Talking of Escaping from Hong Kong…
Posted: June 20th, 2012 | 2 Comments »…as well as the title of Tim Luard’s new book, Escape From Hong Kong, on the exploits of Admiral Can Chek in WW2 (see previous plugs for his recent China events on this site), it was also the title of a pretty atrocious 1942 C-movie (or whatever is lower than a B-movie?) starring the mostly forgotten Leo Carillo, Andy Devine, Marjorie Lord, Frank Puglia and Chester Gan. OK, so it was all for the war effort with American vaudeville entertainers in Hong Kong for Pearl Habor. “JAPS TAKE COVER… when 3 American sharpshooters play rat-a-tat-tat on their skulls! “ wasn’t much of a tagline for the movie either but given that Pearl Harbor was December 1941 and the movie came out in May 1942 that’s not bad going!!
Excuse to stick the old poster up anyway…not an overly great attempt to artistically recreate the Hong Kong waterfront I have to say
And I’m going to stick my aviation ignorant neck out here too – those Jap planes bombing Hong Kong don’t look like the “light bombers” the Japanese used to bomb Hong Kong (I think) but rather British Lancaster’s (judging by the tails – but which anyway had four and not two engines). and it can’t be a Lancaster bombing a Jap ship because they didn’t have Lancaster’s in Hong Kong – right? But what do I know? Plane spotters feel free to ridicule me and my amateurish guesses!! (pics below anyway).
According to IMDB Tim Luard’s Escape from Hong Kong is in development – and would make a good film for a bit of Anglo-HK collaboration. I hope they use the same title.
Japanese light bombers with reconnaissance aircraft over Hong Kong…
A British Lancaster with its distinctive tail
Wholly in agreement–a very silly effort at representing that bombing. Given the provenance of the picture, I wonder whether they might also have just used a stock photo of a B-24 (“Liberator”), which had a slightly cleaner rear profile than the Lancaster. (I’m also thinking that landscape is more likely the Southern California coastline, perhaps looking northward from offshore at Santa Monica, or even Santa Barbara?)
However, one slight demurrer: no one who grew up in the ’50’s would ever agree that Andy Devine is largely forgotten–that voice (or anything approaching its timbre) still haunts.
Best,
Lawrence
Hmmm … twin engines, twin fins.
It hasn’t got four engines, so it’s not a Lancaster or a Liberator.
Staying with the ‘allied switch’ theory, it might be a Manchester, or possibly a Whitley.
On the other hand, twin engine, twin fin and genuinely Japanese would make it a Mitsubishi G3M Type 96, codename ‘Nell’ …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_G3M#Operational_history
Wikipedia doesn’t specifically mention operations in Hong Kong, but ‘Nells’ were used to bomb Singapore.
So maybe, just maybe, they got it right?