Original subtitles

NARRATOR: In the unpredictable pacific,

even the best laid plans have a price.

MAN: They began screaming and making awful noises.

I was glad to be alive when I got off that damn place.

NARRATOR: America fights for two islands at once

to claw within striking distance of Japan.

(boom)

If these new warplanes can get off the ground.

MAN: Crews who had gone before us did not come back.

NARRATOR: With color combat footage...

(explosion)

...and a general's own home movies,

hear the voices and feel the fight.

MAN: The beach was a sheet of flame,

as though the island was on fire.

♫ ♫

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

NARRATOR: These are home movies of India in 1944.

The traveler captures everything from street kids

to the Taj Mahal.

♫ ♫

But the filmmaker is not a typical tourist.

This is General Curtis Lemay of the U.S. Army Air Forces.

His personal films from the Smithsonian archives

have never been broadcast before.

They reveal his new classified assignment.

CURTIS LEMAY: The project was top secret,

and I knew nothing of it

until I got orders to go over to India in July 1944.

NARRATOR: At age 37,

he's one of the youngest generals in the army.

He's just been sent to India on a daring mission--

bomb Japan from here.

On paper, it's possible, barely.

Americans are secretly developing the B-29,

known as the superfortress.

It's the longest-range bomber ever developed.

In theory, it could bomb targets more than 1,500 miles away.

But the airplane is being rushed into service,

unproven and unpredictable.

LEMAY: It was in pretty bad shape

insofar as being ready for combat.

NARRATOR: B-29 crews wonder if they've signed up

for a cutting-edge airplane, or a death trap.

RAYMOND HALLORAN: Crews who had gone before us,

and there weren't too many, did not come back.

NARRATOR: Despite the setbacks,

America is desperate to strike Japan.

Curtis Lemay will try to make India the springboard,

more than 3,000 miles away.

It will be, quite literally, a long shot.

Another flash point in the pacific war

is far closer to Japan-- the Mariana islands.

One island is already under American control--Saipan.

It's now being transformed into a forward base

that could launch the B-29 against Japan.

Japanese still occupy two nearby islands

that threaten American air operations.

Tinian has four airfields, making it a key target.

Guam also has airfields,

but its value is more than tactical.

It's personal.

Before the war, Guam was a U.S. territory with a marine base.

This rare prewar color film

shows local kids parading for military personnel

in the capital, agana.

Guamanian natives, the chamorros,

are American nationals.

(man speaking japanese)

But in 1941, the Japanese overran Guam

just three days after the attack on Pearl harbor.

♫ ♫

This newsreel touts the victory.

(man speaking japanese)

20,000 American civilians

instantly became Japanese subjects.

They have been forced to learn Japanese

and dig defenses at gunpoint.

♫ ♫

Now the Americans are ready for revenge.

♫ ♫

More than 800 ships surround the Marianas,

the biggest armada yet gathered in the pacific.

Prelanding bombardment is ruthless.

(rockets roaring)

(artillery fire)

This time, cameras capture agana from above,

being pummeled by its former occupiers.

♫ ♫

(explosion)

America is flexing its growing air and sea power,

but its manpower is eroding.

The battle for Saipan took a heavy toll.

Now they plan to fight for two islands at once--

Guam and Tinian.

Replacement troops pour in, fresh from boot camp.

They try to get a read on what it's like from the veterans.

ROY ROUSH: They were trying to engage some of us

into a little conversation,

asking "what's it like here? What's it like here?"

And we didn't say much.

NARRATOR: Japan also feels the strain.

On Tinian, 9,000 troops are completely surrounded

by the American naval blockade.

Japanese troops are about half Navy and half army.

They loathe working together.

They have different defensive plans

and steal each other's provisions.

But they are still united

in their fervor to defend the homeland.

One soldier writes...

MAN: We have spent 20 days under unceasing enemy bombardment,

but everyone is full of fighting spirit.

NARRATOR: Now they wait for the Americans to test their mettle.

(artillery fire)

(radio chatter)

Some of the Americans are already plenty tested.

Veterans of previous invasions

wonder how many times they can storm a beach and survive.

WILLIAM STEELE: Before an invasion,

they feed you steak and eggs at 4:00 in the morning.

It's like a guy going to the electric chair or something.

Well, I'd been wounded at Tarawa,

been wounded on Saipan,

and this was my third time getting steak and eggs,

and I just urinated all over myself.

I mean, that's how scared I was.

I was shaking.

NARRATOR: Invasion day on Tinian is nicknamed jig-day.

The massive force approaches the only beaches wide enough

for a large-scale amphibious landing.

Here, the Japanese are waiting.

Ships run into the teeth of their defenses.

(explosions)

The battleship Colorado takes a devastating hit

that kills 43 sailors.

She has to limp back to Saipan.

Americans press on.

Marines climb down nets into landing craft.

♫ ♫

They head for shore.

Then they stop.

Ships begin pulling back.

A Japanese defender wonders what's going on.

MAN: It becomes quiet after the enemy warships leave.

Maybe the enemy is retreating.

NARRATOR: They are not.

It's a large-scale diversion.

At the same time, marines are quietly approaching

Tinian's narrow northern beaches.

Americans have never attempted a major amphibious landing

on such narrow beaches.

Leadership hotly debated if they would work.

Troop tractors have to come in almost single file.

Charles Pase is about to jump onto an exposed patch of sand.

CHARLES PASE: The beach was tiny.

It was the kind you take your girlfriend to go skinny-dipping.

NARRATOR: Protected only by steel helmets

and cotton uniforms,

men are bottled up on the narrow beaches.

(gunfire)

It could quickly turn into a slaughter.

But resistance is light.

The Japanese are fooled.

By day's end, more than 15,000 troops are ashore,

already outnumbering the entire Japanese force on Tinian.

25,000 more are on the way.

It's a major tactical victory,

but they aren't relaxing.

Nighttime counterattacks have been common on other islands.

Marines dig into the sand,

fight off the urge to sleep,

and wait.

The Japanese don't disappoint.

The first night, they race north to meet the invading Americans.

(gunfire)

Thousands rush the marines

in a bloody banzai assault in the darkness.

It's a close-fisted rumble of hand-to-hand combat.

(gunfire)

Daylight reveals the aftermath.

ROBERT NEIMAN: You don't need tanks.

You need undertakers.

I never saw so many dead japs.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: In one frantic night, Americans kill 1,200 Japanese,

one seventh of the entire defense force on Tinian.

The night attacks are terrifying,

but marines begin to hope for them.

They'd rather wipe out the Japanese in waves

than dig them out of hiding, one by one.

Japan also launches a few surprise attacks in the air.

(gunfire)

They are determined, but decimated.

(gunfire)

It's hard to sneak up on an 800-ship Navy.

(explosion)

ED HARRELL: If they crashed close to us,

we sent someone out to rescue them and bring them in.

When they came aboard our ship, marines stood guard over them

and would take them in to interrogate.

NARRATOR: Since taking heavy losses

in the battle of the philippine sea

a month earlier, Japan's air power is weakening.

On Tinian, America hopes to land the killer blow.

Tinian's four airfields are the key target.

The one closest to the landing beaches is ushi point.

Americans expect stiff resistance.

Instead, they find

an undefended, windblown ghost town.

Americans poke through its ruins.

♫ ♫

Now bombers give way to builders.

♫ ♫

A naval construction battalion lays down a 4,700-foot runway.

While smaller planes now come and go from ushi point,

the landing strip is long enough

for America's newest plane, the B-29.

About a year from now, one will take off from this very spot--

its name, the enola gay.

With ushi point in hand,

Americans have yet another air base in the Marianas.

Planes buzz over Tinian's orderly agricultural landscape.

PASE: It was nothing like the jungle

at Bougainville or Guadalcanal or Borneo

or any of those places.

NARRATOR: The enemy still has many places to hide,

so planes cut across the island and take picture after picture.

Rolls of film become reams of intelligence.

Photos become as important as field weapons.

Experts turn them into accurate maps.

Some are stereoscopic pictures.

A stereogram shows the landscape in relief

and can even reveal a camouflaged hideout.

Previous invasions like Tarawa

were more like fumbling in the dark.

For Tinian, they have the clearest picture yet

of any island invaded in the pacific.

But there is one threat that remains out of sight

until it's too late...

(explosion)

...mines.

With America's increasing control of the sea and sky,

the Japanese try to slow their advance any way they can.

(explosion)

They use anti-tank mines,

underwater mines,

and antipersonnel mines.

The inexperienced are the most in danger.

(explosion)

THOMAS BAYE: We heard a boom and looked back,

and one of the replacements had stepped on a mine.

Nobody even knew his name.

NARRATOR: Tinian is riddled with them.

Marines use their own explosives to detonate them safely.

(explosion)

Most mines are improvised.

Many are duds.

They cause more headaches than casualties,

but each one is like a speed bump.

No one advances until it's exploded safely.

(explosion)

Also slowing the Americans is sugar cane.

Fields that look orderly from the air

are dense thickets on the ground.

The enemy could be hiding

anywhere within the 10-foot stalks.

But marine Victor Maghakian turns the tables

and uses the sugar cane to his advantage.

VICTOR MAGHAKIAN: I went on a reconnaissance

and spotted a large enemy patrol.

They moved into position about 50 feet from my platoon.

They were digging in, making lots of noise,

and didn't suspect that we were so close.

I passed the word down to fire upon my signal.

We opened up and let them have it

as fast as we could pull our triggers.

(gunfire)

Knee-high grazing fire into the cane field.

(gunfire)

They began screaming and making awful noises.

Next morning, we found between 35 and 40 dead japs.

I did not lose a man.

NARRATOR: In the quiet interior of Tinian,

any sound you make could be your last.

(engine rumbling)

But on the coast, Americans are making an industrious racket.

(engine rumbling)

BAINE KERR: We had to put two divisions ashore

across these almost nonexistent beaches.

You had very little landing area.

NARRATOR: Engineers come up with the answer.

This is a pontoon causeway, a temporary floating pier.

Ships can pull up to it like a dock

and unload everything from food to heavy machinery.

One ship unloads 30 trucks in just 6 minutes.

Countless boxes can now move from Saipan to Tinian

without ever touching anyone's hands.

Fears of the small beaches becoming a choke point

are soon dispelled.

With pontoon causeways, supplies are flooding in without a hitch.

Engineers aren't just working on the supply line.

They're working on weapons.

Conventional bombs demand pinpoint accuracy.

(explosion)

But targeting by sight is tricky.

Americans often drop several bombs

and hope one hits the Mark.

(explosion)

During the battle of Tinian,

officers gather on Saipan to watch this film.

It shows the field-testing of a new type of weapon.

(explosion)

It's called napalm,

a combustible mixture of sticky gel and fuel

designed to spread and burn.

Americans have no problem using fire.

It's already pouring out of flamethrowers and tanks.

But this is a whole new level of destruction.

Now an airplane can become a dragon.

With one breath, it can set a bridge ablaze...

...set water on fire...

...or turn a field of green earth

into a lifeless, charred dead zone

where no one can hide.

After watching this film, the brass on Saipan don't hesitate.

They order 8,500 pounds of it.

Inside of a year, America's use of napalm in the pacific

will spread like wildfire.

♫ ♫

Americans are more than halfway through the island.

The enemy could be hiding anywhere

in the island's tall sugar cane fields.

Tanks offer a higher vantage point

and extra firepower.

(explosion)

Crews like to name their tanks.

Rumbling through Tinian are "Ill Wind" and "King Kong."

Tucked inside, drivers and gunmen roam the island,

systematically engaging target after target.

(explosions)

♫ ♫

The American advance is a steady, grinding push,

but the Japanese are about to strike back

with sudden fatal force.

Across an exposed landscape,

Japanese options for counterattacks are limited.

They tend to fall back to more defensible positions.

On Tinian, there are few,

except the cliffs on the southern coast.

This is where the Japanese make their ferocious last stand.

(gunfire)

(explosions)

Mortars rain down with a menacing whistle.

(explosions)

American casualties begin to spike.

(explosion)

On previous islands, cliff fighting proved costly,

so on Tinian, they sharpen their strategy.

Leaders order ground troops to hunker down in their foxholes.

Then they call in the Navy.

(artillery fire)

For two and a half hours,

five ships coordinate an all-out firestorm.

615 tons of shells crash into the cliffs.

(artillery fire)

Planes launched from Saipan drop another 69 tons.

The concentration of fire is more intense

than anything seen on Tarawa or Saipan.

(explosion)

As the smoke clears,

marines get the signal to advance on the cliffs.

(explosion)

Somehow, the Japanese guns have survived the Navy assault.

(gunfire)

One keeps firing with impunity,

and Americans can't find it.

With marines on the cliff,

the Navy can no longer use blanket fire.

Sailors can only watch helplessly from afar.

ART ANDERSON: We witnessed the fighting

on the mountains up above us

and the cannons

and the firing

and the hollering.

It was two or three miles away,

but you could hear it out at sea.

NARRATOR: Pinned down but so close to victory on Tinian,

a handful of marines take matters into their own hands.

One jumps up, runs ten yards, and drops on his belly.

Another does the same, leapfrogging past the first.

And without a plan, without orders,

they zigzag toward the Japanese gun.

(gunfire)

Finally they get close enough to point it out.

A tank blasts away.

Then the Navy launches big shells at it.

♫ ♫

20 bodies surround the bunker,

a concrete dugout hiding a 47-millimeter anti-tank gun

that fired out of a narrow hole.

It's almost indestructible.

With the last ridge finally under American control,

the bulk of the battle is over.

♫ ♫

The campaign for Tinian takes nine days.

389 Americans are killed, and more than 1,800 wounded.

Tinian is not as deadly as Saipan,

not as shocking as Tarawa,

not as infamous as iwo jima,

but for the men left here under white crosses,

it's the end of their war.

Raising the flag is a symbol of victory,

but not the end of violence.

Americans will continue to find Japanese troops

hiding all over Tinian.

A marine regiment pulls

the unglamorous duty called mop-up.

After a battle that officially lasted less than two weeks,

they will spend five more months

crisscrossing the island several times,

killing an average

of almost four Japanese holdouts every day.

PASE: We had to blow them out, explode them out.

None of them would surrender.

(gunfire)

NARRATOR: Charles Pase was on the jig-day invasion force

and stays for mop-up on Tinian.

PASE: We had big loudspeakers

up on the cliffs overlooking these caves

and interpreters telling them

to come out with their hands up.

NARRATOR: Here, soldiers and civilians finally emerge

from a cramped coastal hideout,

almost three weeks after Americans declare victory.

Hidden from the war, they have no idea which side is winning.

Many are in rags.

A few come out in business attire.

But they all now share an unknown future

under a new occupier.

♫ ♫

Although the enemy still hides in small pockets,

Tinian's main objectives are firmly in American hands--

the airfields.

In 1941, Japan staged an audacious advance

across the pacific from these very airfields on Tinian.

Now Americans will use them to push back towards Tokyo.

Most of the burned-out Japanese zeros have been swept aside

and replaced by long rows of American fighters,

wings folded up like resting butterflies.

They won't be dormant for long.

The Marianas will soon become the latest and largest hub

of American air power in the central pacific.

Given what's happening on mainland Asia,

the transition can't come soon enough.

Curtis Lemay is a rising star.

In the European theater,

he was promoted to major general,

one of the youngest in the army.

These are his own personal films,

revealing his new top secret assignment in India.

His mission--use the unproven new B-29 bomber to strike Japan,

more than 3,000 miles away.

The strategy is literally a stretch.

The plan is to launch the planes from India,

fly over the Himalayas, and land in China.

There, they will refuel,

fly over Japanese-occupied Chinese territory,

and strike Japan.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Somewhere in western China,

these farmers transformed saturated rice paddies

into airfields.

NARRATOR: American newsreels capture

some of the 10,000 Chinese working on each airfield,

building runways by hand

with stones hauled out of the river.

LEMAY: There were workers pulling wagons

with tires they had taken from cars,

which were now useless

because there was no longer any gasoline.

NARRATOR: Rocks are about the only resource available,

since Japan controls the surrounding supply routes.

There's no easy way to import anything,

including an airfield's lifeblood--fuel.

So the b-29s coming from India are basically supply planes,

carrying fuel instead of bombs

over the tallest mountain range in the world,

nicknamed the hump.

B-29 navigator David Braden knows the problem firsthand.

DAVID BRADEN: For every gallon of gas

we could haul over the hump in a B-29,

it took two gallons of gas for the plane to fly it over.

NARRATOR: The math isn't sustainable,

but the enthusiasm to bomb Japan overrules the logistics.

They proceed with the plan.

The raids begin in the summer of 1944.

After so much trial and error,

the B-29's promise is finally in the air,

and curt Lemay's strategy is on the line.

LEMAY: We believed that if strategic air power

were properly applied,

an enemy could be defeated without having to expend

as many American lives on the battlefields.

NARRATOR: A squadron of b-29s

finally makes it into Japanese airspace.

America has high hopes.

(explosions)

These are the first airstrikes on mainland Japan

since the Doolittle raid of 1942.

That raid didn't destroy much.

Now, two years later, America runs into the same problems.

Target intelligence is spotty.

Clouds prevent good sighting.

Winds blow the bombs off course.

Some miss by 20 miles.

In nine separate raids from China,

only five percent of the bombs hit their targets.

(explosion)

BRADEN: A lot of it didn't work,

and they just had to find out the hard way.

NARRATOR: This is Japanese footage of one raid's aftermath.

It's not bomb damage.

It's a fallen B-29 in eastern China.

This is the price of testing a new airplane in combat.

LEMAY: If we lost hydraulic fluid,

the prop would fly off.

Sometimes the whole damned engine seized

and twisted right out of the wing.

NARRATOR: In raids from China,

nearly 100 b-29s are lost to mechanical failure.

Pieces of this precious secret airplane

are now strewn across enemy territory,

along with the remains of its crew.

This is the state

of the most expensive weapons program of World War II.

Right now, it looks like

a $3 billion investment in wishful thinking.

Curt Lemay's job is to turn things around somehow.

LEMAY: It was great to finally be able to bomb Japan,

but we would have to do better, a lot better.

NARRATOR: He has some ideas,

but first he needs to move his operation

from the distant airfields of south Asia

to the Mariana islands, right on Japan's doorstep.

He can't until Americans take back Guam.

The battle for Guam is nearly simultaneous to Tinian.

The landing is called w-day.

When the Japanese took Guam more than two years ago,

less than 500 American troops were there to defend it.

Now 54,000 are coming ashore to wrestle it back.

Just an hour after landing, marines take heavy fire

from the top of a 1,000-foot barrier

called chonito ridge.

(gunfire)

BILLY SHERRILL: I couldn't see any Japanese,

but the fire was just sustained,

really heavy fire.

NARRATOR: Marines get pinned on the slope for two straight days,

barely 100 yards from the enemy at the top.

(gunfire)

All they can do is throw lead back uphill

and hope it hits something.

(gunfire)

One commander finally gets over the ridge.

He never comes back.

Another marine tumbles downhill, shot through both legs.

(gunfire)

The Japanese have every advantage, including gravity.

They begin rolling hand grenades down the slope.

(explosion)

For 50 straight hours, men pick forward,

up the unforgiving terrain and through unrelenting fire.

(gunfire)

Finally, the decimated marines

glimpse their own comrades on the ridgetop.

Another unit had scrambled up the back side of chonito ridge

and finally won it over.

After two days of fierce fighting on Guam,

the view from the top is not comforting.

The landing beaches remain in sight behind them,

and the rest of the island lay ahead.

From the ridge, Americans fan out.

Some approach Guam's capital, agana.

This rare prewar color footage reveals agana as a tidy town

with old Spanish architecture,

overlooking a peaceful shore.

♫ ♫

Now it's a debris field.

♫ ♫

Centuries of history lie in ruins.

♫ ♫

For marines stationed on Guam since 1898,

this was home away from home.

Agana had more than 40 years of American influence

woven into it.

♫ ♫

Now it's liberated, but also obliterated,

mostly by America's own bombs.

♫ ♫

Away from the front lines,

Americans try to escape the destruction

with a little construction...

...like turning a foxhole into a home.

American can-do culture is crossing the pacific

along with all the battle hardware.

Troops take pride in making the best out of the worst.

One even builds his living quarters

under a wrecked landing craft.

Other found objects, like this Japanese diving suit,

bring laughs to those who need them most.

♫ ♫

(laughter)

A stray puppy brings a welcome distraction.

They call her sake,

a name inspired by the deep stash of liquor

troops find in a captured supply depot.

It's probably their first taste of Japanese culture.

But the escape from reality is brief.

♫ ♫

(explosion)

As the battle moves north,

both sides keep trading volleys.

(artillery fire)

The nasty business of flushing the enemy out of caves

brings out packs of raw dynamite.

(explosion)

Merle hatch sneaks up to a cave with Japanese hiding inside.

MERLE HATCH: We could hear 'em talking.

Our guy fired his flamethrower in for a few minutes,

and they were all dead.

NARRATOR: Americans leave the bodies

but take the crates of Japanese whisky.

Japanese are dying by the score,

but they're making America pay for every mile of Guam.

♫ ♫

On the same beaches they stormed at the start,

wounded Americans are heading back out to sea.

Invasion waves come in, and evacuation waves go out,

as inevitable as the tide.

RALPH KETCHAM: I was glad to be alive

when I got off that damn place.

NARRATOR: The lucky ones can leave with a close call

and a good story.

The unlucky ones will never leave.

The dead on Guam and Tinian create a bleak landscape.

Decomposing bodies bring risk of disease,

and there is no escaping the stench.

RICHARD WILLIAMS: We had to cover them quick

because of the stink.

It was bad.

NARRATOR: Americans begin a grisly routine.

Dog tags will be sent to family.

Fingerprints will become part of a grim database.

There is only as much honor and reverence

as circumstances allow.

In the end, speed and efficiency win out.

WILLIAMS: Sometimes there was no way

you could know whose body was going in where.

Only god knows.

NARRATOR: Americans try to give every one of their own

a marked burial site.

But the Japanese body count is often ten times higher.

Facing thousands of corpses on every island,

Americans resort to mass graves.

♫ ♫

Here, they make Japanese pows

gather their own war dead for pit burial.

In this rare case,

Americans give a Japanese officer a military funeral.

They identified him among the other bodies

and honor him accordingly.

But most of the men will remain nameless.

Every island in the path of the pacific war

is becoming a killing field,

and Americans will soon decide which island is next.

♫ ♫

OFFICER: Ten-hut!

NARRATOR: On August 10th,

officials declare Guam back in American hands.

Commander of all forces in the central pacific,

Admiral Chester Nimitz is there for the flag raising.

Nimitz will soon move his headquarters

from Pearl harbor here to Guam.

He is confident that the American push across the pacific

is unstoppable.

♫ ♫

Men and might will soon pour into Guam

and transform it into a thundering U.S. military base

far larger than it was before the war.

The locals will never return

to the simpler lives they had before.

♫ ♫

But smiles reveal that freedom is all that matters right now.

♫ ♫

With Americans finally in control of the Marianas,

the B-29 will move off mainland Asia.

Curt Lemay's experiment in India and China has largely failed.

LEMAY: China had proved to be

a horrible, almost impossible logistical situation,

and we knew it.

NARRATOR: Now he'll bring his operation

and his home movie camera to the central pacific.

LEMAY: As soon as American forces captured the Marianas,

we moved over to Guam.

The Marianas would be the beginning

of the end of the road to Tokyo.

NARRATOR: From his new base, Lemay will become the mastermind

of the most destructive bombing raids to date

in the history of warfare.

(explosions)

The American air strategy is evolving,

but the ground strategy remains blunt--

send wave after wave of men across the pacific.

Here, troops in Hawaii train for a land invasion of Japan.

They run trough a mockup of a Japanese town.

(gunfire)

President Roosevelt is on hand.

He's in Hawaii for a crucial meeting

to plot the next steps of the pacific war.

He has summoned his two primary commanders in the field,

Admiral Nimitz and General Macarthur.

The trio first meets aboard the u.S.S. Baltimore.

Each plays to the cameras--

Nimitz in his brilliant dress whites,

MacArthur in his distinctive leather jacket,

despite the heat,

and Roosevelt, seated to hide his inability to walk.

As the motorcade proceeds through military choreography,

each man's mind is surely turning.

The pending meeting is laced with long-simmering tension.

Roosevelt once called MacArthur

"one of the most dangerous men in America."

MacArthur would later describe fdr

as "a man who never told the truth if a lie would suffice."

Within the lush surroundings of the Holmes estates in waikiki,

the men conclude a day of pomp with dinner.

Then they finally retire to the living room.

Nimitz argues that pushing farther up the central pacific

will choke off the Japanese mainland and force surrender.

MacArthur all but demands

that Americans retake the Philippines first.

The men are cordial, but off camera,

MacArthur isn't shy to raise the temperature of the argument.

Roosevelt later confides that nobody ever talked to him

the way that MacArthur did.

The meeting sets the table

for the next phase of the pacific war.

Nimitz will continue island-hopping

toward the mainland,

including a rocky no-man's-land called iwo jima.

The Philippines is finally on the agenda.

MacArthur's invasion is planned for October.

Nearby there's an island with a Japanese airfield

that might cause trouble.

They decide to take that first.

It's called peleliu.

♫ ♫

Compared to bigger targets,

peleliu is almost an afterthought.

One general thinks it will be, quote, "a quickie."

Some journalists peel off looking for bigger stories.

But for some of these men,

peleliu will be the story of their lives.

FRED FOX: I was 18 years old.

I was only in one battle.

But the two days that I fought at peleliu

marked my life more than anything else.

(gunfire)

(artillery fire)

NARRATOR: From the terrain to enemy strength,

Americans do not have a clear picture

of the island they're invading.

♫ ♫

For troops on approach, the picture is all too clear.

EUGENE SLEDGE: The beach was a sheet of flame

backed by a huge wall of black smoke,

as though the island was on fire.

(gunfire)

MAN: All right, everybody out!

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: Americans are fresh off victories

at Guam and Tinian,

which had a clear sense of purpose

and went according to plan.

♫ ♫

But the pacific war follows no one's plan for very long.

♫ ♫

(explosion)

♫ ♫