A Look at Japan During World War II

World War II - Japan

The Japanese, like the Germans, became seduced by the notion of their own racial superiority during the 1930s. The Germans and the Japanese both thought their own races were superior to those of others and thought to overcome the inferior races. As in Germany, this led to a lust for territorial expansion. They felt like they deserved more territory, and they were going to get it, even if that meant being aggressive and taking over nations that did not want to be taken over.

In Europe, Germany became the major power that was the enemy there, and in Asia, Japan became the major power that was the enemy. Japan and Germany and Italy all comprised the Axis powers, which were all taking over lands that weren’t supposed to belong to them. This inevitably led to World War II. By 1941, Japan had conquered Korea, Manchuria, and parts of China. Japan was branching out. It was expanding its territory, and it was doing so by invading neighboring nations and taking them over by force.

Japan was also threatening to invade American interests in the Philippines. The Americans were further away, but the Philippines were close by. However, since the Americans held interests there, they did not want the Philippines messed with. Japan knew they would be messing with America if they tried to take over the Philippines. The United States imposed economic sanctions on Japan that made it difficult for the Japanese war industry to function.

The United States was saying, “Okay, if you want us threaten to invade the Philippines, then we’ll impose this economic sanction on you. It will be harder for you to keep going with your war and keep going with your conquering of these neighboring nations.” In response, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the United States by bombing the U.S. naval base of Pearl Harbor. This is one of the most famous attacks in history, well-known as the start of the war for the United States.

The United States had not officially entered World War II until after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Then, they were said to have woken up a sleeping giant, because the United States was laying back across the ocean watching to see what was happening, but not really interfering in the war that was going on in Europe and in Asia. After Japan attacked the United States on their home territory, on Pearl Harbor, then the United States struck back.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States declared war on Japan. They were officially a part of World War II. Now, in turn, Germany declared war on the United States. Remember, Germany and Japan were allies in the Axis power alliance. When the United States declared war on Japan, Japan would be declaring war on the United States, in turn, and Germany would have to side with Japan and also declare war on the United States.

The Japanese made huge territorial gains before the U.S. turned the tide at the battles of Midway and Guadalcanal. The Japanese were still taking over territory while the United States was kind of coming up with its plan and positioning troops to move over there. Before the United States got there and could actually start fighting and turning the tide, the Japanese had made a pretty big territorial gains.

The war in the Pacific, as this was known, because it was in the Pacific Ocean, would take much longer than the war in Europe, due to the island hopping nature of the fight. In Europe, the countries were, for the most part, connected. You had Britain that was an island nation, but, for the most part, the countries were close together. Their borders were close together. They were connected. It was going to go quickly.

In the Pacific, because Japan was made of a lot of islands, and they were taking over lots of islands that had been part of other nations, it was going to be an island-hopping kind of fight. Once the United States would beat the Japanese on one island, they’d go to the next one. While they were at the next one, Japanese could come back around to the old island, retake over it, and the Americans would have to come back and fight the Japanese again.

The only way to avoid this would be to leave troops behind on each island, which meant that your forces moving forward were going to be weaker, and you needed strong forces. The Japanese’s unwillingness to surrender made it almost impossible for America to entirely vanquish them without enormous loss of life. If the Americans tried to kill every Japanese soldier on an island, because the Japanese refused to surrender, then that was an enormous loss of life for the Japanese.

The Americans would also lose soldiers during the fight as well. Both sides would lose a lot of men. Most of the time in a battle, the two sides would come to a truce or one side would surrender to another. It wasn’t just a fight to the death. For the Japanese, they were unwilling to surrender. Often, it was a fight until all or almost all of the Japanese soldiers were killed on an island before they could move on.

In general, Japan as a nation was unwilling to surrender. This made it harder for America to see an end to the war, because the Japanese weren’t going to surrender until they were seeing just tremendous loss of life themselves instead of just thinking, “Okay, well we lost a few here at this island, at this island, at this island, but nothing too much yet. Nothing here at the heart of Japan.” Eventually, the United States decided to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force Japan to surrender.

This was an enormous loss of life right away in the heart of Japan. It was also going to have people that slowly died from radiation poisoning and other wounds from during the initial blasts in those areas. Japan saw the enormous loss of life that was capable if they kept this war going. They saw the continued effects of it. These atomic bombs did have a lot of future ramifications that were, at the time, unknown.

Japan lost a lot with those two atomic bombs being dropped on them. Finally, the war was ended in the Pacific in August 1945. After the United States dropped those two atomic bombs, it did not take long for Japan to surrender. They realized they didn’t have the weapons to fight back at this time. They weren’t going to be able to take those big losses of life like they were seeing. They eventually did surrender.

Where Germany was the primary power in the Axis alliance in Europe, Japan was the primary power in Asia, both of them with ideas of racial superiority and wanting to expand their territory. Japan had conquered several areas, but whenever they started to mess with the American territories, then the United States put economic sanctions on them, which provoked a surprise attack by the Japanese when they bombed Pearl Harbor.

At this point, the United States entered World War II, and after a very long time of island-hopping and trying to conquer one island at a time with Japan, the United States eventually decided to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. Shortly thereafter, Japan did surrender officially ending the war in the Pacific. And that would be the last of World War Two.

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by Mometrix Test Preparation | This Page Last Updated: June 27, 2022