Memphis Belle

Deliberate mistake: When the crew are piling into their jeep to ride out to their aircraft, the gunners ask the officers what their target is, and are disgusted to hear that it is Bremen, a tough one. The gunners should know their target already. Gunners were briefed on their target, and told what kind of fighter opposition to expect.

Factual error: When the radio operator was asking for a radio check he used a phonetic alphabet. He use the word Tango, representing the letter T. Tango is the modern and current phonetic representation for T. In the 1940's the word was Tare. Able, Baker...Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle...Zebra.

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Suggested correction: British forces adopted the American phonetic alphabet in 1942.

American forces weren't using "Tango" until 1956. When the British and American forces coordinated calling alphabets in 1943, they used "Tare", not "Tango."

Bishop73

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Richard Rascal Moore: Uh, we ain't going to Krautville. Our plane's broke.
Eugene McVey: No, it's fixed.
Richard Rascal Moore: Christ, let's go break it.

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More trivia for Memphis Belle

Question: At the briefing it's pointed out that there's a hospital, school, etc. around the factory they're bombing, and Dennis is very adamant about getting the bombs "right in the pickle barrel" so a lot of innocent people don't get hurt. But the planes are spread out over a large area in the sky, and are also moving when the bombs are dropped, so wouldn't the bombs land over a large area and not just in the limited vicinity of the factory?

Krista

Chosen answer: It would seem that every plane's Norden bombsight would drop from different angles, etc., each designated for a common target. So, 2 planes could be higher, lower, ahead or behind the target and each hit the target, if the bombadiers had an accurate fix on the target.

Answer: Even with the Norden bomb sight, during WW2 bombing was generally very inaccurate.

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