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Loss of the Philippines
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Pearl Harbor
Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. The barrage lasted just two hours, but it was devastating: The Japanese managed to destroy nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight enormous battleships, and more than 300 airplanes. More than 2,000 Americans soldiers and sailors died in the attack, and another 1,000 were wounded. -
Battle of Java Sea
Philippines, the Japanese Eastern Invasion Fleet was spotted by ABDA aircraft on February 25. This led Helfrich to reinforce Rear Admiral Karl Doorman's Eastern Strike Force at Surabaya the next day with several ships from the Royal NavyAfter a brief exchange of fire and torpedoes, the two fleets separated again, with Doorman taking his ships inshore along the Java coast in another attempt to circle around the Japanese. -
Bataan Death March
surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II, the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. -
Doolittle Raid
an air raid by the United States of America on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on the island of Honshu during World War II, the first air raid to strike the Japanese Home Islands. -
Island Hopping Strategy
General MacArthur and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz seized the initiative, launching an 'Island Hopping' campaign. Their strategy was to capture the Pacific islands one by one, advancing towards Japan and bypassing and isolating centres of resistance. -
Battle of Coral Sea
There were a number of missed opportunities as carrier airmen learned their trade. Air strikes from both sides either missed their targets or found them only after using up their ordnance. Americans connected first, sinking the light carrier Shoho. When the main forces traded air strikes, the Americans lost the carrier Lexington , and the Japanese suffered damage to the carrier Shokaku. Without air cover, however, the Japanese invasion force turned back, leaving the strategic victory to the Alli -
Battle of Midway
Japan’s desire to sink the American aircraft carriers that had escaped destruction at Pearl Harbor. Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku, Japanese fleet commander, chose to invade a target relatively close to Pearl Harbor to draw out the American fleet, calculating that when the United States began its counterattack, the Japanese would be prepared to crush them. Instead, an American intelligence breakthrough–the solving of the Japanese fleet codes–enabled Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. -
Guadalcanal
and then American marines landed two months later to take it away from them, few people outside of the South Pacific had ever heard of that 2,500-square-mile speck of jungle in the Solomon Islands. But the ensuing six-month Guadalcanal campaign proved to be the turning point of the Pacific war.the Japanese had lost two-thirds of the 31,400 army troops committed to the island, whereas the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Army had lost less than 2,000 soldiers of about 60,000 deployed -
Battle of Leyte Gulf
Leyte Gulf was decisive in that it destroyed much of the remaining Japanese surface fleet while virtually ending Japan’s ability to move resources from Southeast Asia to the home islands. Japanese losses included four aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy and four light cruisers, and eleven destroyers, along with several hundred aircraft and over 10,500 sailors. Allied losses were one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers and one destroyer-escort -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. Despite the difficulty of the conditions, the marines wiped out the defending forces after a month of fighting, and the battle earned a place in American lore with the publication of a photograph showing the U.S. flag being raised in victory a key island in the Bonin chain roughly 575 miles from the Japanese coast B-29 -
Battle of Okinawa
involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. By the end of the 82-day campaign, Japan had lost more than 77,000 soldiers and the Allies had suffered more than 65,000 casualties including 14,000 dead. -
Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima
American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. -
Atomic bomb of Nagasaki
a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.” -
VJ Day
news of the surrender was announced to the world. This sparked spontaneous celebrations over the final ending of World War II. On September 2, 1945, a formal surrender ceremony was held in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri. At the time, President Truman declared September 2 to be VJ Day.
