Liked it a lot. My question is, why did the guys that joined the service have the same haircuts when they were in combat that they had before they joined? No haircut requirements in boot camp back then?

Watching it right now on Fancast in HD for Comcast Customers

You sure about that?

http://www.gaic.info/internment_camp.html

We sure as hell put Germans in camps....

After all, the German Bund was a massive threat to America during the war, almost as much as the Communist Threat...

The battle depicted at the end of Ep1 was the Battle of the Tenaru.

What I found most striking was how well they depicted the aftermath, if you compare to the pictures from the real event, on the wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Tenaru

I watched it last night "on demand" and it certainly lives up to the hype technically. However, I thought the depiction of the Guadacanal campaign so far a little flat. The context surrounding the battle of the Tenaru river e.g. the importance of Henderson Field, and the potentially disastrous impact of the Navy's bugout after Savo Island seems just kind of mentioned in passing; the gravity of the situation on that night isn't really made clear IMO. Yes it's a "grunts eye view" but the Marines knew that a major attack was coming. In the show it seems like they just happened to dig in for the night and the Japanese happened to show up. I think the old John Garfield vehicle "Pride of the Marines" (an autobiograhpy of Al Schmidt) did a better job with the Tenaru in some ways. The old movie certainly captured the tension leading up to the battle much better. Definitely worth a look if you see it on TCM.

Interested to see how it picks up next week with "Bloody Ridge

Pls all, remember no spoilers! Use the spoiler tag.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHY DID I HAVE TO REVEAL THAT!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the link!

"It is funny, but from watching the episode, I got the impression that the Marines were heavily outnumbered. In fact, there were 11,000 marines and only 900 Japanese..."

This is slightly out of content. Roughly 1 battalion of a regiment (Japanese) attacked what they thought was a small force (2 battalions of a Marine regiment with artillery support) in a very poorly concieved frontal assualt. They must have thought that the Marines were no match for them and attacked a prepared position across a water barrier without reconnaissance. This was the first of a series of mistakes that lead the common Japanese soldier to call the Canal "Death Island".


If you want a good fight and first rate WW2 propaganda watch "Guadalcanal Diary" or "Beach Red", where the Marines battle the "dirty rotton Nips..." Otherwise give "The Pacific" a chance. But IMHO, no movie/mini-series or teleplay can really give an truely accurate picture of a battle. The noise, the chaos, the smell, the fear can't be experienced second hand.