Ken Burns' WWII documentary

Listening now to Tunisia campaign and how badly we fared there. In a couple of weeks, 6k dead, 1/3 of survivors with psychiatric trauma from combat they were unprepared for and 2400 surrendered. Ike admits the whole effort would be studied and condemned in war colleges "for the next 25 years." Ernie Pyle says maybe it was good to get our asses kicked so we'd stop being so arrogant about our military prowess and start really adapting to the circumstances. The Brits worried we'd never amount to anything.

Then Patton is sent in to correct things . . . and the legend is born.

Fast forward to a quarter million Axis troops surrendering.

But 76,000 U.S. dead over six months. From a U.S. population less than half of what it is today.

And that and Ernie Pyle saying "the worst is yet to come."

Interesting. I'm DVRing it all so I can study when I can watch closely at home.

Comments

[Elmer Humes]

I'm delighted you are on to the WAR PBS series and what you picked up from this on this blog. I was a small boy during this time but remember so much how my parents followed Ernie Pyle. This history is so important for younger Americans to remind them what it was that we are trying to prevent from happening again.

[William R. Cumming]

Kasserine Pass was a lesson to draftees that only the smart and able infantryman who was also very very lucky was likely to survive. That fighting the best infantry in the world at that time was not for amatuers. Also note post defeat changes in Chain of Command. (And then we knew a defeat when we saw it)! What is the attitude towards survival today for US forces in Iraq or Afganistan? I am increasingly meeting military personnel with 4 completed tours since September 11, 2001, and wonder if this is unusual. I was drafted on June 12th, 1967, getting a "personal" letter from President Lyndon Johnson stating that "My friends and neighbors" wanted me to join the Armed Forces of the United States. No mention of what Lyndon wanted. Has Congress ever asked for a breakdown of all military personnel by number of foreign tours in combat zone? That might be of some interest.

[Brian]

I like the emphasis on the struggles on the homefront myself. Today, we have no concept of how hard it was back home. Yes, the struggles and dangers the soldier faced is well-documented but we forget that life had to go on back home and it wasn't easy.

Imagine if any of this happened now:

- Going to your local store today and not being able to buy sugar, flour, beer, or coffee. One guy said he couldn't wait for the war to end so that he could buy tires for his car. If you wanted anything made with rubber, Nylon, tin, or steel in it, forget it.- The schools in Mobile Ala became so overcrowded (influx of workers to local plants) that they became the worst in the country- Because of rationing, a black market developed. The narrator said that one estimate said that 1/4 retail transactions during the war was illegal.- At one point, the waters between Jacksonville and the Texas coast were considered the most dangerous in the world. Many people don't realize how close the US coast the German U-Boats got.- I don't know if this will be mentioned but another thing many people don't know is that ammunition rationing was common during the war. Immediately after the Normandy invasion, most soldiers were limited to 25 rounds a day.- War bond drives - imagine if this happened today. The people who led them back them are the same people who would protest them today.

Overall, I like what I've seen and, like Mr. Humes said above, I think today's youth need to learn about what life was really like during the War. It's easy to say "we won" but the reasons we won need to be studied in earnest as well. It was a country-wide community effort with MUCH personal sacrifice from the common citizen as well as the young men who donned the uniforms and the hundreds of thousands of them who never came home.

[Walt Lips]

I watched the show last night and noticed that Burns did not mention Patton by name in covering the battle, or Patton's predecessor who set up his HQ away from the action. Maybe I dozed through it but the only Generals I heard mentioned during that part of the show were Eisenhower and Rommel. It's great to focus on the soldiers and the Ernie Pyle perspective, but I think you miss too much of the story if you purposely downplay the role of the Generals. If it was there and I missed it, I apologize for a dumn remark.

[William Weisberg]

Rick Atkinson's An Army at Dawn is a wonderful account of the North African campaign, and the transformation of our peactime Army. Great writer, great book.

[Sturt]

The only shame of that segment (of what is turning out to be an excellent documentary) is that it completely ignored the equally bloody (but effective) work done by the Brits, Aussies, Indians, South Africans and Kiwis driving Rommel backwards from Egypt to make the pincer work. I know the story's about America's experience of the war but it reinforces a cognitive error to think it was done alone.

[Ted O'Connor]

I was 10 months old when it started. The rationing was still going on when I was a little boy. I remember the "Ration Stamps" my mother gave to the cashier at the grocery store. One had a cannon on it, another a tank. There were blue stars and gold stars in the windows in our neighborhood. Some remained up for years after the war. I saw soldiers marching near the University of Chicago campus. We didn't know they were working on the A-Bomb there. My father told me that there were some "big shot" German prisoners being kept near the campus also. My father was exempt from the draft because he had 2 children and was in "transportation". He was a supervisor for the streetcar company. During the war he lead a team of men who went out every night at midnight. They took down the trolley wires that the streetcars needed for power. This was done on certain streets that the army used for convoys. The trucks carrying tanks and other equipment were too tall to fit under the wires. The convoys rolled through and Dad and his men would put the wires back up for the morning rush hour. My mother was terrified that my dad was going to join the army. I think he would have except that he knew they wanted him in Chicago. I had two uncles who wanted to serve. One joined the Navy right after Pearl Harbor. He was a feisty little Irishman who couldn't wait to get at the Japs. The other was married and wanted to stay close to home. Somebody advised him to join the Coast Guard because they just worked along the American coast. My tough little uncle Ed was trained as an aircraft engine mechanic. They sent him to Florida to teach at a Navy school. He kept trying to volunteer for sea duty but the Navy needed instructors. Poor guy never left the states. My uncle Tommy who wanted to stay close to home got sent on North Atlantic convoy duty. He spent many, many terrifying nights at sea watching ships get blown up by German U-Boats. He had nightmares about it for years. A cousin of my mother's was with Patton in Africa. He was an officer and somehow managed to get a bunch of souvenirs back home. He gave me an Africa Corps. pith helmet. It had the German markings on it and a man's name written inside the sweatband. Over the years the name faded away. My dad, my uncles, all gone now. What good men they were.

[Tom Barnett]

Patton was mentioned.