The+Pacific

Stephaney C., Brittany L., Cassie C., Mckenzie P., Katy B.

The war in the Pacific started with the Japenese Attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 7, 1941, early in the morning Japenese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sent out two waves of planes that were intent on sinking the U.S. ships in the biggest naval base in America. They focused on battle ships and major airfeilds so that the U.S. soldiers could not fight back. Aircraft and midget submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy began an attack on the U.S. the Americans had deciphered Japan's code earlier and knew about a planned attack before it actually occurred. However, due to a difficulty in deciphering intercepted messages, the Americans failed to descover Japan's target location before the attack occurred. The Japanese hit American ships and military airfields of Ford Island. A second wave of 170 Japanese planes, mostly torpedo bombers, attacked the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. the battleship Arizona was hit with an armor peircing bomb, blowing the ship apart and sinking it within seconds. Nine ships of the U.S. fleet were sunk and 21 ships were severely damaged. Three ships would be non reparable. The overall death toll reached 2,350, including 68 civilians, and 1,178 injured. Of the military personnel lost at Pearl Harbor, 1,177 were from the ship Arizona. The first shots fired were from the destroyer Ward on a midget submarine that had surfaced outside of Pearl Harbor. Ward did successfully sink the midget sub about an hour before the assault on Pearl Harbor. On December 8, 1941, the United States of America declared war on Japan, which in turn, made the Germans declare war on America. The U.S. was officially in WWII. America's main focus at the begining was on helping the Allies against Germany and Italy before they went for Japan. America felt they needed to avenge Pearl Harbor, and so they fought hard against the Japanese with many battles. Some of these battles were the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, and the Battle of guadacanal. The battle of the Coral Sea was fought during May 4-8, 1941. This was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imjperial Japanese Navy and Allied naval and air forces from the United States and Autralia. The battle was the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other. It was the first naval battle in history in which neither sides ships sighted or fired directly upon each other. In an attempt to strengthen their defensive position for their empire in the South Pacific, Japanese forces decided to invade4 and occupy Port Moresby in New Guinea and Tulagi in the southeastern Solomon Islands. The plan to accomplish this was called Operation MO, involved several major units of Japan's Combined Fleet, including two fleet carriers and a light carrier to provide air cover for the ivasion fleets, under the overall command of Shigeyoshi Inoue. The U.S. learned of the Japanese plan through signals intelligence and sent two U.S. Navy carrier task forcces and a joint Australian-American cruiser force, under the command of Admiral Frank J. Fletcher, to oppose the Japanese offensive. On May 3rd and 4th, the Japanese forces successfully invaded and occupied Tulagi, although several of their supporting warships were sunk or damaged by aircrafts from the U.S. fleet carrier Yorktown. Now aware of the presence of U.S. carriers in the area, the Japanese fleet carriers entered the Coral Sea with the intention of destroying the Allies naval forces. Beginning May 7th, carrier forces from both sides exchanged air strikes over two consecutive days. On the first day, the U.S. sank the Japanese light carrier Shoho, while the Japanese sank a U.S. destroyer and heavily damaged a fleet oiler. The next day, the Japanese fleet carrier Shokaku was heavily damaged, the U.S. fleet carrier Lexington was scuttled as a result of critical damage, and the Yorktown was damaged. With both sides having suffered heavy losses in aircraft and carriers, the two fleets disengaged and retired from the battle area. Because of the loss of carrier air cover, Inoue recalled the Port Moresby invasion fleet, intending to try again later. Although a tactical victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk, the battle would prove to be a strategic victory for the Allies for several reason. Japanese expansion, seemingly unstoppable till then, had been turned back for the first time. More importantly, the Japanese fleet carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku were unable to participate in the Battle or Midway. The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of WWII. Between June 4th and 7th, 1941, about one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy attack against Midway Atoll, inflicting nonreparable damage on the Japanese. The Japanese operation aimed to eliminate the United States as a criti- cal power in the Pacific, giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It was hoped another dicouraging defeat would force the U.S. to negotiate an end to the Pacific War on Conditions that would help Japan prosper. The Japanese plan was to lure the United States' aircraft carriers into a trap. They also intended to occupy Midway Atoll as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle Raid. This operation was considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji and Samoa. The plan was disabled by faulty Japanese assumptions of American reation and poor initial dispositions. American code breakers were able to determine the date and location to the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser were sunk in exchange for one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. Their heavy losses permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy. Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep up in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased in both areas. The Battle of Guadalcanal, codenamed Operation Warchtower by Allied forces, was fought for 6 months between August 7, 1942 and February 9, 1943 on and around the island of Guadalcanal in the Pacific theater of WWII. Fiercely contested on the ground, at sea, and in the air, the campaign was the first major offensive launched by Allied forces against the Empire of Japan. On August 7, 1942, Allied forces initiated landings on the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida in the southern Solomon Islands with the objective of denying their use by the Japanese as bases to threaten supply routes between the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. The Allies also intended to use Guadalcanal and Tulagi as bases to support a campaign to eventually capture the major Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain. The Allies outnumbered the Japanese defenders, who had occupied the islands since May 1942, and captured Tulagi and Florida, as well as an airfield that was under construction on Guadalcanal. Surprised by the Allied offensive, the Japanese made several attempts to retake their airfield. Three major land battles, five large naval battles, and continual, almost daily aerial battles culminated in the decisive Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in early November 1942, in chich the last Japanese attempt to land enough troops to retake their unfinished airfield. In December 1942, the Japanese abandoned further attempts to retake Guadalcanal and evacuated their remaining forces by February 7, 1943.The Battle of Guadalcanal was a significant strategic combined arms victory by Allied forces over the Japanese in the Pacific theater. The Japanese had reached the high-water mark of their conquests in the Pacific, and Guadalcanal marked the transition by the Allies from defensive operations to the strategic offencsive in that theater and ther beginning of offensive operations that resulted in Japan's eventual surrender and the end of WWII.