just the. top soldiers a small effort to bring some security to a community facing a scary and uncertain future in from katrina city sean thomas r.t. and that is going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to our t. dot com slash us they check out our you tube page you tube got com slash arts in america i'm christine will be right back here in a half hour. issues that so much of it may result. in a real case for it in the new game i'll cite interest in this conflict is even rich in natural resources in a growing middle class china the us. bringing you the latest in science and technology from. the future

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has been seeing from the streets of canada. for asians or the day. in the fall of one thousand 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 fifty years a salt against one of the most heavily fortified japanese islands in the world to. the south on board

a higgins landing craft ensign leon 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 thanks. in february of two thousand and eight the young come from a navy veteran of the tower about and a film crew left los angeles on the journey that took sixty five years. to might. be. on. while doing research for my recent book the war in the pacific coverage for specter i happened across an 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. or a witness to all of the killings that took place i felt a special way. and i need to do something about this. i was home in my parents' apartment building i'm sure john will remember soul well. that dramatic announcement. really shook me up as well as practically all of america including all the big shots in washington i magine a tiny country like japan. attacking. our pacific fleet and pearl harbor but and indeed for all intents and purposes making america the giant a people make it. all over.

out of the. night he thought it was the. last. i looked out on me. at the law and my brother. my brother said lee he was trying to decide whether to order me to get out of the country. or to find a safer occupation than being a an infantry man joy it was first thought that i should become an officer rather than i don't phrase. of course i have no all of the time i bob may get a late payment officer training program called be seven so high that volunteered

for it. within ninety days civilian beyond complete would become navy instantly on cooper and begin training as an interview spot command. tara was a series of coral reef atolls in the cobra island group strategically located halfway between the hawaiian islands in the philippines the gold islands had been under the jurisdiction of the british government to the summer nights nine hundred forty one two days after the attack on pearl harbor japanese soldiers came ashore additional governing island that told of tower one and proclaim that for the emperor. both sides understood incessantly to control islands across the sea. the american commands tactical approach dated back to teddy roosevelt's assessment of world sea diplomacy devised for the late nineteenth 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 her talk looks

like a good thing and i decided the best course of action for the united states to set up a series of calling and calling and ship the day a polling station blocking at some other costs etc and that looking for something along. the path in that that. looks right or that. the japanese conscripted over forty one hundred korean slave laborers to build up a show's defenses as well as a small their strip. they sent in over twenty six hundred cracked japanese imperial marines to defender. massive fortifications were built including giant po boxes some over seven hundred feet in height ten large eight inch gun emplacements field artillery an anti-aircraft gun.

a 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 the capturing of guinea nimitz handled the central pacific region. and plans were drawn up to send forces against the japanese strongholds in the gilbert and martial law groups mark knowing is a u.p.s. part of the world war two military historian 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 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 day show a toll and the horrible island region and they built this very complex math with

all of the difference in 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 discovered that they show had been transformed into a heavily defended outpost and 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 lynn was interviewed by reporters for a fiji sun article on his visit to the nation of korea my job was to bring us all

folks in every life boat. during many trips into the red beach. so. a three days of savage or a. top of the japanese how to kill more americans. and taught us. how to kill more stupid thing. but i know that me. leon's first official meeting with american authorities would be with deputy assistant to the u.s. ambassador and carol ted me. first of all we're here to meet with the ambassador and his staff ambassador. especially wanted to have. meet with him before we want to travel he promised he would do his best to join us and taro i introduced us to. be president of care of the country that includes

terror hey i need my grammar's license back stuff maybe get that i know there's no guarantee of. thanks to ambassador and our 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 pace you are told the tower will continue the japanese commander admiral service 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. on november twentieth one thousand nine hundred three the united states launched a major and four u.s. offensive against our. a massive naval bombardment the place starting at dawn.

by nine am as 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 in the project there would be about six to seven feet above the fringing reef 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 an aviation detachment of a vine or a craft or fighter aircraft and on the island and there was some confusion and they actually had a cease fire there was about thirty minutes when there was no firing. and enable 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 arm. 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 under the marines were killed by the accurate mortar and heavy gunfire at the research 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 hero save the day one was a young lieutenant alexander bonnie rallied his men to push him and be on the pier to the sea world. after sixty five years leon cooper finally returned to that fateful stretch of sand that had shaped his destiny .

ironically it's first encounter at the airport the descendants of his former adversaries. i know i'm from the united states. teleport all got terrorists at the time i was here sixty five years ago. i was a member of the group that attacked the japanese who are here are defending this island. and we were not very friendly toward each other. we were angry 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 i want to honor your country man who was died in the battle of carolina. they all of a sudden i say things happening. and i feel like. i'm not

really here and on. the first item of business was probably on intent to be the assistant to the president of cuba but in the hopes that they could access the president of the police station the first indian to clear the short list of people and title to this list but if you are unable to meet with the person with the least two percent of 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 most of 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 i wanted to be somewhere else. i know that's pretty short but there are three i recognize are from here beyond drove to the beach that haunted yours no one came in from here we came and from here. i know damn well we did. i smell the stench of all those bodies running and the sun sills comes back to me. all that stink guys decomposing. and i came ashore about here. and i know where the dead the beach master is i remember 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 japs were shooting at me from up there somewhere. they were shooting at people from every angle there was you see they had the whole thing enfiladed and designed so that all the approaching both came in under murderous crossfire so there wasn't any we're going to get out of the line of fire and we're shooting out from here from there and from there every goddamn angle was covered and we own and stumble right into all this. water. 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 to five thousand american to be cheered with your dad for whom. 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 trauma. gone. that's not going to really and i went all the guys on my boat i think i remember saying i was going to let go and i said no because i knew these guys would have grown because we were over a hundred yards from the sand and they would have gone with their heavy packs of how 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 the japs were shooting at i said. starboard and we found that access through the reef and that's when i landed these

guys would be something happened i don't know i don't i think i did i think. however despite the heavy casualties for the disaster was averted a coordinated japanese counterattack might have overrun the exhaust reeds but there was no communication from the japanese command the japanese avallone charge and should have saki 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 and a five inch shell exploded right near them and killed them off 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 was intentionally could have driven the marines right off of the island. i've had my moment of.

let's go take a look at those eight inch. the legacy of the battle is still scattered across the sands of base here 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 pill boxes and the command post. the second day of the invasion was a precarious one for the americans although they had secured two small beachheads the marines still had to fight in spite instore 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 older kids were knocked out of action in the first day and after that they had to use primarily hagan's beds in the havens boats were dropping

the marines off at the fringing reef because they couldn't make it all the way out to the island and a marine is 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 two and one into 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 rooted marines from the water while several enemy machine gunners tried to knock him out. that young lieutenant j.g. was eddie over and he was a rising hollywood actor before in this thing in the he had stored in several movies and with major headline television shows including the popular series green acres i was sitting out there with a bunch of brains and one of the little have somebody asked me and i said i don't know what's legal and maybe a guy of some kind and that guy's been out there for the last fifteen twenty

minutes and 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 then he made several trips back each time with a boat load of went wondered were wounded marines going back to the transport ship for medical treatment with these guys. eighty save the lives of nearly seventy marines decay. 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 and i chance conversation i want to know what especially was he said that my gynecologist and not seeing the may to be about as absurd as thing is 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 about his specialty was he's

a path ologist 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 a number of other transports there purities guys i remarked 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 but the were these guys able to deal with trauma with war ones i doubt it. despite the initial casualties at the beach heavy naval bombardment sought to turn the tide. intended alexander bonny rallied his marines and singlehandedly launched a major assault on a large bunker filled with over one hundred fifty japanese different. during the course of the skirmish he was mortally wounded the marines finally worked their way inland 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 simple. every word thing that represents the need and a 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 and symbol of everything that's wrong with our goddamn government allowing not only damage but to accumulate where so many guys died. bringing you the latest in science technology from the realms. we've got the future

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keep me busy for me to. see if he. gets to. see. yes.