By P.A. Geddie
The United States of America was officially created in 1776 by men and woman from different parts of the world who broke free from cruel, oppressive tyranny to create a land where they were free to make their own life choices.
They wrote the Declaration of Independence which, in part, says:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Through the generations Americans fought many battles to preserve their right to freedom. Their conviction ran deep and they knew they would do anything, even sacrifice their own lives, to preserve it.
And so it was when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941, they did indeed wake the “sleeping giant.”
Tyranny Claims the World
During the 1930s three men joined together to rule the world —Adolf Hitler of Germany, Benito Mussolini of Italy and Emporer Hirohito of Japan (General Hideki Tojo became premier of Japan in October 1941). They believed themselves superior to everyone else and set about to bring countries around the world under their power.
Adolph Hitler was the leader of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. He became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and soon began to burn books and boycott Jewish-owned shops, created laws stripping Jews of any rights, and then began opening concentration camps.
The Germans occupied the Rhineland in 1936 and in 1938 occupied Sudentenland. They took Czechoslovakia in 1939, and then in September that year they invaded Poland, part of an Allied alliance led by Britain and France.
This is when Word War II began
Germany, Italy and Japan formed an alliance called the Axis to defeat the rest of the world.
In the next couple of years the Axis committed aggressive acts in Africa, China, Denmark, Norway, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Britain, French Indochina, and the Soviet Union.
During this time the United States remained neutral. The majority of people in the United States thought their country should stay out of World War II. Yet most Americans hoped for an Allied victory. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other interventionists urged all aid “short of war” to nations fighting the Axis. They argued that an Axis victory would endanger democracies everywhere.
Roosevelt hoped to defeat the Axis powers by equipping the nations fighting them with ships, tanks, aircraft, and other war materials. Roosevelt appealed to the United States to become what he called “the arsenal of democracy.”
However, with the possibility of war lingering, the United States also built strong military forces.
Many men of the forces were in training at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when the Japanese attacked the island December 7, 1941. It was about 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Sailors of the U.S. Navy Pacific fleet were preparing for hoisting of the colors aboard the great ships. Within minutes the West Virginia, Nevada, Oklahoma and California ships had been struck by torpedoes. Then the light cruiser Raleigh and target ship Utah caught torpedoes. Then the Arizona was hit by a missile and it demolished the forward magazine. The ship sank and about 900 men were entombed inside. There were many other ships hit and many land attacks as well. The Japanese sank or badly damaged 19 ships and killed 2300 Americans.
The United States declared war on Japan the next day. In a speech to the nation President Franklin D. Roosevelt said.
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a day which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the empire of Japan. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. With confidence in our armed forces. With the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.”
The Sleeping Giant Awakes
The United States joined forces with Britain, France and the Soviet Union, and eventually many other countries, to form the Allies.
The United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom declared war on Japan Dec. 8, 1941. The next day, China declared war on the Axis. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States December 11. World War II became a global conflict.
The leaders of the three major Allied powers were known during World War II as the Big Three—Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. The Big Three and their military advisers planned the strategy that defeated the Axis. Churchill and Roosevelt conferred frequently on overall strategy. Stalin directed the Soviet war effort but rarely consulted his allies.
Roosevelt relied heavily on his military advisers, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They consisted of General of the Army Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces; General of the Army George C. Marshall, chief of staff of the Army; Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, chief of naval operations; and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s chief of staff.
Key United States leaders of the war emerged—Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz.
The American people backed the war effort with fierce dedication. About 15 million American men served in the armed forces. They ranged from teenagers to men well over 40. About 338,000 women served in the armed forces. They worked as mechanics, drivers, clerks, and cooks and also filled many other noncombat positions.
The United States implemented thorough strategic campaigns and, with the other Allied nations, defeated the tyrants. First Italy surrendered, then Germany, then Japan.
EUROPEAN THEATRE
In order to get to Italy, the Allies planned to drive the Axis forces out of northern Africa. Operation Torch began the U.S. invasion of French colonies in North Africa. Allied troops commanded by Eisenhower landed in Algeria and Morocco Nov. 8, 1942.
The Allies hoped to advance rapidly into Tunisia and thereby cut off the Axis forces from their home bases in Italy and Sicily. But Axis troops moved faster and seized Tunisia first. American troops first engaged in combat with the Germans in February 1943 near Kasserine Pass in northern Tunisia. The inexperienced Americans were defeated in hard fighting. But thereafter, the Allies steadily closed in. The last Axis forces in northern Africa surrendered in May. The Allies now had bases from which to invade southern Europe.
The Allies Invade Italy
They Allies next planned to invade Sicily. Axis planes bombed Allied ships in the Mediterranean Sea from bases in Sicily. The Allies wanted to make the Mediterranean safe for their ships. They also hoped that an invasion of Sicily might knock a war-weary Italy out of the war.
Allied forces under Eisenhower landed along Sicily’s south coast July 10, 1943. For 39 days, they engaged in bitter fighting with German troops over rugged terrain. Mussolini fell from power July 25, 1943, along with the Fascist government. Marshal Pietro Badoglio took over Italy and negotiated with the Allies. The Italian government imprisoned Mussolini, but German commandos later rescued him. The last Germans left Sicily August 17.
Italy surrendered September 3. However, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, Germany’s commander in the Mediterranean region, was determined to fight the Allies for control of Italy.
Allied forces led by Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark of the United States landed at Salerno, Italy, Sept. 9, 1943. They fought hard just to stay ashore. Another Allied force had already landed farther south. The Allies slowly struggled up the Italian Peninsula in a series of head-on assaults against well-defended German positions. By early November, the Allies had nearly reached Cassino, about 75 miles south of Rome. But they failed to pierce German defenses there. Some of the most brutal fighting of World War II occurred near Cassino.
In January 1944, the Allies landed troops at Anzio, west of Cassino, (Italy) in an effort to attack the Germans from behind. However, German forces kept the Allies pinned down on the beaches at Anzio for four months. Thousands of Allied soldiers died there.
The Allies finally broke through German defenses in Italy in May 1944. Rome fell on June 4. The Germans held their positions in northern Italy through the fall and winter. But in the spring, the Allies swept toward the Alps. Mussolini was captured by Italian resistance fighters April 27, and was lynched April 28. German forces in Italy surrendered May 2, 1945.
Battle of Atlantic
From 1940 to 1942, Germany appeared to be winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Each month, U-boats sank thousands of tons of Allied shipping. But the Allies gradually overcame the U-boat danger. They used radar and an underwater detection device called sonar to locate German submarines. Long-range aircraft bombed U-boats as they surfaced. Shipyards in North America stepped up their production of warships to accompany convoys. By mid-1943, the Allies were sinking U-boats faster than Germany could replace them. The crisis in the Atlantic had passed.
Getting to Germany
The United States joined the air war against Germany in 1942. The American B-17 bomber carried a better bombsight than British planes. B-17’s were known as Flying Fortresses because of their heavy armor and many guns, and they could take much punishment. For those reasons, the Americans favored pinpoint bombing of specific targets during daytime rather than area bombing at night. From 1943 until the end of the war, bombs rained down on Germany around the clock.
Germany’s air defenses rapidly improved during World War II. The Germans used radar to spot incoming bombers, and they used fighter aircraft to shoot them down. In 1944, Germany introduced the first jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262. The fast plane could easily overtake the propeller-driven fighters of the Allies. But Hitler failed to use jet fighters effectively, which kept Germany from gaining an advantage in the air war.
D-Day
In 1942, the United States and the United Kingdom began to discuss a large-scale invasion across the English Channel. That summer, the Allies raided the French port of Dieppe on the channel. The raiders met strong German defenses and suffered heavy losses. The Dieppe raid convinced the Allies that landing on open beaches had a better chance of success than landing in a port.
The Germans expected an Allied invasion along the north coast of France in 1944. But they were unsure where. A chain of fortifications, which the Germans called the Atlantic Wall, ran along the coast. Hitler strengthened German defenses along the English Channel. They brought in artillery, mined the water and the beaches, and strung up barbed wire. The Germans concentrated their troops near Calais, at the narrowest part of the English Channel. But the Allies planned to land farther west, in a region of northern France called Normandy.
Eisenhower chose Monday, June 5, 1944, as D-Day—the date of the Normandy invasion. Rough seas forced him to postpone D-Day until June 6. During the night, about 2,700 ships carrying landing craft and 176,000 soldiers crossed the channel. Minesweepers had gone ahead to clear the water. Paratroopers dropped behind German lines to capture bridges and railroad tracks. At dawn, battleships opened fire on the beaches. At 6:30 a.m., troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and France stormed ashore on a 60-mile front in the largest seaborne invasion in history.
D-Day took the Germans by surprise. But they fought back fiercely. At one landing site, code-named Omaha Beach, U.S. troops came under heavy fire and barely managed to stay ashore. Nevertheless, all five Allied landing beaches were secure by the end of D-Day. The Allies soon had an artificial harbor in place for unloading more troops and supplies. A pipeline carried fuel across the channel. By the end of June 1944, about a million Allied troops had reached France.
Allied forces advanced slowly at first. The Americans struggled westward to capture the badly needed port of Cherbourg. The battle for Cherbourg ended June 27. Near the end of July, the Allies finally broke through German lines into open country.
The drive to the Rhine
On July 25, 1944, Allied bombers blasted a gap in the German front near St.-Lo, about 50 miles southeast of Cherbourg. The U.S. Third Army under Lieutenant General George S. Patton plowed through the hole. The battlefield had opened up. During August, the Allies cleared the Germans out of most of northwestern France. Allied bombers hounded the retreating Germans.
Patton’s army rolled eastward toward Paris. On Aug. 19, 1944, Parisians rose up against the occupying German forces. Hitler ordered the city destroyed. But his generals delayed carrying out the order. American and Free French forces liberated Paris August 25.
In mid-August 1944, Allied forces landed in southern France. They moved rapidly up the Rhone River Valley. Meanwhile, Patton raced eastward toward the German border and the Rhine River. In late August, his tanks ran out of fuel.
To the north, British forces led by Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery swept into Belgium and captured Antwerp September 4. The Allies planned a daring airborne operation to carry them across the Rhine. On September 17, about 20,000 paratroopers dropped behind German lines to seize bridges in the Netherlands. But bad weather and other problems hampered the operation. It became clear that victory over Germany would have to wait until 1945.
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge in Europe marks the last major German counteroffensive. Germany’s generals knew they were beaten. But Hitler pulled his failing resources together for another assault. On Dec. 16, 1944, German troops surprised and overwhelmed the Americans in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg. However, the Germans lacked the troops and fuel to turn their thrust into a breakthrough. Within two weeks, the Americans stopped the German advance near the Meuse River in Belgium. The Ardennes offensive is also known as the Battle of the Bulge because of the bulging shape of the battleground on a map.
The Allies began their final assault on Germany in early 1945. Soviet soldiers reached the Oder River, about 40 miles east of Berlin in January. Allied forces in the west occupied positions along the Rhine by early March.
British and Canadian forces cleared the Germans out of the Netherlands and swept into northern Germany. American and French forces raced toward the Elbe River in central Germany. Hitler ordered his soldiers to fight to the death. But large numbers of German soldiers surrendered each day.
Survivors of Nazi death camps
As they advanced, the Allies discovered horrifying evidence of Nazi brutality. Hitler had ordered the imprisonment and murder of millions of Jews and members of other minority groups in concentration camps. The starving survivors of the death camps gave proof of the terrible suffering of those who had already died.
Victory in Europe
The capture of Berlin, then Germany’s capital, was left to Soviet forces. By April 25, 1945, Soviet troops had surrounded the city. From a bunker (shelter) deep underground, Hitler ordered German soldiers to fight on. On April 30, however, Hitler committed suicide. He remained convinced that his cause had been right but that the German people had proven unworthy of his rule.
Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz briefly succeeded Hitler as the leader of Germany. Doenitz arranged for Germany’s surrender. On May 7, 1945, Colonel General Alfred Jodl, chief of staff of the German armed forces, signed a statement of unconditional surrender at Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims, France. World War II had ended in Europe. The Allies declared May 8 as V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day.
THE WAR ON JAPAN
On December 10, 1941, just three days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, they began landing troops in the Philippines. American and Philippine forces commanded by U.S. General Douglas MacArthur defended the islands. In late December, MacArthur’s forces abandoned Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and withdrew to nearby Bataan Peninsula. Although suffering from malnutrition and disease, they beat back Japanese attacks for just over three months.
In March 1942 President Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to Australia, and he left the Philippines, promising the Filipinos, “I shall return.”
On April 9, about 75,000 exhausted troops on Bataan surrendered to the Japanese. Most of them were forced to march about 65 miles to prison camps. Many prisoners died of disease and mistreatment during what became known as the Bataan Death March. Some soldiers held out on Corregidor Island, near Bataan, until May 6.
Three events in 1942 helped turn the tide against Japan. They were (1) the Doolittle Raid, (2) the Battle of the Coral Sea, and (3) the Battle of Midway.
The Doolittle Raid
To show Japan could be beaten, the United States staged a daring bombing raid on the Japanese homeland. On April 18, 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers in a surprise attack on Tokyo and other Japanese cities. The bombers took off from the deck of the Hornet, an aircraft carrier more than 600 miles east of Japan. The raid did very little damage. But it alarmed Japan’s leaders, who had believed their homeland was safe from Allied bombs. To prevent future raids, the Japanese determined to capture more islands to the south and the east and so extend the country’s defenses. They soon found themselves in trouble.
The Battle of the Coral Sea
In May 1942, a Japanese invasion force sailed toward Australia’s base at Port Moresby on the south coast of the island of New Guinea. Port Moresby lay at Australia’s doorstep. American warships met the Japanese force in the Coral Sea, northeast of Australia. The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from May 4 to 8, was unlike all earlier naval battles. It was the first naval battle in which opposing ships never sighted one another. Planes based on aircraft carriers did all the fighting. Neither side won a clear victory. But the battle halted the assault on Port Moresby and temporarily checked the threat to Australia.
The Battle of Midway
Japan next sent a large fleet to capture Midway Island at the westernmost tip of the Hawaiian chain. The United States had cracked Japan’s naval code and thus learned about the coming invasion. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, gathered the ships that had survived the raid on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Coral Sea. He prepared to ambush the Japanese.
The Battle of Midway opened June 4, 1942, with a Japanese bombing raid on Midway. Outdated U.S. bombers flew in low and launched torpedoes against Japanese warships. But Japanese guns downed most of the slow-moving planes. American dive bombers swooped in next. They pounded enemy aircraft carriers while their planes refueled on deck. During the three-day battle, the Japanese lost 4 aircraft carriers and more than 200 planes and skilled pilots. Japan sank 1 U.S. aircraft carrier and shot down about 150 U.S. planes.
The Battle of Midway was the first clear Allied victory over Japan in World War II. Aircraft carriers had become the most important weapon in the war in the Pacific. Japan’s naval power was crippled by the loss of four of its nine aircraft carriers.
Although Japan failed to capture Midway, it seized two islands at the tip of Alaska’s Aleutian chain June 7, 1942. The Americans drove the Japanese out of the Aleutians in the spring and summer of 1943.
The South Pacific
After the Battle of Midway, the Allies were determined to stop Japanese expansion in the South Pacific. In the battles that followed, American soldiers and marines fought many jungle campaigns on Pacific islands. The jungle itself was a terrifying enemy. Heavy rains drenched the troops and turned the jungle into a foul-smelling swamp. The men had to hack their way through tangled, slimy vegetation and wade through knee-deep mud. The Japanese hid everywhere, waiting to shoot unsuspecting servicemen. Scorpions and snakes were a constant menace. Malaria and other tropical diseases took a heavy toll.
The Americans also encountered Japan’s strict military code in the South Pacific. The code required Japanese soldiers to fight to the death. Japanese soldiers believed that surrender meant disgrace, and the Allies rarely captured them alive. When cornered, the Japanese sometimes charged at Allied troops in nighttime suicide attacks. Rather than admit defeat, Japan’s military leaders took their lives by stabbing themselves in the abdomen according to the tradition of hara-kiri.
The Allies developed two major campaigns against Japan in the South Pacific. One force under MacArthur checked the Japanese on New Guinea. Another force under Nimitz battled the Japanese in the Solomon Islands northeast of Australia. MacArthur and Nimitz aimed at taking the port of Rabaul on New Britain. Rabaul was Japan’s chief base in the South Pacific.
New Guinea
In the summer of 1942, Japanese troops began an overland drive across New Guinea’s rugged, jungle-covered mountains to the Australian base of Port Moresby on the south coast. An Allied force made up chiefly of Australians quickly counterattacked. By November, the Japanese had been pushed back across the mountains. MacArthur then attacked Japanese positions along the north coast in a series of brilliant operations that combined air, sea, and land forces. Brutal fighting continued on New Guinea until mid-1944.
Guadalcanal
On Aug. 7, 1942, U.S. marines invaded the island of Guadalcanal in the first stage of a campaign in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese were building an air base on Guadalcanal from which to attack Allied ships. The invasion took the Japanese by surprise. But they fought back, and a fierce battle developed.
The six-month battle for Guadalcanal was one of the most vicious campaigns of World War II. Each side depended on its navy to land supplies and troop reinforcements. In a series of naval battles, the Allies gained control of the waters surrounding Guadalcanal. They then cut off Japanese shipments. Until that time, Allied supplies had been short, and the marines had depended on rice captured from the enemy. By February 1943, the starving Japanese had evacuated Guadalcanal.
Pacific Island Hopping
After taking Guadalcanal, American forces led by Admiral William F. Halsey worked their way up the Solomon Islands. In November 1943, the Americans reached Bougain-ville at the top of the island chain. They defeated the Japanese there in March 1944.
From late 1943 until the fall of 1944, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific toward the Philippines. During the island-hopping campaign, the Allies became expert at amphibious (seaborne) invasions. Each island they captured provided a base from which to strike the next target. But rather than capture every island, the Allies by-passed Japanese strongholds and invaded islands that were weakly held. That strategy, known as leapfrogging, saved time and lives. Leapfrogging carried the Allies across the Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline, and Mariana islands in the Central Pacific.
Admiral Nimitz selected the Gilbert Islands as the first major objective in the island-hopping campaign. American marines invaded Tarawa in the Gilberts in November 1943. The attackers met heavy fire from Japanese troops in concrete bunkers. But they inched forward and captured the tiny island after four days of savage fighting. About 4,500 Japanese soldiers died defending the island. Only 17 remained alive. More than 3,000 marines were killed or wounded in the assault. The Allies improved their amphibious operations because of lessons they learned at Tarawa. As a result, fewer men died in later landings.
In February 1944, U.S. marines and infantrymen leaped north to the Marshall Islands. They captured Kwajalein and Enewetak in relatively smooth operations. Allied military leaders meanwhile had decided to by-pass Truk, a key Japanese naval base in the Caroline Islands west of the Marshalls. They bombed Truk instead and made it unusable as a base.
The Americans made their next jump to the Mariana Islands, about 1,000 miles northwest of Enewetak. Bitter fighting for the Marianas began in June 1944. In the Battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19 and 20, Japan’s navy once again attempted to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet. During the battle, which was fought near the island of Guam, the Allies massacred Japan’s navy and destroyed its airpower. Japan lost three aircraft carriers and about 480 airplanes, or more than three-fourths of the planes it sent into battle. The loss of so many trained pilots was also a serious blow to Japan.
By August 1944, American forces occupied Guam, Saipan, and Tinian—the three largest islands in the Marianas. The occupation of the Marianas brought Nimitz’s forces within bombing distance of Japan.
In November, American B-29 bombers began using bases in the Marianas to raid Japan.
A final hop before the invasion of the Philippines took U.S. forces to the Palau Islands in September 1944. The islands lie between the Marianas and the Philippines. The attackers met stiff resistance on Peleliu, the chief Japanese base in the Palaus. About 25 percent of the Americans were killed or injured in a month-long fight.
The China-Burma-India Theater
While fighting raged in the Pacific, the Allies also battled the Japanese on the Asian mainland. The chief theater of operations involved China, Burma (now Myanmar), and India. By mid-1942, Japan held much of eastern and southern China and conquered nearly all Burma. The Japanese closed the Burma Road, the overland supply route from India to China. China lacked equipment and trained troops and barely managed to go on fighting. But the Western Allies wanted to keep China in the war because the Chinese tied down hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops. For three years, the Allies flew war supplies over the world’s tallest mountain system, the Himalaya, from India to China. The route was known as “the Hump.”
The United States sent military advisers as well as equipment to China. Colonel Claire L. Chennault, for example, trained pilots and established an air force in China. By the end of 1943, his pilots controlled the skies over China. But they could not help exhausted Chinese troops on the ground.
The Allied campaign in Burma was closely linked to the fighting in China. From 1943 until early 1945, the Allies fought to recapture Burma from the Japanese and reopen a land route to China. But rugged jungle, heavy rains, and a shortage of troops and supplies hampered the Allies in Burma.
By the end of 1944, Allied forces battled their way through the jungles of northern Burma. They opened a supply route across northern Burma to China in January 1945. Yangon (also spelled Rangoon), Burma’s capital, fell to the Allies in May. The Allies finally regained Burma after a long, horrible campaign.
The Liberation of the Philippines
The campaigns in New Guinea and the central Pacific brought the Allies within striking distance of the Philippine Islands. MacArthur and Nimitz combined their forces to liberate the Philippines. Allied leaders decided to invade the island of Leyte in the central Philippines in the fall of 1944.
The Allies expected the Japanese to fight hard to hold the Philippines. They therefore assembled the largest landing force ever used in the Pacific campaigns. About 750 ships participated in the invasion of Leyte, which began Oct. 20, 1944. It had taken MacArthur more than two and a half years and many brutal battles to keep his pledge to return to the Philippines.
While Allied troops poured ashore on Leyte, Japan’s navy tried yet again to crush the Pacific Fleet. The Battle for Leyte Gulf, which was fought Oct. 23-26, 1944, was the largest naval battle in history. In all, 282 ships took part. The battle ended in a major victory for the United States. Japan’s navy was so badly damaged that it was no longer a serious threat for the rest of the war.
Japanese Kamikaze
During the Battle for Leyte Gulf, the Japanese unleashed a terrifying new weapon—the kamikaze (suicide pilot). Kamikazes crashed planes filled with explosives onto Allied warships and died as a result. Many kamikazes were shot down before they crashed. But others caused great damage. The kamikaze became one of Japan’s major weapons during the rest of the war.
The fight for Leyte continued until the end of 1944. On Jan. 9, 1945, the Allies landed on the island of Luzon and began to work their way toward Manila. The city fell in early March. The remaining Japanese troops on Luzon pulled back to the mountains and went on fighting until the war ended.
About 350,000 Japanese soldiers died during the campaign in the Philippines. American casualties numbered nearly 14,000 dead and about 48,000 wounded or missing. Japan was clearly doomed to defeat after losing the Philippines. But it did not intend to surrender.
Closing in on Japan
Superiority at sea and in the air enabled the Allies to close in on Japan in early 1945. By then, Japan had lost much of its empire, most of its aircraft and cargo ships, and nearly all its warships. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers remained stranded on Pacific islands by-passed by the Allies. American B-29 bombers were pounding Japan’s industries, and American submarines were sinking vital supplies headed for Japan.
In January 1945, Major General Curtis E. LeMay took command of the air war against Japan. LeMay ordered more frequent and more daring raids. American bombers increased their accuracy by flying in low during nighttime raids. They began to drop incendiary (fire-producing) bombs that set Japanese cities aflame. A massive incendiary raid in March 1945 destroyed the heart of Tokyo. By the end of the month, about three million people in Tokyo were homeless.
Iwo Jima
Japan’s military leaders went on fighting, though they faced certain defeat. The Allies decided they needed more bases to step up the bombing campaign against Japan. They chose the Japanese islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Supplies poured ashore on Iwo Jima which lies about 750 miles south of Japan. About 21,000 Japanese troops were stationed there. They prepared to defend the tiny island from fortified caves and underground tunnels. Allied aircraft began bombarding Iwo Jima seven months before the invasion. American marines landed on Feb. 19, 1945, and made slow progress. The Japanese hung on desperately until March 16. About 25,000 marines—about 30 per cent of the landing force—were killed or wounded in the campaign for Iwo Jima.
Okinawa
Okinawa, the next stop on the Allied route toward Japan, lies about 350 miles southwest of Japan. Allied troops began to pour ashore on Okinawa April 1, 1945. Japan sent kamikazes to attack the landing force. By the time the battle ended June 21, kamikazes had sunk at least 30 ships and damaged more than 350 others. The capture of Okinawa cost the Allies about 50,000 casualties. About 110,000 Japanese died, including many civilians who chose to commit suicide rather than be conquered.
By the summer of 1945, some members of Japan’s government favored surrender. But others insisted that Japan fight on. The Allies planned to invade Japan in November 1945. American military planners feared that the invasion might cost as many as one million U.S. lives. Some Allied leaders believed that Soviet help was needed to defeat Japan, and they had encouraged Stalin to invade Manchuria. However, the Allies found another way to end the war.
President Roosevelt had died April 12, 1945, and Vice President Harry S. Truman became president of the United States. Truman met with Churchill and Stalin in Potsdam, Germany, in July, shortly after Germany’s defeat. At the Potsdam Conference, Truman learned of a successful test explosion of the atomic bomb and informed the other leaders of it. The United States, the United Kingdom, and China then issued a statement threatening to destroy Japan unless it surrendered unconditionally. In spite of the warning, Japan went on fighting.
Atomic Bombs are Dropped
On Aug. 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb used in warfare on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion killed from 70,000 to 100,000 people, it is estimated, and destroyed about five square miles. After Japanese leaders failed to respond to the bombing, the United States dropped a larger bomb on Nagasaki on August 9. It killed about 40,000 people. Later, thousands more died of injuries and radiation from the two bombings.
On Sept. 2, 1945, the Japanese signed a surrender agreement with MacArthur on the USS Missouri at Tokyo Bay.
World War II was over.
In a speech given that day MacArthur said:
“Today the guns are silent. A great tragedy has ended….The entire world lies quietly at peace. The Holy Mission has been completed… I speak for the thousands of silent lips, forever still among the jungles and the beaches and in the deep waters of the Pacific…for the unnamed brave millions homeward bound to take up the challenge of the future which they did so much to salvage from the brink of disaster…. We must go forward to preserve in peace what we won in war.”