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From real-life Blitz survivors appearing as extras in 'Battle of Britain' to the famous 'Kilroy was here' graffiti in 'Greyhound', discover ten more insanely accurate historical details hidden in popular war movies.
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00:00From super popular graffiti that was very much present around the time of a world war,
00:05to the many different ways weapons were presented in various showdowns.
00:10And after already showing you two other lists full,
00:14I'm Gareth, this is WhatCulture, and here are 10 more insanely accurate war movie details.
00:20Number 10. Actual Blitz Survivors Can Be Seen, Battle of Britain
00:25Boasting a stacked cast with the likes of Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, Christopher Plummer,
00:30and Ian McShane all popping up at various points,
00:341969's Battle of Britain focuses on the titular World War II events,
00:38which saw the British protect their country from the Nazi Luftwaffe.
00:42And during the Guy Hamilton-directed film,
00:45various civilians are seen sheltering from the Blitz in London Underground stations,
00:50with extras obviously being needed for these particular moments.
00:53What you likely didn't realise is that many of the folks pretending to be Brits escaping the air raids
00:58were actually real survivors who experienced these horrific bombings in reality.
01:04Unsurprisingly, the memories of those terrible attacks during the filming of these scenes
01:08led to some of said extras asking to be excused for a moment as they composed themselves.
01:14Even just pretending to relive these events must have been an ordeal, right?
01:17It's a small detail for sure,
01:19but one that makes these specific World War II London Underground shots
01:23feel that little more authentic once you know of them.
01:26Number 9, Killroy Was Here, Greyhound
01:30Recognised by many as one of the world's very first memes,
01:34a little piece of graffiti found itself popping up all over the world
01:37back during the time of World War II.
01:40The words, Killroy Was Here,
01:42were usually found alongside a doodle of a little bald dude,
01:45with a large nose popping over a wall and his fingers hanging onto it.
01:49And this distinct artwork was often drawn onto the walls of the places
01:53various members of the United States military were stationed.
01:56And sure enough, during the Tom Hanks starring 2020 war film Greyhound
02:00about the World War II Battle of the Atlantic,
02:03Killroy was seen very much being there at one point.
02:06Look closely at the radar on one of the ships as Hanks' commander, Ernie Krauss,
02:11prepares to engage some enemies at night.
02:13And you'll be able to clock little ol' Killroy keeping an eye
02:16on the surrounding military personnel.
02:18It's an easily missed detail,
02:20but one that turns a hugely tense sequence
02:22into one that feels slightly more authentic
02:25once you catch one sneaky World War II serviceman's
02:28highly accurate little scribble.
02:31Number 8, A Handy Hammer Nearby, All Quiet on the Western Front
02:35Easily one of the most harrowing and shocking depictions
02:38of World War I to land on screens in recent memory.
02:41Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front follows Paul Balmer,
02:46a young German soldier who finds himself being thrown into the brutal reality
02:50that was this world-changing war.
02:52A decent amount of time is spent within the German trenches
02:55on the Western Front during the war picture.
02:58And it's during one of these explosive sequences
03:00when a machine gunner is shown blasting away at the enemy in front of them.
03:04What you may not have spotted as the camera pans away
03:07from the rapid-firing weapon was the assistant machine gunner,
03:11or more specifically, exactly what said helper had in their hand.
03:15As spotted by one eagle-eyed viewer on our movie details,
03:18a Reddit page that came in very handy when it came to this list,
03:21said assistant actually appears to be holding a little hammer.
03:25Far from being something that was used to do a little DIY mid-battle,
03:29that small tool would be used to hammer away at mud and other things
03:32that could potentially jam the machine at any point.
03:35It was the assistant machine gunner's job to keep those bullets firing,
03:39and that meant providing ammunition
03:40and also keeping the gun as clean as possible,
03:43in these often rather hellacious conditions.
03:46Now I want to know really quickly,
03:47what is your favorite battle scene in a movie of all time?
03:51Is it something from All Quiet on the Western Front or something else?
03:54You let me know in the comments section down below.
03:57Number 7, Loading Up for Battle, 1917.
04:00Keeping with weapons used during World War I for this next entry,
04:04Sam Mendes' outstanding British epic known as 1917
04:07contained some of the most jaw-dropping sequences ever to show up in a war movie.
04:12But perhaps just as impressive as the visual of George Mackay's
04:16Lance Corporal Will Schofield sprinting across the battlefield,
04:19or a flare-lit town,
04:21is one quite cool detail when it comes to the rifle he's seen using throughout the picture.
04:25Said weapon, a Lee Enfield rifle, was a 10-round gun,
04:30one that could be reloaded one bullet at a time or with a 5-round charger.
04:34Will is actually found reloading the weapon using that latter method at one point,
04:38before going on to fire out a grand total of 9 shots over the course of the movie.
04:43But how could one fire off a further 4 bullets if only 5 had been loaded?
04:47Well that's simple folks,
04:49it's because these weapons were typically always half-loaded,
04:52with one clip of 5 to save the mag spring.
04:55With the troops then only opting to chuck in another clip when they were preparing to head into battle.
05:01An accurate detail pointed out by another eagle-eyed person on our movie details.
05:06So thank you.
05:07Number 6,
05:07A Bruised Elbow From Being Prone For So Long,
05:10American Sniper
05:12There's a moment there in the 2014 war biopic known as American Sniper,
05:17a movie which tells the real-life story of the deadliest marksman in American history,
05:22when the aforementioned Chris Kyle figures out he's dining with a secret militant by glancing at his elbow.
05:28Here Kyle spots a rather familiar bruise slash mark,
05:31and quickly starts searching for evidence to prove his theory correct.
05:35And why did the sniper recognise this particular marking?
05:38Because it was one that he himself actually boasted too.
05:41Jumping back to a little earlier in the movie,
05:44Bradley Cooper's Chris is seen having a cuddle in bed with Sienna Miller's Taya Studebaker,
05:49with his own elbows looking almost as bruised as that bloke's at dinner.
05:53These particular marks tend to end up on the elbows of military personnel
05:57who spend a ton of time lay in a prone position with a rifle in their hands,
06:01with that part of their bodies usually rested on the ground and getting a little banged up over the ears.
06:06But simply, these shooter's strawberries are just a part of a shooter's life.
06:10Thank you for watching this video today, and if you're enjoying what you're watching,
06:14then hit that subscribe button down below for more WhatCulture videos in your life.
06:19Number 5. A Number of Accurate Weapons – Jojo Rabbit
06:22Towards the end of the routinely funny and sometimes quite devastating Taika Waititi comedy war film Jojo Rabbit,
06:30the titular Hitler Youth member finds himself in the middle of a war zone as the Allied forces attack Nazi
06:36Germany.
06:37And the surreal visual of tons of children running into battle against these troops
06:41was likely enough to distract viewers away from a pretty fascinating and actually quite accurate detail
06:47during this climactic showdown.
06:49You see, as pointed out by an R Movie Detail user, of course,
06:53The various weapons the kids are seen picking up and firing throughout this sequence
06:57are all either outdated, cheaply made, or even foreign ones.
07:01With this being a nod to the fact Germany were very much running out of materials
07:05as World War I reached its conclusion.
07:07So in the end, they were forced to arm their troops with anything they could get their hands on,
07:12something the director-writer, who also plays the most flamboyant Hitler you'll ever see,
07:16brilliantly alludes to here in a surprisingly subtle way.
07:20Number 4. A real-life pilot is playing himself, Black Hawk Down
07:25Ridley Scott's 2001 tale of a helicopter crew being shot down in the middle of Mogadishu, Somalia
07:31certainly did not mess around when it came to casting its collection of soldiers.
07:36But joining the likes of Ewan McGregor, Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, Eric Banner,
07:40and even a young Tom Hardy in Black Hawk Down
07:43was another figure who actually also acted as a highly accurate detail.
07:47One of the pilots seen trying to survive in this volatile environment went by the name of CW4,
07:53Keith Jones, with that particular soldier even earning himself a silver star for his brave actions
07:59during the Battle of Mogadishu.
08:01But what you perhaps didn't realise during the picture is that Jones is actually playing, uh, himself,
08:06reliving a rescue mission that he actually executed in real life back in 1993.
08:11You can only imagine how surreal it must have been for a person who genuinely went through
08:16the Black Hawk Down incident to repeat that particularly intense day again,
08:21only this time in front of a camera and surrounded by some of the top actors of their generation.
08:26But Jones did a superb job of playing himself,
08:29and the real-life hero deserves to be saluted for his acting efforts too.
08:33Number 3, A Blast From Nowhere and Other Tank Details, Fury
08:37As one of the prior versions of this very list already highlighted,
08:422014's Fury contains some pretty accurate details,
08:46including the use of a sweetheart grip.
08:48This particular entry will be focusing on the real stars of the show, however,
08:53that being the impressive tanks present in the World War II war drama.
08:56As noted by an actual real-life military tank expert, Nicholas Moran,
09:01during a compelling Insider video, one specific scene during David Ayer's movie about the American
09:07crew of an M4 Sherman absolutely nails a few things when it comes to accuracy.
09:13Firstly, the moment a blast from a German Tiger I suddenly catches all of the crew off-guard
09:18is absolutely spot-on, with Moran explaining how the vast majority of tanks that were destroyed
09:24had no idea that the enemy was there.
09:27Infantry would typically be a huge help for moving tanks,
09:30as they would have better vision and be able to spot danger before those in the vehicle would.
09:34But in most cases, the moment these tanks would realize an enemy is nearby
09:38was when they were initially fired at,
09:41with it also being classic for the first or last tank in the row
09:44to be hit first during this sort of ambush.
09:47Just like what happens in the movie.
09:49The person driving the German Tiger I eventually opting to use their initiative
09:53and break out of the smoke to take the fight to their enemy,
09:56was an example of Orthrag's tactic.
09:58In other words, not waiting for orders and using one's own individual initiative
10:03to make a decision in the moment.
10:05This was encouraged by the German army at the time,
10:07meaning the Tiger I's movements here were also quite accurate.
10:11The Sherman crew only stopped firing at the Tiger when they can clearly see it's very much on fire too,
10:16something Moran again felt was correct.
10:18With it being said that you continue firing at a tank until it burns or changes shapes.
10:24Put simply, Fury got a lot of its tank warfare completely right.
10:282. How to really get a long-range radio working.
10:31We were soldiers.
10:33You gotta lick it before you stick it.
10:35According to one of the many lovely commenters on one of the prior versions of this list,
10:40that's a rather popular saying within the military,
10:42with the referring to the act of lubricating the rubber ring found on the connector of a handset,
10:47before sticking it into a long-range radio system to get it to work properly.
10:51And as pointed out by another member of the WhatCulture community, we thank you.
10:56One who claims to have been signal in the army.
10:58That very act is actually on show during the 2002 Vietnam War movie, We Were Soldiers.
11:04Keep an eye on one of the people working on the long-range radio
11:07as Mel Gibson's Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore jogs up to the team with a bunch of troops he's training.
11:12And you'll just about catch one of the teams sticking their pinky in their mouth for a moment.
11:17He then goes on to rub his saliva on the inside of the connector for a handset,
11:21before plugging it back into the radio,
11:23seemingly getting it to work via this well-known method.
11:26The average person would likely never spot this lick-and-stick moment,
11:30but those who have served were quick to praise a rather accurate radio beat.
11:341. Submarine Interiors Were Massively Accurate
11:38Das Boot
11:39Classed by many as one of the greatest war movies ever made,
11:43Wolfgang Petersen's dive into German submarine warfare by the name of Das Boot,
11:47a project that has been released both as a feature and TV miniseries over the years,
11:52is both incredibly intense and insanely accurate in places.
11:56With so much of the epic and routinely bleak drama going down within a German U-96 sub,
12:02Peterson felt it was vital that the project created as accurate a version of those interiors as
12:08possible. And that's exactly what they were able to do in the end. After the writer of the book the
12:12production was based on, Lothar Gunter Buchheim, handed the team a bunch of reference photos he'd
12:18actually taken himself of the U-96. From here, the filmmakers crafted highly accurate submarine sets,
12:25with Peterson even going as far as to state that every screw was an authentic copy of the ones that
12:30were used throughout World War II. After all that hard work was put into creating an accurate
12:35feeling submarine, though, Buchheim would later comment on how he felt the actors involved were
12:39overacting at times, feeling their reactions were unrealistic based on his experience as a U-Boat
12:45correspondent. When it came to many of the non-living elements seen in Das Boot, however,
12:50it's safe to say the classic war movie knocked it out of the park.
12:53Or the sea. Or something. Bye-bye.
12:56Bye-bye.
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