plants 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 you are there i wrote repeatedly to the washington usual suspects the president and the white house the secretary of defense the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff members of congress so i'm here to began and hopefully in action program with funding from my government what we've done. is really starting to see how there are many. basti or. call their. way here is in a nutshell what i'm thinking is that we should expand your operation clean up the beach on red beach one would be my primary objectives because my salty language but you can understand my anger and having seen this desecration of how the ground war

on red beach. leon had developed an action plan for base you know 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 on the face of diminishing sources but the local fiji television station taped an interview of your own story and his current mission to taro. so. there are two cleone 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 am on a tank. he was saying 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 this bright yellow red blue car all was all around us and it was this kid very happily sitting on top of the trevor tank and that's a dream that i had for years. i had told my wife. if i start threatening ron but just leave the bread because i get. 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. is the tower. couch. that's three. player. plays. over the years the browns have collected munitions in their back yard a number of shells are still alive. that's right it never just are

these are. from a drive in thirty six from american history are often the still a long way around. yet you figure 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 wanted to be like kind of it is alright just stuff that just keeps turning up or whatever and it's amazing what some people you know that sort of foreign affairs bomber discovered was that one sort of a chicken curry you know that so i had standing upright. on the end of a bomb and nothing to detonate a bomb and are using it as just one corner of the chicken but. 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 last graves there's there's a plane just looking out for the best for the others of the waste that's a basically for the brotherhood as that's what's in the water the twenty four is a picture of it that's the facia there's the whole see. the waves into sections there before. the debris from the battle still covers the island and every storm on earth new ordinance stan showed leon a fifty caliber machine gun sitting in the water a few yards from the beach front home. i said that's

a fifty fifty caliber machine. still the coke again we're talking five dollars stan keeps a storage container full of the weapons and munitions he's collected just lines like sixty no more ditches makes the c.e.o.'s of us more a mortar is a more mortar and edible good. still with the fuse and the flaws we do know more than. a lot on a hill that this is full of the play this. stuff binds of of the radio portable radio that was run out of a boy named track on red baked goods this is the fault of the jewel but called the supposed office of from to mc and that was dug up and also now tells have been making you can see the nickel cut all. the books of in the nation put the japanese talking on the prototype for the mind gun it's

a thirty seven mil room still use the whole explosion room to a lot of rooms. up on your head like this right carefully around on. by the end of day to the ground commander colonel sheep 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 event was taking place in the skies near by. a flight of hellcat fighter planes on routine patrol from the aircraft carrier lexington accidentally intercepted a formation of twenty japanese eeks fighters based from nearby marshall islands 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 shield were safe 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 ark. 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 at it just hours after they took over the island now that you'll 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 throughout the morning everything for the descendants of those up till now where they land and base. as his outreach to

local officials continued leon and ted met with the minister of interior. more than three years i've been trying to get our government to do something about the dozen creation 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 us to polish. a little a little muscle. the show that leon had taped for fiji television was broadcast to all the islanders. but it was all. the different schools i think the number of trips and. stuff i saw selling it was like everyone with a shilling or stuff. and never did it. all the time coming to think

surely to tell. but because i. still. listen to. this thing. kills many of the end of. the world i did something helpless for something they just. simply because i channeled. 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 going to be 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 dantes 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 rain 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 on issues. 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 by one a 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 his usual words before we dumped the guy into the 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. i can't imagine anything more that needs to be said other than they absolutely serve 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.b.c. cleaned it up and turned it into a modern air base you can see from the temporary cemetery 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 building into a modern air base the basically erased some of the cemetery. that we've taken 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 it out of the water table

this is the one that stain very much rooted in and we found it really in complete skull of them still had a partial uniform loose watch. but far because a lot of the the i was how much did the metal yes or rather the rather the what was a little bit about in the front of the was. part of the last one i was completely gives the side of. this and nothing else now. so you told somebody in a government the us government about this. the project engineer the project a project manager you know the right off to. the bone numerous organization down but what happened was the good war in the raid in the buns in that up in the office in a rush but. allowed to bring a draft or have

a truck and drop the drawing card and this bag was on the side. and they was it will months from now on such a letter to them as much as they are going to say what we should do with the bottom . and then was our reply in which well as. with him for a war did 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 bay sheo 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. presented sax player i don't lie the things that

i want to do to help you ultimately he was granted the meeting with the president of cuba i know to talk a little on the employment of citizens of 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 that 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 was eleven hundred six people lost at the end of the war when the army came back to dig 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 nine hundred forty six and winding up in. may of nine hundred forty six they identified the remains of approximately three hundred maybe four hundred guys but. the report that i read

issued by the guy in charge says 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 baseball norman jr frank

eggs to see and henry lott 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 of grave number thirty three were 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 sure. the men 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 pieces respects to a special marine soames lies here he came to the coast watchers memorial a beautiful war and to those guys who gave their lives. in defense of their country and ours too by the way and the brits the the australians are to resume of there is . no more allies here but soames is not he lies here or somewhere we're i'm standing and then on margrave and like our government 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 to get on with our lives and this issue is a done issue but in reality a lot of people's families don't feel that way. leon and the crew finally headed 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 a documentary in two sounded or feinstein and hopefully have her take the necessary action have appropriations provided to tear off so that they garbage control

program and the public education program could get underway before terro are six under the ocean a couple of gallons in the twelve thirteen island archipelago arnaldo most of 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 in the wood lattice because there won't be any tomorrow. after nearly sixty five years have passed 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.

well. bringing you the latest in science and technology from around russia. we've got the future covered. download the official anti happily cation joe i phone oh i pod touch from the i choose apps to. watch on t.v. life on the go. video on demand ati's my broadcasts an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. questions on the dot com.

this is all see coming to you live from moscow and this is our main story this hour forty four people have died in a passenger plane crash in northwest russia from which eight others and board have survived his tone bought and how small for the. of the fifty two people on board the plane forty four been confirmed dead and eight have been taken to hospital of those eight people some of them are suffering from burns and one of them is a child that's been taken to a children's hospital there were also reportedly more children on the plane the russian emergencies ministry has sent a plane and will now begin an investigation into the crash and the possible causes of it look at the flight recorders there look at the the site itself and the

circumstances of the crash to try and find out what may have caused this accident it's also the plane itself will come under scrutiny and what happened in its approach to petras avoid scare pour in karelia in the northwest of russia it was there on the way there from moscow about two kilometers from the runway there when the plane. took a sudden spend steep dip and hit the road before the runway there. hit the road hard enough i witness is say to break apart and also to burst into flames that impact on the road causing most of the casualties it is at the moment thought the plane itself was a tupolev t one three four it's quite an old plane the still a lot of the working around russia but they were built and designed back in the one nine hundred sixty s. . at the moment the russian emergencies ministry isn't ruling out possibly the

causes of the crash being from adverse weather conditions possibly pilot error or a technical problem with the plane it would yet to be seen from that investigation what caused this tragic accident. tom bassett reporting there for us and we'll bring you the latest details on that tragic plane crash as we get them and right now max carson caused a habit or mountains of credit debts can do to your self-esteem and explain the mysterious role of credit default state.