War In The Pacific

December 7, 1941, Japanese air and naval forces struck multiple areas within the Pacific to include Kota Bharu in British Malaya, Singora in Thailand, Guam, Hong Kong, and the Philippine Islands. One of the prominent attacks targeted Pearl Harbor, marking the United States declaration of war against Japan, in which the United States entered World War II. The capture of the Philippine Islands served as a crucial effort to the Empire of Japan in ensuring the control of the Southwest Pacific during World War II. The Philippine Islands served as a natural barrier between Japan and resources found in East and Southeast Asia. Hence, the impact of the defense of the Philippines Island in Bataan served in effectively delaying Japan’s conquest of South Asia.

A year before the US placed the embargo of aircraft and aircraft parts against Japan, the US Pacific Fleet was in California but a year after we placed the embargo against Japan President Roosevelt ordered the fleet to be moved to Pearl Harbor as a show of American power (Doc C). When Japan seized southern French Indo-China in July of 1941, Roosevelt responded by freezing Japanese assets in the United States and ending sales of oil to Japan. Japan chose to continue its diplomatic talks with the United States while at the same time secretly preparing for a coordinated assault throughout the Pacific. Japan’s leaders hoped that a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor would destroy American resolve and cripple the American navy for at least six months, giving Japan time to consolidate its new empire

The Battle of Luzon, fought in the Pacific Theater in early 1945, is remembered as the World War Two battle which had the highest net casualties. After Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines, was captured by the Japanese in 1942, General MacArthur believed that it was extremely important to recapture it. This took some time, but in 1944, a new campaign to recapture the Philippines was created. The campaign started with attacks on Leyte and Mindoro, which prepared for Luzon. The US, working together with the Commonwealth of the Philippines, successfully used multifaceted assault tactics—including the use of air force, naval, and ground troops—to advance from the Lingayen Gulf to the capital city of Manila. After the capture of Manila,

The plan was developed on February 19, 1945 for the United States Marine Corps invade and take control of the island of Iwo Jima. After arriving, it was clear that the Japanese were already in place waiting for the invaders. On the site nationalww2museum.org it was said to be as much as 74,000 marines and 21000 Japanese fighters fought in battle on the tiny island. Making it a 3 to 1, the United States had the upper advantage as it came to numbers. After the 36th day, it was estimated that 7,000 marines were killed while another 20,000 were wounded. With that many casualties, the United States knew it wasn’t going to be taken away that easy.

at the age of 84. Following his time after graduation, MacArthur was commissioned as a junior officer in the Army Corps of Engineers and spent the next decade fulfilling a variety of duties. This early period in his military career was marked by frequent promotions and led to posts in countries around the world, including the Philippines, Japan, Mexico and, in 1914, France. In 1918 he participated in the St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne and Sedan offensives, during which he repeatedly distinguished himself as a capable military leader. Upon returning from Europe, MacArthur became the superintendent of West Point, a post he held for the next three years. During this time he was promoted to brigadier general of the Army. In 1930, MacArthur was promoted to general and selected as the Army chief of staff. Over the next few years his efforts were primarily devoted to maintaining a military that, like the rest of the country, was crippled by the Great Depression. He also spoke frequently of what he considered to be the increasingly serious threat of Communism, both in the United States and abroad. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt chose MacArthur as his military adviser to the Philippines and sent him there to establish a defensive military force. In July 1941, MacArthur was recalled to active duty and became commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific. A Japanese invasion of the Philippines that same year drove MacArthur’s forces from the country, but

The Imperial Japanese Navy was not a force to be reckoned with. In 1939, Japan started to capture tiny atolls surrounding the island in order to make a perimeter. Japan’s Empire started to expand tremendously because their Imperial Navy was so strong. They were a devastating threat to the United States because Japan outnumbered the U.S. Navy in soldiers and carriers. Between December 1941 and the middle of 1942, the Imperial forces took from the Dutch, Americans

The date is June 4, 1942 and raging in the blue Pacific Ocean around a small atoll named Midway, a battle is being fought for survival and complete victory. Late in the day on June the 4th, United States Navy “helldivers” scream down from the heavens to rain hell upon the Japanese fleet carriers below. Within minutes, three of the Imperial Navy’s great carriers are sent to the bottom of the Pacific in great fireballs. The massive destruction was wrought by the well-known Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber of the Second World War. The “slow but deadly” SBD Dauntless served the United States Navy well for most of the Pacific War and was eventually replaced by the newer and improved SB2C Helldiver or simply “the beast”. These two planes share

America continues to battle with the Japanese in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Tensions would rise when a once American, Japanese student (Iva Toguri A.K.A Tokyo Rose), would go to Japan and criticize the Americans and try to kill the American moral. Instead Americans would be reminded of what they are fighting for and continue to be strong on their attack against the Japanese. In the Spring of 1942, America would suffer the loss at the fall of the Philippines. The battles in the Philippines was led by General Douglas MacArthur. Following the fall of Bataan and in the Philippines, the Americans would suffer through the brutal Bataan Death March on April 9. Men were forced to march all through the Philippines to a concentration camps and an prisoners who would fall or become

The battle for Okinawa begin on 01Apr1945 and went until 22Jun1945. The capture of Okinawa was part of the plan to win the Far East war. The island of Okinawa is a part of a group of islands at the southern end of Japan. The main focus for the Americans were four airfields that were on the island that they wanted to control. The forces that made up the American landing party were the III Amphibious Corps and XXIV Corps, making the Tenth U.S. Army under the command of Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr. American forces had not been able to gather very much intelligence about the island which made it difficult to determine how many enemy forces there were. There were over 130,000 Japanese troops waiting on the island. There were over 450,000 civilians which made operations harder for American forces. The enemy forces where mainly down in the southern sector of the island waiting for the Americans. The beach landings on the island where prepped with

After the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 it took the United States until April of 1942 to retaliate. That was done through the Doolittle Raid. A group of 16 B-25 launched from the USS Hornet to conduct the first bombing on Japanese soil. Despite not having very much of a military significance the raid of Tokyo was a great boost to the moral of military and the public of the United States. It showed both Japan and the U.S. that Japan wasn’t out of reach and was no longer isolated in the Pacific. After the 1942 campaign it wasn’t until 1944 when the U.S. launched another bombing attack on Japan. At the beginning the War in the Pacific had a slow start, much of that had to do with the preparation it took to attack the enemy in a new style of warfare.

By October 1944, the US had strung together a series of victories successfully pushing the Japanese troops further and further back. It was clear that the US had the upper hand Naval wise and it was apparent. Japan for the first time in the war, began using kamikaze suicide bombers in an attempt to destroy American support vessels. The last major campaigns of the Pacific war were Luzon and Okinawa. The battle at Luzon lasted a total of 7 months and was the army's longest land campaign of the Pacific War. MacArthur’s army took nearly 40,000 casualties before successfully subduing the Japanese troops there. The battle at Okinawa was headed up by Admiral Nimitz who was in charge of the POA. The battle began on April 1, 1945 and would last 3 months.

It was now in full control of the island of Iwo Jima. Essentially, the US achieved its objectives, for it could now use the island as an emergency landing field and disrupted the island’s function as an early-warning station for Japan. Looking at the situation with the benefit of hindsight, however, it appears that the battle of Iwo Jima did not provide a particular advantage to the US. In fact, the debate concerning the strategic significance of the victory in the battle lingers into its eighth

World War II was a terrible, bloody war. There were so many things happening, a lot of battles and attacks and fighting. The battles of the Pacific weren’t really as known as the most terrible battles of all, but there were so many losses in these battles that we don 't even think about. The Guam and Guadalcanal battles were just two of the rough battles of the pacific. I am here to convince you that the Guam and Guadalcanal battles were just as bad as the others.

After the invasion of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese continued to attack the US owned island of the Philippines. Macarthur started to prepare the US to defend the island of Luzon, near Bataan in the Philippines. Specifically, he wanted the US to defend Legaspi, which was located in southern Luzon. As the Japanese started to invade,

By the end of summer of 1944, the American military on the South-Central Pacific. The forces were working their way closer to the primary objective which was Japan. The military leadership was at an impasse about the future strategy to defeat the remaining Japanese forces. Leaders like Admiral Nimitz and his staff firmly believed in the island-hopping strategy. The US military started to realize that reaching the Japan mainland might be a reality. “Reaching the mainland of Japan was problematic regarding planning and force build-up” (Medeiros, 2010, p.1). The US Pacific developed a two-prong attack method to fight the enemy throughout the Pacific. Admiral Nimitz led the Central Forces through the Marianas and the Marshall Islands.