War in the Pacific

1
War in the Pacific

• 1941-1945

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Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941

• Japan attacked US Naval Base Pearl Harbor
  because
• US was boycotting Japanese goods because of China
  and Indochina (FDR had demanded Japan withdraw
  from both)
• US stood between Japan and Pacific expansion
• Greater victory than they had hoped
• Sank/disabled 19 ships, 188 airplanes, killed
  over 2400 and wounded 1100
• US aircraft carries out to sea, so they escaped
  damage
• Roosevelt declared war the next day

3
Victory in the Pacific (1942-45)

• While European war occurring, Japan taking over
  much of the Pacific (wanted living space)
• 1942 Japan took Philippines, Malay States, Dutch
  East Indies, part of New Guinea
• US halted their advance north of Australia at
  Coral Sea (May) and Midway (June, considered
  payback for Pearl Harbor)
• August, under command of Douglas MacArthur,
  launched an attack at Guadalcanal
• 6 months to victory
• Beginning of island hopping North to Japan,
  take some islands, skip others
• 1945 captured Iwo Jima and Okinawa, allowed US to
  launch air raids on Japan
• Japan fought back with Kamikaze, suicide pilots

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Pacific Theater
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Back to Europe

• Yalta Conference
• Feb. 1945, the Big Three (Roosevelt, Stalin
  Churchill) met in the Soviet Union to decide what
  to do with the world after the war
• Decisions reached
• United Nations would be organized as a permanent
  international peace-keeping organization
• Germany Berlin would be divided into 4 zones of
  occupation by the US, Britain, Soviet Union,
  France

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Victory Over Japan

• General Hideki Tojo refused to surrender
• July US issued an ultimatum, surrender or face
  utter destruction
• Japan did not surrender
• Japanese refused to surrender President Harry
  S. Truman (FDR had died in April) knew an
  invasion of Japan could mean up to a 1 million
  American deaths, he ordered that a new defensive
  weapon be dropped on a Japanese city
• August 6, 1945 first bomb dropped on Hiroshima
• Japan still did not surrender
• August 9 second dropped on Nagasaki
• August 14 Japan surrendered

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Trumans notes to Stalin At Potsdam
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Manhattan Project

• Atomic bomb
• Invented in the Manhattan Project
• Albert Einstein told FDR in 1939 that a a-bomb
  could be built and the Nazis were working on it
• US secret project led by Oppenheimer
• Used people from US, GB, Canada, and refugees
  from Nazi-occupied Europe
• Made Atomic Bomb containing 2 lbs of Uranium
  explosive power of 20,000 tons of TNT
• Bombs were known as fat man and little boy
• Hiroshima bomb killed or injured 130,000
  destroyed 60 of city
• GB worked on it, Allies did not tell Stalin about
  a-bomb led to resentment that leads to Cold War
• H-bombs, which we have today, several thousand
  times more powerful than a-bomb, can wipe out all
  life within a 60- to 100-mile radius
• Bad times

Bomb cloud over Hiroshima
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Hiroshima Before and After
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Effects of the War

• 55 million people died in this war
• China, Japan, Germany were in ruins from the
  bombing
• Millions of people were homeless w/o
  familiesknown as displaced persons
• The US and Soviet Union would have major
  conflicts that would result in the Cold War