By World War 2, aircraft carriers had replaced battleships as the most important type of vessel in a military's navy. The main reason why is because they're essentially floating airfields that can travel thousands of miles and project airpower almost anywhere. This very informative and entertaining film from World War 2 shows the ins and outs of one of America's most esteemed carriers: the USS Yorktown. The film doesn't actually tell you the "Fighting Lady" is an alias of the Yorktown, since they were trying to keep the ship's identity a secret. Like any good war documentary, the film isn't just focused on what the ship does while engaged in naval warfare. It starts off by showing us the crew, and how everyone on the ship, no matter his rank or position, has a job to do. It takes a huge assortment of different roles to keep the ship in fighting order, which is why there are cooks, mechanics, janitors, gun operators, radar men, and of course, pilots. Not to make the other men seem less important, but the film itself states that the pilots are the lifeblood of the carrier. Because they're the ones trained to fly missions and take the fight to Japan, everyone else on the ship is constantly making sure they can make their jobs easier. Later on, we see how the ship takes part in an attack on Marcus Island in 1943 in order to decimate japanese resistance there. The following year, Truk Atoll, located in the Caroline Islands, is attacked by the ship's aircraft. It's around this time that you notice one of the film's best aspects, which is the gun camera recordings. Machine guns mounted in the wings of US planes were being recorded all the time, so actual footage of japanese positions, planes, and ships being shot up is displayed in amazing Technicolor. It's worth noting that there are a lot more bullets flying than you can actually see, since only 1 out of every 3 or so is magnesium coated. After participating in Operation Hailstone (the Truk attack), the ship engages in a battle in the Marianas, where pilots from the Yorktown shoot down over 300 japanese planes in one of the most lopsided battles in air combat history. After the Battle of the Philippine Sea, japan's air force is basically gutted. As the planes return after a job well done, the crew attempt to illustrate how many japanese planes they destroyed by painting rising sun emblems on the carrier, similar to how pilots in Europe would draw swastikas to keep track of destroyed German planes. However, the crew must never forget the lengths some other brothers in arms went to in order to achieve victory, as many Americans were killed in the fighting as well. Because The Fighting Lady won an Oscar for best documentary, it should be hardly surprising that this film is entertaining right up until the very end. The film's claim to fame is its impressive use of archive footage from the war, most of it I've already seen dozens of times already, but it still retains its power decades later. One scene has planes from the carrier attack and destroy a japanese Kawanishi seaplane (known as the Emily to the americans), which was a notoriously difficult plane to shoot down. The film also gives us a glimpse into the one thing that measures a naval pilot's skill more than anything else: landing on a carrier. It is extremely difficult, and some planes have entire sections of them torn away just for going too fast or not coming in perfectly straight. The serenity of the environments seems out of place because a war is going on, but they're no less impressive to look at. I love seeing the sky all red and orange as the crew of the ship are about to start a day of taking the fight to Hirohito. Overall, I can easily see that this film is a crucial part of history, since it goes over some of the things that an important vessel accomplished during the world's most costly conflict. While color footage doesn't typically fit world war 2, this film looks really great and that's part of the reason I rate it so highly.
Review of The Fighting Lady
