In September 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, in which they agreed to assist one another should any of them be attacked by a country not already involved in the war. Japan sent troops to occupy French Indochina that same month, and the United States responded with economic sanctions, including an embargo on oil and steel. A little over a year later, Hirohito consented to the decision of his government to battle the Americans. On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes bombarded the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii, destroying or crippling 18 ships and killing almost 2,500 men. The United States declared war one day later. Over the next seven months, Japan occupied the Dutch East Indies, British Singapore, New Guinea, the Philippines and a number of other locations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
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But the tide started turning at the June 1942 Battle of Midway and soon after at Guadalcanal. By mid-1944, Japan’s military leaders recognized that victory was unlikely, yet the country did not stop fighting until after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the following August. On August 15, 1945, Hirohito made a radio broadcast announcing Japan’s surrender.