All language subtitles for The World at War - S01E06 - Banzai! Japan (1931 - 1942).eng

NARRATOR: Every day now,
for more than 30 years,

this couple have carried out
this quaint ceremony

meant, before their god,
to expiate the guilt of seven souls.

[CHANTING]

This is Japan

and the seven souls belong to
the seven Japanese war criminals

hanged by the Allies after 1945.

Japan suffered more than most countries

from the Great Depression
after the First World War.

The population was increasing fast

and every year produced
another million mouths to feed.

Japan had no mineral resources
of her own, unemployment was high,

and crop failures brought
disastrous famines in rural areas.

MAN:General publics life was very hard
in those days

and most of the young military officers

came from low-class
agricultural families.

And our culture was in
a very, very hard position.

[MAN SPEAKING JAPANESE]

TRANSLATOR: 1930 was the time when Japan

entered what might be called
her convulsive period of history.

The influence
of the ultra-nationalists grew

and such incidents as
the young officers' revolt of May 15

placed Japan step by step
under the power of the military.

The politicians took second place
to the army.

MAN: The Japanese army
had been in disrepute

till about the beginning of the 1930s,

and then they came back through
the so-called patriotic societies -

many of them no more than gangsters

who could commit any misdeed
in the name of patriotism.

[YELLING]

Those were the years
certain authors have described

as the period of
government by assassination.

And there were several assassinations

of prime ministers and leaders
in those days

just because they had liberal views

or because they favoured

better relations
with the United States, Britain,

or more other democratic-minded nations.

NARRATOR: The army also controlled
the education system.

A respect for the martial arts

was inculcated into every Japanese child
from an early age.

To the Japanese, their emperor was a god.

But Hirohito chose to reign, not to rule.

He allowed himself
to be manipulated by the military,

and since every Japanese was pledged
to serve the emperor unto death,

his connivance was
a considerable asset to the army.

To solve Japan's economic problems,

the army favoured expansion
on the Asian mainland.

Korea had long been Japan's, and since
her victory over Tsarist Russia in 1905,

Japan had also been allowed
to station troops in Manchuria.

Manchuria was mostly empty wilderness,

but it contained raw materials
that Japan lacked,

such as coal and iron ore.

Impatient that the politicians back
in Tokyo did not see the obvious need

to seize Manchuria once and for all,

a group of extremists in 1931
infiltrated the Japanese garrisons there

and persuaded them
to take on Manchuria's feeble army.

[YELLING]

Against little real opposition,

the Japanese army soon controlled
the whole country,

driving the luckless Manchurians
before them.

The world was shocked, but did nothing...

[ALL YELL]

Apart from a rebuke
at the League of Nations.

Japan, however,

finds it impossible to accept

the report adopted by the assembly.

REPORTER: And so Japan leaves the League.

The Far Eastern war cloud
casts its shadow over the whole world.

NARRATOR: Because they had occupied
Manchuria with such ease

and without interference
from the rest of the world,

the Japanese generals there
soon turned their attention

to Manchuria's next-door neighbour,
China.

The China of 500 million souls.

The China that for centuries had thought
itself secure behind its Great Wall.

In July, 1937,
an incident was manufactured

whereby the Chinese appeared
to fire on the Japanese.

Without waiting to investigate,
Japan invaded China.

Disunited and ill-equipped, the Chinese
were no match for the ruthless Japanese.

Within a matter of weeks, the Japanese
had overrun most of northern China

and were bombing Peking.

[AIR-RAID SIREN]

Peking soon fell,
and it was then Shanghai's turn.

Once Shanghai had fallen, the Japanese
forces advanced up the Yangtze valley

to threaten
the then-capital of China, Nanking.

[ALL YELL]

It was here at Nanking in December, 1937,

that the Japanese perpetrated
what was, until then,

one of the worst atrocities
of this century,

when their troops massacred
more than 200,000 Chinese in cold blood.

Even the Nazis were shocked, and offered
to mediate to prevent further bloodshed.

But the Japanese generals were unyielding

as their military successes mounted.

By the summer of 1938, the Japanese had
captured a considerable part of China,

including most of the major cities,

but they were really only
conquering territory, not people,

as the Chinese retreated
into their vast hinterland.

But was worse for the Japanese,
their conquests incurred the suspicion

of their old enemy to the north, Russia.

In the summer of 1938, Russian and
Japanese troops battled for possession

of a barren hill
on the Soviet-Manchurian border.

The Japanese received such a drubbing

that they opted for a settlement
after only two weeks.

Ten months later,
another squabble broke out

and once again the Japanese were beaten,

this time by none other
than General Zhukov.

It made them wary of further conflicts
with the Soviet Union.

[ALL YELLING]

But it also pushed them
closer to Germany and Italy.

-Banzai!
-[ALL YELL]

Living in Japan became difficult
for other Westerners.

You were constantly under
the supervision of police.

You were always, as a European,
suspected of being a spy.

In the railway stations,
you'd often see posters

of a man with a Sherlock Holmes cap
and a curly pipe,

which said, "Beware of spies".

You had the intensified activities
of the thought police and the Kempeitai,

who controlled speech and thought.

Then you had the introduction of
a national uniform called Kokomin-fuku.

After leaving school, people were
supposed to wear these to go to work.

And they were khaki

and they were similar
to the uniforms worn by the servicemen.

And then the cinema and plays,

the complexion of these became more
martial and more a glorification of war,

and the radio would play more
and more music of a military nature.

Then on the political field you had the
Taisai Yukusankai, the one-party system

that made it easy for the military

to consolidate
their influence over the country.

[NATIONALISTIC SONG]

[APPLAUSE]

There was constantly the sight and sounds

of soldiers being sent off ceremoniously

to the front in China.

BUSH: They were always taught that

the greatest thing
that could happen to any family

was to be able to give a son or two sons
or three sons or seven sons

to the service of their country

and to die for the emperor
and the imperial family.

MUTSU: You had the so-called ash boxes,
remains of soldiers,

coming back to Japan,
so we knew we were at war.

NARRATOR: Western influences
had grown in Japan in the '30s,

which the military disliked
and now discouraged.

BUSH: I remember my former wife -
it must have been about 1938 -

coming from a hairdressers'
where she had her hair waved

and being stopped by a policeman,

who told her that this was
a sign of Western decadence -

you shouldn't have your hair waved.

Dancing, even Western music -

except classical music, which was mostly
German, Beethoven, sort of thing -

was frowned upon.

Dance halls were closed down and any kind
of pleasure introduced from the West,

the military did their best to
prohibit it and rub it out altogether.

BUSH: When I left Japan, early '40,
there was rationing, prices were high,

students of high schools, universities,

were doing military training
practically every day,

you had army officers attached to
every school to supervise such training.

And so it was a nation preparing for war.

[YELLS]

NARRATOR: The China war
dragged on into 1940,

though the Japanese generals
were looking to end it

without too much loss of face.

But Hitler's swift victories over
Holland and France in May, 1940,

and the seemingly imminent
defeat of Britain

made the Japanese generals
greedy for more.

Generally speaking, the Japanese public
was very elated by the German success.

The catchword in those days
was "Don't miss the bus..."

Within three months of France's fall,

the puppet Vichy government
had been persuaded

to allow Japanese troops
to enter French Indochina,

ominously close to the Philippines,
then an American dependency.

America reacted sharply

by embargoing supplies to Japan
of iron ore and aviation fuel.

The embargo pushed Japan
still closer to the Axis.

In Berlin in September, 1940,

Germany, Italy and Japan
concluded the Tripartite Pact.

The two wars at opposite ends
of the globe were now linked,

though not yet joined.

Japan's pro-German foreign minister
Yōsuke Matsuoka

followed up his goodwill trip to Hitler
with a visit in April, 1941, to Moscow,

where he signed a neutrality treaty
with Stalin.

MAN: The Soviet Union had already
posed a threat to Japanese security,

and so the army was itching
for a showdown with the Soviet Union.

The navy, on the other hand,

wanted to advance southward

because the resources

our country lacked
were largely in the South Seas.

And so Japan was, so to speak,
pulled apart

between the army ambition
and naval design.

But when the time for intervention
against the north passed,

the army naturally joined with the navy.

NARRATOR: Japan had
the strongest navy in the Pacific,

but when she occupied the rest of
French Indochina in the summer of 1941,

the United States embargoed oil,

which left the Japanese navy
critically short of it.

Japan could either climb down
and suffer loss of face,

or else move south to seize these,

the oil wells of the Dutch East indies.

Indeed serious planning for such a move
began straight away.

Special jungle training and amphibious
landing exercises were put in hand.

Army leaders argued that

unless an invasion of the Dutch East
indies began before the end of 1941,

a shortage of oil
would rule it out forever.

Even so, some Japanese politicians
still hadn't given up hope

of achieving Japan's aims
by diplomatic means.

But time was short.

The generals had given the diplomats
until mid-October.

When that deadline passed,
Hirohito, on Marquis Kido's advice,

invited his war minister General Tojo
to form a government.

There are many interpretations
of Marquis Kido's actions

in choosing General Tojo
as the prime minister

over the last cabinet
preceding the outbreak of the war.

I myself asked this point

and Marquis Kido's reply was:

"Nobody except Tojo
was powerful enough to control the army,

which was running amok."

And also: "Tojo was deeply devoted
to the person of the emperor,

and if His Majesty
made his wish known to General Tojo,

Tojo would faithfully
abide by such a wish."

[SPEAKING JAPANESE]

NARRATOR: But even General Tojo
shrank from the brink of war.

He extended the deadline for diplomacy
another month, until November 25,

sending special envoys to Washington to
negotiate the ending of the oil embargo.

MAN: Say a few words for us, sir.
If you come quite close...

Gentlemen, you all know
how difficult my mission is.

But I will do all I can

to make it a successful one
for the sake of two countries,

Japan and the United States.

NARRATOR: And so that autumn,
with scant sincerity on either side,

the diplomatic charade was played out.

KASE: The government undertook

the difficult negotiations
with the United States,

but the temper of the nation
grew more militaristic,

which made it practically impossible
to continue the negotiations.

NARRATOR: While the diplomats
talked in Washington,

in Tokyo the militarists were
putting the finishing touches

to their plans of conquest.

To capture the oil wells intact
called for a surprise assault,

not just on the Dutch East indies,
but also on Malaya and the Philippines.

Having got the oil, there was
the problem of getting it back to Japan

unhindered by either the Royal Navy
based at Singapore,

or the massive United States Pacific
fleet based in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor.

[MAN SPEAKING JAPANESE]

TRANSLATOR: It was felt that if war came

and Japan were to fight
in a conventional way,

she had little hope of winning.

And so the idea was to strike a blow

against the American fleet
at Pearl Harbor

simultaneously as the war started.

There were three main problems

in attacking Pearl Harbor.

The first was to keep it a secret,

because if the Americans knew

a Japanese fleet was approaching,
then they would immediately attack it.

The second concerned which route to take,

and the third
concerned the attack itself,

whether it would be possible
to use torpedoes

in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor.

MAN: The most difficult problem
was torpedo launching in shallow water.

The British navy

attacked the Italian fleet at Taranto

and I owe it very much for this lesson

in shallow-water launching.

MAN: We made a model of Pearl Harbor

and the situation of the battleships
and other warships.

We sent our agent to Pearl Harbor.

MAN: Sometimes I went
Japanese teahouse in Aliwa Height.

From there, I saw the fleet
in Pearl Harbor.

Sometimes I go round Pearl Harbor

by taxi or bus.

Sometimes I walk along the front,
drinking beer, to get information.

I did, you know, fishing.

I measured the depth of the sea,

but it was very... danger.

And one time I was ordered
to see the torpedo gate.

So I went to the prohibited area
of Pearl Harbor,

but I could not discover
the submarine gate.

I sent my information

by commercial telegram, in code.

NARRATOR: The Japanese carrier fleet
had left Japan on November 26.

It took them 11 days to sail, undetected,

the 4,000 or so miles to this point,

a mere 200 miles short of Hawaii.

The Americans had broken the Japanese
codes and knew war was imminent,

but they had not found out
where the Japanese might strike them.

"Climb Mount Niitaka"
came the message from Tokyo.

It was the signal for war to commence.

6am on the morning of
Sunday, December 7, 1941.

The first of 400 Japanese bombers
and torpedo planes take to the air.

Their destination: Pearl Harbor.

In the early morning of December 7,

Joseph L Lockard and myself

were detailed to operate a problem
from our radar unit.

The problem was to last from 4am to 7am.

And it was a training program.

I was the plotter and
Joseph Lockard was the radar operator.

We picked up a very large blip,
which we had never seen before,

and proceeded to plot that flight in.

It was then that I suggested
that we send the information

in to our information center.

I called in and the switchboard operator told me
that there was no one there, the information center

Did we wish to have someone call back
to our radar station?

And that's when this Lieutenant Tyler
called back

and told us, in essence, to forget it.

We continued the flight
until about 20 minutes of eight,

when the flight seemed to disperse to
the right and to the left of the island.

MAN: I was on board
the USS California, tied to quay 3.

I was standing on the quarterdeck,
getting ready for a color -

as a matter of fact,
I was a member of the band.

And looking slightly to the south,

I could see planes coming that
direction, and some from that direction.

That was about the time
of general quarters.

And I dropped my instrument,
which was a clarinet,

went down below into my battle station,

and, about five minutes later,
torpedoes hit us and exploded.

MAN 2: I was aboard the West Virginia
when the first airplanes came over.

They were built similar
to our Helldivers, in those days.

And the pilot had the greenhouse back,

and he flew so low
that I still remember him.

He had the leather helmet,
like World War II had, and the goggles,

and the reason I remember,
he had a real thick mustache.

As he flew over, he kind of smiled
and looked at the ship

and flew over towards the hangar there,
when he starts laying his first bomb.

I saw the Arizona blow up,
and it was like she just rained sailors.

Those were the ones fortunate enough
to live, the ones blown off the ship.

I ran to the stern first
to see if I could get off that way,

cos everything was burning at this time.

And so then I ran to the fo'c's'le.

And then there was a lot of oil,
but it hadn't caught fire at this time.

So I said, "The best thing to do
is to dive off there."

So I hit the water
and swam around this way

and then came up over this rock there,
and this is where I landed.

The thing I remember most about
that morning was terror and confusion.

First place, it was early in the
morning - everybody wasn't quite awake,

and to have somebody trying to
kill you at that hour in the morning

kinda confuses you at best.

We were taking power and steam
from the dock,

since we were alongside for repairs,

and somebody in the confusion cut our
power and steam line, so we were left...

Everything had to be operated in manual.

We only had one battery en masse
that we could use,

which was the port five-inch battery,

so we started using it on the aircraft
as they came in.

The low-flying torpedo planes
all came directly over the hill

and down this way toward battleship row,

so we were able to get
some pretty good shots at 'em,

even though we were in manual.

However, the guns had to be served
by manual means -

we had to pass ammunition by hand.

We had a young chaplain aboard, JG,
at the time -

he'd been aboard less than two months.
His name was Hallow M Forgy,

and he was...

As for his battle station was concerned,
he didn't have one -

he was primarily concerned with crew
morale - so he marched along the gun deck,

saying, "Praise the Lord
and pass the ammunition."

You live with these ships all the time -

you just never dreamed
they could be damaged like this.

There were ships afire, ships burning,
explosions going on all over the place.

MAN: My first knowledge of the attack
was when I was awakened

by the sound of bombs dropping and
the roaring of aircraft all around us.

I ran out on the lanai and saw
immediately they were Japanese planes

and there was a fella
standing next to me who said,

"It certainly looks real, doesn't it?"

And I said, "Yes, I'm afraid it is."

I ran over to my offices

and I was standing alongside

the commander-in-chief himself,
Admiral Kimmel,

and we were glumly watching the havoc,
the carnage, that was going on.

And suddenly he reached up,
a motion of this kind,

and tore off
his four-star shoulder boards,

which indicated his rank and title
as Commander-in-Chief of Pacific Fleet.

He stepped into his adjacent office
and when he came out,

he realised that
he was going to lose command

and he had donned
two-star rear-admiral shoulder boards.

NARRATOR: All nine battleships
of the United States Pacific fleet

had been sunk or
put out of action,

together with several
destroyers and cruisers,

but no aircraft carriers.

Luckily for the Americans,

the carriers had been at sea
that particular Sunday morning.

However,
the Japanese were well satisfied.

FUCHIDA: The United States
Pacific fleet was not prepared

and we succeeded.

[CHEERING]

NARRATOR:
The Japanese did not just succeed

against the Americans at Pearl Harbor.

On December 10, the pride
of the Royal Navy in the Pacific,

the Prince of Wales and the Repulse,
were sunk.

[CHEERING]

That same day, Guam fell.

[CHEERING]

On December 23, Wake Island.

[CHEERING]

On Christmas Day, Hong Kong.

[CHEERING]

On New Year's Day, 1942,
Manila, capital of the Philippines.

[CHEERING]

On January 19, Borneo.

[CHEERING]

But the biggest prize of all
awaited the Japanese in Malaya.

MAN: The plan for the defense of Malaya
was based entirely on the air force.

And there were to be
some 335 first-class aircraft,

with the army protecting their bases
and their aerodromes,

and the idea was that they should attack

the Japanese whilst they were at sea

and destroy them or damage them

before the campaign started.

Percival's idea was
to oppose the Japanese as they landed.

And that didn't come off -
they were able to land in Thailand

and we would not break the neutrality,

and so we were at a disadvantage
from the start.

NARRATOR: The Japanese
were outnumbered more than two to one.

They had only the poorest of maps,
usually pages torn from school atlases,

but they kept the British on the run,
never stopping to consolidate or regroup.

SMYTH: One of the reason
we were thrown onto the defensive,

the Japanese employed 300 tanks.

We hadn't any tanks at all.

NARRATOR: British strategists had decreed

that armor was not suited
to jungle warfare.

Back in Whitehall, the British
thought the jungle impenetrable,

whereas in some places it was cleared,
in others not so dense,

and, anyway, the really dense patches
could always be bypassed by sea -

which was precisely
what the Japanese did.

OKADA: The jungle is
not such a terrible place.

We can live on rice, salt and
sesame seeds, and salted fish, you see.

This can keep a soldier going
a long time.

The jungle did not have the fear for us

that it seems to have had
for some of the Allied soldiers.

NARRATOR: The Japanese
had first bombed Singapore

the same morning as Pearl Harbor.

The lights of the great port had guided
them in and remained on during the raid

because no one knew
how to switch them off.

Such confusion was to typify Singapore's
reaction to the Japanese onslaught.

BUSH: I remember
a British national newspaper ran a story

in which the opinion was expressed

that the Japanese
would never be good flyers

because they had no sense of balance

through being carried on
the backs of their mothers as children.

NARRATOR: The Japanese secret weapon
in Malaya was... the bicycle.

When their tires punctured, the Japanese
soldiers simply rode on their rims.

To the retreating British, the clatter
on the stony road sounded like tanks,

and added to their fear.

I think the fundamental reason
why we failed in Malaya

was that we were stretched to the limit
at that time

in our war with Germany and Italy

and there simply were not
the trained men, air forces and ships

that we should have supplied
to beat the Japanese attack.

The priority of arms and equipment
for Malaya at that time was very low.

They were only number four,

after Great Britain,
the Middle East and Russia.

Also, with regard to men,
the first priority was the Middle East,

and Malaya only came second.

Some of the Australians that arrived
in Malaya had never even fired a rifle.

So we did field very much a second 11

against the very highly trained
and strongly supported Japanese.

NARRATOR:
Like the Americans at Pearl Harbor,

the British in Malaya had been wrongly led
to believe the Japanese air force was poor,

but now British air cover waned
and eventually disappeared.

There was no effective plan
to stop the Japanese by land

and too little determination to resist.

Your forces

are not so aggressive as we expected.

The British planners
had thought that, at the very worst,

northern Malaya could hold out
for at least three months,

enough time to enable substantial
reinforcements to be sent to Singapore.

But it took the Japanese, under
General Yamashita, just seven weeks

to advance the 600 miles
down the Malayan peninsula.

On February 8, 1942,

they crossed the thousands yards
of the Straits of Johor

onto the island of Singapore.

No defenses had been built
on the northern shore of the island,

so the Japanese were able to land
relatively unmolested.

What is more, they were able to capture

most of Singapore's water supplies
with ease.

By now, the Japanese bombers
raided Singapore at will,

for there was virtually no air defense.

The Japanese, in fact,
were almost out of ammunition

and were considering
withdrawing to the mainland,

but, unknown to them,
British morale had collapsed.

[SPEAKING JAPANESE]

TRANSLATOR: General Yamashita
had not prepared any plans

in the event of a British surrender.

And so when, on February 15,
Major Wild, General Percival's emissary,

arrived at our forward headquarters
at 3pm,

no one there believed him.

I was ordered to discuss with him

his suggestion of a meeting between
General Percival and General Yamashita.

Major Wild wanted General Yamashita

to go to the governor general's
residence,

but did not mention surrender.

I told him it was out of the question
for General Yamashita to go anywhere

and that his general must come to us.

Eventually Major Wild agreed to this
and said he would bring him at 6pm,

but again made no mention of surrender.

When I reported this to my superiors,
they were suspicious and unbelieving.

However, I returned at six
to meet General Percival and Major Wild.

I guided them to the Ford factory,

where the meeting with General Yamashita
was to take place.

Because of this disbelief
on the Japanese side,

they were still setting up tables
when we arrived.

Straight away General Yamashita
asked General Percival

whether he was surrendering.

But the British general merely talked
about wanting to keep 1,500 soldiers

to maintain peace and order in Singapore.

General Yamashita again asked
about surrender,

but General Percival went on
talking about these 1,500 troops.

And so these two conversations
continued in parallel

and time was passing.

Finally, General Yamashita
could wait no longer.

He banged the table and asked
General Percival if he was surrendering.

Otherwise, the Japanese would launch
an immediate night attack.

Would that be all right?

Percival replied, no,
he did not want any more attacks.

So again General Yamashita asked,
"Will you surrender?"

And at last General Percival said yes.

[CHEERING]

NARRATOR: Singapore had been thought
by the British to be impregnable,

but they were thinking
of an attack from the sea.

Indeed, all the big fortress guns
pointed seaward, not landward.

Said Churchill later, "The possibility
of Singapore having no landward defenses

no more entered into my mind

than that of a battleship being launched
without a bottom."

We were so surprised,
because we expected that

your forces were about 50,000 in total.

And we found out that there were about

110,000 prisoners in Singapore.

NARRATOR: Singapore's fall
was the worst military disaster

in British history.

More than 130,000 troops
laid down their arms

in the largest capitulation
the British army has ever known.

The Japanese soldiers
are told not to be prisoners,

so it's quite natural,

when they see the tens of thousands
of white prisoners at Singapore,

they look down on them.

Thousands
of British and Commonwealth troops

had arrived in Singapore
only days before,

just in time to surrender.

Singapore's fall meant that the whole
of Southeast Asia lay at Japan's feet.

Within weeks, the Japanese army
was at the borders of India

and the Japanese navy was steaming
close to the shores of Australia.

They had succeeded
beyond their wildest dreams.

For the British, a last humiliation.

The garrison was paraded
before the triumphant Japanese.

The sun had set on one imperial power.

On another, the sun was still rising.