NFR Greyhound WWII Movie

[gt]

my BIL has the entire O'Brien collection. when i was undergoing my cancer treatments, he sent me care packages of 6 at a time. i have now read all of them, several twice. i will look into this book as a good read right now is lacking.

when they were moving the MO to Hawaii, they stopped off in Seattle. we happened to be walking the waterfront and i recognized the ship. the stern gangplank was set and a couple of sailors were saluting folks as they climbed on board. so what the heck, we walked on got a salute and started exploring. by the time we got to the front deck with the inlaid plaque of the signing of the surrender of Japan, a naval officer came walking along with a group of folks. he was giving a tour so we just sort of joined in. he stopped and asked us who we were and how we got onboard. we were escorted to the bow gangplank i really enjoyed our elfresco tour, up to the bridge, the battle station on the bridge, up into a gun turret and all about the ship. SIL was second in command of a destroyer in the Pacific fleet based in Japan before he called it quits.

 

[Birdsnest]

Another good book WWII submarines is Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson which is the true story of some guys that find the wreckage of a German U Boat off of New Jersey.

 

[_WW_]

Maybe I'll do what another poster said and sign up, watch the movie, then quit.

I'm not one of those guys that has to see everything right when it comes out. I'll probably see it this winter. That's when I have more TV time and will switch up streaming services for a month or two.

 

[Jeremy Floyd]

I’ve never seen the movie, but this is one of my favorite books. I can’t imagine standing watch in the North Atlantic on a ship with an open bridge.

It's like steelhead fishing, but with low pay.. not much happens 99.999999% of the time

 

[gt]

put the book on 'hold' at the local library. i think i am just second in line for the book. only 2 copies locally.

 

[Old Man]

After The Good Shepherd I started the Hornblower series (chronological to events) and am onto second book, Lieutenant Hornblower. Not sure he’s quite equal to O’Brien, but I’ll continue. That’s a debate that calls for some grog ;-).
I visit the old ships too, so far Balclutha in SF and Constitution in Boston. One day I’ll visit England.

Follow up: Here’s a historic pic of Lake Union before they put the center span in the Aurora Bridge.
View attachment 246811

When I lived in Poulsbo and went to high school at N/Kitsap. There was 2 tall ships anchored just south of town. in a small cove. I was young and I talked to one of the fisherman that sailed on one of those ships. He told me of his adventures fishing up in Alaska in a dory attached to one of those ships. I wish I could remember what he told me but alas I didn't. They were 3 masted wooden ships.

 

[miyawaki]

Tom Hanks is in a new WWII war movie called Greyhound. He plays a captain of destroyer set out to guard a convoy crossing the North Atlantic while being hunted by a pack of U-Boats. Submarine movies are kinda like boxing movies, reassuring in the limited number of plot twists that are coming. You already know someone's getting badly hurt, the questions are really only when and how. This falls in that genre, though the Hanks movie is a little different, it's got the perspective of a destroyer captain assigned his first major command in protecting the convoy. It's a little bit like watching Sandy Bullock in Gravity, just constant new problems. Plus a reasonably accurate war movie involving naval strategy....sign me up! Anyway, if you are looking for a distraction I enjoyed this one, the bleak grayness of it, the drab uniforms, the claustrophobia of the ship interiors, the kick-some-nazi-ass etc. It's not as nuanced as Dunkirk in using multiple levels of time and scene shots to flesh out the drama, it is not as relentlessly video-game like as 1917, not as emotionally manipulative as Private Ryan, not as oppressively brutal as Fury, but it still works

On the other hand, the CS Forester book it is based on looks way more interesting in a way the film didn't really tell. What's the captain's backstory? Why is his first command a crazy important one? How did he nail autopilot command and decisive actions for a novice Nth Atlantic crossing and no sub defense experience....(I guess that is the biggest gap for me in the movie...)? How did a Yank end up in command of British vessels....

How Does Greyhound Compare to the World War II Novel by C.S. Forester?

The nautical battles are the same, but the movie and its source material have different ideas about war and heroism.

slate.com

Saw it twice in two days. Loved it.
Leland.

 

[David Loy]

I also went to NK. We’re bros Jim.
Actually we’ve talked and both spent time in Suquamish. You may be one (of two) that remember the Leprechaun;-).