Victory in the Pacific is on the horizon, but not fast enough for the thousands of American servicemen facing a suici

dal enemy.

To end the epic war in the Pacific, it will take the most destructive form of warfare ever invented.

3 2 1.

This is the story of terrifying fanaticism and personal heroism told in compelling detail with specially enhanced color film and rare footage shot by the troops themselves.

put together for the first time to answer the question, why did Japan believe America would never deliver the knockout blow? This is World War II in the Pacific.

[Music] 2 and 1/2 years after Pearl Harbor, it’s finally payback time.

A campaign to rule the waves and island hopping to seize back territory has given the American forces the upper hand in the Pacific.

But not for a second does anyone believe Japan is ready to give in.

The way the Japanese soldier fights is terrifying.

Surrender is unthinkable.

Forcing Japan to do that is going to be bloody and bitter.

[Applause] [Music] In Europe, US soldiers know they can overcome their enemy in conventional battle.

For them, by the summer of 1944, the end is in sight.

In the Pacific, bitter experience tells them otherwise.

The soldiers have had to develop violent new weapons and tactics to match the barbarity of their enemy.

They resort to flamethrowers, artillery, and tanks.

For every inch of terrain, the Japanese exact a cool toll.

General George C.

Marshall, chief of staff of the US Army, fears defeating Japan can only come at a horrific cost in American lives.

Desperate to avoid this, he and his colleagues, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, devise a plan, a simple two-pronged strategy.

One, blockade and starve the Japanese people.

two, bomb their factories and obliterate their capacity to wage war together.

The hope is they can destroy Japan’s will to fight on.

[Music] Phase one begins.

US submarines operating out of the Philippines and aircraft from US carriers blockade Japan, severing vital supply lines, raw materials, food supplies, and troop ships are dispatched to the bottom of the ocean.

The result, throughout 1944, Japan loses 300,000 tons of shipping each month.

Food stocks plummet, millions go hungry, and a famine looms.

But the Japanese people stand firm.

Time for phase two to kick in.

Destroy Japan’s war machine from the air.

It’s a chance for one man to make his mark.

[Music] Curtis Lame is a cigar chomping battle seasoned major general in the US Army Air Force’s 20 group in China.

He’s a tough-talking champion of carpet bombing Japan into submission.

[Music] He and his superiors propose a terrifying assault from the sky.

An unprecedented air war that will flatten Japan’s factories.

The challenges Lame faces are huge.

Distances in the region are massive.

Japan is over 1500 miles away from the nearest air strips and heavy bombers cannot fly from carriers.

But Lame believes he has the right machine to get the job done.

[Music] The brand new Boeing B-29 Superfortress, [Music] the result of a $3 billion development program.

A state-of-the-art 4 engine bomber, it can fly all the way to Japan thanks to its massive range of nearly 4,000 m.

This means it can operate out of air strips in China and on the Marana Islands.

[Music] Changdu, China.

62 USB B29s take off.

Their target, the Yawata Steelworks in central Japan.

[Music] The distance is so great the super forts must fly unprotected without fighter escort.

This forces the bombers to fly at high altitude where the Japanese fighters will have difficulty reaching them.

[Music] Each B-29 will drop its payload of eight 500 lb high explosive bombs from 30,000 ft.

The goal flatten the steel works.

But the attacks are from so high up they miss their target.

Japan’s strong jetream winds blow the bombs off course.

A disappointing debut for the multi-billion dollar airplane.

The B-29’s accuracy does not improve with additional raids in the weeks ahead.

The grand plan to force Japan to surrender is not working.

Curtis Lame is promoted to take personal charge of the campaign.

His answer is to bomb more and bomb harder.

So he devises a new tactic, the Firestorm.

[Music] Lame decides to use a horrifying new weapon, the M69 incendury cluster bomb.

Accuracy is not essential.

The incenduries use napal to burn whole sways of a city.

Any weapons factories in the area will be destroyed in the inferno.

Bombers based in the Marana Islands set their sights on Japan’s sixth largest city, Coobe.

In their bomb bays are tons of incendury bombs.

[Music] Coobe burns with a ferocity never before seen.

[Music] The city is densely packed and made up of wooden and paper houses that explode into flames.

Whole neighborhoods are incinerated.

Thousands die.

The orange glow can be seen hundreds of miles away.

[Music] Lame does it again.

He hits 67 cities, including the capital, Tokyo, in the weeks ahead.

Still, the Japanese won’t buckle.

[Applause] worse.

They are beginning to hit back.

[Music] Fighters and anti-aircraft guns start downing B29s.

Lame’s air crews are suffering mounting losses with nearly 3,000 airmen killed.

Morale is sinking.

Lame remains convinced that carpet bombing can work.

But to succeed, he believes a change in tactics is in order.

The B-29s must fly lower to improve accuracy.

That means fighter escorts are essential.

[Music] To achieve that, the fighters need bases closer to mainland Japan on enemy held territory.

Lame and the US battle plans have one island in mind.

Itaima [Music] is the most outlying of Japan’s home islands.

Just a tiny lump of volcanic rock barely 5 mi long.

Located 660 mi from Japan’s main population centers, Iwima has two airirst strips that are ideal for fighters like the P-51 Mustang.

Controlling it would mean Curtis Lame’s B29s could fly with a fighter escort all the way to their targets and back.

But since early 1944, the Japanese have been firmly dug in on Iwima.

The defense is masterminded by Japanese General Tadamichi Kurabayasi.

He was military atache in Washington in the 1920s.

He knows what to expect from the Americans.

His 21,000 men are making the tiny island into a fortress.

They have dug tunnels, bunkers, and defensive lines away from the beaches.

They believe they are ready for anything the Americans can throw at them.

In February 1945, the largest fleet so far assembled in the Pacific arrives in the waters of Iuima.

It boasts over 400 ships.

Aboard the troop carriers.

60,000 Marines of the 3rd, fourth, and fifth divisions are awaiting the green light.

In charge of the landings is Marine Corps General and commander of fifth amphibious group Harry Schmidt, known to his men as the Dutchman.

To crush all resistance for 75 days, the island is pummeled with a massive bombardment.

Wave after wave of carrierorn aircraft and medium bombers hit the Japanese positions.

[Music] Then the big guns of the fleet open up.

This is the climax of one of the most prolonged and concerted bombardments of the war.

[Music] Intelligence suggests the island should fall in just a week.

The first wave of landing craft set off.

On board are 8,000 Marines.

As the Marines hit the beach, there’s nothing.

No reply from the Japanese.

It seems the bombardment has worked.

Then, the Japanese defenders had been hiding underground during the bombardment.

Now they burst out, inflicting heavy casualties.

Over 500 Marines die on the beaches.

As the hours pass, the Marines recover and gradually push in land.

By the end of the day, 30,000 Marines are ashore.

Over the next 3 days, the fighting is intense as the Marines battle their way to the island’s most visible landmark, the 550 ft volcano, Mount Suribachi.

The volcano dominates the island.

From there, the Japanese can fire on any targets below, including the allimportant airfields.

[Music] It’s just a quarter of a mile from the beaches, but the Marines must fight their way up the steep mountain sides.

On February the 23rd, the most iconic moment of any war is captured as Marines raise the stars and stripes on Mount Suribachi.

A different group of men are the first to raise a flag, but it is reststaged later for the benefit of a photographer, Joe Rosenard.

He creates the image that will come to immortalize the Pacific War.

It’s an unforgettable scene, but it’s not the end of the battle.

[Music] Combat continues for another 21 days because the Japanese refuse to surrender.

Marines fan out across the island, fend off any final suicidal banzai charges, and burn out the last of the island’s defenders.

[Music] 36 days after it all began, Iuima is secure.

[Music] The Americans have the staging post they so badly want for their air war, but the cost is terrible.

[Music] 6,821 Marines are killed, 18,000 wounded, capturing a tiny island just 5 mi long.

Total casualties are proportionally worse than for D-Day.

27 medals of honor are won.

Iima accounts for 28% of all the Marine Corps awards granted in the whole of the Pacific campaign.

[Music] If anyone doubts the Japanese resolve, their losses prove the point.

Only 200 of the original 21,000 defenders survive.

The rest prefer to die.

It shows exactly what the Americans are up against.

The air war now enters a new terrifying phase.

18 days after the first landings on Iuima, Curtis Lameé switches to an allout aerial firebombing campaign.

In one of the most destructive night raids in all history, Operation Meeting House, over 300 B29s hit Tokyo.

They lay waste to 16 square miles of the city.

[Music] A 100,000 Japanese citizens are incinerated.

A million made homeless.

The cities of Nagoya, Osaka, and Coobe are all raised to the ground.

Every month, Lame receives another 100 B-29s from Boeing’s factories to join the campaign.

In total, his airplanes will drop 170,000 tons of bombs.

Up to 500 bombers take part in each raid.

Now they fly at night and at low altitude, 6,000 to 9,000 ft.

Lame orders that guns and unnecessary equipment be stripped from the B-29s so they can carry yet more ordinance.

And it doesn’t end there.

US aircraft can start roaming over Japan, shooting and strafing targets at will.

Despite all this, the Japanese people show no signs of buckling.

The inescapable truth is that Lame’s bombing is not working.

A ground invasion and the horrific number of casualties that will come with it is looking unavoidable.

By spring 1945, American battle planners in the Pacific are terrified by the prospect of conducting more land invasions.

But to win the war, it’s a must.

Hundreds of so-called home islands make up the Japanese nation.

At their center are Japan’s main population areas.

the four islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kushu, and Shikoku.

Before they can capture these, America needs more staging areas close to the mainland.

First in line, Okinawa, 340 mi to the south of the Japanese mainland.

On Okinawa, a 100,000 men are waiting for the American ground troops.

Backing them are hundreds of pilots schooled in the Bashidto code of death instead of defeat.

[Music] The US assembles a huge task force.

However, before American boots set foot on the island, the Japanese strike first.

Wave after wave of kamicazi converted fighters hit the invasion fleet backed up by conventional bombers.

Several carriers are hit, others seriously damaged.

Losses are even worse among the destroyers manning the outer defense lines.

[Music] Despite the damage, the US invasion goes ahead.

It starts as usual.

First the heavy bombardment.

Then the land assault begins.

Army units attack the south and marine units the north in an attempt to cut the island in two.

Again, the landing is strangely quiet.

Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushiima, has withdrawn to a system of elaborately fortified defenses called the Shuri line.

The army units in the south quickly discover what that means.

Grunts have to inch forward through the Shury line.

Each time a strong point is taken, the Japanese defenders fall back to pre-prepared positions where the bloody process begins again.

[Music] The task force anchored at sea isn’t spared.

The suicide campaign continues.

On the 7th of April, 700 kamicazi set off on a one-way mission.

They hit the ships anchored off Okinawa.

One destroyer survives six kamicazi attacks and four bomb hits.

Four other ships aren’t so lucky and are sunk.

24 are damaged at a cost of 335 Japanese aircraft.

[Music] The Japanese high command is even prepared to sacrifice the pride of its fleet on a desperate last ditch mission.

The Yamato is the world’s biggest and most powerful battleship at 72,000 tons.

It is sent on a final sorty to devastate the US fleet at Okinawa.

It is spotted on route.

400 American fighters are scrambled.

[Music] The Yamato is blown to bits.

On Okinawa, fighting grinds on.

Marines and GIs become locked in deadly hand-to-hand battles.

[Music] 30 days in, momentous news reaches them amidst the mayhem.

[Music] Adolf Hitler commits suicide.

A week later, the war in Europe is over.

[Music] But while the rest of the world rejoices for the leathernecks and gis fighting on Okinawa, it means little.

Some unit commanders can only give their men a 5-minute break before grimly ordering them on.

The battle for Okinawa rages on into a second, then a third month as the Americans struggle to overcome the Japanese defenses.

Every cave conceals an ambush.

[Music] Each treeine hides a new bunker.

American forces throw everything at the Japanese.

With total air supremacy, US fighter bombers take on a specialist ground support role.

Troops work side by side with forward air controllers.

Together they identify targets and call in fighters.

If the aircraft can’t silence the most stubborn resistance, flamethrowing tanks or demolition charges are brought in.

Even so, it’s only when the main city of Shuri is captured and the Marines launch a new offensive that the island finally falls.

It has taken 82 days.

[Music] 7,53 US troops pay for Okinawa with their lives.

Nearly 37,000 are wounded.

5,000 sailors are killed.

A massive cost in American life.

For Japan, the losses are even worse.

100,000 Japanese soldiers are dead.

Only 7,000 surrender.

[Music] These horrific losses make it crystal clear to the American generals that taking mainland Japan will mean the mother of all battles.

[Music] Meanwhile, Japan is preparing for the final fight to the death.

Hundreds of new kamicazi pilots are awaiting their chance to die for the emperor.

375,000 soldiers are gathered to repel the Americans.

Militias and suicide volunteers are ready and waiting.

In the air, a reserve of 5,000 aircraft has been held back.

Their best tanks have been preserved for the final battle.

[Music] Even after they’ve been hit by hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs, Japan’s military leadership refuses to contemplate surrender.

Despite their best efforts to avoid it, the American strategists are faced with one grim reality.

The need to invade Japan.

It is now clear what the Japanese tactic is.

If they can make it bloody enough, they believe that America will not have the stomach for a fight.

When pushed to estimate eventual casualty numbers, US battle planners say it will cost a quarter of a million American lives.

A figure that’s unacceptable.

They have to find another way.

There is one other solution and it offers US President Harry S.

Truman an alternative to a ground invasion.

At the Emperor’s Palace in Potdam to pose for the international press come United States President Harry S.

Truman, Russia’s General Esimo Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill as Britain’s prime minister.

President Truman is in Europe.

At the Potam Conference, the Allied leaders meet.

News filters through to him of a development in a top secret weapons program.

One day earlier at the White Sands proving ground in New Mexico, the first successful atomic test in history took place.

It is called Trinity.

5 4 3 2 1 Now it’s the dawn of the nuclear age.

[Music] The Manhattan Project is a three-year-old program to devise a weapon so grotesqually powerful it might just force the Japanese to cave in.

Its mastermind is Robert Oppenheimer.

The result, the nuclear bomb.

It involves splitting atoms to release huge amounts of explosive energy.

Oppenheimer and his team have developed two types of bomb.

One uses naturally occurring uranium.

The other even more powerful man-made plutonium.

[Music] President Truman hints to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that a powerful new weapon is ready.

Stalin appears strangely unsurprised.

Truman is puzzled by his reaction, but later learns Russian spies penetrated the Trinity project.

From Potam, an ultimatum is issued to the Japanese.

Surrender or face destruction.

[Music] Japan does not respond.

The prime minister has been ordered to maintain mockasatsu, meaning in Japanese to kill by silent contempt.

After agonizing over the decision, President Truman gives the go-ahad.

[Music] A few days later, the crew of a B29 named Anola Gay after the captain Paul Tippet’s mother takes off from their air base in Tinian in the northern Marana Islands.

In the plane’s belly is a 15 kiloton uranium bomb nicknamed little boy.

Their target Hashima in western Japan.

It takes the Anola Gay and its deadly cargo 6 hours to fly to Hiroshima.

500 miles from the capital, Tokyo.

The weather over Hiroshima is clear and crisp.

The crews circle overhead.

Then at 8:15 a.

m.

An explosion with the power of nearly 15,000 tons of TNT is detonated over the city.

For the victims, death comes in stages.

First, the Earth underground zero is heated to 5,000°.

Then comes the shock wave.

Next, a deadly firestorm sucks oxygen out from the atmosphere, killing more people.

Finally, others will succumb to radiation poisoning, which arrives as black radioactive rain.

The devastation for just one bomb is astonishing.

Some 70,000 people are killed.

President Truman announces the weapon to the world and promises more atom bombs unless Japan surrenders.

If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a reign of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.

The Japanese ignore him.

Again, they choose to not even respond to his ultimatum.

3 days later, a plutoniumbased bomb, even more powerful than the last, and known as Fat Man, is loaded onto another B-29.

The target, Nagasaki, 760 mi to the south of Tokyo.

The blast at Nagasaki is just as lethal.

Up to 50,000 people die.

Still, there is no response from the Japanese leadership.

The Americans face a problem.

They have no more atomic bombs.

Making more will take time.

So, US battleships sail right up to Japan’s coast and pour fire onto targets in land.

[Music] Melording fighters continue to shoot up anything and everything they can find.

Finally, the Japanese War Council gathers to contemplate the unthinkable, the ultimatum for surrender offered at Potam.

They agree to accept, but with conditions.

Japan’s offer is immediately rejected.

Truman is very clear.

Only unconditional surrender will do.

Continue reading….
Next »