Accuracy
In the movie, the PT 109 and all other PT boats are depicted as being painted in the same standard gray paint scheme used by larger warships of the US Navy. Although many 78' Higgins and 80' Elco PT boats were likely delivered from the manufacturer in such a paint scheme, all historical records indicate that the real PT 109 and the other boats in its squadron were painted green in order to better blend into their daytime anchorages or moorings adjacent to island jungles at forward operating bases. The most common green color scheme of this period was designated as Design 5P and incorporated Navy Green over a base coat of Ocean Green.
PT 109 is reported missing and a search is started. According to National Geographic and the original book, the boat explosion was observed from other PT boats in the vicinity and it was given up as lost. A memorial service was held at the motor torpedo boat squadron's forward operating base at Rendova while the crew was still marooned on the islands in the vicinity of Japanese-held Kolombagara Island.
Solomon Islanders Biuki Gasa and Eroni Kumana were portrayed as random natives, when in fact they were dispatched by the coastwatcher Arthur Reginald Evans to find the sailors. The movie shows Ensign Ross first suggesting the idea of using a coconut for a message, using a knife to carve it. Gasa was later interviewed as suggesting the idea and sending Eroni to pluck a fresh coconut. The actors playing Gasa and Kumana were not credited, though the senior native is mentioned by name when the large canoe arrives.
The scene showing the rescue of ambushed Marines is actually covered by the chapter in the book about PT 59, which Kennedy commanded after the PT 109. It was an older model 77 foot Elco PT boat that was converted to a gunboat with its torpedoes removed.
Read more about this topic: PT 109 (film)
Famous quotes containing the word accuracy:
“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“As for farming, I am convinced that my genius dates from an older era than the agricultural. I would at least strike my spade into the earth with such careless freedom but accuracy as the woodpecker his bill into a tree.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The child who has been taught to make an accurate elevation, plan, and section of a pint pot has had an admirable training in accuracy of eye and hand.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)