For those who haven't seen it yet, this is the Tom Hanks/Steve Spielberg production based on three books, "With the Old Breen on Peleliu and Okinawa," by Eugene B. Sledge, "Helmet For My Pillow," by Robert Leckie, and "Hero of the Pacific" by James Brady about MoH winner John Basilone. I have bread Sledge's book and it is a very detailed description of the hell he went through in the Pacific; I found that his descriptions tell it like it was, without apology, even though he wrote it years after the war. I have seen the other two books on sale in B&N. The first two episodes of the show deal with Guadalacanal, the next three with the Peleliu invasion, and the last ones with Iwo Jima and Okinawa. If anyone doubts why we dropped the A-bomb, this series should make it clear. Estimated casualties for invading Japan were on the order of one million US troops after the hell of Iwo and Okinawa--and that also mean practically exterminating the whole Japanese race. Okinawa made that clear, which was the main reason Truman used the bomb--we wanted an end to it ASAP. Sure, it killed a lot of people--though less than the conventional firebombing of Tokyo by B-29s already had--but it ended the war in only days and saved many, many more lives that would have been lost if Japan had not surrendered.
As usual, Hanks & Spielberg seem to do it right. As With BoB, they open each episode with interviews of the real veterans--the heroes who were actually there--who comment on the war almost 70 years later. The series doesn't seem judgmental on the war as far as America versus Japan or anything like that, other than it points out how horrible war can be and how senseless it sometimes seems to the poor guys who have to fight it. The amazing thing is that PTSD wasn't a well-known thing then (I think they called it "shell shock" or "going Asiantic") yet most of these men still managed to return from that horror and build lives again. The actors were put through bootcamp by Capt Dye (USMC Ret.) as with Saving Private Ryan and they really researched the details of the battles well. They fact that they included the surviving vets covered by the series and actually had them on set and interviewed them, I think, means they probably got it about as close as it could be done. It looks and sounds pretty realistic, thoughs till probably not as filthy as the real thing (some things, like smells, jsut can't be captured on a TV screen).
I look forward to seeing the other episodes. The Pacific War had a whole different flavor to it than Europe did. It was somehow more nasty, more vicious, and involved far more personal hatred, probably because of the terrain and the cultural differences involved. I have found the series very moving so far. I always get that way with the WWII vets. I think they will be proud of the series and Hanks' effort.
