plus once one of the world's largest lakes are all sea in central asia is now a hazardous wasteland of sand and salt this to you too ambitious soviet era they were occasion projects however there are now signs the sea is returning. well up next a world war two hero where turns to tarawa it's an island in the pacific and the site of one of the bloodiest battles in marine history that's in the second part of our special report coming up next to stay with us. the large concentration of litter on the beach poses an additional health hazard when the refuse is swept out to sea during a storm. despite this danger leon saw no empty aluminum cans or plastic bottles he found a base yos major recycling plant nearby where aluminum cans are crushed in both cans and bottles. leon paid

a visit to the owner and manager of the plant derek and reward i wrote repeatedly to the washington usual suspects the president and the white house press secretary . charm of the joint chiefs of staff members of congress so i'm here to began and hopefully an action program with funding from my government but we. will be starting out there are many. nasty. call that. here's the not show what i'm thinking that we should expand your operation clean up the beach on red beach one would be my primary objective because my salty language but you can understand my anger and having seen this desecration of hallowed ground on red beach. leon had developed an action plan for big issue that included two phases. the first would be to set up refuse

containers and collection centers throughout the beaches and employ local citizens the second phase would be to establish state of the art incineration systems that would recycle trash as well as provide electricity for the island leon's action plan could be used for any island fish from diminishing land sources. the local fiji television station taped an interview with leon story and his current mission to taro. derek to clean on out in his boat to revisit the scene of the battle. i used to have a nightmare. i granted for years afterwards. i had somehow. fallen into the water and i had sunk down and there was a kid sitting on i sure my tank. he was

a he he waved at me he and i are about twenty maybe thirty feet under water and i was looking at i'm wondering what the fuck are you doing here and he was sitting on top of the sherman tank and the corals all round a bright yellow red blue car all was all around us and here was this kid very happily sitting on top of the chevron tank and that's a dream that i had for years. i had told my wife. if i start scratching rhyme but just leave the bread because i got. back kind of crazy i'm not aware of it but anyway. she she knew when i made those morning sounds i couldn't talk because of i began to speak i would drown i would swallow water. later that day leon visited the residence of john and molly brown. so she showed a movie about the battle for tara prior to

a tour of the sites. just a tired. couch. that's three. player. plays. over the years the browns have collected munitions in their backyard a number of shells are still alive. that's right good for an american just for these are. coming right in thirty minutes from american history are often the still

a long. long yet you city don't kick it into place for an hour when i'm right those are dangerous shells and weapons of all shapes and sizes a majority of them american constantly turn up on base she'll although these of cause deaths and injuries to the local population over the years there is no exact figure provided by the kid about government. mike corder the local australian naval commander on the island still has the difficult task of dealing with world war two war yes. the issue here is that no one escapes turning out how they got rid of all we want it's it could be like kind of a there's a whole range of stuff that just keeps turning up or whatever and it's amazing what some people you know the senate foreign affairs bomber discovered was one sort of a chicken curry you know that's what i had standing upright. by both on the end of the bomb and nothing to detonate a bomb and are using it as just one corner of it to invent. you know leon was introduced to two australian ex-pats involved in exploring the history of the

battle of tara stan ghosh to his professional diver initials expert and peter scarlett has lived on the island for over fifteen years stan has done hundreds of dives off base yo and is employed by history flights on their two year program to survey the island for lost graves there's there's a plane just looking at randy that's for the others of the waste that's officially old right. as that what's in the water at the time or is a picture of it that's the facia there's the whole see. the waves intersections there before. the debris from the battle still covers the island and every storm on earth new ordinance stand showed leon a fifty caliber machine gun sitting in the water a few yards from the beach front home that. has a that's a fifty fifty caliber machine. still the cup again we're talking five dollars

stan keeps a storage container full of the weapons and munitions he's collected. this is going for sixty million more the church is here with. us more a mortar is a more mortar and edible a good. still what the fears and the flawed system nomo to. a lot of us are still all that this is all over the place this. stuff buy is about the radio portable radio that was run out of a boy named truck already baked goods this is the fault of the job but from the supposed office of from him a can that i dug up and also. that is a make you can see the nickel couple. of books of in the nation of the japanese still going to take for the one gun it's a thirty seven no room still the whole explosive rooms a lot of room. up on your head like this right carefully.

by the end of day to the ground coming colonel shoot who had been wounded by shrapnel during his landing the day before rallied his troops to capture the airport runway this effectively cut the enemy defenses into. day three began with an easier landing of additional marines at the western shore as the american forces began to outflank the japanese defenders that morning a chance of that was taking place in the skies nearby. a flight of hellcat fighter planes on routine patrol from the aircraft carrier lexington accidentally intercepted a formation of twenty japanese secret fighters based from the nearby marshall line . the japanese were on a mission to bomb and strafe the tower landing force. by ten o five that morning the americans had shot down seventeen of the twenty bombers and

force the remaining three back to their base the marines on base year received from potentially devastating casualties. meanwhile supported by reinforcements and artillery fire from nearby islands the marines used all means necessary to systematically take out the japanese defenders they slowly advance toward the narrow eastern tip of the arctic. leon paid a visit to mother superior margaret sullivan of our lady of the sacred heart mission she showed in the declaration the japanese government is that it just hours after they took over the island now that you have money and playing on a warning that japan was going to occupy the xining all of a sudden they simply showed up as a right to die is that really what i want to finish up every tenth of december to those up till now to where they land and face. as his outreach to local officials continued leon and ted met with the minister of interior. her more

than three years i've been trying to get our government to do something about the desecration that has happened to the beach as well as so many americans died in defense of our country so i've. made was a. fight with just of all the. leaders will live with us. the show that leon had taped for fiji television was broadcast to all the islanders . but it. was full of the different schools i made a number of trips in the big stuff i saw killings i never saw my life and everyone wanted to like never stop once and never did. all the time i was coming in to thinking surely to come. but because i. still.

i listen. i think the best thing for me to kill as many of the and i like the work i did some helpless person which i simply because i chat which one. by one twelve pm on november twenty third the island was declared secured over five thousand five hundred men lay dead on the sands one thousand one hundred thirteen were american marines and two thousand two hundred ninety were wounded only one japanese officer and two enlisted men survived along with fourteen korean laborers. the entire island was a fast twisted wasteland of death and destruction. american and japanese bodies covering the island were a mute testimony to the ferocity of the bout. one marine commented that it was the

closest thing to dante's inferno universe and. it was a hellish wasteland of destruction. literally covered with thousands of bodies and ordinance. now came the grim task of collecting and bury a body. general holland smith in the marine commander was reputed to have said later that tara was a tragic mistake. after the battle the marines would bury their dead take detailed plot maps of the grave sites and within a matter of days return to their ships. meanwhile the burial were continued gun issue. identification was made more difficult by the

condition in decomposition of several bodies and a number were lost at sea. i unfortunately had the unpleasant duty of attending a number of burials and say i can't remember how many at least a half a dozen but one of the stands out in my memory in particular the chaplain who was in charge of the burial details i was standing next to him after he said as usual words before we dumped the guy ends of a date and i said the chap on the horizon who is a sky and he said we don't know and i said well his dog tags are in the sailcloth he said. and i can't imagine anything more that needs to be said other than a absolutely absurd ridiculous treatment in yes absolutely indifferent treatment was given to all these guys who had died in defense of our country. lieutenant bonny been a posthumous medal of honor winner for his valor in the battle would be buried in

the eighth marines grave site number two the navy seabee units which were the logistic backbone of every operation would then clean up the battlefield can quickly build the infrastructure to support an airfield. this is a picture of the island after the c.d.c. cleaned it up and turned it into a modern air base you can see some of the temporary cemeteries there's thirty three twenty six twenty five this is part of the old pier right here the island basically had forty three cemeteries and in any building into a modern air base they basically erased some of the senators. louis hagen has been working for the australian government as a contractor. he has made some unusual discoveries while rebuilding base use infrastructure and you know there was one instance we dug out of the water table this is the one that stain very interested in and we found it really in complete

skeleton still had a partial uniform boots watch and let it lie because a lot of the the i was how much did the metal part yes the rather the way it was a sort of the lion in the front of the it was. part of the last one i was with the silly side of it and nothing else up now. so you told somebody in a government the us government about this. that the project engineered the project a project manager and he rushed off to. the admiral numinous organization but what happened was the the warner a and e. byron's in that up in my office in a rush by. an oil rig bring a draftsman or have a truck drop the wrong type and this bag was on the title and they would say it will months now call on son

a letter to them it's not so so i'm going to say what we should do with the five and then was our reply yes which will as. we can for it would it i feel almost like he's one of like can you at all leon had spent months seeking assistance from every level of government to address the garbage situation at base you now he discovered something even more disturbing that hundreds of marines remains still lie in the sands of the island. just as we've been told by. the guys we met with the. woman down on the ground and almost anywhere you walk you see the mortal remains of somebody japanese american he was introduced to the minister of health dr boyd to present its maximum place i don't lie the things that i want to do to help you ultimately he was granted a meeting with the president of cuba i know to talk

a little on the employment of citizens of the who will who will assist in the in the monitoring of the refuse collection of your country and ultimately involve a state of the art incineration system. which will have a number of benefits for. the brutality of the tower or campaign would soon hit home when the american public began to see the pictures of the casualties and devastation in late december one thousand nine hundred eighty three the gruesome carnage was so disturbing that some mothers demanded nimitz's resignation what was more striking was not just the heavy casualties but the confusion regarding the burial of hundreds of marines who gave their lives ataru the actual number of total missing people from this from this

battle was five hundred eleven basically it's a very nebulous number there is a huge distance here there's eleven hundred six people lost at the end of the war when the army came back to doing these people up and take them back to the states only three hundred ninety two were dug up and brought back to the states there's over. well over two hundred fifty probably almost three hundred people on the island today the quartermaster corps of the of the army made a reasonably diligent effort starting in february of one thousand nine hundred eighty six and winding up in. may of nine hundred forty six go to find the remains of approximately three hundred maybe four hundred guys but. they report that i read issued by the guy in charge so that they could not account for almost fifty percent of the people who were brought back to the states those are real

graves those are real people who were brought back but there was over three hundred that were never brought back and those people's names are still listed as missing in action today although many of them we have pictures of their graves we have pictures of the maps of where they were buried those people those families were never told that here's your family member and return to the states those people are still lost in space this is a photograph. bernard she leaves grave on the west side of the island near what was known as green beach and that's a photograph of his grave and he's still missing today this is someone named steve momar who no one even knows who he is and no you can't even find. a mention of him in any of the original rosters here's a picture of grave number eighteen with robert brand. norman jr frank as the sea and henry lot so they're all still missing today this is

a photograph of grave number eleven where there are one hundred forty five graves and only thirty two were disinterred this is a plot math grave number thirty three where four hundred people were were listed as being buried but in reality only one hundred twenty nine were recovered. one of those people by the way is alexander bonny man who was who won the congressional medal of honor in the battle of sorrow and in doing so he lost his life and he was buried in one of these temporary cemeteries and never found lieutenant alexander bonnie min was one of four congressional medal of honor winners which also included first lieutenant hawkins william bordelon and the only survivor of the battle colonel david chu. bonnie minh and many other brave men were on the yawns mind when he paid his respects at the marine monument which has been placed in a parking lot away from the litter on the beaches. as

a fitting tribute to the many missing in action and still lost on this tiny stretch of coral leon piece whose respects to a special marine soames lies here he came to the coast watchers memorial a beautiful war to those guys who gave their lives. in defense of their country and ours too by the way and the brits the the australians it is really easy when there is. no more allies here but soames is not he lies here or somewhere we're i'm standing and then unmarked grave and like our government on recognized forgotten. and of no value. god rest him. and i feel very sad about him and his relatives in the intense difficulty of world war two many people seventy nine thousand of them basically were lost in space this is an example of different branches of the service not being able to

communicate effectively with each other and show where they left all these people and this is not on usual island i mean this is an enormous mistake that happened during an enormously difficult time in american history and this was a reticence generation of people because after world war two many people does that all the time they get on with their lives and this issue is a done issue but in reality a lot of people's families don't feel that way. the on in the crew finally heading home but for him the work has just begun. he is determined to fight until action is taken by our government i'm going to present the documentary into souter feinstein and i hope play have her take the necessary action have appropriations provided to tara so that they garbage control program and the public education program could get underway before tara sinks under the ocean

a couple of gallons in the twelve the thirteenth island archipelago arnaldo all to the needs the ocean and it's only a matter of time maybe a dozen years or twenty or thirty years before the entire island group will be called a new atlantas because there won't be any tomorrow. after nearly sixty five years of past many unanswered questions remain hundreds of americans are still lost in the sands of the show and there's a dangerous as well as disastrous environmental legacy that remains on this tiny atoll and many other islands throughout the pacific campaign. for leon cooper the battle is just beginning.

sweet and clean. and fair useful. radioactive and dangerous. and even dead and desolate. they all keep their unique secrets of their bottoms unique lakes on our team. 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 was banned. from. san antonio control of.

the ground you can involve in a community ground where you have one large corporation controlling the daily newspapers radio stations television stations the cable outlet but you told me that that sounds like democracy public opinion versus f.c.c. broadcast blues on archie.

good some. excellent professional. travel 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 twelve. on archy's.

with the latest news on a roundup of the week's top stories the arrest of an r t news crew covering a peaceful protest in the u.s. is criticized by organizations as a crackdown on media freedom ignored by the mainstream american outlets. switzerland has approved a referendum on a proposal to expel foreigners charged with serious crimes and measure that spark discussion about whether it has nationalistic motives. russia's democracy should not stagnate russian president is calling on the opposition in his video blog to act so that those in power stay awake at the wheel. also this one it's one of the world's largest lakes it's now a hazardous wasteland of sand and salt party travels to central asia to explore what's being done to revive our all seeing.