WWII in HD

[93forestpearl]

I've been glued to it for days. Neither of my grandfathers (rest their souls) ever talked about it, except for one (in the VA with advanced Alzheimers) that told my sister about 20' tall piles of Japanese bodies in Burma.



The videos and stories really put my life into perspective. None of us would be here without them, and the sacrifice they made is unreal. Without the public's backing, it would have never happened. Propaganda can be good sometimes...

[Tone-us]

I know exactly what you mean.... I have them saved on my HD receiver and I've been watching them all... Pretty graphic stuff that everyone needs to see in order to fully understand what people went through.

[evolutionmovement]

I almost posted a topic about this, but I thought I was alone in my WWII obsession. Some truly unbelievable footage and the diary format, going back and forth between theaters lends a real human element to it. I might buy the collection and have my nephew watch them both to show him what his great grandfather went through and show that there is no glory in war.

My grandfather doesn't talk much about it either, though he has a little more lately. He was a cook/in charge of loading the 5 in. gun on the USS Shadwell LSD-15 involved in landings in Leyte as well as bolstering the Philippines. They got torpedoed by a plane and earned a battle star. He talks about the fear of the Japanese Kamikaze planes and subs and funny things about trying to get goat meat to taste like beef or his mail-room friend who shipped a huge Japanese spot light home piece by piece, complete with shutters for ship-to-ship communication. The Shadwell was one of the early ships in Tokyo Bay at the surrender and he got aboard either a heavy cruiser about the size of a battleship or a battleship which was being repaired at the time. Got samurai swords, a couple dolls, and saki cups from the captains cabin. He insists it was the Yamato (which was sunk and is to be resurrected as a spaceship that will save the human race from aliens—10 points for anyone who gets that reference), but it was actually a ship with a similar-sounding name, which I forget. At any rate, he told of how they had to sink ships and shoot people even though they were there for formal surrender and how horrible that was that people could be so manipulated by their government that they would die even after the government itself had surrendered, making sure they had a get-out-of-jail-free card in the process. He doesn't think they should have let the emperor go. I tend to agree, but history seems to paint him as a puppet as well. Then again, as figure head, that's the price you pay. At the very least for what they did to the Chinese, they should've been tried for war crimes as they were every bit as brutal as the Nazis, if less industrialized and organized in their execution (I've debated for years in my mind which is worse and have never come to a conclusion. I think that if I do, then some part of my soul will be lost).

Me, i've been obsessed with the aircraft and European theater as long as I can remember. Don't care about aircraft that came later (fuck jets!) and have little interest for what came before (except the racing planes many fighters were developed from). When I was a kid and the government and movies wanted me to hate the Russians, I went out pretending I was sniping Germans. Sometimes I'd lie in wait behind bushes for half an hour or more as if waiting for some to come by. Strangely, I had a friend who'd do the same thing. Got boring when we were hunting each other, so we had to make a rule that when we played soldier, we couldn't lie in ambush.

I saw a B-17 fly over my house a couple summers ago while on the phone with a friend and came damn close to crying before I could even think. I can't watch this stuff without tears in my eyes and yet couldn't think of changing the channel. I watch this and I feel it, but it's not like that for for me with any other war documentaries, then again, I can't think of too many wars with such urgency, importance, and scale. Everything after have been proxy wars between gaming superpowers or to test the newest toys the defense contractors have developed—all BS. But WWII was the real deal—the ultimate example of the "good war" for those who glorify such things, yet as the HD shows in clear detail, that even in the face of such clear-cut good vs. evil (as clear as it gets—sorry civilians!), there is no such thing as glory in war. There is only horror and destruction and the only people who think there is anything better are morons and sociopaths.

If there are past lives, there's no doubt to me that I was there (and probably ancient Rome for that matter). It's something that's constantly on my mind and maybe that's why, like Richard Dreyfuss' obsession with modeling the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the car I'm driven to build is going to look like a non-specific WWII fighter with the tail and wings chopped off.

[kimokalihi]

War is quite sickening. My brother was one of the first to be deployed after 9/11 and to this day he hasn't told me a thing about his experiences there. And I don't ask him about it. He told me once that maybe one day he would tell me about it. He told his father about it but not me. I'm more sensitive than his father so maybe he doesn't want to tell me about it because to be honest with you I'd probably cry if I had to imagine him killing people and all the horrifying things he must have endured.

I once read an article about soldiers coming home from the middle east and how they'll never be normal again and many commit suicide or live their lives in constant paranoia. It made me cry. I was afraid my brother would come back that way but he's strong and I think he hides his feelings about what happened over there well.

I can only imagine what it was like over in vietnam or to drop an atomic bomb on thousands of people and then see the aftermath of what you've done.

Then you have sick people who come back and tell you their stories of horrible things they've done over in Iraq and Afghanistan and it makes you want to shoot them in the face. There was a guy at my work last night boasting about being bored in his hummer on the 50cal. and decided to shoot the humps off the passing camels for fun. Or a few months back there was a guy telling me about how he was over there when it started and had an awesome time killing everyone and everything he saw. Women, children, dogs, whatever. He said his son went over there more recently and came back dissappointed because they wouldn't let him kill anything. I was thinking you should both be shot for being so sick and disturbed. The world doesn't need people like that. We'll all be better off without them.

Sorry to go off topic a bit on a rant but that really bothers me.

[evolutionmovement]

I worked with a Vietnam vet marine who said he enjoyed shooting people and throwing them out of helicopters (standard procedure interrogation), but when the Air Force napalmed a village of child orphans and he had to order his men to shoot them all since there was nothing anyone could do for them, even he said that was the worst thing anyone could imagine. Today, like most vets I've met, he's an extreme loner. Killing someone puts you outside normal society, permanently separating you from everyone else. It's a major theme in my books because I've always struggled with whether morality is always relative or is absolute and the justification for killing is a natural extension. I think I've concluded for myself that morality's a mix of both and it all ties in to the duality of my fascination/disgust with war. Perhaps under circumstances of self-defense it's not the case, but there are very few people who aren't sociopaths who seem able to kill someone without losing a certain piece of their humanity in the process. For all the action and justifiable killings in my books, my characters aren't Hollywood action heroes who make a wise-crack, laugh, and move on like nothing happened. I want to show the reality, the other side of paranoia, isolation, and feelings of inadequacy. In the end, it's a call against violence that begrudgingly acknowledges is occasional necessity and a salute to those who are willing to risk their lives and humanity to protect a mostly unappreciative society from the true sociopaths.

[fishbone79]

I've been getting those from a friend of mine off his tivo... No TV here.

They are not popular when you have a Japanese wife, so I have to watch them late night... giving them even more of an edge.

My grandfather wouldn't talk about the war much either... he'd always change the subject, or show us kids his tattoos (and scold us to make sure we never got one - said he'd come back from the grave and "give us noogies" if we did). A few years before he died, right after my grandmother passed, something snapped inside him and the war was _all_ he would talk about. Pretty gruesome and depressing.

[Legacy777]

I have caught a few minutes here or there, but would like to see the entire thing. I'll have to look at getting the series once it's released.

[Mattheww044]

damn, I will definately have to watch that. I like watching movies like that, not for entertainment, but more so for an awakening. To see what happened and try to understand what other people have to go through.

[Mattheww044]

It's kind of depressing how few people respect our soldiers, among anybody else but themselves. Im, not the most perfect, nice person, but I still have the common courtesy to say excuse me passing someone who just glares at you, holding the door for people who can't even say thank you, and saying hi/bye to the people who get payed to stand there and greet the customers at wal-mart... I seriously just don't know what this country is coming to, it seems like a good 1/3 people just doesn't care about anyone but themselves

[kimokalihi]

I think you're being generous in saying it's only 1/3 who don't care. 2/3 or more is more like it. At least from what I see on a daily basis.

[Mattheww044]

yea, I don't understand how it changed so quickly. I'm not saying that I go out of my way to do volunteer work or anything, but simple things like the few i mentioned before I thought were just common courtesy...

[Kelly]

Filling the DVR right now!

So much footage I've never seen.

[Kelly]

And BTW....

We need a home theater thread.

[93forestpearl]

Damn. I never thought I elicit a response like this.

I wish I didn't have class until 8:30. I'd rather not stay up until 1 to catch the second run of it.

[fishbone79]

I'll put it on my FTP when I get the file. Royalties are already paid by RU for educational purposes, so if you have a .edu email downloading is legal.

[mike-tracy]

Cool, didn't know that.

[Legacy777]

Thanks Morgan. I should be able to upload them to my TIVO and watch them on my TV

[fishbone79]

No Problem... It will be a couple days. Someone might need to remind me, been pretty busy at work lately.

[93forestpearl]

Don't care about aircraft that came later (fuck jets!) and have little interest for what came before (except the racing planes many fighters were developed from).

I look at the old prop fighters like I look at classic cars to modern cars. A classic car sure looks sexy, but a modern car would mop the floor with it in every respect. Just like how a P-51 would be no contest against a F-22, even if it was guns only.

The P-51 sure looks sexy though. I get to see them once in a while heading to Flying Cloud Airport to the classic plane show.

[evolutionmovement]

Of course the modern fighter would be superior—a Raptor could replace a few hundred WWII heavy bombers as well as their fighter escort, but I don't see how they can be compared—they're of such completely different eras. I think jets are loud, fuel sucking, polluting, prohibitively expensive, and soulless. Modern "combat" is controlled mainly by computers and can eliminate threats beyond visual range. There are a few jets, mostly old, that I find attractive from an aesthetic point of view (F86, F104, SR71, F22), but I find modern combat's detachment disturbing. Killing anyone shouldn't be made so easy, so computerized. That level of detachment and mechanization reminds me of the systems the Nazis put into place in the camps as, though the motivations are very different, the point is the same: to make killing more efficient with the least psychological effects to the killer as possible. And there's so little jeopardy—the vast air superiority of our modern fighters removes much of the fear and what are the possible enemies, if you can even find something that can be a legitimate aerial threat? They were fighting Nazis and just-as-brutal Japanese. Who do we have now? A bunch of monkeys in caves where aircraft are of very limited value (the most valuable of which is the least advanced—the A10). Fighter combat has been distilled to a video game with g-forces. Might as well all be remote controlled, which is where it's going anyway. Plus airframes can handle more stress than a pilot so performance could go up even further.

But mainly, and like nearly all modern cars, they just don't interest me beyond a superficial technological awe. Perhaps it is a past life thing, but the hair on my neck stands up hearing a Merlin cough to life or a Coffman starter fire and spin up. But I think I'd likly feel the same whether I may have lived then or not. Jets, like Harleys, I despise as an inelegant aural disturbances. The B17 flying only a few hundred feet over my house was quieter than a small corporate jet at several thousand feet and the power of the feelings that ran through me could barely be contained. With modern jets (or gay-ass "sports cars" that have no clutch pedals and outweigh many classic muscle cars), I shrug and walk by. When I see an old war bird, I can see the guys with balls of titanium in combat—a sky full of swirling aircraft dancing to the death or black clouds of flack. Seeing them on the ground starting or taxiing, I can feel fear, anticipation, excitement like that before a mission. When I see modern fighters, I picture Top Gun wannabes playing half-naked volleyball on the beach. No thanks.

We're talking war, yes, the romanticism of the old machinery is just that—I doubt many pilots of that day wouldn't prefer the safer route of the modern aircraft. As would most racecar drivers likely prefer the modern vehicle that can survive a crash instead of sliding around in explosive coffins. But I'm not race car driver nor a fighter pilot so I'll take the machines with soul, the ones that connect with the pilot, but to each their own. Some people love horses and I don't feel shit about them though the same arguments I made could easily apply even better to horse vs. car of any era. Like anything, I guess it just boils down to whatever you feel a connection to. I mean, shit, how many women have you met that you'd rather be with because of the chemistry instead of a more visually beautiful woman you feel nothing but a hard on for?

Jesus Christ, I need an editor for my posts!

[93forestpearl]

Steve, I will never, nor attempt to have your literary skills. I write in a technical sense, and you write to paint pictures that I can only work towards over many years time.


I respect the old game, where it was all by feel and guts. Just like old cars, with manual brakes, straight locking rear diffs, whet noodle chassis', manual steering, carburetors, etc.


But I also like technological advancement. You know enough of me by now to know that is my game. I happen to stick to an old chassis but its all the same. I look at a F-22 and am just intrigued. So much work to make it fly, its insane. So much effort behind the scenes it no wonder each example costs $130 million. Radar didn't even exist in 1941, and yet the new planes are barely found by it. It's like the R32 GT-R that was banned from almost all motorsports.


Don't get me wrong. I want some classics in my stable. I happen to like the '70-71 Chevy trucks. I also want to replace my '66 Impala that was my first car in all its rusty glory.


I just like to break new ground, and do things other people are not doing. Just as you are, but in a different realm.

[evolutionmovement]

That's why I said they interest me in a technical sense, but I'm more intrigued by soul than technology. It's like the value of antiques versus a modern reproduction. Even given the same build quality and materials, there's something to the antique that cannot be replicated.

I'm not a Luddite—I certainly wouldn't want to drive an Edwardian carriage around, or even anything prewar as a daily driver—I'm just more concerned with irrelevant numbers over the loss of feeling. I think, and now I'm not talking about fighter planes at this point, that technology should be weighed and implemented in a responsible manner. The new GTR's only criticism besides the looks and weight (which I think is a wash as almost every car has similar issues) is the lack of connection with driving. An Elise, with its advanced chassis technology, would be slower around a track, but I know which one I'd have more fun in and at the real-world speeds I'll see everyday. For the people that like ultimate tech for the sake of it (though I'd argue it's still held back due to conservative customer expectations in areas of aerodynamics and packaging at the least, but no car crosses those lines unless the Aptera actually gets to market or I build more than a prototype for myself.) I'd like a choice in my technology, but the only one I have is compromised by government regulations and customer culture forcing cars to be heavy, less fuel efficient, and boring to drive. A small hatchback based on a Miata chassis would be nearly my perfect car, but nobody makes such an animal. No decent wagons either—they're either SUV/crossovers, huge tanks, or 5-door hatchbacks. And my GLs were not great cars, but they more fun even as fwd than any rwd car I've driven that's been built in the last 20 years and at legal speeds (not that it stopped me from getting tickets).

I think a lot of the issue with inattention on the road isn't just that there are so many gadgets (and traffic, but that's outside the parameters of vehicle design until they have cars get together like moving trains and driven by computers), but that the vehicles are so boring and safe-feeling in the first place that they push their drivers into complacency. Put everyone in Triumph TR2s and see how much more attention people will pay. Of course, the fatality rate would still go up—the technology isn't all a waste, but there's got to be a better way to use it in balance. Much of it is the consumers' fault as well.

This started about fighter planes and ended up being about cars. On the jets, I agree we need to push technology as far as possible to stay ahead—anything else for a war machine would be stupid—but I'm lamenting that this cold technology has no ability to stir my soul. And for cars, I actually think we agree—it's not the technology that has me disgruntled with the current state of the automobile, it's the lack of using it for real change. Aside from advancements made to keep an old engine technology relevant and increases in safety, cars really haven't changed much in decades. I either want feeling or something truly radical—like a 70mpg vehicle with a better power-weight-ratio than an STI, handling that would leave it for dead, reasonably safe (getting rid of traditional doors helps structural strength a bunch) and solid reliability with extremely low running expenses. I guess it's not for everybody, so I'll (try) to build it myself and it will even have plenty of feel. Light weight is the gift that keeps on giving and if i get plastered by a semi, I'll be just as dead as I would in an SUV.

[dzx]

I"ve always been interested about WWII it seems like that generation was just tough as nails. My grandfather was shot four times storming the beach at iwo jima as a marine. He never talked much about the war though, mostly hunting and fishing.