Other mistake: When the Japanese planes take off for Pearl Harbor, some of the 3 man torpedo planes only have a pilot.
Factual error: When the Japanese planes attack the airfield, none of the American planes have numbers or letters, just a star.
Factual error: In a scene where the USS Arizona blows up, a Kingfisher aircraft is seen toppling from the catapult on Arizona's number 3 turret. On the morning of the attack, Arizona's two aircraft were on Ford Island undergoing maintenance.
Continuity mistake: During the attack a parked US plane is blown up and the prop goes cartwheeling off along the runway. Not wishing to waste a perfectly good explosion the director filmed this from several different angles and used the same explosion several times. You can easily see the prop each time.
Factual error: None of the jeeps shown in this film are correct for 7 Dec. 1941. The standard jeep grill didn't appear until Feb. of 1942. All jeeps up to that point were either Bantam, Ford, or Willys prototypes or the first standardized jeeps (called slatgrills) that used welded bars for a grill, as did most military trucks of the time.
Factual error: Throughout the movie all American army enlisted men wear officer belt buckles instead of the open-face EM belt buckles they should be wearing.
Factual error: In the opening scene of Washington DC the building on the left is the Museum of American History which wasn't built until around 1959.
Factual error: When the Japanese planes first arrive, they fly through the mountainous area near Schofield Barracks. The white cross that is seen at this point wasn't erected until 1962.
Factual error: When the Japanese submarine is trying to sneak into Pearl Harbor, the ship identified as the USS Ward is a much newer type of destroyer, not the World War I vintage with 4 smoke stacks that the Ward actually was.
Factual error: When the Japanese planes have arrived in Hawaii and are flying across the island before they arrived to bomb Pear Harbor, there is a microwave tower in the background. Microwave communications was not invented until much later in the century, so there were no microwave antennas or towers.
Continuity mistake: When Kramer meets Admiral Stark at his residence he is shown leaving the house through the front entrance. The next shot, showing the house from the drive, the entrance is not the same as the close-up.
Factual error: In one scene you see a damaged B-17 about to land when he gets a call from the tower saying that he had a Zero on his tail and telling him to go around. This would never happen. A heavy B-17 (much less a damaged one) would never be able to outrun a Zero, especially after trying to land. The pilot's best option would have been to get it on the ground as soon as possible and to run like hell.
Continuity mistake: When the flight school instructor in the yellow Stearman first sees the Japanese planes, it is surrounded on three sides (left, right and rear), but when she takes the controls to dive out of the way, there are no Japanese planes on either side.
Continuity mistake: When the USS Ward first spots the mini-sub trying to sneak into the harbor, we see a close up of the conning tower. The forward edge of the conning tower is undamaged. Next we see the USS Ward fire it's first shot and we see the shot miss and hit the water well forward of the mini-sub. Look at the conning tower and there is now a square notch in the forward edge. The USS Ward fires its second shot. Just before the special effects explosion you can see the forward edge of the conning tower is undamaged. After the flash from the shell hit on the conning tower subsides, we can now see the square notch which we saw after the first shot which missed. Finally, the mini sub submerges and in the underwater shot, the forward edge of the conning tower is again undamaged.
Continuity mistake: When the sub is trying to sneak into the harbor, the first shot shows it with the conning tower out of the water, when the U.S.S. Ward spots it, all they see is the periscope, but when they start to shoot at it, the conning tower is once again out of the water.
Factual error: Take a look at the harbor tug, fighting the fires on the battleships, it sports a TV antenna.
Other mistake: During the attack there is a scene where a ground crew is trying to tow a PBY away from the fires. You can tell it is a fiberglass mockup because the bottom is cracked and jiggling from the stress of the tow vehicle.
Factual error: In any scene when they are pulling the B-17's around, those aren't the right ones. The earlier B-17's had no tail gunner. They weren't added until shortly after the US entered the war. Before then, the pilot would fishtail so that the port and starboard gunners would have a short time to shoot at pople coming from behind them.
Factual error: None of the B-17 bombers had problems with their landing gear during the attack.
Factual error: In the deck scenes of the U.S.S. Nevada, she has three fourteen inch guns mounted in each of her four turrents. The Nevada did have triple mount guns, but only in the first and third. The second and third turrets only had two.
