Original subtitles

In 1945, Allies are closing in on Japan

DAVID: We used bazookas, flamethrowers,

and it was a slaughter.

NARRATOR: Americans find a bloodbath on Okinawa.

Australians move in on Borneo.

And rescued POWs reveal a nightmare in Thailand.

REUBEN: In almost no time we have become skeleton men.

NARRATOR: With rare behind the scenes film...

and color combat footage...

hear the voices, and feel the fight.

ENS AITKEN: We knew that we were going to be in for trouble.

We just knew it.

♫ Theme Music Playing ♫

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

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: General Douglas MacArthur is coming home.

This is Corregidor in the Philippines,

where MacArthur made his last stand

before defeat three years ago.

Now he's back to address the paratroopers

that just helped liberate it.

The battle is so fresh,

the chutes are still blowing in the trees.

GEN MACARTHUR: The capture of Corregidor

is one of the most brilliant operations in military history.

NARRATOR: Prone to overstatement,

MacArthur is also prone to emotion.

The Philippines are flying the American flag once more.

GEN MACARTHUR: I see the old flagpole still stands.

Have your troops hoist the colors to its peak,

and let no enemy ever haul them down.

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: But the flag is flying over a territory in tatters.

The grand city of Manila is gutted.

Official buildings are reduced to rubble.

Neighborhoods are razed.

But weeks after liberation, Manila is on the mend.

♫ ♫

British war journalist William Courtenay

tours the city on a horse drawn carriage

and captures the sights with his own camera.

Filipinos are on the rebound.

Between bombed out buildings

is a sure sign that war has moved on.

The USO has moved in.

Courtenay's camera rolls as Hollywood stars

and servicemen and women meet face to face --

7,000 miles from home.

Comedian Joe E. Brown has come to boost their morale.

His comic rubber-faced expressions

translate all the way to the back row.

(servicemen laughing, applauding)

♫ ♫

Throughout the Pacific, the USO brings laughter

to places that only recently knew horror.

Touching down on this dusty airstrip on Tarawa --

another celebrity.

By now Bob Hope has logged over 30,000 miles

across the Pacific.

At every stop he and his troupe

are escorted to thousands of fans

eagerly awaiting "the show of a lifetime."

EMCEE: Here he is -- Bob Hope!

(men cheering)

NARRATOR: By now, Hope knows the reality of life in the Pacific

almost as well as the men.

BOB HOPE: Thank you. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

This is Bob Mosquito Network Hope.

I hope you enjoy our show today.

We have a nice show with Frances Langford, Jerry Colonna,

Tony Romano, Patty Thomas and Bonnie Dean.

I know you'll enjoy the girls.

You remember girls.

(audience cheers)

Yes, they're doing very fine.

On some of these islands these girls

have been the first to land. Won't Eleanor be mad, huh?

(audience laughing and cheering)

♫ ♫

NARRATOR: Hope is not the only one

putting smiles on American faces.

♫ ♫

There are plenty of big stars

and thousands of lesser known names.

They perform show after show

for homesick troops all over the Pacific.

Wherever there's a USO show, war has passed.

But in these pre-dawn waters, it's only beginning.

Here, the stage is set for a very different show.

No laughter. Just a nervous silence.

It's Easter Sunday, 1945.

Many of these men think it might be their last day on earth.

The morning light reveals a stunning sight --

the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific War.

A line of steel almost eight miles wide is closing in --

on Okinawa.

ENS AITKEN: I have never in my life seen so many Navy ships.

The aircraft carriers were lined up as far as I could see.

NARRATOR: Fifteen hundred ships. Half a million men.

♫ ♫

Tarawa. Saipan. Iwo Jima.

All had beaches covered in blood.

Now Americans are wiser and wearier.

They expect an 80 percent casualty rate.

Among the faces is David McFadden,

a kid from Ohio who remembers the fear.

LT MCFADDEN: There were hundreds of boys.

The only thing you could hear was the ship's organ

playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee."

And boy, don't you think there weren't

a lot of them thinking that.

Young boys, really young.

NARRATOR: This is the last stop

in the island-hopping campaign toward the Japanese mainland.

From Okinawa, Americans can stage

a massive invasion of Japan itself.

It is 70 miles long.

In square mileage it's no bigger than the city of Los Angeles.

Its terrain features craggy clusters of small mountains,

including ridgelines that run east to west,

creating a natural barrier to southward travel.

Americans have limited intelligence going in.

Aerial reconnaissance is lacking.

They can only guess at what lies ahead.

This Japanese film offers clues.

For three years, Americans have been

pushing them back across the Pacific.

Okinawa is their last stand.

The Allies expect a final showdown.

(cannon fire)

NARRATOR: Before the invasion, the United States

unleashes ferocious firepower.

Aerial and naval bombardment shreds the island

to soften defenses.

The Japanese nickname it "the typhoon of steel."

It is three months of solid pounding.

(explosions)

Invasion day, Easter Sunday, is nicknamed L-Day.

MAN: Go! Go! Go!

NARRATOR: The men coming ashore expect the worst.

LT MCFADDEN: I was thinking,

well, maybe in an hour from now

I won't have to worry about anything anymore.

NARRATOR: But instead of enemy fire,

they meet an eerie silence.

They move cautiously, expecting a trap.

But there's no sign of the enemy.

(radio chatter)

Some wonder if they've landed on the wrong island.

First Lieutenant Charles Kilpatrick

is as surprised as anyone.

LT KILPATRICK: We were expecting the usual welcome committee

from the Japanese, and it didn't happen.

We didn't hear a shot fired.

NARRATOR: The only Japanese soldiers they see

are already dead, usually lying near a bomb crater.

Word gets back to the fleet -- there is no one to fight.

♫ ♫

Subsequent waves of troops come ashore.

They calmly grab their gear and walk upright onto the beach.

Within hours, thousands of men unload

a city's worth of infrastructure onto the beaches of Okinawa.

♫ ♫

Inland, things move as smoothly as a training exercise.

Many keep their guns stowed, and never have to dig a foxhole.

The invasion presses forward.

In the first few days, Marines march unimpeded

through the midsection of the island

and secure it coast to coast.

♫ ♫

They tick off military objectives

like a grocery list --

all while enjoying a fine stretch of weather

on a subtropical island.

One general says to the press,

"I don't know where the Japs are,

and I can't offer you any good reason

why they let us come ashore so easily."

Americans think 100,000 Japanese are defending Okinawa.

The question is -- where?

For troops that expected to be in hell,

Okinawa feels like heaven.

Instead of an invasion, it seems like a vacation.

Soldiers pick ripe tomatoes along the road.

They commandeer local horses and take joyrides.

They avail themselves of the local livestock

and try to one-up each other's barbecue.

One soldier recalled such a cookout

to be one of the best meals of his life,

on what was supposed to be the battlefield of his death.

So far, the battle of Okinawa is a cakewalk.

In charge of the invasion

is General Simon Bolivar Buckner Junior.

He is straight from central casting --

tall, silver-haired, and no-nonsense.

He is surprised things are going so smoothly

and wonders what the enemy is thinking

in a letter to his wife Adele.

GEN BUCKNER: Everything is now going well,

and so far my opposing general has not displayed

any noticeable degree of military brilliance.

I hope he keeps this up.

NARRATOR: Buckner's Japanese counterpart

is Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima.

He is respected by his men --

cut right from the Samurai tradition.

A tradition that includes fighting to the death.

GEN USHIJIMA: Do not suffer the shame of being taken prisoner.

You will live for eternity.

NARRATOR: The Japanese will soon reveal their strategy --

suddenly, and lethally.

By the third day of the invasion,

there is still no sign of the enemy.

Commanding General Simon Buckner

sends a message to the Marines.

GEN BUCKNER: All restrictions removed

on your advance northward.

NARRATOR: Men and materiel move up the island

and into the Motobu Peninsula, a mountainous no-man's land.

They approach a high, craggy mass called Mount Yae-Take.

(gunfire)

Suddenly, fire comes from everywhere.

(gunfire)

♫ ♫

Americans are pinned down by mortars and machine guns

no matter where they go.

Companies get split up running for cover.

They barely know where to return fire.

After days of easy and rapid advance,

casualties pile up by the hundreds.

And just as this reality hits on the ground,

a fury comes from the sky.

April 6th dawns quiet in the waters off Okinawa.

The calm did not comfort Ensign Doug Aitken.

ENS AITKEN: We knew that we were going to be in for trouble.

We just knew it.

NARRATOR: On the nearby islands, the Japanese

had been gathering every usable plane and pilot

remaining in their arsenal.

Some are inexperienced, but no less devoted.

They call this mission Kikusui, or "floating chrysanthemum."

♫ ♫

They take off in waves --

and begin a kamikaze spree

that dwarfs anything before or since.

In the next two days, over 350 enemy planes

wreak absolute havoc.

American pilots try to stop them in roller-coaster dogfights.

Navy gunners try to derail them

in white-knuckle high-speed combat --

sometimes close enough to see each other's faces.

On April 6th alone, three ships are sunk outright.

Another 15 are hit and damaged.

(explosion)

The attacks leave a flotsam of twisted steel and blood.

But it's only the beginning of Kikusui.

In the midst of this nightmare, news reaches the front lines.

ARCHIVAL NARRATOR: The flag flies at half staff

as a grief-stricken nation mourns the death

of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States.

NARRATOR: For 12 years, he steered the nation

through some of its darkest hours.

The troops on Okinawa grieve publicly.

Many of them are so young

that Roosevelt is the only president they remember.

SSGT WELLMAN: You'd see grown men crying like babies,

because we had lost somebody who was a father figure to us.

ROY: We also wondered, now what?

Roosevelt was our man. Who is this guy Truman?

NARRATOR: Back at Mount Yae-Take

it's been week of uphill fighting,

and there is little to show for it --

besides blood and bandages.

It is an uphill slog

against what one officer calls "a phantom enemy."

For four more days, they slowly move up the mountain

under withering fire.

(gunfire)

♫ ♫

Then, Marines finally take the top of Mount Yae-Take --

and take a look around.

Two thousand Japanese bodies

litter the peaks, trenches, and tunnels.

Almost to a man, they had fought to the death.

This one mountaintop cost the Marines almost a thousand men.

It is their first test

against the Japanese defenses on Okinawa...

and they wonder if they've only scratched the surface.

There have to be more Japanese somewhere.

Americans move cautiously.

Suddenly, near the village of Shuri,

troops come under intense fire.

They answer with volleys of their own.

(gunfire)

But when the Japanese charge

with machine guns and flamethrowers,

Americans have to retreat.

Soon after, another company endures a hailstorm of mortars

coming in at more than one per second.

They lose 45 men.

US forces find themselves pinned down by unrelenting fire.

They have run into the Shuri Line,

a defensive colossus built into a mountain range.

It is a masterstroke of military design.

The Japanese are entrenched on the reverse slope --

invisible to approaching Americans.

Every Japanese position supports another.

Every American is caught in crossfire.

(gunfire)

Mount Yae-Take was a single hill --

and it took a week to conquer.

The Shuri Line is an eight-mile-wide

coast-to-coast killing zone.

The worst elements of Pacific warfare

all rolled into a single nightmare.

This is where America realizes the brutal truth --

the Japanese are no longer fighting to win.

They only want to turn the conquest of Okinawa

into a drawn-out bloodbath --

and give America second thoughts about invading mainland Japan.

As April turns to May, it's working.

What started as a cakewalk has become a meat grinder.

The Shuri Line has stalled the American advance --

and spilled rising amounts of blood.

So far there are 20,000 casualties.

More than Tarawa & Saipan combined.

Medical units scramble to treat every injury.

Back home, officers escorted by chaplains

will knock on countless doors.

Okinawa is becoming the Pacific theater's black hole.

Then, from the European theater, news breaks.

♫ ♫

(crowd cheers)

NEWSREEL NARRATOR: Throughout the world

throngs of people hail the end of the war in Europe.

NARRATOR: The world celebrates.

Hitler is dead, Germany surrenders,

and Europe is at peace.

But on the other side of the world, Japan still won't budge.

♫ ♫

The battle for Okinawa has already dragged on

longer than Iwo Jima or Saipan.

The war seems endless. Combat fatigue spreads like a disease.

Some units are on the front lines for

almost four straight weeks -- under constant bombardment.

Through May, nearly 14,000 troops are pulled back

with what the military calls "non-battle" injuries.

LT KILPATRICK: We had a lot of people

who had what we call a "thousand-yard stare."

Just looking off and not thinking anything.

We lost a few that were just completely gone.

NARRATOR: First Lieutenant Charles Kilpatrick

sees one officer hit the wall.

LT KILPATRICK: And he just broke down.

He said, "I can't do it anymore.

I can't send any more boys out there to get killed."

NARRATOR: Until they crack the Shuri Line,

they're trapped in a slaughterhouse.

Overlooking the city of Naha is a close triangle of small peaks

-- Horse Shoe, Half Moon, and the now infamous Sugar Loaf.

♫ ♫

On May 12th, a company of Marines starts to climb.

The higher they get, the more fire they take.

Half the company is wounded or killed on the first day.

They retreat -- though Marines like Thomas Durham

claim not to know that word.

PVT DURHAM: The Marines didn't retreat.

We made a rapid advance to the rear.

Those Japs are damn good fighters,

and they were ready to meet their honorable ancestors.

We were not.

NARRATOR: The Americans realize that Sugar Loaf is the

western anchor of the Shuri Line -- the defensive wall

they've already been pounding for a month.

They can't break through until they win this hill.

♫ ♫

On Okinawa, civilians can't escape

the armies torching their home island.

Their lives are turning into ashes.

♫ ♫

Seeking shelter from the storm of combat,

they stream into burgeoning refugee camps --

sometimes more than 1,000 a day.

They have no kinship with the Japanese,

no loyalties to the Americans,

and no idea how to get through it alive.

GENERAL BUCKNER WRITES:

GEN BUCKNER: A few Okinawans had been given guns.

They don't know either how to fight or how to surrender.

They shoot a few rounds and go into caves

but won't come out and have to be killed.

(explosion)

NARRATOR: The only life they ever knew has been blown apart.

They are shell shocked.

Children are most vulnerable.

If they aren't directly injured, they are malnourished,

and surely confused and terrified.

In one instance, Americans come upon a girl

who refused to retreat with Japanese troops.

As punishment, they cut off her foot.

It will take a long time for Okinawans

to recover from having their island

turned into a killing field.

Elsewhere in the Pacific, Americans have help.

On Borneo, Australians lead the invasion of Labuan.

♫ ♫

It's a big Japanese supply hub.

From here they've been shipping local oil and rubber

back to Japan.

Journalist William Courtenay is filming

from the open hatch of an Australian bomber.

Gunners inside take aim.

They target the ships first.

Here a long plume of black smoke pours from an oil tanker.

The waist gunner tries to finish it off, tracers blazing.

(artillery fire)

They leave dozens of Japanese transports burning on the beach.

Then, 90 American and Australian ships

get into position.

With one signal, the barrage begins.

(rocket fire)

Rockets arc into the beachhead.

Twenty-millimeter shells pierce the air.

LEO: We blasted the island

with everything we could possibly throw at them.

NARRATOR: Yankee gunners clear the way

as Aussie troops brace themselves for combat.

TED: To say we were scared would be an understatement,

but we were joking amongst ourselves,

which steadied our nerves.

NARRATOR: Finally, they land -- unopposed.

The pre-landing bombardment does its job.

The Australian troops stroll onto Labuan.

It's like Okinawa, an eerie calm.

Just hours later, two commanders come ashore --

Australia's Lieutenant General Morshead

and America's General MacArthur.

MacArthur never likes to be seen breaking a sweat.

On Borneo in June, he relents.

They survey the scene -- including dead Japanese.

Most, they learn, are dug in further inland.

It will be up to the Aussies to dislodge them.

They heave shells into the rugged interior

with a British field gun.

It's a start, but they know

they'll have to go in themselves.

(shells exploding)

When they do, they pay the price --

mostly from landmines and booby traps.

♫ ♫

The Japanese fight to the end, preferring death to capture.

Only 200 survive out of 2,000 troops.

But civilians carry the biggest scars.

Under Japanese occupation, they were neglected, if not abused.

Now they welcome Australian troops,

hoping the big men in the funny hats signal better days ahead.

The boys from down under are taking back Borneo

and bringing back peace.

(explosion)

On Okinawa, peace is still a pipe dream.

Americans are throwing their biggest hardware

at the Shuri Line -- Japan's colossal line of defense.

It's an unknown underground maze.

A surprise attack could come from anywhere,

so Americans don't take any chances.

(explosions)

Explosions stun anyone inside.

Often, the enemy stumbles out.

Other times, it is civilians.

From Sugar Loaf Hill all the way across the Shuri Line,

progress is agonizingly slow.

One general estimates there are 70,000 Japanese

holed up underground.

"I see no way to get them out", he says,

"but to blast them out yard by yard."

The sluggish pace of the ground war on Okinawa

doesn't make things easy at sea.

As the weeks drag on, Admiral Chester Nimitz

increasingly views his fleet as sitting ducks.

The pressure of war takes its toll.

And kamikazes keep coming.

(explosions)

At their peak, attacks kill an average

of 30 sailors per day.

There is no end in sight.

A zero is filmed heading straight for

the USS Bunker Hill .

(explosion)

Six hundred are killed or injured.

She has to retreat from duty.

The USS Comfort -- a hospital ship -- also gets hit.

The plane rips through three decks

and explodes in the surgery bay,

killing doctors, nurses, and patients.

For sailors like Howard Jones,

the horror is burned into memory.

SN JONES: The smoke went down in the ship

and so many guys suffocated.

SN CLEMENTSON: Seeing the dead didn't bother me too much,

but the wounded,

when they're lying there suffering and moaning...

that's what really hit me.

I just couldn't take that.

NARRATOR: Japan intentionally crashes 1,900 planes

in suicide dives around Okinawa --

the most intense kamikaze attacks

of the entire Pacific campaign.

They sink 26 ships and damage 164 more.

The Japanese consider it noble sacrifice.

The Americans consider it inhumane warfare.

SN JONES: The next day... the worst part of my life was...

we all had to get all these guys together

in, you know, the bags.

ENS AITKEN: You can't identify people.

The right thing to do is bury at sea.

NARRATOR: It is the greatest concentration of Navy losses

since Pearl Harbor.

Since the first failed attacks,

Okinawa's Sugar Loaf Hill has become a massacre.

With Japanese holding the other two hills nearby,

there is crossfire no matter where the Americans charge.

Two days into it, Marines charge up again.

(shouting and gunfire)

After 48 hours of nonstop fighting,

they are back where they started -- less 400 casualties.

♫ ♫

They try again, this time with 1,200 men.

Same result.

By now, the equivalent of two full regiments have attacked --

and gotten nowhere.

For days on end they fight over the same hill.

♫ ♫

Marines throw grenades from one side...

and take incendiary fire from the other.

At times their trenches are only 25 yards apart.

On a single day, the crest of the hill

changes hands 11 times.

As dead and wounded are carried off,

new troops rush in with no idea what they are in for.

David McFadden remembers the chaos.

LT MCFADDEN: They commandeered as many boys

as they could muster.

Instead of a company or battalion,

they threw them all together,

'cause they didn't have enough to go around.

NARRATOR: But the enemy has no replacements, no supply lines.

Eventually, the Marines wear them down.

After 10 days, Americans finally climb Sugar Loaf Hill --

and hold it.

They stand on the shoulders of more than 9,000 fallen comrades.

A military historian would later call the battle

"unmatched for closeness and desperation."

Some regiments lose two-thirds of their men.

It is one of the costliest pieces of ground

in Marine Corps history.

LT MCFADDEN: We didn't have much celebration.

They just wanted to go home, and you couldn't blame them.

NARRATOR: With the Shuri Line about to fall,

the exhausted Americans hope

they are nearing the end of combat.

But just when Americans think the Japanese are on the run,

rain soaks Okinawa -- almost 12 inches in 10 days.

GEN BUCKNER: Heavy rain has stopped our tanks

and is impeding supply just at a time

when rapid progress is most desirable.

NARRATOR: What is already difficult terrain

becomes nearly impassable.

Roads become rivers.

Camps become swamps.

And war becomes impossible.

LT KILPATRICK: The mud got so deep

that suddenly we stopped getting supplies.

We weren't getting any shells, any hand grenades,

any food, any water.

Even bulldozers would sink as much as

three feet down in the mud, so they couldn't haul it to us.

NARRATOR: Troops have to lug ammunition to the front by hand.

Wounded have to be carried all the way back

to rear medical units.

Sanitation measures break down.

Morale sinks.

The Japanese could retreat into

the relative comfort of their caves.

The Americans could only wait it out in cold, wet misery.

LT KILPATRICK: As it rained, the foxhole

would start filling up with water.

Everybody smelled.

You had blood on you and parts of bodies on you.

Everybody got diarrhea or dysentery.

NARRATOR: For more than a week, it appears to be a standoff.

But the Japanese are not standing still.

When the weather finally breaks on Okinawa,

the Americans mobilize.

The Japanese defenses on the Shuri Line are crumbling.

US troops have been pounding away at this one ridgeline

for two bloody months.

So far 20,000 Americans have been wounded

and 50,000 Japanese killed -- just to crest its heights.

Now they are closing in on the enemy's headquarters

at Shuri Castle --

where they hope General Ushijima himself

is holed up for the final showdown.

They find the castle blown to bits by American artillery.

LT KILPATRICK: They must have shot a million dollars' worth

of shells into that thing just kicking it up in dust.

NARRATOR: Troops find it unrecognizable, undefended...

and abandoned.

The Japanese have vanished. Again.

American troops raise a flag, but the victory is hollow.

By now they realize the enemy is building up

another line farther south,

to extend the war as long as possible.

For the soldiers on Okinawa,

June is an exhausting slog to the bottom of the island.

♫ ♫

The Americans slowly advance against weakening resistance.

(gunfire)

The retreating soldiers are being killed

at a rate of one thousand per day.

Yet they manage to make Americans

pay for every mile they gain.

Cave defenses are still a threat.

Americans fire streams of liquid flame

to incinerate anyone inside...

then use explosives to seal the cave shut.

(explosion)

General Buckner calls this method

"blowtorch and corkscrew."

Okinawa is now about killing, not capturing.

At sea, it's the same equation.

Kill first, take prisoners later.

Far from Okinawa in the South China Sea,

the submarine USS Pampanito patrols the area

after torpedoing two distant Japanese ships.

Four days later they spot desperate survivors

clinging to floating wreckage.

The submarine commander gets a shock.

LCDR DAVIS: They were speaking English.

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

but we got a rope and were taken aboard.

NARRATOR: These men are

Australian and British prisoners of war.

♫ ♫

LCDR DAVIS: We had a devil of a time

trying to get them on board.

They were too slick to pick up.

NARRATOR: Two thousand of them were crammed onto

two Japanese cargo ships,

when they were torpedoed by the Americans.

Most of the POWs are dead -- sunk by their own side.

The lucky ones survive -- barely --

after four days on the open sea.

One hundred and fifty are rescued.

LCDR DAVIS: They were very thankful.

They said, "You bloody Yanks,

you sink us one night and pick us up the next."

But they said they were darn glad they were sunk,

and that they would cheer every time hit their ship,

because they wanted to see the sons-of-guns go down.

K.L.: Can you imagine the shock we got?

Water, tomato soup and crackers --

something that we never had in two and a half years.

LCDR DAVIS: The crew gave them clothes

and wrote letters for them.

It was amazing to see their brotherly spirit.

NARRATOR: As the survivors gain strength,

they unspool a story that defies belief.

They come from a secret prison camp deep in Thailand

with enough POWs to fill a city --

a quarter of a million men,

including 60,000 British, Australians, and Dutch --

and at least 1,000 missing Americans.

They were brought here to build a railroad

from Thailand to Burma across the river Kwai.

The men are beaten and tortured, forced to live as slaves.

Reuben Kandler -- a British POW (DESCRIBES THE HORROR):

REUBEN: The appalling conditions have made us dangerously thin.

We have no beds, inadequate shelter, atrocious diet

and no sanitation.

We have lost all our clothes, shoes,

and have taken to wearing our shirts as loincloths.

In almost no time we have become skeleton men.

NARRATOR: Nearly one third of the POWs die in captivity.

Survivors have no end in sight.

All they see are their own comrades wasting away.

Back on Okinawa, exhaustion is crippling both sides.

Less than a third of the Japanese Army is left,

and they form a last line of defense by the sea.

It's not nearly as strong as the Shuri Line.

But this is where General Ushijima makes his last stand.

GEN USHIJIMA: The present position will be defended

to the death, even to the last man.

Needless to say, retreat is forbidden.

NARRATOR: The Japanese are running out of

soldiers, ammunition, and land.

They have their backs to the sea.

Americans try to persuade civilians

to surrender rather than die.

In one case, they lure 600 Okinawans out of a single cave.

They are less forgiving to the enemy.

Some refuse to take any Japanese prisoners at all,

killing them on sight, white flag or not.

By June 17th, the Japanese on Okinawa

have only eight square miles left, with few places to hide.

Americans can see the coast,

and they are burning their way to the sea.

(explosions)

Japanese leaders are huddled in seaside caves.

It is so cramped that General Ushijima

cannot stretch out his legs.

He receives a message from General Buckner --

an offer to enter negotiations for surrender.

GEN BUCKNER: You understand as clearly as I that

the destruction of all Japanese resistance on the island

is merely a matter of days.

NARRATOR: Ushijima laughs if off and does not reply.

Soon after, a cameraman captures General Buckner

visiting a forward observation post

to see the final days for himself.

♫ ♫

Minutes after this footage is taken,

a shell explodes on a rock right next to him.

A piece of it tears through his chest.

In just 10 minutes, General Buckner is dead.

He drifts off to sleep

as a Marine private holds his hand, saying,

"You are going home, General. You are homeward bound."

As Americans approach the coast,

General Ushijima sends his final message to Tokyo.

GEN USHIJIMA: We are about to deploy

all surviving soldiers for a final battle --

in which I will apologize to the Emperor with my own death.

NARRATOR: On a ledge overlooking the sea,

Ushijima performs the Samurai ritual of hara-kiri,

plunging a saber into his own stomach.

The battle for Okinawa is the only contest of the Pacific

to cost the lives of both commanding officers.

♫ ♫

Eighty-two days after L-Day --

when Americans came ashore to wrestle Okinawa

from an unseen enemy --

they can finally declare victory.

The island is theirs.

DAVID: In Okinawa, the war was over.

And there wasn't anything easy about any of it.

NARRATOR: There is much to celebrate.

But also many to mourn.

The United States loses 12,520 lives in Okinawa.

More than 36,000 are wounded.

The Japanese toll is astounding.

Americans count more than 100,000 bodies,

with the actual number probably higher.

And about a third of the Okinawan people are dead --

another 100,000 --

unable to survive two vast armies warring on their island.

♫ ♫

America is now at Japan's doorstep.

But the body count on Okinawa makes the military shudder

at the thought of invading Japan itself.

They increase their casualty estimate for the invasion --

to a million men.

President Truman will have to weigh those numbers

against a new option --

one that will forever change the course of warfare.

♫ ♫