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00:05The End
00:35The End
01:06In the first two years of the war in Europe, our eastern dominions were safe enough.
01:12Singapore stood guard at the tip of Asia, and Singapore was British yesterday.
01:44From the lands behind Singapore came the raw materials we needed to sustain our Commonwealth
01:50and to wage war against Hitler's Germany.
01:53Rubber from Malaya and Ceylon for the aircraft and armament factories of the West.
01:59Rice from the paddy fields of Burma for the people of Ceylon and India.
02:10Teak from the forests of the Burmese hills.
02:16Tin from Malaya.
02:19All these were vital to us, and their main defense, that they were half a world away from our enemies.
02:26Throughout the East, distance and time are natural barriers.
02:32Only the long, fast flight of aircraft can overcome them, and aircraft have been few and far between.
02:39In 1941, a mere handful of British and Dutch squadrons could be spared to protect the whole of Southeast Asia.
02:49They routed their patrols across great spaces of jungle and sea,
02:53where a hundred thousand miles of undefended emptiness lay between our bases.
02:59This was the pattern of the Far East yesterday.
03:04Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, British.
03:08Borneo, British and Dutch.
03:10Java and Sumatra, Dutch.
03:14The Philippines, American.
03:17Burma, Hong Kong and Shanghai, British.
03:22Manchuria and Korea, Japanese.
03:26And Japan itself.
03:28The secret islands.
03:30The sacred islands of the rising sun.
03:33Japan, by 1941, had a powerful modern army.
03:37Veterans of a ten-year war with China.
03:40This we knew.
03:41But we couldn't measure the strength behind their parading troops.
03:45The industry and strategy that hardened the imperial will.
03:50Their tanks and guns were copied from the West.
03:53Their soldiers, peasants.
03:55And though we guessed the range of their ambition,
03:57we doubted their skill.
04:00Their strength lay in the air.
04:02Their army alone carried five air divisions,
04:06equipped with modern planes.
04:10Their navy was built around aircraft carriers
04:14and a naval air force of nearly a hundred groups.
04:17Their policy, control of the air, precedes control of the sea.
04:23Their army were built aroundτικ
05:28On December the 7th, 1941, they struck.
05:33The attack on Pearl Harbor had one simple objective, to destroy the American fleet in the Pacific.
05:40No troops would be needed, no landings, no bombardment.
05:45Just six aircraft carriers and about 300 planes.
06:09The attack on Pearl Harbor.
06:34Pearl Harbor has blown the fuses right across the east.
06:38Yesterday is dead, and in Tokyo they've already planned tomorrow.
06:43Now the imperial forces can turn to the rich lands of Malaya and Burma and Indies.
06:48The greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere is being established.
06:55On December the 10th, Japanese bombers and torpedo bombers fly from Cochin, China to attack
07:02Force Z.
07:03The American Pacific Fleet is crippled, but the Royal Navy has sent Force Z into the South
07:09China Sea.
07:10Force Z comprises two battleships, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, with an escort of
07:16destroyers, but no aircraft.
07:20Within an hour, Force Z is destroyed.
07:39Control of the air has brought control of the sea.
07:43Now there is no allied navy in the east to challenge the Japanese invasion fleets.
07:48Now it can begin.
07:52On December the 18th, Japanese forces attack the island of Hong Kong.
07:57And the people of Hong Kong have no air defense.
08:20When I saw the ship and the Arabs.
08:20Now the Romans, the man who is in the north to a sail, the captain of the Jack and the
08:21the men who is as a neighbor as a beggar.
08:21To the men are the male who is in the history of the battle.
08:21In the middle of the mountains and the crew, the men and the men who is in the
08:22The people of the men who are in the middle of the day.
08:27What happened to the men's history of the men?
08:28In the dimensions of the men's history, which is the only
08:30the country of the men's history of the men.
09:12There can be no reinforcements for Hong Kong, no support, and no evacuation.
09:19By Christmas Day, 1941, over a third of the garrison have fallen, and the rest surrender.
09:45West of Hong Kong, the Malay Peninsula.
09:49The land frontier of Malaya is a flimsy, untenable line drawn through the jungle.
09:57The Japanese move in among the trees.
10:00The jungle war has begun, and time and distance are no longer on our side.
10:09Since the first day of war, the Japanese Army Air Force has been striking from the north,
10:15attacking our airfields, shooting down our outnumbered planes, and bombing Singapore.
10:22In two months, our air defenses are destroyed, our ground force is broken, and Singapore falls.
10:57The Japanese Army Air Force
11:04Now the Japanese fleet can move down towards the Indies, where Java, Sumatra and Borneo
11:11lie open to its guns and planes.
11:29On February the 15th, Japanese ground forces cross the Salween River into Burma.
11:34The way has been prepared for them by their air force, and they're opposed only by a small
11:40retreating army, and by 37 British and American front-line planes.
11:46They are not delayed for long.
11:48Rangoon falls on March the 7th, Prome on the 1st of April, Lachio on the 28th, Mandalay
11:55on May the 1st.
11:59But long before the Japanese tanks arrive, Japanese bombers have achieved more than their
12:05military objective.
12:07The fields are empty, and the towns deserted.
12:10Over 100,000 panic-stricken Burmese crowd the escape roads westward.
12:17And of these, less than half will reach India.
12:26Of all Southeast Asia, only the Philippines remain to be conquered, and these already are battered
12:34and half broken.
13:03The
13:10The exhausted remnants of the American garrison are cornered at Bataan and Corregidor and surrender on the 5th of May.
13:18The first phase is over. In five months the Japanese have become masters of the East.
13:38India and the Indian Ocean lie between the Japanese in the East and the German drive from the West.
13:45A British army stands along the mountain frontier of Burma. A British fleet is based on Ceylon.
13:52The Royal Air Force is deployed across India from Calcutta to Karachi.
13:57In India we build up an RAF command of six groups.
14:01India is a big country to understand, let alone defend, in a hurry.
14:05All the same, we shall try.
14:08In India about 300 million people are praying for peace, while a few thousand of us get ready for the
14:14war.
14:16With reinforcements from Britain we can build up the Air Force in India from five squadrons to 26.
14:21But they're going slow. We're the last on the world's list of priorities.
14:26The home front, the Middle East, the Pacific, all get their men and equipment before we do.
14:31The men who do arrive have other enemies to fight besides the Japanese.
14:35Distance, disease and sheer tropical fatigue all take their toll of us.
14:41In spite of all this, we knock up a fighting Air Force.
14:44New aircraft arrive from the other side of the world.
14:46Even a few precious Spitfires for reconnaissance.
14:50221 Group is reformed to Calcutta to cover the Burma Front.
14:53224 Group to defend Assam and Bengal.
14:57225 Group at Bangalore to guard the rest of India.
15:01226 Group for maintenance. 227 Group for training.
15:05And in Ceylon, 222 Group for the defence of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bangalore.
15:31226 Group for maintenance.
15:32On Easter Sunday 1942, the Japanese strike again.
15:36The pattern's the same as for Pearl Harbor, an air assault launched from a force of carriers.
15:41This time the target's Ceylon, the new base of the British Far Eastern Fleet.
15:45But this time we've had warning of the attack.
15:55In Ceylon, we're not very strong but we're ready.
15:58Suicide patrols of our Catalina crews have kept us in touch with the enemy fleet.
16:02It's a noisy but not unprofitable Easter for us here.
16:19The Japanese fleet goes home, some aircraft short, and the centre of operations reverts to Burma.
16:27The Japanese have cut the Burma road and broken our communications with the nationalist forces in China.
16:33So now we have a double task.
16:35To guard the Indian frontier and re-establish contact with the Chinese.
16:39On the ground, the British Indian 14th Army is borne into the dark underworld of Burma jungle.
16:44Where a mile a day is good going and the night's full of Japanese.
17:05Now we have a jungle air force to support the jungle army.
17:09When you can't see the wood for the trees, the only hope is to fly above them
17:13and find and attack the enemy from the air.
17:16This is what we're learning to do.
17:27Away to the northeast we have a signals unit with the Chinese in Kunming.
17:31With the Burma road cut, the only way to reach them is by air.
17:34And by air we can carry supplies to China and bring out refugees.
17:38We fly one aircraft a week, the Americans many more.
17:42This is the toughest and most treacherous air route in the world
17:45across the Path High Mountains, over the hump.
18:13Among the hills beneath us, work has started on a new road to China, the Lido Road.
18:17But that, like victory, will take years to build.
18:22Here we're at the beginning of a whole new war.
18:25It stretches ahead of us, endless as the hostile jungle.
18:28And before we can even mount our first attack,
18:31the sky itself takes over.
18:33The monsoon rains begin, and we are stopped.
18:39The sky to the heavens.
18:44The sky to the heavens.
19:16THE END
19:45THE END
20:14THE END
20:15The United States, 1942.
20:17There is no monsoon in America,
20:20but there's a tidal wave of effort and emotion
20:23as the world's most powerful nation goes to war.
20:27Roosevelt called Pearl Harbor
20:29a date which will live in infamy,
20:31but it has started up a machine
20:33which will produce the strongest Army, Navy
20:36and Air Force in the world.
20:37It will build 12,000 warships
20:40and 300,000 warplanes.
20:43As the Americans enlist,
20:45the United States government
20:46takes over command of operations in the Pacific.
20:56New carriers are sent through the Panama Canal
20:58to strengthen the Pacific fleet.
21:01While the British hold one flank of the Japanese Empire,
21:05America prepares to hold the other.
21:15Australia and New Zealand lie between the two flanks
21:18in the direct line of Japanese attack.
21:22Up to now, our harbours, our cities, our homes, our farms
21:26have contributed to a very distant war.
21:29But now it has come near to us
21:31and we have to defend ourselves.
21:34As well as food and raw material,
21:37we start producing munitions and aeroplanes.
21:40Our squadrons fly alongside the Americans
21:43under General MacArthur's supreme command.
21:47MacArthur has made his headquarters here in Australia
21:49and up on the north coast,
21:51Port Darwin has become an allied base.
21:54Nothing as big as this has ever happened in Darwin before.
22:12The Japanese have taken hold of New Guinea,
22:15just north of us across the sea.
22:17And there we can hit back at them at last
22:19with troops and bombs.
22:22This steaming land of jungle-covered hills
22:25is our new battlefield.
22:56The Japanese Navy still dominates the Pacific.
22:59And has sent a carrier force to support operations
23:02in the islands off the Australian coast.
23:04Here, the Battle of the Coral Sea is joined.
23:08But now the Americans have a carrier task force ready.
23:12A new era in sea warfare has begun.
23:14For in these battles, neither force ever sees the other.
23:18Both strike from the air
23:19while their enemy is still below the horizon.
23:23The carrier has become the capital ship of the fleet.
23:34Rebuffed at Ceylon and the Coral Sea,
23:36the Japanese turn east to attack Midway.
23:41That was in June, and we had a lucky break.
23:44We knew in advance they were coming,
23:46and we were ready for them.
23:47All the same, it was a close shave.
23:50They had a mighty big force.
23:52Seven battleships, five carriers,
23:55cruisers, destroyers, the works.
23:58While we sent our planes to strap them,
24:01they sent theirs to strap us.
24:03And all hell broke loose.
24:31All hell broke loose.
24:33Littleigator.
24:34Little fighter.
24:46Littleinha.
24:48All right.
24:48All right.
24:54Let's see.
25:01We'll be back.
25:03Let's go.
25:33We lost one carrier in that fight and a lot of planes besides, but they lost more than we did
25:38and beat it back home. So I suppose it paid off. Anyhow, the next time there was some attacking to
25:48do, we did it. The place was called Guadalcanal. They showed us the map. It was an island full of
25:54Japs. That was August.
26:13The place was called Guadalcanal.
26:47The place was called Guadalcanal.
26:49The place was called Guadalcanal.
27:08The place was called Guadalcanal.
27:31The Battle of Guadalcanal went on for months.
27:34You'll have heard about it, maybe.
27:36Anyhow, by February 43, the J-Pos moved out and the C-Bs moved in.
27:42You could call it our first victory.
27:51Now, the C-Bs are a kind of front-line engineers.
27:55A solid bunch of guys.
27:57The Marines have a saying, never hit a C-B, he may be your granddad.
28:02Anyhow, one of the things they make is landing strips.
28:06The idea is they're going to make landing strips all the way up the Pacific.
28:10On every island we throw the Japs out on, right up to Tokyo.
28:14They've got a good deal of work ahead of them.
28:16Because after all, this is only the beginning.
28:21When the Japanese began this war, they said,
28:24The main role in control of the sea has passed from the surface forces to the air forces.
28:31The Allies have learnt that lesson.
28:34By 1943, our strategy is firm.
28:38The men and machines are ready.
28:41The first air bases are built.
28:43The aircraft are coming in.
28:45The third air ban should merchandise.
28:49The air Och� will die.
29:23THE END
29:54THE END
30:15THE END