Japan and Hiroshima Flashcards
Why was Japan invading, attacking and taking over other countries?
Japan needed natural resources for its world domination idea and war. Iron and coal from china, oil and rubber from dutch west indies. They needed resources that they didn’t have in Japan.
When and Why did Japan sign a treaty with the USSR…?
April 1941. The Japanese signed a neutrality treaty with the Soviet Union to help prevent an attack from that direction if they were to go to war with Britain or the U.S. while taking a bigger bite out of Southeast Asia.
What caused the bombing and attack on Pearl Harbour?
Towards the end of the 19th Century Japan saw herself like Britain, an island industrial country without resources. If Britain had colonies why couldn’t Japan have colonies. At the time the area that was being sliced up for colonies was China so Japan essentially jumped in to get what she thought was her fair share. Over time by fighting wars with China and Russia she acquired control over Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria and China north of the Great Wall. But the US and the other European powers wouldn’t recognize it. Also the Chinese people themselves refused to recognize what to the Japanese was an obvious mandate of heaven. The Chines rioted in in Japanese controlled cities, they refused to buy Japanese goods, The Chinese government refused to recognize the Japanese position.
In 1937 due to an accident at the Marco Polo Bridge in Peking an armed incident occurred. Rather than end the incident and walk away the Japanese decided to use it to teach China a lesson once and for all. They figured the war would be over in 6 months and they would have everything they wanted. Well it didn’t happen that way. When the Japanese attacked the Chinese refused to surrender, they just kept withdrawing further into China. The Japanese seized all the ports along the Chinese coast. One thing led to another. The Americans would up the anti and the Japanese responded by seizing more territory.
Finally when Japan took the Indo China coast the Americans cut off oil, the one thing that Japan absolutely had to have. Japan had no intention on giving up their position in China. So the only way out was for Japan was to seize the oil in the Indonesia. But to do that the Japanese figured they were going to have to take the Philippines because they sat right on the shipping routes. If the Japanese did that the US Pacific Fleet would obviously intervene. So they came with a plan to neutralize the US Pacific Fleet with a surprise air attack. The US was given warnings by Japan that they were going to attack but the US didn’t believe that they were strong enough.
What is a Kamikaze?
A Suicide attack by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the pacific campaign of WWII. Designed to destroy naval warships more effectively. Only about 19% of these attacks actually hit ships.
Who was Hideki Tojo?
As prime minister of Japan for most of WWII, he as directly responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbour, which initiated war between Japan and the US. After the end of the war, he was sentenced to death for Japanese war crimes by the international military tribunal and hanged in 1948.
What was the Tanaka Plan, or Tanaka Memorial?
It is an alleged Japanese strategic planning document from 1927, in which Prime Minister Baron Tanaka Giichi laid out for the Emperor Hirohito a strategy to take over the world.
The steps were:
- Conquest of Manchuria
- Conquest of China
- Conquest of the Soviet Union
- Establishment of bases in the Pacific
- Conquest of the United States
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:
In August 1945, during the final stage of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in human history.
As the Second World War entered its sixth and final year, the Allies had begun to prepare for a very costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This was preceded by an immensely destructive firebombing campaign that obliterated many Japanese cities. The war in Europe had concluded when Nazi Germany signed its surrender on May 8, 1945, but with the Japanese refusal to accept the Allies’ demands for unconditional surrender, the Pacific War dragged on. Together with the United Kingdom and China, the United States calls for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945, was buttressed with the threat of “prompt and utter destruction”.
Days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union’s declaration of war, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies. On September 2, it signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II. The bombings’ role in Japan’s surrender and their ethical justification are still debated
