When Trumpets Fade

"When Trumpets Fade" is a television film made in 1998 and directed by John Irvin.

Overview

This film portrays the actions of an American private David Manning (Ron Eldard) during the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, the battle between the United States Army and the German Wehrmacht which took place from 1944-1945 on the Western Front (World War II).

Plot

Private Manning is a reluctant hero and is initially shown as a bit of a shirker - "just doing enough to stay out of trouble", according to another character. Through the sheer bloodiness of the Hurtgen battles, Manning is left as the sole survivor of his unit and subsequently promoted to sergeant. He believes he is unqualified for the position, but his CO thinks otherwise. Manning then tries to back out of responsibility by asking to be filed on a Section 8 (mentally unfit due to combat stress) but is refused.

Manning finds himself in charge of replacements, a prospect he is less than thrilled with. Eventually he accepts his responsibilities and his position in the scheme of things. At one point, he goes on patrol with his platoon, but sends private Warren Sanderson up front. The men retreat at one point, but Sanderson gets lost and then narrowly avoids contact with the enemy. After the incident, Manning is scorned by his peers and berated by his commander.

After that, his captain comes to him with a suicidal mission requiring volunteers, and bargains with Manning that he will be authorized to transfer to the rear if he volunteers for the mission with some of his men. While succeeding in the mission, one of his men lose control over himself and decides to run. Realising everybody will run if he doesn't do anything, he shoots the soldier with his handgun, hitting one of the flamethrower gas bottle the soldier is carrying in his back, which causes it to explode and burns to death the soldier. While the rest of the men finds his conduct horrible and uncalled for, they stop running and assault the position where the two 88mm cannons are located, destroying them in the process. As it happens, the final successful assault is led by the same private Sanderson, armed with the other flamethrower.

Meanwhile, the rest of his section assaults a bridge, suffering horrendous casualties and getting shelled by German tanks afterwards. In the assault, Manning's lieutenant and platoon leader loses control over himself when a sergeant gives him a handful of dog tags from dead soldiers. When the lieutenant's battalion commander asks about the status of his platoon, the lieutenant snaps and tries to assault him--all the while moaning and crying--clearly unfit to lead soldiers in combat. Manning confronts the commander as the lieutenant is escorted out, yet the battalion commander has no other choice than to promote Manning to lieutenant.

After an altercation with another sergeant who accuses Manning of shooting his own men, Private Sanderson--who survived the raid on the 88mm cannons--defends his conduct by acknowledging the fact that everybody would have run instead of fighting. Manning also silences them by telling them that their section is going to have to assault German positions again.

Manning devises a plan to destroy the German cannons the night before the assault. If they don't, he knows that the entire battalion is in jeopardy. He bravely leads several of his man in a pre-dawn raid on the German batteries, mainly to spite those officers who demand the impossible while staying out of the firing line themselves. The operation costs the lives of his men except one--the same who survived the raid on the 88mm guns--while Manning gets wounded in the chest. The film concludes with a wounded Manning being carried back to the American lines by the now battle-hardened replacement Sanderson; a mirror image of his carrying back a wounded comrade at the opening of the film.

The overall point the film makes is that not everyone who took part in World War II was stereotypical hero material; in fact, Manning's role is distinctly one of an anti-hero, somebody ordinary pushed into extraordinary circumstances.

External links

* [http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=162675 When Trumpets Fade] New York Times
*imdb title|id=0135706|title=When Trumpets Fade