World War II in the Pacific

I. The Pearl Harbor Attack

A. Japanese Lake? American Lake?

B. What did Japan want?

ABCD embargo lifted

raw materials for the China War

to liberate Asia?

more colonies?

C. What did Japan expect?

Defeat [Yamamoto]

Victory [assorted loonies]

Japanese spirit

desperation

Compromise [Tojo]

the European war

the "lazy" American

the incomplete attack

D. Why was America surprised?

the Philippines expectation

isolationism and intelligence

the back door to war theory

cancellation of the Konoe-FDR talks

is indifference a conspiracy?

FDR's security clearance

MAGIC

submarine and radar sightings

deliberate damage allowed?

aircraft concentration

outdated fleet and Congress

missing aircraft carriers

II. Japan in WWII

A. The sweep across the Pacific

Pan-Asianism

propaganda and need

colonialism, nationalism and communism

B. The reversal at Midway

Yamamoto's prediction

C. Island hopping toward Japan

need for air fields

national resistance

D. The Japanese troops

officer abuse and morale

untrained troops

food shortages, cannibalism and atrocities

kamikaze "volunteers"

E. The War on the homefront

means of control

Kempeitai

5 family groups

propaganda and censorship

idealism and Pan-Asianism

dreams of victory

lack of resistance?

island nation

consensus and conformity

no "good" Japanese

the Japanese Resistance

passive resistance

Christians, Buddhists and other Pacifists

the Japanese Communist Party

underground and in jail

Nosaka Sanzo in Yenan

III. The first nuclear war

A. The War Crimes Trials

undeclared war [USA]

atrocities [FEC]

crimes against their own people [Japan]

civil rights violations

war without the possibility of victory

B. The question of atrocities

the logic of total war

known v. unknown damage

firebombs [magnesium] v. atom bombs

C. Why didn't Japan surrender sooner?

unconditional surrender and the emperor

factional divisions

did Japan surrender?

July 12: Konoe's message

July 16: Trinity Test

July 26: Potsdam Declaration

Aug. 6: Hiroshima

Aug. 8: USSR enters the war

Aug. 9: Nagasaki

Aug. 10: Japan and America begin negotiations

Aug. 14: the emperor's message

Sept. 2: the official surrender aboard the Missouri

Sept. 8: Japanese troops in China surrender

Sept. 12: Japanese troops in SEA surrender

D. The decision to drop the bomb

first strike of the Cold War

Russian troops in Korea

message to the USSR

did they know what would happen?

just a bigger bomb

Truman and the Chicago Seven

invasion and reduced casualties

scientific experimentation and racism

cost and politics