World War II with Tom Hanks (2026) s01e04 Episode Script

(low-key dramatic music)
Sub extracted from file & improved by
Se7enOfNin9 for addci7ed.com
The 1930s is a decade of aggression.
Italy attacks Ethiopia,
dreaming of a modern Roman Empire.
Hitler's Thousand-Year Reich
calls for his seizure of Austria,
Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
The Japanese Empire expands
with the invasion of Manchuria
and China,
but intends to dominate all of Asia.
To accomplish that,
the military in Japan
know they must first eliminate
the United States as a seaborne power.
They act accordingly.
All wars change the world.
But none of them change the world
like the Second World War did.
MAN: 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 history.
Suddenly, the world
is turned upside down,
and all hell is let loose.
The West is stunned
by the speed of the advance.
MAN: 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.
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 siren blaring)
TOM HANKS: In late 1937,
the Japanese escalate
their military campaign in China.
They already occupy Manchuria.
After three months of fighting,
they take Shanghai
(soldiers cheer)
HANKS: ..and move to the ancient
Chinese capital of Nanking.
The Japanese brutality that follows
will shock the world.
They enter the city,
but instead of just occupying it,
they let the Japanese troops
off the leash. They rape,
they pillage, they burn, they steal.
The Japanese commanders
ordered their soldiers
not to take any prisoners,
which meant executions.
This was Japanese soldiers
looking down on the Chinese
as an inferior people
and as being non-humans.
Japanese soldier
who committed atrocities himself,
he described it as killing pigs.
Japanese officers had a competition
to see who could be the first
to kill 100 civilians with a sword.
This was printed in Japanese newspaper.
To show pictures of swordsmen
decapitating bound prisoners
in the 20th century
made the people doing the killing
seem almost like they were
barbarians from another era.
And it struck Americans and people in
the Western world in a different way
than had they shown
people being lined up and shot.
Hundreds of thousands of people
raped and murdered by the Japanese.
It was called the Rape of Nanking.
HANKS: In just six weeks,
the Japanese army
kill 200,000 Chinese in Nanking.
Most are civilians.
The Japanese invasion
does identify the Japanese
as an aggressive power
in the Pacific, that they are brutal
in the way
that they've treated the population.
And this starts to change
people's perceptions
with regards to the Japanese.
HANKS: By the end of 1939,
Japan controls vast areas
of north and central China,
as well as the southern port cities.
(cheering)
HANKS: The Japanese are driven
by the desire for raw materials.
The luck of the historical draw
has put the Japanese people
on a series of beautiful islands
which are, unfortunately,
resource-poor.
Take iron ore.
The Japanese have almost no
indigenous sources of iron ore.
Their steel industry
is based on U.S. scrap iron!
They need the raw materials
and almost limitless manpower of China.
HANKS: Japan is a modern
and complex nation.
At the pinnacle of society
is the emperor Hirohito
the 124th Emperor of Japan.
The constitution
made the Emperor of Japan
a divine figure
literally a living god.
- (speaking Japanese)
- (crowd cheering)
Taken literally, he's a god on Earth,
or a mystical figure who people
aren't really supposed to have
much direct contact with.
Emperor Hirohito is not really
a policymaker in Japan.
He's not the wartime planner.
He doesn't go through details
of tax policy
in the way you would think
a president or prime minister does.
He's a guarantor and a protector
of Japanese tradition.
HANKS: Emperor Hirohito
approves government policy.
But real power lies with
the Japanese army and navy
and its political allies.
They want Imperial Japan
to control Asia.
For the last couple of decades,
it has been a major industrial power,
powerful economy.
Its armed forces have been built up.
It's in a really strong position.
HANKS: The Japanese resent
the Western colonial empires
that dominate Southeast Asia
and control resources.
The British rule over Hong Kong,
Burma, Malaya, and Singapore.
There's French Indochina
and the Dutch East Indies.
Even the United States has territories,
called protectorates,
in Guam and the Philippines.
Japan intends to create what they term
the Greater East Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere
under their leadership.
By this point, Japan is Asia's
pre-eminent power by a long way,
and I think because of that the Japanese
have a sense that they are
destined to bring the
rest of Asia with them.
Japan had an interest
in becoming the supreme power
of not only continental China
but also Asia. "Asia for the Asians"
was one of the propaganda slogans,
one of the key slogans
of the Japanese Empire.
Asia for the Asians was understood
by some Japanese politicians
at the time
as an honest interest
in liberating Asia
from the Western colonisers.
But there were some voices
in the Japanese military
who had a different understanding
of the phrase "Asia for the Asians,"
saying, OK, Asia for the Asians
means actually Asia for Japan.
You get people
in the Japanese government
who are militarists, who have a
very constrained view of the world.
Their attitudes are somewhat disdainful
of Western comfort and softness
and all these sorts of things.
HANKS: The Japanese
believe their soldiers
are the toughest in the world.
They combine modern weapons
with the traditional training
and values of the samurai warrior,
known as the code of Bushido.
Bushido was an older tradition
that had now been inculcated
into the manpower of the Japanese army.
The Japanese didn't choose
this aspect of their history randomly.
They don't have the aircraft
to compete with the West.
They don't have the heavier tanks
and artillery.
There needs to be an equaliser.
And they believe they've
found that equaliser
in the superior fighting spirit
of the Japanese soldier.
HANKS: By 1940,
Japan controls most of China.
In Washington,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
is alarmed
and fears further Japanese aggression
could threaten
the entire Asian Pacific region.
Japan is an authoritarian power
organised and driven
by a theory of racial superiority
on a march of aggressive conquest.
That was what Japan was doing.
Now, the only problem there
is that the United States
has traditionally seen the Pacific
as its own area of operations.
HANKS: Roosevelt is determined
to dislodge Japan from China,
and the Japanese
are determined to stay.
TOM HANKS: To counter continued
Japanese aggression in China,
Roosevelt orders the U.S. fleet
to move from San Diego
to Pearl Harbor, a naval base on Hawaii
2,000 miles
closer to the Japanese mainland.
This is a land
that is an extension of the U.S.
It IS the United States.
HANKS: Roosevelt
is sending a clear signal
he hopes will deter Japan:
the Pacific
is America's sphere of influence.
He wants the fleet to be
positioned far enough forward
that the Japanese take it seriously,
but at the same time
not to be too provocative by moving it
to the Philippines or maybe Singapore.
HANKS: Pearl Harbor
is now the front line
of American naval power in the Pacific.
The Pearl Harbor naval base is perfect,
because it's got a narrow channel
into a wide harbour
with an island right in the middle.
So it looks like a fortress.
HANKS: Outside the naval base
is the thriving city of Honolulu.
The Hawaiian islands
to America looks like a paradise:
beautiful beaches, relaxed culture,
amazing weather.
HANKS: But there are security concerns
among top naval and army commanders.
Because now they are surrounded by
a population that is
disproportionately Asian
and a population that also includes
a very large percentage
of Japanese-Americans.
HANKS: 30% of the population of the
Hawaiian Islands has Japanese heritage.
One of the major fears
is sabotage from
local Japanese-Americans.
General Short, who is in charge
of the army at Hawaii,
is much more afraid
of sabotage than air attack.
So he takes the fighter planes
out of their protective bunkers,
lines 'em up on the airfield,
where he thinks his soldiers
can protect them from sabotage.
Unfortunately, he's presented
a line of sitting ducks.
HANKS: The U.S. expands its profile
in the Pacific
at the same time as Germany's forces
sweep through Europe
and conquer nation after nation.
Hitler doesn't realise what he's done,
but in toppling France,
he's set in motion
a kind of ripple effect of aggression
that is going to move far and wide.
Going back to the First World War,
there's a sense in Japan
that when things happen in Europe,
there's an opportunity
for Japan in Asia.
If they can get their hands
on something
while the big powers are busy
in Europe, they will.
That is exactly what happens
in June 1940.
HANKS: Germany's conquests
present Japan with an opportunity.
Germany now occupies the Netherlands,
colonial ruler
of the oil-rich Dutch East Indies.
Great Britain,
still at war with Germany,
controls the resources
of Malaya, Singapore,
Burma, and Hong Kong.
And the French, who rule Indochina,
have surrendered to the Nazis.
The Japanese now realise
that opportunity is beckoning.
The Dutch can't defend
the Dutch East Indies any longer.
The British are gonna have
a heck of a time
trying to defend Singapore,
and on and on, the French in Indochina.
The resources await.
And it seems to the Japanese
that a once-in-a-century
opportunity has arisen
to seize those colonies.
Who's going to defend them?
So the French are overrun by the Nazis.
You have the Vichy regime being set up.
The Japanese really have their eyes on
Indochina because of the resources there.
The sense that it won't put up a
fight, as France is busy elsewhere.
HANKS: Japan's first target
is French Indochina.
In September 1940,
it pressures
the French Vichy government
to cede to them the northern region.
That same month,
Japan's leaders
sign a formal alliance with Germany
and Italy called the Tripartite Pact.
The three nations
become known as the Axis powers.
One of the characteristics
of the Axis, of course,
is that they were three
hyper-aggressive militant powers
eager for war.
Hey, America (speaking Japanese)
(crowd shouts in Japanese)
They're strange bedfellows.
There seems to be no overlap
between German interests,
which are focused on Eurasia,
Italian interests,
focused on the Mediterranean
and North and East Africa.
Japanese interests are in East Asia.
And so there's no obvious overlap
between the three.
They come together because
they're all kind of outcasts.
The Tripartite Pact
is a marriage of convenience,
to try and put the Americans off
from entering any kind of conflict
with Japan.
There isn't a great deal of ideology
there. It's simply a case of,
how do we keep the Americans
at bay for now
so that we can do
what we need to do in Asia?
HANKS: In the summer of 1941,
the American-Japanese relationship
reaches crisis level
when Japan takes control
over all of French Indochina.
The French yield,
and the Japanese come down,
and they start helping themselves
to the resources they need
to keep the war going.
And then eventually
they just outright take it over.
It's a great source of resources,
also a great staging post
for whatever else you might want
to do in Southeast Asia.
HANKS: Japan now has access
to even more raw materials.
The thinking in Tokyo is, we need
to get tin and bauxite from Malaya.
We need to get oil
from the Dutch East Indies.
We need to get rice
from the Philippines.
Everything you need is there.
It's a no-brainer.
HANKS: The United States
has one major weapon
to force Japan out of China
and Southeast Asia,
and President Roosevelt
is about to use it.
TOM HANKS: In the summer of 1941,
the United States
takes its strongest stand yet
against Japan's territorial ambitions.
The United States has been concerned
about Japanese expansion and aggression
in Asia for some time.
Roosevelt has stopped
short of a military response,
but there's been a series of embargoes:
embargo on weapons,
an embargo on scrap iron.
HANKS: Japan is almost entirely
dependent on oil
imported from the U.S.,
so FDR imposes an embargo
on the Japanese.
In the summer of 1941, America
essentially turns off the tap.
HANKS: The embargo becomes a disaster
for the Japanese economy and military.
By installing an oil embargo,
we have basically said, we are going to
control your future.
The Japanese have to find a way out,
and there's oil nearby.
The Dutch, for example, control huge
amounts of oil in that region,
so it becomes almost a temptation:
why wouldn't you take it,
especially when you feel like
the U.S. had no right
to cut you off from oil
in the first place? Would
a European power stand for it?
Roosevelt turns off the tap,
and the clock is ticking.
HANKS: In Tokyo, the Japanese
make plans to strike back.
Japan thinks about, how do we
get out of this straitjacket?
Well, we have to replace those things
by seizing the raw materials
of Southeast Asia.
And the first step
would be to knock out
the American Pacific fleet.
HANKS: The Japanese finalise plans to
attack American
interests in the Pacific.
There's a sense amongst the Japanese
that the Americans are merchants
rather than warriors,
and that if you do give them
a really bloody nose, they'll think,
actually, this isn't for us.
So if you really show them
some proper steel,
they might back away.
HANKS: But not everyone in Japan
is committed
to conflict with the United States.
Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe
wants to find a peaceful solution.
Very much of a noble background,
he is an internationalist.
He has great relationships
with diplomats in the West.
His big concern, I think, is
how you reach some settlement
with the United States,
and manage to bring the
Japanese military with you.
HANKS: But War Minister Hideki Tojo
is determined to go to war
against America.
Hideki Tojo does have
a very aggressive sense
of what Japan is going to have to do.
The destiny of Japan is to be
the pre-eminent power in Asia,
is to push the Americans out, to push
the British out, to push the Dutch out.
Look at what's happening in Europe.
Look at the success of the Nazis.
That is the way a great power
is going to run itself in future.
HANKS: Emperor Hirohito is caught
between the war and peace factions
in Tokyo.
He gathers his political
and military leaders
for an imperial conference,
where he recites a poem
written by his grandfather,
the Emperor Meiji.
"Across the four seas,
all men are brothers
In such a world, why do the waves rage,
the winds roar?"
The Japanese try to interpret
Hirohito's feelings
about the war from the poem,
but he never states his views
explicitly.
Prime Minister Konoe
still wants to find
a diplomatic solution.
There's no harm done in keeping open
channels of communication.
There are an ambassador
and a special envoy
in Washington talking to
the State Department.
HANKS: But the Americans
still demand that Japan
withdraw from China.
I don't think they see any possibility
that this problem
can be negotiated away.
I think the Japanese have made
a pretty firm decision to go to war.
HANKS: In mid-October 1941,
a frustrated Prime Minister Konoe
resigns.
He tells his government secretary,
"His Imperial Majesty is a pacifist.
I told him that war was a mistake.
He agreed, but the next time
I met him, he leaned more to war.
I felt the Emperor
was absorbing more and more
the view of the army
and navy high commands."
Hirohito heard plans
discussed in detail constantly.
He never really said yes.
But the crucial factor
is that he never said no.
HANKS: War Minister Tojo
becomes the new prime minister.
Japan's destiny is now
in the hands of the military.
In Honolulu, there's a new employee
at the Japanese consulate:
Takeo Yoshikawa.
Takeo Yoshikawa was a member
of the Japanese navy
and was sent to Hawaii as a spy.
Yoshikawa is hoping
that he's going to find
some sympathisers
within the Japanese population
that will give him
additional information.
But what he quickly discovers is,
the vast majority
of the Japanese-Americans on Oahu
are loyal to the United States.
So he's renting planes to take
sightseeing tours around the harbour.
He's driving around town.
He's taking pictures. "I'm a tourist."
He's renting boats to go around
and measure the depth of the harbour.
So he gathers a lot of intelligence
about the daily activities
on the Pacific Fleet.
Yoshikawa is the one
who comes up with the insight
that Sunday morning
really is the best time
to launch an attack
against the Americans.
HANKS: Although meant to deter Japan,
FDR's order to move
the Pacific Fleet base
from California to Pearl Harbor
means it's now
within striking distance.
Roosevelt doesn't really understand
that by moving the fleet
this far forward, it now becomes
a potential target for the Japanese,
because the Americans, in general,
don't understand the sophistication
and level of capability
that the Japanese now have.
HANKS: On a cold Wednesday morning,
a fleet of the Japanese Imperial Navy
heads out into the Pacific.
In overall command
is Grand Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
It was his plan
to launch a surprise attack
against the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Yamamoto has a really good appreciation
for just how powerful
the United States is.
He's lived in the U.S.
He was a naval attache.
He speaks some English.
And so he understands
that any war with the United States
is going to have to be
a very fast affair,
that they've got to get this thing
over as rapidly as possible.
Hit them hard at the outset
and try to go after American morale.
The way he thinks he can do that
is by sinking as many of
our battleships as possible.
Maybe then the Americans
will come to the bargaining table,
and we can get this war over with
in six months, something like that.
HANKS: Key to the operation
is grouping six modern aircraft
carriers together for the attack.
Yamamoto is an airpower advocate.
He has consistently pushed to
beef up Japan's aircraft carriers.
And they create this organisation,
Kido Butai, the Mobile Force.
HANKS: Aircraft carriers
are usually deployed
one at a time,
and their aircraft are tasked
with defending heavy battleships.
The Japanese are like,
we're going to take all our carriers
and put them into a carrier fleet
of six big flight decks
that can now bring 350 aircraft
across the ocean.
That is going to allow the Japanese
to deliver
these enormous pulses of firepower
over the battlefield,
which has never been seen before
in naval warfare.
HANKS: The Japanese
have another challenge:
how do you get this enormous armada
across 3,500 miles of ocean
without being detected?
First, they shut down
radio communications
and travel in silence.
Then, eight oil tankers
sail alongside the fleet.
The ability to refuel at sea
is one of the masterstrokes
of Pearl Harbor,
because your fleet
didn't have to stop at any bases.
This is how the Japanese fleet
could stay radio-silent.
Refuelling at sea
literally allowed the Japanese fleet
to vanish like a ghost.
HANKS: As the Japanese fleet
steams towards Hawaii
in Washington D.C.,
the Japanese and the Americans
continue to negotiate.
On December 6th,
President Roosevelt writes
to Emperor Hirohito directly.
"It is clear that a continuance
of such a situation is unthinkable.
We have a sacred duty
to restore traditional amity
and prevent further death
and destruction in the world."
Roosevelt's saying, look, war would be a
horror, this war that none of us want.
But at this point, Hirohito
has embarked on war.
HANKS: The Japanese fleet
has reached the point of no return.
TOM HANKS: December 7, 1941.
Just before 4 a.m.,
a patrol ship, the U.S.S. Ward,
receives a message.
A small submarine has been spotted
in the area near Pearl Harbor.
At 6.40 a.m.,
the Ward drops depth charges
on the submarine.
They send a sighting report upstairs.
The people at Pearl Harbor
look at it and they're like,
this is a brand-new captain.
He's only been on duty for a day.
He probably doesn't know
what he's doing. Don't worry about it.
Even though the Ward
has successfully fired
the first shot in this war,
her report is completely ignored.
HANKS: 20 minutes later,
two young radar operators
spot a huge formation of planes
approaching the area.
They report it to their senior officer.
He knows that there's a group
of American B-17s
that are due in this morning
that should be coming
from roughly that direction.
And the result is:
He tells those two radar operators,
don't worry about it.
(planes droning)
HANKS: 183 Japanese planes
descend on Pearl Harbor
in the first wave of the attack.
Their target: the airfields.
The result is going to be
this concentrated bombing attack
to try to put as many planes
out of business
at the outset of the attack.
HANKS: At 7.55 a.m
the first bombs hit.
You hear the planes:
they're doing training early today!
And then when all of a sudden
things start to explode,
Oh man, someone's gettin in trouble
cause this training is way out of hand.
(explosions)
HANKS: At 8 a.m. on Honolulu,
the Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa
tunes his radio in to a
Japanese weather forecast.
The announcer uses the phrase,
"Higashi no kaze ame."
"East wind, rain." It's code.
The attack on America is underway.
Another formation of Japanese aircraft
dive on the ships
anchored along Battleship Row.
Torpedo planes at low level
and overhead bombers.
(bombs whistling)
(explosions)
It's not until ships
actually start exploding
bullets start ripping through the
decks that they realise:
Oh my god, this is real.
Torpedo attacks
are very, very successful.
The Oklahoma and the West Virginia
are very heavily hit.
Oklahoma ends up capsizing,
trapping hundreds of men
in this overturned ship.
HANKS: Over 400 sailors and marines
die on the U.S.S. Oklahoma.
At the same time,
level bombers are coming in overhead
and dropping their bombs.
One of them lands a devastating hit
on the battleship Arizona
and destroys her
in just the blink of an eye.
HANKS: The explosion
on the U.S.S. Arizona
kills 1,117 men.
So if you think about every,
you know, soldier, sailor, marine,
they cannot connect the idea
of what is happening.
There are bombs exploding,
ships sinking.
There are men on fire.
There are body parts flying around.
Imagine trying to wrap your mind
around all that.
HANKS: After two waves of attack
the Japanese withdraw.
(sombre music)
188 U.S. aircraft are destroyed.
1,178 servicemen and civilians
are wounded.
2,403 are dead.
But the United States Navy's
aircraft carriers are at sea
and escape the devastation.
If we want to talk about the grand
inflection point in World War II,
it's December 7, 1941.
At 7.55, it's the world
as we've always known it.
15 minutes later, at 8.10,
the world is different.
We are now at war.
(dramatic music)
HANKS: The America that wakes up
on December 8, 1941
is a different country.
The country's being tested.
Are we up to this?
Can we meet this challenge?
We are being put in the balance,
and would we be found wanting or not?
HANKS: Prime Minister Tojo
tells the Japanese people
about the victory of its navy
at Pearl Harbor.
He also tells them that Japan
has attacked Singapore, Hong Kong,
Malaya, Wake Island,
Guam, and the Philippines.
(gunfire)
While American attention
is focused on the surprise attack
(gunfire)
the Japanese are bombing
and launching invasions all around.
They're bombing Malaya,
they're bombing the Philippines.
HANKS: At 12.30 p.m.,
Congress assembles.
Yesterday, December 7, 1941
a date which will live in infamy
the United States of America
was suddenly and deliberately attacked
by naval and air forces
of the Empire of Japan.
He dictated a good part of the speech
to his secretary, Grace Tully,
and the initial formulation was,
"Yesterday, December 7, 1941,
a date
which will live in world history."
And at some point,
before he gets to Capitol Hill,
he writes in his wonderful handwriting,
"date which will live in infamy."
So it was his edit of his own dictation
that created an indelible phrase.
I ask
that the Congress declare
that since the unprovoked
and dastardly attack
by Japan on Sunday, December 7,
1941,
a state of war has existed
between the United States
and the Japanese Empire.
(applause)
Look very carefully
at what Franklin Roosevelt said
on the 8th of December:
"We are declaring war
against the Empire of Japan."
He does not mention Germany.
The 8th goes by. The 9th goes by.
The 10th goes by.
And not until the 11th,
when Hitler decides
to declare war on the United States,
did the United States then, in turn,
declare war on Germany.
HANKS: America now faces
a global war on two fronts.
We were dragged into this.
Let's be very clear.
The United States did not wake up
in the middle of the 20th century
and decide to defeat tyranny.
Tyranny had to force us
into a struggle we now recognise
to be the great existential struggle,
arguably, of the last millennium.
But it was not a
quick or easy date with destiny.
We are now in this war.
We're all in it, all the way.
Every single man, woman, and child
is a partner
in the most tremendous undertaking
of our American history.
It will not only be a long war,
it'll be a hard war.
We are going to win the war.
And we are going to win
the peace that follows.
America is now at war,
the most devastating in world history.
Germany reigns from the Atlantic
to the outskirts of Moscow.
Imperial Japan
has swept across the Pacific,
forcing America into an armed struggle
it is not yet ready to fight,
not on land, not in the air,
not at sea.