Le combattant

I must have been 9 or 10 years old when i saw this movie in my hometown of Simcoe, Ontario, Canada and remember being impressed with the brilliant colors of the ocean and sky. At that time as a kid living on a farm I had never seen an aircraft carrier and recall being amazed at the size of this ship. This past summer, without realizing it until I boarded the ship, I toured the actual carrier featured in this movie. It was decommissioned in 1983 and is now docked at Charleston S.C. It was here that I really discovered its immense size and climbed from deck to deck realizing the dedication of the officers and men must have had to keep this floating city operational. I seem to recall the high action and fast timing of this film. How I would love to see this wonderful movie again after all these years. Where can it be obtained?

Security being an important wartime measure, this aircraft carrier's name was classified as a result. However, most of the footage, above and below decks, about life aboard a carrier was filmed aboard the newly commissioned ESSEX class carrier, YORKTOWN. She was named and sponsored by Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt January 1943 after the "OLD YORKY" which was lost during the The Battle of Midway

The Navy Department reported that at least 75 percent of the documentary footage was shot aboard YORKTOWN, with the remaining footage shared between HORNET and TICONDEROGA. And one scene filmed aboard BUNKER HILL.

Before shaping a course for Panama and transit through the canal, and while still on her shakedown cruise in the Caribbean Sea Frontier Area, Commander Frank "Spig" Wead, the crippled naval aviator turned screenwriter was instrumental in getting YORKTOWN's captain, J.J. "Jocko" Clark to allow Twentieth Century Fox to film some background shots for the new war movie, "Wing and a Prayer", starring Dana Andrews, Don Ameche, and Charles Bickford.

The carrier transits and clears the Panama Canal and shapes a course out into the Pacific. So YORKTOWN along with her ESSEX class sisters would become, before Japan surrendered, the champions of the Pacific naval campaign. They were to carry the ball, the Sunday punch, all the way to Tokyo Bay.

Of all the combat photography recorded it was the aerial footage that was impressive for its time. With the strafing and bombing of ground targets on Marcus Island YORKTOWN's aviators receive their baptism of fire. They could now call themselves combat veterans. Then there is the strike against the large Japanese naval anchorage at Truk Lagoon in the Carolines.

Appearing on the film with members of his staff is Vice Admiral Marc A. "Pete" Mitscher. Also present with Mitscher but not named was Rear Admiral John S. "Slew" McCain. His grandson being Lt Commander John S. McCain III. The Viet Nam war veteran. Now serving as the Senator for Arizona.

There is a fine aerial shot of the carrier task force resting at anchor at Majuro Atoll in the Marshal Islands early in 1944. Three of YORKTOWN's sister ships are present along with the older battle-hardened veteran the venerable ENTERPRISE. Also at anchor the battleships INDIANA, and a NEW Mexico class battleship along with cruisers, destroyers and other support ships. Standing out and conspicuously painted white overall, BOUNTIFUL AH-9, a naval hospital ship.

During the assault on the Marianas Islands June 1944 the Japanese Mobile Fleet launched 373 aircraft to attack the U.S. Fleet. The combined squadrons of YORKTOWN and her sister carriers of Vice Admiral Mitscher's Task Force 58 intercepted the attack, with the loss to the enemy of more than 300 aircraft destroyed. So the Battle of the Phillipine Sea was to become just as famously known as, The Great Marianas Turkey shoot.

Plaudits then are well deserved for Edward Steichen but certainly no less to Dwight Long and other photographers who presided over the job of shooting thousands of feet of 16mm Kodachrome film stock. The film actor Robert Taylor was the narrator. His voice was crisp and clear and easy recognisable.

Twentieth Century Fox's Darryl F. Zanuck was not known to be very interested about releasing the documentary under the Fox logo. That's until he was persuaded to view it. He was impressed by what he saw. The story goes that he suggested giving it the title, "The Fighting Wench"! Who would not have cringed at such a brain dead title as that! An ungracious suggestion. Yorktown was indeed a great lady, as were her other sisters of the Essex class. So, recorded for posterity was a fine 60 minute documentary. The 1944 Oscar it received was well and truly deserved.

Loved it! Forget the fact that this is a documentary - it is very interesting from beginning to end. Lots of color gun camera film throughout and shipboard crash landings. Very well done chronicle of a carrier and its mission in the Pacific during WWII.

The Fighting Lady is an American made `docudrama' typical of much Hollywood's war years production. It is narrated by Hollywood star Robert Taylor who had enlisted in the US Navy during WWII. There is no central character, rather it is primarily the story of life aboard a typical American aircraft carrier during the middle war years in the pacific. It includes some spectacular color gun camera footage of strafing and bombing missions at the battles of Marcus, Truk, and Kwajalern and the Marians. It acknowledges US losses, but does not tell of their extent: our carrier aircraft losses at Truk, for example, were particularly severe. The movie seems to be preparing the US public for a possibly long and costly conclusion to the pacific war. It describes the campaign necessary to conclude the pacific war in some detail. It is a campaign that thankfully was cut short. It should be seen as essentially a propaganda film, and is worthwhile viewing especially from that perspective.

Aircraft carriers played a crucial role in the Pacific Campaign during World War Two in the United States Navy's fight against the Japanese. The portrayal of one carrier, the USS Yorktown, in December 1944's "The Fighting Lady," won the Academy Awards' Best Documentary Feature.

Edward Steichen, a giant in photography, directed "The Fighting Lady," with his spellbinding visuals dominating this one hour documentary. Steichen artistically captured in Technicolor both the daily life of a floating city within the carrier as well as unique naval war footage of the aerial and sea battles taking place. As head of the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, Steichen, a World War One veteran and called "the greatest photographer that ever lived," hand-picked his cameramen to capture the action on the USS Yorktown. Much of the clips from "The Fighting Lady" are used in a number of WW2 documentaries about the Pacific front.

Although "The Fighting Lady" concentrated on the daily life of its personnel, the documentary captured fighting in three battlefronts in the Pacific. Not to be confused with the earlier carrier USS Yorktown, which sank in June 1942 after the Battle of Midway, the newer version passed through the Panama Canal after leaving its home port in Norfolk, Virginia, arriving at the Marcus Island in 1943, then Kwajalein Island in early 1944, and finally near the Philippines. It was during the Battle of the Philippine Sea the carrier's aviators participated in the 'Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.' The American fighter pilots were far more experienced than their Japanese counterparts, as well as flying more advanced planes. The battle footage is breathtaking because Steichen had modified Technicolor 16mm 'gun' cameras mounted on the wings of the American fighter planes, placing viewers in the front seat of all the action.

Robert Taylor, enlisting in the United States Naval Air Corps as a flight instructor, narrated "The Fighting Lady." One poignant sequence towards the end of the documentary shows a number of servicemen's body bags draped in the American flag buried at sea. Pilot Lt. Elisha 'Smokey' Stover is portrayed recovering from his wounds and returning to his fighter squadron. He was shot down in the Battle of Truk, landing in the ocean. Stover was captured in his rubber dinghy as the wind carried him to the Japanese-occupied island of Truk. After he and six other captured pilots were beaten and tortured, they were led onto the beach after the Americans abandoned its objective, beheaded by sword and thrown into the sea.

The USS Yorktown continued its service in the Navy through the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and was used in 1970's WW2 movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" Decommissioned in 1970, the carrier was brought to Mount Pleasant, outside of Charleston, South Carolina, and is open to the public as a museum ship.