Original subtitles

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.

These territories had become vital sources

of strategic supplies, such as oil and rubber.

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.

The country fell back on ancient notions

of "military honor" to create suicide units.

The result would be a terrible loss of life.

This would be a decisive phase in the war in the Pacific

and would mark the end of Japan's dreams of empire.

But this was to come.

Back in the spring of 1943,

the US military chiefs faced a dilemma.

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,

favored 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 by-pass 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.

They argued it would be swifter and much more economic.

The American military command put off the decision.

Both the army and navy were told to go ahead.

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.

The eastern prong fought its way up

through New Georgia and Bourgainville.

The western prong battled its way through Papua New Guinea.

But the virtually impenetrable jungle,

and unhealthy climate, made progress slow.

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.

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.

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.

For a week the atolls were bombed by carrier-based aircraft.

Then, on November 20th, 1943,

there was an amphibious landing.

Makin was captured with little difficulty.

But Tarawa was a different story.

Reconnaissance had failed to reveal that the water

was too shallow for the landing craft.

As the Marines waded ashore, they came under intense fire.

The island was honeycombed with fortified machine-gun nests.

US troops who made it to dry land

were pinned down on the beach.

By the end of the day, over 1,500 of the 5,000 US Marines

landed had been killed or severely injured.

Over the next two days, frontal assaults

pushed the Japanese back inch-by-inch.

Very often, only flamethrowers

could eliminate the Japanese strong points.

It took three days before the last pocket

of Japanese resistance was wiped out.

Of the 4,200 Japanese troops on the island,

only 17 were captured alive.

Tarawa was a terrible forerunner of what was to come.

The Japanese had shown that there would be no question of surrender.

They would fight to the death.

It was a grim prospect.

In January 1944, America's naval offensive

in the Pacific moved on to the Marshall Islands.

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.

Finally, on February 1st, 1944, he sent in the assault forces.

The flat and open island of Roi was quickly overrun.

But the islands of Kwajalein and Namur were wooded

and the Japanese resisted fanatically.

US forces used flamethrowers and explosives.

The Japanese responded

by launching suicidal "Banzai" charges.

But the US forces now knew what to expect.

The Japanese were beaten back.

Over 8,000 Japanese soldiers died

for the loss of less than 400 US lives.

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 11th, 1944, the US started to soften up

the three main islands in the Marianas.

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 defenses as much as had been hoped.

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.

On the morning of June 19th, 1944,

the Japanese launched air strikes against the US ships.

But US radar saw them coming.

450 fighters were scrambled to intercept the Japanese planes.

It turned into the largest aircraft carrier battle ever fought.

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 Soloman and Marshall Islands campaigns.

It's novice pilots faced battle-hardened US fliers.

The Japanese were out-gunned and out-fought.

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.

The battle of the Philippine Sea

had claimed its first major victim.

At around the same time another US submarine

torpedoed the carrier "Shokaku".

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Japanese naval defeat in the Philippine Sea

meant the United States could now press on

with its assault on the Marianas.

The Japanese forces on Saipan

held out for three weeks

before they were overcome on July 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.

The last Japanese troops then launched

their now inevitable suicide charge.

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.

Once again, they faced suicidal Japanese counterattacks.

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.

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?

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.

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.

He later made a broadcast to the Philippine people.

I see that the old flagstaff still stands.

Have your troops hoist the colors

to its peak and let no enemy ever haul them down.

But the Japanese soon recovered and launched an ambitious plan

to use the remains of their naval power to counterattack.

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.

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.

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.

It looked like a spectacular success.

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.

It was now the turn of the Americans

to put up a desperate fight.

The Japanese tactic had caught the US aircraft unprepared.

They were armed with high explosives for land operations

rather than armor-piercing bombs for ships.

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.

On October 25th, 1944, all four Japanese carriers were sunk.

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.

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.

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 honor

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.

Its target was the US fleet.

The escort carrier "St Lo" was sunk

and two others badly damaged.

Further Kamikaze attacks followed.

Not all were restricted to the air.

The Japanese troops now began strapping mines

to their bodies and deliberately diving under US tanks.

The American advance through the Philippine island of Leyte slowed.

It would take two months before the island was finally secured.

Over 70,000 Japanese troops had lost their lives.

The Americans had lost nearly 16,000 men.

But MacArthur was undaunted.

He now moved on to the main Philippine island of Luzon.

The defenses were, as usual, softened up by air attacks.

The US troops went ashore virtually unopposed.

But as they advanced, Japanese resistance stiffened.

Tanks, artillery, mortars and flame throwers were used

to destroy a succession of Japanese strongholds.

Painfully, the US forces battled forward.

By January 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.

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.

There now began a ferocious, month long battle

to seize the Philippine capital.

The US troops fought their way into the city.

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.

By the end of February, the Japanese defenders

had been driven back into the 16th-century citadel of Intramuros.

It would take another week of fierce fighting to flush them out.

Finally, on April 13th, 1945,

US forces mounted an amphibious attack

on Manila Bay's last fortification, Fort Drum,

the "Concrete Battleship" in the harbor.

Its ventilation shafts were packed with kerosene,

white phosphorous and explosives.

None of the defenders survived.

The battle for Manila had been an horrific affair.

Thousands of Japanese and US soldiers had died.

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.

But it would take until the end of the war

before the last pockets of Japanese resistance

were finally flushed out.

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 organized into convoys

and anyway there weren't enough escort vessels to protect them.

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.

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.

Japan had invaded China in 1937.

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.

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.

Chindits - that's the name for the guardian statues

which stand up the steps of Burma pagodas.

A name from legend that becomes flesh and blood.

Living guardians of Burma's liberty.

But the Japanese soon began to hunt them down.

By mid-April 1943,

over one-third of the Chindit forces had been killed.

The remainder were forced back into India.

The struggle to re-take 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 re-take the place.

Stillwell had spent years helping to overhaul

the forces of neighboring China.

The Allies now decided to put them to the test.

Stilwell's Chinese soldiers,

reinforced by an elite US group of jungle fighters

known as Merrill's Marauders, would be sent into Burma.

On 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.

Finally, Chindits moved into northern Burma,

deep behind enemy lines, to cut Japanese supply routes.

The Japanese fell for the diversionary tactic

and sent forces to counterattack along the coast.

Two divisions of troops from British India

came under fierce fire.

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.

But it was only a temporary reprieve.

The Japanese launched a counter-offensive of their own.

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.

Over 65,000 of them were killed.

It was a major blow to their military strength in the region.

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.

For three months the Japanese held them off.

But in early August 1944,

Myitkyina was over-run.

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 center of the country.

In early March 1945, Slim's forces took

the important communications center of Meiktila.

Soon afterwards they seized Mandalay.

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.

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 3rd, 1945, the Allied forces finally entered Rangoon.

But the city was empty.

The Japanese had pulled out rather than risk being cut off.

The monsoon was now in full flow.

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.