- 3 months ago
War Over the Pacific tells the story of brave soldiers and pilots facing intense battles across the Pacific Ocean during wartime. The film captures moments of courage, struggle, and survival amid the chaos of war.
This motion picture is presented from public domain sources for historical and educational purposes.
This motion picture is presented from public domain sources for historical and educational purposes.
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Short filmTranscript
00:30In the travel folders, it was said, the Pacific is an ocean of magnificent distances.
00:55The largest ocean in the world, 34 times bigger than the continent of Europe.
01:02It covers 70 million square miles, roughly one-third of the Earth's surface.
01:07In 1941, the fastest luxury liner took five days to make its landfall at Honolulu, first
01:19port of call on the voyage to Yokohama, over 3,000 miles and nine days further away.
01:26Of course, if you were in a great hurry, like Japan's special envoy, Saburo Kurosu, in December
01:381941, you could make the trip by air in two days, 13 hours and 15 minutes.
01:44The Pacific is an ocean of many moods.
01:54To the north, the Aleutian winds are icy and unpredictable.
01:57Here, as is said, weather is born.
02:01To the south, in equatorial heat, the sunsets are of unparalleled beauty.
02:08Here, rising from the blue, shark-infested waters, lie jungles, dense and malarial.
02:16Volcanoes, like Krakatoa, which once exploded with a violence that shook the world.
02:23It is an ocean of islands with names once strange to Western years.
02:31Tarawak, Saipan, Iwo Jima.
02:36Names now almost as familiar as Gettysburg, Trafalgar, Verdun.
02:42Islands inhabited by little-known peoples, Polynesians, Melanesians and Micronesians.
02:50We had caught glimpses of them in the movies, dancing their hip dances, chanting their island
02:56songs.
02:57At one time, some had been cannibals, but now most were good-natured and friendly, living
03:03in what writers like Herman Melville and Jack London had described as an approximation of
03:09paradise.
03:10Since 6.55 a.m. Honolulu time, Sunday, December 7th, 1941, this paradise has been a battlefield.
03:31The Pacific Ocean is the biggest, the strangest, the most complex battlefield in history.
03:44To understand what distance in the Pacific really means, touch the point of a pencil to the map.
03:52Under this tiny point may be arrayed all the ships of the United States Navy in battle formation.
04:00Yet, these ships must be so disposed and so employed as to exert an influence and control
04:08over the whole Pacific area.
04:13Land war is familiar to the people of Europe and Asia.
04:16A massive war of tanks locked in battle, of men deploying, maneuvering along highways,
04:23canals, railroads, in city streets, in buildings of brick and stone.
04:29But it is different in the Pacific, where there are no highways, no railroads, only the limitless
04:37lanes of the sea.
04:44Along these lanes, stretching thousands of miles to bases on fighting fronts in every corner
04:51of the Pacific, the war must be carried to the enemy by ship.
04:54By what has been, and will continue to be, the greatest concentration of shipping in history.
05:01There is a special kind of ship for every mission.
05:06This is the battleship, known to the men of the fleet as the Battle Wagon.
05:11A floating fortress belted with armor plate.
05:1415 inch guns, 50 feet long, which can hurl their projectiles into a bullseye 20 miles away.
05:21Light and heavy cruisers, scouts and watchdogs, fast and elusive, able to hold their own in
05:30the heaviest actions.
05:33The destroyer, the tin can, a fragile steel shell rammed with horsepower, moving at express
05:40train speed to protect slower vessels with guns, torpedoes, and depth charges.
05:47The submarine, the lone prowler, operating for as much as 60 days in enemy waters, thousands
06:01of miles from its base.
06:04The aircraft carrier, the flat top, backbone of the fleet today.
06:09A floating airport as big as three football fields laid end to end.
06:15A huge and complicated mechanism able to hurl a hundred planes into battle across the horizon.
06:23Following the fighting ships are the indispensable ships of the train, repair ships, tankers, transports.
06:31With landing craft, they carry the fuel, ammunition, machine shops, food and drinking water.
06:37Everything to enable the fighting ships to stay at sea farther from their bases and in more
06:42continuous action than any fleet in history.
06:47The fighting ships and their auxiliaries are arranged in groups called task forces, a new concept developed
06:55in peacetime years by the United States Navy and proved in battle in this war.
07:02Each task force is in itself a fleet, self-contained and self-sustaining, a stellar mission, convoy,
07:10reconnaissance, or attack.
07:13And as the task force principle is new, almost all the ships themselves are new, built and
07:19commissioned since war began.
07:23Their 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, playing football and baseball,
07:38playing at schools, working in factories or on farms, growing up in the dream that war had
07:45been outlawed in their time.
07:56While they were growing up in the 20s and 30s, scores of American warships lay deserted and
08:01unmanned, gathering rust in quiet harbors.
08:06Others, half-finished, had been sold for scrap or sent to the bottom of the sea.
08:12This was the result of deliberate policy.
08:15Peace through disarmament was the spirit which moved the Washington Arms Conference of 1922 and
08:22the London Conference of 1930.
08:25Statesmen of those days, with the best of intentions, had forgotten the words of the anonymous
08:31admiral of 1918.
08:34The means to wage war must be kept in the hands of those who hate war.
08:40In America's case, geography was an additional factor.
08:45She was 6,000 miles from danger in the west, 3,000 in the east.
08:51Most Americans came to believe that a comparatively small navy was protection enough for their isolated
08:57seas.
08:58But in the middle 30s, events in Europe and Asia began to change America's thinking.
09:05She began to prepare to throw her weight into the world's struggle against fascism and aggression.
09:12And by September 1939, whatever remained of her old complacency was gone for good.
09:21In quick succession, Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which made America, in fact, the arsenal
09:28of democracy.
09:29The so-called Two Ocean Navy Bill, the United States Navy was reborn.
09:36The Selective Service Act, to mobilize the nation's young manhood.
09:42But time was running short.
09:45It ran out on what began as just another American Sunday.
09:55But by nightfall, the churches were crowded with bewildered people who had heard the news
10:08of humiliating defeat.
10:22This was Pearl Harbor, America's prime naval base in the Hawaiian Islands.
10:28Nineteen proud ships rested on the bottom.
10:32Forty-five hundred and seventy-two men were dead, wounded, or missing.
10:38In the hands of Japan rested the balance of power in the Pacific.
10:42Bought at a known cost of forty-eight planes shot down, three midget submarines, perhaps
10:49one hundred and fifty men.
10:51It was, on the surface, the cheapest bargain in history.
10:57But by the morning of December 8th, thanks to Japanese treachery and deceit, Americans were
11:06aroused to the depths of their souls.
11:09They now stood shoulder to shoulder, of one mind, of one purpose, with the peoples of all
11:16free nations everywhere.
11:21Through crowded streets, America's great war leader, the late President Roosevelt, drove
11:26to the Capitol.
11:28And with confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people,
11:40we will gain the inevitable triumph.
11:44Yes, America said, as the nation's youth put aside the ways of peace and turned to war,
12:00we would gain the inevitable triumph.
12:03But how?
12:05With what?
12:07Against all their enemies, whomsoever.
12:10And that I will obey the orders of friends.
12:14Part of the answer would have to come from these.
12:17Fifty million men and women, trained and untrained, skilled and unskilled.
12:30Part of the answer lay here.
12:32As a result of Lend-Lease, American industry was already partly on a war footing.
12:37But ahead lay giant tasks.
12:40Reconversion.
12:41Reengineering.
12:42Retooling.
12:43But the greatest part of the answer, as always, would have to come from the men who would meet
13:01the enemy face to face.
13:04Boys 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, be taught to handle rifle and grenade,
13:21airplane and warship?
13:23Could they be welded into a fighting force, able 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 retool factories.
13:43Time to train men.
13:44The demand was astronomical.
13:46Far beyond the capacity of the factories, still inadequately equipped.
13:51The workers still inadequately trained.
13:54On every front, in Europe, Africa, in Asia, the United Nations fought with their backs to the war.
14:02And in the Pacific, time was doubly the enemy.
14:07Here in December 1941, the Navy had available 80 combat ships.
14:13To these, America's British and Dutch allies could add, at most, another 50.
14:19Against them, the Japanese could bring to bear at least 186 combat ships.
14:25These could operate from home bases, protected by concentric rings of island bases.
14:32Unsinkable carriers, they were called.
14:35America, on the other hand, could count on exactly seven all-too-sinkable carriers.
14:42Only four of them available for duty in the Pacific.
14:48Japan took full advantage of her newfound superiority.
14:51She exploded in all directions.
15:06In less than five months, she 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.
15:17She 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.
15:40Overnight, Japan had carved out for herself the second-largest empire in the world.
15:47Unlimited slave labor.
15:49Unlimited slave labor.
15:51Unlimited slave labor.
15:53Unlimited slave labor.
15:55At fleet headquarters, Pearl Harbor,
15:57the United States Navy's Pacific Command faced a staggering task.
16:00First, the sunken ships had to be razed, refloated, re-equipped, re-armed.
16:08It was the greatest salvage job in history.
16:11In time, all but two of these ships would again stand out to sea.
16:16More heavily armored and gunned than ever before.
16:19But not for months to come.
16:22Meanwhile, every available combat ship was sent out to search for the enemy.
16:29To harass him.
16:31Hinder him.
16:32To delay him.
16:34Everywhere in the Pacific, it was the same story.
16:37Of gallant, sometimes hopeless campaigns.
16:40Conducted by officers and men who did the best they could with the little they had.
16:44Often, it was a few overage destroyers setting out to engage a battle fleet.
16:50A few Americans.
16:52British.
16:53A handful of P.T. boats.
16:55Every last available ship in the Dutch Navy.
16:59Later, these small forces would be called the bow and arrow Navy.
17:04They took their losses, not stopping to count their dead.
17:11In the Macassar Strait, the Bandwane Strait, the Java Sea.
17:17In days to come, when the tiny pieces called battles could be slipped into the overall pattern called war.
17:25The job they did in the Pacific would assume its rightful place in history.
17:34From the beginning, the men of the undersea arm contributed more than their share.
17:38Their forays to the very harbor mouths of Japan helped check the enemy in the full tide of his advance.
17:46The Navy's airmen did their part.
17:50Small carrier task forces launched daring attacks on Japanese bases.
17:53Foretastes of the mighty aerial strikes to come.
18:01They hit at the Gilberts and the Marshalls.
18:04At Distant Wake and Marcus.
18:06At Salomon and Lai.
18:09They learned as they fought.
18:10From admirals like Halsey to pilots and plane handlers.
18:16They taught themselves the tactics of a new and spectacular kind of warfare.
18:20They improvised and invented.
18:31On the gray morning of April 18th, 1942,
18:34Army bombers led by Colonel Jimmy Doolittle
18:38rose from the decks of the carrier Hornet,
18:40only 500 miles from the coast of Japan.
18:42Captain Mitchell and his men gave them a cheer as they disappeared into a scud of clouds
18:54to drop their bombs on Tokyo itself.
18:56But in May and June, the skirmishing came to an end.
19:14When Japan called for a showdown in two major actions.
19:18The Battle of the Coral Sea.
19:21And the Battle of Midway.
19:22The first blow was aimed at Australia.
19:26Early in May, a powerful Japanese task force was observed moving south into the Coral Sea.
19:32An American force moved to intercept.
19:35Aircraft exchanged blows.
19:40It was the first naval engagement in history in which surface ships did not exchange a single shot.
19:46But the men of the still small Pacific fleet were sure that the Battle of the Coral Sea could be only a preliminary to the main offensive effort of Japan.
19:57For the enemy, there were two logical targets.
20:00One, the still unfinished naval base at Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands.
20:07Key to Alaska, Western Canada, and the American Northwest.
20:12The other target was Midway Island, western outpost of Pearl Harbor itself.
20:17A Japanese victory here would open an invasion path straight to the American mainland.
20:22Upon the commander-in-chief of the Pacific Ocean areas, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz rested the burden of determining where the blow would fall and how to meet it.
20:36He knew that defeat at either Midway or Dutch Harbor would affect not only the Pacific War, but would be felt across the world in the war against Germany.
20:44Every available ship and plane was prepared for action.
20:55Even the carrier Yorktown, damaged in the Coral Sea, had sped to Pearl Harbor to be patched up.
21:03Army flying fortresses were dispatched to reinforce marine aviation groups on outlying islands.
21:23The first blow fell in the north.
21:25At daybreak on June 3, 1942, Dutch Harbor reported an attack by a strong Japanese force.
21:34But Admiral Nimitz sensed that this was a diversion only, not the main blow.
21:40He ordered his carrier force to the west.
21:43As the small American force sailed from Pearl Harbor for its rendezvous with destiny, it carried into the Pacific the hopes of the free world.
21:56To the west, a vast weather front was rolling toward Midway.
22:03On June 3, a Navy patrol bomber nosed up to the weather front and made the first contact with the enemy.
22:14The Japanese were approaching in two columns.
22:16One was the expectant occupation force, transports packed with soldiers and Imperial Japanese Marines, protected by a formidable array of fighting ships.
22:28The other was the striking arm, the Japanese Navy's four finest aircraft carriers escorted by battleships, heavy cruisers and destroyers.
22:39The Army fortresses, although somewhat new at this game, found the southern or occupation force.
22:50They went in and scored hits on a cruiser and a transport.
22:53That night, the Navy patrol bombers followed up with an attack on the occupation force.
23:00They scored at least two damaging hits and sank a cargo vessel.
23:04The next day, the enemy had moved within range of Midway.
23:12Marine air squadrons found the striking force.
23:15A battleship was set afire and at least one hit was scored on a carrier.
23:26But at the same time, Japanese attack groups were giving the island a savage power.
23:30The enemy forces moved in for the kill.
23:43But still, they had not detected the approaching American task force.
23:48The speeding American carriers were still out of range.
23:52For 24 hours, their radio loudspeakers had been bringing in snatches of the actions being fought west of Midway.
24:00Keep me running the police up there.
24:02All right, all right.
24:05Keep me running the police up there.
24:07Through all this, the Navy flyers had had to sit and sweat it out.
24:12Twice, the loudspeakers had ordered them up from their ready rooms.
24:16Twice, the orders had been rescinded.
24:19At a time like this, they grumbled, you'd think they'd get things straight up there.
24:23But up there, had to make sure of the exact course and location of the Japanese.
24:28Sure that his own planes could reach them, fit them, and still have fuel enough to return.
24:37At last, it was time.
24:39Pilots, find your planes.
24:40Pilots, find your planes.
24:41Pilots, find your planes.
24:42Pilots, find your planes.
24:43Two hours from their carriers, the American flyers began to suspect that something had gone wrong.
24:47The Jap was not where he was expected to be.
24:48We know now that he is in the military.
24:49The American flyers began to suspect that something had gone wrong.
24:50Two hours from their carriers, the American flyers began to suspect that something had gone wrong.
25:13The Jap was not where he was expected to be.
25:16We know now that he had turned back.
25:19Perhaps he had learned at last of the oncoming American carriers.
25:24At 11 o'clock, Commander Waldron of the Hornets Torpedo Squadron 8 found the enemy.
25:30He was short of fuel and had outrun his fighter support.
25:34Nevertheless, he attacked.
25:36Of his squadron, only one man, Ensign Gay, lived to inflate his life raft on the sea.
25:43He saw his comrades from the Hornet, the Enterprise, and the Yorktown plunge into the Japanese fleet.
25:55They went for the carriers first.
25:56In quick sequence, they pounded them into flaming hulks.
26:01Kaga, Akagi, Soryu.
26:06And with them, two battleships were left burning.
26:09But one carrier, the Hiryu, escaped for the time being, long enough for a Parthian shot which crippled the Yorktown.
26:17Simultaneously, the attack groups from the three American carriers had smashed the Hiryu into blazing wreckage.
26:29For several days, the American flyers delivered textbook attacks on the enemy's battleships and cruisers, now naked of aerial defense.
26:44The once clean blue sea was spotted for hundreds of miles with oil slicks and wreckage.
26:50By sunset on June 6th, the Battle of Midway had already taken its place beside Jutland, Trafalgar, and the route of the Spanish Armada.
27:06Intelligence officers began to tally up the score.
27:12On the morning of June 7th, the men of the victorious American fleet began to bury their dead.
27:20As in the skies over Britain two years before, a few had earned the gratitude of the many.
27:36Midway, like Stalingrad and the Battle of Britain, was a turning point in the war.
27:42It marked the golden moment when men could tell themselves at last that victory was possible in the Pacific.
27:48The initiative now rested securely in the hands of the United States Navy, never again to be relinquished.
27:56To the Allied chiefs of staff in Washington, the initiative of one at Midway was an opportunity only, not an accomplishment.
28:14Though the enemy had been beaten back, there was no tendency to underestimate him.
28:19His record of achievement was plain for all to see.
28:23He was entrenched in his stolen island empire as firmly as his German ally was entrenched in Europe and Africa.
28:31In planning their offensive, the chiefs of staff had to keep in mind the nature of the Japanese.
28:38In total war, the psychology of the enemy is of first importance to the strategist.
28:43Unconditional surrender was a long way off.
28:49But two months after the Battle of Midway, the Navy took its first offensive step in the Solomon Islands, north of the Coral Sea.
28:58On Guadalcanal, the Japanese were building an airfield to menace supply routes to Australia.
29:04This was the first objective.
29:05The name Guadalcanal has been written into history.
29:10With other names like Tarawa and Iwo Jima, Bouganville and Peleliu, it has become a symbol, not merely of one battle on one remote island,
29:21but of all the battles fought up the ladder of islands leading to Japan.
29:26On Guadalcanal, the outnumbered, outgunned marines first found out what it meant to fight the Japanese at close quarters.
29:34In the stinking jungle, they lived through a nightmare six months long.
29:45Offshore, American and Australian ships were engaged in no less desperate battle.
29:54The enemy spared nothing in his effort to save Guadalcanal.
29:58From August to December, the sea actions flayed.
30:03Night actions in which frequently almost every ship engaged was hit.
30:07Then, suddenly, at sea and ashore, the Japanese attacks ended.
30:33The weary Blue Jackets had driven the enemy from waters he already considered his own.
30:49The weary marines of Guadalcanal could take pride in two great achievements.
30:54They had taken the first step on the long road to Tokyo, and they had mastered the savage arts of jungle warfare.
31:02But now, some were going home.
31:19Others had already gone to hospitals on other islands,
31:22where Navy doctors and nurses were pioneering new horizons in battle surgery and tropical medicine.
31:29And whole islands were also set aside where tired men could recapture a little of the easygoing life
31:43they had nearly forgotten.
31:50Where they could find a little rest and have a little fun.
31:53Though some men rested, the offensive strategy of the United Nations could not.
32:14In November 1943, America'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 for unrelenting attack in the Pacific.
32:31They had the weapons now.
32:34There were warships of every type.
32:36American industry and labor were meeting the test of global war.
32:39They had used well the time bought for them by the bow-and-arrow navy of the early days.
32:46By the outnumbered heroes on Bataan.
32:49By the men who fought in the Coral Sea at Midway on Guadalcanal.
32:54By the free peoples everywhere in the Pacific, who had steadfastly resisted Japanese aggression.
33:01And by the Chinese, who for eight long years had stood off the full onslaught of the Japanese armies.
33:08These mighty bombers were built on time, bought by the sacrifice of British, Australians, New Zealanders, and Dutch.
33:17These giant stockpiles were built up while guerrillas in the Philippines and the Netherlands' East Indies were fighting the enemy with little more than hope.
33:27And even more important, the United Nations now had men for the Pacific.
33:32Blue jackets to handle the complex machinery of modern sea power.
33:38Airmen, soldiers, and marines trained for amphibious and jungle warfare.
33:43And all these were but the vanguard of a host of others still in training camps.
33:49Under their commanders, Fleet Admiral Nimitz in the Central Pacific,
33:53and Army General Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest,
33:57on the side of their allies, they were ready to push attack.
34:00What they accomplished is history.
34:06From Guadalcanal and New Guinea, the Allied advance gathered momentum.
34:11Striking from airfields on Key Islands,
34:14taking this base, bypassing that.
34:17Short steps at first.
34:19And as America's power grew, lengthening into giant strides.
34:23The world began to hear of strange places.
34:28Vinchak and Tarawa.
34:30Kwajalein and Eitap.
34:33Biak and Saipak.
34:34Peleliu and Morata.
34:36And as the pace increased,
34:38more familiar names would come back into the news.
34:41The Philippines.
34:42And 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 and human sacrifice.
35:04A task force can weigh anchor to sail against the enemy
35:12only because thousands of officers and men ashore
35:16have worked long months at 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,
35:30not a plane will be airborne,
35:31not a marine will hit the beach
35:33until millions of other words have been written down.
35:37In crisp sentences,
35:39in codes,
35:40on charts and maps,
35:42in mathematical equations,
35:44in 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
35:57to the tide tables of a once forgotten tropical island.
36:02No detail can be omitted.
36:05Yet all this planning
36:06is for one ultimate purpose.
36:09To put this man and his rifle
36:11ashore on a hostile beach.
36:14This is the eve of battle.
36:20This is the eve of Guadalcanal,
36:23of Tarawa,
36:24of Palau,
36:25Leyte,
36:26Iwo Jima,
36:28Okinawa.
36:28Beyond the horizon lies the enemy.
36:51The intricate mass of the attacking task force
36:54moves in for the kill.
36:56Each ship in its designated place.
37:00Each man at his designated station.
37:03All at the designated time.
37:06H hour.
37:07On D day.
37:08All at the time.
37:19All at the time.
37:21All at the time.
37:21All at the time.
37:23All at the time.
37:24All at the time.
37:25All at the time.
37:25All at the time.
37:26All at the time.
37:27All at the time.
37:27All at the time.
37:28All at the time.
37:28All at the time.
37:29All at the time.
37:30All at the time.
37:31All at the time.
37:32All at the time.
37:33All at the time.
37:34All at the time.
37:35All at the time.
37:36All at the time.
37:37All at the time.
37:38The hornet's nest has been stirred up.
37:45Japanese torpedo bombers.
38:08The enemy is beaten off.
38:24In the pre-dawn, the American carrier planes take off.
38:38At dawn, they are over their objective.
38:57An American plane is shot down.
39:16This is a Japanese ammunition ship.
39:22The battle wagons and cruisers have taken up stations close ashore.
39:34Some of the so-called ghost ships, salvaged from the mud of Pearl Harbor.
39:40Ships bearing the names of American states.
39:43Pennsylvania, Nevada, West Virginia.
39:52Pennsylvania, Nevada, West Virginia.
40:21They are paying off their debt.
40:26A ship called King George V is paying off the debt of another called Prince of Wales.
40:33Now 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.
40:58The landing craft come under hot enemy fire, but Coast Guard and Navy coxswains keep them on course.
41:19They are the Navy coxswains keep them on course.
41:22They are the Navy coxswains keep them on course.
41:26And as they are entering into their mast aguilates.
41:31They are the Navy coxswains keep them on course.
41:35That is the U.S. objects in ocean.
41:36Enjoy the river.
41:37What do you mean?
41:38With Delhi答 any сн Monroe or USA, if Navy wind has back とalty sea.
41:39On schedule.
42:09The first wave hits the beach.
42:39The Marines and soldiers have won a tiny strip of beach, a fingernail, no more.
42:46They must get over the hump, in from the beach.
42:51This is rugged.
43:08The fingernail has been expanded.
43:10It is now a solid beach.
43:12But the forward elements are pinned down by mortar and machine gun fire.
43:17The Japanese are reported gathering for a counterattack.
43:27The quickest way to break it up is from the air.
43:30The beach calls the carriers 50 miles offshore.
43:34But the carriers too have their hands full.
43:41The wind up.
43:48The other side.
43:58The soldiers are in the air.
44:33These ships fight with a tradition behind them.
44:39Most of them carry the names of ships famous in American naval history.
44:43Wasp, Ethics, Enterprise, and Bonhomme Richard.
45:03Some of the carriers are temporarily out of action.
45:27But the others can fulfill their obligations to the men ashore.
45:44At last, the air support is on its way.
45:48The air support is on its way.
45:54The air support is on its way.
45:58The air support is on its way.
46:02We are going to do this.
46:06The air support is on its way.
46:12We are going to do that.
46:17The air support is on its way.
46:21Now the attack can again inch forward.
46:51Patrols are approaching the enemy's main defense line.
47:19It would have to be pried out with tanks, with artillery, and machine guns, and mortars, with hand grenades, gasoline bombs.
47:47And finally, there's a foot soldier with a rifle and bayonet.
47:54A Japanese dynamite.
48:01A Japanese dynamite.
48:08A Japanese dynamite.
48:15Another Japanese refuses to stop.
48:26As usual, few of the enemy surrender.
48:33Their propagandists have made them believe that surrender means torture and death.
48:41On the beach, the seaborne community is moving in to stay.
48:48The operation can officially be considered a success.
48:52Up front, the wounded are coming back.
48:59Up front, the wounded are coming back.
49:14Some will recover to fight again.
49:17Some will always bear the scars of battle.
49:21Go on the boat.
49:30Go on.
49:36By their sacrifice, they have won new airfields for allied air power.
50:04New anchorages for allied sea power.
50:07A 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.
50:34Step by step, this has been the price.
50:41Step by step, this has been the price that has been the price.
50:48But for each man that has fallen, there is another to take his place.
51:18Theirs is the task, the victory will be for all.
51:26But this victory can be won only if free men everywhere give to its cause unsparingly their strength, their treasure, and their hearts.
51:37Then, and only then, will there be peace in the Pacific and over all the earth.
51:48Amen.
51:50Amen.
51:52Amen.
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