Pearl Harbor (2001) - P40 pilot

The air portion of the attack on Pearl Harbor began at 7:48 am December 7, 1941 Hawaiian Time (3:18 am December 8 Japanese Standard Time, as kept by ships of the Kido Butai), with the attack on Kaneohe. The only aerial opposition came from a handful of P-36 Hawks and P-40 Warhawks. (source: wiki)

In 2001, "Pearl Harbor" the movie was released. It was directed by Michael Bay and starred Ben Affleck (Lt Rafe McCawley), Alec Baldwin (Lt Col Jimmy Doolittle), Jon Voight (US President Franklin D. Roosevelt), Josh Hartnett (Lt Danny Walker), Kate Beckinsale, Cuba Gooding Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Jaime King, Jennifer Garner and William Fictner as Danny's father. The roles that the two male leads (played by Affleck and Hartnett) have in the attack sequence are analogous to the real historical deeds of US Army Air Corps Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth M. Taylor, who took to the skies during the Japanese attack and, together, claimed six Japanese aircraft and a few probables.

The attack on Pearl Harbor sequence alone is worth the movie ticket, despite much criticisms from various quarters about inaccuracies. The dramatic sequences were produced by the team of Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer, who had previously worked on summer mega-blockbusters as "Armageddon" and "The Rock".

Dragon released this figure of a US Army Air Force P-40 Pilot “Lt George Taylor” in 2001 (first posted here) wearing Type A-9 summer helmet with brown leather ear cups, B-7 flight goggles, A-4 summer flight suit made from light olive drab gabardine with waist belt over light olive drab shirt, B-3 life preserver, S-2 parachute with “bayonet” type harness fittings, M-1936 web belt with M-1911A1 pistol in its M-1916 leather holster plus 2 extra clips and standard GI service shoes.

Dragon's P-40 Pilot of December 7, 1941 "Lt George Taylor" looked a lot like Josh Harnett, the actor who played Danny Walker in the movie and whose aerial prowess is based on real historical deeds of US Army Air Corps Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth Taylor.






This would be the first of two Josh Harnett head sculpts to be released by Dragon, the second Josh Harnett 12" figure was for the movie "Black Hawk Down (2001)" which also starred William Fichtner as well as Eric Bana and Ewan McGregor.