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In Reply to: RE: Gone through five episodes of the Pacific... what crap... posted by Victor Khomenko on April 13, 2010 at 10:48:55
The US role in the Pacific war was quite fragmented. Unlike the B of B where one regiment essentially fought through the entire US involvement in Europe, no one person or regiment in the Pacific was engaged in every operations. The jungle warfare essentially was a solitary battle where few soldiers could even see let alone grasp the overall nature of the battle. Casualties were so high that after every operations the fighting units had to be pulled back to regroup and retrain.
As such, attempting to tell the story of the war in the Pacific is extremely difficult from a first person narrative. One of the sources used, Sledge, IIRC had written a sensitive although horrific account of his experiences. Still since he served for only two island campaigns, IIRC, his one account can not capture the totality of the war in the Pacific.
Perhaps that is why the Pacific War has largely been ignored by Hollywood film makers. Most Americans and Europeans like their heroes clean cut and to be super men. They like "Hollywood" endings, when the heroes come triumphantly marching home. Many, if not the most of the Pacific War vets, suffered from what we call today PTS. Sledge certainly suffered from it. Fighting an unknown enemy using rules totally unfamiliar to the West, often unseen, and one which accepted fighting to the death, fighting in an environment which was a grueling as fighting the enemy takes a hell of a lot from your corn fed soldier.
You seem to want a nice fairy tale development and plot. Sorry, life in the Pacific did not follow such Euro ideas of war.
Stu
PS. Are you implying that sex never happened in Europe? Read the accounts of the Russian soldiers after the fall of Berlin. Is rape preferable?
Follow Ups:
I should humbly point out that in no way did I even attempt to demean the the fact that Sledge only served on two island campaigns. IIRC the typical casualty count on every island was shocking high: far higher than the 20 percent figure used in the European theater before pulling back regiments for regrouping and replenishing. In the Pacific, you had to be basically disabled or have won the fight in order to be pulled out. Take those flag raisers at Iwo Jima: three, or was it four, were killed after the photo, which did not mean that the fighting was over.
Add to that, some of the most devastating battles were judged in hindsight to be unnecessary. Some were even argued in the American high command even at the time to be useless (Peleliu, for example). At Guadacanal, US troops were abandoned, essentially, by the US Navy once the Japanese Imperial fleet showed up. It is definitely not a pretty picture.
Even Stephen Ambrose, who wrote the Band of Brothers, was open about admitting that finding a regiment that served successfully throughout the European theater, fighting in almost every major battle was a stroke of luck.
That both series are based on personal experiences shows the disparity of kind of war waged on the two fronts. On one front, the individual role in the general scope of things could readily be seen. On the other, one simply fought for survival. They fought for a tiny scrap of land, fighting both environment and the enemy. There were no real breakthroughs: there was no decisive tactical movements which dislodged the enemy. No one could retreat very far: it was killed or be killed:win or die. It was simply a brutal slug fest.
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