The Pacific

[dors]

Haven't seen the Pacific yet. I have just read Robert Leckie's book "Helmet For My Pillow" and am currently reading Eugene Sledge's "With the Old Breed". I HIGHLY recommend both. Sledge's description of the Peleliu invasion is one of the most vivid and tense things that I have ever read.

[Django]

I don't think you can argue that Iwo Jima was not worth taking. There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000+ B-29 landings there. Assuming that half wouldn't have made it back to the Mariannas, and each one cost $500k, that's $500,000,000. With 11 guys each, that's 11,000 men. How much $ had the AAF invested into those 11,000 men? I'm sure alot more than the 6000+ Marines who paid for the island in blood. God Bless every one of them. And not to mention that the fighters could reach Japan from Iwo.

Now Pelielu... that one seems like a wasted effort. Thoughts?

Glad to see the hair argument shot down. Hahaha!

I thought it was great to watch. The love stories came up last time too. Was that not part of life then? Is it not part of life now? If you say no, then I feel sorry for you! No one got laid in WWII? Really? Plus, it's not like it was Pearl Harbor. My biggest complaint was the span of everything. It should have been 20 episodes to get into more of the character depth of BoB. But it's hard to compress 4 years into 10 episodes vs 1 year into 10 episodes. But overall, an excellent mini series. I will disagree about the part that no one under 18 should watch it. It should be required viewing in high school.

[Mudge]

OK...question about the picture captioned "Marine Raiders, with a reputation as lethal jungle fighters, pose in front of a Japanese dugout they took on Cape Totkina on Bougainville, Solomon Islands. January 1944."
I can't see any other rifles in the photo but the two in the front are '03 Springfields. Not that I doubt the authenticity of the photo, but I would have expected to see a few Garands. I know the '03 was used extensively by snipers. Just sayin'.

Mudge the curious

[agent86]

should be a few Garands by 1944. Guadalcanal,well thats another story.

[agent86]

was Tarawa also really necessary? I wasnt there and arm chair quarterbacking isnt legit but was it?

[the330thbg]

The love stories came up last time too. Was that not part of life then? Is it not part of life now? If you say no, then I feel sorry for you! No one got laid in WWII? Really?

again, thrown in to draw in the 'female' audience viewers. We know they did lots of things back then that we do now. Don't care to see all of them

[CDF]

Don't tell these Marines they aren't squared away.

True but then again don't tell the 1st MD vets that Camp Pendleton emblem was inverted by the HBO set dressers either

HBO version


MC version

[goshikisen]

I liked the attention to detail seen in some of the episodes. During the Battle of Peleliu Marine Corsairs from VMF-114 flew such a short distance from strip to target and back again that they didn't bother raising their landing gear... the digital effects in the episode show the aircraft with their gear down which is interesting. The only thing I didn't like about it is the Corsairs seemed to be doing a straight and level bomb run... almost like they were medium or heavy bombers. I'd always assumed the Marine Pilots would dive on their targets.

Also the set designers on "The Pacific" sometimes have an odd interpretation of Olive Drab. Some of the jeeps and APCs look a bit "off" in that department.

Otherwise I thought the series was great... the Marines spent a great deal of time in Australia and it was part of their experience so the down-time episode rounded out the story for me.

[Steve Nelson]

an odd interpretation of Olive Drab. Some of the jeeps and APCs look a bit "off"

I noticed that as well. It looks like the same shade of green they used on the "Japanese" aircraft wreckage (which looked very authentic, BTW.) I know very little about ground equipment, and thought maybe the Marines in the PTO used a different shade of green than the Army. It may have just been a case of the art dept. had a bunch of generic "military green" mixed up, so they used it on everything.

SN

[PJ]

That paint is USMC Forest Green and was the Marine Corps standard through 1949. At Iwo and Okinawa they also had a camouflage scheme.


PJ
PV-2 Harpoon "Hot Stuff"
www.amhf.org

[goshikisen]

That paint is USMC Forest Green and was the Marine Corps standard through 1949.

In that case I'm happy to be mistaken... speaks to the authenticity the producers strove for in the series. I wasn't aware that the Marines had their own "Olive Drab".

[CDF]

That paint is USMC Forest Green and was the Marine Corps standard through 1949.

In that case I'm happy to be mistaken... speaks to the authenticity the producers strove for in the series. I wasn't aware that the Marines had their own "Olive Drab".

HBO's version isn't even remotely close to USMC Lustreless Forrest Green

HBO


#34079 Lusterless Forrest Green Paint

[Jollygreenslugg]

I really enjoyed the series, having read the books of Sledge, Leckie, Phillips and Burgin as well as many other histories of individual US Marines and more comprehensive general histories. I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and remember the stories my grandmother used to tell of the Marines when they were there. Three doors up lived a Tarawa veteran who moved to Australia post-war. He got me interested.

I noticed some small anachronisms, such as the use of Springfield 03A3s in the Guadalcanal scenes. Not a big point, but there nonetheless. I'm just grateful that such time, money and expense was taken to tell the stories of these men to the wider world of today.

Cheers,
Matt

[rwdfresno]

I noticed some small anachronisms, such as the use of Springfield 03A3s in the Guadalcanal scenes. Not a big point, but there nonetheless. I'm just grateful that such time, money and expense was taken to tell the stories of these men to the wider world of today.

Matt,

A really good point. I think it is easy for all of us to pick something apart when someone else is shoveling out the vast amounts of money to produce something. When you look at all that goes into an effort like this it does make you thankful that there are people out there who are willing to risk the $ to produce something of this scale. They get an awful lot right and while we can point out the color variations of FS34052 paint or the difference between 1903 and a 1903A3, they are one of 10,000 small details that make up a complex production such as this.

Ryan

[John Dupre]

point taken about the hair!

It was much more graphic (throwing rocks into dead Japanese open brains). More sex than was required as well. Maybe trying to appeal to a wider audience.

What a heII it was to fight on these islands. Why did they have to take each one out.., why not just isolate them and starve them out first? Like the Romans did throughout France. I guess that would have taken too many troops and equipment? It just seems in retrospect (not the most accurate way to view any battle) that so many of these little death trap islands could have been fought around rather than through.

I know the end justifies the means and my father benefited by being able to fly his B-29's off of Guam rather than from China/India. Also having a nice giant aircraft carrier (Iwo) waiting for him on the way back did not hurt either.., but some of the other smaller 'dots' in the Pacific.., good grief at what cost?

A great many islands and bases were bypassed. In fact that was one of the major features of the Pacific campaign and fueled MacArthur's legend since he championed letting the Japanese "wither on the vine". Some of the most horrific stories of starvation come from the few Japanese survivors of those islands. Many of the islands that were taken were put to good use as bases or anchorages. The two most notorious invasions were Tarawa/Betio and Peleliu. Tarawa was probably due to the luck of the draw. Marine Raiders had conducted a highly publicized raid on Tarawa a year or so before the invasion. As a result the Japanese thought we really wanted it and they spent a fortune prepping for our return. We picked it as the next invasion in part because of the intelligence gathered by the Raiders. Tarawa also benefited from changes in our tactics some of which did not work as well as expected. Peleliu seems to be like the Civil War battle of Cold Harbor, if we could do it over we wouldn't. Apparently it was never put to much use afterward.