Original subtitles

NEWSREEL NARRATOR: Easter Sunday, 1 April 1945,

was the day of the landing.

It was designated as Love Day.

NARRATOR: Okinawa.

One of the last battlegrounds

of the last war of its kind in human history.

MAN: We used bazookas, flamethrowers...

and it was a slaughter.

NARRATOR: Bravery.

Tragedy.

Courage.

MAN: I never was scared, but when I look back at it,

I get more scared than I ever was.

NARRATOR: It's all captured on film--in color.

Military cameramen risk their lives to document the battle--

with unblinking eyes and uncommon valor.

MAN: Hit by an airplane at a high speed, you know it.

(explosion)

NARRATOR: Experience the most brutal, unexpected

and deadly three months of the Pacific War.

(explosion)

The battle of Okinawa in color.

(cheering)

Reveille is at 3:45 in the morning.

It's Easter Sunday.

The military calls it L-Day.

Many think it might be their last day on Earth.

The morning light reveals a stunning sight--

the largest amphibious assault

ever mounted in World War II's Pacific theater.

It steams eastward in a line of steel almost 8 miles wide.

Aboard the U.S.S. Hadley is Doug Aitken.

DOUG AITKEN: I have never in my life seen so many navy ships.

The aircraft carriers were lined up as far as I could see.

NARRATOR: 1,500 ships.

Half a million men.

Many had never even heard of Okinawa.

But they had heard of Normandy, Saipan, and Iwo Jima,

where the enemy had mowed down Americans by the thousands

as they came ashore.

Their briefing was matter of fact and frightening.

Expect dug-in defenses on the hills above the beaches.

Expect a storm of repelling firepower.

Expect an 80% casualty rate.

Among the faces is David McFaddin,

a kid from Ohio who remembers the fear.

DAVID MCFADDIN: There were hundreds of boys.

The only thing you could hear

was the ship's organ playing "Nearer my God to thee."

And boy, don't you think

there weren't a lot of them thinking that.

Young boys, really young.

(organ playing)

NARRATOR: Okinawa is the last stepping stone

in the march toward the Japanese Mainland

only 400 miles away.

From here, Americans

can stage a massive invasion

of Japan itself.

It is 70 miles long, but quite narrow.

In square mileage it's no bigger

than the city of Los Angeles.

Its terrain features craggy

clusters of small mountains,

including ridgelines

that run east to west,

creating a natural barrier

to southward travel.

Americans have limited intelligence going in.

Aerial reconnaissance is lacking.

Maps are inaccurate.

They can only guess at what lies ahead.

(speaking Japanese)

The Japanese consider Okinawa home turf.

They are preparing to defend it with more than 100,000 men--

and a fanatical devotion to their cause.

They won't let the Americans in without a fight.

(artillery fire)

Before the invasion,

the United States unleashes ferocious firepower.

Aerial and naval bombardment

shreds the island to soften defenses.

The Japanese nickname it "The typhoon of steel."

MAN: Fire!

NARRATOR: It is three months of solid pounding.

(artillery fire)

CLARENCE SHOCKEY: They did this day and night.

I said to myself,

"Man, there can't even be an island left after all that."

But there was.

NARRATOR: Then on April 1st, the bombs stop...

and the invasion starts.

MAN: Go, go, go!

NARRATOR: David McFaddin expects the worst.

MCFADDIN: I was thinking, "Well, maybe in an hour from now

I won't have to worry about anything anymore."

NARRATOR: But instead of enemy fire,

they meet an eerie silence.

They move cautiously, expecting a trap.

But there's no sign of the enemy.

MAN: Move it on down!

(radio chatter)

NARRATOR: Some wonder if they've landed on the wrong island.

1st lieutenant Charles Kilpatrick

is as surprised as anyone.

CHARLES KILPATRICK: We were expecting the usual

welcome committee from the Japanese;

it didn't happen.

We didn't hear a shot fired.

NARRATOR: The only Japanese soldiers they see

are already dead, usually lying near a bomb crater.

Word gets back to the fleet-- there's no one to fight.

Subsequent waves of troops come ashore.

They calmly grab their gear and walk upright onto the beach.

Within hours, thousands of men

unload a city's worth of infrastructure

onto the beaches of Okinawa.

Inland, things move as smoothly as a training exercise.

Many keep their guns stowed and never have to dig a foxhole.

Two nearby airbases--

considered big prizes that would take days to capture--

are secured by noon.

The Americans can hardly believe their luck.

One soldier remarks:

"I've already lived longer than I thought I would."

The invasion presses forward.

In the first few days, marines march unimpeded

through the midsection of the island

and secure it coast to coast.

Americans thought it would take two weeks of fighting.

Instead, it takes four days of walking.

They tick off military objectives

like a grocery list--

all while enjoying a fine stretch of weather

on a subtropical island.

(horse snorts)

One general says to the press:

"I don't know where the Japs are,

and I can't offer you any good reason

why they let us come ashore so easily."

In charge of the invasion

is General Simon Bolivar Buckner Junior.

He is straight from central casting--

tall, silver-haired, and no-nonsense.

His private journal reveals his confidence--so far.

GENERAL BUCKNER: From start to finish

the landing was a superb piece of teamwork.

The Japanese have missed their best opportunity.

NARRATOR: For troops that expected to be in hell,

Okinawa feels like heaven.

(instrumental music)

Instead of an invasion, it seems like a vacation.

Soldiers pick ripe tomatoes along the road.

They commandeer local horses and take joyrides.

They avail themselves of the local livestock

and try to one-up each other's barbecue.

One soldier recalled such a cookout

to be one of the best meals of his life,

on what was supposed to be the battlefield of his death.

So far, the Battle of Okinawa is a cakewalk.

(music continues)

Instead of the Japanese army, Americans find only civilians.

(instrumental music)

Okinawans are an isolated people.

Mainland Japanese consider them inferior--

little more than rustic peasants.

By now, they are shell-shocked.

They had sheltered in family tombs underground,

while their homes and farm fields

were pounded by American bombs.

Now they are wary of American generosity.

Troops provide food and medicine to win them over

and herd them into camps to keep them out of harm's way.

2nd Lieutenant David Straus sees their suffering first-hand.

DAVID STRAUS: There were literally hundreds or thousands

of Okinawan civilians who were dying.

They just kept coming.

NARRATOR: They have stories to tell.

Stories of terrifying propaganda

commanding them to avoid capture at all costs.

Stories of Okinawan boys

taken and forced into military service.

Stories that reveal the Japanese army is out there--somewhere.

General Buckner's troops are progressing rapidly.

He wonders what the enemy is thinking

in a letter to his wife, Adele.

GENERAL BUCKNER: Everything is now going well,

and so far my opposing general has not displayed

any noticeable degree of military brilliance.

I hope he keeps this up.

NARRATOR: Buckner's Japanese counterpart

is Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima.

He is respected by his men,

cut right from the Samurai tradition--

a tradition that includes fighting to the death.

GENERAL USHIJIMA: Do not suffer the shame

of being taken prisoner.

You will live for eternity.

NARRATOR: The Japanese are about to reveal

their military strategy-- suddenly and lethally.

NEWSREEL NARRATOR: Troops spliced their way

into the rugged interior to find the enemy and destroy him.

NARRATOR: By the third day of the invasion of Okinawa,

there is still no sign of the enemy.

Commanding General Simon Buckner sends a message to the marines.

GENERAL BUCKNER: All restrictions removed

on your advance northward.

NARRATOR: Men and materiel move up the island

and into the Motobu Peninsula, a mountainous no-man's-land.

They approach a high, craggy mass called Mount Yae-take.

(gunfire)

Suddenly, fire comes from everywhere.

(gunfire)

(intense music)

Americans are pinned down by mortars and machine guns,

no matter where they go.

Companies get split up running for cover.

They barely know where to return fire.

After days of easy and rapid advance,

casualties pile up by the hundreds.

(music continues)

And just as this reality hits on the ground,

a fury comes from the sky.

(radio chatter)

April 6th dawns quiet in the waters off Okinawa.

The calm did not comfort Ensign Doug Aitken.

AITKEN: we knew that we were going to be in for trouble.

We just knew it.

NARRATOR: On the nearby islands, the Japanese had been gathering

every usable plane and pilot remaining in their arsenal.

Some are inexperienced, but no less devoted.

They call this mission Kikusui, or "Floating Chrysanthemum."

They take off in waves.

They begin a Kamikaze spree that dwarfs anything before or since.

(explosion)

In the next two days,

over 350 enemy planes wreak absolute havoc.

(explosion)

American pilots try to stop them in roller-coaster dogfights.

Navy gunners try to derail them

in white-knuckle high-speed combat--

sometimes close enough to see each other's faces.

General Buckner, an avid hunter,

describes the adrenaline rush to his wife.

GENERAL BUCKNER: I have had thrills in duck blinds,

but none comparable to that of seeing an enemy plane shot down

when it was heading directly at our ship.

NARRATOR: Some are cut down.

(gunfire)

But others get through.

(explosion)

AITKEN: Oh, we felt it.

Hit by an airplane at a high speed, you know it.

NARRATOR: On April 6th alone, three ships are sunk outright.

Another 15 are hit and damaged.

(airplane roaring)

(explosion)

The attacks leave a flotsam of twisted steel and blood.

But it's only the beginning of Kikusui.

Back at Mount Yae-take, marines face an equally vicious battle.

Northern Okinawa cannot be secure

until this mountain is in American hands.

But every time the marines try to storm up, they are hammered.

(gunfire)

The Japanese seem to anticipate every line of attack,

with guns aimed exactly where Americans approach.

(gunfire)

They rain shells at will.

LOWELL FOSS: That was an old artillery training ground,

Okinawa,

and they knew every foot of the island.

They could drop a shell anyplace they saw us.

(gunfire)

NARRATOR: After almost a week of uphill fighting,

there is little to show for it--

except for blood and bandages.

The Japanese have the advantage.

In the midst of this nightmare, news reaches the front lines.

NEWSREEL NARRATOR: The flag flies at half staff

as a grief-stricken nation mourns the death

of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States.

NARRATOR: For 12 years, he steered the nation

through some of its darkest hours.

The troops on Okinawa grieve publicly.

Many of them are so young

that Roosevelt is the only president they ever knew.

WILLIAM WELLMAN: You'd see grown men crying like babies,

because we had lost somebody who was a father figure to us.

ROY SIMMONS: We also wondered, now what?

Roosevelt was our man.

Who is this guy Truman?

NARRATOR: On Mount Yae-take, officers rally the troops

with a new strategy:

attack from two directions,

pinch them into a high, tight spot,

then use air and artillery strikes

to pummel the 1,200-foot mountaintop.

It's an uphill slog against what one officer calls

"A phantom enemy."

(mortar fires)

For four more days,

they slowly move up the mountain under withering fire.

(gunfire)

(airplane)

Then, marines finally take the top of Mount Yae-take

and take a look around.

2,000 Japanese bodies

litter the peaks, trenches, and tunnels.

Almost to a man, they had fought to the death.

This one mountaintop cost the marines almost a thousand men.

It was their first test

against the Japanese defenses on Okinawa...

and they wonder if they've only scratched the surface.

There have to be more Japanese somewhere.

Americans suspect they are hiding in southern Okinawa

and move cautiously.

MAN: Sure looks dug in up here.

(gunfire)

NARRATOR: Suddenly, near the village of Shuri,

troops come under intense fire.

They answer with volleys of their own.

(gunfire)

But when the Japanese charge

with machine guns and flamethrowers,

Americans have to retreat.

Soon after, another company endures a hailstorm of mortars

coming in at more than one per second.

They lose 45 men.

All across the island,

U.S. Forces find themselves pinned down by unrelenting fire.

They have run into the Shuri Line,

a defensive colossus built into a mountain range.

It is a masterstroke of military design.

The Japanese are entrenched on the reverse slope--

invisible to approaching Americans.

Every hill is defended.

Every Japanese position supports another.

Every American is caught in crossfire.

(gunfire)

Mount Yae-take was a single hill,

and it took a week to conquer.

The Shuri Line is an 8-mile-wide coast-to-coast killing zone.

The worst elements of Pacific warfare

are all rolled into a single nightmare.

This is where America realizes the brutal truth--

the Japanese are not fighting to win.

They only want to turn the conquest of Okinawa

into a drawn-out bloodbath

and give America second thoughts about invading Mainland Japan.

As April turns to May, it's working.

What started as a cakewalk has become a meat grinder.

The Shuri Line has stalled the American advance

and spilled rising amounts of blood.

By mid-May, there are 18,000 casualties...

but also countless heroes.

At Hacksaw Ridge, Army Medic Desmond Doss

runs into enemy fire to rescue the injured--

without carrying a weapon.

Somehow, he saves more than 70 men.

Medical units scramble to treat every injury...

performing field surgery...

treating the wounded...

moving boxes and boxes of blood.

David McFaddin, who walked ashore on L-Day with ease,

is now in the thick of combat.

MCFADDIN: This one boy--

I think he was from Erie, Pennsylvania--

he showed me a picture of his twins.

That night, they killed him.

And I'll never forget that.

NARRATOR: Back home, officers escorted by chaplains

will knock on countless doors.

Okinawa is becoming the Pacific Theater's black hole.

Then, from the European Theater, news breaks.

(instrumental music)

(cheering)

NEWSREEL NARRATOR: Throughout the world

throngs of people hail the end of the war in Europe.

NARRATOR: On May 8th, the world celebrates.

Hitler is dead, Germany surrenders,

and Europe is at peace.

For most, more than five years of global war is over.

But on this small island in the Pacific,

the end is nowhere in sight.

The battle for Okinawa has already dragged on

longer than Iwo Jima or Saipan.

Private 1st Class Thomas Durham reaches his breaking point.

THOMAS DURHAM: Well, I cracked up.

I was out of control.

I wanted to leave.

NARRATOR: Combat fatigue spreads like a disease.

Some units are on the front lines

almost four straight weeks under constant bombardment.

Through May, nearly 14,000 troops are pulled back

with what the military calls "non-battle" injuries.

CHARLES KILPATRICK: We had a lot of people

who had what we call a "thousand-yard stare,"

just looking off, not thinking anything.

We lost a few that were just completely gone.

NARRATOR: 1st Lieutenant Charles Kilpatrick

sees one officer hit the wall.

KILPATRICK: And he just broke down.

He said, "I can't do it anymore.

I can't send any more boys out there to get killed."

NARRATOR: As the rest of the world begins to heal,

those on Okinawa witness only more hell.

Until they crack the Shuri Line,

they're trapped in a slaughterhouse.

Overlooking the city of Naha

is a close triangle of small peaks--

Horse Shoe, Half Moon, and the now infamous Sugar Loaf.

KILPATRICK: Every hill had to have a name on it,

to be sure we were talking about the same piece of ground.

So we called that Sugar Loaf.

Didn't look like much.

(gunfire)

NARRATOR: On May 12th, a company of marines starts to climb.

(gunfire)

The higher they get, the more fire they take.

Half the company is wounded or killed on the first day.

They retreat--

though marines like Thomas Durham

claim not to know that word.

DURHAM: The marines didn't retreat.

We made a rapid advance to the rear.

Those Japs are damn good fighters,

and they were ready to go meet their honorable ancestors.

We were not.

NARRATOR: The Americans realize that Sugar Loaf

is the western anchor of the Shuri Line--

the defensive wall they've already been pounding

for a month.

They can't break through until they win this hill.

(artillery fire)

(instrumental music)

Seeking shelter from the storm of combat,

Okinawans from all over the island

stream into burgeoning refugee camps--

sometimes 1,500 per day.

Managing them is a challenge.

So in one camp, Americans let the Okinawans manage themselves.

NEWSREEL NARRATOR: The invading marines brought

more than fire and steel to Okinawa.

They brought democracy.

At Taira, an experiment was begun.

The town council met under American guidance

and proceeded to govern the people.

Introduced to the democratic way of life,

the Okinawan community flourished.

At Taira, they found the promise of a new Okinawa.

NARRATOR: While American propaganda

touted such experiments,

reality is far grittier.

Their lives have been bombed,

razed, and scorched down to the ground.

(baby crying)

They have no kinship with the Japanese,

no loyalties to the Americans,

and no idea how to get through it alive.

General Buckner writes:

GENERAL BUCKNER: A few Okinawans had been given guns.

They don't know either how to fight or how to surrender.

They shoot a few rounds and go into caves,

but won't come out and have to be killed.

(explosion)

NARRATOR: Okinawans endure months of Japanese propaganda

painting Americans as torturers and rapists,

promoting death over capture.

So when Americans approach,

some families descend into murderous, suicidal chaos.

STRAUS: Jumping off of cliffs...

the rocks were just covered with bodies.

DURHAM: Those civilians had been pretty thoroughly brainwashed.

They were scared to death.

NARRATOR: Children are most vulnerable.

If they aren't directly injured, they are malnourished,

and surely confused and terrified.

(instrumental music)

In one instance, Americans come upon a girl

who refused to retreat with Japanese troops.

As punishment, they cut off her foot.

It will take a long time for Okinawans to recover

from having their island turned into a killing field.

And still, the war grinds on.

Americans are throwing their biggest hardware

at the Shuri Line.

But General Ushijima knew what was coming.

GENERAL USHIJIMA: Our battle against the Americans

is a battle against the tanks.

NARRATOR: The Japanese destroy American armor

more effectively in Okinawa than anywhere else in World War II.

They hide anti-tank guns inside caves, mounted on rails.

They roll them out to shoot and roll them back in--

where they are impervious to return fire.

With six months of ammunition stored underground,

the Japanese are hunkered down for the long haul.

The Shuri Line is an unknown underground maze.

In one case, troops fire phosphorous shells into a cave,

and smoke pours out of 30 different holes.

(boom)

Finding the ones hiding the enemy is a shot in the dark.

But here, they hit the mark.

(gunfire)

They can finally spot the Japanese,

flushed out of one cave, and scattering toward another.

(gunfire)

A surprise attack could come from inside any one of them,

so Americans don't take any chances.

(boom)

(boom)

(boom)

Explosions stun anyone inside.

Often, the enemy stumbles out.

Other times, it is civilians.

From Sugar Loaf hill all the way across the Shuri Line,

progress is agonizingly slow.

(boom)

One general estimates

there are 70,000 Japanese holed up underground.

(boom)

"I see no way to get them out," he says,

"but to blast them out yard by yard."

The sluggish pace of the ground war

doesn't make things easy at sea.

As the weeks drag on, Admiral Chester Nimitz

increasingly views his fleet as sitting ducks.

(explosion)

The pressure of the war takes its toll.

And kamikazes keep coming.

By the end of April, attacks are killing

an average of 30 sailors per day.

(gunfire)

And there is no end in sight.

A zero is filmed

heading straight for the U.S.S. Bunker Hill.

(gunfire)

(explosion)

600 are killed or injured.

Badly damaged, she has to retreat from duty.

The U.S.S. Comfort-- a hospital ship--

also gets hit.

(explosion)

The plane rips through three decks

and explodes in the surgery bay,

killing doctors, nurses, and patients.

For sailors like Doug Aitken,

the horror is burned into memory.

(siren)

AITKEN: And all of a sudden

"General quarters, general quarters.

All hands man your battle stations!"

(explosion)

HOWARD JONES: I was writing a letter to my mom,

and the next thing I knew, we were hit.

AITKEN: First of all, power went out.

So we opened the doors,

and we could see all this commotion and all this smoke.

JONES: The smoke went down in the ship,

and so many guys suffocated.

KAY CLEMENTSON: The wounded.

We were trying to get them off,

and at the same time, fighting the fire.

JONES: The flight deck was practically burned off,

and all the planes were just melted on the flight deck.

I could feel the tremendous heat.

CLEMENTSON: Arms and legs all over the deck, you know.

Seeing the dead didn't bother me too much,

but the wounded,

when they're lying there suffering and moaning...

that's what really hit me.

I just couldn't take that.

NARRATOR: Japan intentionally crashes 1,900 planes

in suicide dives around Okinawa--

the most intense kamikaze attacks

of the entire Pacific campaign.

They sink 26 ships and damage 164 more.

The Japanese consider it noble sacrifice.

The Americans consider it inhumane warfare.

JONES: The next day... the worst part of my life was...

we had to get all these guys together in, you know, the bags.

AITKEN: You can't identify people.

(splash)

The right thing to do is bury at sea.

(splash)

NARRATOR: It is the greatest concentration of navy losses

since Pearl Harbor.

(instrumental music)

NEWSREEL NARRATOR: At Sugar Loaf hill

the enemy was prepared to make a final stand

in defense of his line.

NARRATOR: Since the first failed attacks on May 12th,

Sugar Loaf has become a massacre.

With Japanese holding the other two hills nearby,

there is crossfire no matter where the Americans charge.

(gunfire, explosions)

On May 14th, marines again try to take the hill.

MAN: Go, go, go!

(gunfire)

After nonstop fighting for two full days,

they are back where they started--

less 400 casualties.

They try again on the 16th, this time with 1,200 men.

Same result.

(gunfire)

By now, the equivalent of two full regiments have attacked

and gotten nowhere.

Marine Charles Kilpatrick remembers the fighting--

and the frustration.

KILPATRICK: We would go up to the top...

then we'd run out of ammunition, run out of grenades,

and we'd get kicked off down to the bottom of the hill.

It was back and forth, up and down, up and down.

NARRATOR: Sugar Loaf is nothing more than a 50-foot mound,

but taking it should crack the Shuri Line.

General Buckner visits the front,

under pressure to move it forward.

He admits to his wife Adele

the dangers of making a wrong move.

GENERAL BUCKNER: I'm eager to get this island

completely cleaned up,

but it can't be hurried without heavy losses.

NARRATOR: For days on end they fight over the same hill.

Marines throw grenades from one side...

(explosion)

And take incendiary fire from the other.

At times their trenches are only 25 yards apart.

(gunfire)

On a single day,

the crest of the hill changes hands 11 times.

DURHAM: This guy came up behind me,

raised up on his knees and said, "What's the scoop?"

That was the word in those days, "What's the scoop?"

He raised up, and they got him right through the chest.

NARRATOR: As dead and wounded are carried off,

new troops rush in with no idea what they are in for.

David McFaddin remembers the chaos.

MCFADDIN: They commandeered as many boys as they could muster.

Instead of a company or battalion,

they threw them all together,

'cause they didn't have enough to go around.

NARRATOR: But the enemy has no replacements, no supply lines.

Eventually, the marines wear them down.

After ten days, Americans finally climb Sugar Loaf hill--

and hold it.

They stand on the shoulders of nearly 4,000 fallen comrades.

(instrumental music)

A military historian would later call the battle

"Unmatched for closeness and desperation."

Some regiments lose two thirds of their men.

It is one of the costliest pieces of ground

in Marine Corps history.

MCFADDIN: We didn't have much celebration.

They just wanted to go home, and you couldn't blame them.

NARRATOR: With the Shuri Line about to fall,

the exhausted Americans hope

they are nearing the end of combat.

With this high ground secure,

they can try to take Okinawa's largest city, Naha.

American bombs already reduced Naha to rubble.

Now troops use their own firepower

to muscle their way in.

(gunshot)

They are wary of who could be hiding

in the maze of narrow streets.

(explosions)

But no one is hiding.

Naha is a ghost town.

Its origins date back to the stone age.

Now, stone is about all that's left.

(boom)

Americans pick through it

like the smoking embers of an old fire.

A city of 65,000 is nearly deserted--

of citizens and of soldiers.

For General Buckner, it's an ominous sign.

He bangs out a new order:

GENERAL BUCKNER: Indications point

to possible enemy retirement to new defensive position...

enemy must not--repeat-- not be permitted

to establish himself securely on new position.

(thunder)

NARRATOR: But just when Buckner thinks

he has the Japanese on the run, rain soaks Okinawa--

almost 12 inches in 10 days.

GENERAL BUCKNER: Heavy rain has stopped our tanks

and is impeding supply just at a time

when rapid progress is most desirable.

NARRATOR: What is already difficult terrain

becomes nearly impassable.

Roads become rivers.

Camps become swamps.

And war becomes impossible.

KILPATRICK: The mud got so deep

that suddenly we stopped getting supplies.

We weren't getting any shells, any hand grenades,

any food, any water.

Even bulldozers would sink

as much as three feet down in the mud,

so they couldn't haul it to us.

NARRATOR: Troops have to lug ammunition to the front by hand.

Wounded have to be carried

all the way back to rear medical units.

Sanitation measures break down.

Morale sinks.

(instrumental music)

The Japanese could retreat

into the relative comfort of their caves.

The Americans could only wait it out

in cold, wet misery.

KILPATRICK: As it rained, the foxhole would start

filling up with water.

Everybody smelled.

You had blood on you and parts of bodies on you.

Everybody got diarrhea or dysentery.

NARRATOR: For more than a week, it appears to be a standoff.

But the Japanese are not standing still.

When the weather finally breaks on Okinawa,

the Americans mobilize.

The Japanese defenses on the Shuri Line are crumbling.

U.S. troops have been pounding away at this one ridgeline

for two bloody months.

They have killed 50,000 Japanese just to crest its heights.

Now they are closing in

on the enemy's headquarters at Shuri Castle--

where they hope General Ushijima himself

is holed up for the final showdown.

But they find the castle blown to bits by American artillery.

KILPATRICK: They must have shot

a million dollars' worth of shells into that thing

just kicking it up in dust.

NARRATOR: Troops find it unrecognizable, undefended...

and abandoned.

The Japanese have vanished.

Again.

During the ten days of rain,

Ushijima and his men secretly retreated,

leaving only a skeleton defense to hide their maneuver.

After taking some 20,000 casualties

to finally break the Shuri Line,

the Shuri Castle is a false summit.

American troops raise a flag, but the victory is hollow.

By now they realize the enemy

is building up another line farther south,

to extend the war as long as possible.

June is an exhausting slog to the bottom of the island.

The Japanese know they cannot win back Okinawa,

but they're still fighting to give the Mainland more time

to prepare for an invasion.

The Americans steadily advance against weakening resistance.

By now many of the Japanese are replacements

with little experience.

They are often caught disorganized

and out of position.

(gunfire)

The retreating soldiers are being killed

at a rate of 1,000 per day.

(instrumental music)

Yet they manage to make Americans pay

for every mile they gain--

sometimes with a booby trap for souvenir hunters.

DURHAM: We had a corporal who had never been in combat before.

He pulled a flag off a bush, and that blew him up.

They told him not to do it.

NARRATOR: Cave defenses are still a threat.

Americans fire streams of liquid flame

to incinerate anyone inside...

(instrumental music)

Then use explosives to seal the cave shut.

(boom)

General Buckner describes the procedure to his wife,

calling it "Blowtorch and Corkscrew."

GENERAL BUCKNER: We have killed over 55,000,

and we will still have the privilege

of exterminating a lot more.

NARRATOR: Dehumanizing the enemy is an ugly part of warfare.

But it becomes a lot harder when standing face to face.

Capturing POWs is rare,

but offers a chance to meet an enemy

that remained hidden for so long.

Interrogations reveal that their medical supplies

are down to simple bandages.

Japanese often leave their wounded to die.

(instrumental music)

Compared to the war in Europe,

the Pacific Theater produces few POWs.

The overall strategy is to fight to the death, and they do.

Less than 10% of Japanese troops will survive.

By early June, less than a third of the Japanese army is left,

and they form a last line of defense by the sea.

It's not nearly as strong as the Shuri Line.

This is where General Ushijima makes his last stand.

GENERAL USHIJIMA: The present position

will be defended to the death, even to the last man.

Needless to say, retreat is forbidden.

NARRATOR: The Japanese are running out of soldiers,

ammunition, and land.

They have their backs to the sea.

David Straus is part of the final push.

STRAUS: It was obvious that it was a matter of time.

Everything was compressed

right down to the south end of the island,

and it was a slaughter.

(boom)

NARRATOR: Americans try to persuade civilians

to surrender rather than die.

In one case, they lure 600 Okinawans

out of a single cave.

They are less forgiving to the enemy.

Some refuse to take any Japanese prisoners at all,

killing them on sight, white flag or not.

NEWSREEL NARRATOR: The 4th and 29th marines

advanced across the last open field,

pinning Japanese soldiers and Okinawan civilians

against the sea.

NARRATOR: By June 17th, all the Japanese have left

are eight square miles, with few places to hide.

Americans can see the coast,

and they are burning their way to the sea.

(boom)

(boom)

Japanese leaders are huddled in seaside caves.

It is so cramped that General Ushijima

cannot stretch out his legs.

He receives a message from General Buckner--

an offer to enter negotiations for surrender.

GENERAL BUCKNER: You understand as clearly as I

that the destruction of all Japanese resistance

on the island is merely a matter of days.

NARRATOR: Ushijima laughs it off and does not reply.

On June 18th, a cameraman captures General Buckner

visiting a forward observation post

to see the final days for himself.

Marines ask him to swap his 3-star helmet for a plain one,

to avoid provoking enemy fire.

Buckner bristles.

GENERAL BUCKNER: I have no intention of hiding.

NARRATOR: But he reluctantly agrees.

Minutes after this footage is taken,

a shell explodes on a rock right next to him.

A piece of it tears through his chest.

In just ten minutes, General Buckner is dead.

He drifts off to sleep as a marine private holds his hand,

saying "You are going home, General.

You are homeward bound."

As Americans approach the coast,

General Ushijima sends his final message to Tokyo.

GENERAL USHIJIMA: We are about to deploy all surviving soldiers

for a final battle--

in which I will apologize to the emperor

with my own death.

NARRATOR: On a ledge overlooking the sea,

Ushijima performs the samurai ritual of Hara Kiri,

plunging a saber into his own stomach.

The battle of Okinawa is the only contest of the Pacific

to cost the lives of both commanding officers.

82 days after L-Day--

when Americans came ashore

to wrestle Okinawa from an unseen enemy--

they can finally declare victory.

The island is theirs.

STRAUS: In Okinawa, the war was over.

And there wasn't anything easy about any of it.

NARRATOR: There is much to celebrate.

But also, many to mourn.

The United States loses 12,520 lives in Okinawa.

(instrumental music)

More than 36,000 are wounded.

The Japanese toll is astounding.

Americans count more than 100,000 bodies,

with the actual number probably higher.

And about a third of the Okinawan people are dead--

another 100,000--

unable to survive two vast armies warring on their island.

With Japan looming

as World War II's final battleground,

President Truman makes a historic decision.

Rather than risk an estimated one million casualties

on a ground invasion,

America levels Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs.

The future of war lay bare in the radioactive aftermath.

Japan finally surrenders.

STRAUS: Well, of course none of us had any inkling

there was a weapon like that.

I guarantee you there was a lot of relief.

I don't know how many of us

would have survived the invasion of Japan,

but not very many, I don't think.

(explosions)

NARRATOR: Okinawa may have witnessed

the last battle of its kind on planet Earth.

Combat as raw, relentless, and ruinous

may never be waged again.

Those who endured it certainly hope so.

KILPATRICK: Finally, we got off

the island, and we looked back,

and of course we hoped we'd never see that place again.