Danny Trejo is billed as one of the main stars in the movie. In the final film, Danny Trejo role is only a minor one for he has barely four minutes of total screen time.
Merchant mariner Lex Fanjoy from North Woburn, MA was a boatswain aboard SS Lawton B. Evans on August 10, 1945, when the vessel was anchored off the Anzio beachhead during a violent gale and electrical storm. The barrage balloon floated from the stern of the ship at the end of a 1,000 foot cable. This wire was anchored to a winch and it became heavily charged with static electricity that discharged near an open hatch containing gasoline in cans. Fanjoy volunteered to cut the balloon adrift. Disregarding the possibility of electrocution, a shock that might knock him down, or dismemberment from the whip of the released wire, boatswain Fanjoy went aloft and cut the line adrift. He received minor shocks and when he cut the wire he was stunned by an electrical discharge that knocked him into the crosstrees below, narrowly escaping death.
The SS Lawton B. Evans featured in this movie was first launched in 1943 and was a "Liberty Ship"... Liberty Ships were mass produced in USA. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass-produced on an unprecedented scale, the Liberty ship came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output.
The class was developed to meet British orders for transports to replace ships that had been lost. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945 (an average of three ships every two days), easily the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design.
The class was developed to meet British orders for transports to replace ships that had been lost. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945 (an average of three ships every two days), easily the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design.
The SS Lawton B. Evans survived the war and was scrapped in Baltimore Harbor in Maryland in 1960.
Liberty ships were merchant marine and typically not commanded by naval officers. They were commanded by civilian mariners. Omar Bradley played by Baldwin was a major general as he says, a major general wears 3 stars not 4. Why is an army general calling a ship and giving her captain orders. Liberty ships fell under naval direction. The second in command of the liberty ship is wearing a cap with a chief petty officers insignia and a silver bar in his collar which is a lieutenant junior grade not an ensign as he is called. Nor would an officer wear a chiefs insignia. The uniforms in the movie are completely screwed up. The costume department must have been 20 somethings who ditched history class.