just war and marine history. in the fall of one nine hundred forty three america began a major campaign against the japanese defenses in the central pacific. over thirty five thousand u.s. marines and naval forces were assembled for an invasion. on november twentieth america launched in february the salt against one of the most heavily fortified japanese islands in the world. tyrone. on board a higgins landing craft instantly on cooper was responsible for the lives of hundreds of men. for the thousands of marines riding to the shores that morning no

one could imagine the ferocity of the battle to come or the death and destruction it would soon face. in february of two thousand and eight the young cooper a navy veteran of the tower of babel and a film crew left los angeles on a journey that took sixty five years. still might. be. on the beach. while doing research for my recent book the war in the pacific of retrospective i happened across a associated press report that said in effect. where hundreds of marines died there are now millions of plastic bags crumpled paper boxes and when i saw that of course. since i had been

a party to. our witness to all of the killings that took place i felt a special way. and i need to do something about this. i was. in my parents' apartment building i'm sure tom will remember soul well. that the manic announcement. that really shocked me how buzz was practically all of them. america including all the big shots in washington imagine a tiny country like japan. attracting our pacific fleet confirm her but indeed roland tresham purpose is making america the giants a people major. world. so i live. life fully was.

law. of the united states. the phone rang it was my brother and my brother said. he was trying to decide whether to order me to get out of the country. or to find a safer occupation than being him an infantryman joey it was his thought that i could become an officer around and i don't face and of course i had known of the time i bought a. navy officers training program called b seven so i while and peered for it. within ninety days civilian leon cooper would become navy ensign leon cooper and begin training as an infamous boat commander. tarot was a series of coral reef atolls in the gilbert island group strategically located

halfway between the hawaiian islands in the philippines. the gober islands had been under the jurisdiction of the british government to december ninth one nine hundred forty one two days after the attack on pearl harbor japanese soldiers came ashore at bay she told the governing island that told tower and proclaim that for the emperor. both sides understood the necessity to control islands across the pacific . the american commands tactical approach dated back to teddy roosevelt's assessment of world sea diplomacy devised for the late one thousand century. roosevelt always believed that if the u.s. was to contain japanese expansion they would need to command strategic island bases across the pacific the basic strategy and worst of all i tell you for a spotless record of any. law he decided to mess up our selection for the five states or someplace or to call a halt or

a ship and holiday a polling station caught up in a span of mindless several plant looking for something specific to the batman that a manuscript for that. the japanese conscripted over forty one hundred korean slave laborers to build up a show's defenses as well as a small airstrip. they sent in over twenty six hundred crack japanese imperial marines to defender. massive fortifications were built including giant pill boxes some over seven hundred feet in height ten large eight inch gun emplacements. field artillery and anti-aircraft guns. the war in the pacific was commanded by two key figures general douglas macarthur and admiral nimitz after the japanese lost the battle for guadalcanal in the south

pacific macarthur and his troops focused on recapturing new guinea nimitz handled the central pacific region and plans were drawn up to send forces against the japanese strongholds in the gilbert and marshall islands groups mark knowing is a u.p.s. pilot in the world war two militaries story he heads the nonprofit organization history flights they're working to locate the over seventy eight thousand missing in action from the second world war right way of saying here is a good deed to intelligence maps that the u.s. marine corps put together for what they called helen island which was the code name for a base sheo atoll in tar island region and they built this very complex map with all of the difference and information that they gleaned from a number of overflights from b. twenty four craft taking photographs of the island and it has pictures of all different and machine gun positions and the different types of large caliber

weapons that would be used to shoot landing craft that has pictures of the tank traps the roads the airstrip. in june of one nine hundred forty three american recognizance flights discover that base show had been transformed into a heavily defended outpost that now included a four thousand foot airstrip capable of supporting japanese bombers this dramatically extended their pacific sphere of office. after hearing this news nimitz in the pacific fleet command decided to invade tower. upon his arrival at fiji liam was interviewed by reporters for a fiji sun article on his visit to the nation of care about my job was to bring assault troops in and by boat. during many trips into the red beach. so. the three days of savage are a. top of the japanese how to kill more americans.

and taught us. how to build more stupid thing. what the hell does that mean. leone's first official meeting with american authorities would be with deputy assistant to the u.s. ambassador in cuba ted me. first of all we're here to meet with the ambassador and his staff ambassador. especially wanted to have. us meet with him before we want to tear off the promise that he would do his best to join us and taro and introduce us to. the president of. the country that includes terrell. i leave my driver's license by accident maybe get that i know there's no guarantee of. a frank soon ambassador in a staff again i feel very confident it will be on the road to achieving something

even minimal objectives at least we'll get an action program going underway. with ted man a company leon boarded a jet for the highlight of his journey a return to tower. as the fortifications of base year were told the tower will continue the japanese commander of saki boasted to his troops that one million americans could not take the island in one hundred years. however american naval and marine forces would soon test that place on november twentieth one thousand nine hundred three the united states launched a major and furious offensive against our. a massive naval bombardment the place starting at dawn. by nine am this wave after wave of marines were launched from the ships the logistics of the battle took

a bad turn. the tide is not as deep as what they had projected a project there would be about six to seven feet above the fringing reefs that they would land and there was a lot of confusion between the naval bombardment they were supposed to cease fire and they were supposed to be in aviation detachment of a bomber aircraft and fighter aircraft to bomb the island and there was some confusion and they actually had a cease fire there was about thirty minutes when there was no firing at all and it enabled the japanese to take a lot of their soldiers from the south side of the heavily defended part and move them up to the north side of the aisle. and in doing so they were able to bring considerable devastating fire on the marines as they entered the league in. the japanese a kind of defense strategy that covered every inch of the island from hundreds of marines were killed by the accurate mortar and heavy gunfire at the reefs age many

had to disembark offshore and slog through withering machine gun fire dangerous mines and deep bomb craters and hope to make it to shore. among the first waves of many heroes save the day one was a young lieutenant alexander bonnie who rallied his men to push him and be on the pier to the sea wall. after sixty five years leon cooper finally returned to that fateful stretch of sand that had shaped his destiny. ironically his first encounter at the airport would be descendants of his former

adversaries. i'm i'm from the united states. teleport all bets are. off i was fair sixty five years ago. i was a member of the vote that i taxed as the japanese who are here defending this island . and we were not very friendly starting to either. we were wrangling toward each other and a lot of people got killed including over four thousand of your of your your people are you live here and want to honor your country man who or what died in the battle of carolina. they all the sudden i see things happening. and i feel like. i'm not really fair and on. the first item of business was for leon and ted to meet with the assistant to the president of cuba but in the hopes that they could access

the president of the police releasing the first in the. short list of titles. but if you will to live with the person with the least two percent to the ministers despite the fact that because of what happened sixty five years guy had no desire whatsoever to return but after giving a great deal of thought to the matter i felt i could do something that would be of benefit both to the citizens of your country as well as to honor the memory of all those guys. died and a war in a battle that really was the beginning point of the defeat of japan. i had a small part to play in that victory. and i'm glad i had the opportunity all that time i didn't think very much of my participation and i wanted to be somewhere else. i know that's pretty sure but their base i recognize it from here

we drove to the beach that haunted for many years and we know we came in from where we came from here. i know damn well we. smell the stench of all those bodies running in the sun stills comes back to me. all that stink of guys decomposing. and i came ashore about here. and i know why the bed the beach master as i remember coach motioned to me come on the shore and i was to go to the pier you see what sticking out there is the remains of the pier i came ashore about here between here and the pier and i crouched behind the sea well. and the chaps were shooting at me from up there some water. they were shooting at me from every angle there was

you see they had this whole thing enfiladed and design sort of that all the approaching boats came in under murderous crossfire so there wasn't any way of getting them out of the line of fire they were shooting at from here from there and from there every goddamn angle was covered and we own will and stumble right into all this. slaughter. by the end of the day the marine second battalion was holding on to a seventy to three hundred foot stretch of sand and fifteen hundred of the five thousand american to be cheered with your dad who. i'm just. i can't stand it. look at the look at this sand here i couldn't get anywhere near the sand i was going up on the reef.

there was a tank right about here half in the sherman tank. gone. we got stuck in the early am i with all the guys on my boat i think i remember saying i was going i left both and i said no because i knew these guys would have drowned because we were over a hundred yards from sand and they would have drawn rather heavy packs did this happen i don't know i think i did i think i had no say in the boat they were trying to climb out of the boat by a ledge after a shooting out i said. starboard and we found an access through the reef and that's when i landed these guys on a piece that happened i don't know i don't know i think i did i think that.

however despite the heavy casualties a further disaster was averted a coordinated japanese counterattack might have overrun the exhaust arena but there was no communication from the japanese command and the japanese have known charge of the ship saki and decided to move his headquarters from this area to the south part of the island and when they were doing that they went outside of their bunker in a five inch shell exploded right near them and killed them all and in doing that in losing their tactical commander on the first day of the battle the japanese did not amount to counterattack in the night which potentially could have driven the marines right off of the island. i've had my moment of. let's go take a look at those a bit. the legacy of the battle is still scattered across the sands of bases. to this day the island is covered with the rusting remains of several of the big

guns including the eight inch emplacements. tanks heavily fortified tool boxes and the command post. the second day of the invasion was a precarious one for the american news although they had secured two small beaches the marines still had to fight inch by inch toward the airfield that bisected the island. after waiting nearly twenty hours in their boats the first battalion eighth marines attempted to land ashore almost half of them never made it to the beach a large number of the all the kids were knocked out of action in the first day and after that they had to use primarily hagan's beds in the higgins boats were dropping the marines off at the fringing reef because they couldn't make it all after the island and the marines had to go about seven hundred yards across a tidal flat and in doing so they were basically wading through waist deep water

all along this area from red beach three to and one in the face of tremendous japanese fire. the battle had many own some heroes in the midst of the landings a young naval officer was on board a higgins boat in the horrible calmly rescuing wounded marines from the water while several enemy machine gunners tried to knock him out. that young lieutenant j.g. was eddie obeid and he was a rising hollywood actor before in the sting in the navy he had stored several movies in with major headline television shows including the popular series green acres i was sitting on there with a bunch of brains and one of them then who the fuck is that somebody asked me and i said i don't know it looks at ease a little a navy guy of some kind and that guy's been up there for the last fifteen twenty minutes in the japs are shooting at him and he's hauling guys out of the water i said this guy is either brave or stupid or both and but he kept doing it tony made several trips back each time with

a boat load of went wonderbra one hundred marines going back to the transport ship for medical treatment with these guys. and he saved the lives of nearly seventy marines that day. and i got to know a number of the medical doctors we had eight as there are a member aboard. and the senior medical officer of an old guy in a chance conversation i want to know what his specialty was he says that my gynecologist and not seeing the made to be about as absurd as saying as i could imagine i said you know just possibly any one of us might be pregnant he says i'll take care of you. but there was another guy among the eight he also and a chance higher chance conversation i want to know what his specialty was he's a path by training and i said you're a natural for this you can be sure and take care of all of us so the medical doctors on my ship as well as on the

a number of other transports there took care of these guys i remodeled remember distinctly on my many trips carrying the wounded back to my ship for medical treatment one of them died but how many others died you can only guess what were these guys able to deal with trauma with war warns i doubt it. despite the initial casualties at the beach heavy naval bombardments helped to turn the tide. but tenet alexander bonum and rallied his marines and singlehandedly launched a major assault on a large bunker filled with over one hundred fifty japanese defenders. during the course of this skirmish he was mortally wounded. the marines finally worked their way in and began to push the japanese defenders back to the airfield. just behind the rusting giant eight inch guns that protected the shore leon was shocked by what he saw. i'm pointing to what seems to me

a very symbol. every word thing that represents the need and the reason for my trip they say we are surrounded by garbage everywhere but also there are. on this beach which of course is the most appropriate signification a symbol of everything that's wrong with our goddamn government allowing not only garbage but to accumulate where so many guys died. sweet and clean. and fear useful. radioactive and dangerous. and even dead and

dissolute. they all keep their unique secrets their bottoms unique links on our t.v. . it was created to serve public interests to inform and to entertain. these days there's nothing easier than opening a new media outlet but there is nothing harder than revoking its license in case of corruption on. the. stand and. control. of the. can in both is. a community where you have one last question controlling the daily newspaper radio stations television stations the cable outlet or you tell me that that sounds like democracy public opinion versus f.c.c.

broadcast blues on r.g.p. . good samaritan. excellent professional. medics traveling and possessing an extra ordinary car. the doctor who helped many people in his country. the political criminal responsible for thousands of deaths. was it an attempt to repent or just escape a fair trial. the other line. on our team.

the clue some theme has been to the tome screech where rich academic life gives birth to innovative ideas. now archie goes to the area which together with boosting industrial development. offers to make a journey into russia's history. and to enjoy firsts in vivid cultural life.

welcome to the pair and region in russia close up on our cheap. for six months russian capital was in a state of siege. days and nights people lived in fear of occupation and were preparing for the desperate defense and battles took a heavy toll on. those so many dami switched to the offensive but was the first sunni or defeat of the where moms would. battle for moscow an arche. wealthy british style stock.

markets why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max concert for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to cause a report. of a face to this is not a good warm. day for it and we should step aside you should it's a pretty traced because they have no idea about the hardships to face. one it's the says it all to new things for in the army the life of abuse is the most precious thing in the world. is of self-sacrifice and heroism with those who understand it fully but you have to live a. real life stories from world war two. to truth one nine hundred forty five dot com.

our round up of the week's top stories the arrest of an r.t. crew covering a peaceful protest in the u.s. . and the silence from american news outlets leads to questions over media freedom . prices of multiculturalism and you are obsessed with the ones holding a referendum on controversial plans to the poor foreign criminals with a proposal already being branded racist by manning. plus russia's democracy is flawed but is improving the message from president vetoes latest video blog where he also called for a stronger showing from the opposition to prevent complacency from those in power. and r.t. travels to there are all seen central asia to see how an economic lifeline a stir in tunica logical catastrophe and look at the prospect of reversing the damage.