Pearl Harbor, World War II and the Silent Wrecks of Kwajalein

On an otherwise calm Sunday morning on December 7, 1941, the Japanese shocked the world by bombing the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The devastating attack killed or wounded over 3,500, and pushed the United States into World War II. The next day Congress declared war on Japan only hours after the country listened intently to President Roosevelt's historic 'Day Of Infamy' speech. On the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Janson Media recalls a often overlooked but significant battle in the Pacific that eventually helped lead to Japan's unconditional surrender.

The Silent Wrecks of Kwajalein Atoll is a documentary film about a perfectly executed World War II mission that took place at the end of January 1944, in which U.S. forces defeated the Japanese at a little-known outpost in the Marshall Islands called Kwajalein Atoll. As part of the effort to win control of this crucial gateway to the Japanese empire, U.S. aircraft bombarded Japanese supply ships in the lagoon at Kwajalein for several weeks prior to the attack, sinking most of them, some still at anchor, and others as they attempted to escape. Little is left of the Battle of Kwajalein except these silent wrecks still lying at the bottom of the lagoon where they were defeated, out of sight and forgotten until now. After the war, the lagoon at Kwajalein was the dumping ground for World War II-era American war planes including Corsairs, B-25s, C-46s, and the SBD Dauntless. But few people have ever seen these wrecks because Kwajalein has been a restricted military base since the end of World War II. Now, for the first time, the U.S. military has granted permission to an outside film crew to document the wrecks for posterity, before they are lost forever to the dusts of time.

A review by Educational Media Reviews Online recommends this fascinating film, now available on DVD.

The Silent Wrecks of Kwajalein Atoll introduces the viewer to an undersea world of ships and aircraft slowly corroding in the lagoon where they were sunk nearly 60 years before. A tour, not only of the wrecks, but of the vibrant underwater world they now support, the goal of the Oceanic Research Group seemingly goes far beyond their stated desire to document these lost tools of war; rather, their presentation successfully places these ships and aircraft in a larger continuum, one which ranges from business, war, and death, to today"s historical perspective and continued life. The result exudes strength in the wealth of exposure it provides to seldom dealt-with topics... A combination of dive footage, surface documentary of present-day Kwajalein Atoll, archival footage, and interviews... this documentary is highly recommended for its presentation of a story which goes far beyond the invasion of a Pacific atoll in January 1944. - Educational Media Reviews Online

Read the entire review here.

Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO) is a database of video, DVD, audio CD and CD-ROM reviews of materials from major educational and documentary distributors and independent filmmakers. The reviews are written by librarians and teaching faculty in institutions across the United States and Canada.