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The War in the Pacific

WHY IT MATTERS NOW

MAIN IDEA
In order to defeat Japan and
end the war in the Pacific,
the United States unleashed
a terrible new weapon, the
atomic bomb.

Countries of the modern world

struggle to find ways to prevent
the use of nuclear weapons.

Terms & Names

Douglas
MacArthur
Chester Nimitz
Battle of Midway
kamikaze

J. Robert
Oppenheimer
Hiroshima
Nagasaki
Nuremberg trials

One American's Story

The writer William Manchester left college after Pearl
Harbor to join the marines. Manchester says that, as
a child, his horror of violence had been so deepseated that I had been unable to trade punches with
other boys. On a Pacific island, he would have to
confront that horror the first time he killed a man in
face-to-face combat. Manchesters target was a
Japanese sniper firing on Manchesters buddies from
a fishermans shack.

A PERSONAL VOICE WILLIAM MANCHESTER

My mouth was dry, my legs quaking, and my eyes

from Goodbye Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War

The Pacific War was a savage conflict fought with raw courage. Few who took
part in that fearsome struggle would return home unchanged.

The Allies Stem the Japanese Tide

While the Allies agreed that the defeat of the Nazis was their first priority, the
United States did not wait until V-E Day to move against Japan. Fortunately, the
Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 had missed the Pacific Fleets submarines.
Even more importantly, the attack had missed the fleets aircraft carriers, which
were out at sea at the time.

578

CHAPTER 17

out of focus. Then my vision cleared. I . . . kicked

the door with my right foot, and leapt inside. . . .
I . . . saw him as a blur to my right. . . . My first shot missed him, embedding itself
in the straw wall, but the second caught him dead-on . . . . A wave of blood
gushed from the wound. . . . He dipped a hand in it and listlessly smeared his
cheek red. . . . Almost immediately a fly landed on his left eyeball. . . . A feeling of
disgust and self-hatred clotted darkly in my throat, gagging me.

American soldiers
on Leyte in the
Philippine Islands
in late 1944.

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Background
Allied forces held
out against
200,000 invading
Japanese troops
for four months on
the Bataan
Peninsula. Hunger,
disease, and
bombardments
killed 14,000
Allied troops and
wounded 48,000.

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JAPANESE ADVANCES In the first six months after Pearl

Harbor, the Japanese conquered an empire that dwarfed
Hitlers Third Reich. On the Asian mainland, Japanese
troops overran Hong Kong, French Indochina, Malaya,
Burma, Thailand, and much of China. They also swept
south and east across the Pacific, conquering the Dutch East
Indies, Guam, Wake Island, the Solomon Islands, and
countless other outposts in the ocean, including two
islands in the Aleutian chain, which were part of Alaska.
In the Philippines, 80,000 American and Filipino
troops battled the Japanese for control. At the time of the
Japanese invasion in December 1941, General Douglas
MacArthur was in command of Allied forces on the
islands. When American and Filipino forces found themselves with their backs to the wall on Bataan, President
Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to leave. On March 11, 1942,
MacArthur left the Philippines with his wife, his son, and
his staff. As he left, he pledged to the many thousands of
men who did not make it out, I shall return.
DOOLITTLES RAID In the spring of 1942, the Allies began
to turn the tide against the Japanese. The push began on
April 18 with a daring raid on Tokyo and other Japanese
cities. Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led 16 bombers in
the attack. The next day, Americans awoke to headlines that
read Tokyo Bombed! Doolittle Dood It. Pulling off a Pearl
Harborstyle air raid over Japan lifted Americas sunken
spirits. At the same time, it dampened spirits in Japan.

HISTORICAL

S P O TLIG H T
NAVAJO CODE TALKERS
On each of the Pacific islands
that American troops stormed in
World War II, the Japanese heard
a strange language gurgling in
their radio headsets. The code
seemed to have Asian overtones,
but it baffled everyone who heard
it. In fact, the language was
Navajo, which was spoken only in
the American Southwest and traditionally had no alphabet or other
written symbols. Its hiddenness
made it a perfect candidate for a
code language.
Though the Navajo had no
words for combat terms, they
developed terms such as chicken
hawk for divebomber and war
chief for commanding general.
Throughout the Pacific campaignfrom Midway to Iwo
Jimathe code talkers were
considered indispensable to the
war effort. They finally received
national recognition in 1969.

BATTLE OF THE CORAL SEA The main Allied

forces in the Pacific were Americans and Australians.
In May 1942 they succeeded in stopping the Japanese
drive toward Australia in the five-day Battle of the
Coral Sea. During this battle, the fighting was done
by airplanes that took off from enormous aircraft carriers. Not a single shot was fired by surface ships. For
the first time since Pearl Harbor, a Japanese invasion
had been stopped and turned back.

MAIN IDEA

Comparing
A In what ways
were the American
victory at Midway
and the Japanese
triumph at Pearl
Harbor alike?

A. Answer
Both were surprise naval
attacks that
resulted in substantial destruction of the
enemys fleet.

THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY Japans next thrust was

toward Midway, a strategic island which lies northwest of Hawaii. Here again the Allies succeeded in
stopping the Japanese. Americans had broken the
Japanese code and knew that Midway was to be their
next target.
Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander of
American naval forces in the Pacific, moved to defend
the island. On June 3, 1942, his scout planes found the Japanese fleet. The
Americans sent torpedo planes and dive bombers to the attack. The Japanese were
caught with their planes still on the decks of their carriers. The results were devastating. By the end of the Battle of Midway, the Japanese had lost four aircraft
carriers, a cruiser, and 250 planes. In the words of a Japanese official, at Midway
the Americans had avenged Pearl Harbor. A
The Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific War. Soon the
Allies began island hopping. Island by island they won territory back from the
Japanese. With each island, Allied forces moved closer to Japan.

Four hundred
Navajo were
recruited into the
Marine Corps as
code talkers.
Their primary duty
was transmitting
telephone and
radio messages.

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War in the Pacific and in Europe

U.S.

declares
war on Japan.

PACIFIC
1941

Apr Jun

EUROPE

Germany invades the

Union.
Germany invades Greece
and Yugoslavia.
Soviet

1942

Dec

U.S. surrenders Bataan in the Philippines.

Allies turn back Japanese fleet in Battle of the Coral Sea.
Allies defeat Japan in Battle of Midway.

U.S. Marines land on Guadalcanal.

Apr May Jun Aug

Hitler orders
attack on
Stalingrad.

Germany and Italy declare

war on the United States.

1943 Feb

Nov

Allies land in
Africa.

May

German
troops surrender at
Stalingrad.

North

Axis
forces
surrender
in North
Africa.

World War II: The War in the Pacific, 19421945

ALASKA
(U.S.)
Bering Sea

S O V IET
U NIO N

nds
Isla
tian
u
e
l
A
Attu I.

Ku

Beijing

Allied air supply

route to China
Kohima
Imphal

Chongqing

Ledo Road

15N

Luzon
THAILAND

Manila

BRUNEI
MALAYA

Battle of Midway,
June 1942
30N

Iwo Jima,
Feb.Mar. 1945

Pearl Harbor

Tropic of Cancer
Mariana
Islands

PHILIPPINES
Philippine Sea,
June 1944

INDOCHINA Mindoro

South
China
Sea

Palau I.
Leyte Gulf,
Oct. 1944

Wake I.

Saipan,
JuneJuly 1944
Enewetak,
Guam,
Feb. 1944
JulyAug.
1944
Marshall Is.
Kwajalein,
Caroline Is.
Peleliu,
Jan.Feb. 1944
Sept.Nov. 1944

Su

Tarawa,
Nov. 1943
Bougainville,
Mar. 1944
Solomon Is.

ma

Equator

tra

Hollandia

Borneo

New Guinea Rabaul

D U T C H

E A S T

Hawaiian Is.
(U.S.)

Tinian I.

Singapore
0

45N

Tokyo

Hong Kong
Rangoon

Hiroshima,
Aug. 6, 1945

Formosa

BURMA

ril 1942
aid, Ap
tle R
olit
o
D

Okinawa,
AprilJune
1945

Kunming

r il

sl
eI

PACIFIC OCEAN

Shanghai

Burma Road

INDIA

JAPAN

KOREA
Nagasaki,
Aug. 9, 1945

CHINA

Sakhalin

MANCHURIA

nd

MONGOLIA

I N D I E S

PAPUA

15N

Japanese Empire and conquest

Major Allied campaign

Gilbert Is.

Limit of Japanese advance

Atomic bombing
Major battle

Java
Coral Sea,
May 1942

INDIAN OCEAN

Guadalcanal,
Aug. 1942Feb. 1943

15S

0
0

AUSTRALIA

Coral Sea

800
800

1,600 miles

1,600 kilometers

Fiji Is.

GEOGRAPHY SKILLBUILDER
1. Movement Which island served as a jumping-off point for several Pacific battles?

2. Human-Environment Interaction How

do you think the distances between the
Pacific islands affected U.S. naval strategy?

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CHAPTER 17

165E

180

165W

150W

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Jul

1944

Sep

Allies
invade
Sicily.

Italy secretly
surrenders
to Allies.

May

Allies win Battle of

the Philippine Sea.

Jun Jul Aug

Allies win Battle

of Leyte Gulf.

Oct

Dec

1945

Allies capture
Iwo Jima.

Mar Apr

Germans attack Allies

Battle of the Bulge.
Soviets first liberate death camps.
Allies invade Europe on D-Day.
"Bloody Anzio" ends.

Allies liberate Paris.

in

Allies capture Okinawa.

U.S. drops atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Japan surrenders.

May Jun
V-E

1946

Aug Sep

Day ends war in Europe.

Italians

execute Mussolini.
Hitler commits suicide.

The Allies Go on the Offensive

The first Allied offensive began in August 1942 when 19,000 troops stormed
Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. By the time the Japanese abandoned
Guadalcanal six months later, they called it the Island of Death. To war correspondent Ralph Martin and the troops who fought there, it was simply hell.

A PERSONAL VOICE RALPH G. MARTIN

Hell was red furry spiders as big as your fist, giant lizards as long as your leg,
leeches falling from trees to suck blood, armies of white ants with a bite of fire,
scurrying scorpions inflaming any flesh they touched, enormous rats and bats
everywhere, and rivers with waiting crocodiles. Hell was the sour, foul smell of the
squishy jungle, humidity that rotted a body within hours, . . . stinking wet heat of
dripping rain forests that sapped the strength of any man.
The GI War

Skillbuilder
Answers
1. Guam.
2. The distances
meant that the
Allies had to
leapfrog from
one island to
another, causing
great difficulties
in transporting
goods and men.

B. Answer
The battle was a
disaster for
Japan. From
then on, the
Imperial Navy
played only a
minor role in the
defense of
Japan.
MAIN IDEA

Drawing
Conclusions
B Why was the
Battle of Leyte
Gulf so crucial to
the Allies?

Guadalcanal marked Japans first defeat on land, but not its last. The
Americans continued leapfrogging across the Pacific toward Japan, and in October
1944, some 178,000 Allied troops and 738 ships converged on Leyte Island in the
Philippines. General MacArthur, who had left the Philippines two years earlier,
waded ashore and announced, People of the Philippines: I have returned.

THE JAPANESE DEFENSE The Japanese threw their entire fleet into the Battle
of Leyte Gulf. They also tested a new tactic, the kamikaze (kQmGkPzC), or
suicide-plane, attack in which Japanese pilots crashed their bomb-laden planes
into Allied ships. (Kamikaze means divine wind and refers to a legendary
typhoon that saved Japan in 1281 by destroying
a Mongol invasion.) In the Philippines, 424
kamikaze pilots embarked on suicide missions,
sinking 16 ships and damaging another 80.
Americans watched these terrifying attacks
with a strange mixture of respect and pity
according to Vice Admiral Charles Brown. You
have to admire the devotion to country demonstrated by those pilots, recalled Seaman George
Marse. Yet, when they were shot down, rescued
and brought aboard our ship, we were surprised
to find the pilots looked like ordinary, scared
young men, not the wide-eyed fanatical devils
we imagined them to be.
Despite the damage done by the kamikazes, the Battle of Leyte Gulf was a disaster for Japan. In three days of battle, it lost 3 battleships, 4 aircraft carriers, 13
cruisers, and almost 500 planes. From then on, the Imperial Navy played only a
minor role in the defense of Japan. B

Japanese
kamikaze pilots
receive a briefing
on the mission
that would be
their last.

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History Through
RAISING THE FLAG ON IWO JIMA

Photographer Lou Lowery documented the men

of Easy Company hoisting an American flag on
a makeshift pole atop Mount Suribachi. But the
original flag was soon taken down to be kept as
a souvenir by the commanding officer.

On February 19, 1945, the war in Europe was nearing its end, but
in the Pacific one of the fiercest battles of World War II was about
to erupt. On that day, 70,000 marines converged on the tiny,
Japanese-controlled island of Iwo Jima. Four days later, they had
captured Mount Suribachi, the islands highest point, but the battle
for Iwo Jima would rage on for four more weeks.

Six marines were sent to replace the flag with an even

larger one. Joe Rosenthal, a wire-service photographer,
saw the second flag raising, grabbed his camera, and
clicked off a frame without even looking through his
viewfinder. Rosenthals photo appeared the next morning
on the front pages of American newspapers. In the minds
of Americans, it immediately replaced the gloomy, blurred
images of Pearl Harbor going up in flames.

SKILLBUILDER Interpeting Visual Sources

1. One of the Mount Suribachi images became one of the most
recognized, most reproduced images of World War II. Study the
details and point of view in each photo. Explain why you think
Rosenthals image, rather than Lowerys, became important.
2. What human qualities or events do you think Rosenthals
photograph symbolizes?
SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R23.

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IWO JIMA After retaking much of the Philippines and liberating the American prisoners of war there, MacArthur and
the Allies turned to Iwo Jima, an island that writer William
Manchester later described as an ugly, smelly glob of cold
lava squatting in a surly ocean. Iwo Jima (which means
sulfur island in Japanese) was critical to the United States
as a base from which heavily loaded bombers might reach
Japan. It was also perhaps the most heavily defended spot
on earth, with 20,700 Japanese troops entrenched in tunnels and caves. More than 6,000 marines died taking this
desolate island, the greatest number in any battle in the
Pacific to that point. Only 200 Japanese survived. Just one
obstacle now stood between the Allies and a final assault on
Japanthe island of Okinawa.

MAIN IDEA

Drawing
Conclusions
C Why was
Okinawa a
significant island
in the war in the
Pacific?

C. Answer
It was the last
island that stood
between the
Allies and a final
assault on
Japan. The
battle itself was
a foretaste of
what the Allies
imagined the
final invasion of
Japan would be.

THE BATTLE FOR OKINAWA In April 1945, U.S. Marines

invaded Okinawa. The Japanese unleashed more than 1,900
kamikaze attacks on the Allies during the Okinawa campaign, sinking 30 ships, damaging more than 300 more,
and killing almost 5,000 seamen.
Once ashore, the Allies faced even fiercer opposition
than on Iwo Jima. By the time the fighting ended on
June 21, 1945, more than 7,600 Americans had died. But
the Japanese paid an even ghastlier price110,000 lives
in defending Okinawa. This total included two generals
who chose ritual suicide over the shame of surrender. A witness to this ceremony described their end: A simultaneous
shout and a flash of the sword . . . and both generals had
nobly accomplished their last duty to their Emperor.
The Battle for Okinawa was a chilling foretaste of what
the Allies imagined the invasion of Japans home islands
would be. Churchill predicted the cost would be a million
American lives and half that number of British lives. C

KEY PLAYER

DOUGLAS MACARTHUR
18801964
Douglas MacArthur was too arrogant and prickly to be considered
a regular guy by his troops. But
he was arguably the most brilliant
Allied strategist of World War II.
For every American soldier killed
in his campaigns, the Japanese
lost ten.
He was considered a real hero
of the war, both by the military
and by the prisoners on the
Philippines, whom he freed.
MacArthur took more territory
with less loss of life, observed
journalist John Gunther, than any
military commander since Darius
the Great [king of Persia,
522486 B.C.].

The Atomic Bomb Ends the War

The taking of Iwo Jima and Okinawa opened the way for an invasion of Japan.
However, Allied leaders knew that such an invasion would become a desperate
struggle. Japan still had a huge army that would defend every inch of homeland.
President Truman saw only one way to avoid an invasion of Japan. He decided to
use a powerful new weapon that had been developed by scientists working on the
Manhattan Projectthe atomic bomb.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT Led by General Leslie Groves with research directed by American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the development of the
atomic bomb was not only the most ambitious scientific enterprise in history, it
was also the best-kept secret of the war. At its peak, more than 600,000 Americans
were involved in the project, although few knew its purpose. Even Truman did
not learn about it until he became president.
The first test of the new bomb took place on the morning of July 16, 1945, in
an empty expanse of desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. A blinding flash,
which was visible 180 miles away, was followed by a deafening roar as a tremendous shock wave rolled across the trembling desert. Otto Frisch, a scientist on the
project, described the huge mushroom cloud that rose over the desert as a redhot elephant standing balanced on its trunk. The bomb worked!

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President Truman now faced a difficult decision. Should the Allies use the
bomb to bring an end to the war? Truman did not hesitate. On July 25, 1945, he
ordered the military to make final plans for dropping two atomic bombs on
Japanese targets. A day later, the United States warned Japan that it faced prompt
and utter destruction unless it surrendered at once. Japan
refused. Truman later wrote, The final decision of where
and when to use the atomic bomb was up to me. Let there
be no mistake about it. I regarded the bomb as a military
weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used.

HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI On August 6, a B-29

bomber named Enola Gay released an atomic bomb, codenamed Little Boy, over Hiroshima, an important
Japanese military center. Forty-three seconds later, almost
every building in the city collapsed into dust from the
force of the blast. Hiroshima had ceased to exist. Still,
Japans leaders hesitated to surrender. Three days later, a
second bomb, code-named Fat Man, was dropped on
Nagasaki, leveling half the city. By the end
of the year, an estimated 200,000 people
had died as a result of injuries and radiation
poisoning caused by the atomic blasts.
Yamaoka Michiko was 15 years old and living near the center of Hiroshima when the
first bomb hit.

A PERSONAL VOICE YAMAOKA MICHIKO

They say temperatures of 7,000 degrees centigrade hit me. . . .
Nobody there looked like human beings. . . . Humans had lost the
ability to speak. People couldnt scream, It hurts! even when they
were on fire. . . . People with their legs wrenched off. Without
heads. Or with faces burned and swollen out of shape. The scene I
saw was a living hell.
quoted in Japan at War: An Oral History

Hiroshima in ruins following

the atomic bomb blast on
August 6, 1945

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CHAPTER 17

Emperor Hirohito was horrified by the destruction wrought by

the bomb. I cannot bear to see my innocent people suffer any
longer, he told Japans leaders tearfully. Then he ordered them to
draw up papers to end the
war. On September 2, formal
surrender ceremonies took
place on the U.S. battleship
Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Today
the guns are silent, said
General MacArthur in a speech
marking this historic moment.
The skies no longer rain
deaththe seas bear only
commercemen everywhere
walk upright in the sunlight.
The entire world is quietly at
peace.

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P O I N T

COUNTERPOINT

The only way to end the war against Japan was to

Japans staggering losses were enough to force
bomb the Japanese mainland.
Japans surrender.
Many advisors to President Truman, including Secretary
Many of the scientists who had worked on the bomb, as
of War Henry Stimson, had this point of view. They felt
well as military leaders and civilian policymakers, had
the bomb would end the war and save American lives.
doubts about using it. Dr. Leo Szilard, a Hungarian-born
Stimson said, The face of war is the face of death.
physicist who had helped President Roosevelt launch
Some scientists working on the bomb agreed
the project and who had a major role in developing the
even more so as the casualty figures from Iwo Jima
bomb, was a key figure opposing its use.
and Okinawa sank in. Are we to go on shedding
A petition drawn up by Szilard and signed by 70
American blood when we have available a means to a
other scientists argued that it would be immoral to drop
steady victory? they petitioned. No! If we can save
an atomic bomb on Japan without fair warning. Many
even a handful of American lives, then let us use this
supported staging a demonstration of the bomb for
weaponnow!
Japanese leaders, perhaps by exploding one on a
Two other concerns pushed Americans to use the
deserted island near Japan, to convince the Japanese
bomb. Some people feared that if the bomb were not
to surrender.
dropped, the project might be viewed as a gigantic
Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D.
waste of money.
Eisenhower agreed. He maintained that dropping the
The second consideration involved the Soviet
bomb was completely unnecessary to save American
Union. Tension and distrust were already developing
lives and that Japan was already defeated. Ike told
between the Western
Secretary of War Henry
THINKING CRITICALLY
Allies and the Soviets.
Stimson, I was against it
Some American officials
[the bomb] on two counts.
1. CONNECT TO HISTORY Summarizing What were the
believed that a successFirst the Japanese were
main arguments for and against dropping the atomic
ful use of the atomic
ready to surrender and it
bomb on Japan?
bomb would give the
wasnt necessary to hit
SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R4.
United States a powerful
them with that awful thing.
advantage over the
Second, I hated to see our
2. CONNECT TO TODAY Evaluating Decisions Do you
Soviets in shaping the
country be the first to use
think the United States was justified in using the bomb
postwar world.
such a weapon.
against the Japanese? In a paragraph, explain why or
why not.

Rebuilding Begins
D. Answer
Roosevelt
wanted Soviet
help in the war
against Japan;
He also wanted
Soviet cooperation in establishing the United
Nations.
MAIN IDEA

Analyzing
Motives
D Why was
Roosevelt anxious
to make
concessions to
Stalin concerning
the fate of postwar
Germany?

With Japans surrender, the Allies turned to the challenge of rebuilding war-torn
nations. Even before the last guns fell silent, they began thinking about principles
that would govern the postwar world.

THE YALTA CONFERENCE In February 1945, as the Allies pushed toward victory in Europe, an ailing Roosevelt had met with Churchill and Stalin at the Black
Sea resort city of Yalta in the Soviet Union. Stalin graciously welcomed the president and the prime minister, and the Big Three, as they were called, toasted the
defeat of Germany that now seemed certain.
For eight grueling days, the three leaders discussed the fate of Germany and the
postwar world. Stalin, his country devastated by German forces, favored a harsh
approach. He wanted to keep Germany divided into occupation zonesareas
controlled by Allied military forcesso that Germany would never again threaten
the Soviet Union.
When Churchill strongly disagreed, Roosevelt acted as a mediator. He was
prepared to make concessions to Stalin for two reasons. First, he hoped that the
Soviet Union would stand by its commitments to join the war against Japan that
was still waging in the Pacific. (The first test of the atom bomb was still five
months away.) Second, Roosevelt wanted Stalins support for a new world peacekeeping organization, to be named the United Nations. D

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The historic meeting at Yalta produced a series of compromises. To pacify

Stalin, Roosevelt convinced Churchill to agree to a temporary division of
Germany into four zones, one each for the Americans, the British, the Soviets,
and the French. Churchill and Roosevelt assumed that, in time, all the zones
would be brought together in a reunited Germany. For his part, Stalin promised
free and unfettered elections in Poland and other Soviet-occupied Eastern
European countries.
Stalin also agreed to join in the war against Japan. That struggle was expected
to continue for another year or more. In addition, he agreed to participate in an
international conference to take place in April in San Francisco. There, Roosevelts
dream of a United Nations (UN) would become a reality. E

THE NUREMBERG WAR TRIALS Besides geographic division, Germany had

another price to pay for its part in the war. The discovery of Hitlers death camps
led the Allies to put 24 surviving Nazi leaders on trial for crimes against humanity, crimes against the peace, and war crimes. The trials were held in the southern
German town of Nuremberg.
At the Nuremberg trials, the defendants included Hitlers most trusted
party officials, government ministers, military leaders, and powerful industrialists. As the trial began, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson explained the
significance of the event.

A PERSONAL VOICE ROBERT JACKSON

The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so
malignant and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored
because it cannot survive their being repeated. . . . It is hard now to perceive in
these miserable men . . . the power by which as Nazi leaders they once dominated
much of the world and terrified most of it. Merely as individuals, their fate is of
little consequence to the world. What makes this inquest significant is that
these prisoners represent sinister influences that will lurk in the world long after
their bodies have returned to dust. They are living symbols of racial hatreds, of
terrorism and violence, and of the arrogance and cruelty of power. . . . Civilization
can afford no compromise with the social forces which would gain renewed
strength if we deal ambiguously or indecisively with the men in whom those
forces now precariously survive.
quoted in opening address to the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial

War Criminals on Trial, 19451949

Each defendant at the Nuremberg trials was
accused of one or more of the following
crimes:
Crimes Against the Peaceplanning and
waging an aggressive war
War Crimesacts against the customs of
warfare, such as the killing of hostages and
prisoners, the plundering of private property,
and the destruction of towns and cities
Crimes Against Humanitythe murder,
extermination, deportation, or enslavement
of civilians

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CHAPTER 17

MAIN IDEA

Summarizing
E What
decisions did
Roosevelt,
Churchill, and
Stalin make at the
Yalta Conference?

E. Answer
They agreed to
a temporary
division of
Germany into
four zones;
Stalin promised
that Sovietoccupied
Eastern
European countries would have
free elections;
Stalin agreed to
send troops to
defeat Japan;
Stalin agreed to
the establishment of the
United Nations.

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In the end, 12 of the 24 defendants were sentenced to death, and most of the
remaining were sent to prison. In later trials of lesser leaders, nearly 200 more
Nazis were found guilty of war crimes. Still, many people have argued that the trials
did not go far enough in seeking out and punishing war criminals. Many Nazis
who took part in the Holocaust did indeed go free.
Yet no matter how imperfect the trials might have been, they did I was only
establish an important principlethe idea that individuals are
following
responsible for their own actions, even in times of war. Nazi execuorders.
tioners could not escape punishment by claiming that they were
merely following orders. The principle of individual responsibility DEFENDANTS AT THE
NUREMBERG TRIALS
was now firmly entrenched in international law.

THE OCCUPATION OF JAPAN Japan was occupied by U.S. forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. In the early years of the occupation, more
than 1,100 Japanese, from former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo to lowly prison
guards, were arrested and put on trial. Seven, including Tojo, were sentenced to
death. In the Philippines, in China, and in other Asian battlegrounds, additional
Japanese officials were tried for atrocities against civilians or prisoners of war.
During the seven-year American occupation, MacArthur reshaped Japans
economy by introducing free-market practices that led to a remarkable economic
recovery. MacArthur also worked to transform Japans government. He called for
a new constitution that would provide for woman suffrage and guarantee basic
freedoms. In the United States, Americans followed these changes with interest.
The New York Times reported that General MacArthur . . . has swept away an
autocratic regime by a warrior god and installed in its place a democratic government presided over by a very human emperor and based on the will of the
people as expressed in free elections. The Japanese apparently agreed. To this
day, their constitution is known as the MacArthur Constitution.

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its significance.
Douglas MacArthur
Chester Nimitz

Battle of Midway
kamikaze

J. Robert Oppenheimer
Hiroshima

MAIN IDEA

CRITICAL THINKING

2. TAKING NOTES
Using a chart such as the one
below, describe the significance of
key military actions in the Pacific
during World War II.

3. DEVELOPING HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE
At the trials, many Nazis defended
themselves by saying they were only
following orders. What does this
rationale tell you about the German
military? Why was it important to
negate this justification?

Military Action

Significance

1.
2.
3.
4.

4. DRAWING CONCLUSIONS
Explain how the United States was
able to defeat the Japanese in the
Pacific.

Nagasaki
Nuremberg trials

5. EVALUATING DECISIONS
Is it legitimate to hold people
accountable for crimes committed
during wartime? Why or why not?
Think About:
the laws that govern society
the likelihood of conducting a
fair trial
the behavior of soldiers, politicians, and civilians during war

5.

Which military action was a turning

point for the Allies?

The United States in World War II

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