WWII From Space

:

December 7, 1941...

the turmoil of World War ll enters its 27th month.

Japanese troops storm Shanghai.

German armies stand at the gates of Moscow,

leaving 6 1/2 million casualties in their wake.

Nazi Germany has mainland Europe in its grip.

Under siege,

Britain hangs on by a thread.

Three-thousand miles away,

the United States remains at peace.

Seventy-six percent of her citizens

support neutrality.

At 7:55 a.m., the peace is shattered.

Three hundred sixty Japanese warplanes

descend on Pearl Harbor.

World War ll has come to America.

This is America's war as never seen before...

from the unique vantage point of space.

Witness the key battles unfold...

and the military strategies behind them,

in stunning detail.

Revealed are the political alliances,

the global battle for resources,

and the astounding awakening

Of American military and manufacturing might

that will determine the outcome

of the greatest conflict ever fought.

:

The unprovoked Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

will send shock waves across the globe,

but America has feared a strike for months.

Since 1931, Japan's imperial ambitions

have grown bolder and bolder.

First, Manchuria is invaded,

then China itself.

When France falls to Nazi Germany in 1940,

Japan seizes control of French Indochina.

The US response is rapid.

Japan's financial assets are frozen

and an oil embargo is imposed.

The message is clear--

withdraw from Indochina or be economically crushed.

After the embargo,

Japan was faced with two choices--

stop territorial expansion--

give into the demands of the Allies--

or go to war.

Japan chooses War.

In the words of Prime Minister Tojo,

"it is either glory or decline."

It is imperative that they make

the first, decisive strike.

- The Japanese knew they were never gonna go

toe-to-toe with the United States

in a long Naval war in the Pacific.

They knew they didn't have the economic might--

the military might-- but it was a calculation

that they could administer a knock-out blow

to the capital ships of the US Pacific Fleet.

- If you could destroy the Pacific Fleet,

the ability of the Americans to respond to anything

for many months would be taken away.

So the strike at Pearl Harbor

was not just a strike at a symbol of American power.

It was American power in the Pacific.

What American intelligence cannot see

is revealed from space.

Admiral Yamamoto's fleet departs Japan

on the longest assault in history.

Avoiding shipping lanes and landmass,

they arrive unseen,

275 miles from their target.

It's the perfect vantage point--

beyond the range of America's defensive radar,

but at the optimum strike distance

for its force of 414 cutting-edge aircraft,

the jewel in the crown...

the Mitsubishi Zero.

It's faster than anything

that they've used before.

It's incredibly maneuverable and it has extreme range.

But while the technology was pretty good,

what mattered at Pearl Harbor was the man behind it.

It was the pilot.

The Japanese pilots have already been at war for years,

so they're well-trained crews.

You add on top of that,

they'd been planning that attack for a long period of time.

So they'd been running war games, simulating it,

going through the action again and again,

so that, basically, many of them talked

about how they could have done it going in blind.

At 7:55 a.m., the first wave of bombers

swoop from the sky.

On the deck of USS Arizona

is Don Stratton.

- We knew right away that there were Japanese planes,

and we knew that they were bombing Ford Island,

and something was radically wrong.

Planes were strafing and dive-bombing,

and it was just a horrible experience

and a horrible sight.

- [eerie music, bombs exploding]

It was a high-altitude bomber,

dropped like a 2,000-lb bomb.

I mean, it just devastated everything in its path,

and the concussion

and the smoke and the fire

was horrendous.

It just was like...

you'd lost your home.

Of eight battleships at anchor

the Arizona, Oklahoma,

West Virginia, and California are sunk--

the rest severely damaged.

In 68 minutes,

Japan has crippled the heart of America's Pacific Fleet.

From a Japanese perspective,

the attack on Pearl Harbor succeeded

beyond the most optimistic expectations.

When you consider the losses

that the Japanese suffered in this attack,

it was essentially nothing.

The Japanese lose 64 men

to 3,649 US casualties--

a human damage ratio of 57 to 1.

But Japan's margin of victory

hides two major flaws in the attack.

- The Japanese failed to systemically attack

the oil fields--

the oil storage tanks at Pearl Harbor.

If they'd spent one more sortie

taking out those oil tanks,

they would have crippled the whole Pacific Fleet,

which wouldn't have had the fuel supplies to keep going.

More significant are the ships

the Japanese fail to target.

The American aircraft carriers

were absent from Pearl Harbor

at the time of the Japanese attack.

And as things evolved very quickly,

it became clear that the aircraft carrier

was destined to become the most significant naval asset

for either side in the Pacific war,

and the American carriers were untouched.

Oil supplies and air domination--

two factors that will dictate the fate of World War ll,

and Japan fails to damage either...

Instead, it has awoken the full wrath

of the sleeping American giant.

Pearl Harbor infuriated the American people.

It also infuriated the American military--

massive casualties, destruction of most of the Pacific Fleet.

If you wanted to do one thing to unite a country

that before this had been rather divided

about what to do about the war, Pearl Harbor was it.

This was like a lightning rod

throughout the American population.

No longer was President Roosevelt

limited in his options.

He had a United States population

that was angry and unified

and desired revenge against Japan.

Her era of isolationism is over.

America is at war

and begins its rise to become

the most powerful nation on the planet.

Washington calculates victory

will cost $300 billion--

$4.4 trillion in today's money--

over 1 1/2 times the total US federal budget.

The government can raise half through increased taxes.

For the rest, it must turn to the public.

To raise $300 billion

was then viewed as an insurmountable challenge,

because basically we had to get

half of the population of the United States

to buy bonds.

And what we were saying is we're in World War ll,

we're in this to win,

It's a fight of good versus evil,

and you on an individual level

are gonna make a difference.

To guarantee success,

the ad men of New York recruit

America's most potent propaganda asset.

- We had the Hollywood machine.

America had mass-marketed movies.

They knew the power of Hollywood.

They knew the power of celebrities.

Over 300 movie icons

join the "Stars Over America" campaign

crisscrossing the nation.

Chicago... two huge celebrity rallies

sell over $15 million in bonds.

New York... a 3-way baseball game

generates $56 million.

By the end of the war,

bonds campaigns raise $187.5 billion.