Rather than hijack the ongoing discussion “What is the best war movie”, I’ll start a new thread. What war movie would you like to see made and why? History preferred, but fiction if you must.
In the spirit of “A Bridge Too Far”: Operation Tidal Wave, the bombing of the Ploiesti oil refineries. History showed how abandonment of doctrine, an enemy’s well-planned defense, and plain hard luck can combine to produce a disaster. And, it would shed light on the POL (Petroleum-Oil-Lubricant) strategic bombing campaign.
The story is about a Polish man named Witold Pilecki.
In 1940 Pilecki volunteered to allow himself to be captured by the occupying Germans in order to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp. At Auschwitz he organized a resistance movement that eventually included hundreds of inmates, and he secretly drew up reports detailing German atrocities at the camp, which were smuggled out to Home Army headquarters and shared with the Western Allies
I’m not going to spoil the story and advise you read the book which has incredibly sourced details about how it all happened. Once you do I think you’d agree that this man’s life deserves to be told on the big screen.
Wing and a Prayer tells the story of Utah Man, the last plane to land from the raid. You are right - a well-told movie would be great for that pretty ignored part of history.
Warts and all. Including his utter disdain for the US armed forces, the war crime of starving German ‘enemy combatants’ and his easy escape to just go home.
A film based on one of the german raiders of the Great War. I think they made one about Count Luckner, and a bad one about the WW2 raider Atlantis.
Make some of the fictional exploits of Otto Prohaska:
The Emperor’s Coloured Coat: In Which Otto Prohaska, Hero of the Habsburg Empire, Has an Interesting Time While Not Quite Managing to Avert the First World War (The Otto Prohaska Novels)*
I’d like to see a movie about the British attack on Taranto in WWII, when the Fleet Air Arm attacked the Italian fleet in Taranto harbour using Fairey Swordfish biplanes in 1940, this was the inspiration for the attack on Pearl Harbor and was an early demonstration of how important air power was going to become in naval warfare https://ww2today.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swordfish-from-Illustrious-Cripple-the-Italian-Fleet.jpg
Siege/Battle of Vienna, 1689. They might even start the movie with the first Ottoman Siege in 1529 for historical background, then show 150 years of on-and-off fighting in an opening montage, then the story for real starts with the Ottoman preparation for war, then going over to the Holy League’s attempt to organize resistance, showing the months of siege as forces march to relieve it, and a climax when the Polish cavalry (Winged Hussars) arrives and routs the siegers.
Second for Ploesti, Taranto, and Felix von Luckner.
If we’re doing Ploesti, we have to do the Schweinfurt–Regensburg raid too.
I’d like to see something about 1944’s Operation Bagration, and how the Germans were confined (on Hitler’s orders) to “strongholds” that were simply bypassed by the Red Army and liquidated later at its leisure. I think only the Russians could do the story justice, however.
I was going to add the Battle of the Little Bighorn, but then I remembered Little Big Man. Could it be done better?
Has there ever been a movie about the Mexican–American War? Or the War of 1812? (Other than The Buccaneer, of course.)