Original subtitles

Hawaii, the Pacific Ocean.

A picture postcard setting.

But it was in these paradise islands that there took place one of the most

decisive operations of the Second World War.

On the 7th of December, 1941,

Japan launched a surprise attack against the US fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor.

It was a blow to the very heart of the United States Defense Forces.

Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live...

This attack marked a major turning point in the war, the point where the conflict

became truly global.

But a lot remains unknown about Pearl Harbor.

Why did the Japanese decide to launch an apparently pointless attack on the

world's leading superpower?

Did the Americans really have no idea they were going to strike?

Pearl Harbor changed the course of the Second World War.

No more blue skies for Hawaii.

There are dark clouds over Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese Armada has destroyed 188 aircraft.

19 ships, including all the battleships, were hit.

The Americans have been through hell.

It was beyond anything I'd ever imagined, said one GI.

On board the ships, dozens of men are trying as best they can to survive.

Trapped down in the hulls, sailors wait for help to arrive.

In the capsized Oklahoma, men are knocking on the hull for help.

32 survivors managed to get out within 36 hours.

Dozens of bodies drift around the wrecks.

The survivors being rescued are often severely burned.

One survivor says, The smell of burnt flesh was making me nauseous.

Then I found it was my own.

There are 1178 wounded and 2403 dead.

Seven hours after the attack, a telegram arrives for Admiral Kimmel.

He opens it.

It's the alert message sent by General Marshall.

Too late.

A few hours after the attack, Prime Minister Tojo announces to his people

the start of hostilities.

A fever of patriotic pride grips Japan.

Thank

you.

We thought it was normal to go to war with the Americans, says one Japanese

man. We were all very happy.

The Japanese take advantage of their lightning victory to launch an attack on

Southeast Asia.

Touched at the very heart of its power, America is traumatized.

At 8 p.m. in Washington, President Roosevelt is visibly shocked.

His butler hears him murmur, My God, how could this have happened?

I'll go down in disgrace.

In London, Churchill hears the news.

He immediately telephones Roosevelt to offer his support.

The American president replies, We're all in the same boat now.

The next day, December the 8th, Roosevelt goes to the Capitol.

Senators and representatives, I have the distinguished honor of

presenting the president of the United States.

There he gives a speech that will go down in history.

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941,

a date which will live in infamy.

The United States of America was suddenly in deluge.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion,

the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute

victory.

Pearl Harbor has provided Roosevelt with a reason to take the country to war.

It only takes a few minutes for Congress to vote to declare war on Japan.

The United States renounces its isolationism.

It's a major turning point. The war has now become irrefutably global.

In London, Winston Churchill is relieved.

For months, he's been fighting alone against Nazi Germany.

But now, at last, the new world is coming to the rescue of the old.

He writes,

No American will think it wrong of me if I proclaim that to have the United

States at our side was to me the greatest joy England would live.

The leader of Free France, General de Gaulle, makes a prediction.

There will be battles, certainly, but the war is over since the outcome is now

known.

In Berlin, Hitler also welcomes the raid as a gift from the gods.

The Japanese victory is a coup for Nazi propaganda and strengthens the alliance

of the tripartite pact.

Hitler tells his generals, We cannot lose the war.

We now have a partner who has not experienced defeat in 3,000 years.

In Italy, Mussolini too is in a boastful mood.

He even mocks Roosevelt.

Never in the course of history has a nation been guided by a paralytic.

There have been bald kings, fat kings, handsome and even stupid kings, but

never a king who, in order to go to the bathroom and the dinner table, had to be

supported by other men.

Hitler and Mussolini, however, are making a big mistake.

Unlike Churchill, the two dictators have never traveled to America.

They're underestimating the economic power of the new world.

On December 11, 1941, both Germany and Italy declare war on the United States.

Meanwhile, the wildest rumors are spreading in Hawaii.

If the Japanese bombed us, it means they intend to invade.

They start organizing civil defense.

For the first time, Hawaiian school children, three-quarters of whom are

Japanese in origin, start training to resist an invasion.

Even the youngest are given gas protection wear.

It's chaos everywhere.

Admiral Kimmel and General Short are relieved of their commands and demoted.

The writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan, is on the island.

He writes, Everyone lay or squatted behind sandbags.

lumber or what have you.

With guns pointing in all directions, no one knew from what direction the enemy

was supposed to be coming.

Such is the paranoia that at nightfall American planes are easy targets for the

lookout posts.

Three pilots are killed.

Some of those bullets even kill a sailor who has survived the morning attack.

On the continent, too, there are fears of an invasion.

Some cities impose a blackout.

The capital now shuts down at dusk.

America trembles.

The FBI immediately orders the arrest of nearly 2,000 suspects of Japanese origin

and ramps up all surveillance.

Radio receivers and shortwave transmitters owned by Jap, German, or

Italian nationals are confiscated under orders of the FBI.

Cameras too.

Uncle Sam clipping the wings of any fifth column threat.

By the way, some of Uncle Sam's guests seem to be camera shy.

Pearl Harbor triggers a wave of anti-Japanese persecution.

Those Japanese must be punished is the watchword that's now on everybody's

lips.

When we're done with them, says Admiral Halsey, the Japanese language will only

be spoken in hell.

Japanese American citizens living in Hawaii or on the mainland may proclaim

their patriotism loud and clear, but in vain.

Some have lived on American soil for decades, yet they are all now considered

potential saboteurs.

And there's worse to come.

There's single doubt for special treatment by the U.S. government.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, our west coast became a potential combat

zone. Living in that zone were more than 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry.

We knew that some among them were potentially dangerous.

Most were loyal.

But no one knew what would happen among this concentrated population if Japanese

forces should try to invade our shores.

Military authorities therefore determined that all of them, citizens

and aliens alike would have to move.

Beginning in March 1942, thousands of Japanese, many of them American

citizens, are transferred to relocation centers, camps located in desolate

areas.

They have no choice.

They're escorted by the army, who treat them as fugitives and delinquents.

More than 100,000 Japanese will be uprooted and lose all their belongings.

One of them recalls, We had no rights, and there was no one to speak on our

behalf. I didn't understand why this was happening to us, and I didn't know.

what would become of us.

These cities in the middle of the desert are actually detention camps.

After the war, civilians of Japanese origin will never be fully compensated

for all they endured.

With this treatment of its Japanese American population, The United States

betrays all its core values.

It only takes a few months for a powerful America to mobilize its economy

and become the arsenal of democracy.

Factories that only yesterday were making cars or typewriters are now

churning out jeeps, shells, tanks, and aircraft carriers.

It's an industry more powerful than any the world has seen.

To encourage women to work in factories, a new character appears in American

popular culture, one who will soon become an icon.

Rosie is her name.

Rosie the Riveter.

All day long, whether rain or shine, she's a part of the assembly line.

She's making history, working for victory.

Rosie, the riveter, keeps a short lookout for sabotage. Sitting up there

on the fuselage, that little girl can do more than a mill can do. Rosie, Rosie,

Rosie.

The gigantic factories aren't the only ones who are busy.

The propaganda cameras of the Hollywood film industry are hard at work too.

Director Frank Capra, winner of many Oscars, is directing a series to raise

awareness among young Americans entitled Why We Fight.

The cartoons coming out of Hollywood feature anti-Japanese caricatures,

demonic beings that everyone should be wary of.

Remember Pearl Harbor becomes the slogan that awakens the patriotism of every

American. It's everywhere, in the streets and in the factories, too.

The indignation is profound.

All young Americans can think of is winning the war and getting vengeance.

We're gonna fight, gonna fight, gonna fight. Ah, we're gonna fight. Yeah, man,

win this war.

Isn't that a sneaky jab? Yeah, man, sneaky jab.

Will we kick him off the map? Yeah, man, off the map, off the map. Sneaky jab.

Ha, ha, ha. When he goes jaw, beat that man.

Hitler's pan.

Once before, win this war.

Now we're gonna fight, gonna fight, gonna fight. Ah, we're gonna fight.

Yeah, man.

It's a slogan, not yet a reality, for Japan is still making war and chalking

up conquests.

In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Imperial forces attack Guam, Wake Island, the

Philippines, Indonesia, and part of Burma.

Millions of square miles rich in tin, rubber, and oil fall into their hands.

Everywhere, British and American forces are retreating from the surging Japanese

wave.

In Malaysia, The Imperial Army makes a surprise landing.

The Japanese General Yamashita conquers half of the country in less than a

month.

He advances his army through the jungle, piece by piece even.

The British, under pressure, retreat to the impregnable fortress of Singapore.

But Yamashita, whom they're now calling the Tiger of Malaysia, lays siege to the

city.

It only takes him a week to overcome it.

30,000 Japanese have brought 100,000 British to their knees.

On February 5, 1942, British General Arthur Percival surrenders.

When Yamashita goes by, tens of thousands of British soldiers are forced

to stand at attention.

It's a cruel humiliation that symbolizes the defeat of the West in Asia.

According to Churchill, the surrender is the most serious disaster in British

military history.

From Japan comes a great cry of Banzai.

Ever since the first month of 1942,

the Empire of the Rising Sun has achieved all its goals.

Pearl Harbor aimed to avert the American threat so that Tokyo could carve out an

empire.

Mission accomplished.

A Japanese man tells how

Yamamoto

the strategist has won his bet, but he still isn't happy.

Although this conquest exceeds his expectations, the victory seems to him a

very fragile one.

At Pearl Harbor, It certainly looks like the United States has suffered an

unprecedented disaster.

Its Pacific fleet seems devastated.

In fact, out of 82 vessels, 19 have been hit.

Three are irretrievably lost, but all the others will set to sea again.

The Pacific Fleet may have suffered, but its base is more or less intact.

The Japanese made a grave error. They didn't destroy the infrastructure, the

gigantic gas tanks, the repair shops.

Above all, they didn't hit any aircraft carriers, and for good reason. They

weren't in the harbor.

By a great stroke of luck, the Enterprise was out on the high seas, the

Lexington was delivering planes to Midway Island, and the Saratoga was in

dry dock in San Diego.

All the same, Japan is intoxicated by its success.

On the outskirts of Nanking, there's an exhibition celebrating past naval

battles.

The Empire of the Rising Sun is feeling invulnerable.

But Uncle Sam's about to prove it wrong.

In April 1942,

the American general staff starts planning an extravagant mission to

avenge Pearl Harbor, symbolically at least, by bombing the Japanese

archipelago.

Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle oversees the operation.

B-25 bombers start to take off from an aircraft carrier from a runway of under

1,000 feet instead of the usual 2,300, a considerable challenge.

Each aircraft will be loaded with no less than a ton of bombs and fuel.

And then they must get close enough to Japan without being spotted.

After 16 days at sea,

Doolittle's armada is spotted by the Japanese patrol boats.

They are immediately neutralized and captured.

But they may have had time to sound the alarm.

The operation must be launched without delay, even if Japan is still 750 miles

away.

Do little leads by example.

He's the first to take off from the floating airstrip in his B-25.

The others follow.

On that April 18, 1942,

They bombard several Japanese cities, including Tokyo.

But the hardest part is still to come.

They've got too little fuel to return to their ship.

They must do their utmost to get to China.

A few of the planes crash behind Japanese lines.

Their crews are captured.

Several of the airmen are executed.

For that first devastating aerial bombardment of Japan, Brigadier General

James H. Doolittle receiving from President Roosevelt the highest award

this nation can bestow, the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The Doolittle Raid is a symbolic one.

The islands of Japan are no longer a safe place to be.

But wars aren't won by symbols.

It takes a whole string of victories.

The Doodle Raid has unexpected consequences.

Admiral Yamamoto is enraged by the attack on Japan.

To prevent further American aggression, and to be able when the time is right to

annihilate Pearl Harbor, he decides to target Midway Island.

He brings out the big guns, nearly 200 warships and four aircraft carriers.

But since Pearl Harbor, Uncle Sam's factories have not been idle, and the

Americans have another asset.

They're getting much better at intercepting enemy communications.

The ambush takes place not far from the island.

An air-sea battle unprecedented in history begins.

The Americans lose 300 men.

The Japanese, 3,000.

But above all, although the Americans lose an aircraft carrier, the Japanese

lose all of the four they'd sent into battle.

All had taken part in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Without them, the Japanese pilots run out of fuel and don't even have a runway

to land on.

In this early June of 1942, six months to the day after Pearl Harbor, Japan

suffers a terrible defeat.

Their supremacy in the Pacific is over.

As Captain Pushida writes, At Pearl Harbor, the Americans learned more from

their defeat than the Japanese did from their victory.

Disillusioned, Yamamoto says, We awoke a sleeping giant and filled him with

terrible determination.

Ominous words, and words the Americans will not forget.

In April 1943, to re-motivate his troops, the Admiral is to inspect his

bases on the Solomon Islands.

U.S. intelligence have again intercepted Japanese messages.

This time the information arrives on time.

And President Roosevelt gives the green light.

The U.S. Air Force can attack the aircraft of its sworn enemy.

The plane of the man responsible for Pearl Harbor is shot down.

For a month,

His death is kept secret.

His ashes are brought home at the end of May 1943.

Japan is plunged into disarray.

The whole nation mourns.

One man recalls, When we learned of Admiral Yamamoto's death,

We felt that we had lost our anchor.

We were miserable, anxious.

Who was there to lead us now?

Tojo bows before the urn of his most valiant warrior.

Yamamoto predicted the fall of the empire.

Little did he know he'd be the first to fall.

1943 is a grim year for the Axis powers.

Everywhere, German, Italian, and Japanese forces are in retreat.

In the sands of Elamain, in the ice of Stalingrad, and in the atolls of the

Pacific.

Around Japan, the vice is tightening.

But it won't disarm.

It just steps up the indoctrination.

In the factories, the teenagers replacing the workers get younger and

younger.

And the schools are becoming a production line for soldiers.

A slogan from 1943 hammers it home.

We'll never stop shooting until our enemies have stopped living.

Japan's ready to fight to the last plane, to the last man, to the last

cartridge.

In the face of American offensives on Iwo Jima and Okinawa the Japanese troops

resist fiercely.

These battles are a massacre on both sides.

fanaticism or bushido still holds japan in its grip to surrender is forbidden

sensing the end approaching

the japanese deploy a new weapon kamikaze pilots

The Americans see the Japanese soldiers as completely fanatical and inhuman.

To get it all over with, and to avoid too heavy losses in their ranks, the U

.S. is raging a ruthless air war.

They've invented a formidable weapon.

The B-29 Superfortress bombers are designed specifically for long-distance

strikes.

Range, 4,100 miles.

Hold capacity, 10 tons.

On March the 9th, 1945, 300 B-29s take off, loaded with 1

,667 tons of bombs.

Their target?

Tokyo.

It devastated the Japanese capital.

Twelve square miles of the city are flattened.

Number of dead, 100,000.

Number of homeless, 1 million.

A resident of Tokyo says, The next morning, when I woke up, I

saw charred human bodies everywhere.

I couldn't help but step on them.

Faced with the magnitude of the devastation, Emperor Hirohito goes to

the scene to tell his people to keep up the fight.

In May 1945, the war in Europe is over.

Germany and Italy both surrender.

But the Empire of the Rising Sun still refuses to lay down its arms.

Finally, the United States decides in August 1945

to drop two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while the Soviets launch a

powerful offensive in Manchuria.

The nuclear explosions caused more than 200,000 deaths, with thousands more

injured, burned or irradiated.

A fire that will forever leave its mark on both bodies and souls.

As Admiral Halsey predicted, in 1945,

Japanese is indeed spoken in hell.

Faced with this disaster, Emperor Hirohito finally relents.

In a radio speech on August 15, 1945, he announces defeat.

It's the first time the Japanese have heard the voice of their ruler.

It was in the name of the Emperor that war had been unleashed.

Now it's ended by his voice.

Everyone was crying, says one Japanese man.

The feeling of sadness, the anger for what we've had to endure, the sense of

emptiness.

We felt it all.

And a woman says, I was seven years old.

I didn't really understand what the emperor was saying, but I felt so

relieved to know that there'd be no more B-29s.

For the Japanese, Pearl Harbor seemed to promise a rosy future.

In fact, it was the prelude to an atrocious war that would end in nuclear

apocalypse.

An unprecedented wave of suicides follows the announcement of surrender.

As a point of honor.

In the streets of New York, and in Hawaii too, it's a time for jubilation.

Uncle Sam has had his revenge on the empire of the rising sun, just as

Roosevelt promised.

The American president, though, died four months earlier.

He's no longer there to see his prophecy come true.

Total victory.

Pearl Harbor was his cross to bear, but it was also his salvation.

Without the Japanese aggression, he would never have succeeded in convincing

his people to go to war.

Despite all the exultation, one question still haunts Americans.

How was the Pearl Harbor disaster possible?

The conspiracy theories are growing.

Some suspect Roosevelt of having let the Japanese strike, so he could go to war

without having to start hostilities.

Public opinion demands answers.

The successive commissions of inquiry begin.

Explosive headlines from Washington at the Senate office building the Pearl

Harbor inquiry opens Four years after the nation hears the story behind

Pearl Harbor Those

inquiries will all come to the same conclusion

that military officials could have foreseen the raid The many clues

The telegrams, the radar detections, they all proved that Pearl Harbor was

indeed a target.

But the Americans never imagined that the Japanese could carry out such a

sophisticated operation so far from their shores and targeting the U.S.

Navy's most powerfully armed base.

It was a superiority complex that had cost them dearly.

Those much-cited conspiracy theories simply masked the main problem, the

sheer weight of bureaucracy in all the US intelligence services.

And today, what remains of the whole tragedy?

Decades after Pearl Harbor, the wreck of the Arizonas still there to be seen.

In the 1960s, a memorial was built there.

The most dramatic attack in American history finally has its place of

remembrance.

On the other side of the Pacific, Pearl Harbor remains a victory, albeit a

devious one, of which the Japanese are proud.

There were some veterans, though, who were ashamed that their country attacked

the United States without declaring war, and who worked to promote reconciliation

between the two nations.

But if Japan was willing to apologize for Pearl Harbor, it demanded in return

that the United States apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And that was an unacceptable demand for Washington, who had not opened the

hostilities.

In 2016, however, Barack Obama made a powerful gesture.

He went to Hiroshima.

That same year, he welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Pearl

Harbor.

A page had turned.

Today, the memorial welcomes hundreds of visitors every day.

Several veterans wished for their funeral urns to rest in the ship

alongside their missing comrades.

Before the attack on December 7, 1941,

The Arizona's tanks were filled with 5,700 tons of fuel.

Not all the tanks exploded.

To this very day, the ship still oozes and lets out a few drops of gasoline.

Black tears.

A memory of those wept by the thousand sailors engulfed by the waves.

A shockwave from December 7, 1941 would continue to spread.

It provoked a drastic shakeup of American intelligence and, in 1947, the

creation of the CIA.

Doris Miller, a cook who'd grabbed a machine gun, was the first African

American to receive the Navy Cross from Admiral Nimitz.

Several ships would bear his name.

James Doolittle, who dared to bomb Japan with his B-25s, would be promoted to a

four-star general.

Kazuo Sakamaki, the submarine pilot who'd wanted to commit suicide, returned

to Japan after the war. He started a family and became a senior executive in

the Japanese automobile industry.

Admiral Tojo, to escape justice, attempted suicide.

He was saved at the last moment by the Americans who wished to try him for war

crimes.

He was hanged in 1948.

In exchange for his full cooperation with the Americans, Hirohito would be

exonerated from criminal prosecution.

He died in 1989 after the longest reign in Japanese history.

considered the main culprit of the disaster and demoted, Admiral Kimmel

spent his life trying to clear his name.

His family continues to do so.