World War 2

The year is 1945 and World War II has been going on for 6 years. The Germans led by Adolf Hitler, are starting to see one defeat after another. They lost the Eastern Front to the Russians and the Western front was slowly but surely being taken back by the allied forces, mainly the British and the Americans. The Americans had only entered the war 4 years before, but their impact on the war was so great . The Americans declared war on Japan on December 7,1941, after the unprovoked attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour. In what historians describe as a foolish move on Hitler's part, he also declared war on America, which brought the US into the war that was taking place on European soil.

In mid 1945, as the war in Europe was gradually drawing to a close, the world began focusing their attention on the Pacific Theatre.

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In the Pacific the Americans were actively pursuing the Japanese forces. The US Navy saw the Pacific as an arena in which it could perform more effectively than in the Atlantic or the Mediterranean. General Douglas MacArthur, who had commanded in the Philippines and been evacuated to Australia, was the United States best-known military figure and as such too valuable to be left with an inconsequential mission. The Battle of Midway had stopped the Japanese in the central Pacific, but they continued to advance in the Southwest Pacific along the Solomons chain and overland on New Guinea. On July 2, 1942, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff directed the naval and ground forces in the south and Southwest Pacific to halt the Japanese, drive them out of the Solomons and north-eastern New Guinea, and eliminate the great base the Japanese had established at Rabaul, on New Britain...