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Post by baz62 on Jun 1, 2010 15:21:07 GMT 12
Trainspotter! ;D
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Post by skyhawkdon on Jun 1, 2010 20:23:55 GMT 12
Last night's episode was definately for the girls as well (apart from the final 10 minutes!). Still I am enjoying the series. It gives you an idea of what horrors these brave young men faced (and they were so very young, just like most of our forces that served overseas in WWII).
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 1, 2010 21:17:26 GMT 12
Yes it was indeed a lighter episode for the most part last night though I think it added some nice balance to the series to see a little of the home front training, and life away from the front lines. It also added some much needed charactisation which was lacking in basilone's earlier episodes. We got to see a lot more of what he was about, who he was, etc. Before The Pacific series (the lead up to it at least via various froums) I had never heard of John Basilone, but it seems he was a housefold name in the USA in 1943-45. The media really ran with his story back then and I think the series shows that he was a reluctant hero, he never wanted to be the guy giving speeches about his deeds. But he was raising awareness of what the boys were doing in the islands and raising war bonds so it was all an important part of the war effort.
I looked him up on Google News Archives and sure enough a number of 1943-45 newspapers he came up in stories of bond drives with him as the star, etc, and the way they talk it's like he was a Hollywood icon, they simply assume the reader knows who he is, so he must have been quite a hero in his time to the people on the home front.
I have enjoyed following Eugene Sledge the most, as I was already familiar with the real man since he was one of the interviewees in the amazingly gritty ITV documentary series "Hell In The Pacific". One of these days I must read his book, 'With The Old Breed' , and I might just read Bob Leckie's book 'Helmet For My Pillow' too.
The acting has been very good in this series in my opinion, though no-one has come close to the incredible performances of Damien Lewis and Danny Wahlberg in Band of Brothers. Those two must have been a director's dream, superb and utterly captivating performances throughout. The kid playing Sledge is great though, he has truly gone from an all American boy just out of school to a hard nosed, souless, almost cold-hearted soldier in recent episodes. He has captured that long stare into nothing. A far cry from when he was in Jurassic Park!
When I first recognised Gary Sweet in this series I rolled my eyes as he usually always plays the same old Aussie nice guy in authority character, but in this he has a totally different persona and really got his teeth into the role. He's come a long way. I guess all those years as Magpie Madden in The Sullivans prepared him for the jungle warfare.
I think that episode 7 has been the best so far, the fighting around that pillbox that was assumed empty had me on the edge of my seat. The fighting in the hills was also very dangerous and frightening to watch. I think episode 6 where they took the airfiled was also amazing to watch.
It is high time that we did some sort of series like this about our own kiwi troops, to honour the battles they went through. I would love to make a ten part miniseries following a platoon of infantry through Italy, with battles such as at the Sangro River, Orsogna, Monte Cassino, Florence, etc, to Trieste. Having recently interviewed three men who were in a platoon together, and two others who were together in another platoon, all with No. 24 Battalion, doing just the above in Italy, I have a lot of amazing true material to work from. I just need the US$200 million that Messrs Hanks and Spielberg raised.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 2, 2010 11:49:24 GMT 12
Oh well....I guess I must be a car/plane/train spotter then, because I would notice any similar inaccuracy involving cars, or aeroplanes, (or trains) that were out of era. I can be a real pedantic bastard like that at times! ;D Anyway.....back to the Corsairs attacking the Japanese with their main undercarriage legs down. On page 149 of that Corsair book (just posting the page number in case anyone else has bitten the bullet and coughed up about $300 for that book), there is a photograph of a napalm bomb (cannister) being loaded up beneath a F4U-1D Corsair of VMF-114 on the airfield at Peleliu Island. On the following page (page 150), there is a photograph of a Corsair flying over “Bloody Nose Ridge” on Peleliu Island with its main undercarriage legs down, and with a huge fireball on the ridge from the napalm bomb that has just been dropped by the aeroplane. The caption accompanying the photograph states that as the ridge was only 15 seconds flying time from takeoff, most pilots never bothered to retract the landing gear and effectively just flew a circuit, dropping the ordinance while flying the circuit. I seem to recall reading somewhere in one of the many books I own that No.25 Squadron RNZAF Dauntless crews were doing the same thing at Bougainville, giving the ground crews a grandstand seat view of the squadron aircrew dishing it out to the Japs.
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Post by baz62 on Jun 3, 2010 17:15:44 GMT 12
Oh well....I guess I must be a car/plane/train spotter then, because I would notice any similar inaccuracy involving cars, or aeroplanes, (or trains) that were out of era. I can be a real pedantic bastard like that at times! ;D Just kidding, I must admit I pick holes watching docos when they show A20 Havocs when its about the B25 Mitchell. And the hackles always rise when its about Pearl Harbour and they have a flight of Dauntless Dive bombers dropping bombs!! Grrrrrrrr!
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jun 3, 2010 20:24:23 GMT 12
I'll tell you how I instantly picked that they had a train pulled by a locomotive model that didn't exist until 1949. Prior to the end of WWII, General Motors produced two types of mainline diesel-electric locomotives (exclusively for use in North America). The E-series locomotives were primarily a passenger locomotive and were powered by twin V-12 567-series EMD diesel engines. They were a very long unit with a long, sloping nose. They were produced from about 1937 until 1943, when the US Government ordered GM to stop producing them and turn the production facilities over to war materials production. The F-series locomotives were primarily a freight-haulage unit and were powered by a single V-16 567-series diesel engine. They were produced right through WWII as they were regarded as being vital for hauling trains in support of the war effort and they were particularly productive in the desert areas of the USA where water for steam locomotives was in short supply. They were a carbody-style locomotive (just like the E locos), but they had a much shorter body and a considerably shorter & flatter nose. The locomotive hauling the train in the episode the other night was obviously an E-series locomotive due to the length of it (compared with an F), but it had the shorter & flatter nose. When E locomotive production restarted after WWII, GM adopted the same nose as they were using with the F locomotives, so it was obvious that a post-WWII locomotive was hauling that train. I then used Google to search for more info and after checking (I had videotaped that episode that other night, so I was able to take another look), I was able to determine that it was a E8 locomotive, which didn't go into production until 1949 (and followed on from the E7, produced from the end of 1945). How did we survive before Google existed, eh?
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Post by alanw on Jun 3, 2010 20:46:39 GMT 12
Yes it was indeed a lighter episode for the most part last night though I think it added some nice balance to the series to see a little of the home front training, and life away from the front lines. It also added some much needed charactisation which was lacking in basilone's earlier episodes. We got to see a lot more of what he was about, who he was, etc. Before The Pacific series (the lead up to it at least via various froums) I had never heard of John Basilone, but it seems he was a housefold name in the USA in 1943-45. The media really ran with his story back then and I think the series shows that he was a reluctant hero, he never wanted to be the guy giving speeches about his deeds. But he was raising awareness of what the boys were doing in the islands and raising war bonds so it was all an important part of the war effort. I looked him up on Google News Archives and sure enough a number of 1943-45 newspapers he came up in stories of bond drives with him as the star, etc, and the way they talk it's like he was a Hollywood icon, they simply assume the reader knows who he is, so he must have been quite a hero in his time to the people on the home front. As far as John Basilone and his wife Lena goes, they only had 7 months together as a married couple, when he was KIA on Iwo Jima. Would have been so nice if they could have spent their lives togther but such is war, lots of grieving families! The sad part about it is, that his body was re-interred in Arlington and his wife (never remarried) is buried in California. In reading some of the books written by Kiwi personel fighting in the Pacific, many of things suufered by the Marines eg rivers of mud, showers in the rain (then it stops) were so true!!! The Pacific is not Band of Brothers, but I enjoyed it anyway
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Post by zman280 on Jun 4, 2010 7:53:39 GMT 12
Oh well....I guess I must be a car/plane/train spotter then, because I would notice any similar inaccuracy involving cars, or aeroplanes, (or trains) that were out of era. I can be a real pedantic bastard like that at times! ;D Just kidding, I must admit I pick holes watching docos when they show A20 Havocs when its about the B25 Mitchell. And the hackles always rise when its about Pearl Harbour and they have a flight of Dauntless Dive bombers dropping bombs!! Grrrrrrrr! You also can't forget that shot of the TBM dropping the torpedo, they seen to use that in all Pearl Harbor film clips as well
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Post by turboNZ on Jun 4, 2010 19:12:26 GMT 12
...and the F9F Panthers landing on the carriers..... ;D
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Post by DragonflyDH90 on Jun 4, 2010 20:02:41 GMT 12
Some of the cars are slightly out of period also but still a good TV programme and much more accurate than previous attempts
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Post by turboNZ on Jun 8, 2010 9:58:56 GMT 12
Quite a sad and moving episode last night,...ruined by B-29's flying over at the very end....they looked terrible...no dihedral on the wings etc Still,.. my CGI and CAD is nothing compared to theirs so who am I to argue.
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Post by mumbles on Jun 8, 2010 11:35:34 GMT 12
Quite a sad and moving episode last night,...ruined by B-29's flying over at the very end....they looked terrible...no dihedral on the wings etc Still,.. my CGI and CAD is nothing compared to theirs so who am I to argue. I'll admit to finding the episode a bit distressing as well, particularly as a parent, even knowing beforehand that was how it was. I'm a bit curious as to how many viewers think scenes in the series are exaggerated for effect, when those of us familiar with the history know they are not. I'm also curious as to whether the series is causing anyone to revise their opinion as to how the war against Japan was conducted, especially with regard to the atomic bombings at the end. The issues with the B-29's appear to be almost universal amongst CG aircraft, for no reason I can figure. Clearly at times a lot of research goes into the models and skins, but dihedral is almost always absent or wrong, even when the models are accurate in all other respects. I'd love to hear from an industry renderer as to how these models get developed and signed off, as it happens so often as to be chronic, or suggestive of some rendering software issue that can't be got around.
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Post by Bruce on Jun 8, 2010 13:25:27 GMT 12
I was more concerened about the B29s being in close formation at low altitude - I'm not sure if they were meant to be departing on a raid or returning, but if I understand correctly, US Bomber practice was to form up at medium - high altitude. Where there is only a single runway involved (unlike Tinian) they would use a stream takeoff and climb in stream until at thier rendnevous point. return would be similar, breaking formation during descent to ensure runway spacing? Buzz and breaks probably werent that common.. and yes... that was a pretty heavy episode last night!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 8, 2010 21:40:35 GMT 12
I think the episode was hugely disturbing, not only the sights that were seen and the dreadful actions witnessed, but also the realisation that the main soldiers like Sledge and Snafu were quite obviously psychologically impaired by their long exposure to the front lines. The way they treated the new guys was deplorable. Even the way these two good friends were treating each other showed the intense stress they were under - Slegde particularly seemed to be right on breaking point.
The saddest part of all is it is true, and that the real Eugene Sledge went through those experiences. It must have taken him years to readjust to a normal life, as did many millions of soldiers.
Personally I care not about the dihedral on the B-29's, nor that they were formating too low, etc. It was a wonderful piece of symbolism to see the USAAF's main strike bombers which were taking the war all the way to mainland Japan included in the series, especially as they have just been told of the atomic bomb. I thought it was a really neat way to finish the episode, personally.
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Post by stu on Jun 9, 2010 22:02:41 GMT 12
As a matter of trivial interest, I got home from work last night around midnight, plonked myself down in front of the telly to unwind, flicked to the history channel as "The War" was on and discovered the assault on Peleliu and Eugene Sledge seemed to be the subject.
Typically, about 3 minutes after thinking "this could be interesting" I fell asleep and missed it.
Did anybody else manage to catch the episode and if so, is it worth watching?
Cheers, Stu.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 9, 2010 22:55:28 GMT 12
Is that Ken Burns' series? Sledge was from one of the towns he based the series around so I guess it is. I have that series on DVD, thanks to Corsair67 who kindly sent it to me. i might have to watch it again. Sledge was also interviewed in the excellent ITV series 'Hell In The Pacific'.
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Post by stu on Jun 9, 2010 23:15:34 GMT 12
Is that Ken Burns' series? Sledge was from one of the towns he based the series around so I guess it is. I have that series on DVD, thanks to Corsair67 who kindly sent it to me. i might have to watch it again. Sledge was also interviewed in the excellent ITV series 'Hell In The Pacific'. Not sure I'm afraid - it did appear that the veteran that was being interviewed was from Sledge's hometown and a good friend and then moved on to talking about Sledge in the past tense. Bit peeved I fell asleep as it looked interesting
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Post by chinapilot on Jun 15, 2010 1:13:50 GMT 12
interesting reading all the comments...
When the 1st Marine Battalion sailed for Tawara [ex Guadalcanal]they had been in Wellington about 18 months [excellent book written about it but have forgotten it's title].
Losses were so high that casualty notices were put in the Evening Post as they left behind a plethora of wives, girlfriends, children and just friends. My mother lost a 'friend' there.
Later on, after working in PNG and the Solomons & visiting a lot of the battlefields I was impressed with the series as the jungle fighting must have been like that...
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Post by turboNZ on Jun 15, 2010 10:30:15 GMT 12
Very sad episode last night,...I errr...ummm,...ahh may have had a tear in my eye, esp when the Basilone family got the MOH from his wife....
I thought the end was brilliant with the actors and the real guys plus their history after war. May have had a few flaws but all in all well done Mr S & Mr H !!!!! Certainly opened my eyes to what it must have been like.
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