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Surprise offensive
The Empire of Japan entered World War II by launching a surprise offensive which opened with the attack on Pearl Harbor at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time (18:18 GMT) -
Battle of Singapore,
Victorious Japanese troops march through the city center. -
Largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history.
Singapore, due to the overwhelming superiority of Japanese forces and encirclement tactics, fell to the Japanese, causing the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. -
Period: to
Battle of the Coral Sea,
failure to decisively defeat the Allies at the Battle of the Coral Sea, in spite of Japanese numerical superiority, equated to a strategic defeat for Imperial Japan. -
Battle of Midway
The attack by dive bombers from USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise on the Japanese aircraft carriers Soryu, Akagi and Kaga in the morning of 4 June 1942. -
Period: to
New Guinea
in 1943 put the Empire of Japan on the defensive for the remainder of the war, with Guadalcanal in particular sapping their already-limited oil supplies.[8] During 1943 and 1944, -
the Allies
the Allies had seized or bypassed and neutralized many of Japan's strategic bases through amphibious landings and bombardment. -
the United States Army Air Forces
After securing airfields in Saipan and Guam in the summer of 1944, the United States Army Air Forces undertook an intense strategic bombing campaign, using incendiary bombs, burning Japanese cities in an effort to pulverize Japan's industry and shatter its morale. -
The Sixth United States
Army, led by General MacArthur, landed on Leyte -
Yalta agreement
At the Yalta agreement in February 1945, the US, the UK, and the USSR had agreed that the USSR would enter the war on Japan within three months of the defeat of Germany in Europe. -
The Operation Meetinghouse
The Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo on the night of March 9–10, 1945, led to the deaths of approximately 100,000 civilians. -
The bombs
The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945.
