0:32:46.984,0:32:50.646 In Asia the second world war began in 1937 when Japan 0:32:50.646,0:32:53.863 launched a full scale attack on China. 0:32:53.863,0:32:56.796 Like Germany, Japan was driven by the need for living space 0:32:56.796,0:33:00.744 and by a racial ideology that had the Japanese believing 0:33:00.744,0:33:04.980 they were superior to their neighbors. Japan's military 0:33:04.980,0:33:08.744 leaders exploited the devotion of their people to help 0:33:08.744,0:33:12.263 them wage a savage war throughout Asia. 0:33:12.263,0:33:16.473 The war would cost more than 10 million lives and ultimately take Japan's 0:33:16.473,0:33:25.676 own people to the brink of destruction. 0:33:25.676,9:59:59.000 Japan 1942 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In war time Japan, every boy was prepared to be a soldier. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The japanese text books glorified war and taught children that their 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 emperor was a deity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The japanese people were told they were superior 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and therefore invincible in this or any war. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the 1930's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Japan's military leaders 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 go back and ransack the past and they pull out all these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 images of purity and sincerity 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they pump them up into an ideology focusing on the emperor. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We are a superior race because of our unique 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pure qualities and that's the equivalent to the Nazi's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pumping up master race theories in the 30's. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We were in what the emperor called a holy war. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We believed that we had a mission to achieve the so-called "hakko ichiu" meaning 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the 8 corners of the world under 1 roof. A world 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ruled by our emperor. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For Japan, China would be the first step towards a Japanese empire in Asia. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In December 1937, after capturing the provisional 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Chinese capital Nan Jing, the Japanese soldier went on a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rampage against both defeated Chinese troops and civilians. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Hiromichi Nagatomi, a Japanese student was in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Nan Jing. He was invited by the army to join in. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The officers said "watch carefully" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He took out his sword and poured water over it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Called one of the prisoners to step forward and order him to stick 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 his neck out. Then the officer chopped his head off. The head fell 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and blood gushed from the arteries 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Seeing this, other chinese soldiers ran into the river. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I borrowed a rifle and shot one of them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That was the first murder I committed in China. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The reverend John MgGee, an American missionary, wrote to his wife about what he saw 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The horror of the last week is beyond anything I have experienced 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I never dreamed that the Japanese soldiers were such savages. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They have not only killed every prisoner they could find but also a vast number of ordinary citizens of all ages. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I did not imagine that such cruel people existed in the modern world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Shiro Azuma kept a set of diaries during his tour of duty in Nan Jing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 deeply repentant for what he had done. He was the first former Japanese soldier to tell what happened. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Whenever we found a girl, almost 100 percent of the time we raped her. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Not just one of us, but 5 of us would rape her. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And we always killed them afterwards. We simply set them on fire. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We felt no guild what so ever. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When we raped we thought of them as humans but afterwards, when we killed them 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we thought of them as pigs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In what came to be known as the rape of Nan Jing, the Japanese army killed nearly 200,000 civilians 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and raped an estimated 20,000 women. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Japanese barbarism would spread all over China. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 At this one place, I came across some mothers holding their children. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There were about 20 women 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I captured them and put them all in a house. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I put logs inside the house and a burned them all alive. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The fact that I killed so many Chinese didn't even occur to me as a crime. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I regarded myself as a hero. I am loyal to the emperor and dutiful to my parents. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 From China, Japan's warriors went on to conquer most of Southeast Asia. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In every country, they brutalized, exploited, and enslaved the people under the banner of liberation and cooperation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But slowly, the tide began to turn 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In mid-1942, the United States having entered the war 6 months earlier began to push the Japanese back. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The military controlled the press and didn't tell us the truth. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We were told that we were winning, but some how sensed we were not winning. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 As the allied forces ground away at the Japanese military, food and fuel dwindled. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 On the Japanese homefront, younger and younger children were sent to work in factories. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 United by slogans such as "one hundred hearts beating as one" the Japanese people were called upon 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to make ever greater sacrifices to support a war they believed to be a decadent, and savage, and an unforgiving enemy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We were lead to believe that Americans too individualistic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And that kind of individualism should be destroyed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Let us say that the yankee devils and the british beasts or something like this and you know 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 being devils and the beasts that the American's and the British must have horns and tails and must be very brutal 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's our notion of our enemy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For 2 years, Japan lost battle after battle. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In June 1944, American forces invaded Sai Pan. Only 1,500 miles from Tokeyo. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Obey orders to fight until the last man. The Japanese troops were annihilated. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Japanese civilians also refused to surrender and some were ordered by the Japanese military to commit suicide. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The civilians on the island may have been told that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we were terrible vicious people. That we would rape their women and murder them and so on. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They were so convinced this was true that they finally got up to the cliffs on the North end of the island 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and we saw them by the hundreds jumping into the ocean to the rocks down below 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 carrying their children with them sometimes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Japanese government reports praised the civilians on the island for cooperating with the army 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Japanese newspapers glorified their death as sublime self sacrafice. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But by the summer of 1944, the Japanese military leadership concluded 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that the Japanese military could not win the war. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then the Japanese government said yes indeed and all the people the hundred million 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 must be ready to fight until the bitter end. The Japanese phrase at the time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was something called "gil cou sai" meaning a shattering of a jewel. It's a beautiful death. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now crazy people, crazy militarist said indeed, this is our honor 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 if we are all extinguished, so be it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For the average citizen, what choice did you have. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A command given by a military superior was regarded given by the emperor. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The emperor was regarded as a living god. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We were supposed to die for him and not supposed to question his authority in any way at all. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Exploiting the mythology of sacrifice for the emperor and the nation now turned suicide into a strategy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In October of 1944, the imperial navy formed the first cozi-unit. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Young Japanese pilots would fly one way missions to death. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ralph Sacamoto trained as a kamakazi pilot. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Several of my classmates actually did go on a one-way mission. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The members of the squadron who were not flying would line up outside the airfield 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to wave off the aircraft which was taking off. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I cried I guess. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I prayed for them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By April, 1945 the war had finally arrived on Japan's doorstep. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Okinawa, only 40 miles from the Japanese main land. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 1,900 kamakazi missions were unleashed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To defend the island, 15 year old students were used as human land mines. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What we did was carry a small mine on our back, dig a small hole in view, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hide, and when the noise was close enough 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we were supposed to jump out and go under one of the catipilars. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The battle of Okinawa lasted for nearly 3 months. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Many of the civilians hid in caves 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Tony Kohiga was 6 years old. She was separated from her family and wandering alone. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In one cave, an old couple made her a white flag and urged the child to surrender. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I begged them, grandpa and grandma, please don't chase me away. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I want to die here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She had been told that American soldiers would cut women and children into pieces. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When I came out, I saw American soldiers and one of them was standing there with a black box. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I thought right away that they were going to kill me with that thing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My father once said to me, even if you're about to be killed by an enemy soldier, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 don't die crying like a baby. Smile for the enemy when you die. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So, thinking that that was it, I waved at them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But why does the soldier look so kind when he is about to kill someone. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Japanese suffered a disastrous defeat in Okinawa. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Japanese high command then issued orders for an all out mobilization at home. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A final desperate push to save the nation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's true that a hundred million people being mobilized and they leave for parish. They have to parish, you see. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Looking back and what a terrible idea 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 asking the whole population to parish for any call they see. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The Japanese high command planned that the Japanese army would be joined by virtually the entire civilian population to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 defend against the Americans on the beaches in the event of an invasion. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The high command had not anticipated an attack by air. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 As to make it appear that the kinds of things had happened there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 had not been done with the kind of intention that indeed had been done with. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Having dealt a death blow to Nazi Germany, the United States 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 now prepared its final assault on Japan. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The airial campaign began with a bombing of factories and military installations 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 March, 1945 Tokeyo itself was selected as a target. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We received an astounding briefing that took everyone by surprise. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I remember distinctly, that there was a loud audible gasp that went up from the crew when they realized 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we were going in to Tokeyo at 7,000 feet, not 27,000 feet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is the most heavily defended city of Japan. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We were carefully briefed with the full knowledge that the area to which we were assigned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was in the densest part of Tokeyo. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The planes were striped of their guns so they could carry the maximum bomb load 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of 10 tons. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 On the evening of March the 9th, 325 super fortresses arrived over the Japanese capitol. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 All of the sudden, the blast from the airplanes came over like a roar. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It shook the windows and made a sound..."bebebebe" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We all ran. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 From the west came a huge blanket of black smoke. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When we penetrated that cloud, we ran into these very strong odors that seemed like it had to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 be associated with a terrible tragedy. I just describe it as the smell of death. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I saw my mother trip and her hair stood on end and she screamed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then she fell off the bridge into the black smoke with my baby brother strapped to her back. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think she was trying to save my father but he went down with her into the smoke. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 After we dropped our bombs, I could look right on the city burning below us. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It looked like a part of Tokeyo had dropped down into hell that night. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In one night our American fire bombs killed 80,000 civilians. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Tokeyo was only the beginning. 65 more Japanese cities would be bombed in this fashion. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Japan was being pulverized. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was only a few years earlier, that Americans had...this is barbaric. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Coming through the position that we must systematically bomb civilian populations to end the war 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and this is proper and appropriate and even moral is an extrordinary moral and psychological journey 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in my view a journey toward hell. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 On August the 6th, 1945, one plane and one bomb over Hiroshima. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The entire town of Hiroshima was burning and you could see the famous mushroom clouds 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I seen 500, 600 people burned, hurt, some of them dead. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A lot of people floating in the river. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some of them swimming, some of them dead. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Our main street was turning to a show case of human cruelty. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If the blast hit you directly, your eyes popped out. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 People are walking around holding their eye balls like this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Young children, maybe first grade or kindergarten children yelling Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then the teacher said, "Be patient. Mommy come after you" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The next morning all the children are dead. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I still in here have a clear picture of such innocent little children. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I walked through the hell, actually stepped through hell and returned. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 August the 9th, a second plane, a second bomb. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Nagasaki. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the two atomic attacks, nearly 200,000 Japanese were killed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 On August the 15th, 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The second world war was finally over. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the last days of the war, Victorious allied soldiers arrived on a terrain few could imagine or 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 even have words to successfully describe. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The enormity of Nazi atrocities demanded an accounting. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 At Neurumburg, once the scene of triumphant German pageantry. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 War crimes trials now made it clear to the world what Hitlor had tried to accomplish. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The rounds that we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So malignant and so devestating. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That civilization cannot tolerate there being ignored. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Ernest Michelle who survived the death camps at auchowitz covered the trial 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for a German newspaper. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Everyday when I went to this trail, I looked at them sitting maybe 30 feet away from me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and sometimes I had to stop myself from jumping at them and yelling, "What did you do to me? To my family?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "To my friends?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For the first time in history, national leaders were held responsible for their aggression. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For the first time the murder and enslavement of civilians for their political beliefs, their race, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or their religion was recognized as crimes against humanity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You must plead guilty or not guilty. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Manny Claude Van Contier was called to testify in January 1946. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I tried to look at the each of them and I thought look at me because 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 with my eyes and with my mouth, hundreds of thousands of your victims are accusing you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Neurumburg was the first of more than a dozen trials in which heinza group members, SS doctors, and others 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were made to answer for their crimes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In September 1946, 12 high ranking Nazi officials 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were sentenced to death. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A similar proceeding in Tokeyo tried 28 of Japan's highest ranking leaders. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The reverend John MgGee was a witness. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The killing began immediately, up to 30 soldiers together going about. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Each one seeming to have the power of life or death. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In this case, 7 of those on trial were sentenced to death. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 More than 5,700 Japanese officers and soldiers stood trial throughout Asia. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 More than 900 were executed. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In a Chinese court, Hiromichi Nagatomi, the student who joined in the Nan Jing masecure 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was confronted by one of his victims. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He said, Nagatomi, you killed my only son. You burned my only daughter to death. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When her father came home and saw what happened to them, he lost his mind and died. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I'v suffered this sickness too. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I got on my knees to apologize but there was no way to make up for what I did. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There would be no apology or restitution to the estimated 1 million German and Japanese civilians 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who died in allied bombing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There deaths had become acceptable to those whose duty it was to end the war. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is hard to remember more than 50 years later, but when World War 2 began, victory for America 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and its allys was by no means assured. We will discover that on the next episode of the century. I'm Peter Jennings. Thank you for joining us.