Ken Burns: The War -- Full Episode 1 -- "A Necessary War" (December 1941 - December 1942) -- PBS

The tranquil lives of American citizens are shattered on December 7, 1941 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as the United States is thrust into the greatest cataclysm in history. In the Philippines, two Americans, Corporal Glenn Frazier and Sascha Weinzheimer are caught up in the Japanese onslaught, as American and Filipino forces retreat onto Bataan while thousands of civilians are rounded up and imprisoned in Manila.

Meanwhile in the United States, 110,000 Japanese Americans along the West Coast are forcibly relocated by the government to internment camps. On the East Coast, German U-boats menace Allied shipping offshore. The United States seems unprepared for this kind of total war.

In June 1942, the Navy manages a victory over the Japanese at the Battle of Midway. In August, American land forces face the Japanese army for the first time at Guadalcanal. Abandoned by their fleet with no sea or air support, the men are under constant attack. After six months, the Americans finally prevail and, in the process, stop Japan's expansion in the Pacific.