Pearl Harbor Page #15

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 --

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.

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.

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...

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.

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