I went and saw the Film Allied

Tidewater · Dec 3, 2016

Actually a pretty good film.
Some historical inaccuracies,* but a good spy thriller. It's worth the price of admission.

* Inaccuracies.
1. Nobody parachutes into a desert in broad daylight (unless they want to experience a bullet in the back of the head). The film opens with Pitt parachuting into the desert in broad daylight.
2. The total number of German soldiers in Vichy North Africa prior to the Torch landings in November 1942: 0. In the film, there were German soldiers all over the place in Vichy North Africa.
3. German bombing raids of London after May 1941 were rare. The Luftwaffe diverted most of its effort to Russia and North Africa and could not afford losses over Britain. (For example, in July 1942, there were seven Luftwaffe raids involving 20 aircraft apiece, not negligible, but not the Battle of Britain either). Luftwaffe raids over Britain are sprinkled throughout the portion of the film set in Britain in 1942-1944.

tidegrandpa · Dec 3, 2016

Tidewater said:
Actually a pretty good film.
Some historical inaccuracies,* but a good spy thriller. It's worth the price of admission.

* Inaccuracies.
1. Nobody parachutes into a desert in broad daylight (unless they want to experience a bullet in the back of the head). The film opens with Pitt parachuting into the desert in broad daylight.
2. The total number of German soldiers in Vichy North Africa prior to the Torch landings in November 1942: 0. In the film, there were German soldiers all over the plave in Vichy North Africa.
3. German bombing raids of London after May 1941 were rare. The Luftwaffe diverted most of its effort to Russia and North Africa and could not afford losses over Britain. (For example, in July 1942, there were seven Luftwaffe raids involving 20 aircraft apiece, not negligible, but not the Battle of Britain either). Luftwaffe raids over Britain are sprinkled throughout the portion of the film set in Britain in 1942-1944.

My Dad ferried their B-26 to Britain in May 43. Took the entire month. They left MacDill in Tampa 4/30/43 and landed England 5/30/43.
Their route from Tampa was Puerto Rico, Dutch Guiana, Brazil, Acension Island, Accra, Dakar, Morocco, Gibralter, Earls Colgne Airbase England.
No Germans in their stay in Africa, from 5/16-5/28. Very few bomb raids during his time in England. Some that required the underground tunnels but not many.
Krauts were playing more defense by now also.

Tidewater · Dec 3, 2016

tidegrandpa said:
My Dad ferried their B-26 to Britain in May 43. Took the entire month. They left MacDill in Tampa 4/30/43 and landed England 5/30/43.
Their route from Tampa was Puerto Rico, Dutch Guiana, Brazil, Acension Island, Accra, Dakar, Morocco, Gibralter, Earls Colgne Airbase England.
No Germans in their stay in Africa, from 5/16-5/28. Very few bomb raids during his time in England. Some that required the underground tunnels but not many.
Krauts were playing more defense by now also.

Even with the limited scale raids in the summer of 1942, by autumn 1942 Kampfgeschwader 2 had lost 65 of its 88 crews. They just could't keep even that limited that pace up. The film makes it look like the Blitz continued all the way to 1944.

For all the crap that Petain took for negotiating his deal with Hitler in the summer of 1940 (and he deserves criticism for that deal), he did maintain the independence of Vichy France for 2½ years. That was a big part of what made Operation Torch work so well. The only troops the Allies faced in Morocco and Algeria were Vichy French troops, and they weren't too motivated to die fighting for Germany (although the next 2½ years proved that they were willing to fight pretty hard against Germany). Like Casablanca, Allied used the fiction of German occupying forces in Morocco for dramatic effect. It was inaccurate, but can you imagine how Casablanca would have looked if there had been no Germans in Casablanca?

TIDE-HSV · Dec 3, 2016

tidegrandpa said:
My Dad ferried their B-26 to Britain in May 43. Took the entire month. They left MacDill in Tampa 4/30/43 and landed England 5/30/43.
Their route from Tampa was Puerto Rico, Dutch Guiana, Brazil, Acension Island, Accra, Dakar, Morocco, Gibralter, Earls Colgne Airbase England.
No Germans in their stay in Africa, from 5/16-5/28. Very few bomb raids during his time in England. Some that required the underground tunnels but not many.
Krauts were playing more defense by now also.

That is really interesting. My older brother was in the 8th and they took off from New England, don't remember where, made one stop in Gander and landed in Northern Ireland. Thence to SE England, of course. It was around the same time. He was a navigator in a B-17. His account of where they encountered fighters and flak jibes with what you've written. One chilling thing he told me was that they issued them .45s upon takeoff and took them up in England. He said it was never said specifically what they were for over the Atlantic, but he said that everyone understood that, if the plane went down and you didn't want to die of hypothermia in the water, you had a choice...

tidegrandpa · Dec 3, 2016

TIDE-HSV said:
That is really interesting. My older brother was in the 8th and they took off from New England, don't remember where, made one stop in Gander and landed in Northern Ireland. Thence to SE England, of course. It was around the same time. He was a navigator in a B-17. His account of where they encountered fighters and flak jibes with what you've written. One chilling thing he told me was that they issued them .45s upon takeoff and took them up in England. He said it was never said specifically what they were for over the Atlantic, but he said that everyone understood that, if the plane went down and you didn't want to die of hypothermia in the water, you had a choice...

And their maps were silk, easy to swallow.

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I went and saw the Film Allied

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