The TORA! TORA! TORA! scene in which a female flying instructor is giving a flying lesson and is surrounded by Japanese bombers on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor is based on a true incident. Flying instructor Cornelia Fort was giving a flying lesson when her airplane was surrounded by Japanese bombers headed to Pearl Harbor. Fort wrote"...saw something detach itself from a plane and come glistening down. My heart turned over convulsively when the bomb exploded in the middle of the Harbor.� Fort took control of the biplane and landed at an airport where a Japanese bomber strafed the runway. She later wrote in her logbook, �Flight interrupted by Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."
After the US declared war on Japan, Fort was the second woman to enlist in the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) which ferried military airplanes. She was later killed in a mid-air collision with another WAFS airplane.
The TORA! TORA! TORA! scene in which a female flying instructor is giving a flying lesson and is surrounded by Japanese bombers on their way to bomb Pearl Harbor is based on a true incident. Flying instructor Cornelia Fort was giving a flying lesson when her airplane was surrounded by Japanese bombers headed to Pearl Harbor.
After the US declared war on Japan, Fort was the second woman to enlist in the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) which ferried military airplanes. She was later killed in a mid-air collision with another WAFS airplane.
