"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan"…thus began President Roosevelt's speech to the Congress asking for a declaration of war against Japan. With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese simultaneously attacked Hong Kong, Wake, Guam, and Midway islands, and the Philippines, and appeared to be unstoppable. However, less than four months later the United States was ready to strike back for the first time, with an attack against the Japanese mainland, flown by the B-25's of Doolittle Raiders. May and June saw the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, from which the Imperial Japanese Navy would never fully recover. The Japanese could only hope to consolidate their forces in the Pacific as the United States and her allies went over to the offensive from the Aleutian Islands to Australia.
By 1945, island-hopping campaigns in places like Guadalcanal, the Solomons, Iwo Jima, and the Marianas had brought the US to the doorstep of the Japanese home islands. In a last ditch effort to stave off defeat, the Japanese military turned to the use of officially sanctioned suicide in establishing it's Special Attack Squadrons, or Kamikaze. The remainder of Japan's best pilots and aircraft were squandered in attacks against American naval forces, which foretold the number of casualties that could be expected in an invasion of mainland Japan. Faced with an estimated loss of more than 1,000,000 casualties, the United States, Britain and China issued the "Potsdam Declaration" on July 26th. The ultimatum gave Japan two choices: immediate and unconditional surrender, or "prompt and utter destruction.". Japan refused, and on August 6th, the B-29 "Enola Gay" dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 3 days later, a second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. On August 14th, the Japanese accept the terms of surrender, which is signed aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2nd, 1945, ending the most destructive war in human history.