War Time: WWII

Shōhō ("Lucky Phoenix") is the first Japanese aircraft carrier ever sunk; 600+ crew are dead to bombs, fire, or drowning.

US torpedo bombers have sunk Japanese aircraft carrier Shōhō in the Coral Sea; Navy pilot Robert Dixon radios: "Scratch one flat top!"

For first time in history, two enemy fleets in the Coral Sea are fighting not with warships, but with planes, in a dramatic aerial battle of dogfights & bombing runs.

Japanese & US Navies continue their long-range duel in the Coral Sea, launching fleets of warplanes against each other:

American Colonel Mellnik is one of 11,000 captives from Corregidor: "The silence after the surrender was worse than the shelling. It's uncanny, awful."

Japanese troops celebrate on Corregidor, finally taken after five months of battle- Tokyo planned to conquer the Philippines in just two months.

Island of Corregidor, last US stronghold in the west Pacific, has fallen. 13,000 Allied troops surrendering to Japanese Army:

General Wainwright, US commander on Corregidor, telegraphs President Roosevelt: "There is a limit of human endurance, and that point has long been passed."

Defence of Corregidor is collapsing. Japanese troops are about to storm the island's hospital, Malinta tunnel, packed with 1000 helpless casualties.

Despite brave Filipino & American resistance, Corregidor's defenders are outnumbered & outgunned, trying to cover miles of beaches with limited men & ammunition; Japanese are flooding ashore.

Amidst the wrecks of other invasion craft, Japanese troops are suffering terrible death toll to US firepower on Corregidor's oil-slicked beaches.

Japanese troops are staging amphibious landings on Corregidor island, eager to break the last vestiges of American resistance in the Philippines.