They Were Expendable (1945) on Netflix
In December 1941, Lieutenant John Brickley commands an unproven PT boat squadron at Cavite. Admiral Blackwell is unimpressed, and his executive officer, Rusty Ryan, is eager for combat.
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Plot summary
Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three, a unit of small, unproven PT boats, is based at Cavite in the Philippines under Lieutenant John Brickley. He puts the boats through a demonstration for Admiral Blackwell, who is unimpressed by their small size and light construction. Brickley's executive officer, Rusty Ryan, wants to see combat and is drafting a transfer request when radio reports come in of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese forces hit the Philippines as well, but the squadron is kept out of the fighting and assigned mail and messenger duty. After its base is bombed, the squadron is ordered to attack a Japanese cruiser shelling American troops ashore. Rusty is picked to command the second boat, but Brickley learns that his executive officer has blood poisoning from an earlier combat wound and sends him to sick bay.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about They Were Expendable (1945)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During production, director John Ford fell from scaffolding and broke his leg, so Robert Montgomery, who had actually commanded a PT boat, temporarily took over directing; he did so well that within a few years he moved from acting to directing films.
- The PT-boat boasts spoken by Lieutenant Brickley echo a wartime claim by the real Commander John Bulkeley; after the war, U.S. Naval Intelligence examination of Japanese loss records showed such claims were inaccurate and exaggerated, according to author William Doyle.
- Fictional though the book was, its characters John Brickley and Rusty Ryan are fictionalizations of PT-Boat Squadron Three commander John D. Bulkeley, a Medal of Honor recipient, and his executive officer Robert Kelly.
- Two Navy 80-foot Elco PT boats and four 78-foot Higgins PT boats were used, carrying the hull numbers they had in late 1941 and early 1942, while aircraft from naval air stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Key West were temporarily re-marked to simulate Japanese planes.
- The film was shot in Key Biscayne, Florida, and the Florida Keys, where sandy islands and palm trees at around 25° North stood in for the Philippines at roughly 10 to 15° North.
- According to Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz, Ford, a Navy Reserve commander commissioned in his late 40s, was especially hard on John Wayne, who held a 3-A family deferment draft rating.
