Transcript 17 3bx - Wylie ISD

War in Pacific
• October 1944 US troops and ships converged
on Leyte Gulf in the Philippines.
• The Entire Japanese fleet went into Battle of
Leyte Gulf; used kamikaze tactic or suicide
plane attack;
• Battle was a disaster for Japan, losing 3
battleships, 4 carriers, 13 cruisers, 500 planes
War in Pacific
• Iwo Jima
– The island was critical to US as base so bombers
might reach Japan
– The battle was the first American attack on the
Japanese Home Islands, and the Imperial soldiers
defended their positions tenaciously.
– 6,000 marines died taking island
– Of the more than 18,000 Japanese soldiers present
at the beginning of the battle, only 216 were taken
prisoner
– The battle was immortalized by Joe Rosenthal’s
photograph of the raising of the U.S. flag on top of
the 545 ft Mount Suribachi by five Marines and one
Navy Corpsman.
Battle for the Pacific
• Battle for Okinawa
– Last obstacle for Allied forces
– Japanese fought desperately,
with kamikaze attacks proving
somewhat effective
– US lost 7,600 soldiers, Japan lost
110,000
– Taking Okinawa and Iwo Jima
paved way for invasion of Japan
– Okinawa provided a base close
to Japan from which to carry out
an invasion of Japan.
Battle of the Pacific
• American scientist J. Robert
Oppenheimer led Manhattan Project,
development of atomic bomb; best-kept
secret of war
• 600,000 people involved, very few
knew its purpose; Truman didn’t know
before he became president
• Estimates of US Casualties
for the invasion of Japan
ran as high a 500,000
Truman decided to use
this new weapon.
Battle of the Pacific
• Aug 6, 1945, Enola Gay released “Little Boy”
on Hiroshima, an important Japanese military
center, turning the city to dust; Japan refused
to surrender
• Aug 9, 1945 “Fat Man” was dropped on
Nagasaki
• Hiroshima – 70,000 instant deaths, 69,000
injuries; Nagasaki – 39,000 dead, 25,000
injured; by end of 1945, over 200,000 dead
as result of injuries or radiation
Fat Man
Little Boy
•
Distance from
Ground Zero (km)
Killed
Injured
Population
27,300 (88%)
9,500 (34%)
1,300 (11%)
38,100 (22%)
1,900 (6%)
8,100 (29%)
11,000 (10%)
21,000 (12%)
30,900
27,700
115,200
173,800
–
–
–
–
0 - 1.0
1.0 - 2.5
2.5 - 5.0
Total
–
Computed from data in A. W. Oughterson and S. Warren (Editors), "Medical Effects of the Atomic
Bomb in Japan," McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., Chapter 4, 1956.
Sept 2, 1945, Japan unconditionally
surrendered on US battleship Missouri
It’s Finally Over!!!!!
Rebuilding Begins
Tehran Conference
• December 1943
• Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill
• Agreed on schedule for D-Day
invasion
• Would work together in peace
after the war
Yalta Conference
• Held in Soviet territory in early 1945; Allies on brink of military
victory
• Primary goal to reach agreement on postwar Europe
• Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill agreed on plans for Germany
• Stalin got his way with Polish territory, made promises
Potsdam Conference
July 1945
• Small German city location for
Potsdam Conference
• Growing ill will between Soviet
Union and other Allies
Closing months
Three sides
• Soviet Union, Britain, and United
States-new leaders for US and
Britain
• Discussed many issues but had
difficulty reaching agreement
Stalin
• American and British leaders
worried about Stalin’s intentions
• Did not respect democracies in
Eastern Europe
• Concerned about spread of
communism, growth of Soviet
influence
• Another struggle beginning
Rebuilding Begins
• War Crimes
– Nuremberg Trials – discovery of death
camps led to 24 Nazi leaders to go on trial
– 12 of 24 were sentenced to death; 200
others were found guilty of lesser war
crimes
– Many argued trials didn’t go far enough to
punish the guilty; many guilty did go free
– Established principle that individuals are
responsible for their own actions
Rebuilding Begins
• War Crimes
– between 1937 and 1945, the
Japanese military murdered
6,000,000 Chinese, Indonesians,
Koreans, Filipinos, and Indochinese
– The Japanese doctors and army
commanders who had perpetrated the
Unit 731 atrocities and germ warfare
experiments received sentences from
the Khabarovsk court ranging from
two to 25 years
– the Allied powers indicted 25
individuals as Class-A war criminals,
and 5,700 individuals were indicted
as Class-B or Class-C war criminals
by Allied criminal trials. Of these, 920
were executed, 475 received life
sentences, 2,944 received some
prison terms
Rebuilding Begins
• Germany was
partitioned into four
parts, each under the
administration of an
Allied power.
• The United States alone
occupied and helped
rebuild Japan.