This past week on TV

Channel 11, our national public affiliate presented "World War II on HD". I kind of thought it would be edited from the Ken Burns series which I haven't seen. I don't think it was. I hope not. It was OK for the historical content, and the personal accounts were interesting, but how many charred bloated corpses does it take to convey the war is hell message?

I remember my mother telling me that people couldn't believe in 1943 and 1944, that ten thousand American casualties would be suffered in a couple of days on some little (a couple of square miles) atoll that no one had ever heard of before and would not here of again. Apparently several little islands were desired because they provided air strips to support the bombing campaign against Japan. I've also heard it said or read that some of these little fortresses could have been bypassed.

We all know that our enemies in World War II, specifically Japan and Germany engaged in cruelty that was worse than barbarism. Germany seems to have behaved most grotesquely against civilians in their own country and in countries they overran.
The Japanese were inhumanly savage and sadistic toward military prisoners as well as to subjugated civilians. Even though the Japanese suffered tragic consequences of their military madness, one feels they never were adequately humiliated for their their insane criminality, and that their national hubris emerged unscathed. After the war both of these countries were transformed in the diplomatic game into "bulwarks" against encroaching communism, and both played their hands skillfully. Germany suffered more from the occupation, especially by Stalin's minions, and also from the worldwide revulsion at the horrors of the concentration camps. Japanese crimes against humanity have never been appropriately addressed. Maybe someone should do a thoughtful series on the Cold War.

At any rate, after a couple of evenings of viewing I stopped watching, feeling physically ill and psychologically distressed from what I had seen.