Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Johnny and Pauline Falk are adventurous travelers.

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

Pan Am has just begun the first commercial air service

across the Pacific.

It's no simple task.

The small float plane faces an 8200-mile flight path.

It pushes the limits of its range...

to fly between tiny dots scattered across the great sea.

Airborne at last, Pauline writes in her diary.

PAULINE: The flight is so smooth,

there is no feeling about it.

NARRATOR: After 19 hours, they make their first landing.

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

This American territory is barely American.

Its people are more rooted in the Pacific.

Next stop -- Midway.

Johnny films an idyllic scene

on an island that will soon become infamous.

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

NARRATOR: Their home movies from the Smithsonian Archives

are among the first color images

of these remote American outposts.

Then -- Wake Island.

It's uninhabited until Pan Am turns it

into a first class way station.

It's another 11 hours over the open sea -- to Guam.

PAULINE: The most tropical place yet.

Drove to Agana, the largest town.

NARRATOR: A small military base protects

20,000 American nationals.

The Falks film smiling kids parading in uniform.

Their next stop will be a much longer stay.

PAULINE: I find it difficult to leave Manila.

NARRATOR: The Philippines have been

in U.S. hands since 1898.

It's America's most distant territory --

the edge of a young empire, defined in neon.

Past Manila, the Falks finally escape America's reach.

Nothing looks familiar.

In Hong Kong harbor, ships have sails like seashells.

In China, the boats are simpler...

and the people are spellbinding.

Finally, exactly two months after leaving home,

they reach their final destination.

Japan.

Johnny and Pauline's journey is remarkable,

and their path is prophetic.

They have crossed an ocean that Ferdinand Magellan

named "Mar Pacifico," the peaceful sea.

But a wave of war will soon obliterate the Falk's footsteps,

replacing scenes of peace

with scenes of a cataclysm no one can yet imagine.

♫ ♫

COL DONOVAN: It looked like you're headed for hell.

Because you were.

(explosion)

PVT 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)

K.L.: My eyes were paining with oil.

But we got a rope, and were taken aboard.

JERELL: The beach was a mountain.

TIM: We didn't think of ourselves as heroes.

GEORGE: It's not just what I remember.

It's what I'll never forget.

♫ Theme Music Playing ♫

Brought to you by Sailor420 !!! Hope you enjoy the film !!!

(car horns honking)

NARRATOR: Philadelphia, 1939.

There's a buzz building inside Municipal Stadium.

(hum of crowd)

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

(marching band plays)

Then, military formations fill the field.

First the Army, then the Navy.

Once the field is clear, the battle begins.

This is the first known color film of the Army Navy game.

(crowd cheering)

Colonel Wilbur Dockum shoots from his corner seat.

♫ ♫

Dockum also films his Army unit training at West Point.

In 1939, America's military is not very robust.

All the services combined have about 600,000 men.

Back at the warehouse, everything looks dated --

right out of World War I.

The average foot soldier still carries

a 1903 Springfield rifle.

Training is sincere, but not always serious.

PVT BAYE: I was a radio man.

I only fired my rifle once

the whole damn time I was in the Army.

NARRATOR: The Army figures less than half of its troops

are properly trained.

They're barely literate.

Seventy-five percent haven't finished high school,

and 41 percent never started it.

Americans greet their military with a collective shrug.

When 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,

a recent invention for home movie buffs --

and combat cameramen.

♫ ♫

SGT HATCH: I was carrying two hand cameras.

(explosions and gunfire)

We were laying on the beach, watching this --

guys were getting blown to pieces.

♫ ♫

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

About the only thing everyone faces in common

are the fierce headwinds of the Great Depression.

Some of America's future soldiers are still school kids.

Armand Maffuccio hustles to make a few extra bucks

for his family of Italian immigrants.

ARMAND: I'd get up early and work with the baker first.

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

For a few dollars, you'd go anyplace. You just go get it.

NARRATOR: Michael Kuryla frequents the movie house

to follow the war already raging in Europe.

PO3 KURYLA: At the movies, they'd show newsreels

showing 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.

Many feel America should solve its own problems first.

PO3 KURYLA: My dad didn't have any work.

A lot of times we were wondering

where our next meal would come from.

NARRATOR: Most people think going to war

will be an economic step backward.

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

America's focus is inward.

Most live out their lives without

venturing much beyond the horizon of their own needs.

But in a few months,

some will venture farther than they ever dreamed.

♫ ♫

SN RIPPER: We had never gone anywhere.

Once we got away from home, it was a different world.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: Shanghai, China.

Here, cultures intersect.

It's a Chinese city with an American and British settlement.

Streets reveal a global mix of carts and cars.

It's an international crossroads,

but 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.

They overwhelm Chinese forces within days...

then massacre up to 300,000 citizens.

It becomes known as the Rape of Nanking.

♫ ♫

The Chinese try to carry on -- amid the rubble.

The horrors linger like ghosts.

On this pockmarked building,

the invaders flaunt their flag like a brand.

Japanese soldiers signal a new imperial presence.

America wonders if Japan's ambition ends here --

or extends to one of its own territories nearby.

COL OLSON: Sirens in Manila were going off.

We began to get a picture that it wasn't looking good.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: When the Falks visit the Philippines in 1937,

they stay at the Manila Hotel,

an upscale haven for expats and foreigners.

As Pauline enjoys the warm breeze

coming through the hotel window,

another family is living upstairs in the penthouse.

Little 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 protection this country

will flourish as a brilliant product of democracy.

NARRATOR: But protection is not adequate.

Filipino 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.

NARRATOR: Robert Brown admits his own American forces

aren't much better off.

PVT BROWN: We had World War I hand grenades.

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

and they would not go off.

NARRATOR: If war breaks out,

the Philippines are in grave danger.

MacArthur wonders why 16 million American nationals

are barely protected.

GEN MACARTHUR: The apparent disinterest

on the part of the United States is incomprehensible.

NARRATOR: But if Army officers are worried, they don't show it.

♫ ♫

At a base south of Manila,

Americans carve out a colonial playground.

Recreation includes rousing games of bicycle polo.

There are some casualties.

An assignment in the Philippines

appears 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.

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

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: The epicenter of the coming earthquake is Japan.

Its proud history stretches back 2,000 years.

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

thinking they should be the ones

to 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.

KUMAGAYA: People were looking for a breakthrough

because times were hard

and no one thought of war in a realistic way.

(men shouting)

NARRATOR: By 1940 the military controls Japan.

They have 1.5 million men in uniform --

more than double America's forces.

The manpower comes from within.

The raw materials come from its growing empire.

GEN MACARTHUR: They lacked sugar, so they took Formosa.

They lacked iron, so they took Manchuria.

They lacked hard coal and timber, so they invaded China.

They lacked security, so they took Korea.

They intended, by force of arms if necessary,

to establish an economic sphere

completely under their own control.

NARRATOR: But waves of Japanese expansion

have yet to reach here.

♫ ♫

Hawaii.

The famous crossroads sign in Honolulu

shows just how far it is -- from anywhere.

In 1941, the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor

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

Mostly, Hawaii hums to its own tune.

This is the pre-war footage of Francis Raymond Line,

a traveling filmmaker.

His color film unspools like a perfect travel brochure.

FRANCIS: We discovered a dozen rainbows --

some even two at a time.

Our camera drank in scenes of the harvest.

And cattle being loaded by rope and derrick

onto ships off shore at the Parker Ranch.

NARRATOR: Hawaii has its own way of doing things.

It's not used to cultural convulsions.

Change usually comes on the slow boat.

Francis Line's film paints Hawaii as nearly perfect.

It's paradise framed by crashing waves --

a roaring perimeter with wondrous views of the Pacific

curving out of sight.

♫ ♫

Beyond Hawaii's horizon line,

Japanese cameras film an armada

secretly 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

has no hand grenades to practice with.

Instead, they throw eggs.

Also on December 6th, newspaper ads call on congressmen

to keep America out of the war across the Atlantic.

It's the other ocean that's about to explode.

Pearl Harbor goes to sleep, innocent and unscathed,

for the last time.

The next morning, one colonel is up early,

and assumes he's watching a military exercise.

COL FARTHING: Very realistic maneuvers.

I wonder what the Marines are doing to the Navy

so early on Sunday.

♫ ♫

(explosions)

NARRATOR: This is considered the only color footage

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

The film is badly damaged, but the chaos is clear.

William Lockey is just one week out of basic training,

aboard the USS New Orleans.

SN LOCKEY: I said, let's get the guns loaded!

They said, we got no ammunition.

Who's got the key? We don't know!

NARRATOR: Surprised sailors fire

their anti-aircraft guns wildly,

killing some civilians up in the hills.

Radio stations begin shouting that it's not a drill.

ARCHIVE: The city of Honolulu has also been attacked...

It is no joke. It is a real war.

NARRATOR: The USS Oglala is listing badly.

One sailor on deck

is shot through the face by a strafing Japanese plane.

Other crews are faring far worse.

The USS Shaw bursts into a fireball.

(explosion)

SN LOCKEY: The boys were out there in the water

in all that oil.

They'd come up, knock the oil out of their way

and catch a breath, then go back down.

NARRATOR: In one hour and fifteen minutes,

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

The news ripples outward like a shock wave.

A Pam Am Clipper full of tourists is out

over the Pacific -- which is suddenly a war zone.

They turn off their lights...

blacken their windows...

and change course.

All over the country, military phones light up.

Jack Lent is on duty in San Diego.

SSG LENT: Some colonel was on the phone.

He said, "You get your commanding officer

and tell him that Pearl Harbor has just been bombed."

I said, "Yes, sir! What's Pearl Harbor?"

NARRATOR: 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 steps up to a microphone

and gives the first official American response.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT: You cannot escape anxiety,

you cannot escape the clutch of fear at your heart.

And 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

reporting suspicious behavior of Japanese Americans.

In New York City, Japanese restaurant owners

tell their patrons to finish their meals.

Then they shutter their doors

and drive each other home in convoys for safety.

In San Francisco, people report everything

from strange airplanes in the sky...

to shady men on the streetcars.

Sirens wail for no apparent reason.

In Seattle, 2,000 people descend upon downtown

to enforce a blackout.

It devolves into looting.

In Hawaii, radio stations declare

the islands are now under martial law.

Then they order a complete blackout.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: Turn out your lights.

This means the whole territory.

Turn out your lights and do not turn them on

for any purpose whatsoever.

(radio chatter in japanese)

NARRATOR: America is on its heels, and Japan isn't finished.

The next 48 hours shock the world.

Just hours after attacking Pearl Harbor...

the Japanese launch a surprise assault

on the American base on Wake Island.

Fearing a land invasion,

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

Way overweight, the plane finally gets off the water --

on the third try.

Then Japan bombs the U.S. military base on Guam

that the Falks filmed a few years earlier.

In three days, they capture the island

and take 20,000 American nationals prisoner.

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

a British colony.

They also fall in three days.

Japanese forces on the way back from Pearl Harbor...

shell Midway Island.

(explosions)

Repelling fire drives them off...

but not before the American base takes a hit.

(explosions)

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

a violent blitz that takes the ocean by storm.

♫ ♫

At the same time, Japan's own film captures a surge into Asia.

(sounds of warfare)

They begin bombing the Philippines on December 8th.

On the same day they invade Thailand...

and soon roll into Bangkok.

They attack the British colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore.

And they storm the rest of Shanghai,

overrunning the British and American enclave.

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

now completely surrounded by the Japanese.

Superiors order them to surrender without a fight.

Sergeant Robert Smith marches into captivity,

as the victors switch out the flag.

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

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: Before the world can react,

Japan cleaves its way into Southeast Asia.

They light the fuse of war all around the Pacific.

In Japan, many citizens are flush with pride.

But there's an undercurrent of anxiety.

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

America was a democratic nation,

and so would disintegrate and collapse.

They can't unite for a common purpose.

One blow against them, and they'll fall to pieces.

NARRATOR: Back in Washington, Roosevelt addresses Congress.

PRES ROOSEVELT: Yesterday, December 7th...

NARRATOR: 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.

PRES ROOSEVELT: There is no blinking at the fact

that our people, our territory, and our interests

are in grave danger.

NARRATOR: America is at war.

Most didn't want it. But most will have to join it.

Either in support at home, or in uniform beyond.

2LT SIMMONS: There were college men

who joined the service that very day.

They 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

was the first time I was ever out of the state of Ohio.

PVT LIBERTY: Roughest ride I ever had in my life.

Like traveling on a gravel road for 2,000 miles.

I swear they had square wheels.

ENS AITKEN: My examination took probably 30 seconds.

Drop 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

and said "Read the numbers." I only saw dots.

He said, "I can't take you. You're colorblind."

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

He said, "A three, five, and nine."

So I hitchhiked to Indianapolis... got in line...

They 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

through the depression, joins the Navy.

They don't waste his talent.

ARMAND: All we made was the bread, rolls, and desserts

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

NARRATOR: Michael Kuryla, who admired Navy ships

in the newsreels, also takes the plunge.

PO3 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.

NARRATOR: First stop -- the pool.

They practice treading water --

while someone tries to hold them under.

But deeper water awaits -- in an unlikely place.

♫ ♫

These are cadets in Northwestern University's

Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School near Chicago.

They are called "90-day wonders"

because that's how fast the program is in wartime.

Lake Michigan isn't exactly the Pacific Ocean,

but it'll have to do.

They study navigation.

And the fine art of swabbing the deck.

They are literally learning the ropes.

Finally, they practice the choreography of gun work.

Now, they have time to break it down, step by step.

Soon, they won't.

ST BRUNTON: They peeled off and dove on us.

They got close...

NARRATOR: The Army picks a training spot

that could at least pass for the Pacific.

The Florida swamp.

This is Wakulla Springs near Tallahassee,

where Hollywood filmed some of the jungle scenes

in Tarzan movies.

Now the Army is filming its own recruits

trying to master an environment

more 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.

This is not the Army Thomas Baye had in mind.

PVT 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.

They ford a river by making a hand bridge of rifles.

They use their tents and poles to make a supply raft.

They practice hiding from the enemy --

with synchronized ducking.

And, predictably, they blow stuff up.

(explosions)

Underwater demolition teams

try to smooth the way for a new kind of boat.

This 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.

I was thinking, "How in the world

did I ever get sucked into this mess?"

PVT DURHAM: The Navy recruiting office

was jammed up with 70 new recruits.

So I went around the corner

and the Marine Corps had a little shingle out,

and I was it. There was no line.

PVT ROUSH: The first thing we heard

when the bus came through the gate that morning

was, "You'll be sorry."

NARRATOR: Before the war,

the Marine Corps was struggling for relevance.

Some thought the Army should just absorb it.

It was a service without a purpose,

derided as the foster home for Navy flunkies.

PVT DURHAM: The first three weeks were terrible.

They insisted on teaching us how to walk,

and I felt we already knew.

NARRATOR: The Marine Corps wants to shed its reputation

as a military afterthought.

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

PVT PASE: Every Marine, before he was anything else,

was a rifleman.

If you're a tank driver, pilot, cook,

we don't care what else you are.

First of all, you're a rifleman.

(gunfire)

NARRATOR: They'll be using their rifles

as part of a new tactic.

♫ ♫

The amphibious assault.

The Marine Corps adopted this doctrine only six years earlier,

with a publication called

"Tentative Manual for Landing Operations."

They can't afford to be tentative anymore.

The 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,

and Marines have to pile out over the sides.

Some experts consider the whole idea complete folly.

PVT PASE: We had no idea in the world

how we were going to use this type of training.

NARRATOR: In 1940, there are fewer than 30,000

active duty Marines.

Total.

In just three years, that'll be the number

invading a single Pacific island.

None of these guys can really see that coming.

PO3 LEBOW: We just thought the Japanese

couldn't possibly carry on a very long war.

We thought it would be over in a matter of weeks.

CPL KETCHAM: The Japs whipped us for three solid weeks.

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

It was just hell day and night.

(sounds of warfare)

ARCHIVE: This is your ship. Look at her.

She's a symbol of our American industrial skill.

NARRATOR: That skill is now under the gun.

The Navy needs thousands more ships. Fast.

In Portland, Oregon, shipyards grow like weeds.

Industrialist 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

that will carry the war across the Pacific.

Workers come from all over the country --

men, women, and entire families.

Kaiser builds a town near Portland just

to house them all -- Vanport City, 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.

ARCHIVE: War had exploded over the entire world.

Every 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 --

and all crews get new uniforms to match.

ED: As soon as I was outfitted in these uniforms,

they 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,

the world awaits Japan's next move.

It's eyeing up more islands to expand its empire.

Java 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)

By the time sailor Monty Tuckerman grabs his camera,

the Japanese planes are gone.

It's the only color footage of the raid on Darwin --

a 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,

red and yellow flame shot into the air.

NARRATOR: 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.

People run for the hills, fearing a land invasion.

The attack kills 235 and injures hundreds more.

All in a town of only 2,000.

Clouds of war now rise over a nervous Australia --

a nation right in the shadows

of an expanding and unpredictable empire.

Newsreels from the Philippines show Japanese arriving in waves

-- and Americans scattering like ants.

PVT BROWN: They handed each one of us a can.

I got a can of cherries.

And they said, disperse.

I mean, we just dispersed.

We didn't know what the hell we were doing.

NARRATOR: There's no color footage

of the brutal fight for the Philippines.

Cornered on the Bataan peninsula,

Americans have little food and no reinforcements.

MacArthur holds out on Corregidor.

Japanese film shows their overwhelming advantage.

Soon, they're celebrating in Manila.

MacArthur and his family escape to Australia

as Corregidor falls.

Those left in the Philippines

are no longer enjoying a sunny deployment.

They're enduring their darkest nightmare.

These very boys are now dead, starving, or captured.

PVT 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

across land and sea in several directions.

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

Roosevelt puts the Southwest Pacific

into General MacArthur's hands.

He's already glaring at the Philippines

with revenge in his eyes.

The vast open seas of the Central Pacific

will be under Navy Admiral Chester Nimitz.

The two men could scarcely be more different.

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

He loathes PR men who suggest he show more pizazz.

In contrast, MacArthur is a man of sweeping statements,

grand gestures, and a fondness

for any recording device that can capture them.

These top men from the Army and Navy

now have the Pacific War on their shoulders.

Like the football game between their services,

it'll be part camaraderie, part competition.

But their boss calls the first play.

Back in December, President Roosevelt

issued a secret order after the Pearl Harbor attack:

Find a way to strike back at Japan.

It takes four months to figure out how.

The distance is daunting.

The technology is lacking.

But they pull together a plan

that's part bravado, part desperation.

Ships cut through a stormy Pacific in radio silence --

just as the Japanese did coming the other way.

American carriers haven't yet come of age.

This one's only big enough to launch

a scout plane with a catapult.

To 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 flown off a carrier before.

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

if we go off the end of the flight deck?

NARRATOR: Bombardier Herb Macia scrapes the waves

and gets airborne -- by a whisker.

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

Sixteen 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.

As payback for Pearl Harbor, it hardly rates.

America doesn't care.

ARCHIVE: Doolittle and his gallant men

shake the complacency of the Japanese warlords.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: It will take more than a few bombs

to win the Pacific War.

It 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.

But soon, the Pacific War will move beyond

rushing across the sea for sneak attacks.

Instead, it will collide with gruesome force,

with young men meeting face to face to slug it out.

PVT 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 to think that I will die

in true samurai style.

I feel now like a full-fledged warrior.

NARRATOR: The stakes are unblinkingly clear.

Succeed, and control a third of the globe.

Fail, and crash into the abyss.