My take ...

I haven't seen episode 2 yet, but let me say this ...

Jambo made a fair defense. I get everything he's saying. There was certainly mild to extreme racism wrapped into our fight with the Japanese, and as Jambo points out, even with that racism it still puts our humanity on a peg 1000 times above that of the Imperial Japanese Army. The Baton death march, etc (a good film while I'm thinking about it is "The Great Raid" - I even bought a WWII official replica "Marine Hack Watch" which were released in limited number subsequent to that movie).

My beef wasn't that there wasn't racism, and "how dare they" portray such a thing. It's accurate to portray that CO barking out orders with racial slurs, the pot shots (literal rounds) taken at the 1 surviving, cornered Japanese soldier. That's all accurate, I get that. My beef was why does Hanks et al start us off, in episode 1, with that? By the time we get to any maltreatment of the captured/unarmed enemy in Band of Brothers we already feel as if we know these guys, know there good intent, know their valor. In other words there is context afforded these men. Jambo pointed out the attack on Pearl Harbor shown at the onset of the episode is context incarnate, but what I mean is context for the individual men being portrayed. There isn't a lot of time spent on showing them for the decent, hard training, tough individuals they were, nor had we as the viewer seen any battle scenes prior to the racist overtones. Had they contextualized in that way, in my estimation, it would have made for a more appropriate, more accurate transition into portraying the racism demonstrated towards the Japanese (and I say more "accurate" because I think it only reasonable to assume that racial slurs are more likely to increase after you're shot at). But hey, I'm Ryan and Tom Hanks & Spielberg are, well ... Tom Hanks and Spielberg, so take my film critique for what its worth ...

I'm going on to episode 2.