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00:30Every day now for more than 30 years, this couple have carried out this quaint ceremony,
00:39meant before their God to expiate the guilt of seven souls.
00:57This is Japan, and the seven souls belong to the seven Japanese war criminals hanged
01:03by their allies after 1945.
01:33This is Japan, and the seven souls belong to the seven Japanese war criminals hanged
01:35by their allies after 1945.
02:03Japan suffered more than most countries from the Great Depression after the First World War.
02:15The population was increasing fast, and every year produced another million mouths to feed.
02:21Japan had no mineral resources of her own, unemployment was high,
02:29and crop failures brought disastrous famines in rural areas.
02:33The general public's life was very hard in those days,
02:38and most of the young military officers came from low-class agricultural families,
02:45and agriculture was in a very, very hard position.
02:501930 was the time when Japan entered what might be called her convulsive period of history.
03:02The influence of the ultra-nationalists grew,
03:08and such incidents as the young officers' revolt of May 15
03:14placed Japan step by step under the power of the military.
03:19The politicians took second place to the army.
03:25The Japanese army had been in disrepute till about the beginning of the 1930s,
03:32and then they came back through the so-called patriotic societies.
03:40Many of them no more than gangsters who could commit any misdeed in the name of patriotism.
03:49Charge! Charge!
04:02Those were the years which certain authors have described as the period of government by assassination,
04:09and there were several assassinations of prime ministers and leaders in those days
04:15just because they had liberal views,
04:18or because they favoured better relations with the United States, Britain,
04:25or more other democratic-minded nations.
04:32The army also controlled the education system,
04:35and a respect for the martial arts was inculcated into every Japanese child from an early age.
04:46To the Japanese, their emperor was a god,
04:52but Hirohito chose to reign, not to rule.
04:56He allowed himself to be manipulated by the military,
04:59and since every Japanese was pledged to serve the emperor until death,
05:03his connivance was a considerable asset to the army.
05:09To solve Japan's economic problems, the army favoured expansion on the Asian mainland.
05:14Korea had long been Japan's, and since a victory over Tsarist Russia in 1905,
05:19Japan had also been allowed to station troops in Manchuria.
05:23Manchuria was mostly empty wilderness, but it contained raw materials that Japan lacked,
05:29such as coal and iron ore.
05:44Impatient that the politicians back in Tokyo did not see the obvious need to seize Manchuria once and for all,
05:50a group of extremists in 1931 infiltrated the Japanese garrisons there,
05:54and persuaded them to take on Manchuria's feeble army.
06:14Fire!
06:30Against little real opposition, the Japanese army soon controlled the whole country,
06:35driving the luckless Manchurians before them.
06:45The world was shocked, but did nothing.
06:52Apart from a rebuke at the League of Nations.
06:55Japan, however, finds it impossible to accept the report adopted by the assembly.
07:06And so Japan leaves the League. The Far Eastern war cloud casts its shadow over the whole world.
07:15Manchuria
07:20Because they had occupied Manchuria with such ease and without interference from the rest of the world,
07:25the Japanese generals there soon turned their attention to Manchuria's next door neighbour, China.
07:31The China of 500 million souls.
07:34The China that for centuries had thought itself secure behind its Great Wall.
07:40In July 1937, an incident was manufactured whereby the Chinese appeared to fire on the Japanese.
07:48Without waiting to investigate, Japan invaded China.
08:10Disunited and ill-equipped, the Chinese were no match for the ruthless Japanese.
08:17Peking
08:33Within a matter of weeks, the Japanese had overrun most of northern China and were bombing Peking.
08:47Shanghai
09:02Peking soon fell, and it was then Shanghai's turn.
09:17Hong Kong
09:47Shanghai
09:57Once Shanghai had fallen, the Japanese forces advanced up the Yangtze Valley to threaten the then capital of China, Nanking.
10:17Shanghai
10:48Hong Kong
11:04Shanghai
11:08Shanghai
11:26It was here, at Nanking, in December 1937, that the Japanese perpetrated what was, until then,
11:33one of the worst atrocities of this century, when their troops massacred more than 200,000 Chinese in cold blood.
11:48Even the Nazis were shocked and offered to mediate to prevent further bloodshed.
11:55But the Japanese generals were unyielding as their military successes mounted.
11:59By the summer of 1938, the Japanese had captured a considerable part of China, including most of the major cities.
12:06But they were really only conquering territory, not people, as the Chinese retreated into their vast hinterland.
12:12What was worse for the Japanese, their conquests incurred the suspicion of their old enemy to the north, Russia.
12:19Nanking
12:25In the summer of 1938, Russian and Japanese troops battled for possession of a barren hill on the Soviet-Manchurian border.
12:33Nanking
12:43The Japanese received such a drubbing that they opted for a settlement after only two weeks.
13:04Nanking
13:10Ten months later, another squabble broke out and once again the Japanese were beaten, this time by none other than General Zhukov.
13:27It made them wary of further conflicts with the Soviet Union.
13:33Nanking
13:36But it also pushed them closer to Germany and Italy.
13:40Nanking
13:51Living in Japan became difficult for other Westerners.
13:55You were constantly under the supervision of police.
13:59You were always, as a European, suspected of being a spy.
14:03On the railway stations you'd often see posters of a man with a Sherlock Holmes cap and a curly pipe which said, Beware of Spies.
14:13You had the intensified activities of the Thought Police and the Kempeitai, who controlled speech and thought.
14:22Then you had the introduction of a national uniform called Kokuminfuku.
14:27After leaving school, people were supposed to wear these to go to work and they were khaki and they were similar to the uniforms worn by the servicemen.
14:37And then the cinema and plays, the complexion of these became more martial and more glorification of war.
14:46And the radio would play more and more music of a military nature.
14:52Then on the political field you had the Taisei Yokusankai, the one-party system that made it easier for the military to consolidate their influence over the country.
15:22There was constantly the sight and sounds of soldiers being sent off ceremoniously to the front in China.
15:36They were always taught that the greatest thing that could happen to any family was to be able to give a son or two sons or three sons or seven sons to the service of their country and to die for the emperor and the imperial family.
15:51You had the so-called ash boxes, remains of soldiers coming back to Japan, so we knew we were at war.
16:08Western influences had been growing in Japan during the 30s, which the military disliked and now discouraged.
16:15I remember my former wife, it must have been about 1938, coming from a hairdresser's where she had her hair waved and being stopped by a policeman who told her that this was a sign of Western decadence, you shouldn't have your hair waved.
16:33Dancing, even Western music, except classical music, which was mostly German, Beethoven sort of thing, was frowned upon. Dance halls were closed down and any kind of pleasure introduced from the West, the military did their best to prohibit it and rub it out altogether.
16:55When I left Japan early 40s, there was rationing, prices were high, students of high schools, universities were doing military training practically every day, you had army officers attached to every school to supervise such training, and so it was a nation preparing for war.
17:25The China War dragged on into 1940, though the Japanese generals were now looking for some way of ending it without too much loss of faith.
17:56But Hitler's swift victories over Holland and France in May 1940, and the seemingly imminent defeat of Britain, made the Japanese generals greedy for more.
18:07General speaking, the Japanese public was very, very elated by the German success, and the catch word in those days was, don't miss the bus.
18:27Within three months of France's fall, the puppet Vichy government had been persuaded to allow Japanese troops to enter French Indochina, ominously close to the Philippines, then an American dependency.
18:41America reacted sharply by embargoing supplies to Japan of iron ore and aviation fuel. The embargo pushed Japan still closer to the Axis.
18:56In Berlin in September 1940, Germany, Italy and Japan concluded the Tripartite Pact. The two wars at opposite ends of the globe were now linked, though not yet joined.
19:23Japan's pro-German foreign minister, Yosuke Matsuoka, followed up his goodwill trip to Hitler with a visit in April 1941 to Moscow, where he signed a neutrality treaty with Stalin.
19:43The Soviet Union had always posed a threat to Japanese security, and so the army was itching for a showdown with the Soviet Union.
19:57The Navy, on the other hand, wanted to advance southward because the resources our country lacked were largely in the South Seas.
20:14And so Japan was, so to speak, pulled apart between the army ambition and naval design. But when the time for intervention against the North passed, the army naturally joined with the Navy.
20:33Japan had the strongest Navy in the Pacific. But when she occupied the rest of French Indochina in the summer of 1941, the United States embargoed oil, which left the Japanese Navy critically short of it.
20:48Japan could either climb down and suffer loss of face, or else move south to seize these, the oil wells of the Dutch East Indies.
21:08Indeed, serious planning for such a move began straight away. Special jungle training and amphibious landing exercises were put in hand.
21:38Army leaders argued that unless an invasion of the Dutch East Indies began before the end of 1941, a shortage of oil would rule it out forever.
21:52Even so, some Japanese politicians still hadn't given up hope of achieving Japan's aims by diplomatic means.
22:00But time was short. The generals had given the diplomats until mid-October. When that deadline passed, Hirohito, on Marquis Kido's advice, invited his war minister, General Tojo, to form a government.
22:14There are many interpretations of Marquis Kido's action in choosing General Tojo as the prime minister of the last cabinet preceding the outbreak of the war.
22:27I myself asked this point, and Marquis Kido's reply was, nobody except Tojo was powerful enough to control the army which was running amok.
22:43And also, Tojo was deeply devoted to the person of the emperor, and if his majesty made his wish known to General Tojo, Tojo would faithfully abide by such wish.
22:59But even General Tojo shrank from the brink of war. He extended the deadline for diplomacy another month until November 25th, sending special envoys to Washington to negotiate the ending of the oil embargo.
23:20Gentlemen, you all know how difficult my mission is, but I'll do all I can to make it a successful one for the sake of two countries, Japan and the United States.
23:37And so that autumn, with scant sincerity on either side, the diplomatic charade was played out.
23:44The government undertook the difficult negotiations with the United States, but the temper of the nation grew more militaristic, which made it practically impossible to continue the negotiations.
23:59While the diplomats talked in Washington, in Tokyo the militarists were putting the finishing touches to their plans of conquest.
24:07To capture the oil wells intact called for a surprise assault, not just on the Dutch East Indies, but also on Malaya and the Philippines.
24:14And having got the oil, there was then the problem of getting it back to Japan unhindered by either the Royal Navy based at Singapore, or else the massive United States Pacific Fleet based in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor.
24:27It was felt that if war came and Japan were to fight in a conventional way, she had little hope of winning.
24:39And so the idea was to strike a blow against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, simultaneously as the war started.
24:50There were three main problems in attacking Pearl Harbor.
24:57The first was to keep it a secret, because if the Americans knew a Japanese fleet was approaching, then they would immediately attack it.
25:06The second concerned which route to take.
25:09And the third concerned the attack itself, whether it would be possible to use torpedoes in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor.
25:19The most difficult problem was torpedo launching in shallow water.
25:26The British Navy attacked an Italian fleet at Toronto, and I owe it very much for this lesson, in shallow water launching.
25:41We made a model of Pearl Harbor and the situation of the battleships and other warships.
25:52We sent our agent to Pearl Harbor.
25:56Sometimes I went to Japanese teahouse in Alewa Heights.
26:03From there, I saw the fleet in Pearl Harbor.
26:09Sometimes I go around Pearl Harbor by taxi or bus.
26:18Sometimes I walk along this one and drinking beer to get information.
26:25I did, you know, fishing.
26:28I measured the depth of the sea, but it was very dangerous.
26:35And then one time, I ordered to see the torpedo gate.
26:40So I went to the profited area of Pearl Harbor, but I cannot discover the submarine gate.
26:52I sent my information by commercial telegram in code.
27:05The Japanese carrier fleet had left Japan on November the 26th.
27:10It took them 11 days to sail undetected the 4,000 or so miles to this point, a mere 200 miles short of Hawaii.
27:19Although the Americans had broken the Japanese codes and knew war was imminent,
27:23they had not found out where the Japanese might strike them.
27:27Climb Mount Niitaka came the message from Tokyo.
27:32It was the signal for war to commence.
27:366 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, December the 7th, 1941.
27:43The first of 400 Japanese bombers and torpedo planes take to the air.
27:50The destination, Pearl Harbor.
28:16On the early morning of December 7th, Joseph L. Lockhart and myself were detailed to operate a problem from our radar unit.
28:28The problem was to last from 4 a.m. to 7 a.m., and it was a training program.
28:36I was the plotter, and Joseph Lockhart was the radar operator.
28:42We picked up a very large blip, which we had never seen before, and proceeded to plot that flight in.
28:50It was then that I suggested that we send the information in to our information center.
28:56I called in, and the switchboard operator told me that there was no one there at the information center.
29:01He wished to have someone call back to our radar station, and that's when this Lieutenant Tyler called back
29:10and told us, in essence, to forget it.
29:15We continued the flight until about 20 minutes of 8, when the flight seemed to disperse to the right and to the left of the island.
29:39I was on board a USS California, tied to Quay 3, and I was standing on a quarter deck, getting ready for a color.
29:59As a matter of fact, I was a member of the band.
30:03Looking slightly to the south around, I could see planes coming that direction and some from that direction.
30:11The primary of those, and that's about the time General Quarters.
30:14I dropped my instrument, which was a clarinet, and went down below into my battle station.
30:19About five minutes later, torpedoes hit us and exploded.
30:26I was aboard the West Virginia when the first airplanes came over.
30:31They were built similar to our Helldivers in those days.
30:35The pilot had the greenhouse back, and he flew so low that I still remember him.
30:41He had the leather helmet like World War II had, and the goggles.
30:47The reason I remember, he had a real thick mustache.
30:50As he flew over, he kind of smiled and looked at the ship, and flew over towards the hangar there when he started laying his first bomb.
31:02I saw the Arizona blow up, and she just like if she just rained sailors.
31:08Of course, those were the ones that were fortunate enough to live, the ones that were blown off the ship.
31:13I ran to the stern first to see if I could get off that way.
31:16Of course, everything was burning at this particular time.
31:19Then I ran to the folks hole.
31:22There was a lot of oil, but it hadn't caught fire at this time.
31:26I said, well, the best thing to do is to dive off there.
31:29The best thing to do is to dive off there, so I hit the water and swam around this way, and then came up over this rock there.
31:38This is where I landed.
31:40The thing I remember most about that morning was terror and confusion.
31:44First place, it was early in the morning.
31:46Most everybody wasn't quite awake yet, and to have somebody trying to kill you at that hour in the morning kind of confuses you at best.
31:54We were taking power and steam from the dock since we were alongside for repairs,
32:00and somebody in the confusion cut our power and steam line, so we were left with everything that had to be operated in manual.
32:06We only had one battery en masse that we could use, which was the Port 5-inch battery,
32:11so we started using it on the aircraft as they came in.
32:14The low-flying torpedo planes all came directly over the hill over here and down this way over toward Battleship Row,
32:21so we were able to get some pretty good shots at them back through there, even though we were in manual.
32:25However, the guns had to be served by manual means.
32:29We had to pass ammunition by hand.
32:32We had a young chaplain aboard, J.G. at the time.
32:35He'd been aboard less than two months.
32:37His name was Howell M. Forgey, and he was, as far as his battle station was concerned, he didn't have one.
32:44He was primarily concerned with crew morale,
32:46so he was marching up and down the gun deck saying, praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.
33:16You'd live with these ships all the time.
33:41You just never dreamed that they could be damaged like this.
33:44There were ships of fire, ships burning, explosions going on all over the place.
33:54My first knowledge of the attack was when I was awakened by the sound of bombs dropping
33:59and the roaring of aircraft all around us.
34:02I ran out on the lanai and saw immediately they were Japanese planes,
34:07and there was this fellow standing next to me and said, it certainly looks real, doesn't it?
34:11And I said, yes, I'm afraid it is.
34:13I ran over to my offices, and I happened to be standing alongside the commander-in-chief himself, Admiral Kimmel,
34:20and we were glumly watching the havoc, the carnage that was going on.
34:25And suddenly he reached up in motion of this kind and tore off his four-star shoulder boards,
34:32which indicated his rank and title as commander-in-chief of the Pacific Fleet.
34:38He stepped into his adjacent office, and when he came out, he realized that he was going to lose command,
34:45and he had donned two-star Rear Admiral shoulder boards.
35:08Music
35:35All nine battleships of the United States Pacific Fleet had been sunk or put out of action,
35:39together with several destroyers and cruisers, but no aircraft carriers.
35:45Luckily for the Americans, the carriers had been at sea that particular Sunday morning.
35:50Music
35:56However, the Japanese were well satisfied.
36:01The United States Pacific Fleet was not prepared, and we succeeded.
36:11No! No!
36:16But the Japanese did not just succeed against the Americans at Pearl Harbor.
36:20On December 10th, the pride of the Royal Navy in the Pacific, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, were sunk.
36:28No! No!
36:32That same day, Guam fell.
36:35No!
36:38On December 23rd, Wake Island.
36:41No!
36:45On Christmas Day, Hong Kong.
36:48No! No!
36:54On New Year's Day in 1942, Manila, capital of the Philippines.
36:59No!
37:03On January 19th, Borneo.
37:06No!
37:09But the biggest prize of all awaited the Japanese in Malaya.
37:15The plan for the defense of Malaya was based entirely on the air force.
37:23And there were to be some 335 first class aircraft, with the army protecting their bases and their aerodromes.
37:32And the idea was that they should attack the Japanese whilst they were at sea, and destroy them or damage them before the campaign started.
37:45Percival's idea was to oppose the Japanese as they landed.
37:50And that didn't come off.
37:53They were able to land in Thailand, and we would not break the neutrality.
38:03And so we were at a disadvantage from the start.
38:07The Japanese were outnumbered more than two to one.
38:10They had only the poorest of maps, usually pages torn from school atlases.
38:15But they kept the British on the run, never stopping to consolidate or regroup.
38:19One of the reasons we were thrown onto the defensive, the Japanese employed 300 tanks.
38:25We hadn't any tanks at all.
38:27British strategists had decreed that armour was not suited to jungle warfare.
38:40Back in Whitehall, the British thought the jungle impenetrable.
38:44Whereas in some places it was clear, in others not so dense.
38:49And anyway, the really dense patches could always be bypassed by sea, which was precisely what the Japanese did.
39:14The jungle is not such a terrible place.
39:22We can live on rice, salt and sesame seeds, and salted fish, you see.
39:27This can keep a soldier going a long time.
39:30The jungle did not have the fear for us that it seems to have had for some of the Allied soldiers.
39:36Singapore
39:40The Japanese had first bombed Singapore the same morning as Pearl Harbour.
39:45The lights of the Great Port had guided them in, and remained on during the raid because no one knew how to switch them off.
39:52Such confusion was to typify Singapore's reaction to the Japanese onslaught.
39:58I remember a British national newspaper ran a story in which the opinion was expressed
40:04that the Japanese would never be good flyers because they had no sense of balance
40:09through being carried on the backs of their mothers as children.
40:27Singapore
40:58Malaya
41:01The Japanese secret weapon in Malaya was the bicycle.
41:28Japan
41:31When their tyres punctured, the Japanese soldiers simply rode on their rims.
41:35To the retreating British, the clatter on the stony roads sounded like tanks, and added to their fear.
41:57Malaya
42:08I think the fundamental reason why we failed in Malaya was that we were stretched to the limit at that time
42:16in our war with Germany and Italy, and there simply were not the trained men, air forces and ships
42:26that we should have supplied to beat the Japanese attack.
42:42The priority of arms and equipment for Malaya at that time was very low.
42:48They were only number four after Great Britain, the Middle East and Russia.
42:54Also, with regard to men, the first priority was the Middle East, and Malaya only came second.
43:03Some of the Australians that arrived in Malaya had never even fired a rifle.
43:08So we did field very much a second eleven against the very highly trained and strongly supported Japanese.
43:17Like the Americans at Pearl Harbour, the British in Malaya had been wrongly led to believe the Japanese air force was poor.
43:24But now British air cover waned and eventually disappeared.
43:29There was no effective plan to stop the Japanese by land, and too little determination to resist.
43:35Your forces are not so aggressive as we expected.
44:05The British planners had thought that at the very worst, northern Malaya could hold out for at least three months,
44:22enough time to enable substantial reinforcements to be sent to Singapore.
44:27But it took the Japanese under General Yamashita just seven weeks to advance the 600 miles down the Malayan peninsula.
44:43On February 8, 1942, they crossed the thousand yards of the Straits of Johor onto the island of Singapore.
44:52No defences had been built on the northern shore of the island, and so the Japanese were able to land relatively unmolested.
45:00What is more, they were able to capture most of Singapore's water supplies with ease.
45:09By now, the Japanese bombers raided Singapore at will, for there was virtually no air defence.
45:17The Japanese, in fact, were almost out of ammunition and were considering withdrawing to the mainland.
45:23But unknown to them, British morale had collapsed.
45:35General Yamashita had not prepared any plans in the event of a British surrender.
45:42And so when on February 15, Major Weil, General Percival's emissary, arrived at our forward headquarters at 3pm, no one there believed him.
45:54I was ordered to discuss with him his suggestion of a meeting between General Percival and General Yamashita.
46:05Major Weil wanted General Yamashita to go to the Governor General's residence, but did not mention surrender.
46:12I told him it was out of the question for General Yamashita to go anywhere, and that his general must come to us.
46:19Eventually Major Weil agreed to this and said he would bring him at 6pm, but again made no mention of surrender.
46:28When I reported this to my superiors, they were suspicious and unbelieving.
46:34However, I returned at 6 to meet General Percival and Major Weil.
46:39I guided them to the Ford factory, where the meeting with General Yamashita was to take place.
46:46Because of this disbelief on the Japanese side, they were still setting up tables when we arrived.
46:54Straight away General Yamashita asked General Percival whether he was surrendering,
46:59but the British General merely talked about wanting to keep 1,500 soldiers to maintain peace and order in Singapore.
47:06General Yamashita again asked about surrender, but General Percival went on talking about these 1,500 troops.
47:14And so these two conversations continued in parallel and time was passing.
47:19Finally General Yamashita could wait no longer.
47:22He banged the table and asked General Percival if he was surrendering.
47:26Otherwise the Japanese would launch an immediate night attack.
47:30Would that be alright?
47:32Percival replied no, he did not want any more attacks.
47:37So again General Yamashita asked, will you surrender?
47:41And at last General Percival said yes.
47:50Help! Help! Help!
47:58Singapore had been thought by the British to be impregnable.
48:02But they were thinking of an attack from the sea.
48:05Indeed all the big fortress guns pointed seawards, not landwards.
48:10Said Churchill afterwards, the possibility of Singapore having no landward defences no more entered into my mind
48:17than that of a battleship being launched without a bottom.
48:21We were so surprised because we expected that your forces about 50,000 in total.
48:33And we found out that about 110,000 prisoners in Singapore.
48:43Singapore's fall was the worst military disaster in British history.
48:49More than 130,000 troops laid down their arms in the largest capitulation the British army has ever known.
48:57The Japanese soldiers are told not to be prisoners.
49:01So quite natural when they see the tens of thousands of white prisoners at Singapore, they look down on them.
49:14Singapore's Fall
49:22Thousands of British and Commonwealth troops had arrived in Singapore only days before, just in time to surrender.
49:32Singapore's Fall
49:39Singapore's fall meant that the whole of Southeast Asia lay at Japan's feet.
49:44Within weeks the Japanese army was at the borders of India and the Japanese navy was steaming close to the shores of Australia.
49:50They had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
49:54For the British, a last humiliation.
49:57The garrison was paraded before the triumphant Japanese.
50:23Singapore's Fall
50:39The sun had set on one imperial power.
50:47On another the sun was still rising.
50:53Singapore's Fall
51:23Singapore's Fall
51:53Singapore's Fall