war in the pacific to atomic bomb

World War II

Victory in Asia

Pacific Offensives

• Island-hopping– U.S. strategy to only attack strategic

Japanese Islands instead of all of them– Began in November 1943 in the Gilbert

Islands

• Island of Tarawa– More difficult to capture due to highly fortified

coral reef surrounding the island– Used as a vital airstrip for future landings

Saipan & Guam

• Faced fierce Japanese defenders

• U.S. forces suffered high casualties (16,000 injured, 3,400 dead)

• Important U.S. victories, they provided strategic airfields to launch bombing missions from.

Recapturing the Philippines

• MacArthur led U.S. and Australian forces in June of 1943

• Fall 1944- the U.S. was ready to invade the Philippines

• Battle of Leyte Gulf– The last and largest naval engagement by the

Japanese• They lost 4 aircraft carriers, two battleships, and several

cruisers

• Filipinos assisted allied troops as the troops fanned out across the Philippines – MacArthur and the allies entered Manila in Feb. 1945

Victory in the Pacific

• U.S. captured Japanese islands that they used as airbases

• March 1945 Tokyo was bombed which caused major destruction to the city

• Japan’s military leaders would still not surrender

The Battle of Iwo Jima

• February 1945– Lasted 6 weeks

• U.S. troops faced fierce resistance• Several thousand U.S. troops were killed• 20,000 Japanese soldiers died• U.S. Marines struggled to take Mount Suribachi • Famous photo of Marines planting flag taken by

Joe Rosendahl

The Battle of Iwo Jima

The Battle of Okinawa

• April 1945- the largest landing force in the Pacific invaded Okinawa

• Japan chose to retreat to the southern tip of the island and wait

• U.S. Marines captured one airfield in 5 hours without a shot being fired

• FIVE DAYS LATER

The Battle of Okinawa

• 700 Japanese planes attacked the beach and the navy off-shore

• 350 of the 700 planes were “kamikaze” or suicide planes

• Six U.S. ships were sunk• 135 kamikaze pilots were killed• Admiral Nimitz stated that the only thing

surprising about the war was the tactics of the kamikaze pilots

The Battle of Okinawa

• Probably the bloodiest battle of the war in the Pacific

• Japanese hid in caves and fought till the very end

• U.S. troops used flamethrowers to clear the caves

• 49,000 U.S. troops were killed or wounded

• 100,000 Japanese died in the fighting

The Death of Roosevelt

• Occurred on April 12, 1945

• Harry Truman becomes President

• Truman faces the huge decision on how to deal with the Japanese

• Despite repeated bombings in Japan, they are still strong and will fight to the end

• Truman will be the one who makes the decision to use the atomic bomb

The Atomic Bomb

• Manhattan Project led by Leslie Groves• Other participants

– Albert Einstein– Enrico Fermi (Italian physicist) –created first

atomic chain reaction in 1942– J. Robert Oppenheimer- director of Los Alamos

lab in New Mexico• His team worked on building the 1st atomic bomb

• Successfully tested on July 15, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico

Reasons for using the atomic bomb

1. Truman saw that the Japanese were still capable of fighting after Iwo Jima and Okinawa

2. A full scale invasion of Japan would cost many U.S. lives and Japanese lives

1. Estimates projected up to 1 million U.S. lives could be lost

3. The atomic bomb would bring a quick end to the war.

4. Truman wanted an unconditional surrender5. The use of the atomic bomb may have been

show of force to the Soviet Union

The Dropping of the Bomb

• August 6, 1945– The Enola Gay flown by Paul Tibbits dropped

the atomic bomb on Hiroshima– Hiroshima was flattened and the bomb killed

75,000 people

• August 9, 1945– A second atomic bomb was dropped on

Nagasaki killing approximately 125,000 people

HIROSHIMA

Nagasaki

Japan’s Surrender

• After seeing the destruction caused by the two bombs, Japan decides to surrender.

• V-J Day August 15, 1945

• The formal surrender took place aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945

What Do You Think?

• Was Truman’s decision a good one?

• Should we have launched a full-scale invasion of Japan?

• What are your feelings?

• http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=657#02