Greatest Tank Battles | Season 3 | Episode 6 | Tank Battles of the Pacific

the south pacific 1942 the us marine corps leads the attack on the pacific islands of the japanese empire and for the first time in their history they launch an amphibious assault with tanks they knew they would have to have that type of sport to knock out defensive positions in amphibious assaults all of a sudden our tank hit whole they were throwing everything but the kitchen sink of that thing people say well i didn't realize there were tanks in the pacific they seized one island fortress after another there's no real way to carry a large cannon around the battlefield for direct fire infantry support except tank but they face an enemy ready to meet them tank versus tank man we were firing and firing and firing fighting across a battlefield as wide as the ocean itself if they hit them they're gone tanks go head-to-head in the pacific war [Music] today the palm-fringed beaches of the south pacific are a destination for holidaymakers seeking paradise but in world war ii they would become a blood-soaked graveyard for the u.s marine corps in december 1941 the japanese launched a surprise attack against the united states naval base at pearl harbor hawaii striking at the heart of american power in the pacific and dragging the us into the second world war for more than 50 years the japanese have been pursuing a policy of aggressive military expansion their empire now stretches halfway across the pacific ocean from mainland asia the japanese military machine has been unstoppable swallowing one island chain after another from the marianas to the gilberts and to the solomons japan's strategy was pretty effective at this particular point because basically they had managed to run riot all through the southern pacific they had things pretty much their own way each island in its possession is now a fortress wrestling with manpower and heavy armor the goal was to make it so expensive for the americans to come back and to counter-attack them that the americans would lose hope and simply give up on recovering or counter-attacking the japanese and seizing back this empire but give up they did not and in june 1942 with a decisive naval victory at the battle of midway the americans turned the tide of war a common saying is that before midway the japanese never stopped advancing after midway the japanese never stopped retreating the americans go on the offensive and it's the marines who are tasked with rolling back the japanese empire across 6 000 kilometers of ocean with the plan to seize one island stronghold after another until they reach mainland japan itself overshadowed by the achievements of the infantry the role of the tank in the pacific war has been untold people say well i didn't i didn't realize there were tanks in the pacific there's very little written about the tanks in the case of the marine corps the infantry always has this strange love-hate relationship with tanks they don't like to be around the tank because it takes fire but when you're taking fire from an enemy position there's nothing quite like that direct fire cannon and those heavy machine guns and that armored protection to help eliminate enemy positions there's no real way to carry a large cannon around the battlefield for direct fire infantry support except tanking the marines first hurdle is guadalcanal which they seek to take with overwhelming force including 20 000 troops and more than 50 light tanks but it becomes a protracted and bloody campaign not only are the pacific islands garrisoned by tens of thousands of soldiers but the japanese are also fanatical in defense they never give up you either kill them or get killed this is war they don't give up and crucially the u.s marines frontline armored weapon the m3 light tank proves a failure the light tanks did not possess enough firepower with their small 37-millimeter cannons to do much against the major japanese defenses so the light tanks of the marine corps are replaced with the sherman the medium m4a2 sherman tank with a 75 millimeter main cannon its firepower is a significant upgrade in the marines armored capability [Music] how do they compare um like night and day it was kind of like comparing a small forward to a big cadillac with the lessons learned at guadalcanal a victory that takes six months and comes at a cost of more than seven thousand casualties the u.s marines move on to their next objective tarawa 6 000 kilometers from tokyo and part of the gilbert island chain tarawa is at the outermost edge of the japanese pacific empire it's a remote and sparsely populated atoll of tiny islands and coral reefs the japanese realized having executed several amphibious assaults themselves that the best place to defeat an amphibious assault is the water's edge where the troops are still waiting ashore where they're still knee-deep and struggling so most of their defenses were sighted around the perimeter of the island so confident is japanese rear admiral kg shibasaki he boasts that a million men could not take the island in a thousand years dug in behind the defensive sea wall at tarawa are 5 000 soldiers 65 heavy guns and seven tanks these islands were so small that the entire perimeter of the island could be fortified so there was no chance except to assault these things frontally advancing on tarawa the americans now have 14 medium tanks dozens of light tanks and 20 000 marines november 20th 1943 at 0 500 hours the american attack begins with a massive naval bombardment its aim to destroy the japanese defenses and breach the sea wall we could see the the planes dive-bombing the island the heavy cruisers were there they were they had 12-inch guns and they were blasting the island like crazy what i was worried about is i was worried about what everything might hit me at zero 900 hours the first wave of marines go in on a small island like tarawood the only thing you can do is attack right into the teeth of the defenses just kind of slog ashore and try to do the best you can in this frontal assault three waves of amtrak's lead the attack followed by sea company with 14 shermans a kilometer from the beaches they're unloaded on a coral reef then you go in the lagoon then you go in and that's when things got rough because it's now that the us tankers come within range of the japanese heavy guns all our positions on all beaches opened on enemy landing craft the americans appeared to be surprised and confused wading ashore through three feet of water under murderous fire the tankers encounter an unforeseen hazard the shell holes created by their own naval bombardment all of a sudden our tank hit a hole they were under fire i mean they would ever they were throwing everything but the kitchen sink at that thing so i opened the hatch and slid down the back of the tank into the water and i don't know how i did it without getting hit because all i could hear on the water was put put put put all over uh the six tanks i had on that beach three i've drowned out in the water but we did get a shorewood i got a shore with three vehicles but far from being destroyed the japanese sea wall is still intact barring their way and effectively trapping them on the beach the tank couldn't you can't drive over that five foot seawall and they had built in some cases positions actually into or just atop the seawall it was a very effective defense with interlocking fields and fire what remains of sea company must now run the gauntlet of the anti-tank guns desperate to find a breach through the sea wall and if they could manage to fire into the area behind the tracks they could penetrate the very thin armor there they would simply pump rounds into these tanks until they were destroyed or caught fire two tanks from bale's company find a gap in the sea wall and make it off the beach it has now taken the u.s marine six hours to establish a beachhead on tarawa and the cost has been high with 50 percent of their tank capability already destroyed looking back on it were pretty naive because the intelligence did not reveal the true nature of the japanese defenses the tenacity of the japanese but with the sea wall breached the tables have now been turned it was strange all the japanese the fences were oriented seaward and we were on shore so that once you could get in behind these things you could knock them out by attacking the rear entrances without coming under so much intense fire you had to find the opening because these things were dug into the ground and they were covered with mounds and mounds of sand we realized you had to start firing in the openings but we had not gone more than a hundred yards inland and we ran into this japanese tank showed up when i saw him and i caught him out of the corner of my eye this movement and i realized what it was the japanese tank stuck its turret up over a reventment i told the gunner and he started to traverse over there she probably had to traverse that gun 30 40 degrees to get on that target and he fired before i told him to and he missed there was a prepared possession for the japanese tank where it could sit there and then drive pull up put its turret and gun up for the revetment and fire and that's what it did the haggo light tank armed with a 37 millimeter main gun in a straight fight it should prove no match for the medium sherman m4 that projectile hit right on the end of our gun tube took a piece out of our gun tube and fragments came down the tube and it lit up like a christmas tree it was a lucky shot with a lucky shot bale's tank is disabled but he has backup the other tank that was with us fired and that other tank fired and all i know is blew the turret off we call them a tin can and that's what they are i mean compared with our tank it takes three days for the marines to clear the atoll 4 700 japanese are killed including rear admiral shibasaki with only 17 choosing to surrender and in the space of just 76 hours the marines themselves lose nearly a thousand tara caused a major change in the way the united states viewed the war and the attitudes particularly because up to that point on the home front movies had always you know depicted people with relatively bloodless shoulder wounds or people dying with a noble you know quip on their lips but for the first time the commandant of the marine corps authorized the release of photographs of american casualties including dead marines on the beach dead marines floating in the lagoon and he made the comment there is no royal road to tokyo [Music] having punctured the japanese empire's first line of defense in the pacific at tarawa in the gilbert islands the americans now advance on the marianas and the island of saipan the japanese considered the marianas actually the last defensive line before the home islands much bigger than tarawa and halfway to japan itself the marianas hold the strategic key to the war in the pacific the japanese know that if their airstrips on the marianas are captured american super fortress bombers will for the first time be within range of tokyo itself so they were prepared to defend these things with a major effort june 15 1944 the u.s marines launched their amphibious assault sapan was the first of the real large land masses that the marines attacked during the course of the pacific war so the japanese could not have as heavy a defense of the beaches themselves we did not encounter the the bomb craters and all off the beach we didn't encounter the heavy japanese gunfire from emplacements and as far as i was concerned i got my company short pretty easily unlike ontario the main japanese defenses are situated behind the shoreline and as the u.s marines advance off the beaches they discover the japanese are waiting for them dug into a network of almost impregnable bunkers all they had pill boxes all over and they were connected underground they were in a pill box over here firing and before you know it they'd go underground to another one and come up again which means the u.s marines have to clear and destroy each defensive position one by one so the marines not only had to kill the defenders of position they had to physically destroy that position to keep it from being reoccupied and the only way they can do that is to burn them out using the newest weapon in the u.s marine's armory the satan flame tank is a reconditioned stuart m3 light tank its 37 millimeter main cannon refitted with a canadian designed ronson flame thrower it was an absolutely deadly weapon against any sort of fixed position because it doesn't really kill the enemy by burning but it consumes all the oxygen and suffocates even somebody inside a closed position with a range of just 55 meters the flame throwers are only effective at close quarters the flame tank had to approach within a certain distance rendering itself vulnerable to enemy counter attack by infantry with these little grenade mines or a suicide weapon they called the lunge mine and any tag mine on the end of a bamboo pole they would come up and shove against the side of the tank they had a lot of success sticking these against the engine doors on the light tanks where the armor was much thinner the marines advance now becomes a game of cat and mouse with the japanese suicide bombers with the sherman supporting both infantry and flame tanks so it was simply a matter of working with the infj and slow going and digging these people out then we went down about a thousand yards toward a big pillow box about 20 foot high i mean the big one i started throwing shells in there we fired about oh i'll get eight or ten shells of that thing and nothing would happen they just they just fell off just like me and me shooting my bb gun in my barn out here they're just hitting and roll off can you imagine they nothing can get through that we pulled back and uh the light tanks had flame throwers on there's no way you could knock that thing out you had to burn them out that's the only way you can do it but with its limited range the satan tank needs protection i was more concerned about being spawned by the japanese than it was about japanese gunfire so the idea was of course that these escort tanks could stand off in some position off to the side to the rear wherever required to protect the flame tanks from this type of counter attack so they took flamethrowers up there and they burned them out so as they burned them out while we picked them off [Music] by day's end a beach head has been established but the japanese on saipan are far from finished as the u.s marines clear the japanese defenses on saipan the japanese tank formations that have been held in reserve prepare to strike back the japanese principle was always to try to counter-attack they had a almost a cult of the ca of the attack and the counter-attack with whether we attack or not we are going to die let's advance together against the american devils and leave our bones on saipan [Music] the problem is it came to be a kind of a situation where they saw dying in one of these things as almost a kind of a goal into itself as night falls at the end of day two the u.s marines reach one of the island's airstrips at zero three thirty hours the heavy rumble of japanese tanks can be heard approaching the japanese came over this ridgeline must have had every tank they had on saipan because i don't know if anybody ever saw any more japanese tanks it was a big big attack a big attack for an island like that in a force like that they had sent in major units including the largest single japanese tank unit that the americans encountered during the course of the pacific war 37 tanks lead the japanese charge a full frontal bonsai style attack straight at the american lines a bonsai attack is just a maze of confusion it's just simply a horrible maze of confusion like anything at night you can't see you're not sure but you know it's there can you hear it man that came up over that ribs and man we were firing and firing and firing they just came at you and kept coming taking the marines by surprise the japanese smashed through the american front line and the battle becomes a mass brawl of tank versus tanks as they advanced to 300 yards they encountered the anti-tank company and this tank too it turned into just a huge melee with things all mixed in together tracer bullets light up the night sky explosions and shell bursts illuminate the battlefield with tanks firing at point-blank range the japanese hago now finds itself hopelessly outgunned by the u.s sherman and typical japanese tanks didn't stand a chance the japanese armor they had little light tanks there but they didn't they didn't do any good they're 37-millimeter guns we're not big enough their armament was not heavy enough our medium attacks blew the right tanks away flames from the stricken tanks now enable the americans to pick out their targets one of the aspects of the japanese tanks was that they were you know their design was such that in a lot of cases you could actually knock them out with heavy machine gun fire and there were instances where they smothered these things with enough 30 caliber heavy machine gun fire to actually get rounds through the vision embrasures through small chinks in the armor and kill the crew inside disabling the tank we just kept kept mowing them down but the more we mowed down the more the more can this thing went on all night long by dawn the americans were able to come out over the battlefield and there were about 33 japanese tanks you know in various stages of uh disrepair shall we say strong about the battlefield well walking around there looking at that after it was over you know looked great looked great it kind of looked like going out on a baseball field after your team wins a baseball game the action on that night succeeded in destroying about three quarters of the major japanese armored force on the island after that night attack the japanese had no had no more tanks left [Music] although outnumbered and overwhelmed by superior american armor the japanese defenders on saipan refuse to surrender it will take the us marines another three weeks to clear the island at the end of which they will be confronted with the final horror the mass suicide of japanese civilians they were scared as americans they thought they were going to get killed murdered and raped they were up on the end of the island there and the whole the whole family would just jump off the cliff at one time women throwing their children off the cliffs you know i don't know how anybody could have stopped it all i really had to do is raise a white flag and we wouldn't do nothing to him with the capture of saipan and the marianas the americans are now within range to launch daily bombing raids against japan itself in preparation for a full-scale invasion but iwo jima a tiny volcanic island situated halfway between saipan and the japanese mainland remains a thorn in the american side it was a japanese radar base that gave them hours of warning of the approach of the american braids and japanese fighter planes flying out of there were picking off crippled american bombers trying to make it back to the marianas measuring just 21 square kilometers iwo jima is an unremarkable dot in the ocean but the battle that raged here would make it infamous in the annals of the u.s marine corps february 19 1945 to their surprise the marines amphibious landing is unopposed by the japanese contrary to the defense of the water's edge at iwo jima what they had planned to do was to actually let the americans come ashore the first problem that presented itself at iwo jima was simply the nature of the beaches a lot of the beach sand is not sand in the sense we normally think of it but volcanic ash and a man jumping out of a landing craft and struggling up onto the beach when he got into the dry sand every step you took you sank in up to your knees vehicles just floundered in it tanks trying to advance through it the tracks will begin to churn this material but the tank would be sitting on its belly with its tracks churning and just throwing up ash and sinking in deeper and deeper and deeper when we hit the beach that loose volcanic ash had built up into the tracks to where one of the tracks exploded as the first tanks advance off the beaches and get onto firmer ground they encounter a new danger what they were doing was burying a 500-pound bomb about that far underground and then setting a 10-pound anti-tank money on it in some cases these are command detonated they could be detonated electronically by somebody waiting in a nearby cave the american tanks push on not knowing when or where another mine will strike the tank went up in the air the turret come off and landed right side out and the tank went over the driver and assisted driver they're dead before the dirt clears [Music] [Music] it made a hole big enough to almost bury the the tank in and everybody in it was dead each step taken by the u.s marines on iwo jima will be fraught with unforeseen dangers one military engineer who looked at the island of iwo jima after the battle said it was probably the most heavily fortified place on the planet to protect themselves against magnetic mines the tankers have bolted wooden planks to the sides of the shermans but as the marines are about to discover the japanese no longer have to rely on suicide attacks because for the first time in the war in the pacific japanese gun capability is now a match for the sherman one of the major obstacles that the american tanks had to cross was two interconnected airfields on the central part of the island and the real problem was that a lot of the japanese anti-tank guns had been positioned to defend this open ground because they knew that this central plateau was going to be a major axis of advance for any sort of tanks the idea was just smother them with artillery fire and that's what they did there was mortars and and big guns flying all over around it was essentially built up as one huge ambush the 47 on evil that's the first time we met the 47s the breach loading 47 millimeter anti-tank gun with a barrel length of two and a half meters and a muzzle velocity of 830 meters per second it presents the first serious challenge to u.s armor in the pacific yeah they would go through the tank anywhere i wanted to as the tanks advanced over this relatively open terrain these 47 millimeter anti-tank guns in this case in some cases larger guns are able to fire into the sides and rear the tank you know anytime you penetrate the engine that's going to disable the tank so it was vulnerable you know to to fire if it was engaged from the rear there are photographs of tanks that have anywhere from 12 to 15 penetrations on one side of the tank alone yeah a lot of a lot of tanks were done in [Music] it's really always difficult to assess how many tanks were knocked out in any particular action but the estimate for this one is somewhere around 33 or so the american advance is slow and the cost is high but it's also unstoppable and on the fifth day of the battle for iwo jima the u.s marines plant the stars and stripes on the summit of mount suribachi the highest point on the island and joe rosenthal's photograph will become an iconic image not only of the marines triumph but also of their struggle it will take another 30 days of the fiercest fighting in the whole of the pacific war for the americans to secure the island and with 26 000 wounded or killed it's the only battle in which the u.s marines suffer more casualties than the japanese we had all kinds of good information but whether it was going to be as bad as it was i don't think we had any idea that it was it was going to be a month long but it got dangerous i a lot of guys bought it a hell of a lot by the spring of 1945 the axis powers are on the brink of total defeat in the pacific war the u.s marine corps has fought five and a half thousand kilometers halfway across the ocean to reach japanese home territory okinawa 600 kilometers from the mainland is the first of the home islands to be attacked but with nowhere left to retreat the japanese are prepared to defend okinawa and their homeland to the death i figured we'd have to fight the whole japanese you know and it's bad because they're gonna fight they'd fight to the last man april 19 1945 the battle for okinawa is raging working in tandem with ground troops 30 tanks advance against japanese infantry positions on kakazu ridge tanks are very vulnerable to close infantry assault when a tank comes under attack by enemy infantry the preferred method is having your own infantry with you but in the heat of the battle the u.s tanks lose contact with their own infantry they sent a lot of the medium tanks out into japanese occupied territory unescorted by infantry undefended by ground troops the column makes a power drive through enemy lines which are teeming with anti-tank guns they had all these artillery pieces and heavy anti-tank guns in caves they'd roll them out and firm and they were good at it 22 tanks make it as far as cockazoo village a booby-trapped japanese stronghold we're lacking any ground reconnaissance the tankers are ambushed cut off deep within enemy lines and with no hope of reinforcement the tanker's only chance is to blast and burn their way out i mean those people are trying to kill you and you're going to kill them that's it of the 30 tanks that set out on the mission only eight return cocker zoo ridge is the last major tank engagement of the pacific war although okinawa will not be taken for another two months losses on both sides are dreadful with more than 100 000 fatalities but however desperate their defense of their homeland the japanese cause is now hopeless by june 1945 okinawa is secured [Music] on august 6 the enola gay takes off from the marianas to drop the first atomic bomb on hiroshima [Music] and within a week of the second bomb on nagasaki the japanese surrender unconditionally [Music] of all the campaigns of the second world war none was more fiercely contested than the south pacific for the japanese the cost is enormous total defeat and more than two million casualties [Music] casualties for the u.s marines alone amount to more than 95 thousand men but ultimate victory is theirs you do your job you don't all you do is get in before he gets you that's that's the name of the game and central to the u.s victory was the role of the tanker i feel proud of the tankers tanks are always part of it i've always been very proud of that thinking of me they wouldn't know what they were without taxes regardless i'm concerned but between the tanks and the ground troops that's what took the islands [Music] you

Channel: Breakthrough Entertainment

Views: 337,777

Keywords: Film, armoured combats, battlefield, Military historians, Greatest Tank Battles, historic armoured combats, results of battles, tank warfare, Greatest Tank Battles TV Show, Robin Ward, Feature Films, tank troops, TV Series, Entertainment, tactics of tank troops, Breakthrough Entertainment, Movies, TV Show, Ralf Raths, Tank battles, Greatest Tank Battles TV Series, TV, battle tactics, Tank Battles of the Pacific

Id: 8ELB2Y3zzC0

Length: 48min 2sec (2882 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021