All language subtitles for e0764cc2a9b54258bde1246e8cf1a268_track3_eng

NARRATOR: December 1941.

On a quiet Sunday morning in Hawaii,

353 Japanese planes darken the sky
over Pearl Harbor naval base.

After a devastating surprise attack,

16 ships are badly damaged

and almost 2,500 men are dead.

MAN: Americans of every
walk of life

saw the pictures from Pearl Harbor,
the explosions on Arizona,

the sunken ships in the harbour.

As such, it has remained
a touchstone of American culture.

War...

The nation was wounded.

After two years of neutrality,

this was the catalyst that finally
drew the United States into the war.

The were caught short,
the Americans, but in the end,

it worked in the Allies' favour,
'cause it galvanised a nation.

The attack on Pearl Harbor

is one of the most infamous events
of the Second World War

but there are many stories
surrounding the incident

that have been omitted
from the record books.

"You're gonna die. If you don't
get help, you're gonna die."

And one man stepped forward
and saved their lives.

What do you say to that?
"Oh, hey..."

"Nice job." No!

You gotta give him a medal for that!

This is the secret history
of Pearl Harbor.

Our freedom has shown its ability
to survive war...

During the winter of 1941,

the USA was intent
on staying out of the war

that was raging across Europe.

They had given naval support
to the Allies in the Atlantic

but their war really began
in the Pacific Ocean.

Japan had been flexing its
political muscle across Asia

for several decades.

Spurred on by Germany's aggressive
fight for dominance in Europe,

they made the monumental decision
to attack America.

Their target - the Pearl Harbor
naval base in Hawaii.

MAN: In one sense,
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

was not a surprise at all.

Since the 1920s,
American war planners

had been considering the possibility

that Japan would attack
the Hawaiian Islands

as Japan sought to expand
its influence across the Pacific.

That said, the actual attack on
Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941,

was a sneak attack.

WOMAN: So, this is really a case

of America being caught
with its pants down.

You know, they're enjoying 'Dumbo'
in the cinema and 'Citizen Kane',

they're chewing their gum,

it's a Sunday morning
when this attack happens -

they're not thinking about
the war in the Pacific.

But in just 90 minutes,

Japanese bombers would rain down
death and destruction

on the tropical paradise of Hawaii.

There were two waves
of Japanese attacks.

The first took place,
it's generally thought, at 7:48.

That's when the aircraft first
appeared over Pearl Harbor.

I turned on the radio. "This is war!

"This is war.
All servicemen return to your bases.

"This is the real McCoy," he said.
"This is the real McCoy."

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt

would later call 7 December 1941,

a date which will live in infamy.

The entire thing was over
relatively quickly

and the devastation that it left
was incredible.

More than 2,000 American service
members and civilians were killed,

200 American aircraft destroyed,
largely on the ground.

There's no way to call it anything
else but a devastating attack.

Japan may have won the day

but their declaration of war

awoke a sleeping giant.

TESSA DUNLOP: It's so
naive of them to think

that a sneaky, pre-emptive attack
on a Sunday morning,

that kills more than
2,000 American boys

is going to flatten morale.

That's like a mosquito
biting your rump!

It's gonna put you in a rage!

And it works like a dream.

Over 3,500 men were serving
at Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

But what's not as well documented

is that there were women
stationed there too.

A mere 150 military
and civilian nurses

were on hand to treat
thousands of troops.

These young women weren't prepared

for the horrors they were
about to experience.

One of the army nurses,
stationed at Tripler Hospital,

Was Teresa Stauffer Foster.

My mother, I think, was given
a choice of Alaska or Hawaii.

Uh, what would you choose,
between Alaska and Hawaii?

So she chose Hawaii

and I think a lot of the women
felt the same way.

Aged 25, Teresa was eager to swap
her quiet life in Pennsylvania

for paradise in the South Pacific.

These women went to Hawaii in 1941

and they were very young women,

so they liked to have a lot of fun

and there was just the sheer
pleasure to be in Hawaii in 1941.

WOMAN: It was very
straightforward nursing care.

Hospitals were mostly empty, so
the nurses had a lot of down time.

They went to parties, they went to
the beach, they went to the theatre.

Um, you know, there were
only 150 nurses

and tens of thousands of troops,

so they were in high demand
for social engagements

while they were in Honolulu,
in Pearl Harbor.

But on 7 December 1941,

the fun would come to an abrupt end.

It happened on a Sunday morning

and everything's kind of relaxed
on a Sunday morning,

so these women thought, well,

it was very unusual for these planes
to be flying over

as they're walking through
the garden next to the hospital.

They looked up and they saw
the symbol of Japan on the planes

and suddenly realised that
this was not a drill,

this was not a practice for the navy
on a Sunday morning -

this was maybe the real thing,

so that's when they changed and went
right back to their duty stations.

Realised that now we are in war.

Nothing could have prepared them
for what followed.

The sudden influx
of life-threatening injuries

was overwhelming.

No more than 150 nurses,

more accustomed to treating
sprained ankles,

were faced with over 1,000
critically wounded men.

On 7 December 1941,

Japan declared war on the USA.

As bombs and bullets rained down
on the Hawaiian island of Oahu,

military nurses stationed
at Pearl Harbor

faced a massive influx
of mortally wounded troops.

Just 150 nurses in total

were on hand to tend to
the thousands of injured men -

a ratio of over 10 to 1.

There were somewhere around 80
army nurses

who were divided among
Tripler Army Hospital

and a couple of outlying
dispensaries.

The number of navy nurses

is probably not
that much greater than that.

They were largely at
the Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital

but there were also navy nurses

aboard the hospital ship
USS 'Solace',

which had just arrived
at Pearl Harbor.

These young women, more used to
treating minor injuries,

were suddenly overwhelmed
by life-threatening traumas.

People would come in
with crush injuries

from buildings falling on them,

um, shrapnel embedded in
various parts of their bodies,

limbs hanging off, bullets in any
part of the body you can imagine,

head injuries.

Nurses reported they saw patients
actually swimming from their ships

and crawling up onto Hospital Point
with burns and injuries

and it's hard to imagine but the
harbour would have been super-loud,

on fire - the water's on fire
because there's so much oil.

The navy nurses really had
their work cut out for them.

Despite the overwhelming nature
of the crisis they faced,

the nurses were desperate to help
the critically injured troops.

WINNIE WOLL: Anna Urda Busby was
a nurse at Tripler Army Hospital

on December 7

but she was also a patient
at the hospital.

She had a severe infection
of her face

and, um, she was trained to respond

if she heard the sirens go off
in emergencies,

so she got out of bed
and started dressing

and the fellow nurses looked at her
and said,

"You're not going
anywhere near the patients

"with a face as red
as you have right now.

"You stay here and take care of
the women's ward

"and that's all you need to do."

That's like asking a man in battle,
when they the barrel of the gun

and everyone around them starts
falling, you know, do they run away?

No, they have a duty to do,
they have a responsibility,

to their country,
to their fellow nurses,

so they did what they could,

the best that they could
for as long as they could.

Over 2,000 died in the attack
on Pearl Harbor

but without the efforts of brave
nurses like Teresa Stauffer Foster,

countless more would have perished.

My mother decided back in, uh, 1991,

to return to Hawaii
for the first time in 50 years

and it was a very
emotional experience.

We ended up going back
with my youngest son,

who was 16 at that time,

and my husband and myself

and it was very emotional but to
share it with my son -

I think even today, he realises
what...what it was like.

It was a great feeling.

The nurses of Pearl Harbor

were collectively praised for their
efforts by President Roosevelt

but their story remains all but
air-brushed from the record books.

Pearl Harbor is such an iconic
piece of American history

but nobody had written
about the nurses -

everything was always about
the men and the sailors,

which - don't get me wrong,
it's an incredible story,

they're incredibly important
in the story

but I feel like the nurses
really have been overlooked

and their history hasn't been told.

Just hours before the hospitals were
packed to capacity with injured men,

the day had begun just like any other
peaceful Sunday morning on Oahu.

Enjoying the clear, blue
Hawaiian skies that day

were a handful of private aircraft,

flown by civilian pilots.

What's been less well documented

is that they were the first
to engage with the enemy.

STEPHEN HARDING: Several of
the pilots initially thought

the aircraft they saw in the air
were hot-dogging American pilots,

just showing off on a Sunday morning

and then, almost to a person,
they realised, as soon as they saw

the big, red roundel
on the wings of the aircraft

and the tracers going by

that war had happened.

It's believed that there were six
private planes flying that morning,

some on sight-seeing
tours of the island,

some pilot training
and some just out for a joy-ride.

When the Japanese bombers first
appeared out of a clear, blue sky,

they suddenly found themselves
in a war zone.

For the civilian pilots,
it was simply a question of fear,

followed by the recognition that
they had to respond in some way,

or they and their passengers
were gonna die that day.

And not only the pilots -
can you imagine

what the student pilots
were thinking at that point?

They'd gone up for a flying lesson

and suddenly they have no control,

because the instructor pilot
would take the controls over

and so they just had to sit in
either the front or back seat,

wherever they were,

and deal with whatever
was happening.

It was probably
incredibly frightening.

One of the first planes engaged

was flown by flight instructor
Guy Tomberlin.

He was teaching a student
over the north shore of Oahu

when he unwittingly ended up in the
crosshairs of the Japanese fighters.

He is giving a flying lesson, as you
do on a nice, sleepy Sunday morning,

looking over the vistas of Hawaii

and suddenly, out of nowhere,
these red tracers,

Japanese enemy firepower,

actually knock some holes in the
fabric covering his rear fuselage.

It's likely that the enemy pilots
deliberately targeted Tomberlin.

MAN: The Japanese
were a little concerned

that private airplanes could follow
them back to their ships

and give the position
of the aircraft carriers away

so they were inclined to shoot at,
discourage,

and Tomberlin was one of those

that was discouraged from being
too interested in what was going on

and he had been shot at.

He immediately took back control
from the student pilot

and corkscrewed down to low level.

It was undoubtedly
a frightening experience,

because Tomberlin had not been
a military pilot.

His only flight experience
was as a civilian

and yet he instinctively
did the right thing -

he jinked, he corkscrewed

and he just made it harder
to be a target for the Japanese.

Guy Tomberlin and his student
manage to land safely...

..but not all the pilots
were as fortunate.

Two of the aircraft were Piper Cubs

that were, uh, being flown
by two young American soldiers

from the California National Guard,

who had brought along one of their
buddies for a sight-seeing tour

earlier on the morning.

In fact, the two pilots,
Henry Blackwell and Clyde Brown,

were due to go back to the
United States the following week,

so this was sort of their
farewell aerial tour of Honolulu.

After taking in Waikiki Beach
from above,

the two Piper Cubs headed west

and turned straight into trouble.

They were flying south
of Pearl Harbor

and some of the Japanese airplanes
that were involved in the attack

shot them down.

All three
of the young soldiers died.

They are considered to be
the first Americans killed

during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Henry Blackwell, Clyde Brown

and their friend and passenger
Warren Rasmussen

were the first civilians
killed in the attack

but their remains have never
been officially identified.

Their bodies were never found.

There were parts of at least
one of the aircraft washed ashore

on one of the beaches
to the west of Pearl Harbor

and were found and identified

as having come from
one of these two Piper Cubs.

Unfortunately,
the only physical remains -

a few days after the attack,

some American soldiers were
patrolling a beach,

actually to the east side
of Pearl Harbor,

and they found a US Army
enlisted man's dress shoe

with the foot still in it.

68 civilians died that fateful day

but were it not for
a child's piano recital,

there may have been dozens more.

A seventh private plane,

carrying 10 crew members
and 17 passengers,

were scheduled to be
in the Oahu airspace.

That American clipper
was a flying boat -

it was a scheduled flying service
from California to Hawaii

and then would go on
to the Philippines

by virtue of stops at islands
across the way.

And, uh, it had been due in

just about the time
the air attack was beginning

and it would have taken off
the night before,

'cause it was a long flight
to get to Honolulu.

The pilot of that airplane,

his daughter was in a piano recital

and he wanted to delay his flight
just long enough

that he could hear his daughter
and get to the airport

and then take off.

As a result,
the clipper got a late start

and that probably saved their lives,

because they were
30 minutes behind schedule.

They were notified by radio
of the attack on Pearl Harbor

and rather than landing on Oahu,

they diverted to Hilo
on the Big Island.

So his daughter's recital kind of
saved them from, uh, some grief.

The US Air Force managed to launch
just five fighter aircraft

during the attack on Pearl Harbor,

meaning there were more civilian
pilots in the air that morning

than military aviators.

Their incredible experience is
a story that has gone largely untold.

Unfortunately, as with a lot
of really fascinating stories,

uh, about World War II,

it essentially is a footnote.

These small trainer aircraft
were overcome,

their occupants either lived or died

but then you had
the tragedy of Pearl Harbor

and the fall of the Philippines

and then World War II.

So they did, in fact,
become footnotes.

The three soldiers who died
in those private planes

became the first
of over 2,000 casualties

sustained during the devastating
attack on Pearl Harbor.

But without the heroic actions
of one sailor,

there would have been at least half
a dozen more deaths that morning.

The story of Joe George remained
a secret to his daughter, Joe Ann,

for over half a century.

My father got out of the navy when
I was probably in the third grade,

so I remember lots of times,
'cause he was on ships,

I remember being on the dock,
waving goodbye to him

or greeting him when he came back

but as far as talking about
what he did,

I knew he was at Pearl Harbor,
I knew that he boxed -

you know, he talked about that a lot

but he didn't talk about
his war experiences.

Joe was stationed at Pearl Harbor

on a repair ship called
the USS 'Vestal'.

On Friday, 5 December 1941,

the petty officer
and amateur heavyweight fighter

found himself in hot water.

Joe was in a boxing match

that was part of an informal,
uh, fight card

in what was called a smoker,

where ship's guys would get together
and stage fights -

gloves, nine rounds,
you know, all the rules -

and George won and one of the things
that he did a lot was to celebrate

and he did a little too much
celebrating

and got in a fight
with another seaman

and was arrested
by the shore patrol.

Ordered to stay put in his cabin
while he awaited punishment,

Joe was on board the 'Vestal' on
the morning of Sunday, 7 December.

The repair vessel was moored
alongside a battleship

that was targeted and heavily bombed
by the Japanese planes -

the USS 'Arizona'.

The 1,700-pound bomb hit

on the second turret
on the front of the ship,

the 14-inch guns,

and glanced off the side

and went down through the deck
of the 'Arizona',

down in an area called the magazine

and the forward magazine

is where they stored the silk bags
of black powder

that powered the big guns
on that ship,

so that when that bomb went off,
it not only blew itself up

but it ignited those thousands and
thousands of pounds of black powder

and it created
a tremendous explosion

and a fireball which basically
blew off the front of the 'Arizona'.

One of the sailors
on board the 'Arizona'

was a 19-year-old navy seaman
named Donald Stratton.

WOMAN: My grandfather
was in his battle station

and he was there when the fireball
kind of happened

and, um, to use his words,
he said, "Holy hell!"

I mean, it was a massive,
massive explosion

and it incinerated
more than 80% of the crew instantly.

To be 19 years old and to see your
shipmates just...

perish right in front of you
when the bomb hits

and just, you know, vaporise you.

I mean, the two captains,
all they found

was their class rings
welded to the metal.

They didn't...
they didn't find no body.

That's how intense
that bomb blast was.

Your survival instincts
kick in at that point

and it was all about, you know,
finding...finding safety,

finding cover, putting out
any flames that were near.

Obviously the Japanese were
still strafing at that point,

so it was also, you know,
trying to put out fires,

trying to stay hidden.

You know, obviously, a ship is metal

and, uh, that fireball
heated the ship up

to a point where it was almost, um,
unbearable.

Um, you're basically cooking
in a ship like that.

The intensity of the blast even sends
sailors on the 'Vestal',

which was moored alongside
the 'Arizona',

flying into the water.

The two ships were tied together

and there was a clear danger
that if the 'Arizona' sank,

it could take the 'Vestal'
down with it.

COL. GENE PFEFFER: The captain
of the 'Vestal'

had been blown off the ship.

He swims back.

One of his junior officers

had preliminarily given the order,
"Abandon ship,"

but he said, "No, no -
we're gonna move!"

And so he ordered the deckhands

to cut the ropes that held the
'Vestal' tied to the 'Arizona'.

But Joe George refused
to obey his captain.

He left the confines of his cabin

and instead of cutting the ropes,

took matters into his own hands,

a decision that would
save the lives of six men.

When the USS 'Arizona'
was engulfed in flames

during the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor,

one man refused to watch it burn.

Instead of cutting his ship free
from the stricken vessel,

Joe George offered a literal lifeline

to a group of men
who faced certain death.

George was one of the guys that was
told, "Cut the ropes,"

and he was prepared to do that -
he had an axe -

but then he saw
that there were six guys

who had come out of the
anti-aircraft gun director

up on the high part of the forward
tower of the 'Arizona'

and couldn't get off the ship
because the fire was so extensive.

Donald Stratton was one of those
six sailors aboard the 'Arizona'.

Desperate for rescue,

he spotted Joe George
on the 'Vestal'.

I think, for him, it was kind
of, just, like, this amazing moment.

I think it's kind of a movie moment.

The smoke at that point
was just so heavy,

coming from the ship and from
the oil that was on the water,

the water was on fire

and they were trying to figure out
any way that they could get off

and the Hawaiian trade winds
kind of changed directions

and blew some of the smoke,

at least enough to where
they could get a glimpse

of this large man on the ship
next to them, on the 'Vestal',

and they just started saying,
"Hey, sailor! Hey, sailor, up here!"

And just started yelling
and yelling and yelling

and Joe finally turned up
and looked at them

and that's kind of when everything
just started moving in slow motion.

Instead of cutting the ties that
bound the 'Vestal' to the 'Arizona',

Joe George risked
going down with his ship

and threw a line
70 feet up and across

to Donald Stratton
and his crewmates.

COL. PFEFFER: 70 feet's
a pretty far throw.

Uh, it's weighted on the end but
you have to know what you're doing

and you have to have done it before.

It would be a one-in-a-million shot
to do that for the first time.

with the rope tied off,

the six sailors began to travel
across the line towards the 'Vestal'.

NIKKI STRATTON: My grandfather's
hands were completely burned.

He has no fingerprints.

Can you imagine the damage, um,
just trying to get across that line

and then having to go back up,
like, vertically,

to try to get back on the ship?

COL. PFEFFER: So, even with
his burned hands,

he went down that rope

and George was at the other end,
saying, "You can do it!

"Come on! You can do it!"

NIKKI STRATTON: "Come on, kid!
You can do it!

Don't look down. You can do it!"

And he just kept encouraging him
and telling him to keep going

and to not look down and to
just kind of get to the 'Vestal'.

Donald Stratton was the second
of six men to cross the line

to the relative safety
of the 'Vestal'

before the 'Arizona' sank
to the bottom of the harbour -

all saved by Joe George.

RANDY STRATTON: It was just how
God lined everything up,

because without him being
the person that he was,

with Joe George being a tough guy,

you know, and not...
not obeying orders,

you know, being at the right place
at the right time,

my dad would have
never made it off the ship.

I think this just wave of relief,
um, kind of washed over him

and then he kind of looked down

and he realised
just how badly he was injured.

He looked down at his arms
and they were just so burnt

and, uh, the skin was
actually getting in the way

and so what he did is he basically
pulled it off like a tube sock.

He just kind of
rolled his hands down

and just pulled any of
the excess burnt skin off.

Despite sustaining burns
to over 65% of his body,

Donald Stratton survived

and wanted to find the sailor
who had saved his life.

He never saw him again,

so my grandfather, at that time,
he never knew who saved him.

He never got the name of the guy.

With the help of naval historians,

Randy Stratton was able to learn
about Joe George's heroic actions

in December 1941.

Over 50 years after the event,

he finally tracked down the sailor
who saved his father's life.

We left...I don't know how many
messages I left

of the people saying, "Oh, hey,
was your husband on the 'Vestal'?"

And then Thelma George called back
and said,

"Yeah, my husband
was on the 'Vestal'."

And then we knew we had our man.

It was the best feeling ever

to know that, you know, we found
the guy who saved my dad's life.

But the bad part was
he'd already passed.

Joe George died at the age of 80
in 1996

and his wife, Thelma,
passed away 19 years later.

Their daughter, Joe Ann,
remembers when she met Randy

and found out exactly
what her father had done

during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I remember it as being very
overwhelmed to know that your...

You know, that's the part when
you go back to the beginning,

when you find that out -

when you don't know the whole story

and then you find out
what he really did on that day.

At first I couldn't talk about it.

I cried every time
and I'll do that again,

every time someone would
ask me about that.

I couldn't...

deal with it.

Joe Ann has since visited
the site of her father's heroics.

It is an emotional experience
when you go on the 'Arizona'.

When your parent has been there

and you know what they went through
on that day,

it's a hugely emotionally
overwhelming experience

you feel inside of you.

MAN: Intense fires raged
aboard 'Arizona'

and in the surrounding
oil-slicked water...

On the 76th anniversary
of Pearl Harbor,

Joe George was finally recognised
for his bravery.

In a moving ceremony,

he was posthumously awarded
the Bronze Star Medal for Valor.

This is so special and so wonderful,

because it is the culmination...

..of all the hard work
that so many people did

to see my father recognised

and this is the result
of all of that hard work.

And what it says

is this man saved those six men

off the USS 'Arizona'

on December 7, 1941,

under the worst of conditions.

Over 1,100 men lost their lives
on the 'Arizona'

during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Just 335 survived.

Donald Stratton was only 19 years old
on the day he almost died.

Thanks to Joe George,
he lived for another 78 years.

He's lived a great life

and there's only one reason
why he's lived a great life

and that's Joe George.

That's what you say to that.

Donald Stratton passed away
in February, 2020,

at the age of 97.

We have four generations
of our family that...

that are alive because of him.

Most of the other guys went on to
have families of their own as well,

so there are generations, um,

that here because of...
of what Joe George did.

JOE ANN TAYLOR: Oh, god,
it makes you so proud.

It makes you so proud.

I think your father is a hero
as a little girl -

your father's a hero to you.

That's just the way little girls are
with their daddies

but to find out that your father
did this...spectacular thing

under such, you know, chaos

and war going on

and everything that was happening
in that moment in time,

and that your father had enough
perseverance and...

We feel this enormous pride
in my father,

that he had such wonderful
character.

Joe George was one of many heroes
at Pearl Harbor

on 7 December 1941.

But there was one man whose bravery
was hidden from the press.

22-year-old Texan
Dorie Miller's name

was kept secret for three months,

simply because of the colour
of his skin.

Dorie Miller was aboard
the USS 'West Virginia',

which was anchored in Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1941.

When the Japanese bombs
began falling,

Dorie Miller was a messman.

He was not trained on big guns

but he sprang into action.

And he rushed up
to his battle stations

to immediately see what he could do

and found that
that part of the ship

was already destroyed -
it had been hit

and he saw the captain on deck,
who was, in fact, mortally wounded

and he carried him, physically,
to safety on the deck,

where the captain continued
giving orders until he died.

And then he was required

to pass ammunition to the gunners
on the main deck

but the gunners weren't there,

so he took up the station and he
thought, "Right, I can do this."

Dorie Miller was more accustomed
to firing up a stove

than firing a trigger.

African Americans were not even
allowed to use those guns.

They weren't trained - I mean,
he was essentially a cook.

Um, but when horror happened,

rather than hiding, he helped.

He grabbed the gun and he started
shooting at the Japanese planes,

trying to save lives,
trying to stop it.

And he was fearless.

He kept on firing
until he ran out of ammunition

and until the order was given
to abandon ship,

at which point
he actually continued -

he carried other wounded men
he found with him,

took them to safety

and later it was reported

that he had unquestionably
saved these men's lives,

so throughout, he continued
his service under fire.

Despite his lack
of military training,

Dorie was on target
with the anti-aircraft gun.

LINDA HERVIEUX: Dorie Miller
took out

between two and four
Japanese planes.

He was very modest - he said
he thought he only hit one.

But one thing was certain -

Dorie Miller performed above and
beyond what he was trained to do,

above and beyond
what could be expected.

YVONNE LATTY: It was a big deal

but after everything happened,

they didn't even publish his name
in the paper.

So it was almost like a secret -

secret, you know, that this
African American man was a hero.

They didn't want anyone to know.

It was the black press
that, sort of,

outed him as a Pearl Harbor hero.

At the time, the US Navy commended
the actions of, in their words,

"an un-named negro sailor."

It wasn't until March 1942,

that Dorie Miller's true identity
was revealed

and he was awarded the Navy Cross
for his efforts at Pearl Harbor.

He was not given
the Medal of Honour,

the highest American honour.

The gravely wounded captain
of the ship was given that award,

the man Dorie Miller tried to save.

The speculation
among the black press

was that the army, the navy, the
military, Roosevelt's White House

did not want the first hero
of the war to be a black man.

Dorie Miller continued to serve
his country in the Pacific theatre.

He was killed on board
the aircraft carrier 'Liscombe Bay'

when it was sunk by the Japanese
during the Battle of Makin

in November 1943.

Dorie Miller was a hero the
Americans didn't want to acknowledge

but a hero that the Americans
could not ignore.

After Dorie Miller,

nobody could make the case that
black sailors were not valiant,

that black soldiers
were not courageous.

YVONNE LATTY: I believe
that Dorie's legacy

is telling African Americans
that we were there.

You know, we were there - we were at
every major battle of World War II

in some capacity,

doing our best not only
for ourselves but for America.

African Americans suffered
from racial prejudice in the US

before, during and after
the Second World War

but what has been
less well documented

is that after 7 December 1941,

Japanese Americans were suddenly
looked upon with suspicion

by their fellow compatriots.

Even today, the reverberations
of the attack on Pearl Harbor

can be felt in the community.

Growing up in Hawaii, of course,

we all learned about Pearl Harbor
at a very young age

and it was shocking, really,
and very hurtful

because I'm Japanese American and to
find out that Japan had attacked us,

it was just unbelievable.

In 1941, the USA was seen
as a land of opportunity

for economic migrants from Japan.

At the time of Pearl Harbor,
in the continental United States,

there were, say, roughly 130,000
people of Japanese ancestry,

either born in Japan and emigrated

or born in the United States
and US citizens.

In Hawaii, there were
more than that, about 158,000.

Japanese Americans made up
something like 35%

of the population
of the Hawaiian Islands.

Second-generation Japanese American
Edwin Nakasone was born in Hawaii.

He was 14 years old during
the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I could hear boom, boom, boom
going on

and this is south of where I lived

and this was Pearl Harbor
being bombed.

The memory is still vivid
in Edwin's mind

over 75 years later.

I went outside and I saw a plane
coming right over me.

The cockpit was open,

the goggles of the pilot, Japanese
pilot, was up on his forehead.

I remember this all very clearly.

The scarf blowing in the wind,
white scarf,

and I looked up there and saw the
big red balls underneath the wings

and on the fuselage

and I thought, "Oh, the Japanese
are attacking us!

"Japanese attacking us!"

The country of his ancestry was
bombing the country of his birth.

In the space of a few seconds,

Edwin's life had been
turned upside-down.

On 7 December 1941, America was
attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor.

Life would never be the same again

for over 150,000 Japanese Americans
who called Hawaii their home.

STACEY HAYASHI: Most of them were
just hit with disbelief.

They would see the planes,
the Zeros

and they saw the Hinomaru,

which is the red, you know,
circle of Japan

and their hearts just sank.

We're gonna be looked upon as being
spies and saboteurs and so on

and would not be doing well

but we did not have any inkling of
allegiance to the Japanese -

or the Japanese emperor and so on.

After the dust settled,

the nightmare became a reality
for Japanese Americans.

STEPHEN HARDING: In the immediate
aftermath of Pearl Harbor,

in Hawaii, the American military
imposed martial law,

uh, which, of course,
restricted people's movements -

there were blackouts.

STACEY HAYASHI: There was a curfew

and they blacked out
all their windows, cars' headlights

and there was just, like,
a little strip left open.

At night, we had to close the doors,
had to close the windows

but that was how Pearl Harbor
greeted me and greeted us.

Despite being American citizens,

Edwin and his family were suddenly
looked upon in a different way.

Scared, yes. We were scared.

My dad, who had just
returned from Japan

about one month before
the start of the war,

he was immediately picked up
and quizzed

by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation, FBI,

and we were afraid he would be
taken away forever.

But after one night, he came back,

so he was looked upon
as being a loyal person

and not to be worried about him

as a saboteur or a spy
or anything like that.

And so he came back, so we were
very, very happy.

But for the 125,000
Japanese Americans

settled on the west coast
of the continental USA,

the future looked far less certain.

In Hawaii, they were treated
mostly with respect and, uh, trust,

whereas on the mainland, they were
stripped of all their belongings,

their businesses, their farms -

everything that they had worked
so hard their whole lives for.

STEPHEN HARDING: President Roosevelt
signed an executive order

that ordered the confinement in what
he termed, in his executive order,

concentration camps.

It was not used in the way that

that term later
came to be understood

but for them to be interned
and isolated in camps.

Toke Yoshihashi was born and raised
in Pasadena, California.

He was 18 when Japan declared war.

I had to work December 7
and I had already...

..knew that Pearl Harbor was bombed
when I went to work.

But customers would come and say
how terrible it was,

and it was a terrible thing
and it...

You don't feel too good, you know,

because we look like,
just like the enemy

and you think, well, everybody's
looking at you.

I didn't feel too good, no.

Toke and his family
were soon rounded up

and sent to an internment camp
in Arizona.

You're gonna be locked up

and all you could take
was what you could carry,

so we...in our family, we each had
a suitcase that we took

and it was mostly personal things
and clothes - that was about it.

STACEY HAYASHI: It was
a civil rights debacle -

you know, over 110,000 people
were incarcerated

for nothing - just for
looking like the enemy.

I was upset, yeah.

I didn't think it was right
that they should do this.

Yeah. And here's this soldier, armed
soldier with a rifle, you know?

He's watching us cross the street
into the camp.

And yeah, I didn't feel too good,
you know?

Despite being forsaken
by the government,

when these same citizens were asked
to fight for their country

in March 1943,

many of them voluntarily
chose to join the struggle.

STEPHEN HARDING: It was very hard
for them to understand

why their country, the land of their
birth for two-thirds of them,

would suddenly pull them from
their homes, put them on buses

and ship them out
in the middle of nowhere

in camps surrounded by barbed wire

that had guard posts with
machine-guns in them.

And the fact that they were

still willing to serve
their country after that

is a testament to them, I think.

STACEY HAYASHI: A lot of these guys
volunteered from behind barbed wire

to fight for a country
that had incarcerated them,

taken away all their belongings -

yeah, it...it's mind-boggling.

Toke chose not to sign up

but in April 1944,

the army conscripted him.

TOKE YOSHIHASHI: I was willing to go
if they drafted me

but I wasn't gonna volunteer.

I was born here.
I'd never been to Japan.

I don't speak...not fluent Japanese

and, uh, I felt America
was my country,

so that's why I was willing to go.

Toke served in Europe

with the all-Japanese American 442nd
Infantry Regiment

until the end of the war.

So, Japanese have
this sense of pride -

it's 'Haji', so you never want to
make shame for your family name

and so, upon leaving Hawaii,
a lot of these boys were told,

"A Make OK but no make shame."

'Make' means you die
and that's a Hawaiian word,

um, so...it's better that you die
rather than shame the family name.

I didn't get scared

until the day we started
having to go out

and do a little shooting, you know.

The 442nd Regiment fought with valour

and returned home as heroes.

It's very ironic, you know,

because this group of people
that nobody wanted

and the government suspected them,

they went on to become one of the
most highly decorated units

in US military history, to this day.

In 1980,

a presidential investigation

deemed that the internment
of Japanese Americans in 1942

was racially motivated.

It led to reparations being paid
to the detainees.

By then, the camps were long gone.

STEPHEN HARDING: Most of them
started closing before the war,

especially since so many
Japanese American young men

had volunteered
for military service.

They eventually were all shut down

and quite honestly, nobody wanted
to remember them all that much.

It's sort of like moving on
from a period in your history

that you're really
not very proud of, I think.

The attack on Pearl Harbor

is one of the most devastating
events in US history.

But rather than wallow in pity,

it became a call to arms

for a nation that went on
to help win the war for the Allies

in both the Pacific and Europe.

It was a tactical defeat but it
wasn't a strategic defeat.

Um, in fact, the attack
could have been worse.

The Japanese did not go after the
oil storage facilities

or they didn't go after
the ship repair facilities,

so even within a day,
within 24 hours,

Pearl Harbor was
an up and operating naval base.

STEPHEN HARDING: Pearl Harbor
was undoubtedly

a devastating short-term blow

but because the Japanese
were not able

to knock out the aircraft carriers
or the Pacific fleet,

you ultimately had
an American victory at Midway,

which, arguably, changed the course
of the Pacific war fairly early on.

TESSA DUNLOP: Just let's be honest
about it.

They were caught short,
the Americans,

but in the end, it worked
in the Allies' favour,

'cause it galvanised a nation

and we know - and it's extraordinary
the Japanese didn't recognise this -

they thought it would dent
American morale.

That was so naive.

What they've done is they've woken
up the mighty American giant.

And you do that, as we know,
at your peril.

Captions by Red Bee Media
(c) SBS Australia 2021