tokyo firebombing documentary

Harry George: What are we doing here with an airplane at 5,000 feet, when it was-- we were trained to do missions above 20,000 feet? I don't know where she got it. President Harry S. Truman and his advisors realized that Okinawa was a glimpse of what an invasion of Japan would be like. There's no question about it. US Signal Corps He recommended the Emperor remain as a constitutional monarch like the King of England. "We watched each plunging kamikaze with the detached horror of one witnessing a terrible spectacle rather than as the intended victim.". Narrator:Togo warned the military, Ketsu-Go would destroy Japan. He was more concerned about the destruction of his power than the destruction of his country. That was one less Jap you had to worry about. 'This is out -- this -- this.' And we found them laying there with their heads cut off, and their hands cut off, and their private parts in their mouths. Narrator: By January 1945, the Japanese navy had been nearly eliminated. Now, in a society rapidly forgetting, three elderly survivors fight to leave behind a public record of their experiences before they pass away. But what's more dangerous is that Japan's defeat will create social upheaval, and there will be a Communist revolution in Japanese society. American casualties at Sugar Loaf Hill were more than 2,500. 'All that - and that - and that.' Narrator:In his memoirs, LeMay recalled the anguish of his decision. There's no place for us to go, except get out of that smoke, get away from that heat. George Feifer They get repelled again and again. Emperor Hirohito had to intervene twice to break deadlocks in his war cabinet. The B-29, or Superfortress, was designed to operate faster, at higher altitudes, and with heavier bomb loads than its predecessor, the B-17 Flying Fortress. He remembered the uprisings Japan had repressed in the 1920s and '30s. The New York Times The rebellion the emperor feared seemed more plausible. On the seventh day, the artillery fire that softened up Sugar Loaf Hill and its neighboring hills was unusually heavy. It's better off dying than caught by American soldier." AP Wide World "Dear General, Dear General. As Hirohito made overtures to the Soviets, Truman set off to meet their leader, Joseph Stalin. Many would redeploy to the Pacific for the invasion of Japan. She must have died in agony. It was the implementation of a long-run assumption, rooted in the FDR administration, and sharing many of the same advisors. Just before midnight, he recorded a surrender message. 03/06/2015 An estimated 100,000 people perished in the firebomb raid on Tokyo in the night of March 9-10, 1945. And to see that Stalin kept a promise to enter the war against Japan after Germany was defeated. They're thinking in terms of community, family, which is everything to the Japaneseprotection of your parents, of your brothers and sisters, protection of your home village. Jennifer Markey It was one of two touchdowns he scored in game 1, before taking over at quarterback for game 2, in which he tossed seven touchdown passes versus just one interception. Haruo Iguchi, Historian:They really lacked reality picture. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Historian:What prompted "peace party" is a profound fear that the Soviet influence, if allowed to continue then that would lead to the end of monarchical system. Narrator:It would take 11 torpedoes and eight bombs to sink the Yamato. Edward Drea, Historian: It wasn't only because Marshall was an Army man that he pushed for an invasion. Moscow approach, I think, is crucial to terminate the war. Yoshiko Hashimoto, Tokyo firebomb survivor Fotosearch/Getty Images. Richard Frank:The scientists had calculated that anybody who'd be killed by radiation would have already been killed by a rock or blast or heat. The twelve of us shook hands, said to each other, "See you at Yasukuni.". Fred Lasswell for Leatherneck Magazine Los Alamos National Laboratory "Where are the Japs?" Herbert Bix And this mentality of constantly being on alert, the warning, the attack, the warning, the attack, and a place coming right on you, drove a lot of guys beserk. As soon as one plane would explode, it would set another on fire. Show more. In Potsdam, Truman received word from the director of the Manhattan project. Air raids on Japan During World War II, Allied forces conducted air raids on Japan from 1942 to 1945, causing extensive destruction to the country's cities and killing between 241,000 and 900,000 people. Irvin Gehret:This one person, he was right next to me. These pilots would be the first wave of ten to try to cripple the US Navy supporting the siege of Okinawa. Johanna Baker Marshall began to question if the invasion plans for Japan would succeed. Greg Shea Nothing happened. Barton Bernstein, Historian:This is really the 5- star general talking to the World War I captain, ten weeks or so in office, still new and uneasy in the position, and here's a older, seasoned warrior, a man who commands great respect, Marshall, and he lectures the President. Edward J. Drea Yoshio Emoto, Japanese Imperial Navy Edward Drea:My Japanese professor was about 11 or 12 years old in 1945, and he told me they were taught to rush at an American tank with a satchel charge full of explosives, roll under the tank, and set it off. Even after the devastating firebombing, Japanese leaders did not yield. Narrator:Truman sided with Byrnes. On-camera interview subjects: The end of the war against Japan seemed in sight. "In the annals of warfare, the final year of the war in the Pacific stands alone," says Hoyt. Civilians, attached to military units, were prepared to fight with sharpened bamboo spears. Donald Miller:The incendiaries were clusters of bombs all bundled together. In the night, they'd come back from the back of the hill, from under the hill, from beside the hill, and they'd counterattack. He was a leader of the Senate at the time that Truman was really a junior Senator. So he builds steel, concrete, and coral garrisons inside the mountains. Yet this is really, in effect, what Marshall is saying to MacArthur in August of 1945. Post Production My crew says, I think those generals lost their marbles. The rebels ransacked the Imperial Palace, hoping to destroy the surrender message. Robert Rodenhouse, B-29 pilot One way to make an invasion possible, Marshall thought, would be to destroy beach defenses with atomic bombs. The Rising Run: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945 In June the invasion planners projected three Japanese divisions in southern Kyushu.By July there was evidence of nine divisions - triple the number in just one month. Barton Bernstein: Byrnes is the most savvy politician in the administration. Conrad Crane, historian The Potsdam Declaration, issued July 26, 1945, called on Japan to surrender unconditionally and without delay, or risk "prompt and utter destruction." To my surprise the officer was angry and yelled at me, "How could you come back alive? Chris Bresnahan, Additional Archive Research Nighttime brought its own terrors. Narrator:Only seven of the 46 student nurses survived. Richard Frank:Marshall essentially evades giving a direct answer to that question. Al Turnbull, U.S. Navy:Both of them strafed over my head, fortunately. Then few minutes later other people jumping. Secretary of War Henry Stimson also favored this conditional surrender. Fight to the bitter end." They uh, it's rather amazing that they were audacious enough to hammer out such unrealistic three conditions attached to the preservation of the Imperial Throne. Narrator:The first B-29 mission over Tokyo from the Marianas was on November 24, 1944. I don't remember waking up, but my friend told me later that I was buried under dead bodies. And it was a trench that we were in, waiting for the word to move out. On Okinawa the US Army and Marines were destroying the last line of Japanese resistance cave by cave. It made good sense. Others would return home. Nancy Farrell While in the midst of an uneasy slumber, the city's residents were suddenly . And I never forget I wrote home to my pastor about that, and he says, "You know, that's a secret that's known only to God. They were college graduates, the best and the brightest, many of them, in Japan. It predicted Americans would assault Iwo Jima, then Okinawa where they hoped their fierce resistance would force a negotiated peace. The last desperate effort of the Japanese air force was to send pilots on a one-way mission. Because the Japanese wouldn't say surrender. It becomes a war of racial savagery that culminates in a decision to drop an atomic bomb as an act of liberation to end the thing. On March 10, 1945, a U.S. air attack on . George Niland: We found out that Okinawa had been used for a Japanese artillery range for over 50 years. Houses made of tarpaper, houses made of flimsy wood. Amrita Sen, founder and director of research at Energy Aspects, joins CNBC's 'Squawk Box' to discuss the fossil fuel contributions to the global energy picture, connecting dots to Russia's . Watch the government film produced by the Army Air Forces in 1945 and narrated by Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan. " In the framework of mid-1945, for Truman and those around him, the answer was self-evident. "Do the suicides mean that the whole Japanese race will choose death before surrender?". Isn't it natural that I decided not to sacrifice my life again? Narrator: The Yamato's mission was to attack the fleet of Okinawa. You read the contemporary planning documents, and you see that there is no appreciation of the potential danger of immediate or lingering radiation. Okinawa Harbor View Hotel. He was luring his enemy into a trap. Then he faced the direction of the Imperial Palace, threw his hands in the air and said, "Long live the Emperor!" It is time for all the one hundred-million Japanese people to stand up and prepare for the final battle. Toshi Hasegawa, Historian:In dictionary of Japanese army, there's no term "surrender". The best you're going to get out of this is what he calls unconditional surrender, and then he thinks better of that and refines it to mean: Of course we would retain the imperial institution. ITN Archive / Reuters The Yamato bore the ancient name for Japan. Narrator:The emperor, who had worried about a rebellion from his subjects, helped ensure his position by posing as their savior. But he too wanted one last decisive battle. Missouriin Tokyo Bay. Japanese units were moving into southern Kyushu at an alarming rate. Edward Drea, historian Oh boy that was something else. When the ultimatum arrived in Tokyo, Japan's prime minister, Admiral Kantaro Suzuki, said the government intended to ignore it. US Marine Corps Intercepts, codenamed Magic, of the exchange between Foreign Minister Togo in Tokyo and Japan's Ambassador in Moscow, Naotake Sato, tell a different story. Okinawa's main line of defense began to crumble. The survivors would invade Japan. The Imperial Army developed a plan to save Japan from humiliating defeat. Hirohito was considered divine the 124th descendant of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. These are easy and simplistic wartime rationalizations. And they wouldn't come out. ", "Television often looks at the last year of the war as a series of separate stories - Okinawa, the kamikazes, the B-29s, the bomb," saysAmerican Experienceexecutive producer Mark Samels. These men watched Tokyo be burned down around them. Yoshiko Hashimoto, Firebomb Survivor: From the beginning of 1945, the B-29 bombers flew over Tokyo more frequently. The production team would like to acknowledge Richard Frank's book,Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire(New York: Penguin Books, 1999). They were derided by some as "emperor worshippers," but they knew what Baron Hiranuma meant by "imperial prerogatives". Shunen-Do Shoten Publisher Anami's last act was that of a proud Japanese warrior who had fought his battle and lost. Those terms essentially involved preservation of an old order in Japan, an old order in which the militarists and the imperial institution were dominant. "But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier. They weren't agonizing about that at all. Narrator: LeMay's gamble was not using napalm. Well, okay. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa: And Kido had very important meeting with Emperor in that afternoon, that lasted for long time, unusually long time. And it bothered me a lot. That many ships. Strategic bombing and urban area bombing began in 1944 after the long-range B-29 Superfortress bomber entered service, first deployed from China . I have to bring up the traditional notion of sacrifice and heroism in the defense of the nation, "Yamato Damasii." ", Koyu Shiroma, Age 5 in 1944: My father usually tell me, you know, "American people going to kill you, someday, somehow.

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