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Poster for Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan
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Released
2016 · FILM

Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan

Directed by
Written by
Runtime
56 min
Documentary

Synopsis

More than 100 WWII aircraft rest on the bottom of Lake Michigan just off the Chicago shoreline. During World War II, just off Chicago’s shoreline, the US Navy trained over 15,000 carrier pilots on two makeshift “flattops,” both former, coal-fired, side wheel passenger steamers. Not every pilot landed successfully on the pitching decks of the USS Wolverine and USS Sable and many aircraft went to the Lake bottom. This is the story of the recovery of those rare warbirds and the ingenious training program that changed the course of the war in the Pacific.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 13

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Brian KalliesShot by David Seman

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