WALPOLE, N.H. (AP) - Ken Burns thought he was done with war movies after his series “The Civil War.” But he says two troubling statistics fuelled the creation of “The War,” a 14-hour documentary about the Second World War.
“It was really a couple of statistics that got me,” Burns said. “One was that we’re losing a thousand (Second World War) veterans a day, and the other is that our children just don’t know what’s going on.”
Burns said he was astonished at the number of high school graduates who believe the United States fought with the Germans in the Second World War.
“That to me was terrifying, just stupefying,” said Burns, who will show the first two-hour instalment of “The War” to Dartmouth College on Dec. 1.
The series follows four American towns - Waterbury, Conn., Mobile, Ala., Sacramento, Calif., and Luverne, Minn. - through the war years, focusing both on the soldiers from the towns sent to war and the families and friends left behind. “The point of view is from ordinary people, who do the fighting and who do the dying in all wars,” Burns said.



