No, not a tsunami, but the epic saga by Hugh Ambrose has been made into a mini series being shown on HBO. “The Pacific” starts Sunday March 14 and is getting quite a billing.
The book has been published and is being billed as a companion book. Hugh Ambrose will be in McLean the week the miniseries starts.
According to the History Channel:
….executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman-Hugh Ambrose reveals the intertwined odysseys of four U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy carrier pilot during World War II.
Between America’s retreat from China in late November 1941 and the moment General MacArthur’s airplane touched down on the Japanese mainland in August of 1945, five men connected by happenstance fought the key battles of the war against Japan. From the debacle in Bataan, to the miracle at Midway and the relentless vortex of Guadalcanal, their solemn oaths to their country later led one to the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot and the others to the coral strongholds of Peleliu, the black terraces of Iwo Jima and the killing fields of Okinawa, until at last the survivors enjoyed a triumphant, yet uneasy, return home.
In The Pacific, Hugh Ambrose focuses on the real-life stories of the five men who put their lives on the line for our country. To deepen the story revealed in the miniseries and go beyond it, the book dares to chart a great ocean of enmity known as The Pacific and the brave men who fought. Some considered war a profession, others enlisted as citizen soldiers. Each man served in a different part of the war, but their respective duties required every ounce of their courage and their strength to defeat an enemy who preferred suicide to surrender. The medals for valor which were pinned on three of them came at a shocking price-a price paid in full by all.
Just a glimpse:
Author Hugh Ambrose will be at Tyson’s Barnes and Noble on Wednesday, March 17 for an author event.
Hugh Ambrose
The Pacific
Tysons Corner Mall
Tysons Corner Center, 7851 L. Tysons Corner Center, McLean, VA 22102,
We’re very excited about this one. Something that will overfill the “Big Love” void that starts next week.
I am already going through withdrawal. There doesn’t seem to be a long Big Love season, does there?
My grandfather fought under MacCarthur and was in Japan for a portion of the war. He was also in France, Sicily and Africa. He says very little about the war (it gets him very emotional – he was a little over 20 when we went to war). I’m tempted to buy him the book, but I don’t know how well he’d take it.
Was he in Japan after the war was over? I think that is why many of our troops got a fairer look at the Japanese people. What did he do during the war?
You might want to ask him if he would be interested. I know my mother was all pleased and interested in the wWII memorial but didn’t want to go see it. (and she wasn’t in combat)
HH, you might want to go back and talk to your grandfather about his service during the war, maybe even write up what all he did. We don’t have long to do that. My mother wrote my father’s down as memoirs. After she died, that’s all we had.
Will the Pacific be as popular as Big Love? Will it become Big Love for men? Will it be the Pacific version of Band of Brothers?
He worked on tanks – he repaired them when they broke down. He’s told me several stories, all humorous. Like the time he and his buddy got separated from their unit and found an abandoned tank with MRE’s in it. They hadn’t eaten in days. He and his buddy mistook the MRE’s for Hershey bars and ate an entire bar (5 meals in one bar) and then drank a huge amount of water. They learned the hard way to read what it was they were about it eat 🙂
Another time, he and his same buddy were working on some tanks and got left behind. They were getting hungry and flagged down the first supply truck they found. All it has was orange marmalade in it. They were so hungry that they each ate a jar of it. To this day, he won’t eat it. We joke that we are going to bury him with a jar of it in his casket.
He also talks about when MacArthur came to visit their camp. One of the higher ups had set up a fancy dinner table (complete with linens and candlesticks) while the service men sat in the sand (they were on a beach in Africa at the time). MacArthur walked over to the table and kicked it into the sand.
Last time I went to visit (July), he showed me his scrapbook. Some pretty scary stuff in it. He has a little flag that was on a car of a N A Z I (since this word is banned I space it out) that his tank blew up. He also has an SS arm band (bloody) that they took off of a body from another jeep they blew up.
He was young, not married, just out of high school. He made a promise once in a fox hole that if he got out alive, he would go to church every Sunday until he dies. And he’s kept that promise.
He talks about how the Japanese would dig tunnels in the hills and mountains and shoot at the passing soldiers and infantry – apparently they didn’t much believe in the Geneva Convention. He won’t talk much about his time in Japan, because according to him, it was just plain bloody and violent.
He’s written some of his memories down. I’d love to videotape him talking about it. There aren’t many WWII vets left anymore. He did go to the memorial and like it.
I guess it’s like when my uncle goes to the Vietnam Wall – he cries everytime. The first time I went with him (he lives in NJ), I couldn’t have been more than 10 and didn’t understand it. From what my dad tells me, he went to boot camp towards the end of the war and was never deployed, but several of his friends were.
I’ll have to ask him about the book – maybe I’ll pick it up and proof read it for him. He’s getting to be a crotchy old southern in his old age 😉