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The Staff of SOH
"THE PACIFIC" from HBO
- Thread starter BOOM
- Start date
Bomber_12th
SOH-CM-2025
I managed to see the first episode, thanks to Comcast showing it through their website. The feeling I got, from how little character development there was (at least yet), and how abrupt things happen, is that the film makers wanted to resonate just how un-imaginable the circumstances presented themselves, so suddenly, to these Marines, fresh from being used to life with not much worry or any real idea of what combat would present itself to be - jumping instantly from saying simple, melancholy good-byes, to difficult, intense combat. When they are suddenly going ashore, us having not seen their training, it is out of sight/out of mind, so it makes you even more uneasy about what the guys are getting themselves into, so fresh from life in the states.
Accuracy seems to be paramount, with folks on another board discussing little details like the use of a glove to pick up the hot .30-cal machine gun, and the correct cantines! Things that other productions would certainly have not gotten right, or included. The CGI is amazing as well - if you weren't told beforehand, you wouldn't know that it was, I suspect.
I hope I can catch further episodes. Already in this first one, you get a glimpse at just how hellish things were, and of course it will only get worse. Even though it is still 'hollywood', you get a very real sense of what it must have been like, which made me think right away about a great uncle of mine, who was a radio-man in the Pacific. Participating in several island-hopping invasions, it had such a traumatic effect on him, he became an alcoholic after the war, and was never the same.
While Tom Hanks put it in simple terms, and it is only one facet of many driving forces I suspect behind the motivation to fight the enemy, you cannot argue that racism was not present in the Pacific theater, on both sides, where two very different cultures clashed, at a time that neither properly understood each other. The terminology used by the commander, on board ship, before the invasion for instance, was I felt realistic to the time and the event, given the commander's need to ready the men for invasion - in an effort to dehumanize the then enemy in the minds of the men fighting.
Accuracy seems to be paramount, with folks on another board discussing little details like the use of a glove to pick up the hot .30-cal machine gun, and the correct cantines! Things that other productions would certainly have not gotten right, or included. The CGI is amazing as well - if you weren't told beforehand, you wouldn't know that it was, I suspect.
I hope I can catch further episodes. Already in this first one, you get a glimpse at just how hellish things were, and of course it will only get worse. Even though it is still 'hollywood', you get a very real sense of what it must have been like, which made me think right away about a great uncle of mine, who was a radio-man in the Pacific. Participating in several island-hopping invasions, it had such a traumatic effect on him, he became an alcoholic after the war, and was never the same.
While Tom Hanks put it in simple terms, and it is only one facet of many driving forces I suspect behind the motivation to fight the enemy, you cannot argue that racism was not present in the Pacific theater, on both sides, where two very different cultures clashed, at a time that neither properly understood each other. The terminology used by the commander, on board ship, before the invasion for instance, was I felt realistic to the time and the event, given the commander's need to ready the men for invasion - in an effort to dehumanize the then enemy in the minds of the men fighting.
PACIFIC
Yes I seen it that way too...A definite liberal flavor!..Hanks is on the tubes lately claiming there was Racism during WW2 against the JAPS!!....I'm Shocked.shocked ,to find out that was going on then!!
Tom never grew up in the 40s...he harbors this "hey why can We Not Just Get Along thing!...our lives then was absolute HATRED towards NAZIS,JAPS,and FASHISTS!....Let ya in on a seceret..the SPIRIT OF THE BAYONET is to kill...and it makes it a lot easier to HATE WHO YA STICK!....The Weenies today can never capture that!! those Brave Kids today fight with lawyers over their shoulders,and one hand behind their back!!
Imagine if we use Flame throwers on Al Quida today...HEAVEN FORFEIND!!...Thanx My Opinion!!
Yes I seen it that way too...A definite liberal flavor!..Hanks is on the tubes lately claiming there was Racism during WW2 against the JAPS!!....I'm Shocked.shocked ,to find out that was going on then!!
Tom never grew up in the 40s...he harbors this "hey why can We Not Just Get Along thing!...our lives then was absolute HATRED towards NAZIS,JAPS,and FASHISTS!....Let ya in on a seceret..the SPIRIT OF THE BAYONET is to kill...and it makes it a lot easier to HATE WHO YA STICK!....The Weenies today can never capture that!! those Brave Kids today fight with lawyers over their shoulders,and one hand behind their back!!
Imagine if we use Flame throwers on Al Quida today...HEAVEN FORFEIND!!...Thanx My Opinion!!
K
Ken Stallings
Guest
It was a minor influence.
Right up until Pearl Harbor, the US policy was to negotiate with Japan for an end of their hostilities in China and Manchuria. If race was a principle factor, Americans would not have cared what happened in China and Manchuria.
Pearl Harbor was the prime influence. It was considered an act of wonton treachery and that angered the American people. To have two senior diplomats sitting in Cordelle Hull's office making like peace was possible while Pearl Harbor was in smoking ruins having been attacked on a Sunday yielded as much visceral anger as is possible in the American soul.
Germans and Italians were put in detention facilities in the US. It was just as a percentage it was a low number. But, if you were considered a political agitater for Nazism or Italian Fascism, you were put on an FBI watch list and if your conduct was slightly suspect, you got hauled off.
Doesn't get reported a lot, but it certainly happened. So, Hank's statements are regrettably simplistic.
The underlying cause for the Japanese-American internments was fear, not racism. This is an undeniable truth. Certainly a strong case can be made that the fear taken to this level was irrational, neverthless, on Hawaii General Walter Short considered sabatoge a greater threat to his aircraft than Japanese air attack. This wasn't a racism consideration, but a sober but mistaken military assessment.
During the war, both sides sought to dehumanize the enemy. There is no doubt about that, but the American people were already filled with wrath and malice -- pure anger. But make zero mistake, when American soldiers encountered Japanese civilians on Okinawa and other outlying islands, they showed a far greater degree of compassion than the Japanese themselves expected, and sometimes more than the Japanese troops themselves showed same!
Ken
Right up until Pearl Harbor, the US policy was to negotiate with Japan for an end of their hostilities in China and Manchuria. If race was a principle factor, Americans would not have cared what happened in China and Manchuria.
Pearl Harbor was the prime influence. It was considered an act of wonton treachery and that angered the American people. To have two senior diplomats sitting in Cordelle Hull's office making like peace was possible while Pearl Harbor was in smoking ruins having been attacked on a Sunday yielded as much visceral anger as is possible in the American soul.
Germans and Italians were put in detention facilities in the US. It was just as a percentage it was a low number. But, if you were considered a political agitater for Nazism or Italian Fascism, you were put on an FBI watch list and if your conduct was slightly suspect, you got hauled off.
Doesn't get reported a lot, but it certainly happened. So, Hank's statements are regrettably simplistic.
The underlying cause for the Japanese-American internments was fear, not racism. This is an undeniable truth. Certainly a strong case can be made that the fear taken to this level was irrational, neverthless, on Hawaii General Walter Short considered sabatoge a greater threat to his aircraft than Japanese air attack. This wasn't a racism consideration, but a sober but mistaken military assessment.
During the war, both sides sought to dehumanize the enemy. There is no doubt about that, but the American people were already filled with wrath and malice -- pure anger. But make zero mistake, when American soldiers encountered Japanese civilians on Okinawa and other outlying islands, they showed a far greater degree of compassion than the Japanese themselves expected, and sometimes more than the Japanese troops themselves showed same!
Ken
I saw it!!! I'll withhold judgement until more of the story unfolds.
Those of you who've followed my postings already know that I'm very hostile to the way the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are currently used in media. I'm an unapologetic skeptic. Back when I was still an adult, I would periodically be drawn (only as an interested observer) into political events on a national level, and got to meet some of the people you see on C-SPAN, which led me to the conclusion that much of our current political vocabulary is a triumph of the marketing and public relations industries. IMO, it's actual informative content is an incident, not an end. I really can't say more while obeying forum rules, and only mention it in the first place to show that my hostility doesn't have its origins in my own rectum. All that being said, I don't see how the Pacific War couldn't have it's component of racism. These people were trying to kill each other. My two remaining uncles were both deployed to the PTO. The oldest was in the Southwest Pacific, and the younger in the Central Pacific. He was trained in a small town in Mississippi that in his telling had a billboard reading "N*gg*r, read and RUN!!!" in giant letters. In the 1940s, we had apartheid right here in America, and I'm not inclined to pretend we didn't out of "respect" for anyone's ancestors. This is our history, and I believe in taking the bitter with the sweet. To my mind, this does not detract from our accomplishment in defeating fascism; fascism needed to go. IMO, Imperial Japanese expansionism was rife with brutally racist assumptions. The propaganda was that of eliminating Euro-racism, but in practice I would submit they were only replacing European exploitation with Japanese exploitation. The Rape of Nanking at the time even scared the Nazis, and while we're on the subject, I DARE people to tell me Adolph Hitler wasn't racist.
Now you know how I feel.
JAMES
Those of you who've followed my postings already know that I'm very hostile to the way the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are currently used in media. I'm an unapologetic skeptic. Back when I was still an adult, I would periodically be drawn (only as an interested observer) into political events on a national level, and got to meet some of the people you see on C-SPAN, which led me to the conclusion that much of our current political vocabulary is a triumph of the marketing and public relations industries. IMO, it's actual informative content is an incident, not an end. I really can't say more while obeying forum rules, and only mention it in the first place to show that my hostility doesn't have its origins in my own rectum. All that being said, I don't see how the Pacific War couldn't have it's component of racism. These people were trying to kill each other. My two remaining uncles were both deployed to the PTO. The oldest was in the Southwest Pacific, and the younger in the Central Pacific. He was trained in a small town in Mississippi that in his telling had a billboard reading "N*gg*r, read and RUN!!!" in giant letters. In the 1940s, we had apartheid right here in America, and I'm not inclined to pretend we didn't out of "respect" for anyone's ancestors. This is our history, and I believe in taking the bitter with the sweet. To my mind, this does not detract from our accomplishment in defeating fascism; fascism needed to go. IMO, Imperial Japanese expansionism was rife with brutally racist assumptions. The propaganda was that of eliminating Euro-racism, but in practice I would submit they were only replacing European exploitation with Japanese exploitation. The Rape of Nanking at the time even scared the Nazis, and while we're on the subject, I DARE people to tell me Adolph Hitler wasn't racist.
Now you know how I feel.
JAMES
PACIFIC
Well said ken...We were Masters of the World then... The Marshal Plan,and Gen.Mc Arthure in japan??...Hate ,revenge , cruelty,should be made of sterner stuff.....but its 2010 now,and things in history get misplaced.often by those retelling it...Even in one lifetime!!..thanx!!! Vin!!
Well said ken...We were Masters of the World then... The Marshal Plan,and Gen.Mc Arthure in japan??...Hate ,revenge , cruelty,should be made of sterner stuff.....but its 2010 now,and things in history get misplaced.often by those retelling it...Even in one lifetime!!..thanx!!! Vin!!
K
Ken Stallings
Guest
James,
I agree with every word you wrote.
Some might view that as inconsistency. But having a nation that suffered fron systemic internal racism doesn't equate to the war being primarily a racist war.
I would also add that the Japanese brutality displayed throughout the war, starting with the Bataan Death march insofar as the Americans were concerned, combined with the Pearl Harbor attack to place American anger at volcano level.
I don't think the average GI harbored the same visceral anger at the Germans until they discovered the death camps. I know the American GI never had remotely close to that level of anger directed toward Italian troops. As a brief aside, that's a sharp lesson learned and forms a principle justification and rationale behind modern Western precepts of Laws of Armed Conflict. Compassion and morality on a battlefield may sound to some like inherent dichotomies, but in truth, holding on to the moral high ground normally ends up being a force multiplier!
In my view, had Japan declared war before attacking Pearl Harbor, and treated POW's with compassion, that I don't believe the level of visceral hatred would have materialized. Still would have been a brutal war. But I don't think the anger would have been as raw.
One final point, a large percentage of Japanese-Americans were first generation. The vast majority of Italian-Americans and German-Americans were third or fourth generation Americans. Those differences were substantial in terms of domestic reactions. However, it is without question that despite the mistreatment afforded to them, Japanese-Americans contributed mightily to American victory in that war.
To my way of thinking, this is the true honor to be had. Both black Americans and Japanese-Americans put aside the gross mistreatments and fought bravely for America. The Japanese Nesei units had the highest percentage of CMoH's awarded in the ETO. Their courage became legend. Again, that's the real story to be told.
Cheers,
Ken
I agree with every word you wrote.
Some might view that as inconsistency. But having a nation that suffered fron systemic internal racism doesn't equate to the war being primarily a racist war.
I would also add that the Japanese brutality displayed throughout the war, starting with the Bataan Death march insofar as the Americans were concerned, combined with the Pearl Harbor attack to place American anger at volcano level.
I don't think the average GI harbored the same visceral anger at the Germans until they discovered the death camps. I know the American GI never had remotely close to that level of anger directed toward Italian troops. As a brief aside, that's a sharp lesson learned and forms a principle justification and rationale behind modern Western precepts of Laws of Armed Conflict. Compassion and morality on a battlefield may sound to some like inherent dichotomies, but in truth, holding on to the moral high ground normally ends up being a force multiplier!
In my view, had Japan declared war before attacking Pearl Harbor, and treated POW's with compassion, that I don't believe the level of visceral hatred would have materialized. Still would have been a brutal war. But I don't think the anger would have been as raw.
One final point, a large percentage of Japanese-Americans were first generation. The vast majority of Italian-Americans and German-Americans were third or fourth generation Americans. Those differences were substantial in terms of domestic reactions. However, it is without question that despite the mistreatment afforded to them, Japanese-Americans contributed mightily to American victory in that war.
To my way of thinking, this is the true honor to be had. Both black Americans and Japanese-Americans put aside the gross mistreatments and fought bravely for America. The Japanese Nesei units had the highest percentage of CMoH's awarded in the ETO. Their courage became legend. Again, that's the real story to be told.
Cheers,
Ken
Absolutely there was an aspect of racism... rooted in disagreements going back to 1924..played a very important role in the distrust of the two nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
To say we went to war because we hated them... nope that was Pearl Harbor. A famous quote made by a serviceman during the attack.... "I didn't even know they were sore at us."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
To say we went to war because we hated them... nope that was Pearl Harbor. A famous quote made by a serviceman during the attack.... "I didn't even know they were sore at us."
I agree 110%. Arrogance comes to mind. What hit home for me was while watching the trailers I saw a picture of Hanks just a week or two ago with a caption noting that he is now "the pre-emptive WWII historian" if you can believe that crap. Arrogance personified indeed especially when considering these people play pretend for a living. I think I like "Wilson" better now.
Snuffy
Happiness Consultant
1492? :mixedsmi:
MHO, here but I think, that every "war"/"conflict" that has ever been fought throughout man's history has some form of racism in them. The "other side" always being inferior, b*stards, and other unmentionable names. Mankind has always had to "dehumanize" their opponents in order to "hype" their side.
K
Ken Stallings
Guest
With respect, I don't think I have to "dehumanize" the Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists we fight in this war. Their own actions have already demonstrated their lack of humanity far more decisively than any propaganda effort could possibly do! And considering the fact these thugs murdered more fellow Arab and Pashtun Muslims than they did westerners, and that my actions were designed to protect those Arab and Pashtun Muslims, it would be impossible to think my actions and missions were racist against anyone.
Respectfully offered,
Ken
Respectfully offered,
Ken
Panther_99FS
Retired SOH Administrator
K
Ken Stallings
Guest
Excellent point!
You may know that this series just barely survived ending up on the darkroom floor. Luckily Hanks and Spielberg et al were still juiced enough from Band of Brothers and Saving Pvt Ryan to continue with production. I suspect their liberal circle of associates and friends have more than once complained about "more glorification of wars".
The disjointed aspect of the production is mainly due to the attempts to weave the stories of three principal and separate personalities (who were in three separate Marine regiments at different times). Band of Brothers was far easier to control, as the story went along. One group of men, one set of leaders. We will see as the series continues that the Pacific story gets more cohesive as these Marines all end up in the same horrible exposure to extended combat with a fanatical enemy. They will be fighting generally no more than a few hundred yards apart.
And yes, there was definitely a racial thing in WWII as it often the case. White Americans and Europeans had more than 2 centuries of colonial and other clashes with "asians". The whites had most of the power and the money, and exploited the "brown and yellow" masses. Bad feelings on both sides prevailed. As Ken S. pointed out here -- and this is very important -- Japanese cruelty to everyone not Japanese made the Empire's enemies more determined to stamp out "Nippon" and its ability to ever wage another war in the Pacific or with China. At the fighting man level, the fact that typical Japanese soldiers did not fear -- in fact welcomed -- death in combat made for a terribly "no holds barred - no quarter" conflict.
If any of you want to read two absolutely terrific books written by two of the personalities The Pacific is following, here they are:
"Helmet for My Pillow" -- Robert Leckie
"With the Old Breed" -- Eugene Sledge
These books make it as personal as it gets. Both authors are gone now, as is John Basilone (personality #3) who was killed on Iwo Jima after returning to the battlefront. I'm hoping the series is reasonably faithful to the written legacy these men left.
The disjointed aspect of the production is mainly due to the attempts to weave the stories of three principal and separate personalities (who were in three separate Marine regiments at different times). Band of Brothers was far easier to control, as the story went along. One group of men, one set of leaders. We will see as the series continues that the Pacific story gets more cohesive as these Marines all end up in the same horrible exposure to extended combat with a fanatical enemy. They will be fighting generally no more than a few hundred yards apart.
And yes, there was definitely a racial thing in WWII as it often the case. White Americans and Europeans had more than 2 centuries of colonial and other clashes with "asians". The whites had most of the power and the money, and exploited the "brown and yellow" masses. Bad feelings on both sides prevailed. As Ken S. pointed out here -- and this is very important -- Japanese cruelty to everyone not Japanese made the Empire's enemies more determined to stamp out "Nippon" and its ability to ever wage another war in the Pacific or with China. At the fighting man level, the fact that typical Japanese soldiers did not fear -- in fact welcomed -- death in combat made for a terribly "no holds barred - no quarter" conflict.
If any of you want to read two absolutely terrific books written by two of the personalities The Pacific is following, here they are:
"Helmet for My Pillow" -- Robert Leckie
"With the Old Breed" -- Eugene Sledge
These books make it as personal as it gets. Both authors are gone now, as is John Basilone (personality #3) who was killed on Iwo Jima after returning to the battlefront. I'm hoping the series is reasonably faithful to the written legacy these men left.
K
Ken Stallings
Guest
Korea
Taipan
Manchuria
China
Thailand
Indo-China
These are all examples of nations occupied (and with exception of Thailand) colonies of Japan prior to US entry into World War II. In the case of Korea it was a colony for many decades prior to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria which itself pre-dated by several years Hitler's invasion of Poland.
Other islands were Japanese prefectures, such as Okinawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima -- among others.
I add this merely to mildly dispute the notion that Pacific colonialism was a racial issue. It was an economic issue.
Cheers,
Ken
Taipan
Manchuria
China
Thailand
Indo-China
These are all examples of nations occupied (and with exception of Thailand) colonies of Japan prior to US entry into World War II. In the case of Korea it was a colony for many decades prior to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria which itself pre-dated by several years Hitler's invasion of Poland.
Other islands were Japanese prefectures, such as Okinawa, Saipan, and Iwo Jima -- among others.
I add this merely to mildly dispute the notion that Pacific colonialism was a racial issue. It was an economic issue.
Cheers,
Ken
T
tigisfat
Guest
I'm sorry to interrupt, but I have to ask, is it good?
Yeah, I thought so. It's worth the watch.