Iwo Jima Essay

After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, President Truman dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Since then, there has been arguments whether the bombs should have been dropped or not. President Truman’s choice to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was really the only option he had back then. Today, the bombs that President Truman dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is thought as a horrible event, but Truman dropped the bombs to save American and Japanese lives, and in the end, shortened the war.

As World War II was coming to an end, the U.S. was searching for a way to finish the war with Japan. The U.S. went about doing this by first dropping 2,000 tons of flammable bombs on Tokyo, Japan on March 9th, 1945. As a result of these fire bombings, between 80,000 to 130,000 innocent Japanese civilians were killed, which was the worst single firestorm in history. After this overwhelming event occurred, Japan didn’t chose to surrender unconditionally; however, the U.S. was well aware that Japan was already largely defeated due to the fire bombings. The U.S. was ready to potentially invade Japan, but an invasion of Japan couldn’t begin for another three months, so the U.S. had an opportunity to wait and see if Japan would surrender before

Prime Minister Hideki Tojo led the Japanese attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. On December 7th, 1941, Japan led an attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. Japanese bombers destroyed 19 US ships, and 188 aircraft. As well, the attack resulted in the death of 2,400 US soldiers and 65 Japanese servicemen. The Japanese attack occurred at the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii.In late 194l, President Roosevelt banned the sale of oil and other war materials to Japan in an attempt to end Japanese aggression in the Pacific. Japan’s leaders were angered by this embargo and chose to confront the United States in order to lift the oil embargo and continue their reign of terror in the South Pacific. The attack is what led the U.S.

Pearl Harbor was a devastation to Americans. lives were lost, ships and planes were damaged and destroyed. The Japan attacked Pearl to insure safety for japan.

At the beginning of the battle, Japanese signed a neutrality treaty. Japanese military was asked to devise a war plan. U.S. had broken the Japanese diplomatic code. A warning had been sent from Washington but it was too late. Japanese planes were spotted by radar before the attack.

One of the most iconic photographs of history, “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” was taken by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. This photograph is set in the backdrop of World War II: the deadliest military conflict in history. The United States of America declared war on Japan after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Part of the United States’ plan to defeat Japan in the Pacific was a strategy known as leapfrogging, or island hopping, where heavily fortified Japanese positions were bypassed in order to concentrate on more important islands. Iwo Jima was one of the islands targeted. Unfortunately, the solid defense of the island resulted in U.S. troops suffering high casualties. The battle eventually ended in American victory and six U.S. servicemen raised the flag over the battle-scarred island. Rosenthal, an Associated Press cameraman, just happened to be at the right place and time (Patterson). As the flag was being raised, he took a shot which would later be so inspiring and powerful that it spurred millions of Americans

Firstly, one aspect of The Battle of Iwo Jima that the film accurately depicted was Kuribayashi’s strategy. The Japanese defence of Jima would have been defence-in-depth, a military tactic that included

This was the start of the long invasion of Iwo Jima. The Battle of Iwo Jima was fought between the Japanese army and the United States Marine Corps (USMC). The battle, known to the USMC as "Operation Detachment", started on February 19, 1945 and lasted until March 26, 1945 when the last Japanese soldiers were captured or killed. Japan knew that the importance of defending Iwo Jima as its loss would facilitate American air raids against Japanese Home Islands. However Imperial Japanese Navy had already lost almost all of its power and could not prevent U.S. from landing. 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. He used Defense in Depth military strategy which seeks to delay rather than prevent the advance of the attacker, buying time and causing additional casualties. A complex and elaborate defense was prepared. Among other things, an extensive system of tunnels was built to connect the prepared positions so that positions which had been cleared could be re-occupied. Numerous snipers and camouflaged machine gun positions were also set up. The Marines were able to cut off Mount Suribachi from the rest of the island by the morning of 23 February. A group of Marines were sent to capture the summit. They were given an American flag to fly to signal its capture. They met with little Japanese resistance and hoisted the U.S. flag over Mount Suribachi: the first

The battle of Pearl Harbor occurred early morning in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. There wasn 't much of a battle considering the fact that it was very unexpected and Franklin D. Roosevelt had just spoke to the Japanese and they seemed to be on good terms. The event only lasted around two hours and in that short amount of time 20 American naval vessels were destroyed, 8 battleships, and 200 airplanes. There were around 2,000 American casualties while 1,000 others were only wounded. The day after this attack the president of the United States declared war on

There were three main causes of the civil war including slavery, sectionalism and secession. Slavery was a huge part of it and it led to the Missouri Compromise where any states below the border would be slave states and the anything north of that was free states. (Mrs. Wise) "The south feared the declaration of freedom for the slaves by government leaders in the North." Next, sectionalism. Sectionalism- loyalty to your state or lifestyle rather than to the whole country. The north was against sectionalism and the south liked it. The North wanted the government to rule laws for the whole country and south wanted to have each state choose their own laws individually. south also wanted to return any runaway slaves. (Mrs. Wise) "the Fugitive

“December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy… no matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory (President Franklin Roosevelt).” This attack was a surprise attack by the Japanese military without any formal declaration of war. The Japanese could’ve possible done this surprise attack, because they knew that the United States Navy was strong enough to defeat them. Many people question if the United States would have formally warned could this attack have been stopped. Well, the chances are that the attack would still have occurred. There is a strong chance that if the naval base was warned, then the United States Navy would have won.

During the 18th and early 19th century the world experienced new changes in world powers with imperialist countries and countries who experienced imperialism. One example of this would be Japanese imperialism in Korea during 1910-1945, a 35 year harsh change in Korea’s culture, impacting both countries in negative and positive ways in the years to come. Everything started during the Meiji period, a period where Japan saw change within its government creating a centralized bureaucracy. But also change within the military occurred with the replacement of Samurai authority. Trying to be equal competitors in world power as their Western neighbors. Japan had gotten imperialist ideas from 1853 when the U.S. black ships steamed

The following events caused the tensions to raise between Japan and The United States of America which led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Internment of Japanese Americans. They are the Rape of Nanking and the sudden stop of U.S exports to Japan. In the 1930s Japan, had become very nationalistic, militaristic, and desired for more land to expand the population. So, Japan went to China and conquered Manchuria, Northern China, then most of China, and eventually Southeast Asia. This help Japan get out of its economic crisis but soon a very tragic and horrendous even took place. The Rape of Nanking was a total massacre of the Chinese because at the time it was a glorified city that stood testament to China’s wealth and beauty. Within a

After General MacArthur’s arrival, Japan went on the defensive and constructed the Sho-Go or Operation Victory. Their goal was to “decoy the U.S. Third Fleet north away from the San Bernardino Strait, while converging three forces on Leyte Gulf to attack the landing” (Britannica). Once this was

“From December of 1941 to the spring of 1942, Japanese forces advanced virtually unimpeded throughout the Pacific and southeastern Asia while handing the Allies a string of humiliating defeats, first at Pearl Harbor, then at Guam, Wake Island, Singapore, and in the Philippines. By the spring of 1942, the outcome of the war was very much in doubt as Americans began to think that the Japanese military was invincible. "The Pacific situation is now very grave," cabled President Roosevelt to Winston Churchill in March of 1942, after the Japanese conquest of Java.”