Considering that this documentary on the war in the Pacific was released in 1944, it's pretty powerful. Similar productions didn't hesitate to show the public the mass graves that dead Japanese were shoveled into with bulldozers, but here we see American dead awash in the surf. The UK gets its due attention. The US Coast Guard is referred to in passing. And the narration at least MENTIONS the Battle of the Java Sea, a hastily mounted Allied operation in the wake of Pearl Harbor, in which we were clobbered. And then there are the overly familiar scenes that are actually not included. We don't see the USS Arizona blow up, for instance, nor do we again watch the Navy Chaplain praying over the wounded man on the carrier deck.
The film is distinctive in other ways too. It opens not with a paean to the US Navy and the Marine Corps but with a description of the Pacific Ocean -- an unimaginably far-flung battlefield -- and its dimensions and its native people.
Since it was made during the war years, some details are left out: the complementary (or competitive) strategies of Nimitz in the Central Pacific and MacArthur in the Southwest. And a brief description of Allied setbacks and later advances is conveyed by simple animation with cartoon arrows throwing cartoon bombs at one another.
By 1944, the war was basically won. The cartoon arrows take us from Guadalcanal through Midway to Iwo Jima, without spending any particular time on any of these conflicts. No mention of one of the most blood-soaked, Okinawa, because it was yet to come.
The final 20 minutes or so describes a "typical" landing on an island. We learn how the ships are coordinated and how the Marines and the Navy cooperate. The typical island isn't named but almost all of the footage by Armed Forces photographers is from Tarawa and Peleliu. Of course it isn't brought up that Peleliu was a costly blunder and, in fact, no weaknesses in strategy, tactics, or personnel is permitted. General Rupertus and Chesty Puller get equal screen time, though neither is named.
It's pitched at a popular level, unlike, say, the dispassionate "Battlefield" series of documentaries from Britain. The narrative is designed to be stirring but doesn't descend to the level of racial stereotypes. The Japanese may refuse to surrender "because their propagandists have told them they will be tortured", but they are not called "bandy-legged Nips" or "monkeys" as they were in some of the feature films of the time. (See "Bataan" for a great example.) Overall, it's an informative and relatively adult documentary. I wonder if it might not profitably be shown in history classes all over the country. For many high school students, World War II is as remote as the Stone Age. A few years ago, a poll showed that a substantial number of high school students didn't know which side Japan fought on. That shared cultural data base we take for granted seems to be dissolving at an alarming rate.
The film is distinctive in other ways too. It opens not with a paean to the US Navy and the Marine Corps but with a description of the Pacific Ocean -- an unimaginably far-flung battlefield -- and its dimensions and its native people.
Since it was made during the war years, some details are left out: the complementary (or competitive) strategies of Nimitz in the Central Pacific and MacArthur in the Southwest. And a brief description of Allied setbacks and later advances is conveyed by simple animation with cartoon arrows throwing cartoon bombs at one another.
By 1944, the war was basically won. The cartoon arrows take us from Guadalcanal through Midway to Iwo Jima, without spending any particular time on any of these conflicts. No mention of one of the most blood-soaked, Okinawa, because it was yet to come.
The final 20 minutes or so describes a "typical" landing on an island. We learn how the ships are coordinated and how the Marines and the Navy cooperate. The typical island isn't named but almost all of the footage by Armed Forces photographers is from Tarawa and Peleliu. Of course it isn't brought up that Peleliu was a costly blunder and, in fact, no weaknesses in strategy, tactics, or personnel is permitted. General Rupertus and Chesty Puller get equal screen time, though neither is named.
It's pitched at a popular level, unlike, say, the dispassionate "Battlefield" series of documentaries from Britain. The narrative is designed to be stirring but doesn't descend to the level of racial stereotypes. The Japanese may refuse to surrender "because their propagandists have told them they will be tortured", but they are not called "bandy-legged Nips" or "monkeys" as they were in some of the feature films of the time. (See "Bataan" for a great example.) Overall, it's an informative and relatively adult documentary. I wonder if it might not profitably be shown in history classes all over the country. For many high school students, World War II is as remote as the Stone Age. A few years ago, a poll showed that a substantial number of high school students didn't know which side Japan fought on. That shared cultural data base we take for granted seems to be dissolving at an alarming rate.
