World War II

World War 2

I will tell you about the U.S. in World War 2. Mainly I will talk about the reasons that Japan had to attack the U.S.
Before Japan had begun a war with the U.S., it had already conquered parts of China, and they wanted to conquer the whole of China. But the U.S would never have permitted that, because China was a great market for America. If Japan conquered hole China; the US would lose his great market. This was one of the most important reasons.
Another important reason was that Japan wanted to conquer the Philippines and Indonesia for mineral oil. Japan didn’t have oil, so they wanted to capture the Philippines and Indonesia to get oil. But the Philippines was a kind of a colony of the U.S. So Japan knew, that America would never give the Philippines to them.

The conclusion of the Japanese was: we will fight against the Americans, so we have to be quick and attack the U.S. before they attack us.
Admiral Jamamoto made a brilliant plan. Four Japanese aircraft carriers would attack the U.S. marine base Pearl Harbor on the Hawaii islands. Pearl Harbor was an important marine base, because on that base were more than 15 battleships and many little warships. But the most important target of the Japanese was Americas three aircraft carriers.
On the attack on Pearl Harbor the U.S. lost 2 battleships and 5 little warships. Fortunately, the three aircraft carriers were not in Pearl Harbor during the attack. For the Japanese this attack was a great success, but they had forgotten to destroy the docks and the oil depots. The docks were one of the most serious mistakes that Japan made during the attack, because the ships that had sank could be repaired and fight against Japan.
After the attack Japan also captured the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
The first defeat of Japan was the battle of Midway, a little island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Japan lost its four big aircraft carriers: the akagi, kaga, sjokakoe, huyo and much more other warships. After this failure of Japan, the U.S. began to recapture the islands and countries that Japan had captured.
Late 1944 it was clear that Japan would lose the war, but the Americans began to bombard the Japanese cities, they wanted to encourage the Japanese government and the people to end the war as soon as possible. But it didn’t work. The Americans knew that, in spite of that, they continued their bombardments. An example: On the attack on Tokyo at 7 march 1945 150 000 people were killed.
As I said the U.S wanted to end the war as soon as possible, because every day, more American and Japanese soldiers were dying. The last solution for the Americans was to drop an atom bomb on Hiroshima. This atomic attack made 120 000 victims, most of them were women, children and senior citizens. A few days later, an American plane dropped another atom bomb, but this time on Nagasaki, 80 000 Japanese died during the attack. Two days later, Japan surrendered and the second world war was ended.
A few months after the war, the whole world asked the same question: Was it necessarily to drop the atom bombs?
The best argument for the people who thought it was necessary, is that if the U.S. made an invasion in Japan then there would be at least 500.000 Americans killed and a lot more Japanese.
People who thought it was unnecessary, had other arguments namely:
The Americans bombed the Japanese cities every day and night. They threw firebombs on residential areas and killed thousands of people every day. The economy of Japan had also collapsed, and the infrastructure was destroyed. In the middle of 1945, Japan prepared to surrender and the Americans knew that. But President Truman wanted to show the world the power of the United States by dropping these bombs. There were also economical reasons for throwing these bombs. For making and testing these bombs, the U.S. had spent billiards of dollars and it would be pity if they had not used them and see the size of the destruction.