Japan in the Pacific

Japan in the Pacific

During the Interwar Period, Japan faced overcrowding and shortages of raw materials

Japanese military leaders began a program of empire building and foreign expansion

(1931) Japanese troops took over Manchuria

(1937) and northern ChinaUnited States govt. sent aid to China

(1941) Japanese take over French Indochina (present-day Vietnam)

Roosevelt cuts off oil shipments to Japan

Hideki Tojo – Prime Minister of Japan from October, 1941 – July, 1944

Militaristic leader appointed by Emperor Hirohito

He favored war with the United States

Isoroku Yamamoto – Japanese admiral who commanded the navy

Attended Harvard and trained in the U.S.

Planned the attack on Pearl Harbor

Did not want war, but…

He argued that U.S. naval fleet in Hawaii was “a dagger pointed at our throat”

(Dec 7, 1941) Japan launches surprise attack on Pearl Harbor

• More than 2,400 Americans killed

• Over 1,000 wounded

• 18 U.S. ships, nearly the entire fleet, destroyed

• Aircraft carriers were at sea training

• President Franklin Roosevelt described December 7 as “a date which will live in infamy.”

• The next day, Congress declared war on Japan

After bombing Pearl Harbor, Japan seized Guam and other islands in the Pacific

They attacked the American territory of the Philippines only 9 hours later

Seized Hong Kong from the British

By 1942, Japan had conquered over 1 million sq. miles of new land and over 150 million people

(1942) U.S. wanted revenge for Pearl Harbor and sent 16 B25 bombers to Tokyo and other Japanese cities- All 16 planes lost, 11 crew killed or captures

Did little damage, but proved Japan could be attacked at home.

By 1942, Japan had a vast empire that was difficult to control.

U.S. and Japanese naval forces clashed in many significant and novel battles

(May, 1942) Battle of the Coral Sea– Airplanes did all the fighting– U.S. and Australian forces prevented

Japanese invasion of Australia

(June, 1942) Battle of Midway

Island west of Hawaii, key American airfield

Largest naval fleet ever assembled, including world’s largest battleship

Japan hoped to seize Midway island and finish off U.S. Pacific fleet

Outnumbered U.S. forces prevailed, symbolic turning point in Pacific War

Midway Atoll

Japanese Now on Defense, but War is Far From Over

• Japanese troops dug in on hundreds of islands across Pacific

• U.S. General Douglas MacArthur used strategy called “island-hopping”

• U.S. seized islands that were not well defended and moved closer to Japan

On the home front, Japanese Americans Imprisoned

After Pearl Harbor, wave of prejudice spread across the U.S. against Japanese Americans (127,000)

(Feb, 1941) Roosevelt set up a program to create internment camps for Japanese

Military rounded up Japanese and sent them to camps (2/3 of them were native-born American citizens, Nisei)

Intern, as a verb:• To confine or impound, especially during a

war

• In U.S. documents, camps are referred to as “relocation camps”

• Some have likened camps to Nazi “concentration camps.” – What do you think?

Internment Camp

Japanese Internment Camps

Between 1941 and 1946, over 31,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up and imprisoned

• Back in the Pacific, Japan was losing territory to the Allies

• By June of 1945, the Allies conquered Okinawa Island, only 350 miles from Tokyo

As Japanese defenses were weakened, they resorted to more desperate tactics, including the use of the Kamikaze.

The Kamikaze were Japanese suicide pilots who would sink Allied ships by crash-diving into them in bomb-filled planes

Most Kamikaze pilots were between the ages of 17 and 22

USS Columbia, January 1945

1. How did the Japanese military leaders plan to overcome shortages in raw materials?

2. After what event did Congress declare war on the Japanese?

3. What major battle was the symbolic turning point of the war in the Pacific against the Japanese?

In April of 1945, President Roosevelt died

Harry Truman was sworn in as president

President Truman’s advisers had informed him that an invasion of Japan might cost the Allies half a million lives

Truman did not know of the atom bomb’s existence until he be became president

On July 26, 1945, the Potsdam Declaration was given to Japan ( by U.S., Britain, China)

It outlined the terms of surrender for Japan– Militarism in Japan must end– Japanese army would be completely

disarmed– Japan would be permitted to maintain a viable

industrial economy– War criminals would be punished– Japan would be occupied following the war

until these objectives were met

The Potsdam Declaration stated that if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction

Japan did not respond to the declaration…

August 6, 1945HiroshimaPop: 250,000

August 9NagasakiPop: 230,000

Effects of the Hiroshima bombing:

Ground temperatures 7,000 FWinds 980 mphEnergy released 20,000 tons TNTBuildings destroyed 62,000Killed immediately 70,000-100,000Dead by the end of 1945 around 150,000

Atomic bomb victims…

Woman with flash burns

14 year old girl

Radiation affects

civilians long after the

bombing

1 hr later from 80 km away