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Pacific Theater Timeline

  • Pearl Harbor

    Pearl Harbor
    The Japanese attacked the United States without warning.
    The attack lasted 110 minutes, from 7:55 a.m. until 9:45 a.m.
    A total of 2,335 U.S. servicemen were killed and 1,143 were wounded. Sixty-eight civilians were also killed and 35 were wounded.
    The Japanese lost 65 men, with an additional soldier being captured.
    Pearl Harbor is on the south side of the Hawaiian island of Oahu and is the home to a U.S. naval base.
    The attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II.
  • Loss of Philippines

    Loss of Philippines
    The Philippines was the site of some of the most vicious fighting in the Pacific theater. By the time the war ended, 320,000 Japanese occupation troops on the Philippines had died. Of an American force of 300,000 that occupied the archipelago, 15,000 died and 48,000 were wounded, The hardest hits were taken by the Philippines which lost more than five percent of its total population (1 million dead out of 18 million people in the Philippines).
  • Battle of Java Sea

    Battle of Java Sea
    The Battle of the Java Sea was a decisive naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II. Allied navies suffered a disastrous defeat at the hand of the Imperial Japanese Navy, on 27 February 1942, and in secondary actions over successive days.
  • Bataan Death March

    Bataan Death March
    After the April 9, 1942, U.S. surrender of the Bataan Peninsula on the main Philippine island of Luzon to the Japanese during World War II (1939-45), the approximately 75,000 Filipino and American troops on Bataan were forced to make an arduous 65-mile march to prison camps. The marchers made the trek in intense heat and were subjected to harsh treatment by Japanese guards. Thousands perished in what became known as the Bataan Death March.
  • Doolittle Raid

    Doolittle Raid
    The Doolittle Raid, also known as the Tokyo Raid, on Saturday, April 18, 1942, was an air raid by the United States of America on the Japanese capital Tokyo and other places on the island of Honshu during World War II, the first air raid to strike the Japanese Home Islands.
  • Battle of Coral Sea

    Battle of Coral Sea
    fought during 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia. 2 smaller warships damaged, 1 transport damaged, 92 aircraft destroyed. The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought during 4–8 May 1942, was a major naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II between the Imperial Japanese Navy and naval and air forces from the United States and Australia.
  • Battle of Midway

    Battle of Midway
    only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy
  • Island Hopping

    Island Hopping
    Island Hopping, was a military strategy employed by the Allies in the Pacific War against Japan and the Axis powers during World War II.
  • Guadalcanal

    Guadalcanal
    The World War II Battle of Guadalcanal was the first major offensive and a decisive victory for the Allies in the Pacific theater. With Japanese troops stationed in this section of the Solomon Islands, U.S. marines launched a surprise attack in August 1942 and took control of an air base under construction.
  • Battle of Leyte Gulf

    Battle of Leyte Gulf
    the largest naval battle in history, was precipitated by the U.S. invasion of the Philippines during World War II.
  • Battle of Iwo Jima

    Battle of Iwo Jima
    Fought from 19 February to 26 March 1945, Battle of Iwo Jima was an amphibious attack by the American forces on the island of Iwo Jima in Japan during the Second World War. Lasting for 36 days, the battle saw some of the fiercest fighting of the Pacific War.
  • Battle of Okinawa

    Battle of Okinawa
    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.
  • Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima

    Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima
    The United States, with the consent of the United Kingdom as laid down in the Quebec Agreement, dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, during the final stage of World War II. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.
  • Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki

    Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki
    The United States, with the consent of the United Kingdom as laid down in the Quebec Agreement, dropped nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, during the final stage of World War II. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.
  • VJ Day.

    VJ Day.
    Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.” The term has also been used for September 2, 1945, when Japan's formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay.