Rare Peleliu Interview Footage to be Shown in Pacific
What made Band of Brothers so effective in putting the viewer right into the heart of the story was the use of short interview segments with war veterans right before Band aired on TV. The Pacific will follow this same powerful intro sequence to each of the 10 episodes starting in March 14, 2010. However, one of the main characters in the film, E.B. Sledge (whom penned his memoirs in his book With the Old Breed of which Pacific is partly based and played by actor Joseph Mazzello) passed away in March 2001, shortly before the airing of Band of Brothers–and way before Spielberg and HBO were able to get him on camera (Pacific was not even a script yet!).
Luckily, an independent film company in 1990 was able to capture his stories in an emotional and harrowing tale of Peleliu as told against a backdrop of archival film footage and photographs by E.B. Sledge and other members (such as Bill Leyden, R.V. Burgin, and Jay De L’eau, all characterized in Pacific) of Company K, Sledge’s Marine regiment that fought in the Pacific. HBO was able to license portions of the interview footage for use in Pacific. You can, however, purchase the original interview video containing segments from each of the five men intertwined with archival footage and photographs(Sledge is the most predominate) from Kenwood Productions, the independent film company that created the production!
Here is some more about the film from one of the producers, Jeff Hohman.
In 1990 Kenwood Productions, our independent film company, wanting to do a film describing the experience of the Marines fighting in the Pacific Theater, contacted Ben Frank, official Marine historian at the USMC Museum in Washington, D.C. and described the story we wanted to tell. We wanted a story of Marines in combat, tough combat, but combat not generally known by the public, not imaged by the movies, sufficiently unknown so that we could come to grips with the human experience of brutal battle. Frank’s response to our challenge was “Peleliu, the story you want to tell is the story of Peleliu.” Our response, “What was Peleliu?” Frank, himself a survivor of the Peleliu, said, “The toughest battle ever.”
As part of the format used in our American Hero Series (www.americanherofilm.com), we wanted to interview five Marines who served and fought together. On a piece of paper he slid across his desk towards us, Ben Frank had written out Eugene Sledge’s phone number. “Start with Gene. He’ll know who you want to talk to.” A few weeks later, Gene Sledge and four fellow Marines of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were on their way to Minneapolis for their interviews.
Recently, HBO licensed portions of our exclusive interview footage of Eugene Sledge to support their production of the The Pacific. And now, after years of being unavailable, the award-winning documentary film, Peleliu 1944: Horror in the Pacific, has been released in DVD.
Reviewers have said that Peleliu “should be required viewing by every veteran or enthusiast,” and that “just hearing Eugene Sledge tell his stories is priceless.”
Historian Paul Fussel wrote “One of the cassettes [of Peleliu] I’m donating to the Imperial War Museum here so that the British will have some idea of the costs of the Pacific war. The other I’ll treasure forever, and with thanks always to you [Kenwood Productions] and to Gene Sledge.”
Go to www.americanherofilm.com to see clips from the film and get more information on this and other World War II documentaries produced by Kenwood Productions.
Sample clip from the video: