‘The Longest Day’ Dated in Terms of Diversity ⭐️⭐️

“The Longest Day” was a well regarded film when it came out in 1962 and if forced audiences to remember the D-Day invasion of Normandy was a joint effort that required communication between English-speaking forces (US, UK and Canadian) as they came to the aid of the French Resistance against the Nazi German occupying army. The directing duties were shared: Ken Annakin for British exterior episodes, Andrew Marton for US exterior episodes, Gerd Oswald for French exterior episodes, Bernhard Wick for German episodes and Darryl F. Zanuck for some interior scenes.

The screenplay was based on Cornelius Ryan’s book of the same name and while he is credited with the screenplay Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall and Jack Seddon wrote additional material. The film is in English, German and French with English subtitles.

The film was nominated for Best Picture among other things, but won for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Jean Bourgoin and Walter Wottitz) and Best Effects, Special Effects (R.A. MacDonald for visual and Jacques Maumont for audible) at the 1963 Oscars.

This is a John Wayne type of heroism on the US side. Shot in black-and-white in an almost documentary-style, the film shows us both sides of the English Channel with the German trying to determine where the Allied Forces would land and the response. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander decides to go forward with the invasion despite ominous weather warnings.

The Allie airborne troops are sent in the early morning of June 6 and the French Resistance begin acts of sabotage. The beauty of youth is represented by heart throbs of the day: Fabian and Tommy Sands.

Some of these actors knew exactly what World War II was like having seen action during the war, including Eddie Albert (playing Col. Eugene M. Caffey), Henry Fonda (as Brigadier Get. Theodore Roosevelt Jr.), Leo Genn, Kenneth More (Acting Capt. Colin Maud), Ron Steiger (Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Witherow Jr.), Richard Burton (Flying Office David Campbell) and Richard Todd (as Major John Howard). Wayne plays Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort.

The Germans are presented as professional soldiers just doing their jobs, following orders. The genocide of Jews and the persecution of homosexuals and intellectuals is not part of the dialogue here.

What is missing? People of color and different ethnicities. D-Day was, as I found out in my research, much more complicated than was presented here. While I haven’t read the book, it was originally published in 1959, so I don’t expect it to be inclusive. Tell me if I’m wrong.

Yet Time Magazine also noted that there was a problem in 1963 . Civil rights group reportedly complained: “Normandy’s Negroes, serving in mostly segregated units, worked under fire instead as stevedores and as antiaircraft men who ran up barrage balloons to frustrate enemy air strikes at the beaches. They, like their white comrades in arms, shed blood.”

The National Geographic also makes note of this.

I suppose to a certain extent it was daring in 1962 to have big budget US-produced film that had French and German. Movie-goers in the US might have been daunted by the non-English languages spoken, but that was a reminder of the problems of wars that required interpreters (notable in “Saving Private Ryan”) and that many Europeans knew more than one language. On D-Day, the US used thirteen Comanche Code Talkers on Utah Beach. The men were five miles off their designated target. All of the men survived the war.

While the Japanese Americans were primarily in segregated units, people of Chinese descent were not, at least in Europe. There was at least one Chinese American on Omaha Beach. Randall Ching was a private in the 5th Ranger Battalion who survived the landing on Omaha Beach.

According to Friends of the National WWII Memorial, First Class Leon Yee, a Chinese-American paratrooper of the 82nd from San Francisco, was one of the scattered paratroopers who were forced to reorganize into units and make their way to their objectives.

Yet China was an ally of the UK and France and for D-Day 24 Chinese naval officers were, according to China.org, selected to stay at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Greenwich, England in 1942, but by March 1944, were posted to fleets in different war theaters for internships. Huang said that all of the Chinese interns took part in the operation and some were on warships that helped destroy the German defense on the beaches of Normandy.

This is a markedly different experience than the Chinese who were imported almost like cattle to be placed in work camps in the UK and France during World War I. The Chinese Labour Corps (中國勞工旅 in traditional Chinese or 中国劳工旅 in simplified) were recruited by the British government and the French government also separately recruited Chinese workers (Corps de Travailleurs Chinois). Most traveled by Europe by way of Canada, landing on the West Coast and being transported by train to the east coast. By World War I, Canada had already passed the Chinese Immigration Act, 1885–the first Canadian legislation to exclude immigrants based on ethnic origin and modeled after the US Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This Chinese Immigration Act was followed by the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923 which was only repealed in 1947.

According to an article in The Guardian (14 August 2014):

Recruitment of the Chinese began in 1916 as ever escalating casualties meant labourers became disastrously scarce. Many came from such remote farms that when they reached the tall buildings and busy waterfront of Shanghai, they thought they had arrived in Europe. In fact it was only the start of an appalling journey on which many died – by ship across the Pacific, six days crossing Canada in sealed trains to avoid paying landing taxes, on by ship to Liverpool, by train again to Folkestone, and on to France and Belgium, where they lived in labour camps and worked digging trenches, unloading ships and trains, laying tracks and building roads, and repairing tanks.

The article notes that more than 2,000 never returned, buried in Commonwealth graves, but there are some who believe as many as 20,000 who died. The men who survived were required to work “10-hour days, seven days a week, and had three holidays including Chinese New Year.”

Yet like these World War I Chinese labor force, who were painted out of a large canvas that showed “a victorious French surrounded by her allies” in order to include the US, these Chinese naval officers are not show as part of the history of the Normandy invasion.

In addition to the African American troop, the Native American code talkers and people of Chinese descent, there was a man claiming to be a Korean, Yang Kyoungjong (Korean: 양경종). He had been captured first by the Russian Army and forced to be a soldier and then later forced to be a German soldier in France.

That echoes something we see in “Saving Private Ryan” as Time Magazine notes:

In the scene, two enemy soldiers who are executed after surrendering to the Allies are speaking Czech, not German. After the German Army overran Eastern Europe, people in those areas were forced or volunteered to fight for the Germans, especially in the later years of the war.

The conclusion is that the German forces were dependent upon some non-German manpower, but think of the cultural and linguistic confusion and geographical logistics that would bring a Korean to France.

Despite the all star cast of “The Longest Day,” there are devices that seem dated (e.g. the ending frame that focuses on an upturned helmet on the beach), besides the lack of diversity. Yet even in 1963, the film was criticized for diversity in terms of lack of African American representation, but one can see that it was much worse than that. Perhaps it is time for a revised, inclusive version of D-Day.