Anyone who watched the mini-series BAND OF BROTHERS, will be glad to hear that Spielberg and Tom Hanks are producing another ten part mini-series called THE PACIFIC. I loved the band of brothers series, but what I was surprised about was my wife really liked it also. She said she obtained insight about what they went through, so she and I will be looking forward to the new series. It begins shooting film in August this year, when it will be availible is anybodies guess.

One of the books they will be using as source material will be the book WITH THE OLD BREED by Eugene B. Sledge, a marine from that war. A fighter nicknamed Sledgehammer, who became after the war a 'mild mannered' college professor of many things including the study of birds. Sledgehammer died in 2002, but was interviewed years ago by Studs Terkel for his book THE GOOD WAR. How about these names, Studs and Sledgehammer.



THE AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH EUGENE B. SLEDGE 'SLEDGEHAMMER'

http://dlv1.matrix.msu.edu:8080/ramgen/terkel/a0/a0/terkel-a0a0i8-b.rm



THE AUDIO INTERVIEWS WITH VARIOUS INTERVIEWEES FROM 'THE GOOD WAR'

http://www.studsterkel.org/gwar.php

A review of Studs Terkels book, THE GOOD WAR.

Jan 21, 1999 Dorothy Spangler recommends:The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two by Studs TerkelPulitzer Prize-winning book "The Good War" does an excellent job of giving you a very broad view of the war from a human-interest standpoint. Terkel interviews more than 100 people, many of them non-Americans, who experienced the war in very different capacities -- there's the Marine infantryman, Eugene Sledge; Maxene Andrews of the Andrews Sisters; a conscientious objector; a scientist who worked on the bomb; an advisor to FDR; a Japanese man who was a teenager during the war; a Red Army war correspondent, etc. ... Terkel basically lets these people tell their own stories, only occasionally inserting a question here and there. If you are a writer plumbing for story ideas & prospective characters, this book is a great source; it contains a huge array of people, each part succinctly told.