Coming ashore on July 24, the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions took the island after six days of combat. Though the island was declared secure, several hundred Japanese held out in the Tinian's jungles for months. With the Marianas taken, construction began on massive airbases from which raids against Japan would be launched. With the Marianas secured, competing strategies for moving forward arose from the two principal U. Admiral Chester Nimitz advocated bypassing the Philippines in favor of capturing Formosa and Okinawa.
These would then be used as bases for attacking the Japanese home islands. This plan was countered by General Douglas MacArthur, who wished to fulfill his promise to return to the Philippines as well as land on Okinawa.
After a lengthy debate involving President Roosevelt, MacArthur's plan was chosen. The first step in liberating the Philippines was the capture of Peleliu in the Palau Islands. Planning for invading the island had already begun as its capture was required in both Nimitz and MacArthur's plans. On September 15, the 1st Marine Division stormed ashore.
They were later reinforced by the 81st Infantry Division, which had captured the nearby island of Anguar. While planners had originally thought that the operation would take several days, it ultimately took over two months to secure the island as its 11, defenders retreated into the jungle and mountains. Utilizing a system of interconnected bunkers, strong points, and caves, Colonel Kunio Nakagawa's garrison exacted a heavy toll on the attackers, and the Allied effort soon became a bloody grinding affair.
On November 27, , after weeks of brutal fighting that killed 2, Americans and 10, Japanese, Peleliu was declared secure. After extensive planning, Allied forces arrived off the island of Leyte in the eastern Philippines on October 20, Sixth Army began moving ashore. To counter the landings, the Japanese threw their remaining naval strength against the Allied fleet.
Third Fleet away from the landings on Leyte. This would allow three separate forces Center Force and two units comprising Southern Force to approach from the west to attack and destroy the U. Kinkaid 's Seventh Fleet. The battle that ensued, known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf , was the largest naval battle in history and consisted of four primary engagements.
In the first engagement on October , the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita's Center Force was attacked by American submarines and aircraft losing a battleship, Musashi , and two cruisers along with several others damaged. Kurita retreated out of range of U. These light forces attacked relentlessly and inflicted torpedo hits on two Japanese battleships and sank four destroyers. As the Japanese pushed north through the straight, they encountered the six battleships many of the Pearl Harbor veterans and eight cruisers of the 7th Fleet Support Force led by Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf.
Crossing the Japanese "T," Oldendorf's ships opened fired at AM and immediately began scoring hits on the enemy. Utilizing radar fire control systems, Oldendorf's line inflicted heavy damage on the Japanese and sank two battleships and a heavy cruiser. The accurate American gunfire then forced the remainder of Nishimura's squadron to withdraw. Believing that Kurita was retreating, Halsey signaled Admiral Kinkaid that he was moving north to pursue the Japanese carriers.
By doing so, Halsey was leaving the landings unprotected. Kinkaid was not aware of this as he believed Halsey had left one carrier group to cover the San Bernardino Straight. On the 25th, U. While Ozawa did launch a strike of around 75 aircraft against Halsey, this force was largely destroyed and inflicted no damage.
By the end of the day, all four of Ozawa's carriers had been sunk. As the battle was concluding, Halsey was informed that the situation off Leyte was critical. Soemu's plan had worked. By Ozawa drawing away Halsey's carriers, the path through the San Bernardino Strait was left open for Kurita's Center Force to pass through to attack the landings.
Breaking off his attacks, Halsey began steaming south at full speed. Off Samar just north of Leyte , Kurita's force encountered the 7th Fleet's escort carriers and destroyers. Launching their planes, the escort carriers began to flee, while the destroyers valiantly attacked Kurita's much superior force.
As the melee was turning in favor of the Japanese, Kurita broke off after realizing that he was not attacking Halsey's carriers and that the longer he lingered, the more likely he was to be attacked by American aircraft.
Kurita's retreat effectively ended the battle. The Battle of Leyte Gulf marked the last time the Imperial Japanese Navy would conduct large-scale operations during the war. Fighting through rough terrain and wet weather, they then moved north onto the neighboring island of Samar.
On December 15, Allied troops landed on Mindoro and met little resistance. After consolidating their position on Mindoro, the island was used as a staging area for the invasion of Luzon. This took place on January 9, , when Allied forces landed at Lingayen Gulf on the island's northwest coast. Within a few days, over , men came ashore, and soon MacArthur was advancing on Manila. After heavy fighting, the capital was liberated on March 3.
Fighting would continue on Luzon and Mindanao until the end of the war. Located on the route from the Marianas to Japan, Iwo Jima provided the Japanese with airfields and an early warning station for detecting American bombing raids. Considered one of the home islands, Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi prepared his defenses in-depth, constructing a vast array of interlocking fortified positions connected by a large network of underground tunnels.
Facing the Rising Sun takes visitors into this moment in history, introducing the key leaders whose loyalties and ambitions defined the moment, and the logistical challenges of a two-front war shaped the years to come.
On a replica bridge of the USS Enterprise , three large windows reveal fighter planes taking off over enemy waters.
The Pacific war is underway. Photographs flanking those windows introduce military leaders—nine each on both Allied and Axis sides—along with an overview of US strategy in the Pacific theater: there will be not one but two paths to Tokyo. US forces led primarily by the Army will approach from the southwest Pacific, fighting across New Guinea and other occupied islands toward the Philippines.
But already spirits are low: newsreels report Japanese victories in Singapore and the Philippines and brutal treatment of American POWs. The Enterprise is steaming forward into hostile waters, and the odds for its survival—and the survival of the sailors, pilots, and mechanics on board—look grim indeed.
The attack on Pearl Harbor was devastating to American battleships. They remained fully functional and would help redefine the way the United States waged war at sea. Unlike the battleships of old, the USS Enterprise and her sister carriers were floating airbases, each home to more than 2, servicemembers as well as a fleet of aircraft, which took flight from her deck to attack and destroy Japanese aircraft and naval vessels.
Part of this gallery presents the quieter side of life aboard ship: clean beds, regular meals, and even recreation. Actual footage of planes in action—taking off, landing, and even crashing—on the Enterprise flight deck completes the illusion of being onboard ship as visitors take in key themes of the new naval warfare, including dire submarine fatalities, the ethics of code-breaking work, and the dramatic speed with which the tides of war can shift.
Vividly rendered and viscerally impactful, this experiential gallery features an immersive environmental narrative that draws the visitor into a towering palm jungle, following in the footsteps of American GIs as they battled heat, mosquitoes, disease, dense vegetation, and unfamiliar terrain along with a ferocious enemy in an all-consuming, round-the-clock battle.
Together with the discouragement of a string of defeats against the Japanese—including naval defeats that left Americans on the island effectually stranded—these seemingly overwhelming obstacles were an assault on both body and mind.
Still, American troops, mainly Marines, fought on to capture and defend the first Allied foothold in the Pacific, notably at the Battle of Tenaru River.
But although that battle was a victory for the Allies, it was also a chilling education in the nature of their enemy: injured Japanese soldiers fought without mercy and without any thought of surrender, refusing to yield even to their dying breaths. Daring amphibious landings, deadly obstacles on treacherous beaches, massive human cost, and an uncertain outcome—this D-Day narrative was repeated hundreds of times over in the Pacific, as American troops inched closer to Japan.
But progress was never simple: With every beach came new terrain with unpredictable challenges, a firmly entrenched hidden enemy, and another desperate battle to establish one more foothold.
In this serpentine gallery, a realistic beachscape recreates a landing site on the island of Tarawa. Other exhibits describe the integrated effort between sea, land, and air, as well as successes in intelligence Native American code talkers , technology the long-range B Bomber , and carrier warfare the Marianas Turkey Shoot in the fight for control of the skies.
By forcing the Japanese to fight on a second front in the Asia-Pacific war, CBI held critical strategic importance: While 11 Japanese army divisions battled US forces on the islands and at sea, a staggering 40 more nearly one million Japanese were tied up in the Sino-Japanese War in China—and the Allies were determined to keep them there.
Doing so meant supplying the Chinese with essential material over enormous distances and confronting a maze of logistical challenges, from the jagged peaks of the Himalayas obstructing air lanes above to strangled roadways below.
As an American Commonwealth, the Philippines held special meaning for US forces: this was American territory in enemy hands.
It was also the land of a people to whom the United States had promised independence, and MacArthur saw its liberation from the Japanese as a moral imperative.
Research and production took place at more than 30 sites, some secret, across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The project maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in January Two types of atomic bomb were developed during the war.
A relatively simple gun-type fission weapon was made using uranium, while a more complex plutonium implosion-type weapon was designed concurrently. For the gun-type weapon development, uranium an isotope that makes up only 0.
Chemically identical to the most common isotope, uranium, and with almost the same mass, it proved difficult to separate the two. Most of this work was performed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce plutonium. Reactors were constructed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington, in which uranium was irradiated and transmuted into plutonium.
The plutonium was then chemically separated from the uranium. Following a firebombing campaign that destroyed many Japanese cities, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of Japan. American President Harry S. In Hiroshima, an area of approximately 4. About 70, to 80, people, of whom 20, were Japanese combatants and 20, were Korean slave laborers, or some 30 percent of the population of Hiroshima, were killed immediately, and another 70, injured.
The resulting explosion had a blast yield equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT but was confined to the Urakami Valley and a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills, resulting in the destruction of about 44 percent of the city. Overall, an estimated 35,—40, people were killed and 60, injured.
Estimates vary greatly, but within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,—, people in Hiroshima and 39,—80, in Nagasaki. Many died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition.
In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison. Following the bombings, Emperor Hirohito intervened and ordered the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to accept the terms the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration for ending the war.
In the radio address, he announced the surrender of Japan to the Allies. Atomic bombing of Japan : Atomic bomb mushroom clouds over Hiroshima left and Nagasaki right. By the end of July , the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent.
The Soviets, meanwhile, were preparing to attack the Japanese, in fulfillment of their promises to the United States and the United Kingdom made at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences. Truman, respectively. The terms of the declaration specified the matters of Japanese authorities e.
Contrary to what had been intended at its conception, the declaration made no direct mention of the Emperor. On August 6, , the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.
Late in the evening of August 8, , in accordance with Yalta agreements but in violation of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and soon after midnight on August 9, , it invaded the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Later that day, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
The combined shock of these events caused Emperor Hirohito to intervene and order the Big Six to accept the terms for ending the war that the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration. In the radio address, he announced the surrender of Japan. On August 28, , the occupation of Japan by the supreme commander of the Allied powers began. After the formal surrender, investigations into Japanese war crimes began. At a meeting with MacArthur later in September, Emperor Hirohito offered to take blame for the war crimes, but his offer was rejected, and he was never tried.
Japanese forces in Southeast Asia surrendered on September 12, , in Singapore. It was not until that all prisoners held by America and Britain were repatriated. As late as April , China still held more than 60, Japanese prisoners. The logistical demands of the surrender were formidable. Japan and the Soviet Union formally made peace four years later, when they signed the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of Privacy Policy.
Skip to main content. Search for:. The War in the Pacific. Learning Objectives Explain the military strategy behind Allied leapfrogging in the Pacific. Key Takeaways Key Points Leapfrogging was a military strategy that entailed bypassing and isolating heavily fortified Japanese positions while preparing to take over strategically important islands. It originated from island hopping. Both Nimitz and MacArthur applied leapfrogging and island hopping as major strategies.
Leapfrogging would allow U. It entailed taking over an island and establishing a military base there. Nimitz was selected to serve as commander in chief, U.
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