8,500 of these POWs would die in Japanese captivity. At the same time as major battles raged in New Guinea, Allied forces became aware of a Japanese airfield under construction at Guadalcanal through coastwatchers. After the Battle of Midway, the immediate threat to the United States virtually came to an end. By 1941 the conflict had become a stalemate. Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa, commander of the newly formed Eighth Fleet at Rabaul, reacted quickly. Kevin Blackburn, Karl Hack. The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War,[44] was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. The Allies suffered many disastrous defeats in the first six months of the war. Fighting consisted of some of the largest naval battles in history, and incredibly fierce battles and war crimes across Asia and the Pacific Islands, resulting in immense loss of human life. Other areas, including India, Hawaii, and the rest of Australia remained under separate local commands. In early September 1942 Japanese marines attacked a strategic Royal Australian Air Force base at Milne Bay, near the eastern tip of New Guinea. "WORLD WAR II: THE DEFENSIVE PHASE", US Army Center Of Military History, p. 87. [118] On 4 June, the Japanese launched a 108-aircraft strike on the island, the attackers brushing aside Midway's defending fighters but failing to deliver a decisive blow to the island's facilities. After Coral Sea, the Japanese had four fleet carriers operational—Sōryū, Kaga, Akagi and Hiryū—and believed that the Americans had a maximum of two—Enterprise and Hornet. Ultimately nearly 20,000 Japanese died on Guadalcanal compared to just over 7,000 Americans. The early period of the war was divided into two operational phases. There was bitter fighting against well-entrenched Japanese troops, but US forces slowly made progress. By June 22, the U.S. troops suffered nearly 50,000 casualties of which approximately one quarter were deaths. Overall, the Japanese lost some 150,000 men in Burma. In late 1944 and early 1945, the Allied South East Asia Command launched offensives into Burma, intending to recover most of the country, including Rangoon, the capital, before the onset of the monsoon in May. In return the Americans damaged Shōkaku. Both of her attacks hit Yorktown and put her out of action. The soldiers of the Chinese Communist Party suffered 584,267 casualties, of which 160,603 were killed, 133,197 missing, and 290,467 wounded. The raid inflicted minimal material damage on Japanese soil but was a huge morale boost for the United States; it also had major psychological repercussions in Japan, in exposing the vulnerabilities of the Japanese homeland. Planned surveillance of the American fleet in Pearl Harbor by long-ranged seaplanes did not occur as a result of an abortive identical operation in March. [116] However, in May, Allied codebreakers discovered the planned attack on Midway. ", "Battle of Milne Bay from 25 August 1942 to 07 September 1942", "Chinese Victory: Changteh is Lost and Won in Battle Called Most Decisive in Three Years", United States Submarine Operations in World War II, Japanese submarine operations against Australia 1942–1944, "Japanese Naval and Merchant Vessels Sunk During World War II By All U.S. Submarines", http://www.hoplite.cn/Templates/hpjh0106.htm, "Potsdam Declaration: Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender Issued, at Potsdam, July 26, 1945", "Nuclear Power: The End of the War Against Japan", "The Voice of the Crane: The Imperial Rescript of 15Aug45", University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, BRITISH LOSSES & LOSSES INFLICTED ON AXIS NAVIES, "Soviet Losses in the Khalkhin Gol Battle", "Figures were compiled by the Relief Bureau of the Ministry of Health and Welfare in March 1964", "BBC – History – World Wars: Nuclear Power: The End of the War Against Japan", "Don't Forget, Japan Used Biological Weapons on China", "Denial of the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking", "U.S. Japan sponsored several puppet governments, one of which was headed by Wang Jingwei. [209] Many military historians believe that the Okinawa campaign led directly to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as a means of avoiding the planned ground invasion of the Japanese mainland. In March 1942, the Chinese Expeditionary Force started to attack Japanese forces in northern Burma. In March and April, a powerful IJN carrier force launched a raid into the Indian Ocean. Australia was ill-prepared for an attack, lacking armaments, modern fighter aircraft, heavy bombers, and aircraft carriers. 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. But it was not until 26 March that the island was finally secured. In one search area Japanese submarines had arrived on station only a matter of hours ahead of Task Force 17, containing Yorktown, which had passed through just before midnight on 31 May. Relive the aerial dogfights and naval clashes of the Battle of the Philippines Sea, thanks to stunning color footage. With Japanese and Allied forces occupying various parts of the island, over the following six months both sides poured resources into an escalating battle of attrition on land, at sea, and in the sky. On 15 June, the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions supported by a naval bombardment group totaling eight battleships, eleven cruisers, and twenty-six destroyers landed on Saipan. On 26 July 1945, the President of the United States Harry S. Truman, the Chairman of the Nationalist Government of China Chiang Kai-shek and the Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. A great majority of the Chinese forces were able to retreat out of the area, and later come back to attack Japanese positions at the Battle of West Hunan. Battle of Sunda Strait. On 27 September Japan signed a military alliance with Germany and Italy, becoming one of the three main Axis Powers. For the Japanese the defeat at Leyte Gulf was catastrophic, the Imperial Japanese Navy had suffered its greatest ever loss of ships and men in combat. With heavy air support, Army units pushed inland, taking Clark Field, 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Manila, in the last week of January. [59] The Japanese achieved major military victories, but world opinion—in particular in the United States—condemned Japan, especially after the Panay incident. If the Americans attacked the Marianas, they would be attacked by land-based planes in the vicinity. [190] The Japanese losses totaled well over 20,000 men killed, with only 1,083 prisoners were taken. By early 1945, Japanese oil supplies were so limited that its fleet was virtually stranded. LeMay also oversaw Operation Starvation, in which the inland waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air, which disrupted the small amount of remaining Japanese coastal sea traffic. US and Filipino forces resisted in the Philippines until 9 May 1942, when more than 80,000 soldiers were ordered to surrender. [106] The Second Operational Phase began well when Lae and Salamaua, located in eastern New Guinea, were captured on 8 March. Faced with a choice between economic collapse and withdrawal from its recent conquests (with its attendant loss of face), the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters (GHQ) began planning for a war with the Western powers in April or May 1941. An intense naval and air bombardment preceded the landing but did little but drive the Japanese further underground, making their positions impervious to enemy fire. On 23 February, the 28th Marine Regiment reached the summit of Mt. The casualties break down as 1.5 million killed in battle, 750,000 missing in action, 1.5 million deaths due to disease and 3 million wounded. [107] Because the raid was mounted by a carrier task force, it consequently highlighted the dangers the Japanese home islands could face until the destruction of the American carrier forces was achieved. Chateau-Thierry 2. While still calling for reinforcements from Churchill, the Australian Prime Minister John Curtin called for American support with a historic announcement on 27 December 1941:[100][101]. [161] The Japanese were forced to abandon Truk and were now unable to counter the Americans on any front on the perimeter. The Japanese mobilized 34th, 47th, 64th, 68th and 116th Divisions, as well as the 86th Independent Brigade, for a total of 80,000 men to seize Chinese airfields and secure railroads in West Hunan by early April. [109] During a series of meetings held from 2–5 April, the Naval General Staff and representatives of the Combined Fleet reached a compromise. The Americans wanted the island at the southern tip of Japan to create a base for air raids on Japan as well as to “rehearse” for the planned invasion of Japan’s main islands. For the next two days, the American and Japanese carrier forces tried unsuccessfully to locate each other. Toward Peace: War Responsibility, Postwar Compensation, and Peace Movements and Education in Japan. The losses were broken down as follows:[254], Key: Location, Army dead, Navy dead, (total dead) A-GO envisioned a decisive fleet action that would be fought somewhere from the Palaus to the Western Carolines. A single Japanese carrier, Hiryū, remained operational, and launched an immediate counterattack. On 9 July, two days after the banzai attack, organized resistance on Saipan ceased. This helped the Allies to improve the techniques of amphibious landings, learning from their mistakes and implementing changes such as thorough pre-emptive bombings and bombardment, more careful planning regarding tides and landing craft schedules, and better overall coordination. From that point on, the Japanese were on the defensive. In August 1945, Chinese forces successfully retook Guangxi. The American General Joseph Stilwell, who also was deputy commander to Mountbatten and commanded US forces in the China Burma India Theater, directed aid to China and prepared to construct the Ledo Road to link India and China by land. On 15 January, Wavell moved to Bandung in Java to assume control of ABDACOM. The main Center Force would pass through the San Bernardino Strait into the Philippine Sea, turn southwards, and then attack the landing area. The many well-camouflaged 120mm and 6-inch guns were emplaced so that their fire could be directed to the beaches. 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 prisoners of war. Yamamoto hoped that the attack would lure the Americans into a trap. The result was later dubbed the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. The Japanese leadership looked to base the conduct of the war against America on the historical experiences of the successful wars against China (1894–95) and Russia (1904–05), in both of which a strong continental power was defeated by reaching limited military objectives, not by total conquest.[76]. The last big battle of World War II—thought to be the catalyst that convinced the American leadership to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the Battle of Okinawa was one of the Pacific’s bloodiest battles, resulting in almost 200,000 killed and wounded on both sides combined. Although fierce fighting continued on Leyte for months, the US Army was in control. [238], 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. Wavell resigned from ABDACOM on 25 February, handing control of the ABDA Area to local commanders and returning to the post of Commander-in-Chief, India. Fleet battles involving heavier ships and even daytime carrier battles resulted in a stretch of water near Guadalcanal becoming known as "Ironbottom Sound" from the multitude of ships sunk on both sides. This divided command had unfortunate consequences for the commerce war,[99] and consequently, the war itself. The invasion of Peleliu 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. In 2007, then-Prime Minister Shinzō Abe asserted: "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion". The United States used the ensuing period to turn its vast industrial potential into increased numbers of ships, planes, and trained aircrew. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Strength of the US Military in Asia and the Pacific as of war's end: Army: 1,770,036. The island was used by the Japanese as an early-warning station against impending air raids on Japanese cities,[184] additionally, Japanese aircraft based on Iwo Jima were able to attack the B-29s on their bombing missions on route to their missions and on the returning leg home, and even to attack installations in the Marianas themselves. p. 30. Curtin agreed to place Australian forces under the command of MacArthur, who became Supreme Commander, South West Pacific. The US reinforced the Sixth Army successfully, but the US Fifth Air Force devastated Japanese attempts to resupply. [184] The capture of Iwo Jima would provide emergency landing airfields to repair and refuel crippled B-29s in trouble on their way home and a base for P-51 fighters escorts for the B-29s. Ishikida, Miki (2005). This section contains chronological lists of Pacific naval battles and land campaigns between the United States and Japan in the Pacific during World War II. Estimates vary wildly, though there is a general consensus that civilian deaths were in the 17 to 22 million range, mostly from war-related causes such as famine. "Honouring NZ's Pacific War dead". American submarines accounted for 56% of the Japanese merchantmen sunk; mines or aircraft destroyed most of the rest. MacArthur moved his headquarters to Melbourne in March 1942 and American troops began massing in Australia. [103] The Japanese decided upon a seaborne invasion of Port Moresby, capital of the Australian Territory of Papua which would put all of Northern Australia within range of Japanese bomber aircraft. Thus the Japanese devised a plan which represented a final attempt to force a decisive battle by utilizing their last remaining strength – the firepower of its heavy cruisers and battleships – against the American beachhead at Leyte. Biological weapons used by Japan killed around 500,000 Chinese. The Japanese were short of fuel, consequently the Yamato had only enough to reach Okinawa. [258] At least 20 million Chinese died during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). 2007. p. 4.              Borneo: 11,300, 6,700, (18,000) [citation needed], Moreover, Japan conscripted many soldiers from its colonies of Korea and Taiwan. This line extended from the Aleutians down through Wake, the Marshall and Gilbert Islands, Nauru, the Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea, then westward past Java and Sumatra to Burma. Japanese losses were extremely heavy, with four carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers and eleven destroyers sunk,[176] while the Americans lost one light carrier and two escort carriers, a destroyer and two destroyer escorts. 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 Germany; the Soviet Union was even seen as unlikely to commence hostilities. [citation needed], The Axis-aligned states which assisted Japan included the authoritarian government of Thailand, which formed a cautious alliance with the Japanese in 1941, when Japanese forces issued the government with an ultimatum following the Japanese invasion of Thailand. Yamamoto also agreed to include an attack to seize strategic points in the Aleutian Islands simultaneously with the Midway operation. In January 1942, Chinese forces scored a victory at Changsha, the first Allied success against Japan. [213] The necessity of the atomic bombings has long been debated, with detractors claiming that a naval blockade and incendiary bombing campaign had already made invasion, hence the atomic bomb, unnecessary. [228], According to official Chinese Nationalist statistics, losses to the regular National Revolutionary Army totaled 3,237,000, with 1,320,000 killed, 1,797,000 wounded, and 120,000 missing. [110] The MO Operation featured a force of 60 ships led by two carriers: Shōkaku and Zuikaku, one light carrier (Shōhō), six heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and 15 destroyers. A giant U was formed with the 27th at the base 1,500 yards (1.4 km) behind the advancing formations. 4. [119] Most importantly, the strike aircraft based on Midway had already departed to attack the Japanese carriers, which had been spotted. The flag raising is often cited as the most reproduced photograph of all time and became the archetypal representation not only of that battle, but of the entire Pacific War. The Battle of Leyte Gulf, sometimes also referred to as the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea was the largest naval battle in World War II and according to some historians, the largest naval battle in history. Two major British warships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, were sunk by a Japanese air attack off Malaya on 10 December 1941.[87]. [108] With only Marcus Island and a line of converted trawlers patrolling the vast waters that separate Wake and Kamchatka, the Japanese east coast was left open to attack. The US thereby reversed its opposition to unrestricted submarine warfare. The turning point in the Pacific War for the Americans came in 1943 with the defeat of the Japanese at Guadalacanal. Around 1,536 U.S. civilians were killed or otherwise died of abuse and mistreatment in Japanese internment camps in the Far East; in comparison, 883 U.S. civilians died in German internment camps in Europe. In the first months of 1944, the Chinese and American troops of the Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC), commanded by the American Joseph Stilwell, began extending the Ledo Road from India into northern Burma, while the XV Corps began an advance along the coast in Arakan Province. [264] In 1993, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yōhei Kōno said that women were coerced into brothels run by Japan's wartime military. Meanwhile, military tribunals were also held by the returning powers throughout Asia and the Pacific for lesser figures. While the Japanese attempted to recapture Meiktila, XXXIII Corps captured Mandalay. ", "For fifty-three long months, beginning in July 1937, China stood alone, single-handedly fighting an undeclared war against Japan. This attack, codenamed Operation U-Go, was advocated by Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, the recently promoted commander of the Japanese Fifteenth Army; Imperial General Headquarters permitted it to proceed, despite misgivings at several intervening headquarters.              Siberia: 52,300, 400, (52,700) American losses were less serious than initially thought: the American aircraft carriers, which would prove to be more important than battleships, were at sea, and vital naval infrastructure (fuel oil tanks, shipyard facilities, and a power station), submarine base, and signals intelligence units were unscathed, and the fact the bombing happened while the US was not officially at war anywhere in the world[g] caused a wave of outrage across the United States. 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. [161], In February 1944, the US Navy's fast carrier task force, during Operation Hailstone, attacked the major naval base of Truk. At the same time and afterwards, the United States Army Air Forces based out of these islands conducted an intense strategic bombing campaign against the Japanese cities of military and industrial importance, including Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and others. As the advance on Manila continued from the north and the south, the Bataan Peninsula was rapidly secured. But it was worth the sacrifice: the Americans had established a firm offensive by this point and were well on their way to victory in the Pacific Theater. The defenders on Bataan, running low on ammunition and supplies, could not hold back a final Japanese offensive. [105] The Second Operational Phase was planned to expand Japan's strategic depth by adding eastern New Guinea, New Britain, the Aleutians, Midway, the Fiji Islands, Samoa, and strategic points in the Australian area.

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