Posted on 05/27/2006 7:18:26 PM PDT by Pokey78
Two new movies based on a bloody 1945 battle are stirring up memories and forcing both sides to re-examine their history
More than 60 years after it became one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Second World War, Iwo Jima's tragic history retains the power to overwhelm. As his plane prepared to land on the isolated Japanese island last month, the actor Ken Watanabe found he could not hold back the tears. Accompanying Watanabe, who shot to stardom playing a feudal warlord opposite Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, was another hard man of Hollywood whose time on Iwo Jima would lead to something of a professional epiphany.
When Clint Eastwood's two films about Iwo Jima, one of the darkest periods of the Pacific War, reach cinemas this year, audiences could be excused for forgetting the man behind them was once the trigger-happy Dirty Harry.
The 75-year-old director has promised Flags Of Our Fathers and Red Sun, Black Sand will attempt to show for the first time the suffering of both sides during 36 days of fighting in early 1945 that turned the island into a flattened wasteland.
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
Let's not jump to too many conclusions. If the actual men who fought can meet those who fought them and bury the hatchet as they do regular on these History Channel shows then we can at least not assume Clint is going to do a bad movie.
Almost all the Americans say that the Japs were extremely tought soldiers and difficult to deal with. Most of them were just ordinary boys like ours brought up to believe they were fighting for the right. The culture and society they were born into produced the war and their duty required them to fight for the Empire and Emperor.
I, am willing, to wait and see what he produces.
I will say that the idea of "it's not about winning or losing" could be a bit problematic to say the least. IMHO, everything connected with war is ... or should be ... about winning or losing.
Amen. I think I'll go rent "The Sands of Iwo Jima" this weekend.
One reason that LeMay targeted the civilian areas of Tokyo is that the Japanese had farmed their military production out, so to speak, to civilian areas. People had the machinery ... dies, jigs, etc. ... to build stuff for the war effort in their homes and did so. There are stories of recon flights who took pictures of the damage coming back with shots of scorched lathes, drill presses, etc., still standing amid the ashes. So while horrible in one sense ... IMHO, what happened in Tokyo on the night of May 9-10, 1945, was worse than Hiroshima ... I think it was perfectly justifiable and I feel not one iota of guilt about it.
BTW, my post wasn't rude, it was to the point. Your post however WAS rude. It implied that the author had some agenda. Turns out, you were wrong, and rude.
I suggest you read the book mentioned in the article. (which is the basis for the movie)
I highly recommend it. (which I'm sure carries no weight with you.)
Your assertion -- "BTW, a rifle isn't a gun."
And port isn't left. Unless it is.
"GUN -- The British restrict the term in portable arms to shotguns. Here it is properly used for rifles, shotguns, handguns and airguns, as well as cannon."
"RIFLE -- A shoulder gun with rifled bore."
See -- http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FireArmsGlossary/Default.aspx
Sometimes this site is pathetic. (alternately, maybe I just expect too much from FReepers)
I sincerly hope that you have an attitude change, for your own health and well being.
If you find any of this offensive, I don't mean it in that way. I wish you well.
Reply back if you care to - and I am willing to bet that you will. You will be talking to yourself.
Even after Hirohito had put his foot down and decided to surrender, there were some rogue elements who wanted to assassinate him and keep fighting.
"Let's not jump to too many conclusions. If the actual men who fought can meet those who fought them and bury the hatchet as they do regular on these History Channel shows then we can at least not assume Clint is going to do a bad movie."
Amen. As I read some of these comments I thought about Band of Brothers, which I rewatched on History Channel this weekend. Some of those vets talked about how they didn't hate or had even become frineds with the Nazis they fought (including my wife's uncle, Shifty Powers). Do they deserve any less respect because they don't despise these people? Should those comments have been eliminated?
Of course not.
No, there were about the same number of Japanese war criminals executed as there were Germans executed at Nuremberg. I'll have to check my records, I have all the names somewhere, but it wasn't just Tojo.
I'm sorry that you have the distorted view of life that you have. I hope you do not find this offensive, it wasn't meant that way.
Of course, you can't be offended since you aren't reading this. LOL
I'd bet plenty that anyone who takes the time to read the profile and posting history of someone based on one small comment can't resist reading this post. But we will never know because you are now unable to respond, having boxed yourself in. :^}
I think some of the folks here need to get ... and they're available from many sources ... Frank Capra's WWII propaganda films, the "Know Your Enemy" and "Why We Fight" series. They are over the top in their depiction of the evilness of not just the Nazi leaders and the Japanese militarist leaders, but of the Germans and Japanese as individuals and of their societies in general. I wouldn't say they're good for a laugh ... I'm probably going to get flamed for this, since it's probably going to be construed as saying good things about Uncle Joe Stalin and the commies and everyone knows we should've let Patton finish the job and go to Moscow after the Germans surrendered, but the installment about the Russians in Capra's "Why We Fight" series is absolutely incredible in the way it shows what those folks went through (you talk about suffering in wartime, there's your suffering) and what kind of fighters they were and how they kept getting off the deck and finally kicked the Nazis a***s out of their country ... but I'll just say again that they're WAY over the top as history.
I'm not sure they were referred to as Nazis. They were referred to as enemy soldiers as I recall.
I have watched Shifty make those comments many times and I don't recall him referring to them except as the enemy. People doing a job.
Agreed. Mrs. jimfree and I finally watched our DVD of Das Boot (director's cut) on Sunday. We weren't rooting for the Third Reich but we really felt sympathy for overstressed, professional, and heroic U-Boat crew as they tried to succeed as part of a losing strategy.
I hate the suffering that our troops endured.[If that is the correct manner to express it but that was all I could think of at this time.]
But I do not care about how much the Japanese suffered.
As far as I am concerned, more of them should have been hanged for the way they treated our prisoners of war.
Can't wait for the sympathetic retelling of 09/11 to include the private lives of the poor terrorists who were just fighting for what they thought was right.
Yes, I am. We killed civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not soldiers. The oinly military target that I know of in either area was the 2nd Army HQ, and that was a paper organization. The target area for the Hiroshima bomb was a bridge in the center of the city proper, not a factory, not a depot, not a naval base.
No military target of signifigance + aim point in downtown Hiroshima = terrorism.
And to continue your thought, an invasion of mainland Japan was totally unneccessary given the blockade of Japan and the country would have either starved or surrendered within months.
They've lost my money as well. Today I record from cable. I buy as few professional DVDs as I can and burn my own. It's been over a year since I saw a movie in the theater, unless I'm forgetting one or two.
I see movies about 4 to 6 months after they've been in the theater. No big deal.
You and I are thinking along the same lines. Hollywierd has lost it! Totally!
The movies up for the Oscars this year are proof enough that I shouldn't be supporting that industry with my dollars.
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