Column: Baby boomers were reared on a narrative of goodness and rightness

As a youngster, I watched the popular World War II television series “Victory at Sea.”

It was, in my estimation, the finest WWII documentary series on TV.

I almost always watched it with my dad. It was one of those things we did together. I’d lie on the floor in front of the TV set, and Dad would be in his easy chair with a book open on his lap.

During each airing I’d pepper Dad with questions. Twenty-six episodes were created for the show’s only season — 1952-53. It aired Sunday afternoons. Thankfully, the episodes were rebroadcast for decades.

Dad and I viewed the show from the early 1950s through the late ’50s and into the early ’60s. Each episode began with a white V sweeping toward the viewer from a rolling, moonlit sea and, finally, the narrator’s authoritative, “And now … “

The images were compelling: explosions of black smoke billowing off a stricken aircraft carrier’s deck; a German wolf pack hunting down vulnerable Allied supply ships in a North Atlantic convoy; and the sacred and bloated bodies of young Marines floating in bloodstained waters off a Pacific island.

Those images became the substance of highly detailed neighborhood war games that we Eastside Costa Mesa kids regularly conducted in weed infested lots and fields. Until we reached a certain age, we played war more than baseball.

We carried M1 wooden rifles crafted by our own hands in the Harbor Area Boys Club woodshop.

Our scenarios replicated images we’d committed to memory from “Victory at Sea.”

That imagery was seared into our souls: Marines storming South Pacific beaches; wounded Hellcats landing atop heaving American carrier decks; and Allied troops landing on Omaha Beach.

As we watched, Dad and I could scarcely have been more spellbound … or felt any closer to one another. Those moments helped shape our relationship.

Broadway composer Richard Rodgers wrote the musical score for “Victory at Sea,” and it was a masterpiece. Often, several minutes would elapse without the narrator’s voice being heard at all, just visuals and Rodgers’ magnificent score. It was guaranteed to send chills down your spine, lifting you into a patriotic fervor. You felt as though you were being carried to Valhalla on the shoulders of the greatest of heroes — American GIs.

Cigarettes dangling from their slack lips and dirt-encrusted and grimy faces spoke volumes.

It seemed almost as though the soldiers and Marines landing on the beaches could hear Rodgers’ soaring symphony resounding as they bounded ashore above the sounds of exploding mortars and niggling machine gun fire.

Individual musical movements included: “The Song of the High Seas,” “Guadalcanal March,” “Theme of the Fast Carriers” and the ethereally enchanting tango, “Beneath the Southern Cross” (later turned by Rodgers and Hammerstein into the Broadway hit “No Other Love”).

And, I remember brilliant phrasing in which flutes mimicked Morse code, a lone trumpet rendered haunting echoes of death and destruction, and woodwinds captured a roiling sea.

Then, there was the splendor of the “Main Theme,” played at the outset of each episode by the NBC Symphony.

At last came the sonorous voice of narrator Leonard Graves. Resonant and minimalist, Graves’ authoritative utterances seemed to emanate from a distant galaxy.

Now and again he would lift his inflections for dramatic effect.

Hollywood writers laced the “Victory at Sea” script with drama.

Consider this jingoistic snippet: “The Japanese pilots — most of them young and inexperienced — are marked for death before they start. The Americans are waiting. The Americans are armed. The Americans are prepared.”

It doesn’t get more goose-pimply than that.

Of Japanese Imperial Marines the script reads: “No troops are better fitted than these to master the jungle. Fearless, these men have been schooled in stealth and infiltration. They’re experts in ambush and concealment.”

Dad and I were transfixed. No word need be uttered between us. Together, we experienced America’s finest hour.

Millions of us baby boomers were reared on a narrative of goodness and rightness that was “Victory at Sea.”

We were proud citizens of a heroic land.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.