PSA:. If you watch "The Pacific" on HBO

[Old Troop]

The Army played a huge part in the Pacific War.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear Old Troop...

We know.

We honor them too...

But this is not an all-inclusive story. It's about some Marines...

And wow, is it good!

:hi:

[Duer 157099]

2. I've been watching it all in once stretch over the past couple days

I'm up to episode 6 or 7 I think.

I'm enjoying it.

The Army was who they stole all those rations from in episode 2 wasn't it?

[MicaelS]

3. The Army got the glory in Band of Brothers

This is the story about members of the USMC.

[csziggy]

4. So did the submariners

"During the Second World War, submarines comprised less than 2 percent of the U.S. Navy, but sank over 30 percent of Japan's navy, including eight aircraft carriers. More important, American submarines contributed to the virtual strangling of the Japanese economy by sinking almost five million tons of shipping—over 60 percent of the Japanese merchant marine. Victory at sea did not come cheaply. The Submarine Force lost 52 boats and 3,506 men." http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/history/subsbeforenuc/ww2/index.html

[Captain Hilts]

6. Damned straight! Pride Runs Deep!

[csziggy]

7. My Dad was a submariner - USNR

Served on the USS Spot, got the Navy and Marine Medal for his actions during their first tour. He ended the war on the USS Menhaden, and met Mom who was a US Navy Nurse.

So I grew up on stories of the submariners and their valuable actions during the war.

[Captain Hilts]

8. Friend of mine was skipper of MENHADEN.

Dad was post WWII:

COBBLER
CARP
CUTLASS
SEALION
CUTLASS
SEA ROBIN - skipper

You know MENHADEN's interesting role in WWII history, right?

[csziggy]

9. Whaat year? If it was in late 45, early 46, he introduced Mom & Dad

The submariners were just waiting to be discharged and the nurses had little to do since most patients had been sent back to the mainland. So someone decided that the nurses get a tour of and on a sub. Dad was in charge of the group that Mom was in, then they had a dinner of all the officers and nurses afterward. The skipper kept asking Dad when he was going to ask Mom to marry him - their mutual attraction was that obvious. I guess it was a strong one - they celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary this past February.

Looks like it would have been Commander McClintock, previously of the USS Darter. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Menhaden_%28SS-377%29) Dad was onboard since the USS Spot was being re-fitted at the end of the war.

[realisticphish]

5. well

as someone else said, soldiers other than the airborne were involved in Europe.

[Posteritatis]

12. The style of the shows requires a pretty narrow set of characters

I don't get the complaints around here that BoB and The Pacific didn't cover this that and the other thing when the whole point of them is to follow a small group of individuals. I'm not going to get offended because Canada doesn't come up in either (aside from the three-word reference to Dieppe which, really, was perfectly accurate), or the Army in Pacific, or the Navy in Band of Brothers, or the Russians in either, and so on and so forth. It's just not the point of them.

[realisticphish]

13. right

i'm big into eastern european history, and I know it pisses russians off to no end that we basically totally ignore the eastern front for the entirety of the war, except for Stalingrad and a casual mention of "oh yeah, they took Berlin too"

They call WWII the "Great Patriotic War," with good reason IMO. It's entirely due to their fighting and enormous sacrifice that the war even lasted until 1944, to allow us D-Day.

But the simple fact is that everyone who contributes to something like a war can't be addressed by EVERY piece involving that war. It's just too big and complicated. You would lose any coherence to the narrative, unless you were willing to spend 100's of hours on it.

[Posteritatis]

14. I'd love to see the Eastern Front get the BoB/TP treatment

It'd be pretty hard to pull off well, but then again both of these series couldn't have been easy either. You're right that they get huegly shortchanged in the west (and ignored entirely in the First World War); it bugs me to no end as well.

[realisticphish]

16. that would be cool

but of course we can't see the Evul Cominists as anything heroic.

A movie about the Night Witches would be interesting (the all-female soviet night bomber squadron)

In college, i watched the Soviet movie "The Fall of Berlin." It was really interesting how they pulled the exact same stunt as we did; they never once mentioned D-Day, just as we never mention the huge push from Moscow to Berlin

[Lionel Mandrake]

17. The "Great Patriotic War" was only part of WW2.

WW2 ran from Sept 1939 to August 1945. At least, those are the conventional dates.

Stalin and Hitler agreed to carve up Poland in 1939. They were practically allies, except that they hated each other and knew the "non-aggression pact" wouldn't last.

The "Great Patriotic War" began in June 1941, when Hitler stabbed Stalin in the back (before Stalin was ready to stab Hitler in the back).

It's true that the Soviets did most of the fighting against Hitler and lost 20 million people in the process.

[realisticphish]

18. the thing is

I really don't think Stalin thought Hitler was planning anything. It took several days into the Nazi invasion to convince him it was anything other than a misunderstanding by his frontline commanders. Well, I'm sure he believed SOMETHING was going to happen, but he was thinking it would take much longer for Hitler to do anything.

And, of course, the Battle of Britain was hugely important the year before, as well. If Hitler had managed to invade England, the Soviets would have had to face the entire army, rather than being one of two fronts (obviously there was no land war until 1944, but Hitler still had the troops in france facing either an invasion of england, or a invasion by the allies)

Also, who knows how the war would have gone if stalin hadn't have purged his generals in the 30's.

[Lionel Mandrake]

20. I agree.

We tried to warn Stalin about the Nazi invasion, but he thought we were lying and paid no attention.

The fighting in Africa and Italy also diverted some Axis forces from the Eastern Front, but Stalin wasn't impressed by Allied efforts prior to D-day. His attitude is understandable, considering the huge scale of the fighting on the Eastern Front.

[realisticphish]

21. right

I watched an American propaganda film called "Mission to Moscow," made from a book written by an ambassador to russia. It was during the war, probably ~43, and was basically an attempt to get everyone to love the Soviets.

It was, at times, laugh-out-loud hilarious to anyone who knows anything about Soviet history. They actually claimed that the Finns ASKED them to invade, to get rid of the fascists. They made a big deal about the Hitler Youth being little soldiers, but said nothing when similarly dressed Soviet youth greeted them in Moscow. And it made the show-trials of the late 30s out to be totally legitimate and properly run.

Obviously, this was during wartime, and we were trying to keep up support for the Soviets, but it was still fascinating. It looked EXACTLY like a Soviet propaganda film, but was made by Warner Bros...

[Lionel Mandrake]

22. I also watched "Mission to Moscow".

Hollywood took marching orders from FDR, just as everyone else did during the war.

"Yes sir, the Russians are just like us if you say so, sir."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036166/plotsummary

"Mission to Moscow was made at the behest of F.D.R. in order to garner more support for the Soviet Union during WWII. It was from the book by Joseph E. Davies, former U.S. Ambassador To Russia. The movie covers the political machinations in Moscow just before the start of the war and presents Stalin's Russia in a very favorable light. So much so, that the movie was cited years later by the House Un-American Activities Commission and was largely responsible for the screenwriter, Howard Koch being Blacklisted." (Written by E. Barry Bruyea)

Furthermore, our propaganda at that time never explained how the Soviet troops had come to be stationed in Poland by 1941. One was left with the impression that the the Soviet troops were there to protect Poland from the Nazis.

[graywarrior]

10. Yep, my dad was a paratrooper in the Pacific

[edhopper]

11. I think if we are discerning enough

to watch this, we get that the comments about the Army are from the Marine point of view and reflect the intra-branch rivalry, rather than a true picture of the Army.
There was a similar attitude portrayed in "Generation Kill".

[SoxFan]

15. Army does the dirty work, but the Marines have better/louder PR

[Initech]

19. That has been a kick-ass miniseries.

I need to catch up on it - I'm a couple episodes behind.

[kwassa]

23. "The Pacific" has the most intense combat sequences I've ever seen on film.

It is an extremely well-done series.

[Seneca]

24. It's just too far-reaching of a war

Even the Pacific Theater alone. An editorial choice had to be made. So three marine memoirs were chosen. It helps sharpen the focus of what is already a disparate series of lives and events.

I don't think "The Pacific" in any way discredits or diminishes the enormous courage and sacrifices of the army veterans who fought or died there. It's its own story. But it does not detract from what soldiers achieved, nor should it. We're all in this together, right?