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RangerJoe -> RE: OT: WWII Pacific theater films (12/25/2020 1:52:10 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: fcooke
If a movie has been made about the raid to rescue Allied prisoners at Catablan (sp) I missed it but it would seem to be raw material that Hollywood would lust for. (just add in the imaginary female nurse for the love angle). Book was pretty educational.
About the movie:
I liked the movie. Some critics complained that it was too slow but it showed how bad the POWs got and what help they did receive plus what happened to other American POWs. No famous named actors at the time the movie as made.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Raid
The raid itself:
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. . . One guerrilla, who had been trained to use the bazooka only a few hours earlier by the Rangers, destroyed or disabled four tanks that were hiding behind a clump of trees . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_at_Cabanatuan
A good sort story of what happened is in this link.
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In October 1944, General Douglas MacArthur kept his promise to the Filipino people: “I shall return.” General Walter Kreuger’s Sixth Army landed with MacArthur at Leyte. Then, on January 9, 1945, Americans went ashore at Lingayen Gulf on the west-central coast of Luzon and began to press toward Manila.
Among MacArthur’s landing detail was a 19-year-old private of the Sixth Army’s Alamo Scouts who had participated in a successful raid to rescue 66 civilians held as slave labor by the Japanese at Cape Oransbari in northwestern New Guinea. Galen Charles “Kit” Kittleson was the eldest of eight barefooted offspring from an Iowa farm. A closed-mouthed diminutive soldier barely five feet four inches on a tall day, he was the youngest fighter assigned to the elite Alamo Scouts.
“The other day I happened to overhear the longest conversation Kit’s ever had,” went a standing joke. “Kit says to Olsen, ‘Let’s go to chow.’ And Olsen says, ‘Okay.’”
At Luzon, Kittleson was nonetheless bold enough to ask the stern-faced supreme commander when, if ever, they were going to rescue the Bataan Death March survivors. MacArthur fixed his hawk’s gaze on the little private.
“Were you on the Cape Oransbari raid, son?” he asked gruffly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, son. Let me tell you this. You be ready when the time comes.”
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Galen Charles Kittleson retired as Command Sergeant Major of the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group. During the Vietnam War, he twice more penetrated enemy lines to rescue American POWs. Other than the raid on Cabanatuan, the raid against the Hotel Hilton POW camp only 23 miles from Hanoi in North Vietnam on November 21, 1970, is undoubtedly the most daring and famous in American military history. Kittleson is the only American soldier ever to have participated in four separate POW raids.
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2020/02/04/great-raid-on-cabanatuan/
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