Burial at Sea (1945)

bjburnout

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 4
This is a very touching video, actually a piece of film that has been made into a video.


In the opening shot you'll see the gunner's position is all shot to hell while the pilot's cockpit ahead of it is undamaged.

Later on notice the corpsman taking a fingerprint of the deceased gunner, before the film continues, then showing the chaplain saying the final prayers, followed by taps, then the sailors push the aircraft over the side and watch it sink into the sea.

 

Carmine

Well Known Member
Supporting Member 10
Saddens me terribly to watch this, but I'm glad I did. Makes me appreciate even more of what I enjoy, thanks to those who made the supreme sacrifice. I pray their soul gets to where it should be going. Thank you to all veterans, deceased and alive. May the good Lord bless each and every one of them, Carmine.
 

chuckl

Well Known Member
Since Europe, at first, had priority in WW II, most of the news coverage concentrated on that front. News from the Pacific was scant and often not covered at all. The military news journalists/photographers recorded their coverage and stored them in lockers, sometimes long forgotten. Only after the war did the full coverage start to become available. The full impact is staggering. The number killed was around 440,000. The real story and photographic coverage by Marine, Navy and Army photographers was deemed too graphic to show the folks back home. They may get too upset.

Even today, it is hard to watch the military's original, uncut, coverage of the U.S. Army's landing at Normandy. I had one Army uncle who survived the landing. He absolutely refused to watch ANY coverage of the landing. My other Army uncle had his front teeth shot out by a sniper in the battle of Hertsgen Forest. Needless to say, you did not want to f##k with those guys. I would love to watch them up against any number of MS-13 gang members.

The public had little knowledge of the extent of the carnage suffered by the military in the Pacific. For example, during the battle of Guadalcanal, the U.S. Navy lost more Sailors than the Marines and Army combined!! Few can little understand the loss and panic of the thousands of sailors as the ships are exploding and sinking as the sailors are drowning in crude oil and burned alive. Most of the sailors who escaped the ships died of exposure in the sea. The U.S. ships could not stop and pick them up. Japanese sailors/soldiers suffered many times over. We forget they had families also.

General Holland "Howling Mad" Smith, USMC, known as "The Patton of the Pacific." He worked aside Admiral Halsey and Admiral Fletcher on the various amphib landings. All people heard of was McArther's return to the Philippines.

The shoreline water, in the battle of Tarawa, was literally red from all the blood. Most of it came from 19 + - year olds. My Marine uncle turned 19 years old in the landing craft headed for the beaches at Iwo Jima. He had already landed at Saipan and Tinian. He was so "dehumanized" that his unit had to be isolated in readjustment camps before returning home. He described himself as a "wild animal."

We owe them more than we can ever pay. I wish the younger generation(s) could understand how much they gave for them to have the life they have now. :bow:bow They have no idea what WW II was. One instructor thought WW II was World War eleven!!!!!

Chuck
 
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