World War II with Tom Hanks (2026) s01e06 Episode Script
Guadalcanal
Sub extracted from file & improved by
It's hard to comprehend the scale
of the Pacific-Asian theatre of war.
It stretches from Hawaii to Burma,
from the Aleutian Islands to Indochina.
In 1942, the United States
sends fighting men
to far-off places most
Americans had never heard of.
They are soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and Marines
from every town in America.
They will confront
an enemy whose moral code
does not permit surrender.
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 siren blaring]
[airplane engines whirring]
NARRATOR: Hours after the attack
on Pearl Harbor,
Japan invades the Philippines.
They begin with a devastating strike
against the US air base
at Clark Field
Then land 35,000 troops
and advance on the capital, Manila.
American and Filipino forces
are overwhelmed.
Within weeks, Manila is captured.
[tank engines rumbling]
There was a Philippine war plan
that in the event of a
Japanese major invasion,
the forces would withdraw to Bataan.
Bataan is strategically
located next to Manila Bay.
It's this rocky peninsula.
It's got two dormant volcanoes that
are sitting in the middle of it,
and so it's really good
defensive terrain.
NARRATOR: On December 23, 1941,
US and Filipino troops
begin their retreat
to the Peninsula of Bataan.
[car horn honking]
You have this chaotic retreat.
About 100,000 US and Filipino troops,
and we should add the 25,000 civilians,
Filipino but also Americans,
now desperate to escape
the attacking Japanese.
NARRATOR: As the troops retreat,
the Japanese continue following
a well-planned,
well-coordinated offensive
aimed at British and Dutch colonies.
They have already invaded
Burma, Borneo, and Malaya.
They take Hong Kong on Christmas Day,
then move further into Malaya.
Malaya is considered
difficult jungle terrain.
But the Japanese,
using bicycle infantry and some tanks,
manage to push south
to the island of Singapore
known as the Gibraltar of the East.
Singapore was our military base,
with its massive naval facilities
guns facing into the sea
so that it could protect that position,
and really a military HQ
for the Empire in the Far East.
NARRATOR: They begin
their assault on February 8th.
[cannons booming]
Winston Churchill, back in London,
is looking on in horror.
He's an Empire man.
He said many times,
he didn't come to power
to oversee the liquidation
of His Majesty's empire,
but it's crumbling before his eyes.
Churchill cannot abandon
the defence of Britain
and the Battle of the Atlantic.
He cannot risk losing the
whole of the Mediterranean,
North Africa, and the Middle East,
to Axis forces.
So what's got to go?
Unfortunately for Churchill,
he's got to scrimp
and save when it comes
to defence in the Far East.
It's just too much
for Britain to handle.
[distant gunfire]
NARRATOR: The Japanese take advantage
of British military mistakes
and capture the island
in only seven days.
Tens of thousands
of Commonwealth troops
are trapped and imprisoned.
Singapore was the granite foundation
of the British Empire
in Asia, and, boom
in the space of days, it falls.
The idea that Japanese forces
could go into this historic place,
a real symbol of British power
and prestige in Asia,
and take it within such a short time
is absolutely tremendous as
far as Japanese are concerned.
This is Britain's Fall of Rome moment
in its Asian empire.
Japan has plunged into the war
and is ravaging the beautiful,
fertile, prosperous,
and densely populated lands
of the Far East.
The British Empire now for centuries
had been the most powerful
empire the world had ever seen.
The Japanese had cracked it
like an egg.
[cannons booming]
By the time the shock of Pearl Harbor,
you know, wears off,
the Japanese have taken their empire
and expanded it seemingly overnight.
[cannons booming]
NARRATOR: Japan's Asian offensive
has two primary war aims.
First, the seizure of raw materials
like oil and rubber.
Second, to replace
the Western colonial powers
who have long dominated the region
and establish an empire of their own.
This is one of the most audacious
offensives in military history.
[soldiers cheering]
In late 1941, early 1942,
it's good news every week,
almost every day, coming in.
They are liberating Asia.
They are pushing back
white Western colonial power.
[bombs whistling]
NARRATOR: The speed and scope
of the Japanese offensive
stuns the world.
A year earlier,
General Tomoyuki Yamashita,
the commander of the assault
on the Philippines,
consults with Japan's
Axis ally, Nazi Germany.
Japan is eager to adapt
the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg tactics
to a very different theatre of war.
He was really admiring
the German blitzkrieg,
the German lightning war,
and he took the German blitzkrieg
as the role model for a future
Japanese war in Southeast Asia.
So we must surprise the enemy.
We must be fast.
[cannons booming]
It's always movement,
movement, movement.
For the enemy, for their
enemy, for the Allies,
it looks like the Japanese
aren't even thinking
about what they're doing,
because they're moving so fast
and they're moving constantly.
But this has a kind of shock
effect on the troops there
that are trying to defend
the peninsula.
The Japanese
have learned to move quickly,
move stealthily.
They fight well at night,
which is what most armies
are not good at.
They are pretty good
at operational art;
don't attack strongpoints,
envelop the enemy,
put them in untenable positions
either in time or space.
And, hence, it defines a lot of
their victories early in the war.
The British underestimate the Japanese.
I think part of that was racism.
I think they were astonished
that a non-European race
could defeat Europeans in battle.
They didn't consider
Asian people capable
of what the Japanese are doing.
After the Japanese land in Malaya,
Singapore's governor,
Sir Shenton Thomas, allegedly says,
"Well, I suppose you'll have
to shove the little men off."
NARRATOR:
But British hubris is no match
for Japanese military prowess.
There had always been this faction
in the Imperial Japanese Army called
the Kodoha, the Imperial Way Faction,
whose belief was, because
of Japan's extraordinary
fighting spirit
in the blood of their soldiers,
we can overcome the odds.
And that really is drummed
into the soldiers.
So there is this esprit de corps
within the Japanese Army.
It's guided by this belief in Bushido,
the way of the warrior.
[distant soldier shouts]
NARRATOR: Japanese
military discipline is instilled
by physically harsh measures.
Officers abuse
non-commissioned officers,
who in turn abuse the men.
You can see in diaries
and in letters home people saying,
"I got beaten up today.
I got slapped. I got punched.
I had a rifle butt
get me in the stomach."
There is a fair amount
of ritualistic abuse
that takes place as they go through
what they would refer to as lessons.
It's all about self-sacrifice.
They are all about suppressing
individual needs and desires
for the sense of whatever
the nation needs,
for whatever the emperor might need.
NARRATOR:
In just two months of fighting,
Japan has achieved
most of its objectives
and appears to be winning the war
except in the Philippines,
where US and Filipino troops
are fighting back.
[gunfire]
NARRATOR: After more
than a month of fighting,
US and Filipino forces
continue to resist the Japanese
on the Bataan Peninsula.
But supplies, food, and ammunition
are running perilously short.
Supplies, provisions, ammunition,
they're strewn about
the Philippine Islands,
and they're not where
the defenders need them.
The American forces are now
completely isolated and surrounded.
[cannons booming]
They don't have what they need
to survive.
The men spend a lot of their time
just foraging for food.
Every snake, monkey,
anything within the Bataan Peninsula
is fair game.
NARRATOR: The commanding officer
of both American
and Filipino troops in the Philippines
is the charismatic and controversial
General Douglas MacArthur.
MacArthur's the son
of a Civil War hero.
He's confident, courageous,
a proven battlefield leader.
MacArthur's begging for more troops,
for more supplies, for more ships,
but none of those things are coming.
The US doesn't have them.
The Japanese, of course, they're coming
after MacArthur's force.
They know they can't leave an
army like this with MacArthur
and consider the Philippines
have been occupied.
NARRATOR: In Washington,
President Roosevelt faces
a very difficult situation.
The American people expect
the troops to be supported,
but he knows resupplying
and reinforcing Bataan
is impossible.
Also, for both political
and symbolic reasons,
he must retrieve General MacArthur
from the Philippines.
You couldn't afford to let
MacArthur be captured.
You couldn't do it because it was
bad for the American spirit.
You can't let a man like this go down.
He's a figure of history.
[airplane engines whirring]
MacArthur does everything that he can
to inspire his troops in Bataan,
and he's prepared
to go down with the ship.
NARRATOR: But FDR orders MacArthur
to leave the Philippines.
Three weeks later,
he sends a rescue operation,
and MacArthur,
with his wife and young son,
leaves the Philippines
on a small torpedo boat.
He promises, "I will return."
And this is his commitment
to the American people,
but, more importantly, to himself.
NARRATOR: Knowing that
America must make a stand,
General MacArthur issues
a final order to his men.
MacArthur orders the garrison
to fight to the last,
which is completely unrealistic.
Soldiers are dying in medical tents
merely because there's not
enough medicine to save them.
So everybody's in a weakened condition.
But the defence is quite heroic.
[explosions]
NARRATOR: But the soldiers on Bataan
realise they're being sacrificed.
So "The Battling Bastards
of Bataan" is written
by a journalist named Hewlett.
"The Battling Bastards of Bataan
"no mamas, no papas, no Uncle Sam,
"no aunts, no uncles,
no cousins, no nieces,
"no pills, no planes,
no artillery pieces.
And no one gives a damn."
For all the people left in Bataan,
I'm sure that's exactly
what they thought.
NARRATOR: After four months
of fatigue, hunger, and disease
the Bataan garrison surrenders.
But their ordeal is just beginning.
The Japanese didn't expect
that so many Allied defenders
of the Philippines
would actually surrender
and become prisoners of war.
One of the things you're
taught in the Japanese military
is you don't surrender.
You're disgracing your family.
You're disgracing
your home, your village,
your country, the emperor.
Surrender is dishonourable, not
only to yourself but to your family.
Anybody who surrenders
is inherently dishonourable.
The idea that you would surrender
and that you would expect
to be treated with respect
having done so really is disgusting
to a lot of the Japanese soldiers.
NARRATOR: The Japanese
march the 75,000 American
and Filipino troops
to a POW camp 65 miles north of Bataan.
These men are exhausted.
They're malnourished.
The Japanese, they line them up,
and they march them out.
In 110-degree heat with no food,
no water,
and Japanese guards just beating you
and kicking you and stabbing you
the whole way.
And so, if you're a recruit out there
and you've received umpteen beatings
from your own senior officers
on the way to where you are now,
then it's a very short hop to having
a Westerner in front of you,
asking for food, asking for water,
and slapping them, punching them,
perhaps even shooting them.
The Japanese will drink their canteens
and then dump the contents
out on the roadside.
Wounded troops will fall to the ground.
They will be instantly
bayoneted or shot.
They have been taught to regard
Western soldiers, and I think
white Western civilians generally,
with really no respect at all.
These people are lesser
almost to the point of being
a slightly lesser species.
NARRATOR: Thousands die
on what will become known
as the Bataan Death March.
The loss of the Philippines
will cripple
America's military capability
in the Pacific for months.
It's also a serious blow
to morale at home.
In a matter of just a few months,
the Japanese have conquered an empire
of 500 million people.
NARRATOR: The Japanese have
the upper hand in the Pacific.
It's not clear what
or who can stop them.
Spring in Tokyo
Japan controls vast areas of
the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
To protect this growing empire,
Japan will consolidate
its new territory
and push into various island chains
to create an even stronger barrier
against the United States.
The Japanese saying, we got to
consolidate our position quickly.
We have to create a defensive bastion
between the United States and Japan.
So all these island chains
threaded like pearls,
they have got to be strengthened.
They've got to be fortified into
some kind of defensive perimeter.
NARRATOR: Japan deploys
thousands of troops
to outposts stretching
far into the South Pacific.
The Japanese are making absolutely sure
that what they've got, they will hold.
NARRATOR: In the US,
war production accelerates.
FDR calls for 60,000 planes
and 125,000 tanks
to be produced in 1942.
And in June, the US Navy
defeats the Japanese
at the Battle of Midway.
It's Japan's first decisive defeat.
The victory at Midway
has taken place in June 1942,
but this is a naval victory.
It's only directed
against Japanese warships.
Eventually, the Americans know
they're going to have
to retake real estate.
They're going to actually
have to capture islands.
The Japanese plan in the South Pacific
is to build a lot of airstrips,
which are going to allow them
to use air power
to defend these stronghold positions.
NARRATOR: To counter,
America sends in the old breed;
the 1st Marine Division.
Marine Corps was always
"soldiers from the sea,"
back in the Revolution
when we invade Nassau, right?
We are meant to come from the sea.
That's the mission,
in support of the navy.
That's their purpose.
After World War I,
what they really start to do
is turn their attention to, what
does the next war look like?
And what they start to realise is,
Japan is becoming
a power in the Pacific.
If we're going to fight in the Pacific,
then we need to figure out how
to conduct amphibious landings.
NARRATOR: Amphibious landings
on this scale are unprecedented.
Well, there's no sneaking up
on an island.
They can see ships coming.
So everything across a beach
is a frontal assault
machine guns, rapid-fire artillery.
It's suicide, terrible idea.
And the Marine Corps goes,
"Got it, we'll take that one."
And that's how they get
into amphibious operations,
because that would be
what was necessary
to operate in the Pacific.
The training for the US Marine Corps
is probably the toughest in
the US armed forces at this point.
They are designed
for amphibious warfare
but to travel relatively lightly,
because, of course, if you
attack a coast from the sea,
you can't take much
heavy equipment with you.
Their job is as an elite assault force.
But don't leave them
in a campaign for too long,
because they don't have
all the heavy weapons
to be able to do the job over
a considerable period of time.
The Navy has ships, and the
Army has tanks and artillery.
What does the Marine Corps have?
It has culture.
So if you join the Marine Corps,
it's because maybe you
can be one of those elite.
You know you get to go fight
the Japanese.
The majority are new recruits.
They are relatively inexperienced.
They've had some
pretty hurried training.
And now all of a sudden, in 1942,
they're going to go into action against
what they know and fear
is a very formidable opponent.
They've read a lot of the stories
about how the Japanese
are almost supermen.
Until we actually face them
in close combat,
we'll never know if we're good
enough to take on these guys.
NARRATOR: In the summer of 1942
an American B-17 on routine patrol
reports that the Japanese are building
an airstrip on the largest
of the Solomon Islands
Guadalcanal.
If the Japanese are successful,
they will build
an airbase on Guadalcanal
and potentially sever
the lines of communication
with Australia,
which is meant to be
a jumping-off point
for any campaign that's going to come
from the Southern Pacific.
We cannot let that happen.
The Americans know
that Australia is crucial
to their hold over the Pacific.
What's at stake, certainly for
the United States Marine Corps is,
they've hitched their horse to
this idea of amphibious operations.
Now they actually
have to go execute it.
If the Americans are going to roll back
Japanese power in the Pacific
it's going to have to be
boots on the ground,
and boots on the ground
it will be in Guadalcanal.
NARRATOR: Early on August 7, 1942
the 1st Marine division
approaches Guadalcanal.
They are the first US troops to
take the offensive in World War II.
What's interesting
about all amphibious landings
is that if they're opposed
and you don't really understand
the terrain you're getting into,
there's always
the possibility of disaster,
and that was absolutely
the case at Guadalcanal.
[cannons booming]
NARRATOR: After the naval
bombardment, the Marines will land
and attempt to capture the airfield
and secure the island.
The intelligence for the landings
at Guadalcanal is so thin
that they don't know
what the interior looks like,
and they certainly don't know
how many defending troops are there.
[soldiers shouting]
NARRATOR:
10,000 Marines reach the shore.
To their relief,
the landing is unopposed.
There are no Japanese
defending the beachhead.
The Japanese have only
2,500 men on the island,
most of them conscripted labour
to build the airfield.
The Marines are astonished
at how easy it is.
They move inland and then very
quickly capture the airfield.
NARRATOR: The Marines
build a defensive perimeter
around the airstrip,
which they name Henderson Field,
after a Marine dive bomber
killed at the Battle of Midway.
Supplies for the Marines on Guadalcanal
are being held just offshore
by a US Navy task force
anchored in Savo Sound.
But two days after the landing,
the calm of Savo Sound is shattered.
[cannons booming]
It's the middle of the night.
These American cruisers are asleep.
They don't come
to battle stations quickly.
[cannons booming]
In the space of 25 to 30 minutes,
the Japanese have sunk
four Allied cruisers,
killed more than 1,000 Allied sailors.
So it's a disastrous defeat
for the Americans,
the worst naval defeat
since Pearl Harbor.
You've got bodies
washing up on the shore.
It's grisly.
NARRATOR: So many
American ships are sunk
that Savo Sound is christened
Ironbottom Sound.
Vulnerable to air attack,
the task force pulls out
before they've unloaded all the
Marines' food and ammunition.
General Vandegrift is the commander
of the 1st Marine Division.
He's understandably upset
that the Navy have skedaddled.
But it's absolutely vital also
that he gives a sense
of confidence to his men.
We're going to get through this.
We are US Marines, after all.
NARRATOR: The first wave
of Japanese troops land east
of the Marines' defensive
perimeter on August 18th.
Their objective Henderson Airfield.
The airfield is in a key position
to maintain the shipping lanes
from America to Australia.
That supply line is like
the Allied sciatic nerve.
So this is a very serious development.
It must have been
very spooky for the Marines.
They are abandoned on the island.
They can hear the Japanese ships
coming in.
They know there must be trouble ahead.
What options do ground forces have?
You can attack, you can defend,
and you can retreat.
Well, guess what.
The Marines can no longer retreat.
So, no matter what,
we're going to have to fight it out.
NARRATOR: The untested Marines
are about to face
Japanese soldiers for the first time.
NARRATOR: On Guadalcanal,
the 1st Marine Division
is dug in around Henderson Airfield,
bracing for a Japanese assault.
Commanding the Japanese troops
is the veteran colonel Kiyonao Ichiki.
The Marines know that
all the Japanese have done
up to this point is win.
They start to almost have
these superpowers.
They're quiet at night.
They're all snipers.
They don't require any rest.
They're fanatical.
All of these things start to build
almost a super-samurai adversary.
NARRATOR: On August 21st,
Ichiki's troops attack
the Marine lines.
The Marines respond with rifle, mortar,
and machine gun fire.
[gunfire]
The Japanese have got about 200 guys
trying to get across this sandspit,
and they're mown down.
[gunfire]
Ichiki just sloughs that off.
He'll launch two more attacks.
The Marines will beat them back.
NARRATOR: The fighting is brutal
Often hand-to-hand.
[explosion]
Some Japanese soldiers even
use ancestral samurai swords.
The battle doesn't end
until 5:00 that evening.
44 Marines are dead
But nearly 900 Japanese soldiers
are killed.
The Marines are stunned.
How could a battalion commander
throw 900 men away?
Who would do that?
NARRATOR: After the battle,
Colonel Ichiki commits suicide.
Just a single Japanese soldier
surrenders.
They may look dead,
but if they've got a weapon,
they're going to shoot you
when you go past.
If they've got a grenade,
they may blow themselves up
with a grenade to kill you.
This is a different kind of enemy.
The US Marines on Guadalcanal realise
that to combat that
and to protect themselves,
they're going to have
to be equally ruthless.
And this produced an incredibly
brutal form of warfare
that I think was unequalled
in the Second World War.
NARRATOR: The Marines now
understand what will be required
to defend Guadalcanal.
The island has become a proving ground
for a generation of young Americans.
[distant explosions, gunfire]
The Japanese conduct regular
airstrikes on Henderson Field
[explosion]
And continue to move men and supplies
into attacking positions.
Every night the Japanese
are using fast transports
and depositing troops
and supplies on Guadalcanal,
via what's going to be known
as the Tokyo Express.
They are absolutely determined
to retake this island.
Their whole strategy
for moving forward
in the Southern Pacific
is based on recapturing Guadalcanal,
and they're going to pretty much send
as many troops as they can
to make sure that they do the job.
Vandegrift and his staff start taking
preventative action
in case they're overwhelmed,
so they start burning
vital intelligence papers.
NARRATOR:
By October, the Japanese force
has more than doubled its size.
But the US Navy is able
to resupply the Marines
from newly constructed supply bases.
Guadalcanal is now
a battle of attrition
who will give in first?
The Japanese are very good
at night attacks,
and so nights are horrific.
Imagine being a 19-
or 20-year-old American kid,
and you're in a foxhole, maybe
with one other person, right?
One guy sleeps. The other is on watch.
And you can hear the other
foxholes with your compatriots,
but they're not visible in the dark.
Remember, these islands
are really black as night.
And you hear screaming
from another foxhole.
[soldier screams]
[distant gunfire]
This is life or death.
You go to sleep, you may not wake up.
This man was with you 24 hours ago.
Now his throat's cut
in the foxhole next to you.
This is a war of man against man.
This is personal.
And as darkness comes down every night,
the fear grows deeper and deeper.
[explosion]
NARRATOR: Even though
they're deprived of sleep,
lack sufficient food,
and battle tropical diseases,
the Marines maintain their morale.
But their casualty rate is climbing,
and they begin to suspect
they're being abandoned.
A lot of people are
catching malaria, dysentery.
They don't have enough food.
They're just becoming increasingly
incapable of functioning.
NARRATOR: General Vandegrift
estimates that less than half
his force is fit enough to fight.
The Japanese are still coming.
Guadalcanal is going to be
where the Japanese teach
the Americans the cost
of punching a hole
in that defence perimeter.
They'll say,
look at the effort it took.
Look at the number of men
you lost on Guadalcanal.
How long do you think it'll take you
to batter your way across the Pacific?
NARRATOR: One night,
two months into the battle
the Japanese deliver
a bombardment designed
to crush the Marines' spirits.
But the Marines just dig
their foxholes deeper.
1,000 shells are sent over
in 80 minutes.
We're talking about 14-inch shells,
described by some of the guys
like the weight of small cars.
NARRATOR: Most of the Marines'
planes at Henderson Field
are destroyed in the bombardment.
The US reinforces the Marines
but the Japanese reinforce
their troops as well.
Control of the island
and the entire US campaign
in the Pacific is at stake.
All eyes are on Guadalcanal.
NARRATOR: In America, Guadalcanal
is front-page news.
It's on everyone's minds.
It was observed,
Guadalcanal is not a name,
but an emotion.
You young Americans today
are conducting yourselves
in a manner that is worthy
of the highest,
proudest traditions of our nation.
All the attention
of the American public
is focused on this island.
Roosevelt knows
this is the first big American
ground offensive of the war.
It's going horribly wrong.
They have to hold on to Guadalcanal.
Roosevelt sends a note
to the Joint Chiefs and says,
"I want to be sure of something:
that every available man,
ship, and plane
is being devoted
to the struggle on Guadalcanal."
We here at home are supremely conscious
of our obligations to you.
We will not let you down.
NARRATOR: The campaign
gets a new commander,
Admiral William "Bull" Halsey.
Halsey's coming into this campaign
is like a defibrillator on the heart.
Halsey looks the part.
Halsey is this leathery, old
commander who's been successful.
He's a can-do, combative guy.
He can't wait to get to the Japanese.
His line was, "You hit 'em
hard, you hit 'em fast,
and you hit 'em often."
This is entirely
in keeping with the mentality
of your average Marine.
NARRATOR: Admiral Halsey
promises the Marines
all the support they need
on Guadalcanal.
In just a few weeks, he gets
the chance to demonstrate it.
A large Japanese fleet
carrying 14,000 troops
is approaching Guadalcanal.
This body of water is
the size of a bathtub.
So risking your battleships
to send them up to Ironbottom Sound,
I mean, it honestly
makes the hair stand up
on the back of my neck even now.
But Halsey is determined
that he is going to fight
with everything that he's got,
and so he pushes all his chips
into the middle of the table.
NARRATOR: Halsey instructs
the US Navy task force
to attack the Japanese fleet
in the sound.
[cannons booming]
For two days
American and Japanese warships
battle in Savo Sound.
The fighting is fierce.
It's ship-to-ship combat
at its most intense.
Nearly 2,000 Americans are killed
but the Japanese
are only able to land
a quarter of their force.
Bull Halsey and the US Navy
have turned the tide
and the Japanese begin
to withdraw from Guadalcanal.
Most of the Marines on Guadalcanal
are relieved by the US Army.
A generation of Americans
have proven to the world
that they're capable
of fighting this war.
But Guadalcanal has also revealed
how long and difficult
this conflict is going to be
and how steep the price of victory.
It was the first clash of arms
between the Japanese Army
and American Marines and soldiers.
And in that victory,
the Americans came out ahead.
Halsey put it best when
he said, prior to the battle,
the Japanese advanced at their will.
After the battle,
they retreated at ours.
It's a long road to Tokyo,
but Guadalcanal is the first step.
The Marines who hold the line
for months on Guadalcanal
are sure their country
has forgotten them.
But when the 1st Marine Division
is relieved by army units
and sent to Australia to recuperate,
they learn
that they're actually heroes.
That year, in 1942,
Hitler escalates his campaign
against the Jews of Europe
to an unimaginable level.
It's hard to comprehend the scale
of the Pacific-Asian theatre of war.
It stretches from Hawaii to Burma,
from the Aleutian Islands to Indochina.
In 1942, the United States
sends fighting men
to far-off places most
Americans had never heard of.
They are soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and Marines
from every town in America.
They will confront
an enemy whose moral code
does not permit surrender.
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 siren blaring]
[airplane engines whirring]
NARRATOR: Hours after the attack
on Pearl Harbor,
Japan invades the Philippines.
They begin with a devastating strike
against the US air base
at Clark Field
Then land 35,000 troops
and advance on the capital, Manila.
American and Filipino forces
are overwhelmed.
Within weeks, Manila is captured.
[tank engines rumbling]
There was a Philippine war plan
that in the event of a
Japanese major invasion,
the forces would withdraw to Bataan.
Bataan is strategically
located next to Manila Bay.
It's this rocky peninsula.
It's got two dormant volcanoes that
are sitting in the middle of it,
and so it's really good
defensive terrain.
NARRATOR: On December 23, 1941,
US and Filipino troops
begin their retreat
to the Peninsula of Bataan.
[car horn honking]
You have this chaotic retreat.
About 100,000 US and Filipino troops,
and we should add the 25,000 civilians,
Filipino but also Americans,
now desperate to escape
the attacking Japanese.
NARRATOR: As the troops retreat,
the Japanese continue following
a well-planned,
well-coordinated offensive
aimed at British and Dutch colonies.
They have already invaded
Burma, Borneo, and Malaya.
They take Hong Kong on Christmas Day,
then move further into Malaya.
Malaya is considered
difficult jungle terrain.
But the Japanese,
using bicycle infantry and some tanks,
manage to push south
to the island of Singapore
known as the Gibraltar of the East.
Singapore was our military base,
with its massive naval facilities
guns facing into the sea
so that it could protect that position,
and really a military HQ
for the Empire in the Far East.
NARRATOR: They begin
their assault on February 8th.
[cannons booming]
Winston Churchill, back in London,
is looking on in horror.
He's an Empire man.
He said many times,
he didn't come to power
to oversee the liquidation
of His Majesty's empire,
but it's crumbling before his eyes.
Churchill cannot abandon
the defence of Britain
and the Battle of the Atlantic.
He cannot risk losing the
whole of the Mediterranean,
North Africa, and the Middle East,
to Axis forces.
So what's got to go?
Unfortunately for Churchill,
he's got to scrimp
and save when it comes
to defence in the Far East.
It's just too much
for Britain to handle.
[distant gunfire]
NARRATOR: The Japanese take advantage
of British military mistakes
and capture the island
in only seven days.
Tens of thousands
of Commonwealth troops
are trapped and imprisoned.
Singapore was the granite foundation
of the British Empire
in Asia, and, boom
in the space of days, it falls.
The idea that Japanese forces
could go into this historic place,
a real symbol of British power
and prestige in Asia,
and take it within such a short time
is absolutely tremendous as
far as Japanese are concerned.
This is Britain's Fall of Rome moment
in its Asian empire.
Japan has plunged into the war
and is ravaging the beautiful,
fertile, prosperous,
and densely populated lands
of the Far East.
The British Empire now for centuries
had been the most powerful
empire the world had ever seen.
The Japanese had cracked it
like an egg.
[cannons booming]
By the time the shock of Pearl Harbor,
you know, wears off,
the Japanese have taken their empire
and expanded it seemingly overnight.
[cannons booming]
NARRATOR: Japan's Asian offensive
has two primary war aims.
First, the seizure of raw materials
like oil and rubber.
Second, to replace
the Western colonial powers
who have long dominated the region
and establish an empire of their own.
This is one of the most audacious
offensives in military history.
[soldiers cheering]
In late 1941, early 1942,
it's good news every week,
almost every day, coming in.
They are liberating Asia.
They are pushing back
white Western colonial power.
[bombs whistling]
NARRATOR: The speed and scope
of the Japanese offensive
stuns the world.
A year earlier,
General Tomoyuki Yamashita,
the commander of the assault
on the Philippines,
consults with Japan's
Axis ally, Nazi Germany.
Japan is eager to adapt
the Wehrmacht's blitzkrieg tactics
to a very different theatre of war.
He was really admiring
the German blitzkrieg,
the German lightning war,
and he took the German blitzkrieg
as the role model for a future
Japanese war in Southeast Asia.
So we must surprise the enemy.
We must be fast.
[cannons booming]
It's always movement,
movement, movement.
For the enemy, for their
enemy, for the Allies,
it looks like the Japanese
aren't even thinking
about what they're doing,
because they're moving so fast
and they're moving constantly.
But this has a kind of shock
effect on the troops there
that are trying to defend
the peninsula.
The Japanese
have learned to move quickly,
move stealthily.
They fight well at night,
which is what most armies
are not good at.
They are pretty good
at operational art;
don't attack strongpoints,
envelop the enemy,
put them in untenable positions
either in time or space.
And, hence, it defines a lot of
their victories early in the war.
The British underestimate the Japanese.
I think part of that was racism.
I think they were astonished
that a non-European race
could defeat Europeans in battle.
They didn't consider
Asian people capable
of what the Japanese are doing.
After the Japanese land in Malaya,
Singapore's governor,
Sir Shenton Thomas, allegedly says,
"Well, I suppose you'll have
to shove the little men off."
NARRATOR:
But British hubris is no match
for Japanese military prowess.
There had always been this faction
in the Imperial Japanese Army called
the Kodoha, the Imperial Way Faction,
whose belief was, because
of Japan's extraordinary
fighting spirit
in the blood of their soldiers,
we can overcome the odds.
And that really is drummed
into the soldiers.
So there is this esprit de corps
within the Japanese Army.
It's guided by this belief in Bushido,
the way of the warrior.
[distant soldier shouts]
NARRATOR: Japanese
military discipline is instilled
by physically harsh measures.
Officers abuse
non-commissioned officers,
who in turn abuse the men.
You can see in diaries
and in letters home people saying,
"I got beaten up today.
I got slapped. I got punched.
I had a rifle butt
get me in the stomach."
There is a fair amount
of ritualistic abuse
that takes place as they go through
what they would refer to as lessons.
It's all about self-sacrifice.
They are all about suppressing
individual needs and desires
for the sense of whatever
the nation needs,
for whatever the emperor might need.
NARRATOR:
In just two months of fighting,
Japan has achieved
most of its objectives
and appears to be winning the war
except in the Philippines,
where US and Filipino troops
are fighting back.
[gunfire]
NARRATOR: After more
than a month of fighting,
US and Filipino forces
continue to resist the Japanese
on the Bataan Peninsula.
But supplies, food, and ammunition
are running perilously short.
Supplies, provisions, ammunition,
they're strewn about
the Philippine Islands,
and they're not where
the defenders need them.
The American forces are now
completely isolated and surrounded.
[cannons booming]
They don't have what they need
to survive.
The men spend a lot of their time
just foraging for food.
Every snake, monkey,
anything within the Bataan Peninsula
is fair game.
NARRATOR: The commanding officer
of both American
and Filipino troops in the Philippines
is the charismatic and controversial
General Douglas MacArthur.
MacArthur's the son
of a Civil War hero.
He's confident, courageous,
a proven battlefield leader.
MacArthur's begging for more troops,
for more supplies, for more ships,
but none of those things are coming.
The US doesn't have them.
The Japanese, of course, they're coming
after MacArthur's force.
They know they can't leave an
army like this with MacArthur
and consider the Philippines
have been occupied.
NARRATOR: In Washington,
President Roosevelt faces
a very difficult situation.
The American people expect
the troops to be supported,
but he knows resupplying
and reinforcing Bataan
is impossible.
Also, for both political
and symbolic reasons,
he must retrieve General MacArthur
from the Philippines.
You couldn't afford to let
MacArthur be captured.
You couldn't do it because it was
bad for the American spirit.
You can't let a man like this go down.
He's a figure of history.
[airplane engines whirring]
MacArthur does everything that he can
to inspire his troops in Bataan,
and he's prepared
to go down with the ship.
NARRATOR: But FDR orders MacArthur
to leave the Philippines.
Three weeks later,
he sends a rescue operation,
and MacArthur,
with his wife and young son,
leaves the Philippines
on a small torpedo boat.
He promises, "I will return."
And this is his commitment
to the American people,
but, more importantly, to himself.
NARRATOR: Knowing that
America must make a stand,
General MacArthur issues
a final order to his men.
MacArthur orders the garrison
to fight to the last,
which is completely unrealistic.
Soldiers are dying in medical tents
merely because there's not
enough medicine to save them.
So everybody's in a weakened condition.
But the defence is quite heroic.
[explosions]
NARRATOR: But the soldiers on Bataan
realise they're being sacrificed.
So "The Battling Bastards
of Bataan" is written
by a journalist named Hewlett.
"The Battling Bastards of Bataan
"no mamas, no papas, no Uncle Sam,
"no aunts, no uncles,
no cousins, no nieces,
"no pills, no planes,
no artillery pieces.
And no one gives a damn."
For all the people left in Bataan,
I'm sure that's exactly
what they thought.
NARRATOR: After four months
of fatigue, hunger, and disease
the Bataan garrison surrenders.
But their ordeal is just beginning.
The Japanese didn't expect
that so many Allied defenders
of the Philippines
would actually surrender
and become prisoners of war.
One of the things you're
taught in the Japanese military
is you don't surrender.
You're disgracing your family.
You're disgracing
your home, your village,
your country, the emperor.
Surrender is dishonourable, not
only to yourself but to your family.
Anybody who surrenders
is inherently dishonourable.
The idea that you would surrender
and that you would expect
to be treated with respect
having done so really is disgusting
to a lot of the Japanese soldiers.
NARRATOR: The Japanese
march the 75,000 American
and Filipino troops
to a POW camp 65 miles north of Bataan.
These men are exhausted.
They're malnourished.
The Japanese, they line them up,
and they march them out.
In 110-degree heat with no food,
no water,
and Japanese guards just beating you
and kicking you and stabbing you
the whole way.
And so, if you're a recruit out there
and you've received umpteen beatings
from your own senior officers
on the way to where you are now,
then it's a very short hop to having
a Westerner in front of you,
asking for food, asking for water,
and slapping them, punching them,
perhaps even shooting them.
The Japanese will drink their canteens
and then dump the contents
out on the roadside.
Wounded troops will fall to the ground.
They will be instantly
bayoneted or shot.
They have been taught to regard
Western soldiers, and I think
white Western civilians generally,
with really no respect at all.
These people are lesser
almost to the point of being
a slightly lesser species.
NARRATOR: Thousands die
on what will become known
as the Bataan Death March.
The loss of the Philippines
will cripple
America's military capability
in the Pacific for months.
It's also a serious blow
to morale at home.
In a matter of just a few months,
the Japanese have conquered an empire
of 500 million people.
NARRATOR: The Japanese have
the upper hand in the Pacific.
It's not clear what
or who can stop them.
Spring in Tokyo
Japan controls vast areas of
the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
To protect this growing empire,
Japan will consolidate
its new territory
and push into various island chains
to create an even stronger barrier
against the United States.
The Japanese saying, we got to
consolidate our position quickly.
We have to create a defensive bastion
between the United States and Japan.
So all these island chains
threaded like pearls,
they have got to be strengthened.
They've got to be fortified into
some kind of defensive perimeter.
NARRATOR: Japan deploys
thousands of troops
to outposts stretching
far into the South Pacific.
The Japanese are making absolutely sure
that what they've got, they will hold.
NARRATOR: In the US,
war production accelerates.
FDR calls for 60,000 planes
and 125,000 tanks
to be produced in 1942.
And in June, the US Navy
defeats the Japanese
at the Battle of Midway.
It's Japan's first decisive defeat.
The victory at Midway
has taken place in June 1942,
but this is a naval victory.
It's only directed
against Japanese warships.
Eventually, the Americans know
they're going to have
to retake real estate.
They're going to actually
have to capture islands.
The Japanese plan in the South Pacific
is to build a lot of airstrips,
which are going to allow them
to use air power
to defend these stronghold positions.
NARRATOR: To counter,
America sends in the old breed;
the 1st Marine Division.
Marine Corps was always
"soldiers from the sea,"
back in the Revolution
when we invade Nassau, right?
We are meant to come from the sea.
That's the mission,
in support of the navy.
That's their purpose.
After World War I,
what they really start to do
is turn their attention to, what
does the next war look like?
And what they start to realise is,
Japan is becoming
a power in the Pacific.
If we're going to fight in the Pacific,
then we need to figure out how
to conduct amphibious landings.
NARRATOR: Amphibious landings
on this scale are unprecedented.
Well, there's no sneaking up
on an island.
They can see ships coming.
So everything across a beach
is a frontal assault
machine guns, rapid-fire artillery.
It's suicide, terrible idea.
And the Marine Corps goes,
"Got it, we'll take that one."
And that's how they get
into amphibious operations,
because that would be
what was necessary
to operate in the Pacific.
The training for the US Marine Corps
is probably the toughest in
the US armed forces at this point.
They are designed
for amphibious warfare
but to travel relatively lightly,
because, of course, if you
attack a coast from the sea,
you can't take much
heavy equipment with you.
Their job is as an elite assault force.
But don't leave them
in a campaign for too long,
because they don't have
all the heavy weapons
to be able to do the job over
a considerable period of time.
The Navy has ships, and the
Army has tanks and artillery.
What does the Marine Corps have?
It has culture.
So if you join the Marine Corps,
it's because maybe you
can be one of those elite.
You know you get to go fight
the Japanese.
The majority are new recruits.
They are relatively inexperienced.
They've had some
pretty hurried training.
And now all of a sudden, in 1942,
they're going to go into action against
what they know and fear
is a very formidable opponent.
They've read a lot of the stories
about how the Japanese
are almost supermen.
Until we actually face them
in close combat,
we'll never know if we're good
enough to take on these guys.
NARRATOR: In the summer of 1942
an American B-17 on routine patrol
reports that the Japanese are building
an airstrip on the largest
of the Solomon Islands
Guadalcanal.
If the Japanese are successful,
they will build
an airbase on Guadalcanal
and potentially sever
the lines of communication
with Australia,
which is meant to be
a jumping-off point
for any campaign that's going to come
from the Southern Pacific.
We cannot let that happen.
The Americans know
that Australia is crucial
to their hold over the Pacific.
What's at stake, certainly for
the United States Marine Corps is,
they've hitched their horse to
this idea of amphibious operations.
Now they actually
have to go execute it.
If the Americans are going to roll back
Japanese power in the Pacific
it's going to have to be
boots on the ground,
and boots on the ground
it will be in Guadalcanal.
NARRATOR: Early on August 7, 1942
the 1st Marine division
approaches Guadalcanal.
They are the first US troops to
take the offensive in World War II.
What's interesting
about all amphibious landings
is that if they're opposed
and you don't really understand
the terrain you're getting into,
there's always
the possibility of disaster,
and that was absolutely
the case at Guadalcanal.
[cannons booming]
NARRATOR: After the naval
bombardment, the Marines will land
and attempt to capture the airfield
and secure the island.
The intelligence for the landings
at Guadalcanal is so thin
that they don't know
what the interior looks like,
and they certainly don't know
how many defending troops are there.
[soldiers shouting]
NARRATOR:
10,000 Marines reach the shore.
To their relief,
the landing is unopposed.
There are no Japanese
defending the beachhead.
The Japanese have only
2,500 men on the island,
most of them conscripted labour
to build the airfield.
The Marines are astonished
at how easy it is.
They move inland and then very
quickly capture the airfield.
NARRATOR: The Marines
build a defensive perimeter
around the airstrip,
which they name Henderson Field,
after a Marine dive bomber
killed at the Battle of Midway.
Supplies for the Marines on Guadalcanal
are being held just offshore
by a US Navy task force
anchored in Savo Sound.
But two days after the landing,
the calm of Savo Sound is shattered.
[cannons booming]
It's the middle of the night.
These American cruisers are asleep.
They don't come
to battle stations quickly.
[cannons booming]
In the space of 25 to 30 minutes,
the Japanese have sunk
four Allied cruisers,
killed more than 1,000 Allied sailors.
So it's a disastrous defeat
for the Americans,
the worst naval defeat
since Pearl Harbor.
You've got bodies
washing up on the shore.
It's grisly.
NARRATOR: So many
American ships are sunk
that Savo Sound is christened
Ironbottom Sound.
Vulnerable to air attack,
the task force pulls out
before they've unloaded all the
Marines' food and ammunition.
General Vandegrift is the commander
of the 1st Marine Division.
He's understandably upset
that the Navy have skedaddled.
But it's absolutely vital also
that he gives a sense
of confidence to his men.
We're going to get through this.
We are US Marines, after all.
NARRATOR: The first wave
of Japanese troops land east
of the Marines' defensive
perimeter on August 18th.
Their objective Henderson Airfield.
The airfield is in a key position
to maintain the shipping lanes
from America to Australia.
That supply line is like
the Allied sciatic nerve.
So this is a very serious development.
It must have been
very spooky for the Marines.
They are abandoned on the island.
They can hear the Japanese ships
coming in.
They know there must be trouble ahead.
What options do ground forces have?
You can attack, you can defend,
and you can retreat.
Well, guess what.
The Marines can no longer retreat.
So, no matter what,
we're going to have to fight it out.
NARRATOR: The untested Marines
are about to face
Japanese soldiers for the first time.
NARRATOR: On Guadalcanal,
the 1st Marine Division
is dug in around Henderson Airfield,
bracing for a Japanese assault.
Commanding the Japanese troops
is the veteran colonel Kiyonao Ichiki.
The Marines know that
all the Japanese have done
up to this point is win.
They start to almost have
these superpowers.
They're quiet at night.
They're all snipers.
They don't require any rest.
They're fanatical.
All of these things start to build
almost a super-samurai adversary.
NARRATOR: On August 21st,
Ichiki's troops attack
the Marine lines.
The Marines respond with rifle, mortar,
and machine gun fire.
[gunfire]
The Japanese have got about 200 guys
trying to get across this sandspit,
and they're mown down.
[gunfire]
Ichiki just sloughs that off.
He'll launch two more attacks.
The Marines will beat them back.
NARRATOR: The fighting is brutal
Often hand-to-hand.
[explosion]
Some Japanese soldiers even
use ancestral samurai swords.
The battle doesn't end
until 5:00 that evening.
44 Marines are dead
But nearly 900 Japanese soldiers
are killed.
The Marines are stunned.
How could a battalion commander
throw 900 men away?
Who would do that?
NARRATOR: After the battle,
Colonel Ichiki commits suicide.
Just a single Japanese soldier
surrenders.
They may look dead,
but if they've got a weapon,
they're going to shoot you
when you go past.
If they've got a grenade,
they may blow themselves up
with a grenade to kill you.
This is a different kind of enemy.
The US Marines on Guadalcanal realise
that to combat that
and to protect themselves,
they're going to have
to be equally ruthless.
And this produced an incredibly
brutal form of warfare
that I think was unequalled
in the Second World War.
NARRATOR: The Marines now
understand what will be required
to defend Guadalcanal.
The island has become a proving ground
for a generation of young Americans.
[distant explosions, gunfire]
The Japanese conduct regular
airstrikes on Henderson Field
[explosion]
And continue to move men and supplies
into attacking positions.
Every night the Japanese
are using fast transports
and depositing troops
and supplies on Guadalcanal,
via what's going to be known
as the Tokyo Express.
They are absolutely determined
to retake this island.
Their whole strategy
for moving forward
in the Southern Pacific
is based on recapturing Guadalcanal,
and they're going to pretty much send
as many troops as they can
to make sure that they do the job.
Vandegrift and his staff start taking
preventative action
in case they're overwhelmed,
so they start burning
vital intelligence papers.
NARRATOR:
By October, the Japanese force
has more than doubled its size.
But the US Navy is able
to resupply the Marines
from newly constructed supply bases.
Guadalcanal is now
a battle of attrition
who will give in first?
The Japanese are very good
at night attacks,
and so nights are horrific.
Imagine being a 19-
or 20-year-old American kid,
and you're in a foxhole, maybe
with one other person, right?
One guy sleeps. The other is on watch.
And you can hear the other
foxholes with your compatriots,
but they're not visible in the dark.
Remember, these islands
are really black as night.
And you hear screaming
from another foxhole.
[soldier screams]
[distant gunfire]
This is life or death.
You go to sleep, you may not wake up.
This man was with you 24 hours ago.
Now his throat's cut
in the foxhole next to you.
This is a war of man against man.
This is personal.
And as darkness comes down every night,
the fear grows deeper and deeper.
[explosion]
NARRATOR: Even though
they're deprived of sleep,
lack sufficient food,
and battle tropical diseases,
the Marines maintain their morale.
But their casualty rate is climbing,
and they begin to suspect
they're being abandoned.
A lot of people are
catching malaria, dysentery.
They don't have enough food.
They're just becoming increasingly
incapable of functioning.
NARRATOR: General Vandegrift
estimates that less than half
his force is fit enough to fight.
The Japanese are still coming.
Guadalcanal is going to be
where the Japanese teach
the Americans the cost
of punching a hole
in that defence perimeter.
They'll say,
look at the effort it took.
Look at the number of men
you lost on Guadalcanal.
How long do you think it'll take you
to batter your way across the Pacific?
NARRATOR: One night,
two months into the battle
the Japanese deliver
a bombardment designed
to crush the Marines' spirits.
But the Marines just dig
their foxholes deeper.
1,000 shells are sent over
in 80 minutes.
We're talking about 14-inch shells,
described by some of the guys
like the weight of small cars.
NARRATOR: Most of the Marines'
planes at Henderson Field
are destroyed in the bombardment.
The US reinforces the Marines
but the Japanese reinforce
their troops as well.
Control of the island
and the entire US campaign
in the Pacific is at stake.
All eyes are on Guadalcanal.
NARRATOR: In America, Guadalcanal
is front-page news.
It's on everyone's minds.
It was observed,
Guadalcanal is not a name,
but an emotion.
You young Americans today
are conducting yourselves
in a manner that is worthy
of the highest,
proudest traditions of our nation.
All the attention
of the American public
is focused on this island.
Roosevelt knows
this is the first big American
ground offensive of the war.
It's going horribly wrong.
They have to hold on to Guadalcanal.
Roosevelt sends a note
to the Joint Chiefs and says,
"I want to be sure of something:
that every available man,
ship, and plane
is being devoted
to the struggle on Guadalcanal."
We here at home are supremely conscious
of our obligations to you.
We will not let you down.
NARRATOR: The campaign
gets a new commander,
Admiral William "Bull" Halsey.
Halsey's coming into this campaign
is like a defibrillator on the heart.
Halsey looks the part.
Halsey is this leathery, old
commander who's been successful.
He's a can-do, combative guy.
He can't wait to get to the Japanese.
His line was, "You hit 'em
hard, you hit 'em fast,
and you hit 'em often."
This is entirely
in keeping with the mentality
of your average Marine.
NARRATOR: Admiral Halsey
promises the Marines
all the support they need
on Guadalcanal.
In just a few weeks, he gets
the chance to demonstrate it.
A large Japanese fleet
carrying 14,000 troops
is approaching Guadalcanal.
This body of water is
the size of a bathtub.
So risking your battleships
to send them up to Ironbottom Sound,
I mean, it honestly
makes the hair stand up
on the back of my neck even now.
But Halsey is determined
that he is going to fight
with everything that he's got,
and so he pushes all his chips
into the middle of the table.
NARRATOR: Halsey instructs
the US Navy task force
to attack the Japanese fleet
in the sound.
[cannons booming]
For two days
American and Japanese warships
battle in Savo Sound.
The fighting is fierce.
It's ship-to-ship combat
at its most intense.
Nearly 2,000 Americans are killed
but the Japanese
are only able to land
a quarter of their force.
Bull Halsey and the US Navy
have turned the tide
and the Japanese begin
to withdraw from Guadalcanal.
Most of the Marines on Guadalcanal
are relieved by the US Army.
A generation of Americans
have proven to the world
that they're capable
of fighting this war.
But Guadalcanal has also revealed
how long and difficult
this conflict is going to be
and how steep the price of victory.
It was the first clash of arms
between the Japanese Army
and American Marines and soldiers.
And in that victory,
the Americans came out ahead.
Halsey put it best when
he said, prior to the battle,
the Japanese advanced at their will.
After the battle,
they retreated at ours.
It's a long road to Tokyo,
but Guadalcanal is the first step.
The Marines who hold the line
for months on Guadalcanal
are sure their country
has forgotten them.
But when the 1st Marine Division
is relieved by army units
and sent to Australia to recuperate,
they learn
that they're actually heroes.
That year, in 1942,
Hitler escalates his campaign
against the Jews of Europe
to an unimaginable level.