The Peleliu landing in Ep. 5 of The Pacific doesn’t get enough credit

The Okinawa episode is probably the most intense battle I've ever seen put on screen. That episode was so visceral and horrifying to watch, and they just kept ratcheting up the intensity. Especially the scene where they enter the hut...

I really want to rewatch that series again, but damn man it's not anywhere close to uplifting as Band of Brothers is.

I am on episode 4. I have never watch the Pacific, but seen Band of Brothers so many times. What is amazing is how they were fighting an enemy using WWI equipment. I was amazed how if not for those Browning machine guns, how many Americans would have died.

Also, the Bushido code the Japanese subscribed to was really part of their downfall. Wave attacks is just what those trench brooms were built for...

So far I have to say Band of Brothers is better. I think we get to know the characters in Easy Company a bit more through episode one. Also, the viewer grows to hate Sobo as much as the characters, so you are rooting for them come episode 2.

The characters in the Pacific are not as well developed and they do not seem to work on the interconnection of characters. I think this series is more focused on what they experienced and overcame versus the Band of Brothers type presentation.

Episode 5 was intense. Although I am not sure why we moved from thr 1st Marines to another group with this young guy that says nothing and looks concerned all the time. Series is good but the shifting characters makes it hard to invest.

You guys should read With the Old Breed by Eugene B. Sledge, his memoirs of Peleliu and Okinawa. Very powerful stuff.

The Pacific is better than Band of Brothers

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Although I am not sure why we moved from thr 1st Marines to another group with this young guy that says nothing and looks concerned all the time. Series is good but the shifting characters makes it hard to invest.

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Because Eugene Sledge was the basis for the show. They wanted to show Guadalcanal and other earlier battles but he wasn’t there yet, so they went with Bob Leckie who was also a writer about his experiences.

The Pacific wasn’t one massive invasion like Europe was where everyone went in on the invasion of Sicily or D-Day. The island hopping campaign made it so men did, I think 3-4 major combat operations then rotated out. Like you saw with Sid, Sledge’s best friend. If you were in Easy, and didn’t die or lose your mind, you went all the way to war’s end.

It was just a completely different war than Europe was. All it takes is looking at maps to figure out why that was. Europe is one continent, Pacific was tiny, highly defended coral atolls spread across vast swaths of ocean. The logistics were completely different.

If you stick with it and pay attention, it shows how that young guy who says nothing loses his humanity and was on the verge of becoming an animal but there’s a moment that brings him back. But what he went through haunts him forever. It’s a brilliant display of what war does to good men.

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Also, the mentioned some atrocities in BoB but they made the Marines in the Pacific seem much more barbaric and less discipline that their army counter parts. I am not sure that is correct completely, I understand there were some barbaric stuff that happened on both sides.

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That's because the fighting in the Pacific Theater was much more barbaric than the fighting in the European Theater, at least as far as the Western powers and Germany is concerned. Typically when Americans took German prisoners and vice versa they were humanely treated. However, the war in the Pacific was much more based on race (the Japanese were racist as f***k and so were we). Indiscriminate killing happened much more in the Pacific than it did in Europe. Quarter was neither asked for nor given.

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Was the series based off Sledge's book?

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Yes. With the Old Breed was one of the bases for the series.

Bob Leckie’s Helmet for My Pillow also contributed for his storylines.

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the fighting in the Pacific Theater was much more barbaric than the fighting in the European Theater, at least as far as the Western powers and Germany is concerned. Typically when Americans took German prisoners and vice versa they were humanely treated. However, the war in the Pacific was much more based on race (the Japanese were racist as f***k and so were we). Indiscriminate killing happened much more in the Pacific than it did in Europe. Quarter was neither asked for nor given.

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The Japanese attitude toward opposing forces was much like that of the Plains Indians. Both would take the time to mutilate the bodies of the dead...as an attempt to stoke fear in surviving opponents as well as due to a belief that it made the spirit of the dead soldier weaker in the afterlife.

We are talking cutting off penises and sometimes inserting them in the mouth of the soldier that it had been attached to. Driving spikes through scrotums and anuses. Just completely horrible shite. I can imagine tha after seeing that done to your fellow soldiers more than a few GIs and Marines kinda snapped and decided to do the same things in return.