Japan’s Pacific Campaign

1. Japan’s Pacific Campaign Section 2

2. Isoroku Yamomoto • Japan’s greatest naval strategist • Called for the attack on Pearl Harbor • PH was a “dagger pointed at [Japan’s] throat”

3. Attack on Pearl Harbor • Dec. 7th, 1941-“Date that will live in infamy” • Surprise attack by the Japanese on American naval base at Pearl Harbor • Killed more than 2,300 Americans • Led to the U.S. declaration of war

4. Bataan Death March • Japanese forced Allied POWs to march 50 miles up the Bataan Peninsula • Japanese inflicted terrible cruelties on their prisoners • I was questioned by a Japanese officer, who found out that I had been in Phillipine Scout Battalion. The Japanese hated the Scouts…Anyway, they took me outside and I was forced to watch as they buried six of my Scouts alive. They made the men dig their own graves and then had them kneel down in a pit. The guards hit them over the head with shovels to stun them and piled earth on top. • Lieutenant John Spainhower • More than 10,000 prisoners were killed

5. Bataan Death March

6. Doolittle’s Raid • After several Japanese victories, Allies feared that their enemy was unbeatable • In 1942, seeking revenge for the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Doolittle commanded 16 bombers in a raid that bombed Tokyo and several other cities • Although this did little damage it showed that Japan was vulnerable to attack

7. The Battle of Midway • 1942 sea and air battle in which American forces defeated Japanese forces in the central Pacific • American code breakers were able to predict this Japanese attack • Americans destroyed 332 Japanese planes, winning the battle and turning the tide of the war in the Pacific

8. General Douglas MacArthur • Commander of Allied forces in the Pacific • Came up with the strategy of “island hopping” • Instead of struggling to take every island in the Pacific, the Allies can “hop” to the islands closest to Japan that were not well defended

9. The Battle of Guadalcanal • A 1942-1943 battle in which Allied troops drove Japanese forces from the Japanese island of Guadalcanal • Battle lasted for 6 months and was fought on both the land and at sea • After losing more than 24,000 out of 36,000 troops, the Japanese abandoned the “Island of Death” • Hell was red furry spiders as big as your fist…enormous rats and bats everywhere, and rivers with waiting crocodiles. Hell was the sour, foul smell of the squishy jungle, humidity that rotted a body within hours…Hell was an enemy…so fanatic that it used its own dead as booby traps. • Ralph G. Martin

10. Battle of Guadalcanal