Need A Good WW 2 Series

[Leprkon]

Can anyone recommend a good WW 2 series ? I'm interested particularly in the sea battle of the Pacific..

Have tried the Victory at Sea and the Madacy Group's WW 2 A Complete History. They only spend about two minutes on each battle...

The movie "Midway", while going to great lengths to explain why the Japanese made a number of strategic decisions, did not really seem to so for the same for the American side. They stressed the Japanese carriers having their decks loaded with bombs, but did nothing to explain that the Japanese fighters were all chasing the torpedo bombers (who had arrive a couple minutes too early) at deck level. This left the skies over the carriers unprotected against the Helldivers... It never really discussed if Spruance should have gone after the remaining Japanese ships (something he has apparently often been ripped for in books on the subject and again for his waiting to engage the enemy in the first hours of the Phillipine Sea).

Strangely enough, the best I have found on American strategy is in the old Herman Wouck novel, "War and Remembrance"

Something along the lines of PBS's presentation on Bismarck and Hood would be really great if anyone knows of something like that.

I have a number of questions that even alot of the internet pages don't seem to (or seem to want to) answer...

At Midway, would the US have won if Halsey had run the show ? Did Spruance's caution actually result in victory ?

In the other battles, did the four submarines (Darter and Dace at Leyte, Albacore and Cavalla at Phillipine) disrupt Japanese fleet operations and report critical information to the point where the battle would have been lost without them ? Why did Kurita run from the jeep carriers of Sprague's Taffy 2 ? If the Kurita had destroyed the landing force, would Halsey's "victory" over the Japanese carriers made any difference ? Did Halsey wrecklessly risk six fast battleships (four New Jersey class) when he had already seen the Yamato and Musashi destroyed by his own carriers ?

Was the South Dakota really much less effective than the Washington at Guadalcanal ? Did it simply take more damage because the Japanese were able to spotlight her, and use their range-finder-based long guns while the Washington, unlit, was a target that could not be ranged in ?

If anyone has any recommendations, thanks for the help !!

Any battleship fans might want to look at these pages... interesting reading.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm#heavyweight

http://www.battleship.org/index.htm

 

[The Chukker]

Movie wise, as you know you are out of luck -- the European theater is just sexier for Hollywood. Band of Brothers though (I surmise from your post you probably own it) is fantastic. The one movie that deals with Guadalcanal in particular is the "The Thin Red Line" with a bunch a top actors (Penn, Nolte, Caviesel, etc.) but it really wasn't my tastes...although I did enjoy the movie. I like a "documentary" approach to the source material, like Saving Private Ryan as opposed to the more "philosophical" approach like TTRL. Anyhoo, I have always shied away from those boxed 4 DVD sets you see at Fred Meyer going for $14.99 that claim they have "new" or "unreleased" footage of battle from WW2; 99 times out of 100 the footage is just rehashed or colorized. The History channel is your best bet for new information/footage about the war in the Pacific and in particular their new series "Shootout" has an episode that covers a forgotten grisly battle on the north shore of Guadalcanal that had me riveted to the tv screen. They also have a new show covering the Battle of Leyte Gulf as well but I can't remember the name of it. Lastly, if you have the Military Channel in your area it is constantly surprising me with new archival material that leaks out about once a week, as well as some fascinating stuff dealing with the current conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Cheers.

 

[Nomo]

The Discovery Wings series occationally has some good bits on the carrier planes and battles. Nothing to the depth you're looking for though.

Interesting websites. As a kid I had lots of models of WW2 carriers and battleships. Of course the Wisconsin was always my favorite.

 

[furrycute]

I really liked Band of Brothers, Das Boot, and Stalingrad.

The World at War is a definitive documentary of the WWII sometime in the 80's (not sure). A&E Just put out a new boxset consisting of 11 dual layered DVDs, quite a nice collection. But the picture quality is not that impressive, since the documentaries consist mostly of old war time footages.

The European film industries made a lot more in depth WWII themed movies than Hollywood. But it's been too long since I last saw them, can't even remember their names.