The Pacific and Adjacent Theaters in WWII

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The Pacific and Adjacent Theaters in WWII
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1 December 7, 1941 A small boat rescues a USS
West Virginia crew member from the water after
the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (AP
Photo)
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2 December 7, 1941 This picture, taken by a
Japanese photographer, shows how American ships
are clustered together before the surprise
Japanese aerial attack on Pear Harbor, Hawaii, on
Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941. Minutes later the
full impact of the assault was felt and Pearl
Harbor became a flaming target. (AP Photo)
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3 December 7, 1941 Sailors stand among wrecked
airplanes at Ford Island Naval Air Station as
they watch the explosion of the USS Shaw in the
background, during the Japanese surprise attack
on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (AP Photo)
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4 December 7, 1941 The battleship USS Arizona
belches smoke as it topples over into the sea
during a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii. The ship sank with more than 80
percent of its 1,500-man crew. The attack, which
left 2,343 Americans dead and 916 missing, broke
the backbone of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and forced
America out of a policy of isolationism.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that it
was "a date which will live in infamy" and
Congress declared war on Japan the morning after.
(AP Photo)
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5 December 7, 1941 Eight miles from Pearl
Harbor, shrapnel from a Japanese bomb riddled
this car and killed three civilians in the
attack. Two of the victims can be seen in the
front seat. The Navy reported there was no nearby
military objective. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy)
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6 December 7, 1941 Heavy damage is seen on the
destroyers, U.S.S. Cassin and the U.S.S. Downes,
stationed at Pearl Harbor after the Japanese
attack on the Hawaiian island. (AP Photo/U.S.
Navy)
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7 Wreckage, identified by the U.S. Navy as a
Japanese torpedo plane , was salvaged from the
bottom of Pearl Harbor following the surprise
attack Dec. 7, 1941. (AP Photo)
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                                         8 The
shattered wreckage of American planes bombed by
the Japanese in their attack on Pearl Harbor is
strewn on Hickam Field, Dec. 7, 1941. (AP Photo)
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                                         9 April
18, 1942 A B-25 Mitchell bomber takes off from
the USS Hornet's flight deck for the initial air
raid on Tokyo, Japan, a secret military mission
U.S. President Roosevelt referred to as
Shangri-La. (AP Photo)
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                                         10 June
1942 The USS Lexington, U.S. Navy aircraft
carrier, explodes after being bombed by Japanese
planes in the Battle of the Coral Sea in the
South Pacific during World War II. (AP Photo)
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                                         11 June
4, 1942 The U.S. aircraft carrier Yorktown,
left, and the other fighting ships of a United
States task force in the Pacific, throw up an
umbrella of anti-aircraft fire to beat off a
squadron of Japanese torpedo planes attacking the
carrier during the battle of Midway. (AP Photo)
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12 August 3, 1942 After hammering Port Moresby
for two days, Japanese bombers finally sank this
Australian transport which sends up a cloud of
smoke. She drifted onto a reef and heeled over.
Flaming oil can be seen at left. The men in a
small boat, foreground, are looking for victims.
(AP Photo)
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                                         13 Aug.
7, 1942 Members of the crew of a U.S. Destroyer
get a good look at a Japanese twin-motored bomber
shot down by U.S. aircraft near Tulagi in the
first day of fighting for possession of the
southern Solomon Islands. One third of the end of
the fuselage was shot off. Barely discernible
above the waves, one member of the crew of the
plane clings to the starboard wing. (AP Photo/US
Navy)
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                                         14 Aug.
29, 1942 After landing in force, U.S. Marines
pause on the beach of Guadalcanal in the Solomon
Islands before advancing inland against the
Japanese during World War II. (AP Photo)
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                                         15 Aug.
1942 U.S. Marines approach the Japanese occupied
Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands during World
War II. (AP Photo)
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                                         16 Aug.
1942 U.S. Marines, with full battle kits, charge
ashore on Guadalcanal Island from a landing barge
during the early phase of the U.S. offensive in
the Solomon Islands during World War II. (AP
Photo)
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17 Sept. 16, 1942 Crewmen picking their way
along the sloping flight deck of the aircraft
carrier Yorktown as the ship listed, head for
damaged sections to see if they can patch up the
crippled ship. Later, they had to abandon the
carrier and two strikes from a Japanese
submarine's torpedoes sent the ship down to the
sea floor after the battle of Midway. (AP
Photo/U.S. Navy)
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                                         18 Oct.
29, 1942 U.S. Marines man a .75 MM gun on
Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands during
World War II. (AP Photo)
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19 October 16, 1942 Six U.S. Navy scout planes
are seen in flight above their carrier. (AP Photo)
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                                         20 Nov.
3, 1942 Pushing through New Guinea jungles in a
jeep, General Douglas MacArthur inspects the
positions and movements of Allied Forces, who
would push the Japanese away from Port Moresby
and back over the Owen Stanley Mountain range.
(AP Photo)
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21 November 5, 1942 With the towering 20,300
feet peak of Mt. McKinley as a backdrop, a
formation of U.S. Army Air Force A-29 planes
drone along on the alert in defense in Alaska
during World War II. (AP Photo)
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                                         22 Nov.
4, 1942 Two alert U.S. Marines stand beside
their small tank on Guadalcanal in the Solomon
Islands during World War II. The military tank
was used against the Japanese in the battle of
the Tenaru River during the early stages of
fighting. (AP Photo)
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                                         23 May
1942 After defending the island for nearly a
month, American and Filipino soldiers surrender
to Japanese invasion troops on Corregidor island,
Philippines. This photograph was captured from
the Japanese during Japan's three-year
occupation. (AP Photo)
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24 January 1943 The bodies of three American
soldiers, fallen in the battle for Buna and Gona,
lie on the beach of the island in the Papua New
Guinea region during World War II. (AP Photo)
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25 January 1943 While on a bombing run over
Salamau, New Guinea, before its capture by Allied
forces, photographer Sgt. John A. Boiteau aboard
an army Liberator took this photograph of a B-24
Liberator during World War II. Bomb bursts can be
seen below in lower left and a ship at upper
right along the beach. (AP Photo/U.S. Army Force)
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26 February 2, 1943 An American jeep proceeds
along a trail through the jungle on Guadalcanal,
Solomon Islands during World War II. (AP Photo)
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                                         27 Jan.
26, 1943 An infantryman is on guard on Grassy
Knoll in Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands during
World War II. (AP Photo)
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28 January 1943 Two American soldiers of the
32nd Division cautiously fire into a Japanese
dugout before entering it for inspection during a
drive on Buna, which resulted in a defeat of
Japanese forces in the Papaun peninsula of New
Guinea during World War II. (AP Photo/U.S. Army
Signal Corps)
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                                         29 Jan.
21, 1943 Native stretcher bearers rest in the
shade of a coconut grove as they and the wounded
American soldiers they are carrying from the
front lines at Buna, New Guinea take the
opportunity to relax. The wounded are on their
way to makeshift hospitals in the rear. (AP Photo)
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                                         30 Feb.
1943 Soldiers of the Australian forces advance
through a coconut grove and kunai grass in
Japanese occupied New Guinea during World War II.
The smoke is from mortar fire during the fierce
fighting in the final assault which took Buna,
the Japanese stronghold. (AP Photo)
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31 March 22, 1943 Technical Sgt. R.W.
Greenwood, a Marine, sits in the cockpit of a
Grumman Wildcat fighter plane, based at Henderson
Field, Guadalcanal, that is credited with
shooting down 19 Japanese aircraft, as
illustrated by the number of Japanese flags on
his plane. Several different pilots have flown
the ship during successful missions, but Sgt.
Greenwood has remained plane captain. (AP Photo)
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                                         32 May
11, 1943 American invasion troops of the 7th
Infantry Division approach a landing area
code-named Beach Red in the western arm of Holtz
Bay, on Japanese-occupied Attu island in Alaska.
(AP Photo)
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                                         33 June
23, 1943 U.S. Army reinforcements land on a
beach in Attu, Alaska on during World War II.
U.S. troops invaded Attu on May 11 to expel the
Japanese from the Aleutians. (AP Photo)
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                                         34 July
6,1943 Across this valley on Attu up above the
fog line that obscures the tops of the mountains
lie the passes that lead to Holtz Bay and
Chichagof Bay. In the Valley at right center
leading back into the mountains are strong
Japanese positions shown. Attu Island was the
site of the only World War II land battle on
United States soil. (AP Photo)
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                                         35 June
4, 1943 A wounded U.S. Marine is given a plasma
transfusion by nurse Mae Olson aboard an aerial
evacuation unit, over Guadalcanal, Solomon
Islands. (AP Photo)
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36 August 1943 Wounded American soldiers are
seen as they lie aboard a lighter onshore at
Munda Point, New Georgia island. (AP Photo)
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37 November 1943 A U.S. soldier wounded in the
initial invasion at Empress Augusta Bay is being
hoisted aboard a Coast Guard-manned transport off
shore of Bougainville island. (AP Photo)
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38 Sept. 11, 1943 After three days of fighting
on the front lines on Munda, a Marine's tank crew
take a rest, during which their machine guns are
overhauled. This platoon wiped out 30 Japanese
pill boxes. Left to right are Pfc. Arnold
McKenzie, Los Angeles, Calif. Joseph Lodico,
Sharon, Mass. Pvt. Noel M. Billups, Columbus
Ohio and Staff Sgt. Douglas Ayres, Los Angeles.
(AP Photo)
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39 November 2, 1943 A B-25 bomber of the U.S.
Army 5th Air Force strikes against a Japanese
ship in the harbor at Rabaul, New Britain during
an air raid on the Japanese-held air and naval
base. (AP Photo)
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40 November 1943 As the invasion at Empress
Augusta Bay gets under way on Bougainville, U.S.
troops are seen climbing over the side of a Coast
Guard-manned combat transport to enter the
landing barges. (AP Photo)
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Nov. 11, 1943 A supply ship, one of two that
the Japanese were able to work through U.S. Air
attacks, explodes in Rangoon Harbor (center)
after a direct hit by a bomb from a Tenth U.S.
Air Force Plane. Hits also were scored on port
facilities, seen smoking (top center). Note
numerous small craft moored at docks and
offshore, (right). (AP Photo)
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42 November 20, 1943 Under attack from Japanese
machine gun fire on the right flank, men of the
165th Infantry are seen as the wade through coral
bottom water on Yellow Beach Two, Butaritari,
during the assault on the Makin atoll, Gilbert
Islands. (AP Photo)
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                                         43 Nov.
11, 1943 Crewmen of a U.S. Coast Guard combat
transport go for a swim under the hull of a
Japanese landmark in the Solomon Islands during
World War II. The boat is the Kinugawa Maru,
beached by the Japanese after being riddled by
American gunners. Coast guardsmen took part in
the original invasion of the Solomons. (AP Photo)
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                                         44 Dec.
1943 American Navajo Indians from Southwest
United States, members of the 158th U.S.
Infantry, are seen on a beach in the Solomon
Islands. They are in their traditional dress for
a tribal ceremony at Christmastime. From left to
right are, Pfc. Dale Winney, Gallup, N.M Pvt.
Perry Toney, Holbrook, Ariz. Pfc. Joe Gishi,
Holbrook and Pfc. Joe Taraha, Gallup. (AP
Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps)
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45 December 26, 1943 U.S. Marines are seen from
above as they wade through rough water to take
the beach at Cape Gloucester on New Britain,
Papua New Guinea. (AP Photo)
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                                         46 Dec.
26, 1943 U.S. Marines march ashore as they
arrive in six landing crafts at Cape Gloucester
on the northwestern coast of New Britain Island,
New Guinea. The Allied forces made a second big
invasion operation of the Japanese occupied
island in an attempt to capture the big air base
of Rabual, on the southwestern coast of the
island. (AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard)
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47 January 1944 U.S. Marines carry their
weapons and ammunition overhead as they wade
through a wetland area at Cape Gloucester, New
Britain Island. (AP Photo)
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48 January 1944 U.S. Marines come ashore from
the mouth of a Coast Guard manned LST, during the
invasion of New Britain Island, at Cape
Gloucester. (AP Photo)
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49 January 1944 These U.S. Marine Raiders, with
the reputation of being skillful jungle fighters,
pose in front of a Japanese stronghold they
conquered at Cape Totkina, Bougainville. (AP
Photo)
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50 February 23, 1944 Captain Carter, upper
center with map, briefs his men for amphibious
assault operations at Arawe, New Britain aboard a
troop transport ship. (AP Photo)
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51 February 1944 A wounded marine receives
treatment from a Navy medical corpsman at a
jungle first aid station behind the lines on New
Britain Island, New Guinea, in the Battle for the
Strategic Japanese air field on Cape Gloucester
during World War II. (AP Photo/U.S. Marine Corps)
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                                         52 May
1944 The first wave of U.S. Infantrymen leave
their higgins boats and race through the surf for
the beach during the invasion of Wakde Island,
Dutch New Guinea during World War II. (AP
Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps)
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53 March 1944 Hundreds of pictures of pin-up
girls adorn the entire wall of this bomber crew
shack on Adak Island in the Aleutians in Alaska
during World War II. (AP Photo)
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54 March 1944 Following in the cover of a tank,
American infantrymen secure an area on
Bougainville, Solomon Islands after Japanese
forces infiltrated their lines during the night.
(AP Photo)