Course Description: The class will cover the Pacific War from 1936 to August 1945 with emphasis on the great naval battles. The circumstances that led up to these battles and the aftermath. There were many minor battles such as Bismarck Sea which will be reviewed in less detail, the primary ones are Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal/Solomons, Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf. The Philippine Sea was critical in that it gave us a base from which we could regularly attack the Japanese mainland and we did. It was from the Marianas Islands in the Philippine Sea from which we launched the two flights that dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The final conflict came at Okinawa when the two bombs ended the conflict. Okinawa is not known as a naval battle but the Japanese attempts to dislodge us by use of the Kamikaze were devastating but not effective enough to change the tide of that war. *Campus is closed Monday, July 24th in celebration of Pioneer Day- no classes will be held.

Course Instructor: Dick Clark graduated from the USC School of Business 1960. In 1997, upon retirement, he joined the Palm Springs Air Museum, a World War II air museum, as a docent and served as such until he was nominated to the presidency of that museum in 2010. In addition, he served on their Board of Directors. During those years his responsibilities included touring groups and teaching classes to new docents and lecturing on WWII history. He has also taught Summer Citizens classes at USU in the past three years on the subject of World War II.
dick8762@gmail.com