Word: combatants
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...basic theme upon the authentic exploits of Colonel Chenault's famous free-lance American pilots in China, Republic Pictures' "Flying Tigers" only deserves classification as another typical Hollywood war adventure film. Like its predecessor and prototype, "Eagle Squadron," this picture has little more to offer than some good combat scenes and a few shots of real enemy aircraft...
...Jimmy Sr. was always (and unjustly) ashamed of missing combat in World War I. After Jimmy Jr. went into the Army Air Forces last year, Jimmy Sr.'s worst fear was that his son would beat him into action. Again in service as a major, but on desk duty, Jimmy Sr. pinned the Army wings on his son's tunic when Jimmy Jr. was commissioned. In his emotion, Father Doolittle forgot to return the new pilot's salute. Said Jimmy Sr., walking blindly away: "I feel like a heel...
...Like its combat equivalent, the Purple Heart, prettiest of all U.S. medals, which was re-created in 1932 chiefly for men wounded in action, the Legion of Merit's ancestry is traced to the oldest of U.S. decorations, George Washington's Badge for Military Merit (1782). Washington awarded his medal for "not only instances of unusual gallantry, but also of extraordinary fidelity, and essential service...
Besides these and the D.S.M., both services, particularly the Navy, give many lesser medals, such as the Soldier's Medal (for heroism not in combat, i.e., pulling comrades out of burning airplanes), Navy Good Conduct Medal, Coast Guard Good Conduct Medal...
There is a lot of vociferous action, and a sense of the wartime sea's lurking dangers. A gun, fired dead into the lens, is satisfactorily startling. In one terrific shot (made in combat) a Nazi plane, wrapped in a white fringe of fire, skitters on the sea like a pebble on a pond. In the closing sequence there is a cheerful, almost slapstick substitution of U.S. guile for U.S. courage which would have been inconceivable as propaganda in World War I. The crew of the Sybil Gray captures a U-boat supply ship and learns a Nazi trick...