Criticism
In 2004 one critic, Dr. George F. Drake, took issue with Hess' portrayal of the Kiddy Car Airlift, claiming that Hess took more credit than deserved for the evacuation of the Korean orphans. Drake gave Air Force Chaplain Russell L. Blaisdell and Staff Sergeant Merle Y. Strang the credit for arranging the transport for the evacuation, with Hess' role being reduced to providing accommodation on the island of Cheju itself. According to this criticism, Blaisdell was reportedly originally credited with the evacuation by the media until Battle Hymn was published. Drake terms Hess's claims as "fraudulent" but acknowledges that the proceeds from Battle Hymn and royalties from the movie were donated to charity to aid Korean orphans.
Blaisdell, however, received later recognition in 2000 when he returned to Korea, where he was referred to as the "Schindler of Korea," credit which Hess appeared to have agreed with, having in that same year acknowledged Blaisdell's contribution. Strang, however, received no recognition, and died in 1998.
Read more about this topic: Dean Hess
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men’s genius. By virtue of style, criticism can itself become literature. But usually this occurs only when the writer is acting as critic of his own work or as outrider to his own poetics, when the criticism of Coleridge is work in progress or that of T.S. Eliot propaganda.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)