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00:14In the heart of the Pacific Ocean lies a group of islands scattered across the huge
00:19expanse of sea.
00:21Practically nobody has heard of them.
00:28The closest continent is thousands of kilometers away from this archipelago.
00:37It's a peaceful location, surrounded by a visual paradise of coral reefs.
00:50However, these transparent waters conceal something unimaginable.
01:06The largest warship graveyard on the whole planet.
01:17It's the resting place for almost 70 ships that were sunk during the Second World War.
01:29This is the Graveyard of Truck Lagoon.
01:47This atoll in the Central Pacific belongs to the Caroline Islands and is one of the four
01:52federated states of Micronesia.
01:57Since 1990, it has been known as the Chuuk Lagoon, although historians refer to it by the name
02:05of Truck, a place whose strategic value became obvious in the Second World War.
02:13It lies surrounded by a vast extension of ocean, with New Guinea to the southwest, the Mariana Islands
02:22to the north, the Marshall Islands to the east, and Palau and the Philippines to the west.
02:32During the Second World War, this natural harbor surrounded by a barrier of reefs almost 140
02:39miles around and 50 miles across became a crucial target because of its distance between the United
02:46States and Japan.
03:03In December 1941, Japan entered the Second World War with its historic and momentous attack
03:10on the U.S. base of Pearl Harbor.
03:16This marked the starting point for the Imperial Japanese Navy's race for conquests in the Pacific Ocean,
03:22converting Truck Lagoon into its main forward base.
03:28This was where its warships took on supplies, armaments, and troops, before setting sail for the
03:34different battlefronts in its fight against the United States.
03:55The U.S. Army discovered that the base of Truck was a strategic location for the Japanese Navy to maintain
04:02its power in the Pacific.
04:05If they could destroy this stronghold, Japan would lose its supply routes, and as a backdrop, the possibility of
04:14delivering a decisive blow to avenge the tragedy at Pearl Harbor two years later.
04:28On the morning of February 17, 1944, the U.S. Navy launched a potent attack on the Japanese fleet in
04:36these
04:36Pacific waters.
04:39The operation was given a codename that was an omen of what was to come, Operation Hailstone.
04:53Although the Japanese were aware of Truck's strategic importance, life on the base was quite relaxed.
05:00The troops garrisoned there lived in relative calm, unsuspecting of the attack that was about to be unleashed on them.
05:10The base was under the command of Vice Admiral Masami Kobayashi.
05:17Kobayashi was an officer with a long record of service in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
05:22He had fought in the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and had even served for a time as military attache
05:29to the Japanese embassy in the United States.
05:33But what Kobayashi learned in the United States about U.S. Navy tactics didn't alert him to the surprise attack
05:40that would cost him very dear.
05:46Command of Operation Hailstone was assigned to Vice Admiral Raymond Spruance, who had already shown great ingenuity in previous naval
05:54battles in the Pacific War.
05:58Spruance took part personally in the attack on board the battleship New Jersey, one of the six battleships that surrounded
06:05the truck lagoon.
06:11The U.S. Navy deployed four Essex-class aircraft carriers, each with 100 aircraft, and a further four light aircraft
06:19carriers that could transport up to 25 planes each.
06:22All together, this amounted to 500 airplanes ready to lay waste to the Japanese base.
06:29The attack forces also had six battleships, eight cruisers, 26 destroyers, and a submarine.
06:47At dawn on February 17, 1944, the U.S. airplanes took off and reached the truck atoll without encountering any
06:55opposition on the way.
07:01The attack caught the Japanese completely unprepared.
07:07The American fighter aircraft, the fearsome Hellcats, let rip with their machine guns and launched bombs and torpedoes against the
07:15installations and ports in the truck base.
07:20This first wave destroyed more than 40 Japanese aircraft on land.
07:28Another 45 Japanese fighter planes managed to take off, but were able to do very little.
07:46The Japanese ships anchored in the truck lagoon tried to escape as quickly as they could.
07:57But the atoll surrounded by reefs became a death trap.
08:05Some of the ships didn't even have time to weigh anchor.
08:09One example was the San Francisco Maru, which was just off Dublin Island.
08:20Various dive-bombing attacks resulted in six 500-kilogram bombs impacting on the San Francisco Maru.
08:31The flames spread quickly throughout the ship, which sank stern first.
08:54The San Francisco Maru was a former merchant ship that the Japanese Navy reused during the war as transport for
09:02ammunition, arms and combat vehicles.
09:08It had a crew of 40 men. Five of them lost their lives.
09:20The wreck of the San Francisco Maru lies 220 feet below the surface.
09:26A large part of the stern deck is collapsed because of the effect of the bombs that made a direct
09:31hit.
09:39And on the deck of the second cargo hold, there are some clearly identifiable shapes.
09:54Three Japanese tanks that were destroyed, but not on land, which is what they were created for, but in the
10:00waters of the Pacific Ocean.
10:02A trick of fate.
10:17The three tanks were the Mitsubishi-manufactured Model 95.
10:29These were highly operational vehicles, equipped with a gun and two machine guns.
10:40This tank was a very agile and effective weapon.
10:51Now, almost 80 years later, they lie motionless on the seabed, like reef statues.
11:09Their guns have fallen silent.
11:17They no longer wreak havoc.
11:20In fact, quite the opposite.
11:22Now, they provide a haven for marine life.
11:29On the starboard side, there are two more tanks, one on top of the other.
11:34Probably a result of the impact caused by the ship crashing to the bottom of the lagoon.
11:39The ship...
12:10It's calculated that 4,500 soldiers and sailors of the Imperial Japanese Navy lost their lives during the two days
12:18of Operation Hailstone.
12:24The shipwrecks still have remnants left behind by these soldiers who gave their lives to defend the atoll or trying
12:31to escape from the inferno.
12:49Some of the things left behind in the remains of the ocean liner Heianmaru are chilling.
13:00This ship was reconverted by the Imperial Japanese Navy into a mothership that provided food, fuel, and other supplies to
13:08the submarines and their crews.
13:24The Heianmaru is the largest ship in the Ghost Fleet that lies in the graveyard of Truck Lagoon.
13:36Its 12,000 tons of steel were sunk by a torpedo that exploded in its machine room.
13:58The objects we discover give us an insight into the daily life of the troops in the Japanese Navy.
14:08In what was the kitchen area, we can still find piles of crockery used by the soldiers and sailors.
14:16And perhaps even the officers, too.
14:23On some items, we can still make out the place of manufacture.
14:31These remains are piled up in the holds of this enormous ship in a quite remarkable state of preservation.
14:46When the Heianmaru sank, it took with it to the bottom of the sea the memory and the stories of
14:52its crew members.
14:58However, when we come across the remains of a gas mask, we are reminded that the daily life of the
15:05Japanese soldiers in Truck Lagoon was subject to the rules of war.
15:17The masks were an essential part of every soldier's campaign equipment.
15:28These protective masks, which seemed to gaze up at us from the abyss of history, were probably never used by
15:35the sailors on this ship.
15:45The sudden attack by the U.S. Navy left the busy life on these ships suspended in time.
15:56Take this on-board operating room, for example.
16:02The instruments and containers in this doctor's case are practically undamaged.
16:22And the surgical tray still stands intact on the operating table.
16:35Everything went into hibernation on February 17th, 1944.
16:49Some of these ocean liners that the Imperial Japanese Navy put to a different use during the war were the
16:55medical support for the Japanese Pacific Fleet.
17:18It could be said that the ships that now lie in the depths of the lagoon had two lives before
17:24being sunk in the battle.
17:25A civilian life as ocean liners transporting passengers or goods.
17:30And a military life which turned out to be their last.
17:44The best example of an ocean liner reconverted for military use was the Rio de Janeiro Maru.
17:52In peacetime, it was a passenger and cargo ship that sailed around the world from Japan, via Singapore and South
17:59Africa, to South America.
18:09The poorest passengers traveled in its lower homes, and its upper part provided sumptuous lounges and luxury cabins for first
18:18-class passengers.
18:26But the Rio de Janeiro Maru's luxury trips were cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War.
18:38It became a mothership providing support for the Imperial Japanese Navy submarines.
18:44And its holds were crammed full of supplies.
18:50Like these bottles, which look like beer bottles to boost the morale of the troops waging bloody battles on thousands
18:57of Pacific islands.
19:22This is the resting place for these sunken ships, whose two lives came to an end, but their iron skeletons
19:29still remain, as a reminder of the horrors of war.
19:50Now the marine flora, the corals and the fish, are the passengers in their cabins.
20:02And where there was once a busy daily life, today there is just emptiness and the silence of the depths.
20:30Surprise! That was the weapon of destruction used by the U.S. Navy in Operation Hailstone.
20:38Throughout the whole of the first day of attack, squadrons took off from the aircraft carriers over and over again.
20:45There were as many as 30 air forays.
20:49Apart from attacking the ships at anchor, the U.S. bombers and fighter planes neutralized the majority of the Japanese
20:56anti-air defenses on the islands.
20:59And above all, they destroyed the aircraft that were on land.
21:03The aim was to prevent an immediate response that would have endangered the operation.
21:11Some planes attempted a hurried takeoff, but they were shot down as they took slowly to the air.
21:24This may have been the fate of the Mitsubishi G4M bomber, the remains of which are close to the landing
21:31strip on Etten Island.
21:37Betty was the code name that the Allies gave to this Imperial Japanese Navy bomber.
21:43The plane was used as a suicide torpedo launcher, using a manned bomb, called Yokosuka, which translates as cherry blossom.
21:52A soldier from the Special Attack Unit, the dreaded Kamikaze, guided the bomb that Betty launched in the direction of
22:00the target.
22:17No one knows whether this Betty lying on the bed of the lagoon was shot down or simply crashed while
22:24attempting to take off during the U.S. Navy's first attacks.
22:37The passage of time and the salt water have taken their toll on the remains of this airplane, which broke
22:44into various pieces.
22:48You can still make out the propellers, the wings, the cockpit, and the seat of the last pilot to fly
23:12the Mitsubishi G4M.
23:31One hundred feet down, the seabed in the lagoon is very sandy.
23:38On this sandy bed, the sunken ships have been molded to form part of the truck ecosystem.
23:50The ocean liner Fujikawa Maru is one of the most interesting wrecks in this ship graveyard.
23:57It was commandeered by the Imperial Japanese Navy four years earlier and transformed into a military cargo ship.
24:18Its usual cargo was planes and vehicles of all kinds, which transported the length and breadth of the Pacific Islands.
24:46If we follow the trail of some of these wrecks in the lagoon, starting with the Fujikawa Maru, we can
24:52get an idea of how the Japanese Army organized its logistics...
25:01The holds and decks of these transport ships contained vehicles and materials to build infrastructures that would allow the Japanese
25:09to hold on to their war power in the Pacific Islands.
25:20Roads, bunkers, airfields, and shelters. Essential works to ensure that the war machinery was well-oiled.
25:53These remains of a bulldozer are evidence of this professional machinery used to fight away.
26:07Many of these vehicles give us clues to their origin.
26:15They are vehicles built by the U.S. manufacturer John Deere.
26:26These vehicles are believed to have been captured by the Japanese in the Philippines, which was still U.S. territory
26:32before Japan invaded it at the outset of the Second World War.
26:56A few days before the start of Operation Hailstone, the Fujikawa Maru had unloaded as many as 30 Japanese bombers
27:04at the Truck Lagoon Stronghold.
27:10These planes had been disassembled for transport and were unable to help in defending the islands.
27:30Neither could the well-known Zero fighter planes be used to protect the Japanese garrison.
27:49At the start of the war, this formidable Japanese fighter plane exceeded the Allied aircraft in range and maneuverability.
28:02But soon afterwards, it became obsolete and was unable to compete with the more modern and more powerful aircraft that
28:09the U.S. war industry created during the war.
28:17From 1943 onwards, the Zeroes were used for kamikaze suicide operations.
28:44This Zero in the hold of the Fuji Karamaru never got the chance to fight back against the U.S.
28:51attack.
28:56A torpedo exploded amid ships and the vessel sank quickly with all the armaments it was carrying.
29:25The deck of these shipwrecks is the safest place for scuba diving.
29:30The deck of these shipwrecks is the safest place for scuba diving.
29:36Rusting caused by the water and the pressure turn these places into traps that make exploration a very complicated business.
30:01We managed to reach a ship's bridge.
30:04Despite its poor state of conservation, we can still imagine the frenetic activity that it must have witnessed.
30:17From here, the captain steered the ship using these navigation instruments that are still standing, like this telegraph.
30:50In these ships, most of which were built in the 1930s,
30:54the old coal-fired engines had been replaced with diesel engines.
31:01This enabled them to reach unprecedented speeds of up to 17 knots, about 30 kilometers an hour,
31:08when the captain turned up the throttle to full speed.
31:29The bridges of these shipwrecks now look like museums exhibiting all kinds of navigation instruments.
31:36itan or зачем are a central to capitalize dimensions öğren time of the shipwrecks.
32:06In the south seas, the shipwrecks had been replaced with us on the shipwrecks.
32:08The visitors to these works of art nowadays are the fish.
32:15The reef's inhabitants explore every cabin, hold and engine room.
32:45The algae and the sponges, or the colonies of coral, cover these twisted iron remains
32:52that were once a sailor's grave and are now a haven for life.
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34:09At 136 feet in length, some 133 meters, this ship became an arsenal that sailed from island
34:16to island in the Pacific to supply the Japanese battleships with bombs.
34:47On the day of the attack, it was at anchor, undergoing maintenance.
34:54One of the functions of the truck base was also its use as a dry dock for repairing the Japanese
34:59fleet.
35:03Other ships like the Yamagiri Maru were waiting their turn for repair, which prevented them
35:09from being able to maneuver to escape and making them an easy target for the bombers.
35:24The hulls in their hulls made by the impacts are plain to see.
35:47In the attack on the Yamagiri Maru, 11 Japanese sailors died.
35:52Its captain managed to escape and survive the shipwreck.
36:12Dozens of projectiles are still piled up in one of the Yamagiri Maru's holds.
36:22These are armor-piercing shells that the vessel supplied to the Japanese battleships.
36:35These bombs never reached their target.
36:43Built to wreak havoc and destruction, they ended up being sunk in the ocean.
37:05The ammunition was deactivated during the cleaning campaigns carried out at the end of the war,
37:10but the feeling of danger is ever-present during the dive.
37:24When exploring these arsenals, which are usually in the deepest part of the ship's holds,
37:30you have to dive very carefully.
37:43There is a risk of a ship's deck or wall collapsing.
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38:49The deck of this ship still has the remains of a Japanese Type 97 tank.
39:00It's easy to distinguish because it had a very low profile, with its gun turret on one side of the
39:06tank's body.
39:09Although it was manufactured until 1943, it was shown to be a vehicle with many limitations.
39:16It was generally used to support the infantry in offensives, but it was soon left behind because of its poor
39:23mobility in forest and wood terrain.
39:37There is one detail that also catches our eye in this tank. Its gun has disappeared.
39:48Usually, when military vehicles were transported on these ships, their more delicate parts, such as the guns, were removed to
39:56avoid damage.
40:02The gun on this Type 97 was never reattached to its turret.
40:18Another artillery piece pokes its head through the collapsed deck of this ship.
40:35It's an anti-tank gun that was used widely in the war in the Pacific because it was quick and
40:40easy to maneuver.
40:58Despite having been under the water for a long time, its structure is still standing.
41:09The iron is still intact, but not for much longer.
41:35Swimming around the bed of the lagoon is like wandering around a Second World War museum.
41:55This is a Kawanishi H8K hydroplane, which the Americans baptized Emily.
42:20This aircraft was armed to the teeth, which is why the Japanese called it the Flying Porcupine.
42:33Five guns and four machine guns poked out of its structure.
42:44We know that this hydroplane crashed on its way back from Palau Island.
42:50It was ambushed in mid-flight by several US fighter planes and had to make a forced sea landing, and
42:57ended up sinking in a very short time.
43:08Now the Emily lies headless on the seabed.
43:13The cockpit was separated from the fuselage, where we can still see some of the four-engine propellers that lifted
43:20it off the sea.
43:49The
44:03The outcome of Operation Hailstone's two days of attacks
44:07was a dramatic defeat for the Imperial Japanese Navy.
44:15More than 1,200 combat takeoffs were launched from the U.S. aircraft carriers.
44:21And their planes dropped almost 500 tons of bombs on the ships anchored in the Japanese base.
44:37The hailstorm of explosives destroyed between 250 and 270 Japanese aircraft,
44:44as well as three cruisers, four destroyers, three submarines, a minesweeper,
44:49and a patrol boat.
44:52The Japanese support fleet was the one most badly affected.
44:5626 transport ships, two repair ships, a tug, and six oil tankers.
45:09Another dozen or so support ships were damaged,
45:12the majority ending up buried in the watery graveyard of Truck.
45:30The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, suffered very few losses.
45:3425 planes were shot down, and only one aircraft carrier and a battleship
45:40were slightly damaged by the Japanese defensive action.
45:50The U.S. pilots who were shot down were rescued and returned to safety.
45:54A British Army.
46:04The U.S. Navy Army.
46:05The final U.S. death toll in the operation was 40 soldiers.
46:11A British Army Army.
46:28In the ensuing months, the US Navy launched various air raids on the remains of the base
46:34to prevent the Japanese from repairing the damaged ships.
46:46This submarine tried to escape from one of them.
47:01But in the widespread panic to submerge, the crew left a hatch open, and it sank bow first.
47:17All 32 crew members on board died.
47:24They had taken part in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
47:36After the humiliating defeat, Vice Admiral Masami Kobayashi was fired, and Truck Lagoon was left to its own fate.
47:50The Japanese army stopped using this archipelago as a base for anchoring its main fleet.
47:57Its troops, scattered around thousands of islands, started to experience supply problems.
48:02And their life became a nightmare.
48:13Operation Hailstone helped the US to assert its domination in the Pacific,
48:18and accelerated the decline of the Imperial Japanese fleet.
48:43The remains lying on the bed of Truck Lagoon bear silent witness to one of the most dramatic
48:50naval and air attacks in the history of the Second World War.
49:01The sunken ships are witnesses to a battle in which hundreds of soldiers, pilots, and officers sacrificed their lives.
49:18In a few more years, the wear and tear caused by the salt water, the currents, and the plants will
49:26lead to the disappearance of the last traces of this story.
49:47A story of heroes and martyrs, victory and defeat.
49:56A story of death, but also of life.
50:08As though applying an unwritten code, nature is devouring these artifacts created for war, and transforming them into living underwater
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