WWIIWarAgainstJapan

• Military Strategy against the Japanese is ISLAND HOPPING:– capturing key islands to cut off

Japanese supply lines and to use as bases for attack against the Japanese islands

• U.S. Commanders in the Pacific:– General Douglas MacArthur– Admiral Chester Nimitz

FALL OF THE PHILIPPINES

• Japanese attacked just hours after Pearl Harbor• Gen. Douglas MacArthur retreated to Bataan

Peninsula; badly outnumbered by Japanese• Held out for 3 mos.; MacArthur ordered to

Australia• Remaining troops surrendered in April 1942• Bataan Death March to prison camp – thousands

died; worst defeat in U.S. military history

National ArchivesNational Archives““Bataan Death March”Bataan Death March”

85 miles85 miles19421942

FALL OF THE PHILIPPINES

THE DOOLITTLE RAIDS, April 1942

• Secret mission from USS Hornet; 16 B-25s took off from Hornet to bomb Tokyo – first bombing of Japan

• Then supposed to land in friendly airfields in China• Had to take off early after Japan discovered aircraft carriers• Not enough fuel to reach friendly airfields in China – had to crash

land or bail out; all planes lost• Of the 80 airmen that participated in the raid, 69 escaped capture

and death; aided by Chinese … who paid dearly• Raid a MAJOR boost to American morale and surprise to the

Japanese; forced Japan to shift vital resources to their defense.

THE DOOLITTLE RAIDS, April 1942

U.S.S. LEXINGTONBATTLE OF CORAL SEA – 5/42

Halts Japanese advance on Australia First all-aircraft battle Lexington sank, but supply lines to Australia stayed open!

Battle of Midway – 6/42

• 3 day air battle• US sinks 4 Japanese

carriers with 100 planes each

• 3000 Japanese casualties

• Turning point in War in the Pacific!

• Limited Japan’s ability to conduct an offensive war

Battle of GuadalcanalBattle of Guadalcanal8/42 – 2/438/42 – 2/43

• By air, sea and land• Many Marines• Victory guaranteed

Japanese would not disrupt U.S. – Australian shipping lanes

Marianna IslandsMarianna Islands• Could be used for B52 bombing raids• 250 Japanese planes downed; 29 U.S.• Saipan Island, Suicide cliffs

MacArthur returns & retakes Philippines in October 1944 with victory at LEYTE GULF - destroys Japanese imperial fleet – 60 ships / greatest naval battle of all time! Kamikazes first used.

Major difficulties in combat: Reefs surrounding the islands; Japanese fought to the death --- dishonorable to surrender

Fire bombing of TokyoMarch 1945

Napalm bombings destroyed 16 square miles of Tokyo 83,000 civilian casualties - Japan still won’t surrender

IWO JIMA

660 miles from TokyoOnly 8 square milesHas 3 airstrips

One of last major outposts

Only 660 miles from Tokyo -- would be an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” from which to launch attacks

B52s made 2,500 emergency landings here during Tokyo firebombing

Extremely heavy casualties

20,000 Japanese at start – 1,083 at end

7,000 Marineslost

Iwo Jima, Feb.-March 1945Iwo Jima, Feb.-March 1945

OKINAWAOKINAWAJune 1945June 1945

• Only 350 mi. from Japanese mainland

• Took 3 months for victory

• Ground invasion to take place from here

• More than 1,000 Kamikaze attacks

• U.S. gets airfield to launch attacks against Japanese industrial centers

POTSDAM CONFERENCE• July – August, 1945• Truman and Stalin and Churchill• Ultimatum to Japan – surrender or else• Truman insists German industry be

allowed to recover but Stalin wants reparations• Agreement:• German industry allowed to revive in the

British, American and French zones• Stalin gets reparations from only the Soviet

zone of Germany (not happy since it was primarily agricultural)

• Truman tells Stalin of U.S. atomic bomb testing

“Little Boy”Hiroshima, Aug. 6, 1945

“Fat Man”Nagasaki,Aug. 9, 1945

80,000 casualties35,000 dead

180,000 casualties70,000 dead instantly

Col. Paul Tibbets preparesto take off for Hiroshima

Col. Tibbets named his plane after his mother.

HIROSHIMAAugust 6, 1945

Why were Hiroshimaand Nagasaki thechosen sites?

Nagasaki under atomic bomb attack on August 9, 1945. Two planes of the 10th Air Force participated in the mission-one to carry the bomb, the other to serve as an escort. The new atomic age was underway.

Shadows burned into a wooden observation towerand outlined in chalk by investigators record a Nagasaki air-raid observer’s last moments. After descending from his post by ladder,the observer hung up his sword belt and was unbuttoning his jacket when the bomb exploded.

EFFECTS OF THEATOMIC BOMB

• One feature connected with heat radiation was the charring of fabric to different degrees depending upon the color of the fabric. Persons wearing clothing of various colors received burns greatly varying in degree, the degree of burn depending upon the color of the fabric over the skin in question.

The duration of the heat radiation from the bomb is so short, just a few thousandths of a second, that there is no time for the energy falling on a surface to be dissipated by thermal diffusion; the flash burn is typically a surface effect. Where solid objects block the energy, the blast produced a permanent atomic shadow on solid surfaces.

• Vegetation begins to propagate because of the radiation.

V-J DAYAugust 15,1945

SURRENDER- SEPT. 2, 1945 ON THE U.S.S. MISSOURI

TOJO’SSUICIDEATTEMPT

September 11, 1945