BUILDING
Korean war, so far as its rendering of
BRIDGES
AEROPLANE SEPTEMBER 2019 CINEMA CLASSICS The Bridges at Toko-ri
The Bridges at Toko-ri is rightly renowned as a
classic among war films — and included a good deal
of real flying WORDS: THOMAS McKELVEY CLEAVER
L
egendary New York Times
film reviewer Bosley Crowther
wrote at the time The Bridges
at Toko-ri was released in
1955, “It is easy to see why James A.
Michener has publicly proclaimed
that he is pleased with Paramount’s
motion picture version of his ‘The
Bridges at Toko-ri.’ For this color-
film representation of the part
ABOVE: of Navy fliers in the Korean war
One of the in-cockpit — and especially of one jet pilot
scenes from The
Bridges at Toko-ri, who commits himself to his duty
featuring Charles gallantly — not only is true to the
McGraw as Panther original, almost to the word, but
pilot Cdr Wayne Lee. also succeeds in bringing the whole
thing excitingly alive. No wonder.
The best stuff in this picture […]
are the accounts of aircraft carrier
operations and of Navy men afloat
and ashore. They are the details of
ready-room briefings, of shooting
jet planes off cold flight decks, of
crackling communications among
the planes in the air, of bombing
runs on Korean targets, of nerve-
racking landings back on the deck
and of hasty, heroic maneuvers
by the helicopter fellows to fish
downed pilots out of the sea… The
consequence is that the conception
of how the Navy performed in the
air support to the ground forces was
concerned, is vividly and movingly
developed in this punctilious film.”
Despite such good reviews, when
it was released American audiences
were shocked by the ending, in
which the heroes of the story with
whom they had identified end up
dead in a muddy ditch in North
Korea, with an admiral musing in the
final frames, “Where do we get such
men?” While the movie was a critical
success, it was not the commercial
triumph Paramount expected, as
word-of-mouth spread about the
downbeat ending. At the time the
rights to the novel were first bought
for the production, thought had
been given to changing the climax to
something more upbeat. However,
star William Holden committed to
doing the movie only if the original
ending was kept. Holden’s younger
brother, Robert Beedle, had been
a naval aviator during World War
Two and was killed in action. After
the film was released, many of his
squadron-mates remarked on how
much his portrayal of the character
Harry Brubaker resembled Holden’s
brother.
Wendell Mayes, who later adapted
the other great Korean War flying
novel, James Salter’s The Hunters,
recalled that when Warner Brothers
studio boss Jack L. Warner saw the
director’s cut of the film, which
faithfully alluded to the hero’s
eventual death in combat in ‘MiG
Alley’, he told director Dick Powell,
“You change that, goddammit! I’m
not wasting money on a movie
where the hero dies, like those fools
at Paramount!”
At the time The Bridges at Toko-ri
was made, despite being based on
a well-regarded novel by a writer
at the height of his popularity for
having written Tales of the South
Pacific — which had been turned
into one of the most popular and
beloved Broadway musicals of all
time — the prospect of making a film
about a hero who doesn’t want to be
there, hates the war he is fighting,
and is afraid of the job in front
of him, was seen in a Hollywood
thoroughly cowed by McCarthyism
and the blacklist as potentially risky.
Speaking about his work on the film
years later, Mickey Rooney recalled,
“My friends told me at the time
that if I made the movie, I wouldn’t
have a career. However, at the time,
I didn’t have a career!” Indeed, the
28/07/2019 21:26
character of Chief Naval Aviation
Pilot Mike Forney gave Rooney a
new lease of life as a Hollywood
actor, stepping up to adult roles after
his long run as Andy Hardy in the
1940s. He was fondly remembered
by the crew of USS Oriskany, where
much of the film was shot, for going
down to the hangar deck after the
day’s shooting was done and putting
on a show for the men, which did
much to make the crew think well of
the actors and film-makers during
the process.
It was only in the late 1960s,
when ‘Bridges’ began playing on
late-night television and sleepless,
newly returned veterans of the

EVERETT COLLECTION/ALAMY
war in Vietnam saw a story they
could personally relate to, one that
dealt seriously with the real traits
of heroism in combat, that the
film was finally recognised for the
masterpiece it is.
Audiences in 1955 might have felt
better about the ending had they
known the real men the characters
were based on had not died in a
ditch in North Korea, but had instead
walked across the Freedom Bridge
at Panmunjom, having survived 19
months of communist captivity as
PoWs, a month after the film rights
to the novel had been purchased by
Paramount Pictures. Indeed, fans
today may also be relieved to learn
that fact, since the real story is still
little-known, 65 years later.
The novel and film were based on
actual missions flown by pilots from
the USS Essex (CV-9) and the USS
Valley Forge (CV-45) against bridges
at Majon-ni and Changnim‑ni,
North Korea, between December
1951 and February 1952, when
James Michener visited Task Force
77 to write articles for Reader’s
Digest and the Saturday Evening
Post magazine.

The Chief Forney character was

based on a real helicopter pilot,
Chief Naval Aviation Pilot Duane
Thorin. He was perhaps the most
experienced NAP in the navy at the
time, having flown nearly every navy
aircraft as a test pilot during World
War Two and become one of the
service’s first helicopter pilots after
the war. He had originally come to
Korea in the fall of 1950 aboard the
aircraft carrier USS Princeton, then
been transferred to the heavy cruiser
USS Rochester, from which he was
flying in early 1952, by which time
he had rescued some 120 fliers,
many from behind enemy lines in
North Korea. He didn’t wear a green
top hat and scarf, but rather a Kelly
Green baseball cap, which had been
enough to anger the Princeton’s
captain and get him transferred off
the carrier.
Among the pilots Michener met
aboard Valley Forge was Lt Donald
Brubaker, a naval reservist and
lawyer from Denver, Colorado. The
Brubaker character in the novel was
based on Lt(jg) Harry Ettinger, a
Skyraider pilot of VF-194 on Valley
Forge, who had been lost when his
aircraft was shot down in December
1951. The following February he had
been rescued from a communist ABOVE:
PoW camp by anti-communist Aerial footage of
guerillas, who were attempting to the Panther models
attacking the
get him to the Sea of Japan, where he miniature bridges
could be picked up. They had been was shot from
spotted by North Korean troops and 1947-built Bell 47D-1
were hiding in a building on the edge N140B belonging to
of a village some 20 miles inland Helicopter Services
from the port of Wonsan. A US Army of California. On the
right is renowned
intelligence agent contacted the special effects expert
navy with the request for pick-up, John P. Fulton.
and Chief Thorin was assigned.
The helicopter was also carrying
supplies in to the guerillas. When the
helicopter arrived for the pick-up,
an accident happened just after

28/07/2019 21:27
 RIGHT: Ettinger had been retrieved and they
William Holden and crashed. Throughout the day, aircraft
Mickey Rooney, as Lt from Valley Forge flew air cover
Harry Brubaker and
Chief Naval Aviation
while two other helicopters tried
Pilot Mike Forney unsuccessfully to get in and pick up
respectively. Behind the survivors. Finally, surrounded
is a US Navy Sikorsky by North Korean troops, the men
HO3S-1 helicopter. surrendered. The next morning, a
EVERETT COLLECTION/ALAMY
flight sent in to determine what had
happened saw what appeared to be
blood on the snow (but was actually
dye marker from the life vests) and
they were listed as missing, likely
killed. Michener wrote about the
actual event for an article in the July
1952 issue of Reader’s Digest, ‘Heroes
Fail to Save Pal’, which ended, “The
enemy had a field day and we had
nothing. Nothing, that is, except
another curious demonstration
[that] sometimes defeat does
actually mean more to democracy
than victory.”

Navy support for the film was

crucial. Over the course of the
production, it allowed the use of 19
ships, including the aircraft carriers
USS Oriskany (CVA-34) and USS
Kearsarge (CVA-33) for location
filming. Kearsarge was used for the
production when additional shots
were needed back in the United
States after Oriskany was no longer
available. To match the earlier
shots, the carrier’s deck number, 33,
was painted out and replaced with
Oriskany’s number, 34.
It had originally been planned
that all filming would be aboard a
carrier at San Diego, where the aerial
footage would also be shot, using the
F9F-5 Panthers of VF-52. However,
BELOW:
while the company was filming in
Japan, the opportunity came to go
F9F-5s of VF-192
aboard the USS aboard Oriskany, and much deck
Oriskany (CVA-34). activity with the Panthers of VF-192
‘Golden Dragons’ was filmed.
During the shoot on Oriskany, star
William Holden learned to taxi a
Panther on the flight deck, so he
could be identifiably filmed sitting in
the cockpit as the aeroplane moved
around the deck. When the company
did go to San Diego to shoot the
aerial scenes and the attack on
the bridge, VF-52’s Panthers were
repainted to match the markings of
VF-192. Once
the film was
released, VF-192
Star William
changed its Holden learned to
name to ‘The
World-Famous taxi a Panther on
Golden Dragons’,
since it had also
the flight deck, so he
appeared the could be filmed in the
year before in the
MGM Korean cockpit
War movie Men
of the Fighting Lady.
Much of what gives the film its
power is the realism of the footage
involving aircraft operation and
the final attack on the bridges. The
film-makers had nine days aboard
Oriskany and a final five days on
Kearsarge in which to get their
material. The flying footage was
taken over mountains in northern
San Diego County and along the
coast north of La Jolla in California,
while the VF-52 aircraft were flown
from Miramar. The aerial footage
was taken by a film unit headed by
famed Hollywood flier Paul Mantz,
using his specially-modified B-25
Mitchell to get the shots. Admiral
James L. Holloway III, who was at
the time executive officer of VF-52,
remembered that the most difficult
part of the filming was when the
B-25, with a maximum speed of
200kt, flew in front of the jets. “If we
dropped below
175kt, we would
have to deploy our
flaps”, Holloway
recalled, “and
that just wouldn’t
have looked right
at all”. Holloway
also said that
new squadron
commander
LCDR Virgil
Irwin sometimes balked at the film
company’s disruption to squadron
operations. “He was particularly
upset when they filmed the final
attack and had all three divisions
peel off in a single diving column,
rather than stage a more realistic,
co-ordinated attack, but the people
filming it said that was how they had
done such scenes ever since they
made Wings back in 1927.”
Holloway and then-Lt(jg) Lester
R. (Bob) Smith, who later rose to

rear admiral, were the VF-52 pilots
who did most of the aerial work
since both were scheduled to depart
the squadron on new assignments
soon. Smith was the pilot flying
Brubaker’s Panther in the sequence
in which Brubaker and the air group
commander are searching out a
spot for Brubaker to crash-land. The
Panther was supposed to be leaving
a spray of fuel, which was difficult to
achieve on film. At first, the aircraft
was rigged to dump JP-4 from the
wing tanks through hosing on the
underside, but when the footage
was developed the actual fuel spray
was too light and didn’t show up
well. A second attempt was made
using brown-tinted water-soluble
paint, which was too dark. The third
attempt saw them use 240 gallons
of cow’s milk in the tanks, which
looked too light. Finally, the cow’s
milk was replaced with 240 gallons
of chocolate milk, which was “just
right”. Holloway and Smith recalled
being impressed by Mantz, who
was able to get the desired footage
with a minimum of actual flying
involved.
The Bridges at Toko-ri is still
noted for its use of footage of
aircraft flying against the target
bridges and the models flying over
a miniature bridge, which are so
skilfully interwoven that it is almost
LEFT:
Sequences like this,
CINEMA CLASSICS The Bridges at Toko-ri of Panthers attacking
the bridges, were
undertaken using
models.
EVERETT COLLECTION/ALAMY
impossible to tell which is which. viewing. Fulton’s work beat The Dam
The ‘bridges’ were built on a set in Busters to win that year’s special
Mint Canyon, 10 miles north-east effects Oscar.
of Los Angeles in the Santa Susana Among American naval aviators,
Mountains, by veteran special effects the film is considered the best thing
expert John P. Fulton. He had been ever done by Hollywood on the
involved with motion picture special topic of their profession. When Capt
effects for more than 30 years, his Thomas J. Hudner Jr, the only naval
credits including Frankenstein, The aviator awarded the Medal of Honor BELOW:
Invisible Man and Son of Dracula. in the Korean War, was once asked Lt Cdr James L.
His first credit had been on Air what it was like to fly off the carriers Holloway III — later
Mail, in which he created a crash then, he replied, “Have you ever seen a rear admiral — on
an F9F-5 during
using models. He was very aware the movie The Bridges At Toko-ri? It 1953, when he was
of aeronautical accuracy, since he was exactly like that”. High executive officer of
was an active pilot who had taken praise indeed, of the kind few VF-52 and took part
instruction for his pilot’s licence war movies ever achieve. in the filming. US NAVY
from Mantz and their mutual friend,
Amelia Earhart.
The set was 200ft on a side,
containing the bridges, rail lines,
outbuildings and terrain. The
attacking aircraft were models
hanging from wires, which Fulton
photographed from a Bell 47
helicopter with a special camera
mounted on its belly. The bridges
were built to a scale of 1:12, and
were 8ft tall, while the railroad was
O-scale. Small rooms were built into
the ‘hillsides’ where technicians
could set off the pyrotechnic flak as
the Panthers swooped down along
the wires. While the effects sound
primitive today, they still stand up on