World War II with Tom Hanks (2026) s01e03 Episode Script

1
(soft dramatic music)
Since the death of Lenin in 1924,
Joseph Stalin has maintained
an iron grip
on all aspects of life
in the Soviet Union.
As a Soviet Premier,
Stalin agrees
to the 1939 non-aggression pact
with the Nazis,
extending his western border
and precluding any chance
of going to war
with Hitler's Germany.
Stalin could not have been
more mistaken.
- (dramatic music)
- All wars change the world,
but none of them changed the world
like the Second World War did.
Japan's on the march.
Germany's on the march.
No-one can imagine the nightmare
they're about to unleash.
The most destructive war
in human history.
Suddenly the world
is turned upside down,
and all hell is let loose.
The West is stunned
by the speed of the advance.
You get the Allies,
led by the big three:
Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin.
Men who are dealing with
immensely complicated questions.
It's the biggest
military operation of human history.
The Allies have to come together
not just militarily,
but industrial scale
it's a global perspective.
They have to fight in every
climate from the Arctic
to the jungles of the Pacific
to the deserts of Africa
and the depths of the ocean.
But there was no certainty of victory.
It was going to be
a horrific bloodbath.
We see humans at their absolute worst,
how they treat other human beings.
And we see them at their absolute best,
willing to give their lives
that others might live.
World War II was a struggle
in which there could be
one victor and one vanquished.
(air raid sirens wailing)
(suspenseful music)
(horn honks)
HANKS: As war between Great Britain
and Germany continues,
from his offices deep
within the Kremlin,
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
is confident the non-aggression pact
he made with the Germans will hold
and that he will soon have
even more influence around the world.
Stalin's ideal plan was that
the British and French
would fight off the Germans,
and that those two sides
could fight it out
as much as they liked
while Stalin watched
from the sidelines
as they exhausted themselves.
(soft dramatic music)
HANKS: Since he was
a young revolutionary,
Stalin hoped that conflict in the West
would ultimately provide an opportunity
for communism to spread
throughout Europe.
Vissarionovich Jughashvili,
the man that we know as Stalin,
is Georgian by birth and origin.
He comes from a particular milieu
marked by, among other things,
feuding and banditry
and a certain code of honour,
a code of vengeance and vendetta.
HANKS: In the 1920s,
Stalin became the leader
of the Soviet Union
and quickly suppressed
any opposition to his rule.
(indistinct chatter)
HANKS: In 1936, he launched a purge
that became known as the Great Terror,
targeting political opponents,
then expanding it
to high-level army officers.
Stalin supervised, through
the NKVD secret police,
the killing of millions of people,
the destroying of families.
Millions were deported
and sent to concentration camps
known as the gulags.
He turned the country
into a totalitarian police state.
HANKS: A few years later in 1939,
Stalin makes a deal with Adolf Hitler.
Even though Germany
and the Soviet Union are hostile,
Stalin signs an agreement known as
the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
with the Nazis.
As a result of the pact,
Hitler and Stalin not only
carve up Eastern Europe
and together invade Poland,
Stalin also commits
to supplying vast quantities
of raw materials to the German Reich.
The Soviet Union
is providing Adolf Hitler
massive amounts of natural resources,
which is funding the economic engine
to build the military machine
that Adolf Hitler is using
around the rest of the world.
By 1940, it looks as if
the pact has paid off,
certainly for Stalin.
He's got this agreement with the Nazis
that he doesn't have
to worry about a war
on their western front.
(horn honks)
HANKS: Then in late September,
Germany, Italy, and Japan
signed a military alliance
called the Tripartite Pact.
(applause)
NEWSREADER: In Berlin, Hitler
welcomed Japan to his gang,
the three-power treaty,
Germany, Italy, Japan.
Dictator nations falling in step
for world domination.
It was not clear what
the role of the Soviet Union
might be in this new pact.
Would it become a quadruple pact
instead of simply a Tripartite Pact?
Would the Soviet Union
become a full partner?
These were all still open
questions in the fall of 1940.
(train whistle blowing, train chugging)
HANKS: In November,
Stalin sends one of the few
people he trusts to Berlin.
His foreign minister,
Vyacheslav Molotov.
Molotov means "hammer" in Russian.
His nickname was Iron Arse
because he could sit
for so long doing work.
He was intelligent, he was ruthless,
and Stalin trusted him.
Hitler receives Molotov
in the chancellery.
There's an amazing scene as he enters,
huge, blond, giant SS men
in their gleaming black,
death head's uniform salute.
In walks this little Russian diplomat,
and Hitler greets him warmly.
And they have
two big sessions of chats.
Hitler is at an impasse in this war,
he has conquered
everything within reach.
He's trying to talk to the Soviets
about some tighter level
of cooperation.
Hitler wants to get
the Soviets on board
for some kind of global war
against the British Empire.
HANKS: The Germans propose
that the Soviets join
the Tripartite Pact
and offer India as a prize
for when the British are defeated.
Molotov doesn't take this seriously.
Iron Arse is not impressed with Hitler.
And the conversations
become increasingly awkward.
HANKS: German Foreign Minister
von Ribbentrop
is hosting a reception for Molotov
when the Royal Air Force
begins a raid on Berlin.
MONTEFIORE:
In the middle of the banquet
(air raid sirens wailing)
the air raid sirens start to sound
and they have to go down into
Ribbentrop's air raid shelter.
And during the air raid,
Ribbentrop starts to boast
that Britain is defeated
and it's only a matter of time
before Britain surrenders
and the war is won.
Ribbentrop, trying to make the best
of an obviously embarrassing situation,
jokes that the British are complaining
that they have not been
invited to the party.
Molotov, however, is not charmed
by the Germans' attempt at humour.
And he says, well, if the war is over,
then why are we in this bomb shelter
and whose bombs are falling on us?
(train chugging)
HANKS: The next morning,
Foreign Minister Molotov
returns to Moscow
Unaware that Hitler
and his military leaders
are planning a secret operation.
Hitler is capable of,
you know, shaking your hand
and looking you in the eye
and saying everything is OK
while planning to stab you in the back.
And that is clearly what's going on
between Molotov and Hitler.
HANKS: One month
after Molotov's Berlin visit,
on December 18th
Hitler signs off on
Fuehrer Directive Number 21.
A plan for a massive invasion
of the Soviet Union
the following year.
The invasion is given a code name
after a red-bearded
medieval German emperor.
The stage is now set
for the biggest military invasion
in history,
Operation Barbarossa.
(crowd cheering, tense music)
HANKS: In the last weeks of 1940,
Adolf Hitler tours
German weapons factories
as preparations progress
for Operation Barbarossa.
His plan is to attack
and conquer the Soviet Union,
to establish more lebensraum,
living space,
for the new German empire in the East.
(speaking German)
HANKS: The operation is top-secret.
But within days,
sources have fed the information
to the Soviet intelligence services.
Stalin is receiving information
from nearly every quarter
right from the belly
of the beast in Berlin,
from the American military attaché,
from the British,
and from his spy in Tokyo.
HANKS: But Stalin doesn't believe
what he's hearing.
Stalin is paranoid
that what is happening here
is a very high-level game
on the part of the Western powers.
They're trying to manoeuvre him
into a one-on-one war
with the previously
undefeated Wehrmacht,
that he does not believe
he's ready for at the moment,
and he is bound and determined
to avoid being manoeuvred.
You can get all
the intelligence in the world,
but if you are predisposed
not to believe it,
it doesn't really make
that much difference.
And when he receives
a report from his master agent
in the German air force
that Hitler is planning
an imminent invasion of Russia
he says, Hitler would not be so stupid
because he doesn't even realise
what he's dealing with,
the scale of the Soviet Union.
HANKS: Both Stalin and Hitler have
read deeply into history.
MONTEFIORE: Stalin has studied
the great German Prussian
statesman Bismarck.
Bismarck thought that
a war on two fronts was
an extremely bad idea.
HANKS: Germany remains at war
with Great Britain,
and Stalin doesn't believe
Hitler would open a second front.
Stalin thinks it very unlikely
that Hitler will invade
because he thinks Hitler
is a sort of rational,
Bismarckian player.
And in that sense, he misread Hitler.
HANKS: But Hitler believes
that he is destined
to lead Germany to greatness.
Hitler is nothing if not arrogant.
He believes he's better than Bismarck,
better than just about anybody else
who's ever lived before him.
HANKS: Hitler finalizes the details
of Operation Barbarossa,
proposed date of invasion, May 1941.
The plan is to overwhelm the Red Army
and topple the regime
within two months,
well before the Russian winter sets in.
A lightning blow against the Russians
that will prove once and for all
that he, Hitler, and Germany,
are unconquerable.
HANKS: The offensive is divided
into three giant army groups,
each with a specific objective.
Going from north to south,
the first army group
is Army Group North,
which moves along the Baltic,
and its final operational goal
is Leningrad.
The centre of the invasion
is Army Group Centre.
It's the largest force by far
and it is going toward Moscow.
Army Group South is moving through
what we would now call Ukraine
to secure resources and eventually,
the historic Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
HANKS: But in the spring of 1941,
the Nazis face a challenge
in the Balkans
in Southeastern Europe.
Hitler is forced to send
an army into Yugoslavia
to crush an anti-Nazi coup.
(gunfire, explosions)
HANKS: His infantry then marches
into neighbouring Greece
to help his Italian ally,
Benito Mussolini.
Hitler has been cleaning up
this mess in the Balkans.
And so it's now a five-week delay
in the start of Operation Barbarossa.
HANKS: The Kremlin receives
more intelligence
that the Germans are preparing
an invasion.
Stalin dismisses it all.
And he doesn't stop sending
Soviet grain,
oil, and steel into Germany.
(birds singing)
HANKS: June 22nd, 1941.
As dawn breaks,
over 3 million German soldiers
poured across the border
into Soviet territory.
(echoing explosions)
Operation Barbarossa is launched.
(gunfire, explosions)
It's the biggest invasion force
in the history of human warfare.
It's just so vast,
it's difficult
to get one's mind around it.
If you just take the Eastern Front,
it's like trying to invade the
US from San Diego to Seattle.
It is by itself the largest war
that's ever happened.
That's crazy.
It's 3,000 tanks,
2,700 aircraft,
another 7,000 artillery pieces,
600,000 vehicles.
It is massive on a scale no-one
else has ever seen before.
This is the largest army
that's ever been organized
in modern European terms.
This is 3 million men
spread across a couple
thousand miles of front.
300 divisions, including
19 Panzer divisions.
This is a big force.
This is German manpower moving east.
This is the culmination
of all of the dreams,
the hopes that Hitler has put
into his leadership.
This is going to be the future
of Germany in the East.
Hitler thinks that
the Soviet system is so rotten
that he just has to kick in
the barn door
and the whole structure
is going to collapse.
HANKS: The Wehrmacht moves fast.
In just a few hours,
miles of Soviet territory is overrun.
The invasion seems
to be going according to plan.
(dramatic music)
HANKS: On the morning of the invasion,
Stalin is awoken by his chief of staff.
The phone rings in Stalin's bedroom
and Stalin answers it.
And he just says, the war has started.
And then silence
and he can just hear Stalin breathing
as he kind of wakes up
and absorbs this information.
(gunfire, explosions)
(tense music)
MONTEFIORE: The German advance
is fast, it's furious,
it's efficient, it's brutal.
NEWSREADER: Adolf Hitler today
launched his fast,
mobile Panzer divisions
against what may be
the largest mass army of the world,
the Red Army of communist Russia.
HANKS: The Red Army
and the Soviet Air Force
are caught unprepared.
(gunfire)
HANKS: On the very first day
the German Luftwaffe report that
they've destroyed nearly
the 2,000 Soviet aircraft
both in the air and on the ground.
Russian airfields were bombed.
Russian cities were bombed.
All hell was let loose.
(gunfire)
The Soviets do resist bravely.
But they are constantly outmanoeuvred,
captured almost immediately.
The vast Soviet army
is already in freefall.
The opening days of
Barbarossa are Hitler's dream.
It goes incredibly well.
The forces are racing through
former Poland,
they go across Byelorussia,
they get through the Baltic states.
It's just amazing. It's like a hot
knife cutting through butter.
(gunfire)
HANKS: In just the first week,
the Wehrmacht pushed 300 miles
into Soviet territory,
capturing over 400,000 troops.
The Russians are simply being stampeded
by a much more savvy German force.
(cheering and applause)
HANKS: During the Great Terror,
Stalin dismantled
the leadership of the army,
executing thousands of
experienced military officers.
(gunfire)
It is on a colossal scale.
Three of five field marshals,
Thirteen of fifteen army commanders,
50 of 57 corps commanders,
45% of all brigadier generals,
50% of all colonels have been executed.
The leadership of the Soviet
armed forces is not in place.
Stalin had decapitated his own army.
He put younger men in their place,
but they weren't experienced
and sometimes,
they were little more than Stalin
loyalists or party hacks.
They're rookies. This is an army
that has suddenly been reduced
to kind of the teething level.
(ominous music)
(crowd cheering)
HANKS: Some Soviets initially
welcome the Germans.
They even tear down Communist statues
raised in Stalin's honour.
(gunfire)
HANKS: On June 28th
Hitler's Army Group Centre
reaches Minsk,
the capital of Belorussia,
just over 400 miles from Moscow.
MONTEFIORE: The Germans keep coming.
Those three million Nazi troops
keep advancing ruthlessly.
And Stalin is ordering counterattacks
that never happen.
It's just chaos out there.
There was now a very palpable sense
of paranoia and fear that the Germans
now might be able to advance
as far as Moscow.
HANKS: At the Kremlin,
the news reaches Stalin.
MONTEFIORE: Stalin suddenly realizes
that he's lost control
of the Soviet Union.
He's lost control of the invasion.
He turns to Molotov and he just says,
everything's lost.
So many lands have been lost.
MCMEEKIN: He's not simply
talking about the army.
He's talking about the revolution.
He's talking about the first
proletarian dictatorship,
the birthplace of communism.
All this, he says, has been
flushed down the toilet.
(speaks Russian) he says.
HANKS: Stalin retreats to his dacha,
his country home outside Moscow
and shuts himself off completely.
At this crucial moment,
the Soviet Union has no leader.
(tense music) (explosions)
HANKS: As the Wehrmacht tears
through Soviet territory
Stalin has not left
his country house.
Some of his closest aides fear
he's suffering a nervous breakdown.
Back in the Kremlin,
there's total panic.
So finally, Molotov says,
we've all got to go out to see Stalin
and to tell him to come back.
So they drive out,
and Stalin is sitting in a chair,
pale, thinner, exhausted.
He says, what have you come for?
They say, come back. Lead us.
We can't do this without you.
HANKS: Molotov persuades Stalin
to return to the Kremlin
where he speaks directly
to the Soviet people.
But instead of talking about communism,
he evokes their sense
of history, honour,
and national pride.
(speaking in Russian)
Stalin appeals to Mother Russia.
He appeals to the sorts of attitudes
and spirit of the people.
He could have been the tsar
in the way that the tsar might have
appealed to the people.
(Stalin speaking in Russian)
CARLIN: This is a really smart,
canny move.
This is a wonderful way
to unite the society
in a way that brings people together.
We have the same enemy
and Mother Russia is at stake here,
so rally to the cause.
(dramatic music)
HANKS: Tens of millions
of Soviet peoples
are moved by Stalin's words.
He appoints himself
supreme commander-in-chief,
and he takes complete control
of the war effort.
HANKS: The Soviets also begin
to receive unexpected support
from the West.
The Soviet Union
is now acquiring sympathy
from Winston Churchill in London,
from President Roosevelt in Washington.
These countries will offer Stalin aid.
HANKS: Roosevelt sends to Moscow
his closest advisor,
Harry Hopkins, to find out
how America can support
the Soviet Union.
NEWSREADER: At the airport,
our camera filmed the arrival
of Mr. Harry Hopkins,
who conferred with Stalin
on Russia's immediate need.
HANKS: But it will be some time
before Western aid will arrive.
(low rumbling, explosions)
(speaking in Russian)
HANKS: By mid-July, the Red Army
has lost nearly 4,000 tanks
and over 6,000 aircraft.
Two million soldiers
have been captured or killed.
Troops taken prisoner are sent
to German work camps
or left to starve.
It becomes the most pitiless
campaign ever launched,
I think, in modern history.
They were rounded up in their thousands
and hardly given any food.
In fact, they would just throw
loaves over the barbed wire
and laugh when the prisoners
fought amongst themselves
because they were starving.
(prisoners shouting)
(sombre music)
HANKS: The Nazis also target civilians.
Both the army and the SS
are ordered to eradicate
all resistance.
Hitler's guidelines
for the conduct of his troops
issued ahead of Barbarossa
demand ruthless and energetic measures
against political agitators,
saboteurs, and Jews.
They give the army carte blanche
to do exactly what they want
to the populations
as they swarm over the borderlands.
This is where we start to talk
about the idea of total war.
We are now gonna literally
target civilians on purpose.
HANKS: But the Soviets
begin to fight back.
Partisans raid German outposts
and Stalin demands
a scorched earth policy.
People are told to burn everything
as they flee,
depriving the Nazis of food and shelter
as the German army marches
into the immensity of the Soviet Union.
The terrain in this part of Russia
is like the Great Plains
of the United States.
I mean, it's like being
in Nebraska or Iowa,
flat seas of grass.
When you start with a front
of a thousand miles long,
and as they advance,
it gets to 2,000 miles,
they don't know how
to deal with an area
where the armies are operating
like ships at sea.
There is no running out of territory
when you're fighting the Soviets.
There's always more territory
to retreat to.
HANKS: By the end of July,
the German army has progressed
over 400 miles.
But their advance is slowing
and supply lines are being stretched.
Every army has to understand
that if it advances rapidly,
it can outrun its supplies.
They always say, you know,
amateurs talk tactics,
professionals talk logistics.
Tank repair, replenishment
of ammunition, food, uniforms,
it just consumed
the German armed forces.
Eventually, every force
will reach what's called
a culminating point
where you've simply exhausted the men,
outrun the supplies,
hit something you can't overcome.
Your combat power has been expended.
HANKS: As German commanders
and their men
confront the magnitude of their task
Hitler faces perhaps
the greatest test of his leadership.
(tense music)
(clamouring)
HANKS: It's been six weeks
since German troops
stormed into Soviet territory.
Hitler visits his men on the front.
He meets with his commanders
to discuss strategy.
The army groups are no longer moving
at the same pace.
Army Group Centre
has pushed too far ahead.
It is only about 200 miles
outside Moscow.
But its supply lines
are perilously thin.
That's a real problem if
you're a operational planner.
You have one thrust that's
hanging out there on a limb.
HANKS: The German high command
is divided about what to do next.
Some of Hitler's generals
want to continue pushing
towards Moscow and capture
the capital before winter sets in.
Hitler believes
if he and the German armies
can overrun Ukraine,
it'll undercut the economic basis
of Stalin's dictatorship
and undercut the economic basis
of the Soviets continuing the war.
And so the decision is made
to hold the tanks from
their thrust against Moscow,
then send a vast force
into the Ukraine.
HANKS: On September 18th,
the city of Kiev is encircled
by the Nazis.
RICHIE: Kiev is enormously important
because Kiev in and of itself
is the control of Ukraine.
And what's Ukraine?
Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe.
So there's a huge
encirclement battle at Kiev,
one of the biggest battles
thus far in the war.
Feuer!
(echoing boom)
With the Panzer groups
coming from the north,
from the central axis
and also in the south.
They capture 600,000 troops.
It's staggering.
One's never imagined a battle
like that in the past.
Hitler keeps on saying
they can't go on providing
more troops for us to surround
in this particular way.
They're gonna collapse at any moment.
HANKS: With over half
his forces resupplied
Hitler turns to Moscow.
(tank rumbles)
RICHIE: The Wehrmacht forces
progress very, very rapidly.
They get so close
to the city of Moscow,
you can actually see the towers
of the city centre.
People were, obviously,
scared at the prospect
of what was likely to happen.
But at the same time, by now,
there was a determination
to fight back.
(tense music)
MCMEEKIN: They are preparing
the defences of the city.
Men and women are out digging ditches.
Everything is ready for a
last-ditch defence of Moscow.
That is, Moscow will be defended
to the last drop of blood.
HANKS: Stalin considers evacuating
the Soviet government
to a city on the River Volga,
over 500 miles away.
Stalin's staff begin
to prepare his own library,
his own houses, to be evacuated
and to abandon Moscow.
But Stalin is very aware of appearance.
He's always thinking about history.
He knows if Stalin leaves Moscow,
Moscow will fall.
MCMEEKIN: Many people think that
the regime is about to collapse.
For the first time,
it looks like the Communist Party
is actually about to be toppled.
At the last moment,
Stalin decides to stay.
HANKS: The German army is poised
to capture Moscow.
But Stalin has an ally.
General Winter.
Four months into the invasion
of the Soviet Union,
the German army faces a new enemy.
It was always said
that Russia's greatest general
was General Winter.
So the Russians were
much better prepared
for winter than the Germans.
So what happens in the Soviet Union,
if you're on the path toward Moscow,
as invaders have found
over the centuries,
the weather turns bad, it rains,
and a very inadequate road network
now gets turned into mud.
The Russians call it rasputitsa,
the roadless time.
This is not like normal mud.
You can't move and
you can't bring supplies forward.
General Mud slows the German advance
at a time when they're trying
to beat the clock here.
(wind whistles)
Then when it gets really cold,
you see an entirely different
situation.
The soldiers start freezing.
HANKS: By November,
temperatures are plummeting
to as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit,
devastating the Wehrmacht's
men and supply lines.
GENERAL CLARK: These German soldiers
were fighting
with frozen steel
with their bare hands,
unable to service their weapons,
so the weapons jam,
the lubricants freeze on the tanks,
they have to build fires
under the tanks at night
to keep the oil loose enough.
Everything degrades
their combat performance.
Hitler told them they were going
to be the all-conquering
master race of Europe.
They're cold, and they're tired,
and they probably haven't had
a square meal in two weeks.
HANKS: An invading army
has been here before.
Napoleon Bonaparte had tried
to seize Russia in 1812.
MONTEFIORE: Napoleon invades Russia,
takes Moscow,
but as winter comes, is defeated
by the unconquerable vastness
of Russia and the cold.
And in the end, the retreat from Moscow
really destroys Napoleon's empire.
HANKS: But Hitler ignores
the lessons of history.
He orders his troops forward
to take Moscow.
CITINO: Stalin still has a fear
that there'll be some breakthroughs
into the heart of Moscow itself.
But, you know, something
happens in this period.
A piece of intelligence
comes across his desk
that for once,
he's willing to listen to.
And it comes from his agent in Japan.
HANKS: The intelligence
from Stalin's agent in Tokyo
suggests that Japan will not attack
the Soviets' eastern border.
Instead, Japan is planning
to move south
against British, French,
and Dutch colonies in Asia.
And perhaps against the
United States in the Philippines.
So Stalin transfers 400,000 troops
that were stationed in
the Soviet Far East to Moscow.
A whole new army.
Fresh, untouched, fully manned,
tanks, howitzers, planes.
This is the Siberian reserve.
These are troops dressed
in heavy white parkas, ski troops.
They're used to operating in the cold.
HANKS: In November,
with some German units
just 21 miles from Moscow
Stalin celebrates the anniversary
of the Russian Revolution
in Red Square.
(speaking in Russian)
HANKS: Marching in the parade
are Stalin's Siberian divisions.
They were not raw recruits
being sent to the front,
they were trained and
experienced hard-line soldiers.
HANKS: The defence of Moscow
is largely in their hands.
(cheering and applause)
On December 5th, Stalin
launches his counteroffensive.
It catches the Germans at
their worst possible moment.
They're tired, they're hungry,
they're sick,
they're freezing to death,
they're out of supplies.
And the Soviet offensive
sweeps all before it.
(gunfire and explosions)
The Germans are completely stunned
and they are thrown back
over 100 miles.
It's an astonishingly
successful counteroffensive
and Moscow is safe.
HANKS: Over the next weeks,
Soviet troops halt the Wehrmacht
and begin to push the Germans back.
Stalin has stemmed the tide.
The defeat of the German
drive on Moscow
and the near-destruction of the Germans
is a sea change
for both Hitler and Stalin.
Hitler now has to look
at a scene of desperation
and trying to rebuild his army
in the Soviet Union.
Stalin now not only knows
that he's going to survive,
he also knows that he's going
to be able to launch
one hammer blow after
the other against the Germans.
Designed to be another
victorious blitzkrieg,
Operation Barbarossa descends
into a deadly stalemate
for the Germans.
In the free West, President Roosevelt
and Prime Minister Churchill
provide support to the Red Army
to wear down the Nazi invaders.
Across the Pacific,
a new power has been building
its own empire,
one that will attempt
to destroy American forces
in a single day of infamy.