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1. Japanese aggression and US strategy
 Turning point battles
 Coral Sea
 Midway
 Leyete Gulf
 Iwo Jima and Okinawa
 Potsdam Conference---July 1945
 Atomic bomb
 Hiroshima and Nagasaki---Aug. 1945
 Japan surrenders---Sept. 1945
 WWII ends in Asia
 VJ-Day---Victory in Japan
JAPANESE
EXPANSION
•Dec. 7, 1941,
Japan attacks
Pearl Harbor
•US declares war
on Japan.
1942
•Philippines
•Bataan Death
March
map/japan
Bataan Death March: April, 1942
•Approximately 80,000 US and Filipino troops [12,000
Americans] surrendered to the Japanese and were forced to
march 60 miles to Camp O’Donnell.
•Several thousand died along the way from atrocities
committed by the Japanese soldiers.
JAPANESE
EXPANSION
•Dec. 7, 1941,
Japan attacks
Pearl Harbor
•US declares war
on Japan.
1942
•Philippines
•Bataan Death
•Guam
March
•Malaya
•New Guinea
•Threatening
Australia and
Hawaii
map/japan
•West Point Graduate
•Commanding general of troops in the Philippines
•Forced off the Philippines in 1942--- “I shall
return”
General Douglas
MacArthur
•1944, Battle of Leyete Gulf---- “I have returned to
re-take the Philippines”.
•Supreme Allied Commander in the South Pacific
WWII Military Leaders
map/japan
TURNING
POINT
BATTLES
1942
•Coral Sea
•Midway
•Midway
virtually
destroyed
Japanese
Navy.
1943
•Continued
“island
hopping”
The Doolittle Raid





After Pearl Harbor, FDR
wanted a morale booster.
He wanted to bomb Tokyo but
aircraft carriers could not get
close enough.
Plan: B-25s (which could
launch off carriers) would
bomb Tokyo and land in
China.
Lt. Col. James
Doolittle
Lt. Col. James Doolittle was in
command of this operation.
On April 18th, 1942 bombs fell
on Tokyo, which led to a
change in strategy among the
Japanese leaders.
B-25s off to Tokyo
Change in Japanese Strategy




Japanese leaders were
rattled by the raids—bombs
might have killed the
emperor!!
The American fleet, they
decided, had to be
destroyed!
They wanted to cut off their
supply lines to Australia.
They decided to attack
Midway Island—the last
American base west of Pearl
Harbor.
Bombs falling on Tokyo.







Code-breakers heard the plan.
The Battle of Midway
At the Battle of Coral Sea, the
Yorktown and the Lexington fended off
a Japanese attack on New Guinea and
preserved Australia.
Code-breakers learned of plan to
attack Midway
Admiral Nimitz used this as an
opportunity to ambush the Japanese
fleet.
Japanese planes were hit with
antiaircraft fire, shooting down 38
planes.
Fighting at the Battle of
Midway
Japan lost 100 pilots which hurt their
Air War.
American planes caught carriers by
surprise—their fuel, bombs, and
aircraft were exposed.

Four Japanese carriers were sunk,
destroying the heart of the navy.

This hit the Japanese hard—it halted
Badly damaged
Yorktown
Battle of Midway Island:
June 4-6, 1942
Battle of the Coral Sea:
June 4-6, 1942
Gen. MacArthur “Returns” to
the Philippines! [1944]
Japanese Kamikaze Planes:
The Scourge of the South Pacific
Kamikaze Pilots
The last 2 years of the war, the Japanese resorted to
“suicidal bombers” or Kamikaze bombers to destroy the
American Navy.
Approximately 2,800 Kamikaze attackers sunk 34 Navy
ships, damaged 368 others, killed 4,900 sailors, and
wounded over 4,800.
map/japan
TURNING
POINT
BATTLES
1944
•Battle of Leyete
Gulf, recaptured
the Philippines
1945
•Iwo Jima and
Okinawa
•Put the US 500
miles from
mainland Japan
•Began bombing
mainland Japan
US Marines on Mt. Surbachi,
Iwo Jima [Feb. 19, 1945]
potsdam
Big Three
•Churchill, Truman and Stalin meet in
Potsdam, Germany in July 1945.
•Truman informed of successful test of bomb.
•Demanded unconditional surrender from
potsdam
•Some suggest
that Truman was
warning Stalin.
•If he didn’t follow
through with the
decisions at Yalta,
it could happen to
the Soviet Union.