Thursday, February 28, 2008

the Pacific Theater

The Pacific Theater was a dangerous front to fight in. America lost many people during the various battles but we seemed to have had some big wins as well. The islands presented some challenging climates to fight in. It could not have been easy to try take control of some of the islands that had dense jungles. The Japenese seemed to be surprised that we would fight as hard as we did.
Were we pretty much split in our numbers between the Pacific and the European fronts? Do we still have military presence on some of the islands that we were in control of during the war?

Nimitz was a good officer to have commanding opposite of MacArthur. He had a great deal of training that prepared him for the roles he would play in the war.

I didn't know much about the war we fought in the Pacific before this class, so the Battle of Bogenville was new to me. This battle is a great example of the importance of the military foreign intelligence operators.

3 comments:

Matt Fortier said...

Had the U.S. invaded every island the casualties that you speak of would have been far worse. This is precisly why I think that the U.S. military in the Pactific adopted the idea of leap froging. By implementing this many people were abel to be saved.

jeff lopez said...

well noted that leap-frogging the islands prevented many island invasions, it not only spared lives but shortened the war after all. despite this, thousands upon thousands of marines and army soldiers still died in the island hoping campaign.

David Strachan said...

But those casualties were for the most part necessary to win such a long distance war against Japan. With the exception of Tarawa, the style of warfare that Japan would eventually adopt made it impossible to clear an island of enemy combatants without such high casualty numbers. It was just a way to quicken the end of the war, just as was the dropping of the atom bomb.