Get War In The Pacific Nhp - Nps

The Battle for Okinawa, April 1 to June 22, 1945, was the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. Okinawa is the largest of the Ryukyus Islands and lies 350 miles from mainland Japan. It is about sixty miles long and ranges from two to eighteen miles wide and held strategic value for both the Americans and the Japanese.

The underlying causes of the outbreak of the war in the Pacific relate to Japan's desire to effectively compete with the industrialized nations of western Europe and the United States.

Combat Casualties Additionally, the Pacific War is largely remembered as a Navy and Marine Corps affair, but that wasn't actually the case. In the Pacific, 41,592 US Army soldiers died, in addition to the 23,160 US Marines and sailors who died fighting alongside them.

A conservative accounting shows 25 million people died in the Asia Pacific War. About six million were combatants, mostly Chinese and Japanese. That leaves 19 million noncombatant deaths. Japanese noncombatant deaths may have reached at the upper limit of one to 1.2 million.

Japan surrendered unconditionally on 15 August 1945 and was occupied by the Allies. Japan lost its former possessions in Asia and the Pacific and had its sovereignty limited to the four main home islands and other minor islands as determined by the Allies.

Faced with severe shortages of oil and other natural resources and driven by the ambition to displace the United States as the dominant Pacific power, Japan decided to attack the United States and British forces in Asia and seize the resources of Southeast Asia.

They also began to commit some of the worst recorded atrocities in the Pacific theater. Mass executions, beheadings, infanticide and gang rapes were reported by survivors. Evidence gathered in the wake of the fighting led surviving Japanese commanders to be charged with war crimes.

More than 30 million soldiers and civilians were killed in the Pacific theater during the course of the war, compared with the 15 million to 20 million killed in Europe. But remarkably, as the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in Asia approaches, on Saturday, Aug.