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00:00:00Reach across time and see yourself.
00:00:04You stand tall against terrifying enemies.
00:00:09You build masterpieces and break down barriers.
00:00:14You rush into the future and meet your past.
00:00:19For every time, at every moment, the official network of every millennium.
00:00:25The History Channel. Where the past comes alive.
00:00:32Witness the events that have shaped our lives.
00:00:37Witness the history.
00:00:46Witness our century.
00:00:55The horrendous success of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor,
00:01:02and upon British, French, and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia,
00:01:06launched six straight months of unbroken conquest.
00:01:10By the middle of 1942, the Japanese had fought halfway across the Pacific.
00:01:15They were poised at their great naval base at Rabaul, New Britain,
00:01:19to sever the vital sea lanes between the United States and Australia and New Zealand,
00:01:24the last significant Allied bastions in the South Pacific.
00:01:28Having been ordered out of the Philippines by President Franklin Roosevelt,
00:01:43General Douglas MacArthur escaped to Australia,
00:01:46where he prepared an Allied counteroffensive in the Pacific.
00:01:50Meanwhile, the Japanese were planning landings at Port Moresby in southern New Guinea.
00:01:55The Japanese invasion fleet sailed from Rabaul in early May 1942.
00:02:02An American task force, including the carriers Lexington and Yorktown,
00:02:06raced to head off the landings.
00:02:13May 7th, contact.
00:02:15The enemy fleet was sighted in the Coral Sea, southeast of New Guinea.
00:02:25During the next two days, in the first-ever battle between aircraft carriers,
00:02:31American planes sank the Japanese carrier Shoho and damaged another.
00:02:36In the action, the carrier Lexington, the proud Lady Lex, was lost.
00:02:51But the Japanese invasion force turned back to Rabaul.
00:02:55Stung by the American rebuff in the Coral Sea,
00:02:59Admiral Yamamoto, Japan's naval chief,
00:03:02accelerated his preparations for an even larger campaign.
00:03:06The target, Midway Island,
00:03:081150 miles northwest of Pearl Harbor.
00:03:11Its capture would threaten Hawaii
00:03:14and force the still-hobbled American fleet
00:03:16to meet Yamamoto in decisive battle.
00:03:19Yamamoto dispatched a diversionary force to the Aleutian Islands.
00:03:25His main fleet arrived in the Midway area on June 4th, 1942.
00:03:31In the ensuing battle,
00:03:33Japan was dealt the worst naval defeat in her history.
00:03:40Four Japanese carriers were sunk.
00:03:44Two thousand pilots and seamen were killed.
00:03:49One American carrier, the Yorktown, was lost,
00:03:52as well as 150 planes.
00:03:58But the victory at Midway had been monumental.
00:04:01Japan's naval dominance in the Pacific
00:04:04had been brought to a dramatic end.
00:04:10With attacks on Port Moresby and Hawaii blunted,
00:04:13the Allies began their first strategic offensive in the Pacific
00:04:16with landings in the Solomon Islands.
00:04:19On August 7th, 1942,
00:04:21U.S. Marines landed on Tulagi and Guadalcanal,
00:04:24seized the airstrip,
00:04:26and injected a festering thorn
00:04:28in the side of Japanese expansion east of New Guinea.
00:04:31The situation hung in the balance
00:04:33as savage Japanese attacks from the land, sea, and air
00:04:36attempted to fling the invasion back into the sea.
00:04:39Offshore, an American fleet protected the operation.
00:04:46It included the carriers Enterprise and Saratoga.
00:04:50But a Japanese task force counterattacked
00:04:52and sank four Allied cruisers near Savo Island.
00:04:55The now undefended amphibious force had to withdraw
00:04:59and leave the Marines stranded and half-starred.
00:05:02During the months following,
00:05:05in a series of air and sea battles around the Solomons,
00:05:08the United States engaged the enemy.
00:05:11Fleet losses were heavy on both sides.
00:05:14More than 400 Japanese aircraft went down.
00:05:18Japanese troops were slaughtered in heavy fighting
00:05:21and in sunken transport.
00:05:25Meanwhile, since late August,
00:05:27the Japanese had pressed their overland attack
00:05:29on Port Moresby in New Guinea.
00:05:31Their invasion would result in one of the most brutal
00:05:34and miserable campaigns of the entire war.
00:05:39The Imperial Army had landed 11,000 men
00:05:42under General Horry in the area of Buna and Guna.
00:05:46The plan, to cross the rugged Owen Stanley Mountains
00:05:49over the Kokoda Trail and capture Port Moresby.
00:05:54For the Japanese, the result was disastrous.
00:05:58Even as they drove the Australian defenders
00:06:01back across terrible mountains and reeking jungle,
00:06:04Horry's troops, sick and exhausted,
00:06:07reached a point just 30 miles from Port Moresby.
00:06:10But there, the gritty Australians held.
00:06:15On September 24th, after the failure of a supporting operation,
00:06:19Horry was ordered back over the cruel mountains.
00:06:23Starving Japanese fought their way to the north coast.
00:06:26Horry was drowned during the ill-fated retreat.
00:06:31An enemy attempt to reinforce the area in March
00:06:34saw all these troop transports sunk by American air attacks.
00:06:39Battle of the Bismarck Sea doomed Japanese hopes
00:06:42for victory in New Guinea.
00:06:45General MacArthur was now ready to move
00:06:47against the line of enemy positions
00:06:49all along the northern coast of New Guinea.
00:06:54In the first of a series of leapfrogging,
00:06:56airborne and amphibious operations,
00:06:58MacArthur's infantry units,
00:07:00supported by General Kenney's 5th Air Force,
00:07:02landed in the area of Salamaua and Lai.
00:07:06Heavy jungle fighting began.
00:07:08A double pincer was planned,
00:07:13MacArthur's forces moving across New Guinea
00:07:17and into New Britain,
00:07:19while the amphibious units of Admiral William Halsey's 3rd Fleet
00:07:22advanced northward from Guadalcanal,
00:07:25along the chain of Solomon Island.
00:07:27The pincer, it was hoped, would neutralize the Japanese base at Rabao.
00:07:31Finchhafen was taken, opening the way for an attack against New Britain.
00:07:39During the summer and fall of 1943,
00:07:42in the other jaw of the pincer,
00:07:44Admiral Halsey's forces moved up the Solomon chain.
00:07:47Japanese bases on the Russell Islands,
00:07:50Rendova, Munda, New Georgia,
00:07:52and the Treasury Islands,
00:07:54fell to 3rd Fleet amphibious operation.
00:07:57On November 1, 1943,
00:07:59the 3rd Marine Division stormed ashore
00:08:02at Empress Augusta Bay on Bougainville in the Solomon.
00:08:06Resistance was strong,
00:08:07but the beachhead was successfully established.
00:08:14Enemy air attacks against the airfield proved ineffective.
00:08:18Japanese attempts to reinforce the island were driven off.
00:08:23As the 37th Infantry Division
00:08:25joined the 3rd Marine Division in the campaign,
00:08:28the enemy defenders fell back.
00:08:31Rabao was now only 210 air miles away from Allied airfields.
00:08:37MacArthur's troops seized Araway in southern New Britain.
00:08:41Soon after, on December 26,
00:08:44the 1st Marine Division poured ashore at Cape Gloucester.
00:08:48After four days of heavy fighting in monsoon rains,
00:08:51the Marines secured the beach and moved inland,
00:08:54closing the pincers around Rabao, another knot.
00:08:58The New Britain beachheads at Cape Gloucester and Araway slowly expanded.
00:09:03The 1st Marine Division and 40th Infantry Divisions
00:09:06drove along the coast of the banana-shaped island,
00:09:10and the Japanese retreated eastward toward Rabao.
00:09:13MacArthur's leapfrogging along New Guinea's coast at places like Hollandia and Itape
00:09:20would destroy an entire Japanese army, speed the advance on the Philippines,
00:09:25and help neutralize Rabao.
00:09:27The great base, once a prime threat and objective,
00:09:30was bypassed and left to die on the vine.
00:09:34During almost the entire war, a dirty, crucial campaign against heavy odds
00:09:39ran its bloody course on the mainland of Asia in Burma.
00:09:43The Japanese sought to threaten India and to cut the Burma Road,
00:09:47the critical supply line from the west into China.
00:09:51During the spring of 1942, the British in Burma were hard-pressed.
00:09:56Driven northward from Rangoon, they had made frantic plans for the defense of India.
00:10:02American General Joseph W. Stillwell had been placed in command
00:10:06of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese army and charged with the defense of Burma.
00:10:13The lightning Japanese strike through Burma had cut the Burma Road,
00:10:17the 600-mile lifeline running from Lasho to Mongyu,
00:10:21then over the Himalaya to Kunming, China.
00:10:24To keep China supplied, the American Air Transport Command
00:10:27made daily flights over the hump from Assam, India,
00:10:31over the mountains to Kunming.
00:10:34These 500-mile trips took them over 15,000-foot peaks,
00:10:39where freak winds reached 250 miles an hour
00:10:43and sudden turbulence threatened instant disaster.
00:10:46Most got through, but the supplies were a comparative trickle.
00:10:51As the Allies fought for Burma, work was begun on the Lido Road,
00:10:56an attempt to reopen the land route to China.
00:11:02Running from Lido, India through northern Burma to Michna,
00:11:06it was to connect with the old Burma Road at Mongyu,
00:11:09a distance of 500 miles.
00:11:11The Lido Road was a project of the U.S. Army engineers.
00:11:15Construction began in late 1942.
00:11:18The 35,000 native workers toiled under deplorable conditions.
00:11:24The threat of Japanese attacks was always present.
00:11:27Despite malaria, monsoon rains, and the mountains,
00:11:31the road pushed ahead.
00:11:33It was built at the cost of one man per mile.
00:11:37The opening of 1944 saw General Stilwell leading two Chinese divisions
00:11:43toward the important airfield at Michna.
00:11:46Simultaneously, troops of General Slim's British 14th Army
00:11:51launched a two-core supporting operation.
00:11:54One moved into central Burma,
00:11:57while the second drove south down the Arakan Peninsula.
00:12:01Stillwell's force hacked its way through the jungle-clad mountains.
00:12:08Chinese assault troops battled toward Michna.
00:12:14It was an advantage to the outmanned allies
00:12:17that the wildness of the Burmese jungles and mountains
00:12:20made big-unit campaigns close to impossible.
00:12:23But it was an ideal situation for small,
00:12:25stealthy, quick-hitting raider units,
00:12:28and the Allies had these in abundance
00:12:30under the commands of United States Colonel Frank Merrill
00:12:33and Britain's General Ord Wingate.
00:12:37General Ord Wingate's Chindit raiders moved out of Lido, India
00:12:41in a mission deep behind the Japanese lines.
00:12:44Seizing the airfield at Indore,
00:12:46they were airlifted to their next target,
00:12:48codenamed Broadway.
00:12:53They were transported by the Air Commando Force
00:12:55of American Colonel Philip Cochran.
00:12:59Gliders filled with Wingate's troops
00:13:01were air-towed to a remote jungle clearing.
00:13:08Tragic losses were incurred
00:13:10during the dangerous landing operation.
00:13:18With Broadway as their jungle base,
00:13:20Wingate's raiders remained behind the lines until August.
00:13:24destroying thousands of enemy troops.
00:13:28Wingate was killed in the crash of his plane.
00:13:35In February, the American unit,
00:13:37now known as Merrill's Marauders,
00:13:39skirted behind General Tanaka's 18th Army
00:13:42and attacked his columns at Wallaboom.
00:13:45Tanaka retreated into the Mugong Valley,
00:13:47but the marauders circled through the mountains
00:13:49and blocked his retreat at Shadidu.
00:13:55While Stilwell's Chinese divisions pushed toward Michna,
00:13:58Merrill moved his men over the treacherous terrain
00:14:01to attack that airfield.
00:14:03It fell on May 17th.
00:14:12Michna, under a bloody siege, held out until August.
00:14:19With its capture, a shorter air route to China was open.
00:14:24In addition, the Lido Road was successfully linked
00:14:29with the old Burma Road.
00:14:33By the next year, the Japanese would retreat into Thailand
00:14:36and the Battle of Burma would be over.
00:14:39But the truly crucial theater lay always
00:14:42in the millions of square miles of the Pacific.
00:14:45In June of 1942, the Japanese began a bold flanking invasion
00:14:51of the North American continent.
00:14:53They landed on the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska
00:14:56at the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula.
00:14:58Their position on the northern flank
00:15:00of Allied communications made the defeat
00:15:03of the entrenched enemy imperative.
00:15:06May 11th, 1943, an American amphibious force
00:15:10weighted off the Aleutian island of Attu,
00:15:13a bleak mountainous mass hundreds of miles west
00:15:16of the coast of Alaska.
00:15:18The naval barrage was severely limited by a heavy mist.
00:15:23Air support was impossible.
00:15:25The 7th Division's invasion craft moved in for the landing.
00:15:29They went ashore at two points,
00:15:32Holtz Bay in the north and Massacre Bay in the south.
00:15:35The landings were unopposed,
00:15:37the enemy retreating into Massacre Valley.
00:15:40The southern units pushed through the fog to Jarmin Pass.
00:15:44There, heavy Japanese fire from the heights
00:15:47halted their advance.
00:15:49For a week, the Holtz and Massacre Bay units slowly converged,
00:15:53the enemy offering increasing resistance.
00:15:56Mud and mist hampered the operation.
00:15:59Northern and southern 7th Infantry forces joined up
00:16:02and the Japanese retreated to an area around Chicago Harbor.
00:16:06Persistent American attacks against a position
00:16:09known as Fish Hook Ridge proved costly.
00:16:12The enemy fought from tunnels and caves.
00:16:15Combat was often hand-to-hand.
00:16:17May 29th, the surviving Japanese swarmed out of the hills,
00:16:21attempting to overrun the U.S. positions.
00:16:24But the charge signaled the battle's end.
00:16:27The following day, all Japanese resistance on Attu ceased.
00:16:32August 15th, following a heavy naval barrage,
00:16:35U.S. and Canadian assault troops landed on Kiska Island.
00:16:39But the Japanese garrison had been spirited away in the dense fog.
00:16:43Three stray dogs greeted the invaders.
00:16:46The Aleutian campaign was over.
00:16:49Admiral Chester Nimitz, commanding the U.S. Pacific Fleet,
00:16:54sought an alternative to MacArthur's slogging campaigns
00:16:57through the big jungle-infested islands of the Southwest Pacific.
00:17:01He proposed an amphibious thrust through the islands of the Central Pacific
00:17:05as a quicker parallel route to the Japanese heartland.
00:17:09The leapfrogging strategy would whipsaw the Japanese and save time,
00:17:13but it saved little blood.
00:17:194 a.m., November 20th, 1943.
00:17:24Ships of the 5th Amphibious Force stood off Tarawa Atoll,
00:17:28a ring of coral islands in the Central Pacific,
00:17:31part of a group known as the Gilberts.
00:17:34Sixteen transports carrying assault troops of the 2nd Marine Division
00:17:38eased into position off the western entrance to the lagoon.
00:17:42The target, Basio, a coral islet about the size of New York's Central Park.
00:17:48The Marines descended cargo nets for transfer to their landing boats.
00:17:54American naval guns opened up,
00:17:56including those of the battleships Maryland and Tennessee,
00:17:59salvaged from the disaster at Pearl Harbor.
00:18:03In the distance, Basio was shrouded in smoke.
00:18:08One admiral boasted that his naval bombardment would obliterate Basio.
00:18:14But as the Amtrak's drew closer, fire from the Japanese guns indicated
00:18:20that any obliterating would have to be done at bayonet point.
00:18:24Somehow, the battered first three waves reached the narrow beach under withering fire.
00:18:34The Battle of Tarawa, considered one of the bloodiest engagements
00:18:38in American military history, had begun.
00:18:41The Marines came ashore at three beaches labeled west to east,
00:18:46Red 1, Red 2, and Red 3.
00:18:49The landings were raked by fire from Japanese positioned on a 500-yard pier,
00:18:54and from other machine guns positioned to the west.
00:18:58Three battalions of the 2nd Marine Division clung to their narrow beachhead under murderous fire.
00:19:08The Marines only had enough Amtrak's to land the first three waves.
00:19:13Tragedy struck when the supporting waves in landing boats could not cross the reef.
00:19:19Many men were cut down, wading ashore.
00:19:23By 11 a.m., a wounded Colonel David Shoup came ashore to take command.
00:19:28All across the northern side of Basio,
00:19:31small groups of Marines fought heroic actions against the dug-in enemy.
00:19:36With their backs to the sea, the Marines simply held on.
00:19:44In some places, men left the cover of the seawall
00:19:46and began fighting their way inland, assaulting the Japanese pillboxes and bunkers.
00:19:52By day's end, 5,000 Marines had landed.
00:19:551,500 were already dead or wounded.
00:20:02Two precarious beachheads existed, each measured in yards.
00:20:07In some areas, a Japanese advance of 200 yards
00:20:11might throw the Marines into the sea.
00:20:16November 21, D-plus-1.
00:20:18Men of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, waded towards Basio.
00:20:23Many were cut down by the relentless machine gun fire.
00:20:32Naval guns blasted the western beaches,
00:20:34followed by determined Marine assaults against the enemy positions.
00:20:38One by one, they fell.
00:20:43As the beaches were cleared, reinforcements were landed on the western tip of the island.
00:20:50In the east, other Marines, now reinforced, battled across the airfield to the southern shore of Basio,
00:20:58cutting the island in two.
00:21:00Colonel Shoup's message to his commander held new hope.
00:21:07Casualties many, but we are winning.
00:21:10All Marine reserves were now ashore.
00:21:15The horror and uncertainty of the first days were over.
00:21:22Communications with fire support ships and dive bombers improved.
00:21:27Marines began reducing the hundreds of Japanese strong points.
00:21:36Artillery from an adjacent island targeted the enemy positions.
00:21:42Tanks, flamethrowers, and demolition teams did their deadly work.
00:21:48During the next two days, the Marines moved eastward toward the narrowing tail of Basio.
00:21:55November 23rd, D plus 3.
00:21:59At 1.12 p.m., Basio Island was declared secure.
00:22:03According to one Marine, the landscape resembled a living drawing from Dante's Inferno.
00:22:09After three days and nights of combat, 5,500 men lay dead on the tiny piece of Pacific Coral.
00:22:17More than 1,000 of them were American Marines.
00:22:20Barely two months later, the island hopping would begin again.
00:22:25Tarawa was the first major trial by fire of America's new doctrine of offensive amphibious warfare.
00:22:32As bloody as it proved to be, Tarawa became a landmark.
00:22:36The doctrine worked.
00:22:39And if it worked at Tarawa, under the worst possible tactical and hydrographic conditions,
00:22:43it could work anywhere.
00:22:45After bloody Tarawa, the fifth amphibious force moved on the eastern atolls of the Marshall Islands,
00:22:52midway between Hawaii and the Philippines.
00:22:55Here, 24,000 Japanese troops garrisoned six strongly held atolls.
00:23:00The principal American targets, Kwajalein and Eni Waitop.
00:23:05The American fleet gathered off Kwajalein.
00:23:08The twin islands of Roy Namur in the north with the three-strip airfield,
00:23:13and crescent-shaped Kwajalein Island in the south were the objectives.
00:23:18Lessons learned at Tarawa were applied.
00:23:22Fleet shelling was sustained, with nothing left standing above ground.
00:23:26Sufficient Amtraks were available to move the assault waves across the reefs to the shore.
00:23:35The landings actually took place on D-plus-1, February 1, 1944.
00:23:41A number of nearby islets had been seized on D-Day as artillery positions,
00:23:46and to protect the assault waves as they entered the lagoon.
00:23:51The northern attack force, consisting of the 4th Marine Division and the 15th Marine Defense Battalion,
00:23:58landed at Roy Namur.
00:24:01The southern force's 7th Infantry Division went ashore at Kwajalein.
00:24:06On Roy Island, the 23rd Marines pushed 400 yards inland within half an hour,
00:24:12battling towards the north in a hundred separate fights by small units.
00:24:17By 6 p.m., they had reached the northern shore.
00:24:21Roy was declared secure at 0800 on February 2, D-plus-2.
00:24:27The 24th Regiment of the 4th Marine Division landed on Namur against sporadic fire.
00:24:38Pushing on, the 24th Marines encountered strong pillboxes,
00:24:42which were blasted out of action by demolition squads.
00:24:47Tanks joined the assault.
00:24:50By late afternoon of the 1st, enemy resistance had stiffened considerably.
00:24:56February 2, when the 24th reached the northern end of Namur Island, it was declared secure.
00:25:03On Kwajalein, troops of the 7th Infantry Division met sporadic resistance.
00:25:12By evening of D-plus-1, one-third of the island was in American hands.
00:25:18A second third fell on D-plus-2.
00:25:21The army troops fought their way along the narrowing island,
00:25:24blasting the enemy out of bunkers, pillboxes, and the rubble of buildings.
00:25:29At 1430, on February 4th, when they had reached the island's end,
00:25:34the fight for Kwajalein was over.
00:25:37Any Waytock Atoll, the final Marshall Island target, had two strong points.
00:25:44Engebi in the north with its 4,000-foot airstrip, and Any Waytock Island in the extreme south.
00:25:50On 0842, on February 18th, the 22nd Marines went ashore at Engebi.
00:25:56Extremely heavy fighting developed with well-dug-in Japanese forces.
00:26:02But the overwhelming number of Marines quickly took command.
00:26:06By 1450 of D-day, Engebi had been overrun.
00:26:11The following day, the 7th Division's 106th Infantry landed on the north side of Any Waytock Island
00:26:18against stiff resistance.
00:26:20An uncommitted battalion of the 22nd Marines was brought ashore to reinforce the army troops.
00:26:26The assault force secured Any Waytock by February 20th, D-plus-1.
00:26:31The U.S. 5th Fleet had swallowed the far-flung Marshalls in exactly three weeks.
00:26:37The 5th Fleet's next move against the Japanese-held Mariana Islands presented the first mortal danger
00:26:45that the Japanese Empire had faced since the war's beginning.
00:26:48Seizure of these bastions would put cities of the Japanese homeland within reach of the long-range B-29 bombers
00:26:55now pouring off United States assembly lines.
00:26:58More than ever, Japanese resistance would be to the very last man.
00:27:03Ships of the 5th Amphibious Force assembled off Saipan.
00:27:09A shore 32,000 men of General Saito's army waited.
00:27:14The naval barrage blasted the island, 14 miles long by 6 1⁄2 wide.
00:27:25Amtraks filled with troops of the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions crossed the western reef and made for shore.
00:27:32700 Amtraks carried 8,000 men to the beach in less than 20 minutes.
00:27:38The landings took place on Saipan's western side along a 7,000-yard front.
00:27:43The 2nd Marine Division stormed ashore on the left, the 4th on the right.
00:27:48The invasion beaches separated by Afetna Point.
00:27:53Heavy fire from the high ground pinned the troops to the beach.
00:27:57Many of the amphibian tractors were hit as they tried to move inland.
00:28:03Casualties were high.
00:28:05Gradually, the assault force struggled off the invasion beach and began moving toward the highlands.
00:28:12By day's end, 20,000 men were ashore.
00:28:172,000 had been killed or wounded.
00:28:22But the Marines had secured a beachhead 10,000 yards long by 1,500 yards deep.
00:28:28June 17th, D plus 2.
00:28:31As heavy fighting continued, troops of the Army's 27th Division were landed to reinforce the embattled Marines.
00:28:38Heavily dug-in Japanese fortifications were assaulted by flamethrowers and demolition squads.
00:28:46The detonation of a Japanese ammunition depot rocked the island.
00:28:51As Army troops pushed south toward Asilito airfield, the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions linked up and turned north.
00:28:59June 18th, D plus 3, the 4th Marine Division, three regiments abreast, fought their way to Magisien Bay on the east coast of the island.
00:29:10Units of the 27th Division captured Asilito airfield, then pushed on, isolating a pocket of Japanese near Nafton Point.
00:29:18But now, word of the approach of the Japanese first mobile fleet from the Philippines put the American 5th Fleet on alert.
00:29:27Planes took off to seek contact with the enemy's naval force.
00:29:36Contact at sea.
00:29:38Planes of Admiral Mitchell's Task Force 58 had located the Japanese fleet.
00:29:43For two days, American airmen engaged the enemy.
00:29:47It was called the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot by American pilots.
00:29:52The Japanese lost more than 400 planes in two days of violent combat.
00:29:58Japan's naval air arm had been crippled, and the garrisons in the Marianas were doomed.
00:30:06On shore, having bisected the island, the Marines moved north to assault the heights.
00:30:12The attack began on June 23rd, with operations against Japanese pillbox fortifications and mountain caves.
00:30:22Japanese who tried to escape were systematically eliminated.
00:30:29On June 25th, the 2nd Marine Division battled to the top of Mount Tepachau, Saipan's highest point.
00:30:38The Japanese retreated northward.
00:30:43Fighting in the city of Garapan was particularly heavy.
00:30:46The defenders took refuge in destroyed buildings and had to be blasted or burned out.
00:30:51Fortified caves continued to plague the Americans.
00:30:58But one by one, they were silenced.
00:31:06Soldiers and civilians began crossing into American lines.
00:31:10Others threw themselves off the northern cliffs.
00:31:13The final carnage at Marpe Point was over by July 9th.
00:31:19Saipan was secure.
00:31:21The Americans had lost 3,143 men.
00:31:26Another 13,500 were wounded or missing.
00:31:30Aside from 1,800 prisoners, the largest number yet taken, the entire Japanese garrison was dead.
00:31:37Among them, Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who led the Japanese attacks against Pearl Harbor and Midway.
00:31:46With Tokyo now just 1,250 miles away, construction of B-29 airstrips began in earnest.
00:31:54Japan had begun to crumble.
00:31:57The Joint Chiefs of Staff had planned throughout 1944 for Admiral Nimitz's forces to seize Peleliu and the Palau Islands
00:32:04to protect the right flank of General MacArthur's return to the Philippines.
00:32:09When the 3rd Fleet discovered much less resistance in the eastern Philippines than expected,
00:32:14Admiral Halsey recommended a direct landing on Leyte and the cancellation of Peleliu.
00:32:20Nimitz and the Joint Chiefs accepted the first option, but not the second.
00:32:24Peleliu would go, and it would become one of the costliest, most controversial victories in the Pacific War.
00:32:34After its convincing victory over the Japanese at Cape Gloucester,
00:32:39the 1st Marine Division was selected for the Peleliu operation,
00:32:43along with the Army's 81st Infantry Division.
00:32:46General W.H. Rupertis told his 1st Division Marines,
00:32:51We'll have some casualties, but this is going to be tough but quick.
00:32:55We'll be through in three days, maybe two.
00:32:57During the preceding week, the island had been heavily bombed.
00:33:10By D-Day, underwater demolition teams had cleared most mines from the beach approaches.
00:33:17Peleliu, rocked by the fury of the naval bombardment, was soon in flames.
00:33:22Amphibian tractors filled with 1st Division Marines headed toward the beach.
00:33:29Shells screamed overhead, pounding the island.
00:33:33Navy fighters strafed the landing point and poured rockets into the low hills.
00:33:39To the approaching Marines, it seemed as it always did, but nothing could still be alive on shore.
00:33:44The island, 6 miles long, 2 miles wide, was marked by a central spine of hills running from north to south.
00:33:53It was from the ridges of those hills that the Marines took their first fire.
00:33:57The Amtraks had almost reached the beach when they began taking heavy fire.
00:34:08Several Amtraks were hit.
00:34:13Marines in full pack tumbled out of the burning vehicles.
00:34:17Many never made the beach.
00:34:18General Rupertus chose to invade Peleliu along its southwest coast in order to seize the bomber's strip quickly.
00:34:27He would land all three regiments abreast.
00:34:30Chesty Puller's 1st Marines on the left would tackle the looming Umer Brogel Highlands.
00:34:35Bucky Harris's 5th Marines would take the vital airfield.
00:34:39Meanwhile, Herman Hanneken's 7th Marines would clear the southern corner of the island.
00:34:43On the left, the 1st Marines became quickly pinned down by fierce fire coming from the high ground,
00:34:50and by murderous salvos of heavy caliber fire from a rocky promontory called simply The Point.
00:34:57At the center, the 5th Marines gradually fought their way off the beach and past the outskirts of the airfield.
00:35:04On the right, the 7th Marines swung southeast but met stiff resistance from a strong force of dug-in Japanese infantry.
00:35:19As the day wore on, casualties mounted.
00:35:23Men bled silently, died quietly as the battle raged about them.
00:35:28Corpsmen moved among the wounded, comforting, giving plasma, checking still forms, moving on.
00:35:37The sound was unbearable, the smoke unyielding.
00:35:44By afternoon, the cratered beach was littered with the debris of battle, burning vehicles, discarded weapons, and the dead.
00:35:54By sunset, the 5th and 7th Marines had achieved their D-Day objectives.
00:36:03But Puller's 1st Marines, now holding the point in positions north of the airfield, remained under withering enemy fire.
00:36:11Gaps appeared between units.
00:36:13From the crags above them, Japanese mortars rained death upon the 1st Marines.
00:36:19The Marines hugged the earth, calling for fire support from ships just offshore or carrier aircraft.
00:36:26The Japanese made repeated counter-attacks during the night against the point.
00:36:31There, a single Marine rifle company, cut off and unsupported, fought back desperately.
00:36:39Only 18 Marines were still on their feet at dawn.
00:36:44At daybreak, murderous fire from the high ground continued.
00:36:48Naval gunfire and napalm attacks proved ineffective.
00:36:52Patrols now reported that the ridges were honeycombed with hundreds of caves, some apparently very large, very deep.
00:37:04Months earlier, under the direction of the island's military commander, Colonel Kunio Nakagawa,
00:37:10Japanese miners had been flown in to supervise the construction and improvement of a network of interconnected caves above the beach.
00:37:20The operation, conducted with the utmost secrecy, had turned Peleliu into a bristling fortress.
00:37:31On D-Plus-2, Puller's regiment succeeded in pushing to the 1st Heights at an appalling cost of lives.
00:37:37They found a chaotic jumble of steep ridges studded with innumerable caves.
00:37:44The ridges separated by deep draws and gullies, and by valleys strewn with coral boulders.
00:37:52Intelligence had estimated that the island held more than 10,000 defenders.
00:37:58It seemed that as many as 8,000 of these might be holed up in the caves of the Umu Rogol.
00:38:05By evening of September 17th, casualty figures made it evident that the 1st Marines were being shot to pieces.
00:38:16But the survivors struggled on, fighting and dying on hills known as Bloody Nose Ridge, the Five Sisters, Death Valley, and Pope's Ridge.
00:38:25They attacked relentlessly, using satchel charges and flamethrowers, securing ridge after ridge, then moving on to other hills and other caves.
00:38:38Having secured Peleliu's airfield and the ground beyond, Bucky Harris's 5th Regiment began a slow push toward the eastern arm of the island.
00:38:49Enemy opposition was generally light.
00:38:51By September 20th, Harris had secured the entire eastern side of Peleliu.
00:39:01Hanakin's 7th Marines, meanwhile, fought southward against strong enemy resistance, facing one of Nakagawa's cracked units, the 2nd Battalion of the Japanese 15th Infantry Division.
00:39:12The Japanese fought fanatically.
00:39:18Few prisoners were taken, these mostly Korean and Okinawan laborers.
00:39:23The caves on the ridges were found to be virtually impregnable.
00:39:26They ranged from tiny, one-man crevices to awesome 500-foot chambers, all configured for mutually supporting fire.
00:39:36One such cave, when finally opened, contained the bodies of a thousand Japanese soldiers.
00:39:41With reinforcements now in the line, combined Marine and Army units set about the task of neutralizing the caves and eliminating the fanatical troops still defending them.
00:39:50On the ridges of Peleliu's Umar Brogol, savage fighting continued.
00:39:57As the 5th and 7th Marines achieved their objectives elsewhere on the island, elements of both were moved into the mountains to assist the weary 1st Marines.
00:40:07There, they found the shattered remains of a regiment.
00:40:14In six days of combat, they had taken 50% casualties.
00:40:20The line companies had been destroyed as fighting units.
00:40:24Despite Ruperta's strong objections, 321st Regiment of the Army's 81st Division was ordered to Peleliu.
00:40:35They came ashore on September 23rd to relieve what was left of Chesty Puller's regiment.
00:40:42The exhausted men stumbled down from the hills carrying their wounded.
00:40:48As they straggled towards the beach, a combat correspondent called,
00:40:53Hey, you guys the first Marines?
00:40:56There ain't no first Marines anymore, came the answer.
00:41:00We're just a bunch of survivors.
00:41:01In an effort to isolate the pocket on Mount Umar Brogol, the 321st Regiment moved up the northern side of Peleliu.
00:41:12Fighting their way along West Road while coming under heavy fire from the ridges, they quickly achieved their objectives north of the pocket.
00:41:19By September 26th, the 321st had succeeded in isolating what became known as the Umar Brogol pocket.
00:41:28During the fighting to dislodge the enemy in that area, the 5th Marines had come under fire from Ngezbus and Pungaru, two small islands off the northern tip of Peleliu.
00:41:38On September 28th, the 3rd Battalion, using Amtraks and supported by low-flying Marine fighters, sped across the shallow water separating Peleliu from the two islands and wiped out the small Japanese garrisons holding them.
00:41:53To the south, on the ridges of the Umar Brogol, two battalions of the 321st were now fighting alongside Hanakin's 7th Marines. The cave-to-cave combat was intense and costly.
00:42:07The terrain was a nightmare. Roads led nowhere. The landscape was burned free of vegetation and scarred white by thousands of phosphorus shells. One Marine thought it must look like the face of the moon.
00:42:26Seventy-five-millimeter artillery was brought to the ridges. To protect it from enemy fire, thousands of sandbags were carried from the beach and up the steep mountain.
00:42:43Caves were blasted shut. Hills declared secure. But the Japanese would dig out or move underground to other interconnected caves to fight again on yet other
00:42:55ridges. On Peleliu, some areas had to be declared secure two or three times.
00:43:06Losses on the mountain were staggering. Most of the officers and non-coms were now dead, wounded, or incapacitated by battle fatigue.
00:43:15Privates led corporals and sergeants over the ridges. Men who could no longer order others to die, but who would still blindly follow.
00:43:25After two weeks of brutal combat, the Umabrogel pocket had been reduced to an area just 900 by 400 yards.
00:43:37On September 30th, at an airfield ceremony below the ridges, General Rupertus declared Peleliu officially secure.
00:43:52Close by, men continued to die.
00:43:55On October 14th, the last of the Leatherneck units, the 5th Marines, left the mountains.
00:44:03From then on, the 81st Infantry Division remained to methodically eliminate the estimated 1,000 Japanese holding out in the caves.
00:44:11The Battle of Peleliu, with casualties greater than those of Omaha Beach, had cost the 1st Marine Division 6,526 men, of whom 1,200 died.
00:44:24The Army had 3,089 killed and wounded. It had taken more than 9,000 American casualties to kill the 10,000 entrenched defenders of the island.
00:44:34As with the Battle of Peleliu, many felt that the Battle of the Philippines need never have been fought.
00:44:41It might have been better to bypass the islands.
00:44:44But General MacArthur still felt the sting of his defeat at Baton and Corregidor, and was determined to fulfill his pledge, I shall return.
00:44:51He passionately believed that America owed the Filipinos a complete liberation from the occupying Japanese.
00:45:03Planes of Admiral Kincaid's 7th Fleet blasted Japanese installations on Leyte and Luzon.
00:45:09The invasion armada of 700 ships set sail from Hollandia and other ports, carrying 200,000 troops of General Walter Kruger's 6th Army.
00:45:22Aboard his flagship, MacArthur watched as the islands he had left in defeat two and a half years before came into view.
00:45:30It was agreed that the island of Leyte would be the target.
00:45:33For a week preceding the landings, planes of Admiral Halsey's 3rd Fleet raided airfields on Okinawa and Formosa to suppress Japanese air defenses.
00:45:48October 20th, 1944.
00:45:51Just before dawn, the naval bombardment commenced.
00:45:55An old soldier had returned.
00:46:00Supported by waves of carrier-based planes, the landing craft went in, meeting stronger enemy fire than had been predicted.
00:46:12But ashore, Japanese response was light, in some places non-existent.
00:46:17General Siebert's 10th Corps, consisting of the 1st Cavalry and 24th Divisions, landed just south of Tacloban.
00:46:26General Hodge's 24th Corps went ashore in the area of Bulge.
00:46:32Before going in, the Americans learned that the Japanese troops facing them were the very same that took part in the infamous Bataan Death March.
00:46:41There would be extra incentive in this fight.
00:46:44By midday of the invasion of Leyte, the 1st Cavalry had sealed off the airstrip, which fell in the late afternoon.
00:46:53Other elements of the 1st crossed Highway No. 1 and moved into the foothills to the west.
00:46:59Further south, the 24th Division was pinned down by strong enemy fire until early afternoon.
00:47:06By evening, they were in a sharp firefight.
00:47:09After landing, the 96th Division quickly captured Hill 120, overlooking the beach, and advanced 1 1⁄2 miles inland.
00:47:23The 7th Division moved through Dular, and by evening had fought its way to the edge of its airstrip.
00:47:28General MacArthur, accompanied by Sergio Osmeña, the new president of the Philippines, waded ashore at Red Beach, which was still under sniper fire.
00:47:41Moments later, in a broadcast heard throughout the islands, his voice trembling with emotion, MacArthur began,
00:47:50People of the Philippines, I have returned.
00:47:52As October drew to a close, the fighting on Leyte intensified.
00:48:01In the 10th Corps area, the 1st Cavalry Division secured the San Juanico Strait, thus preventing Japanese reinforcements from entering Leyte from Samar.
00:48:12On the Corps' southern front, the 7th Division occupied Palo.
00:48:16After several days of hard fighting, they seized the high ground guarding the Leyte Valley.
00:48:24In desperation, the Japanese dispatched a naval armada to the Philippines.
00:48:31Two fleets sailed towards Leyte, while the decoy force drew off Halsey's 3rd Fleet, which had been assigned to protect the beachhead.
00:48:39Planes of the 7th Fleet inflicted heavy losses on the enemy.
00:48:50Halsey's departure toward the decoy force left the beachhead open to the guns of Admiral Corito's approaching task force.
00:48:58But a spirited defense by light naval units caused Corito to misread the strength and position of the American naval forces,
00:49:05and he turned back with victory in his grip.
00:49:09The Battle of Leyte Gulf ended with the battered Japanese fleet no longer a factor in the Pacific War.
00:49:20During the waning days of October, Japanese kamikazes made their first appearance flying thousands of suicide missions against American ships lying off the beachhead.
00:49:31Although 9 out of 10 raiders were shot from the sky, many found their marks, inflicting grave damage and causing great loss of life to American naval personnel.
00:49:49On December 21st, elements of the 10th and 24th Corps linked up.
00:49:56When the 77th Division made a successful landing at Palampon on Christmas Day, all organized resistance on Leyte ended.
00:50:10The way was now open for an invasion of Luzon and the liberation of Luzon and the liberation of its prize, the city of Manila.
00:50:20D-Day at Lingayan Gulf, 100 miles north of Manila dawned with the light overcast.
00:50:27The water was calm. The main Philippine island of Luzon lay in the distance.
00:50:32At 0700, the thundering guns of Kincaid's 7th Fleet opened fire.
00:50:41General Oscar Griswold's 6th Army took to its boats.
00:50:46The 14th Corps, comprised of the 37th and 40th Divisions, landed on the right before the city of Lingayan.
00:50:53The 1st Corps, made up of the 6th and 43rd Divisions, landed in the area of San Fabian and began moving inland.
00:51:04By dusk, the beachhead of 68,000 men was 17 miles wide and 4 miles deep.
00:51:12Griswold's 14th Corps was ordered to drive south for Manila as rapidly as possible.
00:51:18The 1st Corps was to protect that drive from General Yamashita's powerful 14th Army to the north.
00:51:26But Griswold, unwilling to advance too far with his flank exposed, took until January 23rd to reach the Clark Field area.
00:51:39There was a week of hard fighting before these troops were able to push on toward Manila.
00:51:44On January 31st, the 11th Airborne Division landed at Nasugbu to the south of Manila and began an advance toward the capital.
00:51:58They reached the outskirts of Manila on February 4th.
00:52:04At the same time, elements of the 1st Cavalry spearheaded a drive that broke into the city from the north, while the 37th entered from the east.
00:52:18The battle for Manila was joined.
00:52:21Before it would end, the Pearl of the Orient would be totally destroyed.
00:52:24Sharp fighting erupted as the G.I.s battled through Manila toward the first of the prison camps, folding Americans captured in the 1942 combat.
00:52:37Reports of increasing savagery by the Japanese guards spurred the men onward.
00:52:44Suddenly, after three long years of despair, the prisoners were freed.
00:52:55Combat veterans of Bataan and Corregidor, men old before their time, with the American nurses who had shared their years of torture.
00:53:05General MacArthur visited the camps and emotionally greeted old friends, saying,
00:53:15I'm sorry I took so long getting back.
00:53:22All across Manila, heavy fighting continued.
00:53:25At Rizal Baseball Stadium, the fanatical enemy fought from beneath the stand.
00:53:36First cavalry troops moved in, firing into the dugouts, blasting the Japanese at point-blank range.
00:53:43The mop-up began. No prisoners were taken.
00:53:47As the Japanese retreated across the Pasig River, their resistance stiffened.
00:54:04Hold Manila or burn it, they had been told.
00:54:07The fires of a dying city raged day and night.
00:54:10Hour by hour, the GIs moved forward.
00:54:21Finally, the walls of Intramuros, the old city, were breached.
00:54:27And the GIs climbed inside to eliminate the remaining Japanese.
00:54:31On March 3rd, the last organized resistance collapsed.
00:54:35General Yamashita and 50,000 surviving Japanese escaped to the hills.
00:54:42March 2nd, 1945, three years after his hasty departure,
00:54:48Douglas MacArthur returned to Corregidor.
00:54:51Colonel Jones, commander of the 503rd, saluted and said,
00:54:56Sir, I present to you Fortress Corregidor.
00:55:01As MacArthur liberated the Philippines,
00:55:03the Central Pacific campaign of Admiral Nimitz veered to the Northwest,
00:55:08out of the tropics, approaching a tiny rock on the doorstep of Japan.
00:55:14Iwo Jima, needed as an emergency landing field for B-29s attacking Japan,
00:55:20was the next Allied objective.
00:55:23During February and March of 1945, on that small piece of volcanic earth,
00:55:28the Japanese demonstrated as never before their will to die.
00:55:33Pacific casualties mounted alarmingly.
00:55:36America wondered what the conquest of Japan proper would cost.
00:55:40Iwo Jima was the most heavily defended island America would ever face.
00:55:47Forcibly seizing it represented the pinnacle of amphibious expertise,
00:55:52the mixture of detailed planning and violent execution.
00:55:56Yet victory at Iwo Jima came at a very steep cost.
00:55:58One in every three Marines and Navy corpsmen who landed there became a casualty.
00:56:046,000 Americans died.
00:56:06An average of 700 deaths for every square mile of volcanic rock.
00:56:11The accolade of Chester Nimitz rings true to this day.
00:56:15Uncommon valor was a common virtue.
00:56:17Clans drawn up nine months before at a Pearl Harbor conference,
00:56:23now called for the taking of Okinawa.
00:56:26Strategically more important than Iwo Jima,
00:56:29it was the base from which the invasion of the Japanese mainland would be launched.
00:56:34The island was 60 miles long and 2 to 18 miles wide,
00:56:39mountainous in the north, level and cultivated in the south.
00:56:42April 1, 1945, the ocean was calm, the day cool.
00:56:48A light breeze swept across the East China Sea.
00:56:52Ships of Admiral Spruance's 5th Fleet dotted the horizon.
00:57:03At 0830, invasion craft moved toward shore,
00:57:07carrying Army and Marine units of Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner's 10th Army.
00:57:13Buckner's men landed against almost no opposition.
00:57:17In the first hour, 16,000 men were put ashore.
00:57:21For the next several days, the American forces moved swiftly,
00:57:25taking both airfields without opposition.
00:57:30By April 2, the 7th Division had moved across Okinawa to Buckner Bay.
00:57:34To the north, the 1st Marine Division reached the Kachin Peninsula on the east coast,
00:57:40cutting Okinawa in two.
00:57:46Further south, in an extended arc around an ancient fortress known as Shuri Castle,
00:57:52American troops made their first solid contact with General Ushijima's 32nd Army.
00:57:56The real battle for Okinawa was underway.
00:58:00Along the northern front of the 3rd Amphibious Corps,
00:58:03the 6th Marine Division had pushed out of Ishikawa
00:58:07to probe the defenses of the Motobu Peninsula.
00:58:10After a four-day, 20-mile advance, they came up against a well-organized Japanese defense system
00:58:22in an inland area of rocky ridges known as the Yaitake.
00:58:26There, entrenched in the hills, 2,500 enemy soldiers had to be routed out.
00:58:30In a week of hard fighting, the dug-in Japanese were eliminated.
00:58:36By April 4, the 96th Division had reached the outer Shuri defenses
00:58:41and were stopped cold at the Machinatio Line.
00:58:45Advances were now marked in yards as the army troops battled Japanese,
00:58:50sealed into a series of mutually supporting caves and tunnels.
00:58:53For scores of the enemy, the war was now over.
00:59:05Several days later, at a hill called the Pinnacle,
00:59:08a place where, in 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry
00:59:12had raised the American flag to the cheers of his men,
00:59:15only the sound of guns and the cries of the wounded could be heard.
00:59:18as elements of the 7th Division locked in mortal combat
00:59:23with the well-entrenched enemy.
00:59:25By mid-April, the 24th Corps advance had been stopped all along the Shuri Line.
00:59:32Offshore, ships of the fleet were under constant attack by Japanese planes.
00:59:37The kamikazes now flew in groups called kikusui, or floating chrysanthemums.
00:59:53Just after dawn on May 3rd, a Japanese air offensive began against American ships in Buckner Bay.
01:00:07Before the enemy was driven off, several years later,
01:00:10the enemy was driven off from Buckner Bay.
01:00:11several American vessels were sunk.
01:00:35Before the enemy was driven off, several American vessels were sunk.
01:00:38were sunk. In the early hours of May 4th, Japanese
01:00:46infantry began a multi-pronged attack. Barges carried enemy troops behind
01:00:55American lines for simultaneous landings on both coasts. At Kuan in the west, the
01:01:00Japanese amphibious attack was sighted by 1st Marine Division gunners and the
01:01:05barges destroyed. The Japanese East Coast force was also wiped out. The Japanese
01:01:11amphibious attack behind the American line was sighted and destroyed.
01:01:20A 10th Army offensive began on May 11, its objective to envelop the Shuri
01:01:26defenses.
01:01:28Buckner's broad offensive quickly broke down into a series of intense battles.
01:01:37The 6th Marine Division faced fanatical resistance at Sugarloaf Hill, where the
01:01:43fighting seesawed for more than a week. On May 19th, Sugarloaf fell to determined
01:01:49marine attacks, and Naha was taken four days later. At the line center, the twisted
01:01:57ridges and draws of Shuri Heights gave Ushijima's 32nd Army a perfect setting for
01:02:03their type of defensive warfare. But attacks by the 1st Marine Division kept
01:02:08coming. On the army's eastern front, the 77th and 96th made slow, costly progress. On May 21st, after heavy fighting, the eastern slope of
01:02:18Conical Hill was taken. A critical victory opening the way for envelopment of the entire Shuri line.
01:02:25Fighting raged at Shuri Castle itself. The castle walls were 40 feet high and 20 feet thick.
01:02:36Here, the kings of Okinawa had reigned.
01:02:38Ushijima's troops fought bravely, but after the fall of Conical Hill,
01:02:46he began a slow withdrawal to the south for a final back-to-the-sea stand.
01:02:53Beginning on June 1st, the 3rd Amphibious Corps attacked down the west coast,
01:02:58while the 24th Corps drove down the eastern flank, pursuing the retreating Japanese army.
01:03:03The final fighting was the most costly of the entire campaign.
01:03:13Dug into the reverse slopes of Kunishi Ridge, the enemy had to be rooted out with flamethrowers
01:03:19or sealed forever into their subterranean positions.
01:03:25By June 15th, their numbers badly depleted. The Japanese had become
01:03:28a desperate mob no longer capable of offering adequate resistance. Individually and in small
01:03:36groups, they fought to the death. Eventually, only a few small pockets of resistance remained.
01:03:43Many Japanese refusing to surrender blew themselves up with hand grenades.
01:03:49Others hurled themselves from the steep Okinawan cliffs.
01:03:52On June 18th, while visiting a forward observation post, General Buckner was killed by enemy artillery.
01:04:02All organized resistance ended. In the early morning hours of the 22nd,
01:04:07General Mitsuru Ushijima committed harakiri by the light of a full moon.
01:04:13Later that morning, as a band played the Star Spangled Banner, the flag was raised over the ravaged
01:04:19island. The long, bitter struggle for Okinawa was at last over.
01:04:25After suffering the triple hammer blows of defeat at Iwo Jima, Luzon and now Okinawa,
01:04:31Japan was like a wounded animal, reeling but still extremely dangerous.
01:04:37Now came the Japanese worst nightmare, carrier strikes and direct bombardment of the home islands
01:04:43by the U.S. Fifth Fleet and increasingly devastating long-range bombing by American B-29 superfortresses.
01:04:52January 1945, Air Commander General Hap Arnold reached out for General Curtis LeMay,
01:04:59making him head of the 21st Bomb Group on Guam. LeMay immediately instituted dramatic changes in B-29
01:05:07operations, low-level missions to improve bombing accuracy, area bombing to replace strategic pinpoint attacks.
01:05:19By March, with LeMay's innovations in place, a devastating incendiary raid on Tokyo saw 100,000
01:05:27Japanese civilians died in a terrible firestorm.
01:05:42On Iwo Jima, the 7th Fighter Command and its P-51 Mustangs were now operational.
01:05:49These sunsetters, as they were known, began escorting the B-29s to and from their Japanese targets.
01:05:57In July 1945, as the B-29s continued to rain destruction on Japan,
01:06:08America detonated her first atomic weapon at Alamogordo, New Mexico.
01:06:13Weeks later, it was ready for delivery to the war zone.
01:06:18August 6th, the B-29 Enola Gay, Colonel Paul W. Tibbetts, Jr. at the controls, appeared over Hiroshima.
01:06:27At 8.15 a.m., the atomic bomb hurtled earthward.
01:06:35As he watched the rising mushroom cloud, Tibbetts' co-pilot whispered,
01:06:40My God, what have we done?
01:06:43Three days later, the city of Nagasaki was also hit by an atomic bomb.
01:06:47On September 2nd, 1945, aboard the battleship Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay,
01:06:56General MacArthur looked on as the Empire of Japan surrendered unconditionally.
01:07:02After six years and 55 million lives, World War II, the greatest conflict in human history, was over.
01:07:11While it was the great battles that doomed Hitler in Japan, El Alamein, Normandy, Stalingrad,
01:07:19Iwo, Midway, Okinawa, and the rest, the victory really happened in millions of small human triumphs.
01:07:26In bloody foxholes, in flaming cockpits, in blasting gun turrets, the war was won hero by hero.
01:07:33Song and unsung, we salute them for turning the axis tide.
01:07:45Song and unsung, we salute them for turning the intelligence world.
01:07:47Song and travesting gun trumps, install the influence came lat inuseей,
01:07:49Big old phones came matthews, Georgie f satellites, anh faktoriTs,
01:07:51and certification time loaded humanity.
01:07:51Song and unsung, we salute them last season youngest Henry,
01:07:53the tensile, second death of his fate was the highest it said.
01:07:54And the ivoryeles have ruined its leaner in 않는 space of the experimental crowd.
01:07:56Which, ah , engineers, has no one reason to keep living them going terribly changed.
01:07:57As 왔iver as he was held to theerntory yard,
01:08:01And the tsesar modelans' comfort list,
01:08:04Yes, Hollywood officials lead toound big boldly,
01:08:07And the whole city sublim赤� timeline,
01:08:08The pl sevent好好 at four years later,
01:08:11East the middle king of the south��iał sangiest land,
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