 The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. In the mounting fury of world conflicts, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around this greatest sea. The drama of the people whose destiny is at stake in the Pacific War. Here, as another public service, is the tale of the war in the Pacific and its meaning to us and to the generations to come. The Japanese Navy. In 27th 1905, Japanese Admiral Togo set out to intercept and destroy the Russian fleet. On the bridge of Admiral Togo's flagship was a stern young ensign. Admiral Togo? Yes, Ensign? Communications has a message for you on a voice tube, sir. Very well. Communications. Admiral Togo, is that the voice tube? Go ahead. Admiral Togo, two Russian warships have incited east of Japan, heading northward. Any additional information? They seem not to be trying to conceal their movements. In the chart room, Admiral Togo and his staff officers considered this development. It is a ruse to draw us away from the main Russian fleet. Togo saw through the Russian tactic. The Russian Admiral is trying to give us the impression that the grand fleet is passing along Japan on the east side in order to get to Vladivostok. But that is not so. The Russian Admiral will take his fleet through the straits of Tsushima. We will continue on our course and we will cross the line of the Russians at two o'clock this afternoon. Admiral Togo? Yes, Captain? I have the latest intelligence on the strength of the Russian fleet. Yes? The Russian fleet is composed of 12 battleships and a number of smaller auxiliary vessels. The Russians then have 12 battleships to our four battleships and eight armored cruisers. That is right. Yes, sir. We have superior speed and gunnery. We will continue on our course to intercept them. The Russian fleet was heading for the straits of Tsushima between Korea and Japan. And aboard the flagship, Mikata, the lookout scanned the horizon for the telltale smoke of the Russians. On the bridge, the young stern ensign scanned the blue waters with a long glass. He glowed with warmth at the thought of the defeat of the Russians. He remembered that when he was a boy, and he fished in the icy waters of the Sea of Japan, that his father said, The white barbaryons with hairy faces came in black ships and broke down these doors of Japan and threatened our Emperor, the Son of Heaven. That is why, when he joined the Navy, he said, I want to return the visit of Commodore Perry. As he stood there on the bridge of the Mikata now, with a long glass to his eye scanning the horizon, he thought of all he had gone through to prepare him for this, his part in a dramatic and important naval engagement. Dear Mother, I never tire of the wrong marches in the snow. We have been taught all manner of maneuvers and regular attacks. But I like a deriding, best of all, the competition is severe. For each vacancy in the Naval Academy, there are five competitors. But I shall come through and become a naval cadet. It is my purpose. He came through. He studied seamanship, gunnery, torpedo, navigation, field drill, physics, chemistry, and English. He studied with determination. He studied to win, to be top man in everything he undertook. He became a midshipman, and then he was sent to sea in many different ships. At last, he was commissioned in Ensign. Ensign is Oroku Yamamoto. Fort up to bridge! Fort up to bridge! Yes, Fort Up. Go ahead. Smoke sizes on the south horizon. Stand by. Admiral Togo. Yes, Ensign. The Fort Up reports smoke on the south horizon. Let me have that long glass. Yes, sir. Fort Up to bridge! Single column of ships approaching from the south. Fort Up reports single column of ships approaching from the south, sir. I can see them. The Russians. Captain. Yes, sir. Turn southward. Parallel the column of the enemy. Full speed. Yes, sir. Hardly flowed. Full speed. Hardly flowed. Full speed. Hardly flowed. Full speed. Togo's fleet swung southward. Cut through the sea like a knife. Following the flagship Makasa with the Shikishima, the Fuji, and the Asahi. Look at those powerful Russian battleships, Ensign. That first one must be the flagship, the Shiborov. Oh, yes. You see, the Admiral is bringing us parallel to the enemy column, but heading southward. Hardly flowed. Hardly flowed. We are turning back northward again. Oh, yes. Now the Admiral is going to bring us parallel to the Russians, but heading north. The Russians have opened fire. Holding his fire. He will wait until all of our vessels have made a turn, and are steaming in column ahead. The Shikishima have turned, and now the Fuji and the Asahi are turning. The Russians are trying to hit our vessels while they are turning. It is the Suvarov that is firing at us. We are keeping the reed opposite the Suvarov. Captain, over fire. Process. Well. Upward in shells would tear the Suvarov apart. They missed. They went over. Can you see that salvo through your wrong grasp? They are short. Next time we will straddle it. Here comes another Russian broadside. They are trying for our range. Concentrate, fire and the Russian flag keep at the head of the enemy column. See if we hit them. We hit it. This forward partner of the Suvarov. We are turning our fire on the Suvarov. They are poor gunners. Four of our battleships are firing at the Suvarov. Now we hit it again. Fresh in the sky. Oh, yes. We have smashed through the side of the Suvarov of the Suvarov. But it continues to return our fire. But as far as she was able, she continued to fight back. The Japanese cruisers concentrated their fire on the rest of the Russian fleet. Look, Esvoroko. We are passing the head of the Russian column. Our superior speed gives us the advantage. Hard right, brother. Oh, the admiral is going to cross the T on the Russian column. Yes. We are passing straight across that course. To bear on the Suvarov. Our cunning tower is wrecked. What's outside is nothing but twisted debris. It seems they have lost control of us. They cannot control us. Possibly we have shot her all out of action. She is nothing but a helpless hope. Captain, signal the cruisers to finish the Suvarov. We will now concentrate on the Alexander. The second ship in the Russian column. Yes, sir. The Japanese guns, the Alexander was smashed and battered. She became a roaring inferno of flames. The Alexander has fallen out of line. Helpless, she turned away from the furious Japanese cannon-aiding. The Borodino has fallen out of line behind the Alexander. The Russian fleet was in complete confusion. Your rel has fallen out of line behind the Borodino. The Russians fought back, but their shells fell around the Japanese ships and scarcely disturbed them. Togo kept his ships in strict formation. He swung around again and it decepted the Russian battleships. Swung around in a circle. They are confused. They do not know what to do. The Alexander is smashed open from spam to stone. She is very raw in the water. She had a heavy rib. Admiral Togo, the atmosphere fire has begun. That is the weakest of the Russian battleship. Concentrate fire on the others. Yes, sir. Concentrate fire on the next in line. It was twilight. And Togo continued the merciless battering of the Russians. At 7 p.m. The Alexander has gone down. The Shofarov has gone down. The Borodino is brazing like a brass. We hit her again. We hit the Borodino. We smashed her. Admiral Togo, the Borodino has exploded. What an expressive sight. Darkness closed in and the slaughter continued. The firing from the big guns splashed through the blackness. The Japanese pounded the Russians. And the Russians still fought back. They are trying to get away again. They will not give up. Admiral Togo! Admiral Togo! How are you all right? Admiral Togo was all right. But Ensign Isoroku Yamamoto was wounded. He lost two fingers. In the darkness, Togo sent his torpedo boats against the remaining Russian warships. They disabled two more Russian battleships and an armored cruiser. And the next morning, the Japanese battleships closed in and finished them off. Admiral Togo! Yes, Captain? We have captured the Russian admiral. He was taken of a Russian destroyer that picked him up. He is dying. Yes. We sank three more of the Russian ships today. One was Rane Shoah. And four still rendered to us. In all, of the 38 ships of the Russian Grand Seats, one small cruiser and two destroyers have reached Vladivostok. Send this message to Tokyo. Yes, Captain. I have destroyed the Russian fleet. You may be easy. The world was stunned. Togo had not only destroyed a fleet, he had established Japan as a sea power. At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, Japan had eight battleships. Russia had 12. If Togo had lost at Tsushima, Japan would have been set back a generation. Possibly, it would have been crushed. Now Japan emerged as a contender for control of the Pacific Seaways. Togo's victory reverberated throughout the world. And every Japanese fighting man bristled with satisfaction at the underlying meaning of this victory. We have demonstrated that it is possible for the yellow man to defeat the white man. As this set the pattern for ensign Yamamoto's career, so it set the pattern for the Japanese Navy. Soon, Yamamoto was well again. Now he was a seasoned sea fighter. He had taken part in Japan's illustrious victory and in one of the greatest sea battles of all time. Also, he had had the opportunity to observe, personally, the tactics, the strategy of one of the greatest naval warriors. He was assigned as chief instructor in the Kasamagora Naval Air Corps. Hano Yetikami. Yes, Lieutenant Yamamoto. Reside. Yes, sir. In 1855, our first seaman's training station was opened at Nagasaki with that instructor. Our first naval school was organized at Tsukiji and Yedo. Correct. Kenji Izomura. Yes, Lieutenant Yamamoto. Go on. The Dutch presented us with a small warship, the Kwanko Maru, for training cadets. We purchased two other vessels from the Dutch and the Queen Victoria of Britain presented us with another. These vessels formed the nucleus of the Japanese Navy. And it was from this beginning... The Japanese requested the British government for the naval mission to supervise the development of the Japanese Navy. Under Commander Archibald Douglas and his British officers, the Japanese Navy was put on its feet. Senjuri Sayetsu. Yes, Lieutenant Yamamoto. Go on. Before 1892, there had been agitation against the Navy. But in 1892, this opposition, which was for Ritakar, was overcome. Money was voted for the building of two battleships. And was therefore prepared as the outbreak of the China-Japanese War in 1894. Battleships and cruisers built in England were added to the fleet after that. And thus, we were ready to assert our authority at sea when, in 1904, the Russians thrust war upon us. Correct. As the Japanese Navy grew, Yamamoto rose through the ranks. When World War I broke out, he was among the first Japanese military men to receive the value of the airplane. In 1915, he foresaw the wedding of air power and sea power. The most important naval vessel of the future will be a ship carrying airplanes. Why, that is impossible, Lieutenant Yamamoto. Aeroplanes are clumsy and unwieldy. A war vessel that carries airplanes could send them far ahead to scout on the enemy. Besides, they could drop explosives. Why, that is fantastic. No Japanese watched the development of the airplane more keenly than Yamamoto. He himself became a pilot. From this time on, he thought of air power and sea power as one. At the close of World War I, both Japan and the United States were building fleets. Suddenly, a post-war depression swept Japan. Great numbers of our war-born industries went bankrupt. Then the Washington Conference was held. Japan accepted the 553 ratio in sea power, with the United States and Britain. It is outrageous. Japan is entitled to as much sea power as she herself determines she needs. Why should Japan accept the ratio of 3 to 5 in favor of Britain and the United States? Why should Japan have an inferior navy? To this, world observers to the coming struggle in the Pacific set forth a different viewpoint. To begin with, the 553 ratio of sea power is better than Japan could have maintained against the United States and Britain. That is, we were held down. Not Japan. Yes. Not only that. Why does Japan want a big navy? Certainly not to defend Japan. She has only one coast to defend. If Japan wants a bigger navy, she wants it for some purpose other than defense. Japan accepted the 553 ratio, but it rankled down through the line of naval men who traditionally have been Japan's fighting sea dogs. And within the next two years, her shipyards were surrounded by a no man's land miles wide. Regret. You are not permitted to enter here. Well, we're just tourists from America. Yes, sir. Is this road blockaded? Yes. You are not permitted to pass through this gate. What is this? We're 10 or 15 miles from the nearest town, aren't we? Must be something inside this barbed wire stock, can't you? Don't want us to see. Do we have to have a pass of some kind to go through here? You are not permitted to enter here. Well, we have to turn around and go back. Yeah. I didn't have the slightest idea there was a stockade out here when we came this way. Well, thanks anyway. Come on, Bert. Let's turn around and go back. Yeah. Makes me feel important having a sentry stopping with a gun these days. Behind those stockades, the shipyards haunt night and day. On the ways giant battleships were built. Ships that never were to be mentioned in any international report. And while this was going on, Yamamoto was in Washington as naval attaché at the Japanese Embassy. And here he managed to get around and keep his eyes open. Did you ever see a man play poker like that Yamamoto? He's got to win or it's no game with him. Well, since there were those heavy lips of his clamp together and that heavy jowl and powerful jaw setters that he's playing for his life. He plays for more than that. He plays for his honor. He's got to win. Well, he doesn't look out. He's as brutal as a meat grinder. He doesn't waste any words making clear what he means. You know, the first time I played poker with him he surprised me the perfect English he uses. He does everything well. He was champion of the Japanese Navy in poker and chess. I mean, bridge too, I guess. Well, you can be sure he's not missing anything that's going on here in Washington. From Washington, Yamamoto went back to sea. First he took over the command of the cruiser Ithugu and later the aircraft carrier Akagi. Yamamoto was rising in power. Meantime the Japanese resentment against the 553 ratio was growing. Vice Admiral Suitsugu in command of Japan's submarine fleet went to the London Conference to fight for an adjustment of the ratio. The entire city of the ratio system is wrong. Suitsugu was blunt and reckless. The submarine is a defensive weapon. Japan demands equality in submarines at least. The entire theory of the ratio stood in peril of being utterly destroyed. To prevent this, Japan was granted equality with the United States and Britain in submarines. Suitsugu immediately returned to Japan and launched several super submarines large enough to cross the Pacific and back, observing so that all could hear. There is no difference between defense and attacks. Suitsugu moved up to commander of the Imperial Combined Fleet and Yamamoto moved up with him. Suitsugu and Yamamoto talked the same language. In 1934, Suitsugu put on the greatest display of mimic naval warfare the Pacific had ever seen. And then, as if to emphasize what he meant, he sent Yamamoto to London to end Japan's submission to the 553 ratio. I'm from the post mail reporter. I'd like to talk with Admiral Yamamoto. Admiral Yamamoto speaks a very little English. Colors on the stand. Yeah, but I got on this train especially to talk with Mr. Yamamoto. I interviewed him several times when he was the naval attaché at the Japanese Embassy in Washington. Admiral Yamamoto is unable to talk with you, so you would excuse him, please. Is the cab to take you to Downing Street, Admiral Yamamoto? It's possible, Admiral Yamamoto, that some compromise could be worked out. There is no possibility of any compromise. Yamamoto was welcomed back to Tokyo by an extravagant parade and was personally congratulated by the Emperor. Two years later, Japan suspended the ratio system altogether. But for years before that, her dockyard had been busy. Between 1930 and now, 1939, we have built 2 million tons of merchant shipping. We are on a 24-hour-a-day schedule. Most of this Japanese shipping was built with American material. And in that same period of time, between 1930 and 1939, we here in America, in all our shipyards, built only 1,250,000 tons of shipping. Japan came out into the open with its shipbuilding in 1936. Before that, while all the world knew it was building warships, it reported as light cruisers, vessels that had the striking power of pocket battleships. It reported as medium-sized submarines undersea crafts that could cross the Pacific and return. After 1936, to cover its race for sea power, the Navy Ministry clamped down on all information relative to the Navy. And in 1939, Admiral Yamamoto became commander of the most powerful naval striking force in all Japanese history. Yamamoto knew the United States well, knew its thinking, its weakness, its military philosophy. As relations between the United States and Japan worsened, he looked grimly to his aircraft carriers, for he had said, Relations between Japan and America cannot improve until they break. He looked grimly to his aircraft carriers, for he had played a big part in their promotion. How can you destroy our battleship except with another battleship? With torpedo planes. An airplane against the guns of a battleship? The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants. A year after he became commander-in-chief, Admiral Yamamoto had nine aircraft carriers and nine auxiliary carriers. In addition, there was intelligence that the Japanese Navy was building nine more carriers and 14 more auxiliaries. Foreign observers had little opportunity to see these vessels, but what they saw, they remembered. Generally, the Japanese carriers are smaller than the American and British carriers. They accommodate, oh, I'd say, from 24 to 60 aircraft. And how many do ours accommodate? I should say from 80 to 100. Being smaller, I suppose the Japanese carriers are very fast. Yes, they are. They can do some 30 knots. The ones I saw had no island above the flight deck, as ours have. Instead, their funnels were pointed a stern like big blowpipes. Avoid these carriers. We carry many torpedo planes, for the Japanese favor the torpedo as an attacking weapon, not only by aircraft, but also by torpedo boat. At Aminato, on the north coast of the main Japanese island, there is a torpedo boat base. And at every strategic point possible in Japan, naval harbors and naval dockyards have been installed. But as the showdown in the Pacific approached, Japan had more than aircraft carriers. Gentlemen, exact figures on Japan's naval strength are not definitely known. We don't know how many super dreadnoughts they have been building behind stockades these last 10 years. But we do know the following. As of now, 1940, Japan has 10 battleships and is building eight more. She has 46 cruisers and is building 10 more. She has 126 destroyers and possibly is building 15 more. She has between 70 and 80 submarines and we believe she's building 10 more. This was approximately the Japanese naval strength in 1940. It was great enough to actuate Admiral Yamamoto in a letter to a friend to make his famous statement. Any time war breaks out between Japan and the United States, I shall not be content, Mary, to capture Guam and the Philippines and occupy Hawaii and San Francisco. I am looking forward to dictating peace to the United States in the White House, in Washington. He started at Hawaii. He used his torpedo planes at Pearl Harbor and two days later, with his torpedo planes, he sank the HMS Repulse and the HMS Prince of Wales. These fiercest serpents may be overcome by a swarm of ants. He struck with devastating power. His task forces took Guam and Wake and landed forming armies to conquer the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, the Dutch Indies. The Japanese Navy has swept down the United Nations vessel from the Pacific between the Bay of Bangar and the Coral Sea. The United Nations reeled and the Yamamoto Sledgehammer blows. Then, they struck back. They've been sunk in 22 damage in the Battle of MacArthur Strait. February 21, 1942, 18 Japanese vessels have been destroyed in four damage to the Battle of the Java Sea. The Battle of the Coral Sea is in the Battle of Solomon. Story in 1942. It went on in 1943 in the Solomon, at Bougainville, at a dozen other points. And in 1943, Japan suffered another loss. Extra, Yamamoto's dead. Yamamoto's dead here. Japanese Navy chief dies in action. Extra paper, read all about it. Yeah, boy, let's have a paper, huh? Yeah. Extra, Jeff, chief dies in action. Radio Tokyo today announced that Admiral Isaroku Yamamoto was killed when his plane was hit last May. Hmm. I'll bet he committed suicide. Admiral Munechi Koga succeeded Yamamoto, but he too was killed several months later when his flagship was bombed. Others now run the Japanese Navy. And today, they understand that the Western nations have come to know, as well as they know, the wisdom of the Japanese father. The lifeblood of Japan is the water of the sea. You have been listening to the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations of the public service to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross-currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send 10 cents in stamps or coins to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. We repeat, for a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send 10 cents in stamps or coins to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The story is written and directed by Arnold Marklis. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Palusso. Your narrator, Gain Whitman. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is the National Broadcasting Company.