Major Battles/Campaigns of the Pacific Theater

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Major Battles/Campaigns of the Pacific Theater

• By Alison Lew
• Matt Guttman
• Michelle Paras

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Topics

• Island-Hopping Strategy
• Battle of Coral Sea
• Battle of Midway
• Battle of Guadalcanal
• Battle of Iwo Jima
• Battle of Okinawa

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Island-Hopping Strategy

• formulated by Chester William Nimitz
• overall plan for the conduct of the war in the
  Pacific
• consisted of developing a series of assaults on
  selected Japanese islands while either entirely
  skipping over others or subjecting some islands
  to air attack only
• American strategists realized that by only
  attacking some islands, Japanese forces on the
  missed islands would be isolated and useless,
  even though they weren't attacked

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Island-Hopping Strategy

• Locations Attacked
• From Tarawa and Makin in the Gilbert Islands,
  American forces jumped ahead to Eniwetok and
  Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and then they
  jumped to Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Mariana
  Islands.

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Battle of Coral Sea

• On May 7th and 8th 1942, Japanese and U.S.
  aircraft carriers engaged in battle
• The U.S. navy had three carriers in the Pacific
  the Lexington, the Saratoga, and the Enterprise
  and the Yorktown and the Hornet later transferred
  from the Atlantic fleet.
• Carrier warfare was risky especially since there
  was no airborne or ship-borne guidance system and
  no radar on the American ships at that time.

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Battle of Coral Sea

• The U.S. dive-bomber, the Dauntless, was one of
  the important planes used for searching. The
  planes were the eyes and ears of the fleet.
  Pilots had to find their way to their target
  using vision and manual navigation.
• It was exceptionally dangerous if the carrier
  changed course the aircraft would have trouble
  locating it again and safely landing on the
  carrier was not guaranteed.

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Battle of Coral Sea

• The Americans were fortunate to have interpreted
  the Japanese diplomatic code.
• The Japanese were overconfident after their
  victory at Pearl Harbor, so they showed and
  telegraphed their naval strategy and plans which
  helped the U.S. Navy get back in the fight.
• The first battle happened close to Port Moresby,
  near Australia in the Coral Sea.
• The Lexington and Yorktown were sent to block
  the Japanese invasion force, while the Japanese
  had three carriers attacking.
• It was the first carrier-on-carrier battle in
  modern warfare.
• The U.S. and Japanese were separated by 175 miles
  of ocean, but dive-bombers and torpedo bombers
  from both sides found the enemy's carriers.

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Battle of Coral Sea

• The Japanese carrier Shokaku was badly damaged,
  and the Americans had already sunk the light
  carrier Shoho in a previous encounter.
• On the American side, The Yorktown was slightly
  damaged, but the Lexington caught fire when its
  fuel line bursted. The ship was abandoned before
  it sank.
• The Battle of the Coral Sea was important for the
  U.S. Navy. It stopped the Japanese navy in that
  part of the Pacific and gave the American sailors
  and aviators much valuable battle experience and
  confidence.

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Battle of Coral Sea

• Result of Coral Sea
• Technically the Battle of Coral Sea proved a
  draw, but strategically it was a victory for the
  U.S. because it forced the Japanese to call off
  their attack on New Guinea

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Battle of Midway

• -Before the war happened, Japan had naval
  superiority, but after the war U.S. was equal
  with them
• They fought over the pacific midway atoll
• Japans combined fleet commander Yamamoto sought
  to destroy the U.S. Pacific fleets aircraft
  carrier forces, which had embarrassed them at the
  Battle of Coral Sea

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Battle of Midway

• Yamamoto planned on knocking down Midways
  defense
• Then follow up with an invasion of the atolls
  two small islands and establish a Japanese force
  there
• The invasion was suppose to be a surprise, but
  Americans communication intelligence found out
  and told

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Battle of Midway

• Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the U.S. Pacific Fleet
  commander found out about the attack and had his
  carriers ready to ambush the Japanese

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Battle of Midway

• The base at Midway was damaged by Japanese air
  attack
• Even though it was damaged, it was still
  operational and later became an important
  component in the American Trans-pacific offensive

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Battle of Guadalcanal

• First major offensive launched by the Allies
  against Japan took place on Guadalcanal from
  August 7th 1942 to February 9th 1943
• Since Pearl Harbor the Japanese had advance
  toward the South Pacific, threatening the route
  between Australia and the U.S.
• On August 7th the Marines landed on Guadalcanal
• First 24 hours nothing happened on land, but the
  marines were fighting already

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Battle of Guadalcanal

• The Americans attacked with the most amphibious
  force, with three carriers the Wasp,
  Enterprise, and Saratoga
• American troops mounted attacks by land and by
  sea, but in the end 13,000 Japanese troops had
  escaped
• But in the end the U.S. took control of the
  island on February 9th 1943

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Iwo Jimahttp//www.iwojima.com
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Iwo Jima

• Japans Strategy
• General Kuribayashi
• An aristocrat
• Educated in Canada
• One of the only soldiers ever granted an audience
  by Emperor Hirohito
• General Kuribayashi's command center had 5 ft.
  thick walls, a 10 ft. thick roof. This cement
  capsule was under 75 ft. of solid rock.

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Iwo Jima

• Japans Strategy
• Didnt fight above ground. Dug 1,500 rooms in the
  rock connected by 16 miles of tunnel
• No Japanese Survivors
• Each Japanese soldier had to kill 10 American
  soldiers before dyeing themselves

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Iwo Jima

• Location
• Both US and Japan valued the sulfurous island
• Iwo lay half way between Japan and US naval bases
  in the Marianas
• The US had no protective fighters with enough
  range to escort the big super-fortresses. many
  bombers fell prey to Japanese fighter-interceptor
  attacks. Iwo was ideally located as a
  fighter-escort station and an ideal sanctuary for
  crippled bombers returning from Japan.

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Iwo Jima

• US Invasion
• American Air Forces bombed Iwo in the longest
  aerial offensive in the war
• Ironically the bombing had little effect
  (underground forces werent harmed)
• 21,000 underground Japanese waited for the
  American naval attack
• 110,000 marines in 880 ships sailed from Hawaii
  to Iwo in 40 days
• The largest armada invasion up to that time in
  the Pacific War

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Iwo Jima

• The Land Battle
• Shortly before 2am on Feb. 19, 1945, the Navy's
  big guns opened up on Iwo Jima again, signaling
  the beginning of D-Day.
• One-hundred-ten bombers screamed out of the sky
  to drop more bombs. After the planes left, the
  big guns of the Navy opened up again.
• At 830am the first wave of Marines moved towards
  the deadly shores. Once ashore, the Marines were
  bedeviled by the loose volcanic ash. Unable to
  dig foxholes, they were sitting ducks for the
  hidden Japanese gunners.

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Iwo Jima

• The Land Battle
• One hundred thousand men fighting on a tiny
  island one-third the size of Manhattan. For 36
  days Iwo Jima was one of the most populated 7.5
  miles on earth.
• "Throwing human flesh against reinforced
  concrete."
• Liquid gas, napalm and hand grenades were more
  useful against the underground Japanese.

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Iwo Jima Epilogue

• More Marines earned medals of honor on Iwo than
  any other battle in US history
• In 36 days of fighting there were 25,851 US
  casualties (1 in 3 were killed or wounded).
• By war's end, 2,400 B-29 bombers carrying 27,000
  crewman had made emergency landings on Iwo Jima.

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Okinawahttp//www.globalsecurity.org/military/fac
ility/okinawa-battle.htm
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Okinawa

• Okinawa was the largest amphibious invasion of
  the Pacific campaign and the last major campaign
  of the Pacific War.
• More ships were used, more troops put ashore,
  more supplies transported, more bombs dropped,
  more naval guns fired against shore targets than
  any other operation in the Pacific.

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Okinawa

• More people died during the Battle of Okinawa
  than all those killed during the atomic bombings
  of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Casualties totaled more than 38,000 Americans
  wounded and 12,000 killed or missing
• 100,000 Okinawan civilians perished in the
  battle.

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Okinawa

• 34 allied ships and craft of all types had been
  sunk, mostly by kamikazes, and 368 ships and
  craft damaged.
• The fleet had lost 763 aircraft.
• The cost of this battle, in terms of lives, time,
  and material, weighed heavily in the decision to
  use the atomic bomb against Japan just six weeks
  later.

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Okinawa

• Japanese human losses were enormous 107,539
  soldiers killed and 23,764 sealed in caves or
  buried by the Japanese themselves 10,755
  captured or surrendered.
• The Japanese lost 7,830 aircraft and 16 combat
  ships.

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Okinawa

• By late October 1944, Okinawa had been targeted
  for invasion by Allied forces. This invasion --
  code named Operation Iceberg --- would see the
  assembling of the greatest naval armada ever.
• Admiral Raymond A. Spruance's 5th fleet included
  more than 40 aircraft carriers, 18 battleships,
  200 destroyers and hundreds of assorted support
  ships.
• Some 1,300 US ships surrounded the island. Of
  those, 365 were amphibious ships. Over 182,000
  troops would make up the assault, planned for
  April 1, 1945, Easter Sunday.

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Okinawa

• On September 29, 1944 B-29 bombers conducted the
  initial reconnaissance mission over Okinawa and
  its outlying islands.
• On October 10, 1944 nearly two hundred of Admiral
  Halsey's planes struck Naha, Okinawa's capital
  and principal city, in five waves.
• The document ending the Battle of Okinawa was
  signed on September 7, 1945.