Major Battles/ Campaigns of the Pacific Theatre Jamie Fitzgerald Jason Chang Seungyeon Lee Alex Piaseki

Island-Hopping Strategy After the Battle of Midway, the U.S. launched a counter- offensive strike known as "island-hopping," “Island Hopping” established a line of overlapping island bases, as well as air control in the Pacific region. The goal was to capture certain key islands until Japan came within range of American bombers. General MacArthur led in the Southwest Pacific and General Nimitz in the central Pacific. MacArthur pushed along the New Guinea coast with Australian allies, in a bid to free the people of the Philippine Islands. Nimitz crossed the central Pacific by way of the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, Carolines, and Palaus. Campaigns were seemingly endless, bloody – and tropical disease-ridden battles, ultimately leading to the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. ultimately leading

Battle of Coral Sea May 7, 1942, American, Australian, and Japanese naval units fought the world's first of six fights between opposing aircraft carrier forces during the war in the pacific. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto Japanese sank the carrier USS Lexington and heavily damaged the carrier USS Yorktown while they only lost their carrier the Shoho Known as the first carrier-against-carrier naval battle (all losses were inflicted by air) For the first time in the Pacific war, the Japanese withdrew without achieving their objective, in this case Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. A Japanese air base at Port Moresby would threaten northeastern Australia and support plans for further expansion into the South Pacific The Japanese thought that the Americans would send only one carrier to dispute the offensive against Port Moresby, so the Japanese assigned only two carriers to the main strike force, whereas they easily could have committed a third. As a result, the two sides fought the battle with an almost equal number of carrier aircraft making Americans just as big of a threat as the Japanese. Two Japanese carriers, Shokaku and Zuikaku, lost so many aircraft that neither was available to participate in the Battle of Midway four weeks later.