All language subtitles for battle.360.s01e01.(2008).blueray.h264.wcw.eng

USS Enterprise,

a.k.a the Big E,

a fighting city of steel.

She is the most revered
and decorated ship of World War II.

On this 360-degree battlefield,

where threats loom on the seas,

in the skies,

and in the ocean depths,

the Enterprise's enemies
could be anywhere

and everywhere.

Now follow this sea-bound
band of brothers

through four years of hell,

from Pearl Harbor
to the doorstep of Japan.

You know, you did this to us.

Watch this. Here we come now.

There's nowhere to run
when the war is all around you.

BATTLE 360: USS ENTERPRISE
CALL TO DUTY

The central Pacific,

February 1, 1942.

Aircraft carrier USS Enterprise,
with 2,800 men aboard,

steams through hostile waters
near the Marshall lslands.

War on the high seas has been
raging for almost two months.

Tensions on-board run high.

1:40 P.M.

Two miles off the carrier's
starboard bow,

five twin-engine Japanese bombers
break out of the clouds

and swoop toward Enterprise
in a low glide.

They're Mitsubishi G4Ms,

Allied codename: Betty.

Enterprise's antiaircraft guns
greet the invaders with a cloud of lead.

Even with the carrier guns
banging away,

the Japanese Bettys
are still determined

to deliver their 132-pound
high explosives onto Enterprise's deck.

Just one hit could put
this floating airfield out of commission.

The Japanese planes
open their bomb bay doors

and let the ordnance fly.

All the bombs miss,

but one is close enough
to rock the Enterprise.

Shrapnel rains down
on the carrier's deck,

mortally wounding
one of her men.

With their bomb bays empty,
the enemy planes bug out,

except the one in the rear.

Although American gunfire
has left her critically wounded,

the last bomber
does a 180-degree left turn

and buzzes back
toward the carrier.

He knew he'd lost,
and he was going down,

so he was going
to take some of us with him.

Enterprise captain George Murray
orders instant evasive action.

"Full right rudder."

As the ship attempts to swing
to the right

out from under the bomber,

the enemy plane dips down

to just a couple hundred feet
above the water.

All of our guns that could
were firing at it,

but it was coming on.

It kept coming and coming.

Aviation Machinist's Mate
Bruno Peter Gaido

sees the impending disaster
and scrambles into action.

This sailor actually ran
across the flight deck,

jumped into a parked airplane,

got on one of the machine guns
from the plane.

And he took the guns
up like this,

and he started shooting at him
like this.

With the ship moving sideways,

at the last moment,
the suicidal enemy bomber

charts a flight plan
for maximum destruction.

He banks sharply to the right

on a collision course
with the Enterprise.

As the bomber crosses
over the deck,

its right wing shears off
the tail section of Gaido's plane.

But the intrepid machinist's mate
is unhurt and still firing

as the enemy plane skids off
the carrier deck.

And the gunner
took the plane around,

shot him many other times
till he hit the ocean.

It is clear to his shipmates
that Gaido's heroics have saved the day.

His quick action
spared the carrier a devastating blow.

The commanding officer
of the aircraft carrier group,

Rear Admiral William F. Halsey,

has watched the extraordinary shootout
from the Enterprise bridge.

10 minutes after that was over,
Halsey called down and said,

"Who was that guy
in the rear seat of that airplane

"that fired at that attacking plane?"

And he said,
"Send him up to the bridge."

From Gaido's description,
he stood at attention, saluted.

The Admiral said,
"What is your name?"

And he said, "Bruno Gaido."

"What rate are you, Bruno?"

"Aviation Machinist's Mate
Third Class."

He says, "Bruno, you are now
Aviation Machinist's Mate First Class."

For Enterprise's sailors,

it's just another day
on the job,

one of many close calls

they and the most revered
aircraft carrier in history

will face
over the coming four years.

These guys on the Enterprise

had a 360-degree view
of the entire war.

You've got a surface threat,

you've got an air threat,

you've got a subsurface threat.

So it's all around you.

Above and below you
was their battle space.

A ship earns one battle star
for every major battle she fights.

By the end of the war in the Pacific,
the Big E will earn 20 of them--

three more than any other ship

and seven more
than any other carrier--

and the nickname Lucky E.

A lot of the people called
the Enterprise the Lucky E,

but I don't think she was so lucky
as she was good.

The story of the Enterprise
began six years earlier.

Launched in 1936,

USS Enterprise,
alphanumeric designation: CV-6,

is a new breed of aircraft carrier.

Yorktown class,

the super-carrier of its era.

It's a sleek-hulled,
medium-weight vessel,

108-feet-wide,
with a flight deck running across

almost the full 809 feet
of her length.

Her deck
is Washington State timber,

her hull, Pennsylvania steel.

Displacing 25,000 tons when fully loaded,

the Enterprise has a range

of 12,000 miles

with a top speed of 32 1/2 knots.

She's armed with 24

.50-caliber machine guns,

four quad 1.1-inch cannons,

and eight 5-inch guns

that can take out air or surface targets

from a maximum distance

of 18,200 yards.

The Big E weighs

more than 16,000 tons less

than the older carriers in the fleet,

but can carry the same number
of warplanes into battle.

She's more fuel-efficient,

more agile, more deadly.

The Enterprise
had a spirit about it,

indomitability.

No other ship was going
to compare with it.

The Enterprise can carry
up to 96 aircraft.

It is an armed airport.

They have all
of those workshops and areas

underneath the flight deck,
what's called the hangar deck,

where they service the planes

and where the planes
are usually stowed.

There are three elevators,

and that's how those planes are
brought up to the flight deck

or taken below.

The carrier
is the floating base

for one squadron of TBD
Devastator torpedo bombers,

the slowest aircraft,

which are typically held back

until enemy surface ships
have been spotted.

One squadron of Grumman F4F
Wildcat fighter planes

patrols near the ship,
guarding it from air attack.

And two squadrons
of SBD Dauntless scout bombers

are routinely deployed to search

200-square-mile sectors
in all directions

for an enemy presence.

If the enemy is located,

the SBD, with a two-man crew

and a max speed of 250 miles per hour,

can win an air-to-air shootout

with the two .50-caliber machine guns

in its nose

and dual rear-mounted .30-caliber

free-floating machine guns.

It also has the capability
of hitting enemy ships

with 1,200 pounds of bombs.

With its cadre of warplanes,

Enterprise is well-equipped
for battle with Japan,

but none of the Big E's pilots
have ever fired a shot in anger.

How will they respond
when the Empire of the Sun

delivers its first attack?

War with Japan is imminent,

and while USS Enterprise
is the super-carrier of her era,

she won't be fighting alone.

At sea, the carrier is like
the quarterback of a football team.

She's defended by cruisers
and destroyers

on the surface of the water
around her,

by scout planes, bombers,
and fighter planes

launched from her deck

and patrolling the skies overhead,

and sometimes even by submarines
beneath the waves out in front.

The escort ships that sail closest
to the carrier are the destroyers.

A destroyer is a relatively small warship,

typically with a displacement

of about 2,200 tons,

a length of some 400 feet,

and a width of about 40 feet.

Like Enterprise,
a destroyer's largest guns

are her dual-purpose 5-inchers,

capable of firing 5-inch projectiles
at either surface or air targets.

When taking on airplanes,
these guns don't go for a direct hit.

They send up a barrage of shells,
known as flak,

which are fused to explode
at a specific altitude,

hopefully taking out any aircraft
that are approaching the fleet.

The explosions send out blasts
of shrapnel that leave behind

those distinctive puffs
of black smoke.

The destroyers
were the last line of defense

before the Japanese
could get to the carriers.

Larger gunships, called cruisers,

are typically more distant
from the carrier,

to serve as her first line of defense.

Their primary mission
is to protect that carrier at all cost.

Everything else is secondary.

It was a team effort.

U.S. submarines also
occasionally lend the carrier a hand.

They're the eyes and the ears
of that whole fleet.

They can virtually be undetected,

they're great for reconnaissance,

and they can sink ships before
they even know that they're there.

But Enterprise is the heartbeat
of the task force.

It takes thousands of men

to keep this floating city
on the move.

Clerks, yeomen, cooks,

men in the anti-aircraft divisions,

radar men, radio men, signal men,

different types of technicians.

The ship typically
has a Marine detachment,

and their job is security
for the ship,

and they generally
have battle stations.

There are a lot of people
on an aircraft carrier,

and all of them
are doing different jobs.

The average age aboard ship
is 19 years old,

and these young men have come
from all across the country

to serve on this massive melting pot.

The decks echo with the accents
of the Deep South and the Midwest.

Ranch hands from Texas

bunking with street toughs
from Hell's Kitchen.

Guys from Pennsylvania,
Alabama, California,

and everywhere in between.

For many of these American boys,

life aboard this mega ship
takes some getting used to.

I grew up in Round Rock,

and there was 1,200 people
in Round Rock when I left there.

Went aboard the Enterprise,

and there was about 2,800
on the Enterprise.

It was like a city.
You didn't know all of them.

The Enterprise
was the biggest ship

I’d ever seen in my life.

In fact, when I walked up
the gangplank for the first time,

I was imagining, "Golly, there must be
a swimming pool on here."

In 1941, the crew was still
a largely unproven group

of sailors and marines.

How they would respond
in the heat of battle

was anybody's guess.

Being afraid carries
a lot of baggage with it.

I was never so afraid
that I wasn't able to carry out

all my responsibilities 100%,

because I, like everybody else
aboard that ship,

was determined we were not ever
going to let out shipmates down.

I think that one thing there
kept us on the job

regardless of what
the circumstances were.

Toughness starts at the top,

and Enterprise's task force

is run by the toughest admiral
in the Pacific,

William F. "Bull" Halsey.

Halsey's fearless and disciplined,

and most importantly,

he's a scrapper.

Bull Halsey was a man
of great personal will,

a firm commander,

a man that wanted to be
in the middle of the action,

in the thick of the combat.

He was a fighting admiral.

I have seen him many times
on the bridge,

when we were
under dive-bombing attacks,

shaking his fist and cussing
those Japanese dive bombers,

and he was out there.

He'd have a helmet on,
but that was about all.

His men immediately respect him,

and over
the next several months,

they will come to love him too.

In the fall of 1941,

Halsey and
the other American commanders

have a wary eye on Japan.

The Japanese have made several
threatening moves in recent years,

invading china

and allying themselves
with Germany and Italy

to form the original Axis of Evil.

The Empire of the Sun
is anxious to expand

its territories across Asia.

The U.S. and her allies
are determined to stop them.

Attempts to negotiate with Japan
have floundered,

and American intelligence
has intercepted ominous messages

hinting at war.

By November 27, 1941,
talks with Japan have ceased.

The following day,

Admiral Halsey approves
the issuance of a special order:

Battle Order Number 1 .

Bill Norberg, a yeoman,
or clerk, aboard the Enterprise,

recalls some of the inspiring
language from the order.

The things that I recall
most clearly are,

"The Enterprise is now operating
under wartime conditions."

"Steady nerves and stout hearts
are needed."

Steady nerves
and stout hearts indeed.

December 6, 1941.

Enterprise is 300 miles
from Pearl Harbor.

The Big E is due back at Pearl
this evening.

Lucky for Enterprise
and her task force,

Mother Nature has other ideas.

We ran into a terrific storm,

and we fairly well weathered that

in the pretty good-sized
ship that we had.

But our little tin-can destroyers
were bouncing about

like bobbles on the water.

They used up so much
of their fuel

that we had to slow down
and stop and refuel them.

This twist of fortune

will actually keep Enterprise
and her task force

from the far worse fate

awaiting the ships
docked at Pearl Harbor.

Despite the storm,
Enterprise still manages

to launch 18 scout bomber planes

on a routine reconnaissance mission
on the morning of December 7th.

But this morning will be
anything but routine.

200 miles to the east,

353 Japanese warplanes
are headed for a date with infamy.

Enterprise crewman
Sergeant Frank Graves

has been temporarily assigned
to a post on dry land.

He's at machine gun school
near the entrance of Pearl Harbor.

History is about to happen,

and he's got a front-row seat.

I heard
some strange engine sounds.

I looked up, and right above
the algarroba trees,

probably not
more than 75 feet in the air,

were large Japanese
3-seater torpedo bombers

with a torpedo hanging on,
single file, one behind the other,

and I started yelling, "Japs. Japs."

Finally, I guess one guy
decided to have some fun,

and he opened fire on us,

hit the guy next to me.

Although Enterprise herself
is not in the thick of the battle,

Pearl Harbor provides a preview
of the fearsome firepower

the ship will soon be facing.

In addition
to their Zero fighter planes,

the Japanese air arsenal includes

the B5M2 torpedo bomber,

nickname: Kate.

With a top speed of 235 miles per hour

and a crew of three,

the plane doubles

as a high-altitude bomber.

But the aircraft that will prove
to be the most deadly,

sinking more Allied warships

than any other in the Pacific war,

is the D3A1 dive bomber,

nickname: Val.

With a two-man crew

and a max speed
of 240 miles per hour,

the Val is capable of carrying
one 550-pound bomb

and two 130-pound bombs.

We can see the dive bombers
working over Pearl Harbor.

Later on, some high-level bombers
came in on Pearl Harbor,

and I suspect that's the one
that got the Arizona.

More than 100 miles out to sea,

Enterprise receives word

that something is happening
in the harbor.

Something came over the radio,

"Pearl Harbor under attack.
This is no drill."

When Admiral Halsey
gets the news,

he has just finished breakfast

and poured
his second cup of coffee.

Halsey, the men around him,
and the Enterprise herself

are suddenly electrified.

We were pretty much aghast.

It just seemed surreal

that we could actually be at war
right that minute

after we'd been at peace
just a minute or so before.

I think many of us
grew up that morning.

Beyond the horizon
to the east,

the men of Enterprise's
Scouting Squadron 6

approach Pearl Harbor

and begin to notice
that something is very wrong.

We could see the smoke
billowing up from the island,

and I said to the pilot,

"What the hell's the Army doing

"holding maneuvers
on a Sunday for?"

The true state of affairs
is about to become very clear.

The squadron's radios crackle

with a frantic call
from one of the pilots.

It was Clarence Dickinson,

and he had a squeaky little voice
that you couldn't miss him.

"For -- sake,
shoot that son of a -- on our tail!

"He's shooting real bullets!"

As Dickinson roars
into the fight at Pearl,

multiple enemy Zero fighters
jump him.

His rear-seat gunner opens fire
and downs one of the attackers.

But finally,
Dickinson's plane succumbs

to the barrage of enemy bullets.

He didn't die.
His gunner was killed,

but he parachuted,
and he made it back

and got to fly another plane
just right away.

Dickinson may have survived,

but the first tangle with the enemy
has been devastating.

Six of the 18 planes Enterprise
launched that morning are lost,

and for 11 of her airmen,

the first battle of the war
will also be their last.

December 8, 1941
6:00 P.M.

USS Enterprise finally steams
into its home port

on the evening of December 8th,
roughly 32 hours after the attack.

The ships were on fire.

There was smoke everywhere.

There was oil all over the water.

I don't recall seeing any bodies
floating around, thank goodness,

but it was a nasty mess.

It looked bad. It smelled bad.

You could almost feel
gloom and doom in the air.

They had fire boats and tugs in
trying to put out the fires.

The surface of Pearl Harbor
was about maybe 3, 4 inches deep

with fuel oil.

Surveying the destruction,

Admiral Halsey swears
that when he's done

the Japanese language
will only be spoken in hell.

Halsey orders every able body
on the ship,

officer and enlisted alike,

to help refuel and re-provision
Enterprise as quickly as possible.

It's a job that normally takes a full day
of round-the-clock work.

On this day, the men
get it done in seven hours.

For the USS Enterprise
to roll into Pearl Harbor,

see all that carnage,
then do what they need to do

within seven hours,
turn right back around

and get back out to sea,

most people would think
that would be pretty amazing.

I just think that it just shows
the American spirit

that, you know what?
Okay, you did this to us.

Watch this.
Here we come now.

The sneak attack on Pearl

has crippled
the American Pacific Fleet.

4 cruisers,

5 destroyers,

and 4 auxiliary ships
have been damaged or destroyed.

None of the fleet's eight battleships
have been spared.

Four are sunk, and the rest
have taken heavy damage.

But by striking when none

of the seven U.S. aircraft carriers
were in port,

the Japanese made
a critical mistake,

and they know it.

Starting now,
Enterprise and her fellow carriers

are at the top of the enemy hit list.

Of course, the Japanese
wanted the carriers,

because, first of all, they're taking out
one of our ships,

then they're taking out airplanes,

and they're taking out personnel
all at the same time.

So they're killing
three birds with one stone.

They believe if they could've
knocked out all of our carriers,

that they could win
this war hands down.

We knew that we were
an awful big target.

Enterprise sails out of Pearl
on Tuesday morning

into a strange, new world,

where the threat of death looms
just over the horizon.

I suspect every one of us
probably would have had in our mind,

"Why did this have to happen?"

"But now that it has,
what are we going to do about it?"

When we went back to sea
on Tuesday morning,

for all we knew,
we were right into the jaws

of the lmperial battle fleet,

and so we were a bunch
of scared sailors.

Understandably, tensions are high
aboard Enterprise

and within her task force.

Fear of enemy submarines
is pervasive.

All eyes are open for them.

Someone spotted something
they thought was a periscope,

and, of course, the destroyer escorts
opened fire on it.

Dropped a few depth charges around.

This thing kept bobbing up
periodically,

and they finally got up
close enough to see what it was.

Someone had lost a mop overboard
somewhere in the line

and this thing was...

The mop handle kept bouncing up
toward the surface,

and everyone was
a little bit amazed about

all of the depth charges and ammo
that was wasted on that mop.

But the deep waters near Hawaii
do conceal legitimate threats.

December 10, 1941

The Big E is on patrol
near the Hawaiian Islands.

Off to the south of the carrier,

Perry Teff,
a Dauntless dive bomber pilot

from Enterprise's
Scouting Squadron 6,

spots enemy submarines
at the surface.

Submarines have to come up
for air at least once every 24 hours

in order to run the diesel engines
that recharge their batteries.

This morning,
Japanese submarine I-70

is in Perry Teff's sights.

Time for some revenge.

The American pilot swoops in
and drops a thousand-pound bomb.

The explosion
rocks the Japanese submarine,

damaging it and preventing it
from diving beneath the surface.

Sometime later,

fellow Enterprise scout pilot
Clarence Dickinson,

the man who parachuted
from his damaged plane

at Pearl Harbor,

takes another dangerous dive
on I-70.

Being a dive bomber pilot
in World War II

takes nerves of steel.

The Dauntless pilots execute
this death-defying maneuver

at 275 miles per hour
with their canopies open

so that they can bail out quickly
if they're hit.

To ensure the element of surprise,

they take their dive at an insanely
sharp angle of 70 to 75 degrees.

70-degree dive angle
on a World War II dive bomber,

it's pretty dynamic.

It's like your face
is pointing at the ground.

If I hold you up by your feet

and give you just a little bit
of a push forward, that's 70 degrees.

Now, we don't have to dive
at 70-degree angles today,

because technology has allowed us
to do much less dynamic dive angles.

Dickinson plunges down
towards the sub

and finishes the job.

Payback.

It's the first enemy ship sunk
by the U.S. Navy in World War II.

And the kill belongs
to USS Enterprise.

For the USS Enterprise
to get the first naval kill,

it had to lift the spirits
not only of just the ship's crew itself,

but all of the American people

to show, you know what?
We're not done.

We're not even close
to being done.

Enterprise carries on
with its patrol duties

in the waters near Hawaii
until late January 1942.

Try as it might,

the ship has no luck
locating enemy planes

and surface vessels
near its home islands.

The Japanese fleet has long since
retired to distant waters.

But even without the enemy
in attack mode,

life aboard ship
remains perilous.

Every time a plane takes off
or lands on the carrier's deck,

death is in the air.

Landing on an aircraft carrier
is always a difficult maneuver.

Eventually, with enough experience,
you get to the point

where you can actually enjoy
day landings.

Night landings are always
not enjoyable.

From the time
of the very first carriers,

the Navy set out to document
any aviation mishaps,

so that when mistakes are made,

other pilots on-board
and across the entire fleet

can learn from them.

James Barnhill,
the ship's bugler,

is also a skilled photographer.

One of his jobs is to film

these death-defying takeoffs
and landings.

I saw so many that would bounce
and go over the side

or came in to one side
of the flight deck or the other

and go into the catwalk.

If it looked like
they were in trouble,

then we started
the cameras rolling.

If it looked like it was
a good landing, we didn't bother.

The pilots know
that if they see the cameramen

stand up and start rolling,

it means they're probably
heading for a rough landing.

They would just be sitting
up there like vultures,

waiting to snap pictures
of another crash.

Back in the day, the pilots would
call that area the "vulture's nest,"

and that name has stuck
through today.

You only have a space of landing
that is 400 feet long.

You have six wires out there,

and you have to land
on one of those wires.

Of course, you don't want
to land on number six.

I've only landed
on modern aircraft carriers

where we have four wires,
and I can tell you,

when you miss the three
and are headed to the fourth,

getting pretty close
to the end of the carrier.

You always know
when you caught a four wire.

Now, with the six wires
that they had

back in World War II time frame,

I imagine it was pretty similar.

You knew when you caught
the late wires.

But really, in pilot terms,

we don't care
what wire we catch,

as long as we catch a wire.

February 1, 1942

The days of training
and patrolling are over.

Time to take the fight
to the enemy.

Target: Wotje Island,
central Pacific,

in the Marshall Islands chain.

Objective: Deny the Japanese

a base for a possible invasion

of the Hawaiian Islands.

Strategy: Destroy Japanese airstrips,

fuel storage tanks,

ammunition dumps,

and anti-aircraft batteries.

Enterprise's task force cruiser,
USS Northampton,

kicks off the attack.

Her 8-inch guns hurl
their 260-pound projectiles

five miles across the sea
to their targets on the island.

Closing to within 3 1/2 miles,

Northampton can now use
her smaller 5-inch guns

to assault the shore batteries.

They were firing shells
over the Japanese shore batteries,

and instead of hitting the shore
batteries with direct hits,

the shells were exploding
over the shore batteries,

showering those positions
with shrapnel.

USS Northampton is 600 feet long

and 66 feet wide

and displaces 9,000 tons.

She has a top speed of 32 1/2 knots.

With nine 8-inch guns,

four 5-inch rifles,

eight .50-caliber machine guns,

and six torpedo tubes,

she is a force
to be reckoned with.

The island of Wotje is experiencing
that force this morning.

100 miles west of Wotje,

surveillance has revealed
a heavy concentration

of enemy vessels
at Kwajalein Atoll.

So while Northampton
takes care of Wotje,

Enterprise sends its SBD bombers
to strike the Kwajalein anchorage.

Dusty Kleiss speeds south

toward an outpost
on tiny Kwajalein Island.

I found a cruiser there.

There were no fighters around.

Oh, boy, this is great.

So I got up there,
and I made this dive.

Dive bombing is almost
unheard of in modern warfare.

Precision-guided bombs

that can be deadly accurate
from 40,000 feet

have made this risky maneuver
obsolete.

But if you wanted to be sure
of hitting your target

in World War II,

you had to get in close.

There's a lot of factors
that come into dive bombing:

speed, dive angle,

altitude at release,
winds aloft.

Clearly, the longer you wait
to release the bomb,

the closer in to the target
you're going to be

and the less all those factors
can influence the bomb's trajectory.

So in that respect,
waiting is better.

But you also got to be able
to pull out of that dive bomb,

and you also you want
to release the munition

so that, when it explodes,

you're not caught
in the frag pattern,

so back then,
you typically released a bomb

between 1,000 and 2,000 feet.

Again, the longer you wait,
the more accurate it's going to be,

but also the faster
you're going to be pulling out

and the lower
you're going to be pulling out,

so it's kind of a...

There's a happy medium
in there somewhere.

As he dives down
toward the Japanese cruiser,

Kleiss has just one bomb aboard,
a 500-pounder.

He knew he had one shot
and one shot only.

Everything had to be perfect.

And he did it.

I clobbered it.

As he pulls out of his dive,
Kleiss is feeling pressure

five to six times
the force of gravity,

but there's no better feeling

than getting right up
in the enemy's face

and delivering a knockout blow.

Five miles to the north,

a fellow Enterprise
dive bomber pilot

has discovered a cluster
of merchant ships

near the Carlos Pass.

He scores a well-timed hit
on a tanker

scrambling toward
the channel's mouth.

It was trying to go out at sea,

and he hit it right on the head
and caught it on fire.

The tanker just happens to be
at the choke point of the channel,

and it blocks passage
by the remaining ships.

Well, here were all these ships
inside of the lagoon.

Then the USS Enterprise launched
nine torpedo planes after

to go get those remaining ships
that were caught inside that channel.

Practically no anti-aircraft guns

and here these things
couldn't move,

well, it was like shooting
fish in a barrel.

The torpedo bombers
sent by Enterprise

are Douglas TBD Devastators,
slow, antiquated aircraft

that will soon be replaced
by more agile planes.

With a sluggish maximum speed

of 207 miles per hour

and a feeble rate of climb

of just 720 feet per minute,

TBDs are overly vulnerable

to both enemy fighters

and anti-aircraft fire.

They carry a single 2,200-pound
Mark Xlll torpedo.

The Enterprise TBDs
pass over Kwajalein Lagoon

and drop their payloads,

but there's not
a single explosion.

At this point in the war,

American torpedo technology
is hit-or-miss,

and it's mostly miss.

9 out of every 10 torpedoes
veers off course

or fails to detonate.

It's a frustrating reality

for the pilots risking
their lives at Kwajalein.

Launch their torpedoes, not one hit.

Luckily, there are
American bombers in the area too,

and their explosives
are working just fine.

Kwajalein harbor
is a smoking, burning wreck

by the time Admiral Halsey
calls off the attack.

Some 90 enemy personnel
are killed at Kwajalein,

including the area commander.

The Marshall Islands raids
are a huge success,

and Enterprise returns
to a hero's welcome at Pearl Harbor.

People were standing out there
and cheering.

I remember nurses waving towels.

I remember some of the Army people
holding their rifles up.

And I remember one guy
holding a mop,

and he was shaking that
back and forth.

They were so elated

that somebody had whacked
the enemy good and proper.

And, of course, our sailors

were manning the flight deck
by the hundreds,

and they were looking
pretty spiffy up there,

and as we passed the Nevada,
those guys hollered out in unison,

"Hip, hip, hooray!
Hip, hip, hooray!"

And our people responded.

Just unbelievably exhilarating,

"Hip, hip, hooray!
Hip, hip, hooray!"

Now, it sounds kind of sophomoric
at a time like this

when you look back on it,

but at that time,
it's just exactly what we needed.

The sailors and airmen
of Enterprise

will soon get yet another
small taste of sweet revenge.

Mid-April 1942

Sailors on the deck
of the USS Enterprise

notice that the air
is getting chillier.

They’ve been operating
in the steamy South Seas for weeks,

and now the brisk weather
is making it very obvious

that they're sailing north,

but only the admiral
seems to know why.

Tension aboard Enterprise
is still high.

At any moment,
the calming sounds of the sea

could be interrupted
by the whine of a Japanese Zero

or a torpedo broadsiding a ship.

Up on the bridge,

captain's Yeoman Bill Norberg
is working an all-nighter.

I was working my shift
on the bridge at night,

and it was a 12:00-to-4:00
in-the-morning shift,

and I was out on the port wing
of the bridge,

and out there,
it just so happened

the general quarters buzzer
is out there.

And I kind of nodded off,

and my head was leaning back,
and it hit that buzzer,

and the thing went off.

And, of course, that means everybody
jump out of your sacks,

get your clothes on,
get to your battle stations.

Around the ship,
the crew jumps into action.

Men roll out of bunks
and grab for helmets.

Crews ready their guns.

But the skies remain quiet.

Soon, word spreads
that this is a false alarm,

and everyone aboard ship
wants to know who triggered it.

And I heard somebody say,

"I don't know who it was,
but he had a pea coat on,"

and that was me.

And I took off, and nobody caught me,
thank goodness,

'cause, you know, sleeping on duty

isn't the best thing you can do
in time of war.

At roughly 6:00 A.M.
on the morning of April 12th,

the men of the Big E
and her task force

notice a completely
unexpected sight in the distance.

I walked out from the comm shack
on the walkway,

and I looked over there,
and I couldn't believe my eyes.

The surprise vessel is friendly.

It's their sister carrier USS Hornet,
but she's carrying mysterious cargo.

There was something wrong
with Hornet's silhouette.

What was wrong with it
is the flight deck

was half-covered with
these big, strange-looking airplanes

that were not painted Navy colors,

and they weren't Naval aircraft.

And they finally figured out
they were B-25s,

and they had Army camouflage
painted on them.

The Army B-25s are here

to make a bombing run
on the heart of Japan.

Target: Tokyo

and other industrial centers
around Japan.

Objective: Take out factories
and munitions plants

and demoralize the enemy
by assaulting her homeland.

Strategy:
Attack with 16 B-25 bombers

launched from USS Hornet.

I don't like to use the word "revenge,"

but, sure,
there was some revenge that--

They wanted to get some back.
You know, they were mad.

And they wouldn't stand for it then,
and we don't stand for it now.

You reach out and you hurt us,

we're coming after you,
and you know what?

There ain't a damn thing
you can do about it.

Army Air Corps Lieutenant Colonel
James Doolittle

has agreed
to lead the daring mission,

and he's chosen the B-25

as the aircraft
on which to trust his life.

The North American Mitchell B-25B

is a twin-engine medium bomber

with a range, depending on bomb load,

of about 1,300 miles.

It's typically manned by a crew of five

and can deliver up to 5,000 pounds
of bombs.

While other bombers
have more range and power,

the B-25's modest wingspan

of 67 feet, 7 inches

will allow USS Hornet

to fit more bombers
on its flight deck.

The plan is for the carrier
to get Doolittle's bombers

within striking distance of Japan.

They will then launch,

bomb Tokyo
and their other targets,

and continue on to land

in friendly remote
Chinese territory.

Since Hornet's
normal defensive aircraft

must be stored below deck
to make room for the Mitchells,

Enterprise and her task force
will go along

to protect the Hornet
if she is attacked.

We were all thrilled,
but we were scared to death.

We said,
"This is a suicide mission."

In order to ensure
that Doolittle's bombers

have enough fuel to reach
the designated landing area in china,

Hornet and Enterprise
need to get the planes

within 400 miles
of the Japanese mainland.

But bad luck intervenes.

We ran across this little--
what we thought was a fishing boat.

It turned out to be a patrol boat.

We didn't pick it up
on our surface radar.

It was that small.

Cruiser Nashiville went out
with her 6-inch battery

and sank this thing.

And we thought,
"Well, maybe we got away with it."

But Radio Pearl Harbor
actually intercepted

a message reporting warships.

So they had to launch,

and they had to launch
right then and there.

There was no turning back.

The carriers are 650 miles
from the Japanese mainland.

It means Doolittle and his men
might not have the fuel

to make it out safely.

They choose to go anyway.

At 8:20 A.M.,

on the cold, damp,
and blustery morning of April 18, 1942,

the B-25 Mitchell bombers
prepare for takeoff.

High wind, high seas,

carrier racing 30 knots,

pitching and bucking
like a bronco,

about 25 knots headwind,

wind on the flight deck
of the carrier's 55 knots.

The pilots have more
to worry about than the weather.

Carriers like Enterprise and Hornet

weren't designed
to launch planes this heavy,

and this is the first time a B-25
has attempted to take off

from a carrier in combat.

That aircraft wasn't designed
to be taking off

on an aircraft carrier,
so they really had to get

as much wind over the deck
as possible

because wind over the deck translates
to flying speed off the angle.

Once the bombers are speeding
down the flight deck,

there's only two places
they can end up.

With enough speed,
they'll be in the sky.

Too slow,
and they'll be in the sea.

Taking off in a high-wind,
high-sea environment

is always tricky.

Your number-one priority right there

is going to be
making sure that the aircraft

is lifting off the end of the deck
when the bow is high.

Making it even more difficult,

the bombers have been stripped
of all non-essential items

to make room for more fuel
and bombs.

They're even heavier than usual.

Colonel Doolittle himself
is the first to go.

And they got all these aircraft
stacked up on the flight deck,

so the first guys to take off
have the least amount of runway.

Doolittle's bomber
struggles off the deck,

but manages to stay airborne.

The second one to go off
almost dipped into the water.

And if I recall,
there was one more plane

that almost went in the drink.

But all 16 of them
got on their way.

Four hours after launch,
the bombers finally reach their targets.

Despite enemy flak, each plane drops
2,000 pounds of hell

into the heart
of the Japanese homeland.

They then turn
toward the Chinese coast

and their designated landing area.

But as the last drops of fuel
funnel from the bombers' tanks,

most of Doolittle's air crews

have no choice but to bail out
or crash-land.

Three crewmen perish
in the process.

Eight are captured
by the Japanese.

The physical damage done
to Japan has been negligible,

but the psychological impact
is truly significant

on both sides of the Pacific.

It was definitely a morale booster,
not only for our servicemen,

but for our whole country.

At a time of war,

when the enemy is getting nailed
at the heart of their homeland,

it makes you feel like,

"You know what?
You tried to stop us.

"Ain't happening.
We're coming after you."

It showed the Japanese
that they weren't invincible,

that we could reach out
and we could touch them.

The first six months of the war

have been a trial by fire
for the crew of the Enterprise.

In December of 1941,

the men of the Big E
were sailing the Pacific,

unsure of what lay
beyond the horizon.

Now they are well
on their way to becoming

a battle-tested fighting machine.

Morale on-board runs high.

We didn't look for the war
to last very long.

We just didn't think that
the Japanese were that strong.

They thought that the war
would be over relatively quick,

and they couldn't have been
more wrong.

Soon, the pilots and gunners
from the Enterprise task force

will come face to face
with the enemy again,

and the course of the war
will change forever

in the massive and deadly
Battle of Midway.