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00:01Consciously, we must have realized that it was going to hurt and that some people were
00:05going to get killed, but not the people we knew.
00:09They were going to manage to get through, and it was going to be very valiant and quite
00:14beautiful.
00:15Some people enlisted in the Navy because they thought it was a prettier way to die, somebody
00:22once told me.
00:23You don't get dirty, you just go down into the water.
00:52In 1942, the brutal reality of the Pacific War was brought home to the Allies.
00:59You're talking to somebody, and the next time they're talking to a half a head, and it
01:04happened so fast you didn't know it.
01:07You say, well, this is what they're talking about.
01:09This is what they call war.
01:15It was a year of epic struggle for control of the Pacific Sea and sky.
01:22A year in which thousands went to hell as prisoners of the Japanese.
01:29To them, we were their tools.
01:31You cease to be human, as I was told by an officer.
01:37You belong to me.
01:38I have the power to kill you any time I like.
01:40I have the power to kill you any time I had.
01:45That's it.
01:46Australian military nurses in Singapore before the surrender.
01:51They were evacuated on one of the last ships out,
01:54amid fears for their safety at the hands of the Japanese.
02:01But most would not make it through the ordeal that followed.
02:09Two days out from Singapore,
02:11their ship was sunk by the Japanese in vicious currents off Sumatra.
02:19Twelve nurses drowned.
02:21The rest were washed up with other survivors on Banker Island.
02:35Those who landed along the coast were taken into captivity.
02:39But on Rajik Beach,
02:40only one nurse would survive the encounter with the Japanese,
02:4426-year-old Vivian Bullwinkle.
02:46Something was said in Japanese by the officer
02:49and all the men who were there,
02:51which would have been about 50 or 60 still there,
02:54were rounded up by the Japanese and taken around a bluff.
03:01When they came back some little time later,
03:04they were all wiping their bayonets.
03:07So we looked at each other and just sort of said,
03:10they're not taking prisoners.
03:13We were ordered into the sea
03:15and when we were out, almost up to our waists,
03:19they then machine gunned us from behind.
03:24I was hit just in the back there and I came out here.
03:31And being very young and naive, I suppose,
03:34I always thought the one she was shot, you know,
03:36that you'd had it.
03:37That was it.
03:37And really, to my utter amazement,
03:40I found that I was still alive.
03:42And then, of course, I became frightened.
03:44And I had taken in a lot of salt water,
03:47therefore I was being horribly seasick.
03:50And I thought, oh, they'll see my shoulders moving, you know.
03:54So then I tried to stop being seasick.
03:57And I just lay there because, well,
03:59I was too frightened to do anything else.
04:00And then, gradually, the waves brought me in back to the beach.
04:07And I finally plucked up enough courage to sit up and look around.
04:13And there was no sign of my colleagues.
04:17The Japanese party had gone.
04:21And there was just, you know, the usual travel brochure
04:26of blue sea, blue sky, palms and golden sand.
04:3221 nurses, 60 wounded Allied soldiers, all murdered,
04:36their bodies washed out to sea.
04:42Vivian recovered enough to turn herself in,
04:45hiding her wounds in fear of her life
04:47if the Japanese found out she had survived the massacre.
04:50She reached prison camp feeling utterly alone.
04:55When I'd come in, I had seen a whole lot of faces
04:58about 50 yards down in a gateway.
05:01And from out of that crowd, a voice said,
05:03it's Bullwinkle.
05:04Well, that was the end.
05:06I said, somebody knows me.
05:08Somebody knows me.
05:09We asked her what had happened.
05:12We said, where are the other girls?
05:14She said, there are no other girls.
05:18She said, they have all been massacred.
05:20Well, of course, they were just so horrified
05:24and just couldn't believe that something like that
05:27could happen not only to women but to nurses
05:31who, you know, are known to be non-combatant.
05:35Vivian's uniform is preserved in the Australian War Memorial,
05:38its red cross armband clearly visible.
05:42And I can remember standing beside her
05:44in the so-called ablutions block
05:46and she had this hole in her uniform.
05:52And in one way, although the shock was great,
05:56to think that all those girls had been shot,
06:00at least we knew what had happened to them,
06:03which is in one way is better than not knowing.
06:13Japan now stood unchallenged across Manchuria, Indochina,
06:18the East Indies, Malaya and Thailand,
06:21driving deep into Burma.
06:24Her navy was grabbing islands,
06:25pushing out the perimeters of power.
06:28Her way seemed open to India, even Australia.
06:31Anyone else but me
06:33Anyone else but me
06:36No, no, no, don't sit under the apple tree
06:39With anyone else but me
06:40Till I come marching home
06:45In America, the sons of the Depression
06:48leapt at the chance to strike back,
06:50avenge Pearl Harbor, change their lives.
06:53Anyone else but me
06:55No, no, no, don't go walking down Lover's Lane
06:57Rod Steiger was just 16,
07:00so he needed his alcoholic mother's written consent to enlist.
07:05Poor Mrs. August.
07:08I said, why don't you sign this?
07:10No, I didn't know at the time
07:11I was fighting for my life maybe,
07:15or my freedom or my independence.
07:18And she wouldn't, and I finally said to her,
07:21I took her arm and I put it in the back of her back.
07:24I said, I'm going to break your arm.
07:25Now we're both crying.
07:27We're both standing there crying.
07:29And I said, I'm going to, I'll break your arm.
07:33I'll break your arm if you don't sign this paper.
07:37And it got to the point where she signed it.
07:39I grabbed it and I really, in a sense,
07:41almost ran from Newark to New York City.
07:50To guard their men in battle,
07:51Japanese women sewed special belts,
07:54each with 1,000 stitches,
07:56symbolising the protection of 1,000 women.
08:04Suzuko Numata gave her fiancé a belt and this photo.
08:09But there were formal times for sweethearts in Japan.
08:16Even in my home we had to pretend
08:18that we were not particularly close to one another.
08:22He stayed at my house the night before he left.
08:25But he never even held my hand.
08:30So to this day I don't know how warm or how firm his hands were.
08:39In 1942, Japan's youths were joining an unbeaten army.
08:50But overrunning Asia seemed so easy it bred long-term danger.
08:57Some called it victory disease,
08:59the idea that Japanese needn't worry
09:01about conventional planning and support.
09:03They were invincible,
09:05naturally superior to soft Westerners.
09:11A joint American-Filipino army
09:14was cornered on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines.
09:18America couldn't get supplies in or them out.
09:23On the 9th of April 1942,
09:26sick and hungry,
09:27all 75,000 were surrendered to the Japanese.
09:32The Japanese weren't prepared for so many prisoners.
09:35The prisoners weren't prepared for so much cruelty.
09:38Their 65-mile walk to camp has gone down in history
09:42as the Bataan Death March.
09:4960 years on,
09:50three veterans returned to the Philippines
09:52and retraced the old Bataan route.
09:55Phil Kuhn was an infantryman,
09:57as was Tillman Rutledge.
10:00I mean, this is like the heat.
10:02This is like the heat we remember now.
10:04Oliver Allen was in the Army Air Corps.
10:07This is more like it, isn't it?
10:08Yeah, this is more like it.
10:09This is more like the heat.
10:11Tropical heat.
10:12That we remember.
10:14You know, I'm from Texas, well,
10:17and all of it, but it's still,
10:18this is the hottest thing I've ever been in.
10:20Different heat, you know?
10:22It's different heat and it just saps you.
10:24Yeah.
10:26With temperatures soaring,
10:28the Japanese used water as a weapon.
10:32A few times they encouraged us to go for the well
10:36and then, and then it seemed to get a heck of a joy out of,
10:40of either beating, beating you,
10:42just as you get there, they grab you,
10:45and, uh...
10:45Slap you around.
10:46Wouldn't let you,
10:47and then you just still didn't get any water.
10:49If they'd beat us and let us have the water,
10:50we might have evened out a little bit.
10:51I think Japanese hated Americans.
10:54They really do.
10:55I think they actually hated their guts.
11:00Another Bataan survivor is Lester Tenney,
11:03who remembers how thirst could get you killed.
11:06One of the men ran to get some water,
11:09filled up his canteen,
11:10put water in his hands,
11:11started to drink it.
11:13Within two or three minutes,
11:14there were three, four, five, eight men
11:16waiting to get some water.
11:18The Japanese guard came over
11:20and started to laugh
11:21as the men were drinking the water,
11:23literally laughing
11:24while the men were drinking water.
11:26When the fifth man drank water
11:28and the sixth man bent down to get water,
11:30the Japanese took his bayonet
11:32and put it right down the man's neck.
11:34for no reason,
11:36just because he wanted some water.
11:40If they escaped,
11:42the Japanese soldier would get blamed.
11:45So when a soldier saw them run off for water,
11:48he would have tried to stop them.
11:50Perhaps they were trying to escape.
11:53Incidents like that happened
11:54as a result of this kind of misunderstanding.
11:58There was an American soldier
12:00lying near the edge of the road
12:01and he was exhausted, just lying there,
12:04doing nothing.
12:04It was a break in the march.
12:06And this tank went right over him.
12:09Went out of his way
12:09to go over that particular individual.
12:12And then the tank behind him
12:14did the same thing.
12:16And when they were all gone,
12:17there was nothing but a human body
12:19that had been flattened into that asphalt.
12:25The Japanese took revenge on the Filipinos
12:27for siding with America.
12:30Ten-year-old Santiago Morales and his uncle
12:33lived in a village along the route
12:34and gave out food to the marchers.
12:40When the Japanese saw my uncle trying to help an American,
12:43they stabbed him in the armpit
12:45and it came out the other side.
12:49I was in shock.
12:51I couldn't speak because I knew
12:53that if I called for help,
12:54the Japanese would kill me too.
12:56So I kept silent and my uncle died from his wound.
13:02The Japanese then shot the American
13:04and he died with my uncle on the same spot.
13:12At night, the Japanese herded the marchers
13:15into buildings like this one.
13:19Now, I don't know how many men we had in there,
13:21but I would have to guess
13:22that we may have had a thousand men in that warehouse.
13:25Jammed so much that no man could sit down.
13:27We were jammed in standing up next to each other.
13:30Then they shut every window in the place
13:32and locked every door.
13:34You lived with the stink of the urine,
13:37the stink of the defecation.
13:39You lived with the stink of the dead bodies.
13:41That's how you had to live.
13:46The Japanese made hell for the Americans
13:49by forcing them to do terrible things to one another.
13:53The Japanese called four men out of line
13:57and had him dig a ditch.
13:59When they dug the ditch,
14:00they told him to bury this man.
14:02One of the fellas said,
14:03I can't bury him, he's still alive.
14:05So the Japanese shot this one man,
14:08called four more men out,
14:10said, now dig two ditches.
14:12You don't want to bury your friend.
14:14You don't want to bury a live person,
14:16but you know that if you say no,
14:19you're going to be buried.
14:24Friends could bury you alive,
14:26or save your life.
14:27Ed White, out of F Company there,
14:30he said, I can't continue,
14:32and I kicked him right in the butt.
14:34I said, Ed, I ain't letting you give up that easy.
14:37Oh, he was going to give up?
14:38Yeah.
14:39He made it, he made it back.
14:41No.
14:42Then on that march,
14:43he wasn't there...
14:45But Dick Gordon had a very different experience,
14:48walking among strangers.
14:50I learned very early in that march,
14:52it was every man for himself.
14:55He was one of four men carrying an injured officer.
14:58Not one soul ever stepped forward to relieve us,
15:02so we carried that man all day long
15:05in a condition that I could barely carry myself.
15:08The next day, the original four bearers,
15:11including myself, had gone in different directions,
15:14because to continue to do that
15:16without getting any relief,
15:18all four of us would have been dead.
15:19And that's not a very pleasant memory.
15:24I made a decision to set goals for myself.
15:27I've got to make it to that herd of caribou.
15:30When I got to that herd of caribou,
15:32I would establish another goal for myself.
15:35I never established long-term goals
15:37that were impossible to reach.
15:39I never established a goal that said,
15:40oh, I want to get home.
15:42That was not one of my goals.
15:43My goals were short-range,
15:45only to keep me walking and keep me alive,
15:48because I knew that if I fell down, I'm dead.
15:51I didn't know it was that close to the railroad track.
15:53Yeah.
15:54But anyway, it's all behind us now.
15:56Thank God.
15:57See, we can walk away from it now.
15:59Yeah.
16:00Walk away from it, then they'd shoot you.
16:01Yeah.
16:03Well over 5,000 Filipinos and 700 Americans
16:06died along the Bataan Road.
16:09You know I don't go anywhere today
16:11without food and water in my trunk.
16:23April 1942.
16:25A US task force braves the storms of the Western Pacific.
16:31Its destination, a dot in the ocean 400 miles from Japan.
16:37Its mission, top secret.
16:43Dick Best flew patrols over the fleet.
16:47Like everyone else, he hadn't a clue what they were doing there.
16:5420 or 30 miles out into my sector, I saw a ship out there,
16:58just a dark shape on the rock, still dark.
17:01And I veered over to take a closer look at it, but not to get too close.
17:04And her deck looked as if they had construction equipment on it,
17:07big, humpy shapes on it there.
17:09What the devil did she have on it?
17:11It is the Hornet with all me bombers aboard.
17:14I can't believe it, two engine bombers, B-25s.
17:20General Doolittle is aboard with 16 planes.
17:23They're going to bomb Tokyo.
17:26The aim of the Doolittle raid was to boost allied morale
17:29and take the war to the Japanese.
17:32Targets included Tokyo and Yokohama.
17:36Chase Nielsen was an air navigator.
17:39About the first thing the pilots did is decided,
17:42well, if we're going to go bomb Tokyo, I want to bomb the palace.
17:46So the pilots on each of the crews got together
17:50and cut the deck of cords to see who got the high cord
17:54to get to bomb the palace.
17:56And when Doolittle found out about it, he went straight in the air.
18:00And he said, well, fellas, you can bomb anything in Japan but the palace.
18:08And he said, well, I'm not sure if we're going to do this.
18:09To land safely in China, they had to take off close to Japan.
18:13But 700 miles out, the fleet ran into a picket line of Japanese fishing boats.
18:18Rod Steiger's destroyer was guarding the Hornet.
18:22Nobody comes near us.
18:25Nobody.
18:28But on the way, we passed two or three sandpans, you know,
18:32with the families on and everything, and we were ordered to destroy them
18:37because they're bound to have a radio.
18:40And if they radio back…
18:43They started to transmit, and I talked to the Marine colonel aboard,
18:47who was an intelligence colonel Brown,
18:50and he said they'd sent word back to Japan in plain language
18:53that they'd sighted two enemy carriers off there.
18:57That I will never forget or feel good about till the day I die.
19:01I watched, I wasn't shooting, but I watched as the 40 millimeters hit
19:05and the women screaming and the children running around.
19:13They're shooting at these defenseless people,
19:16and inside of your mind you think, what the hell happened to the Ten Commandments?
19:22We're not supposed to do this, though, one or another.
19:28The bombers took off there and then, adding 300 miles to their journey.
19:34The ocean was really rough. It wasn't really a good day to fly.
19:45Goodbye, Mama, I'm off to Yokohama for my red, white and blue.
19:50My country and you.
19:52I saw him come up the deck, made a beautiful clean take,
19:54climbed right up to altitude.
19:56Everybody went off as if they'd been doing it all their life,
19:58till number six or seven in the order got up there,
20:01and I thought he saw the green water coming up.
20:03He started off, and he pulled up abruptly like this,
20:06he climbed about 50 or 150 feet,
20:08suddenly realized he's pointing straight up in the air,
20:10dropped his nose, and then he just stagged.
20:12He just cleared the water.
20:16Goodbye, Mama, I'm off to Yokohama for the red, white and blue.
20:21My country and you.
20:24Goodbye, Mama, I'm off to Yokohama just to teach all those japs.
20:29They watched the flagman off to the side,
20:31rolled the engines up as high as they'd go.
20:34It felt like they were going to shake the whole airplane apart,
20:36and finally he gave you the forward motion,
20:38and he dropped to the deck, and we started to roll,
20:42and there was no problem.
20:43The next thing we knew, we were in the air.
20:52What did you feel when you saw Doolittle and the other planes taking off?
20:56Envy. Envy.
20:58I would have loved to go on.
21:01A million fighting sons of Uncle Sam, if you please.
21:05We'll soon have all those japs right down up there, Japanese.
21:09So goodbye, Mama, I'm off to Yokohama for my country,
21:14white flag and blue.
21:16The planes reached their targets over Japan and dropped their bombs.
21:20The damage was small.
21:22The buzz was huge.
21:24The pilot and I were singing,
21:26I don't want to set the world on fire.
21:30We just want to start a little one in Tokyo.
21:34But almost all the planes ran out of fuel.
21:37Chase Nielsen's crashed into the sea.
21:41Most of Doolittle's flyers were relayed to safety
21:44by pro-allied Chinese peasants.
21:47Chase Nielsen was caught.
21:49The Japanese said,
21:51you're now prisoners of the Japanese 13th Expeditionary Army.
21:57And my heart went right down, down, down, down.
22:16And I said, according to the Geneva Convention,
22:19all I can tell you is my name, rank, and serial number.
22:22And he said, what's the Geneva Convention?
22:24He said, we're fighting a war.
22:26Don't you know that?
22:27He said, we're fighting a war.
22:28We're making a rule as we go.
22:35The Japanese condemned to death Chase Nielsen
22:38and the seven others they caught.
22:41Finally, the Emperor sanctioned the execution on three.
22:47I think they took the two pilots
22:49because the pilot was in charge of the crew.
22:52And they took the one gunner Spatz
22:54because he told us, he said, in my interrogation,
22:57and they asked me if I had used my machine guns.
23:01And he said, I told him yes.
23:02And if I ever got another chance, I'd do it again.
23:07So he signed his own death warrant.
23:11The Americans got off lightly compared with the Chinese.
23:14The Japanese devastated villages in reprisal, burning, raping.
23:18Nearly a quarter of a million men, women, and children slaughtered.
23:29The raid electrified Japanese thinking.
23:32The Americans had seized the initiative, threatening emperor and homeland.
23:37Japanese commanders now called for a decisive victory over the US fleet.
23:43Admiral Yamamoto, mastermind of the Pearl Harbour attack,
23:47knew time was short before American industrial might kicked in.
23:51He was also a gambler.
23:55He designed a trap to take Midway,
23:58a key US outpost in the dead centre of the Pacific.
24:02The Americans would race to its defence
24:05and the greatest Japanese armada ever would demolish them.
24:12Yamamoto's only problem
24:13was that the Americans had cracked the Japanese code
24:15and knew the whole plan in advance.
24:18And this time, pilot Dick Best got a front row seat.
24:23We were going to hatchet them.
24:25The little Japanese were going to come waltzing in the garden gate
24:28with a flower in his hand
24:29and we were behind the gate with an axe.
24:31We were going to goddamn well cut his head off.
24:36The Japanese came down the garden path and attacked Midway.
25:02But the runway remained intact.
25:06The Japanese planes hurried back to their carriers to rearm and refuel,
25:09while midway drew breath.
25:19Meanwhile, wave after wave of Americans had taken off
25:22to attack the Japanese fleet.
25:24Most were shot down.
25:27Then, low on fuel, dive bomber squadrons, including Dick Best,
25:31spotted the enemy carriers below.
25:34Their decks a dangerous muddle of planes, bombs and fuel lines.
25:38Three Japanese carriers were doomed.
25:42I pulled up and looked and saw the first hit.
25:45There was a solid column of smoke from bow to stern,
25:48at least 200 feet high above it.
25:50It must have been an inferno below deck.
25:54A carrier under destruction.
25:57I can see it with my mind right now.
25:59Most impressive sight of the day.
26:16Fujita Iyozo, veteran of Pearl Harbor,
26:19was attacking a U.S. carrier when his plane was shelled.
26:29My fuel tank was hit, and the plane caught fire, so I jumped.
26:36I had to parachute from a dangerously low altitude, but I survived.
26:42The parachute opened with a bang,
26:45and the next moment, I smashed into the sea.
26:51When I looked around, I saw three pillars of smoke in the distance.
26:56I later learned that our three aircraft carriers,
26:59Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu, had been destroyed.
27:06For Dick Best, the day just got better and better.
27:10He helped sink the fourth Japanese carrier.
27:14The reason I enjoyed Midway so much, not only that we won,
27:17but it was sweet revenge, and of all things, it was an ambush.
27:21An ambush is a dirty term anyway,
27:23but we did to the Japanese just what they'd done to us.
27:25We ambushed them.
27:26It was wonderful.
27:29I've never been as exhilarated in my life.
27:32It was the best of good days.
27:41The Japanese Navy would never recover from Midway.
27:45The fight now became increasingly bitter, a war of attrition.
28:00Following victory at Midway, the Allies went on the offensive.
28:06On 7th August 1942,
28:08the US Marines took the first momentous steps onto enemy-held soil.
28:16The island was Guadalcanal.
28:25The landing was easy.
28:28Nothing else was.
28:31You sweat for the signal to move forward, to attack.
28:35You just sweat everything out, waiting to attack.
28:40It's a time of just, uh, waiting and waiting and wonder
28:47whether you're going to survive or not survive.
28:52How will you respond?
28:54Will you be brave in the death, or will you be a coward?
29:05It was the first of many obscure islands
29:07suddenly deemed so precious
29:09that men must die in droves for them.
29:16The battle on Guadalcanal was over this Japanese airstrip,
29:19built to enable attacks on Allied bases
29:22and on American convoys to Australia.
29:27The Japanese saw Guadalcanal as the fork in the road
29:30which leads to victory for them, or us.
29:35The Marines' first horrifying sight
29:37was their own fleet steaming away
29:39in fear of a Japanese counterattack.
29:42When we saw the ships leave,
29:46go over the horizon,
29:47we knew that we were abandoned.
29:50And, uh, it was a terrible feeling
29:53to think we're on that island with no support.
29:57The Marines moved inland, mindful of Bataan.
30:01The jungle and malaria were bad enough,
30:03but they also faced the Japanese.
30:07They were ferocious fighters.
30:10You'd think they were all dead,
30:11and they would lay there in the sand,
30:13and when the Marines would walk by,
30:15they would jump up and stab them with a rifle
30:17or take them, throw a grenade.
30:19Of course, they'd end up killing themselves too,
30:21but they would take some Marines with them.
30:23They were very sneaky.
30:26The Marines on Guadalcanal
30:27learned to throw away the rule book.
30:31I didn't intend to take any prisoners
30:33because it was a kill or be killed,
30:35and they were trying to kill me,
30:36and in order for me to survive,
30:38I had to kill them.
30:42The Japanese pounded Guadalcanal.
30:44Then two Marine air squadrons arrived.
30:49The first day they came in,
30:50I can remember the excitement.
30:53And I can remember old Colonel Rowan,
30:55my colonel, with tears streaming down his eyes.
30:57He said, they're ours, they're ours.
31:01I'll never forget the landing when we came in
31:04and taxied.
31:06They were so glad to see us.
31:10As soon as we got on the ground,
31:11I said, I met Major Smith,
31:14and I said, I suppose you old veterans
31:17will show us around.
31:18And he said, by tomorrow, you will be a veteran.
31:22Introducing Swivel Neck Joe.
31:24That's what they call Marine Captain Joe Force,
31:27top American ace with 26 Jap planes shot down.
31:31His squadron swivels too,
31:32constantly looking for enemy planes
31:34to add to the 72 they've bagged
31:35under the leadership of this South Dakota farm boy.
31:38When I saw zero, we went after them.
31:42See, you learn a lot faster
31:43when you've got the hot iron on your tail.
31:46When the bridge is burning
31:47and you want to get across that baby,
31:49you really pick up speed.
31:51And these kids, they just,
31:53everybody would prove the old point
31:56that you're only operating on 10% of your capabilities.
31:59Well, these kids started using the whole works.
32:02And they were off and running.
32:10Light shipping, we went after that.
32:13Very few supplies ever got to the island.
32:18Everyone that I met had the same thought in mind,
32:21and that's, we're going to win.
32:24But the Japanese had also landed
32:26west of Guadalcanal in New Guinea.
32:29Prime targets were the harbors
32:30at Milne Bay and Port Moresby.
32:33The Japanese were now just 400 miles from Australia.
32:37They'd already bombed Darwin.
32:44For some of the Allies, the fight was personal.
32:48We knew the speed with which he moved through the islands.
32:52We knew his tricks,
32:53and we knew that he had Australia in his sights.
32:56He was coming to invade Australia.
33:01There's no way in the world he's going to get into Australia.
33:08The Japanese Navy's assault on Port Moresby failed,
33:12but that didn't stop them.
33:20No-one thought the Japanese would approach Port Moresby
33:23the way they now did,
33:25overland across the Owen Stanley Mountains.
33:28It was nightmare country.
33:34They inched up sheer ravines
33:36through choking undergrowth and clawing swamp,
33:40enduring malaria and hunger,
33:42muggy days,
33:44biting cold nights.
33:54The Australian troops had moved inland from the coast
33:57and gathered at Kokoda.
34:02Kokoda is on high ground,
34:04and that is where the Australians made their stand.
34:11We attacked them there,
34:13and a battle ensued.
34:19The Australians were beaten back
34:21towards Port Moresby,
34:23over razorback ridges
34:24along the tortuous Kokoda track.
34:26I was called forward as a Bren gunner
34:29to hold the track,
34:30and I was there about 15 or 20 minutes on my own,
34:33holding this machine gun position.
34:36It's not the best of feelings
34:37to know that you are the most forward Australian
34:39between the Japs and Australia.
34:43With the Japanese at their heels,
34:45the Australians retreated,
34:46relying on the locals as stretcher bearers.
34:50The care and consideration shown for the wounded
34:53by the natives
34:54has won the complete admiration of the troops.
34:57With them,
34:58the black-skinned boys are white.
35:06The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels were the native boys of New Guinea.
35:11They didn't have any time for the Japanese,
35:14and they were so gentle
35:16that this is the nickname our boys gave them,
35:19the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels,
35:21because they were the only ones
35:23that could bring them out.
35:24It was terrible terrain.
35:55The Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels
35:56imagine the terrible state they were in,
35:59those that we did get into hospital.
36:02We virtually had to cut their clothes off them.
36:05They hadn't been out of them for weeks on end,
36:08and they were stiff with mud and dirt,
36:12and the smell was shocking,
36:14and we were almost frightened
36:15to take their boots and socks off
36:18because the flesh used to come away with them.
36:22I can't talk about that.
36:24Sorry.
36:34It's awful, isn't it,
36:35when it comes back to you like that.
36:53It was expected you would do everything possible
36:56to help your mate,
36:57and he, in turn,
36:58would do the same for you.
37:10With increasing control of the skies,
37:12the Allies could drop in food and munitions,
37:15but Japanese supply lines were stretched to breaking point.
37:26We needed 600 grams of food per soldier per day.
37:32Multiply that by 5,000 men,
37:35and you're talking about three tons of food.
37:40It would take a team of several hundred people
37:42to transport that amount to the front.
37:46The reality was that we didn't have the resources.
37:49You know how you are going through.
37:53Almost in sight of Port Moresby,
37:55the Japanese ground to a halt,
37:57then retraced their steps back over the Kokoda Track.
38:04Meanwhile, the Australians had fought off an assault on Milne Bay,
38:08finally debunking the myth of Japanese invincibility.
38:13Those that we hadn't cleaned up in Milne Bay,
38:15they were cleaned up on the northern beaches.
38:18They didn't have many left when we'd finished with them.
38:31The advancing Allies saw sights which taught them tough lessons.
38:37Oh, it was shocking what he'd do to prisoners of war.
38:41They'd capture them and tie them up with wire and bane at them,
38:45moving through the villages.
38:47The native women weren't spared.
38:49They were raped and mutilated.
38:51I mean, it wasn't just a question of sating their lust.
38:55I mean, they mutilated them for no reason at all.
38:59We did think of the Japanese basically as animals.
39:03It was a war without rules.
39:06Possibly that's the best way to describe it
39:08because it was a case of kill or be killed.
39:11We didn't have an opportunity to take many prisoners.
39:13We had other things to do with them.
39:15We had to kill them initially, and that's what happened.
39:19Very few prisoners were taken.
39:22But they weren't butchered in cold blood.
39:24They were killed in action.
39:33Most of the Japanese captured alive were ill, emaciated and ravenous.
39:42It was the first area that we'd seen cannibalism.
39:46They must have been that hungry.
39:49They'd cut flesh off the legs and buttocks of our men.
39:52They had the meat in Dixies, and they were cooking it in the pots
39:56when we moved through and through all the areas.
40:00Horrible, horrible sight.
40:05As far as cannibalism goes, I heard men using phrases like black pig and white pig.
40:12Black pig referred to eating a native, and white pig meant eating a white man.
40:16I also heard they ate the flesh from dead Japanese soldiers, as well.
40:25A Japanese prisoner warned,
40:28make no matter about us dead.
40:30More will come.
40:32We never stop coming.
40:34Soon you all be Japanese.
40:51Even after Midway, the Japanese had the firepower to maul the Enterprise
40:56and sink the Hornet, the carrier that had launched the Doolittle Raid.
41:05Despite the reverses on Guadalcanal and New Guinea,
41:09Japanese power in the Pacific was only dented.
41:14250 million people now lived under the rising sun.
41:20The Japanese proclaimed themselves the liberators of Asia from white colonial rule.
41:25Asia was, they said, for the Asians.
41:31No, it's a joke, huh?
41:34They came in as conquerors and as superior beings.
41:42There was no doubts that they were the masters.
41:52Wherever the Japanese went, they laid down the law.
41:56Woe betide anyone suspected of withholding information.
42:12They tortured my father.
42:15They slowly peeled off his skin.
42:19It was almost as if they were peeling the skin off a frog.
42:24They used their bayonets, and my father kept screaming for help.
42:30He asked us children for our help, and he asked the Japanese to forgive him,
42:35even though he'd done nothing wrong.
42:38He said to them,
42:39Please stop, I'm in agony.
42:42My children, my wife, please help me.
42:45That's what my father kept screaming.
43:01Japan had ousted the old colonial powers,
43:05and held 140,000 of their soldiers captive.
43:10They told us that we were the rabble of a lost army.
43:15While we had no status as human beings,
43:19the gracious Japanese would treat us fairly and kindly.
43:26Those captured on the islands were shifted where needed,
43:30tight-packed in the sweltering holes of the hell ships.
43:35The men were going mad in the bowels of the ship,
43:39some to the point that they slashed a wrist of a sleeping American
43:42and drank the blood from his wrist
43:44to put some liquid into their bodies.
43:4960,000 POWs, half of them British,
43:52were jammed into goods wagons and transported to Thailand,
43:56clinging to humanity in humiliating conditions.
44:01Nearly everybody had gut trouble, dysentery, diarrhoea of some sort,
44:05and you can imagine the problem of the people so crowded.
44:09You had to get to the opening of the doors, the sliding doors,
44:12and your pals who were sitting near the door
44:14would hold on to you while you sat there with your arse out of the wagon,
44:19and you'd done it the best way you could, outside.
44:25The prisoners' task, to build the death railway into Burma.
44:34They gouged out cuttings.
44:36They spanned ravines, all by hand.
44:42An army so negligent of the welfare of its own men
44:45was not about to treat enemy POWs with care.
44:5021-year-old Hiroshi Abi
44:52was the engineer responsible for the 30-kilometre section
44:55at the Thai-Burma border.
45:02When all those prisoners came up into the mountains,
45:04what was there ready for them?
45:07Nothing.
45:09Nothing at all.
45:15At Songkrai, I received about a thousand prisoners.
45:22There were just five or ten huts,
45:25barely covered with bamboo.
45:29No food stores.
45:32Nothing.
45:36We had to put them to work
45:38deep in the mountains on the Thai-Burma railway
45:40without any preparations.
45:44It was impossible.
45:46Absolutely impossible.
45:50But that's what top brass
45:52at Japanese general headquarters
45:53ordered us to do.
46:02Using press-ganged Asian labour as well,
46:05the Japanese set out to build
46:07250 miles of line
46:08in just 16 months.
46:11The Japanese just used to say,
46:13speedo, speedo, speedo.
46:14It was one word they knew and understood,
46:16one word we knew and understood.
46:17And then they said,
46:19speedo, it really meant speedo.
46:20And they had a task to finish.
46:23And they told us,
46:25it didn't matter.
46:26If you all die,
46:28we'll build the railway.
46:33You had to have my curse to survive.
46:37Three was an ideal number.
46:38If one was sick,
46:39the other two could
46:42tend to take care of Camilaire
46:44or anything like that.
46:46You had to have my curse.
46:49Tony, rest his soul,
46:52it could have been
46:53three quarters to a mile.
46:55The last,
46:56he carried me on his back
46:57into that camp.
47:06Anyway.
47:10I remember sitting
47:13in a little running creek
47:17at the 75 kilo in June
47:20trying to cleanse myself.
47:23I just...
47:29I just fouled my pants
47:43trying to clean myself up
47:44the best I could,
47:45you know,
47:46being held back to my bunk,
47:49which was two tears up
47:51by a friend,
47:52you know,
47:52with his arm around me
47:53to help me get back
47:54to my quarters.
48:02The Australian nurses
48:04captured on Banker Island
48:05wondered if survival
48:06was worth the suffering.
48:09Well, we actually
48:10did envy the girls
48:11who had been lost at sea.
48:13Well, you see,
48:14they didn't...
48:15It was dreadful.
48:15You were nursing someone,
48:16one of your own friends,
48:18and you knew
48:18they couldn't survive.
48:20I might say,
48:22even the girls
48:22who were massacred,
48:23we thought,
48:24were luckier than we
48:25because it was all over
48:26so quickly.
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