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The Pacific Episode 1 Full Length Reaction (Patreon)

Published:
2024-02-13 23:53:28
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

So different from both BoB and MotA! Some familiar faces though...

Files

The Pacific 1x01 Full Length Reaction

Comments

Brett Oliver

Only a few minutes in but fun fact, the actor playing Eugene Sledge, Joseph Mazzello, played Tim in Jurassic Park. You have it correct, you had to be 18 to enlist in the US armed forces or 17 with a parent or guardians permission. Many men enlisted and lied about their ages. There were several cases particularly in the navy with guys 17 down to as young as 15 enlisting.

Chris LaLonde

Robert Lacke DID write one of the books the series is based on. Called "Helmet for My Pillow". I know they used a book by Eugene Sledge as well. Called "With The Old Breed." Great reaction!! Can't wait for more.

Chris G

I love Band of Brothers, and I'm coming around to Masters of the Air, but the Pacific has become my favorite of the three. A lot of that has to do with the fact that my granddads both served in WWII and were in the Navy and the Marines respectively, so this series has always made me feel a little bit more connected to them. The war in the Pacific was a different animal than the European Theater, and this series really does a spectacular (and at times very disturbing) job of highlighting the brutality.

Bubba Fett

I don't know why but hbo for some reason in the last few months trimmed the intros. Hanks did a spectacular narration leading into each episode, you can still see them though compiled into a 20min video on the YouTube. BoB was a departure with the training, the bulk of the invasion force was built up for that purpose with long training and spin up. Meanwhile marines were fighting in pacific, aircrews were bombing in Europe, and various units were driving then out in Africa and later Italy. Even the 82nd airborne, had combat drops in Italy prior to Normandy.

Brian W

Fantastic job Jacqui. You hit on a lot of points that will become increasingly more evident as the series moves forward (tonal contrast etc) and that stands to reason as the Pacific Theater was fundamentally different from the European Theater. While no wars are ever civilized, the Pacific was far, far and away so much more brutal than the European Campaign was. Mainly this was due to the IJA/IJN and their adoption of the Bushido Code. They treated prisoners with the utmost disdain because they would rather die in combat than suffer the ultimate indignation of being taken as a prisoner. Hence the booby traps by men who were still alive, and even those who had died. You'll see this even more in later episodes when the Marines are faced with IJA casualties who are still alive. And speaking of Alligator Creek (which had no alligators in it, so the name? 🤷‍♂️) That reminded me of an incident later in the war, that I don't believe is touched on in the series. The Massacre of Ramree Island, over 500 IJA troops were eaten alive by crocodiles in a swamp after their regiment was driven into it by advancing US forces. Again, the tone of this theater of operations compared to the other is, in a word, stark.

LMrcs

Since you brought it up, I think an interesting way to look at it might be that every series' style gets less 'grounded' and leans more into (for lack of the better word) the 'mythical' the further from civilization the war gets, from capturing still-populated cities in Europe, into dark jungles fighting for purpose-built airfields and staging areas, and finally into the air where the dramatic visuals and musical cues are really ramped up. idk just a thought I had during your outro.

Inhonor Oftrip

If you haven't seen it yet, there is a program "Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague (2017)" where he performs some compositions with an orchestra. It is just 2hrs and 18min of emotions. I saw it when it had been on Netflix. You know know you have the right one when he starts with the theme from Driving Miss Daisy (which he also scored😊). The audio of that concert is also on Spotify, if you just want to listen.

Charles Hartmann

Just a quick note, the helmets in WW2 were not bulletproof. They were more for protection from flying debris. In BoB when you see Nixon get saved by his helmet, the bullet glanced off the helmet. If it was a dead on shot, the helmet would not have stopped it.

E

I absolutely loved this reaction. I love this series a lot, the second half gets so heavy it's insane. Be ready again for ep 7 and 9. Can't wait to get through this journey with you, thank you Jacqui :)

Ph03nix

Couple of random factoids in regards to the Japanese, specifically the man Leckie shoots. One of the things that made the pacific theater so different from the European theater, and is the thing people still struggle to understand to this day, is how wildly different Imperial Japanese culture was to Western culture. In general, the Japanese soldiers had a borderline fanatical dedication to the Emperor, and even if individuals didn’t want to be fighting, the fear of the shame that would come with not fighting to the death was almost worse than their fear of death. On top of that, the Japanese propaganda put a special kind of fear into every citizen of the empire, that the Americans were brutal, bloodthirsty monsters who would torture them, and everyone they cared about. After the actual battle, corpsmen (marine medics) searched for survivors to render aid, and a few casualties were taken from wounded Japanese who attacked the Corpsmen with bayonets and grenades to avoid being taken prisoner. In fact, the Japanese commander ended up committing suicide the next morning, as the marines had surrounded his command post, and he refused to be taken alive. Most of the men under his command either fought to the death, or attempted to escape to rejoin the rest of the Japanese forces to bring word back. All of this is shown through the lens of the wounded man on the beach, and the final survivor. Right before Leckie shoots him, he says “I’m tired” then starts yelling “shoot me!” Bonus fact: Spielberg’s presence in the show is demonstrated in the refusal to put subtitles over the Japanese man, as there is a very similar scene is Saving Private Ryan right after the beach landing. In the scene, two Germans are attempting to surrender, and are executed by two Americans who then insult them. What most people miss, is the fact that the two men are actually speaking Czech, and trying to explain that they aren’t Germans, that they were forced to fight, and they didn’t kill anyone… which is easily one of the best details I’ve ever seen in a historical movie, that the filmmaker chose to leave unnoticed, rather than calling attention to it.

Earl Smith

Robert Leckie wrote several books over his career, Fiction, Non-fiction, Military History, Catholic History, and Teen/Young Adult Novels

Pascal Vorwerk

A little bit of context on what happened in the pacific theater since Pearl Harbor and why the US Navy was not able to protect the landing force at Guadalcanal: (This could be considered a little bit of a spoiler for the movie Midway (2019), but the movie goes into a lot more detail) The US Pacific Fleet on December 7, 1941 consisted of 3 aircraft carriers, USS Lexington (CV-2), USS Saratoga (CV-3) and USS Enterprise (CV-6) that were not present at Pearl Harbor during the attack and 11 battleships of which 6 were heavily damaged or sunk while 2 more were lightly damaged. The other 3 battleships were not present either. Most of the battleships were rather old designs though and not exactly comparable to their Japanese counterparts. The first months after the attack on Pearl Harbor was heavily focused on salvage operations while the carriers performed small strikes against Japanese bases. But the US government and public was calling for a decisive strike against Japan. With only 5 rather old battleships and, after the transfer of USS Yorktown (CV-5), 4 aircraft carriers, a decisive action against the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was not possible yet. So instead, a daring plan to launch US Army Air Forces bombers from USS Hornet (CV-8) and attack the Japanese mainland was devised. This raid was led by James Doolittle and took place on April 18, 1942. The successful raid was a major failure for the IJN, which was supposed to protect Japan from any American attacks. This led to them recognizing the danger posed by the American carriers and a plan to destroy them once New Guinea had been captured being devised. However, the Australians, who the Japan intended to cut off from American supplies, defended New Guinea fiercely and the US Navy tried to intervene with two of their now 5 carriers (with Hornet staying in the Pacific). This lead to the first carrier battle at the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 8, 1942, ending with 2 of the Japanese carriers involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor heavily damaged, another Japanese carrier and USS Lexington sunk and USS Yorktown damaged before USS Enterprise and USS Hornet could reach them. However, the invasion of Port Moresby was successfully prevented. This failure reinforced the Japanese plan to destroy the US carriers, leading to detailed plans of drawing them into a decisive battle at Midway on June 4, 1942. The plan was intercepted and the code broken by Station HYPO, part of Naval Intelligence. Admiral Nimitz sent out both available carriers, Enterprise and Hornet immediately with Yorktown following after repairs. At the Battle of Midway, these carriers, together with aircraft based at Midway, sunk all 4 remaining carriers of the force that attacked Pearl Harbor with Yorktown being sunk by the IJN. With most of the Japanese carriers sunk or under repair, Japan decided to construct a land-based airfields including the one on Guadalcanal, which again threatened the supply line to Australia. The US Navy wanted to prevent that and with a new class of battleships entering service and USS Wasp (CV-7) being transferred from the Atlantic Fleet, was in the position to start their first invasion. From the marines perspective, the initial landings went quite well. This was not the case for the US Navy with the IJN launching a night attack after the US carriers had withdrawn to the open ocean and forcing the landing force to withdraw. When the IJN tried to land additional forces on Guadalcanal, the US Navy sent their carriers back into what was an attempted trap by the Japanese, leading to another carrier battle, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons on August 24, 1942, resulting in the sinking of one Japanese light carrier and severe damage to Enterprise, forcing her to return to Pearl Harbor. In the meantime, USS Wasp was sunk by a Japanese submarine, leaving only Saratoga and Hornet combat-ready. The Japanese used this to ferry additional troops onto Guadalcanal. During a front of bad weather, both the IJN and US Navy landed additional troops, bringing the rest of 1st Marines including Chesty Puller (as seen in this episode). After hasty repairs, Enterprise was returned to service and joined Hornet just in time for another engagement with Japanese carriers in the Battle of Santa Cruz on October 26, 1942. This one did not end favorably for the US with Hornet being sunk and Enterprise damaged again. The Japanese carriers did, however, loose most of their aircraft and experienced aircrew. With Saratoga having been hit by a torpedo, this left Enterprise as the only somewhat ready carrier in the pacific and to protect the marines on Guadalcanal. Since the marines were putting up a fight, Japan intended to take even more soldiers and equipment to Guadalcanal, using the absence of US carriers. The US however, once again, intercepted that plan and sent out Enterprise and two of their new battleships, USS South Dakota and USS Washington. But the first engagement did not actually include Enterprise. Instead, on November 13, 1942, the US Navy engaged the IJN convoy in a surface action that can be seen in this episode, inflicting quite a bit of damage upon the better trained, superior Japanese formation even with quite a few failures by their commander, Adm. Callaghan, preventing the planned attack on Henderson Field (the airfield on Guadalcanal) and Japanese landings. One Japanese destroyer was sunk immediately, the explosion seen in the episode, while another destroyer and a battleship were heavily damaged and later sunk. The US Navy lost 4 destroyers and 2 cruisers with multiple other ships heavily damaged and Adm. Callaghan killed. This later earned the waters the nickname Ironbottom Sound. The next day, the planes stationed at Henderson Field and Enterprises airwing attacked and finally sunk the Japanese battleship from last night and then shifted their attention to the Japanese transports, sinking most of them. In the night of November 14, another surface engagement between the remaining Japanese ships and a reinforced US task force occurred. This time 3 US Navy destroyers were sunk. That, however, gave USS Washington time to line up a broadside on the remaining Japanese battleship, sinking it in one salvo. That basically ended the engagement and was the last major naval battle for over a year. Episode 2 picks up a little bit out of order in October 1942, but then catches back up.

Stephen Knueppel

You will never hear a veteran of the Pacific Theater say they could have been friends with a Japanese soldier. The hatred quickly grew for everything Japanese since our men had no understanding of the Japanese culture or mindset. Also the Japanese were extremely brutal and cruel in all the areas they occupied. In Korea they forced 10's of thousands of women into comfort battalions to provide sex for their men near the front lines. In China where the bulk of Japanese forces were fighting China lost 4 million soldiers and 20 million civilians to Japanese forces. 500,000 Chinese civilians died in medical experiments conducted by Unit 731. India also suffered heavily losing almost 2,5 million civilians and 90,000 soldiers while fighting Japan. Great reaction keep in mind this is a much more brutal war than Easy company faced in Europe. There is no Geneva Convention and surrendered men were considered as less than human by the Japanese and so deserving of whatever atrocities you cared to heep on them.

Jason Darbe

Originally on HBO the Pacific did have intros with Veterens So there are two versions of the series one without the intro and one with them.

Victor

As a Marine veteran and someone who spent allot of time studying the history of combat, this is probably the most accurate portrayal of WW2 combat in that area of theater ever put on screen, I always get excited when people get introduced to this series

Jim Finley

Two more of the important aspects of World War II were the experiences of the sailors of the Merchant Marine on the cargo ships in the Atlantic convoys, and those of the submariners. Tom Hanks made his film Greyhound (2020), in which he plays the captain of a Navy destroyer escorting one of those convoys. I hope Spielberg and Hanks also film a miniseries about the submarine sailors. They, along with the bomber crews shown in MOTA, the Marine infantry in the Pacific, and the Army infantry and tankers in Europe (for the tank crew experience, see Fury (2014), one of the best performances ever by Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, Shia LaBeouf, and Michael Pena), suffered the worst casualty rates of the war. World War II was my grandfather's and stepfather's war, one neither expected to survive. As a veteran of a more modern era, I am humbled by that generation.