All language subtitles for Inside.World.War.II.2012.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG

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.