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Pearl Harbor
This is the day the Japanese attacked the US Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. They did this to weaken the American Pacific Fleet to attempt to take over French Indo-China. -
Battle of Java Sea
Allies suffered a crippling defeat at the hands of the Japanese Navy during the Pacific campaign. -
Loss of Philippines & Bataan Death March
After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II. The approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. -
Doolittle Raid
The Doolittle Raid was the first U.S. air raid to strike the Japanese home islands during WWII. While the damage inflicted was slight, the raid significantly boosted American morale while setting in motion a chain of Japanese military events that were disastrous for their long-term war effort. -
Battle of Coral Sea
The Battle of the Coral Sea was a major naval battle in the Pacific between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. -
Battle of Midway
Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States defeated Japan in one of the most decisive naval battles of World War II. The United States was able to counter Japan’s planned ambush of its few remaining aircraft carriers, inflicting permanent damage on the Japanese Navy. -
Guadalcanal
The World War II Battle of Guadalcanal was the first major offensive and a decisive victory for the Allies in the Pacific theater. With Japanese troops stationed in this section of the Solomon Islands, U.S. marines launched a surprise attack in August 1942 and took control of an air base under construction. -
Island Hopping Strategy
"Island Hopping” is the phrase given to the strategy employed by the United States to gain military bases and secure the many small islands in the Pacific. -
Battle of Leyte Gulf
This followed the Allied landing at the Philippine island of Leyte in October 1944. The Japanese were going 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 crossed the San Bernadino Straight but withdrew before attacking the Allied forces at Leyte. -
Battle of Iwo Jima
The American amphibious invasion of Iwo Jima during World War II stemmed from the need for a base near the Japanese coast. Following preparatory air and naval bombardment, 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 a network of caves, dugouts, tunnels and underground installations. -
Battle of Okinawa
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan. -
Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima
The United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weaponry during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War -
Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki
The destruction of the first bonmb wasn't sufficient enough to convince the Japanese military leaders to surrender.
