The battle of Wake Island was the most significant battle of World War Two. It was the most significant for the following reasons. It was a fight between Japan's Navy and the United States that led to an important turning point between both of them. The battle was over an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean named Midway island, the battle took place six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor on June 7, 1942. Lastly, due to the fact the United States was up against a fleet that was close to twice their size but still ended with victory made the battle even more significant.
Before attacking the Island Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto wanted to destroy the American fleet all together, he planned on confusing the United States navy into thinking
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But not all went to plan, American fleet admiral, Chester W. Nimitz, led his airforce to where the Japanese ships were meant to be, when he seen nothing decided to keep his air forces going farther which was risky due to the fact they might not make it back to the carriers with the little fuel they had left. As soon as Nimitz was about to tell his fleet to turn around he spotted a submarine in the water, realizing it was Japan's he decided to secretly follow it hoping it would lead him to the rest of the Japanese fleet. Following Japan’s submarine direction, they ended up head back with the United States Navy Carriers ready to fight. With the United States now being able to see japanese ships they sent out a first attack on ‘Akagi’, causing fuel to ignite and then detonating its torpedoes on the ship ending with ‘Akagi’ destroyed, then a second attack came to Japan's other ship ‘Kaga’, this ended with the same result of ‘Akagi’. Soon after these two attacks, ‘Soryu’ was attacked but only hit with three bombs but still leading it to sink and have Japan's navy abandon it. Where Japan lost three ships at this time American only lost one, ‘Yorktown’ which was already damaged and had been recently fixed to the best of engineers ability after the first bombing of Japan at Pearl Harbor. This left one ship left of Japan, the ‘Hiryu, but sadly the ship was found and ended with
The battle of Midway (1942) was fought between Japan and America during WWII. The Americans, following many defeats delivered by the elite if not legendary Japanese fleet managed to break the Japanese code and score an upset victory at Midway. The battle of Midway destroyed the Japanese Combined fleet. Japan lost Four aircraft carries, that was around half of all carriers Japan had in operation at the time. Also the pilots and aircraft Japan lost was tremendous: 248 aircraft were destroyed.
General Yamamoto lead another attack on the United States which was Pearl Harbor ("Battle of Midway"). Pearl harbor was a successful attack for the Japanese. They crippled the
The United States wanted the volcanic islands of Japan to be able to control the mainland of Japan and with Japan’s navy being weakened due to multiple situations, such as a lack of oil. The United States say this as a sign of weakness and began to attack the volcanic islands south of Japan. These attacks took out the Japanese navy fronts stationed in the islands and put the Japanese navy in a standstill in terms of being effective in the war efforts. The United States gained control of the Mariana Islands and Guam. The B-29s that were stationed in the Mariana Islands would help aid the American forces when they decided to try to conquer Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945.
Japan planned to invade Midway Island to get a base to attack Hawaii. The Battle of Midway destroyed the naval strength of Japan. The navy of Japan never recovered from its loss at Midway. After this battle Japan was on the defensive. Midway is one of WWII’s most significant
This is what the authors of this article would have you believe. On 23 February 1942, a Japanese submarine shelled Santa Barbara, California; later were reports of submarines shelling points in Oregon (Granatstein and Johnson, 118). In early June, Japan launched an attack on the Aleutian Islands. The intent was to draw out American fleet, destroy it, and prepare for an attack on the continental North America. Ultimately the plan failed, along with Japanese imperial ambitions, after the American victory at the Battle of Midway.
In conclusion, the Battle of Attu was one of the most important battles during the Pacific Campaign. This battle proved to the soldiers that the Japanese could be defeated on land. The battle was a huge morale boost for all other soldiers that were about to disembark on their own missions to take islands. The only battle that the Americans suffered more casualties in, was the Battle of Iwo Jima. This battle might have been fought over a deserted piece of volcanic island, but that island meant enough to americans that it sparked the beginning of the end for the Japanese in the
By a system called the Tokyo Express, Japanese cruisers and destroyers came by night and landed men and supplies on the island. This allowed them to run thousands of men to the island and build up a good attack force (Mann, 119). Further attempted attacks by the Japanese failed and were pushed back. Soon the Allies began using an offensive strategy, pushing the enemy away (Mann, 121). The Japanese refused defeat, but the emperor ordered a withdrawal from the island
These code breakers sent the information, from all the time consuming, hard work to the heads of the war department in Hawaii and it was then that battle for Midway had been forced on them and they had to defend it at all costs. As the Japanese were planning their attack on Midway, they were under the assumption that it would not be guarded with aircraft carriers and battleships. The American Pacific Fleet, utilizing the information gleaned from their cryptographers, planned a monumental defense. Admiral Nimitz and Commander Fletcher were in command of the defense of Midway carrying out their orders they placed carriers, destroyers, their many other viable ships and resources strategically around the island; waiting for the advancing Japanese Navy. The battle took four long days with the losses to the Americans in ships and personnel was minimal, but the Japanese were hit with a tremendous blow of four carriers, numerous other ships, over two
Japanese Imperial Navy only had a rough estimate of 21,000 men. Japan was outnumbered by many, many soldiers. Japan lost around 20,000 of their men, which was almost their whole army (Andrews). Americans had around 5,900 people killed and 17,400 wounded (Cowley). This was the only battle in which the United States Marine Corps had more casualties than Japan (10).
In 1945 February 19, there was a battle between the US and Japan. The battle of Iwo Jima was a major battle in which the United States Armed Forces fought for and captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Japanese Empire. Iwo Jima was a Pacific island, two miles wide by four miles long (8 sm). Iwo Jima which means Sulfur island, was important an an air base.
(Doc.E). So Japan attacks Hawaii, Pearl Harbor because they needed to stop the U.S. Navy before they became too strong to
Also depleting air strength meant the remaining warplanes had to be hoarded to defend Japanese Home Islands. With no available means to defend Iwo Jima, Japan decided to rely on the established defensive equipment in the area and check U.S. by delaying tactics to gain time for defense of the mainland. Japanese Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned the task of defending Iwo Jima. Knowing he couldn’t win the battle, he aimed at inflicting heavy casualties on American forces to force them to reconsider invasion of Mainland Japan. His strategy was radically different from Japan’s usual strategy of beach defense to face the landings directly.
The Japanese keep evolving their tactics to find ways to fight off or put up resistance to U.S. navy. The Japanese set
The Japanese managed to destroy 20 American Naval Vessels,including 8 enormous battle ships, and almost 200 airplanes. More than 2,000 American soldiers/sailors died in the attack and over 1,000 were wounded. The day after the attack President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked congress to declare war with Japan and this was the start of World War II for the United States. United States way of revenge was to drop atomic bombs on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945, these bombs killed over 129,000
The Japanese Imperial Navy had managed to eliminate most of the obstacles in the Pacific Ocean. Tensions were becoming high in the Pacific and the only thing that stood between the Japanese Imperial Navy and the coast of the United States was the American Navy. Luckily the American Navy had a little help to decode the Japanese naval codes, which helped in the upsetting victory at the Battle of Midway. The goals were clear and precise in that the American forces were badly outnumbered and they had suffered major losses at Pearl Harbor. Although the mission was carried out completely at sea, there had been some major advantages on our side to help carry us into victory.