WWII - The Pacific Theater (Lesson)

The Pacific Theater

Island Hopping Strategy

As an island nation, Japan’s greatest strength was its naval forces. They had used their navy to assist ground forces in conquering many regions throughout the Pacific. After the United States joined the war in 1941, the Pacific Theater presented numerous challenges. The vast area of the Pacific made it difficult to transport goods and supplies to troops. The United States needed to slow the advancement of the Japanese in the Pacific. Having crippled their forces at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were able to advance almost as far as Australia before the United States navy could regroup and stop them.

Six months after Pearl Harbor the United States was able to break Japanese communication codes. Using this to their advantage, the United States lured the Japanese into believing their Midway Island installation was weakened. Instead, the United States prepared a trap. The resulting Battle of Midway became a turning point in the Pacific Theater. The Japanese were defeated losing numerous aircraft carriers and never could recover. On the offensive, American forces worked their way toward Japan.

 

The United States applied a strategy called “Island Hopping” in the Pacific Theater. They gradually advanced closer to the main Japanese island of Honshu using this strategy. “Island Hopping” called for the taking of smaller islands as they approach Japan. These islands were used for logistics and supplies. The islands were used to prepare for an eventual invasion of Japan. As the war progressed, as United States forces approached closer and closer to Japan, the fighting became increasingly intense.

Two infamous battles, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, demonstrated the intensity of fighting and the unrelenting fighting spirit of the Japanese. Iwo Jima and Okinawa benefited the United States as potential islands from which to launch planes for the attack on Japan. However, during these battles thousands of American lives were lost. In the brutal fighting, the Japanese lost hundreds of thousands of lives in their defense. This realization, combined with the physical and psychologically devastating use of Japanese suicide bombing practice known as kamikaze, showed the United States and Allied forces the invasion of Japan would likely be unparalleled in human history.

 

The Atomic Bomb

After President Roosevelt died in April 1945, his successor, Harry S. Truman was given the daunting task of ending the war with Japan. The Japanese had continually demonstrated that their military personnel and citizens were prepared to fight to the death. The estimated casualty rate for an invasion of Japan reached over one million Allied casualties.

Prior to the death of Roosevelt in 1945, the United States had worked on the development of an atomic bomb. Urged by leading world-renowned scientists, including Albert Einstein, to develop an atomic weapon out of fear that Hitler and Nazi Germany were already working on an atomic weapon, the United States began the ultra-secretive Manhattan Project. Led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project team members worked to develop numerous atomic bombs. The project was so secretive that the components of the bomb were developed independent of each other in laboratories in different parts of the country and scientists were sworn to secrecy and were unaware of exactly what they were working on until all of the components were assembled and tested. Ultimately, at the Manhattan Project research laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the United States was able to test the world’s first atomic bomb. President Truman ordered two bombs to be deployed to the Pacific Theater.

On August 6, 1945 Colonel Paul Tibbets piloted the Enola Gay, a bomber named after the pilot’s mother, carrying the bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” over the target: Hiroshima, Japan. The first use of the atomic bomb killed tens of thousands on its initial explosion. Tens of thousands more perished in the days that followed and still more as radiation poisoning took its toll on the survivors. When the Japanese refused to surrender, another atomic (plutonium) bomb nicknamed “Fat Man,” was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, Japan three days after the bombing of Hiroshima. As with Hiroshima, the death toll at Nagasaki quickly reached tens of thousands. Less than a week later the United States accepted the unconditional surrender of Japan. August 14, 1945, marked V-J Day or Victory in Japan Day. Aboard the USS Missouri, a ship that had been damaged in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese formally surrendered on Sunday, September 2, 1945.

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ROBERT OPPENHEIMER BY UNKNOWN OR NOT PROVIDED - U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, PUBLIC DOMAIN