Defeat Of Midway Research Paper

Returning to their aircraft carriers to refuel and rearm the Japanese bombers noticed the U.S. fleet and prepared for their attack. Sent from the aircraft carriers were Devastator Torpedo Bombers and Dauntless Dive Bombers. The first to attack were the Torpedo Bombers, flying low to the sea the Japanese were able to defend their ship’s with ease. The Japanese destroyed 35 Torpedo Bombers, only 6 made it to their target destination which was one of the four Japanese aircraft carriers, but to their surprise none of their torpedo’s hit the intended target. Although the Torpedo Bombers did not hit their target their sacrifice was not in vain. High above the Dauntless Dive Bombers were closing in on their targets without any resistance. With just enough cloud coverage the Dive Bombers were able to approach their targets with ease. Within the first day the Japanese carriers Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu, were hit, set ablaze, and abandoned (). According to ..: Over the next two days, the US Navy and US forces on Midway continued their attacks, forcing the Japanese to abandon the battle and retreat to Japan. The Japanese lost approximately 4,800 men, four carriers, one cruiser, and hundreds of aircraft, while the United States lost approximately 307 men, one carrier, one destroyer, and over 100 aircraft.

On April 18, 1942, the Japanese capitol city of Tokyo and the nearby cities of Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe were bombed by sixteen United States Army B-25 bombers. In these attacks the United States damaged ammunition factories and steel plants. These small bombings did not really do much damage, but they did do their job, however, boosting the confidence of the American people. Captured Americans flying in the B-25 bombers were not considered Prisoners or War, but criminals, and went to trial. The Americans were put to death in some cases. Japan continued to build up a massive fleet that included four aircraft carriers, seven battleships, thirteen cruisers, forty destroyers, sixteen submarines and many troop transport ships (McGowen 24). The Japanese sailors had great morale and felt

In 1945, World War Two was coming to an end. Following Adolf Hitler’s suicide, and Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender on May 7, 1945, the war in Europe was finally over. The allies began began postwar planning for future, as well as establishment of post-war order and peace treaties issues. America’s war wasn’t done yet as they were still fighting Japan, eventually pushing them back to their main island. The Japanese’ plans of defending themselves was a group of final decisive battles on the Japanese mainland utilizing all people in Japan to fight to death against the Americans. Fearing costly land battles,

Between 1942 and 1945, thousands of Japanese Americans, regardless of United States citizenship status, received orders to evacuate their homes and businesses. Sparked by rising fear amongst the American people after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a Naval base in Hawaii, the U.S. government relocated Japanese Americans to remote areas on the West Coast and in the south, isolating them in internment camps. With no actual evidence supporting the creation of internment camps, the U.S. interned Japanese Americans because of Japanese involvement in Pearl Harbor resulting in a rise of anti-Japanese paranoia sparked by the economic success of Japanese Americans, increased fear and prejudice within the United States government and amongst citizens,

The Japanese are a very resilient people. For this reason alone they could have made the War last another year. This is all if the bomb didn’t drop. At the time when the bomb dropped the south of Japan was overrun by U.S.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America turned its fears on the Japanese and Japanese-Americans that resided on the nation’s Pacific coast. The Japanese were forced to relocate to internment camps, leave their American life behind, endured the harsh internment camp conditions, and still faced obstacles upon release, such as not being able to return to their regular lives. Despite the constitutional rights that the Japanese Americans had, they endured the hardships of their uprooting, subpar camp conditions, and faced their losses after their release and closing of the internment camps.

The United States faced the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean during World War II in what was later known as some of the most gruesome battles in either country’s history. The Pacific theatre of World War II consisted of a series of bloody conflicts in which the United States responded to early Japanese victories with an offensive campaign that won a decisive victory for the Allies. Although many significant battles were fought in the Pacific, the most important battle was the Battle of Midway, because it was a decisive victory for the Allies that changed the course of the war completely.

suffered a major defeat at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet, took advantage of the situation the U.S. was put in after its losses during Pearl Harbor (“Japs Risk Large Naval Units...”). With the backbone of U.S. Pacific Fleet torn out, Japan made several attempts to dominate the Pacific. Japan was anxious to settle their differences with the U.S., so they began risking large naval units in Pacific battles. An article posted in the Los Angeles Time, “Japs Risk Large Naval Units in Blows at U.S.” says, “For the sixth time in six months Japan made a deadly bid to capture the mastery of the Pacific, and for the sixth time she has failed after paying a price that is fast becoming prohibitive,” (“Japs Risk Large Naval Units...”). This article was posted days after the Battle of Midway, on June 7th, 1942 reflecting the actions of the Japanese Navy in the previous months. The Japanese were anxious to pounce on the weakened U.S. after Pearl Harbor, backing their attacks with large naval units. The Japanese felt that they needed to take over Midway Island in order to claim dominance over the U.S. in the Pacific.

Japan was losing the war. Everyone knew it. United States general Douglas MacArthur knew it. Japanese general Masaharu Homma knew it. The high command back in America knew it. Lieutenant Sato, commandant of the Puerto Princesa Japanese POW camp knew it. On December 14th, 1944, every one of the 150 American prisoners of war from the camp was ordered into the makeshift shelters they had constructed for themselves for protection against air raids. The prisoners were then doused with aviation fuel, and torches were thrown inside the shelters. Of the 150 men in the camp, only eleven were able to escape this grisly death. These eleven managed to escape, somehow, and reported the

“On August 6, the American bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, a Japanese industrial center, completely destroying the city and killing an estimated 70,000 people. Three days later, the U. S. dropped a second bomb, destroying the city of Nagasaki and killing another 39,000 Japanese citizens. Finally, on August 14, Japan surrendered.” (American Experience). The Japanese surrendered because they were a defeated nation. Japan's cities and industry had been destroyed. They could not sail any ships, could not fly any planes and had lost many territories to the United States and allies.

The Japanese then mobilized their military and civilian militia which out be deployed to fight and defend their home islands. Presenting the Japanese determination to fight on is the fact that even after the atomic bombs were dropped against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese military still wanted to peruse that desperate option. The atomic bombs forced emperor Hirohito to comprehend something the military and its soldiers could not. The defense of the homeland was hopeless. It took the Japanese emperor to break the impact in the Japanese government and finally order surrender to the United

The Doolittle Raid made Japan think their perimeter security was weak (“The Battle of Midway”). They wanted to avenge the bombing of Japanese home islands, fix the hole in their Eastern defensive perimeter from the U.S. control of Midway, finish the US Pacific Fleet, and take Hawaii (Morgenthau and Tuerkheimer). Japan decided to attack Midway in order to get the U.S.A out of the Pacific and strengthen their border. At 4:30 a.m. on June 4, 36 Japanese fighter planes and bombers attacked Midway (Krasner 28). The outcome of the battle was worse for Japan than it was for the U.S.

Japanese were fighting to defend the islands from the Americans while they were advancing in

March 1945. Thefirebombing destroyed approximately 16 square miles of Tokyo with some 100,000 peopleestimated to have died in the resulting firestorm, more than the immediate fatalities of Hiroshima(Dyson, 2006). The Japanese had shown themselves willing to sacrifice cities to conventionalbombing, with some operations as damaging as the atomic

As suggested earlier in the report, the US failed to score a quick victory over the Japanese, as its intelligence department predicted. In the days preceding the amphibious assault on 19 February 1945, the US conducted a heavy bombardment of the island. Yet, although these bombardments yielded some positive results, destroying some pillboxes and bunkers, their overall significance was limited. The Japanese, after all, hid in their underground tunnels. Holed into their pillboxes, the Japanese remained on the defensive for the entirety of the battle. The Americans, on the other hand, struggled forlornly to gain an advantage at the outset of the battle.