Transcript of Endgame

The History Channel original podcast.

For almost 4 years, American soldiers and Marines in the Pacific have struggled across beaches, through jungles, and atop mountains to subdue a nation that refuses to surrender. The effort has been immense. More is required. In the spring of 1945, the United States will start the final push to defeat the Japanese Empire.

This is World War II with Tom Hanks. Episode 19: Endgame.

With the Rhine's west bank secured, Britain expects other crossings of Germany's river of destiny. After a lull to build up our own strength, and after that, the end of the European war should not be far off.

In America in the spring of 1945, There is hope that the war in Europe is nearing its end. Husbands and fathers, boyfriends and brothers might finally be coming home.

It is front and center on the American mind. How quickly can we get to Berlin and get the soldiers home?

The public get this sort of an attitude that, you know, "Hey, the war's almost over. They'll be coming home." It's almost like a marathon, and you see the finish line in the distance, and so you know you can give one last kick, and then somebody says, "Actually, there's another 3 miles to go." Victory in Europe seems within reach.

Victory over Tokyo remains on the far horizon. For months, hundreds of B-29s have been striking Japanese cities, —to marginal effect.

The Army Air Forces believed that a sufficient amount of pinpoint bombing from high altitude would take out Japanese industry and make it impossible for them to continue the war. It didn't work. Bombing from 30,000 feet, the winds were too strong, blew the bombs all over the place.

Under the command of General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force alters its tactics. On March 9th, 1945, LeMay's B-29s will attack Tokyo from only 5,000 feet using a new weapon: bombs filled with napalm.

Napalm is this gel combined with gasoline that will stick to things, and then it catches fire, and it makes it very, very hard to put out. It's for starting fires that are designed to just go out of control.

And the reason it's going to be so destructive is that Tokyo is mostly made of wood and paper, and this is just going to explode. It'll be incredibly inflammable.

The argument was that if you destroy the housing units of the Japanese workers, they wouldn't be able to go to work and build the planes and the tanks they needed to continue the conflict. But the outcome was absolutely horrific.

It's just complete devastation in Tokyo. 100,000 people were killed.

We think of Dresden as being the worst single moment in the European theater of operations. The firestorm at Dresden, 25,000 were lost there. But in Tokyo, there's 100,000 killed in a single operation. The whole city was a sea of fire.

It was so hot that canals start to boil, and the fires eat up so much of the oxygen that a lot of the people who die asphyxiate because there's no oxygen left. A huge proportion of the city is simply completely gone in one night.

The destruction is immense. 16 square miles of Tokyo are obliterated. After this one raid, a million Japanese no longer have a home. It's unprecedented.

General LeMay later recalled that he would have been tried as a war criminal If United States lost in the war.

To survey the damage, Emperor Hirohito emerges from his bunker beneath the Imperial Palace.

Emperor Hirohito has been pretty isolated throughout the war, but he does have a sense that the war is not exactly going as his generals and admirals are telling him. So when the firebombing in Tokyo happened, that only intensifies his desire to start looking for ways to end the war.

For Emperor Hirohito, the big concern is not what might happen to the ordinary Japanese people, but if the Americans make it onto Japanese soil, what might happen to him? What might happen to the imperial line that goes back centuries in Japan? He says, "I can't possibly face my ancestors." having sacrificed the throne.

The Emperor of Japan is considered to be divine, with immense authority over his people. But Hirohito rarely exerts that authority in political or military matters.

There's the Committee for the Supreme Direction of the War, which is 6 people: 2 people from the Army, 2 people from the Navy, the Prime Minister, and the Foreign Minister. Those 6 are the only 6 that have any real say within Japan.

The civilian leaders understood they couldn't win the war, but the military are determined to fight on.

Japanese military leaders have lived their whole life under a professional code that surrender is so dishonorable you would rather die. No matter what the suffering, the warrior does not surrender.

For all the firebombing, for all the destruction already rained on Japan, there's no sign of surrender.

And the American high command now believes that the Japanese would not surrender short of an invasion and occupation of the Japanese home islands.

The United States is gathering its forces for the next phase of its assault on Imperial Japan: the capture of Okinawa, the largest island on the Ryukyu chain.

Okinawa is just 400 miles south of Kyushu, which is the most southerly of the Japanese home islands. And therefore can be used to launch an invasion fleet. So Okinawa is absolutely vital to the Americans.

Okinawa would be defended by about 100,000 Japanese frontline troops and also native Okinawan militia forces. They know that the Americans have overwhelming superiority in the air and at sea.

The plan for the defense of Okinawa is don't go for a banzai charge. Instead, they will prepare these defensive fortifications, let the Americans come to them, and take them out that way.

Using native Okinawans as forced labor, the Japanese build a network of bunkers and tunnels.

And the idea was kill 4 or 5 Americans before you are killed yourself. The Japanese overall strategy is to make the Americans pay so much for Okinawa that an invasion of the Japanese home islands would be unthinkable.

The garrison on Okinawa is only half the Japanese strategy for defending the island. The other element of the plan is to use kamikaze, but in far greater numbers than ever been used before.

The Japanese recognize that when the Americans conduct these amphibious landing operations, The ships offshore are the lifeline that's keeping the battalions ashore in the fight. So they came up with this idea of these organized waves of kamikaze attacks.

And if you launch 300 kamikaze at the American fleet and you take out 7 aircraft carriers or something, that is a war-changing thing.

The Battle of Okinawa starts with the largest invasion of the war war in the Pacific, a massive effort combining naval, air, and ground support. 60,000 soldiers and Marines are bound for Okinawa's western beaches. The invasion force will land on Hagushi Bay. Then the Marines will sweep north and the Army south to take control of the entire island.

The biggest danger in an amphibious operation is the actual landing, uh, because you are incredibly vulnerable. You're out in the open. The combat troops going up first, both Marine and Army, have been told to expect up to 80% casualties. So if you draw the unlucky straw of being one of the first units, you're pretty convinced not many of you are going to survive. They get to the beaches, start walking up it, bodies tense, waiting for the bullets to come. And there is nothing.

They're experiencing virtually no opposition. And so there was a thought that, hey, maybe Okinawa is not going to turn out to be a big bloodbath after all.

The first few days go very well for the landing forces. They cut across all the way to the other side of the island against minimal opposition. It's looking too good to be true at this stage.

Military leaders believed that Japan must fight to protect the honor of the country. And these kamikaze pilots are the chosen ones to go to this divine mission to protect their homeland. They really believe that that would turn the tide of the war.

The pilots are young. Many of them are teenagers. They're ill-trained. They don't even have enough fuel to come back from this flight if they wanted to. They know they're going to die, and so when they get to the first American ship they see, they attack.

For the first 5 days of the invasion of Okinawa, there's no opposition to the massive US fleet surrounding the island. But just after noon on April 6th, the Japanese arrive in force.

Imagine we're on the bridge of one of these destroyers, 80 miles north of Okinawa. The kamikaze come from starboard, from port, from high, from low. So you feel like you're in a boxing ring with about 5 other boxers attacking you from every direction.

Hundreds of kamikaze at a time are thrown against the invading fleet. They thought with the sheer numbers they could take out the capital ships, that's battleships and aircraft carriers, and drive off the US fleet in its entirety.

The kamikaze don't really have much success against aircraft carriers, but 300+ ships are targeted by the kamikazes. More than 36 of them sink. It is more devastating than any conventional bombing attack has been in the war so far, but it's not enough.

What the kamikaze tells me is that the Japanese knew the war was lost, at least by conventional means. There's nothing more dangerous in warfare than a cornered enemy. The Japanese are gonna go down in flames but will Never surrender. Never.

For the US Navy, the battle against the kamikaze at Okinawa is bloodier than any previous confrontation of the entire Pacific War, and American ground forces are now facing increasing resistance as well.

The force that had landed on the beaches is pushing south toward a place called Kakazu Ridge, where they encounter the first line of Japanese defenses.

It's the first time the Americans meet serious opposition, and it stops them dead. The Japanese have created a defensive system that goes right across the whole width of the island, so they can't be outflanked.

American troops endure days of non-stop enemy fire.

This is attritional, grisly, meat-grinding fighting, and that's just the first line of defense, and there are going to be many more beyond this. What we thought was going to be a cakewalk is anything but.

April 12th. The American people learn Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the man they elected 4 times, is dead. Vice President Harry S. Truman, a former judge and senator from Missouri, is sworn in hours later.

Roosevelt had led the country through the Great Depression and through the war. In the 82 days that Truman had been vice president, he met with Roosevelt all of twice. He really knows nothing about what's going on with the war effort.

He didn't think he was up to the job, and there are people who would say he was right.

The new president is immediately confronted with enormous challenges.

It's important for a wartime president to demonstrate that he has a plan for bringing this war to a successful conclusion and as rapidly as possible. It's clear to the American population that Germany is on its last legs, but Japan is still fighting hard.

The question really is, "How many American lives am I going to lose to end this war?" That's the whole ballgame for Harry Truman.

Truman meets with Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Army General Leslie Groves. The agenda is classified.

They hand Truman a document. Truman opens it up and reads it, and the memo begins with these dramatic words: Within 4 months, we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history, one bomb which can destroy a whole city.

The Manhattan Project, the top-secret American program to develop the world's first atomic bombs. For 3 years, thousands of scientists and engineers have worked on the most powerful weapon in history. It is set to be tested midsummer.

Truman and his commanders are ready to pay any price to bring this war to an end. But an invasion of the Japanese home islands will be bloody on an unimaginable scale, higher losses than any previous campaign either in the Pacific War or in the war in Europe.

The Manhattan Project, the attempt to develop atomic weapons, if that proves to be successful, if those tests prove out, then that is an alternative.

The war in Europe is over. The Nazi Third Reich has been destroyed. But for war-weary America and and its allies. The war in the Pacific continues, and many of the men who helped defeat Germany may now be required to fight Japan.

At this point, people in the military knew that a lot of these units are going to need to be transferred. Just because the war in Europe is over, don't get excited. We're going to need those troops in the Pacific.

After 2 months of ceaseless combat, Marine and Army units break through the main Japanese defensive line on Okinawa. Japanese troops are forced to retreat and attempt a last stand on the Kiyan Peninsula.

By this point, the Japanese soldiers on Okinawa are low on ammunition. They are starving. They're exhausted. But they realize that the next step for the Allies after Okinawa is the home islands. They are all that stand between the Allies and their families, their homes. They are the last line of defense, and everyone is depending on them.

Although the Americans have gained ground, the more you push and the more terrain that has been captured, the more dangerous and costly the battle is becoming.

But the Americans know we're making progress. If war is a clash of wills, The United States is a nation willing to fight it out to the end.

Organized resistance on Okinawa ends on June 22nd. The Japanese Army's commanding general and his chief of staff both commit suicide by ritual seppuku.

100,000 Japanese servicemen are killed. On the American side, the casualties are 50,000 killed and wounded. These are the worst battle casualties in the Pacific War for the Americans. Worse than all of that are the number of civilians killed, up to 125,000, which is a third of the population caught in the crossfire. This is just Okinawa.

What happens when we get to their home islands? The cost is going to be enormous. This war isn't over. It's not even close to being over.

American leaders understand the Battle of Okinawa is a frightening preview of what to expect when Japan's home islands are invaded.

Truman has a meeting with General Marshall and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Operation Downfall, the invasion of the Japanese home islands. This plan goes back to the Roosevelt presidency. Planning is going forward. And the most interested person at the meeting is George Marshall. He wants Truman to sign off on it.

Operation Downfall will be a two-pronged operation, the first called Operation Olympic. The idea of Operation Olympic is to invade the southern island of Kyushu and seize naval bases and air bases while pushing Japanese forces north. The critical phase, though, of Operation Downfall is what's codenamed Operation Korenet. Is the invasion of Honshu, which is where Tokyo itself sits. So this would inevitably end in either the destruction or capture of the Japanese capital.

Think about the scale of Operation Downfall as a whole. 5 million men involved, up to a million British and Commonwealth troops, 4 million American troops. And this is gonna dwarf D-Day in the logistics and the naval forces that are gonna be involved, and the forces that are actually gonna land. And most importantly of all, it's gonna dwarf the number of casualties.

If the Allies had to invade Japan, that would be the largest amphibious assault ever undertaken. And the Americans were gonna bear almost the entire weight of it. And the president understood that better than most of the American public did.

Truman specifically says to his chiefs of staff, "I don't want an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other." So Truman, in June of '45, is looking at a brutal final act against Japan.

But it is very important to Harry Truman that he always be seen as the decider. The buck stops here.

Truman understands that this war with Japan needs to end. The invasion looks horrible. But what's the option? Option B in this situation.

Even at this late date in June, there's no sense that the Manhattan Project is going to work. They really don't know if they have a bomb yet.

And so Truman signs off on Operation Downfall, the two big invasions of Japan. Stage 1, Operation Olympic, is set for November 1st. The clock is ticking.

The Japanese Army's plan is to fight to the bitter end. With a decisive and final battle in the home islands.

For a while now, the Japanese Army have been planning what they call Operation Ketsugo, which means Operation Decisive. It's a plan to defend Kyushu. They think they've got perhaps a million men that they can put into the field. They also want to put civilians into the field. Their idea is that they will make things so terrifying that it We will stop the Americans trying to do anything anywhere else in the home islands.

Women and children were going through the military drills where everybody was given a bamboo spear. They are essentially mobilizing everybody older than 12 years old to fight to the death.

In July, for the first time, President Truman meets with both British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin at Potsdam, formerly the home of Prussian kings and the German Kaiser.

Europe is devastated. It's a massive disaster zone. The point of the Potsdam Conference is for these three governments to come together and figure out how these countries are going to be rebuilt.

But Truman has his eyes on a completely different problem. He huddles with Secretary of War Stimson, and what are they talking about? They're talking about the Pacific.

With Operation Downfall months away, President Truman seeks assurance that the Soviets will participate in the war against Japan as pledged.

All this time, Japan and the Soviet Union had been neutral. They had not been at war with one another.

Stalin promised within 90 days of the end of the war in Europe, he'll join the war against Japan. He promised that to Roosevelt back at Yalta.

So Truman hopes that's a go. But at the start of the conference, Stimson receives a coded cable from the War Department.

Operated on this morning. Diagnosis not yet complete, but results seem satisfactory. Dr. Groves is pleased. Truman now knew that the atomic bomb had been detonated successfully.

In this moment, we have this amazing window into Truman's thinking because he was keeping a diary. Truman realizes this bomb could be a short circuit to ending the war.

When Truman hears that the atomic bomb actually works, he knows they have to use it, but he wants to give the Japanese one last chance to surrender before he does.

President Truman, along with Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Republic of China, issue the Potsdam Declaration, a warning to Japan of what awaits if they don't surrender unconditionally. Formally. But Stimson suggests they consider allowing Hirohito to keep his throne.

Stimson understands the constitutional and cultural position that the emperor plays in Japanese life, this kind of demigod status. And so he insists on inserting into the declaration assurance that they won't try the emperor for war crimes, but beyond that, it will be unconditional surrender and no other terms will be acceptable.

Also in this document is wordage that does not mention the atomic bomb, but it does say that if unconditional surrender is not coming, the destruction was going to be historic and massive.

The Office of War Information releases the Potsdam Declaration, and the Japanese receive it via radio from San Francisco.

Prime Minister Suzuki and Emperor Hirohito are the opinion that the Potsdam Declaration is not really vindictive. They see some hope.

Emperor Hirohito himself, at this point, he is open to accepting it, but he understands his role as an emperor. There are only certain times for him to weigh in.

The emperor and the peace party are in an impossible position here. I mean, if they respond positively to the ultimatum, the military might turn against them. But if they completely ignore it, there's a danger that the Americans are actually gonna carry out what they suggest.

Two days later, Japan's prime minister, Kantaro Suzuki, holds a press conference.

When press asks about Potsdam Declaration, Suzuki uses the word "mokusatsu." The best translation for that is "no comment" or "I'm not going to respond to that question." However, the word "mokusatsu" can also mean "we're going to ignore it." And I think the Japanese media, they're very quick to interpret it in the most hostile and negative way.

And then the American media pick it up, and then that becomes the view of the American administration as well, that the Japanese are rejecting the Potsdam Declaration.

And to Truman, the Japanese response is plain and clear. He believes that the Japanese told them to go to hell.

By early 1945, Tinian Island in the Marianas Islands Tijanas is the largest air base on Earth. Hundreds of B-29s have taken off from its multiple runways to bomb Japan.

But there's a very mysterious restricted area at one part of the base. No one really knows what's going on up there. Belongs to some unit called the 509th Composite Group. These are the preparations for the arrival of the atomic bomb.

Components for the atomic bombs are delivered in late July and carefully assembled over the following days.

So the Manhattan Project was able to produce enough uranium and plutonium for 3 bombs, and after the Trinity test, the Americans only had 2 bombs in the arsenal.

Truman makes the decision to drop the bomb. He legitimately wants to save U.S. casualties and bring this war to an end rapidly. At the same time, he wants to assert his authority as president.

It's one of the most consequential decisions that any nation has ever made, and no one No one knows what was gonna happen. But President Truman did understand that this was of a different scale and scope. He compares it to the biblical flood in his diary. As the world was once destroyed by water for Noah, perhaps now it'll be destroyed by fire and destruction.

By design, the target of the first atomic bomb is a city relatively unscathed by the war. American military leaders want the Japanese to understand the awful destructive power of this new weapon.

That morning in Hiroshima is an ordinary morning. People are going about their business. Some people are going into the factories to work. They're still wondering why they've not yet been bombed, and they're expecting it more or less any day. And then people see this light in the sky, the sun, shining off a single aircraft.

The first thing is the flashing light, as if sun explodes. Then a noise and a shock. The people who were near the epicenter evaporate.

The casualties mount until you get between 90,000 and 160,000 people who've died. The dominant image that survivors give of Hiroshima is of one of the Buddhist hells.

One thing that's really difficult for historians to jive with is this idea that Truman has chosen military targets, and he writes even in his diary the words, "And not women and children." We'll never really know, did he really feel that this was a military target, or was he writing that in his diary understanding that history for generations was going to judge him for this?

Truman is at sea coming home from Potsdam when he received the news. Later that same day, he goes on the airwaves to address the American people and to tell them what has just happened. He says it's a new type of bomb that America has used it, and will continue to use it until Japan surrenders.

If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.

Even with Hiroshima in ruins, Japanese leaders do not surrender.

The peace camp pushed for immediate acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration. But the military side insists on continuing the war. Their reasoning is that may be the only atomic bomb that they had. So they're still at the stalemate. And then the Soviet Union declares war on Japan.

Just as Stalin promised, exactly 90 days after the surrender of Germany, 1.5 million civilians Soviet troops pour across the border into Japanese-occupied Manchuria.

The Japanese aren't aware that for months the Soviets have massed their armor on the borders with Manchuria. But now the Russians are rolling into Manchuria and they're rolling over the Japanese. And now you've got the prospect of the Soviets not just making their way into Manchuria, but possibly across to the Japanese home islands. For Japan, it's a complete disaster.

On the same day the Red Army moves into Manchuria, B-29s appear over Nagasaki. One carries an atomic bomb.

The U.S. has just one more atom bomb left, but the whole idea is to give Japan the impression that the U.S. has an unlimited stock and that if Japan won't surrender, the U.S. will continue to unleash atom bombs on Japan.

Between 60,000 and 70,000 people, are killed instantly.

Prime Minister Suzuki convenes the War Council, and the discussion is, are we going to accept the Potsdam Declaration? And the answer from the military is no.

You've had two atomic bombs, you've had the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and yet the Supreme War Council is still split. The war faction, the military, they're absolutely not willing to consider unconditional surrender.

That's when Prime Minister Suzuki makes the very important move, saying that, uh, we need to ask the Emperor.

This is a standout moment. This is something you would never normally do. There's a sense Hirohito is semi-divine and shouldn't be troubled with the decision-making process. It's a really extraordinary step.

But Hirohito, I think, sees the gravity of the situation. He sees that this is a moment where it's his responsibility to step up as the leader effectively.

And he says, "We must bear the unbearable and suffer the insufferable.

We will end the war and then move on." I have received this afternoon A message from the Japanese government: "I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan." And people go nuts.

Tens of thousands of people gather at the gate of the White House.

The world has been holding its breath since the war began. Now? It is over. And there is great celebration.

One of the crucial factors in ending this war is that you have Harry Truman, an accidental president who had to be briefed on the wartime situation when he enters the Oval Office, and Hirohito, who has never really made political decisions. They assert themselves and bring the war to an end in August of 1945.

Tinian, Saipan, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa—once obscure points on a map. Now each place has a new meaning. In Japan on August 15th, Emperor Hirohito addresses a nation that has never surrendered.

Most Japanese had They've never heard the Emperor's voice before, but the Jewel Voice broadcast, as it became known, is essential to getting most Japanese used to the idea of laying down their arms and admitting surrender.

The enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable.

When the Japanese hear that the war is over, there has to be a combination of feelings.

"We sacrificed all these people, all this money, and these cities of Japan, and we lost." Shock, sadness, but also this incredible sense of grief that we let the emperor down. Our lack of effort let the emperor down.

The Japanese accepted the idea of surrender. The Allies accepted the idea of Hirohito remaining on the Japanese throne, and that was the end of the war.

September 2nd, 1945, on the deck of the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay, the Japanese signed the Instrument of Surrender. The largest conflict in world history a signature and a speech. Douglas MacArthur marks the occasion: "It is my earnest hope, and indeed the hope of all mankind, that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past." World War II with Tom Hanks is produced by A&E Factual Studios.

Newtopia Ltd., Playtone Productions, and Back Pocket Studios, in association with Motion Entertainment, for the History Channel. This episode was narrated by Tom Hanks and mixed by John Lloyd. Additional voicing provided by me, Jeremy Reagan. From the History Channel, our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fidler. For Playtone, executive producers are Tom Hanks and Gary Gitzman. For Back Pocket Studios, our executive producer is Ben Dickstein.