Old news for most: The Pacific (HBO)

[Husker_Fan]

Unlike BoB that is based on the history of a company, The Pacific was based on the memoirs of two marines who didn't serve in the same unit and on the Marine Corps well documented history of John Basilone. The series bounces back and forth between the three so it can present several different island battles.

All three were heavy weapons guys, two machinegunners and a mortarman, so the carbine shows up a lot more than it would otherwise. Watching the series actually pushed me over the edge on buying a GI carbine earlier this year.

 

[JFrame]

Jframe, you are correct about the knee mortar, and our guys did occasionally get hurt screwing with them just the way you said. Re: the Japanese Machineguns, I saw a History channel story on them, and apparently some of their designs were really prone to jamming (I think they had one that fed like our old Gatling gun with a vertical box), so even though they had a higher cyclic rate (as did the German MG's), the Japanese guns were often interrupted by jams, and thus gave our guys a break right in the middle of battle often. My dad also related a story about one GI who was obsessed with a Jap machinegun that he captured, and dragged it along as they progressed for several days. At one point, they let him set it up for an ambush, and tricked the Japanese into continuing to come at him as he fired, believing that it was their own guys, and that they could get the firing to stop (without firing at the MG gunner). THEN our guys opened up on them in a big way. That particular battle was very bad for the Japanese, very good for our guys.

SharpsDressedMan -- thanks for confirming the story my dad told me about the knee mortars!

Interesting story about the GI with the Japanese machine gun. I sometimes wonder why such tactics weren't used more often by both sides -- but I guess, given the fog of war, it was a dangerous gambit because you couldn't ensure not drawing fire from your own side.


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[Hardware]

While The Pacific was pretty well done for a cable miniseries, Basilone's real MOH winning exploits were almost unbelievable. They got a serious trimming, almost a scalping. When you consider that only 2 marines remained in action with him at the end of the battle. He kept his machine gun up and running for 2 days (accounts vary). At times he fought hand to hand with the Japanese using a machete and a .45. His battalion area was the main course of advance for an entire Japanese division. He also ran back to get a resupply of ammunition to keep the guns in action. This was more harrowing than it appears because the Japanese had infiltrated through the marine's weakened lines.

This was one time that the marine's having to make do with older equipment paid off. They had M1917, water cooled .30 caliber machine guns. If they had the M1919 air cooled machine guns there would have been no way they could have maintained the rate of fire they did.