Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941
• 2,500 people killed, 8 battleships
severely damaged, 3 destroyers left
unusable, 3 light cruisers damaged,
and 160 aircraft destroyed and 128
more damaged
• USS Arizona: 1,200 sailors and
marines on this ship alone, USS
Oklahoma, and USS Utah suffered
Hideki Tojo
• Japan’s Minister of War
• Later Prime Minister of Country
• Entered into alliance with Hitler
• Authorized the Pearl Harbor
Attack
James Doolittle
• Under the leadership of Colonel
James Doolittle in April 1942 a
force of 16 B-25 Bombers engaged
in nighttime bombing raid on Tokyo
in response to attack on Pearl
Harbor
• Raid only killed 50 Japanese people
and damaged 100 buildings but it
bolstered American morale for the
rest of the fighting in the Pacific
Bataan Death March
• Under General Douglas
MacArthur in December of 1941
troops pushed back from Manila
to a fort on Corregidor Island
• Troops held out until May despite
not having the necessary supplies
Baatan Death March
• Allied soldiers finally surrendered
and POWs were forced to march
over 60 miles up the Peninsula
and more than 7,000 of them died
from malnourishment and
exhaustion with hundreds more
dying form brutal treatment in
prison camps
Battle of Coral Sea
• In May of 1942 this was the first sea
battle where warships never engaged
• U.S. and Japan airplanes attacked each
other for two days
• Marked shift in momentum because
Japan called off their attack on New
Guinea and showed that the war would
be won or lost based on strength of
aircraft carriers and planes
Battle of Midway
• June 1942 Naval Battle where the U.S. used
torpedo planes and dive bombers to sink 4
Japanese aircraft carriers and 250 aircraft on
board with many of Japan’s best pilots
• This marked the turning point in the war
because now Japan was on the defensive
Island Hopping Strategy
• After Midway American forces were on the
offensive, starting in the Solomon Islands with
the assault on Guadalcanal in August 1942
Plan was to go from island to island
capturing them on the way to Japan
• During these fights, Japanese soldiers
fought to the death, even engaging in
suicide bombings
• These kamikaze pilots would crash
their planes into American ships and
by the end of the war, more than
3,000 pilots had died in these
Iwo Jima and Okinawa
• U.S. marines in February and March of
1945 fought a fierce battle on the island of
Iwo Jima where over 25,000 soldiers died
America but took the island
• April 1945 on Okinawa over half a million
troops and 1,200 warships were involved
and in the end 12,000 U.S. troops were
killed compared to 110,000 Japanese
• From this island America could launch its
final offensive on Japan
Manhattan Project
• J. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie
Groves were the leaders of this project
• Construction site was located in Los
Alamos, New Mexico and security was so
tight that President Truman did not know
about it until he was sworn in as President
• July 16, 1945 the bomb was tested outside
of Alamogordo, New Mexico
Truman’s Decision to Drop the Bomb
• “Ultimately, Truman’s chief priority was
to save American lives. His military
advisers predicted that, in light of the
ferocious defense waged by Japanese
soldiers during the island-hopping
campaign, an invasion of Japan might
cost as many as 1,000,000 American
casualties.”
Source: Lapsansky-Werner, Levy, Roberts, & Taylor. (2008) United States history : Reconstruction to the present. Boston:
Pearson Prentice Hall.
• “I asked Gen. Marshall what it would cost in
lives to land…in Japan. It was his opinion that
¼ million casualties would be the minimum
cost. …I asked Sec. Stimson which cities in
Japan were devoted exclusively to war
production. He…named Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. We sent an ultimatum to Japan. It
was ignored. I ordered atomic bombs dropped
on the two cities. …Dropping the bombs
ended the war, saved lives and gave the free
nations a chance to face the facts.”
-President Harry S. Truman
Truman’s Decision to Drop the Bomb
• Truman…was keenly sympathetic to the ordeal
facing an invading army. He saw no reason not to
use a weapon of war, even a terribly destructive
one, if it would save American lives. But first he
issued an ultimatum that Japan must surrender
unconditionally or face utter ruin. When the
Japanese failed to respond by the deadline, Truman
turned to his advisory committee’s
recommendation that, to shock the Japanese into
surrender, the bomb be dropped without warning
on cities that had not already been heavily
damaged.
Source: Cohen, Hartman, Johnson, Lawson, Stage, Roark. (2000) The American promise: A history of The United States
• “The final decision of where and when to
use the atomic bomb was up to me. Let
there be no mistake about it. I regarded
the bomb as a military weapon and never
had any doubt that it should be used. The
top military advisers to the President
recommended its use, and when I talked
to Churchill he unhesitatingly told me
that he favored the use of the atomic
bomb if it might aid to end the war….”
Source: Harry S. Truman in Selected case studies in American history: The decision to
drop the atomic bomb
Japan given enough warning and
chance to surrender?
• Critics of President Truman contend that he
failed to warn the Japanese that they would
be attacked with an atomic bomb and thus
gave them no opportunity to surrender until
the bomb was dropped. The critics also
contend that the bomb could have been
dropped in an unpopulated area to
demonstrate its power.
Source: Selected case studies in American history: The decision to drop the atomic bomb
• “…We call upon the Government of Japan to
proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all
Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and
adequate assurances of their good faith in such
action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and
utter destruction….”
Source: Potsdam Declaration July 26, 1945
• “On July 28 the Premier of Japan, Suzuki, rejected
the Potsdam ultimatum announcing that it was
‘unworthy of public notice.’ In the face of this
rejection we could only proceed to demonstrate
that the ultimatum had meant exactly what it
said….”
Source: Henry L. Stimson, The United States Secretary of War in Selected case studies in
Was the bomb necessary for victory?
• Many critics of President Truman contend
that there was no need to drop the
atomic bomb on Hiroshima because
Japan was already defeated in August of
1945. They argue that there would have
been no need to invade the Japanese
mainland and that the bomb did not
significantly shorten the war and did not
save enough lives to justify its use.
Source: Selected case studies in American History: The decision to drop the atomic bomb
• “…The Japanese were already defeated and
were ready to surrender because of the
effective sea blockade and the successful
bombing of conventional weapons...”
Source: Admiral William D. Leahy in Selected case studies in American history
• “There was every reason to think that the
Japanese would defend their homeland with
even greater fanaticism than when they
fought to the death on Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
No American soldier who survived the bloody
struggle on those islands has much sympathy
with view that battle with the Japanese was
over…”
Source: Karl Compton, atomic scientist and advisor to the President in Selected case
On August 6, 1945 the U.S. Airplane the Enola Gay dropped the first
atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In the initial blast, more than 60,000 of
Hiroshima’s residents were dead or missing. On August 9th the second
atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki initially killing 35,000 more.
Many children lost one or both parents in the blasts. It is
estimated that there were over 6,500 orphans in
Hiroshima alone.
• Do you agree or disagree with
President Truman’s decision to
drop the bomb? 3.8 Format
• Base responses on information
presented in today’s lesson as
well as your previous knowledge
of the events that resulted after
the war was over.