Hell in the Pacific

Series 1 Episode 1
First Broadcast:

This first of four episodes covers the early part of the war in the Pacific. One of the most bitter battle arenas of the Second World War, Pearl Harbour represented the trigger that led America into the greatest conflict ever recorded and the eventual liberation of the people of Asia and the Pacific.

On the 7th December 1941 Japan launched surprise attacks across the Pacific region, setting battleships ablaze in Pearl Harbour, then routing the British in Malaya and capturing Singapore itself: the greatest humiliation in British war history.

The Japanese now seemed unstoppable and after being at war with China for a decade, and shocking the world with atrocities like the Nanking Massacre, they believed their destiny was to rule Asia under the Emperor, for them, a living god.

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    1. Series 1 Episode 1 Inferno

      This first of four episodes covers the early part of the war in the Pacific. One of the most bitter battle arenas of…

      • Includes footage reflecting the brutality of bitter war
      Playlist
    2. Series 1 Episode 2 Purgatory

      After Pearl Harbour was struck, the Japanese swept across the Pacific. Thousands of Americans and Filipinos died on the…

      • Includes footage reflecting the brutality of bitter war
      Playlist
    3. Series 1 Episode 3 Armageddon

      It was a war of hatred, fanned by propaganda. The Allies filmed themselves machine-gunning Japanese survivors in…

      • Includes footage reflecting the brutality of bitter war
      Playlist
    4. Series 1 Episode 4 Apocalypse

      The closer the Allies got to Japan, the more savage the fighting. Tiny islands like Peleliu and Iwo Jima were carpeted…

      • Includes harrowing footage and accounts of atrocities
      Playlist

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