Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge (2016.) delivers a fascinating story about a hero who chooses go to war, but not to hold a weapon and kill, rather to help wounded men. The hero, Desmond Doss, did not sell rights to the story because he had one requirement; that adaptation need be accurate. Doss died 2006. so we will never know if he would like the movie, but we might guess (Hacksaw Ridge History Review). Below are TOP 5 Hacksaw Ridge Historical Mistakes, and all of them were made purposely.
Fight between mother and father
In the movie, we see one of strongest reason why Doss decided to never ever touch a weapon. The movie indicates that father, a World War I veteran, was a drunkard with an anger problem. One time he got in a fight with his wife and young Doss interfered to save the mother. In the real life, the fight was between Doss father and his uncle but his mother stepped in. She called the police and told Desmond to hide the gun. Desmond believed that his father would’ve killed his uncle if his mother hadn’t broken the fight and took the gun. Tru story was probably too complicated for Gibson to show it.
Wedding – Love story
Hacksaw Ridge love story isn’t one of one of the best-shown stories and probably better solution for the movie that is shown as is has really happened. Doss and his wife Dorothy have met in the church and there was no big drama about that.
The movie incorrectly shows that he was donating blood in order to know a nurse Dorothy. Actually, Dorothy wasn’t a nurse at that time. She becomes a nurse after the war when she needed to help support their family. Moreover, they got married before all that courtroom drama. What is a hero without a love story?
Court scene
Desmon Doss received several threats with court-martial, but there was no courtroom drama as shown in the movie. He was never court-martialing. In the movie, his father Tom Doss contacted his commanding officer who stops Desmond from being court-martialed with last second letter delivery to court. In reality, his father had contacted some people to help Desmond, and that helped Desmond Doss to get a 3-day pass to see his brother Harold before he returns to Navy.
Height of Hacksaw Ridge aka Maeda Escarpment
Gibson had increased height of the Maeda Escarpment aka Hacksaw Ridge (strategic cliff on Okinawa) to show the true heroism of Desmon Doss. He actually made it hard to believe that patients would survive lowering from that height. See lower picture for better understanding of Gibson exaggerating.
Wounding
Desmond Doss received Severe wounds but not all happened as is shown in the movie; he didn’t play football with grenades (probably Gibson received inspiration from Bruno Mars). More interesting is that he when he was lying and waiting, with 17 grenade shrapnels in him, he received a bullet in left arm from an enemy sniper. Bullet had shattered his left arm but Desmond decided to crawl all alone to a nearest aid station. It is unbelievable that Gibson did not use this for more dramatisation. His left it out the movie because he felt that audience will not believe in such a sequence of events. Prior wounds from Okinawa he got tuberculosis, and all that left him with 90% disability.
