This week marks the 79th anniversary of the release of 1945’s They Were Expendable, a film set during the Battle of the Philippines which took place just a couple of years prior.

The film’s cinematic debut was pushed back to late December 1945 since the Japanese had surrendered earlier that year.

Yet despite good reviews, there was a low turnout at the box office with John Wayne later noting: “People had seen eight million war stories by the time the picture came out, and they were tired…