"The Longest Day" (1962) skirted reality

Mitchum, Fonda, Wayne

There is so much I can reflect upon having grown up as a "boomer" and with my father having WWII experience. You would think our dads would resist any attempt by popular entertainment to present the war. Think of the war's obvious horror and suffering. But they were strangely indifferent. Maybe they just chose not to pay a lot of attention to it. So it sort of floated over their heads while they attended to the real priorities in their lives. There, is that sound analysis? 

Our fathers were into "DIY" so they had a habit of collecting "tools." This trait has gotten attention in the TV series "The Wonder Years" and the movie "Gran Torino," the latter with Clint Eastwood of course. I believe the Eastwood character's background was in the Korean War. The "mysterious" Korean War, I might add. Success or not? Heck I can't answer that. We got the country divided in two, was the best we could do. 

We tried the same in Vietnam and failed. I should say "failed miserably." The media today will not hesitate to call Vietnam a totally failed venture. How can I as a boomer ever forget what that did to my generation? Boys had to stare "the draft" in the face and could be so distracted by this, they could not get into their desired career path or footing. Such a distraction it was, it had to affect the economy. 

World War II was so much more easy for us to understand. Such clear moral lines drawn. Good vs. evil, freedom vs. tyranny. 

It's easy to generalize too much about anything. Hollywood after WWII showed the "Allies" as such clear moral heroes. Well of course we had to win. But were the German people - I mean the broad populace - imbued with such intrinsic evil? Well of course not. We are surrounded with people of German stock today and we think nothing of how these folks once fought for Hitler. We view the Germans today as being the equals of all. No suspicions held, right? 

So it must have been some mass delusion that built up in the '30s and reached its horrific peak in the early '40s. The submarine movie "Das Boot" was excellent because it showed young German military members in WWII as sympathetic and human. Of course they had to be. Young men bear the brunt of war because they are expendable, or so their governments dictate. 

Wars are actually fought between governments. The governments develop propaganda to make the common people passive and accepting of what's going on. 

The fathers of my generation did not object to a whole lot of war movies from Hollywood that showed the carnage. But with an asterisk: carnage that was heavily sanitized. I have to believe that everyone knew that war was more violent and tragic than what we might gather from the movie screen. 

Maybe I'm wrong on that? 

 

Don't forget the Russians 

So my fellow boomers who were teeming in numbers of course flocked to the theaters in the early '60s to see "The Longest Day." The turning point of WWII? The decisive difference in the war? That's a popular conception. Would be nice if true, but D-Day for all its success was really more like a complimentary move. 

The Russians were so heroic and determined as they resisted and then pushed back the Germans. But it was very rough-going and slow for them. Something had to be done. So the D-Day invasion served to divert the Germans from their efforts to resist the Russians. The Nazi resources got spread out more. 

And surely the U.S. with the likes of Patton did its job. Patton was the general who "Ike" could call on when a pugnacious effort was called for, an effort entailing significant "good guy" casualties. Andy Rooney of CBS had a problem with Patton because of that. 

Patton had no qualms about rolling his sleeves up. Don't think there was no skepticism among the U.S. people about our pugnacious actions. A large number of Americans were losing their sons. In the Pacific, the Tarawa conquest served to get many Americans agitated and most dour. 

Post-war we increasingly wanted to just bathe in our success and by extension, glory. Glory? No way. 

 

Knock off this term

WWII has come to be described in a perverse way as "the good war." We can debate whether all the casualties were required. Hitler in order to hold his efforts together, was having to execute his own generals. So when Donald Trump compliments Hitler's generals on their "loyalty," I have to wonder how much war history he knows. 

Rommel was executed. And then he got a big state funeral. We see Rommel portrayed in "The Longest Day" (1962) setting up Germany's defenses at Normandy. He eventually wanted to see Hitler taken out. 

Hollywood's "The Longest Day" with its "star-studded cast" greatly entertained the boomer generation boys. The girls? I would guess not. Women are nurturers while men are destroyers. Can you name a single national leader or general in WWII who was a women? Well I guess not. 

The toy industry came out with military facsimile stuff that boys could use to "play army" in their neighborhoods. I have personal memories of that, like of a plastic grenade that would "explode" using caps as with "cap guns." Cap guns? A real-looking pistol that makes a sound like it's being fired? Oh how absolutely unacceptable for today - the cops could come along and shoot your child dead. Boys got Christmas gifts of this type. While their fathers just sat there and I guess "capitulated." 

John Wayne in "The Longest Day"

"The Longest Day," while entertaining, avoided depiction of graphic violence. I have read "minimal blood and gore." But was there any blood and gore? There was a limited focus on individual suffering. The emphasis instead was on overall operation and strategies. So it was sort of like watching sports. Well yes. 

We can observe "camaraderie" among the U.S. service members. Even among the German commanders too I suppose. Hitler himself is not presented. The Germans actually speak German. The "camaraderie" had the effect of making boys excited, perhaps, about the prospects of someday being in military service. I remember expressing this thought once as a kid and then a neighbor boy two years older and wiser got me over it. 

"The Longest Day" showed us clean deaths and lack of lasting injuries. Characters often die instantly. No agonizing groans or debilitating wounds.

Well, along came "Saving Private Ryan" years later as if this movie's purpose was to correct all that. Did we really need to be hit over the head? And my God was this really entertaining? Aren't we more entertained just watching John Wayne and Robert Mitchum? 

 

WWII legacy 

D-Day may have planted the seeds for future U.S. delusions about war. It caused us to overestimate our capacity to win foreign wars. 

So D-Day was the turning point for overcoming tyranny? Well it surely was not so simple. The Russians were ferocious coming from the east and they made the Germans more amenable to surrendering to the Allies. 

But my goodness, post-war we were obscured from appreciating the Russians because the Soviet Union had become our enemy. Our children were led to think that the U.S. all by itself had saved the world. And so we felt that henceforth everyone was going to have to get out of the way of our military. Iraq? Afghanistan? Those were misadventures. It really is not so easy. We might have avoided all of that. 

Remember, no WMD. 

"The Longest Day" is considered a cinematic achievement. Well my God it's three hours long. Parts surely could have been trimmed out. But the movie was so "important," so epic. "America saves the world." Look at all those young American men making "buddies" in the Army and then taking on a foe en route to "victory." So inspiring. 

But wouldn't it have been wonderful to just avoid all of it? All those men killed in the war: How would their lives have turned out? Think of their gifts, how they could have built families, had descendants among us today.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com