They Were Expendable (1945)
In December of 1945, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Loews released director John Ford's They Were Expendable, a film about a U.S. Navy motor torpedo boats fighting against the Japanese during the dark days of late 1941 and early 1942. Starring Robert Montgomery, John Wayne, and Donna Reed, They Were Expendable is an adaptation of William L. White's 1942 best-selling book of the same title. Written by Frank "Spig" Wead, a former naval aviator, the screenplay dramatizes White's "non-fiction" account of Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three and some of its officers and men, covering the dark days of the Japanese invasion of the Philippine Islands (December 1941-May 1942). Though its factual veracity is, shall we say, doubtful, is one of the best war movies made during World War II, (or the period shortly after) partly because - except for the score - They Were Expendable tries hard to capture the emotional truth of the PT men's struggles to survive under th