World at War

[DogOnPorch]

The superb ITV/Thames production from 1973 is online. Twenty-six parts plus extras. Brush-up on your knowledge of WW2. Includes many of the big figures 'in person'.

http://www.cosmolearning.com/documentaries/the-world-at-war-1973/

[Boges]

The Military Channel shows episodes of this regularly.

Lawrence Olivier is pwn!

Some great interviews: Albert Speer, Curis Le May, Paul Tibbets, Lord Avon, Bomber Harris. The who's who of WW2 players still alive in the early 70's.

Some of the better episodes IMHO are.

Morning: "D-Day episode"

One Our Way: "US enters the War"

Alone: "Battle of Britain"

and of course Pincers: "European Theatre post D-Day"

Basically the episodes where the good guys are winning. :-D

Occupation: Holland and Genocide are very difficult to watch. Especially the scene where the German Guard details how the Gas Chambers worked and how the prisoner discussed how he had to dismantle the piles of bodies out of the Gas Chambers.

In Occupation: Holland they detail how Germany losing the war made life in Europe absolute Hell.

The treatment of the Pacific theatre was lacking, It's BBC though so what would you expect. The Bomb episode was great though.

The final episode Remember is an absolute waste of time. Just full of useless anecdotes. Reckoning was good but didn't really touch on the Cold War implications of the decisions made in WW2.

They really do touch on every single important aspect of the war. The even have a full episode dedicated to Stalingrad and the Burma campaign.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Boges

[DogOnPorch]

Nowhere else are you going to find the likes LeMay and Bomber Harris telling it in their own words. The Pacific was a little underplayed. An amazing conflict not repeated in any modern scenario. None-the-less, actual Japanese soldiers tell their real-life stories.

[Boges]

Don't remember seeing Japanese soldiers interviewed. Most with true insight likely offed themselves.

[DogOnPorch]

Don't remember seeing Japanese soldiers interviewed. Most with true insight likely offed themselves.

You did miss some of it then. There were 5 specific episodes on the Pacific and the CBI theaters.

[Boges]

Perhaps. I don't recall watching all of Banzai. They show the Japanese soldiers cheering after each victory.

The Pacific condensed several major battles into one episode where they had an entire episode about Burma. Iwo Jimo or Okinawa were far more important than anything that happened in Burma.

[DogOnPorch]

Perhaps. I don't recall watching all of Banzai. They show the Japanese soldiers cheering after each victory.

The Pacific condensed several major battles into one episode where they had an entire episode about Burma. Iwo Jimo or Okinawa were far more important than anything that happened in Burma.

Apples and oranges, really. Burma was the gateway to India. As you know, the Japanese nearly succeeded in that task late in the war while they faced defeat elsewhere. What Burma had was rubber. As did other places like Borneo and the Celebes...plus all that oil in the CBI. It was essential to the Japanese war effort. What Iwo Jima did is allow B-29s a place to ditch during their raids on Japan. Also very important. The Superfort raids out of China proved to be very inefficient.

[Boges]

The fact that the casualties of the US exceeded that of the Japanese made Iwo Jima significant, not the strategic significance. Ditto with Peleliu which, I don't recall was mentioned much at all in WoW.

These conflicts were brutal even though they did little for the war effort strategically in hindsight.

People will use these battles as evidence as to why an invasion of the mainland couldn't happen. Evidence shows, however, that dropping the Bomb was more as a show of force for the Soviets than it was to end the war before an invasion was needed. The Japanese would have surrendered eventually anyway. The US wanted the war over before the Soviets could take more of the spoils.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Boges

[DogOnPorch]

Speaking of good footage...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AaK7xU6vC8

Iwo had three airstrips. One was not quite complete. All were too short to allow a fully laden B-29 to take-off, unfortunately.

[DogOnPorch]

The fact that the casualties of the US exceeded that of the Japanese made Iwo Jima significant, not the strategic significance. Ditto with Peleliu which, I don't recall was mentioned much at all in WoW.

These conflicts were brutal even though they did little for the war effort strategically in hindsight.

People will use these battles as evidence as to why an invasion of the mainland couldn't happen. Evidence shows, however, that dropping the Bomb was more as a show of force for the Soviets than it was to end the war early. The Japanese would have surrendered eventually anyway, The US wanted to war over before the Soviets could take more of the spoils.

I'm dubious over the whole 'Japan would surrender'...'Japan was ready to surrender'...BS. Elements of the Army and Navy air corps fought on well after the second atomic bomb. Saburo Sakai himself was involved in some of these attacks...August 18th was the last.

Edited October 23, 2013 by DogOnPorch

[Boges]

I'm dubious over the whole 'Japan would surrender'...'Japan was ready to surrender'...BS. Elements of the Army and Navy air corps fought on well after the second atomic bomb. Saburo Sakai himself was involved in some of these attacks...August 18th was the last.

Fine, but the Soviets were decimating the army in Manchuria.

The Japanese were willing to surrender as long as they could keep the Emperor. Eventually they did allow Japan to keep the Emperor and it helped to rebuild Japan.

[Bonam]

I've watched this series and it is great, however they should have had more episodes focusing on the eastern front. The war between Germany and Russia was basically 90% of WWII, but its treatment is definitely lacking in this documentary as well as Western education in general.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Bonam

[Boges]

I've watched this series and it is great, however they should have had more episodes focusing on the eastern front. The war between Germany and Russia was basically 90% of WWII, but its treatment is definitely lacking in this documentary as well as Western education in general.

Perspective of the audience.

They had the Stalingrad episode, Barbarrossa and the Red Star episode.

A lot of the episodes did focus on specific things, An episode about Italy, an Episode on Africa, and Episode on the Atlantic, and episode about the Bombing Campaign.

Of course the show was Western Front Europe focuses but that's what most of the people who would be watching care about.

[DogOnPorch]

I've watched this series and it is great, however they should have had more episodes focusing on the eastern front. The war between Germany and Russia was basically 90% of WWII, but its treatment is definitely lacking in this documentary as well as Western education in general.

For reasons that are fairly obvious seeing when it was made. In 1973, we were still dressing M-60s up to portray T-34s in the movies.

[DogOnPorch]

Fine, but the Soviets were decimating the army in Manchuria.

The Japanese were willing to surrender as long as they could keep the Emperor. Eventually they did allow Japan to keep the Emperor and it helped to rebuild Japan.

Yes...MacArthur...always a fan of the Far East, was the best thing that ever happened to Japan. I still have a rocking skull ash-tray that bares the label "Made In Occupied Japan".

[bush_cheney2004]

People will use these battles as evidence as to why an invasion of the mainland couldn't happen. Evidence shows, however, that dropping the Bomb was more as a show of force for the Soviets than it was to end the war before an invasion was needed. The Japanese would have surrendered eventually anyway. The US wanted the war over before the Soviets could take more of the spoils.

Nope...the A-bombs were dropped....and Japan (finally) surrendered. That's what the evidence shows.

[bush_cheney2004]

The superb ITV/Thames production from 1973 is online. Twenty-six parts plus extras.....

I bought the entire series on VHS out of a clearance bin about 10 years ago. Still in the original package. Fantastic misery.

Typhus !!!

[Boges]

Oliver Stone did a Documentary series last year that calls that claim seriously into question.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/175590/interview-oliver-stone-why-us-was-wrong-drop-two-atomic-bombs-japan

The Hiroshima chapter makes a strong case against the use of the bomb. Stone and Kuznick focus on Russia’s entry into the war, as the U.S. had insisted, two days after we dropped the bomb. That shocking and cataclysmic event would have (likely) forced a speedy Japanese surrender without the use of the atomic weapon, which killed over 200,000—the vast majority civilians, mainly women and children—in the two cities. (See one of my books on the subject here on two US soldiers who shot historic footage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and then saw it suppressed for decades.)

Stone and Kuznick title the forty-eight-page Hiroshima chapter in their book "The Bomb: Tragedy of a Small Man." That man, of course, is President Truman. The book, and the TV series, make the claim that if progressive hero Henry Wallace had not been booted off the Roosevelt ticket in 1944 in favor of hack politician Truman, history would have been much different (concerning both the use of the bomb and the coming of the cold war). But how did Stone reach his conclusions on Truman’s misuse of the bomb? I opened my interview with him on this subject with that query.


The Russia thing. Learning the details of the Russian invasion made me think of alternatives and what-ifs. We didn’t have our invasion planned until November, if we even had to have one, and by August 9 the Russians have already invaded and they’re mopping up the Japanese. What would it have taken for them to finish the job or make them surrender? A week, a few weeks? There’s no issue here.

The other thing that struck me was that the Japanese didn’t even recognize what happened at Hiroshima really. They’d been so decimated by the terror bombing of Curtis LeMay.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Boges

[DogOnPorch]

Oliver Stone? The man that brought us JFK?

Nope...the A-bombs were dropped....and Japan (finally) surrendered. That's what the evidence shows.

The Soviets lacked the troop ships and LCs to make a proper invasion.

[Boges]

Oliver Stone? The man that brought us JFK?

The Soviets lacked the troop ships and LCs to make a proper invasion.

He did significant research to come up with his conclusions.

In the documentary he shows interviews of Truman in the years following where the number of casualties saved by dropping the bomb keeps going up. 250,000, 500,000, a million?

The thesis would be that an invasion would never have been needed in the first place, Japan's ability to "make war" was relatively contained.

It was thought that the Soviets could take Sappora and all of the Korean Peninsula.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Boges

[DogOnPorch]

He did significant research to come up with his conclusions.

In the documentary he shows interviews of Truman in the years following where the number of casualties saved by dropping the bomb keeps going up. 250,000, 500,000, a million?

The thesis would be that an invasion would never have been needed in the first place, Japan's ability to "make war" was relatively contained.

Operation Olympic and Cornet would have been a bloody mess. Okinawa x 1,000,000. Up to SEVEN 'gadgets' were to be deployed as tactical weapons during the expected campaign.

[bush_cheney2004]

Operation Olympic and Cornet would have been a bloody mess. Okinawa x 1,000,000. Up to SEVEN 'gadgets' were to be deployed as tactical weapons during the expected campaign.

Yes....actual experience in the Pacific theatre was far more relevant and practical than Oliver Stone and "theories" after the fact. This is the worst kind of historic revisionism in the interest of being politically correct.

[DogOnPorch]

Yes....actual experience in the Pacific theatre was far more relevant and practical than Oliver Stone and "theories" after the fact. This is the worst kind of historic revisionism in the interest of being politically correct.

Guadalcanal taught the US what the Japanese were all about. Bloody Ridge wasn't bloody due to poor USMC shaving habits.

[Boges]

OK well straight from the WoW series we're talking about they having a Japanese official saying dropping the bomb wasn't needed and as long as the Emperor was allowed to be kept as a figurehead the Japanese were more than willing to surrender.

Truman wanted unconditional surrender yet they ended up letting the Emperor stay.

[bush_cheney2004]

Guadalcanal taught the US what the Japanese were all about. Bloody Ridge wasn't bloody due to poor USMC shaving habits.

True....at least the Nazis were rational !