Revolutionary War

Top Five Must Watch Films for Independence Day

Happy 4th of July to all of our readers out there. In honor of our Independence Day and the fact the weather is calling for a continuation of the heat wave that is consuming the Northeast with temps in the mid-to-high 90s with the heat index of well over 100 degrees, I plan on being a lazy bones today and sit in the air conditioning all day and watch a list of appropriate films for the day.

About dusk, we’ll grill some steaks that have been marinating all day, give a birthday wish to the Bulldog (her papers say English but her birthday is American as they come), and then watch the town fireworks from our front lawn, since they’re only a block away.

Since we’re not expecting company until about 8 p.m. I don’t have to worry about putting on a film fest for all types, it is a military-themed (what did you expect?) group of films with a couple of Revolutionary War flicks thrown in to fall in with the whole spirit of the holiday.

So, since this is my list and I am watching in my house, my five Independence Day Holiday Film fest features are as follows:

Northwest Passage: 1940 Starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, and Walter Brennan. Filmed in Technicolor. Shot on location in Oregon and Idaho, Northwest Passage was a big budget film shot in 1939 and depicts Rogers Rangers moving against the French and Indians in what was supposed to be New Hampshire and Canada.

Gorgeously shot in Technicolor, this was the era of the big movie studios and Tracy as Robert Rogers was fantastic as he leads his Rangers against the Abenaki Indians. Today, the depiction of the Native Americans in this film was awful, although it correctly displayed the American colonists’ views of the Indians at that time.

The action scene where the Rangers attack the Abenaki village, done long before the days of CGI was one of the best film action sequences of the big studio era and the Rangers are shown using muskets and tomahawks as they would have in that era. The uniforms are much more realistic as well with the Rangers favoring the green tops and bottoms that blended into the New Hampshire landscape.

There is a particularly gruesome scene that was way ahead of its time in 1939. A Ranger loses his mind while laughing maniacally and clutching something wrapped up in his ruck. He keeps repeating to the other Rangers if they were smart they wouldn’t have to eat parched corn. After crawling behind a large boulder. Rogers follows and finds him eating the head of an Indian.

Tracy and the lead actors didn’t use stunt doubles in another excellent scene where the Rangers must make a human chain to cross a raging river. The only issue with the film is the title. The Northwest Passage mission is given to Rogers at the very end of the film, as they initially planned on a sequel. If you’ve never seen this film, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Kelly’s Heroes, 1970, Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Don Rickles, and Carroll O’Connor, filmed 30 years later, this satirical look at the stupidity and waste in the war set in the backdrop of World War II in Europe turns into a caper film and a dark comedy.

Eastwood is Kelly, a former officer who was given the order to attack a hill held by Americans and is busted to private. He captures a German colonel and while getting him cocked on good brandy in order to get military information, he learns the Colonel is in charge of a shipment of gold bullion being shipped to Germany.

Kelly assembles a wacky cast of characters including a whacked-out tank commander in Donald Sutherland who seems more like a hippie in the 1960s than a tanker with three Sherman tanks under his command. OddBall,(Sutherland) has a group of troops who more resemble pirates than armor soldiers. Crapgame (Don Rickles) is a black market profiteer of a supply sergeant who crawls out of his hole only when he smells a profit.

The crew of Kelly’s along with OddBall’s tanks goes 30 miles behind enemy lines to hit a bank guarded by three German Tiger tanks and a company of infantry. It is being held in a bank. The men plan on hitting the bank, splitting up the gold and getting back before their hair-brained commander CPT Maitland, even realizes they are gone.

Things go horribly awry when General Colt (O’Connor) gets intel reports that his troops are conducting a breakthrough deep behind enemy lines and gets his entire army chasing the men, thinking that they’re hard chargers and not bank robbers.

One German SS Tank Commander holds out in the center of town. Two Shermans are destroyed and the other, OddBall’s is broken down. Crapgame, who was wounded tells Big Joe (Savalas) and Kelly, “make a deal.” Big Joe asks, “What kind of a deal?” Crapgame smiles, “a deal, deal. Maybe the guy is a Republican.”

Kelly makes a deal with the SS tank commander after a classic Sergio Leone moment when the Americans walk up to the tank like the OK Corral, complete with spaghetti western music. The SS tanker had no idea he was guarding gold and the Americans and Germans depart as friends and much richer moments before the American Army and General Colt (a caricature of General Patton) arrive in town.

The Patriot, 2000, Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Jason Isaacs, Tom Wilkinson, this one was filmed in South Carolina 30 years after Kelly Heroes….hmm noticing a trend here? Our second Revolutionary War film and historically, a farce, however as a Revolutionary War action film, it was excellently done. Gibson is Benjamin Martin, a former officer who fought for the British during the French and Indian War. His massacre of the Indians that is alluded to in the film makes him a pacifist with the Revolution approaching. His character is loosely (very loosely) based on Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox.

His baser instincts return and he joins the “Cause” after his young son is murdered by the evil Colonel Tavington expertly played by Isaacs. I had the pleasure of working on another war film with him (Green Zone) and Isaacs explained he gets these type of roles “because I can play a perfect prick” with ease. The British officers are all mindless fops or bloodthirsty murderers. My Brit friends hate the way they are depicted in this film, which is a staple in Gibson’s films. And they have good reason to.

General Cornwallis was nicely done by the outstanding character actor Tom Wilkinson. Cornwallis is trying to sweep the Rebels out of the Carolinas so that he can join the battle against Washington farther north.

The battle scenes are bloody and the violence in this one is quite graphic and not recommended for the younger crowd, especially when Martin tomahawks a group of English soldiers holding his son prisoner. Forget the obvious gaffes on the history and get lost in a period action film and enjoy great performances by Gibson, Isaacs, and Wilkinson.

Another interesting tidbit. About 9 years after this was made, I had the opportunity to work with Wilkinson in Israel on a spy film about the Mossad, “The Debt” with Helen Mirren. He was a very down-to-earth personable man and when we got on the subject of the Patriot, he told me that he’s never seen it.

Soon after filming was completed, he signed up for a film in Asia which ran much longer than envisioned so he missed the premiere. When he finished that film project, he quickly did a few others and he said, the next thing he knew, the film was far back in his mind. When recounting some of his scenes, including the ones with Isaacs, he laughed and said, “you remember those lines much better than I do, so I will have to get a copy of that and watch it now.”

Independence Day, 1996, Jeff Goldblum, Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Randy Quaid is a cliche-filled, Red, White and Blue flag-waving extravaganza. The script was singularly awful but the star of the film is the action and especially the gorgeous special effects which raise this from a pot-boiler to a must-see action film. But hey how the hell can you be watching a July 4th film fest and not have this one in there.

The characters are straight out of comic books with the resultant cliched lines. “Today is our Independence Day!” where a wimpy President (Pullman) who used to be a hot-shot fighter jock flies the assault against those bad aliens. A worse line by Harry Connick Jr. in a small part, “They won’t let fly the Space Shuttle if you marry a stripper.” Ugh, but for every cliche and stereotypical character, there are those awesome action scenes which 22 years later, still stand the test of time.

Randy Quaid, as the boozy, crop duster pilot who flew in Nam and was taken by the aliens is typically hilarious. “Hello, boys….I’mmmmmmmm Baaaaaack!” This film has to be included in any 4th of July list despite the issues with the film itself. And there can only be one other film more apt for the 4th of July.

Gettysburg, 1993, Jeff Daniels, Tom Berenger, Martin Sheen, Richard Jordan, Sam Elliott, Stephen Lang, C. Thomas Howell This sweeping epic was a meticulously done Civil War film was a marathon (258 minutes) that will keep you riveted to your seat for the entire thing. There were none of the old cliches seen in this film.

Wonderfully crafted by the book, “The Killer Angels” the main characters from the book and the key players on both the Union and Confederate sides come to life. Jeff Daniels is outstanding as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the theology professor from Maine who leads the 20th Maine to hold the end of the Union line on Little Round Top on the second day of the battle and may have possibly saved the Union on that day.

Chamberlain’s men held off several assaults by Confederate forces intent on taking that hill. Now exhausted, outnumbered and out of ammunition, Chamberlain rallies his men and leads them on a charge down the hill and breaks up the attack for good.

Tom Berenger is very good as General Longstreet who tries unsuccessfully to talk General Robert E. Lee out of making that final brutal frontal assault. Lee played by Martin Sheen was arguably the most wooden of the cast. But his men who would follow him thru the gates of hell itself cover up whatever flaws his characterization produced.

Richard Jordan, as General Lewis Armistead gave arguably the best performance of his life and his last. He died of a brain tumor shortly after filming. Armistead is torn between his loyalty to his army and his state and the vow he made to his best friend, Winfield Scott Hancock the commander of the Union troops facing his, that if he ever raised a hand against Hancock, may God strike him dead. Armistead leads the Confederate advance during Pickett’s charge and makes the furthest advance of the charge, “the high water mark” of the Confederacy.

The film was beautifully filmed and used thousands of extras from the countless Civil War reenactors who are decked out perfectly down the buttons on their uniforms, in realism that Hollywood only dreams of producing.

While we marvel at the bravery and courage of the men of both sides, the horror and the awful cost of the war, using outmoded Napoleonic tactics are all too common here. Over 51,000 men became casualties in just three days of fighting.

This was a great war film and was expertly done. Filmed on location in Gettysburg, PA, it gets all of the things we usually find fault in most war films right. They don’t waste their time with the old cliches. This was as accurate a war film that you’ll find. Pop it in the DVD and enjoy.

Photos: Wikipedia

The Boston Massacre March 5, 1770 A Powder Keg That Lit the Revolution

The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770, when a squad of British soldiers came to the aid of a lone sentry who was being heckled and pelted with snowballs from an unruly mob. The British soldiers fired a volley of shots into the crowd of colonists, killing five, three immediately died on the scene and the other two died later of their wounds.

One of the dead was a free man of African-American heritage, Crispus Attucks. Eight British soldiers were arrested along with the officer in charge, Captain Thomas Preston as well as four civilians and charged with manslaughter. Six of the soldiers including Preston were acquitted, two were found guilty but had their sentences reduced to the branding of their thumbs with an “M” for manslaughter.

One interesting footnote for the trial was the fact that the British soldiers were defended by one of the most staunch Patriots (as they were called as opposed to Loyalists) against the British but he insisted that the soldiers receive a fair trial to show impartiality. And therefore no further retaliatory moves by the British against the Patriot cause.

However, colonists were further moved to action by this event which was illustrated by Paul Revere, but was inflammatory and not quite true. In his illustration, Revere showed the British troops on-line and firing under the command of their officer (Preston). When in fact the soldiers fired in absence of orders and haphazardly, not in unison.

Boston Becomes a Hot-Spot: Rising tensions in the British colony of Massachusetts had been building since 1768. Boston was one of the main shipping ports for the British into the American colonies and because of that, was the hub of resistance against unfair British taxation on the colonists by Parliament in the 1760s.

In 1768, the Townshend Acts, which, after the “Stamp Act”, began the era of “Taxation Without Representation” was placed upon the colonists, where a variety of common items that were manufactured in Britain and exported to the colonies were subjected to import tariffs. Colonists objected that the Townshend Acts were a violation of the natural, charter, and constitutional rights of British subjects in the colonies. And that was just the beginning.

The colonists called for action and the Massachusetts House of Representatives drafted a document called the “Massachusetts Circular Letter” where they demanded that Parliament rescind the Townshend Acts by sending a letter directly to King George. The letter was sent to the other colonial assemblies asking them to join in boycotting any British merchants who imported these goods.

Back in London, Lord Hillsborough, the new Colonial Secretary directed all colonial governors to order all colonial assemblies to dissolve if they answered the Massachusetts Circular Letter and ordered the Mass. House to rescind the letter thru the Governor Francis Bernard. The Mass. House refused.

The British then sent the HMS Romney, a fifty-gun warship into Boston Harbor as a show of force. Tensions increased when the sailors began impressing colonist sailors into Navy service and then seized the merchant ship “Liberty” a sloop belonging to John Hancock which was accused of smuggling.

Bostonians, angered to the point of rioting, scared the British officials to the extent that they retreated to Castle William and called for the army. General Gage was dispatched to send “such Force as You shall think necessary to Boston” to quell the rioting. He sent four regiments of infantry there. Two were later withdrawn but two, the 14th and 29th Regiments of Foot stayed and were quartered in the town.

The fact that the British soldiers had been billeted in Boston was a further thorn for the colonists. Tension continued to simmer under the surface until the cold March night of March 5, 1770, when an innocuous interaction began a deadly series of events.

The old state house in Boston, the round disk in the sidewalk is the spot where the British shot the colonists during the Boston Massacre.

As was customary a British soldier stood on guard duty outside the Custom-house on King Street, which today is known as State Street. The private Hugh White was alone. Then a young wigmaker’s apprentice named Edward Garrick recognized a British officer and yelled to him in the street that the officer hadn’t paid his bill to Garrick’s boss. Which was incorrect, the Captain in question had paid it. But that began a snowball effect.

White yelled at Garrick that he should show more respect to an officer of the Crown. The two men began hurling insults at one another. Garrick began to poke White in the chest with his finger while continuing to insult the soldier. White then struck Garrick on the side of his head with a musket, what today is commonly referred to as a “Butt stroke.”

This attracted a larger crowd including a 19-year old bookseller named Henry Knox who would later become a General in the army with General George Washington. The crowd was becoming more boisterous and when church bells rang, usually signaling a fire, the crowd swelled to fifty.

The crowd was led by Crispus Attucks and they pelted White with snowballs and insults and he retreated to a somewhat safer but still exposed position on the steps of the Custom House. Sensing imminent danger, White called for assistance. Captain Thomas Preston, commander of the guard watch sent a non-commissioned officer and six enlisted men, Corporal William Wemms, Hugh Montgomery, John Carroll, William McCauley, William Warren, and Matthew Kilroy to assist and if need be protect Private White and the Custom House.

The crowd, by now swelled to 300-400 townspeople grew more threatening. The soldiers formed a semi-circle around the steps of the Custom House and loaded their weapons. Knox, by now seeing what was transpiring, begged Preston to diffuse the situation. Preston said he was aware of it and ordered the crowd to disperse.

But the mob of colonists, their boldness fueled by their numbers refused to heed the warnings. Now there were no longer just snowballs being thrown as other objects began to pelt the British soldiers. One object knocked Private Hugh Montgomery, down and causing him to drop his musket. He recovered his weapon, and upon standing, panicked and despite no order given to fire, discharged his weapon into the crowd. A colonist swung a cudgel at Montgomery hitting him on his arm and swung wildly at Preston, narrowly missing the Captain’s head and striking he too on the arm.

The rest of the British troops outnumbered 50-1 panicked as well. Seconds later, a series of shots, not a volley rang thru the streets of Boston. Preston never gave the order to fire. In the volley of fire at close range, three colonists died instantly. Ropemaker Samuel Gray, mariner James Caldwell, and Crispus Attucks went down in the street. In the back of the mob, an unlucky 17-year old apprentice ivory turner named Samuel Maverick was struck by a ricocheting musket ball and died a few hours later. Another wounded man, Patrick Carr, an Irish immigrant lingered for two weeks before succumbing to his injuries.

Captain Preston immediately called out for reinforcements and the majority of the 29th Regiment of Foot was called out to surround the Custom House and restore order. The mob had swelled further but had retreated a block or two from the Custom House. Acting Governor Thomas Hutchinson spoke from the balcony and restored order to a small degree but assured colonists that there would be an inquiry into the events.

In the aftermath of the violence, both sides produced propaganda pieces that greatly aided their side of the events. And it only further inflamed passions on both sides. The soldiers and Preston were arrested and were to be charged

In an effort to demonstrate the impartiality of colonial courts, and not to lose moderate support for the cause, two Patriot leaders, John Adams and Josiah Quincy, volunteered to defend Captain Preston and his men. Preston had himself requested that Adams defend the British soldiers. Adams wrote about the trial later and gave his thoughts:

The Part I took in Defence of Cptn. Preston and the Soldiers, procured me Anxiety, and Obloquy enough. It was, however, one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country. Judgment of Death against those Soldiers would have been as foul a Stain upon this Country as the Executions of the Quakers or Witches, anciently. As the Evidence was, the Verdict of the Jury was exactly right. This however is no Reason why the Town should not call the Action of that Night a Massacre, nor is it any Argument in favour of the Governor or Minister, who caused them to be sent here. But it is the strongest Proofs of the Danger of Standing Armies.

Adams presented a compelling case that the mob, not the British soldiers incited the violence, calling them a “motley rabble” and that the soldiers rightly feared for their lives. The jury agreed and found six innocent, two were convicted of manslaughter because there was testimony that they had fired directly into the crowd. The punishment was reduced to branding their thumbs in open court.

Preston was tried separately and acquitted as there was clear evidence that he never gave the order to open fire on the colonists. The four civilians were also tried separately, later in December of 1770 and also acquitted. But by then, public interest had waned and no one wanted to continue the trial any further.

The Boston Massacre was one of the most important events that led to the American Revolution against the British. Both John and Samuel Adams wrote that the events of March 5, 1770, coupled with the Boston Tea Party, would vault America into a state of Revolution against the British. It would be five years later in April 1775, just outside of Boston in the two tiny villages of Lexington and Concord, where the colonists would be drawn into open warfare against the British.

Coincidentally, six years to the day of the Boston Massacre, the British would have to evacuate Boston after George Washington made a brilliant maneuver and moved artillery into the town at Dorchester Heights, threatening the British position. Boston was spared without a shot being fired.

Photo/Illustration: Wikipedia

General George Washington Sets Up Espionage Ring on Long Island

In February 1777, with the Revolutionary War not going well, George Washington was intent on finding out more information about the British disposition in New York. Washington’s military scouts were unable to gather enough information for him to make any appreciable decisions. So Washington decided to take the drastic step of creating his own ring of spies.

It was one of the first espionage operations and organizations in the history of the United States. Washington himself dabbled in intelligence collection as a young man when he would befriend unwitting French officers in taverns and pump them for information during his travels to Ohio.

During this time of history, spies and spying were deemed “ungentlemanly” and were universally loathed. Untrained operatives were not going to be successful as the first man to volunteer, Nathan Hale was caught only a week after being sent and was hanged.

Washington needed well-trained professionals to do the job but they didn’t exist in 1777. However, John Jay, who later became the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, had been running a counter-intelligence operation in New York and recommended Nathaniel Sackett to Washington.

On February 4, 1777, Washington wrote a letter to Sackett where he offered him $50 a month—out of his own pocket—to establish the first formal espionage group for the “advantage of obtaining the earliest and best Intelligence of the designs of the Enemy.”

Sackett is the real founding father of American intelligence although history has largely ignored his contributions, perhaps due to his very short time as the head of intelligence. However, the CIA credits him with the idea of embedding his operatives with the British and Hessian forces.

Sackett much like his successor many years later in WWII General William Donovan, with the OSS would have to start from scratch. Many of the first agents would fail, including Sackett himself only months into the job. Washington would not receive enough timely reports from his operative to properly assess the situation and he would let Sackett go after paying him for his time and effort.

Sackett’s replacement, was a young man, Benjamin Tallmadge who was just 26 years old and developed the very successful intelligence gathering operation known as the Culper Spy Ring. Tallmadge was a Major, and later was promoted to Colonel and went by the alias, John Bolton. Culper was the name proposed by Washington from Culpeper County, Virginia.

Tallmadge’s group included Abraham Woodhull and Robert Townsend. Woodhull used the alias Samuel Culper Senior and Townsend used the alias Samuel Culper Junior. Other operatives consisted of Caleb Brewster, Austin Roe, Anna Strong, James Rivington, Amos Underhill, Jonas Hawkins, Sally Townsend, and Mary Underhill.

Many of the operatives were friends of Tallmadge’s from New York, so their trust factor and bona fides were solid. They used a series of “dead drops” and other clandestine means of communication to prevent exposure to the British.

Many of the methods used would become tried and true espionage methods such as coded newspaper items, invisible ink and a clever numbering system a “numerical dictionary” code that matched 763 cities, names, and words to numbers.

Some of the other means of communication involved the signals that are still used in tradecraft today such as when there was a message to be picked up. Anna Strong, a resident of Setauket, helped pass along messages from the spy ring by posting prearranged signals to indicate when one of the spies was ready to submit intelligence.

If Strong hung a black petticoat on her clothesline, it meant that one of their contacts had arrived in town. Next to that, she would hang a number of white handkerchiefs. The specific number of handkerchiefs indicated one of six hiding places where their contact will be located. The operatives used Strong’s signals to meet one another or to drop messages at one of the meeting places.

The British had caught wind of a woman who supposedly was passing signals to the Revolution and Strong fit the profile of whom they were looking for, but she was never caught.

Their secrecy was such that not even Washington himself knew the identities of all of the operatives. Not one of them were ever compromised or captured by the British.

The Culper Spy ring operated in New York City, Long Island, and Connecticut from 1778 until 1783. However, the majority of their operations ended around 1781. Some of their intelligence coups were extremely important to the cause of the Revolution. Among them were :

A planned sneak attack on the French forces that were landing to help the cause at Newport, Rhode Island. The French were still organizing after their voyage from France and an attack before they were ready could have thrown them back into the sea.
A British ploy to counterfeit the paper money that the Revolution was using, “Continental Dollars”, the timely intelligence helped the Continental Congress to act quickly and retire the bills.
The cell learned that a high-ranking American officer was going to turn over the fort at West Point, NY to the British. The future home of the US Military Academy on the Hudson River was of vital importance. The traitorous officer later turned out to be Benedict Arnold.
Culper also learned of a planned raid by Lieutenant General William Tryon in Connecticut in 1779 was a ruse to force Washington to split his forces, thus allowing LTG Henry Clinton to attack his forces piecemeal.

At the conclusion of the fighting, the British paid a big compliment to the Culper Spy Ring by stating,. “Washington didn’t really out-fight the British. He simply out-spied us,” a British intelligence officer reportedly said.

After the war, Washington asked for Congress to reimburse him for paying his spy network. His sum? $17,000, which just under $450,000 today. Congress paid him back and it was money well spent.

In 2014, a series aired on AMC based on the Culper Spy Ring “Turn: Washington’s Spies” and also drew on the book “Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring”, by Alexander Rose.

The series aired from 2014 – 2017 and starred Jamie Bell (6 Days), as Abraham Woodhull and Seth Numrich as Major Benjamin Tallmadge.

Illustrations/Photo: US Archives

December 26, 1776, General George Washington Wins Battle of Trenton

By now everyone is aware of the famous painting of General George Washington and his ragtag starving army crossing the Delaware. They did this on Christmas Day and were en route to the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey. Washington’s bold plan to quietly and quickly surround the Hessian garrison and win a much-needed battle was a pivotal win for the fledgling American Revolution.

The army had suffered defeats in New York, morale was low, the troops were starving and hungry and the revolution was on the verge of collapsing. But Washington’s bold attack and victory would inspire men to stay on in the army and would lead to more recruits rallying to the cause. The revolution even after Trenton would be far from a certainty but it was a much-needed rallying point.

Washington’s Plan: The Continental Army was in a bad way by December. They’d been routed out of New York and Long Island by the British and Hessians. They retreated across New Jersey and were across the river in Pennsylvania. The Hessians moved into Trenton, which was a small town at that time to establish their winter quarters. The Hessians numbered about 1400 men in four regiments and were commanded by Colonel Johann Rall.

Washington had about 2400 men under his command and planned to attack Trenton using three coordinated attacks.

First, General John Cadwalader would launch a diversionary attack at Bordentown, New Jersey, to block off reinforcements from the south. This would prevent the British from reinforcing Trenton’s Hessians from the south.

Then General James Ewing’s 700 men would seize the bridge at Assunpink Creek after taking his men over the Trenton Ferry. They would provide a blocking force which would effectively stop any of the Hessian troops from escaping.

Finally, Washington’s main assault force of two infantry divisions commanded by Generals Nathaniel Greene and John Sullivan, 2400 strong, would cross the river 9 miles north of Trenton, and attack from both the north under Greene and from the south under Sullivan.

Washington planned if this attack was successful, to make further moves against Princeton. Everything depended on the army getting into position without being compromised.

Rall was neither liked by his superiors or his troops, who thought him too soft to be a capable commander. Nevertheless, Rall who had been a soldier for more than 35 years had plenty of combat experience, despite his perceived shortcomings. Rall made a conscious blunder when against his own officer’s recommendations to build up defenses in the town with fortifications along the river, he declined. He mirrored what the British thought of the American soldiers and told his officers, “Let them come. We will go at them with the bayonet.”

Opening Moves: The Hessians were warned from Loyalists and American deserters that Washington was planning an attack. Outwardly, Rall dismissed them as nonsense, but in private he was worried. He wrote a letter to his commander Colonel Donop that the town was practically indefensible and he expected an attack at any moment.

On Christmas Night, the Hessians didn’t send out any patrols due to the weather. It had begun to rain, turned to sleet and finally snow. While the Hessians were bundling down trying to stay warm, Washington’s men were crossing the Delaware in boats while horses and artillery were taken across by ferry.

The weather delayed the crossing and set back the attack which was supposed to be a pre-dawn strike. But the weather also threw Washington’s plans completely off kilter. Neither General Cadwalader nor General Ewing were able to join the attack due to the severe weather conditions. As the men began marching towards Trenton, many of the men without boots were forced to tie rags around their feet and the snow was dyed red from their blood. Two men died of exposure on the way.

Only about 2 miles outside of town, Washington’s men ran into 50 armed American militia. Unaware of the plan to attack Trenton, they had just attacked a Hessian outpost. Washington was furious, believing that the Hessians would be alerted to their approach. However, Rall, having been warned by the British that the Americans would be planning an attack, believed the raid on the outpost was it and let his guard down, thinking that it was over.

Washington personally led the advance element when they ran headlong into another Hessian outpost about a mile from town. After the two sides exchanged fire, the Hessians realized they were facing a much larger force and beat a hasty but organized retreat, firing along the way.

It was then, General Sullivan and his troops entered from the south, which cut off the Hessian escape route and the firing increased. By the time Rall was assembling his three main regiments, his adjutant had informed him that Washington’s men had taken the main intersection of the town’s streets, where Rall’s engineers wanted to build a redoubt.

American cannons began to fire at the massing Hessians. Rall commanded one regiment to clear the guns. But as soon as they began advancing, the fire from the cannons broke up the attack. Rall ordered his own two cannons into action. They fired a few rounds each before accurate American return fire killed all of the crewmen and the cannons were captured.

The Hessian lines began to buckle. One regiment was pushed back and separated from the other two. The other two began to take heavy casualties from grapeshot and musket fire from the American infantry. A bayonet charge led by John Starke against the separated regiment broke them when their weapons wouldn’t fire due to wet powder.

Victory: Rall tried to reorganize his men and attack Washington’s flank. They marched in good order into the town’s streets where they briefly recaptured their cannons. But a determined American counterattack pushed them back. The Americans, firing from three directions broke up the attack. Rall was mortally wounded by cannon fire and his men retreated into an orchard where they quickly surrendered.

The third regiment of Hessians marched in the wrong direction and ran headlong into Sullivan’s troops who cut off their escape. Just minutes after the rest of the troops had surrendered, they too capitulated.

The battle was a stunning victory for Washington, who lost only the two men to frostbite and exposure on the march in and just five men wounded, including a near fatal wound to James Monroe who would later become the President of the United States. The Hessians lost 22 dead, including all four Colonels, 83 wounded and 896 men taken prisoner. Later, Sullivan captured another 200 Hessians who tried to escape to the British lines.

But even more importantly, the Americans, in dire need of food and supplies captured the Hessian’s stores at Trenton including food, arms, ammunition, clothing, shoes, boots, and bedding. Things which were all in short supply in the American Army. The ragtag Americans had gone toe-to-toe with a European army that had raised Cain in New York. Even British General Howe was surprised at the ease that the Americans had been able to dispatch the Hessians.

By noon on the 26th, Washington’s men and their prisoners were safely back across the Delaware and into Pennsylvania. The revolution would live on.

Illustration: National Archives

Francis Marion, an American Revolution Unconventional Warfare Expert

“Come on Boys! Let us go back … as for this damned old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him.
British Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton’s comments after pursuing Francis Marion helplessly in South Carolina’s swamps during the American Revolution.

Francis Marion, best known as the “Swamp Fox” was an early example of an American guerrilla fighter. He was known for his Revolutionary War record, fighting the British in the Carolinas where he was hated and respected by his adversaries as a smart and cunning unconventional warfare specialist.

While he definitely needs to be remembered as a true hero in the war for American independence, the legend of Marion was begun by a book written by M. L. “Parson” Weems, titled “The Life of General Francis Marion.” Here he took some liberties with the truth and painted a legend much like he did with George Washington in 1800 with his biography of America’s first president and the cherry tree story.

More of the legend was perpetuated by a painting done in 1820 by the artist John Blake White, a supremely decked out British officer, enters Marion’s swamp camp to propose a prisoner exchange. Surrounded by his rough-hewn Carolina country boys who eye the Brit with a mixture of hate and suspicion, Marion invites the British officer to join his ragtag group of men for a dinner of roasted sweet potatoes. The British officer, so taken in by the dashing and elan of these American guerrillas, promptly joins the American Revolution…great stuff. The painting hangs in the US Capitol. Did it happen? Doubtful.

Of course, for many Americans who weren’t aware of Marion, their visions of him were no doubt even more embellished after Mel Gibson’s film “The Patriot” turned Marion into an action hero. Gibson’s Benjamin Martin was very loosely based on Marion’s exploits and turned him into a cross between a ninja and Rambo. While entertaining to be sure, it was far from the truth. And Marion’s story doesn’t need to be embellished, he was a true American hero of the Revolution and his exploits speak for themselves.

While most think of Marion as a dashing, barrel-chested freedom fighter, he was not the picture of what would be remotely considered a “Rambo-type.” He was slight and walked with a limp. He was considered eccentric and didn’t get along well with other officers, perhaps due to his lack of education. And while physically brave, his tactics were always careful and prudent and he was far from the bold tactician that many picture of him.

Of course, there is a movement here in the country to erase our history and everyone in it by putting ridiculous 21st century standards on those of our brethren who lived by a different set of standards two hundred and fifty years ago. Marion was a slave owner and fought a notoriously brutal campaign against the Cherokee Indians that by today’s standards are sure to bring howls of derision from those history deniers. These same “useful fools” will probably move to strike Marion from the college that bears his name. He was neither a noble saint nor was he an ogre. But his world and everyone in it was vastly different than it is today. And he needs to be remembered for the soldier that he was. His record in the American Revolution as one of America’s first unconventional warfare experts was shaped by his fighting the Cherokee and adopting their tactics that he would use against the British later.

Early Life: Marion was born in 1732 on his family’s plantation in Berkeley County, South Carolina. The youngest of his family’s sons, not much was known of his early life but the thought of plantation life seemed at first to be lost on him and he grew restless. So much so that at the age of 15 he signed on with the crew of a merchant vessel bound for the West Indies. During this trip, his ship sunk, legend has it, after being struck by a whale. He and the crew escaped into a lifeboat and would spend a week adrift before coming ashore.

That would cure his restlessness for awhile. Marion returned to his family’s plantation after that and would remain there until the outbreak of the French and Indian War.

During the war, he and his brother signed on his 25th birthday to join the South Carolina militia fighting for the British. As a Lieutenant, he served under Captain William Moultrie where they drove the Cherokees from their lands using brutal scorched earth tactics.

But his service against the Indians in the southern theater of the French and Indian War taught the young officer many lessons he would later carry with him when fighting the British years later. The Cherokee would use the landscape to their advantage, blending into their surroundings using the natural cover and concealment of the forests and then melting into said forests after initiating very effective ambushes and raids. For a brief period after the war, he returned to his farming roots, and purchased a plantation of his own, at Pond Bluff on the Santee River.

The American Revolution: As he grew more successful, Marion became increasingly involved in the American cause despite South Carolina being vastly Tory or loyalist to Britain. In 1775, Marion was elected to the first South Carolina Provincial Congress, which sought the right to self-determination.

The Provincial Congress sought to raise three regiments of militia after the news of what transpired in Massachusetts at Lexington and Concord. Marion was given a commission as a Captain in the second, once again serving under William Moultrie.

He helped build Fort Sullivan in Charleston and served with bravery and distinction during the battle there in 1776. Much of the next three years, he stayed mainly in the fort and tried to keep discipline in his soldiers who were often drunk and disorderly.

He took part in the failed siege of Savannah in 1779 after the British had taken the city.

Marion’s fate and history changed from an odd accident in 1780. The Smithsonian wrote of this:
Attending a dinner party at the Charleston home of a fellow officer, Marion found that the host, in accordance with 18th-century custom, had locked all the doors while he toasted the American cause. The toasts went on and on, and Marion, who was not a drinking man, felt trapped. He escaped by jumping out a second story window but broke his ankle in the fall. Marion left town to recuperate in the country, with the fortunate result that he was not captured when the British took Charleston that May.

Later after the fall of Charleston, he served under General Horatio Gates during the disaster at Camden. Gates, who distrusted Marion, had sent him to reconnoiter the British positions. Therefore, he missed that battle too which was a decisive British victory. Here is where the legend of Francis Marion was born.

Marion gathered only about 70 survivors, a rag-tag group that he took to the swamps and set out to harass the British using the tactics of the Cherokee, the unconventional, guerrilla style of fighting that he would harass the enemy with for the next two and a half years.

In August of 1780, he and 50 men raided a British encampment from the rear, surprising the vastly numerically superior enemy and in the process, freeing 150 American prisoners. Marion’s men, unlike the regular army, served without pay, provided their own horses, arms and equipment and frequently their own food. They were completely self-sufficient.

Using the hit and run tactics of the Indians, Marion’s men didn’t fight like a typical army of the time, online and in formation. They used cover and concealment, behind rocks and trees, and stone walls as they were a constant thorn in the British side. Despite being vastly outnumbered, they were a true force multiplier, tying down vast numbers of British troops who were helpless to stop his men.

The British were incensed and put a large priority to stopping Marion and his men. “Our Army will be destroyed by these driblets,” one British officer was quoted as saying. Marion’s men were seemingly everywhere and nowhere, once they’d hit a target, the mounted troops would melt into the swamps and leave the enemy being increasingly frustrated.

Marion received his nickname, courtesy of Lt Colonel Banastre Tarleton, who learned of Marion’s location from a prisoner, chased the guerrillas for seven hours, thru 26 miles of swamps before finally giving up and returning to his base. “As for this damned old fox, the Devil himself could not catch him.”

The legend was born, and for American patriots in the South Carolina countryside, he became an immediate hero and more and more men flocked to his command and his support from the countryside grew as well.

As Marion’s men and operations grew, the British lines of communication and supply were increasingly affected, nevertheless, he never commanded a large army in combat during this time and many historians gave him his proper due. But he and other Colonial militia who used hit and run tactics in both North and South Carolina so frustrated Lord Cornwallis, that he made the rash decision to move his army north to Virginia where they eventually suffered defeat against Washington at Yorktown in 1781.

Cornwallis was well aware that the issues caused by such a small force under Marion caused his army. He wrote, “Colonel Marion had so wrought the minds of the people, partly by the terror of his threats and cruelty of his punishments, and partly by the promise of plunder, that there was scarcely an inhabitant between the Santee and the Pee Dee that was not in arms against us”.

Marion for his part loved tweaking the British and the Tories who supported them. As his legend grew, the Tory militia, once a very powerful force, refused to engage his troops. Marion wrote, “the Torreys are so affrighted with my little Excursions that many is moving off to Georgia with their Effects; other are rund (sic) into Swamps.”

He was eventually a victim of his own success. The Continental Army moved back into the Carolinas and Marion found himself back in the “big Army” (many of our Special Operations veterans can attest to this feeling). He hated the regimentation and the petty politics that infected the officer ranks (somethings never change).

In 1782, he was elected to the new State Assembly, and took up his seat, returning briefly to his troops to put down a Tory rebellion on the banks of the Pee Dee. But the war was soon over and Marion’s days as a guerilla fighter were over.

Retirement: Marion returned to his plantation to find it burned to the ground, as a reprisal by the British during the war. He set about rebuilding it and his personal life. A lifelong bachelor, he finally married at the age of 56 to Mary Esther Videau, a distant cousin.

He was elected to and served several terms in the State Assembly. The state recognized his service and awarded him the title of the Commander of Fort Johnson which carried a $500 dollar salary per annum.

He died in 1795 at the age of 63 and was buried at Belle Isle Plantation Cemetery in Berkeley County, South Carolina.

The small rag-tag army of guerrillas of Francis Marion became the epitome of “force multipliers” for the Continental Army. They tied down vast numbers of British troops far in excess of their own numbers and presented a force that frustrated their enemy increasingly over a two and half year period. They seemed to melt into the forests and swamps whenever they were threatened, only to strike again when the situation favored their side. Living off the land and self-sufficient, the raid and ambush were their specialties.

The “Little Colonel with the limp” had been a huge part of helping America gain her independence. And he was one of the first of America’s Special Operations warriors.

Illustrations: Wikipedia

September 25, 1780, Benedict Arnold Defects to the British

Almost every American school kid remembers (when they actually still taught history) the name of Benedict Arnold. He was roundly reviled in the American Revolution as a traitor and his name will, in American folklore be used as a synonym for being a turncoat.

But there was more to Arnold’s treachery than meets the eye. He was, at the start of the Revolution, a fervent Patriot. But later events, partly of his own doing, would cause him to eschew the cause and go over to the British.

Arnold was born in the Colonies in Rhode Island in 1741. He was as close as one could get to being royalty in New England. His grandfather was one of the founding fathers of the colony and his family were considered respected upper crust there. But his father, was a drunkard and an embarrassment to the family, having moved them to Norwich, Connecticut.

Arnold moved away at first chance and became a very successful apothecary and seagoing merchant. But ever aware of any slight due to his childhood, he was extremely petty and overly sensitive, taking umbrage to anything, he fought more than a few duels because of it. It would cause him much heartburn later in life.

Arnold was outraged over the Boston Massacre and when he heard of the fighting in Lexington and Concord in April of 1775, he seized some of the gunpowder of New Haven and quickly assembled a group of volunteers and marched north.

Arnold met with and convinced Dr. Joseph Warren in Massachusetts, one of the leaders of the nascent revolution, that the revolution needed to capture Fort Ticonderoga in New York State. It was a formidable star-shaped target with 80 cannons. Arnold and Warren knew the Revolution could use those cannons. But since the end of the French-Indian War, the British let the amount of troops lag and by 1775, the garrison contained only about 50 men.

Arnold and his troops met up with Ethan Allen and his “Green Mountain Boys and marched to the fort on the shores of Lake Champlain. There they surprised the British garrison that was still sleeping. It was the first victory for the Revolution and the cannons would be well used during the upcoming siege of Boston.

There would be controversy when Allen’s men were busy consuming the fort’s rum supply while Arnold, would capture and take command of a small fleet of warships on Lake Champlain giving the Colonials control of the lake and fight a battle there in 1776.

One of the Colonial leaders, Colonel James Easton dared to ridicule Arnold for his self-styling name as “Commodore of the American Navy” at Lake Champlain, something the thin-skinned Arnold wouldn’t tolerate and he proceeded to “kick him very heartily.”

It would forever burn his bridges with Easton, as he and a number of other American officers would ostracize and eventually drive him away.

Despite this, Arnold’s men and even many of his detractors would characterize him as an excellent officer and leader. His men always had confidence in his abilities.

Arnold’s first wife died in 1775 and he was grief-stricken and couldn’t bear to remain in New Haven alone. He left his children with a relative and threw himself into the workings of the Revolution. And for the next three years, he was a model officer and became an indispensable member of General Washington’s staff.

He met his second wife, Peggy Shipton, daughter of Philadelphia aristocracy and British loyalists in 1778. While stationed there, he was living well above his means, trying to keep his new wife in the standard of living that she was used to.

Another enemy Arnold made during his time in Philadelphia was that of Joseph Reed, who had been a close friend of General Washington but had burned his bridges there with his annoying habit of antagonizing everyone around him including his friends. Reed as a member of the Supreme Executive Council began documenting a case against Arnold as the military governor.

Reed made a flimsy, eight charge indictment of Arnold that had zero chance of ever getting a conviction. Washington knew this and took neither side but Reed persisted, despite lacking any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Arnold.

By the spring of 1779, with Reed refusing to let go of his vendetta against him, Arnold began to have second thoughts on the revolution. With the court-martial and the digging of Reed’s barbs hanging over his head, Arnold read where the British newspapers were speaking more highly of his talents than his own were. The Royal Gazette of London wrote, “General Arnold heretofore had been styled another Hannibal, but losing a leg in the service of the Congress, the latter considering him unfit for any further exercise of his military talents, permit him thus to fall into the unmerciful fangs of the executive council of Pennsylvania.”

Arnold then saw his betrayal to the Revolution as a way out of his predicament. In financial trouble as well as his legal issues hanging over his head with Reed. A British captain, John Andre knew his wife and was living in New York City. Arnold sent him a letter to feel out the British and wondering how much they would compensate him for his services.

Washington finally ended the court-martial with a reprimand and gave Arnold the command of the fort of West Point. In 1780, Arnold made plans with Andre to turn over West Point to British General Henry Clinton. Andre was caught with the documents and executed. Arnold himself narrowly eluded capture by Washington and escaped on the British sloop Vulture down the Hudson River.

The British made Arnold a Brigadier General with an annual pension of £360, and a lump sum of over £6,000. He led British troops in Virginia and conducted raids in both Groton and New London, Connecticut. After the British defeat at Yorktown, he and his wife moved to London, where incidentally, Arnold never received the full amount of money due him.

He and his sons briefly ran a business in New Brunswick, but he soon returned to London and there he remained until his death in 1791.

While the incessant poking of Reed and the jealousy of seeing several junior officers to himself get promoted ahead of him weighed heavily on him, in the end it was money that was the driving force that caused Arnold to betray the revolution.

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

The American Stars and Stripes Flies for the First Time September 3, 1777

The American flag, the Stars, and Stripes was flown, supposedly for the first time in a minor skirmish on this date in 1777. Colonial forces under the command of General William Maxwell were defeated by a combined force of British and Hessian at a place called Cooch’s Bridge in Maryland. Maxwell ordered his men to hoist the flag as the took on the advanced guard of the British Army. Maxwell’s force of infantry and cavalry were forced to retreat to General Washington’s main force at Brandywine, Pennsylvania.

Some historians argue that the flag was not flown there as stated by historian Edward. W. Cooch. Cooch stated further that the flag was then flown about a week later at the battle of Brandywine on September 11.

Three months before, on June 14, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union will be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.”

The national flag, which became known as the “Stars and Stripes,” was based on the “Grand Union” flag, a banner carried by the Continental Army in 1776 that also consisted of 13 red and white stripes. That too is a subject for debate. Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross designed the new Stars and Stripes, which consisted of a circle of 13 stars and a blue background, at the request of General George Washington. Some argue that the entire Ross situation is a legend and has never been proven.

In a paper to the Pennsylvania Historical Society after Ross’ death, her grandson William J. Canby produced a paper that supposedly gave credence to the idea that Ross and others manufactured the flag. His paper states:

Sitting sewing in her shop one day with her girls around her, several gentlemen entered. She recognized one of these as the uncle of her deceased husband, Col. GEORGE ROSS, a delegate from Pennsylvania to Congress. She also knew the handsome form and features of the dignified, yet graceful and polite Commander in Chief, who, while he was yet COLONEL WASHINGTON had visited her shop both professionally and socially many times, (a friendship caused by her connection with the Ross family). They announced themselves as a committee of congress, and stated that they had been appointed to prepare a flag, and asked her if she thought she could make one, to which she replied, with her usual modesty and self reliance, that “she did not know but she could try; she had never made one but if the pattern were shown to her she had not doubt of her ability to do it.” The committee were shown into her back parlor, the room back of the shop, and Col. Ross produced a drawing, roughly made, of the proposed flag. It was defective to the clever eye of Mrs. Ross and unsymmetrical, and she offered suggestions which Washington and the committee readily approved.
What all these suggestions were we cannot definitely determine, but they were of sufficient importance to involve an alteration and re-drawing of the design, which was then and there done by Colonel (General) George Washington, in pencil, in her back parlor. One of the alterations had reference to the shape of the stars. In the drawing they were made with six points.
Mrs. Ross at once said that this was wrong; the stars should be five pointed; they were aware of that, but thought there would be some difficulty in making a five pointed star. “Nothing easier” was her prompt reply and folding a piece of paper in the proper manner, with one clip of her ready scissors she quickly displayed to their astonished vision the five-pointed star; which accordingly took its place in the national standard. Colonel (General) Washington was the active one in making the design, the others having little or nothing to do with it. When it was completed, it was given to William Barrett, painter, to paint. …
The gentleman drew out of a chest an old ship’s color, which he loaned her to show her how the sewing was done, and also the drawing painted by Barrett. Other designs had been prepared by the committee and one or two of them were placed in the hands of other seamstresses to be made. Betsy Ross went diligently to work upon her flag, carefully examining the peculiar stitch in the old ship’s color, which had been given her as a specimen, and recognizing, with the eye of a good mechanic, its important characteristics, strength and elasticity.
The flag was soon finished, and Betsy returned it, the first ‘Star Spangled Banner’ that ever floated upon the breeze, to her employer. It was run up to the peak of one of his ships lying at the wharf, and received the unanimous approval of the committee and of a little group of bystanders looking on, and the same day was carried into the State House and laid before Congress, with a report from the committee.
The next day Col. Ross called upon Betsy, and informed her that her work had been approved and her flag adopted; and he now requested her to turn her whole attention to the manufacture of flags, and gave her an unlimited order for as many as she could make. …
Ross was now effectively set up in the business of flag and color making for the government; through all her after life, which was a long, useful and eventful one, she “never knew what it was,” to use her own expression, “to want employment,” this business (flag-making for the government) remaining with her and in her family for many years.

And with the entrance of each new state into the United States after independence, new stripes and stars were added to represent new additions to the Union. In 1818, however, Congress enacted a law stipulating that the 13 original stripes be restored and that only stars be added to represent new states. Today we have 50 stars and the original thirteen red and white stripes.

So when the legend and history collide, the people generally prefer the legend. Were the Stars and Stripes first flown into combat on this day in 1777? We may never know the entire truth, but we’ll err on the side with the legend here. Happy Labor Day.

Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

Worst War Movies Ever… Don’t Waste Your Time on These Stinkers

Back in May around Memorial Day, we listed some of our favorite War Films that are guaranteed to entertain and keep your interest. We could have easily added a couple of more as the genre always has some worthy additions by Hollywood’s filmmakers. This year’s blockbuster “Dunkirk” could easily make its way into that list.

But today’s list is going in the opposite direction. These are some of the worst war films, in our humble opinion out there. In every genre, especially one as chocked full of entries as the war film category, you’ll have plenty of lousy films, that are just groan worthy from military veterans and war film buffs alike.

So watch these following films…if you dare. But as a word to the wise. You may turn it off before it is over. As some of these films are just plain awful. Normally we’d say, drum roll, please. Instead, we’ll play a dirge. In no particular order here is your Wall of Shame of Worst War Films:

Battle of the Bulge (1965) – Despite a stellar All-Star cast of Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Charles Bronson, Dana Andrews, George Montgomery and James MacArthur this one got nearly everything wrong. The uniforms, the tanks, the history was skewed horribly.

Less than a minute into the film, the narrator, William Conrad uttered this: “To the south lay Patton’s Third Army, to the North Montgomery’s Eighth”….What? Field Marshal Montgomery’s Eighth Army, for which he rose to fame in the desert, was in Italy, not the Northern edge of the Bulge. That should tell you right away that this stinker was not going to get things right.

The German Tiger Tanks were actually M-47 Patton tanks and the American Shermans were portrayed by M-24 Chaffee light tanks. Filmed entirely in Spain, the terrain resembled the wooded, hilly Ardennes, not at all.

The film wasted a good performance from Robert Shaw, as the fanatical SS officer Col. Hessler who was tasked to break through the Allied lines. Shaw’s Hessler was loosely based on SS Colonel Joachim Peiper. No mention is made of the counter-attack from Patton’s forces from the south, the 101st Airborne’s holding of the key road junction of Bastogne or the Allied air power, which after the skies cleared, decimated the Germans on the ground.

Instead, this film would have you believe that the only thing that stopped the Germans from reaching Antwerp was the lack of gas. The climactic tank battle at the end was another loosely based big tank battle at Celles. In the film, the Germans wipe out the American forces. In reality, it was the opposite. The 2nd Armored Division left 88 German tanks smoking in the hills. This film was so bad that General Eisenhower came out of retirement to excoriate it for its lack of historical accuracy.

Inchon (1979) – This stinker was produced by the religious leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon, head of the powerful Unification Church in the 1980s. He put up $30 million of his own cash to make this limp, tepid offering. The production costs ballooned up to $46 million, which would be near $150 million today. Sir Laurence Olivier was paid $1 million bucks to play General Douglas MacArthur and it is clear, he was there for the paycheck only.

Rev. Moon claimed that the spirit of MacArthur visited him during the filming giving his blessing to the project. OK…does anything else need to be added here?

The cast of Olivier, Ben Gazzara, and Jacqueline Bissett was wasted here with dialogue as dry as a buffalo fart. Olivier looked more like Emperor Palpatine than MacArthur in this one. And Moon threw in a little sex action between Gazzara and a Korean hottie while cheating on Bissett who was his wife at home to take away from the rest of this potboiler I guess to show that the war was the cause of marital infidelity. It was actually filmed in 1979 and Moon shopped for three years for a studio to release this turkey.

I didn’t make it thru the original release, falling asleep in the theater and guarantee if you are having sleep issues watch this and it will do the trick. This one was so bad that MGM didn’t even release it on video. You can find it on YouTube if you care to.

Pearl Harbor (2001) – Michael Bay took a 90-minute action film about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and squeezed it into a 3-hour 3-minute monstrosity that took severe creative license with the actual history. Starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale who are involved in a complicated love triangle during the and immediate aftermath of the Japanese attack that kicked the U.S. into World War II.

Pearl Harbor had a huge operating budget of $140 million but made a respectable $450 million at the box office. Some of it was filmed in the huge Baja Studio that James Cameron built for Titanic. And the ship scenes filmed there were still visible (the wreck of the Arizona) a few years later when I got to work on the beginning of a Narnia film there in 2009.

The numerous factual inaccuracies were pretty numerous, the Marlboro Lights in a sailor’s pocket…was inexcusable. A pretty amusing scene is where Affleck is talking to Colonel Doolittle in his office and behind the Colonel are his trophies for air racing. Look closely and there is an F-86 Saber jet from the Korean War. Affleck’s supposed action in the “Eagle Squadron” with the RAF is flawed. No American Army pilots were allowed to join. Only civilians. And what in the wide, wide world of sports is the intelligence officers and Beckinsale listening to during the Doolittle Raid? It certainly wasn’t radio chatter from the planes over Japan. They were on strict radio silence.

This one at least had some good action scenes during the actual bombing of Pearl Harbor which Bay did well although again inaccurately and had the always enchanting Beckinsale in the lead. A curious decision was the one to portray Mrs. Ben Affleck (Jennifer Garner) as a dowdy nurse, perhaps to take away from Beckinsale’s draw.

Redacted (2009) – If you’ve never heard of this one, don’t be alarmed, you aren’t missing anything. Normally I love the films of Brian De Palma but he swung for the fences with this one and missed. De Palma took a real incident about a rape of a young Iraqi girl and the murder of her family and tried to create an anti-war film about the U.S. involvement in Iraq. Surprisingly, some of the medium’s most well-known critics loved this film. Don’t waste your time, it was unmitigated trash, exploitation. He tried to shock the audience, right down to a slide show of gruesome pictures of Iraq’s war dead. We aren’t told who killed them, or who they are…it is just supposed to shock the viewer.

The message? here is that the war is making monsters out of American youth? I don’t know. It is kind of murky there but De Palma goes full-blown exploitive with the two Americans being the cartoonish, one-dimensional villains in the scene.The one perpetrator even wears a helmet mounted camera to catch the ugliness on film as the antithesis of the combat footage we’ve seen on screen during the war.

This was one of De Palma’s lesser efforts, the dialogue is atrocious and totally unbelievable for any grunts and sounds like a cliche machine.The way these guys interact with one another is a joke. Is this a unit that went to Iraq together or did they meet on the set just ten minutes before? It was just a crudely done, poorly defined film that even the “found camera footage” is unbelievable. It was a one-dimensional bit of schlock that is best left to the imagination.

Revolution (1985) – Ok, I know “The Patriot” also taking place in the Revolutionary War took tremendous liberties with the historical facts. But the cast at least made it entertaining. Revolution was one of the most horrible films I think I’ve ever been subjected to. A few years ago, I hadn’t even heard of it, and a friend of mine, said that I absolutely, positively had to watch it.

Well, I did and I agree with the original review published in 1985 with its release that it was quite probably the worst film of the year. The casting was absolutely ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, I love Al Pacino. Some of his performances are legendary stuff, Scarface, Heat, the Godfather saga. But casting him as a trapper caught up in the Revolutionary War is a head scratcher. Where was he trapping? In Brooklyn? His accent is not American Revolution-esque unless we had a lot more Italian immigrants in the colonies than what has been reported.

Speaking of accents, Nastassja Kinski, who back in the day was quite the box office draw, has a completely different one from the actresses who play her mother and sisters. I guess we’re supposed it ignore it or assume that she was adopted.

The British characters led by Donald Sutherland, are the unequivocal bad guys here. And just in case you don’t see it first hand, the director makes sure that you do by making most of them kiddy-diddlers. Pederasty aside, it is still a horrible film that is just not worth your time. The director wasted some nicely filmed battle scenes in Yorktown by making a boring, yawner who…like the ones listed above, took great liberties with history.

There are several more we could have listed here but you get the idea. And please feel free to chime in with some of your own Hall of Shame War Films. So with Labor Day Weekend upcoming, if you’re not making one last run to the beach this summer and you’re content with sitting home and watching some of your favorite war films, do yourself a favor. Skip these five. You’ll be glad you did.

Photos courtesy: IMDB

Battle of Bunker Hill, June 16-17, 1775, America’s Independence is Born

The beginning of the Revolutionary War and America’s independence from England was simmering in New England in June of 1775. The Battles of Lexington and Concord had occurred just two months prior in April and the British were trying to break out of the city of Boston. General George Washington was on his way from New York at the time as the new head of the Continental Army but arrived too late before the battle was completed. But the clash would essentially pit the might of the British Empire against the Continental Army for the first time in a major battle.

While the Americans technically lost the battle and were forced off the heights in Charlestown, right next to Boston they showed the British that this was going to be a long, protracted war and their will to fight the mightiest army in the world was real. It was also the bloodiest engagement the British suffered in terms of officers lost in the war.

They under-estimated the plucky Colonials whom they thought of as rabble and the direct assault on the high ground of Charlestown would be the last time they would attempt that in the war. This was a story that every school in Massachusetts would teach but has sadly faded into an obscure footnote of our history.

The British Plan: British troops had been bottled up in Boston since Lexington and Concord. General Thomas Gage had been requesting reinforcements for his troops and they began arriving bring his force close to 6000 strong. Gage’s plan called for the British troops to take Dorchester Neck and once they reinforced the high ground on Dorchester Heights, the infantry would push the Colonials out of Roxbury. Then the British would turn their attention to heights in Charlestown. The attack was to begin on June 18.

Colonial spies found out about the plan and alerted the military and civilian leaders in New Hampshire. On June 15, General Ward ordered General Israel Putnam to set up defenses on the Charlestown Heights, specifically Bunker Hill.

On the evening of June 16^th, the Colonials under the command of Col. William Prescott led 1200 troops onto the peninsula where they could set up artillery to bear fire on the city of Boston. Prescott’s Engineer CPT Richard Gridley advised Prescott not to fortify Bunker Hill but the smaller Breed’s Hill which was more defensible. It was also closer to Boston.

The British could see the work being done on Breed’s Hill and shelled the colonists with 128 guns from the HMS Somerset and Lively as well as from Copp’s Hill in Boston but with little effect.

Opening Moves: British General Henry Clinton wanted to advance immediately through Charlestown Neck, cutting off any hope of retreat for the Colonials, but his idea was shot down by the other generals in part due to overconfidence and a bit of arrogance. Generals Thomas Burgoyne and William Howe wanted a frontal assault up the hill and thought the “rabble” of Colonials on the heights would be no match for their trained troops.

The British arriving on shore from longboats took nearly six hours to land 1500 troops of Howe’s on the eastern tip of the peninsula. He was reinforced with more troops of General Robert Pigot who, on the left flank would lead the direct assault on top of the hill. Howe, being cautious waited for Pigot’s men before beginning the assault lost an opportunity to flank the forces on Breed’s Hill, but while he was waiting for more longboats, it allowed the Colonials to place reinforcements of the 1^st and 3^rd New Hampshire on the northern flank under the command of Colonels John Stark and James Reed.

The Colonials behind the scenes were a tangled mess of confusion. Orders were mixed up or directly ignored. Some units didn’t cross into Charlestown as ordered and others milled around Bunker Hill in utter confusion.

First British Attack at 3 p.m.: The troops of General Howe, now numbering close to 2400 were finally ready by three in the afternoon and began their march. Pigot’s forces were receiving sniper fire from Charleston and incendiary fire from offshore set fire to the town. Pigot was to feint a frontal assault and draw some of the forces away from the flank.

Prescott, in an effort to conserve the Americans’ limited supply of ammunition, reportedly told his men, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” And he’d forever live in history as one of the first American heroes.

Howe then attempted to turn the Colonials left flank, he led his force of light infantry and grenadiers along the narrow beach and ran straight into the two New Hampshire regiments that had only just occupied their positions. But the New Hampshire men held the higher ground and had a bit of cover behind a fence which also was used to steady their aim. The Colonials put devastating fire on Howe’s troops and forced them into retreat, with heavy casualties.

Second British Assault: The British quickly reformed and hit the Colonials again. This time Pigot’s forces attempted a frontal assault on the hill where the Americans were dug in with good cover with a trench that they were able to stand in with good fields of fire. Howe’s troops moved along the rail fence instead of the beach attempting to envelop the men on Breed’s Hill.

Once again, the American militia held firm. Pigot’s men were forced back down the hill with heavy casualties. Howe’s troops fared even worse the second time with some companies sustaining nearly 90 percent casualties. Losses of the officers in the British assault was extremely high. The British were forced to retreat a second time.

But the Americans’ lack of a cohesive chain of command stopped them from pressing home the advantage. General Putnam on Bunker Hill was having little success at sending over reinforcements to Breed’s Hill and resupply was virtually non-existent. Ammunition was running low.

Final British Assault: The British were having problems in their rear of their own. The wounded who were ambulatory were streaming back to the beach and were taking the longboats back to Boston for medical treatment. Howe had signaled that he needed reinforcements. Clinton sent 400 more men from the Marines and 63^rd Regiment of Foot to bolster the attack.

Clinton then personally exhorted the troops and convinced 200 more wounded troops to reform, return to the line and bolster the assault. Had the Americans done so as well from the mainland and from Bunker Hill, the battle may have turned out differently.

Some of the colonists began to panic and flee although they had to this point sustained few casualties. The British once again made a frontal assault on the hill. Howe on the flank only feinted at trying to envelop the colonial left flank. Casualties were again heavy on the British side as the fire from the heights took a deadly toll.

But the militia ran out of ammunition on top of the hill. Here is where the British Army showed the resolve and years of training that they were famous for. They continued to march up the hill and crested the heights. With bayonets fixed (which the militia didn’t possess), they pushed the Colonials off the heights.

The retreat was made in good order thanks to the excellent work done by the men from New Hampshire and Colonel Starke who even got grudging praise from his counterpart Burgoyne who wrote that the retreat was, “no flight; it was even covered with bravery and military skill”. Most of the wounded were saved and the men retreated back across the peninsula to the mainland by 5 p.m. and into Cambridge. The British had won the heights.

Casualties on the British side were appallingly high. They lost 1054 during the battle including 228 dead and 828 wounded. The British dead and wounded included 100 commissioned officers, a large percentage of their officer corps in North America. Much of General Howe’s staff was among the casualties Major Pitcairn had been killed, and Lieutenant Colonel James Abercrombie fatally wounded. General Gage, in his report after the battle, reported the following officer casualties (listing lieutenants and above by name):

1 lieutenant colonel killed
2 majors killed, 3 wounded
7 captains killed, 27 wounded
9 lieutenants killed, 32 wounded
15 sergeants killed, 42 wounded
1 drummer killed, 12 wounded

American casualties amounted to 450 with 115 dead, most of which occurred in the retreat from the heights. Thirty of the most seriously wounded were left on the field and were taken prisoner by the British. Of those, 20 died while in custody. The Americans also abandoned five of the six artillery pieces on the hill which the British quickly turned to their use. Their biggest loss was Dr. Joseph Warren who was the President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. He was given a commission as a Major General on the 14^th of June but it hadn’t taken effect by the battle and he fought and died as a volunteer private.

Aftermath: The bloody nose suffered by the British had an effect on their campaign in New England. They didn’t follow up their success with pushing the Continental Army out of the outskirts of Boston and hunkered down in static positions. In March of 1776, General Washington would seize all the surrounding hills and the British were forced to evacuate Boston.

The political fallout was even more profound. When General Gage’s report hit London, it caused in-fighting between the Tories and the Whigs and many in Parliament rethought their stance on the war in the Colonies. King George III took a much harder stance towards their brethren in America as well. The British hardening stance actually led to a move in the southern colonies to become more involved in the revolution.

Gage was sacked and replaced by Howe in October. But not before he wrote a scathing letter to Parliament in which he stated that, that “a large army must at length be employed to reduce these people (emphasis mine)”, that would require “the hiring of foreign troops.”

The die was cast and the British knew that the war was not going to over quickly and that would be a long, drawn-out affair. And when American/Colonial soldiers had good leadership, they often fought with the skill that they had mastered. But after Bunker Hill fallout from the American side showed resolve to stand together to fight the mightiest army in the world. The morale of the Colonists was bolstered by the results of the battle and after several bloody years of conflict, the Americans would win their independence.

So, while technically a defeat, the Battle of Bunker Hill laid the foundation for American Independence. And today, the ceremonies will mark where some pesky Colonial “rabble” showed the British Army that they were in for a long drawn out and bloody conflict.

Fifty years after the battle the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument was laid on Breed’s Hill by the Marquis de Lafayette with an address by Daniel Webster. The monument is a stone obelisk that rises 221 feet above the hill. An interesting footnote was when Lafayette died, he had dirt from Bunker Hill spread over his casket by his son Georges.

Painting by Howard Pyle, Map courtesy of Wikipedia, Monument photo courtesy of the State of Massachusetts

Final Thoughts, Memorial Day, Thank the Fallen Warriors, Not the Veterans

When one talks about Memorial Day, it is important to know what it means and most importantly who it is honoring. The thing to remember is, this day is reserved for the fallen warriors who died in defense of our country not for the veterans who march in honor of their missing comrades.

Many of our well-meaning and patriotic neighbors in our little bucolic town thanked us for our service as we marched past in our annual parade where we trod thru the center of the town and visited four different cemeteries to pay homage to our veterans.

But this day, Memorial Day isn’t about the men marching. That’s reserved for Veterans’ Day in November. This day is to remember and honor the nearly one million men and women who fell defending our country, our way of life and the very freedoms we enjoy today.

It is often slightly uncomfortable when citizens thank you on Memorial Day because the day should be about our fallen comrades…thank them. But I understand where they’re coming from and there is definitely no malice involved.

But when it comes to the fallen warriors, there is the undercurrent of politics that has no place in Memorial Day.

Too often today, political beliefs and leanings skew perceptions about veterans and whether a war or conflict is a “just war” or not. Military members don’t get to pick and choose which conflict they’ll support. They must put their trust in their own leaders to never put them in harm’s way for a needless cause.

That doesn’t mean that they don’t have distinct feelings about an area of the world or the war that they’re taking part in. They do. They’re not mindless robots who go off to fight wherever the government tells them. But their sense of pride in their unit and the men and women to their left and right will get them thru.

The veterans we honor on Memorial Day were someone’s son, brother, father, daughter, sister, or mother. They answered the call of duty and served their country, in most cases far from home. Their sacrifice will not be in vain as long as we remember and honor them. And live our lives according to the ideals that our country prides itself on.

One of the fascinating things about living in the New England area is the history involved in the area. This was one of the first areas developed after our ancestors came over from Europe and our veterans in our little town stretch back to the Revolutionary War.

That’s why we always visit all the cemeteries, we have soldiers from the American Revolution, right up to the most recent wars our country has been involved in. The town lost quite a few of its soldiers during the Civil War and they have reserved a section of the town’s Central Cemetery. After the war, many of their comrades chose to be buried with them in the Grand Army of the Republic section. Our oldest cemetery, on the western side of town, holds perhaps the most famous Revolutionary War soldier that none of you had ever heard of.

Peter Willard was the first African-American soldier in US history. Willard, a free black man, lived in our town and was part of the militia who fought the British at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The proverbial “shots heard ‘round the world.” He later enlisted in the Continental Army and saw the war thru to the end before settling back in the town until his death.

His portrait hung in our town hall until a fire destroyed the building and nearly all of its contents in 1971. When one speaks of trendsetters in today’s world, we think of sports or entertainment stars whose faces are plastered across social media. But Willard was a true trendsetter and set the stage for thousands of African-Americans that were to follow in our country’s military.

We’ve reached a crisis in our small town as the veterans from recent conflicts have chosen not to get involved in either the local Veteran’s Council, the VFW, or the American Legion. It’s understandable when troops leave the active service, they want a break and don’t want to be tied down to military-type commitments any longer.

However, the downside to our situation and many others is that the veterans that have taken up the slack thru the years are aging. We still have several World War II and Korea era veterans whose minds are still willing but whose bodies won’t allow them to march in the parades anymore. Many of the Vietnam veterans aren’t spring chickens either and health problems preclude many from marching any longer.

Our visits to the local schools during Memorial and Veterans’ Day weeks are always open to all veterans. These visits are important for several reasons. One is that the young students from our schools have great respect for the call of duty, selflessness, and sense of patriotism from our veterans. They always ask great questions as they attempt to learn about the different conflicts and what motivated our troops. It is a great learning experience for them.

But the recent vets are staying away. While a few have been coming to the schools the past two years, it isn’t enough. This year we had only a handful of veterans ABLE to march in the parade. It may be the last parade we hold in our town on Memorial Day. That would be a shame. The parade isn’t for us…it is for the ones who never made it home to celebrate the holidays with their families.

I don’t walk in other people’s shoes so I can’t tell them what they should or shouldn’t be doing in terms of the Memorial Day activities or how they choose to celebrate. I personally believe that we owe it to the deceased veterans to live our lives the best we can and celebrate our lives as they would have, after paying homage to them.

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” George S. Patton

Photo courtesy: US Army, Millbury-Sutton Chronicle