Ken Burns' "The War".

[corsair67]

I bought this dvd set after missing the first few episodes of the series on ABC recently.

Even though it is annoying to note that as far as many Americans are concerned WWII didn't actually begin until the 7th December 1941, I found this documentary series to be very interesting and pretty well research. If you've seen Ken Burns' other documentaries "The West" and "The Civil War", then you'll already know the quality of his work.

Based mostly around the wartime experiences of service personnel and civilians from four towns (Sacramento, California; Mobile, Alabama; Waterbury, Connecticut and Luverne, Minnesota) the series also includes some amazing (and sometimes gruesome) archival photos and footage taken during the period.

The thing I really did like about the series was that it doesn't hold Macarthur up as the great general he lead everyone to believe he was, and it also isn't afraid to show the many strategic, tactical and organisational stuff-ups the Americans made during the war.

Well worth seeing if you haven't already.

www.pbs.org/thewar/

[Dave Homewood]

That series sounds interesting. I am familiar with Ken Burns' work having seen some of The Civil War and his other doco Baseball. He's a pretty good documentary film maker.

I can understand your concern over these Yanks though who think WWII didn't begin till December 7th, 1941. It's total ignorance, and possibly in some cases arrogance. I once entered a debate on a US Pacific War forum because some juvenile plebs were crapping on about the WWII and the Pacific War beginning with Pearl Harbor being attacked. Both being totally incorrect, I calmly pointed out that New Zealand, Australia, Fiji and other Allies were at war with the Germansin the Pacific from September 1939 to the point where we were patrolling with aircraft, ships and land based forces, and several hundred people lost their lives to German Raiders. They still did not believe there was war in the Pacific before the US entered. One guy even tried to say it wasn't a real war.

[contourcreative]

Looking forward to getting this...one day...'World at War' still the best IMHO.

If you like Ken Burns and you like music, JAZZ is highly recommended.