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WWII: The War in the P acific

WWII: The War in the P acific. Miss Bonner Presentation #2. War in the Pacific. At the same time as the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan launched bombing raids on the British colony of Hong Kong and American-controlled Guam and Wake Island. They also landed on Thailand.

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WWII: The War in the P acific

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  1. WWII: The War in the Pacific Miss Bonner Presentation #2

  2. War in the Pacific • At the same time as the Pearl Harbor attack, Japan launched bombing raids on the British colony of Hong Kong and American-controlled Guam and Wake Island. They also landed on Thailand. • January 1942 – Japan invades the Philippines • After 3 months of defensive fighting by American and Filipino troops, the Japanese took the Bataan Peninsula • Bataan Death March – forced Allied prisoners on a 50 mile march up the peninsula subjecting their captives to terrible cruelties (70,000 died on the march

  3. Key Events – War in the Pacific • May, 1942 - Battle of the Coral Sea – airplanes from aircraft carriers attacked opposing ships. Allies suffered many losses, but prevented Japan’s southward advance • June, 1942 - Battle of Midway ** Turning point battle of the Pacific** • Midway was a strategic U.S. airfield base • U.S. codebreakers discovered Japanese plans to attack the island and successfully crippled the Japanese fleet

  4. General Douglas MacArthur, commander of Allied forces in the Pacific, came up with a new strategy: Island hopping – “island-hop” past Japanese strongholds, seize less defended islands, and move closer and closer to Japan • Despite losses, the Japanese were determined not to give up • Kamikazes – suicide planes that sunk American ships by crash-diving their bomb-filled planes into them • March-June, 1945 – Americans took the two islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa

  5. The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb • Manhattan Project: top-secret operation headed by General Leslie Groves and chief scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer • Why did Truman ultimately decide to use the atomic bombs? • By using the bombs, he believed he was saving up to a half a million U.S. lives (the bombs would prevent further combat deaths) • August 6, 1945 – atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima (nicknamed “Little Boy”) • 70,000-80,000 people died immediately • August 9, 1945 – atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki(nicknamed “Fat Man”) • More than 70,000 killed immediately • V-J Day – the Japanese surrendered on September 2, 1945

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