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Lesson 14 World at War — Transcript

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0:07[Music]
0:46[Music]
0:52I got pretty good at the figuring
0:55shells I could tell when the shell went
0:58way over our head and went down there
1:01boom way mile away and then when one
1:05came real short from where I was and
1:09exploded and I knew one was coming on my
1:12right and I knew one was coming on my
1:15left and when it was come right at me I
1:18hit that ground and prayed like I never
1:21prayed before and
1:24W it R close to
1:28me I got I I never could get used to it
1:31scared the heck out of
1:34me going to war transformed the lives of
1:37Young Americans of every race and Creed
1:40their experience ranged from the depths
1:42of fear loneliness and loss to the
1:45heights of Courage adventure and
1:48camaraderie we always looked after each
1:51other you don't keep score nobody said
1:55well let's see I took care of you for
1:56three days you owe me three days uh
1:59doesn't work that
2:01way the generation who fought the War
2:04sustained a strength of commitment such
2:06that their own children would later look
2:08back and call them the greatest
2:22Generation as 1942 dawned Hitler and
2:25Nazi Germany ruled Western Europe and
2:29threatened to over r on Russia with the
2:31US now in the war the Allied challenge
2:34was to agree on a strategy to engage and
2:37defeat the axis
2:39forces the fundamental strategy I think
2:42was to defeat Germany first and then
2:46turn to Japan or to defeat Japan this is
2:48known as the Germany first strategy that
2:51Ros and Churchill Stalin all agreed I
2:55say basically that it was more important
2:57to defeat Germany because Germany was a
2:59stronger enemy
3:00me Roosevelt pushed for unconditional
3:03surrender and I think what Roosevelt was
3:06saying with this was that defeating the
3:10axis militarily will not be enough after
3:13all in World War I we had defeated the
3:15German Army and yet 20 years later we're
3:17having to do it again he was saying by
3:20unconditional surrender we are going to
3:22end German and Japanese militarism and
3:25imperialism and to remake them into
3:28democracies to come to Victory you have
3:31number of elements of an overall Grand
3:34strategy you've got Russian Manpower
3:37you've got American industrial might and
3:39a third key element was the
3:42anglo-american control of the Seas so
3:45that that industrial might of the United
3:48States could reach not only our own
3:50troops but to the Troops of the Soviet
3:52Union and Great Britain across the
3:55oceans the Allies were in accord on the
3:58global war strategy but their agreement
4:00broke down when it came to deciding on
4:02its
4:04implementation Soviet Union desperately
4:06was crying for help said we need you to
4:09open a second front in Western Europe we
4:12need you to invade France as soon as
4:14possible to lessen the strength of the
4:17German thrust against us Great Britain
4:20argued
4:21instead that we should use 1943 to clear
4:25the axis out of the Mediterranean and we
4:28should have the opening of the second
4:30front the cross Channel Invasion then in
4:341944 Roosevelt ultimately made the
4:36decision that we' follow the British
4:38idea and said we will postpone that
4:41European Invasion until
4:451944 major US involvement began in North
4:49Africa challenging the German forces
4:51under General
4:52raml the North African campaign got the
4:55us into the war but did little to
4:57relieve the pressure on the Soviet Union
5:02Germany had invaded the Soviet Union in
5:04June of
5:061941 and this was where the great
5:09struggle was the vast bulk of the German
5:12Army was tied down in the Soviet
5:16Union stopped by winter and stiff
5:18Russian resistance in
5:201941 the Germans resumed the offensive
5:22in
5:231942 their aim to secure the oil fields
5:27of the Caucasus and lay Siege to stop
5:30inrad by the Fall the Germans were on
5:33the outskirts of the city but Stalingrad
5:35would not fall for 3 months the battle
5:38raged Street by Street house by house
5:41until the entire city was Rubble in
5:44December the German Commander begged
5:46Hitler to allow his weary Army to
5:50retreat after months of fighting a
5:53starving ill supplied and broken Army
5:56finally surrendered to the Russians in
5:58early 194 3 the effect on Allied morale
6:02was immediate many people believe that
6:04Stalingrad is the turning point in the
6:06war that's winter
6:094243 clearly by then the outcome of the
6:14war on the Eastern Front has been
6:16decided the Russians are now on the
6:19offensive and the Germans are on the
6:24defensive capitalizing on the momentum
6:27in the summer of 1943 the Americans and
6:30British invaded the underbelly of Europe
6:32through Italy where many young American
6:34soldiers got their first taste of battle
6:38we hit a beach ramp went down and we
6:42rushed off and that's the first first
6:45German Soldier I saw was was
6:51killed he's about 20 years old young
6:55boy age of most of the fellas he wear a
7:00khaki uniform short pants uniform of
7:04Africa
7:07core the Italian front proved valuable
7:10as it tied down considerable German
7:12troops and resources it also supplied
7:14needed airfields as the air War a
7:17massive effort in the war against
7:19Germany gained
7:21momentum no other nations devoted the
7:24resources that Great Britain and the
7:26United States did to air power this was
7:28an un impr proven form of War nobody had
7:32ever demonstrated that Strategic Air
7:34power could win a war and is believe
7:38that in a complex industrial society
7:41there are certain things that are a must
7:43electrical power plants uh
7:46oil the uh the railway system right
7:49there are certain things that if you
7:51knock those out you paralyze the whole
7:53thing right and that's what they're
7:54searching for They al concentrate on the
7:57destruction of the German aircraft
8:01industry by the time you get to Normandy
8:03oh boy air superiority is just about
8:11one good luck and let us all beseech the
8:15blessing of almighty God upon this great
8:17and Noble
8:19undertaking June 6th
8:221944
8:24D-Day the long awaited second front
8:26finally opened as British American
8:29French and Canadian armies under the
8:30command of General Dwight Eisenhower
8:33landed on the beaches of
8:34Normandy two years of planning and
8:37preparation came down to a single day
8:40Normandy invasion I would argue is the
8:43most important campaign of the war for
8:45the British and the Americans getting
8:47back on the continent is uh is clearly
8:50the most important uh operation had it
8:52failed Europe may not look the way it
8:54does
8:56now just after Dawn on the 6th as
8:59planned troops poured ashore at Juno
9:02gold sword and Utah beaches but the
9:05landing on Omaha Beach was a different
9:09story aircraft came in missed the
9:13beaches the bombs fell you know 3 4
9:15miles in
9:19land when 0630 came and the first
9:23Infantry Division hit Omaha Beach there
9:25nothing had been destroyed the German
9:27defenses were intact
9:29a very bloody day it was so bloody that
9:32at noon uh Bradley was thinking about
9:34pulling off on
9:36beach however the Navy destroyers moved
9:40in as close as they could the Infantry
9:42guys on the beach got themselves
9:44together and eventually they worked the
9:46way up that bluff but it was extremely
9:48[Music]
9:50costly we paid for every inch of that
9:53Beach
9:54[Music]
10:01in July the Allies broke out of Normandy
10:04and swept across France toward the
10:06German border tough fighting still
10:08loomed in Holland Belgium and Germany
10:11but by January
10:131945 caught between the Russian armies
10:15advancing from the East and the American
10:18and British armies from the West German
10:20resistance was
10:21crumbling in February Roosevelt
10:24Churchill and Stalin met in Yalta to
10:27finalize their agreements on the shape
10:28of postwar or Europe Germany would be
10:31administered by all four Allied Powers
10:34each in their own zone of
10:36occupation Roosevelt and Churchill
10:38conceded the Soviet Union's sphere of
10:40influence in Eastern Europe while Stalin
10:43in turn committed to join the war
10:45against Japan after Germany was defeated
10:48Yalta was destined to be the last
10:50meeting of the big three in April
10:541945 Franklin Roosevelt died even as
10:57British and American forces pushed
10:59across the Elba River and Russian troops
11:01fought in the streets of
11:03Berlin there surrounded and under
11:05artillery fire Adolf Hitler furer of the
11:09Thousand-Year Reich committed suicide in
11:12his command bunker his armies
11:14surrendered unconditionally 8 Days
11:18Later the mission of this Allied force
11:21was fulfilled at 0241 local time May 7th
11:271945 Eisenhower
11:30I argue that the Allies won
11:33strategically right they sat down
11:37together in the same room they developed
11:39a comprehensive strategy for the conduct
11:41of the war now they argued about that
11:43strategy throughout the war but the
11:46Germans the Italians and the Japanese
11:48never did that they fought three
11:50different Wars essentially instead of
11:51sitting down coordinating their
11:53efforts was it possible for for the
11:55Germans to win yeah yeah yeah
12:12[Applause]
12:15[Music]
12:18first thing they came and the registered
12:21us and I remember when they registered
12:23us everybody said oh what does it make
12:26any difference you know registration is
12:28not
12:29then they gave us a little time and they
12:32said who jeers doesn't have to go to
12:35school then they decided to have us wear
12:39yellow stars wherever we went we had to
12:42wear a yellow star on the left
12:46site what Hitler did was
12:49progressively deprive Jews of their
12:53rights as
12:54Germans he kicked them out of the
12:56universities he kicked them out of the
12:58Civil Service he restricted their
13:00opportunities to walk on the street to
13:02sit in the park to
13:08shop but it was a single night in
13:111938 that set the tone for the nightmare
13:14to come
13:16chrisal the night of November 9th and
13:1910th
13:201938 the Germans came out and they broke
13:23the windows of Jewish stores and they
13:25destroyed property and they arrested
13:2720,000 or 30 ,000 Jewish
13:31men 119 synagogues were set fire another
13:3576 completely destroyed 20,000 Jews were
13:40arrested 36 deaths were reported and so
13:43seriously injured were also numbered
13:4736 one morning they
13:50came and they had two cars and one car
13:56the police department was and the other
14:00car we had to go out there and for two
14:04days we traveled to a
14:07GTO what Hitler wanted to do in the
14:101930s was to get the Jews out of Germany
14:15nobody wanted the Jews I mean each
14:18country took a few but not the numbers
14:21that wanted to
14:23leave Rosevelt didn't want to take a
14:25stand most of the country was
14:27anti-semitic and even after after
14:29Crystal KN 10 days after Crystal KN
14:32Senator Bora got up in Congress and said
14:35we should not change our immigration
14:38laws and he got mail from all over the
14:41country applauding his
14:46stand by 1941 Hitler would realized
14:49nobody would take the Jews only way get
14:52rid of them is to kill
14:54him they packed us into about 150 people
14:59and one one
15:01train and we were all standing up you
15:05couldn't even L lay
15:07down slowly at first then steadily
15:10faster the awful grinding Gears of
15:13deportation and extermination began to
15:16turn for three days and three nights we
15:19were like that no food no water no
15:22nothing was given to us and no
15:27toilets and the top of everything one
15:30woman gave birth to
15:32triplings three little
15:35boys in occupied Poland screamed from
15:38prying eyes Hitler's henchmen built
15:41concentration camps aitz trinka
15:44soor and began the systematic execution
15:47of Jews Gypsies slaves and homosexuals
15:51that they called the final
15:56solution sudden I remember we arrived to
16:00aitz and when that door opened up people
16:04started pushing you can imagine fresh
16:07air everybody just pushed and I got
16:10pushed out and as I stood on that
16:14platform sudden the corner of my eye a
16:18little car just like I would describe it
16:22like a little
16:23ambulance and in the back they had all
16:26the corpses lots of people people had
16:29died on the Terin and they took this
16:32woman with the three babies and they
16:34pushed it in the top of the
16:37corpses and when they did
16:40that in my
16:42mind I thought there's something very
16:45evil going on here I screamed so loud
16:50that my mother turned her head and she
16:53had one baby on one side and one baby on
16:56the other side my little brothers
16:59and that's the last I ever saw of my
17:01mother and I got on the working group
17:05and she went in straight in the
17:06crematoria I never will forget the door
17:09was wide open and they were going in
17:12like hers I mean they were rushing in
17:16people were rushing in that place it was
17:20it was a scene that it will never Escape
17:23my eyes the scene of how people rushed
17:26into that grandor
17:29they didn't know what they
17:33work faced with mounting evidence of the
17:35scope of Hitler's atrocity Roosevelt
17:38looked for ways to help but there was
17:40little political support at home and the
17:42consensus of the Allies was against
17:44diverting the war effort from its
17:46primary purpose of defeating Germany I
17:49would have done exactly what roselt did
17:51and I'm Jewish I too would have
17:53prioritized and I too would have kept my
17:57eye on winning the the war as quickly as
18:00possible and in retrospect that was the
18:03way to save most of the
18:07Jews when British and American troops
18:10finally liberated the first camps in
18:131945 the initial response was
18:17disbelief I pray you to believe what I
18:20have said about
18:22buen I have reported what I saw and
18:25heard but only part of it for most of it
18:28I hav no
18:29[Music]
18:32words we come to
18:36daa we got in there uh and on my left
18:41was a railroad sighting and they had box
18:46cars and some of the fellas that opened
18:50a door near the end the train we
18:53found bodies they were stacked like
18:57sardini
18:59and we got closer you could see it's
19:02hard to tell a man from a woman just
19:05Skin and
19:07Bones there an experience that I
19:10remember to this day I think
19:12[Music]
19:22about while the US Army and Air Force
19:25dominated the fighting in Western Europe
19:27the Navy and Marine GRE Corps took the
19:29lead in the
19:33Pacific Coral Sea takes place in May of
19:371942 that is the first aircraft Cara of
19:43battle the big battle though is Midway
19:46following month June of 1942 the
19:49Japanese will lose four aircraft
19:51carriers that's the turning point in the
19:53war in the uh in the Pacific right from
19:57that point on we are on the offensive
19:59and the Japanese are on the
20:02defense the naval battles were followed
20:04by two years of Fierce and bloody jungle
20:07fighting across islands with names now
20:09etched in Marine Corps history guad
20:12canal taroa saan and
20:16eima this island hopping campaign
20:19eventually provided a forward Airfield
20:21to launch the air war against Mainland
20:24Japan that was a very costly campaign
20:27initially but uh ultim L they get a guy
20:29named Curtis lame in
20:33there he's got these new Munitions napom
20:37in March 1945 firebombing of Japan
20:43starts he puts over 300 bombers in the
20:46air and they attack Tokyo when that is
20:49over with it will be roughly 100,000
20:54dead something like 15 square miles of
20:56Tokyo will uh will will be burnt
20:59down firebombing continued as Marines
21:02landed on okanawa the first island of
21:04the Japanese Homeland on April 1st
21:081945 unbelievably the fighting
21:16[Music]
21:19intensified okan was important the
21:21campaign in the sense that it made
21:24people think very hard about operation
21:27downfall operation downfall was the plan
21:30for the invasion of
21:33Japan and high estimates were that that
21:37operation would cost a half a million
21:42casualties even as the United States
21:45pondered and planned the costly invasion
21:47of Japan startling developments in New
21:49Mexico changed the options the Manhattan
21:53Project was the code name for the
21:55development of the atomic bomb a joint
21:58project between the United States and
22:00Britain the most secret operation of the
22:03war in July
22:051945 the first successful test was
22:08carried
22:10[Music]
22:14out Truman on his way to Pam got word of
22:19our first successful test of the atomic
22:22bomb at Potsdam he then informed Stalin
22:27that we had a a new and very great
22:30weapon
22:32Stalin told Truman well I hope you use
22:34it as soon as you can against Japan
22:37other than that Stalin to Truman
22:39surprise asked very few questions well
22:42ironically of course because of Soviet
22:43spies within the atomic bomb project I
22:47suspect that Stalin knew far more about
22:49the atomic bomb than poor Harry Truman
22:52did who'd only been told about it a
22:53short while uh after uh Roosevelt's
22:56death
22:59in August of 1945 Truman needed to bring
23:03Japan to a position where they would
23:05accept unconditional surrender basically
23:08three options opened one we could invade
23:11and Conquer Japan with the potential of
23:15just horrendous casualties second
23:18possibility was the blockade and starve
23:20the Japanese people into submission
23:24third possibility was the atomic bombs
23:28[Music]
23:31on August 6th
23:321945 the b29 bomber the anola gay
23:36dropped the first atomic bomb over the
23:38city of
23:39Hiroshima initial casualties were
23:41estimated at 80,000 dead 35,000 wounded
23:45many would die shortly after a radiation
23:49sickness on August 8th as promised at
23:53Yalta the Russians entered the war
23:55against Japan on August 9th while the
23:58Japanese considered an American
24:00ultimatum to surrender a second atomic
24:03bomb was dropped on the port city of
24:06Nagasaki surrounded by small mountains
24:09the bomb's force concentrated to
24:11virtually destroy the entire city
24:14casualties ran into the hundreds of
24:16thousands there was no way at that time
24:18the Japanese were going to win it and
24:20just to prolong it was to prolong the
24:22suffering and sacrifices that people
24:24were making in Japan I don't see how
24:26anyone can logically argue that the
24:28atomic bomb was not the best thing to
24:30happened bringing the war immediately to
24:32an end but the US decision to drop the
24:34only atomic bombs ever used in war is
24:37one that people still grapple with
24:40today well President Truman justifies
24:43his decision to drop the bomb on two
24:45cities by saying that um U that was the
24:48only choice he had he had the bombs um
24:51and the bombs have been developed to to
24:54use and the war was still going on the
24:57alternative to not using them would have
24:59been to invade the home islands of Japan
25:02uh the casualties would have been just
25:04horrendous well my personal view is that
25:07no matter how justifiable the first bomb
25:10may have been and that's disputable the
25:13second one coming right after the first
25:16would have been this justifiable I
25:19think of those
25:21three possibilities Invasion starvation
25:25atomic bombs the atomic bomb bombs
25:28presented the best option of getting
25:31Japan to accept unconditional surrender
25:34in the shortest period of time with the
25:35fewest casualties I believe it was the
25:38correct
25:39decision in the wake of the atomic bombs
25:42Japan proferred its unconditional
25:48surrender these
25:50proceedings are closed
25:55[Music]
26:03I look at War as as a destructive force
26:05but but it's also a creative Force World
26:08War II destroyed Nazi Germany it
26:11destroyed Imperial Japan uh so in that
26:14sense we're clearly a destructive force
26:16but also a creative force uh it created
26:19the world that we live in right
26:21now one thing you have to acknowledge is
26:24that the United States fought a war in
26:26World War II unlike everybody else the
26:28Soviet Union Alone lost 24 million
26:31people in World War II of which 16
26:34million 16 million were civilians we
26:37lost six civilians so if you ask who
26:40paid the greatest price for the victory
26:43in World War II it's not the United
26:44States uh it's the Soviet Union which
26:47paid the greatest Price in both blood
26:49and treasure if winning means what
26:51country is better off at the end of the
26:53war at the beginning of the war again
26:54there's only one country that fills that
26:56definition it's the United States
26:59when the war ended in 1945 Winston
27:01Churchill gave a speech on the floor of
27:04parliament he said the United States
27:06stand at this moment at the summit of
27:09the world in 1945 now that was
27:11emphatically true in 1945 and it's with
27:14maybe some qualifiers it's been true
27:16ever since the charter of the United
27:19Nations which you are now signing is a
27:22solid structure upon which we can build
27:25for a better world the war made sure
27:27that we would now accept a position of
27:30world leadership we had not wished to do
27:32that at the end of World War I now
27:35despite latent isolationism that has
27:37always been part of the I believe part
27:39of the American characteristic uh the
27:42American people realize they would have
27:43to take a position of leadership in the
27:46world that there was really no choice if
27:48we do not want to die together in war we
27:52must learn to live together in peace
27:58[Music]

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