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Pearl Harbor's the most dramatic opening
of any war in almost all of human history.

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Nobody imagined the Japanese
would do such a thing.

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This was almost like science fiction.

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Pearl Harbor is one
of the cleanest breaks

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between the past and the future
I think you can find.

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Pearl Harbor is one of the most
extraordinary events of World War II.

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Now, rare footage from around the world,

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expertly restored in full color,

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tells the story
as you've never seen it before.

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It was very cold.

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Some accounts said that it was snowing.

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The sailors on the 30 ships
did not know

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where they were going to war,

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did not even know who the enemy was.

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They thought they were going to attack
Singapore or Hong Kong.

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All radio communications were cut off.

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Special provisions were made
to not dump garbage

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over the sides of the ships.

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They formed a box in the sea
several miles across.

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Always fearful that someone
was going to appear in the sky above them.

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What happens if an American vessel,

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if a fishing vessel, if anyone

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comes across the entire
Japanese Navy at sea.

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The Japanese entire plan crumbles,
because it has to be based on surprise.

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The largest gathering
of naval air power in history

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sets out on a top-secret mission.

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Thirty ships, carrying 408 airplanes

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and 16,000 men,

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are traveling 4,000 miles
across the Pacific Ocean.

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They're heading to attack a country

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ten times richer and more powerful
than their own,

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in one of the most audacious
military gambles in all history.

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They've calculated that they have
only a 50 percent chance of success,

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and failure would be suicide.

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What has pushed them
into this desperate situation?

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1905.

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Eighteen months of fighting
against imperial Russia

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ends in a shock victory,

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when Japan, a small island nation,

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emerges triumphant.

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After centuries of being ignored
by other nations,

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the Japanese have finally arrived
on the world stage

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as a serious military power.

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And that shocked the world,

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that this vast czarist empire

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could be beaten on the battlefield

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by these funny little people
in this island chain

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off the east coast of Asia.

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I think that convinced the Japanese

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they should be considered a world power.

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A decade later,
after the outbreak of World War I,

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when Imperial German forces
start moving into China,

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Japan teams up with Britain

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to help drive them out.

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Thanks to the Japanese,
the Allies gain a key victory.

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Afterwards, Japan gets a seat
at the top table,

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and they want recognition
for helping win the war.

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Japan was one of five countries invited

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to the Paris Peace Conference.

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The Japanese didn't have major say,
but they were there.

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The Japanese brought
a racial equality clause.

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As part of the post-war treaty,

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Japan asks the Allies
for their citizens

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to have freer immigration
to western countries,

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like Australia and America.

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But their request is denied.

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So the Japanese went home angry.

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But Japanese leaders persevere.

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Having recently transformed
their feudal society

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into a parliamentary democracy,

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they hope their new politics
will help align them with the West.

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Once again, they are rebuffed.

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When the US bans all non-whites
from moving to American soil,

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the Japanese are included.

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So this kind of discrimination,
which was overt,

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and, you know, references
to the yellow peril,

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really made the Japanese very resentful.

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And so the Japanese
feel that they are still being treated

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as a second-rate power,

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when, in fact, they do have
a first-rate military.

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The outlook of the British,

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the outlook of the Americans,
is somewhat racist.

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So there's this poisonous brew
of militarism,

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grudges against the West.

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Then the fledgling democracy
takes another hit,

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when in 1929 America's Great Depression

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sends a shock wave round the globe

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that reaches the markets of Japan.

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Its economy
takes a devastating blow.

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In the early thirties,
things were utterly miserable.

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The demand for silk dropped,

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and so there are many, many stories
about struggling farmers

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having to sell their daughters
into prostitution.

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With Japan on its knees

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and the international door
tightly closed,

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the country looks inwards
for the solution to its problems.

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Inspired by ancient
samurai codes and traditions,

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a far-right nationalist movement
gains traction.

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At first, it takes over the military,

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but soon starts infiltrating
the civilian government.

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Japan's parliamentary democracy
works for a time.

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And then gradually, the parties
begin to have a tough time.

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There's scandals, there's corruption,

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and the military men
begin to intimidate.

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And at that point, parliamentary democracy
really ceases to function.

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Leading the military power grab
is an ultra-nationalist army general,

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the son of a revered samurai.

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Hideki Tojo is a fierce military fighter,

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and he has a vision

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for how to transform
an impoverished Japan

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into a rich and powerful nation.

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Tojo is a bright man,

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certainly, a very good administrator.

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But he's also relatively small-minded.

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He is not a well-traveled individual.

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He looks at the world

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completely
from the military point of view,

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and his solution to any problem

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is a military solution.

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For Tojo,
the days of asking for equal stake

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in the Pacific are over.

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General Hideki Tojo
very much represents

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this stream of opinion in Japan,

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that they need to take a very hard line
with the western powers.

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And they had a really admirable belief

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that far too much of Asia
was in western hands.

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The Dutch controlled
what we today call Indonesia.

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The French controlled
South East Asia.

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The British had Singapore,
Malaya, and Hong Kong.

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The United States had
the Philippines.

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And the Japanese believed
that Asia should be for the Asians.

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Tojo's fixation
with the western territories in Asia

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stems from their valuable
natural resources,

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resources Japan needs
if it's going to prosper.

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They had very few natural resources.

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No oil to speak of, no coal,

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nothing in the way of the fuels
that were essential to be a great power.

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In 1931, Tojo's army invades

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the Chinese Province of Manchuria,

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an area rich with coal and iron.

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Western powers with interests
in the Pacific

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become uneasy.

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An international summit is called,

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where the other nations agree
to help China resist Japan.

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For the Japanese delegates,
it's an abomination.

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Japan finds it impossible to accept

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the report adopted by the assembly.

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The west had stolen,
occupied, taken…

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Pick your verb…
Land all over Asia,

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and so to be denied the same privilege

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seemed to the Japanese
to be western hypocrisy.

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Ignoring all calls
to end their expansion,

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in 1937 Japan moves even further
into China.

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Marking the beginning of a savage
and bloody war.

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Within weeks,

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thousands of Chinese citizens
had been killed

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at the hands of the Japanese Army.

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And when reports of systematic rape

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and civilian massacre
in the city of Nanking surface,

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the world is horrified.

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Certainly, the rape of Nanking
in 1937 is shocking.

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The atrocities were unimaginable
at the time.

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To the United States,
it's just further proof

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of Japan's malign intentions in China.

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That they are going to go in,
colonize China,

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and they are gonna milk
at their resources.

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The Americans had always liked
to think of themselves

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as China's protector
against outside aggression.

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The Japanese invasion is, of course,
a huge challenge to this.

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But the West soon
has big problems of its own.

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In Europe, another far right
nationalist leader

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is putting his expansionist vision
into action.

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Hitler's fearsome army
is sweeping across the continent.

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Overrunning country after country

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and incorporating them
into a German Empire.

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For British Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill,

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the threat of a Nazi controlled Europe
is now very real.

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Winston Churchill realized
that the only realistic hope

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of the West prevailing over Hitler,

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was if the Americans
could come into the war.

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And all the time, from 1940 onward,

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he was urging the Americans,
saying "Come on, come on,

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you must realize that only
if we stand together

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against these great evils
can we possibly hope to prevail."

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But the Americans were not that receptive.

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Blessed by simple geography,

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that being thousands of miles
from other countries,

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gave it a sense of safety.

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Europe was regarded as a place
that was forever at war.

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If you're in Iowa,
what difference does it matter

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what happens in Alsace?

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What real threat is it
to the United States,

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which is 3,000 miles away
across a huge ocean?

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The vast majority of Americans
believe Europe's war

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has nothing to do with them.

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Publicly,
President Franklin Roosevelt

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is careful to uphold
the wishes of his people.

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1940, or course,
is an election year

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and Franklin Roosevelt,
knowing how powerful

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the isolationist element was,

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promised to American mothers,

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"Your boys are not going to be sent
into any foreign war."

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Roosevelt was someone
who played all his cards

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very close to the vest.

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He hated to commit to policies,

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allowed people to think
that he agreed with them.

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But deep down,
Roosevelt is worried

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that the Nazi peril
isn't limited to Europe.

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He was far out in front
of the rest of the country

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in recognizing the threat
to the United States

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posed by the peril
that Great Britain faced.

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And while he won't go back
on his word to the American people,

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he knows the Allies need help.

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His goal in 1940
was to provide the raw materials.

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The air planes, the tanks, the shipping,
the equipment, the ammunition, the oil,

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that would allow Britain to hold on.

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When in May 1940,
Hitler invades France,

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for Roosevelt,
the stakes are higher than ever.

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What he can't do is openly
get the United States in war.

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So he does everything possible
short of that.

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He begins to flood the British
with aid.

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He begins to take
the most extraordinary risks

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with American ships in the Atlantic,

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to try and make the Germans
fire the first shot.

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Facing a rapidly escalating
crisis in Europe and the Pacific,

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Roosevelt turns his attention
to Japan.

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Franklin Roosevelt,
in his policy towards Germany,

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he always has an eye on Japan.

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What he doesn't want to have happen
is the Japanese to take advantage

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of what's going on in Europe to expand.

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And Roosevelt was worried that Japan
would seize that moment

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to start capturing the colonies
of defeated European powers.

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In line with his policy
of doing everything

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short of using force,

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he sends Japan a warning.

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When his Pacific naval fleet
go to Hawaii for training,

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he takes the unusual step
of keeping them there.

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The United States Pacific Fleet,

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was largely based in California.

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Roosevelt figured
that if he moves the fleet

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and keep it permanently based
at Pearl Harbor,

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that would be a loaded gun.

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There's no other large naval base
within thousands of miles.

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So Japan,
it's a very threatening base.

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It extends the American Navy

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thousands of miles
farther into the Pacific.

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But not everyone agrees
with Roosevelt's decision.

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Admiral Richardson is in charge
of the Pacific Fleet at the time

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and he does not think
that the move out to Hawaii

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is going to be a good one.

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The fleet needed more training,
more ships,

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and Richardson felt that,
if you're gonna call someone's bluff,

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you have to back it up
with something meaningful.

254
00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:54,320
And his distaste for this move,

255
00:15:54,560 --> 00:15:57,160
leads to him having some
very strong words

256
00:15:57,240 --> 00:15:58,560
with President Roosevelt

257
00:15:58,680 --> 00:16:01,520
and Roosevelt actually removes him
from command.

258
00:16:02,320 --> 00:16:03,920
Richardson has a point.

259
00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:06,040
Far from being battle-ready,

260
00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:10,160
for the many the move feels
more like a tropical holiday.

261
00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:14,840
This exotic, faraway place,

262
00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:17,160
it smelled beautifully.

263
00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:21,480
The palm trees, the mountain ranges.

264
00:16:22,880 --> 00:16:26,240
It's a great place
to be able to have fun.

265
00:16:26,480 --> 00:16:28,520
In the off-hours,
they're having picnics,

266
00:16:28,600 --> 00:16:29,920
they're going out dancing.

267
00:16:30,160 --> 00:16:32,800
They're going to the clubs,
they're just having a really good time.

268
00:16:33,520 --> 00:16:36,160
The geographical location
of Pearl Harbor

269
00:16:36,280 --> 00:16:38,560
makes it seem impregnable.

270
00:16:39,960 --> 00:16:42,160
Thousands of miles from land,

271
00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:44,800
it is well protected from air strikes.

272
00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:47,840
There were a number of air strips,

273
00:16:47,960 --> 00:16:50,520
docking facilities,
there were repair facilities,

274
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:52,400
there were fuel depots.

275
00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:56,880
It was a major base
that could defend itself.

276
00:16:57,320 --> 00:17:00,960
The geography provides
the fleet with natural protection.

277
00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:03,480
Pearl Harbor is a very large,
but in many ways,

278
00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:05,040
actually, quite shallow base.

279
00:17:05,120 --> 00:17:06,960
Which is seen as a great protective thing

280
00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:09,160
in the inter-war period
for torpedo attacks.

281
00:17:10,320 --> 00:17:13,560
Pearl Harbor at its deepest
is about 40 or 45 feet.

282
00:17:13,760 --> 00:17:15,360
Torpedoes drop from airplanes.

283
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:19,040
They're heavy weapons,
they're about 2,000 pounds.

284
00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:22,160
They drop and plunge quite deep
into the water,

285
00:17:22,320 --> 00:17:26,160
before they rise up a bit
and begin their journey to your target.

286
00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:29,800
And the feeling was that Pearl Harbor
was too shallow

287
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:32,760
to use a torpedo dropped from a plane.

288
00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:38,120
But the relaxed mood
soon changes,

289
00:17:38,320 --> 00:17:40,120
when a new man takes over.

290
00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:43,760
Admiral Kimmel is now in charge
of the fleet.

291
00:17:45,440 --> 00:17:48,440
Admiral Kimmel was almost
a quintessential career naval officer

292
00:17:48,560 --> 00:17:49,680
in the 1930s.

293
00:17:49,760 --> 00:17:51,760
He was liked by his subordinates,

294
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:53,360
he was admired by his superiors.

295
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:57,080
He is very, very particular,

296
00:17:57,360 --> 00:18:00,920
and everybody has to do
what he says,

297
00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:02,240
exactly how he says it.

298
00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:06,600
So, his plan is to start making sure
they're ready.

299
00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:11,000
And ready for what? Well, he and,
most everyone else in the Pacific Fleet

300
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,560
knew war was close enough
that you needed to prepare for it.

301
00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:18,160
And he embarked on relentless maneuvers.

302
00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:23,640
Believing that war
is dangerously close,

303
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:27,040
Kimmel wastes no time
in preparing his fleet,

304
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:29,840
so that when the time comes,

305
00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:32,680
they'll be ready to take the war
to Japan

306
00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:36,280
and destroy them in the open ocean.

307
00:18:38,760 --> 00:18:40,920
He wanted to be in a decisive engagement.

308
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:44,600
The capital ship of every navy
was still the battleship.

309
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:47,680
Kimmel was raised on battleships.

310
00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:49,600
He had served on nine of them.

311
00:18:49,840 --> 00:18:51,360
He, like most people in the Navy,

312
00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:54,920
still envisioned settling matters at sea.

313
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:00,840
The newly-stationed fleet
does little to calm

314
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:02,840
Japan's military ambitions.

315
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:06,920
With Europe in turmoil,

316
00:19:07,160 --> 00:19:09,360
Tojo and his colleagues
see an opportunity

317
00:19:09,480 --> 00:19:11,680
to take advantage of the chaos.

318
00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:19,760
They join forces with Hitler
and Mussolini in an historic pact,

319
00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:23,280
promising to support each other's
imperial efforts.

320
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:28,520
The majority of the people
within the Japanese military

321
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:30,880
look at the successes of Nazi Germany,

322
00:19:30,960 --> 00:19:32,800
and that's something
that they want to emulate.

323
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:36,400
But the pact is not without
its critics within Japan.

324
00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:41,800
Head of the navy,
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto,

325
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:44,720
is concerned that the pact risks Japan

326
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:47,920
being dragged into war against the Allies.

327
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:53,400
And that could mean
taking on the huge might of the USA.

328
00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:57,360
Admiral Yamamoto thinks
that this is insane,

329
00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:00,720
for Japan to enter into a new agreement
with Nazi Germany.

330
00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:03,640
But he is a real minority.

331
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:07,040
He had risen all the way to the top

332
00:20:07,120 --> 00:20:10,560
of the Japanese Navy
because he was tough,

333
00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:11,840
and he was brilliant,

334
00:20:12,120 --> 00:20:15,000
also had a kind of a sensitive side
to him.

335
00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:17,880
He carried a list of all the people

336
00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:21,920
who had ever been lost at sea
on his watch.

337
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:25,320
And Yamamoto was a brilliant commander,

338
00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:28,880
and not somebody who was eager
to go to war with the United States.

339
00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:31,360
He had spent two tours
in the United States.

340
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:33,040
Part of that at Harvard University.

341
00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:36,840
He had seen the enormous potential
of the American industrial capacity,

342
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:38,600
the oil wells of Texas,

343
00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:41,600
and he knew that war
with an industrial giant like this

344
00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:44,000
was not a great idea.

345
00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:48,360
But Yamamoto's doubts
fall on deaf ears.

346
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:50,800
The pact is signed.

347
00:20:54,880 --> 00:21:00,520
Empowered, the Japanese Army decides
to continue their imperial expansion.

348
00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:05,320
Once Hitler rolled over
the powers of Holland and France,

349
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:08,360
their Asian colonies became orphans

350
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:09,880
and ripe for the plucking.

351
00:21:12,560 --> 00:21:14,920
When France falls to the Nazis,

352
00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:19,920
Japan seizes the opportunity
to invade French Vietnam.

353
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:25,880
It's exactly what Roosevelt had feared
Japan would do.

354
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:28,760
But his hands are now tied.

355
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:32,360
He wants to avoid intervening with force.

356
00:21:32,920 --> 00:21:35,800
But he can still hit Japan hard.

357
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:40,760
Roosevelt imposes harsh sanctions.

358
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:45,400
Suspending all American exports to Japan,
including oil.

359
00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:50,440
Knowing that Japan gets 80 percent
of their oil from America.

360
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:54,960
It's a huge blow for the Japanese.

361
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:57,840
Roosevelt will remove the embargo,

362
00:21:57,920 --> 00:22:02,000
only if they reverse
all their expansionist actions to date.

363
00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:05,360
It seems like a brilliant move.

364
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,160
To the Japanese,
the sanctions are no small thing.

365
00:22:09,320 --> 00:22:11,520
Because let's remember
they've got over a million troops

366
00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:12,560
in China by this point.

367
00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:15,760
So they need fuel oil, desperately.

368
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:18,640
Roosevelt believed
that by putting the sanctions on,

369
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:22,440
that would definitely
keep the Japanese in line.

370
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:26,960
I don't know if he realized
it puts them in such a dilemma.

371
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:29,400
So the American sanctions
threatened to unhinge

372
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:30,600
this Japanese war effort,

373
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,720
so, they have to start thinking
about this southern operation.

374
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:35,760
Either they will have to back down.

375
00:22:35,920 --> 00:22:38,040
They will have to accept
American demands,

376
00:22:38,120 --> 00:22:40,080
which are ultimately to pull back

377
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:42,200
on these great Japanese
imperial advances,

378
00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:45,360
or they have to go to war to get oil.
That's it.

379
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,680
But far from halting
Japan's expansion,

380
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:51,760
the sanctions push war closer.

381
00:22:52,120 --> 00:22:56,360
Japan turns to a new source of oil,
much closer to home.

382
00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:59,680
But it's in the hands
of another western country.

383
00:23:00,120 --> 00:23:01,280
Japan has no oil.

384
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:06,440
There is a lot of that in the Pacific,
but it's in the Dutch East Indies.

385
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:09,840
What is now known as Indonesia.

386
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:12,120
The Dutch possession has there

387
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:13,920
some of the richest oil fields
in the world,

388
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:16,360
and that would be where they would get
their resources.

389
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:22,080
The risk is that any move south,

390
00:23:22,360 --> 00:23:26,120
puts them dangerously close
to the American held Philippines.

391
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:30,400
But any caution evaporates,

392
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:34,600
with a dramatic change
in the political situation in Japan.

393
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:38,360
The prime minister resigns.

394
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:41,080
Tojo takes control of the country.

395
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:44,600
And if war is now inevitable,

396
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,000
Japan will strike the first blow.

397
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:53,360
They looked at America and saw it
as the ultimate sort of decadent power,

398
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:55,720
where, you know,
consumer culture, materialism.

399
00:23:56,560 --> 00:23:58,320
If we punch them really hard,

400
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:02,200
and they're already under threat
from the fascists in Europe,

401
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,656
what are the odds of the Americans
gathering themselves and saying,

402
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:07,680
"Okay we're gonna make
this super human effort

403
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:09,600
to fight in the Pacific,

404
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:12,280
the Atlantic and Europe,
all at the same time."

405
00:24:12,360 --> 00:24:14,920
The Japanese gambled,
"They won't do that."

406
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,360
The idea was not to defeat
the United States,

407
00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:20,520
it was to wear out the United States.

408
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:22,680
Oh, they knew we had
a bigger population,

409
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:25,200
had more factories
and could produce more airplanes,

410
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:28,040
but we did not have the Japanese spirit
and that would win the war.

411
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:33,240
But any attack on the US,
would have to involve the navy.

412
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:37,320
And for that, they would need the help
of the war skeptic,

413
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:39,280
Admiral Yamamoto.

414
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:42,320
Yamamoto thought
this was an insane idea.

415
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:44,680
We should not go to war
with the Americans.

416
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:46,880
But he saw which way
the wind was blowing,

417
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:49,120
he knew he could not say no.

418
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:54,360
The obvious place
to attack America

419
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:56,160
is in the Philippines,

420
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,120
on route south towards the oil fields.

421
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:04,440
But Yamamoto hits
on a more audacious plan.

422
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,360
Yamamoto was a gambler.

423
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:13,360
He once said that his ideal retirement
would be to retire to the French Riviera

424
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:17,640
and gamble away the hours
in the casinos of Monte Carlo.

425
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:21,920
He believes Japan's
only chance of victory in the Pacific

426
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,440
is to go straight for the jugular.

427
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:27,720
Taking out the American Pacific Fleet,

428
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,360
now enticingly stationed at Pearl Harbor.

429
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:36,720
And so he said this,
"If we have to go to war

430
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:39,920
with the United States,
the only chance we have to survive it,

431
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,080
is to take out their fleet
on the first day."

432
00:25:43,360 --> 00:25:46,880
Japan will at least have
a breathing space to go south,

433
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:48,440
seize the resources

434
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:52,480
and then try and affect
some kind of political settlement.

435
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:09,480
To attack Pearl Harbor was
an astonishing act of military guts.

436
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:10,840
Uhm…

437
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:12,240
So much could go wrong.

438
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:18,800
It was 3,000 miles from Japan.

439
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:20,880
Would take them 12 days to get there,

440
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,080
on any one of which
they could have been spotted.

441
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:27,720
They would have to refuel at sea,
repeatedly.

442
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,680
Which is an extremely difficult operation.

443
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:36,280
And perhaps the greatest difficulty
was keeping the whole thing secret.

444
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:41,720
So Yamamoto estimated his chances
at probably about 50/50.

445
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,960
He was a gambler,
and 50/50 looked pretty good to him.

446
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:48,920
So there's a real irony here.

447
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:51,760
On the one hand,
Yamamoto has been saying for months

448
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:55,800
that we would be insane to go to war
against the Americans.

449
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:59,560
And yet, on the other hand,
he is absolutely dogmatic

450
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:01,960
about making sure that his own vision

451
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:05,160
of the attack against the Americans
is adopted.

452
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:11,120
Meanwhile in Washington,

453
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:16,240
American intelligence has broken
Japan's secret communication code,

454
00:27:16,360 --> 00:27:18,240
and it's clear from the messages

455
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,240
that Tojo is gearing up for war.

456
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,040
The Americans are reading
this message traffic of Admiral Nomura

457
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:27,440
who was the Japanese Ambassador
to the United States.

458
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:30,360
So that we knew that Nomura
was getting this message,

459
00:27:30,520 --> 00:27:35,280
it said, "You must do certain things
by the end of November

460
00:27:35,360 --> 00:27:38,200
or other things
are automatically going to happen."

461
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:48,920
The Japanese had six large-deck
aircraft carriers.

462
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,200
They could carry as many as
450 combat air planes.

463
00:27:52,440 --> 00:27:55,520
And what Yamamoto wanted to do
was use all six of them

464
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:57,600
to strike at Pearl Harbor.

465
00:27:57,840 --> 00:27:59,440
So that made this grouping

466
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:02,800
the largest concentration
of naval air power

467
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:04,760
in the world, at the time.

468
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,040
The Americans were operating
very much of the mindset

469
00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:11,960
of the time of the inter-war period.

470
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:15,040
The Japanese,
partly because they were forced

471
00:28:15,120 --> 00:28:18,640
to make the imagination leap required

472
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,360
to think of using
the aircraft carriers alone,

473
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:24,560
as a strike force to cripple
the fleet.

474
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:34,760
Knowing from the intercepts
that Japan is poised for war,

475
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,600
Washington alerts all military forces
in the Pacific.

476
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:43,120
And so a message was sent
to Pearl Harbor,

477
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:45,880
that began with a nine-word sentence,

478
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,440
that really is probably the most famous
in American naval history.

479
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,320
It said, "This dispatch
is to be considered a war warning."

480
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:58,160
And it then went on to list
possible targets.

481
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:00,920
The Philippines, Malaya,

482
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,080
and Husband Kimmel, in Hawaii,
got that message

483
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:06,240
and he sat down with his executive staff

484
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:08,440
and they analyzed,
"What does this mean?

485
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:10,200
What should we do?"

486
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,800
And they concluded,
well, they are specifically noting

487
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:15,920
that the Japanese are going here,
here and here.

488
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:17,440
But they don't mention us.

489
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:23,840
Admiral Kimmel believes that
he is gonna have to send his fleet out

490
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,960
to support whatever area
does get attacked.

491
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:29,920
So Kimmel focused on making sure
the ships were ready,

492
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,000
they were fueled up,
they had good training,

493
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:33,600
they were ready to go out to sea

494
00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:35,960
when the Japanese struck,
wherever they struck,

495
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:38,120
and everyone expected a Japanese attack.

496
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:41,080
While Kimmel prepares his fleet,

497
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,000
to attack the Japanese at sea,

498
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,360
army head, General Short,
has to defend the base.

499
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,240
But he expects the real threat

500
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:53,560
to come from within the island.

501
00:29:54,920 --> 00:29:57,720
There were more people
of Japanese ancestry

502
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:01,160
than any other nationality,
including native Hawaiians.

503
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,000
And there was this widespread feeling
that before it came

504
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:07,440
they would all rise up
and they would plant bombs under bridges.

505
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:11,400
So Short wanted to guard against
people committing acts of sabotage.

506
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,560
And in the end,
he ends up issuing an order

507
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,920
that requires his air fields
to put all of their aircraft

508
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:22,400
on the center of the tarmac,

509
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,760
where they can be guarded
around the clock.

510
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,240
But what the Americans
don't know

511
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,400
is that a vast armada
is now making its way

512
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:36,400
across the Pacific Ocean.

513
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,080
The attack is less than a week away.

514
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:44,840
But for the Japanese,
it's been months in the planning.

515
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,880
The Japanese knew this was something
that had to be meticulously planned.

516
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:54,440
They had to decide
which mix of air planes to use.

517
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,160
Which targets were the priority targets,

518
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,320
who would lead which squadrons,

519
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,040
everything was planned.

520
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:04,680
And there was some intelligence

521
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,280
that could only be collected
on the ground.

522
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,760
Of the thousands of Japanese residents
on Hawaii,

523
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:15,000
one was Takeo Yoshikawa.

524
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:17,760
A Japanese citizen,
a naval officer,

525
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:20,400
who'd been living on the island
for eight months,

526
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,320
working as a spy.

527
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,120
Every day he'd been observing
the movements

528
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:26,880
of the ships and the aircraft,

529
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,600
down to the smallest details.

530
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,600
On board one of the ships,
there were two models

531
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:39,880
of Pearl Harbor and Oahu.

532
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,520
Actual scale models
that had been built on table tops.

533
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:47,400
They even made
little miniature warships

534
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:49,640
about the size of a Hershey bar.

535
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:54,200
So that pilots could practice
which directions to come from

536
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,080
and would recognize
the landmarks on the island.

537
00:31:59,920 --> 00:32:03,120
Signs of an impending attack
continue to grow.

538
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:10,840
It became evident that Japanese
embassies and consulates

539
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:12,760
were starting to destroy

540
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:15,440
their secret code machines
and documents.

541
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:18,760
Now why would a country do that?

542
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:22,680
Well, a country that's about to go to war
with another country,

543
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:28,480
realizes the host country
will probably come knocking

544
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:30,600
on your embassy front door

545
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,080
and seize everything it can find.

546
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:37,040
The news of that destruction was sent

547
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:39,720
to the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii,

548
00:32:40,040 --> 00:32:43,400
and its commander,
Husband Kimmel, read the message.

549
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:49,120
And he read it as,
"They think we are going to attack them.

550
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:55,440
So they are destroying their stuff
in anticipation of being attacked."

551
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:09,280
There's a strong sense
of fatalism in Japanese culture.

552
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,000
The sacrifice of your life
for the greater good,

553
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:14,160
for the empire, for the emperor.

554
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:18,120
This is the highest duty
and the greatest honor.

555
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,160
When the word finally was passed
to the typical crew men,

556
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,000
many of course did the obvious thing.

557
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,280
They began writing their wills

558
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:30,640
and sending letters to their family.

559
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,000
December the 6th, 1941.

560
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,920
The Japanese fleet are 200 miles
off the north coast of Hawaii.

561
00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:47,480
And closing in on their final destination.

562
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:53,280
Against the odds, they have survived
the epic journey undetected.

563
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:57,920
The American fleet at Pearl Harbor
had no idea they are there.

564
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,320
The American Secretary of the Navy,
Frank Knox,

565
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:06,120
had a dinner party in Washington D.C.,

566
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:07,560
where members of the press

567
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:09,840
were invited
and they asked him to say a few words.

568
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:11,600
And he said "Ladies and gentlemen,

569
00:34:11,720 --> 00:34:12,976
I don't know what's going to happen.

570
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:14,560
None of us know what's going to happen,

571
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:16,360
but I can tell you this
with great assurity.

572
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:19,000
Whatever may happen,
we will not be surprised.

573
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,280
The American Navy is ready."

574
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:03,280
Radar was a new invention in 1941.

575
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:08,040
The army had mobile radar units.

576
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,080
One of those was
at the farthest northern point

577
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:13,320
of the island of Oahu.

578
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:16,240
Manned by two privates

579
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,120
and they had been told
to operate their radar,

580
00:35:19,240 --> 00:35:20,360
just for practice.

581
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,720
Nobody had told them there was
anything to worry about,

582
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,640
and at 7:02 a.m.,
they detected on the screen

583
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,240
a large blob of airplanes.

584
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,960
And they called down
to their headquarters.

585
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:39,280
"There's this blob of planes out there,

586
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:41,400
we don't know how many,
but it's a lot."

587
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,720
And headquarters essentially told them,

588
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:46,840
"Don't worry about it,
they're probably Navy planes.

589
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,200
They could be army planes
coming from the mainland."

590
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:57,280
The privates had, in fact,
spotted 183 planes

591
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,720
that comprised the first wave
of Japanese aircraft

592
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:03,200
heading directly towards them.

593
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:09,560
At 7:53 a.m., the planes arrive at Oahu

594
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:13,120
to find a sitting duck awaiting them.

595
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,920
Pearl Harbor happens
on a quiet Sunday morning.

596
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,760
When American sailors
are going about their business

597
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,720
as if it is any other Sunday
at peace time.

598
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,000
The initial thought is
that for some reason

599
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:32,240
there's training on Sunday
and that seems wildly unbelievable.

600
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:33,880
Why are there planes in the air?

601
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:38,800
The Japanese had certainly banked
on the element of surprise.

602
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:42,960
That they would catch the American Fleet
and the airfields unawares.

603
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:45,280
But they had to assume
that there would be some reaction.

604
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,320
The sight that greets them,
you know,

605
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:51,200
no enemy fighters in the sky.

606
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:53,760
They must now have been thinking
to themselves

607
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:56,360
that not only are they gonna pull off
this attack,

608
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:59,920
but "We may in fact walk away
with far fewer causalities

609
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,400
than we had anticipated."

610
00:37:03,720 --> 00:37:05,720
They cruise in
on a lovely morning.

611
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:07,200
The air is clear,

612
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,680
makes it very easy to identify
their targets.

613
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,000
And so they go into their dives
and they drop their bombs.

614
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:26,760
The Japanese target
the airfields first,

615
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,800
taking out any defense planes
before they have a chance to fight back.

616
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:34,840
And thanks to general Short's orders,

617
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:39,080
the planes make perfect targets
parked together on the runways.

618
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:45,480
And anti-aircraft ammunition
is locked away from saboteurs.

619
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:50,760
For some on the ground,

620
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,840
it meant a desperate scramble
to find the keys.

621
00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:59,440
Initially we had to have
Pearl Harbor locked up

622
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:03,240
we can't do nothing,

623
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,840
we were just spectators
because we couldn't fly.

624
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,600
After destroying hundreds
of planes within minutes,

625
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:17,160
next, the Japanese turn their attention
to the real prize.

626
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:20,080
Battleship row.

627
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:27,840
I'll never forget all those
cruisers and battleships were tied,

628
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:30,520
mostly were behind,
each on the side of the pier.

629
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,440
And they sat in there
just like a hornet’s nest.

630
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,920
And within minutes, everything's aflame.

631
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:45,920
Their comrades are dead,

632
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,480
they're watching the ships
that they considered invulnerable,

633
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:51,640
the greatest battleships
in the world,

634
00:38:51,720 --> 00:38:53,600
beginning to burn.

635
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,440
It would have been
just a cacophony of noise

636
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,520
and a crush of men going
in these narrow passageways,

637
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:01,120
trying to get their ships operational.

638
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:03,120
People moving through hatchways,

639
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:05,840
up and down ladders,
you have to run to your guns

640
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:07,680
and do something to defend your ship.

641
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:09,880
Because if you don't,
you're all gonna die.

642
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,320
And the attack only intensifies

643
00:39:17,720 --> 00:39:20,880
as the Japanese unveil
their secret weapon.

644
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:26,040
And I looked,
and just as I looked west,

645
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:28,520
I saw them drop
two torpedoes in the water.

646
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:33,400
Americans tended to disparage

647
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,680
the technological prowess
of the Japanese.

648
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,880
They were not thought
to be great engineers.

649
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,280
Knowing that Pearl Harbor
was impervious to torpedoes,

650
00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:46,400
in the weeks leading up to the attack,

651
00:39:46,720 --> 00:39:50,040
the Japanese had come up
with an ingenious solution.

652
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,560
They built a brand-new type of torpedo

653
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:55,320
that can be dropped in shallow water.

654
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:58,640
Fixing wooden fins
and other things to the torpedoes

655
00:39:58,720 --> 00:40:01,800
that would absorb the initial impact
of the weapon,

656
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:04,600
allow it to dive not quite so deeply.

657
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,600
They're able to utilize
what the Americans think

658
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,600
is an advantage for the Americans
and turn it on its head.

659
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:15,040
It's like adding insult to injury here.

660
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:17,376
Because they're not just
being attacked from the dive bombers,

661
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,160
the torpedoes are clearly working,
wreaking devastation.

662
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:25,920
The Japanese get a very lucky shot
and one of their bombs

663
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,800
strikes the forward magazine
of the USS Arizona.

664
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,080
And it just lifts the ships
out of the water.

665
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:38,160
And in just a few seconds
more than 1100 sailors are killed.

666
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:42,320
And so this is the most devastating blow
of the entire morning.

667
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:47,120
For one American
watching the events unfold,

668
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,960
the attack is more
than a national catastrophe.

669
00:40:52,720 --> 00:40:56,800
On that morning, Kimmel was slated
to play golf with Short.

670
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:00,080
Kimmel was up
when he got the phone call

671
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,040
that planes were now attacking
Pearl Harbor.

672
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:07,800
He put on his uniform,
had it only partially buttoned

673
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:11,760
and walked out on to the lawn
of his house, and from there,

674
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,880
looked out at history unfolding
in front of him.

675
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:22,400
Bombs are going off,
Japanese planes are flying by

676
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:23,960
and it's a nightmare!

677
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:28,680
But Kimmel's nightmare
is made even worse,

678
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:31,640
by the fact that he'd missed
a glaring opportunity

679
00:41:31,720 --> 00:41:33,520
to act that very morning.

680
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:38,560
Around half an hour
before the Japanese planes arrived,

681
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:40,640
he'd received a phone call

682
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:43,560
that an enemy submarine
had been spotted

683
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:45,560
and destroyed by an American ship,

684
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:48,840
just outside Pearl Harbor.

685
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,080
Despite the warning,
he'd failed to prepare for attack.

686
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:58,160
So the great irony here
is that America fires the first shot

687
00:41:58,240 --> 00:41:59,360
in the Pacific war.

688
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:01,520
Because we fling all these depth charges

689
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:03,360
at this Japanese midget submarine.

690
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:05,480
So we fire the first shot

691
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,640
and then we stand down
and allow ourselves to be attacked.

692
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:13,440
Kimmel has heard
so many war warnings at this point that,

693
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,240
even when USS Ward says,

694
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,480
"I depth-charged this submarine
and sank it,"

695
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:22,120
he just doesn't believe
that it could possibly be true.

696
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:26,520
That's, you know,
one of the failings that morning.

697
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:32,520
Kimmel knew his days as commander
of the Pacific Fleet were over.

698
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:36,200
And, of course,
later famously said,

699
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:38,280
"If only one of those bombs
had killed me,

700
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:40,040
how much better it would have been."

701
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:48,280
By 9:45 a.m.,
the attack is over.

702
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:50,360
In just two hours,

703
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:54,000
the Japanese had dropped
hundreds of bombs

704
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:56,120
and dozens of torpedoes

705
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,880
to cripple the American Pacific Fleet.

706
00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:03,920
328 American aircraft
are put out of action

707
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:07,320
nineteen navy ships destroyed,

708
00:43:08,120 --> 00:43:09,440
and in total,

709
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:14,920
2,403 Americans would be killed.

710
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:18,360
It was a terrible thing,

711
00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:20,440
as we went out in the Harbor to see

712
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:23,280
men in the, in the water…

713
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,240
bodies, it was a horrible sight.

714
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:37,520
So the Japanese
could call it a perfect day.

715
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,480
"We've pulled this thing off,
it was extremely daring,

716
00:43:41,880 --> 00:43:45,000
we know that we've hit the enemy,
terribly hard."

717
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:48,200
They feel it's mission accomplished.

718
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:52,080
With the Pacific Fleet in ruins,

719
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:56,200
the Japanese can push ahead
with territorial expansion

720
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:57,880
in the South Pacific.

721
00:43:58,520 --> 00:44:01,920
Within 24 hours,
they invade Hong Kong,

722
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:06,440
Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines,
and quickly drive south.

723
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,560
In a matter of weeks
they would have taken over

724
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:13,120
thousands of miles of territory.

725
00:44:13,720 --> 00:44:16,240
Reaching even the ultimate prize,

726
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:18,840
the oil of the Dutch east Indies.

727
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,160
Embolden by their success
at Pearl Harbor

728
00:44:23,240 --> 00:44:25,160
and new territorial gains,

729
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:29,880
and with the valuable oil supply
feeding their huge war machine,

730
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:33,520
the Japanese feel more powerful than ever.

731
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:38,320
But as the new empire takes shape,

732
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,640
the man behind the plan
to destroy Pearl Harbor,

733
00:44:41,720 --> 00:44:45,560
Admiral Yamamoto,
falls into a depression.

734
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,360
He fears the attack missed
important targets.

735
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,960
Yamamoto, having spent some time
in the United States, knew two things.

736
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,200
That number one, that Americans
worshiped their battleships.

737
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:02,080
So if you knock the battleships out
in the first round,

738
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,000
Americans would feel
as if they were stripped

739
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:06,720
of their most potent weapon.

740
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:10,440
The other thing that Yamamoto knew
was that the Americans

741
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:15,480
had really good aircraft carriers
and great aircraft and pilots on them.

742
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:17,920
That was the thing
that needed to get knocked out.

743
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:22,120
And the worst possible outcome
was to destroy their battleships

744
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:24,240
and leave their aircraft carriers
untouched.

745
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:25,560
Which is exactly what happened.

746
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:31,680
By total chance,
America's three Pacific aircraft carriers

747
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:36,040
had not been in Pearl Harbor
on the morning of December the 7th.

748
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,640
While his colleagues
don't see this as important,

749
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,240
Yamamoto understands its significance.

750
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:53,160
He was an innovator,
out front in terms of recognizing

751
00:45:53,240 --> 00:45:55,760
the significance of air power at sea,

752
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,280
and recognized that this was
the coming wave.

753
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:04,000
So if you look at aircraft carriers
as the fundamental units of the fleet,

754
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:07,280
Pearl Harbor does nothing
to weaken the United States.

755
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:13,880
But there was another reason
that Yamamoto's mood was low.

756
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,840
As he'd feared,
the American public hadn't reacted

757
00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:20,120
as his military colleagues were hoping.

758
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:23,520
Far from being shocked into submission,

759
00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:27,320
the attack had completely
the opposite effect.

760
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:32,880
The Japanese really kick over
a hornet's nest,

761
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:36,680
because the Americans are like,
"Wow, we can't take this sitting down,

762
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:38,280
we need to strike back."

763
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:39,960
People want to be involved
in this war.

764
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:42,360
People are rushing
to the recruiting stations.

765
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:44,560
A country like the United States

766
00:46:44,720 --> 00:46:48,720
is never gonna be brought to its knees
as the result of losing one battle.

767
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:51,400
No matter how devastating
the Japanese attack had been,

768
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:53,320
had they sunk every single battleship,

769
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:55,880
had they found and sunk those carriers,

770
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:59,920
it still would have meant
that the United States was galvanized

771
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:01,960
into a full-scale war.

772
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:06,880
The one man who understood,
immediately,

773
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:10,520
the true meaning of Pearl Harbor
was of course Winston Churchill.

774
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,160
Because he knew
that although a vast amount

775
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:16,920
of dying and killing had to go on,

776
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:20,560
that once the United States
was in the war,

777
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:24,200
with this stupendous economic
and industrial power,

778
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:26,920
that the Allies must, in the end, prevail.

779
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,040
Churchill claimed
he went to bed that night

780
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:32,160
saying to himself in his head,

781
00:47:32,720 --> 00:47:33,920
"So we had won after all."

782
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:38,520
With Anti-Japanese feeling
at an all-time high,

783
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:42,120
President Franklin Roosevelt
grasped the opportunity

784
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:44,600
to unite the country
for the fight ahead.

785
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,640
In a speech to congress,
he declares war

786
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:51,360
on this new and evil enemy.

787
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:54,000
Roosevelt calls it dastardly and evil.

788
00:47:54,080 --> 00:47:55,880
He calls it a day of infamy,

789
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:58,880
American opinion rallies strongly
against Japan.

790
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,640
No matter how long it may take us…

791
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:06,200
to overcome this premeditated invasion,

792
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:09,560
the American people
in their righteous might

793
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:13,280
will win through,
through absolute victory.

794
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:15,600
From a political standpoint,

795
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,840
Pearl Harbor is a gift to, you know, FDR,

796
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:21,760
that he couldn't have possibly imagined.

797
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,760
That all of a sudden,
all of the road blocks

798
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:28,840
to being able to fight against the Axis
had been magically removed.

799
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:31,800
Four days
after Roosevelt's speech

800
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:34,400
marks the beginning
of the war with Japan,

801
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:36,120
Hitler weighs in,

802
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:38,400
declaring war on the US.

803
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:41,520
Less than a week
after the Pearl Harbor attack,

804
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:43,840
united and galvanized,

805
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:48,520
America is now a fully-fledged combatant
in World War II.

806
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:53,960
Within days, Roosevelt lays plans
for the bombing of Tokyo,

807
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:56,280
using two of the aircraft carriers

808
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:59,400
that were untouched during Pearl Harbor.

809
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:03,920
In three months, half of the ships

810
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,720
thought to have been destroyed
during the attack,

811
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:08,560
are returned to service.

812
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:13,520
Eventually, all but three
will be fully repaired.

813
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:19,640
As the Pacific conflict continues
into 1942,

814
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:24,320
and the full military might of America
is unleashed,

815
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:27,720
the war is only just beginning.

816
00:49:31,380 --> 00:49:35,880
Re-sync and redact: BLU DUAINE
blu.duaine@protonmail.com