December 7th, 1941

A very good evening once again to all my readers. How are you guys doing? I hope you guys are doing all good. Exams are just around the corner and as assignments are all coming to it's due date, it tends to get pretty stressful and tiring working on them on late nights. Whatever it is, always have a positive mind to it and give it your very best shot. I hope you guys enjoy reading my last post which was mostly a tribute to my dad. I believe that he is in a much better place right now enjoying what he loves doing which is playing golf. Today's post well i'm going to go back in time to an event which took place during the early 1940's. 1941 to be exact the year this event took place. This event has changed history as well as played a great significance in the second world war. December 7th 1941 was the bombings on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

Here's just a short brief history on what really happened on that sunny morning when all of these took place. The attack on Pearl Harbor called Hawaii Operation or Operation Al by the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, Operation Z in planning and the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on the morning of December 7th, 1941. The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. I took this source from a trusty search engine called wikipedia.

You could only imagine how the lives of the people in Hawaii during the morning when the bombings took place. Imagine yourself waking up on a nice sunny morning, preparing for breakfast or going for military training at the time and some people still in bed sleeping and before you know it, you are being bombed. The panic and the chaos that happened during that day. Hospital crowded with wounded people, wounded soldiers needing medical aid. The streets filled with dead body as the Japanese were shooting at anything, anyone. The naval base completely destroyed, many battleships destroyed including the USS Arizona.

Today, many movie makers and directors create their movies based on past tragic events that took place.A couple of movies that movie makers and directors create their movies on based on past tragic events is Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor and many more.

           

Pearl Harbor is a classic American war movie directed by directed by Michael Bay, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Randall Wallace in 2001. Although this movie was based on actual events that took place in 1941, it has a little bit of twist in the story whereby not only broadcasting all the events that took place, it also shows romance in the film just like Titanic.This movie features a large ensemble cast, including Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett,Alec Baldwin, Jon Voight, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Colm Feore, Mako, Tom Sizemore, Jaime King and Jennifer Garner.Pearl Harbor is a dramatic reimagining of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent Doolittle Raid. "Some special prints were made from the color negatives using the recently re-introduced Technicolor dye imbibition printing process. Despite negative reviews from critics, Pearl Harbor became a major box office success, earning $449,220,945 at the world wide box office and won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing".

                  

                              

This movie is about two best friends from Tennessee in the year 1923, Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker, who's dream's were becoming a fighter pilot in the US Army. By January1941, both of them First Lieutenants in the United States Army Air Corps under the command of Major Jimmy Doolittle. 4 weeks earlier Rafe had met Evelyn, a United States Navy Nurse who passes him for his physical examination even though he has dyslexia. They started off their relationship since then. Rafe was called off to England to join the British Army to fight the Nazi's in the war. While fighting the Nazi's, his plane was shot down over the English Channel. In case anything happened to him, he fully put his trust on Danny to inform his girlfriend, Evelyn and to look after her.

After some time, Danny and Evelyn started seeing each other. On the night of December 6th, just before Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese, Rafe returned and they were all shocked to see him still alive. He later found out that his best friend Danny who he could count on was seeing her. He was really heart broken and did not treat Danny too well. They had a brawl that same night at a pub by the beach which result in the military police coming to the pub. Both of them fleed in Danny's car half drunk. 

On the morning of the attack, they were waken up by the sound of fighter planes surrounding the area and shortly after bombing the naval bases there. Everyone was in shock and both of them tried getting to an airstrip as soon as possible but most of them were being bombed. They managed to find an airstrip which was not bombed yet by the Japanese and they quickly got onto their planes and started fighting.

After several hours of fighting the Japanese, the Japanese returned to base which allowed them to regroup with their troops. There was a top secret mission to attack the Japanese few days after the bombings of Pearl Harbor which both of them volunteered for together with some more soldiers at base. It was a suicide mission and they knew that chances are they might not make it back. Both of them said goodbye to Evelyn and left for battle knowing that they might die. Evelyn explained to Rafe that she did not know that he was still alive and that if he was still alive, she would have waited for him. It's clear to see that both of them love the same woman and at the same time, Evelyn loves Rafe ad Danny.

They set off on their suicidal mission and they knew that turning back was not an option. Danny, Rafe and others are to fly North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, bomb Tokyo and then land in friendly Chinese territory. The two men and their team succeed in their bombing but crash-land into a rice field in a Japanese-held area when their bombers run out of fuel.They were outnumbered by the Japanese there and were caught in the paddy field. Just when Rafe is about to get shot, Danny saved his life by trying to break lose and fight the Japanese and would eventually be shot. In his dying words, Danny told Rafe to look after his son for him when he gets back.

Upon returning to base after an unsuccessful mission, Evelyn expected the worse and instead of both of them loosing their life in battle, her current boyfriend, Danny was carried out by the boys in a casket. She was devastated. After returning, Rafe married Evelyn with Danny's child. Few years later, America managed to bomb Japan which they later surrendered.

After watching this movie, I would want to put myself in the shoes of the soldiers and the army personals that are preparing for war or being unaware of the attacks that at the time was about to took place. If i had the chance, I would recreate the movie but this time instead of romance, the movie would be more on patriotism towards our homeland and more of the fighting that took place. My motto behind my very own movie is to instill patriotism and  to make my countryman believe no matter how small a country we are compared to the rest of the " power house", we have what it takes, the courage, the strength to fight off whatever that comes in between us in harming our country regardless of skin color or race. I strongly believe that this motif would make us Malaysians more patriotic and more loving towards our country, Malaysia.

Watching the movie, Pearl Harbor has made me weep many times and it made me realize how patriotism is really important. I am really grateful to have been raised and born in our country Malaysia. Although our country has many races and despite our past, today, we have all united as one and living in a peaceful and harmonious country. That is all for this post. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did blogging about it. Till the next post :).