17.3 The War in the Pacific

The Philippines• The Japanese took the islands & our military

base there while Gen. MacArthur fled– Our troops were force marched to POW

concentration camps• That event is now called the “Bataan Death March”

The Pacific• Doolittle’s April 1942 surprise bombing of

Tokyo was seen as a U.S. revenge for Pearl Harbor

• In the June 1942 Battle of Midway was a huge naval victory over the Japanese– From then on, we crept closer & closer to Japan

The Pacific• Guadalcanal (near Australia) was a major

victory for us– But living conditions on the island were

miserable during the 6 months of hard fighting

• The Philippines were recaptured in Oct 1944.

The Pacific• Iwo Jima was heavily fortified by the

Japanese– By winning it, we could better launch airplanes

towards Japan

Manhattan Project• Team of scientists, led by JR Oppenheimer,

who developed the atomic bomb– Our first test went off in New Mexico in July 1945– Not all the nuclear scientists agreed that this new

power should be used for war...