All language subtitles for PBS.Ken.Burns.The.War.4of7.Pride.of.our.Nation-eng

(waves lapping)

QUENTIN AANENSON:
We were all granted
about ten days' leave

for our final visit
to our homes.

This was around the middle
of April, 1944.

So I went up to Luverne

to see my parents,
my brothers and sisters.

And it was a very difficult
time, because I knew...

I had the orders
in my possession

that would be sending me

to the European theater
of operations,

and I knew that
we had been assigned

to fly this terribly dangerous
type of combat mission.

So...

when I was leaving

and saying good-bye
to my mother and dad,

we went to the train
station in Luverne

to catch the midnight train.

My sister Mavis was with me,

and I took her aside and
we walked down the platform

for a ways, and I told her
what my assignment had been...

and that the odds
were pretty great

that, uh, I would be killed.

So I had told her...

to be very much aware
of this possibility

and that she should be...

prepared to help my parents.

(dramatic newsreel fanfare)

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
This immense piling up
of war supplies in Britain

is massed for the giant blow
designed to knock out the Nazi--

an astounding panorama

of everything that you
can think of... and more.

Invasion shipping massed
in British harbors

along the English Channel--
barges and boats.

Imagine those stacked-up
amphibious craft

when they stream in swarms
for the landing.

Bombers, which,
in the ground invasion

must keep on hammering,

gliders for airborne troops,

and myriad fighter planes
for the monster air battles

of the offensive designed to be

the final phase
of the European war.

Acres of planes reaching
far into the distance.

("I'm Confessin™ by
The Benny Goodman Sextet plays)

NARRATOR:
By the late spring of 1944,

on both sides of the world,

there were signs that the tide
of war had begun to turn.

The Allies had stopped Japan's
expansion in the Pacific.

They had taken Guadalcanal
in the Solomons

and Tarawa in the Gilberts,

had savaged the enemy
fleet at Midway,

and had begun the long climb
from island to island

toward the Japanese homeland.

In the European theater,

the Allies had
cleared North Africa

of Axis forces and taken Rome.

Allied warplanes were still
bombing Germany night and day.

The Battle of the Atlantic
had been won,

the sea lanes were now open,

and men and weapons and supplies
were flooding into Britain.

And in the east, the Red Army

had driven the Germans
from the Ukraine

and was moving into Poland.

Back home, in places
like Luverne, Minnesota;

Waterbury, Connecticut;

Mobile, Alabama;

and Sacramento, California,

Americans did their best to go
about their normal lives.

(intro to "It's Been
a Long, Long Time" plays)

BING CROSBY:
§§ Kiss me once,
then kiss me twice §§

§§ Then kiss me once again §§

§§ It's been a long,
long time §§

§§ Haven't felt
like this, my dear §§

§§ Since I can't remember when§

§§ It's been a long,
long time... §§

NARRATOR:
But in the back
of everyone's mind,

hope was combined with dread.

In spite of the progress
that had been made,

everything that had happened
so far in the war

had been a mere preliminary.

The Japanese empire
had begun to shrink,

but its rulers seemed determined

to defend to the death
every island that remained.

Rome may have fallen,

but everyone knew
that Hitler's grip on Europe

could not be broken

until Allied troops
crossed the English Channel,

smashed the German defenses

and drove the Nazis
out of France.

Hundreds of thousands
of sons and fathers and husbands

would be called upon
to gamble their lives

for the sake of victory.

CROSBY:
§§ You'll never know §§

§§ How many dreams
I dreamed about you §§

§§ Or just how empty they
all seemed without you §§

§§ So kiss me once... §§

NARRATOR:
Naval Ensign Joseph Vaghi
of Bethel, Connecticut--

just up the road
from Waterbury--

went home to say good-bye
to his family that spring.

He had his orders
to go overseas,

and it seemed
to him and to them,

that he would likely
be one of those

who would be asked to run
that terrible risk.

VAGHI:
It was very difficult

because I had two other brothers
already in the service

and my poor mother,

she knew all of us were going
to go eventually.

And, as it turned out,
we all did go.

All of us were in the service.

And that... that was
kind of rough.

But leaving, she had chin up,

you know, she...
we spoke in Italian.

She spoke English very well,

but she said all of the
sentimental things in Italian.

She said, "Mio caro figlio,
Dio stai con lei.

Non dimenticare
mai tuoi genitori,"

and, uh, it goes on like that.

(newsreel fanfare plays)

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
Hundreds of miles
of invasion coast

are heavily fortified,
bristling with gun emplacements,

defense in depth,

as Hitler prepares for
the coming test of supremacy,

battle for the greatest
of beachheads.

Gigantic coastal guns
go into place,

ready to rise up
when the zero hour comes,

when the Allies move
on Hitler's Europe.

(explosions)

No room for complacency.

Hitler is prepared.

(explosions)

NARRATOR:
The Germans had known for months

that the Allies were going
to open the second front

that Soviet leader Josef Stalin
had been demanding since 1941.

Hitler had used that time
to construct his Atlantic Wall,

1,670 miles of fortified
gun emplacements,

radar and observation towers

and bunkers that stretched
from Denmark

all the way south
to the Spanish frontier.

Meanwhile, across
the English Channel,

more than a million
and a half Americans

were now in Britain
waiting for the signal

to start the invasion,

an invasion that would determine
the success or failure

of the Allied effort in Europe.

General Dwight Eisenhower
was in overall command.

The assault was to proceed
in three phases.

First, paratroopers
would be dropped

behind the beaches
in the dead of night

to confuse the enemy and seize
the roads and bridges

that led inland from them.

Then, wave after wave
of airplanes

were to batter German defenses,
destroying enemy emplacements

and creating craters
on the beaches

in which assault troops
could take shelter.

Finally, a massive flotilla
was to ferry thousands

of British, Canadian
and American troops

toward the French coast.

Allied commanders planned
five coordinated landings

along a 45-mile stretch
of the Normandy coastline

between the Cotentin Peninsula
and the Orne River.

Canadian and British troops
under General Bernard Montgomery

would fight their way ashore

at beaches code-named "Gold,"
"Juno," and "Sword,"

where they were also meant

to take the city of Caen,
nine miles inland.

Americans,
under General Omar Bradley,

would assault
"Utah" and "Omaha" beaches.

AL McINTOSH (dramatized):
Luverne, Minnesota.

May 25, 1944.

"Outwardly,
things haven't changed here.

"The lilacs
are out in full bloom.

"The countryside
was never greener.

"At night there are
a million stars

"winking in the sky, with
a couple of million bullfrogs

"parked along the edges
of the bank-full ditches

"croaking a mighty chorus.

"But things are different.

"The staffs of daily newspapers
all over the country

"are on alert in case news of
the invasion of Europe breaks.

"Key executives don't stir
very far from a telephone,

"day or night.

"The belief is
that the long-awaited flash

will come sometime after 11:00
p.m. but before 5:00 a.m."

Al Mcintosh,
Rock County Star-Herald.

(drum beating slowly)

PAUL FUSSELL:
We tend to call it the real war.

The rest of it's
just the show-biz war.

The real war involves getting
down there and killing people,

and being killed yourself
or just barely escaping it.

And it gives you attitudes
about life and death

that are unobtainable
anywhere else.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
Soldiers, sailors and airmen of
the Allied Expeditionary Force,

you are about to embark upon
the great crusade,

toward which we have striven
these many months.

The eyes of the world
are upon you.

The hopes and prayers of
liberty-loving people everywhere

march with you.

NARRATOR:
The greatest invasion in history
began just after midnight

on June 6, 1944--

D-Day--

as the first
of 24,000 paratroopers,

flown over the Channel
in more than 1,000 aircraft,

were dropped behind enemy lines
in Normandy.

The Germans' theory of
the defense of the continent

was they put, they built
pillboxes along the coastline

and they put
their old troops in it.

Then they put
their Panzer divisions

and their SS divisions
and their good divisions

back in central points,

the theory being that
when we hit the beach,

they would come in from
those points and drive us off.

Our job was to get in between
them and the beach

and to have them hit us
instead of the beach.

NARRATOR:
Most of the men of the British
6th Airborne dropped on target,

reassembled, and within an hour
had achieved their objectives,

seizing bridges across
the Orne and Dives Rivers

to keep German tanks
from mounting a counterattack

along the coast.

On the western flank,

the 16,000 Americans
belonging to the 101st

and 82nd Airborne divisions
were less fortunate.

Low-hanging clouds
blocked the moonlight

and obscured the landing zones.

The narrow neck of
the Cotentin Peninsula

was hard to hit from the air.

Many paratroopers fell
helplessly into the sea.

Others landed in fields
and river valleys

flooded by the Germans
and drowned.

Some were blown from the sky
as German tracer bullets

set off the explosives
they carried.

Still others were dropped so low

their parachutes
had no chance to open.

They hit, one man remembered,

with "a sound like ripe pumpkins

being thrown down
against the ground."

The men of the 101st Airborne
were scattered over an area

25 miles long by 15 miles wide.

Most of them got lost.

24 hours later, their commander
had still been unable to find

more than half
his surviving men.

(rapid gunfire)

Elements of the 82nd Airborne
came down in and around

the little town
of Sainte Mére-Eglise,

just behind Utah Beach.

The fighting was already raging

when a glider carrying
Dwain Luce of Mobile, Alabama,

headed toward the landing zone.

A survivor of the invasion
of Sicily

and the landing at Salerno,
he was a captain

in the 320th Glider Field
Artillery Battalion.

LUCE:
We had been in combat before

and we knew kind of what
we were getting into,

but, uh, we knew this
was the big bang

and it was... it was kind of...
worrisome, you might say.

NARRATOR:
Gliders were something new
in warfare:

silent, ideal for clandestine
landings behind enemy lines,

and capable of ferrying
equipment and vehicles

too heavy to be dropped
in any other way.

But they were also fragile,
covered with flammable fabric,

and hard to control.

And in some landing zones,

the Germans had placed forests
of sharpened poles

to tear them apart
and impale the men aboard.

More than half the gliders
missed their drop zones

and scores of pilots
and passengers were crushed

when vehicles and artillery
pieces slammed forward

during crash landings.

LUCE:
I remember, in my glider, I was
sitting up next to the pilot

and I leaned over his shoulder
to look at it

and we dove over those trees,
we were doing 110 miles an hour

and I thought,
this is no speed to land.

But it was too late to change.

I fortunately did not land
in front of any antitank guns,

which were vicious.

I had a friend that landed
in front, in front of one

and he was cut in half.

And, uh, those are things

you don't like to think about
or talk about.

NARRATOR:
Dwain Luce somehow
made it out of his glider

and quickly found himself
part of the continuing battle

to hold Sainte Mere-Eglise.

LUCE:
Oh, we had a fight,

and the Germans
moved people in in a hurry.

(machine gun fire)

You see, we didn't
have heavy weapons...

and we were fighting
heavy weapons.

NARRATOR:
The fighting was confused.

There were no established lines.

LUCE:
There was some guy up on a hill

above me trying
to disrupt my life.

He was, he was shooting at us
and trying to, trying to get us.

And it's kind of like cops and
robbers in a degree because,

I mean, you were in there
mixed up all with them.

I mean, they wasn't,

they wasn't on one side
and we were on the other;

we were all like scrambled eggs.

NARRATOR:
Surrounded, isolated, out of
communication with one another,

Dwain Luce and his unit
struggled to hold their ground

and block German tanks,

while they waited
for the landing force

to take Utah Beach
and come to their rescue.

LUCE:
Whenever we went in
behind the lines,

they always gave us,
uh, morphine.

The morphine was a little thing
like a toothpaste tube

except it had a sharp, uh, point
when you unscrewed it, you know,

and you could then stick
the needle and break it

and then you pop it in your arm.

We were back there where
if you really got hit bad,

nobody could take care of you.

Sainte Mere-Eqglise,
it was a mess.

Terrible.

AANENSON:
Early in the morning

we were awakened
from our bunks--

about 25 or 30 of us--

at the air base that was
just above London,

and we were told to
get in our flight gear

and meet in the briefing room.

And so we assembled in there,
just barely awake,

and we knew
it was something serious.

We could tell
by just the atmosphere.

There were two or three briefing
officers up at the front.

They had a large map
that was covered,

and as we took our seats and
they pulled the curtain back,

they said,
"Gentlemen, this is it.

The invasion of France
has begun."

NARRATOR:
At 4:30 a.m.,

Quentin Aanenson of Luverne
took off for France

as part of the flight
of 11,000 warplanes...

Lightnings and Lancasters
and Liberators;

Mosquitos and Marauders
and Mustangs;

Spitfires and Thunderbolts
and Flying Fortresses,

assigned to bomb and strafe
and batter German defenses

before the first troops
landed on the beaches.

It was Quentin Aanenson's
first combat mission.

As we came in over Normandy,
I looked off to the left,

and it was just a short look,

and I realized later
I was looking at Omaha Beach.

We had to be very careful
of our timing,

and we had to be very careful

that we didn't go inland
too far,

because the paratroopers
had been dropped in there.

And we didn't know exactly
where they were.

And as it turned out they didn't
know where they were either.

NARRATOR:
Aanenson dropped his bombs
and headed back to England.

AANENSON:
It was a mixture of some clouds,

but we could see down
into the Channel

and it was impossible
to understand

really what we were seeing.

There were ships everywhere.

ERNIE PYLE (dramatized):
"The best way I can describe
this vast armada

"and the frantic urgency
of the traffic

"is to suggest that you
visualize New York Harbor

"on its busiest day of the year

"and then just enlarge
that scene

"until it takes in

"all the ocean
the human eye can reach,

clear around the horizon."

"And over the horizon.

There are dozens of times
that many."

Ernie Pyle.

NARRATOR:
More than 5,300 ships,
carrying 176,000 men,

were streaming
across the Channel:

battleships and tugboats,
cruisers and barges

and rusty freighters;

gunboats and hospital ships

and converted ocean liners;
ships filled with ammunition

and ships equipped to lay down
screens of smoke

to mystify the enemy--

and a fleet of more
than 2,000 landing craft

to ferry men and supplies
to the beach.

Joseph Vaghi was assigned to be
a beachmaster that morning.

It would be his job to use
flags, blinkers, and a megaphone

to get men, vehicles,
and supplies

safely ashore on Omaha Beach.

It was his first combat, too.

VAGHI:
I had no fear.

We prayed as a platoon,
we prayed together.

And said, "Well,
it's God's will.

"They want us to go over there

"and get this devil
off the thing.

"We're gonna do it.

We know what to do,
and we're ready."

I wasn't scared only because I
had not experienced this before.

WALTER EHLERS:
The more you're in combat,

the more tension
you get as time goes on,

because the odds are

that you may not be
going to make it

because you've seen so many
other people die.

I'd get so sick when
I was going into combat,

I'd... until
that first shot was fired,

why I thought I was...

my stomach was going to turn
inside out or something,

but when the first shots went,
all that goes away.

NARRATOR:
Among the thousands of men
moving toward the beaches

were two veterans
of earlier invasions

in North Africa and Sicily.

They were from
Manhattan, Kansas--

Staff Sergeant Walter Ehlers
and his older brother, Roland.

EHLERS:
He was a little bit
shorter than I.

He had red hair, and he had blue
eyes and a beautiful smile.

And he was a perfect gentleman
all the time.

And he, uh, he was immaculate
in dress and everything.

And he tended to keep
me that way, too.

(chuckles)

NARRATOR:
At 6:30 a.m., the invasion force
began landing in Normandy.

Utah Beach came first.

Drifting smoke that
obscured the target

and strong currents that drove
their landing craft off course

brought the Americans into shore
more than 2,000 yards

from the spot chosen
by the planners.

But General
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr,

armed only with a cane,
rallied his men

and took the beachhead anyway
in less than an hour.

Of the 23,000 men who went
ashore at Utah Beach,

only 197 were lost.

By late morning, American tanks
were moving off the beach

to rendezvous with the embattled
82nd Airborne

at Sainte Mére-Eglise.

DWAIN LUCE:
We were back there
and we didn't know

what was going on
on the beach, for sure.

We knew that the beach
would hold

if we'd have got our job done.

We also knew that
if the beach didn't hold,

we would probably be left there,
we would be abandoned,

they couldn't get us out.

So naturally, it was
of great interest to us

to get our job done
and see the beach hold.

One of the things
I will always remember,

with a great deal of emotion,

is that first tank
that came through.

Because that first tank
came through,

I knew the beach had held

and I knew help was on the way.

NARRATOR:
British troops would take

the Gold and Sword beaches
almost as fast,

though German tanks
prevented them

from capturing their next
objective, the city of Caen.

Canadian troops took Juno, too,

although 90 of their 306
landing craft were destroyed

by German obstacles,
and one in every 18 men

in their invading force
was killed or wounded.

Still, they managed

to fight their way
seven miles inland

by nightfall.

But for the Americans in the
1st and 29th Infantry Divisions

approaching Omaha Beach,

the most difficult landing site,

almost everything
would go wrong.

Omaha was the broadest
of the five beaches,

and the deepest,
with 100 yards of pebbles,

then sand dunes, barbed wire
and thick undergrowth,

all of it heavily mined.

Behind all that loomed
formidable bluffs

fortified by
2,000 German troops,

many of them battle-seasoned
veterans.

Stitzpunkts, or strongholds,
overlooked the four gullies

that led inland-- each manned
by 70 Germans with machine guns,

mortars, and armor-piercing
howitzers,

all zeroed in on the men
about to try to come ashore.

During Phase Two,

American pilots had dropped most
of their bombs miles inland.

There were no bomb craters
in which to take shelter,

and the naval bombardment had
barely dented German defenses.

VAGHI:
As we are approaching it,
we see ships to the right of us,

ships to the left of us.

The skies are loaded
with these flying balloons.

The battleships are shooting and
you could see the projectiles,

the 14-inch projectiles
from the battle wagons,

going through the air.

The smell of powder.

We didn't know what
we were going to hit

when we got in there.

NARRATOR:
Men had been transferred
to their landing craft

12 miles from shore
and while it was still dark,

so that many boats lost
their proper positions going in.

The sea was rough.

The men, most of whom
had had no sleep,

were wet and cold and seasick.

The amphibious tanks that were
supposed to lead the way

and provide cover
for the infantry

were released
too far out at sea;

32 tanks rolled off the vessels
that carried them,

and all but five went
straight to the bottom.

Most of their crews
were trapped inside.

Landing craft were swamped;

scores of men,
burdened with equipment,

slowly drowned,
screaming for help

as other boats wallowed
past them.

Commanders were forbidden
to stop and pick them up.

Along the bluffs,
the Germans held their fire

until the first landing craft
shuddered to a stop

and the ramps went down.

Many men were ripped apart
by German machine guns

before they could step off.

Hundreds more were hit
in the water.

Some badly wounded men made it
to the waterline, collapsed,

then lay helpless
as the tide rose over them.

Those who managed
to push past

the dead and dying
in the shallows

found they had nowhere to go
once they reached the shore.

Some scrabbled at the sand and
shale, trying to dig foxholes.

Others huddled together
behind wrecked landing craft

or German obstacles--

only to find themselves
under concentrated fire.

EHLERS:
We were about a hundred yards
out and we hit a sandbar.

We asked the pilot of the boat,
"Is this as far as it's going?"

And he says,
"As far as it can go."

So he lets the ramp down
and so we rush out the front,

and we go in the water and it's
clear up to my neck like this.

(continuous gunfire)

But we got all the guys
up onto the beach.

And we saw bodies on the beach,
and bodies in the water,

and there's bodies
laying up on the beach.

Most of them
that we saw were dead.

They've wiped out
a whole company.

They've wiped out
whole platoons.

They wiped out whole
squads, and so forth.

NARRATOR:
A second wave
of frightened men came ashore

and stalled behind
the remnants of the first.

"Except for one tank that was
blasting away on the beach,"

one of the newcomers remembered,

"the crusade in Europe was,
for all practical purposes,

"disarmed and naked
before its enemies.

A single company of riflemen
could have descended,"

he said, "and swept us up."

(explosion, rapid gunfire)

Joe Vaghi's platoon
came ashore at 7:35.

VAGHI:
Things happened so fast

that you saw men
who were being shot,

you saw them fall.

These things you saw.

The fact that, uh,
this is for real.

NARRATOR:
Somehow, everyone
in Vaghi's platoon

managed to make it
onto the beach,

but it remained
a killing zone,

choked with shattered
and burning equipment

and desperate men
unable to move inland

or retreat from enemy fire.

Joe Vaghi did what he could
to bring order out of the chaos,

directing his men, struggling
to clear a path off the beach,

helping the wounded
and the dying.

VAGHI:
I was bending down.

There was a corpse
on the stretcher,

and as I bent down,
this shell hit.

Well, when I came to,
my clothes were on fire.

NARRATOR:
Vaghi was hit
in the right knee.

He kept at it,

struggling to remove cans
of gasoline from a burning jeep

before they could explode

and kill the wounded men
lying all around him.

Far off-shore, General Bradley
considered abandoning Omaha

rather than sending in
more men to die.

Then, the Americans
began to improvise.

Commanders defied orders
and risked

tearing the bottoms
from their ships,

to bring them within
a thousand yards of the beach

and use their guns
to finally knock out

the German pillboxes
and gun emplacements.

And on the beach itself,
officers and enlisted men alike

began taking their survival
into their own hands.

"They're murdering us here!"

one wounded officer
shouted to his men.

"Let's move inland and get
murdered there instead!"

Here and there,

individuals got to their feet
and started forward.

Then small groups
began to follow.

VAGHI:
This officer came up to me

and saw that I was
a beachmaster

and I had the power megaphones

and he said, "Tell these guys
to get the hell off the beach."

So I said, "Got orders here

that you're to get the hell
off the beach now."

The beachmaster said, "Well,
you follow that path there,

"because if you go
to the right or left of it,

you'll be stepping on mines."

VAGHI:
This one soldier, he got up,
and he put a bangalore torpedo

under the barbed wire,
blew a gap in it.

He said, "Come on, follow me,"
and he led the way.

EHLERS:
I rushed my squad through it.

We got off of the beach,

and it was probably
the biggest thing

I ever did in my life was get
those 12 men off of the beach.

NARRATOR:
When the Germans continued
to block the gullies

that led inland,

the Americans hurled themselves
right at the bluffs,

clambering to the top

and attacking enemy positions
from the side and rear.

EHLERS:
We went up, right up the hill
into the trenches,

and we were chasing
the Germans then.

We captured four of them
and sent them back down,

and then we got
behind the pillbox

and what we didn't Kill--

some escaped because they
were running from us--

but we got that particular
pillbox that day.

NARRATOR:
By 1:00, after more than six
hours of desperate fighting,

German resistance
had begun to weaken.

(explosion)

And as the afternoon went on,

combat engineers managed
to clear a safe boat path

through the shallows,

bulldozed five new exits
from the beach...

and built a road that men and
vehicles could follow inland.

35 engineers died doing it.

It had been the bloodiest day
in American history

since the Battle of Antietam
in the Civil War.

Many of the survivors
were in shock,

unable to comprehend what
they'd just been through...

unsure of what
they'd accomplished.

Some 2,500 American soldiers
lay dead on French soil.

Walter Ehlers' brother, Roland,
was among the missing.

EHLERS:
I thought about looking
for my brother, but then,

when we looked at that beach,

there were so many things
down on the beach,

it would be like trying
to find a needle in a haystack.

I figured he was either
wounded or in a hospital

and they just didn't
have a record of it.

NARRATOR:
It would be five weeks
before Walter Ehlers found out

what had happened
to his brother.

EHLERS:
I never saw him die.

He got killed as he was
coming down the ramp on his LCI.

His whole squad got, uh,
wounded... or killed.

I would have rather come back
without my arms and legs

than to come back
without my brother.

That's, uh... that's
what it meant to me.

Well, that stayed with me
for over 50 years.

I had nightmares about that.

He'd come back every night,

and, uh, we'd...
he'd be all neatly dressed

and smiling
like he usually does,

and we'd have a conversation,
and first thing, he'd disappear.

Or I'd go to do something
and he'd disappear.

NARRATOR:
In less than 24 hours,

the Allies had torn a 45-mile
gap in Hitler's Atlantic Wall.

They had lost far fewer men than
their commanders had expected.

More than 150,000 men
were now ashore in France,

and more men and more
equipment and supplies

were coming ashore every hour.

(phone ringing)

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
This is Robert St. John

in the NBC newsroom in New York.

Ladies and gentlemen,
all night long

bulletins have been
pouring in from Berlin

claiming that D-Day is here,

claiming that the invasion
of Western Europe has begun.

MCINTOSH (dramatized):
"When we stumbled
sleepily down the hall

"to answer the ringing
telephone,

we made a mental note that it
was shortly before 3:00 a.m."

ST. JOHN:
...heavy fighting is taking
place between the Germans and...

MCINTOSH (dramatized):
"We picked up the receiver

"thinking it was
Sheriff Roberts calling

"to say there
had been an accident.

"Instead,
it was Mrs. Lloyd Long,

"playing the feminine
counterpart

"of Paul Revere, saying,

"Get up, Al,
and listen to the radio.

The invasion has started."

ST. JOHN:
...says the British-American
landing operations

from the sea and from the air
are stretching over...

MCINTOSH (dramatized):
"We sat by the radio
for over an hour,

listening to
the breathtaking announcements."

ST. JOHN:
Casualties may reach
a dreadful toll.

MCINTOSH (dramatized):
"And then we went to bed,

"to lie there for a long time,

"wide-eyed in the darkness,

"thinking,
'What Rock County boys

are landing
on French soil tonight?"

Al Mcintosh,
Rock County Star-Herald.

NARRATOR:
Americans woke up
on June 6, 1944,

to newspaper headlines
and radio bulletins.

It was the news
they'd been waiting for.

But there were
no further details,

no live radio reports
from the beaches.

No one knew where
their sons and brothers

and fathers had landed...

or how those
landings were going.

In Philadelphia, the mayor
gently tapped the Liberty Bell

for the first time
in more than a century.

In New York, traders
on the stock exchange

observed two minutes
of silence

and then went back to work,

sending the Dow Jones average
soaring 142 points

to a new high for the year.

Major League baseball
canceled all games.

Everywhere, church bells rang,
calling people to prayer.

They knelt or bowed their heads

in factories and schoolrooms
and public parks.

In Waterbury,
special masses were said

at the Church
of the Immaculate Conception.

There were prayer services
at Temple Israel

and Beth El Synagogue,
and on the town green, as well.

In Sacramento, workers at the
Pacific Fruit Express Cannery

prayed for the safety
of 100 former employees

now in the service.

In Mobile that day,
no liquor was sold,

and at the railroad station

girls walked up and down
the platforms

holding up
the morning newspapers

so that traveling soldiers
could read the headlines.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
First of all, here's another
quick news summary

in the eighth hour
of invasion news coverage.

Prime Minister...

MCINTOSH (dramatized):
"And so the invasion news
came to Luverne, quietly.

"There were no whistles,
no sirens...

"no demonstrations.

"Not much was said.

"The coffee shops were filled
almost to standing room

"as the 10:00 morning news
approached.

"There were sober faces
on the men

"as they listened to the news,

"but there was
a smile of exultation

"when they heard
that the Allied forces

had penetrated
ten miles inland."

"One mother dropped
in the coffee shop.

"She shook her head and pushed
the cup of coffee

"placed in front of her aside.

"l just want to listen
to the radio,' she said.

"Her boy, by all the odds,
was there.

"One didn't have
to be psychic to know

"what was in her mind--
or her heart.

"The prayer that she was
uttering right then,

"as she listened
to the announcer,

"was multiplied a thousand times
and more in Rock County

countless times during the day."

NARRATOR:
That evening, President
Roosevelt spoke to the country.

ROOSEVELT:
Almighty God, our sons,
pride of our nation,

this day have set upon
a mighty endeavor,

a struggle to preserve
our republic, our religion

and our civilization, and to set
free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true;

give strength to their arms,

stoutness to their hearts,
steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings.

Their road
will be long and hard...

for the enemy is strong.

He may hurl back our forces.

Success may not come
with rushing speed,

but we shall return
again and again;

and we know that by Thy grace,

and by the righteousness of our
cause, our sons will triumph.

(Benny Goodman Orchestra
playing "The Wang Wang Blues")

JAMES A. FAHEY (dramatized):
"June 6, 1944,
the Philippine Sea.

"At 6:30 p.m. this evening,

"the announcement came
over the loudspeaker,

"that the Allies
landed in France.

"Everyone gave a big cheer
when they heard this.

"I won 40 bucks from the boys
because some time ago,

I bet the invasion would come
off about the middle of June."

James A. Fahey.

NARRATOR:
Seaman First Class
James A. Fahey

of Waltham, Massachusetts,

was the youngest
of four orphaned children.

His brothers, John and Joe, had
been in the Navy at Pearl Harbor

when the Japanese attacked,
and had been spared.

James had signed on
the following year,

assigned to the light
cruiser Montpelier.

Against Navy regulations,
he would record what happened

every day he spent aboard
in a little diary.

FAHEY (dramatized):
"It was a great feeling
as I staggered up the gangway

"to the ship with my sea bag
in one hand

"and the mattress cover loaded
with blankets, mattresses, etc.,

"over my shoulder.

"At last I have a home,

and a warship at that."

NARRATOR:
Fahey went to sea in hopes
of seeing action,

and he saw plenty of it
as a member of a gun crew.

The Montpelier shot down
Japanese planes

and sank Japanese ships
off Guadalcanal,

bombarded Japanese defenses
at Munda,

and survived an enemy bomb
and two torpedo hits

off Bougainville.

A week or so after hearing
the news of D-Day,

Fahey and the men
of the Montpelier

prepared again for battle.

She was now a part
of an 800-ship fleet,

steaming toward the next
American objective

in the Pacific-- the Marianas,

a chain of volcanic islands

from which the U.S.
B-29 Superfortress bombers

could begin to attack
the Japanese homeland.

The fleet's three most important
targets in the Marianas

were Guam, Tinian, and Saipan,

where the Marines
would land first.

FAHEY (dramatized):
"June 13.

"In about 14 hours now, we will
start bombarding Saipan.

"We are only about
1,200 miles from Tokyo.

"I guess I will go down
and buy some candy.

"The candy has been
our old standby

"when we have nothing to eat

at battle stations
for long hours."

NARRATOR:
Saipan was unlike many
of the tiny, flat coral atolls

the Marines had
taken previously.

It was 14 miles long,
featured all kinds of terrain

and was defended by more
than 30,000 Japanese troops.

It was also home

to somewhere between 16,000
and 20,000 Japanese civilians.

(alarm blaring)

(bosun's whistle blaring)

The shelling of Saipan
went on for two days.

Among the Marines
of the Fourth Division

waiting to go ashore

was Corporal Alvy Ray Pittman
of Mobile, Alabama.

He'd been working as a carpenter
alongside his father

when he decided to join
the Marines.

RAY PITTMAN:
I'd made up my mind

I want to get in
the toughest outfit they had.

And I was afraid the war
was going to get over

before I got over there.

So I joined the Marine Corps.

'Course, they sent me
to Parris Island for boot camp.

And I remember going in,

all these guys
standing out on the grass.

They said, "You'll be sorry.
You'll be sorry."

NARRATOR:
Ray Pittman
was in the first wave,

part of a 16-man demolition team
assigned to destroy

enemy strongpoints
wherever they were found,

using explosives, grenades,

and flamethrowers.

PITTMAN:
You never think about
getting hurt yourself.

You think about maybe
some of your buddies

are going to get hurt.

And you wonder
who it's going to be.

I mean, I really didn't ever
think about getting hurt myself.

Of course, when you, when you...

slugs start bouncing off
your amtrack going in,

you know it could happen.

NARRATOR:
The naval bombardment
had failed.

Concentrated Japanese mortar
and artillery fire

rained down among the amtracks

and on the men fighting
for a toehold on the beach.

All four commanders
of the assault battalions

were hit within minutes.

By evening, 20,000 Marines
had made it ashore,

but they could go no further.

The Japanese planned to keep
the Americans pinned down

until their own fleet could
steam in from the Philippines

and destroy them.

Despite the rain of shells,

the Marines began slowly to
fight their way off the beach.

PITTMAN:
I know I was scared a lot...

and losing a lot of friends
really hurts you.

It's really hard
for me to describe,

really, just how
I felt the whole time

‘cause there's something
happening every day

and you're so tired and you
can't lift your eyelids hardly.

And something happens,

you get a call to blow
a pillbox here,

to blow a pillbox there.

I mean, you wake up
and go and do your job.

But it's hard for me to tell
just how bad it was--

how I felt.

NARRATOR:
The battle for Saipan
had just begun.

SASCHA WEINZHEIMER (dramatized):
Santo Tomas, Manila.

"The rumor about
the Japanese army

taking over the camp was true."

"If we thought
we had reason to complain

"about how awful our life
was in a concentration camp,

"we soon changed our minds

"and knew we had been
on a picnic till then.

"From now on, we would be the
same as military war prisoners

and not civilian prisoners."

Sascha Weinzheimer.

NARRATOR:
After the Japanese army
assumed control

of Santo Tomas camp in Manila
in the Philippines,

they had taken propaganda
photographs

of some of the prisoners

to show how well they were
being treated.

Sascha Weinzheimer
and her younger brother

were forced to pose
for the photographer.

Things were not
as they appeared.

For 11-year-old Sascha,
her family

and 4,000
other civilian prisoners,

life had gone from bad to worse.

Prisoners-- including children--
were made to bow to the officers

and were beaten if they failed
to go low enough.

Food and supplies from friends
outside the camp were cut off.

There was no more meat,
just rice and dried fish.

WEINZHEIMER (dramatized):
"So almost everything was taken
away from us at once.

We began to know
how bad things could be."

"Even though Mummy and Daddy
kept telling us kids

"to eat everything on our plates
because the day would come

"when we might
have very little to eat,

we didn't really believe them."

Being without food,
I think, is, it...

is one of the worst things ever,

because without that,
nothing is functionable.

We'd lie down in bed, in the
shanty-- we lived in a shanty--

and I had a mattress
on the floor,

my mother and my father
and my sister had one mattress,

and my brother
had a small mattress.

And we'd lie there;
we'd have to go to bed early

because of blackout.

We used to lie down on the floor
and you'd stick your finger

in your stomach
and feel your backbone.

And we'd say,

(in singsong):
"Yeah, I feel my backbone."

And we'd, you know,
this would be a game.

These are the games
that we played all the time.

And ironically enough,
it helped.

NARRATOR:
In the late spring of 1944,

John and Glennie Frazier
of Fort Deposit, Alabama,

received a telegram
from the War Department.

Their son Glenn had been missing
in action in the Philippines

for two agonizing years,

and since nothing had been heard
from him since May of 1942,

he was now
officially presumed dead.

Frazier had joined
the army in 1941

in part because he believed
that the young woman he loved

loved someone else.

He was wrong; she had remained
loyal to him all that time.

Now with the latest news,

she began to give up hope
of ever seeing him again.

But Glenn Frazier
was still alive,

a prisoner of the Japanese.

FRAZIER:
When I'd think about home,

I would think about the things
that I missed most

like ice cream and potato salad
and some ambrosia

that my mother used to make
for Christmas and so forth.

And of course
it was always a thought

of if we would get back home.

But it got a time
that we were so weak at...

I had got a time with me
that I was so weak

until I couldn't even remember

whether I had sisters
or brothers.

I couldn't even remember
their names.

And it comes to a time
when you think,

"Did I have a home back...

Did I have a home,
did I have a family?"

NARRATOR:
Frazier had come close
to death several times.

He had endured the Bataan Death
March and nightmarish conditions

at Camp O'Donnell and Bilibid
Prison in the Philippines,

and he had been forced
to perform slave labor

in prison camps in Japan itself,

where he had survived
double pneumonia, torture,

a week of isolation
in a covered pit

and beatings so frequent
they became routine.

Once, when he failed
to lift his feet high enough

while marching, a guard drove
a bayonet into his knee.

FRAZIER:
It started getting infected
and it finally got gangrene,

and Dr. Campbell, which was
our American doctor in there,

had nothing to treat me with
except iodine.

I would hold a cup

to catch all the... the blood,
and he cut it open

with a pocket knife
and would get to the point

to where he would pour
pure iodine in there

to kill the gangrene.

They were thinking
about taking my leg off.

So I told Dr. Campbell
I'd just rather die

than have my leg taken off.

So he fought it and we won.

At one point, there was only
a space in the back of my leg

about a inch-and-a-half across

that the flesh was just
like regular, normal flesh.

The rest of it was decayed.

I could open that wound up
and see my bone.

NARRATOR:
Frazier's leg eventually healed
and he went back to work

on the waterfront at Tanagura,
where he and his friends did

all they could to sabotage
the Japanese war effort.

They risked their lives

to drill holes in the bottoms
of oil barrels,

poured sand into gas tanks,
wrecked machinery,

destroyed a dock
and loosened blocks

so that
a submarine under repairs

slid into the bay upside down.

And through it all,
Frazier thought of home

and of the girl he still hoped
somehow to see again.

FRAZIER:
But the thing
that really kept me going

is seeing if that girl
was still there

and see if, you know, if I still
in my heart was crazy about her

and the fact
that I wanted to live.

I did not want my body
pushing up Japanese daisies.

And I, I just felt that way,
and I thought,

"They gonna have a heck of
a time getting me in a casket."

NARRATOR:
Ten days after D-Day,

bodies were still washing up
onto Omaha Beach,

and because the graves
registration crews

had moved inland
with the advancing troops,

no one was gathering them
for burial.

Finally, men from Quentin
Aanenson's fighter squadron

did the job themselves.

They retrieved the corpses
with long poles,

heaped them with driftwood
soaked with gasoline

and set them ablaze.

A few days later, Aanenson
looked down from the bluff

and saw that the problem
had not been solved.

"More bodies were rolling
in the surf," he remembered,

"as the English Channel
continued to give up its dead."

(vehicles rumbling)

Aanenson's outfit had
recently moved to new quarters,

Advanced Landing Strip A-1,

a freshly built airfield
near Omaha Beach.

Their mission was to provide
close air support

for American infantry

and armor struggling
to fight their way inland.

By June of 1944,

the Allies dominated the air.

(gunfire)

Whenever the Germans
on the ground

broke into the open,

they were subject
to strafing and bombing

from American P-47 Thunderbolts,

the kind of aircraft
Aanenson flew.

(gunfire)

Attacks so relentless,
the Germans came to call them

"steel weather."

(rapid gunfire)

AANENSON:
It was on one
of my very early missions

that I first knew I had...
I had killed men.

We caught a group of Germans
that were on a road

in an area where
there were no trees,

and so there was no place
for them

to... to run and hide.

And we caught them before they
could really get off the roads

and run toward the ditches.

(gunfire)

And I remember
the impact it had on me

when I could see my bullets
just tearing into them,

and... and, uh,
we had so much firepower

that the...
the bodies would fly,

uh, some yards,

and as I... as I was doing this,

I was doing it knowing
I had to do it,

that it was my job.

This is what
I had been trained to do,

and I dealt with it fine.

But when I got back home
to the base in Normandy

and landed...

I got sick.

I had to think
about what I had done.

Now, that didn't change
my resolve for the next day.

I went out and did it again.

(gunfire)

And again and again and again.

(piano playing
"It's Been a Long, Long Time")

ERNIE PYLE (dramatized):
"June 23, 1944.

"This Norman countryside

"looks exactly like
the rich, gentle land

of eastern Pennsylvania."

"It is too wonderfully beautiful
to be the scene of war."

(birds chirping)

"Someday, I would like
to cover a war in a country

that is as ugly as war itself."

Ernie Pyle.

(song ends)

NARRATOR:
Normandy's beauty was deceptive.

Allied planners had failed
to understand the landscape

through which their men
would have to fight

before they could begin to drive
the enemy out of France.

(gunfire, artillery fire,
indistinct shouts)

Normandy was quilted with small,
irregularly shaped fields,

walled from one another
by hedgerows,

earthen ramparts four feet high,
topped with dense hedges

whose tangled roots turned them
into natural fortifications

and made it impossible
to see into

from one field to the next.

(explosion)

In one area that measured
just two miles by four,

there were 4,000 such fields.

Here and there,
ancient sunken wagon tracks

twisted between the hedgerows,

ideal for ambushes
and often concealed

from air attack
by overarching trees.

The Germans took
full advantage of all of it.

American Sherman tanks could not
break through the hedgerows,

and when they tried
to roll over them,

exposed their unprotected
underbellies to deadly fire.

(gunfire)

Each field became what the
newspaperman Ernie Pyle called

"a separate little war,"
fought mostly

by companies of riflemen.

(bullets whizzing by)

LUCE:
The Germans were good troops.

They did not
give up ground easily

there or any other place
I saw them.

You had to respect them
for the fact

they were excellent troops.

(chuckles):
They were too damn good, and...

or they wouldn't have caused us
so much trouble.

(explosion)

NARRATOR:
Progress was measured in yards.

Now the pace was far slower

than the Allied commanders
had anticipated,

and the cost in dead and wounded
was far higher.

Unarmed C-47s,
cargo planes stripped down

so that as many litters as
possible could be lifted aboard,

carried the worst hit
to hospitals in England,

just 20 minutes away,

then turned around
and came back for more.

Emily Lewis was
one of hundreds of nurses

who did all they could
for the wounded.

LEWIS:
All those wounded soldiers,
they were scared to death.

Really frightened
half out of their minds.

I hugged 'em, I was teary-eyed.

It makes me cry to think of it.

(sighs)

Got 'em on my plane,
talked to them.

Some of them were...

SO unnerved...

that I-I just had to put my arms
around 'em and hold 'em.

I was 23,

and they were 22, 21,

24, 18, you know.

It was...

it was just... terrible.

But it had to be done, you know?

NARRATOR:
By July 1,

hundreds of thousands of troops
were onshore.

The Cotentin Peninsula

and the port of Cherbourg
had been taken,

and the beachhead stretched
for some 70 miles.

(explosions, artillery fire)

But after three weeks of combat,

it remained, at most,
20 miles deep.

The plan to liberate France
was stalled.

General Bradley feared

that unless something drastic
were done,

the Allies would face the same
sort of ghastly stalemate

they had endured
during the First World War.

To avoid disaster, his men had
to get out of the hedgerows

and find the kind
of wide-open countryside

American armor needed
to make real progress.

The region just beyond
the town of Saint-L6

was what Bradley had in mind.

It was just 15 miles away...

but to his exhausted men,

it seemed as distant
as their ultimate target--

Germany.

Germany.

§§ If I could be with you
one hour tonight §§

§§ If I were free
to do the things I might §§

§§ I want you to know
that I wouldn't go §§

§§ Till I told you, honey,
that I love you so §§

§§ If I could be with you,
I'd love you long §§

§§ If I could be with you,
I'd love you strong §§

§§ I'm telling you, too,
I'd be anything but blue §§

§§ If I could be with you
for an hour §§

§§ If I could be with you... §

KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
During the war,
you just kept thinking

that life cannot begin
until this is over.

You just had to see again
all the boys

that you had known
and been fond of,

and know they were home safely.

Especially for me.

I was not married,

so I was still anticipating
my life ahead of me,

but I didn't know who
it would be spent with.

But I felt, if I could just

get my brother Sidney
back home again...

In fact, I talked to one

of my old boyfriends
two years ago,

and I said,
"Why didn't you propose to me?"

He said, "You wouldn't
have listened to me.

"Till you got Sidney home,

you wouldn't have
listened to anybody."

And he said,
"By the time that occurred,

I had lost all my nerve."

§§ I'd be anything but blue §§

§§ If I could be with you
for one hour §§

§§ If I could be with you. §§

(alarm blaring)

JAMES A. FAHEY (dramatized):
"Sunday, June 18, off Saipan.

"All hands got up at 4:45 a.m.

"lI had a swell sleep last night,

"even if it was only
for about six hours.

"We had church services
topside this morning,

"even though we are so close
to Japan,

and the Jap fleet
might be close by."

James A. Fahey.

NARRATOR:
The Japanese fleet was close by.

Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa
had formulated a new plan--

to destroy both
the American land forces,

still struggling their way
inland on Saipan,

and the American fleet offshore.

He would send waves
of carrier-based warplanes

against the fleet,

then reinforce the Japanese
garrison on the island.

"The fate of our Empire rests
on this one battle," he said.

"Everyone must give all he has."

(alarm blaring)

But the Americans
had intercepted coded messages

and knew they were coming.

Hundreds of planes took off
to engage the Japanese.

The Battle
of the Philippine Sea

would be the greatest carrier
battle of the Pacific war,

nearly four times
as big as Midway.

It was clear the Americans
now had an edge.

Their pilots were better
trained than the enemy's.

Their planes were better, too.

And they had twice
as many of them.

Maurice Bell,
who had been working

in a Mobile shipyard
when he was drafted,

and joined the Navy
rather than the Army

because, he said,
he didn't want to sleep

in a hole in the ground,
was serving as a gunner

aboard the heavy cruiser
USS Indianapolis,

now the flagship
of the 5th Fleet.

MAURICE BELL:
I was sitting up there
with the binoculars

and, all of a sudden,
I saw a torpedo plane

diving in on that ship
right behind us.

And, just as he launched
his torpedoes,

or was ready to launch them,
they hit him with fire.

They was firing at him.

And the plane tumbled over
and crashed.

Five seconds behind him
was another one.

They hit him and he crashed.

About five more seconds,
there's a third one come in,

and they hit him,

and it throwed that plane

in a twist, and the torpedoes
fell end over end

and hit the water,
and the plane crashed.

I was watching all that
with my binoculars.

NARRATOR:
The Americans lost
29 planes that day,

but they shot down
at least 273.

American submarines sank
two Japanese carriers, as well.

Those who took part
in the one-sided contest

remembered it as the
"Great Marianas Turkey Shoot."

FAHEY (dramatized):
"Tuesday, June 20.

"At 4:00 p.m. this afternoon,

"we got the good news
we have been waiting for.

"The Jap fleet
is running away from us

"and heading
for the Philippines.

We picked up speed
and are after them."

NARRATOR:
Late the following day,
American spotter planes

located the retreating
enemy fleet.

Within ten minutes,
216 U.S. warplanes

swarmed off the carrier
decks to attack it,

even though darkness
was falling

and fuel was likely to run out
before they could return.

(rapid gunfire)

(explosion)

The Americans sank
one carrier...

...and badly damaged
three others,

destroyed 65 more
Japanese planes

and then started for home.

(Duke Ellington's
"Echoes of Harlem" plays)

FAHEY (dramatized):
"The time dragged as we waited
to hear from our pilots."

"Everyone kept his fingers
crossed, hoping for the best.

It was like waiting in the death
house for a pardon."

"Then something never before
done in wartime happened.

"All the ships in this huge
fleet put their lights on,

and flares were dropped
into the water."

"This would make it easier
for our pilots to land

"and if they did hit the water,

they could be saved."

NARRATOR:
Only 20 American planes
failed to return,

but 80 were lost
within sight of the carriers,

sputtering into the sea

or crashing on the decks.

All but 49 pilots
and crewmen were recovered.

FAHEY (dramatized):
"A great job was done
by everyone

to save our pilots' lives."

"The Japs would never
do anything like this."

("Concerto for Clarinet,
Strings, Harp and Piano"
by Aaron Copland playing)

AL McINTOSH (dramatized):
"Luverne, Minnesota.

"We've had a couple of letters

"from boys out
in the South Pacific

"asking for more of those
columns describing

"how life 'goes on'
back in Rock County.

"Well, this is being written

"the evening
of the Fourth of July,

"the quietest Fourth
that Rock County has spent

"in many a decade.

"First, people hung out
their flags

"either at their home
or their place of business.

You never saw so many flags
being displayed in Luverne."

"Then about noon
they headed for the park

down by the river,
under the big trees."

"Some of the others,
with their elders,

"were busy in a softball game.

"The old-timers drifted over

"to the horseshoe pitching
headquarters.

"As far away as the highway,
you could hear

"the familiar ‘clink'
of the shoes

hitting the steel peg."

NARRATOR:
By the Fourth of July, 1944,

more than a million men
had landed in Normandy

and were struggling to make
progress among the hedgerows.

That week, British planes

would drop 2,500 tons
of bombs on Caen,

beginning a third attempt to
take the city from the Germans.

When it was over,
2,000 French civilians

had been crushed or blown apart

and the Germans had withdrawn
to new defensive positions

just south of what was
left of the city.

Meanwhile, on the Eastern front,

the Red Army
had 28 German divisions

encircled in Belorussia

and killed 40,000 men when they
tried to fight their way out.

The Soviets then took Minsk,
the capital of Belorussia,

and with it more than 2,000
tanks and 150,000 prisoners.

Winston Churchill wrote
to Josef Stalin,

whose country
had suffered the most

at the hands of the Germans,

"The enemy is burning
and bleeding

"on every front at once...

and I agree with you that
this must go on to the end."

MCINTOSH (dramatized):
"We said the Fourth
was a quiet day.

"There wasn't excitement--

"no speeches, no parades,
no band music.

"Everybody spent the day
quietly,

but they were all thinking
of you boys"...

"and hoping and praying
that this would be

the last Fourth of July
you'd spend away from home."

"Well, that's about the story

as to how things are
going back home."

Al Mcintosh, Rock County
Star-Herald.

(gunfire)

JAMES A. FAHEY (dramatized):
"Today is the Fourth of July,

and a good way to celebrate it
is by killing Japs."

"We fired star shells
all last night and all morning

"until daylight today.

It rained for a while
this morning."

"Yesterday and today
our artillery on the beach

"gave the Japs
an awful pounding.

"The Press News said that
in the first couple of weeks

"of fighting on Saipan
over 6,500 Japs were killed.

"There is a very strong odor
from the beach.

It smells like burnt flesh."

RAY PITTMAN:
Well, your Japanese soldier is
probably the toughest soldier

that fought in World War li
other than the Marines.

And I mean, they were tough.

And you surround one,
he's going to keep fighting.

In Germany, you surround 50,000
Germans and they'd surrender.

Or Italians, they'd surrender.

But you surround one Japanese,

he's going to keep fighting
right on.

He's going to keep firing
till you kill him,

And they had one thing
in mind-- it's killing you.

NARRATOR:
The Japanese troops on Saipan,
now without hope

of rescue or reinforcement
from their shattered fleet,

were resolved to die
rather than surrender.

American forces had cleared
the airfield

and begun a slow, agonizing
march toward the north,

trying to keep from killing
Japanese civilians

while flushing Japanese troops
from their hiding places.

Again and again, Japanese
soldiers threw themselves

at the American guns,
shouting "Banzai!"--

apparently willing, even eager,
to die for the Emperor.

PITTMAN:
We'd hear the Japanese talking
and drinking

and clanking bottles
and everything.

And we knew there
was one coming.

But they'd come at us
and, and, uh...

we had machine guns set up
doing crossfires every way.

They'd have to get through
the crossfire

before we started shooting,

but then some
of them would get through.

I had one that came at me
with a bayonet

and I shot him in the face

and he fell
in the foxhole with me,

and bled all over my pants

and the bayonet went down
between my arm and my chest.

Nearly got me and him dead.

NARRATOR:
Before dawn on July 7,

the Japanese launched
a final banzai charge.

3,000 men, some forced
from their hospital beds

and barely able to walk,

many armed only with clubs
and rocks and shovels,

charged into the American lines.

Bulldozers buried all
but a handful of them

the next morning.

It was the largest banzai
charge of the Pacific war.

SAM HYNES:
We thought of the Japanese

as... mysteriously unlike us.

We knew that they would
fight to the death

where, probably, we would
have surrendered.

We began to learn,
though I don't think we...

gathered a lot of information
about the prison camps,

but we had some and we knew
that they were capable of...

of a cruelty and sadism

in a way that we hoped
our people weren't,

though I've never been quite
sure what Americans would do

in the...
exactly the same situation.

NARRATOR:
On July 10, Saipan was
officially declared "secured."

In almost four weeks
of fighting,

16,525 Americans had been
killed, wounded

or reported missing,

the costliest battle
in the Pacific to date.

Among them
were several black Marines

who had finally
been permitted to fight.

"The Negro Marines are
no longer on trial,"

the Marine commandant said.

"They are Marines, period."

Almost 30,000 Japanese soldiers
were dead, as well.

In the final days of the battle,

some 4,000 terrified
Japanese civilians,

mostly women and children,
had fled

to the island's northern tip, a
high plateau called Marpi Point.

Their government had
convinced many of them

that it was their duty
to kill themselves

rather than fall into the hands
of the cruel Americans,

and the handful of Japanese
soldiers who had survived

were prepared to shoot them
if they hesitated.

Some Marines risked their lives
to halt the madness;

Japanese-American interpreters
with bullhorns

pleaded with civilians
to give up.

But more than a thousand were
either killed by Japanese troops

or chose suicide.

PITTMAN:
When we got down
to the end of the island,

they were jumping off the cliff
at Marpi Point.

They thought we'd eat them.

They thought we'd kill them
and eat them.

Stuff like that.

It's just the Japanese
mentality--

they don't want to get captured.

I never did go down to look
at the bottom of the cliff,

but it must have been
a mess down there.

NARRATOR:
A few Japanese soldiers
decided to swim out to sea,

rather than surrender.

PITTMAN:
So we decided, well,
they're going to die anyway,

we might as well shoot them.

So we set up there
shooting at them.

We'd hear the slugs
hitting around them

and sometimes somebody
would hit one.

But it was a long shot,
trying to hit their head.

FAHEY (dramatized):
"Sunday, July 16:

"It was a warm, sunny day,

"although it rained
during church services.

"It was the first time
I ever went to church

"and saw dead bodies
floating by.

"It is nothing to see men,
women and children floating.

"There must be thousands of Japs
in the waters near Saipan.

The ships just run over them."

NARRATOR:
The Americans went on to take
Tinian and then Guam,

the first U.S. possession
to be recaptured.

The fall of the Marianas

and the damage done
to the Japanese fleet

in the Philippine Sea

forced Hideki Tojo to resign
as the Japanese premier.

His successors--
first a general,

then an admiral,
vowed to fight on.

The Japanese had succeeded
at one thing:

The willingness of their
soldiers and civilians

to die rather than surrender
had made Allied planners

painfully conscious
of the bloodshed

that would surely accompany

the invasion
of the Japanese homeland.

DANIEL INOUYE:
The first man I killed.

I was then a sergeant.

I was leading a little patrol,

and I happened to glance up
at the next hill,

and I saw this German.

And so I signaled the men,

and they all quieted down
and I said, "That's mine."

I very deliberately got my rifle
and set the sights,

got the wind,

and just squeezed the trigger,
and bang.

You would think
that at that moment,

after killing a human being,

you would feel
a little remorseful.

I felt... pleasure.

And the men applauded.

"You were terrific, Dan,"
you know?

That was the early times
in the war,

and, uh, we were taught
to kill the enemy.

He was not a good person;
he was an evil person.

So you felt
you had accomplished something.

Before I became a soldier,

I sang in a choir.

I was a Sunday school teacher.

"Thou shalt not kill"
was real to me.

And here I was,

killing someone
and not feeling remorseful.

NARRATOR:
The fall of Rome,
just before D-Day,

had boosted morale,

but it had not ended
the fighting in Italy.

The Allies had failed
to destroy the German army,

and as it fell back,
Hitler sent in reinforcements,

resolved to make the Allies pay

for every inch of territory
they gained.

Among the Americans
in closest pursuit

were the Japanese-American men

of the 442nd Regimental
Combat Team,

fresh from training and eager
to demonstrate their loyalty

to the government that
had forced so many of them

and their families
into internment camps.

It had not been easy
to persuade the military

to give them that chance.

Eisenhower's staff
had initially rejected the idea

of Japanese-American troops,

but General Mark Clark,

commander of the Fifth Army
in Italy,

had said that he would
"take anybody that will fight."

The 442nd would find themselves
fighting alongside

the battle-tested
100th Infantry Battalion,

made up mostly of
Japanese-Americans from Hawaii,

who had been in Italy
for months.

(distant explosion)

They had fought so bravely
and lost so many men,

that they came to be called
the "Purple Heart Battalion."

Together,
the newcomers of the 442nd

and the combat-wise survivors
of the 100th

would be asked to spearhead

the Fifth Army's
drive northward from Rome.

Among them were two men
from Sacramento

whose families
were still behind barbed wire

in the United States.

ROBERT KASHIWAGI:
It was the last
campfire gathering we had

before we went under fire,

and our company commander
stood up

in front of us
Japanese-Americans,

and he says that,
"We're going under fire

"and the very first one
of you guys

that turns your tail
and run the other way,"

he says, "I'm gonna shoot you."

I says, "Oh, that's something.

"You don't ever say that
to a Japanese,

because that's
a very derogatory term."

(distant artillery fire)

NARRATOR:
Private First Class
Robert Kashiwagi was guarding

a crossroads the Germans
had only recently abandoned

when he came under fire
for the first time.

(explosions)

KASHIWAGI:
That was a terrible situation
to get into,

because the Germans
would target that crossroad.

SOLDIER:
Ready.

Fire!

KASHIWAGI:
We were caught in that barrage.

The shell was popping
all around us.

We didn't have time
to dig a hole for a foxhole.

And we were digging the hole
with our nose,

trying to get our head
down below the ground.

NARRATOR:
The white captain

who had insulted
the men of the 442nd

was no longer with them.

KASHIWAGI:
An artillery shell dropped...

killed his first sergeant,

his, uh, runner

and a radio man,
all in front of his eyes.

This captain
became shell-shocked.

He was just shaking
and turned completely white,

and he was not
hardly able to walk.

They almost had to lead him out.

(indistinct chatter)

(artillery fire,
gunfire in distance)

Because of our action,
there were two Germans,

young men...

(voice breaking):
...killed in action,

dead on the side of this...
side of the hill,

and that affected me
pretty... pretty bad.

Because, uh, they were
19 years of age, about,

they were the same age as me,
and I thought to myself,

gee, if this was stateside,

we could've been going
to school together, you know.

That was my first
bad experience of the war,

you know, to see an enemy dead,
still recognizing their youth,

and, uh, that this
shouldn't be happening.

And so that hurted me.

(automatic gunfire)

NARRATOR:
Over the next few weeks,

Japanese-Americans would
distinguish themselves

at Belvedere, Sasetta,

Castellina, Pastina,

Loranzana, Luciana.

The 442nd 100th
fought so well and so hard

that when General Mark Clark
led his men

into the important city
of Livorno,

he insisted that they march
right behind him.

Now everybody wanted them.

Soon, they were back
in action again.

MAN:
Fire!

NARRATOR:
Sergeant Daniel Inouye,
from Honolulu, Hawaii,

was in Company E, 2nd Battalion.

(explosion, gunfire)

INOUYE:
This one experience was so bad
that I had to see the chaplain.

We had just attacked
a farmhouse,

and I ran up there,

and sure enough,
there were three Germans,

two dead and one alive.

He was leaning against the wall.

And he spoke in German,
and I don't speak German,

and he was saying,
"Kamerad, Kamerad,"

and he had his hand up there...
to surrender.

Then all of a sudden,

he stuck his hand
into his jacket,

and the only conclusion
I could reach instantaneously

was that he was going
fora... a gun.

So almost instinctively,
I reacted,

and I hit his face
with the butt of my rifle.

And his hand flew out,

and in his hand
was a bunch of photographs.

He wanted to show me pictures
of his wife and his children.

That's war.

(piano playing
"It's Been a Long, Long Time")

(whistle blowing,
engine chugging)

BARBARA PERKINS:
During the war,

it was hard to keep track
of your loved ones.

Mail was very slow.

And even the news media,
if you knew

what company and troop
and all that was in,

those things weren't published
in any detail at all

as to pinpoint
just where they were.

Well, you just never know.

We lived with that.

That was part of our part
we had to play.

(song ends)

MCINTOSH (dramatized):
"Luverne, Minnesota.

"July 20, 1944.

"Somehow,
the gossip grapevine

"had heard that
there was a telegram

"coming through
after 6:00 p.m. last Friday

for Mr. and Mrs. Ray Lester
of Magnolia."

"Ray Lester heard about it,
and his heart was heavy.

"He started walking
down the street.

On the way he met
Scotty Dewar, the depot agent.”

"Which one is it?'
asked Lester,

"because there were four boys
to worry about in that family.

"After being told,
he went sorrowfully home

to break the news to his wife."

"And it was a gracious gesture

"that was made at the dance
in Magnolia that night.

"When the crowd heard the news,
the dance was halted immediately

"out of respect to the memory
of that fighting Marine

who died on Saipan."

Al Mcintosh, Rock County
Star-Herald.

FRANK SINATRA:
Gentlemen of the armed forces,

this is the hoodlum
from Hoboken.

I'd like to sing
a tune for you.

My name's Sinatra
and I hope "yiz" like it, hey.

§§ Long ago and far away §§

§§ I dreamed a dream one day §

§§ And now that dream
is here beside me... §§

AANENSON:
We would be sitting
around our tent area

in the apple orchard
in Normandy

and we would discuss what
they would have to pay us

to really do what we had
just done that day.

We agreed first
that we might do it

for $1,000 a mission, but
less than ten days later--

our losses had
gone up heavily--

we decided that we
wouldn't consider doing it

for less than $10,000 a mission.

And I think that it went
off the radar screen in value

before the end of July,
because there's no way

that you could be
a mercenary enough,

they could pay you enough,

to do what we were doing
on a volunteer basis.

(plane flies over)

NARRATOR:
In the weeks after D-Day,

American pilots, including
Quentin Aanenson,

continued to fly their missions

over the fields and hedgerows
of Normandy every day,

trying to focus on the help
they were giving

to the men on the ground,

and to avoid thinking too hard

about the losses
in their own ranks.

NEWSREEL NARRATOR:
Dashing to a hedgerow
to clear Nazis out

of another line of hedge
across a meadow.

(explosions and gunfire)

The enemy position's blasted

and the Germans occupying
it have enough,

so out comes the white flag
of surrender,

more prisoners taken
in the drive

to the important city
of Saint-L6é.

As the infantry pushes forward,
the way is cleared

by the smashing power
of tanks and heavy artillery.

NARRATOR:
On July 18, Saint-L6--

or what was left of it after
six weeks of Allied bombing--

fell to the Americans.

General Bradley's forces
had finally reached the line

Allied planners had
expected his men to reach

just a few days after D-Day.

And he was now ready
to send his armor

roaring through the German
lines beyond the city.

But first, Allied warplanes

were called in
to blast an opening.

The operation
was called "Cobra."

The correspondent
Ernie Pyle was down below,

watching from a battered
French farmhouse

with officers from
the 4th Infantry Division.

PYLE (dramatized):
"The first planes

"of the mass onslaught came over
a little before 10:00 a.m.

They were the fighters
and dive-bombers."

"We stood in the barnyard of
a French farm and watched them

barrel nearly straight down
out of the sky..."

(airplanes flying over)

"And then a new sound gradually
droned into our ears,

"a sound deep,
all-encompassing,

"with no notes in it,

just a gigantic far-away
surge of doom-like sound."

"It was the heavies,

coming on
with a terrible slowness

"in flights of 12,
three flights to a group

and in groups stretched
out across the sky."

"I thought it would never end."

"And then the bombs came."

"It began up ahead
as the crackle of popcorn

"and almost instantly swelled
into a monstrous fury of noise

that seemed surely to destroy
all the world around us."

NARRATOR:
The bombs continued falling
for an hour and a half.

The bright day grew dark
with smoke, Pyle remembered,

and the steady roar
seemed to fill

"all the space
for noise on earth."

Two days later, on July 27,

the First Army poured
through the newly opened gap

in the German lines,

out into the countryside
beyond the hedgerows.

For weeks,
the Americans on the ground

had felt fortunate
to gain 1,000 yards a day.

Soon they would be
covering up to 40 miles

in the same amount of time.

The Germans were reeling.

On August 7, the Americans

stopped a counterattack
cold at Mortain,

and after five days of battle,
forced the Germans to retreat.

Then, on August 15,
in the south of France,

American
and Free French forces landed,

fanned out
in all directions,

and began driving northward.

The following day,
Hitler reluctantly agreed

to pull his battered
Seventh Army

out of Normandy.

It began a desperate
retreat toward Germany.

The Allies caught them
near the town of Falaise.

For three days,

the Allies poured fire
into the fleeing men...

...from the ground
and from the air.

80,000 Germans ran
the terrible gauntlet.

At least 10,000 died,

so many that the pilots
of the Allied spotter planes

hundreds of feet
above the battlefield

were nauseated by the stench.

So many that after
the shooting had stopped,

General Eisenhower
remembered,

"it was literally possible

"to walk for hundreds
of yards at a time,

stepping on nothing
but dead and decaying flesh."

AANENSON:
I had caught
a bunch of Germans

in... in double tandem trucks,

and they were just
massed in there.

There was so much, uh,
firing into that

and I was the only one
that was firing.

My wingman... his guns
had been jammed and, uh...

the effect on me was that
my right hand quit working

and I was on the way home

and I couldn't
grip with that hand.

So I had to put my left hand
over on top of the stick

to maintain it and go
and land with that.

When I'd have
these nightmares

in years after the war,
many years after the war,

if it was one relating
to that mission

or missions like that,

when I'd get up in the morning,

go out to the kitchen,
Jackie would be there

and she would have had
the coffee made,

and she could tell
when I walked in

that my right hand
wasn't functioning right.

She'd pour a cup
of coffee, not say a word.

She'd hand it
to my left hand.

Never a word said.

We just went on.

(explosions, mortar fire)

PAUL FUSSELL:
A soldier's letter
I was reading recently

iS in answer
to his mother's letter.

He was fighting in Europe
somewhere

and his mother
was very frightened

that he was going to be killed.

And she wrote him
and said, "Be careful.

For God's sake, be careful."

And he said,
"You can't be careful.

You can only be lucky."

Absolutely true.

There's no way, whatever,
to escape it by... by technique

or care or attitude
or fast movement

or by athletic skills and so on.

You're just lucky.

The shell hits somebody
who is not yourself.

KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
We lived in constant fear
of the telegrams.

Each day we would read the lists
in the newspaper

to see if we could identify any
of the names that were there.

We just never knew when we'd
lose someone that we loved.

BURT WILSON:
During the war,
it was kind of surreal;

we never saw anybody die,

we never saw anybody maimed or
wounded or anything like that.

What amounted to a surrealistic
feeling about the war

came to an end one day
when our neighbors, um,

put a gold star in the window
and pulled all the blinds down.

Their oldest son
had been killed in Italy.

In Sacramento in those days,

the way you dealt
with something like that

was pulling all the shades down

and never coming out
of the house.

And so every time you walked
past that house,

the whole idea of death
was brought home to you

because of the shades drawn
and the gold star in the window.

NARRATOR:
Since D-Day, telegrams
from the War Department

had been arriving on doorsteps
all across America

at a rate inconceivable
just a year earlier.

Mrs. Augusta Niland
of Tonawanda, New York,

received three of them.

One son had died on Omaha Beach,
a second at Sainte Mére-Eglise;

a third was missing
in action in Burma.

A fourth son would be pulled out
of the line,

so that at least one of her boys
was sure to survive the war.

28 men from the tiny town
of Bedford, Virginia,

had landed on Omaha Beach.

19 of them died.

Three more died fighting
in Normandy.

Private First Class
James Donohue

and Staff Sergeant
Frederick Smith,

specially trained Army Rangers,
were lost on June 6,

the first of ten boys
from Waterbury, Connecticut,

who would be buried in Normandy.

MCINTOSH: (dramatized):
"Here is one
of life's tragedies.

"Mrs. Henry Smook went
over to Sioux Falls

"with her youngest boy,
Harold, 17.

"It wasn't a shopping expedition
or a long-planned day of fun.

"She had gone
with her youngest son

"to give her consent
to his joining the Navy.

"She didn't know
that while she was there,

a telegram had come
to her home in Luverne"...

"telling her of the death
of her son in France,

Private First Class
Herman Smook."

NARRATOR:
Herman Smook had died
four days after D-Day,

the first Rock County death
on European soil.

("Concerto for Clarinet,
Strings, Harp and Piano"
by Aaron Copland playing)

All across France, the Germans
were in full retreat.

Since D-Day,
they had lost some 240,000 men,

another 200,000 had surrendered.

Allied casualties
were terrible, too.

256,000 soldiers and airmen

had been killed,
wounded, captured,

or reported
as missing in action.

At least 19,000 French civilians
had died, as well.

Countless French villages
had been pounded into dust.

But most of France was free.

("Echoes of France
[La Marseillaise]"
by Django Reinhardt playing)

On August 25, 1944, after
four years of Nazi occupation,

Paris, the City of Light,
was liberated.

OLLIE STEWART (dramatized):
"I, Ollie Stewart, of sound mind

"and fairly sober character,
do solemnly give my word

"that I have never been kissed
so much in all my life.

"Almost every woman I meet
on the street stops

"and kisses me on both cheeks.

It is a beautiful custom."

AANENSON:
We were flying
a mission near Paris,

and as I pulled off
my strafing run

and I turned back over the city

and as I looked down, there were
just thousands of people

jamming the streets
of the Champs Elysées

and around the Eiffel Tower
and the Arc de Triomphe,

and I realized
that I was seeing something

that was basically
the culmination

of why we were there.

We are winning this war.

The good guys are going
to come out ahead.

("American Anthem"
by Gene Scheer playing)

NORAH JONES:
§§ Each generation §§

§§ From the plains
to distant shore §§

§§ With the gifts
they were given §§

§§ Were determined
to leave more §§

§§ Battles fought together §§

§§ Acts of conscience
fought alone... §§

§§ These are the seeds §§

§§ From which America has grown§

§§ Let them say of me §§

§§ I was one who believed §§

§§ In sharing the blessings §§

§§ That I received §§

§§ Let me know in my heart §§

§§ When my days are through...§

§§ America, America §§

§§ I gave my best to you... §§

§§ America... §§

§§ I gave my best §§

§§ To you. §§

("The Wang Wang Blues" by the
Benny Goodman Sextet playing)