The Solomon Islands New Georgia Bougainville Tarawa Kwajalein The Next Steps The Solomon Islands New Georgia Bougainville Tarawa Kwajalein

After Guadalcanal Island Hopping continues Yamamoto’s Plane is shot down and he is killed by P-38 Nest stop for the Navy and the Marines---New Georgia and the Solomon Islands By June of 43’ the US began UNRESTRICTED SUB_WARFARE

New Georgia Admiral Halsey landed troops on New Georgia, while Macarthur's troops moved to Nassau Bay, New Guinea. TOENAILS Japanese Pillboxes and Honeycombs Rough seas, shoals, resistance, & bad execution

First Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, became the first black American infantry unit to engage in combat during the war

With the highest number of non-combatant U. S With the highest number of non-combatant U.S. casualties (jungle disease) in the island-hopping campaign, the New Georgia mission became a costly success

Bougainville

November 1, 1943 60,000 elite Japanese troops Allies use the seas and the skies The Japanese responded with naval and air vessels from Rabaul November 5th, Admiral Halsey dispatched a carrier air strike against Rabaul, knocking down many Japanese planes and forcing the naval forces to flee to the open ocean

Hill 700 March 8, the inevitable massive Japanese attack began It was brutal "Pour it on as close to me as you can get." The battles on Hill 700 and Cannon Hill were at such short range that infantry weapons alone had to repulse the assault waves

Bougainville Marines will face some of the fiercest Japanese resistance They will see the 1st of many “BANZI CHARGES” In the end the Japanese defenders will die as they see with HONOR

Japanese Atrocities Just prior to Bougainville they execute 100 POWS on WAKE ISLAND They issue orders to kill and dispose of US POWS The “SPIRIT WARRIORS” WHITE DEVILS & YELLOW DEVILS

Tarawa and Makin, Gilbert Islands November 1943 Rear Admiral Howard F. Kingman announced to the landing troops "Gentlemen, we will not neutralize Tarawa. We will not destroy it. We will obliterate it! Tarawa and Makin, Gilbert Islands November 1943 Rear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki “A million men could not take Tarawa in a hundred years” It would take 35,000 men 4 days to conquer Tarawa; at the end of the battle, neither side would look at the war the same way.

TAWARA 3 HOURS OF NAVAL BOMBARDMNENT 2nd Marine Division landed on Betio Betio was a fortress of unparalleled intricacy, with coconut log bunkers cemented with crushed coral and intersecting zones of fire

1st hour the 1st wave suffered almost total casualties The battle end with a Banzi Charge than may have saved my US Marines than it killed Tarawa was truly the 1st sign of what was to face the Marines in the Pacific 1500 Americans and 4800 Japanese died on Tarawa. 1st hour the 1st wave suffered almost total casualties The battle for Tarawa would be won but the with a bloody cost By the 3rd day Shibasaki and his entire command staff committed suicide

Results of Tarawa US MARINES GAINED A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF JAPANESE INTRENCHMENT PRACTICE PILL BOXES WERE BUILT FOR TRAINING DUKW UNITS & AMTRACS WERE BETTER PREPARED FOR THE REEFS & ROUGH WATERS

Bismarck Archipelago 15 December 1943-27 November 1944 By close of 1943, the US, Australia, and New Zealand had stopped the Japanese juggernaut in the Pacific Before MacArthur could begin operations against the Philippines, he needed to capture the Bismarck Archipelago, a group of islands off the New Guinea coast

Rabaul CARTWHEEL Weaken through attrition and starvation A VERY LONG CAMPIAGN IN THE END RABAUL FALLS TO us BOMBERS ON Feb. 20, 1944 Time to hop to the next island

The Marshall Islands Kwajalien-largest coral atoll in the world Jan. 31st – Feb. 3rd US launched a more successful twin assault on the main islands of Kwajalien in the south and Roi-Namur in the north Operation was a success almost to a man the Japanese defenders will fight to the death 1st time the United States penetrated the "outer ring" of the Japanese pacific sphere

The battle represented the failure of the beach-line defense A Lesson Well Learned The battle represented the failure of the beach-line defense From this point on they will allow the landings and using their triangle method of cross fire will inflict mass casualties on the Marines in the Pacific

B-29 With the success of the island hopping campaign the 1st b-29 Superfotresses begin bombing raids 77 take off and from this point the islands that must be taken become clear In the path to Japan stands Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa