S1.E43 ∙ Program No. 43: Joan Semmel, Painting a Portrait

Documentary (with some re-enacted footage) of the British army's participation in the Battle of the Somme in France during World War I.

Documentation of the encroachment of European settlers upon Native American lands and the violent reaction of the Indians in their struggle to survive.

Evidence that the United States and Britain knew beforehand of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Marty Callaghan's Synopsis: Except for the Dardanelles/Gallipoli campaigns, the extensive combat operations in the Middle East during World War I have been largely overlooked in documentary programs. Given the historical significance of the Ottoman Empire's demise in 1918, and the ongoing importance of Middle Eastern oil reserves to Western economies, a close study of this conflict provides two important lessons: 1. The Treaty of Versailles, agreed to by the Western Powers in 1919, paved the way for military and political chaos in the Middle East, which continues to this very day. 2. Oil reserves in the Middle East became an important strategic concern for Western Powers, helping to justify their economic, diplomatic and military interference in the region. After the end of World War I, most of the Ottoman Empire was carved up into "spheres of influence", controlled mostly by the British and French. The remaining territories became the modern state of Turkey in 1923 - after a five-year struggle by Turkish nationalists against Western domination. With little regard for cultural, historical, religious and demographic considerations, the West sponsored the creation of several new nations: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Thus, a "tinderbox" was built from Western greed, igniting a multitude of wars, revolts, coups and military occupations that truly have made the defeat of the Ottoman Empire little more than a hollow victory.

October 24, 1944, Japan's navy gambles on a decisive victory against the United States to turn the tide of World War II. Instead, Musashi, its top-secret super battleship, ends up at the bottom of the ocean.

The men of Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment describe the ferocious battle for the Island of Peleliu, "an island on fire." In conditions that tested the sanity of each man, 9,000 Marines attacked 10,000 battle hardened Japanese soldiers dug into hundred of fortified and reinforced coral and limestone caves. Twenty-eight days of unrelenting battle with no quarter being given or taken. Brutal, harrowing, but heart-rending, the stories of these soldiers truly speak to the horror of war. This remarkable documentary features interviews with Eugene "Sledgehammer" Sledge (author of "With the Old Breed") , R. V. Bergin (author of "Islands of the Damned"), William Leyden, Jay de L'eau, and Roy Kelly. Sledge, Bergin Leyden, and de L'eau were characterized in the HBO series "The Pacific."