Person1885 – 1966
Chester W. Nimitz
Commander of the US Pacific Fleet who directed the Battle of Midway and signed Japan’s instrument of surrender for the United States
Where they went
2 related events
- 1
Having broken Japan’s codes, the US Navy ambushed the Japanese fleet bound for Midway and sank four carriers, turning the tide of the Pacific War.
- 2
Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration and Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender by radio on 15 August. The instrument of surrender was signed aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September, ending the Second World War.
People who appear alongside
- Yamamoto Isoroku1884 – 1943
Commander of Japan’s Combined Fleet who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Midway operation; shot down over the South Pacific in 1943
- Hirohito (Emperor Shōwa)1901 – 1989
Emperor of Japan (r. 1926–1989), sovereign during the war with China and the Pacific War, who announced the surrender by radio on 15 August 1945
- Douglas MacArthur1880 – 1964
US General of the Army; as UN commander in the Korean War he directed the Incheon landing. Relieved of command in April 1951
Themes this person appears in
- Republican China and Imperial Japan1912 – 1949
The age when the Republic of China, born of the 1911 Revolution, passed through warlord division, the May Fourth Movement, the United Front and the Northern Expedition, fought Japan’s invasion and split in civil war — as Japan moved from Taishō democracy through the Manchurian Incident and military coups to the war in China and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, and colonized Korea resisted through the March First Movement and armed struggle
- World War II1939 – 1945
From the invasion of Poland to the surrender of Japan — the largest war in human history, across Europe, Asia and the Pacific