Alternatively, there may be an aspect of predestinarianism at work. Though I am not personally a believer in predestination, or that only some people are Chosen and Beloved and others Of No Interest, I cannot refute such a belief, and it would explain why only some individuals might have special guardians and protectors. I do not know or understand because I ain’t dead yet.

I am convinced that what saved Mitchell Paige was in, but not of, this world.

Men in combat, and under other stressful conditions do do things without conciously thinking about them.

I myself have come fully awake while changing magazines. I had grabbed the weapon on bipod and fired two long low bursts traversing the area in front of me without knowing what I was doing except that I had to wake up and get on with the program. BUT: This was something I had planned on doing ahead of time.

I have heard other credible stories similar to my experience(s). Same thing though. Whatever was done was something folks had thought about doing and how to do it ahead of time.

The Paige story is different. His concious mind and his subconcious, his left brain and his right brain and his conditioned body all wanted him to do as planned: lean foward and load the machine gun. And he could not. COULD NOT. COULD NOT. He was frozen in an upright position until that Japanese took aim
and his head and face and touched his trigger. Then Paiges body went foward and thirty rounds went where he had been. Additionally, he inserted the belt, cranked the charging handle twice and got into firing position while falling foward. This latter
event might, or might not, be within the realm
of unaided human capabilities. CAn’t say for sure.

However, the subterfuge of making himself an irresitble and un-missable target and then moving out of the way at the last possible
millisecond was not of Mitchel Paige’s doing. Every fiber of his being was concentrating on and trying to do something else. What he did do was the result of a
non-human intervention.

Want to call it “Divine Intervention”. Sure suits my pistol. How about yours?

Except, there are experiences like Mitchell Paige’s.

“The part of the story he [Paige] held back was that something unseen on that hill helped him… ‘I never wanted to relate this experience to anyone, as I did not want to ever have anyone question it.’”

He didn’t want anyone to question it because it was sacred. Science can’t go there, even if it tries to go there for purposes of discrediting these accounts. Could Paige believe that, in his time of crisis, he suddenly “remembered” how to become superhuman? Could he believe his survival was due to some optimal interaction between his left brain and his right brain? Is he going to bend over backwards to accomodate his experience to some farfetched theory? No, he knew what he knew, and he kept it to himself all those years because of all those who, as Luke 16:31 puts it, “will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”

Whatever kept him alive failed to save thousands of equally human men around him. If it were something other than luck and guts, then the intervention appears to have taken sides, which is disturbing.

I’ll wager that there are among Japanese survivors those who hold similar stories in their hearts. Why one is chosen at this moment rather than another is not ours to ken. But in the end all die. For myself I can say that am surprised to be alive today. I can’t explain it except to say that I was protected to accomplish something unknowable to me. When that is done I will be released from my duty. In this I am in nowise unique, it is the common destiny of all men.

something about those 40s women –healthy as horses –off the farm toned-up, natural food naturally, those drive ya crazy hairstyles and dresses, rangy movement and posture. really shows up to a TCM insomniac. by the shank of the 50s, something was different –the same basics, but more self-conscious, less open. styles more tamped down. i know, styles and fashions are just that –but ‘the medium is the message’ –

Rather than try to show the entire evacuation and abandonment of the Phillipines, which would be perhaps overwhelmingly depressing, the film-makers decided to focus on one small, fictional incident that could, in effect, stand in for everything else. They chose wisely. What happens is that we watch a group of soldiers defend and then destroy a bridge, so as to slow down the Japanese army’s advance, if only by a few hours, to buy precious time for everyone else. None of these men wants to be a hero. They’re all stuck there, and would rather be someplace else. While some are more aggressive than others, no one is wholly brave; and though there is a good deal of nervousness and occasional cowardice, they all pull together admirably in the end.

Though filmed on the Culver City lot, the film cleverly and expressionistic ally suggests a tropical environment. As the story progresses the jungle gets foggier. It was never too inviting to begin with; by the movie’s end it is absolutely forbidding.

‘Cry Havoc’ is Richard Thorp’s 1943 film about the courageous women Army nurses and volunteers on Bataan during WWII.

Margaret Sullavan is wonderful as Lt. Smith, an Army nurse secretly married against the rules to an officer on Bataan. She is suffering from malignant malaria, but refuses to leave Bataan for treatment, wanting to be near her husband, but also unwilling to desert the overworked nurses and volunteers. Sullavan was always great at suffering nobly on film (as in ‘Three Comrades,’ 1938), and again gives a beautiful, moving performance as the dedicated nurse, keeping both her marriage and illness to herself.

Ann Sothern and Joan Blondell share top billing with Sullavan and give terrific support as two of the volunteers. Blondell is funny as the former Vaudeville performer who entertains the other women with a demonstration of her old striptease act. And Ann Sothern, who was sooooooo beautiful, is marvelous as the tough, straight-talking waitress with her sights set on an Army officer, unaware he’s Sullavan’s husband.

The supporting cast includes Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt, Ella Raines, Heather Angel and Connie Gilcrest, all excellent, and a bit by young Robert Mitchum as a dying soldier.