War in the Pacific

1. The importance of the Battle of Midway was the turning point of the war in the Pacific. The Americans knew that Midway Island was Japan's next target, and were able to move to defend the island. On June 3, 1942, Chester Nimitz's scout planes found the Japanese fleet. The Americans sent torpedo planes and dive bombers to the attack, destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers, a Japanese cruiser, and 250 Japanese planes. Following this battle, the Allies began winning territories back from the Japanese, island by island, and the Americans officially had "avenged Pearl Harbor".

2. One strategy that the United States adopted from fighting Japan was a Pearl Harbor-like air raid, which they mocked with Doolittle's raid, bombing Tokyo and other Japanese ities on April 18, 1942. Another strategy that the United States adopted from the Japenese was the act of Island Hopping, conquering island by island, which they showed in the Battle of Midway, re-capturing islands once lost to Japan.

3. The Japanese fought so hard on Iwo Jima because it was critical to the United States as a base from which heavily loaded bombers might reach Japan, so if they were to lose the island, they would be in greater danger based on the position advantage the United States would have over the Japanese. The Japanese had also almost 21,000 troops there, making Iow Jima one of the most heavily defended spot on earth, which made it a crucial base for Japan in the war. The Americans won the battle and took over the island, and their next move was the island of Okinawa.

4. The Allies believed that Okinawa was a foretaste of the invasions of Japan's home islands because of Japan's strong defensive troops on the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Because of their [Japan's] remarkable fights on those islands, Churchill predicted the cost of invading Japan's home islands would be a million American lives and 500,000 British lives.

5. The Manhattan Project was the development of the atomic bomb, and it was the best kept secret of the war. Over 600,000 Americans were involved in the project, and few of them knew the true purpose of it. The first tests of the new bomb took place in New Mexico, in an empty expanse of desert, and the bomb was described as "a red-hot elephant standing balanced on its trunk", and the development of the bomb was deemed successful.

6. President Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to ultimately end the war. He ordered the military to make final plans for dropping the bombs on July 25, 1945. The US warned Japan that it faced "prompt and utter destruction" unless it surrendered, and Japan refused. Truman planned the bombings in order to bring the war to an end, and to end all of this madness, dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and another on Nagasaki on August 9. An estimated 200,000 Japanese people were killed from injuries and radiotion caused by the bombs, and Emperor Hirohito of Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945 because he said he "cannot bear to see [his] innocent people suffer any longer".