Pacific: Episode 9 (1 Viewer)

[Stryker II]

Another fantastic episode!!!!!

If anyone, including Hanks and Spielberg, ever beats this series, its going to be really something. This is the best series ever, and I've seen them all.........Stryker

 

[DCN1898]

I agree, This is a great series!

 

[marco55]

The Pacific campaigns were more horrible than I could ever imagine.Great series though.
Mark

 

[modwalls]

If that wasn't Hell, then there isn't one. I could not even imagine the stench, maggot bodies lying around, digging foxholes into shallow stinking graves. I don't think we give the Marines, or for that matter, all Armed Force Veterans their proper do. I think the series is awesome, it did give those of us a tiny little taste of what those HEROS went through. GOD BLESS THEM ALL.

 

[lancer]

Another winner last night. Okinawa was a horrible experience for Sledge. The show did a good job of illustrating the conditions on Okinawa, which were extremely wet, muddy, and cold at times. Several of the incidents shown are altered just a bit from Sledge's written account (as you would expect in a filmed depiction) but are no less hideous for that. I would encourage anyone who has not read Sledge's With The Old Breed to do so and learn the full extent of the miseries of Peleliu and Okinawa. What the show doesn't convey well (how could it?) is the time spent in these horrible battle conditions and the constant assault on the olfactory senses that Sledge's book makes a point of telling. Well worth reading. -- Al

 

[binder001]

I'm curious about the terrain shown for Okinawa. Has anyone been there and seen the terrain? That looked like really lousy ground to attack over! That helps explain the slow progress and the limiting effect of US firepower. While I've been interested in military stuff most of my life, it took me a long time to get an appreciation for the effect of terrain on actual combat.

Gary B.

 

[Louis Badolato]

I'm curious about the terrain shown for Okinawa. Has anyone been there and seen the terrain? That looked like really lousy ground to attack over! That helps explain the slow progress and the limiting effect of US firepower. While I've been interested in military stuff most of my life, it took me a long time to get an appreciation for the effect of terrain on actual combat.

Gary B.

Unfortunately, Gary, the same can be said for many officers, in many armies, in many wars. Not understanding the effect difficult terrain can have on an attacking force has cost a lot of men their lives. The Hurtgen Forrest is a classic example of this failure.

 

[lancer]

I'm curious about the terrain shown for Okinawa. Has anyone been there and seen the terrain? That looked like really lousy ground to attack over! That helps explain the slow progress and the limiting effect of US firepower. While I've been interested in military stuff most of my life, it took me a long time to get an appreciation for the effect of terrain on actual combat.

Gary B.

According to Sledge the terrain varied as to what part of the island you were on. Sledge mentions open fields, hills, ridges, in short, all types. He says some of the ridges reminded him of Peleliu. Okinawa was not like the islands the Marines had been familier with in the South Pacific, but very more cultivated and built up. -- Al

 

[Stryker II]

I'm curious about the terrain shown for Okinawa. Has anyone been there and seen the terrain? That looked like really lousy ground to attack over! That helps explain the slow progress and the limiting effect of US firepower. While I've been interested in military stuff most of my life, it took me a long time to get an appreciation for the effect of terrain on actual combat.

Gary B.

Gary:

Okinawa has a little bit of everything in terrain. Hills, valleys, flat-lands, rocky terrain. I find that the Okinawa tombs, that are there, were turned into fortifications, and it was good to see that the episode touched on them................Stryker

 

[Warrior]

Having not seen the final episode, I guess at this point it's safe to say Sledgehammer and Snafu will not be "bestest buddies" after the war? Unless I am wrong as I have not read the book that Al mentions.

This series and Band of Brothers have both depicted the horrible conditions men must endure during warfare and also the devistating toll seeing friends of yours die right in front of your eyes takes on you. Also interesting to see how men change due to the effects of combat; they go in with certain ideas in their heads then those ideas get washed away by the brutality of combat, I guess nobody expects it to be so bad.

Like Sledge's father said, their souls suffer as a result, we've seen how much Sledge has changed after the two brutal battles on Peleliu and Okinawa.

Really, really sad, that episode last night was depressing; if that is the mood the director was trying to establish, he did a superb job of it.

I seen and heard a million times how replacements are treated like second class citizens because a.) they have not "earned their stripes" in combat yet and b.) you don't want to get to know these guys because enough guys you've come to know and become friendly with have died.

This series has driven home the point that in war, there is no glory, nothing pleasant or good about it, just death and misery.

Kudos to Hanks and Spielberg, man oh man did they nail it.

The series will probably lose in the emmy race to "Shakespeare in Love part II"..............

 

[kingtoot]

Having not seen the final episode, I guess at this point it's safe to say Sledgehammer and Snafu will not be "bestest buddies"
This series and Band of Brothers have both depicted the horrible conditions men must endure during warfare and also the devistating toll seeing friends of yours die right in front of your eyes takes on you. Also interesting to see how men change due to the effects of combat; they go in with certain ideas in their heads then those ideas get washed away by the brutality of combat, I guess nobody expects it to be so bad.
Like Sledge's father said, their souls suffer as a result, we've seen how much Sledge has changed after the two brutal battles on Peleliu and Okinawa.
Really, really sad, that episode last night was depressing; if that is the mood the director was trying to establish, he did a superb job of it.
This series has driven home the point that in war, there is no glory, nothing pleasant or good about it, just death and misery.
Kudos to Hanks and Spielberg, man oh man did they nail it.
The series will probably lose in the emmy race to "Shakespeare in Love part II"..............

Agreed on all points...this is one for the ages and my collection

 

[Stryker II]

Having not seen the final episode, I guess at this point it's safe to say Sledgehammer and Snafu will not be "bestest buddies" after the war? Unless I am wrong as I have not read the book that Al mentions.

This series and Band of Brothers have both depicted the horrible conditions men must endure during warfare and also the devistating toll seeing friends of yours die right in front of your eyes takes on you. Also interesting to see how men change due to the effects of combat; they go in with certain ideas in their heads then those ideas get washed away by the brutality of combat, I guess nobody expects it to be so bad.

Like Sledge's father said, their souls suffer as a result, we've seen how much Sledge has changed after the two brutal battles on Peleliu and Okinawa.

Really, really sad, that episode last night was depressing; if that is the mood the director was trying to establish, he did a superb job of it.

I seen and heard a million times how replacements are treated like second class citizens because a.) they have not "earned their stripes" in combat yet and b.) you don't want to get to know these guys because enough guys you've come to know and become friendly with have died.

This series has driven home the point that in war, there is no glory, nothing pleasant or good about it, just death and misery.

Kudos to Hanks and Spielberg, man oh man did they nail it.

The series will probably lose in the emmy race to "Shakespeare in Love part II"..............

YES, that was sinful at the Oscars, let's all hope that a wrong is made right...............Stryker

 

[bromhead]

No one wants to know replacements because thats what they are,the old heads are protected,,FNGs are expendable and thats the way it always was.The best classic,humorous line of the episode or that upcoming I do mean is,"Dont you have any skills in the military that can be used in civilian life?", Hopefully matched by the next two in order,,"you can go to school now" and last but not least ,"take up your marrage and family where you left off". My opinion again on snafu is he would be lucky to be around a year later to be anyones buddy.
,let alone hanging around the VFW hall making speeches for a few beers on sat. nite
JH,,ex replacement

 

[Warrior]

Haven't stopped thinking abou this episode all day long, has worn me out honestly.

The way the Japanese conducted warfare was as gut wrenching; using civilians as shields for an attack, strapping explosives to one to use her as a human bomb, she frantically tried to give her baby to someone, anyone before she was blown to bits, suicidal banzai charges, suicide kamikaze attacks, on and on it goes.

No wonder the Marines hated them so much.

This episode will stay with me for a long time, as will this series; they don't refer to the WWII era Americans as "The greatest generation" for nothing, makes me proud as Hell to be an American, I have to say.

I wish my Uncle Jim, 6th Marine Division, artilleryman, were alive today so he could see this series.............

 

[marco55]

Hard to believe that the vast majority of these men were in their teens and early twenties.It a wonder that as many held up mentally as they did.
Mark

 

[desk11desk12]

Haven't stopped thinking abou this episode all day long, has worn me out honestly.

The way the Japanese conducted warfare was as gut wrenching; using civilians as shields for an attack, strapping explosives to one to use her as a human bomb, she frantically tried to give her baby to someone, anyone before she was blown to bits, suicidal banzai charges, suicide kamikaze attacks, on and on it goes.

No wonder the Marines hated them so much.

This episode will stay with me for a long time, as will this series; they don't refer to the WWII era Americans as "The greatest generation" for nothing, makes me proud as Hell to be an American, I have to say.

I wish my Uncle Jim, 6th Marine Division, artilleryman, were alive today so he could see this series.............

I agree with you George.

My Uncle Paul was finishing up his National Guard hitch when Pearl Harbor was bombed; four years later he got his discharge papers from the US Army where he spent the entire time in the Pacifc.

The only thing he ever said about his time in the Pacific was that he never saw a white woman for four years. He wasn't in the marine corp but he fought a common enemy and I'm sure hexperience similar events. Now I know wht he refused to talk about it.

Its chilling!

Carlos

 

[Warrior]

Now I know wht he refused to talk about it.

Agreed; now I know why time after time after time you hear about how veterans never wanted to or did talk about their wartime experiences.

This series has shown that there is no glory in war, only misery and death..................

 

[lancer]

Because of the conditions on Okinawa (wet, cold, and MUD), along with the unburied bodies and the overwhelming, constant oder, Sledge stated that he had come to appreciate what the conditions of WW1 trench warfare must have been like. His book is really good. -- Al

 

[Sahara]

Ok, now that the series is about to wrap up the question remains "Band of Brothers" or "The Pacific". These are two entirely different beast that portray two very different fronts of WWII, so the decision was hard for me to make. In the end I found myself more attached to "Band of Brother". It seemed every episode flew by and I could hardly wait until the next. "The Pacific" at times bored me? There were those one or two episodes that I found myself trying to stay awake with. Another thing I noticed was that other then the airfield "The Pacific" failed to show that many engagements during the day. I would have love to seen more conflicts during the day so I could see more then a muzzle flash at night. There is much more that I would love to rant and rave about but the wife is calling me to watch "House" so I will finish my thoughts later.

 

[Stryker II]

Ok, now that the series is about to wrap up the question remains "Band of Brothers" or "The Pacific". These are two entirely different beast that portray two very different fronts of WWII, so the decision was hard for me to make. In the end I found myself more attached to "Band of Brother". It seemed every episode flew by and I could hardly wait until the next. "The Pacific" at times bored me? There were those one or two episodes that I found myself trying to stay awake with. Another thing I noticed was that other then the airfield "The Pacific" failed to show that many engagements during the day. I would have love to seen more conflicts during the day so I could see more then a muzzle flash at night. There is much more that I would love to rant and rave about but the wife is calling me to watch "House" so I will finish my thoughts later.

There IS NO COMPARISON..................Stryker