The World At War - E23 - Pacific: February 1942 - July 1945

This tiny island, less than one square mile, cost more than 4,000 lives

This is Tarawa, typical of some of the most concentrated fighting of the war

as the Americans drive the Japanese back, island by island, across the Pacific

In February 1942, Japanese bombers attacked the Australian mainland

the raid temporarily knocked out the naval base of darwin with the japanese advancing across new

guinea some australians thought this was the prelude to invasion the japanese army and navy

were unable to agree their invasion plans were shown in fact the japanese found they were overextended in the appalling conditions of the new guinea

jungle, the Australians, with growing American support, turned back the Japanese advance on the vital base

of Port Moresby. Along the Kokoda Trail, the Allies counter-attack. Sickness and disease were obstacles

as formidable as Japanese bullets. By the end of 1942, the threat to Australia had been removed

The stage was set for the long and bitter struggle to push the Japanese back to their homeland

The Allied offensive came under the separate command of two rivals, General Douglas MacArthur in the southwest Pacific

and Admiral Chester Nimitz in the central Pacific. American strategy was to mount a two-pronged attack on an enemy

whose conquests extended over thousands of square miles of land and ocean

MacArthur's task was to thrust upwards from the Solomons and New Guinea to the Philippines

The forces under Nimitz were to make a series of giant leaps from island to island

the Marshall Islands, the Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa. They would start in the Gilberts in November 1943 at Tarawa

Each one of you is much better than the Jap. You're better physically, you're better mentally

you have better weapons, you're going to have better support. So that you're going to be able to lick him hands down

when it comes to individual fighting. Let me repeat again what the general said

If you have to run any chances whatsoever to get a prisoner

then don't get him. The first objective of Admiral Nimitz's island-hopping armada's Tarawa Atoll

had become a Japanese fortress from whose airstrip planes could strike at the US fleets

Tarawa had to be taken. This was the first time a sea-borne attack had been launched

against a heavily defended atoll protected by a coral reef. No one in the initial assault force of 5,000 Marines realized

just how strong the defenses of Tarawa were. They thought they would level the island and completely demolish everything

that there wouldn't be a living soul on the island. I remember him telling us

this is going to be the easiest invasion we ever had. He says we only need two men

one with a rifle and one with a slate, one to shoot them, one to chalk them up

It's going to be real easy. I turned to the major who was standing next to me on the deck and said

some of our people aren't aiming very well today. And he said, you don't think those are our shells, do you

I realized then for the first time that we're being shot at, and there were indeed some Japanese on taro

everyone were confident that you could kick hell out of the japanese

the marines would have no problem with them if we could get our feet on the beach

you must remember that the island was only eight or nine hundred yards wide and when you put 20,000

men on an island like that, it's quite crowded. There were Japs in front of the lines, behind the lines, all over

We were told that perhaps that we could take this island within a very short time

and it was quite evident within hours of our landing that this would not be so

The foxholes that had been covered up with the naval gunfire the next morning within about 20 yards of where I was I watched the Japanese digging out

They were digging the sand out of the place so that they could see out. the battle raged for three days

with the Japanese defenders being gradually pinned back into one end of this tiny island

The Japanese commander had boasted that Talawa could not be taken in a hundred years

If you can imagine the effect, nearly 6,000 dead men, on an island this small

And considering that it's one degree from the equator, the amount of heat you have there

you can imagine the smell that you get within a day or two

from all this rotting flesh. It was a sort of a sweet smell, sickly sweet, I described it

And I don't know anywhere in World War II where there was such a concentration of death

When it was all over, of 3,000 Japanese, only 17 surrendered. The Americans lost over 1,000 dead and 2,000 wounded

Public opinion in the United States was shocked that such heavy losses had been incurred

in so short a period of fighting. After Tarawa, American invasion forces headed for the Mariana Islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam

The naval task force protecting the landings was positioned to the west of Saipan

Approaching from Okinawa in June 1944 was Japan's mobile fleet looking for a naval success that would yet turn the war in their favour

Suddenly, from their radar, the Americans realized that they had been spotted by the Japanese

Every available American fighter was put into the air to meet wave after wave of Japanese

Many Japanese pilots were comparative novices with no battle experience

Their aircraft were poorly armored. For the American flyers swooping down on their opponents, it was as easy as shooting turkeys

so

after the first encounter all but one of the american planes returned

Rearmed and refueled, the Americans were ready for the next Japanese move

There were two more onslaughts to be faced. However, the Americans had nearly 900 carrier planes, twice the number of the Japanese

The Mariana's Turkish shoot lasted just eight hours. One day, Japanese naval air power was virtually destroyed

The original force of 430 planes was reduced to about 100. American losses were comparatively light

Pilots mattered more than machines. At the end of the day, the Americans had won the air battle, but had yet to locate the Japanese fleet, now retiring

The following day, the Americans continued their search for the enemy. It was not until late afternoon

that their aircraft sighted the mobile fleet, over 200 miles away at the extreme limit of the range of the american bombers but the order was

given attack so In the fading light the principal objective of the American strike

the Japanese carrier force was badly mauled. One carrier was sunk and two others damaged

This great naval battle, in which neither fleet actually fired on the other

ended with the Japanese reduced to only 35 aircraft retreating to their bases in Japan

The American planes now face the problem of getting back to the carriers

The decision to attack had meant that they might easily run out of fuel on the

journey home. First to return were the fighters which had been protecting the task force

Landing in the dusk was difficult enough, but later on the torpedo planes and bombers

would have to find their carriers in pitch darkness. Some would never make it

Some would never make it. Then it turned into probably the blackest night that I have ever seen in my life

And over the ocean, I guess we were at about 7,000 feet flying home

It was kind of our best altitude for fuel, and it was black as the ace of spades

And we could hear nothing, just ourselves, except the cries, or I won't say cry

but a very perfunctory call, I'm going to have to land in the water, I'm out of fuel

And this continued just constantly until all the torpedo planes that had survived the strike went into the water

And then I suppose about 100 miles from the force, the dive bombers started to run out of fuel

and they called out, this is whatever the call was, I don't really know the number

I'm going in, out of fuel. And then it became quite quiet until we got within range of the force

and then you could start to make out what was happening at the task force

and what the recovery course would be. We had not yet seen it because the ships were running blacked out, which is a normal operating procedure, so it couldn't be detected from the air

But the Admiral knew that we were going to have an awful problem getting aboard, and they were low on fuel, and we didn't have time to really look for the force

A decision was made, and a command was given out to the carriers to turn their lights on

Next day, the task force succeeded in rescuing the vast majority of the air crews who had been forced down in the ocean

Victory in this, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, meant that the Mariana landings could go ahead without interference from the Japanese Navy

At a cost of 3,000 American dead, Saipan fell. Tinian was less heavily defended

Guam held out for three weeks. Get over there, man! Lose that for you

Moving west from the Marianas, an American amphibious force was switched by Nimitz to MacArthur's command

as the two rival prongs began to come together. The objective was the Palau group of islands

These had to be taken before the invasion of the Philippines. On one island, Peleliu

the Americans again ran into fanatical resistance from a crack force of 10,000 Japanese troops

Instead of meeting the Americans on the beaches

the Japanese had withdrawn into a labyrinth of caves and tunnels. the Americans had to contest every yard against an enemy determined to fight to the death

In the bloody battle for Peleliu four out of every ten Americans taking part were killed or wounded

It was months before all the Japanese had been winkled out. There were no easy victories on these Pacific Islands

Some of the dead Marines could only be identified by their fingerprints

On October 20th, 1944, MacArthur fulfilled his promise. He returned to the Philippines

The landings were virtually unopposed. The Japanese had retired inland to their main defences

But the invasion touched off the largest and most complex naval battle in history

The battle for Leyte Gulf was to last for four days. Four Japanese forces were involved

converging on the Philippines from Borneo, Formosa and mainland Japan. The Americans had two fleets, the 7th and the 3rd

The Japanese aim was to destroy the American invasion shipping in Leyte Gulf

After a series of confused engagements, hundreds of miles apart, the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered heavy losses

It ceased to be an effective fighting force. on land torrential rain had delayed the progress of macarthur's men fighting against a japanese

army numbering nearly 400 000 by february 1945 three months after the later landings

the americans were closing in on the philippines capital manila for the first time in the pacific war the americans were fighting their way into a big city

The battle raged from street to street, house to house

Many civilians lost their lives. some executed by the retreating Japanese. MacArthur's second hour of triumph

his return to the Philippines capital. Americans who had been taken prisoner during the Japanese invasion

were released after three years in captivity. With the American capture of the Philippines

the supply routes carrying essential war materials for Japanese industry would be cut

The Japanese command knew that when they had lost the Philippines, they had lost the war

After liberation, revenge. the settling of personal scores against Filipinos accused of collaborating during the years of Japanese occupation, now at last at an end

February 1945

Iwo Jima eight square miles of volcanic rock only 600 miles from the coast of Japan

was the target for the next leap across the central Pacific from Iwo Jima

American bombers could raid Japanese cities almost at will From the dominating heights of Mount Suribachi

the Japanese could see practically everything that moved on Iwo Jima. Once again, the main Japanese forces were inland, away from the beaches

For 76 days before the landing, the Americans had bombarded Iwo Jima from sea and air

Let's go! The waste, the barrenness of the place, the..

It was actually like a nightmare. It was the closest thing you could see to hell. If ever hell looked like anything, it must have looked like Iwo Jeebun

The minute you got in those boats, you were scared, and... You were scared until you hit the beach

You realize that you're going in to kill, and we were always taught that we had to kill or be killed

It was either us or the Japanese, one or the other. And when you're faced with this situation

as a young man, I was only 19, it's confusing. You're built in the Marine Corps to take orders and to obey orders

But at the same token, you're still a human being and you're only 19 or 20

Most of us were only 18, 19 or 20 during those days. I think the public has the idea that Marine are supermen

but I don't think there was a Marine in the amphibious landing craft that wasn't afraid

including the officers. I was always taught to hate them in the ring corps

We test them and that they were animals, that we were the men, they were the animals

By the same token, we were taught that they would die for the emperor

We weren't taught to die for our president. And to fight or to come up against an individual who wants to die or who doesn't care about dying

is a tough thing to combat in your mind. We wanted to live. We wanted to kill him

We wanted to survive. You have to keep your head down because there's too much fire above you

And it's that constant wondering, is somebody going to drop a lucky one in there

And you're too far out to swim with all that gear on. And what are you going to get into when you get there

It's a hell of a place to be. And as you hit the island and you saw the ash and nothing living

it was, if there's ever been hell, this was it. When we hit the beach itself

actually there was a little incline, and everybody clung to the incline

because the fire was that heavy. And everything that hit the beach

was blasted out of the water as fast as it hit. I was young then

This is my fourth operation. I was 18. My first operation, I was 16

They just lay there and waited for us, and rhythmically just kept on tattooing every man along the line

You just couldn't avoid it. The slaughter was fantastic. We would just walked into a web, and there was no way out

You couldn't get off the beach. And getting into the beach was a depressing scene

It sort of knocked your morale down when you start to see your own people from your own team dead

There was this, from the water's edge to sort of a rise

there was a tremendous amount of bodies just lying there. We moved about, oh, possibly 300 yards in, just as far as they, meaning the Japanese

decided for us to go. There was no way of getting off the island

Not that first night. It was just too congested. There was nothing that could move off that island the first night

Dug in on the slopes of Mount Suribachi, the Japanese commander had concentrated his artillery

The preliminary bombardment had again failed to knock out the Japanese strongpoints

They could only be taken one at a time by the men on the ground

It would take a lot longer to capture Iwo Jima than the five days allowed for by the American command

the entire vegetation was gone completely and you're waking in the morning and you look out

across this particular expanse of nomad's land and it was bubbling and seething with

steam coming out of the ground in fact we have to use cardboard from searation packs

to put down in a foxhole so that your ass wouldn't burn up

If there is a hell, I'm living through it now. So I don't have to worry about going to hell any time in the future

I've been there. One of the guys came up to me. He's a man with a family

I never did even know him. Just, you know, meeting him at that particular day

And I said, well, we're in a mortar outfit back here. Fairly well safe. No problems

Before the day was over, he and half of my other squad was dead

I think the worst part was you get callous, you know, to dead bodies and bloated bodies

But you never get callous to your own friends in that way And I think that perhaps was the most terrible thing of your dream I think if everybody remembered all of the tragic things that happened

you would go crazy. You wouldn't be able to survive it. Oh, you always think you're going to make it

You're scared, but you still think you're going to make it. It was just one of the biggest messes I myself had ever seen

I don't know who the beach master was, but he probably had the roughest job of any man I've ever heard of

It may have looked confusing at the time, but the supply organization backing up the assault force

was proof of the fact that made America's victory over Japan inevitable

right from the day of Pearl Harbor, her overwhelming industrial strength. Only one thing seemed to permeate the bed

Get that million-dollar wound to get off this damn place. Day after day, the Americans inched forward

against Japanese who preferred death to surrender. their leaders still hoped the Americans might tire of their losses and of the war

oh my lord an evil it was hand-to-hand fighting you didn't know who was even in the hole with you

as you went into the caves we lost most of our people in this particular fashion

you went into the caves and you fought it out with the guy one of you came out

I don't think anybody really realized that they were underground so deeply

And it was so heavily defended, really. After three days fighting on Mount Suribachi, the stars and stripes flew on the summit

One of the boys started to howl, and there goes the flag. And I don't care where you were on that island, you could see right up to Suribachi

And the flag was raised, and everybody started to howl. Because we figured, well, the island was secure, but it was far from secure

We had a long way to go yet. But it was nice to see the flag up there anyway

They always told you to take prisoners, but we had some bad experiences on Saipan taking prisoners

You take them, and as soon as they get behind the lines, they drop grenades and lose a few more people

You're a little bit leery about taking prisoners when they're fighting to the death, and so are you

Very few of them came out on their own. When they did, usually one in the front

they'd come out with his hands up, and one behind him, he'd come out with a grenade

One of the West Virginia boys, But he was sitting against a stone wall with his knees up under his helmet

as we used to sit quite often. One of the enemy ran out onto the top of the stone wall

and held a small explosive charge to his abdomen. And a chunk of his torso, the lower torso, went spiraling into the air

and came down on John's knees. with the absolute posterior devoid of any clothes staring him right in the face And he looked at that and he says God am I hit that bad

And that was the trigger that released the tensions of the previous night

And there were several of us that were perfectly useless for as much as an hour

We were just laying on the ground in convulsions. Of the 21,000 Japanese troops on Iwo Jima when the attack began, only 200 were taken alive

I was on the island a total of six days, and it seemed like 6,000 years

Iwo Jima's airfields were functioning even before the island was taken, thanks to the American construction battalions, the C.B

They played a key role here, and indeed, in the whole Pacific War

Now the time had come to penetrate the inner ring of Japan's defences

350 miles from the mainland was the last great barrier between the allies and the planned

invasion of imperial japan the japanese island of okinawa on april the 1st 1945 the americans attacked

Japan's young suicide pilots

the kamikazes swarmed to the defense of Okinawa. Many flew their fatal missions in obsolete aircraft, even trainers

So many things were happening and so quickly that it was a little bit like a big boxer in a ring when he's being hit to the chin and to the side of the face and bodies and everywhere else because we were catching it from so many different angles

in a regular attack it's a sporting chance you've got you know i mean with regular bombs

and regular bullets you think you've got a very good chance but war is not so much of a sport

when you're fighting human bombs over 2 000 kamikaze pilots met their deaths but they destroyed 30 u.s warships and damaged 200 more

you were praying that you could survive whatever the kind of explosion would would come about

your whole life flashed in front of you very quickly because you didn't know whether it'd

be seconds or minutes until your life would be snuffed out american casualties were so severe

that at one point it seemed the invasion of Okinawa might be stopped in its tracks

The gunners can't turn it off. Once they gear themselves up to fight man against man bomb

even though the plane is down, it's hard for the gunner to stop

One man, he was in a 40-millimeter mount, and he had been fighting against quite a number of planes that had come in

but we had been hit in his area also two or three times, and all of a sudden, with nobody understanding why

He just yelled out, it's hot today, and jumped over the side, and that's the last we ever saw of him

But had he stayed aboard, he might have survived. But, of course, we couldn't find his body or anything after that

But it was an unusual type of reaction. He stayed with it just as long as he could until he broke

And then that was the end of his fighting. But every man, I believe, has a breaking point

and the kamikaze is I would estimate is probably test that breaking point more

than any other form of combat The initial landings on Okinawa had been unopposed but as the Americans pushed inland they came

up against a Japanese army of a hundred thousand troops, withdrawn into a heavily fortified central area

The steep hills and narrow ravines of Okinawa formed a natural citadel for the Japanese

defenders. Outnumbered by two to one, they made the Americans pay in blood for every

foot of Japanese soil. But Japan herself, close to surrender, not every Japanese soldier wanted to fight on

to the end. PIANO PLAYS

Civilians of Okinawa suffered appalling losses. 24,000 were killed, many thousands more injured

Once they found out that we weren't going to do the things that they had always heard

well, they could understand, hey, this is just another human being, and possibly they felt the same as we did

that we weren't there because we wanted to be there. We were told that this is what we had to do

Many Americans, at the end of their great advance across the Pacific

it now seemed that the animals, the faceless fanatics, eager to die for their emperor, were human beings like themselves

They showed kindness to their own people too, which we didn't really think, you know

We thought, well, life was cheap to them, but that's not true

They showed a lot of kindness to their own wounded, you know

and would tote them on their back, and two or three would carry them

although they were weak theirself, you know. So they were people just like us

Thank you