Assault of the Japanese Center Force - HISTORY

Find out about the assault of the Japanese Center Force during World War II.

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Unable to neutralize U.S. opposition to its actions in SE Asia, Japan opened hostilities against the United States and Great Britain on December 7, 1941, by striking at Pearl Harbor, Singapore, and other Pacific possessions. The fortunes of war at first ran in favor of Japan, and by the end of 1942 the spread of Japanese military might over the Pacific to the doors of India and of Alaska was prodigious. Then the tide turned; territory was lost to the Allies island by island; warfare reached Japan itself with intensive bombing; and finally in 1945, following the explosion of atomic bombs by the United States over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered on August 14, the formal surrender being on the U.S. battleship Missouri in Tokyo Harbor on September 2, 1945.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Government issued executive order 9066, which empowered the military to round up anyone of Japanese ancestry and place them in internment camps.

In a 1943 radio broadcast, Dillon S. Meyer, director of the War Relocation Authority, conveys his disapproval of the Japanese internment camps, which he has been overseeing since they were instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942.

Senator Daniel Inouye fought to prove his American patriotism.

On September 2, 1945, aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, World War II comes to a close when Japanese officials sign the unconditional surrender. Gen. Douglas MacArthur presides over the signing and delivers a short speech on the momentous occasion.

A look back at the day the Imperial Japanese Navy conducted a surprise military strike against the United States naval base in Hawaii.