First of all,my dad was stationed in Italy in 1944-45 a bombardier in the15th Airforce 483rd bomb group(H) flying in B-17G Flying Forts. He and his crew were shot down and crashed in occupied Yugoslavia. He was MIA on his 44th mission and evaded capture and returned to Italy after 72 days missing. He is alive and well at 95!! Together we watched this movie. Here is my Dad's take. First, the special effects were pretty good, but the movement of the B-17's especially on take off's were completely inaccurate. They seemed to take off like fighter planes. B-17's were comparatively very slow on take off with full bomb loads. Also, the actors portrayal of the young flyers seemed out of touch with the reality of the 1940's. My father said most of the air crews of that era would not over use the "F" word like these actors did. He says the "F" was used on occasion as in SNAFU,but wasn't part everyday conversations the way curse words like God Damn and "son of a bitch" were.As for life on base. Drinking large amounts of moonshine would not happen. As drunk as this crew was,they would have been grounded for sure. We might have a few beers ,but we all wanted to stay sharp. "We did our drinking mostly at the officers club after a mission and only really got drunk when we knew we were't flying the next day" My dad says"one Sgt. once tried to make a still, but got caught and was court martialed. That boy who had his still blow up would have been sent to the brig and busted to private!In a nut shell, this movie did not seem realistic to the combat missions we flew in WW2. Yes, the violent deaths were realistic, but an injured navigator would never disobey his pilot's orders. So,as me,OK...not a great film. My advice is that if you are going to make a film about WW2 bomber crews and missions, do what Spielberg did for Saving Private Ryan....or don't make one at all.
Review of Fortress
