CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Supposing that a minor state is in conflict with a much more powerful one and expects its
position to grow weaker every year. If war is unavoidable, should it not make the most of its
opportunities before its position sets still worse? In short, it should attack....1

Above lines depict the situation of Japan during the mid-20th century, when the world was
burning in the rage of war. Japan was economically backward and was trying to achieve
economic and political safety. During this time

The single greatest point of contention between Japan and the United States of America prior to
the Second World War was Japan's military action in China. Certainly, the threat of Japanese
expansion throughout the Pacific was cause for grave concern in both Asia and the West, but
Japan's aggression against China was foremost among the irreconcilable differences between the
Japanese and the Americans.2

In this project, we are going understand Japan's reasons for initiating war with the United States
in 1941. We are also going to do a brief examination of Sino-Japanese relations in order to
understand the reasons for Japan`s intervention in war.

The project will also try to discuss various important wars that were fought by imperial Japanese
army in World War II. Further the project will try to find out about the various conflicts between
japan and other nations in Asia during World War II.

1
Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Viale, PRELUDE TO WAR, JAPAN'S GOALS AND STRATEGY IN WORLD
WAR II, May 1988, School of Advanced Military Studies United States Army Command and General Staff College
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

2
Ibid

1
1.2 Research Question

What were the reasons which led to Japan`s intervention in the world war II?
What were Japan`s goals during World War II?
What were the circumstances that forced U.S. to use Nuclear weapon of mass destruction
in the war?

1.3 Literature Review

Norman Lowe, MASTERING MODERN WORLD HISTORY, 5th ed. 2013,

Palgrave Macmillan
This book helped me a lot in completing this project. This book describes the factual
events of the World War II in very descriptive manner. This helped me in understanding
the ideologies behind the war and the view of different nations regarding the war. This
book also helped the researcher in understanding the Japan`s goals and strategies behind
their intervention in the war in 1941.
Ranjan Chakrabarti, A HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD, AN OUTLINE,
1st ed. 2012, Primus Books
This book helped me a lot in understanding the events that led to the beginning of the
World War II. This book gives a complete view of the war and it helped me a lot in
understanding the views from the both sides in the war fought between U.S and Japan. It
also gives a descriptive view about he reasons that led Japan to intervene in the war.

1.4 Scope and Objectives

The scope of this project is limited to discussing and analysing Japan`s intervention in World
War II and the objectives are as follows:-

To find out reasons and importance of Sino-Japanese war.

To discuss the reasons for Japan`s intervention in the world war II.
To discuss the importance of various events such as Pearl Harbour in the course of war.

2
1.5 Methodology

The methodology adopted for the project topic is the doctrinal method of research. Books from
the library and articles from various journals have been referred to for the collection of data

CHAPTER 2

Background

2.1 Causes for Japanese Intervention in War

Economic Reasons

While the United States was still struggling to emerge from the Great Depression at the end of
the 1930s, and would do so partly because of the war, Japan had emerged from its own period of
depression, which had begun in 1926, by the mid-1930s. Many of the young soldiers mobilized
into the Japanese army by the early 1930s came from the rural areas, where the effects of the
depression were devastating and poverty was widespread. Their commitment to the military
effort to expand Japanese territory to achieve economic security can be understood partly in
these terms. The depression ended in the mid-1930s in Japan partly because of government
deficits used to expand greatly both heavy industry and the military.3

The Japanese military faced a particular tactical problem in that certain critical raw materials
especially oil and rubber were not available within the Japanese sphere of influence. Instead,
Japan received most of its oil from the United States and rubber from British Malaya, the very
two Western nations trying to restrict Japan's expansion.

3
Japan`s Quest for Power and World War II in Asia,

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1900_power.html

3
Political Reasons

The political structure of Japan at this time was inherited from the Meiji era and was increasingly
dominated by the military. During the Meiji period, the government was controlled by a small
ruling group of elder statesmen who had overthrown the shogun and established the new
centralized Japanese state. These men used their position to coordinate the bureaucracy, the
military, the parliament, the Imperial Household, and other branches of government. Following
their deaths in the early 1920s, no single governmental institution was able to establish full
control, until the 1931 Manchurian Incident, when Japan took control of Manchuria. This began
a process in which the military behaved autonomously on the Asian mainland and with
increasing authority in politics at home.4

From 1937 on, Japan was at war with China. By the time General Hideki Tj became prime
minister and the war against the United States began in 1941, the nation was in a state of "total
war" and the military and their supporters were able to force their policies on the government
and the people. The wartime regime used existing government controls on public opinion,
including schools and textbooks, the media, and the police, but Japan continued to have more of
an authoritarian government than a totalitarian one like Hitler's Germany. In particular, the
government was never able to gain real control of the economy and the great zaibatsu, which
were more interested in the economic opportunities provided by the military's policies than in
submitting loyally to a patriotic mission.5

The emperor has been criticized for not taking a more forceful action to restrain his government,
especially in light of his own known preference for peace, but Japanese emperors after the Meiji
Restoration had "reigned but not ruled." One wonders if a more forceful emperor in fact could
have controlled the army and navy at this late date. The doubts are strengthened in light of the
difficulty the emperor had in forcing the military to accept surrender after the atomic bombings.
The emperor's decision at that point to bring agreement among his advisers was an extraordinary
event in Japanese history.

4
Ibid
5
Ibid

4
Racial reasons

The Japanese were proud of their many accomplishments and resented racial slurs they met with
in some Western nations. Their attempt to establish a statement of racial equality in the Covenant
of the League of Nations was vetoed by the United States (because of opposition in California)
and Great Britain (Australian resistance). The Japanese greatly resented this.

The Japanese military was convinced of the willingness of its people to go to any sacrifice for
their nation, and it was contemptuous of the "softness" of the U.S. and European democracies,
where loyalty and patriotism were tempered by the rights and well-being of the individual. The
military's overconfidence in its own abilities and underestimation of the will of these other
nations were thus rooted in its own misleading ethnic and racial stereotypes.

The Japanese saw themselves as less representatives of Asia than Asia's champion. They sought
to liberate Asian colonies from the Westerners, whom they disdained. But although the Japanese
were initially welcomed in some Asian colonies by the indigenous populations whom they
"liberated" from European domination, the arrogance and racial prejudice displayed by the
Japanese military governments in these nations created great resentment. This resentment is still
evident in some Southeast Asian nations.6

6
What sparked Japan's aggression during World War II?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/07/07/what_prompted_japan_s_aggression_before_and_during_world_war_
ii.html

5
2.2 Sino-Japanese War

Japan entered the First World War on the side of the Allies, officially honoring her obligations to
Great Britain under the Anglo-Japanese alliance. This save the Japanese license to attack and
seize German holdings in-China, which then led to demands upon the Chinese to acquiesce to
Japanese expansion even further. During the 1920's, however, Chinese nationalistic fervor
threatened Japanese holdings in Manchuria, and the resulting paranoia, coupled with Japanese
ultranationalism, led to the Japanese Army assuming a leading role in the formulation of policy
in Manchuria. a Overt military action against the Chinese can be traced to 18 September, 1S28,
when the Japanese Army launched a series of surprise attacks against garrisoned Chinese Army
units throughout Manchuria.7

In 1931, the Japanese invaded Manchuria to protect their interests in the railroad and the
Kwantung Leased Territory. Japan subsequently set up a puppet state, Manchukuo, which
nobody else recognized as a legitimate state. This isolated Japan, and it also meant a continuing
series of border clashes with the Chinese.

Full-scale Sino-Japanese war began in 1937, with a skirmish between troops of the two armies
that became known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, so called because of its occurrence near a
railroad junction of that name. The Japanese government wished to settle the matter with local
Chinese officials, but the Nationalist government in Nanking. in an effort to re-establish its
influence in the area and to appease nationalistic order, dispatched four divisions to the region.
Japan advised Nanking against interfering with "local" affairs in north China and announced that
she would meet any military contingency necessary.* Chiang Kai-shek responded by publicly
declaring, "If we allow one inch more of our territory to be lost, we shall be guilty of an
unpardonable crime against our race. "

7
Moteki Hiromichi, THE SECOND SINOJAPANESE WAR WAS CAUSED BY CHINA, A CRITICISM OF
THE JAPAN AS AGGRESSOR

http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/69_S4.pdf

6
The Japanese government, however, "proposed to 'chastise' the Nationalist government for its
mistaken and arrogant ways, and in January 1938, it defined the 'establishment of a new order' as
the objective of the China War. "8

As the Sino-Japanese War continued, the number of clashes between both US and British
personnel and Japanese forces mounted, and American policy and public opinion became
steadily more anti-Japanese. Hundreds of protests concerning Japanese offenses against
American lives and property in China were filed, including such incidents as the machine
gunning of five American horseback riders by a Japanese plane while they were within the limits
of the Shanghai International Settlement; the bombing of an American church for the ninth time,
with suitable protests being lodged after each; and the sinking of the US gunboat Panay the very
day that two British gunboats and a merchantman were bombed.

2.3 The Oil Restriction

When Japan signed the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940, and allied herself with Italy and
Germany, the US clearly identified her as an aggressor nation. The United States "curtailed, but
did not end, oil and scrap iron shipments to Japan." A series of negotiations began in an effort to
resolve differences between the two countries, but without success. "Basically, the American
position was that Japan must abandon military mans of handling the China and Southeast Asia
situations and begin to withdraw her troops." Japan's position was that she would not make
military chances until the problems in China and Southeast Asia had been resolved in her favor--
a requirement more of the Japanese Army than of the diplomats.9

"The American answer to the impasse was on July 25, 1941 to freeze Japanese assets in the US,
thus suspending all trade. The same course was followed by Britain, Burma, and India on the
26th and by the Netherlands Indies on the 28th. Thereafter Japan would have to get whatever oil
she needed from the Axis. "

8
Ibid
9
Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Viale, PRELUDE TO WAR, JAPAN'S GOALS AND STRATEGY IN WORLD
WAR II, May 1988, School of Advanced Military Studies United States Army Command and General Staff College
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

7
Eighty percent of the 100,000 barrels of oil Japan consumed each day came from California. It
was clear that she could not remain under the oil yoke of the United States if she were to her
ambitions. But, what was the alternative? Where was Japan to turn for oil in the event of an
American embargo? The answer lay in the rich fields of South East Asia, and just as she had
taken advantage of the fixation of the European colonial powers on the pressing issues of World
War I, Japan now saw the Netherland's preoccupation with German aggression as an opportunity
to grasp the oil centers: of the Netherlands indies.10

As we think of the Middle East today as the heart of the world's oil supply, it was the East Indies
in the pre-World War II period that represented unlimited reserves and never-ending production.
Their rich oil fields were the prize for which Japan went to war. Oil was abundant there, and the
Japanese were obsessed with gaining it.

10
Ibid

8
 Chapter 3

The Beginning of war

On September 27, 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, thus entering
the military alliance known as the "Axis." Seeking to curb Japanese aggression and force a
withdrawal of Japanese forces from Manchuria and China, the United States imposed economic
sanctions on Japan.

3.1 Pearl Harbour

When the United States restricted the sale of oil to Japan in July 1941 in response to Japanese
expansion into Indochina, the Japanese had to find an alternative source of oil. The Dutch East
Indies were the only possible source of supply in the western Pacific region. Thus, American
strategists reasoned that a Japanese military move into the Indies would be their next logical step.
To deter such a move, President Roosevelt had directed that the battleships and aircraft carriers
of the U.S. Pacific Fleet be based at Pearl Harbour~ Hawaii. In October the civilian government
of Japan fell and was replaced by a military government headed by General Tojo. In November a
special Japanese envoy arrived in the United States to assist the Japanese ambassador in
negotiations to resume the flow of western oil.11

Unknown to the Japanese, the United States had an advantage in the negotiations because
American code breakers had some months earlier succeeded in breaking the Japanese diplomatic
code.12 Thus, Washington knew that a deadline for the negotiations had been set for late
November, after which something ominous -would happen. In late November a Japanese naval
expeditionary force was sighted heading toward the Malay Peninsula. There they presumably
launch an invasion. But unknown and undetected was another Japanese force at sea. This one,
which included all six of Japan's large carriers and escort ships, was headed east across the
Pacific toward Pearl Harbour-Hawaii.

11
A Day of Infamy The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbour

http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-glance/pearl-harbor.pdf

12
Ibid

9
Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, on
December 7, 1941. The attack severely damaged the American fleet and prevented, at least for
the short term, serious American interference with Japanese military operations

At 0800 the first of the attacking Japanese planes reached the harbour and radioed back the
signal "Tora ... Tora .... Tora," a code word meaning complete surprise had been achieved. The
attack struck all parts of the harbour at once because all the Japanese pilots had predesignated
targets. Within moments the battleship Arizona exploded and sank after a bomb set off her
ammunition magazines. Soon all remaining battleships were sunk or badly damaged. By 0945
the attack was over. Altogether some 2,400 American servicemen had been killed and another
1,200 had been wounded. 13 Nineteen ships had been sunk or severely damaged, including all
eight of the battleships. Over 230 planes had been destroyed on the ground. Fortunately for the
United States, a large tank farm near the harbor containing some 4.5 million barrels of oil was
spared. Loss of this oil would have hindered later American naval operations even more than the
damage done to the ships. Also, important repair yards and machine shops, which would make
possible the eventual salvage and return to duty of fourteen of the nineteen ships disabled by the
attack, were practically untouched.

Calling 7 December 1941 "A day which will live in infamy!" the next day, President Roosevelt
asked Congress to declare war on Japan. Three days later Germany and Italy joined Japan in
declaring war on the United States.14

3.2 Battle of Midway

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan achieved a long series of military successes. In December
1941, Guam and Wake Island fell to the Japanese, followed in the first half of 1942 by the
Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, and Burma. Thailand
remained officially neutral. Only in mid-1942 were Australian and New Zealander forces in New
Guinea and British forces in India able to halt the Japanese advance.

13
World War II: The Pacific War, 1941-1945, Maritime History

http://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/TX01001591/Centricity/Domain/5804/NS2-maritime%20chapter%209.pdf

14
Ibid

10
The turning point in the Pacific war came with the American naval victory in the Battle of
Midway in June 1942.

In mid-1942 Yamamoto's Combined Fleet had immense numerical superiority over Allied forces
in the Pacific. But he devised a curious battle plan that split his forces Into ten separate groups,
spread all the way from the Aleutian Islands to Midway itself. The Japanese Combined Fleet was
a huge armada of eleven battleships, eight carriers, Twenty-three cruisers, and sixty-five
destroyers. They were pitted against Nimitz's small force of three carriers, eight cruisers, and
fourteen destroyers. The key to the impending action, however, was U.S. intelligence. Nimitz
had deduced all the major movements In the Japanese plan through radio intercepts and code
breaking. The Americans were not going to be surprised-much to the astonishment of the
Japanese. The first action occurred on 3 June 1942, with a Japanese diversionary attack on Dutch
Harbour in the Aleutians.

The Battle of Midway was the turning point in the Pacific war. The Japanese loss of four carriers
and a cruiser was compounded by the loss of her best Japanese carrier pilots. This loss of pilots
was one of the chief causes of Japan's ultimate defeat at sea. After Midway, new aviators sent to
the carrier fleet were less prepared to face the growing number of well-trained American pilots.
Only the Japanese northern forces had achieved success in Yamamoto's grand plan. They had
succeeded in occupying Kiska and Attu in the Aleutian Islands without resistance. But from then
on, the Japanese would never be able to launch a major offensive.15

In August 1942, American forces attacked the Japanese in the Solomon Islands, forcing a costly
withdrawal of Japanese forces from the island of Guadalcanal in February 1943. Allied forces
slowly gained naval and air supremacy in the Pacific, and moved methodically from island to
island, conquering them and often sustaining significant casualties.

15
Ibid

11
3.3 Conflict in Saipan and Iwo Jima

Saipan

June 1944 found U.S. forces engaged in arguably the greatest military effort in history. At the
very time the Normandy landings were taking place in Europe, the United States was about to
send a huge amphibious force against Saipan in the central Pacific. The mammoth task of
projecting 127,000 troops on 535 ships some 3,000 miles from Pearl Harbousr, and providing
them with fast carrier task force support against the entire Japanese Fleet, was just as complex as
the D Day invasion in Europe.

Heavy casualties were sustained, but by the end of the day 20,000 marines were ashore.
Reinforcements were put ashore, and by 17 June the American offensive had captured the main
airfield and begun to push the Japanese back. By this time the Japanese Combined Fleet was
approaching the operating area, and Admiral Mitscher had to steam out to place himself between
it and the forces on Saipan.16

Late in 1944, American forces liberated the Philippines and began massive air attacks on Japan.
British forces recaptured Burma.

Iwo Jima

The conquest of the Marianas had provided bases for the large B-29 bombers to make
devastating air raids on the Japanese industrial cities. But between the Marianas and Japan was
the volcanic island of Iwo Jima. As long as the Japanese held the island, the home islands'
defenses were alerted when bombers were en route, and fighters were scrambled to intercept
them.

The 3,000-mile round trip was much too far for Allied fighters to accompany and defend the
bombers. Damaged bombers were often lost in the sea on the return trip because they would not
hold up for that distance. The Americans determined to put an end to this dangerous situation. In
U.S. hands the island's airfields could be improved to handle emergency landings for the big
bombers, and to provide a base for fighter planes to escort them over Japan. The Japanese, fully
aware of the importance of the island to their defenses, expected an assault.
16
Ibid

12
D day at Two Jima was set for 19 February 1945. When the assault waves approached the beach,
the support ships shifted fire again to provide a barrage of fire ahead and on the flanks of the
advancing marines. The fighting continued through the night, and the next day the airfield was
captured. The assault on Mount Suribachi then began. After three days of blasting and burning
out pillboxes and sealing up caves with grenades, flamethrowers, rockets, and demolition
charges, the mountain was surrounded and a patrol reached the summit and raised the American
flag.17

Instead of taking five days as originally planned, the conquest of Iwo Jima took over a month. It
wasn't until 25 March that the last Japanese troops made their final attack. Only 200 Japanese
were captured; all the rest were killed. For the first time casualties among the assault forces
exceeded those of the Japanese defenders. Over 19,000 marines and sailors were wounded and
nearly 7,000 were killed. Admiral Nimitz said the marines on Iwo Jima made Uncommon valor
a common virtue.

17
Ibid

13
 Chapter 4

The Final Days

4.1 Battle of Okinawa

The battle of Okinawa, also known as Operation Iceberg, took place in April-June 1945. It was
the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theatre of World War II. It also resulted in the
largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies. This
article gives an account of the 80 day plus battle for the Island of Okinawa which some have
described as the typhoon of steel.

To those Japanese who thought the war was winnable, Okinawa was the last chance. The island
lay within 350 miles easy flight distance from the Japanese homeland and was, by
American design, to be the base from which the southernmost Home Island, Kyushu, would be
pummeled to dust ahead of the expected follow-on invasion. Anything short of c]

omplete victory over Allied air, naval and ground forces spelled doom for Japan and no such
victory was remotely in the cards. Thus, from the Japanese view Okinawa was and could be no
more than a delaying battle of attrition on a grand scale.18

The few Japanese who knew that their countrys war effort was in extremis were content to fight
on Okinawa simply for reasons of honor, for all military logic pointed to the same dismal
conclusion: Japan was vanquished in all but name as soon as the first Boeing B-29s left the
ground in the Marianas, as soon as American carrier aircraft hit targets in Japan at will, as soon
as even twin-engine bombers could strike Japanese ports from Iwo Jima, as soon as Japan dared
not move a warship or cargo vessel from a port in any part of the shrinking empire for fear it
would be sunk by an Allied submarine. By April 1, 1945, all those events were taking place
routinely.

18
Battle of Okinawa

http://www.asdk12.org/staff/miller_roger/pages/US_History/WWII/Battle%20of%20Okinawa.pdf

14
The battle had been among the most brutal of the Pacific War. The Navy suffered its greatest
casualties for a single engagement. More than 12,000 Americans were killed and a further
50,000 were wounded. More than 150,000 Japanese many of them civilians were killed
during the battle. Despite the casualties, preparations were quickly underway for the long-
anticipated invasion of Japan. All hands turned to in order to begin preparations to invade
Kyushu.19

Who could have known on June 22, 1945, that only some six weeks separated Americas Pacific
warriors from the blinding flashes over Hiroshima and Nagasaki that would send the vast
majority home to the peace so many of their brave comrades had died to secure.

4.2 The final Blow: Nuclear Bombings

Bringing an end to the war was not easy. There were still powerful factions in the Japanese
military forces who favored a fight to the bitter end. The Japanese people would never accept a
surrender that would not preserve the emperor and imperial system. The Japanese made peace
gestures to the Soviets during their negotiations for extension of the neutrality pact. But the
Soviets remained silent-so silent that Stalin did not even tell the United States or Britain about
the peace initiatives during their meeting in Potsdam, Germany, in late July.

However, the United States knew about the peace initiatives because U.S. intelligence was
reading the messages between the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and the Japanese ambassador in
Moscow. On 26 July the Potsdam Declaration spelled out the terms of surrender for Japan,
specifying that unconditional surrender would pertain only to the military forces and that
possessions except the four home islands-Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu-would have
to be given up.20

19
Ibid
20
Ibid

15
No provisions concerning the emperor 'were made, since the Allies had not yet decided on this
question. This omission caused much concern in Japan. As the Soviets stalled and the Japanese
procrastinated, the Americans and British were actively planning an invasion of the home islands
of Japan, code-named Operation Downfall. Events were moving faster than governments,
however. On 16 July the United States successfully exploded the first atomic device at
Alamogordo, New Mexico. Within hours atomic bombs were en route to the Marianas bomber
bases. And during the next three weeks the combined U.S, and British fleets, the most powerful
ever assembled in history, ranged freely up and down the Japanese coast, shelling and bombing
the cities virtually at will.21

After a thorough assessment of projected casualties to both sides that would result from the
planned invasion of Japan, versus the casualties and damage anticipated from dropping the
atomic bomb, President Harry Truman decided to use the A-bomb in an attempt to end the war
without the necessity of an invasion.

On 6 August 1945 a B-29 carrying an atomic bomb left Tinian and headed for Hiroshima, an
industrial city on the Inland Sea. The weapon utterly destroyed the city. The Soviets then
realized that the end had arrived and that they had to get into the Pacific war immediately if they
were to get in on the victory. On 8 August the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and moved its
forces into Manchuria and Korea, sweeping the Japanese before them. Despite the destruction at
Hiroshima and the dropping of leaflets warning of the consequences of further delay, the
Japanese military elements in the government refused to consider unconditional surrender. So on
9 August another U.S. aircraft dropped a second atomic bomb on the industrial port of
Nagasaki.22

21
World War II in Pacific,

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005155

22
Ibid

16
Faced with this ultimate destruction, Emperor Hirohito advised his Supreme Council to accept
the Potsdam Declaration. The cabinet agreed, but only on the condition that the imperial system
remain. The U.S. secretary of state, speaking on behalf of the Allied governments, accepted the
condition subject to stipulations that the emperor must submit to the authority of the supreme
allied commander during the occupation of Japan, and the Japanese people should decide on the
emperor's final status in free elections at a later date. The cabinet, on the advice of the emperor;
agreed to these stipulations on 14 August. The next day, with one carrier raid already flying over
Tokyo, the Third Fleet received the order to cease fire.

In the next two weeks the Allies converged on Tokyo Bay. On Sunday morning, 2 September
1945, the Japanese foreign minister and representatives of the Imperial General Staff boarded the
USS Missouri at anchor in Tokyo Bay and signed the surrender document on behalf of the
emperor; the government, and the Imperial General Headquarters. General Douglas MacArthur
signed the acceptance as supreme allied commander for the Allied powers. Fleet Admiral
Chester Nimitz signed as representative for the United States. Following him were
representatives of the United Kingdom, China, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, the
Netherlands, and New Zealand. Shortly thereafter, General MacArthur moved into his Tokyo
headquarters to direct the occupation of Japan. World War II was over

After Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945, American forces began to occupy Japan.
Japan formally surrendered to the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union on
September 2, 1945.

17
 CONCLUSION

We began the project by discussing about the background of war between United States and
Japan from where Japan`s intervention in World War II started. We also discussed the reasons
for Japan`s intervention in the War. Further we tried to identify Japan`s goals in the War.

Why did Japan attack the United States? This is a more complicated question. Japan knew the
United States was economically and military powerful, but it was not afraid of any American
attack on its islands. Japan did worry however, that the Americans might help the Chinese resist
the Japanese invasion of their country. When President Roosevelt stopped U.S. shipments of
steel and oil the Japan, he was doing exactly this: the Japanese are dependent on other countries
for raw materials, for they have almost none on their own islands. Without imports of steel and
oil, the Japanese military could not fight for long. Without oil, the navy would not be able to
move after it had exhausted its six-month reserve. Roosevelt hoped that this economic pressure
would force Japan to end its military expansion in East Asia.23

Japan replied to the oil restriction by attacking the U.S at pearl harbour. This event might be
called as the beginning of war between U.S and Japan. As the war continued Japan`s short run
victory started turning into long run loss. The attack on pearl harbour was a tremendous gamble.
Japan was not sure about the reaction that U.S would give. This gamble led them to their loss in
the war.

Now we have already discussed the conditions that forced U.S to drop Nuclear weapons on
Japan. Now we may consider the act as barbaric as it had negative long term impact. Now in that
circumstance, Japan was on its knees and on the verge of losing the war already. The bombings
were simply unnecessary. Some believe that these bombings were an act of white racism, as if it
had been whites on the other side weapons of this much mass destruction would not have been
used. While on the other hand, Harry Truman regardedhhhh the bombings as pure military act.

23
Japan`s Quest for Power and World War II in Asia,

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1900_power.html

18
Regardless the reasons, the United States became the first and only country to use a nuclear
weapon on another country. This attack had several impacts such as it led to the nuclear terror in
the world and started a dangerous arms race. The ethical debate over the decision to drop the
atomic bomb will never be resolved. The bombs did, however, bring an end to the most
destructive war in history.

19
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books:-

Norman Lowe, MASTERING MODERN WORLD HISTORY, 5th ed. 2013, Palgrave
Macmillan

Articles:-

Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Viale, PRELUDE TO WAR, JAPAN'S GOALS AND

STRATEGY IN WORLD WAR II, May 1988, School of Advanced Military Studies
United States Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

Internet sources:-

World War II: The Pacific War, 1941-1945, Maritime History

http://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/TX01001591/Centricity/Domain/5804/NS2-
maritime%20chapter%209.pdf
Moteki Hiromichi, THE SECOND SINOJAPANESE WAR WAS CAUSED BY
CHINA, A CRITICISM OF THE JAPAN AS AGGRESSOR
http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/69_S4.pdf
Battle of Okinawa
http://www.asdk12.org/staff/miller_roger/pages/US_History/WWII/Battle%20of%20Oki
nawa.pdf
A Day of Infamy The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor
http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/at-a-
glance/pearl-harbor.pdf
What sparked Japan's aggression during World War II?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/07/07/what_prompted_japan_s_aggression_befor
e_and_during_world_war_ii.html
Japan`s Quest for Power and World War II in Asia,
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1900_power.html
World War II in Pacific,
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005155

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