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| 1945, Feb. 19–March 17 |
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| The stubborn and protracted battle for Iwo Jima gave the U.S. air forces a base 750 miles from Yokohama, at a cost of 19,938 American casualties. | 1 |
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| March 21 |
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| U.S. carrier aircraft, penetrating Japanese inland waters, attacked principal units of the Japanese fleet, damaged 15 warships, and destroyed 475 planes. No U.S. ship was lost. | 2 |
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| April 1 |
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| U.S. Marines and Army troops invaded Okinawa. An attempt by the Japanese fleet to check this amphibious operation resulted in the sinking by American aircraft (April 7) of the Japanese battleship Yamato, two cruisers, and three destroyers. The last bitter resistance on Okinawa did not end until June 21, but the island provided an airbase 325 miles from Japanese cities. | 3 |
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| April 30 |
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| In Southeast Asia the 14th British Imperial Army (Adm. Lord Louis Mountbatten), with support from U.S. and Chinese forces, completed the destruction in 15 months of the Japanese 15th, 28th, and 33d Armies. Total Japanese casualties were set (May 5) at 347,000. | 4 |
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| May–Aug |
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| In the greatest air offensive in history U.S. land-based and carrier-based aircraft destroyed or immobilized the remnants of the Japanese navy, shattered Japanese industry, and curtailed Japanese sea communications by submarine and air attack and extensive minefields. U.S. battleships moved in to shell densely populated cities with impunity and the 20th Air Force dropped 40,000 tons of bombs on Japanese industrial centers in one month. | 5 |
| After the collapse of Germany in May (See 1945) the Japanese were left without allies, and the British and American resources in men and materiel were redirected toward the Pacific theater of war. Japanese strength was already half broken and Japanese morale was beginning to disintegrate when three terrible strokes within one week hastened the conclusion of the war. | 6 |
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| Aug. 6 |
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| An ATOMIC BOMB, secretly prepared by American and British scientists, was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima with obliterating effect. The city was more than half destroyed. | 7 |
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| Aug. 8 |
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| SOVIET RUSSIA DECLARED WAR ON JAPAN and commenced invasion of Manchuria. | 8 |
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| Aug. 9 |
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| A second atomic bomb was dropped by the Americans on Nagasaki. | 9 |
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| Aug. 10 |
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| The Japanese cabinet decided to make an offer of surrender. The Allied terms of capitulation were communicated to Tokyo and accepted four days later (Aug. 14). U.S. forces of occupation landed in Japan on Aug. 26. | 10 |
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| Sept. 2 |
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| The FORMAL TERMS OF SURRENDER WERE SIGNED by the Japanese officials and military leaders on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. | 11 |
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