Velociworld

WAR, AMERICAN STYLE

I was watching an episode of the History Channel's The Color of War today. That's the archival color film footage from WWII. I love this stuff because I grew up on a diet of B&W footage, and the color film makes the GI's seem almost, well, modern, even my old man.

This episode was on US subs in the Pacific. At one point a sub sinks a Japanese troop transport, and 7,000 Japanese troops abandon ship in life rafts. The sub captain ordered the sub alongside, set up 50 cals and bosuns with Tommy guns, and slaughtered all 7,000. Think about how long that must have taken, with the Japs bailing over the side and trying to escape. It had to have been hours.

Near the end a Jap floated up to the side, obviously playing possum. A couple of sailors asked the captain if they could rescue him. "Shoot that God-damned bastard!" was the reply. THAT is warm work, people. You couldn't rescue them, and they were way too close to Japanese held islands to give them the Bligh treatment. Intense footage.

The captain wrote his report straight up and submitted it. He never heard a word from his CO all the way up to Nimitz. War sucks like that, and I hope some of these effete elitist media types watched that episode, although they were probably sipping merlot and caulking the tile to Blossom reruns today.

And the next time I'm thinking I'm a hard core badass I'm going to think about what that sub skipper had to do, and salute him.