The Pacific Theatre and Peace
The Pacific War
• U.S. war strategy in the Pacific divided
responsibilities between Gen. Douglas
MacArthur led forces in a “Island hopping
campaign” from Australia to the Philippines,
and Admiral Chester Nimitz who commanded
the Central Pacific fleet.
• Plan was to isolate Japan from its southern
conquests
• British moved from India to retake Burma
The Pacific War
• With Japans army bogged down in China – Allies
planned to bomb Japan
• Island Hopping campaign – American naval
version of blitzkrieg: planes from aircraft carriers
control the skies while navy and land forces
isolated and captured the most strategically
Japanese-held islands while by passing the rest
• Racial hatred between American & Japanese
forces intensified the fighting in the Pacific
The Pacific War
• Leyte Gulf – Allied invasion of Japanese-held
Philippines and the destruction of the
Japanese fleet leaving the homeland of Japan
undefended against invasion
• U.S. naval blockade of Japanese imports and
heavy bombing of Japanese cities continually
weakened Japanese war capabilities
• U.S. capture of strategic Japanese islands:
Iwo Jima & Okinawa (April-June 1945)
Searching for Peace
• Yalta Conference (Feb. 1945) – Roosevelt,
Churchill, and Stalin debated plans for the
postwar world
• American goal was to enlist the USSR in finishing
off the Japanese
• Stalin wanted control of Manchuria, China in
exchange for joining the
• Stalin would only give vague pledges to allow
non-communist to participate in the coalition
governments in Eastern Europe
Searching for Peace
• April 12, 1945 – FDR died of a cerebral
hemorrhage
• Harry Truman – Vice President succeeds FDR
• Potsdam Conference (July 1945) – BritishSoviet-American conference where they
debated the future of Germany
• Potsdam Declaration - Truman made it clear
that the U.S. expected to dominate the
occupation of Japan
Searching for Peace
• Goal was to democratize the Japanese political
system and reintroduce Japan into the
international community - intended to give
Japan an opening for surrender
• Sec. of state James Byrnes – urged Truman to use
the new atomic bomb
• U.S. was convinced Japan would fight to the
death in an invasion of the homeland
• Using the bomb offered a quick end to the war
and it might intimidate Stalin
End of the war in the Pacific
• U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on August 6,
1945 at Hiroshima (killed approx. 80,000) and
the second on Aug. 8 at Nagasaki (killed approx.
40,000)
• V.J. Day: Victory in Japan Day - Japan ceased
hostilities on Aug. 14th and surrendered formally
on Sept. 2nd
• Japanese government signed the terms of
surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri a
battle ship nearly destroyed at Pearl Harbor on
Dec. 7th, 1941
Captain Paul Tibbets in the Enola Gay minutes before takeoff to
drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, 1945
Harold Agnew carrying the plutonium core of the Nagasaki Fat
Man bomb, 1945
The Fat Man on transport carriage, Tinian Island, 1945
Nagasaki, 20 minutes after the atomic bombing in 1945