Island Hopping a. August 1942 – September 1945 U.S. forces gained Guadalcanal and some area in the Solomon Islands. b. New strategy was adopted by the U.S. Navy, Marine, and Army divisions – Leapfrogging or Island Hopping the Japanese Islands U.S. forces bypassed the most heavily fortified Japanese posts, captured nearby islands and set up airfields – then heavily bombed enemy bases.

THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC The Americans did not celebrate long, as Japan was busy conquering an empire that dwarfed Hitler’s Third Reich. Japan had conquered much of southeast Asia including the Dutch East Indies, Guam, and most of China.

BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA The main Allied forces in the Pacific were Americans and Australians. In May 1942 they succeeded in stopping the Japanese drive toward Australia in the five-day Battle of the Coral Sea.

(30) THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY Japan’s next thrust was toward Midway Island – a strategic U.S. Island northwest of Hawaii. Admiral Chester Nimitz, the Commander of American Naval forces in the Pacific, moved to defend the Island. The Americans won a decisive victory “a turning point” as their planes destroyed 4 Japanese aircraft carriers and 250 planes.

June 4 - 7 1942, The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the war – soon the Allies were island hopping toward Japan.

KAMIKAZE PILOTS ATTACK ALLIES The Americans continued leapfrogging across the Pacific toward Japan. Japanese countered by employing a new tactic – Kamikaze (divine wind) attacks. Pilots in small bomb-laden planes would crash into Allied ships. In the Battle for the Philippines, 424 Kamikaze pilots sank 16 ships and damaged 80 more.

Americans are celebrating V-E Day in New York City May 8, 1945 while the US forces begin an attack on Japan.

#4 under Truman… The Potsdam Conference July 16-Aug 2, 1945 – –The Beginning of the end for Japan Truman (FDR died), Stalin and Attlee (Churchill had been voted out as Prime Minister). At the conference - They planned for the end of the war- that Japan surrender OR face “complete and utter destruction” .

General Douglas MacArthur Heee’sss Baaack!

Japan, Philippines, Hawaii

IWO JIMA February 19 – March 26, 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. IWO JIMA February 19 – March 26, 1945 American soldiers plant the flag on the Island of Iwo Jima after their victory.

THE BATTLE FOR OKINAWA In April - June 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.

INVADE JAPAN??? Okinawa After Okinawa, MacArthur predicted that a Normandy type amphibious invasion of Japan would result in 1,500,000 Allied deaths. President Truman saw only one way to avoid an invasion of Japan. The loss of life at Iwo Jima and Okinawa convinced Allied leaders that an invasion of Japan was not the best idea.

Japan had a huge army that would defend every inch of the Japanese mainland. So Truman decided to use a powerful new weapon developed by scientists working on the Manhattan Project – the Atomic Bomb. The ATOMIC BOMB

U.S. DROPS TWO ATOMIC BOMBS ON JAPAN Remember: Truman warned “Surrender or face complete and utter destruction.”

The plane and crew that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. August 6, 1945 – the Enola Gay a B-29 bomber dropped Atomic Bombs on Japan. They dropped a 9,000-pound bomb (called Little Boy) with a destructive power of 20,000 tons on the Japanese city of Hiroshima – the mushroom cloud reached 55,000 feet, 60% of Hiroshima disappeared, 100,000 people died instantly and many more perished in later days, weeks, and years from radiation (140,000 total estimate killed). August 9 - Nagasaki (“Fat Man”) (80,000 estimated killed). The plane and crew that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. A replication of “Little Boy. (#5 Truman) 220,000 killed- Forced the Japanese to surrender

Atomic bombing of HIROSHIMA August 6, 1945 Atomic bombing of HIROSHIMA

August 9, 1945 Atomic bombing of NAGASAKI

(#6 Truman) JAPAN SURRENDERS Japan surrendered days after the second atomic bomb was dropped - August 14, 1945. General MacArthur said, “Today the guns are silent. The skies no longer rain death . . .the entire world is quietly at peace.” Formal document signed on the U.S.S. Missouri with General MacArthur.

(35) September 2, 1945 – official day of surrender Victory in Japan – V-J Day. At the White House, President Harry Truman announces the Japanese surrender, August 14, 1945.

V-J Day Kiss New York Times Square Famous picture of an American soldier celebrating the end of the war.

THE OCCUPATION OF JAPAN Japan was occupied by U.S. forces under the command of General MacArthur. During the seven-year occupation, MacArthur reshaped Japan’s economy by introducing free-market practices that led to a remarkable economic recovery. Additionally, he introduced a liberal constitution that to this day is called the MacArthur Constitution.

a. Total direct and indirect costs of war may have reached as high as $4 trillion b. U.S. deaths 400,000

NUREMBERG WAR TRIALS Herman Goering, Hitler's right-hand man and chief architect of the German war effort, testifies at his trial. He was found guilty of war crimes but avoided execution by swallowing potassium cyanide. The discovery of Hitler’s death camps led the Allies to put 24 surviving Nazi leaders on trial for crimes against humanity, crimes against the peace, and war crimes. The trials were held in Nuremberg, Germany. “I was only following orders” was not an acceptable defense as 12 of the 24 were sentenced to death and the others to life in prison.

(38) GI BILL HELPS RETURNING VETS To help returning servicemen ease back into civilian life, Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill of Rights). The act provided education for 7.8 million vets. Considered the last piece of New Deal legislation. What was the biggest post-WWI problem facing returning war veterans? …Needing jobs… right? How does the GI Bill of Rights help this?

Registration Day at Harvard after the G.I. Bill of Rights.

INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS When the war began, 120,000 Japanese Americans lived in the U.S. – mostly on the West Coast. After Pearl Harbor, many people were suspicious of possible spy activity by Japanese Americans. In 1942, FDR ordered Japanese Americans into 10 relocation centers. Japanese Americans felt the sting of discrimination during WWII.

WRA Relocation Centers Name State Opened Max. Pop'n Manzanar California March 1942 10,046 Tule Lake May 1942 18,789 Poston Arizona 17,814 Gila River July 1942 13,348 Granada Colorado August 1942 7,318 Heart Mountain Wyoming 10,767 Minidoka Idaho 9,397 Topaz Utah September 1942 8,130 Rohwer Arkansas 8,475 Jerome October 1942 8,497 Location of the 10 Internment camps

Jerome camp in Arkansas Children at the Weill public school in San Francisco pledge allegiance to the American flag in April 1942, prior to the internment of Japanese Americans. Jerome camp in Arkansas

(40) Korematsu vs The U.S. The Supreme Court Case that concerned the constitutionality of Japanese Internment, which required Japanese-Americans in the western United States to be excluded from a described West Coast military area. In a 6-3 decision, the Court sided with the government, ruling that the exclusion order was constitutional. The opinion, written by Supreme Court justice Hugo Black, held that the need to protect against espionage outweighed Fred Korematsu's individual rights, and the rights of Americans of Japanese descent. – Remember… Scheneck vs. the US??? Clear and Present Danger??

U.S. PAYS REPARATIONS TO JAPANESE In the late 1980s, President Reagan signed into law a bill that provided $20,000 to every Japanese American sent to a relocation camp Checks were mailed in 1990 under George Bush Sr. “We can never fully right the wrongs of the past . . . we now recognize that serious wrongs were done to Japanese Americans during WWII.” Today the U.S. is home to more than 1,000,000 Japanese-Americans. George “Daddy” Bush

Nearly 59 years after the end of World War II, the National World War II Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, May 29, 2004 to honor the 408,680 Americans who died in the conflict.

The Doolittle Raid, 18 April 1942, was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese home island of Honshū during World War II. It demonstrated that the Japanese home islands were vulnerable to Allied air attack, and provided an expedient means for U.S. retaliation for Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The Doolittle Raid was the only time that United States Army Air Forces bombers were launched from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier on a combat mission. The raid was planned and led by Lieutenant Colonel James "Jimmy" Doolittle, with the North American B-25B Mitchell the airplane selected to carry out the mission. The plan was to launch them from a carrier, hit military targets in Japan, and fly on to land in China. All 16 aircraft were lost on the mission, and 11 crewmen were either killed or captured. The crews of 14 aircraft, including one interned in the Soviet Union for more than a year, were recovered and returned to the United States. Doolittle would later recount in his autobiography that the raid was intended to cause the Japanese to doubt their leadership and to raise American morale: The Japanese had been told they were invulnerable. An attack on the Japanese homeland would cause confusion in the minds of the Japanese people and sow doubt about the reliability of their leaders. There was a second, equally important, psychological reason for this attack...Americans badly needed a morale boost.