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In the darkness of the Pacific War, a single whispered password could mean the difference between recognizing a fellow Marine and opening fire. At Guadalcanal, Japanese infiltrators used fluent English, officers’ names, and false alarms to confuse American defenders—but passwords packed with the letter L offered a revealing test.
Drawing on accounts from Guadalcanal, Peleliu, and Burma, this military history story explores how accent, speech habits, and early language learning shaped recognition under pressure. It also reveals the deadly cost of nighttime security rules for American troops and Japanese American interpreters caught between the lines. A narrated World War II history feature for listeners interested in Pacific War stories, battlefield tactics, language, and the human experience of combat—well suited to focused listening or historical background listening.
Drawing on accounts from Guadalcanal, Peleliu, and Burma, this military history story explores how accent, speech habits, and early language learning shaped recognition under pressure. It also reveals the deadly cost of nighttime security rules for American troops and Japanese American interpreters caught between the lines. A narrated World War II history feature for listeners interested in Pacific War stories, battlefield tactics, language, and the human experience of combat—well suited to focused listening or historical background listening.
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LearningTranscript
00:00September 13, 1942. Guadalcanal.
00:05A bare spine of grass and coral just south of Henderson Field,
00:09the only airstrip the United States holds anywhere in the Solomon Islands.
00:13It is after dark.
00:16Colonel Merritt Edson is standing on the knob his men call Hill 123,
00:21about 20 yards behind his own firing line.
00:24Somewhere below him in the jungle,
00:263,000 Japanese soldiers are moving into position.
00:30Between them and the airfield are roughly 830 marine raiders and parachutists,
00:35many of them sick, most of them hungry,
00:38all of them dug into shallow holes in the coral.
00:42The field telephone rings.
00:44Out here, a phone call is not a conversation.
00:47It is a test.
00:49The wire runs through grass where the enemy is crawling,
00:52and any wire can be found, cut, spliced, listened to.
00:56So the voice on the line asks a question before it says anything else.
01:02What name do you identify with silent?
01:05Edson whispers one word.
01:07Lou.
01:08On the other end is Captain Lou Walt.
01:11The answer satisfies him, and he begins his report.
01:15Then a third voice cuts into the line.
01:18Calm.
01:19Polite.
01:20Clear English.
01:22Our situation here, Colonel Edson, is excellent.
01:26Thank you, sir.
01:28Edson swears under his breath.
01:30The wire has been tapped.
01:32The voice belongs to the enemy.
01:34And out on the right flank, a company of marines is still cut off.
01:40I want you to hold on to that sentence, because it is going to come back.
01:45Every word of it is correct.
01:47The grammar is clean.
01:48The rank is right.
01:50The man even knows the colonel's name.
01:53English like that takes years to learn.
01:56And he is using it in the dark.
01:58On a stolen wire.
02:00Under fire.
02:01And still, something about it was wrong.
02:05What exactly was wrong is the first clue in this story.
02:09Here is the question the whole story turns on.
02:12For the next three years, all across the Pacific, Japanese soldiers who spoke English, some of
02:19them very good English, would come to the edge of American lines at night.
02:23Some called out names.
02:25Some asked for a medic.
02:27Some tried to answer a challenge.
02:29And again and again, what gave them away was not a uniform, not a face, not a weapon.
02:36It was one word.
02:38Often one sound inside one word.
02:42A password that any farm boy from Iowa could say without thinking, and that a Japanese officer
02:48with a university education could not get right, could not get right.
02:52Why?
02:53Not just, because it was a hard word.
02:57The real answer goes deeper than that, and it reaches back further than the war itself.
03:03If you want to see how the marines and the GIs in the Pacific turned an ordinary word into
03:08a weapon, hit like and subscribe.
03:11It tells us to keep digging into stories like this one.
03:15To understand why a single word mattered so much, you have to understand what that ridge
03:21was protecting.
03:23Henderson Field was the reason the marines were on Guadalcanal at all.
03:28Planes flying from that strip could hit Japanese shipping across the central Solomons.
03:33Tokyo wanted it back, and on September 7th, General Kiyotake Kawaguchi issued his orders.
03:40His brigade would come through the jungle from the south, where the Americans least expected it,
03:45and attack at night.
03:47The goal, in the words of the order, was to
03:50rout and annihilate the enemy in the vicinity of the Guadalcanal Island airfield.
03:56At 9 o'clock on the night of the 13th, seven Japanese destroyers opened fire on the ridge.
04:01Then the infantry came.
04:04Major Kokusho's battalion struck the Raiders' B Company on the right.
04:09Around 10, two companies of Major Tamura's battalion charged the low-rise the marines called
04:15Hill 80.
04:16And something else came out of the dark with them.
04:19Language.
04:21Smoke drifted over the marine right flank.
04:24A voice called out,
04:25Gas attack!
04:27Robert Leckie, a marine machine gunner who served on Guadalcanal
04:31and later wrote its history, described it as a
04:34too-precise voice.
04:36There was no gas.
04:38It was smoke.
04:39But many of these marines no longer had gas masks.
04:42And in the dark, with men screaming in two languages,
04:46some of them began to pull back.
04:48Major Kenneth Bailey and other officers stopped the movement
04:51and turned the men around.
04:54Think about what just happened.
04:55Two words, shouted in English,
04:59nearly did to that line what bayonets had not.
05:03The men on that ridge learned something that night that no training manual had prepared them for.
05:08In the jungle, at night,
05:11nobody sees anybody.
05:13You know friend from enemy by sound.
05:16And the enemy was learning to make your sounds.
05:20The ridge held.
05:23Around three in the morning,
05:25Kokusho led an attack straight at Hill 123
05:27and was killed in it.
05:29By four,
05:30the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines,
05:32had come up to reinforce Edson's men.
05:34And two more attacks broke before dawn.
05:37At first light,
05:39Army P-400s came in low
05:41and strafed what was left near Hill 80.
05:44The Marines counted about 500 Japanese dead
05:47on and around the ridge.
05:48Henderson Field stayed American.
05:50But the problem of the voices was only beginning.
05:54A Marine on a night challenge has perhaps two seconds.
05:57In those two seconds,
05:59he decides whether the shape in front of him
06:01is a Japanese soldier who knows his colonel's name
06:03or a kid from Ohio coming back from the latrine.
06:07The password has to do something no uniform can do in the dark.
06:11It has to prove who you are using nothing but your mouth.
06:16Within months,
06:17Marines and soldiers across the Pacific
06:19would settle on a rule for which words to choose.
06:22The rule had nothing to do with meaning
06:24and nothing to do with secrecy.
06:27It came down to a single letter.
06:29And the reason that letter worked
06:31would not be fully explained
06:33until half a century after the war
06:35by scientists whose test subjects could not yet talk.
06:39Five weeks before that phone call on the ridge,
06:41on the first full night the Marines spent on Guadalcanal,
06:45the problem showed up in its simplest form.
06:48And it had nothing to do with the Japanese.
06:51August 8th, 1942, near the Teneru River.
06:56Sergeant William Steen was 24,
06:58from Sherman Avenue in Upper Manhattan,
07:01a section leader in Love Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.
07:06Before the landing,
07:07he had told the men around him
07:09that he had a strange feeling about this operation.
07:13That night, he led a few Marines out
07:15to set up a security outpost,
07:17about 20 yards in front of the company line.
07:19Then he started back, alone.
07:22It was completely dark.
07:24The men in his platoon heard something thrashing
07:27toward them through the kunai grass.
07:30Steen called out,
07:31Okay, men, it's me.
07:33A Marine fired.
07:34The bullet hit Steen in the chest.
07:37They pulled him back behind the line,
07:39and he died within about three minutes.
07:42He was one of the first Marines,
07:43possibly the very first,
07:45to die on Guadalcanal itself.
07:47His remains may still lie somewhere on the island.
07:51Notice what failed here.
07:54Steen spoke English.
07:56Native English.
07:57New York English.
07:59He said exactly what any of us would say.
08:02And it wasn't enough.
08:04Because a frightened man with a rifle,
08:06in grass taller than his head,
08:09had no way of knowing who
08:10me was.
08:13That is the other half of this story,
08:15and I want you to keep it in mind from here on.
08:18A password does not only catch the enemy.
08:21It is also the thing that stops a sentry
08:24from killing his own sergeant.
08:27Every rule the Marines invented
08:29over the next three years
08:30had to do both jobs at once,
08:33in about two seconds,
08:34in the dark.
08:36Five weeks later,
08:38the enemy was talking too.
08:40Edson described it himself.
08:42His notes on Guadalcanal
08:43were printed in an Army Intelligence Bulletin
08:45in October 1943,
08:47so that officers heading into the Pacific
08:49could learn from it.
08:50In the Raiders, he explained,
08:52they had dropped ranks and titles in the field
08:55and used nicknames for the officers.
08:57But, in his words,
08:59the Japs caught on to the names of the officers,
09:01and they would call out at night.
09:03His example?
09:04This is Captain Joe Smith talking.
09:07A company, withdraw to the next hill.
09:10Think about how dangerous that one sentence is.
09:13No bullets,
09:14no bayonets,
09:15just a calm voice in the dark,
09:18ordering a company off its hill.
09:20So the Raiders turned the nicknames themselves
09:23into a code.
09:24Captain Walt became Silent Lou.
09:27Edson was Red Mike.
09:29And that is the system
09:31behind the phone call on the ridge.
09:33Edson's own version runs like this.
09:36Who is speaking?
09:37Red.
09:38What name do you identify with Silent?
09:41Lou.
09:42That is correct.
09:44And then the third voice came in,
09:46which Edson described as speaking
09:48in perfect English.
09:50Here is the first answer the Marines found,
09:52and it is worth pausing on.
09:55The nickname test did not check how you spoke.
09:58It checked who you knew.
10:00It was a test of belonging.
10:02Only a man who had lived
10:03with the 1st Raider Battalion
10:05would know that the quiet captain
10:07was called Silent Lou.
10:09It worked on a phone line
10:11between officers who had served together
10:12for months.
10:13But picture a sentry from the 5th Marines
10:16at 2 in the morning
10:17facing a shape in the grass.
10:19He doesn't know the Raiders' nicknames.
10:22The shape may be a runner
10:23from a unit he has never met.
10:25The test had to be something
10:27every American carried with him,
10:28from every unit,
10:30from every state,
10:31and that no Japanese soldier
10:32carried at all.
10:33They found it.
10:35Robert Leckie,
10:37who stood those night watches himself,
10:39remembered the passwords
10:40almost every night on Guadalcanal.
10:43Lollipop.
10:44Lollapaloozer.
10:46Lolligag.
10:48All of them,
10:49he wrote,
10:50were loaded with L's
10:51because of the Japanese difficulty
10:53with that sound.
10:55Leckie also left us the moment
10:57that shows what this test
10:58really measured.
10:59One night,
11:00the password was
11:01Lilliputian.
11:02A rifleman named Briggs
11:04got up in the dark
11:05to relieve himself
11:05and wandered too close
11:07to a sentry,
11:08a Marine everyone called Lucky.
11:10Halt!
11:12For God's sake,
11:13Lucky,
11:13don't shoot.
11:14It's me,
11:15Briggs.
11:16Lucky wanted the password.
11:18Briggs,
11:19half asleep,
11:20tried.
11:22Lillipoo.
11:23Luli.
11:24He tried again.
11:27Lulipah.
11:29Lillipush.
11:30And finally,
11:31in language I'll leave out,
11:33he told Lucky
11:34to go ahead and shoot.
11:36Lucky didn't shoot.
11:38Now listen to what Briggs
11:39actually got wrong.
11:40Almost everything.
11:42The vowels,
11:43the syllables,
11:44the word itself.
11:45He never came close
11:47to Lilliputian.
11:48But every single attempt
11:50began with an L.
11:51A loose,
11:53sleepy,
11:53unmistakably American L.
11:56And that,
11:57more than the word,
11:58is what Lucky
11:59was listening for.
12:01He wasn't checking spelling.
12:02He was checking a sound.
12:05So the second answer
12:06is sharper than the first.
12:08Not who you know,
12:09how your mouth works.
12:12But now I'll go back
12:13to the voice on the ridge,
12:14because there is a problem
12:15with it.
12:16Our situation here,
12:18Colonel Edson,
12:18is excellent.
12:20Colonel.
12:22Excellent.
12:23Two Ls.
12:23In what Edson himself
12:25called perfect English.
12:26If a Japanese mouth
12:28couldn't make that sound,
12:29how did this man
12:30make it twice in one sentence?
12:31And if he could,
12:33why would a password
12:34full of Ls
12:34ever have caught anyone?
12:36The first part of that answer
12:37comes from a Marine
12:38combat correspondent
12:39who spent months
12:41on Guadalcanal
12:41listening to those voices.
12:43And what he noticed
12:44had nothing to do
12:45with the letter L at all.
12:46March 10, 1943.
12:48Washington, D.C.
12:51Master Technical Sergeant
12:52James Hurlbut
12:53was a combat correspondent
12:54with the 1st Marine Division.
12:56He had gone ashore
12:58on Guadalcanal in August
12:59with a notebook
13:00as well as a rifle.
13:02Now he was sitting
13:03with Navy Department
13:03interviewers,
13:04and every word he said
13:06was being taken down.
13:07The Japanese,
13:09he told them,
13:10were apparently
13:10American educated
13:11and some could speak English
13:13very well indeed.
13:15Then he told them
13:16about a sentry.
13:18One night,
13:18a group of men
13:19came up toward
13:20a Marine position
13:21in the dark.
13:22One of them called out,
13:23Hold your fire,
13:24we are American Marines
13:26and wish to report
13:27our evening's activities.
13:29The sentry opened fire.
13:31Afterward,
13:32he explained himself
13:33in one line.
13:34I fired right away
13:36because I knew
13:37no Marine
13:37would talk that way.
13:39Hurlbut said
13:40it happened more than once
13:41and at least one case
13:43he could verify personally.
13:45Read that sentence again.
13:47We are American Marines
13:49and wish to report
13:50our evening's activities.
13:51There is not a single mistake in it.
13:54No missing word,
13:55no wrong tense,
13:57nothing you could circle
13:58with a red pencil.
14:00And that is exactly
14:01what gave the man away.
14:04Hurlbut put it plainly.
14:05They used grammar
14:07much too precise
14:08for the average Marine.
14:10Now remember Robert Leckie's phrase
14:12from the Ridge.
14:13A too precise voice.
14:17Two Marines,
14:19two different accounts,
14:20reaching for the same word.
14:22Precise.
14:24And go back one more time
14:26to the telephone
14:27on Hill 123.
14:29Our situation here,
14:30Colonel Edson,
14:31is excellent.
14:32Thank you, sir.
14:34Put yourself in Edson's boots.
14:36It is the middle
14:37of a night attack.
14:39A company on his right
14:40is cut off.
14:41The enemy
14:42is inside his wire.
14:44And a raider captain
14:45is supposedly calling
14:46to say that everything
14:47is excellent
14:48and to thank him
14:50for asking.
14:51The grammar was fine.
14:53The pronunciation
14:54was fine.
14:55The sentence
14:56was impossible.
14:59That is the first clue
15:00I promised you.
15:02The man knew English.
15:04He did not know Marines.
15:06So here is the third layer
15:08of the answer.
15:08And it goes deeper
15:10than the second.
15:11However the enemy
15:12had learned his English,
15:13in a classroom in Tokyo
15:15or a school in California,
15:16he had learned
15:17the correct version.
15:19The Marines
15:20spoke the English
15:21of farms
15:22and docks
15:23and ball fields
15:24and boot camp.
15:25One kind of English
15:26was studied,
15:27the other
15:28was lived.
15:30But look at it
15:31from the Japanese side
15:31for a moment
15:32because their officers
15:33were not fools.
15:35A grammar habit
15:36can be fixed.
15:37Slang
15:38can be studied.
15:39A man who can learn
15:41evening's activities
15:42can learn
15:43knock it off, Mac.
15:45If sounding too correct
15:47were the only tell,
15:48a good student
15:49would sooner or later
15:50pass the test.
15:51Which brings us back
15:52to the letter.
15:54Hurlbut told the interviewers
15:55about that too.
15:56The Marines used passwords
15:58with L in them,
15:59he said,
16:00because the letter was
16:01thought to be hard
16:02for the Japanese
16:03to pronounce.
16:04There is no L,
16:06he added,
16:06in the Japanese language.
16:08He was right,
16:09and more right
16:10than he could have known
16:11in 1943.
16:12Where English
16:13has two separate sounds,
16:14R and L,
16:16Japanese has one,
16:18sitting somewhere in between.
16:19To a Japanese ear,
16:21they are not two letters
16:22at all.
16:23They are two slightly
16:24different ways
16:25of saying the same thing.
16:27Now here is the piece
16:28that explains
16:29the voice on the ridge.
16:31In 1971,
16:32a Japanese researcher
16:34named Goto
16:34tested Japanese adults
16:36on exactly those two sounds.
16:38What he found
16:39has been confirmed
16:40again and again since.
16:42Some of them
16:43could actually produce
16:44R and L
16:45more accurately
16:46than they could hear
16:47the difference between them.
16:48They could train the tongue.
16:50The ear
16:51lagged behind.
16:53Natural English
16:54R and L
16:55were hard for them
16:56to tell apart,
16:57even when the person
16:58speaking was Japanese.
17:00That is how a man
17:01can say
17:02Colonel
17:03and
17:03Excellent
17:04cleanly
17:05in a sentence
17:06he has rehearsed.
17:08He has drilled
17:09his mouth.
17:10And it is also
17:11why the password
17:12could still catch him.
17:14Picture that same man
17:15lying in the grass
17:16a few yards
17:17from a marine foxhole
17:18as the watch changes,
17:20listening for tonight's word.
17:22He hears it.
17:24Lollapaloozer.
17:26Or was it something
17:27closer to
17:29Raraparooza?
17:30He cannot be sure.
17:32Because to his ear,
17:34there is nothing
17:35to be sure about.
17:36He has to guess.
17:38And if he guesses wrong,
17:40the marine in the hole
17:41knows instantly.
17:43Because to an American ear,
17:45there is nothing
17:46more obvious
17:46in the world.
17:48So the trap
17:49was never only
17:50in the tongue.
17:51It was in the ear.
17:53A password like that
17:55was a word
17:55you had to hear correctly
17:57before you could
17:58ever say it correctly.
18:00Which leaves the question
18:01that will carry us
18:02the rest of the way.
18:04Why couldn't a grown man,
18:06sharp enough
18:06to master English grammar,
18:08train his ear
18:10the way he had
18:10trained his tongue?
18:12What did every
18:14farm boy from Iowa
18:15have that no amount
18:16of study could give
18:18a Japanese officer?
18:20Hold on to that question.
18:22The marines in the army
18:24were about to write
18:25this into doctrine.
18:26By January 1944,
18:28a War Department
18:29Intelligence Bulletin
18:30was passing on advice
18:31from officers fighting
18:32the Japanese in Burma.
18:33It printed the L rule
18:35in black and white
18:36for soldiers heading
18:37into the jungle.
18:38And right beside it,
18:40it printed one more
18:40sentence, a short one,
18:43about what to do
18:44with anyone
18:44who could not
18:45give the password.
18:47That sentence
18:48would cost lives
18:49on both sides
18:50of the wire.
18:50January 1944.
18:53The War Department's
18:54Intelligence Bulletin,
18:55a small monthly booklet
18:56written for officers
18:57and enlisted men alike,
18:59ran a set of notes
19:00from British officers
19:01who had been fighting
19:01the Japanese
19:02in western Burma.
19:04The notes read
19:05like a list of lessons
19:06paid for in blood.
19:07The Japanese,
19:09they said,
19:10learned the names
19:11of our units
19:11and used them
19:12frequently for
19:13pinpointing positions
19:15while patrolling
19:15at night.
19:17So at night,
19:18they must treat
19:19every man as an enemy
19:21until he has
19:22proved himself.
19:23The password
19:24should be changed
19:25every night.
19:27Patrols going out
19:28for several days
19:29should carry the password
19:30for each day
19:31until they returned.
19:33Then came the line
19:34about the letter.
19:36The Jap has difficulty
19:37in pronouncing
19:38the letter L,
19:39so use passwords
19:40which have several L's.
19:43And right beside it,
19:44the sentence
19:45I promised you.
19:47Anyone not able
19:48to give the password
19:49at night
19:49must be shot.
19:51There was one more
19:52instruction,
19:53and it should make you
19:54think back to Briggs
19:55and the century
19:56called Lucky.
19:58The word halt
19:59should never be used.
20:01Calling halt,
20:02the notes explained,
20:04only gave the enemy
20:05time to decide
20:06on a quick plan.
20:07In other words,
20:08the friendly little ritual
20:09on Guadalcanal,
20:11the shout,
20:12the stumble,
20:13the fur god's sake
20:14don't shoot,
20:15had no place
20:16in this new rule book.
20:17You did not challenge
20:18a shape and weight.
20:20You knew the word
20:21or you were treated
20:23as the enemy.
20:24Step back for a moment
20:26and look at the whole board.
20:27Because by now,
20:28this has become a game
20:29of moves and countermoves.
20:31The Japanese move first.
20:33They learn the names
20:34of American officers
20:35and use them on the phone
20:37and in the dark.
20:38The Raiders answer
20:40with nicknames.
20:41The Japanese learn unit names
20:43to pinpoint positions.
20:45The Americans answer
20:46with passwords
20:47no textbook teaches.
20:49Loaded with L's.
20:50Changed every night.
20:52In May 1944,
20:54the same bulletin
20:55described another trick.
20:56Japanese troops
20:57would scream and yell
20:58in the dark,
20:59sandwiching in
21:00a few words of English
21:01occasionally
21:01to make American soldiers
21:03believe their friends
21:04were being tortured
21:05just out of sight.
21:07And the bulletin's
21:08verdict on all of it?
21:09The Japanese,
21:11it said,
21:11had been successful
21:12in only a relatively
21:14few cases.
21:16And frequently,
21:17it added,
21:18these ruses
21:18were used
21:19to make up
21:20for a lack
21:20of combat efficiency
21:22against U.S. troops.
21:23remember that line.
21:25The voices in the dark
21:27were not a sign
21:27of Japanese strength.
21:29More and more,
21:30they were a sign
21:31that the straight fight
21:32was going the other way.
21:35But here is where
21:36the story turns.
21:37Because every rule
21:38the Americans wrote
21:39had a second edge.
21:41And the men
21:42who felt that edge
21:43most sharply
21:44were Americans
21:45themselves.
21:47Burma,
21:48that same year.
21:50Howard Furumoto
21:51was a Japanese-American
21:53interpreter
21:53attached to a small team
21:55working with
21:56Chinese regiments,
21:57Kachin jungle guides,
21:58and a Catholic missionary priest
22:00the men knew
22:01as Father Stuart.
22:02His job was
22:03to listen to the enemy,
22:05read the enemy's documents,
22:06question the enemy's prisoners.
22:08He looked exactly
22:10like the enemy.
22:11Years later,
22:12he explained
22:13how their passwords
22:14were built.
22:14The Japanese
22:16to a person,
22:17he said,
22:17is notoriously poor
22:19in their pronunciation
22:20of certain syllables.
22:21The L's
22:22and the R's
22:23and the T-H's.
22:25That weakness,
22:26he said,
22:27served as the basis
22:28of our password.
22:29They used phrases
22:30like
22:31lady luck
22:32and
22:32lalapalooza.
22:34And one
22:35he clearly remembered
22:36with a certain
22:37grim satisfaction.
22:39Lots of luck.
22:41Because as he put it,
22:43the Japanese
22:44can't say
22:44lots of luck,
22:46you see.
22:47Now hold that
22:48next to the bulletin.
22:49Every man is an enemy
22:51until he has
22:52proved himself.
22:53Anyone who cannot
22:55give the password
22:56at night
22:56must be shot.
22:58And picture
22:59Howard Futamoto
23:00coming back
23:01toward a perimeter
23:01in the dark,
23:02with a Japanese face,
23:04in a jungle
23:05full of Japanese.
23:07His team
23:08had worked out
23:08a system for that.
23:10They paired
23:10interpreters up.
23:11A man whose
23:13English was strong
23:14went with a man
23:15whose Japanese
23:15was strong.
23:17Because not every
23:18Japanese-American
23:18interpreter could
23:19pass the test.
23:21Futamoto was
23:22talking about a group
23:22the army called
23:23Kibei.
23:24They were
23:25American citizens,
23:26born in the
23:27United States,
23:28who had been sent
23:29to Japan as children
23:30to be schooled there
23:31and had come home.
23:32Their Japanese
23:33was superb.
23:35That was exactly
23:36why the army
23:36needed them.
23:37But their
23:38English pronunciation
23:39was weak.
23:40And when it came
23:41to a password
23:42full of L's,
23:43Futamoto said,
23:44the Kibei were
23:45in the same boat
23:47as the Japanese.
23:48Think about
23:49what that means.
23:51Two American soldiers,
23:53same uniform,
23:54same oath,
23:55same Japanese parents,
23:57quite possibly
23:57from the same
23:58prefecture.
23:59One could say
24:00lots of luck,
24:02without a flicker.
24:03The other,
24:04a sentry
24:05might shoot
24:06for trying.
24:07The danger
24:08was common enough
24:09that the army
24:09built a whole
24:10precaution around it.
24:12Japanese-American
24:12linguists at the front
24:14were often given
24:14escorts,
24:15other American soldiers
24:17whose job included
24:18making sure
24:18their own side
24:19didn't shoot them.
24:21John Aiso,
24:22who helped run
24:23the army's
24:23Japanese language school,
24:24is quoted as saying,
24:26We may have been
24:27the only soldiers
24:28in history
24:28to have bodyguards
24:30to protect us
24:30from our own forces
24:31and combat zones,
24:32so we would not
24:33be mistaken for the enemy.
24:36So look at what
24:37the password
24:37actually tested,
24:38now that we can see
24:39it from inside
24:40the American lines.
24:41It didn't test race.
24:44The man with the
24:45Japanese face in Burma
24:46passed it every night.
24:48It didn't test loyalty,
24:49either.
24:50The Kibe interpreter
24:51was every bit as
24:53American on paper
24:54and every bit as committed,
24:56and he could still fail.
24:58It didn't even test
24:59how well you knew English,
25:01because a Kibe
25:02could read an English
25:03field manual,
25:04and the man on
25:04Edson's telephone
25:05could speak in
25:06perfect English.
25:08It tested something else.
25:11Something one
25:11Japanese American had,
25:13and another didn't.
25:15Something that had been
25:16settled in each of them
25:18long before either one
25:19put on a uniform.
25:20We will get to
25:21exactly what that was,
25:23but first,
25:24the rule had to be
25:25put to work
25:25on the worst ground
25:26the Marines
25:27would ever fight on.
25:29And on the first night
25:30ashore there,
25:31the man who nearly died
25:32because of it
25:33was not Japanese,
25:34and not an interpreter.
25:37He was a Marine
25:38with a French name,
25:39and the only word
25:40he could get out
25:41was the nickname
25:42of the man
25:43pointing a pistol
25:43at his head.
25:44September 15, 1944.
25:48Palelu.
25:49The 1st Marine Division
25:50came ashore
25:51on a coral island
25:52in the Palaus
25:53that its commanders
25:54expected to take
25:55in a few days.
25:56Among the men
25:57of King Company,
25:583rd Battalion,
25:595th Marines,
26:00was Private First Class
26:01Eugene Sledge,
26:0320 years old,
26:04from Mobile, Alabama,
26:06a mortarman
26:06his buddies called
26:07Sledgehammer.
26:09He would write
26:10the most honest account
26:11of that battle
26:12anyone ever wrote,
26:13and he left us
26:14something no official
26:15report could,
26:16what the night
26:17actually sounded like.
26:19When the light went,
26:21he remembered,
26:22the word came down,
26:23the smoking lamp
26:24is out.
26:25All talking ceased.
26:27Then,
26:28as he put it,
26:29the password for the night
26:30was whispered along the line,
26:32passed from foxhole
26:33to foxhole.
26:34And then the sentence
26:36that brings us
26:36right back to the question
26:37of this story.
26:39The password always
26:40contained the letter L,
26:42which the Japanese
26:42had difficulty pronouncing
26:44the way an American would.
26:46Read that last part again,
26:48slowly,
26:48not,
26:49which the Japanese
26:50couldn't pronounce,
26:52the way an American would.
26:54Sledge wasn't describing
26:55a letter.
26:56He was describing
26:57a kind of person.
26:58Keep that phrase
26:59in your pocket.
27:00It will matter more
27:01than anything else
27:02in this part.
27:03Now listen to the rule
27:04that went with it,
27:05because it shows
27:06how far the system
27:07had come since Guadalcanal.
27:10Anybody who moved
27:11out of his hole at night
27:12without first informing
27:13the men around him,
27:14and who didn't reply
27:15immediately with the password
27:16upon being challenged,
27:18could expect to get shot.
27:20Two years earlier,
27:21on Guadalcanal,
27:23the night had been
27:23full of talk.
27:25Officers on telephones,
27:27nicknames,
27:28Briggs mumbling
27:29lily-poo
27:29while Lucky waited.
27:31On Peleliu,
27:32the talk was gone.
27:33Silence was the first password.
27:36You stayed in your hole.
27:38You told the men beside you
27:39before you moved.
27:41If you did move,
27:42and a voice challenged you,
27:44you had one chance
27:45to say one word,
27:46and the word
27:47was immediately.
27:49That is the system,
27:51stripped to the bone.
27:52No uniform to check,
27:54no face to see.
27:55One word,
27:57at once,
27:58in the dark.
28:00On one of those first nights
28:01ashore,
28:02the Japanese came.
28:03Infiltrators moved along
28:05the company front
28:05and the shoreline.
28:07There was small arms fire,
28:09the crack of grenades,
28:10men shouting in Japanese.
28:12Sledge was in his gun pit.
28:14He was holding his buddy
28:15Snafu's 45 automatic,
28:17cocked,
28:18with the thumb safety off.
28:20A figure came toward the pit
28:21out of the dark.
28:23What's the password?
28:24Nothing that made sense.
28:27Password.
28:28He had the pistol
28:29on the figure's head.
28:30He was already easing up
28:32on the trigger,
28:32and the figure stammered,
28:35Sledgehammer.
28:36It was a Marine.
28:37It's DeLoe,
28:38he said.
28:39Jay DeLoe,
28:40you got any water?
28:42Sledge lowered the pistol.
28:44Jay,
28:45why didn't you give the password?
28:47I nearly shot you.
28:49Afterward,
28:49he wrote,
28:50he shook badly.
28:51He felt sick.
28:52He wanted to cry.
28:54If he had pulled the trigger,
28:56he said,
28:57Jay would have died instantly.
28:58And he asked the question
28:59every century in the Pacific
29:01must have asked at some point.
29:03How in the world
29:04was he supposed to tell
29:05it was Jay,
29:06in the dark,
29:07with the enemy all around them?
29:09All Jay could say was,
29:12I thought you knew it was me.
29:14Stop here for a moment,
29:16because this one small scene
29:17does more to answer our question
29:19than any rule book.
29:21Jay DeLoe failed the password.
29:23By the letter of the rule,
29:25he could expect to get shot.
29:27And he lived.
29:28Why?
29:30Look at what actually came out of his mouth,
29:32with a cocked .45 pointed at his head.
29:34Not a rehearsed sentence.
29:36Not,
29:37our situation here is excellent.
29:38A broken,
29:40stammering nickname
29:41that only the men of King Company
29:43would know.
29:44Exactly the kind of test
29:45Edson's Raiders had used on the phone.
29:47Who you know.
29:49And underneath it,
29:51the most important thing of all.
29:52The voice of a scared American kid,
29:55with no time to think about
29:56how he sounded.
29:57Now put him next to the man
29:59on Edson's telephone.
30:00The infiltrator had a perfect sentence,
30:03prepared in advance,
30:04delivered calmly.
30:06Jay had a broken one,
30:07delivered in terror.
30:09The perfect sentence was the lie.
30:12The broken one was the truth.
30:14And that is the fourth layer.
30:17And it goes deeper than grammar,
30:19or even the letter L.
30:21In real fear,
30:23nobody chooses his words.
30:25There is no time.
30:26The mouth falls back
30:28on whatever it learned first,
30:30and learned deepest.
30:32For Jay DeLoe,
30:33that was an American voice.
30:35For a Japanese soldier,
30:37who had learned English as a grown man,
30:39no amount of drill could make that
30:41the thing that came out first.
30:44Under a cocked pistol,
30:45the rehearsed tongue goes.
30:47What is left is the one you were raised with.
30:51Which is why the system worked.
30:53And it is also why it was so frightening
30:56to live inside.
30:57Because look at how thin the margin was.
31:00A trigger already being squeezed.
31:03One stammered word.
31:05The whole thing depended on two Marines.
31:08One who knew enough to speak,
31:09and one who knew enough to wait half a second longer.
31:12Before the month was out,
31:14Sledge would see what happened
31:15when that half second wasn't there.
31:17It happened about 20 feet
31:19to the left of his own hole.
31:21Nobody stammered a nickname.
31:23And this time,
31:24no one asked for the password at all.
31:26Late September, 1944.
31:28Peleliu.
31:30By now, the 5th Marines
31:32had been fighting on the island
31:33for more than a week.
31:34The battalion had swung south
31:36along the East Road
31:37and stopped at dusk to dig in.
31:40Sledge was in his hole,
31:41on watch.
31:42Every Marine on that line
31:44lived by an arrangement so simple
31:46nobody needed to write it down.
31:48Two men to a hole.
31:50One sleeps,
31:51one watches.
31:52Then you switch.
31:54Sledge called it
31:55a creed of faith and trust.
31:57You could close your eyes
31:58in a place like Peleliu,
32:00only because the man next to you
32:01didn't close his.
32:03In a nearby hole,
32:05a Marine named Sam
32:06was on watch
32:07while his buddy Bill
32:08took his turn
32:09at getting some badly needed sleep.
32:12Then two figures sprang up
32:13out of a shallow ditch
32:14directly across the road
32:16from Sledge.
32:17One ran straight into a foxhole
32:19belonging to another company.
32:21The other
32:21jumped into a hole
32:23with two Marines in it.
32:24There was a hand-to-hand struggle
32:25in the dark,
32:26men grunting and thrashing,
32:28and then a figure
32:29popped out of the hole
32:30and ran a few steps
32:31toward the command post.
32:33A Marine clubbed him
32:34with his rifle.
32:36The figure went down
32:37and lay groaning on the ground,
32:39about 20 feet to the left
32:40of Sledge's hole.
32:41The groaning went on.
32:43Then a man in a nearby hole said,
32:46I'll check it out.
32:48He crawled out
32:49toward the sound.
32:50A .45 pistol shot
32:51rang out.
32:52The moaning stopped.
32:54The Marine
32:55crawled back to his hole.
32:57At first light,
32:59Sledge looked at the still form
33:00lying to his left.
33:02It didn't look Japanese.
33:04He went over to it.
33:06My God,
33:07he said,
33:08it's Bill.
33:09Bill had been shot
33:11through the temple
33:11by a Marine
33:12who thought he was
33:13a Japanese soldier.
33:15Nobody ever established
33:16exactly why
33:17Bill had come out
33:18of his hole.
33:19All Sledge could say
33:20was that Bill
33:21hadn't told any of them
33:22he was leaving it.
33:23Sam,
33:24who was supposed
33:25to be watching,
33:26admitted he might
33:27have dozed off.
33:27The company commander,
33:29Captain Andrew Haldane,
33:31a man the company
33:32called Akak,
33:33questioned Sledge
33:34about the night.
33:35He told them
33:36it had been a tragic mistake
33:38that anyone could have made
33:39under the circumstances.
33:41Then he told them
33:42never to discuss it
33:43and never to mention
33:45the man's name.
33:47Sledge kept that order
33:48for the rest of his life.
33:50When he finally wrote the book,
33:52he quoted the battalion
33:53muster roll
33:54for September 25, 1944,
33:57word for word,
33:58but left the surname blank.
34:01William S.
34:03Killed in action
34:04against the enemy.
34:05Wound.
34:06Gunshot.
34:08Head.
34:09Against the enemy.
34:11I want you to sit
34:12with this scene
34:13for a moment
34:13because it is the hardest
34:15part of this story
34:16and the most important.
34:18Notice what did not happen.
34:21Nobody failed the password.
34:23Nobody even asked for it.
34:26A man groaning on the ground
34:27with a head injury
34:28cannot give a password.
34:30The system that had kept
34:32Jay DeLue alive
34:33had only one tool.
34:35A voice.
34:36Answering a challenge.
34:38Instantly.
34:40And Bill
34:41had no voice left.
34:43Everything we have seen so far,
34:44the nicknames,
34:45the L's,
34:46the rule about
34:47never leaving your hole
34:48without telling the men
34:49beside you,
34:50was built to do one thing.
34:52To make the night simple.
34:54In your hole,
34:55you are a friend.
34:57Out of your hole,
34:58you are the enemy
34:59until you prove otherwise.
35:01And the only proof
35:02that counts
35:03is what comes out
35:04of your mouth.
35:05Measured against the enemy,
35:07it worked.
35:08Remember the intelligence
35:09bulletin's verdict.
35:10The Japanese voices
35:11in the dark
35:12had succeeded
35:13in only a relatively
35:15few cases.
35:17On Guadalcanal,
35:18on Palelu,
35:19in Burma,
35:20men who had memorized
35:22perfect English sentences
35:23were caught by Marines
35:24and soldiers
35:25who had never studied
35:26a day of linguistics
35:27in their lives.
35:29But the price
35:30of that simplicity
35:31was never paid
35:32by the Japanese alone.
35:34It was paid
35:34by Sergeant Steen
35:35on the first night
35:36on Guadalcanal,
35:38calling,
35:38it's me,
35:39into the grass.
35:40It was paid by Bill.
35:42It was carried
35:43every night
35:43by Japanese-American
35:44interpreters
35:45who needed escorts
35:47to walk through
35:47their own lines.
35:48Every American
35:49who lived inside
35:50the system
35:51knew that it could
35:52kill him too,
35:53if the one thing
35:54it measured
35:55ever failed.
35:56And that brings us
35:57back to the question,
35:59because now we know
36:00enough to ask it properly.
36:02What was that one thing?
36:04It wasn't race.
36:06Howard Furumoto
36:07had a Japanese face
36:08and passed every night.
36:10It wasn't loyalty.
36:12The Kibe interpreters
36:13were as American
36:14as anyone in the jungle,
36:15and they could still fail.
36:17It wasn't grammar.
36:19The man on Edson's telephone
36:20spoke perfect English.
36:22It wasn't even the word.
36:25Briggs never got
36:26Lilliputian right,
36:27and Jay DeLoe
36:28never gave the password
36:30at all.
36:31What the sentry
36:32was listening for,
36:33in the dark,
36:34in two seconds,
36:35was something
36:36Eugene Sledge
36:37had put into five words,
36:39without realizing
36:40what he was saying.
36:42The way an American would.
36:45So where does
36:46the way an American would
36:48actually come from?
36:49When is it decided?
36:50And why could
36:52no amount of study,
36:53not years of grammar,
36:55not hours of drill,
36:57buy it
36:57for a grown man?
36:59The answer
36:59did not come
37:00from a battlefield.
37:02It came half a century later,
37:03from a laboratory
37:05at the University of Washington
37:06in Seattle.
37:08A scientist there
37:09sat American
37:10and Japanese babies
37:11in front of a loudspeaker,
37:12and played them two sounds,
37:14over and over.
37:16Ra
37:18and
37:18La.
37:20What those babies
37:22could do
37:22at six months old,
37:23and what some of them
37:25could no longer do
37:25at twelve,
37:26is the answer
37:27to this entire story.
37:29Seattle
37:29and Tokyo.
37:32The 1990s.
37:33A baby sits
37:34on her mother's lap
37:35in a small,
37:36quiet room.
37:38Somewhere to one side
37:39is a loudspeaker.
37:40It plays a sound,
37:42over and over.
37:44Ra.
37:45Ra.
37:47Ra.
37:49Then,
37:50without warning,
37:51the sound changes.
37:53La.
37:55If the baby
37:56notices the change
37:57and turns her head
37:58toward the speaker,
37:59she is rewarded
38:00with a toy
38:00that lights up.
38:02That is the whole test.
38:04A head turning,
38:05or not turning,
38:06at the moment
38:07one sound
38:08becomes another.
38:09The scientist
38:10running the work
38:11was Patricia Kuhl
38:12of the University of Washington,
38:14together with colleagues
38:15from the University of Tokyo
38:16and Tokyo Gakugai University.
38:19They tested 72 American
38:22and Japanese babies,
38:23using the same experimenters,
38:25the same technique,
38:26and the same recorded sounds
38:28in both countries.
38:29They tested them twice.
38:32Once at 6 to 8 months old,
38:34and again at 10 to 12 months.
38:37Now I'm going to give you
38:38the first result,
38:39and I want you to remember it,
38:41because the whole story
38:42hangs on it.
38:43At 6 to 8 months,
38:44the American babies
38:45picked the change correctly
38:46about 64% of the time.
38:49The Japanese babies,
38:50about 65%.
38:52No difference.
38:53If anything,
38:54the babies in Tokyo
38:56were a hair ahead.
38:57At 6 months old,
38:59a baby in Japan
39:00could hear the difference
39:01between R and L
39:02just as well
39:04as a baby in America.
39:06Then came the second test,
39:07a few months later.
39:09The American babies
39:10had improved
39:11to about 74%.
39:12The Japanese babies
39:14had gone the other way.
39:16They had dropped
39:17to about 60%.
39:19Think about how short
39:20that span is.
39:21Four or five months.
39:23Neither group
39:24can say a single word yet.
39:26And already,
39:27the line between the two
39:28has been drawn.
39:30Nothing had gone wrong
39:31with the Japanese babies.
39:33Kuhl's explanation
39:34is the key to everything.
39:36Babies start out,
39:37as she puts it,
39:38as citizens of the world.
39:41They can hear the differences
39:42between the sounds
39:43of every language on earth.
39:45Then, in the first year,
39:47they begin to listen
39:47to the language around them,
39:49and their brains
39:50tune themselves to it.
39:52In Japanese,
39:53the difference between R and L
39:55carries no meaning.
39:57So a Japanese baby's ear,
39:59doing exactly what a healthy ear
40:01is supposed to do,
40:02stops paying attention to it.
40:04An American baby's ear,
40:06hearing lollipop
40:08and rattle
40:08and lassie
40:09all day long,
40:11holds on tight.
40:13And that tuning doesn't stop
40:15on the first birthday.
40:16It keeps setting,
40:17through all the years
40:19of childhood,
40:20around whatever the child hears
40:21every day.
40:23So here, at last,
40:25is the answer to the question
40:26we started with
40:27on that ridge on Guadalcanal.
40:29The Japanese infiltrator
40:31couldn't say the American password,
40:33because the password
40:34was never really testing English.
40:36It was testing a childhood.
40:39The L in Lollapaloozer
40:41asked one silent question.
40:44Where did you spend the years
40:45when your ear was being made?
40:48Now watch how every scene
40:50in this story changes.
40:51The man on Edson's telephone
40:53had studied English for years,
40:55perhaps in an American school.
40:57He could drill his tongue
40:58to say,
40:59colonel,
40:59and excellent.
41:01But the ear
41:02that had to catch a password
41:04whispered in the dark
41:05had been tuned
41:06in a Japanese home
41:07long before he ever opened
41:09an English book.
41:11Grown men can retrain
41:13that ear a little
41:13with long and patient practice.
41:16But a little is not enough
41:18when the test lasts
41:19two seconds,
41:20at night,
41:21with a pistol on your head.
41:24Briggs,
41:25half asleep,
41:26mangling Lilliputian
41:27with a perfect American L
41:29wasn't passing a test
41:31of memory.
41:32He was passing a test
41:33he had taken in his crib.
41:36Jay DeLoe,
41:37stammering,
41:39sledgehammer,
41:40under a cocked .45,
41:42survived because terror
41:43strips a man down
41:44to what he learned first.
41:46What he learned first
41:48was an American voice.
41:50And now the hardest puzzle
41:52of all,
41:52the one from Burma.
41:54Two American soldiers
41:56of Japanese ancestry.
41:58Howard Furumoto
41:59passed the password
42:00every night.
42:01The Kibei interpreters,
42:03born in America
42:04but raised and schooled
42:05in Japan,
42:06were in the same boat
42:08as the Japanese.
42:09Same blood,
42:11same face,
42:12same uniform.
42:14The password didn't care
42:16about any of that.
42:17It only asked
42:18where the childhood
42:19had been spent.
42:21Furumoto's had been spent
42:22in America.
42:23Theirs, mostly,
42:25had not.
42:26Which leads to the part
42:28of this story
42:28the Japanese army
42:29never matched.
42:31America didn't only
42:32have millions of men
42:34whose ears had been
42:35tuned to English.
42:36It also had thousands
42:37of young men
42:38who had grown up
42:39in Japanese-speaking homes
42:41inside an English-speaking country
42:43and whose ears
42:44had held on to both.
42:46Men like Furumoto,
42:48who could whisper
42:49lots of luck
42:50at an American perimeter
42:52and then turn around
42:53and question a Japanese
42:54prisoner in his own tongue.
42:57The army went looking for them,
42:59trained them,
43:00and sent them into
43:01every campaign
43:02in the Pacific.
43:03Some carried
43:04both childhoods
43:06in one life.
43:07According to his family's history,
43:09Masao Abe
43:09was born in the United States,
43:11taken to Japan at nine,
43:13and schooled there
43:14until 19,
43:16groomed to become
43:17an officer
43:17in the Imperial Japanese Army.
43:19In September 1944,
43:22he went ashore
43:23on Angar,
43:24just south of Peleliu,
43:25in the first wave
43:27with the army's
43:2781st Infantry Division.
43:30His job was to call
43:31Japanese soldiers
43:32out of caves
43:33in their own language.
43:34He was later shot
43:36in the leg
43:36by a sniper
43:37while doing it
43:38on Peleliu.
43:39Think about that.
43:41The voice in the dark
43:42had come full circle.
43:44On Guadalcanal,
43:46it was a Japanese soldier
43:47using American English
43:48to fool Marines.
43:50By Peleliu,
43:51it was an American
43:52using Japanese
43:53to save lives
43:54on both sides.
43:56The password worked
43:58because a childhood
43:59cannot be faked.
44:00And the United States
44:01won that particular contest
44:02because,
44:03almost by accident,
44:05it had raised men
44:06who had two.
44:07But one man
44:08in this story
44:09heard the whole thing
44:10from the very beginning.
44:11He was on the other end
44:13of Edson's telephone
44:14that night on the ridge.
44:15The captain
44:16they called
44:16Silent Lou.
44:18And where his road led
44:20after that night
44:20is where this story ends.
44:23September 14, 1942.
44:26Dawn on the Ridge.
44:28The man who had answered
44:30to Silent Lou
44:31on Edson's telephone
44:33was Captain Lewis Walt,
44:3529 years old,
44:36from Kansas.
44:37He had captained
44:38the football and wrestling teams
44:40at Colorado State
44:41before taking a Marine commission
44:42in 1936.
44:44He came off that ridge
44:46alive.
44:47And here is something
44:49I held back at the beginning,
44:50because it only means
44:51something now.
44:53Walt's war did not end
44:54on Guadalcanal.
44:56He was wounded there
44:58in October.
44:59On January 10, 1944,
45:02at Cape Gloucester
45:02on New Britain,
45:03he led the fight
45:04for a ridge
45:05the Marines afterward
45:06named for him,
45:07Walt's Ridge,
45:09and earned
45:09the Navy Cross.
45:11Then came Peleliu.
45:14Walt went ashore
45:15as Executive Officer
45:16of the 5th Marines.
45:17When the leaders
45:18of the regiment's
45:193rd Battalion
45:20became casualties,
45:21he took command
45:22of that battalion himself.
45:243rd Battalion,
45:255th Marines.
45:26Eugene Sledge's Battalion,
45:29J. Deleu's,
45:31Bill's,
45:31the same battalion
45:32in which Sergeant
45:33William Steen
45:34had called
45:34It's Me
45:35into the grass
45:36on the first night
45:37on Guadalcanal
45:37two years earlier.
45:39Think about that.
45:41On those nights
45:42on Peleliu,
45:42when the password
45:43was whispered
45:44from foxhole to foxhole,
45:46every one of them
45:47loaded with L's,
45:48it was being passed
45:49along a line
45:50that for a time
45:51belonged to the man
45:53who had heard
45:53the enemy's
45:54perfect English
45:55on Edson's telephone.
45:57He had been there
45:58when the problem
45:59was born.
46:00Now he was commanding
46:01Marines who lived
46:02by its answer.
46:03He earned
46:04a second Navy cross there.
46:07Merritt Edson
46:08received the Medal
46:09of Honor
46:09for holding the ridge
46:10that night.
46:11Eugene Sledge
46:12survived Peleliu
46:13and then Okinawa.
46:15He came home
46:16to Alabama,
46:17earned a doctorate
46:17in biology,
46:18and taught
46:19at what is now
46:20the University of Montevallo
46:21for nearly 30 years.
46:23He gave up hunting
46:25because after the war
46:26he could no longer
46:27stand to hurt an animal
46:28and took up
46:29watching birds instead.
46:31When his book
46:31finally came out
46:32in 1981,
46:34Bill's surname
46:35was still a blank
46:36on the page.
46:37He died on March 3rd,
46:392001.
46:41Sergeant William Steen's
46:42remains may still
46:43lie somewhere
46:44on Guadalcanal,
46:45near the Tenaru River,
46:46where he called out
46:48to his own men
46:49in the dark.
46:50Howard Furumoto
46:52came home from Burma
46:53and, years later,
46:54sat down and told
46:55his story on tape,
46:57including the passwords.
46:59Lots of luck.
47:00Lady luck.
47:02Lollapalooza.
47:03And Lou Walt
47:05kept going.
47:06In 1965,
47:07he took command
47:08of the Marines
47:09in Vietnam.
47:10In 1969,
47:12he became the first
47:13assistant commandant
47:14of the Marine Corps
47:15to wear four stars.
47:17He died on March 26th,
47:201989,
47:21in Gulfport, Mississippi.
47:23And he is buried
47:24at Quantico,
47:25among Marines.
47:27So let's go back,
47:28one last time,
47:29to the question
47:30we started with
47:30on that ridge.
47:32Why couldn't
47:33Japanese infiltrators
47:35say the American password?
47:37Because the password
47:38was never really a word.
47:41It was a childhood.
47:43And no amount
47:44of courage,
47:45study,
47:46or practice
47:47can give a grown man
47:48a childhood
47:49he never had.
47:50Every night,
47:51from Guadalcanal
47:52to Okinawa,
47:53Marines and soldiers
47:54lay in their holes
47:55and passed one word
47:56down the line
47:57in a whisper.
47:58They thought
47:59they were passing
48:00a password.
48:01What they were
48:02really passing
48:02was the sound
48:04of the places
48:04they came from.
48:06Kitchens and schoolyards,
48:08farm towns
48:08and city blocks,
48:10a mother calling
48:11a kid in for supper.
48:13In the dark,
48:14with no faces
48:15and no uniforms,
48:16that sound
48:17was how the Marines
48:18found each other.
48:20Thank you for staying
48:21with this story
48:22all the way to the end.
48:23If it showed you
48:24something about
48:25the American Marines
48:26and soldiers in the Pacific
48:27that you hadn't known,
48:28please give it a like.
48:29It genuinely helps
48:31a story like this one
48:32find the people
48:33who would want to hear it.
48:35Subscribe and turn on
48:36the bell so you don't
48:36miss the next one.
48:37And tell us in the comments
48:39where you're watching from.
48:41If your father,
48:42grandfather,
48:43or uncle
48:43served in the Second World War,
48:45write his name
48:46and his unit.
48:48Every name you leave
48:49is one more voice
48:50we can still hear.