I watched last evening's episode as well. Most likely the standard for the entire series will be as good. It certainly makes a sharp constrast to the more one-sided contemporary newsreels, which are effectively made use of in the Burns series. It was years before the families in the states had much appreciation of how tough this war was, and the mistakes that were made but were censored from public release. Some degree of censorship is understandable in any major war but it also makes sense to show our dead soldiers, our sinking ships, and our airplanes in flames to harden resolve at home; evidently there was some change in policy in 1944 to release more grim footage.

On the family level my father had a tough time in this war although he was much too old to volunteer or be drafted. His challenge? Well, his name was Adolph. My parents took care to name my brother and me more mundane names such as Bob and Charley!

Charley Noble