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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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00:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:41 And now, Wattle Canal.
00:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:03 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:07 Poured from some hundred factories,
01:16 reaped from some thousand farms,
01:19 spewed out in fantastic abundance
01:21 by American labor and machines,
01:23 the supplies for war are heaped upon an island base
01:25 in the South Pacific.
01:27 All the world knows its name, Wattle Canal.
01:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:35 Springboard for attack, storehouse for victory.
01:49 Yet in 1942, Wattle Canal was wild jungle,
01:53 90 uncharted miles of festering malaria and rain forest,
01:57 passed for centuries by history, forgotten by man.
02:02 But by June of 1942, the unpredictable forces of war
02:05 begin to link San Francisco and the United States
02:08 with Wattle Canal and the Solomon Islands.
02:11 The 1st Marine Division embarks for the South Pacific.
02:14 Destination, New Zealand.
02:17 Mission, undetermined.
02:20 Somewhere, on some unspecified battleground,
02:24 sometime in the uncertain future,
02:27 the untested Marines will clash with the tested soldiers of Japan.
02:32 But first, the tedious ordeal of the convoy.
02:37 Uneventful, interminable weeks at sea.
02:41 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:45 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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03:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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04:28 [MUSIC PLAYING]
04:44 The ocean lifeline to the South Pacific is the war's longest
04:48 and the war's most tenuous.
04:51 Stretching 6,540 miles from California to New Zealand,
04:55 it ties Australia to the United States.
04:58 Break this line, stop the ships, and Australasia and Asia
05:03 will be forever Japanese.
05:06 Across the world, from the islands of Japan,
05:09 other convoys, other soldiers leave for the unknown
05:13 and sail away to war.
05:15 They too set a southerly course for islands with names
05:18 unknown to the men who must fight and die on them.
05:21 For them also, the routine of shipboard life,
05:25 the placid premium of carnage.
05:28 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
05:50 After the conquest of Rabaul in the Bismarck archipelago,
06:03 the Japanese push down the Solomon Islands.
06:06 The two opposing forces slowly converge.
06:09 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:17 Early in July 1942, a lone American plane
06:20 sets in motion a chain of events which
06:22 will bring those forces together at a place which neither side
06:24 has foreseen nor planned.
06:27 An obscure Guadalcanal, air reconnaissance
06:30 reveals the Japanese are building an airfield, which
06:32 threatens the Allied supply line to Australia.
06:36 What the plane has seen changes the course of the Pacific War.
06:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
06:43 The Pentagon, Washington, seat of American war planning.
06:51 The joint chiefs of staff recast their global strategy
06:54 to meet the new Japanese menace to the Allied positions
06:57 in the South Pacific.
06:58 Resources are slim.
07:00 Trained troops are lacking.
07:02 But the Japanese can be permitted to go no further.
07:05 Guadalcanal must be taken.
07:08 Admiral King casts the die.
07:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:14 New Zealand lies in the shadow of the Japanese advance.
07:20 With the United States forces stationed there,
07:23 little time remains to enjoy the cordial hospitality
07:26 of a sincere ally.
07:28 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
07:36 The Marines have their mission now,
07:45 to launch the first offensive land action in the Pacific War.
07:49 Under Generals Van der Grift and Rupertus,
07:51 the first division is ordered to Guadalcanal,
07:53 ordered to seize the island and its airstrip.
07:57 This means another convoy.
07:59 But it is very different.
08:01 This convoy, loaded and geared, sails for combat,
08:06 sails for battle.
08:07 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:43 [MUSIC PLAYING]
08:46 [EXPLOSIONS]
09:12 August 7, 1942.
09:15 Exactly eight months after Pearl Harbor,
09:18 the United States of America takes the offensive
09:20 against the Empire of Japan.
09:23 For the first time, the American overture to assault
09:26 preludes invasion of the islands across the Pacific.
09:29 The theme of the future is played on the beaches of Guadalcanal.
09:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:37 [MUSIC PLAYING]
09:40 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:09 The order to commit the troops has been given.
10:12 Land the landing force.
10:15 The day of hit and run in the Pacific is over.
10:18 The hour of hit and stay has come.
10:20 The first American amphibious operation in World War II
10:23 is enacted like a dress rehearsal.
10:26 Bombardment has driven the enemy off the beaches.
10:29 The Marines walk ashore into the island.
10:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:36 18 miles across the sound, others land on Tulagi Island.
10:43 Violently opposed by Japanese Marines,
10:46 American Marines fight their way ashore.
10:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]
10:52 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:03 And in the air, the Japanese strike back swiftly,
11:06 strike back hard.
11:08 Bombers from Rabal hit American transports
11:10 before they can unload supplies vitally needed
11:12 to sustain the landings.
11:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:17 Damage to the transports at sea means near disaster
11:20 to the Marines ashore.
11:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:25 [EXPLOSION]
11:26 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:31 [EXPLOSION]
11:32 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:36 The shattered transports withdraw.
11:38 Stripped of supplies, the Marines dare not waste a moment
11:41 encountering their implacable, impersonal, hateful foe,
11:46 a jungle.
11:48 Now it begins, the toil and the terror that makes Guadalcanal
11:52 not a name, but an emotion.
11:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:03 The airstrip is taken the day after landing,
12:18 and the Marines christen it Henderson Field
12:21 to honor a fallen buddy.
12:23 Their own gear destroyed, the engineers
12:25 use Japanese equipment to prepare the field
12:27 for the first American planes.
12:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:33 If the Japanese reacted sluggishly on the beach,
12:51 they unleash full fury from the sky.
12:54 Their own field now menaces their own flank.
12:57 They go all out to destroy it first,
13:00 planning to retake it later.
13:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
13:05 [EXPLOSION]
13:11 [MUSIC PLAYING]
13:16 [EXPLOSION]
13:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
13:22 Under the dark cover of night, the Japanese
13:34 filter reinforcements ashore.
13:37 Special landing troops, Imperial Marines, crack units.
13:42 Their general has warned.
13:44 This is the decisive battle between Japan
13:47 and the United States, a battle on which the rise or fall
13:51 of the Japanese empire will depend.
13:54 No troops are better fitted than these to master the jungle.
13:58 Fearless, these men have been schooled
14:00 in stealth and infiltration.
14:02 They are experts in ambush and concealment.
14:04 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:09 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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14:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]
14:53 [LAUGHTER]
15:18 [LAUGHTER]
15:21 And the Americans, they meet savagery with savagery.
15:34 They fight, and they fight, and they fight.
15:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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16:15 In all the history of human slaughter,
16:36 few troops have ever endured such scourging as the Marines
16:39 on Guadalcanal.
16:41 The casualties mount from the fighting, from malaria,
16:46 from dengue, from the rot and corruption
16:49 of the jungle, which knows not mercy.
16:53 [MUSIC PLAYING]
16:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]
17:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
17:12 Salute the rising sun throughout their empire,
17:23 throughout newly conquered Southeast Asia,
17:26 throughout the South Pacific.
17:28 The Japanese pause out of respect for their symbol
17:30 of national superiority.
17:32 Theirs not to reason why.
17:35 Theirs but to do and die.
17:37 And die they will, and die they do
17:40 in a series of the most terrible sea battles in history.
17:44 Down from their island fortress to the north,
17:46 Robal, comes the Imperial Japanese Navy
17:49 with timetable regularity, the Tokyo Express.
17:54 But sailors of the United States and Australian Navy
17:56 sacrifice their blood for their brother Marines,
17:59 who cannot hope to control Guadalcanal
18:01 against an enemy who controls the surrounding seas.
18:05 The Japanese come down the slot of water
18:07 between the Solomon Islands and head for the sound called
18:10 Iron Bottom, because it is strewn with the hulks
18:13 of dead ships, the bones of dead sailors.
18:18 The Battle of Savo Island, the Battle of the Eastern Solomons,
18:23 the Battle of Quinesperance, the Battle of the Santa Cruz
18:27 Islands, the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal,
18:31 the Battle of Tassifaranga, the Battle of Renal Island.
18:36 Nights of inhuman ordeal and defeat.
18:40 Nights of more than human valor and victory.
18:45 [MUSIC PLAYING]
18:48 [EXPLOSIONS]
19:17 Guadalcanal is a running wound through which both sides bleed.
19:21 A hemorrhage of naval strength, of men, of materiel.
19:26 Far from the dying and destruction,
19:28 far from the sailors and Marines who fight and pray
19:31 for victory and salvation, the United States of America
19:34 organizes her land, her resources, her industry,
19:38 her men to answer the distant prayers.
19:41 In the greatest mobilization of strength
19:43 ever known to the world, America prepares to rescue the world.
19:48 And to the rescue, America marches.
19:51 [MUSIC PLAYING]
19:56 [MUSIC PLAYING]
20:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
20:04 [MUSIC PLAYING]
20:09 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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20:59 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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21:41 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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24:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]
24:34 [MUSIC PLAYING]
24:37 And on Guadalcanal, another march, a march of grim men.
24:50 Oh, young men, a march of men leaving purgatory.
24:55 The 1st Marine Division is being relieved.
24:58 What's left of it.
25:00 And on a lonely grave at Lunga Point,
25:02 there is a prediction about the Marine who lost his youth.
25:05 That when he goes to heaven, to St. Peter, he will tell.
25:09 Another Marine reporting, sir, I've served my time in hell.
25:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
25:17 Admiral Nimitz, commander in chief, Pacific Ocean areas,
25:25 flies down from Pearl Harbor to pay what small tribute
25:28 is within man's province.
25:31 If there was horror and ferocity,
25:33 there was also courage and self-sacrifice.
25:37 If there was death, filth, and disease,
25:40 the Marines turned the tide of war and stopped their enemy.
25:45 The Japanese will advance no further.
25:49 And as the surviving Marines wave goodbye,
25:52 one of the greatest tales of heroism
25:54 slips out of focus into history.
25:59 To these men go the honors accorded
26:01 the Greeks at Thermopylae, the colonials at Valley Forge,
26:06 the British at Waterloo, and now,
26:10 the Americans at Guadalcanal.
26:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
26:20 (roaring)
26:22 (dramatic music)