Claude! said:

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13B said:

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Looking forward to the 8th AF version too. I thought it was supposed to already be done.

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It's called Masters of the Air, based on the wonderful book by Donald Miller. Latest I'm seeing suggests a spring 2023 release, but who knows if that will happen.

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My paternal grandfather was a B-24 copilot in the 15th AF flying out of Roggio Italy

shot down over Yugoslavia. Not good for an American Jew

somehow he made it back. never kept his medals!

I did find a member of his squadron ten years ago who was still alive and sent me a ton of real pictures from their time in training and flying in Europe

country said:

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BoB and Pacific are equally awesome productions. Everyone should watch Pacific as many times as it takes to see the series for what it is. It is the greatest thing on film to demonstrate the misery of war. You can watch all the 2 hour movies you want that show the misery of war, but nothing like 10 hours of screen time to make you realize just how miserable the Pacific theater was. All war is hell. The Pacific was just on a level that I cannot comprehend. I watch both every year with my boys.

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there was not much worse than spending months on New Guinea in 1942-43 battling snakes, monsoons, malaria, heat and the Japanese.

when it seemed we would likely lose the war.

Stive said:

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The last episode of The Pacific is the most emotional I've ever gotten watching a movie/TV show. The scene where he walks in and his mother is in the kitchen gets me a little but during his first night home when his dad sits down outside his bedroom door, and the hunting scene tear me up completely. They got me bad the first time I watched it and I wasn't sure I could ever fight through those again. I then rewatched the whole thing during Covid and thought for sure I'd be fine on a second watch…but I wasn't.

Those scenes are flat out painful and give you an amazing feel for how returning vets struggle, and how their parents and loved ones feel.

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Same here. and it kind of helps me understand and forgive my Grandfather for his behavior after he made it home. Long story short, he married my Grandmother and had my mom and left them both, when my grandmother was 6 months pregnant with my uncle and my mom was 3.

I never met him, but he moved from Olney to Lake Jackson and was just never the same after the war. Major alcohol problems, rage, etc. Apparently what he experienced and saw was just too much to get over.

There is a scene in the last episode where Leckie gets out of a cab and the driver wouldn't take his money, saying something about him being in Europe and being able to get liberty and the Pacific boys only got swamp rot and dysentery.

The pacific isn't supposed to be enjoyed… it's supposed to be experienced. It took me the second time watching to figure this out and not fall into the mistake of comparing it to BoB. Like i said, all of the misery and hopelessness made me at least see why my Grandfather may have acted the way he did

TresPuertas said:

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Stive said:

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The last episode of The Pacific is the most emotional I've ever gotten watching a movie/TV show. The scene where he walks in and his mother is in the kitchen gets me a little but during his first night home when his dad sits down outside his bedroom door, and the hunting scene tear me up completely. They got me bad the first time I watched it and I wasn't sure I could ever fight through those again. I then rewatched the whole thing during Covid and thought for sure I'd be fine on a second watch…but I wasn't.

Those scenes are flat out painful and give you an amazing feel for how returning vets struggle, and how their parents and loved ones feel.

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Same here. and it kind of helps me understand and forgive my Grandfather for his behavior after he made it home. Long story short, he married my Grandmother and had my mom and left them both, when my grandmother was 6 months pregnant with my uncle and my mom was 3.

I never met him, but he moved from Olney to Lake Jackson and was just never the same after the war. Major alcohol problems, rage, etc. Apparently what he experienced and saw was just too much to get over.

There is a scene in the last episode where Leckie gets out of a cab and the driver wouldn't take his money, saying something about him being in Europe and being able to get liberty and the Pacific boys only got swamp rot and dysentery.

The pacific isn't supposed to be enjoyed… it's supposed to be experienced. It took me the second time watching to figure this out and not fall into the mistake of comparing it to BoB. Like i said, all of the misery and hopelessness made me at least see why my Grandfather may have acted the way he did

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very interesting!!

supposedly my paternal grandfather ALSO left my grandmother and was not a good father to my birth father

my mom wanted nothing to do with that family after my birth father was killed when I was 6 years old

interesting I never considered the war as being a cause

Just a small blurb about BoB made in 2001. It holds up quite remarkably. We are so very fortunate it was made in HD film. The image is clear and sharp, with limited CGI.

The cinematography, sound and visual effects still hold up quite well today. I think that matters a great deal.

On the Band of Brothers topic... I strongly recommend reading Stephen Ambrose's books. Just read the Band of Brothers book in January and my goodness it is moving. I have seen the show probably 2-3 times through but had yet to read the book and the book just makes it so much more real to me.

There is also a HBO Band of Brothers Podcast hosted by Roger Bennett that interviews all the actors from the show and it is top stuff as well. Most of the actors met and formed relationships with the men of Easy Company. One of my favorite stories from the podcast has to do with Wild Bill after the war. Don't want to spoil the story for y'all but the summary is the man could handle his liquor.

Lastly, my all time favorite book is Wild Blue. The stories of B-24 pilots and crew in the European theater. Reminds me of my days growing up living near Ellington Field watching the WOH air show seeing P-51's, P-47's, B-24s, P-38's and B-17s. Loved hearing stories of the men who lived and died in those War Birds.

Truly, truly the greatest generation to ever have lived.

I thought the book gave to a lot more insight on some of the gentlemen who were in the show but didn't get featured as prominently

KCup17 said:

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On the Band of Brothers topic... I strongly recommend reading Stephen Ambrose's books. Just read the Band of Brothers book in January and my goodness it is moving. I have seen the show probably 2-3 times through but had yet to read the book and the book just makes it so much more real to me.

There is also a HBO Band of Brothers Podcast hosted by Roger Bennett that interviews all the actors from the show and it is top stuff as well. Most of the actors met and formed relationships with the men of Easy Company. One of my favorite stories from the podcast has to do with Wild Bill after the war. Don't want to spoil the story for y'all but the summary is the man could handle his liquor.

Lastly, my all time favorite book is Wild Blue. The stories of B-24 pilots and crew in the European theater. Reminds me of my days growing up living near Ellington Field watching the WOH air show seeing P-51's, P-47's, B-24s, P-38's and B-17s. Loved hearing stories of the men who lived and died in those War Birds.

Truly, truly the greatest generation to ever have lived.

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Jimmy Stewart: Bomber Pilot is also an interesting read.

Band Of Brothers
Bridge Too Far
Longest Day
Saving Private Ryan

Also... more men died flying in the AAC over Europe than Marines did fighting in all of the Pacific campaigns. 70K Army Air Corps vs 30K USMC.

While not American but also a Stephen Ambrose book, check out "Pegasus Bridge". That's a whole story that deserves its own movie. It's a book about the some first Allied troops to land on June 6th in gliders to capture a bridge and prevent German counterattacks on the beaches, all the whole not knowing if the landings will even be successful and there's only two companies of you.
*Fun fact. The man who played Major Howard in The Longest Day which covers this, was a member of the British airborne who jumped in to reinforce the glider troops at the bridge on June 6th .

My grandfather was a glider pilot. He didn't fly on D-Day, but he did successfully land his glider in Germany during Operation Varsity.

Years ago, my father was able to locate the report that his copilot filed after the mission. It's a trip reading something that describes how close you came to never existing.

My pisshead year. But I only remember them showing a series preview and episode 2 "Day of Days". It was awesome on the big screen. It was sometime fall semester. What was also cool was they had a big WWII conference/symposium thing at Bush Library that same semester and I was taking some American military history course and got to attend a bunch of the speakers. Also met stephen Ambrose and got my copy of BoB autographed by him.

This thread is fantastic and expresses so many of my thoughts on BoB. My son and I watched it the first time when he was a sophmore in high school. He is 30 years old now and we have made it a tradition to watch it every Memorial Day for the past 15 years.

IMO, it is the finest TV program ever made. From the opening scene on the airstrip with Winters and Nixon, to the flashback at Camp Tacoa, to the Atlantic crossing and training in England, to flight over the channel, the drop, regathering, and their first action at Brecout Manor, the first two episodes are absolutely stunning. Breaking Point is also a favorite. There are too many fantastic scents to recount here, but the acting throughout is some of the best ever.

The short interviews at the beginning of every episode are so well done and add such a human touch to the episodes. Of course now I know who these men are, but the first time you watch you don't find out their names until the montage at the end of Episode Ten. I get tears in my eyes every time it gets to the baseball game at the end and Winters tells where each of the men are and where they live, some still alive, some passed on - followed by the interviews that reveal the identity of each man.

I am thankful these heroes told their story and that Spielberg and Hanks put it on film. Someone mentioned the segments on the making of BoB and I highly recommend watching it. The boot camp the actors went through and the training they had helped them make it seem real on the screen. They became their own Band of Brothers during the filming.

One of my favorite moments -

You do know the interviews are actually from a separate documentary about Easy company called We Stand Alone Together?

I finally got my wife to watch Band of Brothers starting last week. We finished episode 9, "Why We Fight" a few minute ago. I haven't watched it since it came out in 2001. In all this time I don't think i've seen anything else that compares to the emotional crescendo that those actors and crew carry out when they find the death camp. Incredible TV.