Japan
Canada
China
USA
The Pacific Ocean
SE Asia
Australia
The Pacific War
• Dates: July 7, 1937 - August 14, 1945
• Began with the Second Sino-Japanese war,
between China and Japan
• Concluded with Japan’s surrender to the
Allied powers
Prelude to War
• Japan seeks to establish “The Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere”
– “a bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and
free of Western powers”
– Invasions of Manchuria and Korea follow
• Three political forces in Japan:
– Emperor Hirohito
– Civilian Government
– Military branches
• The army informs the civilian gov’t of the Manchuria
campaign two months after it begins.
Prewar
1932
1937
C
B
A
D
“ABCD Encirclement”
1940
1941
Dec 8/7 1941
Fleet Admiral Yamamoto
“The US fleet is a dagger
pointed at our throat and
must be destroyed.”
“I can run wild for six
months,after that, I have
no expectation of
success.”
- Yamamoto, during
discussions on the planned
Pearl Harbour Attack
Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
Attack on Pearl Harbour
Dec 7, 1941. “A day that will live in infamy”
Pearl Harbour
Japanese Aircraft
Mitsubishi A6M “Zero” Fighter
Nakajima B5N torpedo bomber
Aichi D3A dive bomber
The Attack
The Attack
Aftermath
"Being saturated and satiated with
emotion and sensation, I went to
bed and slept the sleep of the
saved and thankful.”
- Winston Churchill
1941
1942
Bataan Death March April 1942
– 12,000
Americans
walked 60 miles
to a POW camp
– No food or water
– 5,000 died
Battle of Coral Sea
•May 7, 1942
•Strategic Allied
victory—halted the
Japanese advance on
Australia
First naval battle carried out entirely by
aircraft.
The enemy ships never even came into
contact with each other
The Battle Of Midway
June 4-7 1942
6 months after
Pearl Harbour
Yamamoto
seeks to capture
Midway atoll
and thus
confront and
destroy the US
Navy’s carrier
forces.
Midway Order of Battle
US forces:
Japanese forces:
3 carriers
4 carriers
~50 support ships
7 battleships
233 carrier aircraft
~150 support ships
127 land-based aircraft
248 carrier aircraft
16 floatplanes
Plan of Attack
The Battle of Midway
• The first major carrier vs. carrier engagement
• Decided by cryptanalysis, tactics, radar, pilot
skill, weather, and luck.
The Battle of Midway
• Scouts from the US fleet find the Japanese
Fleet first
• A delayed scout means the Japanese fleet
receives a warning of US carriers only
minutes before the first US planes attack
• After losing many planes in ineffective strikes,
US dive bombers manage to set three
Japanese carriers on fire.
• A Japanese counterstrike does heavy
damage to one US carrier
• Japanese battleships never see combat
The Battle of Midway
US forces:
Japanese forces:
3 carriers, 1 lost
4 carriers, 4 lost
~50 support ships, 1
destroyer lost
7 battleships, 0 lost
360 aircraft, 98 lost
~150 support ships, 1
cruiser lost
307 dead
264 aircraft, 228 lost
3058 dead
1943-1944
Strategic Bombing
B-29 Superfortress
bombers
Island-Hopping Warfare
American and Australian
troops land in Borneo
Guadalcanal—8/42-2/43
• Who: US vs. Japan
• Where: Island near Australia—
one of Solomon Islands
• What: One of the most vicious campaigns
– Japanese put up a fierce resistance
– US has superior air and naval power
• Results:
– First time US land troops defeat Japanese
– Americans are able to secure the island
Island-Hopping Warfare
American Troops
assaulting Iwo Jima
1944-1945
The Final Year
• The US retakes the Philippines in a long and
costly campaign.
• Borneo, Iwo Jima and the Okinawa fall, with
heavy losses on both sides.
• The military leadership of Japan refuses to give
up, in spite of the loss of the bulk of their forces.
• An edict is issued, ordering civilians on the main
Japanese islands to construct bamboo spears
and meet the invaders on the beaches.
• US Bombers produce a firestorm in Tokyo, killing
100,000 people in two days.
• The US, Britain and China issue the Potsdam
Declaration, demanding Japan’s surrender.
Iwo Jima
• February-March 1945
• Island off the coast of Japan—Japanese
soil deeply
Volcanic island
entrenched
– Longest sustained aerial offensive
of the
war
– More marines sent than in any other battle
– 100,000 men fighting on an island the 1/3
the size of Manhattan
– Japanese fought from below ground—Allies
rarely saw a soldier
– The battle was won inch-by-inch
Iwo Jima
• Results: US win
– Provides a link in the
chain of bomber bases
– By the war’s end,
2,400 B-29 bombers
and 27,000 crewmen
made emergency
landings.
– “4 marines raising US
flag”
Okinawa
• Casualties
– US—12,500 killed; 36,000 wounded
– Japan—93,000 troops killed; 94,000
civilians killed (many killed themselves)
• Kamikazes—suicide pilots
– Crashed planes loaded with explosives
– Sank 30 US vessels
Hiroshima
- 90,000 to 100,000 persons were
killed immediately
- 145,000 persons perish from the
bombing by the end of 1945.
Nagasaki
Leveled Area: 6.7 million square meters
Damaged Houses: 18,409
Casualties
Killed------73,884
Injured-----74,909
Total------148,793
(Large numbers of people died in the
following years from the effects of
radioactive poisoning.)
Nuclear Strikes
Aug 6, 1945. Uranium
bomb “Little Boy”
dropped on Hiroshima,
killing 140,000
Aug 9, 1945. Plutonium
bomb “Fat Man” dropped
on Nagasaki, killing 74,000
Japan Surrenders
Representatives of Japan’s Foreign Ministry, Army and Navy
appear to sign the surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo
Bay
The Cost
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
2,000,000 Japanese Soldiers dead
300,000 Allied Soldiers dead
600,000 - 1,000,000 Japanese civilians dead
11,000 American civilians dead
60,000 Korean civilians dead
Mass devastation of Japanese infrastructure
Indigenous people of north and western Pacific
islands devastated by disease, cultural
contamination, collateral damage, and atrocities.
• The list continues…