twenty years ago in the largest country is the systems of jesus of the things. of. which have been true. to each began a journey. where today it's taken all. seven thirty am in moscow these here are the headlines making a splash in russian politics billionaire mccollough crowborough launches him self as the leader of a liberal business minded party setting is sights on becoming prime minister he was a legit on a promise to make the right cause party second largest after united russia in the upcoming parliamentary election asking if not me then. dozens killed in a terror attack on a hospital in eastern afghanistan while president obama pushes forward with plans

for a drastic troop reduction level to risky by u.s. military commanders obama wants to reduce u.s. troops in the country by a third amid a surge in violence following the killing of osama bin ladin. take use of double standards for providing safe haven to egypt's former finance minister who was convicted of corruption despite london publicly supporting the pro-democracy movement yousef who chose gali was sentenced in absentia to thirteen years in jail but fled the country. next as the scene of a world war two battlefield has turned into a rubbish we follow one man's struggle to raise public awareness and preserve the site stay with us.

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 nov twentieth america launched in figures assault against one of the most heavily fortified japanese islands in the world. tyrone. on board a higgins landing craft ensign leon cooper who was responsible for the lives of hundreds of men. for the thousands of marines riding to the shores that morning no one can imagine the ferocity of the battle to come or the death and destruction thanks. in february of two thousand and eight the young cooper a navy veteran of the tower about and a film crew left los angeles on a journey that took sixty five years. who

might. be. on the beach. while doing research for my recent book the war in the pacific coverage for spector. 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 especially. and i need to do something about this. i was home in my parents' apartment building i should trouble remember soul well. that

dramatic announcement. really shook me up as well as practically all of america including all the big shots in washington 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 they people mention. all of the world all. side of the. life. of the. law. but your idol. and the south of me thought i ahd the far right with my brother and. my brother said believe 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 so all i get was first thought that i should become an officer rather than a dog face. of course i had all of the time when i bought a it only made me officer training program called the saddle so either volunteered for it. within ninety days civilian the on call who were to come navy instantly on cooper and begin training as an interview spot commander kero was a series of coral reef atolls in the cupboard on strategically located halfway between the hawaiian islands in the philippines. and googled islands had been under the jurisdiction of the british government the december ninth one nine hundred forty one two days after the attack on pearl harbor japanese soldiers came ashore admission to the governing island that told of tower one and proclaimed 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. let me think strategy a list of all i can look up look to getting and i decided the best course of action for the five states are set up here calling and calling actually calling a polling station odds are against the mother must never let her think the stumbling block and in fact that. it's 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 defend her. 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 limits into the central pacific region and plans were drawn up to send forces against the japanese strongholds in the gilbert and martial law groups. know it is and you can just part of it in 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 wrote way of saying here is a the 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 you know atoll and the 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 aircraft 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 in a to shoot landing craft that has pictures of the shank traps the reds the airstrip . and june of one thousand nine hundred three american recognizance flights discovered the base you know had been transformed into a heavily defended outpost the 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 terra. upon his arrival at fiji leone was interviewed by reporters for a fiji sun article on his visit to the nation of care my job was to bring us all for him and i hope. during many trips into the red beach. so. the three days of savage are a. top the japanese how to kill more americans. and taught us. how to do more stupid thing. what the hell is that mean. leone's first official meeting with american

authorities would be with deputy assistant to the us ambassador incurable had 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. he promised he would do his best to join us and taro i introduce us to. be president of. the country that includes taro hey i mean my grammar is licensed by itself it may be a gift that i know there's no guarantee of. thanks to ambassador no 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 accompany the on board of the jet for the highlight of history a return to tower. as the

fortifications of patience when told the tower will continue the japanese commander admiral she was socking boasted to his troops that one million americans could not take the island in a hundred years. however american naval and marine forces with some test that claim the nov twentieth one thousand nine hundred three united states launch a major and for use offensive against our. a massive naval bombardment place starting at dawn. by nine am as wave after wave of marines were launched from the ships the just ticks of the battle took a bad turn. the tide is not as deep as what they had projected it would be ok 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 there was the end aviation detachment of a van or a craft a fighter aircraft

a 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. 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 again. the japanese a kind of defense strategy that covered every inch of the island. hundreds of marines were killed by the accurate mortar and heavy gunfire at the reef stage 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 and 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 the descendants of his former officer . i'm from the united states. california all that hard to get. i was here sixty five years ago. i was a member of the group said i practiced as

a japanese for here defending the dialer. and we were not very friendly toward each other. 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 here and i want to honor your country man who was died in the battle of carolina. they all the sudden i see things happening. and i feel like. i'm not really here on. the first item of business on intent to meet with the assistance of the president of cuba but in the hopes that they could actually see the president the police releasing the first in the lead at the short list of people entitled to lead businesses but if you a little too little person with least two percent to the ministers despite the fact that because of what happened sixty five years ago i 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 a good beginning point to 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 recognizer from here leo and drove to the beach that had haunted him for many years and we know we came in from here we can prepare. i know that one week. i spell the stench of all those bodies running in the sun still 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 cote 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 somewhere and. they were shooting at me for every angle there was you see they had this whole thing and played it and designed so that all the approaching boats came in under murderous crossfire so there wasn't any we're going to follow the line of fire they were shooting at from here from there and from

there every goddamn angle was covered and we don't want 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. and fifteen hundred to five thousand americans in the czech republic dead. 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 terminal. gone. we

got stuck in the early am i with all the guys on my boat i think i remember saying let's get i let go and i said no because i knew these guys would have drowned because we were over a hundred yards from the sand and they would have gone with their heavy packs the best that i don't know i think i did i think that knowledge may look. they were trying to climb out of the boat by ledge efforts rooting out i said head skyward and we found that access through the reef and that's when i landed these guys will be some help and i don't know i don't know i think i did i think i'm going to. however despite the heavy casualties for the disaster was averted a coordinated japanese counterattack might have overrun the exhaust arena but there was no communication from the japanese command the japanese have known charge on a ship a saki and decided to move is 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 and 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 counter-attack in the night and wish attention they could have driven the marines right off of the island. i've had my moment of sun. let's go take a look at those eight inch. the legacy of the battle is still scattered across the sands of base you know 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 beaches the

marines still had to fight in spite inch to an airfield that bisected the island. after waiting nearly twenty hours in their posts the first battalion eighth marines attempted to land ashore almost half of them never made it to the beach a large number of the l.t. kids were not 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 is they couldn't make it all the way up to the island and the marines had to go about seven hundred yards across a title flat and in doing so they were basically waiting 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 corridor calmly rescuing routed marines from the water while several enemy machine gunners tried to knock him out. that young lieutenant j.g.

was a deodorant and he was a rising hollywood actor before this thing in the evening 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 marines and one of them little who the fuck is that somebody asked me and i said i don't know what's an easel and a guy of some kind hands that guy's been up 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 tony made several trips back each time with a boat load of weight 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. 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

a chance conversation i want to know what especially was you see that my gynecologist and not seeing the maid to be about as absurd a thing 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 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 the number of other transports there procurators guys i remark on 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 were these guys able to deal with trauma with war

warnes i doubt it. despite the initial casualties at the beach heavy naval bombardments helped to turn the tide. which ended alexander bonhomie rallied his marines and singlehandedly launched a major assault on a large bunker filled over one hundred fifty japanese defender during the course of this skirmish he was more than he wanted the marines finally worked their way in and began to push the japanese defenders back from the airfield. just behind the rusting giant eight inch guns that protected the shore leon was shocked by what he saw. how i'm pointing to what seems to me the very symbol of every word thing that represents the need and they 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 so signification

a symbol of everything that's wrong with our goddamn government allowing not only garbage but to accumulate where so many guys died. today children play war in the old case me. much enjoy nine hundred forty one these walls were the first barrier for the nasty troops on their way to moscow and. the funders of responders were dying one by one under seize the sea. water. cooler. in the last shelter an unnamed soldier left a few simple words farewell motherland i'm dying but i'm not surrendering.

but i was just thinking about my future before the foreign companies came i dreamed of owning a can cutting factory. but we have less garbage now. somebody that are soo come here make fun of me. figure out garbage boy i'm not bad like people think. i'm a good person. it's just the people don't see me. but i feel it was time people like me. that i feel people will start

to appreciate us. so. if. it. if. it was the fourth quarter. this is st stone chips and secrets of announced times and revealed visions of the soviet files on the ati.

if. they faced it this is not a pro magician the warmth of. the forces that you should see everybody is sure to support victory speech so they have no idea about the hardships the face. plate one is this is a of them to do something for in the army the life of abuse the other is the most chris.