War in the Pacific: The ultimate community pool

Pearl Harbor, Philippines, General Douglas McArthur, Retreat to Australia, Bataan

Death March

Pearl Harbor• Pear Harbor was a surprise attack on

America on Dec. 7th, 1941.• It brought us into the current war• It also broke the backbone of the U.S.

Navy by crippling a large portion of ships.

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• The Japanese had planned this attack for a relatively long amount of time.

• Although necessary measures were not taken, some things were done to make Pearl Harbor more defendable.

• The planes were bunched together so their firepower wouldn’t be spread out.

• In the end, this backfired against the Americans when the Japanese attacked all the planes on the ground in less rounds than would have been necessary.

Battle of the Philippines

• Commenced exactly nine hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

• The commander in chief of the U.S. Philippine islands was General Author McDouglas.

• Even with 9 hours of warning in advance, he failed to prepare his troops for the inevitable event of Japan attacking the Philippines.

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• The Japanese were worried about their opposition on the Philippines

• They thought that McArthur would have air force on full war alert by the nine hours after pearl harbor.

• However Gen. McArthur had not prepared his forces, allowing the Japanese to destroy all of Americas east air force while it was still on the ground.

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• This battle caused America to lose complete air power in the far east.

78,000 prisoners taken

• After the humiliating resistance of American troops at Bataan and Corridor, Japanese general, Masaharu Homma took his revenge on American prisoners by sending them on the infamous Bataan death march. He ordered the captive men to march from Bataan to their imprisonment at camp O’Donnell, a distance of around 100 miles.

General Macarthur's Run for Cover• McArthur was a bad General.• He didn’t have the personality to be a

general.• When the order came for him to take

defensive action after Pearl Harbor, he was indecisive and that caused the death of thousands of Americans.

• He then retreated to Australia, where he ordered his men not to give up the fight on the Philippines.

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• After the Philippines were lost, General McArthur took remaining forces with him to Australia and defended the Australian front from Japanese attack.

• General McArthur’s retreatcan be described in twowords:

Japanese Strategy

• The attack on Pearl harbor was a planned attack by Japan on the American Naval fleet.

• The Japanese had thought this attack through for many weeks, probably months.

• They equipped all of their planes for low altitude use, and adapted their air-to-sea torpedoes for use in the shallow waters of pearl harbor by putting wooden fins on the rears of them

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• The Japanese had also prepared their pilots for this mission. They informed them that if their planes were to be hit or run out of fuel and ammunition, then they were to Kamikaze (kah-mih-kah-zee)their planes into an enemyship, building, or airfield.

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• The Japanese had also thought of the route they were to take to and from the attack.

• One the way back to Japan, they attacked and dominated small islands in the pacific like the Philippines.

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