The Horrific Realities Of Jungle Warfare | Jungle War | All Out History

on December 7th 1941 Japan stunned the world with a surprise attack on the United States of America Pearl Harbor and the Pacific Fleet were left burning then one by one Allied strongholds fell Malaya Hong Kong Singapore and the Philippines among them the Allies face defeats they had never imagined possible and scrambled to adapt to a war very different from the one raging in Europe a war in the jungle in the jungle Darkness envelops the soldier illness incapacitates and tension is ever present this is the story of the Jungle Wars that erupted across the globe in the 20th century the people who fought for survival In the Jungle the soldiers who adapted their tactics to Guerilla fighting and the civilians whose lives and homes were decimated by jungle war in war the jungle is a breeding ground for fear darkness and dense foliage hinder visibility and navigation unfamiliar noises assale the ears heat and humidity sap the energy and morale of a unit and tropical illness can decimate as effectively as enemy action before they even catch sight of their foe a soldier must confront their fears and the innumerable challenges of the environment around them the jungle is equally frightening for everybody mosquitoes don't care whether you're British or Japanese or Australian they still bite you it's still hot it's still rainy things still rot things still go wrong so the jungle itself is not on one side or the other the jungle may be neutral but for those who fight within it it is far from benign in uh World War II in the Pacific jungle warfare was really challenging everything was dangerous it may have looked like the Garden of Eden and very beautiful but one could be injured or poisoned by the snakes by fleas by ticks the water was generally poisonous a dissenter was a problem all different kinds of problems were there the story of jungle warfare in World War II is a story of adaptation it is a story of how armies learn to fight in foreign and formidable environments it is a story which begins with Japanese plans for expansion in the 1930s the greater East Asia co-prosperity fear India IND it soon became clear that despite its lofty title the greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere did not mean prosperity for all in Southeast Asia there was no Assumption of equality or Independence among Asian Nations Japan would take the lead in governance and guidance and resources would be redirected to whatever interests Japan offit [Music] initially Western nations were largely unconcerned with Japanese plans British defensive preparations in the region centered on the flawed Fortress sing strategy the British Fleet would remain in Europe ships would be dispatched in defense of the asia-pacific region when needed the flaw in the plan was revealed when Britain was forced to fight in more than one [Music] theater the United States had remained largely isolationist in the Years following the first world war as Japan's Imperial Ambitions grew in the 1930s the US took little action but slowly as Japan expanded her reach the US began to respond they began directing support to China in her struggle against Japanese Imperial Ambitions a loan promised to China in July 1937 was delivered in February 1939 in July the US announced it would end its commercial treaty with Japan a tentative step toward economic sanctions Japan's signature of the trip parite pact with Germany and Italy in September 1940 proved to be another harbinger of impending War the pace towards the Pacific War quickened for [Music] but with the war raging in Europe the Allies made a triage decision they would defeat Europe first before they turned their attention to the Pacific President Roosevelt hoped economic and trade sanctions on Japan would prevent outright War these hopes soon floundered and sort of put the Americans and the Japanese on a a collision course roselt wasn't naive neither were his advisers his secretary of state C Hall warned against his policy said you're going to force us into a war but most of the cabinet regarded it as a policy of deterrence that the Japanese wouldn't dare proceed because it was going to cost them too much so while the Allies maintained their focus on Europe Japan planned to take the jungles of Southeast Asia in a sweeping movement people from across the world were soon drawn into a brutal jungle war [Music] on the 7th of December 1941 Japan launched a series of devastating attacks the Allies were profoundly unprepared for the blitz C unleashed the Japanese had very effectively concealed the extent of their capabilities so particularly in that realm of air power Naval Air power and so it came as a very nasty surprise to the Americans to the British to the [Music] Allies the storm story of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor is a well-known moment in history marking a flash point in the war the moment the war in Asia and the Pacific fused with the broader global conflict Pearl Harbor on the island of aahu in Hawaii played host to the US Pacific Fleet making it a significant strategic Target the first wave of Japanese planes swept into the skies above Pearl Harbor a little before 8:00 a.m. Hawaii time on Sunday the the 7th of December this first sweep of attacks proved effective close to 200 Japanese fighter bomber and torpedo planes reigned destruction from above at Wheeler Field little more than 40 of more than 120 US aircraft on the ground survived the onslaught simultaneously Japanese aircraft created Havoc among the ships in the harbor only partially manned on a Sunday morning they were vulnerable all eight of the US battleships in Harbor were hit four Sun the USS Arizona and Oklahoma were Beyond repair it was a crippling blow to the United States Naval Force but there was a fatal flaw in the Japanese attacks [Music] the Hawaiian oil field also remained intact for all the destruction of ships and aircraft Japan failed to destroy the key thing which would have truly delayed a US Counterattack and I think the Pearl Harbor attack did come as a total shock uh to both the president to his uh Naval and and army Chiefs of Staff and to the American people rather than serving as a deterrent Pearl Harbor galvanized us support for the war on December 8th Congress declared war on Japan December 7th 1941 a date which will live in infamy United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by Naval and Air Forces of the Empire of Japan since the unprovoked and dastardly attack a state of War has existed between the United States and the Japanese [Music] empire while Pearl Harbor burned Japan wreaked havoc to the West Malaya and Singapore were key targets malayo was resourcer and it was a gateway to Singapore as the key strategic base for the British in Asia Singapore needed to be neutralized in the early morning of December 8th 1941 Japanese aircraft attacked British airfields in Malaya and Singapore the initial aerial offensive was immensely effective very very quickly they were able to win Supremacy in the skies above all of those places in addition they had command of the sea and were able to land their amphibious forces essentially wherever they wanted along the long Coast lines of these islands in the Pacific and once they were ashore they had the Seaborn supply lines to allow those forces to advaned very quickly the British command had some warning of the attack reconnaissance planes had spotted the fleet but they hesitated and the Japanese took the momentum the situation on the sea was no better the ships the Royal Navy could spare for the fight HMS repulse and Prince of Wales were sunk on the 10th of December by Japanese aircraft based in Saigon these events did not bode well troops on the ground this left redition Imperial forces completely vulnerable both to the sky and to possible further Japanese invasions along the coast soon after the Air Attack troops poured into Sora and batani in Thailand and kotabaru in Malaya the attack on Malaya was rapid momentum was key [Music] facing them were an array of British Australian Indian and Malay troops they were not well equipped the idea that the Japanese won in Malaya because of Superior jungle training was at best only partially true there were significant weaknesses in the British Imperial defense the two most serious were the lack of air cover and the lack of ships to cover the coast additionally British defense did not account for the challenges of jungle warfare in many ways the British Indian army in Malaya was trained for the wrong sort of War being motorized and designed to cross open areas it was quickly in trouble on narrow jungle tracks the men were just not trained for the sort of fighting that they quickly came up against before they encountered Japanese troops the Allies had assumed their own superiority the initial fight on the ground rapidly shifted this view the Allies were simply caught off guard by the Japanese ability to move very quickly and to attack with great ferocity and great rapidity the Japanese Bonsai charge was used to the best effect really in those early campaigns you know in Malaya I think in the Philippines it the quickness with which the Japanese Onslaught fell upon the unprepared allies tended to sap their morale and so the psychological environment allowed for the construction of this myth of the Japanese Super Warrior which really wasn't dispelled until the campaigns of 1942 and 43 the Commonwealth units which stood between the Japanese advance and the prize of Singapore were forced into a rapid Retreat a key tactic which aided the Japanese Advance was known to the Allies as the Scorpion maneuver facing this tactic the Allied troops began to learn how difficult it was to protect their flanks In the Jungle the Japanese force would break down into two components both components of the force would then Advance on the enemy as soon as one met the enemy it would attempt to pin the enemy force and the other part of the Scorpion would then Advance an attempt to attack the enemy from the flank or rear the whole thing was like a scorpion because essentially the Scorpion was grabbing you with its claws and then a swift strike with the tail round the back over the top from the side it was often very successful fast movement was also facilitated by the use of bicycles which meant compromised roads wouldn't hold up in advance they exploited bicycles brilliantly every unit had its own bicycle repair man accompanying the um bicycle units so that if anybody got a puncture they can sort it out in 10 minutes a few key battles inflicted a toll on the attacking troops the Australian troops at gamas struck a blow on the 14th of January costing Japan a few hundred casualties in a well executed Ambush but the freight train that was the Japanese Advance could not be stopped in Malaya when the Japanese Advance reached Singapore the Commonwealth forces were caught off guard their fleet was occupied with the war in Europe and the attack had come via Malaya their defenses were facing the wrong way [Music] for [Music] the Allies had Superior numbers 45 battalions against 31 battalions of the Japanese 25th Army but the Defenders had a 48 om long stretch of coast to defend and no way of knowing exactly where an attack might occur I must always remember that there were more predition Australian troops in Malaya and later Singapore than there were Japanese but the Japanese simply outfought them at every turn and of course Japanese commanders out commanded them the Japanese soldier was better motivated better trained better prepared than his British and Australian count part the British were still seeing everything in terms of roads and so they were defending RADS the Japanese brilliantly exploited out flanking movements again and again they found the British had established a blocking position on a road and they just went round the back through the jungle and the moment the British found themselves out flanked they retreated and you can't do this with the Japanese they were I'm superb jungle soldiers when the Japanese launched their attack on the Jo hor straight six Australian battalions stood in their way it was not enough the Australians had to fall back there was a collective collapse in the morale and the confidence of British forces it was really all over when the Japanese invasion Force captured the city's water supply at that point it would have been very easy to lay the British forces Under Siege and so persal recognized that the situation was hopeless and decided to surrender in order to preserve the lives of his men the surrender took place in the Ford motor Factory Lieutenant General Arthur peral signed the document sealing the fate of more than 100,000 troops who became [Music] prisoners Japanese Commander Lieutenant General Yamashita had estimated it would take a 100 days to have Singapore in his grasp it took 70 the British defeat in Malaya and Singapore was a huge psychological blow part of the reason was that the public in Britain and elsewhere have been led to believe that South East Asia was well defended and to this day it remains Britain's worst defeat churchold was unbelievably distressed he knew and Alan Brook's chief of staff knew too that unless the British army could fight better not only would Britain not win the war but the Americans whose support was vital were not going to believe that the British were capable of doing their part as allies while the loss of Singapore was clearly a shock to British morale it did served to illustrate the seriousness of the fight and the Allies responded accordingly however we shouldn't run away with the idea that Singapore and Malaya were a major body blow one of the reasons for this was that Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Malaya brought the United States into the war so a loss was balanced by a more serious gain another Factor was that the Allies thought that the Japanese were not really a serious modern Force once the Allies had got over the shock of what had happened in the first year of the war with Japan everything was taken much more seriously equipment was improved tactics were improved and the myth of the Japanese Superman dissolved again almost as quickly as it had Arisen as Singapore fell Allied Forces were fighting an equally grueling campaign in the defense of Burma when the Japanese invaded Burma in 1941 it was part of the British Empire and defended by two British divisions in Burma core they were under strength very poorly equipped and very poorly trained the two Japanese divisions invading Burma they were subsequent reinforced by two more pushed the British back to the Indian Frontier and they also sore off a Chinese expeditionary force in the north of Burma in February 1942 retreating Allied troops were stranded when a division Commander blew the satang bridge a controversial move rangon was lost on the 8th of March less than a month after Singapore fell throughout the campaign Allied aircraft harassed the Japanese Invaders but mounting losses meant Burma based squadrons were withdrawn the subsequent Retreat from Burma was brutal the British retreat was agonizing it was carried out over hundreds of miles of largely difficult Terrain in often terrible weather on roads clogged with hordes of refugees and most of the equipment had to be left behind so at the end of 1942 the Japanese are occupying most of [Music] Burma and it was actually the longest retreat in the history of the British Army and it was said to be the road of Bones by mid 1942 Japan had secured a strong foothold to the north of Australia they sought to cut off Allied supply lines as it was clear the nation was becoming a major base of operations Burma teamour the Netherlands East Indies Java much of New Guinea the Philippines and the Solomon Islands were all under Japanese Occupation Thailand was under Japanese influence with Britain and the United States unable to offer the support the Thai government sought Thailand had little choice but to cooperate with Japan the Bangkok government declared war on the United States and the United Kingdom in January 1942 The Sweep of Japanese Victory and occupation across the Pacific meant that more than 100,000 men and women became prisoners of War they were scattered in as many as 600 different camps throughout Japanese occupied territories some were sent to Japan the treacherous sea Journey on Hell ships as they became known cost many prisoners their lives conditions varied depending on the camp but for the most part they were terrible and survival required heroic levels of determination and resilience for American prisoners and Commonwealth Prisoners the constant struggle is to survive amidst hostile indiff care and treatment really brutal treatment on the part of some of these guards although there are some some Recollections of Humane treatment from guards and indeed sometimes it could be the same person one day being brutal the next day being Humane illness was rampant in Jungle camps like those on the infamous Burma isand Railway between 1942 and 1943 tens of thousands of Allied prisoners of war and more than 200,000 Asian civilians were forced to labor on its construction around half would perish before its completion a starvation diet did little to help the men carrying out hard physical labor primary concerns are nutrition associated disorders the diet that Western prisoners receive was scanted consisting largely of rice maybe some some fish heads or some rotten vegetables Never Enough while at the same time prisoners are often compelled to work on you know extremely strenuous construction projects prisoners also struggled with the diseases in the camps where they were I mean if they were for example example held in Burma or imala they would be exposed to the clouds of mosquitoes transmitting malaria and other diseases and suffering and dying for the majority of them take and didn't [Music] survive while the prisoners endured captivity the fight for victory carried on on a key turning point in 1942 came not in the jungle but on the sea the battles of the Carl sea and Midway the first Naval action that saw aircraft carriers fighting one another the battle of the Carl sea resulted in the stalemate between the two forces this was the Japanese attempt to take Port morby which was the Australian held sea port in Southeastern New Guinea if the Japanese had had managed to take morrisby and the airfields around it they would have been able to project their air power directly down into Queensland they would have had Air Command of the sea Lanes linking North America and Australia forcing the Allies to rroo their shipping south of New Zealand that would have been a significant setback both sides endured substantial losses to their fleets Coral c it said is a tactical victory for the Japanese they did syn the aircraft carrier Lexington at a time when there were not many aircraft carriers to go around so that was a significant blow but the campaign was turned back so in that sense it was a strategic victory for the Allies Allied successes would continue in the Battle of Midway close to 30 us ships 19 sub Marines and more than 100 planes launched from Midway and Hawaii they faced the Japanese invasion Fleet which numbered close to 80 ships including 44 destroyers and 15 submarines this was a period in the war when forces were roughly in balance at the Battle of Midway the Japanese had four aircraft carriers uh the Americans had three of course the real difference made maker was that the Americans had broken the Japanese Naval codes and had essentially full knowledge of the Japanese plan so they were able to set up an ambush the battle began on the 3rd of June by midm morning US carrier-based aircraft had struck decisive blows sinking four Japanese carriers the Japanese lost four of their first line aircraft cares and given the size of the Japanese economy they were not able to replace those losses they were never able to rebuild their aircraft carrier striking Force to the kind of strength that it had in those early months of the war and that had a significant impact on on the rest of the war the US did not Escape unscathed the carrier Yorktown was crippled by a torpedo as was a destroyer but the Japanese invasion Fleet withdrew on land Japanese fortunes continued to sour the Kota track campaign proved to be an important turning point for the Allies a turning point which proved the Japanese could be stopped the stakes were high the Japanese Target Port morby was of strategic value to both sides initially the Japanese wanted to take Port Mor byc in a impressive amphibious Landing however the Japanese defeat at Coral Sea and then later on at Midway meant the Japanese weren't able to do this and instead they decided to land a small force on the northeast tip of Papua with a view of attempting to move Inland across the impressive Owen Stanley range towards Port mby along a foot track which we now know as the Kota track the campaign to stop them fought along the Cota track became one of the most iconic battles in Australian history on the 21st of July 1942 Japanese troops landed on babua point in Papua and advanced rapidly towards Kota the environment alone posed an extreme physical challenge the Kota Trail crosses some of the most treacherous terrain that troops fought on in the second world war essentially you have 10 days worth of travel over the series of mountains it ascends and descends 5,000 m which when you look at it is more than that you would actually climb from the Everest Base Camp to the Everest summit and then you consider that they're doing that in heat while they being afflicted by leeches mosquitoes they're Raven with dentry that's a lot to contend with let alone thinking about the fact that you're also fighting a war and being shot at movement on the Cota track was slow a distance which in open terrain might take hours instead took days men became separated from their units the challenging nature of the terrain creating significant variation in the pace of each Soldier their packs some weighing as much as 50 kg further slowed the advance it's very hard to appreciate how claustrophobic jungle warfare is it's hot it's wet people don't know where you are for most of the soldiers on both sides this the first time they've ever been in this type of an environment they're fighting along a very narrow fronts so terrain is key the terrain created significant problems for the use of artillery guns weighing hundreds of kilogram were almost impossible to drag through the mountainous jungle landscape and so the Australian's use of artillery was limited but the Japanese guns were far easier to disassemble and they made great use of them in the early stages of the campaign not only had an effect on really demoralizing the Australians the fact that were constantly under artillery bombard without any c to retaliate it also had a real appreciable impact on casualties with his Tran it ended up killing more than 50% of the Australian fatalities up there so that was definite advantage that the Japanese had that the Australians had nothing to counter with standing between Port morby and the Japanese Advance Were Soldiers of the papuan infantry battalion and the men of the 39th Australian Infantry Battalion The Defenders reached Kota on the 15th of July their first encounter with the advancing Japanese troops was at aala on the 23rd of July the defending troops were forced back to kakoda which fell on the 29th of July they retreated To Deni and then isurava exhausted they regrouped and prepared defensive positions tactically look at the campaign there two distinct phases first half of the campaign is the Japanese Advance where they're pushing the Australians constantly harassing them every day all the way back to IM Ridge during that part of the campaign the Australians are really trying to think we just need to buy ourselves time so they conduct what's called a fighting withdrawal fighting withdrawal is distinct from a retreat in a fighting withdrawal you're deliberately maintaining contact with the Enemy because you want to slow down their Advance as long as you can and the Australians did that really successfully in the early part of September the Australian's brutal fighting withdrawal continued through September to manari and Yori bwa finally the fighting withdrawal ceased at imit Ridge the Japanese troops could see the lights of Port morby from their positions their goal tantalizingly close but their supply and communication lines were stretched they had such a short time frame that they'd given themselves to accomplishing the capture report Mosby they didn't really think too far beyond that at the end of the day that's what really sunk the Japanese efforts in capturing Port Mosby the Japanese exhausted their supply train started to starve and then really realized well everything else is going badly for us we need to delay the attack on Port [Music] Mosby jungle fighting makes Supply difficult it was a challenge confronted by both sides in the Kota campaign vehicles and Roads could not be relied upon as the primary method of Supply equipment often had to be lugged by the troops themselves adding to their exhaustion local civilians were employed and sometimes compelled to support these efforts the campaign would in turn wreak havoc on their lives both sides wrecked huts and raided crops many locals fled their Villages seeking Shelter From the fighting aircraft bombed and strafed Villages dead lay out in the open the war had made their homes a battlefield the Japanese began withdrawing on the 24th of September 1942 from aori Bawa the decision to retreat was influenced by the successes of the Allies in another fight on gule Canal I think in many ways too what people don't really appreciate is just how key the fighting gule Canal was to the outcome of the fighting Kota this overly ambitious push across the mountains in guini towards Port mby not as important as protecting guo canal and the airfields in guo Canal from the Japanese point of view guo Canal was key hey the Japanese withdrawal back across the Owen Stanley range led to fighting as brutal as it had been in the early stages of the campaign intense fighting occurred at templeton's Crossing at aora Creek in October on the 3rd of November the Australian 7eventh division Commander Major General George vasy raised the Australian flag over Cota this was not only a powerful morale boost for the men fighting on the track retaking Cota opened the local Air strip supplies could be delivered and casualties evacuated by air wounded men who would have previously endured 10 days of being carried to safety now only endured a half-hour flight the last major stand by the Japanese on the track was in brutal fighting around oev and guari but but it was not the end of the fighting on Papua the Japanese withdrew to the beach heads and the fighting at bua gona and sanananda was a different kind of jungle fighting here the Australian and papuan troops were joined by Americans in a Siege against entrenched Japanese positions in the battle for the beach heads the Royal Australian Air Force came into its own air strips were carved out of the jungle IND dobodura Henda and wanel RAF planes performed the vital tasks of bombing and strafing Japanese forces conducted reconnaissance missions and provided crucial supplies to the Allied Forces as they pressed on the Japanese positions the fighting on Cota and the beach heads taught the Allies valuable lessons about jungle warfare in many ways it's faring Kota where the strin Army really learns how to fight and operate in the jungle with confidence much of the pre-war training didn't really look at operating in the jungle the strain forces were involved fighting against the Japanese in the jungles of Malaya however most of that experience was lost once those men then became prisoners of war the victory on the Kota track gave the Allies a significant morale boost it was perceived as securing Australia and for that reason was significant morale Victory and it was the first time in which any Japanese attempt to land forces on islands in the Pacific into take territory had been turned back and so that was an important uh new precedent 5 months into the war throughout the Cota and Beach head campaigns one of the greatest threats was not enemy action but illness and disease [Music] illness ravaged units and challenged medical personnel who confronted tropical diseases they had not encountered in peacetime practice the treatment of dentry within the Allied Services had improved since World War I the Advent of the wonder drug sulfaguanidine provided a highly effective solution this was in contrast to the Japanese units which were plagued with the disease malaria posed seemingly insurmountable problem both sides suffered terribly as the mosquito born disease spread itself across the battlefields of the Pacific War one thing that Colonel suji the Japanese commander of the training station really stressed was the problem of mosquitoes the way he put it was that it was a dishonor to put yourself out of battle through the cause of a mosquito when there was still an enemy to [Music] [Music] fight [Music] [Music] the statistics tell a startling story in 1942 over a 6-month period in New Guinea Australian forces reported in excess of 20,000 cases of malaria there battle casualties in that period total just 6,000 the symptoms are debilitating sometimes life-threatening constant chills and shakes almost like you know spikes in the body temperature upwards of 104° exhaustion loss of appetite loss of energy night sweats and these symptoms would unfortunately Spike then they would withdraw and then at any point in time they could return and this could go on for years among the malaria ridden battlefields of the Pacific War was guad canal in the Solomon Islands a battlefield which would prove to be one of the most significant of the entire Pacific Campaign gu Canal was the first true Japanese disaster of the war if the Japanese had really been paying attention if they commanders have really been thinking strategically they would have garrisoned Gua Canal effectively before the Americans got them the Lessons Learned in the campaigns of 1941 and 1942 in Malaya Burma and New Guinea would prove to be invaluable to the Allies in the rapidly expanding Pacific War and with the United States now fully committed to the war Japan's dominion over the asia-pacific region the greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere would be tested 1942 was a turning point for the Allies in the Pacific War the victories in the battles of Midway and the Coral Sea Kota and guad Canal put Japan on the defensive and paved the way for the Allied island hopping campaign but in the wake of World War II true peace in the asia-pacific region would remain elusive new tensions flared in Malaya and French Indochina as their people sought independence from Colonial rule Independence movements underwritten by the rise of [Music] Communism in the jungle Darkness envelops the soldier illness in Inc capacitates and tension is ever present this is the story of the Jungle Wars that erupted across the globe in the 20th century the people who fought for survival In the Jungle the soldiers who adapted their tactics to Guerilla fighting and the civilians whose lives and homes were decimated by jungle [Music] war the war in the Pacific began with the Japanese advance that shocked the Allies but by 1942 the tide of the war was beginning to shift as the Australians battled on the Kota track the United States Marines launched one of the most significant campaigns of the war on August 7th 1942 shrouded by clouds and Rain a United States Invasion Convoy made a surprise landing on guad Canal in the Solomon Islands for [Music] the Marines took the Airfield which became known as Henderson field with Little Resistance harvesting a cash of Japanese supplies and rations in the process but the six-month long fight to defend it from repeated Japanese reinforcement was brutal two days after the landing vice admiral Fletcher concerned about potential enemy attack made the decision to withdraw the US carrier Fleet in response rear Admiral Turner withdrew the US amphibious Force who were now without air cover this left the Marines on guad Canal stranded short of supplies un vulnerable the Marines had maybe a week or two worth of food and ammunition and they were expected to set up a several mile long defensive perimeter around Henderson field and then hold it indefinitely against Japanese ground attacks Japanese Naval bombardments and eventually Japanese aerial bombardments tasked with preparing hederson field for operational use they face danger not just from the enemy but from the array of threats posed by the harsh jungle conditions for Americans and Japanese both fighting in the Solomon Islands it was a contest un like any other that they had faced heat and humidity permeated the island temperatures ranging in the 40 to 50 Centigrade range regularly you add to that the wildlife many soldiers that would come across a standing pool water or a river they're exhausted they're drained they want to cool off they come out of it and they' be covered with leeches you remove the leech now you have a sword and that's going to become another spot for infection by jungle rot but leeches were not the only threat lurking in the water there's a couple of cases of soldiers Crossing or foring the river and all of a sudden the guy next to him pulled down under and and not having any sign of what happened to him until blood begins to Bubble Up guad Canal was a battle which hinged on Supply to survive and fight on the island both sides needed to be reinforced it was not an easy task there was no other way to supply troops on guala Canal except by Sea Air Freight didn't have the kind of carrying capacity to make a real difference the attempt to protect those supply lines led to a series of Naval battles and the naval battles over guala Canal I think were the most important aspect of the campaign over the course of the campaign seven major Naval actions took place the Battle of savvo Island launched by the Japanese Navy in response response to the initial Allied Landing dealt a significant blow to the Australian and US ships involved in order to supply their troops and send in reinforcements all while avoiding engagement with the US Air and Naval forces the Japanese sent destroyers and light Cruisers overnight from rabal through the new Georgia sound this night run which sometimes included a bombardment of marine positions became known as the Tokyo Express by the 18th of August Henderson field was operational the Air Force based here codenamed Cactus Air Force played a crucial role engaging with Japanese Fighters and bombers in the skies above guad canal and protecting those fighting on the ground meanwhile hidden away in Japanese occupied Islands Allied Coast Watchers sent warning of Japanese Naval and air movements via radio more than once their vital messages prevented the cactus Air Force from being caught out on the ground as the campaign wore on and the US slowly wore down the Japanese Navy guad Canal became known by the Japanese as starvation [Music] Island for [Music] debilitating tropical diseases did not discriminate between friend and foe it's a perfect storm for diseases uh to run rampant that's an understatement because everything was poisonous the plant for poisonous there were snakes you had to worry about dehydration malnutrition even with the relatively strong Medical Supply system that the US Army and Marine Corps provided their combatants there still were many Americans suffering from diseases so you had sick men compelled to stay in the line and engage in combat it's even worse for the Japanese they don't have that protection and there are many accounts of of Japanese soldiers just being compelled to fight where they stood even though they didn't have the strength to lift their rifles the Japanese could never equal or match the American logistical Supply system for every one combatant in the US military whether it's a marine or Soldier out in the Pacific there were as many as 16 Military and civilian Personnel in the supply line running all the way back to the United States the Japanese did not have that priority at [Applause] all three major land battles took place throughout the campaign the Battle of bloody Ridge in September 1942 was amongst the most brutal Japanese attackers penetrated Marine Lines and seriously threatened Henderson field but US Marines heavily supported by artillery eventually broke the back of the Japan Japanese offensive the decisive naval battle of the campaign came in November when a Japanese attempt to bring in more reinforcements was shattered only a quarter of the 125,000 reinforcements made it to land the Japanese made the decision to evacuate in December the last troops were finally evacuated from Cape esperans in early February the Allies claimed Victory on guad Canal on the 9th of February 1943 it was the turning point of the war and the beginning of the end for Japan at that time on guad Canal the Japanese made a series of disastrous mistakes they underperformed at just the moment when it made a huge difference and if they've been able to really see guad and hold it it would have been very difficult for the Americans to dislodge them Allied victory in guad Canal put the Japanese firmly on the defensive it was the first step in an island hopping campaign that saw the Allies begin to dominate in the Pacific [Music] Theater while guad Canal was in full swing another camp campaign was being launched in Burma in an attempt to restore the Burma Road an Overland Supply route to China supplies were being flown in over the Himalayas but it was a perilous task the British very much wanted to take Burma back but didn't know how to do it the Americans wanted part of Burma back they wanted North Burma so that they could reopen the Burma Road which was essential to to get supplies to the 45 Chinese divisions fighting the Japanese and to ensure that they were kept in the war British general Archer bald wal launched the aracan campaign to rest back some control of Burma in a limited Invasion this campaign aimed to seize the port of akab akab was important because there was an Airfield there from which British bombers could reach rangon and that figured the British plans for the reconquest of Burma so the 14th Indian division would make that Advance the 14th Indian army division crossed into Burma on the 21st of September 1942 but first they had to secure the Mayu Peninsula it was a challenging task made even more difficult by the harsh jungle conditions in the Aran campaign almost as many men were lost to disease malaria as were lost in Combat Action in addition the monsoon made campaigning in burmer impossible for 6 months of the year the advanced stalled at bonak waville called it off when it became clear the exhausted soldiers sick with tropical disease and low on supplies could go no further on the other hand the Japanese were still reasonably fresh in retrospect the calling off of the arakan campaign as the monsoon took hold was almost certainly the right decision Brigadier or Wingate commander of the 77th Indian Brigade had an unorthodox plan to regain control of the situation from behind Japanese lines it was a very radical idea that you could infiltrate Japanese lines in Burma and they would go in like the fingers of a hand in columns and they would be supplied by air and then at certain points they would come together like a fist attack a Target and then disperse again and go on to the next objective Guerilla Warfare was not new to Windgate he had led men behind Italian lines in Ethiopia early in the war and he understood that you could not rely on roads in the jungle in the Burma instance Vehicles could actually be something of a liability getting 10 m an hour Through the Jungle was actually pretty good and you have to bear in mind that the vehicles of the 1940s were not as reliable as they are now Windgate plan to use mules instead of vehicles for transport and have supplies dropped by air and so operation long cloth the first long penetration raid was launched in February from the infal region 3,000 men and 1,000 mules were deployed in eight columns into the dense Bernese jungle The Raid began well crossing the chindwin river in February 1943 the chind endured the rough jungle conditions and Cut Road Links between Mandalay and minina but when they emerged from the jungle into more Open Country their Fortune soured the chindits had moved out of airdrop range and were far more vulnerable to enemy attack in March after suffering severe casualties Windgate ordered his men to split up and Retreat the 240 km back to India though not a military success operation long cloth served as a proof of concept for the effectiveness of longrange penetration operation L cloth was designed to test the idea that you can support a body of troops Behind Enemy Lines by wireless communication with base and regular air drops the problem was that the air drops were not too regular and quite often five days Russians had to last eight and gradually the men began a period of slow starvation but the point was wi gate proved the principle all of these lessons fed into the next Expedition in March 1944 operation Thursday was launched two particularly crucial changes were implemented the force was much larger and the majority flew into position rather than exhausting themselves through a long march it was a fantastic venture over 20,000 men were to be flown in one Brigade had to march in but the main Expedition the main body started with um assault glider Landings on a couple of clearings in the burmes jungle 150 Mi Behind Enemy Lines and the following day the clearing was improved to the point that the big Transport Aircraft could come in but in the midst of operation Thursday Windgate was killed in a plane crash his aircraft after visiting his commanders in the field was flying back to to India and he crashed into a hillside he of course died and with it the spirit of the chindits was very badly shaken mainly because he was the only one who really understood how the chindits would work it was all inside his mind Allied Forces at Broadway and White City carried on but new orders moved the chindits to a more vulnerable base in Blackpool in support of the American Chinese operations in Northern Burma wind Gate's Vision was compromised the chindit lines in Blackpool were breached in May and by August they had all been pulled out of [Applause] Burma the operations remain a contentious topic it did not result in a strategic Victory and had significant C casualty rates and in fact everybody who came out went to hospital and usually they had two or three conditions malaria almost certainly dentry septic jungle SCE some had typhus a whole galaxy of conditions any one of which would have put you in hospital but it did prove British troops could survive and fight in the jungle fighting continued in Burma until the Allies finally secured victory in 1945 with the capture of mandelay in March and rangon in May throughout the Burma campaign the Allied island hopping offensive wore on a campaign which proved the importance of Naval support in the Pacific it was a sort of a leap frogging offensive across the Pacific always supported by new air bases new Naval bases and in if an island wasn't needed for one of those purposes it could simply be bypassed and its occupiers left to Wither on the vine in a two-prong strategy the Allies moved up from guad Canal hitting targets including New Guinea banville and the Gilbert Marshall and Mariana Islands in October 194 4 4 the Battle of leate Gulf dealt a death blow to the Imperial Japanese Navy by February 1945 Manila in the Philippines was back in Allied hands but the war was not yet won and the Japanese refused to [Music] surrender [Music] for Japan was struggling destruction of much of their merchant shipping had created shortages of food and raw material the necessity of using a devastating new weapon to force a Japanese surrender was debated at the time and remains contested today but the decision was made atomic bombs were released on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6th and 9th of August 1945 this and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on the 9th of August forested EMP hirohito's hand on the 15th hirohito's announcement of Japan's unconditional surrender was broadcast across [Music] Japan on September the 2nd the Japanese delegation led by foreign minister Shiga mitsu mamoru boarded the USS Missouri and signed the instrument of surrender Japan's Imperial Ambitions had been quashed but the Asia for Asians ideology which had been promoted during the war lingered [Music] on in the Years following the war Independence movements across southeast Asia gathered momentum as former Colonial Powers moved in to reinstate their rule Guerilla forces Drew upon weapons and tactics developed in the Pacific War in campaigns for sovereignty but this period coincided with the Cold War in this context the rise of Communism throughout these Independence movements was seen by the West as a threat which had to be stopped Britain looked to Asia and the restoration of its former Empire beginning in Malaya but this was no easy task the years that followed were what Malayan Chinese leader tan Chang Lo called the Revolt of Asia a period in which British dominance was no longer a foregone conclusion the way the MS viewed the British before the Japanese Occupation and after the occupation is like chalk and cheese the British had been perceived as being virtually Invincible after the war that was no longer the case there was a recognition that replacing the Japanese meant that there would have to be an internum but there was a real sense that Malaya had a future without the British but the British were not yet willing to let Malaya or its valuable resources go Malaya was a very lucrative Colony for the British in the leadup to the second world war 10 and rubber were very important for the British Empire and Malaya was a major source of it so for Britain holding on to Malaya was particularly significant it provided them with really good access across East and Southeast Asia as well being based there and having uh significant presence in Malaya economically it was significant strategically it was significant by 1948 the country was in a fraught position respect for British rule had evaporated the cost of living had skyrocketed rice shortages affected the population at large and ethnic divisions fragmented the population there was the ethnic tension between the very large Chinese community and slightly smaller Indian Community most of whom were indentured workers there was the local Malay Community with their own hierarchy of Sultans some Mala including some Sultans had collaborated with the Japanese during the war so there were all sorts of residual tensions from there there was the general feeling around that the local people wanted to be independent from the European Empires anyway and it was more compc ated uh by the ethnic divisions tensions simmered the Guerilla wing of the Malayan Communist Party the Malayan People's anti-japanese Army disbanded but it did not take long before many of its members found a new cause forming the Malayan races Liberation Army this new organization led by the car charismatic chin Pang was armed with weapons from the previous war retrieved from Jungle caches they had worked with the British during the war so they developed some skills in Insurgency and uh Guerilla Warfare but mostly they were keeping their powder dry almost literally for the postwar experience for The Liberation movement they wanted to push the British out and this pressure combined with with a more uh active communist stance led to the decision in 1947-48 to start an armed surrection the assassination of three European rubber estate managers on June 16th 1948 prompted the high Commission of Malaya to declare a state of emergency I don't think either the colonial authorities or frankly the Malayan communist party had planned what would happen they both stumbled into what became a 12-year conflict facing the Communist Gorillas with the security forces which included British Malayan and Commonwealth armed forces in addition the Federation of Malaya police formed their own jungle squads by 1950 500 of these squads existed there were a number of units there there uh including some giras and various British regiments but they weren't initially all that well coordinated it took a while for the British to work out what they needed to what extent they needed air support to what extent they could get support from other Commonwealth forces that took a while to get going and to get organized initially communist gorillas were concentrated in urban areas in the western states of Malaya regiments of the mrla stretched from jeor to panang but as the security forces began to control the threat the Communist terrorists as they became known melted into the [Music] jungles this was not a war characterized by setpiece battles or a fight for the higher ground it was a different kind of cont conflict a war of sabotage an ambush rubber plantations were destroyed Villages burned to the ground the security forces found early success at the outbreak of the emergency but their communist opponents soon refined their methods and began using more effective Ambush techniques pits filled with sharp bamboo Stakes was a favored and brutal example Le a jungle war often relies upon the local people for support and the Malayan emergency was no different winning over the hearts and minds of the people of Malaya was of Paramount importance to both sides initially the emergency looked bleck from the British point of view and it wasn't until the British established a plan that was designed to respond to the threat and inclusively engage the community that there was any sense of hope that this could actually be turned back that the tide would turn on the jungle fringes rural Chinese squatters had established communities since the time of the first Chinese immigrants in these Villages they weathered economic recession and Japanese Occupation self-sufficient they had been of little interest to the government until the emergency almost all the support for the Insurgency came from the landless Chinese squatters on the fringes of the towns who under the legislation that applied there had few of any land rights in 1950 Lieutenant General Briggs implemented a plan known as area domination which aimed to interdict communist supply lines and force them out of held territories to achieve this rural Malayan would be forcibly relocated into new Villages guarded camps where inhabitants would be prevented from providing crucial support to the gorillas by putting them in villages which were patrolled the authorities could then severely restrict the food supply from the minu the organization that support supported the gorillas initially the government showed resistance to the cost and scope of the resettlement program but by 1954 more than half a million squatters and land owners had been resettled so as the security situation improved because of controlling the population in this way other measures were introduced more civil measures to win over the population to show this is a good place to live for you even in the long run and the government is looking after you so it's worth supporting the government course some new Villages offered improved facilities New Roads and medical services but for the most part resettlement was a traumatic and disruptive experience for the local population one for which they were given very little notice you have to remember that the hearts and Minds operation was not only a matter of being nice to people it was a carrot and stick approach the idea was to give people some security but also to make it clear that they could be controlled they could be in effect punished if they didn't cooperate livelihoods were undermined food was tightly controlled to prevent it falling into the hands of gorillas poor sanitation in some new Villages led to an increase in diseases like malaria dysentery and anic fever the hearts and mind strategy was just one Innovation the British used to their advantage in this jungle war another Advantage was total air control air power was very important in two ways most importantly I think in transport just simply being able to fery food and supplies to take troops out to Jungle areas having total air control was a vital aspect of jungle operations they also used air power for bombing by hitting their camps by forcing them to move by by damaging their supplies by making it very difficult for them to operate air power played a significant role in many ways the use of aircraft in the Malayan emergency foreshadowed similar uses in later conflicts herbicides were dropped onto enemy cultivation plots in the hope of destroying their food supply anticipating the American use of Agent Orange in Vietnam a decade later but one of the most sign significant developments is the ever increasing role of helicopters for transport and medical evacuation throughout the emergency helicopters carried more than 100,000 men into the depths of the Jungle and brought as many as 5,000 casualties to safety cutting travel time from Days of slogging through arduous conditions to Mere hours in 1957 the Federation of Malaysia was granted Independence and the Nationalist cause promoted by the communist movement lost its sway basically the authorities wore the the party down they had the advantage of air power they had the ability to cut the insurgents off from any outside support but the the most important thing that the British did though even more important perhaps than their strategic uh developments was simply to promise Independence there was a rapid change in the whole atmosphere once the authorities assured the Mala in particular that Malaya would get its independence even if the emergency wasn't over [Applause] in 1960 the emergency was declared over it was not a cheap Affair it has been estimated that between 1948 and 1957 the United Kingdom spent around 525 million on the conflict but the cost in lives was an even heavier burden by the time the emergency was declared over 3,000 civilians 1,800 Malay and Commonwealth troops and more than 6,700 gorillas had lost their lives while the British were engaged in the emergency in Malaya the French were also engaged in a war with a formidable group seeking Independence the war in Vietnam then French Indochina proved to be a different contest with an entirely different outcome comprised of the ancient kingdoms of tonin Anam and kachin China Vietnam has deep rooted Chinese influence which stretches back to almost a millennia of Chinese rule French colonization originated in Vietnam in the 1860s and lasted for close to a century French control in Indochina was very very brutal the French imagined that they were civilizing that they were modernizing Vietnam and in some respects if you look at some of the infrastructure they constructed or some of the small scale Industries perhaps they were successful in that but the average Vietnamese didn't benefit from that process at all during the second world war as Vietnam fell under Japanese Occupation a group of gorillas formed in the jungle they sought Independence and fought a war of resistance known as the Viet men they were led by the charismatic oi men he was very Vietnamese and very Cosmopolitan as well because he' spent a good deal of his life abroad and he began to understand the mentality of the French and how they would fight and negotiate during the second world war the Viet de men found an ally in the United States military supplies and expertise were provided by the US office of strategic Services they sent oss the predecessor of the CIA to support the fight against the Japanese who had occupied the area so in that sense the second world war was the starting point for American involvement in 1945 with the Japanese surrender ho and the yet men made their move the August Revolution Hanoi was seized on August 26th hundreds of thousands of people supported ho the Viet and an independent Vietnam for the Vietnamese it meant that in a very new and clear way that they could be masters of their own destiny the Viet men liberated much of Northern Vietnam ho announced the establishment of a unified Nation the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on the 2nd of September as had been agreed in the potam conference the Allies represented by Britain and China moved in to occupy Vietnam and hand back control to the French the British did so in the south of the country the Chinese in the North in February 1946 hoi men reached out to former allies he wrote a telegram to US president Harry Truman asking that the president and the American people interfere urgently to support an independent Vietnam he received no reply now initially the United States had been ambivalent about the French attempt to regain control of Indochina after World War II Franklin Roosevelt had declared that the United States would not support the re-imposition of colonial Authority after his death in April 1945 a much more tentative Harry Truman was led into the cold war and was determined to support the French one of the weirdest things in history was that um right through the second world war the theme song coming out of Washington all the time to all the old Colonial Powers was when this is over you people are going to get out of your Empires but then in the wake of the second world war we get the cult War starting and suddenly Americans and especially American conservatives they sto minding too much about how much Colonial oppression the was anybody who was fighting the Communists was okay by them in March 1946 the French agreed to recognize the Democratic Republic of Vietnam but only as part of the French Union ho acessed briefly a short-term truce with the French in order to ensure China moved out of the North but the truce was shortlived by December 1946 the Vietnam and French forces were engaged in allout war they held firm in fortifications but in rural areas the Viet men held sway Vietnam was essentially a country of villages it had very few cities and its cities were M symbolic centers people would disappear into their Villages and no one would know who they were anymore the French were always mistaken about how much they controlled because we know if a large Force came around nobody would assault them but the villages would be in the end run by the Viet men the vietman guerillas were aely commanded by ven Gia a history teacher born in a village in central Vietnam Gap was a nationalist and communist activist hochi Min was a real leader in the sense that he knew how to collect people around him who were extremely good at things that he didn't know how to do so well was a great commander and hoien let him do that at the beginning of the war Gap concentrated on Guerilla tactics by day the French controlled urban areas roads and outposts but by Night alliances shifted and the vietman ambushed convoys and garrisons then disappeared back into the jungle but in 1949 Gap experimented with conventional Warfare it resulted in extremely high casualties in an offensive against the dilat line a line of concrete fortifications around the Red River delta in Northern Vietnam the vietman sustained 20,000 casualties the tactic of human waves proved catastrophic against French Firepower and so recognizing the flaws in drawing on conventional offensive tactics Gap reverted back to Guerilla tactics [Music] meanwhile the success of the Communists in their civil war against nationalist forces in China raised increasing concerns in the US that communist influence might spread further into Vietnam from 1950 the US government began providing significant Aid to the French campaign in Indochina from the early 1950s it was the Americans who were saying from Washington no no no you must negotiate with these people you've got to keep going and by the early 50s the Americans are paying for almost every bomb and shell that the French are using out there sustained by us Aid the French continued with the war employing various tactics to combat the gorillas during operation hendell in 1953 they made effective use of parachute battalions to attack Vietnam Supply dumps French Commander nar's success with aird drops lulled him into a false sense of security his plan for a decisive action at Dean ban Fu relied greatly upon aerial Supply Dean ban Fu already had an air base the local people were supportive of the French and the hills within the valley could be used as strong points the plan appeared solid but it had enough number of fatal flaws the huge French mistake of De B Fu was they garrisoned this chain of quite low Hills and they thought well this is great we're up on the hills and the plains here and they didn't look a little bit further and see that only 3 or 4 miles over there you've got much higher Hills that were very soon occupied by the Vietnam Gap assembled thousands of laborers who carried heavy weapons and suppli through the dense jungle The Siege which ensued pitted some 13,000 French soldiers against 50,000 well-armed and better positioned vietn [Applause] troops the vietn men also achieved something that the French never considered for a moment they could do the Chinese supplied them with captured American hiters with a range on supercharge of up to 12 miles um G 60,000 Porters moved those two ton artillery pieces 500 miles across some of the worst country in the world to imp place them in caves impregnable to French artillery or air power from which they could emerge and blast the French camp and over a period of 5 months this battle which the French launched so that they could take on gup on what they saw as their own terms turns into a slow mo catastrophe for the French this was one of the war-winning strokes and this was also one of the most brilliant military achievements in the 20th century the victory at dbn Fu put an end to the first Indochina War the May 7th 1954 agreement signed at Geneva divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel but peace in the divided Vietnam did not last long the French defeat drew the United States further into a jungle war that would be broadcast for the world to [Music] see in the wake of the second world war new powers in Asia and the Pacific Rose to challenge their former Colonial rulers Nations who sought Independence became caught in a global struggle between superpowers and their ideologies struggles for Independence mixed with Rising Cold War tensions the jungle once again became a battlefield in the jungle Darkness envelops the soldier illness incapacitates and T ion is ever present this is the story of the Jungle Wars that erupted across the globe in the 20th century the people who fought for survival In the Jungle the soldiers who adapted their tactics to Guerilla fighting and the civilians whose lives and homes were decimated by jungle war on the 17th of August 1945 in Indonesian nationalist leader sucaro declared Indonesian Independence a former Dutch Colony Indonesia had fallen under Japanese Occupation during the second world war but following the war the Dutch sought the restoration of their former Authority in the region and so Indonesian nationalist leaders led a struggle against their former Colonial rulers these efforts culminated in the creation of the United States of Indonesia in 1949 which gave way to the Republic of Indonesia in [Music] 1950 little more than a decade later the creation of the Federation of Malaysia prompted concerns from president sukarno that the British were maintaining colonial rule by another name the issue was there was an independent Malaya had gained independence in 1957 but Singapore as well as the crown colonies of North Borneo and Sarawak were still under British control so here the starting point is the idea that Britain forming something out of its former colonies was sort of a neoc colonialist plot suano the president of Indonesia who was a champion of anti-colonialism made this one of his slogans that this should really be resisted because it's not in the interest of the people and something should be done about this sakaro had his own plans for an Empire he aspired to create a greater Indonesia which Incorporated the people of Malaya the Malay people were culturally quite close to many in Indonesia there was a sense of entitlement there was a sense of seeking to complete the removal of the European powers in a way that would see the Malay identity across Malaysia Indonesia and the southern Philippines be brought together these competing plans led to the Indonesian confrontation a conflict fought between 1962 and 1966 on the island of Borneo across the Indonesian territory of cantan and the Malaysian territory of sowak as well as the British protectorates of brunai and North Borneo the Indonesians declared a policy of confront of Confrontation which was delightfully vague nobody knew quite what that meant it wasn't War it wasn't actually conflict as such but confrontation and everybody assumed probably correctly that it was very similar to what had just worked very successfully for them in achieving control over West New Guinea which had been kept back after the rest of the Netherlands e Indies became the independent country of Indonesia in 1949 Indonesia launched small crossb raids into Malaysian territory in Borneo aimed at destabilization it was an unpredictable method of conflict so it was the Potential Threat as much as the actual threat the people had to deal with and that put the authorities Britain Malaysia and its allies on the defensive in way that they couldn't take the initiative they had to Simply wait and see uh what was going to happen both sides relied on the Goodwill and support of the local population to sustain their fights the British Commonwealth forces sought intelligence news of any potential [Music] threats border Scouts were used as one way of gathering information the Border Scouts were an indigenous force that the British trained to some extent and also equipped they were particularly important for intelligence gathering purposes so this was the basis where the fight against the Indonesians could get the information they needed to know where to find how to pursue those Guerilla forces who in very small numbers attacked across the border in Foria the Indonesians needed support to sustain their efforts as they moved deeper into Malaysia so too did the British Commonwealth troops sympathies from local communities fell on both sides the experience of the Commonwealth forces was different in different parts of Borneo as to how much cooperation they got from the local communities in some cases they got a lot of assistance in some cases sympathy seem to align more with the Indonesians the situation varied in that initially British Commonwealth troops were restricted to the Malaysian side of the Border combating Indonesian forces only once they had crossed the border operation Claret which began in 1964 changed the game the director of operations General walkup but for the idea that in order to seize the initiative they had to be given permission to cross the border now this would always be under plausibly deniable conditions but the point was that the forces could go into Indonesian territory carry out their operation and then Retreat back and always declare that any operations were on the Malaysian side of the border to be seen to observe International standards these secret operations into Indonesian territory gave the opportunity for British Commonwealth units to Ambush Indonesian forces and attack enemy camps within a radius from the border initially incursions were limited to 1.8 km across the border in 1965 the radius was extended to 9 km incre ining the number of contacts significantly in this conflict secrecy was Paramount units Moved Through the Jungle like ghosts the dead were not to be left for the enemy and no prisoners were to be [Music] taken engagement with Indonesian forces varied during patrols often Commonwealth units executed planned attacks raids on strategic targets such as airfields or Villages known to be harboring [Music] soldiers other encounters were more opportunistic ambushing enemy forces on Jungle tracks or in River convoys when they encountered [Music] them as with all Jungle Wars one of the greatest threats to soldiers was the environment it was extremely difficult to operate in that very thick jungle it was very humid the tropical diseases caused problems and even the wildlife I think the first SAS casualty was somebody who was killed by a rampaging elephant so the hazards were very severe it was very difficult [Music] conditions setting up camp by a riverbed required an assessment of the risk posed by Falling trees and the river itself self which might rise with a flash flood in the night but while some elements of jungle warfare remain constant others change with the development of new technologies the terrain we're talking about is a hilly and dense jungle with enormous amounts of rainfall sparse population very little infrastructure at all so when you put forces in that space you have to establish the base you have to bring in everything you're going to use that required helicopter operations to support the bases and then supplying the forces that would then infiltrate into the Borderlands of Indonesia to conduct their operations one of the greatest advantages in using helicopters to transport supplies and Men was that it freed up soldiers who might otherwise have carried the load what might have taken days and left a brigade exhausted took only an hour by air helicopters are the aircraft of choice they can reach remote places with very little preparation and can hover on a spot can unload troops supplies they can exfiltrate people in a difficult predicament they can rescue wounded people they transform the way forces can operate in Jungle conditions in remote locations in very dispersed operations that gives the British and their Coalition Partners a huge leg up helicopters proved invaluable but their use in the Indonesian confrontation did not extend to combat they were only used for transport and Supply type operations they never created helicopter gunships along the style that the Americans famously used in Vietnam but it was an advantage that the Commonwealth forces had which was simply not matched on the Indonesian side many lessons of earlier Wars informed the British response to the Indonesian confrontation one was based on the new Villages of Malaya in operation hammer British forces relocated Chinese residents to alternate locations just as it had been for many in Malaya the experience was a traumatic one a coup in 1965 destabilized the sakaro regime and signaled the beginning of the end of the confrontation so when the coup occurred it was pretty clear from then on that the Indonesians were likely to back off and to restore relations with Malaysia in 1966 the Army compelled Sarno to delegate much of his power to General suaro who was then Chief of Staff of the army suaro signed a treaty with Malaysia bringing the confrontation to an end so the decision to end confrontation in 1966 was mainly a political one the conflict at the border was at a low scale both sides were basically keeping it limited the real difference was a change in government in Indonesia in March 1968 Sarto became president and took a different approach the fall of sakano and his replacement by president zahar was transformative under his new order Indonesian policies changed significantly sakaro who'd been aligned with the pki the Communist Party of Indonesia he was replaced by a President Who had a different disposition who was much more inclined to be Pro Western not sympathetic to the Soviet Union or to China and who was much more inclined to strike a deal with the British and to ingratiate himself without being Allied but aligned with the United States that changed the equation entirely President suaro also led a period of economic reform and encouraged International Investment which stabilized the nation and led to a period of prosperity it that lasted for decades and that then set the path for Indonesia to emerge from this combative stage of being hostile to its immediate neighbors to actually leading southeast Asia in setting up what today we know as Azan the association of Southeast Asian [Music] Nations [Music] as the Indonesian confrontation was being fought the United States was becoming increasingly embroiled in the Affairs of Vietnam many people focus on the 1960s when they talk about the Vietnam War and American intervention there but it is of course a much longer period of time that we should look at the French managed in the late 1940s to persuade The Americans that it wasn't just an anti-colonial movement that was going on in Vietnam it was a communist [Music] fight communism was seen as a global threat which had to be contained the Domino Theory loomed large in the minds of decision makers the domino theory was essentially that communism would advance from one nation to the next through Southeast Asia unless it was stopped almost like gravity dragging it down towards Australia it had some logic to it in the sense that they had seen North Korea attack South Korea they had seen countries in the East block of Europe kept by the Soviet Union after World War II but I think it was largely Mis red uh because Vietnam was very much a nationalist War a civil war but but in those days at the height of the Cold War that's how the leaders in the west saw the world it was a world divided by communist versus Freedom loving democracies in the west the imperative of containment in Vietnam became more urgent with the Chinese Communist Party victory over the Nationalist party in 1949 talks in Geneva after the Democratic Republic of Vietnam's victory over the French at dbn Fu resulted in the division of Vietnam at the 17th [Music] parallel after 1954 there were two rival tyrannies in Vietnam the northern tyranny was very efficient ruthlessly disciplined the southern tyranny was incredibly incompetent and worst of all it took place under the eyes of the [Music] world in the South Neo D xam was appointed prime minister of what would become the Republic of Vietnam he received significant us support in the South the Americans engaged in what they called nation building now the problem with that was that there was no historic IAL South Vietnamese Nation they were trying to invent a nation so I would suggest that from the very beginning of the American Enterprise in Vietnam they were deluding themselves about their mission in the north economic crises and food shortages were a serious problem some including intellectuals Catholics and land owners fled to the South fearing persecution others stayed to discover that fear was well [Applause] founded hoi men promised the Vietnamese people as the French withdrew from the north that nobody had anything to fear from his government's regime and he lied in fact landlords intellectuals anybody who could be described and was as an enemy of the people suffered Dreadful persecution and in an unknown number of Casey's death and of course Hanoi ruthlessly conceals the facts we have no idea how many people estimates ranged up to 15,000 of those who were killed in that first stage of Ho's [Music] rule the Geneva accords signed in 1954 were designed to separate Vietnam into North and South at the 17th parallel only temporarily a nationwide election was to be held in 1956 to reunify the country ZM ensured the elections did not take place by 1956 he was president of an autocratic regime if the DM regime had governed in an even remotely enlightened way all that came afterwards might not have happened but instead DM broke his word and his regime became from the outset notoriously corrupt and notoriously incompetent the shattering of the peaceful reunification plan as it was known in the north prompted decision makers in Hanoi to consider taking action action which would make an enemy of a former friendly Nation an enemy they did not want the creation of the National Liberation Front in the south in 1960 escalated opposition to the ZM regime more commonly known by Western Powers as the Viet Kong the NLF gathered support quickly the professional and intellectual classes as well as rural people were attracted to the organization the NLF Pro of land was particularly alluring to those living in rural Villages leadership in Saigon sought to combat the problem through the creation of strategic hamlets the idea was to separate the South Vietnamese population from the Vietcong and the idea was that they would physically relocate whole Villages of South Vietnamese away from areas that were seen to be at risk of communist control the Strategic Hamlet program was based on the idea pioneered with some success by the British in the Malayan emergency but the British used them to defend the melees against the Chinese which more or less worked but Zim was using them to defend Vietnamese against Vietnamese and that didn't work so well they were cordoned off and people were prevented from going out at night off prevented from going to their fields during the daytime and so a lot of Vietnamese who hadn't really taken aside turned against him because of these [Music] hamlets there was no real ideology in amongst the common peasants of South Vietnam communism meant nothing to them capitalism meant nothing the South Vietnamese government in Saigon meant nothing they were just trying to survive the situation in Vietnam was escalating and US President John F Kennedy did not want to be seen to be appeasing Communists the failed CIA sponsored invasion of communist Cuba in the Bay of Pigs incident added further fuel to the fire Kennedy started to build up support for zm's government Kennedy knew that if he called out he would lose the 64 election that would be the end of him America had been defeated again so what they decided to do was build up more and more military advisors and that was the situation going from 61 to about [Music] 64 weapons of war were shipped to South Vietnam helicopters and armored vehicles among them but President Kennedy resisted sending combat troops instead advisors were deployed by 1962 9,000 US military personnel were stationed in Vietnam they were called advisers but they were allowed to go into battle with Vietnamese forces so there were American troops involved in the conflict in the county Insurgency as it was called at the time [Music] the violent repression of Buddhist monks signaled the beginning of the end of the Zam regime the South Vietnamese were facing two crises at that particular point one was they were facing a crisis from the Buddhist majority a number of Buddhist monks had committed very public suicides they had self ulated in South Vietnamese cities the other great crisis that the South Vietnamese faced was that the communist guerillas were in fact winning the war in Vietnam plans for a coup led by South Vietnamese generals and supported by key figures in the United States were carried out on November 1st 1963 Zam and his brother escaped the palace and found temporary sanctuary in a church before they surrendered and were subsequently shot then you have the assassination of John F Kennedy Lyndon Johnson becomes president in late 1963 and over the next year or so until his election I think he's biting his time to see what might happen but then by 1965 the situation in Vietnam has deteriorated to the point that South Vietnam might fall to Communism President Johnson was faced with a decision withdraw from Vietnam or escalate us involvement the Gulf of tonan incident would heavily sway this decision aggression by Tera against the peaceful villagers of South Vietnam has has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America air action is now in execution against gunboats and certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam which have been used in these hostile operations in the larger sense this new Act of aggression aimed directly at our own forces again brings home to all of us in the United States the importance of the struggle for peace and Security in Southeast Asia the Gulf of tonan resolution passed on the 7th of August 1964 gave Johnson the power to take whatever action necessary to protect us interests in Southeast Asia most of Johnson's advisers suggested this action should be in the form of a bombing campaign the rationale is really from an American point of view we've tried all sorts of things we've given a lot of help to the indigenous forces we given them some advice some very good equipment nothing really worked what else can we do what are our strengths and one of the strengths is air power on March the 2nd 1965 Operation Rolling Thunder began a sustained strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam which continued until October 1968 a campaign that led to a vast amount of Destruction but no strategic victory for the US by 1967 the United States had dropped more bombs on Vietnam than the Allies had dropped in Europe in the second world war the air strikes aimed to convince leaders in Hanoi to come to the negotiating table but they were largely ineffective airan is a terrifically effective weapon against troops moving in the open or against some kinds of industrial installation but it is not effective against well dug in troops so air power is only going to be as much use as first of all the suitable targets you've got of which there were not very many in Vietnam and secondly of the quality of Target intelligence which was Dreadful and when you look 4 million tons of American bombs dropped on South pit now I think one could reasonably guess that about 3.99 million tons achieved absolutely nothing except to devastate the environment and Kill La [Music] civilians the military situation worsened in Vietnam in July 1965 the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara recommended escalation he later reflected that this was the beginning of a tragic and slippery slope that same month President Johnson held a news conference explaining the escalation to the American public we did not choose to be the Guardians at the gate but there is no one else we do not want an expanding struggle with consequences that no one can peree nor will we Bluster or bully or flaun our power but we will not surrender and we will not Retreat I mean literally Viet Kong were going to take over um in a matter of months and so lynon Johnson didn't want that to happen the only Resort he could see was to send in American troops and he thought that they might succeed since they were so powerful the decision was informed in part by hubris the unwavering self-belief that the United States was the superior Force the flawed belief that they could not be beaten there was a general expectation among a lot of people in Washington that the Viet Kong would take one look at us forces coming saw with all their gear and the helicopters and the guns and all the rest of it just take to the hills literally and never be seen again many in the United States did not realize Vietnam would be a very different kind of war the Americans were still on a sort of World War II and Korean War battlefield where they would have massive military attacks preceded by bombardments and area support this sort of War would not function at all in the jungles of Vietnam it soon became clear that battle lines and troop movements were not markers of victory in Vietnam in this war victory was measured by American strategists not by ground taken but in body [Applause] counts americ General West Morland believed in the strategy of attrition if he deployed enough Firepower and enough of his opponents forces were killed the battle would be won the fet Kong were very effective Guerilla Fighters it's very interesting to listen to Americans who were in Vietnam in 1964 1965 talk about this because they went over there very optimistically they believed that they would Prevail against this rag tag Army of Vietnamese they should have read their history books they should have read what happened to to the French the Viet Kong and North Vietnamese Fighters had learned to combat the industrial Machines of War using classic gorilla tactics they would hit and run and attack only when they were sure of [Music] Victory the Battle of IAD Drang fought near the Cambodian Border in November 1965 Illustrated the strength of US Firepower but it also gave their enemies vital experience in fighting them during the conflict the North Vietnamese army or NVA came close to overrunning the American position but overwhelming Firepower including the use of air strikes and artillery forced the NVA to retreat however the engagement taught the NVA to stay close to the enemy they developed what might be called a grab and hold tactic where rather than staying at a far distance when the helicopter comes in as it's Landing it's very vulnerable they want to hit that helicopter with small arms fire and try to destroy it and then once the American soldiers disembark then they want to attack on foot as quickly as possible so that if those Americans call in an air strike they going to kill their own people us strategists also adapted their tactics in 1966 the US adopted a Search and Destroy strategy men were sent out on patrol from firebases to locate and engage the enemy once engaged artillery and aircraft could be called in to suppress the enemy the strategy West Morland hoped would find fix and and finish the elusive veton but the gorillas were fighting on home ground which gave them a distinct Advantage the gorilla Warfare they did was very very effective the Viet Kong had been fighting for Generations they knew the jungles they knew how to hide they knew how to bury themselves in the ground they knew had to build the tunnels which they would melt into pitted against these effective Guerilla Fighters were many inexperienced Allied soldiers fighting a war on foreign soil with little training for the environment which confronted them I mean for example a lot of firefights you'd have a marine or US army unit that was advancing through the jungle on a sweep which could go on for days or weeks and they trud through this this Dreadful country day after day and nothing happens for days and weeks and then suddenly W and they find themselves in a fir fight where very often the vietcom would just fire for 30 seconds a minute and then be away before the Americans could deploy air power or artillery power against them direct contact was not the only threat while on patrol the Viet Kong also turned their enemies weapons against them on any day there would be thousands of leftover American artillery shells or bombs or Duds the viic Kong would go in and take those Duds or those unexploded bombs away and then turn them into their own improvised Minds it was like playing Russian roulette marching Through the Jungle finding and disposing of the mines was a challenging job one of the branches that had a a big part to play in that were the combat engineers they would have metal detectors and they would walk down roads or walk through trails in the jungles they also would use mind detection dogs there weren't enough of them to use to really make a huge difference but the Mind detection dog was very very good because a a canine smells a million times better than a human smells other traps Drew on materials within the jungle itself the pungy steaks in the pits that were camouflaged by very thin coverings is a prime example they might put spikes into big logs and hang them on trees with a trip wire so the log would fly down right about chest height and impale marines that were doing patrols so they were very very effective and they maximized whatever environmental factors they could whether it's in the jungle or the rice Patties or even in the streets of some place like sagon one United States policy which worked against the ability to recognize and counter these threats was the system of rotation for instance rotating people out of the Jungle after about 7 or eight months and out of the country after a year it meant that whether it was officers or men then almost as soon as anybody gained the experience in how to do this stuff they were sent home again so you had these guys up against Viet Kong some of whom had been fighting for 20 years and not too surprisingly the Viet Kong and later the North Vietnamese were better jungle [Music] soldiers Vietnamese women were active participants in the war as members of the National Liberation Front women undertook a range of roles from carrying supplies down the hoochi Min tril to making pungy sticks and some carried weapons themselves Guerilla fighters who became known as the long-haired Warriors culturally the Americans we're Western and we have you know divisions of labor and spheres between the genders that are well established and I think the lens through which the Americans looked at the Vietnamese made them want to zero in on adult men who could be Warriors could be Fighters could be members of the Viet Kong and they tended to ignore the effectiveness of women in the North and South Women gave sustenance medical assistance shelter and support to Guerilla Fighters some 2 million women served in some capacity with the north Viet Vietnamese Army and with the vietcom whether it's as spies as savur as recruiters even as combatants in the Viet Kong they took on the agricultural burden in order to supply food to troops and endured terrifying bombing raids they too carried weapons in the jungle and took aim at the planes above with anti-aircraft weapons women also helped to ensure the logistical Lifeline for the gorillas carrying out repairs and construction on the hoochi Min Trail and at least a million North Vietnamese women would have been basically pushing supplies on bicycles down the hoian trail beyond the jungle they worked in government and universities in offices and factories contributing to the war effort by 1969 at least 60% of the workforce was female for the American troops and their allies patrolling the Jungle the Guerilla tactics and lack of clear battle lines posed a significant psychological threat an attack might come from anywhere and anyone you didn't know who the enemy was because they weren't in uniform they wore the same uh sort of black Pama type outfits as the ordinary uh peasant in the fields The Peasant in the field could have a gun buried under a bush and as soon as the soldiers passed thinking that they were a friendly they'd whip out the gun and shoot them among the most ingenious elements of the Viet Kong's Guerilla campaign was the use of the tunnel system the use of tunnels in war was not new soldiers of many different gen Generations in many different kinds of War have dug into the Earth in search of protection but the sophistication and extent of the tunnels made them a remarkable part of the Vietnam jungle war story in operation crimp a Search and Destroy operation in January 1966 American and Australian troops discovered the extensive coochi tunnel Network the tunnels were constructed in the area known as the Iron Triangle some 40 km north of Saigon they included medical facilities kitchens storage areas for food and ammunition sleeping quarters as well as ventilation shafts and smoke Outlets the vi Kong were slight small people the American Big Fellas couldn't chase them down there they could disappear and then the Americans would March over them and they'd reappear behind them this happened many many times and I don't think the Allies really adapted to that will for the troops assigned the task of penetrating the tunnels known colloquially as tunnel rats the job could be a harrowing one the tunnels were small dark and claustrophobic descending into the entrance of a tunnel with a torch pter and gun was a tough Balancing Act One made even more difficult if the tunnel was occupied by enemy soldiers contact with the Enemy was intensified by the small space the firing of guns pierced eard drums flashes and smoke obscured Targets in the darkness below ground American troops and their allies were at a disadvantage but in the air they dominated the defining image of Vietnam the varied roles undertaken by helicopters represented a fundamental change to jungle warfare tactics used for insertions and extractions medical evacuations and gradually as heavily armed gunships they were versatile weapons of war in Vietnam the use of helicopters is perfected they use something called air Mobility tactics basically you use helicopters in this case the uh1 Huey helicopter the iconic American Helicopter the fly in a or 10 soldiers very quickly come in Hover just off the ground disembark those men and then get out before the enemy start shooting that air Mobility tactic ended up fitting into the strategy of Search and Destroy soldiers would be carried on helicopters dropped off out in the jungle and clearings and so on where they would basically be there inviting almost like bait to entice the North Vietnamese to attack and then they would call in air strikes or call in artillery barges search out the enemy draw them out into the open and Destroy [Music] them 5,000 Us helicopters were destroyed during the Vietnam war a testament to the extent of their use and the effectiveness of Vietcong tactics more broadly aircraft would continue to be a significant weapon in the fight against the gorillas particularly in targeting the lifeline that fed the campaign in the South the hoian trail the hoian trail was not just one Trail was several Trails running from North Vietnam through LA and Cambodia down into South Vietnam and it was the supply line through which the North Vietnamese resupplied and reinforced the Viet Kong and North Vietnamese Army serving in South [Music] Vietnam traversing the trail was exhausting heat malaria dis B and jungle rot combined to weigh down the traveler to supplement Food Supplies Travelers on the trail lived off the land those on bicycles would carry up to 350 kg of supplies over hundreds of kilometers weary soldiers on the trail stopped at military stations along the way and were given food and a place to sleep but air attacks were a consistent problem and air rate shelters were often few and far between the jungle provided cover but not protection from the American aircraft that bombarded the trail countless Vietnamese lost their lives to the bombing campaign but despite the Relentless Allied efforts the trail was never destroyed throughout nearly 10 years of fighting the Americans were never able to turn off that that spicet of supplies I mean the Airmen claimed then and some even still claim now oh if we'd been given completely free reign we could have severed the hoi Min tril and the war would have come to an end I don't think one can possibly believe that because until a pretty late stage in the war the actual quantity of supplies that was moving down the h in trail was pretty small the hoian trail was just one method of maintaining the gorilla Force supplies were not solely garnered from the north we now know the statistics that in the mid 1960s the Communist war effort was requiring about 350 tons a day of supply and Munitions to keep it going but of that 350 tons about 9/10 was being generated locally in their own areas so only about one tenth was having to be sent down from North Vietnam so only having to get about 34 tons of material a day down the hoi Min Trail well 34 tons a day is is not a lot of supplies and Munitions to have to move and so the war in the jungle continued each side absorbing blows from the other adapting tactics incurring increasing casualties the Americans and their allies may have seen themselves as the Guardians at the gate holding up the dominoes in Southeast Asia but as the years stretched on Victory became ever more elusive the Tet Offensive a series of attacks by Viet Kong and NVA forces launched in January 1968 proved that even a strategic Victory would not necessarily win the day for the US and her allies the war was becoming increasingly unpopular at home and US leaders began to look for a way out of the jungles of [Music] Vietnam the Guerilla revolutions which began in the wake of the second world war continued through the 1950s and Beyond Beyond patterns that emerged in earlier wars were repeated in the decades that followed death and displacement defoliation and destruction in Vietnam Cuba and Colombia All Nations transformed by jungle war people sought to recreate their worlds in the jungle Darkness envelops the soldier illness incapacitates and tension is ever present this is the story of the Jungle Wars that erupted across the globe in the 20th century the people who fought for survival In the Jungle the soldiers who adapted their tactics to Guerilla fighting and the civilians whose lives and homes were decimated by jungle war by 19 1967 the war in Vietnam was becoming increasingly unpopular on the American Home Front casualties were growing both military and civilian and the American public were beginning to question if the war could be won Americans will forgive anything but failure and although there were all sorts of strands in protest in America one of them was the draft a lot of young people were ter ified of being sent to Vietnam and wasting year their lives or were still getting killed I think a very large number of Americans concluded that this was something which was failing and which was not going any place and in this they were right large scale anti-war protests had been held as early as 1965 in October 1967 35,000 protested outside the Pentagon G in the face of this growing public doubt General West Morland visited Washington to dispel concerns about the progress of the war Back That Home by resolve confidence patience determination and continued support we will prevail in Vietnam over the Communist aggression so in late 67 West morans in Washington he addresses Congress he reassures Americans that the war is on track that although it might still take some time to win the war that the light really was being seen at the end of the tunnel that the American way of war was prevailing but at the end of January 1968 the Viet Kong launched this massive offensive across South Vietnam the T offensive undermined West morland's assurances and marked a turning point in the war in 1967 some within the North Vietnamese and Viet Kong leadership advocated for a dramatic change in tactics a move away from Guerilla Warfare in the search for a decisive Victory the North Vietnamese and Viet Kong shifted tactics in the Ted offensive primarily because they had lulled the Americans into a sense of almost security neither the North Vietnamese nor the Viet Kong had attacked in Mass for several years so the North Vietnamese realized that the Americans weren't expecting a major attack it began in late January 1968 the beginning of the Luna New Year holiday known as t m multiple attacks in multiple cities across the country were unleashed the coastal cities of hoan and natrang and dto and Kum in the central Highlands were among the cities attacked on the eve of the Ted Festival the following evening more cities were hit including sadek and Kanto in the South as well as Quang Tree close to the demilitarized zone it was a series of attacks unprecedented in the war to date somewhere maybe as many as 200,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Kong Fighters attacked around 100 American and South Vietnamese bases and cities all at once the idea was to create a toothache a headache a heart attack and a broken back all at the same time and that would create a systemic failure of the entire South Vietnamese infrastructure another two phases of the offensive followed in May and August they attacked dozens of cities one is the attack in Saigon where they were able to attack the US Embassy now they did not occupy the embassy as some Americans were told at the time but the very fact that the Viet Kong were able to launch this attack in the middle of the most important city in South Vietnam and take the war right to the center of American Authority in Saigon was very important when the US and the South Vietnamese Army responded they did so with great force Allied planes blanketed cities with bombs house-to-house battles were fought by US Marines in some regions destruction reigned Supreme when the Vietcong retreated to Hamlet surrounding the cities the chaos followed them Villages inhabited by people who had been considered allies were bombed millions of civilians became refugees the North Vietnamese and the Viet Kong came out in the open and they got pulverized the Viet Kong itself maybe lost as many as 880,000 Fighters which broke the back of the Viet Kong Force after 1968 the Viet Kong play a much lesser role in the fighting The Siege on the city of Wei was particularly brutal and in we the Viet Kong really did occupy large parts of the city and it took the US Marines some weeks to dislodge them the Marines who were there were fighting a war that again was different from the conflict they'd been fighting in Vietnam they were fighting an urban War which they had not had to fight really in decades American and South Vietnamese forces recaptured the city but the fighting in way had been televised the battle that took place in way was again a very public battle it was seen on TV and although the Americans prevailed there militarily it came at Great cost for the United States Army and for American credibility in Vietnam the graphic television footage of the fights in the cities galvanized Americans at home against the war on the battlefield from a military perspective this was a decisive defeat for the Viet Kong and a decisive victory for the Americans however the bigger picture here and this is where I think the North Vietnamese grasp that it's not just what you do in the battlefield it is how it's received back in the United States this becomes a public relations nightmare for the American Military there are studies that show that up until 1968 reporting in general was quite supportive of the war from 1968 onwards though there was a breakdown of elite consensus in the United States that more and more politicians but also economists said well this is too expensive this isn't working and this was then reflected in the media the polls indicate that the American people disapprove of President Johnson's handling of the war by a margin of 2 to1 most of them Express their disapproval differently but at the end of the day the result is the same the military alternative still holds the field militarily the US and her allies earned a victory in tent but the hearts and minds of the American people were lost the televised War had brought the brutal reality into the their Lounge rooms Lyndon B Johnson also if you ever been to his Ranch in in Texas he was obsessed about media coverage he has three televisions for example that he can even see from his dining room table because he was watching those main channels all the time what were they saying about him what were they saying about his policy and for him how Vietnam was represented was quite important now I certainly do not believe that the media lost America the war that was something that happened for all sorts of political and Military reasons but what the media's presence did and the fact that all this stuff that had been concealed from the folks back home in past Wars suddenly they were seeing in their living rooms the fact that people died in horrible ways they were seeing the naked child running screaming down the street after being caught up in a Napalm Strike they could no longer ignore the unbelievably brutal cost of these struggles as support for the war dwindled at home and the war dragged on with the outcome increasingly uncertain morale dropped and drug and alcohol abuse Rose in Vietnam marijuana opium hallucinogens and barbituates were cheap and accessible from the early years of the war in 1969 heroin became readily available by 1971 35,000 American soldiers were said to be addicted to the drug connected to the rise in drug use and the drop in morale was the phenomenon of fragging named for the fragmentation grenade that was often the weapon of choice fragging was the practice of threatening killing or attempting to kill a fellow Soldier often the targets were officers or ncos it was often more subtle in previous Wars the officer would get shot in the back a grenade would land in the wrong place but in the Vietnam War it became endemic I have seen research say that there were between 600 and 1,000 incidents of fragging where officers and sergeants were attacked or threatened and there were about 90 deaths resulting from these incidents motives for fragging varied drugs and alcohol played a role sometimes resentment simmered due to harsh discipline other others responded to feelings of vulnerability worried that an enthusiastic or Reckless leader might put troops at risk one soldier only 20 years old and due to complete his tour in 6 days said he killed his Lieutenant because he didn't like him during his court Marshal he still said he didn't know why he did it but this kid had been pushed to the brink he'd been a forward Scout for N9 months of his 12mth deployment that's the most dangerous position you're the guy out the front and uh I think it got to him in the end strategically General West Morland responded to T with aggressive Search and Destroy operations near the Cambodian border and north of Saigon which proved initially successful in the ashaw valley in the central Highlands an air mobile assault operation also resulted in initial success pushing the Viet Kong from their bases but the flaw in these operations was the temporary nature of that success the Viet Kong returned to continue the fight the appointment of General Abrams in July 1968 changed the strategy Search and Destroy operations and the strategy of attrition fell out of favor his one war policy leaned towards smaller patrols aimed at cutting off the Viet Kong from the civilian population The Phoenix Program was part of this strategy The Phoenix Program involved clearing areas of Viet Kong they would declare an area a free fire zone and that meant you could kill everything that moved they did that quite often in some terrible instance and Men Women children even water buffalo massacred because there was demand from saod military headquarters for body counts that built up and up and up they thought if we killed enough people we must win it wasn't going to happen The Phoenix Program aimed to sever the support for the gorillas among Vietnamese civilians but North Vietnamese troops found support and Sanctuary beyond the borders of Vietnam when President Richard Nixon took office in 1969 with Henry Kissinger as state Secretary he oversaw the launch of operation menu a secret bombing campaign aimed at targeting North Vietnamese sanctuaries and Supply roots in Cambodia the secret bombing campaign in Cambodia was largely um the initiative of Henry Kissinger Kissinger told Nixon that they had to find new ways of bringing military pressure to bur coercive diplomacy he called it and so the idea of bombing the Communist sanctuaries in Cambodia was to exercise that coercion to force the North Vietnamese to start making concessions unfortunately all the familiar problems asserted themselves first of all target intelligence was very poor secondly inevitably a very large number of Cambodian civilians were being killed by this pretty erratic bombing so coercive diplomacy was a failure as this sort of stuff usually is and in the eyes of History I think that Henry kisser deserves to be harsh judged an estimated 15,000 Cambodian civilians were killed in the bombing campaign the 1970 invasion of Cambodia further destabilized the country support for the Cambodian Communist Party commonly known as the CH Rouge Rose in the aftermath the Vietnam War left Cambodia with a bitter Legacy all of this occurred as Nixon implemented a process known as Vietnamization in which US troops were gradually withdrawn from Vietnam ladies and gentlemen I have an announcement of a substantially increased troop withdrawal from Vietnam over the next 2 months we will withdraw 45,000 Americans the focus shifted to bolstering the South Vietnamese army with training funds and weapons as tentative steps were made towards peace processes bitter fighting continued In the Jungle the 1972 Easter offensive launched by North Vietnamese forces increased their hold on territory but it also resulted in significant casual uales on both sides civilians suffered too with as many as 25,000 killed and a million more displaced the Vietnam War ended in Victory for the North Vietnamese and Viet Kong forces the final blow came in 1975 the South Vietnamese government collapsed and the country was United as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam 1973 saw the withdrawal of the last US military unit the United States which had emerged Victorious from the jungle wars fought in the Pacific in World War II had difficulty coming to terms with the LW South Vietnam did fall to the Communist forces it is a case that the North Vietnamese prevailed and the Viet Kong prevailed so the United States lost that military conflict and the United States imagines that it doesn't lose Wars their whole mythology their whole National ethos is based on winning wars so in the immediate aftermath of the defeat in Vietnam in the 1970s the United States withdraws into itself the the Vietnam syndrome as it's called supposedly guides American foreign policy the political Legacy of the war War lingered the impact of the war also stayed with many who had served I haven't met one Vietnam veteran who isn't still affected by the war PTSD is strange thing many of them of course never want to talk about it and I think for most of them it's only possible when they talk with other people who have gone through the same thing the impact of the war was more than psychological it also left a lasting imprint on the environment and the people of Indochina homes were destroyed bomb craters and mines littered the landscape one of the most profound impacts on both the environment and the people was the legacy of herbicidal warfare a key challenge in fighting a war in the jungle is that foliage conceals the enemy operation ranch hand was conceived to combat that challenge the Americans set themselves to use every scientific tool at their disposal to try and win this thing and one of those tools was defoliation to try and remove cover from the enemy and they used this on a colossal scale millions of balance this Gastly stuff being sprayed across South Vietnam herbicidal Warfare against the Viet Kong had in its SES food and foliage it aimed to defoliate areas that might be used as cover and to destroy crop land which might be used by the Viet Kong as a food source Agent Orange was the most extensively used and wellknown of these herbicides military advisers called for its use as an effective weapon against Guerilla Warfare a weapon which could reach areas where troops personnel carriers and helicopters could not the problem was that this isn't aerosol this is a gas and so it could not only kill the flage it also would end up having devastating effects on human respiratory systems the effects of the use of herbicides had long- lasting consequences for the Vietnamese population and for the soldiers who were exposed while serving birth defects and miscarriages Cancers and skin diseases have been attributed as a side effect of this jungle warfare tactic the the Communist cause prevailed in the Vietnam War but American influence did not vanish one of the things I find fascinating about the Vietnam war is that the Americans lost it military the commies won in 1975 and yet if you'd said to an American officer back in let's say 1964 how would you like Saigon to look in 2018 it'll be pretty much the way Saigon looks now all those glittering skyscrapers and Gucci shops and the whole Shing match I believe that while America lost the war militarily today I think America culturally and economically has reversed the outcome of that war and this to me as the Supreme irony and this all reinforces one of the great lessons of the last Century's history that economics are at least as important as military factors in the deciding the outcome of conflict while Vietnam played host to Decades of conflict Fidel Castro was leading a revolution of his own in Cuba a Guerilla War based in the jungle of the Sierra mestra mountains the Revolutionary movement which became known as the 26th of July Movement aimed to overthrow the fenio Batista regime Batista had ruled Cuba between 1933 and 1944 but fled to America in that last year following the defeat of his party at the general election the batisa regime came to power in 1952 as a result of a CIA American sponsored coup and Batista immediately canell the 1940 Constitution something he had established in that year so immediately the regime got to work in persecuting its its opponents and ushered in a period of repression but also of alignment with the United States for international interests and also a period of collaboration with us based multinationals and also with the American Mafia in 1953 then only 26 years old D Castro LED an Insurrection against Batista from the beginning Castro was a larger than life character Castor was a very persuasive quite a charismatic figure quite imposing also in many SE very tall very self- assured of Highly optimistic kind of personality and he was able to persuade a lot of the Orthodox youth to join him in actions the son of a wealthy sugar farmer he was an idealist part of the henion Del centenario the Centenary generation it was a generation of young people in Cuba that were driven by nationalistic romantic ideas they wanted to make a difference in a time of dictatorship so he was filled by all that Castro's first attempt to translate those romantic ideals into practice did not end well on the 26th of July 1953 Fidel along with his brother rul 200 men and two women by his side attacked Ford Monada they aimed to take the 1,000 soldiers defending the fort by surprise the plan failed the attack on monata was a loss but in some ways Castro's arrest and trial proved a victory the trial gave Castro and his cause a public platform when he took the stand the 27-year-old delivered an eloquent indictment of the regime it ended famously with the words sentence me I don't mind history will absolve me Castro was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment along with 25 of his comrades but bowing to public pressure Batista eventually granted amnesty to Castro and the other gorillas after regrouping in Mexico Castro returned to Cuba in 1956 with a small band of revolutionaries and set up his base in the Sierra mestra mountains the mountains offered two draw cards one was inaccessibility the other was the the potential to recruit sympathetic supporters there were a lot of peasants there who were very angry with the land owners and so they reckoned they would gain some support from these peasants as Castro's movement gained local support the Cuban population became increasingly dissatisfied with the Batista regime in this harsh dictatorship it was not very hard to recruit people people were really oppressed by fenio Batista so there was this widespread National feeling that we have to get rid of this dictator among the most prominent of Castro's followers was a man he met in Mexico Ernesto gavara better known to the world as Chay the pair profoundly influenced each other CH was deeply interested in leftwing movements in Latin America and I think he was also affected by the magnetism the leadership of f Castro during that time when they both met in Mexico F Castro made a huge impression on shabar gavara in turn shared his ideological beliefs what gavara brought to him was a Pan-American vision of a struggle against imperialism a struggle against military regimes that supported American Capital Phil castra was not a communist in the the ' 50s he was a nationalistic driven person with Anti-Imperialist ideas but he was not ideologically driven chabar was and his brother Ral Castro also was so those were the biggest influences on Phil Castro during that time that shaped the future of Cuba from their Mountain Base this small band of gorillas numbering sometimes less than 200 face Batista's Army of thousands despite their small numbers the attack on llata Army Post in January 1957 proved their effectiveness as Guerilla Fighters they infiltrated the post by using information gleaned from a civilian friendly to the soldiers in the attack which lasted only minutes the gorillas gathered essential supplies food and ammunition and anticipating Pursuit they set an ambush for any troops that plan to follow them it worked and set the strategy for future engagements by Castro's gorillas if you contrast a fairly well-trained gorilla force with the incompetence of the Batista forces a demoralized army not really supporting the dictator much clumping their way about the jungle of the S mestra there was no no competition there the Cuban guerillas proved to be adaptable they responded to the EB and flow the strengths and weaknesses of Batista's Army retreating when the Army was strong moving in to exploit weaknesses when they appeared once established in the mountains the gorillas made an effort to help the local people schools were established a hospital built to treat wounded gorillas also provided care for campinos local farmers in 1958 Batista launched his summer offensive on the mountains operation Verano known to the gorillas as La ofensiva Batista's forces had the advantage in numbers and weapons his men were confident of Victory but the gorillas knew the ground on which they fought and believed passionately in their cause there is a point in the beginning of the Rebel Army in the mountains that there were a couple of dozens of people fighting an entire Army and from that point to become a real army in the mountains it was very hard but they had no other options at the time Batista deployed a force of 12,000 soldiers 7,000 of them new recruits into the jungle to destroy the gorillas they failed to do so and so the conflict wore on but the Cuban Revolution was not fought in the jungle alone there was a significant Urban element to the 26th of July Movement the Sierra Meister gorillas have loomed large in the history of the Revolution but leaders within the urban underground played a significant role in the decisions and actions of the movement the urban guerillas launched attacks within the city conducting acts of sabotage Espionage and bombing strategically important targets throughout this female gorillas played a crucial role usually the men's will be much more suspicious than women so women will be in charge of giving packages and sending notes and even to establish communication between the mountains the gorilla in the mountains and the people in the clandestinity in the city persuasion is a vital weapon in any jungle war an independent newspaper the El kubano Libra and radio station radio rebela gave the gorillas a means to spread messages to the people from their jungle base regular radio broadcasts began in February 1958 by December it was one of the highest rating stations in Cuba Castro enthusiastically embraced this method of persuasion well he was very very skillful PR operator indeed and don't forget there was a civilian movement at the 26th of July had very strong roots among students and among workers in the west part of the island as well and his speeches also very skillfully couched in terms of bringing back democracy and changing Cuba's Reliance on on monoculture in august 19 58 Castro took his fight out of the Jungle aiming to secure Victory across Cuba it was a far more challenging Prospect the support and protection offered in the jungle they knew so well vanished in this new phase of the war despite the challenges revolutionaries secured victory in December 1958 Chay gav's column of gorillas marched into Santa Clara [Music] this Victory spurred on the defeat of Batista who fled in the dawn of the new year it was the dawn of a new era for [Applause] Cuba gavara set off to enact his Revolution Beyond Cuba he came to a Grizzly end in the Bolivian jungle in October 1967 but Cuba was changed from the jungles of the Sierra Maestra mountains a small band of guerillas had fought in solidarity with their Urban counterparts to transform the nation I think that the legacy of the revolution first of all comes from the first 3 to 5 years of the Revolution after half a century of governments failing to give basic rights to the people this government comes and they give free health care free education they make the country safer even all the prostitution and all the gambling is radically eliminated so they did in a couple of years what half a century before couldn't do the achievements in education in health were quite extraordinary also in eradicating poverty in establishing equality on the negative side of course we have a quasi authoritarian State a one- party state which won't Brook any descent the revolution which emerged Victorious from the jungle delivered brutal judgments to those deemed to have been associated with the Batista regime arrests torture and executions were carried out throughout the nation the general elections Castro promised failed to eventuate his control over Cuba lasted until he seeded power to his brother due to illness in 2006 Castro formally stepped down in 2008 he died in November 2016 I think that the centenario the cenario generations Legacy in Cuba is positive in the way that they get rid of her real violent dictatorship and of course from there on it can be very divisive what you think about it Fidel Castro and his success with the Cuban Revolution inspired others to begin Revolutions of their own in Colombia the jungle became a Haven and a hideout for guerillas fighting a brutal War which affected Colombian societ Society for Generations there were some liberal guerillas that were fighting in the countryside and from these liberal guillas then emerged two important Guerilla groups of today the farc the armed revolutionary force of Colombia and the eln The Liberation Army so those are the most important groups that were created in the 19 60s in a way following the Cuban Revolution the conflict in Colombia had its roots in the Thousand Days war between liberals and conservatives at the turn of the 20th century in the middle of the 20th century violence erupted again in a period known as La violencia a very charismatic uh politician with the name ofan Promised Land Reform an end to the rule of the oligarchy and consequently was shot down in aotta Street which led to this upsurge in the cities known as the baso now of course the Liberals and the left including the Communist Party blame the conservatives for for the assassination so from here you got period of a decade where a conflict is is Unleashed between 1948 and 1957 somewhere between 250,000 and 3,000 people were [Music] killed the city of bota was destroyed and then the conflict moved to the countryside and the two political parties kept fighting until they reached an agreement in 1957 that was called the National front in which the two political parties will stop fighting and then they will distribute power for years it will be the conservatives and for years it will be the Liberals and with that agreement they excluded all other parties and possibilities so there was no real democracy here in the 1960s in the wake of La violencia two key Guerilla groups emerged to challenge the government they oted a policy of armed settlement the Fark was born on May 18 1964 as a response to the Colombian armed forces that surrounded and attacked Mia which was the principal Rebel agrarian community at the time so even before the Fark was officially recognized or known as a gorilla movement you're looking at pretty much a situation of dispersed landless peasants who were fighting to survive they wanted land reform because the elites traditionally they had owned large states car ranches and in the 1940s and 50s coffee growing was a big business and the elites wanted to expand their land holding for coffee plantations so many peasants were displaced and had to move to O areas and because of that some joined the the Fark like the farc the eln claimed to represent the rights of peasants the Guerilla group also included religious influences it wasn't built within and established within uh the Columbian peasantry but within the classrooms and the churches there was a very different demographic to the eln than with the f as in other Guerilla movements women took an active role both as supporters and as combatant women joined voluntarily there were many couples also so some people say that yes well women were only given the role of cooks or you know washing laundry and doing all those things but they were combatants and they were decision makers and they were also negotiating with the government for women escaping husband abuse poverty wishing to leave a life of poverty and so forth and for children drawn into the conflict or forced to join the paramilitary groups which was one of the civilian defense militia strategies one other option was to join the Insurgency where they were given an education a chance to express themselves politically and also to live a life that was different and offered hope but that it's very different to the lifestyle of a paramilitary or the Army in the 1980s right-wing paramilitary groups formed the largest being the United selfdefense forces of Colombia a group which became deeply entrenched in the cocaine trade and significant human rights violations these movements too were based within the jungle this in a way paradoxically was both the strength and limitation of the Insurgency its strength was its ability to survive in the jungle but the limitations of course was that it remained contained so to speak in the jungle the farc initially confined their activities to rural areas but in 1982 the organization decided to go on the offensive aiming for political and economic centers the farc and the eln both employed violence extortion abduction and hijacking in their cause landmines were also planted and took the lives of thousands chemical weapons were employed to destroy crops chemicals like agent green and so on have been used to not only destroy the water supply of the insurgents but also kill crops and that continues and that has a disastrous effect on the Ecology of Colombia to this very day the conflict has also shattered the lives of millions according to Columbian government figures um approximately 7 million uh Colombians have died since the end of lencia the situation was so serious that by 1998 any travel on the roads outside of bulata were almost guaranteed to end in kidnapping or death Goot was in a state of Siege because nobody could go out nobody would go to malls or to the movies because they were all afraid of bombings and all kinds of violence that was rampant at the time during the Cold War guerillas found financial support from communist countries when the Cold War ended the drug trade presented itself as a new Avenue for funding the cocaine trade came to dominate Colombia the competition with right-wing militias further fueled this conflict as did the Small Arms trade the United States framed its involvement in the conflict in the context of the War on Drugs later on way into the 20th century a major program that was implemented by President Bill Clinton was plan Colombia so that was a seven billion counterinsurgency package which under the rhetoric of the War on Drugs funded Columbia's military so that until the present day has been you could say the outcome of much of how the militarization of Colombian Society occurred a conflict which lasts for decades inevitably affects everyone in the nation Colombia is no exception Generations have lived in a war zone we all have been affected by the conflict in one way or another we all have relatives who have been killed in the conflict we know many people who have been kidnapped not only by the guillas you know by the paramilitar by the state so it has changed the composition of the country a peace deal was negotiated in 2016 more than 10,000 far gorillas began the transition to civilian life but it will not be an easy one for the gorillas or the nation the decades long conflict has become part of the fabric of Colombian Society many people were born in the conflict I was born at the beginning of the conflict so for some people is the way of life they don't see other Alternatives so if they are not part of a movement they are part of a paramilitary group or they go to the Army because of poverty because the substantial conditions of the country in terms of inequality have not changed at all in the second half of the 20th century jungles across the world were inundated with weapons drugs death and displacement the Viet Vietnam War ushered in a new era of warfare an era in which war was televised and judged from home strategy and policies changed as public opinion shifted the United States sought and found ways to intervene in Jungle Wars without putting combat troops on the ground success in Cuba encouraged Rebels and revolutionaries in Central and South America to take up arms in pursuit of their own cause throughout the years Jungle War evolved new weapons and tactics were developed in line with technological advancements but in many ways its principles stayed constant the idea is always to leverage the terrain to utilize booby traps landmines to take advantage of the demoralizing psychological effects of the Jungle to not only destroy enemy forces but also to demoralize to hurt their will to fight those who served within the jungle faced constant exhaustion they negotiated rough terrain and climate combating a myriad of diseases and illnesses in addition to the often elusive enemy they lived with the fear of the unknown civilians who had the misfortune of living within War zones often became targets of suspicion themselves campaigns to win hearts and Minds often included displacement and sometimes death when a place once called home transformed into a battlefield supply lines have always been critical from guadal Canal to the hoian trail the ability to move people ammunition arms and other supplies often proved to be a decisive Factor politics changed the course of these wars Democratic and communist superpowers funded proxy wars gorillas overthrew regimes to recreate nations in their own Vision over the course of decades Millions died as a result of jungle wars fought across the globe throughout them all the jungle remained neutral

Channel: All Out History - Premium History Documentaries

Views: 648,532

Keywords: Dan Snow documentaries, battle history, battle strategies, battlefield dangers, battlefield tactics, combat history, conflict studies, guerrilla warfare, historical atrocities, historical conflicts, historical documentaries, historical figures, history enthusiasts, horrific battles, military documentaries, military strategies, premium documentaries, veterans stories, war analysis, wartime struggles

Id: 1xS7a8LC_9I

Length: 198min 12sec (11892 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 05 2023