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“Left for dead” is a major understatement about that islander on Guadalcanal. He was captured, beaten, stabbed numerous times, and had his throat slit yet crawled to Allied lines to inform them the Japanese position and still survived.
Band of Brothers tells us a story we are all used to hearing in a way we never heard before. The Pacific tells us a story we weren't ready to hear in a way that's unforgettable. Masters of the Air tells us a story I keep forgetting to go back and finish.
Masters of the Air was so much more emotionally draining that I expected. The scene where all but one bomber goes down really hit me hard. I also think that the constant rotation of characters really nailed home just how high the attrition rate was for the bombers.
My grandfather fought in the Pacific as infantry on the front lines. He spent 2 solid years on those front lines. He was shot seven times but tore the paperwork for the purple heart up five of those seven because he didn't want his mom to worry about him. The last two shots were what they call "stateside wounds" -- meaning they were severe enough to take you off the front lines and back to the states. In this case, Hawaii. In 1989 my mom had a brilliant idea: she gave my grandfather a portable tape recorder and a bunch of 3x5 cards with questions on them. Between 1989 and 1992 he chain smoked and spoke into these tape recorders before he passed away in 1994. Recently, I transcribed the tapes into the digital world and I'm literally the only human being to have heard all the answers. There were many questions about the war and the answers were eye-opening. Some of the things he said he witnessed were so savage that I've not been able to repeat it. Then I saw "The Pacific." From what I heard my grandfather describe and what I saw/heard in this series, it was almost as if those tapes had a picture attached to them. They got a lot of the nuances right. For what it's worth to anyone reading this, my grandfather's take-away from the war went something like this (and I'm paraphrasing): He said that when you're over there and you've been in it long enough, you become savages and that savagery was on both sides. He said that he and a lot of the men he was out there with realized they were expendable and they started to realize that they were being put in this impossible situation for much much longer periods of time. People who might have viewed him as a hero might not like this answer but the idea of fighting for the country died off pretty quickly. He was there for the people next to him, his "buddies," the guys he came up with. Everyone assumed they were as good as dead. You didn't want to make friends with new people because when they were killed it would hurt and every person out there had to protect that side of themselves. The side that would crack. That's what he'd say, that you had to keep yourself from cracking, literally losing your mind. That scene in "The Pacific" where the Japanese sent the women and children first to see if anyone was out going to shoot at them? That happened to my grandfather. He nearly killed a little girl but because in the rare instance he hesitated (and he said he never did) that girl lived. He said after that he knew he was going to lose it because if you have to think about what you're doing even for a second, you're going to be killed yourself. He didn't hate the Japanese and a lot of them didn't. They had enough sense to realize that those they were fighting against were just kids like they were and they were being driven just as insane. It's odd to say but all of that racism and xenophobic war propaganda everyone was fed melted away out there. It's a funny, horrible and frightening truth all this. The senseless insanity of it all and the fact we continue the practice. The whole reason I'm typing this and you're reading it stems to the fact that my grandfather was shot seven times and managed to survive but there are 30 multiplied by however many children and grandchildren instances of absolute cold silence thanks to the same person. Hundreds of silences down to luck. That's war. He called it a living hell but he did his job, received his medals and went onto start a family. For the rest of his life he'd be scared and scarred. He'd never be able to express how much love he felt for fear that doing so would open ALL the hurt, everything he'd lost, everything he went through. It was only after I listened that I understood who he was, why he was. I think that's the most important thing "The Pacific" did. It gave you a real solid glimpse into the damage of it all.
My step-grandfather was in the USMC during WWII. He took part in the Guadalcanal campaign (he landed on Tulagi and later moved to the main island) and later Saipan. I wish we'd done something like that while he was living, but I don't know if he would have been able to get through it. We didn't even know until after his passing about him being on Saipan; my stepfather only learned about it after finding some mentions in his belongings and then requesting his service records.
As a Marine in 2010-2017, The Pacific along with Generation Kill were both huge among the marines I served with. Anything depicting our heritage and legacy past or present was always a welcome sight. The demeanor, banter, attitude of both series were on point. For Marines, seeing Chesty Puller, John Basilone, and other heroes we learn about and idolize from day 1 is like our disneyland. So the Pacific holds a very near and dear place in a lot of our little crayon eating hearts. I can't tell you how many times I rewatched the series. Whether it lived up to band of brothers or not is one thing, but in the hearts of every young marine that watches this show its the best.
This is a great series . But it does perpetuate the myth that the Marines did the bulk of the fighting in the Pacific . The US Army did more amphibious landings and did the bulk of the fighting . The Marines only had 6 Divisions . The Army had 21 Divisions . The Australian Army had 13 Divisions including 2 armoured Divisions . It was the Australians who first stoped the Japanese on land in New Guinea . This was months prior to any US ground troops being involved in any push back of Japanese forces.The first American troops to go on the offensive was the 32 US Army infantry in Buna in New Guinea . The Australians did the bulk of the land fighting in the Pacific up until late 1943.I don't want to down play the Marines in any way their actions were vital to the final victory with their Island hopping. But the bulk of the fighting was not done by them . Iwo Jima was the only action that was a predominantly marine action .The others were joint Marine & Army actions .The largest amphibious assault in the Pacific was the Australians on Borneo in late 1945.
@@paulobrien9248 Its not perpetuating any myth, this story is SPECIFICALLY about the Marines going through the pacific. Not new guinea, not the overall WW2 conflict, etc. This was a movie about Marines. There were tons of forces that did a ton in WW2. This isn't that story.
Hey everyone just wanted to do a quick apology. I mistakenly referred to Marines as 'soldiers' earlier, and I know that’s not right. I understand the difference and I’m sorry this slipped through the cracks. I definitely respect the unique identity of the Marines, and I appreciate all of your service. Thanks for understanding!
On Leckie sending letters to Vera--This was even addressed in the show. He wrote the letters but never sent them, said that the "rain on Cape Gloucester probably wiped away every word."
>i wrote letters to you >i never got any >i never sent them well it is something he could definietly do regardless of his feelings just to keeps himself sane
I think a lot of the reason why WW2 media is dominated by the european theater is because it actually fits the hero's journey. Take band of brothers as the baseline. Its the story of men who answer the call, fight through france and germany, conquer their enemies who are about as cartoonishly, unambiguously evil as you can get, and end up in a literal shining city on the hill. There is direction and finality in everything they did, which is why that episode with the raids across the river is so jarring and depressing. Now look at the pacific war. Its waves upon waves of men fed into a slaughterhouse over and over and over again, where the enemy forces them to do terrible things just to survive, no one stays alive and healthy long enough to form true bonds for a viewer, and the climax happens suddenly and off screen. It doesnt feel like the soldiers' individual actions truly matter to the grand narrative, and theres no resolution for an audience to get behind. Its brutal and terrifying and hopeless, and theres no triumphant victory to make it all worth it. Thats not something that sells tickets to soccer mom america, whereas the few successful pacific war films are about smaller scalez individual battles where there ARE those character throughlines and a resolution after the victory.
I don't think soccer moms are the target audience of WW2 films and TV, This falls into the category of Dad's TV. People make fun of Prime video for being peak prime TV with shows like reacher and terminal list. I do think that there is a lot to be with the enemy and the agree that bleak terrain and stories make it harder for TV specially since it wasn't still the golden age of streaming like it is now back then in 2010 when this was released. It's harder to get a main character that last the whole show. But for movies or focused battles it can work really well but people associations with the Japanese make them harder to do, just look at the controversies that Oppenheimer had and we'll they even do work to basically deny history with stuff like the comfort women's statues.
That's not a Europe versus Pacific issue. That's a basic writing issue. Nothing about the Pacific Theater precludes satisfying character development and story arcs. The writing team just sabotaged themselves by trying to capture three years of war in ten episodes. _Generation War_ had the same problem; trying to portray the whole eastern front in only three episodes. If Band of Brothers were instead about, say, the entire 34th Infantry Division from 1942-1945, then it would feel just as hopeless, purposeless, and brutal as The Pacific. Unfortunately, we allowed ourselves to assume that everyone who served in Europe had as jolly of a time as Easy Company.
There are no scenes in The Pacific like the one in Band of Brothers where thousands of surrendered German troops are marching down the road. The Japanese fought to the last man.
It's a simple matter of a classic Eurocentric mentality that ensures that movies set in the European Theater are deemed "more marketable" than those situated in the Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Army easily gave the Nazis a run for their proverbial money in the department of wartime atrocities, punctuated by the brutal massacre of more than 30 million Chinese civilians under the "Loot all, kill all, burn all" policies employed since the outset of the Second Sino-Japanese Conflict. As proven by Iris Chang and contrary to popular belief, Nanking was not an isolated incident. That doesn't even cover the immense brutality met out against Filipinos, Koreans, Thai, Malaysians, and others. But simply put, the systemic brutality against some 30 million East Asians simply isn't bound to arouse the same sense of moral outrage and righteous fury in American households as atrocities inflicted on 16 million predominantly white Europeans.
Maybe the audience set their expectation too high back then, expecting "Band of Brothers" but in Pacific Theater. Turns out, The Pacific is not about the nobility & camaraderie of a war as Band of Brothers was. It is gritty & realistic.
@casioak1683 yep, people generally prefer to watch BoB because it's a romanticised story. Which is a shame because The Pacific gives the audience an idea of how unimaginably terrible war is
Very underrated series! Really unfair that that it was compared to Band of Brothers condescendingly. Yes it was during the same period but in a different theatere of WW2 which next to the Eastern Front saw some of the most brutal fighting of the war. I believe the Pacific showed how vicious WW2 really was.
it definitely deserved a darker tone. The fight in the Pacific was just an uglier more horrible fight compared to the Western Front of Europe, which might even be called gentlemanly in comparison. There was just an animosity in the Pacific that wasn't there in Europe (except between the Soviets and Germany) If you read Eugene Sledge's book, which the show was based on, they nailed it, mostly. It was just horrific. So I think it's silly that people didn't like the tone of the show. I don't know what they expected
@@moonasha They expected BoB2, which if you dont know the details about the Pacific what is there to expect? Its a failing of the US education system that we really dont understand the gravity and immense waste that WW2 was, while there is/was the high minded ideal of stopping fascism it ultimately masked the racism that swims under it, germans were treated as a gentlemanly opponent, the Japanese were viewed as subhuman (and vice versa the japanese at the time were indoctrinated heavily dont get me wrong) but yeah the average US consumer has no frame of reference what the pacific looks like outside of the veterans that were there and like Cod World at War, which is deeply sad.
Yeah I thought Pacific was equally as good as Band of brothers. The fight against the Japanese was held in the most alien environments you can find on this planet and it was such a darker type of fight when every battle was pretty much down to the last Japanese soldier having to be killed
I was so angry and frustrated at Sledge's mom telling him to get a job and insisting he must do something instead of just resting. She had no clue of what her son went through but it still got me very mad at her . His dad said it best " you have no idea what men like him have gone through" and tells her to zip it
"Looooong have I waited" Personally, I always liked the pacific more. I love BoB but I found this series a lot more raw and intimate, despite the more disjointed narrative
Me too, but both my grandfathers fought in the Pacific and stayed in San Diego afterward where my dad built a dive shop employing Vietnam-era Navy divers, so it's kind of embedded in our family DNA... like many other older San Diegans.
As a combat vet I prefer the pacific, but also have alot harder time watching it than BOB. Some of the scenes in the pacific, and not even just the battle scenes hit me in places I don’t want to be touched anymore.
@@FormerGovernmentHuman I know exactly what scenes you're talking about. I watched it with my dad, who's a vet, and he had a rough time with the last episode.
@@alloutpotato7939 completely understandable. My father is a veteran and he introduced me to BoB in high school and we watched the two Bastogne episodes I needed for a project and nowadays (this was 15 years ago), he can't watch any war film. It used to be just Afghanistan and Iraq but now it's any war movie.
I visited Peleliu in 2006 during USN port visit to Palau. We were told by our guide that the last Japanese human remains had just been recovered that year (skulls, bones, teeth, etc.). We also visited the underground Japanese base complex at the north end of the island. That had limited access for tourists - there were no lights underground - and the guide told us the comp,ex had only recently been cleared of World War 2 era boobytraps. With the wreckage still around the island, mostly untouched from when it was knocked out, it had a much more recent feeling than other battlefields in the Pacific I have visited, including Saipan.
I have always wondered how the clean up of those islands was made. Because they weren't like in Europe that they fought in cities or near them so people basically cleaned were they lived but this were islands that most of the population was decimated and were pretty destroyed by the time the combat ended.
I visited Saipan twice in 1976-77, while tourism there was on its infancy. This was only 31 years after the war and there were relics laying all around . The entire island was a battlefield , and remains of Japanese weren’t hard to locate. It is doubtful that all of them will ever be recovered.
Man, the image of that kid shaking in fear actually made me cry. No exaggeration, tears welled up in my eyes. I'm not stranger to having emotional reactions to images but i don't get actual physical reactions to a single image like this often.
No, no goats on peleliu. The easiest body to find would've been human. Filled with exactly the right stuff to make other humans sick. The goat was a mercy to the audience. And to be clear that's not an example of special Japanese brutality its a reflection of the brutal pragmatism war inflicts on soldiers. Poisoned well hurts the enemy and your dead friend would've wanted that. So you put his body in a well after posthumously gutting him
@@stupidmonkey8057 WELL before Ghengis Khan. The Greeks did it during the Trojan War, the Babylonians did it, everyone's done it when it was advantageous.
My first watch of the pacific left me unimpressed and confused. When I rewatched it after a couple years it really began to hit me in a different way. So much so that I actually would get depressed watching it. Something I never got from BOB. The pacific war was just a whole different ball game and I think they did a very good job. I’ve read Sledge’s book several times and it’s the most vivid memoir I’ve ever read.
I fell in love with Band of Brothers immediately. The Pacific took me a few attempts to get through. It’s a great story and wonderfully made don’t get me wrong. My issues were the disjointed story Buff mentioned that made it a touch hard to follow and the Australian episode so early just killed the pacing after the awesome first 2 episodes.
The amount of research it must take to do what you do is amazing. Please never worry about how long the show is going to be, if you go into this amount of detail to give us the facts. The idea of you correcting or affirming what Hollywood or any film makers does is an education.
My grandfather fought in the British army in the Pacific, he was 17 and came back with what now we know to be PTSD. A very angry, but also quiet man, who never spoke about war, but would sometimes get annoyed by things about the portrayal of the war as little, if any, time was devoted to the Pacific on TV shows, ceremonies, I think he and his friends felt forgotten, even coming home in the end of 45' early 46' for the people at home they had already "finished" the war in early 45' All servicemen of all nations should be remembered for that horrible theatre of conflict. ❤
It’s so interesting hearing the British perspective and your grandfathers experience. I’m Australian and we have such a strong connection the pacific theatre so if anything we “hear” more about the war on this side of the world than the battles in Europe
@@bluepineapple7702 Interesting take, I suppose with the pacific on your doorstep its going to be the main thing, same as Europe with the UK. I think the way he described it to one of my parents was like the end scene of the show "It ain't half hot mum" where they go to a cafe at a train station after being de-mobbed and say they've been fighting for you and someone says back, we get a lot of you through here all wanting us to be grateful. It's a shame, but as long as no country forgets and family tell stories it will keep it going. Strong lads in the pacific. Do you find that on Australian TV or shows it's more dedicated to the Pacific, memorial days etc?
@@JohnSmith-rw2yn I think in general yes. Not saying there weren’t any Aussies in Europe during WW2 but our biggest efforts were in Africa in the earlier days of the war and then the Pacific. A particularly notable tale of Aussie sacrifice and bravery we talk more about is our time in Papua New Guinea. The Kokoda track campaign is probably the “famous” battles for us and I imagine for many Australians that would be their first thought when considering our contributions to the war.
I should say however, our Royal Australian Air Force did have a fairly prominent role in the air offensives over Europe right throughout the war but I think that is a far less known and spoken about aspect of our involvement
In episode 2, John Basilone fires a Browning Model 1917A1, with water cooling. So it's plausible the scene where he's firing continuously, until belt's end. In episode 8, you see him firing a Browning Model 1919 (air cooled), in short bursts.
I've heard it described thusly: History doesn't care about realism. And that is true. Whether it is Audie Murphy in Italy, who had to cut about half of his Medal of Honor heroics from his biopic to avoid alienating the audience, to the utter insanity that was the Marines at Chosin, and even to stuff like Rorke's Drift or Daniel Inouye. History doesn't care about realism.
i think you mistake realism for verosimilitude but I get your point. History is not a movie genre, things that actually happen can be very far from what people expect or think possible. There's a common quote that puts it brilliantly: "truth is stranger than fiction."
@jforozco12 verisimilitude is the idea that stuff within a story makes sense in the context of said story. Realism is more about whether one can believe that such a thing can actually happen in real life. Magic isn't realistic but it can still be made to make sense within the context of a story. But history, quite often, blatantly REFUSES to make any sort of sense in any sort of context.
This is the difference between a movie and a documentary. In the end a movie has to be engaging which often means rearranging and changing events for pacing and dramatic effect. Some movies do better at retaining the history than others such as Apollo 13, Midway, Tora Tora Tora, Hacksaw Ridge, etc. while others (looking at you Mel Gibson, and Titanic) can give a feeling of the period and event while having almost none of it being authentic to history, people or specific events. Either can be good entertainment but going back to the point here sometimes the feats such as Desmond Doss, John Basilone, and many others will get watered down because the truth is so incredible that it would look like an exaggeration and lose credibility with the audience who would think you you made the person into a Gary Sue. Just once every so often though, we get a movie like the ones mentioned above that give us some very accurate telling of the real events.
Chosin was insane, even for the Army. My regiment was decimated during a fighting retreat, the regimental commander personally lead an assault on an enemy strongpoint and was killed, posthumously receiving the Medal of Honor. I served in Afghanistan, and I’m absolutely blown away by what the wars in our history must have been like. No current American service member has seen full scale war to the degree our forefathers did, and I pray we never do.
My wife and I watched this when it first came out and then again earlier this year and I can safely say that it has absolutely gotten even better with time. Such an amazing series, especially on a big screen with surround sound.
Great review mate. As an Aussie the only thing I'd like to clarify is that the two Australian soldiers in the Melbourne pub that get into the fight with the Marines are not Australian AIF soldiers- they're in their CMF (militia) dress uniforms. CMF units weren't allowed under law to be deployed for active service outside of Australia. Many individual CMF soldiers transferred to the AIF so they could fight overseas. This changed when the Japanese invaded New Guinea which was then Australian territory so CMF units then deployed there. The 39th Battalion a militia/ reserve Bn fought with distinction there. It was a primarily Victorian Bn so perhaps our aggressive militia blokes in the pub finally saw some real combat. Cheers!
Ah cool, these were the so-called Chocolate Soldiers, right? As in the belief that they would melt in the heat of battle (but then kicked the IJA out of New Guinea).
Eugene Sledge’s book, With the Old Breed, is one of the most gripping memoirs of a veteran of combat I’ve ever read. It is not for the feint of heart though, it’s quite graphic and does an excellent job of making you feel the oppressive conditions the Marines suffered through in the battles he took part in.
Great breakdown of one of my favorite historical miniseries. As someone from the Philippines, I'm kinda sad that it's probably too late for a The Pacific/Band of Brothers style series on the Filipino soldiers and guerrillas who fought during the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Philippines that involves the veterans themselves. Most of them have already passed on now, and even worse many Filipinos are forgetting or don't know anything about what happened in our country during WW2. There was a recent Netflix production set in the Japanese-occupied Philippines but it's a drama with fully fictional characters that gets a bunch of the history wrong. I hope my country can one day produce something even half as good as The Pacific that tells the actual stories of Filipino veterans who fought to defend and liberate our country of invasion.
My favorite scene is when Leckie gets out the cab and the driver sees that he’s a Marine, shakes his hand and tells him he was in the 101st air bourne in Europe. Then says I can’t imagine what you guys went through. A real show of respect from one warrior to another.
Fun fact: I live and grew up in the town where john basilone grew up, Raritan NJ. We have a parade every year for him. My great grandfather and mother knew him personally and never missed his parade. My great grand parents lived just around the corner from his statue and they often took me over there on our walks along the river. I still go and see his statue and sit on the benches and think of my Pop pop often and i always go and bow my head and give thanks to ole johnny boy for giving his life so i could know freedom and liberty.
I think a few important facts help for the context at some points. The Battle at Tenaru happened because the Colonel disobeyed orders to wait for reinforcements under the mistaken impression the Marines only had a battalion or two at most at the airfield while not being properly dug in - charging into a full slaughter of his unit. Also in the larger sense, the bushido code was almost entirely revisionist and modern invented bullshit since Japan had been largely at peace for over 200 years. The code and messaging was created almost from scratch in the rising militarism and fascism of the Japanese empire by the 1890's which grew into a cult of personality centered on the Emperor but in fact controlled by the rival military-industrial oligarchies of Army and Navy brass to the point that they coup'ed or assassinated civilian leadership like 8 times (plus each other's government proxies) in the early 20th Century. Japanese soldiers were also not only propagandized into believing Americans would take no prisoners but were also constantly starving from lack of supplies as well as subject to summary execution should they even contemplate surrender which added to the extreme PTSD on their side and willingness to die during false surrenders or banzai charges. Add that many veteran soldiers had already engaged in horrific war crimes against US prisoners of war or Chinese civilians - and you get the idea.
Exactly, bushido was formed by the samurai as a way of carrying themselves, example being "do not lie, do not slander, do not be boastful." By the 1870s, the samurai class was abolished. Bushido transformed into hyper-militarist propaganda...
The abomination of bushido the OP refers too seems to be more of a post WW1 thing (look at how the Japanese treated POWs in 1904-1905), but yeah pretty depressingly accurate otherwise. Real bushido is much more sane and honorable than the absurd bloodthirsty mockery that came into vogue of the 30s-40s.
A lot of people fail to understand that there are certain standards that The Pacific can't attain that Band of Brothers set. It is frustrating that because of this, the comparison tends to be on the cinematic aspect, which is severely unfair to The Pacific as it has its own story to tell. The story of Easy Company just lends itself well to a storytelling standpoint and logistically speaking, it's easier to depict a smaller unit than an entire division. With that said, huge thank you for giving context to this. The Band of Brothers vs The Pacific debate has to end because both are equally good in their own right.
Apparently Ambrose and company tried to do the Pacific in a similar vein to Easy Company, but all the Marine companies that they investigated were far too decimated by the end of the war. Which is, of course, the unromantic reality of war.
My grandfather's friend is one of those unfortunate victims of the Bataan Death March. It's frustrating how Japan is revising the history playing the victim in WW2. There were records and written accounts of how they were worse than Nazis. Sledge's story in the series is heart wrenching. His father was terrified his son would've lost his humanity in the war
As an outside perspective, this is how I see it: Americans worst actions: internment camps and bombing areas with civilians Japanese worst actions: brutal killings of pows and initiating the war Both sides as said desecrated corpses, moreso the Japanese Japanese were more brutal towards Korea and China, while Americans were less so brutal during the war, after the war wasn't great for Japanese Americans though. Objectively, Japanese were just as brutal if not more than the Americans, but the Americans were not morally superior because of bombings. Not really as cut and dry as other wars, I suppose. Like I don't blame Americans for fighting the war, but I'm not totally on board with how it ended.
@@wheezer6695 I guess that's just a personal bias for me then. I just don't like when civilians get involved, but objectively when it comes to man to man, yeah Japanese were more brutal
Ah geez he called the Marines Soldiers, here comes the whining and moaning from the devil pugs. *Me a former Corpsman hearing him call us medics* Listen here buddy!
To be fair he did post a comment addressing that error. Funny enough, the final episode that’s exactly what Leckie addresses when he re-applies for his old job lol
Wait till someone who has read a history book explains the term Devil Dog was made up by the Marines (right up there with the origin of the bloodstripe and the proper USMC birthday actually being in July)
I loved The Pacific. With me who was stationed in Okinawa and now living here, this hits differently. Good fact check on all accounts! With how you did a video for The Pacific, I would like it if you could do a video on the movie Emperor (the one with Tommy Lee Jones) showing how accurate or inaccurate it was on the aftermath of the war and how it got to where it is now.
That would be cool. While I wasn't in the Invasion I did deploy to Iraq. Generation Kill really does a hood job at showing the disfunction of the modern military
I'll be frank, if I wrote the same exact post you wrote, my post would be removed for the word you used for unalive. RUclips's very sensitive to use of that particular word.
RUclips in particular and western sensibilities in general have become beyond ridiculous. We live in the softest times with the most insufferable scolds.
@@thelastneenja Don't know. But I and many others have our posts deleted (and commented on it) for using the word you used for people unaliving themselves. You even see videos doing it to avoid being demonetized. There are possibly good reasons for it ( key words, post point scores, account base score) ... For example, new accounts can post links to outside of youtube but at some point, accounts lose that ability and never get it back. But we know for a *fact* that removing posts (and videos ) for using the Sui word happens.
1:15:10 Grasping at straws They were used; end of discussion, not debate It’s so utterly basic and proven; it’s not worth bothering to check Immaculate Comfort Incredible History Beautiful Hellish Visage Amazing lessons This is still one of best pieces of media ever to realistically cover the late Pacific Theater, let alone World War 2 Great presentation Must’ve took alot-lot-lot of reading to compile this Good work
Fantastic as always. Both my grandfathers fought in the Pacific. One a Navy veteran of Coral Sea and Guadalcanal (his ship managed to detonate a Japanese destroyer) the other fighting with the 3rd Marine Division after surviving the attack on Pearl Harbor. I agree with you and Dale Dye. A convincing combat veteran on screen is something only total immersion into the culture and time period and respect of those they are portraying can produce. Also, tbh, I wish there would be a series aboout the Naval war and the Africa and Italy campaigns.
Guadalcanal was a major victory, but the actual first defeat of the Japanese on land was by the Australians at Milne Bay in New Guinea in September 1942.
25:05, there are terrifying details from the accounts of the men who endured the bombardment of October 13-14, 1942. "The exploding gunfire from the ship was so loud and the concussion was so great that we were literally blown out of our bunks. Shaving mirrors and what little glass we had around was broken. Running from tent to foxhole was like running a new kind of obstacle course; when a salvo was fired, the concussion threw you to the ground. Then you got up, the concussion from the exploding salvo on the airstrip threw you down again." - Gunner's Mate Bill Kennedy, page 193 of Neptune's Inferno. I'm really glad you touched on this moment because for the men on Guadalcanal and for the US Navy, this was a very critical moment. The USN had just won the Battle of Cape Esperance two days prior, and then the Japanese send two battlecruisers down to get the job done, completely unopposed. Rear Admiral Halsey would take operational command over Guadalcanal the next day and this event would be fresh on his mind when the Japanese would try to bombard Henderson Field to this scale again one month later, during a critical and costly battle known as the Battle of Friday the 13th.
COD World At War (COD WAW) only covers Peleliu up until Okinawa. It didn't depict how chaotic the battles in Guadalcanal were. Medal of Honor Pacific Assault depicted Guadalcanal - Peleliu battles at its fullest, though it didn't depict the same grittiness tone of Pacific War as COD WAW or HBO The Pacific did.
I always saw BOB and The Pacific as sibling series. Cant have one without the other. I hope Masters of the air eventually comes out on dvd and Blu-ray too.
You know it’s really impressive putting this all together. Like people, he had to watch the whole show, probably several times throughout the process, then research all the bits he explains (there is probably loads he knows we never hear) then he has to figure out what of that should go in the show where and how for flow. Then record and edit and etc etc This is such an awesome series and we are blessed Nick does it. Like wow.
The thought of bored Marines setting rats and crabs on fire seems spot on for these men. My grandfather was a paratrooper medic in the Pacific. He wouldn’t tell stories about his experience until 2010. They were riveting and terrifying, especially the descriptions of the liberation of Los Banos internment camp.
28:22 The machine gun in question was a Browning M1917, it was water-cooled. Shooting it as shown wouldn't have been nearly as consequential as a normal machine gun.
As someone who lived in Korea, the Philippines, and Hong Kong I do wish that the Asia-Pacific theatre was understood and appreciated more in the West. The violence that civilians and soldiers alike faced was abominable, and the people of Asia absolutely have not forgotten what they experienced under Japanese Imperialism. Very glad "The Pacific" was made, and very glad we're discussing the series.
Problem is that those same countries are now buying Japanese products like candy. That would be a slap to the face toward the civilians and soldiers alike who suffered the brutality of the imperial Japanese. It doesn't help also that these same countries are mistreating women even after world war II. You would think they would become better? But nope Prostitution rampant like the days of comfort women.
@@30secondsflat Sorry about that, probably my word choice was a bit too assertive. You would think those three countries would act like be better than imperial Japan. I assume also that you have googled Gwanju and also the Hong Kong protests recently. Those are basically behavior that mimics Imperial Japan.
Also, why do these three countries are into Japanese culture despite what imperial Japan did to its great grandparents? I guess this is the me me me zoomer culture right? Or the generation what have you done me lately other than shaming a country who that had done nothing than what they did more than 4 score years ago?
watched the first 10 minutes and can just tell this will be another video that I will watch again from you, I have watch countless videos more then once on this channel. I can only imagine how much time and effort goes into your videos, we are all grateful for the free content that you provide!
@@AT-rr2xwwell shogun put in immense effort for historical accuracy, everything from gestures, posture, clothing, armor, dialects and even how they pour tea to ensure its accurate to the time period. I don’t see how this has anything in comparison to game of thrones a show based on fantasy
One of my relatives was in the IJN as a fighter pilot, I never asked him but I think he knew on the ground it was pretty insane.....even being in the air wasn't very safe neither
History Buffs upload = 3 months worth of great content to put on in the background when I try to sleep. I’m sure I’ll listen to this while I try to sleep about 3 dozen times before I actually sit down and get a chance to watch it
40:35 feel like this happened all the time and wasn't reported. He's just one witness. And he recorded it. Imagine all those who never put their nightmares on paper.
32:24 The Battle of Melbourne and the Battle of Brisbane are some my favourite Aussie stories. Aussies were encouraged to take care of the Americans, and the women to entertain them. Aussie servicemen resented the competition, and their higher pay, and better uniforms, better goods, etc. Brawls broke out frequently. On February 1943 two brawls escalated in to a free-for-all outside Flinder Street Station featuring more than 2000 men. A similar thing happened in Brisbane in November 1942, a few months before. It started when Aussies tried to defend a US soldier from being arrested by US MP's, who most Aussie servicemen didn't like. The Battle of Brisbane ended up as a 2 night long riot. It involved 5000 people on the first night, resulting in the death of one Aussie serviceman. This lead to a confrontation between US MPs and 500ish Aussie servicemen on the second night. News of this was heavily censored, but it seemed to relieve some of the tensions a bit. Like seen in the show it seemed to end with the Americans being shouted drinks. US Army Sergeant Bil Bentson said "... after that, it sort of settled down and you go into a pub and an Aussie would come and up and slap me on the back. "Oh, wasn't that a good ruckus we had the other night? And have a beer on me."
It's always a good day when there's a new History Buffs video! I just finished watching The Pacific Series in expectations you would make a video on it. This is f*cking awesome dude thank you!!
Historical Movies/Shows to review next: - Catch Me If You Can (2002 Movie) - 12 Years a Slave (2013 Movie) - Hacksaw Ridge (2016 Movie) - Greyhound (2020 Movie) - Theodore Rosevelt (2022 Television Series) - Masters of the Air (2024 Television Series) - Chernobyl (2019 Television Series) - The Post (2017 Movie) - Denial (2016 Movie) - The Imitation Game (2014 Movie)
Catch me if you can would be 20 minutes of "This didn't happen and this never happened and no, not true" since it a con-man BS-ing about his non-existent escapades.
I'm almost positive he did HBO's Chernobyl. In a similar vein, "The Chernobyl Guy" YT channel dissects that same series with incredible detail, he (they?) ruined the show for me haha.
I've read Sledge's book, the scenes that he describes on Okinawa are truly horrific. Much more so that the TV show or this very well made RUclips critique can possibly do justice. It is no wonder that Sledge broke down while on a dove hunt back in Alabama.
‘With the Old Breed’ is one of the most horrific and real memoirs on war ever written. As a combat veteran myself it made me feel completely inadequate. Before any leader sends our nation’s youth to war they need to be made to know stories of men like Eugene Sledge.
Just a minir correction, now I could be wrong, google was no help but I am pretty sure Basilone firing the machine gun like he did in thr show wasn't a problem, he was using a watercooled machine gun which will not over heat with continuous fire as long as it has a supply of water
Also, you had to use distilled or purified water, salt water or mineral rich water would cause problems to the feeding hoses or just create lime scale and just general scale build up inside, which would then cause it's own problems.
@@Lord-Wheatabix I also heard that some versions that were used during World War 1 during the campaign against the Ottoman Empire due to a lack of water, they used urine but that might be a joke.
Forgotten weapons covered this. Theoretically a watered cooled gun could fire so long as it had ammo and water. However even still machine gunners are trained for short bursts so that they don't run through all of their ammo in a matter of minutes. Additionally continuous fire can give you tunnel vision which minimizes the role of the machine gun
@@Lord-Wheatabix Finns during the winter war (and later also Soviets in the "great patriotic war") would often just shove snow into a specially designed "tractor cap" water jackets of their maxims, so I guess it wasn't as big of deal as you make it.
Wow, this really makes my day a brand new history buff episode There are so many shows and movies that you could do more reviews on the next one I recommend you do is Chernobyl.
There is no such thign as the "Congressional Medal of Honor". The correct name of the award is the "Medal of Honor," though the term "Congressional" is sometimes used incorrectly. The Medal of Honor is a military award, even though Congress created it
People seem to love adding 'Congressional' to it as it somehow makes it sound more official. Just like the chronic misuse of the word 'decimate' which also happens in this video. Otherwise, very good.
@@lib556 a lot of words have changed meaning due to the "misuse" becoming more and more popular than the original meaning. Take "apocalypse" for example. It originally meant a revelation, which is why more modern bibles now title the last book as Revelation, rather than Apocalypse, because apocalypse has become synonymous with "cataclysmic event" or "end of the world". Decimate is now used to mean "annihilate" or "devastate" and I'm afraid there is almost no chance of going back. To those who misuse it, losing 10% or 50% is both just losing a lot, I guess.
@@oteliogarcia1562 Yeah. People keep lecturing me on how 'language evolves'. I'd counter that by stating that language devolves (gets dumbed down) as well. People who mean to say 'destroy' substitute 'decimate' in an effort to sound smart or cool. We're at a point now where people have become so stupid, they can no longer figure out the usage of 'your' and 'you're as well as 'there' 'they're' and 'their'. Then there's the obsession of misusing the apostrophe to denote plural form. Slippery slope.
My principle/pastor Martin Turner fought in this war in New Guinea and Luzon. He got the Asiatic Pacific Theater ribbon with two bronze stars and the Philippine Liberation ribbon with two bronze stars. He would rarely speak about what he did to get those bronze stars, but one time I caught him in a good mood and he told me that he got one for bringing a wounded back to base and got shot in the process. One other one was that they were on a clean up duty when one of his guys picked up a phosphorus grenade and it went off. He pushed the guy out of the way in time but was caught in the blast and it had melted his back. After all of that he still fought on and when he got back to the states he worked at G.E. for awhile then started a christian school were he taught until his death in 2011 at 86 years old. He never knew how to give up he went on numerous mission trips to Haiti to build houses and he ran a food pantry out of his house for the whole neighborhood. He also thaught us to be good men. Some people broke into his house one evening while he was gone and they stole his computer and some other stuff. He knew who did it and what was surprising was that they showed up the next day for free food. He knew it was them, but he still gave them food when I asked him why he did that he just said, "They need it more than I do, so I forgive them." Sorry for the long comment this just had me thinking about him.
I grew up near Camp Pendleton, where Basilone was stationed. There's a stretch of the 5 that's named after him, and this show helped me put into context who he was
I long regarded The Pacific as a show that was lesser than Band of Brothers, but over time it has really grown to stand on its own and has become one of my all time favorite mini series. Band of Brothers tells a better story, but The Pacific shows the true brutality and hate that the US and Japanese had for each other. My great grandfather fought in the Pacific and when he came home he had hate for the Japanese in his heart that followed him to the grave when he passed away in 1987.
Band Of Brothers tells a narrative that was constructed over and over for 50 years, well known to everyone. It could've been different (sometimes it tries with the "did they shoot them or not?"), but to be honest there were lots of horrors in the European Theater. People just preferred to shut their mouth and look the other way and go on with their life.
Thank you for an excellent & detailed review. I've not yet seen The Pacific, but I have been reading & watching documentaries about the war with Japan. It's nice to know your research means I can now watch the series without being disappointed.
Pretty weird for a video searching for inaccuracies in Cinema/TV productions to mispronounce a key island in that production. At least he pronounced "Japan" correctly.
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Welcome back! Love your content ❤❤❤
Thanks for your content
OMG
THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO you really made my day
can you do full metal jacket?
“Left for dead” is a major understatement about that islander on Guadalcanal. He was captured, beaten, stabbed numerous times, and had his throat slit yet crawled to Allied lines to inform them the Japanese position and still survived.
His name is Jacob Vouza, a former policeman
I read about that in Guadalcanal Diary. A very courageous man!
Oh so they left him for dead 😂
Had his throat slit???
he deservied his 2 minutes in the TV Show... but yeah I know that was all American victory....
This just made the night shift 10 times better
Its 1:00pm where I'm from, (north Carolina) and I just woke up to this
I've been there. Good luck with the night shit.
Hope you're not a busdriver.
@jab01 same here my guy
You and me both bro haha
Band of Brothers tells us a story we are all used to hearing in a way we never heard before.
The Pacific tells us a story we weren't ready to hear in a way that's unforgettable.
Masters of the Air tells us a story I keep forgetting to go back and finish.
Masters of the Air was so much more emotionally draining that I expected. The scene where all but one bomber goes down really hit me hard. I also think that the constant rotation of characters really nailed home just how high the attrition rate was for the bombers.
Masters of the Air was a wasted opportunity. Awful pacing and too much time wasted on pointless side plots.
@@redheads604And a 15 minute filler takeoff sequence every time there's a raid
@@redheads604yea could have been better but I definitely enjoyed it.
Skill issue. I think Masters of the Air is the best of the three.
My grandfather fought in the Pacific as infantry on the front lines. He spent 2 solid years on those front lines. He was shot seven times but tore the paperwork for the purple heart up five of those seven because he didn't want his mom to worry about him. The last two shots were what they call "stateside wounds" -- meaning they were severe enough to take you off the front lines and back to the states. In this case, Hawaii. In 1989 my mom had a brilliant idea: she gave my grandfather a portable tape recorder and a bunch of 3x5 cards with questions on them. Between 1989 and 1992 he chain smoked and spoke into these tape recorders before he passed away in 1994. Recently, I transcribed the tapes into the digital world and I'm literally the only human being to have heard all the answers. There were many questions about the war and the answers were eye-opening. Some of the things he said he witnessed were so savage that I've not been able to repeat it. Then I saw "The Pacific." From what I heard my grandfather describe and what I saw/heard in this series, it was almost as if those tapes had a picture attached to them. They got a lot of the nuances right. For what it's worth to anyone reading this, my grandfather's take-away from the war went something like this (and I'm paraphrasing):
He said that when you're over there and you've been in it long enough, you become savages and that savagery was on both sides. He said that he and a lot of the men he was out there with realized they were expendable and they started to realize that they were being put in this impossible situation for much much longer periods of time. People who might have viewed him as a hero might not like this answer but the idea of fighting for the country died off pretty quickly. He was there for the people next to him, his "buddies," the guys he came up with. Everyone assumed they were as good as dead. You didn't want to make friends with new people because when they were killed it would hurt and every person out there had to protect that side of themselves. The side that would crack. That's what he'd say, that you had to keep yourself from cracking, literally losing your mind. That scene in "The Pacific" where the Japanese sent the women and children first to see if anyone was out going to shoot at them? That happened to my grandfather. He nearly killed a little girl but because in the rare instance he hesitated (and he said he never did) that girl lived. He said after that he knew he was going to lose it because if you have to think about what you're doing even for a second, you're going to be killed yourself. He didn't hate the Japanese and a lot of them didn't. They had enough sense to realize that those they were fighting against were just kids like they were and they were being driven just as insane. It's odd to say but all of that racism and xenophobic war propaganda everyone was fed melted away out there. It's a funny, horrible and frightening truth all this. The senseless insanity of it all and the fact we continue the practice. The whole reason I'm typing this and you're reading it stems to the fact that my grandfather was shot seven times and managed to survive but there are 30 multiplied by however many children and grandchildren instances of absolute cold silence thanks to the same person. Hundreds of silences down to luck. That's war. He called it a living hell but he did his job, received his medals and went onto start a family. For the rest of his life he'd be scared and scarred. He'd never be able to express how much love he felt for fear that doing so would open ALL the hurt, everything he'd lost, everything he went through. It was only after I listened that I understood who he was, why he was. I think that's the most important thing "The Pacific" did. It gave you a real solid glimpse into the damage of it all.
Such a profound story, thank you for sharing. I'm so sorry for the horrors your grandfather faced
My step-grandfather was in the USMC during WWII. He took part in the Guadalcanal campaign (he landed on Tulagi and later moved to the main island) and later Saipan. I wish we'd done something like that while he was living, but I don't know if he would have been able to get through it. We didn't even know until after his passing about him being on Saipan; my stepfather only learned about it after finding some mentions in his belongings and then requesting his service records.
This is one of the most insightful comments I've ever read on this platform ever. Thank you.
@@Biker_Gremling You are welcome.
Thank you so much for sharing this. Your mom had a ton of smarts and foresight to do this.
AN HOUR AN TWENTY SEVEN MINUTES!?!?!?! THIS IS GONNA BE THE BEST EPISODE EVER!!!!!
I JUST SAW THE TIMESTAMP OH FUCK YES
Exactly how much time I have left at work 😂😂perfect
I'm not crying.....youre crying....
I have really missed his episodes. They are rare and always good.
Less once you skip the War Thunder ad
As a Marine in 2010-2017, The Pacific along with Generation Kill were both huge among the marines I served with. Anything depicting our heritage and legacy past or present was always a welcome sight. The demeanor, banter, attitude of both series were on point. For Marines, seeing Chesty Puller, John Basilone, and other heroes we learn about and idolize from day 1 is like our disneyland. So the Pacific holds a very near and dear place in a lot of our little crayon eating hearts. I can't tell you how many times I rewatched the series. Whether it lived up to band of brothers or not is one thing, but in the hearts of every young marine that watches this show its the best.
Even though I was army, my favorite historical marine has got to be Dan Daly. Absolute badass
Well said brotha. 14-18 here and I couldn’t have said it better. Felt like watching a story about real life superheroes the first time through.
@@ilovekatiecouric Absolutely man. Hope you're doing well brotha
This is a great series . But it does perpetuate the myth that the Marines did the bulk of the fighting in the Pacific . The US Army did more amphibious landings and did the bulk of the fighting . The Marines only had 6 Divisions . The Army had 21 Divisions . The Australian Army had 13 Divisions including 2 armoured Divisions . It was the Australians who first stoped the Japanese on land in New Guinea . This was months prior to any US ground troops being involved in any push back of Japanese forces.The first American troops to go on the offensive was the 32 US Army infantry in Buna in New Guinea . The Australians did the bulk of the land fighting in the Pacific up until late 1943.I don't want to down play the Marines in any way their actions were vital to the final victory with their Island hopping. But the bulk of the fighting was not done by them . Iwo Jima was the only action that was a predominantly marine action .The others were joint Marine & Army actions .The largest amphibious assault in the Pacific was the Australians on Borneo in late 1945.
@@paulobrien9248 Its not perpetuating any myth, this story is SPECIFICALLY about the Marines going through the pacific. Not new guinea, not the overall WW2 conflict, etc.
This was a movie about Marines. There were tons of forces that did a ton in WW2. This isn't that story.
Hey everyone just wanted to do a quick apology. I mistakenly referred to Marines as 'soldiers' earlier, and I know that’s not right. I understand the difference and I’m sorry this slipped through the cracks. I definitely respect the unique identity of the Marines, and I appreciate all of your service. Thanks for understanding!
you cant call a Navy corpsman a Army medic either we have a bunch of weird branch rivalries in the U.S. At least its not like Japan
@@jerrysmooth24what's it like in the Japanese military?
@@dominiqueodom3099 IIRC The navy and the army downright hated each other during WWII
"Dear Army soldiers
Army? Fck that!"
-Generation Kill
@@dominiqueodom3099in Ww2 the army and navy would sometimes literally leave each other for dead so not a great relationship to say the least
On Leckie sending letters to Vera--This was even addressed in the show. He wrote the letters but never sent them, said that the "rain on Cape Gloucester probably wiped away every word."
I thought it was 'raid* on Cape Gloucester'
>i wrote letters to you
>i never got any
>i never sent them
well it is something he could definietly do regardless of his feelings
just to keeps himself sane
Yes I also remembered this.. Leckie did not send the letters he wrote.
I think a lot of the reason why WW2 media is dominated by the european theater is because it actually fits the hero's journey. Take band of brothers as the baseline. Its the story of men who answer the call, fight through france and germany, conquer their enemies who are about as cartoonishly, unambiguously evil as you can get, and end up in a literal shining city on the hill. There is direction and finality in everything they did, which is why that episode with the raids across the river is so jarring and depressing.
Now look at the pacific war. Its waves upon waves of men fed into a slaughterhouse over and over and over again, where the enemy forces them to do terrible things just to survive, no one stays alive and healthy long enough to form true bonds for a viewer, and the climax happens suddenly and off screen. It doesnt feel like the soldiers' individual actions truly matter to the grand narrative, and theres no resolution for an audience to get behind. Its brutal and terrifying and hopeless, and theres no triumphant victory to make it all worth it.
Thats not something that sells tickets to soccer mom america, whereas the few successful pacific war films are about smaller scalez individual battles where there ARE those character throughlines and a resolution after the victory.
I don't think soccer moms are the target audience of WW2 films and TV, This falls into the category of Dad's TV. People make fun of Prime video for being peak prime TV with shows like reacher and terminal list.
I do think that there is a lot to be with the enemy and the agree that bleak terrain and stories make it harder for TV specially since it wasn't still the golden age of streaming like it is now back then in 2010 when this was released.
It's harder to get a main character that last the whole show. But for movies or focused battles it can work really well but people associations with the Japanese make them harder to do, just look at the controversies that Oppenheimer had and we'll they even do work to basically deny history with stuff like the comfort women's statues.
That's not a Europe versus Pacific issue. That's a basic writing issue. Nothing about the Pacific Theater precludes satisfying character development and story arcs. The writing team just sabotaged themselves by trying to capture three years of war in ten episodes. _Generation War_ had the same problem; trying to portray the whole eastern front in only three episodes. If Band of Brothers were instead about, say, the entire 34th Infantry Division from 1942-1945, then it would feel just as hopeless, purposeless, and brutal as The Pacific. Unfortunately, we allowed ourselves to assume that everyone who served in Europe had as jolly of a time as Easy Company.
There are no scenes in The Pacific like the one in Band of Brothers where thousands of surrendered German troops are marching down the road. The Japanese fought to the last man.
The imperial Japanese were more sadistically evil than cartoonishly evil
It's a simple matter of a classic Eurocentric mentality that ensures that movies set in the European Theater are deemed "more marketable" than those situated in the Pacific.
The Imperial Japanese Army easily gave the Nazis a run for their proverbial money in the department of wartime atrocities, punctuated by the brutal massacre of more than 30 million Chinese civilians under the "Loot all, kill all, burn all" policies employed since the outset of the Second Sino-Japanese Conflict. As proven by Iris Chang and contrary to popular belief, Nanking was not an isolated incident.
That doesn't even cover the immense brutality met out against Filipinos, Koreans, Thai, Malaysians, and others.
But simply put, the systemic brutality against some 30 million East Asians simply isn't bound to arouse the same sense of moral outrage and righteous fury in American households as atrocities inflicted on 16 million predominantly white Europeans.
Always sucked that The Pacific flopped financially.
I think they had to make a choice between profits and accuracy. And I think they made the right choice.
Unfortunately we are in a different age of TV and cinema. And not a really great one, imo.
Maybe the audience set their expectation too high back then, expecting "Band of Brothers" but in Pacific Theater. Turns out, The Pacific is not about the nobility & camaraderie of a war as Band of Brothers was. It is gritty & realistic.
@casioak1683 yep, people generally prefer to watch BoB because it's a romanticised story. Which is a shame because The Pacific gives the audience an idea of how unimaginably terrible war is
Yeah I loved watching it as a kid I watched it over and over and over and over
Very underrated series! Really unfair that that it was compared to Band of Brothers condescendingly.
Yes it was during the same period but in a different theatere of WW2 which next to the Eastern Front saw some of the most brutal fighting of the war.
I believe the Pacific showed how vicious WW2 really was.
it definitely deserved a darker tone. The fight in the Pacific was just an uglier more horrible fight compared to the Western Front of Europe, which might even be called gentlemanly in comparison. There was just an animosity in the Pacific that wasn't there in Europe (except between the Soviets and Germany) If you read Eugene Sledge's book, which the show was based on, they nailed it, mostly. It was just horrific. So I think it's silly that people didn't like the tone of the show. I don't know what they expected
@@moonasha They expected BoB2, which if you dont know the details about the Pacific what is there to expect? Its a failing of the US education system that we really dont understand the gravity and immense waste that WW2 was, while there is/was the high minded ideal of stopping fascism it ultimately masked the racism that swims under it, germans were treated as a gentlemanly opponent, the Japanese were viewed as subhuman (and vice versa the japanese at the time were indoctrinated heavily dont get me wrong) but yeah the average US consumer has no frame of reference what the pacific looks like outside of the veterans that were there and like Cod World at War, which is deeply sad.
Yeah I thought Pacific was equally as good as Band of brothers. The fight against the Japanese was held in the most alien environments you can find on this planet and it was such a darker type of fight when every battle was pretty much down to the last Japanese soldier having to be killed
Which is a shame too because it blows Band of Brothers out of the water.
As brutal as the Pacific theater was why won't Hollywood do more stuff about the North African campaign? Is it because it barley involved America?
I was so angry and frustrated at Sledge's mom telling him to get a job and insisting he must do something instead of just resting. She had no clue of what her son went through but it still got me very mad at her . His dad said it best " you have no idea what men like him have gone through" and tells her to zip it
It’s hard for women to understand what men do to keep society safe and comfortable for them.
@@KnowledgeSeeker1776 More like it was unimaginable for civilians to know what horrors the men who fought in those wars witnessed.
@@KnowledgeSeeker1776sexist moron
@@clinicallyarsonistic definitely, civilians have no idea. However, my original point still stands.
@@KnowledgeSeeker1776 It sounds like you're just targeting women
"Looooong have I waited"
Personally, I always liked the pacific more. I love BoB but I found this series a lot more raw and intimate, despite the more disjointed narrative
I also prefer The Pacific, BOB is a bit too sanitized.
Me too, but both my grandfathers fought in the Pacific and stayed in San Diego afterward where my dad built a dive shop employing Vietnam-era Navy divers, so it's kind of embedded in our family DNA... like many other older San Diegans.
As a combat vet I prefer the pacific, but also have alot harder time watching it than BOB.
Some of the scenes in the pacific, and not even just the battle scenes hit me in places I don’t want to be touched anymore.
@@FormerGovernmentHuman I know exactly what scenes you're talking about. I watched it with my dad, who's a vet, and he had a rough time with the last episode.
@@alloutpotato7939 completely understandable. My father is a veteran and he introduced me to BoB in high school and we watched the two Bastogne episodes I needed for a project and nowadays (this was 15 years ago), he can't watch any war film. It used to be just Afghanistan and Iraq but now it's any war movie.
I visited Peleliu in 2006 during USN port visit to Palau. We were told by our guide that the last Japanese human remains had just been recovered that year (skulls, bones, teeth, etc.). We also visited the underground Japanese base complex at the north end of the island. That had limited access for tourists - there were no lights underground - and the guide told us the comp,ex had only recently been cleared of World War 2 era boobytraps. With the wreckage still around the island, mostly untouched from when it was knocked out, it had a much more recent feeling than other battlefields in the Pacific I have visited, including Saipan.
I have always wondered how the clean up of those islands was made. Because they weren't like in Europe that they fought in cities or near them so people basically cleaned were they lived but this were islands that most of the population was decimated and were pretty destroyed by the time the combat ended.
I visited Saipan twice in 1976-77, while tourism there was on its infancy. This was only 31 years after the war and there were relics laying all around . The entire island was a battlefield , and remains of Japanese weren’t hard to locate. It is doubtful that all of them will ever be recovered.
Man, the image of that kid shaking in fear actually made me cry. No exaggeration, tears welled up in my eyes. I'm not stranger to having emotional reactions to images but i don't get actual physical reactions to a single image like this often.
Same. It made me cry nearly immediately seeing their tiny leg shake like that.
No, no goats on peleliu. The easiest body to find would've been human. Filled with exactly the right stuff to make other humans sick. The goat was a mercy to the audience.
And to be clear that's not an example of special Japanese brutality its a reflection of the brutal pragmatism war inflicts on soldiers. Poisoned well hurts the enemy and your dead friend would've wanted that. So you put his body in a well after posthumously gutting him
correct the poisoned water supply goes way back even Ghengis Khan himself did it
@@pudgeboyardee32 I will always be thankful how they portrayed Pelilu
@@stupidmonkey8057 WELL before Ghengis Khan. The Greeks did it during the Trojan War, the Babylonians did it, everyone's done it when it was advantageous.
@@dredlord47 false there is no evidence on Greeks or Roman's participating in such godless behavior.
@@stupidmonkey8057 "godless"
Well I guess you chose a fitting username, at least.
Joe Pesci Remembers... watch your back
NOW GO GET YOUR SHINEBOX
@@quantumimmortality551 "MOTHERF*****!!!!!, KEEP HIM HERE!"
funny how?
@@whiskeysk like I'm a clown? I amuse you?
Looks like he's Home Alone (1990)
My first watch of the pacific left me unimpressed and confused. When I rewatched it after a couple years it really began to hit me in a different way. So much so that I actually would get depressed watching it. Something I never got from BOB. The pacific war was just a whole different ball game and I think they did a very good job. I’ve read Sledge’s book several times and it’s the most vivid memoir I’ve ever read.
Yeah it gets a lot better upon consecutive rewatches.
I fell in love with Band of Brothers immediately. The Pacific took me a few attempts to get through. It’s a great story and wonderfully made don’t get me wrong. My issues were the disjointed story Buff mentioned that made it a touch hard to follow and the Australian episode so early just killed the pacing after the awesome first 2 episodes.
The amount of research it must take to do what you do is amazing. Please never worry about how long the show is going to be, if you go into this amount of detail to give us the facts.
The idea of you correcting or affirming what Hollywood or any film makers does is an education.
My grandfather fought in the British army in the Pacific, he was 17 and came back with what now we know to be PTSD. A very angry, but also quiet man, who never spoke about war, but would sometimes get annoyed by things about the portrayal of the war as little, if any, time was devoted to the Pacific on TV shows, ceremonies, I think he and his friends felt forgotten, even coming home in the end of 45' early 46' for the people at home they had already "finished" the war in early 45' All servicemen of all nations should be remembered for that horrible theatre of conflict. ❤
It’s so interesting hearing the British perspective and your grandfathers experience. I’m Australian and we have such a strong connection the pacific theatre so if anything we “hear” more about the war on this side of the world than the battles in Europe
@@bluepineapple7702 Interesting take, I suppose with the pacific on your doorstep its going to be the main thing, same as Europe with the UK. I think the way he described it to one of my parents was like the end scene of the show "It ain't half hot mum" where they go to a cafe at a train station after being de-mobbed and say they've been fighting for you and someone says back, we get a lot of you through here all wanting us to be grateful. It's a shame, but as long as no country forgets and family tell stories it will keep it going. Strong lads in the pacific.
Do you find that on Australian TV or shows it's more dedicated to the Pacific, memorial days etc?
@@JohnSmith-rw2yn I think in general yes. Not saying there weren’t any Aussies in Europe during WW2 but our biggest efforts were in Africa in the earlier days of the war and then the Pacific.
A particularly notable tale of Aussie sacrifice and bravery we talk more about is our time in Papua New Guinea. The Kokoda track campaign is probably the “famous” battles for us and I imagine for many Australians that would be their first thought when considering our contributions to the war.
I should say however, our Royal Australian Air Force did have a fairly prominent role in the air offensives over Europe right throughout the war but I think that is a far less known and spoken about aspect of our involvement
You should cover Generation kill!
I feel it would be fun to discover how accurate it was to the real events that occured.
Plus, its also about Marines
DUDE!!!!!! As a Marine, Thank You! I have been waiting for your review on The Pacific series!
Jar head
As a marine? Were you there?
@@greenthunder1000 You realise that the US Marine Corps still exists?
@@greenthunder1000 Yes I was I was in gudacanal!
thank you for your service
Episode 1 gave people PTSD from Saving Private Ryan, thinking the beach landing would be d day.
And then you reach episode 5….
In episode 2, John Basilone fires a Browning Model 1917A1, with water cooling. So it's plausible the scene where he's firing continuously, until belt's end. In episode 8, you see him firing a Browning Model 1919 (air cooled), in short bursts.
Was hoping someone brought this up, water cooled guns can often fire as long as they have both water and ammunition..
I've heard it described thusly: History doesn't care about realism. And that is true.
Whether it is Audie Murphy in Italy, who had to cut about half of his Medal of Honor heroics from his biopic to avoid alienating the audience, to the utter insanity that was the Marines at Chosin, and even to stuff like Rorke's Drift or Daniel Inouye. History doesn't care about realism.
i think you mistake realism for verosimilitude but I get your point. History is not a movie genre, things that actually happen can be very far from what people expect or think possible. There's a common quote that puts it brilliantly: "truth is stranger than fiction."
@jforozco12 verisimilitude is the idea that stuff within a story makes sense in the context of said story. Realism is more about whether one can believe that such a thing can actually happen in real life.
Magic isn't realistic but it can still be made to make sense within the context of a story. But history, quite often, blatantly REFUSES to make any sort of sense in any sort of context.
This is the difference between a movie and a documentary. In the end a movie has to be engaging which often means rearranging and changing events for pacing and dramatic effect. Some movies do better at retaining the history than others such as Apollo 13, Midway, Tora Tora Tora, Hacksaw Ridge, etc. while others (looking at you Mel Gibson, and Titanic) can give a feeling of the period and event while having almost none of it being authentic to history, people or specific events. Either can be good entertainment but going back to the point here sometimes the feats such as Desmond Doss, John Basilone, and many others will get watered down because the truth is so incredible that it would look like an exaggeration and lose credibility with the audience who would think you you made the person into a Gary Sue. Just once every so often though, we get a movie like the ones mentioned above that give us some very accurate telling of the real events.
Chosin was insane, even for the Army. My regiment was decimated during a fighting retreat, the regimental commander personally lead an assault on an enemy strongpoint and was killed, posthumously receiving the Medal of Honor. I served in Afghanistan, and I’m absolutely blown away by what the wars in our history must have been like. No current American service member has seen full scale war to the degree our forefathers did, and I pray we never do.
And let's not forget Desmond Doss.
My wife and I watched this when it first came out and then again earlier this year and I can safely say that it has absolutely gotten even better with time. Such an amazing series, especially on a big screen with surround sound.
I watched it with my wife not long after we met she asked me "how can you watch the worst of humanity and go right to sleep?"
I recommend Generation Kill
@@CenlaSelfDefenseConcepts I love the show to death but I do not blame her lol
I agree, when MGs and mortars are going off in the battle scenes it's very immersive. Same with Generation Kill, as another person said above me
“She learned to whisper ‘sledgehammer’ in his ear to wake him.”
Their kids probably didn’t want to know this.
Honestly that's kinda badass tho, having your wife wake you up using your callsign
Great review mate. As an Aussie the only thing I'd like to clarify is that the two Australian soldiers in the Melbourne pub that get into the fight with the Marines are not Australian AIF soldiers- they're in their CMF (militia) dress uniforms. CMF units weren't allowed under law to be deployed for active service outside of Australia. Many individual CMF soldiers transferred to the AIF so they could fight overseas. This changed when the Japanese invaded New Guinea which was then Australian territory so CMF units then deployed there. The 39th Battalion a militia/ reserve Bn fought with distinction there. It was a primarily Victorian Bn so perhaps our aggressive militia blokes in the pub finally saw some real combat. Cheers!
Ah cool, these were the so-called Chocolate Soldiers, right? As in the belief that they would melt in the heat of battle (but then kicked the IJA out of New Guinea).
Yep. Although there were some units that didn't perform well, there were some superb CMF Battalions - they stopped the IJA at Kokoda and Milne Bay.
Eugene Sledge’s book, With the Old Breed, is one of the most gripping memoirs of a veteran of combat I’ve ever read. It is not for the feint of heart though, it’s quite graphic and does an excellent job of making you feel the oppressive conditions the Marines suffered through in the battles he took part in.
Great breakdown of one of my favorite historical miniseries. As someone from the Philippines, I'm kinda sad that it's probably too late for a The Pacific/Band of Brothers style series on the Filipino soldiers and guerrillas who fought during the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Philippines that involves the veterans themselves. Most of them have already passed on now, and even worse many Filipinos are forgetting or don't know anything about what happened in our country during WW2. There was a recent Netflix production set in the Japanese-occupied Philippines but it's a drama with fully fictional characters that gets a bunch of the history wrong. I hope my country can one day produce something even half as good as The Pacific that tells the actual stories of Filipino veterans who fought to defend and liberate our country of invasion.
My favorite scene is when Leckie gets out the cab and the driver sees that he’s a Marine, shakes his hand and tells him he was in the 101st air bourne in Europe. Then says I can’t imagine what you guys went through. A real show of respect from one warrior to another.
Unfortunately that scene is also consistently used to downplay what men in Europe went through.
Fun fact: I live and grew up in the town where john basilone grew up, Raritan NJ. We have a parade every year for him. My great grandfather and mother knew him personally and never missed his parade. My great grand parents lived just around the corner from his statue and they often took me over there on our walks along the river. I still go and see his statue and sit on the benches and think of my Pop pop often and i always go and bow my head and give thanks to ole johnny boy for giving his life so i could know freedom and liberty.
So Sledge joined the Marines after surviving Jurrasic Park when he was a kid, then played bass for Queen after the war.
I knew someone was gonna comment on this 😂. Was not disappointed
Never noticed this.. and Rami Malek playing Freddie 😂
That's why they sent him to the Pacific, he was used to surviving on tropical islands and evading raptors.
I think a few important facts help for the context at some points. The Battle at Tenaru happened because the Colonel disobeyed orders to wait for reinforcements under the mistaken impression the Marines only had a battalion or two at most at the airfield while not being properly dug in - charging into a full slaughter of his unit.
Also in the larger sense, the bushido code was almost entirely revisionist and modern invented bullshit since Japan had been largely at peace for over 200 years. The code and messaging was created almost from scratch in the rising militarism and fascism of the Japanese empire by the 1890's which grew into a cult of personality centered on the Emperor but in fact controlled by the rival military-industrial oligarchies of Army and Navy brass to the point that they coup'ed or assassinated civilian leadership like 8 times (plus each other's government proxies) in the early 20th Century.
Japanese soldiers were also not only propagandized into believing Americans would take no prisoners but were also constantly starving from lack of supplies as well as subject to summary execution should they even contemplate surrender which added to the extreme PTSD on their side and willingness to die during false surrenders or banzai charges. Add that many veteran soldiers had already engaged in horrific war crimes against US prisoners of war or Chinese civilians - and you get the idea.
'bullshido'
Exactly, bushido was formed by the samurai as a way of carrying themselves, example being "do not lie, do not slander, do not be boastful." By the 1870s, the samurai class was abolished. Bushido transformed into hyper-militarist propaganda...
This person 20th century Japans
The abomination of bushido the OP refers too seems to be more of a post WW1 thing (look at how the Japanese treated POWs in 1904-1905), but yeah pretty depressingly accurate otherwise. Real bushido is much more sane and honorable than the absurd bloodthirsty mockery that came into vogue of the 30s-40s.
A lot of people fail to understand that there are certain standards that The Pacific can't attain that Band of Brothers set. It is frustrating that because of this, the comparison tends to be on the cinematic aspect, which is severely unfair to The Pacific as it has its own story to tell. The story of Easy Company just lends itself well to a storytelling standpoint and logistically speaking, it's easier to depict a smaller unit than an entire division.
With that said, huge thank you for giving context to this. The Band of Brothers vs The Pacific debate has to end because both are equally good in their own right.
Apparently Ambrose and company tried to do the Pacific in a similar vein to Easy Company, but all the Marine companies that they investigated were far too decimated by the end of the war. Which is, of course, the unromantic reality of war.
The "Rice Without..." menu is the most accurate depiction of Marine humor ever put to film. 19:53
My grandfather's friend is one of those unfortunate victims of the Bataan Death March. It's frustrating how Japan is revising the history playing the victim in WW2. There were records and written accounts of how they were worse than Nazis.
Sledge's story in the series is heart wrenching. His father was terrified his son would've lost his humanity in the war
As an outside perspective, this is how I see it:
Americans worst actions: internment camps and bombing areas with civilians
Japanese worst actions: brutal killings of pows and initiating the war
Both sides as said desecrated corpses, moreso the Japanese
Japanese were more brutal towards Korea and China, while Americans were less so brutal during the war, after the war wasn't great for Japanese Americans though.
Objectively, Japanese were just as brutal if not more than the Americans, but the Americans were not morally superior because of bombings.
Not really as cut and dry as other wars, I suppose. Like I don't blame Americans for fighting the war, but I'm not totally on board with how it ended.
@@walrusArmageddonNah, even with the bombings the Americans were saints compared to the Japanese
Yah I don't like how the video said "the japanese did this evil stuff but the Americans also did bad stuff" there's no comparison
@@wheezer6695 I guess that's just a personal bias for me then. I just don't like when civilians get involved, but objectively when it comes to man to man, yeah Japanese were more brutal
@@walrusArmageddon and Chinese civilians aren't human? Look up what the Japanese did to them.
Ah geez he called the Marines Soldiers, here comes the whining and moaning from the devil pugs.
*Me a former Corpsman hearing him call us medics*
Listen here buddy!
Give them a pack of crayons. They'll be okay.
Rahhh!
To be fair he did post a comment addressing that error. Funny enough, the final episode that’s exactly what Leckie addresses when he re-applies for his old job lol
Wait till someone who has read a history book explains the term Devil Dog was made up by the Marines (right up there with the origin of the bloodstripe and the proper USMC birthday actually being in July)
They're not a corps until they stop breathing!
I loved The Pacific. With me who was stationed in Okinawa and now living here, this hits differently. Good fact check on all accounts!
With how you did a video for The Pacific, I would like it if you could do a video on the movie Emperor (the one with Tommy Lee Jones) showing how accurate or inaccurate it was on the aftermath of the war and how it got to where it is now.
Now all we need is a Generation Kill History Buffs episode. 👌🏻
there's not a single person who hasn't watched generation kill and wouldn't be able to quote entire conversations on the spot
That would be cool. While I wasn't in the Invasion I did deploy to Iraq. Generation Kill really does a hood job at showing the disfunction of the modern military
The Operations Room made videos about the 1st Recon Marines
You could read the book to see how accurate it seems assuming the author was truthful.
@@huasohvacany inaccuracies from it you remember?
I love how you can show a woman holding a baby exploding uncensored, but for some reason you have to bleep out the word suicide. WTF
I'll be frank, if I wrote the same exact post you wrote, my post would be removed for the word you used for unalive. RUclips's very sensitive to use of that particular word.
RUclips in particular and western sensibilities in general have become beyond ridiculous. We live in the softest times with the most insufferable scolds.
@@macmcleod1188youtube has become ridiculously oversensitive about a lot of words. People nowadays cant handle reality.
@@thelastneenja Don't know. But I and many others have our posts deleted (and commented on it) for using the word you used for people unaliving themselves. You even see videos doing it to avoid being demonetized.
There are possibly good reasons for it ( key words, post point scores, account base score) ... For example, new accounts can post links to outside of youtube but at some point, accounts lose that ability and never get it back.
But we know for a *fact* that removing posts (and videos ) for using the Sui word happens.
@@macmcleod1188 You're also not allowed to say the 'M' word. The word when you kill someone in cold blood.
1:15:10 Grasping at straws
They were used; end of discussion, not debate
It’s so utterly basic and proven; it’s not worth bothering to check
Immaculate Comfort
Incredible History
Beautiful Hellish Visage
Amazing lessons
This is still one of best pieces of media ever to realistically cover the late Pacific Theater, let alone World War 2
Great presentation
Must’ve took alot-lot-lot of reading to compile this
Good work
Fantastic as always. Both my grandfathers fought in the Pacific. One a Navy veteran of Coral Sea and Guadalcanal (his ship managed to detonate a Japanese destroyer) the other fighting with the 3rd Marine Division after surviving the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I agree with you and Dale Dye. A convincing combat veteran on screen is something only total immersion into the culture and time period and respect of those they are portraying can produce.
Also, tbh, I wish there would be a series aboout the Naval war and the Africa and Italy campaigns.
Guadalcanal was a major victory, but the actual first defeat of the Japanese on land was by the Australians at Milne Bay in New Guinea in September 1942.
This video is about Americans on Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
25:05, there are terrifying details from the accounts of the men who endured the bombardment of October 13-14, 1942. "The exploding gunfire from the ship was so loud and the concussion was so great that we were literally blown out of our bunks. Shaving mirrors and what little glass we had around was broken. Running from tent to foxhole was like running a new kind of obstacle course; when a salvo was fired, the concussion threw you to the ground. Then you got up, the concussion from the exploding salvo on the airstrip threw you down again." - Gunner's Mate Bill Kennedy, page 193 of Neptune's Inferno. I'm really glad you touched on this moment because for the men on Guadalcanal and for the US Navy, this was a very critical moment. The USN had just won the Battle of Cape Esperance two days prior, and then the Japanese send two battlecruisers down to get the job done, completely unopposed. Rear Admiral Halsey would take operational command over Guadalcanal the next day and this event would be fresh on his mind when the Japanese would try to bombard Henderson Field to this scale again one month later, during a critical and costly battle known as the Battle of Friday the 13th.
Is it just me or is Call of Duty World at War still the best depiction of the War on the Pacific Front?
Banzai!!!
The Atmosphere yes but still gets a lot wrong.
I wish he covered Video games too
COD World At War (COD WAW) only covers Peleliu up until Okinawa. It didn't depict how chaotic the battles in Guadalcanal were. Medal of Honor Pacific Assault depicted Guadalcanal - Peleliu battles at its fullest, though it didn't depict the same grittiness tone of Pacific War as COD WAW or HBO The Pacific did.
Best COD campaign of them all. By a long shot.
I loved The Pacific. Obviously not 100% accurate but no docuseries is. I thought it was still fantastic
And the authors of the books they are based on were never accused of plagiarism either.
NOT docuseries
I always saw BOB and The Pacific as sibling series. Cant have one without the other. I hope Masters of the air eventually comes out on dvd and Blu-ray too.
You know it’s really impressive putting this all together.
Like people, he had to watch the whole show, probably several times throughout the process, then research all the bits he explains (there is probably loads he knows we never hear) then he has to figure out what of that should go in the show where and how for flow. Then record and edit and etc etc
This is such an awesome series and we are blessed Nick does it.
Like wow.
The thought of bored Marines setting rats and crabs on fire seems spot on for these men.
My grandfather was a paratrooper medic in the Pacific. He wouldn’t tell stories about his experience until 2010. They were riveting and terrifying, especially the descriptions of the liberation of Los Banos internment camp.
RIP
Had a grandfather I never met in the USMC 1st Infantry. This series was great to see a snippet of what he experienced.
The Pacific isn't perfect but its still far more enjoyable than most stuff Hollywood has made about the pacific theater in WW2.
not much stuff has been made about the pacific theater. What are you referring to?
28:22 The machine gun in question was a Browning M1917, it was water-cooled. Shooting it as shown wouldn't have been nearly as consequential as a normal machine gun.
As someone who lived in Korea, the Philippines, and Hong Kong I do wish that the Asia-Pacific theatre was understood and appreciated more in the West. The violence that civilians and soldiers alike faced was abominable, and the people of Asia absolutely have not forgotten what they experienced under Japanese Imperialism. Very glad "The Pacific" was made, and very glad we're discussing the series.
Problem is that those same countries are now buying Japanese products like candy. That would be a slap to the face toward the civilians and soldiers alike who suffered the brutality of the imperial Japanese. It doesn't help also that these same countries are mistreating women even after world war II. You would think they would become better? But nope Prostitution rampant like the days of comfort women.
Um those three countries have not treated its citizens any better than the Japanese during Imperial Rule. I mean look what happened at Gwanju.
@@Vicente-en2zx I'll assume you're kidding
@@30secondsflat Sorry about that, probably my word choice was a bit too assertive. You would think those three countries would act like be better than imperial Japan. I assume also that you have googled Gwanju and also the Hong Kong protests recently. Those are basically behavior that mimics Imperial Japan.
Also, why do these three countries are into Japanese culture despite what imperial Japan did to its great grandparents? I guess this is the me me me zoomer culture right? Or the generation what have you done me lately other than shaming a country who that had done nothing than what they did more than 4 score years ago?
Wow, a new History Buffs, and it's almost 4 times longer than Band of Brothers!
There goes my next hour and a half!
watched the first 10 minutes and can just tell this will be another video that I will watch again from you, I have watch countless videos more then once on this channel. I can only imagine how much time and effort goes into your videos, we are all grateful for the free content that you provide!
i am once again requesting the Shogun episode
(Said in Obama's voice)
Oh God. He might as well do Game of Thrones.
I'd love him to do Chernobyl first
@@Jumzaaa I'm interested if he does end up doing it if he'll do the remake or the original show.
@@AT-rr2xwwell shogun put in immense effort for historical accuracy, everything from gestures, posture, clothing, armor, dialects and even how they pour tea to ensure its accurate to the time period. I don’t see how this has anything in comparison to game of thrones a show based on fantasy
One of my relatives was in the IJN as a fighter pilot, I never asked him but I think he knew on the ground it was pretty insane.....even being in the air wasn't very safe neither
The pacific is less accurate then band of brothers but captures the feelings of marines at the time better than any other show out their.
absolute legend for choosing this series
History Buffs upload = 3 months worth of great content to put on in the background when I try to sleep. I’m sure I’ll listen to this while I try to sleep about 3 dozen times before I actually sit down and get a chance to watch it
40:35 feel like this happened all the time and wasn't reported. He's just one witness. And he recorded it. Imagine all those who never put their nightmares on paper.
Thank you for your video! Did you already think about covering "Generation Kill"? Would be a nice addition to the HBO line up. ;)
100%
I imagine a lot of the dialogue would have to be censored for youtube
32:24 The Battle of Melbourne and the Battle of Brisbane are some my favourite Aussie stories. Aussies were encouraged to take care of the Americans, and the women to entertain them. Aussie servicemen resented the competition, and their higher pay, and better uniforms, better goods, etc. Brawls broke out frequently. On February 1943 two brawls escalated in to a free-for-all outside Flinder Street Station featuring more than 2000 men.
A similar thing happened in Brisbane in November 1942, a few months before. It started when Aussies tried to defend a US soldier from being arrested by US MP's, who most Aussie servicemen didn't like. The Battle of Brisbane ended up as a 2 night long riot. It involved 5000 people on the first night, resulting in the death of one Aussie serviceman. This lead to a confrontation between US MPs and 500ish Aussie servicemen on the second night. News of this was heavily censored, but it seemed to relieve some of the tensions a bit. Like seen in the show it seemed to end with the Americans being shouted drinks. US Army Sergeant Bil Bentson said "... after that, it sort of settled down and you go into a pub and an Aussie would come and up and slap me on the back. "Oh, wasn't that a good ruckus we had the other night? And have a beer on me."
It's always a good day when there's a new History Buffs video! I just finished watching The Pacific Series in expectations you would make a video on it. This is f*cking awesome dude thank you!!
Historical Movies/Shows to review next:
- Catch Me If You Can (2002 Movie)
- 12 Years a Slave (2013 Movie)
- Hacksaw Ridge (2016 Movie)
- Greyhound (2020 Movie)
- Theodore Rosevelt (2022 Television Series)
- Masters of the Air (2024 Television Series)
- Chernobyl (2019 Television Series)
- The Post (2017 Movie)
- Denial (2016 Movie)
- The Imitation Game (2014 Movie)
12 Years a Slave would be crazy.
Catch me if you can would be 20 minutes of "This didn't happen and this never happened and no, not true" since it a con-man BS-ing about his non-existent escapades.
He probably won't touch that one lol@@DiviAugusti
I would love to see him review Hacksaw Ridge, given his hatred of all things Mel Gibson & historical.
I'm almost positive he did HBO's Chernobyl.
In a similar vein, "The Chernobyl Guy" YT channel dissects that same series with incredible detail, he (they?) ruined the show for me haha.
I've read Sledge's book, the scenes that he describes on Okinawa are truly horrific. Much more so that the TV show or this very well made RUclips critique can possibly do justice. It is no wonder that Sledge broke down while on a dove hunt back in Alabama.
‘With the Old Breed’ is one of the most horrific and real memoirs on war ever written. As a combat veteran myself it made me feel completely inadequate. Before any leader sends our nation’s youth to war they need to be made to know stories of men like Eugene Sledge.
I love your videos, thanks for uploading
Over an hour of History buffs?! YES PLEASE ❤❤❤❤
I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS AND CHANNEL! So glad this one is over an hour! keep it up!
Just a minir correction, now I could be wrong, google was no help but I am pretty sure Basilone firing the machine gun like he did in thr show wasn't a problem, he was using a watercooled machine gun which will not over heat with continuous fire as long as it has a supply of water
I've heard that in spite of the water cooling system, those guns would still jam if the belt had something wrong with it.
Also, you had to use distilled or purified water, salt water or mineral rich water would cause problems to the feeding hoses or just create lime scale and just general scale build up inside, which would then cause it's own problems.
@@Lord-Wheatabix I also heard that some versions that were used during World War 1 during the campaign against the Ottoman Empire due to a lack of water, they used urine but that might be a joke.
Forgotten weapons covered this. Theoretically a watered cooled gun could fire so long as it had ammo and water.
However even still machine gunners are trained for short bursts so that they don't run through all of their ammo in a matter of minutes. Additionally continuous fire can give you tunnel vision which minimizes the role of the machine gun
@@Lord-Wheatabix Finns during the winter war (and later also Soviets in the "great patriotic war") would often just shove snow into a specially designed "tractor cap" water jackets of their maxims, so I guess it wasn't as big of deal as you make it.
I walk by Eugene Sledge's Alabama Men's Hall of Fame plaque every day at work. He was a very impressive person.
Iv been waiting for this one for a long time
7:25 guess it’s fitting to know where this comes from is from exactly what I assumed it was
RUclips didn't give the notification for this video.
I'm waiting this 2 months after it was posted!
I love The Pasific and I'm glad you covered it.
HELL YES!
I saw this on my youtube page and audibly yelled "HOLY FUCK LETS GO"
Wow, this really makes my day a brand new history buff episode There are so many shows and movies that you could do more reviews on the next one I recommend you do is Chernobyl.
Thank you so much! This is the best video yet.
22:23 His Name is Jacob C. Vouza. I dare anyone to look up his name and believe he was only a slight contributor of the battle.
💯 % true , policeman and heroic
Loving the mix of historical and miniseries footage in this one.
Thanks!
I kid you not, I just finished the show yesterday. Perfect timing.
"Goodnight Chesty, whereever you are."
Goodnight, Chesty
Thank you for this, I’ve been waiting in it for a long time. One of my favorite miniseries.
There is no such thign as the "Congressional Medal of Honor". The correct name of the award is the "Medal of Honor," though the term "Congressional" is sometimes used incorrectly. The Medal of Honor is a military award, even though Congress created it
People seem to love adding 'Congressional' to it as it somehow makes it sound more official. Just like the chronic misuse of the word 'decimate' which also happens in this video. Otherwise, very good.
@@lib556it's more likely due to the Congressional Gold Medal existing and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society that they become part of.
@@lib556 a lot of words have changed meaning due to the "misuse" becoming more and more popular than the original meaning. Take "apocalypse" for example. It originally meant a revelation, which is why more modern bibles now title the last book as Revelation, rather than Apocalypse, because apocalypse has become synonymous with "cataclysmic event" or "end of the world". Decimate is now used to mean "annihilate" or "devastate" and I'm afraid there is almost no chance of going back. To those who misuse it, losing 10% or 50% is both just losing a lot, I guess.
@@oteliogarcia1562 Yeah. People keep lecturing me on how 'language evolves'. I'd counter that by stating that language devolves (gets dumbed down) as well. People who mean to say 'destroy' substitute 'decimate' in an effort to sound smart or cool. We're at a point now where people have become so stupid, they can no longer figure out the usage of 'your' and 'you're as well as 'there' 'they're' and 'their'. Then there's the obsession of misusing the apostrophe to denote plural form. Slippery slope.
@@TheMysteryDriver Could be. If you watch old movies, the term has been used incorrectly for a long time.
Been waiting for this one!! Love this channel!
My principle/pastor Martin Turner fought in this war in New Guinea and Luzon. He got the Asiatic Pacific Theater ribbon with two bronze stars and the Philippine Liberation ribbon with two bronze stars. He would rarely speak about what he did to get those bronze stars, but one time I caught him in a good mood and he told me that he got one for bringing a wounded back to base and got shot in the process. One other one was that they were on a clean up duty when one of his guys picked up a phosphorus grenade and it went off. He pushed the guy out of the way in time but was caught in the blast and it had melted his back. After all of that he still fought on and when he got back to the states he worked at G.E. for awhile then started a christian school were he taught until his death in 2011 at 86 years old. He never knew how to give up he went on numerous mission trips to Haiti to build houses and he ran a food pantry out of his house for the whole neighborhood. He also thaught us to be good men. Some people broke into his house one evening while he was gone and they stole his computer and some other stuff. He knew who did it and what was surprising was that they showed up the next day for free food. He knew it was them, but he still gave them food when I asked him why he did that he just said, "They need it more than I do, so I forgive them." Sorry for the long comment this just had me thinking about him.
Great to see you back. Still waiting for the Napoleon review with bated breath
It's gonna be 30 minutes of incoherent, angry screaming.
Oh boy I love the HBO World War 2 cinematic universe
Based on a true story
It's disappointing that Apple got what they call the 3rd part of the series.
Needs more non-American series though. I'd like to see a Finnish and Filipino resistance series.
@@jasonwomack4064 Based on a true story
@@Adelina-293 Americans don’t give a shit about those fronts
I grew up near Camp Pendleton, where Basilone was stationed. There's a stretch of the 5 that's named after him, and this show helped me put into context who he was
just under 2 hrs up this 90min video already got a 4k to 10 up/down ratio
Says everything one needs to know about this channel!
I long regarded The Pacific as a show that was lesser than Band of Brothers, but over time it has really grown to stand on its own and has become one of my all time favorite mini series. Band of Brothers tells a better story, but The Pacific shows the true brutality and hate that the US and Japanese had for each other. My great grandfather fought in the Pacific and when he came home he had hate for the Japanese in his heart that followed him to the grave when he passed away in 1987.
My granddad fought the Japanese in Burma, but he hated the Indians more than the Japanese lol.
Band Of Brothers tells a narrative that was constructed over and over for 50 years, well known to everyone. It could've been different (sometimes it tries with the "did they shoot them or not?"), but to be honest there were lots of horrors in the European Theater. People just preferred to shut their mouth and look the other way and go on with their life.
Thank you for an excellent & detailed review. I've not yet seen The Pacific, but I have been reading & watching documentaries about the war with Japan. It's nice to know your research means I can now watch the series without being disappointed.
To think that in the near future, the world will be without a veteran from this war is heartbreaking. Never forget
You should check out the movie “City of Life and Death” which is about the Rape of Nanking
My buddy and I just finished rewatching this series last month, so you have no idea how excited I was to see this video pop up in my notifications.
Nick pronounces Guadal with 2 syllables. Gwah-doll In the US we just say "gwadal"
I noticed that too.
I looked up the British pronunciation and it’s the same so I have no idea where he got that
@@Pixiel711 This is indeed interesting
Pretty weird for a video searching for inaccuracies in Cinema/TV productions to mispronounce a key island in that production. At least he pronounced "Japan" correctly.
He needs to get someone to proof listen. I need to know this isn't knocked up by AI... "Sausages"...proof is in the listening!🤔🙄🤔
Do you know how long I wanted you to do the pacific and you finally did 😭😭😭😭😭