Read Sledge's book "With the Old Breed" and the show will be easier to understand. His book is really one of three the series is built around. There are a number of times he describes things (smells for example) that only your senses can feel and you wouldn't pick up on a screen without the book's descriptions.

The Pacific and BoB are much different as the conditions, landscape, and the enemy were so different. The terrible living conditions were another enemy as formidable as the Japanese.

I'd consider both to be worth watching several times and among the best shows ever on TV. Too bad they aren't required in school.

The endings of both are great but wouldn't have much impact until you've watched the series. You feel like one of the boys at that point.

I thought the marines always had old equipment because the army got new equipment and the marines generally got hand me down stuff. Also throughout history, congress has tried to make a case for getting rid of the marines to save money, several times.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
As the story progressed, you started seeing better equipment and “modern” equipment of that era such Thompson’s, M1 carbines and Garands.

I also could have sworn I saw some of those M1 carbines firing on automatic. That variant wasn't provided until after the war.

It's a minor thing and really makes no difference to the film. Just something I noticed.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I also could have sworn I saw some of those M1 carbines firing on automatic. That variant wasn't provided until after the war.

This article says some two thousand made it to Okinawa. Wikipedia says 150 T3 carbines with T120 scopes were fielded by some Army units in Okinawa as well to defend against night time infiltration, but who knows for sure. I know a number of type 3 carbines were fielded by then.

I've always understood that the M2 was the automatic version of the M1. Searching shows that the M2 wasn't fielded until late '45.

I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.

quote:

Marine Raiders who rescued the POWs in Cabanatuan

The raid was conducted by Army Rangers. I remember the section you're referencing. "What's a Ranger?"

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I've always understood that the M2 was the automatic version of the M1. Searching shows that the M2 wasn't fielded until late '45.

I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.

M1 carbine was in service by mid-'41, the M2 got fielded by late'44.
US troops were reporting more German troop encounters with the MP43/44 and Japanese troops became more entrenched and their actions became more fanatical as the campaigned advanced closer to the home islands, thus the request for an automatic capable individual weapon. By late '44, there was all manor of variants and funny-versions of just about every weapon produced.

Late '45 the war was over

Here's an article about the various rifles used.
My dad was in the Army 32nd Division, arriving spring 1944 as a replacement in New Guinea and they had the M1's by then.
The Ghost Mountain Boys, early offensive combatants in the Pacific, had the 1903. They made a march in terrible conditions to surprise the Japanese and keep them from invading Australia at the beginning of the war.
There seemed to be a rivalry between the Army and Marines, each claiming the other had it easier in some way.
I think the truth is that the conditions alone made it terrible for both.

https://www.thearmorylife.com/...not-need-the-garand/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapa_Kapa_Trail

quote:

Originally posted by SevenPlusOne:
The raid was conducted by Army Rangers. I remember the section you're referencing. "What's a Ranger?"

Ooops, that's right. Obviously it's been far too long since I've read the book.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I could be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.

It's hard to find reliable, cited information on this kinda stuff these days. I wanted to find something definitive either way and could not.

These are the real-life soldiers behind the characters in ‘Band of Brothers’

"We lucky few, we band of brothers..."

BY NICHOLAS SLAYTON | PUBLISHED SEP 24, 2023 9:30 PM EDT

More than two decades after it first aired, HBO’s Band of Brothers remains a seminal work of television. Based on Stephen Ambrose’s book of the same name, the 10-part show tracks the members of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, from training to D-Day to the end of World War II. It’s a richly detailed show, with cinematic battle scenes, a massive cast, and performances that hold up to this day. There’s a reason it’s regularly aired on TV and is a popular streaming binge-watch.

The passage of time means that the soldiers depicted in the show have passed. However, many of the core members depicted in the series lived into the 21st century, even well past the on-screen interviews they did for Band of Brothers. The last living member of Easy Company, Private First Class Bradford Freeman died in July 2022, 78 years after D-Day.

So 22 years after the show originally aired, let’s see how some of the real-life soldiers compared to their on-screen depictions...

Complete article:

https://taskandpurpose.com/cul...rs-ww2-easy-company/

These 10 Minutes of ‘The Pacific’ Are the Series’ Most Heart-Pounding

'The Pacific' went to much darker places than 'Band of Brothers.'

BY LIAM GAUGHAN
PUBLISHED 11 HOURS AGO

It’s evident that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks both have a tremendous amount of respect for the American soldiers who served in World War II. After their work together on the Academy Award-winning war film Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg and Hanks worked together to produce the game-changing HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. The ten-episode “event series” had the scope and scale of a Hollywood blockbuster, and featured an astounding accuracy to historical detail. Band of Brothers told a disturbing, yet ultimately inspiring story of the Infantry Regiment known as “Easy Company” during several critical overseas battles in Europe throughout the conflict; while Band of Brothers showed a chapter of American heroism during the war, it wasn’t the full story. Hanks and Spielberg showed an even darker side to the conflict with HBO's The Pacific, a similar historical series that examined the Pacific Theater era of World War II. The Pacific is just as gripping as Band of Brothers, but the episode "Peleliu Hills" proved that the subsequent series was unafraid to recreate the full banality of war...

Complete article:

https://collider.com/the-pacific-hbo-best-moment/

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:
These are the real-life soldiers behind the characters in ‘Band of Brothers’

"We lucky few, we band of brothers..."

BY NICHOLAS SLAYTON | PUBLISHED SEP 24, 2023 9:30 PM EDT

More than two decades after it first aired, HBO’s Band of Brothers remains a seminal work of television. Based on Stephen Ambrose’s book of the same name, the 10-part show tracks the members of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, from training to D-Day to the end of World War II. It’s a richly detailed show, with cinematic battle scenes, a massive cast, and performances that hold up to this day. There’s a reason it’s regularly aired on TV and is a popular streaming binge-watch.

The passage of time means that the soldiers depicted in the show have passed. However, many of the core members depicted in the series lived into the 21st century, even well past the on-screen interviews they did for Band of Brothers. The last living member of Easy Company, Private First Class Bradford Freeman died in July 2022, 78 years after D-Day.

So 22 years after the show originally aired, let’s see how some of the real-life soldiers compared to their on-screen depictions...

Complete article:

https://taskandpurpose.com/cul...rs-ww2-easy-company/

As stated esrlier in this thread, I’m watching BoB yet again. I swear though, that in prior years, the actual soldiers of Easy Company interviewed for this production were identified when they came up on screen. For whatever the reason, during this broadcast (and maybe in other broadcasts I’ve watched) they are not identified.

I recognize Winters, and I know Guarnier comes up for an interview or two, and of course he lost a leg, but otherwise…

^ I was wondering about that with BoB, none of them are identified in the interviews, makes it hard to try to figure out who's who & relate to the episode.

There are a lot of youtube videos on the members shown in both series and even a reunion or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNoysrsmzbs

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 220-9er,

quote:

I recognize Winters, and I know Guarnier comes up for an interview or two, and of course he lost a leg, but otherwise…

At the end of both series they tell what happened to them after the war and show both the actor version and the real person.

WRT Band of Brothers interviews, this may help…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bando...eepisode_interviews/

None of the names were revealed until the end of the last episode, and then some of the interviewees from earlier episodes were not included in that last episode. That’s where the above link will be helpful.

When Band of Brothers was recently released on Amazon Prime, even though I hadn't watched this series in at least 20 years, I couldn't stop watching. I had to see every episode. The sheer quality of acting made every character believable and riveting. I especially liked Ron Livingston's understated yet credible performance. He's one of the characters that says more with less, in a very memorable way. After finishing Band of Brothers, I had to then watch The Pacific. It's a simply stunning work. So much painstaking research in bringing this to life. All the characters are gritty and believable. My grandfather was in the USN at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked, and gone in the Pacific Theater for the duration of WWII. He refused to ever talk about it. This series The Pacific helps us understand why. Not to go too far off track, but I sincerely hope someone makes a similarly epic series about MAC V SOG in Vietnam. Reading Dick Thompson's book "SOG Codename Dynamite" and hearing him speak on Jocko Willink's podcast makes me hope that the SOG teams will one day receive a similarly meticulous compelling series similar to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, about the incredible fighting they did against all odds in SE Asia.

The into to the pacific is one of my favorite intro scores as well.

I've got 1 more episode of BoB, then I'll pick up The Pacific.

Episode 9 of BoB was probably the toughest watch, IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by jmkfive:
Not to go too far off track, but I sincerely hope someone makes a similarly epic series about MAC V SOG in Vietnam. Reading Dick Thompson's book "SOG Codename Dynamite" and hearing him speak on Jocko Willink's podcast makes me hope that the SOG teams will one day receive a similarly meticulous compelling series similar to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, about the incredible fighting they did against all odds in SE Asia.

I would be all about seeing that.