Flyboys: A True Story Of Courage

Soldier Boys is a novel by Dean Hughes. The story takes place during World War II and tells the story of two teenagers, one American (Spencer Morgan), the other German (Dieter Hendrick), who join their respective armies and fight at the Battle of the Bulge to show their parents that they can do it. Both the boy's families are saddened by their leaving, and have many things in common. Both have a playful little brother and some sisters, as well as concerned parents. When Spencer helps an enemy back to his battalion he dies but Dieter will never forget how he tried to save him.

Iwo Jima was known for one of the most bloody battles in not just the Marine but American history too. The battle began on February 19, 1945 as part of the campaign of the Pacific theatre, and lasted for thirty-six days. Around twenty six-thousand Marines were wounded, which caused Union losses during the battle at Gettysburg. Near the beginning of summer of 1944, American B-29 bombers were ruining the islands. “Iwo Jima proved itself an indispensable asset to the Pacific command.” “Thousands of fighters took off from its runways, and this ‘stepping stone’ served as a staging ground for countless Allied advances.”

The Japanese had it made. They had all they needed in their caves. You would of thought that the Japanese would have paid a bunch of money to fortify the island but they really did not. The had many of the Empire's most gifted mining engineers to dig tunnels throughout the volcanic mountains. It took them no time to have miles of tunnels running through the mountains. These tunnels made it easy for the Japanese to move from one position to the other. But life was not to great in the caves because the United States Seventh Air Force bombers dropped bombs on them daily in hope to soften them up before the massive invasion. Another helpful aspect to the Japanese was the sand on the beaches. The sand wasn't like in paradise. It was black and loose making running across the beachhead very difficult. The only flaw to the island that did not help the Japanese was the surf. The surf was too rough to plant anti boat mines. "The entire island is flat except for the promontory of Mount Suribachi, and extinct volcano, which is 556 feet high in the southern portion of the island."(Siefring 117)

The taking of the island of Iwo Jima was one of the most difficult and costly campaigns for the U.S. during World War II. After the battle was over, the decision to take the island was heavily scrutinized by the public, military officials, and members of the press. Many people felt that the island’s advantages were not worth the blood that was shed taking it. There are a select few historians who believe that this campaign was not intended to be a strategic advantage against Japan but that it was a competition between the different branches of the armed forces. Historian Robert Burrell feels that this island was used as a testing ground for the various branches of the armed forces and as a test for new war tactics. Although the taking of the

he Battle of Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest and fiercest battles of the Second World War in which the US Armed Forces captured the Iwo Jima Island from the Japanese. More than 6800 American servicemen lost their lives in the battle and thus the battle has come to known as the deadliest battle in Marine Corps history. Iwo Jima was an island strategically positioned and highly fortified as its three airfields were used to stage attacks on the US at the Pacific War. It was therefore Americas target to capture the island and use it to stage attacks on Japans mainland and use the airfields as emergency landing strips for the US Navy planes damaged during war. According to The Washington Post a small group gathered on Thursday February 18th

In February of 1944, the U.S. launched Operation Detachment, an effort to seize control of an important island close to Japan. Iwo Jima could provide a launching point for bombers flying to the Japanese Home Islands and help to defeat the Japanese.

The war in Europe was finished and America was still fighting Japan in the Pacific. The American people’s will to continue the war effort was falling and the government had to think of a way to end the war. They needed to take some of the Pacific to be able to get close enough to Japan to finish the war. They started by taking islands but ran into heavy Japanese resistance; soldier’s that were almost all willing to die for their emperor. That included fake surrendering, making and then hiding in elaborate cave systems, and killing other Japanese who were trying to surrender. This weighed heavily on the soldiers and made fighting incredibly hard. Even when they had an island there were Japanese who had hidden and still tried to kill the

Slowly but surely the American soldiers made progress and secured some of the airfields because by the beginning of March, two thirds of the island was captured by American soldiers because they had a strong Marine base and were able to push the Japanese back.

A prominent theme in A Long Way Gone is about the loss of innocence from the involvement in the war. A Long Way Gone is the memoir of a young boy, Ishmael Beah, wanders in Sierra Leone who struggles for survival. Hoping to survive, he ended up raiding villages from the rebels and killing everyone. One theme in A long Way Gone is that war give innocent people the lust for revenge, destroys childhood and war became part of their daily life.

I read the article, “World War I as I Saw it: The Memoir of an African American Soldier.” This article consists of a memoir written by Bruce Wright and an introduction written by his grandchildren, Tracey Spencer and James Spencer. This article was published in the Massachusetts Historical Review in 2007. Before the memoir, an introduction written by Bruce Wright’s grandchildren appears. In it, they write of his personality and family, as well as a brief introduction to his life in the army. The memoir begins with Bruce stating that his company (Company L) was the only African American company in the Massachusetts National Guard. Bruce was shocked that the Colonel in charge of the regiment treated Bruce Wright’s company no different than what he treated the white companies. After moving to many different camps around Massachusetts for drill, Company L was sent to North Carolina. Here, Company L experienced ill treatment from many white soldiers. There was so much fighting between the men that soon Company L was moved to another camp. Then, at the end of March 1918, Company L set sail for France. The trip was difficult for the soldiers, with nothing but rough

3) Japanese strategy was for each Soldier to kill 10 Americans before they themselves are killed (The Battle – Japan’s Iwo Jima Strategy, n.d.). On top of that, Iwo Jima would have to be reinforced significantly if it were going to be held for any length of time, and preparations were made to send sizable numbers of men and quantities of materiel to that island.

Hollywood movies have a knack and a history of showing historic events, people, and timelines to the audience as more of entrainment, rather than keeping them consistent with history. The film, “Flyboys” was not immune to this knack of Hollywood, but the film still has some historical accuracy. Much of the historical inaccuracies are seen in the addition of the classical storybook plot and the addition of romance, and even the personnel of the Layfette Escadrille. There are however, some historical accurate aspects that the film used, but were mostly apart of the background rather than a main focal point. The film has many strengths in depicting historical accuracies that happened in World War one, but are largely suppressed by the addition of drama, romance, and factors for an entertaining story.

In 1949, Joseph Campbell popularized his version of the monomyth, or the hero’s journey. In this version, there were seventeen stages which were split into three distinct categories including the Departure, the Initiation, and finally, the Return. Over the course of several years, there have been numerous versions of the hero’s journey; most of them derived from Joseph Campbell’s initial version. After watching “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, I was able to categorize the events in the movie into Christopher Vogler’s version of the hero’s journey which consists of twelve stages. The twelve stages are 1. The ordinary world, 2. The call to adventure, 3. Refusal of the call, 4. Meeting the master, 5. Crossing the threshold, 6. Tests, allies, and enemies, 7. Approaching the dragon’s den, 8. The ordeal, 9. Seizing the treasure, 10. The road back, 11. Resurrection, and finally, 12. Return with the treasure. However, modern film tends to stray from the typical hero’s journey more than the usual traditional epic poem.

The Japanese mission was to occupy Attu and build an airstrip to stage air reconnaissance missions that would patrol the northern perimeter of Japans territorial expansion and construct a base of operations.1 The U.S. Army’s mission was to conduct an amphibious assault of Attu and seize the island in order to launch raids against Japans northern perimeter.1

The island was 350 miles away from their homeland ,Kyushu, making it a easy flight.The command of this invasion force was divided between MG John R. Hodge and MajGen Roy S. Geiger. Before the invasion they had dusted the area by land bombing before invading their mainland.The Japanese was led by GEN Mitsuru Ushijima with the number of 130,00 men. Japan lost a vast number of man due to the fact they couldn’t contend with newly trained troops. They were willing to fight to the bitter end instead of calling defeat. It brung honor to their family name to die with “pride” instead of coming home defeated. Some even committed suicide.