00:00♪♪
00:29♪♪
00:39♪♪
00:49And now, Melanesian Nightmare.
01:01The new Japanese target, Port Moresby.
01:04Only 300 miles north of Australia.
01:07Key to a vast strategic area.
01:09Daily come the bombers, daily comes destruction.
01:13Port Moresby blocks Japan's complete control of New Guinea, of Australia.
01:18It must be smashed, it must be taken.
01:23♪♪
01:35The form of the below-in Stanley mountain range
01:37stands between the Japanese base of Buna in northern New Guinea
01:40and Port Moresby in the south.
01:43Miles of jagged hills and gloomy gorges.
01:45Steep escarpments and trackless jungle.
01:48A frightful natural barrier.
01:51But in July 1942, the Japanese begin to move over the mountains.
01:56In their earlier amphibious attempt to take Port Moresby,
01:59they were turned back by the United States Navy
02:01at the Battle of the Coral Sea.
02:04Now the Japanese are forced into an overland trek
02:06of 1,000 man-killing miles to reach their target.
02:10♪♪
02:36Outside Port Moresby, where the Japanese must be met and stopped,
02:40is a steaming, tangled nightmare of tropical undergrowth
02:43and malarial mountain.
02:45This is the part of the world called Melanesia, the Black Islands.
02:51For the Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen
02:53who must throw back the Japanese,
02:56the Melanesian nightmare begins.
02:59♪♪
03:18Papuan guides thread the troops through the jungle labyrinth.
03:22Australian infantry has stopped the Japanese
03:24a scant 30 miles from Port Moresby.
03:27Now it is the Allies who must advance through torturous New Guinea
03:31against a foe fiercely resisting.
03:34♪♪
04:03♪♪
04:32♪♪
04:55Months of bitter, brutal combat,
04:58but the Allies push inexorably forward
05:01into the strategic Doberdura Plain with its vital airstrip,
05:04only six miles from New Guinea's north coast.
05:08♪♪
05:17The Japanese retreat becomes a rout.
05:20Enemy garrisons give up Buna, Gona, Sonananda,
05:24north coast bases that will serve as stepping stones
05:26for future Allied advance.
05:29For both sides, the campaign has been a horror of death,
05:33wounds, disease.
05:59♪♪
06:06In March 1943, American air reconnaissance discovers
06:09a major Japanese move to strengthen their hold
06:12on the rest of New Guinea.
06:14A troop convoy of 16 ships sets out from Rabaul
06:17and heads into the Bismarck Sea.
06:20♪♪
06:31A dispatch has come indicating eight enemy troop transports
06:34and eight destroyers on the way.
06:36Allied airmen make ready to nullify the Japanese threat
06:39with every available plane, bomb, bullet.
06:43♪♪
07:12♪♪
07:27♪♪
07:52♪♪
08:06The three-day battle of the Bismarck Sea
08:08is a major victory of planes over ships.
08:11All eight enemy transports are sunk.
08:14More than 3,000 Japanese soldiers perish.
08:17Only four destroyers escape.
08:20♪♪
08:3110,000 miles from the Bismarck Sea,
08:34throughout the United States,
08:36shipyards are building a new amphibious navy
08:38and strange new ships called LSTs,
08:41landing ship tanks.
08:44These will change the pattern of war.
08:46The Second World War has evolved
08:48into the first great amphibious conflict in history,
08:51and landing craft take priority over destroyers,
08:54carriers, and everything else.
08:56Down the rivers of the United States,
08:58into the oceans of the world, plot the LSTs.
09:02♪♪
09:26Landing ship tanks,
09:29but she will be used for everything else as well.
09:32And loading her for combat becomes a job for experts.
09:35The 2,100 tons of materiel she carries
09:38must be stowed aboard in precise sequence and proper order
09:41so that what is needed worst can be put ashore quickest
09:44when she joins battle on some remote beachhead.
09:47♪♪
10:01Throughout Australia,
10:03throughout the southwest Pacific,
10:05the Allies shift from dogged defense to spirited assault.
10:08Beginning in the summer of 1943,
10:11the men, the ships, the materiel,
10:14flow in a massive surge west and north
10:16toward Mindanao in the distant Philippines.
10:19General MacArthur's strategy has long called for an advance
10:22along the New Guinea-Mindanao axis.
10:25This advance will be borne largely by small,
10:27amphibious craft, a Navy without glamour.
10:31These men know only hard work, hard living,
10:34hard fighting, and hard-won victories.
10:37Now the LSTs, the floating garages,
10:40come into their own.
10:42Loading techniques blueprinted in advance become actuality.
10:45Pile it in, stuff them full,
10:48and every item finds its designated place.
10:51♪♪
11:08General MacArthur, Supreme Commander,
11:10southwest Pacific area,
11:12accompanies the assault troops with Rear Admiral Barbee,
11:15commander of the 7th Amphibious Force.
11:18I shall return, MacArthur has said,
11:20referring to the Philippines.
11:22The fulfillment has seemed remote.
11:25Now the return begins.
11:27From Sydney, from Brisbane,
11:29into the Coral Sea,
11:31into the Bismarck Sea,
11:33along the northern New Guinea coast
11:35move the Allied armies and navies.
11:37♪♪
12:06These are combined operations,
12:08carried out by the forces of several nations
12:10working in closely welded units.
12:12Ships of the Royal Australian Navy
12:14do yeoman service with the convoys,
12:16fight with all they have in battle.
12:18♪♪
12:48Nassau Bay,
12:50Salamaua,
12:51Ley,
12:52Pinchawa,
12:53Saidoa.
12:55These are footholds along the New Guinea coast
12:57needed for Allied progress westward.
13:00The approach is covered,
13:02stealthy,
13:03cloaked in darkness,
13:05and night in the convoy is tense,
13:08silent,
13:09strained.
13:11Dawn will bring the test of combat,
13:14the ordeal of fire.
13:16♪♪
13:45♪♪
14:14♪♪
14:43Everywhere the Japanese resist with fortitude,
14:46fury,
14:47determination.
14:48Cut off from their bases,
14:50with retreat impossible,
14:52they fight the losing battle for New Guinea.
14:54♪♪
15:06More rugged,
15:07more useful than even their designers dreamed,
15:09the LSTs nose into the shore
15:11and disgorge their torrent of supplies.
15:14The wealth and ingenuity that has made America great in peace
15:17combined to make her victorious in war.
15:21♪♪
15:49♪♪
16:17♪♪
16:22In one of his rare promises to his emperor,
16:24Dictator Tojo has promised to stop the enemy's westward movement.
16:29The Imperial Japanese command,
16:31having lost the initiative,
16:32falls back on the tenacity of the foot soldier.
16:35All the strength that can be spared from other theaters
16:38is mustered to hold western New Guinea for the empire.
16:41♪♪
17:10♪♪
17:15But allied power mounts more swiftly than the Japanese can retarget.
17:19Operations that would have seemed sheer fantasy a year earlier
17:22become routine reality.
17:24The inland village of Natsa,
17:26which commands an escape route for the Japanese
17:28and boasts a usable airstrip,
17:30is the target.
17:32300 planes from fields at Fort Morrisby and Doberdura
17:34will lift 1,700 paratroopers.
17:37The Pacific's most spectacular airborne assault.
18:07♪♪
18:37♪♪
18:40Whether the invading troops find their footholds on New Guinea
18:43from the air or from the sea,
18:45the jungle is equally cruel.
18:47The enemy just as malevolent.
18:50But the allied infantry learns what the Marines have proved on Guadalcanal.
18:54Skill, courage, and superior equipment defeat the Japanese.
18:59♪♪
19:07♪♪
19:36♪♪
19:41The New Guinea natives are primitive and warlike.
19:44Headhunting and sorcery are part of their lives.
19:47But an enlightened colonial administration has won their loyalty.
19:51As pathfinders and guides,
19:53they lead allied patrols through secret trails,
19:56bring up mail and supplies,
19:58and help maintain isolated outposts deep in the jungle.
20:01♪♪
20:30♪♪
20:40But it is sea power that makes possible the longest strides
20:43along the axis leading from New Guinea to Mindanao.
20:46With increasing mastery of the amphibious technique,
20:49landing follows landing on a smooth, uninterrupted schedule.
20:53Over a period of 18 months,
20:55the Allies average a new landing every 35 days.
20:59And each new foothold is converted into a staging area
21:02for the next leap along the New Guinea coast.
21:05♪♪
21:35♪♪
21:40They're sluggish.
21:42Twelve-knot pace wins a new designation from the crews of the LST.
21:46Large, slow targets.
21:49But they get there.
21:51They deliver their goods, their punch.
21:54♪♪
22:02Admiral Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet,
22:05and General MacArthur work out the grand design
22:08for the westward advance.
22:10Nimitz supports MacArthur,
22:12making possible huge leapfrog jumps along New Guinea's coast.
22:16With Aitape and Hollandia,
22:18the Allies will be 400 miles nearer to the goal,
22:22nearer to the Philippines.
22:24♪♪
22:29Carriers support the Hollandia operation,
22:31which is beyond the reach of land-based planes.
22:34The enemy is taken by surprise.
22:36The fine anchorage of Humboldt Bay
22:38and three airstrips are wrested from the Japanese.
22:41♪♪
23:06Smokescreen to cloak ever more landing crews.
23:09And the advance goes relentlessly on,
23:11north and west,
23:13Alawe, Wakta, and Biak,
23:15Nuunfor and Sansapor.
23:18Sansapor is on the uttermost western tip of New Guinea,
23:21and with it the entire coast is in Allied hands.
23:25But the advance does not stop.
23:27In September 1944,
23:29the Allies swarm ashore on the island of Morotai,
23:32on the threshold of the Philippines.
23:35More than 135,000 enemy troops have been bypassed,
23:39cut off without hope of rescue.
23:42In a little over 12 months,
23:44Allied forces in the southwest Pacific
23:46stormed 1,300 miles closer
23:48to the heart of the Japanese Empire.
23:51♪♪
24:20♪♪
24:51♪♪
24:57Death.
24:59These brave men know thy sting.
25:03God grant they know their victory.
25:06♪♪
25:12In Tokyo, throughout Japan,
25:15a weird, an unreal atmosphere of victory
25:18and invincibility still prevails.
25:21A feverish, fraudulent security shrouds the islands.
25:27Reports from all the battlefronts
25:29tell of nothing but Japanese triumph,
25:32Allied disaster.
25:35But beneath the cheering oozes out the hideous truth.
25:41♪♪
25:51Back from the battlefronts come the white boxes
25:53with the ashes of the dead, the fallen.
25:58Welcome home, young man.
26:01You were ours, and they took you away.
26:05You are no more.
26:08The heavens may set and rise,
26:10but you must sleep on
26:13during one never-ending night.
26:16♪♪
