Download Chapter 17 sec 3 notes – War in the Pacific

Chapter 17 sec 3
War in the Pacific
P. 578 to 587
Even though the Allies’ priority was Europe the US did not wait to engage the Japanese
in the Pacific theater after the Pearl Harbor attack.
The submarines and the aircraft carriers were still intact after the raid so there was still
some of the fleet left to fight.
Japan’s empire building had been successful – bigger than Hitler’s Third Reich
Hong Kong, French Indochina, Malaya, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand and a lot of
China – south and eastward they take Dutch East Indies, Guam, Wake Is. the Solomon
Is., and many many small outposts in the Pacific including islands in the Aleutian chain
off Alaska.
MAC
80,000 Philippine and US troops couldn’t hold the Japanese back – and after December
1941 FDR ordered MacArthur to leave. In March 1942 Mac took his wife and child and
staff and left but promised “I shall return”..
DOOLITTLE
Spring of 1942 – Allies began to push back against the Japanese – April 18 – Doolittle
leads raids over Tokyo and other Japanese cities – 16 Bombers, basically fire bombing
the cities. – Morale is up in the US, a little payback for Pearl, the Japanese are shocked
that they were unprotected from such an attack
BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA
May 1942 Aussies and American forces turn back a Japanese run for Australia in May
1942 -- 5 day battle – fought entirely in the air from aircraft carrier bases – the Japanese
are turned back for the first time
BATTLE OF MIDWAY
June 1942 -- Midway Is is approx halfway across the Pacific near Hawaii – strategic
advantage to whoever holds it. Japanese code crackers know that Japan is coming to try
and take the island – Chester Nimitz, commander of the U.S. naval forces in the Pacific
decides to find them first – sends out scout planes, finds the Japanese fleet. Then torpedo
planes and dive bombers to attack.
the Japanese planes never had the chance to leave the decks of their carriers – they lose 4
aircraft carriers in the battle, a cruiser and 250 airplanes.
this felt like payback for Pearl Harbor to many on both sides.
Midway is a turning point in the war – and the Allies begin island hopping – gaining
territory one island at a time from the Japanese, getting ever closer to Japan….
Island hopping required a fast efficient Navy, with the ability to land, defeat the enemy,
build bases, port facilities and airstrips quickly and establish supply lines as the forces
moved closer to japan. (Cargo cults….if time)
time line at the top of page 580 –
ALLIES ON THE OFFENSIVE
August 1942 -- First major Allied attack – Guadalcanal. 19,000 troops storm
Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands to take it from the Japanese – after a six month
involving a lot of up close battles and hand-to-hand combat the Japanese leave calling it
the Island of Death – the Americans called it “Hell”. It was the first Japanese defeat on
land – the Americans proved far tougher than the Japanese believed they would be -- .
the Allies hop islands across the Pacific gaining more and more ground (with heavy
casualties on both sides) – finally back to the Philippines in October of 1944 – 178,000
troops and 738 ships converge on Leyte Island – Mac is there “People of the Philippines:
I have returned.”
It is in the Battle of Leyte Gulf that the Japanese introduced their kamikaze pilots and
suicide mission strategy – (divine wind, named after a typhoon that turned back a Mongol
invasion in 1281) – 424 kamikaze pilots sank 16 Allied ships and damaged another 80.
The kamikaze strategy was disturbing to the US forces. The few Japanese pilots that
were recovered seemed like fairly ordinary, frightened young men and not zealots or
devils. Some of the downed pilots committed suicide before they could be recovered
from the ocean, fearing shame and dishonor for not completing their mission.
Leyte is a disaster for Japan – 3 days of fighting, 3 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers 13
cruisers and almost 500 planes were lost. The Imperial Navy is no longer much of a
factor in the war.
Many of the soldiers that had been left in the Philippines were held as prisoners of war by
the Japanese, the victory meant those men could be recovered for the US.
Iwo Jima (sulfur island in Japanese) was next in March of 1945. Close enough to serve
as a base for bombers headed for Japan the Allies are determined to have it. 20,700
Japanese troops are already there, entrenched with tunnels and caves. In the end the
fighting is very fierce, the Americans lose 6000 men, but only 200 Japanese survive.
Flag stuff – p. 582 the photo story
Okinawa (April to June 1945) – Allied troops invade, are met with the fiercest fighting
of the war in the Pacific – 1900 Kamikaze attacks, with a loss of 30 ships, and nearly
5000 sailors, with damage to 300 ships.
Once onshore things were no better. From April to June 7600 Americans were lost,
110,000 Japanese including two generals who committed seppuku (ritual suicide) rather
than face surrender.
>>Allied commanders and leaders were concerned that this battle, the closest yet to Japan
may be an indicator of what an invasion of the Japanese mainland might be like. The
Japanese still had a huge standing army on their homeland islands, and they would fight
fiercely for their own turf. Churchill predicted a loss of a million Americans and another
500,000 British. It was a grim possibility….
But – remember the Manhattan Project? Well, some progress is made….. and a weapon
is ready to go.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, lead scientist on the project led 600,000 Americans in the
development of the bomb. Most who worked on it didn’t know what the end product
would be, Truman didn’t even know until he became president.
July 16 1945 – in the empty desert outside Alamagordo NM the bomb was tested for the
first time. the flash was visible 180 miles away and the vibration and shockwave from
the explosion rolled across the desert.
Oppenheimer’s reaction – two verses from the Hindu poem Bhagavad-Gita
“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, the would be the splendor
of the mighty one.”
But, then, realizing what this meant…. “I am become Shiva (Death), the shatterer of
worlds”
Some laughed and some cried who witnessed the test. Most were silent. Truman, at the
Pottsdam Conference of the Allied leaders was wired the news – but he wasn’t the only
one who got the message – Soviet spies had seen it too, and Joe Stalin’s tune about
helping with the end of the Pacific War was suddenly much more positive.
Truman decides on July 25 to go forward with the bomb against the Japanese. He
chooses the ultimate targets himself and sees this as a purely military matter.
July 26th he sends a message to Japan – it’d be a good idea to surrender right now or else.
the Japanese disregard.
August 6th Hiroshima – Little Boy is released from the Enola Gay B-29 bomber – 43
seconds later the majority of the buildings in the city collapsed from the shockwave –
shadows in the wreckage showed where people had been vaporized in the blast.
the Japanese do not surrender.
August 9th Nagasaki – Fat Man becomes the second bomb of the Atomic age. Half the
city is leveled.
In all it is believed that 200,000 people were killed in the two blasts. Emperor Hirohito
finally sees the war for what it is and orders a surrender, and it is passed along on August
15 1945. – V-J Day.
The war, in both theaters, is over. The debate over using the Atomic bomb goes on until
this day.
On September 2 1945 the formal ceremony took place on the deck of the U.S. battleship
Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Mac is there – supervising the works, speaks about the coming
of peace.
WINDING DOWN THE WAR –
Yalta Conference -- some good results, some not so good
In Europe the Allied leaders met in February of 1945, fairly certain that the war in
Europe would be over soon to put together a plan for after the war.
For eight days they hashed out the strategy for a post-war Germany. Stalin wanted to
punish Germany for the devastation in his country (27,000,000 within the Soviet Union
alone) favored dividing the country into occupation zones under Allied control so it
could not regain its strength and threaten Europe and the USSR again -- Churchill,
remembering WWI’s treaty strongly disagreed. Roosevelt mediated between the two….
He wanted Stalin’s help in the Pacific war that was to come, and he wanted Stalin to
support his idea for a United Nations – a newer version of the League of Nations – that
would work to keep peace in the world.
Concessions are made, Germany is divided – temporarily Britain and the US believe.
Stalin promises elections in the eastern part of Europe that he will control (good luck, no
deal for real) . He also agrees to join in the fight against Japan, and to participate in the
conference in San Francisco that founded the UN.
Nuremberg War Trials – (1945/46)
24 surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial for their participation in the war – crimes
against humanity, crimes against the peace, and war crimes.
Most used the excuse that they were only following orders in what they’d done. The
trials establish a precedent that individuals remain responsible for their own actions even
in times of war – now a firm tenet of international law.
12 are sentenced to death, 12 to prison. Another 200 individuals are found guilty of war
crimes. Many who participated in the Holocaust were never punished – and many feel
that the trials did not seek out and punish nearly enough of the Nazis who caused so
much death and suffering.
Occupation of Japan – Mac’s new job
For seven years after the war the US occupied the country of Japan under the leadership
of Douglas MacArthur. 1100 Japanese were tried for war crimes, mainly around the
treatment of civilians and prisoners of war. Seven, including Hideki Tojo were sentenced
to death. Around the Pacific other trials were held in former Japanese possessions and
many were punished for their wartime activities.
During his time in Japan MacArthur reshaped the Japanese economy from the ground up
by introducing free-market practices that allowed the Japanese to trade directly with the
outside world, and rapid recovery from the war.
He also closely shaped the new constitution that provided for women’s sufferage and
equal basic rights for the people of Japan for the first time. He worked to adapt
traditional Japanese ways to a westernized political and economic system and did it with
great success – today Japan still refers to its Constitution as the MacArthur Constitution.