Context: the battle of Okinawa was the primary reason for the use of atomic weapons. It took far too long with a large loss of casualties on both sides. Paired with the inhumane nature of the Japanese, they had no choice
So to give some more context to the Okinawa Campaign The Okinawan Islands were considered the first time the Americans had properly invaded Japanese home territory - to note Okinawa isn’t one of Japans main 4 islands, however it had always been considered under the radiance of Japan as such Japanese home territory. However, even tho its Japanese “home” territory, the Okinawan people weren’t seen as Japanese but as a sub-species - similar to how the Japanese saw those of Korean, Chinese and South Asian blood. As such, as you can see through this episode and especially at 11:08 these civilians were essentially treated as if human weapons/shields the Japanese could happily use in combat as again to them they were just a sub-species and not full blood Japanese. And to clarify on the woman… yes that was a real woman and baby forced to do that by the Japanese against her will. As was the civilians being sent down the hill, it was a ploy to catch the Americans off guard and to try and force the marines to take second guesses when shooting whist to the Japanese it was pretty much a free target season. - to also give you how bad it was getting, many Okinawan people were jumping off cliffs when they saw Americans or killing their entire families and themselves, because the Japanese had propagandised them to believe that should they be taken “prisoner” by the Americans they’d execute, rhymes with grape them, and even eat them… yeah they essentially made the idea of being liberated into them about to be massacred as such many took their own lives. - and it got to to a point that yeah many of the men just becoming so disillusioned and broken by it that yeah Eugenes opinion that’s they’d have to “kill them all” was pretty prevalent, especially when confronted with just how fanatical the Japanese and its own civilian population was. As for the attitudes of the Marines, you have to remember what these guys are going through and experiencing. Snafu was already a veteran of a campaign before he met sledge. Plus you have to remember all of them have coping mechanisms, to someone like Snafu is trying to distance himself from the situation and his enemy so that he can do his job and process life after, and Sledge was falling into similar. And as they talk about in Ep4 of BoB many of the veterans didn’t take well to the new marines and recruits because they didn’t want to get attached due to the fact they knew they’d be suffering terrible losses again - easier to forget a face and make you can’t remember when killed. Interestingly, can you remember the guys face/name of Sledge’s mortar team when he’s killed helping to bring ammo back across? - plus yes especially towards the end of the war amongst many units, Draftee marines were considered even lower than most as they didn’t volunteer to serve but essentially picked to serve (and for someone like Peck it was clear he didn’t want to serve, especially in a frontline job but very much liked using the credit of it. This is why you notice them starting to connect more with Hamm vs Peck.) As for the child/hut scene at the yes that was Sledges called in shot - he didn’t know anyone was inside - and their hesitation was due to the fact that just earlier someone had used a child as a way to get people close before blowing themselves up, so it could be a trap. And as you see with the old lady scene, he was quickly started to understand how he was losing his humanity and that’s what brought him to be unable to just shoot the lady but instead comfort her in her last moments - and minutes later to spare the young boy… even if it didn’t save him.
It drives me NUTS how people gloss over the atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers during WWII. I have studied them in detail over the past 10 years and just have not found one gleaning light about them at all, they were just pure evil and needed to be stopped by any means. Japan today is a complete 180 of what they were thank god
The battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were so costly when it came to casualties that the US knew an invasion of Japan would be like 1 million troop casualties, and probably 5 million Japanese civilians killed. So, dropping the atom bombs was an easy selection.
You have to understand that the marines and most combat arms units have very dark humor to cope. Especially when they are going up against foes that are as inhumane and ruthless as Impirial Japan. Also, "not all of them are like that" is rather naive for that Japan at that time, as they literally worship their emperor and will go to any length to win.
According to Sledge's book, he did slide downhill into a rotting corpse in a shell hole below. The program shows it pretty accurately - even him scraping the maggots and rotting flesh of his clothing. The dead Marine couldn't be retrieved before because he was in the line of fire. A gruesome detail.
It was Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the kamikaze attacks on our ships that made Truman decide to drop the bombs. The loss of life and materiel was mounting, putting us back to 1942, which had the worst losses of the war for the Allies. The Japanese refused to surrender and continued their savage warfare, hoping that the increasing losses would force us to accept their conditions to end the war. Truman knew that an invasion of the mainland would be a horrific bloodbath (even the Japanese government estimated 20 million Japanese deaths with that invasion) so he decided to up the ante and force the Japanese to surrender unconditionally. It did work, although we did accept their condition that they keep their Emperor.
My Grandpa fought in the Battle of Okinawa on the USS Granville in the Navy. His ship transported troops (both Marines and Army) and supplies. His Memorial plaque reads that his ship was just barely missed by a Japanese kamikaze plane that tried to slam into them. The Battle of Okinawa was a 82 day battle where America took 50,000 casualties and 12,500 deaths. In the videos of the making of The Pacific, one historian says 5,000 of the American deaths came from Japanese planes suiciding themselves into American naval ships. My Grandpa was an amazing very kindhearted guy and even with that being said, Okinawa made his strong dislike for the Japanese last until his death in Dec. of 2002. In closing, while it's good for you to have a civilian perspective and opinion on what these Marines shown should have acted and behaved like, there's a "on paper" way they should have acted like having "humanity" for their enemy and then there's the actual gritty reality of you experiencing hell and seeing your brothers get torn apart day after day in the harshest conditions a human can go through (on top of seeing civilians getting killed). It's good that in my opinion you are still naive to the reality of war because it shows that these troops did their job and as a result you don't have to experience war yourself. This is not a jab at you, this is just my opinion.
There’s a speech Eugene gives called “with the old breed and the cost of war” it’s about 36 mins long and I’ve listened to it maybe a dozen times but the ending always gets to me highly suggest listening to it
As a USMC vet, Iraq and Afghanistan, from right before the surge, during and after, like others said, yes we have a very dark sense of humor, one of the many things that helps us cope and keep going, along with our buddies, and everything we did was for them, then our nation, that’s the reality of it, god after that if you still believe, nothing against those who do, everyone is Christian in the Corps, when the chaplain prays. Granted he whatever peaceful religion you want. We don’t care, as long as you are a US Marine first, citizen second, and true American after that. We don’t care about color or religion, as long you meet those first. And hold them first. But you judge with no context. That’s annoying. Yet sadly typical. Especially when we saved you country I’m presuming from your accent. Marines paid hard, in cold hard blood for Australia and New Zealand to remain free, sire you guys also fought, further west in Burma and shit, I’ll never discount that, and fought hard and an ugly war, we stopped, held then pushed back, right above Australia and New Zealand, so no better for us. The. All the at up to the home islands.
Context: the battle of Okinawa was the primary reason for the use of atomic weapons. It took far too long with a large loss of casualties on both sides. Paired with the inhumane nature of the Japanese, they had no choice
So to give some more context to the Okinawa Campaign
The Okinawan Islands were considered the first time the Americans had properly invaded Japanese home territory - to note Okinawa isn’t one of Japans main 4 islands, however it had always been considered under the radiance of Japan as such Japanese home territory.
However, even tho its Japanese “home” territory, the Okinawan people weren’t seen as Japanese but as a sub-species - similar to how the Japanese saw those of Korean, Chinese and South Asian blood.
As such, as you can see through this episode and especially at 11:08 these civilians were essentially treated as if human weapons/shields the Japanese could happily use in combat as again to them they were just a sub-species and not full blood Japanese.
And to clarify on the woman… yes that was a real woman and baby forced to do that by the Japanese against her will. As was the civilians being sent down the hill, it was a ploy to catch the Americans off guard and to try and force the marines to take second guesses when shooting whist to the Japanese it was pretty much a free target season.
- to also give you how bad it was getting, many Okinawan people were jumping off cliffs when they saw Americans or killing their entire families and themselves, because the Japanese had propagandised them to believe that should they be taken “prisoner” by the Americans they’d execute, rhymes with grape them, and even eat them… yeah they essentially made the idea of being liberated into them about to be massacred as such many took their own lives.
- and it got to to a point that yeah many of the men just becoming so disillusioned and broken by it that yeah Eugenes opinion that’s they’d have to “kill them all” was pretty prevalent, especially when confronted with just how fanatical the Japanese and its own civilian population was.
As for the attitudes of the Marines, you have to remember what these guys are going through and experiencing.
Snafu was already a veteran of a campaign before he met sledge.
Plus you have to remember all of them have coping mechanisms, to someone like Snafu is trying to distance himself from the situation and his enemy so that he can do his job and process life after, and Sledge was falling into similar.
And as they talk about in Ep4 of BoB many of the veterans didn’t take well to the new marines and recruits because they didn’t want to get attached due to the fact they knew they’d be suffering terrible losses again - easier to forget a face and make you can’t remember when killed. Interestingly, can you remember the guys face/name of Sledge’s mortar team when he’s killed helping to bring ammo back across?
- plus yes especially towards the end of the war amongst many units, Draftee marines were considered even lower than most as they didn’t volunteer to serve but essentially picked to serve (and for someone like Peck it was clear he didn’t want to serve, especially in a frontline job but very much liked using the credit of it. This is why you notice them starting to connect more with Hamm vs Peck.)
As for the child/hut scene at the yes that was Sledges called in shot - he didn’t know anyone was inside - and their hesitation was due to the fact that just earlier someone had used a child as a way to get people close before blowing themselves up, so it could be a trap.
And as you see with the old lady scene, he was quickly started to understand how he was losing his humanity and that’s what brought him to be unable to just shoot the lady but instead comfort her in her last moments - and minutes later to spare the young boy… even if it didn’t save him.
He actually ran off to get a corpman, but another marine killed her right as he came back with help. Both he and the corpman yelled at the guy.
It drives me NUTS how people gloss over the atrocities committed by the Japanese soldiers during WWII. I have studied them in detail over the past 10 years and just have not found one gleaning light about them at all, they were just pure evil and needed to be stopped by any means. Japan today is a complete 180 of what they were thank god
The battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa were so costly when it came to casualties that the US knew an invasion of Japan would be like 1 million troop casualties, and probably 5 million Japanese civilians killed. So, dropping the atom bombs was an easy selection.
You have to understand that the marines and most combat arms units have very dark humor to cope. Especially when they are going up against foes that are as inhumane and ruthless as Impirial Japan. Also, "not all of them are like that" is rather naive for that Japan at that time, as they literally worship their emperor and will go to any length to win.
According to Sledge's book, he did slide downhill into a rotting corpse in a shell hole below. The program shows it pretty accurately - even him scraping the maggots and rotting flesh of his clothing. The dead Marine couldn't be retrieved before because he was in the line of fire. A gruesome detail.
It was Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the kamikaze attacks on our ships that made Truman decide to drop the bombs. The loss of life and materiel was mounting, putting us back to 1942, which had the worst losses of the war for the Allies. The Japanese refused to surrender and continued their savage warfare, hoping that the increasing losses would force us to accept their conditions to end the war. Truman knew that an invasion of the mainland would be a horrific bloodbath (even the Japanese government estimated 20 million Japanese deaths with that invasion) so he decided to up the ante and force the Japanese to surrender unconditionally. It did work, although we did accept their condition that they keep their Emperor.
26:00 Eugene gets his humanity back
My Grandpa fought in the Battle of Okinawa on the USS Granville in the Navy. His ship transported troops (both Marines and Army) and supplies. His Memorial plaque reads that his ship was just barely missed by a Japanese kamikaze plane that tried to slam into them. The Battle of Okinawa was a 82 day battle where America took 50,000 casualties and 12,500 deaths. In the videos of the making of The Pacific, one historian says 5,000 of the American deaths came from Japanese planes suiciding themselves into American naval ships. My Grandpa was an amazing very kindhearted guy and even with that being said, Okinawa made his strong dislike for the Japanese last until his death in Dec. of 2002. In closing, while it's good for you to have a civilian perspective and opinion on what these Marines shown should have acted and behaved like, there's a "on paper" way they should have acted like having "humanity" for their enemy and then there's the actual gritty reality of you experiencing hell and seeing your brothers get torn apart day after day in the harshest conditions a human can go through (on top of seeing civilians getting killed). It's good that in my opinion you are still naive to the reality of war because it shows that these troops did their job and as a result you don't have to experience war yourself. This is not a jab at you, this is just my opinion.
Fair points made here to be honest
the Japanese didnt view the people of Okinawa as people they saw them as nothing more then dirt hence why you saw so much mistreatment in this episode
There’s a speech Eugene gives called “with the old breed and the cost of war” it’s about 36 mins long and I’ve listened to it maybe a dozen times but the ending always gets to me highly suggest listening to it
As a USMC vet, Iraq and Afghanistan, from right before the surge, during and after, like others said, yes we have a very dark sense of humor, one of the many things that helps us cope and keep going, along with our buddies, and everything we did was for them, then our nation, that’s the reality of it, god after that if you still believe, nothing against those who do, everyone is Christian in the Corps, when the chaplain prays. Granted he whatever peaceful religion you want. We don’t care, as long as you are a US Marine first, citizen second, and true American after that. We don’t care about color or religion, as long you meet those first. And hold them first. But you judge with no context. That’s annoying. Yet sadly typical. Especially when we saved you country I’m presuming from your accent. Marines paid hard, in cold hard blood for Australia and New Zealand to remain free, sire you guys also fought, further west in Burma and shit, I’ll never discount that, and fought hard and an ugly war, we stopped, held then pushed back, right above Australia and New Zealand, so no better for us. The. All the at up to the home islands.
Would you care to react to SAS Rogue Heroes?
Ooo is that a movie?
@@TheNerdyverse-DannyReacts series. Really fun to watch
Use historical context and get out of your 2024 feelings please. It’s all horrible, but try understanding why.
I understand trust me - just hard to think humans can be like this tbh