PowerPoint Show by Andrew

By the end of 1942, the Japanese Empire had expanded to its farthest extent. Japanese soldiers were occupying or attacking positions from India to Alaska, as well as islands across the South Pacific.

From the end of that year through early 1945, the U.S. Navy, under Admiral Chester Nimitz, adopted a strategy of "island-hopping". Rather than attacking Japan's Imperial Navy in force, the goal was to capture and control strategic islands along a path toward the Japanese home islands, bringing U.S. bombers within range and preparing for a possible invasion.

Japanese soldiers fought the island landings fiercely, killing many Allied soldiers and sometimes making desperate, last-ditch suicidal attacks.

Four Japanese transports, hit by both U.S. surface vessels and aircraft, are beached and burning at Tassafaronga, west of positions on Guadalcanal, on November 16, 1942.

Three dead Americans on the beach at Buna. 1942

Japanese soldiers killed while manning a mortar on the beach are shown partially buried in the sand at Guadalcanal following attack by U.S. Marines in August 1942.

U.S. planes attack Japanese-held Wake Island in November 1943.

Crouching low, U.S. Marines sprint across a beach on Tarawa Island to take the Japanese airport on December 2, 1943.

An American soldier stands over a dying Japanese whom he has just been forced to shoot.

Troops of the 165th infantry, advance on Butaritari Beach, Makin Atoll, which already was blazing from naval bombardment on November 20, 1943. American forces seized the Gilbert Island Atoll from the Japanese.

Sprawled bodies of American soldiers on the beach of Tarawa testify to the ferocity of the battle during the U.S. invasion in late November 1943. During the 3-day Battle of Tarawa, some 1,000 U.S. Marines died, and another 687 U.S. Navy sailors lost their lives when the USS Liscome Bay was sunk by a Japanese torpedo.

U.S. Marines advance against Japanese positions during the invasion at Tarawa, in this late November 1943 photo. Of the nearly 5,000 Japanese soldiers and workers on the island, only 146 were captured, the rest were killed.

In a captured Jap intercommunication trench, soldiers rest and clean their guns. Sniping is going on right above them.

Infantrymen await the word to advance in pursuit of retreating Japanese forces on the Vella Lavella Island in the Solomon Islands, on September 13, 1943.

Dead Japanese soldiers cover the beach on Saipan, in the Marianas, on July 14, 1944, after their last desperate attack on the U.S. Marines who invaded the Japanese stronghold in the Pacific.

A member of a U.S. Marine patrol discovers this Japanese family hiding in a hillside cave, June 21, 1944, on Saipan. The mother, four children and a dog took shelter in the cave from the fierce fighting in the area during the U.S. invasion of the Mariana Islands.

As a rocket-firing LCI lays down a barrage on the already obscured beach on Peleliu, a wave of tracked landing vehicles churn toward the defenses of the strategic island September 15, 1944.

U.S. Marines stand by the corpses of two of their comrades, who were killed by Japanese soldiers on a beach on Peleliu island in September of 1944. After the end of the invasion, 10,695 of the 11,000 Japanese soldiers had been killed, only some 200 captured. U.S. forces suffered some 9,800 casualties, including 1,794 killed.

Columns of troop-packed Landing Crafts trail in the wake of a Coast Guard-manned Landing Ship en route to the invasion of Cape Sansapor, New Guinea in 1944.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, center, is accompanied by his officers as he wades ashore during landing operations at Leyte, Philippines, on October 20, 1944, after U.S. forces recaptured the beach of the Japanese-occupied island.

The bodies of Japanese soldiers lie strewn across a hillside after being shot by U.S. soldiers as they attempted a banzai charge over a ridge in Guam, in 1944.

Two U.S. Marines direct flame throwers at Japanese defenses that block the way to Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi on March 4, 1945.

At church service in the jungle, U.S. soldiers look straight ahead or bow their heads in prayer.

Dead Japanese soldiers.

A Japanese torpedo bomber goes down in flames after a direct hit by 5-inch shells from the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, on October 25, 1944.

A Japanese kamikaze pilot in a damaged single-engine bomber, moments before striking the U.S. Aircraft Carrier USS Essex, off the Philippine Islands, on November 25, 1944.

A closer view of the Japanese kamikaze aircraft, smoking from antiaircraft hits and veering slightly to left moments before slamming into the USS Essex.

Aftermath of the kamikaze attack against the USS Essex. Fire-fighters and scattered fragments of the Japanese aircraft cover the flight deck. The plane struck the port edge of the flight deck, landing among planes fueled for takeoff, causing extensive damage, killing 15, and wounding 44.

U.S. Marines going ashore at Iwo Jima, a Japanese Island which was invaded on February 19, 1945.

A U.S. Marine, killed by Japanese sniper fire, still holds his weapon as he lies in the black volcanic sand of Iwo Jima, on February 19, 1945, during the initial invasion on the island. In the background are the battleships of the U.S. fleet that made up the invasion task force.

U.S. Marines of the 28th Regiment of the Fifth Division raise the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, on February 23, 1945. The Battle of Iwo Jima was the costliest in Marine Corps history, with almost 7,000 Americans killed in 36 days of fighting.

U.S. invasion forces establish a beachhead on Okinawa island, about 350 miles from the Japanese mainland, on April 13. 1945. Pouring out war supplies and military equipment, the landing crafts fill the sea to the horizon, in the distance, battleships of the U.S. fleet.

The USS Santa Fe lies alongside the heavily listing USS Franklin to provide assistance after the carrier had been hit by a single Japanese dive bomber, during the Okinawa invasion, on March 19, 1945. More than 800 aboard were killed, with survivors frantically fighting fires and making enough repairs to save the ship.