At about the 56 minute mark, the Navajo Indian pilot is shot in a dogfight. In the initial scene he is wounded in the right leg; in subsequent scenes, the wound is in the left leg.
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When the Colonel on Guadalcanal briefs the pilots on the close air support strike, he requests the pilots strafe parallel to the front lines. The footage shows the pilots making their runs perpendicular to the lines.
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At about the 70 minute mark, during the bombing raid on the Japanese convoy in the slot, the air strikes appear both during daylight and nighttime.
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When the Indian crash lands, the distance shot shows the F6F sitting with the right gear collapsed - when the ground crew arrives in the closeup, the left gear is collapsed.
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When the squadron is arriving at Guadalcanal, Major Kirby keeps 3 planes with him to give close air support. After they do the strafing, the 4 airplanes are returning to the base. One pilot (Simmons) pulls out of formation and goes off on his own. Kirby determines the rest are low on fuel and must "pancake". When they arrive at the field, four (4) airplanes pull up to land. There should only have been 3, since Simmons had left the formation.
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As the squadron is flying into Guadalcanal, officers on the ground are discussing the situation. One states that a particular unit has had their flank turned and lost contact with the "42nd Marines". Those references refer to the marine regiment number, but there has never been a 42nd Marine regiment.
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In certain close ups of Japanese aeroplanes, there are three machine guns mounted in the wing. No Japanese aircraft has had three machine guns in each wing.
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About minute 31, during first patrol from Guadalcanal, bandits are spotted "ten o'clock, low, two miles". That means "to the left, and low." The flight is then shown breaking right to engage the enemy. You don't engage the enemy by flying further away from them.
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At The Beginning Of The Film It States That It's The Summer Of 1942. In The Opening Scene Planes Were Flying Over Ohau. Some Of The Planes Were The F4U Corsair. The F4U Corsair Did Not Start Service Until Late 1942 To Early 1943.
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In the final scene when the F4U Corsairs are flying over the field, the "Japanese" aircraft wrecks in the foreground are Grumman F6F Hellcats.
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Early in the film, Clancy is wearing Master Technical Sgt stripes. When he is being asked about the missing dish washer he has set up to pump fuel for a mission, he is wearing Corporal stripes. When the flight returns from their mission, he is again wearing Master Technical Sgt stripes. This is most obviously not a goof. The running gag throughout the movie is that he would steal from other units, be caught, be demoted, then promoted, up and down, over and over again.
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Kirby hands a samurai sword to his sleepy son without any concern about the danger, even when the kid is waving it around in the air and bouncing over it when it was laying unsheathed on the bed. When the kid lands on it his hand comes right down on the blade but he wasn't hurt.
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The doors to the offices next to the ready room are on backwards. With the angles of the louvers being as they are,, people can see in but the occupants of the offices can't see out.
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Kirby never met Griffin or Blithe until he takes over the squadron at the start of the film but when he sees them back in the States before redeployment, he says to Blithe's wife that he hadn't seen her in a long time.
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In the scenes where you see John Wayne in the cockpit with the plane facing to the left, you can see the stenciled markings in reverse.
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The arrow on the ground is 100 yards behind the line. The strafers are told to attack parallel to the battle line. Despite this, the attack is in the direction of the arrow and perpendicular to the battle line.
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A couple of the Grumman F6F Hellcats in the close support strafing run were actually Curtiss SB2C Helldivers. The tails were distinctively different and rather unique to any airplane.
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When Major Kirby is just home from the war, he takes a letter from a mailbox which in a full-screen shot is shown to have a six-cent stamp. Six-cent stamps weren't issued until 1949, four years after the war ended.
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Early in the movie, it states the date was summer 1942. This would make the planes and insignia incorrect. After Pearl Harbor, the insignia removed the red circle inside the white star, but didn't have the white sidebars. Further, the planes shown are Grumman F6F Hellcats. In 1942 the Navy/Marines used the Grumman F4F Wildcat. The Hellcat didn't tangle with Japanese planes until the later half of 1943.
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During the footage where the bombs are being loaded, a post-WWII aircraft is visible behind the bombs being loaded, which is consistent with some of the footage being used from the Korean war.
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In all of the closeups of Japanese pilots, they are in F6F Hellcat cockpits (painted gray).
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Wires used to pull the canopy away are visible when Cowboy bails out over point Zebra.
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