Wardaddies: Part 1

This is the first in a series of short video essays on the grizzled veteran officers of Hollywood war films. It outlines the archetype, the early career of John Wayne, his involvement in Alan Dwan’s film Sands of Iwo Jima and the mythmaking that took place in the wake of the actual battle.

Notes:
Colour footage of the battle of Iwo Jima was taken from the 1945 documentary From the Shores of Iwo Jima – digitally scanned by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

There is a documentary film on Michael Strank made by Slovak filmmaker Dušan Hudec.  The Slovak title – Chlapec, ktorý chcel byť prezidentom – translates to ‘The Boy Who Wanted to Be President’ and, from what I can tell, it was released in 2017.

If anyone can find a copy of that online I’ll post a link in the description

Sources:
More information on how Iwo Jima factored into the air war in the Pacific is provided in Robert S Burrell’s 2006 book The Ghosts of Iwo Jima. See also; two videos published by aviation historian Keith M. on his YouTube channel WWII U.S. Bombers. The first looks at how many bombers were saved by the capture of Iwo Jima and the second looks at the ‘questionable value‘ of Iwo Jima as a base for U.S. fighters.