Warning: contains spoilers forThe Pacific.

The locations and historical events of the European war are much more firmly ingrained in our minds.

John Basilone is truly a bona fide American hero.

The men are left with low ammunition, little clean water and meagre, maggot-filled rations.

Despite the enemy being barely visible, bullets relentlessly fly past soldiers heads and mortars are exploding constantly.

Its a visceral and frantic engagement and we as viewers are plunged straight into the middle it all.

The true extent of Basilones actions in this battle are perhaps even more extraordinary than the show suggests.

As this sideshow plays out, John begins to feel increasingly guilty for leaving his fellow Marines behind.

Most crucially it shows the terror and confusion that engulfed so many of those involved.

Its his courageous and unselfish actions however that make his subsequent death all the more powerful.

The second central character we follow is PFC Robert Leckie, played by James Badge Dale.

Leckie and his friends are first put into action on Cape Gloucester before moving on to Pavuvu.

As one veteran put it at the episodes outset, now our enemy is the jungle itself.

Leckie eventually suffers from nocturnal enuresis (bed wetting) brought about by the stress of war.

Leckie himself was forced to take time away from the front line to recover at a nearby hospital.

Its on Peleliu that we first follow Corporal Eugene Sledgehammer Sledge, played by Joseph Mazzello.

That would break my heart.

Sledge arrives with a baptism of fire during a brutal beach landing that in itself costs many lives.

Worse was to come however when the Marines are tasked with capturing an airfield held by the Japanese.

The tension in the moments building up to the charge across the airfield is palpable.

After this brief calm before the storm, all hell is then unleashed once the charge begins.

As the charge continues, the sound of screams fills the air and the bodies begin to pile up.

Its utter terror and the show plunges us right into the centre of it.

The airfield battle was shown to be just the start of the nightmare on Peleliu however.

Its well documented that the tenacious Japanese soldiers were conditioned to never surrender.

They fought to the death, seeing surrender as an unacceptable weakness.

As a result, the Marines were forced to fight to the last man for every inch of ground.

For thirty days and nights they were surrounded by death and constantly facing the threat of attack.

Sledge takes centre stage again in episode nine, when he arrives on the island of Okinawa.

Once more, the conditions the men faced are almost unimaginable.

Torrential rain had turned the island into an inhospitable mud bath.

By this stage, Sledge is a weary veteran, cynical and without any sympathy for the enemy.

His breaking point was long ago and he and Snafu struggle to tolerate their as-yet unbroken new recruits.

Hes already had difficulty finding a job and appeared increasingly out of place at social functions.

We see American soldiers keeping a Japanese solider alive, prolonging his suffering rather than killing him instantly.

As a whole, the series unquestionably suffers by comparison to its phenomenal predecessor.

The Pacificis powerful, insightful and unmissable watching.

In some small way,The Pacificstands as a fitting tribute to what they achieved.