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By the fall of 1941, the United States was engaged in an undeclared naval war with Germany. President Roosevelt ordered the navy to "shoot on sight" any German submarines after an American destroyer, the Greer, was attacked near Iceland. In October, the Kearny was torpedoed killing 11, and the destroyer Reuben James was sunk—more than 100 sailors perished. Congress amended the Neutrality Act in November, to permit trade with belligerents and the arming of merchant vessels. Seven merchant ships were sunk by U-boats before the United States formally entered the war. With the escalating naval action in the Atlantic, it is somewhat ironic that the United States was pulled into the Second World War due to events in the Pacific.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye proclaimed the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" in August 1940. This was an expansion of the "New Order" to include Japanese mandates and British, Dutch, and French possessions. After Japan assumed a protectorate over French Indochina and began building air bases, President Roosevelt placed General Douglas MacArthur in command of all army forces in the Far East, nationalized the armed forces of the Philippines, and issued an executive order freezing Japanese financial assets. This effectively ended all trade with Japan. The Japanese government then faced the choice of withdrawing from the mainland of Asia or negotiating an end to the embargo. Another alternative was to expand militarily throughout the region, seizing the raw materials needed from American and European possessions. In September, Japan joined Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact, which was aimed at the United States. The Axis Powers pledged to support each other should they be attacked by a nation not yet at war.
In the fall of 1941, Prime Minister Konoye requested General Hideki Tojo, the war minister, to begin a token withdrawal of Japanese forces from the Asian mainland. When the general refused, Konoye resigned and Tojo became the premier. On November 5, the Japanese cabinet decided to continue the negotiations in Washington, but if no agreement was reached by the end of the month, war would result. A special envoy, Saburo Kurusu, was sent to Washington to join Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura, a retired admiral. By this time, American military intelligence had cracked the Japanese diplomatic codes. The intercepts were code-named "Magic," and revealed that after November 29, "things are automatically going to happen."
As the negotiations continued in Washington, it became clear that neither side was prepared to make major concessions to avoid war. On November 20, the Japanese diplomats presented their government's final proposals, demanding that the United States cease aiding China, resume full trade with Japan, and lift the freeze on Japanese assets. Six days later, Secretary of State Hull countered that the Japanese must withdraw their forces from China and French Indochina and renounce the Tripartite Pact. On December 1, Emperor Hirohito met with the Japanese cabinet and approved Tojo's call for war against the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands.
The Japanese fleet that attacked the United States military and naval forces based at Pearl Harbor, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, got underway on November 25. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who planned the assault, promised the Japanese government six months of victories in which to force a favorable negotiated settlement. On December 7, the six aircraft carriers reached their launching point, 275 miles north of Pearl Harbor. Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, aboard the Akagi, sent off the first wave of bombers and fighters that struck at 7:55 a.m.
Total surprise was achieved, and the Japanese attack was devastating. Two U.S. battleships, the Arizona and the Oklahoma, remain at the bottom of Pearl Harbor today; six others were severely damaged, although they ultimately fought again. Nearly 200 aircraft were destroyed, and more than 2,400 Americans—civilians and military personnel—were killed in the two hours of action. The Japanese lost only 30 planes, and their fleet returned undetected to home waters. The American defeat was attributable to faulty intelligence analysis and numerous errors in judgement and procedures. Later claims that President Roosevelt knew of the planned attack, and allowed it to occur to pull the United States into the war, are not substantiated by the evidence.
Meanwhile, the diplomatic charade was played out in Washington on December 7. Nomura and Kurusu were supposed to deliver the formal rejection of Hull's proposal at precisely 1:00 p.m., local time—20 minutes before the scheduled attack against Pearl Harbor. They were more than an hour late, however, and Secretary of State Hull was aware that the assault had begun when they met. Hull went through the motions of reading the note before showing the stunned Japanese diplomats to the door.
After hearing President Roosevelt describe December 7, 1941, as "a date which will live in infamy, Congress declared war against the Japanese empire." The sole dissenting vote in the House of Representatives came from Jeanette Rankin, of Montana, who also had opposed entering to First World War in 1917. Several days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, fulfilling the spirit of the Tripartite Pact. The previous spring, American and British military commanders had decided to focus on Hitler if the United States entered the war. The "Germany First" strategy, however, was abandoned largely because of the rapid Japanese advance in the Pacific and the logistical problems involved with the European theater of operations.
Before 1941 ended, the Japanese seized Guam, Wake Island, and the British possession of Hong Kong. Japanese troops continued their advance, forcing General Douglas MacArthur to withdraw his forces defending the Philippines to the mountainous Bataan peninsula, across Manila Bay. The "battling bastards of Bataan" and the troops on the nearby island of Corregidor fought valiantly, but the outcome was never in doubt. MacArthur, vowing "I shall return," was ordered to Australia to take command of Allied operations in the southern Pacific. General Jonathan Wainwright subsequently surrendered the American and Filipino forces, although scattered guerilla detachments continued to fight in the hills.
The Japanese onslaught swept through the South Pacific, but the tide of battle turned early in the war. A number of factors led to the blunting of the Japanese offensive. It was a stroke of good fortune that when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor not a single aircraft carrier was present. The Japanese navy lacked radar, which the U.S. fleet began to install in 1942. Radio intercepts and decoding capability gave American intelligence officers insights into Japanese plans and deployments. Furthermore, the industrial might of the "Arsenal of Democracy" provided the ships and planes that ultimately overwhelmed the Japanese imperial forces. With the aid of other Allied forces in the Asian theater—primarily from Australia and New Zealand—American sailors, soldiers, and marines bore the brunt of the fighting against Japan.
In early May 1942, the Battle of the Coral Sea thwarted a Japanese invasion of New Guinea. The aircraft carrier Lexington was lost, but the Japanese fleet was turned back despite suffering fewer losses. A month later, Admiral Yamamoto led his fleet against Midway Island, expecting to destroy Admiral Chester Nimitz's three remaining carriers. The Battle of Midway was a decisive American victory. The Yorktown was sunk by a torpedo after being damaged by enemy planes, but all four Japanese carriers were sunk. It was the first naval defeat for Japan in modern history.
The American offensive in the Pacific began following Midway. Admiral Nimitz's fleet was based at Pearl Harbor, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey commanded a southern task force at New Caledonia, and General MacArthur commanded the army troops and land-based aircraft. In August, the six-month struggle for the Solomon Islands commenced with landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi. The Battle of Savo Island was the worst naval defeat suffered by the United States Navy, but eventually the Japanese were driven from the Solomons. With these victories it was possible to advance on Japan in a series of bold "island-hopping" leaps, seizing those with strategic value and isolating heavily defended strongholds such as Rabaul on New Britain Island.
The Gilberts and the Marshalls campaigns were the first large-scale amphibious operations in the Pacific. Makin was occupied by army troops after four days of fierce fighting, while Tarawa was captured by marines under the command of General H. M. "Howling Mad" Smith. By early 1944, Eniwetok was taken—this led to the abandonment of Truk by the Japanese. In June, Admiral Raymond Spruance led the Fifth Fleet at the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Several hundred Japanese planes were destroyed in an action known as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot." The Japanese never recovered from these losses, and Saipan, Guam, and Tinian fell within weeks. This led to the resignation of the Tojo government. With the conquest of the Marianas, B-29s were soon striking Japanese cities.
In October, MacArthur's forces, with Halsey's Third Fleet carriers in support, attacked the Philippines. The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the greatest air-naval engagement in history. Despite the damage inflicted to American ships by the Kamikazes, the Japanese Imperial Navy suffered such irreversible losses that it was no longer a factor in the outcome of the war. The Philippines were secured by the spring of 1945, and MacArthur made good his pledge to return.
In March 1945, Iwo Jima fell to soldiers and marines after a month of the bloodiest fighting in the Pacific. The 22,000 Japanese soldiers, honey-combed throughout the island, fought with a ferocity unsurpassed in previous island campaigns—only 212 finally surrendered. Seven thousand Americans lost their lives before the famous flag raising on Mount Suribachi. On March 9, 200 B-29s hit Tokyo with incendiary bombs, killing an estimated 85,000 people. The largest amphibious operation of the Pacific theater was launched against Okinawa on April 1. A Japanese army 130,000 strong defended the island tenaciously, not yielding until the end of June when the remaining 7,400 surrendered. More than 12,000 Americans died.
With the capture of Okinawa, American troops began to train for the final invasion of the Japanese home islands. Projected casualty figures approached one million, but the surrender of Japan was achieved with the atomic bomb. On August 6, the Enola Gay, a B-29 captained by Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Three days later, the second bomb was detonated over Nagasaki. A total of more than 100,000 Japanese were killed, and the emperor ordered the government to surrender unconditionally. The formal ceremony that ended the Second World War took place aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945.
The United States did not play the singular military role in the European theater that it did in the Pacific. First the British and then the Soviet Union fought the Germans and Italians long before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Under the command of General Dwight David Eisenhower, American troops landed in North Africa, in late 1942, to aid the British under General Bernard Montgomery in pushing German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps off the continent.
Eisenhower's subordinates, Generals Omar Bradley and George S. Patton, Jr., then teamed up with the British to drive the Germans from Sicily in summer of 1943. This triggered the surrender of Italy, which joined the Allied cause against the Germans. Under the command of General Mark Clark, American forces bore the brunt of the fighting in Italy against Field Marshall Albert Kesselring's veteran troops. After a daring amphibious landing at Anzio, Rome was liberated on June 4, 1944. The final German surrender in Italy came the following May, about a week before the fighting ended in Berlin. The Italian campaign tied down a significant number of German troops, and provided airfields for the strategic bombardment of the Third Reich.
Meanwhile, the decisive action in Europe was taking place in the Soviet Union. Following Hitler's invasion in June 1941, the German and Soviet troops and Russian civilians suffered incredible hardships. Over a million Stalingraders, for example, perished before turning back the Germans. The Soviets gradually won this titanic death-struggle, and by mid-1944 the Red Army pushed the Germans out of the Soviet Union and began an advance on Berlin. Perhaps 20 million Soviets died as a result of the Second World War.
Stalin complained frequently to President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill about the lack of a second military front in France. Plans were made for an emergency offensive across the British Channel in 1942, should the Soviets lose their struggle with the Germans, but D-Day did not occur until June 6, 1944. Under the supreme command of General Eisenhower, the Allied invasion of German-occupied Normandy was launched from 5,000 ships. Fifty thousand American troops landed on D-Day, along with British, Canadian, Free French, Polish, and other Allied forces. Patton's Third Army led the dash across the Seine, and Paris was liberated on August 25.
Hitler lost half a million men in the futile defense of Western Europe. In December, the Germans counter-attacked through the Ardennes in the "Battle of the Bulge." They also struck Britain with V-1 and V-2 rockets, which terrorized the population but did relatively little damage. The outcome of the conflict in Europe was no longer in doubt. The Allied troops continued inexorably westward toward Germany, as the Soviets closed in from the east. The Red Army, in fact, faced twice the number of Germans as the western Allies.
German resistance crumbled in the spring of 1945, but that good news was tempered by the death of President Roosevelt on April 12. Harry S. Truman, the blunt-speaking former senator from Missouri, led the United States through the remainder of the war against Germany and made the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. Before the month was out, Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. On May 7, General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of Germany, and the war in Europe ended several months before the fighting ceased in the Pacific.
Copyright 2006 The Regents of the University of California and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education