(at around 1h 50 mins) As Danny and Rafe try to take off from the airfield, three enemy aircraft are closing in on them, guns blazing. In the first shot, the aircraft are D3A1 "Val" dive-bombers (distinguished by their fixed landing gear in bulky fairings); in the next shot, however, the aircraft are replaced by A6M2-21 "Zero" fighters, with retractable landing gear.
(at around 43 mins) During the Battle of Britain sequence, when Rafe gets shot down he can't open his canopy to bail out, so he shoots holes in it with his pistol. In the wide shots of the plane the canopy is whole.
(at around 2h 20 mins) When Doolittle's raiders are first starting to practice short takeoffs, the flaps of the planes aren't extended in close ups but would have to be for takeoff especially short takeoffs. Planes shown taking off have the flaps extended. In the real takeoff from The Hornet, one pilot retracted his flaps because prop wash from previous planes was lifting his plane. He then forgot about it and took off without flaps extended and was only saved by the heavy wind and forward speed of the carrier. There is actual video of the plane nearly hitting the ocean.
(at around 2h 30 mins) When the major brings Evelyn into the command post area, he tells her Doolittle's raid is scheduled to take off in a "couple of hours". If the task force was spotted by a Japanese ship and immediately launched which advanced the raids execution by 12 hours (as reported to President Roosevelt), how could the Major have brought Evelyn to the command post a couple of hours before they were scheduled to be launched. The raid would have been over.
(at around 18 mins) When Rafe accidentally pops the cork into his already damaged nose, he lies down and it bleeds across his cheek. In the overhead shot, the blood is gone.
It would have been virtually impossible for Rafe to have served with the RAF. The movie makes it almost seem like some sort of secondment but, in actual fact, the US Army and government had a lot of rules and laws in place to prevent their serving airmen from flying with foreign air forces. The AVG Flying Tigers in China, for example, and the American Eagle squadrons in RAF service were manned by men who effectively broke military law and had to go by very circuitous routes to get there. Rafe would have had to resign his commission and work out how to get through a war zone as a civilian to end up flying Spitfires in Europe. Somehow he repeats the feat in reverse, turning up back at Pearl with his rank restored - very unlikely, especially when the USA was neutral and very hostile to the idea of its servicemen flying with other combatants. He more than likely would have been court martialled.
(at around 2h 30 mins) When the Japanese patrol boats are contacted, it is said that they are 400 yards away. At a distance of 400 yards ships at sea are in danger of colliding, not just being spotted. The actual sighting was made at 10,000 yards. Further, such a sighting was no great surprise, since an air patrol had spotted Japanese ships earlier that morning.
(at around 2h 20 mins) When the Doolittle raiders are practicing their takeoffs, the flags in the background indicate that they are on a downwind departure. Anyone with any knowledge of aviation knows you take off into the wind. Especially if you are trying to shorten the takeoff run.
(at around 2h 35 mins) During the Doolittle raid, as the B-25's are taking off from the Hornet they are portrayed as barely making off the deck. In reality the planes were literally leaping off the deck. The takeoff speed for the B-25 is about 80 M.P.H., the carrier sped up to about 25 M.P.H. and there was about a 40 M.P.H. wind blowing for a total of 65 M.P.H. before the planes even started rolling. They only needed about 15 M.P.H. more to become airborne. In short they were lifting off way before the calculated lift-off point. The only plane to have a close call was the one flown by Ted W. Lawson, the author of "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and that's because he forgot to put his flaps down.
(at around 23 mins) The Queen Mary was painted battleship gray in 1939 and remained that way until the end of the war, serving as a troopship for the Royal Navy. It is impossible that she would be in New York harbor during Rafe and Evelyn's 'date'.
(at around 1h 20 mins) The Japanese are shown flipping a calendar from the 6th to the 7th of December on the morning of the attack. This is done for American audiences who are familiar with the date of the attack being 7 December 1941. Clocks aboard the Japanese ships were kept on Tokyo time, so for them the attack actually took place the morning of 8 December. The Japanese version of the film shows the calendar flipping from the 7th to the 8th.
Hardly anyone smokes. Although during the 1940s nearly every soldier smoked cigarettes, it was a conscious decision on the part of the film makers not to portray it because of the current feelings about the dangers of smoking.
(at around 31 mins) A newsreel refers to the bombing of "downtown London". While there is in fact a "central" London, this area has never been referred to as "downtown". However, Edward R. Murrow, whose reporting is being simulated in the scene, did use that common American term.
(at around 12 mins) Early in the film it is revealed that Rafe cannot read the letters off the chart for the vision test and then later on he writes letters to Evelyn while in England (at around 37 mins). He seems to be demonstrating symptoms of a dyslexia.
(at around 2h 20 mins) During the practice runs for the Doolittle raid, the B25s are heard to squeal their tires and fishtail under the heavy throttle at takeoff. As all airplanes are prop or jet powered, not wheel powered, this would be impossible. However in order to achieve the short take off, the brakes were locked on and the engines run to full power before releasing the brakes, the squeal would have been caused by the engines power starting to drag the locked wheels along the tarmac.
(at around 1h 29 mins) When the guy sent to bomb the Arizona is looking through to aim the bomb, you can see next to the fake Arizona, the real one in the water.
(at around 1h 35 mins) When the car explodes outside the hospital, the car clearly has an empty engine compartment.
(at around 1h 40 mins) When the battleship Oklahoma is shown rolling over, the anchor chains on her forecastle never move. Each link in such an anchor chain would weigh over one hundred pounds, and so should have drooped toward the water as the ship rolled.
(at around 1h 45 mins) When the photographer that is recording the attack with a small handheld video camera (specifically the Bell & Howell Filmo) is shot by the attacking aircraft, you see him being filmed by his own camera after he has been killed. In reality, the Filmo only records when a button on the camera is being held down, if it has been released the filming will stop instantly. There is no way the camera would continue to film him while lying untouched near his body.
(at around 2h 35 mins) When the planes take off to bomb Tokyo, the captain of the carrier says "forward" in order to help them taking off. When the planes are still taking off, the carrier has its anchor chains as if it was anchored. In reality, the filmmakers were working on the USS Lexington (CV-16), a carrier-turned-museum that was indeed docked.
Evelyn would have become pregnant about Nov. 11th by her timing. It was Apr. 18th when she was "typing" as the raid progressed. She would have been 5 months along, but not in maternity clothes. Rafe probably returned about two months later, 7 months, and still no maternity clothes.
All of the ships shown in the attack sequence have their Naval (bow) registry numbers painted over with an off color hue on the hull. Also they have radar and antennas that do not belong on ships supposedly constructed prior to 1941.
(at around 2h 50 mins) When the casket is carried out from the airplane by Rafe there's is a zoom-in on his Hamilton Kakhi wristwatch which is not running at all.
(at around 34 mins) In the first view of Pearl Harbor, just before the nurses are shown in the small transport boat the Arizona Memorial is visible in the background.
Most of the women in the film do not wear stockings of any type, let alone the seamed nylon stockings that were hugely popular at the time. Before the US entered the war and nylon was rationed, virtually every woman wore nylon stockings. During the nylon rationing, some women would paint their legs with a "liquid stocking" dye to simulate stockings. After the war ended and they went back on sale there are numerous reports of women rioting in department stores to get a pair of nylons.
(at around 4 mins) In the beginning of the movie, we see a newsreel of 1940, showing a US tank fighting in the city of Cologne. This did not happen before March 1945.
(at around 45 mins) A sailor betting on Dorie Miller's boxing match has a $5 bill with the "Hawaii" overprint on it. Although series 1934 and 1934-A notes were printed with the "Hawaii" overprint, these notes were not issued until July 1942, seven months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the U.S. government replaced all currency on the islands with overprinted notes just in case the islands were invaded by Japan. If they had been overrun by Japan, the notes would then have been declared illegal.
(at around 1h 22 mins) Japanese pilots are shown putting on white rising sun headbands and drinking a cup of sake before the takeoff. This ritual was created for the "special attack" (kamikaze) units and did not appear until almost three years later.
(at around 25 mins) When Rafe and Evelyn are on the lift of the Queen Mary, when the lift crashes to the water, a crew member in a black hooded shirt can be seen on the smaller boat trying to get out of the shot and eventually hiding by ducking under the windscreen.
(at around 1h 30 mins) As Dorie Miller sets down the tray of dishes you can see the hand of a crew member holding the remote control for the Steadicam.
(at around 1h 12 mins) The camera pans across a window, showing Evelyn seated inside and eventually stops at a reflection of Rafe. A red indicator light from the camera is clearly reflected and moves across the first pane during the shot.
During the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the people are jumping off the ships, a crew member can be seen (dressed as a sailor) holding a camera (covered in green plastic) floating next to him in the water.
(at around 2h 15 mins) After Evelyn tells Rafe that she is pregnant, she walks away and leaves him standing by the gas pumps. The camera zooms out and a boom mic comes into view in the upper right hand corner.
(at around 5 mins) Mountains can be seen in the background at Mitchell Field in Long Island, which is shown as being by the sea. There are no mountains in Long Island and the base is inland.
(at around 2h 40 mins) After the Doolittle raid, the Raiders head west to China. In one shot, however, the Raiders are shown heading away from the sun as it sets behind them, which means they are heading east and therefore back to Japan. This would be very unlikely considering the dire fuel situation on board the aircraft.
Throughout the attack scene, the placement of the battleships in Battleship Row changes. When the Oklahoma is shown capsizing, in some scenes she is correctly moored next to the Maryland, in other scenes she is next to the destroyed Arizona. In some parts the capsized ship is even surrounded by some sort of fog with no ships around her. When Admiral Kimmel is on the small boat touring the harbor after the attack, the Oklahoma is next to the Arizona and other battleships that seem to have been placed in a random clutter next to each other, instead of the line that they were in that morning. Even in the scene showing Pearl Harbor at an aerial view right before the attack, the Geography of Ford Island and the placement of the battleships is wrong. Battleship Row isn't even visible.
(at around 12 mins) Rafe has dyslexia and when he fails his eye exam, he explains to Evelyn that his vision is excellent and that he is a skilled marksman back home - he just has difficulty telling letters from one another. However, he tried to fake his way through the eye exam by looking at a crib sheet with the eye chart reproduced on it. Since he cannot tell letters apart, if he cannot read then eye chart, then he also should not have been able to read the crib sheet.
American pilots serving with the RAF were not released from service until after the U.S. entered the war as an ally. It would have been extremely unlikely for Rafe to be back in U.S. service before Pearl Harbor unless he deserted from the RAF (in which case the U.S. Army Air Corps would not have accepted him).
A pilot, such as Rafe, who was shot down, if physically able, would have been put back into action as soon as possible. The RAF did not have sufficient pilots to spare.
(at around 48 mins) When Danny and Evelyn are talking, Danny 'finds out' that Rafe volunteered to go to England. Danny already knew that Rafe volunteered because near the start of the film (at around 7 mins), Danny was in the same office as Rafe when Rafe was given the choice to go to England or not.
(at around 1h 12 mins) Danny receives the telegram from Rafe, telling him that he is alive, at the same time Rafe meets with Evelyn. The telegram must have been sent from Hawaii. Why didn't he just call on the phone? When Rafe reached the U.S. after leaving England why didn't he send a telegram then. In those days it took some time to travel from the Eastern U.S. all the way to Hawaii and there is no way he beat the telegram if it was sent when he returned to the U.S.
Danny makes wild, overly large and dramatic control inputs on the p-40s joystick, in reality control inputs on high performance aircraft rarely exceed an inch and is often just gentle pressure.
(at around 1h 22 mins) When a Japanese fighter pilot narrates the letter he sent back to his family, he refers to Japan as a nation. During that time, Japan considered itself an empire, not a nation.
(at around 2h 25 mins) When threatening Evelyn with jail, the Army Signals officer says "Brig" which would be a Navy jail. In the Army the appropriate threat of incarceration would be the stockade.
(at around 2h) Admiral Yamamoto is shown to say that "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant", but he leaves out the second part of the quote which goes "and fill him with a terrible resolve". There is in fact no record of Yamamoto ever saying or writing these words; they are attributed to him in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) but there's no accepted evidence of their origin.
(at around 1h 24 mins) When the Japanese planes are first spotted on radar, they inform an officer (playing chess), and address him as lieutenant. However, this officer is wearing captain's bars on his shoulder.