Question: When marshal Ney and his troops encounter Napoleon, he tells them if they want to kill their emperor, there he is, but instead of killing him, they defect to him despite being ordered to fire. Is this a work of fiction, or did it happen in real life?
Answer: This is decidedly fiction. The historical Ney already published a boastful proclamation (that Napoleon later said disgusted him), declaring the rule of the Bourbons to be over, before he met with Napoleon (March 15). The scene where Napoleon offered himself to be shot had happened several days earlier, with the 5th regiment of the line, before Napoleon even reached Grenoble. It's an entirely different event from Ney's defection.
Answer: I think the film's dramatisation of this particular incident, when the French army defected from the restored Bourbon royal family back to the Emperor Napoleon might owe something to the painting NAPOLEON RETURNED painted in 1818 by Charles Steuben (also called Charles De Steuben and Karl Steuben) a German who became a nationalised (and patriotic) Frenchman https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Napoleon_returned.jpg.
Answer: Yes, that is pretty much what happened, so long as we allow for translation convention. (Napoleon and his armies spoke 19 century French, while the actors in the 1970 film speak 20 century English). After Napoleon's first abdication Marshall Ney submitted to the returning Bourbon monarch, Louis XVIII. When Napoleon returned to France, Marshall Ney was given command of an army to apprehend Napoleon The Emperor Napoleon with a small group of imperial guardsmen confronted Marshall Ney with a massively larger and better-equipped army. Many people expected a bloodbath. Instead, Napoleon waked out in front of his guard, confronted the French army and called out that if any soldier wished to shoot him, this would be the best chance they would ever have! The army simultaneously rushed to greet their emperor, Marshall Ney followed and submitted to Napoleon. This bit of the film is as historically accurate as can reasonably be expected and shows how Napoleon could electrify an army.
Question: What are the rifles that Jude Law and Ed Harris use in this film?
Question: Why did Gordo bring up the horse thing at breakfast?
Answer: Gordo was making a point to Norman that the crew of the "Fury" had seen some horrible things during the Battle of the Falaise Pocket. After wiping out an entire German army there, they were tasked with putting wounded horses out of their misery. The point was that Norman was not there, and did not experience what they had, so Norman could not judge the tank crew's actions.
Gordo brought up the horse thing because him and the other (original) crew members were not happy with Don and Norman enjoying a nice, quiet meal without them. He even say's "You weren't there" meaning Don sharing this with Norman when he hadn't yet been through much war time like all of them had, together. They also say "We weren't invited", "Why weren't we invited." The horse story was to get at Don for not inviting them and sharing it only with Norman.
Question: Why didn't the prisoners just walk through the tunnel to Switzerland on the other side?
Answer: The majority of prisoners were heading towards Switzerland through the tunnel, only a few prisoners with weapons were acting as a rear guard to hold off the German troops chasing them and buy the prisoners time to escape.
All the prisoners were on the train. I've contended before, they didn't need to fix the track. Just leave the train on the bridge and go straight through the tunnel. That route HAD to be shorter than going around on the walkway, and they would have had a much larger head start than waiting to fix the track.
Question: When the commando teams drops their gear did the parachute fail to open, or could the equipment survive a drop from a plane at that height?
Answer: Depending on how it was packed most likely.
Question: How was Biggles able to land the helicopter on a moving train despite only just learning to fly it?
Question: What's the difference between an enlisted person and an officer?
Answer: An officer is a person who has had special training (in college ROTC, or in OTS, called 90 days wonders) for command, tactics, military law and the like, after which they are Commissioned. They are basically management. An enlisted person is someone who has gone through basic military training, but does not have command responsibilities or authority. Basically labor. This gets a little confusing when enlisted personnel can rise in rank to become a Non-Commissioned officer, often called the backbone of the Service. But the highest ranked enlisted person does not out-rank, and has to salute, the lowest ranked officer.
Question: Where was the civil war battle fought nearest Madison, Wisconsin?
Answer: The nearest one I can find listed was at Kirksville in northern Missouri.
Question: When the guys are getting ready to go into town, one of them says about the sarge "as short as he is he's out of here in 30 days." Someone also said "anyone as short as Brownie shouldn't have been out there". What do they mean by short?
Answer: "Short" in this context is military slang for someone whose tour of duty is coming close to an end. It's a derivative of "short-timer."
Question: How was Kate Winslet allowed to work as a guard at Auschwitz? I thought only men were allowed.
Chosen answer: "The Aufseherinnen (German for "female overseer) were female guards in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Of the 55,000 guards who served in Nazi concentration camps, about 3,700 were women. In 1942, the first female guards arrived at Auschwitz and Majdanek from Ravensbrück. The year after, the Nazis began conscripting women because of a guard shortage." - source: Wikipedia, "Female Guards in Nazi Concentration Camps".
Question: I can understand why they would use code when talking about positions, objectives, etc. but when they call in the air strike from the battleships, what's the point of using code? Also, later in the film, when the same situation arises, they don't use the code. Seemed like it was just a silly way to introduce the whole premise for the movie.
Answer: The point of using the Navajo code to call in air strikes was to encrypt what the Marines were requesting without the Japanese being able to decipher what was said. This is critical because during the Battle of Saipan, the Japanese made extensive use of caves and reinforced earthworks to support their artillery positions and machine gun nests. The delay between requesting artillery support and the act of carrying it out allowed the Japanese to withdraw their infantry to relative safety before the fire mission could commence. By using PVT Yahzee and PVT Whitehouse, they were able to circumvent this and request attacks without the Japanese knowing what was coming. The only time Yahzee does not use the code is when he uses the Japanese radio to call off the artillery strikes that were falling short and hitting Marines. This situation required immediate attention and it would not have been appropriate to use the code.
Answer: They used the code to call in the strike so the Germans couldn't get the U.S. to bomb their own troops. I don't know why it wasn't used in the other situation.
Question: Isn't Gibson (Richard Todd) shown wearing a VC ribbon on his dress tunic? I thought he was awarded this for the raid itself.
Answer: I think Gibson is shown wearing the ribbons (and rosettes) of the Distinguished Service Order and Bar and Distinguished Flying Cross. He was awarded these medals before the Dam Busters raid. In black and white, the ribbon for the VC with its miniature cross can look similar to the DSO with a rosette for a second award.
Question: There are scenes in the movie where Dick Best's gunner, Murray, is facing forward in their aircraft, particularly when the aircraft is on the Enterprise. The only time he appears to be facing the rear of the aircraft is when they are under attack. How is that possible?
Answer: Good eye! The gunner's seat in the Douglas SBD was on a swivel. The military rating was actually radioman/gunner, and when facing forward, he had access to a suite of radio equipment and a set of basic flight controls! He could actually fly the SBD from the rear seat, although this is never reported to have been necessary in combat.
Question: Why was the movie called "The Sand Pebbles?
Question: Does Schofield throw away his canteen after he pours water over his eyes? In any event he has it again to fill with milk at the abandoned farm house.
Answer: He puts his canteen back after he poured water over his eyes. You can tell because after he gets up it's hanging on his side again.
Question: Possible plot hole: Why did Claire take and hide the last 4 Kestrel messages?
Chosen answer: This is not a mystery. Claire "stole them to read them" as Tom Jericho told Hester. As he later explained to Wigram, she had taken the messages to give to Puck who had the means to decipher them, and who was looking for his missing brother. The Kestrel traffic from ADU contained the names of victims of the Katyn Massacre. However, Puck and Claire were surprised by the imminent reappearance of Tom, and suddenly fled, explaining why some messages were left behind.
Question: After Mary is raped, she begins cleaning herself off in the water in front of Alasdair who immediately figures out what happened and of course wants to tell Rob, so he'll avenge her. But she's extremely adamant that Alasdair not tell Rob about it. But if she REALLY didn't want Rob to know, wouldn't she have waited until she was alone to clean herself up? I'm always confused by this, because when she tells Alasdair to keep quiet, she never seems to be hinting that she doesn't really mean what she says. On the contrary, she's very passionate about it.
Chosen answer: She wants to clean herself thoroughly ASAP, so as to avoid pregnancy (though that way doesn't work anyway); if she waited until she was alone, it would've been too late to even try.
Question: Why is this movie parodied online?
Answer: The "Hitler in the bunker" scene is iconic for historical reasons, being something most people understand the significance of. Being subtitled in the film means it's very easy for people to keep the original excellent acting while simply replacing the words onscreen to change the context entirely. It also ends up being a bit self-reinforcing, once people get wind of it as a "template", they then start getting their own ideas. And there's the arguable "Streisand Effect", when the film company issued a wave of copyright takedowns in 2010, a lot of people "retaliated" by making and uploading even more.
Answer: Presumably, due to its popularity.
Question: We all assume, as I did when watching the movie, that the opening scene really was intended to be the Malmedy massacre. Could it have been that they were just hinting towards that, and that the opening scene (with the array of mixed Wehrmacht and SS, 101st Airborne and other which is historically not matching Malmedy) was simply another incident? Did the director ever intend to create a grossly false Malmedy scene? There were quite a lot more atrocities in that area and time, with executions of prisoners by both sides.
Answer: The massacre was intended to be Malmedy. Artistic license was taken with the participants but what happened is a possible version of events that caused the massacre.
Answer: The TV show Americanized the pronunciations whereas the movie said them correctly.
The show is American, so with original characters you're allowed to say them how you want.