Guess we have seen the end of combat. I had a hard time hearing what Snafu said in several scenes. I thought the part at the end with the baby and dying woman was a bit too Hollywood. As I said before this is much more bloody than BOB. Not sure if that was on purpose or if they just decided the Pacific war was more brutal.
The part with the old lady at the end was in Sledge’s book, kinda … they did Hollywoodize it, though. In real life, Sledge did not hold her until she died - he went outside the hut looking for a corpsman. Meanwhile, another Marine went in and shot her, saying something to the effect of “She asked, I gave.” I can’t remember if the baby scene was in the book or not, though.
Overall, quite a harrowing episode, as expected from most of the reviews I read. Pretty solid.
I think this single episode did a better job of de-glorifying war than maybe any piece of film footage extant.
What did the dying woman drop? For a moment, we thought it was a grenade, but obviously not.
I think she dropped a kids toy.
Snafu’s taking that guy’s(Hamm?) rain poncho made Snafu responsible for the wet ammo. I think he knew it when he looked at Sledge after they got dry munitions.
It wasn’t Hamm, it was the other guy (Peck?). Snafu definitely knew what was going on - not long after the night shelling, they got sent to the front by Burgin because they were low on ammo. Snafu looked at the guy and said “Because of you, we’re gonna get our asses shot up!” in reference to his ruining the rounds by letting them get wet.
Interestingly, later in the episode when that same guy freaks out and draws Japanese fire (thus getting Hamm killed in the process), Snafu not only isn’t really mad at him but is almost sympathetic. I think at that point, he realized that constantly riding that guy was pushing him over the edge and Snafu, on some level, shared the responsibility for getting Hamm killed.