Pacific Theatre of Operations

I. Early Defeats

A. Japanese Plan• Take out Pacific fleet• Cut off communication to the Philippines• Destroy MacArthur's air force

1. Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7)

2. Guam (Dec. 7)

3. Wake Islands (Dec. 10, 22, 23)

4. Philippines (Dec. 7)

US-Japanese Relations

• Representatives meeting in Washington D.C.

• Japan trying to control the Pacific-U.S. is the only country standing in their way

• The rest of the world is concerned with Hitler

• FDR sends a direct appeal for peace

• Too late-Fleet has already set sail

The attack

• Comes without warning-7:53 a.m.

• Goal is to take out the U.S. Pacific Fleet

• Three waves of attacks-only two go

• Most damage done within 90 minutes– Battleship Row was hit – Three Aircraft carriers were out– Dry docks and oil not hit

The First Hit

Battleship Row

• 8 Battleships Hit-All but 2 were rebuilt within 6 months of the attack

II. Bataan Death March

• MacArthur is forced to flee the Philippines

• 70,000 + American & Philippine troops surrender on April 9, 1942 in Bataan.

• Prisoners were led on 60 mile forced march from Bataan to Camp O’Donnell

• 11,000 prisoners died on the march

• Torture at the hands of Japanese troops was extremely brutal

BDM Cont.

• Richard Gordon: I didn't come down with a surrender group. They caught me actually two days after the surrender took place. First thing I did was receive a good beating. And everything I had in my wallet, in my pockets was taken from me. And as I was marched down that road, where they captured me, I passed my battalion commander, Major James Ivy, and he had been tied to a tree and he was stripped to the waist and he was just covered with bayonet holes. He was dead obviously. And he had bled profusely. He had been bayonetted by many, many bayonets. And that's when I knew we had some troubles on our hands. We were in for deep trouble. And they brought us down into a staging area and put me in with the rest of the thousands that were assembled on the side of the road, and that's where I spent my first night.

The Bataan Death March

• During the death march, an American prisoner-a former Notre Dame football player-had his 1935 class ring taken from him by a Japanese guard. It was later returned to him by an apologetic officer who politely explained, “I graduated from Southern California in ’35”.

Fit For Labor

Left to Die

III. Turning the Tide

A. Battle of Midway1. Turning point of the Pacific War• June 1942• Halted Japanese advance toward Australia

B. Island Hopping1. High Casualties

2. Important Islands/Battles• Guadalcanal• Iwo Jima• Okinawa

Island Hopping

• Guadalcanal:– Marines landed and rooted out the Japanese

Island by Island at a heavy price-first amphibious landing

• May and June of 1942-U.S. starts to have success in the Pacific (six months after Pearl Harbor)

Island Hopping

• Iwo Jima:– Vicious fighting on an 8 mile island that was

heavily defended by the Japanese– Most of the U.S. troops never saw a Japanese

defender– Showed the futility of an amphibious landing

Iwo Jima

• Flag raising at Mount Suribachi

• More medals of honor given at this battle (27) than any other battle during WWII

• Most famous shot of the war happened here

Island Hopping• Philippines: October 1944

– MacArthur returns as promised and retakes the Philippines

• “People of the Philippines: I have returned.”

Island Hopping

• Okinawa: April 1, 1945-July 2, 1945

• Japan has lost most of the territory it had gained at the beginning of the war

• Japan is down to it’s last defenses- A “Battle to the End”

• Over 1,900 Kamikazes between April-July– Divine Wind-HUGE honor for the families of

pilots who died for their country

IV. The A-Bomb

A. Manhattan Project• Einstein• Oppenheimer

B. Truman’s DecisionC. Hiroshima

• Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” Aug. 6, 1945 on Hiroshima – 140,00 deaths

• “Fat Man” dropped Aug. 9 on Nagasaki -- 70,000 Deaths

A-Bomb Info.

• On the ground, beneath the explosion center (hypocenter), the temperature rose to approximately 7,000 degrees F

• The wind velocity on the ground beneath the explosion center was 980 miles/hr, which is five times stronger than the wind generated by strong hurricanes.

A-Bomb Info. • Radiation• The explosion generated Alpha, Beta, Gamma and neutron

rays. Alpha and Beta rays were absorbed by the air and did not reach to the ground. Gamma and neutron rays were strong enough to reach the ground; thus it was these rays that affected people. Within 1/16 mile radius from the explosion center, most people died within a few hours (even in the case where they were not directly exposed to the heat or wind). Within a half mile radius, most people died within 30 days after the explosion.

• The people who entered the area within a half mile radius from the explosion center in the first 100 hours after the explosion were also affected by the remaining radiation on the ground.

• Fortunately it has not been observed that the long term effects of radiation affected A-bomb survivors nor that a radiation exposure caused genetic damages.

Atomic Cloud

About one hour after the bombing on 6 August 1945

HiroshimaBefore

After

Nagasaki

• BEFORE • AFTER

V. Japan Surrenders – 2 Sept. 1945

• V.J. Day

• USS Missouri

• Devastation of Japanese Imperial Army– 15 million Chinese, Korean, Filipino,

Indonesian, Burmese, Indochinese civilians, Pacific Islanders and Allied POW were killed