Warbird Information Exchange

ok movie trivia gurus, some questions about the movie tora tora tora which i can quote the script damned near verbatim since it came out in 1970 when i was in 3rd grade. i swear that movie never gets old. 1st off, after watching it again tonight i never noticed the kingfisher getting blown off the deck of the arizona. i hope it was a fake.... anybody know?? 2nd... the val dive bomber scenes.... what were the bombs filled with?? water or sand?? were they ww 2 vintage practice bombs?? or studio repros?? if original practice bombs that's a shame as originals bring a good buck now days. 3rd.... the bomb cradles on the faux vals some how lowered & dropped the dummy bombs. how was this done?? a little personal tora trivia, the skipper of the uss nevada in the movie is my brother in law's 1st cousin. his name is jerry fogel.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Actually, Fogel plays the "green" Skipper of the Ward, but we'll forgive you

I remember reading somewhere that the Kingfisher was indeed a mock up made for the movie. Notice it doesnt have the pre WWII star on it? No red dot! Wish that replica was still around.

But the PBY's they blew up were real! As far as the other questions not 100% sure. But thats what's WIX is for!

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Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis
Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

http://www.daveswarbirds.com/tora/frames.htm

Kingfisher was indeed a mockup. THe bombs were Hollywood bombs, not sure what they used for weight. The release trapeze was based on the Val's original release system.
If you noticed, however, the Val's in the movie never really perform a real dive bombing angle from altitude. They tend to perform shallow dives with a release or level fly-bys with a release.

Did you ever notice there's no glass in the P-40's canopy frames during close-ups when they attack the Japanese forces? Also, the pilots have no glass in their goggles. I guess they caused too much reflection on the sound stage!
Love the movie!
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

jerry, interesting!!! i'll look for those quirks on the zillion & 1th time i watch the flick!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

The small bombs were actually made from plywood and balsa wood during some of the shots the others I do not remember. The torpedoes were of a cement like so they would fall to the bottom if I remember correctly as I was over there in 1969 when they were filming the movie as my dad was stationed at NAS Barbers Point were they kept the planes and I did have a couple of the bombs from the movie I had brought back from Hawaii but they have since been lost.

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Classic Cars and Vintage Warbirds perserve them don't destroy them

Do you have any photos of the filming process?
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

At least one of the PBYs that were blown up appears to be a fiberglas copy..the one that explodes as it's being towed across the ramp. You can see a huge crack in the underside of the hull, the engines at just flat faces with props bolted on, and the oil cooler housings are empty.

You're right about the missing glass in the cockpits and goggles for the studio shots..it eliminates the problem of distortion and reflection. Especially important if you're doing "blue screen" shots, where everything blue is replaced with different background footage. (you'll notice in a few cockpit scenes in "Battle of Britain," the background sky can be seen "through" the pilots' google lenses, because the glass was reflecting the blue screen.

I understand when the TTT was first screened, it was much longer. It's been cut down over the years both for subsequent theatrical releases and television. I would love to see the original cut!

The DVD release features one of the original trailers, which includes a shot of an element of "Vals" flying over a parking lot packed with '60s vintage cars..

I've posted this before, but it bears another look. It's an article from a 1969 issue of the Journal of the American Aviation Historical Society that details the creation of the TTT replica aircraft.

SN

It's pretty standard for windows, canopies, etc., to not have glass in them due to reflections. Occasonally in a show you can see someone put their fingers thru a window frame when they're closing a window. Most cars in shows don't have windshields.

Since none had engines, the flat black blanks were fitted to all five PBY's that they brought to Pearl Harbor. I don't believe they built any fiberglass PBY's. I know the "crack" you talk about, but I think there's another reason for it. They did blow some of them up several times and obviously filmed them with multiple cameras and angles.

As far as the films length, I saw it seven times in the theater when I was younger and I believe that every version I've seen on TV has very little, if anything, cut from it. Itt was a long movie then, but I don';t think they ever really cut it down. Even the DVD has all the parts I remember.

One of the interesting things about the attack scenes at Wheeler are the wires you can see coming out from the remote controlled, ground running, P-40's. You can even see the operators hiding behind a P-40 that is out in front of the line of aircraft as they control the P-40 before it crashes into the line of aircraft.
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

What you were seeing may have been the detonator wires that were taped to the bottom of the fuselage; also all the PBYs they used were PBY-5A amphibians, but were converted to look like straight PBY-5s (there were no 5As there in '41 that I know of) by removing their landing gear and installing beaching gear, with the exception of N6108 which was used for a flying sequence but not for ground shots. That plane you see being towed clearly shows where the nose gear doors were faired over, and when it blows up there's a big piece that flies off the side - possibly the piece they used to skin over the main gear well.

As an aside, I wonder where they got the beaching gear they used?

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

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Hopefully not original!

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Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis
Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

The PBY's all came from Orange County Airport and belonged to
Ray Heady of Aircraft Associates. They were left over airframes
from their Navy days and as far as I know were never in civil
service?
Theres five all together from a movie still in Jim Farmer's book
Broken Wings.

The bombs / torpedoes were of fibreglass construction by
Steward-Davis who also did the PBY preps and Val conversions.

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Simon D. Beck
http://www.uswarplanes.net
Author
The Aircraft-Spotter's Film & Television Companion (2016)
Fairchild C-82 Packet: The Military and Civil History (2017)