A week or so ago I decided to rewatch HBO’s The Pacific. It is a great companion to Band of Brothers and bookends the war nicely. As so much of the entertainment world is focused on the European theater and Moustache Man Bad, it was overdue that the Pacific theater got some serious attention so many decades after movies like Midway and Tora! Tora! Tora!.
I was quickly reminded of the brutality of the series. It is hard to watch in many places. The realism is very powerful and explains why it was such an outrageous miniseries…
… and also, why it wasn’t nearly as popular. Band of Brothers is very “rah rah” America. The Pacific shows Americans being pretty ugly toward the Japanese, just as it shows the Japanese as vicious, fanatical opponents. You don’t have to think much watching Band of Brothers, you just sit back and enjoy it. The Pacific isn’t easy to watch, and it is very troubling. There are no scenes like this one from Band of Brothers that paint the Germans as very human, even honorable opponents.
I doubt any World War II movies or series today would allow such a moment.
It is difficult to remember today what nasty little bastards the Japanese were in World War II. Japanese men today are meek and kinda sissies. Back then, they were remorseless killers that considered it an honor to die if they took some enemies with them.
For older generations it seems, looking back to when I was a kid, that Pearl Harbor had a far greater impact on the American people than the Holocaust. I have written before about the visceral hatred my liberal life-long Democrat maternal grandparents had toward the Japanese. My very sweet little grannie would almost spit in anger when she talked about Japs, little nips, slaty-eyed yellow devils. Even decades after the war ended, I think grannie would have gutted a Jap if she had the chance. They hated the Japanese. In union autoworker town Toledo where I grew up, driving a Japanese car was a surefire way to get a lot of shit, some genuinely ugly looks, and occasionally vandalism.
Conversely, I don’t remember anyone talking about the Holocaust. Not ever, not until Schindler’s List came out. No one was racing to the recruitment office to join the war crying “Remember the Jews!,” except maybe for Jews. Those farm kids signing up were all about Pearl Harbor. Hell, we are endlessly reminded of the M.S. St. Louis, a ship carrying nearly 1,000 passengers, mostly Jews, that tried to disembark in Cuba, were turned away, then tried Miami and were turned away and were finally denied entry even to Canada. In other words, no one wanted to resettle thousands of European Jews. They got their vengeance later…
After the Holocaust, the St. Louis’ survivors pushed for the remembrance of their ordeal. The United States changed its policy toward refugees in the wake of World War II, and began accepting more refugees than any other country in the world.
I have mentioned a couple of times how the history of World War II has been retconned, especially as it relates to the Holocaust, and particularly in Band of Brothers. In my D-Day post in 2021, I pointed out that while an entire episode of Band of Brothers is titled Why We Fight and focuses on the liberation of a camp, suggesting that the Holocaust was a prime reason for American involvement in the war, the liberation of the camp was barely mentioned in the Stephen Ambrose book:
However in the book, the only mention of concentration camps comes in the very end of a chapter titled “Getting To Know The Enemy”, the same chapter I quoted from above to point out the respect the American paratroopers had for the German people. The camp they liberated warranted about a page of mention.
The actual passages on pages 262-263 make up less than 300 total words and certainly come across as a side-note rather than a significant event. The men of Easy Company had seen all sorts of horror in the war and the Kaufering camp was just another one. War is hell and there was horror to be seen from start to finish. Why would something that warrants almost no mention in the book the miniseries was based on be given a prominent role in the miniseries itself?
The Pacific theater deserves far more attention than it receives but likely never will as the history of World War II has become so politicized. If you haven’t watched The Pacific, you ought to whether you are a history buff or not. If nothing else, it shows just how fanatical and vicious the Japanese were and how thoroughly a warlike people can be pacified and neutered in just a few generations.
There are some interesting lessons and parallels to ponder….
I appreciated the clip from Band of Brothers. Here’s an actual clip of Henri Fenet who was one of the last defenders of Berlin. He was a French volunteer in the Waffen SS.
Defenders of Berlin, Henri Fenet, Charlemagne Div. “Loyal to the End” 4:30
Great clip. Forgot about that one after viewing it several years ago. Thanks for sharing it.
It is a pretty powerful moment and a rare look at Germans as humans rather than cartoonish villains.
Glad I’m not the only one who thinks The Pacific doesn’t get enough love and recognition.
there was a bbc mini series, 6 x 1 hr, made many years ago called Piece of Cake. all episodes are available on the utube.
it follows a RAF squadron, fiction based on history, from the opening of the war through the climax of the Battle of Britain. spoiler alert, they all die.
the reason to watch it now, imho, is to show without doubt it was in fact their finest hour. and to prove how correct Enoch Powell was and how far gone the UK is. remarkable what they have done to themselves, collective suicide. i wonder about US. 2A ?
Will watch it. Thank you.
“Holocaust” is a marketing tool invented by Yitts in the 70’s to streamline their shakedown racket.
For a good documentary on the Pacific War, I can recommend the (old) TV series, “Victory at Sea.” My Old Man was in the Navy from 1938-1960. One of his ships was sunk by a Japanese submarine, and another one was hit by a Kamikaze plane. He enjoyed the series, and said it was fairly realistic, although the film makers ‘glossed over the screwups’ of the U.S.
Great post Arthur. You are correct in your statement that the PTO of WW2 deserves much more attention than it gets. The Japanese were a brutal enemy. My paternal Grandfather served with the 2nd Marine Division at Tarawa, Saipan and Tinian and he told my father and me some NIGHTMARISH stories of the Japs. Grandpa Jack passed away in 2020 and thankfully, I taped almost all of our conversations from all the way back to 1986! I plan on transcribing these stories and publishing a book in Grandpa’s honor and donating all the proceeds to a worthy Veterans charity.
I would say as a person who worked with Japanese countries overseas that the quality of Japanese men sacrificing themselves for their accepted authority is live and well, however now it’s done for their employers. All it would take is an authority figure to push them to do it snd we would see it again. They are followers to an extreme.
I appreciated the clip from Band of Brothers. Here’s an actual clip of Henri Fenet who was one of the last defenders of Berlin. He was a French volunteer in the Waffen SS.
Defenders of Berlin, Henri Fenet, Charlemagne Div. “Loyal to the End” 4:30
https://www.bitchute.com/video/foKriuUV36mS/
Great clip. Forgot about that one after viewing it several years ago. Thanks for sharing it.
It is a pretty powerful moment and a rare look at Germans as humans rather than cartoonish villains.
Glad I’m not the only one who thinks The Pacific doesn’t get enough love and recognition.
there was a bbc mini series, 6 x 1 hr, made many years ago called Piece of Cake. all episodes are available on the utube.
it follows a RAF squadron, fiction based on history, from the opening of the war through the climax of the Battle of Britain. spoiler alert, they all die.
the reason to watch it now, imho, is to show without doubt it was in fact their finest hour. and to prove how correct Enoch Powell was and how far gone the UK is. remarkable what they have done to themselves, collective suicide. i wonder about US. 2A ?
Will watch it. Thank you.
“Holocaust” is a marketing tool invented by Yitts in the 70’s to streamline their shakedown racket.
For a good documentary on the Pacific War, I can recommend the (old) TV series, “Victory at Sea.” My Old Man was in the Navy from 1938-1960. One of his ships was sunk by a Japanese submarine, and another one was hit by a Kamikaze plane. He enjoyed the series, and said it was fairly realistic, although the film makers ‘glossed over the screwups’ of the U.S.
Great post Arthur. You are correct in your statement that the PTO of WW2 deserves much more attention than it gets. The Japanese were a brutal enemy. My paternal Grandfather served with the 2nd Marine Division at Tarawa, Saipan and Tinian and he told my father and me some NIGHTMARISH stories of the Japs. Grandpa Jack passed away in 2020 and thankfully, I taped almost all of our conversations from all the way back to 1986! I plan on transcribing these stories and publishing a book in Grandpa’s honor and donating all the proceeds to a worthy Veterans charity.
I would say as a person who worked with Japanese countries overseas that the quality of Japanese men sacrificing themselves for their accepted authority is live and well, however now it’s done for their employers. All it would take is an authority figure to push them to do it snd we would see it again. They are followers to an extreme.