Ambrose H.

Pacific Front / Translated from English by A. Bushuev and T. Bushueva.

Moscow: Veche Publ., 2011, 512 p. 4000 copies. (p) ISBN 978 - 5 - 9533 - 5481 - 3

Hugh Ambrose's book "Pacific Front" was originally a script for the series, which was produced in 2010 by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. The series of the same producers "Brothers in Arms" - about the Allied landings in Normandy-was shown on a TV channel close to the Russian Ministry of Defense. "Pacific Front" is the "official cover book" for the series of the same name. In both cases, the basis was the memories of several veterans, their fates intersecting in the theater of military operations. This makes the book more human, and it also contains a lot of information that is not widely used in our historiography.

Eugene Sledge, the son of a doctor from the city of Mobile on the Gulf of Mexico in the very south of glorious Alabama, both of whose great-grandfathers fought in the Civil War, as a teenager together with his friend Sid explored the battlefields of the ruins of forts in the vicinity of Mobile. "Almost no one has ever been here. So my friends could do whatever they wanted here. They liked to dig up old fortifications, looking for old things like cannonballs or Confederate belt buckles... Both boys had read a lot about the North-South War and its major battles. The Confederate Army held Fort Blakely after the Yankees blockaded the port of Mobile and captured the Spanish Fort. On the day General Grant signed the Act of surrender at Appomattox, some twenty thousand men were fighting the last pitched battle of the Civil War at Fort Blakely... Sid and Eugene loved to track the movements of the Southern army, looking for places where their redoubts were located... " Sid enlisted in the Marines immediately after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Eugene was found to have a heart murmur, but he tricked his way into an officer training course, where, after deceiving his parents,he transferred to the front as a private.

Captain Schofner, who had escaped from Japanese captivity, became the commander of the Philippine guerrillas, who formed regiments and divisions under the command of American officers. The partisans were engaged in preventing the Japanese from entering the areas they controlled, leaving, however, strategic points for the enemy, but making regular attacks on them in order to bind the Japanese with defense. This paid off: in the formally occupied Philippines, the Japanese were forced to remain in their fortified garrisons. The partisans also carried out police functions in the territory of the islands that lived their life. American submarines supplied them with everything they needed, but the partisans also had their own fleet. It is very interesting to read about this conditional war. "Both ordinary Filipinos and rich planters welcomed the US military, providing them with shelter, necessary information and mountains of treats... Staff and divisional officers like Austin Schofner were more likely to be busy registering marriages, presiding over trials, or sending criminals to prison."

When we lament the fact that our older students, caught by a question about the events of the Great Patriotic War, in response, hiding their embarrassment from the deaf ignorance of their own history, only forced to laugh merrily, we forget that along with the Soviet mass culture, they also discarded its technology of historical education. Both "Brothers in Arms" and "Pacific Front" are series and reading category "A", there are no such programs in Russia. You can, however, recall the films "In August 44" and "On an Unnamed Height" that are approaching a decent level, as well as the works of director Mikhalkov - no matter how anyone treats the person of the respected Nikita Sergeyevich, who is groping his way in the right direction in this regard.

Americans do not hesitate to use the propaganda effect of mass culture - moreover, on the inserts in the book "Pacific Front" you can see a monument to the hero of the Second World War, John Basilone, made in exactly the same totalitarian style as monuments, for example, Mamaev Kurgan, with the same body spread, as if one sculptor had sculpted it - and this one the effect pays off.

The styles of translators are strikingly different. So the nickname of Private first Class Meryl "Muddy" Shelton is given a detailed explanation in the text.: "In military slang, SNAFU stands for Situation Normal All Fuked Up, which in a very "decent" version means: "It's okay, I'm falling." The word itself, depending on the situation, is translated as "mess"," mess"," crook","mess". After extensive consultations, it was decided to call it "Muddy". But there are other examples: "Equally spooky stories about the night landing occurred everywhere..."(we are talking about landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier). "Smart commanders quickly figured out what to do...", "The aircraft carrier Hornet was alerted...", and there are no numbers of these signs of lack of editing.

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