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The War in the Pacific

April 1942, Bataan: Lt. Colonel James Doolittle led 16 bombers in the attack of a raid on Tokyo and Japanese cities. American spirits rose while Japans spirits dampened.

June 1942, Midway: Admiral Chester Nimitz, commander of American naval forces in the Pacific, moved to defend Midway (an island near Hawaii). The Americans sent torpedo planes and dive bombers to the attack. Japanese were caught with their planes on decks and by the end of the battle, the Japanese lost 4 aircraft carriers, a cruiser, and 250 planes.

August 1942, Guadalcanal: 19,000 troops stormed into Guadalcanal and the first Allied offesive began.

October 1944, Leyte Gulf: Japanese bombers threw their entire fleet into the Battle. This battle ended as a disaster for Japan. Within 3 days they lost 3 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 13 cruisers, and almost 500 planes.

March 1945, Iwo Jima:

June 1945, Okinawa: Allies and Japan. The fighting ended on June 21, 1945; more than 7, 600 Americans died. The Japanese lost 110,000 lives.

September 1945, Tokyo Bay:

The Science of War

July 1945, Los Alamos: Otto Frisch describe the first testing of the new bomb as a huge mushroom cloud that rose over the sesert as a "red hot elephant standingbalanced on its trunk." The bomb was successful; it worked.

August 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Enola Gay released an atomic bomb named Little Boy over an important Japanese military center (Hiroshima). Almost every building had collapsed and the city as well. Japans leader had yet to surrender and 3 days later another bomb, named Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki. By the end of the year roughly 200, 000 people died.

Planning and Rebuilding for Peace

February 1945, Yalta: Allied pushed toward victory in Europe. Roosevelt met with Churchill and Stalin at the Black Sea resort city of Yalta in the Soviet Union, where they toasted the defeat of Germany.

April 1945, San Francisco: Roosevelt's dream of a United Nations would become reality at an international conference that took place in San Francisco in April.

1945 - 1949, Nuremberg: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, 12 out of 24 defendents, that were Nazi leaders, were accused of crimes and were sentenced to death. The remaining men were sent to prison. Nearly 200 more Nazis were found guilty of war crimes.

Kamikaze: Or a suicide-plane involving the deliberate crashing of a bomb-filled airplane into a military target.

The Manhattan Project: The United States program developed an atomic bomb for use in World War II.