The Color of War Episode 1 Into The Breach
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00:00During the Second World War, an entire generation recorded their personal experiences for posterity.
00:08Combat cameramen braved enemy fire to send home moving images, many of them in color.
00:15They captured history, and in the process they captured ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events,
00:22bearing witness to the color of war.
00:30Music
00:48By the time the United States was propelled into World War II in December 1941,
00:54Europe had been torn by war for over two years.
00:59In the East, Hitler's forces were sweeping through Russia,
01:04while in the West, Great Britain stood alone, bloodied but unbeaten,
01:09valiantly defying the dark tide of fascism that had engulfed the rest of Europe.
01:16For the people of America, who were still feeling the lingering effects of a global depression,
01:21it would be another immense challenge.
01:25Music
01:31Men, join a career. Enlist in the United States Marines and get action.
01:37Help build the victory now, for yourself, for your home, for this land we love.
01:43There's a Marine recruiting station in every corner of the country.
01:47See the officer in charge and get the latest information on joining the Fighting Leathernecks.
01:52Do it now and know the pride of service with the United States Marines.
01:58Music
02:07Explosions
02:12On the Allied side, the small professional armed forces that began the war
02:17were quickly replaced by massive establishments made up almost entirely of draftees,
02:23civilians thrown into the breach, most after barely three months of training.
02:31Somehow, these young men achieved the transformation
02:35from fresh-faced conscripts into battle-hardened warriors.
02:39Among the factors that allowed them to do so
02:42were the training, discipline, and morale of a combat unit.
02:46These three elements are the foundation upon which armed forces have been built throughout history.
02:52Without them, no armed service, no matter how large or powerful in weapons and materiel,
02:58can hope to be effective.
03:00This was never more the case than during World War II.
03:04Music
03:10The process of making a unit battle-ready began during induction,
03:15when an attempt, albeit a cursory one,
03:18was made to weed out those men who were deemed psychologically unfit for combat.
03:24My examinational procedure consisted of four rapid-fire questions.
03:30How do you feel? Have you ever been sick? Are you nervous?
03:34How do you think you will get along in the army?
03:37Others weren't that thorough, limiting themselves to that old military favorite.
03:42So, do you like girls?
03:46Based on questions like these, 32% of all rejections in the U.S. Army,
03:52or around 2 million young men, were deemed unfit solely on psychiatric grounds.
03:58For those who made it past the doctors,
04:01the goals of training in all the armed services were essentially the same.
04:06The first was to mold the extremely diverse masses of inductees into a cohesive fighting force.
04:15Dear Mom,
04:17There are men here from many states, but we all get along well.
04:21Most of the men are okay, but as in every group, there are some that aren't.
04:28We have one real Kentucky hillbilly here in our division.
04:31He's a good old boy, one of the wittiest I've ever known.
04:35We have a boy who went to Yale two years.
04:40In 1940, there were 170,000 servicemen in the U.S. Army.
04:47Three years later, there were 7.2 million.
04:54The average armed service draftee was 26 years old,
04:58weighed 144 pounds and was 5 feet 8 inches tall.
05:02After 13 and a half weeks of basic training,
05:05he'd gained 7 pounds and added at least an inch to his chest.
05:11Over half these young men had not graduated from high school.
05:15Only 10% had any college education.
05:19Having grown up during the Depression,
05:21many would see doctors and dentists on a regular basis for the first time while in the armed services.
05:29Dear Uncle Bill and family,
05:31Well, we got our last two shots Friday, and did they ever knock me.
05:35We had a liberty coming Monday, but Sunday night they sent me home.
05:39But Sunday night they sent me over to the dispensary with cat fever.
05:43And here I lay, fit as a fiddle,
05:46till I have three consecutive perfect temperature readings.
05:51Even more important than building a sound body
05:54was conditioning the trainee to follow orders, quickly and without question.
06:00In order to accomplish this, it was necessary to rid the conscript of his civilian preconceptions
06:05about his rights as an individual.
06:09William Manchester, who survived the war to become a distinguished writer,
06:13remembered the experience vividly.
06:16The Corps begins its job of building men by destroying the identity they brought with them.
06:22Their heads are shaved.
06:24Their assigned numbers.
06:26Their drill instructor is their god.
06:29He treats them with utter contempt.
06:34For a young man raised in a democratic society,
06:37joining the armed forces was almost like being transported to an alien universe,
06:42one where a person's thoughts and feelings were suddenly totally irrelevant.
06:48It was a universe of officers, orders, and endless regulations.
06:55Both the American and British armies also tried to expose their recruits
06:59to simulations of the sights and sounds of actual combat.
07:04The U.S. Army called it Battle Inoculation.
07:10We had to pan uphill with bursting eardrums and thumping hearts
07:14to lunge with bayonets at straw-filled sacks.
07:19Crawl over seemingly endless barricades of scaffolding
07:22while instructors threw dummy grenades around us.
07:26Crawl through wire with a machine gun, firing a couple of feet above our heads.
07:34Though far from the real experience of combat,
07:37live-fire simulations could still be extremely dangerous,
07:41a fact the recruits were constantly reminded of.
07:56Despite the realism of some of the training, however,
07:59most of a recruit's time in boot camp was spent in mind-numbing routine.
08:06I'll tell you about what we did yesterday.
08:09First, from 8 to 9, we had a lecture on machine guns.
08:15Then we marched from about 9.30 to 11.30.
08:20After that, we ate chow.
08:23At 1, we started cleaning the barracks.
08:26After that, we washed windows.
08:28It took 115 of us till 4 to get everything ship-shape.
08:33Then, the chief petty officer in charge came down and told us to do it all again.
08:39Another large block of time was devoted to molding the minds of the recruits,
08:44which often included a heavy dose of propaganda.
08:53We shall never completely understand the Japanese mind.
08:56But then, they don't understand ours either.
08:59Otherwise, there would never have been a Pearl Harbor.
09:02But we must try to understand Japan
09:04because we have become locked in the closest of all relationships, war.
09:13Yet no matter how seemingly ludicrous the various activities of training were,
09:18all of them were calculated for a very specific purpose.
09:22Private James Jones, who became a famous novelist after the war, wrote about it.
09:29Everything the civilian soldier learned and was taught from the moment of his induction
09:34was one more delicate step along the path of the soldier evolving towards the acceptance of his death.
09:41The training, the discipline, the daily humiliations
09:45are all directed towards hardening the awareness
09:48that a soldier is the chattel of the society he serves.
09:52And is therefore as dispensable as the ships and tanks
09:57and guns and ammo he himself serves and dispenses.
10:01Those are the terms of the contract he has made,
10:04or rather, that the state has handed him to sign.
10:10It was a contract that was paid for in blood and bravery on battlefields around the world.
10:18But its most critical test came earliest
10:21when a serviceman experienced his first terrible shock of combat.
10:38The first shell arrived. Where it landed, I'm not quite sure.
10:42Then came another whistle, growing louder horribly quickly,
10:46culminating again in the crash that could be felt and not heard.
10:52In that instant of blind personal paralysis,
10:55when all thought and feeling, even fear, is frozen,
10:59I was reduced to something out of all semblance of a man.
11:04The War on Terror
11:20As I'm standing at the rail watching these boys,
11:23they go over the side, down a rope ladder.
11:26They're carrying with them complete provisions for three days.
11:29They're rifles, they're ammunition.
11:31They're trained to the very, very tip of efficiency.
11:40They're smiling, they're happy.
11:42Every one of them knows he's coming back,
11:45and I'm sure we all hope they do.
11:49No matter how well trained a formation was,
11:52nothing could prepare the men for their first experience of actual combat.
11:57No amount of battle inoculation could ever immunize them
12:01against the gut-wrenching fear that arose when death was a real possibility.
12:07During many amphibious landings in the Pacific,
12:10combat cameramen went in with the men to record their experiences.
12:20You can doubtlessly hear this gunfire going on all around us.
12:23Now we are inside the screen of warship.
12:26There's no more warships between us and the beach.
12:31The majority of servicemen in World War II
12:33performed with extraordinary fortitude during their first moments in combat.
12:40However, there were several examples of panic in the face of the enemy on both sides.
12:46Units involved in these incidents were usually fresh to the front,
12:50often in their first real battle.
12:57In the dense jungles of the South Pacific,
13:00the enemy was rarely seen, even though they were often only yards away.
13:07They were tenacious and well-entrenched,
13:09dug into caves and reinforced blockhouses called pillboxes.
13:16Facing defenses like these put a particular strain on the troops.
13:20The stories of inaction and even cowardice of our troops were filtering back.
13:24Instead of fighting, there seemed to be an idea that if they waited long enough,
13:28the Japs would starve to death or quit.
13:31The troops just did not go.
13:34Even when a unit didn't break,
13:36its first exposure to real fighting was extremely traumatic.
13:41Two psychiatrists who actually went into action with a U.S. infantry battalion
13:46Two psychiatrists who actually went into action with a U.S. infantry battalion
13:50reported that during the first few days of combat,
13:53the men were in a constant state of fear and displayed numerous physical symptoms.
13:59These included continually wanting to relieve themselves,
14:02intense thirst and loss of appetite.
14:07Even among those servicemen who were initially calm and confident,
14:11the intense pressure of the fighting took its toll.
14:15Before I got hit, I was confident alright.
14:19I thought the others might get hurt, but not me.
14:22Then a sniper's bullet got me and I knew my number could be up too.
14:26Then some buddies of mine got it and that wore me down more.
14:30My number's coming. I felt it in my stomach.
14:33Then during a shelling, a blast came near me and I was hit by fragments.
14:37It shook me so badly, I thought it was my time now.
14:41I don't know what happened after.
14:43I came to in the hospital.
14:55Did you see the boys go in and get those pillboxes?
14:57Oh yeah.
14:58What do you say they took, huh?
15:00They took a hell of a beating.
15:01They did?
15:02Yeah.
15:03But they got them, didn't they?
15:04They got them. That's the stuff.
15:05That pillbox that opened up on you, was it wiped out shortly afterward?
15:09Yeah, my boys cleaned it out.
15:12It was an awful mess when they got through.
15:15The boys did a marvelous job.
15:17It's the men who really did you folks back home.
15:20I'm proud of each and every one of these kids.
15:23Yeah, yeah.
15:24Well, they're past, they're past worse.
15:27In a survey taken by American Medical Office,
15:30said they believed it was only a matter of time
15:33before they would be hit in combat.
15:36And yet, despite the fear that gripped them,
15:39these men somehow continued to fight on.
15:45Almost every action of every waking hour in our battalion
15:48was consciously directed toward achieving battle with the Japanese.
15:52It was the only way to do it.
15:55Almost every waking hour in our battalion
15:57was consciously directed toward achieving battle with the Japanese.
16:02In those battles, the price for both success and failure was death.
16:09It seems to me remarkable that a man can so repeatedly
16:12overcome his natural fears
16:14that he goes through this process time after time.
16:19I do not believe that one man enjoys war after his initial exposure.
16:25The glamour disperses as the tensions prolong,
16:28and it is then that ordinary men come close to the heroic.
16:35Anyone can be brave once.
16:39The same sense of weary fatalism
16:42applied to the officers who led these men.
16:46A lieutenant in the British Army expressed feelings
16:49that were common to servicemen of all nations
16:52when he wrote about one of his best friends
16:55who had just been killed in action.
16:59He said,
17:02He didn't know what fear was.
17:04Some idiot wrote in some newspaper.
17:06The fool. The bloody fool, that writer.
17:09Of course he knew what fear was.
17:11He knew how to overcome it, that's all.
17:14He knew how to bend fear back with the arms of willpower.
17:17But fear always grows stronger,
17:19and the muscles on the arms of willpower begin to ache.
17:22They can't bend back fear forever.
17:24They can't bend back fear forever.
17:26They can't bend back fear forever.
17:28The muscles on the arms of willpower begin to ache.
17:30They can't bend back fear forever.
17:32The struggle gets harder all the time.
17:35Didn't know what fear was.
17:37Do they think they honour him by saying that?
17:40Can't these idiots see that the whole point
17:42is not that he didn't know what fear was,
17:44but that he did?
17:48That the overwhelming majority of the officers
17:51and enlisted men in World War II
17:53fought through their fear together, without cracking,
17:57for their most lasting and heroic legacies.
18:00But there were several factors
18:02that served to divide officers and men.
18:05The results of these divisions
18:07had a direct effect on a fighting unit's ability
18:10to endure the ordeal of combat.
18:17Discipline is the training which moulds,
18:20strengthens and perfects the control
18:22exercised over a military organization.
18:25Discipline is attained by enforcing obedience to orders.
18:29The more readily and cheerfully a man obeys,
18:32the more perfect is the discipline of his unit
18:35and the more effective is his contribution
18:38to the teamwork being undertaken.
18:41World War II
18:53The basis of any armed service is discipline,
18:56unquestioning obedience to the orders of one's superiors.
19:00Without it, there is little chance of persuading men
19:03to stoically accept all the horrors of modern warfare.
19:07But in combat, this automatic obedience
19:10is not enough to maintain the fighting ability of a unit.
19:14Other, less tangible factors also come into play,
19:18factors that bear directly on the relationship
19:21between officers and their men.
19:24When those relations are good,
19:26a bond of trust develops
19:28that allows a unit to endure almost any hardship.
19:32But when they aren't,
19:34a backbone of discipline that stiffens every fighting force
19:37can snap like a dry twig.
19:41This was especially true in the U.S. armed services
19:44during World War II,
19:46where a rigid military hierarchy
19:48was directly at odds with the democratic ideals
19:51the servicemen were raised with.
19:56In the U.S. Army,
19:58officers represented about 10% of the total manpower.
20:02Only a fraction of them were professional soldiers
20:05left over from the pre-war service.
20:09The vast majority, almost 75%,
20:12came straight from civilian life.
20:15In this respect, they were no different from the men they led,
20:18but they were usually better educated.
20:21Almost anyone with some college education
20:24was thought to be suitable officer material.
20:27Though officers and enlisted personnel
20:29were chosen mainly from the same group of men,
20:32the whole basis of the officer corps
20:35was a rigid distinction between commissioned and lower ranks.
20:39This gulf was seen as being fundamental
20:41to creating an aura of authority around the officer.
20:46Symbolically, an officer wore his insignia of rank on his shoulders,
20:50representing the burden of responsibility
20:52placed there by his position.
20:55Enlisted men, on the other hand,
20:57wore their stripes on their arms,
20:59symbolizing the muscles that actually bore the weapons of war.
21:04This division began in training,
21:06when officer candidates of all branches
21:09were brought to special facilities.
21:12Here they were taught not just to take orders,
21:15but to give them as well.
21:18Instead of running through obstacle courses
21:20and receiving weapons training,
21:22they studied officer training manuals
21:24and did class work that addressed
21:26the mental challenges of their position.
21:31Plucked from the enlisted ranks
21:33during or shortly after basic training,
21:36these officer candidates were sent through
21:38three-month courses that were meant to teach them
21:40how to lead troops in combat.
21:43Sarcastically called 90-day wonders,
21:46they were looked down upon by regular officers,
21:49who often spent years acquiring
21:51their ranks and professional skills.
21:54They were also deeply resented by enlisted men,
21:57who saw no reason why someone
21:59with a few months of extra training
22:01should be giving them orders that could cost their lives.
22:06It was almost as if an artificial wall
22:08had suddenly been erected between two groups of men
22:11who just weeks before had been completely equal.
22:17This wall was reinforced with privileges.
22:21Officers received higher pay
22:23and wore better uniforms than enlisted men.
22:26They ate better food, served in superior facilities
22:29that were always separate from the troops they commanded.
22:33They had their own clubs
22:34where they were allowed to drink hard liquor,
22:36while the enlisted men were limited
22:38to a specially brewed beer that was only 3.2% alcohol,
22:43about half that of normal beer.
22:47There were strict regulations
22:48against enlisted men fraternizing with officers.
22:54They could be fined for not saluting their superiors.
22:58They weren't even allowed to call officers
23:01by their first names.
23:03In short, someone who had been your buddy in basic training
23:07was suddenly placed in a class apart.
23:10This by itself was enough to cause resentments
23:12on the part of enlisted men in all the Allied forces.
23:17I consider the army tradition bigoted and medieval
23:20utterly out of keeping with our democratic ideals.
23:25Officers deserve respect and privileges,
23:28but they don't deserve the Jeeps, gasoline, whiskey,
23:31and women that naturally go along.
23:36One of the greatest sources of animosity
23:39was when enlisted men sensed their officers
23:41were asserting their authority for no valid military reason.
23:46A term was coined for it
23:47that was used by servicemen throughout the war.
23:51They called it chicken shit.
23:54It became a particularly troublesome issue
23:56after the war had ended,
23:58when men were anxious to return home
24:00and no longer saw any reason
24:03for being arbitrarily told what to do.
24:07It is almost as bad as a prison here.
24:10Sometimes I think worse.
24:12The damned officers are getting worse
24:14than they've been even in the States.
24:16They are chicken shit from A to Z.
24:20There are many beautiful and historic sights to be seen here,
24:23but can we see them?
24:25Not no, but hell no.
24:28The colonel wasn't even going to give us shows and beer.
24:31I don't know how glad I will be when I'm on my way back home.
24:38An even more extreme example of arbitrary authority
24:41was recorded by an Australian
24:43who had just been liberated from a Japanese prisoner of war camp.
24:50With wrath, we learned of a new order
24:52that ex-POWs must salute all Japanese officers.
24:56No one who's not witnessed the countless humiliations
24:59inflicted on POWs by the Japanese
25:01can appreciate the anger and disgust
25:04that this order excites in us.
25:06We suspect the order emanates from one of the type
25:09to see something sacrosanct in an officer, any officer.
25:16The fact that combat decorations
25:18were sometimes awarded to officers behind the lines
25:21who had not directly participated in action
25:24could also cause bitterness.
25:30He has not seen one day of active combat
25:32and I doubt he has ever been within small arms
25:34or mortar range of the crowds.
25:37Some people get awards for just being near the front lines
25:40while others lived under fire for 150 days
25:42and just got K-rations and lice.
25:48Ironically, it was where the danger was greatest
25:51that the relationship between officers and men was best,
25:55in units right at the front.
26:00Well, men, you know that we're going forward.
26:02You have all your gear ready.
26:04You know that we're going up to assist the 2nd Battalion.
26:08It's tough up there and the going has been tough all day.
26:11How about the artillery?
26:12Has he been throwing quite a bit of that in there?
26:14They've been throwing everything in there.
26:16Everything, every conceivable weapon the Japs have,
26:18they've been using in there.
26:20Okay, men. Good luck, men.
26:25The shared dangers of combat
26:27often created a strong bond
26:29between officers and the men they led.
26:32They fought a common enemy,
26:34ate the same food and fought from the same foxholes.
26:38There was simply no room for the artificial distinctions
26:41found in units behind the lines.
26:45Looking at my men, I sometimes wondered
26:47what was my bond with them.
26:49It came to this.
26:51Three months ago, I'd taken them over as a stranger.
26:54They knew nothing about me and obeyed me
26:56only because they had to.
26:59Now we had seen half a dozen battles together
27:02and the troop had come through almost as a whole.
27:05They obeyed me because they trusted me.
27:10Trust and mutual confidence.
27:13These are the qualities by which men are led
27:16and victories won.
27:18But even when relations between officers and their men were good,
27:22the grinding ordeal of combat
27:24put intense pressures on fighting units,
27:27pressures that threatened them
27:29almost as much as enemy bombs and bullets.
27:42The struggle for survival went on day after weary day,
27:45night after terrifying night.
27:48The war was a netherworld of horror
27:50from which escape seemed less and less likely
27:52as casualties mounted and the fighting dragged on and on.
27:56Time had no meaning.
27:58Life had no meaning.
28:00The fierce struggle for survival made savages of us all.
28:13Much more than a serviceman's bravery
28:15was tested by the experience of combat.
28:21The longer the ordeal continued, the worse the strain became,
28:26testing a soldier's individual morale
28:29almost as much as it threatened his body.
28:34He was confronted by titanic forces that were beyond his control,
28:38entering a nightmare world
28:41where the line between sanity and madness
28:43became increasingly blurred.
28:46These forces could sometimes completely transform his personality.
28:51A letter from an infantryman named Joseph Capone
28:54to a comrade's mother
28:56described how prolonged combat had affected her son.
29:02Mrs. Niehoff,
29:04from the day Norbert came to E Company,
29:06we were continually in the assault.
29:09It was through this fighting
29:11that your son and I became close friends.
29:16Throughout this campaign, Norbert did his job superbly.
29:21However, one must realize that front-line combat
29:24as a rifleman in an infantry company
29:27is the most hazardous role a soldier can perform.
29:32It affected me, the others, and also Norbert.
29:36By this, I mean he was not the cheerful, talkative person of four months back.
29:41He tried not to show his burden,
29:44but, like a true soldier, carried on.
29:51In this world, death could strike with terrible randomness.
29:57This produced annoying uncertainty
29:59that a soldier carried with him every moment he was under fire.
30:04Uncertainty is in the very air which a battle breathes.
30:08It lies coiled at the heart of every combat.
30:11The uncertainty of the enemy's whereabouts,
30:14the uncertainty of falsehood,
30:17of surprise,
30:20of your own troops' actions,
30:25the uncertainty of a strange land,
30:29the uncertainty of rescue,
30:31and the uncertainty of confusion itself.
30:35The state of mind that action induces primarily and superficially is fear.
30:41With peaks of almost hysterical tension,
30:47fear becomes commonplace,
30:50like death, an accepted, everyday, ever-present condition.
30:55War is no longer entirely freakish and uniquely barbaric.
30:59It becomes normal, real.
31:04It's the deep reality of a nightmare.
31:12It was during this state of deadened sensitivity
31:16that the reflexive obedience to orders
31:18that was drilled into servicemen during their training
31:21proved its worth, at least in military terms.
31:27In mortal danger, numerous soldiers enter into a dazed condition
31:31in which all sharpness of consciousness is lost.
31:37When in this state, they can function like slaves,
31:40or they can function like cells in a military organism,
31:43doing what is expected of them because it has become automatic.
31:50It is astonishing how much of the business of warfare
31:53can still be carried on by men who act as automatons,
31:57behaving almost as mechanically as the machines they operate.
32:03This numbing of perception could continue even after a battle was over.
32:08Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck,
32:11who fought in several battles during the Pacific Campaign,
32:15described the condition from a soldier's perspective.
32:22When you think back to things that happened during a battle,
32:25they are already becoming dreamlike.
32:30You try to remember what it was like, and you can't quite manage it.
32:37The outlines in your memory are vague.
32:41The next day, the memory slips farther until very little is left at all.
32:50Men in prolonged battle are not normal men,
32:53and when afterwards they seem to be reticent,
32:56perhaps they don't remember very well.
33:00Other servicemen did remember,
33:03but to some of them, the killing became an impersonal routine, a job.
33:14Now, Corporal, you've got 19 Japs on Okinawa.
33:17This is a great many, but have you gotten any more Japs?
33:19And what other campaigns have you been in in the Pacific?
33:22Well, I've been on Cape Gloucester. I've got 16 Japs there.
33:25I've been on Tallulah. I've got about three or four there.
33:29I would say that my toughest campaign was on Tallulah.
33:33Adding this up quickly, that means 37 Japs. Is that right? 37 in all?
33:38Yeah, that's right.
33:41One thing a soldier was almost certain to remember
33:44was the sight of one of his comrades being wounded or killed.
33:55The Marines who bore the brunt of the fighting in the Pacific
33:58saw it all too often.
34:02So did the soldiers in Europe.
34:06Mrs. Niehoff, after going about 25 yards,
34:10the enemy opened up with machine-gun fire.
34:13A three-man nest killed about 30 men.
34:18These were the wounds that Norbert succumbed to.
34:23Mrs. Niehoff, you have my deepest sympathy.
34:27You have given the absolute extreme to the war effort
34:30and need not hold your head bowed.
34:33Your son died in the greatest honour,
34:36achieving a goal that only he, the buddy with me,
34:40myself, you and God know about.
34:44May God bless you.
34:46Sincerely, Joseph Capone.
34:56When the casualty was a family member,
34:58the results were even more devastating.
35:01Such was the case with Carl and Lloyd Kareckis,
35:05brothers who served in the same division
35:07during the Italian campaign.
35:11On April 8th, at about 5 p.m.,
35:14I received a radio message that Lloyd had been wounded.
35:17I started running and praying over and over again,
35:21Oh, God, don't let him die, don't let him die.
35:24My breath was coming in gasps.
35:26After about 200 yards, I saw a jeep coming,
35:30Lloyd's body was lying on it.
35:33The jeep driver asked me if I wanted to see him.
35:36I said no, I wanted to remember him as he was,
35:39handsome, vibrant, full of good humour and the joy of living.
35:44I cursed as tears gushed down my face.
35:47I did not want to live.
35:50In combat, tragedies like these were an everyday occurrence.
35:56Added to the relentless strain of battle,
35:59these horrors created pressures on servicemen
36:02that tested their morale to the breaking point.
36:06What happened when these young men reached that breaking point
36:10was perhaps the most important factor
36:13in maintaining the discipline of a fighting unit.
36:20Your skin feels thick and insensitive.
36:23There's a salty taste in your mouth,
36:26a hard, painful knot in your stomach where the food is undigested.
36:31Your eyes do not pick up much detail
36:34and the sharp outlines of objects are slightly blurred.
36:38The whole world becomes unreal.
36:50John Steinbeck's words are an eloquent description
36:53of what happened to a soldier
36:55when he'd finally reached the limits of his endurance.
36:59The American Army called it battle exhaustion, or combat fatigue,
37:04and it was one of the gravest threats of all
37:07to the discipline and morale of a fighting unit in World War II.
37:13A man feels he is downed at times.
37:16He feels as long as he is able to keep going,
37:19he'll be kept over here until he's a physical wreck
37:22or until he's buried with four or five more in some dark jungle
37:25or scattered over the ground by artillery shells or bombs.
37:29No one back home can really understand our feelings.
37:36One of the most basic factors contributing to combat fatigue
37:40was lack of sleep.
37:42Famed U.S. war correspondent and cartoonist Bill Mauldin,
37:46whose characters, Willie and Joe,
37:49defined the average soldier's experience of war
37:52for an entire generation, described why.
37:56One thing is pretty certain if you're in the infantry.
37:59You aren't going to be very warm and dry while you sleep.
38:03Tents aren't very common around the front,
38:06neither is sleep for that matter.
38:08You do most of your sleeping while you march.
38:10It's not a very healthy sleep.
38:12You might call it sort of a coma.
38:17A report by a team of American psychiatrists
38:20included a list of other stresses at the front
38:23that played a role in battle exhaustion.
38:26Its matter-of-fact tone was directly at odds
38:29with the horrifying aspects of combat it detailed.
38:34These would include, number one,
38:36the phobic-like reactions to specific types of shell fire.
38:41Number two, the impotent, angry frustration
38:44resultant from being pinned down by enemy fire.
38:48Number three, the anxiety incident to distrust
38:51of the wisdom of the orders received.
38:54Number four, any failure to receive adequate
38:57and prompt supply of mail, food and ammunition.
39:01Number five, the anger and resentment
39:03toward those in the rear echelons
39:05who do not share his dangers and deprivations.
39:10Number six, the horror and grief incident
39:13to seeing buddies wounded, mutilated or killed.
39:18Number seven, the constant danger and discomforts
39:21of being hungry, cold and wet.
39:25And number eight, the over-the-counter
39:29And number eight, the all-pervading
39:31physical and mental exhaustion of continuous fighting.
39:36An American tank man described his feelings
39:39of intense fatigue during a battle in 1944.
39:46Like most of the fourth, I was numb,
39:49in a state of virtual disassociation.
39:51There is a condition which we call the 2,000-yard stare.
39:54This was the anesthetized look,
39:56the wide, hollow eyes of a man who no longer cares.
40:02This haunting expression was perfectly captured
40:05by combat artist Tom Lee
40:07in his masterpiece, The 2,000-Yard Stare.
40:19Legendary war correspondent Ernie Pyle
40:22saw it in Italy, too.
40:26A soldier who has been a long time in the line
40:28does have a look in his eyes
40:30that anyone who knows about it can discern.
40:32It's a look of dullness, eyes that look without seeing,
40:36eyes that see without conveying any image to the mind.
40:40A look of exhaustion, lack of sleep,
40:43tension for too long, weariness that is too great,
40:46fear beyond fear, misery to the point of numbness.
40:51A look of surpassing indifference to anything anyone can do.
40:57It's a look I dread to see on men.
41:03These were not the descriptions of a handful of exceptional cases.
41:07It was what happened in continuous combat
41:10to almost all the soldiers of an infantry unit
41:13who were not killed or wounded.
41:15The Americans concluded that almost any soldier,
41:18should he survive,
41:20would break down after 200 to 240 combat days.
41:26The British allowed 400 combat days,
41:29not because their soldiers were any tougher,
41:32but because of their more frequent rotation of front-line units.
41:37The only reason units as a whole did not fall apart
41:40was that there was a constant flow of replacements,
41:43so at any one time,
41:45most men had not yet reached the crisis point.
41:49Yet despite their exhaustion,
41:51the great majority of servicemen in World War II
41:54continued to battle on.
42:00An American army officer in Europe explained how he did it.
42:05There's only one way to fight it.
42:07Strength.
42:08You must be strong with yourself,
42:10with your men, with everything.
42:13Never weaken.
42:15Never show that you're afraid.
42:20In the end, it was exactly this kind of discipline
42:23that allowed men to maintain their sanity
42:26amidst the madness of war.
42:28The self-discipline that defines true courage.
42:37American war correspondent Theodore White saw it often
42:41and was moved to write these words.
42:46I was convinced for all time
42:49of the dignity and nobility of common men.
42:53I was convinced for all time
42:55that common men have a pure and common courage
42:58when they fight for what they believe to be a just cause.
43:05That which was fine in these men outweighed and made trivial
43:09all that was horrible in their plight.
43:17I cannot explain it except to say
43:19that they were at all times cheerful and helped one another.
43:23They never gave up the fight.
43:25They never admitted defeat.
43:27They never asked for help.
43:35More than their training,
43:37more than the discipline instilled by their commanders,
43:41it was this dignity and nobility,
43:44this pure and common courage
43:47that defined the average fighting men of the Second World War
43:52and allowed their true colours to shine through.
44:47.