Camille B.

Sundiang
BSMA 2A

Pearl Harbor Summary

Pearl Harbor is a classic tale of romance set during a war that complicates
everything. The story is focus to the two best friends, Rafe and Danny and they've been
flying their whole lives. They are best friends, almost like brothers. Rafe is always trying
to portect Danny. Pearl harbor started when Rafe and Danny, play in a pretend fighter
plane they made, pretending to be shooting down German planes. As they are playing,
Rafe's dad is out dusting the fields in his old crop duster. When he lands and goes into
his tractor, the two boys sneak into his plane and keep the pretend fight going. They
accidentally start the plane and "fly" it down the runway, almost crashing it until it
finally stops Danny's father comes out and starts screaming at them and smacking
Danny. Rafe protected Danny by hitting his father by an old propeller, the old man then
walk away and Danny tells Rafe that he is his bestfriend, before rejoining his father.

They learned to fly together and they both join the Army Air Corps as pilots well
before the US enters World War II The two guys become the best fliers under the
command of Major Jimmy Doolittle. Doolittle gives Rafe the news that he has been
accepted into the Eagle Squadron. He goes and tells Danny that he was assigned so he
wouldn't go too.

While on a train ride to New York, a nurse named Evelyn tells her fellow nurses
Sandra, Betty ,Martha and Barbara the story of how she had met Rafe four weeks earlier
after passing his medical exam, even though Rafe suffers from dyslexia. The two soon
begin dating and fall in love.. That night, Rafe and Evelyn enjoy an evening of dancing at
a nightclub and later a spin in New York harbor in a borrowed police boat. At the dance,
Rafe tells Evelyn that in the morning he is headed off to Europe. They have a tearful
good-bye, and Rafe tells her not to come to the train station to see him off. He goes to
Europe, and Evelyn and Danny get transferred to Pearl Harbor. Rafe is shot down over
the English Channel and presumed killed in action.

Danny and Evelyn see a newsreel that shows British fighters being shot down by the
Germans. Thinking of Rafe, both Danny and Evelyn leave the theater and by accident
meet each other out front of the building. Three months later, Evelyn and Danny bond
over their mourning for Rafe and unexpectedly develop feelings for each other. They
soon begin their own relationship.

Evelyn has stopped mourning Rafe, but on the morning she discovers she's
pregnant. Evelyn is shocked to discover Rafe, alive and well, standing outside her door.
He quickly realizes that Evelyn and Danny are now together, and feeling hurt and
betrayed, the two friends soon get into a fight at the local hula bar. Danny and Rafe argue
and eventually drive to a hillside to discuss what they are going to do about their
situation. They have been drinking and fall asleep in their convertible under the stars.
They are awakened the next morning by Japanese Zero fighters, Val dive bombers and
torpedo bombers flying overhead. The barely-awake pilots think that it was the U.S.
Navy planes performing exercises.

The surprise Japanese air raid sinks the battleships USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma and
many other ships. Around the same time, Evelyn, Sandra, Betty and the other nurses
head towards the hospital to help injured people. On their way they are strafed by
Japanese planes, and many people flee into the hospital while some are killed. The
gunfire forces Evelyn and Sandra to hide behind a fountain. Suddenly, a plane drops a
bomb, and Betty is killed while the other women hide in the hospital.

Later, Evelyn and the other nurses are working frantically with masses of
incoming casualties, having to prioritize which lives can be saved and who receives
priority care. Meanwhile, Rafe and Danny are the only two who manage to get airborne
and shoot down seven Japanese aircraft with P-40s using their reckless tactics, including
an old game of theirs called chicken. The two men then go to the hospital, where Evelyn
takes blood from them for the hundreds of injured soldiers, and later aid in trying to
rescue the many men still in the harbor. In the aftermath, the survivors attend a
memorial service for the fallen victims after the U.S. declaration of war on Japan. Rafe
and Danny are both promoted to Captain, awarded the Silver Star and assigned to now-
Colonel Doolittle for a dangerous and top-secret mission. Before their departure, Evelyn
meets Rafe and reveals that she is pregnant with Danny's child, although she doesn't
want Danny to know so he can focus on the upcoming mission. She says that she is going
to remain with Danny, though deep down she will always love Rafe just as much.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt wants to send a message that the Japanese homeland is
not immune from bombing.

Danny, Rafe and others are to fly B-25 Mitchell medium bombers from the aircraft
carrier USS Hornet, bomb Tokyo and some Japanese occupied territory in China. The two
men succeed in their bombing but crashland into a rice field when their bombers run out
fuel and are captured by the Japanese who run towards the crash site. Just as Rafe is
about to be shot, Danny knocks the soldiers over and is instead shot himself while the
other American crew mates fight off the remaining soldiers. Rafe holds a dying Danny in
his arms, telling him he can't die because he's going to be a father. With his dying words,
Danny tells Rafe to raise his child for him. Later, the surviving Doolittle Raiders are seen
coming off the plane. A pregnant Evelyn is there waiting to see who gets off. Rafe
appears, and she is elated but waits to see if Danny is next. A somber Rafe then reaches
back inside and helps carry out the coffin containing Danny.

Towards the end of the war, Evelyn was being awarded the Purple Heart for her
service in the Navy, and Dorie Miller becomes the first African-American to be awarded
the Navy Cross. Rafe receives the Distinguished Flying Cross from President Roosevelt
for his heroism in the raid, in which Doolitle cited "that's for all the raiders".

A few years later, Rafe , Evelyn and their son named Danny, who is named in honor
of Rafes bestfriend are playing in the backyard. Then Rafe asks Danny if he would like to
go flying, and an excited Danny points to the crop duster plane and, together, Rafe and
little Danny fly off in the sunset.
Camille B. Sundiang
BSMA 2A

Pearl Harbor Reaction Paper

Pearl Harbor the movie is great it is has a big impact in our history and in American History
and was their passage for entering World War II. The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor that
brought the United States into World War II has inspired a splendid movie, full of vivid
performances and unforgettable scenes, a movie that uses the coming of war as a backdrop for
individual stories of love, ambition, heroism and betrayal. The main narrative concerns two
boyhood chums.

Rafe McCawley and Danny Walker, who after a brief boyhood idyll in Tennessee grow into
dashing flyboys played by Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. Rafe is reckless and gallant, Danny a bit
more shy. In 1941 they find themselves in a company of easily distinguished war-movie types: the
stutterer, the would-be Lothario, the dumb guy and so on. Mr. Affleck and Ms. Beckinsale do what
they can with their lines, and glow with the satiny shine of real movie stars. Mr. Hartnett's anxious
inwardness plays effectively against Mr. Affleck's frat-boy bravado, and a few supporting players,
notably James King, Dan Aykroyd and Tom Sizemore, are permitted a few seconds of real acting.

But the script, and impatient direction, do not give anyone sufficient time or space to develop
shadings of character. Instead of a story, the film provides data, telling you what it should show,
suggest or leave implicit. Evelyn falsifies the eye exam because, she explains, her father was a pilot,
too. Young Danny's father's mistreatment of his son is a result of trauma suffered in World War
I. That sounds like an interesting story, but the film is too busy with the ludicrous triangle that
develops among Rafe, Danny and Evelyn to tell it. ''Pearl Harbor'' is strenuously respectful of
contemporary sensitivities, sometimes at the cost of accuracy. .

The film's narrative arc, demanding a triumphant ending, concludes with Colonel Doolittle
leading Rafe and Danny on a bombing raid whose targets include Tokyo, and which, in contrast to
the Pearl Harbor attack, is viewed entirely from the perspective of the bombers.

But when it leaves its big themes and silly story on the ground, ''Pearl Harbor'' is something of
a tour de force. The aerial combat is thrillingly executed, and has clearly mastered some tricky war-
picture techniques, managing to convey disorder and mayhem on a large scale while maintaining a
coherent sense of space and geography.

Overall, I liked the movie, although it could have been a little shorter. It's understandably violent
being a war film involving a surprise attack that leads to the slaughtering of a U.S. harbor. With
everything taken into consideration. This is movie is great and it part of our history.