The Pacific Theatre of World War II

Japan

USA

Canada

Australia

China

SE Asia

The Pacific Ocean

The Pacific War

• Dates: July 7, 1937 - August 14, 1945• Began with the Second Sino-Japanese war,

between China and Japan• Concluded with Japan’s surrender to the

Allied powers

Prelude to War

• Japan seeks to establish “The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”– “a bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western

powers”– Invasions of Manchuria and Korea follow

• Three political forces in Japan:– Emperor Hirohito– Civilian Government– Military branches

• The army informs the civilian government of the Manchuria campaign two months after it begins.

Prewar

1932

1940

1941

Dec 8/7 1941

Attack on Pearl HarbourDec 7, 1941. “A day that will live in infamy”

Pearl Harbor

The Attack

The Attack

Aftermath

"Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”

- Winston Churchill

The Doolittle Raid

• The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid, on April 18, 1942, was the first air raid by the United States to strike the Japanese Home Islands during World War II. It provided a vital morale boost and opportunity for U.S. retaliation after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The raid was planned and led by Lieutenant Colonel James "Jimmy" Doolittle, U.S. Army Air Forces.

1941

1942

Battle of Coral Sea

• The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Australia.

• First action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other: neither side's ships sighted or fired directly upon the other…air combat

• Strategically vital for the Japanese to eliminate Australia as a potential base of operations against their empire… vital to us to stop the Japanese from taking Australia!

The Battle Of Midway

June 4-7 1942

6 months after Pearl Harbour

Yamamoto seeks to capture Midway atoll and thus confront and destroy the US Navy’s carrier forces.

Midway Order of Battle

US forces:

3 carriers

~50 support ships

233 carrier aircraft

127 land-based aircraft

Japanese forces:

4 carriers

7 battleships

~150 support ships

248 carrier aircraft

16 floatplanes

Plan of Attack

The Battle of Midway

• The first major carrier vs. carrier engagement• Decided by cryptanalysis, tactics, radar, pilot

skill, weather, and luck.

Guadalcanal

• First major offensive by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan.

• August 7, 1942, Allied forces, mostly American, landed on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese to threaten Allied supply and communication routes.

• Marines got their first taste of jungle warfare… fighting defending troops in dense jungle was extremely difficult and bloody… a sign of what was to come.

1943-1944

Battle of Leyte Gulf

• Considered to be the largest naval battle of World War II and, by some criteria, possibly the largest naval battle in history.

• Part of a strategy aimed at isolating Japan from the countries it had occupied in Southeast Asia, and in particular depriving its forces and industry of vital oil supplies.

• The IJN failed to achieve its objective, suffered very heavy losses, and never afterwards sailed to battle in comparable force. The majority of its surviving heavy ships, deprived of fuel, remained in their bases for the rest of the Pacific War.

Kamikaze

Island-Hopping Warfare

American and Australian troops land in Borneo

Island-Hopping Warfare

American Troops assaulting Iwo Jima

1944-1945

The Final Year

• The US retakes the Philippines in a long and costly campaign.

• Borneo, Iwo Jima and the Okinawa fall, with heavy losses on both sides.

• The military leadership of Japan refuses to give up, in spite of the loss of the bulk of their forces.

• An edict is issued, ordering civilians on the main Japanese islands to construct bamboo spears and meet the invaders on the beaches.

• US Bombers produce a firestorm in Tokyo, killing 100,000 people in two days.

• The US, Britain and China issue the Potsdam Declaration, demanding Japan’s surrender.

Nuclear Strikes

Aug 6, 1945. Uranium bomb “Little Boy” dropped on Hiroshima, killing 140,000

Aug 9, 1945. Plutonium bomb “Fat Man” dropped on Nagasaki, killing 74,000

Japan Surrenders

Representatives of Japan’s Foreign Ministry, Army and Navy appear to sign the surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay

The Cost

• 2,000,000 Japanese Soldiers dead• 300,000 Allied Soldiers dead• 600,000 - 1,000,000 Japanese civilians dead• 11,000 American civilians dead• 60,000 Korean civilians dead• Mass devastation of Japanese infrastructure• Indigenous people of north and western Pacific

islands devastated by disease, cultural contamination, collateral damage, and atrocities.

• The list continues…

Image Credits• Slide 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USS_Yorktown_hit-740px.jpg - From

Wikipedia• Slide 2: Image Captured From Google Earth• Slide 3: Flag images from Wikipedia• Slide 5+:Map of Japanese Empire:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Japanese_Empire2.png from Wikipedia• Slides 10,11,12: Images from Wikipedia• Slide 13: Images from Warbird Alley and Wikipedia• Slides 14,15,16: Image from Wikipedia and the US National Archives• Slide 19: Midway Atoll Photo from Wikipedia• Slide 21: Midway Attack Plan Map from www.historychannel.com• Slide 26: B-29 Images from the University of San Diego,

http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/st/~plewis/ and Wikipedia• Slides 27-32: Image from Wikipedia