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In late 1941, the program received its code name: the Manhattan Project.
Albert Einstein, who had emigrated to the United States in 1933 to escape the Nazis, urged President Roosevelt to launch an American atomic research project, and Roosevelt agreed to do so, with reservations.
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As early as 1939, German scientists had discovered how to split uranium atoms, the technology that would ultimately allow for the creation of the atomic bomb. DROPPING THE ATOMIC BOMBĪll belligerents in World War II sought to develop powerful and devastating weaponry. Perhaps as many as 150,000 civilians perished as well. Japanese forces lost over 100,000 troops. The battle raged from April 1945 well into July 1945 the island was finally secured at the cost of seventeen thousand American soldiers killed and thirty-six thousand wounded.
Two months later, an even larger engagement, the hardest fought and bloodiest battle of the Pacific theater, took place as American forces invaded Okinawa. Iwo Jima was originally meant to serve as a forward air base for fighter planes, providing cover for long-distance bombing raids on Japan. By February 1945, American forces had reached the island of Iwo Jima. The goal was to advance American air strength close enough to Japan proper to achieve air superiority over the home islands the nation could then be bombed into submission or at least weakened in preparation for an amphibious assault. By seizing locations from which Japanese communications and transportation routes could be disrupted or destroyed, the Allies advanced towards Japan without engaging the thousands of Japanese stationed on garrisoned islands. In the Pacific, MacArthur and the Allied forces pursued an island hopping strategy that bypassed certain island strongholds held by the Japanese that were of little or no strategic value. Troops endured shelling by Japanese troops on Mount Suribachi, the mountain in the background. Their vehicles had difficulty moving on the beach’s volcanic sands.
Kamikaze attacks that took place towards the end of the war were regarded as proof of the irrationality of Japanese martial values and mindless loyalty to Emperor Hirohito.Īmerican forces come ashore on Iwo Jima. The “Bataan Death March,” during which as many as 650 American and 10,000 Filipino prisoners of war died, intensified anti-Japanese feelings. Admiral William Halsey spoke for many Americans when he urged them to “Kill Japs! Kill Japs! Kill more Japs!” Stories of the dispiriting defeats at Bataan and the Japanese capture of the Philippines at Corregidor in 1942 revealed the Japanese cruelty and mistreatment of Americans. Wartime propaganda portrayed Japanese soldiers as uncivilized and barbaric, sometimes even inhuman, unlike America’s German foes. Stories of Japanese atrocities bordering on genocide and the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor intensified racial animosity toward the Japanese. THE PACIFIC CAMPAIGNĭuring the 1930s, Americans had caught glimpses of Japanese armies in action and grew increasingly sympathetic towards war-torn China. Progressively, American forces drew closer to the strategically important targets of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. In 1944, the United States, seized Saipan and won the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Slowly, throughout 1943, the United States engaged in a campaign of “island hopping,” gradually moving across the Pacific to Japan. forces invaded Guadalcanal and New Guinea. The Battle of Midway witnessed the first Japanese naval defeat since the nineteenth century. The Allies turned the tide in May and June 1942, at the Battle of Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway. By February 1942, they were threatening Australia. They seized Guam and Wake Island from the United States, and streamed through Malaysia and Thailand into the Philippines and through the Dutch East Indies.
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Japanese forces won a series of early victories against Allied forces from December 1941 to May 1942. Analyze the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan.Describe the effects of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Discuss the strategy employed against the Japanese and some of the significant battles of the Pacific campaign.By the end of this section, you will be able to: