I've been watching the Ken Burns series on World War II and it is horribly depressing. The most recent episode I finished focused much of its attention on the Italy campaign. For weeks and months on end Allied troops were hurled against the German defenses in the Gustav Line. When these attacks failed to produce anything other than horrific casualties Winston Churchill hatched the idea to land forces behind the German lines at Anzio. Catching the Germans completely off guard the American general in charge, rather than taking the initiative, decided to build up his supplies for 9 days. In the meantime the Germans rushed 8 divisions to the area, taking the high ground, and the entire affair became a complete fiasco.
When the Allied forces finally broke out months later, coordinating their offensive with a similar push from the forces still battling on the Gustav Line, they failed to encircle the retreating German forces as the plan of attack called for and instead headed for Rome under the orders of Gen. Mark Clark, who wanted the glory of capturing the Axis capital. Of course, he really didn't really attain even that, as 2 days after the seizure of Rome the headlines were devoted to much bigger news, the invasion of Normandy.
What a disaster. Thousands dead in futile attacks against fortified mountain emplacements. Thousands more dead at Anzio. Countless more soon to be killed because of the failure to encircle the retreating Germans and letting them live to fight another day.
And this was one battle in one campaign. Think of how World War II would be covered if today's journalism standards that we see in Iraq were applied.
When the Allied forces finally broke out months later, coordinating their offensive with a similar push from the forces still battling on the Gustav Line, they failed to encircle the retreating German forces as the plan of attack called for and instead headed for Rome under the orders of Gen. Mark Clark, who wanted the glory of capturing the Axis capital. Of course, he really didn't really attain even that, as 2 days after the seizure of Rome the headlines were devoted to much bigger news, the invasion of Normandy.
What a disaster. Thousands dead in futile attacks against fortified mountain emplacements. Thousands more dead at Anzio. Countless more soon to be killed because of the failure to encircle the retreating Germans and letting them live to fight another day.
And this was one battle in one campaign. Think of how World War II would be covered if today's journalism standards that we see in Iraq were applied.
3 comments:
Dubya should shutdown CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and NBC and show all Iraq War coverage on newsreels as previews before Friday night movies.
A fair point, there was a huge amount of censorship during WWII (the first pictures of dead US soldiers didn't appear until 1943 I believe), and censorship in Iraq is not the answer.
It is clear that in WWII we could have used more openness so that greater accountability could occur.
But at the same time, one almost has to wonder if the public would have had the stomach for the fight if war was covered in in the fasion it is today with the emphasis on bad news. I don't pretend to have any answers here, or even much of an argument, rather it is more food for thought.
it's definitely an interesting thought. i saw the documentary too, and while i consider myself very well-educated on WWII, i was taken aback at some of the footage that Burns showed, especially the stuff on places like Peleliu or Iwo Jima, where the fighting was absolutely brutal, yard by yard and hand to hand. i tried to see it from the perspective of someone alive in 1944, and i couldn't imagine what it was like trying to absorb it.
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