World War II with Tom Hanks (2026) s01e14 Episode Script
Long Road To Tokyo
1
Sub extracted from file & improved by
[foreboding music]
As in the struggle
against Nazi Germany,
American strategy in
the war against Japan
includes launching mass bombing
attacks against factories,
military installations, and cities.
But the map of the Asia-Pacific War
covers enormous distances.
A new, more powerful bomber is needed,
the B-29 Superfortress.
Securing air bases
for these super-forts
becomes a primary objective
for President Roosevelt
and American military leaders.
[dramatic music]
All Wars changed 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.
[dramatic music]
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.
♪
[siren blaring]
[horn blaring]
[dramatic music]
[Tom] For over two years,
the United States has been
building the B-29 Bomber,
the Superfortress.
When it's ready to roll
off the assembly line,
the B-29 will be one of
the most potent weapons
in the American arsenal.
The B-29 Superfortress is
the most expensive program
in World War II,
$3 billion to go ahead
and build an aircraft.
The B-29 is a stunning
leap in aircraft technology.
The B-29 will incorporate
a pressurized cabin,
airborne radar.
It has 10 miles of wiring.
It had remote-controlled turrets.
It had the most powerful engines
in the history of the world.
But the critical thing
about the B-29 was range.
It could carry bombs
farther, higher, faster
than anything else that
had, not just been built,
but ever imagined.
[Tom] The complexity
of its design, however,
delays its manufacture.
[Dr.Grant] It's been riddled
with problems.
It ends up behind schedule.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Bombing the Japanese home islands
is a crucial part of
the American strategy
in the Asian-Pacific War.
Allied air commanders wanna launch
the same kind of air
offensive against Japan
that they've been carrying
out against Germany.
They wanna destroy factories,
shipyards, infrastructure,
bring the Japanese war
economy to its knees.
[Tom] In addition to
strategic considerations,
President Roosevelt understands
that the American people
expect retribution
against the Japanese.
If you'd have done a public
opinion survey of Americans,
there was a palpable sense
of wanting to get these
people back for Pearl Harbor.
By 1943, its payback time.
[Dr. Grant] And so the B-29 is
going to become
the first weapon system
that can really attack
the Japanese homeland
and military targets.
[Robert] The problem is where
are your airfields going to be?
They have to be within range
of the Japanese home islands.
[Tom] US Marines have been fighting
their way across the Pacific,
but it will take months before
they can secure an area suitable
for launching B-29s.
The B-29's got a
1,600 mile combat range.
So Roosevelt's looking
at several options
as to where to base these things.
[Robert] They don't have an
island close enough,
but they do have an ally
within range of the
Japanese home islands.
And that ally is Chiang
Kai-shek and China.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Chiang Kai-shek
emerged as the leader
of the Chinese
Nationalist Party in 1928.
He's ruled China ever since.
He is the Generalissimo of China.
He's a general, but
he's also a dictator.
The problem he's got is
since the early 1930s,
there is rising communism
under Mao Zedong.
He's effectively got a civil war.
[Tom] In addition to internal conflict,
China faces an external threat.
[artilleries firing]
[explosion booming]
Japan invaded China in 1937
and seized Chiang's capital, Nanking,
as well as all major
Chinese coastal cities.
[Geoffrey] The Japanese control
95% of China's industry,
90% of China's railways,
half of China's population.
They control a quarter to a
third of China's landmass.
And they closed off
all the Chinese ports.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Severed from Chinese port cities,
Chiang established a
new capital, Chungking,
and constructed a route
that connected China
to the port of Rangoon in
the British colony of Burma.
Cut through more than 700 miles
of mountainous jungle terrain,
the Burma Road was China's main
route for receiving supplies
primarily from the United States.
Until Japan seized Burma too.
[foreboding music]
[bombs whistling]
[explosion booming]
[Robert] The final piece of
this Japanese imperial puzzle
was the conquest of Burma in 1942.
The Japanese seized the Burma Road
and make it impossible for the Allies
to supply China's armies.
[artillery firing]
The Chinese have lost their umbilical,
they've lost their artery,
all their supplies flowing in.
[Geoffrey] Chiang Kai-shek has maybe
4 million men
available for military service,
but only a million rifles.
So he's desperate for Western
material to flesh out his army
and post some kind of serious
obstacle to the Japanese.
[dramatic music]
[propellers whirring]
[Tom] In November of 1943,
President Roosevelt confers with Chiang
and British prime minister
Winston Churchill in Cairo.
At the top of the agenda,
how to keep the Chinese in the fight.
Franklin Roosevelt is worried
that if China is without resources,
Chiang Kai-shek could make
a separate peace with Japan,
which would be hugely
problematic for the Americans.
[Robert] China is where
the vast majority of the Japanese army
is currently being tied up.
And let's not forget that Roosevelt
has this big new weapon, the B-29s.
He wants to base them
in Southern China.
So keeping China in the war is
absolutely essential to FDR.
[Dan S.] Chiang goes to Cairo
with a big shopping list.
He needs aircraft, fuel, shells, guns.
He'll take anything that
the Allies will give him.
He's pretty desperate.
Winston Churchill, this is a
little bit alarming to him.
He just doesn't trust Chiang
Kai-shek in his bones.
[Sarada] Chiang Kai-shek has a
reputation for being corrupt,
not particularly reliable.
There are valid concerns that
instead of using the supplies
that FDR is promising Chiang Kai-shek
for the purposes of fighting Japan,
he might instead hoard those supplies
and then use them to
fight the communists.
FDR knew he wasn't
running a boy scout troupe,
so he didn't examine too closely
the morals of those who
shared his interest.
That wasn't how you
could fight a global war.
[Tom] At Cairo, FDR and
Chiang agree that the Chinese
will build runways for the B-29s
and that the US will send
even more supplies to China.
[James] That requires mind-boggling
scales of logistics.
For a single bullet to get
to a single Chinese rifle,
it's gotta come from a factory,
let's say in the Midwest.
So you send it all the
way across the Pacific.
The British still hold India,
so it would then get into Calcutta,
then be put onto a train,
then sent up to Northeast India,
and then fly them over the Himalayas
to the nationalists in China.
[dramatic music] [wind howling]
[Tom] Flying the India-China ferry
over the highest mountain
range in the world
is extremely hazardous.
The men ordered to do
it call it the Hump.
[Dr. Grant] Flying supplies into China
is something that's never
been attempted on this scale.
[Geoffrey] These were just
transport aircraft,
but the missions were as challenging
as bomber raids over Germany.
[suspenseful music]
[plane rumbling]
[Col. Douds] These aircraft are
taking off with incredibly high weights
because we are trying to get
as many supplies in as we can.
[plane rumbling]
The route is only about 500 miles,
but the difficulty is the altitude.
[plane rumbling]
These pilots are flying
in un-pressurized aircraft
over peaks that are 16,000 feet high,
and then back down again
to their Chinese bases.
[plane rumbling]
[Geoffrey] We got this hot, moist air
bubbling out of the Indian Ocean,
meeting with this Siberian
air blowing down from Tibet,
causing some of the most difficult
weather conditions on the planet.
[suspenseful music]
You get these incredible
changes in air pressure.
[plane rumbling]
And pilots who flew the Hump say
the plane would lurch like
a hundred feet in the air,
and then drop 200 feet, and
lurch back up a hundred feet.
[suspenseful music]
[Col. Douds] It's hard to imagine
for the pilots who do it.
The aircraft is proven but
not in these conditions.
So every time they go
up, they're learning.
But there's a cost to
learning this real time.
594 aircraft are lost
and 1,500 aircrew.
[plane rumbling] [dreary music]
[plane rumbling]
[Geoffrey] The problem is you have to
deliver 18 tons of fuel and other supplies
to get one ton of stuff
to the Chinese army.
It was a trickle of what was needed.
[Tom] But China remains a priority
for President Roosevelt.
[Dan S.] There is another option.
The Allies need to
reopen the Burma Road.
[dramatic music]
[gun firing]
[Tom] By late 1943, China has been
at war with Japan for six years,
engaging the majority
of the Japanese Army.
[gun firing]
President Roosevelt and
his military leaders
are determined to defend China,
including using B-29s to strike
the Japanese home islands.
The US plans to build four
air bases around Chengdu
that will accommodate the B-29.
[Dr. Grant] The B-29
Superfortress is a heavy bomber.
And that means it needs a runway
that's strong enough to land on.
But the problem is there's no
way to bring in a bulldozer,
or a truck, or heavy
equipment into China.
They simply won't fit in the aircraft
that are flying over the Hump.
But the upside for
running a bomber campaign
out of China is that the Americans know
that they will have access to
all the Chinese labor
they could ask for.
[dramatic music]
[Col. Douds] Hundreds of
thousands of people
grinding out a runway by hand.
[Narrator] No bulldozers
or complicated machinery available.
Only manpower and hard work.
[Dr. Grant] Just the sheer
scale of human labor,
it looks like ancient history.
Men, women, children
pulling the rollers,
working side by side.
[Tom] Their country in jeopardy,
Chinese civilians defend
against the Japanese
any way they can, building roads,
constructing airfields,
loading supplies.
[Dan C.] China's an agrarian economy
in a time period
where industrial warfare has taken over.
So how do they produce all
these weapons that you need?
For example, how do you produce tanks?
So part of the problem here for Chiang
is that he needs everything.
[Robert] The only way to bring
the tanks and the artillery
that Chiang needs into China
is to reopen the Burma Road.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] The Allies have more
than a quarter of a million troops
based in Eastern India,
from Calcutta to Ledo in Assam.
They planned a two-pronged offensive.
The British 14th Army will
push into Central Burma
to expel the Japanese.
An American-led force will
cross into Northern Burma
and fight their way through
to reestablish the Burma Road.
General Joseph Stilwell
commands the American forces.
His personal and professional
connection to China
spans three decades.
[Robert] Joseph Stilwell,
well known as Vinegar Joe,
he's cranky, and
acerbic, and sarcastic.
[Geoffrey] But Stilwell speaks
and reads Mandarin.
He's a great lover of China
and he has nothing but good
things to say about the Chinese.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] A respected Commander,
Stilwell has trained
thousands of soldiers
in his long career.
[Robert] Stilwell's task
is to take a handful of
Chinese divisions,
30,000 of Chiang Kai-shek's troops,
and train them up to Western standards.
[gun firing]
[explosions booming]
He takes over an old
British POW camp in India
and he's able to give them
the training, the weaponry,
so that they turn themselves
into relatively solid units.
[pensive music]
[Tom] General William Slim,
Uncle Bill to his troops,
leads the British 14th
Army, a multinational force
comprised of units from
Britain, India, and Africa.
Many have been battling the Japanese
since the invasion of Burma.
[Dan S.] Slim says, look, we
got beaten in Burma
because we couldn't fight in the jungle
like the Japanese can.
They're not superhuman.
We just have to learn how to do it.
[Dan C.] The Japanese were considered
to be these amazing jungle fighters.
But we should remember,
Japan's not a jungle country.
They're not great jungle fighters
'cause they grew up in it.
This is about training.
A complete rethink is needed.
Slim starts training everybody,
not just frontline infantrymen.
Everyone needs to be able to
handle themselves with their weapons,
the bottle washers, and the
cooks, and the truck drivers.
And everyone needs to
know that the Japanese
are not these supermen.
They're not bogey men.
Actually, they are
completely defeatable.
[foreboding music]
So I think by this point,
the war's going very badly for Japan.
You've had the Battle
of Midway in 1942,
which Japan lost.
[explosion booming]
Now, as a result, Japanese shipping
is struggling to get through.
So you've got rationing
tightening in Japan.
And then back in Europe,
you've had the German
loss at Stalingrad.
You've had the toppling of Mussolini.
So I think at this point,
Japan doesn't expect
it's gonna get any help
really from the Axis powers.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Hideki Tojo, who has
been Prime Minister since 1941,
is the dominant force
in the Japanese
government and military.
[Christopher] By early 1944,
there's a feeling for Tojo
and for others at the high command
that something can be
done elsewhere in the war
to try and offer Japan a
little bit of progress.
And some kind of dramatic
success for the Japanese
might force the Americans to
come to the negotiating table.
One idea is to put some
pressure on the Allies
in Northeast India and on
Chiang Kai-shek in China.
[Tom] Prime Minister Tojo
approves Operation U-Go,
an invasion into India.
His generals prepare to attack
the British bases of the 14th Army
and to capture the
American Hump airfields.
[Jonathan] Tojo understands
that at this point,
these flights across the Hump
are the last remaining
connection point with the West
that the Chinese
national government has.
And if you can cut those air bases off,
that will then be the straw
that breaks the nationalist back.
[propellers whirring]
For the Allies, this is rife
with portents of disaster.
[plane rumbling]
[dramatic music]
[Tom] March, 1944,
Operation U-Go begins.
Japanese troops move across
the Burmese jungle into India,
toward British bases and
the American airfields.
The Japanese commander is
General Renya Mutaguchi.
[Dan S.] Mutaguchi thinks he is
a creature of destiny.
And he's got a plan.
He believes that right there,
on the very, very western
frontier of the Japanese Empire,
he could strike a blow that
could save the war for Japan.
[Tom] Mutaguchi hopes his invasion
will inspire the Indians
to overthrow the British
and join Japan in the war.
The Japanese are banking
on speed and surprise,
that they're gonna move three divisions
across these 8,000 foot high mountains
in the space of just a few days.
As such, he cuts the rations
for all of his attack soldiers
to just 20 days worth of food.
The Japanese soldiers
carry very small amount of
food supply, like dried rice.
And they do not carry
many heavy weapons.
[Dan S.] So the Japanese
cannot get locked
into an attritional battle.
'Cause they're traveling light,
they're gonna have to rely on
capturing British supply dumps
as they go along.
It's a gamble.
[Tom] To get to the air bases in India,
Mutaguchi will need to
cross the Imphal Plain,
site of a large British forward base.
[Dan S.] The Imphal Plain, it's
got like a big river valley,
surrounded by mountainous
jungley terrain.
The Brits have used this
sort of like a bread basket.
They've got airfield there,
they've got supply dumps, food,
everything the Japanese need.
[Tom] Based in Imphal are
three British-Indian divisions
from General Slim's 14th Army.
They're about to push
into enemy territory
when they receive reports that
Mutaguchi's Japanese troops
are moving towards them.
[dramatic music]
[Dan S.] Bill Slim's new plan
is to withdraw slightly,
create a killing zone,
let the Japanese attack
through this difficult terrain,
and pound them with
artillery and aircraft.
[James] He's going to
relinquish ground,
but all the time he's going to attrit,
grind down the Japanese.
This is a high risk strategy
and you can only do that if
you're extremely confident
that your men are sufficiently trained.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] But Mutaguchi's
force arrives quickly
and is far larger than
Slim was expecting.
[Jonathan] So when these
Japanese divisions
start sort of materializing
out of the jungle,
it's a real pucker
moment for the British.
[explosion booming]
[machine gun firing]
[foreboding music]
[machine gun firing]
[machine gun firing]
[machine gun firing]
[artillery firing]
[Tom] The Japanese encircle Imphal
and cut off its supply roads.
There is this just brutal battle.
The fighting is
incredibly close quarter.
[machine gun firing]
[machine gun firing]
And it is absolutely touch and go.
[artillery firing]
[machine gun firing]
[artilleries firing]
[Jonathan] But Mutaguchi is mired in
mental models that were
applicable in 1942
that are no longer applicable in '44.
Back then, if you hit
an Indian division
in the face with a frontal attack,
a lot of the time it fell apart.
But Slim's army is better
trained, it is more resilient,
and from a morale standpoint,
they believe in themselves.
They think that they can
fight the Japanese toe to toe.
[guns firing]
[Tom] Fighting is
relentless around Imphal,
but General Slim has a plan
to bring in reinforcements
and supplies.
[artillery firing] [machine gun firing]
[James] All this time, Imphal
itself is completely cut off.
And if you're gonna make a stand,
you're gonna need supplies.
What Slim recognizes with
his American colleagues
is that air power is
key to the whole thing.
[plane rumbling]
There's only one way to
supply this Allied pocket,
and that is by air.
[Jonathan] The Americans have
already got
a very efficient, well-trained
transport air force
in the north of India, the Hump.
And they turn that
airlift 90 degrees aside
and aim it towards Imphal
and the British troops there.
[plane rumbling]
[Dr. Grant] When you're
flying low and slow,
you are one big fat target.
These cargo planes have
no defensive armament,
they don't have any guns.
And if you push the cargo
out four seconds late,
it's gonna end up into Japanese hands.
But astonishingly it works.
[dramatic music]
[Jonathan] These transports
airdrop and land
about 14 million pounds
of food, ammunition,
heavy equipment, and
thousands of fresh troops.
And that means that Slim can
keep his forces fighting.
[suspenseful music]
[artillery firing]
Mutaguchi had hoped to
take Imphal within days,
right off the march.
Instead, what he gets
is a meat grinder.
[dramatic music] [machine gun firing]
[Tom] For weeks, divisions
of General Slim's 14th Army
have been receiving supplies by air,
there, the frontline resisting
Japan's invasion of India.
[machine gun firing]
[artilleries firing]
[explosion booming] [foreboding music]
But Mutaguchi's men are
running out of time.
[Col. Douds] The Japanese have
gone into the offensive
without much equipment.
They don't have an
established supply line.
So every day that they
don't achieve success,
it becomes more and more desperate.
[Christopher] Of course the big problem
they face is rations.
These start to run out, hunger
starts to become a big issue.
They're picking up snakes,
they're trying to eat monkeys.
They are literally starving.
[Noriko] General Tojo famously
issued instructions
for the soldiers in the battlefield
that to be taken by enemy
as a prisoner of war
is unacceptable.
Facing defeat, they should
make a final suicidal charge and die
or commit suicide.
[dreary music]
[Robert] The survivors are
forced to retreat.
Japanese soldiers are
dropping dead along the route.
[Dan C.] The retreats becomes hellish.
The Japanese words were
translated as the road of bones.
The survivors' accounts
are of mass suicides
all along the way.
There are stories of Japanese
buddies getting together and
hugging each other and then detonating
a grenade between the two of them.
[dreary music]
[Jonathan] Up to this point in the war,
this is the largest
defeat the Japanese Army
has ever suffered on the ground,
around 60,000 casualties.
[Col. Douds] Mutaguchi had a
vision of this operation
to destroy the Allied
efforts in Northeastern India
and foment an insurrection.
All of those dreams are
shattered at the end of this.
[foreboding music]
[Tom] In the spring of 1944,
President Roosevelt is
focused on Operation Overlord,
the upcoming invasion of Normandy.
But he's frustrated by
the delays in East Asia
and the fact that the B-29s
are still not in action.
[Robert] America is in Burma
and in this theater
to supply China with weapons
and to supply their B-29
bases in Southern China.
Roosevelt has been told time
and again by his military men
that they're devoting
precious resources
on an effort that looks
increasingly futile.
[plane rumbling]
And yet Roosevelt simply doesn't
see another horse to back.
In May of 1944, there
is no alternate place
from which B-29 bombers can operate.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] In Northern Burma,
General Vinegar Joe Stilwell
is preparing troops to
push to the Burma Road.
[Jonathan] If the Americans
can reopen that road,
it's gonna completely transform
not only the ground
campaign in China for Chiang
but also the aerial campaign
for the American B-29s
that are gonna be based in China,
because they will be able to
drive over the heavy equipment
that they can't fly across the Hump,
like steam shovels and steam rollers.
And so it transformed these
bases into the sort of bases
that Americans like to build,
big, sprawling, and full of warehouses.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Stilwell's plan is to
move across Northern Burma,
attack the Japanese
military base at Myitkyina,
then push forward to create a
new route to the Burma Road.
He sent 7,000 men,
including Chinese troops
and a veteran American
deep penetration force
nicknamed Merrill's Marauders,
on a three week march through
the jungle towards Myitkyina.
[Dan C.] Certain fighting
environments kill you
all by themselves.
You don't need bullets,
you don't need shells.
The jungle kills you.
It destroys armies day by day.
[Geoffrey] The American and
Chinese troops
that are inserted there,
they're just absolutely
devastated by illness.
They've all got amoebic
dysentery, severe diarrhea.
They've all got, you know,
dengue and other tropical fevers.
There was nowhere to rest,
there was nowhere to recuperate,
and nowhere to get
the resources for war.
[dreary music]
[Tom] On May 17th,
Stilwell's troops launched
the attack on Myitkyina.
[dramatic music] [artillery firing]
[machine gun firing]
[gun firing]
[machine gun firing]
It's a really hard-fought battle.
There's more Japanese
there than they expected.
And the Japanese fight doggedly for it.
[plane rumbling]
[Tom] The Americans call in air support
from their bases in India.
[explosion booming]
[plane rumbling]
[explosion booming]
[planes rumbling]
And take Myitkyina Airfield.
US gliders land,
bringing reinforcements
and General Stilwell.
[Jonathan] So with the fall of
Myitkyina,
that now enables
the Americans to play their strong suit,
which is construction.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Army engineers and local laborers
start to build a new route
from India to the Burma Road.
[Col. Douds] It's hundreds of
miles long,
scraped out of the jungle,
and it's a major construction program.
It's gonna take months.
[explosions booming]
[pensive music]
[Jonathan] From the British and American
standpoint, it's all looking good.
It's gonna take a while
to rebuild that road,
but we can rebuild it now.
And it seems that the tea
leaves are now propitious
for a B-29 offensive out of China.
The problem is that
the Allies don't know
that the Japanese have an
even bigger land operation
up their sleeve.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] General Stilwell's
victory at Myitkyina
will enable the Americans to
reconnect to the Burma Road.
But it's a slow and arduous process
and the road won't be
operational for months.
[explosion booming]
[plane rumbling] [dramatic music]
In June, 1944,
B-29s begin to arrive at
the air fields in China.
[Dr. Grant] The Army Air Forces
have been waiting
for the B-29 for years.
Finally, here they are,
ready to fly their first
missions out of China.
The idea is to put up
a sustained bombing
campaign over Japan.
And the key is being
able to fly missions
over and over and over again.
The problem is logistics.
The B-29 is an enormous fuel hog.
It runs on about 9,000 gallons
of gasoline per sortie.
[Col. Douds] They also need a
lot of bombs.
And the only way you're gonna
get bombs and fuel to those air fields
is they gotta fly over the Hump,
until they open up a new Burma Road.
[dramatic music]
[Dr. Grant] It takes eight
airlift missions
flying over the Hump
for every B-29 combat mission
just to bring in the
bombs and the fuel.
[plane rumbling]
[dramatic music]
[Tom] In mid-June, the first
B-29 combat mission to Japan
sets off from Chengdu.
68 Superfortresses
attack the Imperial Iron and steelworks
at Yawata in Southern Japan.
[planes rumbling]
[Dr. Grant] But because they
don't have enough supplies
coming into China,
they're only flying a
few missions at a time.
It's just not going to add up
to the sustained pounding
campaign that Roosevelt wants.
[foreboding music]
[explosion booming]
[Tom] Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tojo
has launched an offensive in China.
[Christopher] It's called
Operation Ichi-Go,
which means Operation Number One.
And this is the largest operation
that the Japanese
undertake during the war.
[Tom] The offensive has two goals,
secure land access to Japan's occupied
possessions in Southeast Asia
and capture US air bases in China.
[artillery firing]
[guns firing] [foreboding music]
[Jonathan] The Japanese attack
with about a half a million troops,
several thousand artillery pieces,
hundreds of tanks, a
lot of aircraft as well.
[explosion booming]
[artillery firing]
[Christopher] But the big
surprise of this campaign
is how poor Chiang
Kai-shek's forces are.
At this point, some
of them are starving.
There've been lots of
deserters from their army.
And with that level of morale,
some of these forces,
under Japanese pressure,
simply melt away.
[dreary music]
[Tom] The Japanese push south,
overpowering Chinese forces.
Millions of Chinese attempt to flee,
caught between a foreign invader
and their own corrupt leaders.
The US is forced to abandon
bases and airfields.
[Christopher] It's a huge embarrassment
for Chiang Kai-shek,
particularly in the face of his allies.
All this time,
he's been trying to talk
up what he's capable of
if only the Americans
give him what he needs.
And yet in the face
of Operation Ichi-Go,
his forces just seem to crumble.
[Jonathan] For the Americans
looking at the wreckage
of the aftermath of Ichi-Go,
they recognized that the Chinese
can't defend American bases
no matter where they are.
On top of that, the increasing
logistical headaches
of trying to get supplies over the Hump
means that they decide
to just cut their losses.
And they packed up those B-29s.
[Dr. Grant] The Army Air Forces
have put everything
into making these Chinese bases work,
but they're done with China.
[Jonathan] And the Americans
may now have a new option
for basing B-29s,
which is a better option.
[suspenseful music]
[Tom] Since 1943,
American forces have
been fighting their way
across the Central Pacific.
Now a combined Marine and Army force
is on the verge of invading
the Mariana Islands,
Tinian, Guam, and Saipan,
only 1,600 miles from Japan.
[Jonathan] So if the Americans
can capture the Marianas,
the B-29 bomber will
now be within range
of almost all of Japan.
The expectation for the
Americans is that this should be
a relatively easy operation,
but the reality is gonna
be utterly different.
[dramatic music]
[artilleries firing]
[explosion booming]
[Tom] Just after D-Day, the
Allied invasion of Europe,
American forces attack Saipan
in the middle of the Pacific.
[suspenseful music]
[artilleries firing]
[artilleries firing]
[Jonathan] This is really an
unprecedented display
of American power projection,
that the Americans are able to launch
these two massive operations,
Overlord first in
Europe and then Saipan.
They're separated by half a planet.
They're thousands of miles apart.
[artilleries firing]
[explosion booming]
The expectation is that
this is gonna take three days
for two Marine divisions
and an Army division
to be able to conquer Saipan.
[dreary music]
[Geoffrey] But the Japanese
had fortified it
and built D-Day style fortifications,
not only bunkers and pillboxes,
but they had
dummy bunkers and pillboxes
so that they could waste some
of the naval bombardment on
fake targets.
[explosion booming] [dreary music]
In fact, there's actually
32,000 Japanese there.
[dramatic music]
Saipan is part of the Japanese defenses
that they would consider
to be the inner ring
that must be defended,
that they will sacrifice the most for.
[dramatic music]
Because if they lose Saipan,
then Tokyo is in danger,
and that's where the emperor is.
[suspenseful music]
The resistance is ferocious.
[Jonathan] The Americans
successfully get
a full division's worth
of troops on there
within the space of just a few hours.
[Col. Douds] In the initial
assault, 8,000 Marines land.
Over 2,000 of them become casualties.
This is a bloodletting beyond
what anybody had expected.
[Jonathan] Anytime a Japanese formation
attempts to put in a counter-attack,
they are immediately met with
inordinate amounts of naval
gunfire that just crushed them.
[explosions booming]
[Geoffrey] The Japanese retreat
into the hills in the interior,
along with several thousand
Japanese settlers living in Saipan.
And they forced the
Marines and the Army troops
to root them out of
caves in these hills.
[dreary music] [guns firing]
[dreary music]
[gun firing]
[Tom] The battle for
Saipan lasts almost a month.
Thousands of civilians die,
caught in the crossfire.
[tanks firing]
[Jonathan] The final climax
of this battle
happens at a set of cliffs
on the northern part of the island.
[artillery firing]
[Tom] At Marpi Point,
advancing US troops
trap civilians and Japanese soldiers
between the frontline and the sea.
[Jonathan] The Japanese propaganda
that's been fed to these people
tells them that the Americans
are going to kill all the men,
rape all the women, and it's effective.
They don't surrender.
[dreary music]
[Geoffrey] And then as the
Marines close in,
some of them leap to their deaths,
some of them clutching their children.
[dreary music]
[Tom] Marines and soldiers
confront the inconceivable.
For Japan, the loss of
Saipan is a disaster.
[Jonathan] They've now had the heart
ripped out of their defensive line.
And they know that the Americans now
are gonna have perfect
operating conditions
to launch this bomber
offensive against Japan itself.
[dreary music]
[guns firing]
[Col. Douds] The casualties are high,
for both sides.
[Dr. Grant] But the terrible
loss of life
finally gives the B -29s
the air bases they need to bomb Japan.
Instead of having
hand-built runways in China
that require airlift
just to bring in the gas,
now in the Mariana's islands,
you have huge runways
built by the Seabees using
brilliant white coral,
as hard and durable as you can want.
[Col. Douds] On these three islands,
Saipan, Tinian, and Guam,
the Americans build five
long runway complexes,
each to be supported by a
bomber group of 180 B-29s.
[Dr. Grant] And suddenly the Marianas
are the world's biggest air base.
[dramatic music]
[planes rumbling]
[Col. Douds] FDR's objective, the B-29,
finally gets its optimum opportunity
to achieve the mission
for which it was developed
in the first place.
[Tom] November, 1944,
B-29 Superfortresses
take off for the first of many missions
to bomb the home islands of Japan.
[planes rumbling]
With the capture of the
Mariana island chain,
the United States is capable
of regularly striking Japan,
just as it's been able to hit Germany
for the past two years.
As the tide turns for
these Axis partners,
each country tightens
its grip on its people.
Sub extracted from file & improved by
[foreboding music]
As in the struggle
against Nazi Germany,
American strategy in
the war against Japan
includes launching mass bombing
attacks against factories,
military installations, and cities.
But the map of the Asia-Pacific War
covers enormous distances.
A new, more powerful bomber is needed,
the B-29 Superfortress.
Securing air bases
for these super-forts
becomes a primary objective
for President Roosevelt
and American military leaders.
[dramatic music]
All Wars changed 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.
[dramatic music]
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.
♪
[siren blaring]
[horn blaring]
[dramatic music]
[Tom] For over two years,
the United States has been
building the B-29 Bomber,
the Superfortress.
When it's ready to roll
off the assembly line,
the B-29 will be one of
the most potent weapons
in the American arsenal.
The B-29 Superfortress is
the most expensive program
in World War II,
$3 billion to go ahead
and build an aircraft.
The B-29 is a stunning
leap in aircraft technology.
The B-29 will incorporate
a pressurized cabin,
airborne radar.
It has 10 miles of wiring.
It had remote-controlled turrets.
It had the most powerful engines
in the history of the world.
But the critical thing
about the B-29 was range.
It could carry bombs
farther, higher, faster
than anything else that
had, not just been built,
but ever imagined.
[Tom] The complexity
of its design, however,
delays its manufacture.
[Dr.Grant] It's been riddled
with problems.
It ends up behind schedule.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Bombing the Japanese home islands
is a crucial part of
the American strategy
in the Asian-Pacific War.
Allied air commanders wanna launch
the same kind of air
offensive against Japan
that they've been carrying
out against Germany.
They wanna destroy factories,
shipyards, infrastructure,
bring the Japanese war
economy to its knees.
[Tom] In addition to
strategic considerations,
President Roosevelt understands
that the American people
expect retribution
against the Japanese.
If you'd have done a public
opinion survey of Americans,
there was a palpable sense
of wanting to get these
people back for Pearl Harbor.
By 1943, its payback time.
[Dr. Grant] And so the B-29 is
going to become
the first weapon system
that can really attack
the Japanese homeland
and military targets.
[Robert] The problem is where
are your airfields going to be?
They have to be within range
of the Japanese home islands.
[Tom] US Marines have been fighting
their way across the Pacific,
but it will take months before
they can secure an area suitable
for launching B-29s.
The B-29's got a
1,600 mile combat range.
So Roosevelt's looking
at several options
as to where to base these things.
[Robert] They don't have an
island close enough,
but they do have an ally
within range of the
Japanese home islands.
And that ally is Chiang
Kai-shek and China.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Chiang Kai-shek
emerged as the leader
of the Chinese
Nationalist Party in 1928.
He's ruled China ever since.
He is the Generalissimo of China.
He's a general, but
he's also a dictator.
The problem he's got is
since the early 1930s,
there is rising communism
under Mao Zedong.
He's effectively got a civil war.
[Tom] In addition to internal conflict,
China faces an external threat.
[artilleries firing]
[explosion booming]
Japan invaded China in 1937
and seized Chiang's capital, Nanking,
as well as all major
Chinese coastal cities.
[Geoffrey] The Japanese control
95% of China's industry,
90% of China's railways,
half of China's population.
They control a quarter to a
third of China's landmass.
And they closed off
all the Chinese ports.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Severed from Chinese port cities,
Chiang established a
new capital, Chungking,
and constructed a route
that connected China
to the port of Rangoon in
the British colony of Burma.
Cut through more than 700 miles
of mountainous jungle terrain,
the Burma Road was China's main
route for receiving supplies
primarily from the United States.
Until Japan seized Burma too.
[foreboding music]
[bombs whistling]
[explosion booming]
[Robert] The final piece of
this Japanese imperial puzzle
was the conquest of Burma in 1942.
The Japanese seized the Burma Road
and make it impossible for the Allies
to supply China's armies.
[artillery firing]
The Chinese have lost their umbilical,
they've lost their artery,
all their supplies flowing in.
[Geoffrey] Chiang Kai-shek has maybe
4 million men
available for military service,
but only a million rifles.
So he's desperate for Western
material to flesh out his army
and post some kind of serious
obstacle to the Japanese.
[dramatic music]
[propellers whirring]
[Tom] In November of 1943,
President Roosevelt confers with Chiang
and British prime minister
Winston Churchill in Cairo.
At the top of the agenda,
how to keep the Chinese in the fight.
Franklin Roosevelt is worried
that if China is without resources,
Chiang Kai-shek could make
a separate peace with Japan,
which would be hugely
problematic for the Americans.
[Robert] China is where
the vast majority of the Japanese army
is currently being tied up.
And let's not forget that Roosevelt
has this big new weapon, the B-29s.
He wants to base them
in Southern China.
So keeping China in the war is
absolutely essential to FDR.
[Dan S.] Chiang goes to Cairo
with a big shopping list.
He needs aircraft, fuel, shells, guns.
He'll take anything that
the Allies will give him.
He's pretty desperate.
Winston Churchill, this is a
little bit alarming to him.
He just doesn't trust Chiang
Kai-shek in his bones.
[Sarada] Chiang Kai-shek has a
reputation for being corrupt,
not particularly reliable.
There are valid concerns that
instead of using the supplies
that FDR is promising Chiang Kai-shek
for the purposes of fighting Japan,
he might instead hoard those supplies
and then use them to
fight the communists.
FDR knew he wasn't
running a boy scout troupe,
so he didn't examine too closely
the morals of those who
shared his interest.
That wasn't how you
could fight a global war.
[Tom] At Cairo, FDR and
Chiang agree that the Chinese
will build runways for the B-29s
and that the US will send
even more supplies to China.
[James] That requires mind-boggling
scales of logistics.
For a single bullet to get
to a single Chinese rifle,
it's gotta come from a factory,
let's say in the Midwest.
So you send it all the
way across the Pacific.
The British still hold India,
so it would then get into Calcutta,
then be put onto a train,
then sent up to Northeast India,
and then fly them over the Himalayas
to the nationalists in China.
[dramatic music] [wind howling]
[Tom] Flying the India-China ferry
over the highest mountain
range in the world
is extremely hazardous.
The men ordered to do
it call it the Hump.
[Dr. Grant] Flying supplies into China
is something that's never
been attempted on this scale.
[Geoffrey] These were just
transport aircraft,
but the missions were as challenging
as bomber raids over Germany.
[suspenseful music]
[plane rumbling]
[Col. Douds] These aircraft are
taking off with incredibly high weights
because we are trying to get
as many supplies in as we can.
[plane rumbling]
The route is only about 500 miles,
but the difficulty is the altitude.
[plane rumbling]
These pilots are flying
in un-pressurized aircraft
over peaks that are 16,000 feet high,
and then back down again
to their Chinese bases.
[plane rumbling]
[Geoffrey] We got this hot, moist air
bubbling out of the Indian Ocean,
meeting with this Siberian
air blowing down from Tibet,
causing some of the most difficult
weather conditions on the planet.
[suspenseful music]
You get these incredible
changes in air pressure.
[plane rumbling]
And pilots who flew the Hump say
the plane would lurch like
a hundred feet in the air,
and then drop 200 feet, and
lurch back up a hundred feet.
[suspenseful music]
[Col. Douds] It's hard to imagine
for the pilots who do it.
The aircraft is proven but
not in these conditions.
So every time they go
up, they're learning.
But there's a cost to
learning this real time.
594 aircraft are lost
and 1,500 aircrew.
[plane rumbling] [dreary music]
[plane rumbling]
[Geoffrey] The problem is you have to
deliver 18 tons of fuel and other supplies
to get one ton of stuff
to the Chinese army.
It was a trickle of what was needed.
[Tom] But China remains a priority
for President Roosevelt.
[Dan S.] There is another option.
The Allies need to
reopen the Burma Road.
[dramatic music]
[gun firing]
[Tom] By late 1943, China has been
at war with Japan for six years,
engaging the majority
of the Japanese Army.
[gun firing]
President Roosevelt and
his military leaders
are determined to defend China,
including using B-29s to strike
the Japanese home islands.
The US plans to build four
air bases around Chengdu
that will accommodate the B-29.
[Dr. Grant] The B-29
Superfortress is a heavy bomber.
And that means it needs a runway
that's strong enough to land on.
But the problem is there's no
way to bring in a bulldozer,
or a truck, or heavy
equipment into China.
They simply won't fit in the aircraft
that are flying over the Hump.
But the upside for
running a bomber campaign
out of China is that the Americans know
that they will have access to
all the Chinese labor
they could ask for.
[dramatic music]
[Col. Douds] Hundreds of
thousands of people
grinding out a runway by hand.
[Narrator] No bulldozers
or complicated machinery available.
Only manpower and hard work.
[Dr. Grant] Just the sheer
scale of human labor,
it looks like ancient history.
Men, women, children
pulling the rollers,
working side by side.
[Tom] Their country in jeopardy,
Chinese civilians defend
against the Japanese
any way they can, building roads,
constructing airfields,
loading supplies.
[Dan C.] China's an agrarian economy
in a time period
where industrial warfare has taken over.
So how do they produce all
these weapons that you need?
For example, how do you produce tanks?
So part of the problem here for Chiang
is that he needs everything.
[Robert] The only way to bring
the tanks and the artillery
that Chiang needs into China
is to reopen the Burma Road.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] The Allies have more
than a quarter of a million troops
based in Eastern India,
from Calcutta to Ledo in Assam.
They planned a two-pronged offensive.
The British 14th Army will
push into Central Burma
to expel the Japanese.
An American-led force will
cross into Northern Burma
and fight their way through
to reestablish the Burma Road.
General Joseph Stilwell
commands the American forces.
His personal and professional
connection to China
spans three decades.
[Robert] Joseph Stilwell,
well known as Vinegar Joe,
he's cranky, and
acerbic, and sarcastic.
[Geoffrey] But Stilwell speaks
and reads Mandarin.
He's a great lover of China
and he has nothing but good
things to say about the Chinese.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] A respected Commander,
Stilwell has trained
thousands of soldiers
in his long career.
[Robert] Stilwell's task
is to take a handful of
Chinese divisions,
30,000 of Chiang Kai-shek's troops,
and train them up to Western standards.
[gun firing]
[explosions booming]
He takes over an old
British POW camp in India
and he's able to give them
the training, the weaponry,
so that they turn themselves
into relatively solid units.
[pensive music]
[Tom] General William Slim,
Uncle Bill to his troops,
leads the British 14th
Army, a multinational force
comprised of units from
Britain, India, and Africa.
Many have been battling the Japanese
since the invasion of Burma.
[Dan S.] Slim says, look, we
got beaten in Burma
because we couldn't fight in the jungle
like the Japanese can.
They're not superhuman.
We just have to learn how to do it.
[Dan C.] The Japanese were considered
to be these amazing jungle fighters.
But we should remember,
Japan's not a jungle country.
They're not great jungle fighters
'cause they grew up in it.
This is about training.
A complete rethink is needed.
Slim starts training everybody,
not just frontline infantrymen.
Everyone needs to be able to
handle themselves with their weapons,
the bottle washers, and the
cooks, and the truck drivers.
And everyone needs to
know that the Japanese
are not these supermen.
They're not bogey men.
Actually, they are
completely defeatable.
[foreboding music]
So I think by this point,
the war's going very badly for Japan.
You've had the Battle
of Midway in 1942,
which Japan lost.
[explosion booming]
Now, as a result, Japanese shipping
is struggling to get through.
So you've got rationing
tightening in Japan.
And then back in Europe,
you've had the German
loss at Stalingrad.
You've had the toppling of Mussolini.
So I think at this point,
Japan doesn't expect
it's gonna get any help
really from the Axis powers.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Hideki Tojo, who has
been Prime Minister since 1941,
is the dominant force
in the Japanese
government and military.
[Christopher] By early 1944,
there's a feeling for Tojo
and for others at the high command
that something can be
done elsewhere in the war
to try and offer Japan a
little bit of progress.
And some kind of dramatic
success for the Japanese
might force the Americans to
come to the negotiating table.
One idea is to put some
pressure on the Allies
in Northeast India and on
Chiang Kai-shek in China.
[Tom] Prime Minister Tojo
approves Operation U-Go,
an invasion into India.
His generals prepare to attack
the British bases of the 14th Army
and to capture the
American Hump airfields.
[Jonathan] Tojo understands
that at this point,
these flights across the Hump
are the last remaining
connection point with the West
that the Chinese
national government has.
And if you can cut those air bases off,
that will then be the straw
that breaks the nationalist back.
[propellers whirring]
For the Allies, this is rife
with portents of disaster.
[plane rumbling]
[dramatic music]
[Tom] March, 1944,
Operation U-Go begins.
Japanese troops move across
the Burmese jungle into India,
toward British bases and
the American airfields.
The Japanese commander is
General Renya Mutaguchi.
[Dan S.] Mutaguchi thinks he is
a creature of destiny.
And he's got a plan.
He believes that right there,
on the very, very western
frontier of the Japanese Empire,
he could strike a blow that
could save the war for Japan.
[Tom] Mutaguchi hopes his invasion
will inspire the Indians
to overthrow the British
and join Japan in the war.
The Japanese are banking
on speed and surprise,
that they're gonna move three divisions
across these 8,000 foot high mountains
in the space of just a few days.
As such, he cuts the rations
for all of his attack soldiers
to just 20 days worth of food.
The Japanese soldiers
carry very small amount of
food supply, like dried rice.
And they do not carry
many heavy weapons.
[Dan S.] So the Japanese
cannot get locked
into an attritional battle.
'Cause they're traveling light,
they're gonna have to rely on
capturing British supply dumps
as they go along.
It's a gamble.
[Tom] To get to the air bases in India,
Mutaguchi will need to
cross the Imphal Plain,
site of a large British forward base.
[Dan S.] The Imphal Plain, it's
got like a big river valley,
surrounded by mountainous
jungley terrain.
The Brits have used this
sort of like a bread basket.
They've got airfield there,
they've got supply dumps, food,
everything the Japanese need.
[Tom] Based in Imphal are
three British-Indian divisions
from General Slim's 14th Army.
They're about to push
into enemy territory
when they receive reports that
Mutaguchi's Japanese troops
are moving towards them.
[dramatic music]
[Dan S.] Bill Slim's new plan
is to withdraw slightly,
create a killing zone,
let the Japanese attack
through this difficult terrain,
and pound them with
artillery and aircraft.
[James] He's going to
relinquish ground,
but all the time he's going to attrit,
grind down the Japanese.
This is a high risk strategy
and you can only do that if
you're extremely confident
that your men are sufficiently trained.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] But Mutaguchi's
force arrives quickly
and is far larger than
Slim was expecting.
[Jonathan] So when these
Japanese divisions
start sort of materializing
out of the jungle,
it's a real pucker
moment for the British.
[explosion booming]
[machine gun firing]
[foreboding music]
[machine gun firing]
[machine gun firing]
[machine gun firing]
[artillery firing]
[Tom] The Japanese encircle Imphal
and cut off its supply roads.
There is this just brutal battle.
The fighting is
incredibly close quarter.
[machine gun firing]
[machine gun firing]
And it is absolutely touch and go.
[artillery firing]
[machine gun firing]
[artilleries firing]
[Jonathan] But Mutaguchi is mired in
mental models that were
applicable in 1942
that are no longer applicable in '44.
Back then, if you hit
an Indian division
in the face with a frontal attack,
a lot of the time it fell apart.
But Slim's army is better
trained, it is more resilient,
and from a morale standpoint,
they believe in themselves.
They think that they can
fight the Japanese toe to toe.
[guns firing]
[Tom] Fighting is
relentless around Imphal,
but General Slim has a plan
to bring in reinforcements
and supplies.
[artillery firing] [machine gun firing]
[James] All this time, Imphal
itself is completely cut off.
And if you're gonna make a stand,
you're gonna need supplies.
What Slim recognizes with
his American colleagues
is that air power is
key to the whole thing.
[plane rumbling]
There's only one way to
supply this Allied pocket,
and that is by air.
[Jonathan] The Americans have
already got
a very efficient, well-trained
transport air force
in the north of India, the Hump.
And they turn that
airlift 90 degrees aside
and aim it towards Imphal
and the British troops there.
[plane rumbling]
[Dr. Grant] When you're
flying low and slow,
you are one big fat target.
These cargo planes have
no defensive armament,
they don't have any guns.
And if you push the cargo
out four seconds late,
it's gonna end up into Japanese hands.
But astonishingly it works.
[dramatic music]
[Jonathan] These transports
airdrop and land
about 14 million pounds
of food, ammunition,
heavy equipment, and
thousands of fresh troops.
And that means that Slim can
keep his forces fighting.
[suspenseful music]
[artillery firing]
Mutaguchi had hoped to
take Imphal within days,
right off the march.
Instead, what he gets
is a meat grinder.
[dramatic music] [machine gun firing]
[Tom] For weeks, divisions
of General Slim's 14th Army
have been receiving supplies by air,
there, the frontline resisting
Japan's invasion of India.
[machine gun firing]
[artilleries firing]
[explosion booming] [foreboding music]
But Mutaguchi's men are
running out of time.
[Col. Douds] The Japanese have
gone into the offensive
without much equipment.
They don't have an
established supply line.
So every day that they
don't achieve success,
it becomes more and more desperate.
[Christopher] Of course the big problem
they face is rations.
These start to run out, hunger
starts to become a big issue.
They're picking up snakes,
they're trying to eat monkeys.
They are literally starving.
[Noriko] General Tojo famously
issued instructions
for the soldiers in the battlefield
that to be taken by enemy
as a prisoner of war
is unacceptable.
Facing defeat, they should
make a final suicidal charge and die
or commit suicide.
[dreary music]
[Robert] The survivors are
forced to retreat.
Japanese soldiers are
dropping dead along the route.
[Dan C.] The retreats becomes hellish.
The Japanese words were
translated as the road of bones.
The survivors' accounts
are of mass suicides
all along the way.
There are stories of Japanese
buddies getting together and
hugging each other and then detonating
a grenade between the two of them.
[dreary music]
[Jonathan] Up to this point in the war,
this is the largest
defeat the Japanese Army
has ever suffered on the ground,
around 60,000 casualties.
[Col. Douds] Mutaguchi had a
vision of this operation
to destroy the Allied
efforts in Northeastern India
and foment an insurrection.
All of those dreams are
shattered at the end of this.
[foreboding music]
[Tom] In the spring of 1944,
President Roosevelt is
focused on Operation Overlord,
the upcoming invasion of Normandy.
But he's frustrated by
the delays in East Asia
and the fact that the B-29s
are still not in action.
[Robert] America is in Burma
and in this theater
to supply China with weapons
and to supply their B-29
bases in Southern China.
Roosevelt has been told time
and again by his military men
that they're devoting
precious resources
on an effort that looks
increasingly futile.
[plane rumbling]
And yet Roosevelt simply doesn't
see another horse to back.
In May of 1944, there
is no alternate place
from which B-29 bombers can operate.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] In Northern Burma,
General Vinegar Joe Stilwell
is preparing troops to
push to the Burma Road.
[Jonathan] If the Americans
can reopen that road,
it's gonna completely transform
not only the ground
campaign in China for Chiang
but also the aerial campaign
for the American B-29s
that are gonna be based in China,
because they will be able to
drive over the heavy equipment
that they can't fly across the Hump,
like steam shovels and steam rollers.
And so it transformed these
bases into the sort of bases
that Americans like to build,
big, sprawling, and full of warehouses.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Stilwell's plan is to
move across Northern Burma,
attack the Japanese
military base at Myitkyina,
then push forward to create a
new route to the Burma Road.
He sent 7,000 men,
including Chinese troops
and a veteran American
deep penetration force
nicknamed Merrill's Marauders,
on a three week march through
the jungle towards Myitkyina.
[Dan C.] Certain fighting
environments kill you
all by themselves.
You don't need bullets,
you don't need shells.
The jungle kills you.
It destroys armies day by day.
[Geoffrey] The American and
Chinese troops
that are inserted there,
they're just absolutely
devastated by illness.
They've all got amoebic
dysentery, severe diarrhea.
They've all got, you know,
dengue and other tropical fevers.
There was nowhere to rest,
there was nowhere to recuperate,
and nowhere to get
the resources for war.
[dreary music]
[Tom] On May 17th,
Stilwell's troops launched
the attack on Myitkyina.
[dramatic music] [artillery firing]
[machine gun firing]
[gun firing]
[machine gun firing]
It's a really hard-fought battle.
There's more Japanese
there than they expected.
And the Japanese fight doggedly for it.
[plane rumbling]
[Tom] The Americans call in air support
from their bases in India.
[explosion booming]
[plane rumbling]
[explosion booming]
[planes rumbling]
And take Myitkyina Airfield.
US gliders land,
bringing reinforcements
and General Stilwell.
[Jonathan] So with the fall of
Myitkyina,
that now enables
the Americans to play their strong suit,
which is construction.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] Army engineers and local laborers
start to build a new route
from India to the Burma Road.
[Col. Douds] It's hundreds of
miles long,
scraped out of the jungle,
and it's a major construction program.
It's gonna take months.
[explosions booming]
[pensive music]
[Jonathan] From the British and American
standpoint, it's all looking good.
It's gonna take a while
to rebuild that road,
but we can rebuild it now.
And it seems that the tea
leaves are now propitious
for a B-29 offensive out of China.
The problem is that
the Allies don't know
that the Japanese have an
even bigger land operation
up their sleeve.
[dramatic music]
[Tom] General Stilwell's
victory at Myitkyina
will enable the Americans to
reconnect to the Burma Road.
But it's a slow and arduous process
and the road won't be
operational for months.
[explosion booming]
[plane rumbling] [dramatic music]
In June, 1944,
B-29s begin to arrive at
the air fields in China.
[Dr. Grant] The Army Air Forces
have been waiting
for the B-29 for years.
Finally, here they are,
ready to fly their first
missions out of China.
The idea is to put up
a sustained bombing
campaign over Japan.
And the key is being
able to fly missions
over and over and over again.
The problem is logistics.
The B-29 is an enormous fuel hog.
It runs on about 9,000 gallons
of gasoline per sortie.
[Col. Douds] They also need a
lot of bombs.
And the only way you're gonna
get bombs and fuel to those air fields
is they gotta fly over the Hump,
until they open up a new Burma Road.
[dramatic music]
[Dr. Grant] It takes eight
airlift missions
flying over the Hump
for every B-29 combat mission
just to bring in the
bombs and the fuel.
[plane rumbling]
[dramatic music]
[Tom] In mid-June, the first
B-29 combat mission to Japan
sets off from Chengdu.
68 Superfortresses
attack the Imperial Iron and steelworks
at Yawata in Southern Japan.
[planes rumbling]
[Dr. Grant] But because they
don't have enough supplies
coming into China,
they're only flying a
few missions at a time.
It's just not going to add up
to the sustained pounding
campaign that Roosevelt wants.
[foreboding music]
[explosion booming]
[Tom] Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tojo
has launched an offensive in China.
[Christopher] It's called
Operation Ichi-Go,
which means Operation Number One.
And this is the largest operation
that the Japanese
undertake during the war.
[Tom] The offensive has two goals,
secure land access to Japan's occupied
possessions in Southeast Asia
and capture US air bases in China.
[artillery firing]
[guns firing] [foreboding music]
[Jonathan] The Japanese attack
with about a half a million troops,
several thousand artillery pieces,
hundreds of tanks, a
lot of aircraft as well.
[explosion booming]
[artillery firing]
[Christopher] But the big
surprise of this campaign
is how poor Chiang
Kai-shek's forces are.
At this point, some
of them are starving.
There've been lots of
deserters from their army.
And with that level of morale,
some of these forces,
under Japanese pressure,
simply melt away.
[dreary music]
[Tom] The Japanese push south,
overpowering Chinese forces.
Millions of Chinese attempt to flee,
caught between a foreign invader
and their own corrupt leaders.
The US is forced to abandon
bases and airfields.
[Christopher] It's a huge embarrassment
for Chiang Kai-shek,
particularly in the face of his allies.
All this time,
he's been trying to talk
up what he's capable of
if only the Americans
give him what he needs.
And yet in the face
of Operation Ichi-Go,
his forces just seem to crumble.
[Jonathan] For the Americans
looking at the wreckage
of the aftermath of Ichi-Go,
they recognized that the Chinese
can't defend American bases
no matter where they are.
On top of that, the increasing
logistical headaches
of trying to get supplies over the Hump
means that they decide
to just cut their losses.
And they packed up those B-29s.
[Dr. Grant] The Army Air Forces
have put everything
into making these Chinese bases work,
but they're done with China.
[Jonathan] And the Americans
may now have a new option
for basing B-29s,
which is a better option.
[suspenseful music]
[Tom] Since 1943,
American forces have
been fighting their way
across the Central Pacific.
Now a combined Marine and Army force
is on the verge of invading
the Mariana Islands,
Tinian, Guam, and Saipan,
only 1,600 miles from Japan.
[Jonathan] So if the Americans
can capture the Marianas,
the B-29 bomber will
now be within range
of almost all of Japan.
The expectation for the
Americans is that this should be
a relatively easy operation,
but the reality is gonna
be utterly different.
[dramatic music]
[artilleries firing]
[explosion booming]
[Tom] Just after D-Day, the
Allied invasion of Europe,
American forces attack Saipan
in the middle of the Pacific.
[suspenseful music]
[artilleries firing]
[artilleries firing]
[Jonathan] This is really an
unprecedented display
of American power projection,
that the Americans are able to launch
these two massive operations,
Overlord first in
Europe and then Saipan.
They're separated by half a planet.
They're thousands of miles apart.
[artilleries firing]
[explosion booming]
The expectation is that
this is gonna take three days
for two Marine divisions
and an Army division
to be able to conquer Saipan.
[dreary music]
[Geoffrey] But the Japanese
had fortified it
and built D-Day style fortifications,
not only bunkers and pillboxes,
but they had
dummy bunkers and pillboxes
so that they could waste some
of the naval bombardment on
fake targets.
[explosion booming] [dreary music]
In fact, there's actually
32,000 Japanese there.
[dramatic music]
Saipan is part of the Japanese defenses
that they would consider
to be the inner ring
that must be defended,
that they will sacrifice the most for.
[dramatic music]
Because if they lose Saipan,
then Tokyo is in danger,
and that's where the emperor is.
[suspenseful music]
The resistance is ferocious.
[Jonathan] The Americans
successfully get
a full division's worth
of troops on there
within the space of just a few hours.
[Col. Douds] In the initial
assault, 8,000 Marines land.
Over 2,000 of them become casualties.
This is a bloodletting beyond
what anybody had expected.
[Jonathan] Anytime a Japanese formation
attempts to put in a counter-attack,
they are immediately met with
inordinate amounts of naval
gunfire that just crushed them.
[explosions booming]
[Geoffrey] The Japanese retreat
into the hills in the interior,
along with several thousand
Japanese settlers living in Saipan.
And they forced the
Marines and the Army troops
to root them out of
caves in these hills.
[dreary music] [guns firing]
[dreary music]
[gun firing]
[Tom] The battle for
Saipan lasts almost a month.
Thousands of civilians die,
caught in the crossfire.
[tanks firing]
[Jonathan] The final climax
of this battle
happens at a set of cliffs
on the northern part of the island.
[artillery firing]
[Tom] At Marpi Point,
advancing US troops
trap civilians and Japanese soldiers
between the frontline and the sea.
[Jonathan] The Japanese propaganda
that's been fed to these people
tells them that the Americans
are going to kill all the men,
rape all the women, and it's effective.
They don't surrender.
[dreary music]
[Geoffrey] And then as the
Marines close in,
some of them leap to their deaths,
some of them clutching their children.
[dreary music]
[Tom] Marines and soldiers
confront the inconceivable.
For Japan, the loss of
Saipan is a disaster.
[Jonathan] They've now had the heart
ripped out of their defensive line.
And they know that the Americans now
are gonna have perfect
operating conditions
to launch this bomber
offensive against Japan itself.
[dreary music]
[guns firing]
[Col. Douds] The casualties are high,
for both sides.
[Dr. Grant] But the terrible
loss of life
finally gives the B -29s
the air bases they need to bomb Japan.
Instead of having
hand-built runways in China
that require airlift
just to bring in the gas,
now in the Mariana's islands,
you have huge runways
built by the Seabees using
brilliant white coral,
as hard and durable as you can want.
[Col. Douds] On these three islands,
Saipan, Tinian, and Guam,
the Americans build five
long runway complexes,
each to be supported by a
bomber group of 180 B-29s.
[Dr. Grant] And suddenly the Marianas
are the world's biggest air base.
[dramatic music]
[planes rumbling]
[Col. Douds] FDR's objective, the B-29,
finally gets its optimum opportunity
to achieve the mission
for which it was developed
in the first place.
[Tom] November, 1944,
B-29 Superfortresses
take off for the first of many missions
to bomb the home islands of Japan.
[planes rumbling]
With the capture of the
Mariana island chain,
the United States is capable
of regularly striking Japan,
just as it's been able to hit Germany
for the past two years.
As the tide turns for
these Axis partners,
each country tightens
its grip on its people.