Apocalypse: The Second World War (2009): Season 1, Episode 4 - L'embrasement - full transcript

Sunday the 7th of December 1941.

Japan was about to attack the
United States Of America.

On board the aircraft
carrier Zuikaku

the pilots were woken at 4am.

They gathered together for
the traditional sake toast

to the emperor.

The attack on Pearl Harbour, the
big American naval base in Hawaii,

was intended to deliver
a decisive blow

and eliminate America as a
naval power in the Pacific.

The attack would turn a
European war into a world war.

This series is the epic
story of World War II



as it raged across
countries and continents,

as millions of soldiers fought
from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

It is the moving story of
the millions of civilians

whose homes were destroyed
and lives disrupted...

..as they were caught up
in the cataclysm of war.

To tell this story, the
best footage of the war

has been painstakingly
transformed

using digital
techniques into colour.

Along with original colour home
movies, it gives a completely

new perspective to one of the
greatest events of the last century.

This is the powerful
story of the apocalypse

and of the people who fought
the Second World War.

The attack on Pearl Harbour
came as a total surprise.

Marine Corporal
Carl Nightingale,



who was on board the battleship
Arizona, described the scene.

An explosion caused
the ship to shake.

A bomb fell, right beside me.

The lieutenant collapsed,
covered in blood.

The deck was thick
with dead bodies,

the ship turned over.

I jumped into the sea.

In the attack, launched without
any declaration of war,

2,500 Americans were
killed and 1,200 wounded.

Only 30 Japanese pilots died.

These images shocked
the American people,

who would no longer oppose their
country's entry into the war.

Yet Japanese forces had
not landed in Hawaii,

nor did they take Pearl Harbour.

They had sunk part of the
American Pacific Fleet

but only the, by now
outdated, battleships.

Aircraft carriers had become the
key to victory in naval warfare

and the three aircraft carriers
based in Pearl Harbour

were not there that Sunday.

They all happened to be at sea, and
so, miraculously, they survived.

President of the United
States Franklin D Roosevelt

had been expecting
an attack by Japan.

Tension between the two
countries was high.

But no-one had imagined
that Japanese aircraft

would be able to strike 3,000
miles away from their bases.

The next day, Roosevelt
went before Congress.

December 7th, 1941,

a date which will
live in infamy.

The United States Of America was
suddenly and deliberately attacked.

No matter how long
it may take us

to overcome this premeditated
invasion, the American people

in their righteous might will win
through to absolute victory.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

But Pearl Harbour was
only one element

in the Japanese assault plan.

On that same day, the
Japanese attacked Hong Kong -

the British colony in China.

Then they bombed American air
bases in the Philippines,

and landed on the
Baatan peninsula.

They now invaded the British
colonies of Burma and Malaya,

for their rubber, and the Dutch
colony of Sumatra for its oil,

threatening both
India and Australia.

A few months earlier,

they had moved into the
French colony of Indochina.

After France's defeat in
1940, the Vichy regime

had not been able to refuse
anything to an ally of Hitler,

and had turned some of
its air and naval bases

over to the Japanese.

The United States had retaliated
by cutting off its oil supplies

to Japan and by freezing
Japanese assets.

These economic sanctions
had pushed Japan into war.

The country, a chain of
overpopulated islands

lacking in natural resources,
was rapidly developing.

Japan was in need of raw materials
and it set out to obtain them...

by force.

Japan had built up its navy

to become the second most
powerful fleet in the world

with no less than ten
aircraft carriers

and with superb
fighter aircraft.

The Zero outperformed
most Allied planes.

Japan had an army of two million
men who were fanatically devoted

to their emperor.

Hirohito was the 124th
Emperor of Japan.

The scholarly monarch
used to study

marine biology in the
laboratory in his palace.

He was seen as a living god.

His divine authority covered
the actions of his military.

In China, the Imperial Army had
carried out appalling atrocities,

like in Nanking in 1937, where
300,000 Chinese were slaughtered.

After the massacre, the Japanese
army had proudly marched

through the Forbidden
City in Beijing.

The Emperor probably knew
nothing of the massacre.

He reigned, but did not govern.

Real power lay in the
hands of General Tojo,

and an ultra-nationalist group
that controlled the country

through their equivalent of
the Gestapo - the Kempeitai.

The Japanese people heard
through loudspeakers

of the official declaration of
war against the United States.

These Japanese pilots, who
took off from Indochina,

eating breakfast in the air, were
seeking out two British battleships

that had come to protect
Singapore - the elderly Repulse

and one of the most modern
combat ships of the time,

HMS Prince Of Wales,

the pride of the Royal Navy.

Three days after Pearl Harbour,

they were both sunk by the
Japanese in less than an hour.

10th December, 1941,

a catastrophic day for British
naval power in the Far East.

The following day in Berlin,
Hitler went to the Reichstag

for a special meeting
of Nazi leaders.

For four days after
Pearl Harbour,

Hitler had been waiting for Roosevelt
to declare war on Germany.

But no declaration came.

Hitler thought that if
he sided with Japan,

Tokyo would have to
support him in Russia.

So the Fuhrer declared
war on America.

The German generals, however,
were far from enthusiastic,

and Ribbentrop the foreign minister,
had tried to dissuade Hitler,

but Hitler was the one
who made the decisions.

And so Nazi Germany was at
war with the United States.

Hitler proclaimed, "We know what
powers stand behind Roosevelt.

"It's the eternal Jew.

"I am grateful to the German
people for designating me

"to lead this historic
struggle that will determine

"the history of the world for the
next ten centuries to come."

Prime Minister Winston Churchill
rushed to Washington.

He said to Roosevelt, "We're
all in the same boat now."

This was the moment he'd been
waiting for for the last two years.

Roosevelt had wanted
to show his electorate

that he had done everything
he could to keep the peace,

but the war had become a world war,
and Churchill now felt stronger.

What kind of a people
do they think we are?

Is it possible that they do not
realise that we shall never cease

to persevere against them until
they have been taught a lesson

which they and the world
will never forget?

APPLAUSE

EXPLOSION

But the war would get a lot
worse before it got better.

War was now raging
in the Pacific

but the Allies had severely
underestimated their Japanese enemy.

Hong Kong fell in
just a few days.

General Yamashita, known as the
Japanese Rommel, sent his tanks

down through the Malayan jungle.

Within weeks, he had
captured Singapore,

the pearl of the British Empire,

a stronghold that was
considered impregnable.

Yamashita made 27,000 prisoners

line up in perfect order
for a humiliating review.

The general paused for
a chivalrous salute

to a Japanese propaganda crew.

General Yamashita would be
hung for war crimes in 1946.

His prisoners, crowded
into horrendous camps,

would die of hunger, tropical
diseases and brutal maltreatment.

They were forced to build the railway
that would take the Japanese

one step closer to India,
including the construction of

the infamous bridge
over the River Kwai.

Louis Baume, a British mountaineer who was
taken prisoner in Singapore, remembered.

'The Japanese felt
disdain for us.

'They didn't understand why we
hadn't committed hara-kiri.'

General MacArthur, commander
of US forces in the

Philippines, which were
surrounded by the Japanese,

was ordered by Roosevelt to escape
so as not to be taken prisoner.

As he left, he declared,
"I shall return."

MacArthur's soldiers
were taken prisoner.

30,000 Americans, with their old
First World War doughboy helmets,

and an equal number
of Filipinos,

set off for an internment
camp 60 miles away.

This became known as the
Bataan Death March.

One of the survivors,
Sydney Stewart, recalled:

We marched for ten days and
nights without eating.

We were constantly beaten.

Those who could no longer go on

were killed by the guards, who
beheaded them with a sword.

Such cruelty was explained
by the Japanese warrior code

that was particular
to their culture.

Surrender was
incomprehensible to them.

A Japanese soldier was
told never to surrender.

He was trained to fight from
childhood according to the tradition

of Bushido, the art of
killing and of being killed.

An officer in the Imperial Navy,
Matsui Fushida, explained:

Bushido can be translated
as the Way of the Warrior.

It is a code of loyalty,

faithfulness and
devotion until death.

We scorn death.

We kill with great cruelty as long
as it is the enemy we are killing.

We scorn physical pain, we
scorn death without glory.

Bushido is the art of death.

In just five months,
Japan destroyed

the Allied forces in the Far East
and conquered half of the Pacific.

Banzai!

Japanese soldiers chanted, "Banzai!
Long live the Emperor!"

Screaming, "Banzai," the Japanese carried
out their own version of a lightning war.

General Tojo and the Emperor

made a public appearance
to mark the victories.

In Britain, the RAF still
had to defend the country

from occasional German raiders, but
Churchill knew that to win the war

he would have to take the
offensive, to hit back at Germany.

Churchill and Roosevelt both agreed
on a strategy of Germany First,

that their original objective
must be to defeat Germany.

Churchill decided to launch a
bombing campaign against Germany.

RAF Bomber Command was led by

Air Marshal Harris,
nicknamed Bomber Harris.

His policy was to bomb German
cities in order to destroy

the morale of the people.

Harris believed he
could win the war

with his big four-engined
Halifaxes and Lancasters.

His strategy was criticised

for being costly in terms
of men and equipment.

But it began to take a
toll on German cities.

On 8th March 1942,
Essen was bombed.

The city produced weapons used
by the German forces in Russia.

This was a way for
Churchill to help Stalin.

The Germans began to suffer the
consequences of Hitler's policies

and the Nazi regime began its
descent into murderous insanity.

Hitler, Goering, Himmler,
and his assistant Heydrich,

decided to implement what they
called the Final Solution.

The extermination of
the Jews in Europe.

Heydrich started to organise

the rounding-up of Jews
across occupied Europe.

Hundreds of thousands were sent
to the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

In Auschwitz, more than one million
people were systematically murdered.

Thousands of Jews were crowded
into fake showers and then gassed.

After the Holocaust
by bullets in Russia,

the genocide intensified.

In Paris, and everywhere
else in Europe,

the occupation brought poverty.

Everything was rationed.

And much of what each
occupied country produced

went to feed the German army,
a huge burden to bear.

The fathers of these boys
were prisoners in Germany,

Stalag camps for enlisted men and
Oflag camps for the officers.

Gaston Cyrec, imprisoned
in June 1940, wrote:

I wasted the five best years
of my life in that Stalag.

From 20 to 25,

without my wife.

In exile in London, General de Gaulle
embodied the French Resistance

and in France attacks against the
German occupiers were on the rise.

In retaliation,
hostages were executed.

The occupation of Europe was about
to turn increasingly brutal.

In early 1942 in this global
conflict, the Axis Powers,

the alliance between Germany, Italy
and Japan dominated on all fronts.

The Afrika Korps was
just outside Egypt.

The Wehrmacht occupied
a third of Russia.

The Imperial Navy
of Japan controlled

the Pacific and Germany's submarines
were wreaking havoc in the Atlantic.

Germany's most dangerous weapon
was definitely the U-boat.

In the first few months of 1942,
the U-boats sank 4 million tonnes

of Allied shipping, including oil
tankers, freighters loaded with arms

and ammunition and vessels with fresh
supplies for a struggling Britain.

Even though the United States
had joined the conflict,

the Allies seem to
be losing the war.

The world was on the
brink of total chaos.

The German submariners
describe this

as the happy time and called the
American shores the promised land.

Through their periscopes,

they filmed the bright
lights of New York.

TRAFFIC NOISE AND MUSIC

'We have information
that a squadron...'

The American newspapers
and radios went wild,

spreading panic and fear
of German air-raids.

In reality, planes did not yet

have the range to hit
America from Europe.

Still, the population was told
to black out their lights.

But it was the West Coast,
where the idea of a Japanese

attack seemed more plausible,
that was overtaken by hysteria.

Suddenly, 120,000 Japanese
Americans became suspect.

First, their radios
were confiscated.

And then the local sheriffs
took their fingerprints.

Then the government proclaimed
emergency measures.

Roosevelt declared,

"I admit that it violates
the constitution,

"but it is a
military necessity".

And yet it these Americans of
Japanese ancestry had lived for

generations in California, where
they contributed to the agriculture

and economy of the state.

Most of them were US citizens.

They were given 48 hours to
sell their shops and houses.

They were then evacuated in
groups to relocation centres,

far away in the deserts of Utah,
or up in the snows of Oregon.

Centres euphemistically
called internment camps.

But, which were horribly reminiscent
of another kind of camp.

A shadow across the
reputation of the US.

But nothing diminished the loyalty
of these Japanese Americans.

6,000 served as translators
in the Pacific.

Nearly 20,000 signed up to
fight the Germans in Europe.

The rest would be freed
at the end of the war.

In 1942, America rallied
around its flag.

11 million men enlisted, 6 million
women went to work to replace them

in the armament factories.

Roosevelt set production
targets at 60,000 aircraft.

75,000 tanks and 10
million tonnes of ships.

This was a victory programme.

But victory was uncertain
and very far off.

American opinion was flagging and an
exploit was needed to shore it up.

A daring plan was drawn
up to bomb Japan.

An aircraft carrier, the
USS Hornet sailed as

close to Japan as was possible,
with a squadron of B25 bombers.

This was the first
time such large

planes had attempted to take off
from the compact deck of a carrier.

The air crews were trained by

Air Force Colonel, Jimmy Doolittle,
who had been a famous racing pilot.

He commanded the raid.

Their challenge was
to get airborne

for the long flight to Japan,
fully laden with bombs and fuel.

WHIRRING OF ENGINES

Somehow, they succeeded
in taking off.

Their mission was celebrated in

a popular feature film,
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.

They dropped only a few tons of
bombs and caused only minor damage,

but it was a huge slap in the face
for the Empire of the Rising Sun.

One of the aircraft went
down in Japanese territory.

The vengeance was fierce.

Tried for war crimes, the
crew were sentenced to death.

For the Prime Minister, General
Tojo and for Admiral Yamamoto,

the American raid proved it was
necessary to extend their defensive

perimeter further east.

They made a plan to take Midway,

an American military base in
the middle of the Pacific

and then capture Pearl Harbor,

as they had failed to
do six months earlier.

What the Japanese did not know was
that the Americans had successfully

broken their secret military code
and so were aware of the plan.

As a result, the US Commander in
Chief, Admiral Chester Nimitz, was

able to prepare
to defend Midway.

He had fewer aircraft carriers
than Yamamoto, but he gathered

them together in an ambush.

Admiral Yamamoto commanded the
biggest armada ever put together.

200 warships with eight aircraft
carriers and nearly 600 planes.

On board were 5,000
Japanese marines.

And a painter who had come along
to immortalise the battle, Fujita.

Before the war in Paris,

he had been a famous artist and had
returned to Japan to do his duty.

On the American side, it was the
eminent Hollywood director,

John Ford who immortalised the
defence of Midway Island on film.

Filming the men on the eve of the
battle they knew was coming,

Ford made it look like one of his
Westerns before the big shoot-out.

At 5am on the morning
of the 7th June, 1942,

Ford filmed the first
Japanese attack,

which devastated
the American base.

SHELLS SQUEAL

A Japanese bomb exploded a little
too close to the film makers,

seriously wounding
Ford, who lost an eye.

In the jeep taking him to the
hospital, Ford came to and said,

"My God, that one was close".

MACHINE GUN FIRES

Then he explained, "the Marines with
me, they were kids from 18 to 22

"and they were the calmest
people I have ever seen.

"I figured then, well, this
war is practically won".

The pilots on board the US aircraft
carriers were not much older.

They were barely out of college.

They paused for John Ford's
cameramen and then took off

to attack the Japanese fleet.

The 8th Torpedo
Squadron struck first.

ENGINES DRONE

One of its pilots,

25 year-old Lieutenant George Gay,
nose-dived over the Japanese fleet.

RAPID HEAVY GUNFIRE

The anti-aircraft guns and the
Japanese aircraft carriers

shot down the American
planes one after another.

EXPLOSION

GUNFIRE

George Gay flew low
over the waves.

He had been shot down.

He surfaced in the water,
miraculously unhurt.

A few hundred yards away he could
see the feverish activity on board

the Japanese aircraft carriers.

Aircraft were being fuelled up
and bombs loaded in preparation

for their second wave of attack.

At that very moment, when
the Japanese carriers

were most vulnerable, another
squadron of US bombers arrived

over the Japanese ships.

It was an incredible stroke of
luck for the American pilots,

who sank four Japanese
aircraft carriers.

George Gay, still in the
water, witnessed the drama.

"I found myself in the middle of the
Japanese wrecks and the sharks.

"I saw the Japanese
planes coming

"back from their first
attack on Midway.

"They were looking for their aircraft
carriers, the ones we'd just sunk.

"So I saw the Japanese
pilots who had

"by now run out of fuel,
landing in the water".

George Gay was finally rescued
by an American destroyer.

He went on to become
an airline pilot.

The US aircraft carrier, Yorktown,
had been damaged by the Japanese.

The wounded were being tended
to on the flight deck,

and the carrier set about
to return to its base.

But next morning, it was torpedoed
by the Japanese submarine, I168.

The Americans had lost
an aircraft carrier.

♪ The Last Post

But the Japanese had lost four.

This was the first Japanese defeat
and it boosted Allied morale.

"It restored our
confidence", said Churchill.

But it didn't seem to
have weakened Japan.

Defeated at Midway in the
middle of the Pacific,

Japanese forces continued to
advance south towards Australia.

Darwin, the northernmost city in
Australia had already been bombed

by the Japanese and was now
preparing for an invasion -

the Continent's first war.

SHOUTING

But the Americans were now focused
on the island of Guadalcanal.

One of their reconnaissance planes
had discovered the Japanese were

building an airfield on the island,
posing a great threat to Australia.

So the Americans launched what would
be the first of many landings

in the Pacific War.

On 7th August 1942, US Marines
landed in Guadalcanal.

Initially, they didn't
encounter any resistance

and headed into the jungle.

One of them, Edwin
Morgan, observed...

We were getting to
know the jungle.

It was full of suspicious
noises that were frightening,

and I was afraid.

But we said to ourselves,

"There's no reason for the
Japanese to be better than us.

"They all live in cities.

"There are no jungles in Japan."

The marines were professionals,
and the Japanese were fanatics.

The Japanese were so confident
of their superiority

that they charged
with fixed bayonets,

just like in the First
World War at the Somme,

against machine gun fire...

..with the same result as
at the Somme - a bloodbath.

900 Japanese soldiers were killed
in the Battle of Tenaru River.

The marines were then able
to capture the airfield.

They secured it and enlarged the
runway for the first planes

of the Marine air force, called
the Black Sheep Squadron.

The airfield became the target of
repeated shellings by the Japanese,

and at night, their cruisers used
to sail up and down the coast

and pound the Americans
with such regularity

that the marines called
them the Tokyo Express.

Despite winning a victory
in the sea of Guadalcanal,

an elite Japanese regiment
still got through to reinforce

the garrison on the island.

These Japanese marines
were fearsome warriors,

but they had not been
issued with any defence

against tropical diseases.

Malaria killed half of them.

The other half would
sacrifice themselves

in keeping with the
Bushido tradition.

Their commander, Colonel Ichiki,

reminded them of the Samurai
motto, "Duty is heavy

"like a mountain, but a soldier's
death is light like a feather."

The jungle on Guadalcanal proved
to be a deadly killing ground

for both sides.

The US Marines felt as if they
were trapped in what they called,

"A green hell."

They, too, became ill and
their wounds became infected.

But the fighting went on for six
months in a bitter war of attrition.

On the other side of the
world on the Eastern Front,

the Red Army was going
through its own ordeal.

The Russians called it the
black summer of 1942.

The Germans had resumed
their march eastwards

and were taking prisoners again.

But this time, the Soviet
soldiers tried to get away

before being captured

and left nothing but
scorched earth behind them.

Hitler thought they were fleeing,
but this was an order from Stalin.

Yet for the soldiers
of the Wehrmacht,

a fierce battle had to be
waged for every single town.

Major Hawke of the 18th
Infantry Regiment wrote...

The new recruits are not used
to this kind of fighting.

They soon get depressed, go
crazy and are struck down.

On August 8th, we lost
35 young men like this

out of the 50 who were
killed in the 6th Company.

Into this quagmire Hitler
threw everything he had -

a total of five million men.

But he estimated that he still
needed 800,000 more men

to win the campaign,

so Hitler called on his Romanian,
Hungarian and Italian allies

to provide the rest,

and most of these men were
forced to go and fight for him.

Sieg Heil!

The Italians, thrown into this
war by Mussolini's megalomania,

suffered dreadfully.

Out of 300,000,

only 10,000 ever returned home.

Hitler's goal was no longer
Moscow but southern Russia.

He was planning a
colossal pincer movement

that would sweep through the
oilfields in the Caucasus,

linking up with Rommel
advancing through Egypt

and the oilfields
of the Middle East.

Hitler's other goal was Stalingrad,
Stalin's city, and its factories.

Hitler launched both
offensives at the same time.

This alarmed his
military commanders.

Hitler split up his forces, just as
he had done in the previous year.

One part of the Wehrmacht advanced
deep into the Russian steppe.

General von Kleist remarked...

"In front of me, no enemies.

"Behind me, no reserves."

They reached the Caucasus mountains
and headed for the Iranian border,

which had become a supply route for
American aid to the Soviet Union.

But they never got there.

Meanwhile, the rest of the
German forces, the 6th Army,

led by General von Paulus, was
advancing towards Stalingrad.

To try to stop the relentless
advance of the German tanks,

the Russians began to
use desperate means...

dogs.

The Russians had hastily
put together a technique

based on the work of the
famous scientist Pavlov

and his theory of
conditioned reflexes.

The dogs were starved and
trained to seek their food

under a tracked vehicle.

They were strapped up with
remote-controlled explosives

and freed at the last minute when
a German tank came into view.

BARKING

TANK APPROACHES

EXPLOSION

In August 1942,
Churchill and Harriman,

Roosevelt's ambassador, flew
to Moscow to meet with Stalin.

He was demanding that a second
front be opened in the west.

Churchill made his famous
"V for victory" sign,

but he was forced
to admit to Stalin

that the Allies were
not able to help him

against the Germans
on the Eastern Front.

Harriman promised aid and
equipment, but Stalin was furious.

He knew that for the time being, he
would have to fight Hitler alone.

So he assigned the
defence of Stalingrad

to one of his most
ruthless henchmen,

the Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev,

who'd been responsible for
several of Stalin's massacres

before the war.

Khrushchev passed on Stalin's
order not to retreat.

He would have 15,000 men
shot for lack of courage.

But even he was unable to
stop the German advance

from arriving in the
outskirts of Stalingrad.

At the beginning
of September 1942,

Paulus reached the main
railway line to Moscow.

He followed the line all
the way to Stalingrad

and took the central
train station.

GUNFIRE

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

The Stukas prepared
to dive-bomb the city

that was the pride
of the Soviet Union,

the greatest industrial city
in the communist world.

It had been built to
look after the workers,

with its garden estates
and its model factories.

AIR RAID SIRENS

The German bombs killed
thousands of civilians.

AIRPLANE ENGINES

The mammoth tractor factory where
T-34 tanks had been manufactured

was reduced to a pile of rubble.

Yet these ruins then became
blockhouses and fortresses

that the Germans had
to capture one by one

in intense hand-to-hand combat.

And they suffered
heavy casualties,

but nothing compared
to the Russian losses.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

SHOTS FIRED

GUNSHOT

After four weeks of
dogged fighting,

the Germans finally got to the top
of the only high point in the city,

Mamayev hill.

From here, they could look
out over most of Stalingrad.

Then, on 15th October 1942,

the Germans reached
their next goal -

the great Russian
river, the Volga.

Only a thin strip
of land was left,

still held by a few
Soviet fighters.

General Paulus informed Hitler

that the swastika was
flying over the city,

now occupied by the 6th Army.

Hitler had a special medal
made to commemorate

the capture of Stalingrad.

He was delighted.

Hitler gathered his henchmen together
- Goering, Goebbels,

Himmler and other devotees - and
announced the good news, saying,

"I wanted to take that
city, Stalin's city.

"It's finally ours.

"Ships can no longer
sail up the Volga.

"This is the most
important thing."

But in Stalingrad itself, the
battle was far from over.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd