Transcript Nagasaki, Aug. 9, 1945

WWII
War
Against
Japan
• Military Strategy against the
Japanese is ISLAND
HOPPING:
– capturing key islands to cut off
Japanese supply lines and to use
as bases for attack against the
Japanese islands
• U.S. Commanders in the
Pacific:
– General Douglas MacArthur
– Admiral Chester Nimitz
National Archives
“Bataan Death March”
85 miles
1942
FALL OF THE
PHILIPPINES
• Japanese attacked just hours after Pearl Harbor
• Gen. Douglas MacArthur retreated to Bataan
Peninsula; badly outnumbered by Japanese
• Held out for 3 mos.; MacArthur ordered to
Australia
• Remaining troops surrendered in April 1942
• Bataan Death March to prison camp – thousands
died; worst defeat in U.S. military history
FALL OF THE
PHILIPPINES
THE DOOLITTLE RAIDS, April 1942
• Secret mission from USS Hornet; 16 B-25s took off from Hornet to
bomb Tokyo – first bombing of Japan
• Then supposed to land in friendly airfields in China
• Had to take off early after Japan discovered aircraft carriers
• Not enough fuel to reach friendly airfields in China – had to crash
land or bail out; all planes lost
• Of the 80 airmen that participated in the raid, 69 escaped capture
and death; aided by Chinese … who paid dearly
• Raid a MAJOR boost to American morale and surprise to the
Japanese; forced Japan to shift vital resources to their defense.
THE DOOLITTLE RAIDS, April 1942
U.S.S. LEXINGTON
BATTLE OF CORAL SEA – 5/42
 Halts Japanese advance on Australia
 First all-aircraft battle
 Lexington sank, but supply lines to Australia stayed open!
Battle of Midway – 6/42
• 3 day air battle
• US sinks 4 Japanese
carriers with 100
planes each
• 3000 Japanese
casualties
• Turning point in
War in the Pacific!
• Limited Japan’s
ability to conduct an
offensive war
Battle of Guadalcanal
8/42 – 2/43
• By air, sea and land
• Many Marines
• Victory guaranteed
Japanese would not
disrupt U.S. – Australian
shipping lanes
Marianna Islands
• Could be used for B52 bombing raids
• 250 Japanese planes downed; 29 U.S.
• Saipan Island, Suicide cliffs
MacArthur returns & retakes Philippines in October 1944 with
victory at LEYTE GULF - destroys Japanese imperial fleet – 60
ships / greatest naval battle of all time! Kamikazes first used.
Major difficulties in combat: Reefs surrounding the islands;
Japanese fought to the death --- dishonorable to surrender
Fire bombing of Tokyo
March 1945
Napalm bombings destroyed 16 square miles of Tokyo
83,000 civilian casualties - Japan still won’t surrender
IWO JIMA
660 miles from Tokyo
Only 8 square miles
Has 3 airstrips
Iwo Jima, Feb.-March 1945
One of last major
outposts
Only 660 miles from
Tokyo -- would be an
“unsinkable aircraft
carrier” from which
to launch attacks
B52s made 2,500
emergency landings
here during Tokyo
firebombing
Extremely heavy
casualties
20,000 Japanese
at start – 1,083
at end
7,000 Marines
lost
OKINAWA
June 1945
• Only 350 mi. from
Japanese mainland
• Took 3 months for
victory
• Ground invasion to
take place from here
• More than 1,000
Kamikaze attacks
• U.S. gets airfield to
launch attacks against
Japanese industrial
centers
POTSDAM CONFERENCE
•
•
•
•
July – August, 1945
Truman and Stalin and Churchill
Ultimatum to Japan – surrender or else
Truman insists German industry be
allowed to recover but Stalin wants
reparations
• Agreement:
• German industry allowed to revive in the
British, American and French zones
• Stalin gets reparations from only the Soviet
zone of Germany (not happy since it was
primarily agricultural)
• Truman tells Stalin of U.S. atomic bomb
testing
“Fat Man”
Nagasaki,
Aug. 9, 1945
80,000 casualties
35,000 dead
“Little Boy”
Hiroshima,
Aug. 6, 1945
180,000 casualties
70,000 dead instantly
Col. Paul Tibbets prepares
to take off for Hiroshima
Col. Tibbets named his
plane after his mother.
HIROSHIMA
August 6, 1945
Why were Hiroshima
and Nagasaki the
chosen sites?
Nagasaki under
atomic bomb
attack on August
9, 1945. Two
planes of the 10th
Air Force
participated in
the mission-one to
carry the bomb,
the other to serve
as an escort. The
new atomic age
was underway.
EFFECTS OF THE
ATOMIC BOMB
Shadows burned into a
wooden observation tower
and outlined in chalk by
investigators record a
Nagasaki air-raid
observer’s last moments.
After descending from his
post by ladder,the observer
hung up his sword belt and
was unbuttoning his jacket
when the bomb exploded.
The duration of the heat radiation from the
bomb is so short, just a few thousandths of
a second, that there is no time for the
energy falling on a surface to be dissipated
by thermal diffusion; the flash burn is
typically a surface effect. Where solid
objects block the energy, the blast
produced a permanent atomic shadow on
solid surfaces.
• One feature connected with heat
radiation was the charring of fabric to
different degrees depending upon the
color of the fabric. Persons wearing
clothing of various colors received
burns greatly varying in degree, the
degree of burn depending upon the
color of the fabric over the skin in
question.
• Vegetation
begins to
propagate
because of the
radiation.
V-J DAY
August 15,
1945
SURRENDER- SEPT. 2, 1945 ON THE U.S.S. MISSOURI
TOJO’S
SUICIDE
ATTEMPT
September 11, 1945