AF is Short of Water

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2019)

One of the few blockbuster war movies to give credit to the oft-maligned intelligence component of World War II, and yes I've read Layton's salty 1985 memoirs. If you like remarkably realistic battle scenes, this movie is for you. As an intelligence professional, I loved the scenes in ICPOA (Intelligence Center Pacific Ocean Area) although for the life of me I still don't completely understand the difference in Layton's role as Nimitz's intelligence chief and Joe Rochford's role as chief of Nimitz's intelligence center. I didn't know he wandered around in a bathrobe but I did know he got screwed by jealous Washington rivals and shipped off to command a drydock on the West Coast. Given that he and Layton were among the fifty (!!) Japanese linguists the Navy had, a shameful waste on many levels. And guess who replaced Rochford? One Commander Roscoe Hillenkoetter, surviving EXO of West Virginia who as naval attache in Paris in 1940 had watched the Germans march in to Paris. After the war, and a stint as captain of USS Missouri, he was appointed by Harry Truman as the first director of the CIA.
This movie is like the world's greatest Trivial Pursuit for historians. look, there's CNO Admiral King giving Nimitz the bad news about his next assignment; look: John Ford with his signature round sunglasses madly filming the attack on Midway. Oh, no, that torpedo bounced off the hull of the Japanese warship: wait til the same thing happens at Midway and the torpedo squadron goes down in flames. And having seen MANY photos of Admiral Nimitz, a shout-out to Woody Harrelson, who looked and sounded just like a good ol' Texas boy.