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Previously, on World War II in HD.

This war is all hell and horror.

Colorado native Bert Stiles takes off on one of the deadliest assignments in the war,

co-piloting a b-17 bomber over Europe.

The only death we see is the death of our friends.

All I know is, if I have to crawl back in that bomber, I'll beat my brains out.

While in the pacific. This, is war at its grimmest.

War correspondent Robert Sherrod heads to Saipan

and witnesses the mass suicides of 1,000 civilians.

What does all this self-destruction mean?

Do the suicides of Saipan mean that the whole Japanese race

will choose death before surrender?

Grant us a common faith, that man shall know bread and peace,

That he shall know justice and righteousness, freedom and security,

an equal opportunity and an equal chance to do his best,

not only in our own lands but throughout the world.

Very few of the things you did in combat or experienced or endured ever go away.

And, it never goes away.

The starkness of these events never leaves.

It is just a shock today that I am talking to you, as it was back then.

Physical wounds generally with time, heal.

But we have these,

these memories that are burden to our souls.

and they will never go away.

They are just too deep inside of us. They will never go away. No, never.

Part of me is ready to be a war hero and make my family proud.

But I'm also aware I'm being asked to fight and possibly die for $1.66 a day.

Five months after D-Day, 19-year-old Boston native Rockie Blunt lands on Omaha Beach.

Drafted in 1943, the jazz drummer is attached to the army's 84th infantry division.

It is his first time ever in a combat zone.

We wade ashore and I stop to take it all in.

I recognize this place from the newsreels I've seen of the invasion back in June.

Guns still on the bunkers, gaping shell craters

as if the invasion was yesterday, not months ago.

We are told to just start marching with our field packs and other equipment.

Nobody's telling us where we're going or how far we'll go.

My combat boots don't fit.

The pain is excruciating.

But we keep marching.

Blunt and the 84th infantry are one of the many reinforcement divisions sent in to bolster fighting forces,

depleted since the D-Day invasion.

By November of 1944,

Allied forces occupy a contiguous fighting front of over 400 miles

stretching from Antwerp, Belgium, to the Swiss Alps.

Reinforcements are needed to relieve the battle-weary divisions

who have been locked in stagnant fighting on the front lines.

But the Allies have not yet captured a usable port,

so all new troops must land at Normandy and then make an arduous journey of over 300 miles to the front.

The evidence of battle is everywhere.

Pastures and orchards are pocked with artillery craters.

Trees, at least those few that remain standing, are splintered and shattered.

Horse carcasses rot in the sun.

Burned-out tanks lie on their sides.

This is so vastly different from my carefree life back home.

The war is no longer far away from me.

After 16 days on the move, Blunt and the 84th division have traveled over 400 miles.

They are now closing in on the Dutch-German border,

where the fighting is taking a heavy toll on American troops.

Within hours, he will be joining the battle there.

After all these months of preparation, the fear of the unknown is finally hitting me.

My heart is pounding.

I try to make myself feel better by forcing myself to think about home,

but it doesn't help much.

My God, I don't know if I'll be able to do this.

Though I've seen this many times, I can't help thinking:

"nobody can live through this." but I know better.

Five months after witnessing the carnage on Saipan,

"Time Life" magazine correspondent Robert Sherrod is on a ship

off the coast of the remote pacific island of Iwo Jima.

The 36-year-old Georgia native is watching the final hours of 74 days of pre-invasion bombardment.

Many believe that we'll take the island in five days,

while the major general in charge is saying ten.

One opinion is universal: Everybody knows we're going to lose a lot of men.

But we have no choice.

We have to take Iwo.

Located midway between Saipan and Japan, Iwo Jima will provide a strategically important airfield

for the Americans' continuing effort to bomb Japan,

an effort that is coming at a high price in terms of lost bombers and lives.

By taking the island, American forces can establish a fighter base

that will provide air cover for the b-29 super fortresses taking off from Saipan, Tinian, and Guam.

It takes a b-29 18 hours to fly to Japan and back.

With Iwo's air base, long-range p-51 Mustangs will be able to escort the bombers all the way to their targets.

Iwo will also serve as an emergency landing base for crippled bombers returning from Japan.

The mission to secure Iwo Jima will be grueling.

American forces face a mixed terrain of cane fields, scrub growth, and barren volcanic ash,

At the southern end by the 550-foot Mount Suribachi,

a dormant volcano that conceals a nest of bunkers, tunnels, and fighting positions.

The island is covered in a pall of smoke and dust.

Only the topmost peak of Suribachi is visible.

I've got the pit-of-the-stomach emotion I feel when I know

many men who love life are about to die.

I've climbed down cargo nets several times.

I've seen tough beachheads before.

But I feel I have no business being here.

The law of averages is staring me in the face.

A few hundred yards from shore, we transfer to another boat and await our final approach.

I run into a reporter who was part of the first wave.

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you," he says.

"There's more hell in there than in the rest of the war put together."

Today is the day I've been waiting for.

This is the day that I will meet and fight the Germans on his own ground.

In the first combat mission of his life,

GI Rockie Blunt is with the 84th infantry division.

They're advancing toward the city of Geilenkirchen, Germany, along Hitler's Siegfried Line.

The company commander is yelling: "Go, go, go,

come on, get moving, we have a city to take."

I know the enemy is just yards away.

We come up on some buildings

And not knowing what have to do, having never shot, fired a shot in anger,

When I saw the first row of windows, I thought I saw a movement, so I took a shot at it.

And then I thought I saw more movement and I took a shot at that window.

And then I started running across at the vegetable field

and suddenly somebody screamed they had stepped on a shoe mine and blown his leg off.

And I realized we were running helter skelter through a mine field.

My heart is in my throat.

I see a GI lying on the ground.

His leg is blown off below the knee.

Another GI is blown apart at the hip.

I'm frozen.

I'm sickened by what I just saw.

I wish I hadn't looked.

After a frantic sprint, Blunt makes his way out of the mine field

and to the edge of the city of Geilenkirchen.

There's no one in sight.

I've got the sinking feeling that I have been left behind.

That I'm totally isolated.

What am I supposed to do now?

Germany is a wretched land, but England is a lovely place.

After surviving his required 35 missions, co-piloting a b-17 over France and Germany,

24-year-old Bert Stiles is convalescing at an English estate

where war-weary fliers are sent to recuperate from the stress of combat.

We were talking about the world.

Most of these jokers think the war is just a necessary phase of a lifetime

and it won't make any difference in the long run.

Everybody here seems resigned to the inevitable.

and pretty sure everything will be the same when they get home.

Well, I for one hope it isn't the same.

Established by the army air force in 1942,

bomber crews refer to these retreats as "flak farms"

as homage to the deadly anti-aircraft fire that causes so much of their anxiety.

Men are sent here for a week of relaxation.

They are encouraged to spend their days biking, fishing, or playing badminton.

Stiles, an aspiring novelist,

spends his time writing about his experiences in the cockpit of a b-17.

"Portrait of a guy with blood on his hands," by Bert Stiles.

A shell had just busted outside by the waist of window of the fort.

The waist gunner wore flak suit, and flak helmet, but neither helped much

One chuck hit low on the forehead, clip the top...

"The Ranger comes back", by Bert Stiles.

They were tired of losing airplanes, digging charred pilots out of the ground.

They want the "safe" pilots who flew by the book.

My head was all dark inside, full of jagged lights...

"By this I live" by Bert Stiles.

"What I have written before I profoundly believe in.

I'm sure of the life this self should live, but the self is a thing of wonder.

The strangest question I know is: Who am I?

This being called "Bert Stiles."

Although completion of his required number of bomber missions makes Stiles eligible to return to the States,

he chooses to remain in England for another tour of duty.

But instead of returning to the b-17s,

he requests and receives an assignment as a p-51 fighter pilot.

I'm through with the big birds, and that pleases me so much.

I'm transferring to the fighters, the 339th group.

I figure I might as well stay until the end of the war,

and flying a fighter is all I've wanted since this whole thing started.

When this war ends, I want to be here.

Still flying.

We only hold about one fourth of Iwo Jima.

And already, our total casualties are almost 4,200.

I have never seen such mangled bodies.

In one shell hole are eight dead marines.

Some are cut squarely in half.

legs and arms are 50 feet from bodies.

Almost all of the casualties are American,

and all died with the greatest possible violence.

I see a string of guts 50 feet long

and everywhere is the smell of burning flesh.

This is even worse than Saipan.

Four days after landing on the sulfurous island of Iwo Jima,

"Time Life" correspondent Robert Sherrod is surveying the Marines' progress.

Although our naval and air power is immense, there comes a time when power alone has reached its limit,

and men must pay for yardage with their lives.

With the beachhead secure, the marines have managed to push inland

and overcome the southeast defenses on the outer slopes of Suribachi,

cutting off the mountain from the rest of the Japanese fighting force.

But the Marines still need to route every last Japanese fighter

out of his defensive positions inside the mountain.

On the morning of February 23rd, a patrol is sent to the summit.

They are given a small American flag and told to raise it if they make it to the top.

About 11 o clock, someone yells for us to look up at Mount Suribachi.

They've got a flag on the summit.

Tears well in the eyes of several Marines as they watch the little flag fluttering in the wind.

If we can capture that vertical monstrosity, it seems we can do anything.

This is the first American flag to fly over Japanese territory.

But hours after it is planted, a Marine officer orders it replaced with a larger flag.

Six men raise this second flag,

and as it is being lifted, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal snaps a photo.

For Sherrod and the Marines below, the raising of this second flag goes virtually unnoticed.

They are far more preoccupied with winning the battle.

The Japs are raising hell.

The are firing mortars and rockets from every direction and great profusion.

It's been days since the invasion.

But the fighting is just the beginning.

Most of the city is cleared, except for a few diehard snipers.

I don't know if I'll ever get used to this helpless feeling.

At any moment, someone could take me out.

After losing contact with his company on his first day in a combat zone,

rookie infantryman Rockie Blunt is back with his comrades.

They're in the city of Geilenkirchen,

from where most of Hitler's troops have fled.

Blunt's orders are to clear buildings of mines,

booby traps and any remaining Germans.

We search the buildings, and so far, there's no sign of booby trap or Germans.

I'm happy not to come across any booby traps,

but it would be nice to find a couple of souvenirs.

Something to take home with me.

Approaching the square, I signal for my unit to check out a cellar.

I am hearing voices. They are talking in German.

They didn't know I was in the building.

And I yelled at them in German: "Come out with your hands up."

And 18 of them came out like this and they saw the mine detector. Oh, oh, oh.,,

They didn't know what a mine detector was.

They thought it was a secret weapon.

I marched them out into the street, and already the MPs were there.

And I marched them out the street, and I said: " Here's a 18 crowds for you."

and he said: "how did you capture them?"

I said to him: "With my mine detector."

he just shook his head and said: "This couldn't have happened."

One by one, I strip them of their knives, their pistols, and their rifles.

Before I march them out, I pocket a few of them as keepsakes.

I want to have something to remember to stay by,

my first day in combat, my baptism by fire.

For me, these are trophies.

Now I can sling my rifle over my shoulder.

Now I can be proud.

A voice in my ear shouting: "Rich-Bitch Four! Bandit at 6 o clock!"

Rich-Bitch Four, that's me.

Bert Stiles is on his fourth mission as a p-51 pilot.

He is escorting a group of b-17s

returning from a bombing mission over Leipzig, Germany,

,when he spots trouble.

My wingman pulls a screaming dive down to the deck.

He calmly tells me he's lost his oxygen and needs to get low where he can breathe.

I chase him down through the clouds.

Popping out over some town, and every damn house is shooting up at us.

Pulling back up through the clouds, we run right into a swarm of Germans, 40 of them, maybe more.

Must be every damn plane left in the Luftwaffe.

Breaking left, a fighter slides under me, firing big red golf balls.

The S.O.B.s are throwing everything in the book at us.

And I still haven't gotten a kill.

If this keeps up, it's gonna be a long winter.

On November 26, 1944, Stiles is on an escort mission over Germany.

Somewhere over Hanover, he encounters and engages a Luftwaffe fighter.

He is closing in on his first kill.

Stiles follows the smoking enemy plane as it descends into a steep dive, firing all the way.

Fixated on his target, he fails to pull out soon enough and loses control of his fighter.

Bert Stiles is killed instantly.

He was 24 years old.

"Death stands by" by Bert Stiles.

"Climbers, true climbers, are the strangest of men.

Their love of the jagged peaks is so intense it becomes almost a religion.

The boy had loved climbing, and he had gone out the best way, x

returning from a bombing mission over Leipzig, Germany,

We said nothing, but I found myself praying that I too,

might die doing the thing that I love the best."

Our hopes for a quick victory have melted away.

The Japs are making us fight them on their terms.

Journalist Robert Sherrod is on Iwo Jima with the invasion force of 80,000 Marines.

After seven days of fighting, the Marines have taken Mount Suribachi

and two of the island's three airfields

but still have little more than half the island under their control.

They are now beginning the costly task of clearing the Japanese from their intricate underground defenses.

Everything is in caves and tunnels, except for the muzzles of their guns and their mortars.

One cave near the airfield has a tunnel 800 yards long

with 14 separate entrances each covered by a series of pillboxes with machine guns.

It's no wonder 74 days of bombardment have done so little.

For all our technical skill, we have no method to counterattack the Japs' underground defense systems.

It is agonizing to realize we progress so slowly and at so high a price.

By the fifth day, 5,000 Marines had fallen in combat,

three men for every two minutes of action on Iwo Jima.

By day seven, Japanese casualties number over 3,500 dead

with only 9 enemy prisoners taken.

The Japs don't seem to mind dying.

They stay in their tunnels to the end,

and we have to dig them out or burn them out or seal them in.

There's nothing else we can do.

Our orders are to scout the area and gather

as much intelligence as possible without engaging the enemy.

Biding time while in the German town of Immendorf,

19-year-old soldier Rockie Blunt volunteers for a reconnaissance patrol.

But he loses his way and soon finds himself detached from the rest of his squad.

Once again, he's alone in enemy territory.

I try to orient myself, but I'm lost.

A machine gun opens fire in the distance, but I can't figure out what direction it's coming from.

I hope I'm not heading deeper into German territory.

Blunt retreats to a wooded area nearby,

but he soon realizes he is not alone.

I've been close to the enemy before, but this is different.

I can't go back, and I can't move away from him without being discovered.

I don't have a choice.

I approach him from behind and hit him hard over the head with my pistol.

And when he fell, I slit his throat.

And then I crawled away, and I put my face into a little ditch-like defile,

and I threw up with my mouth pressed against the ground

so I would not make any noise while vomiting.

And I trembled, I was shaking so bad when I got back at the thought of what I had just done.

I had trouble controlling myself,

and I've never felt worse in my life as to what I had just done for the first time.

I was a musician. I was a nice clean-living Methodist boy. Not trained.

No matter what the army did to me, I couldn't be trained to kill people.

but I had.

War is a horribly fascinating thing, however much man may hate it.

"Time Life" correspondent Robert Sherrod is filing his last story from Iwo Jima.

Although the battle is far from over, he has already received word about the next objective in the pacific offensive.

I don't cherish the idea of leaving Iwo Jima.

I've seen enough bloodshed for one man in a lifetime.

But Okinawa looks like the most important operation of them all.

God knows when it will all end.

15 Days after Sherrod departs the island, American military leaders declare the battle on Iwo Jima over.

Almost immediately, Iwo's airfields begin launching fighter escorts

for b-29s on bombing raids to Tokyo.

It is a major strategic victory.

But the cost of the 35-day contest is catastrophic.

As news of the casualties arrives back in the States,

so does Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the second flag raising on Mount Suribachi.

While the casualty figures discourage and enrage millions of Americans,

This photograph of six heroic men raising a flag,

gives Americans the impression that an end to the war in the pacific is finally in sight.

All eyes are focused on the three survivors of that immortal flag-raising

who are present to raise that same flag again over the statue commemorating their deed.

The government capitalizes on the excitement of the image

and ships the surviving three flag raisers back to the States.

For six weeks, sailor John Bradley and Marine Corporals Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes

go on a 33-city national tour raising money for the seventh war bond drive.

Although public support had been lagging,

this drive becomes the most successful war bond drive to date,

raising over $26 billion for the war effort.

And so this day in this year of war, 1945,

we have learned lessons at a fearful cost,

and we shall profit by them.

In the days and the years that are to come,

we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace,

as today we work and fight for a total victory in war.

We can and we will achieve such a peace.