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US history
Course: US history > Unit 7
Lesson 5: World War II- Beginning of World War II
- 1940 - Axis gains momentum in World War II
- 1941 Axis momentum accelerates in WW2
- Pearl Harbor
- FDR and World War II
- Japanese internment
- American women and World War II
- 1942 Tide turning in World War II in Europe
- World War II in the Pacific in 1942
- 1943 Axis losing in Europe
- American progress in the Pacific in 1944
- 1944 - Allies advance further in Europe
- 1945 - End of World War II
- The Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb
- The United Nations
- The Second World War
- Shaping American national identity from 1890 to 1945
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American progress in the Pacific in 1944
The Allies, mainly the US, aimed to get closer to Japan in 1944. They captured key islands, like Kwajalein and the Mariana Islands, for airstrips to launch B-29 bombing raids. The US also focused on reclaiming the Philippines, controlling shipping lanes and cutting off Japan's resources. The Battle of Leyte Gulf severely weakened Japan's navy.
Want to join the conversation?
- How come the Battle of Leyte Gulf kept Japan from keeping the Philippines?(52 votes)
- Because the Americans destroyed most of the Japanese navy. As a result, the US Navy indisputablely ruled the waves, preventing the Japanese from safely transporting soldiers and supplies to the Philippines to support their troops.(80 votes)
- Why is the battle of Leyte gulf so important?I mean you have other parts of Philippines as well,Right?(15 votes)
- The Battle of Leyte Gulf was important for several reasons.
First of all, the Japanese lost all of their aircraft carriers and most of their battleships. The Japanese were at a point where they were unable to replace these losses.
Second, this battle is considered the largest naval battle in history and was the first battle with organized kamikaze attacks.
Lastly, as a result of the battle the Americans were able to invade the Philippines with infantry and take it back from Japan without the interference of the Japanese navy. The Philippines were strategic for a couple reasons, including that the Japanese had no other source of oil. In addition, after losing the Philippines the Japanese were unable to send reinforcements to their armies in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and other various islands still controlled by the Japanese, making it much easier for the Allies to recapture those places.
I hope this helps you!(51 votes)
- Why did the Japanese need more natural resources? They didn't have enough of their own?(13 votes)
- Japan doesn't really have a lot of natural resources. Even right now, it has really small oil fields, is short on petroleum, and doesn't have a lot of coal. Also, Japan is covered in forests, which make it hard to get resources. (and to farm)(7 votes)
- Were the battleships yammamoto and musashi big parts in the Battle of Leyte Gulf?(6 votes)
- By Yamamoto, do you mean Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto? In that case, he died a year before the battle during Operation Vengeance. As for battleship Musashi, its part was important in the battle as one of the few yamato-class ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. But it was sunk in that very battle.(22 votes)
- Who was the leader for Japan?(7 votes)
- While they called him Hirohito during his lifetime, he is now known as Emperor Showa, as the Chinese and Japanese rename their emperors after death.(6 votes)
- If American troops would anyways overrun Japan, why nuke it.(5 votes)
- To take back the Philippines took the American troops months, and many soldiers died. For the Americans to take Okinawa it was more than two months of fighting. Unlike the Germans, the Japanese did not surrender when they were outnumbered. They kept fighting, believing that it was more honorable to die in battle than to give up to an enemy.
Given the prior American experience, it was judged that to overrun Japan would take a long time, and that many American soldiers would die in the fighting. The atomic bomb was a way for the Americans to demonstrate that there was nothing to gain by staying at war, and everything to lose.(10 votes)
- How come the battle of Okinwana was so bloody(6 votes)
- Plenty of the battles in the Pacific were already quite brutal for the Americans due to various Japanese traps, featuring anything from foxholes and tanks buried underground to protect defensive units, coastal batteries, various traps hidden in the jungle, and more. However Okinawa was especially destructive for both sides due to heavy shelling on Japanese positions from ships on the coast, the many civilian casualties, use of children in combat, and many other factors that added to the casualties total.(5 votes)
- If japan was within bombing range from the soviets why did't they just bomb from there, a few Marines might have kept there lives that way.(6 votes)
- Well soviet was quite busy in the western fighting Germany, and they would hate to get a few marines out there.espically after stalingrad and leningrad(3 votes)
- Wait so why not set up an airstrip in Philippines to carpet bomb the Japanese(3 votes)
- Just a rule of thumb-
Farther distance=more fuel needed.
More fuel=more weight.
More Weight= less lifting capacity for bombs
Less Bombs= more runs for same eect
More runs=more expensive both in lives and equipment.(9 votes)
- Any idea how many bases the United States had in the Philippines at the end of WWII? My father served on an army field hospital!. Thanks! good luck and good learning(5 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] We're now entering into 1944 where the Americans and
the Allies are able to go even more on the offensive
versus the Japanese and get closer and closer to Japan, get in bombing range of Japan and deprive the Japanese of, I guess you could say,
their forward bases. And so right as we enter into 1944, and once again I'm giving you an overview I'm not giving every
single battle that occurs, the Unites States is
able to take Kwajalein. Which, once again, the strategic
value of a lot of these, these islands are tiny they're barely large enough
to have primitive bases plus, kind of an air field, but they're incredibly valuable because the bombers can land,
refuel, get resupplied and then take off from there and then be on the
offensive even further in. I guess you could say
in Japanese territory. And with the taking on Kwajalein, just as a bit of a reminder, the Americans, amongst other things, now had control of the Soloman Islands. They now have control of the
Marshall and Gilbert Islands. They now have control of the
Marshall and Gilbert Islands. And as we'll see, the real theme of 1944 as we get into the middle
of and the end of the year is to get as close as possible
to the Japanese mainland. Because the Americans now had a B-29, or they had the B-29 bomber
that had a 1500 mile radius. 1500 mile, I guess I
could say 1500 mile range. Which means if they're
able to get points of where their bombers
could land and take off, and once again these bombsers
are way too large and heavy to land on a carrier, but if they can find islands
where they can do that from within a 1500 mile range of Japan then the United States
could have bombing attacks directly on Japan and
hopefully get closer to an end to the war. So that was really the theme, get as close as possible to Japan and then there was a secondary theme of take back The Philippines. One, it was a matter of pride,
it was a former US possession ever since the Spanish-American War. But then on top of that, The Philippines are incredibly
strategic for shipping lanes from Indonesia, remember
those raw materials, those resources, that
oil that Japan wanted from Indonesia. If you control The Philippines you're gonna control the
shipping lanes between Indonesia and Japan. So you could deprive Japan
of those natural resources. So The United States' kind of main focal areas in 1944, get as close as possible to
Japan, get within bombing range, and take The Philippines. And this is exactly what they did. As we go into the summer of 1944, and one, there were some, as
early as the summer of 1944, some bombing raids that
took off in China to Japan with the new B-29s. So you do have some of these
that happened as early, some of these bombing
raids happened as early as summer of 1944. But in terms of actual
islands, or territory The United States takes or takes back in the summer, in June of 1944, you have The Battle of the Philippine Sea. So Battle of Philippine
Sea occurs right around, right around here. It's a victory for The US.
It's a victory for The US. And it ends up really, really hurting Japanese ability to field carriers, have air warfare from carriers because so much of their carrier capability was damaged in The
Battle of Philippine Sea. So, The Battle of Philippine Battle of the Philippine Sea this occurs in June 1944. And along with that, in the summer, the Allies are able to
take several islands in The Mariana Islands. Once again, this is
gonna be super important because from The Marianas,
they're able to launch B-29 bombing attacks on
the mainland in Japan. And so over that summer the Allies, the Americans in particular,
are able to take Saipan, they are able to take Guam, they are able to take Tinian, which is this little
island right over here. Some of these islands
are quite hard to find. They're super small, in fact, even these little dots
exaggerate their size, if you were to actually go onto
Google Maps or Google Earth you'll see how small these are. And I encourage you to look at them it's really fascinating to see how small some of these islands are. They're really atolls, a lot of these are more atolls then islands. Not all of them are atolls. But you see, they barely have enough space for a landing strip for
planes, especially the B-29s. And then as we go further into the summer and we start entering
kind of later in the year, the Americans are able to take, at the time what was called
Peleliu, now it's Palu. So Peleliu, they're able to take Morotai, and then perhaps most importantly in 1944, this might be the biggest
deal out of all of these pacific battles that
occur and all of these naval battles that occur, is The Battle of Leyte an
The Battle of Leyte Gulf. Because The Battle of Leyte was important because in the process of taking Leyte The United States essentially
is able to knock out the Japanese's ability to further defend, I mean they will continue, but realistically defend
the rest of The Philippines. So once Leyte is taken by the Allies the odds of the Japanese
being able to hold the rest of The Philippines
becomes very low. And maybe even more important, The Battle of Leyte Gulf, which
occurs right around there, it's an incredibly decisive
battle for the American Navy. The Japanese go all in, and
that bet is not a good one. The Japanese Navy is pretty much destroyed in The Battle of Leyte Gulf. And so 1944, once again, very good year for the Allies. Very bad year for the Japanese. Now the Allies are in control of they're in control of air strips, from which they can take B-29 raids to the mainland of Japan. So air strips, they can now, they're now within range to do bombing attacks on
the mainland of Japan, and they now are very likely
to control The Philippines and control the shipping
lanes from Indonesia to Japan and they've all but
destroyed the Japanese Navy. So, once again, things are not
looking very good for Japan. And as we go into 1945,
we'll see the Allies get closer and closer and get more intense bombing raids on Japan. And every time they get closer, the battles to take these islands, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, incredibly incredibly bloody and The United States says, 'Well what do we have to do to get the Japanese to surrender?' And we'll see what, at
least in the mind of Truman, needs to happen.