United States badly bungled air and land defense during the first Philippines campaign (1941–1942) After the fall of Corregidor, news trickled back to the United States of real horrors of the Bataan death march The story of Bataan greatly hardened anti-Japanese sentiment, while Roosevelt personally pushed hard for the symbolic Doolittle Raid There followed a series of critical naval battles, beginning with Coral Sea in May and then the first real American success at Midway in June Over the winter of 1942–1943 a hard campaign was waged in the Aleutian Islands Meanwhile, an even tougher fight was taking place on land, at sea, and above the Solomon Islands, culminating in the long and bloody Guadalcanal campaign Green American troops joined Australians already fighting Japanese in the even more protracted New Guinea campaign The New Georgia campaign was fought in the Central Solomons in mid-1943 Over the course of that year the main thrust of the war moved into the Central Pacific, despite the best efforts of MacArthur to keep the focus on himself in the South Pacific, where he was bogged down on New Guinea The solution in both theaters was the new policy of island-hopping, or bypassing coastal garrisons, sea bases, and even whole islands occupied by Japanese garrisons, most notably Rabaul and Truk U.S special forces joined British and Indian Army main forces in the second Burma campaign (1943–1945), while the USAAF flew supplies over the Hump to the Guomindang in southern China American commanders argued fiercely with each other, and to persuade Roosevelt, over whether or not to “hop” the Philippines to strike more directly toward Japan’s home islands MacArthur won the argument, and plans were set in motion to retake the Philippine archipelago Meanwhile, Admiral Chester Nimitz drove through the Central Pacific from Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands to Eniwetok and other atolls in the Marshall Islands campaign The Americans and their allies broke into the inner ring of Japan’s Absolute National Defense Sphere with violent carrier raids, then horribly on the ground at Saipan ( June 15–July 9, 1944) The Japanese initiated the first phase of their grand Sho-Go¯ defense plan, which led the Imperial Japanese Navy to disaster at the Battle of the Philippine Sea ( June 19–20, 1944), which Americans quickly dubbed the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.” That was the first sign of final desperation with which the Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo intended to fight A huge and close-run naval Battle of Leyte Gulf (October 23–26, 1944) accompanied the start of the second Philippines campaign (1944–1945) While heavy fighting continued in the Philippines, Nimitz attacked Iwo Jima (February 19–March 24, 1945) and B-29s began major long-distance strategic bombing missions that progressively fire bombed and burned out Japan’s cities The major ground battle of the Pacific War came with invasion of Okinawa (April 1–June 21, 1945) There would be no “ultimate battle” for the home islands as expected in the DOWNFALL plan, after two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later In combination with the Red Army’s overpowering Manchurian offensive operation that charged into the Japanese on the Asian mainland starting on August 8, the bombings vitiated any occasion for a ground defense or invasion of Japan’s home islands It took U.S forces longer to effectively engage in the European Theater of Operations ( ETO) War matériel was diverted to North Africa that aided the British in the early desert campaigns (1940–1943), notably better tanks to face the Afrika Korps 1117