EP12 Wolf Pack Hunting with Hanks

What this episode is about

The content discusses the diverse range of episodes in the Hardcore History Addendum feed, highlighting its purpose as a platform for supplementary material that doesn't fit the main series. It also features a review of the World War II-themed movie *Greyhound*, starring Tom Hanks, which focuses on naval history during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Key takeaways

• The Hardcore History Addendum promises an eclectic mix, proving variety is the spice of historical content.
• Tom Hanks embodies the duality of Hollywood: comedic icon and serious dramatic force, expertly balancing the two worlds.
• Executive producers in TV wield creative power; in film, they're often just glorified name-droppers—who knew the difference mattered?
• While Tom Hanks makes epic WWII films, he casually claims to read history for pleasure—talk about a low-key history buff!
• Hardcore history interviews reveal insights, transforming narratives into engaging dialogues—not just facts but stories that resonate.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dan Carlin (Host) · 38 min speaking
• Tom Hanks (Guest) · 25 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Tom Hanks, World War I, Greyhound, Apple TV Plus
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Boston Massacre
3. 20:00 – 30:00: Tom Hanks, World War I, Greyhound
4. 30:00 – 40:00: Greyhound
5. 40:00 – 50:00: Greyhound
6. 50:00 – 1:00:00: Greyhound
7. 1:00:00 – 1:02:31: Tom Hanks, Greyhound, Apple TV Plus

Notable quotes from "EP12 Wolf Pack Hunting with Hanks"

• U-boats off of them it's called Greyhound by the way it's on Apple TV plus stars Tom Hanks who's done a lot of World War two history movies or who's been involved in producing…

  about World War I · at 1:39

• Ends up kind of like burying me when I started reading history I ended up reading historical novels like Mila 18 or Armageddon things by Leon URIs that were you know turgid…

  about Leon Uris · at 6:51

• And like that really since I was like 13 14 years old when I started reading for pleasure I was reading history I was not aware Dan of the Tulsa black Wall Street destruction…

  about Tulsa Black Wall Street · at 8:00

• Place where as an attorney and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts John Adams took on the case of defending the British soldiers that fired on the mob that became known as the…

  about Boston Massacre · at 9:25

• Actually fought in the Second World War as you have in more than one film how different then is Tom Hanks's portrait in other words how much is Tom Hanks exploring a subject…

  about Tom Hanks · at 21:21

• Vehicle right a crowd-pleaser an audience applause a prompter you know that's one of the things and I was having a hard time coming up with specific questions about your…

  about Greyhound · at 28:07

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Tom Hanks — Person · Main guest · 5 mentions · first at 1:43
  Interview subject discussing the film 'Greyhound', his WWII/history interests, and his reading habits (including Zinn and McCullough).
• David McCullough — Person · Referenced author/historian · 1 mention · first at 8:49
  Cited as the author of 'John Adams', which Hanks/partners adapted into an HBO miniseries; used to illustrate how history becomes vivid through narrative.
  Something that would have altered my conscious or something let me go back just a little bit farther when we took on doing David McCullough's John Adams yes for HBO Graham Yost who I'd worked with on to two previous miniseries he.
• Howard Zinn — Person · Referenced author/historian · 1 mention · first at 7:43
  Mentioned because Hanks says he has started reading Zinn's work to fill gaps in his historical knowledge (e.g., Tulsa 1921).
  Awful lot about East Germany and I'm currently I'm going to tell you this I've currently picked up finally I've had a copy of it for a long time but Howard Zinn's a people's…
• Leon Uris — Person · Referenced novelist · 1 mention · first at 6:59
  Mentioned as an early influence on Hanks' historical reading via historical novels (e.g., 'Mila 18', 'Armageddon').
• Ernest Hemingway — Person · Referenced author (cultural touchstone) · 3 mentions
  Appears only as a named author in the entity list; not clearly discussed in the provided transcript segment, suggesting a minimal/possibly off-screen mention in the broader episode.

Companies & orgs

• Apple TV Plus — Company · Platform for the movie Greyhound · 2 mentions · first at 1:40
  The streaming platform where the movie Greyhound is available.
  The Atlantic and trying to keep the u-boats off of them it's called Greyhound by the way it's on Apple TV plus stars Tom Hanks who's done a lot of World War two history movies…
• HBO — Company · Referenced company · 1 mention · first at 9:08
  Mentioned in the context of producing historical miniseries like John Adams.
  You might want to take a look at this because I think there's a miniseries in this really John Adams with what the Tea Party and the three corner hats and the buckles on their…

Products & tech

• Greyhound — Product · Primary recommendation · 6 mentions · first at 1:40
  A movie about World War II naval history, specifically focusing on the Battle of the Atlantic, starring Tom Hanks.

Concepts & topics

• World War I — Concept · Core topic · 3 mentions · first at 1:24
  Central theme of the episode, discussing naval history and the Battle of the Atlantic.

Places & events

• Boston Massacre — Event · Historical reference · 2 mentions · first at 9:38
  Mentioned in the context of John Adams defending British soldiers involved in the event.
• Tulsa Black Wall Street — Event · Historical reference · 1 mention · first at 8:08
  Mentioned as a significant historical event that Tom Hanks was unaware of until recently.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:01 it's hardcore history attention we told you when we first unveiled the hardcore history addendum feed that this was going to be the everything else feed anything that didn't belong in the main hardcore history feed for one reason or another will end up here we knew there would be interview shows because compared to what we normally do the big hardcore history shows interview shows are simple so we knew that there'd be quite a few of those and that we would try to switch him up and do them differently like the one we did recently were I was the one who got interviewed and then we knew there'd be some funky kind of shows that probably would have set some people on the main feed but that some people would really like a like our Caesar at Hastings show which we put on this feed and then sometimes it's what probably could easily pass for a hardcore history show but for one reason or another it's not the right

0:52 time or place we have the one that we did on alexander the great's mother that had we put it out on the main feed it would have interrupted an ongoing series so we put it out on this feed so I hope that over time when you look at the archives of the hardcore history addendums show offerings you know in Mass you will have an eclectic grab-bag of potential offerings you know that looks pretty varied we I'd hate to fall into any ruts case in point today is offering there's a new movie out that touches my heart in all the right places as you know it's about second world war naval history so it's right up my alley has to do with a commander of one of these escort ships guarding merchant men across the Atlantic during the Battle of the Atlantic and trying to keep the u-boats off of them it's called Greyhound by the way it's on Apple TV plus stars Tom Hanks who's done a lot of World War two history movies or

1:50 who's been involved in producing him or executive producing him he's a history fan I think and by the way I think he even did the screenplay of the movie it's great you'll like it you should check it out and in an unusual move I think that I hope will be part of that eclectic grab bag of offerings when you look at our archives over time you'll notice hey they hardcore history addendum with Tom Hanks and we did and here it is and by the way if you don't know who Tom Hanks is um well I don't know where you've been hiding but maybe Google that in any case ladies and gentlemen Tom Hanks mr. Hanks can you hear me okay this is Dan I can indeed Dan you can call me Tom and it is a thrill to hear your voice on something other than one of the many podcasts you you sir are as big as Bruce Springsteen in our house I'm not quite sure how to react to that well the man who's been watching since bosom buddy did a the we

2:59 were just we just drove from Los Angeles myself and two of my kids we drove from Los Angeles to Twin Falls Idaho during which we listened to the entirety of ghosts of the host front which was just one of oh my lord they I've learned so much from you and have been in your Android thrilled by you for a million hours so thank you for your passion and thank you for your output and it's a pleasure as a pleasure to be speaking to you now you know as a guy who remembers pulling out my hair at like 25 going what the hell are you doing with your career at this point to hear you say he's saying that is wonderful I'm I'm sure you know cuz I was doing my research let me let me start with this um as a guy who would have thought of you as the great comic genius coming up during the era when I was growing up if you had told me back in 1980 that you were going to be one of the great dramatic actors of our time and if you

4:00 were going to have an IMDB page that looked like you were an overachiever with some sort of some sort of inefficiency a attitude go I mean I look at what you've been doing and you don't look like you've lived long enough to do all those things I want to ask you someday what the hell an executive producer does because you've been you've been an executive you tell me I can answer that yeah yeah okay there is a there's a big there's a distinctive difference an executive producer on a motion picture which is literally a powerless title that doesn't even require your presence to be an executive producer on a television series in which you get to impact the final product as much as you wish to you can get involved in the writing you can get involved in the casting in the shooting you get involved in the editing you actually can run as long as you're the executive producer of a TV series anything on television TV

4:59 miniseries series you you get to run the quality assurance of that of that show you are you are literally what you are probably the you get to be the big boss man if you decide to do so meaning that you know you can if you think something is running off the rails you go in and put it back on or if there's something running incredibly smoothly you just call up and tell everybody they're doing a slam-bang job and keep an eye on it so two very different things so the thing that I have been executive producer on on television particularly the miniseries I've had I've had I've had a hand in the way I put it is assuring we're literally running to Quality Assurance opposed on motion pictures it doesn't mean anything well let's talk about your choices then because like I said as a guy who thought you were gonna be this great comic leader of a movement basically in our time period I thought I thought it was a

6:00 brand-new kind of comedy to watch you choose the kind of topics that I would choose for a history show you know we made this show originally with history fans in mind I feel like a history fan can can recognize one of his own you are a true fan of history aren't you I mean in your own private time and your own choice of reading materials tell me a little about what Tom reads a home I I read history for pleasure now that being said I'm not I'm not a scholarly reader I don't I don't read tomes I I have a confession to make I've never been able to make it too deep into the rise and fall of the Third Reich just because the numbers the math start driving me nuts I I don't think I need to invest in the wheat productions from Saxony during it it ends up kind of like burying me when I started reading history I ended up reading historical novels like Mila 18 or Armageddon things by Leon URIs that

7:02 were you know turgid melodrama in a lot of ways but also ripped right out of the history books and so I ended up finding finding out and being enthralled by eras and moments and periods of history I you know I read a lot of Don Miller's work the building of the Supreme City for example which is about architecture in New York I have read an awful lot of an awful lot of world war ii stuff i read an awful lot about communism created awful lot about East Germany and I'm currently I'm going to tell you this I've currently picked up finally I've had a copy of it for a long time but Howard Zinn's a people's history of the United States of America because as a guy who has been reading history for pleasure and enlightenment and entertainment I'm 64 I've been doing I've been reading and like that really since I was like 13 14 years old when I started reading for pleasure I was reading history I was not

8:08 aware Dan of the Tulsa black Wall Street destruction in 1921 oh yeah okay yeah yeah I had never been taught that in American history I had never heard about it I literally learned of it just last May in an article in the New York Times and I thought this is a huge gap this is a this is a massive with a Miss of something that would have altered my conscious or something let me go back just a little bit farther when we when we took on doing David McCullough's John Adams yes for HBO Graham Yost who I'd worked with on to two previous miniseries he called up is it look I can't do this but you might want to take a look at this because I think there's a miniseries in this really John Adams with what the Tea Party and the three corner hats and the buckles on their shoes how do we seen this stuff before it had just read it just read it just reads it said okay so I read it when I got up to the to the

9:25 place where as as an attorney and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts John Adams took on the case of defending the British soldiers that fired on the mob that became known as the Boston Massacre and nobody wanted that gig by the way nobody wanted to gig nobody wanted to take it it was unpopular and everybody hated the lobster backs I love that term right John Adams said if we let the MOG rule we're doomed that is not the bet that that is the very rule of law is based on certain respects for each other among other for authority but but it is the opposite of letting a mob decide what goes on so he takes on that case I'm gonna say there's a dozen lots of British soldiers who just wanna excuse me they just want to go they just they just want to go home this cold miserable country where everybody hates them can we please go can't we please go home not only does John Adams defend them but he he wins their acquittal by way of the

10:42 rule of law if I had been told somewhere I think the first time I American history was a subject that we had to take a requirement I believe I was 10 in fifth grade and then again in eighth grade at any other time and the course between between then and now if I had been told the future second President of the United States the future first President of the United States one of the authors of the deck raishin of Independence had defended British soldiers for firing upon moneth for being response for the Boston Massacre and proved there approved the the circumstances that led to their acquittal and being sent home my head would have exploded it would have been it would have been it would have been an example dezirae ssin of the very very reason why certain things are written down on parchment and accepted as these truths that we hold to be self-evident that the the workings of We the People

11:40 in order to make a more perfect union it would have met it would have been fluence me in a huge way and perhaps it would have been pissed off hey wait a minute British were they bad guys right how come we're how come we're getting there why would we celebrate them getting because it's a rule of law all right take two well they did talk about their separate take two the representative the United States of America first ambassador to the court of st. James a place where if things had been different he would have been brought in changed and hung by the king of England he now has to John Adams future vice president United States co-author of the Declaration father of another US president father of another US president both of them one termers thank you very much Hey no because because we are no longer in English colony and protected not only by the crown but also by the Crown's in empirical Navy the big Empire of the

12:42 Navy America now has to go and they essentially negotiate all the deals that were already made by England because now they're their own country so one of the things he has to do is go talk to the Barbary pirates who have enslaved American sailors that they take it on issue in North Africa not yes in North Africa that's why they did things they kidnapped a bunch of people that got tribute and that's how they make money the Delvin hostages they had built-in kidnapping and the john adams goes and speaks to the Emir of of Moorish North Africa and it says and he sizes it look we're a poor country your your gracious is we can't afford to keep buying our sailors out of your your kidnapping bondage so you you're going to have to we got to work something out here and the Emir says there's nothing to work out here you pay us the money and Jonathan says we as I said once again we cannot afford it and secondly we do not want to get

13:51 into a fight with you and the Emir of the Barbary pirate says oh listen dude you do not want to get into a fight with us because we don't play by your rules we don't take prisoners we don't negotiate we don't surrender we don't sign a piece of paper that says we're done let's stop the fighting you win we we don't do that we'll just keep killing you and terrorizing you till the cows come home and the end result of course is from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli yeah they did have to mix it up those two boys to the lessons alone by the way you know what they were you know what they were enjoying at the time of that conversation between the ambassador of the United States and the Emir of Tunisia the Boers I don't do it they were having a nice cup of coffee they were enjoy they were enjoying them fine tobacco products from the state of Virginia they were enjoying the bounty of the New World

14:52 right there between the two of them over that brand of branded diplomacy so that's the you know you read that kind of stuff and everything comes alive and it has absolutely nothing to do with the the the bushels of wheat that was pulled out of Saxony during the Weimar Republic it's got some other stuff no but I think what you're saying is and and don't let me put words in your mouth but I think it applies to all of us who are fans of history is that you know you grow up with a two-dimensional version of history especially with our heroes we shrink them into into cardboard cutouts we sand off all the rough edges and all the unpalatable stuff and turn them into symbols and then when you are able like adding water to restore them again to their three-dimensional Hume qualities they become so much more relatable and interesting and the the fact that and you know this is the most obvious part that's still the part that

15:44 you have to remember the fact that they don't know how it's gonna turn out is oh yeah you know and the fact for us it's such a safe thing we know there's a happy ending we know he becomes John Adams at the end of this story story would have ended differently had he been taken prisoner you know and and beheaded by the by the head of the Barbary pirates I mean and he doesn't know that's not going to happen um so for me I think you know it's um there's a great line I wrote it down and I every time I quote anything on the program I have to be careful because someone will say something like that's actually not a real quote so I had to but but I wrote it down and it's a Latin line from from ancient times it says it will give you pleasure to look back on this scene of suffering and it's a reminder to me that it would be very interesting to go back and talk to somebody say from the Second World War

16:28 say a refugee and go to them and say listen you have no idea how many tickets we're gonna be able to sell to the movie about the experiences you're going through right now you know I mean I think there's almost an obscene aspect to that right we're going to be entertained by the most traumatic terrible thing you've ever gone through and the only thing that makes me feel like we can get away with it is that those people themselves were fascinated by stories from earlier times that were based of the same sorts of components you know humans dealing with struggle and overcoming the many things that were thrown that way not knowing how it's going to turn out and it is exactly rooted in today's behavior history shows us the human condition as as we can observe it right now across the street the great novelist Allen first who I lie bred he writes essentially World War 2 era espionage books fascinating great

17:21 stuff novels okay but set firmly rooted in real places real gates real times real real upheaval all of his books I'm saying all I may not be 100 but the the ones that I've read it it they're all set prior to the Battle of Stalingrad why I heard him say this on the radio and it made me jump up and down in my car which I don't men but he said why are all your a liar all your books set before the Battle of Stalingrad and he said until the Nazis gave up the ghost in Stalingrad and this is why your your ghost of the ghost front really kicked my butt in all the 114 hours of you talk that's one of the shorter series to imagine you had killed it until the Nazis rich began their retreat and and were captured there at Stalingrad no one had any idea that they were beatable they had they had taken over their half of the world with relative ease and with constant terror so you tell me Stalingrad they retreated from

18:41 Stalingrad in 1942 43 I think by the end of it yeah but 42 it'll happen yeah absolutely all right okay so not until 1943 so from September of 1939 and actually prior to that until that moment the Nazi war machine was invincible so until until you get a sense of hey wait a minute they've lost there and I'm looking at the I'm looking at the map and I'm looking the way things are going holy cow they could actually lose this thing and they are defeatable as a matter of fact they're they're they're losing ground like crazy you know what it might only be a matter of time until Nazi Germany has wiped off the map destroyed Wow there's actually hope until that moment came a human being particularly in that sphere of the world had three options of how to conduct their lives they could either be a hero they could be a villain or they could be a coward a bystander and I always whenever I'm in the in the

19:51 midst of any of these sagas in any of the mitts of these journeys of history and enlightenment I always ask myself well would I be hero villain coward Wow I'm not so sure of look I have hubris but I'm not so sure of it the end of their that push comes to shove am I going to say hey look these are the rules now guys they took over we got a you know do we become a member of the Vichy French or we do one of the we become one of those kids that suddenly wakes up one day the French Republic is collapsed and you have either an option to stay or run down to the beach get in a rowboat and and cross the English Channel and keep the fight going on that we all face moments like that every single day of our lives we we have some you know maybe take into a ridiculous extreme or maybe not to an extreme at all of that choice between what our actions are going to going to be and what how we're going to view it in years

20:49 to come you know someday we'll be all laugh about this I'm not then it could be that someday we never talk about any of this because we don't want the secrets to come or it's too painful a memory you know I used to say that when I talk to veterans you can almost tell how much combat in action they saw by how unwilling they are to get into it with you I wonder how much our fascination with these sorts of incidences would be different had we actually experienced the incidences themselves I mean if Tom Hanks had actually fought in the Second World War as you have in in more than one film how different then is Tom Hanks's portrait in other words how much is Tom Hanks exploring a subject that he's interested in because there is no answer right we don't know how Tom behaves in the second world war versus and and I think you know I was trying to think you know ahead of time it's funny not to change

21:42 the subject at all but I was going trying to do my research for this program and I went and saw interviews with you that you've done in the past where you talked about the celebrity mule train and all that all the questions you normally get asked and so I wrote them all down and thought it would be funny to just go through every one of those questions but but it's funny because how many of them get into this thing about what's so interesting about this topic that you continue because people ask me my wife says to me all the time you can't even I have to walk out of the there was the Jeffrey Epstein series was on the other day on Netflix or whatever and she's watching and I have to out of the room every two seconds cuz I can't handle what they're talking about and she says how is a guy who talks about war all day long but you can't you can't you can't stay in the room during this I said I don't know what the

22:26 difference is but I think it has something to do with unanswered questions about how we would be maybe in those situations you used to read about the veterans who always wondered about okay how will I behave will I be a coward when the bullets first start how how how will that crucible in my life be when I hit the beach had Tom Hanks been in these situations for real as many of the Second World War era actors were who then came back and had to portray you know the sands of Iwo Jima or whatever how much do you think your portrayal would be different and how much would you be still interested in exploring these questions do you think it's an unknowable question but you know uh there's a I'll tell you a story that that which I don't know because again it's a combination of hubris and desire you know I would like to I would like to seduce everybody by saying oh I know exactly what I had no idea but here's

23:17 here's a great story and I some of it is apocryphal I'm sorry to say but this is a fact my friend Ron Howard was was in a movie with Lee Marvin and there was gunplay involved Lee Marvin was a great guy he was he was hilarious use of gregarious he got the drill he knew that it was you know part leaning into the truth and part a racket you know the movie the movie biz but he was a great guy until the night gunfire scene came and he was not the same man perhaps because he had been drinking but he was not the same man when it came down to shooting this stuff the gunfight the muzzle flashes they bang I got you because he says oh you're all pretending here you're all pretending with your little guns now that's one story that I know for I heard that from the horse's mouth here's a story that I've heard and and happenstance and I'm just going to assume that it's true all right Lee Marvin is The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

24:32 right yeah and you know he's funny and he's Lee Marvin and he's intimidating and he's all bet and he's been in The Dirty Dozen and he's been in all these other films to me grin won all of those he's Lee goddamn Marvin alright so Johnny mentioned something about being a hero you know somehow the word hero is mentioned Johnny Carson says well you're a hero Lee you're a war hero you served in the Marines and he says haha I'm not a I'm not a war hero Johnny I'm a guy who got shot in the ass but I will tell you who is a war hero I believe it was Iwo Jima forgive me if I'm wrong let's just say it's you Jima because it can stand in for Peleliu Guadalcanal Okinawa piñon Kwajalein it could stand in for all of those island battles in world war ii but he was a marine and he did get wounded he did get shot he got a Purple Heart etc in combat and he said I'll tell you who's a hero the beachmaster II would

25:36 Jima was a hero that was a man who was unarmed and his job was a stand-up on the beach under fire from from the defending Japanese forces waving red flags in order to guide the landing craft in to their appropriate landing sites so that the invasion could continuing their attacking my range and then going to his job as the beach master was to communicate with signal flags with semaphores to the pilots of these small boats all under fire so now that man was a hero and that man's name was Sergeant Bob keeshan do you know who Bob keeshan is you know Captain Kangaroo he was Captain Kangaroo he was Clarabel the clown on Howdy Doody oh my gosh that's some therapy working itself out after the war right there isn't it well it is it is some aspect of that generation says hey first of all we all signed up first for the duration plus six months there were a bajillion of us secondly all of us saw if you were in combat you

26:55 all went through something you all saw something that said and thirdly there's that great there's that great line from the best years of our lives when Dana Andrews has been pulled down out of the derelict b-17 that's being demolished and turned into material for model homes and the guy says hey you get down from there and Dana Dana Andrews guns I was just reliving it oh yeah well when you fly boys are up there doing is that I was down on the ground in the tanks and data Andrew said hey listen brother I'd love to hear your war stories if I have that if I ever have the time they all had war stories and there's word no different than others and those guys that did indeed you know faced it you know I don't want to mention any names but I I know I know of actors veteran actors had passed away who killed the enemy with their bare hands in foxholes because they had to keep moving how do you go through that

27:58 and then come back and either tell about it or laugh about it or view it as some sort of anecdote that is that is from the pet is just or an entertainment vehicle right a crowd-pleaser an audience applause a prompter you know that's one of the things and I was having a hard time coming up with specific questions about your wonderful film Greyhound because I didn't want to give away any spoilers and everything I was gonna ask about sort of led to a spoiler I do want to say though one of the things that really grabbed ahold of me and that I got right away was because and you just alluded to it was there you know we celebrated always have the guys who hit the beaches at Iwo Jima and everything but but you know always in war they talked about the snake right the head of the snake are the combat troops the tail of the snake are all the people that it takes to keep the combat troops you know with bullets and food

28:50 and all the things that they need to do their jobs and the more modern the warfare the longer the tail of the snake gets the number of PEEP that it took to get the Second World War soldiers to where they could fight and be the head of the snake you're playing the role of one of these people that essentially is for lack of a better word one of the many millions and millions of functionaries who kept the I mean on the book that the movie is based on the novel is called The Good Shepherd and that's what the destroyer escorts are for these convoys they are Shepherds they are people who guard the logistical supply train and they're not the people you normally think of as hitting the beach at Iwo Jima it's a different kind of heroism isn't it yeah it is it's delivering the mail through yes through through a maelstrom that you that could take your life that you you make the wrong turn you make the wrong decision

29:48 you make a wrong assumption if you're if you if you're so foolish is to live by assumptions guess what you have made the critical mistake of your life of that it now our movie is set in 1942 there is there is a couple of major buys in it one of them being that there's a there's a there's an ocean liner that's been converted and there's five thousand you know fresh troops to it and this is historical that happened a lot yeah yeah yeah it did and at any given moment there would be forty convoys crossing the North Atlantic not just one not just two they didn't have all their eggs in one basket they were all different sizes made up of ships from all the Allied navies the poles the Norwegians the the Canadians anybody led a ship that you could load up with anything from bayonets to raw iron ingots coal cans a tent beef screwdrivers socks anything that was desperately needed not just by the populace of Great Britain but by the

30:53 soldiers that were going to at Sunday take on take on the Nazi courts themselves was delivered there by these ships slow rust-bucket e ships I think I think your tops be you could only go as fast as a slower ship in your convoy captain Krauss and Greyhound or protect ding 37 ships in a cotton the slowest of them can probably only manage about 14 knots so that's the speed which which they are crossing the North Atlantic heavy seas wintertime night time 24 hours a day zig zagging in order to hopefully either to not be not be found out or to evade the Nazi submarines of which there are dozens and dozens and dozens out there looking looking for targets in order to see every time they think any ship it's a plus for them strength sink a ship with with troops great sink a ship with a jeeps great sink a ship with tires or barrels of castor oil whatever great that's a that that's a win so the guys

32:01 who are in charge of that are over on board that the cook onboard that one of those ships the the guy who does the laundry the african-american messmates who because of a segregation are relegated to those duties except when General Quarters our sound sounded and then they run off in bandar posts all those all those guys are literally floating potential casualties that could disappear in the wink of an eye drowned be you know be blown up never be seen ever again and what have they been doing for how did they serve in the war daddy well I made sure that there was enough potatoes to our crew if the Seas allowed us to boil them in hot water which often was not the case that bad guy look I'm never usually when I get something from the marketing department they say oh here's the tagline for a-- for your movie I kind of go okay alright that's there's a little hyperbole in there guys I think you I think you're ratcheting it

33:13 up a little but not in this case you know it is it was let's not the you can argue more dangerous than the front let's just say as dangerous as a front your your the odds of you dying at sea just being a guy on a boat whose job it is to protect a bunch of other slow-moving boats was the same it's somewhere somewhere between wildly out of your favor and possibly in your safe you're not a combat soldier until you are in that situation right so so let me talk a little bit about the screenplay because you wrote that um and and let me say as a guy who my dad used to say he could he could always know how the movie was gonna go cuz he could tell how it was cut and there's always there's always a Madlib quality to these kind of films where you could almost write a template for how they're gonna go and yours wasn't like that you caught me off guard several times one thing when I was trying to learn how to write

34:13 columns once upon a time they used to talk about how you should take out every word that you didn't need and that by the end you had this very tight sort of thing that says everything you want to say doesn't diminish the story at all but is is as few words as possible I thought this was an amazingly snappy script I remember when it ended I turned around said wow I couldn't believe that we'd already gone through it didn't drag for a second and if this was a wine and you were talking about the notes of chocolate and a little bit of oak I mean this was this had overtones of sink the Bismarck to me and some of you know run silent run deep but also some of some jaws mixed with some of this idea I mean you were able and this is what I thought was so snappy you were able to take me into these and we loved doing this on this this history show to where we'll talk about the moral quandary xand and

34:58 and awful choices that people are put into because they're just sort of trapped in the gears of history normally there takes a lot of setup to really get to that moment and you put me in that moment three or four times in this film and I found myself in it without any setup at all I mean the genius of being able to write it so I was in this moral quandary and all you had to give me was look in the distance your character sees something in the distance we look into your eyes it would have taken me 15 minutes of conversation and thousands of words to set up that same scene um do you enjoy the screenplay parts because I'm getting tired of all of your talent actors creeping back in it but I mean it was you took this from a novel not to steal one of your four questions from the celebrity mule train list but tell me a little about coming up with this and deciding you wanted to write the screenplay I mean was a novel right

35:46 a/cs forest or piece yes I I purchased I purchased the novel from a bookstore this has since got out of business on Madison Avenue because it was it was a used bookstore and got a used bookstore but it had collectibles you know in the front window and I saw this thing he is Forester I was aware of from Horatio horn right okay which I never read any Horatio horn was it oh that's a guy who are out for a shot and the the the it was the original cover and it was a painting a drawing of this very old gray-haired guy on the railing of a ship with his tie askew the wind blowing in his face his jacket undone he just looks bent beaten on the horizon behind him a ship is tilting up smoking and sinking beside him was a some formulas figure in a helmet that is sending out a signal on a signal lamp and I I said who's that who's that guy who is that guy I'm used to that the you know the trope of the some cop some some form be somewhere

37:07 between Don Ameche and Robert Mitchum as being the guy in command yes some battle between Burt Lancaster and Clark Gable you know I'm used to that that that I've never seen some old silver haired guy who looks like he shouldn't friggin be there so picked it up as a page to I in mesh in foresters book that tells the tale of these of these the sequence of days from inside Ernie Krauss his head all of his thoughts the math that he does in his head the geometry the the the the sensibility of when he asked to call off the General Quarters so that sailors who have been in their posts for the last five hours can go to the bathroom maybe get some rest have some hot food if it's possible to serve huh what it means as far as the time goes how much time do they have to straighten up the column because not all those ships can make the zigzags at the same time do you know when when when the convoys but the convoys were were told

38:22 when to make a zigzag either by a prescribed moment of time or by seeing the certain proper signal flags rise up on the mast of the Commodores ship that's how they weren't said okay a convoy time to make the turn that did not happen they just understood that oh we have to make the turn now so 37 ships making a turn to the left or the right by a certain number of degrees is a recipe for chaos it has literally sheep in a field following the cue of each other and on the periphery are the dogs that keep them in in order the good chef tells the good shepherd so all everything that happened in it's right down to the quality of a cup of coffee or the frustration that he doesn't get to have a full bite of what his sandwiches or of his wolfing down a meal in a matter of three minutes because he knows that if he doesn't have the calories in his body he's not going to be able to think clearly and when the

39:29 time comes up he won't be able to do the math or respond along with that came comes the fact that we know hey we know we won the war right yes and we have seen many many times a showman our guy saying wait a minute what is it I think I hear something or radar coming on going bloop bloop bloop that's showing us where something is radar at particularly 1942 ridiculously complicated and and punchy but yeah sometimes sometimes all you saw was crest of the waves the 20-foot waves on your radar screen you saw nothing else except patterns of these waves even down to the depth charges that in 1942 were bulky nearly boxing they were not streamed lined so each one of them sank at a very slow rate later on they had streamlined depth charges they had hedgehogs and all these other all these other weaponry but in 1942 they had essentially they were dumping explosive garbage cans into the water waiting for them to float down to a

40:38 certain depth and then exploding and maybe damaging something that could be there could not be there I've listened to sonar recordings training training records literally 45 records that you put a needle on for and the front from the air and it sounds something like this hmm example 6a engine running at 14 knots school noises example seven torpedo on approach you're going to tell me that in primitive 1942 headphones earbuds Allah you know FDR's era but you're going to be able to figure out what that is over a over a hydrophone that's also fighting waves and and what-have-you the inaccuracy of all of this stuff prayed on Colonel on the Ernie Krause's mind and he had to take it all into account so in the book there was so adapting it was a fever dream for me I just said okay I'm only doing this for myself because dammit no one else would take the job very frustrated I don't want to do this homework you know I

42:08 don't have to sit around and do all this I was hoping I was going to get one of my you know great writer pals to take one look at it and just say Oh turn me loose first of all nobody wants to do anybody else's work but their own and no one wants to be in the bylaws they don't want to be locked into the procedure of adapting something that you have to stay pretty adhere to so on I ended up taking out and I said I am going to pick every cherry off this tree that I'm in love with I'm gonna put it down here on paper and it was thick it had animation it had mind's eye demonstrations I wanted to try to communicate somehow that Kraus was thinking about where these submarines could possibly be by having swastikas dancing on the waves of where he thought they might be oh that's interesting now the problem with that is is first of all it blows the budget up because that's a special hour special effects budget here you know

43:14 what when you're trying to make all these ships in the sea and everything look like photo reality that requires a fidelity that a cheat so that was one aspect of it but becoming also into anybody else who read it to me it was like don't you see that's like that that's like the imagining that's what that's what that's what's haunting Krauss himself and almost to a to it to him to a person everybody who read it down at the office as well as Aaron Schneider who was the director director of it he he said this you're giving it away you're showing the shark yeah yeah totally and I went damn you to hell yeah with your logic of all this so there was that there was an awful lot of things and and the pairing away of all those things is what is required when you're making the leap I went I adapted a book and put it in into a hundred and twenty some odd page screenplay that remains only a blueprint for what has to be the

44:14 cinematic narrative that is visual and then has to be I was lucky and that we got to be as cryptic as we are because the uninitiated unless you call that let's call the uninitiated any executive at the studio who sees them we'll say can you help us understand a little bit of what the danger is here what the stakes are and on course you know I have to bite my tongue Shane do you honestly not understand what this takes well we just want to know what what what the Jeopardy really is here can you flesh it out a little bit more can you can you give us some hints as to what the conflict is this war is it a big thing this is a big war right we're talking yeah yeah so I would yeah I said oh yeah you know what we're gonna add a we're gonna add a line so that one of the lookouts will say this captain there's a u-boat on the surface they might be trying to sink us with one of their torpedoes and I said okay we're

45:19 not going to have those kind of lines we had you know I was schooled in a lot about this stuff by other directors that I worked with Anne and Ronnie Howard on on Apollo 13 when we were putting it all together there's this concept of gimbal lock gimbal lock you do not you do not want the command module on the way to the moon to experience gimbal lock it's a really bad thing it essentially negates all of your navigating you can't tell where you are if the three gimble's lock gimbal lock bad thing ronson how are we gonna know that's a bad thing and we said because we're going to say it in a real serious manner Hey do anything make sure you don't make sure you'll go in the gimbal lock that's all you need we don't have to talk about the three gyros that handle the X the Y and the Z actually we don't have to go through all we don't have to go with the breakdown dude show schematics of the navigational

46:18 propulsion system in the Commandant so we were able to enjoy the same sort of faith in in in in being cryptic as well as letting the nomenclature and the procedure define itself as we went along the truth is about the pilothouse under these circumstances is the only two people that move around on who are permanently on watch is the commander the captain and the talker who follows him everywhere the talker communicating by the most primitive form of electronics imaginable he plugs in his headset into an outlet wherever he is standing and it stands right next to the captain to repeat everything he hears over his headphones and then to repeat into the headphones anything the captain says to him now that means you'll end up hearing stuff from sonar you end up hearing stuff from the radar even appearing stuff from all over the ship that comes out of the voice and the face of the actor who was playing the

47:22 talker everybody else stand Stockstill the helmsman does not move away from that steering wheel the telegraph operator the guy who operates the engines as soon as it you know forward back speed all ahead two-thirds he stands right next to the engine Telegraph the the guy who writes down the plot who keeps the wreck nobody moves for four hours at a time and the nomenclature that goes off the dialogue that goes back they said how could how come how do we know what a con is how can they cop how can they keep saying I have a con you have a con what does that mean they said you will you will figure out over time that one of the most important things for everybody to know on the bridge is who's in charge of steering the boat so when someone comes on when the captain comes on and says mr.

48:17 Harbach I have the con that means they don't listen to anybody else except the captain and when the captain says mr. Harbach you have the con mr. Harvard says yes sir I have the con so everybody knows you listen to mr. Harbach for all those right so there's never a question and that's the kind of stuff that becomes number one the language of it III harken it back to seeing like the Seven Samurai Kurosawa the Seven Samurai in the original Japanese and you're reading the subtitles but about three minutes and you think you're hearing the Japanese you know you think you speak Japanese now because it's all it's all matched up superbly it's the same thing with this if you you figure out that oh I oh I actually understand the rules a little bit better what's going on outside of that god bless cs4 store he had absolutely no backstory whatsoever he did not go and he doesn't go to the Admiralty to show those people pushing

49:12 around the little model boats as they take you know messages from all around there's no scene in Washington DC there's not even a scene on the Commodores boat or on one of the submarines it all takes place if not in Krauss's head on board be the bridge and the decks inside of the Greyhound itself which is actually a code name for a ship called the USS Kealing but you'd be amazed at how troublesome it can be to refer to the one ship in your movie by two different names so it all just they all just became code names this is disagree one of the one of the great things that I did not know I did not know this until I read it was we talk between ships you don't want to talk on the radio when you're when you're at sea like this you don't want to be constantly getting on the radio say hey I got a problem with this and can you hurry up and get to me there and where are you don't want to do that because the enemy is listening to

50:12 anything that comes in but how do you have that instantaneous conversation between the four Shepherd's the four ships that are that are tasked with as well it was a little thing called talk between ships yes which was it which was a radio very short-range there it was a VHF line-of-sight meaning that if a ship was on the other side of the horizon you couldn't talk to it so you got on very quickly you spoke in a more or less an abbreviated code go back to station what is your status things like that so that even if and by the way the Nazis were listening they were sitting around on their radios when they were up on the service just going back and forth across the VHF spectrum to find a wavelength that the talk between ships was using and then they'd land on that listen in for as long as they could and then they would periodically change in order to in order just to in order to come monkey around in order to make put in

51:15 some some guests way I didn't know that I thought it was just a you know Dan we the average American knows most of its naval terminology and and strategy from watching episodes of starch Oh weird you said that I almost brought that up I said there's a little bit of Star Trek in this one of the real combat II episodes heck you know hailing frequencies mr. Chekov Romulans coming yes Romulans uh we have this you know there Spock over it his little blue light visor thing saying mmm he's got the sonar and the radar reports saying it might be this it might be that they might be over here the Romulans use a cloaking device we're not sure where they are here's another here's another and this is again nobody knows this stuff because we we have been accepting the tropes of the the cinema of this in which is just too hard to explain something as basic as this except for a probably Wolfgang Petersen's das book which is really

52:21 added which was a grant granddaddy of all these things you watch das boat you realize it oh my god and they had to take all that food with him at any given time one of the toilets was filled up with bread and sausages that's right they did not have a lot of room in this place one of the things that we that is so hard to communicate was incredibly important is that when a Nazi submarine went down under went under the water it slowed down to to only six knots they couldn't manage much more than six or seven knots so on the surface they can keep up with the ship they can keep up with the convoy they just got to stay out of sight they just got to stay on the other side they got to stay muted hidden anytime they go underwater they can only go about a third as as fast as they could on the surface nobody knows that everybody thinks are they just you know that's how they got there they went underwater and they found no no once

53:16 they sighted them then they started going back up and down and they could not stay underwater for very long why because their engines were powered by batteries they were the you know there's a sub famous submarine plant in the United States it's called the electric boat company because they were electric boats when they went underwater batteries electricity powered their screws and drills them through the water batteries go dead especially you know World War 2 era Nazi batteries from 1939 I'm not you know I don't know how long they could tune in the rate eventually they'd have to be recharged and the only way to recharge them is to go back up to the surface where your exhaust from your diesel engines can not only power your boat but also power the generators that recharge your batteries it ends up becoming such a convoluted thing that if you want to ignore it you can but you're cheating the authenticity

54:10 of all the the serendipity of the one damn thing after another aspect of the drama so there's what what could we throw into the mix their dialog wise that would communicate somehow that submarines when they go underwater have to go really slow there's one line that Aaron and I and Stephen Graham came up with when we were doing it when we were mapping out how do we communicate this stuff and the Ernie crowd says to Charlie you know can you plot a course on this heading at six knots and give us a point of intersection all right this much time going this then going this speed us going our speed we should be able to find them in you know like six miles wow that's a lot of map if you really had to explain it outside of a couple of visuals you know we show literally a grease pencil and a protractor and a ruler on a map if you had to really get into it my gosh it would just take absolutely forever so I

55:15 said we we do it and the audience the audience will catch up I'll tell you what you kicked my rear end and it's it's not a place that it would have kicked my rear end if I was watching platoon in the 1980s and I was a 20 year old right you kicked my rear end when I'm watching it and the the captain of course is almost a father figure but this the sailors on this ship so many of them like kids you really Cap'n what was great about that is after it punched me in the gut and I was thinking to myself I still want to know where my 18 year old is you know at midnight I want a phone call and these people on this ship are no older than that and you're looking at them like as a dad going if that's my kid and you know it was like like flying with the world war two guys they're all like 23 years old if you told my pilot on my on my Delta flight today is 23 years old I'm not going on that flight and I'm watching this

56:09 captain and he is like these these children who turned out to be our grandparents you know 45 years later are they're on this ship and they're looking to this one guy who's on his first mission across with the convoy to protect them and to make the right decisions when he caught between a rock and a hard place that's almost the transcendent and that's the historical experience right there of people putting the crux of the moment isn't it where there's no good decisions and they're worried they screwed up and when they screwed up people died not to quote that Jack Nicholson line but but I mean that to me in that movie made made that person that captain of that ship the everyman for me and and this could be you and what would you do in this situation and how many times would you replay it in your head for the rest of your days you know you really made me feel that be that gray-haired old man that I saw on the

57:03 cover of the book is what Xie Forrester wrote Ernie Krauts graduated from the United States Naval Academy in the early 1920s when there was no war he has been in the Navy ever since and he is endeavor risen above pitted and retained that that's what every one of his promotional ratings have been well here's the good news you're staying in the Navy the bad news is you're fitted and retained meaning you're not getting an extra stripe you're not jumping up a pay grade you're staying exactly where you are so Ernie Kraus has written a desk carried a briefcase to him served on maybe some ships but not in a wartime capacity he was probably in charge of keeping track of an awful lot of things so it top of the the top of the movie we do have we do have a one quote unquote flashback scene which is right after Pearl Harbor a guy who is on his way out of the Navy probably because of lack of need as well as a lack of opportunity

58:11 instead is suddenly one of the most important men in uniform he's got he's got close to 20 years of naval experience as well as rank so he is now going to be given his own ship because they need a guy in charge of it he's going to have to go and drill a crew in training tactics a bunch of other people who but other kids who have just signed up they signed up the day after Monday December 8th 1941 they went in and and joined up in the Navy they're all kids he is in you know I'm on let me just say this I I play somebody who's like 48 alright he is not just say if you want 28 years old in the Armed Services in in World War 2 you know what they called you old man yep they called you pop yes so when they're making references to the old man onboard Greyhound they are literally talking about an old man and not only is he old and he's an old man who's never done this before all of this stuff has only been theory

59:20 in his head theory in school work classroom work book works he's been at sea to a degree but not like this and and not not charge like that Aaron Snyder the director would that the conversations we always had was we wanted to have I wanted to have four different watches we had three because I believe it was a watch was made up of everybody who was crewing their position for four hours four hours on eight hours off four hours on eight hours off four hours on eight hours off and so we needed fresh faces to help communicate number one how how much time has passed but number two to escape that Star Trek trope of every time Captain Kirk walked on the bridge it was always the same crew who roll and you know instant check up we needed guys who looked different like the faces of the stalkers than themselves we have but I think we have two or three different stalkers the guys who are the helmsman who said we needed

1:00:23 a parade parade and they were all look I don't know how old they actually are but they all look like they were 13 they did this is and and that is accurate I think there's you know a Rob Morgan who plays George Cleveland one of the masts mates he is a career Navy man he is african-american who's been in the Navy probably four you know he's probably going for if he doesn't have his 20 years already he's gonna stay in it because it's a great job you know Charlie Cole my executive officer he's older he's a career Navy man and and probably the doctor you know the ship's doctor you know he went through medical school so he's an older fella but everybody else on board the ship is probably average age has got to be 24 years old and that could be as young as 80 or even as young as 17 for somebody who cheated on their enlistment which a lot of people did yes listen man it's it's what a joy arm if I appreciate

1:01:21 you coming on and it's a great movie and if we could ever help you promote anything again or or for whatever reason keep my key my contact handy in the rolodex the old digital rolodex would you I will do that indeed thank you so much for having this first-time caller on your show I really enjoy take care of yourself and thank you so much take care Dan bye-bye

1:01:45 my thanks to Tom Hanks for coming on the program he really does sort of live up to his reputation as the nicest guy in Hollywood and the movies great Greyhound you can catch it on Apple TV Plus and you can follow us by the way at at hardcore history on Twitter we'll keep you updated anytime we release any history content and you know hope y'all stay safe in these wonderfully uncertain times we're living in thanks for listening wrath of the cons Punic nightmares Apache tears and of course ghosts of the austere on just a few of the classic hardcore history titles available from dan Karlin com every true fan has heard these favorites hey they make great gifts too

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "EP12 Wolf Pack Hunting with Hanks"?

Dan Carlin (Host), Tom Hanks (Guest).

What is "EP12 Wolf Pack Hunting with Hanks" about?

The content discusses the diverse range of episodes in the Hardcore History Addendum feed, highlighting its purpose as a platform for supplementary material that doesn't fit the main series. It also features a review of the World War II-themed movie *Greyhound*, starring Tom Hanks, which focuses on naval history during the Battle of the Atlantic.

What is mentioned in this Dan Carlin episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Tom Hanks, World War I, Greyhound, Apple TV Plus, Boston Massacre, Tulsa Black Wall Street. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "EP12 Wolf Pack Hunting with Hanks"?

The episode runs 1 h 3 min; the transcript is about 10,867 words in 61 timestamped sections.

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