Allied victory was assured, but its final cost in lives remained disturbingly uncertain.Īs the Pacific war entered its climactic stage during the first half of 1945, the fighting reached unprecedented levels of ferocity and destructiveness. The appalling casualties suffered by both sides seemed to foreshadow what could be expected during an invasion of Japan. To many on the Allied side, the suicidal resistance of the Japanese military justified the harshest possible measures. Fearing that unconditional surrender would mean the annihilation of their culture, Japanese forces fought on tenaciously. Source: The Last Act: The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II by the Curators of the National Air and Space MuseumĪs the Pacific War entered its final climactic stage during the first half of 1945, the fighting reached unprecedented levels of ferocity and destructiveness. As the war approached its end in 1945, it appeared to both sides that it was a fight to the finish.
For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism. For most Americans, this war was fundamentally different than the one waged against Germany and Italy-it was a war of vengeance. Thus began a wider conflict marked by extreme bitterness. bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and launched other surprise assaults against Allied territories in the Pacific. Atrocities by Japanese troops included brutal mistreatment of civilians, forced laborers and prisoners of war, and biological experiments on human victims. The slaughter of tens of thousands of Chinese in Nanking in 1937 shocked the world.
Japanese expansionism was marked by naked aggression and extreme brutality. From 1937 to 1945, the Japanese Empire would be constantly at war. In 1931 the Japanese Army occupied Manchuria six years alter it invaded the rest of China. Source: The entire first draft of the script can be found in Judgement at the Smithsonian (New York: Marlowe & Company, 1995) Enola Gay Exhibit, First Draft-Final Draft UNIT 2: A FIGHT TO THE FINISH