1. War in the Pacific
Unit 8

2. Japanese Advances
Japan was capturing territory in the Pacific very easily
Japan felt invincible after Pearl Harbor

3. US Retaliation April 18, 1942, the US bombs Tokyo
Wanton destruction
Revenge for Pearl Harbor
Battle of the Coral Sea
This battle marked a new type of Warfare in World History
The ships of the two fleets never saw each other. Aircraft carriers sent planes to bombard one another

4. Battle of Midway Turning point of the war with Japan
110 Japanese Ships – largest naval fleet in history
US destroyed 4 Japanese Aircraft carriers, 322 Japanese planes.
US Forces Led by Admiral Nimitz
Equivalent to the destruction Japan inflicted on the US at Pearl Harbor

5. Island Hopping
America advanced one island at a time, capturing key bases and using them for the next advance towards the mainland of Japan.
Buna
Gona
Lae
Guadalcanal
New Georgia
Bouganville
Gilbert Islands (Flame Throwers)
Phillipines
Marshall Islands
Aleutian Islands
Iwo Jima
Okinawa

6. Japan on the defensive
Kamikaze – Japanese pilots who would pack their planes with explosives and make suicide dives into American ships
sunk 16 American ships, and damaged 80.

7. Japan on the Defensive
Yamamoto Battleship – Japanese Flagship - Japan intentionally sunk this ship to block a harbor
Before it sank it took 5 torpedoes and 6 bombs and was still afloat

8. Iwo Jima
“Among the Americans who served on Iwo Islands, uncommon valor was a common virtue.” – Admiral Nimitz
6,281 American Casualties
20,000 Japanese Deaths

9. Okinawa Japan’s last stand Japan used 1,900 Kamikaze attacks
Destroying 30 ships and killing 5,000 men
America lost 12,000 lives
Japan lost 110,000 lives

10. Manhattan Project
A government scientific project that created the atomic bomb
1 bomb to destroy a whole city
It was the military’s best kept secret
600,000 people worked on it
Roosevelt dies and Truman is left with the responsibility of deciding whether or not to use the bomb.

11. Should we Bomb? Arguments to Bomb Argument to not bomb
The closer the US gets the more casualties we take
The emperor is arming his citizens and telling them to fight to the end
Churchill predicted that a Japanese invasion would mean over a million casualties for the Allies
Argument to not bomb
It is immoral to use such a destructive weapon without warning
Bomb would cause mostly civilian casualties
Weapon had not been tested enough

12. Hiroshima & Nagasaki
The US dropped an atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima.
Japan refused to surrender
3 Days later, the US dropped a second atomic bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki
Japan surrenders

13. Japan Surrenders Allies begin to rebuild Created the United Nations
At the Potsdam conference Stalin & Truman agreed that “stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals.”
Nuremberg Trials
Put Nazi’s on trial for “war crimes”
12 of 22 were put to death
America occupied and rebuilt Japan
MacArthur was put in charge of reconstruction
Tojo and 7 others were put to death
Emperor Hirohito was made into a figurehead
Free-market economy & democracy was institutued
Japanese Constitution is known as the MacArthur Constitution