The Pacific War in Color (2018): Season 1, Episode 8 - From the Ashes - full transcript

By the summer of 1945,

the Allies are tearing Japan
to shreds.

We’d scatter
in all directions

and shout, "they’re coming!"

A ground invasion
seems imminent.

The largest amphibious assault
in human history.

We knew the beaches,

we knew the order of battle.

But one bomb...

changes everything.

People just sat,
catching fire.



Some memories will never fade.

I experienced
the collapse of our nation.

And no survivors
will ever forget.

My mother thought
I had been killed.

Hear the voices

and feel the fight.

We were
going up in daylight

and dropping leaflets that said,

"We advise you
to evacuate your town

because we’re coming up here
Sunday afternoon at 2 o’clock

to burn it to the ground."

In March of 1945,

General Curtis Lemay
took a torch to Tokyo

in the world’s first
large-scale use of napalm bombs.



The first fire raid on Tokyo

flattened 16 square miles
of the city.

Lemay was ecstatic.

He ordered more of
those missions immediately.

Lemay targets
any place with a war industry.

In a matter of months,

America firebombs
67 Japanese cities.

Fueled by wood and wind,

flames wash through Japan
like a flood.

Mother,

with my little brother
on her back,

had her feet swept out
from under her by the wind...

and she rolled away
into the flames.

American firebombs

kill an estimated
half-million citizens.

Lemay films the damage himself.

His footage has never been
broadcast before.

In some places,
only bridges are left,

connecting neighborhoods
that no longer exist.

I suppose
if I had lost the war,

I would have been tried
as a war criminal.

But all war is immoral.

And if you let that bother you,
you’re not a good soldier.

Japanese film
shows the rush to evacuate.

Entire classrooms of kids
migrate from city to country.

But they don’t escape the fear.

By 1945,
we no longer had many classes.

The main thing we did
was dig an anti-tank ditch

in the corner of the schoolyard.

Is

with a new road

from the Indian town of Ledo.

The jungle is no easy place
to make a detour.

It was rugged.

We were assigned to mile zero,

which we called "hell’s gate."

From there,

they slowly carve
a new ribbon of road

for 460 miles.

We used every imaginable
tool they had

to move the earth.

Workers nickname it
"the big snake."

It takes a bite out of every man
that works on it.

I lost about 55 pounds
up there on the road.

The rations and the heat
took me bad.

But the effort pays off.

A stream of supplies
begins to flow into China.

Now the pressure on Japan

seems to be coming
from every direction.

Burma can now stand firm
with the Allies.

Japanese troops
dissolve into the jungle,

isolated and abandoned.

Here, freedom is a relief.

In the American west,
it’s bittersweet.

Since 1942,

more than a hundred thousand
Japanese Americans

have been forced
into internment camps.

Kids have been growing up
as little more than prisoners.

When I got to camp,

I was a junior.

My diploma was from
the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The fears that put them here

have not materialized.

They haven’t become spies
or saboteurs.

Instead, they’ve been
quietly showing

just how American
they really are.

So even with the war
grinding on,

America opens the gates.

That was
a dividing line in our lives.

Before camp and after camp.

Roberta and Takeo Shiroma

will have to start over.

My parents lost their business.

It’s like they’re
immigrants once more,

departing with a few suitcases

to a country whose
lofty principles

do not apply to them.

Many Americans
don’t want them back.

One senator suggests
they all be deported to Japan.

West coast newspapers
decry what they call

"California’s jap problem."

My father could not get a job.

They said,
"have you looked at your face?

We can’t hire you."

Some even
cling to the camps

when they could freely leave.

But the Shiromas
try to heed wisdom

from their ancestral home.

We have a phrase

that we hear all the time.

It’s called "shigata ga nai."

It means
"it couldn’t be helped."

It’s something that happened,

and you let it go.

That will be easier
for some than others.

In another desert
of the American West,

B-29 crews
line up for inspection.

He told us
that we were in an outfit

that might end the war.

Then...

they prepare
for a high-stakes game

of target practice.

The trinity test
ushered in the atomic age.

But no one knows how to drop
such a big bomb out of a plane.

So B-29s take off with
dummy bombs called "pumpkins"

to drop onto the desert.

I guess they just
plowed up these tumbleweeds

so we could see a target.

From more than 5 1/2 miles up,

they let it go.

On the ground, experts observe
the bomb’s dynamics.

The first ones tumbled.

Then they changed the tailfins.

People from Los Alamos
were down there timing

how long it would
take them to fall.

Someone joked that they stood
in the center of the target

because they felt that
would be the safest place.

It’s not a bullseye.

But with the real bomb,
it might not matter.

On august 5th,

another air crew prepares
for a run on Japan.

It’s becoming almost routine.

This is
the 345th bombardment group,

nicknamed the air apaches.

They’re on Ie Shima,

a little island off Okinawa

that’s now a bustling air base.

The target
is the town of Tarumizu,

just 430 miles away.

Captain John Hanna
films the action himself.

With Japan unable to mount
much of a defense,

Hanna’s plane
can scrape the rooflines.

They make runs
on a coastal factory

that makes rocket-propelled
suicide planes.

And they firebomb nearby homes

to cripple the workers
as much as their workplace.

The 345th returns to base

with a few scratches
from anti-aircraft fire.

Tarumizu is wrecked.

Today’s raid is 325 planes

and thousands of bombs.

Tomorrow, it’ll be just one.

Teenager Yamaoka Michiko

is on her way
to downtown Hiroshima.

I was in
the third year of high school.

I left the house around 7:45.

From the island of Tinian,

colonel Paul Tibbets
is on his way to Japan.

We had lulled the Japanese

into a sense of false security.

For a week

I sent a single airplane up
over these targets.

I wanted them to think
we were reconnaissance planes.

I wasn’t particularly afraid

when B-29s flew overhead.

I looked up to see
if I could spot them.

That was the moment.

There was no sound.

I felt colors.

I remember my body
floating in the air.

I don’t know how far
I was blown.

I tried to say something,
but my voice couldn’t come out.

I said to myself,
"goodbye, mom."

Below the mushroom cloud,

it was black
and boiling underneath,

like a boiling pot of tar.

Fires burst out
from just the light itself.

Nobody looked
like a human being.

People couldn’t scream.

They just sat,

catching fire.

By that time,
we were out over the water

and on our way back home.

It was an easy flight.

I didn’t have the ability

to visualize
what this thing really was.

There was no measure, no scale
by which to judge this thing.

As Tibbets lines up for a medal,

rumors swirl about
the damage in Hiroshima.

The guys came in
with their eyes wide open

and asked...

"Jesus! Is this true?"

A few days later,

Americans roll out
another atomic bomb.

Even bigger in size and power.

They name it "fat man."

Inside is a lump of plutonium
about the size of a softball.

They seal the seams

to keep moisture away from
the delicate components inside.

Since the bomb hit Hiroshima,

Japan has sent no message
to the outside world.

It is silent...

as if in shock.

So Americans load up fat man

and head for the next target:

the city of Kokura.

When the B-29s arrive,

Kokura is socked in,

with clouds and smoke
from burning cities.

They peel off
for their secondary target.

A Scottish POW
is in a prison camp nearby.

I saw a plane flying.

Two minutes later came
a tremendous clap of thunder

from Nagasaki.

A gale-force wind
nearly knocked me over.

Japan isn’t sure
what’s hitting them.

America isn’t sure
what it’s unleashing.

Only those under
the mushroom cloud really know.

But the world
will soon find out.

The next day,

the Japanese contact the Swiss,

who pass messages
to the Americans,

even as their carriers
launch more raids.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union
invades Manchuria,

opening another front
Japan can barely defend.

Days go by
as each side deliberates

and translates

and negotiates.

Bombs keep dropping.

On august 13th,

1,000 carrier planes make
their final dive on Tokyo.

In 1942, this would
have been impossible.

Now it’s unstoppable.

A scratchy recording
of a strange voice

goes out over Japanese airwaves.

It’s emperor Hirohito.

Revered as a distant
God-like figure,

he has never
addressed the public...

until now.

We have decided
to effect a settlement

of the present situation

by resorting
to an extraordinary measure.

He uses
an archaic Japanese dialect

that few can understand.

But soon,
the news becomes clear.

Japan surrenders.

The world gasps
in a moment of disbelief...

...coming out
of Tokyo that emperor Hirohito

has accepted the terms
of surrender as drafted...

then exhales in relief.

Navy ships racing toward Japan
begin to coast.

We had our ship loaded,

totally loaded for us to invade.

We got the message.

I ran up to the bridge where
a good friend was signalman.

He spelled out "war is over."

The captain announced,

"it’s against naval regulations,

but all hands can lay down
to the scullery

for two cans of beer."

All across the Pacific,

men slated for the final assault
get the news of their lives.

I guarantee you
there was a lot of relief.

I don’t know how many of us
would have survived

the invasion of Japan,

Bbt not very many,
I don’t think.

In the Philippines,

word slowly gets out.

Serviceman Dan Rocklin

films a nation
slowly rising from its knees.

From every corner
of their fallen empire,

Japanese who fought
from the shadows

finally emerge into daylight.

They started coming in

and putting their rifles down.

That was the end of them.

We fell from
heaven to hell overnight.

Men who spent
the last 3 1/2 years

trying to annihilate each other

are now facing each other.

The japs
all came in from the jungle

and gave us their swords.

Of course, all our officers
got the good ones.

In China, Japanese
troops are herded into boxcars:

a demoralizing start
to their long journey home.

I experienced
the collapse of our nation.

It was really worse than dying.

In Japan,
there is shock and shame.

Nobody truly thought

Japan would lose.

Since its ancient beginnings

in the first century,

it has never known
a foreign occupation.

The pride of empire

disintegrates
into a cloud of fear.

They arrive in white planes,

the color of surrender,

at general MacArthur’s
insistence.

He doesn’t want
any mistaken identity.

The rising sun has been replaced
by a green cross.

The Japanese delegation emerges.

They’ve just landed
in the Philippines

to meet with MacArthur.

The future of Japan
is now under negotiation.

MacArthur welcomes
Allies of every stripe.

A global array
of military uniforms

marches into Manila.

They will talk all night

over hastily translated
maps and documents.

And they settle on a date

to formally conclude
the Pacific War.

A distant Mount Fuji
presides over Tokyo bay.

For all the thousands
on board the USS Missouri,

the focus is on one man,

now supreme commander
for the Allied powers.

I had received no instructions

as to what to say or what to do.

I was on my own,

standing on the quarterdeck

with only God and my own
conscience to guide me.

MacArthur stands to
face the Japanese delegation

and stakes his claim.

I announce it my firm purpose

to proceed in the discharge
of my responsibilities

with justice and tolerance,

to ensure that
the terms of surrender

are fully, promptly,
and faithfully complied with.

Finally, in the calm
of a sea-salt breeze,

the incessant pounding
of the Pacific War ceases

with the quiet scrawls
of solemn signatures.

The ceremony ends
with a ferocious roar--

a flyover of nearly 500 B-29s.

Now both sides
have to make a sudden turn

from combat to cooperation.

A lasting peace in the Pacific
is at stake.

Just weeks earlier,

this was the plan--

an all-out full-force charge

into the drawn swords
of a 2,000-year-old empire.

Instead,
the Allies approach unarmed.

We didn’t have any ammunition.

MacArthur did not want
any incidents.

Not one incident.

Thousands of troops

pour onto the soil
of their sworn enemy...

without firing,

without ducking,

without dying.

Japanese disarm themselves
under Allied supervision.

Americans look right
into the jaws

of what awaited them.

From the water line to Tokyo,

every yard of it
was entrenched and barricaded

with tunnels and caverns.

It would have been a bloodbath.

Americans are fascinated with

the war’s opposing perspective.

They play with guns that were
once aimed at them.

They find a Japanese ship

with Allied planes
painted on the side--

a cheat-sheet for gunners.

And one takes a tour
of a Japanese sub.

I’m sure they hated us.

But some of them
tried to introduce

some sort of
incipient friendship,

as if,
in the back of their minds,

they recognized
that we were humans,

just like they were.

The victors
are now fully ashore.

Next come the vanquished.

Seven million Japanese

have been spread across
Asia and the Pacific,

fighting for the homeland
they remember.

Some have been gone for years,

with no idea what their nation
has endured.

Face masks and a blast of DDT

stave off the import of disease.

But there’s no cure
for the shock of defeat.

Japanese citizens

imagined their enemies
as ruthless barbarians.

Now these foreign armies
are walking among them.

They turned
their backs to us

and hung their heads.

I asked the interpreter,
"what are they doing?"

And he said,
"that’s the sign of submission."

Allies bombed and blockaded

the Japanese into starvation.

Now they unload C-rations.

MacArthur: we didn’t intend
to feed them forever.

We needed to make Japan
self-sufficient

as soon as it was
humanly possible.

This is a tall order.

Much of Japan
is simply not there anymore.

Tokyo is half gone.

For mile after mile,

it looks like a forest
clear cut down to stumps.

Rebuilding is a job too immense
for many to grasp.

So they simply get to it...

with picks...

and shovels...

and bare hands.

In two cities, it’s even worse.

We flew directly over Nagasaki.

From ground zero,

everything radiated out
360 degrees.

We went to Hiroshima.

You can’t imagine.

For miles, there was nothing.

Nothing left.

This city was burned down
to the sidewalks.

But the bomb’s lasting impact

is not in the rubble
of brick and mortar.

It’s in the scars
of mind and body.

Inside hospitals are injuries
beyond anyone’s training.

Anyone within half a mile
was instantly scorched.

Two miles away,
skin spontaneously ignited.

Hiroshima teenager
Yamaoka Michiko survives,

but then has to endure.

People threw stones at me

and called me monster.

Once my mom
tried to choke me to death.

If a girl has a face
you couldn’t be born with,

I understand that even a mother
could want to kill her child.

In Hiroshima,
few families are intact.

Mourners grieve
at overcrowded cemeteries.

No one knows when or if

a new Japan will emerge
from the atomic shadow.

We’d hoped
for this moment for years

and dreamt that one day
it might arrive.

But we’d never known
that it would.

140,000 Allied
prisoners of war

take their first steps
toward home.

From a POW camp in Thailand,

they board flights to Vietnam.

An old hotel in Saigon
puts them up,

and it feels like the Ritz.

In Singapore,

Sikh soldiers from India
come out of captivity.

U.S. troops
salute their freedom.

In the Philippines,

Japan had called
its 90,000 prisoners of war

"guests of the empire."

Now they hitch rides
and join convoys

to carry them away from despair,

toward hope.

In Japan itself,

36,000 POWs have endured
darkness and decay.

We had to carry 90% of them

out on stretchers.

Some of their bones were
sticking through their skin.

Former captives
flood the streets,

getting their first sips
of freedom...

and their first crack at
the all-you-can-eat mess tent.

They begin
the long journey home...

lucky to be alive.

More than a quarter
of western Allied POWs

died in captivity.

Japan planned
to execute the rest--

all these men--

once the land invasion began.

Some had dug
their own mass graves.

We talked about

what we were going to do
when we got home...

who we couldn’t wait to see...

and how all the problems
of normal life

could never bother us again--

not after
what we’d been through.

We picked up over
a thousand military personnel.

The ship was so crowded.

But nobody complained.

We were homeward bound.

They crave family.

My mother thought
I had been killed.

When I was in Hawaii,

I called her
and told her I was fine.

Then I hit the bars
and saw the girls.

They crave the familiar.

When we got to San Francisco,

people were throwing flowers.

There was a big sign--

"welcome home."

They crave home cooking.

In Tarawa,

we ate nothing
but crushed pineapple

and canned Vienna sausage.

I ate enough Vienna sausage to
make a rope and swing me home.

Finally, they crave normalcy.

The first thing
after I got discharged,

I went straight
to a department store.

I bought me a whole suit
of civilian clothes,

from head to foot.

And I put it on right there.

Maybe I shouldn’t say this,

but I just took my uniform
and dropped it in the garbage

and walked on out.

That was one happy day.

The trains were running.

And the streetcars were running.

The Japanese were very busy.

A new Japan begins
to rise out of the rubble.

MacArthur guides the occupation

without appearing
as an overlord.

I advised the Japanese people

to seek a healthy blend

between the best of theirs
and the best of ours.

He opens civil liberties...

and religious freedoms

beyond the deep traditions
Of Shinto and Buddhism.

He also floods the country
with ten million free bibles.

Baseball is already a pastime
both countries enjoy.

MacArthur’s own home movies

capture his wife Jean
taking in a Japanese ballgame.

Once, she even throws out
the first pitch.

The USO reaches its final stage,

with Danny Kaye playing it up
for occupation troops.

Markets get busier.

People get friendlier.

A new openness slowly blossoms.

MacArthur allows Hirohito
to remain emperor.

He goes from recluse
to public figure.

Kids who would not dare
look him in the eye

now surround him with cheers.

Here, he makes his first visit
to Hiroshima

to honor the bomb victims.

It’s December 7, 1947

Exactly six years
after the attack on Pearl Harbor

sparked the Pacific War.

Japan, the land of Fuji-San,

is one of the most interesting
of all countries to visit.

To help the rebuilding effort,

America begins
encouraging travel

to the country it just defeated.

Tourism brings cash
and cultural exchange--

two things they hope
can bring Japan

into the family of free nations.

Travel films promise a land
of exotic sights and sounds.

But with enough Western touches
to attract the skittish.

Tourism is the new
post-war propaganda.

The message may be pandering,

but it does hint at the promise.

From the edges
of a vast ocean...

and from the ashes
of its great cataclysm...

new generations
will begin bridging

the great Pacific divide.

But for this generation,

it will never again
be the peaceful sea.

I wonder what war is.

I wonder why we did it.

I’m not talking about
victory or loss.

I merely feel heartbroken
for those who died.

However much you’re glorified,

if you’re dead, that’s it.

People always say,

this movie was realistic...

or that movie was not.

War is something you don’t get
in any movie.

The pungent odor
of decaying bodies...

the constant clatter
of automatic weapons...

suspenseful waiting...

then the impact of
whispering artillery shells...

screams of the wounded
and dying...

the overwhelming smell
of gunpowder...

you don’t get any of that
in a movie.