Transcript The United States in World War II

The United States in World War II
Chapter 17 Section 3
The War in the Pacific
The Japanese Tide
• While the Allies agreed the defeat of the
Nazis was their first priority, they did not
wait until V-E Day to move against Japan
• Attack on Pearl Harbor had missed the
Pacific Fleet’s submarines and aircraft
carriers
Japanese Advances
• First six months after Pearl Harbor, the
Japanese conquered an empire that
dwarfed the Third Reich
– Asian Mainland
• Malaya, Hong Kong, French Indochina, Burma,
Thailand and much of China
– South and East Pacific
• Dutch East Indies, Guam, Wake Island, The
Solomon Islands and two islands in the Aleutian
Chain (part of Alaska)
The Asian Pacific
The Asian Pacific
The Aleutians
Japanese Advances continued…
• Philippines: 80,000 American and Filipino
troops battled the Japanese for control
• Douglas MacArthur was in command of
Allied forces on the Islands
• Forces found themselves with their backs
against the wall
• Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to leave
• “I shall return”
Doolittle’s Raid
• Spring of 1942, the tide began to turn
against the Japanese
• Raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities
• Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led 16
bombers in the attack
• Pearl Harbor style air raid that lifted
American’s spirits
• “Tokyo Bombed! Doolittle Do’od It!”
Battle of the Coral Sea
• Main Allied forces in Pacific were
Americans and Australians
• May 1942 stopped Japanese drive toward
Australia
• Five day battle
• Air battles that took off from enormous
aircraft carriers
• Japanese invasion had been stopped and
turned back
Early War in the Pacific
Battle of Midway
• Island northwest of Hawaii
• Broke Japanese code
• Chester Nimitz commander of naval forces in
Pacific
• In June 1942 his scout planes found the
Japanese fleet
• Sent dive bombers and torpedo planes to attack
• Japanese caught with their planes still on the
decks of their carriers
Battle of Midway continued…
• Lost four aircraft carriers, a cruiser and
250 planes
• “Avenged Pearl Harbor”
• Turning point of the Pacific War
• “Island hopping” winning back territory
from the Japanese moving closer to Japan
Battle of Midway
The Allies Go On Offense
• 19,000 troops stormed Guadalcanal in the
Solomon Islands
• “Island of Death” after Japanese defeated
– White ants, scorpions, crocodiles, rats and bats
everywhere
• Marked first land defeat of Japanese
• October 1944, 178,000 Allied troops converged
in the Philippines on Leyte Island
• MacArthur, “People of the Philippines, I have
returned.”
Guadalcanal
The Japanese Defense
• Japanese threw their entire fleet into the Battle
of Leyte Gulf
• New tactic kamikaze: suicide plane attack in
which Japanese pilots crashed their bomb-laden
planes into Allied ships (divine wind)
• In Philippines, 424 kamikaze pilots, 16 ships
destroyed and 80 damaged
• Battle of Leyte Gulf was a disaster for Japan
– Lost 3 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 500 planes
Kamikazes
Iwo Jima
• “Sulfur Island”
• Critical to US base and most heavily
defended spot in Pacific
• 20,700 Japanese troops entrenched in
tunnels and caves
• 6,000 marines died
• Only 200 Japanese survived
• Mount Suribachi and the “photograph”
Iwo Jima
Battle for Okinawa
• April 1945, US Marines invaded Okinawa
• 1900 kamikaze attacks, sinking 30 ships,
damaging 300 more and killing nearly 5,000
seamen
• Fiercer opposition than Iwo Jima
• By the time the fighting ended, 7,600 Americans
and 110,000 Japanese had died
• Two Japanese generals committed suicide over
the shame of surrendering
• Okinawa had given Allies a chilling foretaste of
what the Allies imagined an invasion of Japan’s
home islands would be…
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
The Atomic Bomb
• Allied leaders feared invasion of Japan
would be a desperate struggle
• The Manhattan Project: Development of
the atomic bomb by American scientist J.
Robert Oppenheimer
• At its peak more than 600,000 Americans
were involved in the project, although few
knew its purpose
• First test in July 1945 in New Mexico
The Atomic Bomb continued…
• Should Truman use the bomb to end the war?
• US told Japan they face “prompt and utter
destruction unless they surrender at once”
• August 6, 1945 The Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber
released an atomic bomb (Little Boy) over
Hiroshima, an important military center
• 43 seconds later almost every building in the city
collapsed into dust
• Three days later, Fat Man was dropped on
Nagasaki
• 200,000 people died from the blast and radiation
poisoning
• Japan formally surrenders
The Atomic Bomb
Japan Surrenders
Rebuilding
• Allies turn to challenge of rebuilding war-torn
nations
• The Yalta Conference February 1945
– Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill meet to discuss the
fate of Germany
– Stalin favored a harsh approach; divide Germany into
occupation zones
– Churchill strongly disagreed; Roosevelt mediated
– Needed to Stalin to help with war in the Pacific and
support for the peace-keeping organization (to be
named United Nations)
Rebuilding continued…
• Series of compromises at Yalta
• Temporary division of Germany into four
zones to be controlled by the French,
British, Americans and Soviets
• Stalin promised free elections in Sovietoccupied Eastern European countries
• Stalin agreed to help in the Pacific and
participate in international peace-keeping
conference in San Francisco (UN)
Yalta Conference
Nuremberg War Trials
• The discovery of the death camps led the Allies
to put 24 surviving Nazi leaders on trial for their
Crimes Against Humanity
• Trials held in southern German town of
Nuremberg; called Nuremberg Trials
• See passage on pg 586 of text
• 12 of 24 sentenced to death
• Nearly 200 more found guilty of war crimes after
• Some Nazis went free; Simon Weisenthal (Nazi
hunter)
• Precedent that individuals are responsible for
their own actions, even in times of war
Nuremberg Trials continued…
The Dachau Trials
Occupation of Japan
• Under General Douglas MacArthur
• 1,100 Japanese under Tojo were arrested and
put on trial
• 7 were sentenced to death (including Tojo)
• Seven year occupation, MacArthur reshaped
Japan’s economy, helped create a new
constitution that provided women’s suffrage and
implemented a sound democracy
• Constitution is still called “MacArthur’s
Constitution”
World War II Ends