Key Battles of American History

In this episode, James begins a two-part series about United States presidents who served in World War 2. In Part One, James tells the amazing story of John F. Kennedy’s service in the Pacific. James also discusses the wartime service of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, James tells the fascinating history of America’s first Special Forces unit: the Marine Raiders. Formed in 1942, the Raiders played a key role in several Pacific Theater battles, including Guadalcanal, New Georgia, and Bougainville. In 1944, the Raider battalions were disbanded, and their members were reassigned to regular Marine units. Why, you ask? Listen and find out! See omnyst...

The Second World War deeply and permanently changed the world. In this final episode of the series, James and Scott discuss just a few of the many changes wrought by the war. After discussing casualties of the Pacific War, we discuss the rise and fall of empires, the ushering in of the Cold War and the Nuclear Age, and changes specific to the United States. James and Scott thank you for listening...

In this second installment of the “story after the story” miniseries, James and Scott discuss the postwar careers of key US Army Air Force and Marine leaders, as well as Japanese political leaders. Persons mentioned in the episode include Generals Curtis LeMay and Holland Smith, Col. Chesty Puller, and Major Cleland E. Early, plus Japanese Emperor Hirohito, Prime Ministers Fumimaro Konoe, Hideki T...

"In this episode, James chats with author, history professor, and host of the Reel History YouTube Channel Jared Frederick. James and Jared discuss Jared's background, how he got into doing a YouTube channel, and the current state of history YouTubing and podcasting." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the first part of a two-episode series in which James and Scott discuss the “story after the story” of the top Japanese and American political and military leaders. In this episode, we discuss the postwar careers of President Truman, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Secretary of War Henry Stimson. We also talk about US Admirals Husband Kimmel, William Leahy, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz...

Between December 1942 and July 1945, a team of scientists, working in secret facilities in various parts of the U. S., researched, built, and tested the world’s first atomic bomb. Japan’s failure to surrender, together with the possibility of hundreds of thousands of casualties, motivated President Truman to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Despite the bomb’s destruction of t...

This is an excerpt from an episode of This American President, a great history podcast that is the newest member of the Parthenon Podcast Network. You can find it at www.spreaker.com/show/this-american-president or wherever you listen to podcasts. George Washington: The First American Action Hero He might look like an old man on the one-dollar bill, but George Washington was once a bona fide actio...

By the summer of 1945, it was clear that Japan was defeated. Historian Craig Symonds writes that Japan was “stripped of her conquests, bombed incessantly from the air by American B-29s, her imports cut to a trickle by American submarines, her navy destroyed, and her industries idle for lack of raw materials and oil. Her allies were gone, too…Japan was alone, starving, all but defenseless, a passiv...

During the Pacific War, the Japanese took over 130,000 Allied prisoners of war and held them in camps spread all over the Japanese Empire. Nearly all Allied prisoners were deprived of food and medical care, were regularly beaten, and were worked past the point of exhaustion. Nearly 40,000 died, representing about 27% (compared to only 4% in German camps). In this episode, James and Scott tell the...

Once again, James and Scott are taking a break from the narrative of key battles to discuss two more important topics. In this episode, we will tell the story of kamikazes, including the origin of the tactic, its expansion into a full-fledged program, and its increasingly devastating effect, most notably at the Battle of Okinawa. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As was the case with previous island battles, the American conquest of Okinawa was slow and bloody. In addition to their network of caves and tunnels, the Japanese possessed a strong fortress called Shuri Castle. But if the Americans could overcome the seemingly impregnable Japanese defenses, they could establish a powerful naval and air base from which to stage the seemingly inevitable invasion o...

After the successful capture of Iwo Jima, the Americans’ next objective was Okinawa, which was only 330 miles from the Japanese home islands. Possessing Okinawa would cut Japan’s supply line from southeast Asia and would provide an excellent staging point for an eventual invasion. As in many previous battles, the Japanese were dug into an extensive network of caves and tunnels. To complicate thing...

On February 19, 1945, 40,000 Marines landed on Iwo Jima, and many more would follow. Within four days, they had taken the summit of Mt. Suribachi, a key position that commanded the entire island, and had raised an enormous flag (an event made famous in the iconic photo by Joe Rosenthal). But the battle was far from over. The Japanese defenders were determined to exact as heavy a toll as possible,...

In order to make the strategic bombing runs over Japan more effective, General Curtis LeMay and other USAAF leaders wanted the B-29s to be escorted by fighters. In order for this to happen, the US needed a base much closer to Japan, because no fighter at the time could make it from Saipan or Guam to Japan and back. To meet this need, American military planners decided to launch an invasion of Iwo...

In May 1944, the US unveiled a new weapon, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber. It was bigger and faster than the B-17, it had a greater range, and it could carry a heavier bomb load (8-10 tons). Despite many early problems, by early 1945, B-29s were causing heavy damage on Japanese cities in the firebombing campaign led by General Curtis LeMay. In this episode, James and Scott discuss the contro...

In this episode, James and Scott take a break from the narrative of battles to take a deep dive (pun intended!) into the topic of American submarines in the Pacific War. Due to technical problems, early submarine torpedoes seldom destroyed their targets. By mid-1944, however, these problems had largely been solved, with devastating results for Japanese merchant vessels. From then on, US submarines...

In the last episode, we saw that the Japanese fleet, despite suffering some initial setbacks at the hands of the Americans, were still pressing hard toward the American invasion fleet in Leyte Gulf. Due to a major communication breakdown, the US Navy had left the San Bernardino Strait unguarded, so the way to the American invasion fleet was wide open. Would the Japanese fleet be able to capitalize...

After their overwhelming victories at the Philippine Sea and the Mariana Islands, American military leaders faced several options for their next target. Due in large part to lobbying by General MacArthur, they chose the Philippines. Japan’s leadership knew that losing the Philippines would mean the severing of the supply line from the Dutch East Indies to the home islands, so they were determined...

While the American attack on Saipan was still in progress, the Japanese Pacific fleet launched an attack on the American fleet, hoping to halt the invasion and to destroy the American fleet in a final, decisive battle. The Japanese fleet was powerful, but it was no match for Admiral Raymond Spruance’s Fifth Fleet, which destroyed so many Japanese planes and ships that the battle became known as th...

In June 1944, the U. S. launched its Marianas campaign, beginning with an amphibious assault on the key island of Saipan. After more than three bloody weeks of fighting, culminating in a massive banzai charge and the horrific suicides of thousands of civilians, the Americans controlled the island. Join James and Scott as they discuss the bloodiest battle of the Pacific Theater up to that point, a...

In the fall of 1943, top Japanese leaders decided to pull Japan’s defensive perimeter back closer to Japan, in an effort to stop the American juggernaut. American and other Allied forces continued to press forward, taking Biak in the southwestern Pacific and the Caroline Islands (including the key Japanese air/naval base of Truk) in the central Pacific. After these victories, American planners set...

In June 1943, American forces kicked off Operation Cartwheel, an attack on additional islands in the Solomons chain and parts of New Britain and New Guinea, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. At the same time, Admiral Ernest King decided to launch a second major offensive under Admiral Nimitz’ command that would work its way across the Central Pacific. This new invasion force would be...

Between August 1942 and June 1944, no “Key Battles” (at least in James’ reckoning!) occurred...but that of course does not mean that nothing happened! During the time between the Guadalcanal and Saipan campaigns, the U. S. and its allies launched a series of smaller campaigns to gradually push back the Japanese. In this episode, James and Scott discuss several key Allied efforts that occurred betw...