144 GUADALCANAL DIARY
functions, the actual (interrupted) escape, and its grim aftermath— all are faith-
fully shown. In many other ways, however, the movie is grossly inaccurate. As
detailed in Brickhill’s book, the actual escape operation involved some 600
POWs in specialized tasks. For narrative clarity, the film features about a dozen
composite characters representing all these men: an understandable but mislead-
ing bit of streamlining. Commercial imperatives forced the filmmakers to depart
from history in even more significant ways. An American- made film for an Ameri-
can market, The Great Escape numbers four A- list American movie stars— Steve
McQueen, James Garner (playing a Canadian), James Coburn (playing an Austra-
lian), and Charles Bronson (playing a Pole)— among its top- billed roles. Further-
more, all the characters portrayed by the Americans survive, whereas many of the
British POWs die. Captured American aviators did work on the construction of
the tunnels, but by the time of the escape, all of them had been moved to a sepa-
rate compound. The film’s portrayal of McQueen’s Virgil Hilts escaping along with
his British counter parts is therefore a Hollywood fabrication, along with Hilts’
motorcycle heroics, which were inserted at McQueen’s request— rousing action cin-
ema but bad history. Hilts’ unflappable insouciance defined Steve McQueen’s star
persona, but as Bosley Crowther suggests earlier, it owed more to Hollywood than
to history, though Hilts’ “Cooler King” character was based on Flight Lieutenant
Jackson Barrett “Barry” Mahon (1920–1999), an American- born RAF pi lot who
served as a technical advisor on the film. (Mahon was shot down in August 1942
and sent to Stalag Luft III. In “the cooler” after his second escape, he could not
participate in the mass escape, which likely saved his life. During the film shoot
McQueen took a liking to Mahon— who also once served as Errol Flynn’s pilot—
and asked to have Mahon’s background written into the Hilts’s character.) Another
example of dramatic license: the film shows the retaliatory murders of the 50 recap-
tured escapers— but not in the manner in which they occurred. Most of the vic-
tims were actually driven to isolated spots in small groups, told to get out and
stretch their legs, and were then shot through the back of the head, not machine-
gunned en masse, as depicted in the film (though the Germans did that too, at
Malmedy, Belgium, on 17 December 1944, when SS troopers murdered 84 Ameri-
can POWs during the Battle of the Bulge).Guadalcanal Diary (1943)
Synopsis
Guadalcanal Diary is a World War II war film directed by Lewis Seiler, featuring
Preston Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bendix, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn, and
Richard Jaeckel. Based on the best- selling book of the same title by Richard Tre-
gaskis, the film recounts the fight of the United States Marines in the Battle of Gua-
dalcanal in 1942.Background
Richard Tregaskis (1916–1973), a 25- year- old war correspondent for International
News Ser vice, was with U.S. Marine Corps troops when they hit the beach at