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War In the Pacific
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Offensives against
Japan
 18 April 1942 - First strike made by Americans
Doolittle Raid, aka. Tokyo Raid
 Bomber mission over Japan
launched from aircraft carrier Hornet; led by Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle
16 B-25’s (5 man crew)
 Attacked was on Tokyo
 Damage to the military target was minimal
 Affected moral for both Japan and USA
Japanese high command embarrassed over event
Battle of the Coral Sea, May 1942
 4-8 May
 Fought entirely by planes, supported by carriers
First air-naval battle ever
 Began with aircraft from both sides attacking naval vessels
US destroyer USS Sims (sunk); oiler USS Neosho (crippled)
Japanese carrier Shoho was sunk; heavy losses though
“scratch the flattop” – phrase used when carrier sunk
 May 8
Main carrier groups met and launched all their aircraft
USS Yorktown and USS Lexington were hit during battle
Yorktown badly damaged
Lexington so badly damaged it’s own crew sunk it
Japanese lost a destroyer, and the carrier Shokaku was severely damaged
69 American aircraft destroyed; 543 killed
92 Japanese aircraft destroyed; 1,074 killed
 No real winner; but prevented the Japanese from taking Port Moresby, New Guinea
Could have used location to bomb Australia
Battle of Midway, June 1942
 Began with Japanese attack on Midway
108 aircraft bombed military installation
 Americans used combined attack of dive bombers and torpedo bombers
 Torpedo bombers (from USS Hornet and USS Enterprise) reached Japanese fleet first
47 of 51 were shot down by the Japanese Zero fighters
 US dive bombers approached from different direction and took
Japanese by surprise
In 5 minutes, 2 carriers, Kaga and
Akagi, were hit and on fire
 Destroyed Japanese naval strength
4 Japanese carriers destroyed, a
heavy cruiser, and 248 aircraft
3,057 killed
US only lost 1 carrier (Yorktown),
a destroyer, and 145 aircraft
Island Hopping (aka. Leap Frogging)
 General Douglas MacArthur planned assault from south-east
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 General Douglas MacArthur planned assault from south-east
Admiral Nimitz was to attack from east
Attacks were to converge on the Philippines
 Avoided trying to capture every island Japan occupied
 hopped from one island to another avoiding the most heavily defended islands
Left those islands to “wither on the vine” – MacArthur
 Main weapon of the Pacific became aircraft
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Battle of Leyte Gulf, Oct. 1944
 Claims to be largest naval battle in history
Pit almost all the American Pacific fleet against the remainder of the Japanese fleet
 First time kamikaze (means divine wind) or suicide pilots were used
Flew planes packed with explosives at US ships
 Japan lost 4 carriers and 3 battleships, 8 cruisers,12 destroyers (one half of entire
fleet), and 10,500 sailors and pilots
 Americans lost 1 light aircraft carrier, 2 escort carriers, 2 destroyers, 1 destroyer
escort sunk
 Result:
Last large scale Japanese operations of war
cut Japanese off from conquered territories in Southeast Asia,
greatly reducing the flow of supplies and resources to home islands (Japan)
Opened the door for allied liberation of the Philippines
Opinions on Kamikaze Tactics
“I cannot predict the outcome of the air battles, but you will be making a mistake if
you should regard Special Attack operations as normal methods. The right way is to
attack the enemy with skill and return to the base with good results. A plane should
be utilized over and over again. That’s the way to fight a war. The current thinking is
skewed. Otherwise, you cannot expect to improve air power. There will be no
progress if flyers continue to die.”
- Lieutenant Commander Iwatani, Taiyo (Ocean) magazine, March 1945.
“I am pleased to have the honour of having been chosen as a member of a Special
Attack Force that is on its way into battle, but I cannot help crying when I think of
you, Mum. When I reflect on the hopes you had for my future ... I feel so sad that I
am going to die without doing anything to bring you joy.”
- Ichizo Hayashi (age 23), last letter home a few days before his final flight. April
1945
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
May 1945 - War Still Raged
 War didn’t stop just because Germany surrendered
Though defeat of Germany had been highest priority
 Pacific war still raged on
 USA now moved troops from Europe to pit her full force against Japan
Soviet troops began to move to Asiatic area of Russia
Planned to add their force to final assault on Japanese Empire
 Japan was starting to feel the stress being placed on her by the war
1944 saw the bombing of the home islands by American’s new bombers
B-29 Superfortress (Boeing)
Battle of Iwo Jima, 19 Feb. – 16 March, 1945
 Small island off main Japanese island of Honshu
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 Small island off main Japanese island of Honshu
2 airbases on island
Americans hoped to use them for fighters and emergency landing bases
 2 months of bombing raids led up to amphibious assault, but was ineffective
Gave defenders more hiding places, especially for snipers
 On first day of landing, marines took heavy casualties
 On average American troops only able to advance a few hundred metres per day
 American losses: 6,891 men killed and 18,070 wounded
 Out of 22,000 Japanese soldiers on island, only 212 taken prisoners
Battle of Okinawa
 1 April – 22 June 1945
 Okinawa is the largest Island at southern tip of Japan
4 airfields located on island
Total faith was put in kamikazes – attacked American navy of Okinawa (sunk 21
warships, and damages another 66)
 American landing planned for west side of island
Proceeded by intense bombardment
Landing faced little initial resistance
 Worst fighting in south of island
 Americans losses: 7,373 men killed and 32,056 wounded on land; 5,000 killed and
4,600 wounded at sea
 Japanese losses: 107,000 killed and 7,400 men taken prisoner
Manhattan Project
 US Gov’t began funding this secret project in March 1943
Aim was to weaponize theories of nuclear physics entailed construction of factories
employing 12,000 workers
Included first ever fully automated plant in history
 Robert Oppenheimer was the chief overseer of the operation from start to finish
“father of the atomic bomb”
 Total cost of project was approx. $2 billion
 President Harry S. Truman was informed about a successful A-Bomb test carried out
in New Mexico, July 1945 (codenamed Trinity)
Was at Potsdam Conference at time
 Creator’s reactions were mixed:
Isidor Rabi felt that the equilibrium in nature had been upset as if humankind had
become a threat to the world it inhabited.
Robert Oppenheimer, though ecstatic about the success of the project, quoted a
remembered fragment from the Bhagavad Gita. "I am become Death," he said, "the
destroyer of worlds."
Ken Bainbridge, the test director, told Oppenheimer, "Now we're all sons of bitches."
 Gave Truman another option for ending war
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Deciding to use the A-Bomb
 Military planners informed Truman he could expect
 1-1.5 million casualties
And another 12 – 18 months of fighting to take Japanese home islands
 Other reasons:
Stalin had his troops mobilized and ready to attack Japanese in Manchuria
US and Brit. afraid of USSR occupation of Asian
territory (like in Eastern Europe)
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territory (like in Eastern Europe)
 Decided to use atomic bomb to force Japan
to surrender
 Hiroshima was chosen as target (other
possible were Kyoto (later removed from list),
Nagasaki and Niigata)
Had been left untouched by earlier American
bombing raids
Industrial city (7th largest in Japan) with population
of approx. 350,000
 Target Committee wanted the first bomb to be
"sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the
weapon to be internationally recognized when
publicity on it was released."

Hiroshima, 6
August 1945
 2:45 am
American B-29 took off from Tinian Island in the Marianas
 Plane was called the Enola Gay
Named after mother of the pilot Col. Paul Tibbets
 Inside bomb bay was a-bomb, codenamed “Little Boy”
9,700 pounds; contained 140 lbs of highly enriched uranium fuel
Blast yield: 15, 000 tonnes of TNT equivalent
 Bomb dropped (parachute) at 8:15 am
Went of 43 seconds later, 2,000 metres over the city
 Mushroom cloud estimated to have reached 40,000 ft.
Detonation Results
 Initial death toll estimate of approx. 130,000
Another approx. 100,000 died within next 5 years (radiation)
 From hypocenter
Total vaporization occurred in .5 mile diameter area
Total destruction in 1 mile diameter area
Within 2 miles, severe damage
Within 2.5 miles anything flammable burned
Up to 3 miles serious fires
 2/3 of city was destroyed
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"The mushroom cloud itself was a spectacular sight, a bubbling mass of purple-gray
smoke and you could see it had a red core in it and everything was burning inside. . .
. It looked like lava or molasses covering a whole city. . . .“
- Staff Sergeant George Caron, tail gunner
“The appearance of people was . . . well, they all had skin blackened by burns. . . .
They had no hair because their hair was burned, and at a glance you couldn't tell
whether you were looking at them from in front or in back. . . . They held their arms
bent [forward] like this . . . and their skin - not only on their hands, but on their faces
and bodies too - hung down. . . . If there had been only one or two such people . . .
perhaps I would not have had such a strong impression. But wherever I walked I met
these people. . . . Many of them died along the road - I can still picture them in my
mind -- like walking ghosts.”
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mind -- like walking ghosts.”
- unidentified survivor
Nagasaki, 9 August 1945
 3:49 am; B-29 called “Bockscar” departed from Tinian
 Dropped atomic bomb codenamed “Fat Man” at 11:02 am
10,800 lbs; contained 13.6 lbs of highly enriched plutonium 239 fuel
Blast yield: 21,000 tonnes of TNT equivalent
10 times the efficiency of “Little Boy”
 Bomb detonated 1,650 feet above city
 40% of city destroyed
Luckily for populace the terrain prevented blast from doing as much damage as in
Hiroshima
Despite blast being larger
 Of approx. population of 270,000
Initial death toll of 40,000; approx. 70,000 had died by years end
Japan Surrenders
 US had run out of a-bombs
Japanese didn’t know that
 Japanese gov’t prompted by Emperor Hirohito accepted American terms of surrender
on 14 August
 Military leaders surrendered one by one through Aug. and Sept.
Some decided to commit ritual suicide instead (seppuku/harakiri)
 2 Sept. 1945, MacArthur accepted a formal surrender signed on USS Missouri
 Japan would be occupied by armies of former enemies
 MacArthur (Supreme Commander for Allied Powers) would oversee demilitarization
and democratization of Japan
And Now…
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