Why is the ETO more popular in hearts and minds than the PTO?

I think that the ETO was much more in the news than the PTO due to it's scale, number of different countries (better known), larger scale of both of territory and armies. This is of course discounting the ocean and China which was largely unknown to most people, at least in the U S and minimal U S involvement in that area.

The Nazis due to their vast propaganda machine prior to the war, and initial successes became supermen (a pet peve of mine), and the fact that the war was heavily documented by the U S, Russia, England, and Germany. Being perceived as supermen, people tend to concentrate on them since 'we' beat them as opposed to the nobody Japanese.

The PTO was documented mostly by the U S as opposed to languages used in Japan and China which were known to a vastly smaller number of people in this country, while the ETO was in languages understood by many more poeple following the war, thus easier to study.

The ETO was percieved as going on constantly in places that were somewhat recognizable, while the PTO gives the appearance of a series of short but violent clashes frequently involving place names that were meaningless to almost everyone.

The battles in the pacific were pretty much decided before they started after the first year of the war as the Japanese stood virtually no chance of supporting the isolated groups of men in the field. The length of the battle and the number of casualties were the main unknowns.

The Germans were able to fight with interior lines and the issue was to a degree always in doubt, thus more attention/publicity.

 

Sterling Mace, I would also add the following five books to literature for the war in the Pacific;

"The Thin Red Line"
"Tales Of The South Pacific"
"Mister Roberts"
"The Caine Mutiny"
"Guadalcanal Diary"

 

Mr. Mace,
I'd also add "With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge. I went to your Facebook page and he was a fellow member of your unit K/3/5. Also Robert Leckie's, "Helmet for my Pillow".

 

With the Old Breed
Helmet for my Pillow
Islands of the Damned
Faithful Warriors
Into the Rising Sun

Those are the best 1st person accounts of the Pacific War I've read. Real men talking about what they saw. Not some boring book about a general who talks about where marines landed and the figures and logistics of the battle.

 

If you look in the aknowledgments in Sledge's book you will find a much younger man by the name of Sterling Mace who Sledge had consulted in writing his book.

I've lived a number of years since 1945 and I would never, ever disregard such a wonderful fount of literature - both fiction and non.

However, where is the rifleman's story? This is what I asked myself many, many times. I never wanted to write my book. It has been stressful and time consuming. Just like I never wanted to visit those nasty little islands in '44 and '45. But I did because I needed to; because of something much bigger than myself.

I didn't ask to carry the BAR against the Japanese. Yet because I did, I now realize that I was a part of a small fraternity of Marines who survived the very edge of the razor, instead of standing behind the blade.

 

1.)Do you subscribe to Gazette?
2.)"Strong Men Armed" is a decent general history of the Marines in WWII written by Leckie. If you really want to read a gripping book get Alexander's "Utmost Savagery".

 

As kids(note for my generation) we got our history from class, reading books on our own and TV. How many movies on PTO versus movies you are familiar with on ETO?
Blame Hollywood, The movie is the vehicle that gets the youth interested in reading more about the subject WWII, develops the interest in asking Grandfather about his WWII experience or the veteran at the Air show ect. For my experience it was watching Battle of the Bulge with Henry Fonda(a mediochre movie, but not for a kid) then I went out and bought as many Ballantines paperbacks as I could for a buck. Now I still enjoy history and listening to veterans, thank you for your service. Cheers from a fellow New Yorker.

 

I second that, both books are excellent.

Greg C.

 

Because the casualty rates were so high in the Pacific, most of the guys never made it. Casualty rates in the PTO were 7 men for ever 1000, and around 2 men for every 1000 in the ETO. Because the Pacific was far more brutal and savage than in Europe, you'll find less veterans willing to talk about it. For example, movies like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers was helped with a lot of veterans who shared their stories. Then looking at Flags of our Fathers: Clint Eastwood personally called up veterans of Iwo Jima, asking if they'd share their story, and they'd yell at him and hang up. A lot of combat veterans probably went homeless, drank themselves to death, or just didn't make it into their 80s. My grandfather went crazy every seven years, putting on his Marine blues and getting on a bus to get to his brother's house. After a week he calmed down and stayed sane. Almost all his friends from the war were dead. I had another relative, who was at the Bulge and Rhine, and he still has some friends from when he was there and he will talk to you about it if you really want to know. So I'm guessing cause there's more survivors from the ETO, you'll hear about that more.

 

I never thought of it that way. I know roughly a handful riflemen still living. Most of those were replacements on Okinawa, who came in much later. Only one who was in my squad that's still alive is Sgt. Jim McEnery. He's 90 now and in a wheelchair. We've known each other since Pavuvu.

Anyone familar with Jimmy?

 

A couple of factors:

American cultural and familial ties to Europe I think were the greatest contributing factor.

But as has been said, if you lived on the West Coast, your focus was on the PTO. The PTO started on the beach. Especially after a couple Japanese subs surfaced and lobbed a few shells in southern CA.

Also, a larger portion on asians lived on the west coast, Japanese and Chinese, who had family members involved one way or another.

 

I've heard of him, or rather read of him. Since you joined the forum, I have dusted off my Sony reader and began re-reading Bill Sloan's Brotherhood of Hero's, where the both of you are mentioned more times than I could count.

 

Unfortunatly, as great as Sloan's book is, there are many things that are simply not correct. One of my goals has been to set the record straight.

In defense of Sloan, he is a great writer, and I think the innacurate stories were a product of juggling the many stories of Marines into a cohesive narrative. So please don't think I am belittling Sloan or his great book.

The same with The Ultimate Battle, if you've read that? Both excellent books, however. And Sloan is a real standup gentleman.

sm

 

While I do own a copy of The Ultimate Battle, I must admit I have yet to read it.

 

left over 8" Coast Defense guns from WW1

The Marines' guns at Wake were of WWI vintage, but they were 5" 51 caliber which had originally been secondary armament on battleships. IMO one of the best weapons of their type. Ironically Wake was the only time they engaged their intended targets; the Japanese invasions forces included several WWI era destroyers, one of which was sunk by the 5-inchers.

The defenders of Midway five or six 5"/51s and four even older 7" guns which had been mounted on pre-dreadnought battleships, the last commissioned in 1908.

 

Not a memoir exactly, but Leon Uris based some of his book Battle Cry on his own experience in the PTO. Battle Cry: Amazon.ca: Leon Uris: Books

Like Camaro, as a kid in the 60s, the movies shown on television were mostly about the war in the Pacific - it's where most of the the John Wayne WWII movies were set. I think it changed, and if a war movie or documentary was made it focused on the ETO, because it was far removed from the war in SouthEast Asia - Vietnam. For many, the exposure to what popular culture depicts (movies, television, fiction) is what drives the interest to learn more fact about a subject.

For me, my interest was varied, as the daughter of a Canadian Veteran, my interest was where he had been, but because he (and my Mother) wanted to know about what had occurred in all theatres - I benefited from being exposed to their wanting to know.

 

Awesome book!!!!!

 

Agreed.

 

You may have seen my posts trying to trace my father's movements in the Pacific which has not been very successful. He is a "Skylighter" that trained at Fort Story and then went to the Pacific Theater. He got out of the army after the end of the war as a member of the 246th Coast Artillery. It was commented on this forum that the 246th never left their coastal assignments to go overseas. If you study about "Skylighters" that went to the European theater, there is a large website and lots of readily available information and nothing for the Pacific theater. I am glad that the "Skylighters" of the European theater got remembered but I hope I sometime learn a bit more about what details happened in the Pacific theater with those like my father. As to the length of campaigns in the Pacific vs. those in the ETO I doubt any one of those who suffered Bataan thought it was very short and I doubt that those who caught and suffered the jungle diseases yet had to heal up and move on though they were in short assignments. In all I am proud of the soldiers of either theater and how they both suffered to preserve the freedoms we now are blessed with. I am determined not to let us go backward in those freedoms. I am determined not to let either theater be forgotten.