World War II: Payoff in the Pacific

World War II: Payoff in the Pacific

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DVD Reviews of World War II: Payoff in the Pacific

DVD Review: An impressive overview of America's war in the Pacific
Summary: 5 Stars

Indeed, Payoff in the Pacific begins with the sneak attack on the Pacific fleet and takes the viewer all the way through the Japanese surrender. Long before the D-Day invasion of Normandy, American soldiers were storming beaches all across the Pacific. In the days and months following December 7,1941, Japan all but established its supremacy in the region. It would take time for the U.S. to rebuild the Pacific fleet and get new recruits ready to fight, but even in 1942 U.S. soldiers were fighting the Japanese in places such as Papua and the Solomon Islands. This video basically takes you through the American advance toward Japan, island by island, featuring impressive and telling footage of the battles - you don't get a lot of detail about each battle, but the big picture comes through loud and clear. At first, the Americans basically tried to hold back the Japanese advance, losing many islands in the process. As the new army took shape, however, the tide slowly began to turn. Long and deadly fights such as the battle for Guadalcanal (which took six months) evolved into shorter and less deadly battles as the U.S. forces began to go on the offensive. By summer 1944, the Americans were ready to take back the Philippines, and it is here that Japanese defeat became all but inevitable. A vicious two-day naval battle in the Gulf of Leyte essentially broke the Japanese navy's back, and by early 1945 the army had taken Okinawa (albeit with heavy losses) to land itself on the proverbial doorstep of Japan. It was at that time that the Enola Gay made her way into the history books with the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. After Nagasaki fell prey to a second atomic bomb, the Japanese were compelled to surrender.

The video doesn't stop at the signing of surrender papers, however. It offers a significant glimpse at how quickly American troops went to work rebuilding the infrastructure of the nation they had just defeated. Not only did this pave the way for a new friendship between these two formerly antagonistic nations, it highlights the character of the men and women who made up the Greatest Generation of Americans. This video was released officially by the U.S. Army, but I don't consider it propagandistic - it may be one-sided in its approach, but this is an American film about an American victory.

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