Deary me. After U-571 and Ben Affleck winning the BoB in Pearl Harbo(u)r, Hollywood has done it again! This time it's Top Gun, and that even had a British director!

Only joking.

Seriously though, this is a good article in today's Telegraph, describing the role played by Royal Navy instructors setting up the USNFWS in the late-60s, when the USN were having a tough time in Vietnam - particularly with the Phantom. It's from a decent author to - Rowland White, who is best known for his bestselling story of the Black Buck raid of XM607 during the Falklands.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/5032158/American-Top...

Hagar wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2009 at 2:39pm:


It's the Telegraph - what do you expect? Just be thankful it wasn't one of the higher quality dailies! There's a danger the person writing the article has a degree - in something - not necessarily English.

As for the book, his previous was Vulcan 607, of which I haven't heard a bad word, and thoroughly enjoyed reading myself.

expat wrote on Mar 23^rd, 2009 at 3:26pm:


Quite why they felt they needed to roll out that old chesnut I have no idea - to this story it has absolutely no relevance!

It is an interesting article though, and something I had no idea about. At the time there was an awful lot of UK/US co-operation, mainly with the introduction of the Harrier with the RAF and USMC, but this was news to me.

HawkerTempest5 wrote on Mar 25^th, 2009 at 7:02pm:


Or the Cockleshell Hero's..................Chuck Norris in a Ridged Raider

Matt

C wrote on Mar 26^th, 2009 at 4:43pm:

Apparently Mel Gibson originally acquired the rights with the idea of directing it so a Hollywood version was not so far-fetched. People tend to forget that there were a lot of Commonwealth aircrew in RAF Bomber Command & 617 Squadron had its fair share of Australians, Canadians & New Zealanders. Apologies to any that I've left out.

Is there any news on progress? The last I heard was back in 2006. Peter Jackson will be the producer with his protege Christian Rivers directing. Sir David Frost was involved as executive producer & Stephen Fry writing the script.

It will be interesting to see how it turns out. Very difficult to improve on a classic even if the original was in black & white. That adds to the authenticity for me. I read somewhere that they had already started work on full-sized Lancaster replicas. The main difference will be that they had real Lancasters available for the original film. CGI is very clever now but it cannot take the place of the real thing.

Unfortunately I suspect the whole project will be overshadowed by controversy over the name of W/Cdr Guy Gibson's dog. Whatever they decide to do it's a no-win situation.