Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rare color films of historic battles surface., November 7, 2000
One may ask why with the History Channel around anyone should buy a
video tape covering the American invasions of these two Pacific
islands? First off the price ... you can't lose much even if it is
not to your tastes. I feel uncomfortable rating a film that has real
people being blown to bits, I rate it at 5 Stars only because as an
historic record of these battles this tape is hard to beat. The film
starts out with the invasion of Tarawa on the Bieto Atoll. This is a
film made by the War Department and the USMC, I was suprised to see so
much color film. There is a good monotone narration (typical of War
Dept films of WW2) which is suprisingly honest and blunt about what is
about to happen. Troops are shown loading ammo as the Naval
bombardment hits the island. Next Navy aircraft plaster the tiny
island, as the landing craft and Amtracks head toward the beach enemy
guns can be seen flashing as they fire at the Americans. Music has
been added to many scenes, the USMC Hymn can be heard several times on
the tape. Incredible footage of "Jap" troops bursting into
the open as they flee their troched bunker, a Marine has his helmet
shot off his head on film, medics using new blood plasma techniques,
tanks(Lee's and Sherman's) blasting bunkers at point blank range,
"Nip" machine gun on pier and on scuttled ship in harbor
rips into Marines, suicide snipers in trees being blasted, bulldozers
crushing trenches and finaly the 1st prisoners being searched and
escorted to the waters edge. Alot of corpses are shown, American and
Japanese, enemy weapons are examined and then the flag is raised. The
part of the film that covers the invasion of Iwo Jima is much the
same, the opening scene of an American Battleship smashing through the
waves with "bone in teeth" is breath-taking. After a sitrep
on board we witness a bombardment and air attack before 500 landing
craft in 10 waves hit the shore. A destroyer closes to the waters edge
to pour 5" and 40MM fire point blank into the base of Mt
Suribachi, tanks get stuck in the black sand, flamethrowers are
squirted into every crack in the ground, artillery and rockets are
fired en mass non-stop just yards in front of the advancing Americans,
cave clearing with explosives, burning Japanese corpses, praying
Marines, stacked helmets of dead Marines, planes being to land on the
island and the narrator says how our B-29s will blast the Japs into
ashes...these are not cheery images and I am suprised the Corps agreed
to be so honest about the two battles shown here, if you are
interested in the WW2 Pacific Theater get this tape, it is as
informative as a good book, seriously it is. The film end with FDR's
famous speach.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
COURAGE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A VIRTUE., May 27, 2006
TO THE SHORES OF IWO JIMA
An Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary, this 20 minute Technicolor production unfolds with graphic energy the nearly month long battle for Iwo Jima, a volcanic island lying 700 miles southeast of Japan, in which 20000 Japanese and nearly 7000 American fighting men were killed, a struggle eternalized by Joe Rosenthal's photograph of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising a giant U.S. flag atop 550 foot high Mt. Suribachi, cinematically captured here in this well-edited (by Warner Bros.) effort. With all footage compiled by combat photographers from the U.S. Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard, we watch as the defending positions are softened by an extensive aerial and Naval bombardment, followed by ten waves of landing craft occupied by men selected from 110000 (and 880 ships!) who had to fight for every inch of black sandy soil, as only 200 Japanese surrendered, many being fused by flamethrowers, shown in dispiriting detail during the course of this work which was released only two months after the brutal engagement, and months before the atomic bombing attacks upon the Japanese mainland.
WITH THE MARINES AT TARAWA.
Japanese Not A Sitting Target As Death Visits Tarawa Atoll.
Winner of an Academy Award in 1945 for Best Documentary Short Subject, this brief (less than 20 minutes) piece provides highly dramatic footage of the 20/22 November 1943 assault by an American combined military force upon Japanese-held Tarawa Atoll, a Pentagon size islet that housed a strategically important air base for Japan, being located at the outer rim of its Pacific defense formation. Over a 76 hour period, nearly 10,000 lives were lost during fierce fighting that pitted the Second U.S. Marine Division against resolute opposition, visually recorded here as it occurred by 19 Division cinematographers under the supervision of Captain Louis Hayward, well-known film actor who, in addition to acquiring the Academy Award, earned a Bronze Star for his efforts. The film's initial scenes depict the approach, by U.S. Naval and Coast Guard convoy, of the Marines, supported by carrier aircraft, and we watch as sealed orders are physically transferred by steel cable between a transport to the command vessel, divulging the mission objective, following which troops prepare extra ammunition for loading, exercise to allay tension, and receive a briefing from their officers along with a blessing from the Division chaplain. The actual attack upon Tarawa is preceded by a four hour bombardment of the atoll from Naval artillery and aircraft that consumed more than four million pounds of explosives, for what was hoped would have a highly destructive effect upon an entrenched enemy. However, the defenders were not to be caught flat-footed, and before the gruelling battle was over, 1009 Marine and Naval personnel had died. It was one of the most savagely fought struggles within the Pacific Theater during the Second World War, and matters were made more difficult for the Americans due to drastic misreading of tide patterns by their leaders. This bungle becomes particularly meaningful after a viewer observes a religious service given by a Roman Catholic priest the night prior to opening of hostilities during which, as the camera eye pans over young Marine faces, the narrator states flatly: "Many of these men were killed the following morning." This concise but engrossing military documentary garnered an Academy Award for Warner Brothers, while its co-production unit, United States Office of War Information, would be able to take credit for sharply increasing the sale of war bonds to an aroused citizenry.
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7 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Tarawa and Iwo Jima, April 17, 2001
Most of this vidio is in a modified black and white, which has been made to look like old color. Most of the footage is old standard WWII footage, whith the exception of the naval bombardment portion off Iwo Jima which I personnally have never seen before and is quite good. The vidio quality looks like someting borrowed from a friend which is about 3rd generation dubbing, in other words the tape quality is very poor.
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DVD ~ John Huston
DVD ~ Louis Hayward
by Joseph H. Alexander
by John F. Wukovits
