[Music] [Music] [Music] from this atmosphere of growing crisis London dispatches again expressed the belief that Japan is about to collaborate even more openly with Germany that Japan is about to embark with the Germans in a plan who is ultimate aim is to seize and hold all the strategic points governing Berlin [Music] Germany and Japan will soon be at war with the world [Music] [Music] for these men modern war means mobile war in which their hunger for conquest is driven by a thirst for oil [Music] royal is the untold story of World War two oil was a very important dimension of the global configuration called the Second World War it had a critical impact a decisive impact on strategy and the conduct of the war and it was central to the outcome Hitler came to power in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression he built the Autobahn a network of super highways he put Germany back to work [Music] done the thing that didn't hurt you a Germany on wheels was essential to Hitler's vision of war in the 20th century it was fascinated by modern technology especially by motorisation motorisation was the key to conquer large parts of the Soviet Union and of other parts of Europe 1936 the Berlin Auto Show Hitler took great pride in Germany's technological powers but Germany had almost no oil of its own to fuel Hitler's war machine for his oil problem in the 1930s was a microcosm of Germany's general resource problem the country is extraordinarily poor in natural resources cold water wood earth air that's about what Germany has and that's been of course over the period since the Industrial Revolution began one of the great impetuses to german chemical development German chemists were the best in the world and Germany's leading chemical producer as a company called IG Farben this was a firm that had enormous amounts of cash in 1925 IG Farben was the biggest private corporation in Europe in the middle of the 1920s the challenge was to convert one of those few resources that the Germans had brown and a hard coal into the lifeblood of a modern industrial system i G had shown it could make synthetic oil in a test-tube now it began to produce over 2,000 barrels a day coal was pulverized and liquefied under high pressure the result was a substance with much the same properties as oil it was an achievement that one IG scientist the Nobel Prize for chemistry but by the late 1920s this expensive process which was a very big engineering effort was languishing because it simply could not compete with cheap oil in the world market and it continued to languish until Hitler came to power and he recognized in synthetic fuels a solution to one of his major problems as he built his war machine German fuel production must be developed with the utmost speed this task must be handled with his same determination as the waging of a war since on its solution depends the future conduct of the war Hitler was in a race with time to get ready for war [Music] [Applause] [Music] World War two began in 1939 [Music] that they're invaded Poland in the first of a series of blitzkrieg [Music] the main idea of blitzkrieg war wars to end the war as quickly as possible by a campaign which would overrun the anime because Germany had a crucial lack of raw materials it could not afford to fight a long war it had to get definitive success before the raw material question would come into play when Germany occupied France she conquered large stocks of oil and in 1940 the German oil situation was quite a good one with the fall of Western Europe Hitler's next target was the conquest of Britain the Battle of bronze did over the Battle of Britain is about to begin upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization in the summer of 1940 the German Luftwaffe for a time it looked like the Germans would win again help would come from a test tube while German chemists had invented a substitute for oil the Americans had refined it and created a powerful nearly aviation fuel Hitler's Air Force ran into the technological skills of American oil men they had developed during the 1930s a hundred octane fuel that it proved to be critical in the Battle of Britain because it gave the Spitfires greater power greater lift greater maneuverability in their air battles with the Messerschmitts [Music] [Music] [Music] with the Battle of Britain Hitler suffered defeat for the first time today was the most costly for the German air force for nearly a month it was officially announced that by 10 o'clock tonight 175 Raiders were known to have been destroyed by our fighters Harvard University in 1919 its campus was graced by an impressive and entertaining young officer of the Japanese Navy he said ruku Yamamoto Admiral Yamamoto is a very bright man he came to the United States ostensibly as a student at Harvard but didn't really spend any time in classes there I could find no record of his having attended classes taking examinations or gotten marks but what he did do was to travel around the United States he wanted to see the extent of oil in the United States we observed the tremendous productivity of the oil fields every place there were gushers and oil was being piped and trucked all over and there seemed to be no end of it this extraordinary American oil industry was supplying 80 percent of Japan's oil yamamoto recognized that oil would be absolutely essential in the modern age and it would be absolutely essential for a modern military Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931 it was the first step in japan's quest to capture all of Asia's vital resources workers were forced into slave labor and raw materials shipped back to Japan Japan would call it a co-prosperity sphere the term at the time in my opinion was really a code word for Japanese Empire imperialism because it was used to justify the expansion into North China and ultimately into the southern southern area region the vocabulary was about cooperation but the practice was clearly an imperialistic move the Japanese had plans to dominate all of Southeast Asia an island nation with few resources Japan coveted the raw materials of the entire region but the biggest prize lay furthest south in the island thin called the Dutch East Indies in this tropical paradise lay one of the world's richest oil reserves but the oil of the Indies was already spoken for by American British and Dutch oil companies for the Japanese this became the most important strategic target in the Pacific from the Japanese point of view the Indies represent autonomy that was the prize because if they could control Indies oil they felt they had enough resources in every other area to be autonomous and would not be controlled by the United States or anybody else the man who would lead Japan's effort to get the oil was general Hideki Tojo Tojo was called the razor which was meant to capture the sharpness of his character he was totally and completely devoted to Japan's expansion to its creation of an empire that would encompass all of Asia and he took the lead among the military men in pushing Japan down the road to war [Music] as Japan's atrocities in China mounted Americans became outraged there was a tremendous amount of American concern about Japanese behavior in China sympathy for the Chinese people and the hue and cry in this country led to a progressive attempts to cut off Japan's lost apply American public opinion clamored for an embargo President Roosevelt feared an embargo could provoke a war but when Japan invaded Indochina today's Vietnam his cabinet debated what should be done nobody had an idea what to do except Morgenthau Treasury he said let's freeze Japanese flanks Roosevelt ok but don't cut off the oil he said that in the cabinet meeting itself well the mechanism for freezing funds had the practical effect of cutting off Japan's ability to buy American oil therefore for all practical purposes in July of 1941 we cut off Japan's all supply and the clock started ticking in Japan Tojo was named Prime Minister the Razr reacted sharply to the oil embargo how can we let the United States continue to do as she pleases I fear that we would become a third class nation after two or three years if we just sat tight from Japan spend the view time is of the essence because the longer they waited the quantity of oil that they had particular Japanese Navy would be depleted by that much and therefore it was very crucial to come to some kind of a decision some kind of compromise who are war one with the other as quickly as possible among the leaders most opposed to war was the man who knew the u.s. firsthand since his days at Harvard Admiral Yamamoto to fight the United States is like fighting the whole world but it has been decided so I will do my best Yamamoto was convinced that if Japan was to take the Indies it must first take out the US fleet at Pearl Harbor from Artie and his Navy pilots have been secretly rehearsing the attack at a secluded Japanese base [Music] the theory was that once they got the oil they would have to ship it by seat back to Japan what was a major threat their American Navy where was the American Navy Pearl Harbor so the real thrust at Pearl Harbor was an intent to knock out the fleet to protect the oil supply December 7th 1941 [Music] the attack on Pearl Harbor tripled America's Pacific Fleet the Japanese made this film recreating their victory in the film American oil supplies were a prime target but in real life the oil tanks were left untouched [Music] yamamoto staff was debrief just after the war by captain Roger Pino he wanted to know why the oil tanks weren't attacked I asked Admiral Tomioka that very question I had showed him a picture of the attack on Pearl Harbor taken from an attacking plane and I said to him and his staff former staff officers who were at our meeting you know you gentlemen know what this picture is and he said they all smiled said yes that's the attack on Pearl Harbor and I said do you know what those round white circles are up in the top of the picture and they all nodded yes and Admiral Tomioka said that's the fuel tank farm on Oahu and I said how many bombs did you drop on that and he said no bombs not a target of attack with that storage supply of fuel gone the United States fleet could not have moved and since the immobilization of the United States fleet was the basic reason for attacking Pearl Harbor it's peculiar that it didn't occur to the Japanese to knock out the oil tanks the Japanese were thinking not of America's oil supply but of their own just 10 weeks after Pearl Harbor they landed in the Indies [Music] before being evacuated the oil men laid plans to sabotage the Wells and refineries at that point there was only a small continue about 15 men left and they got out by boat and when you talk with them not talk with Lloyd his name was shorty Eliot huge man he was shorty Elliot afterwards he said he was a mixed feeling because in the one hand they were destroying the life's work the other thing it was exhilarating the Japanese brought within a team of all men from Japan with invasion and actually they got the fields back in operation in about two months period of time they've never reached the same production level that was going on before the war but they got the production up and was adequate for Japan's supply for about two or three years right after they took the fields and gave back in operation they felt they were going to win [Applause] Hitler too was dreaming of oil the great oil fields of the Soviet Union [Music] in June 1941 Germany invaded Russia [Music] this is Berlin Adamic troops are advancing into Russia speedily a German up again to company report said tonight because of the character of the terrain and the speed when he embarked from Operation Barbarossa Hitler hoped the do turn out to be a blitzkrieg like the ones here weighs against France and Poland and at first his successes were dazzling but soon the territory the Germans were conquering became their enemy this distance in Russia are unbelievable Russia is not accountable she is a continent you cannot finish with a blitzkrieg of some months or some weeks I had go and say three months is the maximum time we need to break the resistance of Russia this was completely wrong without proper roads German tanks and trucks burned twice the fuel anticipated as the week's dragged into months dirt roads became rivers of mud the weather became worse very soon first miss rain and snow and strong and later was a terrible cold so let's adjourn advance really stopped in the mud as oil froze in their engines the German advance stalled on the outskirts of Moscow Hitler and his generals renewed their argument over strategy the German generals wanted to eliminate the powerful concentration of troops that defended Moscow that is good military doctrine but Hitler wanted to turn south east towards the Black Sea and the Caucasian oil fields most German generals hoped to fight the decisive battle in order to beat Russia but this was somehow an old-fashioned viewpoint Hitler had a more modern approach towards war my generals know nothing about the economic aspects of war in the end Hitler decided oil would be the objective this was Hitler's very personal decision because he knew that the generals of the army High Command had little understanding to fight a campaign in order to occupy oil wells there was one general who shared Hitler's vision Erwin Rommel in an ambitious plan they called the grand strategy Hitler would dominate not only Europe but all of the Mediterranean and the Middle East if it worked Hitler would control the oil of the Caucasus Rommel would thrust across North Africa across the Suez and move up through the Middle East to link up with forces advancing toward the oil it was an audacious plan tailor-made for Rumble what set Rommel apart from most other generals was his instinctive feel for the battlefield he knew when to attack how to attack at the most unexpected point and achieve success and this he did repeatedly Rommels Afrika Court took on not only the British but more than a thousand miles of the North African desert [Music] fuel for his tanks and for his trucks was always a limiting factor between Tripoli and Benghazi you're looking at five or six hundred miles so there were tremendous distances and there was simply not enough gasoline what Rommel did was to capture when he could and he did off and fuel stocks from the British and he actually used them as a filling station on route at one point 85% of Rommels transport consisted of captured vehicles it frustrated him not getting that same resourcefulness from his supply officers it has become the habit for quartermaster staffs to complain at every difficulty instead of getting on with the job and using their powers of improvisation which indeed are frequently nil Rommel hugged the coast tanking up with fuel delivered at ports along the way but as time went on his shipments dwindled [Music] the British had broken his codes and they were listening in as he demanded to know when the next tanker was due Rommel in his desperate effort to assure himself the oil supplies he needed became in a sense his own enemy because he was asking not only where is the oil but on what ship it is when will it arrive and this was all very valuable information [Applause] [Music] June 1942 at El Alamein 100 miles west of Cairo short of fuel Rommels campaign ground to a halt by comparison the British were swimming in oil they were now commanded by general Bernard Montgomery unlike Rommel Monte was a cautious general and refused to go into battle without ample supplies on hand his oil came not only from the Middle East but as far away as America it was plentiful and reliable during that time was working against him Rommel ordered the attack [Music] but the British defenses held firm and the Africa Corps was forced to retreat Rommel recorded the battle in his diary August 31st 1942 due to heavy going the Africa Corps petrol stocks were soon badly depleted at a 1600 hours we called off the attack on Hill 132 rommel was a legend on the battlefield but without oil he was helpless finally he flew to Europe to meet personally with Hitler at the Fuehrer's headquarters on the Russian front she begged for more oil but all he got from Hitler were promises and a field marshals baton [Music] while Rommel was away Monti counter-attacked the Battle of El Alamein sent the Germans really rommel rushed back to north africa but could do little more than direct the retreat [Music] Monty had taught him a bitter lesson the bravest men can do nothing without guns the guns nothing without plenty of ammunition and neither guns nor ammunition are of much use in mobile warfare unless there are vehicles with enough petrol to hold them about Rommels defeat in North Africa meant the shattering of the grand strategic vision now the question of the capture of Baku and Russian oil depended exclusively on the German armies that were fighting in the Caucasus first stop on the road to the great oil field at Baku was my cough a smaller field in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains general steinhoff was with Hitler just before the victory I met Hitler in 42 in September he was flying high was very good spirits and he said now have some oil now I have my cup and then after harboring oil I proceeded along the straight across the mountains to Baku I have ever after oil we can proceed to India he was mighty mistaken [Music] policy and the prize for Hitler's oil prospectors is a blazing ruin German cameramen had been sent to photograph a success story the pictures they took fell into allied hands and on a permanent record of a great offensive that fail the Battle of Stalingrad started out as a sideshow to the oil campaign but it turned into a decisive battle on the Eastern Front Field Marshal Karl von Manstein begged Hitler for reinforcements from the Caucasus in a midnight call it are refused it's a question of the possession of Baku Field Marshall if I can no longer get you the oil for your operations you will be unable to do anything good nights higher Field Marshal Heil mein Fuhrer was all men Stein could say but the route to Baku was blocked in the Caucasus Mountains by fierce Russian resistance if those dreams of Baku oil turned into a nightmare the effect the German economy was deadly this was of course for Hitler who was probably thinking in terms of energy for first hand it was of his defeat from then on he knew he would not win the war [Music] Christmas 1941 Admiral Chester Nimitz arrived to pick up the pieces at Pearl Harbor he was keenly aware of the strength of the Japanese Navy but he was also aware of Japan's biggest weakness its supply line Japan's Empire extended over Asia and the Pacific it's oil supply line was long stretching thousands of miles from the wells of the Dutch East Indies to Japan the Japanese were anxious to finish the job begun at Pearl Harbor oil was literally the most critical factor in the timing of Yamamoto swore plans as he said on many occasions the Japanese Navy could fight for one year but after that he did not know six months after Pearl Harbor the Japanese launched their attack on US forces at Midway Island this time the Americans were ready [Music] once again oil proved to be a critical factor when the Japanese planes returned to the carrier decks in order to refuel that was a moment of maximum vulnerability at that moment the American planes appeared and attacked the carrier's sending four of them to the bottom of the sea and what turned out to be the decisive turning point in the Pacific War Nimitz now went after Japan's oil supply law with a vengeance to demoralize American submarine crews Japan turned to Tokyo Rose we know very well that American submarines have headed west from Pearl Harbor if American submariners are wise you will turn back certain death awaits you over here and now I've made for you unfortunate Americans a popular recording the Navy effectively cut off Japan from its raw materials in its colonies [Music] American submarines are very effective and Japanese are not quite prepared for submarine war against United States so with submarines all over Southeast Asia it became more and more difficult to ship these goods back home and so there was no no point I mean having conquered these things if he cannot make use of them there's not much point in doing that and I think that was the fatal flaw in Japanese thinking about this for the Americans supply logistics were central to strategy warships no longer had to go back into port but could refuel from roving oil tankers they helped give the Navy in the Pacific it's long legs [Music] as the Navy went island hopping westward huge floating bases were established offshore complete with oil tankers and fuel barges scale was really enormous on one Island alone the American forces were delivering a hundred and twenty thousand barrels of oil a day consider that against the Japanese air force whose entire consumption was only about 20,000 barrels a day throughout all the military theaters so on this one island alone six times as much oil is being delivered by the Americans as the Japanese air force was consuming everywhere American oil flowed so abundantly in the Pacific that it was even poured on dirt roads to keep the dusk top but the effort to supply oil in the Battle of the Atlantic was faring badly the Navy reports that the 8,000 ton tanker Pan Massachusetts has been attacked off the Atlantic coast and there are other but unconfirmed reports of additional sub attacks just as American subs were stalking Japanese tankers in the Pacific so too were German u-boats plying the Atlantic [Music] the Battle of the Atlantic is being fought with oil and will be won by oil it has finally reached into American garages and gasoline tanks every filling station is now on the battle line of democracy to achieve victory America would be called upon to supply six out of the seven billion barrels of oil used by the Allies u.s. oils are Harold Ickes was confident he could deliver his first step was to get the oil from Texas to the Northeast the begin was born it's the last night for the big inch to the eastern states the world's largest oil pipeline built in just one year will carry a 1,500 mile river of oil from Texas fields at the rate of 300,000 barrels a day the sponsor of the ninety-five million dollar dream pipe fuel cheap Harold Ickes promises more gas for the east but not for non-essential driving big job of the pipeline is to supply the Armed Services with fuel for attack Joan 60 1944 dealing 175,000 troops hit the beach at Normandy right behind was the oil invention and manufacturer of the lifeline which carried petrol for the Allied armies in Europe is a work of genius dubbed the pipeline under the ocean or Pluto it was an achievement for its time but it ran into technical snags and ended up carrying less than 1% of the Allies needs the rest came like everything else by shift at first the German succeeded in keeping the Allies bottled up in Normandy then came General George Patton Patton had an instinctive feel he was very much like Rommel in that he had an instinctive feel for the right time in the right place for the battlefield he knew when and where to attack and where the enemy was most vulnerable [Music] Pattin liberated one french town after another but he left his fuel stocks further and further behind to catch up the quartermaster has invented the red ball Express soldiers ferried gasoline up to the front in five gallon containers called jerry cans copied from a german design there were thirteen and a half million jerry cans on the continent but never enough to go around what became the really critical question was who was going to get the oil was he gonna go to the British - general Montgomery was it going to go to this American first army under general Courtney Hodges or was it gonna go to the Third Army in George Patton to Patton the answer was obvious he knew that the Siegfried line and that the area in Alsace and Lorraine was virtually undefended and his position was simply that if you give me the gasoline I can take Third Army into Germany inside of ten days no one realizes the terrible value of the unforgiving minute except me we have at this time the greatest chance to win the war ever presented it is such a sure thing that I these black moles don't see it but his boss General Eisenhower was committed to the Allied armies advancing on a broad front and decided to split the gas evenly Patton was furious my men can eat their belts but my tanks have got to have gas his demands fell on deaf ears I have to battle for every yard but it is not the enemy who is trying to stop me it is they if I don't steal some gas I could win this war Patton did not discourage his troops from obtaining gasoline by any means necessary and and one of the means which by which they would obtain it is that sometimes some of his troops which would change their patches and pretend to be a 1st army unit they would go to a 1st Army Depot and draw gasoline in other instances captured cigarettes or wine or booze would be used and would be traded for gasoline gasoline was so important that he was willing to overlook what his men sometimes had to do in order to obtain it in order to try to keep Third Army going but Patton's tactics required a fast amount of fuel without it his advance stalled it really became a situation where the Germans were able to to bring in some reinforcements the weather changed for the worse and and Patton ended up with a number of battles of attrition particularly around myths that turned out to be very costly Patton finally got his gasoline but for him the unforgiving minute had passed he believed and many historians believe today that if he'd been given the fuel he had needed and he had been able to keep going into Germany the second world war in Europe might well have ended nine months earlier [Music] the American air force was convinced that the way to shorten the war was to target Hitler's oil supply allied strategic bombing forces turned their attention to the German synthetic fuel plants IG Farben experiment of turning coal into oil had grown into a vast industry by now synthetic fuel was virtually Hitler's only source of oil and more plants were desperately needed to build them IG tapped a new source of labour the concentration camps there's no question that those plants could not have been completed had a G Farben not employed the slave labor and altogether in the course of time for the construction of these plants something like 25,000 people died either on the site or as a result of being returned to the camp where they were gassed afterwards the Americans prepared to make synthetic oil plants their number one target the american air force under general spots proceeded to launch two very heavy attacks on the synthetic oil plants the german response was immediate the signals unbuttoned at Bletchley Park showed their great alarm the synthetic oil plants had been providing 90% of Germany's aviation fuel albert speer minister of armaments brush to inspect the damage the enemy has talked us at one of our weakest points if they persist at it we will soon no longer have any fuel production verse mentioning our one hope is that the other side has an Air Force general staff as scatterbrained as ours the Americans prosecuted this campaign this great figure making in all nearly a hundred attacks and production of aviation spirit as required by the German air force had sunk to a quarter of 1% of what they needed ironically the Germans had just developed the world's first jet fighter but with so little fuel they needed farm animals to get it to the runway this movement on the airport was partly done by cows and if you looked at this picture having three of the most modern jet fighters sitting on the ground and taught by cows this makes makes a picture which is unbelievable ridiculous ridiculous but this has shown our present situation premiere kuniaki coy so is warning his Japanese tonight that the Americans will no doubt increase their bombings on the [ __ ] mainland this comes in the wake of the greatest b-29 attacked so far on Tokyo portions of which were turned into a shell in Japan too the situation was getting desperate young boys and even girls became the backbone of Japan's workforce with food already scarce potatoes sugar and rice were now converted to alcohol to fuel the factories lubricants were extracted from soybeans peanuts and coconuts but the most extraordinary concoction was used for aviation fuel plain roots some people thought that one could get oil from pine roots and even the schoolchildren we were sent to the fields to dig out pine trees and then somehow other they would be squeezed broadly for oil things like that whole mountain sides were stripped bare of every tree and sapling but even that was not enough so the Japanese hierarchy devised a desperate plan to make their pilots more successful fighters the pitch they made to the pilots was we are losing planes without getting any results this is not a matter of force but any pilots who wish to participate in this very effective attack method they can put their names in a bowl there is no coercion there is no shame if you don't they emphasize this but every pilot on the base at madhulata put his name they crawled out of their hospital beds to come and put their names in it and this was the beginning of the kamikaze car and it was very effective what had taken up to eight bombers and 16 fighters to do before was now accomplished by one or two suicide attackers and it also saved fuel because there was no return trip of course not every plane hit its target one planet fished out of the water gave valuable clues about the state of Japan's oil situation [Music] nearly all forms of training have ceased in Japan there are two men in each plane because neither of the two men were experienced enough to pilot the plane alone pine root is used for few but the process is absurd it takes about 100,000 roots for one plane to complete the mission at the time of the dropping of the atomic bomb the Japanese were preparing for a final suicidal resistance in which millions of people Japanese Allied troops would have been killed but the fact of the matter is the Japanese war machine was almost paralyzed because it had run out of the oil that it needed to keep running for the first time the Emperor spoke to his people people on August 15 when they heard the news that the Emperor had decided to surrender people just went to the palace at the bother heads hundreds of them feeling guilt guilt that they have let the Emperor down finally it was over the war had cost upwards of 50 million lives into the end oil played its part American military authorities pulled up in front of pojos house to arrest him he appeared at the window said he'd be down in a moment then a gunshot rang out at that moment Tojo who had taken Japan into war saying that the country was going to run out of oil Tojo zone life hung in the balance not because there were no doctors because there were doctors about but because they could not find an ambulance with gasoline to get to him finally they did and they carried him off to a hospital and was eventually put on trial and executed as the Russians closed in on Hitler's bunker in Berlin he made plans for his own suicide he killed himself and then his aides took his body and their midst the ruined monuments of what was to be the thousand-year Reich they doused his body with gasoline and set it aflame next on the prize crude diplomacy post-war America celebrated the wonders of oil oil could win wars it could fuel factories and cars and even more importantly it could make lives more comfortable than ever before but the West need for oil was drawing in an XOR blame to the turbulent hey join intrigues of Arabia based on the Pulitzer prize-winning book by Daniel Yergin the prize [Music]