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The Battle of Midway dealt a devastating catastrophe for the Japanese naval and air capabilities with destroying four carriers, one heavy cruiser, 248 aircraft, and 3,057 personnel. The Americans lost one aircraft carrier, one destroyer, 150 aircraft, and 307 personnel. Historically, Midway has been considered the turning point in the Pacific theater of World War II. Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses, while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas that inevitably led denying Japan the ability to achieve its limited policy objective: to destroy the American carrier force in the Pacific and use the Aleutians and Midway Island as stepping stones for a Japanese invasion of Oahu in early 1943, which would force the Americans to negotiate for peace.
At the Battle of Midway in June of 1942, Admiral Chester Nimitz did the best job of addressing the issues of operational and strategic risk. First, Nimitz had a superior advantage of intelligence leading up to Midway that gave him the ability to understand the Japanese strategic and operational plan for the battle. Second, Nimitz had the industrial capacity and naval strength to match a portion of the Japanese fleet after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Third, Nimitz capitalized on a dispersed Japanese fleet with a concentrated force in a decisive naval battle. Finally, Nimitz had much less to lose than Yamamoto in a defeat at Midway, which shows that the U.S. was fighting a total war vis-à-vis Japan’s limited political objectives.
Nimitz’s Superior Intelligence
Nimitz had a superior advantage of intelligence leading up to Midway that gave him the ability to understand the Japanese strategic and operational pl...
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...capabilities after the battle at Coral Sea with repairing the Yorktown. Ultimately, Nimitz concentrated his forces to attack a portion of the Japanese fleet, which proved to be a major turning point in the Japanese expansion in the Pacific. This overall plan for Nimitz mitigated the risks to the American fleet while exploiting the weakness of the Japanese intelligence and dispersed fleet.
Bibliography
Baer, George W. One Hundred Years of Sea Power. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1993.
Parshall, Jonathan, Tully, Anthony, Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005.
Jones, Mike. “War in the Pacific.” Lecture, US Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey, CA, May 5-7, 2014.
Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan. New York: Free Press, 1985.
Tzu, Sun. The Art of War. Orange Publishing, 2013.
In May of 1942, Japanese Admiral Isorosku Yamamoto devised a plan to draw the US Pacific fleet into battle where he could completely destroy it. To accomplish this master plan of his, he sought out the invasion of Midway Island which would provide a base for the Japan troops to attack Hawaii. Unfortunately for Yamamoto, America decrypted Japanese radio transmissions and Admiral Chester Nimitz was able to establish a counter attack against this offensive. Nimitz sent three aircraft carriers, The USS Enterprise, The USS Hornet and The USS Yorktown to destroy the Japanese. This is just a short overview of The Battle of Midway, or as commonly referred to as, the battle that changed the war. People argue that it had no affect on the war, but those critics couldn’t be farther from the truth. The Battle of Midway was the turning point of the war because it fully enters America into the war, it kicked off the Pacific Campaign, and it had Japan on the defensive, thus preventing them from helping The Axis Forces.
To begin, the attack on Pearl Harbour was devastating to U.S. naval capabilities in the Pacific at the onset of their entry into the war. Japanese officials had grown tired of the U.S. oil embargo, which was meant to limit their territorial expansion and aggression in South-East Asia as well as China, and as negotiations weren’t reaching any conclusions they decided that the only course of action was a first strike on the aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbour to cripple U.S. naval capability in the Pacific (Rosenberg 1). The attack, which lasted about two hours, had resulted in the sinking of four battleships, among ...
World War II, along with its numerous battles, brought great tension between two of the strongest countries during the 1940s: the United States and Japan. Conflict between these two countries started with Japan’s push past Chinese borders into Manchuria in search of the natural resources Japan lacks. At first, the United States avoided military action with Japan by waging economic warfare on them. This economic pressure included the passing of the Neutrality Act, which prohibited the sale of weapons to nations at war (Nash 513). Additionally, the United States placed oil embargoes on Japan hoping it would force Japan to shut down military operations in China. Japan, at a critical decision point, decided to bomb the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. On December 7th, 1941 at 6 a.m., Japan pilots bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor, taking out the United States’ strongest battleships, killing thousands of people, and destroying hundreds of planes (Sherman). The day after Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan. Over the next few years, the United States and Japan fought fierce battles for dominance in the Pacific Ocean. One of the most important battles during the United States and Japanese war was the Battle of Midway. Japan was destroying the United States at sea, until the Battle of Midway gave the United States Pacific Fleet an edge on Japanese forces. The Battle of Midway was the most important naval engagement of World War II: it was a decisive battle that allowed the United States to be the dominant naval power in the Pacific and it marked a turning point in World War II for the United States.
Gailey, Harry. The War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay. Novato: Presidio, 1995.
Morison, Samuel, E. (1960). Victory in the pacific, 1945 – history of the united states naval operations in world war ii. (Vol. 14, p. 389). Boston: Little Brown.
The Battle of Iwo Jima In the early morning of 19 February 1945, United States Marines assigned to the 3rd, 4th and 5th Marine Division led the initial assault on the Japanese controlled island of Iwo Jima, with the objective of capturing and securing the island. This was the beginning of one of the fiercest and bloodiest and, more decisively, the most strategically important battles fought during World War II. After the dust had settled, and the smoke had cleared, the casualties and losses were astounding. 6,821 U.S. Marines along with 18,844 members of the Imperial Japanese Army had paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Even before the battle started, America saw his attack coming. Japan had bombed the Dutch harbor in Alaska on the days of June 3rd and 4th. Japan landed there instead of on the islands of Attu and Kiska, in fear the United States might be there. There attacks failed when the plan to get the American fleet from Midway to aid the freshly bombed Dutch harbor. At 0900 hours an American patrol boat spotted the Japanese fleet seven hundred miles from Midway. At that point admiral Soroku Yamamoto’s plans of a sneak attack were over. Admiral fletcher commanded the U.S.S. Yorktown before it was sunk by the Japanese. Then at 0750, japan spots nine enemy (American) planes fifteen miles out. Tones, a Japanese cruiser, opened fire on the American pilots. Almost instantly if an American bomber plane were hit it would explode and go down. The bombers dropped their torpedoes to far from their targets, so the torpedoes didn’t land a single blow to Japan. At 1040 japan sent from Hiryu,...
Admiral Nimitz in charge of planning the whole operation decided on the strategy to ‘soften’ up the beaches and then proceed to quickly invade and take over the airfields necessary for the victory of Okinawa and the invasion of Japan. He would also use the fleet to cut sea lanes limiting Japan’s mobility of forces. The Japanese strategy on the other hand, was to consolidate and fortify their position south of the Island and conserve as much of their force as possible so that by the time the weakened Americans arrived, they would easily be defeated. Colonel Yahara, a senior Japanese officer, best describes Japan’s position, “Japan was frantically preparing for a final decisive battle on the home islands, leaving Okin...
Last and biggest of the Pacific island battles of World War II, the Okinawa campaign (April 1—June 22, 1945) involved the 287,000 troops of the U.S. Tenth Army against 130,000 soldiers of the Japanese Thirty-second Army. At stake were air bases vital to the projected invasion of Japan ("Battle of Okinawa," 1996). The Battle of Okinawa remembered more for its iconic photograph of US Marines raising the US flag on Okinawa more so than any other war or battle ever fought. Okinawa the largest of the Ryukus islands played a major role in the American forces overall strategic efforts to advance to the mainland’s of Japan. Because it was the last major battle of WWII, the battle of Okinawa used lessons learned and TTP’s from all previous battles with the Japanese to successfully employ combined striking power of the services and techniques of amphibious operations.
In the spring of 1942, the Japanese had great gains in the Far East. The conquest of the Philippines, Burma, Malaya, and Dutch East Indies had cost the Japanese Navy 23 warships. Also, 67 transportation ships had also been lost. The naval command had expected a greater loss. Some of the people thought it would be best if they continue spearheading territorial gains, Admiral Nagano was a supporter of these. Others, followed Admiral Yamamoto, wanted to an all out attack on America's aircraft. Yamamoto believed that the destruction of America's aircraft, would make sure they had a security for Japan. Because of these, Yamamoto wanted an attack on Midway, as he believed that such an attack would definitely draw the American navy into a battle, which he believe that Japan would win.
Marston, Daniel. The Pacific War Companion From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. Oxford: Osprey, 2007. .
Leckie, Robert. Okinawa: The Last Battle of World War II. New York: Penguin Group, 1995. Print.
The U.S. carried through all of the vital actions necessary with much intelligence. They practiced the tactics in The Art of War by Sun Tzu, furthering the probability of their success. With the Japanese's lack of executing their plans with efficiency and their failure to follow those guidelines that Sun Tzu had set, there was much disappointment from the unsuccessful attempts to defeat the U.S. Navy. The Battle of Midway was a very decisive battle in World War II, as it stopped the Japanese advances in the Pacific and prevented further expansion. American forces had conquered the invincible Japanese Navy.
As the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 the United States officially entered World War Two. The Japanese government later learned later that this single event sets off an explosion that subsequently caused the United States to attack the Midway Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Pearl Harbor was one of the United States largest naval bases and the largest in the Pacific Ocean. This attack ceased all trade with Japan and officially added Japan as one of the US enemies. With a new world war started it created new concerns for the army. “World War II introduced a whole new set of problems in naval tactics” (Smith, 1). The main change driving these changes was the fact that aircraft carriers became more prevalent and common in every major countries naval force. Japan was able to pull off the Pearl Harbor attack as a result of aircraft carriers to launch their airplanes. As a result of the battles leading up to the Battle of Midway and conflicts with Japan this created a lot larger of an impact on WWII as a whole and to boost unity in America leading to a more prosperous period of history following the war.
The US fleets had a defect in their plan, there was no single American Admiral in overall command. The 7th fleet and Kinkaid fell under MacArthur as Supreme Allied Commander Southwest Pacific, where the 3rd fleet reported to Nimitz in Pacific Ocean Area...