All language subtitles for Apocalypse.45.2020.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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[ Explosions ]

[ Screaming ]

[ Whistling ]

[ Cheering ]

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[ Airplane engine whirring ]

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[ Explosion ]

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Man: We were all Americans.

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We had different religions,
different faiths,

different political parties,
but...

The most important thing of all
was being an American.

We were unified in that.

That gave us a lot of strength.

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We were one in those days.

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And, you know, now at 93,
having been through the war

and a couple other wars since,

I look back and I still feel
the same way.

We had a strong belief
in this country.

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Man #2: I was studying
in Sunday school,

and a mother came over
and informed us

that the Japanese
had just bombed Pearl harbor

at 9:30 on a
Sunday morning, 1941.

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Man #3:
I was in a movie theater,

the strand theatre,
on 47th street and Broadway.

So, I come out, and people
are screaming and yelling

and saying, "what the hell?

We were attacked by the japs."

They were yelling,

"we were attacked by the japs,
and we're at war."

Man #4: I was in San Diego,
and I was seeing a girlfriend.

And then they said
that the president

had an announcement to make,
and he made the announcement.

♪♪

Man #5: As I was walking
down the sidewalk,

the two men getting shoes shined
looked really shocked,

and I heard it mentioned that
Pearl harbor had been bombed.

It was very meaningful to me

because it screwed my whole life
up from that moment on.

♪♪

Man #6: How could we
stand for that?

Thinking, "well,
we'll be going to war",

"and the draft could be
starting," and so forth.

I said, "how soon is that gonna
be before they get to me?"

Man #7: At 15, you really
don't understand

what's going on
or anything like that.

Most of the people that we
associated with thought,

"no problem,
be over in six months."

[ Chuckles ] Of course,
that proved to be wrong, too.

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[ Explosions ]

[ Water sloshing ]

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[ Explosion ]

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Man #8: I didn't think of them
as bad guys, I guess.

I thought of them as someone
who was trying to kill me,

and I'm just trying to prevent
that from happening

and then, of course,
maybe kill them, you know?

♪♪

Man #9: Oh, they're
terrible people,

horrible people.

Of course, the marine corps
had to get you in the mood

to kill or be killed, you know,
and think nothing about it.

[ Gunfire ]

That was part of their
training, I suppose,

that you you had to hate
these people

to be able to go into battle
and kill them, I guess.

[ Gunfire ]

[ Airplane engine whirring ]

[ Explosion ]

Man #10: We all hated the japs,
or so they called them, japs,

and we'd heard about
the cruelty.

Captures of our boys,
it's a scary thing.

When you stop and think.

You have all those people
ahead of you that hate you.

Man #11: Well, the japs,
they were not like us.

They were some other
kind of religion,

and they were a warlike people.

♪♪

Man #12: They were bad people,
so they deserved to get killed.

To tell you the truth,
it's like a dream, yeah.

But I know I was doing it,
and I was happy to do it

because that's what
the bad people deserved --

To get killed.

Whether they were men,
women, or children,

they were Japanese,
and they were not nice people.

They started the war.

We ended it.

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[ Gunfire ]

[ Explosion ]

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[ Explosions ]

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Man: I remember them telling us

that we were going to a place
called Iwo Jima,

and they told us the size of it
was 2 1/2 miles wide

and 5 miles long.

And most of us,
as we talked afterwards,

"why would you take
such a little place?"

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Well, when they put us
aboard ship,

you just go down to the ocean
and go aboard.

They told us we were going
to disembark before daylight.

We had our chow,

had steak and eggs. [ Chuckles ]

Haven't figured out
why they give you steak and eggs

when you're going into
combat, huh?

Anyway, they did.

Man #2: I got on an lcvp.
That's a small landing craft.

And so, they've got a net
that goes over the side.

And, of course, you got all
your equipment on,

your pack and your rifle
and your helmet and all that.

You got that with you.

Man #3: You're over the side,
and you step on this net.

And you have to step in those to
get down to the landing craft,

and that was scary because,
you know, the boats are

so rough, you know.

♪♪

Man #4: Of course,
they didn't tell us much,

the low rank that we had.

We didn't even know
where we were going.

But my squad leader
finally came out

and told us we're
going to Iwo Jima.

[ Laughing ] That was that.

[ Explosions ]

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Man #3: You sort of have an air
of bravado about yourselves.

You acquire it

because the other ones
haven't had any experience.

They're all scared to death.

They act brave.

A lot of tension in the air,

a lot of cigarettes
being smoked -- crazy.

And a lot of kids praying,
mostly.

It's kind of a --

Well, [chuckles]
Impending death is what it is.

Man #1: General kuribayashi
issued this order.

He said, "we're here
to defend this island"

to the limit of our strength.

We must devote ourselves
to that task entirely.

Each of your shots
must kill many Americans.

We cannot allow ourselves
to be captured by the enemy.

"Long live the emperor."

And, of course,
they followed that to a "t".

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[ Airplane engine whirring ]

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Man: When the raft went down
on the Higgins boat

and we ran out of there,
hit the beach there,

there's still artillery
and mortars coming around.

I looked down this beach
to my left

and here are stacks of bodies.

[ Gunfire ]

Man #2: Yeah, it was not
a friendly place. [ Chuckles ]

A lot of thoughts going through
your mind, I know.

[ Airplane engine whirring ]

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Man: It was so chaotic.
Absolutely --

There were jeeps blowing up,
tanks stalled.

The thing that I've never been
able to eradicate from my mind

are the dead.

♪♪

Man #3: It'd been a slaughter,

because what kuribayashi
had done is

crammed us up against the beach

and also kept us
from going up over the top

because when we get up on top,
it's flat.

But on the other side
of that top

are all the machine guns
and the pillboxes over there.

You poke your head up over that,

you're a dead person
right there.

Man #4: It was horrible.

All kinds of carnage,
guys with arms blown off

and heads blown off
and everything.

It was pretty bad,
but we just had to keep on going

because we couldn't stop,
you know.

[ Gunfire ]

♪♪

We were thinking about
saving our asses.

[ Laughs ]

That is true because,
well, it scared us,

it scared us tremendously.

Yeah.

Man #5: It's a horrible feeling.

It's a horrible feeling,

like the end of the world
or something.

Man #6: Many marines will say,

"the bullet has never
been made yet

that has my name on it."

I think most of us were not
concerned about getting killed.

I think most of our concerns
were about getting hit

and losing an arm or half of
our face or something like that.

That probably was mostly
in the back of the mind,

but getting killed -- never.

There's no way I would have
been killed there.

Man $5: It took forever and
a day to get it off the beach,

and I kind of blocked
all that out of my memory.

I don't like to remember
a lot of that stuff.

A lot of the boys were praying,

18, 19-year-old.

They were calling for...

[ Voice breaking ] Sorry.

I think about it.

You're calling for their mother.

Man #3: Pulling the bodies
out of the water,

and the body parts,

that was the first shock I had.

Man #6: All we wanted to do is
leave there alive. That's all.

There was no big, esoteric
reason why we were there.

We just wanted to be alive,
that's all, stay alive.

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Man #7: One guy lost his foot,

and he was the happiest guy
in the world at that time

because he says, "I'm getting
off of this island."

Losing a foot let him
get off of that island,

and he was real happy
that it had happened to him.

Man: Well, the first one,
I remember very well.

I saw some smoke coming out
of the top of this pillbox,

so I just took my
flamethrower nozzle,

began to pipe, and let it go.

♪♪

I'm told that death
is instantaneous

because the flame just
envelops them,

and there's no oxygen, so they
don't even have anything.

♪♪

The second thing
I remember vividly

is I was approaching the pillbox

and the enemy came out
charging toward me

with rifles and bayonets.

I'm lying on my belly,

and here they come
charging around the pillbox.

I just hit them
in the leg, you know?

And that gets them.

♪♪

I'm laying there with
some kind of a hole,

when marines around me

began yelling something
about a flag.

♪♪

And I looked up,
and a couple of them

were standing there shooting
their weapons into the air.

So I fired my weapon in the air
a few times, too, you know.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

[ Laughs ]

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[ Sniffs ]

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[ Airplane engine whirring ]

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Man: Curtis lemay had no
reservations about killing crews

and lemay's position was,

and I heard him say this,

"wars don't end until
enough people are killed."

And he said,

"this thing will end when we
kill enough Japanese."

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Man #2: Well, when you're
ready to take off,

you're pretty busy up on top,

while looking out the bomb bay,
tell a captain or whatever was.

[ Airplane engine rumbling ]

♪♪

Man #1: You use every bit
of the runway [chuckles]

And maybe a little bit of
the threshold at the other end.

It's almost as dramatic
to get all these airplanes off

as being over the target.

[ Engines whirring ]

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Man #2: I swear, but now,
I think I remember Tokyo Rose.

I think I remember
listening to that.

And somehow, I seem to remember

that they know when
we were coming

and who we were at the time.

I don't know how.

♪♪

Man #1: When you flew
to a target,

you all flew separately
to the I.P.

And you go around,
and these airplanes join you.

And pretty soon, you have
a formation of 12 airplanes

or 24 or 36,

and then you all fly
from there to the target,

which is usually about 50 miles.

Everybody had a job.

The gunners were at their
position and ready to attack,

and the bombardier was
getting ready to bomb.

Everybody was tense.

♪♪

When you had a frontal attack,
you had 12 airplanes,

but the total number
of guns come to,

I think, 92 forward-firing,
.50-caliber guns.

Every fifth bullet is a tracer.

[ Engine whirring ]

♪♪

[ Gunfire ]

Man #2: Four guns in the top,
two in the back.

It's just, "fire, fire, fire!"

Man #3: They had balls,

or they had plenty of sake,
either one.

They'd come in at you
in the daytime.

I used to wonder at them.
They had to be crazy.

[ Gunfire ]

♪♪

Every mission was scary
because if we weren't attacked

by fighter planes
before we hit Japan,

we were attacked
at different spots,

depending on where
we're going to bomb.

Of course, the toughest place
to bomb was Tokyo, the capital.

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Man #2: Everything I did,
I enjoyed doing.

I really shouldn't say
that I was killing people.

But I really didn't mind
doing that it the time

because the people
we was bombing, Japan,

and they were not nice people,
so I didn't mind.

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[ Explosions ]

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Man #3: Personally,
and, of course,

I did not say anything
to my fellow crew.

I felt heartsick
to see the cities burning

because we were
bombing with 1,000

to 1,500 bombers at a time.

♪♪

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Man #2: Tokyo was burning.

I saw the parliament building
right there.

Would you believe it?
I was counting the floors.

One, two, three..

Sometimes, I sit there
and I say,

"I wonder how many people
were killed

each time we dropped a bomb?"

100? 300?

I didn't mind doing it
at the time,

but today I worry.

♪♪

Man #3: Did I feel sorry?

Yes.

I felt sad for the people,

'cause you're not killing
all soldiers.

You're killing people.

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[ Airplane engine whirring ]

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[ Indistinct chatter ]

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Man: I always wanted to fly,
and I guess because of that,

I flew the airplane,
the airplane didn't fly me.

[ Airplane engine whirring ]

You always flew
with the same guys,

so you're looking out
for each other.

You're pretty much involved

in doing what you're
supposed to do.

[ Radio chatter ]

We felt we were superior
when we were out there.

We didn't worry about them,

so much as being
a problem to us.

[ Laughs ] We figured we're
indestructible.

[ Chuckles ]

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[ Metal scraping ]

[ Radio chatter ]

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[ Airplane approaching ]

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We'd go up and watch the
other guys land. [ Laughs ]

Yeah, we'd go up
and watch everything.

♪♪

[ Airplane approaching ]

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Probably, if you were in combat,

you'd have a good book
and read it.

♪♪

Man #2: Our bathrooms were
just a trough

running down on seawater.

And there were always some joker
that would come in

and light a piece of paper
on this end of it

and let it float down
underneath the buoys.

[ Laughs ]

The guy had to get out of there
fast or he'd have got killed.

[ Laughs ]

♪♪

Man #3: I used to sit up
and look out over the sea,

and I'd watch the flying fish
come aboard.

The water could be like
a glass tabletop,

just wonderful.

♪♪

Man #2: I was a fire controlman
on the USS intrepid,

and my job was firing the guns.

That's what the
fire controlman did.

And they had charge
of maintenance

of the radio equipment.

♪♪

The aircraft carrier
for the prime target

because they were doing
the most damage.

♪♪

Man #3: They were kamikazes
were after the ships.

They didn't care about us,

they were there to sink
the ships, pure and simple.

They weren't there to kill me.
That's not their reason.

They're reason was
to kill the ships

so that we would be
prolonged to a point

that we'd say, "we're having
too much trouble,

and so we'll go ahead
and declare a truce."

♪♪

Man: I was combat air patrol
over the Franklin.

And Franklin was loaded,
their planes all gassed.

[ Engine starts ]

They hadn't launched yet.

All the planes are gassed.

Man #2: I saw this plane
coming in, and I thought he was

coming to us when he turned
towards the Franklin,

and I saw him come down,
and ka-boom.

[ Explosion ]

♪♪

Went through the flight deck.

Man: Between the conning tower
and the stern,

some place in there.

[ Explosions ]

♪♪

We watched it.

It was just like a waterfall
of gasoline over the side.

♪♪

[ Indistinct shouting ]

♪♪

Man #2: People say,
"well, were you scared?"

Well, no, you're busy.

There's probably
two or three more coming in

that you have to keep track of.

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Man: They'd come around
dropping their bombs.

After the bombs were dropped,

a lot of them was coming to
dive into the ship.

[ Gunfire ]

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Man #2: We had
4,500 sailors killed

with those things,
and when we were at anchor,

we had a kamikaze
come right over.

We were watching a movie
on the fantail.

That was scary.

Here you are sitting on
the fantail of your ship

watching a movie,

and then this plane
comes right over your head.

♪♪

Man #3: You hear the
five-inchers go off.

It goes boom, boom, boom.

5-inch shells, right?
You don't worry.

Then you hear the 40-millimeters
going boom, boom, boom, boom.

Then 200-millimeters,
and you hear

boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom.

Uh-oh. [Chuckles]
It's coming closer.

Then there's .50-calibers.

And you hear brrr!

[ Engine whirring ]

[ Explosion ]

Man: They had to be fanatics.
They were fanatics, in fact.

♪♪

Man #3: Oh, they're all
going to heaven. [ Laughs ]

At least,
that's what they thought.

♪♪

Man: When they started
that stuff,

boy, that's all they wanted
to do was crash into us,

boom, so we were lucky

'cause we could zigzag,
and that would screw the fire.

[ Indistinct shouting, gunfire ]

♪♪

[ Engine roars ]

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Man #3: He's coming up
the fantail. [ Chuckles ]

And the carrier turns.

And when he gets right --
They'll let him have it.

♪♪

[ Gunfire ]

Man: When you're firing,

you got tracer bullets
that you see out there.

You got to try to get ahead
of them and so forth,

just like shooting pheasants,
you know.

You got to give lead time
and so forth.

And you'd think it wouldn't be
any trouble shooting them down,

but they'd keep flying
until they'd crash.

Man #4: They were different
than the Japanese zero fighters

that were the
professional aviators.

Kamikaze didn't seem
to take evasive action.

[ Whistling ]

[ Explosion ]

Man: Sometimes,
they'd come in real high

and come diving at you.

[ Gunfire ]

[ Explosion ]

And sometimes, you're
right on the water, you know.

Then they'd come up and down,
and they'd get close to you.

[ Explosion ]

♪♪

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[ Explosion, gunfire ]

Whole time we were firing,
it was coming in on us

and we had the thing
pretty well shot up,

and it got just along
the port side of us and blew up.

♪♪

And then it spewed fire
all over the island

and the hangar
and the flight deck,

if you can imagine
all that stuff

catching on fire and blowing up.

It just raised havoc
to the whole hangar deck.

I lost a couple good buddies
in that one.

That's when I got hit,
and my clothes caught on fire,

and my -- oh, my back was
burnt and so forth.

♪♪

Man #3: I lived in a 42-man bunk
right under the flight deck,

and since they didn't have
a morgue, the dead bodies...

I can remember walking in blood.

Man: It's a terrible
sight to see

these legs and stuff torn off.

So then after everything
is settled down,

you got all of these guys
that are dead.

Then it comes time to Bury them,
and they put them in hammocks

and put a 5-inch shell
in with them

and take them out to the
elevator deck right at the edge.

And line them up there

and then play "taps" for them.

♪♪

It's so sad to have to
lose them that way.

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[ Explosion ]

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[ Gunfire ]

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Man: Well, if you talk to
any of the marines,

they would eventually
do this way.

"Golden gate in 48,
red line in 49."

We all knew we couldn't possibly
win the war before 1948.

♪♪

Man #2: We had no idea how long
the war was gonna last.

Most of us understood that
what we were doing is working

our way toward the ability
to be able to bombard Japan

for an eventual landing
on the Japanese homeland.

That was in everybody's mind.

"How long is it gonna take,
and how are we gonna do it?"

♪♪

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♪♪

We were fighting because
we were marines,

and we were fighting because
we were Americans.

Yeah, we cared a hell of a lot
about our buddies.

They were watching our back.
We were watching theirs.

And when you lost a buddy,
it hurt bad.

♪♪

The Japanese were
extremely fanatical,

and there were lots of them
on okinawa.

We couldn't stop them, you know.
There's nothing we could do.

♪♪

The caves and tunnels
that they had --

Most of them were open.

♪♪

But our procedure
was to get a flamethrower

and fire that flame in there
for eight or 10 or 15 seconds.

♪♪

Hopefully, that will go
back in there

and keep the Japanese
from coming out.

♪♪

Man #3: And we were back to
shoot in at them running out,

so they were better off
us shooting them dead

rather than burn out that way,

but that's something that always
struck in my mind, you know.

You'd never dream
of something like that.

♪♪

♪♪

Man #2: When they'd fire
that flamethrower into the cave,

two or three japs would come
running out of there,

totally burning,
trying to escape it.

They could run about 20 yards,
and that was it.

It was all over.

Yeah.

Man #3: The smell was terrible.

Especially when
a flamethrower hits,

and it's the smell
that you can remember.

♪♪

♪♪

Well, it's something
I still, you know,

I can't understand in my mind,

but we had a job to do,
and we had to do

what we had to do
to get them out of there.

[ Explosion ]

♪♪

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[ Explosions ]

[ Indistinct shouting ]

♪♪

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[ Explosion ]

♪♪

Man #4: We killed every one
of those Japanese soldiers.

And then a couple of guys
started to walk over to them

and look down at them,
and I joined in.

We were all
looking down at them.

And one guy said, "well,
this guy couldn't run very much

'cause he had 40 pounds of lead
in his back."

And everybody laughed.

And I laughed, also.

♪♪

♪♪

[ Voice breaking ]
I still can't forgive me,

because there's no joy,

there's no glamour
in killing someone.

I don't give a damn who he is.

And I'm 94 years old.

That means I'm gonna be...

I'm sorry.

I'm gonna be standing
in front of god,

and I have to answer for that.

♪♪

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[ Engines rumbling ]

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[ Camera shutter clicks ]

♪♪

[ Engine starts ]

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Man: You always flew
with the same guys,

so you're looking out
for each other.

That's what you're doing.

We were all fighting
to get in combat. [ Laughs ]

It's like a ball game,
like a football game.

♪♪

Man #2: I went up six or seven
times to escort b-29s.

They never showed up,

so we had a secondary mission.

We'd go down straight.

Anything that moved,
we striked it.

[ Gunfire ]

♪♪

♪♪

Man #1: We were coming in --
That time, we drove down.

We're really going,
and with a lot of throttle.

We were going fast, and I think
they were shooting behind us.

Man #2: Sometimes, you'd go down
to almost ground level.

Trains would hit them guys
and blow up a bunch of steam

and everything,
and go right on over

and pull back up
and come back around

and make another pass on them.

[ Gunfire ]

♪♪

♪♪

Man #1: You have to be careful,
because if you shoot a target

that blows up, you're gonna be
caught in the middle of it.

Man #3: Oh, accurate,
very accurate.

If you picked a target
and you fired with the rocket,

it's going to hit
whatever you aim for.

I liked rockets --
No problem at all.

♪♪

Man #2: I strafed trains,

I strafed water buffaloes,

anything that was
on the ground and moving.

♪♪

Man #1: It was the exciting
time, of course, to dive down

from that altitude.

Once we get down
to a couple hundred feet,

then we would get down,
sometimes, a lot closer.

♪♪

[ Engine whirs ]

[ Gunfire ]

Man #3: You'd come down.

You'd go well over 400,
I'm sure.

But I never looked at
a speedometer. [ Laughs ]

♪♪

♪♪

[ Airplane engine whirring ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Man #2: The fighters,
every one of them,

had a gun camera in the wing.

♪♪

It would be activated
by the same switch

that you were firing
the guns with.

♪♪

Man #3: The gun camera takes a
picture of whatever you're

shooting at, and if you shoot
a jap and you fire him,

if he's on fire,
then you get credit for it

'cause you're not gonna
stay around and watch him burn.

♪♪

♪♪

Man #2: I had 20/10 vision,
and I could see the airplane

before anybody ever thought.

And I could put
myself in position.

♪♪

Man #3: It didn't take you long.

You know, you just give him
a squirt.

That .50-caliber just
rips things all apart

when it hits. [ Chuckles ]

It does a beautiful job,
I'll put it that way.

Man #1: We could out-dive them.

Our protection, mainly,
would be to dive away from them.

If we tried to turn with them,
they could turn inside of us.

Means they've got to make
a real tight turn.

They could do that with a zero.

[ Explosion ]

♪♪

♪♪

Man #2: I just fired long enough
for that guy to, you know,

catch on fire,
and then I release that

and pulled up behind
that other one,

and when I got it in my sights,

upside down, I pulled
the trigger and blew him up.

♪♪

[ Gunfire ]

Man #3: Four or five rounds and,
baby, she's coming apart,

almost invariably.

You never thought one iota
about the guy in it.

At least, I never did.

I don't think any of
the other guys did, either.

♪♪

It's very, very impersonal.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[ Insects chirping ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[ Heartbeat ]

♪♪

♪♪

[ Heartbeat intensifies ]

[ Heartbeat stops ]

[ Explosion ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

My name is ittsei nakagawa.

I was 15 years old when the bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima,

August 6th,

8:15 A.M., 1945.

♪♪

Our family, nakagawa family,

lived in a little village area
called moroki ochiai,

which is approximately 7 miles
away from the city of Hiroshima.

♪♪

I could only remember
what was a usual day.

You just wake up and start
cleaning up to get to work.

All the kids that go
to high school

and above go to the city

because that's where the
high schools are located.

♪♪

♪♪

And the kids, all the students,
were trained to become

lathe operators, driller.

I mean, they were all
manufacturing something.

Well, anyway, we were outside
walking toward our destination,

and we heard the air raid go on.

[ Siren wailing ]

And they saw one b-29
flying over,

so everybody took cover,
waited until something happened.

But it seemed
like nothing happens.

The air raid signal came back
and said it's clear.

[ Clock ticking ]

Everybody came out,
and this is when the b-29,

I think, dropped something
like a parachute,

and there were a lot of people
looking at it.

[ Clock ticking ]

And meanwhile, I was inside
the building then already.

That's when the whole thing
just blew up.

You know, just,
everything went black.

[ Explosion ]

[ Rumbling ]

[ Wind whipping ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Dust.

You can't see anything.
I mean, it was --

I didn't hear anything.

♪♪

I didn't know it was a bomb.

Nobody knew what it was.

♪♪

♪♪

Only thing you can
look at is a person,

and he's no longer
a person anymore.

He's a...

A burned person
with face swollen up...

Hands swollen up.

Only thing I could see is a
button hanging from the clothes.

I mean, you can't help them.
You can't even touch them.

♪♪

And you know,
one thing about burn --

You ever tend to
a burned person?

It's not one time, you know,

especially when your skin
is gone and so forth.

I mean, it peels off every time.

It's just like
new skin comes off.

You have to take it off
and wash it down with --

"what do we do?"

And the first thing
you hear is, "water."

That's the only thing
I could hear -- "water, water."

But I couldn't even find myself
a water to keep me cool,

to stay alive.

♪♪

And you know,
when I look back and I say,

"I -- why did I survive
this thing here?"

And it's very simple.

Just nature is the only way
that you could describe it.

But there's more than nature.

It's there's other people
that are dying

that becomes part of you.

Yeah, but I should have still
tried to save those guys.

♪♪

[ Train clacking ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Man: I can tell you something
about that bomb.

Every morning in my house,
they would say the same thing

that I'm saying,
if they were still around.

The most humane thing
the United States

ever did in warfare was drop
those two atomic bombs.

♪♪

Man #2: I think the Japanese
should thank us.

They should thank us
for dropping the atomic bomb

because we probably
would have killed

30 or 40 million of them
in the end, you know.

♪♪

Man #3: Oh, my goodness.

That was like
you were carrying a load

that you could hardly handle,

and all of a sudden,
you dropped it off

and you were completely free.

♪♪

Man #4: Those bombs, I think,
really caused the Japanese

to stop fighting.

That ended the war.

Had that not happened,

I wouldn't be talking
to you now.

♪♪

♪♪

Man #5: I saw Nagasaki
and Hiroshima,

and I was absolutely surprised
and astounded

that we now had a weapon that
would do that kind of damage.

Man #6: Lemay was against
dropping the bomb.

And I'm against it. It's the
worst thing that ever happened.

It put us in the position
of we've dropped atomic bombs,

or anybody else in the world
and drop atomic bombs.

Had we not dropped atomic bomb,

we wouldn't have this
hanging over our head,

that we did it,
so anybody else could do it.

♪♪

♪♪

Man #7: Well, I met
frank Oppenheimer,

who's the brother
of Bob Oppenheimer,

who was the designer
for the Manhattan project

for the development
of the atomic bomb.

"Do you know the story of
a genie in a bottle?"

I says, "yeah, I sort of
remember that story."

"Well," he says, "the genie
is out of the bottle."

You can't put it back
in the bottle again.

There is no way that you can
get that guy in a bottle.

This is it.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Man: It's a good thing
they lost because

I didn't like them at all.

The United States won the war,
and the Japanese lost.

But, you know,
later on, you find out

as you get older that
the bad guys were not bad.

They were just doing
what they had to do.

♪♪

Somebody told them
that they had to do it.

The poor guys did like,
"who told me what to do?"

The guys above me --
They tell me what I have to do."

So I guess maybe all the
Japanese were nice people, too.

They just had to do what the
idiots that started the war...

♪♪

Did you get all this stuff
from all other people

that you talked to?

Man #2: I'm a Christian, and I
believe in the ten commandments,

and I have a problem with this,

and this morning,
I was starting to cry because...

Because I did something
that's not me.

Because of my belief in the
ten commandments

that says,
"thou shalt not kill."

And I don't know of
any exception to that.

It just says,
"thou shalt not kill."

♪♪

Man #3: It's been said many
times by many people

that war is hell.

♪♪

It really is hell.

But I never visualized
hell being that bad.

[ Indistinct chatter ]

♪♪

Director: One last question.

Are you guys
the greatest generation?

Man: Yes, I believe that myself,
not because I'm part of it,

but...

Everything changed
after world war ii.

♪♪

Man #2: I think we were
the greatest generation

because some advertising man
decided it sounded pretty good

to say, and it was
a lot of damn propaganda.

But really, we were
a different generation,

not greater, but different.

Man #3: If you went through
the depression,

as I did from 10 years old,
going into the service at 19,

that was such a harsh period
in the life of American people.

♪♪

Man #4: No, I would say that
we were taught to get along

as best you could
with what you had,

and, probably, that's what made
American soldiers great,

because they improvised,
almost all of them.

♪♪

[ Horn honking ]

♪♪

♪♪

Man #5: We had democrats
and Republicans,

but they sure as hell worked
together well and cooperated

for the good of the nation.

Oh, how I wish we had
politicians like that now

that cared about the country

more than themselves
or their party.

♪♪

Man #6: You can talk to any
veteran you want to.

They don't understand
at all why.

The most divided nonsense
going on

in our country
between politicians.

It's crazy.

♪♪

Man #3: What do you think,
in terms of all that money

that we could use for medicines?

We have people
that have all the diseases

that we could accomplish
and conquer,

and they just aren't doing it.

All that money going to waste,

and all these guys
that caused the war,

how can they justify all that?

Just let them fight
amongst themselves,

and see how long it would last.

♪♪

♪♪

Man #7: If I could do it again,
I would, for this country,

I'd do anything
for this country.

I love this country.

I'm getting teared up.
Now, why are you making me...

[ Laughs ]

[ Crowd whistling, cheering ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Director: Okay, have him clap.

Man: Let's just get all of them
right in here.

[ Clapboard clacks ]

Man: If you can just
tell me your name,

your age, and your rank in 1945.

My name is George n. Boutwell.

I was born July 19, 1924.

I'm a retired sergeant major,
United States marine corps.

My name is George vouros.
Born in 1925.

My rating in the Navy
was seaman, first class.

My name is James m. Blane.

I was a corporal,
U.S. marine corps.

Born November 18, 1924.

My name is Monroe ozment.

I was a corporal.

Born December 24, 1925.

I was a corporal in
the United States marine corps.

My name is
William m. Braddock Jr.

My name is abner m. Aust Jr.

I was a captain in
the army air corps on Iwo Jima,

and I'm 98 years old.

Delbert treichler.

I was a p.F.C.
In the marine corps.

My birth date is June 17, 1924.

Richard spooner. I'm 93.

And during world war ii,

we were on okinawa in 1945.

I was a private first class.

George puterbaugh.

I was a watertender,
first class,

acting chief, in the Navy.

Charles schlag.

Hold on a second. We got people
walking on these stairs.

Okay.

My rank is lieutenant commander,
and I'm 97 years old.

I was a sergeant
and b-29 top turret.

I was a sergeant at Iwo Jima
and 19 years old.

I was a buck private on okinawa
in the 184th division.

I was a gunner on a b-29.
I was the right gunner.

Just keep looking at the camera.

Al Nelson.

P.f.c. In 12-17-25.

Johnny Dean pace Jr.

My age is 93.

I'll be 94 in July.

My name is ittsei nakagawa.

Age 95.

I was a first lieutenant

in 1945 in the army air corps
at the age of 20.

I am 101 years old,
and I'm still kicking.

I expect to kick
another three years.

The government said
I'm gonna live to be 103.

I was on the USS intrepid
during world war ii

from 1943 to 1946.

What else would you
like to know?

Ralph c. Simoneau -- private.

My birthday is July 5, 1925.

My name is
hershel Woody Williams,

and I was a marine
in world war ii.

I participated, or took part,
in the campaign

at Guam and Iwo Jima,
and on Iwo Jima,

did an action that eventually
earned me the medal of honor.

My name is
Maurice Joseph Hubert.

I was a first mate --
Pharmacist's mate, first class.

I did five landings
during world war ii.

Director: Thank you
for your service.