The “Island hopping campaign” was a phrase to describe the years in which the United States tried to gain military bases on different islands in the Pacific Ocean. Teaming up with other Allied countries, the United States attacked the islands less protected by the Japanese. However, gaining this land was not easy and did not come without a price. Many battles were fought throughout islands in the Pacific, and many lives were lost.
One of the major battles that was fought for control of an island was the battle of New Guinea. New Guinea is located off of the North coast of Australia, and is part of the Solomon Islands. New Guinea is the second largest island in the world, but the large block of land in the middle of the Pacific was not the only reason why Japan wanted to take control of it. The Japanese wanted New Guinea for a number of reasons. For instance, in Papua, the Japanese wanted to use this side of the island as a first step to defend Rabaul. The Japanese had a military base on Rabaul, a city on the gulf of New Guinea, and needed a place on the island to protect it, this is why they wanted Papua. The battle of New Guinea was really a series of battles on several different islands around the larger one.
The Allied forces, which consisted of the Americans and the Australians, wanted New Guinea because of it’s size. It was perfect for a military base and created the perfect place to put a landing strip for airplanes. The Allies would use this airstrip and military base to take down the Japanese at Rabaul. Port Moresby, Milne Bay, Kokoda and Buna were also places that the Allies wanted to build an airfield. These places were strategic for both sides so this was the focus during the battle.
Another thing that makes New Gu...
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...ntrol of the Huon Peninsula on 24 April 1944.
The Huon Peninsula Campaign was a series of battles in which Australian forces attacked Japanese bases along the Huon Peninsula. Some of the battles include Finschhafen, Scarlet Beach, Sattleberg, and Sio. This campaign began with an amphibious landing on Scarlet Beach on September 22, 1943. An amphibious landing is when air, land, and sea forces land at the same time for an invasion. As the Allies moved North and tried to secure Finschhafen, Japanese troops attacked Scarlet Beach. This battle lasted roughly a week and caused the Australian lines to split up their force. However, the Australians contined on and set out to control Sattleberg. This was particularly important to the Australians because it was good for observing the coast and if the Japanese took control, they could disrupt Australian communication lines.
3 September 1939 when Australia joined the war playing a significant role in World War 2, winning a lot of their campaigns. Almost million Australians, both men and women helped win WW2 all over the world. The war started for Australia when Great Britain declared war on Germany. This lead to Australia fighting in Germany and Italy in Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa, Japan in south-east Asia and other parts of the Pacific. Australia was involved in one of the most important battles in WWII, Kokoda track campaign in 1942. There are several reasons why this battle was so significant. Firstly, Kokoda track campaign stopped the invasion of Australia. Secondly, the Kokoda track campaign lead to the victory of WWII with the defeat of Japan. Lastly, the conditions that all the troops at the Kokoda campaign had to go through was atrocious and against the ally troop’s odds. This battle leads to the development of the nation. This is why Kokoda was the most important battle fought by the Australian’s in WWII.
Japan figured if it wanted to survive, it would have to expand to get more materials. o neal 410-413. Japan started trying to take over Asia. They landed on the east coast of China in Manchuria and stationed troops there in order to try to take over northeastern China. ("Japan Launches A Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941").
1. HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE: Iwo Jima was Japanese home soil only 650 miles from Tokyo. No foreign army in Japan's 5000 year history had fought on Japanese soil. To the US, Iwo Jima was important because of its location, midway between Japan and American bomber bases in the Marianas. Iwo Jima with its three airfields was an ideal location for fighter-escort stations and as a safe haven for damaged bombers.
The United States’ involvement in trade with China made the importance of Hawaii and the Samoan islands evident. These islands acted as a stop for ships in the midst of their journey to Asia. American influence on the islands existed by America’s growing population settling there. For these two reasons, the United States’ navy looked at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a permanent naval base and Pago Pago in Samoa. American settlers in Hawaii gradually drew the power away from Hawaiian leaders causing struggles for power. King Kamehameha b...
Japan led a ruthless assault in the Pacific for fifteen years. This small island was able to spread imperialism and terror to neighboring countries through means of force and brutality. Japan even attempted to combat and overcome European and Western countries such as Russia and the United States. Even with an extreme militaristic government, Japan was unable to achieve the glory it was promised and hoped for. The Pacific War analyzes Japan’s part in the war and what the country could have done to prevent such a tragedy.
The motive for Japan’s plan to attack Midway Island was to claim dominant power over the Pacific Ocean and to...
In the article "Island Civilization: A vision for human occupancy of earth in the fourth millennium" a very good point was made about how humans are not treating the earth with respect, however our generation still has a chance to turn the earth from cancerous to healthy.
Initially, Japanese strategists assumed that the tiny island would be overwhelmed in a matter of hours. However, they underestimated the fighting spirit of the military personnel and civilians stationed on the island. For sixteen days these brave men fought against overwhelming odds, but demonstrated both to the Japanese and to their fellow Americans back at home that the Americans could and would put up a courageous fight.
Morison, Samuel, E. (1960). Victory in the pacific, 1945 – history of the united states naval operations in world war ii. (Vol. 14, p. 389). Boston: Little Brown.
As the United States declared war on the German Empire, the citizens of Honolulu and Hawaii at large were already experiencing the strains of war. The sinking of the A.-H. Missourian by German U-boats, and the subsequent sinking of the Aztec, brought many Hawaiians to support the war effort with great enthusiasm. By April 3rd, the “Islanders” as they called themselves in the Hawaiian Gazette were backing President Wilson’s intentions of conducting a war in Europe. For many Hawaiians, they had felt as if the German presence in the Pacific region had been an intrusive force. As the territory of Hawaii had long been maintained by strategic military forces and commercial industries since their annexation into the United States, the territory viewed itself in a rather unique way.
On December 7th 1941, Japanese Planes and submarines attacked the United States Naval base at Pearl Harbor. This event singlehandedly brought the U.S from its then neutral stance in World War Two to a fighting member of the “Allied Powers.” Pearl Harbor was the first of a long series of confrontations between the U.S and the Japanese in an effort to gain control of the Pacific. Unlike the “War in Europe” the Pacific strategy was dominated by naval and aerial battles, with the occasional land-based “Island Hopping” Campaign. As such, one of the most important factors in the war in the pacific was Fleet Size, the more ships a country could send to war, the better. Pearl Harbor was the Japanese’s way of trying to deal with the massive U.S Pacific fleet. However, Pearl Harbor was not the turning point of the war. After December 7th the United States began work on numerous technological developments which would ultimately help them in one of the most important battles of WWII, the largest naval confrontation of the war, The Battle of Midway. The battle, which took place from June 4th to June 7th , 1942 is widely considered the turning point of the Pacific Theater (James & Wells). Through the Post-Pearl Harbor desire for “Revenge” and various technological advantages including code breaking and radar, the U.S were able to outsmart the Japanese at Midway and ultimately win the battle, eventually leading to a victory in the Pacific.
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign (April 1—June 22, 1945) involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan ("Battle of Okinawa," 1996). The Battle of Okinawa remembered more for its iconic photograph of US Marines raising the US flag on Okinawa more so than any other war or battle ever fought. Okinawa the largest of the Ryukus islands played a major role in the American forces overall strategic efforts to advance to the mainland’s of Japan.
The American soldiers had begun using the method of island hopping, because the bomb was not available. The idea of dropping a bomb was that the war itself could possibly end at its earliest points. The dropping of the atomic bomb could also justify the money spent on the Manhattan Project (Donohue 1). With a quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt “This will be a day that will live in infamy”, Pearl Harbor was a tragic day for Americans. The United States had lost many soldiers, which they had claimed that they would eventually get revenge.
The island of Peleliu is a tiny piece of land; it is two miles wide and six miles long. The island looks like a lobster’s claw from above. Peleliu is on the westernmost portion of the Caroline archipelago in the Palau islands. The US leadership understood that the island was small, but the Japanese military builds a crucial airfield on the island. At the beginning of 1944, the airfield seemed necessary. The US task force had the Japanese on the ropes by late 1944. “The United States had gained the initiative, and the technique of island-hopping, while costly, was proving useful, and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz’s forces were battling their way through the vast stretches of the central Pacific” (Niderost, 2016). Many of the top
it opened the way to the Japanese home islands (Nalty, Shaw, & Turnbladh, 1966). " By November 1944, U.S. B29 bombers had commenced bombing operations on the Japanese capital city, Tokyo, from airfields located on the U.S. control island of Saipan. After the fall of Saipan, Imperial Japanese Army and Naval forces were deployed to the island of Iwo Jima; a very small island, approximately 8 sq.... ... middle of paper ... ...