WWII in the Pacific: Why Japan Lost

it is no joke it is the real war has been a very severe attack this region the Pacific recently it's heating up and now is probably a good time to rewind and remember what this region looked like back when there was a war happening out here on these islands a war between great Powers let's start right here at the end of the 1800s when Japan is expanding fast conquering territory and taking the resources becoming a powerful Empire by 1940 their empire looks like this it includes hundreds of remote Islands out here in the Pacific and

Japan uses these colonies to extract resources that fed this growing Conquest but they don't have everything they need yet they still rely on the US for the most vital of resources oil and metal now the US doesn't necessarily like how aggressive Japan is being in their region but they tolerate it that is until Japan allies itself with Nazi Germany and then continues its expansion into a French colony and threatens to completely cut off the US from its Ally China so the us along with Britain and the Netherlands cut Japan off of oil gas Iron and

Steel these are vital resources so this is a major blow to Japan they calculate that they only have two more years before they run out of this vital energy they must act quickly so they start looking further south to land that is known to have a lot of oil the problem for Japan is that this is all controlled by European Empires Japan makes a plan to kick out all of these Europeans and establish their own access to oil and metal so they aren't reliant on Outsiders and they sell this ambitious plan to their people by

saying that they actually want to liberate Asia from European domination [Music] so in December 1941 they initiate this plan sending ships and planes to drop bombs all over the region that they want to conquer and to stop the Americans from coming to the Europeans rescue Japan has already sent a large chunk of its Navy to surprise the Americans by bombing their Navy in Pearl Harbor Hawaii it was their first step for kicking off this larger offensive pear the attacks on Pearl Harbor and all over Asia were a huge bold and risky move for Japan no

one thought they would do it it came as a massive surprise and as a result it was incredibly successful for Japan's goals the US and its allies are now at War but beating back Japan will not be easy Japan has a powerful navy and not only is America's Pacific Fleet severely damaged because of the attack on Pearl Harbor but around this same time Hitler has taken the moment to declare war on the US dragging them into the European theater of World War II over the next 7 months Japan takes even more territory powerful and resourceful

gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America together with other free peoples we are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world Neighbors in Freedom in common decency without fear of assault we are now in this war the US has to surrender the Philippines its foothold in the Pacific and Japan forces capture and kill tens of thousands of American and Filipino troops in just one of what would become many horrific war crimes they commit during this war

by the middle of 1942 Japan has achieved its goals of kicking out European Empires and securing for itself a massive Empire full of resources they're now self-sufficient and they're growing and they're not done they're drunk on all of this success and some military leaders want to keep pushing East all the way to here which would cut the US off from its big Ally Australia so they set their sites on this American base located on a small atle called Midway if they could take Midway the US would be so weak Japan calculates that they would be

forced to settle this conflict leaving Japan with all of this newly conquered territory alas that's not what happened in May of 1942 Japan sends a massive Fleet of hundreds of planes accompanied by battleships Cruisers destroyers and submarines as well as four of their precious aircraft carriers now remember this is World War II and you can't really fight a war out here in the ocean without aircraft carriers which enabled Japan's planes to land and refuel while fighting deep out in this ocean aircraft carriers are vital so Japan is preparing to conquer Midway but what they don't

know is that American code Breakers in Hawaii have cracked Japan's encrypted communication and are aware of their battle plans days before the attack this makes all the difference and in a 4-day battle the US defeats Japan's Navy at Midway destroying all four of their precious aircraft carriers in the process the odds looked impossible but when it was all over the Japanese had suffered their greatest na defeat in history it's a huge blow to Japan's momentum and from here the US and its allies start to turn the tide on this war in the Pacific hey I

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has mine thank you better for sponsoring today's video Let's dive back into this map of World War II so here's a problem for both sides distance it's sort of hard to Fathom the distances out here like you could fit the mainland United States in just one small part of the Japanese empire and remember that the US military has to travel thousands of kilometers just to get here distance is also a problem for Japan who yes just conquered all of this territory but that means that it now has to ship resources back to the mainland it

has to get men doctors food and supplies out to all of this land thousands of kilometers away creating brand new supply routes we found this old Japanese map drawn up during the war that shows all of these colonies shaded with a red marker and showing this dizzying web of supply lines needed to keep the war going this was a logistical nightmare for Japan but it was also a key vulnerability that the US would exploit in this conflict so the US begins cutting into the Japanese empire it's off to a slow start but eventually they settle

onto a strategy of targeting certain Islands not the ones that were the most fortified but the ones that would get them one step closer to the Japanese Mainland but also give them proximity to these supply lines the supply lines that keep Japan's war machine running the US starts conquering these lesser fortified islands and using them to Target the ships that carry food and weapons and supplies throughout the Japanese empire I found this data set that shows every Merchant vessel that the US and its allies sunk during these years it's a lot American submarines alone would

go on to sink 5 million tons of Japanese shipping and Naval vessels this strategy of targeting the supply lines was a GameChanger for the US allowing them to weaken the Japanese empire by targeting its cargo like they did down here in this key Japanese military stronghold in the south of the Empire the US and its allies first conquer Ed nearby islands and then used these islands as a jumping off point to Target the supply lines but instead of mounting an attack on this stronghold the US focused on the supply ships that were bringing food ammunition

reinforcements and medical supplies to this stronghold this left tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers stranded to die of starvation and disease the US was able to take out a key Japanese base without having to fight a battle the island hopping strategy was really working and if you look closely at this map you'll see that it allowed the US to bypass these heavily fortified Japanese Islands focusing more on cutting them off than trying to conquer them while also getting the us closer and closer to the mainland as 1945 rolls around the US continues to beat Japan

back the two US forces converge to retake the Philippines all these newly captured Islands allow the US to deploy their new high-tech plane the b29 bomber this thing could fly super high and deep into the Japanese Mainland and drop 20,000 lb worth of bombs Japan is clearly losing by now so they start to resort to more brutal tactics like having their pilots fly their planes into US ships in suicide attacks a deadly tactic that not only led to immense damage to the US Navy but also had a psychological element a realization that the enemy was

willing to go to Great Lengths to fight back but even so Japan's Empire continued to shrink almost as quickly as it had expanded but the closer the US gets to the mainland the more brutal the fighting is becoming for a variety of reasons there's really only one path to invade the mainland you have to hop along this southern island chain and invade from the south so the US sets their sights on perhaps the most important island in the Pacific Okinawa Japan knows that the US is coming for Okinawa so they recruit around 40,000 local men

giving some of them only Spears to defend themselves together with the army they dig tunnels and caves and trenches and bunkers the Army gives out hand grenades to civilians telling them to commit suicide instead of surrender warning them that the Americans will be brutal and violent to anyone they capture Japan wants this battle to convince the Americans that invading the mainland is a bad idea it's their last ditch effort to avoid defeat the US hits the beach at Okinawa starting one of the bloodiest battles of the entire War 82 days of violence that leaves a

third of the population dead a total of around 100,000 Japanese in addition to 12,000 American soldiers and the US wins they now control the most valuable island of them all the island that will enable them to invade the mainland but they're also left with a horrifying Clarity of how serious Japan is about not surrendering about fighting until the very end invading the mainland will be costly meanwhile in Europe Hitler and his allies have been defeated the winners get together and issue a statement to Japan unconditional surrender or face prompt and utter destruction now that Hitler

is defeated the Soviet Union is also preparing to join the US to deal the final blow to Japan but Japan doesn't reply to the demand for surrender and the Allies see this as a rejection back in the US in the deserts of the Southwest the US has just successfully tested an atomic bomb so now they have a decision to make they either continue their momentum and invade the mainland of Japan and face not only Japanese soldiers but civilian militias of potentially tens of millions of citizens ready to fight and it would also involve the Soviet

Union participating which means if they won the war with the Soviets help they would have to split control and influence over Japan's Empire after the war or the second option was to use their new powerful bomb to swiftly end the war with no more loss of American lives and much less Soviet influence in post-war Japan they could do it on their own while also sending a message to the Soviets that they were the most powerful on August 6th 1945 they chose the second [Music] plan they dropped this unfathomably powerful bomb on the city of hirosima

releasing a Hell Fire the world had never seen and killing 140,000 people almost all of them civilians forever altering the course of history 2 Days Later the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and began rapidly taking their territory when Japan still doesn't surrender the US drops another bomb this one on the city of Nagasaki the Soviets continue to rapidly take territory and it's more clear than ever that it is over for Japan while some factions of the Japanese Army still don't want to surrender the emperor goes around them and tells the nation that it's over

Japan is unconditionally surrendering the the Americans moved in took away Japan's powerful military prosecuted the war criminals and sent tens of thousands of troops to the vital island of Okinawa where the US stayed as the occupying power until the 1970s and where they still have tens of thousands of troops that serve American interests in Asia while also being Japan's main source of security the memory of this war is still in the minds of the people here especially for the those in the cities that were bombed and the southern islands that were invaded and as this

region becomes tense again Japan is now expanding its military once again mostly down here on these vital Islands I traveled here to see what that looks like and to talk to the people about what this feels like what they're worried about and I'll be sharing that story in an upcoming video let's pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always these proceedings are closed [Music]