They Were Expendable (1945)

Director
John Ford

Main cast
Robert Montgomery; John Wayne; Donna Reed; Jack Holt; Ward Bond

Genres
Drama, Action, War

Description
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, a squadron of PT-boat crews in the Philippines must battle the Navy brass between skirmishes with the Japanese. The title says it all about the Navy's attitude towards the PT-boats and their crews.


Similar movies

Lieutenant Braden discovers that Sally, the woman he's been falling in love with, has actually been checking out his qualifications to be a U.S. Navy frogman. He must put his personal life behind him after being assigned to be smuggled into a Japanese-held island via submarine to photograph radio codes.
The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
During WWII, Duke E. Gifford is second in command of the USS Thunderfish, a submarine which is firing off torpedoes that either explode too early or never explode at all. It's a dilemma that he'll eventually take up personally. Even more personal is his quest to win back his ex-wife, a nurse; but he'll have to win her back from a navy flier who also happens to be his commander's little brother.
The story of Frank W. "Spig" Wead - a Navy-flyer turned screenwriter.
A naval officer who had deserted several years earlier is drawn back to the Navy when World War II begins. He re-enlists under an assumed name, and is assigned to a minesweeper, where he has to perform hazardous duties while at the same time keeping his real identity a secret.
U. S. Navy Lieutenant Gregg Masterman, of The Harvard and Boston Back Bay Mastermans, learned about the sea while winning silver cups sailing his yacht. He climbs swiftly in rank, and is now Junior Aide to Rear Admiral Stephen Thomas.
In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. "Tora! Tora! Tora!", named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.
A Filipino general who believes he can turn the tide of battle in the Philippine-American war. But little does he know that he faces a greatest threat to the country's revolution against the invading Americans.
In November 1941, Major Caton takes command of the small Marine garrison on Wake Island. His tendency toward spit and polish upsets the men's tropical lassitude, but Pearl Harbor changes everything. Soon the island is attacked and the Marines pull together day by day; but how long can they hold out?
An Army colonel leads a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in the Philippines.
The Great Raid is an inspirational true story of one of the most triumphant rescue missions during World War II. As the war rages, the elite 6th Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 prisoners of war.
The new commander of a Navy Underwater Demolition Team--nicknamed "Frogmen"--must earn the respect of the men in his unit, who are still grieving over the death of their former commander and resentful of the new one.
An aircraft carrier is sent on a decoy mission around the Pacific, with orders to avoid combat, thus lulling Japanese alertness before the battle of Midway.
Set during the early years of World War II, the War in the Atlantic. The Royal Navy was fighting a desperate battle to keep the convoy routes open to keep the British Isles supplied. One great danger was the surface raiders, huge cruisers called "pocket battleships" that slipped out of German waters just before war was declared. The "Bismarck", The "Scharnhorst", The "Gneissau" and The "Graf Spee" were supplied by tanker & could strike anywhere. This is the story of how 3 lightly armed cruisers with only 6 and 8 inch guns boldly took on a powerful pocket battleship armed with 11 inch guns. They should have been blown out of the water before they could fire a single shot but ...
The experiences of a disparate group of young men as they make their way through Navy boot camp.
During World War II, the spoiled son of a wealthy businessman finds himself involved in the guerrilla movement fighting against the Japanese, and finds romance and adventure.
A true-life epic that revolves around an exclusive bataillon of the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, "Carlson's Raiders," whose assignment is to take control of a South Pacific island once possessed by the United States but now under Japanese command.
The film begins with his capture by Philippine and US forces under Frederick Funston's command in 1901, then flashes back to 1886, when an old woman gives Aguinaldo and his childhood friend Candido Tirona cryptic prophecies. Ten years later, Aguinaldo is inducted into the Katipunan and later assumes leadership of its Cavite chapter while becoming mayor of Cavite El Viejo. When the trouble breaks out in Manila in late August 1896, Aguinaldo tries to assure the Spanish provincial government of non-interference and covertly marshals his forces despite a lack of weapons. Learning that the Spanish mostly put their forces in Manila, Aguinaldo finally mobilizes his troops and take the command of the Katipunan forces in Cavite
Japan has just invaded the Phillipines and the US Army attempts a desperate defence. Thirteen men are chosen to blow up a bridge on the Bataan peninsula and keep the Japanese from rebuilding it.
Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat U.S.S. San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the "rice-bowl" system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.
A 10-part mini-series from the creators of "Band of Brothers" telling the intertwined stories of three Marines during America's battle with the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II.
Based on the failed June 28, 2005 mission "Operation Red Wing." Four members of SEAL Team 10, were tasked with the mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah. Only one member of the team survived.
In 1944 a Soviet marine air force unit stationed near Murmansk is fighting off the German bombers attacking the British navy convoys supplying the Soviet Union with war materials under the lend-lease agreement.
A true WW2 story: the British Navy must find and destroy a powerful German warship.Chronicles the breakout of the Bismarck during the early days of World War Two. Seen both from the point of view of the many naval vessels on both sides and from the central headquarters of the British where the search for the super battleship was controlled.
A naval officer reprimanded after Pearl Harbor is later promoted to rear admiral and gets a second chance to prove himself against the Japanese.
A young man Kentaro Saeki (Haruma Miura) keeps failing his bar test and does not know what to do any more. His older sister Keiko is a freelance writer. Kentaro and Keiko begin to search for information on their grandfather Kyuzo Miyabe (Junichi Okada) who dead in the special forces during World War II. Their grandfather Kyuzo Miyabe was terrified of death and obsessed with life. Why did he join the special forces? According to his fellow navy soldiers, Kyuzo Miyabe was a genius and also a coward. Kentaro and Keiko then discovers the shocking truth which has been sealed for 60 years.
Lt. Koji Kitami is a navigator-bombardier in Japan's Naval Air Force. He participates in the Japanese raid on the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and is welcomed with pride in his hometown on his return. As Japan racks up victory after victory in the Pacific War, Kitami is caught up in the emotion of the time and fights courageously for the standard of Japanese honor. But his assuredness of his government's righteousness is shaken after the Japanese navy is defeated in the debacle of Midway.
In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.
Future "first couple" Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis made their only joint film appearance in Hellcats of the Navy. Ronnie plays Casey Abbott, commander of a WW2 submarine, while Nancy portrays navy nurse Helen Blair, Abbott's off-and-on girlfriend. During a delicate mission in which his sub is ordered to retrieve a revolutionary new Japanese mine, Abbott is forced to leave frogman Wes Barton (Harry Lauter) behind to save the rest of his crew. But Abbott's second-in-command Don Landon (Eduard Franz) is convincing that Abbott's sacrifice of Barton was due to the fact that the dead man had been amorously pursuing Helen.
In 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his captain's wife and second in command are falling in love.
A cocky guy joins the Navy for the wrong reason but finds romance and twice is cited for heroism.
Soapy look at events of Pearl Harbor just previous to the Japanese attack.
A U.S. Navy crew aboard a merchant marine ship battle Nazis.
As Japan joins in a political pact with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is appointed supreme commander of the Japanese fleet. With Japan headed inexorably toward war, Yamamoto, despite his misgivings, believes the only possible victory lies in destroying the American fleet by surprise at Pearl Harbor. The attack succeeds, but fails to sink the American carrier fleet. Thus Yamamoto must lead the Japanese navy into war with ever-diminishing likelihood of success.
A Marine unit on a Japanese-held island in the Philippines tries to hook up with local Filipino guerrillas.
There were five Marines and one Navy Corpsman photographed raising the U.S. flag on Mt. Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. "Flags of Our Fathers" is the story of three of the six surviving servicemen, John "Doc" Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), Pvt. Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), and Pvt. Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), who fought in the battle to take Iwo Jima. "Flags of Our Fathers" is the American viewpoint of Eastwood's diptych on the battle of Iwo Jima, the other being "Letters From Iwo Jima", which tells the same story from the Japanse point of view.
The Spanish troops in the Philippines Have to fight for their lives as they are forgot by the Spanish Empire
A Japanese publisher urges his American-educated son to side with the Axis.
Paradise Road is a 1997 film which tells the story of a group of English, American, Dutch and Australian women who are imprisoned in Sumatra during World War II. It was directed by Bruce Beresford and stars Glenn Close as beatific Adrienne Pargiter, Frances McDormand as the brash Dr. Verstak, Pauline Collins as missionary Margaret Drummond (based on missionary Margaret Dryburgh), Julianna Margulies as American socialite Topsy Merritt, Jennifer Ehle as British doyenne and model Rosemary Leighton Jones, Cate Blanchett as Australian nurse Susan McCarthy and Elizabeth Spriggs as dowager Imogene Roberts. Basing his picture on real events, Bruce Beresford tells the story of a vocal orchestra created by the women in a Japanese P.O.W. camp, a classic survivors' tale extolling women's ability to survive hardship and atrocity through perseverance, solidarity and creativity.
A submarine commander is on a relentless pursuit of a Japanese aircraft carrier in the South Seas during World War II.
Felix Yzagun Manalo is a sprawling historical epic that traces the origin of Iglesia Ni Cristo (The Church of Christ) which is established in the Philippines from its humble beginnings in 1914 through the present day.
When a US Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardizes the ship, the first officer relieves him of command and faces court martial for mutiny.
After learning the finer points of carrier aviation in the 1920s, career officer Jonathan Scott and his pals spend the next two decades promoting the superiority of naval air power. But military and political "red tape" continually frustrate their efforts, prompting Scott to even consider leaving the Navy for a more lucrative civilian job. Then the world enters a second World War and Scott finally gets the opportunity to prove to Washington the valuable role aircraft carriers could play in winning the conflict. But what will it cost him and his comrades personally?
American soldiers stranded in the Philippines after the Japanese invasion form guerrilla bands to fight back.
Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his foster family is interned at the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans, while he enlists in the Marines, where his ability to speak Japanese becomes a vital asset. During the Battle of Saipan, he convinces 800 Japanese to surrender after their general commits suicide.
The story of young English boy who lives with his parents in Shanghai during World War II. After the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese occupy the Shanghai International Settlement, and in the following chaos Jim becomes separated from his parents.
A man tries to redeem himself after ducking out on his comrades before the fatal attack.
A Marine stationed in the Philippines loses a hand in an accident and is discharged from the Corps. When the Japanese invade the Philippines, he is called back into service to rescue a general held by Filipino guerrillas behind Japanese lines. Attaching a steel prosthetic in place of his missing hand, he and his men set out on the mission, which turns out to be not quite what he was told it was.
Dramatization of President John F. Kennedy's war time experiences during which he captained a PT boat, took it to battle and had it sunk by a Japanese destroyer. He and the survivors had to make their way to an island, find food and shelter and signal the Navy for rescue.
A hilarious and heartfelt military comedy-drama co-directed by John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy, Mister Roberts stars Henry Fonda as an officer who's yearning for battle but is stuck in the backwaters of World War II on a noncommissioned Navy ship run by the bullying Capt. Morton (James Cagney). Jack Lemmon enjoys a star-making turn as the freewheeling Ensign Pulver, and William Powell stars as the ship's doctor in his last screen role. Based on the 1946 novel with the same name, by Thomas Heggen, and the 1948 Broadway play, written by Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan. Henry Fonda also starred in the original Broadway production. Warner Bros. didn't want Fonda to star in the film, as they thought he was too old, and had been a stage player for so long (8 years), that he no longer was box office material. However, John Ford insisted on Fonda and the company eventually agreed.
This miniseries presents a cross-section of life in Pearl Harbor leading up to the Japanese attack and its immediate aftermath. Among the stories: A colonel's bitter wife seeks extramarital attention; a female doctor with painful memories resists a new love; a young naval officer falls for a Japanese-American woman. Pearl Harbor changes their lives and those of the people around them.
Stranded behind enemy lines when the Japanese attack the Philippines in late 1941, Lt. Bailey must lead a group of soldiers and their families (including Bailey's curvaceous fiancée Alex) to safety and the streets of Manila. During the perilous trek Alex befriends a virginal young soldier whose only desire is to have sex once before he dies.
During WWII, a group of brave Americans spy on the Japanese after their invasion of the Philippines and became the first U.S. Guerrilla fighters.
Rick Leland makes no secret of the fact he has no loyalty to his home country after he is court-marshaled out of the army and boards a Japanese ship for the Orient in late 1941. But has Leland really been booted out, or is there some other motive for his getting close to fellow passenger Doctor Lorenz? Any motive for getting close to attractive traveller Alberta Marlow would however seem pretty obvious.
Shortly before Pearl Harbor, American opportunist Jones and partner Johnny are in China to sell oil to the invading Japanese army. Cynical about the sufferings of the Chinese, Jones meets compassionate teacher Carolyn Grant while travelling cross-country to Shanghai. Sparks fly between these strong-willed characters, neither budging an inch. But when Jones witnesses a Japanese atrocity, his feelings toward his customers (and Carolyn) begin to change...
A Japanese wartime propaganda drama made nearly a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor to celebrate the victory.
Rafael, a village mayor caught in the murderous crossfire of the Philippine-American War. When U.S. troops occupy his village, Rafael comes under pressure from a tough-as-nails officer to help the Americans in their hunt for Filipino guerilla fighters. But Rafael's brother is the head of the local guerillas, and considers anyone who cooperates with the Americans to be a traitor. Rafael quickly finds himself forced to make the impossible, potentially deadly decisions faced by ordinary civilians in an occupied country.
Following two fatal aircraft accidents aboard an Aircraft Carrier, a government agent is placed aboard the ship. His mission is to determine what may be at the root of these mishaps and prevent the inevitable third chain breaking accident which abruptly changes course when a sailor reports seeing one of the top ranking fighter pilots in a gay club. The aviator and three of his squadron mates and their spouses all become the subject of a deadly modern day witch hunt entangling them in a web of jealousy and deceit which tests their concept of love, friendship and honor and changes their lives forever.
At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer
Chronicle of a spoiled rich boy who joins the Marines with an off-handed attitude and finally becomes a battle-wise soldier. Academy Award Nominations: Best (Color) Cinematography.

© Valossa 2015–2024