VICTORY AT SEA

there were many D days in World War two many an HR but with each came the same sense of foreboding of emptiness of fear many a comrade alive tonight would be dead or wounded or missing tomorrow it was a saying for such moments this is it [Music] the shores ahead had very old but strange new names Guam and Saipan and Tinian Hollandia and sense of poor and Morotai Peleliu he would Jima the names might be forgotten but not the fear the fear and the courage that overcame [Music] you supporting the landings breaking the way for new invasions the United States Navy filled the enemy sky with wing and Warcraft squadron after squadron group after group to pursue and strike the Japanese wherever they could be found [Music] it began in the Coral Sea in 1942 when the Imperial fleet was first turned back then came Midway of Tsavo Island and all the frantic furious battles in and around the Sullivans then the enemy withdrew to lick his wounds and wait for other chances and he got them in the Philippine Sea and at Leyte Gulf a greatest air sea battles ever fought [Music] after four years of far-flung combat Japan ceased to be a naval power that dream was drowned as many of her finest ships disappeared into the tropical waters of Surigao Strait and off Samar in cape and ganya and the Philippines the once magnificent Imperial fleet was no more back from the sea battles back to the carriers came the wounded planes the wounded pilots [Music] and back from the island battles came others who paid the price of victory they fought the good fight they finished their course they kept the faith [Music] you [Music] [Applause] you [Music] come unto me all ye who are weary and I heavy laden and I will give you rest peace I leave with you [Music] liberated children played a game of war with toys that were the relics of war but the war itself had not yet spent itself it could not end while the home islands of Japan still stood like fortresses their resistance unbroken from newly-acquired forward bases American bombers sought heed for Tokyo the industrial power of the enemy became the number-one target of strategic assault from the sky the b-29s brought war to the makers of war and 66 Japanese cities were swept by hurricanes of fire [Music] then the people knew the enemy was at the gates the Rising Sun was setting at home desperation at the prompt fanaticism one hope and one hope only remained suicide attack the kamikaze [Music] mass suicide became a military tactic and hundreds of young pilots pledged themselves to crash their planes against the enemy warships in one last fanatical Banzai charge from the sky some flew to the attack in their burial robes and all wore a sacred scarf symbolizing their sacred mission they took a final solemn vow together I am determined to destroy with my own body the enemy ship that Menace our holy soil I shall strike without return to die for the sake of the Emperor is to live forever that was their belief that was Bushido the ancient way of the warrior kamikaze that was the divine wind which would blow the enemy fleet from the sea and miraculously saved the homeland save Japan those left behind all Japan sent them winging on their final mission with poetic words of praise and encouragement valiantly The Young Eagles - forth to the attack along a path from which there can never be a homecoming [Music] the target 1,500 warships spread far and wide around the island of Okinawa on the doorstep of Japan itself detection gear picked up the approaching suicide planes course speed and numbers were carefully tensely plotted as the whole fleet braced itself for the shock kamikazes coming kamikazes coming you [Music] there was only one way to stop the kamikaze shoot him down kill him before he could kill you carrier pilots flew to the interception fitting courage and skill against the self destroying frenzy of the attackers [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] one last weapon remained against the kamikazes who broke through anti-aircraft fire as intense and murderous as the Sabres could make it thirty warships would be sunk and 280 damaged his fantastic duel of Gunners who fought to live against pilots who fought to die [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] Oh the kamikazes suicide offensive was the greatest threat to the United States Navy during World War two but the fleet survived and stayed and fought until there was one final event that changed the world [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the energy of the universe locked within the atoms since the beginning of time had been released and the world was told a weapon has been developed that is destructive beyond the wildest nightmares of the imagination hiroshima nagasaki two cities two bombs 100,000 dead [Music] with the dawn of the Atomic Age came the sunset of the Japanese Empire the age-old mirage of domination died in the wreck and ruin and litter of total defeat World War two was over [Music] the elide armadas the ships that made victory possible gathered in Tokyo Bay their long voyage over now at last it was a time for peace September 2nd 1945 and aboard the battleship Missouri after three years and nine months of war for the United States the last act the formal surrender of the Japanese [Music] general of the army Douglas MacArthur the supreme commander of the Allied powers on behalf of the nine United Nations that fought against the Japanese he directed the signing of the instrument of surrender which ended in Tokyo Bay what had begun at Pearl Harbor [Music] Fleet Admiral Chester W Nimitz representing the United States a great tragedy has end said General MacArthur on this day a great victory has been won the entire world is quietly at peace you but in Europe throughout the world the sounds of mourning continued and would continue mourning for the millions dead and tortured and maimed by the organized evil of dictatorship who can bow bells outlets the concentration camps society at its blackest depth the human cost of hate and oppression which no statistic could even suggest no word describe [Music] and the Germans we're now the dream of conquest what price glory [Music] now the great ships that once had sailed away to war and death turned about to bring back their millions to peace and life to these men and to their allies free men everywhere owed their victory on land the victory in the air their victory at sea but on all the carefree convoys in the Atlantic in the Pacific the word victory had only one surpassing me we're going home home again [Music] they came home and how they felt how the world felt in that hour of homecoming was best expressed once again by Winston Churchill the thunder of the cannon has ceased he said the terror from the skies is over the oppressors are cast out and broken and we find ourselves breathless but still alive exhausted but free the future stands before us to make or more you [Music]