The World at War s01e23 Episode Script
Pacific (February 1942 - July 1945)
This very small island, with surrounds of two kilometers squared, it cost 4 a thousand lives more than.
It is Tarawa, typical of some combats more concentrated of the war, while the Americans pushed the Japanese, of island in island, throughout the Pacific.
The World in War Pacific February 1942 - July 1945 In February of 1942, the Japanese bombers they had attacked the Australian continent.
The attack immobilized the naval base of Darwin, temporarily.
With the advance of the Japanese through the New Guiné, some Australians had thought that it would be the beginning of the invasion, but the Japanese Army and the Navy they had been incapable to correspond.
Its plans of invasion they had been side ranks.
The Japanese capsize that they had progressed very for the interior.
In the terrible conditions of the forest of the New Guiné, the Australians, with the support increasing of the Americans, they had stopped the Japanese advance in the vital base of Port Moresby.
Throughout Kokoda Trail, the Allies had counterattacked.
The illnesses had been so terrible problems as the Japanese bullets.
In the end of 1942, the threat to Australia it had disappeared.
The scene was mounted for the long and bitter fight, to compel the Japanese to withdraw for its native land.
Offensive the allied one was under separate command of two rivals: general Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest of the Pacific; e Admiral Chester Nimitz, in the Central Pacific.
The American strategy age to attack in two fronts an enemy whose conquests enclosed hundreds of kilometers land squares and ocean.
MacArthur would have to go up of the islands Salomão and Nova Guiné, until the Phillipino.
The forces under the command of Nimitz they would go to jump of island in island.
The Marshall islands, the Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.
They would start in the Gilberts, in November of 1943, in the island of Tarawa.
Each one of vocês is better of what a Japanese.
Better physically, better psychologically.
It has better weapons, will have support better.
Therefore, it will win easily it in one it fights individual.
They leave to repeat me what the General said: "Risks will be had sliding to make a prisoner, then they do not make it.
" The first objective of the armed of Admiral Nimitz, atol of Tarawa, a Japanese ortaleza became, of which the airplanes took off, being able to attack the fleet of U.
S.
A.
Tarawa had of being taken.
He was the first time that one an attack was launched of the sea against one atol defended e well protected for a chorale reef.
None of the 5 a thousand Marines of the initial attack it had idea of as it was strong the defense of Tarawa.
They thought that they would point the weapons and would demoliriam everything.
That it would not have alive soul in the island.
I remember it saying in them: "This goes to be the invasion more easy than already we made.
" It said:"We only go to need two men.
One with a metal ring and another one with a black picture.
"One to go off e one to take note.
It exactly goes to be easy.
" I turned myself toward the Major to my side in the deck and it said: "Some of our men me they do not seem very well today.
" e it said:"You are not thinking that the bombings are ours?" Then I repaired that we were being bombed e that really had some Japanese in Tarawa.
All were confident of that we would go to banish the Japanese.
The Marines would not have problems with them, if we obtained to put the feet in the beach.
We have to remember to us that the island extension m had only 800 e when we place 20 a thousand men in an island thus, it is a multitude.
It had Japanese to the front of lines, for backwards, for all the side.
They had said them that we would obtain to take the island in little time e became evident, hours after disembarking, that it would not be thus.
The trenches had been closed for the bombings.
In the following morning, about 20 m of me, vi a Japanese digging.
They were taking off the sand stops to see some thing of the side of it are.
The battle was stopped during three days, with the Japanese defending itself withdrawing until the tip of the island.
The Japanese commander he had affirmed that Tarawa it would not obtain to be taken nor in 100 years.
They imagine what is, about 6 a thousand deceased, in an island of that size e considering that it is to a degree of the Equator, the heat that if feels there they can I smell imagine it, to the end of one or two days, of all that meat apodrecendo.
Adocicado was one smells, nauseabundo and adocicado, e I do not have knowledge of, in the World War II, to have had another place with so great concentration of deaths.
When everything finished, of 3 a thousand Japanese only 17 if had relieved.
The Americans had had more of a thousand died and 2 a thousand wounded.
The public opinion in the States Joined she was shocked, that they had occurred as many losses human beings in so short period of fight.
After de Tarawa, the American forces of invasion they had followed for the Marianas Islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam.
The naval force that it protected the landings the west of Saipan was placed.
Coming of Okinawa, in June of 1944, it was the Fleet of Japanese Intervention, looking to the naval success that still its favor turned the war.
Suddenly, for the radar, the Americans capsize that they had been sighted for the Japanese.
All the American huntings available they had been ranks in air to collate wave after wave of Japanese airplanes.
Many Japanese were inexperienced, without war experience.
Its airplanes had weak shield.
For the American aviators to reach its adversaries, it was so easy as to whiten turkeys.
After the first confrontation, only one American airplane did not return.
Rearmed and replenished, the Americans were ready for the next step to the Japanese.
It had more two attacks devastadores to face However, the Americans had about 900 airplanes in the aircraft carriers, two times more than what the Japanese.
The attack to the Marianas it lasted only eight hours.
In one only day, the aerial power naval Japanese virtually it was destroyed.
The initial squadron of 430 airplanes it was reduced about 100.
The American losses they were relatively low.
The pilots were more important of what the machines.
In the end of the day, the Americans they had looser the aerial battle, but they had still to locate the Japanese armed now in withdrawal.
In the following day, the Americans they had continued to the search of the enemy.
Only to the end of the afternoon its airplanes they had sighted the Fleet of Intervention, more than the 200 miles, in the limit of the reach of the American bombers.
But the order was given:to attack.
To the dusk, the main target of the American attack, the fleet of Japanese aircraft carriers, she was sufficiently damaged.
A sunk aircraft carrier e more two damaged.
This great naval battle, where none of the squadrons it went off against the other, it finished with the Japanese reduced the 35 airplanes, in withdrawal it stops its bases in Japan.
The American airplanes they faced the problem now of the return to the aircraft carriers.
The decision to attack it could mean to be without fuel in the return trip.
The first ones to come back they had been the huntings, that they had protected the Force of Intervention.
Aterrisar to the dusk already it was difficult.
But later the airplanes would have to find its aircraft carriers, in the dark night as it breu.
Some had not obtained.
It was probably the night darker than vi in my life.
E on the entire ocean.
I find that we would be flying about 7 a thousand feet, the best altitude to save fuel, e was dark as the devil e did not hear nothing, only we ourselves, the shouts.
would not only say shouts, but mere communications: "I go to have to aterrisar in the sea, I am without fuel.
" E heard constantly, until all the fighter aircrafts that they had aguentado the attack, they fell in the water.
E then, I find that the fence of 100 miles of the Force, the pilots cried out: "Daqui.
" I do not remember the indicative, "I go to fall, I am without fuel.
" Later silence became, until being to the reach of the Force.
Then we only saw what it happens to the Force of Intervention what it would be the process of recovery.
We had not seen.
The ships sailed, with the extinguished lights, a normal procedure, stops not to be detected of air.
But the Admiral wise person who he would be difficult to aterrisar, with fuel lack and without time to look the ships.
The decision was taken and was given order to the aircraft carriers, so that they lit the lights.
In the following day, the Force of Intervention saved the great majority of the crews of the airplanes, that had been forced to aterrisar in the sea.
With the victory of the Battle of the Sea of the Phillipino, the landing in the Marianas it could continue, without the interference of the Japanese Navy.
To the cost of died 3 a thousand Americans, Saipan surrendered.
Tinian was not so well defended.
Guam was aguentou during three weeks.
Advancing for ocidente, coming of the Marianas, an American amphibious force it was placed by Nimitz under the command of MacArthur, to the measure that the two fronts rivals started to join themselves.
The objective one was the archipelago of Palau.
This had of being taken before the invasion of the Phillipino.
In one of the islands, Pelelieu, one more time the Americans they face great resistance, of an impressive force of 10 a thousand Japanese troops.
Instead of collating the Americans in beaches, the Japanese had retreating stop a grotto labyrinth and tunnels.
The Americans had had to fight, handspan the handspan, against an enemy determined to fight until a death.
In the bloody battle for Pelelieu, they had been died or wounded.
It took months until all Japanese were removed of there.
It did not have easy victories, in these islands of the Pacific.
Some of the Marines died, they could only have been identified for the fingerprints.
In 20 of October of 1944, MacArthur fulfilled its promise: it came back to the Phillipino.
The landing occurred practically without opposition, with the Japanese collected in its main points of defense, but the invasion unchained one of the more complex greaters and naval battles of history.
The Battle of the Gulf of Leyte it would last four days.
Four Japanese forces they had converged to the Phillipino, comings of Bornéu, Formosa and Japan.
The Americans had two fleets, Seventh and Third.
The objective of Japanese the age to destroy the ships American, in the Gulf of Leyte.
After a series of disordered confrontations, the hundreds of kilometers of distance, the Japanese Imperial Navy it suffered heavy decreases.
It had left of being an effective naval force.
In land, a torrential rain it delayed the onslaught of MacArthur, against a Japanese army of about 400 a thousand men.
In February of 1945, three months after the landing in Leyte, the Americans surrounded the capital of the Phillipino, Manila.
For the first time, in the war of the Pacific, the Americans fought to enter in a great city.
The battle was stopped of street in street, of house in house.
Many civilians had lost the life.
Some executed for the Japanese in withdrawal.
As the moment of triumph of MacArthur.
Its return to the capital of the Phillipino.
Done Americans prisoners during the Japanese invasion they had been freed, after three years of captivity.
With the taking of the Phillipino, the supplying routes of necessary materials to the Japanese industry they would be cut.
The Japanese command wise person, when losing the Phillipino, that it had lost the war.
After the release, the revenge.
The adjustment of accounts against Phillipino accused with contribution during the years of the Japanese occupation, it arrived finally at the end.
February of 1945.
Iwo Jima, 13 km2 of volcanic rock, but the 600 miles of the coast of Japan, it was the target of the following passage, through the Central Pacific.
Of Iwo Jima the American bombers they could attack Japanese cities, easily.
Of the dominant heights of the Suribachi Mount, the Japanese practically see everything what it is moved in Iwo Jima.
E of new, the main forces Japaneses were in the interior, moved away from beaches.
During the 76 days previous to the landing, the Americans had bombed Iwo Jima, of the sea and air.
The desolation, the dryness of the place, it was, in fact, a nightmare.
It was seemed than vi with the hell.
If the hell if resembles something, it must be the Iwo Jima.
At the moment where we enter in those motor boats we feel fear.
E we feel fear until arriving at the beach.
We take conscience of that we went to enter killing e we were instructed in the direction to kill or to be dead.
We or the Japanese were.
Or some or others.
E when being collated with this situation, when it is a young, I had only 19 years, he is confused.
We are trained in the Marines to receive orders and to obey, but also we are human beings e we have only 19 or 20 years.
In that height, most it had 18, 19 or 20 years.
The people have the idea of that the Marines is super-men, but I find that did not have a Marine, in that motor boat of landing that it did not feel fear, including the officers.
In the Marines, always me they had taught to hate them, to detestar them and that they were animal.
We were the men, they were the animals.
But also in it was said that they to them they would die for the Emperor.
They had not taught in them to die for our President.
E to fight or to face an individual that wants to die, that it is not imported to die, it is a difficult conflict in ours head.
We wanted to live.
We wanted to kill it and we wanted to survive.
We had to lower the head, it had many projectiles passing over us e alone we thought that somebody went making right in them e we were far for swimming with all that equipment.
E where we went sheltering in them when we arrived there? It was a devil of a place to be.
We arrive at the island, we saw the ash e that does not have life that way.
That age.
If it has hell, was that.
We arrive at the beach.
It had a small declivity e all had been joined there, because the bombings were strong, everything what it arrived at the beach he was reached immediately.
It was a young at that time.
It had 18 years.
In the first one it had 16 years.
There they were located to ours it waits and systematically they went shooting against all the men throughout the arrival line.
A person did not obtain to prevent that.
The carnage was enormous.
We were imprisoned in a teia e it did not have way to leave there.
We did not obtain to leave the beach.
E to arrive at the beach, it was a depressing scene.
We were lowered, when we started to see our men, of ours proper team, died that way.
Between the side-sea and a hill species, it had an enormous amount of spread bodies.
We advance about.
possibly, 300 meters.
As much how much the Japanese they had decided that we would advance.
It did not have skill to leave the island.
At least, in this first night.
It was congested excessively.
Nothing it would obtain to leave of that island, in the first night.
Opening trenches in the hillsides of the Suribachi Mount, the Japanese commander he concentrated its artillery.
The preliminary bombing had failed, in the attempt to destroy the redoubts of the Japanese.
They only could be taken, one of each time e for the men in the land.
It would take much more time to control Iwo Jima, of what the five foreseen days for the American command.
The vegetation had missing person completely.
We woke up of morning e we looked at for that extension of land of nobody, that it bubbled and it boiled with the vapors that left the land.
In the truth, we had to use the cardboard of the boxes of ration, to put in the shelters, not to burn the tail.
If the hell exists, I crossed it at that time.
Valley the penalty not to worry me if I go to stop in the hell in the future.
Already it stows there.
One of the youngsters came to speak with me, he was a man with family.
I knew not even it, it stows with it in this day and only said to it: "We have a mortar, we are well, does not have problem.
" Before the end of the day, it and half of my squad they were died.
Worse it was becoming in them insensitive to corpses, the swelled bodies, but this did not happen, when if it dealt with our friends.
I find that it was what happened of more terrible in Iwo Jima.
If all remembered the tragedy at great length, they would go crazy.
They would not be capable to exceed that.
We think whenever we went to escape.
We were scared, but we continue thinking that we went to escape.
She was one of the biggest confusions the one that never attended.
I do not know who age the commander, but it must have had the mission riskier of that already I heard to speak.
It can have been confused, at the time, but the support organization to the attacking troops, it was the test of what it became inevitable the victory of America on Japan, since Pearl Harbor: its crusher to be able industrial.
But a thing seemed to give alento to the men.
To obtain a wound would take that them it stops far from that one cursed place.
For the interior, Iwo Jima became another battle of consuming.
Day after day, the Americans they advance little by little on the Japanese, that they preferíam to die to surrender.
Its heads still they waited that the Americans they could discourage with the decreases and the war.
My God! In Iwo he was one fights body the body.
We did not know who was in the hole with us, most of the time.
We entered in grottos, we lose most of our staff in these situations.
We entered in grottos e we fought with who was there.
One of us only left there.
I find that nobody noticed that they were in so deep underground.
They were so well defended.
After three days of combat in the Suribachi Mount, the flag esvoaçava in the top.
One of the youngsters started to cry out: "There it is the flag" E of any point of that island we saw the top of the Suribachi e the hoisted flag.
E all people started to cry out, because we calculate that the island was insurance.
It was far from being insurance.
We still had a long one way to cover, but it was good for seeing the flag up there.
They had always said them to make prisoners, but we had some bad experiences in Saipan.
Some prisoners as soon as if they saw behind the lines, we played garnet and we lost more men.
We had resistance in making prisoners, since these even fought the death, as us.
Much few had left voluntarily.
They made when it, came normally one the front, with the hands in air, and it came behind, with a garnet.
One of the youngsters of Virginia Occidental person, it was leant in a rock wall with the helmet underneath of the legs position that we adopted frequent, when an enemy ran over the wall, with a small load explosive moored to the belly.
A piece of the inferior part of the trunk, it twirled in air and it fell on the knees back e the completely naked one, in front of its face.
It looked at for that and said: "My God, I was reached e I was so badly thus?" E that alliviated the tension of the previous night.
Many had been absolutely apáticos, during about one hour, we are lying with convulsions.
Of the 21 a thousand Japanese military that it had in Iwo Jima, at the beginning of the attack, but 200 had survived.
It stows in the island a total of 6 days e me had seemed 6 a thousand years.
The aerodromes of Iwo Jima they were operational, exactly before the island being taken, thanks to the Battalions of engineering American.
They had had a paper important, not only here, as in all the war of the Pacific.
It had fond the moment to invade the internal circle of the defense of Japan.
The 350 miles of the continent it was last the great barrier, between the Allies and the invasion planned of Imperial Japan: the Japanese island of Okinawa.
In 1 of April of 1945, the Americans had attacked.
The young suicidal pilots of Japan, the Kamikaze, they had been joined as a swarm for the defense of Okinawa.
Many had flied its missions fatal, in obsolete airplanes.
As many things happened e so quickly, that it was a little as to be in one ringue of boxe, when it has been reached in the chin, in the face, the body, for all the side.
We were apanhando of them for as many different angles.
In one it has attacked normal, always has possibility to earn or to lose.
With normal bombs and bullets, we found that we had some possibility.
But the war does not have this porting side, when fight against bombs human beings.
More than 2 a thousand kamikaze they had found the death, but they had destroyed 30 ships of war American e 200 had damaged more.
We praid to obtain to survive, any that was the type of explosion.
Our life passed in ours front very quickly, because we did not know if, inside of seconds or minutes, we would lose our life.
The American decreases had been as much, that the certain height, it seemed that the invasion the Okinawa, it had to be interrupted brusquely.
The shooters did not obtain to stop, therefore they were in full fight, man against bomb-human being, already having exactly abated the airplane, they have difficulty in stopping.
A man was in the rank of the cannon of 40 mm e already had fought a great number of airplanes, but also we had been reached in the area of it.
Suddenly, without nobody to perceive reason, it cried out:"Today it is heat," it jumped for it are and was the last time we saw that it.
If it had been on board, perhaps it had survived.
Clearly that never more we obtain to find the body.
A strange bit was a reaction.
It aguentou the time that obtained, until falling down and it was the end of its fight.
But I believe that all the men they have a rupture point.
E kamikaze, would say I, they had tested this point of rupture, more than what any another form of combat.
The initial landing in Okinawa did not have opposition, but when advancing, the Americans they had been come across with an army Japanese of 100 a thousand men, congregated in a central area deeply strenghtened.
The steep hillsides and narrow ravinas of Okinawa, they had formed a natural ortaleza for the Japanese defenders.
Exceeding number Americans, 2 for 1, they had made to pay them with blood each Japanese centimeter of ground.
With Japan you give to surrender, no Japanese soldier he wanted to fight until the o end.
The civilians of Okinawa they had suffered terrible losses.
e many thousands had been wounded.
As soon as they discovered that we did not go to make what they had always heard, they understood that we were but other human beings, e possibly felt the same that we, that we were not there for wanting.
They had said them that we had to make that.
To many Americans, in the end of its enormous one advance for the Pacific, it seemed now that the animals, fanatic without face, the desirous ones to die for its emperor, they were human beings as.
They also showed affection for its proper people.
We never think.
We found that they did not give value to the life, but it is not truth.
They showed much goodness it stops with its wounded e loaded until them to the coasts.
The wounded were taken by two or three, although proper they also they were weak.
After all, we were people as.
It is Tarawa, typical of some combats more concentrated of the war, while the Americans pushed the Japanese, of island in island, throughout the Pacific.
The World in War Pacific February 1942 - July 1945 In February of 1942, the Japanese bombers they had attacked the Australian continent.
The attack immobilized the naval base of Darwin, temporarily.
With the advance of the Japanese through the New Guiné, some Australians had thought that it would be the beginning of the invasion, but the Japanese Army and the Navy they had been incapable to correspond.
Its plans of invasion they had been side ranks.
The Japanese capsize that they had progressed very for the interior.
In the terrible conditions of the forest of the New Guiné, the Australians, with the support increasing of the Americans, they had stopped the Japanese advance in the vital base of Port Moresby.
Throughout Kokoda Trail, the Allies had counterattacked.
The illnesses had been so terrible problems as the Japanese bullets.
In the end of 1942, the threat to Australia it had disappeared.
The scene was mounted for the long and bitter fight, to compel the Japanese to withdraw for its native land.
Offensive the allied one was under separate command of two rivals: general Douglas MacArthur in the Southwest of the Pacific; e Admiral Chester Nimitz, in the Central Pacific.
The American strategy age to attack in two fronts an enemy whose conquests enclosed hundreds of kilometers land squares and ocean.
MacArthur would have to go up of the islands Salomão and Nova Guiné, until the Phillipino.
The forces under the command of Nimitz they would go to jump of island in island.
The Marshall islands, the Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.
They would start in the Gilberts, in November of 1943, in the island of Tarawa.
Each one of vocês is better of what a Japanese.
Better physically, better psychologically.
It has better weapons, will have support better.
Therefore, it will win easily it in one it fights individual.
They leave to repeat me what the General said: "Risks will be had sliding to make a prisoner, then they do not make it.
" The first objective of the armed of Admiral Nimitz, atol of Tarawa, a Japanese ortaleza became, of which the airplanes took off, being able to attack the fleet of U.
S.
A.
Tarawa had of being taken.
He was the first time that one an attack was launched of the sea against one atol defended e well protected for a chorale reef.
None of the 5 a thousand Marines of the initial attack it had idea of as it was strong the defense of Tarawa.
They thought that they would point the weapons and would demoliriam everything.
That it would not have alive soul in the island.
I remember it saying in them: "This goes to be the invasion more easy than already we made.
" It said:"We only go to need two men.
One with a metal ring and another one with a black picture.
"One to go off e one to take note.
It exactly goes to be easy.
" I turned myself toward the Major to my side in the deck and it said: "Some of our men me they do not seem very well today.
" e it said:"You are not thinking that the bombings are ours?" Then I repaired that we were being bombed e that really had some Japanese in Tarawa.
All were confident of that we would go to banish the Japanese.
The Marines would not have problems with them, if we obtained to put the feet in the beach.
We have to remember to us that the island extension m had only 800 e when we place 20 a thousand men in an island thus, it is a multitude.
It had Japanese to the front of lines, for backwards, for all the side.
They had said them that we would obtain to take the island in little time e became evident, hours after disembarking, that it would not be thus.
The trenches had been closed for the bombings.
In the following morning, about 20 m of me, vi a Japanese digging.
They were taking off the sand stops to see some thing of the side of it are.
The battle was stopped during three days, with the Japanese defending itself withdrawing until the tip of the island.
The Japanese commander he had affirmed that Tarawa it would not obtain to be taken nor in 100 years.
They imagine what is, about 6 a thousand deceased, in an island of that size e considering that it is to a degree of the Equator, the heat that if feels there they can I smell imagine it, to the end of one or two days, of all that meat apodrecendo.
Adocicado was one smells, nauseabundo and adocicado, e I do not have knowledge of, in the World War II, to have had another place with so great concentration of deaths.
When everything finished, of 3 a thousand Japanese only 17 if had relieved.
The Americans had had more of a thousand died and 2 a thousand wounded.
The public opinion in the States Joined she was shocked, that they had occurred as many losses human beings in so short period of fight.
After de Tarawa, the American forces of invasion they had followed for the Marianas Islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam.
The naval force that it protected the landings the west of Saipan was placed.
Coming of Okinawa, in June of 1944, it was the Fleet of Japanese Intervention, looking to the naval success that still its favor turned the war.
Suddenly, for the radar, the Americans capsize that they had been sighted for the Japanese.
All the American huntings available they had been ranks in air to collate wave after wave of Japanese airplanes.
Many Japanese were inexperienced, without war experience.
Its airplanes had weak shield.
For the American aviators to reach its adversaries, it was so easy as to whiten turkeys.
After the first confrontation, only one American airplane did not return.
Rearmed and replenished, the Americans were ready for the next step to the Japanese.
It had more two attacks devastadores to face However, the Americans had about 900 airplanes in the aircraft carriers, two times more than what the Japanese.
The attack to the Marianas it lasted only eight hours.
In one only day, the aerial power naval Japanese virtually it was destroyed.
The initial squadron of 430 airplanes it was reduced about 100.
The American losses they were relatively low.
The pilots were more important of what the machines.
In the end of the day, the Americans they had looser the aerial battle, but they had still to locate the Japanese armed now in withdrawal.
In the following day, the Americans they had continued to the search of the enemy.
Only to the end of the afternoon its airplanes they had sighted the Fleet of Intervention, more than the 200 miles, in the limit of the reach of the American bombers.
But the order was given:to attack.
To the dusk, the main target of the American attack, the fleet of Japanese aircraft carriers, she was sufficiently damaged.
A sunk aircraft carrier e more two damaged.
This great naval battle, where none of the squadrons it went off against the other, it finished with the Japanese reduced the 35 airplanes, in withdrawal it stops its bases in Japan.
The American airplanes they faced the problem now of the return to the aircraft carriers.
The decision to attack it could mean to be without fuel in the return trip.
The first ones to come back they had been the huntings, that they had protected the Force of Intervention.
Aterrisar to the dusk already it was difficult.
But later the airplanes would have to find its aircraft carriers, in the dark night as it breu.
Some had not obtained.
It was probably the night darker than vi in my life.
E on the entire ocean.
I find that we would be flying about 7 a thousand feet, the best altitude to save fuel, e was dark as the devil e did not hear nothing, only we ourselves, the shouts.
would not only say shouts, but mere communications: "I go to have to aterrisar in the sea, I am without fuel.
" E heard constantly, until all the fighter aircrafts that they had aguentado the attack, they fell in the water.
E then, I find that the fence of 100 miles of the Force, the pilots cried out: "Daqui.
" I do not remember the indicative, "I go to fall, I am without fuel.
" Later silence became, until being to the reach of the Force.
Then we only saw what it happens to the Force of Intervention what it would be the process of recovery.
We had not seen.
The ships sailed, with the extinguished lights, a normal procedure, stops not to be detected of air.
But the Admiral wise person who he would be difficult to aterrisar, with fuel lack and without time to look the ships.
The decision was taken and was given order to the aircraft carriers, so that they lit the lights.
In the following day, the Force of Intervention saved the great majority of the crews of the airplanes, that had been forced to aterrisar in the sea.
With the victory of the Battle of the Sea of the Phillipino, the landing in the Marianas it could continue, without the interference of the Japanese Navy.
To the cost of died 3 a thousand Americans, Saipan surrendered.
Tinian was not so well defended.
Guam was aguentou during three weeks.
Advancing for ocidente, coming of the Marianas, an American amphibious force it was placed by Nimitz under the command of MacArthur, to the measure that the two fronts rivals started to join themselves.
The objective one was the archipelago of Palau.
This had of being taken before the invasion of the Phillipino.
In one of the islands, Pelelieu, one more time the Americans they face great resistance, of an impressive force of 10 a thousand Japanese troops.
Instead of collating the Americans in beaches, the Japanese had retreating stop a grotto labyrinth and tunnels.
The Americans had had to fight, handspan the handspan, against an enemy determined to fight until a death.
In the bloody battle for Pelelieu, they had been died or wounded.
It took months until all Japanese were removed of there.
It did not have easy victories, in these islands of the Pacific.
Some of the Marines died, they could only have been identified for the fingerprints.
In 20 of October of 1944, MacArthur fulfilled its promise: it came back to the Phillipino.
The landing occurred practically without opposition, with the Japanese collected in its main points of defense, but the invasion unchained one of the more complex greaters and naval battles of history.
The Battle of the Gulf of Leyte it would last four days.
Four Japanese forces they had converged to the Phillipino, comings of Bornéu, Formosa and Japan.
The Americans had two fleets, Seventh and Third.
The objective of Japanese the age to destroy the ships American, in the Gulf of Leyte.
After a series of disordered confrontations, the hundreds of kilometers of distance, the Japanese Imperial Navy it suffered heavy decreases.
It had left of being an effective naval force.
In land, a torrential rain it delayed the onslaught of MacArthur, against a Japanese army of about 400 a thousand men.
In February of 1945, three months after the landing in Leyte, the Americans surrounded the capital of the Phillipino, Manila.
For the first time, in the war of the Pacific, the Americans fought to enter in a great city.
The battle was stopped of street in street, of house in house.
Many civilians had lost the life.
Some executed for the Japanese in withdrawal.
As the moment of triumph of MacArthur.
Its return to the capital of the Phillipino.
Done Americans prisoners during the Japanese invasion they had been freed, after three years of captivity.
With the taking of the Phillipino, the supplying routes of necessary materials to the Japanese industry they would be cut.
The Japanese command wise person, when losing the Phillipino, that it had lost the war.
After the release, the revenge.
The adjustment of accounts against Phillipino accused with contribution during the years of the Japanese occupation, it arrived finally at the end.
February of 1945.
Iwo Jima, 13 km2 of volcanic rock, but the 600 miles of the coast of Japan, it was the target of the following passage, through the Central Pacific.
Of Iwo Jima the American bombers they could attack Japanese cities, easily.
Of the dominant heights of the Suribachi Mount, the Japanese practically see everything what it is moved in Iwo Jima.
E of new, the main forces Japaneses were in the interior, moved away from beaches.
During the 76 days previous to the landing, the Americans had bombed Iwo Jima, of the sea and air.
The desolation, the dryness of the place, it was, in fact, a nightmare.
It was seemed than vi with the hell.
If the hell if resembles something, it must be the Iwo Jima.
At the moment where we enter in those motor boats we feel fear.
E we feel fear until arriving at the beach.
We take conscience of that we went to enter killing e we were instructed in the direction to kill or to be dead.
We or the Japanese were.
Or some or others.
E when being collated with this situation, when it is a young, I had only 19 years, he is confused.
We are trained in the Marines to receive orders and to obey, but also we are human beings e we have only 19 or 20 years.
In that height, most it had 18, 19 or 20 years.
The people have the idea of that the Marines is super-men, but I find that did not have a Marine, in that motor boat of landing that it did not feel fear, including the officers.
In the Marines, always me they had taught to hate them, to detestar them and that they were animal.
We were the men, they were the animals.
But also in it was said that they to them they would die for the Emperor.
They had not taught in them to die for our President.
E to fight or to face an individual that wants to die, that it is not imported to die, it is a difficult conflict in ours head.
We wanted to live.
We wanted to kill it and we wanted to survive.
We had to lower the head, it had many projectiles passing over us e alone we thought that somebody went making right in them e we were far for swimming with all that equipment.
E where we went sheltering in them when we arrived there? It was a devil of a place to be.
We arrive at the island, we saw the ash e that does not have life that way.
That age.
If it has hell, was that.
We arrive at the beach.
It had a small declivity e all had been joined there, because the bombings were strong, everything what it arrived at the beach he was reached immediately.
It was a young at that time.
It had 18 years.
In the first one it had 16 years.
There they were located to ours it waits and systematically they went shooting against all the men throughout the arrival line.
A person did not obtain to prevent that.
The carnage was enormous.
We were imprisoned in a teia e it did not have way to leave there.
We did not obtain to leave the beach.
E to arrive at the beach, it was a depressing scene.
We were lowered, when we started to see our men, of ours proper team, died that way.
Between the side-sea and a hill species, it had an enormous amount of spread bodies.
We advance about.
possibly, 300 meters.
As much how much the Japanese they had decided that we would advance.
It did not have skill to leave the island.
At least, in this first night.
It was congested excessively.
Nothing it would obtain to leave of that island, in the first night.
Opening trenches in the hillsides of the Suribachi Mount, the Japanese commander he concentrated its artillery.
The preliminary bombing had failed, in the attempt to destroy the redoubts of the Japanese.
They only could be taken, one of each time e for the men in the land.
It would take much more time to control Iwo Jima, of what the five foreseen days for the American command.
The vegetation had missing person completely.
We woke up of morning e we looked at for that extension of land of nobody, that it bubbled and it boiled with the vapors that left the land.
In the truth, we had to use the cardboard of the boxes of ration, to put in the shelters, not to burn the tail.
If the hell exists, I crossed it at that time.
Valley the penalty not to worry me if I go to stop in the hell in the future.
Already it stows there.
One of the youngsters came to speak with me, he was a man with family.
I knew not even it, it stows with it in this day and only said to it: "We have a mortar, we are well, does not have problem.
" Before the end of the day, it and half of my squad they were died.
Worse it was becoming in them insensitive to corpses, the swelled bodies, but this did not happen, when if it dealt with our friends.
I find that it was what happened of more terrible in Iwo Jima.
If all remembered the tragedy at great length, they would go crazy.
They would not be capable to exceed that.
We think whenever we went to escape.
We were scared, but we continue thinking that we went to escape.
She was one of the biggest confusions the one that never attended.
I do not know who age the commander, but it must have had the mission riskier of that already I heard to speak.
It can have been confused, at the time, but the support organization to the attacking troops, it was the test of what it became inevitable the victory of America on Japan, since Pearl Harbor: its crusher to be able industrial.
But a thing seemed to give alento to the men.
To obtain a wound would take that them it stops far from that one cursed place.
For the interior, Iwo Jima became another battle of consuming.
Day after day, the Americans they advance little by little on the Japanese, that they preferíam to die to surrender.
Its heads still they waited that the Americans they could discourage with the decreases and the war.
My God! In Iwo he was one fights body the body.
We did not know who was in the hole with us, most of the time.
We entered in grottos, we lose most of our staff in these situations.
We entered in grottos e we fought with who was there.
One of us only left there.
I find that nobody noticed that they were in so deep underground.
They were so well defended.
After three days of combat in the Suribachi Mount, the flag esvoaçava in the top.
One of the youngsters started to cry out: "There it is the flag" E of any point of that island we saw the top of the Suribachi e the hoisted flag.
E all people started to cry out, because we calculate that the island was insurance.
It was far from being insurance.
We still had a long one way to cover, but it was good for seeing the flag up there.
They had always said them to make prisoners, but we had some bad experiences in Saipan.
Some prisoners as soon as if they saw behind the lines, we played garnet and we lost more men.
We had resistance in making prisoners, since these even fought the death, as us.
Much few had left voluntarily.
They made when it, came normally one the front, with the hands in air, and it came behind, with a garnet.
One of the youngsters of Virginia Occidental person, it was leant in a rock wall with the helmet underneath of the legs position that we adopted frequent, when an enemy ran over the wall, with a small load explosive moored to the belly.
A piece of the inferior part of the trunk, it twirled in air and it fell on the knees back e the completely naked one, in front of its face.
It looked at for that and said: "My God, I was reached e I was so badly thus?" E that alliviated the tension of the previous night.
Many had been absolutely apáticos, during about one hour, we are lying with convulsions.
Of the 21 a thousand Japanese military that it had in Iwo Jima, at the beginning of the attack, but 200 had survived.
It stows in the island a total of 6 days e me had seemed 6 a thousand years.
The aerodromes of Iwo Jima they were operational, exactly before the island being taken, thanks to the Battalions of engineering American.
They had had a paper important, not only here, as in all the war of the Pacific.
It had fond the moment to invade the internal circle of the defense of Japan.
The 350 miles of the continent it was last the great barrier, between the Allies and the invasion planned of Imperial Japan: the Japanese island of Okinawa.
In 1 of April of 1945, the Americans had attacked.
The young suicidal pilots of Japan, the Kamikaze, they had been joined as a swarm for the defense of Okinawa.
Many had flied its missions fatal, in obsolete airplanes.
As many things happened e so quickly, that it was a little as to be in one ringue of boxe, when it has been reached in the chin, in the face, the body, for all the side.
We were apanhando of them for as many different angles.
In one it has attacked normal, always has possibility to earn or to lose.
With normal bombs and bullets, we found that we had some possibility.
But the war does not have this porting side, when fight against bombs human beings.
More than 2 a thousand kamikaze they had found the death, but they had destroyed 30 ships of war American e 200 had damaged more.
We praid to obtain to survive, any that was the type of explosion.
Our life passed in ours front very quickly, because we did not know if, inside of seconds or minutes, we would lose our life.
The American decreases had been as much, that the certain height, it seemed that the invasion the Okinawa, it had to be interrupted brusquely.
The shooters did not obtain to stop, therefore they were in full fight, man against bomb-human being, already having exactly abated the airplane, they have difficulty in stopping.
A man was in the rank of the cannon of 40 mm e already had fought a great number of airplanes, but also we had been reached in the area of it.
Suddenly, without nobody to perceive reason, it cried out:"Today it is heat," it jumped for it are and was the last time we saw that it.
If it had been on board, perhaps it had survived.
Clearly that never more we obtain to find the body.
A strange bit was a reaction.
It aguentou the time that obtained, until falling down and it was the end of its fight.
But I believe that all the men they have a rupture point.
E kamikaze, would say I, they had tested this point of rupture, more than what any another form of combat.
The initial landing in Okinawa did not have opposition, but when advancing, the Americans they had been come across with an army Japanese of 100 a thousand men, congregated in a central area deeply strenghtened.
The steep hillsides and narrow ravinas of Okinawa, they had formed a natural ortaleza for the Japanese defenders.
Exceeding number Americans, 2 for 1, they had made to pay them with blood each Japanese centimeter of ground.
With Japan you give to surrender, no Japanese soldier he wanted to fight until the o end.
The civilians of Okinawa they had suffered terrible losses.
e many thousands had been wounded.
As soon as they discovered that we did not go to make what they had always heard, they understood that we were but other human beings, e possibly felt the same that we, that we were not there for wanting.
They had said them that we had to make that.
To many Americans, in the end of its enormous one advance for the Pacific, it seemed now that the animals, fanatic without face, the desirous ones to die for its emperor, they were human beings as.
They also showed affection for its proper people.
We never think.
We found that they did not give value to the life, but it is not truth.
They showed much goodness it stops with its wounded e loaded until them to the coasts.
The wounded were taken by two or three, although proper they also they were weak.
After all, we were people as.