Victory at Sea, Suicide for Glory

In a last effort at glory, having lost most of their best men in military actions, Japan employs suicide pilots—the Kamikaze—men who willingly crash their planes into ships in order to destroy the American spirit. But the U.S. Navy and Marines are ready for them with their guns, and they fought heroically against the onslaught. And on Okinawa, Americans fight a major battle with the Japanese Army.

 Victory at Sea is a documentary television series about naval warfare during World War II that was originally broadcast by NBC in the USA in 1952–1953. It was condensed into a film in 1954. Excerpts from the music soundtrack, by Richard Rodgers and Robert Russell Bennett, were re-recorded and sold as record albums. The original TV broadcasts comprised 26 half-hour segments—Sunday afternoons at 3pm (EST) in most markets—starting October 26, 1952 and ending May 3, 1953. The series, which won an Emmy award in 1954 as “best public affairs program”, played an important part in establishing historic documentaries as a viable television genre.