- 2 days ago
American tanks did not simply survive the Pacific by being better built — they came back because the U.S. Army built a system to recover, repair, and return them to battle. From Tarawa to Iwo Jima, this military history story follows Shermans that were flooded, mined, disabled, or hit, then hauled back into action by wreckers, mechanics, and night-shift crews working under fire.
The transcript traces how Marine tank battalions learned the hard way that a stopped tank on a coral island could be finished for the day, and how that changed after Tarawa. On Iwo Jima, crews used retrievers, spare parts, welding, and battlefield improvisation to keep tanks fighting for 36 days, even rebuilding machines like Killer after turret hits and stripping wrecks for usable parts. It also contrasts American armored recovery with Japanese doctrine, buried tanks, and the limits of island logistics.
This is a WW2 military history narrative about Sherman tanks, armored recovery vehicles, battlefield maintenance, Marine tank battalions, and the Pacific War. It is ideal for listeners searching for WW2 stories, tank history, military documentary-style narration, and detailed accounts of how armies keep damaged vehicles in the fight.
For viewers who enjoy WW2 stories, military history, Sherman tank documentaries, Pacific War analysis, and armored recovery vehicle history, this narration offers a deep look at battlefield repair, tank crews, and the logistics behind combat. It also suits long-form history listening, background listening, and anyone interested in Marine tank battalions and the hidden mechanics of war.
The transcript traces how Marine tank battalions learned the hard way that a stopped tank on a coral island could be finished for the day, and how that changed after Tarawa. On Iwo Jima, crews used retrievers, spare parts, welding, and battlefield improvisation to keep tanks fighting for 36 days, even rebuilding machines like Killer after turret hits and stripping wrecks for usable parts. It also contrasts American armored recovery with Japanese doctrine, buried tanks, and the limits of island logistics.
This is a WW2 military history narrative about Sherman tanks, armored recovery vehicles, battlefield maintenance, Marine tank battalions, and the Pacific War. It is ideal for listeners searching for WW2 stories, tank history, military documentary-style narration, and detailed accounts of how armies keep damaged vehicles in the fight.
For viewers who enjoy WW2 stories, military history, Sherman tank documentaries, Pacific War analysis, and armored recovery vehicle history, this narration offers a deep look at battlefield repair, tank crews, and the logistics behind combat. It also suits long-form history listening, background listening, and anyone interested in Marine tank battalions and the hidden mechanics of war.
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LearningTranscript
00:00On the 1st of March, 1945, near a rise on Iwo Jima that the maps called Hill 362 Alpha,
00:07a 19-year-old corporal was driving a 33-ton Sherman across ground that was still warm
00:13from the volcano underneath it. His name was Leighton Wilhite. He was the driver of the 3rd
00:18Tank, 3rd Platoon, Company C, 5th Tank Battalion. The tank was named Lucky, which on that island
00:26was less a joke than a request. Ahead of him, his platoon had a problem. A tank named Genie,
00:33commanded by platoon sergeant Robert McIntyre, had driven over what looked like solid volcanic rock.
00:39It was not rock. It was the roof of a Japanese machine gun emplacement. The roof gave way.
00:4633 tons went in nose down, and Genie settled into a hole in the middle of Japanese-held ground,
00:51with her hatches fouled and her crew unable to climb out. You have to understand what that meant
00:57on Iwo Jima. A stuck tank there was not a recovery problem. It was bait. The Japanese knew what
01:04Americans did about stranded tanks, and they had men whose entire job was to reach that tank first,
01:10in the dark, with explosives. 2nd Lieutenant Leonard Blake, the platoon leader,
01:15got out and went forward on foot. Wilhite went with him. A flame tank called Torch burned the
01:22ground on either side of them to keep the slope clear while they worked at the jammed hatches.
01:27It did not keep it clear enough. Two Japanese soldiers came out of the rocks at Wilhite with
01:32rifles and bayonets, close enough that the only weapon that mattered was the pistol in his hand.
01:38They got the crew out. Blake would receive the silver star for that morning. Wilhite would receive
01:44the bronze star with the V for valor. And before they left, they did something that tells you more
01:50about the American way of war than any of the shooting did. They pulled the breech block out
01:56of Jeannie's gun. They stripped her radio. They stripped from her everything the Japanese could
02:01have used. And then they walked away from her, fully intending to come back.
02:06Somewhere on that same slope, in those same days,
02:09another company's C tank took two 47-millimeter armor-piercing rounds through the front of its
02:14turret. That tank was named Killer. The rounds went through the armor and then through the men
02:21sitting behind it. Sergeant Donald North, the tank commander, and his gunner were both badly hit.
02:27By the following morning, the two of them were on a hospital ship.
02:32Now hold on to this next part, because the entire story runs through it.
02:36The Japanese gun crew that put those two rounds into Killer did everything right.
02:42They were dug into rock, firing a weapon that on paper could not beat a Sherman's frontal armor.
02:47And they beat it anyway, twice. And they wounded two of the men inside.
02:53In any army's reckoning, that is a kill. They were entitled to report it as one.
02:59Two days later, Killer was back on the line. Same hull. Same name painted on the side.
03:05Patched armor. Rebuilt fire control. A new commander and a new gunner sitting in the seats
03:10where the last two had bled. And Jeannie? The tank in the hull? They came back for her as well.
03:18That is what this story is about.
03:21If what the American tank crews and their mechanics did on these islands is worth your time,
03:25hit like and subscribe. It helps this history reach people.
03:29Here is the arithmetic that never made the newsreels.
03:33Company C of the 5th Tank Battalion landed on Iwo Jima with 14 medium tanks,
03:38one tank dozer, two flame tanks, and one recovery vehicle.
03:4314 gun tanks. Over the course of that battle, those 14 tanks required 120 repairs.
03:5129 of them were mine damage.
03:55Sit with that number for a moment.
03:5714 tanks. 120 times a tank in that company was hurt badly enough
04:03that somebody had to fix it before it could fight again.
04:06That is not 14 tanks fighting a battle. That is 14 tanks fighting a battle, dying, and being brought back
04:14over and over for 36 days.
04:18And on the other side of that island, Japanese tanks sat buried in the ground up to their turret rings
04:24because the officer commanding them had worked out that they were never going to move again anyway.
04:30Two armies. Two ways of thinking about what a tank actually is.
04:35One treated a tank as something you spend.
04:38The other treated it as something you get back.
04:41And the men on the receiving end noticed.
04:44The Japanese army was not confused about American armor.
04:48They measured it, they studied it, and they knew exactly where a Sherman was thin
04:52and exactly what would burn one.
04:55What they could not solve, all the way to the end of the war,
04:58was a different problem entirely.
05:01Not how to kill an American tank.
05:03How to make one stay killed.
05:06Before this is over, I am going to read you a line out of Japanese combat instruction.
05:11A line about American tank crews that has nothing to do with their gunnery or their tactics.
05:17It is about what American crews did after dark.
05:21Remember that, because when you hear it,
05:23you are going to realize that the enemy had identified the real American advantage in the Pacific
05:28before most Americans had a name for it.
05:31But none of this was true at the start.
05:34Fifteen months before Iwo Jima, on a coral island barely two miles long,
05:39American tanks went in and did not come back.
05:42And one of them is still sitting there today.
05:44The 20th of November, 1943.
05:47Batio, in the Tarawa Atoll.
05:50An island so small you could walk its length in under an hour,
05:54if anyone were letting you walk.
05:56That morning, fourteen Sherman tanks went ashore there.
06:00It was the first time in the war that the Marine Corps put medium tanks into an assault landing,
06:05and the men who took them in were about to learn something the Corps paid for in full.
06:11The landing craft could not get to the beach.
06:14The reef stopped them several hundred yards out,
06:17so the tanks were dropped into chest-deep water and told to wade.
06:22Coral does not give you a flat bottom.
06:25What it gives you is a floor pocked with holes.
06:28Holes made deeper that morning by the same naval bombardment
06:32that was supposed to make the landing easy.
06:35So Marines got out and walked in front of the tanks.
06:38On foot, in the water, in front of 33 tons of steel,
06:42with Japanese machine guns working the lagoon,
06:46men waded ahead of their own tanks,
06:48feeling for the holes so the drivers would not fall into them.
06:52It did not work.
06:54Three of the fourteen went straight down into flooded shell craters
06:58and filled with seawater.
07:00And I want you to be precise about what that means,
07:03because it is not the same as being hit.
07:06Nobody shot those tanks.
07:08They drowned.
07:10Salt water went into the engines,
07:13into the electrics,
07:14into everything.
07:15And on that island,
07:17there was not one man,
07:18one tool,
07:19or one machine capable of doing anything about it.
07:23The ones that made it ashore fought.
07:27First Lieutenant Ed Bale,
07:28commanding,
07:29took his tank,
07:31China Gal,
07:32into the middle of the island
07:33and ran straight into a Japanese light tank
07:36at a range where neither crew had time to think.
07:39The Japanese gunner fired first.
07:42The round hit China Gal
07:43and did not come through,
07:45but it hit hard enough
07:46that the inside of the turret
07:47flashed a sick lemon yellow
07:49in front of the crew's eyes.
07:51China Gal fired back
07:53and killed the other tank.
07:55That is what the crews did on Batio.
07:57They fought their tanks well,
07:59in an impossible place,
08:01against an enemy
08:02who had spent a year
08:03fortifying 800 acres of coral.
08:06That was never the problem.
08:08The problem was the arithmetic
08:10at the end of the day.
08:12Of the 14 Shermans
08:14that started that morning,
08:15three were still running
08:16when the sun went down.
08:18Three.
08:18And not because 11 were destroyed.
08:22Some were flooded.
08:23Some had thrown tracks.
08:25Some had damage
08:26that in any decent workshop
08:28was an afternoon's work.
08:30It made no difference.
08:31There was no workshop.
08:33There was no recovery vehicle
08:35on the island.
08:36There was no way
08:38to drag 33 tons
08:39off a coral flat under fire,
08:42and no crew standing by
08:44whose job it was to try.
08:46A tank that stopped at Tarawa
08:48was finished for the battle.
08:50Not damaged.
08:51Finished.
08:53And one of them
08:54was finished permanently.
08:55A Sherman named Cecilia
08:57went into a shell hole
08:58on Batio
08:59and would not come out,
09:00no matter what the Marines tried.
09:03She is still there.
09:05More than 80 years later,
09:07she is still sitting
09:08in the same hole,
09:09half in the water,
09:10a rusting steel marker
09:12on the beach
09:13where she stopped.
09:15Now compare that
09:16to what you heard
09:17a few minutes ago.
09:1814 tanks
09:19in one Marine company
09:21at Iwo Jima,
09:22120 repairs,
09:24and the company
09:25still fighting
09:25on the last day
09:26of the battle.
09:2814 tanks
09:29in one Marine company
09:30at Tarawa,
09:31and by dinner time
09:32on the first day,
09:34there were three.
09:35Same core,
09:37same country,
09:38same tank near enough.
09:4015 months apart.
09:43And this is where
09:44the story gets interesting,
09:45because it kills
09:47the easy answer
09:47before we start.
09:49There was nothing
09:50in the American character
09:52that made tanks come back.
09:54There was nothing magic
09:55about the Sherman
09:56that made it repairable
09:57and the Japanese
09:58Type 97 disposable.
10:00At Tarawa,
10:01the United States Marine Corps
10:02lost tanks
10:03exactly the way
10:05Japan lost tanks
10:06for the entire war.
10:07The tanks stopped,
10:08and that was
10:09the end of the tank.
10:10Which means the thing
10:11this whole video
10:12is about
10:13was not a national trait.
10:15It was built.
10:16Somebody sat down
10:18after Basio,
10:19read the numbers,
10:20and decided
10:21that an American tank stopping
10:23was going to mean
10:24something different
10:24from then on.
10:26The reports
10:27that came out of Tarawa
10:28are brutal reading,
10:29and the tank sections
10:30of them
10:30are the most brutal of all,
10:32written by officers
10:34who had just watched
10:35good crews
10:36stranded in three feet
10:37of water
10:38for want of a tow.
10:39The Corps
10:40did not argue with them.
10:42Over the next year,
10:44the Marine tank battalions
10:45were rebuilt
10:46around a set of ideas,
10:47and the most important
10:49had nothing to do
10:50with guns or armor.
10:52I am not going to give you
10:53the whole answer yet,
10:54because it will not mean
10:55anything to you
10:56until you have seen
10:57what it was up against.
10:58But I will give you
10:59the first piece of it,
11:01and it arrived in the Pacific
11:02looking like a mistake.
11:04It was built
11:05on a Sherman chassis.
11:06It weighed as much
11:08as a Sherman.
11:08It burned the same fuel,
11:10took up the same room
11:11in a landing ship,
11:12and cost a landing force
11:14one of its precious slots
11:16in the assault waves.
11:17And it had no turret
11:18and no cannon.
11:20Every one of them
11:21that went ashore
11:22was a tank
11:23the infantry did not get.
11:25Commanders had to be talked
11:26into taking them.
11:28Within 15 months,
11:29Marine tank companies
11:30were carrying them
11:31into the assault waves
11:32at Iwo Jima,
11:33and the Japanese
11:34would build an entire branch
11:36of their infantry doctrine
11:37around trying to beat it
11:39to the wreck.
11:40The 22nd of February, 1945,
11:43the fourth day on Iwo Jima.
11:46Company C of the 5th Tank Battalion
11:49picked up its entire bivouac
11:50and moved it 500 yards south
11:52because the old spot
11:54was too close to the front
11:55and too well known
11:56to the Japanese.
11:58In the middle of a battle,
11:59a tank company stopped
12:01and relocated its workshop
12:02because that is what
12:04a marine tank bivouac
12:05was after dark.
12:07Not a rest area.
12:08A workshop.
12:10During the day,
12:11those tanks fought.
12:13At night,
12:14they came back,
12:14and men who had not slept properly
12:16since the landing
12:17went over every one of them
12:19with whatever light
12:20they dared show.
12:22And parked in among them
12:23was the vehicle
12:24I left you with
12:25at the end of the last part.
12:26It was called a retriever,
12:29built on a Sherman hull,
12:31so it went everywhere
12:32a Sherman went
12:33and stopped the same bullets.
12:35Where the turret
12:36should have been,
12:37there was a fixed steel box.
12:39Over the front,
12:41folded down for travel,
12:42was a boom 18 feet long,
12:44and inside the hull
12:46was a winch
12:47that could pull 30 tons.
12:4930 tons!
12:51A Sherman weighed about 33.
12:54That is the whole design philosophy
12:56in one number.
12:57This machine was built
12:59to take hold of a tank
13:00that did not want to move
13:02and move it anyway.
13:04With that boom,
13:05a crew in a field at night
13:07could lift the front of a tank
13:09off the ground
13:10and change a final drive.
13:12They could pull an engine out
13:13through the back deck
13:14and drop a new one in.
13:16They could break a track,
13:18lay out fresh links in the dirt,
13:19and put a tank back on its feet
13:21before dawn.
13:23And this is the part people miss.
13:25None of that required a factory.
13:28It required a boom,
13:29a winch,
13:30a box of parts,
13:32and men who knew
13:33which bolts to turn.
13:35Remember the tank named Killer?
13:37The one that took
13:38two 47mm rounds
13:40through the turret face
13:41and lost its commander
13:43and its gunner?
13:44Killer did not burn.
13:46That mattered more
13:47than anything else
13:48about that morning,
13:49and here is why.
13:51A tank that does not burn
13:53keeps its armor.
13:55The steel around those two holes
13:57was still good steel.
13:59So somebody
14:00put a welding torch on it
14:01and closed the holes.
14:04Somebody else
14:05went into the turret,
14:06into a space
14:07that two men
14:07had just been carried out of,
14:09and rebuilt the gunner's
14:10sighting and traverse gear.
14:12Two days later,
14:13that tank was on the line,
14:14and the Japanese gun crew
14:16that had beaten
14:17a Sherman's frontal armor twice
14:18got to watch it
14:20drive back
14:20into their sector.
14:22Now go back to Jeannie,
14:24the tank that fell
14:25into the machine gun pit.
14:26Remember what Blake
14:27and Wilhite did
14:28before they walked away?
14:30They pulled out
14:31the breech block.
14:32They stripped the radio.
14:34That was not sentiment,
14:35and it was not tidiness.
14:37In an American tank battalion,
14:39a wrecked tank
14:40was not a loss.
14:41It was inventory.
14:43Every burned-out hull
14:45on that island
14:46was a stack of parts
14:47belonging to the tanks
14:48that were still fighting.
14:50Road wheels,
14:51sprockets,
14:52periscopes,
14:53hull engines.
14:54Crews went out
14:54to their own dead machines
14:56with tools
14:56and came back
14:57with the pieces
14:58that would keep
14:58somebody else alive tomorrow.
15:00And that only works
15:02for one reason.
15:03Reach into a Sherman
15:04and pull out
15:05a bogey assembly,
15:06and the one you take
15:07off the wreck
15:08will bolt onto your tank.
15:10Not fit after work.
15:12Bolt on.
15:13Same holes,
15:15same shafts,
15:16same clearances,
15:17made by different companies
15:19in different states
15:20by men who never met.
15:22That sounds boring.
15:24It is the most violent fact
15:26in this story.
15:27And by the end,
15:28you will understand why.
15:30Because those same men
15:32did something else at night.
15:33And it tells you
15:34what kind of army this was.
15:36They redesigned
15:38their own tanks.
15:40The Japanese were coming
15:41at the Shermans
15:42with satchel charges
15:43and magnetic mines,
15:45explosives placed by hand,
15:47by men who ran up
15:48and pressed them
15:49against the steel.
15:50So the 5th Tank Battalion's people
15:52welded rows of nails,
15:54points out,
15:55all over the roofs
15:56and flat surfaces
15:57of their tanks.
15:58So a magnetic charge
15:59had nothing to sit flat against.
16:01They hung planks of wood
16:02down the sides
16:03over the suspension.
16:04So a charge shoved underneath
16:06went off against timber
16:07instead of steel.
16:09They piled sandbags
16:10across the engine decks.
16:12The 4th Tank Battalion
16:14went a different way
16:15and built cages of steel bar
16:17over the hatches.
16:18So a grenade dropped on top
16:20would not reach the crew.
16:21Two battalions.
16:23Two different answers.
16:25Both invented by mechanics
16:26with scrap and a welding set.
16:29Both in service
16:30within weeks of the enemy
16:31showing them a new problem.
16:34Nobody in Washington
16:35approved either one.
16:36So there is your first
16:38real piece of the answer.
16:39And it is deliberately incomplete.
16:42American tanks came back
16:44because the Americans
16:45built a system
16:45whose entire purpose
16:47was to bring them back.
16:48a vehicle to fetch them,
16:50a night shift to fix them,
16:52a parts economy to feed them,
16:54and crews who treated a wreck
16:57as a warehouse.
16:58Which raises the question
17:00that should be bothering you by now.
17:02None of this was secret.
17:04It happened in the open,
17:05on islands the Japanese
17:07were standing on.
17:08Any officer with a pair of binoculars
17:10could watch a retriever
17:11hook onto a dead Sherman
17:13and drag it away.
17:14So why, in three and a half years of war,
17:17did Japan never do the same thing?
17:20The answer starts
17:21with a Japanese colonel,
17:23an Olympic gold medalist
17:24of all things,
17:25in the summer of 1944,
17:28with no tanks at all,
17:29because every one of them
17:31was at the bottom of the Pacific.
17:33What he did next
17:34was the most rational decision
17:36available to him.
17:37It was also an admission
17:39that no tank officer
17:40ever wants to make out loud.
17:42The 18th of July, 1944.
17:46Somewhere in the open Pacific,
17:48on a transport heading
17:50for a volcanic island
17:51most of the men aboard
17:52had never heard of,
17:54the American submarine Cobia
17:56found her
17:56and put torpedoes into her.
17:59Here is the strange thing
18:00about that sinking.
18:02Almost everybody lived.
18:04Of the men
18:05of the 26th Tank Regiment aboard,
18:07two were killed.
18:09Two.
18:10By the standards of the Pacific
18:12in 1944,
18:14that is a miracle.
18:15And it did not matter,
18:17because all 28
18:18of the regiment's tanks
18:19went to the bottom.
18:21Their commander
18:22was Lieutenant Colonel
18:23Baron Takeichi Nishi.
18:26If the name sounds familiar,
18:27it is because 12 years earlier
18:29he had stood on a podium
18:30in Los Angeles
18:31with an Olympic gold medal
18:33around his neck,
18:34one on a horse called Uranus,
18:36in front of a crowd
18:37of Americans
18:38who adored him.
18:40Now he was a tank officer
18:41with no tanks,
18:43and he did what
18:44any commander would do.
18:46He went back to Tokyo
18:47and asked for more.
18:49He got 22.
18:51Let me put that number
18:52in its setting.
18:5322 tanks.
18:55In the whole of 1945,
18:58the entire Empire of Japan
18:59would manage to build
19:00five light tanks.
19:02Not 500,
19:04five.
19:05So the 22 machines
19:07Nishi brought to Iwo Jima
19:08were not a shipment.
19:09They were an inheritance.
19:11There would be no more.
19:13And that is the context
19:15for the order he gave
19:16when he got there.
19:17He had them buried.
19:18Not hidden,
19:20not camouflaged.
19:21Dug into the volcanic ash
19:23and rock
19:23until the holes were underground
19:25and only the turrets showed.
19:27Turned into fixed firing positions
19:29with the engines silent
19:30underneath them,
19:31positioned to cover the ground
19:33the Americans would have to cross.
19:35Tactically,
19:36it was the right call
19:37and it worked.
19:38Those buried turrets
19:40were murder to find
19:41and murder to kill
19:42and Marines paid
19:43for every one of them.
19:46But sit inside that decision
19:47for a second
19:48as a tank man.
19:50When you bury a tank,
19:51you are saying something
19:52out loud about the future.
19:54You are saying
19:55it will never maneuver.
19:56It will never withdraw.
19:58It will never be towed anywhere.
20:00If a shell breaks
20:02its running gear,
20:03it does not matter.
20:04It was never going to run again.
20:06If it throws a track,
20:08nobody is coming.
20:10If it needs a part,
20:12there is no part
20:13and no ship to bring one.
20:16A buried tank
20:17is a tank whose commander
20:19has already accepted
20:20that it cannot be recovered,
20:22cannot be repaired,
20:23and cannot be replaced.
20:26He is not wasting it.
20:27He is spending it.
20:29Getting the last useful hour
20:31out of a machine
20:32that has no second life.
20:35Seven months later,
20:37on the same island,
20:38an American tank company
20:39would come ashore
20:40with a vehicle
20:41whose only job
20:42was to give tanks
20:43a second life.
20:45Two armies,
20:46one island,
20:47and the entire distance
20:49between them
20:49is right there.
20:51And I want to be fair to Nishi
20:53because it would be easy
20:54to make this
20:55about one officer's
20:56bad choice.
20:57It was not his failing.
20:59He was following
21:00the logic of the army
21:01he belonged to.
21:02And you can watch
21:03that same logic
21:04play out somewhere else
21:05at the same time,
21:07at ten times the scale.
21:09In the Philippines,
21:10Japan had assembled
21:11the 2nd Tank Division,
21:13the largest armored formation
21:15the Empire ever fielded,
21:17hundreds of vehicles,
21:18the best it had.
21:20General Yamashita,
21:21commanding,
21:22ordered much of it
21:23to fight
21:24from stationary positions.
21:26Not because he wanted to,
21:28because there was
21:28not enough fuel
21:29to move it.
21:30The largest tank division
21:32in the Imperial Japanese Army,
21:34and its most useful quality,
21:36the ability to go somewhere,
21:38was switched off
21:39before the battle started.
21:41Now look underneath
21:42both those decisions,
21:43at the machinery
21:44nobody photographs.
21:45A Japanese tank regiment
21:48was a real formation.
21:50750 to 850 men,
21:5330 to 50 tanks,
21:54with its own maintenance element.
21:56They were not amateurs.
21:58But the support vehicles
22:00those regiments ran on
22:01were a collection
22:02of whatever had been available.
22:03Different makes,
22:05different models,
22:06different ages.
22:07Every one of them
22:09a separate supply problem.
22:10Every one of them
22:11a separate box of spares
22:13that had to come across
22:14an ocean the Americans
22:15now owned.
22:17Compare that to a marine mechanic
22:19on Iwo Jima,
22:20walking to a burned hull
22:21with a wrench,
22:22taking a part off it,
22:24and bolting that part
22:25onto a running tank
22:26in the dark,
22:27without measuring anything.
22:30The Japanese soldier
22:31was not lazy,
22:32and the Japanese engineer
22:33was not stupid.
22:35This was not about effort.
22:37It was about whether effort
22:38could be turned
22:39into a repaired tank.
22:41And in the Japanese system,
22:42on an island,
22:44in 1945,
22:46it very often could not.
22:48There is one small story
22:50about Nishi on that island.
22:52Iwo Jima had almost
22:53no fresh water.
22:55Everything the garrison drank
22:56was rationed
22:57and rain-caught.
22:58And Nishi,
22:59the cavalryman,
23:00was caught using that water
23:02to wash his tanks.
23:03And General Kuribayashi,
23:05commanding the island,
23:06was furious with him for it.
23:08A man who had spent
23:09his life around horses,
23:11grooming machines
23:12he already knew
23:13would never move again.
23:15So that is the Japanese
23:16half of the picture
23:17when a tank stopped for good.
23:19But it raises the obvious question,
23:21and it is the right one to ask.
23:24Burying tanks is what you do
23:25when you cannot recover them.
23:27Fine.
23:29What happened when Japanese tanks
23:30did roll,
23:31when they attacked in the open,
23:33the way tanks are supposed to,
23:35and some of them were hit
23:36and stopped,
23:37but not destroyed.
23:38Eight months before Iwo Jima,
23:40on Saipan,
23:42Japan launched the largest tank attack
23:44it ever mounted in the Pacific.
23:4631 of those tanks
23:48ended the night
23:48sitting in a cane field
23:50in front of the marine lines.
23:52What happened to them
23:53over the following days
23:54is the most revealing thing
23:55in this story.
23:56The night of the 16th of June,
23:591944,
24:00Saipan.
24:02The marines had been ashore
24:03for two days,
24:04and they were dug in
24:05on low ground
24:06behind the beaches,
24:07in and around the cane fields.
24:09And out of the dark
24:10came the sound
24:11that every infantryman
24:12in every army
24:13learns to dread.
24:15Engines.
24:16A lot of them.
24:18This was the 9th Tank Regiment,
24:20and it was the biggest
24:22armored attack
24:22Japan ever launched
24:24in the Pacific War.
24:25Somewhere between
24:2640 and 50 tanks
24:28thrown at the American line
24:29at night,
24:30with infantry
24:31riding on the hulls.
24:32And I want to say this clearly,
24:34because it matters.
24:36That was correct.
24:37That was tanks
24:38being used
24:39the way tanks
24:40are supposed to be used.
24:42Massed,
24:42at night,
24:43at a beachhead
24:44before the enemy
24:45is settled.
24:46Whatever else
24:47you want to say
24:47about Japanese armor,
24:49nobody who ordered
24:50that attack
24:51was a fool.
24:52It was destroyed.
24:54Not defeated.
24:55Destroyed.
24:56Marine bazooka teams
24:58got in among them
24:59in the dark
24:59at ranges
25:00where you can hear
25:01the crew inside.
25:0337mm anti-tank guns
25:05firing over open sights.
25:07Half-tracks with 75s.
25:10Sherman's coming forward.
25:13Naval gunfire.
25:14Some of the Japanese tanks
25:16were burning so brightly
25:17they lit up
25:18the ones behind them.
25:20When the sun came up
25:21on the 17th,
25:22there were around
25:2331 Japanese tanks
25:25sitting in front
25:26of the Marine positions.
25:28And now we come to the part
25:29of this story
25:30that I actually care about.
25:31And it is not the fighting.
25:34It is the days after.
25:36Those tanks stayed there.
25:38Not all of them
25:39were burned out.
25:40That is what people assume,
25:42and it is not true.
25:44In any tank action,
25:46a proportion of the vehicles
25:47that stop
25:47are not destroyed.
25:49They are broken.
25:51A track blown off.
25:52A final drive wrecked.
25:54A radiator hold.
25:56An engine that quit.
25:59Crews bailed out of tanks
26:00that were, mechanically,
26:01entirely fixable.
26:03Nobody came for them.
26:05Not that night.
26:07Not the next night.
26:09Not ever.
26:10There was no recovery detachment
26:13working the field
26:14in the dark
26:14with tow cables.
26:16There was no wrecker.
26:18The tanks that stopped
26:19on Saipan
26:20on the 17th of June
26:21were still there
26:22when the island fell.
26:24And some of them
26:25are on that island still,
26:26rusting where they stopped.
26:29Now hold that next
26:30to what the Americans
26:31were doing
26:31on the same island,
26:32in the same week,
26:34in the same fields.
26:36Marine tank battalions
26:37lost Shermans on Saipan too.
26:39Plenty of them.
26:41Mined.
26:41Gunned.
26:42Bogged.
26:43Burned.
26:44And the pattern
26:45of those losses
26:46looks completely different
26:47when you follow it forward
26:48in time.
26:49The rough rule
26:50that American
26:51ordnance people worked to
26:52was that of every three tanks
26:54knocked out of action,
26:55roughly two could be got back.
26:58Recovered,
26:58repaired,
26:59and returned
27:00to a fighting unit.
27:01Knocked out
27:02did not mean gone.
27:04It meant out of service,
27:05pending work.
27:06So a Sherman
27:07that stopped on Tuesday
27:08could be dragged out
27:09on Tuesday night,
27:11worked on Wednesday,
27:12and be back in the line
27:13on Thursday or Friday
27:14under a different tank number
27:16with the same men in it.
27:17And that phrase,
27:19the same men in it,
27:20is the part that most people
27:22skip past.
27:23And it is worth more
27:24than the steel.
27:25Think about what happens
27:27to a crew.
27:28A Japanese crew
27:29bails out of a stopped tank
27:30on Saipan.
27:31Their vehicle
27:32is not coming back
27:34because nothing
27:34is coming for it.
27:36So they do not
27:37stay tank men.
27:38They pick up rifles
27:40and they go and fight
27:41as infantry.
27:42And on Saipan,
27:43that means most of them
27:44do not survive the month.
27:46Every one of those men
27:48was a trained driver,
27:49a trained gunner,
27:50a trained commander.
27:52Years of training.
27:53And the army spends them
27:55as riflemen
27:55because there is nothing else
27:57for them to crew.
27:58An American crew
28:00bails out of a stopped
28:01Sherman on Saipan.
28:02They walk back.
28:04They get fed.
28:05They get yelled at.
28:07And within a day or two,
28:08they are handed a tank.
28:09Sometimes a new one.
28:10Sometimes their own one
28:12with a new final drive in it.
28:14And they go back to work.
28:16Same battle,
28:17same day.
28:19One army is converting
28:21tank crews
28:21into infantry casualties.
28:23The other is converting
28:25damaged tanks
28:26into running tanks
28:27and keeping the crews
28:28together to drive them.
28:30Follow that forward
28:32a few weeks
28:32and the gap does not add.
28:34It compounds.
28:36The American unit
28:37is not just at strength.
28:38It is at strength
28:40with veterans
28:40who have already
28:41been hit once
28:42and know what that feels like.
28:44The Japanese unit
28:46is not just short of tanks.
28:48It has lost the people
28:49who knew how to use them.
28:51Here is the line
28:52I keep coming back to.
28:54And it sounds like
28:55an exaggeration
28:56until you check the timings.
28:57On more than one occasion
28:59in the Pacific,
29:00an American tank
29:01that had been knocked out
29:03was back in action
29:04before Japanese mechanics
29:06working on a damaged tank
29:07had finished getting theirs
29:09running again.
29:11Not because the Japanese mechanics
29:13were slower,
29:14because they were doing
29:15the same job
29:16without a recovery vehicle,
29:17without a spare,
29:19without a workshop
29:20within reach,
29:21and often under artillery fire
29:23with hand tools.
29:25The American got the tank
29:27towed to the work.
29:28The Japanese had to bring
29:29the work to the tank,
29:30wherever it had stopped,
29:32if he could get to it at all.
29:34Which brings me to the question
29:35that genuinely bothered me
29:37when I started reading into this,
29:38and it is the reason
29:40there is more of this story to tell.
29:42Because the easy explanation
29:44is that Japan simply
29:45never thought of armored recovery.
29:47No concept of it,
29:49no equipment,
29:50no interest.
29:51That explanation is wrong.
29:53Japan designed
29:55and built
29:55armored recovery vehicles.
29:57They existed.
29:59There were engineer vehicles
30:00with cranes and winches
30:01built on tank chassis,
30:03and they were rather clever.
30:05So the real question
30:06is not why Japan
30:07had no recovery vehicles.
30:10It is why the tanks
30:11in that cane field on Saipan
30:13never saw one.
30:14So let's go and find the vehicle
30:15that should have been
30:16in that cane field.
30:18It existed.
30:19It has a name.
30:21The Type 97 Seri.
30:23Built on the chassis
30:24of the Chiha,
30:25Japan's standard medium tank,
30:27with the turret removed
30:28and a crane fitted,
30:30winches,
30:30tow gear.
30:31An armored recovery vehicle.
30:34Exactly the right idea.
30:36And Japan built
30:37almost none of them.
30:38That is the first surprise,
30:40but it is not
30:40the interesting one.
30:42Because Japan was not
30:43short of imagination here.
30:45Go and look at the list
30:46of Japanese engineer vehicles
30:48built on tank chassis,
30:49and it is genuinely inventive.
30:51Bridge layers,
30:53mine clearers,
30:54cranes,
30:55dozer blades,
30:56flamethrower equipment,
30:57all of it thought through
30:58by people who understood
31:00the problem.
31:00The Japanese army
31:02knew perfectly well
31:03that armored formations
31:04need vehicles
31:04that do not shoot.
31:06This was not ignorance.
31:08So where were they?
31:10Mostly,
31:11they were in China
31:11and Manchuria.
31:12And once you see that,
31:14the whole thing opens up.
31:16Japan's armored force
31:17was not designed for islands.
31:19It was designed
31:20for a continental war
31:21against the Chinese
31:22and above all,
31:24against the Soviet Union
31:25along the Manchurian border,
31:26where in 1939,
31:28at a place called Kalkingol,
31:30the Japanese army
31:31had been badly handled
31:32by Soviet armor
31:33and had learned
31:34some hard lessons about it.
31:36And a continental war
31:38has something
31:38the Pacific does not have.
31:40It has ground.
31:42Ground means railways.
31:44It means roads,
31:45however bad.
31:46It means depots
31:47you can put things in
31:48and rear areas
31:50that stay behind you
31:51and a supply line
31:52you can walk along.
31:54If a tank breaks in Manchuria,
31:56there is a physical route
31:57between that tank
31:58and a workshop
31:59and you can drive
32:00a recovery vehicle down it.
32:02Now take that same army
32:04and put it on Iwo Jima.
32:05There is no route.
32:07There is no rear area.
32:09On an island
32:10eight square miles across,
32:11everywhere is the front.
32:13There is no railway,
32:14no depot,
32:15no road worth the name,
32:17and nothing behind you
32:18but water that belongs
32:20to the American Navy.
32:21And that water
32:22is the whole of it, really.
32:24Every single thing
32:25that garrison would ever have,
32:27every shell,
32:28every sack of rice,
32:30every bag of cement,
32:32every drop of fuel,
32:33every man,
32:34had to come in a ship
32:35through a sea
32:36where American submarines
32:38were sinking
32:38Japanese merchant hulls
32:40faster than Japanese yards
32:41could launch them.
32:43By 1944,
32:45the merchant fleet Japan
32:46had started the war with
32:47was being eaten alive.
32:49So now,
32:50put yourself in the room
32:51where they decide
32:52what goes in the hold.
32:54You have one ship.
32:55You have space
32:56for a certain tonnage.
32:58And you probably
32:58will not get another ship.
33:00And there is a real chance
33:01this one does not arrive at all.
33:04What do you load?
33:06Rice,
33:06because the garrison has to eat.
33:09Ammunition,
33:09because it has to fight.
33:11Cement and steel,
33:13because Kuribayashi
33:14is digging 11 miles of tunnels.
33:16Troops,
33:17because you need bodies
33:18in those tunnels.
33:20Or do you load
33:21a 15-ton vehicle
33:22with a crane on it
33:23that cannot shoot anybody?
33:25Nobody in that room is stupid.
33:27The recovery vehicle
33:29loses that argument
33:30every single time.
33:32And it loses it correctly
33:33given what is in front of them.
33:36But here is the thing
33:37that took me longest to understand.
33:38And it is the real answer
33:40to the question.
33:42Even if they had shipped it,
33:44even if a SETI
33:45had been sitting on Saipan
33:46on the morning of the 17th of June,
33:48it would not have saved those tanks.
33:52Because recovery
33:53is not a vehicle.
33:55Recovery is a system.
33:57And the vehicle
33:58is only the visible part of it.
34:01To get a broken tank
34:02back into the fight,
34:03you need the wrecker,
34:04yes.
34:05You also need fuel
34:06to run the wrecker.
34:08You need a workshop
34:09somewhere safe enough
34:10to work in.
34:11You need spare parts
34:12in a bin,
34:13sorted,
34:14for the exact model
34:15of tank you own.
34:16You need men trained
34:18specifically to do this
34:19and doing nothing else.
34:21You need enough security
34:22in your rear
34:23that a recovery crew
34:24can spend four hours
34:25on a job
34:26without being killed.
34:27And you need a doctrine
34:29that says,
34:30go and get it
34:31because it is worth getting.
34:33Take away any one of those
34:35and the vehicle
34:36becomes an ornament.
34:37Japan,
34:38on a Pacific island,
34:40was missing all of them
34:41at once.
34:42No secure rear
34:43because there was no rear.
34:45No spares
34:46because the spares
34:48were on a ship
34:48at the bottom of the sea
34:49or made for a different model.
34:52No fuel to spare
34:53on towing
34:54when there was not enough
34:55to move the tanks themselves.
34:57And no realistic prospect
34:59of ever getting more
35:00of anything.
35:01You cannot ship a system.
35:03You can ship a vehicle.
35:06It is not the same thing
35:07and it never was.
35:10Which is why I think
35:11the usual explanation
35:12for all of this
35:13is too easy.
35:15You have heard it.
35:16America won
35:17because America
35:18outproduced everybody.
35:19The factories.
35:20The numbers.
35:22Detroit against Osaka
35:23and Detroit wins.
35:25That is true
35:25and it is not the answer.
35:27And you can prove
35:28it is not the answer
35:29with a single question.
35:31Germany built enormous
35:32numbers of tanks too
35:33and some of them
35:34were magnificent.
35:36And German recovery crews
35:37were good at their job.
35:39Britain built tanks.
35:41The Soviet Union
35:41built more tanks
35:42than anyone.
35:44production alone
35:45does not explain
35:45what the Americans
35:46were doing on Iwo Jima
35:47with a wrench
35:48at 2 in the morning.
35:50The thing that made
35:51the difference
35:51was not a factory.
35:53It was a decision
35:54about people.
35:55About how many
35:56of your soldiers
35:57you are willing to have
35:58who never fire a shot.
36:00And the number
36:00the American army
36:01arrived at
36:02is going to sound
36:03when I tell you
36:04like I have got it wrong.
36:05Here is the number.
36:06For every American soldier
36:08who actually fired
36:09a weapon at an enemy
36:10in the Second World War
36:12there were several
36:13standing behind him
36:14who never did.
36:16The figure people
36:17usually reach for
36:18is somewhere around
36:19one in four.
36:20One man in the rifle company
36:22or the tank turret,
36:24three men behind him
36:25driving trucks,
36:26running depots,
36:27sorting spare parts,
36:29cooking,
36:29laying pipe,
36:30and pulling broken
36:31vehicles out of ditches.
36:34American commanders
36:35had a phrase for this.
36:36They called it
36:37the divisional slice.
36:39An American infantry division
36:41on paper
36:42was about 14,000 men.
36:44But to keep that division
36:46in a theater of war
36:47and fighting,
36:48the army reckoned
36:49it needed something
36:50like 40,000 men
36:51in that theater altogether.
36:5414,000 at the sharp end,
36:5626,000 behind them,
36:58making the 14,000
37:00possible.
37:02Read that as a percentage
37:03and it is uncomfortable.
37:05Roughly a third of the effort
37:07goes into fighting.
37:09Two-thirds of it
37:10goes into making
37:10the fighting possible.
37:12Now, plenty of armies
37:13have complained
37:13about their tail being too long.
37:15What is unusual
37:16about the American case
37:17is that they did it on purpose
37:19and they wrote it
37:20into the top
37:20of the organization chart.
37:22In March 1942,
37:24the United States Army
37:26reorganized itself
37:27into three great commands.
37:28Army ground forces,
37:30the men who fight on land,
37:32Army air forces,
37:34the men who fight in the air,
37:36and Army service forces,
37:38the men who supply,
37:39maintain,
37:40transport,
37:41and repair.
37:42Three commands.
37:44Co-equal.
37:45Supply and maintenance
37:47sitting at the same table
37:48as the people
37:48who do the killing
37:49with a lieutenant general
37:51of their own.
37:52That is not a detail
37:53of administration.
37:54That is a statement
37:56of belief
37:56made in a room
37:58in Washington
37:58in 1942.
38:00And everything
38:00that happened later
38:01on Iwo Jima
38:02with a wrench
38:03at two in the morning
38:04is downstream of it.
38:06And what it produced
38:07was a chain
38:08with the broken tank
38:10traveling along it.
38:11First echelon
38:12is the crew,
38:13what five men can do
38:14with the tools
38:15strapped to the hull.
38:17Second echelon
38:18is the tank company's
38:20own mechanics,
38:21the ones who come forward.
38:23Third is an ordinance
38:25maintenance unit
38:25further back
38:26with heavier equipment.
38:28Fourth is heavy
38:30field maintenance,
38:31doing jobs
38:32like pulling an engine
38:33and putting another one in.
38:35Fifth is a base depot
38:37where they rebuild
38:38the thing from the frame up
38:39and send it out again.
38:41Five stages,
38:42each one deeper
38:44and better equipped
38:45than the last,
38:45and a system
38:46for deciding
38:47which stage
38:48your casualty goes to.
38:50A tank that stops
38:51on Iwo Jima
38:52is not a dead tank.
38:54It is an item
38:55entering a process
38:56and the process
38:57has been designed.
38:59And then
39:00there is the detail
39:01that I think
39:01tells you more
39:02than any of the paperwork.
39:04The M32 recovery vehicle,
39:06the one that came ashore
39:08with those marine tank battalions,
39:10was not built from scratch.
39:11It was made by taking
39:12a finished Sherman tank
39:14off the line,
39:15removing the turret,
39:16taking out the gun,
39:18and fitting a crane
39:19and a winch instead.
39:21Think about the decision
39:22that represents.
39:23You have a completed tank,
39:25a weapon,
39:26something that can kill
39:27other tanks
39:28and knock down bunkers
39:29and win you ground.
39:31And you take the gun
39:32out of it
39:32and turn it into a vehicle
39:34whose entire purpose
39:35is to help other vehicles.
39:37The Americans did that
39:38well over a thousand times.
39:40That is the whole argument
39:42in one object.
39:43An army that will convert
39:44a thousand tanks
39:45into things that cannot fight
39:47because it has worked out
39:48that a wrecker
39:49puts more guns in the line
39:50than a gun does.
39:52There was also an input
39:53that had nothing to do
39:54with any general.
39:56Before the war,
39:57America was already
39:58the most motorized society
39:59on earth.
40:01Tens of millions of cars
40:02and trucks
40:03and tractors
40:03and a generation of young men
40:05who had grown up
40:06taking engines apart
40:07in barns
40:08because that was how
40:09you kept the family truck running.
40:10Japan in 1940
40:12had a fraction of that.
40:13A tiny motor industry,
40:15very few private vehicles,
40:17and a population
40:18where the ordinary young man
40:20had simply never had his hands
40:22inside a gearbox.
40:24So when both armies
40:25went looking for mechanics,
40:26one of them was recruiting men
40:28who already were mechanics,
40:30and the other one
40:31had to build them from nothing.
40:33at speed,
40:34during a war.
40:36That is not a comment
40:37about intelligence.
40:39It is a comment
40:40about what was in the barns.
40:42And I want to be honest
40:44about the cost
40:44of the American way,
40:45because it was not free,
40:47and it was not all wisdom.
40:49That enormous tail
40:50had to be paid for
40:52out of the same manpower,
40:53and American rifle companies
40:55felt it.
40:56Infantry divisions in Europe
40:58ran chronically short
40:59of riflemen,
41:00while the theater behind them
41:02was full of men
41:03in coveralls.
41:04The replacement system
41:06that fed those companies
41:07was brutal and badly handled.
41:09And the Sherman itself
41:10was a compromise,
41:11built to be shipped,
41:13maintained,
41:14and standardized,
41:15rather than to win a duel.
41:17And men died in it
41:18because of that.
41:20So this is not a story
41:21about one army being clever
41:23and another being foolish.
41:25It is a story
41:26about two armies
41:28making opposite bets
41:29with limited resources
41:30in wildly different circumstances,
41:33and one bet
41:34fitting the war
41:35they actually got.
41:37Which leaves
41:38one thing left to do.
41:39I want to go back
41:41to that island
41:42one last time,
41:43to the men in the fields
41:44at night,
41:45and to Nishi
41:46and his buried turrets,
41:47and to what was left
41:49of both tank forces
41:50when it was over.
41:52Because there is a number
41:53for Iwo Jima
41:54that I have been saving,
41:56and it is the one
41:57that made all of this land
41:59for me.
42:00The battle for Iwo Jima
42:02lasted 36 days.
42:0436 days
42:05on 8 square miles
42:06of volcanic ash
42:07against 21,000 men
42:09who were underground
42:10and had no intention
42:12of coming out.
42:13The marine tank battalions
42:15were in action
42:15for almost all of it.
42:17And here is the number
42:18I have been holding back,
42:19because it is not
42:20really a number.
42:21It is a shape.
42:23And once you see the shape,
42:25you cannot unsee it.
42:27Over a campaign like that,
42:29an American tank unit
42:30could record more tanks
42:32knocked out
42:32than it ever owned.
42:35Read that again,
42:36because it sounds like
42:36a mistake in the paperwork,
42:38and it is not.
42:39A battalion with 60 tanks
42:41reports being knocked out
42:4370, 80, 90 times.
42:46The arithmetic only makes
42:48sense one way.
42:49It is the same tanks.
42:51Hit, dragged out, fixed,
42:54sent back, hit again.
42:57There were Shermans on that island
42:59that were knocked out,
43:00recovered, and repaired twice,
43:02and a few three times.
43:05Same hull,
43:06same serial number.
43:08Often the same crew,
43:09going back into a machine
43:10they had already climbed out of once
43:12while it was burning.
43:14That is what the retriever was for.
43:16That is what the men
43:17with the cutting torch
43:18at two in the morning
43:19were for.
43:20Every one of those repairs
43:22is a tank
43:23that appeared in the American line
43:25the next day
43:25out of nothing.
43:27No factory involved,
43:29no ship involved,
43:30no convoy,
43:32no six-week wait.
43:34A tank conjured out of a tank
43:36that was already there.
43:39Now the other side of the island.
43:41Nishi had 23 tanks
43:43buried in the rock.
43:44They fought well.
43:46They killed Marines.
43:47Several of them held up
43:49entire attacks
43:50and had to be dealt with
43:51one at a time
43:52at close range
43:53by men crawling forward
43:55with demolition charges.
43:57All 23 were destroyed.
43:59Not one was recovered.
44:01Not one was repaired.
44:04Not one was replaced.
44:06There was no next tank
44:08because there was no next ship
44:10and by then
44:12there was very nearly
44:13no next factory either.
44:15And Nishi.
44:17He fought on the island
44:18until around the 22nd of March,
44:201945,
44:21leading what was left
44:22of his regiment
44:23on foot as infantry,
44:25which is where all tank crews
44:26without tanks end up.
44:28He was killed.
44:30Exactly how
44:31is not certain
44:31and I would rather tell you that
44:33than pretend.
44:35His body was never
44:36definitively identified.
44:38There was a famous story
44:39that the Americans,
44:40knowing the Olympic champion
44:42was on the island,
44:43called to him over loudspeakers
44:45and asked him to surrender.
44:47It is a wonderful story.
44:48It may not be true
44:50and you should treat it
44:51as a story
44:52rather than a fact.
44:54What is not in doubt
44:55is the shape of it.
44:56A man who won a gold medal
44:58in Los Angeles
44:59in front of a cheering
45:00American crowd
45:01died 12 years later
45:03on a volcanic island
45:05fighting the grandchildren
45:06of that crowd
45:07next to 23 tanks
45:09that nobody was ever
45:10coming to collect.
45:12Go to those islands today
45:13and some of them
45:14are still there.
45:15Japanese hulls
45:17in the undergrowth
45:18on Saipan
45:19on Peleliu
45:20on Guadalcanal
45:21sitting more or less
45:23where they stopped
45:2480 years ago
45:25with trees growing
45:26through them.
45:28Nobody towed them
45:29anywhere then
45:30and nobody has since.
45:32The American tanks
45:33are mostly not there.
45:35That is the whole point.
45:36They were recovered,
45:38repaired,
45:39shipped home,
45:40scrapped,
45:41sold,
45:42sunk on purpose,
45:42turned into something else.
45:44They kept moving
45:46because moving them
45:47was somebody's job.
45:49And the crews went home too.
45:51That is the part
45:52that follows from all of it
45:53and I do not want
45:54to leave it out.
45:55The system that saved the tanks
45:57saved the men inside them,
45:59pulled them out,
46:01patched them up,
46:01and gave them something
46:02to climb back into.
46:05Preserving machines
46:06and preserving people
46:07turned out to be
46:08the same job.
46:10So what do I actually
46:12take from all this?
46:13The war in the Pacific
46:14was decided by a lot of things
46:15and most of the famous ones
46:17are the ones you would expect.
46:19Carriers,
46:20code breaking,
46:21submarines,
46:21the atomic bombs,
46:22and above all,
46:23the raw fact
46:24of American industrial size.
46:27But underneath all of that,
46:28there is a quieter mechanism
46:30and it is the one
46:31I find myself thinking about.
46:33Two armies both had
46:34tanks that broke.
46:36Everyone's tanks break.
46:37The difference was not
46:38in the breaking
46:39and it was not really
46:40in the building either.
46:41It was in what happened
46:43in the hours afterwards.
46:45One army had built
46:46a whole apparatus,
46:47a vehicle,
46:48a chain of workshops,
46:50a stock of parts,
46:51a command at the top
46:52of the army,
46:53and men whose entire war
46:54was spent fixing things
46:56they had not broken.
46:58The other army,
46:59through no fault
47:00of the men involved,
47:01had the tank
47:02and then the sea.
47:03There is no monument
47:05to that.
47:05There is no photograph
47:06of it.
47:07Nobody raises a flag
47:09over a repaired
47:10final drive.
47:11The famous image
47:12of Iwo Jima
47:13is six men
47:14and a flagpole
47:14on top of Suribachi
47:16and it deserves
47:17to be famous.
47:18But if you want
47:19the image that explains
47:20why the Americans
47:22were still able
47:22to attack
47:23on day 30
47:24of that battle,
47:25it is not
47:26on the mountain.
47:27It is a man
47:28lying under a tank,
47:29in the dark,
47:30in the rain,
47:31on an island
47:32full of people
47:33trying to kill him,
47:34with a torch
47:35and a wrench
47:36and a part he has
47:37just taken off
47:38a burned out hull,
47:40doing a job
47:41that will never
47:41be in a film.
47:43He is the reason
47:44the tank was there
47:45in the morning.
47:47Wars are won
47:48by people who can fight,
47:49but they are very often
47:51decided by people
47:52who can fix,
47:53and almost nobody
47:55ever learns their names.
47:58Thanks for watching.