Download Battle of Coral Sea - Mr. Sutton`s Class!

The Pacific Theatre
of World War II
Japan
Canada
China
USA
The Pacific Ocean
SE Asia
Australia
The Pacific War
• Dates: July 7, 1937 - August 14, 1945
• Began with the Second Sino-Japanese war,
between China and Japan
• Concluded with Japan’s surrender to the
Allied powers
Prelude to War
• Japan seeks to establish “The Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere”
– “a bloc of Asian nations led by the Japanese and free of Western
powers”
– Invasions of Manchuria and Korea follow
• Three political forces in Japan:
– Emperor Hirohito
– Civilian Government
– Military branches
• The army informs the civilian government of the Manchuria
campaign two months after it begins.
Prewar
1932
1940
1941
Dec 8/7 1941
Attack on Pearl Harbour
Dec 7, 1941. “A day that will live in infamy”
Pearl Harbor
The Attack
The Attack
Aftermath
"Being saturated and satiated with
emotion and sensation, I went to
bed and slept the sleep of the
saved and thankful.”
- Winston Churchill
The Doolittle Raid
• The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo
Raid, on April 18, 1942, was the first air raid
by the United States to strike the Japanese
Home Islands during World War II. It provided
a vital morale boost and opportunity for U.S.
retaliation after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor on 7 December 1941. The raid was
planned and led by Lieutenant Colonel James
"Jimmy" Doolittle, U.S. Army Air Forces.
1941
1942
Battle of Coral Sea
• The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought May
1942, was a major naval battle between the
Imperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and
air forces from the United States and
Australia.
• First action in which aircraft carriers engaged
each other: neither side's ships sighted or
fired directly upon the other…air combat
• Strategically vital for the Japanese to
eliminate Australia as a potential base of
operations against their empire… vital to us
to stop the Japanese from taking Australia!
The Battle Of Midway
June 4-7 1942
6 months after
Pearl Harbour
Yamamoto
seeks to capture
Midway atoll
and thus
confront and
destroy the US
Navy’s carrier
forces.
Midway Order of Battle
US forces:
Japanese forces:
3 carriers
4 carriers
~50 support ships
7 battleships
233 carrier aircraft
~150 support ships
127 land-based aircraft
248 carrier aircraft
16 floatplanes
Plan of Attack
The Battle of Midway
• The first major carrier vs. carrier engagement
• Decided by cryptanalysis, tactics, radar, pilot
skill, weather, and luck.
Guadalcanal
• First major offensive by Allied forces against the
Empire of Japan.
• August 7, 1942, Allied forces, mostly American,
landed on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and
Florida in the southern Solomon Islands with the
objective of denying their use by the Japanese to
threaten Allied supply and communication routes.
• Marines got their first taste of jungle warfare…
fighting defending troops in dense jungle was
extremely difficult and bloody… a sign of what was
to come.
1943-1944
Battle of Leyte Gulf
• Considered to be the largest naval battle of
World War II and, by some criteria, possibly
the largest naval battle in history.
• Part of a strategy aimed at isolating Japan
from the countries it had occupied in
Southeast Asia, and in particular depriving its
forces and industry of vital oil supplies.
• The IJN failed to achieve its objective, suffered very
heavy losses, and never afterwards sailed to battle in
comparable force. The majority of its surviving heavy
ships, deprived of fuel, remained in their bases for
the rest of the Pacific War.
Kamikaze
Island-Hopping Warfare
American and Australian
troops land in Borneo
Island-Hopping Warfare
American Troops
assaulting Iwo Jima
1944-1945
The Final Year
• The US retakes the Philippines in a long and costly
campaign.
• Borneo, Iwo Jima and the Okinawa fall, with heavy
losses on both sides.
• The military leadership of Japan refuses to give up, in
spite of the loss of the bulk of their forces.
• An edict is issued, ordering civilians on the main
Japanese islands to construct bamboo spears and
meet the invaders on the beaches.
• US Bombers produce a firestorm in Tokyo, killing
100,000 people in two days.
• The US, Britain and China issue the Potsdam
Declaration, demanding Japan’s surrender.
Nuclear Strikes
Aug 6, 1945. Uranium
bomb “Little Boy”
dropped on Hiroshima,
killing 140,000
Aug 9, 1945. Plutonium
bomb “Fat Man” dropped
on Nagasaki, killing 74,000
Japan Surrenders
Representatives of Japan’s Foreign Ministry, Army and Navy
appear to sign the surrender aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay
The Cost
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2,000,000 Japanese Soldiers dead
300,000 Allied Soldiers dead
600,000 - 1,000,000 Japanese civilians dead
11,000 American civilians dead
60,000 Korean civilians dead
Mass devastation of Japanese infrastructure
Indigenous people of north and western Pacific
islands devastated by disease, cultural
contamination, collateral damage, and atrocities.
• The list continues…
Image Credits
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Slide 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USS_Yorktown_hit-740px.jpg - From
Wikipedia
Slide 2: Image Captured From Google Earth
Slide 3: Flag images from Wikipedia
Slide 5+:Map of Japanese Empire:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Japanese_Empire2.png from Wikipedia
Slides 10,11,12: Images from Wikipedia
Slide 13: Images from Warbird Alley and Wikipedia
Slides 14,15,16: Image from Wikipedia and the US National Archives
Slide 19: Midway Atoll Photo from Wikipedia
Slide 21: Midway Attack Plan Map from www.historychannel.com
Slide 26: B-29 Images from the University of San Diego,
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/st/~plewis/ and Wikipedia
Slides 27-32: Image from Wikipedia