All language subtitles for PBS.Ken.Burns.The.War.5of7.FUBAR-eng

(birds chirping)

(quiet piano music playing)

NARRATOR;
On August 3, 1944,

in the skies over the town
of Vire, in France,

the law of averages caught up

with fighter pilot Quentin
Aanenson of Luverne, Minnesota.

AANENSON:
I was flying the "Tail-End
Charlie" position,

which means the last one
in the line of flight,

which is the most vulnerable
position,

because that's the one
they'll start with first.

And suddenly the, uh, 88's

and 20 millimeters started
coming up

in heavy amounts
and just... Bruuum!

I heard this roar
through my airplane,

and fire came
into the cockpit...

just all in... in an instant.

My airplane was shaking.

I thought, "I'm gone."

So I tried to bail out.

I tried to move
the canopy back,

and a piece of flak had come up
through the glide

and so I couldn't get
the canopy open.

Couldn't get it open.

The fire was still coming at me,
and so I put the plane in a dive

because we'd always discussed

that we didn't want to die
by burns.

And so...

I put the plane in a dive--

I was only at 4,000 feet so
I could hit the ground fast--

and that move, literally,
saved my life

because the, uh,
air pressure changed

and so the flames
were sucked out

through that opening in the
canopy, and that fire died out.

I got back to the base.

I would stall if my speed
dropped below 160 miles an hour

so I landed
at 170 miles an hour,

and I didn't know that one of
the 20 millimeters had come up

through my left wheel well,
and I had a flat tire there.

So when the landing gear
collapsed on one side

I was still going
about 100 miles an hour,

and I was spun around
by the force.

My shoulder harness on the right
broke loose.

The left one held.

I was spun around and the back
of my head hit the gunsight.

So I was unconscious.

Then a couple of enlisted men
had pulled me out

and pulled me away from there.

NARRATOR:
After medics tended
to his dislocated shoulder

and the burns on his legs,

a British photographer
from Picture Post magazine

asked Aanenson to pose
with his plane.

AL McINTOSH (dramatized):
Al Mcintosh,
Rock County Star-Herald.

"Lieutenant John Stavenger,
bomber pilot now in England,

"has decided it's a mighty small
world after all.

"He hadn't hardly landed

"before he bumped into
Lt. Howard James of Luverne.

"Then, he leisurely settled back
and read an English magazine.

"He looked at one big picture
of a wrecked plane.

"The picture carried
the caption:

"The man who was lost
returns to base.'

"The pilot in question
was none other

"than Lt. Quentin Aanenson
of Luverne.

"His family knew nothing
of the incident.

"And the picture showed the
Luverne youngster walking away

"from his wrecked plane
as blithely unconcerned

as if he'd just bought
a nickel's worth of candy."

(engine sputtering)

NARRATOR:
A week after his close call,

Aanenson was back in the air,

providing ground cover

for the Americans advancing
toward Germany.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
It's 7:00 in the morning

and steaming along the western
coast of Peleliu Island.

In just about an hour
and a half,

the Marines will hit
the beaches there.

Before that the warships
of this task force,

which have been pounding
the island for three days,

will give it a final terrific
softening up.

EMMA BELLE PETCHER:
Everybody had a radio
during the war.

No TVs.

And three times a day,
you got the national news

and three times a day, you did
not be far from that radio.

And, of course, my mother had
about a four-by-four map.

I really don't know
where she got it.

It was a map of all of Europe.

And she had a big,
long rule stick

and that map hung right there

and it covered that little wall
where the, um, buffet is.

And when news time came,

she followed all of the battles
with the rule stick on the map.

She would have been
a great historian.

She would have been.

NARRATOR:
Before the Japanese attacked
on December 7, 1941,

most Americans could not have
found Pearl Harbor on a map.

In the two and a half years
that followed,

they had had to learn a host
of new names

of the places their sons
were fighting--

Kasserine Pass and Monte Cassino
and Anzio,

Utah Beach and Omaha Beach,

Sainte Mére-Eglise
and St. L6 and the Falaise Gap;

and, on the other side
of the world,

Guam and Bataan and Guadalcanal,

Midway and Saipan
and the Philippine Sea.

Before the war could end,

the citizens of Mobile, Alabama,
and Sacramento, California,

Luverne, Minnesota, and
Waterbury, Connecticut--

and every other town
in America--

would be forced to learn
still more names:

Arnhem and Aachen
and the Hurtgen Forest,

the Vosges Mountains
and the Ardennes and Remagen,

Peleliu and Luzon and Iwo Jima,
and more.

And young men from those towns
would learn lessons

as old as war itself--

that generals make plans, plans
go wrong, and soldiers die.

For Tom Galloway,
a college student from Mobile,

a strategic mistake would
put him in an unwinnable battle

where the only victory to be had
was survival.

Robert Kashiwagi of Sacramento,

who had had everything taken
from him by his country,

would be asked to give
even more.

And Quentin Aanenson,
of Luverne,

who had lost so many friends
and seen so much death,

would endure still more horror

and nearly lose all hope.

EUGENE SLEDGE (dramatized):
"To the noncombatants

"and those on the periphery
of action,

"the war meant only boredom
or occasional excitement.

"But to those who entered
the meat grinder itself,

"the war was a netherworld
of horror

"from which escape seemed less
and less likely

"as casualties mounted and
the fighting dragged on and on.

"Time had no meaning;

"life had no meaning.

"The fierce struggle eroded
the veneer of civilization

and made savages of us all."

Eugene Sledge.

NARRATOR:
The men coined names

for the chaos in which
they often found themselves

and the ineptitude of some
of the officers

who sent them there,

employing language
they would never have used

in front of their mothers
or their wives back home:

SNAFU-- "Situation normal,
all fucked-up."

And FUBAR-- "Fucked-up beyond
all recognition."

PAUL FUSSELL:
General Patton is
a very wise person,

despite his personal
eccentricities.

He said a number of memorable
things about war

that only real soldiers know.

He said, "All plans last only

until the time
of the first shot."

Then they're set aside.

Then you just have to go
on sheer invention and guts

and not running away
and various other things

that are never, never mentioned.

(Benny Goodman's
"On the Alamo" plays)

NARRATOR:
By September of 1944,

the Allies seemed to be moving
steadily toward victory

in Europe.

On the Eastern Front,

the Russians had taken parts
of Estonia, Latvia,

Lithuania, and Poland

and inflicted 700,000 more
casualties

on the retreating Germans.

And in the 11 weeks since D-Day,

American, British, and Canadian
forces had freed most of France

and Belgium and parts of Holland

and were arrayed
along the 350-mile belt

of concrete fortifications the
Germans called the "West Wall."

Beyond it lay the heart
of Germany itself.

Allied planners had not expected
their forces to get that far

for another eight months.

George Patton's Third Army had
set the pace--

covering 400 miles
in less than 30 days,

though he had outrun
his supplies

and was desperately short
of fuel.

His armored columns alone
required some 600,000 gallons

of gasoline every 50 miles.

On September 11,

an armored unit
of the U.S. First Army

crossed the German frontier
near Stalzenburg.

"Militarily,"

General Dwight Eisenhower's
chief of staff told the press,

"this war is over."

Post exchanges were ordered
to halt all holiday packages

for the men
on the European front.

Nearly everyone was certain

the war would be over
by Christmas.

There was no room
in the supply trucks

for winter clothing, either.

Besides,
the men wouldn't need it.

Meanwhile, the British had taken
the important Belgian port

of Antwerp,

but no fuel or supplies
could be landed there,

because the Germans
still held the estuary

that lay between the city
and the North Sea.

Eisenhower ordered

British General
Bernard Montgomery

to clear them out.

That would have taken weeks,

and Montgomery proposed
a daring alternative

designed to speed the Allied
advance into Germany--

Operation Market Garden.

First, American and British
airborne troops would be dropped

behind German lines

to seize bridges
along a 65-mile highway

from Belgium, through Holland
to Arnhem.

Then, the British Second Army
would race along that highway,

cross the Rhine at Arnhem,

go around the northern end
of the West Wall,

and drive into the Ruhr Valley,

the center
of German industrial might.

For the risky plan to succeed,

everything had to go perfectly

and quickly.

Eisenhower thought
the gamble was worth it.

If it did succeed,
the war could end in weeks.

"I not only approved
of Market Garden,"

he said later,
"l insisted on it."

§§

§§

On Sunday, September 17,
1,481 C-47 transports

took off in broad daylight
from 24 British airfields

with 20,000 paratroopers
on board.

Towed behind the transports
were hundreds of CG-4A gliders

carrying men and matériel.

Let's talk about
the combat glider-- the CG-4A.

An 85-foot wingspan.

It would carry a ton
and a half--

3,000 pounds--
plus the two pilots up front.

(artillery rumbling)

(laughing):
But they were flying coffins.

I mean, there was no return, so,

the idea was
to get your people down

or get your load down,
whatever it is,

and then become an infantryman,
which is what we became.

NARRATOR:
Harry Schmid of Sacramento
had been studying accounting

when he was drafted in 1942,

and first planned
to become a medic.

But then, he said,

he didn't want to change bedpans
for the whole war,

and volunteered
to become a pilot.

When his weak eyes kept him out
of a fighter cockpit,

he settled for flying a glider
with the 82nd Airborne instead,

and found himself part
of Operation Market Garden.

Captain Dwain Luce of Mobile

was also on his way to Holland
aboard a glider.

The father
of two small children,

he had left his family's
cannery business

to join the 82nd Airborne
when the war started,

and had survived Sicily
and Italy

and 33 days of fighting
in Normandy.

LUCE:
I got out over
the North Sea there,

and that pilot
had a parachute on.

I told him, I said,

"Look, you might as well take
that parachute off,

because you're not
leaving here without me."

And, uh, I... uh... I said,

"Now, you get your ass shot,
who's going to land this thing?"

He says, "You are."

SCHMID:
Too fast a speed
with a CG-4A will kill you,

because you're talking
about a fabric airplane

with nothing
but little aluminum struts.

And these guys come in
at 90 miles an hour

and crash into something and,
boy, they just disintegrate.

In all my combat missions,

I never came in at more
than 50 miles an hour.

I took the chance of getting hit
by ground fire and flak,

but I wanted to get my people
down and get down on the ground.

(static-filled radio broadcast):
This is Edward R. Murrow.

In just about 30 seconds now...

these 19 men
will walk out onto Dutch soil.

There he goes!
Do you hear 'em shout?

Three, four, five...
six, seven, eight,

nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15...

16, 17, 18...

(engine roaring)

There they go.
Every man out.

I can see their chutes
going down now.

Every man clear...

hanging there very gracefully,

like nothing so much
as khaki dolls

hanging beneath
a green lampshade.

The whole sky is filled
with parachutes.

They're all going down
so slowly.

It seems as though they should
get to the ground much faster...

(broadcast fades)

(swing music plays)

NARRATOR:
Things went well at first.

Dutch citizens poured
into the streets

to greet the Americans.

(cheering and whistling)

The 82nd Airborne,
including Harry Schmid

and Dwain Luce,

seized three bridges
near Nijmegen, then dug in

and waited for the British armor
to race up from Belgium

and relieve them.

The 101st Airborne took

four bridges near Eindhoven,

and when the Germans
blew up a fifth,

managed to rebuild it overnight.

They, too, waited
to be relieved.

But when the 10,000 men
of the British First Airborne

came down seven miles
from Arnhem,

the Dutch crowds that turned out

to greet them
slowed their advance.

Only 500 of the soldiers

managed to reach
the all-important bridge

across the Rhine.

Meanwhile,

word of the Allied plan
had fallen into enemy hands,

and by the end of the day,

German panzers had surrounded
the outnumbered British

at Arnhem.

(explosive gunfire,
bullet ricochets)

(gunfire)

Bad weather delayed
airborne reinforcements

for several days,

and when a parachute brigade
of free Poles

was finally dropped in,
it was shot to pieces.

(gunfire)

(shouting)

(gunshots)

The British armor

that was meant to meet up
with the paratroopers

on the ground and then spearhead
the advance into Germany

soon found itself under attack
from enemy artillery.

(explosion)

Smashed tanks and vehicles
caused massive traffic jams

that took hours to clear.

SCHMID:
The idea of the whole mission,
of course,

was to control the bridges

while Montgomery came up
with his tanks.

Well, they shot him all up,

and he didn't get there
for seven days.

(laughs)

So we were in the front lines
all that time.

We were not attacking the enemy,

but we were defending
perimeters.

NARRATOR:
This was not the way
it was supposed to go.

Harry Schmid, Dwain Luce
and the men of the 82nd Airborne

found themselves struggling

just to hold on, with no tanks
and no heavy weapons.

MAN:
Fire!

SCHMID:
And they had two ways
of going after you.

They'd either do shells
that exploded on the ground,

or they used airbursts.

You worried
about those airbursts,

because they would...
they would burst

about 20 feet above you,

and there was just shrapnel
everywhere.

And just a little piece
of shrapnel could hit you,

you know, and you're gone.

LUCE:
They had better weapons,
in many cases, than we did.

You're talking about their 88's.

They were great weapons.

Very high velocity.

It was so damn fast

that the bullet got there
before... before the sound did.

It was zoop, bang.

You know, man, it was just...

It was a terrible weapon to...

We all dreaded the 88's,
I guess.

(rumbling explosions)

SCHMID:
And when you're in a mission
where you're behind enemy lines,

you're worried because
nobody knows anything.

You don't know whether
the Germans are coming

or they aren't coming,

and that's probably the most
thing that mentally bothers you,

is that you don't know
what's going on.

NARRATOR:
As the Americans held
their ground near Nijmegen

and Eindhoven,

the surrounded British at Arnhem
were being slaughtered.

(rapid gunfire)

(explosions and shouting)

(shouting and gunfire)

(rapid gunfire and shouting)

(explosive gunfire)

NARRATOR:
Finally, after nine long days,

Montgomery abandoned his plan

and ordered the survivors
to withdraw by boat.

Market Garden had been

the largest Allied
airborne operation of the war...

and the most disastrous.

17,000 Britons and Canadians,

Americans and Poles
were Killed or wounded

or captured before
the operation was abandoned.

More casualties than the Allies
had suffered on D-Day.

LUCE:
You don't like to see
what you see. No...

You don't like
to see what you see.

I mean, it's-it's very
disquieting to...

have your friends gone
and some of them

pretty terribly mauled
and things, and...

But that's part of it.

War is not a pleasant activity.

And you kind of need to keep
your sense of humor

a little bit to...
to get through it.

NARRATOR:
The Allies had won themselves

a narrow 65-mile corridor
across Holland,

but the rest of the British
and American troops,

including Dwain Luce
and Harry Schmid,

had to stay where they were
to hold it,

battling the deepening cold

as well as the relentless
German shelling.

They would be
left there for weeks.

LUCE:
As a boy, I spent a good deal
of time in the woods.

And I think my experiences
with that

helped me survive.

And I think
the little man upstairs

had his hand on my shoulder.

And I got hit once,
across the helmet.

And it didn't
penetrate my helmet,

but it'll make you change
your underwear if you have any.

But that's the only time
I got hit.

No, it's...

it's kind of like
a bad dream, I guess.

Wouldn't want to do it again.

Nope.

Couldn't do it again,
I don't guess.

NARRATOR:
It was clear now
that the war in Europe

would not end before winter.

In Waterbury, Connecticut,
just before Pearl Harbor,

Miss Virginia Fleming
had married

Staff Sergeant John Soden,

who had worked at the U.S.
Rubber Company in Naugatuck.

They had a daughter, born
while Soden was in training,

and he had been home to see her
just once before leaving

for France
in the summer of 1944.

On September 10, after
volunteering to lead a patrol

across the Moselle River,
he was hit in the leg.

He had his
"million dollar wound,"

his ticket home,
he told a friend,

and was carried to a barn where
he was to receive treatment.

(explosion)

Then, a German shell
hit the barn.

A few days later,
Virginia Soden got a telegram,

regretting to inform her
that John was missing in action.

She wrote to him right away.

VIRGINIA (dramatized):
"To My Dearest Husband
and Daddy,

"I pray to God you will be okay
and be back soon,

"as I don't know
what I'd ever do.

"But you're coming home,
darling.

"And we'll enjoy life

like we're supposed to be
entitled to."

"Well, sweets,
your daughter is okay.

"I still kiss her every night
for her daddy.

"But the poor little dear
doesn't know

"what it's all about.

She's so like you, darling,
in every respect.”

"The check you sent
for $40 came.

"Thanks a million, darling.

Every little bit will help
for our future, right?"

"Well, John, I can't seem
to write anymore,

except I still love you
more than ever."

"I pray you'll be
safe and home soon.

Your wife, Virginia."

NARRATOR:
A month later,
a second telegram arrived.

John Soden would not be
coming home to Waterbury.

The shell that had exploded
in the makeshift hospital

had killed him.

Virginia's younger brother
would always remember

that after she read
the telegram,

his sister let out
"an unearthly howl."

(indistinct, distant shouts)

SIDNEY PHILLIPS:
War is mostly boredom,
telling lies,

stealing from some other outfit
if they've got

something better to eat
than you have

and just making the best of
a thousand of bad situations.

Uh, it's going to rain.

You're going to get wet.

It's going to get too hot.

It's going to get too cold.

I mean, you're always
uncomfortable in the service,

it seemed like to me.

NARRATOR:
By the spring of 1944,

Sid Phillips of Mobile had been
stationed in the Pacific

for more than two years.

He had survived the fighting
on Guadalcanal

and at Cape Gloucester and hoped
to be sent to Australia,

with its plentiful beer
and friendly girls,

until he got his orders
to go home.

Instead, his First
Marine Division

was sent to Pavuvu,
a remote island so small

that when the men drilled,

one outfit had to march
clockwise

and the next counterclockwise

to keep from blocking
the only road.

Sitting on his cot
one hot afternoon,

Phillips was surprised to see
a familiar figure:

his best friend from Mobile,
Eugene Sledge.

(Glenn Miller's
"Little Brown Jug" plays)

PHILLIPS:
I saw him coming down the
company street, looking intense.

I recognized him and ran out,

screamed his name.

And we ran and beat on
each other and embraced

and rolled around on the ground.

People thought we were fighting
and a big crowd gathered.

But then,
I introduced him around,

and it was just a great day.

NARRATOR:
20-year-old Eugene B. Sledge

was the grandson of
Confederate officers.

Bookish and frail as a child,
he had been taught

to fish and hunt
by his physician father

and was a freshman at
the Marion Military Institute,

studying to become an officer,
when he decided to sign on

as a private
in the Marines instead.

He told his anxious parents

that if he waited
for graduation,

he might not get
a chance at combat.

KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
Eugene Sledge was just

an ordinary young man.

He was full of pranks,
and full of tricks,

and he and my brother Sidney
pulled every one of 'em

that they possibly could.

But they were such great friends

that what one did,

the other one followed suit.

He was a very gentle man,

as my brother Sidney was,
to be thrown

into the middle of a fight
like that.

NARRATOR:
Not long after
Sledge got to the Pacific,

he began keeping
an unauthorized journal,

slipping tiny sheets of notes
between the pages

of the small New Testament
he carried,

so that no one else would know
what he was doing.

Years later, those
uncensored notes would form

the basis of a harrowing memoir

of his experiences
in the Pacific.

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"The awesome reality

"that we were training
to be cannon fodder

"in a global war
that had already snuffed out

"millions of lives
never seemed to occur to us.

"The fact that our own lives
might end violently

"or that we might be crippled
while we were still boys

"didn't seem to register.

"The only thing that we seemed
to be truly concerned about

"was that we might be too afraid
to do our jobs under fire.

"An apprehension
nagged at each of us

that he might appear to be
yellow if he were afraid."

Eugene Sledge.

SIDNEY:
He had come in as a replacement,

and I was being rotated home

because I had been overseas
over two years.

I certainly did think
about what he was facing

because it was all bad.

Every campaign was bad.

Some were a little quicker
and a little worse than others.

Some were, uh... uh... under
worse conditions than others,

but they were all bad,
and I knew he was... uh...

he was going to face
some hard times.

NARRATOR:
In late August of 1944,

Sledge and 16,458 other men
of the First Marine Division

left Pavuvu
for the Palau Islands,

more than 2,000 miles away.

The Marines were headed for
the tiny island of Peleliu,

where the Japanese had
constructed an airfield.

It was only 550 miles east
of Mindanao,

which was to be the first stop

in General Douglas MacArthur's
campaign

to recapture the Philippines.

MacArthur wanted Peleliu
put out of action

to protect his flank.

But as Eugene Sledge
and his fellow Marines

steamed toward their target,

playing poker and sunbathing
on the deck to fill the time,

Allied plans changed.

After the decisive
American victory

in the Battle of the Philippine
Sea the previous June,

Admiral William Halsey

no longer considered
the Japanese air force

a serious threat.

The Peleliu airfield
had become largely irrelevant.

But no one canceled the invasion
of the island.

Halsey was sure it would take
only four days to secure it.

For three days,
the Navy bombarded Peleliu.

(explosions)

The foliage that blanketed
its jagged coral hills

was burned away.

The coral itself was bleached
white by phosphorous.

Finally, the officer in charge
told his superiors,

"We have run out of targets."

It was time
to send in the Marines.

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"It was hard to sleep

"that night before the invasion.

"I thought of home,
my parents, my friends--

"and whether I would do my duty,

"be wounded or disabled,
or be killed.

"l concluded that it was
impossible for me to be killed,

"because God loved me.

"And then I told myself
that God loved us all

"and that many would die

"or be ruined physically
or mentally

or both in the days following."

"My heart pounded,
and I broke out in a cold sweat.

"Finally, I called myself
a damned coward

"and eventually fell asleep
saying the Lord's Prayer

to myself."

NARRATOR:
The invasion of Peleliu began
at dawn on September 15, 1944.

At 6:30 in the morning,

Sledge and his comrades
clambered into their amtracks

and started for the island.

(gunshots and explosions)

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"The world was a nightmare
of flashes,

violent explosions,
snapping bullets."

"Up and down the beach, a number
of amtracks were burning.

"Japanese machine gun bursts
made long splashes on the water,

as though flaying it
with some giant whip."

(explosions, men shouting)

(men shouting)

NARRATOR:
Three Marine regiments--
more than 5,000 men--

went ashore side-by-side
and quickly discovered

that the bombardment
had done little damage

to the carefully-prepared warren
of 500 fortified caves

and concealed gun emplacements--

some equipped with sliding doors
of armored steel--

that honeycombed the coral
ridges running up the center

of the island.

The Japanese poured fire down
upon Eugene Sledge

and his fellow Marines.

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"I turned my face away

"and wished that
I were imagining it all.

"I had tasted the bitterest
essence of war,

"the sight of helpless comrades
being slaughtered,

and it filled me with disgust.”

NARRATOR:
Willie Rushton, also from
Mobile, was on the beach, too,

now a member
of the Eleventh Depot Company.

RUSHTON:
And then the first day

we went in there,
those people, they just,

they slaughtered us Marines
like we were just a bunch

of hogs coming
in the slaughter pen.

The Japanese were some
tough customers.

They really,
they really could fight.

They come at you
with everything they had.

So we Marines, we were just as
tough or tougher than they were.

So we, we always
almost came out on top.

NARRATOR:
The Americans lost 1,200 men,

but they clung to the beach

and some began fighting
their way inland.

Eugene Sledge was a mortarman.

He fired round after round
into the enemy,

while riflemen advanced
ahead of him.

(explosions and artillery fire)

He and his regiment managed

to make it all the way
across the narrow island,

then dug in for the night.

No one slept, for fear that
Japanese infiltrators would slip

into their lines
and slit their throats.

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"It was the darkest night
I ever saw.

"The overcast sky was as black
as the dripping mangroves

"that walled us in.

"I had the sensation of being
in a great black hole

"and reaching out to touch
the sides of the gun pit

to orient myself."

"Slowly, the reality of it all
formed in my mind:

"We were expendable!

"It was difficult to accept.

"We come from a nation
and a culture

"that values life
and the individual.

"To find oneself in a situation

"where your life seems
of little value

is the ultimate in loneliness."

NARRATOR:
The next morning,

the Marines were ordered
to assault Japanese positions

in the cliffs
that overlooked the airfield.

Tanks and artillery
would go first.

Then, the infantry
and Sledge would follow,

charging across the exposed
gravel airstrip

to attack the high ground.

The temperature neared
100 degrees.

There was no shade.

The only water available,

hauled up from the beach
in five-gallon cans,

turned out to be fouled
by diesel oil.

Scores of men collapsed
from heat exhaustion

before the signal was given.

As the Marines--

four battalions and 1,800 men--
moved forward,

the enemy opened up
with everything they had.

(explosions in quick succession)

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"I clenched my teeth,

"squeezed my carbine stock,
recited over and over to myself,

"The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.

"Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,
for Thou art with me."

"The further we went,
the worse it got.

"It seemed impossible that any
of us would make it across.

"To be shelled
by massed artillery and mortars

"is absolutely terrifying,

but to be shelled in the open
is terror compounded.”

(explosions)

NARRATOR:
Sledge somehow made it
across the airstrip safely

and took what shelter he could
beneath a bush.

He was "shaking like a leaf,"
he wrote,

but took comfort from the fact

that a veteran of the fighting
on Guadalcanal crouching nearby

was shaking, too.

(explosions and artillery fire)

Japanese tactics had changed
since the beginning of the war.

Suicidal banzai charges,

like those on Guadalcanal
and Tarawa

and Saipan, were largely a thing
of the past.

Instead,
Peleliu's 10,500 defenders

would contest every inch
of the island

from their hillside strongholds.

They would have to be blasted
or burned out of them,

one at a time.

(gunshot)

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"Even before the dust
had settled,

"I saw a Japanese soldier appear
at the blasted opening.

"He drew back his arm
to throw a grenade at us.

"My carbine was already up.

"When he appeared, I lined up
my sights on his chest

and began squeezing off shots."

(gunshots)

"As the first bullet hit him,
his face contorted in agony.

"His knees buckled.

The grenade slipped
from his grasp."

"I had just killed a man
at close range.

"That I had seen clearly
the pain on his face

"when my bullets hit him
came as a jolt.

It suddenly made the war
a very personal affair."

NARRATOR:
Willie Rushton was
in the thick of it, too.

He wasn't supposed to be;

his outfit was assigned to just
unload supplies and ammunition.

But when the fighting started,

he and some of his friends
volunteered

for frontline duty.

RUSHTON:
But we were right there

where the fighting was going on,
you know.

They was just, just knocking
us off as we came forward.

That's what they were doing,
knockin' us off.

They didn't make no...
whether you was black or white

or whatever, they didn't care
when you got into combat.

NARRATOR:
15 members of Rushton's
depot company were hit.

He was one of them,
wounded in the leg by shrapnel.

He was carried to a hospital
ship offshore,

the only wounded black man
aboard.

After his wounds were treated,

he asked if he could have
a haircut.

The ship's barber refused.

When I got up there he told me,
he said, uh,

"I can't cut your hair."

And so then, so a couple,

a couple of white Marines
asked him, said,

"Why can't you cut his hair?"

Said, "You don't have to give
him no style,

"just cut his hair off.

All he wants is some
of that hair off his ears."

So he said, "No... I'm, I can't,
I can't cut his hair."

NARRATOR:
Then, the captain intervened.

RUSHTON:
The captain of the Red Cross
ship came down there

and told that barber, say,

"I'm telling you for the first
and the last time," said,

"I don't care who comes
on this ship,

"if he's an American soldier,

whether he's black or white,
or whatever," said,

"l want you to cut his hair,
you know, just cut his hair."

He said, "Don't ever make
a remark like that anymore."

NARRATOR:
Private Rushton got his haircut.

(artillery blast)

For Eugene Sledge

and the other Marines
still fighting on Peleliu,

one day, one firefight,
one terror-filled night

now seemed just like the next.

(artillery fire)

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"During a lull,

"the men stripped
the packs and pockets

of the enemy dead
for souvenirs."

"The men gloated over, compared,
and often swapped their prizes.

"It was a brutal, ghastly ritual
the likes of which have occurred

"since ancient times
on battlefields

"where the antagonists
have possessed

"a profound mutual hatred.

"It was uncivilized,
as is all war...

"and was carried out
with savagery.

"It wasn't
simply souvenir hunting

"or looting the enemy dead,

it was more like Indian warriors
taking scalps."

"While I was removing a bayonet
and scabbard

"from a dead Japanese,

"I noticed a Marine dragging
what I assumed to be a corpse,

"but the Japanese wasn't dead.

"He had been wounded severely
in the back

"and couldn't move his arms.

"The Japanese's mouth glowed
with huge, gold-crowned teeth

"and his captor wanted them.

"He put the point of his Ka-Bar
knife on the base of a tooth

"and hit the handle
with the palm of his hand.

"Because the Japanese
was kicking his feet

"and thrashing about, the
knifepoint glanced off the tooth

"and sank deeply
into the victim's mouth.

"The Marine cursed him

"and with a slash,
cut his cheeks open ear to ear.

"I shouted, 'Put that man
out of his misery.'

"All I got for an answer was
a cussing out.

"Another Marine ran up
and put a bullet

"in the enemy soldier's brain
and ended his agony.

"The scavenger grumbled

and continued extracting
his prizes undisturbed."

"There were certain areas

"we moved into and out of
several times

"as the campaign dragged
along its weary, bloody course.

"I became quite familiar

"with the sight
of some particular enemy corpse,

"as if it were a landmark.

"It was gruesome
to see the stages of decay

"proceed from just killed
to bloated

"to maggot-infested rotting
to partially-exposed bones...

"like some biological clock

marking the inexorable passage
of time."

"On each occasion my company
passed such a landmark,

we were fewer in number."

(trading gunfire)

NARRATOR:
"The opposing forces on Peleliu

were like two scorpions in
a bottle," Eugene Sledge wrote.

"One was annihilated,
the other nearly so."

(artillery fire)

After six weeks of combat,

Sledge and the rest
of the First Marine Division

were finally taken
off the island.

It would be another month

before the Japanese commander
finally radioed his superiors

that "all is over on Peleliu"
and then committed suicide.

A handful of Japanese
would go on fighting there

until February of 1945.

Securing Peleliu was supposed
to take four days.

It took more than two months.

10,000 Japanese were Killed,

nearly every man who had
defended the island.

More than 1,200 Americans
perished,

including Private John D. New,

who had grown up in Mobile just
across town from Eugene Sledge.

He hurled himself
onto a Japanese grenade,

saving the lives of two friends,
but losing his own.

For his heroism, he received
a posthumous Medal of Honor.

5,274 more Americans were maimed
or missing.

Out of the 235 men
in Eugene Sledge's company,

only 85 left the island
without physical wounds.

And in the end,
there had been no tactical need

for the little airfield

for which so many
of Sledge's friends had died.

SLEDGE (dramatized):
"As I struggled upward

"onto the boat
with my load of equipment,

"I felt like a weary insect
climbing a vine.

"But at last I was crawling up
out of the abyss of Peleliu.

"I stowed my gear on my rack
and went topside.

"The salt air was delicious
to breathe.

"What a luxury to inhale

long, deep breaths of fresh,
clean air."

"But something in me died
at Peleliu.

"Perhaps it was
a childish innocence

that accepted as faith the claim
that man is basically good."

"Possibly I lost faith
that politicians in high places,

"who do not have
to endure war's savagery,

will ever stop blundering and
sending others to endure it."

Eugene Sledge.

(film score from Flying Tigers
playing)

BURT WILSON:
We couldn't wait for
the next war film to come out

because it was filled
with heroism

and everybody sacrificing
for the war,

and everybody who died
died for a cause.

The biggest audience response
came like from a movie

Flying Tigers with John Wayne.

And when he shot down
Japanese planes

and the Japanese pilot
would hold his hands to his face

and the blood would come
out of his fingers,

we would jump up and cheer

because the good guys
were winning.

(engines roaring)

(speaking Japanese)

(bicycle bell rings)

The big change
that the war brought for me was

I was a businessman
at the age of ten.

I was a Bee carrier,
managing my own money,

managing my own route.

And what did I do
with my first paycheck?

I went and bought
a cardboard replica

of a .30 caliber machine gun

and went home and put it up
in a tree in the backyard

and made believe I was mowing
down the enemy like that.

That was my contribution
to the war effort.

And we all played war
to a certain extent,

but it's interesting
the way we played war

because nobody ever died.

If you got shot, somebody came
to your aid and fixed you up,

and then you could rise up
and shoot again.

("Taxi War Dance" by Count Basie
playing)

NARRATOR:
The war transformed Sacramento,

just as it had Waterbury
and Mobile

and scores of other cities
and towns all over the country.

Women now drove city buses
and directed downtown traffic.

Some 12,000 local boys had gone
away to war

since Pearl Harbor,

including Earl Burke,
still recovering from the wounds

he suffered as a member
of the Eighth Air Force,

and Harry Schmid, still fighting
the Germans in Holland.

The city's
7,000 Japanese-American citizens

were missing, too,

sent to internment camps
scattered across the West.

Others now occupied their homes
and farms and businesses...

...some carefully protecting
the interests

of their absent friends,

many eager to profit from their
former neighbors' misfortune,

while new immigrants from Mexico
harvested their crops.

28,000 defense workers streamed
into Sacramento, as well.

Room had to be found
for all of them

and for thousands
of service personnel

at the city's
three Air Force bases:

Beale, Mather, and McClellan.

The federal government built
three housing developments,

but hundreds had to bunk
in the city jail,

the basement
of the Memorial Auditorium,

and in the Japanese Buddhist
Association Hall

that stood empty now that
its members had been taken away.

WILLIAM PERKINS:
The first Sunday I came to town,

I walked down Capitol Avenue.

And on the way down
toward the Capitol,

I looked up and I saw
some oranges up in a tree--

way up there-- and I must have
sat there for a long time.

Because this was in April,

and I sat there
for quite a while just admiring

and couldn't believe I was
looking at oranges in April

and back in my home
it probably was snow drifts.

NARRATOR:
Army Private William H. Perkins,
from Newport, Rhode Island,

arrived at McClellan Air Force
Base in the spring of 1944

to take up his duties
as a member

of the all-black
4909 Aviation Base Unit--

truck drivers,
mess hall workers,

guards, and MPs.

They were housed
in substandard wooden shacks

they called "Splinter City."

One of Perkins' best friends
in his outfit was

Corporal Walter Thompson,
a college man from Pennsylvania

who had hoped
to become a fighter pilot

but couldn't get
into the Tuskegee Flight School,

the only one open
to African-Americans.

WALTER THOMPSON:
There was about 1,200,
1,500 men,

every walk of life
and from all over the country.

Highly-educated
individuals there

down to almost
illiterates.

They were all
assigned to that,

regardless of your
intellectual abilities.

If you were colored, that's
where you were assigned--

to the 4909th.

NARRATOR:
There were separate facilities
on the base

for black and white personnel--

separate theaters, chapels,
even bowling alleys.

("The Basie Boogie"
by Count Basie playing)

The unit had its own big band,
the 4909 Barons of Swing.

Walter Thompson and William
Perkins were both members.

JEROLINE GREEN:
I had heard so much
about California at that time.

And it sounded so glamorous,
and...

and coming
from a little hick town,

I thought,
"Well, I'd better go," so I did.

NARRATOR:
Jeroline Green had come
to Sacramento

from Coffeyville, Kansas,

just one of some eight
million Americans

who migrated to
the Pacific Coast

during the war,
in search of defense jobs.

GREEN:
And I realized that
if I stayed at home,

of course I'd probably
finish my schooling,

but I'd probably end up working

in some white woman's
kitchen or something.

I had no growth or potential.

Then I was hired
as an inventory clerk,

counting nuts,
bolts, and screws.

NARRATOR:
Jerri Green worked
at McClellan Air Force Base,

side by side with her new best
friend, Barbara Covington.

Covington was having a hard time
coming up with the money

for tuition and books
for college,

when she heard about
the opportunities

being offered at McClellan.

COVINGTON:
And we got jobs within a week.

That's the way it was in those
days; you could walk into a job.

We got jobs as typists
in a unit and, um,

at McClellan Air Force Base.

And I think my pay jumped
from the $24 a month to $65.

And I was making, considering,
fairly good money.

They wanted the blacks
to all be in one place.

You know, I marvel now
at how well we took it.

You know?

We made the best of it.

We really did.

We made the best of it.

And we tried to get as much out
of it as we could.

And we tried to have
as much fun as we could.

NARRATOR:
Barbara Covington
and Jerri Green

sometimes performed
with the 4909 Band,

dancing as the
"Flora Dora Coras."

There they made friends
with Walter Thompson

and William Perkins.

COVINGTON:
And it was great times

to be able to go out to the base
and listen to the fellows

that you knew play so many
of these beautiful songs.

What was sort of
funny about it, though,

so many of the guys
that were in the band

had girlfriends in the audience,

and some of them
couldn't hardly play

for watching their girlfriends

as they danced with
some other serviceman.

NARRATOR:
Barbara Covington
and William Perkins

would marry
years after the war was over.

Walter Thompson and Jerri Green
didn't wait that long.

They were married
at the end of 1944

at McClellan Air Force Base
in Sacramento, California.

SASCHA WEINZHEIMER (dramatized):
"Santo Tomas Camp, Manila.

"Daddy is now out of tobacco.

"He dries papaya leaves
on the roof and smokes that.

"People use anything to roll
their cigarettes.

"Some even use pages
from the Bible

"because the paper is so fine.

"Every day I hear of some person
doing strange things.

"A Catholic priest did a mortal
sin by going around with a lady,

"then falling in love with her,

"acting so mushy
in front of everybody,

"that he was kicked
out of the church.

"I heard a husband and wife
fighting loudly.

"She yelled at him, 'If I hadn't
married you,

I wouldn't be
in this camp now."

Sascha Weinzheimer.

NARRATOR:
11-year-old Sascha Weinzheimer
and her family

were still imprisoned, along
with 4,000 other civilians

rounded up by the Japanese,

on the grounds of
the Santo Tomas University

in Manila,
on the island of Luzon.

As the war went on, conditions
had steadily deteriorated.

WEINZHEIMER:
Once the food started going
down, everything went down.

And toward the end,
my mother was 73 pounds.

And, um, she nursed my brother
until he was, uh, three.

So, if you see a picture of him
during that time, he is chubby.

And that's because
of Mother's milk.

But that depleted her.

(airplanes passing)

WEINZHEIMER (dramatized):
"September 21, 1944.

"This morning, about 9:30,

"there were seven Nip planes
above us practicing diving.

"It was a bright, sunshiny day.

"Then we heard the sound of
many planes in the distance

"but didn't pay much attention.

"Mother said, "That's
a different sound.'

"Can't you hear it?'

"Mother ran outside and we heard
her yell, 'Look, look!"

"There are hundreds of them!'

"We all ran out

"and right over our heads
were planes!

"Planes! Planes!

Everyone was screaming
and pointing up at them."

WEINZHEIMER:
That was absolutely fantastic.

First of all, the engines were
not Mitsubishi engines,

they were American, different
sounding, strong engines.

(gunfire)

NARRATOR:
Waves of American planes
launched from aircraft carriers

roared in over Manila,

bombing and strafing
Japanese positions,

attacking Japanese warships
anchored in the bay.

WEINZHEIMER (dramatized):
"Everyone was so excited.

"Of course, it was
very dangerous for us

"because of the shrapnel

"falling all over the camp,
from the ack-ack guns;

"but everyone seemed
to feel that our boys

and our bombs couldn't hurt us."

WEINZHEIMER:
And then, finally, the Japanese
saw us going crazy,

looking up and everything,
and they set down rulings

that we were to come
into the main building,

and we were, if we were caught
looking up at our own planes,

we would pay the consequences.

So, a lot of the, um, prisoners,
a lot of the men,

would be sent down to the main
gate and tied up at the stake

and made to look up at the sun
for, you know, the whole day.

("Pennies from Heaven" playing)

NARRATOR:
The Japanese were still in
control of the Philippines,

but the American assault
had begun,

and the next morning,

the prisoner who played music
over the camp's loudspeaker

put on "Pennies from Heaven."

BILLIE HOLIDAY:
§ ...the things you love,
you must have showers §

§ So when you hear it thunder §

§ Don't run under a tree §

§ There'll be pennies
from heaven §

§ For you and me. §

(instrumental interlude)

(song ends,
airplane soars past)

NARRATOR:
One month later, on October 20,

General Douglas MacArthur's
forces landed

on the island of Leyte...

...the first foothold

in the struggle
to win back the Philippines.

(explosions, gunfire)

MacArthur's own landing craft
got stuck 75 yards offshore

and he had no choice
but to wade to the beach.

His publicity machine
made the most of it.

LOWELL THOMAS:
When General MacArthur left
his command of Bataan

by presidential order,
he gave the solemn promise,

"I will return."

Now he tells the Philippine
people, "I have returned."

KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
So when he came wading through
the water up on the beach,

there were great cheers
in the movie theater.

Because that's, of course,
how we saw MacArthur returning.

I realize now it was staged,

a lot of it, but, man, it was
good to see him walking back.

NARRATOR:
MacArthur's return thrilled
Americans and Filipinos alike.

As his men began
to fight their way

across the islands
of the Philippines,

what remained of the once-mighty
Japanese fleet

would be shattered in
the largest naval engagement

in history,
the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

But 24 volunteer enemy pilots

offered fresh evidence
of Japan's resolve

to keep fighting,
no matter the odds.

They deliberately crashed
their planes

into the decks
of American carriers

in hopes of setting them ablaze.

They were called kamikazes--
Japanese for "divine wind."

Despite the victory at sea,

months of bloody fighting
lay ahead

before the Philippine Islands,

and the people
imprisoned on them,

could be liberated.

PAUL FUSSELL:
Everybody was scared
to death all the time.

And yet, you never said so,

you never gave any signals
that you were.

You just were and you knew
the other people were, too.

You don't run away because
every alternative is impossible.

There's no way out of it.

There's no way to change it,
and you are there

until you get killed or wounded.

Or until you... you flee
and, you know,

allow everybody to exercise
their instinct for contempt,

which is unthinkable
to most people.

So there's no way out and that
puts you in the situation

that you're never in,
I think, in civilian life.

NARRATOR:
Back in Europe,

the Allies were still
stalled in the north,

suffering from supply problems,

the disaster
of Operation Market Garden,

and intensified
German resistance.

The American 7th Army's
drive northward

from the south of France
had run into trouble as well.

They had landed
at Marseille in mid-August,

and at first,
things had gone better

than anyone had anticipated.

Within a month, they had pushed
almost 400 miles,

taken 89,000 German prisoners

and linked up with elements
of Patton's 3rd Army

to finally complete
the continuous line

Eisenhower now believed
essential to the Allied cause.

But thousands of Germans
had retreated

into the Vosges Mountains--

steep, thickly forested
with evergreens,

shrouded in fog and drenched
with cold autumn rains.

There, they dug in,

ordered to halt
the Allied advance into Germany.

American units
that had already fought

in the mountains of Italy
were sent to France

and ordered to battle their way
through the Vosges.

One was the 36th
"Texas" Division,

the same outfit that had
nearly been destroyed

at Monte Cassino
the previous winter.

Another, attached to it,

especially requested
by headquarters,

was the 100th/442nd
Combat Team--

Japanese-American troops,

most of them recruited
from internment camps

in the United States.

They had once been considered
a problem by the Army.

Now, they were problem-solvers,

called in when others failed.

ROBERT KASHIWAGI:
It was bitterly cold.

That's when the Lost Battalion
Campaign happened,

because our general was very,
you might say, ambitious.

You say "blood and guts"--

why, it was our blood
and his guts, you know?

NARRATOR:
Major General John E. Dahlquist,

commander of the Texas Division,
was relatively new to combat

and had nearly lost
his command twice

during the drive north
from the Riviera

for allowing his men
to lag behind.

But he was convinced he was
a better tactician

than more seasoned soldiers.

And he would prove willing
to use his detachment

of Japanese-American veterans
to correct his own mistakes.

The village of Bruyéres
was their first target.

Dahlquist assured them
the surrounding hills

were only lightly defended.

In fact, they were filled
with well-dug-in Germans.

The 442nd cleared them off

in four days,
despite the terrain,

the steady icy downpour
that filled their foxholes,

and the rain of artillery shells
bursting among the treetops.

As soon as they had
taken Bruyéres,

General Dahlquist insisted

they push further
into enemy territory,

to seize another
heavily defended hill

overlooking Biffontaine,

a tiny village
with no military importance,

and then to take
the town itself.

They did it all
in just two days,

but their losses were heavy

in part because
the inexperienced Dahlquist

first gave them an unrealistic
deadline for taking the hill,

then ordered them off it,

then forced them to retake it
when the Germans returned.

SUSUMU SATOW:
General Dahlquist was

a very strict general.

And especially, it seems to me,

that he was trying to push
the 442nd too hard, too far.

Telling us to
"Advance, advance," you know.

So he was hard in that way.

And I really didn't have
any respect for him.

NARRATOR:
Meanwhile, General Dahlquist
had sent a battalion

of his Texans along a densely
forested ridge

toward the important town
of St. Dié.

Again, veteran officers
warned him

the woods were full of Germans.

Again, Dahlquist insisted
there were none.

Within an hour,
the Texans were under attack.

(artillery thundering)

275 of them were cut off
and surrounded by the Germans,

who zeroed in on them
from three sides.

For two days,
shells blasted their positions.

The Texans began to run out
of food and ammunition.

Two attempts to break through
to them failed.

Finally, on October 26,

Dahlquist ordered
the exhausted men

of the 442nd to return
to the wooded slopes,

rescue the "Lost Battalion"--

as the Texans would
come to be called--

and restore his reputation.

TIM TOKUNO:
One time, our regimental
commander, Colonel Pence,

pleaded with the division
commander, you know,

that we could pull back because
our men were so depleted.

But the Division General said,

"No, we need to get those boys
out because every day counts.

"You get in there
and get them out

if it takes every damn last
one of you to do it."

NARRATOR:
For five days,

fighting from tree to tree
in heavy fog,

they tried to get
to the trapped men.

On the morning of October 30,

they were just 1,000 yards
from the survivors,

but pinned to the slope
by artillery

and machine gun fire.

KASHIWAGI:
We were stuck because there's
a terrain that was steep,

and sO we were on our own

like a cowboy and Indian
type of battle,

and so the other people
couldn't help us.

NARRATOR:
Finally, they had had enough.

"I" Company
and Robert Kashiwagi's

"K" Company rose to their feet

and charged up the hillside,

hurling grenades
into German machine gun nests

and firing from the waist
as they climbed.

KASHIWAGI:
We just went hog-wild crazy.

We were mad at everybody

and were ready to Kill
anything that there was.

And finally we made contact
with the Lost Battalion,

and we found only
230 or so surviving.

But we lost 400 men
trying to rescue those 230.

What a terrible price we paid.

TOKUNO:
After we rescued the outfit,

why, the first Caucasian fellow
that came out

said, "l was never so glad
to see a Jap in my life."

(wry laugh)

That's the first thing he said.

NARRATOR:
"I" Company had started
into the forest with 185 men.

Just eight walked out unhurt.

Robert Kashiwagi's "K" Company
had begun with 186 men.

Only 17 emerged on foot.

All the rest were dead
or wounded or missing.

Kashiwagi had himself been hit
by shrapnel for a third

and then a fourth time
in the fighting.

A few days later,
Mr. and Mrs. Kametaro Takeuichi,

formerly of Sacramento,
now living behind barbed wire

at the Granada Relocation
Center, received a telegram.

Their son, Tadashi,
had been among those killed

in the struggle to rescue
the Lost Battalion.

On November 12,
General Dahlquist announced

he wanted to review the 442nd,

to thank them
for what they had done.

KASHIWAGI:
The general decided,

"Well, now, we want
to award you people.

Recognize your deed."

And so he said, "We want the
whole regiment in formation."

And when there...
when the general got there

and looked at the formation,
and he was so disgusted,

he said, "I asked you to get
the whole regiment out there!"

And our colonel,

with tears in his eyes, says,
"General," he says,

"that's all that's left
of that particular regiment.

That's exactly what
you did to us."

NARRATOR:
The 100th/442nd would spend
the next four months

in the south of France--

and then receive new orders.

They were needed to lead
still another assault--

back where they had started,
in Italy.

The bitterness the survivors
felt toward General Dahlquist

continued to smolder.

Many years later,
at a review at Fort Bragg,

Dahlquist encountered
a white lieutenant colonel

who had served
with the Japanese Americans.

He offered his hand.

"Let bygones be bygones,"
Dahlquist said.

"It's all water
under the bridge, isn't it?"

The colonel saluted--

but he would not shake
the general's hand.

JIM SHERMAN:
In the schools,

we always talked about
what was happening in the war

in all the grades
that I remember.

Once in a while, we would have
somebody come home, you know,

who had been overseas
who would come up to the school

and talk about where
they had been or, in...

You really, you know, again,
you know,

between six and ten years old,

I wasn't into the geopolitical
aspects of the war.

I was more impressed
to see the guy.

(Benny Goodman's
"I Know that You Know" playing)

NARRATOR:
While Eugene Sledge tried
to recover

from the horrors of Peleliu,

his best friend Sid Phillips
was back home in Mobile.

SIDNEY PHILLIPS:
I felt like it was simply
a dream,

that I actually wasn't
coming home.

Even after I arrived in Mobile,

I kept thinking that...
that I can't be here,

that I'm going to wake up.

The feeling
that it wasn't happening,

I think, was overwhelming.

You just couldn't feel like

that you had actually survived
the war

and that you were actually back
in your hometown

and, uh, in your own house.

I don't think I slept
for about three days.

I was astounded when I saw

how much change had come
to the city.

It was so crowded
and so much hustle and bustle,

I hardly recognized the place.

I think, uh, every man that was
in the service was well aware

of the fact that when you
came home on furlough,

it was a very good chance
that you would lapse

into a release
of bad language so...

uh, it was dominant
in your thinking.

It made you speak slowly
and deliberately

and almost, uh,
repeat in your own mind

what you were going to say
before you said it because,

you know, uh, in the service,

you just don't use
any adjectives.

You forget all your adjectives
and just use one or two.

Like?

Like I'm not going say.

My wife would come down from
Heaven and hit me on the head.

(explosions thundering
in distance)

FUSSELL:
When you come on the line,
you are very brave

because you know nothing
about what's happening.

And it's easy for you
to perform pseudo-brave gestures

and procedures
because you don't know yet.

And gradually...
this is because

you have a reservoir of courage
when you arrive,

and each time you get badly
frightened,

a little of it diminishes
until you don't have any left.

And that is the worst moment.

NARRATOR:
As the Lost Battalion
was being rescued,

Paul Fussell,
a newly-minted second lieutenant

in the 103rd Infantry Division,
was bivouacked at Epinal,

at the foot
of the Vosges Mountains.

He was 20 years old,
from Pasadena, California,

fresh from 19 months
of training,

and filled with excitement.

He had told his parents he felt
"very confident and safe"

as he went off to war.

The reception he and his
fellow soldiers had received

during their first few days
in southern France

only added to his buoyancy.

As the division moved northward,
up the Rhone Valley,

young women appeared
along the road,

waving and passing out
bottles of wine.

FUSSELL:
We brought in good health--
very important--

youth, optimism...

That's why these 18-year-olds
could pursue war at all.

They were Kids.

They were optimistic.

And they really thought that if
you did well, you'd be rewarded.

I mean, they're that innocent.

They had no idea
about life's accidents.

NARRATOR:
On the night of November 10,

he and the rest of the men
of Company "F"

were ordered up to the front,

to a thickly forested hillside
overlooking St. Dié,

the town toward which the Lost
Battalion had been heading

when it was surrounded
by the Germans.

They were to replace
a weary company

that had been engaged
with the enemy for weeks.

FUSSELL:
I came across two German kids

dead, lying on their backs.

They'd been killed
the day before

by the unit we were replacing.

And they were so young,
I couldn't believe it.

I thought they were between
maybe 12 and 14 years old.

And at the end of the war,
of course,

the Germans were absolutely
scraping the barrel

of everybody--
old men who could hardly walk

and little kids
from late grammar school.

These kids had
little uniforms on.

They were wearing caps,
not helmets.

And each had been shot
through the head.

And the blue, bluish-red brains

of one were coming out
his nostrils--

they had their eyes open, too.

And the other one,

his bluish-red brain was coming
out just from under his cap,

and sort of displacing
his cap as he wore it.

And that really gave me a jolt.

I seldom refer to it.

But it was my introduction
to some painful facts--

that this war is serious.

We are going to kill people
regardless of their age,

as long as they're wearing
German uniforms

and they are going to try
to Kill us.

DWAIN LUCE:
I often wondered
why the Germans didn't quit.

I wondered why they didn't quit
after Normandy.

Once we successfully landed
on the continent,

to me it was obvious
we're going to win the war.

It was just how long,
or how soon.

And we, all that we went through
and the people that were killed.

But... what's your alternative?

NARRATOR:
The Allied Command
in Europe had not waited to see

how Operation Market Garden
turned out before mounting

four more-or-less simultaneous
assaults on the West Wall,

which the Allies called
the Siegfried Line.

Each had fallen short.

The Seventh Army overran
Strasbourg

but was halted
on the Rhine's west bank.

Patton's 3rd Army took Metz

and secured three bridgeheads
across the Saar,

but could proceed no further

until it could get enough fuel
to go on.

In the north,
two attacks were launched

by the American 1st Army:

one was aimed at the German city
of Aachen;

the other intended
to sweep the enemy

from the 50 wooded square miles
just south

of that city
called the Hulrtgen Forest.

TOM GALLOWAY:
The Hirtgen Forest
was the worst.

And you haven't heard much
about it because...

it was just a mess-up.

There was no reason
to go through the forest,

but the generals kept wanting
to go through the forest.

And you'd put a division
in there and chew it up.

And they'd pull it out

and put another division in
and chew it up.

NARRATOR:
It was a nightmarish place
to fight.

With 100-foot fir trees

that in some places grew
just four feet apart,

it was so dense and dark
and shrouded in dank fog,

one general remembered,

that "upon entering it you want
to drop things behind

"to mark your path,

as Hansel and Gretel did
with their bread crumbs."

Two parallel lines
of German pillboxes

and log-and-dirt bunkers were
hidden among the trees,

several miles apart.

The pine needles that blanketed
the forest floor

disguised tripwires

and mines the Americans called
"Bouncing Betties"

that sprang into the air
and went off at groin height.

The commanders
who planned the battle

knew almost nothing
about the terrain

and never came to see it
for themselves.

And no one had been trained
to fight in such a place.

"We're taking three trees
a day," one officer said,

"and they cost us
a hundred men apiece."

(rifle firing)

(machine-gun fire
in distance)

The first two divisions
to be ordered into the forest

would lose 4,500 men
in three weeks...

...and move less
than three miles.

On November 2, the 28th
Infantry Division followed.

With them was
Second Lieutenant Tom Galloway

from Mobile, Alabama,

an acquaintance of Sid Phillips
and his sister Katharine.

He had been a senior
at Auburn University

and was now a replacement
officer on the front lines,

a forward observer

scouting targets
for the 109th Field Artillery.

GALLOWAY:
The man I replaced got shot,
and, uh...

it just wasn't too good
to think that, uh...

what happened to him,
but then you've replaced him.

(explosion)

NARRATOR:
Targets were almost impossible
to spot from the ground.

Dense growth and constant fog
hid them from the air, as well.

Tanks could barely move
on the handful

of narrow, muddy,
heavily mined logging trails.

Soldiers could not see one
another, let alone the enemy.

"If anyone said he knew where
he was," one commander said,

"he was a damned liar!"

Despite everything,

Galloway's division took
its first objective--

the little town of Schmidt--
in just two days.

The Germans took it back
the following morning.

The battle lines became
totally confused.

GALLOWAY:
We were all mixed up.

Give you an example.

The medics--

there was only one building
that I know about there,

and both the German and American
medics were using it.

They were just bringing in
all the wounded

and both sides were using that
one building.

NARRATOR:
A steady, cold rain began
to fall,

followed by sleet, then snow.

Thousands developed trench foot.

When it was too painful
to stand,

men took turns kneeling
in the icy water

that filled their foxholes.

German 88 shells burst
in the fir trees above them,

showering the men with shrapnel
and dagger-sharp shards of wood.

GALLOWAY:
The artillery would hit
those trees

and you didn't know
if you were hit by artillery

or flying wood.

There just was no place
to get protection.

The Germans had it,
they had it all mapped

and you had to go down
to firebreaks.

Of course they would have guns
at those firebreaks.

And it made it bad.

I just recall
one morning, I went in

with the battalion

and before nightfall,
the sergeant major came to me

and told me I was
the only officer they had left.

And that's out of a battalion.

And it just, uh,
it just chewed people up.

(explosions thundering)

NARRATOR:
"The days were so terrible
that I would pray for darkness,"

one private recalled,

"and the nights were so bad
I would pray for daylight."

By November 13, the officers
of every single rifle company

in the 28th Division
had been killed or wounded.

After a night
of continuous German shelling,

an entire company broke and ran.

Even officers with drawn
revolvers could not stop them.

Hundreds of men shot themselves
in the foot or hand

rather than endure any more.

Hundreds more collapsed
psychologically,

sat staring into the distance as
if no battle raged around them.

The reporter Ernie Pyle
called it

"the accumulated blur,
the hurting vagueness

of being too long in the lines."

In mid-November, fresh troops
replaced what was left

of Tom Galloway's division.

The fighting in the Hurtgen
Forest would go on for weeks.

More than 33,000
American soldiers would be lost.

So many died

and those who lived spent
so much time desperately digging

for their own protection

that there were few burials.

When the snow melted
the following spring,

hundreds of bodies
and parts of bodies

would still litter
the forest floor.

GALLOWAY:
The men were...

well, you were just all beat up.

You'd been in that mess.

You'd been under that strain.

You just... were glad
to get out of there.

I like to think that
probably the prettiest sight

that I saw over there
was coming out of the forest,

up on a hill and looking down.

It had snowed and the whole--
these were big fir trees--

and they were all pretty
with snow on and everything

and I couldn't decide
whether the scene was pretty

or I was so glad
to get out of there

that made it look so pretty.

But I do remember that.

NARRATOR:
Galloway and his comrades
were sent for rest and recovery

to the Ardennes Forest,

a quiet place where nothing much
was thought likely to happen.

("Come Ye Thankful People, Come"
playing)

NARRATOR:
November 23, 1944,
was Thanksgiving.

Defense workers
in Mobile, Alabama,

and Waterbury, Connecticut,

remained on the job to help
"speed the day of victory."

At noon, servicemen
at McClellan Field in Sacramento

were serenaded by the glee club
of the 4909 Aviation Squadron.

And in Luverne, Minnesota,

the local Lutheran church held
separate Thanksgiving services

in English and in German.

The commander in chief,

just reelected for
an unprecedented fourth term,

celebrated the holiday
with polio patients

at Warm Springs, Georgia.

SASCHA WEINZHEIMER (dramatized):
"Thanksgiving.

"We had half a can of Spam,
cooked one extra cup of rice,

"and got enough talinum
from our garden

for a salad with three
whole garlics chopped up in it."

"We thank God
we are all together

"and not really sick
like so many people in here are.

"As usual, we talked
about our next Thanksgiving.

"Buddy wouldn't know
what a turkey was anyway,

but I still remember
what good food we always had."

Sascha Weinzheimer.

NARRATOR:
Rumors of rescue swept through
the Santo Tomas Prison Camp,

raising hopes,
then dashing them.

But there had been no more signs
that the Americans were coming.

MacArthur's Army was still
350 miles away

on the island of Leyte.

In Europe, morale among the
troops was said to be sinking.

The men at the front,
like their commanders,

had expected
the war would be over by now.

To cheer them up,

Eisenhower declared that every
man in the European theater

should have a turkey dinner
for Thanksgiving

no matter how hard it was
to organize.

In theHUrtgen Forest,

a major in the 8th Infantry
Division went all the way up

to the division commander

begging
that it not be permitted.

When his men gathered around
to eat, he said,

German artillery would zero in
on them.

But the division commander had
his orders.

The cooks were on their way.

The major was right.

As his men grouped themselves

around the canisters of hot
turkey, the enemy opened fire.

(explosion)

As many as ten men
were blown apart at a time.

The major would survive the war,

but was never able
to face a turkey dinner again

without weeping.

On the forested slopes
of the Vosges Mountains,

Thanksgiving turkey was served
to the men, too,

though it was cold by the time

it got to Lieutenant
Paul Fussell.

That same afternoon,

he found himself part of
a 12-man squad ordered forward

to scout the defenses of the
German-held town of Nothalten.

A burst of rifle fire
forced them

to find what cover they could
behind a small rise.

German snipers had them
in their sights.

No one seemed to know
what to do.

Then a second lieutenant
moved forward with his carbine.

"Let's get the sons of bitches,"
he said.

FUSSELL:
His name was Abe Goldman.

And most of the people
I fought with who were

from the South and Texas--
Oklahoma and so on--

had never seen a Jew
in their lives.

And the idea of this Jewish kid,
Abe Goldman,

who should have been--
in the view of

most of the other soldiers--
should have been

in the dry goods business,

to see him on the front line...

and he was very enthusiastic.

He knew what had
happened to the Jews.

He was probably the bravest one
in the whole platoon of 40 men.

And that's why
he got himself shot.

(gunshot)

And the fact that out of,
say, 12 people,

he was the only one
that crawled forward

to risk his life
sort of changed, changed...

I'd say it changed
a lot of minds.

NARRATOR:
The fight for Nothalten

would take a terrible toll
on Fussell's men.

Abe Goldman survived,

but by the time
the battle was over,

the company had lost four
of its six officers.

Fussell's platoon
lost 13 of its 40 men.

The average life expectancy
for a junior infantry officer

on the front lines
was now just 17 days.

In the end,
Lieutenant Paul Fussell

would beat those odds.

But they would haunt him
for the rest of his life.

(engines droning)

QUENTIN AANENSON:
Well, as we pushed the Germans
back and as they retreated...

...they were able to take
all of their flak guns

and most of their artillery
with them.

So, as we would fly missions

into that area--
in the HUrtgen Forest

or into the Ruhr Valley--

we were facing a larger number
of flak guns

than we had before.

So it was a terribly
brutal time for us.

NARRATOR:
Fighter pilot Quentin Aanenson
of Luverne, Minnesota,

had been helping provide
air cover for American troops

on the ground ever since D-Day.

Through all that time,
his anchor to sanity had been

the belief that Jackie Greer,
the girl he'd met

while in training in Louisiana,

would marry him
if he survived the war.

GREER:
Following that war was

the best history lesson
I ever had.

I got a big map,

and every day, I'd get...
I had my crayons out.

Every day.

Certain colors meant
this group is here,

certain colors are this.

And I kept up with that war.

I learned more about Europe

than I had ever learned
in school.

It was very important
that I stay with it.

NARRATOR:
Aanenson and Greer exchanged
letters every two or three days,

each trying to keep
the other's spirits up

till they could be
together again.

Aanenson had survived
a bad fire in his plane,

was haunted by the fear
that he had once mistakenly

fired on British
or American troops,

nearly died when his plane
hurtled toward its target

so fast his instruments froze.

When he managed to pull

out of his dive
at 600 miles per hour,

blood vessels in his eyes burst

and blood trickled
from his ears.

Meanwhile,
his friends kept dying.

AANENSON:
Two of the guys that lived
in my tent were killed.

There was just
four of us in there,

and two of them were Killed.

I had been listed
as missing in action

because I had been so badly
shot up I had to land

on a temporary airfield
closer to the front lines.

Johnny Bathurst and I, who were
the survivors in Duffy's Tavern,

our tent there,

decided that we couldn't deal
with that anymore.

So we quit making friends,
new friends.

NARRATOR:
On December 5, 1944,

the impact of all
that Aanenson had seen

and experienced overcame him,

and he started writing Jackie
a very different kind of letter

from the ones
he had sent before.

AANENSON:
"Dear Jackie,

"For the past two hours,
I've been sitting here alone

"in my tent trying to figure out
just what I should do

"and what I should say
in this letter in response

to your letters and some
questions you have asked."

"Il have purposely not told you
much about my world over here,

"because I thought
it might upset you.

"Perhaps that has been
a mistake,

"so let me correct that
right now.

"I still doubt if you will be
able to comprehend it.

I don't think anyone can
who has not been through it."

"I live in a world of death."

"lI have watched my friends die
in a variety of violent ways."

"Sometimes, it's just
an engine failure on takeoff,

"resulting in
a violent explosion.

"There's not enough
left to bury.

"Other times,
it's the deadly flak

"that tears into a plane.

"If the pilot is lucky,
the flak kills him.

"But usually he isn't,

and he burns to death
as his plane spins in."

"Fire is the worst.

"In early September,
one of my good friends crashed

"on the edge of our field.

"As he was pulled
from the burning plane,

the skin came off his arms."

"His face was almost
burned away.

"He was still conscious
and trying to talk.

You can't imagine the horror."

"So far, I have done
my duty in this war.

"I have never aborted a mission
or failed to dive on a target,

"no matter how intense the flak.

"I have lived for
my dreams for the future.

"But like everything else
around me,

"my dreams are dying, too.

"In spite of everything,
I may live through this war

"and return to Baton Rouge.

"But I am not the same person
you said good-bye to on May 3.

"No one could go through this
and not change.

"We are all casualties.

"In the meantime, we just go on.

"Some way, somehow,

"this will all have an ending.

Whatever it is,
I am ready for it."

NARRATOR:
When he had finished his letter,

Aanenson folded it up

and put it away
in his footlocker.

Mailing it home
would only have been cruel

to the woman he loved
and hoped to marry--

if he happened to make it
through what was still to come.

(geese calling)

(explosion)

NARRATOR:
Fighting in France with the
same 103rd Infantry Division

in which Paul Fussell served

was a soldier with an unusual
name: Joseph Medicine Crow.

(man singing, drum beating)

Born on the Crow Indian
reservation

near Lodge Grass, Montana,
in 1913,

he attended
a Baptist mission school,

was the first of his people
to graduate from college,

and was studying for an advanced
degree in anthropology

when the war began.

But he had also been raised
by his elders

in the warrior tradition.

JOE MEDICINE CROW:
My grandfather trained me
to be a warrior.

The Crow Indians were
so-called warlike.

They are militaristic
from way back.

NARRATOR:
The Crows had defended
their lands

against the Lakota and Cheyenne
for generations

and had allied themselves
with the United States

during the Plains wars.

One of Joe Medicine Crow's
grandfathers had been a scout

for George Armstrong Custer

before the Battle
of the Little Big Horn.

JOE MEDICINE CROW:
My paternal grandfather,
great war chief Medicine Crow,

he was considered the bravest
warrior of all time.

So he was also my inspiration
to follow in his footsteps.

He kept training me
to become a warrior.

In order to have status
in becoming a warrior,

climbing up the ladder of
success to become a chief,

you must perform
certain dangerous war deeds.

NARRATOR:
To be considered a chief,

a Crow warrior had to touch
a living enemy,

take an enemy's weapon,

steal an enemy's horse, and
lead a victorious war party.

Whenever he went
into battle in Europe,

Joe Medicine Crow would paint
red stripes on his arms

beneath his uniform,
and he carried in his helmet

a sacred yellow-painted
eagle feather

provided by a Sun Dance medicine
man to shield him from harm.

He would need that power.

He was asked to lead a seven-man
squad carrying explosives

through a wall of artillery fire

to blast German positions
along the Siegfried Line.

Then, he helped capture
a German village.

JOE MEDICINE CROW:
We hid in a German town,
and I was assigned

to take the back alley
and come behind the Germans

who were in the main street.

So I did; I ran up there
and I saw an opening there,

a gate there--
there was a wall there.

So I ran up there and a German
soldier was running there.

We bumped heads... (chuckles)

helmets.

So I swung my rifle and knocked
his rifle off his hands.

There he was standing.

All I had to do
was pull the trigger.

But for some reason, I put
my gun down and tore into him.

Then we had it out, you know.

He had me down,
but I turned him over

and grabbed him by the throat,
you know.

I was ready to kill him.

Then, his last words were,
"Mama, mama."

When he said that word, "Mama,"
opened my ears.

I let him go.

NARRATOR:
Without quite meaning to,
Joe Medicine Crow had performed

three out of the four
traditional war deeds he needed

to become a war chief
like his grandfather.

He had led a successful
war party;

he had touched an enemy warrior
and taken away his weapon.

The only thing left was
to capture some horses.

I was a scout for my company.

We were going along the road
on top of the mountain,

small mountain.

And I was ahead of my company,

and I caught up with
some horseback riders,

and I had my field glasses.

I looked at them.

They were Germans, you know,
so I followed them.

NARRATOR:
The Germans took over
a farmhouse.

The horses were pastured
outside, some 50 of them.

JOE MEDICINE CROW:
So we surrounded the place there

and we were going to attack
early in the morning.

So I was sitting there
with a C.O.,

and, uh, we waited.

Finally, towards morning,
I said, "Captain."

I said, "I have an idea."

I said, "If you give me
five minutes before jump-off,

I'll stampede their horses."

So we went in there,
opened that gate.

There were some guards
sitting in a shed there,

so I went behind there
and got a horse

and I put my little rope,

made an Indian bridle, you know,
double half hitch.

I got on it and I stampeded
the horses out of there.

So I headed out and then,
soon as I left,

why, they... they opened fire
over there.

But I took off.

So, these were not
ordinary horses.

And I looked at them.

They were beautiful.

And the one I was riding
was a sorrel with a blaze.

So I felt pretty good.

So I looked around.

Pretty soon, I sang a song,
you know.

Praise song.

(singing in Crow language)

NARRATOR:
When Joe Medicine Crow
returned home after the war,

a tribal ceremony was held
to welcome him.

JOE MEDICINE CROW:
The old elders wanted to know
what... my war deeds.

And I started thinking
about it, you know,

and I mentioned those horses.

"You have completed
the four deeds."

Well, I never thought about it.

(chuckling)

So I guess you're looking at the
last Plains Indian war chief.