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(bird singing)

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§§ §§

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SAM HYNES:
The world contains evil.

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And if it didn't contain evil,

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we probably wouldn't need to try
to construct religions.

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No evil, no God, I think.

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No, of course no evil, no war.

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But this is not
a human possibility

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that we need to entertain.

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There will always be
plenty of evil.

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And there'll always be wars.

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Because human beings
are aggressive animals.

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NARRATOR:
When the people
of Luverne, Minnesota,

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and Sacramento, California;
Waterbury, Connecticut,

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and Mobile, Alabama, went
to the movies in March of 1945,

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they saw and heard
a sick and weary

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President Franklin Roosevelt--
so sick and so weary

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that for the first time
in his career,

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he referred directly
to the paralysis

20
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that kept him from standing
without braces.

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ROOSEVELT:
I hope that you will pardon me
for an unusual posture

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of sitting down

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during the presentation
of what I want to say,

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but I know that you will realize

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that it makes it
a lot easier for me

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in not having to carry

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about ten pounds of steel around
on the bottom of my legs;

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and also because of the fact

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that I have just completed
a 14,000-mile trip.

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(applause)

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NARRATOR:
Roosevelt's strength was waning,
but his message

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was undimmed.

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The war was still to be won.

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It's a long, tough road
to Tokyo.

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It is longer to go to Tokyo
than it is to Berlin,

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in every sense of the word.

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The defeat of Germany will
not mean the end

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of the war against Japan.

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On the contrary,
we must be prepared

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for a long and costly struggle
in the Pacific.

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NARRATOR:
Americans had been fighting
for more than three years now,

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and the number of dead
and wounded and missing

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had more than doubled
just since D-Day.

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The Nazis seemed at last to be
on the verge of collapse,

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but American men were still
dying in the struggle

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to eradicate them,
and Allied planners feared

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the final battle with Japan
would stretch on for years.

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In the coming weeks,
two men from Mobile

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would fight simply to survive:

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Eugene Sledge, who had endured

51
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the horrors of the battle
for Peleliu,

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would once again
be forced to enter

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what he called "the abyss."

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Maurice Bell, who had witnessed
much of the Pacific war

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aboard the USS Indianapolis,

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would find himself hurled
into the center of history.

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Daniel Inouye from Honolulu
would lead his men in an attack

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so furious that afterwards

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even he could no longer quite
comprehend it.

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And Glenn Frazier,
from Fort Deposit, Alabama,

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who had survived three and a
half years of brutal captivity,

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would find that the Japanese
were not his only enemy.

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The people of Sacramento and
Luverne, Waterbury and Mobile,

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and every other American town

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knew that there would be more
bad news from the battlefield

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before they could dare hope
to know what it would be like

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to live once again in a world
without war.

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(tool clacking)

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EMMA BELLE PETCHER:
I remember going to New York
on the train.

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And at the station
at St. Louis, Missouri,

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the platform was
lined with caskets.

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With American flags.

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I could cry now.

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It was just as far
as you could see them

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on the platform
at the train station.

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And I went down reading
the name in brass plaque

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that was all the names.

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And I cried and cried.

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How could you not cry?

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§§ §§

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HYNES:
The Pacific, as one experienced
it, began at San Diego.

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And you got a sense of what a
huge space you were going into.

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That this was not going to be
like Europe,

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where there was land all around
and it had names.

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This was going to be nameless,
empty space.

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Almost all of it with little
dots of land in between.

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NARRATOR:
In March of 1945, Marine pilot
Sam Hynes was 20 years old,

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a former University
of Minnesota student

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who, like thousands
of other young men,

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had been made to grow up fast
during the war,

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passing test after test
on the way to manhood.

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He had learned
to live on his own, had married,

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mastered the dangerous art
of flying torpedo bombers

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and had now received his orders

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to proceed 6,000 miles
across the Pacific

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to face his final trial: combat.

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Hynes landed at Ulithi,
the sprawling coral atoll

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the U.S. Navy had turned
into the advance staging area

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for the assault
that was about to begin

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on the Japanese island
of Okinawa.

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HYNES:
It was awesome.

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It was huge.

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The anchorage was miles across,

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and it was covered with ships

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of all sizes-- carriers,
battleships,

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destroyers, cruisers.

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I'd never seen so many ships.

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It was like seeing
all the power in your corner.

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(laughing):
And there wasn't any power
in the other corner.

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NARRATOR:
Okinawa, 60 miles long

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and home to almost
half a million civilians,

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was the gateway to Japan.

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The Allies knew they had to take
it before they could move on

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to the home islands,
and were gathering

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the largest invasion force since
D-Day-- almost 1,500 ships

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and more than
half a million men.

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(fierce explosion)

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Day after day, in March of 1945,

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American and British warships

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fired shells and rockets
at Okinawa.

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There was little evidence
of the island's defenders.

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Allied planners were not sure
just where they were dug in.

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But they knew they were
somewhere on the island--

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more than 100,000 of them,
well entrenched

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and prepared to die
for their Emperor.

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The Japanese kamikaze
pilots overhead

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were willing to die
for him, too.

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There were nearly
100 Japanese airfields

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within flying distance
of Okinawa--

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and the pilots of some 5,000
warplanes were preparing

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to sacrifice their own lives
in order to take those

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of as many American sailors
as possible.

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MAURICE BELL:
They was trained to fly their
planes one way and no return.

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And when they went out
after a ship or something,

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they had their funeral before
they actually left.

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And they knew they was
never coming back.

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They was under the impression
that if they gave their life

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that way for their country,

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they had a special place in
heaven for them, automatically.

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Which wasn't true.

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NARRATOR:
Seaman First Class Maurice Bell
of Mobile, Alabama,

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was serving as a gunner

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00:11:17,177 --> 00:11:23,983
aboard the heavy cruiser
USS Indianapolis off Okinawa.

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00:11:25,985 --> 00:11:33,560
On March 31, kamikazes targeted
her for destruction.

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(alarm sounding)
BELL:
I looked up to my right,

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and there was one small cloud up
there and just as I looked up,

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I saw a plane
come out of this cloud

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and it was a Japanese
kamikaze plane.

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The very instant
I saw him up there,

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he must have spotted our ship,
because he turned into a dive,

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instantly, and was coming
straight down.

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It looked like he was coming
just as straight

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to the very spot
where I was sitting.

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00:12:01,254 --> 00:12:07,594
A man back there started firing
at it with a 20-millimeters,

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and you could see
the tracers hit it.

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The plane actually bounced off
the ship,

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but the motor and the bomb
went through the deck.

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Went through
number three mess hall

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and right down there was
three or four or five men

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sitting at a table eating.

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It killed all of them.

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The bomb went all the way
through the ship

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into the water and exploded
back up through.

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They said that hole
all the way through

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was large enough to drive
a 18-wheeler through.

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NARRATOR:
Nine sailors died.

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00:13:01,381 --> 00:13:05,285
29 were wounded.

168
00:13:06,619 --> 00:13:12,358
The Indianapolis was sent to
Ulithi to have its hull mended

169
00:13:12,358 --> 00:13:15,795
and eventually dispatched
all the way across the Pacific

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00:13:15,795 --> 00:13:23,403
to Mare Island, near San
Francisco, for further repairs.

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Meanwhile, the bombardment
of Okinawa continued.

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The invasion was to begin
on April 1.

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This was the night before Easter
Sunday, the first of April.

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And Tokyo Rose, who was the
spokesperson for the Japanese,

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was on the radio.

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TOKYO ROSE:
Japanese special attack planes
launched late Thursday night...

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VAGHI:
And having been
through Normandy,

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00:14:02,542 --> 00:14:03,976
and they didn't know
we were coming,

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00:14:03,976 --> 00:14:08,114
and here we are going
into Okinawa,

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and Tokyo Rose is telling us

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00:14:09,849 --> 00:14:12,452
"Okay, G.I. Joes,
we know you're coming,

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00:14:12,452 --> 00:14:16,656
"we're gonna give you a Easter
party, when you land,

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00:14:16,656 --> 00:14:20,059
and we'll be there
waiting for you."

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00:14:20,159 --> 00:14:26,032
Well, that really sent shivers
up and down one's spine.

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00:14:26,032 --> 00:14:30,403
(artillery fire continues)

186
00:14:32,105 --> 00:14:35,408
NARRATOR:
Navy ensign Joseph Vaghi
from Connecticut,

187
00:14:35,408 --> 00:14:37,577
who had been wounded
on Omaha Beach,

188
00:14:37,577 --> 00:14:40,446
was among
the 60,000 soldiers and Marines

189
00:14:40,446 --> 00:14:43,516
moving toward the island
that morning.

190
00:14:43,516 --> 00:14:47,120
He had volunteered
to return to combat.

191
00:14:47,120 --> 00:14:52,158
VAGHI:
When we finally began unloading,
it was quiet.

192
00:14:52,158 --> 00:14:57,730
As the landing crafts went in,
you just walked ashore.

193
00:14:57,730 --> 00:14:58,564
Couldn't believe this.

194
00:14:58,564 --> 00:15:03,770
(Glenn Miller's band
playing "Little Brown Jug")

195
00:15:05,138 --> 00:15:10,410
NARRATOR:
The Japanese
mostly held their fire.

196
00:15:11,177 --> 00:15:17,817
Four divisions-- 75,000 men--
would land that day.

197
00:15:17,817 --> 00:15:21,587
The veterans
couldn't believe their luck.

198
00:15:21,587 --> 00:15:26,659
("Little Brown Jug" continues)

199
00:15:28,227 --> 00:15:32,532
Marine Private Eugene Sledge
of Mobile and his outfit

200
00:15:32,532 --> 00:15:34,000
were at the landing, too,

201
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:36,602
and so relieved,
they began to sing

202
00:15:36,602 --> 00:15:38,504
the popular hit
"Little Brown Jug"

203
00:15:38,504 --> 00:15:43,543
as they unloaded their gear
and started inland.

204
00:15:43,543 --> 00:15:44,277
They had been warned

205
00:15:44,277 --> 00:15:48,781
that they would be likely
to lose eight out of ten men

206
00:15:48,781 --> 00:15:52,418
before they could make it
off the beach.

207
00:15:52,418 --> 00:15:53,920
They lost none.

208
00:15:53,920 --> 00:15:55,121
("Little Brown Jug" continues)

209
00:15:55,121 --> 00:15:58,991
They were pleasantly surprised
by the terrain as well.

210
00:15:58,991 --> 00:16:02,161
It was "pastoral
and handsomely terraced,"

211
00:16:02,161 --> 00:16:02,528
Sledge remembered,

212
00:16:02,528 --> 00:16:08,568
"like a picture postcard
of an Oriental landscape."

213
00:16:08,901 --> 00:16:11,537
EUGENE SLEDGE (dramatized):
"The weather was cool,

214
00:16:11,537 --> 00:16:15,007
"and there was
the wonderful smell of pines,

215
00:16:15,007 --> 00:16:17,743
"which reminded me of home.

216
00:16:17,743 --> 00:16:20,012
"It was such a beautiful island.

217
00:16:20,012 --> 00:16:22,081
"You really could not believe

218
00:16:22,081 --> 00:16:25,952
that there was going to be
a battle there."

219
00:16:25,952 --> 00:16:30,056
("Little Brown Jug" continues)

220
00:16:31,357 --> 00:16:34,026
NARRATOR:
American infantry and tanks

221
00:16:34,026 --> 00:16:39,232
raced across the island,
cutting it in two.

222
00:16:39,432 --> 00:16:41,734
Then, as Sledge and the Marines
moved north

223
00:16:41,734 --> 00:16:44,804
to clear the central and
northern parts of the island,

224
00:16:44,804 --> 00:16:51,544
the Army turned south, toward
the main Japanese defenses...

225
00:16:51,544 --> 00:16:51,744
(song ends)

226
00:16:51,744 --> 00:16:57,683
...where they began to face
increasingly strong opposition.

227
00:16:57,683 --> 00:17:01,621
(bullets ricocheting)

228
00:17:06,058 --> 00:17:08,261
Go, go, go!

229
00:17:09,729 --> 00:17:15,268
Offshore, the Navy continued
to have its hands full.

230
00:17:15,701 --> 00:17:20,673
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
Sky full of flak
as the Japs attack warships

231
00:17:20,673 --> 00:17:23,276
supporting the invasion
of Okinawa.

232
00:17:23,276 --> 00:17:24,644
Scenes of plunging planes

233
00:17:24,644 --> 00:17:29,415
and enemy bombs land
perilously near.

234
00:17:41,761 --> 00:17:44,697
A low-flying enemy speeds
toward a warship target.

235
00:17:44,697 --> 00:17:50,570
Will the guns bring it down
before it gets to its mark?

236
00:17:50,570 --> 00:17:53,339
(artillery fire)

237
00:17:53,472 --> 00:17:56,142
Yes, it's hit, on fire,
and crashes!

238
00:17:56,142 --> 00:17:58,811
(explosion)

239
00:18:02,682 --> 00:18:03,716
NARRATOR:
On April 6,

240
00:18:03,716 --> 00:18:07,553
Japan loosed a new tactic
against the Allied ships.

241
00:18:07,553 --> 00:18:11,724
Not single kamikazes now--
but flights

242
00:18:11,724 --> 00:18:13,292
of hundreds of them at a time,

243
00:18:13,292 --> 00:18:18,397
dropping out of the sky
to attack the fleet.

244
00:18:18,397 --> 00:18:20,633
(explosion)

245
00:18:37,116 --> 00:18:41,020
The Japanese called
these deadly flights

246
00:18:41,020 --> 00:18:44,857
"Floating Chrysanthemums."

247
00:18:47,393 --> 00:18:53,866
(alarm blaring)

248
00:18:53,866 --> 00:18:56,769
(whistle blowing)

249
00:18:59,171 --> 00:19:00,706
By the end of the day,

250
00:19:00,706 --> 00:19:05,344
they had seriously damaged
17 American vessels

251
00:19:05,344 --> 00:19:10,049
and killed 367 sailors.

252
00:19:10,282 --> 00:19:11,851
VAGHI:
We lost more ships,

253
00:19:11,851 --> 00:19:15,287
we lost more sailors,
we lost more men,

254
00:19:15,287 --> 00:19:15,655
and it was a horror.

255
00:19:15,655 --> 00:19:21,861
It was one of the worst part...
battles of the Pacific, really.

256
00:19:30,636 --> 00:19:33,639
NARRATOR:
As the land battle
for Okinawa intensified,

257
00:19:33,639 --> 00:19:38,911
the Floating Chrysanthemums
would return again and again,

258
00:19:38,911 --> 00:19:42,748
taking a terrible toll
on the men...

259
00:19:42,748 --> 00:19:45,351
and ships.

260
00:20:02,201 --> 00:20:05,404
§§ §§

261
00:20:25,558 --> 00:20:32,298
GLENN FRAZIER:
If we had an invasion of Japan,
we knew we were dead.

262
00:20:32,298 --> 00:20:35,935
(distant explosions)

263
00:20:38,471 --> 00:20:39,939
They issued orders later
that if, uh,

264
00:20:39,939 --> 00:20:44,410
the minute American or Allied
forces landed on their homeland,

265
00:20:44,410 --> 00:20:46,011
to shoot all prisoners of war.

266
00:20:46,011 --> 00:20:50,616
So we had basically
accepted our fate.

267
00:20:52,284 --> 00:20:59,258
NARRATOR:
Glenn Frazier was one of
168,000 Allied prisoners of war

268
00:20:59,258 --> 00:21:01,127
still in Japanese hands.

269
00:21:01,127 --> 00:21:05,865
He had been a captive
since the surrender on Bataan

270
00:21:05,865 --> 00:21:07,366
in the spring of 1942.

271
00:21:07,366 --> 00:21:13,239
He was now in his fourth
POW camp in Japan, at Tsuruga,

272
00:21:13,239 --> 00:21:19,111
southwest of Tokyo,
on the Sea of Japan.

273
00:21:19,111 --> 00:21:20,513
(gunfire)

274
00:21:20,513 --> 00:21:24,383
One day, their captors
permitted 50 prisoners

275
00:21:24,383 --> 00:21:28,053
to wash their own filthy clothes
in the ocean.

276
00:21:28,053 --> 00:21:33,826
They were sitting around
waiting for their clothes to dry

277
00:21:33,826 --> 00:21:35,528
when carrier-based
American bombers

278
00:21:35,528 --> 00:21:40,099
roared in to attack the port.

279
00:21:43,569 --> 00:21:45,504
FRAZIER:
We run out of the warehouse,

280
00:21:45,504 --> 00:21:50,476
or at the end of the dock, and
were across the railroad tracks

281
00:21:50,476 --> 00:21:52,511
and was waving,
and we knew then

282
00:21:52,511 --> 00:21:56,015
that the aircraft carrier planes
were close.

283
00:21:56,015 --> 00:22:00,419
And we knew that
the end was coming close.

284
00:22:00,419 --> 00:22:03,422
But that did not help
our feelings

285
00:22:03,422 --> 00:22:06,792
as to what was about to happen.

286
00:22:06,792 --> 00:22:11,764
Our lives were
going to be sacrificed.

287
00:22:20,005 --> 00:22:20,105
(insects chirping)

288
00:22:20,105 --> 00:22:23,008
RADIO ANNOUNCER:
We interrupt this program
to bring you

289
00:22:23,008 --> 00:22:25,444
a special news bulletin
from CBS World News.

290
00:22:25,444 --> 00:22:28,013
A press association
has just announced

291
00:22:28,013 --> 00:22:29,882
that President Roosevelt
is dead.

292
00:22:29,882 --> 00:22:32,151
The president died
of a cerebral hemorrhage.

293
00:22:32,151 --> 00:22:36,021
All we know so far
is that the president died

294
00:22:36,021 --> 00:22:37,556
at Warm Springs in Georgia.

295
00:22:37,556 --> 00:22:41,460
KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
We can all tell you
where we were

296
00:22:41,460 --> 00:22:45,831
when we heard
that Roosevelt had died.

297
00:22:45,831 --> 00:22:50,169
President Roosevelt
was really...

298
00:22:50,169 --> 00:22:53,272
the binding force

299
00:22:53,272 --> 00:22:54,473
for the United States.

300
00:22:54,473 --> 00:22:59,178
When he would come on
and give his fireside chats,

301
00:22:59,178 --> 00:23:01,747
we all gathered
around the radio,

302
00:23:01,747 --> 00:23:05,551
and everyone looked to him
for leadership.

303
00:23:05,551 --> 00:23:09,321
He had led us
out of the Depression,

304
00:23:09,321 --> 00:23:11,123
so we felt that...

305
00:23:11,123 --> 00:23:15,461
certainly he could lead us
through a war.

306
00:23:15,461 --> 00:23:18,664
§§ §§

307
00:23:22,134 --> 00:23:27,473
And when the news came in April
that he had died,

308
00:23:27,473 --> 00:23:34,647
it was a terrible blow
to the entire country.

309
00:23:35,214 --> 00:23:38,150
BURT WILSON:
It was catastrophic,

310
00:23:38,150 --> 00:23:41,553
because he was
the only president we knew

311
00:23:41,553 --> 00:23:46,992
for the first 12, 13 years
of our life.

312
00:23:49,728 --> 00:23:52,665
Now, the thing was,
my parents were Republicans

313
00:23:52,665 --> 00:23:54,733
and hated Roosevelt,
but I loved him.

314
00:23:54,733 --> 00:23:58,504
And most of us kids
loved him, too.

315
00:23:58,671 --> 00:24:00,572
Because he was
the face of America

316
00:24:00,572 --> 00:24:06,445
that was saying,
"Hey, things are gonna be okay."

317
00:24:11,016 --> 00:24:14,019
§§ §§

318
00:24:26,398 --> 00:24:29,768
HYNES:
I was standing
outside a Quonset hut

319
00:24:29,768 --> 00:24:31,203
looking across the little strait

320
00:24:31,203 --> 00:24:35,607
between Saipan and Tinian,
the next island,

321
00:24:35,607 --> 00:24:38,410
and... I felt
a great sense of loss.

322
00:24:38,410 --> 00:24:44,717
More than that, I think, "How
will we go on fighting the war

323
00:24:44,717 --> 00:24:49,521
when our commander in chief
is dead?"

324
00:24:49,855 --> 00:24:54,126
PAUL FUSSELL:
We were all very sad about it.

325
00:24:54,126 --> 00:24:57,696
Less about his leaving...

326
00:24:57,696 --> 00:24:59,999
than about irony of it.

327
00:24:59,999 --> 00:25:03,068
If he'd died
a few months, uh, later,

328
00:25:03,068 --> 00:25:09,641
he could have seen the success
of what he had done.

329
00:25:10,342 --> 00:25:13,412
NARRATOR:
The men of the 100th
442nd Combat Team--

330
00:25:13,412 --> 00:25:17,549
the Japanese-American unit that
had already distinguished itself

331
00:25:17,549 --> 00:25:19,918
in the fighting
for Italy and France--

332
00:25:19,918 --> 00:25:22,921
were back in the mountains
of Northern Italy

333
00:25:22,921 --> 00:25:25,824
when they got word
of Roosevelt's death.

334
00:25:25,824 --> 00:25:30,229
He had signed the order
that sent to internment camps

335
00:25:30,229 --> 00:25:33,732
the families from which
many of them had come,

336
00:25:33,732 --> 00:25:37,936
but he had also provided them
with the opportunity

337
00:25:37,936 --> 00:25:42,074
to prove their loyalty
on the battlefield.

338
00:25:42,074 --> 00:25:47,279
It was that FDR
they chose to remember.

339
00:25:47,446 --> 00:25:49,214
DANIEL INOUYE:
I remember that day,

340
00:25:49,214 --> 00:25:57,556
because when we got the word,
suddenly men in my platoon

341
00:25:57,556 --> 00:26:00,492
took out their bayonets
and put it on.

342
00:26:00,492 --> 00:26:03,028
(gunfire)
And I said,
"What's happening here?"

343
00:26:03,028 --> 00:26:10,169
He says, "Well, I think we got
to do this one for the old man."

344
00:26:10,169 --> 00:26:14,706
They just stood up
and started attacking.

345
00:26:14,706 --> 00:26:15,574
(gunfire continues)

346
00:26:15,574 --> 00:26:18,510
Radio calls coming in
from the company commander,

347
00:26:18,510 --> 00:26:21,180
"What in the hell
are you doing?" you know.

348
00:26:21,180 --> 00:26:22,881
"You're not supposed
to be attacking."

349
00:26:22,881 --> 00:26:26,685
I says, "Captain,
you can't stop 'em."

350
00:26:26,685 --> 00:26:27,186
(laughing)

351
00:26:27,186 --> 00:26:32,057
And so they're all
moving forward for the old man,

352
00:26:32,057 --> 00:26:34,793
a man they had never met.

353
00:26:34,793 --> 00:26:39,431
(bugle playing taps)

354
00:26:47,239 --> 00:26:50,909
NARRATOR:
Many Americans,
overseas as well as at home,

355
00:26:50,909 --> 00:26:53,812
couldn't even remember
the name of the man

356
00:26:53,812 --> 00:26:57,916
who was now
their commander in chief...

357
00:26:58,217 --> 00:27:01,053
...Harry Truman.

358
00:27:04,623 --> 00:27:05,457
MAN:
All aboard!

359
00:27:05,457 --> 00:27:11,563
§§ I guess I had
a million dolls or more... §§

360
00:27:12,164 --> 00:27:16,201
§§ I guess I've played
the doll game o'er and o'er... §

361
00:27:16,201 --> 00:27:20,939
QUENTIN AANENSON:
I had great difficulty
adjusting to the fact

362
00:27:20,939 --> 00:27:22,674
that I was going home.

363
00:27:22,674 --> 00:27:25,377
§§ That's why I'm blue... §§

364
00:27:25,377 --> 00:27:26,879
Landed at Washington, D.C.,

365
00:27:26,879 --> 00:27:29,615
was processed
through some paperwork there,

366
00:27:29,615 --> 00:27:36,355
caught a train at Union Station
taking me down to Louisiana,

367
00:27:36,355 --> 00:27:37,256
where Jackie was.

368
00:27:37,256 --> 00:27:42,794
§§ To love a doll
that's not your own... §§

369
00:27:43,462 --> 00:27:46,064
§§ I'm through with all of them§

370
00:27:46,064 --> 00:27:49,134
§§ I'll never fall again §§

371
00:27:49,134 --> 00:27:50,802
§§ Say, boy §§

372
00:27:50,802 --> 00:27:51,803
§§ Whatcha gonna do? §§

373
00:27:51,803 --> 00:27:56,742
NARRATOR:
Fighter pilot Quentin Aanenson
of Luverne, Minnesota,

374
00:27:56,742 --> 00:27:59,344
was home on leave that April.

375
00:27:59,344 --> 00:28:03,615
He had been in more-or-less
continuous combat in Europe

376
00:28:03,615 --> 00:28:06,285
since D-Day--
ten ghastly months

377
00:28:06,285 --> 00:28:10,322
during which he'd killed men
and seen friends killed

378
00:28:10,322 --> 00:28:14,393
and come very close
to collapsing from despair.

379
00:28:14,393 --> 00:28:18,497
He expected soon to be ordered
into action again,

380
00:28:18,497 --> 00:28:19,398
in the Pacific this time,

381
00:28:19,398 --> 00:28:22,634
and he desperately wanted
to see Jackie Greer,

382
00:28:22,634 --> 00:28:26,905
the Louisiana girl
with whom he'd fallen in love

383
00:28:26,905 --> 00:28:27,906
before going overseas.

384
00:28:27,906 --> 00:28:33,812
Her letters had been
Aanenson's anchor to sanity.

385
00:28:33,812 --> 00:28:37,916
GREER:
I-1 prayed for him to come back,

386
00:28:37,916 --> 00:28:43,255
and I just felt like my prayers
would be answered.

387
00:28:43,255 --> 00:28:45,057
I was walking down the street

388
00:28:45,057 --> 00:28:47,626
and I saw the wedding dress
in a window.

389
00:28:47,626 --> 00:28:51,496
So I went right in and I bought
that dress

390
00:28:51,496 --> 00:28:57,936
and shipped it to my mother and
I said, "Have this ready for me.

391
00:28:57,936 --> 00:28:58,403
I'm gonna need it."

392
00:28:58,403 --> 00:29:02,441
NARRATOR:
Now the two were to meet again.

393
00:29:02,441 --> 00:29:08,780
AANENSON:
And I had to adjust to being
away from the war.

394
00:29:08,780 --> 00:29:13,885
The silence was difficult
to get used to.

395
00:29:13,885 --> 00:29:20,959
But it was such a... an exciting
and unbelievable moment.

396
00:29:20,959 --> 00:29:25,297
I was alive,
and this was Jackie.

397
00:29:25,297 --> 00:29:29,501
GREER:
The first night,
we were in the living room

398
00:29:29,501 --> 00:29:34,139
and he formally proposed to me.

399
00:29:34,139 --> 00:29:39,578
And for some reason, I got shy.

400
00:29:39,578 --> 00:29:43,882
And I couldn't quite
make myself say, "Yes."

401
00:29:43,882 --> 00:29:47,986
I don't know why because
I'd been saying yes

402
00:29:47,986 --> 00:29:49,021
for 11 months, you know.

403
00:29:49,021 --> 00:29:55,060
And when I hesitated and,
and couldn't quite say yes,

404
00:29:55,060 --> 00:29:57,396
he said, "Well, now,
just make up your mind."

405
00:29:57,396 --> 00:30:04,870
The funny part was, the door
right near my chair was closed,

406
00:30:04,870 --> 00:30:07,806
and on the other side
of that door was my bed

407
00:30:07,806 --> 00:30:14,079
with that gorgeous wedding dress
spread out all over it.

408
00:30:14,946 --> 00:30:18,583
AANENSON:
I was going to be going back
to the war.

409
00:30:18,583 --> 00:30:22,421
I didn't want to face the idea
that she could end up

410
00:30:22,421 --> 00:30:25,824
being a widow in a couple
of months.

411
00:30:25,824 --> 00:30:28,193
But it... the more we talked
about it,

412
00:30:28,193 --> 00:30:33,465
the more we decided,
"Let's get married now."

413
00:30:33,465 --> 00:30:37,869
So we got married on April 17,

414
00:30:37,869 --> 00:30:40,505
two and a half weeks
after I got home,

415
00:30:40,505 --> 00:30:45,544
in the First Methodist Church
in Baton Rouge.

416
00:30:47,212 --> 00:30:51,483
As I saw her coming down
that aisle,

417
00:30:51,483 --> 00:30:57,255
it was just a thrill
beyond belief.

418
00:31:06,498 --> 00:31:11,570
(dramatic music playing)

419
00:31:12,404 --> 00:31:17,075
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
In their stupendous advances,
the Russian armies

420
00:31:17,075 --> 00:31:19,711
feature massed artillery.

421
00:31:23,582 --> 00:31:29,254
The kind of warfare the Russians
wage on the road to Berlin.

422
00:31:33,859 --> 00:31:36,161
NARRATOR:
By the middle of April 1945,

423
00:31:36,161 --> 00:31:41,233
Soviet troops were just
30 miles from Berlin

424
00:31:41,233 --> 00:31:42,534
and bent on revenge

425
00:31:42,534 --> 00:31:48,707
for the horrors the Nazis had
inflicted on their homeland.

426
00:31:49,408 --> 00:31:52,344
General Dwight Eisenhower
decreed

427
00:31:52,344 --> 00:31:53,779
that the armies
under his command

428
00:31:53,779 --> 00:31:59,518
would not drive directly
toward the German capital.

429
00:31:59,518 --> 00:31:59,718
(horse neighs)

430
00:31:59,718 --> 00:32:06,658
The deadly task of capturing the
city would go to the Red Army.

431
00:32:07,392 --> 00:32:12,130
Hitler called upon his people
to resist to the end.

432
00:32:12,130 --> 00:32:17,135
"Every village and every town
will be defended and held

433
00:32:17,135 --> 00:32:21,706
by every possible man," he said.

434
00:32:24,176 --> 00:32:25,811
For the Americans in Europe,

435
00:32:25,811 --> 00:32:30,315
the fighting and the killing
sputtered on.

436
00:32:30,415 --> 00:32:33,185
DANIEL INOUYE:
And that's a horrible thing,

437
00:32:33,185 --> 00:32:34,953
knowing that the war is
going to end,

438
00:32:34,953 --> 00:32:40,258
and you have to keep urging
your men to go forward.

439
00:32:40,258 --> 00:32:43,562
NARRATOR:
The 100th 442nd Combat Team

440
00:32:43,562 --> 00:32:45,230
was still in the mountains
of Northern Italy

441
00:32:45,230 --> 00:32:51,470
hammering away at the last
German positions there.

442
00:32:53,638 --> 00:33:01,213
INOUYE:
We had this objective,
a high mountain.

443
00:33:01,213 --> 00:33:03,648
As I was going up,

444
00:33:03,648 --> 00:33:08,320
I suddenly felt someone punching
me on the side.

445
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:09,888
That's what I thought it was.

446
00:33:09,888 --> 00:33:14,593
I fell down and I got up
and kept on moving.

447
00:33:14,593 --> 00:33:19,197
I had a bullet going right
through my abdomen.

448
00:33:19,197 --> 00:33:24,302
Came out just about a quarter
inch from my spine.

449
00:33:24,603 --> 00:33:28,240
NARRATOR:
Three machine gun nests
were firing down at Inouye

450
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,076
as he continued
to lead his men up the slope.

451
00:33:31,076 --> 00:33:34,212
He hurled a grenade
to knock out the first one,

452
00:33:34,212 --> 00:33:37,082
then killed its crew
with his tommy gun.

453
00:33:37,082 --> 00:33:41,586
He silenced the next gun
with two more grenades.

454
00:33:41,586 --> 00:33:44,523
As he pulled the pin
on yet another

455
00:33:44,523 --> 00:33:48,493
and got ready to throw it
into the third machine gun nest,

456
00:33:48,493 --> 00:33:52,564
German shrapnel nearly severed
Inouye's right arm.

457
00:33:52,564 --> 00:33:57,402
Somehow, with his left hand,
he pried his dead fingers

458
00:33:57,402 --> 00:34:00,872
from the live grenade
and threw it,

459
00:34:00,872 --> 00:34:04,743
then started up the hill again.

460
00:34:05,410 --> 00:34:06,411
INOUYE:
According to the men

461
00:34:06,411 --> 00:34:09,681
and according to my company
commander, he says,

462
00:34:09,681 --> 00:34:12,851
"For a moment,
you went berserk.

463
00:34:12,851 --> 00:34:15,320
You picked up your gun."

464
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:16,688
I had a Thompson sub-machine gun

465
00:34:16,688 --> 00:34:19,958
and with my left hand
started approaching

466
00:34:19,958 --> 00:34:24,496
the last machine gun nest,
just firing

467
00:34:24,496 --> 00:34:26,765
and with the blood
splattering out.

468
00:34:26,765 --> 00:34:30,135
It was a horrible sight,
I think.

469
00:34:31,136 --> 00:34:32,671
Finally, I got hit again
on my leg,

470
00:34:32,671 --> 00:34:38,443
and I kept rolling down the hill
and that was the end.

471
00:34:43,248 --> 00:34:47,485
NARRATOR:
German prisoners of war
were pressed into service

472
00:34:47,485 --> 00:34:51,723
to carry Inouye
back down the hill.

473
00:34:55,393 --> 00:34:58,330
He was given morphine
at the aid station--

474
00:34:58,330 --> 00:35:03,201
so much morphine that when
surgeons at the field hospital

475
00:35:03,201 --> 00:35:05,070
began to amputate
his shattered arm,

476
00:35:05,070 --> 00:35:09,574
he had to endure it
without anesthetic.

477
00:35:09,574 --> 00:35:12,410
The pain was so intense,
he remembered,

478
00:35:12,410 --> 00:35:17,549
"that dying didn't seem
like such an awful idea."

479
00:35:17,649 --> 00:35:24,489
INOUYE:
I ended up receiving
17 whole blood transfusions.

480
00:35:24,489 --> 00:35:30,595
Before they gave you the blood,
they showed you the bottle,

481
00:35:30,595 --> 00:35:32,697
and on that bottle was a label

482
00:35:32,697 --> 00:35:37,569
that had the name, rank,
serial number and the unit.

483
00:35:37,936 --> 00:35:41,406
And so, here is someone
with some fancy name,

484
00:35:41,406 --> 00:35:48,947
Thomas Jefferson Lee,
a serial number, 92nd Division.

485
00:35:48,947 --> 00:35:49,214
Now, 92nd Division

486
00:35:49,214 --> 00:35:53,918
was a unit that we were
attached to in the last battle,

487
00:35:53,918 --> 00:35:59,090
and they're all made up
of African-Americans.

488
00:35:59,090 --> 00:36:05,497
And all the bottles I saw
were from the 92nd Division.

489
00:36:05,497 --> 00:36:13,104
So I must have had 17 bottles
of good African-American blood.

490
00:36:13,104 --> 00:36:15,440
And so here I am.

491
00:36:15,507 --> 00:36:17,809
NARRATOR:
For his heroism under fire,

492
00:36:17,809 --> 00:36:22,747
Daniel Inouye would receive
the Medal of Honor.

493
00:36:22,747 --> 00:36:26,851
It was granted to him
55 years later,

494
00:36:26,851 --> 00:36:27,852
during his sixth term

495
00:36:27,852 --> 00:36:33,725
as a United States senator
from Hawaii.

496
00:36:35,493 --> 00:36:36,861
§§ §§

497
00:36:36,861 --> 00:36:41,499
Meanwhile, events in Europe
were moving so fast

498
00:36:41,499 --> 00:36:44,602
it was hard for the people
back home to keep track.

499
00:36:44,602 --> 00:36:47,372
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
On the final lap
of their drive on Berlin,

500
00:36:47,372 --> 00:36:53,311
Russian troops send
the Germans reeling.

501
00:36:58,950 --> 00:37:04,923
NARRATOR:
On April 25, American
and Soviet forces linked up

502
00:37:04,923 --> 00:37:09,060
at Torgau on the Elbe River.

503
00:37:11,262 --> 00:37:15,667
Germany had been cut in half.

504
00:37:19,938 --> 00:37:26,978
The next day, Soviet troops
began assaulting Berlin itself.

505
00:37:46,564 --> 00:37:50,301
(distant shouting)

506
00:37:59,677 --> 00:38:01,179
On the morning of April 30,

507
00:38:01,179 --> 00:38:05,283
Russian troops fought their way
into the Reichstag,

508
00:38:05,283 --> 00:38:09,420
the symbol of German power.

509
00:38:21,332 --> 00:38:23,902
Less than half a mile away,
beneath the rubble,

510
00:38:23,902 --> 00:38:30,875
Adolf Hitler and his closest
aides huddled in their bunker.

511
00:38:31,009 --> 00:38:35,313
That afternoon,
Hitler named Admiral Karl Donitz

512
00:38:35,313 --> 00:38:42,120
to succeed him,
then shot himself in the mouth.

513
00:38:45,223 --> 00:38:48,026
Only his most fanatical
followers

514
00:38:48,026 --> 00:38:51,663
now continued to fight on.

515
00:39:17,589 --> 00:39:21,993
PAUL FUSSELL:
Eisenhower, on D-Day morning,
distributed to the troops

516
00:39:21,993 --> 00:39:26,331
a general order, which is like a
handbill, and everybody read it

517
00:39:26,331 --> 00:39:31,302
and he said, "We are about to
embark upon the great crusade,"

518
00:39:31,302 --> 00:39:35,974
which we'd been preparing
for for many months, etc.

519
00:39:35,974 --> 00:39:37,842
Now, at first none of us
could believe

520
00:39:37,842 --> 00:39:41,279
it was anything like a crusade,
because we were playing dice

521
00:39:41,279 --> 00:39:43,147
and we were thinking about girls
all the time

522
00:39:43,147 --> 00:39:46,017
and getting as drunk
as possible and so forth.

523
00:39:46,017 --> 00:39:47,118
It wasn't like a crusade.

524
00:39:47,118 --> 00:39:51,189
There was no religious
dimension to it whatever.

525
00:39:53,057 --> 00:39:57,462
When they finally got across
France and into Germany

526
00:39:57,462 --> 00:40:02,166
and saw the German
death camps...

527
00:40:05,904 --> 00:40:13,144
(voice breaking):
they realized that they had...

528
00:40:13,378 --> 00:40:16,114
been engaged
in something like a crusade,

529
00:40:16,114 --> 00:40:20,818
although none of them
called it that.

530
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:27,725
And it all began to make
a kind of sense to us.

531
00:40:27,725 --> 00:40:30,595
I'm not sure
that made it any better.

532
00:40:30,595 --> 00:40:31,496
It may have made it worse.

533
00:40:31,496 --> 00:40:35,867
To see that it was
actually conducted

534
00:40:35,867 --> 00:40:40,905
in defense of some noble idea.

535
00:40:44,142 --> 00:40:48,880
NARRATOR:
As the Red Army had moved
through Eastern Europe

536
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:49,547
the previous summer,

537
00:40:49,547 --> 00:40:52,517
it had uncovered at Majdaneck,
in Poland,

538
00:40:52,517 --> 00:40:57,055
the first evidence of the Nazis'
industrialized barbarism.

539
00:40:57,055 --> 00:41:01,225
The ashes of thousands
of human beings

540
00:41:01,225 --> 00:41:04,228
were found in a crematorium.

541
00:41:06,631 --> 00:41:10,501
The American and British press
played it down,

542
00:41:10,501 --> 00:41:15,106
assuming the Soviets
were exaggerating.

543
00:41:16,374 --> 00:41:22,013
Not even the Nazis
could be so murderous.

544
00:41:29,220 --> 00:41:31,589
By the end of April 1945,

545
00:41:31,589 --> 00:41:38,596
more than a hundred camps and
sub-camps would be liberated.

546
00:41:47,071 --> 00:41:53,678
Auschwitz, Treblinka,
Ravensbriick,

547
00:41:53,678 --> 00:41:56,714
Ohrdruf, Buchenwald,

548
00:41:56,714 --> 00:42:03,955
Bergen-Belsen, Nordhausen,
Dachau.

549
00:42:06,424 --> 00:42:13,297
On May 5, advance patrols of the
American 11th Armored Division

550
00:42:13,297 --> 00:42:15,900
came upon Mauthausen in Austria.

551
00:42:15,900 --> 00:42:20,238
There they found
more than 110,000

552
00:42:20,238 --> 00:42:23,007
desperate so-called
"enemies of the Reich,"

553
00:42:23,007 --> 00:42:30,782
men, women and children
confined behind barbed wire.

554
00:42:32,016 --> 00:42:35,620
Many were too weak to stand.

555
00:42:35,620 --> 00:42:40,892
Private Burnett Miller
of Sacramento was there

556
00:42:40,892 --> 00:42:43,928
and saw it all.

557
00:42:43,928 --> 00:42:45,630
And they had put some signs out,

558
00:42:45,630 --> 00:42:48,166
"Welcome Americans,
you've saved us"

559
00:42:48,166 --> 00:42:49,167
and things like this.

560
00:42:49,167 --> 00:42:49,801
And we surrounded the camp

561
00:42:49,801 --> 00:42:53,771
and then, uh,
there was a surge of people

562
00:42:53,771 --> 00:42:57,008
who were in fairly good
condition begging for food,

563
00:42:57,008 --> 00:43:02,046
and we were giving them
what food we had,

564
00:43:02,046 --> 00:43:02,246
concentrated food,

565
00:43:02,246 --> 00:43:06,984
and in some cases
it overwhelmed their systems

566
00:43:06,984 --> 00:43:08,286
and actually killed them.

567
00:43:08,286 --> 00:43:09,921
I'm sure we were responsible

568
00:43:09,921 --> 00:43:11,422
for the deaths
of several hundred people

569
00:43:11,422 --> 00:43:15,827
just by feeding them
concentrated food.

570
00:43:16,494 --> 00:43:21,499
We went down in the basement and
there were these big furnaces,

571
00:43:21,499 --> 00:43:24,268
and it looked like cordwood
piled around

572
00:43:24,268 --> 00:43:27,305
and they were bodies in rigor
mortis that they were...

573
00:43:27,305 --> 00:43:33,845
had been preparing to burn
in these big furnaces.

574
00:43:33,911 --> 00:43:36,881
And the fellows that went
into the other barracks

575
00:43:36,881 --> 00:43:39,650
came away just shocked,
some of them very, very sick.

576
00:43:39,650 --> 00:43:42,920
The hospital there,
people dying just thick

577
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:46,090
and people couldn't get out
of their bunks

578
00:43:46,090 --> 00:43:48,459
and people
in terrible condition.

579
00:43:48,459 --> 00:43:52,497
And then later there was
a big trench,

580
00:43:52,497 --> 00:43:55,633
and it was filled with bodies.

581
00:44:06,043 --> 00:44:10,114
Some were dying,
some were trying to steal food

582
00:44:10,114 --> 00:44:15,253
and, uh, the, the guards
were dispersed all over and we,

583
00:44:15,253 --> 00:44:17,822
we actually saw a guard move
into a house

584
00:44:17,822 --> 00:44:22,393
and we chased him in,
and he was an officer.

585
00:44:22,393 --> 00:44:27,765
And the prisoners who were there
tore him apart,

586
00:44:27,765 --> 00:44:31,536
just killed him right there.

587
00:44:34,071 --> 00:44:35,506
We lived in Mauthausen,

588
00:44:35,506 --> 00:44:40,311
which was an idyllic little
Austrian town on the river,

589
00:44:40,311 --> 00:44:41,946
but you could smell the camp
in town.

590
00:44:41,946 --> 00:44:45,650
And all the villagers of course
said they didn't know anything

591
00:44:45,650 --> 00:44:48,386
about the camp,
and the local priest said

592
00:44:48,386 --> 00:44:50,488
he didn't know anything
about the camp,

593
00:44:50,488 --> 00:44:52,056
and I knew that was a lie,

594
00:44:52,056 --> 00:44:53,357
because you could smell
the camp.

595
00:44:53,357 --> 00:45:00,231
You could just smell,
uh, death.

596
00:45:05,369 --> 00:45:08,539
So it was a horrible,
horrible experience.

597
00:45:08,539 --> 00:45:12,910
And then we came,
at least I came to think,

598
00:45:12,910 --> 00:45:17,748
"Well, you know, this effort
has been worthwhile.

599
00:45:17,748 --> 00:45:19,083
There was a real reason
to do this."

600
00:45:19,083 --> 00:45:26,724
These were inhuman things
that were being done to people.

601
00:45:28,392 --> 00:45:35,466
NARRATOR:
Other Americans were witnessing
similar horrors at other camps.

602
00:45:35,466 --> 00:45:38,569
Ray Leopold, a medic
from Waterbury and a Jew,

603
00:45:38,569 --> 00:45:45,876
was with the 28th
Infantry Division.

604
00:45:46,911 --> 00:45:48,946
We were...

605
00:45:48,946 --> 00:45:56,153
near the Hadamar
concentration camp.

606
00:45:56,153 --> 00:46:00,758
At the same time we noticed
that up on the hill

607
00:46:00,758 --> 00:46:01,225
there was a building

608
00:46:01,225 --> 00:46:06,697
that the Blrgermeister
described as an insane asylum.

609
00:46:06,697 --> 00:46:10,034
We went up there
and found that, true,

610
00:46:10,034 --> 00:46:14,171
they did have
an insane asylum there,

611
00:46:14,171 --> 00:46:17,475
at least initially,
but it was a place

612
00:46:17,475 --> 00:46:24,415
where there was medical
experimentation going on humans.

613
00:46:29,186 --> 00:46:33,424
I really can't tell you
what I saw there.

614
00:46:45,603 --> 00:46:49,273
It affected me profoundly,

615
00:46:49,273 --> 00:46:55,813
and I think all the men
who were with me at that time

616
00:46:55,813 --> 00:46:58,015
were equally affected.

617
00:46:58,015 --> 00:47:02,720
I, um, I felt that
it was too bad

618
00:47:02,720 --> 00:47:09,827
that I was forbidden by the
Geneva Convention to Kill.

619
00:47:09,827 --> 00:47:19,937
l... I felt that this was the
most horrible human experience

620
00:47:19,937 --> 00:47:27,311
that had ever been visited
on the face of the earth.

621
00:47:39,423 --> 00:47:42,426
I saw one of those terrible
places where they were...

622
00:47:42,426 --> 00:47:46,430
where they had the people
that were dying and dead

623
00:47:46,430 --> 00:47:50,000
and bodies stacked
like cordwood, cordwood.

624
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:54,705
That was the little town
of Ludwigslust.

625
00:47:54,805 --> 00:47:58,743
And we made the German people
in that community

626
00:47:58,743 --> 00:48:05,116
go get those bodies
and had a burial in the park

627
00:48:05,116 --> 00:48:07,051
in front of the castle

628
00:48:07,051 --> 00:48:09,587
so that they would never
forget it again.

629
00:48:09,587 --> 00:48:16,360
And we gave them a Christian
and Jewish burial.

630
00:48:17,094 --> 00:48:18,429
But the people did it.

631
00:48:18,429 --> 00:48:22,933
I mean, we... we made
the German people do it.

632
00:48:39,450 --> 00:48:44,288
These people in this country
who say it didn't happen...

633
00:48:44,288 --> 00:48:45,923
It happened.

634
00:48:45,923 --> 00:48:49,927
I saw it; I know.

635
00:48:50,027 --> 00:48:52,863
It happened.

636
00:48:54,598 --> 00:49:00,771
NARRATOR:
In 1933, there were
nine million Jews in Europe.

637
00:49:00,771 --> 00:49:08,179
By 1945, two out of three
of them were dead.

638
00:49:21,292 --> 00:49:23,961
Thousands of Jewish communities
were wiped

639
00:49:23,961 --> 00:49:26,931
from the face of the earth.

640
00:49:29,733 --> 00:49:31,268
Hitler's regime also slaughtered

641
00:49:31,268 --> 00:49:34,438
nearly two million
non-Jewish Poles.

642
00:49:34,438 --> 00:49:38,542
They murdered more than four
million Soviet prisoners of war,

643
00:49:38,542 --> 00:49:41,645
as well as hundreds of thousands
of handicapped people

644
00:49:41,645 --> 00:49:46,250
and political opponents,
homosexuals and gypsies

645
00:49:46,250 --> 00:49:49,520
and Jehovah's Witnesses
and slave laborers

646
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:54,325
from all the countries
they'd conquered.

647
00:50:18,282 --> 00:50:24,321
LEOPOLD:
How bad it was,
how wide it was...

648
00:50:24,321 --> 00:50:27,458
We never really knew
how fully extensive

649
00:50:27,458 --> 00:50:30,728
this horror that Hitler had
visited on Europe,

650
00:50:30,728 --> 00:50:36,767
and in particular
on the Jews, how it was.

651
00:50:36,767 --> 00:50:42,106
But here we began to see.

652
00:50:42,106 --> 00:50:43,908
We had no idea

653
00:50:43,908 --> 00:50:52,383
that there was going to be six
million dead Jews as a result.

654
00:50:55,586 --> 00:51:01,058
l... I think the horror
is still with me.

655
00:51:01,058 --> 00:51:12,102
I think there's no apology that
can ever atone for what I saw.

656
00:51:25,983 --> 00:51:27,851
NARRATOR:
On May 8, three days

657
00:51:27,851 --> 00:51:31,889
after Burnett Miller's unit
reached Mauthausen,

658
00:51:31,889 --> 00:51:35,492
Germany finally surrendered.

659
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:41,432
The war in Europe
had come to an end.

660
00:51:42,099 --> 00:51:44,168
The Reich that Hitler
had promised

661
00:51:44,168 --> 00:51:46,070
would endure
for a thousand years

662
00:51:46,070 --> 00:51:49,740
had lasted less than a dozen.

663
00:51:49,740 --> 00:51:54,712
("Waiting for the Train"
playing)

664
00:51:54,712 --> 00:51:58,282
(children shouting)

665
00:52:10,661 --> 00:52:13,497
HARRY TRUMAN:
General Eisenhower informs me

666
00:52:13,497 --> 00:52:19,036
that the flags of freedom fly
all over Europe.

667
00:52:20,270 --> 00:52:24,541
This is a solemn
but glorious hour.

668
00:52:25,009 --> 00:52:29,713
I wish that
Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived

669
00:52:29,713 --> 00:52:32,449
to see this day.

670
00:52:48,599 --> 00:52:52,603
§§ §§

671
00:53:07,284 --> 00:53:11,855
MCINTOSH (dramatized):
Al Mcintosh, Rock County
Star-Herald.

672
00:53:11,855 --> 00:53:15,192
"Unlike New Yorkers,
who whooped, hollered,

673
00:53:15,192 --> 00:53:18,128
"and tore up tons of paper
to throw in the streets,

674
00:53:18,128 --> 00:53:21,965
"the news here was greeted
with quiet dignity

675
00:53:21,965 --> 00:53:22,633
"and reverent restraint.

676
00:53:22,633 --> 00:53:28,472
"One by one, the flags blossomed
out on Main Street

677
00:53:28,472 --> 00:53:32,676
"and store by store
the employees quietly filed out

678
00:53:32,676 --> 00:53:36,547
"and the business places were
locked up for the day.

679
00:53:36,547 --> 00:53:43,987
"But there was no shouting, no
hilarious display of any kind.

680
00:53:43,987 --> 00:53:47,958
"Most everybody went home.

681
00:53:47,958 --> 00:53:51,161
"There was quiet exultation
over the fact

682
00:53:51,161 --> 00:53:53,163
"that a great victory
had been achieved,

683
00:53:53,163 --> 00:53:57,935
"but that rejoicing was tempered
by the sobering knowledge

684
00:53:57,935 --> 00:54:03,574
that there was another great war
yet to be won."

685
00:54:10,180 --> 00:54:13,951
(machine gun fire, explosions)

686
00:54:19,289 --> 00:54:24,628
SAM HYNES:
It didn't really make much
difference on Okinawa.

687
00:54:24,628 --> 00:54:28,465
The Japanese were not going
to fight any less hard

688
00:54:28,465 --> 00:54:31,635
because Hitler was out of it.

689
00:54:31,635 --> 00:54:32,770
(machine gun fire)

690
00:54:32,770 --> 00:54:36,273
I suppose there was
a certain satisfaction

691
00:54:36,273 --> 00:54:37,341
that we'd beaten that lot

692
00:54:37,341 --> 00:54:41,278
and could now turn our attention
entirely to this lot,

693
00:54:41,278 --> 00:54:42,780
but aside from that,

694
00:54:42,780 --> 00:54:46,583
I don't think
there was much excitement.

695
00:55:00,531 --> 00:55:07,104
EUGENE SLEDGE (dramatized):
"Nazi Germany might as well
have been on the moon.

696
00:55:07,104 --> 00:55:11,175
On Okinawa,
no one cared much."

697
00:55:13,010 --> 00:55:14,411
"We were resigned
only to the fact

698
00:55:14,411 --> 00:55:16,446
"that the Japanese would fight
to total extinction

699
00:55:16,446 --> 00:55:22,986
"as they had elsewhere, and that
Japan would have to be invaded

700
00:55:22,986 --> 00:55:28,258
with the same gruesome
prospects.”

701
00:55:28,258 --> 00:55:31,695
Eugene Sledge.

702
00:55:38,335 --> 00:55:43,807
NARRATOR:
The battle for Okinawa
was not going well.

703
00:55:43,807 --> 00:55:47,544
The Marines had cleared
the northern and central parts

704
00:55:47,544 --> 00:55:49,546
of the island by mid-April.

705
00:55:49,546 --> 00:55:52,616
But in the south,
the Army had been unable

706
00:55:52,616 --> 00:55:55,786
to blast the Japanese from
their main defensive positions,

707
00:55:55,786 --> 00:56:03,627
a succession of limestone ridges
around the walled town of Shuri.

708
00:56:07,364 --> 00:56:10,133
The Navy,
battered daily offshore

709
00:56:10,133 --> 00:56:13,437
by kamikazes
and other Japanese warplanes,

710
00:56:13,437 --> 00:56:14,972
demanded that the Army

711
00:56:14,972 --> 00:56:16,974
undertake a landing behind
the Japanese lines

712
00:56:16,974 --> 00:56:23,881
so that they could be attacked
from two sides simultaneously.

713
00:56:25,749 --> 00:56:29,786
The Army commander refused.

714
00:56:29,786 --> 00:56:30,954
And on the first of May,

715
00:56:30,954 --> 00:56:34,992
the First Marine Division,
Eugene Sledge's oulffit,

716
00:56:34,992 --> 00:56:35,359
was sent south

717
00:56:35,359 --> 00:56:40,764
to shore up the center
of the American line.

718
00:56:45,569 --> 00:56:49,806
SLEDGE (dramatized):
"A column of men approached us
on the other side of the road

719
00:56:49,806 --> 00:56:54,811
"from the 106th Regiment,
27th Infantry Division,

720
00:56:54,811 --> 00:56:56,046
"that we were relieving.

721
00:56:56,046 --> 00:56:58,916
"Their tragic expressions
revealed where they had been.

722
00:56:58,916 --> 00:57:03,954
"They were dead beat,
dirty and grisly,

723
00:57:03,954 --> 00:57:05,389
"hollow-eyed and tight-faced.

724
00:57:05,389 --> 00:57:09,960
"As they filed past us, one
tall, lanky fellow caught my eye

725
00:57:09,960 --> 00:57:15,198
"and said in a weary voice,
'It's hell up there, Marine.'

726
00:57:15,198 --> 00:57:17,401
"I said with some impatience,

727
00:57:17,401 --> 00:57:21,305
"Yeah, I know.
I was at Peleliu.'

728
00:57:21,305 --> 00:57:26,643
He looked at me blankly
and moved on."

729
00:57:27,044 --> 00:57:29,980
NARRATOR:
Japanese shells shrieked down

730
00:57:29,980 --> 00:57:35,285
as the Marines struggled
to find cover.

731
00:57:42,225 --> 00:57:43,760
Friends died, old friends

732
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:46,430
who had fought alongside
Sledge on Peleliu.

733
00:57:46,430 --> 00:57:49,733
"Replacement lieutenants
were killed or wounded

734
00:57:49,733 --> 00:57:52,302
with such regularity,"
he remembered,

735
00:57:52,302 --> 00:57:54,671
"that we rarely saw them
on their feet

736
00:57:54,671 --> 00:57:55,706
"more than once or twice,

737
00:57:55,706 --> 00:58:00,911
and never got to know
their names."

738
00:58:11,088 --> 00:58:13,490
Get down, get down.

739
00:58:14,157 --> 00:58:16,760
The Marines inched
their way toward Shuri,

740
00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:21,398
blasting and burning the enemy
out of their hiding places

741
00:58:21,398 --> 00:58:27,037
one ridge, one village,
one gulley at a time.

742
00:58:41,151 --> 00:58:44,221
SLEDGE (dramatized):
"I found it more difficult
to go back

743
00:58:44,221 --> 00:58:49,226
"each time we squared away
our gear to move forward.

744
00:58:49,226 --> 00:58:55,832
"The increasing dread of going
back into action obsessed me.

745
00:58:55,832 --> 00:59:00,037
"It became the subject of the
most tortuous and persistent

746
00:59:00,037 --> 00:59:01,605
"of all the ghastly war
nightmares

747
00:59:01,605 --> 00:59:06,343
that have haunted me
for many, many years."

748
00:59:07,077 --> 00:59:13,417
"The dream is always the same,
going back up to the lines

749
00:59:13,417 --> 00:59:18,755
during the bloody month
of May on Okinawa."

750
00:59:31,468 --> 00:59:36,173
HYNES:
Terrible things happened
at Okinawa.

751
00:59:36,173 --> 00:59:40,477
But a man in an airplane
above the battle

752
00:59:40,477 --> 00:59:43,146
doesn't see the terrible things.

753
00:59:43,146 --> 00:59:48,652
What I saw was drifting smoke,
explosions.

754
00:59:48,652 --> 00:59:49,586
You see destruction.

755
00:59:49,586 --> 00:59:54,157
You can imagine the devastation,
but you don't exactly see it.

756
00:59:54,157 --> 01:00:00,764
You don't see the dead civilians
who died in their thousands.

757
01:00:00,764 --> 01:00:02,699
You don't see the dead Japanese.

758
01:00:02,699 --> 01:00:05,802
You don't even see
your own dead.

759
01:00:06,503 --> 01:00:09,539
I dropped some bombs on
buildings that blew up.

760
01:00:09,539 --> 01:00:11,575
If there was anybody in them,

761
01:00:11,575 --> 01:00:14,878
I suppose I killed somebody.

762
01:00:14,878 --> 01:00:15,512
I don't know.

763
01:00:15,512 --> 01:00:19,216
I'd like to think I didn't...

764
01:00:19,216 --> 01:00:25,188
but that's what I was being paid
for, was to kill people.

765
01:00:30,127 --> 01:00:33,763
(indistinct shouting)

766
01:00:42,706 --> 01:00:48,011
NARRATOR:
Eugene Sledge and his fellow
Marines were now pinned down,

767
01:00:48,011 --> 01:00:53,216
just 20 yards from enemy lines
and under fire from three sides,

768
01:00:53,216 --> 01:00:59,956
on the slope of Sugar Loaf Hill,
the key to the defense of Shuri.

769
01:01:01,758 --> 01:01:07,097
Artillery shells uncovered
half-buried Japanese corpses

770
01:01:07,097 --> 01:01:13,336
and tore dead Marines
into pieces.

771
01:01:17,274 --> 01:01:22,412
Rain pounded down, more than
a foot of it in a week,

772
01:01:22,412 --> 01:01:30,387
washing maggots and feces
into the Marines' foxholes.

773
01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:32,889
The stench was overpowering.

774
01:01:32,889 --> 01:01:39,429
There was no relief from
any of it, day after day.

775
01:01:39,429 --> 01:01:43,133
SLEDGE (dramatized):
"If a Marine slipped and slid

776
01:01:43,133 --> 01:01:45,936
"down the back slope
of the muddy ridge,

777
01:01:45,936 --> 01:01:49,940
he was apt to reach
the bottom vomiting."

778
01:01:51,541 --> 01:01:54,945
"I saw more than one man
stand up horror-stricken

779
01:01:54,945 --> 01:01:58,782
"as fat maggots tumbled out
of his muddy dungaree pockets,

780
01:01:58,782 --> 01:02:03,853
"cartridge belt, legging lacings
and the like.

781
01:02:03,853 --> 01:02:08,191
"We didn't talk
about such things.

782
01:02:08,191 --> 01:02:11,828
"They were too horrible
and obscene

783
01:02:11,828 --> 01:02:14,197
"even for hardened veterans.

784
01:02:14,197 --> 01:02:22,272
I believed we had been flung
into hell's own cesspool."

785
01:02:22,739 --> 01:02:28,511
NARRATOR:
Nearly 3,000 Americans died
taking Sugar Loaf Hill--

786
01:02:28,511 --> 01:02:35,952
more per square foot than
anywhere else in the war.

787
01:02:40,123 --> 01:02:45,962
In late May, the Japanese began
a carefully staged withdrawal

788
01:02:45,962 --> 01:02:46,162
from the Shuri Line,

789
01:02:46,162 --> 01:02:50,734
slipping back ten miles or so
to their last redoubt,

790
01:02:50,734 --> 01:02:57,374
another series of ridges
at the island's southern end.

791
01:03:01,478 --> 01:03:05,382
It would be three more weeks
before its last defenders

792
01:03:05,382 --> 01:03:13,356
were killed and their commanders
committed suicide.

793
01:03:14,524 --> 01:03:18,361
By then, 92,000
Japanese soldiers

794
01:03:18,361 --> 01:03:25,735
and as many as 100,000 Okinawan
civilians were dead.

795
01:03:37,714 --> 01:03:42,018
Of the 235 members
of Eugene Sledge's Company K

796
01:03:42,018 --> 01:03:48,224
who landed on Okinawa,
just 26 emerged unhurt.

797
01:03:48,224 --> 01:03:54,964
Of the 254 men brought in to
replace those who had fallen,

798
01:03:54,964 --> 01:03:58,735
only 24 remained.

799
01:04:00,637 --> 01:04:01,938
In the end,

800
01:04:01,938 --> 01:04:07,577
more than 12,000 Americans died,

801
01:04:07,577 --> 01:04:09,045
60,000 were wounded--

802
01:04:09,045 --> 01:04:15,352
the worst losses
of the Pacific war.

803
01:04:21,591 --> 01:04:28,331
Among the dead were Private
First Class J.J. McCarthy

804
01:04:28,331 --> 01:04:33,870
of Waterbury; Sergeant
Jeff Fleming of Sacramento;

805
01:04:33,870 --> 01:04:38,141
Private First Class Lowell Reu
of Luverne,

806
01:04:38,141 --> 01:04:42,612
and Private Ernest Roy
of Mobile.

807
01:04:42,946 --> 01:04:47,650
As the Allies prepared to move
on to Japan itself,

808
01:04:47,650 --> 01:04:54,557
still more terrible losses
seemed inevitable.

809
01:05:00,430 --> 01:05:02,599
HYNES:
We were told

810
01:05:02,599 --> 01:05:04,167
that in the invasion of Japan,

811
01:05:04,167 --> 01:05:10,840
we would be the first land-based
single engine bombing squadron.

812
01:05:10,840 --> 01:05:16,613
To goin, be in on the invasion
of the Japanese home island.

813
01:05:16,613 --> 01:05:19,349
That would be heroic stuff.

814
01:05:19,349 --> 01:05:19,482
We all felt that.

815
01:05:19,482 --> 01:05:25,188
But at the same time, by then,
our sense of the strangeness

816
01:05:25,188 --> 01:05:29,559
of the Japanese opposition
had become stronger.

817
01:05:29,559 --> 01:05:34,697
And I could imagine
every farmer with his...

818
01:05:34,697 --> 01:05:38,001
with his pitchfork

819
01:05:38,001 --> 01:05:38,902
coming at my guts;

820
01:05:38,902 --> 01:05:41,738
every pretty girl
with a hand grenade

821
01:05:41,738 --> 01:05:44,808
strapped to her bottom
or something...

822
01:05:44,808 --> 01:05:49,512
That everyone would be an enemy.

823
01:05:51,014 --> 01:05:52,282
NARRATOR:
The Allies planned to begin

824
01:05:52,282 --> 01:05:57,987
with the island of Kyushu
on November 1, 1945.

825
01:05:57,987 --> 01:06:00,490
More than 500,000
Japanese troops

826
01:06:00,490 --> 01:06:02,859
were already in position
to repel them--

827
01:06:02,859 --> 01:06:07,363
and another six million
were either under arms

828
01:06:07,363 --> 01:06:10,400
or ready to be called up.

829
01:06:10,400 --> 01:06:14,771
Women and schoolchildren
were drilling

830
01:06:14,771 --> 01:06:18,975
with sharpened bamboo spears.

831
01:06:20,643 --> 01:06:21,377
The Americans did not expect

832
01:06:21,377 --> 01:06:25,748
to be able to move against
the larger island of Honshu

833
01:06:25,748 --> 01:06:29,352
until April of 1946.

834
01:06:30,119 --> 01:06:33,723
Former president Herbert Hoover
headed a commission

835
01:06:33,723 --> 01:06:37,227
that suggested half a million
Americans might die

836
01:06:37,227 --> 01:06:39,762
before the islands
could be taken--

837
01:06:39,762 --> 01:06:45,568
along with perhaps
seven million more Japanese.

838
01:06:45,568 --> 01:06:50,507
Military planners came up
with different estimates,

839
01:06:50,507 --> 01:06:50,640
but all anyone knew

840
01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:57,614
was that the cost in casualties
was likely to be astronomical.

841
01:06:57,614 --> 01:07:02,785
The end of the war
in the Pacific

842
01:07:02,785 --> 01:07:06,322
still seemed very far away.

843
01:07:07,423 --> 01:07:12,729
G.l.'s who had once talked of
getting "Home Alive in '45"

844
01:07:12,729 --> 01:07:18,167
began to coin new slogans:
"Back in the Sticks in '46,"

845
01:07:18,167 --> 01:07:26,242
"Back to Heaven in '47 "...
even "Golden Gate in '48."

846
01:07:26,509 --> 01:07:29,679
NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
The soviet premier,
the remaining member

847
01:07:29,679 --> 01:07:32,015
of the original Roosevelt-
Churchill-Stalin Big Three.

848
01:07:32,015 --> 01:07:36,419
Now President Truman greets
Prime Minister Attlee.

849
01:07:36,419 --> 01:07:38,721
And the conference
of the Big Three at Potsdam

850
01:07:38,721 --> 01:07:41,357
sets the policy
of the Allied powers.

851
01:07:41,357 --> 01:07:48,998
NARRATOR:
In mid-July, the Allies met
in Germany, at Potsdam,

852
01:07:48,998 --> 01:07:49,933
and set forth the terms

853
01:07:49,933 --> 01:07:53,469
under which they would agree
to end the war.

854
01:07:53,469 --> 01:07:56,472
Japan's leaders would have
to abandon

855
01:07:56,472 --> 01:07:58,374
every inch of their empire,

856
01:07:58,374 --> 01:08:01,945
face trial for war crimes,

857
01:08:01,945 --> 01:08:06,716
submit to being disarmed, and
agree to American occupation

858
01:08:06,716 --> 01:08:11,054
until a new, democratically
elected government

859
01:08:11,054 --> 01:08:12,922
could be established.

860
01:08:12,922 --> 01:08:16,726
Unless they agreed to all of it,

861
01:08:16,726 --> 01:08:19,228
the declaration warned,
they could expect

862
01:08:19,228 --> 01:08:24,567
"the utter devastation
of the Japanese homeland."

863
01:08:24,601 --> 01:08:30,673
Japan chose not to respond
to the Allied ultimatum,

864
01:08:30,673 --> 01:08:33,643
and tried instead
to persuade Russia,

865
01:08:33,643 --> 01:08:36,145
which had never declared
war on Japan,

866
01:08:36,145 --> 01:08:40,817
to broker more favorable
surrender terms.

867
01:08:41,784 --> 01:08:43,052
For most of Japan's leaders--

868
01:08:43,052 --> 01:08:46,255
despite the agony the Japanese
people were enduring,

869
01:08:46,255 --> 01:08:50,793
despite the even greater agony
that seemed sure to come--

870
01:08:50,793 --> 01:09:00,470
unconditional surrender
still remained unthinkable.

871
01:09:00,470 --> 01:09:04,173
(Charlie Christian's
"Rose Room" playing)

872
01:09:04,173 --> 01:09:06,409
MAN:
Yeah!

873
01:09:06,643 --> 01:09:10,380
NARRATOR:
On July 15, 1945,

874
01:09:10,380 --> 01:09:11,214
the USS Indianapolis,

875
01:09:11,214 --> 01:09:15,752
her repairs now complete
and ready to go back to war,

876
01:09:15,752 --> 01:09:18,888
received orders
to pick up special cargo

877
01:09:18,888 --> 01:09:20,390
at Hunters Point, California.

878
01:09:20,390 --> 01:09:26,396
MAURICE BELL:
'Course, we had no idea
what the cargo was.

879
01:09:26,396 --> 01:09:29,632
Well, there was
all kind of rumors went on

880
01:09:29,632 --> 01:09:33,636
aboard ship, uh,
what we was delivering.

881
01:09:33,636 --> 01:09:38,374
There was one rumor that's
very outstanding in my mind,

882
01:09:38,374 --> 01:09:41,244
and this rumor
just flew all over the ship

883
01:09:41,244 --> 01:09:46,349
was that we was delivering
scented toilet paper

884
01:09:46,349 --> 01:09:47,717
to General MacArthur.

885
01:09:47,717 --> 01:09:51,087
And they picked certain men
on the ship

886
01:09:51,087 --> 01:09:52,855
to load and unload this,

887
01:09:52,855 --> 01:09:55,525
and they picked me.

888
01:09:55,525 --> 01:09:58,795
So I helped load it.

889
01:09:59,662 --> 01:10:02,265
§§ §§

890
01:10:09,672 --> 01:10:11,207
(music ends)

891
01:10:11,207 --> 01:10:12,341
NARRATOR:
On July 26,

892
01:10:12,341 --> 01:10:15,678
the Indianapolis
delivered its mysterious cargo

893
01:10:15,678 --> 01:10:19,615
to the B-29 base on Tinian.

894
01:10:20,183 --> 01:10:21,184
§§ §§

895
01:10:21,184 --> 01:10:25,354
Then she set out
for the Philippines.

896
01:10:25,555 --> 01:10:29,959
Four days later,
in the middle of the night,

897
01:10:29,959 --> 01:10:31,994
disaster struck.

898
01:10:31,994 --> 01:10:34,464
BELL:
A few minutes after midnight,

899
01:10:34,464 --> 01:10:37,834
there was a loud explosion
on there.

900
01:10:37,834 --> 01:10:39,569
It knocked me out of my bunk.

901
01:10:39,569 --> 01:10:40,203
I didn't know what had happened,

902
01:10:40,203 --> 01:10:43,206
and the first thing that
passed... went through my mind

903
01:10:43,206 --> 01:10:46,409
was that a...
a boiler had blown up.

904
01:10:46,409 --> 01:10:47,243
(explosion)

905
01:10:47,243 --> 01:10:49,612
NARRATOR:
A Japanese submarine

906
01:10:49,612 --> 01:10:50,813
had sent two torpedoes

907
01:10:50,813 --> 01:10:55,184
hissing into the hull
of the Indianapolis.

908
01:10:55,184 --> 01:11:00,022
They cut it nearly in half.

909
01:11:00,590 --> 01:11:04,994
1,196 men were aboard.

910
01:11:06,863 --> 01:11:08,631
Within the first few minutes,

911
01:11:08,631 --> 01:11:11,801
some 300 of them
were blown apart

912
01:11:11,801 --> 01:11:15,004
or burned to death.

913
01:11:15,004 --> 01:11:17,774
The captain ordered the rest--

914
01:11:17,774 --> 01:11:19,976
nearly 900 men--
to abandon ship.

915
01:11:19,976 --> 01:11:26,282
BELL:
I estimated I was about
25 to 30 feet up in the air

916
01:11:26,282 --> 01:11:27,450
when I jumped.

917
01:11:27,450 --> 01:11:30,720
I put my foot against
the side of the ship and pushed

918
01:11:30,720 --> 01:11:33,289
and started swimming,
because I was told that, uh,

919
01:11:33,289 --> 01:11:36,192
the best thing to do is
to get away from a ship--

920
01:11:36,192 --> 01:11:41,330
as it went under, it would
create, uh, tremendous suction.

921
01:11:41,330 --> 01:11:45,434
So as I pushed with my foot
and started swimming,

922
01:11:45,434 --> 01:11:49,572
when I did,
the ship just shot away from me

923
01:11:49,572 --> 01:11:53,342
as it was going under.

924
01:11:54,577 --> 01:11:56,279
NARRATOR:
Within 12 minutes,

925
01:11:56,279 --> 01:12:00,483
the Indianapolis
sank from sight.

926
01:12:00,483 --> 01:12:02,885
The men were alone now,

927
01:12:02,885 --> 01:12:08,791
scattered across miles
of dark, empty sea.

928
01:12:09,058 --> 01:12:11,794
Many men were badly wounded.

929
01:12:11,794 --> 01:12:12,628
Some had broken limbs.

930
01:12:12,628 --> 01:12:17,900
Able-bodied survivors
did what they could in the dark

931
01:12:17,900 --> 01:12:19,302
to fashion floats for them,

932
01:12:19,302 --> 01:12:24,974
tying together life rafts
as floating beds.

933
01:12:26,142 --> 01:12:30,413
Morning brought worse horrors.

934
01:12:32,081 --> 01:12:34,383
BELL:
When daylight came,
you look around,

935
01:12:34,383 --> 01:12:39,288
all you could see was just
the group that I was in.

936
01:12:39,288 --> 01:12:42,191
There was probably
over a hundred men

937
01:12:42,191 --> 01:12:44,894
in that group to start with.

938
01:12:44,894 --> 01:12:48,397
Just shortly after daylight,
somebody yelled...

939
01:12:48,397 --> 01:12:50,566
yelled out real loud, "Sharks!"

940
01:12:50,566 --> 01:12:55,004
And sure enough, there were
sharks swimming all around us.

941
01:12:55,004 --> 01:12:57,874
And, uh, those sharks
would swim around us,

942
01:12:57,874 --> 01:13:03,312
and then, uh, all of a sudden,
they would dive in on us

943
01:13:03,312 --> 01:13:06,415
and start attacking guys.

944
01:13:06,415 --> 01:13:09,418
And, uh...

945
01:13:09,418 --> 01:13:10,720
you'd see them attack somebody

946
01:13:10,720 --> 01:13:14,457
over just a short...
just a few feet from you,

947
01:13:14,457 --> 01:13:15,524
and, of course,
they'd grab them,

948
01:13:15,524 --> 01:13:20,363
and down they'd go, and you'd
never see that... man again.

949
01:13:20,363 --> 01:13:21,130
All you would see then

950
01:13:21,130 --> 01:13:25,401
would be the water turning red
around them.

951
01:13:27,136 --> 01:13:31,407
They attacked us every day,

952
01:13:31,407 --> 01:13:33,175
several times a day.

953
01:13:33,175 --> 01:13:37,980
Some of the sharks swimming
three or four feet of me,

954
01:13:37,980 --> 01:13:40,549
but none ever touch me.

955
01:13:40,549 --> 01:13:44,186
NARRATOR:
No one came to rescue them.

956
01:13:44,186 --> 01:13:46,289
Distress signals
from the sinking ship

957
01:13:46,289 --> 01:13:51,193
had been dismissed
as Japanese trickery.

958
01:13:51,327 --> 01:13:57,033
BELL:
I stayed in the water
for four days and five nights--

959
01:13:57,033 --> 01:13:59,802
a little over a hundred hours,
altogether--

960
01:13:59,802 --> 01:14:02,838
with nothing to eat
or no fresh water to drink.

961
01:14:02,838 --> 01:14:07,043
Some of the guys just went
completely out of their head.

962
01:14:07,043 --> 01:14:08,878
Didn't even know
where they was at.

963
01:14:08,878 --> 01:14:12,515
They would feel that fr...
cold water down at their feet,

964
01:14:12,515 --> 01:14:14,951
and they'd dive down there
and drink it,

965
01:14:14,951 --> 01:14:16,819
thinking they was
back aboard ship.

966
01:14:16,819 --> 01:14:19,488
And they'd come back up
and describe...

967
01:14:19,488 --> 01:14:20,890
that, uh, "Come on down below."

968
01:14:20,890 --> 01:14:22,291
They thought
they was on the ship.

969
01:14:22,291 --> 01:14:24,894
"Come on down--
at the officer's quarters,

970
01:14:24,894 --> 01:14:31,500
there's water fountains up there
with ice water all the time."

971
01:14:55,825 --> 01:15:03,299
NARRATOR:
When the Navy finally did
come upon them on August 2,

972
01:15:03,299 --> 01:15:08,471
only 321 men remained alive.

973
01:15:09,605 --> 01:15:14,410
Some 880 crewmen died.

974
01:15:21,684 --> 01:15:23,386
BELL:
Some of the things

975
01:15:23,386 --> 01:15:25,888
that I actually went through
out there,

976
01:15:25,888 --> 01:15:31,327
it just seems more like
a dream... sometimes.

977
01:15:32,094 --> 01:15:36,766
I wonder how I made it through.

978
01:15:36,766 --> 01:15:38,034
I tell everybody now

979
01:15:38,034 --> 01:15:43,839
that I was too sour
for the sharks to eat.

980
01:15:49,578 --> 01:15:50,413
NARRATOR:
On August 5,

981
01:15:50,413 --> 01:15:55,051
three days after the rescue
of the Indianapolis survivors,

982
01:15:55,051 --> 01:15:58,954
the unknown object
they had delivered to Tinian

983
01:15:58,954 --> 01:16:00,523
was placed aboard a B-29

984
01:16:00,523 --> 01:16:03,526
named for the mother
of its pilot--

985
01:16:03,526 --> 01:16:06,328
the Enola Gay.

986
01:16:08,330 --> 01:16:10,266
It was an atomic bomb.

987
01:16:10,266 --> 01:16:13,402
It had originally been intended
for use against the Germans,

988
01:16:13,402 --> 01:16:17,540
who had been feverishly working
to make a bomb of their own,

989
01:16:17,540 --> 01:16:20,910
but it had not been ready
for delivery

990
01:16:20,910 --> 01:16:22,812
before they surrendered.

991
01:16:22,812 --> 01:16:24,814
The American bomb
had been developed

992
01:16:24,814 --> 01:16:27,917
under such strict secrecy
that the new president

993
01:16:27,917 --> 01:16:32,855
had never heard of the project
before he assumed office.

994
01:16:32,855 --> 01:16:34,356
But once he was told about it,

995
01:16:34,356 --> 01:16:41,063
Truman approved the bomb's use
as soon as it was ready.

996
01:16:53,976 --> 01:16:58,681
At 8:15 in the morning
on August 6, 1945,

997
01:16:58,681 --> 01:17:02,284
the bomb tumbled
through the bomb-bay doors

998
01:17:02,284 --> 01:17:05,788
of the Enola Gay.

999
01:17:11,594 --> 01:17:13,996
43 seconds later,

1000
01:17:13,996 --> 01:17:15,164
six miles below

1001
01:17:15,164 --> 01:17:18,167
but still high above
the city of Hiroshima,

1002
01:17:18,167 --> 01:17:23,772
it detonated,
changing the world forever.

1003
01:17:25,174 --> 01:17:26,909
(explosion)

1004
01:17:26,909 --> 01:17:29,845
(rumbling continues)

1005
01:17:32,882 --> 01:17:35,818
(rumbling continues)

1006
01:17:41,924 --> 01:17:46,162
(rumbling fading out slowly)

1007
01:17:46,629 --> 01:17:51,667
With a single bomb,
40,000 men, women and children

1008
01:17:51,667 --> 01:17:56,338
were obliterated in an instant.

1009
01:18:07,416 --> 01:18:10,753
100,000 more would die
within days

1010
01:18:10,753 --> 01:18:14,490
of burns and radiation.

1011
01:18:24,099 --> 01:18:26,035
Another hundred thousand
would succumb

1012
01:18:26,035 --> 01:18:31,707
to radiation poisoning
over the next five years.

1013
01:18:33,242 --> 01:18:36,779
§§ §§

1014
01:18:38,047 --> 01:18:40,182
More than half a century later,

1015
01:18:40,182 --> 01:18:43,786
citizens of Hiroshima
would still be dying

1016
01:18:43,786 --> 01:18:48,557
from the bomb's
long-delayed side effects.

1017
01:18:52,761 --> 01:18:54,163
Despite the devastation,

1018
01:18:54,163 --> 01:18:56,665
the Japanese still
would not accept

1019
01:18:56,665 --> 01:19:00,769
the Allied surrender terms.

1020
01:19:04,306 --> 01:19:05,841
Then on August 8,

1021
01:19:05,841 --> 01:19:09,745
the Soviet Union
declared war on Japan.

1022
01:19:09,745 --> 01:19:15,317
The islands now faced invasion
on two fronts.

1023
01:19:19,655 --> 01:19:21,890
At 11:02 the following morning,

1024
01:19:21,890 --> 01:19:25,628
an American plane
dropped a second atomic bomb

1025
01:19:25,628 --> 01:19:28,731
on the city of Nagasaki.

1026
01:19:28,731 --> 01:19:34,503
Some 40,000 more civilians
died instantly.

1027
01:19:39,208 --> 01:19:42,144
The Americans
had no more such bombs

1028
01:19:42,144 --> 01:19:47,483
and would be unable to produce
another for several months.

1029
01:19:47,483 --> 01:19:53,289
But the Japanese had no way
of knowing that.

1030
01:19:55,824 --> 01:20:00,396
In Tokyo, the Supreme Council
for the Direction of the War

1031
01:20:00,396 --> 01:20:05,567
remained split between those
still determined to fight on

1032
01:20:05,567 --> 01:20:09,772
and those willing,
finally, to give up.

1033
01:20:09,772 --> 01:20:14,143
That evening,
all six members of the council

1034
01:20:14,143 --> 01:20:16,211
called upon the emperor,

1035
01:20:16,211 --> 01:20:18,580
who broke the deadlock.

1036
01:20:18,580 --> 01:20:23,519
Japan would surrender.

1037
01:20:27,756 --> 01:20:30,559
KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
Everything was set

1038
01:20:30,559 --> 01:20:32,261
for the landings in Japan.

1039
01:20:32,261 --> 01:20:35,064
So when the atomic bomb
was dropped

1040
01:20:35,064 --> 01:20:40,669
and it ended it so quickly,
we were stunned

1041
01:20:40,669 --> 01:20:42,538
but rejoiced.

1042
01:20:42,538 --> 01:20:43,772
Our boys would come home!

1043
01:20:43,772 --> 01:20:47,776
There wouldn't be
any more of them killed.

1044
01:20:47,776 --> 01:20:50,779
You can never convince
anyone of my generation

1045
01:20:50,779 --> 01:20:54,216
that the atomic bomb
was not the greatest thing

1046
01:20:54,216 --> 01:20:57,486
(laughs):
that they ever came up with,

1047
01:20:57,486 --> 01:20:58,454
because we'll defy you.

1048
01:20:58,454 --> 01:21:04,059
It was just finally
the end of that horrible war.

1049
01:21:04,059 --> 01:21:10,866
RAY LEOPOLD:
I had very mixed feelings
about it.

1050
01:21:10,866 --> 01:21:14,803
That the atom bomb...

1051
01:21:16,271 --> 01:21:21,877
could be blasted
on fellow humans

1052
01:21:21,877 --> 01:21:24,279
whose blood is as red as mine,

1053
01:21:24,279 --> 01:21:31,019
whose skin blisters
as readily as mine does...

1054
01:21:31,019 --> 01:21:35,591
was something I had hoped
could be avoided.

1055
01:21:35,591 --> 01:21:39,428
Of course,
there is the mathematical odds

1056
01:21:39,428 --> 01:21:43,432
that by killing some...

1057
01:21:43,432 --> 01:21:46,835
quarter million... Japanese,

1058
01:21:46,835 --> 01:21:50,973
we may have saved
half a million American lives.

1059
01:21:50,973 --> 01:21:53,475
Mathematically,
that's a good thing.

1060
01:21:53,475 --> 01:22:01,383
But it's hard
to give up someone else's life.

1061
01:22:09,358 --> 01:22:15,764
NARRATOR:
After Japan gave up, the guards
at Glenn Frazier's prison camp

1062
01:22:15,764 --> 01:22:19,334
had simply walked away.

1063
01:22:19,334 --> 01:22:22,104
He and his comrades wandered out

1064
01:22:22,104 --> 01:22:27,276
among a dazed
civilian population...

1065
01:22:27,843 --> 01:22:32,581
and took the train to Tokyo
and freedom.

1066
01:22:35,984 --> 01:22:41,089
EUGENE SLEDGE (dramatized):
"We thought the Japanese
would never surrender.

1067
01:22:41,089 --> 01:22:43,091
"Many refused to believe it.

1068
01:22:43,091 --> 01:22:49,565
"Sitting in stunned silence,
we remembered our dead.

1069
01:22:49,565 --> 01:22:50,365
"So many dead.

1070
01:22:50,365 --> 01:22:53,836
"Except for a few widely
scattered shouts of joy,

1071
01:22:53,836 --> 01:23:00,075
"the survivors of the abyss
sat hollow-eyed and silent,

1072
01:23:00,075 --> 01:23:06,315
trying to comprehend
a world without war."

1073
01:23:06,315 --> 01:23:09,384
Eugene Sledge.

1074
01:23:14,523 --> 01:23:18,160
("Every Tub" playing)

1075
01:23:25,667 --> 01:23:28,904
(cheering)

1076
01:23:40,782 --> 01:23:43,485
§§ §§

1077
01:24:05,207 --> 01:24:10,112
EARL BURKE:
V-J Day-- I was in San Francisco

1078
01:24:10,112 --> 01:24:12,781
and it just blew up!

1079
01:24:12,781 --> 01:24:16,318
People come out of everywhere:

1080
01:24:16,318 --> 01:24:19,555
out of every window,
out of every door.

1081
01:24:19,555 --> 01:24:22,357
They came out of the sewer.

1082
01:24:22,357 --> 01:24:26,795
You could cop a feel
going down the street

1083
01:24:26,795 --> 01:24:30,232
and nobody would say a word.

1084
01:24:38,907 --> 01:24:45,547
KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
Well, my dad was so excited
that he ran in the room

1085
01:24:45,547 --> 01:24:52,254
and he got his pistol from
World War I and he filled it

1086
01:24:52,254 --> 01:24:54,690
and we went out
of the front door,

1087
01:24:54,690 --> 01:24:56,925
and if you go dig around
that azalea bush,

1088
01:24:56,925 --> 01:24:59,328
I know the bullets
are still in the azalea bush.

1089
01:24:59,328 --> 01:25:03,432
He fired six rounds
into the azalea bush,

1090
01:25:03,432 --> 01:25:06,068
brought the pistol back
in the house

1091
01:25:06,068 --> 01:25:09,905
and said to my brother and I,
"Come on, gang,"

1092
01:25:09,905 --> 01:25:11,907
and "We're going downtown."

1093
01:25:11,907 --> 01:25:13,675
And he threw mother in the car

1094
01:25:13,675 --> 01:25:17,746
and we drove down
to Admiral Semmes' statue.

1095
01:25:17,746 --> 01:25:22,818
And daddy circled it three or
four times honking his horn.

1096
01:25:22,818 --> 01:25:25,621
So by the time we left downtown,

1097
01:25:25,621 --> 01:25:29,725
people were climbing up
Admiral Semmes' statue

1098
01:25:29,725 --> 01:25:32,427
and the celebration had begun.

1099
01:25:32,427 --> 01:25:33,061
But I've always said

1100
01:25:33,061 --> 01:25:39,601
my daddy started
the celebration for V-J day.

1101
01:25:45,974 --> 01:25:46,942
NARRATOR:
In Waterbury, Connecticut,

1102
01:25:46,942 --> 01:25:50,012
newsboys peddling a special
"War's Over" edition

1103
01:25:50,012 --> 01:25:52,047
of the Waterbury American
were on the street

1104
01:25:52,047 --> 01:25:57,386
within 60 seconds of the
president's formal announcement.

1105
01:25:58,220 --> 01:25:59,121
Every firehouse siren

1106
01:25:59,121 --> 01:26:02,758
and factory whistle in town
began to blow.

1107
01:26:02,758 --> 01:26:04,860
ANNE DeVICO:
We didn't even know the people.

1108
01:26:04,860 --> 01:26:05,661
We were hugging them
and kissing them.

1109
01:26:05,661 --> 01:26:10,999
We didn't know who they were and
they didn't know who we were.

1110
01:26:11,533 --> 01:26:12,834
It was just a joyous time.

1111
01:26:12,834 --> 01:26:15,737
It was a happy, happy time
‘cause we're thinking,

1112
01:26:15,737 --> 01:26:19,574
"Well, now all our boys
are going to come home."

1113
01:26:19,574 --> 01:26:20,709
(bell tolls)

1114
01:26:20,709 --> 01:26:23,712
NARRATOR:
That evening, special
services were held

1115
01:26:23,712 --> 01:26:28,684
at every Waterbury church
and synagogue.

1116
01:26:29,451 --> 01:26:33,155
As a sign of profound gratitude
for the good news,

1117
01:26:33,155 --> 01:26:36,224
some Italian-American women
climbed the hill

1118
01:26:36,224 --> 01:26:40,696
to Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Church on their knees.

1119
01:26:40,696 --> 01:26:45,634
OLGA CIARLO:
It was a happy time
for a lot of people.

1120
01:26:45,634 --> 01:26:49,738
It was a happy time for us, too,
to know that the war was over

1121
01:26:49,738 --> 01:26:52,507
for other boys, too,
that were there.

1122
01:26:52,507 --> 01:26:53,742
But it wasn't so happy for us

1123
01:26:53,742 --> 01:26:57,779
because we knew my brother
wasn't coming home.

1124
01:27:13,762 --> 01:27:18,200
NARRATOR:
Private Babe Ciarlo of Waterbury
had been killed in Italy

1125
01:27:18,200 --> 01:27:23,405
during the Anzio break-out
in late May of 1944.

1126
01:27:23,405 --> 01:27:26,041
His mother had refused
to believe it,

1127
01:27:26,041 --> 01:27:28,744
poring over newspaper
photographs

1128
01:27:28,744 --> 01:27:30,245
in hopes of glimpsing him,

1129
01:27:30,245 --> 01:27:34,182
insisting the Army
had made an error,

1130
01:27:34,182 --> 01:27:40,522
that somehow her son would still
be coming home to her.

1131
01:27:44,626 --> 01:27:49,731
Eventually,
long after the war, he did.

1132
01:27:50,632 --> 01:27:54,770
OLGA:
I think the worst day was when
they brought his body back.

1133
01:27:54,770 --> 01:27:57,139
And we went down
to the railroad station

1134
01:27:57,139 --> 01:28:02,377
and when they took his body off
the train and we were all there,

1135
01:28:02,377 --> 01:28:03,745
we all went to the cemetery,

1136
01:28:03,745 --> 01:28:07,616
when they handed
my mother the flag...

1137
01:28:33,742 --> 01:28:36,611
§§ §§

1138
01:28:50,458 --> 01:28:54,196
FRAZIER:
We sailed under
the Golden Gate Bridge

1139
01:28:54,196 --> 01:28:58,433
and into San Francisco Bay...

1140
01:29:01,536 --> 01:29:03,705
and as we approached the pier,

1141
01:29:03,705 --> 01:29:07,175
there-- I get
a little choked up--

1142
01:29:07,175 --> 01:29:08,810
there was the American flag

1143
01:29:08,810 --> 01:29:13,949
flying high in the breeze
over American soil,

1144
01:29:13,949 --> 01:29:16,518
and it was the most
gratifying thing

1145
01:29:16,518 --> 01:29:18,553
‘cause we never dreamed
we would ever get back.

1146
01:29:18,553 --> 01:29:22,123
And there was a bunch
of prisoners of war on there.

1147
01:29:22,123 --> 01:29:22,357
And we stood there--

1148
01:29:22,357 --> 01:29:25,760
couldn't even see anything--
with tears in our eyes.

1149
01:29:25,760 --> 01:29:29,130
And as we docked,
I was one of the...

1150
01:29:29,130 --> 01:29:30,065
I was the second one to get off.

1151
01:29:30,065 --> 01:29:32,100
And I get down on the ground,
I Kissed the ground.

1152
01:29:32,100 --> 01:29:35,403
And every one of the prisoners
of war that was on that ship

1153
01:29:35,403 --> 01:29:40,375
got off the gangplank
and kissed the ground.

1154
01:29:41,943 --> 01:29:42,477
And our audience out there

1155
01:29:42,477 --> 01:29:44,646
was just clapping their hands
every time

1156
01:29:44,646 --> 01:29:47,082
and welcomed us home.

1157
01:29:47,082 --> 01:29:52,254
And it was the greatest
feeling in the world.

1158
01:29:58,627 --> 01:30:03,198
NARRATOR:
Glenn Frazier's family back
in Fort Deposit, Alabama,

1159
01:30:03,198 --> 01:30:07,535
had officially been informed
that he had died

1160
01:30:07,535 --> 01:30:10,138
in the Philippines.

1161
01:30:10,138 --> 01:30:11,172
(phone ringing)

1162
01:30:11,172 --> 01:30:14,643
FRAZIER:
We were told we could make
a phone call home

1163
01:30:14,643 --> 01:30:16,645
at the expense
of the government.

1164
01:30:16,645 --> 01:30:18,613
So I made my phone call
to my home.

1165
01:30:18,613 --> 01:30:23,118
And the phone was answered
by my mother.

1166
01:30:23,118 --> 01:30:23,919
And I told her who it was,

1167
01:30:23,919 --> 01:30:28,857
and now I didn't know anything
about all these,

1168
01:30:28,857 --> 01:30:29,758
the... the letters

1169
01:30:29,758 --> 01:30:33,461
and the guy coming there,
you know,

1170
01:30:33,461 --> 01:30:34,629
telling them I was dead.

1171
01:30:34,629 --> 01:30:35,363
So she answered the phone

1172
01:30:35,363 --> 01:30:38,233
and then she fainted,
and the phone went dead.

1173
01:30:38,233 --> 01:30:40,568
And then her sister,
who was there visiting,

1174
01:30:40,568 --> 01:30:42,370
and she fainted
when I told her who it was.

1175
01:30:42,370 --> 01:30:45,707
And then my oldest sister came
to the phone and she fainted.

1176
01:30:45,707 --> 01:30:49,778
So then there was a long pause
and my daddy answered the phone.

1177
01:30:49,778 --> 01:30:52,981
He said, "Who in the world
is this?"

1178
01:30:52,981 --> 01:30:53,648
And so I told him

1179
01:30:53,648 --> 01:30:56,017
and I used my middle name
at home.

1180
01:30:56,017 --> 01:30:56,651
It was Dowling.

1181
01:30:56,651 --> 01:30:56,985
I said, "This is Dowling."

1182
01:30:56,985 --> 01:31:00,221
And he said, "Well," he said,
"I knew you weren't dead."

1183
01:31:00,221 --> 01:31:03,258
But he said, "Look like I've got
a bunch of dead women here."

1184
01:31:03,258 --> 01:31:05,226
He said, "I've got to get them
up off the floor."

1185
01:31:05,226 --> 01:31:08,863
So he said, "Now, you hold on.
Don't... don't go away now.

1186
01:31:08,863 --> 01:31:09,597
I'll be back in a minute."

1187
01:31:09,597 --> 01:31:11,599
So he goes
and gets a pitcher of water

1188
01:31:11,599 --> 01:31:13,601
and he's pouring some water
in their face.

1189
01:31:13,601 --> 01:31:14,736
Come back to the phone
and he said,

1190
01:31:14,736 --> 01:31:17,439
"I think they're waking up.
Their eyes are moving.

1191
01:31:17,439 --> 01:31:18,006
Some are moving a little bit."

1192
01:31:18,006 --> 01:31:21,076
He said, "They'll be able to
talk to you in a little bit."

1193
01:31:21,076 --> 01:31:25,580
And that's when they knew
I was in San Francisco.

1194
01:31:26,348 --> 01:31:32,620
NARRATOR:
By the fall of 1945,
750,000 service personnel

1195
01:31:32,620 --> 01:31:38,326
were returning
to civilian life every month.

1196
01:31:44,666 --> 01:31:48,703
("It's Been a Long, Long Time"
playing)

1197
01:31:49,237 --> 01:31:53,174
BING CROSBY:
§§ Kiss me once,
then kiss me twice §§

1198
01:31:53,174 --> 01:31:55,477
§§ Then kiss me once again §§

1199
01:31:55,477 --> 01:32:01,649
§§ It's been a long, long time§

1200
01:32:01,649 --> 01:32:05,387
§§ Haven't felt like this,
my dear §§

1201
01:32:05,387 --> 01:32:08,356
§§ Since I can't remember when§

1202
01:32:08,356 --> 01:32:12,293
§§ It's been a long, long time§

1203
01:32:12,293 --> 01:32:16,965
§§ You'll never know
how many dreams §§

1204
01:32:16,965 --> 01:32:19,100
§§ I dreamed about you §§

1205
01:32:19,100 --> 01:32:25,707
§§ Or just how empty
they all seemed without you §§

1206
01:32:25,707 --> 01:32:29,944
§§ So kiss me once,
then kiss me twice §§

1207
01:32:29,944 --> 01:32:32,247
§§ Then kiss me once again §§

1208
01:32:32,247 --> 01:32:39,587
§§ It's been a long,
long time... §§

1209
01:32:42,157 --> 01:32:50,965
§§ Long, long time. §§

1210
01:32:53,268 --> 01:32:57,906
TOM GALLOWAY:
Certainly when you come home,
it, uh, it's an occasion.

1211
01:32:57,906 --> 01:33:02,177
I didn't know how to really
react to it because...

1212
01:33:02,177 --> 01:33:04,579
you'd seen a lot of things that,

1213
01:33:04,579 --> 01:33:07,649
that, uh, you didn't ever think
you'd see.

1214
01:33:07,649 --> 01:33:11,252
But in any event,
it, other than, uh,

1215
01:33:11,252 --> 01:33:13,755
I'll never forget my mother
wanted to see.

1216
01:33:13,755 --> 01:33:16,958
For instance, I was just sitting
there with my shoes on.

1217
01:33:16,958 --> 01:33:23,598
And she wanted to see that I had
all my limbs and everything.

1218
01:33:23,598 --> 01:33:24,732
(laughs)

1219
01:33:24,732 --> 01:33:26,568
That I still had my feet.

1220
01:33:26,568 --> 01:33:29,003
And, uh, yeah,
she stayed with me a good while

1221
01:33:29,003 --> 01:33:36,544
till 1 showed her that I had...
had all my parts on me.

1222
01:33:46,888 --> 01:33:54,429
LEOPOLD:
No matter how great,
no matter how small,

1223
01:33:54,429 --> 01:34:01,269
no matter how indifferent,
no matter how stupendous,

1224
01:34:01,269 --> 01:34:07,008
regardless of the facts,
home has a unique quality

1225
01:34:07,008 --> 01:34:08,476
that just cannot be exceeded.

1226
01:34:08,476 --> 01:34:14,516
Home is the ultimate value
that humans venerate.

1227
01:34:15,350 --> 01:34:18,920
NARRATOR:
The war had rescued
Waterbury, Connecticut,

1228
01:34:18,920 --> 01:34:20,889
and the industries
that had provided

1229
01:34:20,889 --> 01:34:24,025
its nickname: "Brass City."

1230
01:34:24,025 --> 01:34:27,829
And at first,
its workers returned

1231
01:34:27,829 --> 01:34:31,599
to making the screws and washers
and buttons,

1232
01:34:31,599 --> 01:34:33,301
showerheads and alarm clocks,

1233
01:34:33,301 --> 01:34:34,369
toy airplanes
and lipstick holders

1234
01:34:34,369 --> 01:34:40,074
and cocktail shakers they'd been
making before Pearl Harbor.

1235
01:34:40,074 --> 01:34:47,615
But as the years went by,
the brass industry declined.

1236
01:34:47,615 --> 01:34:50,518
So did Brass City.

1237
01:34:51,819 --> 01:34:58,126
Ray Leopold came home for
a time, then moved away,

1238
01:34:58,126 --> 01:34:58,726
went into business

1239
01:34:58,726 --> 01:35:02,864
and eventually became
a fund-raiser for charity.

1240
01:35:02,864 --> 01:35:09,504
LEOPOLD:
I ran into a young man who was
the brother of a young man

1241
01:35:09,504 --> 01:35:11,172
I had known reasonably well.

1242
01:35:11,172 --> 01:35:13,608
He said, "What outfit
were you with, Ray?"

1243
01:35:13,608 --> 01:35:18,379
And I told him that I was
with the 28th Infantry.

1244
01:35:18,379 --> 01:35:18,446
"Really?"

1245
01:35:18,446 --> 01:35:21,115
He said, "My brother was
with that outfit."

1246
01:35:21,115 --> 01:35:23,484
And I said,
"Where is your brother?"

1247
01:35:23,484 --> 01:35:27,889
He said, "Oh, he didn't make it.

1248
01:35:27,889 --> 01:35:29,524
"He's dead.

1249
01:35:29,524 --> 01:35:32,126
He was killed in action."

1250
01:35:32,126 --> 01:35:34,696
And then he turned, he says,

1251
01:35:34,696 --> 01:35:39,901
"You were with the 28th, too,
and you are home and he isn't."

1252
01:35:39,901 --> 01:35:43,471
He couldn't get over the idea

1253
01:35:43,471 --> 01:35:52,113
that someone so dear to him as
his brother couldn't make it...

1254
01:35:52,113 --> 01:35:54,782
and someone who is more or less

1255
01:35:54,782 --> 01:36:00,822
an indifferent third person
made it.

1256
01:36:09,897 --> 01:36:14,369
AANENSON:
There are casualties in war

1257
01:36:14,369 --> 01:36:19,641
that... they never show up
as casualties.

1258
01:36:19,641 --> 01:36:23,111
They're internal casualties.

1259
01:36:23,111 --> 01:36:25,780
We all changed.

1260
01:36:25,780 --> 01:36:29,651
We went out as a bunch of kids.

1261
01:36:29,651 --> 01:36:33,187
Wars are fought by kids.

1262
01:36:33,187 --> 01:36:34,289
And we came back--

1263
01:36:34,289 --> 01:36:39,927
looked maybe the same, but
inside we were so different.

1264
01:36:39,927 --> 01:36:47,335
They thought we were
just odd, I guess.

1265
01:36:47,335 --> 01:36:50,138
"What's happened to Quent?

1266
01:36:50,138 --> 01:36:50,271
What's wrong?"

1267
01:36:50,271 --> 01:36:57,312
And I was wondering, "Nobody
knows, nobody understands,"

1268
01:36:57,312 --> 01:37:00,481
and I am not
good enough with words

1269
01:37:00,481 --> 01:37:03,584
to be able to tell 'em.

1270
01:37:05,853 --> 01:37:09,357
NARRATOR:
Quentin and Jackie Aanenson
did not return

1271
01:37:09,357 --> 01:37:13,061
to his father's farm
south of Luverne.

1272
01:37:13,061 --> 01:37:15,997
He went to Louisiana State
University instead

1273
01:37:15,997 --> 01:37:21,836
and eventually entered
the insurance business.

1274
01:37:24,205 --> 01:37:26,674
AL McINTOSH (dramatized):
"Luverne, Minnesota.

1275
01:37:26,674 --> 01:37:29,477
"October 25, 1945.

1276
01:37:29,477 --> 01:37:32,847
"A lad who was one
of the "living dead'

1277
01:37:32,847 --> 01:37:36,284
"has returned to his home--
very much alive

1278
01:37:36,284 --> 01:37:38,553
"and bubbling over
with high spirits.

1279
01:37:38,553 --> 01:37:45,493
"To look at Sergeant
Frank Lane with his 160 pounds,

1280
01:37:45,493 --> 01:37:46,160
"you'd never realize now

1281
01:37:46,160 --> 01:37:49,964
"that he was one of those
emaciated, tortured souls

1282
01:37:49,964 --> 01:37:51,599
"who survived by some miracle,

1283
01:37:51,599 --> 01:37:55,303
"the horror of that
'Death March' at Bataan.

1284
01:37:55,303 --> 01:37:59,807
"And in some ways, returning
to the States and to Luverne

1285
01:37:59,807 --> 01:38:01,843
"is like rising again
from the dead

1286
01:38:01,843 --> 01:38:06,581
"because he has to acquaint
himself with so many things

1287
01:38:06,581 --> 01:38:11,919
that have happened
in this changing world."

1288
01:38:12,620 --> 01:38:14,122
"He has a lot
of brushing up to do

1289
01:38:14,122 --> 01:38:20,528
because nearly four whole years
have gone out of his life..."

1290
01:38:21,362 --> 01:38:23,531
"Four years in which
he descended

1291
01:38:23,531 --> 01:38:25,900
"into a black hole of silence,

1292
01:38:25,900 --> 01:38:29,904
"knowing nothing about what
was going on in the world

1293
01:38:29,904 --> 01:38:33,307
"except that it was
a terrible struggle

1294
01:38:33,307 --> 01:38:36,377
to just barely survive."

1295
01:38:36,377 --> 01:38:40,481
Al Mcintosh, Rock County
Star-Herald.

1296
01:38:58,266 --> 01:39:02,837
NARRATOR:
More than 1,000 citizens
of Rock County, Minnesota,

1297
01:39:02,837 --> 01:39:06,741
served in uniform
during the war.

1298
01:39:06,741 --> 01:39:12,947
32 of them lost their lives.

1299
01:39:15,183 --> 01:39:18,586
The names of all those who
served were carefully painted

1300
01:39:18,586 --> 01:39:24,659
on a wooden roll of honor in
front of city hall in Luverne.

1301
01:39:25,560 --> 01:39:32,300
As the years passed, Minnesota
winters wore away the names.

1302
01:39:32,300 --> 01:39:35,837
One year, the monument
was taken down

1303
01:39:35,837 --> 01:39:39,740
to be repainted and repaired.

1304
01:39:39,740 --> 01:39:43,811
Somehow, it was lost.

1305
01:39:47,114 --> 01:39:53,120
SASCHA WEINZHEIMER:
Our hope was we were going
to have a new life,

1306
01:39:53,120 --> 01:39:56,524
and I remember driving up
on the day

1307
01:39:56,524 --> 01:40:00,294
that we drove through
to the ranch.

1308
01:40:00,294 --> 01:40:04,398
And it was like being
in Alice in Wonderland.

1309
01:40:04,398 --> 01:40:10,171
It was absolutely amazing.

1310
01:40:10,171 --> 01:40:13,174
NARRATOR:
Sascha Weinzheimer
and her family,

1311
01:40:13,174 --> 01:40:16,077
who had nearly starved to death
as prisoners of the Japanese

1312
01:40:16,077 --> 01:40:20,982
in Manila, settled on their
late grandfather's farm

1313
01:40:20,982 --> 01:40:23,784
in the Sacramento Valley.

1314
01:40:23,784 --> 01:40:29,223
WEINZHEIMER:
It was some sort of, um,
cultural shock coming back,

1315
01:40:29,223 --> 01:40:34,295
because your body's here,
but your mind isn't.

1316
01:40:34,295 --> 01:40:37,198
And to have to put up
with the stupidity

1317
01:40:37,198 --> 01:40:41,402
of some of the Americans
that have been living here.

1318
01:40:41,402 --> 01:40:42,303
They'd walk into a room

1319
01:40:42,303 --> 01:40:45,706
and say, "Oh, tell us
about your experience."

1320
01:40:45,706 --> 01:40:48,743
And then immediately
they'd say,

1321
01:40:48,743 --> 01:40:52,780
"Um, we had these coupons

1322
01:40:52,780 --> 01:40:55,383
"that had to be, you know,
uh, rationed,

1323
01:40:55,383 --> 01:41:00,988
and then we couldn't go here
because of the gasoline."

1324
01:41:00,988 --> 01:41:04,492
And so we just sort
of avoided everything.

1325
01:41:04,492 --> 01:41:08,729
And when people were talking
to us about our experience,

1326
01:41:08,729 --> 01:41:09,030
we just clammed up,

1327
01:41:09,030 --> 01:41:13,634
because it... they didn't want
to hear it, anyway.

1328
01:41:23,411 --> 01:41:26,614
NARRATOR:
Sacramento's wartime
transformation

1329
01:41:26,614 --> 01:41:34,455
from small-town state capital to
big city would prove permanent.

1330
01:41:36,624 --> 01:41:38,893
State government grew, too.

1331
01:41:38,893 --> 01:41:42,296
So did the military bases
on Sacramento's outskirts

1332
01:41:42,296 --> 01:41:49,070
as the world war was eventually
supplanted by the cold war.

1333
01:41:50,972 --> 01:41:54,609
Among the Sacramentans
returning home

1334
01:41:54,609 --> 01:41:57,278
were thousands of
Japanese-Americans

1335
01:41:57,278 --> 01:41:59,714
newly freed from
the inland camps

1336
01:41:59,714 --> 01:42:01,215
in which they had been
imprisoned

1337
01:42:01,215 --> 01:42:06,420
for no other reason
than their ancestry.

1338
01:42:06,420 --> 01:42:10,491
They struggled to recover
their property

1339
01:42:10,491 --> 01:42:15,596
and rebuild their lives.

1340
01:42:16,030 --> 01:42:21,235
The men of the 100th 442nd
Combat Team came home, too.

1341
01:42:21,235 --> 01:42:27,274
Robert Kashiwagi, wounded
four times in Italy and France,

1342
01:42:27,274 --> 01:42:33,180
got a job with the California
Highway Department.

1343
01:42:33,180 --> 01:42:35,249
KASHIWAGI:
When I showed up in the shop,

1344
01:42:35,249 --> 01:42:39,020
this one fellow from the floor
went to his foreman,

1345
01:42:39,020 --> 01:42:39,487
he says, "Hey, look," he says,

1346
01:42:39,487 --> 01:42:43,290
"Look, if that Jap is gonna work
here," he says, "I'm quitting."

1347
01:42:43,290 --> 01:42:45,459
And this foreman told me that.

1348
01:42:45,459 --> 01:42:50,631
And I says, "Well, you know,
I passed my test

1349
01:42:50,631 --> 01:42:53,401
"and I served overseas
and I think I did

1350
01:42:53,401 --> 01:42:56,704
"what I was supposed to do, so
I'm going to hold my position

1351
01:42:56,704 --> 01:42:59,640
and I'm going to remain here,
you know?"

1352
01:42:59,640 --> 01:42:59,874
And I did.

1353
01:42:59,874 --> 01:43:02,543
And so, as I remained
there, why, he quit.

1354
01:43:02,543 --> 01:43:08,382
And then everything turned
a little bit better

1355
01:43:08,382 --> 01:43:12,486
as time went on, and it got
easier and easier for me.

1356
01:43:12,486 --> 01:43:18,726
And so I was able to serve
32 years and retire.

1357
01:43:26,634 --> 01:43:32,273
EUGENE SLEDGE (dramatized):
"The train trip home was
a nostalgic one for me.

1358
01:43:32,273 --> 01:43:34,909
"I was a proud American,
of course,

1359
01:43:34,909 --> 01:43:40,915
but I was also a terribly
homesick Southerner."

1360
01:43:42,083 --> 01:43:43,617
"A porter came through our car

1361
01:43:43,617 --> 01:43:47,455
"calling, 'Next stop,
Mobile! Next stop, Mobile!'

1362
01:43:47,455 --> 01:43:50,891
"My buddies shouted,
"That's you, Sledgehammer.'

1363
01:43:50,891 --> 01:43:54,995
"A thrill ran through me.

1364
01:43:54,995 --> 01:43:57,932
"There were countless times
it looked as though

1365
01:43:57,932 --> 01:44:00,835
"I would never live to see
the next moment,

1366
01:44:00,835 --> 01:44:03,170
"much less live to make it.

1367
01:44:03,170 --> 01:44:08,743
"And now, here we were, rolling
into the L & N Station.

1368
01:44:08,743 --> 01:44:16,083
KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
When Eugene came back
from the war,

1369
01:44:16,083 --> 01:44:19,053
he came directly here to see us.

1370
01:44:19,053 --> 01:44:21,489
I remember him well,

1371
01:44:21,489 --> 01:44:26,327
coming in with his uniform
and all of his ribbons and all.

1372
01:44:26,327 --> 01:44:30,431
And I thought, my,
you certainly are handsome!

1373
01:44:30,431 --> 01:44:35,636
I do remember thinking that,
how he had grown up.

1374
01:44:35,636 --> 01:44:38,506
He was no longer
that little young friend

1375
01:44:38,506 --> 01:44:39,874
of my young brother Sidney.

1376
01:44:39,874 --> 01:44:44,445
I suddenly had these two men
in my presence,

1377
01:44:44,445 --> 01:44:48,749
and I had that feeling about
both of 'em.

1378
01:44:48,749 --> 01:44:52,186
Uh, it was written
on their faces.

1379
01:44:52,186 --> 01:44:53,387
Their faces changed.

1380
01:44:53,387 --> 01:44:56,791
They just no longer
looked like boys.

1381
01:44:56,791 --> 01:45:00,594
They looked like men,
which they were.

1382
01:45:17,511 --> 01:45:23,717
NARRATOR:
The war had made Mobile
into a boomtown.

1383
01:45:23,717 --> 01:45:27,154
But by the time
Eugene Sledge came home,

1384
01:45:27,154 --> 01:45:32,026
some 40,000 defense jobs
had already disappeared.

1385
01:45:32,026 --> 01:45:36,597
Some workers left the city
for the small towns

1386
01:45:36,597 --> 01:45:39,066
where they'd been living
when the war began.

1387
01:45:39,066 --> 01:45:46,273
Others moved north and west to
bigger cities in search of work.

1388
01:45:49,944 --> 01:45:55,549
Returning black veterans, who
had fought for freedom overseas,

1389
01:45:55,549 --> 01:45:59,119
found themselves facing
the same segregation

1390
01:45:59,119 --> 01:46:01,655
they had left behind.

1391
01:46:02,089 --> 01:46:06,894
JOHN GRAY:
It would be a matter of disgust
and distaste with you

1392
01:46:06,894 --> 01:46:07,695
when you found out

1393
01:46:07,695 --> 01:46:14,134
that the fruits of victory
were not yours.

1394
01:46:16,370 --> 01:46:20,975
I never did appreciate going
to work at night.

1395
01:46:20,975 --> 01:46:25,913
And the police officer would
stop you at night and say,

1396
01:46:25,913 --> 01:46:28,482
"Hey, boy, where you going?"

1397
01:46:28,482 --> 01:46:33,354
And you come up to, uh,
to answer him.

1398
01:46:33,354 --> 01:46:34,688
"You got your hat on.

1399
01:46:34,688 --> 01:46:38,759
Take your hat off
when you talk to a white man."

1400
01:46:38,759 --> 01:46:39,460
And that kind of stuff, uh...

1401
01:46:39,460 --> 01:46:44,965
And I'd worked all night,
just about, at the railroad.

1402
01:46:44,965 --> 01:46:48,135
And didn't have a car,
so I had to walk home.

1403
01:46:48,135 --> 01:46:50,471
I cried all the way home.

1404
01:46:50,471 --> 01:46:53,140
It was, it was hurt.

1405
01:46:53,674 --> 01:46:58,712
NARRATOR:
John Gray eventually went on
to college, became a teacher

1406
01:46:58,712 --> 01:47:03,817
and then a beloved school
principal and community leader

1407
01:47:03,817 --> 01:47:07,888
for 50 years in Mobile.

1408
01:47:10,357 --> 01:47:14,762
Katharine Phillips briefly
became an airline stewardess

1409
01:47:14,762 --> 01:47:19,099
and married a former Navy pilot.

1410
01:47:21,001 --> 01:47:21,669
Her younger brother Sid,

1411
01:47:21,669 --> 01:47:23,938
who had encountered
terrible suffering

1412
01:47:23,938 --> 01:47:26,206
while serving with
the First Marine Division

1413
01:47:26,206 --> 01:47:29,176
and vowed to find a way
to do something about it,

1414
01:47:29,176 --> 01:47:34,748
went on to medical school
and became a doctor.

1415
01:47:35,449 --> 01:47:42,756
But there was one person
for whom he could do nothing.

1416
01:47:42,756 --> 01:47:48,696
SID PHILLIPS:
My friend Eugene was probably
as good a friend

1417
01:47:48,696 --> 01:47:50,931
as I've ever had
in my whole life,

1418
01:47:50,931 --> 01:47:56,036
but, uh, he could not
throw off the war.

1419
01:47:56,036 --> 01:47:56,670
He could not forget it.

1420
01:47:56,670 --> 01:48:01,575
It seemed to, uh, uh,
to haunt him.

1421
01:48:06,981 --> 01:48:10,017
SLEDGE (dramatized):
"As I strolled the streets
of Mobile,

1422
01:48:10,017 --> 01:48:15,222
"civilian life
seemed so strange.

1423
01:48:15,222 --> 01:48:17,224
"People rushed around in a hurry

1424
01:48:17,224 --> 01:48:20,060
"about seemingly
insignificant things.

1425
01:48:20,060 --> 01:48:24,298
"Few seemed to realize how
blessed they were to be free

1426
01:48:24,298 --> 01:48:28,002
and untouched
by the horrors of war."

1427
01:48:29,436 --> 01:48:34,508
"To them, a veteran was
a veteran; all were the same,

1428
01:48:34,508 --> 01:48:38,846
"whether one man had survived
the deadliest combat

1429
01:48:38,846 --> 01:48:45,052
or another had pounded
a typewriter while in uniform."

1430
01:48:48,756 --> 01:48:53,727
NARRATOR:
Eugene Sledge had been
an enthusiastic hunter

1431
01:48:53,727 --> 01:48:54,261
before the war.

1432
01:48:54,261 --> 01:48:58,298
Now he found he no longer
had the heart for it.

1433
01:48:58,298 --> 01:49:03,771
In combat, he had felt the same
terror his targets felt

1434
01:49:03,771 --> 01:49:04,805
when he fired at them, he said,

1435
01:49:04,805 --> 01:49:10,611
and he couldn't bear it that
they could not shoot back.

1436
01:49:11,178 --> 01:49:13,247
Nightmares plagued him.

1437
01:49:13,247 --> 01:49:16,617
He earned a business degree
under the G.I. Bill,

1438
01:49:16,617 --> 01:49:19,987
tried the insurance business
and abandoned it,

1439
01:49:19,987 --> 01:49:24,224
eventually became a biologist
and teacher.

1440
01:49:24,224 --> 01:49:27,327
"Science was my salvation,"
he remembered.

1441
01:49:27,327 --> 01:49:30,564
"It helped keep at bay
the flashbacks

1442
01:49:30,564 --> 01:49:33,700
from Peleliu and Okinawa."

1443
01:49:33,700 --> 01:49:38,038
"Close, constant study
of nature," his wife said,

1444
01:49:38,038 --> 01:49:41,909
"kept him from going mad."

1445
01:49:43,944 --> 01:49:48,916
But the war remained
with him nonetheless.

1446
01:49:48,916 --> 01:49:50,551
He still had
the tiny sheets of paper

1447
01:49:50,551 --> 01:49:53,787
on which he'd kept a journal
in the Pacific,

1448
01:49:53,787 --> 01:49:56,023
and finally,
at his wife's urging,

1449
01:49:56,023 --> 01:50:00,694
he turned it into
a combat memoir called

1450
01:50:00,694 --> 01:50:03,997
With the Old Breed.

1451
01:50:03,997 --> 01:50:06,567
Describing the horrors
he had endured

1452
01:50:06,567 --> 01:50:12,739
eventually allowed him to begin
to put them behind him.

1453
01:50:15,008 --> 01:50:19,813
Eugene Sledge died in 2001.

1454
01:50:20,013 --> 01:50:22,282
SLEDGE (dramatized):
"Until the millennium arrives

1455
01:50:22,282 --> 01:50:27,621
"and countries cease to enslave
others, it will be necessary

1456
01:50:27,621 --> 01:50:30,557
"to accept
one's responsibility to,

1457
01:50:30,557 --> 01:50:30,691
"and to be willing

1458
01:50:30,691 --> 01:50:39,399
to make sacrifices for, one's
country as my comrades did."

1459
01:50:40,667 --> 01:50:46,507
"War is brutish, inglorious
and a terrible waste.

1460
01:50:46,507 --> 01:50:48,909
"Combat leaves an indelible mark

1461
01:50:48,909 --> 01:50:51,178
"on those who are forced
to endure it.

1462
01:50:51,178 --> 01:50:56,483
"The only redeeming factors were
my comrades' incredible bravery

1463
01:50:56,483 --> 01:51:00,721
and their devotion
to each other."

1464
01:51:00,721 --> 01:51:03,757
Eugene Sledge.

1465
01:51:07,060 --> 01:51:10,531
FRAZIER:
My hometown just gave me
a hero's welcome.

1466
01:51:10,531 --> 01:51:15,969
Couldn't ask for anybody
to be any nicer to you.

1467
01:51:15,969 --> 01:51:19,273
But, uh, little did you know
what was ahead.

1468
01:51:19,273 --> 01:51:24,745
And, uh, I didn't until it
started happening to me.

1469
01:51:28,415 --> 01:51:32,786
NARRATOR:
Glenn Frazier and his brother
O'Vaughn, who had served

1470
01:51:32,786 --> 01:51:34,855
with the Army in North Africa
and ltaly,

1471
01:51:34,855 --> 01:51:41,828
happened to arrive home in Fort
Deposit, Alabama, the same day.

1472
01:51:41,828 --> 01:51:45,732
Their mother, Frazier recalled,
seemed "dazed"

1473
01:51:45,732 --> 01:51:48,335
to have both her boys back,
but she remembered

1474
01:51:48,335 --> 01:51:52,906
to give each of them the little
pile of Christmas packages

1475
01:51:52,906 --> 01:51:53,674
she'd bought and wrapped

1476
01:51:53,674 --> 01:51:58,712
but had been unable to send them
during the war.

1477
01:51:58,912 --> 01:52:01,515
When the boys stepped out
into the street,

1478
01:52:01,515 --> 01:52:04,785
they were mobbed
by friends and neighbors

1479
01:52:04,785 --> 01:52:07,988
happy to have them home.

1480
01:52:09,723 --> 01:52:13,827
Before Frazier joined
the Army in 1941,

1481
01:52:13,827 --> 01:52:16,997
he had confessed
to a high-school classmate

1482
01:52:16,997 --> 01:52:18,765
that he loved her.

1483
01:52:18,765 --> 01:52:22,669
She had waited patiently for him
for over three years,

1484
01:52:22,669 --> 01:52:28,308
until the Army formally told
his family Glenn was dead.

1485
01:52:28,308 --> 01:52:32,379
Frazier now eagerly asked
after her.

1486
01:52:32,379 --> 01:52:35,082
Hope that he and she
would one day marry

1487
01:52:35,082 --> 01:52:40,320
had helped sustain him
in captivity.

1488
01:52:40,320 --> 01:52:43,123
"I hate to tell you this,"
a friend told him,

1489
01:52:43,123 --> 01:52:48,195
"but she's getting married
this coming Sunday."

1490
01:52:49,496 --> 01:52:52,966
That night,
the nightmares began.

1491
01:52:52,966 --> 01:52:55,569
FRAZIER:
It was just like
real life again.

1492
01:52:55,569 --> 01:52:57,738
It was just so real.

1493
01:52:57,738 --> 01:52:58,639
It sort of kept me
from sleeping.

1494
01:52:58,639 --> 01:53:02,676
I got to the point where I
didn't even want to go to sleep.

1495
01:53:02,676 --> 01:53:04,511
My nerves were bothering me.

1496
01:53:04,511 --> 01:53:06,346
You couldn't tell anybody.

1497
01:53:06,346 --> 01:53:06,546
You couldn't tell...

1498
01:53:06,546 --> 01:53:08,615
In those days, if you were
seeing a psychiatrist,

1499
01:53:08,615 --> 01:53:12,653
it didn't make any difference
whether it was military or what,

1500
01:53:12,653 --> 01:53:14,788
nobody'd give you a job.

1501
01:53:15,255 --> 01:53:19,226
NARRATOR:
Psychiatrists working
for the Veterans Administration

1502
01:53:19,226 --> 01:53:20,360
were of little help.

1503
01:53:20,360 --> 01:53:25,899
"Just act normal and you'll feel
normal," they told him.

1504
01:53:25,899 --> 01:53:30,404
Frazier eventually married,
had two children,

1505
01:53:30,404 --> 01:53:34,141
ran his own trucking business.

1506
01:53:34,141 --> 01:53:38,745
But the war would not go away.

1507
01:53:41,682 --> 01:53:46,053
FRAZIER:
I hated the Japanese
as hard as anybody,

1508
01:53:46,053 --> 01:53:51,391
I believe,
could ever hate for so long.

1509
01:53:51,391 --> 01:53:51,958
And mine was as deep.

1510
01:53:51,958 --> 01:53:56,129
I think I was justified
in the hate that I had.

1511
01:53:56,129 --> 01:53:59,132
But it come a time
when it wasn't,

1512
01:53:59,132 --> 01:54:00,067
it wasn't affecting them.

1513
01:54:00,067 --> 01:54:01,268
They didn't even know I existed.

1514
01:54:01,268 --> 01:54:03,003
They were over there
and having their fun

1515
01:54:03,003 --> 01:54:05,839
and getting their things,
their country straightened out.

1516
01:54:05,839 --> 01:54:09,176
And here I am over here, I'm
hating and hating and hating

1517
01:54:09,176 --> 01:54:11,211
and having the nightmares
and so forth.

1518
01:54:11,211 --> 01:54:14,681
And it, it...
I had to get rid of it.

1519
01:54:14,681 --> 01:54:15,282
I had to throw it off

1520
01:54:15,282 --> 01:54:19,653
because it was just completely
destroying me.

1521
01:54:19,820 --> 01:54:22,789
And I prayed and...
and with the preacher's help,

1522
01:54:22,789 --> 01:54:27,260
I got to the point to where
I woke up one morning

1523
01:54:27,260 --> 01:54:32,799
and I felt a little bit of...
more rested.

1524
01:54:32,799 --> 01:54:38,972
But my war lasted actually
another 30 years.

1525
01:54:43,110 --> 01:54:49,883
PAUL FUSSELL:
To forget the war would be,
not just impossible,

1526
01:54:49,883 --> 01:54:54,287
it would be immoral.

1527
01:54:54,287 --> 01:54:55,622
It doesn't get to me very often

1528
01:54:55,622 --> 01:54:59,659
except when I talk about it
like this

1529
01:54:59,659 --> 01:55:02,996
and I seldom do that, actually.

1530
01:55:02,996 --> 01:55:06,233
It's just something,
it never goes away.

1531
01:55:06,233 --> 01:55:07,634
It's something you have
to endure

1532
01:55:07,634 --> 01:55:11,004
the way you endured
the war itself.

1533
01:55:11,004 --> 01:55:11,705
There's no alternative.

1534
01:55:11,705 --> 01:55:13,140
You can't wipe out
these memories.

1535
01:55:13,140 --> 01:55:16,843
You can't wipe out what
you felt at that time

1536
01:55:16,843 --> 01:55:17,577
or what you knew
other people felt.

1537
01:55:17,577 --> 01:55:24,551
It's just part of, it's part of
your whole possession of life.

1538
01:55:24,551 --> 01:55:29,990
And I suppose it does some good.

1539
01:55:36,430 --> 01:55:38,165
NARRATOR:
For all those Americans

1540
01:55:38,165 --> 01:55:41,435
who lived through
the terrible conflict,

1541
01:55:41,435 --> 01:55:43,236
for those whose fathers and sons

1542
01:55:43,236 --> 01:55:45,972
and brothers
were lost or maimed,

1543
01:55:45,972 --> 01:55:50,010
as well as for those
whose only contact with combat

1544
01:55:50,010 --> 01:55:55,315
was listening to the radio
and reading the local paper,

1545
01:55:55,315 --> 01:56:02,088
it remains to this day,
simply, "The War."

1546
01:56:02,889 --> 01:56:08,895
KATHARINE PHILLIPS:
The young men that came home
from the war were my neighbors

1547
01:56:08,895 --> 01:56:16,236
when I was a young married
woman, and they lived the war.

1548
01:56:16,236 --> 01:56:18,405
They married,
they established homes.

1549
01:56:18,405 --> 01:56:22,676
We all lived in a wonderful
little neighborhood

1550
01:56:22,676 --> 01:56:25,779
where the homes were built
for the G.l.'s.

1551
01:56:25,779 --> 01:56:29,649
And every night after we would
get the children to bed,

1552
01:56:29,649 --> 01:56:34,988
we would all gather and the boys
would exchange stories.

1553
01:56:34,988 --> 01:56:40,093
That was the great way
of entertaining ourselves.

1554
01:56:42,128 --> 01:56:43,263
The boy next door to me

1555
01:56:43,263 --> 01:56:49,135
had ridden with Patton
across Europe.

1556
01:56:49,936 --> 01:56:54,474
The boy across the street
went in on D-Day plus four,

1557
01:56:54,474 --> 01:56:58,345
hanging on to a machine gun
on a half-track,

1558
01:56:58,345 --> 01:57:00,347
and he said
he was four miles inland

1559
01:57:00,347 --> 01:57:04,317
before he could pry his hands
off the half-track.

1560
01:57:04,317 --> 01:57:08,421
He was scared out of his wits.

1561
01:57:11,391 --> 01:57:15,896
The boy catty-cornered
had been a medic

1562
01:57:15,896 --> 01:57:21,635
and had survived
battles in Europe.

1563
01:57:23,336 --> 01:57:26,640
And we would just sit
and listen, we wives.

1564
01:57:26,640 --> 01:57:33,013
We learned more about our
husbands and what they did

1565
01:57:33,013 --> 01:57:38,084
by listening
to them exchange stories.

1566
01:57:38,084 --> 01:57:41,488
But I realize,
as I've gotten older,

1567
01:57:41,488 --> 01:57:44,958
this was a healing for them.

1568
01:57:46,660 --> 01:57:52,232
AANENSON:
The dynamics of war are
so absolutely intense,

1569
01:57:52,232 --> 01:57:58,071
the drama of war
is so absolutely,

1570
01:57:58,071 --> 01:57:59,139
emotionally spellbinding,

1571
01:57:59,139 --> 01:58:05,245
that it's hard for you to go on
with a normal life

1572
01:58:05,245 --> 01:58:09,683
without feeling
something is missing.

1573
01:58:14,220 --> 01:58:17,524
Now, I have had
a wonderful life.

1574
01:58:17,524 --> 01:58:22,362
I have a family
that just is ideal,

1575
01:58:22,362 --> 01:58:26,499
and, uh, I've enjoyed my life.

1576
01:58:26,499 --> 01:58:29,836
But I find there are times

1577
01:58:29,836 --> 01:58:32,706
when I am pulled back
into the whirlpool.

1578
01:58:32,706 --> 01:58:39,913
I find that
the intensity of that experience

1579
01:58:39,913 --> 01:58:42,682
was so overwhelming

1580
01:58:42,682 --> 01:58:44,017
and almost intimidating,

1581
01:58:44,017 --> 01:58:51,057
that you can't quite
let go of it.

1582
01:58:54,594 --> 01:58:57,964
AL McINTOSH (dramatized):
"Luverne, Minnesota.

1583
01:58:57,964 --> 01:59:00,500
"All week long,
with 'Silent Night'

1584
01:59:00,500 --> 01:59:02,035
"running through my head,

1585
01:59:02,035 --> 01:59:06,106
I've been groping
for a Christmas story."

1586
01:59:07,607 --> 01:59:11,945
"Somehow, the story
always eluded me."

1587
01:59:12,345 --> 01:59:13,179
"A lot of servicemen
have been in.

1588
01:59:13,179 --> 01:59:16,249
"They told us where they spent
last Christmas overseas.

1589
01:59:16,249 --> 01:59:22,956
But you didn't need to write
a story about them."

1590
01:59:23,657 --> 01:59:27,027
"The story of their happiness
about being home

1591
01:59:27,027 --> 01:59:33,033
was written all over their faces
for the world to see."

1592
01:59:36,970 --> 01:59:40,140
"And now comes the time
when it comes our turn

1593
01:59:40,140 --> 01:59:42,375
"to extend our Christmas
greetings

1594
01:59:42,375 --> 01:59:45,745
to each and every one of you."

1595
01:59:46,012 --> 01:59:50,984
"May the joy of Christmas,
and a big share of its peace

1596
01:59:50,984 --> 01:59:53,286
"and beauty, be with you all,

1597
01:59:53,286 --> 01:59:57,957
every single day
of the new year to come."

1598
01:59:57,957 --> 02:00:02,862
Al Mcintosh,
Rock County Star-Herald.

1599
02:00:04,530 --> 02:00:26,720
<b><font color="#FF8C00">Encoded By: Doc_Ramen</font></b>
<font color="#FFFF00">[Hakata Ramen] Encodes</font>
<i><font color="#E898F3">https://discord.gg/4teAREmqdQ</font></i>

1600
02:00:26,720 --> 02:00:34,594
NORAH JONES:
§§ For those who think
they have nothing to share §§

1601
02:00:34,594 --> 02:00:43,169
§§ Who fear in their hearts
there is no hero there §§

1602
02:00:43,169 --> 02:00:48,975
§§ Know each quiet act
of dignity §§

1603
02:00:48,975 --> 02:00:52,746
§§ Is that which fortifies §§

1604
02:00:52,746 --> 02:00:56,416
§§ The soul of a nation §§

1605
02:00:56,416 --> 02:00:59,819
§§ That will never die §§

1606
02:00:59,819 --> 02:01:05,091
§§ Let them say of me §§

1607
02:01:05,091 --> 02:01:11,030
§§ I was one who believed §§

1608
02:01:11,030 --> 02:01:16,002
§§ In sharing the blessings §§

1609
02:01:16,002 --> 02:01:18,605
§§ I received §§

1610
02:01:18,605 --> 02:01:24,410
§§ Let me know in my heart §§

1611
02:01:24,410 --> 02:01:31,084
§§ When my days are through §§

1612
02:01:31,084 --> 02:01:36,289
§§ America, America §§

1613
02:01:36,289 --> 02:01:42,428
§§ I gave my best to you... §§

1614
02:01:43,530 --> 02:01:47,467
§§ America... §§

1615
02:01:49,636 --> 02:01:59,045
§§ I gave my best to you. §§