Causes of the War in the Pacific 1850s – Japan pursues rapid industrialization
• Similar to Britain in that both were small
islands with large populations, neither
possessing all the resources to become a great
power without annexing colonies
• 1850: 25 million
• 1930: 70 million
1890s – Emergent Modern (Western?) Japanese State
• Navy modeled on the British
• Army modeled on the German
• Constitution had elements of the British, but
leaned heavily on the authoritarian model
• Education system borrowed heavily from USA
1905 – Russo-Japanese War
• Strategic surprise –
• Attack Port Arthur without first
declaring war on Russia
• Straits of Tsushima
• Japanese sink 8 Russian battleships
Early 20th Century
Post WWI –
• Declared war on Central Powers
• Acquires German colonies in Asia (mandates)
• Behaves aggressively towards China
1922 – Washington Naval Agreement
• Deliberate attempt to block imperial desires?
Depression –
1926 – Emperor Hirohito
• Military Junta
1931- Invasion of Manchuria
• USA: Stimson Doctrine
• League: Lytton Report
1932 – PM assassinated
• ‘warlords’
Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (GEACPS)
1930s – Japan proposes economic trading block to counter growing American presence
• Think: ‘lebensraum’ in Asia – Economically, territories were to be colonies
supplying markets, labour and resources.
Japanese Invasion of China, 1937
1936 – Anti-Comintern Pact
• Nazi Germany and Japan agree to cooperate
against the Comintern (USSR)
• USSR threatened by two-front war
Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)
• 350 000 Japanese soldiers
• Assaults on large Chinese urban centres
• Beijing
• Shanghai
• Nanking
• Coastal regions occupied
• Chiang Kai-Shek (Nationalist)
• Retreats to mountains
• Floods Yangzi (1 000 000 peasants lost)
• Supplied by USSR in north, Brits & USA too
• Mao Zedong (Communists)
• Chiang prefers to save energies for Mao
Rape of Nanking, 1937 –
• Japanese troops massacre some 200 000 civilians
• Torture, rape and other forms of extreme violence
• Assaults on women often ordered by officers of Japanese army
• Est. 20 000 women raped (most perish or are executed)
Japan and the United States of America
• American Open Door Policy (China)
• ‘Spheres of Influence’ in Asia-Pacific
1940-41 –
• US pressures Japan (political)
• Economic embargo (oil & rubber)
• Fall of France – French Indo China
Sept. 1941 – Japan demands:
• cancellation of embargo
• a freehand in China
• a freehand in Indochina
Nov. 1941 –
• PM (General) Tojo gives order to prepare
plans for multi-pronged Pacific offensive
• Admiral Yamamoto secretly sails for
multiple targets in South East Asia and US
naval base at Pearl Harbour
• Japanese dignitaries discuss peace talks
• Japanese aim at gaining as much territory,
then they could negotiate a peace
settlement
‘A Day that will live in Infamy’
7 Dec. 1941 – Pearl Harbour
• surprise Japanese attack
• 353 aircraft
• 6 aircraft carriers
Outcome:
• 8 battleships damaged
• 4 sunk (Arizona)
• 9 vessels sunk in total
• 188 aircraft
• 2 402 killed
Key: US Aircraft Carrier Fleet undamaged
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-iihistory/videos/japanese-diplomats-arrive-in-us
8 Dec. 1941 –
• Burma
• Hong Kong
• Philippines
• US Gen. Douglas MacArthur
• ‘I shall return’
• 90 000 troops captured at Bataan
USA Declares War on Japan
‘We Can Get To You’
Allied Strategy
• control shipping lanes
• naval blockade of mainland Japan
Mobilization of America
• Re-tool and reorganize industry
• Max production of weapons/war material
• planes, tanks & merchant ships
• 16 000 000 men enlisted into military
Doolittle Raid (18 April 1942)
• Show Japanese the America could strike back
• B-25 bombers launched from aircraft carrier
• Bomb Tokyo, fly to mainland China
• American morale booster
• Psychological warfare
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/jamesh-doolittle/videos/battle-360-the-doolittle-raid
War in the Pacific
Newfoundland, 1941 – ‘Grand Alliance’
• Nazi Germany has priority
• Pacific Fleet still a formidable force
• Japan gambles that it would take 1-2 years for
US Navy to recover from Pearl Harbour attack
• Hope this would bring US to negotiating table
• Underestimated American fighting spirit
Battle of the Coral Sea (4-8 May 1942)
• Japanese desire Port Moresby, New Guinea
• Vital Allied base (Australia)
• Naval battle fought with aircraft
• First time two fleets fought without
being within sight of each other
• Draw – Inhibits Japanese invasion force
• USS Lexington sunk
• USS Yorktown heavily damaged
• Jap. Carriers damaged/ one sunk
Key Turning Point in the Pacific
Battle of Midway (4-7 June 1942)
• Japanese looking to engage US carrier force
• 4 Japanese vs. 3 American carriers
• USS Yorktown, by now, repaired
• Jap. Fleet move toward Midway
• US Naval Intelligence breaks Jap. Naval Code
• After bombing Midway, Jap. Fleet caught unawares
http://www.history.com/videos/battle-at-midway#battle-at-midway
Outcome:
• 4 Jap. Carriers sunk
• 1 US carrier sunk
• Japanese forced onto the defensive
The Road to Tokyo – American Advance on Japan
Route I: MacArthur: S.W. Pacific, New Guinea & Philippines
Route II: Nimitz: Gilbert, Marshal Is., Mariana & Iwo Jima
Island Hopping (1942-1945)
• the idea of taking key islands, rather than all
• using each island as a staging point for the next
• brutal, often fanatical resistance by Japanese forces
Battle of Guadalcanal (7 Aug. 1942 – 9 Feb. 1943)
• high casualties (US undetermined)
Battle of Leyte Gulf (23-26 Oct. 1944)
• Jap. Navy’s last stand
• US Pacific Fleet
• 200+ ships
• 17 carriers, 12 battleships, 1500 planes
• Japanese Fleet
• 70 ships
• 4 carriers, 9 battleships, 200 planes
• ‘Kamikaze’ dive-bombers
US victory in the Pacific becomes a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if.’
Battles of Iwo Jima & Okinawa (Feb – April, 1945)
• two islands required as staging points
for large scale invasion of Japan
• Bomber bases for US
Iwo Jima (19 Feb – March 26 1945)
• 216 of 21 000 Japanese soldiers taken alive
• US suffers 24 800 casualties of 110 000
Okinawa
• US suffers 62 000 casualties (40 000 killed)
• Over 100 000 Japanese combatants killed
US ‘Strategic Bombing’ of Japan (1944-45)
• B-29 Superfortress
• 1500km range
• 90% of bombs dropped
• Major urban centres selected
• Most cities built of wood/paper
• ‘precision’ bombing impossible
• Night-time ‘firebombing’
• 500 000 Japanese deaths
• 5 000 000 homeless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYxXFwIPGHk
Potsdam Conference (17 July- 2 Aug. 1945)
Changes:
1. Red Army occupies central & eastern Europe
2. Churchill defeated in British Election
• PM Clement Attlee (Labour Party)
3. Roosevelt dies (12 April 1945)
• President Harry Truman
Outcomes:
• Agreement over partitioning of Germany/ borders
• Nuremburg Trials
• Nazi war criminals
• Unconditional surrender of Japan
• US detonate ‘new powerful weapon’ in New Mexico
• Stalin more surprised by Churchill’s defeat
Churchill, Truman and Stalin
Emergent Bipolar World –
• Mutual suspicion between West and Stalin
• ‘Superpowers’ – USA vs. USSR
• Each nation harboured fears of the other
• Conspiracies of world domination
Attlee, Truman and Stalin
Final Stages of the War
Manhattan Project
– Secret, expensive plan to develop Atomic weapons
– Los Alamos, New Mexico (1945)
Truman’s decision
– June 1, 1945 – US Secretary of War recommended
that the bombs be dropped without prior warning
on Japanese military targets in an urban setting
– Prominent scientists disagreed – urged giving the
Japanese a demonstration explosion over an
isolated area, using the bomb only as a last resort
– Truman rejected their views as “impractical” and
made the “military decision” to shorten the war and
save American lives
Einstein & Leo Szilard
‘The search for a revolutionary weapon was one of the
most immediate and persistent outcomes of the
industrialization of war in the mid-nineteenth century, and
both a logical and inevitable extension of the revolution in
war which preceded.’
John Keegan, The Second World War
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/trinity-test/videos/manhattan-project
Photo courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Site Office
Destruction of test house located 3,500 feet (1,000 meters) from detonation
site of atmospheric test
at Nevada Proving Ground in 1953
The first photo and the last photo were taken 2.3 seconds apart.
Hiroshima – August 6, 1945
– “Little Boy” was dropped on
the industrial city of 340,000
people
– Explosion at Ground Zero
created temperatures of
540,000 degrees Fahrenheit
– Immense firestorm gutted the
city, destroying 60,000 of
92,000 buildings
– Official death count: 78,000
– Additional 60,000 died later of
atomic bomb- related injuries
or diseases
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t19kvUiHvAE
Nagasaki – August 9, 1945
• Since Japan did not
surrender immediately
Truman ordered the
atomic bomb be dropped
on the Japanese City of
Nagasaki
• “Fat Man” dropped on city
of 250,000
• death toll reached 35,000
people
• Total of approx. 170,000
died due to both atomic
bombs
Effects of Atomic Bombs
Shadows burned into concrete from
blast; people vaporized
Effects of Atomic Bombs
Severe burns covering entire body = severe pain and suffering
V-J Day: 14 August 1945