WWII: The Pacific Theater
What happens after
Attack on Pearl Harbor?
December 7, 1941
“A date which will live
in infamy”
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
Island Hopping
• Led by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur
• United States strategy used to gain military bases and secure the many small
islands in the Pacific.
• US troops targeted islands that were not as strongly defended by the Japanese
• They took control of those islands, and quickly constructed landing strips and small
military bases
• Slowly moved closer to Japan
“Island
Hopping”
The Pacific Theater: Early Battles
• American Forces halted the Japanese advances in two decisive
naval battles.
• Coral Sea (May 1942)
• Allied codebreakers learned about Japanese plans in time for Allied fleets to
assemble in the Coral Sea
• U.S. stopped a fleet protecting Japanese troops to New Guinea
• Midway (June 1942)
• Japanese Admiral Yamamoto hoped to capture Midway Island as a base to attack
Pearl Harbor again
• American cryptanalysts (code breakers)…again!
• U.S. Admiral Chester Nimitz caught the Japanese by surprise and sank 3 of the 4
aircraft carriers, 332 planes, and 3500 men.
Importance of Midway
• The Japanese defeat at Midway was the
turning point in the Pacific.
• Japanese advances stopped.
• U.S. assumes initiative.
• Japanese have shortage of able pilots.
The Beginning of the
End in the Pacific
• Yamamoto is assassinated by the
U.S. (April 1943)
• Loss of Saipan (August 1944)
• “the naval and military heart and brain
of Japanese defense strategy”
• Resulted in more than 3,000 U.S. deaths
and over 13,000 wounded.
• Japanese lost at least 27,000 soldiers
• Thousands of Saipan’s civilians,
terrified by Japanese propaganda that
warned they would be killed by U.S.
troops, leapt to their deaths from the
high cliffs at the island’s northern end.
Political Crisis in
Japan
• The government could
no longer hide the fact
that they were losing
the war.
• Tōjō resigns on July
18, 1944
Iwo Jima (February, 1945)
• General MacArthur and the Allies
next turned to the Island of Iwo
Jima
• The island was critical to the Allies as
a base for an attack on Japan
• It was called the most heavily
defended spot on earth
• Allied and Japanese forces suffered
heavy casualties; Allied victory
American soldiers plant the flag on the Island of
Iwo Jima
A Grinding War
in the Pacific
• In 1945, the U.S. began
targeting people in order to
coerce Japan to surrender
• 66 major Japanese cities bombed
• 500,000 civilians killed
Bombing of Tokyo, 1945
Battle for Leyte Gulf
• Total blockade of Japan
• Japanese navy virtually destroyed
• Japanese countered by employing a
new tactic – Kamikaze (divine wind)
attacks
• Pilots in small bomb-laden planes would
crash into Allied ships
Okinawa (April, 1945)
• In April 1945, U.S. marines invaded
Okinawa
• The Japanese unleashed 1,900 Kamikaze
attacks sinking 30 ships and killing 5,000
seamen
• Okinawa cost the Americans 7,600 marines
and the Japanese 110,000 soldiers
• Allied victory
Atom
Diplomacy
• FDR had funded the top-secret Manhattan
Project to develop an atomic bomb
• Dr. Robert Oppenheimer successfully
tested in the summer of 1945.
• FDR had died on April 12, 1945, and the
decision was left to Harry Truman.
• An amphibious (by land and water) invasion
could cost over 350,000 Allied casualties.
Turning Points
of the War: The Pacific
• August 6, 1945 – Enola Gay drops bomb
on Hiroshima
• 140,000 dead; tens of thousands injured; radiation
sickness; 80% of buildings destroyed
• August 9, 1945 – Nagasaki
• 70,000 dead; 60,000 injured
• Emperor Hirohito surrenders on Aug. 14,
1945. (V-J Day)
• Formal surrender signed on September 2 onboard the
battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay
Cost of War
• Germany- 3 million combat deaths (3/4ths on the
eastern front)
•
•
•
•
Japan – over 1.5 combat deaths; 900,000 civilians dead
Soviet Union - 13 million combat deaths
U.S. – 300,000 combat deaths, over 100,000 other deaths
When you include all combat and civilian deaths,
World War II becomes the most destructive war in
history with estimates as high as 60 million,
including 25 million Russians.
Postwar Efforts
at Revenge
• The Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46
• After, WWII the Allied powers decided to place on trial the highest-ranking
Nazi officers for “crimes against humanity”
• Allied forces had attempted to do this after WWI, but had released them on
the grounds that they “were just following orders”
• Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler were dead; but, 22 Nazi leaders (including
Goring) were tried at an international military tribunal at Nuremburg,
Germany. 12 were sentenced to death. Similar trials occurred in the east and
throughout the world.
• The Tokyo Trial (1946-48)
Postwar Efforts at Peace
• The United Nations – There was some hope when, in 1945, the
United Nations was created; an organization to promote
international stability
• A General Assembly where representatives from all
countries could debate international issues.
• The Security Council had 5 permanent members – U.S.,
Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China could veto any
question of substance. There were also 6 elected
members.
• Key: the U.S. joined in contrast to League of Nations
Wartime
Agreements
• Unlike WWI, there was no Peace of Paris to reshape Europe.
• Instead, the Yalta agreement of February 1945, signed by Roosevelt,
Churchill, and Stalin, turned the prevailing military balance of power
into a political settlement.
• Potsdam Conference, in suburban Berlin (July 1945)—Truman, Stalin,
Churchill – Finalized plans on Germany. Germany would be
demilitarized and would remain divided.
Postwar Reality:
Control
Europe
• EuropeSoviet
was politically
cut inof
half;Eastern
Soviet troops
had overrun
eastern Europe and penetrated into the heart of Germany.
• During 1944-1945, Stalin starts shaping the post-war world by
occupying SE Europe with Soviet troops that should have been
on the Polish front pushing toward Berlin.
• Roosevelt did not have postwar aims because he still had to
fight Japan; Stalin did have postwar aims.
Postwar
Reality
• Consequences of World War II
• Soviet Union with agenda
• Unlike the isolation after WWI, the U.S. was
engaged in world affairs
• The triumph of Communists in China
• Decolonization
• The independence of nations from
European (U.S. & Japan) colonial powers.
Restoration of U.S. Prosperity
• World War II ended the Great Depression.
• Factories run at full capacity
• Ford Motor Company – one bomber plane per hour
• People save money (rationing)
• Army bases in South provide economic boom (most bases in
South b/c of climate)
• The national debt grew to $260 billion (6 times its size on Dec.
7, 1941)