The Pacific (TV) - Corsairs

[turboNZ]

Greetings,

Watching it last night I noticed the Corsairs were doing ground attacks on Peleliu and noticed they had their gear down.
Figured Mr Hanks and Mr Spielberg had gotten the facts wrong, I did a little research....
To my amazement,..yes they did (ie the Corsairs did do it !!) !!
homepage.eircom.net/~frontacs/WBStored/F4UGearAsDivebrakes.html

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[Naki]

yeah I saw the same thing and wondered whether they got it wrong ..so there you go they have certainly done some research then...interesting stuff

[Dave Homewood]

It was great to see the Crorsairs so low like that. I wondered if they were CSI or if those shots were filmed in the USA with real aircraft.

The series gets better and better with every episode in my opinion, and last night's was totally harrowing to watch. Such a good series, and it's so pleasing to see a dramatisation that actually comes so close to the real war in the Pacific, compared with other efforts over the years that are so ridiculous they're laughable (and I'm not just referring to the musical South Pacific, which scarily was written by a genuine veteran!!).

I wonder if our Corsair pilots ever applied wheels down as dive brakes when making attacks.

[shorty]

If you look at page 35 of Bryan Cox's "Pacific Scrapbook" in the caption that accompanies the photo of Ray Archibalds Corsair he says"The panels in front of the undercarriage legs were actually steel panels for use as dive brakes. To extend the dive brakes the undercarriage handle was pushed to the right, then forward, which extended the main wheels but not the tail wheel assembly and doors which were not strengthened for high speed dives. With dive brakes extended, the airspeed would stabilise at about 300 knots, but in the clean condition the aircraft was permitted to indicate 420 knots between 7500 feet and sea level which was 470 knots true airspeed, which equals 540mph!"

(For all you young boy racer types 540 mph equals 870 kph!)

[zman280]

From what I have read Avengers used their under carriage as air brakes for dive bombing as well. As for the TV series it's no Band of Brothers and I'm not saying that because they are para-troopers. My theater of interest has always been the Pacific. I haven't been able to develop a sense of feeling for the characters let alone remember there names.

[ox]

May 25, 2010 17:34:24 GMT 12 @zman280 said:

As for the TV series it's no Band of Brothers and I'm not saying that because they are para-troopers. My theater of interest has always been the Pacific. I haven't been able to develop a sense of feeling for the characters let alone remember there names.

That was my general opinion as well, but I was talking to Dad's partner's ex father in law and he served in Guadalcanal and New Britain and he said The Pacific was a much more accurate portrayal of the combat.

[Dave Homewood]

I agree the characters have not been as strongly portrayed in this series as in Band of Brothers but I can see why - they have tried to condense much more into much less. BofB covered one episode of training and then June 1944 to May 1945. Each epsode was an hour long.

The Pacific is covering 1942 to 1945, three times as much war, into episodes that have been hamstrung back to arounf 42 minutes on average, thanks to the Aussies I believe. One of their TV networks partnered the funding and I read they insisted on shorter episodes as Aussie TV prefers to cram in maximum advertising (which TV One is making much use of too).

Perhaps one second and third viewings you'll 'get' much more and you'll get to know characters better. I know most people had to watch BofB several times to work out who everyone was.

One thing that annoys me is despite basing this on the true stories of three Marines, and their buddies, based on their books and other known facts, almost the entire episode about them being in Melbourne on R&R was made up. That romance never happened and the Greek family never existed. What a waste of money and time, obviously done to appeal to the chick flick market.

However I have talked with and interviewed many people now who served at Guadalcanal and further up the chain, and from all the information i have garnished from their stories and from lots of reading over the years, The Pacific is a very accurate portrayal of the hardships, the battles, the conditions and the war in general.

I still find it hard to believe that the excellent actor playing Eugene Sledge used to be the little boy in Jurassic Park though!

[flyjoe180]

I've found The Pacific really disappointing. All the hype and waiting and I am not impressed unfortunately. Not a DVD set I will be buying.

[Dave Homewood]

I have heard a few people say the same thing Joe, but I have to ask, what more were you expecting? It has not disappointed me at all apart from the bullshit Melbourne episode.

[turboNZ]

I agree with the Melbourne episode. Totally unnecessary. I was also beginning to question why the aircraft flew over in formation all the time when the soldiers were getting wiped out on the beach, instead of line astern attacks...and also the generic nature of "can't recognise them" until the last episode with the Corsairs. Finally, at last !!!!

[flyinkiwi]

I found the shorter running times the most disappointing thing. The extra ad breaks force a rather rushed narrative and I didn't get pulled into the story the same way as in BoB. Watching an uninterrupted version on DVD/Blu-Ray might be the best way to watch the series imo.

[Dave Homewood]

Chris I think the generic looking aircraft have mostly been Hellcats and Dauntless.

[14liney]

We were lucky enough to watch it on HBO without interuption. The episodes vary in length from about 45 minutes to about 53 minutes. The final episode is quite poignant.

[obiwan27]

I think that 'The Pacific' has been very good, minus the Melbourne episode. It is after all concerning events in our own 'backyard' to an extent. Some tosser writing in CANTA (the University of Canterbury student mag) had the gall to complain that he didn't like the series as he couldn't see what was going on in the earlier episodes featuring combat at night. Gee whizz!! No shit!!! What do you think it was like for the guys that actually fought under those conditions, no night goggles back then sonny......

[corsair67]

Some tosser writing in CANTA......

My God, they still produce that newspaper! There used to be some great satire in that publication back in the 80s, but the Fun Police have probably stamped that out now - just like how they killed off Lincoln's excellent capping mag, Ram magazine!

Anyway, I still haven't bothered much with The Pacific, mainly because I knew the adverts would kill it, so I'll hold off until the dvd set comes out later this year.

Going by what a few people have said to me in person, and from what I've read on here, I think I have to agree with Dave's sentiment that you probably need to watch the series more than once to get right into the guts of the story. I found that I had to watch Band of Brothers at least twice to get into the characters.

[sqwark2k]

Out of interest, was the details of the Melbourne episode where they were accommodated at the footy field, sleeping on stretchers in the covered terraces true? I found that bit interesting. Especially as Melb is not the warmest place in Oz to be sleeping outdoors albeit undercover. Sure the story lines of the Melbourne may have been dramatic license but the fact is that US Marines did go to Australia for R&R between pacific deployments and did form relationships with the local girls, so hardly total bullshit.

[yak2]

The MCG was used by US forces as a camp during WW2. Allied HQ was also in Melbourne. Haven't bothered watching the series so don't know what everyone is getting hot under the collar about.

[Dave Homewood]

Sqwark2k, yes indeed the whole concept of leave in Melbourne is accurate enough, and yes using the football field as a camp is true. The bar fights and all the rest will also be accurate. I just felt that the series makers had deviated from the truth by making up a big love story and the Greek-Australian family and had concentrated on that aspect for far too long in the episode. I assume it was to make the female viewers happy, the chick-flick episode. In reality he was hoaring it around with any Aussie sheila he could get his hands on, not having a meaningful relationship with the love of his life. And the way it all ended with her cutting it off also made no sense.

As for soldiers sleeping in sports stadiums, all across New Zealand our Army took over various stadiums and particularly race courses to turn them into army camps. Cambridge race course became a very big army camp for example, with both Territorials training there and reguilars who'd been conscripted did their basic there. Many of the men of the 24th Battalion that I have recently interviewed began their army careers in Cambridge race course.

It happened all over though, Palmerston North, Masterton, Addington, etc all became army training camps. I spoke with a chap last week who said he was posted to the showgrounds at Masterton where they all slept in the sheep stalls with their feet poking out into the eisle making things difficult to move about at night. he said they had about 300 men there and only two cold taps on the whole site to do their morning ablutions and shave!

I've been told that RNZAF Station Waipapakauri was also originally a country racecourse. Many race courses (including Cambridge) became aerodromes in the 1920's-30's too.

[kiwithrottlejockey]

I've noticed an inaccuracy in tonight's episode.

I'll post the details tomorrow.

[kiwithrottlejockey]

In last night's episode, Sergeant Basilone travelled to Los Angeles in a train hauled by a GM-EMD locomotive model that wasn't manufactured until 1949. I guess they didn't research that bit too well!


However, regarding the Corsairs using their main undercarriage legs as air-brakes....

I recently purchased from Capital Books in Wellington an excellent book (of 344 pages) published by Schiffer Books (USA) called “Corsair — The Saga of the Legendary Bent-Wing Fighter-Bomber” by Walter A. Musciano. There are photographs in the book of Corsairs dive-bombing targets with their main undercarriage legs extended. The RNZAF operation of Corsairs also gets quite a bit of coverage in the book as well.