1941 to 1945. Weve designed this exhibit as a recreation of the bridge of the uss enterprise, a world war ii Aircraft Carrier in the u. S. Navy. As you advance into the exhibit you will start out on the ship an get yourself oriented to the war in the pacific. One of the things we like to do is introduce our visitors to the main players. We have a line up of four of them here. We have the japanese emperor, a man who in many ways was responsible for the war in the pacific. We have the president of the i need, franklin roosevelt. Our british ally Winston Churchhill and a man who has become the forgotten character of world war ii, the leader of the nationalist chinese. We fought a war in the pacific, chung fought a war on the asian mainland. Very bloody and protracted war. As we advance through the bridge of t of the uss enterprise, we will go into our next gallery for what life was like for the crewmen on the ships. This is what your quarters would look like. This was stripped to the bone. Where you get the most weight is with the weapons and ammunition and supply of war. Creature comforts are usually pretty far down the list. Thats one of the things our gallery tells us. We spend a lot of time in the museum and effort to capture that personal story. We think thats what makes the National WorldWar Ii Museum such an affecting experience. For example, we have the story here visitors can read of dory miller in a segregated navy, dory was never given an opportunity at tactical weapons training but when the japanese bombed pearl harbor he grabbed ahold of a machine gun and started firing at japanese aircraft and brought a few of them down. Hes one of the heros. I might say one of the forgotten heros of world war ii. Thats the person we like to highlight here at the museum. Here is the actual bombing of the mighty uss arizona by planes. One of the interestings aspects of the war in the pacific is how quickly the turning point came in it. The bombing at pearl harbor was december 1941 and just about six months later, after the japanese had run wild through the pacific the battle of midway was fought. At the battle of midway, the u. S. Dive bombers destroyed no fewer than four japanese Aircraft Carriers in a very brief battle. That was a major portion of japans naval strength and whatever chance japan had of winning the pacific war probably disappeared in june 1942. That early into the war from what we might say the humiliation and pain of pearl harbor to the big victory at midway, just about six months. Its a big ocean but thats a relatively brief time. So the war would go on for over three years after midway, from june of 1942 to august of 1945. I think most Japanese Naval officers in particular, but officers across the board, realized that the war was probably lost after midway. They had taken this gamble to launch a war on the United States a country whose economy was ten times the size of their own, and really what was there to do now this early on into the war but of their own and what was there to do but simply to hang tough and hope for some kind of miracle. We cant let the emperor down, but i think it was more of the Corporate Culture of the japanese corp. They really saw no way out but to hang tough, realize its a big ocean, maybe something would happen, maybe americans would tire of the struggle. Maybe we japanese could take such a toll of u. S. Casualties that an american president would be forced to end the war than on more favorable terms with japan, but that was never to be. We have some smaller artifacts, but merril was the pilot. I see more people standing in front of our sarajevoiator flight jackets. In 1940 flight was not yet that old and yet it played such a major role in every single one of these encounters. But perhaps particularly so because of the vast distance between ships, the vast distance between islands. The war in the pacific could not have been fought in the way it was fought without aviation. So after the battle of midway the u. S. Had won and they realized they had to do something to keep up the pressure on the japanese empire and keep up the pressure on japanese defenses. What they chose was an assault on a japanese held island. And as we come around the corner here into the next gallery youll be seeing our exhibitory, which to my mind is one of the most single most beautiful rooms in the museum. They would do it in a very, very primitive way. We consider ourselves here at the museum to be experimental and interactive and environmental museum. And we also have artifacts as many as many could want. I know the reason many people come to a Historic Museum at all is to look at artifacts. So here we have a wide variety of the weaponry used on the canal during the fighting. Fragmentation grenades and the knife and so on and so forth. As we look here the famous thompson submachine gun with a magazine, the circular magazine, the famous tommy gun. And we have some beautiful examples. So it was the first u. S. Counter attack of the pacific war. It was carried out very quickly in response to the opportunity back in midway. As a result it wasnt particularly well supported, well supplied. It was hastily planned. Our marines landed and very soon found themselves relying on captured Japanese Stores of rice and dried fish in order to survive on the island because our own supply lines had been disrupted and our own supplies were late in coming. What ozseen as kind of a hasty counter attack in august 1942 turned into a long protracted battle far bloodier i think than anyone could have possibly imagined. Its one of the finest hours in the history of the marine corps. This was a much tougher fight than anyone anticipated. We tried to show that in the way we line up this gallery. Theres a lot of things happening. Theres a kind of forbidding environment. Its as if you stepped off the earth and gone to the moon or a completely different space. We have here one of the most fascinating display cases i think of the entire museum. Most of the items here were in the possession of he had a Close Encounter with a japanese officer. The japanese officer raised his sword, did not have time to get it out of his scabbard and whacked the lieutenant on the helmet. And you can see the helmet which still has the crease in it from where it was struck by the japanese officers sword. The lieutenant passed out but he shot and killed the japanese officer in the course of this fracas, and so we have this amazing bit of exhibitory. We like to choose artifacts that dont just sit there but tell a story, and i think sis a classic example of music story telling. There were specific challenges to the Pacific Campaign and of course the obvious one is the sheer size of the theater. Its the largest ocean on earth, and we have this map which illustrates the challenge of distance. Armies typically, you know, deploy a hundred miles away from each other and then march to the big clench and march to the battle but here we have troops loading on a transport lets say out of san francisco. And just to get to parl harbor, hawaii, in the middle of the pacific theyve already traveled 2,400 miles. Youre almost 5,000 miles away. For japan to be fighting, roball, over 2,000 miles off the japanese island. War had never been fought at these distances and could not have been fought if not for the invention of the airplane. The way these navies get at each other is never come within the line of sight but launch their sky planes, try to detect the enemy fleet first and then launch your assault planes on the fleet you detected. But you still might be hundreds of miles away. At a battle fought in 1942 in a single moment the first naval battle fought in which the two fleets never came in line of sight of each other. I think there was a stumbling around. June 1942 there will be a battle fought at midway and thats the big battle, the sinking of the four japanese Aircraft Carriers that changed the tenor of the pacific war. The unforgiving environment, the humidity, the heat, the jungle, the insekt life especially that american troops, american personnel simply were not used to and not immune to. So we have an entire display here of medicine in the South Pacific. We think of world war ii of course history 70 years ago, but we were already using things like xrays to give personnel real good care in the field. Of course the earlier the care comes the earlier it happens, the better chance of saving a life or healing more quickly. I mention my father a few times. Im going to mention him one more time. He was a medic, a platoon sergeant and medic and he tells some stories of trying to Practice Medicine in the middle of a South Pacific jungle. New techniques, new medicines were making it possible. My father was responsible for handing out the antimalaria medication. Unfortunately the japanese occupied lands held most of it, so indonesia, indo china, todays nations of vietnam were under japanese occupation. So american scientists came up with a substitute, a synthetic. It made you feel horrible, it turned you yellow. There were all kinds of rumors what it did about your constitution, and my father tells me he more or less had to hold his gun on them in order for them to take it. At any given moment more of your troops were sick than actually wounded in battle. The americans, the japanese the real problem was going to be disease. You needed clean water and various medications. Malaria was the big problem in South Pacific fighting. Now, for all of these problems you have to say its worse for the japanese because they were always less well supplied. As Many American troops who suffered from malaria the japanese are no more immune to the jungle environment than americans were. You think about the number of japanese, kids from tokyo who were drafted into the army. So we sometimes make a play on that, we americans we didnt understand the environment but the japanese were more adept at it. I would call that into question, and the number of troops on both sides felled by disease is shocking, and many more than ever were killed by battle. Were looking here at the m2 flamethrower. You have essentially two big tanks on your back and theyre filled with a jelly substance, known as napalm. By the end of the pacific war the japanese had dug into Rocky Islands or atolls. This was the most feared weapon certainly from the perspective of the japanese and a weapon u. S. Army and marines increasingly had resource to in the course of the fighting in the pacific and it was to lay down the flamethrower. Usually at the entrance foothe mouth of a cave someone would have to go forward and insert the flamethrower nozzle into the caval or to advance ahead of friendly troops and carry the flamethrower. Of course when youre carrying the flamethrower you are attracting the fire of every defending soldier within range because he knows the danger hes in. So theres danger on both sides. I wouldnt want to be on either side of the flamethrower. Were here in our Island Hopping gallery. Most of the war in the pacific consisted of the socalled Island Hopping campaigns. That is choosing an island chain, leaving Japanese Forces in place on the rest of the chain and then advancing to the next island chain and doing the same thing. In this way you would choose your targets, vast numbers of japanese would not have to be fought at all but be simply left to say wither on the vein of various island chains. As we advance here we have a very difficult fight in november 1943, the battle of tarawa. Its a piece of atoll, but the japanese had dug into it a little bit. As we see here u. S. Marines advancing toward the island their boat got caught on the coral reef so they had to get out of the boat and wade towards the shore often in waistdeep or deeper water under fire the whole time. No one takes precedence over me in terms of my respect for the u. S. Marine corp but this might have been one of their most heroic days in their entire history. What we have here is a map of the island which is the in the tarawa chain. If you look very carefully you see that is stained with his blood. He carried the map into combat and was wounded in the course of the fighting. He survived the battle. The unit he was in took over 40 casualties. Thats every ten men, two dead here or two wounded here and two wounded there. And again, units thats a extremely high casualty rate and says something of the difficulty of the fighting on tarawa. But i see our visitors spend a lot of time in front of that map once they read the caption. Its the blood of the man who was carrying it. Here im quite proud of this gallery. We like to think of our war in the pacific as a war of islands and we mentioned the canal and mentioned tarawa. While that island war was taking place a gigantic struggle was taking place on the asian mainlandch the japanese had invaded china fullscale in 1937 and were trying to overrun china. Our own purpose, ours and our british ally was to fly supplies over the himalaya mountains. Soldiers and airmen who fought in it often feel neglected in the standard histories of world war ii. What we have here is a nice relief map of what it was like to fly the hump. So taking off from somewhere in india or burma and then flying over the himlayas to get supplies in. Flying over them is not the easiest flight in the world. It would be difficult for modern aircraft and certainly difficult for vintage 1940s aircraft. It required very, very serious fliers. Now, there was also a road, and keeping that road open was one of the principle points of the war in the chinaburmaindia theater. You see a bit of our photograph here of the burma road, and these are called switch backs. Its such a tall grade you cant just drive up the mountain so its back and forth and back and forth, and 1 mile can be 7 miles of driving depending on how many times you said to turn. So the japanese closing off the burma road led to flying the hump in world war ii and its another campaign in farflung terrain that was very unfamiliar to u. S. Troops. So i think weve done a good job here of evoking it. What we have here is a socalled escape map. A flier would carry this of course if hes downed he could kind of orient himself on the map and try to get to friendly territory. This one is pretty unusual its a little ticket the flier would carry and hand to local villagers and it says i am an american flier, im an allied flier, please give me all needed assistance. Chinese of course were allies in world war ii. We have to explain this relations with china seem so tenuous today. They were fighting along our side alongside british and American Forces against the Japanese Forces in world war ii. Youre probably as an allied flier amongst friendlies, but had your plane gone down behind japanese lines wurl you aware of that, only the locals could help you with that. So what were looking at is a p40 fighter aircraft. One of the most celebrated episodes in world war ii were the avg American Volunteer Group but much better known as the flying tigers. And we have a choice example of one here in our cbi gallery. Theres so many aspects wellknown and people know dday and heard of omaha beach. What many of them no longer know is the war that was fought in china in which tens of millions of chinese were killed and which americans fought on the side of the chinese against japanese aggression, so i really like this p40. I love this flying tiger up here. I think it really brings this entire gallery together. We have a display case here of the effects from the battleship. The Japanese Navy was essentially destroyed in the court of world war ii but only a few battleships survived. We have here the flag. This would be the vice admirals flag. Binoculars, the standard Japanese Navy jumper, the uniform, the double buckle boots. If you are interested in artifacts of the Second World War i know weve been talking here about the narrative we provide. In terms of artifacts we have a choice collection of artifacts. I mentioned that as this war dragged on it seemed to be getting worse, ever more violent. As the u. S. Approached the japanese home islands they began to experience even stiffer japanese defiance. These were islands coming closer and closer to japan, and the japanese were fighting tenaciously every step of the way. Again, it seemed as if the japanese had been beaten and yet their troops in the field were carrying out extremely effective resistance, and thats what u. S. Planners and the u. S. Elite is thinking of in early 1945. They won a war, but how do you bring the war youve won to an end . Based on what was happening in places like iwojima and okinawa this was not going to be an easy process. We have here an interesting artifact. Its known as the personal effects bag, a Service Member dies in combat or killed overseas small personal effects were sent home to the families in bags such as these. It could be a Little Pocket bible, could be a couple of photographs, it could be a letter home, a letter from home, whatever that soldier, airman, marine thought was important. I find this to be poignant. I sometimes forget these were extremely young men by and large who fought world war ii. How many personal effects have you really had to accrue . So thats the american side. From the japanese side we have here a thousand stitch belt. This would be made by a soldiers wife or mother. She might walk over to a friends house and have them add a stitch or two, when you got to lucky number 1,000 you stopped and your son or brother wor that into combat. No one thought it would stop bullets or thought it was a mag magic talisman, but it was a reminder of home and japanese traditions. This is one of the best provided versions of one i have ever seen. So weve been telling this narrative on the road to tokyo of a war that seemed not to have any ending, a war that might seem to go on forever. But clearly the Japanese Military power was broken, but on individual islands they could defend tenaciously studies were done, and they were out of the ba ballpark in the hundreds of thousands. Unbeknownst to those predicting these casualties, a research and Development Program of a sort that had never been seen before, and it was of course the invention of atomic weaponry. So the socalled Manhattan Project had already produced a couple of workable bombs by august 1945. On august 6 a bomb was detonated over huiroshima and the japanes of all with all these explosions decided to accept american demands of unconditional surrender. We try to tell this story with some sensitivity. After all 80,000 lives were snuffed out in a millisecond. And its for example the only gallery that has a musical sound track, an ambient and contemplative piece. We want people to think about what happened in hiroshima and nagasaki and why. We have the flight record and watch of the pilot, dropped the bomb on hiroshima. We have here the logbook, the copilot, sort of the primitive computer of the day which is a way of computing an aircrafts true airspeed which was essential, of course, to flight and to bombing. As we walk over here we have examples of glass bottles taken from the wreckage of nagasaki and the intense heat literally melting glass not so far from ground zero. Nagasaki was not the original target of balm number two. Another city had been chosen but the cloud cover was too difficult to drop the bomb on it, and the mission was changed to nagasaki. Ive been saying this to students for 30 years as a university professor, the unluckiest city on earth by really nothing more than an accident of weather and a bit of chance nagasaki received a second atomic bombing. So weve reached here the end of our story of the war in the pacific. And here in the hiroshima gallery the downfall gallery of japan, you can sit and really think about what happened in the course of this war. The vast human cost that was paid by the war in the pacific. I think for every book written about the it there may be 10 to 15 written about the war in europe, the fight against and its easy to forget what happened in this vast pacific theater. The pacific has assumed enormous importance in u. S. Policy, trade. We talk about the importance of the pacific rim and i think pacific issues are going to be with us for quite a long time, and im really glad we have the road to tokyo exhibit in the national museum. This battleship or that Aircraft Carrier, but the human cost paid when nations decide to go to war. Could the United States have avoided world war ii in the pacific . Its hard to see how that could have happened given the fact the japanese bombed pearl harbor. And many, many people, military personnel and civilians alike are going to pay the price. I think thats what we want people to take away from these exhibits. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight at 8 00 eastern a look at hiroshima, nagasaki and the end of world war ii for the 75th anniversary of hiroshima. Well show you a documentary examining the atomic bombing of hiroshima, japan, through the story of young survivors. Or trying to make sense of the tragedy during the 50th anniversary. Enjoy American History tonight and every weekend on cspan 3. American history tv on cspan 3 exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this weekend sunday marks the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of nagasaki japan three days after the bombing of hiroshima and American History tv and washington journal live at 9 00 a. M. Eastern a look back at how the bombings ended at world war ii and Richard Frank author of downfall, the end of the Imperial Japanese empire and Peter Kusnick will take your calls and tweets. The effects of the atomic bomb on hiroshima and nagasaki and a thousand cranes. Then at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the presidency the 75th anniversary of the conference where the new president harry truman informed Winston Churchill of england and stalin