Original subtitles

NARRATOR: In late 1944,

the Pacific War is building to a brutal climax.

One island swallows an entire Marine regiment.

PVT SLEDGE: We were in a death trap on Peleliu.

NARRATOR: Another becomes a beacon of bravery.

PVT MENDEZ: Iwo Jima was 36 days of pure hell.

NARRATOR: Japan fights with ferocity.

America fights with fire --

igniting the war's deadliest day.

MG LEMAY: It was as though Tokyo

had dropped through the floor of the world.

NARRATOR: With rare home movies ...

and front line stories ...

hear the voices ... and feel the fight.

PVT SLEDGE: My heart pounded as we churned toward that inferno.

♫ ♫

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

♫ ♫

PVT SLEDGE: I became part of a proud, high-spirited,

elite outfit.

NARRATOR: Twenty-year-old Eugene Sledge

is just joining the 1st Marines

as they train in the Pacific in 1944.

The division was gutted in battles

for Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester.

They are full of replacements like Sledge.

Eighty-five percent are not yet 21.

PVT SLEDGE: The veterans taught the replacements

all the ins and outs of combat with a ruthless foe.

NARRATOR: They're on a tropical South Pacific island

called Pavuvu. It sounds like paradise.

The 1st Marines think it's a hellhole.

PVT SLEDGE: We led a Spartan existence.

Warmed-over C-rations and stale coffee passed for chow.

NARRATOR: Space is so tight they have to march in circles.

Every drill is a battle with bugs.

Some joke that they'll welcome a return to combat.

Until they're loading up for their next battle.

PVT SLEDGE: We, not being fools, were all scared to death.

The veterans, because they knew what to expect.

The new men, because we didn't.

♫ ♫

I hung weakly to the side of the tractor

and prayed that I would do my duty, survive,

and not wet my pants.

NARRATOR: Sledge inches closer to his first combat.

The scene before him is pure hell.

PVT SLEDGE: The beach was a sheet of flame

backed by a huge wall of black smoke,

as though the island was on fire.

(artillery fire and explosions)

NARRATOR: The beach is already smoldering

with twisted metal and blood.

PVT SLEDGE: My heart pounded as we churned toward that inferno.

We got to the beach amid erupting shell bursts

and the rattle of enemy machine gun bullets

against the steel Amtrac.

NARRATOR: Within an hour, casualties number

in the hundreds ...

... while the advance is measured in yards.

The 1st Marines are taking it on the chin.

Americans want Peleliu in case it interferes

with a bigger invasion on the way -- the Philippines.

Japanese film shows them overrunning

the American territory in 1941, taking control

of 16 million Filipinos and 7,000 American POWs.

Ever since, Army General Douglas MacArthur

has been itching to take it back.

At every opportunity, he repeats his mantra:

"I shall return."

He makes the promise; America makes the plan.

It includes sending Marines

to take the small airfield at Peleliu,

which could be a nuisance to the Army's Philippines offensive.

This isn't lost on the troops,

who dub themselves "MacArthur's Marines."

PVT SLEDGE: We were ordered to capture the airfield,

and we started across at a trot in the searing heat.

The ground rocked and swayed from shell concussions.

And streams of machine-gun tracers streaked past our ears.

NARRATOR: Within hours, the wounded start piling up.

(artillery fire)

The Japanese are lobbing their repelling fire

from this craggy jumble of peaks.

The 1st Marines nickname it "Bloody Nose Ridge."

One of the officers approaching the ridge

is New Yorker George Haggerty.

LTN HAGGERTY: When my company went in

we were 250 strong with six officers.

A few days later I found my commander,

and he said, "You and I are the only officers left.

And we only have about 20 men."

NARRATOR: Down to a skeleton unit,

the commander sends Haggerty and six others

to find a hidden Japanese emplacement

that already bloodied much of the company.

LTN HAGGERTY: He said, "When you get there,

signal to me and we'll come up."

(distant artillery fire)

We crawled our way up the field.

(explosion)

Some of the grenades we threw up, they threw back down at us.

NARRATOR: Haggerty gets close enough

to signal his commander for reinforcements.

LTN HAGGERTY: We signaled and signaled, and nothing happened.

Instead, our own armored LVTs came up

and starting firing at us.

(artillery fire)

They thought we were Japanese.

NARRATOR: Haggerty stumbles back with shrapnel wounds

from enemy and friendly fire.

♫ ♫

(explosion)

LTN HAGGERTY: I went back to look for my commander

and ask him why he hadn't brought the reinforcements.

I found him with a little hole between his eyes

and the whole back of his head blown off.

That was the end of the war for my battalion.

We didn't have any more troops left.

NARRATOR: From the air, Peleliu looks like the moon.

Underneath, there's an old network of mining tunnels

that the Japanese transform into a front unto itself.

PVT SLEDGE: There never was a front line on Peleliu.

The whole island was a front line.

NARRATOR: Japanese are everywhere,

but nowhere to be seen.

Americans end up shooting blindly into the ground.

They think they win a hill, only to smell Japanese cooking

wafting up from below ground.

The subterranean maze is so confounding that

the Americans resort to blasting shut any hole they see ...

whether they think anyone's inside or not.

It takes two bloody weeks to secure the airfield,

and they're uncertain it was ever a real threat.

The 1st Marines' overall strength

is down by nearly 60 percent.

MacArthur's Marines are fading fast.

With Bloody Nose Ridge surrounded

and the main airfield secure,

Americans turn to the smaller airfield

on the islet of Ngesebus.

They don't know what lies across the shallow reef

dividing the islands. So they don't tiptoe.

They bring all the might they can muster.

♫ ♫

A textbook landing goes off without a problem.

But -- there's no payoff.

The airfield is useless --

with unfinished runways made of soft sand.

The battle for the rest of Peleliu will drag on.

But with both airfields secure,

the invasion of the Philippines is about to begin.

(artillery fire)

NARRATOR: Pre-dawn bombardment illuminates MacArthur

on the day he's been waiting for.

♫ ♫

The choreography of an invasion is now well-rehearsed.

But each man knows the Philippines are different.

The size of the islands.

Sixteen million civilians.

Thousands of allied prisoners.

And the half-million Japanese defenders

waiting somewhere behind the veil of smoke

now rising from the coast.

Americans land first on Leyte, hoping to win it

before invading Luzon and the capital of Manila.

Unlike Peleliu, the beach is not heavily defended.

By afternoon, MacArthur wades ashore.

As the news cameras roll,

he swaggers onto the sand without a helmet.

There may be no combat on the beach,

but there is some dark comedy.

The scale of the invasion strains the supply chain.

On the first day, 107,000 tons come ashore.

But not in the right order.

In the rush to unload, urgent supplies

are buried under less important ones.

And ... it's the rainy season.

Captain John Hanna takes home movies

of the muck his unit has to navigate.

It's thick. Slick. And inescapable.

Though the water buffalo don't seem to mind.

Back on his ship, Hanna films locals approaching in canoes.

They're looking for safe harbor in the shadows

of American ships that now blanket Leyte Gulf.

But so many ships in one place make an irresistible target.

American carriers provide

the only air support for the invasion.

If Japan can disable this lifeline,

they could isolate the Americans on land.

The Imperial Japanese Navy decides to attack.

♫ ♫

American ships buzz to life.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf

will decide the future of the Philippines.

Naval battles often boil down to pilot versus pilot.

In the air, Americans continue to dominate.

(explosion)

As Japanese fighters fall away, an American

gets a clear shot at an enemy ship. He doesn't miss.

Out of desperation, Japan changes tactics.

Their planes dive closer to American ships.

Hidden in the smoke, this one punches through staccato

anti-aircraft fire, flying lower than anyone expects.

Navy man Charles Ripper is shocked at what he sees next.

SN RIPPER: Coming towards us was a Japanese plane,

just skimming over the water. We jumped for cover.

NARRATOR: It lands a suicidal blow.

♫ ♫

(explosion)

These are the first organized kamikaze attacks

of the Pacific War. They will not be the last.

Over four days, America loses six warships,

but Japan loses 26.

The seas around the Philippines are now American waters.

The ground war will be bloody, and Manila awaits.

But only one side will have air and sea support.

The other will slowly choke.

Back on Peleliu, the 1st Marines

have to finish what they started.

They fire grenades with rifles.

They throw Molotov cocktails.

And they deploy a new weapon

called the Navy Mark One Flamethrower.

It shoots a blazing laser of napalm up to 150 yards.

PVT FOX: We were limited by not being able to use poison gas.

Other than that, just about anything went.

NARRATOR: Americans also drop napalm from the air.

It's a new tactic getting its first big tryout on Peleliu.

They hope to scorch Japanese they can't see.

They provide powerful fireworks,

but they have little effect on deep Japanese positions.

Killing the enemy from a distance isn't working.

It's going to take close combat.

PVT FOX: As a private first class,

your war lies within 15 feet of you.

It's kinda like Gettysburg.

NARRATOR: Fred Fox is an Army infantryman

attached to the 1st Marines.

His entire World War II combat career

is 48 hours on Peleliu -- at age 18.

PVT FOX: I was only in one battle.

But the two days that I fought at Peleliu ...

marked my life more than anything else.

NARRATOR: Here, a medical evacuation

gets burned into memory.

(explosion)

Three lie wounded.

Enemy fire pins down two corpsmen just yards away.

Five lives hang in the balance.

PVT FOX: A thousandth of a second, a hundredth of an inch,

and that's the difference

between whether I was dead or not.

NARRATOR: The corpsmen struggle to carry the stretcher case.

The other two combine whatever strength they have left

to get themselves out.

The scene is repeated over and over,

as the war plays out on the tiny stage of Peleliu.

PVT FOX: You're talking about an island

that's about two miles wide,

and you get maybe 11,000 Japanese

and 28,000 Americans mad at each other?

NARRATOR: The 1st Marines are trapped

on this cage of an island

that seems determined to swallow them all.

PVT FOX: Some mention a premonition

of when they're gonna die.

One sergeant in the tent with me,

been through Guadalcanal and New Britain.

On Peleliu he said, "I don't want to go out there.

I'm not gonna make this."

And he didn't.

He didn't make it two minutes.

NARRATOR: In their third year of war,

and sixth week on Peleliu,

the 1st Marines are in no mood to play by the rules.

PVT SLEDGE: We never took prisoners,

even when some tried to give up.

We routinely shot both dead

and wounded in the head, to make sure they were dead.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: By the end of October, it's still not over.

But it is for the 1st Marines.

Almost a third of their men are dead or wounded.

MacArthur's Marines load up

and leave Peleliu for the Army to finish.

It will take another month.

Peleliu becomes one of the enduring question marks

of the Pacific War.

Eighteen hundred dead.

Eight thousand wounded.

All for some dusty airfields

that may not have been a threat after all.

PVT SLEDGE: All too many young Americans were sent to Peleliu,

and into oblivion. Before they had ever really lived.

NARRATOR: In the march toward Japan,

America seems lost in the Southwest Pacific.

In the Central Pacific, the path is more clear --

island-hop toward Japan

with daring and distant amphibious assaults.

Americans have advanced as far as the Mariana Islands.

Saipan, Guam and Tinian are all recently captured,

and at the mercy of American machinery.

They are paving the way for a brand new aircraft --

the B-29 Superfortress.

But from the factory to the flight line,

it's plagued with problems. Deliveries are delayed.

In Kansas, Raymond Halloran's crew

has been training on other aircraft instead.

LTN HALLORAN: We had 11 people in our B-29 crew.

They were from 11 different states.

It was sort of Americana.

The gunner was from Michigan, radarman from Oklahoma.

You wonder where these kids are all coming from.

One day, we came out to this ramp,

and out there was a brand-new, silver B-29.

What a beautiful thing!

That was going to be ours to take overseas.

We were so excited.

NARRATOR: For the first time, they are flying untethered

from a training script, unsupervised by superiors.

Halloran is 21 years old.

LTN HALLORAN: We were going alone.

It was crystal clear.

We climbed to about 20,000 feet, moving west.

NARRATOR: They fly over the familiar landscape of home,

heading toward a distant, abstract war,

somewhere in the direction of the setting sun.

LTN HALLORAN: There was very little said for a while.

Then we got out over the Pacific.

There wasn't a sound in the plane -- nothing.

Nobody said a thing.

I had a definite feeling that I'm leaving everything behind --

my mother and father, and my training --

and I am going into combat.

I think on that evening, at that time, at that altitude,

I converted from youth to manhood.

I could do the job of a man.

NARRATOR: Also on the way to the Marianas

is General Curtis LeMay.

These are his home movies from the war,

which have never been broadcast before.

He's arriving from India, where his bombing group

had trouble striking Japan from such a distance.

He hopes the Marianas will change the B-29 equation --

if he can whip his men into shape.

MG LEMAY: We had crews that weren't trained,

and we had outfits that weren't organized.

Everything was wrong.

NARRATOR: As he comes in for a landing at his new headquarters,

LeMay's reputation is already circulating on the ground.

LTN BRADEN: We called him "Old Iron Pants"

because he was a tough cookie.

He was the George Patton of the Air Force.

NARRATOR: In the winter of 1944, hundreds of brand new B-29s

begin streaming into the Marianas

like giant migratory birds.

MG LEMAY: We had just six weeks to move the B-29s

to bases in the Marianas,

fly a few shakedown flights,

and launch an operation.

NARRATOR: American air power is building up

like a storm cloud in the Central Pacific.

Japan can only guess when it will thunder overhead.

NARRATOR: Japan is rattled.

Americans are encroaching dangerously close.

A Japanese film shows a geography lesson

turning into a dire warning.

The teacher pinpoints the Marianas

and draws an arc that includes Tokyo.

Air raid drills signal a tense new reality.

In public, one admiral

describes the defeat in measured language.

ADM KURIHARA: Our garrison on Saipan fought bravely.

All of them died a heroic death.

NARRATOR: In private, another admiral is more blunt,

saying simply: "Hell is upon us."

ANNOUNCER: Bombs are wheeled up

to a B-29 Superfortress on Saipan Island.

It is only the beginning

as these mighty bombers prepare for the first raid on Tokyo

in two and a half years.

NARRATOR: American newsreels paint the B-29 as a savior.

But it can barely soar.

♫ ♫

They labor to take off with 10,000 pounds of bombs.

This one almost runs off the runway.

MM EARP: When they picked up that B-29,

you could almost see it screaming.

NARRATOR: In January of 1945, B-29s begin raids on Japan.

The entire rationale for island hopping

will now be put to the test.

En route, crews review their targets ...

what little they know about them.

MG LEMAY: We didn't really know anything about Japan.

We didn't have any secret agents

creeping around sending us information.

NARRATOR: But an even bigger problem looms at 25,000 feet --

a roaring tailwind.

LTN BRADEN: We were scooting across Tokyo

at 500 miles an hour.

NARRATOR: Bombs drop into this lashing wind --

and scatter like feathers.

LTN BRADEN: We not only missed the target --

I'm not even sure we hit Tokyo.

NARRATOR: Americans try flying the missions into the wind.

LTN BRADEN: One plane tried that one day

and they found out they were going

three miles an hour backwards.

NARRATOR: The B-29 was built to bomb

from the safety of high altitude.

No one imagined its payload

splashing harmlessly into the sea.

ANNOUNCER: Heading back to Saipan,

the first Superfortress mission over Tokyo is a success.

NARRATOR: Curt LeMay knows it really isn't.

The B-29 still isn't landing

the knockout punch it was made for.

In Guam, this one doesn't even make it off the runway.

General LeMay films the wreckage himself,

and he can feel the heat -- in every way.

MG LEMAY: They said if you don't get results, you'll be fired.

If you don't get results,

it'll mean a mass amphibious invasion of Japan.

NARRATOR: One way to improve results

is to keep more B-29s from crashing along the way.

Americans look for a place to land a broken B-29

between the Marianas and Japan.

There's only one choice. Iwo Jima.

Raymond Halloran's crew, fresh from Kansas,

gets its very first combat orders.

LTN HALLORAN: The mission was to go to Iwo Jima,

650 miles away, to bomb the runway.

NARRATOR: By now, the Army Air Force

is trying to prove the value of the B-29 any way it can.

LCDR ANDERSON: The Air Force wanted to come in

and saturate every square inch of Iwo Jima,

because there were no civilians.

Then all we'd have to do is walk on the beach,

put up the flag, and bury dead Japanese.

NARRATOR: From above, the island looks lifeless.

Halloran quickly finds out otherwise.

LTN HALLORAN: They opened up with anti-aircraft fire.

NARRATOR: Japanese footage reveals guns

aiming straight up at the incoming bombers.

LTN HALLORAN: I didn't know they were

going to be shooting at us.

We had a few little holes in our plane when we came back.

How proud we were of that. It proved we were in combat.

NARRATOR: Halloran's crew

gets a little nicked up over Iwo Jima.

Americans hope the ground invasion is just as harmless.

For centuries, Mount Suribachi

crowned a barren island of little value.

But in 1945, two armies want it badly.

Japan is using it to attack B-29s passing overhead.

America sees it as an emergency landing strip.

They will both now use it as a slaughterhouse.

(explosions)

ST BRUNTON: I went topside just about the time we were leaving,

and I saw that rock.

It was the most desolate looking piece of real estate

I ever saw in my life.

NARRATOR: As landing craft circle waiting for the signal,

Americans fear the enemy will fight back with fire --

and explode barrel bombs of fuel on the beach.

Marines smear their faces with white anti-flash cream

to guard against burns.

♫ ♫

At 9:02 a.m., the first wave hits the sand.

MAN: Everybody out. Move, move, move.

NARRATOR: The beach is steep and loose.

They struggle in the fine volcanic ash.

But resistance is light.

There are no barrel bombs of fuel.

But as more waves come ashore,

more men and machines get stuck in the sand.

PVT LIBERTY: You were walking in mush almost up to your knees.

It was a struggle.

NARRATOR: Soon, the crowd on the beach reaches critical mass.

That's when the Japanese open up.

(explosions)

CPL SHERRILL: I could look up from my foxhole

and it was just 20, 30 mortars in the air at a time.

NARRATOR: By 9:20 a.m.,

it's an unceasing, ear-splitting barrage.

No Japanese are on the beach itself.

Most are entrenched on Mount Suribachi.

Inside the mountain is a maze of tunnels and monster pillboxes

with walls up to four feet thick.

The Japanese can pummel the entire beach with lead.

Marines are trapped within yards of where they landed.

There's no place to go except down.

SGT GRAY: We decided we'd clean out a shell hole

and make it a little deeper for a shelter.

And we hit something down there.

When we uncovered it, it was a Marine.

NARRATOR: Bodies are buried ...

trapped ...

and torn apart.

Suribachi is like a hunting stand,

and Americans are easy prey.

The barrage continues into the night.

Here, the Japanese score a hit

on an American ammo dump on the beach.

(explosions)

LCDR ANDERSON: It was bullets and all kinds of ammunition

exploding all around.

It was like Chinese fireworks.

NARRATOR: The first day on Iwo Jima ends

with the beach on fire and supplies going up in smoke.

Americans resolve to turn the tide the next day --

by scaling Suribachi.

NARRATOR: The assault on Mount Suribachi begins

by punching it from the air and sea.

Americans make the dormant volcano seem alive again.

Then, Marines start to climb up.

Soon, blood starts to flow down.

(explosions)

One unit supported by tanks pushes up for six hours,

advances only 200 yards, and tallies 162 dead and wounded.

As usual, Americans rarely see the Japanese.

So they pour fire into every hole.

(explosions)

After four days of relentless fighting,

a handful of Marines get to the top.

They plant a small flag tied to some old Japanese pipe.

A few hours later, a larger flag goes up.

Gilberto Mendez can see it from his troop ship,

and his emotions go into overdrive.

He's about to come ashore to join the fight.

PVT MENDEZ: My heart was beating a thousand times a minute.

My skin was like chicken skin.

I lost my fear.

If those guys made it, I could.

But it was false, that feeling,

because the good stuff hadn't started yet.

NARRATOR: This is home movie footage of pre-war Manila.

As the capital of a U.S. territory,

it's infused with American style --

from western clothes ...

to neon glitz.

♫ ♫

But when the Allies return

to wrestle it back from the Japanese,

it's a different city.

Now ashen and hollow, it's the bombed-out backdrop

for the biggest urban battle of the Pacific War.

(explosions and artillery fire)

MacArthur prohibits air strikes, trying to spare civilians.

It takes street-by-street guerrilla warfare.

American tanks roll into the University of the Philippines.

The campus is under siege.

Here, University Hall becomes a gun nest.

Japanese rifles crack from the top floor.

(gunfire)

Allies fire back, taking chunks out of the colonial facade.

The Pacific War is turning Manila to dust.

Finally, the city goes quiet.

♫ ♫

Civilians are in survival mode.

American POWs enjoy their first taste of freedom

in more than two years.

Kneeling over this body is serviceman Dan Rocklin.

He films the horrors that now litter Manila.

But he also captures Filipinos striving for normalcy.

Rocklin's film has never been broadcast before.

His footage reveals a blossoming hope --

that the storm of war may finally be passing.

Almost a week into the battle for Iwo Jima ...

... fresh troops come ashore to reinforce depleted units.

PVT MENDEZ: As replacements, we were a nobody group.

We went wherever we were needed. I didn't know anybody.

NARRATOR: But Gilberto Mendez gets to know Iwo Jima

in a hurry.

PVT MENDEZ: The first days I was on the ground,

I urinated in my pants because I thought

if I dropped my rifle to pee I would be killed.

NARRATOR: The flag already flying on Mount Suribachi

is the enduring symbol of Iwo Jima.

But the north is the where Marines have to win it.

The Japanese have abandoned

Banzai charges and costly counterattacks.

Now they simply wait to ambush advancing Americans.

(explosion)

Including Gilberto Mendez.

PVT MENDEZ: I saw something shine.

It was a Japanese officer's sword,

and he was leading his men out of a cave.

The bullets were flying.

(gunfire)

When I saw below his neck, I pulled the trigger,

one shot after another.

They found thirteen holes in his body.

I made hamburger out of him.

NARRATOR: More and more bodies litter the volcanic landscape.

In Japanese, Iwo Jima means "sulfur island."

The steam smells like rotten eggs.

Freshly dug foxholes are too hot to get into.

PVT MENDEZ: You couldn't stay 15 minutes in one place

because your boots would get too hot.

NARRATOR: One Marine even tries on the boots

of a dead Japanese soldier,

hoping they might keep his feet from burning.

Combat is close.

(explosion)

Fiery.

And exhausting.

Two weeks into the battle,

nearly 10,000 American wounded have been evacuated.

Including Gilberto Mendez, with a head injury.

PVT MENDEZ: An explosion picked me up

and I hit the ground again, with a terrible ringing in my ear.

I was choking on my own tongue.

A corpsman tried to pull my tongue out

by piercing it with a big safety pin.

NARRATOR: Under tents and inside hospital ships,

doctors and nurses tend to injuries beyond description.

And some beyond repair.

But soon, the reason for all this carnage comes into view.

♫ ♫

CPL WALKER: Those planes were coming back shot full of holes,

and tore all to pieces.

NARRATOR: On March 4th, the first B-29

comes in for a forced landing.

Hundreds more will sputter into Iwo Jima from raids in Japan.

This one is so crippled it can't even make the runway.

But the crew will be spared.

Even with Iwo Jima as a life raft,

B-29 raids into Japan are failing.

The overall game plan still isn't working.

So Curtis LeMay changes the rules.

MG LEMAY: We weren't going to be able to defeat Japan

using high altitude precision bombing.

I had to do something radical.

NARRATOR: The entire premise of island hopping

now rests on Curt LeMay's command.

So he designs a drastically different kind of mission.

David Braden remembers the briefing.

LTN BRADEN: We were going to fly in at 5,000 feet --

a surprise attack, probably around midnight.

NARRATOR: LeMay thinks going in low will solve the problem

of high winds and blinding clouds.

But that's not the only change.

LTN BRADEN: We were to carry 10 tons of incendiary bombs.

NARRATOR: Until now, America's use of napalm

has been specific to a target -- a cave, or a jungle hideout.

Now, LeMay has something bigger in mind.

MG LEMAY: Tokyo would be our target.

The primary target.

The secondary target.

And the only target.

NARRATOR: Three hundred and twenty-five B-29s

take off in the afternoon skies --

double the number ever used in a single raid before.

They fly in groups, at night, lights off.

Flying in low, the big slow planes could be easy targets.

Crews fear they're on a suicide mission.

LTN BRADEN: We were saying,

"We are going to be the American kamikazes

and they are going to shoot us down like crazy."

NARRATOR: Then, Tokyo appears below.

The first of more than three million pounds of firebombs

drop into the night.

LTN BRADEN: A firestorm started.

The updrafts from the heat of the fires

threw the airplanes all over the sky.

It was frightening.

There'd be an aircraft right next to you

and you didn't even know the guy was there.

NARRATOR: The air is swirling with ashes,

and crews can smell burning flesh at 5,000 feet.

MG LEMAY: The firestorm consumed so much oxygen

that those who did not die by the flames simply suffocated.

NARRATOR: The next morning, Japan is in shock.

♫ ♫

MG LEMAY: It was as though Tokyo had dropped

through the floor of the world and into the mouth of hell.

NARRATOR: Sixteen square miles of central Tokyo are in ashes.

An estimated 100,000 are killed -- mostly civilians.

It's the single deadliest day of the Pacific War.

Neither atomic bomb will kill this many on the day it drops.

To LeMay, it's an unqualified success.

He draws up plans to firebomb other cities,

bring Japan to its knees,

and force surrender.

MG LEMAY: We had stockpiled enough incendiaries

to follow the Tokyo raid

with just about all the major urban areas in Japan.

NARRATOR: For LeMay, the fire is only starting.

NARRATOR: By late March, Iwo Jima

is finally under American control.

Supplies drop down that will help turn this arid rock

into a full-fledged military base.

♫ ♫

Japanese troops will keep pouring out of this underworld

for months.

They too are exhausted, but unwilling to quit.

♫ ♫

Here, Americans liberate Koreans

who had been toiling at Japanese gunpoint.

They report Japanese are still inside, and won't surrender.

Once all the Koreans are out,

a demolition team seals the cave shut.

(explosion)

Iwo Jima is now an island of tombs.

Some 20,000 Japanese and 7,000 Americans are dead.

PVT MENDEZ: We were told the whole operation

would take only three to four days.

It turned out to be 36 days of pure hell.

(explosions)

NARRATOR: Japan can sense the pressure coming from all fronts.

Ships from the sea.

Boots on the ground.

And fire from the sky.

The Japanese Empire is on the verge of collapse,

but there is no sign of surrender.

Americans have one more island to take

before invading Japan itself.

Survivors of Peleliu and Iwo Jima are on their way --

to Okinawa.

Don't ask them which one is worse.

LTN HAGGERTY: I can't answer that.

How do you compare hell to hell?