All language subtitles for World.War.II.With.Tom.Hanks.S01E14.Long.Road.To.Tokyo.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

As in the struggle
against Nazi Germany,

American strategy in
the war against Japan

includes launching mass bombing
attacks against factories,

military installations,
and cities.

But the map of
the Asia-Pacific War

covers enormous distances.

A new, more powerful
bomber is needed,

the B-29 Superfortress.

Securing air bases
for these super-forts

becomes a primary objective
for President Roosevelt

and American military leaders.

All Wars changed the world,

but none of them
changed the world

like the second World War did.

Japan's on the march,
Germany's on the march.

No-one can imagine the nightmare
they're about to unleash,

the most destructive war
in human history.

Suddenly the world
is turned upside down

and all hell is let loose.

The West is stunned by
the speed of the advance.

You get the Allies
led by the big three:

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin.

Men who are dealing with
immensely complicated questions.

It's the biggest military
operation of human history.

The Allies have to
come together

not just militarily
but industrial scale.

It's a global perspective.

They have to fight
in every climate

from the Arctic
to the jungles of the Pacific

to the deserts of Africa
and the depths of the ocean.

But there was
no certainty of victory.

It was going to be
a horrific bloodbath.

We see humans
at their absolute worst,

how they treat other
human beings.

And we see them
at their absolute best,

willing to give their lives
that others might live.

World War II was a struggle
in which there could be

one victor and one vanquished.

For over two years,

the United States has been
building the B-29 bomber,

the Superfortress.

When it's ready to roll
off the assembly line,

the B-29 will be one of
the most potent weapons

in the American arsenal.

The B-29 Superfortress

is the most expensive programme
in World War II,

$3 billion to go ahead
and build an aircraft.

The B-29 is a stunning
leap in aircraft technology.

The B-29 will incorporate
a pressurised cabin,

airborne radar.

It has 10 miles of wiring.

It had remote-controlled turrets.

It had the most powerful engines
in the history of the world.

But the critical thing
about the B-29 was range.

It could carry bombs
farther, higher, faster

than anything else that
had, not just been built,

but ever imagined.

The complexity
of its design, however,

delays its manufacture.

It's been
riddled with problems.

It ends up behind schedule.

Bombing the
Japanese home islands

is a crucial part of
the American strategy

in the Asia-Pacific War.

Allied air commanders
wanna launch

the same kind of
air offensive against Japan

that they've been carrying out
against Germany.

They wanna destroy factories,
shipyards, infrastructure,

bring the Japanese war economy
to its knees.

In addition to
strategic considerations,

President Roosevelt understands
that the American people

expect retribution
against the Japanese.

If you'd have done a public
opinion survey of Americans,

there was a palpable sense

of wanting to get these
people back for Pearl Harbor.

By 1943, it's payback time.

And so the B-29
is going to become

the first weapon system

that can really attack
the Japanese homeland

and military targets.

The problem is, where
are your airfields going to be?

They have to be within range
of the Japanese home islands.

US Marines
have been fighting their way

across the Pacific,
but it will take months

before they can secure
an area suitable

for launching B-29s.

The B-29's got
a 1,600 mile combat range.

So Roosevelt's looking
at several options

as to where to base these things.

They don't have
an island close enough,

but they do have an ally

within range of the
Japanese home islands.

And that ally is
Chiang Kai-shek and China.

Chiang Kai-shek
emerged as the leader

of the Chinese
Nationalist Party in 1928.

He's ruled China ever since.

He is the
Generalissimo of China.

He's a general,
but he's also a dictator.

The problem he's got is
since the early 1930s,

there is rising communism
under Mao Zedong.

He's effectively
got a civil war.

In addition
to internal conflict,

China faces an external threat.

Japan invaded China in 1937

and seized Chiang's capital,
Nanking,

as well as all major
Chinese coastal cities.

The Japanese control
95% of China's industry,

90% of China's railways,
half of China's population.

They control a quarter to a third
of China's landmass.

And they closed off
all the Chinese ports.

Severed from
Chinese port cities,

Chiang established
a new capital, Chungking,

and constructed a route
that connected China

to the port of Rangoon in
the British colony of Burma.

Cut through more than 700 miles
of mountainous jungle terrain,

the Burma Road was China's

main route for receiving supplies,

primarily from the United States.

Until Japan seized Burma too.

The final piece of
this Japanese imperial puzzle

was the conquest
of Burma in 1942.

The Japanese seized
the Burma Road

and make it impossible
for the Allies

to supply China's armies.

The Chinese have
lost their umbilical,

they've lost their artery,
all their supplies flowing in.

Chiang Kai-shek
has maybe four million men

available for military service,
but only a million rifles.

So he's desperate for Western
material to flesh out his army

and pose some kind of serious
obstacle to the Japanese.

In November of 1943,

President Roosevelt
confers with Chiang

and British prime minister
Winston Churchill in Cairo.

At the top of the agenda,

how to keep
the Chinese in the fight.

Franklin Roosevelt is worried
that if China is without resources,

Chiang Kai-shek could make
a separate peace with Japan,

which would be hugely
problematic for the Americans.

China is where the vast
majority of the Japanese army

is currently being tied up.

And let's not forget
that Roosevelt

has this big new weapon, the B-29s.

He wants to base them
in Southern China.

So keeping China in the war is
absolutely essential to FDR.

Chiang goes to
Cairo with a big shopping list.

He needs aircraft,
fuel, shells, guns.

He'll take anything
that the Allies will give him.

He's pretty desperate.

Winston Churchill...
This is all a bit alarming to him.

He just doesn't trust Chiang
Kai-shek in his bones.

Chiang Kai-shek has
a reputation for being corrupt,

not particularly reliable.

There are valid concerns that
instead of using the supplies

that FDR is promising
Chiang Kai-shek

for the purposes
of fighting Japan,

he might instead
hoard those supplies

and then use them
to fight the communists.

FDR knew he wasn't
running a boy scout troop,

so he didn't examine too closely

the morals of those
who shared his interests.

That wasn't how you
could fight a global war.

At Cairo, FDR and Chiang
agree that the Chinese

will build runways for the B-29s

and that the US will send
even more supplies to China.

That requires mind-boggling
scales of logistics.

For a single bullet to get
to a single Chinese rifle,

it's gotta come from a factory,
let's say in the Midwest.

So you send it
all the way across the Pacific.

The British still hold India,

so it would then
get into Calcutta,

then be put onto a train,

then sent up to Northeast India,

and then fly them
over the Himalayas

to the nationalists in China.

Flying the
India-China ferry

over the highest mountain range
in the world

is extremely hazardous.

The men ordered to do it
call it the Hump.

Flying supplies into China

is something that's never
been attempted on this scale.

These were just
transport aircraft,

but the missions were as challenging
as bomber raids over Germany.

These aircraft are taking off
with incredibly high weights

because we are trying to get
as many supplies in as we can.

The route is only
about 500 miles,

but the difficulty is the altitude.

These pilots are flying
in unpressurised aircraft

over peaks
that are 16,000 feet high,

and then back down again
to their Chinese bases.

Got this hot, moist air

bubbling out of the Indian Ocean,

meeting with this Siberian air
blowing down from Tibet,

causing some of the most
difficult weather conditions

on the planet.

You get these incredible
changes in air pressure.

Pilots who flew the Hump say

the plane'd lurch 100 feet
in the air,

and then drop 200 feet,
and lurch back up a 100 feet.

It's hard to imagine
for the pilots who do it.

The aircraft is proven
but not in these conditions.

So every time they go up,
they're learning.

But there's a cost to learning this
real time.

594 aircraft are lost
and 1,500 aircrew.

The problem is you
have to deliver 18 tons of fuel,

and other supplies, to get one ton
of stuff to the Chinese army.

It was a trickle
of what was needed.

But China remains a priority
for President Roosevelt.

There is another option.

The Allies need to
reopen the Burma Road.

By late 1943, China
has been at war with Japan

for six years, engaging the
majority of the Japanese Army.

President Roosevelt
and his military leaders

are determined to defend China,

including using B-29s to strike
the Japanese home islands.

The US plans to build four
air bases around Chengdu

that will accommodate the B-29.

The B-29
Superfortress is a heavy bomber.

And that means it needs a runway

that's strong enough to land on.

But the problem is there's
no way to bring in a bulldozer,

or a truck, or heavy
equipment into China.

They simply won't
fit in the aircraft

that are flying over the Hump.

But the upside for running a
bomber campaign out of China

is that the Americans know
that they will have access

to all the Chinese labour
they could ask for.

Hundreds
of thousands of people

grinding out a runway by hand.

No bulldozers or
complicated machinery available.

Only manpower and hard work.

Just the sheer
scale of human labour,

it looks like ancient history.

Men, women, children,
pulling the rollers,

working side by side.
Their country in jeopardy,

Chinese civilians defend
against the Japanese

any way they can,
building roads,

constructing airfields,
loading supplies.

China's an agrarian economy

in a time period where industrial
warfare has taken over.

So how do they produce all
these weapons that you need?

For example, how do
you produce tanks?

So part of the problem here for
Chiang is that he needs everything.

The only way to bring
the tanks and the artillery

that Chiang needs into China

is to reopen the Burma Road.

The Allies have more than
a quarter of a million troops

based in Eastern India,
from Calcutta to Ledo in Assam.

They plan
a two-pronged offensive.

The British 14th Army
will push into Central Burma

to expel the Japanese.

An American-led force will
cross into Northern Burma

and fight their way through to
re-establish the Burma Road.

General Joseph Stilwell
commands the American forces.

His personal and professional
connection to China

spans three decades.

Joseph Stilwell,
well known as Vinegar Joe,

he's cranky, and acerbic,
and sarcastic.

But Stilwell
speaks and reads Mandarin.

He's a great lover of China

and he has nothing but good
things to say about the Chinese.

A respected Commander,

Stilwell has trained thousands
of soldiers in his long career.

Stilwell's task is to take
a handful of Chinese divisions,

30,000 of Chiang Kai-shek's troops,

and train them up to
Western standards.

He takes over an old
British POW camp in India

and he's able to give them
the training, the weaponry,

so that they turn themselves
into relatively solid units.

General William Slim,
Uncle Bill to his troops,

leads the British 14th Army,
a multinational force

comprised of units from
Britain, India, and Africa.

Many have been
battling the Japanese

since the invasion of Burma.

Slim says, look,
we got beaten in Burma

because we couldn't fight in the
jungle like the Japanese can.

They're not superhuman.
We have to learn how to do it.

The Japanese were considered
to be these amazing jungle fighters.

But we should remember,
Japan's not a jungle country.

They're not great jungle fighters
cos they grew up in it.

This is about training.

A complete rethink is needed.

Slim starts training everybody,
not just frontline infantrymen.

Everyone needs to be able to handle
themselves with their weapons,

the bottle washers and the cooks
and the truck drivers.

And everyone needs to
know that the Japanese

are not these supermen.
They're not bogey men.

Actually, they are
completely defeatable.

So I think by this point, the
war's going very badly for Japan.

You've had the Battle of Midway
in 1942,

which Japan lost.

Now, as a result,
Japanese shipping

is struggling to get through.

So you've got rationing
tightening in Japan.

And then back in Europe, you've
had the German loss at Stalingrad.

You've had the
toppling of Mussolini.

So I think at this point,
Japan doesn't expect

it's gonna get any help,
really, from the Axis powers.

Hideki Tojo, who has
been Prime Minister since 1941,

is the dominant force in the
Japanese government and military.

By early 1944,
there's a feeling for Tojo

and for others
at the high command

something can be done
elsewhere in the war

to try and offer Japan
a little bit of progress.

And some kind of dramatic
success for the Japanese

might force the Americans to
come to the negotiating table.

One idea is to put some
pressure on the Allies

in Northeast India and on
Chiang Kai-shek in China.

Prime Minister Tojo
approves Operation U-Go,

an invasion into India.

His generals prepare to attack

the British bases of the 14th Army

and to capture the
American Hump airfields.

Tojo understands
that at this point,

these flights across the Hump

are the last remaining
connection point with the West

that the Chinese
national government has.

And if you can cut
those air bases off,

that will then be the straw
that breaks the nationalist back.

For the Allies, this is rife
with portents of disaster.

March 1944,
Operation U-Go begins.

Japanese troops move across
the Burmese jungle into India,

toward British bases and
the American airfields.

The Japanese commander is
General Renya Mutaguchi.

Mutaguchi thinks
he is a creature of destiny.

And he's got a plan.
He believes that right there,

on the very, very western
frontier of the Japanese Empire,

he could strike a blow that
could save the war for Japan.

Mutaguchi hopes his invasion

will inspire the Indians
to overthrow the British

and join Japan in the war.

The Japanese are banking
on speed and surprise,

that they're gonna
move three divisions

across these 8,000 foot high
mountains

in the space of just a few days.

As such, he cuts the rations
for all of his attack soldiers

to just 20 days' worth of food.
- The Japanese soldiers

carry a very small amount of
food supply, like dried rice.

And they do not carry
many heavy weapons.

So the Japanese
cannot get locked in

to an attritional battle.
Cos they're travelling light,

they're gonna have to rely on
capturing British supply dumps

as they go along. It's a gamble.

To get to the air bases
in India,

Mutaguchi will need to
cross the Imphal Plain,

site of a large
British forward base.

The Imphal Plain, it's
got like a big river valley,

surrounded by mountainous
jungley terrain.

The Brits have used this
like a bread basket.

They've got airfields there,
they've got supply dumps, food,

everything the Japanese need.

Based in Imphal are
three British-Indian divisions

from General Slim's 14th Army.

They're about to push
into enemy territory

when they receive reports that
Mutaguchi's Japanese troops

are moving towards them.

Bill Slim's new plan
is to withdraw slightly,

create a killing zone,

let the Japanese attack
through this difficult terrain,

and pound them
with artillery and aircraft.

He's going to
relinquish ground,

but all the time
he's going to attrit,

grind down the Japanese.

This is a high risk strategy

and you can only do that if
you're extremely confident

that your men are
sufficiently trained.

But Mutaguchi's
force arrives quickly

and is far larger than
Slim was expecting.

So when these
Japanese divisions

start sort of materialising
out of the jungle,

it's a real pucker
moment for the British.

The Japanese encircle Imphal
and cut off its supply roads.

There is this just brutal battle.

The fighting is
incredibly close quarter.

And it is absolutely
touch and go.

But Mutaguchi
is mired in mental models

that were applicable in 1942

but are no longer
applicable in '44.

Back then, if you hit
an Indian division

in the face with
a frontal attack,

a lot of the time it fell apart.

But Slim's army is better
trained, it is more resilient,

and from a morale standpoint,
they believe in themselves.

They think that they can
fight the Japanese toe to toe.

Fighting is
relentless around Imphal,

but General Slim has a plan

to bring in reinforcements
and supplies.

All this time, Imphal
itself is completely cut off.

And if you're
gonna make a stand,

you're gonna need supplies.

What Slim recognises with
his American colleagues

is that air power is
key to the whole thing.

There's only one way to
supply this Allied pocket,

and that is by air.

The Americans
have already got

a very efficient, well-trained
transport air force

in the north of India, the Hump.

And they turn that
airlift 90 degrees aside

and aim it towards Imphal
and the British troops there.

When you're
flying low and slow,

you are one big fat target.

These cargo planes have
no defensive armament,

they don't have any guns.

And if you push the cargo
out four seconds late,

it's gonna end up
in Japanese hands.

But astonishingly it works.

These transports
airdrop and land

about 14 million pounds
of food, ammunition,

heavy equipment, and
thousands of fresh troops.

And that means that Slim can
keep his forces fighting.

Mutaguchi had hoped to
take Imphal within days,

right off the march. Instead,
what he gets is a meat grinder.

For weeks, divisions
of General Slim's 14th Army

have been receiving
supplies by air.

They're the frontline resisting
Japan's invasion of India.

But Mutaguchi's men
are running out of time.

The Japanese
have gone into the offensive

without much equipment.

They don't have an
established supply line.

So every day that they
don't achieve success,

it becomes more
and more desperate.

Of course, the
big problem they face is rations.

They start to run out, hunger
starts to become a big issue.

They're picking up snakes,
they're trying to eat monkeys.

They are literally starving.

General Tojo
famously issued instructions

for the soldiers in the battlefield

that to be taken by enemy
as a prisoner of war

is unacceptable.

Facing defeat, they should
make a final suicidal charge

and die, or commit suicide.

The survivors
are forced to retreat.

Japanese soldiers are
dropping dead along the route.

The retreat
becomes hellish.

The Japanese words were
translated as the road of bones.

The survivors' accounts
are of mass suicides

all along the way.

There are stories of Japanese
buddies getting together

and hugging each other

and then detonating a grenade
between the two of them.

Up to this point in the war,

this is the largest defeat
the Japanese Army

has ever suffered on the ground,
around 60,000 casualties.

Mutaguchi had
a vision of this operation

to destroy the Allied efforts
in Northeastern India

and foment an insurrection.

All of those dreams are
shattered at the end of this.

In the spring of 1944,

President Roosevelt is
focused on Operation Overlord,

the upcoming
invasion of Normandy.

But he's frustrated by
the delays in East Asia

and the fact that the B-29s
are still not in action.

America is in Burma
and in this theatre

to supply China with weapons

and to supply their B-29
bases in Southern China.

Roosevelt has been told time
and again by his military men

that they're devoting
precious resources

on an effort that looks
increasingly futile.

And yet Roosevelt simply doesn't
see another horse to back.

In May of 1944,
there is no alternate place

from which B-29 bombers
can operate.

In Northern Burma,
General Vinegar Joe Stilwell

is preparing troops to
push to the Burma Road.

If the Americans
can reopen that road,

it's gonna completely transform

not only the ground campaign
in China for Chiang

but also the aerial campaign
for the American B-29s

that are gonna be based in China,

because they will be able to
drive over the heavy equipment

that they can't fly
across the Hump,

like steam shovels
and steam rollers.

And so it'll transform these
bases into the sort of bases

that Americans like to build,

big, sprawling, and
full of warehouses.

Stilwell's plan is to
move across Northern Burma,

attack the Japanese
military base at Myitkyina,

then push forward to create a
new route to the Burma Road.

He sent 7,000 men,
including Chinese troops,

and a veteran American
deep penetration force

nicknamed Merrill's Marauders,

on a three-week march through
the jungle towards Myitkyina.

Certain fighting
environments kill you

all by themselves. You don't need
bullets, you don't need shells.

The jungle kills you.

It destroys armies day by day.

The American and
Chinese troops inserted there,

they're just absolutely
devastated by illness.

They've all got amoebic dysentery,
severe diarrhoea.

They've all got, you know,
dengue and other tropical fevers.

There was nowhere to rest,
there was nowhere to recuperate,

and nowhere to get
the resources for war.

On May 17th,
Stilwell's troops

launched the attack
on Myitkyina.

It's a hard-fought battle.

There's more Japanese
than expected.

And the Japanese
fight doggedly for it.

The Americans
call in air support

from their bases in India.

And take Myitkyina Airfield.

US gliders land,

bringing reinforcements...

...and General Stilwell.

So with the fall of Myitkyina,

that now enables the Americans
to play their strong suit,

which is construction.

Army engineers
and local labourers

start to build a new route
from India to the Burma Road.

It's hundreds
of miles long,

scraped out of the jungle,

and it's a major
construction programme.

It's gonna take months.

From the British
and American standpoint,

it's all looking good.

It's gonna take a while
to rebuild that road,

but we can rebuild it now.

And it seems that the
tea leaves are now propitious

for a B-29 offensive
out of China.

The problem is that
the Allies don't know

that the Japanese have

an even bigger land operation
up their sleeve.

General Stilwell's
victory at Myitkyina

will enable the Americans to
reconnect to the Burma Road.

But it's a slow
and arduous process

and the road won't be
operational for months.

In June, 1944,

B-29s begin to arrive
at the airfields in China.

The Army Air Forces
have been waiting

for the B-29 for years.

Finally, here they are,

ready to fly their first
missions out of China.

The idea is to put up

a sustained bombing
campaign over Japan.

And the key is being
able to fly missions

over and over and over again.

The problem is logistics.

The B-29 is
an enormous fuel hog.

It runs on about 9,000 gallons
of gasoline per sortie.

They also
need a lot of bombs.

The only way
you're gonna get bombs

and fuel to those airfields
is they gotta fly over the Hump,

until they open up
a new Burma Road.

It takes
eight airlift missions

flying over the Hump
for every B-29 combat mission

just to bring in the bombs
and the fuel.

In mid-June, the first
B-29 combat mission to Japan

sets off from Chengdu.

68 Superfortresses

attack the Imperial
iron and steelworks

at Yawata in Southern Japan.

But because they
don't have enough supplies

coming into China, they're only
flying a few missions at a time.

It's just not going to add up

to the sustained pounding
campaign that Roosevelt wants.

Meanwhile,
Prime Minister Tojo

has launched an
offensive in China.

It's
called Operation Ichi-Go,

which means
Operation Number One.

And this is the
largest operation

that the Japanese
undertake during the war.

The offensive has two goals,

secure land access to
Japan's occupied possessions

in Southeast Asia

and capture
US air bases in China.

The Japanese attack

with about a half a million troops,

several thousand artillery pieces,

hundreds of tanks,
a lot of aircraft as well.

The big
surprise of this campaign

is how poor
Chiang Kai-shek's forces are.

At this point, some
of them are starving.

There've been lots of
deserters from their army.

And with that level of morale,

some of these forces,
under Japanese pressure,

simply melt away.

The Japanese push south,

overpowering Chinese forces.

Millions of Chinese
attempt to flee,

caught between a foreign invader

and their own corrupt leaders.

The US is forced to abandon
bases and airfields.

It's a huge embarrassment
for Chiang Kai-shek,

particularly
in the face of his allies.

All this time, he's been trying to
talk up what he's capable of

if only the Americans
give him what he needs.

And yet in the face
of Operation Ichi-Go,

his forces just seem to crumble.

For the Americans
looking at the wreckage

of the aftermath of Ichi-Go,

they recognise that the Chinese
can't defend American bases

no matter where they are.

On top of that, the increasing
logistical headaches

of trying to get
supplies over the Hump

means that they decide
to just cut their losses.

And they pack up those B-29s.

The Army Air Forces
have put everything

into making these
Chinese bases work,

but they're done with China.

And the Americans
may now have a new option

for basing B-29s,
which is a better option.

Since 1943,

American forces have
been fighting their way

across the Central Pacific.

Now a combined
Marine and Army force

is on the verge of invading
the Mariana Islands,

Tinian, Guam, and Saipan,
only 1,600 miles from Japan.

So if the Americans
can capture the Marianas,

the B-29 bomber will
now be within range

of almost all of Japan.

The expectation for the
Americans is that this should be

a relatively easy operation,

but the reality is gonna be
utterly different.

Just after D-Day, the
Allied invasion of Europe,

American forces attack Saipan
in the middle of the Pacific.

This is really
an unprecedented display

of American power projection,

that the Americans
are able to launch

these two massive operations,

Overlord first in Europe
and then Saipan.

They're separated
by half a planet.

They're thousands
of miles apart.

The expectation is that
this is gonna take three days

for two Marine divisions
and an Army division

to be able to conquer Saipan.

But the
Japanese had fortified it

and built D-Day style
fortifications,

not only bunkers and pillboxes,

but they had dummy
bunkers and pillboxes

so that they could waste
some of the naval bombardment

on fake targets.

In fact, there's actually
32,000 Japanese there.

Saipan is part of
the Japanese defences

that they would consider
to be the inner ring

that must be defended,

that they will
sacrifice the most for.

Because if they lose Saipan,
then Tokyo is in danger,

and that's where the Emperor is.

The resistance is ferocious.

The Americans
successfully get

a full division's worth
of troops on there

within the space of
just a few hours.

In the initial
assault, 8,000 Marines land.

Over 2,000 of them
become casualties.

This is a bloodletting beyond
what anybody had expected.

Any time
a Japanese formation

attempts to put in
a counter-attack,

they are immediately met

with inordinate amounts
of naval gunfire

that just crushed them.

The Japanese retreat
into the hills in the interior,

along with several thousand
Japanese settlers

living in Saipan. And they forced
the Marines and the Army troops

to root them out of caves
in these hills.

The battle for Saipan
lasts almost a month.

Thousands of civilians die,
caught in the crossfire.

The final climax of this battle
happens at a set of cliffs

on the northern
part of the island.

At Marpi Point,
advancing US troops

trap civilians and
Japanese soldiers

between the frontline
and the sea.

The Japanese propaganda

that's been fed to these people

tells them that the Americans
are going to kill all the men,

rape all the women, and it's
effective. They don't surrender.

And then
as the Marines close in,

some of them leap
to their deaths,

some of them clutching
their children.

Marines and soldiers
confront the inconceivable.

For Japan, the loss of Saipan
is a disaster.

They've had the heart

ripped out of their
defensive line.

And they know that
the Americans now

are gonna have perfect
operating conditions

to launch this bomber
offensive against Japan itself.

The casualties
are high, for both sides.

But the terrible loss of life

finally gives the B-29s

the air bases they need
to bomb Japan.

Instead of having
hand-built runways in China

that require airlift
just to bring in the gas,

now in the Mariana's islands,
you have huge runways

built by the Seabees
using brilliant white coral,

as hard and durable
as you can want.

On these three islands,

Saipan, Tinian, and Guam,

the Americans build five
long runway complexes,

each to be supported by a
bomber group of 180 B-29s.

And suddenly
the Marianas

are the world's
biggest air base.

FDR's objective, the B-29,

finally gets its optimum opportunity
to achieve the mission

for which it was developed
in the first place.

November, 1944,

B-29 Superfortresses

take off for the
first of many missions

to bomb the home islands of Japan.

With the capture of the
Mariana island chain,

the United States is capable
of regularly striking Japan,

just as it's been
able to hit Germany

for the past two years.

As the tide turns for
these Axis partners,

each country tightens its grip
on its people.

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