Guadalcanal - Island of the big death

it was a special kind of paradise little known by the outside world hundreds of tiny islands blue lagoons lush forests the haunting voices of ancient villages [Music] villages filled with the smiling faces of innocent children and then the invaders arrived the summer of 1942 brings world war ii to the remote solomon islands the Solomon Islander were bewildered by this war it's referred to as the big death that's the way its translator by September the whole world knew the name one will canal [Music] the disaster of Pearl Harbor leads to one setback after another for America and her allies weeks after Pearl Hong Kong Falls January 3rd Manila is overrun in February Singapore is captured in 1942 the Japanese sweep down the Pacific Rim taking country after country it's about the projection of power across vast distances by April Japan is building a mega base on rebel and New Guinea surging south into the Solomon Islands within striking distance of Australia and New Zealand the Japanese army captures Guadalcanal in early July and there to meet them just a handful of Australians left behind not sure your skirts to solve Martin Clements he is one of three coast Watchers on Guadalcanal he is given a radio and an impossible order keep an eye on things because swatches of the name that the Second World War generation were were familiar with and they knew what it meant he meant lonely men on on tropical islands under great threat of capture and torture and execution the Royal Australian Navy set up the coast watcher organisation and call for volunteers to stay behind people that knew the territory the terrain operating radios behind enemy lines Clemens works with a band of Islanders to spy on the Japanese he and his Scouts make a chilling discovery the Japanese are building an airstrip on the island from where I was hey sue okay he flashes word of the airstrip this is plane she's our enemy the airfield on Guadalcanal represents a dramatic increase in Japanese power from Australia to Washington the news leaves war planners scrambling those airplanes are going to protect Japanese warships and submarines that force is going to immediately begin to cut America off from her key allies Guadalcanal then this obscure island becomes the line drawn and the same we have to stop them here with few resources the Marines get the assignment any men available today the job was the first Marine Division in New Zealand some 10,000 Marines hit red beach that was original landing that was where they landed 9:00 in the morning 7th of August 1942 when we came in we had no idea of where we were going and what it was all about Liu Enfield was in the first wave when we landed on Guadalcanal it was pretty much unopposed the Marines wasn't land at the point just this side of the point so that if there's enemy the other side the point he can't shoot ature enemy over there it can't reach it but the Admiral said he of its nervous about there being mines then I got here that first night down site in this river and then gradually made their way to the airfield and took out the airfield for the afternoon of the next day the Marines found mostly construction crews and quickly captured the unfinished airstrip naming it Henderson Field for a flyer lost at Midway the marine steadily doggedly enlarged their home the Marines were led by general Alexander van der grift the invasion of Guadalcanal is a success but holding that to be a whole different challenge we were back in the jungles really on a hill in kunai grass and wrapped in in Poncho's and rain when we woke up and and thought we were in a thunderstorm but it was the battle going on and we would see the flashes of the guns those guns were the Japanese ravaging Allied ships in the Battle of Sado Island 1:00 a.m. August night and the first of four ships sink to the bottom of what would soon be known as iron bottom sound' 1200 Allied sailors are dead sank the historia Vincennes Quincy and the Canberra all heavy cruisers hours later the rest of the US fleets pulls out taking most of the supplies so the Navy and all the trans was left on the 9th of August and the 1st Marine Division watching or listening themselves the nickname of 1st Marine Division and I still a [ __ ] of the Navy for a ban even on going okay now the Navy had an option with less than half of their supplies ashore the Marine Corps finds itself abandoned in no-man's land so essentially they're going to have to hold off the Imperial Japanese Army which no Army has yet done in this war with one hand tied behind their back short of ammo food and even radios the Marines use what the Japanese left behind so the Rambla communicate using Japanese the Japanese radio by finished area using Japanese equipment and fed themselves with Japanese right despite daily air and sea attacks by the Japanese the Marines finished the airfield by mid-august first plane to land here was on the 12th of August it was a Catalina Catalina was supposed to land in the water that he radioed in he had damage to his plane he had to land on an airstrip they relented okay you can come down landed and I've run up where's the damage to the plane he just said I don't have any damage I just want to be the first days later the Marines fly in a handful of wildcat fighter planes and air operations begin but the Wildcats were a mismatch against the Japanese zero only early warnings by coast Watchers would get the Wildcats up fast enough to take on the zeros yes the Wildcat pilots were legendary many shooting down dozens of enemy planes Jeff du Blanc knocked five down in one day on the ground the first real test was about to begin as some 900 Japanese soldiers approached the airstrip from the east okay we're at alligator Creek is actually the Illawarra and is the site of the Battle of 10 Aroo the Americans had a hand-drawn maps when I first came here and I had the rivers mixed up I thought this was a tenor Oh whereas a tenor was about five kilometers that way but because they follow ten row in the battle occurred the battle became known as the Battle of Cameroon this was the eastern boundary of the airstrip what Marine general Alexander van der grift considered a key defensive position I had all the clutter on the beat managed to get it all in and set up there eastern perimeter right here so you've got the runway just over over yonder and here was the perimeter a fluke of war gives the Americans warning of the attack Coast watching Scout Jacob Musa is on a recon trip when he forgets he's carrying an American flag and is caught by the advancing Japanese [Music] what happened was as the Japanese are questioning him the first American planes flew in the land at Henderson they're about a thousand feet up the Japanese saw the American stars autumn when I started to panic I'm not just questioning him now they're saying tell us tell us jabbing it provide us and by some accounts he is tied to a tree bleeding profusely left to die the story goes he freeze himself crawls back to the Americans and warns of the attack but Guadalcanal historian John Ennis a legend in his own right for his painstaking research and battlefield tours says the badly injured vooza pulled a fast one on the enemy he said to the Japanese I'll take it to the Americans so elated the Japanese to this point he soon as the attack has started or the shooting started he's tucked away made his way around to the American lives near death he briefed the Americans on the incoming attack company I'm in walk across here and stumble into the barbed wire the shooting star chicki sends another company across here and across the water to help these guys and in no time at all he's blown away 300 men so the fighting continues all night at dawn they're released the first battalion from reserve this made it way around the back of the battle to stop the Japanese from getting away in order to stop some Japanese swimming out to sea to get away the Americans put a squadron of tanks across here facing the Japanese positions and at the end of the battle Merkers went in to help the wounded Japanese the wounded Japanese are still trying to kill the Americans so the order was given to shoot everything the most extraordinary twist to the battle the story of three Marines manning a machine gun one was killed one was blinded and the other lost the use of his hands it was a machine-gun position up here about 100 feet there was three people in it Johnny rivers Lee Dimond and our Schmidt Johnny rivers started to fire his guns the company shot him in the face the other two took over the gun water comes in blows the hands apart of Lee diamond and blinds outfit but between them they had a good pair of eyes and a good pair of hands so I kept firing that gun all night by the next day more than 800 Japanese are dead the world will remember the ten aroo by the chilling images of Japanese soldiers frozen in death on the beach colonel a cheeky committed ritual suicide the Marines had their first victory because it's the first it assumes the emblematic quality of this is the proof that we have the courage and the guts to win world war two so from a little battle you get this large echo in in American history who'sa recovered and became fast friends with the Marines he was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth but the battles would continue and intensify United States warships engaged the Japanese fleet off the parlament Islands the Japanese came from the north their main objective to retake Guadalcanal Island and its strategically important airfield well we got bombed every morning tell differen Japanese ships would shell the airfield by daylight the zeros and Betty bombers would return and bomb the airfield and I'm while I'm taking into some battlegrounds you're living in a battleground now every Hills got a story by September the Japanese army had moved thousands of fresh troops through the jungle valleys trying to sneak up from the south side of Henderson field by night they charged up a ridge where Colonel Merritt Edson and his Raiders were taking at R&R break and he would never thought when he was taken that this would be a tourist attraction sixty-five years time each year hundreds come here to touch history to experience this sacred ground so lucky writers they then go on another expedition to place called Chason boku to the east report of a Japanese landing they'll get there and sure enough they got there just after a large Japanese force and in fact landed and had left that area to move towards the airfield of loading a small rearguard that was left there that I quickly overcame but certainly determined there was a large force indeed on their way here and then the conjecture was for which direction is the attack gonna take place because although they had about 12,000 Marines here spread over the perimeter they didn't have enough for a cordon defense and just guess best where is the attack can take place from Edison said if I was Telugu to the Japanese general this would be my line of approach and he pointed at the ridge this would be the icon battle bloody Ridge extends from where those trees are that's beginning a bloody Ridge continues on down the saddle up to here and continues on to that hill over there I will enter the ridge for the Japanese looking at it from the air it looked like a centipede they call it looka D this was the final defensive line the bat Mo's the killing ground between there and and here you can still see the barbed wire spikes put up by the Marines night after night some 3,000 Japanese kept charging the 830 Americans on the ridge said one American the Japanese attack was almost constant like a rain that subsides for a moment then Korra's harder just barely the marines held the ridge the surviving Japanese fled back into the jungle but there was no time to celebrate and the fight continued on the ground on the sea and in the air where was your silicon fur and the ship and we found what we were making a bombing run on that cruise one a callers del Wiley had survived the Battle of the Coral Sea and Midway the first time we shot out in the Coral Sea scared to death then at Midway the fear was some lesson considerably and then mono shot down and run at me in a boat no fear whatsoever assigned aboard the USS Enterprise he took off on a mission just before the enterprise was attacked his plane was shot down way behind enemy lines Wow first time I'd seen the charcoal in his eyes and I thought boy an inmate around here so yes I shot him [Music] for 15 days he was alone in a raft and he prayed to God every single day I've spoken to a lot of college kids classes in high school and every time they asked did you pray I says yes there ain't no atheists in rubber boat he drifted and washed up on an island hundreds of miles behind enemy lines he was saved by the Islanders and later moved to a bigger island and rescued by a Coast watcher eventually he settled in Fullerton California always staying in touch with those who saved his life I was a PT boat skipper which of course was a kind of a suicide work [Music] Ted Robinson of Sacramento fought in the Solomons as skipper of a new kind of fast boat the PT boats were made of plywood we only operate at night ones that cut their supply lines at night with us PT boats who is not something fleet we had to get home before daylight or we were lost all of us that Japanese would have a thorn patrol of the 1st every every morning they became a real nuisance for the Japanese and a target it was dangerous work but we had funeral services almost every day we were losing men very heavy casualties Robinson eventually took part in the rescue of another PT boat captain John F Kennedy Robinson and the other sailors and fliers worked the slot a shipping channel between the large islands of the Solomons their target the night time runs of the Tokyo Express the Japanese ships were frantically trying to resupply the Army on Guadalcanal you win wars by stopping their ammunition their medicine their reinforcements and that's what we did back on Guadalcanal the fighting continued Vandergriff got more aggressive with patrols into enemy territory and a new enemy was taking its toll the jungles it looks like just a green carpet you get under there and after your fold-over voyage and creeping over trees you grab a whole of the tree to pull you out but just comes apart of your hair because rotted and I can tell you the landscapers middle it's an enemy just by itself thousands of Japanese died from starvation and the extremes of the jungle and thousands of Americans were crippled with malaria there were more man lost from malaria than there were from the guns of the Japanese after four months in the jungle Luo Enfield and the first division Marines were transferred to Melbourne Australia to rest and recover in 2009 Luo received honors upon his return to visit their bivouac site in an historic stadium that later was home to the Olympics the fighting continued for months on the canal until the last of the Japanese withdrew in the spring of 43 the war moved up the slot island hopping from that line drawn in the sand all the way to Tokyo on Guadalcanal they buried their dead and honored their heroes highest honors are awarded officers and men alike majors captain's private they've proven themselves in the test by fire no armchair commander Admiral Nimitz comes all the way from Hawaii to decorate Major General van der grift these are the men who caught the brunt of the battle we're at the Harris Memorial on the 50th anniversary of the invasion the Americans dedicated this memorial high on a hill within sight of the Japanese memorial this site was chosen because it gives good views nice views of some of the battlefields galloping horse sea horse Savile Island iron bottom sound' well the mouth of Matanikau was very important they always had a battalion defending it the Americans because it was the only place we can get heavy equipment across the mechanic our Japanese were landing all their heavy equipment bring it up to the metonic al but couldn't get it across any manage to get one tank across and it's still there you can still see it but had they not been defending at the Americans then the Japanese could have got the equipment dangerously close to the airfield now 75 years later John still remembers those heroes with their stories and he remembers in other ways because even today this island gives up its dead construction on old battlefields brings frequent discoveries in 2006 John helped identify the remains of a soldier on this hill when they excavated the site to the memorial they found the remains of a marine there was no identification so they put a plaque down to the unknown warrior and cook his remains back to America now when I was doing some research in this particular maneuver they did early in the morning of the 19th they came under fire and a sergeant John Howard Rennick was killed and they know them and went on with their mission now the sketch map I'm looking at it was hey that's this hill this is probably sergeant Jon Caramanica Tolu authorities in America he was buried in Arlington last orders found the remains of an American Martin Odum call from portage Pennsylvania the address on the dog tag was next of kin family still living so I was able to ring them within 20 minutes of getting back to the office so rang is his brother the remains were found by a friend of John's in thick overgrown jungle John and Justin talen of Pacific Rex rushed to the scene finding all sorts of evidence John then learned the story of Martin and his brother Albert who both enlisted the same day both witnessed the attack at Pearl Harbor and both ended up in the Solomons Martin was killed in January of 1943 Albert died eight months later on new George Island when John Ennis asked what he should do with Martin's remains the family quickly emotionally said we want him home but touching find was that he had one of these bottles to the top honor I'd like that and six matches inside didn't dry now I got that back to the family on Hill 27 he helped identify the remains of a Japanese soldier we found remains in there we thought it was American at first turned out he wasn't he was Tasha Okajima he was a second lieutenant with 228 infantry when in digging found his dog tag Japanese so his sister got a dog tank back in Nagoya so she was 82 the time and interestingly the I put some flowers in a bottle for him and there those pink flowers they still come through [Music] and unmount austin below the spider tree he found the spot his dear friend bill Fisher had laid his head after being injured six of his friends were killed there while on a March with the Raiders I brought up three companies of men occupied these positions the Japanese then come short time later they've run down into those trees the Americans firing at them as graduates of the two two-hour firefight where was the action on the 3rd of December it became an obsession for John proving this was the scene of the battle where bill spent the night with the rest of the survivors so they went looking for some evidence but for one day in the life of this hill Americans raved wondering if he could find the rusted evidence of the firefight it would solve the mystery what I did I had the grass longer than theirs now so I've gone in trying to find site which was utterly impossible but for state there was an act of God somebody found a Zippo lighter and set fire to the grass and it was I didn't do it so we came back on the Sunday and it was clear as a bell in there and within minutes I picked up 17 firing pin hand grenades lots of fragmentation pieces I fell at two plastic bags full of stuff rang bill now describe bill bill dear did terrific guy but cranky old bastard at 10 kids maybe guys have made him that way he's in bed well where do I'm John I'm in bed spilt bill I found your spot all right I'll be there next month and he just looked around impassive with his Bulldog look grim you know then he said I slept over there back in my hair wasn't him Nick yes and I said I'm a cordon calss nice and patriotic songs at night god bless america and the other one was onward Christian soldiers when bill died at his Tennessee home in 2006 he had just one last request that his ashes be returned to Guadalcanal bill passed away last year [Music] but he had spoken to me beforehand he said John when my time comes we scatter my ashes under the tree so on the 3rd of December which is the anniversary time came up here and had the choir from Verona village they sang onward Christian soldiers builds with his other six mates that didn't make it there there too somewhere so yeah so this is a pre important spot [Music] after 75 years on the island of the big death no one has forgotten the price of freedom [Music]

Channel: Brent Baader

Views: 1,050,520

Rating: 4.8164434 out of 5

Keywords: Guadalcanal, Ambrose, WWII, Solomon Islands, South Pacific, US Marines, 1st Marine Division, Coast Watchers, Henderson Field

Id: 4TgJ9VKw4VA

Length: 26min 49sec (1609 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2017