Pearl Harbor
In 1931, Japan, eager for the vast natural resources to be found in China and seeing her obvious weakness, invaded and occupied Manchuria. It was turned into a nominally independent state called Manchukuo, The American decision to impose an oil embargo on Japan in response to the Japanese invasion of China convinced the leaders of Japan that war with the US was inevitable. Knowing they couldn't defeat the Americans in an war of attrition they hoped that a surprise attack on the US naval base of Pearl Harbor would force the US to negotiation. The Japanese attack on December 7th 1941 was a decisive victory against the US but it was not enough to prevent the US from entering the war.
The Battle of Midway
The Japanese fleet moved on Midway in an effort to draw out and destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet's aircraft carrier striking forces. They planned to quickly knock down Midway's defenses, follow up with an invasion of the atoll's two small islands and establish a Japanese air base there. It was hoped the U.S. carriers would come out and fight, but to arrive too late to save Midway and in insufficient strength to avoid defeat by their own well-tested carrier air power. The Japanese intended surprise was thwarted by superior American communications intelligence, which discovered their plan well before battle occured. This allowed the U.S. Pacific Fleet to establish an ambush by having his carriers ready and waiting for the Japanese. On 4 June 1942, in the second of the Pacific War's great carrier battles, the trap was sprung. The perseverance sacrifice and skill of U.S. Navy aviators, plus a great deal of good luck on the American side, cost Japan four irreplaceable fleet carriers, while only one of the three U.S. carriers present was lost. The base at Midway, though damaged by Japanese air attack, remained operational and later became a vital component in the American trans-Pacific offensive. The Battle of Midway, fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll, represents the strategic high water mark of Japan's Pacific Ocean war. Prior to this battle, Japan possessed general naval superiority over the United States and could usually choose where and when to attack. After Midway, the two opposing fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive against the Japanese.
The Invasion of Iwo Jima
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima, a key island in the Bonin chain roughly 575 miles from the Japanese coast, was sparked by the desire for a place where B-29 bombers damaged over Japan could land without returning all the way to the Marianas, and for a base for escort fighters that would assist in the bombing campaign. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, and it was attacked by three marine divisions after elaborate preparatory air and naval bombardment (sixty-eight hundred tons of bombs, twenty-two thousand shells). The battle was marked by changes in Japanese defense tactics--troops no longer defended at the beach line but rather concentrated inland; consequently, the marines experienced initial success but then got bogged down in costly attritional warfare. The Japanese fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels, and underground installations that were difficult to find and destroy. Except for 1,083 prisoners (two of whom did not surrender until 1951) the entire garrison was wiped out. American losses included 5,900 dead and 17,400 wounded.
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Mushroom clouds over Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right)
The ethical issues aside the use of nuclear weapons on the Japanese was an effective way of ending the second world war. On August 6, 1945, at 9:15 AM the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. Another bomb was assembled at Tinian Island on August 6. On August 8, Field Order No.17 issued from the 20th Air Force Headquarters on Guam called for its use the following day on either Kokura, the primary target, or Nagasaki, the secondary target. Three days after Hiroshima, the B-29 bomber, "Bockscar" piloted by Sweeney, reached the sky over Kokura on the morning of August 9 but abandoned the primary target because of smoke cover and changed course for Nagasaki. What the bombs had produceds was concentrated chaos, from which no city or nation could easily or rapidly recover. No significant repair or reconstruction was accomplished until months later. On September 2, the Japanese government, which had seemed ready to fight to the death, surrendered unconditionally. Winston Churchill estimated that the lives of a million Americans and two hundred and fifty thousand British soldiers and sailors had been saved by this sudden shortening of the war.
Surrender
Japanese representatives signing the official Instrument of Surrender
The surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, brought the hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent. While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end, the Empire of Japan's leaders, were privately making entreaties to the neutral Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms favorable to the Japanese. The Soviets, meanwhile, were preparing to attack the Japanese, in fulfillment of their promises they made at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences.Late in the evening of August 8, 1945, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, but in violation of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, the Soviet Union declared war on the Empire of Japan, and soon after midnight on August 9, 1945, the Soviet Union invaded the Imperial Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Later that day, the United States dropped another atomic bomb, this time on the city of Nagasaki. The combined shock of these events caused Emperor Hirohito to intervene and order the Big Six to accept the terms for ending the war that the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration. After several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of the Empire of Japan to the Allies.