Military movies based on true stories already have an advantage over fiction: Sometimes the screenwriter barely needs to embellish anything.
Films such as Hacksaw Ridge, Black Hawk Down and The Outpost depict events that seem almost impossible. Look beyond the two-hour versions, though, and the real histories are often bigger, stranger or more brutal than what made it onto the screen.
Here are 10 military movies where the true story outdid Hollywood.
1. To Hell and Back (1955)
Audie Murphy faced an unusual casting problem in To Hell and Back: Who better to play one of World War II’s most decorated American soldiers than Murphy himself?
Even the movie couldn’t contain his entire combat record. The Army credits Murphy with 33 awards and decorations, service in nine major campaigns and three combat wounds. His Medal of Honor came after he climbed onto a burning tank destroyer and fired its .50-caliber machine gun at attacking German troops for roughly an hour while exposed to fire from three sides. He then organized a counterattack despite being wounded.
A fictional character doing everything Murphy actually did might have seemed excessive. Murphy didn’t need the rewrite.
2. Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge already portrays Army medic Desmond Doss performing an exhausting series of rescues on Okinawa without carrying a weapon. The part that followed was nearly as extraordinary.
After repeatedly lowering wounded soldiers from the Maeda Escarpment, Doss was later hit by grenade fragments and waited hours for evacuation. During another attack, he gave up his stretcher to a more seriously wounded soldier. A sniper’s bullet then shattered his arm, and Doss used a rifle stock as a splint before reaching aid.
The Army also credits Doss with earning two Bronze Stars for actions on Guam and Leyte before Okinawa.
3. The Finest Hours (2016)
Disney’s The Finest Hours depicts one of the Coast Guard’s most famous rescues. The numbers from Feb. 18, 1952, sound unbelievable, but they’re on record.
Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Bernie Webber and three Coast Guardsmen took a 36-foot wooden motor lifeboat into seas reaching roughly 60 feet after the tanker Pendleton broke apart off Massachusetts.
They lost their compass while crossing the Chatham Bar. They found the tanker anyway and ultimately rescued 32 men, returning with 36 people packed aboard the tiny boat. All four Coast Guardsmen received the Gold Lifesaving Medal.
4. Unbroken (2014)
Louis Zamperini’s survival story could have filled several movies.
The former Olympic runner was aboard a B-24 searching for another missing aircraft when his own bomber crashed in the Pacific in May 1943. Only three of 11 crew members initially survived.
Zamperini, pilot Russell Phillips and tail gunner Francis McNamara drifted across the Pacific, surviving on whatever food and rainwater they could obtain while sharks moved around their rafts. McNamara died on Day 33.
On Day 47, Zamperini and Phillips finally encountered another vessel. It belonged to the Japanese, who captured them and held them as prisoners of war until 1945.
5. The Great Escape (1963)
Steve McQueen’s motorcycle chase became one of the most famous sequences in The Great Escape. The actual operation at Stalag Luft III didn’t need motorcycles to be astonishing.
Hundreds of Allied prisoners worked on three tunnels named Tom, Dick and Harry while producing forged documents, civilian clothing and other escape materials.
On March 24, 1944, 76 prisoners escaped through Harry before guards discovered what was happening. Only three reached freedom. German authorities recaptured the others, and the Gestapo murdered 50 of the escapees on Adolf Hitler’s orders.
The movie gave viewers adventure. The real ending was considerably darker.
6. 12 Strong (2018)
The image that makes 12 Strong look most like a Hollywood invention is one of the things that actually happened.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, members of Army Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 595 entered Afghanistan and linked up with Northern Alliance fighters. The terrain soon introduced a transportation problem.
The Green Berets found themselves riding horses through mountain passes while coordinating American air power against Taliban forces.
Army accounts confirm that 12-man Special Forces detachments began arriving in Afghanistan on Oct. 19, 2001, and that ODA 595 operated in terrain where horses were often the practical way to move.
7. The Outpost (2020)
If The Outpost makes Combat Outpost Keating seem disastrously placed, the Army’s own history doesn’t soften that impression.
The small base sat at the bottom of a steep valley in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province. On Oct. 3, 2009, roughly 300 enemy fighters attacked about 50 American soldiers from high ground surrounding the outpost.
Taliban fighters breached the compound. Eight U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 25 wounded as the defenders fought for hours and eventually retook portions of the base. Staff Sgts. Clinton Romesha and Ty Carter later received the Medal of Honor for their actions.
8. Black Hawk Down (2001)
Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down keeps its focus tightly on American troops trapped in Mogadishu after two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down on Oct. 3, 1993.
The actual rescue was larger and more multinational.
With Americans pinned down overnight, the relief force incorporated Malaysian armored personnel carriers and Pakistani tanks alongside soldiers from the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. Army history records that Malaysian armored vehicles broke through to the first crash site early the following morning.
The battle left 18 American soldiers dead. Malaysian forces also suffered casualties during the operation, a piece of the fight that receives far less attention in the film.
9. Rescue Dawn (2006)
Christian Bale’s Rescue Dawn tells the story of Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, whose A-1 Skyraider was shot down over Laos in February 1966.
Dengler was captured and spent about five months as a prisoner before escaping into the jungle. He then evaded enemy forces for another 23 days, suffering from starvation and illness before an Air Force rescue crew spotted him.
Navy records say Dengler weighed only about 90 pounds when he was recovered. They also record one final flourish worthy of another movie: Navy SEALs subsequently retrieved Dengler from an Air Force base so he could be returned to his carrier, USS Ranger.
10. We Were Soldiers (2002)
We Were Soldiers had so many real-life figures to cover at the Battle of Ia Drang that one remarkable platoon leader never appears in the movie.
Army Lt. Rick Rescorla fought under Lt. Col. Hal Moore with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment. Moore later described Rescorla as the best platoon leader he had ever seen. Rescorla received the Silver Star, two Bronze Stars and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry for his Vietnam service.
His story included another chapter in American history.
Decades later, Rescorla was working as Morgan Stanley’s security director at the World Trade Center. On Sept. 11, 2001, he helped evacuate thousands of employees, then returned upstairs to help others. He was still inside when the South Tower collapsed.
His remains were sadly never recovered.
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