JUNGLE LOATHE: Last night's Pacific, like I imagine most of the rest of the episodes of this miniseries, featured the kind of battle scene that had me gripping my armrests and gritting my teeth, even though I knew exactly how it would turn out. This week's battle was the one in which John Basilone earned both a Medal of Honor (I won't spoil for you whether or not it was awarded posthumously) and, I'm told, iconic status among every subsequent generation of Marines.
TPE mentioned to me that last week's episode didn't quite capture the scope or complexity of the battle for Alligator Creek. It's worth bearing that criticism in mind when mulling over Basilone's feats in last night's episode. On the show, we got 10-15 minutes of harrowing combat, with wave after wave of Japanese infantry trying to take the ground that Basilone held. Wikipedia (I know, I know), however, tells me that the point at which The Pacific picks up the battle came after Basilone and his unit had already been fighting for 48 straight hours, with only Basilone and two of his squad-mates alive and uninjured enough to fight. Then the few minutes we see are snippets of another 24 hours of fighting, including the period when Basilone alone held the bottleneck and kept 3,000 Japanese troops at bay. Yikes. Point taken, TPE.
Isaac, you might also be interested in the Kokada Track Campaign, where poorly trained and supplied Australian troops held off a similarly numbered Japense force striking south through Indonesia (yes, Wiki again but I've read about this campaign before and the article jobes with my remembrance).
ReplyDeleteI just read the wiki on Basilone. Holy crap! I don't think they even came close to capturing what really went down. Neither article I read mentioned whether he was burned by the machine gun, but my Dad told me that was a big part of the story when he went on his war bonds tour.
ReplyDelete"The Pacific" web site is a great resource as well. There's a piece on the ferocity of the Japanese soldier and how they tried to dehumanize the enemy, and how American soldiers returned the favor, that was fascinating.
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ReplyDeleteI'm really looking forward to watching this when my own personal war in the courtrooms of the Alfonse D'Amato Federal Courthouse finally comes to a close. (Now looking to go to the jury on April Fools' Day.
ReplyDeleteNothing in this mini series can match the majesty of Band of Brothers, it's too anachronistic for a start and was written and produced after September 11th which caused a shift in attitudes and values amongst the producers. Ah life. The first episode I saw of Band of Brothers was the concentration camp one, I went back and watched them all through, then would read the chapter in the book and then watch the episode, never got bored or pissed off, even when they were showing the soldiers in less than flattering light. Pacific has bugged me from the get go and the core idea is so good too. Ah life.
ReplyDelete"Not as good as Band of Brothers" isn't much of an insult. There is an awful lot of valuable real estate south of Band of Brothers.
ReplyDelete@Kitty -- I think the difference between the shows is because the theatres of war were so different. It's clear from last week's ep that the soldier in the Pacific was involved in a non-linear, non-traditional kind of battle.
ReplyDeleteWhat may bug you is that this was a nasty, herky-jerky kind of war, as opposed to the fluidity of BoB, which was really about chasing the Germans back to Germany. I don't think 9/11 had anything to do with it, as much as an honest difference in how things went down.
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