Original subtitles

NARRATOR: In 1942,

the shockwaves of war

flood into every corner of the pacific...

From steamy island jungles...

To the bitter Alaskan cold.

MAN: It was the worst place.

I froze to death.

NARRATOR: In these unfamiliar lands,

enemies that were an ocean apart...

(gunshots)

Will soon come face to face.

MAN: Midway was our first real encounter with the enemy.

(gunfire)

(explosion)

NARRATOR: With rare personal films...

And color combat footage...

MAN: Bullets and anti-aircraft fire

were coming at me from every direction.

NARRATOR: Hear the voices and feel the fight.

♫ ♫

Brought to you by Sailor420 !!! Hope you enjoy the film !!!

♫ ♫

BAINE KERR: You didn't know when you were going to sail.

Wives didn't know any given day

if they would see their husbands again.

We didn't know where we were going.

ACENCION FERNANDEZ: All they said was,

"you all aren't gonna need no winter clothes.

You're going overseas."

KERR: Then, one morning, we were underway.

♫ ♫

CHARLES RIPPER: We left out

underneath the golden gate bridge.

Things looked pretty good.

It was a really smooth ride.

Then we got out, and the ocean got rough,

and the waves got big,

and that little boat was bouncing around like a cork.

We were all sick as hell.

H.L. OBERMILLER: Before I was out of the harbor,

I was feeding fish over the side.

NARRATOR: Freshly trained men in brand-new uniforms

jam onto ships heading to an unfamiliar world

6,000 miles away.

♫ ♫

HOWARD JONES: We were sleeping on the hangar decks...

The flight decks.

Anywhere we could find a place to lay down.

NARRATOR: Some are barely 18.

RICHARD WILLIAMS: I was just a kid.

I had never spent a night away from my mother or father.

I spent a lot of time in my bunk just thinking about home,

and even crying once in a while.

NARRATOR: They can only imagine what war is like

and where they're going to fight it.

Serviceman Dan Rocklin

lands in a jungle on the other side of the ocean.

(bird squawking)

He brings his own camera to capture how exotic it is.

(squawking)

He's near Port Moresby, on the island of New Guinea.

Rivers are infested with crocodiles.

Kids climb trees for coconuts.

Then trade them for cigarettes.

The tribe is welcoming,

but can't help staring at the strange men

pointing cameras at them.

They'll be calling this home.

But they aren't here for fun.

(engine humming)

The Japanese are quickly closing in.

The Japanese already hold the Solomon Islands

and most of New Guinea.

Now a fleet is on the way to complete the conquest...

If they can kick the allies out of Port Moresby.

If New Guinea falls,

Australia fears

it could be next.

But Americans see the Japanese coming.

Code breakers sniff out the plan.

Admiral Chester Nimitz decides to gamble.

He sends an armada,

including four aircraft carriers,

to meet them head on.

(engines roaring)

The battle of the coral sea

starts with a big blow.

(engines roaring)

Americans spot a Japanese carrier.

(gunfire)

They dive down through piercing anti-aircraft fire

and sink it.

(gunfire)

The Japanese respond by swarming American ships.

(gunfire and explosions)

It's dogfight after dogfight,

but neither side's Navy can see the other.

Planes do all the fighting, long distance.

WILLIAM LOCKEY: The planes flew right around us,

and the guns couldn't keep up.

(firing)

And the boys couldn't twist that gun fast enough.

(gunfire)

NARRATOR: Then, Americans hit a second enemy carrier.

But Japan responds with two mortal blows.

A bomb rips through the deck of the USS Yorktown,

killing 40 men.

And the USS Lexington is blasted beyond repair.

♫ ♫

Both sides suffer heavy losses.

But the allies have halted Japan's momentum.

Those left behind

will never know the historic impact

of the battle of the coral sea.

Not once do opposing ships spot each other.

Not once do they exchange a salvo.

It's a new kind of naval battle, fought entirely with airplanes.

And it's a sigh of relief for Australia.

(gunshots)

(trolley bell dinging)

Australians feel safer.

(dinging)

Fears of a Japanese invasion are waning.

But another invasion is underway.

TIM MURPHY: Suddenly, the yanks were here.

They all seemed to have big mouths and square teeth

and came from places I'd never heard of, like Nebraska.

NARRATOR: Cities like Brisbane are overrun by Americans.

♫ ♫

A parade of U.S. troops

shows the scale of this friendly invasion.

Up to a million men.

Their reputation precedes them.

♫ ♫

BARRY RALPH: The Americans,

they had a good record for saving people.

I knew that from watching westerns.

NARRATOR: It's a marriage of convenience.

Australia gets extra protection.

America gets a new home base for south pacific operations.

(gunshots)

The two allied forces train together...

(gunshots)

And play together.

Americans provide the baseball.

And Australians provide the beer.

The men seem to get along famously until...

♫ ♫

MAUREEN MEADOWS: We liked everything about the yanks.

In fact, we just couldn't help stare at them.

NARRATOR: The Americans have sharper uniforms

and deeper pockets.

They earn up to twice as much as the aussie soldier

and splash their cash when they hit the town.

BILL BENTSON: We had the chocolates, the ice cream,

the silk stockings, and the dollars.

We were able to show the girls a good time.

♫ ♫

COLIN KERR-GRANT: In Sydney,

you were competing with Americans

for the attention of women.

And some of the Australian girls really chased the Americans.

NARRATOR: Australian men start taking offense

and adopt a slogan describing Americans

as "overpaid, oversexed, and over here."

♫ ♫

Their welcome is wearing thin.

Arguments among troops turn into street fights.

Street fights turn into riots.

Melbourne and Brisbane erupt into chaos.

♫ ♫

General Douglas Macarthur is well aware of the problem.

He's in Australia commanding both nations' troops.

He's about to send these joint forces into battle,

if they can stop fighting each other.

Spring 1942.

A new allied experiment is underway.

Americans and Australians deploy as one army for the first time.

Their navies repelled the Japanese

enough to hold Port Moresby,

the last allied outpost on New Guinea.

Now ground troops pour in.

The allied camp is nestled inside a coconut plantation.

From here, they want to retake the entire island.

But New Guinea is nearly impossible to penetrate.

Mountains rise to 16,000 feet,

surrounded by thick jungle.

So they try to enlist some local expertise.

American pilot Ken Gerrish

takes his own footage of curious tribesmen

in the remote highlands outside Port Moresby.

An Australian captain breaks the ice

by taking pictures of the chief.

It's the first time he's ever seen a photo of himself.

The tribe agrees on the common enemy,

and they're ready to fight.

KEN GERRISH: We were fortunate to get these pictures,

as this was a real war party

who actually did kill some jap soldiers.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: Now this uncommon collection of allies

has to fight the Japanese that surround them.

Each side takes potshots at the other

from close distance.

Black smoke rises

from Japanese raids on the Port Moresby camp.

Allied pilots strike back on Japanese bases nearby,

turning zeroes into scrap metal.

One squadron tallies 200 kills.

Their pilots seldom survive.

Those that do become pows under Australian guard.

A close-quarter air war is a dangerous game.

The two sides are on the same island.

If a pilot bails into the jungle,

all bets are off on who finds him first.

So every pilot carries a life vest, a knife,

and a pistol.

Between the jungle itself and the enemy within,

survival isn't guaranteed.

But it helps to have the locals on your side.

Ken Gerrish brings his camera

on a rescue mission to the wild interior.

GERRISH: We landed on a river to pick up a downed pilot,

an aussie officer.

NARRATOR: The pilot can thank

New Guinea's own search and rescue team.

GERRISH: He was rowed to the plane

by natives in their log canoe.

He was real happy to see us.

NARRATOR: American and Australian flyboys

are forming a tighter bond...

Now that their lives depend on each other.

The pressure of combat punctures their pre-war tensions.

Handshakes are replacing fistfights.

♫ ♫

J. EDWARD ANGLY: I will say

that once the scene of battle is reached,

the two bodies of troops get along exceedingly well.

NARRATOR: It helps that there are no women

on Port Moresby beaches to fight over.

♫ ♫

But they are never far from their minds.

♫ ♫

All over the pacific theater,

sexual frustration leads to creative expression.

Their beloved planes become the canvas

for what they call "nose art."

The farther from the public eye,

the racier the art.

♫ ♫

Some choose cartoon characters.

Others opt for intimidation.

This one goes for sheer size.

This is the largest nose art painting

of World War II,

called "the dragon and his tail."

The average airfield becomes an art museum--

albeit, without a roof.

When rain soaks New Guinea,

nothing and no one escapes the deluge.

GERRISH: The rain averaged about two inches a day.

We didn't fly one mission.

Most of the time was spent in the tents,

except for chow or latrine business.

NARRATOR: It's tough going for the soldiers.

♫ ♫

This endless rain

creates a problem even bigger than mud.

GERRISH: Practically all our men

had malaria at one time or another.

I had it twice, along with a bout of dengue fever.

NARRATOR: The south pacific

is a hotbed for tropical diseases.

Insect bites cause more stretcher cases

than enemy bullets.

Even when the sun comes back out,

fevers rage inside the medical tents.

On New Guinea alone,

the average soldier endures malaria four times.

CHARLES PASE: Your bones and everything would ache.

You would be weak.

You could hardly hold up a rifle.

You could walk, you could crawl, but you couldn't do much else.

NARRATOR: It's a crippling manpower problem.

Fighting malaria will take a whole separate war.

The army's medical department rushes into action.

Malaria control units spray ddt liberally across the island.

Training films urge troops to take strict precautions.

ANNOUNCER: Sleeves down,

shirt buttoned,

repellent smeared on,

and smeared on often enough to keep the mosquitos away.

This equipment is as important as bullets.

NARRATOR: They speed up trials

of the antimalarial medicine atabrine.

PASE: The chemical was very, very bitter,

very nasty tasting.

My men hated it like poison.

NARRATOR: Even the nurses experience wicked side effects.

>>ELEANOR HUGHES We started taking

these little yellow pills.

They turned your skin and eyeballs yellow.

NARRATOR: Soon, rumors fly that

atabrine causes infertility.

The pills are so unpopular

that medics are deployed in chow lines

to monitor their intake.

The disease affects both sides.

Up to 90% of Japanese troops

suffer from malaria and dysentery.

Americans who rushed to enlist

are now feeling every mile of ocean between them and home.

What they need is a home away from home.

This place looks like heaven...

Especially for disease-ridden troops.

♫ ♫

They're getting shipped to New Zealand,

a green and spacious country

with fewer people than Detroit, Michigan.

NORM HATCH: When I went to New Zealand,

I was reminded of a western town in the late 1800s.

NARRATOR: By the summer of 1942,

American troops are arriving by the thousands.

New Zealand puts out the welcome mat.

♫ ♫

They set up 19 hospitals with the latest medical equipment.

♫ ♫

Local farm families take in troops like second sons

and nurse them back to health, New Zealand style.

HATCH: Once they got out into the countryside

and were able to do hard work, eat good food,

and drink copious amounts of milk,

they soon became very well.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: There is little of the tension

that followed Americans into Australia.

That was a forced marriage.

In New Zealand, it's more like a loving adoption.

(dog barks)

Troops get healthy

and get ready to rejoin the fight.

There's a big one brewing ahead.

By June of 1942,

allied teamwork is holding Port Moresby

and protecting Australia.

Japan has hit a wall in the south pacific,

so the empire looks east,

to Midway.

It's a critical halfway point between Asia and the U.S.

The American forces protecting Midway are meager.

The approaching Japanese fleet is four times bigger.

Like the Pearl Harbor attack,

they could annihilate another huge chunk of the U.S. Navy

and leave them almost helpless.

But this time,

Americans have surprise on their side.

Once again, they've cracked the Japanese code

and know their plan.

Even though he's outgunned, Admiral Nimitz doesn't run.

Instead,

he'll wait for the Japanese to attack the island,

then launch a surprise of his own.

But it means the men on Midway are sitting ducks.

♫ ♫

At sunrise, Americans hear the approaching buzz.

They steel themselves for an onslaught.

(gunfire)

(engines roaring)

(gunfire)

The few planes they have

scramble to intercept the attackers.

(engines roaring)

(gunfire)

(explosions)

(engines roaring)

(gunfire)

(explosion)

The Japanese bomb the runways and obliterate the command post.

Smoke billows high into the sky

as they tear into the American base.

They set the hangars ablaze.

(engines roaring)

(explosion)

American marines desperately scramble for cover,

hoping the Navy can summon a counterattack

and save the island.

♫ ♫

JUDSON BRODIE: The loudspeaker came on and said,

"we've got enemy planes approaching."

NARRATOR: Judson Brodie is aboard the USS Yorktown.

BRODIE: There were so many Japanese planes

falling at one time

that it looked like a curtain coming down across the sky.

NARRATOR: American guns fill the air with flak.

But the Japanese are relentless.

BRODIE: The second attack, they got two torpedo hits on us.

You have never in your life felt anything like it.

NARRATOR: Japan thinks it has America's Navy on its knees.

Instead, it's on its way.

(engine roars)

Americans saw the Japanese coming.

So before they arrived,

they launched whole squadrons of torpedo planes and dive bombers.

150 airplanes race to strike back,

leaving their home ships under fire behind them.

(engines roaring)

(boom)

Without air cover,

American ships face an onslaught.

(gunfire)

Japanese pilots have a field day.

(gunfire)

But when the American planes reach the Japanese fleet,

they catch them off guard.

They, too, have no air cover.

(engines roaring)

American pilots make it count.

They destroy all four Japanese carriers.

(explosion)

The battle of Midway is a stunning turnabout.

America cuts deep into Japanese naval power.

It's their first clear victory at sea.

It's not without sacrifice.

America loses one carrier and 307 servicemen.

More are injured and adrift, awaiting rescue.

But they prove America can fight back...

And win.

The Japanese high command is shaken.

The tide is turning.

♫ ♫

(engines roaring)

♫ ♫

When news from the front lines reaches home,

Americans are jubilant.

♫ ♫

Downtown Philadelphia becomes a stage

to express support for the war.

♫ ♫

Officially, this is a rally to buy war bonds.

Unofficially, it's a party.

Star power draws a crowd.

On stage is James Cagney,

Lucille Ball,

Mickey Rooney,

Dick Powell,

Paul Henreid,

and Harpo Marx.

Besides fanfare and parades,

there's another reminder that a war is going on.

(ringing)

Civil defense drills.

They become routine for American school kids.

But for everyone on the mainland,

war remains abstract.

For Hawaiians, it's real.

Pearl Harbor still looks like it was flipped upside down.

Paradise is now penned in.

The beach is off limits,

framed by barbed wire.

The entire territory is under martial law.

Thousands of school kids are registered, fingerprinted,

and made to wear I.D. Badges.

Locals line up for ration cards and gas masks.

Older kids practice how fast they can get them on.

♫ ♫

The youngest ones have to get into a full body bag...

(crying)

As if they aren't scared enough.

(crying)

More than a third of Hawaiians are of Japanese descent.

They're nervous and trying to blend in

by removing any signs of their ancestry.

But here, there's no talk of mass internment.

Such is not the case on the mainland.

♫ ♫

The ishikawas are a fishing family...

Living in California.

♫ ♫

These are their home movies from before the war.

♫ ♫

They are Japanese immigrants

building a life on the American west coast.

But in 1942,

that's just where a suspicious government doesn't want them.

ROBERTA SHIROMA: We had to get rid of everything.

We were given one month.

TAKEO SHIROMA: People who lived closer to the ocean,

they only had 24 hours.

NARRATOR: Takeo and Roberta Shiroma are children

when the U.S. government puts their families on a train.

ROBERTA: The night before we left,

my parents didn't know where we were going.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: They are headed inland,

to one of the ten hastily built internment camps

ordered by President Roosevelt at the start of the war.

♫ ♫

TAKEO: There would be two families in one room.

ROBERTA: When we got there,

my mother had to stuff canvas bags with hay,

which were to be our mattresses.

I can't remember the food.

I can remember not wanting to eat it.

I would just look at it.

(tolling)

NARRATOR: They study...

Work...

Even join the military.

But they are not free.

The government rounds up more than 110,000 Japanese Americans,

claiming it's for their own safety.

But not everyone buys it.

TAKEO: If we were put there for protection,

why were the guns at the guard towers

pointed inward instead of outward?

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: Back on the battlefront...

Midway is a colossal victory for the Americans.

♫ ♫

But during that four-day battle,

the Japanese puncture through another front.

The empire races into the north pacific

and seizes two islands in the aleutians--

kiska and attu.

Both are part of the Alaska territory.

♫ ♫

The Japanese are now on north American soil.

It's way too close for comfort.

4,500 troops rush to the nearby outpost of adak.

From here, they'll try to build a runway

and launch counterstrikes on the occupied islands...

If this island doesn't kill them first.

♫ ♫

Adak is barren, windswept, and merciless.

FRED LEIGHTON: It was the worst place.

I froze to death.

They sent us up there from Pearl Harbor,

and we didn't have any winter clothing.

NARRATOR: Frigid air rips in from the arctic.

The tropical dangers of insect bites

give way to frostbite.

Windswept waves envelop everything in ice.

Men can only fight back with picks.

Weather is one problem;

isolation is another.

♫ ♫

Everything must come in by ship.

Every man...

Every machine...

Every meal.

It's like camping on another planet.

LEIGHTON: There were no trees up there.

Someone flew one in from the states and planted it.

I don't think it lived.

NARRATOR: News appears on bulletin boards

since newspapers might be three months out of date.

Even though they're on American soil,

home seems a world away.

(men laughing)

But mail call thaws their moods.

Baseball eases their minds.

And music lifts their morale.

♫ ♫

After all, whining won't keep them warm.

Work will.

Building an airfield on the frozen tundra

takes brute force.

Engines groan in the cold.

Hammers sting their hands.

But there's a payoff--

an airstrip paved with steel.

Plates come together like building blocks.

It's done in only two weeks.

And it's weatherproof.

Now they can stop fighting the weather...

And fight the war.

(engines roaring)

American pilots gear up for the first raids

against Japanese camped on U.S. territory.

They fire up 9 bombers, 12 fighters, and 100 men.

♫ ♫

Alaskan skies are unforgiving.

Challenges start at takeoff.

Fierce winds pull formations apart.

For two hours, it's a battle just to stay on the flight path

and stay together.

(engines roaring)

As they near kiska,

10,000 Japanese reveal their defenses.

(artillery fire)

(explosions)

(gunfire)

They hurl flak to try to punch holes in the planes...

Or at least force them off course.

Any deviation in flight,

and they will miss the target.

(firing)

American gunners try to clear the way.

It's an airborne game of chicken.

Finally, the targets appear...

(bombs whistling)

And the bombs drop.

(whistling)

(explosions)

(bombs whistling)

(explosions)

(explosions)

Japanese hangars go up in smoke.

(explosions)

In just a few white-knuckle minutes,

the damage is done.

♫ ♫

This is just the beginning.

The raids are relentless--

dawn to dusk every day for over a year.

It's called the kiska blitz.

The Japanese endure six million pounds of bombs.

Americans want their islands back...

At any price.

By now, Japan's reach

extends from the frigid aleutian mountains...

To the edge of the towering Himalayas.

Japan has tightened its grip on Asia

by closing the Burma road,

the main allied route supplying China's fight against Japan.

The only other route is scraping the sky.

Allies attempt one of the most ambitious aviation efforts

of World War II--

flying supplies over the Himalayas,

nicknamed "the hump."

It would push the limits of man and machine.

But these pilots are willing to risk it...

In a pan am clipper.

♫ ♫

ANNOUNCER: These pan American airmen

volunteered to risk everything

through the most treacherous mountain passes and weather

known to man.

(engines roaring)

NARRATOR: Flying tigers

escort these retrofitted commercial planes.

But extreme winds toss them around like kites.

Sudden storms take their toll.

Hundreds of planes and pilots perish.

There must be a better way to get supplies to China.

BROOKE DOLAN: The care of the Tibetan government

for our safety is touching.

NARRATOR: Captain Brooke Dolan is on the journey of his life.

If the planes can't get over "the hump,"

Dolan will try to go through it by traversing Tibet.

Joining Dolan is Ilia Tolstoy,

Leo Tolstoy's grandson.

They're on a secret mission

for the U.S. office of strategic services, or oss--

the precursor to the CIA.

The journey starts with a traditional Tibetan ceremony.

♫ ♫

Together, they arrive in Lhasa with trepidation.

They can't cross Tibet without permission from a 7-year-old--

his holiness, the dalai llama.

He meets his very first Americans.

DOLAN: To say that we are affected with joy

is to put it mildly.

We are permitted to travel the road

in which we're most interested.

NARRATOR: It takes five months of grueling travel by saddle...

Through a thousand miles of breathtaking beauty

and heart-stopping hazards.

DOLAN: Boulders were continually breaking

and plunging into the canyon,

acted on by the fierce weathering forces

of the Tibetan climate--

hot daytime sun and freezing moonlight.

NARRATOR: Finally, they reach China.

The journey is a success,

but the strategy is a failure.

Distance and difficulties make it impossible

for a sustained supply push through Tibet.

The only alternative lies deep in the jungles of Burma.

A plane flies in low...

But it's not dropping bombs.

They're supplies for another secret oss operation--

a guerrilla war.

♫ ♫

Local kachin fighters

are already fighting the Japanese occupation

and decide to join forces.

Oss operatives funnel in a steady stream of weapons.

In return, the kachin offer on-the-ground intelligence

and invaluable skill.

CHARLTON OGBURN, JR.: We never moved

without kachin guides.

They made us think

of a Robin Hood version of the boy scouts.

Some could not have been more than 12 years old.

(engines roaring)

NARRATOR: The kachin

jump right into 20th century warfare...

Learning how to parachute behind enemy lines.

In turn, allies learn the tricks of jungle transportation--

riding high to avoid the snakes.

The covert partnership pays off.

They carve secret pathways through Japanese lines.

More than 4,000 Japanese will die

at the hands of these operatives,

all in a secret war fought in the shadows.

Elsewhere it will take direct force.

In July 1942,

American intelligence

spots a large-scale construction project

on an island few have ever heard of--

Guadalcanal.

It's the framework of a new Japanese air base--

big enough to host long-range bombers

that could once again threaten New Guinea and Australia.

The Americans decide to go on the offensive.

There is no color footage of the invasion,

but this is the aftermath.

11,000 marines pile up on the beaches.

A Japanese counterattack forces their support ships to pull out,

leaving them stranded with few reinforcements.

They set up a base with what little supplies

they've scrambled to bring ashore.

The Japanese retreat into the interior.

Now an island roughly the size of Delaware

is pockmarked with troops from both sides...

Each controlling a mosaic of territory.

It turns into a bloody six-month nightmare.

(explosions)

Without any clear front lines, it's ambush after ambush.

(gunfire)

Guadalcanal becomes a battle of attrition.

♫ ♫

In 1943, the Americans finally take control.

But the wounds are still raw.

America loses 15,000, killed or wounded.

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt arrives to comfort the fallen.

Admiral William Halsey advised her not to come.

He feared she'd be a distraction.

But she quickly changes his mind.

WILLIAM HALSEY: She went into every ward

and spoke to every patient.

I marveled at her hardihood, both physical and mental.

She alone did more than anyone who came through my area.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: She continues on to other pacific war zones.

A month-long, 25,000-mile tour.

She braves the hazards of war to meet more than 400,000 troops.

She affectionately calls them "sons of the nation."

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: All the men are our men,

part of our United States,

which they have saved

so that we can still call it

the land of the free

and the home of the brave.

NARRATOR: 18 months into the war,

the shockwaves have spread far beyond Pearl Harbor.

(gunfire)

The war is growing bigger...

(booming)

And moving slower.

(gunfire)

Quick air and sea strikes

are giving way to long, bloody land battles

that drain time, resources, and lives.

♫ ♫

Japan is not deterred.

Instead, it's determined.

The pacific war is no longer a sideshow

to the fighting in Europe.

It will soon become its own hell.

♫ ♫