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Yeah, it was good. But two things were not mentioned.

1) Patton wanted to pincer the Nazis, but was over ruled by higher ups who insisted on full frontal assault (and essentially pushing the Nazis back into Germany across the length of the front).

2)One commentary that I recall from a war special about the BoB was from a local that lived in the area. She said that when they returned to their home after the conflict she remembres looking out across the fields early spring/late winter (it was one of the most brutal winters on record) and seen the whole field littered with these dark little circular pools a yard or so in diameter of water several yards apart. She explained that as the snow melted, the water pooled into the foxholes dug by the soldiers and so they became evident in the fields still covered in snow. She said it took her breth away to see the whole field (as far as the eye could see covered with foxholes. She said that it became apparent that they fought for every yard. She said that the foxholes would make their appearance for many years after the war, and then everybody knew spring was just around the corner.

I don’t know what to say about all the negative sentiment about the series though. Sure there’s a lot of PC nuance there, but I can get passed that. Were there incompetent officers? Certainly and without a doubt. Did the allies engage in some attrocities. Without a doubt.

WWII was as brutal as it was savage. The one poignant commentary made was that it was anticipated that soldiers couldn’t remain on the line for longer than 256 days before going mad. The chances were that the soldier had a higher risk of being dead than going mad. My question is: what do madmen do?

Here’s another poignant fact: the casualty raids for B-25 Liberator raids was 4%. That equates to a 36.7% chance of completing the tour. Standing in line and look to the guy to the right and to the left and neither would be coming home. Catch-22 stems from the psychological ramifications that set in due to the stress of such environment. Any rational and sane person would be positively freaked out of their mind ever more so as time went on until the soldier cracked (and it didn’t bother them any more). Then they were unfit for duty.

The series talks about these guys having nightmares for 50 years afterwards. The one pilot had to land the plane with his left hand because his right hand wouldn’t work any more. To this day he still periodically has troubles with a non-functioning right hand on occassion.

I can’t even conceive of one week of combat like that shown, let alone 8.5 months of non-stop combat 24/7.