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00:55 And now, rings around Robong.
01:00 [Music]
01:05 The Japanese dominate the Pacific, and their Supreme War Council continues to execute sweeping plans to bring 700 million Asiatics under imperial control.
01:15 Proud and confident after her shattering naval victories at the outbreak of war, Japan spills over her legitimate boundaries,
01:22 pouring supplies and manpower into overseas bases to protect her new empire and defy the Allies.
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02:12 Japan is dedicated to Kodoha, the way of the emperor, Hirohito, son of heaven.
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02:41 In the fore of all conquest, on the bow of all her ships, the imperial crest, a chrysanthemum with 16 leaves.
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03:39 The emperor reviews his magnificent fleet, which for months after Pearl Harbor, wields undisputed rule over the greatest of oceans.
03:47 This is the navy which has ranged in triumph over the wide Pacific spaces.
03:51 This is the navy which has never known defeat.
03:54 This is the navy dedicated to a creed fanatic.
03:58 With tenacious and tireless spirit, we strive to reach superhuman skill and perfect fighting efficiency.
04:06 Now its mission is to build a mighty base in the Bismarck archipelago, Rabaul, on the island of New Britain.
04:13 And from this base, soldiers, sailors, and airmen of imperial Japan can attempt to break the fragile hold of Americans and Australians,
04:21 southeast on Guadalcanal, southwest on New Guinea.
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05:42 The harbor of Rabaul. Base, arsenal, fortress, from which Japan seeks to control the South Pacific and clench her hold on the Solomon Islands in New Guinea.
05:54 Garrisoned with 80,000 troops, Rabaul is a springboard for conquest, a bulwark for defense.
06:02 Five new airfields are prepared to support the imperial Japanese navy.
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06:59 Rabaul, immovable, secure, impregnable aircraft carrier that blocks the American climb up the ladder of the Solomon Islands.
07:10 Carefree pilots, day after day, carry out their simple mission.
07:16 Destroy all ships, supplies, and men who have the audacity to challenge an imperial mandate.
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07:55 Rabaul's air and naval power sweeps out to dominate surrounding islands and waters.
08:00 To eliminate Rabaul, the Japanese and the Allies know a foothold must be won and held on the islands that ring it,
08:06 and bases established from which it can be reduced blow by blow until the knockout.
08:12 But first, the Allies must forge rings around Rabaul.
08:17 [Music]
08:26 Rendova, another rung up the ladder of the Solomon Islands toward Rabaul.
08:32 But Rendova is only a stepping stone across a narrow arm of water to Munda and its priceless airstrip.
08:39 Munda was murdered. Planned as a quick stroke of Allied strategy, it took five bitter weeks to capture.
08:46 But it takes only five days for the United States Navy's fabulous construction battalions, the Seabees, to transform ruined Munda runways into an operational airfield.
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10:29 The first plane, Munda's first tomb, packed out of the New Georgia rainforest where wild orchids flourish and cockatoos screech.
10:40 Where man struggles to exist and insects thrive, another Allied airfield comes to life, and another bead is drawn on the target, Rabaul.
10:52 [Music]
11:12 The triumph of Munda is the Allied way of observing the first anniversary of the landing on Guadalcanal.
11:18 Two hundred miles south, Guadalcanal itself is burgeoned into a major base, justifying the agony, the blood of the Marines who won it.
11:28 But there is a long way to go, and in the summer of 1943, a new name dominates intelligence sessions on Guadalcanal.
11:36 The name? Bougainville, biggest of the Solomon Islands, the central link in the ring being forged around Rabaul.
11:46 Volcanic prize, ripe for ripping from the Japanese spine.
11:51 Week after week, from Guadalcanal's hard-won Henderson Field, Army, Navy, Marine, and New Zealand pilots take off to soften up Bougainville in preparation for another assault by the United States Marines.
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13:31 The invasion date is set, the landing beach is chosen, the command selected, Admiral Wilkinson and the Third Amphibious Force.
13:41 Bougainville must be taken to provide a forward base from which fighter planes can escort the heavy bombers to Rabaul.
13:47 The whole complex movement of men, ships, supplies has only one purpose, to advance and support war's newest weapon, the airplane.
13:57 But before planes fly from Bougainville, the way must first be cleared by war's oldest ingredient, the foot soldier.
14:05 The Third Marines take on the job.
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14:14 There are many D-days in the Pacific, many an H-hour, and yet with each comes a new sense of foreboding, of emptiness, of fear.
14:25 As the opening salvos sound the notes of war's eternal theme, death.
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14:48 Across Empress Augusta Bay, toward the beaches of Cape Torquena, the Marines go in to meet the dank challenge of Bougainville.
14:56 It is November 1st, 1943.
15:00 Before the invaders lie the wildest jungle, the deepest swamps they have yet encountered in the South Pacific.
15:06 And hidden in the tangle of jungle and swamp, the enemy.
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15:27 [Gunshots]
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15:48 What the Marines have won, the Seabees take over. Hard on the heels of the rifle and come the engineers.
15:55 What was a battlefield yesterday, will be an airfield tomorrow.
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16:28 The cats come out at night. The lumbering Catalinas which scar the seas in search of enemy ships.
16:34 The eyes of the cats see through the dark where the Imperial Japanese Navy has scheduled four last runs of the Tokyo Express,
16:41 down the slot of water separating the Solomon Islands.
16:45 And these last runs have famous names.
16:48 The Battle of Kulagal, the Battle of Pulambangara, the Battle of Empress Augusta Bay,
16:54 the Battle of Cape St. George. The call of the black cat is the call to battle.
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17:19 Inside the groping ships, in combat intelligence centers, the intricate apparatus of search and detection picks up the scent.
17:27 Out somewhere in the ominous dark are ships with names like Amagiri and Izuki, which must be found, destroyed.
17:37 Inside ships with names like Honolulu and Mount Pelier, American sailors prepare to thwart the last stand of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the South Pacific.
17:47 Invisible to one another, opposing warships close on a darkening sea, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant navies clash by night.
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19:08 Bougainville, with its new Piva and the Toriquina airstrips, only 210 miles from Rabat.
19:16 The ring is closing. The Marines have gone, and the defense perimeter around the thriving airfields is guarded by the 14th Army Corps.
19:25 Who cares what has happened to the 40,000 isolated Japanese elsewhere on the island?
19:30 Hand-off duty life is not too bad. Just relax and take it easy.
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20:21 The greatest concentration of Japanese artillery in the South Pacific has been secretly brought up along hidden jungle trails.
20:28 A sudden, furious assault on the American perimeter outpost, Hill 700, the enemy reopens the Battle of Bougainville.
20:36 Four full months after the initial landings, back into the jungle that is everybody's enemy, back into the devil's furnace, goes the American infantry.
20:46 Days of savage, bloody struggle lie ahead until the 37th Division breaks the enemy, this time for good.
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23:11 With final victory on Bougainville, other bases, other rings are forged around and around Robar.
23:18 Up the New Guinea coast go the Allies. Into Cape Gloucester on New Britain go the Marines.
23:23 Into the Admiralty's goes the United States Army.
23:26 On to the islands of Green and Emerald go more Marines and veterans of Bella La Bella, soldiers of New Zealand.
23:33 And the Navy that cruises unmolested through these waters is the United States Navy.
23:38 Thousands of Japanese have been bypassed, left to wither on the vine.
23:43 Robar is being strangled by runways branded on the encircling jungle islands.
23:49 Robar and its harbor will be smashed, pulverized, neutralized.
23:56 From around the ring they come, liberators from Guadalcanal, war hawks from Munda,
24:02 forsayers from Emerald, Mitchell's from New Guinea, Avengers from Bougainville.
24:08 The holocaust of Allied reprisals spells doom for Robar across the skies of the South Pacific.
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