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Pearl Harbor
Hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu, Hawaii. The Japanese destroyed nearly 20 American naval vessels. 2,000 American soldiers and sailors died, and another 1,000 were wounded. Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. America had finally joined World War II. -
Battle of Java Sea
This was a decisive naval battle. Allied navies suffered defeat by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The aftermath of the battle included several smaller actions around Java, including the Battle of Sunda Strait. The Japanese forces gathered to strike. The main American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) naval force, under Doorman, sailed from Surabaya to intercept a convoy off the Eastern Invasion Force. The battle consisted of a series of attempts over a seven-hour period. -
Loss of Philippines & Bataan Death March
The day after Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invasion of the Philippines began. U.S. General Edward King Jr. surrendered 75,000 of his troops. The surrendered Filipinos and Americans soon were rounded up by the Japanese and forced to march some 65 miles from Mariveles. -
Doolittle Raid
The first U.S. air raid to strike the Japanese home islands during WWII. It was the only operation where U.S. Army Air Forces launched bombers from an aircraft carrier into combat. The raid demonstrated how vulnerable the Japanese home islands were to air attack. While the damage inflicted was slight, the raid significantly boosted American morale. -
Battle of Coral Sea
A major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. This 4-day battle marked the first air-sea battle in history. The Japanese were seeking to control the Coral Sea, but their plans were intercepted by Allied forces. Although both sides suffered damages to their carriers, the battle left the Japanese without enough planes to cover the ground attack of Port Moresby, resulting in an Allied victory. -
Battle of Midway
One of the most decisive naval battles of World War II. Due to major advances in code breaking, the United States was able to preempt and counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent damage on the Japanese Navy. The victory allowed the United States and its allies to move into an offensive position. -
Guadalcanal
The first major offensive and a decisive victory for the Allies. With Japanese troops stationed in a section of the Solomon Islands, U.S. marines launched a surprise attack and took control of an air base under construction. Reinforcements were funneled to the island as a series of land and sea clashes unfolded. Both sides endured heavy losses to their warship contingents. The Japanese suffered a far greater toll of casualties, forcing their withdrawal from Guadalcanal by February. -
Island Hopping Strategy
After the Battle of Midway, the United States launched a counter-offensive strike known as "island-hopping," establishing a line of overlapping island bases, as well as air control. The idea was to capture certain key islands, one after another, until Japan came within range of American bombers. Led by General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of the Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific, and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, the first stage of the offensive began. -
Battle of Leyte Gulf
This clash followed the Allied landing at the Philippine island of Leyte. The Japanese sought to converge three naval forces on Leyte Gulf, and successfully diverted the U.S. Third Fleet with a decoy. At the Suriago Strait, the U.S. Seventh Fleet destroyed one of the Japanese forces and forced a second one to withdraw. The third successfully traversed the San Bernadino Straight but also withdrew before attacking the Allied forces at Leyte. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
Three U.S. marine divisions landed on the island. Iwo Jima was defended by roughly 23,000 Japanese army and navy troops, who fought from an elaborate network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. Despite the difficulty of the conditions, the marines wiped out the defending forces after a month of fighting, and the battle earned a place in American lore with the publication of a photograph showing the U.S. flag being raised in victory. -
Battle of Okinawa
Allied forces invade the island of Okinawa and engage the Japanese in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. Allied forces sought to capture an island near Japan to serve as a base for air operations in support of the proposed invasion of the Home Islands. Buckner possessed nearly 200,000 men. Okinawa saw American forces sustain 49,151 casualties. It also gave the Allies airfields that were only 350 miles from Japan. -
Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima
The United States was the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War. In the years since the two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, a number of historians have suggested that the weapons had a two-pronged objective. -
Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki
A second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.” Even before the outbreak of war in 1939, a group of American scientists–many of them refugees from fascist regimes in Europe–became concerned with nuclear weapons research being conducted in Nazi Germany -
VJ Day
News of the surrender was announced to the world. This sparked spontaneous celebrations over the final ending of World War II. On September 2, 1945, a formal surrender ceremony was held in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri. At the time, President Truman declared September 2 to be VJ Day.
