The Intense Battles That Defined The Pacific Theater In WW2

At 7.56 on the morning of December the 7th, 1941, Japanese aircraft swooped down over Hawaii. Their target, the U.S. Pacific Fleet, at anchor in its base at Pearl Harbor. Five U.S. ships were hit immediately. A few minutes later, more Japanese aircraft joined in. By 8.35, two U.S. battleships were sinking, two had capsized, and two were badly damaged. A seventh battleship, the Nevada, slipped her moorings and was heading out to sea when she, too, was caught and forced to beach. Simultaneously, Japanese Zero Fighters strafed U.S. aircraft lined up on the island's airstrips. They also shot up nearby army barracks. By the end of the attack, dozens of U.S. warships had been sunk or damaged. 188 aircraft were also destroyed. The next day, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan. Since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire. The stage was set. Could Japan knock out the United States with a swift blow before the huge might of America grounded down? It would become one of the great conflicts of World War II. Japan's first steps towards war had come in August, 1940. Capitalizing on France's defeat in Europe, it seized control of air bases in the north of the French colony of Indochina. It was looking for a quick and easy expansion of its empire. A year later, it issued an ultimatum demanding the use of all French air bases throughout Indochina. When the French hesitated, the Japanese invaded and seized control of the entire colony. Japan felt the consequences almost immediately. The United States froze its overseas financial assets, effectively robbing the country of its ability to buy oil. Japan faced a choice, climb down and lose face or seize more territory and up the stakes. For a new Japanese government under the aggressive General Hideki Tojo, there was no question about which course to take. Japanese army and navy commanders were told to prepare for a swift war to occupy all the far eastern territories controlled by Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States. The country was expecting a swift victory. Japan saw the Americans in particular as a nation of pleasure lovers with no stomach for a lengthy war and heavy casualties. The Japanese military calculated that if they could destroy the US Pacific fleet, the US would quickly sue for peace. It was now that they decided to attack Pearl Harbor. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet was put in charge. He had 10 battleships, 10 aircraft carriers and the world's most advanced naval aircraft. Against him, the US Pacific fleet had eight World War I vintage battleships and two carriers. Yamamoto planned the attack with great care. He would hit the US fleet in Pearl Harbor on a Sunday since according to intelligence reports, it usually spent the weekends in port. In total radio silence, the Japanese strike force gathered in Tankan Bay in the northerly Kuril Islands. The fleet set sail on November the 26th, 1941. Meanwhile, as a decoy, Japanese negotiators arrived in Washington to discuss a possible Japanese withdrawal from China. The Japanese fleet refueled after several days at sea. Three days later, it was off Hawaii. The Americans were still blissfully unaware that anything was wrong. At 6 a.m. on December the 7th, after a final briefing, the first wave of Japanese aircraft took off. As the Japanese aircraft dived into the attack, US personnel was still just stirring on a fine Sunday morning. It was all over in less than two and a quarter hours. Yamamoto's plan had worked like a dream, or had it? There was only one problem. The US fleet's two aircraft carriers had not been in Pearl Harbor at the time and had escaped the attack. Yamamoto's main aim of crippling the US Pacific fleet had only partially succeeded. US naval air power in the region was still intact. But in the United States, there was shock and disbelief. It quickly turned into a mood of fury and determination. Angry mobs attacked the Japanese embassy. Japan had disturbed the sleeping giant. The US Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, spoke for many. The Japs started this war. We are going to finish it. Yet before the US could mobilize its full strength, the Japanese were to inflict more humiliating defeats on the Western allies. In December 1941, as America was licking its wounds after Pearl Harbor, Japan launched a series of attacks on Western colonies in Southeast Asia. It thought it had knocked out America. Now it moved against Britain and its colonies. The first to be hit was Malaya, where a Japanese force came ashore in the northeast of the country. The plan was that it should make its way south down the east coast. The invasion force was met by a contingent of British Indian troops. But after a day of fighting, they were brushed aside. Meanwhile, further north in Thailand, a second Japanese landing was unopposed. 30,000 Japanese troops were soon making their way down the western coast of Malaya. The target of the two groups, Singapore, the center of British military and political rule in the Far East. Britain had turned the island into what it believed was an impregnable fortress. The Japanese were approaching by land from the north. Yet British military commanders remained remarkably untroubled. They didn't rate the Japanese as fighting men and believe the Malay jungle was anyway virtually impossible. But the Japanese had other ideas. To soften up Singapore, they attacked the city from the air. Britain sent the new battleship, Prince of Wales, and a battle cruiser, Repulse, to attack Japanese troop convoys. They were met by Japanese bombers. Both warships were sunk in less than two hours. Almost 1,000 of their crew were lost. It was the greatest British naval disaster of World War II. In an era of aircraft and aircraft carriers, it was now clear the battleship, for years the mainstay of the British Navy, had had its day. Back on land, the Japanese continued to head south towards Singapore. On January the 11th, 1942, Kuala Lumpur was captured. The British forces fell back and withdrew to Singapore. There were now about 100,000 British soldiers to defend it. They faced a force of only 30,000 Japanese. Even without their big guns, the British should have been able to hold out. The Japanese launched an assault in early February. It was supported by more airstrikes. The British defense was soon reduced to chaos. Civilian casualties began to escalate. Four days later, the Japanese had pushed through the last of the British defensive lines. The commander, General Arthur Percival, surrendered with over 90,000 men. Never in the history of the British Army had a commander in charge of such a large force had to surrender, and to an enemy general whose force was outnumbered more than three to one. Britain's 200-year-old power and prestige in the Far East had been wiped out in just 10 weeks. But it wasn't the only disaster. Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the Japanese forces were equally triumphant. The British garrison in Hong Kong fought for two weeks before succumbing to a Japanese invasion. In the Philippines, America fared no better. Here, a preemptive bombing raid caught large numbers of US aircraft neatly lined up at Clark Field. Most were destroyed. Two days later, with US air power virtually nonexistent, Japanese troops began to land. The local Philippine troops melted away. The Japanese advanced rapidly. 10 days later, Manila was captured. The US soldiers were forced to withdraw to the Bataan Peninsula. Here, they hoped to hold out until a relief force could be sent. It never came. On April the 3rd, 1942, Japanese troops launched a major assault on US positions. After four days' heavy fighting, they broke through. The Americans surrendered, and surrendered two days later. That left just one British colony in the region, Burma. In early 1942, Japanese forces pushed into the south of the country. The British defenses had been utterly neglected. There were only some 15,000 men defending the country. There were no match for the Japanese. The Allied troops mounted a brief but doomed resistance. Less than two months after invading Burma, the Japanese had seized the capital, Rangoon. Eight weeks later, the British had been pushed entirely out of the country. In just under six months, the Japanese had seized control of the whole eastern rim of the Pacific. Their Oriental blitzkrieg had been swift and crushing. Yet already, there were warning signs that they were not alone. As powerful as they appeared. On April the 18th, 1942, four months after Pearl Harbor, America struck back at the Japanese. US bombers flying low over Tokyo dropped bombs on the city close to the emperor's palace. Others struck Yokohama, Kobe, and Nagoya. The raid, authorized by President Roosevelt himself, was daring in the extreme. The B-25 Mitchell bombers had not been designed to be launched from aircraft carriers. They barely managed to lumber off the deck of the USS Hornet, which had brought them to within 700 miles of the Japanese cabin. But that didn't diminish their effectiveness in the air. In Japan, the raids caused profound shock. After their runaway successes of the past four months, they had never expected an attack on their homeland. Japan's military planners now decided to extend the country's defenses. If they could seize additional strategic outposts in the Pacific, they could attack and destroy Allied forces before they even came close to the homeland. Japan already controlled much of the Chinese coast, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines. They had also seized the Dutch East Indies. Now they decided to strike south and attack Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, and east to take the island of Midway in the middle of the Pacific. It would mean the homeland was surrounded by a string of fortified positions. Yet even as Japan was planning its move, its operations were severely compromised, though it only realized this after the war. The United States had broken its military and diplomatic codes. By spring 1942, the U.S. Navy's code-breaking team in Hawaii was reading enough messages to give it a remarkably accurate insight into Japan's intentions. So it was that the U.S. Commander-in-Chief in the region, Admiral Chester Nimitz, learned the details and timing of Japan's planned invasions of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. If successful, they would cut off Australia from her allies. A Japanese bombing raid on Darwin had already caused widespread fear of an invasion. In early May 1942, the Japanese plan to widen its defensive perimeter was launched. They seized the Solomon Islands. Two days later, the Japanese carrier force entered the Coral Sea in preparation for the main assault on Papua New Guinea. But this time, the Americans had anticipated them. Admiral Nimitz had ordered two U.S. aircraft carriers and a number of smaller warships into the area. For two days, the rival fleets searched for each other. Then, on May the 7th, U.S. aircraft located and sank the Japanese carrier, Shoho. The Battle of the Coral Sea was underway. Early the following day, the Japanese responded, unleashing a hail of torpedoes and bombs. To begin with, the U.S. aircraft carrier, Yorktown, managed to avoid the Japanese torpedoes. But then she took a bomb, which penetrated four decks before exploding. 37 men were killed. The larger and less maneuverable carrier, Lexington, was also hit by several bombs, as well as two torpedoes. She developed a heavy list to port. The Americans returned fire, attacking the Japanese carrier, Shokaku. The first U.S. raid was blunted by Japanese Zero fighters, which forced the U.S. Douglas Devastator bombers to drop their torpedoes too far out. All the torpedoes missed. But a second wave of U.S. dive bombers struck home. The Shokaku's deck was so badly damaged, she could no longer be used by aircraft. After two days of fighting, the two forces finally disengaged. That evening, the Lexington, still afloat, suddenly erupted in a huge explosion. There had been an undetected leak of aviation fuel that had caught fire. Amazingly, all but 215 of the nearly 3,000 men on board were rescued. Later that evening, an American torpedo scuttled the burning hull. The Battle of the Coral Sea was, on paper, a draw. Each side had lost one carrier and had another severely damaged. Strategically, however, it was a major U.S. success. It had prevented the Japanese from seizing more territory, and it had stopped them from isolating Australia. The Battle of the Coral Sea marked a new era in naval tactics. It was the first major sea battle in which the opposing ships were completely out of visual contact. It was fought, instead, by aircraft flying from carriers. It would soon become clear which side had adapted to the new form of naval conflict more successfully. By the late spring of 1942, Japan and America were deadlocked. Japan needed a quick victory if it was not to be ground down by the huge resources of the United States. In mid-May, it began its next move. U.S. codebreakers reported Japanese plans for a new attack. It would be on Target AF, somewhere in the Mid-Pacific. The problem for the Americans was that they had no idea where Target AF was. Could it be a reference to Midway Island near Hawaii, an ideal jumping-off point for another attack on the American fleet in Pearl Harbor? The codebreaking team suggested a way to find out. The U.S. Air Base on Midway was instructed to send an uncoded message reporting problems with the island's water system. Almost immediately, the codebreakers intercepted a Japanese signal that Target AF was having water supply problems. Admiral Chester Nimitz now knew exactly where the enemy would strike. The Japanese plan was typically complex. A diversionary attack on the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific would draw away part of the U.S. fleet, while Midway was seized by an occupation force. The Americans would be obliged to hurriedly commit their carrier force to retaking the island. There, they would be annihilated by a huge Japanese naval presence, including four large aircraft carriers. It was the second Japanese attempt to wipe out the U.S. Navy in the Pacific within a year. Forewarned, the American carriers left port and moved to a position where they could ambush the Japanese. On June the 3rd, 1942, Japanese forces launched the expected attack on the Aleutian Islands. Nimitz didn't respond. Then, early the next morning, the main Japanese carrier force launched a first airstrike on Midway Island to soften up its defenses. U.S. warplanes from the island intercepted them. Most were outdated Brewster Buffaloes and were easily shot down by the more agile Japanese Zero Fighters. But the Japanese attack had been blunted. Midway's defenses had not been broken. The Japanese commander, Admiral Chuiki Nobumo, faced a difficult decision. He'd kept some of his aircraft in reserve, loaded with munitions designed specifically for attacking ships, just in case the U.S. fleet was spotted. Should he now order this reserve to be stripped of its torpedoes and armor-piercing bombs and reloaded with high-explosive and fragmentation bombs for a second strike on Midway? It would leave him ill-equipped to take on the U.S. Navy, but he calculated it was a risk worth taking. Then, just as the reloading was underway, he received unwelcome news. A U.S. naval force had been spotted. Was this the U.S. carrier force or a smaller, less significant fleet of ships? Nobumo was in a duller mood. Should he continue with a second strike on Midway or should he once again re-equip his bombers to take on the U.S. vessels? Nobumo decided to gamble. He would push ahead with the second strike on Midway. His hope was that when the bombers returned, there would still be time to rearm them to take on the U.S. ships. Even as he weighed the odds, the Japanese carriers were attacked by U.S. bombers. Every available Japanese Zero fighter was scrambled before the U.S. bombers were repelled. Then came another report from reconnaissance planes. The U.S. force did indeed contain aircraft carriers. Nobumo was, once again, on the spot. His aircraft were halfway through reloading, but the U.S. carriers were a much more important target. He took a second gamble. He decided to change their weapons yet again to attack the U.S. force. But while he did so, his ships would be sitting ducks. Almost immediately, they came under attack from low-flying U.S. torpedo bombs. But they were old and slow and attacked without fighter support. As they approached the Japanese fleet, they were rapidly shot down. For a brief period, it looked as though Nobumo's gamble had paid off. Then, just as his bombers had been reloaded and were ready to take on the U.S. carriers, disaster struck. U.S. dive bombers, approaching unseen at high altitude, hurtled down on his ships. The Japanese were caught completely by surprise. Nobumo had gambled once too often and was now at the mercy of American air power. Within five minutes, the U.S. dive bombers had reduced three of Japan's largest aircraft carriers to flaming wrecks. All would later sink. The fourth carrier, the Hiryu, had been masked by a rainstorm and that afternoon mounted a desperate counterattack. The U.S. carrier Yorktown was severely damaged. It was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine several days later. But the Japanese fight back was short-lived. Late in the afternoon that day, the Hiryu was also hit and turned into a blazing pyre. In a matter of hours, Japan's mastery of the sea had been destroyed. The attack on Midway Island had achieved nothing, but it had cost Japan its finest carriers and 332 aircraft. Well over 2,000 sailors had also died. America now ruled the waves in the Pacific. Yet Japan was still undefeated on land and a powerful threatening force in the air. In the coming months, it would try to maximize these advantages. By summer 1942, Japanese plans to build a defensive ring of occupied territories around their homeland had still not been completed. Heavy losses at sea had frustrated their attempts to grab Papua New Guinea and islands in the Central Pacific. Japanese planners now came up with a new plan. If they couldn't do it by sea, they'd do it by land. On July the 21st, a division-sized force of experienced jungle troops landed on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. They immediately struck west to capture Port Moresby, the capital. Progress was swift at first. The small Australian defense force was completely outnumbered. Within weeks, the Japanese had captured the main pass over the Owen Stanley Mountains. They then halted to await reinforcements before the final push on Port Moresby. The Australians also mustered new forces. When the Japanese moved off again, they now met much stiffer resistance. For the first time, Japanese troops were up against men who matched them for training, experience, and morale. The Australians stood their ground, and the Japanese were temporarily brought to a standstill. But conditions in the jungle were appalling. There was constant tropical rain. Malaria was rife. The Australians were eventually again forced to retreat. After two months of grim fighting, the Japanese were within 30 miles of Port Moresby. Then finally, U.S. reinforcements arrived. Through September and October, the Japanese were, in their turn, forced back. The Japanese made a heroic but suicidal stand. Many chose to die fighting rather than surrendering. It took the Allies another two months before the Japanese were finally overwhelmed. It had been a bloodbath. 15,000 Japanese troops had embarked on the operation. Only 3,000 got away. The Japanese were in trouble. They'd lost at sea. They were now rapidly losing the initiative on land. American military might was asserting itself. There was only one alternative left, air power. Through the summer of 1942, Japanese engineers began building a string of airstrips across the Pacific. One was on the island of Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands. It was particularly well-situated to threaten U.S. convoys heading for Australia. It would become the focus of an epic battle. In July 1942, an amphibious force of U.S. Marines invaded the island. They landed without resistance. The plan was to capture the half-built airstrip, complete it, and then turn it into a U.S. base. But the Japanese were not ready to give up. That night, they sent in a naval force to land reinforcements and to attack the fleet of U.S. ships supporting the Marines. In a dazzling display of night fighting, the Japanese cruisers sank four Allied warships and drove the rest out to sea. The Marines were now marooned without supplies and without much of their equipment. They dug in around the airstrip. Despite constant bombardment, using construction machinery left behind by the Japanese, they pushed ahead with the completion of the airfield. Two weeks later, a group of U.S. wildcat fighters and dauntless dive bombers flew in. They were not a moment too soon. The next day, newly arrived Japanese troops launched a series of suicidal attacks on the airstrip. Over the following months, wave after wave of fanatical troops were thrown into the battle. By the winter of 1942, the two sides had fought themselves to a standstill. Both now dug in to defensive positions. Then, in December, the exhausted U.S. Marines were replaced by fresh troops. U.S. soldiers now began a new push on the increasingly isolated pockets of Japanese resistance. By early February, 1943, the Americans had finally won control of Guadalcanal. They had now beaten the Japanese at sea and on land. They had even denied them access to the air. The Oriental Blitzkrieg had failed. The Japanese Empire now faced a foe that was still growing in strength at a rate it could never hope to match. It was the beginning of a fundamental shift in the course of the war.