Pearl Harbor movie corrections

In the scene where the Japanese aircraft are launching for the attack on Pearl, an officer on one of the carriers holds a white flag in his right hand just as the planes are about to take off. Look carefully; the wind is blowing from the stern of the ship towards the bow (as evidenced by the position of the aircraft in the background). The flag should be moving in the opposite direction, as the carrier would be turned into the wind and moving forward at top speed to launch aircraft. See more...

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When the bombers crash land in China more than one crew member is killed. In real life only 1 man from the raid was killed. 71 escaped and 8 were captured, four of whom were executed as war criminals by the Japanese. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

Pearl Harbor (2001) - 48 corrections

Directed by Michael Bay, starring Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jon Voight, Josh Hartnett (add more)

Genres: Action, Drama, Romance, War

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

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In the scene when the attack starts there are many people doing their everyday activities. But the Japanese attack started at 7:55 on Sunday! At this time most people not on duty would be sleeping, or at least having breakfast, especially children. However, the children at the time of the attack are already playing baseball, posing as angels etc. In real life there would be much less people outside. [This occured in 1941. 7:55 AM is not that terribly early, for any day of the week. I grew up in the 70's, and on a Saturday, it was not unusual for me to be outside playing well before 8 AM. Unless you were there to take a census on who was up, and who was sleeping, you can't assume people slept late as is more common today. For one, church attendance was a higher percentage then compared to now, and it's likely a lot of people would have been getting ready for church. Also, in military families, rising early is common practice, and a habit one gets into when even loosely associated with the military.]

When the attack force is spotted on radar, the officer who decides it is a flight of B-17s is addressed as "Lieutenant". However, he is wearing an Army uniform, thus the two silver bars on his epaulets would denote the rank of Captain (O-3). [Which is nothing more than a character mistake. A recruit who hasn't been in the army for a long time, usually having a lieutenant as a superior, not having paid attention or the Captain just got promoted and the guy isn't used to it yet.]

Time

Crashing into the English Channel at full speed, like Rafe did when he was shot down by the Messerschmitt, and then surviving the crash, is physically impossible. In the movie the airplane "dives" into the water, while in real life, it would just disintegrate against the surface of the water and the pilot would, most probably, be catapulted out of his seatbelts and then through his canopy into the water (And needless to add: he would definitely not survive). [You cannot say that, we have no indication about speed of the aircraft, exact angle of impact or any other detail that is necessary to tell how the airframe would respond to the water. And whether he would survive or not you can't tell either, two examples to show you what a body can bare: three fighter pilots who were shot down in WWII survived a free fall from over 5000m as they landed in a wood and there was a yugoslavian stewardess who fell out of an aircraft after a bombing at flightlevel 300 (10 km) and she survived the fall!]

When the bombing starts, someone asks Danny "What the hell is going on out there?" and Danny replies. "I think World War II just started." World War I was called The Great War until the 1950s, so there is no way Danny would know anything about the possibility of a sequel. [World War: first attested 1909 as a speculation, probably a translation of German "Weltkrieg". Applied to the first one soon after it began in 1914. "World War I" coined 1939, replacing "Great War" as the most common name for it; "First World War" first attested 1947. "World War II" so-called since 1939; "Second World War" is from 1942. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=world+war&searchmode=none.]

Corrected by Rlvlk

While training for the Tokyo raid, Dolittle is the first to get his B-25 to take off in the allotted distance. In the shot that shows his plane lifting off as he crosses the line on the runway, the flag in the background shows he is taking off with the wind. Airplanes always take off INTO the wind whenever possible, especially when trying to keep the takeoff roll short. [It's correct that you try to start into the wind whenever possible, however we can't say that they didn't try to take off with the wind anyway, plus there could be wind changes. I personally had that when I once landed at an airfield, strong winds from the left however suddenly a wind from the right caught me offhand and nearly turned my plane over. No mistake in that scene.]

At the start of the attack on Pearl Harbor there are large explosions and noise which makes Danny and Rafe wake up suddenly, but why are there a shot of sailors fishing like nothing's going on around them? [They are not woken up by the explosions, they are woken up by the airplanes flying so near them. They even comment on "practicing this early on a Sunday" - practice does not involve blowing things up.]

Time

In the middle of the film during the attack on Pearl Harbor, some of the Japanese are attacking the smaller airfields. We see Danny, Rafe and a few other pilots speeding away in a car. Various shots in this scene we see that the road goes from grass and dirt to concrete between shots. [Many possible reasons for this. The route from one airfield to the other probably isn't "concrete" all the way. So the different "road" type just suggests that the other airfield isn't easy to get to. Or more simply, they were trying to escape/avoid being shot at. Therefore they got off the road so that they're not easy targets on the road.]

Time

When Danny and Evelyn are in a cafe and Danny is telling Evelyn what Rafe and Danny did as kids, the position of Evelyn's hands keeps changing. [That's probably becuase she keeps moving them. If it's between shots it should be stated, along with some more specific info.]

Time

When he is shot down, Rafe's Spitfire squadron initially engages a bomber formation. In the RAF, Spitfires were never sent after bombers. Because of their higher speed, they were always sent after the escorting fighters. It was the Hurricane squadrons that would be assigned to the bombers. [Air battles are very fluid affairs. While in practice, Spitfires where launched after German fighters, a sudden course change by the German fighter formation could potentially put them out of practical intercept range for any one formation of Spitfires. As such the airborne Spitfires might be diverted after a nearby bomber formation. Examination of the historical record will show many Spitfire pilots credited with bomber kills during the Battle of Britain.]

When Danny and Evelyn are in the Black Cat Diner, a Volkswagen bus goes by. Volkswagen was started by Hitler and not introduced to the US until much later. [The vehicle that drives by has a driver in front, and four rows behind that (with two sailors sitting in the rear). No VW bus ever built was that large. The vehicle is more likely some sort of transit bus.]

Time

Rafe is shown as being severely dyslexic, not suffering from a mild version of the condition as has been suggested elsewhere. He cannot even read an eye chart. The chances of such a person making it through even basic training, let alone flying school? NIL. Dyslexia wasn't even recognised as a condition in the Forties; he'd be regarded as an uneducated and illiterate rube and would be assigned the lowest standard of military duties. [If General George Patton, one of America's greatest generals during World War II, a dyslexic, can succeed in the Army during WWII, I'm pretty sure that Rafe could be a pilot. Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of New York and Vice President of the United States, and Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during WWII were also dyslexic. Find out more here: Story of Patton , Dyslexia Study , Robert Rauschenberg Other dyslexics include: Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Alva Edison, Woodrow Wilson, Michael Hesletine, Henry Ford, Hans Christian Anderson, Harvey Cushing, Pablo Picasso, Walt Disney, Stonewall Jackson, Enrico Caruso, Auguste Rodin, Michael Faraday, George Bush, Pablo Picasso, Danny Glover, Fred Astaire, George Burns, Henry Winkler, Tom Cruise, Richard Branson, Jay Leno, Cher, and Whoopi Goldberg were/are all dyslexics. ]

Corrected by Rlvlk

You can't be dyslexic and become a pilot, no matter how good looking you are or how much you impress the nurse. Apart from the literature which you have to be able to read and understand to pass your ground exams you would be unable to read a map accurately. [Being dyslexic myself, I can state that it totally depends on the severity of the dyslexia on how well the individual can read maps, literature, etc.]

Corrected by Rlvlk

What are Navy nurses doing giving physicals to Army pilots? The Army has its own nurses. [While I was in the Army stationed on an Air Force Base, I saw Air Force doctors and nurses. A military hospital is a MILITARY hospital.]

Corrected by Rlvlk

Evelyn is six months pregnant or so when the Doolittle Raid happens, but she hasn't gained an ounce. [I am a gynaecologist, and though this condition is uncommon it is entirely possible. I have treated women who were six months pregnant and didn't even know!]

The B-25 had no way to accept more fuel from inside the plane. [A 60 gallon leak proof tank was installed in place of the lower turret which had an accessible filler neck. Ten five gallon cans of gasoline were carried in the rear compartment where the radio operator usually sat.]

Betty tells Evelyn she "enlisted" in the Navy. Nurses are officers; they do not enlist, they are commissioned. (Yes, the distinction is an important one.) [She can still enlist and be an officer by going through OCS(officer commissioning school).]

The film lasted the same length of time as the actual attack. [Attack began at 7:55am. Second wave at 8:55am. Attack is over at 10am. "The Japanese aircrews achieved complete surprise when they hit American ships and military installations on Oahu shortly before 8:00 a.m. When the attack ended shortly before 10:00 a.m., less than two hours after it began.Click here for more information. Movie is 183 minutes (3 hours 3 minutes).]

Danny's father is a crop duster in 1923. The problem with that being that cropdusting didn't come about until after World War II. [Crop dusting started in August 1921, when a World War I plane was used to "dust" a field to get rid of Catalpa sphinx moths. This started crop dusting, and many people got into crop dusting, including Delta Airlines who started Delta Dusters, in the 1920s. Click for Source ]

Major Jackson brings Evelyn to the typing pool so she can be present when the raid goes down. He tells her the raid will happen in an hour or two. Yet in subsequent scenes we learn that Dolittle had to advance his launch by TWELVE hours. There is NO WAY Major Jackson could have known to have Evelyn there. [in the context of the movie, Once word had reached Pearl that the planes had taken off from the ships, those assigned to monitor the raid could be called in early. There would be time between take-off and bombing when the appropriate people could be called in, and as such Major Jackson could have called Evelyn in.]

When the scene goes to Japan with the Admiral talking, just before, you see the Japanese flag. This is an old flag, but after the attack on Tokyo, as the planes land in China, you can see that the flag on the ground is the modern Japanese flag. [The "modern" Japanese flag has been in use since 1870 (excepting for some change in dimensions). both flags are correctly used. The one with the "rays" was a battle flag and not the flag representing the country.]

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