WWII

American victories in the Coral Sea and Midway Island U-Boat 505 WWII Photos PI Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941

Bataan Death March April 1942 In March of 1942 U.S General Douglas MacArthur and president Quezon fled the country. The cruelty of the Japanese military occupation of the Philippines was very brutal an aspect of samurai barbarism. The 76,000 starving and sick American and Filipino Defenders in Bataan surrendered to the Japanese on April 9,1942. The Japanese led their captives on a cruel and criminal Death March in which 7-10,000 died or were murdered before reaching the camps at Cabanatuan.

Battle of Leyte Gulf & 10 / 44 Landings Normandy Invasion Songs

At the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General MacArthur was evacuated from the Philippines in March 1942. Given command of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific area, he directed the successful defense of southeastern New Guinea, and beginning later in 1942, the counteroffensive that ultimately swept the Japanese from the region, leading to his return to the Philippines with the October 1944 invasion of Leyte. Promoted to General of the Army shortly before the end of 1944, MacArthur subsequently oversaw the liberation of the rest of the Philippines. After Japan capitulated in August 1945 General MacArthur presided over the formal surrender ceremonies and, during the next five years, was responsible for demilitarizing the defeated nation and reforming its political and economic life.

The four-day Battle of the Coral Sea started when the Americans decoded Japanese invasion plans for Port Moresby, New Guinea, and Tulagi, in the Solomon Islands. America sent a naval force to stop the Japanese troops. The enemy ships never met each other, but from May 2 through May 6, both fleets attacked each other with waves of fighter planes and bombers. The Japanese lost 70 planes and its light carrier Shoho. The American losses included 66 planes and the aircraft carrier Lexington, a vital oceangoing carrier. Although victorious in terms of ship tonnage sunk, Japan lost too many fighter pilots to continue with the invasions. Thus its southward advances were halted. A month later, American triumphed again at Midway.

D-Day

2,000 ships, 4,000 landing craft and 11,000 airplanes were involved in the largest seaborne invasion ever. Allied troops crossed the choppy English Channel toward Normandy on June 6, 1944, on Operation Overlord: the regaining of northern Europe after four years of Nazi occupation.

Liberation freedom from the Japanese occupationBridge of Remagen, Germany 1944 Pictures Battle of Leyte Gulf October 1944

Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Six Day War Jerusalem Victorious Middle Eastern Conflict War Video

In 1967, the simmering Arab-Israeli hostilities exploded into brief, climatic war when Israel , assailed by Palestinian guerrillas, launched a massive punitive strike against Egypt, the Arab world’s leading state. Although the Six Day War was a result of Egyptian provocation, conflict was a fact of Middle Eastern life since 1947, when Palestine was partitioned to make room for a Jewish state. After a decisive military victory in 1967, Israel annexed (took over) substantial Arab territory, ensuring continued violence right to the end of the century.

After the partition, thousands of Palestinians had fled Israel into neighbouring Arab states, many of them forming guerrilla groups to attack the new country. In May 1967, Israel responded to escalating violence by massing troops on the Syrian border. Egyptian president Gamal Abdal Nasser reacted aggressively. He ordered United Nations cease-fire troops to leave the contested Egyptian-Israeli border, blockaded the Red Sea Strait of Tiran, a crucial Israeli shipping lane and entered into a military pact with Jordan, Israel's aggressive eastern neighbour. Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and Algeria promised to "wipe Israel off the map" if it retaliated.

Fearing an invasion, Israel launched a surprise attack. On June 5 it destroyed the Egyptian air force, the strongest Arab fighting unit, and then continued to trounce Egyptian ground forces and occupy the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. Jordan entered the war as well, but was also vanquished. Israel captured all Jordanian territory west of the Jordan River -- the West Bank. Then Israel drove Syria out of the Golan Heights. The UN brokered a cease-fire on June 11, ending the immediate conflict. But the stage had been set for future violence.