World War II in Colour (2009–…): Season 1, Episode 11 - The Island War - full transcript
[theme music plays]
[background music over dialogue]
[woman crying]
[people cheering]
[narrator] By early 1943,
the Japanese empire
was at its height.
The country had occupied
Malaya and Burma,
the Philippines and
the Dutch East Indies,
Indonesia today.
[insects chirping]
These territories
had become vital sources
of strategic supplies
such as oil and rubber.
[indistinct audio]
Now the United States laid plans
to roll back the Japanese gains.
The aim was to cut
the country's supply lines
by seizing the occupied territories.
Japan could then be
gradually strangled to death.
But to win in the vast expanse
of the Pacific,
the US would need to develop
new forms of mobile warfare.
They would be based
on amphibious landings
supported by aircraft
flying from carriers.
The Japanese,
unable to match American firepower,
resorted to increasingly
desperate measures.
[soldiers cheering]
The country fell back
on ancient notions
of ''military honour''
to create suicide units.
[explosion]
The result would be
a terrible loss of life.
[explosion]
This would be a decisive phase
in the war in the Pacific
and would mark the end
of Japan's dreams of empire.
[indistinct audio]
But this was to come.
Back in the spring of 1943,
the US military chiefs faced
a dilemma.
[indistinct audio]
They had been presented
with two options
for the defeat of Japan.
The flamboyant US Army General,
Douglas MacArthur,
commander of the US and Australian
forces in the South-West Pacific,
favoured a primarily land-based route.
His idea was to seize
the Solomon Islands,
Papua New Guinea
and the Philippines.
They could then be turned
into a strategic barrier
that would cut off Japan
from its newly conquered lands
in Burma, Malaya
and the Dutch East Indies.
Japan would be starved
into surrender.
Equally importantly,
this plan would mean
MacArthur could repay a debt.
Earlier in the war,
he had been kicked out
of the Philippines by the Japanese
and he had promised to return
to liberate the country.
But the US Navy had a different idea.
It would bypass the heavily-defended
Solomon Islands,
Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
Instead it would seize a string
of much smaller islands
scattered across
the central Pacific and close
to the Japanese homeland.
Rather than a barrier,
the US would have
a series of strategic bases
from which to attack
Japan's supply lines.
[plane revving]
They argued it would be swifter
and much more economic.
The American military command
put off the decision.
[seagulls squawking]
Both the Army and Navy
were told to go ahead.
[ships horn blares]
In June 1943,
MacArthur's plan was launched.
It was called
Operation Cartwheel.
The first target was
the major Japanese military base
at Rabaul on New Britain
in the Solomon Islands.
It would be a two-pronged attack.
[explosions]
[artillery firing]
The eastern prong fought its way up
through New Georgia and Bougainville.
[machine gun firing]
[machine gun firing continues]
[indistinct audio]
The western prong battled its way
through Papua and New Guinea.
But the virtually impenetrable jungle,
and unhealthy climate,
made progress slow.
[distant machine gun firing]
[insects chirping]
It was nearly nine months
before the pincers met
and the Japanese base
at Rabaul was isolated.
Meanwhile as the US Army
took control of the Solomon Islands,
the US Navy mustered a mighty fleet.
[distant gun firing]
It included the first four
of the brand new
Essex class aircraft carriers.
They were bigger and faster
than anything before.
The new carriers were equipped
with outstanding new planes
like the Hellcat
and Corsair fighters,
Helldiver dive-bombers,
and Avenger torpedo bombers.
Together they both
outperformed and outnumbered
their Japanese opponents.
[aircraft explosion]
The Navy's first targets
were the Japanese garrisons
on the coral atolls
of Tarawa and Makin
in the Gilbert Islands.
These were close to some
of the most important
supply routes across the Pacific.
[artillery firing]
For a week the atolls were bombed
by carrier-based aircraft.
[explosions]
Then on November the 20th 1943,
there was an amphibious landing.
Makin was captured
with little difficulty.
[soldier's shouting]
But Tarawa was a different story.
[explosion]
Reconnaissance had failed to reveal
that the water was too shallow
for the landing craft.
[explosion]
As the Marines waded ashore,
they came under intense fire.
[gunshots]
The island was honeycombed
with fortified machine-gun nests.
[machine gun firing]
US troops who made it to dry land
were pinned down on the beach.
[machine gun firing]
By the end of the day,
over 1,500 of the 5,000
US marines landed
had been killed or severely injured.
[indistinct audio]
[explosion]
Over the next two days,
frontal assaults
pushed the Japanese
back inch by inch.
Very often,
only flamethrowers could eliminate
the Japanese strong points.
[fire crackling]
It took three days
before the last pocket
of Japanese resistance was wiped out.
[music plays]
Of the 4,200 Japanese troops
on the island
only 17 were captured alive.
[fire crackling]
Tarawa was a terrible forerunner
of what was to come.
[people cheering]
The Japanese had shown
that there would be
no question of surrender.
They would fight to the death.
It was a grim prospect.
[military marching]
In January 1944,
America's naval offensive
in the Pacific moved on
to the Marshall Islands.
[sound muted]
Admiral Chester Nimitz,
the US naval commander
in the Central Pacific,
was anxious to avoid
another bloodbath.
So aircraft from his carrier force
bombed Japanese airfields
on the islands
for nearly two months.
[explosion]
Finally, on February
the 1st 1944,
he sent in the assault forces.
[indistinct audio]
The flat and open island
of Roi was quickly overrun.
[gunshots]
[explosion]
[machine gun firing]
But the islands of
Kwajalein and Namur
were wooded and the Japanese
resisted fanatically.
[cannon firing]
US forces used
flamethrowers and explosives.
[gunshots]
[machine gun firing]
[explosions]
The Japanese responded by launching
"suicidal Banzai" charges.
[gunshots]
But the US forces now
knew what to expect.
The Japanese were beaten back.
[gunshot]
[music playing]
Over 8,000 Japanese soldiers died
for the loss of less than 400 US lives.
[gunshot]
[machine gun firing]
Atoll after atoll in the Marshall Islands
now fell to the US advance.
Kwajalein was followed by Eniwetok.
The island of Truk
was bypassed and cut off,
though a small
Japanese garrison
would remain undefeated
until the end of the war.
The way was now clear
for the next push,
1,000 miles west towards
the Mariana Islands.
If captured, the islands would put
the Japanese mainland within range
of US heavy bombers.
They would also enable
America to block
Japan's supply lines
from south-east Asia.
On June 11, 1944,
the US started to soften up
the three main islands in the Marianas.
[explosions]
Four days later,
Marines stormed the beaches
of the northerly island of Saipan.
This time the terrain was mountainous
with many caves,
and the preliminary
bombardment had not disrupted
the Japanese defences
as much as had been hoped.
[firing]
Nevertheless, by the end of the day,
the American bridgehead was secure.
In Tokyo, the news
caused mounting alarm.
The Japanese High Command
now sent a carrier fleet
to rescue the situation
and save the Marianas.
But the task force was spotted
by US submarines.
The Americans sent
their main carrier force
to intercept the Japanese.
[music plays]
On the morning of
June the 19th, 1944,
the Japanese launched air strikes
against the US ships.
[aircraft revving]
But US radar saw them coming.
[plane engines roaring]
450 fighters were scrambled
to intercept the Japanese planes.
It turned into the largest
aircraft carrier battle ever fought.
[continuous firing]
The US Task Force
had 15 aircraft carriers
and more than 900 aircraft.
Ranged against it
the Japanese had nine carriers
and nearly 500 aircraft.
But Japan had lost
many of its experienced aircrews
during the Solomon
and Marshall Islands campaigns.
Its novice pilots faced
battle-hardened US fliers.
The Japanese were
outgunned and outfought.
[aircraft explodes]
It would go down in history
as ''The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot''.
Half an hour into the battle,
a torpedo from a US submarine
hit the newest
and largest Japanese carrier,
the Taiho,
while she was still launching aircraft.
[explosion]
The battle of the Philippine Sea
had claimed its first major victim.
At around the same time
another US submarine
torpedoed the carrier Shokaku.
[explosions]
She was completely destroyed.
Nevertheless the Japanese
commander decided
to continue with the operation,
hoping to stop further
US landings in the Marianas.
For much of the following day,
the US forces tried to pin down
the exact location
of the remaining Japanese carriers.
Bearing zero-nine-six.
[narrator] It took them until
the afternoon to find them.
It was late in the day
to launch an attack
and the aircraft would have to fly
at the limit of their range.
But the US
Task Force Commander,
Admiral Marc Mitscher,
decided to gamble and attack.
[explosion]
A third Japanese carrier,
the Hiyo, was hit and sunk.
The Japanese had lost
over 300 aircraft.
But as the US planes now returned,
dangerously short of fuel,
they ran into a problem.
In the gathering darkness
they couldn't find their own carriers.
Many ran out of fuel
and had to ditch in the sea.
Mitscher, in an act of
extraordinary courage,
ordered his carriers
to switch on their lights
to guide in the returning aircraft.
Fortunately for the Americans
there were no Japanese
submarines to see them.
Nevertheless over 80 US planes
were lost,
either through having
to ditch in the sea
or through crashing while they landed.
[aircraft crash]
But Japanese losses
had been even greater.
Three carriers, and most
of the aircraft needed
to equip its remaining carrier fleet,
were gone.
From now on, the United States Navy
would dominate the Pacific,
striking when and where it wanted.
[artillery firing]
The Japanese naval defeat
in the Philippine Sea
meant the United States
could now press on
with its assault on the Marianas.
[gun firing]
[explosion]
The Japanese forces on Saipan
held out for three weeks
before they were overcome
on July the 9th, 1944.
The final horror came
when thousands of Japanese civilians
were persuaded to jump to their deaths
from the cliffs rather
than be captured by the Americans.
[shouting in Japanese]
The last Japanese troops then launched
their now inevitable suicide charge.
[gun firing]
[soldier's shouting]
Virtually the entire
32,000-strong garrison was killed.
Over 3,000 Americans also died.
Two weeks later,
US Marines landed on the islands
of Guam and Tinian,
also in the Marianas.
[soldier's shouting]
Once again they faced suicidal
Japanese counter-attacks.
[gunshot]
But they failed to stop
the American advance.
The US Navy had seized the Marianas.
Both the US Army and Navy offensives
had now completed the first phase
of their separate
strategies to isolate Japan.
The US military planners
now had to make a choice.
[machine gun firing]
Should they continue to
back MacArthur's strategy
and move on to the capture
of the Philippines?
Or should they go
with the Naval plan
and send a fleet across
the Pacific to seize Taiwan
or the Ryukyu Islands?
[indistinct audio]
The Naval option
would isolate Japan
without the need
for an almost certainly
lengthy and bloody operation
to take the Philippines.
But at a meeting in Hawaii
on July 26th, 1944,
MacArthur charmed
President Roosevelt
into backing his plan
to liberate the Philippines.
The Navy was instructed
to support it
before returning to
its island hopping strategy.
It was a decision that
would cost a horrendous number
of both military and civilian lives.
The following month US forces landed
on the Philippine island of Leyte.
[machine gun firing]
[indistinct audio]
They took
the Japanese by surprise.
They had expected
the first US landing
to be on the main
island of Luzon.
Within hours,
MacArthur was striding ashore
with press photographers
in attendance.
[background music over dialogue]
He later made a broadcast
to the Philippine people.
I see that the old flagpole
still stands.
Have your troops hoist
the colours to its peak,
and let no enemy
ever haul them down.
[narrator] But the Japanese
soon recovered
and launched an ambitious
plan to use the remains
of their naval power
to counter-attack.
Operation Sho, meaning Victory,
was typically complex.
The main strength
of the Japanese fleet
was divided into two groups
to form a pincer.
One pincer would approach
through the San Bernardino Straits
and attack the US landing
from the north.
The second would come in
through the Surigao Straits
and attack from the south.
Meanwhile, a decoy group
of Japan's last four carriers
would approach the Philippines
from the north-east,
hoping to lure away the main US
carrier force covering the landing.
The northern arm
of the Japanese pincer
came under air attack
almost immediately.
[explosions]
After nearly two days
of bombardment,
the super-battleship
Musashi was sunk.
The northern pincer
then appeared to retreat.
It was now that the US commanders
got into a muddle.
The man in charge
of the main carrier force
covering the landings
was Admiral William Bull Halsey.
[alarm beeping]
He now got word
of the Japanese carriers
approaching from the north east.
Halsey, believing the northern pincer
was no longer a threat,
set off to intercept them.
He had fallen
for the Japanese decoy.
The force protecting the US landing
was now severely weakened.
But the commander of this force
now inadvertently
compounded the problem.
Unaware that Halsey had taken off,
he sent his battleships
to ambush the southern arm
of the Japanese pincer.
[artillery firing]
It looked like a spectacular success.
[artillery firing continues]
But then disaster struck.
The northern arm
of the Japanese pincer
had only pretended to retreat.
Under cover of darkness
it turned round and headed back.
It then attacked the hugely
depleted force
protecting the US landing.
Only a handful of small
escort carriers and destroyers
faced the Japanese
super-battleship Yamato
and three other battleships.
[artillery firing]
It was now the turn of the Americans
to put up a desperate fight.
[artillery firing]
The Japanese tactic had caught
the US aircraft unprepared.
They were armed with high explosives
for land operations rather
than armour piercing bombs for ships.
[continuous firing]
Then, just as it seemed the Japanese
must break through,
they suddenly turned tail.
Their commander had worried
he was sailing into a trap.
Meanwhile to the north,
Halsey's headlong rush to intercept
the Japanese decoy force,
finally paid off.
[artillery firing]
[aircrafts exploding]
[indistinct chatter]
[explosion]
On October the 25th, 1944,
all four Japanese carriers were sunk.
[firing]
The battle of Leyte Gulf
had completely finished off
Japan's once proud navy.
There was now little
hope of holding back
the American advance.
For Japan it was time
for desperate measures.
The stage was set for a terrible climax
to Macarthur's plan.
[speaking in Japanese]
[distant firing]
By the autumn of 1944,
the Allies had isolated
the Japanese forces in the Philippines.
Their naval support had been destroyed.
Japan needed a new tactic
if it was to hold back
the American advance.
[cheering]
[background music over dialogue]
The Japanese commander
in the islands
called for volunteers
to join special units.
They were called
the Kamikazes or 'Divine Wind'
and drew on the Japanese
military code of honour
that it was better to die
than live as a coward.
They were suicide units.
On October 25th, 1944,
the first Kamikaze unit took a final
ceremonial drink before taking off.
[aircraft revving]
Its target was the US fleet.
[artillery firing]
[aircraft exploding]
The escort carrier St Lo was sunk
and two others badly damaged.
[artillery firing]
Further Kamikaze attacks followed.
[ship exploding]
[continuous firing]
[aircraft exploding]
Not all were restricted to the air.
The Japanese troops
now began strapping mines
to their bodies and deliberately
diving under US tanks.
[explosion]
The American advance through
the Philippine island of Leyte slowed.
[machine gun firing]
It would take two months before
the island was finally secured.
[machine gun firing in background]
[explosion]
Over 70,000 Japanese troops
had lost their lives.
The Americans had lost
nearly 16,000 men.
[background music over dialogue]
But MacArthur was undaunted.
He now moved on to
the main Philippine island of Luzon.
The defences were, as usual,
softened up by air attacks.
The US troops went ashore
virtually unopposed.
[cannon firing]
But as they advanced,
Japanese resistance stiffened.
[cannon firing]
Tanks, artillery,
mortars and flamethrowers
were used to destroy a succession
of Japanese strongholds.
[tanks firing]
Painfully,
the US forces battled forward.
[gunshots]
By January the 23rd, 1945,
they had reached the major
airbase of Clark Field,
60 miles from the capital Manila.
A week later they were
approaching the capital itself.
Manila was famous
for its architectural beauty.
[traditional music]
The Japanese regional commander
had taken a decision to preserve
its buildings by not defending it.
But the junior
Japanese garrison commander
disobeyed orders
and refused to withdraw.
His 20,000 troops
pledged to defend Manila to the death.
[gunshot]
There now began a ferocious,
month-long battle
to seize the Philippine capital.
[machine gun firing]
The US troops fought
their way into the city.
[explosion]
At first, they too tried
to preserve the major buildings.
But as they ran into snipers,
machine-gun nests and hidden artillery,
they were forced to reduce
much of the city to rubble.
[explosion]
[cannon firing]
By the end of February,
the Japanese defenders
had been driven back
into the 16th-century
citadel of Intramuros.
[cannon firing]
It would take another week
of fierce fighting to flush them out.
[cannon firing]
[explosion]
[machine gun firing]
Finally, on April 13th, 1945,
US forces mounted an amphibious attack
on Manila Bay's last fortification,
Fort Drum, the ''Concrete Battleship''
in the harbour.
Its ventilation shafts
were packed with kerosene,
white phosphorous and explosives.
[explosion]
None of the defenders survived.
[engine plane roaring]
The battle for Manila
had been an horrific affair.
Thousands of Japanese
and US soldiers have died.
[indistinct chatter]
But the real horror was
that some 100,000 civilians
also lost their lives.
Many massacred indiscriminately
by the Japanese
during the final days of fighting.
Elsewhere in the Philippines
there were more than 50 US landings
on other, smaller islands.
[distant machine gun firing]
But it would take
until the end of the war
before the last pockets
of Japanese resistance
were finally flushed out.
[explosion]
[trumpet]
MacArthur's conquest
of the Philippines
had proved as difficult
and costly in lives
as his critics had feared.
It may also have
been unnecessary.
By now US submarines
had virtually cut off Japan
from its supply lines
and the Navy was closing in
on the homeland itself.
The Japanese merchant fleet
was particularly vulnerable.
It was rarely organised into convoys
and anyway there weren't
enough escort vessels to protect them.
[explosion]
By the end of 1944, so many
Japanese merchant ships had been sunk
the US Navy was having problems
finding new targets.
US submarines now
moved in ever-closer
to the shores of the
Japanese home islands.
Japan was being starved of fuel,
food and raw materials.
The US Navy's
submarines in the Pacific
had succeeded
where German U-boats in the Atlantic
had failed in bringing
an island nation close to defeat.
But now the US forces
faced the daunting prospect
of invading its fanatical
enemy's homeland.
[cannon firing]
By spring 1945, US forces
were closing in on Japan
from the south and east.
But to the west
in China, Burma and India
a separate campaign
had been unfolding.
[artillery firing]
[people shouting]
Japan had invaded China in 1937.
[fire crackling]
The United States had regarded
the Chinese leader,
Chiang Kai-Shek,
as a western ally, and sent aid.
Much of it went in through
British-controlled Burma
along the so-called Burma Road
over the mountains to southern China.
Then in 1942 Japan invaded Burma
and kicked out the British.
The Burma road was shut down.
Six months later,
Britain launched the first
of a series of attacks to retake Burma
and re-open the road.
The first, in late 1942,
advanced down
the Burmese coast from India.
But the Japanese crushed it.
[gunshot]
[machine gun firing]
The second, nine months later,
tried a different approach.
Instead of sending in
a conventional force,
small groups of soldiers were infiltrated
deep behind Japanese lines.
They were known as Chindits
and were the brainchild of
an unconventional officer,
called Orde Wingate.
Their task was to
destroy railway lines
and disrupt
Japanese communications.
[music playing]
[reporter] Chindits.
That's the name for
the guardian statues
which stand at the steps
of Burmese pagodas.
A name from legend that's
becomes flesh and blood.
Living guardians
of Burma's liberty.
[music ends]
[machine gun firing]
[narrator] But the Japanese soon
began to hunt them down.
By mid-April in 1943,
over one-third of the Chindit
forces had been killed.
The remainder were
forced back into India.
The struggle to retake Burma
was becoming a serious problem.
So in late 1943, the Allies turned
to US General Joseph Stilwell.
We got run out of Burma,
and it's humiliating as hell.
I think we ought to
find out what caused it,
go back and retake the place.
[narrator] Stillwell had spent years
helping to overhaul
the forces of neighbouring China.
[cannon firing]
The Allies now decided
to put them to the test.
[indistinct chatter]
[cannon firing]
Stilwell's Chinese soldiers reinforced
by an elite US group of jungle fighters
known as Merrill's Marauders,
would be sent into Burma.
In October 1943,
they crossed the border
and made their way
down the east side of the country.
Meanwhile, the British India Army
launched a diversionary strike
along the Burmese coast.
[gunshot]
Finally, Chindits moved
into northern Burma,
deep behind enemy lines
to cut Japanese supply routes.
[artillery firing]
The Japanese fell for
the diversionary tactic
and sent forces to counter-attack
along the coast.
Two divisions of troops
from British India came under fierce fire.
[tanks firing]
But the Allied forces stood their ground.
They were re-supplied from the air.
They could now fight back
and two weeks later
the Japanese withdrew.
[firing]
[explosion]
But it was only a temporary reprieve.
The Japanese launched
a counter-offensive of their own.
[explosion]
In March 1944, they invaded India
in an attempt to disrupt
Allied preparations for further attacks.
For two weeks,
there was intense fighting.
The towns of Kohima
and Imphal were besieged.
But there was stiff resistance
and the Japanese were
finally forced to withdraw.
[machine gun firing]
Over 65,000 of them were killed.
It was a major blow
to their military strength in the region.
[gunshot]
Meanwhile in Burma,
Stillwell's Chinese forces
had fought their way
down the east side
of the country and by May 1944
had reached the important
cross-roads town
of Myitkyina on
the old Burma road.
[cannon firing]
For three months,
the Japanese held them off.
[explosion]
But in early August 1944,
Myitkyina was over-run.
[indistinct audio]
The way was now clear
for Stillwell's men
to push further on down
the east side of the country.
They were soon joined
by a fresh force
of Anglo-Indian troops
under British General William Slim.
This began advancing
into the centre of the country.
[cannon firing]
In early March 1945,
Slim's forces took
the important communications
centre of Meiktila.
Soon afterwards,
they seized Mandalay.
[explosion]
[machine gun firing]
With the monsoon
season now approaching,
Stillwell's forces dug in on the East.
But Slim's forces pushed on towards
the Burmese capital of Rangoon.
They were slowed down by the rain.
But by early May 1945,
the Allied troops
were 20 miles north of Rangoon.
[machine gun firing]
Allied reinforcements were now sent
in from the south to support them.
Gurkhas parachuted
into the Irrawaddy Delta.
An Indian division came in by sea.
On May the 3rd 1945,
the Allied forces
finally entered Rangoon.
But the city was empty.
The Japanese had pulled out
rather than risk being cut off.
[people cheering]
The monsoon was now in full flow.
[wind howling]
But the campaign to clear
the Japanese out of Burma
was effectively over.
The next stop in the war in
South-East Asia would be Malaya.
But for all the success,
Allied losses in the war against
the Japanese had been terrible.
The Americans were desperate to find
a way to bring the war to an end
without having to invade
the Japanese homeland.
[background music over dialogue]
[woman crying]
[people cheering]
[narrator] By early 1943,
the Japanese empire
was at its height.
The country had occupied
Malaya and Burma,
the Philippines and
the Dutch East Indies,
Indonesia today.
[insects chirping]
These territories
had become vital sources
of strategic supplies
such as oil and rubber.
[indistinct audio]
Now the United States laid plans
to roll back the Japanese gains.
The aim was to cut
the country's supply lines
by seizing the occupied territories.
Japan could then be
gradually strangled to death.
But to win in the vast expanse
of the Pacific,
the US would need to develop
new forms of mobile warfare.
They would be based
on amphibious landings
supported by aircraft
flying from carriers.
The Japanese,
unable to match American firepower,
resorted to increasingly
desperate measures.
[soldiers cheering]
The country fell back
on ancient notions
of ''military honour''
to create suicide units.
[explosion]
The result would be
a terrible loss of life.
[explosion]
This would be a decisive phase
in the war in the Pacific
and would mark the end
of Japan's dreams of empire.
[indistinct audio]
But this was to come.
Back in the spring of 1943,
the US military chiefs faced
a dilemma.
[indistinct audio]
They had been presented
with two options
for the defeat of Japan.
The flamboyant US Army General,
Douglas MacArthur,
commander of the US and Australian
forces in the South-West Pacific,
favoured a primarily land-based route.
His idea was to seize
the Solomon Islands,
Papua New Guinea
and the Philippines.
They could then be turned
into a strategic barrier
that would cut off Japan
from its newly conquered lands
in Burma, Malaya
and the Dutch East Indies.
Japan would be starved
into surrender.
Equally importantly,
this plan would mean
MacArthur could repay a debt.
Earlier in the war,
he had been kicked out
of the Philippines by the Japanese
and he had promised to return
to liberate the country.
But the US Navy had a different idea.
It would bypass the heavily-defended
Solomon Islands,
Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
Instead it would seize a string
of much smaller islands
scattered across
the central Pacific and close
to the Japanese homeland.
Rather than a barrier,
the US would have
a series of strategic bases
from which to attack
Japan's supply lines.
[plane revving]
They argued it would be swifter
and much more economic.
The American military command
put off the decision.
[seagulls squawking]
Both the Army and Navy
were told to go ahead.
[ships horn blares]
In June 1943,
MacArthur's plan was launched.
It was called
Operation Cartwheel.
The first target was
the major Japanese military base
at Rabaul on New Britain
in the Solomon Islands.
It would be a two-pronged attack.
[explosions]
[artillery firing]
The eastern prong fought its way up
through New Georgia and Bougainville.
[machine gun firing]
[machine gun firing continues]
[indistinct audio]
The western prong battled its way
through Papua and New Guinea.
But the virtually impenetrable jungle,
and unhealthy climate,
made progress slow.
[distant machine gun firing]
[insects chirping]
It was nearly nine months
before the pincers met
and the Japanese base
at Rabaul was isolated.
Meanwhile as the US Army
took control of the Solomon Islands,
the US Navy mustered a mighty fleet.
[distant gun firing]
It included the first four
of the brand new
Essex class aircraft carriers.
They were bigger and faster
than anything before.
The new carriers were equipped
with outstanding new planes
like the Hellcat
and Corsair fighters,
Helldiver dive-bombers,
and Avenger torpedo bombers.
Together they both
outperformed and outnumbered
their Japanese opponents.
[aircraft explosion]
The Navy's first targets
were the Japanese garrisons
on the coral atolls
of Tarawa and Makin
in the Gilbert Islands.
These were close to some
of the most important
supply routes across the Pacific.
[artillery firing]
For a week the atolls were bombed
by carrier-based aircraft.
[explosions]
Then on November the 20th 1943,
there was an amphibious landing.
Makin was captured
with little difficulty.
[soldier's shouting]
But Tarawa was a different story.
[explosion]
Reconnaissance had failed to reveal
that the water was too shallow
for the landing craft.
[explosion]
As the Marines waded ashore,
they came under intense fire.
[gunshots]
The island was honeycombed
with fortified machine-gun nests.
[machine gun firing]
US troops who made it to dry land
were pinned down on the beach.
[machine gun firing]
By the end of the day,
over 1,500 of the 5,000
US marines landed
had been killed or severely injured.
[indistinct audio]
[explosion]
Over the next two days,
frontal assaults
pushed the Japanese
back inch by inch.
Very often,
only flamethrowers could eliminate
the Japanese strong points.
[fire crackling]
It took three days
before the last pocket
of Japanese resistance was wiped out.
[music plays]
Of the 4,200 Japanese troops
on the island
only 17 were captured alive.
[fire crackling]
Tarawa was a terrible forerunner
of what was to come.
[people cheering]
The Japanese had shown
that there would be
no question of surrender.
They would fight to the death.
It was a grim prospect.
[military marching]
In January 1944,
America's naval offensive
in the Pacific moved on
to the Marshall Islands.
[sound muted]
Admiral Chester Nimitz,
the US naval commander
in the Central Pacific,
was anxious to avoid
another bloodbath.
So aircraft from his carrier force
bombed Japanese airfields
on the islands
for nearly two months.
[explosion]
Finally, on February
the 1st 1944,
he sent in the assault forces.
[indistinct audio]
The flat and open island
of Roi was quickly overrun.
[gunshots]
[explosion]
[machine gun firing]
But the islands of
Kwajalein and Namur
were wooded and the Japanese
resisted fanatically.
[cannon firing]
US forces used
flamethrowers and explosives.
[gunshots]
[machine gun firing]
[explosions]
The Japanese responded by launching
"suicidal Banzai" charges.
[gunshots]
But the US forces now
knew what to expect.
The Japanese were beaten back.
[gunshot]
[music playing]
Over 8,000 Japanese soldiers died
for the loss of less than 400 US lives.
[gunshot]
[machine gun firing]
Atoll after atoll in the Marshall Islands
now fell to the US advance.
Kwajalein was followed by Eniwetok.
The island of Truk
was bypassed and cut off,
though a small
Japanese garrison
would remain undefeated
until the end of the war.
The way was now clear
for the next push,
1,000 miles west towards
the Mariana Islands.
If captured, the islands would put
the Japanese mainland within range
of US heavy bombers.
They would also enable
America to block
Japan's supply lines
from south-east Asia.
On June 11, 1944,
the US started to soften up
the three main islands in the Marianas.
[explosions]
Four days later,
Marines stormed the beaches
of the northerly island of Saipan.
This time the terrain was mountainous
with many caves,
and the preliminary
bombardment had not disrupted
the Japanese defences
as much as had been hoped.
[firing]
Nevertheless, by the end of the day,
the American bridgehead was secure.
In Tokyo, the news
caused mounting alarm.
The Japanese High Command
now sent a carrier fleet
to rescue the situation
and save the Marianas.
But the task force was spotted
by US submarines.
The Americans sent
their main carrier force
to intercept the Japanese.
[music plays]
On the morning of
June the 19th, 1944,
the Japanese launched air strikes
against the US ships.
[aircraft revving]
But US radar saw them coming.
[plane engines roaring]
450 fighters were scrambled
to intercept the Japanese planes.
It turned into the largest
aircraft carrier battle ever fought.
[continuous firing]
The US Task Force
had 15 aircraft carriers
and more than 900 aircraft.
Ranged against it
the Japanese had nine carriers
and nearly 500 aircraft.
But Japan had lost
many of its experienced aircrews
during the Solomon
and Marshall Islands campaigns.
Its novice pilots faced
battle-hardened US fliers.
The Japanese were
outgunned and outfought.
[aircraft explodes]
It would go down in history
as ''The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot''.
Half an hour into the battle,
a torpedo from a US submarine
hit the newest
and largest Japanese carrier,
the Taiho,
while she was still launching aircraft.
[explosion]
The battle of the Philippine Sea
had claimed its first major victim.
At around the same time
another US submarine
torpedoed the carrier Shokaku.
[explosions]
She was completely destroyed.
Nevertheless the Japanese
commander decided
to continue with the operation,
hoping to stop further
US landings in the Marianas.
For much of the following day,
the US forces tried to pin down
the exact location
of the remaining Japanese carriers.
Bearing zero-nine-six.
[narrator] It took them until
the afternoon to find them.
It was late in the day
to launch an attack
and the aircraft would have to fly
at the limit of their range.
But the US
Task Force Commander,
Admiral Marc Mitscher,
decided to gamble and attack.
[explosion]
A third Japanese carrier,
the Hiyo, was hit and sunk.
The Japanese had lost
over 300 aircraft.
But as the US planes now returned,
dangerously short of fuel,
they ran into a problem.
In the gathering darkness
they couldn't find their own carriers.
Many ran out of fuel
and had to ditch in the sea.
Mitscher, in an act of
extraordinary courage,
ordered his carriers
to switch on their lights
to guide in the returning aircraft.
Fortunately for the Americans
there were no Japanese
submarines to see them.
Nevertheless over 80 US planes
were lost,
either through having
to ditch in the sea
or through crashing while they landed.
[aircraft crash]
But Japanese losses
had been even greater.
Three carriers, and most
of the aircraft needed
to equip its remaining carrier fleet,
were gone.
From now on, the United States Navy
would dominate the Pacific,
striking when and where it wanted.
[artillery firing]
The Japanese naval defeat
in the Philippine Sea
meant the United States
could now press on
with its assault on the Marianas.
[gun firing]
[explosion]
The Japanese forces on Saipan
held out for three weeks
before they were overcome
on July the 9th, 1944.
The final horror came
when thousands of Japanese civilians
were persuaded to jump to their deaths
from the cliffs rather
than be captured by the Americans.
[shouting in Japanese]
The last Japanese troops then launched
their now inevitable suicide charge.
[gun firing]
[soldier's shouting]
Virtually the entire
32,000-strong garrison was killed.
Over 3,000 Americans also died.
Two weeks later,
US Marines landed on the islands
of Guam and Tinian,
also in the Marianas.
[soldier's shouting]
Once again they faced suicidal
Japanese counter-attacks.
[gunshot]
But they failed to stop
the American advance.
The US Navy had seized the Marianas.
Both the US Army and Navy offensives
had now completed the first phase
of their separate
strategies to isolate Japan.
The US military planners
now had to make a choice.
[machine gun firing]
Should they continue to
back MacArthur's strategy
and move on to the capture
of the Philippines?
Or should they go
with the Naval plan
and send a fleet across
the Pacific to seize Taiwan
or the Ryukyu Islands?
[indistinct audio]
The Naval option
would isolate Japan
without the need
for an almost certainly
lengthy and bloody operation
to take the Philippines.
But at a meeting in Hawaii
on July 26th, 1944,
MacArthur charmed
President Roosevelt
into backing his plan
to liberate the Philippines.
The Navy was instructed
to support it
before returning to
its island hopping strategy.
It was a decision that
would cost a horrendous number
of both military and civilian lives.
The following month US forces landed
on the Philippine island of Leyte.
[machine gun firing]
[indistinct audio]
They took
the Japanese by surprise.
They had expected
the first US landing
to be on the main
island of Luzon.
Within hours,
MacArthur was striding ashore
with press photographers
in attendance.
[background music over dialogue]
He later made a broadcast
to the Philippine people.
I see that the old flagpole
still stands.
Have your troops hoist
the colours to its peak,
and let no enemy
ever haul them down.
[narrator] But the Japanese
soon recovered
and launched an ambitious
plan to use the remains
of their naval power
to counter-attack.
Operation Sho, meaning Victory,
was typically complex.
The main strength
of the Japanese fleet
was divided into two groups
to form a pincer.
One pincer would approach
through the San Bernardino Straits
and attack the US landing
from the north.
The second would come in
through the Surigao Straits
and attack from the south.
Meanwhile, a decoy group
of Japan's last four carriers
would approach the Philippines
from the north-east,
hoping to lure away the main US
carrier force covering the landing.
The northern arm
of the Japanese pincer
came under air attack
almost immediately.
[explosions]
After nearly two days
of bombardment,
the super-battleship
Musashi was sunk.
The northern pincer
then appeared to retreat.
It was now that the US commanders
got into a muddle.
The man in charge
of the main carrier force
covering the landings
was Admiral William Bull Halsey.
[alarm beeping]
He now got word
of the Japanese carriers
approaching from the north east.
Halsey, believing the northern pincer
was no longer a threat,
set off to intercept them.
He had fallen
for the Japanese decoy.
The force protecting the US landing
was now severely weakened.
But the commander of this force
now inadvertently
compounded the problem.
Unaware that Halsey had taken off,
he sent his battleships
to ambush the southern arm
of the Japanese pincer.
[artillery firing]
It looked like a spectacular success.
[artillery firing continues]
But then disaster struck.
The northern arm
of the Japanese pincer
had only pretended to retreat.
Under cover of darkness
it turned round and headed back.
It then attacked the hugely
depleted force
protecting the US landing.
Only a handful of small
escort carriers and destroyers
faced the Japanese
super-battleship Yamato
and three other battleships.
[artillery firing]
It was now the turn of the Americans
to put up a desperate fight.
[artillery firing]
The Japanese tactic had caught
the US aircraft unprepared.
They were armed with high explosives
for land operations rather
than armour piercing bombs for ships.
[continuous firing]
Then, just as it seemed the Japanese
must break through,
they suddenly turned tail.
Their commander had worried
he was sailing into a trap.
Meanwhile to the north,
Halsey's headlong rush to intercept
the Japanese decoy force,
finally paid off.
[artillery firing]
[aircrafts exploding]
[indistinct chatter]
[explosion]
On October the 25th, 1944,
all four Japanese carriers were sunk.
[firing]
The battle of Leyte Gulf
had completely finished off
Japan's once proud navy.
There was now little
hope of holding back
the American advance.
For Japan it was time
for desperate measures.
The stage was set for a terrible climax
to Macarthur's plan.
[speaking in Japanese]
[distant firing]
By the autumn of 1944,
the Allies had isolated
the Japanese forces in the Philippines.
Their naval support had been destroyed.
Japan needed a new tactic
if it was to hold back
the American advance.
[cheering]
[background music over dialogue]
The Japanese commander
in the islands
called for volunteers
to join special units.
They were called
the Kamikazes or 'Divine Wind'
and drew on the Japanese
military code of honour
that it was better to die
than live as a coward.
They were suicide units.
On October 25th, 1944,
the first Kamikaze unit took a final
ceremonial drink before taking off.
[aircraft revving]
Its target was the US fleet.
[artillery firing]
[aircraft exploding]
The escort carrier St Lo was sunk
and two others badly damaged.
[artillery firing]
Further Kamikaze attacks followed.
[ship exploding]
[continuous firing]
[aircraft exploding]
Not all were restricted to the air.
The Japanese troops
now began strapping mines
to their bodies and deliberately
diving under US tanks.
[explosion]
The American advance through
the Philippine island of Leyte slowed.
[machine gun firing]
It would take two months before
the island was finally secured.
[machine gun firing in background]
[explosion]
Over 70,000 Japanese troops
had lost their lives.
The Americans had lost
nearly 16,000 men.
[background music over dialogue]
But MacArthur was undaunted.
He now moved on to
the main Philippine island of Luzon.
The defences were, as usual,
softened up by air attacks.
The US troops went ashore
virtually unopposed.
[cannon firing]
But as they advanced,
Japanese resistance stiffened.
[cannon firing]
Tanks, artillery,
mortars and flamethrowers
were used to destroy a succession
of Japanese strongholds.
[tanks firing]
Painfully,
the US forces battled forward.
[gunshots]
By January the 23rd, 1945,
they had reached the major
airbase of Clark Field,
60 miles from the capital Manila.
A week later they were
approaching the capital itself.
Manila was famous
for its architectural beauty.
[traditional music]
The Japanese regional commander
had taken a decision to preserve
its buildings by not defending it.
But the junior
Japanese garrison commander
disobeyed orders
and refused to withdraw.
His 20,000 troops
pledged to defend Manila to the death.
[gunshot]
There now began a ferocious,
month-long battle
to seize the Philippine capital.
[machine gun firing]
The US troops fought
their way into the city.
[explosion]
At first, they too tried
to preserve the major buildings.
But as they ran into snipers,
machine-gun nests and hidden artillery,
they were forced to reduce
much of the city to rubble.
[explosion]
[cannon firing]
By the end of February,
the Japanese defenders
had been driven back
into the 16th-century
citadel of Intramuros.
[cannon firing]
It would take another week
of fierce fighting to flush them out.
[cannon firing]
[explosion]
[machine gun firing]
Finally, on April 13th, 1945,
US forces mounted an amphibious attack
on Manila Bay's last fortification,
Fort Drum, the ''Concrete Battleship''
in the harbour.
Its ventilation shafts
were packed with kerosene,
white phosphorous and explosives.
[explosion]
None of the defenders survived.
[engine plane roaring]
The battle for Manila
had been an horrific affair.
Thousands of Japanese
and US soldiers have died.
[indistinct chatter]
But the real horror was
that some 100,000 civilians
also lost their lives.
Many massacred indiscriminately
by the Japanese
during the final days of fighting.
Elsewhere in the Philippines
there were more than 50 US landings
on other, smaller islands.
[distant machine gun firing]
But it would take
until the end of the war
before the last pockets
of Japanese resistance
were finally flushed out.
[explosion]
[trumpet]
MacArthur's conquest
of the Philippines
had proved as difficult
and costly in lives
as his critics had feared.
It may also have
been unnecessary.
By now US submarines
had virtually cut off Japan
from its supply lines
and the Navy was closing in
on the homeland itself.
The Japanese merchant fleet
was particularly vulnerable.
It was rarely organised into convoys
and anyway there weren't
enough escort vessels to protect them.
[explosion]
By the end of 1944, so many
Japanese merchant ships had been sunk
the US Navy was having problems
finding new targets.
US submarines now
moved in ever-closer
to the shores of the
Japanese home islands.
Japan was being starved of fuel,
food and raw materials.
The US Navy's
submarines in the Pacific
had succeeded
where German U-boats in the Atlantic
had failed in bringing
an island nation close to defeat.
But now the US forces
faced the daunting prospect
of invading its fanatical
enemy's homeland.
[cannon firing]
By spring 1945, US forces
were closing in on Japan
from the south and east.
But to the west
in China, Burma and India
a separate campaign
had been unfolding.
[artillery firing]
[people shouting]
Japan had invaded China in 1937.
[fire crackling]
The United States had regarded
the Chinese leader,
Chiang Kai-Shek,
as a western ally, and sent aid.
Much of it went in through
British-controlled Burma
along the so-called Burma Road
over the mountains to southern China.
Then in 1942 Japan invaded Burma
and kicked out the British.
The Burma road was shut down.
Six months later,
Britain launched the first
of a series of attacks to retake Burma
and re-open the road.
The first, in late 1942,
advanced down
the Burmese coast from India.
But the Japanese crushed it.
[gunshot]
[machine gun firing]
The second, nine months later,
tried a different approach.
Instead of sending in
a conventional force,
small groups of soldiers were infiltrated
deep behind Japanese lines.
They were known as Chindits
and were the brainchild of
an unconventional officer,
called Orde Wingate.
Their task was to
destroy railway lines
and disrupt
Japanese communications.
[music playing]
[reporter] Chindits.
That's the name for
the guardian statues
which stand at the steps
of Burmese pagodas.
A name from legend that's
becomes flesh and blood.
Living guardians
of Burma's liberty.
[music ends]
[machine gun firing]
[narrator] But the Japanese soon
began to hunt them down.
By mid-April in 1943,
over one-third of the Chindit
forces had been killed.
The remainder were
forced back into India.
The struggle to retake Burma
was becoming a serious problem.
So in late 1943, the Allies turned
to US General Joseph Stilwell.
We got run out of Burma,
and it's humiliating as hell.
I think we ought to
find out what caused it,
go back and retake the place.
[narrator] Stillwell had spent years
helping to overhaul
the forces of neighbouring China.
[cannon firing]
The Allies now decided
to put them to the test.
[indistinct chatter]
[cannon firing]
Stilwell's Chinese soldiers reinforced
by an elite US group of jungle fighters
known as Merrill's Marauders,
would be sent into Burma.
In October 1943,
they crossed the border
and made their way
down the east side of the country.
Meanwhile, the British India Army
launched a diversionary strike
along the Burmese coast.
[gunshot]
Finally, Chindits moved
into northern Burma,
deep behind enemy lines
to cut Japanese supply routes.
[artillery firing]
The Japanese fell for
the diversionary tactic
and sent forces to counter-attack
along the coast.
Two divisions of troops
from British India came under fierce fire.
[tanks firing]
But the Allied forces stood their ground.
They were re-supplied from the air.
They could now fight back
and two weeks later
the Japanese withdrew.
[firing]
[explosion]
But it was only a temporary reprieve.
The Japanese launched
a counter-offensive of their own.
[explosion]
In March 1944, they invaded India
in an attempt to disrupt
Allied preparations for further attacks.
For two weeks,
there was intense fighting.
The towns of Kohima
and Imphal were besieged.
But there was stiff resistance
and the Japanese were
finally forced to withdraw.
[machine gun firing]
Over 65,000 of them were killed.
It was a major blow
to their military strength in the region.
[gunshot]
Meanwhile in Burma,
Stillwell's Chinese forces
had fought their way
down the east side
of the country and by May 1944
had reached the important
cross-roads town
of Myitkyina on
the old Burma road.
[cannon firing]
For three months,
the Japanese held them off.
[explosion]
But in early August 1944,
Myitkyina was over-run.
[indistinct audio]
The way was now clear
for Stillwell's men
to push further on down
the east side of the country.
They were soon joined
by a fresh force
of Anglo-Indian troops
under British General William Slim.
This began advancing
into the centre of the country.
[cannon firing]
In early March 1945,
Slim's forces took
the important communications
centre of Meiktila.
Soon afterwards,
they seized Mandalay.
[explosion]
[machine gun firing]
With the monsoon
season now approaching,
Stillwell's forces dug in on the East.
But Slim's forces pushed on towards
the Burmese capital of Rangoon.
They were slowed down by the rain.
But by early May 1945,
the Allied troops
were 20 miles north of Rangoon.
[machine gun firing]
Allied reinforcements were now sent
in from the south to support them.
Gurkhas parachuted
into the Irrawaddy Delta.
An Indian division came in by sea.
On May the 3rd 1945,
the Allied forces
finally entered Rangoon.
But the city was empty.
The Japanese had pulled out
rather than risk being cut off.
[people cheering]
The monsoon was now in full flow.
[wind howling]
But the campaign to clear
the Japanese out of Burma
was effectively over.
The next stop in the war in
South-East Asia would be Malaya.
But for all the success,
Allied losses in the war against
the Japanese had been terrible.
The Americans were desperate to find
a way to bring the war to an end
without having to invade
the Japanese homeland.