Guadalcanal

It's hard to comprehend the scale of the Pacific Asian theater war.

“It stretches from Hawaii to Burma, from the Illusion Islands, to Indo-China.”

In 1942, the United States sends fighting men to far-up places most Americans have never heard of.

They are soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines from every town in America. They will confront an enemy whose moral code does not permit surrender. This is World War II with Tom Hanks, Episode 6, Guadalcanal. Hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan invades the Philippines. They begin with the devastating strike against the U.S. air base at Clark Field.

Then land 35,000 troops at advance on the capital, Manila.

“American and Filipino forces are overwhelmed.”

Within weeks Manila is captured.

There was a Philippine war plan that in the event of a Japanese major invasion, the forces would withdraw to Baton. Batan is strategically located next to Manila Bay. It's this rocky peninsula. It's got two dormant volcanoes that are sitting in the middle of it. And so it's really good defensive terrain.

On December 23, 1941, U.S. and Filipino troops begin their retreat to the peninsula of Batan.

“You have this chaotic retreat. About 100,000 U.S. and Filipino troops and we should”

add the 25,000 civilians. Filipino but also Americans now desperate to escape the attacking Japanese. As the troops retreat, the Japanese continue following a well-planned, well-coordinated offensive aimed at British and Dutch colonies. They have already invaded Burma, Borneo, and Malaya. They take Hong Kong on Christmas day. Then move further into Malaya. Malaya is considered difficult jungle terrain.

But the Japanese, using bicycle infantry and some tanks, managed to push south to the island of Singapore. Known as the Gibraltar of the East, Singapore was our military base with this massive naval facilities. Guns facing into the sea so that it could protect their position and really a military HQ for the Empire in the Far East. They begin their assault on February 8th. Winston Churchill back in London is looking on an ore. He's an Empire man. He said many times it

didn't come to power to oversee the liquidation of his Majesty's Empire but it's crumbling before his eyes. Churchill cannot abandon the defense of Britain and the Battle of Atlantic. He cannot risk losing the whole of the Mediterranean. North Africa and the Middle East two access forces. So what's got to go? Unfortunately for Churchill, he's got to scrimp and save when it comes to defense in the Far East. It's just too much for Britain to handle.

The Japanese take advantage of British military mistakes and capture the island in only seven days. 10s of thousands of Commonwealth troops are trapped and imprisoned. Singapore was the granite foundation of the British Empire in Asia and boom. In the space of days, it falls. The idea that Japanese forces could go into this historic place a real symbol of British power and prestige in Asia and take it within such a short time is absolutely tremendous as far

as Japanese are concerned. This is Britain's full of Rome moments in its Asian Empire.

Japan has plunged into the war and is ravaging the beautiful third-dial prosperous

and densely populated lands of the Far East. The British Empire and our first centuries had

By the time the shock of Pearl Harbor, you know, wears off and the Japanese have

“taken their empire and expanded it seemingly overnight.”

Japan's Asian offensive has two primary war aims. First the seizure of raw materials like oil

and rubber. Second to replace the western colonial powers who have long dominated the region and establish an empire of their own. This is one of the most audacious offensives in military history. In late 1941, early 1942, it's good news every week, almost every day coming in. They are liberating Asia. They are pushing back white western colonial power. The speed and scope of the Japanese offensive stuns the world. A year earlier,

General Tomiyuki Nameshita, the commander of the assault on the Philippines, consults with Japan's access ally, Nazi Germany. Japan is eager to adapt the

“Vermox Blitzkrieg tactics to a very different theater of war. He was really admiring the German”

Blitzkrieg, the German lightning war and he took the German Blitzkrieg as the role model for a future Japanese war in Southeast Asia. So we must surprise the enemy. We must be fast.

It's always movement movement movement. For the enemy, for their enemy, for the allies, it

looks like the Japanese aren't even thinking about what they're doing because they're moving so fast and they're moving constantly. But this has a kind of shock effect on the troops that are trying to defend the peninsula. The Japanese have learned to move quickly, move stealthily, they fight well at night, which is what most armies are not good at. They are pretty good at operational art, don't attack strong points and develop the enemy, put them in

untenable positions either in time or space. And hence, it defines a lot of their victories

“early in the war. The British underestimate the Japanese. I think parts of that was racist,”

I think they were astonished. A non-European race could defeat Europeans and Bat. They didn't consider the Asian people capable of what the Japanese are doing. After the Japanese land in Malaya, Singapore's governor Sarshantent Thomas allegedly says, "Wow, I suppose you'll have to shove the little men off." But British hubris is no match for Japanese military prowess.

There'd always been this faction in the Imperial Japanese army,

called the "Codoha" the Imperial Way faction, who's belief was because of Japan's extraordinary fighting spirit and the blood of their soldiers. We can overcome the odds. Matt really is drummed into the soldiers. So there is this a spree to core within the Japanese army it's guided by this belief in Bouchido, the way of the war.

Japanese military discipline is instilled by physically harsh measures. Officers abuse non-commissioned officers, who in turn abuse the men. You can see in diaries and in lettuce's home people saying, "I got beaten up today. I got slaps. I got punched. I had a rifle but get me in the stomach." There is a fair amount of ritualistic abuse that takes place as they go through

what they would refer to as lessons. This all about self-sacrifice they are all about suppressing individual needs and desires for the sense of whatever the nation needs for whatever the emperor might need. In just two months of fighting Japan has achieved most of its objectives and appears to be winning the war except in the Philippines where U.S. and Filipino troops are fighting back.

After more than a month of fighting U.S. and Filipino forces continue to resist the Japanese on the Batan Peninsula. But supplies, food and ammunition are running perilously short.

and they're not where the defenders need them.

“The American forces are now completely isolated and surrounded.”

They don't have what they need to survive. The men spend a lot of their time just foraging for food. Every snake, monkey, anything within the Batan Peninsula is fair game. The commanding officer of both the American and Filipino troops in the Philippines is the charismatic and controversial general Douglas MacArthur.

MacArthur is a son of a civil war hero. He's confident, courageous, a proven battlefield leader.

MacArthur is begging for more troops for more supplies for more ships, but none of those things are coming. The U.S. doesn't happen.

“The Japanese, of course, they're coming after MacArthur's force. They know they can't leave”

an army like this with MacArthur, and consider the Philippines have been occupied. In Washington, President Roosevelt faces a very difficult situation. The American people expect the troops to be supported, but he knows resupplying and reinforcing

Batan is impossible. Also, for both political and symbolic reasons,

he must retrieve general MacArthur from the Philippines. You couldn't afford to let MacArthur be captured. You couldn't do it because it was bad for the American spirit. You can't let a man like this go down. He's a figure of history. MacArthur does everything he can to inspire his troops in Batan, and he's prepared to go

“down with a ship. But FDR orders MacArthur to leave the Philippines.”

Three weeks later, he sends a rescue operation, and MacArthur, with his wife and young son, leaves the Philippines on a small torpedo boat. He promises, I will return, and this is his commitment to the American people, but more importantly to himself. Knowing that America must make a stand. General MacArthur issues a final order to his men. MacArthur orders the garrison to fight to the last, which is completely unrealistic.

Soldiers are dying in medical tents, merely because there's not enough medicine to save them. So everybody's in a weakened condition, but the defense is quite heroic. But the soldiers on Batan realize that they're being sacrificed. So the battling bastards of Batan is written by a journalist named Huet. The battling bastards of Batan. No mom has no papa's no uncle Sam. No aunts, no uncles, no cousins,

no nieces, no pills, no planes, no artillery pieces, and no one gives a damn. For all the people left in Batan, I'm sure that's exactly what they thought. After four months of the tea, hunger and disease, the Batan garrison surrenders. But their ideal is just beginning. The Japanese didn't expect that so many allied defenders of the Philippines would actually surrender and become prisoners of war.

One of the things you're taught in the Japanese military is you don't surrender. You're disgracing your family, you're disgracing your home, your village, your country, the emperor. Surrender is dishonorable, not only to yourself but to your family, anybody who surrenders is inherently dishonorable. The idea that you would surrender and that you would expect to be treated with respect, having done so really is disgusting to a lot of the Japanese soldiers.

The Japanese marched the 75,000 American and Filipino troops to a POW camp 65 miles north of Batan. These men are exhausted, they're malnourished, the Japanese they line them up and they march them out. In 110 degree heat with no food, no water, and Japanese guards just beating you and kicking you and stabbing you the whole way. And so if you're a recruit out there, and you've received umpteen beatings from your own senior officers on the way to where you are now, then it's a very

punching them, perhaps even shooting them. The Japanese will drink their canteens and then dump

the contents out on the roadside. Neuded troops will fall to the ground, they will be instantly

“banded or shot. They have been taught to regard Western soldiers and I think white Western civilians”

generally with really no respect at all these people are lesser almost to the point of being a slightly lesser species. Thousands die on what will become known as the Batan Death March. The loss of the Philippines will cripple America's military capability in the Pacific for months. It's also a serious blow to morale at home. In a matter of just a few months, the Japanese have

conquered an empire of 500 million people. The Japanese have the upper hand in the Pacific.

It's not clear what or who can stop them. Spring and Tokyo. Japan controls vast areas of the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

“To protect this growing empire, Japan will consolidate its new territory and push into various”

island chains to create an even stronger barrier against the United States. The Japanese saying we got a consolidated air position quickly. We have to create a defensive bastion between the United States and Japan. So all these island chains threaded like pearls they have got to be strengthened. They've got to be fortified into some kind of defensive perimeter. Japan deploys thousands of troops to outposts stretching far into the South Pacific.

The Japanese are making absolutely sure that what they've got they will hold. In the U.S., war production accelerates. FDR calls for 60,000 planes and 125,000 tanks to be produced in 1942. And in June, the U.S. Navy defeats the Japanese at the battle of Midway. It's Japan's first decisive defeat. The victory at Midway has taken place in June 1942, but this is a naval victory. It's only directed against Japanese warships. Eventually,

the Americans know they're going to have to retake real estate. They're going to actually have to capture islands. The Japanese plan in the South Pacific is to build a lot of our strips, which are going to allow them to use air power to defend these stronghold positions. To counter America sends in the old breed, the first marine division.

Marine Corps is always soldiers from the sea. Back in the revolution, when we invade NASA,

right? We are meant to come from the sea. That's the mission in support of the Navy. That's their purpose. After World War I, what they really start to do is turn their attention to what does the next war look like. And what they start to realize is Japan is becoming a power in the Pacific. If we're going to fight in the Pacific, then we need to figure out how to conduct amphibious landings. amphibious landings on this scale are unprecedented.

Well, there's no sneak in up on an island. They can see ships coming. So everything across the beach is a frontal assault. Machine guns rapid fire artillery. It's suicide. Terrible idea.

“And the Marine Corps goes, "Got it. We'll take that one." And that's how they get into amphibious”

operations because that would be what was necessary to operate in the Pacific. The training for the US Marine Corps is probably the toughest in the US Armed Forces at this point. They are designed for amphibious warfare, but to travel relatively lightly because, of course, if you attack a coast from the from the sea, you can't take much heavy equipment with you. Their job is as an elite assault force, but don't leave them in a campaign for too long because they

don't have all the heavy weapons to be able to do the job over a considerable period of time. The Navy has ships and the Army has tanks in artillery. What does the Marine Corps have? It has culture. So if you join the Marine Corps, it's because maybe you can be one of those elite. You know you get to go fight the Japanese. The majority are new recruits. They are

in 1942, they're going to go into action against what they know and fear is a very formidable opponent. They've read a lot of the stories about how the Japanese are almost Superman.

Until we actually face them in close combat, we'll never know if we're good enough to take on these guys.

In the summer of 1942, an American B-17 on routine patrol reports that the Japanese are building an air strip on the largest of the Solomon Islands. Guadalcanale. If the Japanese are successful, they will build an air base on Guadalcanale and potentially sever the lines of communication with Australia, which is meant to be a jumping off point for any campaign that's going to come from the Southern Pacific. We cannot let that happen.

“Americans know that Australia is crucial to their holes over the Pacific.”

What's at stake certainly for the United States Marine Corps is they've hitched their horse to this idea of amphibious operations. Now they actually have to go execute it. If the Americans are going to roll back Japanese power in the Pacific, it's going to have to be boots on the ground and boots on the ground it will be in Guadalcanale.

Early on August 7, 1942, the first Marine Division approaches Guadalcanale.

They are the first U.S. troops to take the offensive in World War II. What's interesting about all amphibious line eggs is that if they're opposed and you don't

“really understand the terrain you're getting into, there's always the possibility to”

disaster and that was absolutely the case of Guadalcanale. After the naval bombardment, the Marines will land and attempt to capture the airfield and secure the island. The intelligence for the land is a Guadalcanale is so thin that they don't know what the interior looks like and they certainly don't know how many defending troops are there. 10,000 Marines reach the shore. To their relief, the landing is on a post.

There are no Japanese defending the beachhead. The Japanese have only 2,500 men on the island, most of them conscripted labor to build the airfield.

“The Marines are astonished at how easy it is. They move in land and then very quickly”

capture the airfield. The Marines build a defensive perimeter around the air strip, which they name Henderson Field after a Marine dive bomber killed at the Battle of Midway. Supplies for the Marines on Guadalcanale are being held just offshore by a U.S. Navy Task Force anchored in Savo-Sound. But two days after the landing, the calm of Savo-Sound is shattered. It's the middle of the night. These American cruisers are asleep. They don't come to battle stations

quickly. In the space of 25 to 30 minutes, the Japanese have sunk four Allied cruisers killed more than a thousand Allied sailors. So it's a disastrous defeat for the Americans. The West Naval defeats since Pohaba. You've got bodies washing up on the shore. It's grizzly. So many American ships are sunk. That Savo-Sound is christened iron bottom sound. Vulnerable to air attack. The task force pulls out. Before they've unloaded all the Marines

food and ammunition. General Vandagreft is the commander of the First Marine Division.

His understanding of the upset that the Navy have scheduled. But he's absolutely vital also that he gives a sense of confidence to his men. We're going to get through this. We are U.S. Marines after all. The first wave of Japanese troops land east of the Marines defensive perimeter on August 18. They're objective. Henderson Airfield.

That supply line is like the Allied sciatic nerve. So this is a very serious development.

“It must be very spooky for the Marines. They are abandoned on the island. They can hear”

the Japanese ships coming in. They know they must be troubled ahead. What options do ground forces have? You can attack. You can defend and you can retreat. Well, guess what? The Marines can no longer retreat. So no matter what, we're going to have to fight it out.

The untested Marines are about to face Japanese soldiers for the first time.

On Guadalcanal, the first Marine Division is dug in around Henderson Airfield, bracing for a Japanese assault. Commanding the Japanese troops is the veteran Colonel Kiyanato Ichiki. The Marines know that all the Japanese have done up to this point is win.

“They start to almost have these superpowers. They're quiet at night. They're all snipers.”

They don't require any arrest. They're fanatical. All of these things start to build almost a super Samurai adversary. On August 21st, Yichiki's troops attack the Marine lines. The Marines respond with rifle, mortar, and machine gun fire. The Japanese are gone. About 200 guys trying to get across this sand spit and then moan down.

Yichiki just sluffs that off. He'll launch two more attacks. Their Marines will beat them back. The fighting is brutal. Often hand-to-hand. Some Japanese soldiers even use ancestral Samurai swords. The battle doesn't end until five o'clock that evening. 44 Marines are dead. But nearly 900 Japanese soldiers are killed.

“The Marines are stunned. How could a battalion commander throw 900 men away?”

Who would do that? After the battle, Colonel Ichiki commits suicide. Just a single Japanese soldier surrenders. They may look dead. But if they've got a weapon they're going to shoot you when you go past. If they got a grenade, they may blow them jobs up with a grenade to kill you. This is a different kind of enemy.

The US Marines own Guadalcanal realize that to combat that and to protect themselves, they're going to have to be equally ruthless. And this produced incredibly brutal form of warfare.

But I think it was unequal in the Second World War.

The Marines now understand what will be required to defend Guadalcanal. The island has become a proving ground for a generation of young Americans. The Japanese conduct regular air strikes on Henderson Field. And continue to move men and supplies into attacking positions. Every night the Japanese are using fast transports and depositing troops and supplies on Guadalcanal.

Veer what's going to be known as the Tokyo Express. They are absolutely determined to retake this island. The whole strategy for moving forward in the sudden Pacific is based on recapturing Guadalcanal. And they're going to pretty much send as many troops as they can to make sure that they do the job. Bandagrift and his staff start taking preventative action in case they're overwhelmed so

they start burning vital intelligence papers. By October the Japanese force has more than doubled its size. But the US Navy is able to re-supply the Marines from newly constructed supply bases.

Guadalcanal is now a battle of attrition. Who will give in first?

Imagine being a 19 or 20 year old American kid and you're in a fox hole maybe with one other

person right? One guy sleeps the others on watch and you can hear the other fox holes

“with your compatriots but they're not visible in the dark. Remember these islands are really”

black as night and you hear screaming from another fox hole. This is life or death. You go to sleep. You may not wake up. This man was with you 24 hours ago now his throat's cut in the fox hole next to you. This is a war of man against man.

This is personal and as darkness comes down every night the fear grows deeper and deeper.

Even though they're deprived of sleep, lack sufficient food and battle tropical diseases the Marines maintain them around.

“But their casualty rate is climbing and they begin to suspect they're being abandoned.”

A lot of people are catching malaria, disenchry. They don't have enough food. They're just becoming increasingly incapable of functioning. General vanda griff estimates that less than half his force is fit enough to fight. The Japanese are still coming. Guadelcanal is going to be where the Japanese teach the Americans the costs of punching a hole in that defense perimeter. They'll say look at the effort it took.

Look at the number of men you lost on Guadelcanal. How long do you think it'll take you to

“batter your way across the Pacific? One night two months into the battle. The Japanese deliver”

a bombardment designed to crush the Marine spirits. But the Marines just dig their fox holes deeper. A thousand shells a centoven 80 minutes we're talking about 14 inch shells described by some of the guys like the weight of small cause. Most of the Marines planes at Henderson Field are destroyed in the bombardment. The US reinforces the Marines. But the Japanese reinforce their troops as well. Control of the island and the entire

U.S. campaign in the Pacific is at stake. All eyes are unguaddle canal. In America, Guadelcanal is front-page news. It's on everyone's minds. It was observed Guadelcanal is not a name but an emotion. You young Americans today are conducting yourselves in a manner that is worthy of the highest proudest traditions of our nation. All the attention of the American public is

focused on this island. Roosevelt knows this is the first big American ground offensive of the war

is going horribly wrong. They have to hold on to Guadelcanal. Roosevelt sends a note to the Joint Chiefs and says I want to be sure of something that every available manship and plane is being devoted to the struggle on Guadelcanal. Applications to you, we will not let you down. The campaign gets a new commander. Admiral William Bull Halsey. Halsey's coming into this campaign is like a

defibrillator on the heart. Halsey looks the part. Halsey is this leathery old commander who's been successful. He's a can do combat of guy. He can't wait to get to the Japanese. His line was, you hit him hard, you hit him fast, you hit him often. This is entirely in keeping with the mentality of your average marine. Admiral Halsey promises the marines all the support they need on Guadelcanal. In just a few weeks, he gets the chance to demonstrate it.

The body water is the size of a bathtub. So risking your battleships to send them up to Iron

“Bottom Sound. I mean, it honestly makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck even now,”

but Halsey is determined that he is going to fight with everything that he's got and so he pushes all his chips into the middle of the table. Halsey instructs the U.S. Navy task force to attack the Japanese fleet in the sound.

For two days, American and Japanese warships battle in Savo Sound.

The fighting is fierce.

“It's shipped to ship combat at its most intense.”

Nearly 2,000 Americans are killed, but the Japanese are only able to land a quarter of their force. Bull Halsey and the U.S. Navy have turned the tide and the Japanese begin to withdraw from Guadelcanal. Most of the marines on Guadelcanal are relieved by the U.S. Army. A generation of Americans have proven to the world that they're capable of fighting this war. But Guadelcanal has also revealed how long and difficult this conflict is going to be

and how steep the price of victory.

“It was the first clash of arms between the Japanese Army and American marines and soldiers.”

And in that victory, the Americans came out ahead. Halsey put it best when he said prior to the battle, the Japanese advance out there will.

Off to the battle, they retreated at odds. It's a long road to Tokyo, but Guadelcanal is the first step.

The marines who hold the line for months on Guadelcanal are sure their country has forgotten them. But when the first marine division is relieved by Army units and sent to Australia to recuperate, they learn that they're actually heroes. That year, in 1942, Hitler escalates his campaign against the Jews of Europe to an unimaginable level. World war two with Tom Hanks is produced by Netopia Limited, A&E Factual Studios,

Playtone Productions, and Backpocket Studios in association with motion entertainment for the History Channel. This episode was narrated by Tom Hanks and mixed by John Lloyd, additional voicing provided by me, Jeremy Reagan. From the History Channel, our Executive Producer's Art Eli Lera and Live Fidler. For Playtone, Executive Producer's Art Tom Hanks and Gary Gitsman. For Backpocket Studios, our Executive Producer

is Ben Dixing.