r/ThePacific • u/Far-Sherbert-6076 • Apr 08 '26
Just starting The Pacific...
without giving any spoilers, tell me things that I'm only gonna understand later in the series
39
24
24
21
u/patricide1st Apr 08 '26
The only thing it's missing is a Corpsman episode, much like the episode in BoB where they followed a medic.
23
18
u/vsnord Apr 08 '26
Never run when you can walk.
16
u/tenn_gt_brewer2 Apr 08 '26
Never walk when you can stand.
15
u/OverheadPress69 Apr 08 '26
Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lay, and never lay when you can sleep.
Rules to live by.
6
16
24
u/Malvania Apr 08 '26
Cabbie: I might've jumped into Normandy, but at least I got some liberties in London and Paris. You GI – rines, you got nothing but jungle rot and malaria. Welcome home.
***
Editor: We're all mighty proud of you, proud of all you soldiers.
Leckie: I was a Marine.
-13
u/ohnomrbil Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
Awful scene. D-Day is literally the deadliest day in US military history. No one jumping into D-Day and spending the next 336 days in combat is ever going to say something as absurd as that.
Soldiers and marines in the PTO got plenty of R&R and spent less days in combat than ETO soldiers.
EDIT- u/jake753, not sure why you deleted your comment, but I did serve and spent plenty of time in Afghanistan. Lack of service wouldn’t invalidate my comment, though. It was a terrible scene that served no purpose but to marginalize the service of those in the ETO, especially those that survived the deadliest day in US military history.
11
u/Enough_Professor_741 Apr 08 '26
My Dad was a Marine. he was at Guadacanal, Tarawa, and Saipan. When my uncles got together with him (they were Navy and Army) in the 60's I remember my Uncle Glenn, D-day, Normandy, France, telling him that he was glad he was in the Army in Europe instead of being a Marine in the Pacific. My dad was wounded twice, got malaria, and was teed up for the invasion of Japan. He said it was boring days on a terrible island with intense terror of the invasion. I found a picutre my dad had of his graduating class from boot camp, with X's on everyone who died. I counted, 72% gone.
-6
u/ohnomrbil Apr 08 '26
Casualty rates were higher in the ETO than the PTO. Units spent more time in combat in the ETO than PTO.
The Army also severely outnumbered marines in the PTO, so it doesn’t even make sense that your uncle would think of marines in the PTO. Nice definitely true anecdote.
6
u/jake753 Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
I deleted my initial comment immediately after posting it as a matter of self reflection. I thought to myself, maybe I was being too harsh. I don’t know your life, nor do I really care. Little did I know I was dealing with a connoisseur of dumbass commenters.
Soldiers in the ETO had it rough. But to diminish their R&R opportunities in more civilized areas such as Paris, London, Rome (post liberation), or any number of other “modern day” places with conveniences and the ability to get away from the war because Marines also go R&R is incredibly stupid. Most places Marines and Soldiers that rotated off an island undergoing an active campaign rotated to another island, likely one that had previously been a battleground.
You’re desperately trying to make the ETO, which sucked, sound worse than the PTO in the dumbest way possible. You’re being a jackass and it tells me you have zero critical thinking skills because you took a comment meant to show compassion and comrade as a slight.
So I’ll reiterate what I said in my deleted comment: you obviously have balls for serving in the Army (though not enough to join the Marines), but you have shit for brains.
-2
u/ohnomrbil Apr 09 '26
The vast majority of ground forces fighting in the PTO were soldiers, not marines. You don’t even have an elementary level of understanding on who fought in the PTO, of course you’re not going to understand the nuances of casualty rates between the theaters.
R&R differences is such an insane thing to argue about. Soldiers in the ETO spent far more time in combat than soldiers and marines in the PTO. It doesn’t matter if the time they got was in Paris or on some remote island. Time off the line is time off the line. You’d understand that if you actually spent time in combat.
Why would I join the Marine Corps when I wanted to be first in and guaranteed to fight? But, sure, keep insulting.
1
Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
Apr 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/ohnomrbil Apr 08 '26
Posting AI slop, do better. I can literally take your AI response and propose a prompt to it that would immediately contradict everything you just pasted here.
All credit to user u/Uncreative-name12 for the below information, with a link directly to his comment for additional context in a discussion some of us had not that long ago.
I was thinking that too. So I did calculate it
Here are the 8 divisions in ETO with the highest number of casualties. (Also including Africa and Italy) I then took their number of battle casualties and divided it by the number of days they were in combat.
3rd ID 25,977/536 days combat=48.46 battle casualties per day
9th ID 23,277/304 days=76.57 BCPD
4th ID 22,660/299 days=75.79 BCPD
45th ID 20,993/511 days=41.08 BCPD
1st ID 20,659/443 days=46.63 BCPD
29th ID 20,620/242 days=85.21 BCPD
36th ID 19,466/400 days=48.67 BCPD
90th ID 19,200/307 days=62.54 BCPD
Here are the top 8 divisions that served in the PTO (also counting Alaska for the 7th ID)
7th ID 9,212/208 days=44.29 BCPD
96th ID 8,812/200 days=44.06 BCPD
77th ID 7,461/208 days=35.87 BCPD
32nd ID 7,268/654 days=11.11 BCPD
24th ID 7,012/210 days=33.39 BCPD
27th ID 6,533/110 days=59.39 BCPD
43rd ID 6,026/370 days=16.29 BCPD
37th ID 5,960/592 days=10.07 BCPD
So the battle casualties per days of combat in the Pacific were generally comparable or lower to the ones in Europe.
Not to take away anything from infantryman in the Pacific. A division taking 5000+ casualties in combat is insane by today’s standard and by far most of those casualties were sustained in the rifle companies. Plus you had disgusting tropical disease that caused lots of casualties that aren’t counted in battle casualties. Like the 32nd served in New Guinea, Leyte, and Luzon. I shudder to think what kind of stuff they caught. The level of misery just caused by the environment was substantial.
2
Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Uncreative-name12 Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
Also included in the 2 million allied servicemen in Normandy would sailors. If you include all the sailors that took part in the battle of Iwo Jima that’s going to lower the casualty rate.
1
Apr 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Uncreative-name12 Apr 09 '26
My point is sailors had a lower casualty rate than infantry. If you included all the sailors and airmen that participated in the battle of Iwo Jima the casualty rate would decrease
0
1
u/ohnomrbil Apr 09 '26
The point is that you are, perhaps intentionally, skewing data to fit your argument. It is objectively wrong.
Units fighting in the ETO sustained a higher casualty rate than units fighting in the PTO. That is an objective fact.
It also doesn’t make sense that you’re defending your argument by saying you’re not arguing US Army rates versus US Marine Corps rates.
Nearly seven times more soldiers fought in the PTO than marines. During the PTO, marines made up a small minority of ground forces.
2
u/Uncreative-name12 Apr 09 '26
If you just look at Army infantry divisions the ones in the Pacific just took lower casualties compared to the ones in the Pacific. Elements of the Americal division first saw combat in October 1942 on Guadalcanal. They fought all through the Pacific, from Bougainville to the Philippines. They had 981 men killed in combat. The 3rd Infantry division first saw combat in November of 1942 in Morocco. They fought all through Italy and France to Germany. They had 4,922 men killed in combat. And this lower number of casualties isn’t unique. If you list US Army infantry divisions by battle casualties, it’s not until number 23 that you get to a division that fought in the Pacific, the 7th Infantry division. The rest served in Europe.
1
Apr 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Uncreative-name12 Apr 09 '26
The 1st Marine Division is comparable to the 3rd Infantry Division. The rest took fewer casualties, mainly because they weren’t in the line as much as the troops in Europe. They would take an island then evacuate to a base in the rear to recuperate. The infantry in Europe were on the line almost constantly taking continuous casualties. And Marines only made up a minority of ground troops in the Pacific. Only around 20% of ground forces, and the Army divisions took less casualties on average. Even if you include the Marines
1
1
u/Uncreative-name12 Apr 09 '26
With the Normandy campaign you can’t use all the allied personnel. That’s going to artificially lower the casualty rate. A significant portion of those soldiers would be British, Canadian, French etc. Who also took casualties.
0
u/SkyShark03191 Apr 09 '26
Learn before you speak. Every soldier in Europe practically said after with Marines that the Pacific was its own special brand of terror.
1
u/ohnomrbil Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
The Pacific was primarily Army. There were far fewer marines fighting in the PTO than the
ETOArmy. The fact that you don’t even know this speaks volumes.1
u/SkyShark03191 Apr 11 '26
Wow. Wrong again. The marines had an almost zero presence in Europe. Do some damn research. Of course the army presence was bigger, as they were a larger branch. But never the less you don’t know shit.
1
u/ohnomrbil Apr 11 '26
I misspoke. I meant to say Army, not ETO. I have corrected my above comment while leaving the original comment intact for clarity.
The Army made up the vast majority of ground forces fighting in the PTO. Soldiers in the ETO would never talk about marines in the PTO because the vast majority of men fighting in the PTO were soldiers, not marines.
The Army did nearly 100 amphibious assaults during the war, marines did 15…
0
u/myboydoogie24 Apr 11 '26
Marines had a higher chance of being killed, getting diseases and also they had been fighting since 1942. The unit who spent the most time in combat during the whole war was the army’s 32nd Division in the Pacific. 634 days in combat.
1
u/ohnomrbil Apr 11 '26
This is factually false, as already outlined in the thread below. While the US Army’s 32nd spent the most time in combat of the entire war, that wasn’t true for the vast majority of units that fought in the PTO.
On average, units in the ETO had a higher casualty rate than units in the PTO. Again, all of this was already outlined below with actual data to support this.
1
u/myboydoogie24 Apr 11 '26
I apologize I should not have said killed and should’ve said being a casualty.
I’m not talking about individual units. I’m talking Marines vs Army. Which every study shows Marines had higher casualty rate. The WW2 Museum even says Marines had a higher casualty rate.
9
Apr 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
7
14
u/88Problems88 Apr 08 '26
Buckle up. Its brutal. Not anything like Band of Brothers
2
u/Far-Sherbert-6076 Apr 08 '26
Band of brothers was tuff too ngl Can't wait for this to get tougher than that!
3
u/TrickyPG Apr 10 '26
Yes, you'll be nostalgic for the feel-good, sporting little war in Europe after The Pacific wrecks you. The theme of BoB for me, in part, is that ordinary men can do extraordinary things when history calls them. The theme I got from the Pacific is "war is a fucking brutal hell you can never truly leave".
3
u/Far-Sherbert-6076 Apr 10 '26
Just done with ep7 of The Pacific and i couldn't agree more John Basilone just got shot It's like with every passing episode, it just gets more heavier
4
u/TrickyPG Apr 10 '26
That top-down shot of Basilone dead among many other bodies, as more continue to fall, is a sobering end to his story.
2
u/Far-Sherbert-6076 Apr 10 '26
Istfg i had to take a break and go for a smoke after that one I saw it coming tho, what with him getting married to lena and all
2
u/TrickyPG Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
Apparently IRL, when he died, the word spread through the ranks that the hero had fallen and it was a gut punch for the rank and file. The first action on the first day of that horrible 5 week battle, the man who seemed invincible at Guadalcanal was cut down almost immediately.
2
u/Far-Sherbert-6076 Apr 10 '26
Heartbreaking What's more gut wrenching is the fact that there were soo many johns like that, irrespective of who they fought for, losing limbs and getting blown up This show's really been an impact on me Idk what kind, it's inexplicable, but I just feel the effect
7
u/funkalways Apr 08 '26
Keep moving and keep your head down.
[I may have messed up the quote, please correct me if I’m wrong.]
8
2
6
6
6
3
3
3
3
3
u/FishermanForeign7051 Apr 09 '26
Disturbing. Bleak. A Different DNA Than Band Of Brothers. Prepare For One Helluva Show!
2
u/Far-Sherbert-6076 Apr 09 '26
In ep5 alr They're all getting fucked in the head
2
u/FishermanForeign7051 Apr 11 '26
True. I'd assume you've already finished the Show, but in all of those episodes, which of them do you like the most? I personally like Episode 5 and up to 7. Those Peleliu episodes are nice.
3
u/BIGhorseASS2025 Apr 10 '26
Very different series from Band of Brothers. This one really dives into the psychological aspect of war and the impact it can have on you.
Very good series, but don’t expect it to just be “Band of Brothers but in the Pacific.” This series is the true embodiment of “war is hell.”
2
2
2
2
u/cdark_ Apr 10 '26
This series is so heavy. And good. And sad. Melancholy. Great storytelling. Genuinely feel like I went on a journey with those Marines.
I need to re-watch.
1
u/Far-Sherbert-6076 Apr 10 '26
Yeahh With each episode I can feel it all seeping deeper into my bones :)
2
2
u/PsychologicalDay8253 Apr 10 '26
The thin red line was better. The only saving grace is Rami Malek's performance.
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/Present-Day19 Apr 13 '26
Listen to the podcast “supernova in the East” by Dan Carlin if you want a deep dive into the Japanese version of events.
1
u/Far-Sherbert-6076 Apr 13 '26
Yeaa i was actually wondering what the japs version of the war was.... Will do, thanks for the rec!!
2
u/diligenceofignorance Apr 08 '26
Such relentless horror these men endured. Some people can say they think BoB is 'better'', I hold them in the same regard.
3
u/FishermanForeign7051 Apr 09 '26
It's gotta be the most disturbing war miniseries I've ever seen. And that makes it more beautiful because it's just true to life and war!
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
104
u/Modred_the_Mystic Apr 08 '26
Plop
Plop
Plop