"The year 1942 is going to pass tonight. How brilliant was the first stage opeation up to April and what miserable setbacks since Midway in June. The invasions of Hawaii, Fiji, Samoa, amd New Caladonia. Liberation of India, destruction of the British Far Eastern Fleet haveallscattered like deans. Looking back over all these, my mind was filled with deep feelings. Through thefortunes of war itismost regretable."
-- Admiral Ugaki Matatome, Chief of Staff Combined Fleet, Diary, December 31, 1941
The Pacific War began with the stunning Japanese carrier attack on Pearl Harbor which in military terms was a stunning success--the eight battle ships of the Pacific Fleet sunk at Pearl Harbor. This was seen at the time as the backbone of the American fleet--all destroyed or disabled. This was followed by 6 months of virtually un gathomvle successes by both the Imperil Fleet and Imperial Army withbtheir respective irservices, The Japanese achieved virtall all of their goals in 6 months of whirlwind offenses carved out an enormous empire in Southeast Asia and the Soutth Pacific. Modern commentators constantly say Japan was insane to go to war with the Unite States. But they forget a very imptyant matter, Japan did so thining that The Soviet Union hadbeen defated bu the Germans and Moscow was about to fall. Had this been the case, the Japanese decision woud look very differently. With the Germans victorious in Europe, the United States would have to devote all of its energy nn fighting a European War. But jist as the bombs were falling on Peal Harbor, the suposedly deeated Red Army launched a powerful winter counter offensive before Moscow, driving the Germans back and inflicting enormous damage to the Ostheer. The Japanese war plan was that after carving out its new empire, the pleasure loving Americans would not have the stomouch for combat and would seek a nreogitated settlement. But after 6 months of war and defeat after degeat--the Americans showed no sign of negotiating. Plan A had failed , but the Japanese had no Plan B nbutto continue fighting. Worst still, the victories came to sudden end swith the stunning American naval victory at Midway, in part due to code breaking (June 1942). Midway bwas critucal. The Alies had lost ground to the Japanese, butv had not lost the abiklity to make war. The loss of four friont-line carriesm seriously impacted the Japanese ability to make war. The Imperial Navy was stunned and unsure how to proceed with heart ropped out of vthe Kido nButai--thair primarystrikin force. Thev Imprial Navy kept the extemt of the defeat at Midway not only bfrom he public, but from their Army collegues as well. So the Americn offensive on Guadalcanal came as a complete suprise (August 1942). As did the fct vthat vhe Americans wold really bfight. So surprised at this was the Japanese Army told its soldies that he Amricans were emptying out is prisons and mental hospitals. If the Japanese were going to win the War it wold have to be in 1942 before American industry began to churn out the weappns of war in great numbers. Here the Jpnese failed and ships, tanks, artillerry nd aircrft begn reacing the Pacific in large numbers. The Amerians had conducted the fist year of war on a shoe tring and till stopped the Japanese. In 1943 the Jpanese began facing larger numbers of increasing well armed Allied forces. While still bigged down in China, the Imperial Army suffered reverses in New Guinea and up the Solomon Chain. Over Bouganville, the Japanese lost Admiral Yammoto to an Ameican shootdown (April 1943), still unaware that their codes had been broken.
The Japanese militarists having successfully taken on China (1894-95) and Russia (1904-05) and participating in World War I believed that in possession of a powerful fleet they could now enter World War II to complete their conquest of China and expand their empire with the Southern Resource Zone. They thought that the rich, comfort loving Americans, distracted by the Germans in Europe would not have the will or capability of fighting a war in the Pacific. It was thus the stunning surprise Japanese carrier attack on Pearl Harbor that finally propelled America into World War II. On a bright Sunday morning, the six front-line carriers of the Imperial Navy launched 360 modern aircraft at Pearl Harbor, the base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Sleek Japanese carrier aircraft with a distinctive red circle thundered out of the sky just as the American sailors were waking up on a sleepy Sunday morning. They not only America, but the world for ever. While Pearl Harbor was a stunning tactical victory, it was a strategic blunder of incalculable proportions. It was a stunningly successful military success, brilliantly executed by the Japanese. Several hundred aircraft, most of Pearl's air defenses, were destroyed. Most on th ground. Eight battleships, the heart of the American Pacific fleet, were sunk in addition to three cruises and three destroyers. But by the slender thread of chance, the three American carriers, Yamamoto's principal objective, were not at Pearl. The Pearl Harbor attack was perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in the history of warfare. The Japanese attack on the Pacific fleet instantly changed a diverse and quarreling nation, strongly pacifistic into a single, united people with a burning desire to wage war and the vast industrial capacity with which to wage war with unprecedented intensity. The isolationism that President Roosevelt had struggled against for over 7 years instantly evaporated when the first Japanese bomb fell on Pearl Harbor. Even Lindburg asked for a commission to fight for the United States. America was finally at war.
The Japanese led by Admiral Yamamoto were the first to realize the full potential of naval aviation. They demonstrated this at Peal Harbor and their sweep across the Pacific in 1942. Yamamoto was correct in his assessment of the importance of the carrier. He also warned the Imperial Government that he could guarantee naval dominance only for 6 months. Japanese leaders had no concept of how quickly America could build new carries. In the end, the Pacific War was won by the carriers, but it was the American carriers. The primary target of the Japanese at Part Harbor were the three carriers of the Pacific fleet. By mere chance, none were at Pearl. Admiral Nimitz who after the strike was ordered to Pearl was given command of the Fleet. He had to develop a strategy to hold off the Japanese with those three carriers while America built a powerful new fleet. The United States began an immense effort to build a vast naval armada. Priority was given to 40 new carriers-many of which were the Essex class fast carriers. These powerful fighting ships were over 800 feet long and totaled 27,000 tons. The Essex carriers, however, would not begin to arrive until 1943. The Pacific Fleet would have to hold the line with what it had in 1942.
The Japanese with the U.S. fleet except for its carriers immobilized was able to launch a series of offensives of breath taking proportions. American Pacific outposts at Guam and Wake were taken. Hong Kong fell with little resistance. Major offensives were launched in Malaysia and the Philippines. The fall of Singapore opened a drive into the Dutch East Indies and Burma. The Japanese took both Singapore and Burma with relativity small forces. The Ditch and British were able to offer little resistance in Borneo and the Dutch East Indies. And finally they seized Rabaul (February 1942) and began building a major base and moving down the Solomons chain. Next they began preparing for the conquest of Australia by seizing Papua New Guinea. President Roosevelt ordered General MacArthur from Corregidor and put him in charge of stopping the Japanese advance and the defense of Australia. The U.S. carriers prevented the amphibious invasion of Papua in the Coral Sea (May 1942). And then, seemingly miraculously, American carriers t Midway ended Japanese naval dominance (June 1942). This ended the easy Japanese victories, but the Japanese still had a decided edge. The Japanese invasion of Papua New Guinea began at Buna (July 1942). The first Japanese offensive to be defeated occured at Milne Bay in eastern Papua where Australian infantry turned back a Japanese landing force for the first time (August-September 1942). It was a minor defeat for an enemy that in 6 months of frenetic activity had carved out an enormous empire rich in the raw materials that resource-poor Japan so coveted. American marines launched the first Allied offensive by landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomons (August 1942). This set in motion a series of major naval battle to determine who would control Guadalcanal.
Most accounts of World War II find that the Pacific War was fought more savagely than the European War, especially the fighting between the Germans and Western Allies. The differences can be exaggerated. There were German atrocities in the West (Oradour-surGlane and Malmedy). Both the Germans and Allies carried out air raids on civilian populations. There are, however, reasons to conclude that the fighting in the Pacific Theater reached a level of savagery not normally experienced on the Western Front of the European War. A range of explanations have been offered to explain the savagery of the conflict. Race certainly was a factor. Woke historians pursue this narrative focusing on the United States. In fact the real racist nation was Japan committing barbaric atrocities against other Asian peoples, especially in China. The overwhelming factor, however, appears to be the Japanese martial code (Bushido) and the assumption as in the case of the NAZIs that the War was won and Japan would never have to answer for the atrocities committed. In fact Japan has a nation has never come to terms with the atrocities committed by the Imperial army in its name.
The news from the Pacific was an unrelenting series of disasters. America needed a victory. The only intact offensive force in the Pacific was American carriers. Army Air Corps pilot with B-25s trained for carrier take offs. The B-25 was a medium bomber never intended for carrier use. Carrier commander Adm. "Bull" Halsey led a task force made up of Hornet and Enterprise. It was a risky operation as it committed half of the Pacific fleet's carrier force to a very dangerous operation. The B-25s took off from Hornet. It was the first blow to the Japanese home islands. The raid was led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle. The physical damage was inconsequential, but the psychological impact was immense. Most of the American aviators crash landed in China and were helped to reach safety by Chinese Nationalist guerillas. The Japanese reprisals were savage. The Japanese Army murdered an estimated 0.5-0.7 million Chinese civilians were murdered. The Japanese Navy was so embarrassed that they rushed forward Admiral Yamamoto's plan to bring the decimated American Pacific Fleet to battle at Midway Island.
Allied intelligence in the Pacific was largely signals intelligence. The Americans and British has no human intelligence in Japan, although the Soviets did. Breaking the Japanese codes had a substantial impact on the Pacific War. This began with breaking the diplomatic purple code (1940). Actually the attack sped up the breakthrough. Station HYPO was a very small operation. On an emergency basis it was expanded, in part because the Navy did not know what to do with the battleship naval bands. It was always known that mathematicians made for good cryptologists. The Navy found by accident that musicians were also good at it as well as learning Japanese. The increased personnel allowed HYPO to delve into the stacks of intercepted messages that had piled up. And real progress ensued. unfortunately the preliminary cracking of the Imperial Navy JN-25 code came after the Pearl Harbor attack. But when it came, it provided huge payoffs at the Coral Sea (May 1942) and even more dramatically at Midway (June 1942). As the initiative shifted to the Americans, learning Japanese intentions became less important because the Japanese had less and less capacity to conduct offensive operations meaning fewer dramatic results. The code breakers developed information that lead to an air strike which succeeded in shooting down and killing Admiral Yamamoto (1943). And the Japanese Army codes were finally cracked (1943). Cracking the Maru code provided American submariners a huge advantage. And the Pacific Fleet rapidly grew affording increasing capabilities. American shipyards launched a massive number fleet of new vessels delivered to the Pacific Fleet (1943-45). in the Central Pacific (1944). The Americans never launched a major military deception campaign in the Pacific, in sharp contrast to the operations in Europe. One historian explains that the American assessment. The Americans believed that the Japanese Empire was "... too incompetent to understand what was being told them, and stood too low in the estimation of the decision makers for it to have done much good if they had." [Holt] The Americans did carryout one important deception effort--Operation Bluebird. This was designed to convince the Japanese that southern China and Formosa (Taiwan) were to be invaded rather than Okinawa. While the Allies did not have human intelligence in Japan, there were sources in some of the occupied areas. The most important were the Coast Watchers in the Sollomans.
The Japanese in only a few stunning months after Pearl Harbor carved out a huge empire in the Pacific and Southeast Asia. And it looked for a time that it might not only be a permanent situation, but perhaps be expanded to include Australia and India. In fact, the Japanese conquests lasted only 2-3 years. While the Japanese East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere lasted only a few years, the impact for Asia was nothing short of momentous. The Japanese conquests has a stunning impact on Asian nationalism. Asia at the time of World War II was largely colonized or strongly influenced by European countries (Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal). Nationalist movements within the European empires were, except for India, weak and poorly organized. There were no European plans to grant independence. Only in the Philippine was the United States moving toward independence. Britain was moving Ceylon and India toward domestic self rule, but not independence. Thus the Japanese conquests were seen in Asia in a very different light than the NAZI conquests in Europe. It also explains why resistance movements (except in Indochina and the Philippines) were weak and of little impact on the War. And the Japanese were able to organize local military formations (Burma, India, and Indonesia) to fight the Allies. The outcome was a notable impetus to nationalist movements throughout Asia. And within a few years after the War, the European colonial powers had granted independence to their former colonies.
The first important Allied effort to stop the Japanese sweep through the Pacific occurred in the Coral Sea. The Japanese planned to seize Port Morseby, completing their conquest of New Guinea. Port Moresby would have also posed a threat to Australia itself. A Japanese naval task force en route to seize Port Moresby was intercepted by an American carrier force, alerted by code breakers. It was the first carrier to carrier engagement in history. The Japanese succeeded in sinking Lexington and heavily damaging Yorktown. The Japanese lost a light carrier and another carrier was heavily damaged. Despite the American losses, the Japanese invasion force turned back, the first major Japanese reversal of the War.
Admiral Yamamoto was convinced that the remaining American carriers could be brought to battle and destroyed at Midway. The Japanese plans were based on achieving an element of surprise and on the fact that two American carriers had been destroyed in the Coral Sea, in fact the Yorktown, although heavily damaged had not been sunk. American code breakers had alerted the Americans to the Japanese plans. Admiral Nimitz positioned Enterprise and Hornet, along with the hastily patched up Yorktown northwest of Midway to ambush he Japanese. The American carrier victory at Midway dealt a crippling blow to the Imperial Navy. The Americans sank four first-line Japanese carriers, killing most of the well-trained crews. While the Imperial Navy still held an advantage, it was no longer an overwhelming one. Meanwhile American shipyards were turning out the new Essex class carriers that would engage the weakened Imperial Navy in 1943.
While often not touched upon in military histories, a major factor in war is often food, and this was the case of the Pacific War. There were several factors at play concerning food. Most concern the Japanese and the people they occupied.
First, Japan was not self-suffice in food production and was dependent on imports to feed its people. Acquiring resource-rich areas, including food producing areas was one reason Japan went to war.
Second, early Japanese victories were based on seizing the supplies of the Allied armies they faced. This ended after the early victories against unprepared forces. And the result would be the starvation of Japanese forces beginning on New Guinea and Guadalcanal.
Third, Japan was able to seize a vast empire, but did not have a merchant marine capable of supplying island garrisons or delivering resources including food to the Home Islands.
Third, Japanese occupation policy was that every area should become self-sufficient in food. This created terrible conditions in the areas that were dependent on imports before the War. This included areas both within and outside Japanese-controlled areas.
Fourth, brutal Japanese occupation policies reduced harvests through out the Japanese controlled areas.
Fifth, Japanese authorities turned a blind eye to the famines they caused.
Sixth, most of the Pacific islands seized by Japan were self sufficient in food. They mostly operated on a primitive agricultural subsistence farming, producing just enough to feed the small island population. it was not adequate to feed a large Japanese garrison.
Seventh, the Japanese Army High Command ordered Japanese garrisons throughout the South Pacific, knowing that this was impossible. Thus at the end of the War these garrisons were starving.
Eighth, as the U.S. Navy established control of the sea lanes to Japan, food imports were cut off. At first this meant sharp cuts in food rations, but the Japanese population on the Home Islands by the end of the War had begun to starve.
There were two important factors affecting the war in Asia. The factors concerning the Japanese in the Pacific also affected the war in Asia.
First, the Japanese seizure of large areas of agricultural land in China created a food crisis for the Nationalists. At first they managed the situation fairly well. But by 1942 a very serious food shortage began to develop leading to famine conditions in many areas.
Second, the British after the Japanese seized Burma, failed to respond to the food shortage in Bengal.
There were some matters affecting the Allies as well. First, Australia agreed to feed the American military stationing there to free up ocean transport for arms. Second, the Polynesian people were permanently affected by the foods introduced by the Americans. Third, after the War, America saved the Japanese people from starving. As a result the famine deaths that the Japanese imposed on others never materialized in Japan itself.
The fighting in the South Pacific began after the American Naval victory at Midway. It meant that America could deploy and supply supply infantry forces on Pacific islands to stop and then push back the Japanese. The 1st Marine Division began the campaign on Guadalcanal. Army divisions would join the Marines. The close-quarters fighting in the South Pacific after Guadalcanal is one of the most neglected campaign of the Pacific War. The battles for Buna, Shaggy Ridge, and the Duriniumor River were as hard fought as many better known Pacific battlefields. Other hazards included the Japanese submarines operating around New Georgia, as well as the Zeros protecting Rabaul and Wewak. [Rems] The intense fighting on Guadalcanal was accompanied with naval and air battles and at first against numerically superior, but badly led Japanese ground forces. The rest of the South Pacific campaign were different. The Japanese withdrew their fleet and new American aircraft won aerial dominance as well. The various island campaigns were fought by Allied forces which not only outnumbered the Japanese, but were better equipped and supplied. While Japanese commanders on Guadalcanal showed astonishing incompetence. Their defensively tactics on the other islands was more competently conducted. Even though casualties because of their fight to the death ethnic were much heavier than those suffered by the Allied assault forces. Normally attacking forces suffer more casualties then fighting behind prepared defenses. The Australians participated in the fighting, especially on New Guinea, but America would be largely on its own when the fighting moved north to the Central Pacific.
ew World War II soldiers fought with such spirit and devotion, despite the fact that the Japanese soldier was equipped with largely inferior weaponry and supported with inadequate logistics. Japanese military commanders believed that fighting spirit imbued in their soldiers could overcome what ever material inadequcies existed. And this was not only when they were winning, but when they were losing and certain to die. Surrounded and starving Japanese grisons throughout the Pacific, refused to surrender. Imperial Army Headquaters were fully aware that their garisons were starving. They were told to become self sufficent, essentilly to starve. The Japanese packed such large numbers of soldiers on various islands that there was no way they could grow their own food, even if they became full time farmers. Still they did not surrender. Island campaigns commonly ended with suisidal Banzai charges rather than surrender. Soldiers including the walking wounded charged into American positions. This might work in China, but not aginst the Americans armed with modern automtic weapons, tanks, and artillery. And the spirit which imbuded the Japanese soldier also was felt by many civilians which the military incouraged to also resist the advancing Allied forces and ultimately if they failed to commit suiside. This included women and children. American Marines fotst encountered this on Saiplan (June 1944). The Japanese fighting spirit was based on the Way of the Samurai an the Bushido Code. It was the spirit behind the Kamikazee in the final year of the War. Very few Japanese soldiers questioned it. There were more Japanese surrendering in the final major battle of the War (Okinawa), but still only a small fraction of the island's garrison.
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