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00:01Previously, on the last days of World War II, after nearly six years of war, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.
00:09But victory in Europe had little meaning for US troops in the Pacific.
00:13On Okinawa, the brutal ascent of Sugarloaf Hill began.
00:17And offshore, 346 sailors were killed when kamikazes hit the USS Bunker Hill.
00:24This week, in Europe, reconstruction plans begin.
00:28The wheels are set in motion to rebuild the shattered continent.
00:32In the Pacific, the battle for Okinawa has become a bloody, exhausting contest.
00:37And halfway around the world, shocking evidence of a bomb-making alliance between Japan and Germany ends up on US shores.
00:58May 13th, Okinawa.
01:07The battle for the Pacific island has become a seemingly endless nightmare.
01:11US forces, under the command of General Simon Buckner, have not been able to dislodge the fanatical Japanese defenders, most of whom prefer death to surrender.
01:20Several of Buckner's senior officers push for an amphibious assault behind the Japanese line, in order to relieve pressure on the front.
01:30But Buckner won't take the risk.
01:32The slog through the rugged terrain, held by a deeply entrenched and tenacious enemy, will continue, and a tally of dead and wounded will continue to mount.
01:46Nothing had prepared them for this.
01:48Any of the experiences that they might have had in other campaigns had nothing in common with what they were experiencing in Okinawa.
01:54It was just unprecedented in anyone's experience.
01:56Japanese forces, led by General Mitsuru Ushijima, are now concentrated in the Shuri Line, in the south of the island.
02:06The Shuri Line is one of a series of positions that the Japanese have established to make this as costly as possible for the Americans.
02:14Behind the line is Naha, Okinawa's capital.
02:17Buckner's job is to take the city, no matter how bravely the Japanese fight.
02:21Landmarks and strong points on the Shuri Line are given deceptively innocent nicknames by the American troops.
02:28Sugarloaf Hill, Chocolate Drop Hill, Conical Hill and Sugar Hill.
02:35Each division has its objectives.
02:39In the centre, the 77th Infantry Division spearheads the assault on Chocolate Drop Hill and the Ushimi Ridge.
02:46The Shuri Castle is their ultimate objective.
02:48The 96th Infantry will attack Conical Hill on the left.
02:54The 1st Marine Division is ordered to strike for the Dakeshi and Wana Ridges, guarding Shuri itself.
02:59And the 6th Marine Division continues their assault on Sugarloaf Hill.
03:04The line is fiercely defended and heavy rains have made the terrain more difficult to navigate.
03:11May the 14th.
03:13There is fierce fighting along the line as the U.S. 10th Army pushes forward.
03:17U.S. tanks and self-propelled artillery support the advance.
03:25Ground troops can also call in airstrikes.
03:28For the Japanese, the onslaught is incessant.
03:31May the 17th.
03:38The 5th Marine Regiment attempts to rush a piece of high ground known as Hill 55, which guards the western approaches to Shuri along the Wana Ridge.
03:48The Marines come under a hail of machine gun, mortar and anti-tank gun fire.
03:52Despite mounting losses, the U.S. troops are able to cling on to the western slope of the hill.
03:57The 6th Marine Division faces some of the fiercest fighting on Sugarloaf Hill, one of the three adjacent peaks heavily defended by Japanese artillery.
04:09Three battalions of the 29th Marine Regiment attack Sugarloaf Hill and Crescent Hill on its flank.
04:16The crest of Sugarloaf changes hands several times in desperate hand-to-hand fighting.
04:21But eventually, the Marines run out of ammunition and fall back.
04:25So when you got on top of Sugarloaf Hill, you're taking heavy fire from two other eminences.
04:31So it becomes a seesaw battle.
04:33The enemy was on the backside of a hill, and you couldn't see him.
04:38And all he had was to lob grenades or mortar shells and pick us men off a few at a time.
04:44A naval bombardment helps weed out pockets of Japanese resistance.
04:48The assault is also supported by aircraft from the carrier fleet, including the Grumman Avenger.
04:59Used extensively throughout the Pacific campaign, the U.S. Navy Grumman Avenger was one of the war's most successful torpedo bombers.
05:07The Avenger had a crew of three. It had a pilot and it had two gunners.
05:11One of which manned a ball turret behind the pilot.
05:14The other manned a turret that was down below and could shoot beneath the aircraft.
05:19One of those also acted as a radio operator for the aircraft.
05:24The Avenger was a carrier-based plane with a top speed of 278 miles per hour and a range of over 1,000 miles fully loaded.
05:32Its main weapon was either a single torpedo or 2,000 pounds of bombs.
05:37Later versions could also carry eight rockets.
05:39But its combat beginnings were hardly auspicious.
05:43The Avenger was sort of a compromise, in that it was a torpedo bomber, but it was also a bomber.
05:51Before, these things had been split into different types of aircraft.
05:56This aircraft is an attempt to do both.
05:59And it could do both, it just didn't do both very well.
06:02Introduced into action at the Battle of Midway, five of the six Avengers that attacked the Japanese fleet failed to return.
06:12It was a very easy aircraft to fly.
06:14It had a very slow landing speed, which was important because, remember, in World War II, you're coming in on a carrier that has a straight deck.
06:23And if you miss that approach, you only got one whack at it.
06:30The Avenger went on to prove its versatility.
06:33Avengers played a significant role in the sinking of the Yamato, Japan's mightiest battleship, off Okinawa in April 1945.
06:41One of many Avenger pilots was President George Bush Sr., who survived being shot down in 1944.
06:47As the Avengers' adaptability became apparent, demand for the aircraft exceeded Grumman Aircraft Engineering's production capacity.
06:58General Motors was also contracted to build the bomber.
07:05After the war, Avengers were sold to air forces around the world, and continued to serve with the U.S. Navy until 1954.
07:14May the 18th, Okinawa.
07:17Sugarloaf Hill is finally captured by the U.S. Marines, but the victory comes at a high price.
07:24In the seven-day battle for the Hill, several U.S. tanks are knocked out.
07:29The 6th Marine Division takes over 2,500 casualties.
07:33There are 1,289 recorded cases of combat fatigue.
07:37Well, I guess they used to call it in World War I, shell shock, and the reaction varied somewhat, you know, from almost being terrified and unable to move to disregard for one's personal safety.
07:58The Japanese suffer terrible losses, exacerbated by inadequate medical care.
08:03Many of the makeshift hospitals were established in caves or hastily dug fortifications that themselves were sources of disease and great harm to the patients.
08:14If you were a Japanese soldier and you were wounded, over the course of the campaign, the odds of you surviving were very, very low.
08:20It is one of the bloodiest and most hard-fought battles of the Pacific War.
08:24Despite their triumph at Sugarloaf Hill, there is no respite for the American infantry.
08:29Horseshoe Hill and Crescent Hill are still in Japanese hands.
08:35It's not just enough to take Sugarloaf Hill, you've got to take two others, or at least one other at the same time.
08:43Meanwhile, on the eastern flank of the advance, the Americans face more fierce resistance.
08:48The 96th Infantry faces what looks like the ideal defensive position, Conical Hill, which rises 500 feet above the coastal plain.
08:59To the U.S. infantry dug in on its north-eastern slopes, the summit of Conical Hill seems an almost impossible objective.
09:08But within 48 hours, they will break through to Yonabarro, five miles east of the capital city, Naha.
09:15May the 19th, the U.S. 77th Division has been clinging on to a foothold on Isshimi Ridge for two days.
09:22The lead company has taken 75% casualties and is trapped.
09:26Heavy rains impede movement and resupply.
09:30Fighting in fields of mud, nothing can move except soldiers on foot.
09:36Sheltered on the reverse slopes of the hills, the Japanese fight on.
09:41There will be no sudden breakthrough here.
09:46May the 14th, mainland Japan.
09:48An armada of nearly 500 B-29s drops 2,500 tons of incendiary bombs on Nagoya.
09:55The firebombs reduce four key factories to smoking ruins, including the Mitsubishi Electric Company,
10:02a vital source of electrical parts for Japanese aircraft.
10:05May the 19th, 272 B-29s strike the city of Hamamatsu, about 120 miles from Tokyo.
10:18In two months, the American Air Force's use of incendiaries has reduced vast tracts of Japan's industrial cities to ash and rubble.
10:26If you're living in a city, in any major city in Japan, with one or two exceptions, that there's really no defence against the B-29.
10:38Japan's air power has been virtually destroyed.
10:41The Americans bomb at will.
10:43However, one weapon is still at the disposal of the Japanese government, and it's carried over the airwaves.
10:54A soft-spoken, mysterious voice, intent on striking fear and despair into the hearts of American soldiers.
11:04An English-speaking woman mocks Allied troops in a daily radio show called Zero Hour.
11:10U.S. troops affectionately nicknamed her Tokyo Rose.
11:15Tokyo Rose is the legendary radio host whose propaganda reports were broadcast during the height of the Pacific War.
11:22You are making this futile sacrifice for a people who sit snug and secure 11,000 miles away,
11:32who have never seen a grenade burst in an American's stomach.
11:36The voice taunts soldiers with tales of the infidelity of wives and girlfriends back home.
11:42There are several women used by the Japanese to make these broadcasts.
11:46The troops call them all Tokyo Rose.
11:49The voice would sometimes address particular frontline units to try and unnerve them.
11:53She would take information from Japanese intelligence and shock Americans by mentioning particular units,
12:01letting them know that the Japanese knew where they were and what they were up to.
12:05And that could really gnaw into your psyche.
12:09You know, the Japanese know every move we're making, you know, we're vulnerable.
12:15That could be quite eerie.
12:16After one of the battles, they put her over the loudspeaker for us,
12:22and she said that there were so many carriers and destroyers sunk.
12:28And I am up on lookout, and I'm looking around, and all the destroyers we had are out there.
12:36One voice of Tokyo Rose grew up in California.
12:39She is Iva Tagore.
12:40Tagore had been visiting family in Tokyo when Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941.
13:01Unable to leave the country, she was enlisted to broadcast propaganda to Allied troops.
13:06After the war, she was arrested in Japan and eventually extradited back to the U.S. and convicted of treason.
13:13Tagore, however, always denied her guilt.
13:17In 1977, she received an official pardon from President Ford.
13:23Never give up hope.
13:25Never say die.
13:27I'm glad I didn't.
13:30May the 19th.
13:31No propaganda can now cast doubt on who will win the war.
13:35Japan has been devastated by bombing raids.
13:40Allied ships and aircraft have cut her off from the remnants of her empire.
13:44The blockade is dubbed Operation Starvation.
13:54Japan's merchant shipping fleet is virtually destroyed.
13:57U.S. submarines have wreaked havoc across the Pacific.
14:00American submarines and American air power have cut the sea lanes on which Japan depends for raw resources to feed her factories and also for the food that she needs to feed her people.
14:14I mean, we're dealing with an island whose area is 90% mountain with a high population.
14:19Scouring the shipping lanes of the Pacific, American subs are responsible for half of all Japan's naval losses, including eight carriers and over five million tons of merchant shipping.
14:31The most effective sub used against Japan is the Gato-class.
14:34The Gato-class, which could reach a depth of 300 feet, entered service just before the beginning of the Pacific War.
14:42The Gato-class submarine was the standard American submarine during World War II.
14:52It was called a fleet boat.
14:54And the reason they called it a fleet boat was because it was made to operate with the fleet.
14:58The original doctrine for submarine operations was it was sort of being a scout for the fleet.
15:04She was armed with 10 torpedo tubes and a three-inch deck gun.
15:08Her top speed was 20 knots on the surface and about half that when submerged.
15:15The Gato itself was about 300 feet long.
15:19Carried a crew 74, 75, could be up to 80 some odd.
15:24The crews would have to hot-rack it.
15:30That is to say, you and I would share a bit.
15:34And that is to say, well, you're on much, I'm in bed.
15:37When I roll out, you roll in.
15:39So it was called a hot-rack.
15:42And the sheets never cooled off.
15:44The diesel engines gave a high speed and long range on the surface.
15:48When submerged, they relied on electric motors powered by batteries.
15:52But the only way these batteries could be recharged was on the surface, where a submarine is vulnerable.
16:00By the end of the war, the U.S. Navy had commissioned nearly 200 Gato-class submarines,
16:05forming the backbone of America's silent service.
16:09The Gato-class submarine was immensely successful
16:12because it isolated the Japanese home islands from the rest of the Japanese empire.
16:20And it quite literally cut them off from everything.
16:25To the point where no oil was getting in Japan.
16:28Japan itself does not have oil.
16:30They have to import every drop that they have in that island.
16:33And none was getting through.
16:36The Imperial Navy was ill-equipped to deal with the Allied submarine threat.
16:40And her own submarine service was much less effective.
16:43One in six American subs were lost in action during the war.
16:53With the Imperial Navy and Merchant Marine crippled,
16:57Japan's war industry is on the brink of total collapse.
17:00And its civilian population is starving.
17:03May the 19th, mainland Japan.
17:07The lack of imported metal restricts Japanese families to one cooking pot and one bucket per household.
17:12Everything else is melted down for the war effort.
17:16Rice, a staple of the Japanese diet, is in short supply.
17:20Prices soar and the army takes priority on whatever is available.
17:24People are forced to eat grass and acorns.
17:27Others rely on the thriving black market.
17:29Those who live in the cities trek out to the countryside to buy fruit and vegetables from farmers at inflated prices.
17:36The Japanese trade their clothes, household goods, or even treasured personal possessions to survive.
17:44But despite their suffering and shattered morale, the people of Japan remain loyal to their emperor.
17:50The suffering of the people, the devastation to average citizens,
17:55doesn't seem to have led them any closer to a decision to surrender.
17:59Or led them any closer to a willingness to bring about an end to the war.
18:03But for Japanese troops in the Philippines, no amount of determination can save them.
18:09May the 13th, the Philippines.
18:12On Mindanao, American troops capture the Del Monte airfield.
18:18On Luzon, they take the Baleti Pass, clearing the way into the Cagayan Valley.
18:22May the 15th, American troops, supported by Filipino guerrillas,
18:29prepare to attack the Ipo Dam on the Angat River amongst rugged mountains.
18:33The dam is the main source of water for Manila, under U.S. control since March.
18:44Allied troops are determined to secure the dam and restore the city's water supply.
18:48The 16th of May.
18:54Nearly 10,000 artillery shells slam into the Japanese positions around the dam.
18:59Heavy rains that have kept U.S. warplanes grounded finally subside.
19:05Over 100 American fighter bombers arrive over the Ipo Dam.
19:09The aircraft drop 50,000 gallons of napalm on the Japanese.
19:13Early the next morning, they attack again with napalm.
19:20The bombing raids pave the way for the infantry to mount a full-scale assault.
19:25The Japanese survivors fall back in disarray.
19:32The 17th of May.
19:34The next morning, the dam is in U.S. hands.
19:37The first thing the troops do is dismantle demolition charges set up by the Japanese.
19:41Driven out in such a hurry, the defenders had no time to set off the explosives.
19:48Manila's water supply is finally secure.
19:52Halfway around the world, the Big Three, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union,
19:58begin to implement their plans for post-war Europe.
20:00The strategy for reconstruction had been established three months ago at Yalta,
20:08a resort town on the Black Sea.
20:14Winston Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin had agreed to split Germany into four zones of occupation.
20:20The Allies had publicly declared that countries liberated from Nazi rule
20:24would have the chance to hold free elections and choose their own government.
20:28But now, Stalin is beginning to reveal his true plans for liberated nations.
20:39What he wanted to do was to establish communist regimes in Eastern Europe
20:45so as to make them into satellites of the Soviet Union
20:48and to serve as buffer states between the Soviet Union and the rest of Europe.
20:53And that meant, because communism was not particularly popular in countries like Hungary or Poland or Romania
21:00or the Baltic states, it meant that these would have to be dictatorships
21:05that would masquerade as popular democracies, which they never were.
21:14Stalin has no intention of respecting Polish sovereignty.
21:17Already a Moscow-backed provisional government has been foisted on the Polish people.
21:24Even before the war was over, the NKVD, the Soviet secret police,
21:29had begun arresting well-known Polish anti-communists.
21:33The Polish government in exile in London is marginalised.
21:37Socialists and communists loyal to the USSR are getting the top jobs.
21:41This treatment of Eastern European countries infuriates Winston Churchill,
21:46but also confirms his long-held suspicions about Stalin.
21:50He was haunted by the spectre that the Allies were working to achieve
21:54the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny
21:57at the expense of conceding Eastern Europe to a new tyranny, the Soviet tyranny.
22:03In London, Churchill takes to the airwaves to warn the people of Great Britain
22:07that they must still be on guard.
22:09In his radio address, he makes a veiled reference to the Soviet Union.
22:13I wish I could tell you tonight that all our toils and troubles were over,
22:19but we have yet to make sure that the simple and honourable purposes
22:23for which we entered the war are not brushed aside.
22:28There would be little use in punishing the Hitlerites
22:31if totalitarian or police government would take the place of the German invader.
22:39Following his broadcast, Churchill urges President Truman,
22:42who has only been in office for a month,
22:44to readdress the Soviet role in post-war Europe
22:47before the Western Allies begin to demobilise.
22:51Truman agrees.
22:52The next major Allied conference will be held outside Berlin,
22:56in Potsdam, in two months.
22:57As the last pockets of fanatical German defence are subdued in Eastern Europe,
23:06nations re-emerge from the shadow of Nazi tyranny.
23:11Austria, after seven years of annexation with Nazi Germany,
23:15has declared itself independent.
23:16Across Europe, the last pockets of German military resistance continue to surrender.
23:26May the 15th, Yugoslavia.
23:41Nationalist Czech Republic forces are fighting communist partisans.
23:44It is not just fighting some remnants of leftover Nazis or German units.
23:50It is also resistance against communist and Soviet authorities.
23:56These are nationalist armies which are anti-communist,
24:00which are trying to ward off the communists.
24:04Now, isolated German formations in Yugoslavia lay down their arms.
24:10Yugoslavia has paid a horrifying price for resisting the Nazis.
24:14The losses are devastating.
24:17It will be up to Josip Brods,
24:19head of the self-appointed provisional government, to heal the wounds.
24:24A charismatic and natural leader,
24:27Brods has become better known by his alias Tito.
24:31Born near the village of Kumrovec in Croatia in 1892,
24:34he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army during the First World War.
24:38Tito was taken prisoner by the Russians,
24:44and after the Russian Revolution, became an ardent communist.
24:49He returned to Yugoslavia, where he became an underground communist activist,
24:54landing him in prison several times.
24:55After serving a five-year sentence, he went to Moscow and joined the Comintern.
25:04With Allied support, Tito survived a massive German assault in 1943.
25:09The following year, the Red Army helped his partisans to liberate the capital, Belgrade.
25:14He took pride in his appearance.
25:17His boots were always clean,
25:19and he liked to be seen wearing the uniform of a marshal of the partisan army.
25:23Tito was a revolutionary,
25:28and he saw the Second World War as a way of smashing up the old society.
25:33So what he wanted to do was to use resistance to the Germans
25:36to rally people to support what would essentially be the communist cause.
25:40And that's what he was essentially planning for.
25:42He was very farsighted.
25:45By 1944, Tito controlled a sizable part of Yugoslavia.
25:49By this time, he was backed not only by the Soviets,
25:53but also by the Western Allies.
25:58After the liberation of Belgrade,
26:00he negotiated a merger of the Royal Yugoslav Government
26:03and his own Council of National Liberation.
26:07A year later, Tito went on to abolish the monarchy
26:10and establish a communist government.
26:14His refusal to take orders from Stalin
26:16led to Yugoslavia's isolation from the Soviet bloc.
26:20In 1974, Tito was made president for life.
26:24He died in 1980,
26:25leaving Yugoslavia to slip into years of economic decline
26:28and bloody civil war.
26:31May the 13th, Berlin.
26:33Inside the fallen German capital,
26:36life has become primitive.
26:37One of the greatest industrial societies in the world
26:40has been set back 100 years.
26:42In 1937, Hitler declared,
26:46give me 10 years and you will not recognise Germany.
26:50It took only eight years for his prophecy to be fulfilled.
26:54The country he led to war is barely recognisable.
26:57Three and a half million German soldiers have been killed
27:04or are listed as missing.
27:06Estimates put civilian deaths at around three million.
27:09The German currency, the Reichsmark, is now worthless.
27:14Germany is a completely destroyed country.
27:17The infrastructure is completely in ruins.
27:19The transportation system has been completely destroyed.
27:24So Germany is in a state of total collapse.
27:28Shipping was gone.
27:29All the rivers, the bridges were gone.
27:34It was just in such bad shape.
27:36I couldn't visualise at that time
27:38how they could come back.
27:41Agricultural and industrial production
27:43had collapsed months ago.
27:45Civilians rely heavily on the black market,
27:47bartering and allied food rations to survive.
27:51Instantly, there was a rapport
27:53between ordinary German civilians and the Americans.
27:56A rapport which endures to this day.
27:58The Americans were loaded with chocolate, rations
28:01and humour, in many cases, and humanity.
28:06K-rations were the result of the military's need
28:09for a lightweight food supply
28:10that could survive sometimes inhospitable conditions.
28:15In May 1942 alone,
28:18one million K-rations were ordered by the US military.
28:21They were everywhere,
28:22and they were relied upon, if not relished.
28:26I wouldn't want to put down dog food,
28:29but you opened it up and it had a funny smell.
28:32It was dry.
28:33And you're hungry, you eat it, you know?
28:37By 1944, 105 million K-rations were produced.
28:42K-rations were divided into three individually packed units,
28:46breakfast, lunch and supper.
28:48In the course of a day,
28:49the tiny boxes provided soldiers with canned meat or cheese,
28:53fruit bars, biscuits, gum, water purification tablets,
28:57salt, sugar, a can opener and a spoon.
28:59A day's meal provided 2,700 calories,
29:06but the most valued inclusions were often the cigarettes and packets of coffee.
29:10I mean, we all survived as far as the food was concerned,
29:17but the greatest pleasure was coffee.
29:22I mean, I don't know how much coffee I consumed,
29:25or my buddies consumed,
29:26but we got a chance to have a cup of hot coffee.
29:29It went, it went, it's still your soul for it sometimes.
29:34In the wake of Germany's surrender,
29:37many European civilians and refugees
29:39would rely upon the generosity of American GIs and their K-rations.
29:43We ran across many displaced people.
29:47These are people who were in bad shape.
29:49Most of them were in advanced stages of hunger.
29:56They were really in bad shape and had been ill-treated.
30:01We met many of them.
30:03And we gave them handouts frequently.
30:06We had extra rations.
30:08We might give them some rations.
30:10K-rations would be phased out in 1946.
30:13Leftover stocks were used in civilian feeding programmes
30:16in post-war Europe and Japan.
30:19May the 14th, Berlin, the German capital,
30:23once the prized jewel of Hitler's Third Reich,
30:26is now a vast wasteland.
30:28Soviet troops are still ransacking the city.
30:33Businesses, shops and homes are looted.
30:36German women, young and old, are raped without mercy.
30:39It is estimated that as many as 100,000 women have been raped.
30:45Thousands of these victims kill themselves.
30:49There was no cultural tradition of suicide in Germany before the Second World War,
30:57but at least tens of thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands,
31:01we shall never know exactly if Germans kill themselves,
31:04either just before the end of the Second World War or just after,
31:07because they just couldn't cope with the idea of the enormity of the burden of the Third Reich,
31:16which they had inherited,
31:18and secondly, we're trying to come to terms with what might come after.
31:21As the German people are forced to deal with defeat and conquest,
31:27across the seas, German U-boats surface and surrender.
31:33May the 15th, German U-boat U-234 is taken into custody by US Navy destroyer Sutton.
31:40Several high-ranking German officers, as well as the crew and other passengers,
31:44are transferred to a US Coast Guard ship.
31:48Two Japanese officers, on board as passengers, have chosen suicide over surrender.
31:54May the 19th, as the U-boat's cargo is unloaded in New Hampshire,
32:00a startling discovery is made.
32:04Aboard the German submarine are ten containers marked Japanese Army,
32:09containing uranium oxide.
32:14Half a tonne of uranium is found.
32:16Every ounce is valuable to the United States and its atomic bomb programme.
32:20The cargo had been en route to Japan,
32:23but Admiral Dönitz, Hitler's successor,
32:25had ordered all German U-boats to surrender on May the 8th.
32:29The finding not only reveals the level of scientific cooperation between Germany and Japan,
32:34but also assists America's own top-secret weapons project.
32:38May the 15th, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
32:41Scientists recruited to harness the atom's destructive energy
32:44have completed the outer shell of one weapon under development.
32:47But more uranium is needed in order for the bomb to become fully operational.
32:53The discovery of uranium aboard the U-234
32:56is an unbelievable and timely stroke of luck.
32:59The uranium is sent to Los Alamos,
33:02one of three sites dedicated to the American atomic bomb programme,
33:06dubbed the Manhattan Project.
33:07Towards the end of the Second World War,
33:16the use of atomic energy as a weapon had become a reality.
33:20The U.S. started its exploration of the destructive potential of nuclear fission in 1939,
33:25when two famous physicists, Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein,
33:30warned President Roosevelt that Germany might have plans for its own atomic bomb.
33:34But it was not until December 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbour
33:39that the United States gave it serious attention.
33:44By 1942, a report written by Dr. Vannevar Bush,
33:48head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development,
33:51made the case that an atomic bomb was possible and ought to be a top priority.
33:55The resulting programme became known as the Manhattan Project,
34:01named after the Manhattan Engineer District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
34:05where much of the early research was done.
34:09Major General Leslie Groves was made the project's director.
34:12I know what I thought at that time,
34:17which was that they were about maybe 60% at the most chance of success.
34:24But as far as I was concerned,
34:26it was important for me to always display to everyone in the organisation
34:32the utmost confidence in our success.
34:35And that was done throughout.
34:36From the day that I took over,
34:38never once did I utter any doubt as to our success,
34:42to anyone in the organisation.
34:46Groves ordered the purchase of 1,250 tonnes of uranium ore
34:50stored on Staten Island.
34:55Highly classified and compartmentalised,
34:58three sites were chosen for atomic research and development.
35:01Groves oversaw the purchase of 59,000 acres at Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
35:05where scientists would process natural uranium into bomb-grade uranium.
35:10Books have been written about Oak Ridge
35:12because it's, just sociologically, it's an amazing phenomenon, you know.
35:17They put out a town paper and they said,
35:19you can't take this town paper off the site,
35:21but they know people are going to send clippings home
35:23and that kind of stuff.
35:25So they told people, they never used any last names.
35:30They reported on the high school football games and that kind of thing.
35:33And, you know, Bob ran for a touchdown and Myrtle had a baby and, you know.
35:39And there was no... It was really amazing.
35:43There were two other top-secret sites vital to the project.
35:48At Hanford, plutonium, seen as another viable bomb material, was produced.
35:53And at Los Alamos in New Mexico,
35:57an international team of scientists would work on creating a bomb from these materials.
36:03It was an isolated laboratory on top of a mountain
36:06that for years was an isolated boys' school.
36:10One little road that brought you up from Santa Fe,
36:12every place has a name.
36:14The fun name and the name used for Los Alamos was the hill by everybody there.
36:20Where do you work? I work on the hill.
36:22Where do you live? I live on the hill.
36:24It was a hill.
36:27That was it.
36:28Even within these three sites, people were on a need-to-know-only basis.
36:32When you arrived there, one of your initial lectures was
36:38mouth closed, imagination dead, forget it, loose-lipped sink chips.
36:49Mounted military police patrolled the rugged areas
36:52surrounding the Los Alamos reservation.
36:56Oak Ridge was guarded by more than 3,000 military policemen.
36:59A friend that I'd gone to high school with was down there,
37:03and he dropped a letter in the mailbox in downtown Knoxville
37:06back to his landlady in Berkeley.
37:09And when he got back to his dormitory room in Oak Ridge,
37:12there the letter was slipped under the door with a note,
37:15please use the mail drop.
37:17Because they didn't want mail going directly from Oak Ridge to Berkeley.
37:20They didn't want to tie those two towns together.
37:22You were supposed to go into a mail drop in Ohio or someplace, you know.
37:26For more than three years,
37:27many of the world's greatest scientists,
37:30including Dr. Robert Oppenheimer,
37:32worked on the project in total secrecy.
37:34They had the posters, you know,
37:37enemy ears are near your beers and all that stuff.
37:39They had security posters everywhere.
37:43Of course, part of the thing was,
37:45you were more scared of doing the wrong thing
37:47in front of an FBI agent
37:48than you were of running into an enemy agent.
37:51As the scientific director of the project,
37:54Oppenheimer's role was vital.
37:56But even he was not privy to every aspect of the project.
38:01The nature of the job was only in part known,
38:06the nature of the technical job,
38:09the rather odd conditions
38:13under which we were to live and work
38:15in the hope of keeping things secret.
38:19In time, the total workforce involved in the Manhattan project
38:24swelled to an estimated 600,000 men and women.
38:28Two billion US dollars,
38:30equivalent to 11 billion pounds today,
38:32would be spent on the design, testing,
38:35and manufacture of three atom bombs,
38:37Gadget, Little Boy, and Fat Man.
38:39By the spring of 1945,
38:42a war-weary American public
38:44is ready for a swift end
38:46to the battle in the Pacific.
38:48The big push came after VED,
38:51after the victory in Europe.
38:53There was a big question in a lot of scientists' minds.
38:56Gee, we were working on this with such intensity
38:58because we were scared the Nazis were going to get it.
39:01So suddenly, that excuse was gone.
39:04And the question was,
39:05gee, should we really go on and keep doing this?
39:08And, of course, the people in the Pacific
39:11were quick to tell us
39:13that there was still a pretty serious war going on there.
39:17Billboards were erected at all locations
39:19where bomb production was underway,
39:21a constant reminder to the scientists
39:23that American casualties were mounting daily.
39:29We've been told our job is to end the war.
39:32And this big billboard shows a guy in a trench
39:35and the bomb has just gone off it.
39:38He's obviously just been hit.
39:40And it says,
39:41whose son will die in the last minute of the war?
39:45Our job is to end the war.
39:47Minutes count.
39:49And every day when you went to work,
39:51there that was staring you in the face.
39:52So we knew why we were there.
39:53Next, on the last days of World War II,
40:06in Germany, the Allies round up
40:08some of the most notorious Nazi war criminals.
40:10But many, including Heinrich Himmler,
40:13cheat justice.
40:14There was the crunch of a cyanide file
40:18and that was the end of Himmler.
40:20In the Philippines,
40:22the stage is set for the final showdown
40:24between General MacArthur and General Yamashita.
40:28And in Washington,
40:30plans are made for the invasion of mainland Japan
40:32that many fear will become a bloodbath.
40:35You're expecting anywhere from half a million
40:38to a million casualties.
40:39In the Philippines,
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