How Guadalcanal Was Taken In The Pacific War | Battles Won & Lost | War Stories

every battle is both a victory and a defeat it depends which flag you fly in every theater of the second world war battles won and lost determined possession of territory of resources and of the strength to go on fighting for some of the battles it was the victory that most influenced the future course of the war for others it was the defeat this is the story of the battles won and lost that decided the outcome of the greatest conflict in history every war sees new tactics some inspired some desperate that try to influence the course of battles in the second world war campaigns were waged against non-military targets in an attempt to destroy morale suicide missions were launched when traditional weapons failed and forces withdrew rather than fire on their fellow countrymen these other battles won and lost that rewrote the rules of engagement [Applause] an archipelago of almost a thousand islands solomon islands is critically positioned off the northeastern cape of australia the japanese called the main island gadaru kararu the americans called it cactus its name is guadalcanal japanese troops landed there in april 1942 as part of their sweep through the western pacific the allies were shifting from a defensive mode into an offensive mode they hadn't yet done it they were still short on resources there was a great argument going on in the halls of power about europe being the dominant theatre of war and the pacific being the secondary theatre of war so there was always a fight over who got what resources but the mentality was changing the attack on guadalcanal was the first of these offensive moves japanese bases in the captured solomon islands threatened the whole allied position northeast of australia their recapture marks the beginning of the second phase in the pacific following the naval victory at midway the american chiefs of staff devised a three-phase campaign to rest control back from the japanese admiral nimitz would lead the offensive to recapture tulagi and guadalcanal general macarthur's objective would be lay before moving on to the rest of the solomon islands and finally macarthur would move on the japanese base in the south west pacific operations would begin on august 1st but on july 5th intelligence was received that changed the plan and promoted one of those place names in the story of the war particularly in the history of the u.s marine corps the japanese were observed to be building an air base on guadalcanal and from that airfield they based aircraft which could range over all of the solomon islands and further south occupation of guadalcanal provided the japanese air cover for that whole region which meant that then any plans they had for that region could be covered by those aircraft this became the first priority of the counter-offensive and on august 7th american forces landed on guadalcanal it was the first landing by american forces in the pacific eight months after pearl harbor america hit back hard with a smashing blow at japanese pond the marines who landed on red beach were first marine division under major general van de grift their primary target was the airstrip that the japanese had been constructing their task was codenamed operation watchtower but there was so little time for planning and so few resources from which to construct the invasion force that it was nicknamed operation shoestring the carriers of task force 61 would provide the only air cover the first marine division would go in with only half its vehicles and 10 days supply of ammunition and the landing would be preceded by a single rehearsal the invasion force evaded japanese patrols but japanese ignorance was matched by that of the americans who had no real idea of the size of the defensive force awaiting them just after dawn on the 7th of august the marines went ashore intent on striking out for the airfield and cancelling the threat of any land-based aircraft that were there as they were to discover the japanese force established on guadalcanal numbered 2200 they were mainly construction workers and they were taken completely by surprise [Music] the americans captured henderson airfield very quickly they occupied that on the 8th of august and from that moment on henderson became a thorn in the side of the japanese this is the airfield on the island of guadalcanal in the solomons in american hands it's become a vitally important base from which to bond japanese warships and convoys the night after the initial landing a japanese naval task force of seven cruisers and a destroyer caught an allied force steaming through the 15 kilometer wide channel between guadalcanal and savo island sinking the american and australian cruisers with the loss of 1 270 allied seamen and 34 japanese dead following the battle of savo island the u.s navy withdrew leaving the marines on guadalcanal without support but the japanese allowed their opportunity to pass not bringing up reinforcements until august the 18th the first japanese counter-attack went in on august the 21st 900 men commanded by colonel ichiki attacked at the battle of tanaru river the americans lost 35 men the japanese were wiped out colonel ichiki committed ritual suicide and it is said that crocodiles feasted on the japanese corpses later in august continuing naval action in the waters around the solomons further swung the advantage in favor of the americans whose fighters were by now operating from henderson field and with heavy air sea blows in the great battle of the pacific the tide is certainly turning against japan supply to imperial japanese army troops on guadalcanal was limited the japanese eventually started calling guadalcanal starvation island their men were short of food and of course ammunition because of the inability to bring ships across during daylight they resorted to what was called the tokyo express which was destroyers running at high speed bringing troops and supplies across the next significant attempt to displace the marines was led by general kawaguchi the battle of bloody ridge in mid-september was fiercely contested the japanese were driven back with 600 dead a main mistake the japanese made in that regard was to launch repeated frontal assaults against the american defensive positions which suffered very heavy losses but they did it consistently and repeatedly there didn't seem to be any variation in those tactics by late september marine strength under general van de grift had risen to 23 000 and the japanese recognizing the struggle that they faced had sent lieutenant general hiyakutake from rabol and built their force to about 20 000 the battle for guadalcanal raged from mid-october until the final japanese evacuation at the beginning of february 1943. in november the fighting was offshore where two nights became known as the first and second battles of guadalcanal on the night of the 12th both sides suffered heavy losses in a naval encounter in which american forces came off worse but did seriously disrupt an attempt to reinforce the garrison the following night the americans again fared worse in terms of losses but in this attritional war it was the japanese who could not afford to make good their losses at sea the japanese succeeded quite often against the u.s navy the japanese were exceptionally good at night fighting they defeated the u.s navy on several occasions and they never pressed their advantage at sea they never pushed and it's been an interesting aspect of the naval battle that if the japanese had been more aggressive and pushed harder the u.s navy may well not have been able to hold its ground in that area checked at sea despite causing more damage than it suffered the japanese navy was unable to reinforce or resupply guadalcanal where troops were now starving and short of everything needed to carry on the battle in the first two weeks of december the first u.s marine division severely debilitated by six weeks of fighting and the depredations of tropical disease was relieved by three marine divisions of 14th corps general alexander patch patch began offensive operations almost at once and by early january japan realized that its position on guadalcanal was not supportable losses to hunger and disease were far outstripping losses to enemy action evacuation was ordered the troops to be taken to new guinea on january 23rd the vital high point mount austin fell to the americans and on the night of february the 1st the japanese began to evacuate the island a total of 11 000 troops were taken off by the tokyo express and on the ninth general patch signaled that the tokyo express no longer has a terminus on guadalcanal not only is that batted highland in our hands but also american soldiers sailors and marines have shot forever the myth of japanese invincibility by the time guadalcanal was secured 1 600 americans had been killed and as many as 32 000 japanese lost to military action or disease the japanese lost a great number of very highly experienced troops during the solomon's campaign [Music] from that time on the pacific war became a war for japan of defence and for the allies of offense and so guadalcanal and the solomon campaign has been i think quite rightly described as the turning point of the pacific war [Music] in 1932 the british prime minister stanley baldwin declared that the bomber will always get through the belief grew between the world wars that bombing would be a decisive weapon [Music] that it would destroy civilian morale and therefore the will to go on fighting bombs were dropped on civilian targets in italy's invasion of abyssinian japan's invasion of china and in the spanish civil war they had not brought populations to their knees despite which every combatant nation in the second world war continued to believe that attacking the population would disrupt the war effort and speed a collapse that belief was a mistake because nowhere did the bombing of civilian targets area bombing significantly impede the ability or will to continue fighting the strategic bombing campaign arises originally as a strategy of desperation almost france has fallen the low countries have fallen britain essentially stands alone with the support of the commonwealth all of its european allies have gone and it needs a way of striking back against germany partly for the morale of its own population partly for political diplomatic purposes that obviously the united kingdom wants the support of the united states in the war he wants to draw them in to the war it needs to demonstrate that it is still a viable ally that is still fighting so it needs to take the war to the germans germany has felt the growing might of the royal air force soon america's strength will be added to our they'd had not arranged for people who had done their 30 operations to come back and say to us now fellas this is the sort of thing that you've got to protect yourself maintain your height at about say 7 000 feet or ten thousand feet that'll be about the best predictions you can get but they didn't do that all we had to do was just purely and simply raw recruits doing bombing rides on germany the targeting of those raids through the summer of 1942 was the implementation of the man who had on february 23rd been appointed chief of bomber command air marshal arthur harris who popular history would always remember as bomber harris a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war well my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet a turning point for harris's strategy was the 17th of april when 12 heavy lancaster bombers raided the german city of augsburg seven were lost and harris concluded that daylight raids were too costly it's quite ironic really because britain who has managed to defeat a german bombing campaign through a very well integrated air defense network it then wanders off quite naively to try and attack german industry underestimating how costly that will be within the week the bombing campaign against germany had switched to night raids switching to night bombing reduces accuracy so thus in order to maintain the bombing campaign and seek to have an effect on german industry and to make up for the fact that they can't accurately hit pinpoint targets there's a switch to area bombing the idea being that if you're bombing areas you will strike at the population that works in the factories on may 17th arthur harris received churchill's approval for a raid which would stretch his resources to the limit [Music] the first raid by 1 000 bombers code name millennium now is not the time in any way to ease up but to put on what indeed may prove sooner perhaps and some of us think the final spread the target was the city of hamburg the objective was to destroy the city harris managed to assemble more than a thousand aircraft but bad weather ruled hamburg out [Music] cologne the alternative target felt the force of an attack that lasted for 75 minutes a day later just under a thousand aircraft hit essen and three weeks later a thousand aircraft raided bremen the camaraderie was uh was excellent the acceptance of losing a buddy was excellent it was never never a question that we shouldn't be here we shouldn't be doing this never by anyone [Music] the losses in aircraft and air crew were mounting and the evidence that such massive raids were having a meaningful effect was slight there would be no further thousand plane raids for two years but arthur bomber harris was rewarded for his questionable strategy on june 14 1942 he was knighted [Music] the strategy was continued throughout the war and at great cost not just an enormous loss of civilian life but in the figures that point to an attrition rate amongst bomber crews that was certainly in the british military higher than any other part of the armed forces the campaign particularly the british nighttime area bombing campaign and and the combined modern offensive overalls one of the more controversial and debated parts of the second world war the bomber might always get through but it did not seem capable of influencing events the british didn't completely undermine german morale and germany kept fighting the division of france following her capitulation was complex territorially a line wound its way through france separating the german-controlled area of occupation from the area under the control of the collaborationist government centered on the spa town of vichy premier renault was eased out of his position so that marshall petta and general vegan might make terms with hitler only general de gaulle and the remnant of gallant frenchman elected to carry on the struggle beside britain charles de gaulle is the leader of the free french he is the personification of the liberty of france but he's only got the french troops evacuated from from dunkirk so what de gaulle desperately needs is to bring some of france's colonial empire and its military resources into the fight against germany second most powerful in europe the french navy was indeed a glittering prize for the nazis the british were determined that such a significant weapon should not fall into german hands and famously at mirazel kabir on july 3 join battle against the vichy fleet in the harbour which had resisted calls to either surrender or sail to a neutral port britain offered honorable terms with several alternatives including a safe conduct to martinique these terms were refused then our grim duty was carried out more than a thousand french sailors were killed attention turned to the french colonies and particularly to the port of dhaka in french west africa there's a lot hinging on this for de gaulle he has to persuade the the french sailors the french admirals in west africa to declare for the allies and not for vichy france a large royal navy task force to which was joined an australian heavy cruiser and eight thousand troops including free french under de gaulle sailed south from gibraltar some of the vessels that had escaped from mers alcabir and found safety in toulon had themselves departed for french west africa days before admiral somerville led his force h into the atlantic he had under command the aircraft carrier arc royal two battleships five cruisers ten destroyers and transports it was quite a show waiting for them was a garrison shaw batteries two cruisers and three destroyers the vessels that had escaped from too long and an incomplete battleship the first action was carried out by aircraft from the carrier hermes the first ship anywhere to have been designed as an aircraft carrier her swordfish attacked richelieu at her moorings on july 8th the damage the battleship took immobilized her but she remained a significant gun platform force h sailed south passing hermes now joined by hmas australia and anchored in freetown sierra leone de gaulle was confident that the vichy garrison under the high commissioner pierre francois boisson would come over to the cause of the free french de gaulle was an immensely charismatic figure he's tall and he's persuasive and he thinks he can persuade the the french admirals to come to his side he turns up with a british fleet and he uses his rhetorical magic on them and it fails on september 23rd aircraft of the fleet air arm flew over dhaka dropping propaganda leaflets and the next day aircraft operating off the ark royal landed at dhaka airport in the expectation of a welcome and the commencement of discussions they were immediately taken prisoner a boat carrying de gaulle's personal representatives entered dakar harbour where it was fired on and forced to withdraw it was evident that de gaulle had miscalculated the sentiments ashore they would have to fight for the keys to the city later on the 23rd the first attempt to land troops south of the city was repelled due to fog and heavy fire from well-prepared positions rather abruptly rather unexpectedly the mission to bring dakar into the free french fold had turned into a battle force h was powerful but it was not equipped to force a contested landing the admirals and indeed the sailors had a deep resistance to firing on the french i mean the french were allies these men were not germans my feeling is that the british sailor's heart is not in this operation the resolute defense did not waver and with de gaulle saying he would not be responsible for frenchman killing frenchmen force age was forced to withdraw it returned to freetown so dakar is a big humiliation for all concerned for the royal navy for cunningham for de gaulle and for churchill who instigated it so dakar is one of those british operations which is not much spoken of because it was in fact total failure here it is leningrad a city of heroes defiant of death ready to die on their feet because they don't want to live on their knees [Music] the former imperial capital of saint petersburg had been in a state of siege since the 8th of september 1941. in january 1943 operation iskra was launched the leningrad and volkov fronts succeeding in opening a land corridor that increased supply to the city during the long heartbreaking months of leningrad's ordeal the people often ran out of the barest necessities of life bread coal clothing but the city's supply of courage was never low but the siege continued until january 1944 when the soviet leningrad northgard strategic offensive of the leningrad and volkov france with the first and second baltic fronts went in in the late hours of january 13 1944 long-range bombers from the baltic fleet attacked the main german command points on the defensive line soviet aircraft leading the counter-offensive continue to give the han a belly full of his own medicine and the following day the offensive began when the second shock army which had clung to the iranian-bound bridgehead for the whole of the siege attacked time after time they hurled themselves against the invader driving him inch by inch back from the city's outskirts the next day following an artillery barrage all along the front the 42nd army launched from the south [Music] although fog slowed progress for the first few days the 42nd had linked with the second shock army by the 19th at the same time the volkov front south of the city had begun to move on the german 18th army crossing a frozen lake and threatening the 18th southern flank on the 19th the second shock army captured rupture and the 63rd guards rifle division part of the 42nd army drove the germans out of krasnoya cello on the 22nd fon coicla commanding army group north asked hitler for permission to withdraw the 18th which was in danger of being encircled hitler refused promising reinforcements but when the first and second ukrainian fronts launched their assault on the german salient beyond kiev no troops could be spared the attacks by the second shot the 42nd armies had cost the germans about 21 000 casualties captured 85 artillery pieces and pushed the germans back by between 60 to 100 kilometers the day after the ukrainian fronts moved january 26th governoroff's leningrad front in a general advance cleared the leningrad moscow railway line of enemy troops on the 27th of january 1944 872 days after it had begun the siege was lifted [Music] across the lake and into leningrad this train is but the first of many half a million axis soldiers were casualties almost three and a half million soviet troops and a million leningrad civilians had died at the rate of more than a thousand every day with what grief they mourned their death victims of german torture and massacre the death toll at leningrad alone was greater than the total combined british and american losses for the whole war stalin declared the city to have been relieved and leningrad celebrated with a red white and blue salute from 324 katusha rocket launchers [Music] lady gulf the second battle of the philippine sea was a decisive defeat for the imperial japanese navy it was their last defeat in set piece action japanese navy on paper was quite formidable they still had a number of fleet carriers a number of battleships what they didn't have was a naval air arm they could barely muster a hundred aircraft on their carrier strike group they've been totally outfought not only at midway but in a whole series of actions to compensate a desperation weapon made its first appearance in the engagement it was called divine wind kamikaze because the japanese had lost most of their naval air power they resorted to kamikaze tactics in which pilots deliberately crashed their bomb laden aircraft on enemy ships this combined the japanese military ethic with pragmatism because it was the best way of utilizing japan's declining resources in aircraft and aviation fuel and the poor quality of its pilots given the sophisticated and dense defensive measures protecting the american fleets it required minimal pilot training all the pilot had to do was take off fly straight and level and dive straight into his target [Music] kamikaze was an innovation but it was needed because of the imperial japanese navy's failure to prepare for the new age of naval warfare the admirals of the japanese navy were schooled on the extraordinary success that their predecessors had enjoyed in smashing the imperial russian navy 40 years before that had been a victory for battleships and it encouraged a belief in the value of the capital ship in a sea battle so admiral toyota commanding the combined fleet devised a plan that would exploit the might of his battleships and turn the u.s navy and its invasion fleet back from the philippines the problem here was the complexity of the japanese plan in this case the carriers who they uh assumed the americans would be looking for and indeed they were they would be a decoy using as bait his remaining carriers toyota would lure the american third and seventh fleets into a trap that he set between two battleship groups drawn from the first striking force but on the 23rd of october the attack group was engaged by american submarines before they reached the approaches to leyte the jabs lost the important element of surprise our submarine searching deep in enemy waters surfaced right in the middle of the japanese fleet [Music] two cruisers were sunk and this rather than the bait attracted the attention of third fleet admiral halsey he turned south he was under attack from land-based aircraft operating out of luzon they sank the carrier princeton but he sailed on to the first engagement admiral kirita was going to bring in the big battleships including the two biggest in the world the musashi and the yamato for the radian inch guns this was going to be the main force halsey's aircraft sank the battleship musashi in an action known as the battle of the sibuyan sea [Music] admiral karita split his force and second striking force now sailed south to swing towards lady [Music] karita passed through the narrow san bernardino strait before turning north towards the mobile fleet the bait that hadn't been taken admiral shima's second force was sailing into the jaws of admiral kincaid's seventh fleet which simply destroyed two battleships went down fuso and yamashiro now halsey who had turned towards the mobile fleet learned that the american invasion fleet was coming under pressure from karita admiral halsey had to make a difficult decision should he go to the rescue and ignore the surprise from the north should he hold his position and leave our small force off samar to fight overwhelming odds halsey let his carriers sail on they sank all four of the bait carriers in the mobile fleet [Music] and turned to deal with karita the japanese admiral doubled back on his course making again for the san bernardino strait this allowed the landings to go ahead once those troops got ashore at leyte there were only 20 000 japanese troops at leyte to counter the 200 000 troops that had landed the leyte golf was the first time that all the major commands in the pacific joined up so you had macarthur coming up from southwest pacific area admiral halsey had been fighting his way up through the solomons and the central pacific area nimitz coming across from pearl harbor they all linked up in the philippines the battle of leyte golf cost the japanese three battleships and it left the imperial navy with no aircraft carriers the first encounter with kamikaze had unsettled nerves and sunk and damaged ships but neither in lady gulf nor in any subsequent engagement could they turn the tide of battle the imperial japanese navy was now finished as an effective fighting force the american navy's dominance of the pacific was complete it was a bitter blow for the japanese but they were still determined to fight to the end on the 27th of april 1941 german troops entered athens the greek resistance against the initial italian invasion had crumbled before the german onslaught [Music] british troops sent from north africa to support the greeks forced w had been pushed back until it was agreed that in a dunkirk-like operation they should be evacuated and as with dunkirk most of the equipment was lost it was of course thanks to the royal navy that evacuation was possible they'd been through hard times during the battle so the issue of special rations was doubly welcome the evacuation aboard cruisers destroyers and transports ferried force w to crete where they were formed up as kree force under major general freiburg his defense of the island would last for one week [Music] on april 25th before taking athens hitler had issued directive number 28 operation mercury it ordered the capture of crete crete's an island in the mediterranean its strategic significance essentially is the ability to use it as a base to project naval air power across the mediterranean if you control the mediterranean you control access to the suez canal you're then forcing shipping to go the long way around you're also then able to bring that to bear on the british position in north africa the middle east but capturing the island was not an easy task the plan deployed ten thousand paratroops to drop onto the island a further 750 to land in gliders five thousand to be brought in by transports and a further seven thousand to land by sea the assault would begin on may 20th opposing them freiburg would have a mixed force of 30 000 british australian and new zealand troops he himself was a new zealander with 10 000 greek troops but his men were poorly equipped having left most of their heavy weapons and armor on the mainland but he had one advantage thanks to ultra german plans had been intercepted and decoded so freiburg knew what to expect and when into the beautiful countryside of greece the dictators brought all the ugliness of war their greatest superiority was in the air and although britain went to her aid it was impossible to repel the enemy's overwhelming concentration of machines on may 15th the luftwaffe 650 aircraft for operation mercury began preliminary raids on crete freiburg recognized that his own air defense was hugely outnumbered so he ordered his aircraft off the island to egypt [Music] to compensate for the complete absence of air cover he committed to making all of the island's airfields unusable [Music] the day after the aircraft had been released on may 20th the attack began [Music] german paratroops landing at four airfields the attack was a disaster german airborne assault for all its psychological impact in most places in crete struggled for a start the germans didn't have enough planes to do it all in one one hit so they had to attack the west of the island before they attacked the east of the island which of course gave early warning then to the forces deployed in the east of what was coming german paratroopers dropped from a very low height they were subject to a great deal of small arms fire and suffered very heavily on the descent all of the glider-borne troops and four of the parachute battalions were smashed to pieces before they could join the fight of the 600 men of the third battalion of the first air landing assault regiment 400 were killed on that first day by the end of may 20th the german invaders had failed to secure any of their objectives [Music] and hitler ruled out any further airborne operations ever on the 20th and 21st convoys sailing in support of the landing were repulsed by the royal navy in action in the waters around crete the navy lost several ships and others including ajax which had figured in the battle of the river plate took damage but in repulsing the convoy force d destroyed half the troop carrying vessels and the only damage the navy suffered was from what is now called friendly fire the german command decided to gather and concentrate all of its forces on a single objective the airfield at malemi their job was made easy because in a confusion of orders and breakdowns in communication the troops defending millemi had withdrawn by grabbing hold of millemi they then had the capacity to reinforce and reinforce rapidly before moving west to then bring aid to the german troops fighting at retimo and heraclium freiburg ordered a counter-attack to retake the airfield but it failed because the germans had undisputed air superiority freiburg was criticized then and has been criticized since for an inadequate defense of the airfield at millemi which now became a german staging post because of the intelligence that he had it perhaps forced him to be a little blinded to the situation that he didn't actually form a mobile reserve for contingencies that he didn't see and particularly once millemi airfield was lost he had no real ability to respond to the german foothold there [Music] on the 22nd of may a night attack which would neutralize axis air support was ordered but an unexplained delay in giving the order turned the operation into a day attack which failed under the howling of stuka dive bombers further attempts to land reinforcements by sea were frustrated by the royal navy which forced a planned invasion fleet to turn away on may 23rd further naval reinforcements were sent from malta to join the battle but as three destroyers kelly kashmir and kipling were rounding the western side of the island they were attacked by 24 stukas [Music] cashmere was hit turned turtle and later sank kipling survived 83 bombs and kelly commanded by captain lord louis mountbatten was hit and sank in two minutes the germans by now were landing reinforcements at malemi freiburg had not after all rendered all of the airfields unusable by may 27 he decided that the battle for crete was lost his commander general wavel endorsed that view and london authorized an evacuation by now the germans had superiority in every arm air artillery manpower and they pushed the allies south with motorcycle and specialized mountain troops hard at them [Music] despite gallant rearguard actions by commando units and companies of the maori battalion only 18 600 of the 32 000 allied troops on the island were taken off and many of those failed to reach safety as their transport came under aerial attack the germans now had creeped they now had its airfields they could now project naval and air power out from that island across the mediterranean longer term it also just made the position in the mediterranean a lot more tenuous for the allied forces but the greatest victims of the loss of crete were the people of the island throughout the years of occupation well-documented atrocities including the massacres of whole villages extracted a heavy price from the ordinary people of crete for their resistance to the german [Applause] invasion [Music] you

Channel: War Stories

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Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, leningrad, wwii, world war two, full documentary, full length documentaries, history documentary, world war, world war ii, documentary movies - topic, ww2 documentary, world war 2, siege of leningrad, hitler, stalin, guadalcanal battle, guadalcanal documentary, guadalcanal campaign, guadalcanal naval battle, guadalcanal the pacific, full documentary history

Id: S2LuRhNcZ9s

Length: 49min 50sec (2990 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021