Pacific: The Lost Evidence

8 x 60 min for the History Channel

During the war in the pacific, tens of thousands of aerial reconnaissance photographs were taken. Men risked their lives in covert missions to capture these images. These pictures would be analysed by tacticians and the US high command. On the basis of what could be seen in these prints, decisions were made that would cost and save lives, decisions that would shape history.

The most brutal theatre of operations in WW2 is acted out in these prints. A moment in time, captured at high altitude, immortalised in 1/1400th of a second. Now, the ghosts in these pictures are brought back to life through the art of computer generated graphics. Sixty years on, this astounding forgotten archive tells the story of this bitter and bloody conflict from a unique perspective.

PACIFIC: THE LOST EVIDENCE is a series of 8 x 1 hr programmes using a new way to tell the dramatic story of the war in the Pacific. With cutting edge
CGI techniques we bring alive aerial photographs by creating out of them 3-D
models of the key battlefields of the Pacific. Combined with unique archive
film, powerful reconstructions and compelling interviews with survivors, the
series gets right inside some of the epic battles of World War Two in the
Pacific.

IWO JIMA
On February 19th 1945, men of the United States Marine Corps invaded Iwo Jima. Over the next 36 days, this small island was to become the site of a titanic struggle of sheer bloody will and determination. The Marines had to expel over 21,000 tenacious Japanese troops from a labyrinth of fortifications dug into the very bowels of this sulphurous island.

GUADALCANAL
On August 7th 1942 over 19,000 Marines invaded Guadalcanal. Their orders: to seize and hold this tropical island. In the first American offensive of the Pacific War, these young Americans took on the seemingly invincible Japanese. Over the next six months, they fought a series of bitter battles that would earn them a place in history.

TARAWA
On November 20th 1943 one of the most ferocious battles in American history began. The target was a tiny island called Tarawa. With its vital airfield Tarawa was the first step in the island hopping campaign that would lead to Japan.

PEARL HARBOR
December 7th 1941 is, as President Roosevelt declared, “a date which will live in infamy”. The unprovoked attack on the US Pacific Fleet moored at Pearl Harbor is one of the key moments in modern history. It signalled the entry of the United States into the Second World War, it turned the war into a global conflict and it marked the emergence of the US as a military superpower.

SAIPAN
June 15th 1944. Just over a week after the D-Day invasion of Normandy, on the other side of the world, 70,000 Marines storm ashore on the Pacific island of Saipan. For the first time in the war American fighting men stand on Japanese soil. Facing them are 30,000 Japanese soldiers with massed tanks and artillery who have sworn to defend the island to the death.

LEYTE GULF
October 20th 1944, US troops storm ashore on the island of Leyte. After two long years under Japanese occupation the Liberation of the Philippines has begun. But the invasion triggers the Japanese Navy’s last ditch attempt to stop the American advance in the Pacific. The result is the largest naval battle in world history.

GUAM
On July 21st 1944, American Marines and GIs invade the island of Guam. Over the next 21 days, this Japanese stronghold in the Mariana islands would become a bitter and bloody battlefield as American forces fight to expel nearly 19,000 tenacious Japanese troops from their heavily defended positions.

OKINAWA
It was the greatest and most costly American campaign in the Pacific War in which over a quarter of a million people lost their lives. It was a conflict that was to test a vast modern war machine against an increasingly desperate enemy. As the Allied juggernaut closed in on the home islands of Japan, the island’s defenders would rely on suicide tactics and banzai charges to stall the invasion force. It became known as ‘the last great battle’ – the fight for Okinawa.