Original subtitles

US Veteran 1970's: A soldier's duty is not to reason why.

A soldier's duty is to do or die.

NARRATOR: This is the story of the doing and the dying.

In the defining conflict of the 20th Century.

Capt. Samuel Grashio: I saw some of the most horrible incidents

which a person would have to experience themselves

before they would believe me.

JAMES ROOSEVELT: The massive casualties of the war weighed

heavily on my grandfather.

It wasn't theory to him.

It was people's children.

NARRATOR: This is also the story of the reason why.

Of knowing why you fight.

LT. Col. Harold Brown: Had we not won that war,

then life as we know it would never have existed again.

NARRATOR: It's your father's story, or grandfather's.

But it's also yours.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: You don't forget the horrors of the war.

As I tell some of my closest friends,

if you run over a cat while driving,

would you ever forget that incident,

that little bump when you ran over this cat?

Most people would say no, I'll remember that for the rest

of my life.

What about a human being if you shot him or blew his head off?

Would you forget that?

Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!

NARRATOR: In Berlin, a Jewish boy named Ernest Conrad

sits around the dinner table with his parents,

who reassure each other that Hitler is a fad,

destined to fail.

Rabbi Ernest Conrad: This cannot last.

That was the feeling; this man coming is crazy, nuts.

How can the Germans listen to him?

Conrad: What does he have to give?

NARRATOR: Hitler's gift to Germany is a campaign

of racist terror.

Jane Sterling: My dad had his citizenship;

we all had our citizenships taken away.

His bank accounts confiscated his businesses totally

near dissolution.

NARRATOR: It's not only Jews who face persecution.

In March, 1936 Hitler's troops sweep into the Rhineland,

a German region demilitarized after World War One.

Nazis sterilize hundreds of mixed race children

whom Hitler calls the Rhineland bastards.

Born to a German mother and an African father,

Hans Hauck is 16-years old when he is forcibly sterilized

by a vasectomy.

Rabbi Ernest Conrad: It couldn't escape from anybody

how increasingly the country was not only militarized,

but terrorized.

NARRATOR: In the summer of 1936, Berlin hosts the Olympics.

Hitler and his Nazis look to showcase the superiority

of the Aryan race.

they don't count on the lightning fast American

Jesse Owens.

Louis Zamperini: When Jessie Owens came into the stadium,

he got a bigger ovation than Hitler.

NARRATOR: Owens obliterates the competition,

winning four gold medals.

His teammate Louis Zamperini competes in the five-thousand

meter and loses.

But he runs a gutsy race, finishing strong.

Hitler insists on meeting him.

Louis Zamperini: He shook my hands and said, Oh, the;

ah, the boy with the fast finish

I mean his face, his mustache, the way he combed his hair.

I mean he looked like somebody purposely uh,

did cosmetics on him for a comedy.

he was uh, to us, a dangerous comedian.

NARRATOR: Japanese forces overwhelm Shanghai and sweep

across Nanking.

In an orgy of violence, Japanese soldiers brutalize the defeated

Chinese.

Chang Zhi Qiang watches in horror as a Japanese soldier

stabs his mother in the chest.

NARRATOR: When the massacre ends after six terrifying weeks,

nearly two hundred thousand corpses line on the streets

of Nanking.

In Washington, President Roosevelt responds by cutting

back trade with Japan.

But the Japanese ignore the US and keep expanding their empire.

In January, 1938, US ambassador to Germany William Dodd returns

home and tries to sound the alarm on the global threat

posed by Hitler.

William Dodd: Living in Europe these days is profoundly

discouraging.

Nazism and Fascism are gaining ground everywhere.

This is a world crisis.

NARRATOR: Dodd's words fall on deaf ears,

as most Americans would rather turn a blind eye

to Europe's problems.

Armin Lehmann is a member of the Hitler Youth,

being groomed as a future Aryan superman.

He says he was completely unaware of the mayhem taking

place throughout the expanding German empire.

Armin Lehmann: People always ask, you know,

how could it have happened?'

you must have seen the trucks drive up and loading

the Jewish people, et cetera.

I lived in a Nazi rent controlled area.

There was not a single Jewish family.

You couldn't see what happened to the people who were not

in tune with the Nazis.

NARRATOR: September, 1938.

European leaders convene in Munich.

They appease Hitler and let him keep half of Czechoslovakia.

Neville Chamberlain: The settlement

of the Czechoslovakian problem, which has now been achieved is,

in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which

all Europe may find peace.

NARRATOR: Just six months later, Hitler thumbs his nose

at the world and occupies what is left of Czechoslovakia.

Beginning in 1939 Jews under Nazi control must wear arm bands

identifying them as sub humans, what Hitler calls Untermenschen.

To the east, in Moscow, Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin decides

to join forces with Hitler, and builds up a huge military force.

Behind closed doors, the two powers draw up plans to carve up

Eastern Europe.

Poland sits in the cross-hairs.

The German war machine-the infamous Wehrmacht-unleashes

a Lightning War of overwhelming speed and power.

It's called Blitzkrieg.

Fast moving tanks punch gaping holes in the Polish front lines,

while the German Air force, the Luftwaffe,

pummels the nation's Capital, Warsaw.

NARRATOR: Within days, France and the British Empire

including India, Australia and Canada declare war on Germany.

Henry Starkman: We were all very naïve,

and we always thought the war would last only a limited period

of time.

After all we had powerful allies,

Great Britain and France and they are going to make sure that

the war doesn't last very long.

NARRATOR: In fact, the Allies have no intention of saving

Poland, and abandon her to the enemy.

Hitler's ally Stalin now orders his army to join

the Nazi invasion.

In just four weeks, 66-thousand Polish corpses litter

the landscape.

On September 27th, Warsaw surrenders.

British and French Armies mass on Germany's Western border.

In London, people wear gas masks, anticipating an attack.

But the Allies stand down, and, once again,

hope to avoid conflict by doing nothing.

London residents like Rick Brown steel themselves for war.

Instead he is surprised at what follows.

Rick Brown: There were times during those early months,

which we call the phony war because nothing went on.

And, we relaxed, the home guard was disbanded,

people came back from being evacuated,

it was a very peculiar time.

NARRATOR: The phony war soon yields to the real one.

NARRATOR: To the South, along their border with Germany,

the French man a series of forts called the Maginot Line.

The defenses-supposedly impenetrable-prove useless.

The Germans simply bypass them and streak into France.

One more deadly thrust, and Hitler will demand the surrender

of both France and Great Britain.

Winston Churchill: You ask, what is our policy?

I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air,

with all our might and with all the strength that

God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny,

never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue

of human crime.

That is our policy.

NARRATOR: By late May, 1940 hundreds of thousands of allied

troops huddle here near the Northern French town of Dunkirk.

They're pinned down and surrounded by the Wehrmacht,

their backs flush against The English Channel.

Harry Garrett: It is absolute chaos.

You could not believe what a war is like,

'till you see what happened at Dunkirk.

NARRATOR: Harry Garrett is one those trapped soldiers.

Harry Garrett: It was just perpetual bombing, shelling,

strafing, and the-the sand dunes where most of the boys were,

as was all being sprayed all day long.

NARRATOR: Hitler and his Luftwaffe commander

Hermann Goring believe that German air power alone

will force a massive and devastating Allied surrender.

So just outside Dunkirk, the Germans halt

their ground advance.

Churchill seizes the moment, calling on all British boat

owners to help the Royal Navy rescue the trapped soldiers.

Over the course of nine days, a ramshackle fleet of private

boats, as well as Royal Navy vessels,

rescues more than 330-thousand soldiers.

Harry Garrett escapes from Dunkirk on a small

British destroyer.

Harry Garrett: We rushed onboard and we were lucky

we're some of the last onboard, I think there must have been

about five-hundred, four or five-hundred people

on this destroyer, I mean this is a destroyer!

It was like a sardine can.

I believe there were about 270 ships sunk in the harbor.

That was so, so so sad.

You saw destroyers laying over the side and ships laying over

the side.

And then uh, away we went.

Up to England it was so peaceful.

And there, were the cliffs of Dover.

I still feel that now.

NARRATOR: Hitler's failure to push the ground attack against

the Allies at Dunkirk stuns Luftwaffe Pilot Heinz Migeod.

Heinz Migeod: I know that our Generals were fuming.

It was nonsense.

We had allowed them to travel up to Dunkirk so they could escape

to England.

NARRATOR: In the aftermath of Dunkirk,

Winston Churchill emerges as the face and voice

of British and Allied resolve.

Winston Churchill: We shall go on to the end.

We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas

and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing

strength in the air.

We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be;

we shall fight on beaches, we shall fight on the landing

grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets,

we shall fight on the the hills.

We shall never surrender.

NARRATOR: On June 10th, Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini

throws in with the Nazis and declares war on France.

Four days later, German troops march into Paris.

Triumphant German soldiers unfurl the swastika

from the Eiffel Tower.

And France surrenders to Hitler.

The luftwaffe begins bombing runs over the British coast

and shipping convoys.

Britain's Royal Air Force alerted to impending attacks

by a sophisticated new radar network- takes to the sky.

Including the deadly Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine

Spitfire.

From his secret underground headquarters in London,

Churchill runs the war and rallies his troops.

Winston Churchill: Let us therefore brace ourselves to our

duties, and for a thousand years, men will still say,

this was their finest hour.

NARRATOR: Bob Foster and Geoffrey Wellum are barely out

of flight training when they're ordered to protect the skies

from the invading Luftwaffe.

Bob Foster: We were, I hesitate to say, the amateurs,

but we were, compared to the Germans,

a crowd of chaps pulled together at the last minute.

With a desire to fly.

To protect the country.

Geoffrey Wellum: You then looked at it and thought,

Good God, what are they doing over here?

Where do we start on this slaughter?

What do you do?

There's only one thing to do, it's go straight in.

Have a quick squirt and then away.

Get down and think, God, I got away with that one.

Let's go back and do it again.

And it was only after you finished you thought, Whoa,

blymie, this is, this is bloody dangerous!

Charles Gardner: You can hear our own guns,

going like anything now.

Somebody's hit a German and he's coming down in a long streak,

he coming down completely out of control, a long streak of smoke.

Ah! There, you can hear our anti-aircraft going at them now.

There are one, two, three, four, five, six

there are about ten German machines dive-bombing the

British convoy, which is just out to sea in the Channel.

NARRATOR: Then, on September 7th, 1940,

the Nazis begin terror attacks-indiscriminate bombing

of England's civilian population.

Londoners have a word for it: the blitz.

In September 1940, the Luftwaffe begins the merciless

bombing of London and its civilian population.

RICK BROWN: By and large, people were very fatalistic,

what can we do?

If there's one up there with my name on it, that's it.

NARRATOR: Before it's over, nearly 40,000 men women

and children will be dead.

Not just in London, but throughout England.

Rick Brown: It was up close and personal.

Very much so....when you're 16, 17,

and you're asked to help out in the docks of London,

which were devastated, lots of casualties, bodies lying around.

NARRATOR: Rick Brown is a teenage member of the British

Home guard.

His job is to assist with the rescue and recovery teams.

Rick Brown: Immediate impressions are the ones

that stay.

I don't really believe that any of us young kids realized

the enormity of what was happening.

NARRATOR: German aircraft relentlessly blast London and

other cities, but the British fighters strike back hard.

And inflict enormous casualties.

After weeks of stunning losses, Hitler realizes his Luftwaffe

alone cannot beat the British.

And while the blitz continues, Hitler begins to turn

his attention on his supposed ally, Russia.

In September, 1940, Japan, Italy and Germany sign

the tripartite pact and forge the so-called Axis powers.

Their goal, quite simply, is to rule the world.

And they seem well on their way.

In the summer of 1941, President Roosevelt takes his biggest step

yet to counter the axis: the US embargoes all metal shipments

and oil deliveries to the Japanese Empire.

The move cripples the Empire's industry,

and Japan now sees few options except war.

JAMES ROOSEVELT Jr: We Americans were looking at a threat

in Europe and a threat in the Pacific.

There was always the hope that the oceans would protect us

on either side, but I don't think my grandfather ever

believed you could rely on that.

NARRATOR: Instead FDR prepares for the oceans to become

battlefields.

On June 22nd, 1941 one brutal Dictator double crosses another,

as Adolph Hitler breaks his treaty with Josef Stalin

and invades the Soviet Union.

A vast army of 3 million German troops unleashes a torrent

of death and destruction.

In the North, the Germans lay siege here at Leningrad

and pound it into rubble.

Food supplies quickly dry up.

As the Russian winter sweeps in, the city's survivors are forced

into desperate measures.

Inna Strelnikova: There were so many dead bodies out there.

And other people would rush to the bodies like scavenger birds,

and they stripped them off clothes...

and they also cut flesh, made ground meat out of it

and sold it or they ate it themselves.

But those who ate it ended up going insane.

NARRATOR: Further South, German troops battle to within fifteen

miles of the Capital, Moscow.

But temperatures descend to 25 below.

Weapons will not fire, and soldiers freeze to death.

In early December, with Hitler's armies withering,

the Soviets launch a vicious counterattack.

For the first time in the war, the Germans retreat.

Moscow is saved.

The Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,

houses the bulk of America's Pacific fleet.

130 vessels rest on the placid waters.

390 aircraft park on adjacent airfields.

Sailors and pilots enjoy the hospitality of nearby Honolulu,

as the first Sunday in December, 1941 dawns with light breezes

and clear skies.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: The first thing I heard was music

and the disc jockey...

NARRATOR: Daniel Inouye-a 17 year old high school student

living on Oahu- sits at home listening to the radio.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: I didn't know what he was talking about;

I thought it was just part of the show.

So I called my father, and we looked out there.

And then three planes came up, flying back from a run,

gray with red sun drop dots on the wing,

then I knew war was on.

NARRATOR: At 7:48 AM, the first of over 350 Japanese

dive-bombers, fighters and torpedo planes sweep out

of the Hawaiian sky.

Some target the airfields where planes, parked wing to wing,

are blasted into oblivion.

Others head to battleship row.

Don Stratton: We could see that torpedo planes come up

and peel off you could pretty much reach out and touch them;

we could see em in the planes when the dive bombers were

hitting us, strafing us.

NARRATOR: At Pearl Harbor, Don Stratton and Clint Westbrook are

aboard the USS Arizona when an enemy bomb penetrates the deck

and hits the ship's ammo dump.

Don Stratton: We felt that, it shook the whole ship,

and then the ship exploded, then we were caught in a ball of

flame that went about four, five hundred feet in the air.

Clint Westbrook: All I remember is suddenly you see the whole

front of the ship disappear.

And then it was blank after that because we were picked up,

spun around, dropped and everything else.

NARRATOR: For two hours, the Japanese air squadrons hammer

Pearl Harbor.

At 9:45AM, the attack finally ends.

The local hospitals overflow with the human carnage.

Japanese-American teenager Daniel Inouye is a volunteer

assisting in the grisly cleanup.

Senator Dan Inouye: I saw this body that was left over,

no head, I got myself a box, put the parts in a box.

The father came back, he was out doing some work, and he says,

I want to see my wife, and they told me my wife is wounded.

And I told the man in charge, the doctor, I said;

don't show it to him.

Well, he has the right to see his wife.

Okay. So he went into the morgue, I opened the box,

he looked at that, he screamed and spent the rest of his life

in the insane asylum.

NARRATOR: The sneak attack destroys 188 aircraft,

sinks four battleships and three destroyers.

Almost every US ship suffers some damage.

But luckily, the all important fleet of aircraft carriers

are out to sea.

When the Arizona sinks to the bottom of the harbor,

it takes 1102 trapped and drowned seamen with it.

The next day, the United States Congress declares war.

President Roosevelt: Yesterday, December 7th, 1941

a date which will live in infamy the United States of America

was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval

and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

Always will our whole nation remember the character

of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated

invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win

through to absolute victory.

NARRATOR: Within 24 hours of attacking Pearl Harbor,

the Japanese also strike Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippines,

Wake Island and Midway Island.

On December 11th, Adolph Hitler declares war on the U.S.,

officially drawing America into the European conflict.

LT. Buck Compton: Everything sort of starts with

Pearl Harbor,right after that happened,

Well you know if you see an able-bodied guy with two arms

and two legs, uh, of the right age without a uniform on,

I'd wonder what was wrong; what was wrong with you, you know?

Benjamin Cooper: I couldn't wait to get into the service

to do something to stop Hitler.

He was really gobbling up a lotta countries and he had

to be stopped.

NARRATOR: At a conference in January 1942 outside Berlin,

the Nazis establish their so-called Final Solution

for dealing with enemies of the Aryan race.

This document from the conference catalogues

11-million Jews from 31 Countries to be killed.

The Nazis build three types of facilities.

Concentration camps house Nazi enemies and are located

in Germany.

Slave labor camps imprison civilians in Nazi-occupied

territory.

Extermination camps-mostly in Poland-are designated to kill

as many Jews as quickly as possible.

These camps include medical laboratories to perform

horrifying experiments on the prisoners

As well as data centers to track the results.

Thomas Griffin: They sent our group down east to talk

with Jimmy Doolittle.

NARRATOR: Pilot Thomas Griffin trains in Columbia,

South Carolina where Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle comes

looking for volunteers.

Thomas Griffin: Doolittle came and said that we were gonna

train to take these B25 Mitchell bombers off the deck

of a carrier.

We're gonna go across the Pacific,

and bomb targets in Japan.

And that's the first we knew of it.

NARRATOR: In April 1942, Doolittle leads his pack

of 16 B-25 bombers as they prepare to launch here,

from the deck of the USS Hornet.

The carrier closes to within 650 miles of Japan when an enemy

patrol boat spots the Americans and relays their position

to Tokyo.

Doolittle's cover is blown.

His next decision changes the face of the war.

Without hesitation. Doolittle, Choses to go all in.

On this aircraft carrier, he orders his raid on Tokyo.

Thomas Griffin: Jimmy Doolittle, of course,

flew the first airplane off.

Now it was a very stormy morning, high seas.

So, we were very fortunate on that short takeoff,

four hundred feet that all of us stayed on the deck and got off.

NARRATOR: Doolittle's bombers reach Tokyo at high noon.

Thomas Griffin: The target that we had was a factory

making tanks.

Right on Tokyo Bay and our plane did not hit

that assigned target.

We hit its immediate neighbor, Tokyo Gas and Electric Company,

and flattened it.

NARRATOR: But the early launch burns through the raider's fuel,

and some of the B-25's begin to fall into the Pacific.

LT. GEN. Jimmy Doolittle: Two people were drowned,

eight of them, got ashore.

NARRATOR: Most of Doolittle's raiders make it to China,

but crash well short of their objectives.

LT. GEN. JIMMY DOOLITTLE: We flew on till we got to where

we thought we were as close as we could get to where we wanted

to go... we weren't precisely there, and then we all jumped.

NARRATOR: The damage in Tokyo is negligible,

but the Doolittle operation delivers a huge boost

to a demoralized American public.

THOMAS GRIFFIN: Everything was going the other way.

All bad news.

down in North Africa, Rommel was driving the British back towards

Cairo, and they were sinking our ships in the Atlantic,

submarines, wholesale.

In the Pacific, things were even worse after Pearl Harbor.

Everything was bad news on our side,

until our little mission of bombing Tokyo.

NARRATOR: Allied forces in the Philippines are no match for the

battle-tested Japanese invaders.

Even so, the American and Filippino troops hold out

for four months during the bloody battle of Bataan.

In early April, 1942, 75-thousand starving,

disease- ridden soldiers finally surrender.

Col. Samuel Grashio: From that time, they marched a distance

of approximately 140 miles.

NARRATOR: Among the POW's is US Army Air Force

Captain Samuel Grashio, a survivor of what becomes known

as the Bataan Death March.

Col. Samuel Grashio: En route, many Americans were bayoneted,

and run over by Japanese equipment.

They were not only starved to death, and wanted water,

but were beaten up.

NARRATOR: In temperatures approaching 100 degrees

the Japanese force the prisoners to bake in the sun.

Capt. Samuel Grashio: They used to gather the American

and Filipino troops in the rays of the tropic sun.

Many of the boys suffering from malaria were forced to sit there

for hours consuming the sun.

Many of them were bareheaded due to the fact that the Japanese

soldiers in their cruelty took the hats away from the Americans

and just threw them away.

This treatment was one of the tortures which is upper most

in my mind, a torture which I'll never be able to forget.

NARRATOR: After five days, the first of the marchers arrive

at an abandoned military outpost.

Here, the tourture continues.

It includes the beheadings of American and Filipino soldiers.

Col. Samuel Grashio: I saw the most horrible incidents which a

person would have to experience themselves before they would

believe me.

I hate to think of the many Americans and Filipinos who will

never get back, to tell the torture that was given to them

before God blessed them with death.

NARRATOR: The Japanese Empire now spreads across much of

East Asia, and the threat to Australia grows by the day.

The Allies need Australia as a base of operations,

and Japan hopes to isolate her by cutting her shipping lanes.

To accomplish the mission, Tokyo organizes a large force

to occupy the Coral Sea.

But Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the US Pacific

Ocean area, operates with a remarkable advantage:

US intelligence operators crack the Japanese Naval code

and intercept enemy orders.

Nimitz now knows that a huge Japanese fleet is steaming

into the Coral Sea.

The American commander boldly counters force with force.

SGT. Meyer Levin: Well, we spotted fifteen ships

in the Coral Sea heading south.

There were four of us, Flying Fortresses.

NARRATOR: After his bombs fail to drop,

Bombardier Meyer Levin convinces his pilot to make another run.

He spots a Japanese transport ship filled with infantry.

SGT. Meyer Levin: They were throwing up just as much ak-ak

as I had ever seen at one time in my life.

Well, let my eggs go, eight 500s,

spaced them all around the bow.

I believe I probably sunk her .

NARRATOR: After five days of intense fighting,

both sides withdraw.

Japanese Commander Yamamoto believes the US Navy is now

on the ropes.

He dispatches nearly his entire fleet to assault Midway Island,

a critical steppingstone on the way to Hawaii.

Mac Showers: There was some debate as to what

their target was.

NARRATOR: Mac Showers toils as a code breaker in a basement

at Pearl Harbor.

Mac Showers: People Washington felt that such a large Japanese

operation would not go to such a small island as Midway.

NARRATOR: But Mac and his fellow code breakers at Pearl Harbor

are certain that midway is the target.

They need proof. And fast.

They devise a scheme to send a fake message to smoke out

the Japanese.

Mac Showers: We proposed that we send a message,

to the commanding officer of our base at Midway,

so it would be sure to be seen and read and understood

by the Japanese.

NARRATOR: The Japanese pick up the fake communication and radio

new orders to the fleet, which Mac Showers and his team

intercept and decode.

The message pinpoints Midway as the target of the Japanese

assault.

Mac Showers: We knew it would be Midway,

and that settled the dispute with Washington.

NARRATOR: As June begins, the Japanese steam toward Midway,

unaware they are sailing right into a trap.

Sumner Whitten: Bombs landing on either side of the runway;

The Japanese didn't want to bomb the runways because they wanted

to use them.

So they were bombing the ammo dumps and uh,

fuel dump and the mess halls.

NARRATOR: Returning planes crowd the decks of Japanese air craft

carriers.

Admiral Yamamoto is unaware that US carriers tipped off

by American code breakers lurk nearby.

Suddenly, waves of planes launched from the American

carriers fill the sky.

Second day we hit the carriers.

Any luck with them? Oh, yes. socked em right in there!

NARRATOR: The Japanese still manage to blast 147 US aircraft

out of the sky.

But the Americans sink four enemy aircraft carriers,

throwing the Japanese navy on the defensive for the first time

in the war.

In one day on Guadalcanal, the Marines seize the landing area

and rename it Henderson Field.

Platoon Sergeant Ned Steele is taken aback by the ease

of the mission.

Ned Steele: It was a piece of cake.

Course that didn't last very long,

we were unpleasantly surprised when we did finally meet

Jap resistance and found out just what they were.

They were barbarians, uh; they didn't have any code of honor

at all.

NARRATOR: Steele's opinion hardens when he comes across

his first Marine casualty.

Ned Steele: We ran across him laying in the trail.

They had cut his head off, had his arms folded and his head was

sitting on his chest.

They'd cut his penis off and stuck it in his mouth.

I gotta take a break.

NARRATOR: For the next three months the Marines battle across

the jungle island.

The action ranges from small, vicious firefights to large

scale attacks.

The conditions are appalling.

Jay Mcgee: a lot of people that got sick, malaria,

dysentery, tropical ulcers, all kinds....

and that's what killed us.

You couldn't cure a lot of things in the tropics there

unless you got out of the tropics.

Ned Steele: There wasn't one day or one hour that you weren't

in danger of being killed.

You were shot at, snipered, you were bombed, shelled, strafed.

Everything, you were just, you never could relax.

You didn't sleep.

If you got 2 to 3 hours a night sleep you were getting it

in 10 or 15 minute increments because you're always awake,

always aware.

NARRATOR: Just after midnight on November 14th, 1942,

the bloodshed culminates on the high seas North of Guadalcanal.

Lee Jeans: And about then all hell broke loose.

You could watch shells going down,

and some of those armor piercing shells would go right through

a ship and come out the other side, you could see them.

NARRATOR: Japanese cruisers and destroyers pound the battleship

USS South Dakota, and knock her out of action.

Harry Fitch: It occurred to me that somebody had strewn

a hole lot of life jackets on the floor, so I went,

what the hell are all these life jackets doing here?

So I took a peak with my flashlight, uh,

and they were not lifejackets, they were bodies that I was

trampling on.

NARRATOR: Through grim determination,

the US Navy holds off the Japanese fleet and forces them

to withdraw.

Lee Jeans: We went out after the battle was all over with,

the next day, looking for survivors to see what

we could find, and there was ships all around burning.

oh there must have been hundreds of Japanese floating around

in there, in the water.

NARRATOR: By early February, 1943,

the last of the Japanese pull off the island of Guadalcanal.

Ned Steele: We were a bunch of kids, we didn't know anything,

we actually never thought we were gonna leave Guadalcanal.

Wilbur Eidson: When we invaded North Africa,

that was our first major action.

NARRATOR: On November 8th, 1942, US General Dwight David

Eisenhower orders 63-thousand American and British troops

to hit the beaches of Morocco and Algeria.

Ike is looking to break a deadly stalemate between Allied

and Axis troops further east in Egypt.

Among the US troops wading ashore is Chief Petty Officer

Wilbur Eidson.

Wilbur Eidson: This was a very frightening thing;

the first action is horrible.

Most of the enlisted men were hiding under the table.

I don't know what they were hiding from, if we got a shell,

they would sure get it.

NARRATOR: The operation is risky, the stakes enormous.

But here on the sands of North Africa,

Eisenhower decides to strike the first American blow against

Germany and Italy.

In November 1942, Allied forces land on the beaches

of North Africa.

Heavy fighting greets them,

But within a few days,

the Vichy French troops in Morocco surrender,

allowing General George S. Patton

and the Allies to move East with impunity.

Benjamin Patton: And that was the beginning of the relief

of the British Eighth Army that was fighting Rommel.

NARRATOR: While Patton moves East across Morocco and into

Algeria, the British, under General Bernard Montgomery,

blast westward through General Erwin Rommel's lines into Libya.

That leaves Germany's so called desert fox no choice but

to retreat.

Six months later, the Axis will abandon North Africa altogether.

In the summer of 1942, Hitler orders his generals to retake

the ground lost after the Moscow debacle.

The resupplied Wehrmacht fights its way to the gates

of Stalingrad, where German artillery and the Luftwaffe

quickly level the city.

Nikolay Tyukineev: Sometimes you would go through the ruins,

rummage through, and then find a boy,

you would get him out and he would be crying as he lost

his mother.

NARRATOR: Stalin orders the Red Army to defend the city

at all costs.

Any soldier retreating or surrendering will be shot.

Nikolay Tyukineev: It was very scary.

I was simply, a wuss.

The bullets were flying all over the place but it seemed like

they were all aimed at me.

That they all wanted to take me.

And it was quite a fright.

NARRATOR: Hitler's forces are exhausted and overwhelmed.

They have no answer to the Russian onslaught.

On February 2nd, 1943, General Friedrich Paulus becomes

Hitler's first Field Marshall to choose surrender over suicide.

He gives up his 91-thousand bedraggled German troops

to the Soviets.

Only five thousand will survive in Russian captivity.

Hunted for almost two years, the triumphant Red Army becomes

the hunter.

With able bodied Americans volunteering in droves,

Earl McClung and Buck Compton enlist in the 101st Airborne.

They are a new breed of American warrior: the paratrooper

or airborne soldier.

Earl McClung: They called us into a big building and

they gave us this spiel about airborne troops and people jump

out of airplanes and everybody wanted to know what did anybody

wanna do that for.

And they said, Well, you get fifty dollars extra a month.

And my hand went up.

Lt. Buck Compton: Well, it's the idea of gettin' behind

their lines, and gettin' into the interior.

I'm not sure it's a great idea.

but uh was the theory, that you could get a lot of soldiers

in behind their lines and do mischief.

NARRATOR: Battles now rage from Southeast Asia to Western Russia

and from the Aleutian Islands to Africa.

Earl Mcclung and his buddies hunger to join the fight.

Earl McClung: Oh, I think we had probably one of the biggest

egos in the world.

We was all young kids, you know, and we thought we were

indestructible we were kinda wantin' to get into combat

and then after we was there a few times,

then we's tryin' to figure out ways of gettin' out of it.

NARRATOR: US Army Ranger Ray Sadoski rides in on the first

wave of troops invading Sicily.

Ray Sadoski: They hit a sandbar.

So they dropped me off.

And I went to, to about 10, 12 feet of water.

So, I learned that if you ever go into the water like that,

you're not gonna be able to swim so just use your arms like this

and keep doing this and keep walkin'.

And I walked right up on shore.

So I look back and nobody's comin' in but me. I says

I hope they don't call this beach head off

and leave me there.

NARRATOR: Sadoski immediately comes under heavy machine gun fire from

two Italian enemy soldiers.

Twenty minutes pass before fellow Army Rangers arrive.

Ray Sadoski: And I hear 'em yellin', callin' my name,

Hey, Ray. Hey, Ray. Where are ya?

I says, be careful when you comin' over here, I says,

they got two machine guns cross firin'.

So they came in and they even came up with a bazooka gunner,

and he knocked them both out.

NARRATOR: In the Pacific, the victory at Guadalcanal allows

the Allies to pursue two lines of attack: one along New Guinea

focused on the Philippines, another starting in the Gilbert

Islands aimed directly at Japan.

As the Marines close in on the Tarawa beach,

a storm of fire erupts from the Japanese defenses.

Howard Frost: We didn't know what we were getting into.

We were too dumb to know.

And that may have been a point in our favor.

We might not have gone.

Roy Ramberg: There was heavy, heavy shelling there on the;

you couldn't see the island, you know.

It was covered with smoke.

NARRATOR: As the Marines approach,

it becomes clear that the us has miscalculated the tides,

making it impossible to drive their landing vessels to shore.

Howard Frost: You could hear the noise of the,

tractor treads crawling across the coral.

And about that time you began to sense that something

wasn't right.

NARRATOR: Instead, Marines Howard Frost and John Pease

find themselves stranded waist deep in the water 500 yards

from shore, exposed to withering enemy fire.

John Pease: We jumped off the side of the amphibious tractor

and ran ashore as quick as we could, among the dead bodies.

NARRATOR: Once ashore, the Marines realize they face

an entrenched enemy that would rather die than give up one inch

of Tawara.

NARRATOR: Combat Camerman Norman Hatch narrates the footage

he shot in the heat of the action.

NARRATOR: The Marines overcome early mistakes and-after four

brutal and bloody days of combat hammer out an important

victory.

Ralph Knippel: It was, was totally destroyed.

The island was practically leveled.

NARRATOR: Nearly two thousand American dead are buried

near the airfield.

The island's defenders are nearly all wiped out.

Ralph Knippel: There was no, no vegetation.

There was no; uh, just nothing except equipment,

decomposed bodies,

it was, was something I don't ever wanna see again.

NARRATOR: After the fall of North Africa and the capture of

Sicily, Allied troops continue to pound the Axis forces.

In September, the Allies cross onto the Italian mainland

at Salerno, and sweep north along the boot.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: I was on a patrol soon after we landed

in Italy.

While I was walking on this patrol on the next mountain

on the top I could see someone squatting, moving his bowels,

defecating, you could tell he was a German.

NARRATOR: Japanese American soldier Daniel Inouye is part of

the 442nd Combat team.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: He had on this German hat,

so I told the man, that's mine.

Just like that deer is mine.

I very carefully set my sights;

He was not only my first,

but when I think back, I think back with horror because

I was proud; but I was trained to hate the Germans,

all the propaganda films we saw throughout training,

it made you feel good.

You're a good soldier. That's war.

NARRATOR: In January, 1944, these mountains South of Rome

are the front lines of the European war.

at the center of the action stands the 14-hundred year old

abbey at Monte Cassino.

Joseph Menditto: They warned the Germans not to use

the monastery as a battle ground.

NARRATOR: By international law, this holy site is supposed to be

off limits for any military use.

But its bird's eye view dominates the ground for miles,

and though the Germans are not occupying it,

the Allies are convinced otherwise.

Joseph Menditto: We saw the activity change from day to day

so the American forces bombed it.

NARRATOR: On February 15th, 1944,

Allied air power levels the abbey.

The Germans occupy the ruins, and the battle rages on.

And East of Monte Cassino, a new element is about to be added

to the war effort.

For four months, Allied forces struggle to gain the upper hand

in these mountains South of Rome.

Joseph Menditto: Most of the time it was rainy,

and we were climbing the mountains there,

and it was mud and everything, and we were taking a beating.

NARRATOR: Finally, on June 4th, 1944,

the Allies crack the Axis defenses And march into Rome,

where the Italian people greet them as liberators.

But the battle for Italy is far from over.

The black airmen were trained in Tuskegee,

Alabama to be escort fighter pilots under the hard eye

of Colonel Benjamin O. Davis.

LT. Col. Harold Brown: He says, Gentlemen,

Your duty is to fly escorts, which means you escort those

bombers from the time that you pick your bombers up,

over the target.

Then you bring them all home safely.

That's your duty.

That's your responsibility.

NARRATOR: Davis emphasizes the importance of mission

discipline.

LT. Col. Harold Brown: He says; If any of you ever for any

reason should leave a bomber, go off looking for a fighter,

you can shoot down ten fighters.

But when you come back here, I'll court marshal you.

If you are engaged by enemy fighters,

then you engage but you will not go off looking for a fight.

NARRATOR: Long range bombers typically sustain heavy losses

from enemy attacks.

But the Red Tails, as they are called,

quickly earn a reputation for protecting their bombing

squadrons, no matter what.

LT. Col. Harold Brown: The bombers would ask me,

who's escorting us today?

Well, it's not the Red Tails.

What? The Red Tails isn't the one escorting us today?

Aw, man, you know.

Yeah, they wanted us.

NARRATOR: With the Redtails in action,

US bomber losses fall dramatically.

In skies above Europe, the famed black Army Air Force unit

delivers the goods.

Benjamin Patton: In the months leading up to,

to the Normandy invasion, Operation Overlord,

my grandfather was used primarily as a ruse.

NARRATOR: General Eisenhower orders George Patton to help

create the illusion that the Allies plan to cross the English

Channel not at Normandy, but at Calais.

Benjamin Patton: And he was commanding a fictitious

Army group that was made up of inflatable tanks and,

and cardboard vehicles, and tents,

and essentially a ghost Army if you will.

NARRATOR: As 160-thousand soldiers steam across the

English Channel, the airborne units still in England prepare

for action.

General Eisenhower arrives to wish them luck.

Waves of planes then take off to drop the 23, 400 paratroopers

at their landing zones in Normandy,

behind enemy lines.

General Dwight Eisenhower: Soldiers,

Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!

You are about to embark upon a great crusade,

toward which we have striven these many months.

The eyes of the world are upon you. Your task will not be

an easy one.

Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened,

he will fight savagely.

Earl McClung: We weren't scared to jump.

We were scared of gettin' shot down in that airplane

NARRATOR: When the planes cross into France,

German anti-aircraft fire turns the skies into a death zone.

Paratroopers Buck Compton and Earl Mcclung get caught

in the maelstrom.

Earl McClung: Shrapnel and bullets were going through

the fuselage of those old C-47's like,

it's like a beehive in there and everybody was hollerin',

Let's get the hell outta here.

NARRATOR: In the chaos, Buck Compton loses most of his gear

before he hits the ground.

LT. Buck Compton: So when I landed, I didn't have a weapon,

I didn't have any rations, I didn't have anything on me

a couple of little chocolate bar rations a canteen and a trench

knife and that's all I had ready to fight the Germans.

NARRATOR: Some of the Allied paratroopers land in the village

of Sainte-Mere-Eglise and are butchered before they even reach

the ground. Many are captured.

Most, however, wander the countryside and slowly organize.

To their North, the guns of Normandy explode.

At about 6:30 AM on June 6th, 1944,

the Allied invasion comes ashore on the beaches of Normandy.

83-thousand British and Canandian troops land at Gold,

Juno and Sword beaches.

73-thousand Americans of the US First Army Land at Utah

and Omaha beaches.

Sam Fuller: As soon as we hit the beach, everybody was not

in ordinary panic, but there was wild confusion when

you're trained to do a certain thing, you do it automatically.

May hit a little resistance and keep on moving.

But the resistance was deadly and highly effective!

And we began to crumble.

Ralph Martire: When the landing barge goes down and you have

to start running out, that's when you realize you're being

shot at.

Sam Fuller: That whole beach was instantly wild.

The noise is deafening,

and I saw pink water and eventually

it turned red, just from blood.

All that water, there was blood red.

Ralph Martire: We got to the beaches and you crawl

and you lay down and you crawl.

I lay down next to a man who has been hit, he was dead already.

NARRATOR: Infantryman Sam Fuller is trapped on Omaha Beach

with little cover.

Bombers dispatched early that morning to blast fox holes

in the sand have missed their targets,

providing no cover for the thousands of men pouring

onto shore.

Sam Fuller: It was like hitting,

a tornado against another tornado.

That's the way we felt.

There's nowhere to go.

You're stuck.

You start trying to go forward, you're hit.

If you're not, there's a sniper all over the place and a lot of

riflemen.

And we couldn't stop the waves of men coming and coming

and coming, every five, ten, twelve, fifteen minutes.

NARRATOR: Fuller survives thanks to the boldness of his colonel,

George A. Taylor.

Sam Fuller: He stood up, which is suicidal.

And he said, there are two kinds of men on this beach.

Those who are dead and those who are about to die.

So let's get off this damn beach and die inland.

He stood up!

And hard to explain to you what that little thing means.

And he led us off the beach, right through the breach.

NARRATOR: South of Utah Beach, behind enemy lines,

Buck Compton meets up with several members of Easy Company

and acquires a machine gun from an injured American soldier.

they hear Germans firing at the beach.

LT. Buck Compton: So I got down crawled on my belly about fifty

yards into a, trench works over there and that's when I saw

these Germans so I thought I'd jump through this bush and into

this trenchand I'd just take 'em down with the machine gun,

you know.

NARRATOR: Compton jumps into the trench and pulls the trigger.

Nothing happens.

LT. Buck Compton: And they looked at;

looked at me and were surprised and they took off running and,

um, lucky as hell I, I just pulled out this hand grenade and

pulled the pin on it and let it fly and it came down right

on top of one of their heads and went off and killed 'em both

with one hand grenade.

NARRATOR: Also behind enemy lines,

paratrooper Earl Mcclung discovers the advantage

of capturing or killing German officers.

Earl McClung: With the Germans, if you could get their officers

they were, ah, confused.

they were good soldiers as long as they had somebody tell them

what to do.

But, uh, if they had to do somethin' on their own,

they weren't all that great.

NARRATOR: And while Mcclung and his comrades honor the rules

of engagement with the ordinary German soldiers,

their courtesy does not extend to the murderous Nazis

of Hitler's elite forces, the Waffen SS.

Earl McClung: The SS had already told us they wouldn't

take any airborne prisoners.

They wouldn't take us prisoner, we wouldn't take them prisoner.

That's it; that was it.

And as far as I know we lived up to it to the very end.

Uh, if you were SS you were dead.

NARRATOR: Allied air forces rule the skies, and by June 6th,

all of Normandy's beaches are secure.

The British and Canadians begin their march inland.

The Americans at Utah Beach face the lightest resistance

of the day

Losing only 197 of the 23-thousand troops.

They push forward and begin to make contact with the scattered

paratroopers.

But the US forces at Omaha beach have the roughest go,

losing 2,400 men.

Alice Matthews: I can remember several young boys who came in,

stepped on landmines and both of their legs were blown off.

And they just, was just a little bit of despair that they'd never

be able to dance again.

And what would my wife think?

Or what would my girl think?

How's my mother going to accept this?

And often they didn't even live to go home.

If you allow yourself to weep you would be in tears all the

time then you couldn't function.

NARRATOR: After four years, the Allies have returned to France.

Sam Fuller: We did one thing that was good.

We stopped the cancer from growing.

We eliminated it.

Reby Cary: Saipan, one thing that bothered me a little bit,

we lost, well the Marines that we,

that were hittin' the beach they were being picked off like mad.

NARRATOR: Radio operator Reby Cary is stationed on an attack

transport off the coast of Saipan.

Reby Cary: Let me tell ya, that's a different ball game

when the bombs start fallin' and goin' on,

They even had bodies floating by our ship,

you couldn't even get 'em out.

You know it was something that first day on Saipan.

NARRATOR: The Japanese defend every inch of Saipan

with suicidal abandon.

For the first time, white and black Marines fight together

to force the enemy from the mountainous terrain one bloody

step at a time.

After three weeks of intense combat the Marines claim

the island.

The Allies now dig in, just 11-hundred miles from Japan.

Normandy's beaches quickly become the focal point

for the Allied war effort.

Within a few weeks, 600-thousand troops come ashore to take on

the Germans.

South of the beachhead, Normandy's narrow roads are

lined by walls of rock, dirt, and thick vegetation called

hedgerows.

Ralph Martire: We start hitting the hedgerows,

and when we hit the hedgerows, that's when we, we were losing

a lot of men.

NARRATOR: Too tall to surmount and too thick to penetrate,

these hedgerows provide perfect cover for the outnumbered

Germans.

Hitler's armored divisions arrive and stop the Allied

advance cold.

Ralph Martire: We'd be in one hedgerow and the enemy would be

in the other hedgerow, which the other hedgerow was about a

hundred feet, of open space.

We had to go in that open space to crawl and get to the enemy

that was in the hedgerows firing at us.

Benjamin Patton: These big you know greedy hedgerows that were

not allowing them to breakout or move with, great speed uh,

this was a big problem.

NARRATOR: In order for armored units to break through Normandy

and sweep across central France to Paris,

the hedgerows must be breached.

One ingenious American Sergeant fashions iron-pronged extensions

that easily attach to the front of the tanks.

The men call them rhinos.

Ralph Martire: The tanks were able to plow through and make

openings for us.

And that's the way we took over the hedgerows.

Then it started where you'd be chasing the Germans,

the German Army were running backwards,

and as they fell back, we just following them, firing at them.

NARRATOR: Close air support chews up German counterattacks,

while General George Patton pushes his Third Army Hard.

His men don't disappoint.

Benjamin Patton: And they did so with incredible success,

in three and a half weeks they got all the way to Paris.

NARRATOR: Louis Zamperini has come a long way since

the 1936 Olympics.

He completes five successful missions as a bombadier

in the Pacific, But on his sixth, his plane loses power

and crashes into the ocean.

The Japanese capture Zamperini and toss him in a prison camp

on the island of Omori.

Louis finds himself in the crosshairs of a sadistic guard

named Mutsuhiro Watanabe, otherwise known as The Bird.

Louis Zamperini: No matter where I was, he'd find me.

Oh, Zamperini, you come to attention last;

for no reason at all, I'm punched out every day.

NARRATOR: The Japanese do not recognize the Geneva conventions

and brutalize their prisoners.

Over 27% of POW's die in Japanese captivity.

Zamperini's misery serves as amusement for the guards.

Louis Zamperini: He line up five or six officers.

Then he'd get the enlisted men to insult us and have

the enlisted men punch us out.

if they didn't hit us hard, they got hit.

So we'd say, Hey go ahead and hit us hard.

But that was the Bird.

Benjamin Patton: At the end of August,

Patton was really at the height of his powers.

He'd covered several hundred miles of territory,

and conquered half of France, and liberated Paris in less than

four weeks.

AL Irzak: The, uh, tank conditions were ideal.

We had long nights, short days, and the ground

was absolutely dry. The tanks could go anywhere.

Patton press the German border south of the Ardennes Forest.

But it was one of he worst winters in Europe's history grips the front lines.

The Germans launch a surprise offensive.

AL Irzak: They attacked in the worst possible conditions.

But they knew they were going to do it and they were ready for it

and we were not.

So the advantage went to them.

NARRATOR: A massive German force attacks the Allies on a

100 KM front centered in the rugged Ardennes Forest.

Thick cloud cover keeps Allied planes grounded,

unable to exploit their air superiority.

A German break- through here could cripple or even reverse

the Allied push toward Germany.

The frontline SS troops show their typical disdain

as they loot and burn across the area.

Near the town of Malmedy they murder more than

300 American POW's.

The Allied lines scramble to firm up,

But German armored columns punch a huge bulge in the American

defenses, threatening to split the Allied advance in two.

For both sides no point is more crucial than Bastogne.

All major roads intersect this small Belgian town.

The 101st Airborne-including Buck Compton and Earl Mcclung

is ordered into the breach.

But as they make their way into Bastogne,

they're confronted with their fellow troops...in retreat.

LT. Buck Compton: We start going up the road, pretty soon,

we see these American soldiers comin' this way with no weapons

and their eyes bugged out, They had been overrun that division

just actually under fire caved in and we had

to go and plug it up.

NARRATOR: The 101st truck into Bastogne and join the town's

ragged defenders.

LT. Buck Compton: We were just gettin' the hell shelled

out of us.

God-awful bombardment, you know, I could taste the gunpowder in

in my mouth from the air.

Earl McClung: They asked us how we survived.

Some of the guys didn't.

You know, they lost arms, legs, feet, ears, hands,

they say I was out there huntin' Germans all the time.

I was out there walkin' to keep warm.

That's what I was doing, to keep from freezin' to death.

NARRATOR: The Americans defending the Belgian town earn

the nickname The Battered Bastards of Bastogne.

Earl McClung: We knew we was surrounded..We were just,

one beat up division against seven.

NARRATOR: In fierce fighting the Germans fail to pierce

the American defenses.

When the Germans offer terms for surrender,

Brigadier General Anthony Mcauliffe replies, Nuts!

AL Irzak: When the Germans got the word nuts, they said, nuts?

What that nuts?

They didn't understand that at all.

Benjamin Patton: The only person who stood up and said

that he was able to do so, is my grandfather.

He said, he said very famously that he could engage

three divisions in forty-eight hours.

Now keep in mind that his troops were about a hundred miles

south of Bastogne Eisenhower just didn't believe it.

My grandfather passed along the code words to his chief of

staff, 'play ball' and three divisions turned and quickly

engaged the Germans near Bastogne.

AL Irzak: We moved all night, all day,

and half the next night.

In these terrible, slippery, icy roads, and we got within,

8 miles of Bastogne.

NARRATOR: At close range, Irzak recognizes the enormous scale

of the German effort.

AL Irzak: Theirs was a massive, uh, attack that, uh,

not only affected us, it affected the whole allied front.

This was infantry divisions.

This was tank divisions.

The Germans got everything that was available to them

at that time.

NARRATOR: The Third Army wades into the action and presses

the German lines.

AL Irzak: They kept going and we finally stopped them and

then the fight continued because we had to push them back.

So we opened the uh, corridor into Bastogne.

NARRATOR: Patton's Third Army lifts the siege on the day after

Christmas, 1944.

Earl McClung: As soon as the sky cleared there was a C-47 and

P-51 sittin' right there and, when that sky cleared and those

fighters got in there?

They, they just devastated that.

NARRATOR: Pounded from every direction,

The great Nazi gamble to split the Allies in half fails.

Private First Class Ralph Martire comes across a teenage

German soldier-one of the many boys Hitler is now sending

to the front.

Ralph Martire: I overtook him, I hit him with a rifle,

and he fell down, and I was going to bayonet him when

he start, he start calling for his mother.

He starts going Mommy, mommy, mommy.

I say why are you calling for your mother?

He says I don't want to die.

He says I want my mommy.

I said All right.

I'll tell you what.

I'm going to make it look like I stabbed ya.

Pretend you're dead when I move away from you.

Okay, he said, Okay. And I did it.

NARRATOR: In Manila, the local Japanese Commander tries to save

the huge capital city from destruction and orders

an evacuation.

But 20,000 rogue soldiers refuse, and remain behind.

The Americans find themselves in a raging street fight.

The Japanese unleash a reign of terror on the civilian

population.

The Allies finally prevail; the city destroyed,

one hundred thousand of her inhabitants dead in the streets.

By January 1945, the Allies have fought through the Marshall

and Mariana Islands.

They now target Japan's last two strongholds: Iwo Jima

and Okinawa.

Richard Fiske: This lieutenant says well you guys got

a piece a cake

he said, Within about 5-7 days we should be home. Yes sir.

We took his word for it. He lied.

NARRATOR: The Japanese have spent years preparing Iwo Jima

for battle.

The island is on the doorstep of their mainland and they intend

to fight for every inch.

Bill Emerson: I figured when I went into Iwo Jima

that my chances of coming out were nill.

NARRATOR: Marines Bill Emerson, Richard Fiske and 70-thousand

other Americans hit Iwo Jima's beaches in February,

1945.The Japanese stop them dead in their tracks.

Especially deadly is the fire crashing down from the looming

slopes of Mount Suribachi.

Bill Emerson: The Japanese were imbedded,

they were up at Mount Suribachi and they were firing an 8 inch

coastal gun point blank at the troops on the beach.

As long as they held that, why, they controlled the island.

NARRATOR: For three days, the Marines ruthlessly battle across

the island and isolate Suribachi from the rest of the defenders.

US patrols soon find a route to the crest of the mountain.

Richard Fiske: It took us four days to take Mount Suribachi,

we haven't even touched the rest of the island.

At the cost of about, almost a thousand Marines.

NARRATOR: On the fourth day, the Marines on Mount Suribachi send

a message to the enemy and Americans back home.

Bob Romacker: I just turn around and looked, you know;

glance that way, every now and then.

And I can see that something's happening back there.

And they're puttin' up this big flag.

We were only there uh,

four days, up to that point, and uh, casualties had been bad.

Well, it's hard to describe that moment.

NARRATOR: The battle for Iwo Jima is not over.

Japanese defenses are a forbidding maze of underground

bunkers, sniper nests, and fortified caves.

Bob Romacker: They wouldn't come out in the open.

The underground part of this island is hard to comprehend,

it was really a case of they had to be rooted out of every

cave or burned.

NARRATOR: Finally after five weeks,

the Marines take the island.

They lay sixty-three hundred of their dead comrades

in long trenches.

Just over one thousand Japanese surrender.

The rest are dead.

Richard Fiske: If there was a hell,

we went through it on Iwo Jima.

I have never in my life been through anything like that.

The carnage, the death was you'd have to be there to see it

NARRATOR: All across the Western front,

the Allies swarm into Germany.

Jacob Baroff: We were in the Ruhr Valley,

the Ruhr Valley was cut off and our-our division's job was

to cut the Ruhr Valley in half.

NARRATOR: Sgt. Jacob Baroff marches with the 121st

Infantry Division as they cross the Rhine, and trap

hundreds of thousands of demoralized Germans

near the Ruhr River. He finds shocking remnants

of Nazi fanaticism, known as the lebensborn program,

or spring of life.

Jacob Baroff: We captured a baby factory.

A baby factory was, a lot of little cottages,

and they would bring in the German Arians,

they had to be six foot tall, blonde, blue-eyed,

six generations of being Germans, at least.

And uh, they brought in the women,

the women became pregnant, the men were sent back to line,

the women were havin' the babies,

and then when the babies, I think it was three months,

they left and the babies were gonna be raised by the state.

They were the Praetorian guard of the German Army

for the future.

NARRATOR: 13-hundred Allied aircraft appear in the night

skies over the German city of Dresden.

Wave after wave drop 4-thousand tons of explosives and

incendiaries, igniting an epic firestorm that turns the city

a major rail hub into an ocean of fire.

Kurt Vonnegut: You'd see people sitting there as though

they were on a street car or as though they were on a tram.

And they had, what had killed them was lack of oxygen.

And they didn't even know it was happening to them.

NARRATOR: 22-year-old US Army Private and future novelist

Kurt Vonnegut is being held in Dresden as a POW.

Kurt Vonnegut: Well, we had never seen anything like it

before.

And, had no idea that, uh our side was capable of such

indiscriminant destruction.

The results were just a total calamity of civilization.

NARRATOR: One estimate places civilian casualties

at one-hundred thousand.

The Allied bombs turn Dresden, like most of the third reich,

into rubble.

EAGER TO STRIKE HARD BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE,

GENERAL CURTIS LEMAY INTRODUCES A NEW STRATEGY TO ATTACK JAPAN:

RISK GREATER AMERICAN LOSSES BY FLYING IN LOW;

HIT THE TARGETS WITH MORE PRECISION,

AND KILL AS MANY JAPANESE AS POSSIBLE.

LEMAY ORDERS THE USE OF INCENDIARIES TO CREATE

FIRESTORMS SIMILAR TO THE DRESDEN OPERATION.

Tailgunner Richard Vanden Heuve is assigned to Lemay's unit.

Richard Vanden Heuvel: You burn.If it's an area so you saw

wasn't burning, that's where they dropped their bombs.

NARRATOR: The assault groups sweep in anywhere from

4 to 5,000 feet over Tokyo, and drop their loads.

Richard Vanden Heuvel: We just burned out the,

the cities just completely and put, put them on fire.

NARRATOR: The firestorm incinerates more than

80-thousand civilians.

Less than 350 miles from the Japanese mainland,

Okinawa is defended by over a hundred-thousand troops.

Here too, Japanese soldiers battle to the end.

But the Americans encounter great numbers

of civilians, including this woman who would also rather

jump to their deaths than risk capture by the hated enemy.

On April 12th, 1945, with war still raging,

FDR suffers a stroke and dies.

Vice President Harry S. Truman,

with whom Roosevelt rarely spoke,

is hastily sworn in as President.

Armin Lehmann: When he came to see us, he was in very,

very bad physical shape.

NARRATOR: Hitler Youth Armin Lehmann is part of a delegation

that is allowed to meet Der Fuhrer on his 56th birthday.

Armin Lehmann: He was shaking so badly that he had to grasp uh,

his jacket just to control his shaking.

So then he brought his arm forward and shook my hand.

And he said, Wieder ein brave Junger, which meant,

Again a brave boy.

Sen. Daniel Inoyue: The company commander called all

the officers together, And he made a startling announcement.

He says, The war is over.

Don't tell your men about it.

NARRATOR: In Tuscany, 2nd Lt. Daniel Inouye's Commander warns

him to keep his men on alert.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: We'll keep on fighting with the same

intensity

because if we slack, he said, it's going to prolong the war

and more people will die.

NARRATOR: On April 21st, 1945, Inoyue and his platoon are under

heavy fire trying to take a ridge in San Torenzo.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: I had a bullet through my abdomen,

somehow it didn't strike anything precious, just flesh,

then all of a sudden, there were three machine gun nests.

I told the men stay down.

I got blood all over the place, and so I said, Get back there.

NARRATOR: Knowing the war will soon be over matters little

to Inouye.

He has been trained to lead his men and to destroy the enemy.

He can do no less.

In a blistering firefight with Axis troops in Northern Italy,

2nd Lieutenant Daniel Inoyue takes a bullet through

the stomach.

Ignoring the pain, he tosses grenades at two enemy machine

gun nests.

He prepares to throw a third grenade.

Sen. Daniel Inoyue: My grenade struck home, but the second one,

uh, somehow had a rifle grenade and my elbow disappeared.

NARRATOR: An enemy projectile shreds Inouye's right arm,

but his lifeless hand still grips his live grenade.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: My only concern was the grenade

in that right hand, and I pulled it out and then used my gun

to wipe out the third one.

Then I got hit in the leg, and that was it.

NARRATOR: Inouye remains at the front for six hours until

he is finally evacuated.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: I had to make certain that the men were

assigned to their right places.

I told my sergeant, I'm gonna tell you a secret you don't tell

anyone else.

I told him about the war being over.

No heroics.

Next day he got killed.

NARRATOR: Italian partisans capture Benito Mussolini,

his mistress, and a few of his supporters.

They are immediately executed and hung upside down from meat

hooks at a gas station in Milan.

In his fortified bunker, deep beneath his bombed out offices,

Adolph Hitler learns that Soviet troops are only a mile away.

The following day, Hitler and Eva Braun,

his wife of only two days, kill themselves.

After giving the corpse of his Führer a final salute,

propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels poisons his

six children.

Then he and his wife order an SS officer to shoot them

in the back of the head.

What is left of the German high command surrenders

to the Allies.

After five years and eight months of unbridled violence,

the war in Europe is over.

Harold Baldwin: The first time we heard about it was through

the radio from head-, uh, from our company area that the war,

Germany surrendered.

And I can tell you one thing.

That was the biggest drunk we ever had. We were drunk.

NARRATOR: The Nazi concentration camps house death on a massive

scale.

Some living skeletons emerge from the darkness,-naked,

their hair shorn, their gold teeth ripped from their mouths.

And piles of corpses remain.

Of the 11 million Jews Hitler planned to exterminate,

he succeeded in killing six million of them.

Newsreel: The SS and Gestapo had hurriedly buried many of

their victims in mass graves to keep the bodies from falling

into allied hands.

They were not successful.

German civilians were forced to dig them up and give them decent

burial.

Earl McClung: I mean, it was a, a terrible damn thing to,

to even s-see.

A lot of Germans got killed telling us that didn't happen.

NARRATOR: With Germany and Italy out of the war,

Japan now feels the full brunt of Allied power.

Richard Vanden Heuvel: All those that you see in war movies,

you see those big puffs of black smoke,

that's that shell exploding and it raised hell with our engine

and our wings and everything else.

NARRATOR: On his 6th mission over Japan,

Tailgunner Richard Vanden Heuvel sees an anti aircraft shell

explode just feet from his plane.

Richard Vanden Heuvel: The pilot radioed and said,

We lost six foot off the right wing.

Engine number four is out. Three is out.

Bomb bays are shot out.

And uh, we had some tail damage.

And that's uh, when we jumped.

NARRATOR: As the B29 loses altitude,

a US submarine patrolling the area films the crash

of Vanden Heuval's B-29...

...and the crew's subsequent rescue,

Including Vanden Heuvel himself.

Richard Vanden Heuvel: That's the first time in B-Twenty-Nine

history that they picked up the whole crew.

That was unheard of.

Usually, you pick up three or four.

They just don't pick up the whole crew.

But they did pick up the whole crew.

NARRATOR: The Japanese military now decides to fully implement

its policy of kamikaze or divine wind.

Suicide pilots toast their homeland and Emperor;

board planes loaded with explosives,

and fly those planes into Allied ships.

Albert D'Amico witnesses the horror firsthand.

Albert D'Amico: The kamikaze was bombarding and sinking

our ships, left and right.

NARRATOR: The policy proves terribly effective.

kamikazes sink 27 Navy vessels, killing almost 5-thousand

sailors.

Albert D'Amico: They were attacking us every day,

day and night.

They wouldn't let us sleep, in other words,

we were up all night and all day,

some of us fell asleep while on our anti-aircraft guns.

NARRATOR: Back on Okinawa, flame throwers, tanks,

air and ground assaults slowly annihilate

the Japanese defenders.

150,000 civilians die in the maelstrom.

When it finally ends on June 22nd, 1945, 12,500 Allied troops

are dead and 64,000 are wounded or shell shocked

Okinawa stands as the bloodiest battle in the Pacific war.

At the allied conference at Potsdam,

President Truman learns the atomic bomb was successfully

tested.

The Allies calculate the costs of invading Japan's home

islands: at least a quarter of a million American casualties.

After discussing it with Churchill,

Truman decides to use this new weapon against Japan.

COL. Paul Tibbets: Our takeoff was perfectly routine.

We climb up to our altitude started on our way to

rendezvous at Iwo Jima.

NARRATOR: A specially-fitted B-29 named the Enola Gay carries

Little Boy, a bomb that uses a uranium bullet to cause

a nuclear explosion.

Maj. Thomas Ferebee: My navigator had me perfectly

lined up with the target.

When I clutched in with my sight,

I could clearly see the city of Hiroshima within my bomb site.

Capt. William S. Parsons: The bomb was finally released,

exactly at the designated hour, and the explosion occurred

as planned.

COL. Paul Tibbets: We saw this cloud of boiling dust and debris

below us with this tremendous mushroom on top.

Beneath that was hidden the ruins of the city of Hiroshima.

NARRATOR: 70-thousand civilians die in the explosion.

Another 70- thousand are injured.

Japan's fanatical leaders debate possible responses,

but do not surrender.

A second nuclear bomb called Fat Man uses plutonium to create

a nuclear blast.

It's loaded onto a B-29 named Bockscar and flies toward Japan.

The primary target is the Japanese city of Kokura,

which is shrouded in cloud cover.

Maj. Charles Sweeney: We made, uh, three runs on it,

but were unable to get into it.

We, uh, picked our route into the secondary target,

which was Nagasaki.

Captain Kermit Beahan: When the clouds opened up our target was

there, pretty as a picture.

I made the run, let the bomb go.

NARRATOR: Fat Man detonates over an industrial area in a valley

in the city.

The hilly geography limits the damage.

Nonetheless, the explosion kills 75,000 Japanese.

Sen. Daniel Inouye: My reaction was horror

in the fact that it could devastate a whole city,

but I didn't blame the President at all. you either use this,

kill a ton of people or not use it and lose a ton of people

on our side. That's no choice.

NARRATOR: Six days later, Emperor Hirohito,

Noting Russia's declaration of war on Japan and the presence

of a new and terrible weapon, finally orders his military

to surrender all Japanese forces to the Allies.

The battleship USS Missouri steams into Tokyo Bay.

On September 2nd, Japanese diplomat Mamoru Shigemitsu

and General Yoshijiro Umezu sign the formal surrender documents.

General Douglas MacArthur leads the Allied delegation.

Douglas Macarthur: From this solemn occasion a better world

shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past,

A world dedicated to the dignity of man,

and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish, for freedom,

tolerance, and justice.

NARRATOR: More than 50 countries suffer casualties during

World War Two.

Over 24 million military deaths

And 45 million civilians killed.

LT. Buck Compton: I'm glad I did it. I wouldn't trade it

for anything.

Not that it was fun, but I think of it as it's a part of my life

And just lucky that I lived through it.

LT. Col. Harold Brown: Had we not won that war,

then life as we know it would never,

would never have existed again.

Earl McClung: Somebody says, Well,

what are you over there fighting for?

I said, So you wouldn't have to learn to speak German.

NARRATOR: They knew why they fought.

They knew every day could be their last.

But they kept on doing...

...and dying.

Alice Matthews: You couldn't imagine, young boys,

faces shot off. Legs blown off from land mines.

And they never complained.

War is hell.

And we saw it firsthand.

Al Irzyk: Our generation was an odd generation.

We came home from the war and everyone wanted to resume

his life and uh, there was no patting them on the back uh,

look what all that I did.

They, they bore in, they got jobs,

they went on with their business.

So they didn't talk much about the war.

Sam Fuller: I just took it for granted.

We all figured we'd come out alive.

But down deep, we knew we wouldn't.

Ralph Martire: I'm very proud that I was able to do what I did

help out this country as much as I did, if I did,

and I'm proud of all the veterans that served with me

and all the veterans that didn't come home, they're the heroes.

I'm not.

I came home.

That's all I can say I guess.