The Pacific War in Color (2018): Season 1, Episode 1 - An Ocean Apart - full transcript
The Pacific Ocean is also known as "The Peaceful Sea," and color footage of some of its remote American outposts taken in the late-1930s captures a world of fun and sun. But a wave of war ...
Johnny and Pauline
Falk are adventurous travelers.
In 1937, they board the Pan Am
Clipper in San Francisco Bay.
Pan Am has just begun the
first commercial air service
across the Pacific.
It’s no simple task.
The small float plane
faces an 8200-mile flight path.
It pushes the
limits of its range...
to fly between tiny dots
scattered across the great sea.
Airborne at last,
Pauline writes in her diary.
The flight is so smooth,
there is no feeling about it.
After 19 hours,
they make their first landing.
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
This American
territory is barely American.
Its people are more
rooted in the Pacific.
Next stop -- Midway.
Johnny films an idyllic scene
on an island that
will soon become infamous.
The gooney birds are
marvelous in the sand dunes.
Their home movies
from the Smithsonian Archives
are among the first color images
of these remote
American outposts.
Then -- Wake Island.
It’s uninhabited
until Pan Am turns it
into a first class way station.
It’s another 11 hours
over the open sea -- to Guam.
The most tropical place yet.
Drove to Agana,
the largest town.
A small
military base protects
20,000 American nationals.
The Falks film smiling
kids parading in uniform.
Their next stop will
be a much longer stay.
I find it
difficult to leave Manila.
The Philippines have been
in U.S. hands since 1898.
It’s America’s most
distant territory --
the edge of a young
empire, defined in neon.
Past Manila, the Falks
finally escape America’s reach.
Nothing looks familiar.
In Hong Kong harbor, ships
have sails like seashells.
In China, the
boats are simpler...
and the people are spellbinding.
Finally, exactly two
months after leaving home,
they reach their
final destination.
Japan.
Johnny and Pauline’s
journey is remarkable,
and their path is prophetic.
They have crossed an
ocean that Ferdinand Magellan
named "Mar Pacifico,"
the peaceful sea.
But a wave of war will soon
obliterate the Falk’s footsteps,
replacing scenes of peace
with scenes of a cataclysm
no one can yet imagine.
It looked
like you’re headed for hell.
Because you were.
My heart was
beating 1,000 times a minute.
They didn’t
want to be captured.
It was either us... or them.
Coming towards
us was a Japanese plane,
just skimming over the water.
My eyes
were paining with oil.
But we got a rope,
and were taken aboard.
The beach was a mountain.
We didn’t think
of ourselves as heroes.
It’s not
just what I remember.
It’s what I’ll never forget.
Philadelphia, 1939.
There’s a buzz building
inside Municipal Stadium.
A marching band warms up the
crowd on a chilly December day.
Then, military
formations fill the field.
First the Army, then the Navy.
Once the field is
clear, the battle begins.
This is the first known color
film of the Army Navy game.
Colonel Wilbur Dockum
shoots from his corner seat.
Dockum also films his Army
unit training at West Point.
In 1939, America’s
military is not very robust.
All the services combined
have about 600,000 men.
Back at the warehouse,
everything looks dated --
right out of World War I.
The average foot
soldier still carries
a 1903 Springfield rifle.
Training is sincere,
but not always serious.
I was a radio man.
I only fired my rifle once
the whole damn
time I was in the Army.
The Army figures
less than half of its troops
are properly trained.
They’re barely literate.
Seventy-five percent
haven’t finished high school,
and 41 percent never started it.
Americans greet their military
with a collective shrug.
When Dockum’s unit
parades through town,
few people stop to watch.
It’s more sideshow
than show of force.
Dockum captures it
all on color film,
a recent invention
for home movie buffs --
and combat cameramen.
I was carrying two hand cameras.
We were laying on the
beach, watching this --
guys were
getting blown to pieces.
In the 1930s, America
is a fragmented society.
About the only thing
everyone faces in common
are the fierce headwinds
of the Great Depression.
Some of America’s future
soldiers are still school kids.
Armand Maffuccio hustles
to make a few extra bucks
for his family of
Italian immigrants.
I’d get up early
and work with the baker first.
Then after school, I’d go back
and help him make the bread.
For a few dollars, you’d go
anyplace. You just go get it.
Michael Kuryla
frequents the movie house
to follow the war
already raging in Europe.
At the movies, they’d
show newsreels
showing the fleet
and all the warships
in a row out there in the ocean.
In 1940,
Americans re-elect
President Franklin Roosevelt,
banking on his promise
to stay out of the war.
Many feel America should
solve its own problems first.
My dad didn’t have any work.
A lot of times we were wondering
where our next
meal would come from.
Most people think going to war
will be an
economic step backward.
Two thirds think it will make
the next generation worse off.
America’s focus is inward.
Most live out
their lives without
venturing much beyond the
horizon of their own needs.
But in a few months,
some will venture
farther than they ever dreamed.
We had
never gone anywhere.
Once we got away from
home, it was a different world.
Shanghai, China.
Here, cultures intersect.
It’s a Chinese city with an
American and British settlement.
Streets reveal a
global mix of carts and cars.
It’s an
international crossroads,
but Japan has it
in its crosshairs.
In 1937, they invade.
Their own film shows parts of
Shanghai crumbling in a heap.
Japan seizes the
Chinese portion,
surrounding the westerners.
Then Japan storms another city.
They overwhelm
Chinese forces within days...
then massacre up
to 300,000 citizens.
It becomes known as
the Rape of Nanking.
The Chinese try to
carry on -- amid the rubble.
The horrors linger like ghosts.
On this pockmarked building,
the invaders flaunt
their flag like a brand.
Japanese soldiers signal
a new imperial presence.
America wonders if
Japan’s ambition ends here --
or extends to one of
its own territories nearby.
Sirens in
Manila were going off.
We began to get a picture
that it wasn’t looking good.
When the Falks
visit the Philippines in 1937,
they stay at the Manila Hotel,
an upscale haven for
expats and foreigners.
As Pauline
enjoys the warm breeze
coming through the hotel window,
another family is living
upstairs in the penthouse.
Little Arthur, his mother
Jean, and his father Douglas.
These are the personal films
of General Douglas MacArthur.
He’s retired from the U.S. Army,
winding down his career
by serving as an advisor
to the Philippine government.
He oversees a joint force
of 130,000 Filipino
and American troops.
With adequate
protection this country
will flourish as a
brilliant product of democracy.
But protection is not adequate.
Filipino troops are barely
trained, and poorly equipped.
They had six shooter
pistols, believe it or not.
Colts.
They were so old you couldn’t
even get ammunition for them.
Robert Brown admits his
own American forces
aren’t much better off.
We had World War I
hand grenades.
You could pull the pins and
hit them with a baseball bat,
and they would not go off.
If war breaks out,
the Philippines
are in grave danger.
MacArthur wonders why 16
million American nationals
are barely protected.
The apparent disinterest
on the part of the United
States is incomprehensible.
But if Army officers
are worried, they don’t show it.
At a base south of Manila,
Americans carve out
a colonial playground.
Recreation includes
rousing games of bicycle polo.
There are some casualties.
An assignment in the Philippines
appears to be
mostly about fun and sun.
Soon, it will be about survival.
As I was going out
front, I got shot in the leg.
When I looked up, I got shot
again -- right through my nose.
The epicenter of
the coming earthquake is Japan.
Its proud history
stretches back 2,000 years.
It’s become wary of encroaching
western influence in Asia,
thinking they should be the ones
to lead the
continent into the future.
But Japan is also stuck
in the Great Depression,
and many think expansion is the
only way to crawl out of it.
People were
looking for a breakthrough
because times were hard
and no one thought of
war in a realistic way.
By 1940 the
military controls Japan.
They have 1.5
million men in uniform --
more than double
America’s forces.
The manpower comes from within.
The raw materials come
from its growing empire.
They lacked
sugar, so they took Formosa.
They lacked iron, so
they took Manchuria.
They lacked hard coal and
timber, so they invaded China.
They lacked
security, so they took Korea.
They intended, by
force of arms if necessary,
to establish an economic sphere
completely under
their own control.
But waves
of Japanese expansion
have yet to reach here.
Hawaii.
The famous
crossroads sign in Honolulu
shows just how far
it is -- from anywhere.
In 1941, the U.S.
Navy base at Pearl Harbor
is just about the only sign that
it’s an American territory.
Mostly, Hawaii
hums to its own tune.
This is the pre-war footage
of Francis Raymond Line,
a traveling filmmaker.
His color film unspools
like a perfect travel brochure.
We discovered a dozen rainbows --
some even two at a time.
Our camera drank in
scenes of the harvest.
And cattle being
loaded by rope and derrick
onto ships off shore
at the Parker Ranch.
Hawaii has its
own way of doing things.
It’s not used to
cultural convulsions.
Change usually
comes on the slow boat.
Francis Line’s film
paints Hawaii as nearly perfect.
It’s paradise framed
by crashing waves --
a roaring perimeter with
wondrous views of the Pacific
curving out of sight.
Beyond Hawaii’s horizon line,
Japanese cameras film an armada
secretly slicing its
way through the Pacific.
It’s December 6th, 1941.
The American military is on
alert, but not up to speed.
On this very day, one unit
has no hand
grenades to practice with.
Instead, they throw eggs.
Also on December 6th, newspaper
ads call on congressmen
to keep America out of
the war across the Atlantic.
It’s the other ocean
that’s about to explode.
Pearl Harbor goes to
sleep, innocent and unscathed,
for the last time.
The next morning,
one colonel is up early,
and assumes he’s
watching a military exercise.
Very realistic maneuvers.
I wonder what the
Marines are doing to the Navy
so early on Sunday.
This is considered
the only color footage
of the attack on Pearl Harbor,
shot by sailor Clyde Daughtry.
The film is badly damaged,
but the chaos is clear.
William Lockey is just one
week out of basic training,
aboard the USS New Orleans.
I said, let’s get the guns loaded!
They said, we got no ammunition.
Who’s got the
key? We don’t know!
Surprised sailors fire
their anti-aircraft guns wildly,
killing some
civilians up in the hills.
Radio stations begin
shouting that it’s not a drill.
The city of Honolulu
has also been attacked...
It is no joke. It is a real war.
USS is listing badly.
One sailor on deck
is shot through the face
by a strafing Japanese plane.
Other crews are
faring far worse.
USS Shaw
bursts into a fireball.
The boys
were out there in the water
in all that oil.
They’d come up, knock
the oil out of their way
and catch a
breath, then go back down.
In one
hour and fifteen minutes,
Japan damages or sinks nineteen
ships, and kills 2,400.
The news ripples
outward like a shock wave.
A Pam Am Clipper
full of tourists is out
over the Pacific --
which is suddenly a war zone.
They turn off their lights...
blacken their windows...
and change course.
All over the country,
military phones light up.
Jack Lent is on
duty in San Diego.
Some colonel was on the phone.
He said, "You get
your commanding officer
and tell him that Pearl
Harbor has just been bombed."
I said, "Yes, sir!
What’s Pearl Harbor?"
Behind
closed doors on a Sunday,
President Roosevelt is composing
a short speech in his head.
He resists advice
to give it today.
Instead, Eleanor Roosevelt
steps up to a microphone
and gives the first
official American response.
You cannot escape anxiety,
you cannot escape the
clutch of fear at your heart.
And yet I hope
that the certainty
of what we have to meet
will make you rise
above these fears.
Many Americans do not.
The FBI switchboard
lights up with calls
reporting suspicious
behavior of Japanese Americans.
In New York City,
Japanese restaurant owners
tell their patrons
to finish their meals.
Then they shutter their doors
and drive each other
home in convoys for safety.
In San Francisco,
people report everything
from strange
airplanes in the sky...
to shady men on the streetcars.
Sirens wail for
no apparent reason.
In Seattle, 2,000
people descend upon downtown
to enforce a blackout.
It devolves into looting.
In Hawaii, radio
stations declare
the islands are
now under martial law.
Then they order a
complete blackout.
Turn out your lights.
This means the whole territory.
Turn out your lights
and do not turn them on
for any purpose whatsoever.
America is on its
heels, and Japan isn’t finished.
The next 48
hours shock the world.
Just hours after
attacking Pearl Harbor...
the Japanese
launch a surprise assault
on the American
base on Wake Island.
Fearing a land invasion,
a Pan Am Clipper captain jams
70 civilians onto his plane.
Way overweight, the plane
finally gets off the water --
on the third try.
Then Japan bombs the
U.S. military base on Guam
that the Falks
filmed a few years earlier.
In three days,
they capture the island
and take 20,000
American nationals prisoner.
Also on December 7th, Japan
invades the Gilbert Islands,
a British colony.
They also fall in three days.
Japanese forces on the
way back from Pearl Harbor...
shell Midway Island.
Repelling fire
drives them off...
but not before the
American base takes a hit.
Japan is thrusting a sword deep
into the Central Pacific --
a violent blitz that
takes the ocean by storm.
At the same time, Japan’s own
film captures a surge into Asia.
They begin bombing the
Philippines on December 8th.
On the same day
they invade Thailand...
and soon roll into Bangkok.
They attack the British colonies
of Hong Kong and Singapore.
And they storm
the rest of Shanghai,
overrunning the
British and American enclave.
Stuck on a small base in China
is a company of U.S. Marines --
now completely
surrounded by the Japanese.
Superiors order them to
surrender without a fight.
Sergeant Robert Smith
marches into captivity,
as the victors
switch out the flag.
Look what’s up there
now. A flaming red asshole.
Before the world can react,
Japan cleaves its
way into Southeast Asia.
They light the fuse of
war all around the Pacific.
In Japan, many
citizens are flush with pride.
But there’s an
undercurrent of anxiety.
We were assured we
would not have to worry.
America was a democratic nation,
and so would
disintegrate and collapse.
They can’t unite
for a common purpose.
One blow against them,
and they’ll fall to pieces.
Back in Washington,
Roosevelt addresses Congress.
Yesterday, December 7th...
First, he makes
a few last-minute revisions.
... a date
which will live in infamy.
For years, the nation
felt stuck. Now it feels stung.
There is no blinking at the fact
that our people, our
territory, and our interests
are in grave danger.
America is at war.
Most didn’t want it. But
most will have to join it.
Either in support at
home, or in uniform beyond.
There were college men
who joined the
service that very day.
They left letters with
the manager of the dormitory
and they took off.
The feeling of the moment was,
I would like to fly a plane and
drop a bomb on the bastards.
That trip to West
Virginia to have my physical
was the first time I was
ever out of the state of Ohio.
Roughest
ride I ever had in my life.
Like traveling on a
gravel road for 2,000 miles.
I swear they had square wheels.
My examination
took probably 30 seconds.
Drop my pants;
check forward and aft;
check and see if I’m breathing;
son, you’re ready to go.
I didn’t pass because
the guy handed me a book
and said "Read the
numbers." I only saw dots.
He said, "I can’t take
you. You’re colorblind."
I said, "What am
I supposed to see?"
He said, "A
three, five, and nine."
So I hitchhiked to
Indianapolis... got in line...
They gave me the
same book and I said,
"I see a three, five, and nine."
They said, "You’re in."
Armand Maffucio,
the kid who baked his way
through the depression,
joins the Navy.
They don’t waste his talent.
All we made was
the bread, rolls, and desserts
for the crew. Of course,
there were 2,000 sailors.
Michael Kuryla,
who admired Navy ships
in the newsreels,
also takes the plunge.
They gave us
our uniforms and everything.
They gave us our caps.
Then they’d give
us our haircuts,
and the caps didn’t fit anymore.
Our ears were holding them up.
First stop -- the pool.
They practice treading water --
while someone tries
to hold them under.
But deeper water awaits
-- in an unlikely place.
These are cadets in
Northwestern University’s
Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s
School near Chicago.
They are called "90-day wonders"
because that’s how fast
the program is in wartime.
Lake Michigan isn’t
exactly the Pacific Ocean,
but it’ll have to do.
They study navigation.
And the fine art
of swabbing the deck.
They are literally
learning the ropes.
Finally, they practice
the choreography of gun work.
Now, they have time to
break it down, step by step.
Soon, they won’t.
They peeled off and dove on us.
They got close...
The Army picks a training spot
that could at least
pass for the Pacific.
The Florida swamp.
This is Wakulla
Springs near Tallahassee,
where Hollywood filmed
some of the jungle scenes
in Tarzan movies.
Now the Army is
filming its own recruits
trying to master an environment
more common in New
Guinea than North America.
The horrors of Pearl Harbor
inform a few of the drills.
Smoke-screen maneuvers.
Swimming around an oil fire.
This is not the Army
Thomas Baye had in mind.
I chose the Army over the Navy
because I’m scared of the water.
I didn’t know how to swim.
No one quite knows
what fighting across an ocean
will look like.
They ford a river by
making a hand bridge of rifles.
They use their tents and
poles to make a supply raft.
They practice
hiding from the enemy --
with synchronized ducking.
And, predictably,
they blow stuff up.
Underwater demolition teams
try to smooth the way
for a new kind of boat.
This is an early
amphibious vehicle --
a duck made by General Motors.
Driving through the
water is a novelty.
Soon it will be a necessity.
We walked
into a hornets’ nest.
I was thinking,
"How in the world
did I ever get
sucked into this mess?"
The Navy recruiting office
was jammed up
with 70 new recruits.
So I went around the corner
and the Marine Corps
had a little shingle out,
and I was it. There was no line.
The first thing we heard
when the bus came
through the gate that morning
was, "You’ll be sorry."
Before the war,
the Marine Corps was
struggling for relevance.
Some thought the Army
should just absorb it.
It was a service
without a purpose,
derided as the foster
home for Navy flunkies.
The first
three weeks were terrible.
They insisted on
teaching us how to walk,
and I felt we already knew.
The Marine Corps
wants to shed its reputation
as a military afterthought.
Instead of the weakest, they
want to become the toughest.
Every Marine,
before he was anything else,
was a rifleman.
If you’re a tank
driver, pilot, cook,
we don’t care what else you are.
First of all, you’re a rifleman.
They’ll be using their rifles
as part of a new tactic.
The amphibious assault.
The Marine Corps adopted this
doctrine only six years earlier,
with a publication called
"Tentative Manual
for Landing Operations."
They can’t afford to
be tentative anymore.
The doctrine was in search
of a war, and now it’s here --
just as they’re cracking
the book on how to do it.
As they rehearse storming
a beach in North Carolina,
it looks clunky.
This ramp door jams,
and Marines have to
pile out over the sides.
Some experts consider the
whole idea complete folly.
We had no idea in the world
how we were going to
use this type of training.
In 1940, there are
fewer than 30,000
active duty Marines.
Total.
In just three years,
that’ll be the number
invading a
single Pacific island.
None of these guys can
really see that coming.
We just thought the Japanese
couldn’t possibly
carry on a very long war.
We thought it would be
over in a matter of weeks.
The Japs whipped
us for three solid weeks.
We couldn’t move more
than two yards a day.
It was just hell day and night.
This is your ship. Look at her.
She’s a symbol of our
American industrial skill.
That skill
is now under the gun.
The Navy needs
thousands more ships. Fast.
In Portland, Oregon,
shipyards grow like weeds.
Industrialist Henry
Kaiser owns three of them.
This is Kaiser’s own film
of his Portland operation.
He builds mostly Liberty ships
-- cargo and transport vessels
that will carry the
war across the Pacific.
Workers come from
all over the country --
men, women, and entire families.
Kaiser builds a
town near Portland just
to house them all -- Vanport
City, population 42,000.
Many just call it "Kaiserville."
By the end of 1941, nearly half
of America’s heavy
industry workforce
is working on defense contracts.
Bullets in Indiana.
Rivets in Kansas City.
Parachutes in Utah.
But not all war weapons
are built from scratch.
War had exploded over
the entire world.
Every Pan American
route was now a war route.
The Pan Am Clipper,
the same airplane that brought
the Falks to Asia in peacetime,
becomes a wartime workhorse.
They’re still the only planes
that can carry a big
load across an ocean.
So the company becomes
a de-facto wing of
the U.S military --
and all crews get
new uniforms to match.
As soon as I was
outfitted in these uniforms,
they took my picture
for my personnel folder.
We called them our
"obituary photos."
You can guess why.
As Clippers
get baptized into war
with a new camouflage paint job,
the world awaits
Japan’s next move.
It’s eyeing up more
islands to expand its empire.
Java and Timor have
important resources to harvest.
Standing in the way is the small
air and naval base in Darwin.
On a sunny Thursday morning,
Japan slashes into
Northern Australia.
By the time sailor Monty
Tuckerman grabs his camera,
the Japanese planes are gone.
It’s the only color footage
of the raid on Darwin --
a surprise attack considered
to be Australia’s Pearl Harbor.
With one big crash
they dropped their entire loads.
With a noise like the
roll of heavy thunder,
red and yellow
flame shot into the air.
Eleven ships
belch out their last breath
of acrid smoke before
disappearing undersea.
The Japanese don’t
stop at the harbor.
They bomb buildings in town.
People run for the
hills, fearing a land invasion.
The attack kills 235
and injures hundreds more.
All in a town of only 2,000.
Clouds of war now rise
over a nervous Australia --
a nation right in the shadows
of an expanding and
unpredictable empire.
Newsreels from the Philippines
show Japanese arriving in waves
-- and Americans
scattering like ants.
They handed each one of us a can.
I got a can of cherries.
And they said, disperse.
I mean, we just dispersed.
We didn’t know what
the hell we were doing.
There’s no color footage
of the brutal fight
for the Philippines.
Cornered on the
Bataan peninsula,
Americans have little
food and no reinforcements.
MacArthur holds
out on Corregidor.
Japanese film shows
their overwhelming advantage.
Soon, they’re
celebrating in Manila.
MacArthur and his
family escape to Australia
as Corregidor falls.
Those left in the Philippines
are no longer
enjoying a sunny deployment.
They’re enduring
their darkest nightmare.
These very boys are now
dead, starving, or captured.
That was
something I told my mother
that would never happen.
I’d be behind the front lines.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
Japan has uncoiled a
ferocious multi-pronged attack
across land and sea
in several directions.
The U.S. is still creating its
wartime organizational chart.
Roosevelt puts
the Southwest Pacific
into General MacArthur’s hands.
He’s already
glaring at the Philippines
with revenge in his eyes.
The vast open seas
of the Central Pacific
will be under Navy
Admiral Chester Nimitz.
The two men could
scarcely be more different.
Nimitz is a soft-spoken leader
by example who shuns attention.
He loathes PR men who
suggest he show more pizazz.
In contrast, MacArthur is a
man of sweeping statements,
grand gestures, and a fondness
for any recording
device that can capture them.
These top men
from the Army and Navy
now have the Pacific
War on their shoulders.
Like the football game
between their services,
it’ll be part
camaraderie, part competition.
But their boss
calls the first play.
Back in December,
President Roosevelt
issued a secret order
after the Pearl Harbor attack:
Find a way to
strike back at Japan.
It takes four
months to figure out how.
The distance is daunting.
The technology is lacking.
But they pull together a plan
that’s part
bravado, part desperation.
Ships cut through a stormy
Pacific in radio silence --
just as the Japanese
did coming the other way.
American carriers
haven’t yet come of age.
This one’s only
big enough to launch
a scout plane with a catapult.
To bomb Japan, they’ll
have to launch a bigger plane
off this deck -- a B-25.
They’ve never tried it.
We hadn’t actually
flown off a carrier before.
I wondered -- could I get
out of that damn airplane
if we go off the
end of the flight deck?
Bombardier
Herb Macia scrapes the waves
and gets
airborne -- by a whisker.
There’s no turning back -- the
deck is too short to land on.
Sixteen planes are off to
Japan, on a wing and a prayer.
It’s called the Doolittle raid,
for the Colonel who leads it.
There’s no footage
of the raid itself.
Some bombs hit Tokyo,
but damage is minimal.
Most planes go on to
crash land in China.
As payback for Pearl
Harbor, it hardly rates.
America doesn’t care.
Doolittle
and his gallant men
shake the complacency
of the Japanese warlords.
It will take more than a few bombs
to win the Pacific War.
It will take
weapons yet to be built.
Teamwork yet to be tested.
And blood yet to be spilled.
For now, the combatants
remain an ocean apart.
But soon, the
Pacific War will move beyond
rushing across the
sea for sneak attacks.
Instead, it will
collide with gruesome force,
with young men meeting
face to face to slug it out.
I was scared to
death, ice water in my veins.
The only reason I could move was
because the rest of them were.
I am pleased
to think that I will die
in true samurai style.
I feel now like a
full-fledged warrior.
The stakes
are unblinkingly clear.
Succeed, and control
a third of the globe.
Fail, and crash into the abyss.
Falk are adventurous travelers.
In 1937, they board the Pan Am
Clipper in San Francisco Bay.
Pan Am has just begun the
first commercial air service
across the Pacific.
It’s no simple task.
The small float plane
faces an 8200-mile flight path.
It pushes the
limits of its range...
to fly between tiny dots
scattered across the great sea.
Airborne at last,
Pauline writes in her diary.
The flight is so smooth,
there is no feeling about it.
After 19 hours,
they make their first landing.
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
This American
territory is barely American.
Its people are more
rooted in the Pacific.
Next stop -- Midway.
Johnny films an idyllic scene
on an island that
will soon become infamous.
The gooney birds are
marvelous in the sand dunes.
Their home movies
from the Smithsonian Archives
are among the first color images
of these remote
American outposts.
Then -- Wake Island.
It’s uninhabited
until Pan Am turns it
into a first class way station.
It’s another 11 hours
over the open sea -- to Guam.
The most tropical place yet.
Drove to Agana,
the largest town.
A small
military base protects
20,000 American nationals.
The Falks film smiling
kids parading in uniform.
Their next stop will
be a much longer stay.
I find it
difficult to leave Manila.
The Philippines have been
in U.S. hands since 1898.
It’s America’s most
distant territory --
the edge of a young
empire, defined in neon.
Past Manila, the Falks
finally escape America’s reach.
Nothing looks familiar.
In Hong Kong harbor, ships
have sails like seashells.
In China, the
boats are simpler...
and the people are spellbinding.
Finally, exactly two
months after leaving home,
they reach their
final destination.
Japan.
Johnny and Pauline’s
journey is remarkable,
and their path is prophetic.
They have crossed an
ocean that Ferdinand Magellan
named "Mar Pacifico,"
the peaceful sea.
But a wave of war will soon
obliterate the Falk’s footsteps,
replacing scenes of peace
with scenes of a cataclysm
no one can yet imagine.
It looked
like you’re headed for hell.
Because you were.
My heart was
beating 1,000 times a minute.
They didn’t
want to be captured.
It was either us... or them.
Coming towards
us was a Japanese plane,
just skimming over the water.
My eyes
were paining with oil.
But we got a rope,
and were taken aboard.
The beach was a mountain.
We didn’t think
of ourselves as heroes.
It’s not
just what I remember.
It’s what I’ll never forget.
Philadelphia, 1939.
There’s a buzz building
inside Municipal Stadium.
A marching band warms up the
crowd on a chilly December day.
Then, military
formations fill the field.
First the Army, then the Navy.
Once the field is
clear, the battle begins.
This is the first known color
film of the Army Navy game.
Colonel Wilbur Dockum
shoots from his corner seat.
Dockum also films his Army
unit training at West Point.
In 1939, America’s
military is not very robust.
All the services combined
have about 600,000 men.
Back at the warehouse,
everything looks dated --
right out of World War I.
The average foot
soldier still carries
a 1903 Springfield rifle.
Training is sincere,
but not always serious.
I was a radio man.
I only fired my rifle once
the whole damn
time I was in the Army.
The Army figures
less than half of its troops
are properly trained.
They’re barely literate.
Seventy-five percent
haven’t finished high school,
and 41 percent never started it.
Americans greet their military
with a collective shrug.
When Dockum’s unit
parades through town,
few people stop to watch.
It’s more sideshow
than show of force.
Dockum captures it
all on color film,
a recent invention
for home movie buffs --
and combat cameramen.
I was carrying two hand cameras.
We were laying on the
beach, watching this --
guys were
getting blown to pieces.
In the 1930s, America
is a fragmented society.
About the only thing
everyone faces in common
are the fierce headwinds
of the Great Depression.
Some of America’s future
soldiers are still school kids.
Armand Maffuccio hustles
to make a few extra bucks
for his family of
Italian immigrants.
I’d get up early
and work with the baker first.
Then after school, I’d go back
and help him make the bread.
For a few dollars, you’d go
anyplace. You just go get it.
Michael Kuryla
frequents the movie house
to follow the war
already raging in Europe.
At the movies, they’d
show newsreels
showing the fleet
and all the warships
in a row out there in the ocean.
In 1940,
Americans re-elect
President Franklin Roosevelt,
banking on his promise
to stay out of the war.
Many feel America should
solve its own problems first.
My dad didn’t have any work.
A lot of times we were wondering
where our next
meal would come from.
Most people think going to war
will be an
economic step backward.
Two thirds think it will make
the next generation worse off.
America’s focus is inward.
Most live out
their lives without
venturing much beyond the
horizon of their own needs.
But in a few months,
some will venture
farther than they ever dreamed.
We had
never gone anywhere.
Once we got away from
home, it was a different world.
Shanghai, China.
Here, cultures intersect.
It’s a Chinese city with an
American and British settlement.
Streets reveal a
global mix of carts and cars.
It’s an
international crossroads,
but Japan has it
in its crosshairs.
In 1937, they invade.
Their own film shows parts of
Shanghai crumbling in a heap.
Japan seizes the
Chinese portion,
surrounding the westerners.
Then Japan storms another city.
They overwhelm
Chinese forces within days...
then massacre up
to 300,000 citizens.
It becomes known as
the Rape of Nanking.
The Chinese try to
carry on -- amid the rubble.
The horrors linger like ghosts.
On this pockmarked building,
the invaders flaunt
their flag like a brand.
Japanese soldiers signal
a new imperial presence.
America wonders if
Japan’s ambition ends here --
or extends to one of
its own territories nearby.
Sirens in
Manila were going off.
We began to get a picture
that it wasn’t looking good.
When the Falks
visit the Philippines in 1937,
they stay at the Manila Hotel,
an upscale haven for
expats and foreigners.
As Pauline
enjoys the warm breeze
coming through the hotel window,
another family is living
upstairs in the penthouse.
Little Arthur, his mother
Jean, and his father Douglas.
These are the personal films
of General Douglas MacArthur.
He’s retired from the U.S. Army,
winding down his career
by serving as an advisor
to the Philippine government.
He oversees a joint force
of 130,000 Filipino
and American troops.
With adequate
protection this country
will flourish as a
brilliant product of democracy.
But protection is not adequate.
Filipino troops are barely
trained, and poorly equipped.
They had six shooter
pistols, believe it or not.
Colts.
They were so old you couldn’t
even get ammunition for them.
Robert Brown admits his
own American forces
aren’t much better off.
We had World War I
hand grenades.
You could pull the pins and
hit them with a baseball bat,
and they would not go off.
If war breaks out,
the Philippines
are in grave danger.
MacArthur wonders why 16
million American nationals
are barely protected.
The apparent disinterest
on the part of the United
States is incomprehensible.
But if Army officers
are worried, they don’t show it.
At a base south of Manila,
Americans carve out
a colonial playground.
Recreation includes
rousing games of bicycle polo.
There are some casualties.
An assignment in the Philippines
appears to be
mostly about fun and sun.
Soon, it will be about survival.
As I was going out
front, I got shot in the leg.
When I looked up, I got shot
again -- right through my nose.
The epicenter of
the coming earthquake is Japan.
Its proud history
stretches back 2,000 years.
It’s become wary of encroaching
western influence in Asia,
thinking they should be the ones
to lead the
continent into the future.
But Japan is also stuck
in the Great Depression,
and many think expansion is the
only way to crawl out of it.
People were
looking for a breakthrough
because times were hard
and no one thought of
war in a realistic way.
By 1940 the
military controls Japan.
They have 1.5
million men in uniform --
more than double
America’s forces.
The manpower comes from within.
The raw materials come
from its growing empire.
They lacked
sugar, so they took Formosa.
They lacked iron, so
they took Manchuria.
They lacked hard coal and
timber, so they invaded China.
They lacked
security, so they took Korea.
They intended, by
force of arms if necessary,
to establish an economic sphere
completely under
their own control.
But waves
of Japanese expansion
have yet to reach here.
Hawaii.
The famous
crossroads sign in Honolulu
shows just how far
it is -- from anywhere.
In 1941, the U.S.
Navy base at Pearl Harbor
is just about the only sign that
it’s an American territory.
Mostly, Hawaii
hums to its own tune.
This is the pre-war footage
of Francis Raymond Line,
a traveling filmmaker.
His color film unspools
like a perfect travel brochure.
We discovered a dozen rainbows --
some even two at a time.
Our camera drank in
scenes of the harvest.
And cattle being
loaded by rope and derrick
onto ships off shore
at the Parker Ranch.
Hawaii has its
own way of doing things.
It’s not used to
cultural convulsions.
Change usually
comes on the slow boat.
Francis Line’s film
paints Hawaii as nearly perfect.
It’s paradise framed
by crashing waves --
a roaring perimeter with
wondrous views of the Pacific
curving out of sight.
Beyond Hawaii’s horizon line,
Japanese cameras film an armada
secretly slicing its
way through the Pacific.
It’s December 6th, 1941.
The American military is on
alert, but not up to speed.
On this very day, one unit
has no hand
grenades to practice with.
Instead, they throw eggs.
Also on December 6th, newspaper
ads call on congressmen
to keep America out of
the war across the Atlantic.
It’s the other ocean
that’s about to explode.
Pearl Harbor goes to
sleep, innocent and unscathed,
for the last time.
The next morning,
one colonel is up early,
and assumes he’s
watching a military exercise.
Very realistic maneuvers.
I wonder what the
Marines are doing to the Navy
so early on Sunday.
This is considered
the only color footage
of the attack on Pearl Harbor,
shot by sailor Clyde Daughtry.
The film is badly damaged,
but the chaos is clear.
William Lockey is just one
week out of basic training,
aboard the USS New Orleans.
I said, let’s get the guns loaded!
They said, we got no ammunition.
Who’s got the
key? We don’t know!
Surprised sailors fire
their anti-aircraft guns wildly,
killing some
civilians up in the hills.
Radio stations begin
shouting that it’s not a drill.
The city of Honolulu
has also been attacked...
It is no joke. It is a real war.
USS is listing badly.
One sailor on deck
is shot through the face
by a strafing Japanese plane.
Other crews are
faring far worse.
USS Shaw
bursts into a fireball.
The boys
were out there in the water
in all that oil.
They’d come up, knock
the oil out of their way
and catch a
breath, then go back down.
In one
hour and fifteen minutes,
Japan damages or sinks nineteen
ships, and kills 2,400.
The news ripples
outward like a shock wave.
A Pam Am Clipper
full of tourists is out
over the Pacific --
which is suddenly a war zone.
They turn off their lights...
blacken their windows...
and change course.
All over the country,
military phones light up.
Jack Lent is on
duty in San Diego.
Some colonel was on the phone.
He said, "You get
your commanding officer
and tell him that Pearl
Harbor has just been bombed."
I said, "Yes, sir!
What’s Pearl Harbor?"
Behind
closed doors on a Sunday,
President Roosevelt is composing
a short speech in his head.
He resists advice
to give it today.
Instead, Eleanor Roosevelt
steps up to a microphone
and gives the first
official American response.
You cannot escape anxiety,
you cannot escape the
clutch of fear at your heart.
And yet I hope
that the certainty
of what we have to meet
will make you rise
above these fears.
Many Americans do not.
The FBI switchboard
lights up with calls
reporting suspicious
behavior of Japanese Americans.
In New York City,
Japanese restaurant owners
tell their patrons
to finish their meals.
Then they shutter their doors
and drive each other
home in convoys for safety.
In San Francisco,
people report everything
from strange
airplanes in the sky...
to shady men on the streetcars.
Sirens wail for
no apparent reason.
In Seattle, 2,000
people descend upon downtown
to enforce a blackout.
It devolves into looting.
In Hawaii, radio
stations declare
the islands are
now under martial law.
Then they order a
complete blackout.
Turn out your lights.
This means the whole territory.
Turn out your lights
and do not turn them on
for any purpose whatsoever.
America is on its
heels, and Japan isn’t finished.
The next 48
hours shock the world.
Just hours after
attacking Pearl Harbor...
the Japanese
launch a surprise assault
on the American
base on Wake Island.
Fearing a land invasion,
a Pan Am Clipper captain jams
70 civilians onto his plane.
Way overweight, the plane
finally gets off the water --
on the third try.
Then Japan bombs the
U.S. military base on Guam
that the Falks
filmed a few years earlier.
In three days,
they capture the island
and take 20,000
American nationals prisoner.
Also on December 7th, Japan
invades the Gilbert Islands,
a British colony.
They also fall in three days.
Japanese forces on the
way back from Pearl Harbor...
shell Midway Island.
Repelling fire
drives them off...
but not before the
American base takes a hit.
Japan is thrusting a sword deep
into the Central Pacific --
a violent blitz that
takes the ocean by storm.
At the same time, Japan’s own
film captures a surge into Asia.
They begin bombing the
Philippines on December 8th.
On the same day
they invade Thailand...
and soon roll into Bangkok.
They attack the British colonies
of Hong Kong and Singapore.
And they storm
the rest of Shanghai,
overrunning the
British and American enclave.
Stuck on a small base in China
is a company of U.S. Marines --
now completely
surrounded by the Japanese.
Superiors order them to
surrender without a fight.
Sergeant Robert Smith
marches into captivity,
as the victors
switch out the flag.
Look what’s up there
now. A flaming red asshole.
Before the world can react,
Japan cleaves its
way into Southeast Asia.
They light the fuse of
war all around the Pacific.
In Japan, many
citizens are flush with pride.
But there’s an
undercurrent of anxiety.
We were assured we
would not have to worry.
America was a democratic nation,
and so would
disintegrate and collapse.
They can’t unite
for a common purpose.
One blow against them,
and they’ll fall to pieces.
Back in Washington,
Roosevelt addresses Congress.
Yesterday, December 7th...
First, he makes
a few last-minute revisions.
... a date
which will live in infamy.
For years, the nation
felt stuck. Now it feels stung.
There is no blinking at the fact
that our people, our
territory, and our interests
are in grave danger.
America is at war.
Most didn’t want it. But
most will have to join it.
Either in support at
home, or in uniform beyond.
There were college men
who joined the
service that very day.
They left letters with
the manager of the dormitory
and they took off.
The feeling of the moment was,
I would like to fly a plane and
drop a bomb on the bastards.
That trip to West
Virginia to have my physical
was the first time I was
ever out of the state of Ohio.
Roughest
ride I ever had in my life.
Like traveling on a
gravel road for 2,000 miles.
I swear they had square wheels.
My examination
took probably 30 seconds.
Drop my pants;
check forward and aft;
check and see if I’m breathing;
son, you’re ready to go.
I didn’t pass because
the guy handed me a book
and said "Read the
numbers." I only saw dots.
He said, "I can’t take
you. You’re colorblind."
I said, "What am
I supposed to see?"
He said, "A
three, five, and nine."
So I hitchhiked to
Indianapolis... got in line...
They gave me the
same book and I said,
"I see a three, five, and nine."
They said, "You’re in."
Armand Maffucio,
the kid who baked his way
through the depression,
joins the Navy.
They don’t waste his talent.
All we made was
the bread, rolls, and desserts
for the crew. Of course,
there were 2,000 sailors.
Michael Kuryla,
who admired Navy ships
in the newsreels,
also takes the plunge.
They gave us
our uniforms and everything.
They gave us our caps.
Then they’d give
us our haircuts,
and the caps didn’t fit anymore.
Our ears were holding them up.
First stop -- the pool.
They practice treading water --
while someone tries
to hold them under.
But deeper water awaits
-- in an unlikely place.
These are cadets in
Northwestern University’s
Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s
School near Chicago.
They are called "90-day wonders"
because that’s how fast
the program is in wartime.
Lake Michigan isn’t
exactly the Pacific Ocean,
but it’ll have to do.
They study navigation.
And the fine art
of swabbing the deck.
They are literally
learning the ropes.
Finally, they practice
the choreography of gun work.
Now, they have time to
break it down, step by step.
Soon, they won’t.
They peeled off and dove on us.
They got close...
The Army picks a training spot
that could at least
pass for the Pacific.
The Florida swamp.
This is Wakulla
Springs near Tallahassee,
where Hollywood filmed
some of the jungle scenes
in Tarzan movies.
Now the Army is
filming its own recruits
trying to master an environment
more common in New
Guinea than North America.
The horrors of Pearl Harbor
inform a few of the drills.
Smoke-screen maneuvers.
Swimming around an oil fire.
This is not the Army
Thomas Baye had in mind.
I chose the Army over the Navy
because I’m scared of the water.
I didn’t know how to swim.
No one quite knows
what fighting across an ocean
will look like.
They ford a river by
making a hand bridge of rifles.
They use their tents and
poles to make a supply raft.
They practice
hiding from the enemy --
with synchronized ducking.
And, predictably,
they blow stuff up.
Underwater demolition teams
try to smooth the way
for a new kind of boat.
This is an early
amphibious vehicle --
a duck made by General Motors.
Driving through the
water is a novelty.
Soon it will be a necessity.
We walked
into a hornets’ nest.
I was thinking,
"How in the world
did I ever get
sucked into this mess?"
The Navy recruiting office
was jammed up
with 70 new recruits.
So I went around the corner
and the Marine Corps
had a little shingle out,
and I was it. There was no line.
The first thing we heard
when the bus came
through the gate that morning
was, "You’ll be sorry."
Before the war,
the Marine Corps was
struggling for relevance.
Some thought the Army
should just absorb it.
It was a service
without a purpose,
derided as the foster
home for Navy flunkies.
The first
three weeks were terrible.
They insisted on
teaching us how to walk,
and I felt we already knew.
The Marine Corps
wants to shed its reputation
as a military afterthought.
Instead of the weakest, they
want to become the toughest.
Every Marine,
before he was anything else,
was a rifleman.
If you’re a tank
driver, pilot, cook,
we don’t care what else you are.
First of all, you’re a rifleman.
They’ll be using their rifles
as part of a new tactic.
The amphibious assault.
The Marine Corps adopted this
doctrine only six years earlier,
with a publication called
"Tentative Manual
for Landing Operations."
They can’t afford to
be tentative anymore.
The doctrine was in search
of a war, and now it’s here --
just as they’re cracking
the book on how to do it.
As they rehearse storming
a beach in North Carolina,
it looks clunky.
This ramp door jams,
and Marines have to
pile out over the sides.
Some experts consider the
whole idea complete folly.
We had no idea in the world
how we were going to
use this type of training.
In 1940, there are
fewer than 30,000
active duty Marines.
Total.
In just three years,
that’ll be the number
invading a
single Pacific island.
None of these guys can
really see that coming.
We just thought the Japanese
couldn’t possibly
carry on a very long war.
We thought it would be
over in a matter of weeks.
The Japs whipped
us for three solid weeks.
We couldn’t move more
than two yards a day.
It was just hell day and night.
This is your ship. Look at her.
She’s a symbol of our
American industrial skill.
That skill
is now under the gun.
The Navy needs
thousands more ships. Fast.
In Portland, Oregon,
shipyards grow like weeds.
Industrialist Henry
Kaiser owns three of them.
This is Kaiser’s own film
of his Portland operation.
He builds mostly Liberty ships
-- cargo and transport vessels
that will carry the
war across the Pacific.
Workers come from
all over the country --
men, women, and entire families.
Kaiser builds a
town near Portland just
to house them all -- Vanport
City, population 42,000.
Many just call it "Kaiserville."
By the end of 1941, nearly half
of America’s heavy
industry workforce
is working on defense contracts.
Bullets in Indiana.
Rivets in Kansas City.
Parachutes in Utah.
But not all war weapons
are built from scratch.
War had exploded over
the entire world.
Every Pan American
route was now a war route.
The Pan Am Clipper,
the same airplane that brought
the Falks to Asia in peacetime,
becomes a wartime workhorse.
They’re still the only planes
that can carry a big
load across an ocean.
So the company becomes
a de-facto wing of
the U.S military --
and all crews get
new uniforms to match.
As soon as I was
outfitted in these uniforms,
they took my picture
for my personnel folder.
We called them our
"obituary photos."
You can guess why.
As Clippers
get baptized into war
with a new camouflage paint job,
the world awaits
Japan’s next move.
It’s eyeing up more
islands to expand its empire.
Java and Timor have
important resources to harvest.
Standing in the way is the small
air and naval base in Darwin.
On a sunny Thursday morning,
Japan slashes into
Northern Australia.
By the time sailor Monty
Tuckerman grabs his camera,
the Japanese planes are gone.
It’s the only color footage
of the raid on Darwin --
a surprise attack considered
to be Australia’s Pearl Harbor.
With one big crash
they dropped their entire loads.
With a noise like the
roll of heavy thunder,
red and yellow
flame shot into the air.
Eleven ships
belch out their last breath
of acrid smoke before
disappearing undersea.
The Japanese don’t
stop at the harbor.
They bomb buildings in town.
People run for the
hills, fearing a land invasion.
The attack kills 235
and injures hundreds more.
All in a town of only 2,000.
Clouds of war now rise
over a nervous Australia --
a nation right in the shadows
of an expanding and
unpredictable empire.
Newsreels from the Philippines
show Japanese arriving in waves
-- and Americans
scattering like ants.
They handed each one of us a can.
I got a can of cherries.
And they said, disperse.
I mean, we just dispersed.
We didn’t know what
the hell we were doing.
There’s no color footage
of the brutal fight
for the Philippines.
Cornered on the
Bataan peninsula,
Americans have little
food and no reinforcements.
MacArthur holds
out on Corregidor.
Japanese film shows
their overwhelming advantage.
Soon, they’re
celebrating in Manila.
MacArthur and his
family escape to Australia
as Corregidor falls.
Those left in the Philippines
are no longer
enjoying a sunny deployment.
They’re enduring
their darkest nightmare.
These very boys are now
dead, starving, or captured.
That was
something I told my mother
that would never happen.
I’d be behind the front lines.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
Japan has uncoiled a
ferocious multi-pronged attack
across land and sea
in several directions.
The U.S. is still creating its
wartime organizational chart.
Roosevelt puts
the Southwest Pacific
into General MacArthur’s hands.
He’s already
glaring at the Philippines
with revenge in his eyes.
The vast open seas
of the Central Pacific
will be under Navy
Admiral Chester Nimitz.
The two men could
scarcely be more different.
Nimitz is a soft-spoken leader
by example who shuns attention.
He loathes PR men who
suggest he show more pizazz.
In contrast, MacArthur is a
man of sweeping statements,
grand gestures, and a fondness
for any recording
device that can capture them.
These top men
from the Army and Navy
now have the Pacific
War on their shoulders.
Like the football game
between their services,
it’ll be part
camaraderie, part competition.
But their boss
calls the first play.
Back in December,
President Roosevelt
issued a secret order
after the Pearl Harbor attack:
Find a way to
strike back at Japan.
It takes four
months to figure out how.
The distance is daunting.
The technology is lacking.
But they pull together a plan
that’s part
bravado, part desperation.
Ships cut through a stormy
Pacific in radio silence --
just as the Japanese
did coming the other way.
American carriers
haven’t yet come of age.
This one’s only
big enough to launch
a scout plane with a catapult.
To bomb Japan, they’ll
have to launch a bigger plane
off this deck -- a B-25.
They’ve never tried it.
We hadn’t actually
flown off a carrier before.
I wondered -- could I get
out of that damn airplane
if we go off the
end of the flight deck?
Bombardier
Herb Macia scrapes the waves
and gets
airborne -- by a whisker.
There’s no turning back -- the
deck is too short to land on.
Sixteen planes are off to
Japan, on a wing and a prayer.
It’s called the Doolittle raid,
for the Colonel who leads it.
There’s no footage
of the raid itself.
Some bombs hit Tokyo,
but damage is minimal.
Most planes go on to
crash land in China.
As payback for Pearl
Harbor, it hardly rates.
America doesn’t care.
Doolittle
and his gallant men
shake the complacency
of the Japanese warlords.
It will take more than a few bombs
to win the Pacific War.
It will take
weapons yet to be built.
Teamwork yet to be tested.
And blood yet to be spilled.
For now, the combatants
remain an ocean apart.
But soon, the
Pacific War will move beyond
rushing across the
sea for sneak attacks.
Instead, it will
collide with gruesome force,
with young men meeting
face to face to slug it out.
I was scared to
death, ice water in my veins.
The only reason I could move was
because the rest of them were.
I am pleased
to think that I will die
in true samurai style.
I feel now like a
full-fledged warrior.
The stakes
are unblinkingly clear.
Succeed, and control
a third of the globe.
Fail, and crash into the abyss.