Admiral William F. Halsey

Iwo Jima was known for one of the most bloody battles in not just the Marine but American history too. The battle began on February 19, 1945 as part of the campaign of the Pacific theatre, and lasted for thirty-six days. Around twenty six-thousand Marines were wounded, which caused Union losses during the battle at Gettysburg. Near the beginning of summer of 1944, American B-29 bombers were ruining the islands. “Iwo Jima proved itself an indispensable asset to the Pacific command.” “Thousands of fighters took off from its runways, and this ‘stepping stone’ served as a staging ground for countless Allied advances.”

Beginning of the year in 1941, FDR decided that the Pacific Fleet would move to Hawaii from San Diego in the hopes of discouraging the invasion of the Japanese. Negotiations between Washington and Tokyo had been going on for several months without a resolution. On July 2, 1941, the Imperial High Command was tired of negotiations with the United States and needed to proceed with their development within Asia even with the embargo in place and meaning it would be at a high risk of war with the US. [4] Therefore, the Japanese had deceived the United States, ignored the arbitration, and moved forward with their plans. The United States had hoped that this restrictive embargo would halt Japan’s assault as negotiations had continued well into November.

The United State’s direct involvement in World War II officially began as soon as the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Prior to that event, America had been providing arms and equipment to England but stopped short of any direct military confrontation with the Axis. The War in the Pacific was considered Asia’s War and the European War was considered a local conflict. US-Japanese relations had become strained in 1941, though America felt secure that her naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was powerful enough to discourage any aggression from Japan. On July 24, 1941, Japan occupied French Indo-China (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos). Two days after that, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt froze all Japanese assets in the United States. American trade

President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a speech on December 7,1941 after Pearl Harbor occurred in Honolulu, Hawaii. In the speech, ‘Day of Infamy’, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it very clear that the Americans were now at war with the Japanese Empire. He builds this by stating the US was at peace with Japan, and that the Japanese Empire destroyed that peace by attacking the Naval base. Injuring the military defense there, thus this event made it difficult to transfer troops and distributed Navy into the seas by Hawaii. He even states that they not only attacked the Base but the seas around it.

On June 3rd, 1942, the United States declared war on Imperialistic Japan and Nazi Germany. Due to the bombing of the United States' naval base at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese the U.S. was forced to take action. The United States began their first naval battle near the Midway islands in defense of its pacific fleet and positioning. Midway was the Japanese' last goal for its western expansion in the Pacific.

The war in Europe was finished and America was still fighting Japan in the Pacific. The American people’s will to continue the war effort was falling and the government had to think of a way to end the war. They needed to take some of the Pacific to be able to get close enough to Japan to finish the war. They started by taking islands but ran into heavy Japanese resistance; soldier’s that were almost all willing to die for their emperor. That included fake surrendering, making and then hiding in elaborate cave systems, and killing other Japanese who were trying to surrender. This weighed heavily on the soldiers and made fighting incredibly hard. Even when they had an island there were Japanese who had hidden and still tried to kill the

Iwo Jima remains the Marine Corps’s deadliest campaign. February 19, 1945 was the day of the initial assault on Iwo Jima. That morning nearly eight hundred vessels, ranging from battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to

” No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.” A quote from President Franklin Roosevelt December 8, 1941 speech to Congress, declaring war on Japan. By the summer of 1945, 3 years after the Declaration of War on Japan began, intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and its economy in ruins. Americans captured Okinawa, a Japanese island from which the Allies used to launch invasions off the main Japanese home islands.

In the beginning of war, Japanese victory in Pacific terrified West Cost Americans. Partial victory for Americans appeared when Japanese capital Tokyo was bombed. It was less of a material loss but huge in terms of psychological attack. It was followed by the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942 and after that the decisive Battle of Midway Island took place. U.S. aircraft carriers destroyed three out of four Japanese carriers that sabotaged their further plans of invasion and they adopted a defensive strategy.

Before their attack on Midway Island, the Japanese had to take over Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands in early May of 1942. Yamamoto planned the Battle of the Coral Sea with hopes of gaining new islands in the Pacific Ocean that would aid the Japanese during its attack on Midway

Guadalcanal was the first American offensive of World War II. American efforts in the Pacific were heavily impeded by the “Europe First” strategy during World War II (Gray 317). President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill both saw Europe as being more important than Asia. Nazi Germany was viewed as the major threat to Western ideals. Neither the U.S. nor Europe feared a Japanese invasion. The American Army would send the majority of its forces into Europe. The U.S. Navy had some of its ships act as convoys to protect merchant ships, but most of the aircraft carriers were in the Pacific. The United States Marine Corps (USMC) was entirely

On December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was the target of an unannounced military attack by the Japanese Navy. This resulted in the United States entry into World War II. After almost 4 years of war, 400,000 US casualties, 6 months of air strikes on Japanese cities and an impending defeat of Japan, an ultimatum was delivered to Japan by the United States: surrender or be destroyed.

On December 7th, 1941, Japan bombed the United States Army, Air Force, and Naval Bases, in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor. The next day on December 8th, 1941, the U.S. entered World War II declaring war on Japan as they provoked us to do so with their sneaky aerial attack. Behind the scenes of the extensive fighting, American

Shortly before 8am on Sunday 7 December 1941 , the first of two waves of Japanese aircraft launched a devastating attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet, moored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The raid, which came with no warning and no declaration of war, destroyed four battleships, leaving an additional 4 damaged in merely two hours. The attack destroyed 188 US aircraft, killed more than 2,400 Americans, and injured another 1,200 . Although remembered as “the day that will live in infamy”, the exact reason behind the attack on Pearl Harbor still remains unknown. Some believe that the Japanese were galvanized by Germany to attack the United States because of the assumption that the United States would be unable to concentrate all of its resources toward the fight with Japan. Germany desired assistance in the fight during World War II and, because of that, nearly guaranteed the United States’ defeat if Japan attacked. On the other side, it is believed that the Japanese prompted the Pacific war with the attack on Pearl Harbor in order to eliminate their primary competitor for resources in the Pacific and fulfill its destiny of creating a “greater East Asian co-prosperity sphere” .

The Pacific Campaign started after the attack of Pearl Harbor. It involved six countries and over 180,000 casualties. Japan’s belligerent acts and attitude towards Americans only provoked and encouraged the troops to attack more immensely. The Japanese knew the battle was in extremis, but still continued to fight for honor. On October 3, 1944, American forces in the Pacific Ocean areas received a directive task to seize positions in the Ryukyu Islands. Okinawa was the most important island of the Ryukyu group, it was the threshold of the four main