The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present The Pacific Story. In the mounting fury of world conflict, 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 enemy we face in the Pacific. Behind her ramparts, Japan is consolidating a powerful empire, geared to high powered warfare and dedicated to a dreadful fight to the finish. Japan now has an empire over more than three million square miles. The Japanese empire now has a population of more than 400 million people. Four hundred million workers and fighters. We will win. This is Kejiro Asami. Kejiro Asami is the average Japanese on the home front. He has been preparing for this war all the years of his life. He works 11 to 14 hours a day in the factory. He works seven days a week. From 25 to 90 percent of his earnings go into the Japanese war effort. This is a racial war. He has been taught this since he was a child. This is a war of the peoples of greater East Asia against the whites. This is a hundred year war. We will win. Kejiro Asami gets up off his mattress on the floor before light in the morning. He eats rice, fermented bean soup, raw fish and pickles for breakfast. Then he goes to his job in the factory. He works 11 to 14 hours a day. He comes home in the dark. He eats rice, eels, raw roots, drinks tea, takes a bath and lays himself down to sleep on his mattress on the floor. This is his day by day routine, week in and week out, month in and month out. This is the routine of his daughter who also works in the factory. His sons are in the army. And while his wife is not keeping the house, she is doing war work of some kind at home. Kejiro Asami works grimly, lives on almost starvation rations, gives nearly all he earns to the war effort. And deep in his heart he says, we will win. But while Kejiro Asami does not know all the statistics, he knows that his nation now controls the richest area in point of resources in the world. He is scarcely conscious of what is happening in the outer empire, in the Solomons, the Admiralty, the Carolins, on New Guinea, New Britain, New Ireland. For he is in the inner empire where the blast furnaces roar, the machines hum, the iron comes grinding up out of the mines. He is in the inner empire where ships are sliding down the ways and where war planes are rolling off the assembly lines. He is confident. For ringing in his ears are the words of his hard-fisted superiors. Kejiro Asami Japan controls more than 90 percent of the world's natural rubber. Kejiro Asami Japan controls more than 75 percent of the world's tin. Kejiro Asami He knows that Japan controls vast amounts of bauxite, manganese, nickel. And he knows... Kejiro Asami Japan controls 90 percent of the world's quinine. Kejiro Asami Quinine, a powerful weapon in waging war in the tropics. And he knows about the great deposits of iron in Manchuria and in the Philippines, and about the oil being pumped out of the once-wrecked oil wells in the Dutch East Indies. This is an oil field in the Indies. Kejiro Asami Well, number 2609 is now restored, sir. Kejiro Asami It is now in full operation? Kejiro Asami Yes, sir. Completely repaired. Kejiro Asami What percentage of the oil wells here in the Indies are now back in production for them? Kejiro Asami About 70 percent. Kejiro Asami Can the other wells in these fields be restored? Kejiro Asami Most of them. Kejiro Asami We are getting oil from Burma and Manjokwa, but we are building up a reserve. And for this, we will take the entire production yield of these Indies fields. Kejiro Asami Yes, sir. What of the synthetic oil plants? Kejiro Asami They are in the process of construction now. And it is our belief that we will have these in our... Oil in production in the billions of gallons, steel in production in the millions of tons. And in her inner empire, an enormous industrial empire is rearing itself to fight the war on every front. Of men and materials, Japan has plenty. Her weakness is ships. Allied surface craft, aircraft, and submarines are taking a deadly toll of Japanese vessels. Kejiro Asami Torpedo one, stand by. Kejiro Asami Torpedo one, standing by. Kejiro Asami Fire one. Kejiro Asami Fire two. Kejiro Asami Kejiro Asami never hears this sound. In his ears, all his waking hours is the hum of the machines of his factory. This sound is the deadly sound of destruction, striking where Japan can least afford it. Her line of supply, her ships. While Japan strains to replace her ship losses, her enemies evaluate her situation. This much we're pretty sure of. The outbreak of the war, Japan had about six million tons of shipping, possibly six million two hundred thousand tons. Added to that is, of course, the tonnage she has captured since the outbreak. Yes, and the tonnage she normally builds each year between 400 and 500,000 tons. That would total up to about seven million five hundred thousand tons. But we've sunk two million five hundred thousand tons of it. Mm-hmm, that leaves her with about five million tons. That's not enough. Well, how much do you figure she's short? Oh, at least a million tons. She needs over six million tons. And our sinkings have whittled her down to about five million tons. Yes, we're sinking about a million and a half tons a year. Of course, Japan is using more and more small vessels, junks, fishing boats, and other small craft that can sneak along the coasts and from island to island. But that's not enough. If Japan is going to supply her bases, she needs ships, adequate ones. And if she's to develop the rich resources of her empire, she must have ships. By her very situation, she's got to have ships. As her situation is today, yes. But while we are fighting her on the fringes of her outer empire, she is consolidating her inner empire, building railroads. She may in time have a system of communications on the mainland of Asia that can keep on operating even if most of her shipping is destroyed. Japan has everything it needs, lead, cobalt, tungsten, antimony, aluminum, chrome, and iron. The great steel mills at Nagoya and Yawata and Osaka roar night and day, producing the substance to make the weapons to crush Japan's enemies. This Kejiro Asami sees. He sees the molten metal pour out of the giant machines. And this he understands. There are 10 million workers like Kejiro Asami in Japan. We can do anything the white man can do. To teach the 10 million Kejiro Asamis to do anything the white man can do, the Japanese have left no stone unturned. This is an apprentice school. Here we teach the young to be skilled technicians, machine operators, engineers. From these schools, the trained technicians go out into the industries. For some years we were assisted by foreign experts. German and other experts came to teach us their techniques. Now we train our own. The trained Japanese turn out to be not only technicians capable of handling routine jobs, but inventors. Thousands of new ideas are worked out every year. We place a premium on ideas that will free us from dependence on foreign techniques. Japanese are being trained in industry. That is, all that are not soldiers. But the Army has taken nearly all of the Japanese males between the ages of 14 and 40. And those that are left behind, the Kejiro Asamis, are not enough to carry on the enormous task of supplying the war needs. My shop was closed by the government. In Japan alone, nearly 12,000 shops like mine were closed. And we, Horan, have been put into war work. Japan is opening the gates of prisons. Those men are convicts. They are being taken out of prison and put into war industries. Thousands of them are now building ships, assembling airplanes, making munitions. In Japan proper, where her heavy industry is concentrated, millions of Japanese who were agricultural workers are now packed around the war factories. Long hours, in some cases running up to 100 hours a week. No holidays, poorly ventilated mills, improperly safety guarded machines. All these are taking a toll of Japanese workers. But against this is the resourcefulness, the cunning of the Japanese. In place of metals, we use fiber. We make use of everything, acorns, seaweed, cardboard, fish skins, peanut shells. And backing up this resourcefulness is Kejiro Asami's conviction. We will win. And while the Japanese in Japan proper are regimented to a man behind the war effort, the people's in occupied Asia are likewise being used. This is a mine in occupied Asia. These workers you see here were trained by Europeans. And they are now working for the Japanese. Why not? Do your people believe the Japanese propaganda about this being a racial struggle? What else is it? Not one of the peoples of the Pacific fought to keep the Europeans in power in their lands. Not one except the Filipinos. And look at them. And your people would prefer Japanese rule? Judge for yourself. Most of the countries occupied by the Japanese celebrate Pearl Harbor Day with the Japanese. And many of them not only celebrate and work for Japanese victory, but give money for Japanese planes and guns and ships and tanks. We have nothing to gain. Asiatics trained by Europeans and Americans are working the mines, the mills, and the oil fields for the Japanese. And even this is only part of it. For throughout the empire as at home, the Japanese are leaving no stone unturned. I am a railway expert. I was trained in Japan. Now I am on my way to the main run, along with other Japanese trained experts in agriculture, education, industry, transportation, and commerce. I have been assigned to this conquered region to teach the peoples Japanese language, Japanese customs, and Japanese traditions. I brought my family here from Japan. We were settled here and helped in making this country Japanese. While millions of people of China, Burma, Thailand, French Indochina, Java, Sumatra work for the Japanese, the Japanese themselves have moved in to convert the conquered countries into units of the greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere. And all this has released valuable Japanese manpower to fight their enemy. As Kejiro Asami devotes his life at home to the war effort, so his sons devote theirs as soldiers. For the people and the army are all one. They stand together under their emperor and right or wrong, support their war leaders. All the years of their lives, they are prepared for the sacrifices and the sufferings of this war. Now that it's here, they are ready for it and ready for all it means. Kejiro Asami's sons, like all other able-bodied men in Japan, had military training before the outbreak of the war. It is my duty to the emperor to be loyal, obedient, courageous, honorable, and frugal. This is Kejiro's son, Iki. I am paid a dollar and 26 each month. This money is an honor, not pay. Iki Asami, like all young Japanese, was trained in the military arts even before he grew up to be a soldier. Then he tried to get into the military academy, but was not able to meet the competition. He entered the army as a private. He was trained to withstand rigors of all kinds and to kill. Iki Asami Now wait. That's it. Now. All right, Iki. Get up. Iki Asami Yes, sir. Iki Asami You understand what happened that time, Iki? Iki Asami I think so. Iki Asami You must keep in mind that all times, Iki, that in Jujutsu, you destroy your enemy with his own strength. Iki Asami Yes, sir. Iki Asami We will try it again. Watch me. I will approach you so. Now, grab me here quickly. Iki Asami Yes, sir. Iki Asami That's it, Iki. Iki Asami Did I do it right? Iki Asami That was right. Now we will try it again. Through endless months, Iki was given intensive training. Running, climbing, scrambling over obstacles, practiced with rifle and machine gun. He was trained in the dreadful use of the bayonet. Iki Asami Notice his timing and his balance. He strikes at just the right moment. He is able to thrust at precisely the right instant. And this is what counts in combat. Iki Asami From childhood, Iki has been indoctrinated. But now the indoctrination becomes more intense. When he is not training, the mental attitude of the warrior is being fostered in him. He looks up at a picture of three soldiers running with what appears to be a long pole post. Iki Asami These soldiers are the three human bombs. These three men are running with this long bomb. They are running into the stronghold of the enemy. When this bomb exploded, it smashed a hole in the enemy irons. The three soldiers gave their lives. But today their statue stands in Tokyo for all to admire. They will be worshipped by the Japanese for all time to come. Iki Asami Iki's face, as the face of all the young Japanese soldiers, is impassive, a dead blank. At home in Japan, he is quiet. He is slovenly in appearance. Neither his uniform nor his shoes fit. Iki Asami Outward show means nothing. It is the soldier that counts. Iki Asami In the field, he is a remorseless killer. He can subsist on bits of dried meat or fish and a little fermented rice juice. He will discharge the duty for which he is timed. Iki Asami To keep his sons and all the other Japanese soldiers in the field, Iki Asami and his household have geared their lives to the frugality of the nation. All their lives, they have known nothing but thrift, economy, saving, going without. Iki Asami We need very few clothes, few of the batter. Iki Asami But what of shoes? Iki Asami We use clogs or sandals. Often we work in our bare feet. Many Japanese do. We have no need for leather. Iki Asami Your clothes, since you ask a few of them, what are they made of? Wolf? Iki Asami Oh no, we have no need of a wool or leather or metal or rubber. All these are used for the war. Iki Asami Nothing that is needed for the war is used by the Japanese on the home front. Nor do they eat meat or bread or drink coffee or milk. The Kejiro Asamis are the silent part of the powerful Japanese war machine. They are the producers that keep it moving, and that is their sole reason for living. Kejiro Asami believes in war. His family believes in war. They believe in the national cause and in the certainty of its success. The Emperor is a God. He is the son of heaven. He is the reader of all the people on earth. Our race is the mother race of all the world. All the other people of the world must someday come under the rule of our Emperor. Kejiro Asami's son, Iki, believes in war. He accepts the hardships of war as routine. He fights through insect-infested jungles, through waters teeming with sharks and crocodiles, through torrid heat and biting cold. He accepts the horrors of war merely as a prelude to glory. Iki Asami Life is merely a link between the past and the future. It is simply a face. With fanaticism, Japan moves forward in a concentrated, determined effort. Deeply ingrained is their sense of discipline, of sacrifice, of obligation to family and Emperor. On every hand, they hear and read, This is a hundred-year war. This is a hundred-year war. This is a hundred-year war. Tojo is not only Premier, but now also Minister of Munitions, and as such, the head of production. Differences between management and labor have been halted. Production has been stepped up, but not to the ultimate inefficiency. Differences still exist between the government and the big money houses. The thorn in the side of the government are the powerful industrial houses like Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Yasudo, and Sumitomo. There must be no slowdown of production, Mr. Mitsui. Is there evidence of a slowdown? There is. Perhaps that is because the government has moved in to show us how to run our industries. We operated them efficiently before the government moved in. Your house of Mitsui, as well as the other big money houses, is operated for profit. That is no longer possible. We are taxed to the limit. Have you overlooked your hidden profits of from 25 to 35 percent, Mr. Mitsui? We have taken only a just profit. Your salaries have been high. Your efficiency low. Why is the government slowly squeezing us and the other private companies out of the Japan steel and iron company at your water? Your water is the biggest steel mill in Asia. Mr. Mitsui, the government will tolerate no slowdown, regardless of what is happening at your water. Production must be kept up to the highest possible. But even though production has dropped off in some places, in others it has doubled several times. Before the war, Japan's steel production was about eight million tons per year. Now it is much more. Intelligence agents report. The Showa steel mill has been expanded. Before the war, the Showa mill turned out about two million tons of pig iron and about 750,000 tons of steel. Now it is turning out much more. The Penji-hu mill in Manchuria is now in full operation. Production at this steelworks has been doubled and tripled. Not only in Japan, but wherever in the empire there are resources. They are being developed for the Hundred Year War. Many Japanese living today know they will not live to see the war's end. They expect to pass. But they are fighting the war for the Japanese generations to come. As their soldiers are fighting to the last man of the battlefronts, they are fighting on the home front on every square mile they control. A Japanese production expert from Tokyo makes an inspection tour of a new development in Manchuria. Is a new shift coming on, superintendent? Yes. We are operating 24 hours a day. How many of your men are Japanese? Very few. Most of our miners are the same ones who worked in the mines of Manchurian before we came in 1931. Chinese, Koreans, Manchurians. Soon we will need more miners. Archaeologists say there is at least 100 million tons of iron ore in this deposit. One hundred million tons, yes. It is very high grade and we shall have need of it on a rising scale. We have already made preparations to step up production. As soon as the development warrants... To make sure that production is stepped up in mines and factories and refineries, the government is moving in on every sector of the home front. The totalitarian state is taking over more and more the entire life of the nation. The Kejiro Asami's can give no more. They are working seven days a week, 11 to 14 hours a day, giving 25 to 90 percent of their earnings, wearing wood fiber clothing, wooden clogs, eating less than one half than before the war. The Asami's can give no more. If more is to be given, it must be given by the Mitsuis, the Mitsubishis, the Sumitomos, and these the government is closing in on. A Japanese general, a spokesman for Japan's realistic high command, puts his finger down on a map of East Asia. His finger traces down the coast of China, down to the southeast corner of Asia. He points to French Indochina, to Thailand, to Burma, to the Philippines. These countries must be self-sufficient. We are now in the process of organizing them as self-sufficient spheres. They have the resources. We must see to it that they are properly and efficiently used so that the countries can support themselves and support our army units that occupy them. The exploitation of these countries will save us materials and manpower at home. Likewise, it will save shipping. We will still need shipping for the development of these regions, sir. How much? The development of these regions into self-sufficient units of the empire requires that we send skilled and experienced technicians and machinery. We must supply them at the outset. Yes. We must keep them supplied until they are self-sufficient. We must utilize the peoples of these lands to make these countries self-sufficient in the shortest possible time. Make them self-governing? Within the framework of the empire, yes. They must be made active cooperators in the greater Asia. The process of bringing the occupied countries into the greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere has been accelerated by the impact of words. This is a racial war. This is the war of Asiatics against the whites. This is the war of freedom from oppressive white domination. And the effort has not been without satisfactory results. I am a member of the Nationalist Party in Burma. The Japanese have given Burma a measure of freedom that we have not had for a century. That is why we celebrate our emancipation from the whites. I am a Thailander. For 600 years we were a free people. This is a war of the people of Asia to keep this freedom. And Japan is our leader. I am a Filipino. I was a member of Manuel Cuisón's cabinet. I have thrown in my lot with the Japanese, for with the Japanese lies our only hope for lasting freedom. The countries of the South, Japan is working to make self-sufficient. Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, British Malaya, and parts of the Dutch East Indies self-sufficient within the framework of the Japanese Empire, which means puppet states, which help fight the war with their resources and their people, and which stand as bristling bastions against the drive which ultimately will be made against Japan itself. The longer we can hold the enemy outside these self-sufficient units, the longer we shall have to develop our inner empire here in the North. This is the spokesman for Japan's high command once more. His finger now points to the inner fortress of the Japanese Empire. Here we must develop our industrial strength. On the map he points to Korea, Manchuria, North China, Formosa, and Japan proper. We will use Manjuku and Korea for supply depots. Here we will build up stockpiles of material. From the great expanse of Manchuria, from the mines, the steel mills, the factories that blaze night and day, war supplies are pouring into eastern Manchuria and Korea. From the synthetic oil plants scattered throughout the empire, hidden plants in such number that no one knows their number, their location, their production. From these plants, the liquid power of a war machine is flowing into the supply depots. From the fields of the North comes another supply, food. How much acreage do we have here in Manjuku? Thirty million acres, sir. Thirty million acres. In addition to that, we have the wheat of North China. We shall need it all. The Japanese high command foresees devastating bombing raids. What is there to fear from bombs? This is Kejiro Asami again. The bombs fall, but Kejiro Asami remains at his work. He is not afraid of death. He has been trained to accept it as an impersonal eventuality, an incident that has little relation to his personal being. Some of the wheels will be stopped, but not many. Kejiro Asami remembers what he has been told. Our industries have been dispersed all over the empire. Much of our work of assembly is done in individual places that cannot be found. Even in our most concentrated industrial areas, our war production is scattered so that not much of it can be hit at any one time. Japan expects bombs to rain down upon it. To this, the Japanese have answers. Before any concentrated bombing can be applied to our inner fortress, our outer empire must be pierced. Our outposts are expendable. We shelved the island for hours. Then when we went ashore, we had to blast out each individual gun position. We had to fight every inch of the way. We have air superiority in this section now. We pummeled this air base for weeks before we knocked it out. Before Japan's inner fortress can be bombed effectively, it must be brought within range. This means bases closer to the inner fortress or longer range bombers. To this, Japan has an answer. When enemy bombers fly over our cities, they will make more resistance than they have ever met before. Also, they will find that contrary to what they think, our buildings will not be easily blasted down, nor will our homes and industries be destroyed by widespread fire. As the expendable outposts of the Japanese empire become untenable, the Japanese will fall back to the inner empire, Formosa, Manchuria, North China, Korea, and Japan proper. By this time, we will have our inner empire developed and consolidated. We shall need nothing. We shall be self-sufficient in material and manpower. We shall then no longer be dependent on shipping. Our lines of communication will be shorter. We shall have less area to defend. And within this fortress of Asia, we shall fight if need be for 100 years. Within this fortress, Kejiro Asami goes endlessly about the routine of his day-by-day life. As his sons fight to the end on the battlefield, he will work to the end in the face of bombing and invasion. Come what may, deep within him is the conviction. We will win. You have been listening to The Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations as a 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 coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. We repeat, send 10 cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story is written and directed by Arnold Marquis. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Paluso. Your narrator, Gaine Whitman. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is the National Broadcasting Company.
