Original subtitles

\hNARRATOR: Johnny and Pauline Falk are adventurous travelers.

In 1937, they board the Pan Am Clipper in San Francisco Bay.

\hPan Am has just begun the first commercial air service

across the Pacific.

It’s no simple task.

\h\h\h\h\hThe small float plane faces an 8200-mile flight path.

\h\h\h\hIt pushes the limits of its range...

\h\h\hto fly between tiny dots scattered across the great sea.

\h\h\h\h\hAirborne at last, Pauline writes in her diary.

\h\h\h\hPAULINE: The flight is so smooth,

there is no feeling about it.

\h\hNARRATOR: After 19 hours, they make their first landing.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThis American territory is barely American.

\hIts people are more rooted in the Pacific.

Next stop -- Midway.

Johnny films an idyllic scene

\h\h\h\hon an island that will soon become infamous.

PAULINE: The gooney birds are marvelous in the sand dunes.

\hNARRATOR: Their home movies from the Smithsonian Archives

are among the first color images

\hof these remote American outposts.

Then -- Wake Island.

\h\hIt’s uninhabited until Pan Am turns it

into a first class way station.

\h\h\h\hIt’s another 11 hours over the open sea -- to Guam.

\hPAULINE: The most tropical place yet.

\hDrove to Agana, the largest town.

\h\hNARRATOR: A small military base protects

20,000 American nationals.

\hThe Falks film smiling kids parading in uniform.

\hTheir next stop will be a much longer stay.

\h\h\h\hPAULINE: I find it difficult to leave Manila.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: The Philippines have been

in U.S. hands since 1898.

It’s America’s most distant territory --

\h\hthe edge of a young empire, defined in neon.

\h\h\h\hPast Manila, the Falks finally escape America’s reach.

Nothing looks familiar.

In Hong Kong harbor, ships have sails like seashells.

\h\h\hIn China, the boats are simpler...

and the people are spellbinding.

\h\h\hFinally, exactly two months after leaving home,

\hthey reach their final destination.

Japan.

\hJohnny and Pauline’s journey is remarkable,

and their path is prophetic.

\h\h\h\hThey have crossed an ocean that Ferdinand Magellan

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hnamed "Mar Pacifico," the peaceful sea.

\h\hBut a wave of war will soon obliterate the Falk’s footsteps,

replacing scenes of peace

with scenes of a cataclysm \hno one can yet imagine.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hCOL DONOVAN: It looked like you’re headed for hell.

Because you were.

[explosion]

\h\hPVT MENDEZ: My heart was beating 1,000 times a minute.

THOMAS: They didn’t want to be captured.

It was either us... or them.

SN RIPPER: Coming towards us was a Japanese plane,

just skimming over the water.

[din of war]

\h\h\h\hK.L.: My eyes were paining with oil.

\h\hBut we got a rope, and were taken aboard.

\h\h\h\h\hJERELL: The beach was a mountain.

\hTIM: We didn’t think of ourselves as heroes.

\h\hGEORGE: It’s not just what I remember.

It’s what I’ll never forget.

[♪ theme music ♪]

[car horns honking]

NARRATOR: Philadelphia, 1939.

\hThere’s a buzz building inside Municipal Stadium.

[hum of crowd]

\hA marching band warms up the crowd on a chilly December day.

[marching band plays]

\h\h\h\h\h\hThen, military formations fill the field.

First the Army, then the Navy.

\h\h\h\hOnce the field is clear, the battle begins.

This is the first known color \hfilm of the Army Navy game.

[crowd cheering]

\h\h\hColonel Wilbur Dockum shoots from his corner seat.

♪ ♪

\hDockum also films his Army unit training at West Point.

\h\h\h\h\hIn 1939, America’s military is not very robust.

All the services combined \hhave about 600,000 men.

\hBack at the warehouse, everything looks dated --

right out of World War I.

\h\hThe average foot soldier still carries

a 1903 Springfield rifle.

\hTraining is sincere, but not always serious.

PVT BAYE: I was a radio man.

I only fired my rifle once

\h\h\h\hthe whole damn time I was in the Army.

\hNARRATOR: The Army figures less than half of its troops

are properly trained.

They’re barely literate.

\h\h\h\hSeventy-five percent haven’t finished high school,

and 41 percent never started it.

Americans greet their military \h\h\hwith a collective shrug.

\hWhen Dockum’s unit parades through town,

few people stop to watch.

It’s more sideshow than show of force.

Dockum captures it all on color film,

\h\ha recent invention for home movie buffs --

and combat cameramen.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\hSGT HATCH: I was carrying two hand cameras.

[explosions and gunfire]

\hWe were laying on the beach, watching this --

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hguys were getting blown to pieces.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In the 1930s, America is a fragmented society.

\h\hAbout the only thing everyone faces in common

are the fierce headwinds of the Great Depression.

\h\h\hSome of America’s future soldiers are still school kids.

Armand Maffuccio hustles to make a few extra bucks

\hfor his family of Italian immigrants.

\h\h\hARMAND: I’d get up early and work with the baker first.

Then after school, I’d go back and help him make the bread.

\hFor a few dollars, you’d go anyplace. You just go get it.

NARRATOR: Michael Kuryla frequents the movie house

\h\h\h\hto follow the war already raging in Europe.

\h\h\h\h\hPO3 KURYLA: At the movies, they’d show newsreels

\hshowing the fleet and all the warships

in a row out there in the ocean.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In 1940, Americans re-elect

President Franklin Roosevelt,

banking on his promise to stay out of the war.

\h\hMany feel America should solve its own problems first.

\hPO3 KURYLA: My dad didn’t have any work.

A lot of times we were wondering

\h\h\hwhere our next meal would come from.

\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Most people think going to war

\h\h\h\h\h\hwill be an economic step backward.

Two thirds think it will make the next generation worse off.

America’s focus is inward.

\h\h\hMost live out their lives without

\hventuring much beyond the horizon of their own needs.

But in a few months,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hsome will venture farther than they ever dreamed.

♪ ♪

\hSN RIPPER: We had never gone anywhere.

\h\h\h\h\hOnce we got away from home, it was a different world.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Shanghai, China.

Here, cultures intersect.

\h\hIt’s a Chinese city with an American and British settlement.

\h\h\h\h\h\hStreets reveal a global mix of carts and cars.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hIt’s an international crossroads,

\hbut Japan has it in its crosshairs.

[gunfire]

In 1937, they invade.

Their own film shows parts of Shanghai crumbling in a heap.

Japan seizes the Chinese portion,

surrounding the westerners.

Then Japan storms another city.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThey overwhelm Chinese forces within days...

\h\hthen massacre up to 300,000 citizens.

It becomes known as the Rape of Nanking.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\hThe Chinese try to carry on -- amid the rubble.

The horrors linger like ghosts.

On this pockmarked building,

\h\hthe invaders flaunt their flag like a brand.

Japanese soldiers signal a new imperial presence.

\h\h\h\h\hAmerica wonders if Japan’s ambition ends here --

\h\h\hor extends to one of its own territories nearby.

\hCOL OLSON: Sirens in Manila were going off.

\hWe began to get a picture that it wasn’t looking good.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hNARRATOR: When the Falks visit the Philippines in 1937,

they stay at the Manila Hotel,

\han upscale haven for expats and foreigners.

\h\h\h\h\h\hAs Pauline enjoys the warm breeze

coming through the hotel window,

\h\hanother family is living upstairs in the penthouse.

\h\hLittle Arthur, his mother Jean, and his father Douglas.

These are the personal films of General Douglas MacArthur.

He’s retired from the U.S. Army,

winding down his career by serving as an advisor

to the Philippine government.

♪ ♪

He oversees a joint force

of 130,000 Filipino and American troops.

GEN MACARTHUR: With adequate \h\hprotection this country

\h\h\h\h\h\hwill flourish as a brilliant product of democracy.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: But protection is not adequate.

\hFilipino troops are barely trained, and poorly equipped.

PVT BROWN: They had six shooter pistols, believe it or not.

Colts.

They were so old you couldn’t even get ammunition for them.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Robert Brown admits his own American forces

aren’t much better off.

\h\h\h\hPVT BROWN: We had World War I hand grenades.

\hYou could pull the pins and hit them with a baseball bat,

and they would not go off.

NARRATOR: If war breaks out,

\h\hthe Philippines are in grave danger.

\hMacArthur wonders why 16 million American nationals

are barely protected.

\hGEN MACARTHUR: The apparent disinterest

\hon the part of the United States is incomprehensible.

\hNARRATOR: But if Army officers are worried, they don’t show it.

♪ ♪

At a base south of Manila,

\hAmericans carve out a colonial playground.

\h\h\h\h\hRecreation includes rousing games of bicycle polo.

There are some casualties.

An assignment in the Philippines

\h\h\h\h\h\happears to be mostly about fun and sun.

Soon, it will be about survival.

[explosion]

2LT HATCH: As I was going out front, I got shot in the leg.

\hWhen I looked up, I got shot again -- right through my nose.

♪ ♪

\h\hNARRATOR: The epicenter of the coming earthquake is Japan.

\h\h\h\h\hIts proud history stretches back 2,000 years.

It’s become wary of encroaching western influence in Asia,

thinking they should be the ones

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto lead the continent into the future.

But Japan is also stuck in the Great Depression,

and many think expansion is the only way to crawl out of it.

\h\hKUMAGAYA: People were looking for a breakthrough

because times were hard

\hand no one thought of war in a realistic way.

[men shouting]

\hNARRATOR: By 1940 the military controls Japan.

\h\h\h\h\h\hThey have 1.5 million men in uniform --

more than double America’s forces.

The manpower comes from within.

\hThe raw materials come from its growing empire.

\hGEN MACARTHUR: They lacked sugar, so they took Formosa.

They lacked iron, so they took Manchuria.

\h\hThey lacked hard coal and timber, so they invaded China.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThey lacked security, so they took Korea.

\h\h\h\h\hThey intended, by force of arms if necessary,

to establish an economic sphere

\hcompletely under their own control.

\hNARRATOR: But waves of Japanese expansion

have yet to reach here.

♪ ♪

Hawaii.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThe famous crossroads sign in Honolulu

\h\hshows just how far it is -- from anywhere.

\h\h\h\hIn 1941, the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor

is just about the only sign that it’s an American territory.

\h\h\hMostly, Hawaii hums to its own tune.

This is the pre-war footage \hof Francis Raymond Line,

a traveling filmmaker.

\h\h\h\hHis color film unspools like a perfect travel brochure.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hFRANCIS: We discovered a dozen rainbows --

some even two at a time.

\hOur camera drank in scenes of the harvest.

\h\h\h\h\hAnd cattle being loaded by rope and derrick

onto ships off shore at the Parker Ranch.

NARRATOR: Hawaii has its own way of doing things.

\h\hIt’s not used to cultural convulsions.

\h\h\h\hChange usually comes on the slow boat.

\h\h\h\h\h\hFrancis Line’s film paints Hawaii as nearly perfect.

It’s paradise framed by crashing waves --

\h\ha roaring perimeter with wondrous views of the Pacific

curving out of sight.

♪ ♪

Beyond Hawaii’s horizon line,

Japanese cameras film an armada

\h\hsecretly slicing its way through the Pacific.

It’s December 6th, 1941.

The American military is on alert, but not up to speed.

On this very day, one unit

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hhas no hand grenades to practice with.

Instead, they throw eggs.

Also on December 6th, newspaper ads call on congressmen

\h\h\hto keep America out of the war across the Atlantic.

\h\hIt’s the other ocean that’s about to explode.

\h\h\h\h\hPearl Harbor goes to sleep, innocent and unscathed,

for the last time.

\h\h\hThe next morning, one colonel is up early,

\h\h\h\h\h\hand assumes he’s watching a military exercise.

\hCOL FARTHING: Very realistic maneuvers.

\h\h\h\h\h\hI wonder what the Marines are doing to the Navy

so early on Sunday.

♪ ♪

[explosions]

NARRATOR: This is considered \h\h\hthe only color footage

of the attack on Pearl Harbor, shot by sailor Clyde Daughtry.

The film is badly damaged, \hbut the chaos is clear.

William Lockey is just one week out of basic training,

aboard the USS New Orleans.

\h\h\h\hSN LOCKEY: I said, let’s get the guns loaded!

They said, we got no ammunition.

\h\h\hWho’s got the key? We don’t know!

NARRATOR: Surprised sailors fire

their anti-aircraft guns wildly,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hkilling some civilians up in the hills.

\h\h\h\h\hRadio stations begin shouting that it’s not a drill.

ARCHIVE: The city of Honolulu \h\hhas also been attacked...

It is no joke. It is a real war.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hUSS is listing badly.

One sailor on deck

\h\his shot through the face by a strafing Japanese plane.

\hOther crews are faring far worse.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hUSS Shaw bursts into a fireball.

[explosion]

\h\h\h\hSN LOCKEY: The boys were out there in the water

in all that oil.

\hThey’d come up, knock the oil out of their way

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand catch a breath, then go back down.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: In one hour and fifteen minutes,

Japan damages or sinks nineteen ships, and kills 2,400.

\h\h\h\h\hThe news ripples outward like a shock wave.

\h\h\hA Pam Am Clipper full of tourists is out

\h\h\h\h\hover the Pacific -- which is suddenly a war zone.

They turn off their lights...

blacken their windows...

and change course.

\h\hAll over the country, military phones light up.

\hJack Lent is on duty in San Diego.

\h\h\h\h\hSSG LENT: Some colonel was on the phone.

\h\h\hHe said, "You get your commanding officer

\h\h\hand tell him that Pearl Harbor has just been bombed."

\hI said, "Yes, sir! What’s Pearl Harbor?"

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Behind closed doors on a Sunday,

President Roosevelt is composing a short speech in his head.

He resists advice to give it today.

Instead, Eleanor Roosevelt \hsteps up to a microphone

\h\h\h\hand gives the first official American response.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: You cannot escape anxiety,

\h\h\h\hyou cannot escape the clutch of fear at your heart.

\h\hAnd yet I hope that the certainty

of what we have to meet

will make you rise above these fears.

NARRATOR: Many Americans do not.

The FBI switchboard lights up with calls

\h\h\h\h\hreporting suspicious behavior of Japanese Americans.

\h\h\h\hIn New York City, Japanese restaurant owners

\h\htell their patrons to finish their meals.

Then they shutter their doors

\h\h\hand drive each other home in convoys for safety.

\h\h\hIn San Francisco, people report everything

\h\h\h\h\hfrom strange airplanes in the sky...

to shady men on the streetcars.

\h\hSirens wail for no apparent reason.

\h\h\h\h\hIn Seattle, 2,000 people descend upon downtown

to enforce a blackout.

It devolves into looting.

In Hawaii, radio stations declare

\h\h\hthe islands are now under martial law.

Then they order a complete blackout.

\h\hRADIO ANNOUNCER: Turn out your lights.

This means the whole territory.

\hTurn out your lights and do not turn them on

for any purpose whatsoever.

[radio chatter in Japanese]

\h\hNARRATOR: America is on its heels, and Japan isn’t finished.

\h\h\h\h\hThe next 48 hours shock the world.

\h\h\h\hJust hours after attacking Pearl Harbor...

\h\h\h\h\h\hthe Japanese launch a surprise assault

\h\hon the American base on Wake Island.

Fearing a land invasion,

a Pan Am Clipper captain jams 70 civilians onto his plane.

\h\hWay overweight, the plane finally gets off the water --

on the third try.

\h\h\hThen Japan bombs the U.S. military base on Guam

\h\h\h\h\h\hthat the Falks filmed a few years earlier.

\h\h\h\hIn three days, they capture the island

\h\h\h\h\h\hand take 20,000 American nationals prisoner.

Also on December 7th, Japan invades the Gilbert Islands,

a British colony.

They also fall in three days.

\h\h\hJapanese forces on the way back from Pearl Harbor...

shell Midway Island.

[explosions]

\h\hRepelling fire drives them off...

\h\h\h\hbut not before the American base takes a hit.

[explosions]

Japan is thrusting a sword deep into the Central Pacific --

\h\ha violent blitz that takes the ocean by storm.

♪ ♪

\hAt the same time, Japan’s own film captures a surge into Asia.

[sounds of warfare]

\h\h\hThey begin bombing the Philippines on December 8th.

\h\h\h\hOn the same day they invade Thailand...

and soon roll into Bangkok.

They attack the British colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore.

\h\h\hAnd they storm the rest of Shanghai,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hoverrunning the British and American enclave.

Stuck on a small base in China is a company of U.S. Marines --

\h\h\h\h\h\hnow completely surrounded by the Japanese.

\hSuperiors order them to surrender without a fight.

\hSergeant Robert Smith marches into captivity,

\h\h\has the victors switch out the flag.

SGT SMITH: Look what’s up there now. A flaming red asshole.

♪ ♪

\h\hNARRATOR: Before the world can react,

\h\h\hJapan cleaves its way into Southeast Asia.

\h\hThey light the fuse of war all around the Pacific.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hIn Japan, many citizens are flush with pride.

\h\h\h\h\hBut there’s an undercurrent of anxiety.

NOGI: We were assured we would not have to worry.

America was a democratic nation,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand so would disintegrate and collapse.

\h\hThey can’t unite for a common purpose.

\h\hOne blow against them, and they’ll fall to pieces.

NARRATOR: Back in Washington, Roosevelt addresses Congress.

\h\h\h\h\hPRES ROOSEVELT: Yesterday, December 7th...

\hNARRATOR: First, he makes a few last-minute revisions.

PRES ROOSEVELT: ... a date which will live in infamy.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: For years, the nation felt stuck. Now it feels stung.

\h\hPRES ROOSEVELT: There is no blinking at the fact

\h\h\h\hthat our people, our territory, and our interests

are in grave danger.

NARRATOR: America is at war.

\hMost didn’t want it. But most will have to join it.

\h\h\hEither in support at home, or in uniform beyond.

\h\h\h\h\h2LT SIMMONS: There were college men

\h\h\h\hwho joined the service that very day.

\h\h\hThey left letters with the manager of the dormitory

and they took off.

The feeling of the moment was,

I would like to fly a plane and drop a bomb on the bastards.

ST BRUNTON: That trip to West Virginia to have my physical

\h\h\hwas the first time I was ever out of the state of Ohio.

\h\h\hPVT LIBERTY: Roughest ride I ever had in my life.

\h\h\h\hLike traveling on a gravel road for 2,000 miles.

I swear they had square wheels.

ENS AITKEN: My examination took probably 30 seconds.

\h\h\h\hDrop my pants; check forward and aft;

check and see if I’m breathing; son, you’re ready to go.

CPL MOORE: I didn’t pass because the guy handed me a book

\h\h\h\hand said "Read the numbers." I only saw dots.

\hHe said, "I can’t take you. You’re colorblind."

\hI said, "What am I supposed to see?"

\h\h\h\h\h\hHe said, "A three, five, and nine."

\h\h\h\h\h\hSo I hitchhiked to Indianapolis... got in line...

\h\hThey gave me the same book and I said,

"I see a three, five, and nine."

They said, "You’re in."

NARRATOR: Armand Maffucio, the kid who baked his way

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthrough the depression, joins the Navy.

They don’t waste his talent.

\h\h\hARMAND: All we made was the bread, rolls, and desserts

for the crew. Of course, there were 2,000 sailors.

\h\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Michael Kuryla, who admired Navy ships

\h\hin the newsreels, also takes the plunge.

\h\hPO3 KURYLA: They gave us our uniforms and everything.

They gave us our caps.

Then they’d give us our haircuts,

and the caps didn’t fit anymore.

Our ears were holding them up.

\hNARRATOR: First stop -- the pool.

They practice treading water --

while someone tries to hold them under.

But deeper water awaits -- in an unlikely place.

♪ ♪

\h\h\hThese are cadets in Northwestern University’s

Naval Reserve Midshipmen’s \h\h\hSchool near Chicago.

They are called "90-day wonders"

\hbecause that’s how fast the program is in wartime.

\h\h\hLake Michigan isn’t exactly the Pacific Ocean,

but it’ll have to do.

They study navigation.

\h\hAnd the fine art of swabbing the deck.

They are literally learning the ropes.

\h\h\hFinally, they practice the choreography of gun work.

\h\h\hNow, they have time to break it down, step by step.

Soon, they won’t.

\h\h\h\h\hST BRUNTON: They peeled off and dove on us.

They got close...

\hNARRATOR: The Army picks a training spot

\hthat could at least pass for the Pacific.

The Florida swamp.

\h\h\h\h\hThis is Wakulla Springs near Tallahassee,

\hwhere Hollywood filmed some of the jungle scenes

in Tarzan movies.

\h\h\h\hNow the Army is filming its own recruits

trying to master an environment

\h\h\h\hmore common in New Guinea than North America.

The horrors of Pearl Harbor inform a few of the drills.

Smoke-screen maneuvers.

Swimming around an oil fire.

\h\hThis is not the Army Thomas Baye had in mind.

\h\hPVT BAYE: I chose the Army over the Navy

because I’m scared of the water.

I didn’t know how to swim.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: No one quite knows what fighting across an ocean

will look like.

\h\h\h\h\hThey ford a river by making a hand bridge of rifles.

\h\hThey use their tents and poles to make a supply raft.

\h\h\h\h\hThey practice hiding from the enemy --

with synchronized ducking.

\hAnd, predictably, they blow stuff up.

[explosions]

Underwater demolition teams

\htry to smooth the way for a new kind of boat.

\h\hThis is an early amphibious vehicle --

a duck made by General Motors.

Driving through the water is a novelty.

Soon it will be a necessity.

SGT PERRY: We walked into a hornets’ nest.

\hI was thinking, "How in the world

\h\h\h\hdid I ever get sucked into this mess?"

\h\h\hPVT DURHAM: The Navy recruiting office

\h\h\h\hwas jammed up with 70 new recruits.

So I went around the corner

\h\hand the Marine Corps had a little shingle out,

and I was it. There was no line.

\h\h\hPVT ROUSH: The first thing we heard

\h\h\h\h\h\hwhen the bus came through the gate that morning

was, "You’ll be sorry."

NARRATOR: Before the war,

\h\hthe Marine Corps was struggling for relevance.

Some thought the Army should just absorb it.

\hIt was a service without a purpose,

\hderided as the foster home for Navy flunkies.

\h\hPVT DURHAM: The first three weeks were terrible.

\h\h\h\hThey insisted on teaching us how to walk,

and I felt we already knew.

\hNARRATOR: The Marine Corps wants to shed its reputation

as a military afterthought.

Instead of the weakest, they want to become the toughest.

\h\hPVT PASE: Every Marine, before he was anything else,

was a rifleman.

\h\hIf you’re a tank driver, pilot, cook,

we don’t care what else you are.

First of all, you’re a rifleman.

[gunfire]

\h\hNARRATOR: They’ll be using their rifles

as part of a new tactic.

♪ ♪

The amphibious assault.

\hThe Marine Corps adopted this doctrine only six years earlier,

with a publication called

\h\h\h"Tentative Manual for Landing Operations."

They can’t afford to be tentative anymore.

\h\hThe doctrine was in search of a war, and now it’s here --

just as they’re cracking the book on how to do it.

As they rehearse storming a beach in North Carolina,

it looks clunky.

This ramp door jams,

\h\hand Marines have to pile out over the sides.

Some experts consider the whole idea complete folly.

\h\hPVT PASE: We had no idea in the world

\h\h\hhow we were going to use this type of training.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: In 1940, there are fewer than 30,000

active duty Marines.

Total.

In just three years, that’ll be the number

\h\h\h\h\h\hinvading a single Pacific island.

None of these guys can really see that coming.

\hPO3 LEBOW: We just thought the Japanese

\h\h\h\hcouldn’t possibly carry on a very long war.

\h\hWe thought it would be over in a matter of weeks.

CPL KETCHAM: The Japs whipped \h\hus for three solid weeks.

We couldn’t move more than two yards a day.

It was just hell day and night.

[sounds of warfare]

\h\h\hARCHIVE: This is your ship. Look at her.

\h\hShe’s a symbol of our American industrial skill.

NARRATOR: That skill is now under the gun.

\h\h\h\h\h\hThe Navy needs thousands more ships. Fast.

\h\h\hIn Portland, Oregon, shipyards grow like weeds.

\h\h\hIndustrialist Henry Kaiser owns three of them.

This is Kaiser’s own film of his Portland operation.

He builds mostly Liberty ships -- cargo and transport vessels

\h\hthat will carry the war across the Pacific.

\h\h\hWorkers come from all over the country --

men, women, and entire families.

\h\h\h\hKaiser builds a town near Portland just

to house them all -- Vanport \h\hCity, population 42,000.

Many just call it "Kaiserville."

♪ ♪

By the end of 1941, nearly half

of America’s heavy industry workforce

is working on defense contracts.

Bullets in Indiana.

Rivets in Kansas City.

Parachutes in Utah.

But not all war weapons are built from scratch.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hARCHIVE: War had exploded over the entire world.

\h\h\h\hEvery Pan American route was now a war route.

NARRATOR: The Pan Am Clipper,

the same airplane that brought the Falks to Asia in peacetime,

becomes a wartime workhorse.

They’re still the only planes

that can carry a big load across an ocean.

So the company becomes

a de-facto wing of the U.S military --

\h\hand all crews get new uniforms to match.

\h\h\h\hED: As soon as I was outfitted in these uniforms,

\h\hthey took my picture for my personnel folder.

We called them our "obituary photos."

You can guess why.

NARRATOR: As Clippers get baptized into war

with a new camouflage paint job,

\hthe world awaits Japan’s next move.

\h\h\h\h\hIt’s eyeing up more islands to expand its empire.

\h\h\h\h\h\hJava and Timor have important resources to harvest.

Standing in the way is the small air and naval base in Darwin.

On a sunny Thursday morning,

Japan slashes into Northern Australia.

[explosions]

\hBy the time sailor Monty Tuckerman grabs his camera,

the Japanese planes are gone.

It’s the only color footage \hof the raid on Darwin --

\ha surprise attack considered to be Australia’s Pearl Harbor.

LT GRIFFITHS: With one big crash

they dropped their entire loads.

With a noise like the roll of heavy thunder,

\h\h\h\h\hred and yellow flame shot into the air.

\h\hNARRATOR: Eleven ships belch out their last breath

of acrid smoke before disappearing undersea.

The Japanese don’t stop at the harbor.

They bomb buildings in town.

\h\h\h\h\h\hPeople run for the hills, fearing a land invasion.

\h\h\hThe attack kills 235 and injures hundreds more.

All in a town of only 2,000.

\h\hClouds of war now rise over a nervous Australia --

a nation right in the shadows

\hof an expanding and unpredictable empire.

Newsreels from the Philippines show Japanese arriving in waves

\h\h-- and Americans scattering like ants.

\h\h\h\h\h\hPVT BROWN: They handed each one of us a can.

I got a can of cherries.

And they said, disperse.

I mean, we just dispersed.

\h\hWe didn’t know what the hell we were doing.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: There’s no color footage

of the brutal fight for the Philippines.

\hCornered on the Bataan peninsula,

\h\h\hAmericans have little food and no reinforcements.

\hMacArthur holds out on Corregidor.

\h\h\h\h\hJapanese film shows their overwhelming advantage.

\h\h\h\hSoon, they’re celebrating in Manila.

\h\h\h\hMacArthur and his family escape to Australia

as Corregidor falls.

Those left in the Philippines

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hare no longer enjoying a sunny deployment.

\h\h\h\hThey’re enduring their darkest nightmare.

\h\hThese very boys are now dead, starving, or captured.

\h\h\hPVT BROWN: That was something I told my mother

that would never happen.

I’d be behind the front lines.

Wrong. Dead wrong.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Japan has uncoiled a ferocious multi-pronged attack

\hacross land and sea in several directions.

The U.S. is still creating its wartime organizational chart.

\h\h\hRoosevelt puts the Southwest Pacific

into General MacArthur’s hands.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hHe’s already glaring at the Philippines

with revenge in his eyes.

\h\hThe vast open seas of the Central Pacific

\h\hwill be under Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz.

\h\h\h\h\hThe two men could scarcely be more different.

Nimitz is a soft-spoken leader by example who shuns attention.

\h\h\hHe loathes PR men who suggest he show more pizazz.

In contrast, MacArthur is a man of sweeping statements,

grand gestures, and a fondness

\h\h\h\h\h\hfor any recording device that can capture them.

\h\h\h\hThese top men from the Army and Navy

\hnow have the Pacific War on their shoulders.

Like the football game between their services,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hit’ll be part camaraderie, part competition.

\h\h\hBut their boss calls the first play.

\hBack in December, President Roosevelt

\h\h\h\hissued a secret order after the Pearl Harbor attack:

\h\h\h\hFind a way to strike back at Japan.

\h\h\h\h\h\hIt takes four months to figure out how.

The distance is daunting.

The technology is lacking.

But they pull together a plan

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthat’s part bravado, part desperation.

Ships cut through a stormy Pacific in radio silence --

\h\hjust as the Japanese did coming the other way.

\h\h\hAmerican carriers haven’t yet come of age.

\h\hThis one’s only big enough to launch

a scout plane with a catapult.

\h\h\hTo bomb Japan, they’ll have to launch a bigger plane

off this deck -- a B-25.

They’ve never tried it.

2LT MACIA: We hadn’t actually \hflown off a carrier before.

I wondered -- could I get out of that damn airplane

\h\h\hif we go off the end of the flight deck?

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Bombardier Herb Macia scrapes the waves

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand gets airborne -- by a whisker.

There’s no turning back -- the deck is too short to land on.

\h\hSixteen planes are off to Japan, on a wing and a prayer.

It’s called the Doolittle raid, for the Colonel who leads it.

There’s no footage of the raid itself.

Some bombs hit Tokyo, but damage is minimal.

Most planes go on to crash land in China.

\h\hAs payback for Pearl Harbor, it hardly rates.

America doesn’t care.

ARCHIVE: Doolittle and his gallant men

\h\hshake the complacency of the Japanese warlords.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: It will take more than a few bombs

to win the Pacific War.

\h\h\h\h\h\hIt will take weapons yet to be built.

Teamwork yet to be tested.

[sounds of warfare]

And blood yet to be spilled.

For now, the combatants remain an ocean apart.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hBut soon, the Pacific War will move beyond

\h\hrushing across the sea for sneak attacks.

\h\h\h\h\h\hInstead, it will collide with gruesome force,

\h\h\hwith young men meeting face to face to slug it out.

\hPVT DURHAM: I was scared to death, ice water in my veins.

The only reason I could move was because the rest of them were.

JAPANESE SOLDIER: I am pleased \h\h\hto think that I will die

in true samurai style.

\h\hI feel now like a full-fledged warrior.

\h\hNARRATOR: The stakes are unblinkingly clear.

\hSucceed, and control a third of the globe.

Fail, and crash into the abyss.