One of the best, if not THE best ever written ...
Semper Fi ...
I’m up to episode 7, and I love the series. But beware. I place it very high on the gore-scale, especially the two episodes on Peleliu. Were talking gross stuff here, the carnage created in the movie during the crossing of the air field and the assault of Bloody Nose Ridge were probably very realistic.
The episode when they were in Australia, and then R&R on Pavuvu got a little dramatic and at times dull . But it picks up again in a big way when they land on Peleliu.
But was glad I persisted as the series turned out to be pretty good. I'd recommend reading the two books the series was based upon, though, for a better understanding of what those guys suffered.
Sergeant John Basilone
United States Marine Corps
For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action against enemy Japanese forces, above and beyond the call of duty, while serving with the First Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division, in the Lunga Area, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on October 24 and 25, 1942. While the enemy was hammering at the Marine’s defensive positions, Sergeant Basilone, in charge of two sections of heavy machine guns, fought valiantly to check the savage and determined assault. In a fierce frontal attack with the Japanese blasting his guns with grenades and mortar fire, one of Sergeant Basilone’s sections, with its gun crews, was put out of action, leaving only two men able to carry on. Moving an extra gun into position, he placed it in action, then, under continual fire, repaired another and personally manned it, gallantly holding his line until replacements arrived. A little later, with ammunition critically low and the supply lines cut off, Sergeant Basilone, at great risk of his life and in the face of continued enemy attack, battled his way through hostile lines with urgently needed shells for his gunners, thereby contributing in a large measure to the virtual annihilation of a Japanese regiment. His great personal valor and courageous initiative were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
President of the United States
Footnote: Sergeant John “Manila John” Basilone was one of the first Marines to be awarded the Medal of Honor of World War 2. Anyone that has been stationed at or visited the Marine Base, Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California has traveled on the road named for him. Basilone Road.
There are many other things that could be noted on this web page, but the author suggests to those interested, request and read the booklet circulated by UNICO NATIONAL Somerville Chapter at P.O. Box 901, Somerville, NJ 08876.
It is a booklet that covers every aspect of Manila John’s actions resulting in the awarding Sergeant Basilone the Congressional Medal of Honor as well as a insight to the man himself.
Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, of Raritan, New Jersey, was awarded the Medal of Honor in recognition of his outstanding heroism at Guadalcanal. Later, during the Iwo Jima campaign, he was killed in action on D-Day, 19 February 1945.
At Guadalcanal, where he was serving with the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, he used a machine gun and a pistol to kill 38 of the enemy from his emplacement and earn the nation’s highest military decoration.
At Iwo Jima, GySgt Basilone again distinguished himself, single-handedly destroying a Japanese blockhouse while braving smashing bombardment of enemy heavy caliber fire. For his exploit he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. While at Iwo Jima he was attached to the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, 5th Marine Division.
Son of an Italian-born father, he spent nearly six years in the U.S. Armed Forces, and was a sergeant at the time he was awarded the Medal of Honor. The citation accompanying his Medal of Honor was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The story about the 38 Japanese bodies comes from PFC Nash W. Phillips, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, who was in the same unit with Sgt Basilone on Guadalcanal.
“Basilone had a machine gun on the go for three days and nights without sleep, rest or food,” PFC Phillips recounted. “He was in a good emplacement, and causing the Japs lots of trouble, not only firing his machine gun but also using his pistol.”
Gunnery Sergeant Basilone’s buddies on Guadalcanal called him “Manila John” because he had served with the Army in the Philippines before enlisting in the Marine Corps.
He was one of a family of ten children. Born in Buffalo, New York, on 4 November 1916, he went to St. Bernard Parochial School in Raritan and enlisted in the Army at the age of 18. After completing his three-year enlistment he came home and went to work as a truck driver in Reisterstown, Maryland.
In July 1940 he enlisted in the Marine Corps in Baltimore, Maryland. Before going to the Solomon Islands he saw service at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in addition to training at the Marine Barracks, Quantico, Virginia; Parris Island, South Carolina; and New River (Later Camp Lejeune), North Carolina.
Following World War II, GySgt Basilone’s remains were reinterred in the Arlington National Cemetery, and in July 1949, the USS Basilone, a destroyer, was commissioned in his honor at the Boston Naval Shipyard
Many thanks to your Dad for what he did for all of us! We are eternally grateful.
Graphic.. Violent.. decent production, saw it earlier.
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but nothing compared to the actual battlefield film we watched in boot camp.
I didn’t like “The Pacific”. It wasn’t nearly the caliber of “Band of Brothers”. In “The Pacific”, it seemed like we were getting Hollywood’s Vietnam treatment of our guys, where the Marines were shown as either having mental troubles or as ruthless killers, without the brutality of the Japaneses really being shown. On top of that, the show was mostly boring. There were maybe two battles in a multi-part series about island-hopping, ferchrissake.
The seemimgly immortal, revered officer, the hard-nosed NCO who saves everyone's ass, the wide-eyed volunteer who loses his soul, and the wannabe writer who documents it all. Most bothersome to me were some of the demonstrable lies in the narrative put in purely for drama.
That said, it compares better than other portrayals of Pacific theater. I recall seeing some old John Wayne movies where the "Japanese" are actually Hispanics. It's almost comical to watch. Parts of Flags of Our Fathers were decent, but I found the structure of the flashback/present day mixture to be distracting. IMHO, The Thin Red Line was the dullest, most ponderous movie about combat I've ever seen. Nolte had the only redeeming performance in that POS.
The Pacific seemed to capture the horrors of the Pacific theater's 'Island Hopping Campaign', as taken from two books by both Leckie and Sledge, covering a time period from 1941 through 1945 in the same number of episodes as Band of Brothers.
In The Pacific, they had to portray a lengthier storyline in the same number of episodes, which has caused some critics to note that it wasn't as fleshed out and compelling as Band of Brothers.
One thing they seemed to do better in The Pacific was to portray the action of the Pacific campaign against Imperial Japan as far more horrific, brutal, and amoral than the men of the European theater commonly experienced in their fight against the Axis.
The horrors that the Japanese dealt to their enemy were horrific.
A few years back I was helping an older gentleman with his computer. We were in his study and I needed a phillips head screw driver. I asked him for one and from outside the room he said "I think there is one in a box on the shelf". Then the phone rang and he was busy speaking to someone.
I got impatient and started diggin around his shelves. I grabbed an old cigar box thinking there might be tools in it. I opened the box and saw the most horrific images. They were old black and white photos. Dead bodies of American GI's with Japanese soldiers laughing next to them. Pictures of hacked off body parts. Pictures of US soldiers that looked like skeletons. Their eyes deeply sunk in to their heads. Some looked lifeless while others looked as if they would kill whoever was taking the pitures if they could.
I heard the old gent coming and I quickly put the box back. He found his tools and we worked on his computer. I did not say anything about the photos but later mentioned them to his wife. She said not to ask him about them. She said he never talks about the war. She said she know of the photos. They had been captured by her husband from the Japanese and were from the Bataan Death March. I never had heard of it and looked it up on the Internet. I found similar photos. Bad stuff. I'll never forget. The old gent is resting with the Lord now as is his wife. Bless them both.
We can never thank those enough that have fought for us. What has been endured for us by these brave people can never be fully understood by many of us that have never been in harms way. I have seen The Pacific and while it may not be up to snuff for some I believe that it is very important that all Americans know what has been done for us by our fellow citizens. In every war. So I applaud the makers of the film and hope that as many people as possible see it.
Thought a lot of the combat scenes were quite well done. The sepia tone helped, with some images very eerie, looking like the B&W photo of my dad setting an IV up on a guy on a stretcher being carried by Marines. He was a Corpsman in on Guadalcanal, Guam, and Okinawa. That Okinawa photo was used on the front page of a NY paper.
I do not think he would have thought the battles that much over the top, nor the mental torment. But I do not think it would have been good for hime to watch it. My stepmom tells me he had nightmares into his 80's when he died. Would wake up and say that the Japs were after him.
Odd thing is, I served in VN from 67-69, and for whatever reason, we never talked about our experiences.
Read Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester. He fought with the 1st Marine Division from the landing at Guadalcanal until he was blown to shiite on Okinawa.
Compared to “Band of Brothers,” “The Pacific” stunk up the joint.
Beware any production that features a narrative from the point of view of a WRITER. How lazy and self-referential is that? All the characters end up neurotic and undistinguishable from each other. Because that’s what hack writers are. A good writer can write through the eyes, ears, and experiences of someone, anyone else.
1 It was Boring.
2 Character Development was poor, I still don’t know who the hell was who, so it was hard to care who lived or died
3 The “Feel of the times” factor didn’t work. It wasn’t as bad a something like Black Sheep Squadron where all the WWII nurses all had Farah Fawcett hairdos but I just had a hard time believing these were vets of the WWII generation.
They had more baby boomerish mannerism.
4. Too crammed, Band of Brothers covered a little more than a year, this one covered 4 years and worse it had some episodes that were wasted a lot of time with irrelevant uninteresting subplots (i.e. The guy banging the Australian babe, the Sargent trying to get in the Italian cooks pants, etc).
I think some people are just are obsessed with criticizing on a public forum the accuracy or content of historical war movies made in these times. They can easily find fault with movies like The Pacific, Band of Brothers, Thin Red Line, or Saving Private Ryan, but when you bump those movies up against the war movies we watched on Saturday afternoons back in the 60’s we have come a long way in making these movies more historically accurate and real to the viewer. None of these newer movies are perfect, and yes a couple were bad, like Pearl Harbor, which started out great, and then about half way through fell off a cliff. But still I would rather have these newer war movies on my DVD shelf, than to have Hollywood produce none at all.