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00:05Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt are Navy men.
00:10They understand that World War II will be won by the side that controls the seas.
00:16Early in the war, Germany dominates the Atlantic and threatens Great Britain,
00:21while Japan is attempting to build an empire across the Asia-Pacific theater.
00:26The attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war brings America directly into the conflict,
00:33a global struggle that will range across many seas and many oceans.
00:38But the U.S. Navy has a new weapon, the aircraft carrier,
00:43which extends its reach and allows it to challenge an enemy thousands of miles away.
00:49All wars change the world, but none of them change the world like the Second World War did.
00:56Japan's on the march, Germany's on the march.
01:00No one can imagine a nightmare they're about to unleash.
01:03The most destructive war in human history.
01:07Suddenly the world is turned upside down and all hell is let loose.
01:13The West is stunned by the speed of the advance.
01:17You get the allies led by the big three.
01:21Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin.
01:23Men who are dealing with immensely complicated questions.
01:28It's the biggest military operation of human history.
01:32The allies have to come together, not just militarily, but industrial scale.
01:37It's a global perspective.
01:39They have to fight in every climate from the Arctic to the jungles of the Pacific,
01:44to the deserts of Africa and the depths of the ocean.
01:51But there was no certainty of victory.
01:54It was going to be a horrific bloodbath.
01:57We see humans at their absolute worst, how they treat other human beings.
02:01And we see them at their absolute best, willing to give their lives that others might live.
02:05World War II was a struggle in which there could be one victor and one vanquish.
02:40In late 1940, British cities are pounded from the air by the German Luftwaffe almost every night.
02:55Led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the people of Great Britain show no sign of surrender.
03:02But most of the food and material the island nation needs to survive must be brought from abroad.
03:10In British ships.
03:12The Nazi U-boats threaten every one of them.
03:19More than two-thirds of Britain's food comes in by ship.
03:22Over 90% of Britain's oil comes by ship.
03:26Britain also needs raw materials.
03:31You can't build a Lancaster bomber or a Spitfire out of steel.
03:37You need aluminum.
03:38Britain has no aluminum, so it needs to ship it all across the Atlantic.
03:42Most of what Britain needs comes from one source.
03:46America.
03:48President Franklin D. Roosevelt has declared the United States an arsenal of democracy.
03:53A lifeline is established.
03:57American resources carried by British convoys.
04:01But it's a perilous journey.
04:10In 1940 alone, over 500 British merchant ships are lost.
04:17The Germans are able to sink three million tons of British shipping between the summer of 1940 and the end
04:25of the year.
04:26That's unsustainable.
04:27If Churchill can't keep up the flow of supplies to Britain, well, you're in existential trouble.
04:36The man directing Germany's U-boat campaign is Admiral Karl Donitz, a World War I U-boat commander himself.
04:47Throughout the Great War, the Germans used unrestricted submarine warfare to attempt to choke Britain into submission.
04:57Donitz's mind is pure mathematics.
05:00You sink more merchant ships than can be built to starve the British, to deprive Britain of the raw materials
05:08and the calories needed to fight the war.
05:15In 1940, Donitz devises a new tactic.
05:20He groups up to 20 U-boats and orders them to hunt British convoys.
05:27They're called wolf packs.
05:31The moment one U-boat finds a convoy, it radios back to Donitz.
05:39Donitz then looks at where all his U-boats are.
05:44Donitz then vectors all other U-boats in and around those waters onto the same target.
05:59The wolf pack tactic requires good communication, good coordination.
06:13Nobody attacks until they're all present.
06:23And then they pounce.
06:38Imagine what it's like to be in a convoy under attack.
06:48Even if your ship doesn't get hit, you cannot stop to pick up survivors.
06:56You hear them screaming.
06:58You want to help them.
06:59But you cannot stop because if you do, you know a submarine is waiting to sink you.
07:11Through 1940, the wolf packs are so successful, their crews refer to it as the happy time.
07:22Donitz's plan to strangle Great Britain is working.
07:28Attacked by sea and by air, Britain's survival falls largely on the shoulders of one man, Winston Churchill.
07:37In November 1940, Churchill is told in no uncertain terms by government officials that there are simply not enough supplies
07:43getting into Britain.
07:45Britain is not going to be able to continue the war.
07:49He said it gnawed at his bowels.
07:52He said it's the only thing that kept him up at night in the Second World War, was the German
07:58threat in the Atlantic.
08:02Desperate, Prime Minister Churchill writes to President Roosevelt.
08:09Franklin Roosevelt had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the First World War.
08:13He understood the role of sea power.
08:23In early December, Roosevelt sets aside the burdens of office for a few days in the Caribbean.
08:32And a seaplane brings a letter from Churchill.
08:37And Churchill says that this is the most important letter I will ever write.
08:43Churchill is terrified.
08:45He's coming closer to losing than he ever has.
08:48He says, I need help.
08:51I need planes, ships, guns, and money.
08:58Roosevelt has long understood the threat Nazi Germany poses to the United States.
09:03But he's been constrained from offering direct aid to the British because of Americans' anxiety over getting involved in another
09:11world war.
09:14Roosevelt had read Mein Kampf in German.
09:16He understood in a way that not many Americans did what Hitler was about.
09:21But 80 or 90 percent of the country had no interest in being involved in any way in military conflict
09:30in the old world.
09:32FDR understands that if the United States is to take its place as a leader of the world, he's got
09:39to do it very, very carefully.
09:44Roosevelt returns to Washington with a plan.
09:47He calls it Lend-Lease.
09:51I've asked this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds
10:03to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggression.
10:13He calls it Lend-Lease.
10:14Churchill's letter has been answered.
10:16As he put it, if my neighbor's house is on fire, I lend him the hose, I don't make him
10:22pay for it.
10:23I just ask for it back afterward.
10:28Churchill's letter has been answered.
10:29I don't know why.
10:29Lend-Lease would keep Britain alive.
10:33President Roosevelt shepherds the Lend-Lease legislation designated HR 1776 through Congress.
10:42American weapons, including tanks and planes, are headed for Great Britain.
10:48But these convoys will move through hazardous waters.
11:06Spring 1941.
11:10American ships carrying Lend-Lease supplies to Britain are threatened by Donitz's wolf packs.
11:23Roosevelt understands the risk.
11:26But because he knows what's at stake, it's a risk he believes worth taking.
11:31He writes to Prime Minister Churchill.
11:35I believe that the outcome of this struggle is going to be decided in the Atlantic.
11:40And unless Hitler can win there, he cannot win anywhere in the world.
11:50FDR extends the U.S. Maritime Security Zone to 26 degrees west.
11:56A significant part of the Atlantic is now patrolled by the U.S. Navy.
12:03He takes over more than half of the Atlantic and turns it into an American lake.
12:09Roosevelt is now saying we will attack anyone who goes to war in those areas,
12:15knowing the only people who are going to make attacks in that area are Germans and submarines.
12:21As American and British interests align,
12:25President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill agreed to a summit to discuss strategy.
12:32Not just for the battle in the Atlantic, but for the whole war.
12:37They will meet in a bay just off Newfoundland on the eastern edge of Canada.
12:44Roosevelt tells the Washington press that he's taking a vacation on the presidential yacht, the Potomac.
12:52But once at sea, he transfers to the heavy cruiser Augusta and sets sail to meet Churchill.
13:00And events were conspiring to bring them on stage at the same hour at a cataclysmic moment.
13:10Roosevelt wanted Churchill as close as possible.
13:15Churchill travels to meet Roosevelt on the battleship HMS Prince of Wales,
13:22escorted by Royal Navy destroyers.
13:26But summer storms prevent the escorts from staying with the Prime Minister's ship.
13:32Alone, the HMS Prince of Wales travels through U-boat menaced waters.
13:39The same journey that British ships continue to make every day.
13:58On August 9th, the President and the Prime Minister meet.
14:05It's a deeply emotional and powerful moment because it's their first meeting as the leaders of their respective countries.
14:15Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were very similar men in many ways.
14:20They both believed that they were destined to play a great role in the lives of their nations and of
14:26the world.
14:28It was very important to FDR to stand when he met Churchill.
14:33Because of the polio, this was a pure effort of will.
14:38He did not want to be seated in front of men who were fighting.
14:47You can see the beginnings of what would become arguably the most important political friendship in history in those first
14:59moments.
15:01Churchill's boyishly happy and is so excited that the President of the United States is receiving him.
15:11It's also important to remember the intimacy of being together at sea.
15:17In the vast ocean.
15:19Where they're looking each other in the eye.
15:22They want to get along.
15:23They want to please the other.
15:27The two leaders also want to map a way forward for the world.
15:31They produce the Atlantic Charter.
15:34With joint war aims and a blueprint to prevent another world war.
15:42They knew that history had mysteriously but unmistakably cast them in this drama.
15:51And it was a reminder, an emotional reminder, of what was at stake.
16:01When Churchill departs for home, FDR sends two American warships to accompany him as far as Iceland.
16:18In fall 1941, Roosevelt orders the U.S. Navy to escort British convoys halfway across the Atlantic.
16:27It puts U.S. forces now very close to Europe.
16:32Everything about that is a way to be more aggressive to Germany.
16:38On September 4th, 1941, the USS Greer is attacked by a German U-boat.
16:46The Greer strikes back.
16:49Roosevelt responds with a shoot-on-sight order.
16:54I tell you the blunt fact that the German submarine fired first upon this American destroyer Greer with deliberate design
17:05to sink up.
17:07What we are seeing are tensions ratcheting up in the Atlantic, an undeclared war almost certainly at some point going
17:15to turn into a shooting one.
17:17On October 17th, the USS Kearney is damaged by a torpedo from a German U-boat.
17:27Eleven sailors are killed.
17:31Two weeks later, the USS Reuben James is torpedoed and sunk.
17:39One hundred and fifteen sailors are killed.
17:46Roosevelt again condemns German barbarism, German brutality. How can they do this?
17:52But Roosevelt doesn't declare war, and he realizes this isn't quite enough to base an entry into the Second World
18:00War.
18:05At the end of 1941, preserving Great Britain's Atlantic lifeline is FDR's chief naval concern.
18:16But in the Pacific, a different threat is about to launch.
18:40December 7th, 1941, six Japanese aircraft carriers, with over 300 dive bombers and torpedo planes, approach America's largest naval base
18:52in the Pacific.
19:06Later up this broadcast, bring you this important bulletin from the United Press. Flash, Washington. The White House announces Japanese
19:13attack on Pearl Harbor.
19:16What is the country that finally attacks America on American soil?
19:20It's Japan.
19:22Messages from Tokyo say that Japan has announced a formal declaration of war against both the United States and Britain.
19:31Churchill learns about Pearl Harbor from the BBC.
19:34Churchill learns about Pearl Harbor from the BBC.
19:34Here's the broadcast announcing this.
19:36He calls FDR.
19:38FDR says, it's true, we're all in the same boat now.
19:44Four days later, Germany declares war on the United States.
19:51America will fight a war across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
19:58And FDR is now a wartime president.
20:04Roosevelt comes under great pressure.
20:07He really finds the first few months of 1942 probably the most difficult in the war.
20:13But if you're Roosevelt, everyone's yelling at you.
20:16The British are yelling at you to convoy in the North Atlantic.
20:19The Navy's yelling at you for more resources to go to the Pacific.
20:25To fight the war in the Pacific, FDR appoints Admiral Chester Nimitz as the new Commander-in-Chief Pacific.
20:32Sink Pack.
20:34Nimitz arrives to assume command of the Pacific Fleet while Pearl Harbor is still a burning mess.
20:39It just stinks of death and fire and destruction.
20:45Nimitz takes command of a weakened Pacific Fleet.
20:50Most American battleships are destroyed or damaged at Pearl Harbor.
20:55But its aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped the attack.
21:03Nimitz is relying on admirals like William Bull Halsey to press the fight against the Japanese.
21:11He sees that American naval strategy based on the battleship is all gone.
21:17But we still have aircraft carriers and we still have submarines.
21:23Chester Nimitz understands, okay, out with the old, in with the new.
21:32Nimitz adjusts American naval strategy to rely on aircraft carriers and a series of raids.
21:44Because those aircraft carriers are available, he does have a tool to punch back at Japan.
21:49The Imperial Japanese Navy is well trained and well equipped.
21:56They dominate and control the western half of the Pacific.
22:02April 1942.
22:05Four months after Pearl Harbor, Admiral Nimitz is eager to go on the offensive.
22:11But where?
22:15The Navy's top cryptanalyst, Commander Joseph Rochefort and his team decode signals that reveal the Japanese Navy's plans.
22:27The intelligence that Rochefort is bringing to Nimitz is not necessarily all that clear cut.
22:34But the picture that is developing is one of continued Japanese interest in the South Pacific.
22:45Rochefort believes that Japanese are going to invade southern New Guinea.
22:49From there, they could block the sea lanes that connect the United States and Australia.
22:54And possibly strike Australia.
22:58Which is the key to the American strategy in the South Pacific.
23:02The Japanese would control everything from Japan to Australia.
23:06That entire linkage to the Indian Ocean.
23:08And oh, by the way, a principal ally in the southern part of the hemisphere.
23:12Nimitz dispatches two aircraft carriers.
23:16The Lexington and the Yorktown.
23:18To intercept the Japanese force.
23:21They are the only two carriers available.
23:28His basic game plan is to cruise in the Coral Sea.
23:33And wait for the Japanese moves.
23:36And deliver an attack against the Japanese.
23:41It's hard sometimes to remember because we have satellites that illuminate the whole world in real time.
23:48For most of military history, the fog of war is huge.
23:53And at sea, it's an even bigger deal.
23:56Trying to find your enemy is half the battle.
24:00A large fleet can become almost invisible.
24:03And then once you find it, you have to hit them before they find you.
24:17Rochefort's intelligence is correct.
24:19American reconnaissance aircraft spot the Japanese fleet in the Coral Sea.
24:25Both American carriers launched their planes.
24:41This attack is really the first sign that what we have here is what's called an RMA nowadays.
24:46A revolution in military affairs.
24:53The two fleets are more than 100 miles apart.
25:01They're attacking with aircraft from far away, right?
25:03They're not exchanging salvos from big guns.
25:07The Americans have never done anything like that with aircraft carriers before.
25:13American dive bombers strike first, finding the Japanese carrier Shoho.
25:21She's hit and sinks in less than an hour.
25:29Shoho is the first Japanese carrier that's going to be sunk during this war.
25:40When you throw a punch in boxing, you open yourself up to a counterpunch.
25:45So your choices are don't fight or fight and open yourself up to a devastating blow.
25:52The United States Navy has struck first.
25:55But now Nimitz's force faces the Japanese counterattack.
26:08The U.S. Navy sinks their first Japanese aircraft carrier in the Coral Sea.
26:13But the next day, Japanese planes locate and target the USS Lexington,
26:19America's oldest carrier, nicknamed Lady Lex.
26:35She takes four direct hits.
26:41She's still seaworthy, but a gas line ignites, and she catches fire.
26:50She burns to the water line
26:55and is scuttled to avoid capture.
27:09To protect their remaining carriers, the Japanese call off the invasion.
27:15The Battle of the Coral Sea is the first time that the United States has turned back a Japanese offensive.
27:23From Nimitz's standpoint, he's learned to trust his intel officers.
27:27He's also learned that the carriers are going to be the way to go.
27:32Even though this is kind of the wild west of naval combat at this point, carriers are effective.
27:37They can sink enemy warships.
27:41Fearing a long war with America,
27:44Admiral Isoyoku Yamamoto, the architect of Pearl Harbor,
27:49is always seeking a knockout blow against the U.S. Navy.
27:54So he says, I need to destroy these American carriers, but how do I do it?
27:58And so they cook up this plan, the Japanese naval staff,
28:01is that they'll attack a vital American place,
28:04and they decide Midway Island,
28:06so-called because it's midway between the west coast of the United States and China.
28:11It is American territory.
28:13Something the Americans value.
28:15That might be enough to lure the Americans out to defend that territory,
28:18and if they do, then we can annihilate their carriers
28:20and have a free hand in the Pacific.
28:25Yamamoto's plan is to launch a surprise attack on Midway with four of his carriers.
28:32The Japanese will take the strategic island
28:35and believe Midway will then radio Pearl Harbor for help,
28:38prompting Nimitz to send his carriers to defend the island.
28:43Once the American carriers get to Midway, Yamamoto will appear with the rest of his fleet.
28:49He will trap them in jaws of iron, crush them,
28:53and destroy not only the American carriers, but also their battleships,
28:57at which point the Americans will have no naval forces of any worth left in the Pacific.
29:07This could be a decisive strike against the U.S. naval forces in the Pacific.
29:27In late May, the Japanese task force head to Midway Island.
29:34There are 250 aircraft on its carriers.
29:42But cryptanalyst Joseph Rochefort once again has intercepted the Japanese coded signals.
29:49Rochefort believes Japan is sending its fleet to attack Midway.
29:54And the problem is, is the Japanese aren't referring to Midway Island as Midway Island.
29:59They're saying, AF, we're going to attack AF.
30:06Rochefort has a plan to reveal the identity of AF.
30:12Midway sends false radio messages on a channel the Japanese monitor,
30:16suggesting there's a problem on the island.
30:20Midway is going to radio back in the clear,
30:22that, hey, our desalinization plan has just broken and we're running out of fresh water.
30:30And then they wait and listen.
30:39And shortly thereafter, a Japanese radio station will send another message back to the Japanese fleet,
30:45that AF has just run out of fresh water.
30:48And now for the first time, they know it's Midway.
30:55Nimitz dispatches his three remaining aircraft carriers and a supporting fleet towards Midway.
31:20Nimitz dispatches his three remaining aircraft carriers and a supporting fleet towards Midway.
31:21The U.S. Navy is lying in wait to intercept the Japanese attack on Midway.
31:28If they can locate the Japanese carriers.
31:33This is the first time many young pilots will go into battle.
31:45There are some that had never even taken off an aircraft carrier before.
31:49We do have a fascinating bit of footage that shows VT-8, that torpedo squadron on the USS Hornet.
31:56When we look at that picture, what you see is a bunch of 20-something-year-old naval aviators.
32:01And what you see is the swagger.
32:03Now, probably in that swagger and the smoking of the cigarettes,
32:06it's probably hiding a little bit of the fear of the unknown.
32:10But even still, you see that twinkle.
32:14This is our time.
32:29At 6.30 a.m.,
32:33Japanese aircraft attack Midway and inflict heavy damage.
32:43The battle starts off really going perfectly according to the Japanese plan.
32:55But the Japanese don't know that the American fleet has moved into position to the northeast of Midway.
33:02And are now ready to launch a surprise attack.
33:11Starting at 7 a.m., more than a hundred aircraft launch from the Hornet and the Enterprise.
33:25Squadrons search for the Japanese fleet at 19,000 feet.
33:31As an aviator in World War II, you might have a set of binoculars to help you out.
33:35To help increase your vision.
33:36But otherwise, you're looking at about 30 square miles worth of sea and trying to figure out where anything is.
33:48Three squadrons fly due west.
33:58One squadron of devastator torpedo planes, VT-8, flies southwest.
34:07Just after 9 a.m., through broken clouds, they spot the Japanese fleet.
34:20The torpedo planes are terrible.
34:22The torpedo planes are terrible.
34:23It's only got a single machine gun.
34:24And so these things are just lumbering, slow, vulnerable targets that are going to be horribly exposed to any sort
34:31of Japanese fighter opposition if they run into it.
34:36As VT-8 lines up to attack the carriers, they're intercepted by Japanese Zeros.
34:44The Japanese Zero is the most advanced Japanese aircraft that they have.
34:49It is a world-class fighter.
34:54It can maneuver like crazy.
34:57It can climb like a banshee.
35:01The Zeros fire on VT-8.
35:04They just tear into these formations and begin very quickly sending them ones and twos, arrowing down into the ocean
35:12in flames.
35:13And the entire squadron is wiped out.
35:19Squadron VT-8 is destroyed.
35:24It takes less than 15 minutes.
35:30When we think about those guys we see in the footage,
35:34of the 15 aircraft that attacked, 14 of them will be shot down.
35:39They get absolutely sacrificed.
35:44Some groups sacrificed more than others, and in that case, they sacrificed all.
35:55While Marine fighters from Midway attack the Japanese, they don't inflict real damage.
36:03Other US squadrons continue to search for the Japanese fleet.
36:10At about 9.30 in the morning, things are going terribly.
36:15The Americans are losing this battle, and Nimitz's battle plan is falling apart.
36:21If Navy pilots don't locate the Japanese carriers, Midway will fall.
36:27And America's strategy in the Pacific will be dealt a crushing blow.
36:40Fighting Squadron 6 of Dauntless dive bombers are searching for the Japanese fleet that has attacked Midway.
36:52This is the best aircraft in the United States Navy in 1941-42.
36:57It carries a 1,000-pound bomb, and it can be extremely effective.
37:02The squadron is led by Navy Lieutenant Commander Wade McCluskey, a 15-year veteran.
37:10Wade McCluskey goes out to the portion of ocean where he expects the Japanese to be located,
37:15and there's nothing but sun and sea and sky and some clouds.
37:22The squadron is in the air for close to two hours.
37:27By 9.30 a.m., they're running low on fuel.
37:31But McCluskey continues the search.
37:36This is an incredibly gutsy move on McCluskey's part.
37:40The fuel gauges are really bad.
37:44Deciding to continue his search and continue looking for the enemy, that's really ballsy.
37:49Oh, by the way, everybody's barking at him.
37:51We're pretty low on fuel. We've got to get back.
37:54But he implements a box search and starts looking for the Japanese.
37:58Flies north for a bit. Nothing.
38:04But finally, as he's about to turn for home, he sees a lone Japanese warship.
38:15And he goes, that guy looks like he's heading somewhere in a hurry.
38:17If I follow that ship, it's going to take me someplace.
38:20And he does.
38:2530 minutes later, McCluskey spots the Japanese aircraft carriers.
38:34By chance, another squadron of American dive bombers is nearby.
38:40These planes would show up out of the blue through a break in the clouds, and all of a sudden,
38:45they're like a swarm of bees closing in on your fleet.
38:48And it happens insanely fast.
38:56What you'd want to do is come out of the sun, and then you'd roll over and roll back out,
39:02and you'd set about a 70-degree dive angle.
39:04You want to get as close as you can to that carrier, about 1,500 feet.
39:10If you've got a really good pilot, you really can put this bomb in a pickle barrel.
39:24Three carriers take multiple hits, the Akagi, Soru, and Kaga.
39:31In the span of four minutes, United States dive bombers knock out three Japanese aircraft carriers.
39:41The Japanese have one remaining carrier, the Hiru.
39:49At midday, its dive bombers find and attack the American carrier Yorktown.
40:17After attempting to save her for hours, the Yorktown's captain finally orders the crew to abandon ship.
40:32But the Hiru's victory is short-lived.
40:39American bombers find it and sink the fourth Japanese carrier of the day.
40:49The first Japanese attack, Yamamoto's plans to deliver a decisive blow to the U.S. fleet has collapsed.
41:01Instead, America has delivered a devastating and decisive blow of its own.
41:07Four of Yamamoto's carriers are at the bottom of the ocean.
41:11Three thousand of his men are killed.
41:16This is a turning point.
41:23It's easy to forget now the feeling of revenge that Americans felt when they were finally able to strike back
41:33at the Japanese.
41:41President Roosevelt, who has been monitoring the battle, finally receives word that America has won.
41:49Midway is absolutely critical.
41:52It allows Roosevelt to get out of this defensive crouch that we've been in for the first seven months of
41:58this war and begin thinking about, okay, how would we like to reshape this war?
42:04Where would we like to go on the offensive?
42:08The emotional outcome of Midway might be the biggest thing, right?
42:12This is the psychological blow.
42:13The idea that they come to Midway, get smacked in the face and turn around and go back home, psychologically
42:19devastating to the Japanese.
42:21Oh, by the way, for the Americans, the idea that we can fight and win against the Japanese?
42:25That's powerful.
42:37After Midway, the United States takes the upper hand in the Pacific.
42:41For the first time, the country wins a decisive victory against the Japanese.
42:47America is now on the offensive in the Pacific.