Miles back from bases in saipan, tinian, and guam. Here, 21st bomber clan concentrated its massive airpower and planned the ultimate crushing defeat of japan, down to the last bomb. Here was the beginning of the end of the road to tokyo. After six months of reoccupation, there were few signs of war along the quiet summer shores of guam. The liberated people were back in their native villages, american citizens again, smiling and friendly, unaware a miracle had happened around them. A miracle that moved mountains of material, equipment, and supplies across the pacific. That changed their dirt roads into broad highways. That manicured their jungles into blacktop airfields, and nearby, new communities of american citizens had set up housekeeping with various types of selfservice. The latest laborsaving devices, few laundry problems and no modern inconveniences. By midsummer, 21st Bomber Command was in business, big business. Under general lemays direction, the long arm began punching the enemy with the fulllength power, from guam, tinian and saipan, 600 plane missions in two months. Behind this expanding power was planning. The lemay plan began on the ground with maintenance. Assemblyline technique cut engine change time from three days to half a day and ground nightworked day and during the blitz weeks to keep more b29s on the line. By july, lemays Bomber Command is an efficient well oiled machine of destruction. Here is the final cog of that machine. 11 men in a bomber. While they wind up for action, lets find out what theyre going to do, and why, and what. How do they set up the longest, toughest Bomber Mission in history . It began 12 hours ago in the war room at guam with general lemay and his staff receiving a report for tomorrows weather in japan. Tomorrows forecast is typical. Nagoya 8 10 cloud above 10,000 feet. In the east, tokyo area will be 6 10 of 22,000, 3 10 at 14,000 feet, closing up solid after 11 00 a. M. Osaka and everything west is reported completely socked in. Narrator how would the general solve that one . His b29s are up against a blank wall except through possible opening around tokyo. The old man considers every vital factor and makes his decision. Four wings will strike tokyo at 10 00. They will go in under that weather and bomb at 12,000. Now it is a question of target selection. First priority in the tokyo area is number 573. Intelligence informs the general that 573 is already three quarters destroyed. At the moment, number 574 is still untouched and would seem more important. Operations checks the tactical plan for 574. General lemay orders oks the , target and commences all executive details to his staff. Operations with his deputy chief of staff and project officer goes to work setting up the changes. In that plans folder is the mountain of preparation by special sections of intelligence and operations, 1000 hours of research, collated facts and figures have been distilled into tactical plan 574. Aircraft will assemble as brief with be 50 once as escort be 51s as escort. Smoke markers at one minute intervals will be dropped by lead claims to expedite from Assembly Point. One squadron each wing will carry n47 incendiary clusters. Other squadrons 500 and 1000 pound gp bombs fused, altitude of attack 12,000 feet. Planes of the 314th wing will carry capacity fuel loads of approximately 7300 gallons per plane. Calibrated airspeed of 210 Miles Per Hour will be flown by all aircraft on bombing run. Radar landfall, 3450 north and 140 east will be the same for all planes to afford a good land water contrast checkpoint. The navy has requested to furnish the following facilities for airspeed rescue purposes. Three surface vessels to proceed to positions x, four submarines assigned to lifeguard duty at positions y. At station z orbit. Dumbos at the following positions. Narrator each section of the plan is double checked, to certain rise to supervise certain aspects of planning, lt. Col. Captain a former lead , crew pilot was recently brought over the staff as project officer. This officers extensive combat experience now helps iron out operational kinks. He will accompany this mission to observe new Smoke Signals at Assembly Point. A field order is now dispatched to the wings. Takeoff time is flashed to the controller, who coordinates the vast network of communications gathered here at the heart and nerve center of command. Here in the control room status panels and a Mission Board are maintained to show at a glance the countless uptotheminute details of all daily operations. Prior to takeoff, each mission is set up on the board to afford a visual process of the flight, from takeoff to target, and return. Colored yarns, one for each wing, are laid out to indicate the flightlines. Which path close to iwo jima, the halfway point. And proceed as specified in the field order to the proper target. Other symbols are used to mark airsea rescue missions. A timetable of statistics for each wing is planned and flown as recorded from hourly reports, on the status panels beginning , with takeoff time. Noise]propeller to veteran crews, it is just another days work, one more 1500mile haul up down the ruddy pacific, 15 hours, 7000 gallons, four engines, 11 guys. Not wood. A water jump across 20 degrees of the globe, a continent of ocean. Destination, tokyo. It is like taking off in mexico for targets in canada. The 314th is airborne, 145 planes one minute apart, 67 tons each. Those b29 takeoffs are a tough sweat. That first long moment is the worst. Some swear it takes luck, like a wifes stocking, to beat it. At 100 miles north, two more b29 wings prepare for takeoff. 134 aircraft from the 58th wing. 100 more from the 313th wing. At taipan a few minutes later, the veteran 73rd wing lines of up for takeoff. 153 more bombers are added to the mission striking force. [propeller noises] the last b29 is airborne at 15 40. The tower of saipan relays this information to the controller back at guam. First and last takeoff times of each wing are recorded here and go to make up the first of a series of tabulated mission reports. Copies of these reports are dispatched to Headquarters Washington and posted on the control room report board. During the first hour, the b29s have settled down for the big grind, saving precious gas, cruising 1000 feet off the water, ability, experience, confidence ride in each plane. A plan of action for 11 men trained and tested to function as one. The navigator sets the course, logging island checkpoints as they climb past the northern marianas. After about four hours of flight, the bombers pass closer to iwo jima. The hot rock, a black, gritty to, chop halfway to hong 8000 square miles bought and paid for by our marines. We made some quick changes. Cutting away the sulfurous volcanic crust and rolling iwos surface into one enormous flat top. Three big airstrips now launch our be 51s for bomber escort over japan. General moore and his staff run the show and direct all rescue operations in close cooperation with Bomber Command. A last minute briefing check just to make sure todays fighter escort knows all airsea rescue positions. Out on the line, general moores p51s are warming up for the longest fighter flight on record. Seven hours on one engine, extra belly tank, extra nerve and stamina in the cockpit. About the time our bomber wings are passing iwo jima, the pea shooters are taking off. Scheduled to join them 3. 5 hours later off the shores of japan. After a rendezvous, the p51s head for Assembly Point led by b29s designated as navigators ships. Far ahead the bomber wings ahead on the last wing to the empire. Reports back to the control at guam give their flight position, which is kept up to the hour on the Mission Board. Still at low altitude, the b29s are approaching the bad weather belt where unreported storms appear suddenly across the bomber course. Pilot to crew. We are going to start our climb. Check oxygen equipment. [indiscernible] narrator as they begin their slow climb to altitude, the crews prepare for the vital business ahead. From now on until they come off target and head home, it is all business. The central fire control system is warmed up. Superhuman brainpower at the flick of a switch. Each gunner flexes his sights and tries the coordinated fire controls with a few short bursts to clear the guns. After pushing up to altitude, the bombers arrive close to Assembly Point. Air in the pressurized cabin is comparable to 8000 feet, but oxygen masks are adjusted and ready for instant use. From the southeast a fighter escort appears with its navigator ships, which now turn off to wait for the fighters return to rally point. The mustangs climb in formation to take positions of both the boxes of b29s. Lead bombers begin to circle, dropping the new smoke markers for assembly. The project officer observes this part of the tactical plan in action. From various zone positions, the groups separate. And form on their lead ships in nine or 11 plane waves. Which head for initial point. The big parade is on. Landfall is picked up, along with the first from enemy coastal battery. Fujiyama, the familiar white beacon, marks the initial point. Strikes become heavier and more accurate. The first jap snoopers appear, diving headon into the formations. Some are suicide fighters trying to ram our bombers. Other jap fighters drop phosphorus bombs that will be set to explode in front of the oncoming b29s. Our p51s go out after them and know they are tangling with experts. Protects job is to the b29s. For some of those jap fighters, they will meet the blast of bomber guns. [gunfire] a tailgunner pleads with a nip fighter to come in a little closer. [plane sounds] from the turn at initial point the tight bomber weight has moved steadily on and gets ready for business. Flack and fighters fall off. But those clouds are beginning to close in, and it looks worse ahead. Then just east of hachioji, the tokyo area breaks clear. The bombardiers begin to draw a beat on 574. Their planes sit tight for the bombing run. Heres where we pay off. Two jap aircraft plants and an air drone 12,000 feet below are prepared to receive 4000 tons of destruction. The first waves of b29s have already found their objective. Succeeding bomber groups add their devastation to the smoking targets. Tactical plan 574 is now an accomplished fact. The bombers turned and go downwind across the burnt acres of tokyo. Closeup cameras show the scars of those spectacular fire strikes last march. 51 square miles of lemay treatment. Across the bay, and a tail wind speeds them south down the peninsula. This is fighter country. The first call on intercom, the mustangs peel off and go to work again. [aircraft engines] with the big bombers homeward bound, the p51s drop down for straight runs. Concentrating on objectives from here to the enemy coast. Going along a maximum speed, the fighters go to work cutting off vital jap pipelines, blasting away at communications, radio installations, power lines. [gunfire] swooping down on enemy transportation, railroads, marshaling yards, small suburban factories. [gunfire] and airfields. [gunfire] then on to shipping targets, freighters, fishermen, trawlers, harbor and coastal. Destroyer or lugger, it is the same enemy. [gunfire] after strafing, our fighters climb back to rally point and the waiting b29 navigator planes. With the first sight of iwo, fuel gauges are down to close to empty. But fighter spirits begin to rise. They wind up and finish with a i withcoming past sunabach a whiplash speed and going into their victory roles. Once over for each jap kill. Propeller noises] after the last fighter groups are in, all hands limp in, the first b29s. That runway is a beautiful site, as they let down with engines out, low in gas, all beat up by flak and fighters. In three months, nearly 2000 crippled or gas shied b29s haven here. You can understand why those four fan boys bless those marines and even name their planes after those marines. The lucky ones depart for home bases in an hour. But iwo still has its hazards. Weather can turn this station into a hopeless day. Fog and quick overcast often blocks out the airstrip during these periods. That means orders to bail out. Or with luck it b29 might drop ditching. From here, you can see how the cloud cover up there smothers the runway, and realize what one pilot went through. Sometimes the battle scarred bomber staggers back to iwo only to flatten out at the last heartbreaking second. [siren wailing] by some miracle, the whole crew got away from the station to safety before 2000 gallons of flaming gas enveloped them. Firefighters risk their lives to save the ship. This too takes carriage beyond the line of duty. Far to the south most of the , wings are nearing their bases. Exhausted crews wait out the last endless hours, when time seems to stop. Their position is radioed in. And the controller gets word of the approaching flight. At last the familiar marianas appear on the horizon. The bombers fly across guam and turn into the landing pattern. 15 hours ago, they left the other end of that runway. It is a pleasure to be back. A pleasure to roll on solid familiar blacktop. It is good to feel a sudden humid heat, to be among the living. Swapping details with the ground crew. Flak, fighters, the close call, the one that got away. But some of those b29 crews wont be able to talk it over today. 11 men and a bomber that did not quite make it. [airplane engines roaring] [siren wailing] the rescue squads tear away the hot metal. Somehow in that burning wreckage, a man has lived to feel those eager, gallant hands. One life saved and ten lost. That is part of todays toll. And there were many other days and nights that took their toll of Young American lives in the service of our relentless expanding airpower. By the end of july, our b29s had all but obliterated the enemys ability to make war. 1000plane missions were hitting japan with twice the tonnage that ever fell on germany. The question was, how much longer would a beaten japan hold out . In august, we made a test that never was applied to germany. Land, while great land, sea, and air forces gathered for the last invasion, our b29s dropped two atomic bombs. Which hastened the surrender of japan and saved untold thousands of american lives. And the mission of our air forces, which began nearly four years ago, was accomplished. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you can watch archival films on Public Affairs in their entirety on our weekly series reel america saturday and sunday here on American History tv. This sunday yale law professor justin driver talks about the southern manifesto, written by congressional numbers who opposed the supreme courts 1954 brown v. Board of education decision which ruled that segregated schools were unconstitutional. Heres a preview. So what was the southern manifesto . When people think about it today, it is very much in shrouded in the myth of nostalgia we dont think about it at all. We think of segregationists as heaven having taken leave of their senses in the southern manifesto is a screed that found yellhing else but a rebel sounds like nothing else but a rebel yell. Commentators say that it was driven by fear, anger and mental illness. Just about any emotion or condition that reduces or rational thought. We hear that it see the it hed with anger, bristled with angry words and had ugly vehemence. People say the designers were fanatic segregationists. This line of thinking finds its height in Richard Lugars simple justice, a magnificent work i hold in great admiration. He says the southern manifesto an eject elysian of bile of bile. On it is hard to square with what is there on the page. A close examination of the manifesto undermines underlines that southern politicians were blighted by rage. Blinded by rage. To the contrary they often had logical arguments which had nuance and sophistication than their detractors have allowed. Recovering those arguments in detail allows one to understand how the manifesto should be viewed as the missing dissent around board versus bridget bored people brown v. Board of education. [ambient sounds] announcer 1 you are watching American History tv, covering history with eyewitness accounts, archival films, lectures in College Classrooms and visits to museums and historic places, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. [distant conversation] announcer 1 next historian Joanne Freeman talks about the logic behind the american dueling culture before and after the civil war. She describes the socalled code of honor that led to dueling and explains the political strategies behind these confrontations. She is the author of the field of blood, violence in congress and the road to civil war. This talk was part of the William Crawley great lives lecture series hosted by the university of mary washington. [applause] william hello everybody. , good evening. Welcome to tonights great lives presentation. I would like first to thank the program sponsor, the herschel law firm, for their generous support not this year but for several years now. It is this kind of Corporate Support along with many of you individuals that enables the great lives series to thrive. So i would like to ask our good friends from