in the world. of self-sacrifice and heroism with those who understand it fully but you have to live a. real life stories from we'd need. to nineteen forty five don't come. within our means to live in moscow the week's top stories russia mourns the forty five victims of chooses a plane crash in the northwest of the country aircraft one fire after crash landing on a major road just a kilometer promise destination pilot error and poor weather conditions are believed to be the main causes of the tragedy. media seen a surge in the number of civilian casualties from nato airstrikes in the country with the latest bombing reportedly telling fifteen leaders social say over eight

hundred civilians have died since the operation began in march. and a new demands for greece to impose tougher budget cuts to secure a french bailout sparked mass protests at home and outrage at yet another rescue plan within the block that's amid predictions that say you are always on the brink of collapse. next emotional crusade of an eighty nine year old us world war two veteran outraged by what he believes is the indifference of his country towards the memory of fallen soldiers. the large concentration of litter on the beach poses an additional hope you're going to refuse he swept out to sea during the storm despite this danger leone saw no empty aluminum cans or plastic bottles he found a major recycling plant nearby were newnham fans are crushed and both came from.

leon paid a visit to the owner and manager of the plant terror and a war i wrote repeatedly to the washington usual suspects the president and the white house the secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff members of congress and so on here are two began and hopefully an action program with funding from my government but we've got. to be starting to see how the american. betty of the. carpet. way here said in a nutshell what i'm taking it we should expand your operation clean up a beach on red beach one would be my primary objectives because my son is a language but you don't understand my anger and having seen this desecration of how ground war on red beach leon had developed an action plan for being sure 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 leons action plan could be used for any island based diminishing land sources. the local fiji television station taped an interview of your own story and his current mission the terrible. years trying to say. ok let me be ok so. there are two clear on how to vote to revisit the scene of the battle. i used to have a nightmare. i granted for years afterwards. i had some rather . 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 he was sitting on top of the sherman tank and the core was oran a 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 round i'd 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 beyond visited the residence of joan and molly brown she showed

a movie about the battle for power prior to tour sites. since that. tree. over the years the browns have collected munitions in their backyard a number of shells are still life. that's right. there and just right these are. coming right in thirtieth from american district office is still

a long long long yet you for the whole kit and please not one armor those are dangerous shells and weapons of all shapes and sizes a majority of them american constantly turn up on they show although these of caused deaths and injuries to the local population over the years there is no exact figure provided by the kid about government might cordon or the local australian naval commander on the island still has the difficult task of dealing with world war two ordinates. the issue here is that the other states turning out how they got rid of everyone it's a new i kind of it is all right just stuff that just keeps turning up would come up 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's what i had standing out. on the end of a bomb and nothing was apparently fallen are using it as i just want to be but you can bet. we'll you know leon was introduced to australia next tatts involved in

exploring the history of the battle of tara. stan gosh that is a professional diver and munitions expert and peter scarlett has lived on the island for over fifteen years stan has done hundreds of dives off ratio and is employed by history flights on their computer program to survey the island from lost grades either there's a plane just sticking up for the left foot or rather to the waste that's of basically all the brotherhood as that's what's in the water economy for here's a picture of it that's the vision this is the whole see. the waves into sections there in the core of. the debris from the battle still covers the island and every storm on earth new ordinance sand showed leon a fifty caliber machine gun sitting in the water a few yards from the beach front home can't tell if that's a that's a fifty fifty caliber machine silver cup again we're talking point on the

stand keeps a storage container full of the weapons and munitions he's collected this is going for. sixty million more to choose the way to get us more and more that there's a lot of motor and there were good. too appears in a dislike to me you know motor. a lot of time i still own the prius like this. still buys a little radio portable radio that was run out of a boy named track on race based this is the part of the job i told the supposed officer from immigrants that i dug up and also tells that is making you can see the nickel a couple of. the books of a nation for the japanese still going to take for the mind gun it's a thirty seven zero room still used to hold closer to their logo and. up on

your head like this very carefully running with pride. by the end of day to the ground commander colonel sure 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 in two. they 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 the new routine patrol from the aircraft carrier lexington accidentally intercepted a formation of twenty japanese he cried is based from nearby marshall islands the japanese were on a mission to bomb and strip 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 here were safe and 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 through the narrow eastern tip of the art. leon paid a visit to mother superior margaret sullivan at 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 and now that you have an i am playing on a warning that japan was going to occupy these i'm going all the sudden they simply showed up as a right to die is that really what i want and then i think the sympathy goes up build up now to where they land and basically that's his outreach to local

officials continued leon and ted met with the minister of interior. for more than three years i've been trying to get our government to do something about neat desecration of earth as happened to the beaches where so many americans died in defense of our country so i've. made what is a. fight with just a whole lot of. lives will be a little muscle. the show that leon had tape from fiji television was broadcast to all the islanders. but. i think the number of troops and the big stuff i saw killings and it was like everyone would really ever stop wondering and never get. all the time coming

and thinking surely. telling. but because i. still. i was a damned thing i think the best thing for me to kill as many of the end of. the world i did something helpless or something that just. simply because i channel should. buy one from pm on november twenty third of the island was declared secure 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 only one japanese officer and two enlisted men survived along with fourteen korean neighbors 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 bomb. one marine commented that it was the closest thing to dante's inferno it ever seen. it was a hellish wasteland of destruction. literally covered with thousands of bodies and ordnance. now came the grim task of collecting and buried bodies. general holland smith in the marine commander was reputed to have said later that heroin was a tragic mistake. after the battle in the marines would bury their dead. detail plot maps of the grave site 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 the composition of several bodies and a number were lost at sea. i fortunately had the unpleasant duty of attending a number of burials at sea i can't remember how many at least a half a dozen but one 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 deep and i certain the chaplain hasan who was a sky and he said we don't know and i said well his dog tags they're in the sailcloth he said. and i can't imagine anything more that needs to be said other than they absolutely absurd ridiculous treatment in yes absolutely indifferent treatment was given to all these guys who had died in defense of our country. lieutenant bonded

with 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 seabees units which were the logistic backbone of every operation within clean up the battlefield and quickly build the infrastructure to support an air force. 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 some of them person matures there's thirty three twenty six twenty five this is part of the old pier right here the island basically had forty three cemeteries on it and in building it into a modern air base they basically erased some of the senators who we think and how he's been working for their stroll in government as a contractor. he has made some unusual discoveries were building bishops infrastructure he knew that there was one instance we dug below the full title this

is the one that stain very interested in and we found it really in complete skeleton he still had partial uniform boots watch and a good job because florida the leader of his how might be a good bet apart yes rather the rather the way with a lot of the lion in the front of the was. doubtless want to was the p.d.f. silly son yes and i think alice up now. there you told somebody in a government us government about this. project and to me the project a project manager and he believed right off to. the admiral nimitz organization but what happened was the the mourner a and he runs into the up in my office in the last day. and i pick bring a draftsman or other truck graphic drawing card and this bag was on the table

and these little box now sample on son a letter to them it's not so so i can tell you what we should do with the car and then was our reply here which while i was. with him forever would be i feel almost like he's running like canyon on leo had spent months seeking assistance from every level of government to address the garbage situation to be sure now he discovered something even more disturbing that hundreds of marines remains still right in the sands of the island. just as we've been told by the guys we met with three are so used to. down on the ground almost anywhere you walk you see the mortal remains of somebody japanese or american he was introduced to the minister of health but. i was at its maximum i don't lie the things that i want to do to help you ultimately he was granted

a meeting with the president of care i know to talk a little on the employment of citizens of care who will. assist in the in the monitoring of the refuse collection of your country and ultimately end won't be a state of the art incineration system. which will have a number of benefits of course. the brutality of the tower campaign would soon hit home when the american public began to see the pictures of the casualties and devastation and leave december nine hundred forty three the gruesome carnage was so disturbing that some mothers demanded and it's his resignation what was more striking was not just the heavy casualties but the confusion regarding the gary of hundreds of marines who gave their lives that are the natural number of total missing people from this from this

battle was five hundred eleven basically it's a very nebulous number and there's a huge distance here there's eleven hundred six people asked 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 gilligan effort starting in february of one nine hundred forty six and winding up. may of one hundred forty six go to find 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 leads 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's brand based on norman jr frank

eggs 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 map of great number thirty three were four hundred people were were listed as being buried but in reality only hundred twenty nine recovered. one of those people by the way is an alexander bonnie one who was who won the congressional medal of honor in a doll 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 and 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. bunnymen and many of the brave men were on the islands 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 he says respects to a special marine so much why he's here he came to the coast watchers memorial a beautiful war also those guys who gave their lives. in defense of their country and ours too by the way and the brits the australians of those who are there is. no more allies here but soames is not he lies here or somewhere we're i'm standing i'm not on margrave i 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 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 in the crew finally headed home where for whom the work has just begun he is determined to fight until action is taken by our government. i'm going to present a documentary into salad or feinstein and a hot plate have her take the necessary action have appropriations provided to tara so that they garbage control program and the public education program can get

underway before cero are six under the ocean a couple of gallons in the trial of the hurricanes island archipelago arnaldo all the neat 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 general. after nearly sixty five years of past many unanswered questions remaining hundreds of americans are still lost in the sands of the ship 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.

today children play war and the old case me. nine hundred forty one these walls were the first barrier from a nazi troops on the way to moscow and. the funders of breasts were dying one by one under siege. one. in the last shelter an unnamed soldier left a few simple words farewell motherland i'm dying but i'm not surrendering.

i thought 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. regular 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.

i'm.

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