PEARL HARBOR
by
Randall Wallace
FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY
Early Draft
Out of BLACK we hear the sound of an airplane roaring by.
EXT. POV OF AN AIRPLANE
Flying over American heartland. We see the earth through
the pilot's perspective as sky and ground swap positions,
the plane swooping down and storming over the ground.
THE PLANE
is a biplane, racing over a field lush with young plants.
It releases a trail of crop spray, and climbs again...
Up into a crystalline blue sky where sunshine pours like
honey over family farms stretching to the horizon. Maybe
it's not heaven, maybe it's just Tennessee. But as long
as there's been an America, men have fought and died for
this place -- as volunteers.
Far off, but visible from the plane is
BARN - DAY
The barn is unpainted except for hand lettering that says
"McCawley Crop Dusting." Another plane noise, this one
made by kids, brings us to TWO BOYS, sitting in the shell
of an old plane propped on crates, scavenged of it's
engine, seats, and wheels.
The boys sit in it's cockpit, butts crowded onto the nail
keg they've replaced the seat with. They've even attached
a 2x4 as propeller, as if their imaginations needed any
help. They wear overalls and have bowl haircuts: RAFE
and DANNY, 10 years old.
RAFE
Bandits at 2 o'clock.
DANNY
Power dive!
They buzz their lips in a flying noise and work the
controls, Rafe's bare feet on one pedal, Danny's on the
other.
RAFE
It's Germans!
DANNY
Kill the bastards!
Rafe looks at Danny in shock -- then they both laugh and
go right back into their game, manufacturing their own
machine gun and engine sounds.
2.
RAFE
Good shooting, Danny!
DANNY
Good shooting, Rafe!
RAFE
Land of the free...
DANNY
Home of the brave!
RAFE
There's another one!
Their vocal motors roar again... But a man's hand grabs
Danny by the straps of his overalls and jerks him from
the cockpit.
It's Danny's FATHER and he's a fearsome sight; drunk, his
hair uncombed, his face unshaven, his teeth -- those still
left -- are rotting. He's also missing an arm; but the
one that's left is potent, and he's shaking Danny with
it.
DANNY'S FATHER
You no count boy! Johnson come
lookin', said he'd pay a dime for
you to shovel his pig shed, and I
can't find you no place.
DANNY
Daddy, I told you I was comin'
here.
His father slaps him off his feet. Rafe is so horrified
he can't get a sound out. Danny isn't even surprised.
But when his father snatches him up again, twisting the
overall straps so tight they choke him, he struggles. It
does no good; his father starts marching across the field,
dragging and strangling Danny.
DANNY
Da!... Dad...
The father's drunken anger makes him oblivious -- until
CRACK! The 2x4 propeller slams him across the back,
knocking him to the ground and making him drop Danny.
The father rolls over to see 10-year-old Rafe, holding
the 2x4 like a bat.
RAFE
Let him alone!
3.
The father's eyes bulge in rage; he struggles to his feet.
DANNY
Rafe... Daddy... No!
The man looks murderous, but Rafe draws back the board.
RAFE
I'll bust you open, you...German!
The words ring something deep in the man's booze-broken
brain. He begins to cough, convulsively; it brings a
blossom of blood to his mouth. He wipes it with his hand,
but blood clings to his teeth. He chokes out --
DANNY'S FATHER
I fought the Germans.
He looks at Danny in shame, with the realization of what
he's just done. He turns and staggers away.
Danny looks at Rafe -- a communication between boys joined
by something deeper than blood. Then Danny runs off after
his father.
DANNY
Daddy! Daddy! Wait.
Danny catches him, takes his father's hand, and walks
away with him.
The crop duster we saw in the air has just landed, behind
Rafe. The pilot, RAFE'S FATHER, shuts off the engine.
RAFE'S FATHER
What's goin' on, son?
RAFE
Nothing. Danny's Dad just come to
get him.
Rafe turns back to the ramshackle plane and replaces the
2x4 propeller. His father looks toward Danny and his
father, walking away, then looks at his own son.
RAFE'S FATHER
Hey, boy -- you wanna go up?
Rafe can't believe it; he runs to the plane and hops into
his father's lap. As his father cranks the engine and
tucks him into the harness, Rafe says --
4.
RAFE
Daddy, sometime will you take Danny
up too?
RAFE'S FATHER
Sure will, son.
The engine races to life...and we --
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. NEW JERSEY AIR BASE - DAY
American P-40 fighters blast through the air, props
screaming and wind singing by their wings.
There are eight pilots in their individual seats, and we
focus on two: RAFE MCCAWLEY has grown lean and handsome.
And DANNY WALKER is very much the same.
Their planes start swapping positions in the formation;
while the other guys are flying along in a tight line,
Rafe and Danny are playing, one of them gunning his engine
to go high, the other diving and coming back up in his
place, leapfrogging.
It scares the other guys, having their planes flashing in
and out, so close. The TRAINING CAPTAIN, watching through
binoculars on the ground, talks into his RADIO --
TRAINING CAPTAIN
McCawley! Walker! Cut that out!
RAFE
I thought this was a training
flight. I'm just trying to give
Danny some training.
DANNY
Not on your best day, boy!
Rafe grins and guns his plane low, in the opposite
direction he was moving before. Danny reacts almost
instantly... leapfrogging in the opposite direction,
scaring the piss out of everybody else.
TRAINING CAPTAIN
That's it, get into a wedge!
The squadron responds, forming up into a tight V, Rafe
and Danny just behind and on either side of the center.
RAFE
Didn't you say test the limits?
5.
DANNY
Hey, you wanna test my limits, you
better line up a couple dozen women
on the GROUND...cause I got NO
limits in the air!
Rafe grins, loving the challenge. Then he and Danny do
the leapfrogging maneuver laterally, swapping sides in
the V.
TRAINING CAPTAIN
Everybody down!
EXT. NEW JERSEY AIRFIELD - DAY
The planes land in tight order and taxi off the runway;
shut down their props, slide back the canopies and hop
down. We see young pilots we'll get to know: ANTHONY,
BILLY, RED.
TRAINING CAPTAIN
Where are McCawley and Walker?
EXT. RAFE AND DANNY - STILL IN THE AIR - DAY
They've circled to opposite ends of the airfield and are
now heading right at each other, like two bullets playing
chicken.
TRAINING CAPTAIN
Aw shit...
INT. THE COCKPITS
From Rafe and Danny's POV, the rush is awesome.
THE PILOTS ON THE GROUND watch in awe as the P-40's get
so close they can't possibly get out of each other's way.
Billy, the most boyish-faced of the pilots, yells to drown
out the sound of the collision...
At the last instant, both planes snap a quarter turn so
that their wings are vertical, and they shoot past each
other belly to belly.
IN THE COCKPITS
Rafe and Danny burst out laughing.
THE PILOTS ON THE GROUND
laugh and congratulate each other.
6.
TRAINING CAPTAIN
You know what they say... You can
take the crop duster out of the
country -- but don't put him in a
P-40.
Rafe banks to land, and Danny tucks in behind him. Danny
has Rafe's plane in his sights.
DANNY
If I had guns I'd be chewing up
your --
Rafe feints left, banks right, and appears behind Danny.
RAFE
If you had guns, you'd be pissin'
on 'em.
They're almost to the landing strip, Rafe behind Danny.
But as Danny's wheels are about to touch, he guns his
engine and snaps the nose of his plane straight up.
THE OTHER PILOTS stop laughing.
ANTHONY
He's doing an inside loop!
TRAINING CAPTAIN
Aw, shit...
Danny pulls it off, just barely making a full circle to
come in behind Rafe and bounce to a stop on the runway.
DANNY
Yee-hawww!!!
Danny taxis his plane over to join the others. He's
grinning as he slides back his cockpit cover; then --
DANNY
Where's Rafe?
Red, tall with flaming orange hair, tips his chin toward
the air. Seeing Rafe's plane still in the air, Danny
starts to refasten his harness.
TRAINING CAPTAIN
You're down, Walker! That's an
order!
DANNY
What about him?
7.
TRAINING CAPTAIN
He's not taking my orders anymore.
Danny's just about to ask what the hell that means, when
he notices Rafe climbing in a deliberate spiral.
DANNY
He's gonna do it.
BILLY
Do what?
DANNY
It.
(beat)
Aw, shit. Aw shit shit shit...
RAFE'S PLANE reaches two thousand feet, just a speck above
them, and seems to pause in the air.
DANNY
I shouldn't'a done an inside loop.
I shouldn't'a done an inside loop.
BILLY
Why?
DANNY
Cause now he's gonna do an outside
loop.
TRAINING CAPTAIN
Aw shit. Aw shit shit shit...
Anthony and Billy join in, like an involuntary chant --
ANTHONY & BILLY
Aw shit shit shit...
RAFE, IN HIS COCKPIT, is tightly controlled, yet serene.
He noses the plane into a power dive.
The P-40 screams toward the ground, picking up speed,
going so fast it begins to shudder.
THE OTHER PILOTS are transfixed. Red is so nervous he
can't get the words out.
RED
Aw sh- sh- sh- sh-
BILLY
Shit.
8.
RED
Yeah.
DANNY
You can do it, Rafe. You can do
it.
The P-40, hurtling toward the ground at nauseating speed,
snaps into a half roll, streaking upside down over the
runway. Rafe hangs inverted in his flight harness, the
asphalt of the runway shooting past, ten feet beyond his
head.
He pushes the plane into a climb, his cockpit on the
outside of the circle. The plane reaches the top of its
arc, and almost stalls; but Rafe noses it over again,
toward the earth, only this time he has very little
altitude. The plane hurtles down, still with it belly on
the inside of the curve...
And makes it full circle. Rafe's head now is barely a
foot off the asphalt as the plane shoots past, still
inverted.
THE OTHER PILOTS burst into cheers.
RAFE, IN HIS COCKPIT permits himself a smile.
He lands, and the guys run out to meet him...all except
for the Training Captain, who stands there shaking his
head.
Danny jumps on the wing, as Rafe stops and slides back
his canopy. Danny grabs him by the harness and shakes
him.
DANNY
You could've killed yourself, you
stupid bastard!
He dives into the cockpit, hugging Rafe.
DANNY
That was the most beautiful thing
I ever saw.
INT. COLONEL DOOLITTLE'S OFFICE - DAY
COLONEL JIMMY DOOLITTLE, mid-forties, is commander of the
base. He's as tough as he is good in the air. And right
now he's frowning at Rafe McCawley, standing at attention
before him.
9.
DOOLITTLE
There are some people who think
the outside loop is reckless and
irresponsible.
RAFE
How could it be irresponsible,
Sir, if you were the first man in
the world to do it?
DOOLITTLE
Don't get smart with me, son.
RAFE
Never, Sir. I just meant it's
dangerous only for the kind of
pilot who wants to show off, rather
than inspire the other pilots in
his unit. And all you've done for
me, Sir, working out the transfer,
I did it to say thanks. To honor
you, Sir. What the French call a
"homage."
DOOLITTLE
That's bullshit, son. But it's
really good bullshit.
RAFE
Thank you, Sir.
Doolittle stands, moves around his desk, and shakes Rafe's
hand.
DOOLITTLE
Good luck over there McCawley. I
admire your decision.
RAFE
Thank you, Sir.
INT. NEW JERSEY AIRFIELD - BARRACKS - NIGHT
The pilots are getting slicked up for a night on the town.
Danny's at the mirrors with the others; he's putting on
cologne, and looks terrific in his uniform.
Anthony and Billy are combing their hair at the sinks.
Billy declares to his image in the mirror --
BILLY
You good-lookin' sumbitch...don't
you EVER die!
10.
ANTHONY
That's your line for tonight, ya
know.
BILLY
What, good-lookin' sumbitch?
ANTHONY
No, numbnuts, die. You get your
nurse alone, you look her in the
eye, and say, "Baby, they're
training me for war, and I don't
know what'll happen. But if I die
tomorrow, I wanna know that we
lived all we could tonight." I've
never known it to fail.
Red finishes brushing his teeth at the sink beside them.
RED
He's n-never known it to work,
either.
The guys head out laughing, running into Rafe coming in.
DANNY
Doolittle didn't kill you? Attaboy!
Rafe catches Danny's arm.
RAFE
Danny, there's something I gotta
tell you...
EXT. NEW JERSEY BARRACKS - NIGHT
Rafe and Danny are walking on the parade ground; the other
guys are already on the bus that will take them into town.
Danny's upset by what Rafe just told him.
DANNY
How could you do this?
RAFE
The Colonel helped me work it out.
DANNY
I don't mean how'd you do the
paperwork, I mean how the hell did
you do it without letting me in on
it?
11.
RAFE
I'm sorry, Danny, but they're only
accepting the best pilots.
DANNY
Don't make this a joke, Rafe.
You're talking about war, and I
know what war does to people.
RAFE
Danny, you know how many times I
saw you come to school with a black
eye or a busted nose, and couldn't
do a thing about it -- for you, or
for your mother... or your father,
with his lungs scorched out with
mustard gas, and more left of his
lungs than there was of his spirit?
You've made your sacrifice, Danny.
It's time I made mine.
BILLY
(from the bus)
The nurses are waiting!
RAFE
Let's go.
DANNY
Nah, you go on.
RAFE
I have to talk to Evelyn. And I
want you to meet her.
DANNY
Some other time. I don't feel
like a party.
Danny walks away. The bus driver's ready to leave, and
Red is honking the horn for Rafe to come. Rafe reluctantly
lets Danny go, and heads for the bus, where the pilots
are chanting --
PILOTS VOICE
Nurses! Nurses! Nurses!
INT. A MOVING TRAIN - DAY
The trains of 1942 have their own beauty, with felt seats,
shaded lamps, and paneled compartments even in the economy
section. But the glow of the train is outshone by EVELYN
STEWART.
12.
She's one of ten young women, Army nurses, gathered at
one end of the car as it rattles along the track.
The other nurses are pretty and ripe -- maybe a bit too
ripe. Their lips painted bright red, their faces powdered,
their spirits high.
Evelyn listens in amusement to BETTY, a cute blonde with
unmissable boobs, and BARBARA, a burnette equally endowed.
BETTY
Do you have trouble with your boobs
in the uniform?
BARBARA
You mean hiding them?
BETTY
Hide them? On a date with pilots?
I'm talking about how you make
them show!
SANDRA, another nurse, speaks up.
SANDRA
Loan 'em to me, I'll make 'em show.
BETTY
The boobs or the pilots?
The girls laugh and shove each others' knees; it's a party
wherever they go. But Evelyn can't keep her mind on the
frivolity. She looks out the window and her thoughts
drift away.
BARBARA
We'll ask Evelyn. Evelyn? Evelyn!
BETTY
Ooo, she's thinking of her date!
Come on, you've been dating a pilot.
We want to know what we can expect.
Suddenly all the girlish faces are looking at Evelyn.
EVELYN
I've been dating one pilot. And
only for a few weeks. But I know
he's different from all the others.
Sandra throws up her arms and swoons onto her friends.
SANDRA
True love!...
13.
BETTY
Morphine, give her morphine!
BARBARA
Give her an enema.
EVELYN
But I do have a warning for you.
There's one line you all need to
know, and you're likely to hear it
from any man in a uniform. It
goes like this: "Honey, Baby...
We never know what's gonna happen,
and I may die tomorrow...so, let's
live all we can tonight."
A silence among the nurses.
BARBARA
I tell you. Any one of those
arrogant, leather-jacketed, slicklookin'
flyboys tries that line on
me...he's gonna get anything he
wants.
As the nurses laugh --
EXT. NEW YORK TRAIN STATION - NIGHT
Our pilots -- indeed leather-jacketed and handsome -- are
waiting on the platform. Among then is Rafe, holding
something behind his back, as the train pulls in and
shudders to a stop, clouds of steam jetting onto the
platform and giving the moment a dream-like haze.
INT./ EXT. TRAIN - NEW YORK TRAIN STATION - NIGHT
The nurses start stepping out; both pilots and nurses
pretend surprise to see each. At the door of the train,
Evelyn whispers to Betty --
EVELYN
Stick with me, I'll find you
somebody good.
Betty spot's Rafe.
BETTY
I'll take that one.
EVELYN
He's taken. But come on, I'll
introduce you.
14.
They move to Rafe; he crosses the platform to meet them,
his eyes holding Evelyn.
RAFE
Hello, Lieutenant. Good to see
you.
EVELYN
You too, Lieutenant.
Betty clears her throat.
EVELYN
Oh, this is Betty.
RAFE
Nice to meet you, Betty.
He draws his hand from behind his back; he's holding two
roses. He hands one to Evelyn and the second to Betty.
RAFE
Danny would'a brought this.
He escorts them along the platform.
EVELYN
Danny's not coming?
RAFE
No, he...got some news today.
He'll be okay, he just didn't feel
like coming tonight.
EVELYN
I was hoping to meet him.
BETTY
I was hoping to meet him.
RAFE
We'll just have to find a
substitute, won't we?
Betty stops, and faces Rafe.
BETTY
I just want to tell you one thing.
If you're thinking this might be
your last night on earth?... I'm
prepared to make it meaningful.
(leaning close)
Very meaningful.
15.
EVELYN
At ease, Betty!
INT. CITY NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT
It's a party in full swing; swing music, jitterbugging,
beautiful young men and women in high spirits.
Rafe and Evelyn are sitting at a big table with the other
pilots and nurses. Anthony's paired up with Sandra, Billy
with Barbara, and Red, shyest of the group, finds himself
next to Betty. Betty's already found a companion in Red
Strange.
RED
He, I'm R-Red. Red S-Strange.
BETTY
Red...Strange?
RED
You know the football player, Red
G- Grange? Well the guys called
me R-Red, cause you know, I'm
red...and they thought I was
strange, so, you know, Red G-Grange,
Red Str-Strange.
BETTY
But...they called you Strange?
Because of Red Grange? I don't
get it. Was Red Grange strange?
RED
How would I know.
Beside her beer is an open ketchup bottle; he picks it up
and swigs from that. Rafe and Evelyn see this, and try
to keep from laughing.
BETTY
Do you always stutter?
RED
Only when I'm n-n-n-
BETTY
Nervous?
RED
Yeah. But if I have to get
something out, I c-can always s-ss-
(MORE)
16.
RED (CONT'D)
(he sings)
SIIING!
She covers his hand with hers.
BETTY
Don't be nervous.
Red looks at Betty with love in his eyes. Under the table,
Rafe and Evelyn join hands too.
EVELYN
There shipping us out. Hawaii.
The Germans are overrunning Europe,
and we're sent to paradise. How
about you? Have you heard anything?
He hesitates; then Evelyn is distracted by the conversation
beside them, between Barbara and Billy.
BILLY
You're a very special woman,
and...well baby, they're training
me for war, and we don't know what
happens tomorrow. So we gotta
make tonight special.
Barbara shoots a look at Evelyn, before she answers.
BARBARA
I hope you can back that up, flyboy.
Cause you're not ever gonna forget
tonight.
She takes him by the hand and pulls him to his feet...
They start dancing, sexy movements that won't stop till
they've been in bed.
Rafe pulls Evelyn to her feet, and leads her through the
dancers, outside.
EXT. THE NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT
They find a quiet place on a balcony that overlooks the
river, and Manhattan beyond. Evelyn takes in the view,
breathes in the air; she still holds the rose.
EVELYN
Whatever you're trying to tell me
isn't good, is it. Or it wouldn't
be so hard to say.
17.
RAFE
The only reason it's hard to say
is that I keep thinking I don't
have the right to say it. But
I've got to because it's true. I
love you.
(beat)
That must surprise you.
EVELYN
It surprises me that I'm not the
only one on this balcony who feels
that way.
The power of hearing this from each other grips them both.
RAFE
There's one thing I have to say.
I'm going away.
EVELYN
We're all going away.
RAFE
I'm going to the war. The real
war. Hitler's taken Europe. The
Brits are hanging on by their
fingernails, and If they lose,
there'll be more people killed
than anybody can imagine. And not
just there, but here.
EVELYN
But you're in the U.S. Army, how
could you --
RAFE
Colonel Doolittle pulled the
strings, and put me on loan to the
R.A.F. They need pilots, and we
need experience. I leave tomorrow.
EVELYN
You waited til tonight to tell me?
RAFE
I had to tell you in person.
Because there's something else I
need to say.
He studies her face, burning it into his memory.
18.
RAFE
Evelyn... you know the line --
let's make tonight memorable.
What I feel about you makes it
impossible for me to say something
like that. If I don't come back,
I don't want to saddle you with
regret and sadness you'll carry
the rest of your life.
EVELYN
I don't know if you can choose
that, Rafe.
RAFE
Maybe not. But I need you to know.
I love you. And I will come back.
I'll find a way. And then we'll
get a chance to know if what I
felt the first moment I saw you,
and every minute since then, is
real.
EVELYN
Do one thing for me, before you
go.
She takes his hand and leads him inside.
INT. NIGHT CLUB - NIGHT
She leads him onto the dance floor, and they dance, among
the others, yet in a world apart from everyone else. And
then they stop while all the others move around them, and
kiss the kind of kiss that lasts a lifetime.
EXT. HOTEL - NIGHT
The nurses are entering the hotel. Pilots are going in
with them. But Rafe and Evelyn stop on the street.
A last kiss. Their hands touch a final time, and then
part. She moves inside the lobby, and looks out the glass
doors as he walks away.
EXT. TRAIN STATION - DAWN
Rafe and Danny stand on the platform. Rafe's got his
gear packed in a bag slung over his shoulder.
CONDUCTOR'S VOICE
All aboard!
19.
Rafe glances once more toward the revolving doors from
the station that lead onto the platform.
DANNY
Didn't you say you told her not to
come?
RAFE
Yeah.
DANNY
Then why are you looking for her?
RAFE
It's a test. If I asked her to
come and she came, it wouldn't
tell me anything. If I tell her
not to come, and she comes...then
I know she loves me.
VOICE
ALL ABOARD!
DANNY
You're still a kid, ya know that?
Take care of yourself.
RAFE
You too.
Rafe sticks his hand out to Danny. Danny knocks it away,
and hugs him.
Rafe steps onto the train, and it pulls away. Rafe waves.
Danny waves back and smiles, but he whispers like a
prayer...
DANNY
Give 'em hell, Rafe.
INT. TRAIN - DAWN
Rafe finds a seat and sits down. He's the only one in
the car, and he's deeply alone.
EXT. TRAIN STATION - DAWN
Danny walks to one of the three revolving doors back into
the station. He takes the one on the far right. As he
passes through it, he doesn't see Evelyn rushing through
the door on the left side.
20.
She's told herself she wouldn't come, but couldn't help
it, and now as she sees the last car of the train
disappearing around the corner the pain of it all hits
her.
She stands on the empty platform, as lonely as Rafe.
MONTAGE - THE JOURNEYS
Rafe and Evelyn travel in opposite directions, toward
opposite ends of the earth...
EXT. A GRAY, COLD, CANADIAN SEAPORT - DAY
as Rafe boards a Canadian naval vessel headed into the
North Atlantic.
EXT. TRAIN - TRAVELING THROUGH THE AMERICAN WEST - DAY
Evelyn and her fellow nurses ride the train through the
American southwest. The scenery outside the window is
beautiful, but her thoughts are far away...
EXT. NORTH ATLANTIC - DAY
Rafe's ship is in a convoy through the rough gray waters.
The deck is loaded with military supplies bound for
Britain.
Rafe stands among the drab crates and seems oblivious to
the rain, his thoughts on Evelyn.
He looks toward the eastern horizon, where his ship is
heading. A deep, dark storm is brewing before them...
EXT. PACIFIC - DAY
Evelyn stands on the deck of a ship headed in the opposite
direction, on another ocean, the sky is clear, the breeze
is warm, the light of a glowing sunset bathes her face.
The MONTAGE ENDS, with them heading to different ends of
the earth.
EXT. BASSINGBORNE AIRFIELD - BRITAIN - DUSK
In the eternal dusk of England, everything is cold and
gray.
British fighter planes -- Spitfires and Hurricanes -- are
surrounded by mechanics hurriedly ripping off bullet
riddled fuselage panels and digging into overworked
aircraft engines.
21.
Rafe walks across the tarmac, still carrying his duffel
bag.
He moves up behind a slim, pale BRITISH AIR COMMANDER who
is surveying engine damage on one of the Spitfires.
RAFE
Rafe McCawley, Sir.
Rafe salutes as the Air Commander turns and then returns
the salute, with his left arm -- his right arm is gone.
Rafe freezes at the sight, reminded of Danny's father.
BRITISH AIR COMMANDER
On loan from Colonel Doolittle, is
it?
RAFE
That's me, Sir.
BRITISH AIR COMMANDER
Good on you, then, Rafe McCawley.
We'll get you situated in some
quarters, and then introduce you
to the equipment you'll be flying.
RAFE
If you're patching up bullet holes
right here on the runway, maybe we
should skip the housekeeping and
get right to the planes.
BRITISH AIR COMMANDER
Are all the Yanks as anxious as
you are to get yourself killed,
Lieutenant?
RAFE
Not anxious to die, Sir, anxious
to matter.
EXT. BASSINGBORNE AIRFIELD - BRITAIN - DAY
A Spitfire sits on the runway, and it's badly mangled --
a string of bullet holes punched through at mid-fuselage;
a shot-off chunk of wingtip; but most striking is the
blood still splattered over the inside of the cockpit.
BRITISH AIR COMMANDER
Good lad. Didn't die till he'd
landed and shut down his engine.
Welcome to the war.
He walks away, leaving Rafe to stare at the bloody cockpit.
22.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - MILITARY BASE - DAY
Evelyn and the nurses enter the base, riding in two jeeps.
As they stop at the gate, the guards look at them,
especially Evelyn in the lead jeep; one guard mumbles to
the other --
GUARD
I've died and gone to heaven.
The guards lift the bar and smile at the nurses. The
jeeps drive through. The nurses are loving this island
paradise already.
BARBARA
You know the ratio of men to women
on this island? Four-thousand...to
one.
Barbara slides on a new pair of sunglasses with plastic
palm trees glued on the sides, and calls back to the guards
as the jeeps pull away --
BARBARA
See ya on the beach, boys!
EXT. MILITARY BASE - NURSES' QUARTERS - OAHU - DAY
As the other nurses happily unpack, Evelyn leaves and
crosses the grass in the drenching sunshine. We follow
her into --
INT. BASE HOSPITAL - DAY
She finds a small, immaculately clean hospital, twenty
beds with luminous white sheets, all empty.
Then she notices the view. It's of Pearl Harbor, with
the entire American Pacific fleet riding at anchor.
Battleships all in a row. Aircraft carriers too, in
perfect stillness on the aqua blue water with a white
sand bottom. The view is expansive and beautiful.
The sound of an approaching fighter plane with wing guns
firing as we --
CUT TO:
EXT. THE DARK SKIES OVER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL - DAY
Rafe, in the middle of an aerial dogfight, throws his
Spitfire into a tight turn, swinging around to fire again
into a squadron of Messerschmidts; they outnumber the
British planes, and they're tougher and faster.
23.
Rafe darts through their line, machine guns blazing.
One of the Spitfires in Rafe's squadron has taken hits in
the engine compartment and is sputtering, losing power,
its pilot, NIGEL, frantic as the German planes swarm into
finish him.
BRITISH PILOT (NIGEL)
I need help! Someone get them off
me!
Rafe slams his control stick hard right and goes into a
power dive at one of the Messerschmidts. Rafe's bullets
chew up its cockpit and the plane goes into a fast
corkscrew spiral, down into the water.
Rafe instantly climbs again. Nigel, in the moment of
safety Rafe has bought him, bails out, his chute blossoming
and carrying him toward the water. The OTHER BRITISH
PILOTS are impressed.
OTHER BRITISH PILOT
(into radio)
Nigel's out! I'll call in the
position!
(to himself)
That Yank is bloody good.
Rafe swings his plane right back at the Germans; he attacks
them head on, just like he went at Danny, only this time
he's firing his machine guns.
And OVER THIS ferocious dogfight, we hear his letter to
Evelyn...
RAFE'S VOICE (LETTER)
Dear Evelyn... It is cold here.
So cold, in a way that goes deep
into your bones.
The Messerschmidt in Rafe's sights breaks apart with the
stream of precise fire he pours into it, its prop flying
into pieces, its disintegration accelerated by its
airspeed. Before it completely comes apart, it explodes.
Rafe goes into another tight turn, to get at them again.
RAFE'S VOICE
It's not easy making friends. Two
nights ago I drank a beer with a
couple of the R.A.F. pilots --
beer's the only thing here that
isn't cold -- and yesterday both
of them got killed...
24.
As Rafe starts another attack we see him in the cockpit,
in the trance of battle, as other Spitfires around him
are getting shot out of the sky...as we --
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. HOSPITAL - PEARL HARBOR - DAY
Evelyn, receiving the letter at mail call.
She sits on the grass under a palm tree, in paradise,
reading his letter.
RAFE'S VOICE
There is one place I can go to
find warmth, and that is to think
of you.
EXT. OUTDOOR RESTAURANT - OAHU - DAY
Evelyn is off duty, and wears a light cotton dress. She's
let her hair down, and her skin has the sheen of light
sweat in the tropical heat.
The restaurant is barely more than a shelter of palm wood
posts with a frond roof, and it looks out over the harbor.
Evelyn sits alone. She's brought writing paper. As the
Hawaiian waiter serves her an icy tropical ambrosia with
chunks of pineapple and a fresh plumeria flower floating
at the rim of the glass, she lifts her pen.
But before she can start to write, three naval officers
move over to her table from the bar. They're out of
uniform too, wearing garish tropical shirts.
NAVY GUY 1
A woman beautiful as you shouldn't
be sitting alone. Buy you a drink?
EVELYN
Thank you...Ensign.
The guys look at each other, impressed that she could
tell.
NAVY GUY 1
Ensign! Smart too!
NAVY GUY 2
So how about that drink? Or dinner?
25.
EVELYN
Thank you, but...I really want to
be alone right now.
NAVY GUY 3
Want to see something long and
hard?
He shows her the tattoo of an anchor on his forearm.
Evelyn looks away from them, toward the harbor.
EVELYN
I'm sorry. I've got a letter to
write.
NAVY GUY 3
Cold bitch.
His friends start to pull him away, but Evelyn's eyes
flare.
EVELYN
What did you say?
NAVY GUY 3
I said you're cold.
EVELYN
Cold? No, I'm just thinking about
a war. And maybe you should be
too.
They leave, shaking their heads. Evelyn picks up her
pen, and writes.
EVELYN'S VOICE (LETTER)
Dear Rafe... It's strange to be so
far from you in body, and so close
to you in spirit. But if our
spirits really give our bodies
life, then you should know this:
Every night I look at the sunset,
and try to draw the last ounce of
heat from its long day...
She looks toward the sunset now; then she writes again...
EXT. BASSINGBORNE AIRFIELD - BRITAIN - NIGHT
Rafe brings his battered plane in for a landing...
INT. BRITISH AIRFIELD BARRACKS - NIGHT
Rafe sits on his cot, reading her letter.
26.
EVELYN'S VOICE
...and send it from my heart to
yours.
Rafe is startled as the Air Commander appears beside his
bunk.
BRITISH AIR COMMANDER
Air-Sea Rescue picked up Nigel.
He'll be back with us tomorrow.
Rafe nods, glad to hear the news. The Commander starts
to walk away, then turns back.
BRITISH AIR COMMANDER
Some of us look down on the Yanks
for not yet joining this war. I'd
just like to say that if there are
many more back home like you, God
help anyone who goes to war with
America.
The Commander salutes, with his left hand. And Rafe
salutes too -- with his left hand.
EXT. ESTABLISHING THE WHITE HOUSE - WASHINGTON D.C. - DAY
The White House looks somehow whiter and purer in the
glow of 1941.
INT. PRESIDENTIAL CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY
GENERALS, ADMIRALS, and other advisors sit around the
polished table -- all males, in suits and in uniforms.
The door opens, and the men all stand.
PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT appears, in a wheelchair,
pushed by a huge black valet, GEORGE. The President's
legs are shriveled, braced with the iron supports that
attach to his shoes and are apparent beneath the cloth of
his pin-striped pants. From the waist up Roosevelt is
heavily muscled, powerful, and handsome even in his little
spectacles. The valet rolls him to the head of the table;
he's speaking even before he settles in.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
Please be seated, gentlemen.
They sit, as one.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
Churchill and Stalin are asking me
what I'm asking you: How long is
(MORE)
27.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT (CONT'D)
America going to pretend the world
is not at war?
GENERAL MARSHALL
We've increased supply shipments
to them, Mr. President, and we're
losing merchant vessels every day.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
Shift in every destroyer and antiaircraft
weapon you can find.
ADMIRAL
Sir, our Pacific Fleet is already
down to almost nothing.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
Gentlemen, at this moment the nation
of Hungry has a larger military
then the United States. We have
no choice but to draw from whatever
we can.
EXT. ESTABLISHING TOKYO - JAPAN - NIGHT
INT. JAPANESE HIGH COMMAND - NIGHT
The Conference Room is similar to that of the White House.
But this table is low and all the men sit on the floor.
And there are no civilians here; Japan is now a nation
ruled by its warriors.
The last man to enter the room and take his place is
ADMIRAL YAMAMOTO. Harvard educated, Yamamoto is an object
of veneration and suspicion among the men of the war
council.
Yamamoto bows, sits, and looks across the table at his
friend Genda, who can't hide his fear. Yamamoto glances
to the far end of the table where NISHIKURA, chief of the
War Council, sits glowering. (Their discussion is in
Japanese, with subtitles.)
NISHIKURA
So you join us, Admiral. Some of
us thought your education at an
American university would make you
too weak to fight the Americans.
YAMAMOTO
If knowledge of opponents and
careful calculation of danger is
(MORE)
28.
YAMAMOTO (CONT'D)
taken as weakness then I have
misunderstood what it means to be
Japanese.
NISHIKURA
The time has come to strike! Or
to sit and let the Americans cut
off our oil and our future. I
know what you whisper to the others,
Yamamoto -- that the Americans are
strong. Yet look at their leader.
He motions to OYAMA, an intelligence analyst, who opens a
file and lays out pictures of Roosevelt.
OYAMA
Franklin Roosevelt. Born into
great wealth. Fifteen years ago,
he was stricken with polio. Now
he cannot walk, or even stand
without help. Photographers will
not take pictures of him in his
chair; Americans do not wish to
know how weak their President is.
Yamamoto makes a low grunt.
NISHIKURA
You have something to say, Yamamoto?
YAMAMOTO
The Council knows I have opposed
fighting the Americans. No matter
how great our resolve, they have
resources beyond ours. If we must
go to war, there is only one way --
deal them a blow from which it
will take them years to recover.
In that time we can conquer all of
the Pacific, and they will have no
choice but to ask for peace.
NISHIKURA
You see us as capable of such a
blow?
YAMAMOTO
The Americans themselves have made
it possible. We will annihilate
them in a single attack -- at Pearl
Harbor.
29.
The members of the war council are so pleased with Yamamoto
that they bow to him. Only Genda keeps his eyes raised
long enough to see the sadness in Yamamoto's face.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - AIR BASE - BARRACKS - DAY
Danny Walker and his pilot buddies have just arrived;
they enter the barracks, talking happily.
RED
If I ain't n-never on a b-boat
again, it'll be too s-soon.
BILLY
Where are the women on this --
Danny has stopped before the others; now all of them see
that the other pilots who inhabit this air base are still
in their beds, sleeping off hangovers. They wear Hawaiian
shirts; they haven't shaved.
RED
They're s-still asleep!
Danny pauses for a moment, then shouts --
DANNY
Drop your cocks and grab your socks,
boys! The terror of the skies are
here!
The sleeping pilots groan, and cover their heads with
their pillows.
ANTHONY
They're all drunk.
One guy sits up in bed, his hair pointing every direction
of the compass, his tongue working as if to wipe a terrible
taste from his mouth. As his feet dangle over the side
of the bunk and one of them touches the floor, a sensation
reaches his sotted brain; he raises that foot to look at
its bottom, and finds a new tattoo, on the sole of his
foot; he blinks as if trying to remember how it got there.
Danny moves over to him, and dubs him with a name, COMA.
DANNY
Hey. You. Mr. Coma.
COMA
Where's that lizard?
30.
DANNY
What lizard?
COMA
The one that slept in my mouth
last night.
DANNY
What the hell happened to you guys?
Coma is one of those drunks who speak as if he's always
about to burp.
COMA
Ever hear of mai-tai's? Comes in
a big...pot. Like...like...
RED
A m-missionary?
COMA
No, like...
Coma emits a pukey, toxic burp that has Danny and his
buddies wincing back from the fumes.
DANNY
This is an Air Base? Where's your
squad commander?
The question soaks through to Coma's brain. His right
hand points...and his left hand points...in different
directions. His hands float around in the air until
finally both of them are indicating the same direction,
behind his back. In the bunk beyond Coma's is another
drunk pilot in a Hawaiian shirt...and to judge by the
shapely bronzed leg that protrudes from under his damp
sheet, there's a woman with him too.
Danny and his buddies are speechless -- except for Red
Strange.
RED
I th-think I'm gonna like it here.
COMA
You guys are new?
DANNY
Yeah.
COMA
Mai-tai's. I got this to tell ya,
about mai-tai's.
31.
Coma's head drifts forward slowly; they think for a moment
he's looking for something under the bed. Then he pukes.
Danny leaps back from the splatter, and marches out of
the barracks; his friends follow.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - AIRFIELD - DAY
Danny and his buddies stride up to the airfield. It's
full of fighter planes -- and they're all bunched together
in clusters on the field. Danny grabs a MECHANIC.
DANNY
Hey! What is this, the planes all
bunched up like that?
MECHANIC
The brass is afraid of sabotage.
This makes 'em easier to protect --
and easier to service.
DANNY
What about easier to hit in an air
raid?
MECHANIC
Who's gonna to that? Japan is
four thousand miles away. So you
guys just arrived, huh?
DANNY
Yeah.
MECHANIC
We got a saying here. A-low-HA!
The mechanic walks off. Danny and the guys are left
standing on the tarmac.
DANNY
Well guys...I reckon there's just
one thing to do...
INT. OAHU BAR - DAY
Danny and the pilots are in Hawaiian shirts, their party
in full swing. A bucket-sized hollowed-out volcano sits
in the middle of the table, with twelve straws emerging
from the crater. It's full of booze -- or was; Danny and
the other guys are pulling heartily at the straws, and
they gurgle as the last liquid is sucked dry.
RED
More m-mai-tai's!
32.
Coma is sitting there with them, beside Red.
COMA
Absolutely right.
Everybody's having a ball, the new arrivals fitting right
in with the others. Danny's a bit off to himself, lost
in his own thoughts. Billy and Anthony are doing the
hula to the Hawaiian music playing.
COMA
No, you guys aren't doing it right.
It's in the hands. They talk story.
Coma stands and starts demonstrating, explaining the
gestures of his hula.
COMA
Fish swim in ocean... Happy in the
Mother Sea... Girl, beautiful
girl, with big jugs, walks into
water...waves lapping at her
thighs...
ANTHONY
I never knew those dances were so
sophisticated.
COMA
...Fish nibble at her breasts...
Coma's really into his dance, his hands over enormous
imaginary breasts; but as he turns toward the windows --
COMA
A more beautiful girl walks by...
The guys see Evelyn passing on the other side of the
street, gorgeous in the sunshine. Coma's hands start
squeezing the imaginary breasts of his hula.
BILLY
Hey, isn't that Evelyn?
Danny moves up to look.
DANNY
Rafe's girl, Evelyn?
COMA
You guys know her?! I gotta have
an intro! Man, I'd like to --
Danny's hand is suddenly around Coma's larynx.
33.
DANNY
A friend of mine's in love with
her. So you don't even look --
not ever.
Danny releases him and Coma staggers back to the table to
nuzzle up to one of the straws of the mai-tai volcano.
Danny looks out the window again and sees Evelyn's
beautiful form disappear around the corner, on her way
back to the base hospital. Danny moves back to the table,
and as two burly Hawaiian waiters set another full loaded
mai-tai volcano onto the center of the table, he picks up
a glass and dips it full of the potent liquid. He shouts
to the whole room --
DANNY
I'm a better pilot than any son-ofa-
bitch on this island! So I'm
the one to say this! Here's to
Rafe McCawley! A better pilot...and
a better man...than me.
The other pilots drink up -- from glasses or from straws.
OTHER PILOTS
To Rafe.
Danny drains the whole glass at one chug, and slams it
down onto the table. Then he blinks, puts a hand on his
stomach, and frowns. Coma recognizes the look.
COMA
Uh oh. Volcanic eruption!
Danny bends at the waist; his head obscured by the table.
COMA
Shit, he's puking on my feet!
RED
Well, you p-puked on his feet.
COMA
Yeah, but he was wearing shoes!
INT. ADMIRAL KIMMEL'S OFFICE - OAHU - DAY
ADMIRAL KIMMEL is Commander of the American Pacific Fleet.
Two members of his staff are standing uncomfortably in
front of him, having delivered a message from the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
34.
ADMIRAL KIMMEL
...transfer twelve more destroyers
to Atlantic Fleet, and all the
available anti-aircraft weaponry?!
Washington has gone insane!
Kimmel's STRATEGIC ANALYST speaks up.
STRATEGIC ANALYST
We've done what you ordered,
Admiral, and war gamed the likely
outcome of a Japanese attack against
each of our major bases in the
Pacific. Wake, Guam, Midway, the
Philippines. In each case, we
lose.
ADMIRAL KIMMEL
You left out Hawaii.
STRATEGIC ANALYST
Pearl Harbor can't be attacked
effectively from the air. It's
too shallow for an aerial torpedo
attack. Pearl Harbor's safe.
It's everywhere else that we're
vulnerable.
ADMIRAL KIMMEL
Step up surveillance of Japanese
communications. They're gonna do
something somewhere. I can feel
it.
EXT. THE SKIES ABOVE OAHU - DAY
A seaplane takes tourists on an excursion above Pearl
Harbor and around the island of Oahu. One Japanese tourist
shoots pictures rapidly...first of the ships as seen from
overhead; then he leans to the other side of the plane
and shoots pictures of the airfield below them.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
Another Japanese tourist hikes through the hills above
Pearl Harbor. He takes an excellent camera from his picnic
basket, and shoots pictures.
CLOSE - THE PICTURES, being carried down a hallway, into --
INT. JAPANESE PLANNERS OFFICE - DAY
The courier places the pictures onto the table in front
of Yamamoto, Genda, and the other JAPANESE OFFICERS.
35.
GENDA
Look at the ships -- all grouped.
Perfect targets!
JAPANESE OFFICER
And the planes! They are -- what
is that American expression?
Sitting geese?
YAMAMOTO
Sitting ducks.
JAPANESE OFFICER
How can they be so foolish?
YAMAMOTO
They think no one would be stupid
enough to attack them at Pearl
Harbor.
GENDA
Or perhaps they think no one is
capable. Look at this...
He moves to a diagram displayed on the wall -- a simple
display showing water depth and ship displacement.
GENDA
Pearl Harbor's depth of only forty
feet makes them feel safe. A
torpedo dropped from an airplane
plunges to one hundred feet before
it can level off. That is a
conventional torpedo. But we have
been experimenting.
From a stand beside his diagram he takes a set of wooden
fins, attached to a circular metallic band.
GENDA
Wooden fins. We are testing them
tomorrow.
EXT. JAPANESE ISLAND - DAY
Yamamoto and his planners have flown to a quiet Japanese
island, sunlit and pleasant. They are gathered on the
shore of the island's natural harbor. Wooden targets --
basically huge plank barriers -- are sunk into the water
like ships at anchor. A squadron of Japanese planes zooms
overhead, taking up attack positions.
36.
GENDA
We have chosen this place because
its depth is exactly the same as
Pearl Harbor's.
Genda speaks into a field radio. A lone plane drops out
of formation and goes into a low-level approach, speeding
up and dropping its torpedo.
BELOW THE SURFACE we see the torpedo as it plunges at two
hundred miles an hour into the sunlit sea. With the wooden
fins the torpedo makes a sharp dip and levels off above
the sea floor.
ABOVE THE SURFACE the planners see the path of the torpedo;
it hits the wooden barrier with a satisfying THUNK. The
planners are impressed -- but Yamamoto is not satisfied.
YAMAMOTO
Uncharged torpedoes have different
balance.
GENDA
I have arranged a live fire drill --
with your permission.
Yamamoto nods; Genda speaks again into his radio, and
another plane swoops down and drops a torpedo. Genda
holds his hands to his ears, causing the others to do the
same; even though they wonder at the need.
The torpedo hits the barrier, and the explosion is
deafening, and of shocking force; the entire barrier is
blown to toothpicks.
GENDA
Of course against a ship the
explosion will not be dissipated,
and will have more force.
The planners, nearly blown off their feet, nod as if they
knew that all the time.
INT. MILITARY BASE - PILOTS' BARRACKS - NIGHT
The pilots are getting slicked up.
BILLY
Are you sure they're here?
ANTHONY
If Evelyn's here, the rest are
here!
37.
Red moves up beside him to frown at the mirror. His hair
is plastered down and parted, his uniform's immaculate.
ANTHONY
Looking good, Red.
RED
Shut up.
Red moves away, to polish his shoes.
ANTHONY
What is it with Red? I've never
seen him this way.
BILLY
He's been like that all day. Hey
Danny, you coming?
DANNY
Nah, I'm gonna stay here. Read.
Anthony and Billy look at each other; Danny's in his bunk,
and he's not reading, just staring at the ceiling.
INT. NURSES' BARRACKS - PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
The nurses are primping to go out; Evelyn is in her uniform
getting ready to go back to work.
BARBARA
Now listen, it's hands off Billy.
I mean, you can put your hands on
him if you want to, but then my
hands will break yours.
BETTY
He was that good?
BARBARA
No, I was.
EXT. NURSES' QUARTERS - OAHU - NIGHT
Creeping through the vegetation, Red leads Anthony and
Billy to a spot outside the nurses' barracks; they can
see the girls through the barracks window.
BILLY
Red, Peeping Tom stuff can get us
court- marshaled.
RED
Shhh!
38.
Anthony and Billy are baffled, even more so when Red
strides into the open, right outside the nurses' window.
And then, Red begins to sing.
RED
(singing)
Oh...Betty, Betty, Betty, you're
the one for me, Betty, Betty, Betty,
Betty, can't you see...
Anthony and Billy look at each other, dumbfounded. The
nurses move to the open windows. Red's singing is pretty
good -- though not that good. But he doesn't stutter
when he sings.
RED
(singing)
I'll be yours for eternity, Betty,
Betty, Betty, Betty, Betty!
Anthony and Billy are hysterical, trying to keep their
laughter hidden. But then they see the effect this is
having on the women -- especially on Betty. She's smitten.
Red repeats the verse, really getting into it; when he
finishes, Betty runs out and hugs him, as all the nurses
applaud. They move off into the darkness, arm and arm.
The nurses go back to their primping.
Anthony and Billy are changed men. Anthony stands up;
Billy's baffled. Anthony moves out and starts singing.
ANTHONY
(singing)
Oh Sandra...I like you...love you...
He's terrible. The nurses pelt him with hairbrushes,
curlers, shoes...
EXT. BASSINGBORNE AIRFIELD - BRITAIN - DAY
Coming out of the blustery skies at the end of another
deadly day, a squadron of Spitfires chirps in for landings.
The planes are shot up and battered.
Rafe is one of the pilots; the fuselage below his cockpit
is marked with four swastikas, symbols of his victories.
He taxis to a stop, and is met by IAN, a Scottish mechanic,
who is dismayed at the state of the plane.
IAN
Leapin' Jesus!
39.
RAFE
(climbing down)
The struts are loose, the hydraulics
are leaking, and the electrical
system's shorting out in the
cockpit.
IAN
Well which of those three ya want
fixed?
RAFE
All of 'em.
Rafe starts away, and Ian calls to his back --
IAN
If ye'd wanted a bloody Cadillac
ya should'a stayed in the bloody
States!
RAFE
And if you don't give me a plane
that can handle combat, you better
start learning to speak German.
IAN
Fook ya!
RAFE
Learn English, then!
IAN
Fook ya dooble!
Rafe moves to the barracks; Ian keeps the fueling hose
going, and moves to help the armorers reload the guns.
INT. BRITISH AIRFIELD BARRACKS - NIGHT
Rafe falls down onto his cot, exhausted. The other pilots
do the same, everybody spent from the day's combat. Then
they hear the SIREN. Rafe's out of his bunk, with the
others, everybody running.
BRITISH PILOT
Bloody Krauts! Night raid!
EXT. BASSINGBORNE AIRFIELD - BRITAIN - NIGHT
They race across the runway. Rafe reaches his Spitfire,
just as Ian is removing the fueling hose.
40.
IAN
I have'na been able ta --
RAFE
Crank her!
Ian gives the prop a spin, and the engine roars to life.
IAN
God speed ya, laddie.
EXT. SKIES OVER THE ENGLISH CHANNEL - NIGHT
It's dark, but there are breaks in the clouds, giving way
to patches of light from a full moon. The squadron of
Spitfires tightens up for battle.
Rafe is positioned just right of the squad leader; he
sees planes breaking out of the dark clouds ahead.
RAFE
Here they come.
The clouds break, revealing a huge attack formation.
BRITISH SQUAD LEADER
Alpha group, on the bombers! Beta
group, take the fighters!
They peel off, into action.
EXT. THE AIR BATTLE OVER THE CHANNEL - NIGHT
We stay with Rafe as he and the Squad Leader rush side by
side at the lead bomber, blasting away with their guns.
INT. GERMAN BOMBER - IN THE AIR - NIGHT
The Spitfires' bullets rip into the pilot and also kill
the nose gunner; the bomber dips as the copilot struggles
to take control.
INT. RAFE, IN HIS SPITFIRE - NIGHT
As he streaks past, Rafe sees the bomber wobble in the
air.
RAFE
We've got him hurt, stay on him!
Rafe throws his plane into an ultra-tight, high speed
turn, right between the tails of the leader German group
and the noses of the second. His turn is so tight that
the plane flexes with the g-force.
41.
Rafe comes out of his turn ahead of the Squad Leader, and
races back up through the formation of German bombers,
moving above them where their weapons and armaments are
the weakest. He stitches a trail of bullets from tail to
nose of the wounded lead bomber; it begins to smoke.
The second Spitfire, the Squad Leader's, takes fire from
the other German bombers, and shears off, heading through
the smoke of the plane Rafe has on the ropes.
RAFE
We've got him going!
Rafe does a half-loop and half-spin, to bring him around
to face the bombers again. This time the g-force of the
turn pops an oil line inside Rafe's cockpit; hot,
pressurized oil begins to spray everywhere -- all over
Rafe, his controls, and worst of all, over the inside of
his cockpit glass.
He wipes at the oil with his hands and that just smears
it and makes it worse.
His wingman sees him veering away from the bombers...and
sees the German fighters moving up to meet him.
SQUAD LEADER
McCawley! Get to the clouds! Get
into the clouds!
RAFE, IN HIS PLANE, is flying blind.
RAFE
I can't see the clouds!
His problems are just beginning; the fluid is dripping
down onto his cockpit's corroded electrical wiring; the
fluid causes an arc...a spark... and suddenly a fire is
spreading through Rafe's plane.
He grabs his fire extinguisher and triggers a cloud that
snuffs the fire but fills the entire cockpit with choking
smoke; between that and the smeared fluid on his glass,
he can't see a thing.
And the Messerschmidts are swarming over him.
Rafe's wingman dives in, raking the German planes as he
passes.
Rafe tries to open his cockpit cover to clear the smoke,
but it's jammed; he pulls out his .45 pistol and BLAM!
BLAM!
42.
BLAM! He blows out the glass; the smoke clears enough
for him to take a breath and try to see. He fights the
stick, but the plane won't respond.
The Messerschmidts rake him again, bullets riddling his
engine.
SQUAD LEADER
Get out of there, McCawley! Get
out of there!
Rafe's plane descends, ever faster, passing through clouds,
then clear air again. The Squad Leader tries to chase
and cover him, but Rafe's dropping fast, and still isn't
out of the plane as the Germans dive on him again, firing.
Rafe's Spitfire hits the broken fog over the water -- the
Squad Leader loses sight of it for a moment -- and then
the plane hits, splashing and exploding all at once.
The Squad Leader winces, and ducks into the clouds as he
reports on his radio...
SQUAD LEADER
McCawley down. No 'chute.
EXT. BATTLESHIP WEST VIRGINIA - PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The sailors have assembled on deck for the ship's
heavyweight championship fight, a contest made more
interesting to the sailors because one of the combatants
is white and the other is black.
The battle is more toughness than technique. The guys
throwing haymakers and shoving each other around the roped
area, as their shipmates cheer and make wild bets. The
white guy digs a punch deep into the black guy's ribs,
and the black guy slams a double left hook into the white
guy's belly, making him back up and say --
WHITE BOXER
You hit hard -- for a cook.
The black guy rushes the white guy, only to catch a right
cross that wobbles his knees and makes him stagger, with
a fresh cut over his right eye. The white guy now rushes
in, and the black guy (his name is DORIE MILLER) throws
an upper cut that drops his opponent like a sack of rocks.
The sailors cheer wildly. Dorie steps back, and rubs his
glove across his brow. It's really bleeding now.
43.
EXT. MILITARY BASE - DAY
Evelyn is returning from church with six of her nurse
friends. It's very quiet on a Sunday morning, almost
nobody at the base; they walk along the path.
BARBARA
Let's get into civvies and find a
bar.
MARTHA
Right after church?
BARBARA
You've gotta sin some, to get
forgiveness. Come with us, Evelyn.
You need some sin.
EVELYN
I've got to write some requisitions.
We're undersupplied with morphine.
BETTY
Morphine? We've been here a month
and nobody's had worse than a
sunburn.
Evelyn smiles softly and walks toward the base hospital.
BETTY
I wish she could forget him.
BARBARA
You don't forget love, Honey. Not
ever.
EXT. HOSPITAL - PEARL HARBOR - DAY
Evelyn approaches the hospital and finds the black boxer
peering in the window. He's in a T-shirt and navy pants.
EVELYN
Can I help you, sailor?
As Dorie turns, she sees the cut on his head, closed only
with a band-aid; it's dripping blood down his T-shirt.
DORIE
'Scuse me, 'Mam. All the ship's
doctors is golfing, and I couldn't
find nobody to look at this.
EVELYN
Our doctor's gone too.
44.
DORIE
Sorry to trouble you.
EVELYN
Wait, let me look at that... You
better come in here.
INT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - DAY
Miller is sitting on a stool; Evelyn bathes the wound.
EVELYN
How'd you get this?
DORIE
Boxin'.
EVELYN
Win?
DORIE
Yes'm.
He says it without pride. She puts down the basin.
EVELYN
What's your name?
DORIE
Dorie Miller, 'Mam.
EVELYN
I'm Evelyn. And I'm just a nurse.
But I'm not playing golf, and that
cut needs sewing, or else it's
gonna make a big lumpy scar. Whatta
ya say?
INT. HOSPITAL - PEARL HARBOR - LATER
Evelyn clips the ends of her carefully applied stitches;
Dorie's eyes are rolled up as if he could watch from inside
his skull.
EVELYN
How often you fight like this?
DORIE
Every other Sunday. I'm heavyweight
champion of the West Virginia.
EVELYN
What do you get for winning?
45.
DORIE
Respect.
She hands him a mirror. He studies her work.
DORIE
No doctor would'a give me that
good.
She walks him to the door.
DORIE
Thank you, 'Mam.
EVELYN
Tell me something, Dorie. A man
as big as you -- and smart too,
you knew where to come when your
ship couldn't help -- do you still
have to fight with your fists to
get respect?
DORIE
I left my Mama and joined the Navy
to be a man. They made me a cook --
and not even that, really -- I
clean up after the other sailors
eat. I shine the officer's shoes.
In two years, they've never even
let me fire a gun.
Now Evelyn understands.
EVELYN
You take care, Dorie.
DORIE
You too, 'Mam.
EXT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - SUNSET
Dorie walks away, down the path between the palm trees.
She watches him go, and then is transfixed by someone
else coming, silhouetted by the light of the setting sun.
She can't make out his face, but he's wearing a pilot's
dress uniform, and coming to her right out of the warm
orange sunset that she has stared at so many times. Her
heart slams against her ribs; she takes a few steps
forward.
EVELYN
...Rafe...
46.
She moves toward him, and he draws near her, walking
slowly.
And then she sees his face...
It's Danny. His face as sad as death itself.
And even before he tells her, she knows.
DANNY
Lieutenant... I'm Danny Walker.
I'm Rafe McCawley's best friend.
EVELYN
Were. Isn't that what you mean?
Were. Because he's dead, isn't
he? And that's why you've come.
EXT. A BENCH - OVERLOOKING PEARL HARBOR - SUNSET
Evelyn and Danny sit on the bench, with a sweeping view
of the harbor and the lights winking on all around it as
the sun settles beyond the horizon. Evelyn is stoic,
numb; Danny is the one who is struggling.
DANNY
Before Rafe left, he asked me to
be the one to tell you, if it
happened.
EVELYN
He told me about you. That he had
no other friend like you.
DANNY
Rafe's folks had a crop dusting
business, owned their own planes.
Real straight, frugal. My father
was the town drunk. Went to sleep
one night on the railroad tracks
and was still there when the Dawn
Express came along. Rafe and I
were the only ones at the funeral.
He took me back to his house, and
I never left.
EVELYN
You were more like brothers.
DANNY
I taught him to drink beer. He
taught me how to fly.
47.
EVELYN
He said you're the only one he
ever saw who was better in the air
than him.
DANNY
...He said that?
Evelyn nods, still staring away from Danny. This pierces
Danny; he looks away, struggling not to let the emotions
pull him completely under.
DANNY
Look, uh...Rafe's dad...he wrote
me with the news, and it took me a
couple of days to work up the guts
to come here and tell you. I'm
not as brave as Rafe, or as noble.
But if there's anything I can ever
do to help -- you let me know,
okay?
She stares into the distance. He stands and puts his
hand on top of hers, as much for his comfort as for hers.
DANNY
I understand why Rafe loved you.
You're as strong as he was.
Since she's still not looking at him, he starts to move
away.
When he reaches the turn in the path, he looks back, and
sees her figure in the gathering darkness. She's begun
to break down; and as he watches, her whole body starts
convulsing, and she doubles up in shattering grief.
Danny can't just stand there; he moves back to her, and
puts a hand on her shoulder. He sits beside her again,
and suddenly she turns to him and sobs upon him. Danny
wraps her gently in his arms, and then he breaks down,
having found the first place he can truly grieve.
EXT. JAPANESE BOMBING PRACTICE - JAPANESE ISLAND - DAY
The Japanese have constructed a replica of Pearl Harbor
on their practice island; erecting new target barriers
and silhouettes of the various ships anchored at Pearl.
Streams of Japanese planes skim overhead in practice
bombing runs, dropping dummy torpedoes and bombs. From a
control platform erected on the beach, Yamamoto and Genda
oversee it all.
48.
YAMAMOTO
Everything real except the fact
that no one is shooting back at
us.
GENDA
If we achieve surprise, they will
offer little resistance.
YAMAMOTO
Set up teams of radio operators to
send out messages the Americans
will intercept, concerning every
potential American target in the
Pacific. Include Hawaii -- the
clutter will be more confusing
that way.
GENDA
Brilliant, Admiral.
YAMAMOTO
A brilliant man would find a way
not to fight a war.
He looks out at the planes roaring into his practice harbor
at top speed...
INT. PRESIDENTIAL BEDROOM - NIGHT
Roosevelt's valet leans over him.
Roosevelt wakes; beside the valet is a Presidential AIDE.
AIDE
Mr. President, we've received a
message from the Argentinian
ambassador to Japan. His sources
tell him the Japanese are assembling
their fleet to attack us.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
We're picking up warnings for every
American base in the Pacific.
Does this ambassador know the
target?
AIDE
Not for sure. But he thinks it's
Pearl Harbor.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
Tell the Pentagon.
49.
The Aide leaves quickly and Roosevelt starts to get out
of bed; his valet comes to help him.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
No, George, I need the practice,
in case there's a fire.
Roosevelt drags himself out of bed, crawling toward the
bathroom, his powerful arms dragging his lifeless legs.
INT. PENTAGON - DAY
ADMIRALS and other OFFICERS are gathered around a giant
map of the Pacific.
ADMIRAL
The attack seems inevitable. The
question is where? The way to
answer that question is to ask:
if we were the Japanese, how would
we do it?
He nods to a VICE ADMIRAL, who stands over the map.
VICE ADMIRAL
Between America and the Far East
are the sea lanes where the winds
and the currents make the best
route for shipping. Far above is
the northern route, between Canada
and Russia. Between these two is
something they call the Vacant
Sea. If I were the Japs, I'd send
a task force there. You could
hide the entire land mass of Asia
in the Vacant Sea, and nobody would
know.
ADMIRAL
So they pop out and attack where?
VICE ADMIRAL
That's the problem, Admiral. They
could hit anywhere they want.
Nobody has any solution.
EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - DAY
A huge Japanese fleet steams toward Hawaii. It is an
awesome sight. Carriers, battleships, destroyers, and
entire battle group, traveling under complete radio
silence, their hulls power through the waves.
50.
On the lower decks of the carriers are hundreds of planes --
fighters and bombers.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The American ships are lined up at anchor, calm, placid.
EXT. BEACH - DAY
The sailors and soldiers bask in the sun, play volleyball.
The aircraft carrier Lexington steams past toward the
harbor entrance.
VOLLEYBALL PLAYER 1
Where's the Lexington going?
VOLLEYBALL PLAYER 2
Out on maneuvers, like the
Enterprise.
EXT. GOLF COURSES - OAHU - DAY
Men in military haircuts -- officers -- stroll the golf
courses, enjoying themselves.
INT. DENTIST'S OFFICE - DAY
The DENTIST, an ethnic Japanese, is working on a patient
with his mouth agape. The DENTIST ASSISTANT intrudes.
DENTAL ASSISTANT
Dr. Takanawa, you have a call from
Tokyo.
DENTIST
Please excuse me. Just relax.
Leaving his patient with a mouth full of instruments, the
Dentist moves to his outer office, which looks directly
out over Pearl Harbor. He speaks in Japanese.
DENTIST
Takanawa... Yes?...
He seems confused by the call, but he responds by looking
out over the harbor, then saying into the receiver --
DENTIST
Yes, they are all...no wait, I see
the big one moving. The one that's
flat on top, what do they call
it?...
51.
INT. SURVEILLANCE BASE - DAY
Some tired Army Intelligence types -- A LISTENER, a
TRACKER, and an INTELLIGENCE SUPERVISOR, are sitting at a
bank of phones. The LISTENER is a Japanese-American.
LISTENER
Here's something, over the line
from Tokyo.
He switches on the recording equipment and looks to the
TRACER, sitting at a battery of equipment.
TRACER
It's connected to a local dentist.
His office is beside Pearl Harbor.
INTELLIGENCE SUPERVISOR
This dentist, is he a spy?
LISTENER
Sounds too innocent. His accent
is from the old country. Somebody
official- sounding calls, he thinks
it's discourteous not to respond.
INT. BARBER SHOP - DAY
Admiral Kimmel is settling into the barber chair when his
AIDE enters and nods for the barber to move a few paces
away, so that he can speak privately.
AIDE
Sir, we just had an intelligence
intercept. Someone from Tokyo
called a local dentist whose office
looks over Pearl. They wanted to
know the exact location of the
ships.
ADMIRAL KIMMEL
Someone from Tokyo asks a dentist
how the ships are sitting... What
are we supposed to do about that?
AIDE
I...don't know, Sir. But it just
seemed significant.
ADMIRAL KIMMEL
Have intelligence keep monitoring
him.
The Admiral sinks back into the chair.
52.
EXT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - DAY
A young amateur PHOTOGRAPHER, about 16, wearing a hat
with "PICTURES OF PARADISE" printed on it's crown is ready
to snap a shot of Evelyn and her nurse friends having a
picnic lunch on the lawn outside the hospital.
PHOTOGRAPHER
Closer, ladies! Closer! Now
smile!... Great! Next week I'll
show you a print and you can order
your Pictures of Paradise!
He hustles off. Betty hands out picnic baskets.
BETTY
Barbara, here's yours...and Evelyn,
here you are.
Evelyn opens her basket, and finds a lei of Hawaiian
flowers stuffed in the top. Betty scoots over and puts
the flowers around Evelyn's neck.
BETTY
It's been a month and you haven't
smiled. We just want you to know
we love you.
Evelyn's touched -- but before she can react two P-40's
zoom out of the skies, wings clipping the tops of the
palm trees as they blast over head.
INT. COCKPIT'S OF THE P-40'S - DAY
Danny and Anthony are the pilots; as they pull up and
away, they pass over some officers on the golf course,
scaring the shit out of them as they putt.
EXT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - DAY
The nurses have sprawled to the ground; now even Evelyn
is smiling.
BARBARA
What is it with nurses and pilots?
EXT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - PEARL HARBOR - EVENING
Evelyn walks out of the hospital. She's still wearing
her lei. The sun is going down in a spectacular sunset.
She stares at the orange glow at the edge of the world.
She breathes in the sea air, and tries to breathe out the
sadness.
53.
The water of the harbor laps close to where she stands,
the sunset polishing its surface.
She takes the lei from her neck, plucks a single flower,
and holds it like the rose Rafe once gave her. Then she
tosses the rest of the lei into the ocean and watches it
float away, as the sun sinks behind the horizon.
INT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - NIGHT
Evelyn finds her purse, and tucks the flower into it.
She's alone in the hospital, everyone else has gone; she
turns her mind toward work, something to lose herself in.
EXT. MILITARY BASE - NEAR THE PILOTS' BARRACKS - DAY
Danny is walking toward the barracks when a COLONEL hopping
mad, confronts him.
COLONEL
You're Walker, right?
DANNY
Yes Sir.
COLONEL
That was a nice little stunt you
pulled, buzzing the base.
DANNY
You liked that?
COLONEL
Oh yeah. I liked it so much I'm
cutting you out of the squadron.
DANNY
Sir?
COLONEL
I don't buy that hot dog shit. So
you and your buddies are gonna
transfer your planes up to Haleiwa.
DANNY
Hale-what?
COLONEL
You'll love it. No base, no bars,
just lots of sun and aircraft
maintenance.
DANNY
Sir, I --
54.
COLONEL
Too late for apologies, Walker.
DANNY
I wasn't gonna apologize, Sir. I
was just gonna say it was worth it
to feel like a real pilot again,
even if it was only for five
seconds.
The Colonel glares at him and stalks away.
INT. BASE CANTEEN - NIGHT
Danny and Evelyn are having coffee at the base canteen.
DANNY
How's everything?
EVELYN
We got some soldiers in traction
from a jeep accident, but it's
quiet. Except for the occasional
fighter plane buzzing us.
DANNY
That might not have been such a
good idea. They're making us fly
out of a half-paved airfield. The
real punishment is that I won't be
back to the barracks till it's too
late for dinner or coffee. So I
guess it's goodbye for awhile.
EVELYN
I was just thinking that war is a
series of goodbyes. Do you think
that's why we're meeting. To help
us say goodbye to Rafe?
DANNY
I swore not to talk about him
tonight, but there's all this stuff
I think I ought to tell you, that
he didn't get a chance to. Rafe
was...he was lonely. He had such
high expectations of himself that
he always felt empty. The week he
met you he told me he felt his
heart had always lived in winter,
and for the first time in his life
he has seen the spring.
55.
He's been lost in his own thoughts of Rafe; now he notices
the tears welling up in her eyes.
DANNY
Sorry.
EVELYN
He told me he didn't want to leave
me with regret. Now that's all I
have.
DANNY
Hey, have you seen Pearl Harbor at
night?
EVELYN
Well...sure.
DANNY
From the air?
EXT. HALEIWA AIR FIELD - NIGHT
A P-40 takes off from the remote airfield, lit only by
the full moon.
INT. P-40 - NIGHT
Evelyn sits on Danny's lap, like Rafe sat in his Daddy's
lap years before. Danny flies easily, the cockpit open,
his arms slipped under hers.
The sky above them is startlingly clear; a billion stars
dancing around a full moon.
EVELYN
So beautiful!
DANNY
Hang on.
He spins the plane in an easy half turn, inverting their
heads above Pearl Harbor, gorgeous in the moonlight, the
battleships aglow, the moon reflected in the peaceful
water, embraced by the island of Oahu.
EXT. HALEIWA AIR FIELD - NIGHT
The P-40 soars easily in and settles to earth. Danny
shuts down the engine. Danny carefully removes the harness
around her. She looks overhead. The stars are still
bright above them.
56.
EVELYN
I didn't realize until tonight
that I've stopped wanting to live.
She turns in his lap, and looks at him. Their eyes
connect. Tentatively, almost reluctantly, they kiss.
EXT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - NIGHT
The POV of someone moving through the gathering darkness
approaches the hospital.
The lights from within the hospital, and the pristine
white beds beneath those lights, give the place a kind of
glow, where Evelyn moves alone and beautiful, like a
ballerina in a giant's jewel box.
Now we see the shoulders of the figure, from behind, and
can tell that it is a man in uniform, but at first we
can't tell who. He's standing dead still, transfixed in
watching Evelyn through the windows.
INT. BASE HOSPITAL - NIGHT
Evelyn moves to her desk, and sits down. She looks at
the calender turning back to October, where she wrote on
the square of October 22, "Order supplies" -- she counts
the weeks from then to today, December 6.
EXT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - NIGHT
We see the full figure of the man watching her. And now
we see his face. It is Rafe.
His left hand is bandaged, but he is very much alive --
though seeing Evelyn has taken his breath, and even seems
to have robbed him of the power to move. His eyes pick
up every detail of her -- her face...her hands.
And as Rafe watches Evelyn, he has the SUDDEN JOLTS OF
SUBLIMINAL FLASHBACKS...punctuated by fragments of the
letter she wrote to him, and INTERCUT with Rafe in the
present, watching Evelyn.
EVELYN'S VOICE
Dearest Rafe --
IN SUBLIMINAL FLASHBACK, RAFE'S SPITFIRE, crippled and
trailing smoke, passing through a patch of cloud as Rafe
hurls himself from the cockpit and jerks the ripcord of
his chute.
57.
IN THE PRESENT...Rafe's face winces with the memory, and
he rivets his eyes on Evelyn, as if to force himself to
know that this moment is real.
SUBLIMINAL FLASHBACK...RAFE LANDS IN THE WATER, and the
shock of its coldness travels up his body faster than his
body sinks into the water. He's cloaked in the fog; his
parachute, pushed by the wind, is pulling him along face
down. He fights with the straps, flips himself over, and
pulls the release...
But he's still in desperate trouble; in his flying clothes,
his heavy leather jacket soaking with sea-water, he's
going down; his body sinks beneath the surface...
EVELYN'S VOICE
...Every sunset...
IN THE PRESENT, Rafe's chest trembles... Is it from the
memory of the frozen water, from the emotion of seeing
Evelyn again -- or both?
SUBLIMINAL FLASHBACKS -- Below the surface of the North
Sea, Rafe's body drifts, but he fights his way back up...
he kicks off his shoes, sheds the jacket, strips off his
pants and starts tying the cuffs into knots.
Then, in a CUT, he is floating in the water, his pants
turned into a makeshift life preserver, his body shaking
convulsively from the cold.
Then in another CUT we see him after he's been in the
water for so long that his body no longer trembles; he's
lost consciousness. He has no strength, no will to live...
His face settles into the water...his body slips from his
preserver, and drifts beneath the surface...
EVELYN'S VOICE
...gather it's heat into my heart,
and send it to you...
IN FLASHBACK, Rafe beneath the surface... His eyes come
open.
From his POV beneath the water, he sees something above
the surface. It's only in his mind, but that makes it no
less real...an orange glow, the warmth of the sunset, and
her face above the surface... His limbs come to life, and
he fights his way up, breaking the surface. The whole
sea around him is dark and empty, but he grabs his
makeshift preserver and holds on for dear life...and for
Evelyn.
58.
IN THE PRESENT Rafe stares through the window, at Evelyn,
but he can't go in. He backs away from the window.
INT. PILOT'S BARRACKS - NIGHT
A Japanese-American MESSAGE BOY parks his motorbike outside
and enters the barracks.
MESSAGE BOY
Daniel Walker?...
Danny rises from his bunk and accepts the telegram. As
the message boy leaves, Danny reads... The news he learns
stuns him...
EXT. BENCH - OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL - NIGHT
Rafe is still lost in thought. He hears steps running up --
and sees Danny -- who spots him at the same moment.
DANNY
Rafe!
INT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - NIGHT
Evelyn puts away the calender.
EXT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - NIGHT
Rafe is sitting at the bench, his head down.
ANGLE - Evelyn on the path; she sees someone on the bench,
his form hauntingly familiar. He hears her, and looks
up.
It's Rafe.
From Evelyn's POV, the whole world spins. She faints.
Rafe jumps to catch her before she slams to the ground.
He gathers her into his arms, and she looks up into his
face.
He's real, very real.
RAFE
Evelyn.
She's trembling, shaking. He lifts her to her feet, and
moves her to the bench.
RAFE
I sent telegrams, I guess the
military traffic held them up.
59.
EVELYN
Why were you sitting here, instead
of...
RAFE
I saw you, I couldn't go in,
I...just stood there wondering if
you knew. You looked...sad, and I
had to sit down a minute.
EVELYN
How did you?...
RAFE
...Survive? I jumped in a patch
of fog, and nobody could see me.
I hit the water hard. And it was
so...cold.
He looks toward the horizon, when the last light of day
fades to black. There's something he thinks about saying,
and doesn't. Then...
RAFE
I don't know how long I was in the
water. A Norwegian freighter picked
me up. They were headed to Spain.
They docked in La Rota, right beside
a German ship, and told me to stay
hidden below. I was afraid they'd
turn me in, so I stole some clothes,
jumped ship, and found a church,
where the priest contacted the
resistance, and got me on a
freighter to New York.
He looks at her, then looks down again.
RAFE
I called my folks, then Colonel
Doolittle. The Colonel sent a man
to pick me up. They wanted to
debrief me. I told the Colonel I
needed to see somebody first, and
he had a supply flight heading out
in an hour.
(beat)
I've done a lot of talking. You
haven't said anything.
EVELYN
I'm just...so amazed, so glad to
know that you're okay. You are
okay, aren't you?
60.
RAFE
Nothing that won't heal. I guess.
At these words, she looks at him for a long, long moment.
EVELYN
It's been...so different, being so
sure you were dead.
RAFE
I'm so sorry for what you must've
gone through, but I'm back.
He sees the troubled look on her face.
RAFE
Maybe I've assumed too much. Has
something changed?
(beat)
I'm afraid to ask what. And I'm
afraid not to.
(beat)
Have you fallen in love?
She nods; she can't even say it. Rafe's dying inside.
RAFE
It's all right. Danny always said
I see things with my emotions
instead of my eyes.
EVELYN
It's not your fault, Rafe. The
letter I wrote you, they --
RAFE
Don't worry about that. Guys away
from home, lonely, good-hearted
women try to cheer them up.
EVELYN
It's not that I didn't mean
everything I wrote. It's just
that -- I thought you were dead.
And now --
Danny runs up, through the darkness.
DANNY
You're alive!
Rafe and Danny stare at each other; Danny hesitates,
looking from Rafe to Evelyn, wondering what they've said.
61.
Then Rafe looks at Evelyn, and picks up the look on her
face. In that moment he puts it all together.
RAFE
Aw, God. Oh my God.
Danny's speechless, and for a moment Evelyn is too.
EVELYN
Rafe --
He puts up a hand, to silence her, and walks away suddenly.
Evelyn and Danny are left frozen.
EXT. SHORE OF PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
Rafe stares out at the harbor, seeing nothing. As he
stands there alone and shattered, he has one more
SUBLIMINAL FLASHBACK
Rafe is in the water of the North Sea; he seems dead, but
his makeshift preserver is keeping his face above the
surface.
Something slides through the water and stops beside him;
it's a dinghy, and behind it is a trawler.
Hands grab Rafe and drag him onto the dinghy...
In a QUICK CUT, Rafe's body is laid out on the deck of
the trawler. The crewmen think he's dead. His body is
stiff, his lips white; and they say so, in Norwegian...
But one of the other crewmen notices a quiver in his
eyelid, then quickly covers Rafe with his on wool peacoat
and presses back an eyelid to see his pupils. Rafe's
white lips move.
The crewmen realize he's trying to say something.
And Rafe does utter something, barely audible; something
the Norwegian crewmen don't understand.
RAFE
Evelyn...
IN THE PRESENT Rafe struggles to bury that memory so far
that he'll never feel it again.
EXT. NURSES' QUARTERS - NIGHT
Danny escorts Evelyn back to her quarters.
62.
DANNY
Don't worry. I'll find him.
He hugs her; their embrace earnest yet tingled with guilt,
and Danny leave quickly. Betty steps out of the nurses'
quarters and hands Evelyn a telegram.
BETTY
This came while you were gone.
Evelyn knows it's the telegram from Rafe, to tell her
he's alive. Without opening it, she begins to cry, and
hurries away from the barracks so the other nurses won't
see.
EXT. HICKAM FIELD - NIGHT
Danny crosses the tarmac toward the clustered P-40's. He
spots what he's looking for. Sitting in the cockpit of
one of the P-40's is Rafe. Rafe won't look at him. Danny
climbs up on the wing, and sits down there.
DANNY
You'd always go sit in a plane
whenever you were upset.
RAFE
Upset? Why should I be upset?
DANNY
Let's go get a drink. Unless you're
scared to talk about it.
CLOSE - A Mai-Tai volcano clunks onto a table.
INT. FUNKY OAHU BAR - DAY
DANNY
Drink up. Then we'll talk.
Rafe takes the challenge, and takes a long pull on one of
the straws. Red, Anthony, Billy, and several others enter
the bar.
ANTHONY
Rafe?!
They rush the table...
INT. FUNKY OAHU BAR - LATER
They're all drinking, and the whole bar is rocking. Rafe
uses glasses to show his buddies tactics.
63.
RAFE
They'll go under you because their
planes are faster, then they run
so you can't catch 'em. But then
they'll come around and take you
from behind -- like some Americans
will.
The last words bring the group to silence. The other
guys drift away, to give them room.
RAFE
Sorry.
DANNY
Why be sorry? That's what you
feel, it's better to come out with
it.
RAFE
I didn't mean it.
DANNY
Sure you did. So come on. Say
what you think.
RAFE
Waitress! Four beers!
DANNY
You don't wanna put beer over maitai.
RAFE
If you can't keep up, don't drink
yours.
The waitress delivers four bottles to the table. Rafe
takes a slow sip, then stares at Danny.
RAFE
We gotta face some facts here.
DANNY
What facts are those?
RAFE
I understand how it could happen.
I know why any guy would love her.
And I can't blame you that it
happened. You thought I was dead,
she was grieving, you were trying
to help her.
64.
DANNY
I was grieving too.
RAFE
Yeah, right. Anyway, you didn't
know.
DANNY
So what are you saying?
RAFE
I'm saying now you do know. So
it's time for you to fuck off.
DANNY
You left her. How's that for a
fact?
RAFE
How's this for a fact? I loved
her first.
Danny takes a long pull of beer, and Rafe does the same.
DANNY
You know, you're a lousy drinker.
Drinking's supposed to make men
feel bigger. It only makes you
stupid. And weak.
Rafe nods thoughtfully, and sets down his beer.
RAFE
How's this?
BAM! He knocks Danny out of the chair, flat on his ass.
Danny backhands the blood from the corner of his mouth.
DANNY
You want it, you got it.
He kicks Rafe in the back of the knee, then mule kicks
him in the chest as he goes down, and the fight is on.
The bar's bouncer, a big Samoan, moves over to break them
up -- but Anthony steps in his way.
ANTHONY
Let 'em fight, they need it.
The bouncer tosses Anthony aside, but before he can move
in to interrupt the fight, Red breaks a lava volcano of
Mai-Tai over the bouncer's skull. The bartender picks up
the phone to call the M.P.'s.
65.
Rafe and Danny are exchanging punches in the middle of
the room. Sailors sitting at the bar have swung around
on their stools to watch the action. The other pilots
are wincing with the punches their friends exchange, and
bobbing and weaving as if in the fight themselves. A
SAILOR tapes Billy.
SAILOR
Is this a private fight or can
anybody jump in?
Billy hits him. The whole bar erupts.
Rafe and Danny are really having at it, fueled by so much
emotion that nothing hurts. They're on the floor now,
trying to rip each other apart. They struggle to their
feet and Rafe manages to knee Danny in the balls. Danny
doubles over in pain.
RAFE
That hurt? I didn't think you had
any balls.
Without looking up, Danny lunges at Rafe, tackling him
around the waist, driving him at the wall.
But they don't hit the wall; they tumble through the back
window of the bar -- not covered in glass, but fronds and
wood -- and out into the back alley.
They're lying there in the debris when they see the M.P.
jeeps coming. They drag each other to their feet, and
run away.
EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT
The Japanese task force rumbles through the night, the
bows of the great ships blasting through the crashing
waves.
INT. AIRCRAFT CARRIER AKAGI - NIGHT
Yamamoto's flagship. The clock reaches midnight, and a
sailor tears off it's calender. It's December 7, 1941.
YAMAMOTO
The submarines will be reaching
the harbor soon. I hope they don't
set off the alarm too soon.
EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NEAR PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
An American destroyer, the SELFRIDGE, leads a squadron of
destroyers on patrol, near the entrance of Pearl Harbor.
66.
LOOKOUTS on the bridge think they spot something.
INT. CONTROL ROOM - DESTROYER SELFRIDGE - NIGHT
The WATCH OFFICER listens to a report on his headset and
turns to the CAPTAIN.
WATCH OFFICER
Captain, lookouts report a sighting,
two points off the starboard beam.
The sonar operator looks up and nods.
SELFRIDGE CAPTAIN
How big?
SONAR OPERATOR
...I've lost it.
SELFRIDGE CAPTAIN
Probably a blackfish. I've seen
them look like subs.
EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NEAR PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
Another destroyer, the RALPH TALBOT, cruises behind the
Selfridge. On it's bridge, the DUTY OFFICER speaks to
the CAPTAIN.
DUTY OFFICER
Sir, Selfridge reports a contact,
then lost it. Now our sonar reports
the contact.
The Captain looks toward the Selfridge, then trains his
binoculars on the water were the Duty Officer points. He
sees something dark and black slipping along beneath the
surface. He gets onto his intercom.
CAPTAIN OF THE RALPH TALBOT
Radio room! Raise the Selfridge.
Tell the Squadron Commander we
have spotted a sub and request
permission to depth charge.
He looks again at the black shape, passing a few hundred
yards from them.
CAPTAIN OF THE RALPH TALBOT
We're five miles from Pearl Harbor
and it's moving in from the open
sea. Prepare to move to attack
speed.
67.
The INTERCOM comes alive.
INTERCOM
Sir, the Squadron Commander on
Selfridge denies permission.
CAPTAIN OF THE RALPH TALBOT
What?
INTERCOM
Denies, Sir. He says it's a
blackfish.
The Captain chokes back his frustration and shuts down
the intercom -- but then he says to the Duty Officer, as
they watch the shape disappear toward Pearl Harbor...
CAPTAIN OF THE RALPH TALBOT
If it's a blackfish, it has a
motorboat up it's ass!
EXT. OAHU - ROAD - NIGHT
Danny has pulled his Buick convertible off the road; Rafe
is bent over, his head out of frame; he's throwing up.
Danny's banged up from the fight and still drunk himself;
he waits beside Rafe, who chokes out between heaves --
RAFE
How come you're not pukin'?
DANNY
I guess I'm used to it. I've felt
like throwing up every minute since
you got back.
Rafe straightens up, but the waves of sickness come back
over him and he bends over again. Danny looks at his
friend, and the pain is written on Danny's face.
DANNY
Don't blame her, Rafe. It's not
like you're thinking.
RAFE
(between heaves)
Fuck you.
DANNY
She loves you. I know that. And
part of what she loves in me is
how much of you she sees in me.
Rafe doesn't seem to be listening; but Danny knows he is.
68.
DANNY
We were both torn up. I started
dropping by to see her, because we
understood what each other felt.
We'd have coffee and try not to
talk about you, but we always would.
Rafe stands to face Danny; this is hard for Danny to say.
DANNY
She said I was so much like you.
I said, No, I'm not. I'm like I
am because of you, but I'm not
you, not as good as you. Everybody
else saw me as a loser with a big
chip on his shoulder. But you saw
the better part of me, the part of
me that could be like you, and
changed me. You made me who I am.
RAFE
How sweet. Is that when you put
the move on her?
Danny slams his fist into Rafe's sick gut. Rafe doubles
over again, coughing, nothing left in his belly to come
up.
Rafe stand slowly, nodding as if he knows the punch was
what he deserved. Danny's about to apologize when once
more Rafe knees him in the balls.
Danny folds up, drops to his knees, and starts to retch.
RAFE
That's better.
Rafe crawls into the back seat of the car and passes out,
Danny still collapsed at the side of the road.
EXT. PACIFIC - NIGHT
The Japanese task force storms on.
INT. JAPANESE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS - NIGHT
IN THE PREP DECKS, the planes are being armed with bombs
and torpedoes.
IN THE PILOTS' QUARTERS, the pilots individually sit before
personal shrines, saying private prayers, writing letters.
69.
EXT. JAPANESE CARRIERS - FLIGHT DECKS - NIGHT
The planes are brought up on the elevators; deck crewmen
start rolling them into position.
EXT. UNDER THE SURFACE OF THE PACIFIC - NIGHT
A Japanese submarine with a midget sub attached to its
hull runs silently toward Pearl Harbor.
EXT. OCEAN SURFACE - NIGHT
The periscope of the submarine breaks the surface.
INT. JAPANESE SUB - NIGHT
The sub commander looks through the periscope and sees
the lights of Oahu far in the distance.
SUB COMMANDER
Prepare to launch midget sub.
INT. BUNK AREA OF SUB, BETWEEN TORPEDOES - NIGHT
The sailor who will drive the midget sub completes his
ceremonial sponge bath, and places a handwritten letter
on his personal shrine.
SAILOR'S VOICE (LETTER)
My revered father, I go now to
fulfill my mission and my destiny.
INT. THE LAUNCH OF THE MIDGET SUB - NIGHT
We see the sub surface, and the sailor exit the main hatch
of the big sub, then force himself through the tiny hatch
of the midget sub.
SAILOR'S VOICE
I hope it is a destiny that will
bring honor to our family, and if
it requires my life I will sacrifice
it gladly, if you can think of me
and my hope to be a good servant
of our nation, and a worthy son.
With love and devotion, Kazuyoshi.
EXT. FLIGHT DECK, JAPANESE CARRIER - NIGHT
A single scout plane launches into the air.
70.
INT. SCOUT PLANE - NIGHT
The plane climbs to a high altitude, toward the dawn and
Pearl Harbor.
EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NIGHT
The Japanese carriers turn into the wind and raise combat
pennants. A color guard raises the Japanese flag as the
deck crew stand at attention, seeing the rising-sun flag
snap potently in the wind.
EXT. JAPANESE AIRCRAFT CARRIERS - NIGHT
The first wave of Japanese planes begins to launch. It
is a stirring sight for the Japanese; the pilots waiting
in their cockpits, the officers watching from the bridge,
the seamen on the flight deck.
The first plane taxis along the flight deck and lifts
into the sky. The seamen cheer and wave their caps.
EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - NEAR PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
The American destroyer WARD cuts through the water, moving
back into port after a night patrol. It's CAPTAIN is on
the bridge, and its lookouts are still scanning the waters.
LOOKOUT
Captain, do you see that, in our
wake?
The Captain raises his binoculars and looks out behind
the ship. He sees something small and black there.
CAPTAIN OF THE WARD
That's a conning tower.
OFFICER
Could it be one of ours?
CAPTAIN OF THE WARD
He's trying to follow us through
the sub nets, into the harbor.
Sink the son of a bitch.
EXT. DECK OF THE DESTROYER WARD - NIGHT
The deck gun barks, aimed toward the conning tower of the
Japanese sub in the distance. The first shot sails
directly over the tower, missing.
71.
INT. THE SUB'S CONTROL ROOM - NIGHT
The Japanese sub commander sees, through his periscope,
the flame erupt on the Ward's deck; he's being fired upon.
He snaps orders --
JAPANESE SUB CAPTAIN
Dive! Dive!
EXT. THE DECK OF THE WARD - NIGHT
The gunners snap in another shell and fire again. It's a
direct hit, the sub is ripped apart, it rolls over.
INT. WARD'S BRIDGE - NIGHT
The Captain watches the sub sinking and snaps an order.
CAPTAIN OF THE WARD
Fleet command, from destroyer Ward.
Have fired upon and sunk enemy
submarine seeking to enter Pearl
Harbor.
EXT. ESTABLISHING - RADAR STATION - PEARL HARBOR - DAWN
INT. RADAR STATION - PEARL HARBOR - DAWN
There are two guys left in the room, yawning over their
new radar equipment. The Officer, ELLIS, checks his watch;
it's a few minutes after seven a.m.
ELLIS
Time to shut her down. That was a
good first session. You'll get
the hang of this new radar soon.
PRIVATE
Thank you, Sir. Hey...what's this?
His screen shows a huge cloud of blips, heading toward
them.
ELLIS
I've never seen anything like that
before.
He gets on the telephone.
INT. ARMY HEADQUARTERS - DAWN
The phone rings and an officer answers.
72.
OFFICER
Watch command... Coming from which
direction?... Hold on.
He covers the phone and tells his commander --
OFFICER
Radar station has picked up a cloud
of blips, coming in from the
northeast.
He switches on the radio, and tunes it to KGMB; hearing
the Hawaiian music reassures him something...
COMMANDER
KGMB is on early. That means we've
got a flight of B-17's coming in
from the mainland, they use the
radio music for a homing beacon.
INT. RADAR STATION - PEARL HARBOR - DAWN
Dismayed, Ellis listens to the response from the
headquarters.
ELLIS
All right, Sir.
(he hangs up)
They say don't worry about it.
He and the private look again at the cloud of blips --
growing ever larger, and moving in fast.
EXT. THE SKIES ABOVE THE PACIFIC - DAY
The Japanese formations are streaking through the sky.
INT. THE COCKPITS - DAY
The Japanese bombers, with three-man crews, are listening
to the Hawaiian music of the radio station, using it for
their homing beacon. They look out and see the sunrise --
it's beautiful, and resembles the Japanese flag.
EXT. SKIES ABOVE PEARL HARBOR - DAWN
The Japanese scout plane is high in the air. It radios --
SCOUT PLANE PILOT
Harbor quiet. Ships in place.
Carriers gone.
73.
INT. BRIDGE OF YAMAMOTO'S CARRIER - DAY
Yamamoto is handed this message.
YAMAMOTO
We have achieved surprise, but
their carriers are not in port. I
don't like this.
GENDA
We have a fighter screen up, in
case we are attacked, Admiral.
YAMAMOTO
We must go ahead. This is our
moment.
INT. ADMIRAL KIMMEL'S HOME - DAY
The Admiral, dressed in his golf clothes, is leaving his
home when a naval LIEUTENANT appears at his door.
LIEUTENANT
Admiral, one of our destroyers
reports sinking a sub on its way
into Pearl.
ADMIRAL KIMMEL
Relay that to Washington...and
cancel my golf game.
INT. ADMIRAL KIMMEL'S OFFICE - OAHU - DAY
Kimmel enters his office, and is handed the latest
dispatches.
ADMIRAL KIMMEL
Any response from Washington?
KIMMEL'S AIDE
Nothing, Sir.
EXT. WESTERN UNION OFFICE - PEARL HARBOR - DAY
A telegram, addressed to Admiral Kimmel, lands in the
regular, not urgent, dispatch box. The messenger handles
it promptly, hopping on his motorbike to deliver it.
EXT. SKIES ABOVE THE PACIFIC - DAY
The Japanese planes increase throttle and nose down, diving
toward the surface, hurtling into attack mode.
74.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The harbor lies quiet. It's a sleepy Sunday morning.
Children are playing, officers are stepping from their
houses in their shorts to get the morning paper...
EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE - OAHU - DAY
Hawaiian Boy Scouts are hiking on a side of one of the
mountains overlooking Pearl.
Suddenly booming over the mountain, barely ten feet above
the summit, comes a stream of planes.
The boys are awed. What is this?
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
QUICK INTERCUTS - Between the approach of the Japanese
planes, and sleepy Pearl Harbor...
The planes, in formation, their propellers spinning, their
engines throbbing...
Pearl Harbor, with the ships silent, their engines cold,
their anchors steady on the harbor bottom.
The Japanese submarines heading in.
The American destroyers docking, instead of going out to
search for them.
Another formation of Japanese bombers climbing high, into
attack position.
The Japanese torpedo planes dropping down to the level of
the ocean, their engines beginning to scream.
The American planes bunched on the airfields.
ON THE JAPANESE CARRIERS, Yamamoto and his staff huddle
tensely, over their battle maps.
ON THE JAPANESE CARRIER DECKS, the second wave of planes
is being brought up and loaded with munitions...the
Japanese flag snaps tautly in the wind...
ON THE GOLD COURSE NEAR PEARL HARBOR, American officers
are laughing on the putting green near the club house,
where the American flag droops from the flag pole, limply
at peace.
The Japanese planes roaring down just over the wave tops
of Pearl Harbor itself.
75.
Children playing in the early morning sun, looking up as
they see the planes flash by. The children look -- they've
never seen this many, flying this low...but they are not
alarmed, only curious.
The images come faster and faster, the collision of Japan's
determination and American's innocence...
EXT. DECK OF OKLAHOMA - DAY
Two sailors are standing on the deck, sharing a smoke,
looking out over the quiet harbor. One of them sees the
first few planes streaking in.
SAILOR 1
Look at that.
SAILOR 2
It's the Army again, practicing on
us.
Something drops from the lead plane and splashes easily
into the water; the plane banks away.
SAILOR 2
Practice torpedoes.
A white streak runs through the water at them.
SAILOR 2
Now listen, you'll hear a little
thud when it hits the side of the
ship.
They watch it rush at them...then, a MASSIVE EXPLOSION!
It throws up a fifty foot wall of water, hurling the
sailors and everything else on the deck into the sea.
EXT. THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The first wave of planes drop more torpedoes; they plunge
BENEATH THE SURFACE, their wooden fins working perfectly,
the torpedoes speeding to their targets...
We see their AWESOME BLASTS against the anchored ships as
the torpedoes hit home.
The Japanese LOW ALTITUDE BOMBERS come in; some drop their
bombs directly into the ships; some skip their bombs across
the water, the bombs glancing off the surface and then
slamming the sides of battleships with tremendous
explosions.
76.
INSIDE THE SHIPS, sleeping sailors are thrown from their
bunks; those already awakened run for their battle
stations, and try to make it up to the deck; but there's
no escape there, as...
Zero fighter planes strafe the ships, raking the decks
and killing sailors with MACHINE GUN FIRE.
EXT. ON THE AMERICAN SHIPS - DAY
Fire and smoke are turning everything into chaos. some
sailors rush to man the guns, they find the ammo boxes
locked.
Under the bombing and strafing, they find a wrench and
start pounding on the lock, trying to break open the ammo
box.
Then they break open the lock -- and find the ammo box
empty.
SAILOR
Shit! I'll get some ammo!
He runs for the ladders, and is shot down before he gets
there.
EXT. SKIES OVER PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The dive bombers scream in.
EXT. DECK OF THE WEST VIRGINIA - DAY
Bombs are hitting the deck. Sailors are blown into the
air and out into the oily water. Nearby ships are catching
fire; the flames spread out onto the oily water itself.
INT. BELOW DECKS OF THE WEST VIRGINIA - DAY
Dorie Miller, the boxing champion/kitchen helper, is
working picking up the breakfast trays when he feels the
ship shudder. The intercom comes alive --
INTERCOM
Battle stations! Battle stations!
This is not a drill!
Men run to the ladders, and the shaking of the ship from
a bomb blast tosses them off; Dorie's at the foot of the
ladder when men fall back on top of him.
77.
EXT. BRIDGE OF WEST VIRGINIA - DAY
The Captain of the ship has reached the command bridge,
where most of his staff is lying wounded from a bomb blast.
CAPTAIN OF THE WEST VIRGINIA
Stay calm! Find your positions.
Medics, get the wounded to sick
bay! Load and --
MORE TORPEDOES and BOMBS blast into the ship. A big chunk
of shrapnel tears into the Captain and rips his stomach
open. The medics he was just directing to other men now
run to him, as the men they were going to help have been
blown apart.
EXT. DECK OF THE WEST VIRGINIA - DAY
Sailors run up from below and are gunned down and blasted
down before they can reach their weapons.
Dorie Miller emerges from below decks and sees the carnage,
the confusion. A bloody OFFICER grabs him.
BLOODY OFFICER
Boy! We need stretcher bearers on
the bridge!
Dorie runs into the fire and smoke, toward the bridge.
EXT. BRIDGE OF THE WEST VIRGINIA - DAY
Dorie arrives to see the medics crouched over the
disemboweled Captain, who is still giving orders.
CAPTAIN OF THE WEST VIRGINIA
Radio for air cover. Organize the
other medics. Initiate fire
control.
Dorie helps the medic lift the Captain to take him below.
INT. BELOW DECKS OF THE WEST VIRGINIA - DAY
Dorie carries the Captain down the ladder by himself,
using one arm to climb and one to hold the Captain like a
child's teddy bear. When they reach the bottom the pain
has grown too much for the Captain; he know's he's dying.
CAPTAIN OF THE WEST VIRGINIA
Put me down here.
Dorie puts him down; the medic jumps down the ladder and
reaches the Captain, who tells him --
78.
CAPTAIN OF THE WEST VIRGINIA
Find my executive officer and tell
him he's in command. Tell him to
fire the boilers and...
He trembles in death throes...
CAPTAIN OF THE WEST VIRGINIA
Make sure the gunners have enough
ammuni --
He's dead. The Medic runs toward the ladder, reaches the
hatch, and is blasted back to the bottom by an explosion
overhead.
Dorie runs for the ladder, and climbs out into hell.
EXT. DECK OF THE WEST VIRGINIA - DAY
Dorie emerges into even greater carnage and confusion. A
sailor, his body on fire, runs past and leaps into the
oily water -- but it is in flames too.
Then Dorie sees it: an unmanned anti-aircraft gun. He
runs to it, through the strafing.
The gun already has a belt of ammo in it -- apparently
loaded by the gunner who lies beside it with his chest
shot open.
Dorie swings the business end of the gun toward the Zeros
coming in out of the smoke, and he begins to fire.
The Zeros keep coming and he keeps firing; nothing on
earth will knock him from that gun.
INT. NURSES' BARRACKS - DAY
Evelyn is up, dressed; her roommates are just stirring.
EXT. NURSES' QUARTERS - OAHU - DAY
Evelyn has stepped to the door when she hears a distant
rumble and looks across the harbor to see smoke rising,
ships taking hits.
EVELYN
Oh my God... EVERYBODY TO THE
HOSPITAL!
As she runs, Japanese planes are coming toward the base.
79.
EXT. THE MESS HALL AT HICKAM FIELD - DAY
The men were sitting down to breakfast, but the machine
gun bullets tearing up the outer walls have them clogging
the doors, and it's so clogged they can't all get out.
A steel bomb crashes through the roof and slams through
the room, taking out tables and chairs before bouncing
off the wall and coming to a stop.
TWO SOLDIERS, trapped within the mess hall, see it stop
without detonating. They are bug-eyed, hearts stopped.
MESS HALL SOLDIER
Dud.
The bomb detonated, blowing everything to bloody dust.
INT. HOSPITAL - DAY
Evelyn reaches the hospital first and runs to the cabinet,
withdrawing supplies.
Barbara and Sandra appear at the far door, both terrified.
EVELYN
Get everything out! Bandages,
sutures -- oh God, the men in
traction... Come with me!
She races into the hallway, the other two following.
INT. HOSPITAL - TRACTION WARD - DAY
Four men from a jeep accident are lying in traction, their
casted limbs roped in the air. Evelyn runs in, grabbing
a razor blade from the medical cabinet -- and telling
Barbara and Sandra.
EVELYN
Cut them down, and take cover!!
Hurry!
Bombs are falling outside, on the airfield this wing of
the hospital faces. Evelyn slices the traction ropes of
a man with both legs broken; ignoring his groans, she
rolls him out of the bed and covers him with the mattress.
The other nurses follow her lead. The bombs are coming
toward the hospital ward; Evelyn finishes with the fourth
man and covers him and herself with the mattress, just as
a bomb craters outside the window.
80.
The nurses and patients look up after the explosions have
passed; there's a chunk of smoking shrapnel lying on the
springs of the bunk where the last man had been lying.
EXT. HICKAM FIELD - DAY
The Japanese low-altitude bombers, with Zero escorts,
zoom in over the field, blasting the clusters of American
warplanes, whole squadrons taken out with one bomb.
The mechanics and pilots, caught in the open, run from
the strafing. The Zeros rake them down with machine gun
fire. It's carnage.
EXT. PHOTOGRAPHER'S HOUSE - DAY
Sammy, the amateur photographer, is leaving his house for
a morning of working his "Pictures of Paradise" business,
when he sees the Japanese formations rumbling toward Pearl.
He races back inside.
INT. PHOTOGRAPHER'S HOUSE - DAY
He fishes into his drawer for a film camera, and digs out
cans of film, struggling to load it as he runs back out.
INT. HICKAM FIELD - BARRACKS - DAY
The pilots of Danny's squadron have returned from their
night of drinking and brawling and are crashed on their
bunks. Red stirs and staggers toward the head; he bumps
into the wall, backs up like a wind-up toy and lurches
blindly forward again, into --
INT. BARRACKS - THE HEAD - DAY
Red sleepwalks to the urinals and unleashes a marathon
piss stream, still in his sleep. A rumble penetrates his
brain, and his eyes come open a fraction. Through the
window slits above the urinals, he can see a cloud of
Japanese planes rushing past.
He squeezes his eyes shut, and looks again; the planes
start bombing the distant hangers.
Red pisses along the wall as he races to the barracks,
trying to get his pecker back into his drawers. He shouts
to the sleeping guys --
RED
Th-th-th-th-th-
He slaps his face with both hands, and stomps his feet...
81.
RED
Th-th-th-th-Dammit! Th-th-th-
He still can't get it out, can't wake them; bursting with
frustration, he suddenly blasts out singing --
RED
(singing)
The Jaaaps!! The Jaaaps!!
He's belting it like a baritone in a bizarre opera. His
friends stir; what the hell? Red points outside and tries
to talk, but now he can't mutter a syllable. The guys
hear the explosions, and realize...
EXT. HICKAM FIELD - BARRACKS - DAY
The pilots stagger out, half drunk, half dressed. Seeing
what's happening, they race toward the flight line, where
the clustered American planes are blowing up in groups,
and the pilots are knocked to the ground.
BILLY
Goddamn Japs!
Billy jumps to his feet and starts to run toward a cluster
of fighters that hasn't gone up yet.
ANTHONY
Billy!
Anthony tries to grab him and drag him back to earth but
he misses; Billy gets a few steps before the fire from a
strafing Zero catches up to him; his friends watch in
horror as Billy gets shorter as he runs; the Zero's machine
gun fire is sawing his legs off from the feet up.
Billy falls, legless but still alive; then a bomb falls
almost on top of him, sending body parts over the pilots.
Their innocence, like America's, is gone in that moment.
EXT. ROAD TO MAIN AIRFIELD - DAY
Danny and Rafe are in Danny's Buick, hung over and asleep,
Danny in front, Rafe in back, and they're a miserable
sight -- their shirts ripped, blood dried in a leak trail
from one side of Rafe's nose and the corner of Danny's
mouth.
The rumble of planes moving overhead makes them stir; the
rumble grows huge, as the shadows of a massive formation
makes the sunlight flicker. Danny and Rafe squint up,
their heads pounding, and realize what they're seeing.
82.
Suddenly their headaches are gone, and Danny's gunning
the Buick down the road, toward the base.
EXT. AIR BASE - DAY
Danny blasts through the main gate; the guards are too
busy taking cover and haven't even closed the barrier.
He races to the tarmac, where some of the planes are still
undamaged. Rafe is out the door before the car stops
rolling, and Danny's right behind him.
They're running toward a cluster of fighters, when it
goes up with a bomb blast. Rafe and Danny dive at each
other; their first instinct is to cover their best friend
with their own bodies.
They look at each other on the ground. They see machine
gun bullets thudding into the planes on the flight line,
and ripping along the walls of the buildings. It's as if
the whole Japanese airforce is attacking this one base,
and not leaving a single plane airworthy.
RAFE
Get me into a plane!
DANNY
Come on!
Danny sprints; Rafe follows. Danny reaches a phone booth,
and digs a dime from his pants.
RAFE
You're making a phone call?!
Danny dials, as waves of bullets sweep the area, and more
planes blow up on the flight line. Rafe thinks he's lost
his mind.
DANNY
(into phone)
This is Walker! We're under attack!
Get those planes fueled and armed
RIGHT NOW!
He runs back toward the car; Rafe, in the nonsense of
battle, reaches in to hang up the receiver, before Danny
grabs him and leads him on a sprint to the car, as the
phone booth shatters behind them from the strafing.
On the way to the car they dive back to the ground to
avoid strafing -- and see their friends lying nearby, in
shock.
83.
ANTHONY
They got Billy.
DANNY
Come with us!
He and Rafe jump up and run again. Anthony, Red, and
several other pilots reach the Buick and dive in. Danny
drives away, through the strafing.
RAFE
Where are we going?
DANNY
Auxiliary field at Haleiwa, ten
miles north of here.
RAFE
What's there?
DANNY
Six P-40's.
As the Zero pilots see the Buick moving, they go after
it.
Danny drives like a madman through the strafing, zigzagging
and gunning the Buick's V-8.
EXT. THE OKLAHOMA - STILL AT ANCHOR - DAY
The number of attacking planes seems endless -- and their
strategy flawless. Torpedoes hitting one ship lifts its
hull with a blast, enabling the next wave of torpedoes to
rush under and hit the next ship anchored behind. The
American battleships are bobbing like see-saws.
The OKLAHOMA takes an entire barrage of torpedoes, blowing
thirty foot holes along it's hull; the ship immediately
begins to list.
INT. THE OKLAHOMA - DAY
Doors are wedged shut by the deformation of the structure;
vertical ladders are becoming horizontal, and water is
pouring in. Men fight their way up against the water.
INT. INNER COMPARTMENT OF THE OKLAHOMA - DAY
Water is up to the trapped sailor's waists when they grab
a wrench and start taking turns pounding S.O.S. in Morse
code on the bulkhead.
84.
EXT. DECK OF OKLAHOMA - DAY
As the listing grows more severe, sailors start jumping
from the deck into the water. Still the Marines on deck
are firing back at the planes; some Marines are even using
handguns. But courage does not save them...
THE OKLAHOMA ROLLS OVER
The men still on its deck try to run, but it's not just
the fires and the water they can't escape; the gun turrets'
1400 pound shells break loose with the capsizing of the
ship and tumble through everything like massive wrecking
balls.
The sailors and marines, thrown into the water, struggle
to get away from the suction as the giant battleship turns
turtle.
BELOW THE WATER men are sucked down with amazing force,
every hair on their heads streaming behind them as they're
snatched to the depths.
INSIDE THE OKLAHOMA, everyone and everything is spilling
upside down. The ship's generators sputter out and the
lights go out. The flashlights of the few sailors who
can find them cut raggedly through the darkness, and water
spills in. There is no escape.
BELOW THE WATER, the Oklahoma's superstructure hits bottom;
some men are crushed there. For others it's salvation,
as the BACKWASH blows them toward the surface.
ON THE SURFACE the men are launched almost completely out
of the water, before splashing back into the water and
burning oil. A few feet of the steel hull and a portion
of the propeller protrude above the surface, but most of
the Oklahoma is under water.
Men in the water swim toward a medical launch carrying
wounded away from the wreckage. A bomb hits the launch
and blows body parts everywhere.
INT. OKLAHOMA - REAR COMPARTMENT
In one compartment there are a dozen trapped men. They've
survived the roll-over, and are in a chaotic world where
the floor is now the ceiling. The water is up their
waists. Some of the SAILORS are panicking.
One sailor has a flashlight and switches it on, flashing
the light from face to face.
85.
SAILOR WITH THE FLASHLIGHT
Don't panic! Don't panic!
PANICKED SAILOR
The water's rising! It's coming
up, we're all gonna drown!
SAILOR WITH THE FLASHLIGHT
The air pressure will equalize it!
But the water keeps rising, along with their fears.
Several of the sailors are still screaming...
The water's already to their bellies. One of them grabs
a wrench and starts slamming Morse code against the
bulkhead.
One sailor in the middle of the room is particularly
panicked, not just yelling but crying and whimpering --
TERRIFIED SAILOR
Get me out! Get me out!
SAILOR WITH THE FLASHLIGHT
Stop it! Come on! Save your air!
TERRIFIED SAILOR
MY FOOT'S CAUGHT!
He's at the lower end of the compartment, where the water
is deeper -- the ship's nose is lower than her stern.
The water's up to the guy's neck.
The man with the flashlight dives down, and finds the
guys foot wedged together in the pipes of the ships ceiling --
now their floor.
He pops up again. The water's up to the trapped guy's
mouth; he's already gagging.
SAILOR WITH THE FLASHLIGHT
Is there a hacksaw in that locker?!
They open it; tools spill out -- among them is a hacksaw.
They hand it to him; the sailor dives down and cuts off
the guy's foot.
The trapped man is underwater, muffling his scream. He
comes free, and surfaces gasping. His severed foot floats
to the surface and then the horror really hits them. The
sailor with the flashlight pops up, in the blossoming of
blood. He and another sailor tie a tourniquet around the
stump, to stop the bleeding.
86.
The drama of this has caused the other trapped men to
stop their signaling. Now they start banging, twice as
loudly as before.
EXT. HALEIWA - AUXILIARY AIRFIELD - DAY
Haleiwa is a tiny airfield, tucked among the green volcanic
hills; its barely paved, and it's only permanent building
is a quonset hut. A mechanic named EARL, is out with the
P-40's; and these are spread out, not bunched.
EARL AND THE P-40'S
The planes here have received loving care from Earl --
which means lots of cursing; as he's wrestling to load an
ammo belt, he yells.
EARL
Sum-bitch!
The Buick, bullet holes punched through the truck, slides
to a stop near the planes, and the pilots jump out.
DANNY
They ready, Earl?
EARL
They'll all fly, but -- oh, shit...
What stops him is the cloud of Zeros and dive bombers,
shrieking in.
DANNY
Cover!
The guys scatter. There are sandbags around the hut, and
they run there, diving into it's shelter just before the
first strafing pass, when a Zero strafes one of the P-
40's and a dive bomber blasts another. Earl stands up in
shock and fury.
EARL
You absolute mother-fuckin' son of
a bitch! You shot one of my planes!
Danny pulls him down, as the Zeros roar overhead.
DANNY
This ain't a little feud, Earl,
it's World War Two!
87.
RAFE
They're coming around for another
pass. You got extra weapons and
ammo?
EARL
Cock-suckin' right I do!! In the
gun lockers!
DANNY
You guys get those! Earl, Rafe,
come with me!
Danny, Rafe and Earl run to the planes that got hit and
strip out the 20mm cannons and ammo.
INT. QUONSET HUT - DAY
The other pilots run in, throw open the gun locker, and
start grabbing weapons -- aircraft machine guns, ammo
belts, one even grabs a rifle.
SANDBAGS BY THE SHED
The two groups run back and start to set up.
RAFE
Danny, over there! We're in a
canyon, they'll come straight down
it, we'll get 'em in a crossfire.
Danny, Rafe and Earl run to a gully opposite the shed and
set up there, as the other pilots brace the machine guns
against the sandbags.
The Japanese planes attacks again. This time the lead
plane hits a wall of steel fired from the combined guns;
the bullets chew into the bomb it carries and the plane
EXPLODES. The airborne debris makes the following planes
shear off.
Red's standing, firing; he yells at the Zeros --
RED
D-don't like it when we fight back,
do ya!
Red runs out with his machine gun and keeps firing even
when the planes have passed, trying to shoot them right
up the ass.
DANNY
Earl! You said the planes were
ready but -- but what?
88.
EARL
Of the four left, only one is full
of fuel.
RAFE
Will the others get into the air?
Earl shoots a look to Rafe, then turns to Danny.
EARL
Danny, I don't like this fuckin'
guy.
DANNY
Anthony, Red, stay with the guns!
Coma, you cover the cannons! Joe,
Theo, come with us! Earl, you get
on the radio! We're gonna fight
these fuckers.
Two of the pilots, Joe and Theo, run to Danny.
JOE
How do we do it?
DANNY
Your call, Rafe.
RAFE
Get rolling as fast as you can.
Stay low! We'll use the topography
to separate them and then we can
take 'em one on one.
They race toward the planes, and the Japanese attack again.
Seeing the pilots running for the P-40's, the Zeros aim
for them; Rafe and Danny race for the most distant of the
planes; Joe and Theo run for the closer planes, through
the dusty bullet hits.
Theo makes his plane and is just strapping himself in
when bullets stitch his fuselage, wounding him. He still
forces the plane forward. He taxis twenty feet and his
cockpit gets chopped up and the plane arches into a right
turn and putters to a stop, Theo dead at the controls.
Joe doesn't bother to strap in; he hits the throttle hard
and heads down the runway...
The Zeros are on him as he gets ten feet of air at 120
M.P.H.
89.
The Zero's bullets eat his canopy and plane skin; the
plane breaks apart in mid air, spilling in gouts of flame
as it smashes down on the tarmac.
Rafe and Danny have reaches the more distant P-40's and
are revving their engines as they see Joe and Theo's fate.
They throw on their radio headsets.
Their way seems blocked: they've got no runway behind
them, the wreckage of four P-40's scattered ahead of them,
and the Zeros screaming over the low hills to attack them.
Now Rafe and Danny talk through the radio.
DANNY
It's tight.
RAFE
Tighter 'n a bulls ass in fly
season. Don't hit the barn.
They gun their engines and roll through the grass on either
side of the runway, dodging the burning planes; they lift
off, clearing the quonset hut by a couple of inches.
They blow right through the strafing fire, and into the
sky.
Eight Zeros are all over them.
Earl is in the hut, on the radio and watching through
binoculars.
EARL
I see six...seven...eight of the
cocksuckers! Don't let 'em hurt
my planes.
Danny's swiveling in his seat, looking left, right, back.
DANNY
They're all over us!
RAFE
Bet they don't dust crops in Japan.
Danny understands immediately, following Rafe's tactic as
he breaks into a sharp turn and uses the hut, palm trees,
and low hills to shake the Japs. They fly like crop
dusters, skimming down a foot from the ground, then bobbing
up, banking left and right. The Zeros have divided into
two groups to chase them, their wings clipping tree tops
as they try to follow the Americans.
90.
It feels like a 200 M.P.H. car chase, 20 feet off the
ground, Rafe and Danny skimming and bobbing over the
terrain, but there are too many Japanese.
RAFE
Danny! Let's play some chicken!
Danny banks in one direction, Rafe in another...
EXT. OVER THE LANDING STRIP - DAY
The two P-40's are screaming, rushing at each other like
they did at the training base back in the states, flying
right into each other's propellers; the Japanese heading
after them realize they're rushing headlong at the other
group...
EARL
Oh shit, oh shit...
He can't even watch.
At the last instant Rafe and Danny snap a quarter spin so
the planes flash by belly to belly.
Two of the Zeros collide in mid-air, exploding, as the
other Zeros scatter.
EXT. SKIES ABOVE PEARL HARBOR - DAY
Danny and Rafe rejoin each other in the open sky; they've
lost the Zeros. The P-40's are flying smoothly, side by
side. The two pilots look across at each other, going
into battle together. They speak through their radios.
RAFE
You hear my okay?
DANNY
Yeah. So you can call me if you
need help.
RAFE
I got a half a tank. You?
DANNY
Little less.
He fires a short burst to see if his guns work; they do.
Rafe does the same. Up ahead they see a formation of
Japanese planes, headed toward Pearl.
91.
RAFE
They're in strafing formation,
we'll blow right through their
line.
They look across at each other.
RAFE
Land of the free.
DANNY
Home of the brave.
Side by side the P-40's scream in.
EXT. ABOVE OAHU - THE DOGFIGHT - DAY
The Japanese planes are in tight, disciplined formation,
their minds on the targets below them in the harbor. But
their day of shooting sitting ducks changes as the two P-
40's blast in, wing guns blazing, chopping into Two Zeros.
Both Zeros falter and begin to lose altitude. The P-40's
make almost impossible tight turns, still side-by-side,
and go after the two plane they crippled on the first
pass.
Rafe finishes one Zero, making it explode in a ball of
flame in the air. Danny finishes the other, shooting off
its wing so that it spirals into the sea and crashes there.
The P-40's swoop up again.
RAFE
They're trying to hold formation.
We can chew 'em up!
The P-40's dig in again, swooping down on the line of
Zeros.
Rafe hits first, machine gunning one plane, and Danny
comes in behind it, finishing it off.
The Japanese pilots are screaming at each other over their
radios, but their SQUADRON COMMANDER sees Pearl Harbor
ahead, and tells them --
JAPANESE SQUADRON COMMANDER
Hold the line!
The P-40's come through again, their guns spitting fire.
92.
EXT. ANOTHER JAPANESE FORMATION OF BOMBERS - DAY
These planes are different -- high altitude bombers with
three-man crews, high above the harbor. The bombardier
looks through his sight and the bomb bays open.
THROUGH THE BOMBARDIER'S SIGHT, the ships look like tops,
far below. The bombardier is ticking off the targets as
they pass, the first two he mentions already burning.
JAPANESE BOMBARDIER
West Virginia... Oklahoma... Ah,
Arizona.
He flips his bomb switch, and a HUGE STEEL BOMB falls
away.
EXT. THE FLIGHT OF THE BOMB - DAY
We stay with the bomb as it falls through the sky. The
small propeller on the bomb's nose spins in the air,
running the arming mechanism into the bomb's explosive
core. The bomb wobbles a bit at first, but then as it
gathers speed its fins stabilize it, and it falls faster
and faster, at a dizzying rate, toward the Arizona.
It slams through the teak wood deck, and breaks it like
matchsticks.
It's tremendous weight and speed carry it through the
next deck, and the next, deep into the heart of the
ship...toward the powder room, where two million pounds
of black powder are waiting.
The bomb hits there, and the explosion is almost beyond
comprehension. Over 1400 men die instantly.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The battleship Arizona leaps into the air, the ship's
spine is broken, it's guts ripped open in one explosive
instant. Men on the deck are thrown into the burning oil
already floating on the water from the other ruptured
ships, but there are almost no survivors.
The concussion of the explosion blows men off the repair
ship Vestal, next to the Arizona, saving Vestal, as the
explosion snuffs out the fires on Vestal; it also sends
tons of debris down on her decks -- parts of the ship,
legs, arms and heads of men, all sorts of bodies.
Debris from the Arizona also cover the Tennessee and does
more damage than the two Japanese bombs that hit her.
93.
INT. HOSPITAL - HALLWAY - DAY
Medics have already started bringing in the wounded.
Evelyn is like a frantic traffic cop.
EVELYN
Put criticals in ward one, stables
in two! Barbara! Fill every
syringe you can find with stimulant
and antibiotic --
MEDIC
Where are the doctors?
EVELYN
On the third tee.
SANDRA
Evelyn! Where's the morphine?
THE FRONT WARD
Evelyn runs in, snaps open the
cabinet, grabs a bag of morphine
sticks, and is about to run out
again when she sees the Arizona go
up.
For a moment she's frozen, then she actually sees the
shock wave traveling across the bay and through the trees
like an invisible wall. She's trying to cross her arms
over her face, and dive to the floor, just as the windows
blow out from the concussion, and glass flies over
everything.
INT. JAPANESE BOMBER - DAY
They see the results of their bomb, and are ecstatic.
EXT. AIR ABOVE OAHU - DAY
The nose of Danny's plane is pointed right at the harbor
and he sees the sudden devastation of the Arizona. It is
a sight so awesome it freezes him for a moment.
A Zero comes up behind him, firing. Danny jerks his stick
to maneuver but he's caught...
Rafe comes in behind the Zero, chopping it up, even as he
yells at Danny over the radio --
RAFE
Ain't no time for spectatin'!
94.
They turn back after the line of Zeros. There are some
Japanese planes coming after them now, but the P-40's
head at their noses, firing, then duck past in a double
maneuver, and turn right back into the Japanese formation.
Rafe has a plane in his sights, but his guns fire only a
short burst before stopping.
RAFE
I'm out of ammo!
DANNY
I'm out of fuel!
They head back. A single Zero is on their way. Rafe
charges it and draws its fire; Danny comes in behind the
Zero and rakes its cockpit; the Japanese pilot backs off.
The P-40's dive back toward Haleiwa.
A handful of Zeros returning from Pearl see them and
follow.
EXT. PACIFIC - JAPANESE CARRIERS - DAY
The second wave of planes takes off from the carriers.
INT. FLIGHT CONTROL CENTER - CARRIER AKAGI - DAY
Genda reports to Yamamoto.
GENDA
Second attack wave is in the air.
INT. RADIO STATION KGBM - DAY
The DISC JOCKEY, handed a message by the army officer,
stops playing the soothing Hawaiian music and announces...
DISC JOCKEY
All Army, Navy, and Marine personnel
to report to duty.
INT. GENERAL SHORT'S OFFICE - DAY
General SHORT is in his office; he and his aides are
working frantically.
GENERAL SHORT
Mobilize everything! We're at
war! Send a message to Washington:
Hostilities with Japan commenced
with an air raid on Pearl Harbor.
95.
INT. WHITE HOUSE - OVAL ROOM - DAY
President Roosevelt is having lunch in the Oval Room study
with Harry Hopkins. The phone RINGS and Hopkins answers.
HOPKINS
Oval Room... Yes, he is.
(to Roosevelt)
It's Knox, Mr. President.
ROOSEVELT
(taking phone)
Yes?
He listens, then puts the receiver down, shaken.
ROOSEVELT
The Japanese have attacked Pearl
Harbor.
HOPKINS
My God. Do we have damage
estimates?
ROOSEVELT
Our Pacific Fleet, at anchor,
unprepared? It's terrible. It
has to be. And it's not over.
EXT. HALEIWA - AUXILIARY AIRFIELD - DAY
The two P-40's drop out of the sky and bounce to a landing;
Anthony and Red have been pushing the wreckage off the
field with the Buick. Danny and Rafe pull the P-40's
behind the burning quonset hut, and it's like a pit stop
at a race track; Earl rushes up and starts fueling the
planes, their engines still running.
DANNY
We need ammo too!
Earl shouts instructions to the pilots.
EARL
Strip it from the wrecks!
The other pilots race to the wrecked P-40's and start
pulling out ammo belts. Earl glares at the smoking engine
of Danny's plane, and the bullet holes.
EARL
Who the fuck taught you to fly?
96.
DANNY
He did.
Earl looks at Rafe's plane, more shot-up and abused than
Danny's. Rafe grins and waves to him. Earl mumbles a
stream of guttural and unintelligible obscenities.
The Zeros that followed them sweep down, strafing. One
mechanic, running across the field with a belt of ammo,
goes down. Coma, running behind him, picks up the fallen
man's ammo and his own, bringing both to the planes behind
the hut. He, Red, and Anthony reload the machine guns in
Rafe and Danny's planes.
Rafe and Danny gun their engines and head back into the
air, the grounded pilots firing a covering barrage and
Earl even coming up with a 12-gauge shotgun to fire at
the Zeros as they rush past.
EXT. SKIES OVER PACIFIC - DAY
The Second Wave of Japanese planes is in tight formation.
INT. LEAD PLANE OF SECOND WAVE - DAY
Lt. Commander SHIMAZAKI, leader of the second attack wave,
says calmly into his radio...
SHIMAZAKI
Second wave, deploy over the
military bases. High level bombers
to the air stations, dive bombers
attack ships in harbor. Fighters
strafe and cover.
He leads the second wave in on their attack run...
EXT. NAVAL AIR STATION - DAY
The navy's planes, bunched up on the naval airfield, are
destroyed without ever getting into the air.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The harbor is already a mass of destruction and panic;
screaming everywhere, men trying to fight fires, move the
wounded; the second wave of planes hits, and tremendous
explosions now rock the secondary ships like the destroyer
SHAW, blasting it apart.
But the Japanese pilots are now having trouble with the
thick black smoke coming out of the damaged ships, and
off the oil fires along the water.
97.
One torpedo plane, its pilot flying blind, clips the
superstructure of a battleship and spins to a crash.
Still, even IN THE CHAOS ON THE SHIPS, the sailors struggle
to survive, inventively. Men trapped on one burning ship
use the severed barrel of a five-inch naval gun as a bridge
to cross to the less damaged ship anchored beside them.
Others jump into the water and swim through the burning
oil, towing buddies too wounded to swim themselves.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
Below decks, sailors have organized a line and are passing
ammunition from the ammo lockers, hand to hand up to the
guns on deck. Blasts from bombs hit them and ignite the
ammo they're holding, setting off a chain reaction of
explosions.
On the deck, the sailors are out of ammo. An OFFICER
grabs a SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD SAILOR.
OFFICER
Grab a dinghy and get ammo from
the base ammo storeroom.
The young sailor jumps to a dinghy and launches it through
the oily waters and thick black smoke.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The sailors in the boat get strafed, the rounds cutting
between them and blasting their boat in two. They jump
into the oily water and swim toward shore.
Other sailors are in the water with them, struggling,
swallowing the vile black liquid as they battle to swim.
Errant bombs and shrapnel hit beside them, killing some;
other lose strength and slide beneath the surface.
The sailors from the ammo boat make it ashore; it's hot
there too, with bullets and bombs all around. One sailor
has to stop and puke from the oil; his buddy grabs him
and they run for cover; they find it in the dugout of the
baseball diamond.
EXT. NAVAL STATION - DAY
A MARINE GUNNERY SERGEANT leads men in a race through
strafing fire to the bases ammo storeroom.
98.
INT. AMMO STOREROOM - DAY
The SUPPLY SERGEANT is at his post.
GUNNERY SERGEANT
We need weapons and ammo!
SUPPLY SERGEANT
You need authorization.
GUNNERY SERGEANT
The fuck I do!
He pushes the man out of the way and starts grabbing
weapons.
EXT. NAVAL STATION - DAY
The gunnery sergeant and his marines run with a watercooled
machine gun, across the open ground, under fire.
BARRACKS
The Marines set up in the windows of their already-strafed
barracks, and start firing there, as the Zeros scream
past.
EXT. NAVAL STATION - DAY
Trucks are moving dependents -- women and children --
from the dependents' housing area. The Japanese strafe
the trucks, dependents diving for cover.
NAVAL STATION
A fire engine from the Honolulu Fire Department races up
to the sight of buildings burning from the air attack.
As the firemen jump out, a Zero strafes them, gunning
down the firemen.
As the strafing Zero starts to bank away, two P-40's come
in behind it, both of them gunning away. The Zero comes
apart under the barrage, and crashes in a ball of flame.
It's Rafe and Danny, back in the air.
INT. MILITARY BASE HOSPITAL - DAY
The once-pristine hospital with its glowing white beds is
now a bloody chaos. Every bed is already full; there are
burned and broken people on the floor -- soldiers, sailors,
civilians, firemen, all mixed in together. People are
dying everywhere, and screaming in pain, or moaning and
begging for help.
99.
At first we don't see Evelyn, and wonder if she survived
the glass; then we see her, flecks of her own blood dotting
her face and arms. The blood of soldiers on her surgical
apron. A steel calm has replaced her earlier frenzy,
even as the other nurses are breaking down.
SANDRA
I can't tell who's gotten morphine
and who hasn't!
EVELYN
Take a grease pencil and mark an M
on the forehead of everyone you
stick.
A young doctor is trying to give an intravenous injection
to a man who's badly charred; the doctors hands are
shaking.
EVELYN
Don't look for a vein, just poke.
SANDRA
My pen's dry!
EVELYN
Use lipstick. Use ammo belts for
tourniquets, use your own nylons
if you have to! Barbara! Grab
anything that will hold a pint of
blood and sterilize it.
The doctors are amputating limbs right there in the
hallway. A SENIOR DOCTOR calls --
SENIOR DOCTOR
Evelyn! You have to do the triage!
They're bringing them in with
trucks!
Evelyn moves to the door. Trucks are pulling up, loaded
with the wounded, young terrified soldiers bringing them
inside; Evelyn does quick triage as they pass.
EVELYN
Critical -- front ward!... Give
him morphine, he can't wait...
The next body through is a pilot, wings on his uniform,
his chest riddled with bullets -- and his face shot off.
For a moment Evelyn falters, then she forces herself to
check the dog tags...
It isn't Rafe or Danny. Evelyn sags in guilty relief.
100.
EVELYN
Take him outside and cover him;
he's dead.
She steadies herself as the next body comes through, a
woman on a stretcher, her stomach shot open, pale hands
clutching at the open wound. Evelyn feels for a pulse.
EVELYN
She's gone too, take her --
It's Betty.
And though the bombs are blasting and guns booming
everywhere, the world goes silent for Evelyn.
One of the sailors outside the door is pointing to the
harbor, the Nevada has begun to move.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The battleship NEVADA is underway, plowing through the
harbor, as the water erupts with bombs.
INT. THE NEVADA'S BRIDGE - DAY
The Captain is struggling to save his ship.
CAPTAIN OF THE NEVADA
We can save her if we make the open sea!
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - POV THE ATTACKING PLANES - DAY
The lead pilot in the next squad of Japanese planes spots
the moving battleship, and leads his squadron on it.
They come whipping in over the waves, dropping torpedoes
and bombs.
INT. THE NEVADA'S BRIDGE - DAY
The Nevada's Captain feels the ship shudder as it takes
hits amidships.
CAPTAIN OF THE NEVADA
We're not gonna make it -- and if we go down here we block
the channel... Beach her, there!
His officers relay the order to the helm, and the ship's
rudder turns as more blasts rip her hull.
101.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
The Nevada swings off its course and runs aground.
INT. THE NEVADA'S DYNAMO ROOM - DAY
The impact jolts the boilers, already bursting with the
steam pressure; gouts of steam from rupturing pipes scalds
and blinds the engine room crew.
EXT. THE NEVADA - DAY
The Nevada, run aground at the shoreline, is now like a
beast cut from the herd; the predators swarm after it
with torpedoes and bombs.
One torpedo, missing the Nevada, skims right up the beach
itself and blasts a house on the shore to fragments.
Bombs detonate along the Nevada, engulfing the entire
upper deck in flames, ravaging the sailors.
EXT. HOSPITAL - DAY
The Nevada is grounded near the hospital; from the doorway
Evelyn can see the whole ship on fire, burning sailors
leaping off the decks. Her hearing, her presence of mind,
returns; she lets Betty go, and grabs an ORDERLY.
EVELYN
Go to the base hardware store and
get some of those canister spray
things they use for killing bugs.
ORDERLY
Insecticide?...
EVELYN
No, just the sprayers. We'll fill
them with tannic acid, it'll
sterilize them and cool the burns!
GO!
The orderly races away. They can still hear the bombs
falling outside.
A sailor staggers toward the hospital from the Nevada.
He is completely gray. Everyone stares at him, and then
realizes he is nude, burned gray, his skin ash.
Evelyn rushes to help him, shouting back over her shoulder
to the other nurses --
102.
EVELYN
We're gonna need every bed. If
they can breathe, make 'em get up
and move someplace else!
EXT. JAPANESE CARRIER - FLIGHT DECK - DAY
The first wave of planes lands on the carrier. The flight
leader rushes to the bridge.
INT. JAPANESE CARRIER - BRIDGE - DAY
Yamamoto's advisors are exultant.
GENDA
We have achieved complete surprise!
The first wave is returning, the
second is attacking now, and we
have lost only a few planes. We
can launch a third wave, Admiral.
YAMAMOTO
The second wave has not returned.
And we have no idea where their
carriers are. What is the damage
report?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER
We have Commander Fuchida on the
radio now, Admiral.
Yamamoto nods and Fuchida's voice comes over the intercom.
FUCHIDA'S VOICE
I am over the harbor now...
EXT. SKIES ABOVE PEARL HARBOR - DAY
Fuchida is in a scout plane, high over Pearl. His vision
is hampered by the thick black smoke, but he can tell
there has been awesome devastation. He uses a diagram of
the ships at anchor to note the damage to each ship.
FUCHIDA
(into radio)
We have a tremendous victory.
Many ships damaged, some totally
destroyed. But the Second Wave's
attack is being hindered by the
smoke.
103.
INT. WAR ROOM OF THE AKAGI - DAY
YAMAMOTO
The more we attack, the harder it
is to find targets. And we no
longer have surprise.
GENDA
If we launch the third wave and
annihilate their fuel depots, we
destroy their ability to operate
in the Pacific for at least a year!
YAMAMOTO
And if we fail, and lose our
carriers, we destroy our ability
to fight them at all.
(beat)
As soon as the second wave returns,
we will withdraw.
EXT. JAPANESE CARRIER AKAGI - DAY
The last planes touch down, and the lead carrier and the
other ships in the Japanese assault fleet turn back toward
home.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - AFTERMATH - DAY
The harbor is a place of shattered bodies and shattered
ships. Blood, body parts, debris everywhere, and all of
it made more hellish by the oil fires on the water and
the choking black smoke those fires produce.
Every survivor has become an emergency fireman, stretcher
bearer, medic, iron worker. They fish men from the water,
extract them from the tangled wreckage of the ships.
Everyone is screaming and yelling -- the wounded for help,
the helpers for more help.
Local firemen and civilians battle heroically too; the
water mains are ruptured, so they put pump water from the
base swimming pool toward the burning ships.
The PHOTOGRAPHER records this with his black-and-white
film camera. He is shaken, and yet he understands the
magnitude of what he is recording -- the loss of America's
innocence.
EXT. ARMY BASE - AFTERMATH - DAY
In one place, outside a barracks, soldiers hit by the
bombs are just becoming conscious. One of them comes to.
104.
CONSCIOUS SOLDIER
Sarge?! Where are you, Sarge?
He's crawling around toward the bushes; his legs are
shattered, but he's spotted a body. He reaches it, turns
it over -- and it's headless.
He turns away in horror...and finds himself staring at
the severed head.
The medics appear.
MEDIC
We've got two more over here!
EXT. GENERAL SHORT'S OFFICE - DAY
The Western Union messenger, Tadao Fuchikami, delivers
the telegram from Washington.
INT. GENERAL SHORT'S OFFICE - DAY
Short and his staff are assessing damage.
SHORT
I want lookouts and sentries
everywhere, with orders to shoot
first and ask questions later.
COLONEL
You think an invasion possible,
General?
SHORT
After this morning, we better not
consider anything impossible.
An aide hands Short the telegram. He reads it --
SHORT
From Washington. "Intelligence
reports an ultimatum from Japan to
be given precisely at one p.m.
Washington time. Just what
significance the hour set may have
we do not know, but be on alert
accordingly."
The irony is bitter in his throat.
EXT. JAPANESE EMBASSY - OAHU - DAY
The Honolulu police roar up to the embassy in squad cars,
and burst through the doors.
105.
INT. JAPANESE EMBASSY - OAHU - DAY
The police storm through the embassy and find the Japanese
there burning documents.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - AFTERMATH - DAY
Divers are going down, trying to save the trapped men.
But the tangle of the Arizona is horrific. One diver
gets trapped, and another tries to extricate him, and the
steel shifts and falls on them both.
ON THE DECK OF BOMB-SHATTERED BATTLESHIP, a naval CAPTAIN
oversees rescue efforts. The 17-year-old sailor he sent
off for ammo now approaches him, with great concern.
SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD SAILOR
Sir, I...I lost the dinghy.
The captain looks out over the wreckage, great battleships
devastated in every direction.
CAPTAIN
Well, son, we won't worry about
the dinghy today.
EXT. HOSPITAL - PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
Danny and Rafe arrive at the hospital. Their fears of
what they might find aren't helped when they see the stairs
into the hospital covered in blood.
INT. HOSPITAL - PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
Rafe and Danny enter. It's a scene from hell. Doctors
are doing amputations in the hallway. The once-pristine
hospital is now all red, with blood dripping through the
mattresses, onto the floor...
In the main ward, Evelyn and the other nurses are using
the fly sprayers to spritz cooling antiseptic on the
charred bodies. Evelyn looks up and sees both Rafe and
Danny. Her eyes register relief, but they are the only
part of her that can show emotion now; the rest of her is
covered in blood.
Rafe and Danny move to her.
RAFE
How can we help?
106.
INT. HOSPITAL - PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
Rafe and Danny sit quietly as Evelyn adjusts the tubes
conducting blood from their arms into sterilized Coke
bottles for transfusion.
RAFE
What else can we do?
EVELYN
There's nothing you can do here,
they'll die or they won't, we just --
She stops, afraid if she says more, she'll lose grip on
her emotions. She can see the wreckage out in the harbor.
EVELYN
There was a sailor, a black man on
the West Virginia, named Dorie
Miller. I'd like to know if he's
alive.
She goes back to her work.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
Rafe and Danny hop from the ambulance in which they've
hitched a ride to the harbor. They see the awful
devastation.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - NIGHT
Rafe and Danny reach the West Virginia's pier, but in the
darkness, they can't find anything. They stop a NAVAL
OFFICER.
DANNY
Where is the West Virginia?
OFFICER
There.
He points; the battleship has sunk, its superstructure
barely showing above the water.
It looks hopeless to find a single sailor here; but then
they see a powerful black sailor, pulling to the dock
with a dinghy full of dead men retrieved from the water.
As workers unload the bodies, the black sailor sits down,
exhausted physically and emotionally, his head in his
hands. Rafe and Danny approach him.
DANNY
We're looking for Dorie Miller.
107.
DORIE
That's me, Sir.
RAFE
A friend of ours wanted to be sure
you're alive. Evelyn. A nurse.
DORIE
How is she?
DANNY
Like we all are.
Miller nods, and looks out over the harbor, a hellish
place where black smoke still hangs over everything, the
shattered remains of men and ships still in the harbor.
It's total devastation. And yet something about that
scene stirs something else in Dorie Miller.
DORIE
There's something out there I need
to get. Will you help me?
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - AFTERMATH - NIGHT
Dorie pilots the dinghy through the floating debris.
Rafe and Danny sit with him. He stops over a dangerous
pile of superstructure wreckage.
DORIE
The Arizona. Hold the dinghy
steady, so it doesn't bust open.
Rafe and Danny brace the dinghy so it doesn't move; but
they still don't see what Dorie is after as he fishes
down in the water, for something barely at the surface;
he works for a moment, then pulls it up.
It's the oil-soaked flag of the Arizona.
EXT. HULL OF OKLAHOMA - NIGHT
Men are working through the night to save the sailors
trapped in the hull.
INT. OKLAHOMA - THE TRAPPED SAILORS
are in total darkness. From it we hear GASPING, then --
SAILOR
What's that?
The light comes on and sweeps around the faces. The water
is up to their chests, but it's stopped rising.
108.
SAILOR FLASHLIGHT
Just hand on. They'll find us.
SAILOR
How do you know?
SAILOR FLASHLIGHT
Because we would find them.
He switches the light off again.
EXT. HULL OF OKLAHOMA - NIGHT
The welders are cutting away, the torches sending showers
of sparks everywhere.
INT. OKLAHOMA - THE TRAPPED SAILORS
They are gasping, running out of air.
SAILOR FLASHLIGHT
Breathe easy. Stay calm.
SAILOR
You hear something?
Something stirs in the ship; a noise...from where? Then
a point of light; sparks fly into the room; somebody's
cutting through the wall. And the sparks illuminate faces
suddenly filled with hope.
But as the cut enlarges, the trapped air, compressed by
the water, starts rushing out -- and the water starts
rising again. The trapped sailors hope turns to terror.
SAILOR
It's letting out air, and letting
in water!
The steel circle pops out, and they knock the welders
down in their hurry to escape.
Some of the sailors who were trapped are naked. They
fight their way toward the escape hole cut into the hull,
assisted by rescue workers.
EXT. HULL OF OKLAHOMA - NIGHT
The trapped sailors emerge, and they can barely take in
the devastation. Destroyed ships everywhere, the smoking
wreckage... The rescued sailors gaze around them in shock.
They are shivering, and other sailors put blankets around
them.
109.
EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY
The entire Washington press corps is waiting, with fresh
bulbs in the flash attachments of cameras that are already
as big as a shoe box. The President is wheeled out of
the White House, and not a single photographer takes a
picture...not yet.
Aides help Roosevelt from the chair, and the press people
all see the President struggle on legs that have no
strength, to the podium. His aides lock the steel clasps
at the knees of his braces into place, and the President
stands at the microphone. And suddenly, from the front,
Roosevelt looks powerful, even majestic.
Now all the bulbs pop and flash. He looks into the
cameras.
ROOSEVELT
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a
date which will live in infamy --
the United States of American was
suddenly and deliberately attacked
by naval and air forces of the
Empire of Japan.
OVER THIS, we see the bombing, the aftermath, the bodies
being fished from the oil-soaked harbor.
ROOSEVELT
The distance of Hawaii from Japan
makes it obvious that the attacks
was planned many days or even weeks
ago. During the intervening time
the Japanese Government has
deliberately sought to deceive the
United States by false statements
and expressions of hope for
continued peace.
EXT. PACIFIC OCEAN - DAY
The Japanese fleet steams back toward Japan. The young
officers are exultant...but Yamamoto is pensive.
ROOSEVELT
...I regret to tell you that many
American lives have been lost.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - DAY
We see rows of bodies outside the hospital where Evelyn
works.
110.
The mess hall has been converted to a silent morgue, with
bodies on every table.
ROOSEVELT
Yesterday the Japanese Government
also launched an attack against
Malaya. Last night Japanese forces
attacked Hong Kong... Guam...
OVER THIS, EXT. ISLANDS - NIGHT
We see Japanese planes bombing islands, and soldiers
attacking amphibious landings.
ROOSEVELT
...the Philippine Islands... Wake
Island... And this morning the
Japanese attacked Midway Island.
EXT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY
ROOSEVELT
The facts speak for themselves.
With confidence in our armed forces --
with the unbounding determination
of our people -- we will gain the
inevitable triumph -- so help us
God. I ask that the Congress
declare that since the unprovoked
and dastardly attack by Japan on
Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state
of war --
The words echoes out across America --
ROOSEVELT'S VOICE
War...war...war...
It rings through the radios of farm houses, to country
boys gathered round; in the pool halls of big cities; in
the fire houses and high schools...
THE LINES AT RECRUITING STATIONS all across America --
men line up faster than the recruiters can handle them.
INT. WHITE HOUSE - DAY
Roosevelt meets with his advisors.
ROOSEVELT
Gentlemen, the crisis we face is
not the fact that our enemies
believe they can defeat us -- it's
(MORE)
111.
ROOSEVELT (CONT'D)
the fact that our people believe
it too. I want a plan -- a workable
plan -- to hit the heart of Japan,
to bomb them the way they have
bombed us.
ADMIRAL
Mr. President, Pearl Harbor caught
us because we didn't face facts.
This isn't a time for ignoring
them again. There are no planes
in the entire American arsenal
capable of covering the distance
to Japan from any land base we
control while carrying enough bombs
to do any damage whatsoever.
GENERAL MARSHALL
He's right, Mr. President. The
Army has long range bombers, but
no place to launch them from.
Midway's too far, China is overrun
by Japanese forces, and Russia
refuses to go to war with Japan
and won't allow us to launch a
raid from there.
ADMIRAL
The navy's planes are small, carry
light loads, and have short range.
We would have to get them within a
few hundred miles of Japan, and
therefore risk our carriers. And
if we lose our carriers, we have
no shield against invasion.
ROOSEVELT
What if the Japanese did invade?
GENERAL MARSHALL
We've done studies. We're confident
we would turn them back
eventually...after they'd gotten
as far as Chicago.
ADMIRAL
Mr. President...with all
respect...what you are asking can't
be done.
Roosevelt places his hands on the arms of his wheelchair,
and struggles to lift himself. Aides jump to help him,
but he waves them off.
112.
With inhuman physical effort, that has his neck veins
bulging and sweat popping on his face, Roosevelt stands
on his withered legs.
ROOSEVELT
Do not tell me...it can't be done.
EXT. PEARL HARBOR - HICKAM BASE - DAY
There is a mass memorial service going on, with caskets
draped in flags.
There are also coffins covered in Japanese flags, their
drowned fliers being treated now with respect.
Everyone is in their best uniforms. The pilots -- Rafe,
Danny, and the other guys -- are looking at Billy's coffin;
Evelyn, next to Danny, on his appropriate side is looking
at one that belongs to Betty. So is Red; he's grieving.
MINISTER
...Where is God in this? Our
enemies believe a divine wind
protects them. We see our friends
laid out before us, and find it
hard to believe in anything at
all.
Rafe and Evelyn exchange a glance, past Danny.
MINISTER
Though we cannot understand why
our friends should die while we
live, we can affirm our truest
selves in our belief that any God
worth divinity would choose both
justice and mercy, and would take
these fallen brothers and sisters
into eternal peace. Amen.
As the mourners disperse, Evelyn puts a lei on Betty's
casket; Red does the same, then breaks down beside Danny.
As Danny comforts him, Evelyn moves to Rafe.
EVELYN
Rafe --
RAFE
I need to tell you something. I
didn't know what it was to lose
somebody, to see death and find
how much it scares you. That you
haven't lived and loved enough. I
didn't understand. Forgive me.
113.
EVELYN
Rafe... No. You forgive me.
RAFE
Of course I forgive you. I know
what you feel for Danny is real.
And your choice is your choice.
EVELYN
That's what I have to tell you,
Rafe. It wasn't a choice. It --
An Army Corps MAJOR steps up and interrupts.
MAJOR
Lieutenant Rafe McCawley?
RAFE
Yes, Major.
MAJOR
Lieutenant Daniel Walker here too?
Danny sees him and moves up.
DANNY
I'm Walker.
MAJOR
You're going Stateside. We fly
out in half an hour.
He hands them both orders.
RAFE
What for, Sir?
MAJOR
Ask Colonel Doolittle. Those orders
are from him.
EXT. HICKAM FIELD - DAY
The wrecked planes have been pushed off the runway and
lie in piles. A transport plane is fueling, and Rafe and
Danny wait in the shade of a shelter.
DANNY
I told her not to come.
The Major, watching the fueling, gets a wave from the
ground crew and turns and motions to Rafe and Danny that
they're ready. They pick up their duffel bags -- and
then Evelyn comes around the corner of the shelter.
114.
Rafe sees her first, but stops and looks away as Danny
moves to her. For a moment he studies her eyes, and she
does not look away.
DANNY
This hasn't been easy for any of
us. I feel awful for how it's
happened. But I've seen my first
spring too. Thanks for knowing
that's true.
He takes her into his arms, kisses her tenderly but
briefly, a final time. Evelyn's eyes find Rafe, but he
can't look at her until the embrace is over.
Rafe and Danny move to the plane and hurry up the steps.
They turn before the door closes and wave to her.
Evelyn's still standing there as the plane lifts away.
INT. U.S. MILITARY INSTALLATION - NIGHT
The transport has landed and taxied right to the door of
a low, dark bunker, mostly underground. The Major leads
Rafe and Danny inside.
INT. BUNKER
Rafe and Danny follow the Major down a spartan corridor;
the whole place reeks of secrecy.
INT. BUNKER - SECRECY ROOM - NIGHT
The Major opens the door for Rafe and Danny, then leaves,
closing it behind him. Doolittle is alone at a desk.
Rafe and Danny walk in and salute. Doolittle motions to
the two chairs in front of the desk without looking up
from the papers he's studying.
DOOLITTLE
I heard what you did.
RAFE
We can explain, Colonel.
DOOLITTLE
Explain what?
DANNY
Whatever is was you heard about
us.
115.
DOOLITTLE
You mean the hula shirts you were
flying in?... Or the six planes
you shot down? You're both being
awarded the Silver Star, and
promoted to captain.
RAFE
Is that the good new, Sir, or --
DOOLITTLE
You're just about the only pilots
in the Army with actual combat
experience, so you're volunteering
for a mission I've been ordered to
put together. Do you know what
top secret is?
RAFE
Well sure, Colonel --
DOOLITTLE
Top secret means you help me pick
the other pilots, train, and go --
without knowing where you're going
until it's too late.
DANNY
You can count on us.
DOOLITTLE
There's only one other thing I can
tell you.
Doolittle looks up from his paperwork for the first time.
His eyes are fierce.
DOOLITTLE
You won't need any goddamn hula
shirts.
EXT. ESTABLISHING EGLIN FIELD, FLORIDA - DAY
Eglin Field is on the gulf coast of Florida.
INT. BRIEFING ROOM - EGLIN FIELD - DAY
A room full of PILOTS are assembled, with and other
CREWMEN.
Danny and Rafe are there; Red and Anthony too.
116.
VOICE
Attention!
Colonel Doolittle strides into the room as all the men
snap to attention.
DOOLITTLE
Be seated. The mission you've
volunteered for is dangerous. How
dangerous? Look at the man beside
you. It's a good bet that six
weeks from now, either you or he
will be dead.
Danny and Rafe whisper to each other --
DANNY
Sorry you're gonna die -- cause
I'm gonna make it.
RAFE
What color flowers you want me to
bring to your funeral?
DOOLITTLE
In flight school you qualified in
single and in multi-engine planes.
You'll be flying multi-engines
here.
RAFE
(whispering)
Bombers.
DOOLITTLE
I want to introduce a couple of
people. Doc White is a flight
surgeon; he has volunteered for
gunnery training so that he can go
on the mission, because we can't
spare the weight of an extra man.
DANNY
(whispering)
A long range bomber mission.
DOOLITTLE
...And Ross Greening, who will
oversee your equipment. Any
questions?
DANNY
Who'll be the first one in, Colonel?
I'd like to volunt --
117.
Rafe elbows his ribs so hard it takes his breath away.
DOOLITTLE
I thought I'd made it clear, I'm
not just putting this mission
together -- I'm leading it myself.
RAFE
I take it back, about the flowers.
We're all gonna die.
EXT. EGLIN FIELD - RUNWAY - DAY
CLOSE - A B-25 bomber, from different angles.
The pilots look them over, liking what they see.
DOOLITTLE
This is what we'll fly -- the B-
25. There's one thing you have to
be aware of from the very beginning.
You see that private?
They look down the runway a few hundred feet. A private
waves, and starts painting a red line across the runway.
Another private, close by, paints a green line.
DOOLITTLE
Green means go. Red means dead.
MONTAGE - THE TRAINING - EGLIN FIELD - DAY
The pilots practice takeoff's. Red is Rafe's copilot;
Anthony is Danny's. Nobody can get airborne before the
red line.
INT. EGLIN FIELD - LECTURE ROOM - DAY
Doolittle is instructing the men.
DOOLITTLE
You're having trouble getting
airborne in the shorter space
because you're not revving the
engines enough. You've got to
push them to the limit before you
ever start to move.
Rafe is distracted; he's lost in though, looking at Danny --
and looks away just before Danny realizes it.
118.
MONTAGE CONTINUES - EXT. EGLIN FIELD RUNWAY - DAY
Pilots practice hard, revving the engines, taking off
hard...all of them crossing the red line, takeoff after
takeoff. Rafe pushes his engine hard and still crosses
by twenty feet; Danny pushes even harder, and misses by
ten feet.
Doolittle watches with Greening from the edge of the
runway.
DOOLITTLE
We've got to get the weight down.
INT. HANGER - EGLIN FIELD - DAY
Greening has removed the intensely complex Norden sight
from a bomber and put in on a table for Doolittle.
GREENING
Okay, forty pounds gone. And in
it's place, this.
He shows Doolittle an aluminum strip on a swivel.
GREENING
Weight, 3 ounces. Cost, 20 cents.
DOOLITTLE
Does it work?
EXT. EGLIN FIELD - DAY
Doolittle pilots a B-25 at treetop level onto a practice
bombing range. Greening uses the makeshift sight, and
drops a 500-lb sack of flour, right in the middle of the
bull's-eye target chalked on the ground.
EXT. FLORIDA COAST - DAY
The B-25's are practicing, flying at treetop level. Red
is Rafe's copilot, Anthony is Danny's. Doolittle is flying
the lead bomber.
DOOLITTLE
Right down to the treetops. Low
as you can.
Rafe brings his plane down, smoothly. Then Danny's plane
appears -- under him. Rafe jerks his nose up quickly.
Rafe's angry; Danny's laughing -- but he scares the shit
out of his crew.
119.
EXT. EGLIN FIELD - NIGHT
Danny's outside, looking up at the moon. Rafe appears
and moves up beside him.
DANNY
Fun today. Like old times.
RAFE
Danny, what the hell are you trying
to do out there?
DANNY
What do you mean? I'm just doing
what we've always done.
RAFE
No. You're trying to beat me.
DANNY
We've always tried to beat each
other.
RAFE
Bullshit. We've played with each
other, pushed each other. This is
different. Like you want to prove
that you're better than me. Who's
that for -- Evelyn?
Danny's anger flares for a moment -- but Rafe's hit home.
DANNY
Maybe just trying to measure up.
RAFE
What's between you and her is
between you and her. But here's
what's between you and me.
Everybody has a hero, Danny. And
you're mine.
Danny's caught off-guard.
RAFE
When we were growing up, I had
everything. You had nothing. You
climbed out of a hole I couldn't
even see the bottom of. I think
maybe when I went off to England,
I was trying to measure up to you.
Measuring up's over. Let's just
look out for each other. Okay?
120.
They embrace, closer now than ever.
MONTAGE - INTERCUT
with the planes practicing their
short takeoffs, we see Roosevelt
in one of his fireside chats, his
voice broadcast across America...
ROOSEVELT'S VOICE
Good evening, America...
Families all across America are gathered around radios,
listening.
ROOSEVELT'S VOICE
I'm told that 80% of American
families are listening to these
fireside chats of ours, and I'm
happy we can come together, as one
great American family. I'd like
each of you within the sound of my
voice to find a map...
The FAMILIES do, gathering around encyclopedias, school
books, any reference they have, spread on kitchen tables,
suburban living room rugs, or farmhouse hearths...
And the B-25's, all sixteen of them, begin a journey in
formation, flying at treetop level across America:
Mississippi delta land, Texas plains, Arizona mesas...
ROOSEVELT'S VOICE
Look at the Pacific Ocean. It
covers half the surface of the
earth. And look at the great
Atlantic. The oceans both divide
and connect us to our enemies, and
either they will come to us, or we
will go to them...
The formation of B-25's reaches San Francisco.
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO NAVAL AIR STATION - DAY
Doolittle leads the bombers to a landing. IN RAFE'S PLANE,
everybody's wondering why they're here.
RED
N-naval station? What's g-going
on?
RAFE
Wish I knew, Red.
121.
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO AIR FIELD - DAY
The crews climb from their planes, and almost before
they're out, teams of men use straps and cranes to hoist
the bombers onto flatbed trucks. Doolittle walks up to
Rafe and Danny, watching the baffling operation.
DOOLITTLE
Want to see where they're going?
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO HARBOR - EVENING
Cranes lift the planes from the trucks and hoist them
onto the flight decks of the carrier USS HORNET. The
pilots stand on the pier, watching.
ANTHONY
I guess that settles it. Somewhere
in the Pacific.
RED
With a s-short r-runway.
They all gather around Doolittle as he moves up to them.
DOOLITTLE
You have rooms at the Biltmore. I
suggest a nice meal and a good
night's sleep. We leave tomorrow.
Doolittle walks to join a captain.
INT./ EXT. SAN FRANCISCO HOTEL - NIGHT
The pilots get off the bus and carry their duffels into
the lobby.
ANTHONY
San Francisco, here we are!
DANNY
(grinning)
I don't reckon we can get hogbrains
and grits, but I hear a man can
eat good in this town.
RAFE
I'm gonna turn in. I hate being
on the water. I think this is the
last sleep I'll get for awhile.
122.
INT. LOBBY - NIGHT
The other guys drop their duffels with the bell hops;
Rafe moves to the reception desk.
RAFE
McCawley.
The manager hands him a key, and smiles curiously.
MANAGER
Have fun.
INT. HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT
Rafe enters his room and finds the light on...and Evelyn's
there waiting.
RAFE
What?...
EVELYN
They were bringing back a ship
full of wounded and needed extra
nurses along. I wrote Colonel
Doolittle, and told him I needed
to see you before you go.
RAFE
It must of been a convincing letter.
EVELYN
It was. I couldn't have you go
away, wherever it is...to
war...without knowing something.
You think I made a choice, of Danny
over you. I didn't. I didn't
have a choice. I'm pregnant.
The blood drains from Rafe's heart. Yet he finds the
strength to move to her. She turns away, so she won't
throw her arms around him.
RAFE
Does Danny know?
She shakes her head, refuses to cry.
EVELYN
I wasn't sure, until the day you
turned up alive. I never had a
chance to tell him.
(MORE)
123.
EVELYN (CONT'D)
Now I can't have him thinking about
this when he needs to be thinking
about his mission, and how to come
back from it.
She turns and faces him again.
EVELYN
I want you thinking about that
too. Just come back.
(beat)
Rafe, I see it in your face. You're
thinking you don't have anything
to live for. Don't you dare think
that way. I'll never write a
letter, or look at a sunset, without
thinking of you. I'll love you my
whole life. And I want you to
live.
She looks at him, her eyes bright with tears, but still
she refuses to cry. They both know they can't touch, or
they'll never let go. She walks past him, out of the
room, closing the door softly behind her.
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO HARBOR - DAY
The USS HORNET clears the Golden Gate Bridge, with cruisers
and destroyers rounding out its battle group.
Rafe and Danny stand on the flight deck, watching the
city recede behind them.
Evelyn is on a hilltop watching them go. Danny can't see
her, doesn't know she's there. Rafe can't see her either --
but he knows.
SHIP'S INTERCOM
Army pilots to the briefing room.
INT. THE CARRIER HORNET - BRIEFING ROOM - DAY
The pilots are gathered expectantly in the carrier's
conference room. Doolittle strides in.
DOOLITTLE
Gentlemen, I can now tell you that
the target of this mission is Tokyo.
The pilots love it. The ones who have not seen battle
are grinning and vocal. Rafe, Danny, Anthony, and Red
are quieter, savoring the prospect of revenge.
124.
RED
And where's the secret base, Sir?
The one we t-takeoff from.
DOOLITTLE
The navy will get us to within 400
miles of the Japanese coast. We'll
launch off the carriers from there.
Suddenly the pilots don't like the sound of this.
ANTHONY
Sir, has this ever been done,
launching an army bomber off a
navy carrier?
DOOLITTLE
No. Any other questions?
RED
C-Colonel, we been p-practicing
takeoff's, but I ain't sure we can
land on these carriers d-decks.
DOOLITTLE
We won't have the fuel to get back
to the carriers; they'll turn and
run back to Hawaii the minute we're
airborne.
RED
Then wh-where do we land?
DOOLITTLE
I have a phrase I want you all to
memorize: "Lushu hoo megwa fugi."
It means "I am an American." In
Chinese.
Absolute silence among the pilots.
EXT. FLIGHT DECK OF THE HORNET - DAY
The sailors who man the flight deck look at each other
with bafflement as the worried pilots pace from one end
of the deck to the other. They're in a line like ducks,
Rafe in the lead and the others following, counting steps,
each man measuring the distance. Shaking their heads,
worrying.
They stop at the end and look down at the sea far below
them; it's dizzying. Anthony shoves Red for fun before
grabbing his shoulder to stop him from falling.
125.
RED
A-a-asshole!... Maybe it's l-longer
going this way.
He starts pacing back the other way, as if the ship's
longer in that direction. The other pilots watch him for
a moment, then follow him, counting again.
Rafe and Danny are left standing alone at the end of the
flight deck. Far over the surging sea.
DANNY
It's shorter than our practice
runway.
RAFE
They'll turn the ship into the
wind before we launch. That'll
help.
DANNY
We'll be loaded with 2,000 pounds
of bombs and 1,500 pounds of fuel.
I got another Chinese phrase for
Doolittle. "Mug wump rickshaw mushu
pork." It means "Who the fuck
thought up this shit?"
Doolittle appears right beside them.
DOOLITTLE
He was a navy man.
Doolittle walks away.
RAFE
Maybe we'll be lucky with the
weather.
SMASH TO:
EXT. PACIFIC - A FEROCIOUS STORM - NIGHT
The Hornet tosses, bashed by a vicious storm.
INT. CARRIER HORNET - BRIEFING ROOM - DAY
The ships is rolling; most of the fliers are green.
Doolittle stands at the podium.
126.
DOOLITTLE
Since we'll be on our own once
we're in the air, I thought I had
a good idea letting each crew select
it's own target.
He looks at a pile of paper slips in front of him.
DOOLITTLE
Now we have fifteen requests for
the Emperor's Palace...and one for
Tokyo baseball stadium.
RED
I d-don't think Japs ought'a be
allowed to p-play baseball.
DOOLITTLE
I'd like to bomb their Emperor
too. But I think that'd just piss
'em off. The idea here, Gentlemen,
is not revenge. We're here to
prove to them that they're neither
invincible nor superior. So let's
try this again. Military targets
only.
RED
Colonel, to f-fight you need
strategy. To have strategy, ya
gotta practice. And to practice
it, ya gotta play --
DOOLITTLE
No baseball diamonds, Red.
RED
Y-Yes Sir.
EXT. PACIFIC - DAY
The storm is subsiding, but it's still raining. From the
bridge of the Hornet, they spot the ENTERPRISE.
ADMIRAL
The Enterprise will ride shotgun
when we launch the bombers. They
wanted our carriers at Pearl, and
now we've come to them. If the
Japanese get us, they'll be having
dinner in San Francisco next month.
127.
EXT. FLIGHT DECK - THE HORNET - DAY
The preparations begin. Deck crews move the B-25's to
the rear of the flight deck. Fueling teams top off the
bomber's gas tanks. Ordnance men hoist four bombs into
each aircraft, and the army gunners load ammunition for
the machine guns. Greening checks the planes' mechanical
and hydraulic systems.
And once again the pilots are out pacing the deck distance.
It's turned into a game for them, walking off nerves. As
Rafe and Danny pass.
RAFE
It's not getting any longer.
DANNY
Longer? It's getting shorter.
INT. HORNET - BRIEFING ROOM - DAY
Doolittle is laying out the plan for all the pilots.
DOOLITTLE
We'll take off late this afternoon.
I'll hit Tokyo at dusk, and drop
incendiary bombs. You'll come
after me at night, guided by the
fires. Then it's on to China,
where you'll arrive at dawn, guided
to their airfields by the homing
beacons the Chinese are going to
switch on for us. That's if
everything is perfect -- like every
other military mission I've ever
been involved with.
Doolittle looks around the room. No one's smiling.
DOOLITTLE
Listen you guys. I'm the first
plane -- then McCawley, Walker,
the rest of you. I'll have the
shortest run. If I don't make it,
you don't go.
RAFE
Colonel...we're all going. Whether
you make it or not.
DOOLITTLE
I know.
128.
EXT. BRIDGE OF THE CRUISER NASHVILLE - DAY
The cruiser Nashville is at the perimeter of the task
force.
It's lookouts spot Japanese patrol boats ahead.
INT. BRIDGE OF THE ENTERPRISE - DAY
The message is handed to Admiral Halsey.
OFFICER
Sir, lookouts on the cruisers report
patrol boats, ten miles away!
HALSEY
The Japs have set up a picket line!
Order the cruisers to open fire!
We've got to sink them before they
get a message away.
EXT. PACIFIC - DAY
The cruiser NASHVILLE begins firing rounds at the Japanese
patrol boat; round after round misses.
INT. HORNET'S RADIO ROOM - DAY
The operators hear the excited voices of Japanese radio
traffic.
RADIO OPERATOR
They've reported our position!
Tell the Admiral.
EXT. HORNET - DAY
Doolittle hurries up to the command bridge, with the naval
officers sent by the Admiral to fetch him. Doolittle
sees the cruisers next to the carrier firing its guns --
at Japanese boats in the distance.
INT. BRIDGE OF THE HORNET - DAY
Doolittle finds the Admiral gathered with his staff, their
mood is grim.
DOOLITTLE
How far are we from Tokyo?
ADMIRAL
Seven hundred miles.
129.
INT. PILOT'S WARD ROOMS - SERIES OF DISSOLVES
Rafe, Danny, and the other pilots are alone at their bunks,
taking advantage of the lull before the mission.
Rafe has paper and pen to write a letter, but he can't
think of anything to write.
Danny holds the "Picture of Paradise" that Sammy took, of
Evelyn and the nurses in the sun. He tucks it inside his
shirt, when he hears --
LOUDSPEAKER
Army pilots, man your planes!
EXT. FLIGHT DECK - THE HORNET - DAY
The pilots run onto deck. The cruiser next to the Hornet
is still firing away at the Japanese patrol boat.
Doolittle runs onto deck, shouting orders.
DOOLITTLE
Load in every bit of extra gas you
can carry! And strip everything
you don't need out of the planes.
I mean EVERYTHING!
EXT. HORNET - FLIGHT DECK - STRIPPING THE PLANES - DAY
It's starting to rain but the guys don't notice at all.
They're stripping seats out of the planes, tossing out
their own gear.
Greening pulls the machine guns out of the rear of the
planes and puts in broomsticks painted black.
Off in the distance the Japanese patrol boat takes a hit
and explodes. Rafe and Danny meet between their bombers.
DANNY
Broomsticks instead of tail guns.
RAFE
We'll get separated over the target,
but you and I will rendezvous for
the run to China. I'm on your
wing.
DANNY
And I'm on yours. Land of the
free.
130.
RAFE
Home of the Brave.
They climb into their bombers.
EXT. HORNET - FLIGHT DECK - DAY
The engines are revving. The tachs are showing redline.
The crews are in their planes. Doolittle is first, just
ahead of Rafe and Danny's B-25's.
The battle pennants whip, the props blur, the wheels strain
against the brakes; from the cockpits the flight deck
looks impossibly short... and the American flag cracks in
the wind.
And now every pilot looks at Doolittle's plane...
Doolittle starts the run down the flight
deck...faster...the end looming. He turns the plane almost
vertical, standing it on its props...and lifts away
smoothly.
The sailors on deck cheer, like the Japanese did before
Pearl Harbor.
Rafe, Danny, and the others take off too.
EXT. SKIMMING OVER THE WAVES - DAY
The B-25's head toward Japan.
EXT. PACIFIC - THE AMERICAN TASK FORCE - DAY
Admiral Halsey, on the deck of the ENTERPRISE, watches as
the last plane takes off. The planes recede in the
distance, racing just a few feet over the water, toward
Japan.
HALSEY
Of all the other things this mission
is doing that have never been done
before... I've never sent out
planes that I wasn't going to see
safely home. Let's get out of
here.
The task force runs for home.
EXT. SKIMMING OVER THE WAVES - DAY
At first the planes are together; Rafe and Danny can see
each other off each other's wing, and Doolittle's plane
is ahead.
131.
The others are grouped after them. They maintain strict
radio silence, and can communicate only with gestures,
hand signals, or a flasher for Morse code. When Rafe
speaks to the crew of his own plane, it's by pressing an
intercom sender to his throat.
RAFE
What's our ETA for Tokyo?
The bombardier/navigator is already working out the numbers
at his plotting table in the center of the plane.
NAVIGATOR
Almost exactly at 12 noon.
RED
High n-noon. I k-kinda like that.
Rafe looks over to Danny and gives him a thumbs up.
INT. DANNY'S PLANE - DAY
Danny calls back to his GUNNER, who is watching the fuel
supply.
DANNY
We got a 25-mile-an-hour head wind.
How we doing with fuel?
GUNNER
How do you think?
The gunner is already pouring gas into the tanks from the
extra cans.
Anthony stands and moves back to the rear of the plane,
pulls a piece of chalk from his pocket and writes on the
nose of the bombs -- "For America," "For Pearl Harbor,"
"For the Arizona," "For Billy."
-- Rafe flies, lost in thought...
-- Evelyn is back at Pearl, struggling to keep her mind
on her work.
-- Danny is looking at his gauges, then at the picture in
his shirt.
EXT. TOKYO - VARIOUS SHOTS - DAY
It's a pleasant day, and the people of Tokyo are in a
confident, happy mood. They're shopping, smiling, enjoying
beautiful spring weather. The Emperor is on the garden
of his palace having lunch.
132.
EXT. SKIMMING OVER THE WAVES - DAY
The American planes are coming.
INT. DOOLITTLE'S PLANE - DAY
He and his navigator confer.
DOOLITTLE'S NAVIGATOR
Time for the others to break off.
His copilot uses the flashes to signal the other planes.
They break off for their individual targets, every plane
now on it's own.
INT. JAPANESE AIR DEFENSE STATION - DAY
This is the nerve center of Tokyo's defense. An OFFICER
receives a message and reports to his supervisor.
JAPANESE DEFENSE OFFICER
Coastal stations report a low flying
plane coming in off the sea.
SUPERVISOR
From the sea?... That couldn't be
right, it must be part of the air
raid practice this morning.
EXT. SKIMMING OVER THE WAVES - DAY
The planes reach the Japanese coastline, and start skimming
over treetop level.
EXT. TOKYO - DAY
The office of an anti-aircraft battery blows its whistle;
his crew mount their guns and swerves them around. The
officer whistle's again and checks his watch.
ANTI-AIRCRAFT OFFICER
Not bad.
The crew dismount their guns; just a drill.
EXT. TOKYO - VARIOUS SHOTS - DAY
The Japanese people are unaware of the drill. People are
browsing through open-air shops, where new radios are
turned on, playing music. And Tokyo Rose is talking --
in English and Japanese.
133.
TOKYO ROSE (ON THE RADIO)
It is another beautiful day in
Tokyo, as all of Japan basks in a
new day of victory.
INT. THE PLANES - DAY
Coma, Danny's navigator, picks this up.
COMA
Listen to this -- it's Tokyo Rose.
TOKYO ROSE (ON THE RADIO)
Our brave sailors and soldiers,
inspired by our divine Emperor,
have pushed the Americans from the
Pacific.
These words go through the plane; and in the other planes
they hear it too.
TOKYO ROSE (ON THE RADIO)
But hiding at home will not save
them. Each time the Americans
have tasted the samurai spirit,
they have learned the bitter taste
of defeat, while Japan is embraced
by the divine wind that has
protected our island for seven
centuries.
EXT. TOKYO - DAY
The planes reach Tokyo, and flash across the rooftops.
INT. DANNY'S PLANE - DAY
ANTHONY
We'll give that bitch something to
announce.
Danny and Rafe give each other a wave, and divert toward
their separate targets. Each plane is on its own now.
EXT. TOKYO - DAY
Doolittle's plane flashes right over the Emperor's palace.
The Emperor sits in the garden, meditating.
EXT. TOKYO - VARIOUS SHOTS - DAY
Mothers walking their children see the planes flash by
overhead, and like the people at Pearl, they think they
134.
are friendlies. A toddler points up and smiles. His
mother picks him up and hugs him happily.
JAPANESE MOTHER
Yes! So beautiful!
INT. THE PLANES - DAY
Rafe's bombardier works his 20-cent bombsight, as Rafe
holds the plane steady, bringing it up to 200 feet.
They scan for fighter or anti-aircraft fire. There isn't
any.
RAFE
Open bomb bay doors.
DANNY'S PLANE runs toward its target...
DOOLITTLE'S PLANE races over Tokyo...
GUNNER
Bomb bay doors open, sir.
RAFE
It's all yours.
The bombardier hits the first switch. The bomb falls
toward a factory.
It strikes home, right on target. The blast is shocking --
it blows debris higher than the plane.
EXT. TOKYO - THE BOMBING - VARIOUS SHOTS
The individual planes drop their bombs, four per plane,
on shipyards, factories, oil supplies, weapons facilities.
Their bombing is highly accurate.
On the ground, at the open-air market, for a brief moment
Radio Tokyo goes silent; then --
TOKYO ROSE (ON THE RADIO)
We interrupt this broadcast...
Tokyo is being bombed!
EXT. THE EMPEROR'S PALACE - DAY
The Emperor looks up at the sound of air raid sirens and
distant explosions.
135.
EMPEROR'S ATTENDANT
Surely just a drill, Divine One.
INT. RAFE'S PLANE - DAY
NAVIGATOR
Last bomb away.
It slams into a factory, blowing debris everywhere and
turning the factory into an inferno.
Rafe's tail gunner sees Zeros swarming in with vengeance.
GUNNER
We got Zeros! And they're pissed
off!
Rafe changes course quickly.
INT. DANNY'S PLANE - DAY
Anti-aircraft FLAK bursts in the sky in front of them;
Danny takes evasive action.
INT. RAFE'S PLANE - ABOVE TOKYO - DAY
Rafe pushes the engines to top speed and changes course
again; but the B-25's can't outrun the Zeros. Their fire
chews into the bomber's tail, hitting the gunner. Red
scrambles back to find the gunner dead.
RAFE
Can you get 'em off us?
Red reacting to bullets coming through the rear of the
fuselage, looks at the brooms protruding from the rear of
the plane.
RED
Whatta ya want me to do, sweep
'em!
As the bombardier, navigator, and Red jump onto the other
machine guns, Rafe looks for a way out. He dives down
toward the city. The Zeros follow.
EXT. SKIES OVER TOKYO - DAY
Rafe takes the B-25 right down among the buildings,
sometimes even having to spin the wings to get through.
The Zeros can't keep up with this...
136.
But Rafe can't keep it up long, either; they break out
into open ground rail yards, where there's no place for
him to hide...
The Zeros come in to chew him up...
But they take fire from another B-25 -- Danny's -- coming
in to save Rafe's plane. Rafe now uses the radio.
RAFE
Danny, get the hell out of here!
But Danny stays, mixing it up with the Zeros; with both B-
25's together, their machine guns down one Zero and damage
another. But there are too many.
Rafe sees clouds coming in, and fog.
RAFE
Danny, run for the clouds!
The bombers race toward the clouds, and make it; the Zeros
lose them.
EXT. SKIES - BROKEN CLOUDS - DAY
Rafe and Danny keep broken contact through the clouds,
and settle in for the long run to China.
INT. RAFE'S COCKPIT - DAY
RAFE
We burned a lot of fuel back there.
Flash them and ask about their
supply.
INT. DANNY'S PLANE - DAY
Anthony reads the Morse code.
ANTHONY
"How's your fuel?"
Danny looks across to Rafe and shakes his head.
INT. ROOSEVELT'S RESIDENCE - HYDE PARK, NY - DAY
Roosevelt is at his desk when General Marshall enters.
GENERAL MARSHALL
We have bombed Tokyo, Mr. President.
Radio Tokyo interrupted it's own
broadcast to make the announcement.
137.
ROOSEVELT
Have the planes made it to China?
GENERAL MARSHALL
There've been some complications,
Sir. The Chinese didn't receive
our request for homing beacons
until is was too late to get them
set. And the planes had to take
off so early they may lack fuel to
make the mainland anyway.
ROOSEVELT
So those brave men are flying blind
and running out of fuel.
GENERAL MARSHALL
The Chinese are sending out search
parties to try to find the crews
before the Jap patrols do, if any
of the planes make it.
ROOSEVELT
God help them.
EXT. SEA OF JAPAN - DUSK
They've climbed above the clouds; the fliers are exhausted.
The sun is beginning to set. Rafe stares at it...
INT. HOSPITAL - PEARL HARBOR - DUSK
The place is white again -- the white of bandages and
casts.
Everyone is busy, and even the wounded are looking out
for each other; a man with his arms in an airplane splint
holds a spoon and feeds a badly burned buddy. Evelyn and
her overworked nurses are looking after the critical cases.
But as she covers the windows with blackout curtains, she
stops for just a moment to stare at the sun's last rays.
EXT. SKIES OVER PACIFIC - NIGHT
Colonel Doolittle can make out mountains below them.
DOOLITTLE
We'll fly till we run out of fuel,
then bail out.
Just then his engines start to sputter.
138.
DOOLITTLE
Chute!
He puts the plane on auto-pilot and the men move to the
hatches. Three guys go out; it's just Doolittle and his
copilot left.
DOOLITTLE
Nobody else is gonna make it either.
If I live through this, they're
gonna put me in Leavenworth Prison.
They jump.
INT. DANNY'S PLANE - NIGHT
Coma moves up to Danny.
COMA
We're running out of fuel. And I
can't find the beacon.
Danny gestures across to Rafe that he hears nothing in
his radio phones. Rafe gestures the same thing back.
They look down and the entire ground is covered with
clouds.
RAFE
I don't know if we're over sea or
land. Drop flares and try to spot
something.
EXT. SKIES OVER PACIFIC - NIGHT
They drop flares; they disappear into the cloud cover and
tell them nothing.
EXT. SKIES - RAFE AND DANNY'S PLANE - NIGHT
Danny's engines are sputtering; his gunner pours the last
drops of gas into the tanks.
DANNY
Flash Rafe. We're gonna bail.
Red sees Anthony signal.
RED
They've gotta jump.
RAFE
Not unless we know he's over land!
139.
Rafe yells at Danny, as if he could hear --
RAFE
You are not bailing out into water!
RAFE'S NAVIGATOR
Coastline below!
Through a break in the clouds they spot a rocky shoreline.
RAFE
We've got coast! Signal him to
climb and jump.
Red signals; Danny's plane signals back.
RED
They don't have fuel to make
altitude. He's gonna set it down
in the water.
Rafe looks over at Danny, who is gesturing; he gives up
on the hand signals and grabs the flasher; Red reads the
Morse code...
RED
Y-O-U... G-O. You go on.
Rafe grabs the flasher and angrily flashes back two
letters.
RAFE
N-O! We stay together! I'll go
in first.
Rafe turns his bomber and Danny follows, their planes
arcing down toward the rocky coast; it's hairy, the clouds
masking their view, as the altimeter winds down... At the
last moment they see rocks looming out of the surf.
INT. RAFE'S PLANE - NIGHT
He's shouting to his crew --
RAFE
Hang on tight! I'll put her in
the smooth water and we'll swim
in!
INT. DANNY'S PLANE - NIGHT
His engines are sputtering, catching, sputtering; he fights
to stay in control.
140.
EXT. CHINA COAST - NIGHT
Rafe's plane settles down toward the water; he guns the
engine to level out, and the plane skims across the
surface; then the propellers catch and the plane stops
like it hit a wall, flipping over it's nose.
DANNY'S PLANE is struggling; when he tries to add throttle,
the engines sputter out. The plane drops, skips once on
the surface, then hits a shoreline rock belly first.
Danny and Anthony are ejected through the top of the
fuselage; Coma is hurled forward right through the glass
nose of the plane.
INT. RAFE'S PLANE - NIGHT
Rafe and Red come to in the plane inverted and sinking.
They react, unbuckling, grabbing for their crewmates as
the plane is quickly filling. The navigator and gunner
are unconscious; the bombardier is dead. Red struggles
with the hatch and can't make it budge.
RAFE
It won't open til the plane fills!
They struggle to breath as the water envelops them. But
as the water reaches the top, Rafe takes a last breath
and dives to the hatch; it comes open, and they swim up,
dragging the rest of the crew.
EXT. CHINA COAST - NIGHT
They break the surface, and struggle to shore with the
unconscious navigator and gunner.
Rafe's looking everywhere; he sees Danny's plane crashed
against the rock. He fights his way through the surf to
Danny's plane, Red following.
Rafe finds Danny face up in the water.
Red finds Anthony on the rock. He's face up, but as Red
lifts him he finds the back of Anthony's head is gone.
The rest of Danny's crew are floating in the surf, dead.
Rafe and Red pull Danny to shore.
RAFE
Danny! DANNY!
Danny's eyes flutter open; he sees Rafe and mumbles --
141.
DANNY
I've made better landings.
Danny's hand gropes to his throat; Rafe finds a V shaped
shard of the fuselage hooked into his neck.
Rafe grabs it, trying to bend it open; the sharp metal
cuts his hands, but he keeps straining. It won't work,
He pulls his .45 from his jacket and tries to pry the
metal. It works a bit; he tosses the pistol aside and
grabs the shard again, and opens it.
RAFE
You hang on, Danny! You hang on!
You're gonna make it!
Rafe's head snaps forward, crunched with the butt of a
rifle; a Japanese patrol, four men, have arrived. They're
angry, scared, hyped. They knock Red down too, yelling
and brandishing their rifles at the fliers on the beach,
living and dead.
The Japanese officer is barking orders. They find the
Captain's insignia on Danny's jacket, and begin binding
him to a yoke, his wrists tied to the wood like a
crucifixion, a wire around his neck. They find the
navigator unconscious, but alive. The officer snaps a
single word and a soldier shoots the navigator.
The others wire Rafe's ankles together... Rafe is
emotionless.
RAFE'S CONSCIOUSNESS fades in and out. He hears Danny
choking, and his mind sees Danny as a boy those long years
ago, being carried by the neck across the field by his
father...
Then Rafe sees THE PRESENT: Danny being half-carried,
half- dragged by the neck by two Japanese. The officer
is pulling Red along, hands bound behind him. And Rafe
starts moving, being dragged on his back, pulled by his
feet along the rocky sand.
His hand slides by the pistol he tossed behind the rock.
The whole world slows down.
He clutches it, shoots one of the men towing Danny. And
as the man dragging Rafe turns around, Rafe shoots him in
the face.
The officer spins, raising his rifle; the soldier pulling
Red, shoves him onto his face in the sand and aims his
rifle too.
142.
The officer is pulling the trigger to kill Rafe when Danny
slams him down from behind.
The fourth soldier shoots Danny in the gut, then takes
aim for Rafe's heart -- and is shot through the chest
from behind.
The Japanese officers rises in surprise and is cut down
by scythes carried by the Chinese peasant soldiers who
are just arriving.
Rafe struggles to Danny, moving the Chinese aside. Danny
lies on his back, clutching his wound as if to hold onto
his life.
RAFE
Danny...
DANNY
I can't make it.
RAFE
Yes you can.
But Danny is silent, his eyes drifting shut, and in that
moment Rafe thinks he is gone already. Then Danny's eyes
drift open, finding him.
DANNY
Take care of Evelyn.
The words almost kill Rafe, filling him with grief. From
somewhere he finds the strength to say --
RAFE
I will. And your baby.
(beat)
You're gonna be a father.
Did Danny hear? His eyes are closed again. But his head
comes up; Rafe takes it, and Danny pulls him closer to
whisper --
DANNY
No. You are.
Rafe cradles Danny in his arms. Danny's eyes are open,
but Rafe sees no light there.
RAFE
Danny... Land of the free... Land
of the free...
143.
But Danny will never answer him again. Rafe hugs Danny
tight, and weeps.
EXT. VARIOUS SHOTS - DAY
The news of the raid hits Washington...and the rest of
America. If it isn't wild celebration; when people see
the headline: AIR RAID ON TOKYO, and DOOLITTLE DOES MUCH;
their faces change, as if finally told what they already
knew -- that America would prevail.
VOICE OVER
The Doolittle Raid was the pivotal
moment of America's war with Japan.
Before it, America knew nothing
but defeat; after it, nothing but
victory.
(beat)
One crew of Doolittle's raiders
made it to Vladivostok, Russia,
where they were interred for much
of the war. Thirteen planes crash
landed in China, where the Chinese
people helped the Americans escape,
and had their villages destroyed
and citizens executed by the
Japanese forces of occupation.
Two crews were captured by the
Japanese and three fliers were
executed without trial, called
"war criminals" by the Japanese.
Jimmy Doolittle was promoted to
General, and given the medal of
honor.
We see the ceremony at the White House, as Roosevelt
presents Doolittle with the metal.
EXT. TENNESSEE - DAY
Out by the crop dusting landing field is a memorial to
Danny Walker, with an American flag flying high above it.
Standing at the memorial are Rafe and Evelyn. Rafe holds
a child in his arms, a boy, named Danny.
FADE OUT.
THE END