- 5 years ago
Not Rated | 52min | Documentary, History, War | 1944
Crusade in the Pacific is a video series that documents the fighting between the United States and Imperial Japan during and immediately after World War II.
Stars: Henry H. Arnold, Alan Brooke, Kai-Shek Chiang
Crusade in the Pacific is a video series that documents the fighting between the United States and Imperial Japan during and immediately after World War II.
Stars: Henry H. Arnold, Alan Brooke, Kai-Shek Chiang
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
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00:48In the travel folders, it was said,
00:51the Pacific is an ocean of magnificent distances.
00:56The largest ocean in the world,
00:5834 times bigger than the continent of Europe.
01:02It covers 70 million square miles,
01:05roughly one-third of the Earth's surface.
01:08In 1941, the fastest luxury liner took five days
01:16to make its landfall at Honolulu,
01:18first port of call on the voyage to Yokohama,
01:22over 3,000 miles and nine days further away.
01:26Of course, if you were in a great hurry,
01:33like Japan's special envoy, Subaru Kurosu, in December 1941,
01:39you could make the trip by air
01:41in two days, 13 hours, and 15 minutes.
01:46The Pacific is an ocean of many moods.
01:53To the north, the Aleutian winds are icy and unpredictable.
01:58Here, as I said, weather is born.
02:01To the south, in equatorial heat,
02:04the sunsets are of unparalleled beauty.
02:08Here, rising from the blue shark-infested waters,
02:12lie jungles, dense and malarial.
02:15Volcanoes, like Krakatoa,
02:18which once exploded with a violence that shook the world.
02:22It is an ocean of islands with names once strange to Western ears.
02:30Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima.
02:35Names now almost as familiar as Skettysburg, Trafalgar, Verdun.
02:41Islands inhabited by little-known peoples,
02:44Polynesians, Melanesians, and Micronesians.
02:49We had caught glimpses of them in the movies,
02:52dancing their hip dances, chanting their island songs.
02:56At one time, some had been cannibals,
02:59but now most were good-natured and friendly,
03:02living in what writers like Herman Melville and Jack London
03:06had described as an approximation of paradise.
03:10Since 6.55 a.m. Honolulu time, Sunday, December 7, 1941,
03:17this paradise has been a battlefield.
03:22The Pacific Ocean is the biggest, the strangest,
03:27the most complex battlefield in history.
03:35To understand what distance in the Pacific really means,
03:40touch the point of a pencil on the horizon.
03:45To understand what distance in the Pacific really means,
03:49touch the point of a pencil to the map.
03:53Under this tiny point may be arrayed all the ships
03:57of the United States Navy in battle formation.
04:01Yet these ships must be so disposed and so employed
04:06as to exert an influence and control over the whole Pacific area.
04:12Land war is familiar to the people of Europe and Asia,
04:16a massive war of tanks locked in battle,
04:19of men deploying, maneuvering along highways, canals,
04:24railroads, in city streets, in buildings of brick and stone.
04:29But it is different in the Pacific,
04:31where there are no highways, no railroads,
04:35only the limitless lanes of the sea.
04:42Along these lanes, stretching thousands of miles
04:46to bases on fighting fronts in every corner of the Pacific,
04:50the war must be carried to the enemy by ship,
04:54by what has been and will continue to be
04:57the greatest concentration of shipping in history.
05:01There is a special kind of ship for every mission.
05:05This is the battleship, known to the men of the fleet
05:10as the battle wagon,
05:12a floating fortress belted with armor plate,
05:1515-inch guns, 50 feet long,
05:18which can hurl their projectiles into a bullseye 20 miles away.
05:23Light and heavy cruisers, scouts and watchdogs,
05:27fast and elusive, able to hold their own in the heaviest actions.
05:33The destroyer, the tin can,
05:36a fragile steel shell crammed with horsepower,
05:39moving at express train speed to protect slower vessels
05:43with guns, torpedoes, and depth charges.
05:54The submarine, the lone prowler,
05:57operating for as much as 60 days in enemy waters,
06:01thousands of miles from its base.
06:04The aircraft carrier, the flat top,
06:07backbone of the fleet today.
06:10A floating airport as big as three football fields laid end to end.
06:15A huge and complicated mechanism
06:18able to hurl a hundred planes into battle across the horizon.
06:23Following the fighting ships are the indispensable ships of the train,
06:28repair ships, tankers, transports.
06:31With landing craft, they carry the fuel, ammunition, machine shops,
06:36food and drinking water, everything to enable the fighting ships
06:39to stay at sea farther from their bases
06:42and in more continuous action than any fleet in history.
06:48The fighting ships and their auxiliaries
06:51are arranged in groups called task forces,
06:54a new concept developed in peacetime years by the United States Navy
06:59and improved in battle in this war.
07:02Each task force is in itself a fleet,
07:05self-contained and self-sustaining,
07:08a similar mission, convoy, reconnaissance, or attack.
07:13And as the task force principle is new,
07:16almost all the ships themselves are new,
07:19built and commissioned since war began.
07:22Their officers and men have carried the war to the very doorstep of Japan.
07:28They, too, are new.
07:31Only a few years ago, most of these young veterans were at home,
07:35playing football and baseball,
07:38studying at schools, working in factories or on farms,
07:43growing up in the dream that war had been outlawed in their time.
07:49While they were growing up in the 20s and 30s,
07:53scores of American warships lay deserted and unmanned,
07:57gathering rust in quiet harbors.
08:00Others, half-finished, had been sold for scrap
08:04or sent to the bottom of the sea.
08:07This was the result of deliberate policy.
08:10Peace through disarmament was the spirit of war.
08:15Statesmen of those days with the best of intentions
08:19had forgotten the words of the anonymous Admiral of 1918.
08:23The means to wage war must be kept in the hands of those who hate war.
08:29In America's case, geography was an additional factor.
08:33The military was a tool of war.
08:36It was a weapon of war.
08:40In America's case, geography was an additional factor.
08:44She was 6,000 miles from danger in the west,
08:483,000 in the east.
08:51Most Americans came to believe that a comparatively small navy
08:55was protection enough for their isolated sea coasts.
08:59But in the middle of the 30s, events in Europe and Asia
09:02began to change America's thinking.
09:05She began to prepare to throw her weight
09:08into the world's struggle against fascism and aggression.
09:12And by September 1939,
09:15whatever remained of her old complacency was gone for good.
09:20In quick succession, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act,
09:25which made America, in fact, the arsenal of democracy.
09:29The so-called Two-Ocean Navy Bill.
09:32The United States Navy was reborn.
09:35The Selective Service Act to mobilize the nation's young manhood.
09:41But time was running short.
09:44It ran out on what began as just another American Sunday.
09:51But by nightfall, the churches were crowded with bewildered people
09:55who had heard the news of humiliating defeat.
10:21This was Pearl Harbor,
10:24America's prime naval base in the Hawaiian Islands.
10:28Nineteen proud ships rested on the bottom.
10:324,572 men were dead, wounded, or missing.
10:38In the hands of Japan rested the balance of power in the Pacific.
10:43Bought at a known cost of 48 planes shot down,
10:47three midget submarines, perhaps 150 men.
10:53It was, on the surface, the cheapest bargain in history.
11:00But by the morning of December 8th,
11:02thanks to Japanese treachery and deceit,
11:05Americans were aroused to the depths of their souls.
11:09They now stood shoulder to shoulder, of one mind, of one purpose,
11:15with the peoples of all free nations everywhere.
11:21Through crowded streets, America's great war leader,
11:24the late President Roosevelt, drove to the Capitol.
11:30With confidence in our armed forces,
11:34with the unbounding determination of our people,
11:40we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.
11:54Yes, America said,
11:56as the nation's youth put aside the ways of peace and turned to war,
12:00we would gain the inevitable triumph.
12:04But how?
12:06With what?
12:08Against all their enemies whomsoever,
12:11and that I will obey the orders of the President.
12:14Part of the answer would have to come from these,
12:1750 million men and women, trained and untrained,
12:21skilled and unskilled.
12:30Part of the answer lay here.
12:32As a result of Lend-Lease,
12:34American industry was already partly on a war footing.
12:38But ahead lay giant tasks,
12:41reconversion, re-engineering, re-tooling.
12:56But the greatest part of the answer, as always,
12:59would have to come from the men who would meet the enemy face to face.
13:03Boys from the forests of the Northwest,
13:06the mines and factories of the East,
13:09the farms of the Midwest,
13:11the cotton fields and cane breaks of the South.
13:15Could these millions, trained only in the ways of peace,
13:19be taught to handle rifle and grenade, airplane and warship?
13:23Could they be welded into a fighting force,
13:26able to master the veteran warriors of Germany and Japan?
13:35Time was of the essence,
13:37time to draw blueprints,
13:39time to lay keels,
13:41to re-tool factories,
13:43time to train men.
13:45The demand was astronomical,
13:47far beyond the capacity of the factories,
13:50still inadequately equipped,
13:52the workers still inadequately trained.
13:55On every front, in Europe, Africa, in Asia,
14:00the United Nations fought with their backs to the wall.
14:03And in the Pacific, time was doubly the enemy.
14:07Here in December 1941,
14:10the Navy had available 80 combat ships.
14:13To these, America's British and Dutch allies could add at most another 50.
14:20Against them, the Japanese could bring to bear at least 186 combat ships.
14:26These could operate from home bases,
14:29protected by concentric rings of island bases,
14:32unsinkable carriers, they were called.
14:35America, on the other hand,
14:38could count on exactly seven all-too-sinkable carriers,
14:42only four of them available for duty in the Pacific.
14:47Japan took full advantage of her newfound superiority.
14:52She exploded in all directions.
15:06In less than five months,
15:08she had overrun a million and a half square miles
15:11in southeastern Asia and the southwest Pacific.
15:15The oil fields of the Indies were hers.
15:18She had 95% of all the world's supply of raw rubber,
15:23two-thirds of all the tin.
15:26She had copper and lead and zinc,
15:3090% of all the quinine in the world.
15:33She had completed the conquest of 125 million people,
15:38unlimited slave labor.
15:41Overnight, Japan had carved out for herself
15:45the second largest empire in the world.
15:55At fleet headquarters, Pearl Harbor,
15:58the United States Navy's Pacific Command faced a staggering task.
16:02First, the sunken ships had to be raised,
16:05re-floated, re-equipped, re-armed.
16:08It was the greatest salvage job in history.
16:12In time, all but two of these ships would again stand out to sea,
16:16more heavily armored and gunned than ever before,
16:20but not for months to come.
16:25Meanwhile, every available combat ship
16:28was sent out to search for the enemy,
16:30to harass him, hinder him, to delay him.
16:33Everywhere in the Pacific, it was the same story
16:36of gallant, sometimes hopeless campaigns
16:39conducted by officers and men
16:42who did the best they could with the little they had.
16:45Often, it was a few over-aged destroyers
16:48setting out to engage a battle fleet,
16:51a few Americans, British, a handful of PT boats,
16:55every last available ship in the Dutch Navy.
16:59Later, these small forces would be called
17:02the Bow and Arrow Navy.
17:07They took their losses, not stopping to count their dead
17:11in the Macassar Strait, the Banduang Strait, the Java Sea.
17:16In days to come, when the tiny pieces called battles
17:20could be slipped into the overall pattern called war,
17:24the job they did in the Pacific
17:27would assume its rightful place in history.
17:32From the beginning, the men of the undersea arm
17:35contributed more than their share.
17:38Their forays to the very harbor mouths of Japan
17:41helped check the enemy in the full tide of his advance.
17:45The Navy's airmen did their part.
17:48Small carrier task forces launched daring attacks
17:51on Japanese bases for tastes of the mighty aerial strikes to come.
18:02They hit at the Gilberts and the Marshals,
18:05at distant Wake and Marcus,
18:08at Salama and Lai.
18:11They learned as they fought.
18:13From admirals like Halsey to pilots and plane handlers,
18:17they taught themselves the tactics
18:19of a new and spectacular kind of warfare.
18:24They improvised and invented.
18:28On the gray morning of April 18, 1942,
18:32Army bombers led by Colonel Jimmy Doolittle
18:35rose from the decks of the carrier Hornet,
18:38only 500 miles from the coast of Japan.
18:47Captain Mitcher and his men gave them a cheer
18:50as they disappeared into a scud of clouds
18:53to drop their bombs on Tokyo itself.
19:09But in May and June, the skirmishing came to an end
19:13when Japan called for a showdown in two major actions.
19:17The Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway.
19:21The first blow was aimed at Australia.
19:24Early in May, a powerful Japanese task force
19:27was observed moving south into the Coral Sea.
19:31An American force moved to intercept.
19:35Aircraft exchanged blows.
19:38It was the first naval engagement in history
19:41in which surface ships did not exchange a single blow.
19:45But the men of the still small Pacific fleet
19:48were sure that the Battle of the Coral Sea
19:51could be only a preliminary to the main offensive effort of Japan.
19:55For the enemy, there were two logical targets.
19:59One, the still unfinished naval base at Dutch Harbor
20:02in the Aleutian Islands,
20:05key to Alaska, western Canada, and the American Northwest.
20:09The other target was Midway Island,
20:12western outpost of Pearl Harbor itself.
20:15A Japanese victory here would open an invasion path
20:18straight to the American mainland.
20:22Upon the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Ocean areas,
20:26Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
20:29rested the burden of determining where the blow would fall
20:32and how to meet it.
20:35He knew that defeat at either Midway or Dutch Harbor
20:38would affect not only the Pacific war,
20:41but would be felt across the world
20:44in the war against Germany.
20:49Every available ship and plane was prepared for action.
20:56Even the carrier Yorktown,
20:59damaged in the Coral Sea,
21:02had sped to Pearl Harbor to be patched up.
21:06Army flying fortresses were dispatched
21:09to reinforce marine aviation groups on outlying islands.
21:23The first blow fell in the north.
21:26At daybreak on June 3, 1942,
21:29Dutch Harbor reported an attack by a strong Japanese force.
21:33But Admiral Nimitz sensed that this was a diversion only,
21:36not the main blow.
21:39He ordered his carrier force to the west.
21:44As the small American force sailed from Pearl Harbor
21:47for its rendezvous with destiny,
21:50it carried into the Pacific the hopes of the free world.
21:55To the west, a vast weather front was rolling toward Midway.
21:59On June 3, a Navy patrol bomber
22:02nosed up to the weather front
22:05and made the first contact with the enemy.
22:12The Japanese were approaching in two columns.
22:15One was the expectant occupation force,
22:18transports packed with soldiers and Imperial Japanese marines,
22:22protected by a formidable array of fighting ships.
22:25The other was the striking arm,
22:28the Japanese Navy's four finest aircraft carriers,
22:31escorted by battleships, heavy cruisers, and destroyers.
22:38The Army fortresses, although somewhat new at this game,
22:41found the southern, or occupation force.
22:44They went in and scored hits on a cruiser and a transport.
22:48That night, the Navy patrol bombers followed up
22:51with an attack on the occupation force.
22:54They scored at least two damaging hits
22:57and sank a cargo vessel.
23:00The next day, the enemy had moved within range of Midway.
23:04Marine air squadrons found the striking force.
23:10The enemy's air force was in the vicinity of Midway.
23:13Marine air squadrons found the striking force.
23:22A battleship was set afire,
23:24and at least one hit was scored on a carrier.
23:27But at the same time, Japanese attack groups
23:30were giving the island a savage pound.
23:33The enemy forces moved in for the kill,
23:36but still they had not detected
23:39the approaching American task force.
23:42The speeding American carriers were still out of range.
23:45For 24 hours, their radio loudspeakers
23:48had been bringing in snatches of the actions
23:51being fought west of Midway.
23:54Through all this, the Navy fliers
23:57had had to sit and sweat it out.
24:00Twice, the loudspeakers had ordered them up
24:03from their ready rooms.
24:06Twice, the orders had been rescinded.
24:09At a time like this, they grumbled,
24:12you'd think they'd get things straight up there.
24:15But no, they hadn't.
24:18They'd had enough.
24:21You'd think they'd get things straight up there.
24:24But up there, they had to make sure
24:27of the exact course and location of the Japanese,
24:30sure that his own planes could reach them,
24:33hit them, and still have fuel enough to return.
24:38At last, it was time.
24:41Pilot, man your planes.
24:52Two hours from their carriers,
24:55the American fliers began to suspect
24:58that something had gone wrong.
25:01The Jap was not where he was expected to be.
25:04We know now that he had turned back.
25:07Perhaps he had learned at last of the odds
25:10that the American planes were still in sight.
25:13The American fliers were still in the air.
25:16The American planes were still in the air.
25:19Perhaps he had learned at last
25:22of the oncoming American carriers.
25:25At 11 o'clock, Commander Waldron
25:28of the Hornet's Torpedo Squadron 8 found the enemy.
25:31He was short of fuel and had outrun his fighter support.
25:34Nevertheless, he attacked.
25:37Of his squadron, only one man,
25:40Ensign Gay, lived to inflate his life raft on the sea.
25:44He saw his comrades from the Hornet,
25:47the enterprise of the Yorktown,
25:50plunge into the Japanese fleet.
25:53They went for the carriers first.
25:56In quick sequence, they pounded them into flaming hawks.
25:59Kaga, Akagi, Soryu.
26:04And with them, two battleships were left burning.
26:07But one carrier, the Hiryu,
26:10escaped for the time being,
26:13long enough for a Parthian shot,
26:16which crippled the Yorktown.
26:22Simultaneously, the attack groups
26:25from the three American carriers
26:28had smashed the Hiryu into blazing wreckage.
26:34For several days, the American fliers
26:37delivered textbook attacks on the enemy's battleships
26:40and cruisers, now naked of aerial defense.
26:43The once clean blue sea
26:46was spotted for hundreds of miles
26:49with oil slicks and wreckage.
26:53By sunset on June 6th,
26:56the Battle of Midway had already taken its place
26:59beside Jutland, Trafalgar,
27:02and the route of the Spanish Armada.
27:06Intelligence officers began to tally up the score.
27:12On the morning of June 7th,
27:15the men of the victorious American fleet
27:18began to bury their dead.
27:21As in the skies over Britain two years before,
27:24a few had earned the gratitude of the many.
27:35Midway, like Stalingrad in the Battle of Britain,
27:38was a turning point in the war.
27:41It marked the golden moment
27:44when men could tell themselves at last
27:47that victory was possible in the Pacific.
27:50The initiative now rested securely
27:53in the hands of the United States Navy,
27:56never again to be relinquished.
28:05To the allied chiefs of staff in Washington,
28:08the initiative of one at Midway was an opportunity only,
28:11not an accomplishment.
28:14Though the enemy had been beaten back,
28:17there was no tendency to underestimate him.
28:20His record of achievement was plain for all to see.
28:23He was entrenched in his stolen island empire
28:26as firmly as his German ally
28:29was entrenched in Europe and Africa.
28:32In planning their offensive,
28:35the chiefs of staff had to keep in mind
28:38the nature of the Japanese.
28:41In total war, the psychology of the enemy
28:44is of first importance to the strategist.
28:47Unconditional surrender was a long way off,
28:50but two months after the Battle of Midway,
28:53the Navy took its first offensive step
28:56in the Solomon Islands, north of the Coral Sea.
28:59On Guadalcanal, the Japanese were building an airfield
29:02to menace supply routes to Australia.
29:05This was the first objective.
29:08The name Guadalcanal has been written into history.
29:11With other names like Tarawa and Iwo Jima,
29:14Bougainville and Peleliu, it has become a symbol,
29:17not merely of one battle on one remote island,
29:20but of all the battles fought
29:23up the ladder of islands leading to Japan.
29:26On Guadalcanal, the outnumbered, outgunned Marines
29:29first found out what it meant
29:32to fight the Japanese at close quarters.
29:35In the stinking jungle, they lived through a nightmare
29:38six months long.
29:45Offshore, American and Australian ships
29:48were engaged in no less desperate battle.
29:52The enemy spared nothing in his effort to save Guadalcanal.
29:55From August to December,
29:58the sea actions flamed.
30:01Night actions in which frequently
30:04almost every ship engaged was hit.
30:21Then, suddenly,
30:24at sea and ashore,
30:27the Japanese attacks ended.
30:33The weary blue jackets
30:36had driven the enemy from waters
30:39he already considered his own.
30:46The weary Marines of Guadalcanal
30:49could take pride in two great achievements.
30:52They had taken the first step
30:55on the long road to Tokyo,
30:58and they had mastered the savage arts of jungle warfare.
31:07But now some were going home.
31:19Others had already gone to hospitals on other islands
31:22where Navy doctors and nurses
31:25were pioneering new horizons in battle surgery
31:28and tropical medicine.
31:38And whole islands were also set aside
31:41where tired men could recapture a little of the easygoing life
31:44they had nearly forgotten.
31:50Where they could find a little rest
31:53and have a little fun.
32:08Though some men rested,
32:11the offensive strategy of the United Nations could not.
32:14In November 1943,
32:17America's commander-in-chief flew to Cairo
32:20to meet with the war leaders of Great Britain and China.
32:23Here in the shadow of the pyramids,
32:26they affirmed the Allied program
32:29for unrelenting attack in the Pacific.
32:32They had the weapons now.
32:35There were warships of every type.
32:38American industry and labor were meeting the test of global war.
32:41They had used well the time bought for them
32:44by the bow and arrow Navy of the early days.
32:47By the outnumbered heroes on Bataan.
32:50By the men who fought in the Coral Sea at Midway on Guadalcanal.
32:53By the free peoples everywhere in the Pacific
32:56who had steadfastly resisted Japanese aggression.
32:59And by the Chinese
33:02who for eight long years
33:05had stood off the full onslaught of the Japanese armies.
33:08These mighty bombers were built on time
33:11bought by the sacrifice of British, Australians,
33:14New Zealanders, and Dutch.
33:17These giant stockpiles were built up
33:20while guerrillas in the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies
33:23were fighting the enemy with little more than hope.
33:26And even more important,
33:29the United Nations now had men for the Pacific.
33:32Blue jackets to handle the complex machinery
33:35of modern sea power.
33:38Airmen, soldiers, and marines
33:41trained for amphibious and jungle warfare.
33:44And all these were but the vanguard
33:47of a host of others still in training camps.
33:50Under their commanders,
33:53Fleet Admiral Nimitz in the Central Pacific
33:56and Army General Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest,
33:59on the side of their allies they were ready to push attack.
34:02What they accomplished is history.
34:06From Guadalcanal in New Guinea,
34:09the Allied advance gathered momentum.
34:12Striking from airfields on key islands,
34:15taking this base, bypassing that.
34:18Short steps at first,
34:21but as America's power grew,
34:24lengthening into giant strides,
34:27the world began to hear of strange places.
34:30Vincha and Tarawa,
34:33Siak and Saipan, Peleliu and Morotan.
34:36And as the pace increased,
34:39more familiar names would come back into the news.
34:42The Philippines.
34:47And the islands of Japan itself.
34:53But the real story of the oceanic phase of the Pacific War
34:56cannot be told in maps and communiques.
34:59It can be told only in terms of human effort
35:02and human sacrifice.
35:09A task force can weigh anchor to sail against the enemy,
35:12only because thousands of officers and men ashore
35:15have worked long months
35:18at the tremendous and exacting job of planning.
35:22Though an order only six words long
35:25may initiate an amphibious attack,
35:28not a gun will fire, not a plane will be airborne,
35:31not a marine will hit the beach
35:34until millions of other words have been written down.
35:37In crisp sentences, in codes,
35:40on charts and maps, in mathematical equations,
35:43in photographs and models,
35:46the attack is written as a play is written,
35:49long before the actors take the stage.
35:52From battle fleets to chocolate bars,
35:55from the horsepower of a thousand planes
35:58to the tide tables of a once-forgotten tropical island,
36:01no detail can be omitted.
36:04Yet all this planning is for one ultimate purpose,
36:08to put this man and his rifle
36:11ashore on a hostile beach.
36:16This is the eve of battle.
36:19This is the eve of Guadalcanal,
36:22of Tarawa, of Palau,
36:25of Guadalcanal, Leyte, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.
36:46Beyond the horizon lies the enemy.
36:50The intricate mass of the attacking task force
36:53moves in for the kill.
36:56Each ship in its designated place,
36:59each man at his designated station,
37:02all at the designated time.
37:05H-Hour on D-Day.
37:20All hands, back up out of the sea.
37:23All hands, back up out of the sea.
37:43The Hornet's Nest has been stirred up
37:46by the Japanese torpedo bombers.
38:17The enemy is beaten off.
38:20In the pre-dawn,
38:23the American carrier planes take off.
38:46At dawn, they are over their objective.
39:09An American plane is shot down.
39:17This is a Japanese ammunition ship.
39:26The battle wagons and cruisers
39:29have taken up stations closer shore.
39:32Some are the so-called ghost ships,
39:35salvaged from the mud of Pearl Harbor.
39:38Ships bearing the names of American states.
39:41Pennsylvania, Nevada,
39:44West Virginia.
40:15They are paying off their debt.
40:21A ship called King George V
40:24is paying off the debt of another
40:27called Prince of Wales.
40:45Now it is the turn of the Marines and soldiers.
40:48From hard experience, they know what lies ahead.
40:51The enemy has had years to fortify these islands.
41:15The landing craft come under hot enemy fire,
41:18but Coast Guard and Navy coxswains keep them on course.
41:44On schedule,
41:47the first wave hits the beach.
42:14The Marines and soldiers
42:17have won a tough battle.
42:20They have won the battle
42:23against the enemy.
42:26They have won the battle
42:29against the enemy.
42:32They have won the battle
42:35against the enemy.
42:38They have won the battle
42:42The Marines and soldiers have won a tiny strip of beach.
42:45The fingernail, no more.
42:48They must get over the hump, in from the beach.
42:51This is rugged.
43:07The fingernail has been expanded.
43:10It is now a solid beach.
43:13But the forward elements are pinned down
43:16by mortar and machine gun fire.
43:19The Japanese are reported gathering
43:22for a counterattack.
43:25The quickest way to break it up
43:28is from the air.
43:31The beach calls the carriers 50 miles offshore.
43:34But the carriers too have their hands full.
43:40The Marines and soldiers
43:43have won a tough battle.
43:46They have won the battle
43:49against the enemy.
43:52They have won the battle
43:55against the enemy.
43:58They have won the battle
44:01against the enemy.
44:04They have won the battle
44:07against the enemy.
44:10These ships fight
44:13with a tradition behind them.
44:16Most of them carry the flag
44:19of the United States of America.
44:22The flag of the United States
44:25of America.
44:28The flag of the United States
44:31of America.
44:34The flag of the United States
44:37with the flag of the United States
44:40the flag
44:43of the United States
44:47The precious bag
45:02has become a JUDGE
45:04Some of the carriers are temporarily out of action, but the others can fulfill their obligations
45:29to the men ashore.
45:36At last, the air support is on its way.
46:36Now the attack can again inch forward.
47:06The patrols are approaching the enemy's main defense line.
47:21You will have to be pried out with tanks,
47:28with artillery,
47:32and machine guns,
47:37and mortars,
47:41with hand grenades,
47:45and gasoline bombs.
47:52And finally, you've got a foot soldier with a rifle and bayonet.
48:11A Japanese dynamite.
48:24Another Japanese refuses to stop.
48:29As usual, few of the enemy surrender.
48:32Their propagandists have made them believe that surrender means torture and death.
48:45On the beach, the seaborne community is moving in to stay.
48:49The operation can officially be considered a success.
49:00Up front, the wounded are coming back.
49:13Some will recover to fight again.
49:16Some will always bear the scars of battle.
49:46By their sacrifice, they have won new airfields for allied air power,
50:05new anchorages for allied sea power,
50:08and a new base 500 miles closer to Japan from which to launch further attacks against the enemy.
50:23Step by step, this has been the story of the advance to the gates of Japan.
50:29Step by step, this has been the price.
50:59But for each man that has fallen, there is another to take his place.
51:19Theirs is the task.
51:21The victory will be for all.
51:25But this victory can be won only if free men everywhere give to its cause unsparingly their strength,
51:33their treasure, and their hearts.
51:37Then, and only then, will there be peace in the Pacific and over all the Earth.
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