The Revisionist Attitude Towards The Pacific Theater - Page 2

krashkart · 07-14-10, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by August

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you did. I was just commenting on how so few people seem to know that the fighting started in the Pacific years before the nazis invaded Poland.

I put my fists up pretty quickly sometimes and then I realize that I don't need them for anything. My bad.

AngusJS · 07-14-10, 12:34 AM

I don't have relatives who served in the Pacific, but I do have one who served in the ETO (my grandfather, who was a tailgunner in a B-17), so that could be one reason for being more interested in that theatre.

But I think the main reason is the crappy pacing of the PTO story. Compare it to the ETO: Most of the main actors are at war within days of the attack on Poland. The baddies keep winning, and the good guys are in a precarious state for years until the baddies overextend themselves and lose decisive battles, which turns the tables and leads to their total defeat. You can't write that stuff.

In the PTO, a state of war exists between the major players (not counting China) for all of 6 months until the bad guys suffer a resounding defeat at Midway, after which they mostly get their butts kicked for the next 3 years. And it doesn't end in total defeat - Japanese units are still in China, and Hirohito doesn't commit sepuku in a bunker below Tokyo, his empire and ideology completely destroyed, because no foreign armies have set foot in Japan, and Japan is still capable of resistance.

That's not to belittle the tremendous sacrifice that won those battles - I'm just saying that from a dramatic standpoint, the PTO is less interesting.

CCIP · 07-14-10, 12:41 AM

Personally, I don't think there's less or more drama - war is war. If people see war as drama first, real history second, to me that is a real problem... Learning about war shouldn't be only about entertainment. It's not only big, exciting stories with good pacing that deserve attention. Sometimes more can be learned through good shocking detail, and PTO provides plenty of that.

I think it should be a civic duty for people to strive to learn more about their history, especially as recent and as painful as that. For my part, my interest in WWII started with the Eastern front, because I grew up with scars and reminders of it in the land and people all around me. But as I went further, I honestly gained more and more respect for other sides to the war as well. Especially in the last couple of years, my respect and interest for the PTO has been pretty high. It might not be as grand a story, sure, but the details of it are every bit as important and disturbing and need to be known.

Sailor Steve · 07-14-10, 01:25 AM

Good movies (not sub-related):

Tora! Tora! Tora! (outstanding history, great movie as well)

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (slows down in the middle, as it's one man's true story) but great carrier and flight scenes)

Wake Island (made during the war, propoganda, but informative and good)

Midway (way too much romance and fiction, but gives a good overview of the battle, and some good aircraft shots)

Flags Of Our Fathers (mostly about the aftermath, but still good battle scenes)

Letters From Iwo Jima (great movie about the Japanese side, and marks Clint Eastwood's entry into the Great Directors Of All Time category)

The Great Raid (little-known recent film, tells the true story of a prisoner-of-war-camp liberation)

Help me out here, guys. Movies that tell the story of the Pacific war.

krashkart · 07-14-10, 01:29 AM

Pearl Harbor.

I watched Tora! Tora! Tora! one night. Good movie.

EDIT - Letters From Iwo Jima. I haven't seen it yet but I really want to.

Sailor Steve · 07-14-10, 01:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by krashkart

Pearl Harbor.

I hope that

means that your suggestion was a joke, because that movie certainly was.

krashkart · 07-14-10, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I hope that

means that your suggestion was a joke, because that movie certainly was.

Yes and yes. Didn't like it much.

Half of my family are smartasses, btw.

onelifecrisis · 07-14-10, 01:55 AM

I think you're mixing small scale and large scale considerations, subnuts, and your confusion is the result. A single person can be brave/heroic/whatever in the smallest of conflicts. The size of the conflict overall has no bearing on the merits of the individuals involved.

As for the PT being "boring" I couldn't comment.

As for it being a "side show", by which I assume you mean small scale, it is a fact that the Germans and Russians each lost more men in a single battle than the US lost in the whole war.

The US Navy specifically lost 62,000 men in WW2 (I'm not sure what that translates to in numbers of ships) where as the British Commonwealth naval forces lost more than half a million. No matter which way you look at it, the Pacific War was small-scale compared to everything else that went on.

I think your POV is being coloured by your personal ties to people that served.

Skybird · 07-14-10, 03:10 AM

Over here in Europe and Germany it maybe is just natural that the war in Europe gets more covarage, than the Pacific. However, there are TV programs on the Pacific war, too - just not as many, but also not rare. However, myself never thought of it as a less violent or less important war - only as a "different" kind of war involving more water

, which began later and all in all did not last as long as the war around and finally in Germany.I would estimate that of the European theatre, the fighting in Russia and the way to power by hitler and finally the Holocaust get covered most.

Takeda Shingen · 07-14-10, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Letters From Iwo Jima (great movie about the Japanese side, and marks Clint Eastwood's entry into the Great Directors Of All Time category)

Letters was brilliant. It's companion film was also very good, but this one is one of the all-time great films set in World War II.

Raptor1 · 07-14-10, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Tora! Tora! Tora! (outstanding history, great movie as well)

One of my favourite war films of all times, probably.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

I think you're mixing small scale and large scale considerations, subnuts, and your confusion is the result. A single person can be brave/heroic/whatever in the smallest of conflicts. The size of the conflict overall has no bearing on the merits of the individuals involved.

As for the PT being "boring" I couldn't comment.

As for it being a "side show", by which I assume you mean small scale, it is a fact that the Germans and Russians each lost more men in a single battle than the US lost in the whole war.

The US Navy specifically lost 62,000 men in WW2 (I'm not sure what that translates to in numbers of ships) where as the British Commonwealth naval forces lost more than half a million. No matter which way you look at it, the Pacific War was small-scale compared to everything else that went on.

I think your POV is being coloured by your personal ties to people that served.

Small scale? The Pacific Theater covered an era several times greater than that covered by the European theater. It saw just as many people die, especially in China, which lost the most people of any country in the war. It eventually included all of the major Allied powers fighting, saw some of the largest naval battles in history and one of the largest land offensives ever conducted. I hardly think the scale was small compared to anything in the ETO.

onelifecrisis · 07-14-10, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raptor1

Small scale? The Pacific Theater covered an era several times greater than that covered by the European theater. It saw just as many people die, especially in China, which lost the most people of any country in the war. It eventually included all of the major Allied powers fighting, saw some of the largest naval battles in history and one of the largest land offensives ever conducted. I hardly think the scale was small compared to anything in the ETO.

I think you are talking about the scale of individual battles whereas I am talking about the scale of the whole thing. Also, I'm not sure what the area covered has to do with anything? If two men fought mono e mono in the Sahara, would that count as a large scale conflict?

Raptor1 · 07-14-10, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onelifecrisis

I think you are talking about the scale of individual battles whereas I am talking about the scale of the whole thing. Also, I'm not sure what the area covered has to do with anything? If two men fought mono e mono in the Sahara, would that count as a large scale conflict?

I am talking about the whole thing. The land battles in the ETO were generally larger than those in the PTO (With a few notable exceptions), but when one combines the scale of forces involved and casualties suffered on the PTO it is quite clearly not "small scale" compared to the ETO.

UnderseaLcpl · 07-14-10, 07:34 AM

I had to think about this one for a while, but I have ultimately decided to support August and OLCs view of the situation. As a whole, the Pacific Theatre of Operations, while very large geographically, was primarily a low-intensity conflict punctuated by brief but bloody naval/amphibious clashes. I'm not saying that the fighting wasn't hard or important or anything like that, but when one looks at the resource gap between axis and allied forces, the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion.
The Chinese side of the conflict is different, but ultimately boils down to a slow-paced eight-year slugging match between Japan and the Chinese tar baby.

Where I would consider the PTO to be a real sideshow is in the arena of international politics. FDR tried very hard to force Japan into a war, and thus get the US into the larger conflict by refusing any diplomatic compromises the Japanese offered. What he really wanted was to get into the war in Europe, of course.

I'm also inclined to believe at least some revisionist history because the popular history is so heavily colored by the propaganda needed to rouse people to war for reasons other than the real ones most of the time. Much of it hangs on for generations after the war, though I believe that trend will change (and has been changing) as global communications become more and more accessible.

Oberon · 07-14-10, 07:57 AM

I am not as knowledgeable about the Pacific Theatre as I am about the European Theatre, and indeed even within the European theatre I know more about the West Europe war than I do the Eastern one. I think geography comes into it, as well as nationality. I am British, therefore I know more about the war that was at our doorstep than on the other side of the world.
However, over the years I have sought to learn what I can.
I like anime and manga, but Japan does scare me sometimes...particularly the attitude the Imperial Japanese Military had towards its enemies, it was perhaps the closest to total war in the Second World War and it was total war from the start, not after a period of push-backs and retreat. The Japanese gave no quarter, and what prisoners they did accept were...well, made to regret becoming prisoners.

However, I do respect and like some Japanese...Yamamoto in particular stands high and above the entire Japanese military to me. Heh, in fact the Japanese sections in Pearl Harbour were my favourite parts in the whole damn film.

It's a hard thing to say, really, I don't think it's revisionist, after all even the European theatre has its forgotten wars...not many people in the UK could tell you about the Battle of Italy, the bloody fights at Monte Cassino. I suspect that the same holds true in the US...however everyone knows Pearl Harbour on both sides of the Atlantic.

Japans revision does concern me though, concern me and make me very angry indeed...but...this is not part of this thread...so I will not unload here lest I find myself in the same position as Ducimus.

Another forgotten war in the UK is the Malayan 'emergency' (it was called a emergency rather than a war so that Lloyds insurers would still pay out to the rubber plantations and tin mines), heck I wouldn't have known about it if I didn't have a family member who was involved in it.

No war...no battle...no conflict that men, women and children fought and died in should be forgotten...but alas, with human nature there are so many of them that to recall all would be nigh impossible.

07-14-10, 12:41 AM	#18
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Personally, I don't think there's less or more drama - war is war. If people see war as drama first, real history second, to me that is a real problem... Learning about war shouldn't be only about entertainment. It's not only big, exciting stories with good pacing that deserve attention. Sometimes more can be learned through good shocking detail, and PTO provides plenty of that. I think it should be a civic duty for people to strive to learn more about their history, especially as recent and as painful as that. For my part, my interest in WWII started with the Eastern front, because I grew up with scars and reminders of it in the land and people all around me. But as I went further, I honestly gained more and more respect for other sides to the war as well. Especially in the last couple of years, my respect and interest for the PTO has been pretty high. It might not be as grand a story, sure, but the details of it are every bit as important and disturbing and need to be known. __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

07-14-10, 01:25 AM	#19
Sailor Steve Eternal Patrol Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: High in the mountains of Utah Posts: 50,369 Downloads: 745 Uploads: 249	Good movies (not sub-related): Tora! Tora! Tora! (outstanding history, great movie as well) Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (slows down in the middle, as it's one man's true story) but great carrier and flight scenes) Wake Island (made during the war, propoganda, but informative and good) Midway (way too much romance and fiction, but gives a good overview of the battle, and some good aircraft shots) Flags Of Our Fathers (mostly about the aftermath, but still good battle scenes) Letters From Iwo Jima (great movie about the Japanese side, and marks Clint Eastwood's entry into the Great Directors Of All Time category) The Great Raid (little-known recent film, tells the true story of a prisoner-of-war-camp liberation) Help me out here, guys. Movies that tell the story of the Pacific war. __________________ “Never do anything you can't take back.” —Rocky Russo

07-14-10, 01:29 AM	#20
krashkart Navy Seal Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 5,292 Downloads: 100 Uploads: 0	Pearl Harbor. I watched Tora! Tora! Tora! one night. Good movie. EDIT - Letters From Iwo Jima. I haven't seen it yet but I really want to. __________________ sent from my fingertips using a cheap keyboard

07-14-10, 03:10 AM	#24
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 42,612 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Over here in Europe and Germany it maybe is just natural that the war in Europe gets more covarage, than the Pacific. However, there are TV programs on the Pacific war, too - just not as many, but also not rare. However, myself never thought of it as a less violent or less important war - only as a "different" kind of war involving more water , which began later and all in all did not last as long as the war around and finally in Germany.I would estimate that of the European theatre, the fighting in Russia and the way to power by hitler and finally the Holocaust get covered most. __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.

07-14-10, 07:34 AM	#29
UnderseaLcpl Silent Hunter Join Date: May 2008 Location: Storming the beaches! Posts: 4,254 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	I had to think about this one for a while, but I have ultimately decided to support August and OLCs view of the situation. As a whole, the Pacific Theatre of Operations, while very large geographically, was primarily a low-intensity conflict punctuated by brief but bloody naval/amphibious clashes. I'm not saying that the fighting wasn't hard or important or anything like that, but when one looks at the resource gap between axis and allied forces, the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion. The Chinese side of the conflict is different, but ultimately boils down to a slow-paced eight-year slugging match between Japan and the Chinese tar baby. Where I would consider the PTO to be a real sideshow is in the arena of international politics. FDR tried very hard to force Japan into a war, and thus get the US into the larger conflict by refusing any diplomatic compromises the Japanese offered. What he really wanted was to get into the war in Europe, of course. I'm also inclined to believe at least some revisionist history because the popular history is so heavily colored by the propaganda needed to rouse people to war for reasons other than the real ones most of the time. Much of it hangs on for generations after the war, though I believe that trend will change (and has been changing) as global communications become more and more accessible. __________________ I stole this sig from Task Force

07-14-10, 12:34 AM	#17
AngusJS Seasoned Skipper Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 746 Downloads: 62 Uploads: 0	I don't have relatives who served in the Pacific, but I do have one who served in the ETO (my grandfather, who was a tailgunner in a B-17), so that could be one reason for being more interested in that theatre. But I think the main reason is the crappy pacing of the PTO story. Compare it to the ETO: Most of the main actors are at war within days of the attack on Poland. The baddies keep winning, and the good guys are in a precarious state for years until the baddies overextend themselves and lose decisive battles, which turns the tables and leads to their total defeat. You can't write that stuff. In the PTO, a state of war exists between the major players (not counting China) for all of 6 months until the bad guys suffer a resounding defeat at Midway, after which they mostly get their butts kicked for the next 3 years. And it doesn't end in total defeat - Japanese units are still in China, and Hirohito doesn't commit sepuku in a bunker below Tokyo, his empire and ideology completely destroyed, because no foreign armies have set foot in Japan, and Japan is still capable of resistance. That's not to belittle the tremendous sacrifice that won those battles - I'm just saying that from a dramatic standpoint, the PTO is less interesting.

07-14-10, 01:55 AM	#23
onelifecrisis Maverick Modder Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: England Posts: 3,895 Downloads: 65 Uploads: 3	I think you're mixing small scale and large scale considerations, subnuts, and your confusion is the result. A single person can be brave/heroic/whatever in the smallest of conflicts. The size of the conflict overall has no bearing on the merits of the individuals involved. As for the PT being "boring" I couldn't comment. As for it being a "side show", by which I assume you mean small scale, it is a fact that the Germans and Russians each lost more men in a single battle than the US lost in the whole war. The US Navy specifically lost 62,000 men in WW2 (I'm not sure what that translates to in numbers of ships) where as the British Commonwealth naval forces lost more than half a million. No matter which way you look at it, the Pacific War was small-scale compared to everything else that went on. I think your POV is being coloured by your personal ties to people that served.

07-14-10, 07:57 AM	#30
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	I am not as knowledgeable about the Pacific Theatre as I am about the European Theatre, and indeed even within the European theatre I know more about the West Europe war than I do the Eastern one. I think geography comes into it, as well as nationality. I am British, therefore I know more about the war that was at our doorstep than on the other side of the world. However, over the years I have sought to learn what I can. I like anime and manga, but Japan does scare me sometimes...particularly the attitude the Imperial Japanese Military had towards its enemies, it was perhaps the closest to total war in the Second World War and it was total war from the start, not after a period of push-backs and retreat. The Japanese gave no quarter, and what prisoners they did accept were...well, made to regret becoming prisoners. However, I do respect and like some Japanese...Yamamoto in particular stands high and above the entire Japanese military to me. Heh, in fact the Japanese sections in Pearl Harbour were my favourite parts in the whole damn film. It's a hard thing to say, really, I don't think it's revisionist, after all even the European theatre has its forgotten wars...not many people in the UK could tell you about the Battle of Italy, the bloody fights at Monte Cassino. I suspect that the same holds true in the US...however everyone knows Pearl Harbour on both sides of the Atlantic. Japans revision does concern me though, concern me and make me very angry indeed...but...this is not part of this thread...so I will not unload here lest I find myself in the same position as Ducimus. Another forgotten war in the UK is the Malayan 'emergency' (it was called a emergency rather than a war so that Lloyds insurers would still pay out to the rubber plantations and tin mines), heck I wouldn't have known about it if I didn't have a family member who was involved in it. No war...no battle...no conflict that men, women and children fought and died in should be forgotten...but alas, with human nature there are so many of them that to recall all would be nigh impossible.