capasso and the T-4 medic Wade and Corporal Upham.

00:46:06:18 – 00:46:09:20
Dan LeFebvre
Are those characters based on real people?

00:46:09:22 – 00:46:49:09
Marty Morgan
I would say they’re influenced by real people to certain extents. Because for example, in the film, the bar gunner, Private Rye, Ben, not Ryan, but Rye, Ben Ryan has painted on the back of his model 1941 field jacket. The words I think it says Brooklyn, New York, USA. And that was partly inspired by a man who actually fought on June 6th and survived D-Day, the late Harold Baumgarten, who painted a big star of David on the back of his jacket and put Brooklyn, USA on it.

00:46:49:12 – 00:47:36:18
Marty Morgan
And and reading Stephen Ambrose’s book Robert wrote at and I believe Mr. Spielberg had noticed it as well, had noticed that in the Baumgarten story that there was that painting on there. So there are elements of these characters that draw inspiration from people who actually lived. And then I should just mention that it’s an interesting series of choices that they chose to represent the American melting pot and our primary cast, a cast of characters, and Private Ryan, they also chose to provide some to serve certain Hollywood war movie tropes, and that you’ve got a Jewish guy and you’ve got an Italian, and you’ve got a guy that’s a mild mannered schoolteacher, and then you’ve

00:47:36:25 – 00:48:05:17
Marty Morgan
you’ve got guys that were kind of at each other’s throats, but they also their risked their lives to save each other in combat. It’s those are some, some core Hollywood war movie tropes in and of themselves. And then you’ve got, since you’re talking about Private Ribbon, the bar gunner, you’ve got the wisecracking louse bob mouth, which is something that, I mean, you can you can recognize that same character in just about every war movie that’s ever been made to get to a certain extent.

00:48:05:20 – 00:48:40:01
Marty Morgan
And so the, the this core group of U.S. Army Rangers with corporal up on the plaque type is thrown in, the unlikely character among Rangers, none of whom, none of whom look very Ranger, in my opinion, but whatever. They’re they’re all serving some, some standard Hollywood tropes about characterization, and they’re also simultaneously partially inspired by actual events, by actual characters who lived as a part of a beat invasion.

00:48:40:04 – 00:48:58:27
Dan LeFebvre
So, again, similar to the opening sequence, we have characters that are essentially composite characters that are trying to capture the essence of what it might have been like, not necessarily these. This was an actual squad of soldiers that were tasked to do this actual thing.

00:48:59:00 – 00:49:24:25
Marty Morgan
Right? Because the process of compositing those characters gives the filmmakers so much more freedom, because if you try to tell the actual story, you will get mired down endlessly in actuality and being held to people holding up the ruler of historical authenticity against your story. And that’s why I respect the filmmakers decision to create a fictitious storyline that’s inspired by actual events.

00:49:24:27 – 00:49:45:26
Dan LeFebvre
While there’s two events I want to ask you about, and this is after this squad makes their way to Neuville in search of Private Ryan. The first is Vin Diesel’s character. When, Private Capasso, he’s hit by a sniper. And then Barry. Jack. Sorry. Barry Pepper’s character, Private Jackson. He sneaks around to get an angle on the German sniper.

00:49:45:26 – 00:50:17:20
Dan LeFebvre
And from the we can see from the German’s perspective, we see him looking for the American soldiers among the rubble, and he sees Private Jackson’s rifle just in time to see him fire. And the shot goes right through the German sniper scope and hits him in the eye as one. And then the other event is when Paul Giamatti’s character, Sergeant Hill, he’s sitting down to try to get something out of his boot, and he accidentally knocks over a board, hits a brick wall, knocks down the entire wall, and then surprise, there’s a room full of German soldiers there and they just yell at each other.

00:50:17:20 – 00:50:41:10
Dan LeFebvre
They’re yelling at each other back and forth. Before then, the Germans are shot by Ted Danson’s version of Captain Hammer and some other soldiers. They’re both of those events to me. When I was watching this, it just seemed like these are movie moments that could never have actually happened. That seemingly impossible shot. And then a surprise stalemate between two groups of enemy soldiers on either side of the wall.

00:50:41:12 – 00:50:44:10
Dan LeFebvre
Are there any stories of things like that actually happening?

00:50:44:12 – 00:51:11:14
Marty Morgan
There are. There are a few instances of our troops and their troops being hopelessly mixed in together. I’m thinking of a of a, a story that was told to me by a veteran, the 507th Parachute Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division, who was trying to cross a hedgerow and hedgerows in Normandy are very dense there. They’re thick branches.

00:51:11:16 – 00:51:38:17
Marty Morgan
They’re, there are a lot of storms and hedgerows making it quite difficult to to push through, put your way through a hedgerow. And this, this soldier named Johnny Marr was. He was a lieutenant and got me 5 or 7. He was trying to push his way through a hedgerow. And as he was pushing his way through, coming from the right side to the left side, there was a German trying to push through at the same spot from the left side to the right side, and the two of them met each other right in the middle of this hedgerow.

00:51:38:20 – 00:52:02:29
Marty Morgan
I think of that sometimes, because that provides the kind of, combat tension that I think war movies love. They feed on that sort of a combat tension, the no random moment where something like that happens, as you see depicted with that moment in the film when when Sergeant Hill tries to he I think he says he’s got a burr and his boot, and that’s why he leans up against the wall to take his boot off.

00:52:03:01 – 00:52:24:06
Marty Morgan
And it just I giggle sometimes when I think about that cast. That cast is so wildly exceptional and great and weird ways. Ted Danson as an airborne officer, Ted Danson, who was, I don’t know how old was at the time, but he was too old to portray a U.S. Army airborne officer. But whatever. He may be your division commander.

00:52:24:06 – 00:52:52:06
Marty Morgan
Original commander or a division commander, maybe, but certainly not a company commander. Nevertheless, Ted Danson plays the role very nicely, I think. And then that you’ve got him there with the person who I think is one of the finest living actors today, Paul Giamatti, who has this bit throwaway role. He’s in there. I have to remind myself at times that Paul Giamatti was in Saving Private Ryan, and he doesn’t really fit the form of your average airborne infantryman.

00:52:52:09 – 00:53:18:02
Marty Morgan
Lee looks a little bit too well served at the dinner table. The stuff that that role. But then again, almost all of them kind of do in the movie. Nevertheless. Giamatti’s good. Danson’s good. It’s all weird. The whole scene, it provides something that Spielberg needs. I mean, there’s, there’s literally a formula to making the perfect action film and I don’t know that it’s fair to describe Private Ryan.

00:53:18:02 – 00:53:49:06
Marty Morgan
It’s just being a pure action film. It’s more than that somehow. It’s it’s suspense, it’s action, it’s drama. It’s it’s a different genre than just your standard action movie. The, the cornerstone that we always point to as perfection in action filmmaking is movie aliens, the sequel from 1986. And there’s pacing to the way that you deliver action and within that formula, and you can see how in private Ryan, they were living according to that formula.

00:53:49:06 – 00:54:11:22
Marty Morgan
Where you go, you go, you open with a bang with the big Omaha Beach scene. Then you pull back and you begin the process of exposition, and you begin laying out your story. And then and you lay out what you need. So you divide a movie into three things. And the beginning, presents what what’s needed, what has to happen.

00:54:11:24 – 00:54:49:00
Marty Morgan
The center point provides tension and drama, and you get you see that clearly in private Ryan and the scene we’re discussing right now, it’s into that center phase when drama is needed and it gives you a nice big, fat battle sequence. That’s totally different than the opening battle sequence of the movie. And it’s and it’s also showing you how combat and comedy is often at close quarters, that the quality and character of that combat is often under unpredictable circumstances, the evidence of which is the Paul Giamatti moment when the wall collapses and there are Germans on the other side.

00:54:49:03 – 00:55:17:29
Marty Morgan
And that then I we’re, we’re now at the point where I have to address the elephant in the room, because you mentioned the Barry Pepper, sniper sequence where the bullet comes through his rifle scope, which is based in fact, it’s based on something that reportedly happened, although it didn’t happen during the Second World War. That is a story that is well remembered from a sniper versus sniper duel that occurred in Vietnam.

00:55:18:01 – 00:55:50:02
Marty Morgan
There’s, there was a sniper by the name of Carlos, half Cock, who wrote a book called Marine Sniper and Half Cock related that exact story of of being stalked by an opposing North Vietnamese sniper who might have been a Russian sniper. It’s just never entirely clear. But he’s being stalked by an opponent’s sniper, and he catches a glint off of his sniper scope and fires a shot and travels right down the the the scope tube and strikes the opponent sniper through his eye socket.

00:55:50:04 – 00:55:55:18
Marty Morgan
So they borrowed something from Vietnam to make that moment and a World War two movie.

00:55:55:20 – 00:55:59:15
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. I would have just assumed it was completely made up.

00:55:59:17 – 00:56:28:10
Marty Morgan
No it’s not. There are some questions about whether or not it actually happened the way that it was reported it. And I read Carlos Hecox book when I was a kid, and I loved it. And I don’t want to question anything that that man wrote. But the problem with Jackson character and Private Ryan is that there’s a it’s believed that it would it would be a 1 in 1,000,000 shot for the bullets trajectory to align perfectly with that scope tube.

00:56:28:13 – 00:56:51:26
Marty Morgan
And also glass decelerates bullets very effectively. A glass, a particularly thin glass is not good at stopping them, but it’s really good at decelerating bullets. And so there’s a lingering question about whether or not a bullet would be able to travel down the entire length of the tube of a sniper scope, with objectives and ocular eyepieces on it.

00:56:51:28 – 00:57:15:26
Marty Morgan
I would just refer anybody listening. Do have a look at, MythBusters tested this twice as one of the cooler episodes of MythBusters, and they were concluding that the their conclusion was the bullet couldn’t get all the way through a sniper scope. Who knows whether or not those circumstances played themselves out in Carlos happy cops experience?

00:57:15:28 – 00:57:48:26
Marty Morgan
That’s less important. What I think is important for this discussion, though, is to say that incident is based on something that happened in Vietnam, and I now have to address this issue of the sniper in private. Ryan, because that’s Barry Peppers character. Jackson, is a complete abuse of power and a misrepresentation on every level of the way that snipers functioned within the United States Army in the European theater of operation during the Second World War.

00:57:48:28 – 00:57:59:28
Marty Morgan
And in addition to that, he’s carrying effectively a Frankenstein of a rifle that did not actually exist during World War Two.

00:58:00:00 – 00:58:06:16
Dan LeFebvre
Really. So so there really would not have been a way that he could have shot that because the rifle didn’t exist to begin with.

00:58:06:18 – 00:58:27:00
Marty Morgan
Right. Well, it’s weird because, I mean, it’s almost like the rifle, Jackson’s rifle. And Private Ryan is the perfect metaphor for Private Ryan. It’s very tough because the rifle kind of exists, but it doesn’t exist in the way that it’s depicted in the movie, and it doesn’t function the way that it’s depicted as functioning in the movie.

00:58:27:02 – 00:58:55:12
Marty Morgan
First of all, the US military really didn’t have a formal sniper approach. During World War Two, snipers were treated more as a squad designated marksman, more than anything with a a level of informality that you didn’t see during World War one. During World War one, we had actual sniper training, and we dissolved all of that sniper training in the interwar period, and when World War Two started, we didn’t actually create a sniper program, and that didn’t really even exist until Vietnam.

00:58:55:15 – 00:59:33:08
Marty Morgan
We had sniper rifles. Yes. But we didn’t have a formal program during by which we trained people to be these precise marksmen, as they’re depicted in Private Eye and, all the rifle did was, was provide a tool that was capable of delivering improved levels of rifle, rifle marksmanship. Now onto the rifle. So the way that the rifle is depicted in the movie for most of the scene is because if you look closely in the movie, you will see the Jackson character carrying two different rifles with two different scopes.

00:59:33:10 – 00:59:58:05
Marty Morgan
The scope that appears in almost all of the scenes. So there’s basically one continuity era error I think might maybe even two, two moments where they show him carrying a different rifle. And I think that’s just a little continuity error on the film. So that’s not really an issue that’s depicting him carrying the model. 19 03A4 sniper rifle, which existed during World War two and was used by the U.S. Army.

00:59:58:08 – 01:00:26:19
Marty Morgan
But it depicts him using it with an M82 scope. But that’s the one that sneaks in a couple of times. That scope was not used by the US Army during World War two, but that’s the rifle that only shows up twice that I think of during the war that I can think of during the movie. The scope that is on the rifle and 90% of the shots of the movie is the internal eight power scope, which was not used by the United States Army during the Second World War.

01:00:26:21 – 01:00:49:26
Marty Morgan
It was used by the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific Theater of Operations only, and then when it was used by the Marine Corps, it was used on a totally different version of the 1903 rifle. So the 1903 rifle was adopted by U.S. military forces in the year 1903. It served the World War One. It served importantly throughout World War Two, and it had a big role on D-Day.

01:00:49:28 – 01:01:16:21
Marty Morgan
The Marine Corps and the Army used that as their platform for sniper rifles, but the two guns were quite a bit different. They use different scopes first and foremost, and the Army version was different than the art, just the rifle. Not even talking about the scope, but the rifle itself was. The Army’s rifle was quite a bit different than the marine course rifle, and the Army rifle used a totally different scope, and they the right.

01:01:16:21 – 01:01:40:09
Marty Morgan
The Army scope was the 70 3B1, which was only a four power scope. It was a was a little bit weak in terms of magnification. And it’s got the scope tube itself is pretty modest in dimension. I think it’s one inch in diameter overall. And it, it has an ocular eyepiece where you would look through, but it doesn’t have the objective eyepiece.

01:01:40:16 – 01:02:24:20
Marty Morgan
It’s not bigger. Whereas the Marine Corps version, there’s a big, long, objective eyepiece on the scope, and it looks gratuitously a lot more like a powerful sniper scope. And and my understanding is that on the set, when they brought out an actual version of the U.S. Army in 1903, a four sniper rifle equipped with the appropriate and correct M 70 3B1 scope that apparently Mr. Spielberg looked at it and went, that doesn’t look very much like a sniper rifle, and that they looked at they did some photographs and that he saw the Marine Corps version, which is the 1903 rifle equipped with the eight power U.

01:02:24:20 – 01:02:57:29
Marty Morgan
Nurdles scope. Anyone? That’s what. That’s a sniper rifle. But can’t we get that scope? And so they took that scope, put it on the Army version of the sniper rifle, which was, for the record, different than the Marine Corps version, sniper rifle. And that’s the scope that you see Jackson hunting and shooting with throughout the movie, except for two occasions that I caught, and that is, of course, a version of the oh three sniper rifle that did not exist at all anywhere during the second World War.

01:02:58:01 – 01:03:25:16
Marty Morgan
And the scope that he’s using is something that did not exist, being used by U.S. Army forces in the European Theater of Operations during the Second World War. So for the keen eyed student of World War two, history and small arms and things like that, the Jackson character is something you kind of have to shrug your shoulders and just learn to live with, because he’s wielding this rifle that is a fantasy.

01:03:25:18 – 01:03:49:21
Marty Morgan
And then come on, guys, left handed sniper in World War two. That’s not the way the world works. 75 years ago, if you were a left handed shooter 75 years ago and you entered the army, you suddenly overnight became a right handed shooter. They really didn’t provide accommodations for people shooting left handed. But you’ve got Jackson there with the sniper rifle that didn’t exist during World War Two.

01:03:49:21 – 01:04:03:22
Marty Morgan
You shooting it is a left handed, marksman. And so those those are little bumps in the road of authenticity that create heartburn or the purest of World War Two history.

01:04:03:25 – 01:04:17:00
Dan LeFebvre
I loved what you said. Where like it’s just a great example of the movie overall. It’s it’s all a composite. Everything kind of thrown together. And that character is just a great it just continues the tradition.

01:04:17:03 – 01:04:19:27
Marty Morgan
Yeah, it’s based on a true story, but it’s obviously.

01:04:20:00 – 01:04:21:16
Dan LeFebvre
There you go. Yeah, exactly.

01:04:21:18 – 01:04:43:15
Marty Morgan
Oh shut up. But I love the sniper rifle thing. I like the fact that they were at least paying attention enough to, to, to depict the diversity of weapons army. Everyone. So within the squad of Rangers to include them the Clarke type of stop them that’s tagging along. You’ve got and you’ve got the diversity of firepower represented.

01:04:43:15 – 01:05:14:15
Marty Morgan
And then when you bring in like when the Matt Damon Ryan character comes in the 101st Airborne Division, paratroopers are brought in, you see another weapon come in, and that’s the 19 1930 caliber machine gun. Yeah. In other words, you’re seeing this diversity of the firearms that were used by US forces on D-Day. And I kind of like that because I find that a large number of the people that come on my church, for example, that they imagine that all Americans landed on June 6th carrying the M1, they shot rifle and that everybody fought with that.

01:05:14:22 – 01:05:41:00
Marty Morgan
But in private, Ryan, instead, you get you have someone with a sniper rifle, albeit wrong. You have Sergeant Horvath, four back carrying the M1 car. B although the sergeant probably carried something different. You’ve got Captain Miller carrying the m1A1 Thompson submachine gun. You’ve got ribbon carrying the 1918 A2 Browning Automatic Rifle. And then you have what, then you have is it three men armed with the M1 rifle.

01:05:41:00 – 01:06:16:00
Marty Morgan
You’ve got Capasso. Upham is carrying an M1 rifle and then Mellish just carrying an M1 rifle. And I like the fact that they’re representing the diversity of firearms that were being used during the era of, of the D-Day invasion. I just wish that that Captain Miller and Sergeant Horvath had switched weapons, because you would typically see an officer carrying the M1 carbine, and you would typically see a technical sergeant, carrying the Thompson submachine go.

01:06:16:03 – 01:06:17:27
Dan LeFebvre
Really? Why is that?

01:06:18:00 – 01:06:37:08
Marty Morgan
It’s just basically the way that the T&E, the table of organization and equipment for U.S. Army fighting units in the European theater, it authorized who would carry a weapon. And it it differed a corn according to the type of unit you were in, whether you were an infantry unit or a supply unit, or, for example, a Ranger unit.

01:06:37:10 – 01:07:00:14
Marty Morgan
And it off it typically authorized officers and ground units, non airborne carrying the M1 carbine. But you know, it’s Tom Hanks character John Miller carrying the Thompson. And then the Sergeant Horvath character armed with the Thompson. But I don’t know Horvath is carrying the carbine. Miller is carrying the Thompson. That’s right.

01:07:00:17 – 01:07:37:27
Dan LeFebvre
I would never have thought about who’s carrying who’s carrying what and whether or not that would have been correct or not. But it’s I like I, I do like that you pointed out the diversity there because that is something that I noticed when I saw the movie. Like it. You’re getting well. Well, again, I mean, it might be a, you know, a bit of a trope as far as the characters themselves are concerned and throwing it, you know, like you’re talking about, you know, you have the loudmouth character and you have, you know, the the different tropes that you get in a lot of war movies, but you also get a pretty good diversity

01:07:37:27 – 01:08:02:08
Dan LeFebvre
of the types of weapons that they’re carrying. And I, I like that about about the movie that, I hadn’t seen a lot of other I’m specifically thinking of, like The Longest Day. And in that where it doesn’t really focus on a single squad with that sort of diversity, I guess, is what I’m trying to say there.

01:08:02:11 – 01:08:24:20
Marty Morgan
Yeah, I absolutely love the fact that the movie did that, because in it, there’s one larger point that I could make about Saving Private Ryan that is that I believe that it is, to date, the greatest achievement and the authentic presentation of a World War Two subject. I’m not saying the movie’s perfect. I’m not even saying that it’s excellent.

01:08:24:20 – 01:08:28:28
Marty Morgan
It’s got lots of problems, but it’s the best that I’ve seen yet.

01:08:29:01 – 01:08:37:27
Dan LeFebvre
End of the day, it is still a movie. It’s not a documentary, so you’re never going to have something that’s going to be 100% authentic. That’s not what movies are.

01:08:37:29 – 01:09:03:22
Marty Morgan
And I believe that what they did achieve in that film, in terms of authenticity, was on such a higher plane than movies that were around it, that came before it, that came at it. I think that what they achieved in terms of authenticity spoke powerfully to a certain audience of people, that the world of World War Two reenacting was basically it basically came alive after that movie was released.

01:09:03:25 – 01:09:28:07
Marty Morgan
And I think it’s because there were people that appreciated the effort that they put into creating and authenticity that you haven’t seen in previous films, and that is I have to acknowledge respectfully the fact that that Mr. Spielberg, turns he turns over issues of authenticity to someone in the film business that that is and has a pretty good track record of delivering authenticity.

01:09:28:09 – 01:09:58:10
Marty Morgan
And that’s got Gale by. He was in charge of training the actors. He was in charge of, helping create the atmosphere of authenticity that generally accompanies the film. And while that atmosphere is not perfect, it’s pretty darn good. And I think that the the goodness up that, created a lot of enthusiasm among a younger audience that probably would not have been reached by World War Two history otherwise.

01:09:58:13 – 01:10:16:27
Dan LeFebvre
Now, there are a lot of iconic scenes from the movie, but I want to ask you about one of the scenes that really stood out to me, and that was the dog tag scene. The men in this squad are given a bag of dog tags to see if Ryan’s name is in there, and we see the men sitting down.

01:10:16:28 – 01:10:38:09
Dan LeFebvre
They start going through them. Before long, they’re joking around and almost being playful about it as they’re going through the dog tags. And then meanwhile, you can see other members of the airborne are watching on, and it’s Wade, the medic, who stops the other men. He reminds them they’re not poker chip. Each dog tag represents a fallen comrade in arms.

01:10:38:11 – 01:11:06:19
Dan LeFebvre
And this scene really stood out to me because I saw it as a turning point. You could clearly see that these soldiers were becoming, or already were desensitized to, the events that were going on around them, as they’re joking around with these dog tags, I can’t help but think maybe just, you know, a few days earlier, before D-Day, they might have had a very different reaction to sifting through a bag of dog tags.

01:11:06:19 – 01:11:21:23
Dan LeFebvre
It kind of shows how the events that they went through in those few days changed them. As people. Was this sort of desensitization common among soldiers in the days after D-Day?

01:11:21:26 – 01:11:53:23
Marty Morgan
I believe that it was. And although I’ve not been in the military, I feel like I have an understanding of it to a certain level in that I have seen how gallows humor typically, accompanies military units as they experience combat, and that the deeper they get into it, the more the gallows humor tends to come out. And that scene does something very powerful in that it humanizes the lost, in combat on June 6th, 1944.

01:11:53:25 – 01:12:31:14
Marty Morgan
And it also sets the stage for this this daunting task of trying to find one person. And I would just if I could sidetrack for one quick moment, I would say that if that scene had been turned over to a lesser actor, I think the scene would have fallen flat. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who’s the best actor in the film, saving Private Ryan, and I believe it might actually be Giovanni Ribisi playing Wade the medic, because in that scene, he he just expresses subtlety in the way that he realizes that the guys are laughing and joking a little bit too much, and that there being a little inappropriate

01:12:31:14 – 01:12:51:28
Marty Morgan
for circumstances and the way that he rushes over and he snatches it from him, I just feel like his acting performance in that scene is excellent. I feel like his acting performance in the entire movie is excellent and acting and I, I he’s in another movie that I really love and it Miracle Lost in Translation, where he plays a totally different kind of character.

01:12:52:00 – 01:13:05:24
Marty Morgan
He’s just a really good actor. I really felt like he brought that scene to life. And Private Ryan, although the scene is completely historically inaccurate on every level, and it really gets under my skin and drives me nuts like I.

01:13:05:27 – 01:13:07:11
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, that was that was a that was a big turn.

01:13:07:11 – 01:13:24:04
Marty Morgan
There was, wasn’t it? Yeah. I’m conflicted. I am about this film because it’s so great. And at the same time I’m like, yeah. Where would you ever have one guy that just like, I’ve got 50 dog tags in this bag of people I’ve just been picking up over the last few days?

01:13:24:07 – 01:13:28:26
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, yeah. The chopper pilot, I think it was, was the one that that threw him the bag. Yeah.

01:13:29:03 – 01:13:30:14
Marty Morgan
And the glider pilot. Yeah.

01:13:30:17 – 01:13:31:10
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, yeah. Glider.

01:13:31:10 – 01:13:54:05
Marty Morgan
And he’s like, yeah, here’s here’s a bunch of dog tags. There was a general. There was a general order in place that, for combat casualties, you would not separate the dog tags from the casualties, because if you the moment everyone has two dog tags. But this was before the military was practicing. This, was tradition of wearing one around your neck and one tied in the laces of your boots.

01:13:54:05 – 01:14:24:06
Marty Morgan
That’s a big, thing. Not a World War two thing. So everyone had two tags suspended from a chain around their neck. You didn’t. You didn’t separate the tags from the bite. And that’s because those tags served a very specific purpose. And that those tags guaranteed that when the unit that came in that was responsible from the point that you would you were killed on the battlefield from that point forward, another unit was responsible for you, the unit you were assigned to up to your death.

01:14:24:06 – 01:14:53:03
Marty Morgan
That unit was in, was responsible for you while you were alive. And if you were killed, they were responsible for processing some paperwork about you. But your body then became fell into the responsibility of mortuary services and graves registration units. And those units had to collect remains, identify remains, and then keep the identification with those remains. And in order to do that, you had to have both tags with the remains.

01:14:53:05 – 01:15:17:10
Marty Morgan
There are extenuating circumstances. There were times when when human bodies were so shattered. As for the use of modern weapons that you no longer had a net for the dog tag to hang from, or you had body parts that were separated from the whole, and under those circumstances, yes, you would lose track of the tags, but when you had a complete set of remains, the tags, both tags stayed with those remains.

01:15:17:13 – 01:15:39:07
Marty Morgan
And that’s why that scene makes me kind of roll my eyes a little bit, because I can see how that scene gave them, a moment of tension in the story that they needed. But I also have to go. They would. That would never happen. Those tags had to stay with the bodies because they stayed with the bodies and the graves.

01:15:39:09 – 01:15:46:13
Marty Morgan
Registration mortuary services guys then knew what to do with the body and to identify that body.

01:15:46:15 – 01:16:06:02
Dan LeFebvre
Well, so were they with would they basically follow me with those divisions, basically following the front lines or how I’m curious how how that worked on that side? Because that is just a it’s a morbid job, but it’s a massive one to keep track of all that.

01:16:06:04 – 01:16:10:12
Marty Morgan
I can’t imagine the nightmares that those men must have had after the war.

01:16:10:15 – 01:16:12:03
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, I can’t, I mean, yeah.

01:16:12:05 – 01:16:36:29
Marty Morgan
Yeah, the men whose jobs it was to collect casualties on the battlefield, take them to a central point where they were being buried, and collect off, collect up, off and incomplete sets of remains. That that must have been traumatizing. And there’s been a great deal written about about that experience in the last few years. And that’s all extremely important and compelling.

01:16:36:29 – 01:17:07:03
Marty Morgan
And, in, in my personal work on one story that I’ve dealt with, I, I’ve had to investigate what happened with the specific graves registration unit and how they, after the fact, recovered the remains of men who were killed in action. And there’s footage associated with it. There’s footage of the men of the 603rd Quartermaster Graves Registration Company collecting bodies, that were that had been temporarily buried and re burying them.

01:17:07:03 – 01:17:52:26
Marty Morgan
And the footage? I can barely watch the footage. It’s so gruesome. And that was the everyday experience of uniform service of the United States Army for the men of these units. And, And I should just throw in one plug for them. I spent a lot of time tracking people who were killed in Normandy, tracking how they were killed, where they were killed, and where they ended up buried, and what overwhelmed me is that the men from the quartermaster graves registration companies and the mortuary services companies, those men carried out what I consider to be an extremely challenging mission, and they carried it out in an analog era of forms with carbon paper and

01:17:52:26 – 01:18:20:12
Marty Morgan
in triplicate and, and in the there with no digital assistance whatsoever. And they carried out that job with so much accuracy that and studying this subject intensely for about two, 20 years now, I have found very few mistakes, and I think all respect needs to be given to the men who picked up our war dead, made sure that they were identified, and made sure that they had a proper burial.

01:18:20:14 – 01:18:25:29
Dan LeFebvre
Well, yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s a side of it that I had never thought about before.

01:18:26:02 – 01:18:50:03
Marty Morgan
And that’s deep. So great for that subject makes its way into the grand narrative of Saving Private Ryan. And that’s almost I hate to criticize the moment because it at least addresses the subject, the subject. If the subject made it into Private Ryan, that’s basically a guarantee that here we are, more than 20 years later, people are still going to be talking about it, because that’s what blows me away about this movie.

01:18:50:05 – 01:19:22:09
Marty Morgan
It this I remember when I first started tour guiding. I remember thinking like 15 years ago, I remember I remember thinking that, I think interest is probably going to begin fading and, and I certainly won’t be able to find much of a livelihood in leading tours to Normandy, certainly not after about 2002, 2003. And here I am almost a decade later, and there’s more interest now than there was ten years ago.

01:19:22:12 – 01:19:25:24
Marty Morgan
I think Saving Private Ryan is to blame for a lot of that.

01:19:25:26 – 01:19:30:06
Dan LeFebvre
And to think that and but at the same time, it’s a conflict that.

01:19:30:09 – 01:19:47:19
Marty Morgan
You know, that movie did more than any book that has ever been written, any book that I will ever write, any book that smarter people than me will ever write. That movie did more than any of us ever could. To ensure the continuing popularity of that subject.

01:19:47:21 – 01:20:11:18
Dan LeFebvre
I want to shift a little bit to some of the geographical side, because we’re given some names in the movie, but we never get a lot of geographical context about the squad’s search for Private Ryan. They start on Omaha Beach, and then from there they head to what the movie says is behind enemy lines to Neuville, where the dog tag scene was.

01:20:11:21 – 01:20:40:26
Dan LeFebvre
And then I did a I look on online and as the crow flies, it’s about 21 miles or 34km between those two locations. And then from there they go to Rommel, which is on, the murder at River. And that’s another four miles or 6.5km. Since the movie makes multiple mentions that Neuville is behind enemy lines and that was their first destination, I can only assume that all of this is taking place behind enemy lines.

01:20:40:26 – 01:21:02:20
Dan LeFebvre
The entire time. Of course, there’s already other soldiers that mentioned the airborne who were already at Neuville, so it’s not like this rescue squad is the only Allied soldiers behind enemy lines. But can you give us a little more geographical context about where the German lines were in relation to these places that we see referenced in the movie?

01:21:02:22 – 01:21:26:09
Marty Morgan
Sure. The reason that they choose Neuville for the film, it’s there. What they’re doing is they’re giving a nod to the 10 million Oplan, which is the place where Bob Niland was killed on June 6th. And so they’re referencing that. Which brings us a little bit of a point of convergence with the story, the true story upon which the the fictional story is based.

01:21:26:12 – 01:22:03:00
Marty Morgan
But, Neuville is to the north and west of Sigma agrees. It’s a McBeal, as you have already calculated. Is pretty far from Omaha Beach. It is much, much closer to Utah Beach. It’s only about ten miles inland from Utah Beach. Maybe a little more, maybe like 11 miles inland from Utah Beach. But it is not located conveniently close to Omaha, which is why you have to suspend reality a little bit just to go with what Steven Spielberg and Robert wrote out want you to go with here.

01:22:03:00 – 01:22:30:14
Marty Morgan
And that is that this group of rangers that land on Omaha Beach at Doc Green Sector are then set far behind the lines behind Utah Beach to look for a missing paratrooper. Because the practical reality at work here is that this would have been a physical impossibility. And the reason I say, the reason I say that is that between Omaha and Utah, there’s this one town called Carrington.

01:22:30:17 – 01:22:50:11
Marty Morgan
Carrington was the point at which, the U.S. Army Fifth Corps landing on Omaha and the US Army Separate Corps landing on Utah were supposed to come together. They were supposed to come together late in the day on June 6th. Maybe on June 7th. They did not come together, for almost a week. It took time. That was not part of the plan.

01:22:50:13 – 01:23:26:24
Marty Morgan
But it’s not until 101st Airborne Division captures Carrington. It’s not even to occur that, actually. And that happens on June 11th. It’s not until after June 11th that Omaha Beach and Utah Beach are able to link up on their flanks. So for a group of rangers who landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day to make their way to the area, the drop zone area behind Utah Beach, I would challenge is a physical impossibility because it would have caused it would have called for them to not go straight as the crow flies 2020 miles, but more like 30 miles.

01:23:26:27 – 01:24:14:00
Marty Morgan
Circuitous. Lee is following terrain because the terrain in the area between Omaha and Utah is the area where there it’s, it’s a tributary area for several river systems. In fact, the dove River, the vier River, the river, those are all flowing into the English channels in the area between Utah and Omaha. So these guys would have not only had to have gone through enemy territory, but they would have had to have covered enemy territory, crossing rivers, going well out of their way to go, to move across flooded marsh areas because the Germans had seen to it that there was flooding that was beyond just the normal seasonal flooding in the area in

01:24:14:00 – 01:24:43:05
Marty Morgan
the tributary, the mouth area of the vier, the toilet and the dove and those men would been have had to have made their way without contact with either the enemy or other Americans for mile after mile after mile. And as we know from the film, they do contact other Americans if they do contact the enemy. But I believe it would have been physically impossible for them to move from the area behind Omaha to the drop zone area and land from Utah Beach.

01:24:43:07 – 01:24:50:26
Dan LeFebvre
That helps a lot. Put that into a little more perspective. Again, sounds like it was a a story decision.

01:24:50:29 – 01:25:24:08
Marty Morgan
Yeah, it’s a it’s a storytelling decision, as was the creation of the fictional village Rommel. That is a village that does not exist. That village was created just for the purposes of storytelling, and that what happens in that village is to an extent based on two, maybe three actual events. But there were no 101st Airborne Division Division paratroopers that were sent to babysit a bridge at a village called Rommel because there was no and is no village of Rommel and not interesting.

01:25:24:08 – 01:25:27:15
Dan LeFebvre
So yeah, they are a lot more made up.

01:25:27:18 – 01:25:44:24
Marty Morgan
Yeah, I respect the fact that they wanted to tell a story. They wanted that story to be a D-Day story. They wanted to do it with a level of authenticity that was unprecedented. And they did all of that. But to get there, they had to massage the actuality of the D-Day invasion, and they had to create a few things.

01:25:44:27 – 01:26:03:25
Marty Morgan
And they had they ended up, I think, unintentionally distorting a few things like, I’ve I’ve not gotten down in the weeds of picking out minor little authenticity details like how Spielberg had beach obstacles on Omaha Beach backwards. They were facing the wrong way. They were facing out to the water when they’re supposed to be facing the bluffs. I’m not.

01:26:03:27 – 01:26:28:00
Marty Morgan
I’m not carping on minor issues like like that. However, I mean, I know I mentioned the bunker and how the bunker on Omaha Beach was wrong, but, it there going to be little unintentional authenticity slip ups from time to time in a film. But then they also had to make some major decisions where they consciously departed from the actuality of the historical record.

01:26:28:06 – 01:26:32:14
Marty Morgan
And they certainly did that with the creation of a fictional village, remote.

01:26:32:16 – 01:26:54:09
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Well, well, since you mention it, because that was something that I wanted to ask because according to the movie, that’s again where they find Private Ryan, and Captain Miller gives him the bad news about his brothers. But then Ryan, Matt Damon plays, Private Ryan and he refuses to leave. He says something to the effect of, you can tell my mother that when you found me, I was here.

01:26:54:16 – 01:27:13:24
Dan LeFebvre
And with the only brothers I have left, there’s no way I’m abandoning this bridge. And then we find out from the man in charge, Corporal Henderson, that Allied planes from the 82nd took out all the bridges across the murder at. Except for two of them. One of them, alone, and then the other one that they’re at now.

01:27:13:28 – 01:27:38:24
Dan LeFebvre
And their orders are to defend that bridge at all costs. So we’re left with, Captain Miller making the decision that they’re going to keep the squad there in order to help hold the bridge and then take Ryan back afterwards. Is the assumption. But you mentioned that there there were possibly a couple of stories that this was based on.

01:27:38:27 – 01:28:20:13
Marty Morgan
Yeah. And I would just say that they androgynous Lee kind of inform what’s going on with Rommel and the 101st Airborne Division troopers. They, they borrow a little bit from an action that the 82nd Airborne Division is involved in, where there is a bridge and it is over the major AA river, and it’s in a place that called Lafayette Air, and that is the 82nd Airborne Division’s primary battle for the first three days of the invasion from G6 all the way through the afternoon of June 9th, the 82nd Airborne Division is struggling with German units, in the vicinity of the the Mercury River crossing site at LA here.

01:28:20:15 – 01:28:50:10
Marty Morgan
So it’s sort of based on that, where there’s an old 1840s stone bridge. And then also on another story of a murder, a river crossing that was just about three miles south of there at a place called Ship Depot. And interestingly, Private Ryan, you can when you read a little bit about life here and shift and it all started, suddenly starts to make sense how Robert Rowe that was inspired by those two stories, in addition to another story that I’ll get into later if you want me to.

01:28:50:12 – 01:29:15:28
Marty Morgan
But he’s inspired by last and shifted to a certain extent. There is a there’s a moment at the part that makes its way into Saving Private Ryan powerfully, where, a battalion commander in the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, commanding Edwin Iceberg. They move down and they’re ordered to go and capture this bridge intact. So they move through the town, shift upon the madre River bridge.

01:29:16:00 – 01:29:39:08
Marty Morgan
A stone bridge is just south of town. Lieutenant Colonel Osbourne runs out onto the bridge, and when he’s just as he’s about to put his foot down on the bridge, he’s shot. He falls to the ground, rolls off the bridge, and splashes into the water, which is something that we see in the closing scene. The climactic battle scene in Rommel and Saving Private Ryan.

01:29:39:10 – 01:30:03:07
Marty Morgan
But then the next highest ranking officer takes over. And he was a friend of mine, a person I knew quite well. His name was Roy Creek, and Roy Creek was the iconic commander of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, and Captain Creek took over the fight for the bridge at Shifter Park. And he takes the bridge. He has a small force.

01:30:03:09 – 01:30:30:07
Marty Morgan
It receives a note late in the day on June 6th, instructing him to hold the bridge shift. DuPont instructs him to specifically hold at all costs, and I find that Roy Creek’s story, from report to an extent, expired and inspires the imaginary story of the 101st Airborne Division paratroopers at the fictitious village of Rommel on the Madre.

01:30:30:09 – 01:30:44:24
Dan LeFebvre
Not to shift movies, but there’s the bridge and the longest day that they have to hold as well, and I. I don’t remember the exact line, but it’s, hold until relieved or something like that. Is that the same story.

01:30:44:27 – 01:30:55:10
Marty Morgan
In And Longest Day when you hear hold until really told until relief. That’s, Pegasus Bridge over the Cole Canal in the, Sword Beach area.

01:30:55:13 – 01:30:58:18
Dan LeFebvre
Okay, so not not related at all with with this story.

01:30:58:18 – 01:31:08:10
Marty Morgan
They’re not really, but I think maybe, philosophically and spiritually, it may have contributed some, inspiration to Robert Rota.

01:31:08:12 – 01:31:15:28
Dan LeFebvre
Well, yeah, I guess since it’s a fictional story and Saving Private Ryan, I guess there can be a lot of different, inspirations there.

01:31:16:00 – 01:31:34:20
Marty Morgan
Yeah. And, to me, what it looks like is wrote it, in a commendable way. I’m not criticizing him in the commendable way he treated the the broad story of D-Day as like a cafeteria. You can’t cram it all into one movie. There’s no way to do it. That movie would be 100 hours long and nobody would sit through it.

01:31:34:23 – 01:31:50:02
Marty Morgan
So he had to pick a choose. And as he went down the cafeteria line, he picked, I’ll take a little bit of lucky er, I’ll take a little bit of the part. I’ll take a little bit of rangers on Omaha Beach. I’ll take a little bit of George Taylor on Omaha Beach. I’ll take a little bit of Jenny Monty on Omaha Beach.

01:31:50:09 – 01:32:05:03
Marty Morgan
And he picks and chooses all of these things to create a story. And his objective was not to create a documentary, but provided a factual representation of D-Day invasion. His objective was to create a good story, and I think he succeeded.

01:32:05:05 – 01:32:23:09
Dan LeFebvre
With the strategy that they have in the movie around the bridge. Be correct, though, that, that they were a vital part of the war effort to to maintain those or to keep them. From being destroyed by the enemy.

01:32:23:12 – 01:32:51:23
Marty Morgan
This is where it gets a little weird and yes and no, again, the annoying historian qualified answer. Yes. And so far as the two bridge crossing sites of the murder a lot, the air and shutter port are elevated to an incredible level of importance after June 6th. And that’s because of the fact, particularly Lapeer, and that’s because of the fact that.

01:32:51:26 – 01:33:19:18
Marty Morgan
The Germans had purposely exacerbated seasonal flooding by manipulating locks on the beer River, the river and the Dover River by by manipulating these locks they tracked, they trapped a lot of water in the interior of the Cardington Peninsula, which is where the airborne force landed on D-Day. The American Air Force. And that trap water created a big lake where there normally was not a lake.

01:33:19:21 – 01:33:52:03
Marty Morgan
And by big lake, I mean big. I mean it is almost ten miles wide from top to bottom at a couple of places. It’s it’s two and three miles across. But at one critical point at last year, the flooded area was only about 700m wide, where there was the bridge over the river and then a raised roadway called the Causeway, reading from the east side of the flooded area to the west side of the flooded area.

01:33:52:06 – 01:34:30:09
Marty Morgan
And so this force landing on Utah Beach, the U.S. Army Seventh Corps, composed of multiple divisions of force of over 50,000 men. That force was to land on Utah Beach, push into the interior, and continue pushing westward all the way across the peninsula, the cotangent peninsula, the. By securing the peninsula by cutting up the peninsula, it would then become possible for the U.S. Seventh Corps to engage in maneuver warfare with four divisions that would then push from the south to the north to envelop and capture the port city at Cherbourg from its landward approaches.

01:34:30:09 – 01:34:54:22
Marty Morgan
That was the overall big picture Corps level strategy, and in order to carry out that strategy, the corps had to land all of its men and vehicles on Neutral Beach, and then they had to move westward, and in order to complete that westward movement, they had to get across this flooded area. And there was really only one good place to get across that flooded area.

01:34:54:25 – 01:35:16:26
Marty Morgan
And that was at lock here, which is why the battle of Locks here that unfolds on June 9th, 1944 is climactic and important because it opens up that artery. What was happening in the days before June 9th was effectively a building and growing traffic jam. Think of a traffic jam that’s being counterattacked by the enemy. That’s what was happening.

01:35:16:28 – 01:35:43:04
Marty Morgan
And then the 82nd airborne was given the task of punching through, the bus, recapturing the bridge and causeway, and therefore opening up a route for ground forces to move westward, which was the overall strategy of seventh Corps in the aftermath of the landings. So the stakes for the battle fought by the 82nd Airborne Division on June off year are extremely high.

01:35:43:06 – 01:36:15:10
Marty Morgan
They carry the field of battle. They are victorious. They open up the warfare Causeway, and those horses begin moving westward. And the aftermath of of that victory. And so if we assume that Robert wrote at base part of the fictional battle at Rommel, on what actually happened at Lapeer, you could say you could elevate the importance of that site to the highest level by saying, if we don’t hold this bridge and the enemy takes it, it changes the war.

01:36:15:12 – 01:36:47:06
Marty Morgan
Those those sort of, oh, sort of how dramatic. And I should note, I should say this, those sort of melodramatic terms typically accompany motion pictures and, and it’s a little bit of a Hollywood goofy thing to see moments like that elevated to these incredibly important terms. And it’s a little bit goofy in Hollywood to see, like, the lowest ranking people echoing these visions of grand strategy.

01:36:47:09 – 01:37:12:00
Marty Morgan
But that happens a couple of times in private, Ryan. And I think it had to happen, although it might be a little bit goofy and a little bit laughable. I think it had to happen because you had to have certain levels of character exposition, like there’s a moment where Tom Hanks is talking to Ted Danson, and they’re talking about Montgomery and Hal and Monty’s stall over there near corn, and we have to get to kind of get to Berlin.

01:37:12:00 – 01:37:35:24
Marty Morgan
And we have to get to Berlin to get to the big boat home. I think I’m quoting the movie correctly, and I find it a little bit peculiar that you would have two captains having these discussions of grand strategy. And also my big challenge to that idea will be, how in the world would two U.S. Army captains know all the details of what’s happening far away, and the area around Castle where the British were fighting?

01:37:35:27 – 01:38:01:16
Marty Morgan
I think that they wouldn’t. Maybe captains discussed grand strategy and down moments and Normandy, but I think they wouldn’t have had like up to date current events in terms of what the British were experiencing around Kong. And by that same token, when you see the 101st Airborne Division paratroopers and the fictional town Rommel discussing how we have to hold this bridge if the enemy takes this bridge, it’s all a little bit weird.

01:38:01:18 – 01:38:26:27
Marty Morgan
I’m not entirely convinced that the the ground troops on the lowest possible level are having discussions of grand strategy. I think that their conversations were probably, reflective of more immediate needs and more immediate concerns, like with this is how much ammunition we have, this is how much boom we have, how we do. We have communications established with anybody else.

01:38:26:27 – 01:38:35:26
Marty Morgan
I think they would have been discussing that sort of thing, rather than, we can’t let this bridge fall to the enemy, or else the entire invasion is undermined.

01:38:35:29 – 01:38:52:22
Dan LeFebvre
Well, it’s interesting you mention that, because that is something I wanted to ask you about, because in the movie they do the whole plan to defend the bridge. They do. There’s a mentioned where they talk about how they’re low on weapons and low on ammo, and they know the Germans are coming and they’re going to come with tanks.

01:38:52:24 – 01:39:08:24
Dan LeFebvre
And so, according to the movie side, Tom Hanks, his character, Captain Miller suggests that they make sticky bombs. And of course, they have no idea what those are. So he has to explain that you take a sock, you cram it with as much can’t be as it’ll hold. Coat it with axle grease, and then you throw it sticks to the tank.

01:39:08:24 – 01:39:39:00
Dan LeFebvre
Sticky bomb. That’s their best bet to take off a tank tread. And so we see a mixture of that. We see Jackson with his sniper rifle that we’ve talked about earlier. He set up and there’s a 30 caliber, machine guns that they use as well. And then, of course, there’s hand-to-hand combat. How well do you think that the movie did showing this strategy in this mix of weapons used to even though the bridge itself in the movie is fictional?

01:39:39:00 – 01:39:43:12
Dan LeFebvre
But how well do you think it did showing that battle?

01:39:43:15 – 01:40:08:12
Marty Morgan
Let me get the party pooper stuff out of the way first, and then I’ll give it a couple of minutes to compliment second party pooper. First. First of all, American airborne units within units of the American hundred and first and 82nd Airborne Division are not encountering Waffen SS planes are going to do ERS in that area because this area is androgynous along the length of the mayor de Rey River.

01:40:08:18 – 01:40:33:28
Marty Morgan
And I would just point out that there’s no point during the fighting in Normandy, where Waffen SS units engage American airborne forces along the murder. It doesn’t happen. 101st Airborne Division encounters and are going to doors of the 17th SS and the area of self guarantee and beginning on June 9th, but not up at the murder a river that’s just me being a party pooper.

01:40:34:06 – 01:40:58:28
Marty Morgan
And then also let’s talk tanks for a second, because what you see in the concluding climactic battle scene at mill is an assault gun. A really it’s not a really an assault gun. It’s actually, piece of self-propelled, self-propelled field artillery, C a self-propelled field artillery vehicle, and you see a tank that is supposed to be a Tiger.

01:40:59:01 – 01:41:21:03
Marty Morgan
And just for the record, that is a Soviet T-34 tank that has been modified to look like a German Tiger. It’s not an actual German tiger. They just need a big tank. And they there. There’s really only one functioning tiger anywhere in the world, and that’s in England. Number 131 that was depicted in theory. So they took a Soviet T-34, converted it to make it look like a tiger.

01:41:21:05 – 01:42:00:18
Marty Morgan
And it’s there present in the Rommel battle. Just for the record, no, Americans do not. Americans fighting in Normandy do not encounter a German tiger tank until the Mortein counteroffensive of in August. So from June 4th until August, we don’t encounter tigers. In fact, it’s not until, I think, July 28th that we encounter a pincer. It’s not until like July 28th that we encounter a German marked for tank.

01:42:00:20 – 01:42:28:13
Marty Morgan
I’m saying all of this because I think an important point for us to remember is that American forces, particularly American parachute infantry forces, do not encounter German made battle tanks until later. One. They encounter this this special German vehicle that we call a German or Stig. We encounter those around Saint Aragonese in the afternoon on June 7th. We encounter them in a few other places.

01:42:28:13 – 01:42:58:05
Marty Morgan
But that’s not a tank. It’s an assault gun. It doesn’t have a 360 degree rotating turret, and it is capable of quite a bit less than a Tiger or a Panther or even a mark four, for that matter. And we’re not seeing them. What we are seeing, though, in terms of German armored forces attacking American paratroopers shortly after the invasion, what we’re seeing are German armored forces that are attacking American paratroopers with French made tanks that were captured by the Germans in 1940.

01:42:58:07 – 01:43:29:13
Marty Morgan
In fact, there was a tank battle on the Lafayette Causeway in the afternoon on June 6th, and that tank battle consists of one German made Mach three tank and three French made tanks being used by a German fighting battalion. The battalion was called the Panzer Assets Update, and it was a training and replacement battalion that was almost completely equipped with these French made tanks, so there are no American paratroopers going jaw to jaw against the tiger.

01:43:29:15 – 01:43:51:25
Marty Morgan
It just doesn’t happen. I’m sorry. It’s a fantasy. It makes for a heck of a good scene, and it makes for a lot of tension. That whole tension associated with that. You know that moment in the movie where they show ribbon and Hanks and they’re in the hole and the ground’s shaking, and there’s literally like, rocks bouncing up and down from a rumbling of the approaching tiger that’s suspenseful and it’s almost visceral.

01:43:51:27 – 01:44:19:07
Marty Morgan
It’s just too bad it didn’t actually happen during D-Day, or any or any of the days that came immediately thereafter. So Americans are experiencing, German fighting vehicles, German armored fighting vehicles, but they’re not encountering the most frightening beast of them all, the German tiger. So there’s another license that the film takes with the reality of combat during the Normandy invasion.

01:44:19:09 – 01:44:48:29
Marty Morgan
So the idea of the SS carrying out this coordinated infantry and armor assault against the, village up on the Murdery River. It’s. That’s all a fiction created just for the movie. And it’s all based on, once again, a gumbo, a mixture of battles from different eras or areas of fighting in the European theater from different locations across the European theater.

01:44:49:01 – 01:45:22:06
Marty Morgan
It introduces some truths, and it introduces a lot of distortion and, and mythology. And just for the record, there was a sticky bomb during World War two. It doesn’t end up looking like a stock, stock with grease and composition being stopped in it. Although the training manuals did have a chapter on improvised explosive devices, where it instructed U.S. troops on how to create a bomb that was sort of like that, but not entirely.

01:45:22:06 – 01:45:58:11
Marty Morgan
And again, another fiction that was designed to, to it was designed, I think, to recognize an American, a unique American spirit of of being flexible, of being innovative, of working with what you got. And that is certainly a way that people tend to characterize the American army that fights in the European theater in World War two. But you don’t really see a battle where Tiger tanks come rumbling into the town, with airborne infantrymen.

01:45:58:11 – 01:46:21:28
Marty Morgan
And just for the record, airborne infantry is by its very nature, light infantry, airborne infantry with basically one anti-tank weapon. And that’s it. Because if you remember in the movie, the one anti-tank weapon they have is the one that was carried by, I think it was actually used by the the private Ryan character. It was a model m1A1 anti-tank rocket launcher, what we call the bazooka.

01:46:22:00 – 01:46:44:14
Marty Morgan
So you’re supposed to imagine this force of 101st Airborne Division paratroopers with a group of U.S. Army Rangers and then a 20 night division clerk typist, Browning, on top of it. They have one anti-tank weapon, and they’re supposed to hold off this coordinated assault by Waffen SS. Plans are going to be supported by armor. There’s a lot of fantasy going on in that scenario.

01:46:44:16 – 01:46:47:00
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it sounds like it.

01:46:47:03 – 01:47:08:22
Marty Morgan
I forgot to give it compliments. I should give you a compliment. One compliment that I think it deserves is that that scene is an intense combat scene, but it’s got a totally different quality to the intense combat scene that comes at the beginning of the movie. It’s an intense combat scene, but it’s totally different. And I think it’s I mean, it had the first time I saw it having on the edge of my seat.

01:47:08:22 – 01:47:32:00
Marty Morgan
I mean, it’s visceral. It’s powerful. The hand to hand sequence is evocative, and I mean, it’s stimulating and all of the negative ways. I mean, you really empathize with the Mellish character when he’s trying, when he’s engaged in hand-to-hand combat with this top looking Waffen SS Panzer going to be going to mirror that and involves them beating each other and biting fingers off.

01:47:32:00 – 01:47:57:25
Marty Morgan
And then ultimately, the German bayonets. The Mellish character. That’s a powerful scene, and I think it’s powerful and thought provoking as well. That is a part of the exposition of that scene. It also addresses the idea of someone who is, who is traumatized by the experience of being in the middle of a battle because the Upham character is is atomized by this battle that’s going on around him.

01:47:57:26 – 01:48:21:19
Marty Morgan
He’s not ready for it, and he doesn’t cope with it well because he hears Mellish screaming for his life just up the stairs up there with a loaded M1 right click. He could go up and he could save Mellish, and he’s so paralyzed by fear that he doesn’t do it. And I think that is an interesting thing for the movie to have addressed, because that is definitely something that is a part of the American experience of fighting in the European theater, in combat and what we’re to.

01:48:21:19 – 01:48:50:01
Marty Morgan
Because not everybody, but there were Americans who, when it came time for them to to turn on their bravery in battle, some men were not capable of doing it. There are some people that in the face of combat, their instinct drove them to retreat. Whereas there are others who rise to the greatest levels of self-sacrificing courage. And you could imagine.

01:48:50:03 – 01:49:10:23
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Well, yeah, you you hear all those stories about the, the heroic side and the people who do that, you know, they they rise to the challenge. But first time I saw Saving Private Ryan, that scene really stood out to me with with Upham. And because it was one of the first times that it was like, well, yeah, not everybody’s going to rise to that challenge.

01:49:10:23 – 01:49:24:04
Dan LeFebvre
It’s just there’s not everybody can. And so I think that they addressed that, really spoke volumes and told a completely different side in just those few moments.

01:49:24:07 – 01:49:51:02
Marty Morgan
Yeah, that’s that’s a subject I find myself talking about on my tour quite a lot. And just like you said, not everybody is cut out for it. And consider what we what’s the American military became what it had become by 1944. And that is that it wasn’t a military force that was composed of a large number of people that volunteered, and then also a large number of people who did not volunteer, a large number of conscripts, people who were drafted into uniform.

01:49:51:04 – 01:50:17:23
Marty Morgan
And among the draftees. I am fascinated by the way the U.S. Army draft the experience in World War Two. The volunteers are people who I think knew that they were cut out for it to begin with, and then experience basic training and experience during combat. They were cut out before they had been gotten through that evolution. And then a large number of men are drafted to the U.S. Army, put in uniform.

01:50:17:25 – 01:50:42:29
Marty Morgan
They go through accelerated basic training programs. They are delivered to fighting units in Europe. And sometimes the don’t do well. You have to book ends of experience. You have the complete polar opposite. And that I’m fascinated by the number of U.S. Army draftees who go to Europe and earn the Medal of Honor and some of the most amazing acts of bravery you can imagine.

01:50:43:01 – 01:51:08:08
Marty Morgan
And then you also have men like there was a man named Eddie Slovic. It was a the 28th Infantry Division who was a draftee. And once the battle of the bulge began, and there was disorder and chaos created by the German advance in the battle of the bulge, Slovic took the opportunity to desert his unit. It was ultimately found and was tried, or the desertion was ultimately, executed by firing squad.

01:51:08:08 – 01:51:43:26
Marty Morgan
The one and only U.S. Army soldier who was executed for desertion during World War Two. He was a draftee, and I he interests me. He deserted his unit in Luxembourg. There was another U.S. Army soldier in Luxembourg named D.G. Turner, who was a draftee, and who by the time he got to Luxembourg for the battle of the bulge, he had already earned a Bronze Star, and as a draftee he went on to earn the Medal of Honor, and then was engaged in another act of absolutely incredible bravery when he was ultimately killed in a combat on February 7th, 1945.

01:51:43:28 – 01:52:08:11
Marty Morgan
And he was a draftee. So when you when you assemble a citizen soldier army and the the American military ultimately becomes seven, 16 million people in uniform during World War two, whenever you a symbol of course of that scale and you get there by instituting a draft, some of them are going to be people that can handle it, and some of them are going to be people that cannot.

01:52:08:13 – 01:52:13:27
Marty Morgan
And interestingly, very much that the movie Saving Private Ryan addressed that very issue.

01:52:13:29 – 01:52:39:10
Dan LeFebvre
Going back to the movie, despite taking heavy losses at the bridge, the Americans are able to hold back the German assault just long enough. All hope seems lost. Captain Miller is mortally wounded, and he’s shooting at a tank with his pistol, and one of the shots results in a massive explosion. And then we see a P-51 fly over it, and they come out and take out the German tanks.

01:52:39:12 – 01:53:04:14
Dan LeFebvre
Other reinforcements arrive, and they push back. The rest of the German forces. But Captain Miller has been shot. Ryan makes it to him just before he dies and holding him close. Miller tells Ryan two words earn this. And then the movie takes us back to the beginning. We have the elderly man in the cemetery from the beginning of the movie, and this is when we find out it’s James Ryan.

01:53:04:16 – 01:53:29:00
Dan LeFebvre
He’s there with his family, visiting Captain Miller’s grave. He stand in front, says he never forgot what he said that day on the bridge, and we’re left with tears in her eyes as the movie comes to a close. Now, what I gathered from this was that James Ryan felt the pressure to live his life to the fullest, because he came home when so many did not.

01:53:29:03 – 01:53:45:23
Dan LeFebvre
Of course, in his case, it was a specific mission to save his life that cost the lives of others. Was this sort of survivor’s guilt that we see in the movie something common among veterans who managed to make it home after the D-Day invasion, when so many did not.

01:53:45:26 – 01:54:13:02
Marty Morgan
Make it was for my first and second books. I interviewed a couple of hundred D-Day veterans, almost all of whom are gone now. And they spoke to that right away. In addition to that, I was raised in a household by a Vietnam veteran and spent two years, two tours of duty in Vietnam, and he was traumatized. And I was raised by a man who obviously felt survivor’s guilt.

01:54:13:05 – 01:54:47:00
Marty Morgan
My father’s unit was attacked in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive at a place called coochie, right after my father had rotated out to go home. And his first sergeant, whom I’m named after, was killed. And, I saw the way that my my father felt guilt all the way until his life ended. And that guilt, I think, simultaneously tortured him and then admonished him to live the fullest possible life that he could.

01:54:47:03 – 01:54:56:17
Marty Morgan
And although he wasn’t a survivor of D-Day or the Second World War, I feel like the experience of combat between these conflicts is the same.

01:54:56:20 – 01:55:14:10
Dan LeFebvre
I’m not a member of the military. My dad was was in the Army, but, I think it’s just a great and great message. Overall, it still hit me even though I’m not in the military. It’s still hit me like, you know, live, live your life to the fullest because you never know.

01:55:14:12 – 01:55:33:07
Marty Morgan
You know, Dan, when that movie, when I saw the first time I watched it, Georgia. And when the credits rolled, I looked around and I was like, what the hell just happened in this theater? What I did when I went into that movie, that was not what I expected. I did expect an emotional drama. I did not expect the levels of authenticity.

01:55:33:07 – 01:55:59:17
Marty Morgan
Although they weren’t perfect, they were great. And I certainly didn’t expect a film where if you pay close attention to that movie, establishing shot number one as a waving American flag, it fades up from credits to the southern flagpole on the northern plughole at the Normandy American Cemetery. And when I saw that, my first thought was like waving American flag, what am what’s about to happen to me in this theater?

01:55:59:20 – 01:56:20:15
Marty Morgan
And then 2.5 hours later, I came out going, this is not what I expected because I felt like the movie Saving Private Ryan. Keep in mind the era, but my maybe I’m just unique in timing because my era of movie watching was the war movies that I got addicted to when I was young was stuff like Longest Day.

01:56:20:17 – 01:56:42:25
Marty Morgan
Stuff like Tor, Tora Bridge. Too far from an era when war movies were a bit different, but they were about to change. And then the movies that were new releases that dealt with World War Two subject matter. When movies like big Red won and then moved into the 1980s, and the movies that came out in the 1980s, really the one stand out World War two movie, the 1980s.

01:56:42:25 – 01:57:17:14
Marty Morgan
For me is Memphis Belle, and this Belle kind of I bleeds. It wasn’t celebratory, and romanticized in the way that Private Ryan was. I felt like Memphis Belle was a little bit of, a world War Two Vietnam movie. And of course, in the 80s, that’s when the big Vietnam movies were out, the biggest of them all, of course, platoon, which I argue established an overall narrative about the experience of Vietnam that is completely distorted and and not really factually accurate.

01:57:17:16 – 01:57:48:12
Marty Morgan
But regardless of what I think about these movies, these movies had a quality of, of of disenchantment and, and cynicism that you don’t see in the movie Saving Private Ryan. When I sat down in the theater before the credits, before the theater lights dimmed a bit, I, I was not expecting to go down the line of a movie that was going to be a little patriotic, a little triumphal.

01:57:48:14 – 01:58:17:06
Marty Morgan
I didn’t expect it to be quite as reflective. There are moments where it’s about as subtle as a barn door, but then there are moments where it’s pretty subtle and emotional. I did not expect the film that Steven Spielberg gave me, and it’s anything I feel like. Though the lasting popularity of Saving Private Ryan is because Steven Steven Spielberg did not give us a Vietnam movie that was set in World War Two.

01:58:17:08 – 01:58:33:14
Dan LeFebvre
I wasn’t expecting that either. The first time that I saw it, it was I wasn’t expecting it to be as emotional as it ended up being. I thought they did a great job of showing the human side.

01:58:33:17 – 01:58:54:25
Marty Morgan
It did, and I. I struggle with this because I, like every other historian out there, were a dime a dozen, and we all have added ideas of screenplays that we’re going to write and how we’re going to make the next Saving Private Ryan. And we’re going to be a responsible sport. And I, I often argue that it is not possible to match that, that achievement.

01:58:54:27 – 01:59:15:08
Marty Morgan
And here’s why I think it’s not possible. And I think it’s not possible because of Steven Spielberg. That movie happened because Steven Spielberg wanted to make that movie. And people didn’t tell Steven Spielberg how to make his movie. He made a movie he wanted to. So the man who brought us E.T. brought us the way the American flag and earned this.

01:59:15:10 – 01:59:27:29
Marty Morgan
And I don’t mean mentioned it to be negative or cynical. I mention it because he clearly makes movies that want to pull at your heart strings. And the movie Saving Private Ryan definitely did that.

01:59:28:01 – 01:59:53:03
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat about Saving Private Ryan. I think one of the biggest takeaways that I’ve heard from people after seeing the movie and after our discussion, is just how it visualizes what it must have been like during D-Day. But that leads us right into an even better way to visualize D-Day with your book called D-Day A Photographic History of the Normandy Invasion.

01:59:53:05 – 01:59:58:06
Dan LeFebvre
Can you share a little bit of information about your book and where someone can pick up a copy?

01:59:58:08 – 02:00:24:03
Marty Morgan
Sure, yeah. The the book was released just early mid last year for just in time for the 75th anniversary of D-Day. It’s it features 450 photographs of the Normandy invasion. Something earlier some never been before. What I sought to do in the book was to bring, a greater level of specificity to captioning an explanation of where certain famous photographs were taken and what they depict.

02:00:24:05 – 02:00:45:27
Marty Morgan
I also do a little bit of then and now photography, and I do a little bit of storytelling in the book as well, and it was a compilation of my experiences of having conducted interviews with hundreds of D-Day veterans and spent a lot of time around the subject and spent a lot of time in Normandy. And, I’m just glad that it was rereleased in time for the 75th anniversary.

02:00:45:29 – 02:01:04:19
Marty Morgan
I think it is for the most part, the rerelease is for the most part sold out now, but I see that copies are available on Amazon. You can find it on there. The only Martin K Morgan that has published books on Amazon.com. And I hope that, somebody out there interested me, they might go buy it.

02:01:04:19 – 02:01:27:23
Marty Morgan
So that would mean that I have sold maybe at least two copies in 2020. I I’m proud of it. I like the book a lot. I, I look back on it as a positive moment. It didn’t really burn the world down in terms of reaching people, and it wasn’t a bestseller. But, the economics of publishing in the 21st century are pretty complicated, and I’m just glad to have a book out.

02:01:27:26 – 02:01:30:01
Dan LeFebvre
Thank you again so much for your time, Marty.

02:01:30:03 – 02:01:39:13
Marty Morgan
Well, it’s my pleasure. Thank you for the honor of inviting me to be a part of a discussion.

00:04:08:10 – 00:04:26:20
Dan LeFebvre
We have a few movies to talk about today, but before we do that, let’s start by flipping things around a little bit. Normally here on the podcast, we talk about things that filmmakers change from the true story. But I know you’ve been working to get your book called Not a Real Enemy About Your Father urban story told into a movie.

00:04:26:22 – 00:04:43:03
Dan LeFebvre
Of course, we can’t predict the future to know when or if that will happen soon, but let’s hope for the best and say it is turned into a movie. So what’s one key thing that you want to make sure the filmmakers don’t change from the true story in the film adaptation?

00:04:43:06 – 00:05:01:18
Robert Wolf
Well, hopefully all of it, of course. But, that’s the easy answer. My dad’s for escapes or what? For example, my dad was a four time escape artist, and he missed an escape, too. He was fortunate, and he sports enough to go to the wrong train station under communist Hungary. And everybody made that train got arrested, including his, medical school classmate.

00:05:01:18 – 00:05:08:07
Robert Wolf
So all of that. I’d like to be, as accurate as possible as, cinematography. Cinematography.

00:05:08:10 – 00:05:09:02
Dan LeFebvre
Cinematography.

00:05:09:04 – 00:05:29:27
Robert Wolf
Yeah, yeah, as close as possible. Color movie, color in color. Obviously, a lot of the older movies are black and white, like Schindler’s List, which I hope we talk about a little bit more. That movie I just saw the movie and a resonates very, very much so with the story that I’m that we’re telling here. And then his upbringing, you know, it doesn’t have to be a long part of his upbringing.

00:05:30:00 – 00:05:49:23
Robert Wolf
And if I could cast a movie, it’d be Tom Hanks playing my dad and Tom, or that Tom Hanks Tom cruise. Tom Hanks plays one of the nicer, guards in the labor camp, a forced labor camp. A lot of the movie should cover the forced labor camp, the beatings, getting urinated on, getting shot at by Russian planes, all that kind of thing.

00:05:49:23 – 00:06:09:12
Robert Wolf
So there’s a lot of content. And, you know, of course, we wanted as close as possible, but any good producer writer screenplay would, would switch it up a little. I just hope they keep the, you know, as they keep the fidelity as much as possible. I mean obviously you got to make changes to capture an audience and hopefully that would be the case.

00:06:09:16 – 00:06:29:04
Robert Wolf
And you know the other thing is some people say could be a feature film. Some people say a documentary docu drama series. I wouldn’t care as long as they did a good job with it. There’s 40 chapters in our book, so, you could. I don’t think it’d be a 40, 40, show series, but certainly 10 or 15 would be, you know, one season’s worth at least.

00:06:29:04 – 00:06:45:15
Robert Wolf
So it’s always up to the producer, or whoever gets a hold of, the story. The it’s not in a screen stand in a screenplay yet, but, I, I leave that to the I leave that to Hollywood or whatever, discovers whatever we’re doing here. And if they do so it’s a, it’s a wing and a prayer.

00:06:45:15 – 00:07:02:01
Robert Wolf
And I know it’s a such a long shot. It’s easier to get into medical school, which I’m a position. I’m a radiologist, recently retired. It’s easier to get into medical school than to sell a New York Times bestseller. A bigger story and a movie, as we well know, nobody knew Schindler was, you know, 20, 30 years ago and nobody knew who.

00:07:02:01 – 00:07:18:29
Robert Wolf
And Frank was way back in the day. And, the, Life is Beautiful story I never wanted I mean, I never even think about, Italy and the Holocaust until I saw that movie and both of them the second time. Both great movies. And we could talk about those details and how they resonate with what we’re doing.

00:07:19:01 – 00:07:29:01
Robert Wolf
And I’m glad I saw them after I wrote a book regarding the Holocaust and beforehand to what a what a different viewpoint or what a, what a difference that makes.

00:07:29:01 – 00:07:48:26
Dan LeFebvre
Certainly we’re going to we’re going to talk about those for sure. But as we shift into some of the movies that that have been made, there are a lot of movies that are set before and during World War Two. So what I’d love to do is to get your take on some of those and how they compare to your family’s experiences that you talk about in your book.

00:07:48:28 – 00:08:06:05
Dan LeFebvre
And the first movie that I’d like to start with is a classic film, The Sound of Music, and it tells the story of how life changes for the von Trapp family as Nazi Germany annexes Austria in 1938. And as we watch a movie like Sound of Music, it’s possible to see the warning signs when we watch the movie now.

00:08:06:05 – 00:08:26:00
Dan LeFebvre
But of course, anytime we’re watching a movie like that, we’re also looking at it through a historical lens because we already know what’s going to happen from history instead of being there in the moment. And correct me if I’m wrong, but Austria is like less than 100km from where your father grew up in Hungary, so he wasn’t that far from where the annexation unfolded.

00:08:26:03 – 00:08:30:24
Dan LeFebvre
What were things like in that region as Germany annexed Austria?

00:08:30:27 – 00:08:57:20
Robert Wolf
Well, as you know, the fact the rise of fascism almost simultaneously with the Great Depression, the Roaring 20s, were okay in Hungary and throughout the world. We think the war was over. Things were doing well. And meantime, of course, Hitler was it was a building, the military machine that he was, because Germany’s economy was, it was, that’s how they that’s that was their economy was the military, of course, 33 is where fascism was on a rise in 38, 1938.

00:08:57:20 – 00:09:17:28
Robert Wolf
And in Hungary, there were anti-Jewish laws were initiated. So you couldn’t on the radio, you could only go out at certain times. There was, no Jews or dog signs up, of course, Kristallnacht. If, I’m not mistaken, in Germany, Austria was 1938, a very big event. That’s where they started taking force.

00:09:17:28 – 00:09:39:06
Robert Wolf
Laborers, the men, the young men that were wealthy, they started to take them away to forced labor camps and, really didn’t affect Hungary. I mean, the anti-Jewish laws were there. So they were persecuted and shunned, if you will. But the the killings and the, the the the most of it didn’t really, happened in Hungary till 1943, 1944.

00:09:39:09 – 00:10:03:00
Robert Wolf
My dad ended up going to after his first forced labor camp in 1943 and October, and then his parents were taken away to Auschwitz, in 1944. So Poland got hit first, obviously in 1939, Kristallnacht before that, 1938. And then Hungary, a little bit later, what I’m told. And from when I’ve read Hungary had the fastest, the fastest pace of homicide, of genocide of any of them.

00:10:03:00 – 00:10:33:07
Robert Wolf
So, that includes Ukraine and Russia, which they were brutalized and the Polish, 1939 of the refugees went to Hungary. And, the Hungarian government sent the refugees back, unfortunately. And, and it really badly for them. And so this resonates with Poland, with the, with the Schindler idea too, because, a lot of similarities between that and what happened to Hungary, although we’re talking about 1941 versus 1943 and 1944, but it could be the same, the same idea that, you know, a little bit, a little bit different background, different scenario.

00:10:33:07 – 00:10:36:09
Robert Wolf
But, a lot of the common, a lot of common themes.

00:10:36:13 – 00:10:59:15
Dan LeFebvre
Since you mentioned it didn’t really touch Hungary, but it’s touching all these countries around. And I’ve, I’ve never visited Hungary, but I can imagine that the proximity isn’t that far. I mean, there’s borders, you know, it’s technically a different country, but there’s these atrocities that are happening. What was it like for your your father as a child and your your grandparents?

00:10:59:15 – 00:11:04:12
Dan LeFebvre
And when they’re, when they’re seeing, I mean, they had been seeing in the news what’s going on where they.

00:11:04:15 – 00:11:30:29
Robert Wolf
Well, what a great question. Well, you say seeing in the news, we realize that my dad in Hungary and his parents never own a car. They never owned a TV. You bring up a great point. Jews were not allowed to have radios. So. And so they had a radio. He, his dad had enough courage to hide a radio, and they would quietly listen to the BBC, during the uprise of the uprising, with a lot of hope and a lot of prayer that that it end soon and relevant to that.

00:11:31:01 – 00:11:50:08
Robert Wolf
During my dad’s first escape toward. They thought it was the end of Lord, they don’t get much news that the forced labor camp, but they’re in the middle of nowhere, about near the Austria Hungary border. And even though they escaped, the Jews first of four, which some are remarkable, they didn’t know whether to flee to Budapest or stay in Hungary or go to Austria because they didn’t know who’s going to win the war.

00:11:50:11 – 00:12:04:24
Robert Wolf
And, you know, the Nazis won the war and they end up in Austria. They’re dead men. And if there’s a chance in Hungary, not Hungary proper, but the West, turns out it’s not the West. It was Soviet Union. If they win the war, maybe they’re better off in Hungary. It turns out either way, you know, you’re a Jew.

00:12:04:24 – 00:12:28:23
Robert Wolf
You’re screwed. I mean, those men, only 5% of the forced labor survived, in the in that process, including my dad, because he was on the run and hiding at the time. He wasn’t the. The rest of them that survived were treated as prisoners of war. Unfortunately. So 5% of forced labor, they had death marches. And that’s why my my dad and his friend Frank decided to, escape the first time because they thought they were on a death march.

00:12:28:28 – 00:12:59:27
Robert Wolf
And nobody knows about death marches in Europe. They don’t. I mean, historians might know. We all know about Okinawa and, the Pacific, but not a lot of people know. So when they thought you weren’t useful anymore, they killed you. So. And that was true at the Danube, very end of the war. Unlike Schindler, where the guards just go home, I, I’d like to talk about that for a few minutes, too, but, it’s a fantasy that these people, because the, guardians were treated and my mom and dad said that, that, the the Arrow Cross, for example, was like a Hungarian Gestapo and the the White Terror or the Red

00:12:59:27 – 00:13:17:14
Robert Wolf
terror or the the Nazis. The communists, they didn’t treat if you felt like if you’re Jewish, you were still scared of whoever was in charge. And, the Hungarians, the police and the military treated the Jewish people worse than the Nazis themselves. And that’s another thing that resonates with some of these movies, too. Women versus men.

00:13:17:14 – 00:13:26:27
Robert Wolf
Women guards versus Benghazi, pets. A lot of the, you know, a lot of things, humiliation. There are a lot of compare, a lot of things to talk about that are that resonate, big time.

00:13:27:00 – 00:13:48:21
Dan LeFebvre
I love that you mentioned the the radio and the communications there, because that’s something that I think I kind of like what I mentioned before, you know, when we watch a movie, we’re looking at it with a historical lens. So we think of, oh yeah, you can get news from all around there. And in my question I ask, you know, seeing things, but there’s that there has to be that almost added level of fear.

00:13:48:21 – 00:14:06:13
Dan LeFebvre
I would imagine, of not knowing, like, you know, that there’s some bad things going on, but you don’t know the full extent of it. And you then there’s that fear of just not knowing, because then your mind would start to go make things up that, I mean, there were some horrible things, but I, I mean, and it’s something I have a hard time wrap my head around.

00:14:06:14 – 00:14:12:26
Dan LeFebvre
What, like put yourself in the historical context of what that must have been like. It had to have been just terrifying for your for your father.

00:14:12:28 – 00:14:31:13
Robert Wolf
Well, part of the reason. Yeah. No intervention for many, many years, after the war started, it, because the United States had the, for example, had the, had the, the duty to protect its own citizens. So getting involved with the war, it was, was tough communications. I couldn’t say it better. You know, the real cell phones there, no lawyers or no courtrooms.

00:14:31:15 – 00:14:50:23
Robert Wolf
The cops and the. And the military pointing guns. It. Yeah. And fortunately, in this country, we. That’s not happened yet. So there’s one thing. No communication, just the radio, which was illegal. It probably would’ve been shot and killed if they got caught with it. And, and forced labor camps out in the middle of nowhere, even less communication than we had a regular camp in the US growing up, you know?

00:14:50:23 – 00:15:11:04
Robert Wolf
So, word of mouth. So things got a little easier for the men? Not much. But as the their guards got bribed, dental treat, free dental treatments. But, yes, there was a dentist. Obvious, obvious threat to society, killed at Auschwitz and his mom as well. And Deb didn’t find out about two months afterwards. Another miracle, from an eyewitness.

00:15:11:06 – 00:15:29:04
Robert Wolf
And, that’s another point that, the witnesses besides no cell phones, no video, a lot of photographs taken, as we know, the Nazis took many, many photographs. So denying the Holocaust and even communist Hungary just. There’s no way you can’t sell that. But the witness, the witness was the next victim is how it turned out.

00:15:29:04 – 00:15:46:14
Robert Wolf
Like at the Danube walk and death marches. Or as we’ve seen, these mass burial, sites, in Ukraine for example, or in the concentration camps. So the witnesses were literally the next victim. So very, very hard to, to wrap my arms around that. And like you said, very hard to get information again.

00:15:46:20 – 00:16:07:03
Dan LeFebvre
I it’s it’s hard to wrap your head around, but but putting yourself in that context of what that must have been like, I, I love the like in your book when you’re when you’re telling that story, it, it it does a really good job of, of helping to put the, the reader in that place of what that must have been like in there.

00:16:07:07 – 00:16:23:18
Dan LeFebvre
And I’m curious because there are a lot of details of your, your father’s earlier life were those things that he that he told you specifically or were they things that you had to research after the fact? Or how did that part kind of come together for that story as you’re putting all these pieces together?

00:16:23:21 – 00:16:41:21
Robert Wolf
A little bit of both. I can’t imagine the boredom in living in quarters like that packed when with people or even hiding out in your own home, with, you know, yellow stars, yellow armbands, the anxiety, the depression, the fear. I can’t imagine that. And but like you say, you can feel it, like during my dad’s first escape.

00:16:41:21 – 00:17:00:02
Robert Wolf
So, Yeah, my dad. Mom wrote an autobiography. They wrote the his story, from World War one. The of World War one to the end of the Hungarian Revolution. So literally 1916, 19 1718 to the end of the Revolution, 1956. They wrote the story in the 1970s. They they wrote it as though it happened the previous day.

00:17:00:09 – 00:17:17:04
Robert Wolf
Sharp. Chris. And I turned into a biography many, many years later. Growing up, the first half of my life, not so much as I went to college and medical school at a career as a radiologist, family, all of that things. So I didn’t, but I did read the it went from paper and pencil to typewriter to computer to disk.

00:17:17:06 – 00:17:36:04
Robert Wolf
And, when it was a manuscript maybe 30 years ago, I read it once and didn’t think much of it and didn’t remember much except my dad’s first escape. But then when I reread it after my my dad passed and fortunately my mom, a historian friend, handed me the story on the disk, and I turned his autobiography to biography and, just doing that alone.

00:17:36:07 – 00:17:52:25
Robert Wolf
Long story short, I went back to radiology, and that brought me to the book. And, long story short, the stories were so amazing. At least 20 miracles in my dad’s life and hungry for escapes and 20 miracles. I couldn’t leave it on a computer. I couldn’t leave it on a disk. I wanted to share it with the world and,

00:17:52:27 – 00:18:07:18
Robert Wolf
And so I did. And that’s been my that’s been my charge. That’s been my mission the last 6 or 7 years. The book’s been out a little while now, but, that doesn’t stop me from trying to fight antisemitism. So, this is my main thing, the why I’m doing this, and, but, yeah, it’s my own little corner.

00:18:07:18 – 00:18:23:07
Robert Wolf
I need help with that, obviously, but, no, my my mom and dad, they did this as though they knew I would like if you know me, six years ago, and my mom was a Holocaust educator, by the way. My dad, too, but he was an ObGyn, by the way, deliver 10,000 babies in the Detroit area, which is so a form of redemption.

00:18:23:10 – 00:18:41:06
Robert Wolf
That’s the punch line. It doesn’t bring back 6 million and doesn’t beat back 50 million that died in World War two. But at least he brought some life back in jovial and jolly. No PTSD. My mom to they they educated. They were well-rounded people. And the stories like I said, they were crisp and and then they had a lot of friends in the unlike what’s going on in the world now.

00:18:41:06 – 00:19:00:00
Robert Wolf
They had a lot of friends where I grew up in Michigan and throughout the world, from continental Africa, Asia had Indian friends, a muslim, Christian, Jewish, fellow Holocaust survivors. They shared the stories and, and I, I bought into it. I got a little burnout from it. And then, I brought it back to life, at least in my own legacy towards my family.

00:19:00:00 – 00:19:15:00
Robert Wolf
So, I got this app, you know, Superman’s Kryptonite. You just sort of called out to me, you know? It’s summoned me back in me. So. And so I’m doing it, and I. I couldn’t leave this on a disc. I couldn’t leave it on computer. And so that’s why we’re sharing it. But, very well done by my mom and dad, you know.

00:19:15:00 – 00:19:16:09
Robert Wolf
So.

00:19:16:11 – 00:19:43:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, well, I’m glad that you are telling that story to to because the world does need to know. And the part that kind of made me think that was when you talking about the the photos and things like the Nazis and the Soviets took. But again, putting yourself in that perspective, a difference from watching a movie today versus versus being there when you like the people that took the photographs to document a lot of that, those wouldn’t be photographs that you’re parents and grandparents would have had access to because they were taken by the people doing a lot of it.

00:19:43:12 – 00:19:53:06
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s not something that they’re going to show. So I was very curious how that story then survives despite trying to be suppressed.

00:19:53:09 – 00:20:12:02
Robert Wolf
Yeah. No, you’re right. I mean, but very, very little, belongings left over, from my dad’s side of the family. My mom saved a lot of photographs, and somehow they were preserved, by my mom. So it was a little less harrowing. My mom was in hiding, you know, with her mom, grandma, uncle, grandfather who’s different, you know, on farms and sometimes in Budapest.

00:20:12:02 – 00:20:35:14
Robert Wolf
So she was able to preserve more things. And as a and she also was into genealogy. And I wish I followed it a little bit more, but I do at least have back to World War one. I can’t go back there beyond that. But no, it’s unimaginable. The fear that my mom must add in hiding to and and the fear my dad must have had every day competing and starving and and doing forced labor for hours from, you know, dawn to dusk.

00:20:35:16 – 00:20:52:07
Robert Wolf
Can’t. I can’t imagine it. So, the reality and also photographs. So the Nazis were they took a lot of photographs. They, they sent them home to their families, let them know what they’re doing. And I have a collection of about 18,000 photos on my phone, and some of them are exceptionally disturbing. The last guy surviving in Vilna.

00:20:52:09 – 00:21:18:00
Robert Wolf
They’re about to kill him, and he’s surrounded by, mostly Nazi, officers. And there’s a gun pointed aside, and he knows he’s next. Reminds a little Schindler to you, but he’s the last survivor. They’re a very disturbing photo. I haven’t shared it because they’ll probably kick me out of X and meta and LinkedIn. If I were, were to, the, you know, the burning synagogue is another one, the smashed in homes, the burning homes, one disturbing one.

00:21:18:05 – 00:21:40:09
Robert Wolf
Well, they’re marching off the Jewish people. And I’m thinking, well, who’s taken a picture of all of this and not helping? You know, and these people lived in fear, of course. Another, disturbing photo. I’ve got some from juror. My dad’s home town. Very, very few, very few available. Another one is Kristallnacht. Whether the business, the glass is all broken up and the lady’s walking by the business smiling, I mean, I.

00:21:40:10 – 00:22:00:02
Robert Wolf
How do you smile when she got what? Are you, Jewish? You’re not smiling. If you’re Christian, you smiling, then, Well, I, I guess I know what party you’re in. You’re in the Nazi party or the Christmas party are very sadistic. Some and Christians were afraid for their lives, too. So the ones that helped the Jewish people or the gays, you know, almost sexual, LGBTQ, disabled, they’re there to be loud.

00:22:00:02 – 00:22:15:03
Robert Wolf
It, including guys like Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg is another one that comes to mind. So a lot going on. I can’t imagine being so remote and, and, secluded from the truth, let alone the news.

00:22:15:06 – 00:22:50:28
Dan LeFebvre
If we shift back to the movies you mentioned life is beautiful, and that’s another movie I want to talk about. That one starts in 1939, just after the annexation of Austria. And it follows the story of how life changes around a Jewish man named Guido before and during the rise of fascism in Italy. And the movie, it starts off with everyday life, but one of the key differences between life is Beautiful and the Sound of Music that we talked about before is that Life Is Beautiful shows how life changes for the main character because he’s an Italian Jewish man, whereas the Von Trapp family in the sound of Music, they’re not so well.

00:22:50:28 – 00:23:12:22
Dan LeFebvre
I, I we see little signs here and there and Sound of Music. We can see the signs in life and beautiful. Life is beautiful. Those signs are clearly the rise of anti-Semitism. They’re going on in Italy now. In particular, there was a scene where Guido pretended to be an inspector of Rome teaching children in school how they are pure Aryan, the superior race.

00:23:12:25 – 00:23:34:00
Dan LeFebvre
He doesn’t have very comical way in the movie, similar to later in the movie, when Guido’s young son just reads a sign in business window that says no Jews or dogs, and Guido makes a joke about there’s just saying. There’s also a drug store nearby saying that I’m not going to let Chinese in with kangaroo. Right. And he’s making a joke out of out of this very serious situation.

00:23:34:03 – 00:23:49:21
Dan LeFebvre
And that storyline in like Life Is Beautiful is a fictional one. Guido is not a real person, but how old do you think life is beautiful? Did showing signs of anti-Semitism slowly growing in everyday life before the outbreak of World War two?

00:23:49:24 – 00:24:06:05
Robert Wolf
Great question. I mean, that’s an our answer, but fantastic movie. Beautifully done. The cinematography is outstanding. I’m glad you mentioned that scene, because to me, that’s the turning point in the movie. The better part of the first half of the movie is about It’s a Beautiful Life. It’s a wonder it’s not It’s a Wonderful Life.

00:24:06:05 – 00:24:27:20
Robert Wolf
That’s a different, fantastic movie, too. But life is beautiful there. He falls in love with this lady. He’s on the bicycle. It’s a lot of humor. I mean, a lot of humor in that movie. Even to the end. And, you know, it’s admirable how he hides the truth from his son throughout, but, yeah, that’s the turning point in the movies when he’s up there talking about the the perfect race or our rewards it.

00:24:27:27 – 00:24:45:01
Robert Wolf
And then the poor, his relatives horse getting painted, I think was green and purple. I forget the color. Maybe green. That’s good. And. Yeah. And and that’s the turning point there. And then all of a sudden, boom, they’re, they’re in prison and they’re going off to, to concentration camps, different some different things.

00:24:45:09 – 00:25:04:29
Robert Wolf
Some of the similarities with my, my parent, they don’t talk about women that much, but both that movie and similar, the, the women, the women guards, especially at Auschwitz and then in these concentration camps were to me more sadistic and more brutal to the prisoners than, than otherwise. Interestingly, a lot of Nazis, the people that were guarding them were the Germans, the Nazis.

00:25:04:29 – 00:25:22:27
Robert Wolf
So where were the Italians? That’s that’s a little bit different than Hungary, I think, because the Hungarians were the ones who keep an eye on the force. Laborers, and child, my dad’s parents were taken from their home. That was, that was a Nazi. Blue striped pajamas. Interesting. It’s a, you know, we don’t know what color stripes they have in general because black and white movie, but it’s blue stripes.

00:25:22:27 – 00:25:39:21
Robert Wolf
But we all know that, you know, outfits in other places, they were, red stripes. So that was, another thing that, that was those was a familiar, but, or different, I should say. I thought, one thing similar with the both of those movies is the language was a little fast for me. It’s in subtitles.

00:25:39:24 – 00:25:56:13
Robert Wolf
Well, I think they just talked a little bit faster. Was a little. Because, you know, we can read fast, but it just won’t have the pace or the how they talk. Maybe at the very beginning, speed it up because it makes the humor, the humor scenes a little more humorous, so to say, so to speak. But, yeah, they kind of slow that down a little bit, too.

00:25:56:15 – 00:26:12:21
Robert Wolf
What else are we? Yeah. I mean, that’s, just a fact. The met the end was unbelievable. The way the they say, do they want or try? They’re playing in a game to win a tank and they won. You know, the kid survives, but he doesn’t. The mom survives. Was a Dora. And, you know, of course you gets shot.

00:26:12:23 – 00:26:31:18
Robert Wolf
He gets shot for warning. The ladies, including his wife, as are being hauled away in a truck. So another thing that may not be realistic is the son and the father in the same bunk. Because the kids were separated, like in Auschwitz and other places, and like a and Schindler, you know, the kids are all the way, in bundles.

00:26:31:18 – 00:26:52:14
Robert Wolf
And boy, are the parents freaking. They’re all running towards the fences and trying to follow the trucks and talk about learned helplessness and senior kids being all the way to who knows where. So that part may not have been as realistic. But yeah, it was such a well-done movie. And, and I don’t know that much about the Italian history in, in World War Two, so that’s that.

00:26:52:14 – 00:27:11:10
Robert Wolf
But comparing what you to the other movie and to what I’ve read and done, and learned about pretty realistic, I mean, in their own way. Obviously not every concentration camps will be the same. Not a forced labor camps going to be the same. The different guards, different, food supply, who knows? Different amounts of sadism.

00:27:11:12 – 00:27:21:00
Robert Wolf
It’s people to take orders and people that delight in torturing others. And that’s so hard to put your arms around to. It’s just. I don’t know how people could be like that at all.

00:27:21:02 – 00:27:41:21
Dan LeFebvre
But you mentioned Schindler’s List, and whenever we think of movies that depict the Holocaust, that’s probably the first one that does come to mind. In that movie, we see what life is like in the Jewish ghetto. Of course, Schindler’s List depicts the ghetto in Krakow, Poland, but your grandparents were forced to move to another Nazi controlled Jewish ghetto in your Hungary.

00:27:41:23 – 00:27:44:15
Dan LeFebvre
I’m probably mispronouncing that, but.

00:27:44:18 – 00:27:49:18
Robert Wolf
My Hungarians not so. They never taught me, so I. It’s fine. That was their shooting around which.

00:27:49:20 – 00:27:57:21
Dan LeFebvre
But based on the research that you did for your book, were there similarities to what we see in Schindler’s List and in the ghetto there, and what your grandparents dealt with?

00:27:57:24 – 00:28:19:27
Robert Wolf
Many, many, many. First, I want to talk about, so many. I mean, unfortunately, the movie was in black and white, but the cinematography in that movie is unbelievable. Like I said, they talk a little fast, especially when they’re talking about people’s names a little fast for me, some of the conversation, but, amazing. Some overlap when when they’re taken to Auschwitz, we don’t know if it’s accidentally or if it’s on purpose.

00:28:20:04 – 00:28:37:05
Robert Wolf
And they put them in the chamber and they think that that’s it. The gas chamber and the relief showers. I can picture my mom, my my grandmother, in the in the gas chamber. And, of course, when they’re on trains, when I visit Holocaust museums, when I do book talks, book lectures, I can’t even go into the I.

00:28:37:05 – 00:29:01:10
Robert Wolf
It’s hard to even look in the train, let alone go in the train just because. Just because that imagery. So, so that resonates. The dramatic irony. I guess I can get that, in a minute, but, the random shooting. Okay, so dramatic irony. I’m going to mention the three things where I well, first of all, the turning point is when they’re horseback riding and they’re randomly shooting all the people in the ghetto, the people that stayed, the people that that tried to hide very, very sad scene.

00:29:01:10 – 00:29:18:21
Robert Wolf
Because every. And you know, another thing that’s not talked about is pets. You know, how many did the pets get left behind and the pets get killed. And we know in, life is beautiful. There’s a little kitten, is strolling around the, the clothes that were stolen. Another thing. And I’m going to go back to the dramatic irony, another thing that resonates.

00:29:18:24 – 00:29:35:21
Robert Wolf
With all of it is the stolen luggage. They bring your goods, leave them here, and they’ll come. They will arrive. Big deception. And when my dad’s parents were all to Auschwitz, it was to be they were going to go to forest or farm, plant flowers, trees. Do you know, do, work on the foliage? That’s what.

00:29:35:21 – 00:29:53:15
Robert Wolf
That’s how they were to see. And they end up going to Auschwitz. So. So three points of dramatic irony, not necessarily related to my, my dad, but one is actually. So when, the, engineer they’re building the they’re constructing the building and the engineer comes up to, I think it’s almond goes, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing or I’m on both.

00:29:53:15 – 00:30:09:27
Robert Wolf
He’s the I think he’s a lieutenant, but he’s the most sadistic guy around. And, she says to me now, the structure is not sound, and we need to do this and maybe even start again. And, what does he say? We are not going to argue with these people. And and then he asks the guy shooter, shooter.

00:30:09:27 – 00:30:28:01
Robert Wolf
And it’s one of the few scenes where somebody gets shot and it’s not him doing it. So amazingly enough. And then the irony is that he decides to he changes his mind and, and decides to, to take it down and start all over again. Another irony was, the the lady that comes to Schindler, I don’t know if that was Helen Hirsch.

00:30:28:04 – 00:30:50:13
Robert Wolf
Helen, her hair, shoes, how to pronounce it. I don’t know if it’s her or the other one, but she comes to Schindler and says, can you get my parents into this? Into the factory here? And he says, you know, he’s practically screaming at her, saying, no, I can’t save everybody this and that and that. And then the guy escapes from the camp and, and just, randomly shoots 25 guys and then just Clarkston.

00:30:50:13 – 00:31:23:23
Robert Wolf
If I’m pronouncing Sharon I love, they really did their best trying to do the correct pronunciation and I think an accurate job. But stern tells Schindler that, you know, 25 people died. So Schindler, goes out of his way to bring in, the lady’s parents, which is which is pretty cool, too. I mean, and, so the other irony and oh, that resonates with my dad in the forced labor camp where, an officer would get drunk and some, some little piece of malfeasance, like somebody chirping a word or or moving in the line, and the guy gets past and he’s,

00:31:23:25 – 00:31:40:18
Robert Wolf
And he’s got the he’s got the gun. And, you threatened to shoot every tense man, in his drunk, in his drunk, state, and, in the end, doesn’t. But imagine the fear. You know, you dad, it can seem like that. And everybody else counting 1 to 1 through ten, you know, every 10th man they’re going to kill.

00:31:40:20 – 00:31:58:01
Robert Wolf
And, And the guy does that, too. He’s got the whole line of the men, and he shoots the guy with the, with the, I don’t remember. It’s a gun shot. I think it was a, shotgun. And then they shoot him in the head and and that, like, that scene is so vivid. The way that was bleeding, it would’ve been even more so in color.

00:31:58:04 – 00:32:16:22
Robert Wolf
But the irony there is the same thing. Just like when he randomly shoots the 25 men and, also the one person, and then he says, who’s, you know, who’s next? And then the kid smart enough to step forward and said, you know, you who did this? Who’s the one who created the malfeasance? And the kid points at the dead guy and probably saved a lot of lives, just by doing that.

00:32:16:22 – 00:32:36:01
Robert Wolf
So that’s more irony. And then and, and comparable with my dad had to go through, you know, random threaten to be killed randomly and thank God, they, they didn’t carry that out. The other piece of irony, which is almost redemption itself, is when, the I think it was the rabbi, was one of the older men making the parts, and his productivity was on the low side that compared it.

00:32:36:01 – 00:32:52:17
Robert Wolf
You know, it took some a minute to make the part, which is where you got so few partially take him out to shoot him and his gun jams and, you know, his backup gun jams, and he gets a gun from his, mother, the fellow officers and or soldiers, I don’t remember. It was an officer. And that gun jams and there’s 15 or 20 clicks.

00:32:52:19 – 00:33:08:03
Robert Wolf
We shoot this guy, and the poor guy’s got his neck going down. He knows he’s going to die any second. It reminds me of that, the Vilna, the Vilna photograph. And then he ends up just sitting with the butt of the gun and and lets him live. Imagine going through that kind of trauma and not having PTSD.

00:33:08:05 – 00:33:23:13
Robert Wolf
It’s amazing. But the irony is, when they hang golf, they have a trouble date. They’ve got him by the rope, but they have trouble checking out those. The step stool underneath him, it takes some at least like a half a minute. They can’t do it in the guy. So that’s a little bit of redemption too. But, more dramatic irony.

00:33:23:13 – 00:33:42:17
Robert Wolf
So I it’s a fantastically bad movie. And and so, so similar in in his point, you know, the trains and the, or the, forced labor and, you know, we see forced labor, of course, in concentration camps to sometimes women, sometimes men. We don’t talk about much about forced labor in, with women in our story.

00:33:42:17 – 00:33:48:08
Robert Wolf
But lately I’ve been taught and enlightened about that part, that part of it as well.

00:33:48:10 – 00:34:06:19
Dan LeFebvre
Something that we don’t see in Schindler’s List much is, is how others in the city reacted to the ghetto being set up and the Nazis moving the Jews into it. How did the civilians in and around Europe react to the Jewish ghetto being established for when your your grandparents were there?

00:34:06:21 – 00:34:23:12
Robert Wolf
Well, once they were in the ghetto, they had no access to the outside world. They had limited food, limited medical supplies and my dad, being a dentist, brought what he had. But it wasn’t enough. And ultimately it was to carry him off to Auschwitz to kill them. Most of them immediately, unfortunately. So I don’t think they had much time to even think about it.

00:34:23:12 – 00:34:48:26
Robert Wolf
But during, I’ll say this, that, but they were shunned. No doubt it was hard to go out shopping without being, bullied or picked on or even mugged. We talk about that in the or the fear of it. And also when my, my dad and his friend Frank were out on leave or whatever it was in town, or in that they were on camp, for one thing they didn’t have, then my dad needed a haircut.

00:34:48:26 – 00:35:06:12
Robert Wolf
And if you remember that scene, the anti-Semitic barber. But, they had the yellow bands was ridiculous hats that they had to wear and yellow bit unarmed paramilitary. And yeah, a couple what beautiful women walk by and they, they, they won’t even look at them. And believe me, the matter, they’re dying to meet A and B with a a warm blooded girl.

00:35:06:12 – 00:35:26:18
Robert Wolf
And it just didn’t happen. You were shunned. So, in its learned helplessness. I mean, people feared for their lives, for sure. And, they did what they were told, and and it’s scary stuff. So, and then. Oh, that remind me of another scene where in Schindler, the young girl, is yelling out, Goodbye Jews, goodbye Jews!

00:35:26:18 – 00:35:44:17
Robert Wolf
And, it’s awful to see that, because I think it reminds me of, what we just talked about. The Christians turning on the Jews. It also reminds me of what’s going on in Gaza at the, these children are being educated to hate Jewish people, hate Israel, hate Americans. And it’s that’s got to stop. That really has to stop.

00:35:44:20 – 00:36:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
There is a scene in in Schindler’s List where we see the Nazis going in there clearing everyone out of the ghetto, to take them to the concentration camps. You talked a little bit about that in the movie. The camps they take them to first is off, and then later in the movie we see Auschwitz, which you mentioned, and we’ll talk about Auschwitz in a moment, because I know your grandparents were there.

00:36:03:18 – 00:36:22:07
Dan LeFebvre
But according to Schindler’s List, seeing the brutality of the Nazi soldiers during the liquidation of the ghetto, that’s what leads Liam Neeson’s version of Oskar Schindler to start working with one of his employees. You mentioned him earlier. Is Doc Stern, Ben Kingsley’s character, to hire more and more Jews to help save them from being murdered by the Nazis.

00:36:22:09 – 00:36:36:13
Dan LeFebvre
Were there any transformational points like this for the civilians in Darfur in Hungary, where they started to change their minds about what they’re seeing? But the brutality of the Nazis, like, we kind of start seeing it happening in Schindler’s List with Oskar Schindler.

00:36:36:16 – 00:36:52:09
Robert Wolf
Well, great point. You know, that’s the turning point of that movie. If I haven’t already mentioned, when they’re horseback riding. Yeah, they’re looking down at that. One thing that resonates, too, is, the humiliation, the the general, the the men, the rabbis, you know, religious with the pious ain’t undercutting it. And they’re cutting their hair and laughing.

00:36:52:15 – 00:37:11:18
Robert Wolf
So that kind of humiliation, was there so humiliation we don’t talk about, as much. I think the Aryans were. And Hungary gets mentioned later that they were bringing in Hungarians, to one of the camps late, later in the movie. And that was true later in time, during at least a couple of years later. But that humiliation really, really resonates.

00:37:11:18 – 00:37:30:24
Robert Wolf
Well, what else is it? Yeah. The marching, the other humiliation is that, Gough has his own personal woman slave that he ends up abusing y’all. She’s. She goes the food and probably sex. Well, there is there is a sex scene or two in there. And of course, at the end he beats her up and but she survives.

00:37:30:27 – 00:37:46:29
Robert Wolf
But he beats her up and it’s drunk or whatever. It’s the wine cellar. I basically remember that scene, but, humiliation is a big thing about it. So, and then, of course, starvation is another one thing that resonates people to didn’t have food to eat. There was no there was no trade. There was nothing coming in. So shunned is the best word.

00:37:46:29 – 00:38:08:15
Robert Wolf
And like we said before, the the witness, the witness was the next victim. I also remember, golf shooting randomly at people that were sitting down and taking a break. So, Oh, and know the dramatic irony. He has a kid cleaning out his bathtub, and he’s trying to put the saddle on his horse. I don’t know if it’s the same kid, but, the guy that the kid that can’t put the kettle on the horse properly.

00:38:08:17 – 00:38:25:12
Robert Wolf
It’s right after Schindler talks about power and the power of the power, if you can forgive. And he remembers that for a while. So he forgives the kid, for the for the saddle. But then when he screws up using the wrong material to clean his bathtub, he ends up shooting him. And, it’s just, What a sadistic guy.

00:38:25:12 – 00:38:40:24
Robert Wolf
I mean, I was a guy who deserved to be executed without, without trial. I mean, so many witnesses. So, Yeah, that whole process, of course, it’s never going to be the same at every camp, but what? People running around in fear that they might get shot or killed, or if they take a break, they’re going to get killed.

00:38:41:02 – 00:38:48:14
Robert Wolf
You can’t. It’s just, some furthermore that what people had to think in their minds and stay strong while they’re doing it.

00:38:48:17 – 00:39:11:18
Dan LeFebvre
That those, those types of things are, like you said, unfathomable. Like it’s I, it’s what I’m trying to unravel. A lot of this. But, you know, in our discussion here, but also there are just some things like we there’s only so much that we can do as we’re talking here in this conversation that just it’s not. It will never be enough.

00:39:11:18 – 00:39:20:03
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, there’s to to to tell the true story of it. I mean, it’s yeah, I’ve tried to have words, but yeah, I can’t even do that.

00:39:20:10 – 00:39:42:08
Robert Wolf
Well, it was talk about Christians. You know, if we had Hamas, we had Hamas tanks and armored armored cars, guns, tanks, then that horrible flag, you know, marched in the streets here and, and, Florida or where you’re from, Oklahoma. God bless, the heartland. We would be thinking different then, it would affect us more then we would have.

00:39:42:10 – 00:40:03:26
Robert Wolf
We’d have a lot more fear. Yeah, but it’s it’s patchy areas. It’s Canada, Australia, parts of the U.S anti-Semitic. So it’s not it’s not directly in our face. But that’s why I’m doing this is so that it doesn’t happen. I mean, that’s why, 99% of us are good people. 99% of us believe in work, family, occasional vacation, religion, and if possible, whatever the freedom to vote, freedom speech.

00:40:03:29 – 00:40:26:01
Robert Wolf
Is that 1% or less that the ruins are for everybody and not just Hamas, you know, Osama bin laden and Saddam Hussein? Hitler, Pol Pot, the list goes on and on. We can counteract with better names Jesus, Moses, Noah, MLK, Gandhi, that. So there’s a nice there’s a balance there. But, we’re still talking about hate and war rather than these other guys.

00:40:26:01 – 00:40:41:27
Robert Wolf
I mean, unless you’re a staunch Christian or Jewish or Muslim, I don’t think a lot I meant for this to happen. Where? I don’t know, I don’t know much about the Muslim religion, but I do have Muslim friends, and they’re peaceful, and, So what’s going. I mean, I can’t get my arms around it. And, the thing about this book.

00:40:42:01 – 00:40:59:15
Robert Wolf
Yeah. And the story is my parents knew that it would be necessary to share it because they didn’t think that the hate and the Jewish scapegoating issue would go away. And each year they’re right, 60, 80 on our years. And the disturbing part is people find different ways to maim and torture, punish, kill each other. And it’s really sad.

00:40:59:15 – 00:41:16:27
Robert Wolf
And I just I can’t feel it because as a radiologist, we’re into preservation of life. The beauty of the human body, the beauty of the anatomy, the cell and all this training to go through it. There’s no room for racism or prejudice in my field. But these people would just. They would think nothing about chopping your head off or killing somebody instantly.

00:41:17:00 – 00:41:37:07
Robert Wolf
No respect for human life. And I can’t wrap my my hands around that. It’s just not that. It’s not what I was built for. And so we educate, we try to spread the word. We do podcasts, we do, book talks, book presentations, TV interviews, in some cases radio. And, we get the point across while sharing good stories, amazing stories throughout.

00:41:37:07 – 00:42:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
A lot of if you go back to Schindler’s List throughout a lot of that movie, it it does recreate the I mentioned your passion and and Auschwitz and where there were hundreds of thousands of people that were murdered. And unfortunately, that number also includes your grandparents, which is a very moving story told in the book. I think a lot of people base their knowledge of concentration camps today on what we see in movies like Schindler’s List.

00:42:05:15 – 00:42:23:23
Dan LeFebvre
But I remember the story of like The Latrine. And in your book, we don’t ever see in the movie Schindler’s List at all. So there’s obviously other things there that we don’t we’re not going to see in the movie. But based on what you know of your grandparents experience, how well do you think Schindler’s List does capturing the horrors of Auschwitz?

00:42:23:26 – 00:42:44:19
Robert Wolf
I think it’s amazing. Like I said, the cinematography is amazing. The storyline and the brutality. We’ll go back to the women guards that were were tougher than one thing that resonates. So, I mean, I don’t like spoiling too meaning, but my my dad’s a miracle. And my dad found out what happened to his parents. An eyewitness who happened to survive Auschwitz and meet, meet up with him in his hometown of Jura.

00:42:44:19 – 00:43:06:28
Robert Wolf
I mean, all of those. That’s a miracle after miracle that that happened. But, Yeah, being in the train reminded me of, my my my grandmother, the grandparents I never met, but my grandmother, was an orphan, a little girl orphan. And they went straight to the chamber. So, and actually, when I did that, when I first did this project, turning it from autobiography to biography, I had to walk away from from the book.

00:43:06:28 – 00:43:25:24
Robert Wolf
I had to walk away from the story for at least a week, ten days, because it profoundly affected me. So, so. And, you know, I hate to say this, but fortunately, she didn’t have to it. Her life didn’t have to linger on for months, months at a time. And where you’re starving and you’re trapped and you were on your forced labor, and you don’t know when your last day is going to be, Schindler.

00:43:25:24 – 00:43:40:00
Robert Wolf
I think they capture all of that pretty well. I mean, everybody’s going to have a different story. But it didn’t go well. And then another thing that resonates is my my grandfather, who was a dentist who told the the, the intake people at the intake that he was a dentist was a doctor, and he might be useful.

00:43:40:06 – 00:43:55:27
Robert Wolf
So they assign him to cleaning latrines, and we don’t see that in Schindler. But we sure see all these kids hiding in Auschwitz, including the one that you get shut out by every other letter, every other kid. And then he’s up, he ends up diving into the feces and he hides in the latrine or whatever you want.

00:43:56:04 – 00:44:07:07
Robert Wolf
It’s disgusting. I mean, I can’t imagine what was the movie with the kid from India who does the same thing. He ends up diving into the, into the feces, and it just, the. Joe, remember that movie?

00:44:07:07 – 00:44:07:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yes.

00:44:07:29 – 00:44:10:07
Robert Wolf
And he’s on jeopardy or something like.

00:44:10:09 – 00:44:11:14
Dan LeFebvre
Slumdog Millionaire.

00:44:11:16 – 00:44:15:27
Robert Wolf
Yes. Very good. Thank you. I knew you were. No, you got a brilliant memory. I can.

00:44:15:27 – 00:44:17:01
Dan LeFebvre
Go on.

00:44:17:03 – 00:44:35:10
Robert Wolf
And that’s the. Yeah. That’s good. I mean, I need more people like you helped me with the message. This is why we’re doing this, too. But, talking about great movies and and a story that could be a movie. At least some people say that, so, so that resonate. Yeah. And then. So these were I went by at least my, my dad’s parents, didn’t have to endure all that.

00:44:35:12 – 00:44:51:20
Robert Wolf
I mean, if you’ve ever fasted just one day without food, it’s tough enough. I can’t imagine week after week, we would bury little food. And, you know, you’ve seen the pictures of the people that are skin and bones. Those that were lucky enough to survive. But, what a what a terrible life. They must have adapted and they had to live then.

00:44:51:22 – 00:44:56:13
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it goes back to the words don’t really do it justice to to.

00:44:56:15 – 00:45:13:09
Robert Wolf
Not only that that personal. It’s the light. The light. So. So my dad’s father died probably of cholera week from the feces, you know. So that was, but there’s tuberculosis. There’s lice. My dad had a foot infection, when he was in, when he was forced labor camp, and he had lice a couple times. He had hepatitis.

00:45:13:09 – 00:45:30:10
Robert Wolf
He had a bad back. He had a lot going on. And then. And then recently talking about women in forced labor camps. There’s this guy in England, super nice and super dedicated to what we’re doing. He’s turning black and white photos into color photos, and he’s doing a good job, and he’s trying to get financial support for that.

00:45:30:12 – 00:45:48:13
Robert Wolf
But he did a, it was a short it was a short little documentary, maybe 2 or 3 minutes, maybe five, with conversion from black and white to color. And it was the forced labor. The women forced laborers from Hungary. And a lot of them had gangrene. They had gangrenous legs and gangrenous feet. And they actually, they depicted, what their skin look like.

00:45:48:13 – 00:46:12:14
Robert Wolf
And it’s brutal that. So, you know, you’d never think of gangrene. I mean, so a lot of health issues besides the starvation and lack of water to, of course, dehydration and, you know, electrolytes going to be off and, and, muscle mass goes and eventually you die because you’re, you’re malnourished. So I’m sure many, many people died from, I don’t know the exact numbers, but malnourishment, I’m sure, was not just getting shot or put in the gas chambers.

00:46:12:14 – 00:46:33:06
Robert Wolf
Just. Or other sickness, malnourishment, sickness. It’s just too much. It’s too much to think about. It’s 200. It is. And that need doesn’t need to happen. And it also resonates with Gaza. It with what’s the prisoners that are still there? I can’t imagine even if they released them today, the ones that are still alive, just talk about PTSD, talk about trying to overcome that kind of trauma, not knowing when your last day is.

00:46:33:06 – 00:46:38:03
Robert Wolf
Mostly that’s that’s the big thing, the wait and the boredom and, horror fun.

00:46:38:05 – 00:46:49:06
Dan LeFebvre
If we shift back to the movie, there’s, we’re talking about Schindler’s List, and that’s going to be the most popular movie about someone saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust. But it’s not the.

00:46:49:08 – 00:46:56:08
Robert Wolf
The Ten Commandments. Well, I gotta say, that’s a fantastic movie, too. But, I don’t mean. Sorry to interrupt. Yes.

00:46:56:09 – 00:47:01:15
Dan LeFebvre
No no no no no, that’s a that’s a classic a little bit outside the time frame that we’re talking about now.

00:47:01:15 – 00:47:07:18
Robert Wolf
And I’m kidding then Fiddler on the roof was another one. But it was a Rorschach. But, you know, that was a lot of anti-Semitism there too. But go ahead. I’m sorry.

00:47:07:18 – 00:47:41:02
Dan LeFebvre
I know you’re there’s another movie, called walking with the enemy about a Hungarian Jew named Ella Cohen, who he dresses up in an SS uniform to help rescue other Jews. Now, Ella Cohen is another fictional character, but he is based on a real person. Again, with with pronunciation. I believe it’s, Pincus Rosenbaum. He was disguised. He disguised himself in uniforms of the SS, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, which you mentioned earlier, the the Hungarian Lavant and the with the purpose of of saving, I believe hundreds of Jews.

00:47:41:04 – 00:47:51:15
Dan LeFebvre
During your research, did you come across other stories like Oskar Schindler or like Rosenbaum, of people who risked their lives to save the lives of others?

00:47:51:18 – 00:48:11:04
Robert Wolf
Raoul Wallenberg, my my, my dad and his friend Frank had those, passes, those forged papers. And he did, I don’t know, hundreds, thousands of them to help save people. Wallenberg was from Sweden, if I’m not mistaken. And I believe he was Jewish, but fantastic what he did. You going back to Schindler real quick is the way he laments.

00:48:11:04 – 00:48:26:23
Robert Wolf
You know this. Amongst all the murders he did no lamentation. You know. No. No sense of, of of, of mortality, no sense of, what’s the word I’m looking for? It just does. It doesn’t bother. And it doesn’t affect you.

00:48:26:25 – 00:48:29:21
Dan LeFebvre
No sense of decency. I mean, humanity, like Mr..

00:48:29:25 – 00:48:49:17
Robert Wolf
Schindler saving all these people. And he’s still got his car and he’s still got, like, enough jewelry or whatever. Yet on on him, he used his rings and he still your e remorse about. That’s the what I was and will remark you remorse is he elements about how he could have saved another eight or 10 or 12 Jewish people and and they had to console him because of that.

00:48:49:17 – 00:49:19:28
Robert Wolf
He cries, he breaks down. It’s a real it’s a real irony too. So, Yeah, but, but so he helps. So like Wallenberg, probably countless, Christian people, the Christians out, my dad, I mean, he wouldn’t survive without a lot of Christian help. Now, these aren’t famous stories, but being able to go to a casino, and hide in a casino, hide in a, a nunnery or, nursing home, with demented people and and, where else did he, his friend, hiding in a haberdashery and a hatbox, that kind of thing.

00:49:19:28 – 00:49:36:08
Robert Wolf
A lot of Christians help them. And then even after that, during communist Hungary, my my dad was getting, a few shekels sent, from Israel, from my mother’s mother and stepfather at this point, who was a Marky Mark in Israel, a consulate to Hungary. So they’d sneak them a few shekels, to, to this place in Budapest.

00:49:36:08 – 00:49:53:03
Robert Wolf
And my dad, it was a cloak and dagger story, the way my dad had to weave in and out of buildings to sneak to get that money, because he could have been in prison for that, too. So, a lot of people helped Jewish and Christian. Those that could a lot didn’t, again, fear for their lives. Not a lot of famous, well, here’s one actually.

00:49:53:03 – 00:50:14:15
Robert Wolf
Sorry. In communist Hungary, though, it’s not. My parents had an illegal Jewish wedding in 1953. My mom’s uncle, what? He sponsored that in his home. And like I say, it was illegal, and KGB was there, so, and my parents, when my parents, were on their honeymoon, the. He got arrested. He was a surgeon, chief of surgery in a Budapest hospital.

00:50:14:18 – 00:50:30:28
Robert Wolf
And they Waldemar for 13 months tortured him and, try to get him to confess to the to the murder. I think it was Wallenberg, if I’m not mistaken. So. And he wouldn’t he wouldn’t do it. And he was he came back a broken man, and obviously. And then they put him out in some rural clinic or something.

00:50:31:00 – 00:50:55:22
Robert Wolf
He ended up, ironically, in Sweden, where he had a successful career, and, solo daughter Susie, who was the last survivor in my book and just died in Jerusalem. Couple that soon after the attacks. 12 or 7. So she was comatose at the time and long standing on. And so as bad as that was, and it was great busier the year before, at least enough to know, about what was happening in Gaza and Israel.

00:50:55:22 – 00:51:22:01
Robert Wolf
So, all of them rest in peace. But yeah, so there’s famous and there’s not so famous in the autobiography. My dad mentions Mengele, that that is that Mengele greeted his father. But, the research that we this was a lot of research in our book, multiple people, historians, but, Berenbaum, Michael Berenbaum, who was one of the professors who wrote a tremendous, testimonial to other professors, did too.

00:51:22:02 – 00:51:38:06
Robert Wolf
They’re all good. But he mentions that don’t mix up where we’re talking about an Auschwitz because he had been there. He knows the history. And so we we took out Mengele. But, it may well be. And this is speculation that my dad’s father met Mengele, and he was the one that appealed since he was a doctor, too.

00:51:38:08 – 00:51:54:27
Robert Wolf
He was brutal himself, right? I mean, taking our feelings and using, humans as, for experiments and all that. But, if it was him or whoever it was, I guess I can’t call it nice, but got him a week’s worth. Two weeks worth of life, even though that week was miserable. So there are people that,

00:51:54:29 – 00:52:04:00
Robert Wolf
Yeah, the circles there are overlapping circles, for sure. And, as soon as we are done, I’ll probably think a couple more or two, but, you never know. And that’s a great question.

00:52:04:02 – 00:52:23:15
Dan LeFebvre
I think it’s great to know that. I mean, there are the famous one. Oskar Schindler obviously is famous, but he’s famous because of the movie and and the book and the as well. But he wasn’t doing it for fame. And there’s, you know, a lot of these stories, like you’re talking about the they’re not well known now, but that’s not why they were doing it.

00:52:23:15 – 00:52:54:21
Dan LeFebvre
They were doing it to help fellow humans. And I think that’s that in and of itself is a little bit of a light in, you know, in this dark time of history where there’s all this going on. But there are some people that will help. And I I’m happy to hear that. Yes, there were others that even though we might not know their names and whoever’s listening to this may not know their names, but they were still hoping because it was the right thing to do, not because they wanted to get their name, you know, a movie made about them.

00:52:54:26 – 00:53:00:16
Dan LeFebvre
So that we’d be talking about them on a podcast later. But, you know, it’s just the right thing to do.

00:53:00:18 – 00:53:20:26
Robert Wolf
Yeah. No, it’s it’s very palpable. And, you know, you really identify with Schindler and you always have the it’s another ironic thing. You have the swastika. Yeah. The little swastika on a super all the time. But it was, it was this guys, you know, that was it. But you’re right. He just did it out of, the love for human beings and and that that goes for Moses and that goes for Jesus and Gandhi and all these other former leaders.

00:53:20:26 – 00:53:35:03
Robert Wolf
And, of course they got some recognition, of course. But, and another one that comes to mind is Captain Khomeini. If you remember his, he’s the one who got them the forged papers. And, and I believe if I did my memory short, I’m going through my book again. You have to. Every so often. There’s never all the details.

00:53:35:11 – 00:53:54:17
Robert Wolf
But, he might have been Jewish, but since he was a big guy in the military, he had, privileges. So he helped my dad out to more than once, too. So that was another one. You may have been Christian, maybe Jewish, but, I’m glad that my parents didn’t know more famous people because. Or my grandparents, I should say, because, that to me, been more apt to be killed.

00:53:54:19 – 00:54:10:25
Robert Wolf
It didn’t matter anyway. But, if they lived in the out in the middle of nowhere, which Jer was, and it was a, pretty, very populated, industrial town. So, and that was it. They were they were in Transylvania first. And Albert. Julia, if I’m not pronouncing that right, might be I mean, if it was Spanish would be Albert.

00:54:10:27 – 00:54:42:04
Robert Wolf
Julia, I guess, or Julia it might be, but. Albert. Julia. So they they loved Mother Hungary, as do my parents. And, they decided to go back to George. So instead of living Transylvania. So. And that might have been an ill fated decision to my mom and dad. Love mother Hungary, too, by the way, and would have probably stayed if the Americans had taken over rather than the Soviets, because they had had enough with the two wars and, and and countless persecution, illegal weddings, torture, deaths and, deception.

00:54:42:04 – 00:54:58:18
Robert Wolf
You know, their, their colleagues and friends and fellow doctors were trying to get them to convert to the communist ideal. And my parents wouldn’t buy into that. And, and that state, the the Soviets, in their arrogance, called my dad not a real enemy. And that’s what they really were. They love Mother Hungary, but they weren’t going to stay.

00:54:58:21 – 00:55:13:17
Robert Wolf
My mom was a med school, by the way, to winning them. So. And dad was already in okay. And and he had to double down as a trauma surgeon during a revolution. So they’re both frontliners. And after that they said and they were closing the borders and people were leaving in droves. But they managed to get out.

00:55:13:21 – 00:55:19:13
Robert Wolf
That’s my dad’s fourth escape, which is they’re all harrowing, but, memorable for sure.

00:55:19:15 – 00:55:42:17
Dan LeFebvre
Right. Mentioning Hungary and, earlier I mentioned Ben Kingsley and Schindler’s List and that how that movie started in 1939. But Ben Kingsley is in another movie called walking with the enemy, and he plays another person that you mentioned, Regent Horthy, the Hungarian leader. That movie takes place in 1944, when the Germans finally occupy Hungary. And Regent Horthy doesn’t want to let the Nazis take the Jews.

00:55:42:17 – 00:55:58:02
Dan LeFebvre
So he’s trying to sign a deal with the Soviet Union to get the Nazis out of Hungary. But then in a group called Arrow Cross, which you had also mentioned earlier, takes control of Hungary up until the Red Army pushes the Nazis out of the during the siege of Budapest. This is all as far as the movie is concerned.

00:55:58:02 – 00:56:03:09
Dan LeFebvre
But what really happened with Hungarian, Polish artists during World War Two?

00:56:03:11 – 00:56:20:21
Robert Wolf
Oh well, that’s you. And you kind of said it yourself. I mean, you needed a guide. You needed it literally. So Horthy takes over after he was an admirable admiral in World War One. He takes over Hungary again. The Jews feel like he’s he’s not, friendly to the Jews, even though what if what you say is true, that might be the opposite.

00:56:20:21 – 00:56:23:24
Robert Wolf
But, kudos to him for for trying to prevent that.

00:56:23:26 – 00:56:26:25
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I was in the movie. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s the way the movie presents.

00:56:26:25 – 00:56:40:06
Robert Wolf
Oh, yeah. Got to see the movie in and review the book and compare notes. There’s not a lot in the book about there’s a lot of history, but it’s it’s history light. I call it my coauthor, Janice. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. She’s a fantastic writer, but helped me turn the book and something really special.

00:56:40:06 – 00:56:56:26
Robert Wolf
But, if you were a junior school, they had the red chair. There’s a white chair. You know, you didn’t have communism. It was in then. They’re trying to say communism is no good. They’re beating up people. They’re going door to door. And then, of course, the rise of fascism, the Nazis entering, the, entering Hungary.

00:56:56:26 – 00:57:27:26
Robert Wolf
So the political climate then was you did what the Nazis said or you’re screwed. You know, that was Hungary trying to fight Germany. It was horse horses versus tanks, you know. How does that let me know how that goes for you. Right. And then, finally 1944 or 45, you Arrow cross, tremendously anti-Semitic. In my, I, maybe like a Gestapo or KGB type thing, they were worse to the Jews and they went out of their way opposite of Schindler, where, you know, the last day of the war and all the guards you only day, that’s all the guards.

00:57:27:26 – 00:57:42:24
Robert Wolf
And, in with the, prisoners, the laborers, and, he openly invites them to, to do what they want with them. Kill them or not. Or you can go home to your families, he says, and they all even go, well, that’s not what it was like in Hungary that at the end of the war, they went out of their way to kill as many Hungarians as they could.

00:57:42:27 – 00:58:07:09
Robert Wolf
And we all know about this. The Danube River, 21,000 Jewish people were shot to death, in cold blood, without their clothes on in the winter. December 43rd, January 44th. And, so that’s, it’s complete. Opposite of Schindler and it’s very set. So that’s the politics then. And of course, communism takes over. And, you know, we get the Stalin years and, and they wouldn’t go away.

00:58:07:09 – 00:58:25:20
Robert Wolf
And the irony is, like if the Americans had one or the West, the allies, then I probably wouldn’t be here. And I’d probably been born and raised in Hungary and maybe got lucky enough to go to med school. But they they left for the U.S., so. And then obviously, the Soviet, the Red Army and Soviet stayed on for forever and ever and ever.

00:58:25:23 – 00:58:45:13
Robert Wolf
Maybe now it’s a little bit of a democracy, but I don’t know much about recent Hungarian politics. But what I’ve seen and heard, the, Orban is, is Putin’s puppet. And, I could see him doing land for people. Deal, without dropping out. And let’s listen on. Jared’s never got a break for 80, 100 years, the most the majority of the 20th century was.

00:58:45:20 – 00:59:03:23
Robert Wolf
And the sad thing is, Hungarian Jews were. Well, if we’re going to flash, flash back to before World War one, 1890s, you know, the gay 90s and all that, Hungarian Jews and Jews in Europe were well treated. They were well respected. And and that boy that that climate turned, between world War one, World War two and and beyond with the Communist.

00:59:03:23 – 00:59:21:27
Robert Wolf
So, so Stalin dies in 53. That was good news. Hungarian, because he was really brutal, and I and Hungary in 56, they have their revolution. And, it goes badly for them. And then the hard liners became even more so because they were clamping down on the citizens. They didn’t want people to revolt.

00:59:21:27 – 00:59:37:12
Robert Wolf
And and they almost they didn’t almost win, but they almost got the Soviets out of there. And then just something changed about it. But instead of less, it became more with all the tanks coming in. And, that’s something that my dad said to the were that the men that were driving the tanks were from the Far East.

00:59:37:12 – 00:59:55:04
Robert Wolf
They were from, I don’t think it was Malaysia, maybe Burma. But they thought they were in Egypt. They thought they were in the Sinai, the Sinai War in 56. But they weren’t. They were. They were in Hungary fighting. So, that’s that was an interesting little tidbit. So it’s kind of like, oh, sorry, the North Koreans, you know, going to fight with the Russians kind of sounds like that, right?

00:59:55:04 – 01:00:01:08
Robert Wolf
They, they, you know, they recruit, they recruit people from other countries. Well, World War II was all about that, too.

01:00:01:08 – 01:00:26:05
Dan LeFebvre
But you you mentioned World War One and even before World War One, and that lead right into the last movie that I want to talk to you about, today’s, 1999 film, epic film called sunshine. I know up until now we’ve mostly talked about World War Two, but sunshine focuses on three generations of characters, all played by Ray finds across generations of a family called the Sun Shines, a, Hungarian Jewish family.

01:00:26:11 – 01:00:44:23
Dan LeFebvre
And the movie goes from the end of the 19th century with Hungarian nationalism through World War One, World War Two, and then into the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. And the first generation of the movie we see refines version of ignite, Sun and Shine. He wants to be a judge, but to do that he has to change his last name to something.

01:00:44:23 – 01:01:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
According to the movie is more Hungarian, so he changes it to show where there pressure even before the rise of fascism. Because in the movie this is happening, you know, before World War one and 19th century, was there pressure for Hungarians to hide their Jewish heritage?

01:01:03:20 – 01:01:18:12
Robert Wolf
Yeah. I’m thank you for reminding me of that movie, because I’ve heard of it recently and I didn’t remember the title. So if you don’t mind, please email me that, because that’s something that sounds like. But it’s totally, it’s encountered distinction too. Oh, he was in Schindler. I mean, that that kind of, that kind of wants to be a judge.

01:01:18:18 – 01:01:37:27
Robert Wolf
And he’s an excellent actor, don’t get me wrong. But, and so is the guy that played Schindler, you know, Liam, Liam Neeson, and we back to Ben Kingsley. But yeah, my dad’s parents converted. They converted to Christianity, reluctantly, but they did. And, it was so he could practice dentistry and hide his heritage. And my dad’s mother hated it, and.

01:01:37:27 – 01:01:55:00
Robert Wolf
But they did. So, and I’m sure a lot of other Hungarian Jews did. I mean, I’ve read about it and heard that other Hungarian used it in it, and of course, hiding certain valuables, hiding radios, hiding your religion. That was a part of your heritage. And it’s horrible thing. Now, they weren’t that religious, but for the Orthodox Jew either.

01:01:55:00 – 01:02:14:14
Robert Wolf
Good luck having that up. And, until they got to Auschwitz and you weren’t allowed to practice religion or do anything, they shaved off all your hair, humiliated you, killed you, clowns too. Not just the religious were clowns. But they were fortunate enough to convert back. My. I’m a mr. Cronenberg. My dad’s father’s, his cousin, just turns up.

01:02:14:14 – 01:02:30:21
Robert Wolf
I forget how the circumstances of how they meet, but he’s he’s wealthy, and he helps him open up a private practice, and they’re in their home and, lends the money or whatever. Maybe if ghost money and we don’t really talk about how it’s returned, if at all. But he has to convert. They have to convert back to Judaism.

01:02:30:21 – 01:02:45:13
Robert Wolf
And as soon as they get that news, my dad’s mom’s taking the cross off the wall. And, not that they didn’t like Christians because most of their friends were Christians, no doubt. Because they didn’t always share in with the Jewish people, especially the Orthodox. So, and so they converted back. So it was a big sacrifice for them.

01:02:45:18 – 01:03:02:19
Robert Wolf
I can’t imagine converting to Christianity. I love Christianity, I think it’s great religion and theory. I think, that Christians have had a hard time over the last, you know, thousand, 2000 years in certain cases. The Bible talks about the Spanish Inquisition. We talk about the Crusades. So all of that, both at both ends of it. Right.

01:03:02:19 – 01:03:23:06
Robert Wolf
And also Muslims and Jews as well, too. So, yeah, a lot of sacrifices they had to make, to finally get a life going, finally having my dad, who grows up, not wealthy, but, you know, upper middle, grows up as a spoiled kid, ironically ends up forced labor and gets through that. But, so the 20s were kind of easy on them.

01:03:23:09 – 01:03:37:02
Robert Wolf
But, in between where during, during certain times they had to convert at the either. And then of course, you couldn’t if you didn’t wear your yellow star or a yellow band. In my dad’s case, in the forced labor, you’d be punished or shot for sure. You’ll.

01:03:37:05 – 01:04:00:04
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you might have already answered my my next question on that one, because in sunshine, the next generation is very finds plays the same. He, he plays different characters in each generation. So in the first generation refines, character is ignites, and he’s trying to become a judge. And then the next generation, once the child grows up, they have a younger, you know, different actor playing the younger version, and he grows up.

01:04:00:04 – 01:04:18:27
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s also a great find, you know? But this time he’s Adam Shaw. And in Adam’s timeline, this is during World War two, and he has to convert. He converts to Roman Catholicism because Jews aren’t allowed to join the fencing club, which is what he wants to do. But then in the movie, obviously that doesn’t work. They find out about his Jewish ancestry.

01:04:18:27 – 01:04:31:29
Dan LeFebvre
And so you can’t just convert. It doesn’t doesn’t really work. So would it be with the movie’s concept there be correct that switching religions wouldn’t work as far as the brutality of the Nazis to escape that?

01:04:32:02 – 01:04:51:13
Robert Wolf
Probably not. I mean, I don’t even know how people know who’s Jewish and who is. And I mean, I have no idea what’s happened once the traumas, on the door. I mean, I, you know, I don’t know how they, how they could masterfully and systematically find them all and exterminate them. But, you bring up a good point, because my dad, my dad’s father, was Jewish.

01:04:51:13 – 01:05:13:02
Robert Wolf
He lost a government job as a dentist. They he had to be, first of all, let them do part time. And then they laid him off and they said, you know, no pension, no benefits. And then ultimately laid off. We talked about the sign. No Jews or dogs. That was out there in Hungary, too. So you weren’t allowed to fencing, you know, certain, bars, restaurants, places of worship, places of business.

01:05:13:02 – 01:05:27:14
Robert Wolf
So Jews weren’t allowed to go to. So and that same sign that we, we talk about in, life was beautiful and, also my dad was not allowed to be on the swim team because he was Jewish. And, my dad loved to swim. I was a pretty good swimmer in high school. I guess I got that from my dad.

01:05:27:14 – 01:05:44:23
Robert Wolf
I swam for four years, and, he did breaststroke, me butterfly and freestyle. But anyway, he had he was kicked off the swim team because he was Jewish. So, yeah, ramifications were there. And, very sad. And it’s too bad because his coach liked him and and his friends like them. And they were very sad for him, but there was nothing they could do,

01:05:44:25 – 01:06:02:03
Dan LeFebvre
Those sort of things. Again, it’s hard to wrap my head around because. So what does that have to do with swimming? Like it? Like you’re swimming in a pool in water. I mean, you’re competing in not to not to take away from how serious it can be for competitions and stuff, but it’s it’s still a sport and it’s similar.

01:06:02:03 – 01:06:21:02
Dan LeFebvre
We see the similar sort of thing in, in the movie with sunshine, except it’s fencing. He’s, you know, he’s fencing. He’s like, that’s part of the reason why he ends up he converts is because he’s like, this doesn’t really it doesn’t affect my how good I am at fencing and with my practicing. And I imagine a similar thing for, for swimming like it does, it doesn’t affect that.

01:06:21:02 – 01:06:29:17
Dan LeFebvre
And so it’s, it’s, it goes back to that concept of what as we’re talking about, it, there’s so much more that, you know, it’s just it’s hard to wrap your head around.

01:06:29:18 – 01:06:48:00
Robert Wolf
And so it’s awful now, you know, ironically, the Olympics came up in a recent podcast too, and y can every day be like the Olympics? Yeah. Why can’t we do peace negotiations and tear off negotiations in the hot tub, or over find a nice table with a tablecloth and, you know, nice silverware? The the Olympics, exemplifies that.

01:06:48:00 – 01:07:06:14
Robert Wolf
It’s the one time where for the 2 or 3 weeks that the all these countries get together, they compete, they put all the bibs, all the politics, all the disagreements off you know, back. They leave it on the field or behind them and they compete. And it’s great sportsmanship. And why can’t, why can’t our politicians, why can’t our leaders, do that?

01:07:06:14 – 01:07:24:14
Robert Wolf
I mean, it’s such a such a great lesson. So I love the Olympics, not only because I love sports, but also just that concept of, worldwide, a worldwide peace and, the amicable feeling that you got, and I just love it. I mean, third place, person congratulating the first on the gold medal winner, that kind of thing.

01:07:24:17 – 01:07:44:16
Robert Wolf
Arm in arm in arm, holding our flags. Just the fact, you know, we’re talking about kneeling and and, during, it’s not a big thing lightly, thank God. But kneeling or not respecting the national anthem, my mom and dad would spit in those people. They would be. How dare you? You know, we we were barely allowed to practice what we want in a free country.

01:07:44:16 – 01:08:04:15
Robert Wolf
How dare you do that in this country? And they would, think. I mean, they got to their dad, but they. I got the narrative experience, the the the people kneeling and and not respecting the flag, multi-millionaires, people that are privileged, privileged enough and talented enough, and marketable enough to to be in sports and make lots of money, be very popular.

01:08:04:15 – 01:08:24:06
Robert Wolf
And when they do that, it’s it just doesn’t hurt the snarling. And so those kind of things, that’s what we’re battling here. You know, we got to respect our country and our freedoms, and our luck and realize that what happened to my dad could happen to any one of us. Could be a bad neighbor. Bad local government, federal government, foreign government, natural disaster, bad business deal.

01:08:24:06 – 01:08:39:07
Robert Wolf
Whatever it is could happen to us where we’re on the run not knowing where your next meal is. So not only are we going to sleep, not not knowing if you’re going to get a job or where you will, and you still you’re still, you don’t know. You can’t meet people. You can’t be around people that that spot you and say, oh, there’s a Jew.

01:08:39:07 – 01:08:47:24
Robert Wolf
There’s, Because you hear that. So there’s we talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. Even during escapes, there was no such thing.

01:08:47:27 – 01:09:11:23
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to sunshine, the last generation in that movie is Adam, son Ivan. And he survives World War two. But then he joins the communists because they seem to be the liberators of the brutality of the Nazis had inflicted in Hungary. But then, as the Hungarian Revolution breaks out in 1956, in the movie we see Ivan, he realizes the communists are brutal and corrupt also.

01:09:12:00 – 01:09:38:14
Dan LeFebvre
And then at the very end of that movie, Ivan learns from an old letter from his great grandfather, who was at the very beginning of the movie. It’s it’s a long movie. But he finds out that in this letter, it’s the goal is not to be accepted by others. And in this letter, as you reads it, Ivan then has the inspiration to change his name from shores back to sunshine to embrace his Jewish ancestry.

01:09:38:16 – 01:09:58:14
Dan LeFebvre
And like a lot of the movie characters that we’ve talked about today, the Shine is high. Family from the movie sunshine are fictional. They’re not real. But of course, the unimaginable hardships that they faced in the movie were real events that generations of of your family faced as well. So just like Ivan took lessons from his family’s past at the end of the movie and build a better life for himself.

01:09:58:14 – 01:10:09:04
Dan LeFebvre
As we kind of start to wrap up our discussion today, if you took a look at your family’s history, what’s one lesson that you’ve learned that people today can apply to create a better future?

01:10:09:06 – 01:10:26:04
Robert Wolf
I have to see that movie sunshine. It sounds. I mean, it sounds like they stole my stole my own story. Now, would you remind me? Because I do want to, but yeah, my, my mom’s uncle, Zoltan was she. He converted. He was a communist because he wanted to. He wanted to survive. And, my mom probably hated it, but he was.

01:10:26:04 – 01:10:43:18
Robert Wolf
It helped him. He was a he was a monkey in the government and in the economic the economic plan after World War two. And, I read some of the notes, those turned up and I it was really and I don’t mean to get off the subject, but it was really poignant and depressing actually saying, well, what what do we do with our, our Jews?

01:10:43:25 – 01:11:03:10
Robert Wolf
And they are mostly farms and factories. I’m not going to talk about military. I’m talking about the civilian Jews because they couldn’t work. They couldn’t be educated. Finally, they let my dad get into medical school, 10%, quota, which is 10% quota, which is amazing that he even got in. But, so but he was a communist, so he, you know, resonates really, really well with whatever.

01:11:03:10 – 01:11:23:24
Robert Wolf
My mom and dad wouldn’t buy into it as we already mentioned, that, like I said, this country is amazing. Accountability is an important. It’s an important message. Don’t point at people. It just, you know, after 911, we had Islamophobia. After the coronavirus epidemic. We had the Asian eight. Now tober seventh. That’s the Jewish people.

01:11:23:24 – 01:11:39:12
Robert Wolf
Well, what do I have to do with Gaza? And October 7th, I support Israel, I support peace, and, that that that unnecessary. You know, you’re wasting your time, with these protests, these kids in Colombia, you don’t know how good you have it. You know, I, I think people would tell the end of Harvard or Columbia or privilege.

01:11:39:12 – 01:12:03:24
Robert Wolf
They would be. And, people that are doing this and and protesting and calling for the death of Israel and America, it’s just there’s no room for it. Not for me, not for you, and not in this country. And so I identify with the peaceful people, try to get a handle around, at least. Finally, they’re curtailing funding for universities everywhere I could in there, I’d be showing them and and suing them and suing them and and doing more talks in the area.

01:12:03:24 – 01:12:20:28
Robert Wolf
I mean, believe me, that’s all I’m doing anyway, but we need to, appreciate what we have. Accountability. And if you’re bored with what you have, you got if you’re complaining, change vectors. If you don’t like your job, change jobs, work part time, write a book. Everybody’s got a story. Write a poem, write an opera. Go to the library.

01:12:20:28 – 01:12:37:28
Robert Wolf
Go to the museum. Spend more time with your family. Give back to the community. It’s not just about food, shelter, clothing. Unlike for my mom and dad and, all the victims, it’s all food, shelter and clothing. But for now, for us, I put a little more into your life, put a more pot, and, love your neighbor, you know, and I don’t I don’t mean to be corny.

01:12:37:28 – 01:12:57:02
Robert Wolf
Bring a neighbor some macaroons or whatever. Invite them for the Seder. Just get to know them better and embrace them. And things. And things. Well, it all starts. Leadership starts from within. You know, you’re not going to be a leader if you’re not a good person. If you’re not. And I don’t mean no Hitler leader because he just led by charisma and, and, all his, his garbage is, propaganda.

01:12:57:04 – 01:13:14:01
Robert Wolf
But, you can lead by example, and it’s never too late to do the right thing. There’s no substitute for experience. I got a lot of, you know, the trend is your friend, you can learn something from every case, as we say in radiology. But as now, I’ve been on both sides of the needle. You can learn something from every person you know.

01:13:14:01 – 01:13:30:13
Robert Wolf
You can learn from every situation. And don’t forget that, don’t be that. That dead shark swim in the water. Just keep on moving. And if you don’t like what you’re doing and don’t don’t watch and complain, do something else. Life is short here. It’s our only commodity. It’s. You know, time is. Our time is our only commodity.

01:13:30:13 – 01:13:41:24
Robert Wolf
It’s not gold or silver stocks, real estate. It’s time. So use it. Use it wisely. Like my dad used to say. Enjoy every moment. And now I understand why.

01:13:41:26 – 01:14:02:10
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I love that I love that, and that’s one thing as we’ve talked about you just looking back to some of the movies we talked about, the concept that I get is a lot of the things that led to like the atrocities Auschwitz that we talked about. It didn’t jump right to that. It was there were steps that they got there.

01:14:02:13 – 01:14:26:01
Dan LeFebvre
And although we’ve we talked mostly about historical events that took place around World War Two today, a lot of people have compared the current climate here in the United States as I’m recording this, similar to the rise of fascism that resulted in Nazi Germany. And I’m just curious, from your perspective, do you think there’s any truth to those comparisons, or is that kind of overblown just, extremism?

01:14:26:03 – 01:14:44:26
Robert Wolf
That’s such a great question. It’s hard to know. I hope not. That’s why there’s people like me trying to prevent that from happening. Call Congress, call you local government. What are you guys doing about anti-Semitism? I’m still doing it. I hate getting ghosted. That’s a big part of it being rejected. I don’t mind getting rejected like people that are apathetic, but too much apathy is going to be the danger to us.

01:14:44:26 – 01:15:04:25
Robert Wolf
And if the Jewish population doesn’t survive, you know, the LGBTQ, the criticize the Jewish and African-Americans, if you guys are next and and those those that glorify Hitler, you guys were next. You just don’t even realize it. So, now in some ways, yeah, in some countries worse than here. But even in America, in World War two, there was the rise of anti-Semitism.

01:15:04:25 – 01:15:23:16
Robert Wolf
And, fortunately not fascism. But until the guns are pointed at me, I feel relief. As long as the government and the local police are protecting us, then I feel safe. Whatever. If it starts to turn. And we talked about the your armored trucks and tanks going down the streets with the flags. If it ever comes to that, then I’d say, well, no, we’re doomed.

01:15:23:16 – 01:15:45:23
Robert Wolf
But, at least for the short term. But, hopefully that never happens. I can’t see that happening. But you never know. I mean, Australia and Canada, Europe, it’s still going on. So it’s up to the government, the people that are supposed to protect others. As Reagan said, that’s what government’s job is not to and not to, to to take from others or its or to use the people.

01:15:45:23 – 01:15:52:00
Robert Wolf
It’s, it’s I’m paraphrasing, but a government’s job is to protect us. Jewish. Christian doesn’t matter. Muslim.

01:15:52:03 – 01:15:58:26
Dan LeFebvre
We’re all human. We’re all. We’re all. What is it? The JFK quotes, we all share this planet together or something. Something along.

01:15:58:26 – 01:16:17:23
Robert Wolf
Those lines. Exactly. No. It’s true, it’s true. And we’re we’re getting beyond that. Why are the Soviets and the Americans get along in space stations and the moon or whatever, but they can’t get along and Mother Earth, right? I mean, so that’s, it’s another thing like the Olympics. Yeah. It doesn’t even make sense to me. And probably Antarctica and Greenland and everybody is going to set up whatever.

01:16:17:25 – 01:16:33:08
Robert Wolf
And that works for me. You know, it’s so how about annexing Canada? What about that kind of concept? I, you know, people are thinking out of the box lately and maybe I like it, maybe I don’t, but it’s worth a look because things have to change. Canada needs a security alternative to the US. On and on and on.

01:16:33:13 – 01:16:55:13
Robert Wolf
And maybe it’s good economically too, unless it’s come up. And I don’t know that it would be so complicated. And I know our resistance. The natives would be, Mexico. Maybe not so much, but that would be scary for me because I think it’s a it’s got it’s violent areas and etc.. But interestingly, a Jewish woman is the new president of Mexico, so and a Jewish lady is, is the new mayor of Beverly Hills.

01:16:55:13 – 01:17:15:18
Robert Wolf
So, that gives me hope. I think that’s great. I mean, I love California, and if it weren’t so expensive, I maybe I would live there instead of Florida. But, with who knows? And it’s one of the liberal for me, too. But, you know, it’s a great state and, many, many people. So it’s good to see that some people that are in leadership positions are going to be on the side of peace, not just because they’re Jewish.

01:17:15:18 – 01:17:29:03
Robert Wolf
That’s the side of peace. So they get it. They care. That’s another lesson. It’s good to care. It’s important to care if you, you’re doomed if you don’t. So whatever is your own life or the life of others? It’s important.

01:17:29:05 – 01:17:44:00
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show to chat about all these various movies. I know we’ve mentioned your book called Not a Real Enemy The True Story of the Hungarian Jewish Man’s Fight for freedom. We’ve mentioned a few times throughout our discussion today, but there’s so many things in the book that we didn’t even get a chance to talk about.

01:17:44:00 – 01:18:01:06
Dan LeFebvre
I’m going to add a link to it in the show notes, so anyone watching or listening to this right now can pick up their own copy. As I was reading your book, it really read like a movie and I can’t wait until it is turned into one. And since all movies have teasers and trailers before I let you go, can you share a teaser of your book for everyone watching this?

01:18:01:06 – 01:18:03:06
Dan LeFebvre
Now?

01:18:03:09 – 01:18:23:14
Robert Wolf
Wow. Yeah, yeah, from your mouth to God’s ears. Because, we we’ve been trying to clear some producers. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s a long shot, but a teaser. A man who escapes four times, I can’t imagine one escape. I mean, I’ve been reading books, guys escaping, and they’re not even Jewish. They’re. They’re prisoners of war from Poland or whatever, escaping from thousands of miles away.

01:18:23:16 – 01:18:40:12
Robert Wolf
And that’s like a one big, huge escape. But for escapes, 20 miracles in this book, like you as you know it. Or the way my dad got into medical school, cloak and dagger stories, arguing with armors and soldiers. That’s a scene I’d like to see, and winning the argument, but bluffing his way through it.

01:18:40:15 – 01:19:03:19
Robert Wolf
Of course, his first and last escape. But I think all of them would need to be included. Split second timing. The luck of God. What else? I mean, the fact that my dad was spoiled, but he was also beaten as a kid. It’s another interesting, interesting tidbit. Tidbit? So many, the way the table set, the way the way that you went from, being an upper middle says to starving and how life could change on a dime.

01:19:03:21 – 01:19:24:18
Robert Wolf
So many messages. Resilience, determination, hope, integrity, and ultimately redemption. So it’s it’s loaded. It’s packed with it’s history. It’s an adventure. It’s a biography. And, trials and tribulations. My dad and family and, must read and hopefully, more and more people read it. This is all I do is my charge is fighting anti-Semitism. You help me with that.

01:19:24:18 – 01:19:48:24
Robert Wolf
10% of my, I’m on socials across the board, so please, finally, Robert J. Wolfe, MD, or Google not relented me 10% of my proceeds henceforth and even when I’m gone and my trust are going to the Holocaust Museum in DC. So not only I’m educating in my own little corner, but I’m also contributing. And people that buy the book are contributing to education through the, to the mothership, as I call it, the U.S. Holocaust Museum in DC.

01:19:48:27 – 01:20:06:02
Robert Wolf
I’ve been fortunate enough to be there twice or two to the book signings. I could do that every day, educating kids and families about what’s going on now and then, genocide, etc.. So, it’s a must read. And, I hope that you do enjoy it and reach out to me. I do podcasts and and presentations programs.

01:20:06:02 – 01:20:09:03
Robert Wolf
Please help me fight antisemitism. Can’t do it alone.

01:20:09:05 – 01:20:16:27
Dan LeFebvre
I love education is is the key. Thank you so much for everything you do for educating. Thank you for for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

01:20:17:00 – 01:20:24:22
Robert Wolf
Pleasure. I learned a lot today to.