- 6/26/2025
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00:00Previously, on the last days of World War II, the battle for the Rhineland, Field Marshal
00:05Montgomery's 21st Army Group has reached the Rhine.
00:09US General Omar Bradley gets there too, via Operation Lumberjack.
00:13Now they face Germany's last natural line of defence.
00:20On the Eastern Front, Stalin's Red Army continued its advance across Poland towards Berlin.
00:26And in the Pacific, US reinforcements arrived in the Philippines as the torture of thousands
00:31of POWs at the hands of the Japanese was exposed.
00:36This week, following an unexpected opportunity, the Allies make a daring charge across the Rhine.
00:42As they battle to secure the region, their sights are set on Berlin.
00:48In the Pacific, the Americans introduce unorthodox and controversial new bombing methods.
00:53The firestorms unleashed on Japan torch the capital city, the most deadly night in the history
00:59of warfare.
01:00The 4th of March.
01:14The 4th of March.
01:28As the week begins, Operation Lumberjack is in full swing.
01:32Led by General Omar Bradley, the US 12th Army Group advances into the Rhineland.
01:37The plan. From the north, the 1st Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Hodges, will capture Cologne.
01:45From the south, Lieutenant General Patton's 3rd Army will take Kobletts, bringing the entire 12th Army Group to the banks of the Rhine.
01:54Once there, the Allies would attempt an historic and long-awaited crossing of the river.
02:01For Germans, the Rhine was a very important cultural icon, but it also had tremendous strategic significance.
02:08This would presumably be a great strategic barrier to Allied armies trying to get into the heartland of Germany.
02:20The 5th of March. The US 1st Army reaches the outskirts of Cologne and thrusts south towards Bonn and Remargen.
02:27The same day, Patton unleashes an assault on Germany's struggling 5th Panzer Army, in a drive towards the Rhine.
02:36Moving faster than the Nazi Blitzkrieg, Patton's 3rd Army has advanced 12 miles by nightfall.
02:41In Berlin, Germany's desperation is increasingly apparent.
02:48Hitler announces the conscription of all males born in 1929.
02:5216-year-old boys serving in the People's Army, the Volkssturm, are now sent to the front line.
02:57By this point in the war, the only people left to fight were very young boys, 13, 14 years of age,
03:08and very old or infirm men, 60, 65 years old.
03:12So it was not a terribly effective fighting force.
03:16The 6th of March. In just 24 hours, Cologne, already battered by Allied air raids,
03:21falls to the US 1st Army as the 3rd Army reaches the Rhine, northwest of Koblenz.
03:26US troops drive into the beleaguered city.
03:30Cologne's population has dwindled from 1 million residents to only 150,000.
03:35Much of the city has been destroyed.
03:37But standing tall among the smoke and ruins is the great 13th century Gothic cathedral,
03:42which has survived largely intact.
03:52By March of 1945, the Allied bombing campaigns
03:56had heavily damaged, if not destroyed, every major German city.
04:01There was virtually no city that was untouched.
04:04Every city of 50,000 inhabitants or more
04:07had been the target of at least one Allied bombing raid,
04:10and in the case of important cities like Frankfurt or Berlin,
04:14Cologne, the subject of multiple raids.
04:16A map of Germany at the time indicating the damage to the cities is almost covered in black.
04:24There would have been, by March of 1945, millions of people without homes,
04:28millions of people on the roads looking for shelter, looking for food,
04:31looking for some way of escaping the bombings.
04:33To the south, Patton's armoured spearhead has advanced 40 miles,
04:40taking 5,000 German prisoners along the way.
04:44As US forces push on towards the Rhine, the German army pulls back.
04:49One by one, every bridge across the Rhine is destroyed.
04:52To allow one to fall into the hands of Allied forces is punishable by death.
05:01Discipline within the German military was brutal.
05:05As they retreated back into Germany itself,
05:08they fought with even greater ferocity.
05:11This was, after all, they're fighting for their own homes,
05:14their own territory, their country.
05:16But there was no real way out.
05:18Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower must now decide
05:23where to make the main crossing of the Rhine.
05:26Hodge's US armies in the south are not yet in position to secure the river.
05:30Across the river, the terrain is hilly and wooded,
05:33ideal for the German defenders.
05:42Strategically, Eisenhower knows the crossing should be made by Montgomery's forces.
05:46Montgomery's 21st Army Group is in position along the Rhine River,
05:52opposite the vital Ruhr Valley,
05:54the industrial heart of the German war machine.
06:00The Germans were obviously aware of Allied intentions
06:02and aware of the importance of that industrial output.
06:06The Ruhr was always heavily protected by anti-aircraft guns.
06:10It was one of the least popular targets among Allied fliers for that reason.
06:14The Germans made every effort to protect that industry,
06:18both by dispersing it, by moving some of it underground,
06:21by moving it into caves and mountains to hide it,
06:24and then to protect it.
06:28Montgomery's planned crossing at the Ruhr
06:29would place his troops on the edge of the vast North German plain,
06:33within striking distance of Berlin.
06:35As Eisenhower orders Monty to prepare for the crossing of the Rhine,
06:41an unexpected opportunity changes everything.
06:44The 7th of March,
06:46as the 7th Corps of Hodge's 1st Army moves into Cologne,
06:50his 3rd Corps begins its final push towards the Rhine.
06:57Meanwhile, Hodge's 9th Armoured Division
06:59is aiming to capture the town of Remargen
07:01on the west bank of the river, south of Bonn.
07:05It is an overcast and drizzly day,
07:08the air dank and miserable.
07:10Low cloud keeps Allied aircraft grounded.
07:13The 9th Armoured Division will have no air support.
07:17But one US Army artillery spotter plane
07:19manages to take off in search of possible targets.
07:22Lieutenant Harold Larson is the pilot,
07:24accompanied by his observer, Lieutenant Frank Vaughan.
07:31At 10.30am, as Larson and Vaughan approach Remargen,
07:35they make a startling discovery.
07:39Through the fog,
07:40they spot a major bridge spanning the Rhine.
07:43The Ludendorff Railway Bridge,
07:45named after the German First World War General,
07:48is still standing.
07:54The official US military report of the incident
07:57would be filed three months later.
07:59Lieutenant Larson said that when he passed through the area,
08:05he was amazed at the large number of AA guns
08:07which might have fired,
08:09and brought him down like a clay pigeon.
08:11At approximately 10.30,
08:13when the Cub Plane was about 2 to 3 miles west of the Rhine,
08:16the Ludendorff Bridge was observed to be intact.
08:20This was the first sighting of the bridge
08:21on the day it was crossed.
08:26Larson radios the news to General Hodge,
08:28who immediately orders the troops' nearest Remargen
08:30to take the bridge.
08:32Men of the 27th Armoured Infantry Battalion,
08:35commanded by Lieutenant Karl Timmermann,
08:37are ordered to lead the advance.
08:4012pm.
08:41Allied forces reach a cliff overlooking the Rhine.
08:44Peering into the distance,
08:45they can't believe their eyes.
08:47The Ludendorff Bridge is still intact.
08:49They soon spot German defenders
08:51retreating across the bridge.
08:53Intelligence reports say the bridge will be blown at 4pm,
08:57just a few hours away.
08:58Hodge issues his orders.
09:00Capture the bridge and do it quickly.
09:02And I said, listen,
09:07we're going to run across that bridge in a few minutes.
09:09So my captain said to us,
09:11get our butts across that bridge,
09:12turn right,
09:13and fight for your life,
09:15and may God bless us all.
09:17One hour later,
09:18and minutes away from their deadline,
09:20US infantry approach the bridge,
09:22having faced only light resistance.
09:24They are supported by a platoon of the new Pershing tanks.
09:27The tanks attempt to knock out German machine guns
09:33and anti-aircraft guns firing from the other bank.
09:38Suddenly, as Timmerman is ordered to take his men across the bridge,
09:42there are two enormous explosions,
09:44one from a demolition charge at the western end,
09:47and one two-thirds of the way across.
09:50The bridge still stands.
09:53Timmerman wastes no time.
09:55Under heavy artillery fire,
09:56he and his platoon charge across the bridge.
10:00We ran across that damn bridge so fast.
10:03And as we run across the bridge,
10:05I'll never forget,
10:06the German dropped a bomb
10:07and shook the bridge.
10:10There was a big hole in the bridge,
10:11and we had to jump over the bridge.
10:13Otherwise, you'll land it in the right river.
10:16And we ran across the bridge,
10:17and we turned right, and we fought.
10:21I'll never forget running across that bridge.
10:24As they charge,
10:25a squad of U.S. Army engineers cut any wires
10:28that might be leading to demolition charges.
10:31Approximately 1,000 pounds of explosives
10:33are dropped into the river.
10:35Sergeant Alex Drebic races past the towers
10:37and is the first Allied soldier to cross the Rhine.
10:40Sergeant Joe D'Alessio reaches the right-hand tower
10:42and silences a German machine-gun squad.
10:50The Germans launch planes,
10:52including some of the first jet bombers,
10:54in an attempt to destroy the bridge.
10:56But the attacks are unsuccessful.
10:58The 27th Armored Infantry Battalion's gallant dash
11:07across the Rhine allows the Allies
11:09to establish a crucial bridgehead.
11:11A few days later,
11:16Lieutenant Colonel Engerman and Lieutenant Grimble
11:18tell the story of the bridge's capture.
11:20On March the 7th at about noon
11:27with Lieutenant Grimble
11:29as my advance guard commander,
11:31my column came to the hill there
11:34which commands a view of this whole valley.
11:37I formulated a plan to come into the town
11:41and reach the approach to the bridge.
11:43The tanks immediately took position
11:45and began firing across
11:47at the Germans who were on the bridge.
11:51In a few minutes,
11:52two detonations occurred on the bridge.
11:55And if the bridge was still in one piece,
11:57the infantry then started moving across.
12:00It was about 3.30 at that time.
12:02The tanks covered the towers
12:04and fired on them.
12:05The Germans jumped from the top
12:07to the towers to the bridge.
12:09They ran back across the bridge
12:11and our infantry pursued them.
12:13And that's all there was to it.
12:15News that a Rhine bridge
12:18has been captured soon reaches Eisenhower.
12:20He instructs the 12th Army Group Commander,
12:22Omar Bradley,
12:23to push as many men across the Rhine as he can.
12:26Anti-aircraft guns are set up around the bridge.
12:29Fighters patrol overhead.
12:32These planes started flying over.
12:35It was virtually a blackout of the sun.
12:40There were so many airplanes.
12:42We had such power of the skies
12:45that it was comforting for us on the ground
12:49to know that these fellas were up there
12:51doing their job.
12:54Allied engineers work desperately
12:56to repair the planking over the railway lines
12:58so that tanks and other vehicles can cross.
13:00By nightfall, 600 Americans are on the Rhine's east bank.
13:08We were one of the first to cross over.
13:11And when we got to the other side,
13:13there was a cigar factory.
13:16So we liberated a lot of cigars.
13:19And then we had the champagne.
13:20So as these tankers would come across,
13:24the guy sticks his head up in the middle,
13:25we'd give him a box of cigars
13:27and some bottles of champagne
13:29and say, welcome to Germany.
13:31The 8th of March.
13:33Shortly after midnight,
13:35Colonel Ingemann's tanks are poised
13:36for the final push into Germany.
13:40March 1945.
13:43Nearly 11 million people are on the move in Germany.
13:45Most are attempting to flee as the Allies advance.
13:50Virtually every German soldier
13:52was at some point taken prisoner.
13:53There were millions held prisoner in the Soviet Union.
13:55People had anxieties about them.
13:57There were so many refugees on the road.
13:59People had concerns about
14:00where the members of their family were.
14:03They had concerns for their own daily survival.
14:06The citizens in the major cities of Germany
14:09had already evacuated women and children
14:11out of the cities.
14:12Most of the major cities had been attacked
14:14and really were reduced to rubble
14:16by the spring of 1945.
14:19Others, despite the chaos and destruction,
14:22are hoping to find their way back
14:23to the ravaged city of Berlin.
14:25The 7th of March.
14:27Among those who return is Eva Braun,
14:29Hitler's long-term mistress.
14:31She leaves her retreat in the Bavarian Alps
14:33to join the Führer,
14:35who refuses to leave the embattled German capital.
14:38There was a lot of talk about getting out of Berlin.
14:40It was clear the Russians were coming,
14:42that Berlin would be cut off,
14:43if all the military people could see this.
14:45So there was a good deal of pressure exerted on Hitler
14:49by his military leaders as well as party leaders
14:52to leave Berlin and to go to Berchtesgaden,
14:55to the Oberzalzberg, this area where there were more bunkers
14:58in the mountains, the Alps,
15:00where a last stand could be made, who knows, for how long.
15:03News of the Allied bridgehead across the Rhine
15:06makes its way to Berlin.
15:08Hitler is alarmed and furious.
15:12Nobody was saying Heil Hitler anymore as a greeting.
15:15They were supposed to.
15:16No, very few people ever did anymore.
15:19Instead, in Berlin, when one said,
15:21instead of saying Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye,
15:22they would say, Bleib übrig, which means survive.
15:25Hitler immediately fires the Commander-in-Chief of the West,
15:29Field Marshal von Rundstedt, along with four other generals.
15:33For several days, German troops in the West will be without a leader.
15:39March the 8th, the next day at Remargen,
15:41despite constant shelling by German defences,
15:44more than 8,000 U.S. troops and 50 armoured vehicles
15:47crossed the Ludendorff Bridge.
15:51Once we made it across the bridge,
15:54we were greeted by Colonel Jeter,
15:56and he gave us a welcome speech,
15:59and he told us,
16:02now that you're going up online,
16:03you have to take off those overcoats
16:05and those galoshes.
16:08And I asked him, why?
16:09He said, because they tend to hold you back.
16:14He said, you don't need nothing to hold you back.
16:17We're into Germany now, and we're here to stay.
16:20The Germans throw all the forces they can muster
16:23against the bridgehead.
16:25The German planes were trying to knock out the bridge and whatnot,
16:28and they'd have their dogfight over top of our foxholes,
16:31and sometimes the spent shells would be coming down all around us.
16:34So we used to say, go fight someplace else.
16:36You know what I mean?
16:37We have enough problems here on the ground.
16:39The remnants of three German armored divisions move in,
16:42but their reactions are slowed by confusion in the chain of command,
16:46relentless U.S. artillery fire,
16:48and a severe shortage of fuel.
16:50Fuel was a real bottleneck in the German military supply system.
16:55Germany effectively doesn't have any of its own native supplies of petroleum,
17:01so it was forced to import whatever it could get.
17:04Given all of the blunders and the material shortages and so forth,
17:07the German defeat in the spring of 1945,
17:10while purchased at high cost in the previous years,
17:13was beginning to look inevitable.
17:16An additional 1,400 pounds of explosives are removed from wells in the bridge piers.
17:22One engineer described the work.
17:24We started working back this way, and we found one main charge,
17:28about 500 pounds.
17:29It hadn't been detonated.
17:30We neutralized that.
17:33We worked on this way.
17:35We came to the pier.
17:36The pier had two big separate wells in it.
17:39It filled with explosives.
17:41We cut the wires to that because they were too heavy to lift out.
17:44Word of the Remargan bridge crossing also reaches Joseph Stalin in Moscow.
17:50He grows anxious over the race to Berlin.
17:55The 8th of March, Moscow.
17:58After receiving word of the American Rhine crossing,
18:00Stalin is determined that the Red Army will take Berlin.
18:03He summons his top commander, General Zhukov, back to Moscow.
18:07He is ordered to review the planning of their Berlin operation.
18:10The other commander was Konev,
18:14another prominent and successful Russian commander.
18:17And the real race to Berlin is not between American allied armies and the Soviets,
18:24but between these two Soviet generals
18:26for the honor of capturing the German capital first.
18:30And Stalin intentionally cultivated a rivalry between the two for this honor
18:34and essentially said,
18:36whoever can get there first wins the glory.
18:40The 9th of March, Remargan.
18:44As the Germans continue their defense,
18:47landing craft manned by U.S. Navy personnel
18:49arrive to help secure the bridgehead.
18:5311 a.m.
18:55U.S. engineers begin operating the first of three ferries
18:58that will cross the Rhine.
18:59Then they undertake the enormous task of building footbridges,
19:02a treadway bridge and a pontoon bridge.
19:05There's a major river that flows north-south in Europe about every 50 miles.
19:12And getting across these things is a major engineering operation.
19:18There's a couple ways you can do that.
19:20One is to use the existing bridges that are there.
19:24The problem is the other guy is smart.
19:26He blows them.
19:26So that means then the good old engineers have to build you a bridge.
19:36The Rhine crossings will test the Allied Engineering Corps to the limit.
19:39The bridgehead in World War II terms is both sides of the river.
19:49So they had to be prepared.
19:51You had to make it so that vehicles could get into these bridgehead areas easily
19:56and get out of them once they got across the river.
20:00Not an easy task.
20:01Not an easy task at all.
20:03It sounds easy, but when you're doing this under fire,
20:05it's pretty difficult to do.
20:077,000 servicemen will be involved in the massive bridge-building operations at Remargan,
20:16across 1,500 feet of fast-flowing river.
20:20Supplies are regularly hauled in from Toul in France,
20:23a 300-mile round-trip journey.
20:33The pontoon bridge is made from 12-foot floating rubber sections
20:37called Treadways.
20:38They are assembled quickly offshore,
20:40then transported to the river by cranes and cables.
20:43Most of the construction is done rapidly
20:45and under the constant threat of enemy fire.
20:4835 soldiers are killed by snipers,
20:51yet the bridge is still completed in 32 hours.
20:54Across those pontoons, they had two metal beams,
20:58and they could be connected together,
21:00so they could form at any length.
21:02And you could set them the length of a tank track
21:05and literally drive a tank across the Treadway pontoon bridge.
21:09Really a marvel of engineering.
21:12The pontoon bridge at Remargan is the longest bridge built under fire
21:16by the U.S. engineers in World War II.
21:19By the end of the war,
21:22Allied engineers have built 67 bridges across the Rhine,
21:26allowing 60,000 army vehicles and countless Allied troops
21:29to participate in the final push against Germany.
21:32The 9th of March.
21:41The Germans are now desperate to destroy the bridge
21:43they left standing in their hasty retreat.
21:46The Luftwaffe attacks the bridge
21:47using Me 262 jets and dive bombers.
21:53They are met by a wall of anti-aircraft fire.
21:57To halt the Allied advance,
21:58the Germans also employ a massive 170mm railway gun.
22:02And in desperation, fire V2 missiles against the bridge.
22:11In Berlin, a raging Hitler orders a court-martial
22:15to apportion blame for the Remargan bridge capture.
22:18His campaign to eliminate defeatism
22:20and incompetence amongst his own officers
22:22extends to the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine.
22:25Over the next week,
22:26five junior officers who had been in command around Remargan
22:29are court-martialed.
22:31Four others are executed immediately.
22:44The 10th of March.
22:46Hitler replaces Rundstedt with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring,
22:50nicknamed Smiling Albert.
22:52But now, four Allied divisions are holding the Remargan bridgehead.
22:57In the chaos and euphoria,
22:59one sobering fact is overlooked.
23:01The bridge is not where the Allied forces need to cross the Rhine.
23:05It is isolated at the end of a narrow corridor.
23:08If they were to push forward from Remargan into the hilly countryside,
23:12they risk being cut off.
23:13Eisenhower tells Hodges to continue to send his forces across the river,
23:25but not to advance.
23:26The main Allied crossing would still be made by the British,
23:29north of the Ruhr.
23:31In Berlin, Hitler knows Remargan is not the only crisis he faces.
23:35Coming up, Hitler's last offensive in the east faces harsh weather,
23:41a lack of fuel and a ferocious Red Army,
23:44while a botched robbery in Holland results in one of the most notorious Nazi war crimes.
23:49The 6th of March.
23:55Against the advice of his generals,
23:57Hitler launches his last offensive
23:58in a bid to rescue the vital oil fields of Hungary.
24:02Its codename is Frulingsvavaken, Spring Awakening.
24:06Ironically, the Spring Thor has transformed the landscape to mud.
24:12Despite constant air attacks,
24:14Hitler has transported his once mighty 6th Panzer Army across Europe
24:18and repositioned it north of Lake Balaton.
24:23Under the command of his loyal old warrior,
24:26General Joseph Sepp Dietrich,
24:28they strike east towards the Danube,
24:30while the 2nd Panzer Army advances south to the lake,
24:33hoping to trap the Soviets in a pincer.
24:39Dietrich was an SS soldier to the core,
24:41greatly admired by Hitler.
24:43As part of the Führer's inner circle,
24:45he accompanied Hitler on many trips and events,
24:47and was a regular visitor to Hitler's retreat in the Bavarian Alps.
24:56When he had joined the Nazi Party in 1928,
24:59Dietrich was already a decorated soldier.
25:02He was soon given command of the Führer's personal bodyguard.
25:06In 1934, he had been made SS-Obergruppenführer,
25:10equivalent to an army general.
25:12When war broke out,
25:13he earned a reputation as an able commander in France and Russia.
25:19By June 1944,
25:22Dietrich was commanding three divisions of the 1st Panzer Corps.
25:25Hitler promoted him further,
25:27putting him in charge of the powerful 6th Panzer Army,
25:30which he led in the failed Ardenne offensive.
25:32Although a deeply committed SS-General,
25:35Dietrich did not agree with the most extreme Nazi policies.
25:39Twice he had protested directly to the Führer
25:41about the murdering of Jews.
25:44Nevertheless, Hitler never lost faith in Sepp Dietrich,
25:48although Dietrich would finally become disillusioned
25:50with his Führer's defence of Germany.
25:52Now, at Lake Balaton,
25:54Dietrich faces impossible obstacles.
25:57Mud, fuel shortages,
25:58fierce Russian opposition.
26:00Within 10 days,
26:01the offensive grinds to a halt.
26:03The oil fields are lost.
26:05In three weeks,
26:08the overwhelming advance of the Red Army
26:10would take them within five miles of Vienna,
26:12where Dietrich's last battle will be fought.
26:18But the Nazis are still capable of appalling atrocities
26:21in the occupied areas that the Allies have yet to reach.
26:26In March 1945,
26:28most of the Netherlands is still under Nazi occupation.
26:31German troops had invaded in 1940,
26:33after which the country was governed by an SS Reich Commissioner.
26:37Panic-stricken Jews had attempted to escape the country.
26:40Some made their way southward through France
26:42to eventually find sanctuary in Spain, Portugal or Switzerland.
26:47200 others were evacuated to Britain.
26:52The 6th of March 1945.
26:55Dutch civilians had endured their harshest winter of the war
26:58with little food or fuel.
27:00Starvation is a constant threat.
27:02Nevertheless, the resistance movement is fierce.
27:05Dutch fighters plan to hijack a German vehicle
27:08taking food and supplies to an SS base.
27:15In the dark of night,
27:17a BMW convertible is stopped by men dressed in German uniforms.
27:21Suspecting a trap,
27:22the car keeps moving,
27:24but is stopped by machine gun fire.
27:25The driver and rear-seat passenger are killed.
27:32The passenger in the front seat is wounded, but alive.
27:35He is none other than General Hans Rauter,
27:38the head of Nazi security and police in the Netherlands.
27:41For nearly five years,
27:42Rauter has terrorised the Dutch people
27:44and overseen the deportation of Dutch Jews.
27:47Following the ambush,
27:54German troops discover the damaged car.
27:57Rauter is taken to a hospital and treated for his injuries.
28:00The Nazis assume the botched robbery is an assassination attempt.
28:03Rauter's deputy orders immediate reprisals.
28:09The 8th of March,
28:11116 men are rounded up and transported to the ambush scene.
28:15They are all shot dead,
28:16then buried in a mass grave.
28:18In Gestapo prisons all over the Netherlands,
28:21prisoners are taken out and shot.
28:25By the end of the Nazi retaliation,
28:28262 people have been killed,
28:31amongst the most notorious war crimes
28:33ever committed in the Netherlands.
28:37Coming up,
28:38the Nazi regime is cornered by the looming Allied advance.
28:41The Nazis understood the war was lost,
28:44and so the regime ratcheted up the system of terror.
28:48And in the skies over Japan,
28:50a wave of B-29s brings fire and death to the capital.
28:54I think that plane helped win the war.
28:56They couldn't win on the ground.
28:58They had to win it in the air.
29:02The 9th of March, 1945.
29:05In a night raid,
29:06325 B-29s,
29:08packed with incendiaries,
29:09approach Tokyo.
29:15Over the past three years,
29:16the Japanese military has failed
29:18to anticipate America's build-up of military air power.
29:21They have concentrated on sea power,
29:23and ignored the warning given by the Doolittle Raid of 1942
29:26that the Imperial homeland is not invulnerable.
29:36Boeing's B-29 is the most advanced bomber of World War II.
29:39The Japanese never had anything that would even compare with the B-29.
29:46Powered by four radial engines,
29:48it's the first U.S. bomber fitted with radar.
29:51Its fully pressurized crew compartments
29:53allow the aircraft to reach 40,000 feet.
30:00They didn't have that on any other plane.
30:02The idea was to be able to have comfort
30:05and be able to get to high altitude
30:06without everybody wearing gas masks.
30:08And the radar was something that B-17s didn't have,
30:12and it made all the difference in the world.
30:18Armed with one cannon and ten machine guns,
30:20it is the first plane to operate its guns by remote control.
30:24By mid-1944, sufficient B-29s were available
30:29to set up two bomber commands,
30:31the 20th in India and China,
30:33and the 21st on the Marianas Islands of Saipan,
30:36Tinian and Guam.
30:39On the 24th of November 1944,
30:42a force of 111 B-29s from Saipan
30:45launched their first raid on Tokyo.
30:47They used the same high-level daylight tactics used in Europe,
30:51and quickly encounter similar problems.
30:54Radar targeting proves less precise than expected.
30:58Few bombs drop anywhere near their target,
31:01the Nakajima aircraft engine factory,
31:03which made one-third of all the engines
31:05needed by Japan's armed forces.
31:07Production at the plant continues virtually unaffected.
31:17The bombers are operating at such high altitudes
31:20that they are severely affected by the jet stream.
31:23A jet stream is very high-velocity winds at altitude.
31:26It whips and all like a snake.
31:29One of the bombardiers missed the target by two miles
31:32because they were being blown higher velocity
31:35than what they had anticipated.
31:37Anti-aircraft defences, fighters,
31:40and dangerous flying conditions take their toll.
31:42The 21st Bomber Command is losing more bombers and aircrew
31:45than it can sustain.
31:47At this rate, the average crew could expect to die within 16 missions.
31:51As American morale plunges,
32:00U.S. General Curtis LeMay orders a radical change in tactics.
32:05The 9th of March, 1945,
32:08325 B-29 bombers take off
32:10as night falls on the Marianas Islands.
32:13Their target, Tokyo.
32:18American forces on Iwo Jima,
32:20just 750 miles from Tokyo,
32:23have nearly secured the island.
32:25This means Japanese radar stations on the island
32:27can no longer give early warning of the bomber raids.
32:30LeMay sends his B-29s at low altitude
32:35to avoid the jet stream,
32:37using Allied radar as their guide.
32:39His planes should be safe flying under cover of night.
32:46Under the cloak of darkness, you don't have to go high.
32:49You can come in at 5,000 feet under the clouds.
32:53You can come in under the jet stream.
32:56You don't need all that defensive armament,
32:59so your planes are lighter.
33:00They're not fighting the winds.
33:02You don't need as much fuel.
33:03You can increase your bomb load
33:05from 2 to 3 tons to 6 tons.
33:08And also, instead of using high-explosive bombs
33:11and trying to hit precise targets,
33:12he goes to area bombing.
33:14He's going to drop incendiaries.
33:16He's not worrying about hitting a precise factory.
33:20He's going to drop firebombs in the neighborhood,
33:23burn down the entire neighborhood.
33:25The factory burns, too.
33:26LeMay knows that Japanese cities
33:30are made primarily of paper and wood,
33:32that they will burn quickly and wildly.
33:34This will prove deadly for the civilian population.
33:38The Japanese radar was not all that good,
33:41and their night fighters were practically non-existent.
33:46So they got away with it,
33:49and it worked,
33:50and it was a devastating tactic.
33:53The 10th of March, 1945.
33:55Shortly after midnight,
33:56B-29s dropped more than 1,500 tons of incendiaries on Tokyo.
34:0116 square miles of the city
34:03are transformed into a raging inferno.
34:06A column of superheated air
34:08makes conditions unstable for pilots.
34:12You had huge numbers of planes,
34:13and you would have some go in ahead of others.
34:17So the initial guys that went in,
34:18they didn't see any fires.
34:20But those that followed
34:21would be going through a firestorm.
34:24In fact, these updrafts
34:26made it like flying into a tornado or something.
34:30And massive areas would be in flames,
34:34particularly for the trailing aircraft.
34:36On the ground,
34:38the fires consume everything
34:40and everyone in their path.
34:43In the first six hours of the firestorm,
34:45nearly 83,000 Japanese civilians are killed,
34:48and a quarter of a million buildings destroyed.
34:51They injured 40,000.
34:53They left a million homeless.
34:55It was the deadliest single air raid of World War II.
34:59This was strategic bombing with a vengeance.
35:02You're dropping your bombs.
35:03You're on target.
35:04And you're just concerned about accuracy
35:09doing what you were sent to do.
35:12Two survivors, Yoshiko Hashimoto and Isukio Taki,
35:16described the horrors of that night.
35:21Before the night of March 10th,
35:23the air raids were not so bad.
35:25I remember the night of March 10th.
35:27It was very windy.
35:34While we were in the shelter,
35:37it became noisy outside.
35:39When I came out,
35:40I saw the sky in the west was completely red.
35:42My aunt was hiding from the wind with my little sister on her back.
35:56Suddenly, my aunt felt lighter.
35:58My sister had come off her back.
36:00She had become a fireball.
36:02Before the little girl fell to the ground,
36:04she was swept up in the wind.
36:05The 10th of March, 1945, 5 a.m.
36:24In Tokyo, the firestorm has ended and the all-clear is sounded.
36:29But it will take months to clear the rubble and remove the dead.
36:32The raid has achieved its objective.
36:37The massive civilian casualties shatter Japanese morale.
36:41But honor will not permit surrender.
36:47Honor was a very important concept to the Japanese soldier.
36:51It was as important as it was to his enemy,
36:53except that for him,
36:55honor meant if you have to sacrifice your life,
36:57you do that willingly.
36:58In fact, either you win or you die.
37:00The Japanese emperor insists on viewing the damage.
37:05He is appalled by what he sees,
37:07but will not order surrender.
37:08There was this feeling that if they would just quit,
37:11they've lost the war,
37:13why do they keep fighting?
37:14And that was kind of an emotional feeling.
37:17You know, you don't like to drop bombs on people.
37:19It's like fighting somebody
37:21and they're hitting them after they're already down.
37:23So there was this conviction
37:24that Japan had lost the war
37:27and they knew they had lost the war.
37:28And I think that's true,
37:31except the Japanese military code
37:33didn't have a way to quit.
37:35The war against Japan will continue.
37:40In Washington,
37:41the projected number of U.S. casualties
37:43that would result from a ground invasion of Japan
37:45is 100,000.
37:47That number is revised daily.
37:50Soon, it will be nearer 200,000.
37:52The prospect of unprecedented loss
37:54of American life in the Pacific
37:56is met with urgency.
37:58In secret laboratories,
37:59scientists work feverishly
38:01to harness the power of atomic energy.
38:03The reason why they were planning to invade Japan
38:11was that the development of the atomic bomb
38:14was, of course, a top-secret concern,
38:16so most American military planners
38:18didn't know it existed.
38:19And even those that did,
38:21it wasn't certain
38:22if a bomb was going to be developed in time
38:25or if there would be enough bombs
38:27to terrify Japan and to surrender,
38:30then there was no guarantee
38:31the Japanese were going to quit
38:32because past experience had shown
38:34that a lot of Japanese were willing to die
38:36rather than admit defeat.
38:40We get letters and posters
38:42and things all the time
38:43that says that the Secretary of War
38:45assures us that this is the most important project
38:47going on in the war period.
38:50But no one,
38:51not even the scientists themselves,
38:53are sure it's going to work.
38:54The physicists discovered the dragon,
38:57but the engineers had to harness the dragon
38:58and make him work.
39:00The highly classified research
39:02continues under rigid security.
39:06As the bloody conflict in the Pacific drags on,
39:09as the Nazis grow increasingly desperate,
39:12and as the US and Britain begin to ice Stalin
39:15with increasing suspicion,
39:17the bomb is seen not only as a means to end the war,
39:20but as a way to ensure peace.
39:24Next, on the last days of World War II,
39:30the B-29 raids on Japan continue.
39:33The residents of Tokyo learn to live in fear.
39:36There's this idea that the Japanese people
39:39have to be steadfast, faithful to the emperor,
39:42and that somehow their courage will save Japan.
39:45And not all Japanese people are buying it anymore.
39:49Inside the Reich,
39:50desperation drives Nazi leaders to extremes.
39:53The last two months of the Nazi regime
39:55are bizarre beyond belief.
39:58As Germany crumbles,
39:59they will try to hide their atrocities.
40:02The death camps,
40:03which were in the east,
40:04like Treblinka and Sobibor,
40:05there wouldn't have been anything to see
40:06except piles of ash.
40:08And Anne Frank,
40:09whose diary came to symbolize
40:11the suffering under the Nazi regime,
40:14dies of typhus inside a concentration camp.
40:16A
40:23O
40:27or
40:27a
40:28or
40:33a
40:34a
40:34a
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43:28
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