World War II Historian Rates 9 More WWII Battles In Movies And TV | How Real Is It? | Insider

Historian John McManus rates the accuracy of World War II battles in movies and TV shows.
He looks at the bombing raids in "Masters of the Air," starring Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan. He describes the many challenges of the Battle of Okinawa as portrayed in "Hacksaw Ridge," starring Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, and Sam Worthington. He compares the portrayals of the Battle of Iwo Jima in Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers," starring Ryan Phillippe, Adam Beach, and Paul Walker; and "Letters from Iwo Jima," starring Ken Watanabe. He discusses World War II-era munitions in "The Pacific," starring Joseph Mazzello and Rami Malek. He separates fact from fiction in Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor," starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, and Alec Baldwin. He talks about the contributions of Navajo code talkers in "Windtalkers," starring Nicolas Cage and Mark Ruffalo. He breaks down the tank battles in "Battle of the Bulge," starring Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson. Finally, he talks about the many terrain challenges American soldiers faced in the Pacific in "The Thin Red Line," starring Sean Penn and Jared Leto.
McManus is a Curators' distinguished professor of military history at Missouri University of Science and Technology. He has written 15 books, most of which cover World War II topics like D-Day and the Pacific theater.
You can find more of his work here:
johncmcmanus.com/
Follow John on X:
x.com/johncmcm...
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World War II Historian Rates 9 More WWII Battles In Movies And TV | How Real Is It? | Insider

[@charlesrobert-stafford4826]

Sees a Pearl Harbor clip : Sigh. "Okay, where to begin..." This movie really leaves a bad taste in historians mouths.

[@Adaephonable]

and almost anyone else that watches it. It is just a bad movie.

[@WillN2Go1]

Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor was a huge disappointment. It was too over the top, too much of the romance, too much posturing predictable. I rented the DVD and was playing it for a friend who was a WWII Veteran. He was watching it while I prepared dinner. I noticed the music score. A couple of minutes of music endlessly repeated over and over... Saved a few bucks on the score and orchestra and made the movie tedious.

[@ChristopherHaws90]

We need a Saving Private Ryan / Band of Brothers quality Pearl Harbor movie or mini series.

[@stevenhenry9605]

Roger Ebert said it best: "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, in which the Japanese military staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle."

[@WillN2Go1]

@@stevenhenry9605 This is terrific.

[@iFlyNoWings]

Dr. McManus! My academic advisor for my military history major in undergrad!!

[@captainfactoid3867]

I only had him for one class but he was great!

[@stevenbrousseau7538]

We’ve emailed each other back-and-forth a couple of times. I wish I had him as a professor.

[@marvelfoxmorty5057]

Flag of our Father & Letter from Iwo Jima, Clint Eastwood really did a great job

[@TheHistoryUnderground]

Always enjoy listening to John McManus talk history. 👍🏻

[@ryanb-ol2pf]

Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima are done with such care. Mr. Eastwood did a wonderful job...

[@chrisyungeberg6978]

It was technical mastery, how the recreated so man details

[@davesvoboda2785]

The Navajo Code Talkers: before the war, a German linguist catalogued native American languages. That information was available to the Axis. But he somehow overlooked Navajo. So they had no clue.

[@seanhuntley6722]

One of the reasons it stayed off linguists' radar is Navajo wasn't a written language. On top of that it is very complex. People could study it for decades and barely scratch the surface.

[@JasonGroom]

Navajo was not well documented at the time, being primarily an oral language. Add to that, at the time, it was not known by very many people, even most native Navajo didn't speak it, or if they did, they didn't speak it well. Thankfully it has grown again in the community from that time, but then it was on the verge of being a dead language.

[@tilaron]

The shifting in the chair when Pearl Harbor came up says a LOT :D

[@brutalxxghost4148]

maybe throwing the smoke would give time for a demo team to crawl through/ crouch upto the pill box/ bunker

[@Ishotbambisma0151]

Exactly the whole point of the smoke is to obscure the view the gunners have from the pillbox so that their essentially blind firing

[@projectdaaltaran]

Yeah i was a little confused by that too. A frag grenade wouldve done little good from that distance cause theres almost no way it goes through one of the openings.

[@aidanbyrne8267]

Why do you not use timestamps???

[@immie1709]

I know right, we've been spoilt it feels terrible without haha

[@cath1none]

just watch the video

[@aidanbyrne8267]

​@@cath1noneit's annoying to have to manually skip to the movies I'm interested in

[@matts5247]

Who cares? Like why would you just not watch the whole video Timestamps are for reference for videos where like you only need the info from a certain section. Not for something like this…

[@matts5247]

@@aidanbyrne8267 whether you’re interested in the movies or not is irrelevant like it’s an educational video and you will learn just the same whether it’s a movie you’re interested in or not

[@stephendavis6267]

Very pleased to see "The Thin Red Line" gets its flowers. Far and away my favourite war film, and it is often overlooked and unnecessarily derided by those who expected more of a "Saving Private Ryan"-style film. But even though Malick is much more meditative as a filmmaker, he is just as skilled at filming action sequences as anyone.

[@07foxmulder]

Not really. The battle scenes in TTRL were second rate. Also, it’s not overlooked at all. It’s one of the most praised WW2 movies ever. Quit trying to be the underdog.

[@ussmidway5600]

that moment when you have the same last name as the main character from Battlefield 1 and you're a military historian

[@joed9491]

Richard "Pete" Peterson, who was in Chuck Yeager and Bud Anderson's 357 Fighter Group at Leiston, told of the story of where he did shoot up a Luftwaffe pilot in a parachute. He had observed crew members of a B-17 bail out in their shoots and the Luftwaffe pilot coming around and strafing the Americans. Peterson got on the German's tail and plucked the B-109 just enough to damage it enough where the pilot would be forced to bail out and he did and which time he said he gave that German a dose of his own medicine. I cannot fault him for that and the anger he must've felt seeing the helpless Americans being shot up because as he said, it was an unwritten rule that you don't shot up someone in their chute that both sides, for the most part, adhered to.

[@32a34a]

The Pacific is criminally under rated.

[@07foxmulder]

Nah. It’s good but it was bogged down by boring love stories because HBO decided they wanted to appeal to women.

[@TheDemonicPenguin]

To be fair to Bulge, which yes, is hilariously inaccurate, there were a handful of Chaffee's in the battle.

[@cyberarchitect9280]

Okay I might be biased towards the Battle of Bulge but, I can see that German armored formations are a mess there's no sign of for example the Panzerkeil, also the infantry is nowhere to be found either. I don't know why the Americans couldn't get proper Shermans but on the German side....well they had to portrait hundreds of German tanks and after the war there weren't really that much avaiable especially in the '60s. So I think using the M47 in that case is somewhat understandable. Especially if we consider that in the Bridge to Far the German Panzer IV or maybe Tiger was played by a Leopard 1 if I remember correctly.

[@joed9491]

You were way too generous with Pearl Harbor. I myself barely gave it a 1. Planes flying sideways in between buildings on the attack of Pearl Harbor and bombing of the ships made it look like they were attacking the Death Star. It was more of a romance inconvenienced by war but should've been titled "Ben Affleck Single-handedly Wins the War!" As for Battle of the Bulge, I don't know if it's true or not that Dwight D. Eisenhower walked out during the screening of the movie but he certainly publically came out and denounced it.

[@JakeKilka]

Ben Affleck didn't win the war single-handedly in Pearl Harbor; there was also the airplane mechanic, who dropped a couple of Zeros with his pump shotgun.

[@joed9491]

@@JakeKilka - You're wrong, he threw his monkey wrench and hit one of the propellers and caused it to break off!

[@vallo105]

In the movie Pearl Harbor, don’t they actually crash land in China? Not Japan? I feel like he got that wrong

[@seanbumstead1250]

He did get that wrong

[@henrik3291]

The Norden bombsight was cutting edge, but it often did not help. It is the bombs themselves that are inaccurate.

[@baileyfry2433]

Like having a sniper scope on a musket

[@Adaephonable]

were, not are.

[@TheRealDuckofDeath]

@@Adaephonable Some of them are still buried in the mud around Europe, so they technically still are. 😋

[@Lunchbox224]

FWIW, at least one unit of M24 Chaffees served in the American sector of the Battle of the Bulge. McManus' point still stands. It's obvious the filmmakers could get a hold of what they had, accuracy be damned (and accuracy is damned all through that movie). I just thought it'd be fun to share.

[@07foxmulder]

Flags of Our Fathers and Letters were absolutely fantastic.

[@rossbooth4635]

The Thin Red Line is soooo underrated so I'm glad he gave it a 9/10. I think it's just bad luck that it came out a few months after Saving Private Ryan.

[@marvinsannes9397]

I'd like to ask John about David Irving. I've read several dozen WWII history books, Churchill's 6 vol. twice. I think Irving was the best historian of all but cannot be discussed because of his discussions of the Holocaust: "Hitler's War, Rommel's War, Churchill's War, Dresden, Banged-Up" and a couple more. Bradley's (his dad was one of the 6 raising the Iwo Jima flag) "The China Mirage" is among the best history books I've ever read. I'm 80 and my war was Vietnam, I can't do movies - still hurts.

[@rupturedduck6981]

Because the carrier was spotted early and the B-25s had to launch early they didn't have the ability to form up and fly in a cohesive formation. They had to fly single file to their individual targets. Also at the time there was a red dot in the center of each white star which may have confused the Japanese and I can't remember where I read this but on the day of the Doolittle raid took place there was to take place a practice raid which may have further confused the Japanese.

[@Sithicas]

I always enjoy in theses videos when the expert/historians gets to Pearl Harbor :)

[@Amm17ar]

I wish there was more Masters of the Air clips reviewed. I know they put a lot of effort into making the series authentic, to honour those who flew. Id like to know more about the show and the details they got right.

[@stevenbrousseau7538]

He should review Fury. That movie is highly underrated.

[@redaug4212]

More like highly overrated.

[@christopherwang4392]

However you feel about the film's questionable portrayal of military tactics, _Fury_ (2014) does a great job depicting the gritty and hellish nature of combat in Europe during the last days of World War II.

[@User-54631]

She Micheal bay dropped the ball? SURPRISE!

[@196cupcake]

In some real WWII footage, I want to say from the battle of the bulge, there was a US soldier driving a jeep with the back on fire. In a normal situation you'd immediately stop to put out the fire. I forget where I saw it. Anyway, I think that would have been a neat detail to include in some of these movies. It might come off as too over the top, but it actually happened.

[@scottrok13]

I wonder if Born on the Fourth of July has been a part of this series of reviews? That friendly fire scene always creeps me out.

[@alexanderleach3365]

Awesome video. Like to see more War movie rate comparison videos.

[@grantpowell4135]

The war planet bug was real to me dammit lol

[@WMABeaker]

read the Medal of Honor detail when it was awarded to Desmond Doss, if anything Hacksaw Ridge plays down what he actually did.

[@warnegoodman]

Disappointed there was no discussion of the part in Hacksaw Ridge when a soldier lifts up another soldier's dismembered torso and uses it as a shield while he charges a machine gun nest.

[@apersondoingthings5689]

The M24 did see its first action the battle of the bulge, with it starting to enter wide spread use in late 1944 to early 1945 if you consider 130 tanks wide spread. But some 30-50 M24s were present for the battle of the bulge, however the strategies they use for the tank were laughably bad considering the Chaffee was almost exclusively used by cav reconnaissance units. Any competent crew of which the U.S. had an abundance of more than competent crews, considering the great survival rates on U.S. tanks, would use the speed of the Chaffee to flank enemy tanks of which the 75mm could deal with all German tanks from the side from pretty decent ranges. Little bit of a side note, there is a case of British Shermans fighting of multiple German tanks. One of the German tanks was taken out by a Sherman going down an overlooking hill and ramming it. Bro and full on Roman galley mode

[@JasonGroom]

I actually enjoyed his commentary on this video. Normally he has a habit of questioning why things that actually happened were done the way there were. Particularly during his review of a lot of scenes from band of Brothers and the Pacific, he questions why the soldiers and Marines did what they did, when the event was very well documented, claiming what they "really" would have done, even when it is reality. He often can't get the concept that hindsight is 20/20, and that troops make decisions with the information they have at hand, and we as a viewer decades later might know better, but they didn't

[@RiVer-Parish]

Desmond was a brave soldier with no weapon.

[@Goc4ever]

This video was pretty engaging, i really liked it.

[@gavinkarnage]

i was wondering when masters of the air would get covered by insider

[@WillN2Go1]

A little nitpicking. When I learned about climbing webbing, hands on the vertical, so you don't get your hand stepped on, I started watching for it. Some some clips. A lot of guys aren't doing this. I think some of them were D Day. Not a big deal.

[@JamesMiller-lb3sk]

Nice video

[@Slav729]

I have yet to see a Gulf War movie!

[@NyteStalker89]

JARHEAD

[@deckardcanine]

I've seen "Three Kings."

[@josephridings5899]

Courage Under Fire

[@JKribbit]

Thank Roland Emerich for Midway, that movie did Attack on Pearl Harbor way more justice than the trash Michael Bay put out with the namesake.

[@lokilowkey3049]

Surprising he didn't know/mention that the Norland bomb sight was a bit useless as only the lead bomber can use it and the following bombers followed his que.

[@ivanlowjones]

Nor-land bombsight?🤔

[@mojoblues66]

Regarding the use of post-war tanks, there simply weren't any working german WWII tanks available in the 60s, everything was destroyed. For example there is only one running Tiger I in existence, and restoration only started in 1990.

[@armageddontools]

You can bolt some plywood and make it look more german.

[@mojoblues66]

@@armageddontools They did that in "A Bridge too far" with a Leo I, not very convinving though.

[@biomike01]

Musée des Blindés in France are expecting their Tiger 1 to be operational soon so soon there will be 2 tiger 1s in running condition

[@Farrell461]

The smoke grenade was to blind the pillbox, no? No way they could accurately throw a frag through that small window from there.

[@guylander6844]

Love Saving Private Ryan, but too much Speilberg drama to be this guy's favorite.

[@willhallam9999]

Just started reading this chaps Islands of Fire, really interestin.

[@AndrewNiccol]

Please review the new Midway.

[@adamazzalino5247]

It's Peral Harbor 2: Pearl Harder: it is really bad.

[@AndrewNiccol]

@@adamazzalino5247 I agree Pearl Harbor was a bad movie, but the new Midway was great!

[@And_rew92]

3:17 you throw smoke for concealment so you can move a bit easier. Throwing an explosive with do less than bugger all to the external wall of a 2ft thick concrete box.

[@vikingsundlof9040]

Could you do Unknown Soldier? Its a good film, and I feel it might be quite accurate (or not, i dont really know)

[@adamazzalino5247]

Peral Harbor: Heh, okay. lol

[@shadyside79]

Go Rolla a second professor doing one of these videos.

[@otmgi3865]

Hacksaw ridge may be my favorite wartime movie. Followed closely by American Sniper

[@George-u8e]

They need to make the battle of castle itter movie

[@theflamingoparty6680]

I think the real reason they didn't shoot ppl in parachutes was to save ammo on the planes instead of kindness

[@Madmij]

Someone's never seen "Tora, Tora, Tora"

[@Atmaspeaks]

Fury should've been in the list.

[@Dylan-gj3oh]

Ayo what that left ear doing?!

[@jamesortiz5388]

All I saw was blood guts heads more guts.

[@theflamingoparty6680]

On the ridge who put the rope netting

[@phillipblunk]

Rather listen to vets like I use too. More believable than these so called experts with BS

[@CareraDrift]

i hope in the future we gonna see some reactions to the war on the eastern front

[@TheLazyLabrador]

8:09 The fuse time is five seconds, not three.

[@niners.own.the.packers]

From the start.... why dont they use ww2 tanks!!!! Well find german panzers.... plus those are chaffees.. ww2 tanks

[@touhoutrash2436]

More ww2 movies that experts react to!

[@goku1693]

I wish the experts would watch the films or shows they critique first. Also, does he realize these filmmakers may not have had the money or access to period specific items like a tank

[@redaug4212]

Not the point. If they can't get it right, then they shouldn't do it at all. Otherwise it's a disservice to what actually happened.

[@sinawer]

Are you sure this video isn't dubbed?

[@ritzoriginal]

Not even gonna finish this one once he said "Why would you throw a smoke grenade at a pillbox?" Pretty self explanatory there for an "expert."

[@seanbumstead1250]

Rifle grenades not grenade launchers

[@CoachJoshsteel]

if the passing downs are npt clearly passing downs, the pass rush can't work. If the run D cant hand over six or more yards to the passing "specialists," this softass system cant work. 4 down lineman and 2 D ends- kill the running lanes and collapse in less than 3 sec always. The jams at the LOS further upset the 3 second timing and timed routes. We are not running the systems for this personelle- change or die.

[@MichaelHatfield-j2z]

just like my wife NO WAY TO GET BEHIND

[@mattiaskarlsson1386]

This guy is obviously biased giving flags of our Fathers a 10/10 and letters from iwo jima 9/10 and then saying that no other movie have given us the same point of view from both sides.. Tora Tora Tora

[@benjaminbuchanan7151]

I love Pearl Harbor but I understand that it’s a very poor portrayal. It feels like watching a video game more than anything else.

[@heribertfassbender5759]

He was wrong about the crash scene at the end of the Pearl Harbour piece. In the movie, the bomber goes down over mainland China, not Japan.

[@JessieA15]

That's what he said.

[@ComandanteToht]

He doesn't move his upper lip. Its weird...

[@nathathenoob]

under 1 hours gang 👇 (i am at 54 mins)

[@GumleFar]

Under 1 hour

[@Obsidianightwalker]

Why does his mouth move like a bad ventriloquist?

[@IAmTheDawn]

Insider deleted my comment. Very unprofessional

[@DrHavoc1]

Chaffee is a real ww2 tank.

[@henrik3291]

He was probably referring to the German tank and the editors to a clip of the US Chafee

[@jesusbernal8000]

Why

[@anarchocyclist]

How does he pronounce so many words with such little mouth movement?

[@AlexJukk]

Please, do the same with russian movies, ❤

[@alyssakeatase6726]

Moore Betty Jackson Carol Jackson Cynthia

[@cynot71]

.

[@mstluangachhakchhuak6272]

Nicee🎉

[@spiderstealth]

Another history nerd who didn't have the balls to enlist and be about that life

[@JustAskingquestions10]

Did you enlist? Im thinking about joining when i get older. Could you tell me some info?

[@redaug4212]

He knows more about military history than you ever will, that's for sure.

[@dilondeeputhomas3166]

Second

[@NyteStalker89]

@3:07 your expert is deaf. He didn't yell FRAG. He yelled SMOKE.

[@andrewmohs4734]

Smoke is definitely what you want in that situation.👍

[@michak3892]

first!

[@diegosimeone]

funny- did only americans fight in world 2 or only americans made movies about this period of history? Hollywood can't change the truth about this conflict - no matter how hard it tries...

[@redaug4212]

Hollywood is an *American* film industry. Why are you surprised they would make movies about America?

[@faustomadebr]

Everything ok, but then, at 14:00, we saw a Michael Boom movie.

[@turdferguson7686]

is modern warfare far worse or "better"? these scenes of machine guns shredding people are awful, but now theres vids of drones doing the same... to people who are otherwise out of the line of fire, even inside buildings.

[@ItsLordTrollington]

Weapons are more accurate now and with modern optics visibility is a lot better so in terms of lethality modern warfare is worse.

[@Kiwifreak32]

@@ItsLordTrollington But you need less man for the same combat power, you have better protection and better medical treatment. So you can maybe say that there are more ways to die out of nowhere now, but there are also less soldiers in this dangerzone.

[@Meyti.rahimi]

11:50 I have played this mission on CODWaW; can confirm it is pretty accurate

[@mattiaskarlsson1386]

So you playing a mission in a video game=authenticity Seriously the most stupid coment i have read today.. you probably think the Irish beaches and fake bunkers in saving private ryan is historically accurate aswell.

[@ChloeCarter-g4h]

Your videos are just good content without unnecessary emotions. Keep it up!🔞🔞🔞 ) 🦣'