The Guy that the movie Fury was about

The tank ace that the movie is about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_G._Pool

And the crew survived all that!!

 

Do people who go and see this film actually remember the true hero, not the actors? I hope so.

Hat's off for the Pool crew

 

I never knew he was a real guy, pretty cool.

 

Where did you get that the movie was about him? The only thing I saw that connects the two is that his nickname, "War Daddy" was used for the fictional movie character. In the movie War Daddy served in Africa, Pool didn't. Pool's final fight bears no resemblance to the one depicted in the movie, and there's not enough information in the Wikipedia article to determine if the other events in the movie parallel Pool's career.

 

"Real" and "Fury" should not be used in the same sentence.

 

"Aces" fly airplanes and shoot down other airplanes. Crew served weapons,especially on the ground, do not qualify.

 

"Tank Ace" is a wartime German propaganda term, which, for some odd reason, got revived by wargamers in the S&T era and has since refused to die the death it deserves. The term was never used insofar as I can find, by American tank units during the war.

 

As Price pointed out, the only connection to the movie is the reference in the Wiki that they used his nickname "War Daddy". However, the citation link in the Wiki article no longer works and there is no longer a reference to it on the 3ad.org website.

In fairness, the kill claim is "...credited with over 1,000 kills [soldiers, not tanks]...". More than likely, it is an estimate based in part on the "12 confirmed tank kills and 258 total armored vehicle and self-propelled gun kills".

I completely agree with Otto, the real story is much more interesting than anything Hollywood can produce.

 

The "War Daddy" reference...
The preface to the letter was this

The "War Daddy" reference:

 

A bit off topic but I found a photo of Cpl. Willis A. Oller. He was born on Sept. 1, 1914, in Morrisonville, Illinois, and entered the service Jan. 16, 1942, Camp Grant, IL. He died March 10, 1979, in the same town and was also buried there. His wife's name was Katie Lucille Taylor, they were married Feb. 5, 1943, in Pennsylvania.

View attachment 23773

 

The movie borrowed names and anecdotes from all over the place. They are supposedly 2nd AD, but they reference themselves as "Roosevelt's Butchers" which was a name the Germans applied to the 4th AD after incidents in Normandy. Now we see the War Daddy moniker borrowed from a 3rd AD tanker. Another thing I caught is the new guy saying he was sent to the V Corps HQ as a typist then told to report to 2nd AD, yet the 2nd AD was under XIX Corps at that time.

I enjoyed the movie. Somebody did do some very in depth research on that period of the war and they got a lot of things right, it's just that they applied it all to one unit which I find excusable since it's not a documentary, it's a war movie. Watched in that context, it's more accurate than most war movies despite a few cringe-inducing scenes.

 

Sorry, I have to disagree! It was a movie done by Reenactors for Reenactors It was 110 % accurate when it comes to the equipment, after that everything went tits up! It was as accurate a description of the last months of the war in the ETO , then Star Wars is an accurate rendition of NASA's Apollo program! Shortly after it came out on DVD, I watched it with a group of US vets, my association was hosting, two of them former Sherman commanders. They all agreed that it was the worst movie they ever saw about WWII, for them it was downright insulting, the tankers said that the way tank warfare was shown could have been a training movie called "A tankers 100 deadliest mistakes" . In December we had a group of Officers of 2/2 CAV visting, while discussing some tank battles of the BoB we came to talk about "Fury". There was one laconic comment all agreed on: "Belongs into the comedy department!" So sorry KodiakBeer, and with all due respect, imho it's a piece of crap.

The problem is that some big players in the militaria and Reenactor scene of the US and as well the UK were heavily engaged as "historical advisors" so any critique is anathema on the big internet forums.

 

I did mention the "cringe-inducing" scenes. They got the gear, uniforms and vehicles right, and that is far beyond most Hollywood endeavors, so I can't and won't complain. Even the oft-hailed Band of Brothers and Private Ryan couldn't get the gear right and there were some cringe-inducing scenes in those as well.

 

The biggest problem with reenactors is that they focus on the gear and equipment and don't get the soldiering, tactics, and fighting right. They reenact the equipment/militaria and not the men. I don't want to offend anyone with my terminology, but those types were called "gear queers" in both the Marine Corps and the Army when I was in, and apparently it's still used because I've heard my sons and their friends use the term. Rear echelon poagues, admin and supply for example, that wear all the trash they think the combat arms types would be wearing; oft times gear the combat guys would like to have that hasn't made it to them because the guys in the rear have scarfed it all up because they think it's cool.

 

Ah, I made the mistake only searching the 3ad.org site. That's why you're still the master, Takao.

Laf Pool's own account of the day he got KO'd

 

When I referred to gear, I was talking more about the mix of uniforms and weapons that developed as the war progressed - the TOE was thrown away. Squads and platoons "found" extra Thompsons, BARs and light machine guns, and yes, they did pick up STG44's and used them - like "Wardaddy" in Fury. I follow a Facebook group of 117th IR reenactors (my father's regiment) and so I've tried to input some of this with pix and comments, but they have zero interest in getting the actual gear right, or more correctly they have zero interest in getting the gear and weapons that were used after Normandy right. All of their kit is what would have been seen in the first weeks in Normandy - for example, the canvas leggings disappeared well before the M43 boot with the leather flap became general issue. The soldiers threw them away pretty quickly. By Fall, GIs were wearing a variety of jackets and overcoats and shaving was something that most of them didn't do except when rotated out of the line. The reenactors are not interested in any of that, so I've given up on trying to point it out. They want to look like the soldiers that marched onto the landing craft, not like the soldiers who emerged from the Bocage. if the reenactor crowd had much input, nobody listened to it.

Fury, with all of its faults, does get the dirt and mixed gear and weapons right. After the Ardennes, SS troops were shot in the field and they get that right. i have actual 30th ID medical dept. diary records speaking of making German soldiers march back to the cage in the snow without their boots, and plenty of anecdotes about shooting captured Waffen SS troopers in the field just as they show in Fury.

Moreover, they got the mixed gear and uniforms of the German army right which may be teh first time anyone got that right - you see both patterns of camo in various scenes as well as the earlier field uniform. You see the volksturm units heavily armed with fausts - kids and old people. No other recent film gets any of the German gear and uniforms right - including BoB and Private Ryan.

It's supposed to be XIX Corps (30th ID and 2nd Armored) in the spring of 45, and while it doesn't follow any particular events, the general events are actually quite accurate. Yeah, some of the scenes are pure Hollywood - the brief and tragic love affair could have been left out - the Tiger scene and the end scene is general silliness. Still, if you want an accurate impression what the war was like in the winter and spring of 45, Fury gets higher marks than any other recent film. Many of the scenes are drawn from actual regimental histories - the tank destroyed by the kid with a faust is drawn from an actual 30th ID AAR, except that the actual event was integral battalion command tank and was shot from an outbuilding of a farm. A squad went in and shot him to pieces instead of the actual tankers.

As for strategy and tactics, it just is what it is.

 

I think we pretty much agree on everything, KodiakBeer, we just have different priorities! And you are right Band of Brother as well as Saving Private Ryan were far from being perfect.