Transcript Military Strategy against the Japanese is ISLAND HOPPING

• 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
• Philippines fall in April 1942
THE DOOLITTLE RAIDS, April 1942
• Secret mission from USS Hornet
• B-52s took off from Hornet & bombed
Tokyo – first bombing of Japan
• Had to crash land in China (could not land
on aircraft carriers)
• Most of the pilots survived
TIMELINE OF EVENTS IN
THE PACIFIC:
• Battle of the Coral Sea – 5/42
– Halts Japanese advance on Australia
• Japanese had overextended themselves
– First all-aircraft battle
• Battle of Midway – 6/42
– 3 day air battle; US sinks 4 Japanese carriers
– Turning point in War in the Pacific
• Battle of Guadalcanal – 8/42 – 2/43
– Victory guaranteed Japanese would not disrupt
U.S. – Australian shipping lanes
Gen. Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines
Battle of Leyte Gulf, Oct. 1944
Destroys Japanese imperial fleet
Kamikazes used by Japanese
Iwo Jima
Feb.-March
1945
One of last major
outposts; only 600
miles from Tokyo
Would be
“unsinkable
aircraft carrier”
Extremely heavy
casualties
OKINAWA
June 1945
• Only 350 mi.
from Japanese
mainland
• Ground invasion
to take place
from here
• 279 Kamikaze
hits here
Col. Paul Tibbets waves
farewell as he prepares
to take off for Hiroshima
Col. Tibbets named his
plane after his mother.
“Fat Man”
Nagasaki,
Aug. 9, 1945
“Little Boy”
Hiroshima,
Aug. 6, 1945
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.
EFFECTS OF THE
ATOMIC BOMB
V-J DAY
Aug. 15, 1945
Times Square
Official Surrender, U.S.S. Missouri, Sept. 2, 1945 -- Tokyo
The End of the War
• In less than four years, the US
achieved what no other nation
had ever done – it fought and
won a two-front war against two
powerful military empires,
forcing each to surrender
unconditionally.
• “For all the fake manliness…
we cried with relief & joy. We
were going to live. We were
going to grow up to adulthood
after all.”
The United Nations (UN)
• Before his death, FDR
thought that a new world
organization would help to
prevent another world war
• In 1944, delegates from 39
countries met in Washington,
D.C. to discuss the new
organization
• April 15, 1945 –
representatives from50
countries met to design the
UN’s
, or constitution
Putting the Enemy on Trial
• In the summer of 1945, the US, Britain, France, & the Soviet
Union created the International Military Tribunal (IMT)
– Designed to try the German leaders of WWII suspected of committing
war crimes
• The trials were held in
Nuremberg, Germany &
called the Nuremberg Trials
– 22 leaders were prosecuted
• 3 acquitted, 7 given prison
sentences, 12 sentenced to
death by hanging
– Trials of lower-ranking
officers were done in 1949
• 24 more were executed &
107 given prison sentences
• Similar trials were held in Tokyo
– Emperor not tried