in the first months of 1945 Japan was on the Run the Americans had fought their way

across the Pacific us submarines and aircraft had destroyed Japan’s Merchant Fleet and Naval airpower the main Japanese home Islands had been cut off from vital supplies of fuel and raw materials the Japanese were facing defeat yet they refused to surrender convinced that if they fought back with sufficient brutality the Americans wouldn’t have the stomach for the fight and would give in Japan made clear that every move towards the home Islands would be paid for in Allied blood it presented the United States

with a huge problem how could Japan be defeated without a terrible loss of American Life the country would eventually turn to the most powerful and Dreadful weapon ever [Music] seen a weapon that would change the course of War forever [Music] in early 1945 as US military planners considered the next move against Japan their gaze fell on the Japanese occupied island of iima it lay a mere 800 mil from the Japanese Mainland and would be a valuable base for attacking the [Music] country the US commander in the Central

Pacific Admiral chess Western Nimitz assembled the largest Landing Fleet ever brought together in the Pacific Campaign and prepared to invade the island Nimitz was taking no [Music] risks wave after wave of American aircraft paved the way with a massive aerial bombard [Music] then on the morning of February the 19th 1945 The Guns of the naval task force began one of the most prolonged bombardments of the war at the same time Landing craft set off for the

shore the Marines hit the beaches of eima along the southwestern Shore just after 9:00 in the morning for a few moments there was an eerie car a massive Naval and aerial bombardment appeared to have overwhelmed the Japanese Garrison then a hurricane of Japanese fire swept over General tadamichi kurba yashi the Japanese commander on the island had told his men to hold their fire until the Americans were right under their [Music] guns now the Japanese opened up from a network of tunnels caves and bunkers there was

Carnage but gradually small groups of us troops inched their way [Music] forward finally by the evening the beach head had been secured the task now was to capture the 550 ft high mount suribachi the heavily defended volcano that dominates e ojima for 3 Days Marines clawed their way up the Steep pitted slopes they were supported by a constant air and Naval bombardment from The Invasion f finally on February the 23rd

1945 a US platoon led by first lieutenant Harold shrier began the final assault carrying with them a small US flag they reached the summit and raised their flag using a p piece of piping as a [Music] pole Marine Corps photographer staff sergeant Lou Lowry captured the scene with a few precious [Music] photographs the hardpressed Marines on the beaches below cheered and wept ships sounded their [Music] whistles 3 hours later the event was restaged with a larger US flag the moment was immortalized by

photographer Joe rosenal with one of the most iconic photographs of the war [Music] but the battle for iojima was far from Over the rest of the island was still in Japanese hands the next day the Marines captured the first of the Island’s strategically vital airfields but kurba yashi had told his men to take as many of the enemy with them as possible their duty to the emperor to die on the [Music]

island with me each assault became a bloody frontal affair it took two weeks before the remaining two airfields on the island were in US hands even as the fighting continued the US Air Force began to make use of aima’s [Music] airfields during the late spring and summer of 1945 over 2,500 damaged us bombers made emergency Landings on the island often saving the lives of their Crews finally at the end of March after some six weeks of ferocious fighting the last Japanese resistance was snuffed

out but the capture of iojima had come at a terrible [Music] price only 200 of the 22,000 strong Japanese Garrison [Music] survived the Americans had also suffered badly nearly 7,000 Marines had been killed and some 18,000 wounded the Americans finally had the base they needed but it was now clear that unless the us could come up with an alternative any invasion of Japan would be paid for in tens of thousands of American lives discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and adree podcasts presented by world-renowned

historians all on History hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to watch everything from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to operation Barbarosa and dday immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the [Music] description in the United States one group of military planners had long believed there was an alternative to invading Japan it was called strategic bombing this involved carefully targeted bombing

raids designed to destroy Japan’s infrastructure industry and ability to wage war but in the first years of the Pacific War there was a problem Japan lay Beyond a range of America’s bombs in April 1942 the US had managed to launch a one-off bombing raid on Tokyo but it had pushed the bombers to their limits and was never a practical long-term option then in early 1944 the Boeing aircraft Corporation produced a revolutionary new heavy bomber the b29 super Fortress it could carry 20,000 lb of Bombs over a range of 3,000 250

Mi suddenly Japan was just about in reach of America’s forward bases in the [Music] Pacific in summer 1944 9 months before the assault on eima us b29 stationed at changdu in Southwest China began a series of strategic bombing raids on Japan but range was still an issue it was too far for a fighter escort so the super fortresses had to fly alone staying at high altitude for their own safety even then the range was only just within limits and there was no room for navigational error many of the bombs missed their

[Music] targets then in July 1944 there was a development that gave strategic bombing a new lease of Life the US Navy captured the Marana islands in the Central Pacific they were only 1500 mil from the [ __ ] jaese Homeland this was well within the b29 operating range the odds for a successful bombing campaign on Japan had dramatically improved on November the 24th over a 100 super fortresses took off from the Marian their target the Nakajima a craft Factory in [Music] Tokyo but only 48 bombs struck anywhere

near the [Music] target for 3 months more raids targeted other industrial [Music] sites but the p29s were still flying without a fighter escort and still dropping their bombs from high altitude the targets were often obscured by cloud and Jetstream winds made accurate bomb aiming [Music] impossible to make matters worse the b29 suffered from engine problems there were also attacks from kamikazi Pilots [Music] by the winter of 1944 it was clear that strategic bombing was just not working if Japan was to be bombed into

submission the us would have to come up with something else so it was that on December the 18th 1944 America tried a new tactic 84 b29 set off from changu for Japanese occupied hanao on the yangi river they flew much lower than usual and carried mostly incendiary rather than high explosive bombs [Music] Hana was devastated The Raid was more effective than almost any of the previous strategic bombing raids the US appeared to have found a way forward firebombing at low

altitude the us bomber commander in the Marianas General Curtis L now ordered the systematic firebombing of Japan it was the same tactic that Britain had employed in Germany on the evening of March the 9th 1945 Pathfinder aircraft roared over Tokyo dropping incendiary Target indicators [Music] the fires they started marked the aiming points for almost 300 b29 coming in at just 5,000 ft they dropped over 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs the flimsy wooden houses stood no chance air was sucked in creating towering

firestorms which raced faster than people could run the glow from the burning City could be seen over 150 Mi away when the all clear finally sounded the following morning 16 square miles of Tokyo had been obliterated over a 100,000 of its citizens were killed and a million made homeless Tokyo was not the only city to face this devastating new tactic [Music] Nagoya was set Ablaze two nights [Music] later then Osaka and Kobe during the following

week firestorms engulfed whole areas destroying houses and Industrial facilities but American success was coming at a price without escorts the low-flying us bombers were dangerously vulnerable to Japanese Fighters American losses now mounted if the bombing campaign was ever to succeed the US needed bases even closer to [Music] Japan within weeks iima fell now at last the US Air Force not only had a base for its bombers within easy Striking Distance of Japan it could finally use its Mustang fighters to escort [Applause]

them during the late spring and early summer of 1945 strikes of up to 500 bombers attack Japan every other day once the largest industrial areas had been crippled L moved on to lesser targets yet in the face of catastrophic damage and an appalling death toll the Japanese showed no sign of cracking it finally dawned on the Americans that strategic bombing alone was never going to defeat Japan it looked like a fullscale invasion of the country was becoming inevitable for the US battle planners the next logical step in the land

campaign was the Japanese island of Okinawa it lay a mere 350 mi from the Japanese Homeland and Islands the island was defended by more than 120,000 men the Japanese Commander General mitsuru ishijima was determined to turn it into an American graveyard once again Admiral Nimitz the US Commander in the region assembled a huge Fleet it included 40 aircraft carriers and 18 battleships the opening bombardment of Okinawa began on March the 23rd 1945 it lasted for a whole

week finally on the morning of April the 1st the assault boats headed for the shore to their surprise they met almost no opposition [Music] by Nightfall 60,000 men had landed and the beach head was up to 2 mi deep for the next 2 days the US forces built up their strength and pushed across the island again opposition was unexpectedly light [Music] by April the 4th the Japanese Defenders had been split in [Music] two Marine divisions now headed

north Army units pushed [Music] South the Marines continued to meet only sporadic resistance and within 3 weeks had cleared the northern part of the [Music] island but it was a different story in the South there the Army units ran into Savage [Music] fire for 10 days the Japanese held their defense [Music] line then when they could hold out no longer they simply withdrew to the next defensive position and continued to resist all over again meanwhile the Japanese also

prepared to launch an air assault on The Invasion Fleet early on the morning of April the 7th kamikazi Pilots gathered to drink their ritual cups of sakei and climb into their aircraft for the last time over 700 aircraft half of them kamikazi took off and approached the US Landing Fleet a line of radar equipped destroyers operating about 50 Mi out at Sea was hit first by the end of the first day of the attack two US destroyers had been suck 24 other vessels were also

damaged but the Japanese had lost over 300 planes over the following days the Japanese introduced a new weapon the AA or cherry blossom was a rocket powered suicide missile driven by a cik pilot it was launched from a bomber and carried a massive 2,650 lb Warrior on April the 12th another US Destroyer was hit and sunk the Ora looked deadly but us Fighters quickly learned to intercept and shoot down the bombers that carried them in desperation the Japanese Navy

now sent a suicide mission of its own the Yamato Japan’s largest Battleship was loaded with just enough fuel to reach Okinawa and Order to fight to the death sinking as many US ships as possible in the process but as the giant ship approached Okinawa it was spotted some 400 US aircraft descended within 2 hours it blew up [Music] the fireball could be seen for over a 100 miles back on Okinawa torrential rain now turned the battlefield into a quagar for over a month US troops

struggled to push their Way South every cave or Dugout entrance had to be blasted by flamethrowers grenades and explosives as before as one defensive line was overrun the Japanese slipped back to another and the whole Grim business would start a game us casualties rapidly mounted [Music] finally on June the 1st the town of shuri was captured then on June the 4th a new contingent of Marines landed to the south of naha the Island’s capital and linked up with troops pushing down from

the north [Music] Savage fighting continued but by June the 17th the Japanese resistance was collapsing 5 days later the Americans finally secured Okinawa [Music] the Japanese Commander General ishijima committed ritual suicide [Music] harakiri over 7,000 prisoners were taken the first time ever that such large numbers of Japanese troops had surrendered it had been a bloody and exhausting campaign

[Music] 100,000 Japanese soldiers and some 40,000 civilians had been killed the Americans for their part had lost over 15,000 men it was a sobering reminder of what would await the American forces if they invaded the main Japanese home Islands more than ever they needed a solution a way to obliterate Japan’s will to fight once and for [Music] [Applause] all the victory at Okinawa meant America’s military planners now had to decide what to do next despite shattering defeats the Japanese

still showed no sign of surrendering some us commanders argued for a continuation of the firebombing campaign but by the summer of 1945 it was clear that bombing alone would never defeat Japan an invasion seemed unavoidable but the question was was at what [Music] price the Japanese had some 1 million men defending the home Islands they were supported by about 5,000 aircraft and new kamikazi pilots were being trained all the time mass suicide attacks by civilian

volunteers could also be expected a blood bath seemed inevitable it was estimated that over a quarter of a million American lives might be lost [Music] then in July 1945 the new US president Harry S Truman heard about the results of a top secret Allied scientific research program it was called the Manhattan Project for 3 years Allied scientists had been working on an atom bomb a weapon that draws on the vast quantities of energy released when an atom is split it would have an unimaginable destructive [Music] force the project was led by US general

Leslie Groves an army engineer the scientific director was Robert Oppenheimer a 39-year-old physicist from the University of California over a threee that period the program had recruited many of the Allies best scientific brains two radioactive materials seemed to offer most promise as fuels for the new bombs one was a naturally occurring form of uranium called uranium 235 it was processed at a vast Factory at Oak Ridge Tennessee the other was plutonium a man-made material manufactured in primitive nuclear reactors at Hanford in

Washington state the research was coordinated and conducted by a team of scientists at Los Alamos especially built laboratory complex in the New Mexico [Music] desert by early 1945 the Los Alamos scientists were pretty confident that they had a uranium bomb that worked but it required huge quantities of uranium 235 and the scientists worried that they didn’t have enough of it so they also designed a second bomb that used plutonium but this unlike the uranium bomb was much less well understood and they weren’t sure it would

work before it could be used they would need to test it by early July 1945 after an expenditure of more than $2 billion the plutonium bomb was ready for trials the gadget as it was called was mounted on a steel Tower in the New Mexico desert at 5:30 in the morning of July the 16th the atomic age began [Music] [Music] news that operation Trinity had been successful was swiftly passed to President Truman He had recently arrived at a conference in the Berlin suburb of Potsdam meeting with Stalin and Churchill discussing the future of

Europe Truman didn’t hesitate he ordered his commanders to prepare to drop the new bombs on Japan as soon as possible two bombs a uranium device code named little boy and a plutonium bomb called Fatman were now transported to the Mariana Islands there the immensely experienced Colonel Paul tibits leader of the specially trained 509th composite group prepared his b29 at 2:45 in the morning of August the 6th Tibbets lifted his plane named Inola gay after his mother Off The Runway on board he was carrying little bo

the flight to the Target Japan’s fourth largest city Hiroshima went without a hitch at 8:00 a.m. on a bright sunny morning in Olay approached the city at 33,000 ft [Music] then just after 8:15 little boy was [Music] released the uranium bomb had the power of nearly 13,000 tons of TNT the temperature beneath the mushroom cloud reached 5,000 de Centigrade thousands of people were instantly

[Music] vaporized shock waves leveled buildings up to a 5 mile radius [Music] estimates of the death toll vary hugely some put it at 40,000 people others at [Music] 100,000 many suffered from terrible Burns and [Music] blistering over the course of the following weeks thousands more people died from radiation poisoning on August the 7th 1945 President Truman told the world about the bomb and issued Japan with a warning let there be no mistake we shall

completely destroy Japan’s power to make war they may expect a rain of Ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this Earth but no Japanese surrender was received 2 days later on August the 9th fat man was dropped on the major military Port of [Music] Nagasaki the plutonium bomb was even more powerful [Music] in fact the bomb fell way off Target but it still caused massive destruction between 35,000 and 50,000 people are estimated to have died in the explosion the Japanese government could

now have no doubt that they faced a new and horrific weapon but the question remained would even this forced them to surrender the Nagasaki bomb was followed by a stark warning from US Secretary of State James Burns there is still time but time for the Japanese to save themselves from the destruction which threatens them the intention was clear the atom bomb would be used again and again until Japan gave in that same day Japan’s position became even more precarious early in the morning of August the 9th a million and a half Soviet troops stormed

into Manchuria and Northern China the Soviet leader ysf Stalin was not only after territory he wanted to say in any final peace settlement in the Far [Music] East there were still over a million Japanese troops in the area but the the Red Army Blitz C was Unstoppable the Japanese position in the war had become untellable that evening Emperor Hirohito met with his six top military and political leaders the war cabinet was divided three led by the Prime Minister Baron canaro Suzuki argued for peace the other three wanted to continue

fighting it was deadlock then the Japanese prime minister broke with all president and asked the emperor for his opinion Emperor Hirohito voted for peace on condition that his position as head of state was maintained the next morning the proposed was sent to the US Secretary of State James Burns Burns rejected it only unconditional surrender would do as a Japanese war cabinet argued amongst itself Soviet troops continued to tear into Mongolia at the same time American fighters now roamed freely over Japan shooting up military targets and

transport Links at [Music] will massive Air Raids continued to devastate [Music] Japan then on August the 14th the Truman Administration sent word that the emperor’s position would be safeguarded provided he agreed to accept the orders of the supreme commander of Allied Forces hito used his huge Prestige to instruct the war cabinet to endure the unendurable and accept the terms that day in Washington President Truman announced that Japan had surrendered un conditionally I deem this reply a full

acceptance of the pts Dam declaration which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan cheering singing crowds erupted onto the streets of every American city [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] in brit it was midnight when the new prime minister Clement Atley broadcast the news Japan has today surrendered the last of our enemies is laid low peace has once again come to the world let us thank God for this great deliverance and his mercies long live the [Applause] king within minutes crowds appeared on the Streets of

London many gathered outside Buckingham [Music] Palace a giant Street party lasted well into the following day [Music] [Applause] [Music] the next morning August the 15th an astounded Japanese people listened to the voice of their God Emperor for the very first time he told them that Japan’s position had become impossible and the country was obliged to surrender all milit forces must lay down their arms such was the emperor’s Prestige that almost every unit [Music]

obeyed but in Manchuria despite the Japanese ceasefire the Soviet forces fought on [Music] for the first time large numbers of Japanese troops now surrendered nevertheless the Soviets determined to seize as much territory as possible continued to advance Stalin wouldn’t stop the fighting for another week by then the whole of Manchuria half of Korea and part of northern China were under his control elsewhere in Southeast Asia in

the Philippines and on many of the Pacific Islands bypassed by the Americans it took weeks for news of the surrender to reach isolated Japanese [Music] garrisons some Japanese soldiers would remain hidden in the jungle for more than 30 [Music] years finally on August the 28th 2 weeks after the surrender the first US troops arrived in Japan a huge us Fleet gathered in Tokyo bay sailing past the shattered hulks of the once proud Japanese Navy that they had so comprehensively [Music] defeated several days later on September

the 2nd 1945 the Japanese delegation came aboard the USS Battleship Missouri [Music] on its Quarter Deck the new Japanese foreign minister mamoru shitsu signed the document of unconditional surrender it was countersigned by US general Douglas MacArthur The Man Who Would effectively run Japan for the next six years as Supreme Commander for the Allied powers I announce it my firm purpose in the tradition of the countries I represent to proceed in the discharge of my responsibilities with Justice and tolerance then a force of more than

2,000 Allied aircraft roared overhead it was a fitting tribute to the overwhelming power which had finally brought Germany and Japan to utter defeat World War II was at an end Japan’s ruthless desire to wage war had been crushed by a weapon of awesome destructive power now in the east as in the west the world would be divided and shared along new lines new allegiances would be formed and new enemies would VI for Global influence under the Spectre of nuclear war a new era in world history had begun [Music] [Applause]

in the first months of 1945 Japan was on the Run the Americans had fought their way

across the Pacific us submarines and aircraft had destroyed Japan’s Merchant Fleet and Naval [Music] airpower the main Japanese home Islands had been cut off from vital supplies of fuel and raw materials the Japanese were facing defeat yet they refused to surrender convinced that if they fought back with sufficient brutality the Americans wouldn’t have the stomach for the fight and would give in Japan made clear that every move towards the home Islands would be paid for in Allied blood it presented the United States

The Bloody Final Days Of The Pacific Theater | World War II In Colour DD

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