Transcript Unit: World War II Topic: War in the Pacific

Unit: World War II
Topic: War in the Pacific
1.
A Japanese
Empire
A.
The Japanese saw
World War II as
their chance to
build an overseas
empire.
B.
They had a
scarce supply of
natural resources
and not a lot of
land for their
people.
2. Japanese
Victories
A.
By spring 1942, Japan
had taken over Guam,
the Philippines, the
coast of China, Hong
Kong, Korea, Malaya,
Thailand, Singapore,
Indonesia, and Burma.
B.
C.
Under the slogan
“East Asia for the
Asians,” the
Japanese created
the Greater East
Asia CoProsperity
Sphere.
After victory,
however, the
Japanese treated
people with
cruelty.
3. The
Bataan Death
March
A.
The Japanese reserved the most brutal treatment for
Allied POWs.
B.
On the
Bataan
Death
March – a
forced
march of
more than
50 miles the
Japanese
subjected
their
captives to
terrible
cruelties.
 Of approx. 70,000
54,000 survived.
POWS,
only
I was questioned by a Japanese
officer, who found out that I had
been in a Philippine Scout Battalion.
They took me outside and I was
forced to watch as they buried six of
my Scouts alive. They made the men
dig their own graves, and then had
them kneel down in a pit. The guards
hit them over the head with shovels
to stun them and piled earth on top.
 - Lieutenant John Spainhower, War

Diary
4. The Pacific
Theater
A.
In April 1942, 16 B-25 bombers
under Lt. James Doolittle bombed
Tokyo and several other cities.
B.
In the
Battle of
the
Coral
Sea
(1942),
the Allies
stopped a
potential
Japanese
takeover
of
Australia.
C.
When Japan targeted Midway
Island, 1500 miles away from
Japan, the Allies stopped them this turned the tide of the war in
the Pacific.
5. An Allied
Offensive
A.
Under the
command of
General
Douglas
MacArthur, the
Marines
conducted an
“island-hopping”
campaign.
B.
They built air bases on the captured islands;
by 1944, Japan was blockaded.
C.
The Japanese were suffering, but would not
consider surrendering.
5. V-J Day
The Decision to Drop the Bomb:
Alternative Possibilities
1.
2.
3.
4.
A massive invasion of Japan, expected
to cost millions of Allied causalities
A naval blockade to starve Japan, along
with conventional bombing
A demonstration of the atomic bomb on
a deserted island to pressure Japan to
surrender
A softening of Allied demands for an
unconditional surrender
MORE ALLIED LIVES – WAR DRAGS ON

President
Truman
considered the
bomb to be a
military weapon
and had no
doubt that it
should be used.
“You should
do your
weeping at
Pearl Harbor,”
he told his
critics.
A.
On August
6, 1945 the
first atomic
bomb was
dropped on
Hiroshima.
B.
Nagasaki
was next on
August 9.
C.
The Japanese surrendered on September 2, 1945.