The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present The Pacific Story. [♪Music playing.♪ 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. Drama of the peoples whose destiny is at stake in the Pacific War. Here at another public service is the tale of the war in the Pacific and its meaning to us and to the generations to come. [♪Music playing.♪ Vladivostok, mistress of the Far East. [♪Music playing.♪ Good morning, Mr. Seminoff. Good morning, Mr. O'Carver. It is an invigorating morning, is it not? Very invigorating. Yes, yes. There is nothing like a brisk walk in the early morning air. No, there is nothing like a walk in the morning. Well, I must be on my way. Good day, Mr. Seminoff. Good day, Mr. O'Carver. Pleasant little fellow, that Japanese. He's attached to the Japanese consulate in Vladivostok. The Japanese consulate? Yes. Well, what's he doing walking way out here on the point at this hour of the morning? He's looking, Mr. Alton. And taking pictures. Yes. Oh, aren't you a little concerned, Mr. Seminoff, about having a Japanese out on a strategic point like this, looking and taking pictures of the harbor? The Japanese know all about Vladivostok. Yes, and I can see why. They occupied Vladivostok for nearly four years just after the First World War. They've had a consulate here ever since. Are there many Japanese attached to the consulate here who take walks and take pictures? Like this Mr. O'Carver? Quite a number, but it makes no difference. They know we have a fleet of submarines based here at Vladivostok, and they know that the approaches to the harbor are mined. And they know that we have heavy gun emplacements up there on the hills overlooking the city. And they know that we have airfields for bombers and fighters here. But it makes no difference, Mr. Walton. I got the feeling that Mr. Seminoff felt pretty confident about Vladivostok. Look at its location on the map, and you see that it commands nearly all of the Japanese Sea. It commands Japan itself. Bombers flying from Vladivostok could reach the vitals of Japan in less than three hours. From Vladivostok they could easily blast Tokyo and most of the industrial centers of Japan. That's what intelligence reports, and that's what the Japanese recognize as their greatest peril. You see, Mr. Walton, Japan has a neutrality pact with Soviet Russia. You mean that theoretically the Japanese are not the enemy of Soviet Russia? We are not at war. I see. The Japanese have their most formidable army, the Kontung Army, based just across the border from Vladivostok and Manchuria. And facing this army on the Soviet Asia side are the best units of the Russian army. That's what intelligence reports. And they also say that Vladivostok is the most heavily fortified city in the Far East. The Russians know that the Japanese might strike them a surprise blow, as the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor and destroy the Russian planes before they could get off the ground. That is why the Russians have built underground hangars where planes are always tuned up and in readiness. That's what intelligence reports. You see, Mr. Walton, it does not harm us to permit Mr. Okada to learn firsthand what is common knowledge to every high command in the world. What the Japanese see here might give them pause. That's an interesting deduction. With all the knowledge that the Japanese have of Vladivostok, Mr. Seminov, and with their fear of it as a bombing base, why haven't they tried to take it? Yes, they did take it once, just after the First World War. But now, you see, we have a neutrality pact with Japan. We are not at war. There must be other reasons. There are, Mr. Walton. There are. Look over Vladivostok today, and you see a city of something more than 200,000, stretched along the north shore of the Golden Horn. Behind it is a rocky ridge of hills, glowering down over the harbor. The approaches to the harbor are dotted with rugged islands, ideal for fortifications. Not so many years ago, Vladivostok was a boisterous frontier town with wooden shacks, streets of mud and water, balloons, and gambling houses. From its beginning in 1860, it grew like a weed. Prisoners and trade mushroomed. Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Mongols, Europeans, Turks, people from everywhere came here. And as early as 1889, it had already become apparent that Vladivostok would have to be defended. Vladivostok will be the most important seaport in the Far East. Therefore, we must defend it. This fortress will protect the city from both land attack and sea attack. So Vladivostok became more than a city and a seaport. It became a strategic military post. By 1891, it had become so important that the Grand Duke Tsetsarevich, who was later to become Tsar Nicholas II, made a trip halfway around the world to visit Vladivostok. Where is Tsetsarevich? He's over there, near the base of the monument. I want to see him. Everyone is crowding to see him lay the first stone of the monument. What an honor he does us to come out here to Vladivostok. He knows what a great service Admiral Nevoltzkoi has done for Russia out here. Nevoltzkoi, he was the first to see the value of this great land on the Pacific. Quiet, quiet now. Tsetsarevich is laying the first stone of the monument. Yes. Nevoltzkoi was the one who promoted Russian dominion in the Far East. There, it is done. Tsetsarevich has laid the first stone. Yes, you see the words engraved there in the monument? Yes. Where the Russian flag is once hoisted, it never must be lowered. Those are the historic words of Tsetsarevich's father Tsar Nicholas I. That must be the Russian policy out here on the shore of the Pacific. That became the Russian policy. The soil around Vladivostok has been drenched with blood maintaining it. The visit of the Tsetsarevich in 1891 called the attention of the world to Asiatic Russia. Within the next few years, Vladivostok blossomed like a forbidding flower. More and more ships came. Trade prospered under the muzzles of the frowning guns. Japan looked on and became increasingly uneasy. On her flank, she saw the development of a seaport and a city and a fortress, which to her could mean only trouble. In 1904, at Port Arthur and Tsushima, Admiral Togo destroyed Russian sea power in the Far East. Russia was crushed by Japan, but Russia still had Vladivostok. And this rocky stronghold, she converted into a Gibraltar. We are starting to put in gun emplacements and heavy guns. When we are finished, we shall be able to withstand attack from any direction. Presently, Vladivostok became vitally important, not only to Russia, but to England and France. I stood on a wharf in 1917. Oh, why, I beg your pardon, sir. It's all right. I didn't see you standing there. I ran right into you. Where's this ship from that you've just come in on? Solely. I'm not in liberty to say. Surprising. I don't know. More ships have been coming in here to Vladivostok these last few months than I've ever seen before. French ships and English ships, American ships. It's the only Russian port that's not blockaded by the German fleet. Yes. And the route through Vladivostok over the Trans-Siberian is the only way for us to get bullets and guns and supplies for the Russians. Yes, I know that. But why has there been so much more just recently? Well, just between us. Could it be to keep Russia in the war? Not long after that, the Reds overthrew the Tsarist regime. The revolution extended to the Pacific. Vladivostok became a center of conflict. Vladivostok was a grim city in 1918. Most of Siberia was under the control of the Tsarist White Russians. Vladivostok itself was in an upheaval. One day, Allied warships steamed into the harbor and dropped anchor. The Allies had sent in an intervention force. It has been necessary for us to send in this force to assure the transportation of the Czechoslovak prisoners out of Siberia. That's what one of the intervention officers said. You see, the Czechoslovak prisoners have been granted the right to leave Russia. They must come across Siberia and out through this port of Vladivostok. Where will they be taken then? We're going to take them to the Western Front in France to help us continue the war against Germany. The Japanese, who were also part of the intervention force, had a different reason for occupying Vladivostok. There are large stocks of military supplies at Vladivostok that were intended to be shipped across the Trans-Siberian Railway to carry on the fight against Germany. Yes, yes, I've seen them. We have come here to make sure that these war supplies do not fall into the hands of the enemy. The Americans and the British and the French each landed about 7,000 troops in Siberia. The Japanese agreed to land the same number, but they landed more than 70,000. The landing of a few Japanese Marines at Vladivostok has been magnified out of all proportion. We are eager that the landing of these troops is not regarded as intervention. That was the official Japanese statement, but that was not the view of the Soviets. The head of the Far Eastern Council of the People's Commissars was Alexander Tobelsen. I went to talk to him. The Allies are not concerned either with getting the checks out of Siberia or with protecting the war supplies piled up in Vladivostok. What about those checks, Mr. Tobelsen? The checks were to be brought out to Vladivostok over the Trans-Siberian. Do you know what happened to them, Mr. Walton? Have they been brought out? They have seized a great section of the Trans-Siberian. Seized it? The checks? They control the Trans-Siberian from the Oro to Lake Baikal. Oh, then it would be impossible for the enemy to use the Trans-Siberian to get the war supplies in Vladivostok across Siberia and Russia to the Western Front. Not impossible, but improbable. No, Mr. Walton, there are other reasons for the occupation of Vladivostok. The reasons of England and France and the United States are different from those of Japan. That could explain the large intervention force the Japanese sent in, ten times larger than any of the other nations. Quite likely. You must know, Mr. Walton, that the Japanese realize that Vladivostok is the most important seaport in Siberia. Are you implying that the Japanese intend to stay in Vladivostok? Examine the fact. Vladivostok is the door to the vast resources of Siberia, of its gold and iron, of its zinc and lead and gold. You see, the Japanese have little coal and iron. Mm-hmm. If Japan took Vladivostok, it would shut Russia off from the Pacific almost entirely. Not only that. The Japanese know the military strength of Vladivostok, and they are afraid of it. So by staying here, they would not only have access to the resources of Siberia, but they also would have removed what they think is a threat to them. Under the pressure of the intervention force of American, English, French, and Japanese troops, all under the command of the Japanese General Otani, the Soviet hold on Vladivostok tattered. The streets rang with a gunfire, and blood spattered and ran down to mix with the mud and the water in the streets. The Soviets were defeated. On the 4th of July in Vladivostok, the people held the funeral of the defenders of the fallen Soviets. And they died for us. They died for us. I've never seen so many people in the streets of Vladivostok. We must show the world that we are still unified. I can feel their grief. Look at the bareheaded men and women coming down the long slope from the hills. Thousands and thousands of them. We still have our unity. Our guns they have taken, but they can never crush us. We walked with a great morning mass of people down to the Red Staff Building. There with the others, we listened to Suchanov, the president of the Soviets. Here, here where our comrades were slain, we swear by these red coffins that hold them, by their wives and children that weep for them, that the Soviets for which they died shall be the thing for which we live, or if need be like them, die. Henceforth, the return of the Soviets shall be the goal of all our sacrifice and devotion. The bayonets have been wrested from our hands. But when the day comes that we have no guns, we shall fight with sticks and clubs, and then these are gone. We shall fight with our bare fists and bodies. Now it is for us to fight only with our minds and spirits. The Soviet is dead. Long live the Soviets! The Soviet is dead. Alexander Tobelson barely managed to get out of that. He was stuck with his life when the intervention force took over. 1919 was a year of chaos, a year of fighting and confusion and predictiveness. At last, in 1920, Tobelson came back. Much as we wish it, we must realize that we cannot establish a Soviet government here, as long as we are under the guns of the Allied intervention force. Our immediate hope is to establish a buffer state here. The buffer state was organized in March 1920. The Allied intervention collapsed, the Reds took over, and the far eastern Soviet Socialist Republic was formed. At last, the English and the French and the Americans have now left a lot of us. But the Japanese are still here. They are showing no signs of leaving. We have made it plain that we wish them to get out. We must push them out. What Alexander Tobelson had said about the Japanese was turning out to be right. You see, Mr. Walton, it is as much to the advantage of the United States to clear the Japanese out of Siberia as it is to Soviet Russia. I could see what he was getting at. The Japanese control the Pacific shore of Siberia. You Americans will have them for neighbors across the Bering Straits. You will have them virtually on your lap in Alaska. Then what are you going to do about the Japanese here? We have been negotiating a long time, but sometime this negotiation must end. There was hidden meaning in what he said. Not long after this, I saw what he meant. The Reds have captured the Japanese trenches. The Reds have captured the Japanese trenches. The vessels of the trucks and the factories are blowing. That is the signal for the general strike. Yes, the Reds troops are approaching the land of the stock. We will do no work. We will perform no services. Our troops are coming. I was filling drums to the Japanese headquarters, but I found no Japanese there. The excitement grew with each passing hour. The Red Cavalry is coming. The Red Cavalry is riding down the Japanese. Within a few minutes, the streets cleared. The shops were not already closed, locked their doors. Men and women and children disappeared from the streets as if by magic. At twilight, the Red Cavalry was at the gates of the city, and soon it was charging down the cobblestone streets. When darkness and fog closed in, an ominous hush fell on the city. For five days, there was not a light in Vladivostok, but there was great activity at the wharves. The Japanese have been evacuating for three days now. At last they are going. The last Japanese troops are on that transport you see there, passing out of sight down the Golden Horn. Vladivostok is at last in the hands of the Soviets. We will make sure that the Japanese never return. I watched the Soviets develop Vladivostok, not the city, but the port and the mysterious fortress commanding it. Here they did what the Soviets have done throughout Russia, make each area as self-sufficient as possible. This train is bringing in coal from the mines right in this region here. Not so many years ago, Vladivostok had to import every pound of its coal. This is one of the vessels of our fishing fleet. Once we had to import our fish products. Now we catch so much fish in the waters of Soviet Asia that we export a great surplus to other places. In order to utilize their harbor all year round, the Soviets built powerful icebreakers. The harbor freezes over in December and the ice lasts until April, but the big icebreakers plow through it, break it up, and keep a path open for the sea traffic. The year-round traffic made Vladivostok a world port. Ships came in from every part of the world. Sailors came ashore from Merchantman. Swedes, Dutch, British, Portuguese, Americans, Senegalese, they came ashore to drink and gamble and carouse. Hello, mister. Are you a stranger here? No, not exactly. Would you like to see the really interesting part of Vladivostok? Oh, what part is that? Over on the other side of the mountain. You've never seen anything like it. Opium dens, dark alleys, and fascinating people. No, no, I don't think so. Oh, I know every square inch of it. You will be quite safe. Come along and ask. No, no, I'm not interested. Oh, come on. You have never seen anything like it. Mr. Vindy, what does this man want of you, Mr. Wolkin? Oh, I was just asking you to... What does he want, Mr. Wolkin? He seems to think I want to go sightseeing. He wanted to take you over on the other side of the mountain. But I don't know just where. He gets paid for bringing people over there. No. It is the worst part of Vladivostok. The worst elements live there. Criminals, thieves, and degenerates. And you. For the last time, I warn you to stay out of here. I have done nothing but talk to them. Has anything ever been done to clean up the part of the city on the other side of the mountain? We have cleaned it up many times. Someday we shall wipe it out entirely. Someday? We are not concerned with the city, no. I see. It is where there are characters around, like that man right over there. That one? Yes. He's a secret agent. He's passing for a check. But we know that he is German. Oh. And that one right there. He looks like an Italian. He is in the pay of the Japanese. And what are you going to do about them? It's the proper time they will be taken care of. This is the population of the seaport. But there's another population that's never seen. The men of the mysterious fortress hewn deep into the solid rock of Vladivostok. This unseen population man the big guns that can out-distance the guns of any battleship. They man the radar observation posts. They maintain the reconnaissance planes and the fighting planes and the bombers and the underground hangars. They fly the planes. They man the pillboxes that cover with crossfire every approach. For years after the Soviets took over Vladivostok, the people in the city below have heard the deep rumble of explosions in the hills behind them. Say, what is that? Sounds like thunder. You are a newcomer here in Vladivostok? Yeah. I've heard that rumbling in the distance ever since I got off the ship three days ago. You will get used to it. Sounds almost like an earthquake. They are blasting out the dugouts up there in the hills. Dugouts? For what? I have no idea. Huh. Might be interesting to go up there and see what they're doing. You might. I'm afraid you will be wasting your time. No one saw exactly what sort of dugouts were being blasted into the rock, but everyone saw the concrete and the structural steel being taken up the modern roads to the hills. Everyone saw the heavy construction machinery and the tanks and the armored trucks moving into the hills. Everyone saw the planes overhead that came to roost in the mysterious area behind the city. And everyone came to know that certain sections were not only barred, but were deadly to any who should try to sneak over them. Those sections are so heavily mined that a crow could not walk across them. The Russians know that the eyes of foreign agents have watched every development around Vladivostok. The Russians have their own counter-espionage in Vladivostok. Report to the Commissar. Today again, Mr. Okada of the Japanese consulate, in the early morning, walked through the section behind the city. In the afternoon, the Italian, who goes into the name of Angoni, walked in the eastern section behind the city. The interest of the foreign agents in the section behind the city is understood perfectly by the Soviets. They know the folly of a frontal attack from the sea. Therefore, they are exploring their approaches from the rear. But the Russians have anticipated this. Even before Singapore was taken by attack from the rear, the Russians saw that the Japanese might try this at Vladivostok. If they try to cut us off from the supplies of Russia by cutting the Trans-Siberian Railroad, we shall still hold. For we have made this section of Soviet Asia virtually self-supporting. And if they attempt to storm Vladivostok from the rear, we shall annihilate them. The Soviets remember well when the Allied warships sailed into the harbor, and Vladivostok, shivering and hungry and helpless, lay under their guns. Since that time, the most imaginative, the most enterprising brains of Soviet Russia have pondered over every possibility of that happening again. They have pondered over detailed charts of the harbor. And now for more than 20 years, they have been taking measures to ensure that it never happens again. The Soviet Union has been in the hands of the Soviets for a long time. And now they are taking action against them. You see, Mr. Walton, Vladivostok has developed into an important commercial port. It is the outlet for the products not only of Soviet Asia, but also of Manchuria and North China. Are those there along the wharf? Yes, yes, they are certainly busy. They are filled with soybeans and byproducts such as soybean oil and soybean cakes. You see, Mr. Walton, soybean products make up our principal export trade, that is, along with Siberian timber and dried fish. Is that Lend-Lease material over there on that dock there? You are not interested in commerce, are you? Not when there are things as immediately important as… Shall we say that submarine that just surfaced out there on the harbor, Lend-Lease, is of the greatest importance to us. Yes, of course. Russia has a powerful fleet of submarines based at Vladivostok. I remember that was what intelligence had reported. Russia may have as many as 200 submarines in the Far East. We watched the submarine cut through the water. It was a powerful new craft able to operate great distances from its base. Many of Russia's submarines in the Far East are of the newest, best equipped, and hardest hitting type. Some are of the older types, but all are manned by well-trained, highly efficient crews. I remembered that intelligence report, and I wondered how many more submarines were under the waters of the harbor or hidden in forbidden places here in the vicinity of Vladivostok. I watched the big submarine cut through the water. You see, Mr. Walton, the harbor is four miles long and a mile wide, plenty of space for much greater commercial development. Yes. Where do you suppose that submarine out there has just returned from? This submarine? Yes, that's a long-range submarine, isn't it? Well, yes, perhaps. Where do you suppose it's been? That would be very difficult to say, Mr. Walton, but submarines of that kind usually do not go on short runs. Oh. Mr. Seminoff, when we talked of Japan's knowledge of Vladivostok and their fear of it as a bombing base, you said that there were perhaps reasons why Japan did not try to take Vladivostok. Uh, Mr. Walton, Japan is an island empire. The Japanese occupy Manchuria and a great part of China. They must keep their sea lanes open. Japanese are fighting thousands of miles from home on the mainland of Asia and in the islands of the Pacific. They must keep their fighting units supplied. Uh, it would be serious to the Japanese to have these sea lanes cut, would it not? Serious for them. It could be disastrous. Perhaps Mr. Okada has reported to his superiors the extent of our submarine strength here in Vladivostok. 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 ten cents in stamps or coins to the 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 Palusso. The principal voice heard was that of Edgar Barrier. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is the National Broadcasting Company. Thank you.
