This articlemay betoo long to read and navigate comfortably. When this tag was added, itsreadable prose size was 16,000 words. Considersplitting content into sub-articles,condensing it, or addingsubheadings. Please discuss this issue on the article'stalk page.(November 2024)
The Pacific War Council as photographed on 12 October 1942. Pictured are representatives from the United States (seated), Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, China, the Netherlands, and thePhilippine Commonwealth
In China, Japan made large gains inOperation Ichi-Go between April and December 1944, while in Burma, the Japanese launchedan offensive into India which was reversed by July 1944 and led to its liberation by the Allies in May 1945. From the start of the war, the Allies had adopted a "Europe first" stance, giving priority to defeating Germany; afterGermany's surrender in May 1945, Allied forces were shifted to the Pacific in anticipation forOperation Downfall, a planned invasion of Japan. This became unnecessary after the U.S.atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 andSoviet invasion of Manchuria on 9 August, after whichJapan surrendered unconditionally on 15 August and signed a surrender document on 2 September, ending World War II. Japan lost its formerpossessions in Asia and the Pacific, and wasoccupied by the Allies until 1952.
InAllied countries during the war, the "Pacific War" was not usually distinguished fromWorld War II, or was known simply as theWar against Japan. In the United States, the termPacific theater was widely used. The US Armed Forces considered theChina Burma India theater to be distinct from the Asiatic-Pacific theater during the conflict.[citation needed]
Japan used the nameGreater East Asia War (大東亜戦争,Dai Tō-A Sensō), as chosen by a cabinet decision on 10 December 1941, to refer to both the war with the Western Allies and the ongoing war in China. This name was released to the public on 12 December, with an explanation that it involvedAsian nations achieving their independence from the Western powers through armed forces of theGreater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.[41] Japanese officials integrated what they called theJapan–China Incident (日支事変,Nisshi Jihen) into the Greater East Asia War. During theOccupation of Japan (1945–1952), these terms were prohibited in official documents (although their informal usage continued). The war became officially known as the Pacific War (太平洋戦争,Taiheiyō Sensō). TheFifteen Years' War (十五年戦争,Jūgonen Sensō) is also used, referring to the period from theMukden incident of 1931 through 1945.[citation needed]
TheImperial Japanese Navy (IJN) did not integrate its units into permanent theater commands. TheImperial Japanese Army (IJA), which had already created theKwantung Army to oversee its occupation of Manchukuo and theChina Expeditionary Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War, created theSouthern Expeditionary Army Group at the outset of its conquests of South East Asia. This headquarters controlled the bulk of the Japanese Army formations which opposed the Western Allies in the Pacific and South East Asia.
Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, where between 200,000 and 300,000 civilians and POWs were murdered by the Japanese Army
In 1931, without declaring war,Japan invaded Manchuria, seeking raw materials to fuel its growing industrial economy. By 1937, Japan controlled Manchuria and was prepared to move deeper into China. TheMarco Polo Bridge Incident on 7 July 1937 provoked full-scale war between China and Japan. TheNationalist Party and theChinese Communists suspendedtheir civil war in order to form anominal alliance against Japan, and the Soviet Union quicklylent support by providing large amounts of materiel to Chinese troops. In August 1937, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed some of his best troops to defend Shanghai against some 300,000 Japanese troops attempting to seize the city, which fell to Japan after three months of fighting.[54][page needed] The Japanese continued to push deeper into China,capturing the capital Nanjing in mid-December 1937 and committing atrocities in theNanjing Massacre, including rape, murder and torture.[55]
German-trained Chinese troops in downtown Shanghai, 1937
In March 1938, Nationalist forces won theirfirst victory at Taierzhuang,[56][page needed] but the city ofXuzhou (徐州) was taken by the Japanese in May. In June 1938, Japan deployed about 350,000 troops toinvade Wuhan and captured it in October after a four-month campaign.[57][page needed] The Japanese achieved major military victories, but world opinion—in particular in the US—was hostile to Japan's invasion, especially after thePanay incident. In addition, the Japanese had failed to destroy the Chinese army, which continued to resist from the new Nationalist capital inChongqing, or in the case of the Communists,Yan'an.[58]
In 1939, Japanese forces tried to push into theSoviet Far East. They were defeated in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol by a mixed Soviet and Mongolian force led byGeorgy Zhukov. This caused the Japanese to abandon attempts toexpand to the north, while Soviet aid to China ceased as a result of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact.[59][page needed] In September 1940, Japan decided toinvade French Indochina, which was controlled at the time byVichy France. On 27 September Japan signed a military alliance with Germany and Italy, becoming one of the three mainAxis Powers.
Chinese casualties of a mass panic during a June 1941 Japanese aerialbombing of Chongqing
By 1941 the conflict had become a stalemate. Although Japan had occupied much of northern, central, and coastal China, theNationalist Government had retreated to the interior and set up a provisional capital atChongqing, while theChinese communists remained in control of base areas inShaanxi. Japanese offensive action against the retreating and regrouping Chinese forces was largely stalled by the mountainous terrain in southwestern China, while the Communists organized widespreadguerrilla and saboteur activities in northern and eastern China behind the Japanese front line.[citation needed]
Japanesestrategic bombing efforts mostly targeted large Chinese cities such as Shanghai,Wuhan, andChongqing, with around 5,000 raids from February 1938 to August 1943. Japan's strategic bombing campaigns killed between 260,000 and 350,934non-combatants.[64][65][page needed]
As early as 1935, Japanese military strategists had concluded that the Dutch East Indies were, due to their abundant oil reserves, crucially important for further expansion by the Japanese Empire. By 1940 the Japanese also included Indochina, Malaya, and the Philippines within their concept of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japanese troop build-ups in Hainan, Taiwan, andHaiphong were noted in foreign media, Japanese military officers were increasingly and openly talking about the prospect of war, and AdmiralSankichi Takahashi was reported as stating that a showdown with the US was necessary.[66]
In an effort to discourage Japanese militarism, Western powers including Australia, the US, Britain, and theDutch government in exile, which controlled the Dutch East Indies,stopped selling oil, iron ore, and steel to Japan. In Japan, the government andJapanese nationalists viewed these embargoes as acts of aggression; imported oil made up about 80% of domestic consumption, without which Japan's economy would grind to a halt. The Japanese media, influenced by military propagandists,[i] began to refer to the embargoes as the "ABCD line" ("American-British-Chinese-Dutch").
The JapaneseImperial General Headquarters (GHQ) began planning for a war with the Western powers in April or May 1941. Japan increased its naval budget and placed large formations of the Army, along with their attached air components, under the command of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Historically, the IJA consumed the majority of the state's military budget (with a 73% - 27% split in 1940), but from 1942 to 1945 the IJA would account for 60% of Japan's military spending, while the IJN would account for 40%.[69] Japan's key initial objective was to seize economic resources in the Dutch East Indies and Malaya, in order to alleviate the effects of the Allied embargo.[70] This was known as theSouthern Plan. It was decided—because of the close relationship between the UK and the US,[71][page needed][72][page needed] and the belief that the US would inevitably become involved in the ongoing war in Europe—that Japan would also seize the Philippines,Wake Island andGuam.
Japan had initially planned for a limited war, where Japanese forces would seize key objectives and then establish a defensive perimeter to absorb and defeat Allied counterattacks; Japanese decision-makers believed such a military situation would lead to a negotiated peace that would preserve Japanese territorial gains.[73] Japanese planning divided the early war into two operational phases. The First Operational Phase was further divided into three separate parts in which the major objectives of the Philippines, British Malaya, Borneo, Burma, Rabaul and the Dutch East Indies would be occupied. The Second Operational Phase called for further expansion into the South Pacific by seizing eastern New Guinea, New Britain, Fiji, Samoa, and strategic points in around Australia. In the Central Pacific, Midway Island was targeted, as were the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific. Japanese strategists believed that the seizure of these key areas would provide defensive depth and deny the Allies staging areas from which to mount a counteroffensive.[73]
By November 1941 these plans were mostly complete, and were modified only slightly over the next month. Japanese military planners' expectation of success rested on the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union being unable to effectively respond to a Japanese attack because of the threat posed to each by Nazi Germany; in particular, the Soviet Union was seen as unlikely to commence hostilities.
The Japanese leadership was aware that a total military victory in the traditional sense against the United States was impossible, and instead envisaged that rapid, aggressive and expansive conquest would force the US to agree to a negotiated peace that would recognize Japanese hegemony in Asia.[74]
In the early hours of 7 December (Hawaiian time), carrier-based Japanese aircraft launched a surprise, large-scale air strike on the US Pacific Fleet's anchorage at Pearl Harbor inHonolulu, which knocked eight American battleships out of action, destroyed 188 American aircraft, and killed 2,403 Americans.[75] The Japanese believed that the Americans, faced with such a sudden and massive blow to their naval power in the Pacific, would agree to a negotiated settlement. However, American losses were less serious than initially thought: the three American aircraft carriers were at sea during the attack, and vital naval infrastructure, Honolulu's submarine base, andsignals intelligence units were unscathed. The fact that the bombing happened while the US was not officially at war[j] caused a wave of outrage across the country.[75] Japan's fallback strategy, relying on awar of attrition against the United States, was beyond the Imperial Japanese Navy's capabilities.[76][77]
Opposition to war in the United States vanished after the attack. On 8 December, the United Kingdom,[k][78] the United States,[l][79] Canada,[80] and the Netherlands[81] declared war on Japan, followed by Australia[82] the next day.
Malaya, East Indies, Siam and Indo-China Map, 1942British forces surrenderSingapore to the Japanese, February 1942
Thailand, with its territory already serving as a springboard for Japan'sMalayan Campaign, surrendered within hours of the Japanese invasion.[83] The government of Thailand formally allied with Japan on 21 December. To the south, the IJA seized the British colony ofPenang on 19 December, encountering little resistance.[84][page needed]
Hong Kong was attacked on 8 December and fell to Japanese forces on25 December 1941. American bases on Guam and Wake Island were seized by Japan at around the same time. British, Australian, and Dutch forces, already drained of personnel andmatériel by two years of war with Germany, and heavily committed in the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, were unable to provide more than token resistance. Two major British warships, thebattlecruiserHMS Repulse and thebattleshipHMS Prince of Wales, weresunk by a Japanese air attack off Malaya on 10 December 1941.[85]
Following theDeclaration by United Nations on1 January 1942, the Allied governments appointed the British GeneralArchibald Wavell to theAmerican-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM), a supreme command for Allied forces in Southeast Asia. This gave Wavell nominal control of a huge force, albeit one that was thinly spread across a vast area, from Burma to the Philippines to northern Australia. Other regions, including India, Hawaii, and the rest of Australia, remained under local commands. On 15 January, Wavell moved toBandung inJava to assume control of ABDACOM.
In January, Japan invaded British Burma, the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, and capturedManila,Kuala Lumpur andRabaul. After being driven out of Malaya, Allied forces in Singapore attempted to resist the Japanese during the Battle of Singapore, but were forced to surrender to the Japanese on 15 February 1942. About 130,000 Indian, British, Australian and Dutch personnel became Japanese prisoners of war.[86]Bali andTimor fell in February.[87][88] The rapid collapse of Allied resistance left the "ABDA area" split in two. Wavell resigned from ABDACOM on 25 February, handing control of the ABDA Area to local commanders and returning to the post ofCommander-in-Chief, India.
In March and April, an IJN carrier force launched araid into the Indian Ocean. British Royal Navy bases inCeylon were hit and the aircraft carrierHMS Hermes was sunk, along with other Allied ships. The attack forced the Royal Navy to withdraw to the western part of the Indian Ocean,[93] paving the way for a Japanese assault on Burma and India.
In Burma, the Japanese capturedMoulmein on 31 January 1942, and then drove outnumbered British and Indian troops towards theSittang River. On 23 February, a bridge over the river was demolished prematurely, stranding most of an Indian division. On 8 March, the Japanese occupiedRangoon. The Allies attempted to defend Central Burma, with Indian and Burmese divisions holding theIrrawaddy River valley and theChinese Expeditionary Force in Burma defendingToungoo. On 16 April, 7,000 British soldiers were encircled by the Japanese 33rd Division during theBattle of Yenangyaung, but subsequently rescued by the Chinese 38th Division, led bySun Li-jen.[94] Meanwhile, in theBattle of Yunnan-Burma Road, the Japanese captured Toungoo after hard fighting and sent motorized units to captureLashio. This cut theBurma Road, which was the western Allies' supply line to Chinese Nationalist troops. Many of Chinese troops were forced either to retreat to India, or withdraw in small parties toYunnan. Accompanied by large numbers of civilian refugees, the British retreated toImphal in Manipur, abandoning most of their transportation and equipment. They reached Imphal in May just as the monsoon descended, which halted the operations of both sides in the area.
Within China, cooperation between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists had waned from its zenith at the Battle of Wuhan, and the relationship between the two had soured as both attempted to expand their areas of operation and influence. The Japanese exploited this lack of unity to press their offensive operations in China.
On 8 December 1941, Japanese bombers struck American airfields on Luzon. They caught most American planes on the ground, destroying 103 aircraft, more than half of the US air strength in the Philippines.[95] Two days later, further air raids destroyed the Cavite Naval Yard. By 13 December, Japanese attacks had wrecked every major airfield and virtually annihilated American air power in the region.[95] The previous month, a portion of theUS Asiatic Fleet had been sent to the southern Philippines. However, with little air protection, the remaining surface vessels in the Philippines, especially the larger ships, were ordered to sail for Java or Australia, and the remaining American bombers in the area flew to Australia in mid-December.[95] The only American forces that remained to defend the Philippines were the ground troops, a few fighter aircraft, about 30 submarines, and a few small vessels.
The main Japanese landings on Luzon took place on 22 and 24 December. As the Japanese troops converged on Manila, GeneralDouglas MacArthur began executing plans to make a final stand on theBataan Peninsula and the island ofCorregidor. A series of rearguard actions brought the bulk of his troops safely into Bataan, while the Japanese entered Manila unopposed on 2 January 1942.[96] On 7 January, the Japaneseattacked Bataan. After some initial success, they were stalled by disease and casualties; however, Japanese forces could be reinforced, while the Americans and Filipinos were entirely isolated from resupply. On 11 March 1942, under orders from President Roosevelt, MacArthur abandoned Corregidor for Australia, and Lieutenant GeneralJonathan M. Wainwright assumed command in the Philippines. The defenders on Bataan, running low on ammunition and supplies, could no longer withstand the pressure from Japanese attacks. Bataan fell on 9 April, and the 76,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war taken on the peninsula were subjected to the 66 miles (106 km) longBataan Death March. On the night of 5–6 May, after an intensive aerial and artillery bombardment, the Japanese landed on Corregidor and Wainwright surrendered. In the southern Philippines, where key ports and airfields had already been seized, the remaining American-Filipino forces surrendered on 9 May.
In late 1941, as the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbor, most of Australia's best forces were committed in theMediterranean Theatre. Australia was ill-prepared for an attack, lacking armaments, modern fighter aircraft, heavy bombers, and aircraft carriers. While still calling for reinforcements from Churchill, the Australian Prime MinisterJohn Curtin called for American support with an announcement on 27 December 1941:[97][98]
Dutch and AustralianPoWs at Tarsau, in Thailand in 1943. 22,000 Australians were captured by the Japanese; 8,000 died as prisoners of war.
The Australian Government ... regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the United States and Australia must have the fullest say in the direction of the democracies' fighting plan. Without inhibitions of any kind, I make it clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.
Australia had been shocked by the speed of the collapse of Commonwealth forces in British Malaya andSingapore, in which around 15,000 Australian soldiers became prisoners of war. Curtin predicted that the "battle for Australia" was imminent. The Japanese established a major base in the AustralianTerritory of New Guinea beginning with the capture ofRabaul on 23 January 1942.[99] On 19 February 1942,Darwin was hit by an air raid, the first time the Australian mainland had come under foreign attack. Over the following 19 months,Australia was attacked from the air by the Japanese almost 100 times.
In early 1942, elements of the IJNproposed an invasion of Australia. The IJA opposed the plan and it was rejected in favor of isolating Australia via naval blockade, by advancing through the South Pacific.[100] The Japanese decided upon a seaborne invasion ofPort Moresby on the southern coast of New Guinea, which would put Northern Australia within range of Japanese bomber aircraft.
PresidentFranklin Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to formulate a Pacific defense plan in conjunction with Australia in March 1942. Curtin agreed to place Australian forces under the command of MacArthur, who became Supreme Commander, South West Pacific. MacArthur moved his headquarters to Melbourne in March 1942 and American troops began massing in Australia.Japanese naval activity reached Sydney in late May 1942, when IJNmidget submarines launched araid on Sydney Harbour. On 8 June 1942, two Japanese submarines briefly shelled Sydney's eastern suburbs and the city of Newcastle.[101]
In early 1942, the governments of smaller Allied powers began to push for an inter-governmental Asia-Pacific war council. The Pacific War Council was formed in Washington DC on 1 April 1942, with PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, his key advisorHarry Hopkins, and representatives from Britain, China, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Canada. Representatives fromIndia and the Philippines were later added. The council never had any direct operational control, and any decisions it made were referred to the US-UKCombined Chiefs of Staff. Australian and Dutch forces led civilians in a prolongedguerilla campaign in Portuguese Timor.
AB-25 bomber takes off fromUSS Hornet as part of the Doolittle Raid.
TheSecond Operational Phase was planned to expand Japan's strategic depth by conquering easternNew Guinea,New Britain, theAleutians,Midway,Fiji,Samoa, and strategic points in the Australian area.[102] TheNaval General Staff advocated an advance to the south to seize parts of Australia, but with large numbers of troops engaged in China and Manchuria, the IJA declined to contribute the necessary ground forces for the operation.[102] The Naval General Staff still wanted to cut the sea links between Australia and the United States by capturingNew Caledonia, Fiji, and Samoa. Because this required far fewer troops, on 13 March the Naval General Staff and the Army agreed to prepare for operations to capture Fiji and Samoa.[102] The Second Operational Phase began when Lae and Salamaua, located in eastern New Guinea, were captured on 8 March. However, on 10 March, American carrier aircraft attacked the Japanese invasion forces and inflicted considerable losses. The raid had major operational implications, as it forced the Japanese to postpone their advance in the South Pacific until theCombined Fleet allocated sufficient naval forces to protect future offensive operations in the region.[102]
Concurrently, the United States conducted theDoolittle Raid on the Japanese mainland in April 1942, in which 16 bombers took off from the aircraft carrierUSS Hornet, 600 miles (970 km) from Japan. The raid inflicted minimal material damage on Japanese soil but was a significant boost for American morale; it also had psychological repercussions in Japan, exposing the danger to the Japanese homeland posed by American carrier forces.[103][104] With onlyMarcus Island and a line of converted trawlers patrolling the vast waters that separateWake Island andKamchatka, the Japanese east coast was left open to further attacks similar to Doolittle.[104]
AdmiralYamamoto proposed a strategy to bring about the destruction of the US Navy by occupying Midway Atoll, an objective he thought the Americans would be certain to fight for, as Japanese aircraft based on Midway could threaten Hawaii.[105] During a series of meetings held from 2–5 April, the Naval General Staff and representatives of the Combined Fleet reached a compromise. Yamamoto was allowed to attempt his Midway operation, but only after he had threatened to resign. In return, Yamamoto had to allocateone carrier division to the operation against Port Moresby, as well as carrying out amphibious landings on strategic points in the Aleutian Islands simultaneously with the Midway operation. These concessions drew valuable Japanese military assets away from the attack on Midway, and were enough to remove the Japanese margin of superiority in the Midway attack.[106]
The aircraft carrierUSS Lexington explodes on 8 May 1942, several hours after being damaged by a Japanese carrier air attack.
The Japanese assault on Port Moresby was codenamed theMO Operation and was divided into several parts. The island of Tulagi, in the Solomon chain, would be occupied on 3 May; IJN carriers would then conduct a sweep through the Coral Sea to the south to find and destroy Allied naval forces. The Japanese scheduled amphibious landings to capture Port Moresby for 10 May.[106] TheMO Operation called for a force of 60 vessels centered around two carriers, and 250 aircraft.[106] However, the ensuing naval battle did not go according to plan for the Japanese; althoughTulagi was seized on 3 May, the following day, aircraft from the American carrierYorktown struck the invasion force.[106] The element of surprise was lost due to the success of Alliedcodebreakers. From the Allied perspective, if Port Moresby fell, the Japanese would control the seas to the north and west of Australia, and could effectively isolate the country from its allies in North America. An Allied task force under the command of AdmiralFrank Fletcher, with the carriersUSS Lexington andYorktown, was assembled to stop the Japanese advance. On 7 May, the Japanese carriers launched a full strike on a contact reported to be Allied aircraft carriers, but the report turned out to be false. The strike force found and struck only an oiler, theNeosho, and the destroyerSims.[107]
The American carriers also launched a strike with incomplete reconnaissance, and only located and sank the light aircraft carrierShōhō. On 8 May, the opposing carrier forces finally found each other and exchanged air strikes. Aircraft from the two Japanese carriers succeeded in sinking the carrierLexington and damaging the carrierYorktown. In return, the Americans damagedShōkaku. AlthoughZuikaku was left undamaged, aircraft and personnel losses toZuikaku were heavy and the Japanese naval forces were unable to support an amphibious landing on Port Moresby. As a result, theMO Operation was cancelled,[108] and the Japanese were forced to abandon their attempts to isolate Australia.[109]
Although they managed to sink an American carrier, the Japanese also suffered significant damage, as all three carriers that were committed to the battle would now be unavailable for the operation against Midway.[108] After Coral Sea, the Japanese had four fleet carriers operational—Sōryū,Kaga,Akagi andHiryū—and believed that the Americans had a maximum of two—Enterprise andHornet.Saratoga was undergoing repair after a torpedo attack, whileYorktown had been damaged at Coral Sea and was believed by Japanese naval intelligence to have been sunk. Instead, she would sortie for Midway after just three days of repairs in Hawaii.
Admiral Yamamoto viewed the operation against Midway as the potentially decisive battle of the war, which could lead to the destruction of American strategic power in the Pacific,[110] and subsequently allow for a negotiated peace settlement.[108] Through strategic and tactical surprise, the Japanese would knock out Midway's air strength and soften its defenses for a landing by 5,000 troops.[108] After the capture of the island, the Combined Fleet planned to lay the basis for the most important part of the operation. Yamamoto hoped that the operation would lure the American surface fleet into a trap.[111] The Japanese intended their attack on Midway to act as bait for the bulk of the US Navy's strength in the Pacific, which Japanese planners anticipated would depart Pearl Harbor in order to defend the island. When the American vessels arrived, Yamamoto intended to concentrate his scattered naval forces to defeat them. Importantly, and concurrently to their attack on Midway, the Japanese launchedOperation AL, an operation to seize two islands in the Aleutians.[108]
In May, Americancodebreakers discovered the planned attack on Midway. Yamamoto's complex plan contained no contingencies in the event that his fleet was found by the Americans before the Japanese had expected them. Planned surveillance of the American fleet in Pearl Harbor by long-ranged seaplanes did not occur as a result of anabortive identical operation in March. Additionally, Japanese submarine scouting lines that were supposed to be in place along the Hawaiian Islands were not ready on time.[112]
The battle began on 3 June, when American aircraft from Midway spotted and attacked the Japanese transport group 700 miles (1,100 km) west of the atoll.[113] On 4 June, the Japanese launched a 108-aircraft strike on the island, but failed to deliver a decisive blow to the island's facilities.[114] American ground-based aircraft on Midway were already airborne, adding to the 116 carrier aircraft on their way to attack the Japanese. The aircraft from Midway attacked the Japanese fleet, but failed to score a single hit. In the middle of these uncoordinated attacks, a Japanese scout aircraft reported the presence of an American task force, but it was not until later that the presence of an American carrier was confirmed.[114] Vice AdmiralChuichi Nagumo was put in a difficult tactical situation.[115] After quick deliberation, he opted for a delayed, but better-prepared, attack on the American task force.[115]
At 10:22am, AmericanSBD Dauntless dive bombers surprised and attacked three of the Japanese carriers.[115]Sōryū,Kaga, andAkagi were destroyed in short order. A single Japanese carrier,Hiryū, remained operational, and launched an immediate counterattack. Her aircraft scored hits onYorktown and put her out of action. Later in the afternoon, aircraft from the two remaining American carriers found and destroyedHiryū. The crippledYorktown, along with the destroyerHammann, were later sunk by the Japanese submarineI-168. With the striking power of theKido Butai destroyed, Japan's offensive naval power was significantly blunted. Early on the morning of 5 June, the Japanese cancelled the Midway operation.[116]
Japanese land forces continued to advance in theSolomon Islands and New Guinea. From July 1942, several Australianreservebattalions fought a stubborn rearguard action on New Guinea, delaying the Japanese advance along theKokoda Track towards Port Moresby. These militia units were relieved in late August by troops from theSecond Australian Imperial Force. In early September 1942Japanese marines attacked a strategicRoyal Australian Air Force base atMilne Bay, near the eastern tip of New Guinea. They were repulsed by Allied forces, the first defeat of the war for Japanese forces on land.[117]
On New Guinea, the Japanese on theKokoda Track came within sight of Port Moresby but were ordered to withdraw to the northeastern coast as fighting intensified between Japanese and Allied forces overGuadalcanal. Australian and American forces attacked the IJA's fortified positions in the north, and after more than two months of fighting in theBuna–Gona area, finally captured the key Japanese beachhead on New Guinea in early 1943.
US Marines rest in the field during the Guadalcanal campaign in November 1942.
Allied forces became aware viacoastwatchers of a Japanese airfield under construction at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.[118] On 7 August 1942, 16,000US Marines landed onGuadalcanal and the island ofTulagi in the Solomons. Vice AdmiralGunichi Mikawa, commander of the newly formed IJNEighth Fleet at Rabaul, quickly sortied with the ships under his command to engage the Allied force off the northern coast of Guadalcanal. On the night of 8–9 August, Mikawa's ships surprised Allied naval forces in theBattle of Savo Island, sinking four Allied heavy cruisers[116] and withdrawing with no losses of their own. The battle was one of the worst Allied naval defeats of the war.[116] The Japanese victory was mitigated only by Mikawa's failure to attack the Allied transport ships, which had been left vulnerable by the defeat at Savo Island. Had Mikawa done so, the American troops on Guadalcanal would have been left dangerously isolated and undersupplied, and the first American counterattack in the Pacific may have been halted. Separately, and importantly, the Japanese originally perceived the American landings in the Solomons as nothing more than a reconnaissance operation.[119]
With Japanese and Allied forces both occupying parts of Guadalcanal, over the following six months both sides poured resources into an escalating battle of attrition over the island and its littoral. American ground-based aircraft atHenderson Field ensured American control of the waters around Guadalcanal during daytime, while the superior night-fighting capabilities of the IJN gave the Japanese the advantage at night. In August, Japanese and US carrier forces fought theBattle of the Eastern Solomons, resulting in the sinking of the IJN light carrierRyūjō. In October, US forces successfully challenged the Japanese in night fighting during theBattle of Cape Esperance, sinking a Japanese cruiser and one destroyer for the loss of one destroyer of their own. During the night of 13 October, Japanese battleshipsKongō andHaruna bombarded Henderson Field, temporarily disabling it; the airfield was swiftly returned to service by American engineers. On 26 October, the Japanese carriersShōkaku andZuikaku sank the American carrierHornet and heavily damagedEnterprise in theBattle of the Santa Cruz Islands. The loss ofHornet, coupled with the earlier loss ofWasp to the IJN submarineI-19 and heavy submarine damage toSaratoga in September, meant that US carrier strength in the region was reduced to a single vessel, theEnterprise. However, the two IJN carriers were forced to retire to home waters for repairs and aircrew replacements. From 12 to 15 November, Japanese and American surface ships engaged in night actions in theNaval Battle of Guadalcanal, one of the only two battles in the Pacific War during which battleships fought each other; two US admirals were killed and two Japanese battleships were sunk. The Japanese subsequently ceased attempts to bombard American positions on Guadalcanal from the sea.
During the campaign, most of the Japanese aircraft based in the South Pacific were redeployed to the defense of Guadalcanal. Many were lost in engagements with theAllied air forces, and the Japanese were largely unable to rescue their downed pilots in the region, attriting their pool of experienced combat airmen. Japanese ground forces launched repeated attacks on heavily defended American positions around Henderson Field, but were repulsed with high casualties. To sustain these offensives, resupply to IJA forces on Guadalcanal was carried out by Japanese convoys at night, termed the "Tokyo Express" by the Allies. The convoys were challenged by American naval forces with increasing intensity as the campaign wore on, and the IJA troops on Guadalcanal began to suffer from disease and malnutrition as their lines of supply from the IJN were constricted. The multiple fleet battles involving heavier ships, as well as daytime carrier battles, resulted in the waters north of Guadalcanal becoming known as "Ironbottom Sound", due the dozens of ships from both sides that were sunk in the area. Over the course of the campaign, however, the Allies were much better able to replace their losses than the Japanese, and by late 1942 the Japanese decided to abandon Guadalcanal. The Japaneseevacuated their remaining troops from the island and withdrew in February 1943. Over six months, the Japanese had committed their forces to Guadalcanal piecemeal, and had proved unable to withstand the attrition of such an protracted and intense campaign.[120] The battle had painfully exposed the internal rifts and rivalries that divided the Japanese military regime, and frequently paralyzed its ability to craft coherent strategies and react dynamically to challenges by Allied forces.
Ultimately, nearly 20,000 Japanese soldiers died on Guadalcanal, compared to just over 7,000 Americans. The Japanese had also lost a significant number of transports and experienced aircrew, valuable assets that they could not easily or quickly replace. Victory on Guadalcanal provided a significant boost to Allied morale, and had awarded them the strategic initiative in the Pacific theater.
In early 1942 inmainland China, the Japanese 3rd, 6th, and 40th Divisions, a total of around 120,000 troops, massed atYueyang and advanced southward in three columns, attempting again to cross the Miluo River to reach Changsha. In January 1942, Chinese forces scoreda victory at Changsha, the first Allied success against Japan.[121]
After the Doolittle Raid, the IJA conducted theZhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign, with the goal of locating surviving American airmen, punishing the Chinese who had aided them and destroying air bases. This operation started on 15 May 1942 with 40 infantry and 15–16 artillery battalions, but was repelled by Chinese forces by September.[122] During this campaign, the IJA engaged inbiological warfare, spreadingcholera,typhoid,plague anddysentery throughout Japanese-occupied areas of China. Chinese estimates put the death toll from Japanese-inflicted biological warfare at 250,000 civilians. Around 1,700 Japanese troops died, out of a total 10,000 who fell ill when Japanese biological weapons infected their own forces.[123][124][125]
On 2 November 1943,Isamu Yokoyama, commander of the Japanese 11th Army, deployed around 100,000 troops to attack Changde.[126] During the seven-weekBattle of Changde, the Chinese forced Japan to fight a campaign of attrition. Although the Japanese captured the city, the Chinese were able to pin them down long enough for reinforcements to arrive and encircle them. The Chinese then cut Japanese supply lines, prompting the Japanese to retreat, pursued by Chinese forces.[126][45] During the battle, Japan used chemical weapons.[127]
GeneralissimoChiang Kai-shek and GeneralJoseph Stilwell, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945
In the aftermath of the Japanese conquest of Burma, there was widespread public disorder and pro-independence agitation in eastern India, as well as afamine in Bengal, causing up to 3 million deaths. Despite these difficulties, Wavell (commander-in-chief in India) was eager to mount British counterattacks into Burma.
The British subsequently initiated anoffensive in Arakan intended to secureAkyab island, considered vital for its port and airfield. The14th Indian Infantry Division advanced overland down the Mayu peninsula. The offensive was stalled at Rathedaung and Donbaik, only a few miles north of Akyab, by numerically inferior but well-fortified Japanese forces. Repeated assaults by Commonwealth forces from January to March 1942 failed to overcome these positions.[128] A Japanese division was redeployed to Arakan from Central Burma and proceeded to attack the 14th Indian Division's exposed left flank, overrunning several units. The headquarters of the26th Indian Infantry Division took over command of the front, and intended to conduct a counterattack, but its troops were exhausted and the division was forced to fall back to the Indian frontier in the first week in May.
Most British officers accepted that the failure resulted from inadequate training for jungle warfare.[129] To offset the results of the Arakan offensive, the Allies widely publicized a long distance raid mounted by theChindits under BrigadierOrde Charles Wingate. The raid itself was a mixed success; the Chindits suffered heavy losses (1,138 out of a force of just over 3,000) and inflicted only minor damage to the Japanese lines of communication. Wingate insisted that ordinary British and Indian troops could fight in the jungle as easily as the Japanese. The raid also contributed to the Japanese decision to invade India during 1944.[citation needed]
In August 1943 the Allies formed a newSouth East Asia Command (SEAC) to take over strategic responsibilities for Burma and India from theCommander-in-Chief, India, who headed the British Indian Army. In October 1943Winston Churchill appointed Admiral LordLouis Mountbatten as its Supreme Commander. Wavell was appointedViceroy of India and immediately took measures to address the famine in Bengal. GeneralClaude Auchinleck became commander in chief of the Indian Army and restructured its administration and training departments.[130] The British and IndianFourteenth Army was formed to face the Japanese in Burma. Under Lieutenant GeneralWilliam Slim, its training, morale and health greatly improved. The American GeneralJoseph Stilwell, who commanded US forces in theChina Burma India Theater, directed aid to China and prepared to construct theLedo Road to link India and China.
After Midway, the US began to harness its vast industrial potential to greatly increase production of ships, planes, and other materiel, and to train more airmen at an increasing rate.[131] At the same time, Japan, lacking an adequate industrial base, coherent technological strategy, comprehensive aircrew training program or adequate naval resources andcommerce defense, began to fall behind. The Allies began a protracted offensive campaign across the Pacific theater, seizing several island bases in a series of (often bloody) amphibious assaults against determined Japanese defenders. Some Japanese strongholds like Truk, Rabaul, and Formosa, were neutralized by air attack and bypassed. The goal was to get close to Japan itself, then launch massive strategic air attacks, improve the submarine blockade, and finally (only if necessary) execute an invasion.
The US Navy did not seek out the Japanese fleet for a decisive battle. The Allied advance could only be stopped by a Japanese naval attack, which increasing oil shortages (induced by submarine attack) were rendering increasingly impossible.[132][page needed][133][page needed]
Allied offensives on New Guinea and up the Solomons
The Allied leaders of the Asian and Pacific Theaters: GeneralissimoChiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill meeting at theCairo Conference in 1943
In November 1943, US Marine forces sustained high casualties when they overwhelmed the 4,500-strong Japanese garrisonat Tarawa Atoll. This experience drove the Allies to improve their techniques of amphibious landings, implementing changes such as thorough pre-emptive aerial bombings and shore bombardment, more careful planning regarding tides and landing schedules, and better unit coordination. Operations in the Gilbert Islands were followed in late-January and mid-February 1944 by further, but less costly, landings on the Marshall Islands.
On 22 November 1943 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and ROC Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek met inCairo, Egypt, to discuss a strategy to defeat Japan. The meeting was also known as theCairo Conference and concluded with theCairo Declaration.[relevant?]
Throughout the war, American, British and Dutch submarines operated out of bases atCavite in the Philippines (1941–1942),Fremantle andBrisbane in Australia, Pearl Harbor,Trincomalee in Ceylon, Midway, and later Guam. Allied submarine forcesplayed a major role in defeating Japan, even though submarines made up only a small proportion of the Allied navies—less than two percent in the case of the US Navy.[133][page needed][134][page needed] Submarines strangled Japanese commercial and military shipping, inflicting severe damage on its merchant fleet, intercepting manytroop transports, and cutting off nearly all the oil imports essential to weapons production and military operations. In particular, the fuel situation grew so acute that prior to theBattle of Leyte Gulf in late 1944, Japanese naval strategists were uncertain that the attacking IJN fleet would have the ability to withdraw to safety regardless of the battle's outcome.[135] By early 1945, Japanese oil supplies were so limited that the remaining IJN fleet was virtually stranded in their anchorages.
The torpedoedYamakaze, as seen through the periscope of an American submarine,Nautilus, in June 1942
The Japanese military claimed to have sunk 468 Allied submarines during the war.[136] In reality, only 42 American submarines were sunk in the Pacific due to hostile action, with 10 others lost to accidents orfriendly fire.[137][page needed][138] The Dutch lost five submarines to Japanese attacks or minefields,[139] and the British lost three.
American submarines accounted for 56% of the Japanese merchantmen sunk; mines or air attack destroyed most of the rest.[137][page needed] American submariners also claimed 28% of all Japanese warships destroyed.[140] In addition, submarines played important reconnaissance roles and rescued hundreds of downed fliers.
Within hours of Pearl Harbor, in retribution against Japan, Roosevelt promulgated a new doctrine:unrestricted submarine warfare against Japanese shipping. This meant sinking any warship, commercial vessel, or passenger ship in Japanese-controlled waters, without warning and without aiding survivors.[m] The United States had a long supply line, leaving it vulnerable to submarine attack, but Japan utilized its submarines primarily for long-range reconnaissance, only occasionally attacking US supply lines.
As the war turned against Japan, IJN submarines increasingly served to resupply island strongholds that had been cut off, such asTruk and Rabaul. In addition, Japan honored its neutrality treaty with the Soviet Union and ignored American freighters shipping military supplies from San Francisco toVladivostok,[141][142] much to the consternation of its German ally.[citation needed]
TheI-400 class, the largest non-nuclear submarines ever constructed
American submarines, by contrast, engaged in extensive commerce raiding from the outset of hostilities. However, the problem of Allied forces surrounded in the Philippines in early 1942 led to diversion of submarines to "guerrilla submarine" missions. Basing in Australia placed boats under Japanese aerial threat whileen route to patrol areas, reducing their effectiveness, and Nimitz relied on submarines for close surveillance of Japanese bases. The standard-issueMark 14 torpedo and itsMark VI exploder both proved defective and were not corrected until September 1943. Before the war, aUS Customs officer had seized a copy of theJapanese merchant marine code, not knowing that theOffice of Naval Intelligence had broken it.[143] The Japanese promptly changed it, and the new code was not broken again by OP-20-G until 1943.[citation needed]
In 1944 the US Navy restructured its submarine fleet, installing effective shipboard radar on its 150 submarines, replacing commanders that were deemed not aggressive enough, and fixing design flaws in the torpedoes. Japanese commerce protection was "shiftless beyond description",[n] and Japanese convoys were poorly organized and defended compared to those of the Allies. The number of American submarines patrols (and sinkings) rose steeply as the war progressed: 350 patrols (180 ships sunk) in 1942, 350 (335) in 1943, and 520 (603) in 1944.[145] By 1945, sinkings of Japanese vessels had decreased because there were so few ships left to target at all. In sum, Allied submarines destroyed 1,200 Japanese merchant ships – about five million tons of shipping. At critical stages of the Guadalcanal, Saipan, and Leyte campaigns, thousands of Japanese troops were killed or diverted from where they were needed due to the actions or threat of submarine attack. Over 200 IJN warships were sunk, including a battleship and no fewer than eight carriers.[citation needed]
Underwater warfare was especially dangerous; of the 16,000 Americans who went out on submarine patrol, 3,500 (22%) never returned, the highest casualty rate of any American force in World War II.[146] The Japanese losses, 130 submarines in all,[147] were even higher.[148]
In mid-1944, Japan marshalled over 500,000 troops[149] on the Chinese mainland and launched its largest ground offensive of the war, codenamedOperation Ichi-Go. The goal of the offensive was to connect Japanese-controlled territory in China and French Indochina by land, in part to alleviate the catastrophic losses suffered by Japanese merchant shipping, as well as to capture airbases in southeastern China where American bombers were based.[150] Though Japan suffered about 100,000 casualties,[151] it gained significant territory in China before Ichi-Go ground to a halt nearGuangxi. Despite major tactical victories,[citation needed] the operation overall failed to provide Japan any significant strategic gains. A majority of the Chinese forces involved in the battle were able to retreat out of the area, and would later return to attack Japanese positions at theBattle of West Hunan. Japanese losses in the Pacific meant that Japan was unable to accrue the time and resources needed to achieve victory over China. Operation Ichi-Go created a sense of social confusion in the areas of China that it affected. Chinese Communist guerrillas were able to exploit this confusion to expand their influence and gain control of greater areas of the countryside in the aftermath of the fighting.[152]
After the Allied setbacks in 1943, the South East Asia command prepared to launch offensives into Burma on several fronts. In early 1944, the Chinese and American troops of theNorthern Combat Area Command (NCAC), commanded by the American general Joseph Stilwell, began extending the Ledo Road from India into northern Burma, while theIndian XV Corps began an advance along the coast inArakan Province. In February 1944, the Japanese mounted a local counter-attack in Arakan. After early Japanese success, this counter-attack was defeated in theBattle of the Admin Box when the isolatedIndian divisions of XV Corps repelled a concerted Japanese assault, relying on supplies dropped by parachute.
The Japanese launched a long-planned offensive, advocated by Lieutenant GeneralRenya Mutaguchi and codenamedOperation U-Go, into India in mid-March 1944.[153] Lieutenant General Slim, commanding Fourteenth Army, and his forward commander, Lieutenant GeneralGeoffry Scoones, planned to withdraw into the Imphal plain and force the Japanese to fight with their communications stretching over miles of primitive jungle trails. However, they were slow to respond when the Japanese attack commenced and did not foresee several Japanese objectives.[154] Some British and Indian units had to fight their way out of encirclement, but by early April Commonwealth forces had concentrated around Imphal. Several units were flown from the Arakan to reinforce them. A Japanese division that had advanced toKohima inNagaland cut the main road to Imphal and isolated a small British garrison, but failed to break through Kohima's defenses. During April, the Japanese attacks against Imphal itself failed, while fresh Allied formations relieved the garrison of Kohima and drove the Japanese from the positions they had captured on Kohima ridge.
As many Japanese military planners had feared, their inadequate lines of communication and the failure of Mutaguchi's gamble on an early victory meant that their troops began to starve. Once themonsoon rains descended in mid-May, IJA troops also began succumbing to disease in large numbers. During May, while Mutaguchi continued to order attacks, the Allies advanced southwards from Kohima and northwards from Imphal. The two Allied attacks met on 22 June, breaking the Japanese siege of Imphal. The Japanese finally broke off the operation on 3 July. They had lost over 50,000 troops, mainly to starvation and disease—the worst defeat suffered by the IJA to that date.[155]
Although the advance in Arakan had been halted to make troops and aircraft available for theBattle of Imphal, the Americans and Chinese had continued to advance in northern Burma, aided by reinforced Chindit units operating against Japanese lines of communication. In mid-1944, the Chinese Expeditionary Forceinvaded northern Burma, capturing a fortified positionat Mount Song.[156] By the time campaigning ceased during the monsoon, the Northern Combat Area Command had secured a vital airfield atMyitkyina after aprolonged siege, which eased the problems of air resupply from India to China over "The Hump".
In May 1943, the Japanese preparedOperation Z or the Z Plan, which envisioned utilizing Japanese naval power to counter American forces threatening the outer defense perimeter line, which ran from the Aleutians down through Wake, theMarshall andGilbert Islands,Nauru, theBismarck Archipelago, New Guinea, and then westward pastJava andSumatra to Burma.[157] In 1943–1944, Allied forces in the Solomons began driving relentlessly towardRabaul, eventually encircling and neutralizing the stronghold while leaving it in Japanese hands. With their position in the Solomons disintegrating, the Japanese modified the Z Plan by eliminating the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, as well as the Bismarck Archipelago, as vital areas to be defended as part of their outer perimeter. Japanese planners instead focused on the defense of a smaller inner perimeter, which included theMarianas,Palau,Western New Guinea, and the Dutch East Indies. Meanwhile, in the Central Pacific, the Americans initiated a major offensive, beginning in November 1943 with landings in the Gilbert Islands.[158] Japanese garrisons in theGilberts, and then the Marshalls, were methodically seized via amphibious assault.[158] The Japanese strategy of holding overextended island garrisons had proven impossible to accomplish in practice.[159]
In February 1944, duringOperation Hailstone, the US Navy'sfast carrier task force carried out a series of large-scale air raids on the major IJN naval base at Truk. Although the Japanese had moved their major vessels out in time to avoid being caught at anchor in the atoll, two days of Allied air attacks still resulted in significant losses to Japanese aircraft and merchant shipping.[159] The Japanese navy was forced to abandon Truk as a primary anchorage, and was now unable to effectively counter the Americans on any front along the perimeter. Consequently, the Japanese decided to husband their remaining naval strength for what they hoped would be a decisive battle at sea in the near future.[159] Accordingly, the Japanese then developed a new plan, known asA-GO: a decisive fleet action that would be fought somewhere from the Palaus to theWestern Carolines.[160] It was in this area that the newly formedMobile Fleet, along with large numbers of land-based aircraft, would be concentrated. A-GO envisioned land-based aircraft, operating from airfields on islands in the defense perimeter, carrying out a first wave of attacks against the American fleet, wherever along the perimeter it appeared. Once the location along the perimeter of the attacking American vessels had been determined, A-GO called for the IJN's Mobile Fleet to intercept, engage and destroy it, supported by land-based airpower.[160]
On 12 March 1944, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered the seizure of theNorthern Marianas, with a target date of 15 June. All forces for the Marianas operation—535 warships and auxiliaries together with a ground force of over 127,500 troops—were to be commanded by Admiral Raymond A. Spruance.[161] For the Americans, securing the Marianas would disrupt the movement of Japanese airpower to and from the southern Pacific, allow for the construction of advanced naval bases closer to Japan, and provide airfields from whichB-29 bombers could reach the Japanese Home Islands. Seizing the Marianas would also offer American commanders several possible objectives for the next phase of operations, which would keep the Japanese uncertain and hinder their defensive preparations. It was also hoped that a penetration of the Japanese inner defense zone might provoke the Japanese fleet to sail out in strength for a decisive engagement, offering the opportunity to cripple the Japanese navy in a single battle.[162] The ability to plan and execute such a complex operation in the space of 90 days was indicative of the high degree of logistical & operational superiority that Allied strategists enjoyed over their Japanese counterparts at this stage of the war.
On 15 June, the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions landed on the island of Saipan, supported by naval bombardment. However, Japanese resistance on shore was intense, and the first day's objective was not reached until D+3. Despite fanatical Japanese opposition and some desperate fighting, the Marines captured Aslito airfield on 18 June.[163] Nafutan, Saipan's southern point, was secured on 27 June. In the north,Mount Tapotchau, the highest point on the island, was also taken on 27 June. The Marines then steadily advanced northward. On the night of 6–7 July, three to four thousand Japanese carried out a massed banzai charge that penetrated American lines near Tanapag before being repulsed. Following this attack, hundreds of civilians on Saipan committed mass suicide, most of whom were Japanese colonists, often at the instigation of fanatical IJA troops. By 9 July, organized Japanese resistance on Saipan had ceased. The U.S. Marines reached northernmost tip of Saipan, Marpi Point, twenty-four days after the landing. Only isolated groups of hiddenJapanese holdouts remained.[164]
A month after the invasion of Saipan, the USrecaptured Guam andcaptured Tinian, just south of Saipan.Saipan andTinian were used extensively by the US military, as they finally placed mainland Japan within round-trip range of American B-29 bombers. Japanese air unitsattacked the bases on Saipan and Tinian intermittently from November 1944 to January 1945. Until the end of the war, theUnited States Army Air Forces based out of these islands conducted anintense strategic bombing campaign against Japanese cities of military and industrial importance, includingTokyo,Nagoya,Osaka, andKobe.
The invasion ofPeleliu in the Palau Islands on 15 September was notable for a drastic change in Japanese defensive tactics, resulting in the highest casualty rate amongst US forces in an amphibious operation during the Pacific War.[165] In a departure from the Japanese strategy in previous island battles such as Tarawa and Saipan, where defending IJA troops intensely contested the landing beaches but not the island interior, on Peleliu the Japanese constructed extensive fortifications within the ridges that dominated the center of the island. This was an example offukkaku, or honeycomb, tactics that Japanese island garrisons would again utilize during the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945.[135] Instead of the predicted four days, it took over two months and over 10,000 casualties for American forces to secure the island. The strategic value of the landings is still contested.[166]
The Japanese aircraft carrierZuikaku and two destroyers under attack in the Battle of the Philippine Sea
When the Americans landed onSaipan in the Marianas, the Japanese viewed holding the island as imperative, and initiated plan A-GO. The Japanese navy deployed its largest carrier force of the war for the forthcoming battle: the nine-carrier Mobile Fleet under Vice AdmiralJisaburō Ozawa, supplemented by 500 land-based aircraft. Facing them was theUS Fifth Fleet under AdmiralRaymond A. Spruance: 15 fleet carriers and 956 aircraft. The clash was the largest carrier battle in history.
On 19 June, a series of Japanese carrier air strikes on the Fifth Fleet were shattered by strong American defenses. The lopsided engagement was later dubbed theGreat Marianas Turkey Shoot, a testament to the catastrophic losses suffered by Japanese carrier aircrew in the battle. All US carriers hadcombat-information centers, which interpreted the flow of radar data and radioed interception orders to thecombat air patrols. The few Japanese planes that made it through patrolling American fighters and reached the Fifth Fleet fleet did so in a staggered sequence, only to encounter massed anti-aircraft fire withproximity fuses. Only one American warship was slightly damaged. On the same day,Shōkaku was hit by four torpedoes from the submarineCavalla and sank with heavy loss of life. TheTaihō was also sunk by a single torpedo from the submarineAlbacore. The next day, on 20 June, the Japanese carrier force was subjected to sustained American carrier air attack and suffered the loss of the carrierHiyō.[159] The four Japanese carrier air strikes involved 373 aircraft, of which 130 returned.[167] Many of these survivors were subsequently lost whenTaihō andShōkaku were sunk by American submarine attacks. After the second day of the battle, Japanese losses totaled three carriers and 445 aircrew, along with more than 433 carrier aircraft and around 200 land-based aircraft. The Americans lost 130 aircraft and 76 aircrew, with many due to aircraft running out of fuel returning to their carriers at night.
Although the Japanese defeat at the Philippine Sea was severe in terms of the loss of the three fleet carriers, the more significant impact on Japan's war effort was the evisceration of the IJN's carrier air groups.[168] The IJN had spent the better part of a year reconstituting its carrier air arm, and the Americans had destroyed 90% of it in two days. The Japanese had only enough pilots left to form an air group for a single light carrier. The Mobile Fleet returned home with only 35 aircraft of the 430 that it had embarked with.[159] The battle ended in a comprehensive Japanese defeat, and virtually erased the IJN's ability to project airpower at sea.[169]
The loss at the Philippine Sea left the Japanese with two options: either launch an all-out offensive employing the IJN's remaining surface vessels against the next American amphibious landing, or allow the Americans to cut thesea lanes between the Home Islands and Southeast Asia. The Japanese opted for the former, and sought to utilize their last remaining strength – the firepower of their heavy cruisers and battleships – against the American beachhead atLeyte in the Philippine islands in October 1944. The Japanese planned to use their remaining carriers as bait to lure the American carriers away from Leyte Gulf long enough for heavy warships to enter and to destroy any American ships present.[170]
The Japanese assembled four carriers, nine battleships, 14 heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, and 35 destroyers for this operation.[170] These forces were split into three formations: the "Center Force", under the command of Vice AdmiralTakeo Kurita, which included the battleshipsYamato andMusashi; the "Northern Force", under the command of Ozawa, which had four carriers and two battleships partly converted to carriers, but was largely bereft of planes; and the "Southern Force", containing one group of battleships, cruisers and destroyers under the command ofShōji Nishimura and another underKiyohide Shima. The Center Force would pass through theSan Bernardino Strait into the Philippine Sea, turn southwards, and then attack the transports at anchor near the American beachhead on Leyte. The Southern Force would strike at the beachhead littoral through theSurigao Strait, while the Northern Force would lure the main American covering forces away from Leyte. Functioning as a decoy, Ozawa's carriers embarked just 108 aircraft.[170]
However, after the Center Force departed fromBrunei Bay on 23 October, two American submarines attacked it, resulting in the loss of two heavy cruisers with another crippled. After entering theSibuyan Sea on 24 October, Center Force was again waylaid by American carrier aircraft, forcing another heavy cruiser to retire. The Americans then sankMusashi. Many other ships of Center Force were also attacked, but continued on.[170] Convinced that their attacks had rendered the Center Force ineffective and that it had turned back, the American carriers sailed north to address the newly detected threat Ozawa's Northern Force and its carriers. On the night of 24–25 October, the Southern Force under Nishimura attempted to enter Leyte Gulf from the south through Surigao Strait, where an American-Australian force led by Rear AdmiralJesse Oldendorf ambushed the Japanese.[171] American destroyers and naval gunfire destroyed two battleships and three destroyers, with only a single Japanese destroyer surviving. As a result of observingradio silence, Shima's group was unable to coordinate its movements with Nishimura's group and arrived at Surigao Strait at the worst possible moment, in the middle of the encounter; after making a haphazard torpedo attack, Shima retreated.[171]
OffCape Engaño, 500 miles (800 km) north of Leyte Gulf, the Americans launched over 500 aircraft sorties at the Northern Force, followed by a surface group of cruisers and destroyers. All four Japanese carriers were sunk, but the Japanese had succeeded in drawing the American carriers away from Leyte Gulf.[171] On 25 October the final major surface action fought between the Japanese and the American fleets occurred offSamar, when Kurita's Center Force fell upon a group of American escort carriers accompanied only by destroyers and destroyer escorts. Both sides were surprised, but the outcome looked certain, given the overwhelming advantage in firepower possessed by the Japanese. However, the Center Force conducted a largely indecisive gunnery duel before breaking off, managing only to sink several American destroyers and two escort carriers.
Overall Japanese losses in the battle were extremely heavy, with four carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers and eleven destroyers sunk.[172] The Americans lost one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers and two destroyer escorts. The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle of World War II and arguably thelargest naval battle in history. It was also the only time that an aircraft carrier was sunk by surface warship in the Second World War, when the Japanese Center Force sank the escort carrierGambier Bay off Samar. For the Japanese, the defeat at Leyte Gulf was catastrophic—its navy's greatest ever loss of ships and men in combat.[173] The inevitable liberation of the Philippines also meant that the Japanese Home Islands would be virtually cut off from the vital resources in Japan's occupied territories across Southeast Asia.[173]
On 20 October 1944 theUS Sixth Army, supported by naval and air bombardment, landed on the favorable eastern shore of Leyte, north ofMindanao. The US Sixth Army continued its advance from the east, while the Japanese rushed reinforcements to the western side. The US reinforced the Sixth Army successfully, but theUS Fifth Air Force devastated Japanese attempts to resupply IJA troops on the island. In torrential rains and over difficult terrain, the US advance continued across Leyte and the neighboring island of Samar to the north. On 7 December US Army units landed and, after a major land and air battle, cut off the Japanese ability to reinforce and supply Leyte. Although fierce fighting continued on Leyte for months, the US Army was in control.
On 15 December 1944, landings against minimal resistance took place on the southern beaches of the island ofMindoro, a key location in the plannedLingayen Gulf operations, in support of major landings scheduled onLuzon. On 9 January 1945General Krueger's Sixth Army landed its first units on the western coast of Luzon. Almost 175,000 men followed within a few days. With heavy air support, Army units pushed inland, takingClark Field, 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Manila, in the last week of January.
Two more major landings followed, one to cut off the Bataan Peninsula, and another, which included a parachute drop, south of Manila. Pincers closed in on the city, and on 3 February 1945 American forces pushed into Manila proper. The month-longbattle for Manila resulted in over 100,000 civilian deaths and was the scene of the worsturban fighting by American forces in the Pacific theater. As the advance on Manila continued from the north and the south, the Bataan Peninsula was rapidly secured. On 16 February paratroopers and amphibious units assaulted the island fortress of Corregidor, and Japanese resistance ended there on 27 February.
US troops approaching Japanese positions near Baguio, Luzon, 23 March 1945
In all, ten US divisions and five independent regiments fought on Luzon, making it the largest ground campaign of the Pacific War, involving more troops than the US had used in North Africa, Italy, or southern France. Forces included the MexicanEscuadrón 201 fighter-squadron as part of theFuerza Aérea Expedicionaria Mexicana, with the squadron attached to the58th Fighter Group of the United States Army Air Forces that flew tactical support missions.[48] Of the 250,000 Japanese troops defending Luzon, 80 percent died.[174] The last Japanese holdout in the Philippines,Hiroo Onoda, finally surrendered on 9 March 1974.[175]
TheEighth Army invadedPalawan Island, betweenBorneo and Mindoro (the fifth-largest and westernmost Philippine island) on 28 February 1945, with landings atPuerto Princesa. The Japanese put up little direct defense of Palawan, but cleaning up pockets of Japanese resistance lasted until late April, as the Japanese used their common tactic of withdrawing into the mountain jungles, dispersed as small units. Throughout the Philippines,Filipino guerrillas aided US forces to dispatch the holdouts.
The US Eighth Army moved on to its first landing on Mindanao (17 April), the last of the major Philippine Islands to be taken. Then followed the invasion and occupation ofPanay,Cebu,Negros and several islands in theSulu Archipelago. These islands provided bases for the US Fifth andThirteenth Air Forces to attack targets throughout the Philippines and the South China Sea.
In late 1944 and early 1945, the Allied South East Asia Command launched offensives into Burma, intending to recover most of the country, including the capital of Rangoon, before the onset of the monsoon in May. The offensives were fought primarily by British Commonwealth, Chinese and American forces against Japan, assisted to some degree by Thailand, the Burma National Army and the Indian National Army. The Commonwealth land forces were drawn primarily from the United Kingdom, British India, and Africa.
The Indian XV Corps (including twoWest African divisions)[176] advanced along the coast in Arakan Province, at last capturing Akyab Island. They landed troops behind the retreating Japanese, inflicting heavy casualties, and capturedRamree Island andCheduba Island, establishing airfields used to support the offensive into Central Burma. The Chinese Expeditionary Force capturedMong-Yu and Lashio,[177] while the Chinese and American Northern Combat Area Command resumed its advance in northern Burma. In late January 1945, these two forces linked up atHsipaw. The Ledo Road was completed, linking India and China, but too late in the war to have any significant strategic effect on operations in China.
TheJapanese Burma Area Army attempted to forestall the main Allied attack by withdrawing their troops behind the Irrawaddy River. Lieutenant GeneralHeitarō Kimura, the new Japanese commander in Burma, hoped that the Allies' lines of communications would be overstretched trying to cross this obstacle. However, the advancing British Fourteenth Army switched its axis of advance to outflank the Japanese.
During February, the Fourteenth Army secured bridgeheads across the Irrawaddy. On 1 March, mechanized units ofIV Corps captured the supply node ofMeiktila, throwing the Japanese defenses into disarray. While the Japanese attempted to recapture Meiktila,XXXIII Corps capturedMandalay. The Japanese armies were heavily defeated, and with the capture of Mandalay, the Burmese population and the Burma National Army (which the Japanese had initially created) turned against the Japanese.
During April, Fourteenth Army advanced 300 miles (480 km) south towards Rangoon, but was delayed by Japanese rearguards 40 miles (64 km) to the north. Slim feared that the Japanese would defend Rangoon in house-to-house during the monsoon, which would commit his army to prolonged action with disastrously inadequate supplies, and in March he had asked that a plan to capture Rangoon by an amphibious force,Operation Dracula, which had been abandoned earlier, be reinstated.[178]Dracula was launched on 1 May, only to find that the Japanese had already evacuated the city. The troops that occupied Rangoon linked up with Fourteenth Army five days later, securing the Allies' lines of communication.
Japanese forces that had been bypassed by the Allied advancesattempted to break out across the Sittaung River during June and July to rejoin the Burma Area Army, which had regrouped inTenasserim in southern Burma. They suffered 14,000 casualties, half of their strength. Overall, the Japanese lost some 150,000 men in Burma. Only 1,700 Japanese soldiers surrendered and were taken prisoner.[179] The Allies were preparing to make amphibious landings in Malaya when word of the Japanese surrender arrived.
Although the Marianas were secure and American bases firmly established, the long 1,200 miles (1,900 km) range from the Marianas meant that B-29 aircrews bombing Japan found themselves ditching at sea if severely damaged. To alleviate this issue, American strategists focused their attention on the small island ofIwo Jima, about halfway between the Marianas and Japan. American planners recognized the strategic importance of the island. It was used by the Japanese as an early-warning station against impending air raids on Japanese cities.[180] Japanese aircraft based on Iwo Jima were able to attack the B-29s on their bombing missions, and even to attack installations in the Marianas themselves.[180] The capture of Iwo Jima would provide emergency landing airfields for B-29s and a base forP-51 fighter escorts,[181] as well as land-based air support to protect US naval fleets sailing close to the Japanese Home Islands.[182]The Japanese had also come to realize the strategic value of Iwo Jima, and Lt. GeneralTadamichi Kuribayashi was assigned command of the island's garrison in May 1944. The Japanese began constructing elaborate defenses, making the best possible use of the island's natural caves and uneven, rocky terrain. The island was transformed into a massive network of bunkers, hidden guns, and underground passageways leading from one strongpoint to another.[183] The Japanese also went to great lengths to construct large underground chambers, some as much as five stories deep, to serve as storage and hospital areas with thick walls and ceilings of reinforced concrete.[183] A series of strongpoints covering the landing areas were also built, most covered with sand and carefully camouflaged. Well-hidden 120mm and 6-inch guns were emplaced so that their fire could be directed to the beaches. Smaller-caliber artillery, antiaircraft guns, and mortars were also hidden and located where only a direct hit could destroy them.[184] The Japanese were determined to make the Americans pay a high price for Iwo Jima, and were prepared to defend it to the death. Kuribayashi knew that he could not win the battle nonetheless hoped to inflict casualties so costly that it would slow the American advance on Japan, and perhaps give Japan bargaining power in negotiations to end the war.[183] By February 1945, a total of 21,000 Japanese troops were deployed on Iwo Jima.[183]
The American operation ("Operation Detachment") to capture the island involved three Marine divisions of theV Amphibious Corps, a total of 70,647 troops,[185] under the command ofHolland Smith. From mid-June 1944, Iwo Jima came under American air and naval bombardment, until the days leading up to the invasion.[184]
An intense naval and air bombardment preceded the landing, but did little except drive the Japanese defenders further underground and further mangle the island's barren volcanic terrain. Most Japanese fortifications survived the bombardment virtually unscathed. On the morning of 19 February 1945, 30,000 men under the command of Maj. GeneralHarry Schmidt landed on the southeast coast nearMt. Suribachi, the dormant volcano around which most of the island's defenses were concentrated. As soon as the Marines pushed inland they came under devastating machine gun and artillery fire. By the end of the day, the Marines reached the west coast, but their losses were severe: almost 2,000 men killed or wounded. On 23 February, the 28th Marine Regiment reached the summit of Mt. Suribachi, prompting the now famousRaising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph, often cited as the most reproduced photograph in history and the archetypal representation of the Pacific War. For the rest of February, the Americans grinded north through a maze of Japanese defenses. By 1 March, they had taken two-thirds of the island. It was not until 26 March that the island was secured.
Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest battles fought by the Americans during the Pacific War. American casualties were 6,821 killed and 19,207 wounded.[186] The Japanese losses totaled well over 20,000 men killed, with only 1,083 prisoners taken.[186] It was the only major island battle in the Pacific war where American casualties outnumbered Japanese losses. Historians continue to debate whether Iwo Jima was strategically worth the casualties sustained in capturing it.[187]
USS Bunker Hill burns after being hit by twokamikazes. At Okinawa, the kamikazes caused 4,900 American deaths.US Marines pass a dead Japanese soldier in a destroyed village on Okinawa, April 1945
The largest and bloodiest battle fought by the Americans against the Japanese took place onOkinawa. The seizure of islands in the Ryukyus was meant to be the last step before an invasion of Japan proper. Okinawa, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands, was located 340 miles (550 km) fromKyushu.[188] The capture of Okinawa would provide airbases that could intensify aerial bombardment of Japan and offer direct land-based air support to an invasion of Kyushu. Seizing the islands would also allow the Americans to further tighten the blockade of Japan and be used as a staging area and supply base for any invasion of the Home Islands.[189]
The Japanese troops defending Okinawa, under the command of Lieutenant GeneralMitsuru Ushijima, were a mixed force some 75,000–100,000 strong, augmented by thousands of conscripted civilians. American forces for the operation totaled 183,000 troops in seven divisions (four US Army and three Marine) under theTenth Army.[190] TheBritish Pacific Fleet operated as a separate unit; its objective was to strike airfields on the chain of islands between Formosa and Okinawa, to prevent the Japanese from reinforcing Okinawa.
After an intense seven-day bombardment, the main landings on Okinawa took place on 1 April 1945, on theHagushi beaches on the island's west coast.[191] The Japanese did not contest the landings, and there was little opposition at the beaches, as the Japanese had decided to meet the Americans farther inland, out of range of naval gunfire. About 60,000 American troops landed on the first day, seizing two nearby airfields and pushing across the narrow width of the island.
The first major Japanese counterattack occurred on 6 and 7 April, in the form of attacks by kamikaze aircraft and a naval operation, calledTen-Go. Under the command of AdmiralSeiichi Itō, the battleshipYamato, the light cruiserYahagi and eight destroyers sortied from Kyushu as bait, meant to draw away as many American carrier aircraft as possible from Okinawa, in order to leave Allied naval forces vulnerable to large-scale kamikaze attacks. As a consequence of crippling Japanese shortages, theYamato had only enough fuel to reach Okinawa. If she managed to reach the island,Yamato was ordered to beach herself and use her 18.1-inch (46 cm) guns to support Japanese forces with indirect fire.[192] After being sighted by an American submarine and reconnaissance aircraft, theYamato,Yahagi and four of the destroyers were sunk in a multi-hour blitz of aerial attacks by American carrier aircraft.[193] Mass kamikaze attacks on American vessels near Okinawa intensified during the following three months, with 5,500 sorties being flown by the Japanese.[194]
In the northern part of Okinawa, American troops only met light opposition, and the area was captured within about two weeks. However, the main Japanese defenses were in the south. There was bitter fighting against well-entrenched Japanese troops, but US forces slowly made progress. The seizure ofShuri castle on 29 May, the linchpin of Japanese resistance in the south, represented both a strategic and psychological blow to the remaining Japanese defenders.[195] Organized resistance did not cease until 21 June;[196][page needed] and many Japanese went into hiding. The campaign was not declared over until 2 July.
The battle for Okinawa proved costly and lasted much longer than the Americans had expected. The Japanese skillfully utilized terrain to inflict maximum casualties upon Allied ground forces.[197] Total American casualties were 49,451, including 12,520 dead or missing and 36,631 wounded.[198] Japanese casualties were approximately 110,000 killed and 7,400 taken prisoner.[198] 94% of the Japanese soldiers died, along with many civilians.[199][page needed] Kamikaze attacks sank 36 ships, damaged 368 more and killed 4,900 US sailors, for the loss of 7,800 Japanese aircraft.[200]
Despite Japanese victories in Operation Ichi-Go, Japan was losing the battle in Burma and facing constant attacks from Chinese Nationalist forces and Communist guerrillas in the countryside. The IJA began preparations for the Battle of West Hunan in March 1945, mobilizing 80,000 men to seize Chinese airfields and secure railroads in West Hunan by early April.[201] In response, the Chinese National Military Council dispatched the 4th Front Army and the 10th and 27th Army Groups withHe Yingqin as commander-in-chief.[202] At the same time, it airlifted the entire American-equipped Chinese New 6th Corps, along with veterans of the Burma Expeditionary Force, fromKunming toZhijiang.[201] Chinese forces totaled 110,000 men, supported by about 400 aircraft from Chinese and American air forces.[203] Chinese forces decisively repulsed the Japanese advance, and subsequently launched a large counterattack. Concurrently, the Chinese repelled aJapanese offensive in Henan and Hubei.[202] Afterwards, Chinese forces retook Hunan and Hubei in South China. Chinese forces launched acounteroffensive to retake Guangxi, the last major Japanese stronghold in South China. In August 1945, Chinese forces retook Guangxi.[citation needed]
The campaign opened with a landing on the small island ofTarakan on 1 May. This was followed on 1 June by simultaneous assaults in the northwest, on the island ofLabuan and the coast of Brunei. A week later the Australians attacked Japanese positions inNorth Borneo. The attention of the Allies then switched back to the central east coast, with the last major amphibious assault of World War II taking place atBalikpapan on 1 July.
Although the campaign was criticized in Australia as a "waste" of the lives of soldiers, it achieved a number of objectives, such as increasing the isolation of significant Japanese forces occupying the Dutch East Indies, capturing major oil supplies and freeing Allied prisoners of war, who were being held in deteriorating conditions.[204] At one of the very worst sites, aroundSandakan in Borneo, only six of 2,500 British and Australian prisoners survived.[179]
American B-29 Superfortresses drop incendiary bombs over the port city ofKobe, June 1945
Hard-fought battles on the Japanese islands ofIwo Jima,Okinawa, and others resulted in horrific casualties on both sides before finally producing a Japanese defeat. Of the 117,000 Okinawan and Japanese troops defending Okinawa, 94 percent died.[174] Faced with the loss of most of their experienced pilots, the Japanese increased their use of kamikaze tactics in an attempt to create unacceptably high casualties for the Allies. The US Navy proposed to force a Japanese surrender through a total naval blockade and air raids.[205][page needed] Many military historians believe that the Okinawa campaign led directly to theatomic bombings as a means of avoiding theground invasion of Japan. This view is explained byVictor Davis Hanson: "because the Japanese on Okinawa... were so fierce in their defense (even when cut off, and without supplies), and because casualties were so appalling, many American strategists looked for an alternative means to subdue mainland Japan, other than a direct invasion. This means presented itself, with the advent of atomic bombs, which worked admirably in convincing the Japanese to sue for peace [unconditionally], without American casualties."[206][page needed]
Towards the end of the war, as strategic bombing became more important, a new command for theUnited States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific was created to oversee all US strategic bombing in the hemisphere, underGeneralCurtis LeMay. Japanese industrial production plunged as nearly half of the built-up areas of 67 cities were destroyed by B-29firebombing raids. On 9–10 March 1945 LeMay oversaw Operation Meetinghouse, in which 300 B-29s dropped 1,665 tons of bombs, mostly napalm-carrying M-69 incendiary bombs, on the Japanese capital.[207][page needed] This attack is seen the most destructive bombing raid in history and killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people in a single night, destroying over 270,000 buildings and leaving over 1 million homeless.[207][page needed] In the ten days that followed, almost 10,000 bombs were dropped, destroying 31% of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe.
LeMay also oversawOperation Starvation, in which the inland waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air, which disrupted the little remaining Japanese coastal sea traffic. On 26 July 1945, US PresidentHarry S. Truman, Chiang, and Churchill issued thePotsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for Japan that were agreed upon at thePotsdam Conference. Thisultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction".[208]
On 6 August 1945, the U.S. dropped anatomic bomb on the Japanese city ofHiroshima in the firstnuclear attack in history. In a press release issued after the bombing, Truman warned Japan tosurrender or "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this Earth".[209] On 9 August, the U.S. droppedanother atomic bomb onNagasaki. More than 140,000–240,000 people died as a direct result of these two bombings.[210] The necessity of the atomic bombingshas long been debated, with detractors claiming that a navalblockade andincendiary bombing campaign had already made invasion, hence the atomic bomb, unnecessary.[211] However, other scholars have argued that the atomic bombings shocked the Japanese government into surrender and helped avoid Operation Downfall, or a prolonged blockade and conventional bombing campaign, any of which would have exacted much higher casualties among Japanese civilians.[210] HistorianRichard B. Frank wrote that aSoviet invasion of Japan was never likely because they had insufficient naval capability.[212]
In February 1945 during theYalta Conference the Soviet Union had agreed to enter the war against Japan 90 days after the surrender of Germany.[213] At the time, Soviet participation was seen as crucial in order to tie down the large number of Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea, keeping them from being transferred to the Home Islands to defend against an invasion.[213]
On 9 August, exactly on schedule, the Soviet Union entered the war by invading Manchuria. A battle-hardened, one million-strong Soviet force, transferred from Europe,[214] attacked Japanese forces of theKantōgun (Kwantung Army) across most of the Manchurian frontier.[215]
The Manchurian strategic offensive operation began on 9 August 1945, with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. This was the last campaign of the Second World War, and the largest of the 1945Soviet–Japanese War, which resumed hostilities between the USSR and Japan after almost six years of peace. Soviet forces conquered Manchukuo, Mengjiang (Inner Mongolia) and northern Korea. The USSR's entry into the war was a significant factor in the Japanese decision to surrender, as it became apparent to the government in Tokyo that the Soviets were no longer willing to act as an intermediary for a negotiated settlement on terms favorable to Japan.[216]
In late 1945, the Soviets launched a series of successful invasions of northern Japanese territories, in preparation for the possibleinvasion of Hokkaido:
Months of American air and naval attacks,[217] two atomic bombings, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria had a profound impact on Japanese decision-making. On 10 August 1945, Japanese Prime MinisterKantarō Suzuki andhis cabinet decided to accept the Potsdam terms on one condition: the "prerogative of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler". At noon on 15 August, after the American government's intentionally ambiguous reply, stating that the "authority" of the Emperor "shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers", the EmperorHirohitobroadcast the rescript of surrender.[218]
Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.
— Emperor Hirohito, The Voice of the Crane: The Imperial Rescript of 15 August 1945[219]
In Japan, 14 August is considered theend of the Pacific War. However, as Imperial Japan actually surrendered on 15 August, this day became known in the English-speaking countries asV-J Day (Victory in Japan).[220] The formalJapanese Instrument of Surrender was signed on 2 September 1945. The surrender was accepted by MacArthur asSupreme Commander of the Allied Powers. MacArthur then went to Tokyo to oversee the occupation of Japan (from 28 August 1945 to 28 April 1952, when theTreaty of San Francisco came into force).
American corpses sprawled on the beach ofTarawa, November 1943
American casualties were 107,903 killed in action[221] and 208,333 wounded.[24][222] The figure for battle deaths include Army prisoners who died in Japanese captivity; this is the standard itemization of for US deaths in the Pacific War. However, historianJohn W. Dower notes that there are inconsistencies within the official US statistics themselves.[221] The total number of deaths in the Pacific theaters rises to 132,723 if 24,820 non-combat Army deaths are included.[223] Over half of all American losses suffered in the Pacific occurred between July 1944 and July 1945.[224] Combined, the US and allied navies lost nearly 200 warships, including 4 battleships, 12 aircraft carriers, 25 cruisers, 84 destroyers and destroyer escorts, 63 submarines, and nearly 30,000 aircraft. This gave the Allies a 2–1 exchange ratio with the Japanese in terms of ships and aircraft.[28][225]
The US protectorate in the Philippines suffered considerable losses. Military losses were 27,000 dead (including POWs), 75,000 living POWs, and an unknown number wounded, not counting irregulars that fought in the insurgency.[226] Between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Filipino civilians died due to war-related shortages, massacres, shelling, and bombing.[23]
Chinesestate media outletChina Daily lists the total number of military and non-military casualties, both dead and wounded, at 35 million.[227] Duncan Anderson, Head of the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, states that the total number of casualties was around 20 million.[228]
The official account of the war published in Taiwan reported that the Nationalist Chinese Army lost 3,238,000 men (1,797,000 wounded, 1,320,000 killed, and 120,000 missing) and 5,787,352 civilians casualties putting the total number of casualties at 9,025,352.[229][230] The soldiers of the Chinese Communist Party suffered 584,267 casualties, of which 160,603 were killed, 133,197 missing, and 290,467 wounded. This would equate to a total of 3.82 million combined NRA/CCP casualties, of which 1.74 million were killed or missing.[229][230]
An academic study published in the United States estimates Chinese military casualties as 1.5 million killed in battle, 750,000 missing in action, 1.5 million deaths due to disease and 3 million wounded; civilian casualties: due to military activity, 1,073,496 killed and 237,319 wounded; 335,934 killed and 426,249 wounded in Japanese air attacks.[231]
Rudolph Rummel gave a figure of 3,949,000 people in China murdered directly by the Japanese army while giving a figure of 10,216,000 total dead in the war with the additional millions of deaths due to indirect causes like starvation or disease.[232] Famines during the war caused by drought affected both China andIndia: theChinese famine of 1942–1943 inHenan led to starvation deaths of 2 to 3 million people, Guangdong famine caused more than 3 million people to flee or die, and the1943–1945 Indian famine in Bengal killed about 7 million Indian civilians inBihar andBengal.[233]
According to historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta, at least 2.7 million civilians died during the "kill all, loot all, burn all" operation (Three Alls Policy) implemented in May 1942 in north China by generalYasuji Okamura.[234]
The property loss suffered by the Chinese was valued at 383 billion US dollars according to the currency exchange rate in July 1937, roughly 50 times thegross domestic product of Japan at that time.[235][page needed] The war created 95 millionrefugees.[236]
Indian prisoners of war shot and bayoneted by Japanese soldiers
Between the Malayan Campaign (130,000 discounting some 20,000 Australians),[237]Burma Campaign (86,600),[238] Battle of Hong Kong (15,000),[239] and various naval encounters, British, Dominion and Empire forces incurred some 235,000 casualties in the Pacific Theater, including roughly 82,000 killed (50,000 in combat and 32,000 as POWs).[240]
Britain incurred 90,332 casualties, of whom 29,968 were killed, 12,433 as prisoners of war.[241] The Japanese captured a total of 50,016 POWs from Britain.[242]
The Royal Navy lost 23 warships in the Pacific and Indian oceans: 1 battleship, 1 battlecruiser, 1 aircraft carrier, 3 cruisers, 8 destroyers, 5 submarines, and 4 escorts.[243] There were significant indirect losses to the British Empire territories of India and Burma, including 3 million deaths in the Bengal famine and 0.25 to 1 million deaths in British Burma.[25]
Australia incurred casualties of 45,841 not including natural deaths: 17,501 killed (including POW deaths in captivity), 13,997 wounded, and 14,345 living POWs.[244] New Zealand lost 578 killed, with an unknown number wounded or captured.[245] 294 Canadians were killed in Hong Kong and the Aleutians,[246][247] and a further 1,691 were captured, of whom 273 died as POWs, for a total of 567 dead.[242] Eight Royal Australian Navy warships were sunk: 3 cruisers (Canberra,Perth, andSydney), 2 destroyers, and 3 corvettes.[243]
Between Lake Khasan, Khalkin Gol, advisors deployed to China, and the 1945 operations in Manchuria and the Kuriles, Soviet casualties against Japan totaled 68,612: 22,731 killed/missing and 45,908 wounded.[248] Material losses included some 1,000 tanks and AFVs, 5 landing ships, and 300 aircraft.[249][250][251][252] Mongolian casualties were 753.[253]
The entire 140,000-strong Royal Dutch East Indies Army was killed, captured, or missing by the conclusion of the East Indies Campaign. 1,500 colonial and 900 Dutch soldiers were killed in action.[254] Most of the colonial soldiers were freed on the spot or deserted. Of the ethnic Dutch troops, 900 were killed in action and 37,000 became prisoners. 8,500 of these POWs would die in Japanese captivity.[240] Dutch naval losses in the Pacific numbered 2 cruisers, 7 destroyers, 5 submarines, 7 minelayers, and 7 minesweepers.[255] About 30,000 Dutch and 300,000 Indonesian forced laborers died during the Japanese occupation of the East Indies,[256] while 3 million Indonesian civilians perished in famines.[257]
Similar to the Dutch, the 65,000-strong French colonial army in French Indochina (16,500 European French and 48,500 colonial) disintegrated at the end of the Japanese invasion. 2,129 European French and 2,100 Indochinese colonial troops were killed, while 12,000 French and 3,000 colonial troops were kept as prisoners. 1–2 million deaths occurred in French Indochina during the Japanese occupation, mostly due to theVietnamese famine of 1944–1945.[258]
IJA soldiers after asuicide charge on US Marine positions inGuadalcanalCharred remains of civilians killed inthe 10 March firebombing ofTokyo, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, which killed an estimated 100,000 people, March 1945
Eight hundred thousand Japanese civilians and over 2 million Japanese soldiers died during the war. According to a report by the Relief Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare in 1964, combined Japanese Army and Navy deaths during the war (1937–1945) numbered approximately 2,121,000 men, mostly against either the Americans (over 1 million), or against Chinese factions (over 500,000). The losses were broken down as follows:[14]
Losses
Location
Army dead
Navy dead
Total
Japan
58,100
45,800
103,900
Bonin Islands
2,700
12,500
15,200
Okinawa
67,900
21,500
89,400
Formosa (Taiwan)
28,500
10,600
39,100
Korea
19,600
6,900
26,500
Sakhalin, the Aleutian, & Kuril Islands
8,200
3,200
11,400
Manchuria
45,900
800
46,700
China (incl. Hong Kong)
435,600
20,100
455,700
Siberia
52,300
400
52,700
Central Pacific
95,800
151,400
247,200
Philippines
377,500
121,100
498,600
French Indochina
7,900
4,500
12,400
Thailand
6,900
100
7,000
Burma (incl. India)
163,000
1,500
164,500
Malaya & Singapore
8,500
2,900
11,400
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
900
1,500
2,400
Sumatra
2,700
500
3,200
Java
2,700
3,800
6,500
Lesser Sundas
51,800
1,200
53,000
Borneo
11,300
6,700
18,000
Celebes
1,500
4,000
5,500
Moluccas
2,600
1,800
4,400
New Guinea
112,400
15,200
127,600
Bismarck Archipelago
19,700
10,800
30,500
Solomon Islands
63,200
25,000
88,200
Totals
1,647,200
473,800
2,121,000
General George C. Marshall put Japanese "battle dead" against the Americans at 965,000 (South Pacific: 684,000, Central Pacific: 273,000, Aleutians: 8,000), with 37,308 captured, from 7 December 1941 to 30 June 1945 (the war had yet to conclude). These are juxtaposed with the losses in the theater of the US Army alone, suggesting Japanese naval casualties were not included. His figure for Japanese "battle dead" in China was 126,000 in the same period.[259]
The IJN lost over 341 warships, including 11 battleships, 25 aircraft carriers, 39 cruisers, 135 destroyers, and 131 submarines, almost entirely in action against the US Navy. The IJN and IJA together lost 45,125 aircraft.[260]
During the Pacific War, Japanese soldiers killed millions of non-combatants, includingprisoners of war, from surrounding nations.[261] At least 20 million Chinese died duringthe Second Sino-Japanese War.[228] The Three Alls Policy was responsible for the deaths of more than 2.7 million Chinese civilians.[262][page needed][263]
According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate of Western prisoners was 27%, seven times that of Western POWs under the Germans and Italians.[179] Some of the more notorious instances of abuse of prisoners were the Bataan Death March and forced labor in the construction of the Burma–Thailand "Death Railway". Around 1,536 US civilians died in Japanese internment camps, compared to 883 in German internment camps.[267]
A young Chinese girl from a Japanese 'comfort battalion' being interviewed by a British officer. Rangoon, Burma, 1945
A widely publicized example of institutionalized sexual slavery arecomfort women—200,000 women and girls, mostly from Korea and China, who were forced to serve in Japanese military camps.
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East inIchigaya from 29 April 1946 to 12 November 1948 tried those accused of the most serious war crimes. Military tribunals were also held throughout Asia and the Pacific.[272][273]
^Strength of the US Military in Asia and the Pacific as of war's end: Army: 1,770,036,[5] Navy (excluding Coast Guard and Marines): 1,366,716,[6] and Marine Corps: 484,631.[7] These figures do not include the Coast Guard or naval personnel in the China-Burma-India theater.[8]
Malaria was the most dangerous disease in the Pacific War. 500,000 American soldiers contracted the disease.[283]
^Estimates of 1 to 6 million Chinese civilian deaths (1937–1945);[19] around 4 million civilian deaths from the Dutch East Indies;,[20] 1–2 million Vietnamese civilian deaths;[21] around 3 million[22] Indian civilian deaths in theBengal famine of 1943; 0.5 to 1 million[23] Filipino civilian deaths; 91,000[24] to 1,000,000[25] Burmese civilian deaths; 50,000[26]East Timorese civilian deaths; and hundreds of thousands of Malayan, Pacific and other civilian deaths.[20]
^2,133,915 Japanese military deaths 1937–1945,[30] 1.18 million Chinese collaborator casualties 1937–1945 (432,000 dead),[31] 22,000 Burmese casualties,[citation needed] 5,600 Thai troops killed,[32] and 2,615 Indian National Army (Azad Hind) killed/missing.[33]
^460,000 Japanese civilian deaths (338,000 in the bombings of Japan,[34] 100,000 in theBattle of Okinawa, 22,000 in theBattle of Saipan), 543,000 Korean civilian deaths (mostly due to Japanese forced labor projects),[35] 2,000–8,000 Thai civilian deaths[36]
^"For fifty-three long months, beginning in July 1937, China stood alone, single-handedly fighting an undeclared war against Japan. On 9 December 1941, after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, what had been for so long a war between two countries now became part of a much wider Pacific conflict."[1][2]
^: "It was not an official term, but a term of incitement used by the Japanese media, under the guidance of the military, in order to stir up the Japanese people's sense of crisis..."[67][68]
^TheNeutrality Patrol had US destroyers fighting at sea, but no state of war had been declared by Congress.
^The US thereby reversed its opposition to unrestricted submarine warfare. After the war, when moralistic doubts about Hiroshima and other raids on civilian targets were loudly voiced, no one criticized Roosevelt's submarine policy. (Two German admirals,Erich Raeder andKarl Dönitz, faced charges at theNuremberg War Crimes Trials of violating international law through unrestricted submarine warfare; the court acquitted them after they proved that Allied merchant ships were legitimate military targets under the rules in force at the time.[citation needed])
^Chihaya went on to note that when the IJN belatedly improved its ASW methods, the US submarine force responded by increasing Japanese losses.[144]
^abAustralia-Japan Research Project."Dispositions and deaths". Australian War Memorial.Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved10 March 2016.Figures were compiled by the Relief Bureau of the Ministry of Health and Welfare in March 1964
^Hara, Tameichi, with Fred Saito and Roger Pineau.Japanese Destroyer Captain (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2011), p. 299.Figure is for U.S. losses only. China, the British Commonwealth, the USSR and other nations collectively add several thousand more to this total.
^E. Bruce Reynolds, "Aftermath of Alliance: The Wartime Legacy in Thai-Japanese Relations",Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, v21, n1, March 1990, pp. 66–87. "AnOSS document (XL 30948, RG 226, USNA) quotes Thai Ministry of Interior figures of 8,711 air raids deaths in 1944–1945 and damage to more than 10,000 buildings, most of them totally destroyed. However, an account byM. R. Seni Pramoj (a typescript entitled 'The Negotiations Leading to the Cessation of a State of War with Great Britain' and filed underPapers on World War II, at the Thailand Information Center, Chulalongkorn University, p. 12) indicates that only about 2,000 Thai died in air raids."
^Cited by Christopher Barnard, 2003,Language, Ideology and Japanese History Textbooks, London & New York, Routledge Curzon, p. 85.
^"The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japan's War Economy", United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Washington December 1946, Table B-2. From 1942 to 1945, 92,511,000 yen was spent on the IJA and 59,766,000 yen was spent on the IJN.
^"Canada Declares War on Japan".Inter-Allied Review. 15 December 1941.Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved8 April 2015 – via Pearl Harbor History Associates, Inc.
^"Australia Declares War on Japan".Inter-Allied Review. 15 December 1941.Archived from the original on 13 May 2008. Retrieved3 October 2009 – via Pearl Harbor History Associates Inc.
^L, Klemen (1999–2000)."The Java Sea Battle, February 1942".Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942.Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved4 August 2011.
^Robert S. Burrell, "Breaking the Cycle of Iwo Jima Mythology: A Strategic Study of Operation Detachment",Journal of Military History Volume 68, Number 4, October 2004, pp. 1143–1186 and rebuttalin Project MUSEArchived 4 March 2016 at theWayback Machine
^"The Battle for Kiska",Canadian Heroes, canadianheroes.org, 13 May 2002,archived from the original on 6 January 2006, retrieved2 September 2024,Originally Published in Esprit de Corp Magazine, Volume 9 Issue 4 and Volume 9 Issue 5
^George C. Marshall, Biennial reports of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army to the Secretary of War: 1 July 1939–30 June 1945. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1996. p. 202.
Asada, Sadao (1998). "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender: A Reconsideration".The Pacific Historical Review.67 (4):477–512.doi:10.2307/3641184.JSTOR3641184.
Banham, Tony (2005).Not the Slightest Chance: The Defence of Hong Kong, 1941. Hong Kong University Press.
Barber, Andrew (2010).Penang At War: A History of Penang During and Between the First and Second World Wars 1914–1945. AB&B.ISBN978-983-43372-3-0.
Bix, Herbert P. (2000).Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: Harper Collins.ISBN978-0-06-093130-8.
Blair, Clay Jr (1975).Silent Victory. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Bond, Brian; Tachikawa, Kyoichi (2004).British and Japanese Military Leadership in the Far Eastern War, 1941–1945. Military History and Policy. Vol. 17. Routledge.ISBN978-0-7146-8555-7.
Boog, Horst; Rahn, Werner; Stumpf, Reinhard; Wegner, Bernd, eds. (2001).Germany and the Second World War. Vol. 6: The Global War.ISBN978-0-19-159035-1.
Boyd, Carl (1979). "The Japanese Submarine Force and the Legacy of Strategic and Operational Doctrine Developed Between the World Wars". In Addington, Larry (ed.).Selected Papers from the Citadel Conference on War and Diplomacy: 1978. Charleston. pp. 27–40.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Brecher, Michael; Wilkenfeld, Jonathan (1997).A Study of Crisis. University of Michigan Press.ISBN978-0-472-10806-0.
Cherevko, Kirill (2003).Serp i Molot Protiv Samuraiskogo Mecha [Hammer and Sickle against Samurai Sword] (in Russian). Moscow: Veche.
Chevrier; Chomiczewski; Garrigue (2004).The Implementation of Legally Binding Measures to Strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, held in Budapest, Hungary, 2001. Springer.ISBN978-1-4020-2097-1.
Ch'i, Hsi-Sheng (1992). "The Military Dimension, 1942–1945". In Hsiung, James C.; Levine, Steven I. (eds.).China's Bitter Victory: War with Japan, 1937–45. Armonk:M. E. Sharpe.ISBN978-1-56324-246-5.
Cleaver, Thomas McKelvey (2018).Tidal Wave: From Leyte Gulf to Tokyo Bay. Bloomsbury.ISBN978-1-472-82546-9.
Clodfelter, Micheal (2002).Warfare and Armed Conflicts – A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000. McFarland.ISBN0-7864-1204-6.
Clodfelter, Micheal (2017).Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.).
Coakley, Robert W.; Leighton, Richard M. (1989).Global Logistics and Strategy 1943–1945. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History.
Cook, Haruko Taya; Cook, Theodore Failor (1993).Japan at War: an Oral History. New York: New Press.ISBN978-1-56584-039-3.
Corfield, Justin; Corfield, Robin (2012).The Fall of Singapore. Singapore: Talisman.ISBN978-981-07-0984-6.
Costello, John (1982).The Pacific War: 1941–1945. Harper Collins.ISBN978-0-688-01620-3.
Coox, Alvin (1973). "The Lake Khasan Affair of 1938: Overview and Lessons".Soviet Studies.25 (1):51–65.doi:10.1080/09668137308410900.
Crawford, Keith A.; Foster, Stuart J. (2007).War, Nation, Memory: International Perspectives on World War II in School History Textbooks. Charlotte: Information Age.ISBN978-1-60752-659-9.
Croddy; Wirtz (2005).Weapons of Mass Destruction: Nuclear weapons. Bloomsbury.ISBN978-1-85109-490-5.
Dauria, Tom (2014).Within a Presumption of Godlessness. Archway.ISBN978-1-4808-0420-3.
Dennis, Peter; Grey, Jeffrey; Morris, Ewan; Prior, Robin; Bou, Jean (2008).The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-551784-2.
Drea, Edward J. (1998).In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. University of Nebraska Press.ISBN0-8032-1708-0.
Drea, Edward J. (2005).Nomonhan: Japanese-Soviet Tactical Combat, 1939.
Evans, David C.;Peattie, Mark R (1997).Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.ISBN0-87021-192-7.
Hanson, Victor Davis (2004).Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think (Reprint ed.). Anchor.ISBN978-0-38572194-3.
Hara, Tameichi (2011).Japanese Destroyer Captain. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.ISBN978-1-59114-384-0.
Harmsen, Peter (2013).Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze. Casemate.ISBN978-1-61200-167-8.
Harmsen, Peter (2015).Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City. Casemate.ISBN978-1-61200-284-2.
He, Yingqin (1978).Who Actually Fought the Sino-Japanese War 1937–1945?.
Heinrichs, Waldo H.; Gallicchio, Marc S. (2017).Implacable Foes: War in the Pacific, 1944–1945. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19061-675-5.
Himeta, Mitsuyoshi (1995).日本軍による「三光政策・三光作戦をめぐって [Concerning the Three Alls Strategy/Three Alls Policy By the Japanese Forces] (in Japanese). Iwanami Bukkuretto. p. 43.ISBN978-4-00-003317-6.
Ho, Ping-ti (1959).Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.OCLC1171226366.
Hopkins, William B. (2010).The Pacific War: The Strategy, Politics, and Players that Won the War. Zenith.ISBN978-0-76033-975-6.
Hsu, Long-hsuen; Chang, Ming-kai (1971).History of The Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Translated by Wen, Ha-hsiung (2nd ed.). Taipei: Chung Wu.
Jowett, Phillip (2005).Rays of the Rising Sun: Japan's Asian Allies 1931–1945 Volume 1: China and Manchukuo. Helion & Co.ISBN1-874622-21-3.
Lin, Hsiao-tin (2010). Hsiung, James C.; Levine, Steven I. (eds.).Modern China's Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West Volume 67 of Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia (Illustrated ed.). Taylor & Francis.ISBN978-0-415-58264-3.
Long, Gavin (1963).The Final Campaigns. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 1 – Army. Vol. 7. Canberra: Australian War Memorial.OCLC1297619.Archived from the original on 12 January 2016. Retrieved1 December 2015.
MacLeod, Roy M. (1999).Science and the Pacific War: Science and Survival in the Pacific, 1939–1945. Kluwer.ISBN978-0-79235851-0.
MacKinnon, Stephen (2008).Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China. University of California Press.ISBN978-0-520-25445-9.
Marr, David G. (1995).Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power. University of California Press.
McGibbon, Ian, ed. (2000).The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History. Auckland, NZ: Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-558376-0.
McLynn, Frank (2010).The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph, 1942–1945. Bodley Head.
Murashima, Eiji (2006). "The Commemorative Character of Thai Historiography: The 1942–43 Thai Military Campaign in the Shan States Depicted as a Story of National Salvation and the Restoration of Thai Independence".Modern Asian Studies.40 (4):1053–1096.doi:10.1017/S0026749X06002198.S2CID144491081.
Murray, Williamson; Millett, Allan R. (2001).A War to be Won: Fighting the Second World War. Harvard University Press.ISBN978-0-67404130-1.
Russell, Richard A. (1997).Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center.ISBN0-945274-35-1.
Sandler, Stanley (2001).World War II in the Pacific: An Encyclopedia. Routledge.ISBN0-8153-1883-9.
Schoppa, R. Keith (2011).In a Sea of Bitterness, Refugees during the Sino-Japanese War. Harvard University Press.ISBN978-0-674-05988-7.
Selden, Mark (2008). "A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities & the American Way of War from World War II to Iraq".The Asia-Pacific Journal.
Sen, Amartya Kumar (1999).Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. London: Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19564954-3.
Takemae, Eiji (2003).The Allied Occupation of Japan. Continuum.ISBN0-82641-521-0.
Tanaka, Yuki (1996).Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. Boulder, CO: Westview.ISBN978-0-8133-2717-4.
Tanaka, Yuki (2003).Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occoupation. Routledge.ISBN978-1-134-65012-5.
Toland, John (2003).The Rising Sun: the Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire. New York: Random House.ISBN0-8129-6858-1.
Willmott, H. P. (2014) [1982].Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942 (Reprint ed.). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.ISBN978-1-612-51728-5.
United States War Department.TM 30-480 Handbook On Japanese Military Forces, 1942 (1942)online; 384 pp; highly detailed description of wartime IJA by U.S. Army Intelligence.
Buell, Thomas (1976).Master of Seapower: A Biography of Admiral Ernest J. King. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
Buell, Thomas (1974).The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond Spruance.
Craven, Wesley, and James Cate, eds.The Army Air Forces in World War II. Vol. 1, Plans and Early Operations, January 1939 to August 1942. University of Chicago Press, 1958. Official history; Vol. 4, The Pacific: Guadalcanal to Saipan, August 1942 to July 1944. 1950; Vol. 5, The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki. 1953.
Cutler, Thomas (1994).The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23–26 October 1944. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.ISBN1-55750-243-9.
Dean, Peter J. McArthur's Coalition: US and Australian operations in the Southwest Pacific Area, 1942–1945 (University Press of Kansas, 2018)
Degan, Patrick (2003).Fighting in World War II: The Battles Between American and Japanese Aircraft Carriers (New ed.). Jefferson: McFarland & Co.ISBN0-786-41451-0.
Dunnigan, James F.;Nofi, Albert A. (1998).The Pacific War Encyclopedia. Facts on File.
Goldman, Stuart (2012).Nomonhan, 1939: The Red Army's Victory That Shaped World War II. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.ISBN978-1-61251-098-9.
Harries, Meirion; Harries, Susie (1994).Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army. New York: Random House.ISBN0-679-75303-6.
Harrison, Simon (2012).Dark Trophies. Hunting and the Enemy Body in Modern War. New York: Berghahn.ISBN978-0-85745-499-7.
Hayashi, Saburo andAlvin, Coox.Kogun: The Japanese Army in the Pacific War. Quantico, Virginia: Marine Corps Assoc., 1959.
Hsiung, James C. and Steven I. Levine, eds.China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan, 1937–1945 M. E. Sharpe, 1992
Hsi-sheng, Ch'i.Nationalist China at War: Military Defeats and Political Collapse, 1937–1945 University of Michigan Press, 1982
Inoguchi, Rikihei, Tadashi Nakajima, and Robert Pineau.The Divine Wind. Ballantine, 1958. Kamikaze.
James, D. Clayton.The Years of MacArthur. Vol. 2. Houghton Mifflin, 1972.
Judge, Sean M. et al.The Turn of the Tide in the Pacific War: Strategic Initiative, Intelligence, and Command, 1941–1943 (University Press of Kansas, 2018).
Kirby, S. WoodburnThe War Against Japan. 4 vols. London: H.M.S.O., 1957–1965. Official Royal Navy history.
Leary, William M.We Shall Return: MacArthur's Commanders and the Defeat of Japan. University Press of Kentucky, 1988.
Lundstrom, John B. (2005).The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942 (New ed.). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.ISBN1-59114-472-8.
McCarthy, Dudley (1959).South-West Pacific Area – First Year. Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 1 – Army. Vol. 5. Canberra: Australian War Memorial.OCLC3134247.Archived from the original on 20 September 2015. Retrieved1 December 2015.
Miller, Edward S. (2007).War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945. Naval Institute Press.ISBN978-1-59114-500-4.
Morrison, Samuel, Elliot,History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. 3, The Rising Sun in the Pacific. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961; Vol. 4, Coral Sea, Midway and Submarine Actions. 1949; Vol. 5, The Struggle for Guadalcanal. 1949; Vol. 6, Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier. 1950; Vol. 7, Aleutians, Gilberts, and Marshalls. 1951; Vol. 8, New Guinea and the Marianas. 1962; Vol. 12, Leyte. 1958; vol. 13, The Liberation of the Philippines: Luzon, Mindanao, the Visayas. 1959; Vol. 14, Victory in the Pacific. 1961.
Myers, Michael W.Pacific War and Contingent Victory: Why Japanese Defeat Was Not Inevitable (UP of Kansas, 2015) 198 pp.online review.
Okumiya, Masatake and Fuchida, Mitso.Midway: The Battle That Doomed Japan. Naval Institute Press, 1955.
Potter, E. B. and Chester W. Nimitz.Triumph in the Pacific. Prentice Hall, 1963. Naval battles
Potter, E. B.Yamamoto Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. 1967.
Potter, E. B.Nimitz. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1976.
Potter, E. B.Bull Halsey Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1985.
Prados, John (2012).Islands of Destiny: The Solomons Campaign and the Eclipse of the Rising Sun. Dulles, VA: Penguin.ISBN978-1-101-60195-2.
Prados, John (2016).Storm Over Leyte: The Philippine Invasion and the Destruction of the Japanese Navy. New York: Penguin.ISBN978-0-698-18576-0.
Prange, Gordon W. Donald Goldstein, and Katherine Dillon.At Dawn We Slept. Penguin, 1982. Pearl Harbor
Prange, et al.Miracle at Midway. Penguin, 1982.
Prange, et al.Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History.
Sarantakes, Nicholas Evan.Allies against the Rising Sun: The United States, the British Nations, and the Defeat of Imperial Japan (2009).
Seki, Eiji (2007).Sinking of the SS Automedon And the Role of the Japanese Navy: A New Interpretation. University of Hawaii Press.ISBN978-1-905246-28-1.
Shaw, Henry, and Douglas Kane.History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II. Vol. 2, Isolation of Rabaul. Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1963
Shaw, Henry, Bernard Nalty, and Edwin Turnbladh.History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II. Vol. 3, Central Pacific Drive. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, 1953.
_burning_after_the_Japanese_attack_on_Pearl_Harbor_-_NARA_195617_-_Edit.jpg)
.jpg)
%2c_8_May_1942_(80-G-16651).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
