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00:07The 1930s is a decade of aggression. Italy attacks Ethiopia, dreaming of a modern Roman
00:14Empire. Hitler's thousand-year Reich calls for his seizure of Austria, Czechoslovakia,
00:21and Poland. The Japanese Empire expands with the invasion of Manchuria and China,
00:28but intends to dominate all of Asia. To accomplish that, the military and Japan know they must first
00:35eliminate the United States as a seaborne power. They act accordingly.
00:44All wars change the world, but none of them change the world like the Second World War did.
00:50Japan's on the march. Germany's on the march. No one can imagine a nightmare they're about to
00:57unleash the most destructive war in human history. Suddenly the world is turned upside down and all
01:05hell is let loose. The West is stunned by the speed of the advance. You get the allies led by
01:14the big
01:14three. Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin. Men who are dealing with immensely complicated questions.
01:22It's the biggest military operation of human history. The allies have to come together,
01:29not just militarily, but industrial scale. It's a global perspective. They have to fight in every
01:35climate from the Arctic to the jungles of the Pacific to the deserts of Africa and the depths of the
01:42ocean.
01:45But there was no certainty of victory. It was going to be a horrific bloodbath.
01:51We see humans at their absolute worst, how they treat other human beings. And we see them at their
01:57absolute best, willing to give their lives that others might live. World War II was a struggle in
02:03which there could be one victor and one vanquish.
02:32In late 1937, the Japanese escalate their military campaign.
02:37in China. They already occupy Manchuria. After three months of fighting, they take Shanghai.
02:57And move to the ancient Chinese capital of Nanking.
03:13The Japanese brutality that follows will shock the world.
03:20They enter the city and instead of just occupying it, they let the Japanese troops off the leash.
03:27They rape, they pillage, they burn, they steal.
03:35The Japanese commanders ordered their soldiers not to take any prisoners, which meant executions.
03:54This was Japanese soldiers looking down on the Chinese as inferior people and as being non-humans.
04:05Japanese soldier who committed atrocities himself, he described it as killing pigs.
04:16Japanese officers had a competition to see who could be the first to kill 100 civilians with a sword.
04:26This was printed in Japanese newspaper.
04:31To show pictures of swordsmen decapitating bound prisoners in the 20th century made the people doing the killing seem almost
04:44like they were barbarians from another era.
04:49And it struck Americans and people in the Western world in a different way than had they shown people being
04:57lined up against a wall and shot.
05:01Hundreds of thousands of people raped and murdered by the Japanese.
05:10In just six weeks, the Japanese army killed 200,000 Chinese in Nanking.
05:19Most are civilians.
05:23The Japanese invasion does identify the Japanese as an aggressive power in the Pacific.
05:28That they are brutal in the way that they've treated the population.
05:32And this starts to change people's perceptions with regards to the Japanese.
05:38By the end of 1939, Japan controls vast areas of north and central China.
05:45As well as the southern port cities.
05:56The Japanese are driven by the desire for raw materials.
06:01The luck of the historical draw has put the Japanese people on a series of beautiful islands which are unfortunately
06:08resource poor.
06:11Take iron ore.
06:13The Japanese have almost no indigenous sources of iron ore.
06:15Their steel industry is based on U.S. scrap iron.
06:19They need the raw materials and almost limitless manpower of China.
06:28Japan is a modern and complex nation.
06:35At the pinnacle of society is the Emperor Hirohito.
06:41The 124th Emperor of Japan.
06:46The Constitution made the Emperor of Japan a divine figure.
06:54Literally a living god.
07:02Taken literally, he's a god on earth.
07:04Or a mystical figure who people aren't really supposed to have much direct contact with.
07:12Emperor Hirohito is not really a policy maker in Japan.
07:15He's not the wartime planner.
07:17He doesn't go through details of tax policy in the way you would think a president or a prime minister
07:23does.
07:23He's a guarantor and a protector of Japanese tradition.
07:31Emperor Hirohito approves government policy.
07:36But real power lies with the Japanese army and navy and its political allies.
07:43They want imperial Japan to control Asia.
07:50For the last couple of decades it has been a major industrial power.
07:54Powerful economy.
07:55Its armed forces have been built up.
07:58It's in a really strong position.
08:02The Japanese resent the Western colonial empires that dominate Southeast Asia and control resources.
08:13The British rule over Hong Kong, Burma, Malaya and Singapore.
08:20There's French Indochina.
08:23And the Dutch East Indies.
08:26Even the United States has territories called protectorates in Guam and the Philippines.
08:35Japan intends to create what they term the greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere under their leadership.
08:45By this point Japan is Asia's preeminent power by a long way.
08:50I think because of that the Japanese have a sense that they are destined to bring the rest of Asia
08:56with them.
08:58Japan had an interest in becoming the supreme power of not only continental China but also Asia.
09:07Asia for the Asians was one of the propaganda slogans, one of the key slogans of the Japanese empire.
09:15Asia for the Asians was understood by some Japanese politicians at the time as an honest interest in liberating Asia
09:25from the Western colonizers.
09:27But there were some voices in the Japanese military who had a different understanding of this phrase Asia for the
09:36Asians.
09:37Saying okay Asia for the Asians means actually Asia for Japan.
09:44You get people in the Japanese government who are militarists, who have a very constrained view of the world.
09:52Their attitudes are somewhat disdainful of Western comfort and softness and all these sorts of things.
10:04The Japanese believe their soldiers are the toughest in the world.
10:09They combine modern weapons with the traditional training and values of the samurai warrior known as the Code of Bushido.
10:25Bushido was an older tradition that had now been inculcated into the manpower of the Japanese army.
10:33The Japanese didn't choose this aspect of their history randomly.
10:38They don't have the aircraft to compete with the West.
10:41They don't have the heavier tanks and artillery.
10:43There needs to be an equalizer.
10:45And they believe they found that equalizer in the superior fighting spirit of the Japanese soldier.
10:53By 1940, Japan controls most of China.
11:02In Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt is alarmed and fears further Japanese aggression could threaten the entire Asian Pacific region.
11:14Japan is an authoritarian power organized and driven by a theory of racial superiority and a march of aggressive conquest.
11:27That was what Japan was doing.
11:31Now, the only problem there is that the United States has traditionally seen the Pacific as its own area of
11:37operations.
11:39Roosevelt is determined to dislodge Japan from China.
11:43And the Japanese are determined to stay.
12:06To counter continued Japanese aggression in China, Roosevelt orders the U.S. fleet to move from San Diego to Pearl
12:14Harbor.
12:15A naval base on Hawaii, 2,000 miles closer to the Japanese mainland.
12:23This is a land that is an extension of the United States.
12:26It is the United States.
12:29Roosevelt is sending a clear signal he hopes will deter Japan.
12:34The Pacific is America's sphere of influence.
12:38He wants the fleet to be positioned far enough forward that the Japanese will take it seriously.
12:43But at the same time, not to be overtly provocative by moving it to a place like the Philippines or
12:48maybe Singapore.
12:51Pearl Harbor is now the front line of American naval power in the Pacific.
12:57The Pearl Harbor naval base is perfect.
13:01Because it's got a narrow channel into a wide harbor with an island right in the middle.
13:06So it looks like a fortress.
13:13Outside the naval base is the thriving city of Honolulu.
13:17The Hawaiian Islands to America looks like a paradise.
13:22Beautiful beaches, relaxed culture, amazing weather.
13:28But there are security concerns among top naval and army commanders.
13:34Because now they are surrounded by a population that is disproportionately Asian.
13:39And a population that also includes a very large percentage of Japanese Americans.
13:4530% of the population of the Hawaiian Islands has Japanese heritage.
13:52One of the major fears is sabotage from local Japanese Americans.
13:59General Short, who is in charge of the army at Hawaii, is much more afraid of sabotage than air attack.
14:06So he takes the fighter planes out of their protective bunkers, lines up on the airfield,
14:12where he thinks his soldiers can protect them from sabotage.
14:17Unfortunately, he's presented a line of sitting ducks.
14:24The U.S. expands its profile in the Pacific at the same time as Germany's forces sweep through Europe and
14:32conquer nation after nation.
14:35Hitler doesn't realize what he's done.
14:37But in toppling France, he's set in motion a kind of ripple effect of aggression that is going to move
14:43far and wide.
14:47Going back to the First World War, there's a sense in Japan that when things happen in Europe, there's an
14:52opportunity for Japan in Asia.
14:54If they can get their hands on something while the big powers are busy in Europe, then they will.
14:58That's exactly what happens in June 1940.
15:03Germany's conquests present Japan with an opportunity.
15:08Germany now occupies the Netherlands, colonial ruler of the oil-rich Dutch East Indies.
15:15Great Britain, still at war with Germany, controls the resources of Malaya, Singapore, Burma, and Hong Kong.
15:23And the French, who rule Indochina, have surrendered to the Nazis.
15:30The Japanese now realize that an opportunity is beckoning.
15:37The Dutch can't defend the Dutch East Indies any longer.
15:39The British are going to have a heck of a time trying to defend Singapore and on and on.
15:45The French in Indochina, the resources await.
15:48And it seems to the Japanese that a once-in-a-century opportunity has arisen to seize those colonies.
15:55Who's going to defend them?
16:00So the French are overrun by the Nazis, you have a Vichy regime being set up.
16:05The Japanese really have their eyes on Indochina because of the resources there.
16:09The sense that actually it won't put up much of a fight, given that the French are busy elsewhere.
16:17Japan's first target is French Indochina.
16:20In September 1940, it pressures the French Vichy government to cede to them the northern region.
16:33That same month, Japan's leaders signed a formal alliance with Germany and Italy called the Tripartite Pact.
16:42The three nations become known as the Axis Powers.
16:48One of the characteristics of the Axis, of course, is that they were three hyper-aggressive, militant powers, eager for
16:55war.
17:05They're strange bedfellows.
17:07There seems to be no overlap between German interests, which are focused on Eurasia,
17:12Italian interests focused on the Mediterranean and North and East Africa.
17:17Japanese interests are in East Asia.
17:19And so there's no obvious overlap between the three.
17:22They come together because they're all kind of outcasts.
17:27The Tripartite Pact is a marriage of convenience to try and put the Americans off from entering any kind of
17:34conflict with Japan.
17:38There isn't a great deal of ideology there.
17:40It's simply a case of how do we keep the Americans at bay for now so that we can do
17:45what we need to do in Asia.
17:56In the summer of 1941, the American-Japanese relationship reaches crisis level when Japan takes control over all of French
18:05Indochina.
18:09The French yield and the Japanese come down and they start helping themselves with the resources they need to keep
18:15the war going.
18:16And then eventually they just outright take it over.
18:21It's a great source of resources.
18:23It's also a great staging post for whatever else you might want to do in Southeast Asia.
18:30Japan now has access to even more raw materials.
18:35The thinking in Tokyo is we need to get tin and bauxite from Malaya.
18:39We need to get oil from the Dutch East Indies.
18:41We need to get rice from the Philippines.
18:43And everything you need is there.
18:45It's a no-brainer.
18:49The United States has one major weapon to force Japan out of China and Southeast Asia.
18:56And President Roosevelt is about to use it.
19:16In the summer of 1941, the United States takes its strongest stand yet against Japan's territorial ambitions.
19:26The United States has been concerned about Japanese expansion and aggression in Asia for some time.
19:32Roosevelt has stopped short of a military response, but there's been a series of embargoes.
19:38Embargo on weapons, an embargo on scrap iron.
19:42Japan is almost entirely dependent on oil imported from the U.S.
19:48So FDR imposes an embargo on the Japanese.
19:53In the summer of 1941, America essentially turns off the tap.
19:58The embargo becomes a disaster for the Japanese economy and military.
20:05By installing an oil embargo, we have basically said we are going to control your future.
20:13The Japanese have to find a way out.
20:15And there's oil nearby.
20:17The Dutch, for example, control huge amounts of oil in that region.
20:20So it becomes almost a temptation.
20:22Why wouldn't you take it?
20:24Especially when you feel like the United States had no right to cut you off from oil in the first
20:28place.
20:29I mean, would a European power stand for that?
20:34The moment Roosevelt turns off the tap, the clock is ticking.
20:40In Tokyo, the Japanese make plans to strike back.
20:46Japan thinks about how do we get out of this straitjacket?
20:50Well, we have to replace those things by seizing the raw materials of Southeast Asia.
20:55And the first step will be to knock out the American Pacific Fleet.
21:01The Japanese finalize plans to attack American interests in the Pacific.
21:09There's a sense amongst the Japanese that the Americans are merchants rather than warriors.
21:14And that if you do give them a really bloody nose, they'll think, actually, this isn't for us.
21:22So if you really show them some proper steel, then they might back away.
21:28But not everyone in Japan is committed to conflict with the United States.
21:33Prime Minister Funimaro Kanoe wants to find a peaceful solution.
21:40Very much of a noble background.
21:43He is an internationalist.
21:45He has great relationships with diplomats in the West.
21:48His big concern, I think, is how you reach some kind of a settlement with the United States
21:55and manage to bring the Japanese military along with you.
22:00But War Minister Hideki Tojo is determined to go to war against America.
22:07Hideki Tojo does have a very aggressive sense of what Japan is going to have to do.
22:13The destiny of Japan is to be the preeminent power in Asia,
22:16is to push the Americans out, to push the British out, to push the Dutch out.
22:20Look at what's happening in Europe.
22:22Look at the success of the Nazis.
22:24That is the way a great power is going to run itself in the future.
22:29Emperor Hirohito is caught between the war and peace factions in Tokyo.
22:33He gathers his political and military leaders for an imperial conference,
22:38where he recites a poem written by his grandfather, the Emperor Meiji.
22:46Across the four seas, all men are brothers.
22:51In such a world, why do the waves rage, the winds roar?
22:58The Japanese try to interpret Hirohito's feelings about the war from the poem.
23:04But he never states his views explicitly.
23:10Prime Minister Kanoe still wants to find a diplomatic solution.
23:16There's no harm done in keeping open channels of communication.
23:20Their ambassador and a special envoy in Washington talking to the U.S. State Department.
23:24But the Americans still demand that Japan withdraw from China.
23:29I don't think they see any possibility that this problem can be negotiated away.
23:36I think the Japanese have made a pretty firm decision to go to war.
23:41In mid-October 1941, a frustrated Prime Minister Kanoe resigns.
23:50He tells his government secretary,
23:53His Imperial Majesty is a pacifist.
23:56I told him that war was a mistake.
23:58He agreed.
23:59But the next time I met him, he leaned more to war.
24:04I felt the Emperor was absorbing more and more the view of the Army and Navy high commands.
24:11Hirohito heard plans being discussed in detail constantly.
24:15He never really said yes.
24:18But the crucial factor is that he never said no.
24:24War Minister Tojo becomes the new Prime Minister.
24:30Japan's destiny is now in the hands of the military.
24:43In Honolulu, there's a new employee at the Japanese consulate.
24:48The Keio Yoshikawa.
24:52A Keio Yoshikawa was a member of the Japanese Navy and was sent to Hawaii as a spy.
25:02Yoshikawa is hoping that he's going to find some sympathizers within the Japanese population that will give him additional information.
25:12But what he quickly discovers is that the vast majority of the Japanese Americans on Oahu are loyal to the
25:20United States.
25:23So he's renting planes to take sightseeing tours around the harbor.
25:30He's driving around town.
25:32He's taking pictures.
25:33I'm a tourist.
25:35He's renting boats to go around and actually measure the depth of the harbor and so forth.
25:39So he gathers a lot of intelligence about the daily activities of the Pacific Fleet.
25:52Yoshikawa is the one who comes up with the insight that Sunday morning really is the best time to launch
25:58an attack against the Americans.
26:02Although meant to deter Japan, FDR's order to move the Pacific Fleet Base from California to Pearl Harbor means it's
26:12now within striking distance.
26:14Yoshikawa is the best time to launch an attack against the Japanese troops.
26:17Yoshikawa doesn't really understand that by moving the fleet this far forward, it now becomes a potential target for the
26:23Japanese because the Americans in general don't understand the sophistication and level of capability that the Japanese now have.
26:37On a cold Wednesday morning, the fleet of the Japanese Imperial Navy heads out into the Pacific.
26:45In overall command is Grand Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
26:50It was his plan to launch a surprise attack against the US fleet at Pearl Harbor.
26:57Yamamoto has a really good appreciation for just how powerful the United States is.
27:02He's lived in the US.
27:03He was a naval attache.
27:05He speaks some English.
27:07And so he understands that any war with the United States is going to have to be a very fast
27:14affair, that they've got to get this thing over as rapidly as possible.
27:18Hit them hard at the outset and try to go after American morale.
27:25The way he thinks he can do that is by sinking as many of our battleships as possible.
27:31Maybe then the Americans will come to the bargaining table and we can get this war over within six months
27:36or something like that.
27:41Key to the operation is grouping six modern aircraft carriers together for the attack.
27:50Yamamoto is an air power advocate.
27:55He has been consistently pushing to beef up Japan's aircraft carriers.
28:00And they create this organization, Kido Butai, the mobile force.
28:08Aircraft carriers are usually deployed one at a time and their aircraft are tasked with defending heavy battleships.
28:19The Japanese are like, we're going to take all of our carriers, we're going to put them into a carrier
28:23fleet of six big flight decks.
28:27That can now bring 350 aircraft across the ocean.
28:37That is going to allow the Japanese to deliver these enormous pulses of firepower over the battlefield, which has never
28:46been seen before in naval warfare.
28:50The Japanese have another challenge.
28:54How do you get this enormous armada across three and a half thousand miles of ocean without being detected?
29:02First, they shut down all radio communications and travel in silence.
29:11Then, eight oil tankers sail alongside the fleet.
29:22The ability to refuel at sea is one of the master strokes of Pearl Harbor.
29:27Because your fleet didn't have to stop at any basis.
29:32This is how the Japanese fleet could stay radio silent.
29:37Refueling at sea literally allowed the Japanese fleet to vanish like a ghost.
29:48As the Japanese fleet steamed towards Hawaii,
29:53in Washington DC, the Japanese and the Americans continue to negotiate.
30:05On December 6th,
30:08President Roosevelt writes to Emperor Hirohito directly.
30:14It is clear that a continuance of such a situation is unthinkable.
30:19We have a sacred duty to restore traditional amity
30:22and prevent further death and destruction in the world.
30:29Roosevelt's saying, look, war would be a horror.
30:30This is a war that none of us won.
30:32But at this point, Hirohito has embarked on war.
30:39The Japanese fleet has reached the point of no return.
31:04December 7th, 1941.
31:10December 7th, 1941.
31:13The Japanese fleet receives a message.
31:17A small submarine has been spotted in the area near Pearl Harbor.
31:24At 6.40 a.m., the war drops depth charges on the submarine.
31:30They send a sighting report upstairs.
31:36The people at Pearl Harbor look at it and they're like,
31:38this is a brand new captain.
31:39He's only been on duty for a day at this point.
31:42He probably doesn't know what he's doing.
31:44Eh, don't worry about it.
31:48Even though the ward has successfully fired the first shot in this war,
31:52her report is completely ignored.
31:5720 minutes later,
31:59two young radar operators spot a huge formation of planes approaching the area.
32:06They report it to their senior officer.
32:09He knows that there's a group of American B-17s that are due in this morning
32:14that should be coming from roughly that direction.
32:16And the result is that he tells those two radar operators,
32:20don't worry about it.
32:28183 Japanese planes descend on Pearl Harbor in the first wave of the attack.
32:34Their target, the airfields.
32:38The result is going to be this concentrated bombing attack
32:41to try to put as many American planes out of business at the outset of the attack.
32:49At 7.55 a.m.
32:56The first bombs hit.
33:03When you hear the airplanes overhead, you're like,
33:05oh boy, they sure are doing training early today.
33:10And then when all of a sudden things start to explode,
33:12you're like, oh man, somebody's really going to get in trouble
33:14because this training event's way out of hand.
33:21At 8 a.m. on Honolulu, the Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa
33:26tunes his radio into a Japanese weather forecast.
33:31The announcer uses the phrase,
33:33Higashi no Kazeame.
33:35East wind.
33:37Rain.
33:38It's code.
33:40The attack on America is underway.
33:47Another formation of Japanese aircraft dive on the ships anchored along Battleship Row.
33:54Torpedo planes at low level.
33:57And overhead bombers.
34:06It's not until ships actually start exploding, bullets start ripping through the decks,
34:13that they realize, oh my God, this is really real.
34:22Torpedo attacks are very, very successful.
34:29The Oklahoma and the West Virginia are very heavily hit.
34:35Oklahoma ends up capsizing, trapping hundreds of men in this overturned ship.
34:47Over 400 sailors and marines die on the USS Oklahoma.
34:55At the same time, the level bombers are coming in overhead and dropping their bombs.
35:05And one of them lands a devastating hit on the Battleship Arizona.
35:14And destroys her in just the blink of an eye.
35:21The explosion on the USS Arizona kills 1,117 men.
35:34So if you think about every, you know, soldier, sailor, marine, they cannot connect the idea of what is happening.
35:42There are bombs exploding, there are ships sinking, there are men on fire, there are body parts flying around.
35:48And you can imagine just trying to wrap your mind around all that.
35:53After two waves of attack, the Japanese withdraw.
36:06188 U.S. aircraft are destroyed.
36:121,178 servicemen and civilians are wounded.
36:182,403 are dead.
36:27But the United States Navy's aircraft carriers are at sea and escape the devastation.
36:37We have witnessed this morning the air bombing of South Harbor by enemy planes.
36:46It is no help.
36:48It is the real war.
36:53If we want to talk about the grand inflection point in World War II, it's December 7, 1941.
37:00At 7.55, it's the world as we've always known it.
37:0415 minutes later at 8.10, the world is different.
37:08We are now at war.
37:29The America that wakes up on December 8th, 1941, is a different country.
37:38The American that wakes up on December 8, 1941, is a different country.
37:40Are we up to this?
37:43Can we meet this challenge?
37:46We are being put in the balance,
37:49and would we be found wanting or not?
37:58Prime Minister Tojo tells the Japanese people
38:01about the victory of its navy at Pearl Harbor.
38:06He also tells them that Japan has attacked Singapore,
38:10Hong Kong, Malaya, Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines.
38:24While American attention is focused on the surprise attack,
38:29the Japanese are bombing and launching invasions all around.
38:35They're bombing Malaya. They're bombing the Philippines.
38:48At 12.30 p.m., Congress assembles.
38:54Yesterday, December 7th, 1941,
39:02a date which will live in infamy.
39:07The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked
39:14by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
39:19He dictated a good part of the speech to his secretary, Grace Tully.
39:25And the initial formulation was yesterday, December 7th, 1941,
39:32a date which will live in world history.
39:35And at some point before he gets to Capitol Hill,
39:39he writes in a wonderful handwriting of his,
39:43date which will live in infamy.
39:45So it was his edit of his own dictation that created an indelible phrase.
39:53I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan,
40:05on Sunday, December 7th, 1941,
40:12a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
40:41Look very carefully at what Franklin Roosevelt said on the 8th of December.
40:47We are declaring war against the Empire of Japan.
40:52He does not mention Germany.
40:56The 8th goes by, the 9th goes by, the 10th goes by.
41:01And not until the 11th, when Hitler decides to declare war on the United States,
41:07did the United States then in turn declare war on Germany.
41:16America now faces a global war on two fronts.
41:27We were dragged into this.
41:29Let's be very clear.
41:31The United States of America did not wake up in the middle of the 20th century
41:35and decided it was going to defeat tyranny.
41:36Tyranny had to force us into a struggle that we now recognize to be the great existential struggle,
41:44arguably of the last millennium.
41:47But it was not a quick or easy date with destiny.
41:56We are now in this war.
42:00We're all in it.
42:02All the way.
42:04Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history.
42:16It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war.
42:21We are going to win the war.
42:25And we are going to win the peace that follows.
42:31America is now at war.
42:33The most devastating in world history.
42:36Germany reigns from the Atlantic to the outskirts of Moscow.
42:41Imperial Japan has swept across the Pacific, forcing America into an armed struggle it is not yet ready to fight.
42:48Not on land, not in the air, not at sea.
42:52A challenge is not yesterday.
42:52But we're in India.
42:54You