WWII

By Nina Barber

  • Bombing of Pearl Harbor

    Bombing of Pearl Harbor
    Just before 8 am hundreds of Japanese fighter planes attacked the American naval base on Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii. It lasted about two hours, but the aftermath was devastating.

  • Bataan Death March

    Bataan Death March
    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

    Doolittle Raid
    The first air raid to strike the Japanese home islands during WWII. The mission is notable in that it was the only operation in which U.S. Army Air Forces bombers were launched from an aircraft carrier into combat.

  • Battle of the Coral Sea

    Battle of the Coral Sea
    The Japanese were seeking to control the Coral Sea with an invasion of Port Moresby in southeast New Guinea, but their plans were intercepted by Allied forces. When the Japanese landed in the area, they came under attack from the aircraft carrier planes of the American task force commanded by Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher.

  • Battle of the Bulge

    Battle of the Bulge
    200,000 Germans attacked; 80,000 allied troops; hope was to break Allied lines. Lines bent but did not break allies pushed Germans back.

  • V-E Day

    V-E Day
    Great Britain and the United States celebrate Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners, rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine.

  • Formal Japanese surrender on USS Missouri

    Formal Japanese surrender on USS Missouri
    The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed. The Allied naval blockade of Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and its economy devastated.

  • Bombing of Hiroshima and Nahasaki

    Bombing of Hiroshima and Nahasaki
    American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, 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.”