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Mounting Casualties in the Pacific
After the Battle of Midway, as Allied forces retook one by one the territories that Japan had captured earlier in the war, Japan’s tactics became increasingly extreme. At Guadalcanal in August 1942 and in nearly every battle afterward, Japanese forces simply refused to surrender, even when they were clearly losing. This tactic resulted in huge death tolls for the Japanese forces, as well as increased Allied casualties. Each battle became progressively worse in this respect, and by the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945, the Japanese were fighting to nearly the last man. In Okinawa, even many Japanese civilians committed suicide when it became clear that the island was falling to the Americans.
These developments made Allied commanders worry about what it would take to win the war. The Allies had a plan in the works to land U.S. ground troops on the Japanese home islands. But if the Japanese population chose to fight to the death, as many were speculating, the cost in American lives would be overwhelming.
The End of the Pacific War
In March 1945, as the war in Europe was coming to an end, the U.S. Air Force began a series of heavy bombing campaigns against major Japanese cities. The operations targeted the Japanese civilian population in addition to industrial and military targets. The strategy was simply to destroy the Japanese will to resist. Many of these raids were conducted on the capital of Tokyo itself, though other cities such as Kobe were also hit. In the spring and summer of 1945, the severity of these air raids grew exponentially, some causing firestorms that produced death tolls in the hundreds of thousands. By late summer, little of Tokyo and the other targeted cities was left standing.
During the summer of 1945, American scientists succeeded in completing a working atomic bomb, which was tested a single time, on July 16, at a remote location in New Mexico. Shortly after the July test, the Truman administration began seriously to consider using the bomb against Japan. Eventually, Truman made the decision to do so, reasoning that the action would ultimately save both U.S. military and Japanese civilian casualties that would inevitably result from a ground invasion of Japan. The first atomic bomb was dropped from a B-29 called the Enola Gay on the morning of August 6, 1945, onto the city of Hiroshima. The blast obliterated most of the central city, killing 80,000 in a single moment. Three days later, on August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the port city of Nagasaki with similarly devastating results. The day before the Nagasaki bombing, the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan and commenced an attack on the Chinese province of Manchuria, which was still held by the Japanese.
Japan Surrenders
Between July 17 and August 2, 1945, Harry Truman of the United States, Winston Churchill of Britain (and later Clement Atlee, who replaced him as prime minister during the conference), and Joseph Stalin of the USSR met in Potsdam, Germany, with other Allied leaders to discuss the future administration of Germany. On July 26, the three also held a special meeting to settle on the terms of surrender for Japan in order to end the war. The agreement was set forth in a document known as the Potsdam Declaration. In short, it demanded an unconditional surrender that included the complete demilitarization of the country and the replacement of Japan’s current leadership by a “peacefully inclined and responsible government.”
The combination of the atomic bombings with the potential threat of a full-scale invasion of Japan by the USSR was enough to remove any hope that Japan may have held for continuing the war. On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s capitulation in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration. A formal surrender was signed on September 2 aboard the battleship USS Missouri.
Events Timeline
February 9, 1943
Battle of Guadalcanal ends
August 4, 1944
Allied forces take Myitkyina, Burma
October 20
Battle of Leyte begins
December 31
Battle of Leyte ends
February 19, 1945
Battle of Iwo Jima begins
February 23
U.S. Marines reach Mt. Suribachi
March 26
Iwo Jima declared secure
April 1
Battle of Okinawa begins
May 3
Allies liberate Rangoon
June 21
Battle of Okinawa ends
March 1945
Allies begin mass bombing raids of Tokyo and other cities
July 16
United States successfully tests first atomic bomb
July 26
Potsdam Declaration signed
August 6
United States drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima
August 8
USSR enters war against Japan
August 9
United States drops atomic bomb on Nagasaki
USSR invades Manchuria
August 15
Hirohito announces Japan’s surrender
September 2
Japan signs formal surrender
Key People
Franklin D. Roosevelt
32nd U.S. president; implemented economic penalties that angered Japan; requested war declaration after Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941
Hirohito
Japanese emperor; approved Pearl Harbor attack plan
Yamamoto Isoroku
Japanese admiral who orchestrated attacks on both Pearl Harbor and Midway
Harry S Truman
33rd U.S. president; after death of Roosevelt, made decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945
Curtis LeMay
U.S. general who orchestrated brutal incendiary bombing campaign against major Japanese cities in March 1945
