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Monthly Archives: September 2007

The Pacific War, #13

Saturday, 29 September 2007 If this were a literature course and we were studying the old Freytag pyramid, I’d say this latest entry constitutes some significant rising action. We’ve had a little exposition and are moving steadily toward the climax (though I think we have a ways to go), falling action, and denouement of the […]

Don Burgett and The War

If you happened to catch Episode 4 of Ken Burns’ The War (this is the invasion episode), you may have noticed the paratrooper/smashed pumpkin simile, with no author attributed. It was referenced as “one man described it as…”. That one man is Don Burgett, member of the 101st Airborne (A-1st-506), and noted author of four […]

Al McIntosh, Rock County Star-Herald

So I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ epic The War on tape (I mean, who can do 2.5 hours per night?), and checking some of the history forums online to see what folks are thinking. Generally, the tone is positive, but one thing has come up a few times: “some” are annoyed at Burns’ focus on […]

Why We Fight

Viewers of Ken Burns’ The War no doubt noted the reference to Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series in Episode 1. The offerings on youtube are pretty scant, though there is one clip, likely from early in the series, where all the setup is taking place. Note the emphasis on different religions in uniting against […]

The Pacific War, #12

Dateline: September 22, 2007 More from Dale Dye on the product of the work taking place now… In some of the most spectacular and stirring sequences I have ever seen put on film, we landed on the Orange and White Beaches of Peleliu last week. Much of what I saw on those bitterly opposed landing […]

The War in the Washington Post

Two articles on Ken Burns’ The War appeared in today’s Washington Post. The first is a lengthy review here by Rich Atkinson and the other is a feature-length piece (by Paul Farhi) on one of the men in the documentary, Quentin Aanenson. Both articles aptly set the tone for those ready to wade into Burns’ […]

Ken Burns and The War, #4

You know, I realized that in my previous posts about Ken Burns’ new mini-series, I neglected to post the basics…So here it is, for those surfing in, straight from a PBS press release about the series. It’s getting close. THE WAR will air over two weeks, beginning Sunday, September 23, 2007 (four nights the first […]

The Pacific War, #11

Dale Dye’s update this week is pretty amazing. It sounds as if the production is right in the thick of it all, specifically the “Peleliu invasion which took place in September 1944, 53 years ago almost to the day,” Dye writes. There is more, about Eugene Sledge: Late last week, we loaded up PFC Eugene […]

Lawrence Beall-Smith

Scrolling through the archives of the Naval Historical Center, I revisited their collection of period artwork this evening. And it is, in a word, awesome. Many paintings of conflict are somberly painted, with good reason. But there are others, like this painting by Lawrence Beall-Smith, that show color in interesting ways. Having grown up watching […]

The Pacific War, #10

TexasNick over the PacificFans.com forum (now defunct) posted a real gem on this web site recently. They are set photos from the Pacific War series, the first I’ve seen outside of a recent news article. The photos are hosted via flickr under the name of Rens Spanjaard, and the text is dutch, at least according […]