The Pacific, what sounds to be the Band of Brothers of the WWII Pacific campaign, will be starting on March 14th. From the book (written by Hugh Ambrose, son of BoB's author), it sounds like they start in the Philippines shortly after Pearl Harbor, all the way through VJ Day.

Who's ready for this one?

Extremely excited. I think The Pacific is going to give the public the kick in the ass they need.. Europe was horrible by all accounts, but still almost entirely conventional. People will have a new appreciation for the kind of horrible that the island campaign was.

And most people don't seem to understand that the Japanese mindset at the time was that death was far preferred to surrender. And a lot of this came from the perversion of Bushido, combined with propagandic lies, propagated by the Japanese high command. They drummed into the populace (and even more so into the military) that "The Americans (and, by extension, America's allies) will rape the Japanese women", "The American Marines will toss Japanese babies from bayonet to bayonet", etc. Had we invaded the Japanese home islands (the invasion was being drawn up when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki), the results would have been tens of thousands (if not more) Allied dead, and the virtual disappearance of the Japanese (through brutal warfare and mass suicide). With the atomic bombs, though, that had been averted.

Note (Please read this very carefully before going off with a knee-jerk reaction): I do *Not* support the use of nuclear weapons, except in the gravest of circumstances. Their use at that time kept people on both sides from dying in what would have been a bloody campaign that would have made the deaths from the bombings and their aftermath seem trivial. Also, the results of the bombings demonstrated the power involved, and kept (and, hopefully, will contimue to keep) them from being used since.

Also, the same mentality of death before surrender extended, to a certain degree, to those that were captured by the Japanese. For example, the American and Filipino soldiers who were captured when the Philippines were forced marched to prison camps by the Japanese. Those who fell to the side from exhaustion, injury or illness were bayoneted to death. To the Japanese, the prisoners had dishonored themselves by surrendering; thus there were no qualms against doing such.

Of course, there's always the theory that the second bomb was dropped to drive home a point to the russkies rather than to subjugate the japanese further.
Then again, according to some sources, Japan was pretty close to surrendering even before the bombs so the most pertinent question in my mind is whether this was known by the men who gave the order? Then again, hindsight is 20/20.

Then again, is there any doubt in anyone's mind that it would've been considered a war crime if the germans, in a last ditch desperate measure nuked Liverpool and Leningrad in 1945 before surrendering?

Removed.

No I don't think that he is saying that at all, what I take from Joel's comment is that their are some other ideas out their about why we dropped the 2nd one. Not that those ideas are right or that he thinks that.

Well, that, and the fact that history is written by the winners. To me, the bombings seem excessive and uneccessary (again with 20/20 hindsight) but not as outright vindictive as the Dresden bombings.

As for hypocrisy, I wouldn't accuse anyone of that unless they made out the allies as altruistic paragons of virtue, acting without any self-intrest and were, in all case, morally beyond reproach. Not merely suggesting that compared to the axis, the allies were the good guys.

Well, they had to test it somewhere!
... And bombing non-whites would not be as bad as, say, dropping one in Europe.

The allies in general weren't going to settle for less than an unconditional surrender and that's all the Japanese were close to offering prior.

I know. My comment was primarily to highlight the ridiculousness of bringing conspiracy theories into the discussion, other than as troll bait.

Sorry, missed the sarcasm.

I'm seriously looking forward to The Pacific. If not only because I thought Band of Brothers was the best war series I've ever seen, but because the Pacific theatre is a lot "closer to home" - literally and figuratively - to we Australians.

My late father-in-law fought in Borneo, my uncle fought in New Guinea, and many of the men I looked after in my nursing days at the Repat hospital had been in Changi, Singapore and many other spots.

The only thing I'm a little bit "meh" with is the modern-day concepts like "Didn't God make the Japs, too?" being put into it. I understand why it's there, but in my experience, the veterans of the day rarely pondered such things. It took twenty five years for my father-in-law to buy a Japanese car, which he insisted on calling the "Little Yellow Bastard" to the day he died.

I think there was a lot more individual animosity between Allied / Japanese soldiers than between Allied / German soldiers, from what I've observed of veterans over the years, and I'm hoping The Pacific doesn't just try to gloss over that.

I've a feeling that's coming from the source memoirs. I've not read either, but from reading reviews (I've copies on the way) and looking a publication dates, I'd guess it's more from Sledge's With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa which came out more that three times as long after the war than the other primary memoir, Leicke's Helmet for My Pillow.

I'll go ahead and high-light the elephant in the room with this one: this is most likely due to "racial differences." The physical appearances of the Japanese aren't the same (physiology aside) like the are with the Germans. Add to that most Americans (especially of that time) can/could trace a heritage line back toward Europe as opposed to Asia which only further exacerbates the concept of "us vs. them."

As for the debates on the atomic bombings, there is a book I learned quite a bit recently from that I would recommend to anyone interested (the following info is from http://www.half.com):

The Pacific War Companion: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima
Author: Daniel Marston
Format: Paperback
ISBN-10: 1846032121
ISBN-13: 9781846032127
Mar 2007
Publisher: Osprey Pub Co
264 pages
Companion Series
Language: English

Agreed 100%. Sorry if you felt I was being coy - I meant to write a longer post discussing cultural / religious / racial differences, but I was at work and got distracted!

I think one of the biggest things was that the Germans were "us", in most cases (certainly as far as the Wehrmacht goes). They were overwhelmingly racially the same, the same (broad) religious beliefs and many even spoke English.

Oh definitely. There was similar thing going on the eastern front. The Soviets were considered "subhuman" in a way that the French and British weren't, especially when reinforcements came from the far east. And once the Germans had set the tone during their initial push, the Soviets were all too happy to hand it back to them tenfold.

I'm sorry, but the conduct of U.S./Allied forces inthe Pacific Theatre of Operations were directly tied to the tactics and conduct of Japanese forces in the theatre. The role of "Bushido" and the exhortations of leaders to their troops to die to the last man forced our response. The death toll of Japanese personnel (and civilians) are directly atributable to this policy. Despite Mr. (Tom) Hanks' assertions, the japanese, themselves chose the path of annihillation, not us.

Absent from these discussions, are the numerous atrocities committed by japanese personnel, including the execution-at-sea of captured american aviators (wrapped in chain and thrown overboard) during the battles of Midway and Santa Cruz, among others after brutal interrrogations. As the Batan Death-March has already been mentioned, I won't dwell on it further.

Suffice to say that the Japanese have yet to pay for their crimes, but continue to thrive in their home islands with a national attitude of complete arrogance and certitude of racial supremacy. This, all courtesy of a benevolant occupation by the United States of America, which had every right under the principles of the not-yet-created United Nations, to crush them, obliterate their culture and cast them to the winds.

Perhaps, we are better because of it..............


......Or, we may rue the day we chose benevolence........

...not really a people person, are you?

Should I be?

*gritting teeth*
...must resist...must...not...start...humming...Barbra Streisand...must...resist...



*running for cover*

The thing that deeply and passionately sends me into tirades are the 'apologists' who say the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary.

Yes, I am sorry a lot of civilians died, but I am glad they were bombed to keep even more Americans and allied and Japanese from dying IF the invasion of the home islands had gone through. The thousands that died saved in my opinion, millions from death and maiming, and saved the Japanese from possibly being destroyed.

On a completely different note... My 2y/o godson found art and a coloured pencil and my monitor. If this gets damaged, this will be the second monitor he's killed.

Ok, I just got to watch the first episode this afternoon. Pretty darn good, but I have a historical question. Did the Marines issue drum magazines for the Thompson? I have been under the impression that those were not really issued to anyone and I saw several on this episode. Just wondering so if anyone knows and would like to share how that came about I would appreciate it.

There were drum magazines issued early in the war. I have not seen the episode (no HBO) so I don't know the time period it was set. The drums fell out of service rather pretty quickly; too heavy and unwieldy for combat and patrolling.

Guadalcanal, just Aug 7-8 1942 thus far from what I remember of the episode.

I think the biggest technical firearms gaffe thus far is the prevalence of M1903A3s. The Marines were still using the M1903 at that point.

Any M1941 Johnsons showing up?

- C.

Of course, they're a bunch of Marines!

Ooooh! I kill me!

Nope. The Marines portrayed are not Raiders or Paramarines. What I've seen and identified so far are M1903 Springfields (actually mostly M1903A3s, though this isn't accurate), M50 Reisings, M1928 Thompsons, M1917 BMGs, M1897 shotguns and M1911A1 pistols. Saw some M1 Garands last Sunday when the Army landed.