About the Episode
Two years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt and his strategists are determined to launch a sustained bombing campaign against Japan. The key is the United States’ new long-range bomber, the B-29 Superfortress. But the Americans need a base within range of Japan’s home islands to operate from.
China, under Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek, looks like the logical choice. But after years of sustained Japanese encroachment, and amid its own civil war with Communist forces, Chiang needs a massive influx of Allied support to make this a viable option.
In early 1944, the Allies launch an operation through the Burmese jungle to shore up China. Unbeknownst to them, the Japanese have designs on the crown jewel of the British Empire: India. The two sides will clash along the Burmese-Indian border and in the dense jungles of Burma in the “forgotten theater” of World War II.
And all the while, the US Navy is fighting its way across the Pacific toward another potential B-29 base: the Mariana Islands.
The National WWII Museum was proud to support HISTORY's work on this series through historical research, educational outreach, and archival footage, as well as on-site interviews with WWII veterans that will be featured as part of the network’s “Save Our History” initiative.
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Road to Tokyo
The Richard C. Adkerson & Freeport-McMoRan Foundation Road to Tokyo: Pacific Theater Galleries retraces the grueling trail that led from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. The exhibit explores the evolving strategy for fighting relentless Japanese forces in Asia and the Pacific, examining cultural differences, logistical challenges, and the staggering range of extreme conditions that confronted American military forces.
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