HOW UNCLE SAM REWROTE THE SCRIPT

Objective, Burma! (1945)

Errol Flynn's paratroopers overcome the Japanese with barely a Brit in sight, although it was really they who won the battle. The press and public, some of whom had fought in Burma, were so outraged that the film had to be withdrawn.


The Great Escape (1963)

Steve McQueen played a leading part in a mass escape from a POW camp. In real life, 76 got out of Stalag Luft III, but only three made it alive; 50 were shot and 23 recaptured. No Americans among them.


Braveheart (1995)

Mel Gibson as a charming William Wallace - not the real man who wore the skin of an opposing general as his belt. Wallace fathers a son by the Princess of Wales who really gave birth seven years after his execution.


Titanic (1998)

First Officer William McMaster Murdoch is remembered as a hero in his Scottish home for saving passengers. He froze to death in the sea. The film shows him shooting passengers in a blind panic.


U-571 (2000)

Harvey Keitel and other plucky American seamen pull an Enigma code machine from a sinking German submarine and change the course of the war. Except that it was the crew of HMS Bulldog.




The Patriot (2000)

Gibson again as a pacifist provoked into joining the American War of Independence when sadistic Brits herd women and children into a church and set fire to it. Nothing like that happened.



Hollywood updates history of Battle of Britain: Tom Cruise won it all on his own
The 'Top Gun' star is making a new film glorifying American Billy Fiske as the hero of this country's 'finest hour'. But veterans say that, though a remarkable man, Fiske died without shooting down a single plane. Cole Moreton talks to those who knew him

more in the Independent on Sunday HERE