The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

Island Hopping 729

In the autumn of 1943 the American drives
toward Japan and the Philippines got under way at last.
In the central Pacific campaign the Guadalcanal action
was repeated on a smaller but equally bloody scale
from Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands to Kwajelein and
Eniwetok in the Marshalls. The Japanese soldiers on
these islands fought for every foot of ground. They
had to be blasted and burned from tunnels and con-
crete pillboxes with hand grenades, flamethrowers, and
dynamite. They almost never surrendered. But Admiral
Nimitz’s forces were in every case victorious. By mid-
summer of 1944 this arm of the American advance had
taken Saipan and Guam in the Marianas. Now land-
based bombers were within range of Tokyo.
Meanwhile, MacArthur was leapfrogging along
the New Guinea coast toward the Philippines. In

Atomic bomb

Midway

June,1942

Tarawa

Nov.,1943

Guadalcanal

Aug.,1942–

Feb.,1943

Saipan

June,1944

Philippine Sea

June 19–20, 1944

Leyte Gulf,

October 23–25,

1944

Iwo Jima

Feb.–March 1945

Coral Sea

May,1942

Okinawa

April–June,1945

Bataan Death March

April,1942

SOVIET UNION

(USSR)

MONGOLIA

CHINA

BRITISH

INDIA

JAPAN

MARSHALL

ISLANDS

GILBERT

CAROLINE ISLANDS

ISLANDS

MARIANA

ISLANDS

SOLOMON

ISLANDS

TIBET

BURMA

(Britain)

DUTCH EAST INDIES

THAILAND

MALAYA

(Britain)

INDOCHINA

(France)

BRUNEI

BORNEO

NORTH

BORNEO

PHILIPPINES

(U.S.A.)

NORTHEAST

NEW GUINEA

PAPUA

NEW GUINEA

AUSTRALIA

MANCHUKUO

Tokyo

March 1945

Hiroshima

August 6, 1945

Seoul

Vladivostok

Beijing

Nanjing

Nagasaki

August 9, 1945

Shanghai

Saigon

Bangkok

Hong Kong

Singapore

Manilla

Port

Moresby

PACIFIC

OCEAN

South

China

Sea

Coral

Sea

Yellow

Sea

Bay of

Bengal

Japanese Empire 1936

Extent of Japanese control,

Aug. 1942

Extent of Japanese control

in the Pacific

Allied powers

Neutral

Allied forces

Major battles

World War II Pacific TheatreAfter the Battle of Midway (June, 1942), the United States began to seize one Pacific island after another, with one
task force pushing west from Pearl Harbor, and another moving north from Australia.

October 1944 he made good his promise to return

to the islands, landing on Leyte, south of Luzon.

Two great naval clashes in Philippine waters, the

Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 1944) and the

Battle for Leyte Gulf (October 1944), completed

the destruction of Japan’s sea power and reduced its

air force to a band of fanatical suicide pilots called

kamikazes, who tried to crash bomb-laden planes

into American warships and airstrips. The kamikazes

caused much damage but could not turn the tide. In

February 1945 MacArthur liberated Manila.

The end was now inevitable. B-29 Superfortress

bombers from the Marianas rained high explosives

and firebombs on Japan. The islands of Iwo Jima

and Okinawa, only a few hundred miles from Tokyo,

fell to the Americans in March and June 1945. But