All language subtitles for World at War e23 Pacific (February 1942 - July 1945).en

(narrator) This tiny island,
less than one square mile,

cost more than 4,000 lives.

This is Tarawa, typical of some of the
most concentrated fighting of the war

as the Americans drive the Japanese
back island by island

across the Pacific.

In February 1942, Japanese bombers
attacked the Australian mainland.

The raid temporarily knocked out
the naval base of Darwin.

With the Japanese
advancing across New Guinea,

some Australians thought
this was the prelude to invasion,

but the Japanese army and navy
were unable to agree.

Their invasion plans were shelved.

In fact, the Japanese found
they were overextended.

In the appalling conditions
of the New Guinea jungle,

the Australians, with American support,

turned back the Japanese advance
on the vital base of Port Moresby.

Along the Kokoda Trail
the Allies counterattacked.

Sickness and disease were obstacles
as formidable as Japanese bullets.

By the end of 1942, the threat
to Australia had been removed.

The stage was set
for the long and bitter struggle

to push the Japanese back
to their homeland.

The Allied offensive came under
the separate command of two rivals,

General Douglas MacArthur
in the southwest Pacific

and Admiral Chester Nimitz
in the central Pacific.

American strategy was to mount
a two-pronged attack on an enemy

whose conquests extended

over thousands of square miles
of land and ocean.

MacArthur's task was to thrust upwards
from the Solomons and New Guinea

to the Philippines.

The forces under Nimitz

were to make a series of giant leaps
from island to island—

the Marshall Islands,
the Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.

They would start in the Gilberts
in November 1943 at Tarawa.

Each one of you
is much better than the Jap.

You're better physically. You're better
mentally. You have better weapons.

You'll have better support so that
you'll be able to lick him hands down

when it comes to individual fighting.

Let me repeat again
what the general said.

If you have to run any chances
whatsoever to get a prisoner,

then don't get him.

(laughter)

(narrator) The first objective

of Nimitz's island-hopping armada's
Tarawa atoll

had become a Japanese fortress

from whose airstrip planes
could strike at the US fleets.

Tarawa had to be taken.

This was the first time
a seaborne attack had been launched

against a heavily defended atoll
protected by a coral reef.

No one in the initial assault force
of 5,000 marines realised

just how strong
the defences of Tarawa were.

(man) They thought they would level
the island and demolish everything,

that there wouldn't be
a living soul on the island.

(man #2) I remember him telling us,

“This is gonna be the easiest invasion
we ever had.”

He says, “We'll only need two men—
one with a rifle and one with a slate.”

“One to shoot 'em,
one to chalk 'em up.”

“It's gonna be real easy.”

(man #3) I turned to the major standing
next to me on the deck and said,

“Some of our people
aren't aiming very well today.”

He said, “You don't think
those are our shells, do you?”

I realised then that we're being shot at
and there were Japanese on Tarawa.

(man #4) Everyone was confident that
you could kick hell out of the Japanese.

The marines would have no problem
with them

if we could get our feet on the beach.

(soldier) Let's go! Let's go!

(man #1) Remember that the island
was only 800 or 900 yards wide

and when you put 20,000 men on
an island like that, it's quite crowded.

There were Japs in front of the lines,
behind the lines, all over.

(man #5) We were told
that perhaps we could take this island

within a very short time

and it was quite evident within hours
of landing that this would not be so.

(man #4) The foxholes that had been
covered up with the naval gunfire,

the next morning,
within about 20 yards of where I was,

I watched the Japanese digging out.

They were digging the sand out of
the place so that they could see out.

(narrator) The battle raged
for three days

with the Japanese gradually pinned back
into one end of this tiny island.

The Japanese commander boasted that
Tarawa could not be taken in 100 years.

(man #3) If you can imagine the effect
of nearly 6,000 dead men

on an island this small,

and considering it's one degree
from the equator,

the amount of heat you have there,

you can imagine the smell you get
within a day or two

from all this rotting flesh.

It was a sort of sweet smell—

sickly sweet, I described it—

and I don't know anywhere
in World War II

where there was such a concentration
of death.

(narrator) When it was all over,
of 3,000 Japanese, only 17 surrendered.

The Americans lost over 1,000 dead
and 2,000 wounded.

Public opinion in the United States
was shocked

that such heavy losses had been incurred
in so short a period of fighting.

After Tarawa, American invasion forces
headed for the Mariana Islands

of Saipan, Tinian and Guam.

The naval task force
protecting the landings

was positioned to the west of Saipan.

Approaching from Okinawa in June 1944
was Japan's mobile fleet,

looking for a naval success that
would yet turn the war in their favour.

Suddenly, from their radar,
the Americans realised

that they had been spotted
by the Japanese.

Every available American fighter
was put into the air

to meet wave after wave
of Japanese carrier-borne planes.

Many Japanese pilots were comparative
novices with no battle experience.

Their aircraft were poorly armoured.

For the American flyers
swooping down on their opponents,

it was as easy as shooting turkeys.

After the first encounter, all but one
of the American planes returned.

Rearmed and refuelled, the Americans
were ready for the next Japanese move.

There were two more onslaughts
to be faced.

However, the Americans had
nearly 900 carrier planes,

twice the number of the Japanese.

The Marianas turkey shoot
lasted just eight hours.

In one day, Japanese naval air power
was virtually destroyed.

The original force of 430 planes
was reduced to about 100.

American losses
were comparatively light.

Pilots mattered more than machines.

At the end of the day,
the Americans had won the air battle,

but had yet to locate
the Japanese fleet, now retiring.

The following day, the Americans
continued their search for the enemy.

It was not until late afternoon

that their aircraft sighted
the mobile fleet over 200 miles away,

at the extreme limit of the range
of the American bombers.

But the order was given—attack.

In the fading light,
the principle objective of the strike—

the Japanese carrier force—
was badly mauled.

One carrier was sunk
and two others damaged.

This great naval battle, in which
neither fleet fired on the other,

ended with the Japanese
reduced to only 35 aircraft

retreating to their bases in Japan.

The American planes now faced the
problem of getting back to the carriers.

The decision to attack had meant
that they might easily run out of fuel

on the journey home.

First to return were the fighters which
had been protecting the task force.

Landing in the dusk
was difficult enough,

but later on
the torpedo planes and bombers

would have to find their carriers
in pitch darkness.

Some would never make it.

Then it turned into probably the
blackest night I've seen in my life.

And over the ocean… I guess we were
at about 7,000 feet flying home,

kind of our best altitude for fuel,
and it was black as the ace of spades.

And we could hear nothing,
just ourselves, except the cries of…

I won't say “cry”,
but a very perfunctory call,

“I'll have to land in the water.
I'm out of fuel.”

And this continued just constantly

until all the torpedo planes that had
survived the strike went into the water.

Then about 100 miles from the force, the
dive bombers began to run out of fuel

and they called out, “This is…”

whatever the call was.
I don't really remember.

“I'm going in. Out of fuel.”

And then it became quite quiet
until we got within range of the force

and then you could start to make out
what was happening at the task force

and what the recovery course
would be—

we'd not yet seen it
as the ships were blacked out,

which was a normal operating procedure,
so it couldn't be detected from the air.

The admiral knew that we'd have
an awful problem getting aboard.

We didn't have time to really look
for the force. A decision was made.

The command was given to the carriers
to turn their lights on.

(narrator) The task force succeeded in
rescuing the majority of the air crews

who had been forced down in the ocean.

Victory in this,
the Battle of the Philippine Sea,

meant the Mariana landings
could go ahead

without interference
from the Japanese navy.

At a cost of 3,000 American dead,
Saipan fell.

Tinian was less heavily defended.

Guam held out for three weeks.

Get out of there! Move back quick!

(narrator)
Moving west from the Marianas,

a US amphibious force was switched
by Nimitz to MacArthur's command

as the two rival prongs
began to come together.

The objective was
the Palau group of islands.

These had to be taken
before the invasion of the Philippines.

On one island, Peleliu, the Americans
again ran into fanatical resistance

from a crack force
of 10,000 Japanese troops.

Instead of meeting the Americans
on the beaches,

the Japanese had withdrawn
into a labyrinth of caves and tunnels.

The Americans had to contest
every yard

against an enemy
determined to fight to the death.

In the bloody battle for Peleliu,

four out of every ten Americans
taking part were killed or wounded.

It was months before all the Japanese
had been winkled out.

There were no easy victories
on these Pacific islands.

Some of the dead marines could only
be identified by their fingerprints.

On October 20, 1944,
MacArthur fulfilled his promise.

He returned to the Philippines.

The landings were virtually unopposed.

The Japanese had retired inland
to their main defences.

But the invasion
touched off the largest

and most complex naval battle
in history.

The Battle for Leyte Gulf
was to last for four days.

Four Japanese forces converged
on the Philippines

from Borneo, Formosa
and mainland Japan.

The Americans had two fleets—
the Seventh and the Third.

The Japanese aim was to destroy
the American invasion shipping

in Leyte Gulf.

After a series of confused engagements
hundreds of miles apart,

the Imperial Japanese Navy
suffered heavy losses.

It ceased to be an effective
fighting force.

On land, torrential rain had delayed
the progress of MacArthur's men

fighting against a Japanese army
numbering nearly 400,000.

By February 1945, three months
after the Leyte landings,

the Americans were closing in
on the Philippines capital Manila.

For the first time in the Pacific war,

the Americans were fighting
their way into a big city.

The battle raged from street to street,
house to house.

Many civilians lost their lives,

some executed
by the retreating Japanese.

MacArthur's second hour of triumph—
his return to the Philippines capital.

Americans taken prisoner
during the Japanese invasion

were released
after three years in captivity.

With the capture of the Philippines,

supply routes carrying war materials
for Japanese industry would be cut.

The Japanese command knew
that when they had lost the Philippines,

they had lost the war.

After liberation, revenge.
The settling of personal scores

against Filipinos
accused of collaborating

during the years
of Japanese occupation,

now at last at an end.

February, 1945.

Iwo Jima,
eight square miles of volcanic rock

only 600 miles from the coast of Japan,

was the target for the next leap
across the central Pacific.

From Iwo Jima,

American bombers could raid
Japanese cities almost at will.

From the dominating heights
of Mount Suribachi,

the Japanese could see practically
everything that moved on Iwo Jima.

Once again, the main Japanese forces
were inland, away from the beaches.

For 76 days before the landing,
the Americans had bombarded Iwo Jima.

(man) The waste,
the barrenness of the place…

It was like a nightmare. It was
the closest thing you could see to hell.

If ever hell looked like anything,
it must look like Iwo Jima.

(man #2) The minute you got in
those boats you were scared.

You were scared
until you hit the beach.

(man #3) You realise that
you're going in to kill

and we were taught
that we had to kill or be killed.

It was either us or the Japanese,
one or the other.

And when you're faced
with this situation as a young man—

I was only 19—

it's confusing.

You're built, in the Marine Corps,
to take orders and obey orders,

but at the same token you're still
a human being and you're only 19 or 20.

Most of us were only 18, 19, 20,
during those days.

I think the public has the idea
that marines are supermen,

but I don't think there was a marine
in the amphibious landing craft

that wasn't afraid,
including the officers.

I was always taught to hate them
in the Marine Corps, to detest them,

and that they were animals.
We were the men, they were the animals.

By the same token, we were taught
that they would die for the emperor.

We weren't taught to die
for our president.

And to fight or to come up against
an individual who wants to die,

or who doesn't care about dying,
is a tough thing to combat in your mind.

We wanted to live. We wanted to kill him
and we wanted to survive.

(man #2) You keep your head down
because there's too much fire above you

and it's that constant wondering, is
somebody gonna drop a lucky one in there

and you're too far out to swim
with all that gear on?

And what are you gonna get into
when you get there?

That's a hell of a place to be.

(man #1) And as you hit the island

and you saw the ash and nothing living,

it was… if there's ever been hell,
this was it.

Well, we hit the beach itself.

Actually, there was a little incline

and everybody clung to the incline
because the fire was that heavy.

And everything that hit the beach

was blasted out of the water
as fast as it hit.

(man #4) I was young then.
This was my fourth operation. I was 18.

My first operation, I was 16.

(man #1) They lay and waited for us

and rhythmically just kept on tattooing
every man along the line.

And you just couldn't avoid it.
The slaughter was fantastic.

We just walked into a web
and there was no way out.

You couldn't get off the beach.

(man #5) And getting in to the beach
was a depressing scene.

It knocked your morale when you started
to see people from your own team dead.

From the water's edge
to a sort of a rise,

there was a tremendous amount
of bodies just lying there.

(man #6) We moved about…

possibly 300 yards in,

just as far as they, meaning
the Japanese, decided for us to go.

(man #1) There was no way of getting
off the island, not that first night.

It was just too congested.

There was nothing that could
move off that island the first night.

(narrator) Dug in on Mount Suribachi,

the Japanese commander
had concentrated his artillery.

The preliminary bombardment again failed
to knock out the Japanese strong points.

They could only be taken one at a time
by the men on the ground.

It would take longer to capture Iwo Jima

than the five days allowed for
by the American command.

(man #6) The entire vegetation
was gone completely.

You woke in the morning

and you'd look out across
this expanse of no-man's-land

and it was bubbling and seething
with steam coming out of the ground.

In fact, we had to use cardboard
from C ration packs

to put down in the foxhole
so that your ass wouldn't burn up.

If there is a hell,
I'm living through it now,

so I don't have to worry about going
to hell in the future. I've been there.

One of the guys came up to me.
He was a man with a family.

I never did even know him, just
meeting him at that particular day.

I said, “We're in the mortar outfit
back here.”

“Fairly well safe, no problems.”

Before the day was over,
he and half of my other squad was dead.

(man #7) I think the worst part was you
get callous to dead and bloated bodies,

but you never get callous
to your own friends in that way,

and I think that perhaps was
the most terrible thing of Iwo Jima.

(man #8) If everybody remembered
all the tragic things that happened,

you'd go crazy.
You wouldn't survive it.

(man #2) Oh, you always think
you're gonna make it.

You're scared, but you still think
you're gonna make it.

(man #1) It was just one of the biggest
messes I myself had ever seen.

I don't know who the beach master was,

but he probably had the roughest job
of any man I've ever heard of.

(narrator) It may have looked confusing,

but the supply organisation backing the
assault force was proof of the factor

that made America's victory
over Japan inevitable

from the day of Pearl Harbour—
her overwhelming industrial strength.

(man #1) Only one thing
seemed to permeate the men—

get that million-dollar wound
and get off this damn place.

(narrator) Inland from the beaches, Iwo
Jima became another battle of attrition.

Day after day,
the Americans inched forward

against Japanese
who preferred death to surrender.

Their leader still hoped the Americans
might tire of their losses and the war.

(man #7) Oh, my Lord.
On Iwo, it was hand-to-hand fighting.

You didn't know who was even
in the hole with you half of the time.

(man #6) You went into the caves.

We lost most of our people
in this particular fashion.

You went into the caves
and fought it out with the guy.

One of you came out.

(man #4) I don't think anybody realised
they were underground so deeply.

You know, it was so heavily defended,
really.

(narrator) After three days' fighting
on Mount Suribachi,

the Stars and Stripes
flew on the summit.

(man #1) One of the boys started
to holler, “There goes the flag,”

and I don't care where you were
on that island,

you could see right up to Suribachi
that the flag was raised.

And everybody started to howl,

because we figured,
well, the island was secure.

It was far from secure.

We had a long way to go yet.

But it was nice to see
the flag up there anyway.

(man #4) They always told you
to take prisoners,

but we had some bad experiences
on Saipan taking prisoners.

You'd take 'em and as soon as they'd get
behind the lines they'd drop grenades

and you'd lose a few more people.

You're a bit leery
about taking prisoners

when they're fighting to the death
and so are you.

OK, you can kick off right now!

(man #9) Very few of 'em came out
on their own. When they did,

one in the front would come out
with his hands up

and one behind him,
he'd come out with a grenade.

(man #2) One of the West Virginia boys,
he was sitting against a stone wall

with his knees up under his helmet,
as we used to sit quite often,

when one of the enemy ran out
onto the top of the stone wall

and held a small explosive charge
to his abdomen.

And a chunk of his torso,

the lower torso,

went spiralling into the air
and came down on John's knees

with the absolute posterior
devoid of any clothes

staring him right in the face.

And he looked at that and he says,
“God, am I hit that bad?”

(laughs)

And that was the trigger that released
the tensions of the previous night.

And there were several of us

that were perfectly useless
for as much as an hour.

We were just laying on the ground
in convulsions.

(narrator) Of the 21,000 Japanese troops
on Iwo Jima when the attack began,

only 200 were taken alive.

(man #5) I was on the island
a total of six days

and it seemed like 6,000 years.

(narrator) Iwo Jima's airfields were
functioning before the island was taken

thanks to the American
construction battalions, the CBs.

They played a key role here
and indeed in the whole Pacific war.

Now the time had come to penetrate
the inner ring of Japan's defences.

350 miles from the mainland
was the last great barrier

between the Allies and the planned
invasion of Imperial Japan—

the Japanese island of Okinawa.

On April 1, 1945,
the Americans attacked.

Japan's young suicide pilots,
the kamikazes,

swarmed to the defence of Okinawa.

Many flew their fatal missions
in obsolete aircraft, even trainers.

(man) So many things were happening
and so quickly,

that it was a little bit
like a big boxer in a ring

when he's being hit to the chin, face,
body and everywhere else,

cos we were catching it
from so many different angles.

In a regular attack,
it's a sporting chance you've got.

With regular bombs and bullets,
you think you've got a very good chance,

but war is not so much of a sport
when you're fighting human bombs.

(narrator) Over 2,000 kamikaze pilots
met their deaths.

But they destroyed 30 US warships
and damaged 200 more.

(man) You were praying
that you could survive

whatever kind of explosion
would come about.

Your life flashed in front of you,

as you didn't know
if it would be seconds or minutes

until your life would be snuffed out.

(narrator)
US casualties were so severe,

at one point it seemed the invasion of
Okinawa might be stopped in its tracks.

(man) The gunners can't turn it off.

Once they gear themselves up
to fight man against man bomb,

even though the plane is down,
it's hard for the gunner to stop.

One man,
he was in a 40 millimetre mount,

and he had been fighting against quite
a number of planes that had come in,

but we had been hit in his area
also two or three times,

and all of a sudden,
with nobody understanding why,

he yelled, “It's hot today,”
jumped over the side

and that's the last we ever saw of him.

But had he stayed aboard,
he might have survived.

But of course, we couldn't find
his body or anything after that.

But it was an unusual type of reaction.

He stayed with it just as long
as he could, until he broke.

And then that was the end
of his fighting.

But every man, I believe,
has a breaking point.

And the kamikaze, I would estimate,

probably tests that breaking point
more than any other form of combat.

(narrator) Initial landings on Okinawa
were unopposed,

but as they pushed inland,

they came up against
a Japanese army of 100,000 troops,

withdrawn into a heavily fortified
central area.

The steep hills and narrow ravines
of Okinawa

formed a natural citadel
for Japanese defenders.

Outnumbered two to one,

they made the Americans pay in blood
for every foot of Japanese soil.

With Japan herself close to surrender,

not every Japanese soldier
wanted to fight on to the end.

(narrator) The civilians of Okinawa
suffered appalling losses.

24,000 were killed.
Many thousands more injured.

(man) Once they found out

we weren't going to do the things
that they had heard,

they could understand,
“Hey, this is just another human being.”

Possibly they felt the same as we did,

that we weren't there
because we wanted to be there,

we were told
that this is what we had to do.

(narrator) To many Americans,

at the end of their great advance
across the Pacific,

it now seemed that the animals,

the faceless fanatics
eager to die for their emperor,

were human beings like themselves.

(man) They showed kindness to their own
people, which we didn't really think.

We thought life was cheap to them,
but that's not true.

They showed a lot of kindness
to their own wounded

and would tote 'em on their back,

and two or three would carry 'em,
although they were weak themselves.

So they were people just like us.