The Pacific Part Nine 'Okinawa' First Time Watching! TV Reaction!!
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- The Pacific | Part Nine - Okinawa
Sledge....
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Sorry for the late upload! For some reason RUclips kept freezing the upload when it was trying to process the SD and HD versions of this video....
This was truly an emotional episode of The Pacific. Early in the episode, we saw Sledge go beyond what his father was afraid of, but in the end, we witnessed a beautiful act of humanity by Sledge in unimaginable circumstances. Sam and I can't wait to see how this difficult yet wonderful series completes
Thank you all for your support!
"Say hello to the Long Tom, Marine. We're called the US Army and we're coming in with battle hardened veterans of the European Theater by the hundreds of thousands. You take one half. We'll take the other. And trust me when I tell you the US Navy has got us all covered on this one.
Hell even the British Navy has decided to make an appearance!"
Oh your gonna see the ultimate Banzai Charge in this Battle alright...but not as part of the Japanese ground defense.
They had no air cover here obviously with the one Airfield over-run with nary a shot being fired. Thus the living quarters and r&r was in fact possible here for the first time in World War 2 in Theater in any Battle since both the still ongoing Battle of the Phillipines and the Battle of Saipan.
This made the US Army complacent but not the United States Marine Corps very true.
Interesting character based approach but Infantry work is all about fitting in...one might argue..."in all the wrong ways."
A good follow up might be a screening of "The Black Dahlia" if you really want to get into this mess.
The invasion began on April Fool's Day. The main fighting lasted into early June, but the bombs weren't dropped until early August, so there's a bit of a time skip at 16:23 to when Sledge is smoking his pipe and wearing clean, dry clothes. The Marines are preparing for the _next_ invasion; it'll be a few days before the Japanese publicly react to the A-bombs.
No apologies necessary , thanks as always
Remember the two atomic bombs that were dropped were babies compared to what is out there today.
Most of the US's nuclear warheads are 22 times more powerful that the bombs dropped in Japan. We have around 4000 of them.
@@douglascampbell9809 yes at least 50 times more powerful , America has 4 thousand but the Russian has as many not including China, India, Britain and France, and north Korea too ( maybe a couple of other countries) but enough to destroy the world 4 times over at least .
btw little fun fact the family of original Sledge was so touched and proud about the actor and how he portrayed him they actually gave the actor as gift the original Eugene's pipe and he still has it
For real?
@@212th yes - www.nbcmiami.com/news/national-international/soldiers-family-touching-thank-you-to-pacific-star-joe-mazzello/1855343/
@@Asticek that's fantastic
One of Eugene Sledges sons refuses to watch the show, but not because he considers it too inaccurate. Quite the contrary: he can't bring himself to see what his father went through so intimately.
Okinawa was disturbingly like a World War I battle; grinding attrition in muddy trenches, with lots of artillery. Just a brutal, bloody slog until everybody on one side was killed.
The Okinawans had it worse then a lot of other civilians, the Japanese actively used them and were not afraid of using them as shields
Compare Japanese killing Okinawa with Chineses
@@lightup6751 But no where near the brutality the Japanese exhibited in all the territories they occupied.
Yes, Japanese civilians were killed by Americans, that was when the bombing campaign began, and of course, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I can find no incidents of American soldiers killing Japanese civilians the way Chinese/Korean/Filipino/Okinawan/etc., were killed by Japanese soldiers. The only difference between them and the Nazis was that Imperial Japan was not as systematic (concentration camps).
They have several testimonies from people who used to live in okinawa during that time period that treatment they received from americans were much worse though.
@@noobie5324 Winner takes it all. you know that, right
@@noobie5324 You ever seen an mother who was with kids and jumped off the cliff to commit suicide because Americans used flamethrower to kill off people in okinawa? She knew she will be tortured and raped by americans and that is why she jumped off that cliff.
Okinawa was considered part of Japan's home islands, but I believe I remember reading or hearing that the civilians were thought of as 2nd class citizens by the people of the main islands (and military). Sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Yeah, unless you were from the main islands, anyone outside that was considered secondary citizens on equal to the Koreans and Manturians they had conquered as well - essentially they were not racially pure Japanese citizens so their lives meant absolutely zero
Okinawa had only become part of the Empire of Japan in the 1870s when the Ryukyu Kingdom (of which Okinawa was part of) was annexed by Japan.
They had been a part of a different kingdom until relatively recently. Their dialect of Japanese was a bit different. They were considered a different people, not Japanese race. America occupied Okinawa until the 1970s so Okinawa to this day is different from most of Japan. It's a lot more poor and sparse. Around Okinawa you might see them waving their local flag more than the Japanese flag.
That's part of why so many in Okinawa are still pissed almost all US bases in Japan are on Okinawa. From their perspective, they were conquered by Japan, then Japan brutally abused the civilians there, then let the US shoot it to shit, then Japan told the US to to build the bases there because they didn't want them on _real_ Japan.
These Marines had been fighting from August, 1942 until August, 1945, as opposed to "Easy Company" June, 1944 through April, 1945.
When the Marines were told of the Atom Bomb they had absolutely no idea what that was, or what they were talking about. Only that it meant that the war was over, and that was greeted with disbelief. An enemy that does NOT surrender, has in fact surrendered? Many Marines didn't believe it at first.
@Michael Cote He'll? Did you mean "Heil" as in HEIL HITLER? Or, more simply, just 'hell'. I stand by my post. Probably 90% of the Marines that went ashore on Guadalcanal in August of 1942 were civilians at the time of Pearl Harbor. All the Marines could do in the interim was to defend Pacific bases until those bases either fell to the Japanese (Wake, Guam) or the Japanese were forced to disengage (Midway). So, let me put it this way, the Marines were fighting to defeat Japan rather than to defend their positions from August, 1942. If you are suggesting that the ETO forces had it tougher than the PTO forces I believe that Army vets and Marine corp vets would all agree that the PTO was just a brutal slugfest with no quarter given. At least, obviously defeated the German forces would tend to surrender. Not so the Japanese. Once Marines were deployed into combat they did not have place to go for R&R like Paris. No reason for a 48 or 96 hour pass. Pavuvu in the Solomon Islands was just a place where they didn't have to worry about getting shot. That was their Paris.
@Michael Cote Technically, yes. There were a handful of Marines fighting defensive battles and they all were killed or taken prisoner.
My Pappaw served in the USAAF on Saipan in 1944-45. He told stories of the battle’s brutality as well as the ridiculous hijinx they’d pull on the officers’ quarters on Tinian. He also told of a plane that landed one day to offload some “top secret” and “very important cargo.” He helped guide the plane to the parking area and watched them bring down a massive crate. Across the side, it said “Little Boy.” He stood within 20 yards of the first atom bomb.
I had a great uncle who fought in the Pacific. There is a picture in an article of Time-Life where he and another American were pulling a Japanese baby boy out of cave. I want to say it was Saipan where this picture was taken. The Japanese military convinced their civilians that Americans would rape and murder their families. I have a really difficult time seeing films where they add a line to the credits honoring the Japanese military. Sure they fought a tough war and were brave, but what they did to the Koreans and Chinese was horrific. If you ever get the gumption you should read "The Rape of Nanking". It will give you pause. They dropped fleas with the Bubonic Plague on Chinese cities. There are horrific stories of what Japanese soldiers did to Australian nurses. Germany and Japan were very similar in that they committed the genocide of millions of people in the 30s and 40s.
Agreed
Yeah, I think what they did was probably worse. The fact that they’ve never acknowledged or apologized for any of it still rankles. A lot.
If you can stomach it, I recommend looking up Japan's Unit 731--their team tasked with human experimentation and biological warfare. The crimes committed by this unit rival that, if not surpass, that of Germany's SS.
@@TuBui2 I am reading about that right now in Max Hastings' book, "Retribution", and it is horrific. I do think it was worse than Nazi Germany's.
@@catherinelw9365 I'll check out that book. Thanks!
Excellent analysis of what I consider to be the most difficult episode of "The Pacific." Despite what numerous people have said, I agree with you both that "The Pacific" was as good as "Band of Brothers." Let's hope that "Masters of the Air" proves to be as good as these very well made miniseries.
Very insightful analysis and discussion! I hadn’t thought of Eugene’s evolution in this episode!
@@Farlayy Latest HBO mini series based on bomber crews as oppose to ground forces. Been in pre production for awhile but now in production (I think?). Not sure how good it will be since it's such a different environment.
after watching band of brothers and the pacific and being prior airforce I remember reading about masters of the air is it out yet?
@@Naxela135 Not out yet.
I certainly enjoyed the Pacific in the sense that you can enjoy something like this and I own both Eugene Sledge and Robert Leckie's memoirs, but I do have one major criticism of this when compared to Band of Brothers. I think they lost something in covering so much of the war. I would have rather they just have focused on Sledge's story. Not that the others weren't worthy, but ironically I think they chose to narrow the focus of this series to the 3 primary characters because people had a hard time keeping up with all of the characters in Band of Brothers. However in telling the story of men whose service spanned the entire Pacific campaign they lost that slightly more cogent story that Band of Brothers had. As far as choosing Sledge's story, both Leckie and Sledge's books are great, but With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa is probably one of the finest accounts of one's experiences in war that I have ever read.
On Okinawa not only Were civilians caught in the gunfire they also killed themselves because the Japanese troops defending the island told them all sorts of scary stories about the US Military so there is actual footage of whole entire families throwing themselves off the cliffs into the ocean
@@lightup6751 if you actually believe this you are supremely naive.
@@lightup6751 they are a part of war. But let’s not pretend American forces were the same as those of Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany. Or even Communist Russia. That’s just moral relativism.
@@rpg7287 More like moral imbecility.
@@rpg7287 I mean US troops raped like those did. We aren't innocent like many people wanna believe. Not saying we're as bad but the gap that ain't that far off like people wanna think. The last sentence isn't referring to WW2, just overall.
@@rpg7287 what did “light up” say? Comments deleted but I’d love to know just how much ignorant his comment obviously was for you to have to say there was an obvious different between the US Military and the military’s of Japan, Germany and the USSR.
Read Sledges book 'With The Old Breed' if you really want to understand what these marines went through. It is considered to be the best first hand account of the life of an infantryman in combat ever written. If you don't have time to read it the audio book is free on RUclips.
As someone who was born in the shadow of WW2 and grew up in a world dominated by its influence, I begin to see the importance of it start to fade from public consciousness (as all wars do) and I commend you for watching this and for staying with it even though it hurts...because these are war-songs that need to be heard.
Where do you live? My country lived under Nazi occupation and I would say the war is still as relevant as ever in public discourse
@@Alva2k US I'd assume. I'd say it's still pretty important here though, especially with the rhetoric getting used by a certain political party and book bannings.
@@Zack_410 Book bannings are the soft porn in children's libraries. You ok with that?
A lot of people condemn the use of Atomic bombs on Japan. I won't claim that they were a good thing, but they really were the lesser of two evils.
Operation Downfall was the planned invasion of Japan and it was expected to cost 1 million American lives in just the first 90 days. Not casualties, deaths. The main reason for this was Japan's strategy of turning every vehicle it had into a suicide craft. More than 10,000 aircraft,
about 400 midget submarines, 120 manned torpedoes, 2,412 speedboats and 1,200 suicide divers were ready to swarm the invasion.
Then you've got Japan's ground forces. Over 3 million army personnel, 28 million mobilized civilians in their so-called "Volunteer Corps." Healthy men between 15-60 and women 17-40 were all were inducted into a militia, armed anything and everything, indoctrinated to fight to the death.
The invasion would have been an absolute bloodbath. Estimates put the casualties as high as 1.7-4 million American casualties and 5-10 million Japanese fatalities. The scary thing about those estimates is that the real world casualties always far outstripped the estimates.
In the end, the Atomic bombs forced the Japanese to surrender, saving the lives of well over ten million of people. Probably higher. It's just too bad that it took wiping two cities off the map to do it.
This line of historical reasoning/justification is very common and has been accepted pretty much as self-evident truth. However, it is actually a postwar narrative construction, which started to form almost immediately after the war and was used by the Truman administration to justify the bombings. However, the circumstances surrounding the bombings were far more complex, political and irrational and had both internal and external causes relative to USA.
If you would like to know more, check out a video by a youtuber Shaun called "Dropping the bomb". It is somewhat lengthy, but very informative and might give some cause to doubt the general narrative regarding the bombings.
I am not blaming you by the way. I have for most of my life - while pondering the morality of the bombings - pretty much accepted the "lesser of two evils"-argument. It is only recently that I have come to doubt it as a piece of historical truth.
Yes but other conventional airraids before the atomic bombs had as many casualties , and over a longer period , the city's largely made of wood and paper were fire bomd, the worst thing about them was the radiation which was largely unknown at that point, as a side effect ,
@@ikosabre I never said that anything was justified. It's well established fact that if the atomic bombs hadn't worked, we would have to invade.
@@twohorsesinamancostume7606 No, it's not.
@@ikosabre I had a typo, I meant "I never said it was justified." That's what I get for typing on a phone
You guys should get Sledge's book. There were some inaccuracies between the book and miniseries. Peck and the bombed shack are just two instances. Phenomenal book.
There’s an instance from Okinawa in the book that I thought would’ve worked well in the miniseries as well. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but Sledge got pinned down in a building for a couple hours (maybe even the whole day) by a Japanese machine gun. I thought the series overall was great though. It’s hard to cram so many stories into such a short span. With the old breed is written so well. You go through all the same emotions Sledge goes through with him. At least I did. The fear, depression, anger, resentment of the Japanese etc.
@@pap4539 you could have almost done a whole mini series just on Sledge's account. That would have been a good part to add.
Did they throw Peck under the bus in the show?
I'd like someone to watch this series and tell me that Operation Downfall was going to be a cakewalk and that the nukes didn't save lots of lives on both sides.
And a lot of people forget that even before the first atomic bomb was dropped than B-29s were dropping napalm and white phosphorus on Tokyo and other major cities. A huge part of Tokyo was basically wood houses and the Japanese government had conscripted the whole population to manufacture parts for airplanes, etc. Even the British fired bombed cities like Dresden in Germany. More people died in the fire bombings of Tokyo than either Hiroshima or Nagasaki. If the Americans had to invade mainland Japan the amount of death would have been in the millions I have no doubt. It's difficult to look at things in that way.
"I'd like someone to watch this series " This is a Hollywood show it may not be the best source for factual information of a very controversial topic.
@@Sam_Guevenne : It happens to be based on several autobiographies and as someone long interested in World War 2 and the Pacific war in particular I can say that this is as accurate and actually a lot more than most things put onto the screen that concern World War 2.
@@Sam_Guevenne It's probably more accurate than the garbage you ingest.
@@lightup6751 Since I've seen the actual transcripts of our interviews with both the leaders of Japan and many high ranking officers (The Army Intelligence branch conducted many interviews after the war ), no Japan was NOT 'about to surrender'. In fact, whether you think it was the atomic bombs, the Russian declaration of war and the Invasion of Manchuko on the same day the Nagasaki bomb was dropped (cutting off Japans hopes of using the Russians to negotiate a nicer surrender regime) or a combination of both, EVEN AFTER the Emperor recorded the 'surrender recording' there. was an attempted coup by hardline Japanese militarists. The actual VOTE for surrender even after 2 atomic bombings and the Russian backstab (meaning the entire world was pretty much arrayed against Japan at this point, certainly all the major powers on the globe) was 3 to 3 with 3 hardline military men voting against. It took the Emperor to do something almost unprecedented and break the tie. The goal of the military was simple: they figured, accurately, that we didn't have many more atomic bombs ready. They wanted to force an invasion and make it so bloody (their own WORDS plus the preparations we found all over Japan when we occupied it) that we would sue for peace and only make them give up SOME of their conquered territory PLUS we wouldn't occupy Japan. "Honor" was everything to these people. Why do you think so many Japanese committed suicide rather than surrender? In fact, the US didn't get surrenders of more than a few dozen troops at most on any island until the last year of the war, when, not only were many garrisons starving but the fact that Japan was losing and would probably lose was becoming apparent. You need to look into Operations Downfall and Operation Ketsugo if you are going to ignorantly spout off about the bomb, about how Japan was 'going to surrender' or any of that. The Pacific was a hell theater, probably as bad as the worst parts of the Eastern Front in many ways, though the numbers fighting were far smaller. Anyway you disgrace the sacrifice of our vets with such ignorance.
They gathered a number of different incidents with different soldiers in Sledge's book and put them onto Peck.
so those bullying weren't always on peck?
I remember I was sitting on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan when they told us Bin Laden died. We had been on a week long patrol, and it barely made an impression at the time. Someone joked "does that mean we can go home" and then we tucked deeper into our warm weather gear and continued to scan our sectors. It was nice to hear, but it just didn't seem to have much relevance on what we were doing or where we were.
the Hardcore History podcast just finally finished their series on the Pacific War, it's a really good worthwhile listen.
When I was stationed in Okinawa on my first year in the fleet, we would still find fighting holes dug into the rock from WW2. The tick marks fir faster mortar targeting were still present.
At the end, the cameras pan to the sky, showing a squadron of B-29s, with ominous music. I believe they were alluding to Fat Man heading towards Nagasaki.
I really like this couple. Such good people with great comments and insights!!!!!
My great uncle was in the Army fighting southward into the Shuri line. He died there. My father was a fighter pilot flying his Corsair off the Bunker Hill. Rather than the 500 dead mentioned in this episode, the 2 kamikaze actually caused the deaths of over 900. The Pacific was brutal partly because the Japanese were not signatory to the Hague Convention and the laws of war. Their brutality was why we became as brutal. Life magazine ran a picture of a Japanese soldier's skull that a soldier took, boiled clean and shipped home to his sister or girlfriend. I don't remember which anymore. That Life magazine ran that picture for the entire nation to see speaks to just how brutal in our thoughts we all became. We were preparing to invade Japan at this point and the initial estimates were between 500,000 to 5,000,000 dead Americans. They also estimated between 10 and 20 million dead Japanese. The war ended with 495,000 Purple Hearts in inventory just for the initial invasions of the Home Islands. We are still issuing that stockpile of awards to this day with all the wars we have been involved in since then. It was a different world.
That old ladys death scene was for me, the most Poignant moment of the series.
Are you thinking of looking at HBO's "Generation Kill"? Another outstanding mini series
^^^
Very solid. 2003 Iraq invasion
@Hawkstyle There is also a show called "Generation War" and it's like Band of Brothers kinda from the German side.
ruclips.net/video/TmyGPX23px4/видео.html
fuity rudy : P
I've always considered Band of Brothers, The Pacific and Generation Kill to be the HBO War Series Trifecta. All of them offer different views on war and the experiences people take back with them.
Bill is straight Brooklyn. As a Brooklynite myself the actor did a good job.
Also one of the issues they don’t address in the episode that very evident is on top of everything else is you’re hot in muddy, dirty, and wet clothes. Down to your underwear. You can smell yourself plus everyone else. It makes you feel much worse mentally.
@@X2X2X438 aside from having characters exposit that kind of thing, which sometimes come cross as unnatural, it's kinda a hard thing to show cause the only senses film can really portray is Sight and sound
@@omalleycaboose5937 yeah obviously. I’m just speaking from first hand accounts. But mine was only weeks of training. not months long war battles. So it’s definitely worse
Okinawa was not the first island where civilians were pawns in the Japanese military's prosecution of their defense of the island. Saipan was the Marine's first exposure to mass civilian suicides, shields et.al. (We have not seen any of this in The Pacific mini series prior to this episode because none of the protagonists were at Saipan) The civilians were not civilians in the western sense of the term. First they were citizens of the empire, culturally and politically bound to obey the emperor. They had been ceaselessly told the the Americans would kill/eat/rape/etc every one of them. So while there were certainly plenty of civilians on Saipan and Okinawa who just wanted to live there were a good number who felt they were doing there duty not wanting to be shamed by capitulating.
I worked with an incredibly nice lady from Saipan; she was the same age as me (born early 1960s) so the war was a memory; she told me that, even today, the place the civilians jumped to their deaths became known as 'Suicide Point'.
"The Girl with the White Flag" by Tomiko Higa is an amazing true story of survival during 'The Typhoon of Steel'.
Although aimed at a middle school reading level, it's an emotional, harrowing tale.
I think you two will really enjoy it!
omg i watched this when it came out and never put together the mortar round sledge put in the barn and the lady and baby in it later :o and love all the stuff you guys do :)
I like the new lieutenant. Even though Captain Haldane died, that guy also seems to be a good commander. He stood up for Sledgehammer when the intelligence officer guy tried to punish him for beating Japanese prisoner.
I don't know if it was just for show but it seems extreme to threaten someone with court marshall over shoving especially when others were wanting soldiers to shoot the prisoner.
Wasn't a Japanese soldier. Was a young Okinawan kid. The outfit he was wearing was the standard Okinawan peasant clothing of that time.
This has been a great journey so far with you guys. Don't know how you pair don't have 1M subs. Probably the most engaging, thoughtful, intelligent couple that seem to catch most of the nuances of shows like this. Can't wait for the finale. Upvote on Generation Kill for after this, too. A must-see. Also, someone down the line mentioned John Adams. It's quite ponderous and intoxicated by its own mission to exude gravitas with a "Capitol" G at every step, if that makes sense (ever-exasperated Paul Giamatti probably wouldn't have been my choice for the lead), but it's very well-executed, looks and feels fantastic, period-wise, and something worth reacting to.
There were thousands of mental stress casualties to the point of 20000. Make sure you carefully watch the final information at the end of episode 10. You will learn about and see everybody.
Damn I forgot that scene with the womann holding her child & they both got blown to pieces. This show pulled no punches. The only thing that might've gotten these young guys through it at the time was immaturity & the ability to disconnect. That's why Sledge finally broke in his fathers arms at the end. You live enough and get through it at some point there is no hiding. Watching this again shook me up :(
15:49 Mr Scmitt crying? Now that's a first.
Yes, I saw he shed a few manly tears. Who wouldn't? That was a heart-breaking scene.
Towards the end, just to scratch the surface of that history, they hadn’t yet, I don’t think, dropped the second bomb on Nagasaki, and it hadn’t yet been demonstrated so little if anything was known about its effects? Maybe I got my dates incorrect. But I think it was about the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Good insights and observation on hearing news of that magnitude while far from home and at war in the field in that time period!
A lot of the civilians on Okinawa, historically were made to believe the Americans were murderous savages etc. The unarmed boy I really think was likely forced into where he was by the Japanese, himself being unarmed.
The off-handed way the bomb is discussed reflects how these men were engaged under the "tyranny of the now", as David Kenyon Webster wrote about combat in his memoir. You can't focus on the big picture or events that occur far away from where you are because you are deeply involved in survival and dealing with what is happening now, and in only your personal sphere.
Chewing gum and announcing the bomb and what Battalion Mess will be serving for supper in the same breath. Both given the same weight.
I really encourage you to read Eugene Sledge's memoir, "With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa". It's a tremendous read.
This was a really rough episode.
yeah it was rough
You have to realize that they had no concept of what a Atomic Bomb was.
The funny thing is, after the war ended 1st Marine Division (and Sledge and Snafu) had occupation duty in China, so they still had a couple of years before they got home.
It was one year for Sledge. He wrote about his year in China in "China Marine".
@@catherinelw9365 Thanks; Another book I must read at some point.
@@nickmitsialis It's very good. Sledge loved the Chinese people, who were supportive of the Marines there. He had injured his arm (non combat) and had to wear a sling, and every Chinese person who saw him would come up to him, say "Bad Japan!" and touch his arm, thinking he was wounded by them. He also began learning Chinese from a young boy who they hired to do cooking and washing clothes. He said his healing from the war started when he was in China, as he befriended a Jesuit priest and a Chinese doctor, who frequently invited him over for meals with his family.
@@catherinelw9365 Thanks! I was hoping that a year to 'unwind' from the traumas of Okinawa and Peleliu, and still be around his 'combat buddies' would do him good.
So about the nuclear bomb not many people especially the service members in the war didn’t know what kinda bomb it is because that was the first of its kind so they brushed it off like it just another bomb and they didn’t think that it would end the war.
I know everyone is gonna suggest Genaration kill but please consider John Adam's as it untouched ground as far as reactions
John Adams is so underrated. It’s a shame no one has reacted to it yet.
John Adams is honestly one of the best series I've seen. As a Philadelphian I definitely have a positive bias toward it.
John Adams is fantastic
This Battle actually went on for 82 days
It was as if the entire Japanese military was the equivalent of Germany's SS.
About the bomb: my stepfather was in the Navy, and his small ship was at Okinawa. The plans were already made for the invasion of the Japanese home islands, and his ship's role was going to be to drop anchor less than a mile offshore at one of the invasion beaches and coordinate waves of landing craft. Every man on that ship knew that with the Japanese coastal defense artillery, they'd be lucky to last fifteen minutes. He said it was really strange that every man on the ship knew the day and the hour that he was going to die. When the bombs were dropped and Japan surrendered, they felt as if they'd suddenly been given back the whole rest of their lives. He was 22.
Between that and the fact that the invasion would have led to a lot more deaths, Japanese as well as Americans, as the bombs did, I am convinced that as bad as the bombs were, they were the lesser of two truly terrible evils. As it was, my stepdad died in 2003 at the age of 80. He was given an extra 58 years.
Just before I left for boot camp, I asked him if he could pick out one thing that his experiences in the war meant to him, more than anything else. He had always told only funny stories about it up until then, but when I asked him that, he didn't say anything for a few seconds, then said, "Dead friends."
To us, the first atomic bombing is incredibly significant. But to Americans at the time, it probably wasn't. We've been bombing their cities for a year, burning them with incendiary raids that killed more people than the atomic bombings did. Japan didn't surrender after Hiroshima was nuked. Didn't even surrender immediately after Nagasaki was nuked. It took a few more days until the Soviets invaded Manchuria destroying the Northern Army of Japan in China before the emperor agreed to surrender.
As far as these men knew, they might still need to invade Japan, using Okinawa to do so. That is why we invaded the island. And they could do the math on the casualties. The US Army was expecting a million casualties and tens of millions of dead Japanese just in the invasion of the Southern Japanese home island of Kyushu.
Not quite correct. The Soviets invaded on the night of 8/9 Aug. The second bomb was dropped on 9 Aug. The Japanese cabinet met on the night of 9/10 Aug -- that's when the Emperor told them they would have to surrender. Accordingly, the government communicated with the Allies on 10 Aug, though they did spend the next few days trying to negotiate for better terms.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#Discussions_of_surrender
A million casualties from just the first invasion is probably too high, though estimates vary considerably.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Estimated_casualties
An eye-opening statistic: In the decades since WW2, the US government has _still_ not exhausted the supply of Purple Heart medals acquired in preparation for the invasion.
Wrong timing there. The Soviet invasion of Manchuria did not make the Japanese surrender.
@@wwoods66 You're correct. I should have looked it up rather than going off memory. But if you'll notice, even after the second atomic bombing, Japan took almost a week to surrender. What's not mentioned here is that there was an attempted coup against the emperor to prevent Japan from surrendering.
Remember they did not know what the full effects of the nukes were. It was just a big bomb to them.
My dad found out he was going to be drafted into the army so he joined the marines at 17 and ended up on Saipan
watch letters from Iwo Jima it's really well done.
Yes! The edge of tomorrow, fifth element or bladerunner!
The baby scene still reduces me to tears…
You need to watch Edge Of Tomorrow. It’s so Tom Cruise movie. Not his biggest fan but he makes a hell of a movie.
Got to love history movies
After Okinawa, the next target was inevitably the home islands of Japan. Estimated US casulties were at twenty million, conservatively, with one million of them being KIA. Japanese casulties, civilian and military, were deemed immeasurable. The fight was anticipated to be so bloody that we've only recently used up the last of the Purple Hearts made for the invasion. The original landing was to be at the southern end of Kyushu, an unfortunately obvious point of invasion that the japanese had fortified, and was to later be followed up by and invasion of Honshu next to the Japanese capital of Tokyo. The Japanese had prepared millions of soldiers and civilians, some armed with simple spears, for the upcoming battle and thousands of Kamikaze planes were also prepared (and expected to reap a heavy toll by the US Navy). The Soviet Union, by the end of the war already swarming into Manchuria, were playing around with the idea of a northern naval invasion which actually helped convince the Japanese to surrender as they saw any ground lost to the Soviets would be lost forever. But yeah, that was the armies solution to the end of the war. The navy was in favor of simply blockading the island and pummeling Japan with an overwhelming aerial campaign with B-29 Super Fortresses, but that was estimated to take years to complete. By the end of the war, Truman had three options; years of blockade, the bloodiest year in American history, or bombs that could wipe out entire cities.
He would later say there was no question not to use the Atom Bomb, and with the choices laid out before him, I don't blame him
twenty million? I know they estimated 1 million KIA and probably many more wounded and other casualties, but 20 million? I don't know, it sounds way off
@@maximilianodelrio Bear in mind that 20 million wasn't just the dead. Casulties mean soldiers who are killed, wounded, or go MIA in combat. Out of the twenty million estimated casualties, 1 in 20 of them would result in death (by the armies staticians), but seeing as how the army undershot the casultie rate for every battle up to that point, it was probably going to be even worse.
A quote from the pacific describing the Japanese Soldier fits well with how determined the Japanese people were willing to go in a fight to the end. "He does not care if he is hurt or killed, so long as he kills you". To put how much bloodshed we expected, the Purple Heart medals produced in anticipation for the invasion only ran out a few years ago. 75 years after the conflict ended, we've had enough purple hearts made for one campaign go through several major conflicts.
@@americancaesar6065 yeah I'm aware, but 20 million just seems unreasonable. If we assume the 1 million KIA figure was accurate, then 20 times as many wounded or missing seems very unreasonable when throughout the war, 3-4 times was more common. I'd say 6 million, including kia, is much closer
@@americancaesar6065 The Japanese government estimated 20 million civilian deaths. Perhaps you got that confused.
So if they estimated 20M casualties with 1M KIA what would have happened to the other 19M?
Okinawa is the bloodiest battle the Americans fought in the entirety of WW2. Let that sink in.
Tough episode!
It really was!
@@TBRSchmitt toward the end, I had a thought and with the immense amount of actual historic war footage highlighted in the intros, and moments the series gives us, is that we get glimpses of humanity through the eyes of the Sledge or Leckie and even Basilone. Like when toward the end, Sledge sees one of the other Marines or American soldier perhaps, of a different unit, carrying a local child. It’s glimpses like that, that elevates the series.
This episode really fucked me up, like seriously. I lost my appetite when a minute ago I was hungry af.
Their shock when Pack talks about being drafted is because Marines are not drafted. They are always volunteers.
In that war, it was normally the army that recruited on a compulsory basis, but in the marines everyone was enlisted volunteers.
The Marines are primarily volunteers, but they accepted draftees during World War Two and Vietnam.
You guys should watch Hacksaw Ridge if you haven’t yet great movie
Just realized, the guy who played Hamm is the same guy who played Micghaelangelo from Michael Bay's TMNT.
You guys should check out a show called Generation war. Fantastic mini series that has been dubbed "The German band kf brothers"
There was no happiness to be had in The Pacific Theatre.
He lied, he found his humanity : )
This is why the atomic bombs were dropped because of Okinawa. The US did not want to experience a land invasion that would have cost the US hundreds of thousands of lives and millions on the Japanese side including civilians. That's why the 500,000 purple hearts were made for the land invasion. Even worse for Japan, the Soviet Union joined the war and most likely would have invaded from the north of Japan. This is why HIroshima and Nagasaki were sacrificed to save millions of people the war probably would have lasted another year.
Yep
These guys -- most people -- had no idea of the technology or larger ramifications of nuclear weapons. All they knew was we had a really big bomb that wiped out a lot of the enemies they had fighting.
I mean how would they, they had never been used before and unless you were a theoretical nuclear physicist you wouldn't even comprehent the numbers thrown around. I mean if i tell you the bombs were 21 kilotonnes of TNT what does that say to you? hell it doesn't even say anything to me. Its was unseen of, unheard of and for most people unthinkable that a single bomb could do this.
Timeline check: It was while the Okinawa campaign was taking place that Easy Company stumbled across a concentration camp (Band of Brothers, Episode 9), as well as occupied Berchtesgarden (Band of Brothers, Episode 10).
The Japanese didn’t regard Okinawans as fellow subjects of the Emperor. Both the Japanese and Americans killed some 150,000 of them - half of the entire estimated Okinawan population just before the start of the Pacific War - during this battle.
The atomic bomb is about 10 days before the war ended ( surrender)
The reason why they said that so casually is bc they been in war for so long that death is normal
11:46 first time i think i've heard "ewwww" on the TBR Schmitt channel
Have you watched Life is Beautiful? Good Italian WW2 film
While The Pacific takes a lot more liberties with historical accuracy than Band of Brothers (with regards to individual characters & their actions, at least), it still manages to convey a similar sense of experiential truth, which is the true value of these series. Hopefully this is as close to the real thing as any of us ever get!
I'm sure BOB had plenty of similar liberties with their characters compared to the amount in this show.
Only the army drafted.
The Okinawans were not ethnic Japanese, and thus were considered 2nd class citizens. Also, their education system heavily indoctrinated the Okinawans to be more Japanese than the Japanese. More than 2000 junior high volunteer/conscripts would be killed in the battle including 211 teenage schoolgirls (out of 222 conscripted) as front line nurses in the so-called Lily Corp. Many of the adult men were conscripted and then used as canon fodder, making up about a third of the defending Imperial forces. The estimated 30,000 fatalities represented 10% of the islands pre-War population. Okinawan civilians were murdered by Japanese troops, used as human shields, denied access to evacuation or surrender, and were encouraged to commit suicide rather than be captured. The US grave registers reported just over 142000 Japanese corpses recovered, which would mean an estimated 40,000+ non-conscripted civilian Okinawans dies on top of the 30k conscripted (70,000+ fatalities out of 300,000). Prefecture records and census after the war created an estimate of more than 100,000 dead. In other words between a quarter and a third of the civilian population died. Including missing (which might include survivors who left or were evacuated wither right before the invasion or slipped out during relief operation after the battle, the population of the island of Okinawa was reduced by half to under 150,000. And this was not unique Similar numbers were seen anywhere Japanese civilians rather than occupied populations were encountered. During the battle of Saipan in 1944, out of a civilian population of 25,000 approximately 22,000 died, including between 5000 and 7000 who committed suicide by throwing themselves of a cliff called Marpi Point, later renamed Suicide Cliff.
I see someone reported my comment for being too factual. Whatever, truth is the truth.
Great review/reaction as always. I would mention a couple things for you to keep in mind. First, the reaction to the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't as shocking to them because the scale of their destructive power had NEVER been seen before on Earth except in massive meteor strikes, such as in Tunguska, Russia, and in Arizona at Meteor Crater. Certainly nothing man-made. They had no idea what they looked like, did, or anything of that nature. So their muted reactions was a combination of fatigue and not knowing a single thing about the bombs.
Second, I tend to subscribe to a mutual ending of the war, in that it was a combination of the bombs being dropped AND the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan. As I said in reply to another comment here, the Japanese had fought and won a war against what was then Russia in 1905-06 (The Russo-Japanese War). It was a massive shock and upset that a country as powerful as Russia was defeated by the Japanese. Flash forward about 40 years later, and you have men in power in both countries who fought in that war. I have no doubt many Soviet leaders held animosity towards the Japanese for that victory and would have told their men to kill any-and-all Japanese, civilians or otherwise. It is because of that fear, and the bombings, why Japan surrendered to the U.S. It wasn't unconditional as the Allies wanted, but the only condition the Japanese asked for was to keep the Emperor in place as their leader.
Lastly, the invasion of Okinawa was technically the beginning of invading Japan, as it is the southern-most main Japanese island. However, the invasion of the main island of Honshu, where Tokyo and Hiroshima are located, was estimated to be an even bloodier affair than Okinawa. They were training civilians to fight with sharpened sticks and such, on top of the Imperial Japanese Army soldiers. Early estimates of the casualties were more than 400,000 Americans in the first three months. To prepare, the U.S. government had 400,000 Purple Heart medals minted for those who were wounded/killed in battle. This was such a large quantity, that even with all the fighting since (Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf War, War on Terror, etc.), we are STILL using those Purple Hearts minted back in 1945 for soldiers wounded/killed in battle TO THIS DAY!
The Pacific War was such a long, brutal campaign. No man who went into it came out the same at all, it was impossible to do so. I sometimes wonder what it would've been like for soldiers like Leckie, "Runner", Basilone, etc. to have made it there and fought? Would they have survived? Would they have made a difference and shortened the war in some way with their extra experience? We will never know.
It was a million Purple Hearts that were made. And the Soviets did not have the means to invade Japan.
@@catherinelw9365 The total number minted for the war was 1.5 million, but almost 1/3 were minted during the Spring/Summer of 1945. You are categorically incorrect. Check your facts before you post and try to sound smarter than people...especially history teachers!
I don't post to "sound smarter". You have a chip on your shoulder and you are WRONG about Japan surrendering because of the Soviets. Read the Emperor's speech to his people when he announces the surrender. Nothing about the Soviets. However, he states the cause being a new "most cruel bomb" by the Americans. Quit the revisionist crap you "teachers" are feeding students. I have no respect for people like you who lie.
I would like to suggest you to try soviet war movies. You should begin by "liberation" ( Osvobozhdenie) the pentalogy of Yuri Ozerov
Mental hugs ( samantha)
Its a hard episode....
this may sound weird, but your wife has a very calming face to look at when watching this stuff, don't get me wrong she is pretty, but her face is calming fist and foremost
One of the new guys was micky from shameless.
They already made it obvious of course but this was the worst since it was for lack of better words the tip of Japan (even though it was an island at the tip). In the end of all this we look back and ask why we dropped the A-Bomb. But at the time, we knew a land invasion would have insane numbers of deaths on both sides. Including the loss of civilians. It was a necessary evil to drop the bomb.
Granted now we know Japan was close to surrendering supposedly. But can't change it now. Though there is talk that even if we knew (but the public didn't), we may still have dropped the bomb out of wanting to "test it" in a real-life situation. This is why after the bombs dropped we sent teams to investigate what happened afterward. Scientists and the military got to see what the bomb actually did. And many regret it due to the things they had seen. There were still kids born deformed and with other issues LONG after the bomb had been dropped.
While many felt regret about the bomb after, there is still no denying how it changed the world. Hence no one wants to use a nuke. Also why we all have the MAD policy in place. I pray it never comes to MAD, because if it does, humans will all die off. Mutually Assured Destruction. If someone launches their nukes in mass, we launch all of ours in mass. The end of the world. Only 100 nukes could wipe us all out. And in total around the world, there are thousands upon thousands. So MAD is indeed mad.
I heard the Nippons treated the Okinawans as second class citizens, by forcing them to do Suicide charges and other war crimes. If it were me, I would deliver strict justice for the Okinawans by delivering the Japanese officers who were in charge of their misery to the angry mob to be beaten to death, it’s fair justice.
Dont mean to be annoying but first
Not annoyed.... 3rd! (and 27th view) :-D
"Marine! We're going to take Iwo Jima because I'm an Admiral and we're bored!"
what?
Wrong episode.
U give the new guys shit, becouse its hard to see the new guys die. So u distance urself from them.
Please react rurouni kenshi 1 - 4
The closer we got, the nastier the Japanese became. Awful for both sides.
21:30 - Didn't Japanese culture mean one preferred to pass away alone, and that to be held as you die was to be considered shameful? Sledge might not have been doing her the favour you think...
Okinawa, not Japan.
War sux huh
Crazy to think that in all these wars the most casualties are women and children. even crazier the big wigs laughing getting super rich off all that war.
Superficial comment.