User Reviews

Despite Japan's exploits during the Second World War being covered in some other installments of this series, this one is more of a broad overview of their role in the war from the early 30s up until their defeat, and omits some important details regarding certain battles that are talked about more in other episodes. In May 1945, Nazi Germany finally surrenders. People all over Europe celebrate, but in the words of Winston Churchill, "let us not forget for a moment the toils and efforts that lie ahead." On the other side of the world, Japan was still fighting. To understand japan's ruthlessness during the war, you have to understand their origins. Ruled by a military government and brimming with patriotic zeal, the japanese had been involved in a long and seemingly endless war with the Chinese since 1931. A decade later, the attack on Pearl Harbor had brought celebrations, and a slew of victories in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Borneo, and other places soon followed. In every japanese city, citizens adhered to a strict belief of living and training their entire lives in servitude to something better than themselves: Emperor Hirohito. Japanese schoolboys were taught to follow the lifestyle of Samurai warriors, devoid of pity for either themselves or their adversaries. For the samurai, to die in combat was the ultimate honor, and symbolized falling at the most aesthetically perfect moment in time, like a cherry blossom. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the stage was set for the war in the Pacific: could Japan's fervent nationalism and brutality knock the US out of the war before America's unlimited industrial power ground them down? Quite early in the pacific war, japan got a rude awakening in the form of the Doolittle Raid. This was an event in April 1942 in which an american aircraft carrier (the USS Hornet) launched a one-off attack on japan using B-25 Mitchell medium bombers taking off from its flight deck. American carriers weren't designed to carry planes this heavy, but Colonel Doolittle and his pilots managed to fly hundreds of miles to Tokyo, drop 16 tons of explosives on it, and then attempt to fly to safety in china. The actual amount of damage caused to japan was minimal, but it shocked them and showed they weren't out of america's reach, even at this early stage. Later on, the japanese conscript women to work in factories. Like the nazis, japan believed women had no place on the battlefield and should be mothers, but the war machine had to be kept moving somehow. In June 1942, american planes take off from carriers in order to force back a japanese attack force assaulting Midway Island, an important outpost in the central pacific. In this battle, Admiral Yamamoto (who masterminded pearl harbor) threw japan's four largest aircraft carriers into the fight. All were reduced to flaming wrecks. Despite this, japanese citizens (and even some government officials) were lied to and told midway was a success. A year later, Yamamoto was dead, his personal transport plane shot down by a Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Japan's loss at midway now meant they would have no chance of winning a long, drawn out war with the US. The longer things would go on, the more likely they would lose. Japanese victories of 1941 had placed the home islands in a huge ring of territory extending hundreds of miles in every direction. By 1944, General Douglas MacArthur's armies had reduced this barrier to a smaller ring with the island known as Saipan in the middle of it. The japanese knew that if saipan was lost, the war would be right in front of their own country. Saipan is eventually subdued. A tiny island of just 85 square miles, over 15 thousand americans would die or be wounded trying to secure it. Many japanese civilians living on saipan killed themselves by jumping off cliffs rather than surrender to americans. When war began, japan's Mitsubishi Zero fighter planes swept all the enemies of the emperor aside. Now they were outclassed and had no more trained pilots. After saipan fell, only two more islands lay between america's steamrolling naval armies and japan itself: Okinawa and Iwo Jima. The latter is taken at great cost in February 1945. Now fighting more viciously than ever before, japan employs a new type of warrior, the Kamikaze. Named after a mighty wind that prevented a Mongol invasion of japan centuries earlier, these men were trained specifically for suicide missions and were instructed to crash their planes onto the decks of US warships, inflicting severe damage. The losses at okinawa were the worst seen in the pacific war yet, and were a disturbing reminder of what awaited the Allies if japan itself was to be invaded. It was estimated there would be at least 250 thousand dead on the american side. Once okinawa is in US hands, long range B-29 bombers start hitting japan with insane frequency. Thousands of them at a time obliterated entire japanese cities with explosive or incendiary bombs, and japan's wooden cities burned easily. Millions were made homeless, but japan somehow did not give up. However, early one July morning (which started with a blinding atomic flash in the New Mexico desert) showed american officials they now had a weapon to beat japan. While this episode doesn't go into depth about japan's battles in various places during the war, it still summarizes their part in the conflict better than any other documentary I've seen. For this reason, along with the interviews shown, I have to consider it a great example of television at its best.