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Iwo Jima Operation, February - March 1945On 19 February 1945 U.S. Marines stormed ashore on Iwo Jima, a small volcanic island half way between the Mariana Islands and Japan. These landings opened more than a month of extremely bloody ground fighting between three Marine divisions and more than 20,000 Japanese defenders. By late March 1945, when the Marines were relieved by a U.S. Army garrison, over six thousand Americans had been killed, along with about ninety percent of the Japanese. However, by then the island was already a refuge for U.S. bombers, with more facilities being actively developed.The mid-1944 conquest of the Marianas provided base sites for a strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese home islands. The attack decision was formalized early in October 1944, by which time the U.S. Army Air Force was frequently bombing the island. These raids, supplemented by periodic warship gunfire attacks, became daily occurrences later in the year. When B-29 bombers from the Marianas began hitting Japan, the Japanese used Iwo Jima to stage several destructive air raids against the Allies B-29 bases. The Allies decided that Iwo Jima needed to be taken. The Japanese, clearly understanding the importance of the place, had been fortifying it since March 1944. After the Marianas fell, they greatly expanded this work. By early 1945, it was obvious that capturing Iwo Jima, though essential, would be very costly.The Iwo Jima invasion began on 16 February 1945, when a formidable U.S. Navy armada started three days of pre-landing preparations. As minesweepers and underwater demolition teams cleared the nearby waters, warships and aircraft methodically tried to destroy the island's defenses. However, given the abundance of well-concealed strongpoints and deeply buried underground facilities, this was not nearly enough. When the Marines landed, they confronted intense opposing fire from the landing area and from flanking positions on Mount Suribachi in the south and the rugged terrain of northern Iwo Jima. Securing Mount Suribachi and the rest of southern Iwo Jima required more than four days of intense combat. Another week's bloodshed brought the Marines into the middle of the desperately defended north, where the bitter fight to eliminate organized Japanese resistance took nearly four additional weeks.For the U.S. Marines, Iwo Jima was the most difficult of World War II's many tough fights. It remains an enduring demonstration of the essential role of infantry when ground must be captured, even when seemingly overwhelming air and sea power is present. The abundant heroism of the attackers was recognized by the award of no fewer than twenty-seven Medals of Honor, more than half given posthumously. In American hands, Iwo Jima soon became an important base for the air campaign that ended with Japan's August 1945 surrender. Doolittle Raid on Japan, 18 April 1942The April 1942 air attack on Japan, launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet and led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, was the most daring operation yet undertaken by the United States in the young Pacific War. Though conceived as a diversion that would also boost American and allied morale, the raid generated strategic benefits that far outweighed its limited goals.The raid was based around an experimental idea to launch Army twin-engine bombers from an aircraft carrier. This would allow the US to make an unprecedented air attack on Japan. Hearing the idea in January 1942, U.S. Fleet commander Admiral Ernest J. King and Air Force leader General Henry H. Arnold agreed to go ahead with the plan. Arnold assigned the technically-astute Doolittle to organize and lead a suitable air group. The modern, but relatively untested B-25B "Mitchell" medium bomber was selected as the delivery vehicle. Tests showed that it could fly off a carrier with a useful bomb load with enough fuel to hit Japan and continue on to land on airfields in China.Gathering volunteer air crews for an unspecified, but admittedly dangerous mission, Doolittle embarked on a vigorous program of special training for his men and made modifications to their planes. The new carrier Hornet was sent to the Pacific to undertake the Navy's part of the mission. So secret was the operation that her Commanding Officer, Captain Marc A. Mitscher, had no idea of his ship's deployment until shortly before the sixteen B-25s were loaded on her flight deck. On April 2, 1942 the Hornet was put to sea and headed west across the vast Pacific.On April 13, the hornet was met by Vice Admiral William F. Halsey's flagship Enterprise, which would provide air cover during the approach. The Hornet steamed toward a planned afternoon launching point some 400 miles from Japan. However, before dawn on April 18, enemy picket boats were encountered much further east than expected. These were evaded or sunk, but got off radio warnings, forcing the planes to take off early around 8 AM, more than 600 miles out.Most of the sixteen B-25s, each with a five-man crew, attacked the Tokyo area, with a few hitting Nagoya. Damage to the intended military targets was modest, and none of the planes reached the Chinese airfields (though all but a few of their crewmen survived). However, the Japanese high command was deeply embarrassed. Three of the eight American airmen they had captured were executed. Spurred by Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, they resolved to eliminate the risk of any more such raids by the early destruction of America's aircraft carriers, a decision that led them to disaster at the Battle of Midway only a month and a half later. Pearl Harbor Raid, 7 December 1941 The December 7, 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.Eighteen months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had transferred the United States Fleet to Pearl Harbor as a presumed deterrent to Japanese aggression. The Japanese military, deeply engaged in the seemingly endless war it had started against China in mid-1937, badly needed oil and other raw materials. Commercial access to these was gradually curtailed as the conquests continued. In July 1941 the Western powers effectively halted trade with Japan. From then on, as the desperate Japanese schemed to seize the oil and mineral-rich East Indies and Southeast Asia, a Pacific war was virtually inevitable.By late November 1941, with peace negotiations clearly approaching an end, informed U.S. officials fully expected a Japanese attack into the Indies, Malaya and probably the Philippines. Completely unanticipated was the prospect that Japan would attack east, as well.The U.S. Fleet's Pearl Harbor base was reachable by an aircraft carrier force, and the Japanese Navy secretly sent one across the Pacific with greater aerial striking power than had ever been seen on the World's oceans. Its planes hit just before 8AM on 7 December. Within a short time five of eight battleships at Pearl Harbor were sunk or sinking, with the rest damaged. Several other ships and most Hawaii-based combat planes were also knocked out and over 2400 Americans were dead. Soon after, Japanese planes eliminated much of the American air force in the Philippines, and a Japanese Army was ashore in Malaya.These great Japanese successes, achieved without prior diplomatic formalities, shocked and enraged the previously divided American people into a level of purposeful unity hardly seen before or since. For the next five months, until the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May, Japan's far-reaching offensives proceeded untroubled by fruitful opposition. American and Allied morale suffered.However, the memory of the "sneak attack" on Pearl Harbor fueled a determination to fight on. Once the Battle of Midway in early June 1942 had eliminated much of Japan's striking power, that same memory stoked a relentless war to reverse her conquests and remove her, and her German and Italian allies, as future threats to World peace. The Tide Turns: The Battle of Midway (June 4-7 1942)Following the Battle of Coral Sea, the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, devised a plan to draw the remaining ships of the US Pacific Fleet into a battle where they could be destroyed. To do this, he planned to invade the island of Midway, 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii. Critical to Pearl Harbor's defense, Yamamoto knew the Americans would send their remaining carriers to protect the island. Believing the US to only have two carriers operational, he sailed with four, plus a large fleet of battleships and cruisers. Through the efforts of US Navy cryptanalysts, who had broken the Japanese JN-25 naval code, Nimitz was aware of the Japanese plan and dispatched the carriers USS Enterprise and USS Hornet, under Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, as well as the hastily repaired USS Yorktown, under Fletcher, to the waters north of Midway to intercept the Japanese.At 4:30 AM on June 4, the commander of the Japanese carrier force, Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, launched a series of strikes against Midway Island. Overwhelming the island's small air force, the Japanese pounded the American base. While returning to the carriers, Nagumo's pilots recommended a second strike on the island. This prompted Nagumo to order his reserve aircraft, which had been armed with torpedoes, to be rearmed with bombs. As this process was underway, one of his scout planes reported locating the US carriers. Hearing this, Nagumo reversed his rearmament command in order to attack the ships. As the torpedoes were being put back on Nagumo's aircraft, American planes appeared over his fleet.Using reports from their own scout planes, Fletcher and Spruance began launching aircraft around 7:00 AM. The first squadrons to reach the Japanese were the TBD Devastator torpedo bombers from Hornet and Enterprise. Attacking at low level, they did not score a hit and suffered heavy casualties. Though unsuccessful, the torpedo planes pulled down the Japanese fighter cover, which cleared the way for the American SBD Dauntless dive bombers. Striking at 10:22, they scored multiple hits, sinking the carriers Akagi, Soryu, and Kaga. In response, the remaining Japanese carrier, Hiryu, launched a counterstrike that twice disabled Yorktown. That afternoon, US dive bombers returned and sunk Hiryu to seal the victory. His carriers lost, Yamamoto abandoned the operation. Disabled, Yorktown was taken under tow, but was sunk by the submarine I-168 en route to Pearl Harbor.The loss of four carriers crippled the Japanese Navy’s ability to wage an offensive war. From this point onward they were forced to step back and defend. ................
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