Pacific War

Pacific War

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World War II: The Asian Pacific Theater

The Pacific War was a war fought between December 7, 1941 and August 15, 1945, between the Axis Powers led by the Empire of Japan and the Allies, led by Britain and the United States, during World War II, spanning the Pacific, Indian Ocean, and East Asia.

The Pacific War, spearheaded by Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and ended with Japan's surrender, involving as many as 37 countries, involving a population of more than 1.5 billion, and mobilizing more than 60 million troops on both sides of the war, lasting three years and eight months, and the casualties and losses were difficult to count.

Basic information

Chinese name
Related events	Pearl Harbor, Marshall Islands, Iwo Jima
Time	From 7 December 1941 to 15 August 1945
outcome	It ended with Japan's utter defeat
Warring parties	The Allied Powers led by the United States, the Empire of Japan
Troop strength on all sides	Allies, 8,200,000 (highest peak), Japan, 5,500,000 (highest peak)
Casualties	The Allies, 698,859 killed, 959,911 wounded, Japan, 957,186 killed, 526,149 wounded
place	Asia, the Pacific and neighboring island nations
Related characters	Stilwell, MacArthur, Yamamoto Fifty-Six, Yamaguchi
Affiliation system	second world war
English translation	Pacific War
turning point	Battle of Midway, Battle of Guadalcanal
Japanese translation of the name	Pacific War, Taiyuan War
Famous battles	Battle of Leyte Gulf, Battle of Mariana

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Overview of the war

The Pacific War (December 8, 1941 – August 15, 1945) was part of World War II, fought primarily in the Pacific and surrounding countries. By Japan and the United States and other allied countries to fight, the outbreak of war since the Pearl Harbor incident in 1941, Japan air raids on the United States Pacific base, the United States declared war on Japan, China that has been at war with Japan for many years also declared war, Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy also declared war on the United States, Eurasia two major wars one. It was not until 1945 that Japan announced its unconditional surrender.

There are as many as 37 countries participating in the Pacific War, involving a population of more than 1.5 billion, and the two warring sides mobilized more than 60 million troops, which lasted for three years and more months, and the casualties and losses are difficult to count. The Allied powers involved in the Pacific War included the United States, China, Great Britain, the British Indian Empire, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the Dutch government-in-exile, the Free France, and the Soviet Union. The Axis powers were mainly Japan and the puppet regimes it had established, including Manchukuo, the Wang Jingwei regime, and Thailand. In addition, Japan recruited many troops in its colonies (such as Korea and Taiwan), and there were many pro-Japanese factions in China who participated in the war.

In addition to the large-scale maritime battles between Japan and the United States, this war also led to the demise of the Axis power group in Europe, the subsequent Cold War situation, the use of atomic bombs, the anti-colonial wave, and the political development of Japan and China, which had a great impact on the future development of the neighboring countries in Asia and the Pacific.

Background to the war

• Japan's Southward Expansion Policy

On August 7, 1936, the Hirota Cabinet proposed Japan's "National Policy Benchmarks" and decided to "ensure the empire's position on the East Asian continent in both foreign affairs and national defense, and at the same time expand and develop toward the southern seas", that is, to take "southward" and "northward" as national policy. In order to achieve the "benchmark of national policy," Japan first invaded China and carried out an intermediate breakthrough, but it was trapped in the Chinese battlefield and unable to extricate itself. Japan urgently needed to find new breakthroughs in the "southward advance" and the "northward advance", and successively used troops against the Soviet Union in 1938 and 1939, but the result was failure, and the "northward" strategy was impacted.

At that time, the international situation changed dramatically, and in the summer of 1940, Germany successfully blitzed Western Europe, the Netherlands and France were defeated, and Britain was also in danger. On April 15, 1940, Foreign Minister Arita issued a statement declaring that Japan had inextricable ties with southeast Asian countries and the Southeast Asian region, and that the Japanese government "could not ignore any changes in the region." On June 29, a speech entitled "Building a New Order in Greater East Asia" was delivered. On July 26, the Second Konoe Cabinet threw out the "Outline of Basic National Policy" and formulated the "Outline for Handling the Situation Adapted to the Evolution of the World Situation", declaring that the fundamental policy of the Japanese government is to "believe" that in the European war, the old forces are succumbing to the power of the emerging countries, only Britain is left to survive, the world situation has changed quite drastically, and Japan's current urgent task must be promoted to achieve it, in order to break away from the situation that has always been bound by Britain and the United States, and to take Japan as the backbone. The establishment of a self-sufficient posture in the South Sea region east of India and north of New Zealand, Australia, and the opportunity to achieve this purpose, except today, will never be a good opportunity in the coming days." On August 1, Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka formally proposed the slogan of establishing the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" in his first speech after taking office. The intention of this move is, first, to provide a huge and reliable market and a stable source of raw materials for Japan's manufacturing industry, and second, militarily, to turn Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific into Japanese colonies, thereby establishing a "self-sufficient" economic system. In mid-December 1940, the Military Research Department was established in Taiwan Province of China to be responsible for "the investigation of military intelligence and military geography in various parts of the south", and in the same month, the South China Front was ordered to conduct tropical and landing combat training for its subordinate units. From March to April of the following year, the Japanese headquarters conducted a joint exercise of land, sea and air forces to continue to occupy Singapore after the supposed occupation of Malaya, conducted long-distance flights at sea (including night flights) and communications with the Navy for the Aviation Department, and created an airborne unit in September 1941.

Japan's resources are extremely poor, most of the main strategic resources depend on imports, while Southeast Asia is rich in resources, especially "the Dutch East Indies is the oil treasure house of East Asia, with an annual production of about 8 million tons, which is 20 times that of Japan." At that time, Japan needed about 5 million tons of oil per year, and its self-sufficiency was still less than one-tenth of the way" Southeast Asia was very important, and occupying Southeast Asia could cut off two important road lines of communication between the United States and Britain and other countries to aid China: the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway and the Yunnan Burma Highway, and could enter the Indian Ocean to threaten India, and meet with the German army in the Middle East, and to the south, it could capture Australia and dominate the western Pacific.

• The contradictions between Japan and the United States have intensified

From 1853, when Matthew Perry led a U.S. warship to "visit" Japan, which opened a new page in Japan-U.S. relations, until the Spanish-American War, Japan-U.S. relations were relatively flat. The victor in the Spanish-American War, the United States, and Japan, the victor in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, began the struggle for hegemony in China and the Pacific region from the end of the 19th century.

After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan's power in northeast China increased greatly, Japan-US relations took a sharp turn for the worse, and both sides began to regard each other as imaginary enemies. On January 2, 1917, Japan signed the Ishii-Lansing Agreement on China on behalf of Ishii and U.S. Secretary of State Lansing. In the agreement, the United States recognized Japan's "special rights" in China, especially in Southern Manchuria, but at the same time reminded Japan not to monopolize China and to ensure that China's door is open and opportunities for industry and commerce in all countries are equal.

From November 1921 to February of the following year, the Nine-Nation Naval Disarmament Conference and the Washington Conference on the Far East were held in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, with the participation of the United States, Britain, Japan, France, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and China. The Nine-Power Pact, which was signed, announced the implementation of the principle of "open doors" and "equal opportunities" in China, and Japan surrendered the rights and interests of the former Germany in Shandong, China. The Washington conference ended in a U.S. victory, making the contradictions between Japan and the United States public and intensifying the contradictions between the United States and Japan over the Far East Pacific region. In February 1923, when Japan revised the Imperial Defense Policy, it listed the United States as the first imaginary enemy in light of the international situation at that time.

After the "918" incident, the contradictions between Japan and the United States further developed, and in 1934, Japan announced the abrogation of the Naval Arms Treaty, and in January 1936, it withdrew from the London Disarmament Conference. Japan's departure from the Washington and London treaties seriously impacted the Versailles-Washington system, which meant that the contradictions between Japan and the US and European powers began to intensify. In 1940, the German-Italian-Japanese Triple Alliance Treaty was signed in Berlin, which seriously deteriorated the strategic position and strategic environment of the United States. Thus, a year before the outbreak of the Pacific War, the United States took three interrelated actions in the Asia-Pacific region: stepping up assistance to China in the War of Resistance; tightening economic sanctions against Japan; and beginning negotiations with Japan. Such soft and hard hands constituted the actual content of the US Far East strategy at that time.

• Anglo-American appeasement policy

Germany's success in blitzkrieg against Western Europe caused European and American imperialism to devote its main energies to the European battlefield and had no time to look east, causing a "vacuum" in the skies over Southeast Asia and giving Japanese imperialism an opportunity to take advantage of. Japan changed its previous hesitant attitude towards the signing of the German-Italian-Japanese Trilateral Military Alliance, and on September 27, 1940, the Treaty of the German-Italian-Japanese Triple Alliance was signed in Berlin. It fulfilled the basic policy of Japanese imperialism of "adapting to the sudden changes in the world situation, rapidly building a new order in East Asia, and seeking to strengthen the Axis of Japan, Germany, and Italy."

The contradictions between the United States and Britain and Japan in the Far East have a long history, and in particular, Japan's launching of an all-out war of aggression against China has seriously damaged the economic interests of the United States and Britain in China. However, due to the increasing tension in Europe, the decline of Britain's comprehensive national strength, and the powerful isolationist forces in the United States, they tried their best to avoid conflict with Japan in the Far East, in a vain attempt to "sacrifice China's interests in exchange for Japan's concessions, achieve a conditional compromise between the two sides, and thus preserve the basic interests of Western countries in China." Under the guidance of this ideology, the United States and Britain adopted a policy of appeasement toward Japan that compromised and conceded. Britain's handling of relations with Japan has tried to push the United States to the front line to deal with the crisis. In order to show its sincerity, Britain also signed the Arita-Kleuri Agreement with Japan to "recognize Japan's special status in China and the responsibility of the Japanese army in maintaining law and order in the occupied areas."

After the "918" incident, under the circumstance of Japan's continuous expansion of aggression, the United States' trade with Japan, especially the export of strategic raw materials to Japan, continued to increase. From 1932 to before the July 7 Incident, the United States supplied 90 percent of the scrap steel, 65 percent of oil and petroleum products, 90 percent of copper and 45 percent of lead, and 70 percent of the machine tools necessary to expand the military industry. In 1937, the United States exported a total of $288.558 million to Japan, of which war materiel accounted for 58%; in 1938, a total of 239.575 million U.S. dollars were exported to Japan, of which war materiel accounted for 67%; in 1939, 90% of Japan's oil imports came from the United States.

The policy of appeasement pursued by the United States and Britain fueled Japan's ambitions and accelerated the pace of Japan's pacific war. After the outbreak of the European war, Japan took advantage of the defeat of France and the british trapped in the British Isles, and forced them to close the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway and the Burma Road, and forcibly entered northern Indochina in September, taking the first step of seizing the European and American colonies in Southeast Asia by force. In July 1941, it forcibly entered southern Indochina and forced France to sign the Japan-France Protocol on the Joint Defense of Indochina, thereby controlling the Saigon and Cam Ranh Bay naval bases and turning Indochina into a strategic base and logistics base for its "southward expansion" plan.

After the outbreak of the War in Europe, the United States and Britain, when studying and formulating a global strategy, believed that Britain itself was a European country with a huge colonial empire, and if Japan's expansion in East Asia threatened Britain's limbs, then Germany's expansion war in Europe threatened its heart, and it was obvious that Germany's threat was greater than Japan's threat to it. Europe is an important trading partner and the focus of hegemony of the United States, and a large part of American overseas investment is in the British Empire and European countries, and "at least forty-two percent of the $12 billion foreign investment of the United States is in the British Empire." Therefore, the United States and Britain put the defeat of Hitler in the European battlefield in the first place. From January 29 to March 27, 1941, the chiefs of staff of the United States and Britain reached the ABC-1 agreement at the secret talks in Washington, D.C., which for the first time clarified the strategy of "europe before Asia". Under this strategic guidance, the main task of the Allies was to concentrate superior forces to defeat Germany, while the Japanese offensive in Southeast Asia was only defensive.

Between April and May 1941, the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which was supposed to defend Southeast Asia, had 3 battleships, 1 aircraft carrier, and 5 destroyers ordered to be transferred to the Atlantic Fleet to cope with the British crisis situation, which greatly weakened the defense of Southeast Asia.

From January to March 1941, the Washington Meeting of the Chiefs of General Staff of the United States and Britain formulated a global strategy of "Europe before Asia", but on the issue of defense in the Far East, there was still a big disagreement between the United States and Britain, that is, there was no agreement on "who will play the main role in defending Japan in the Pacific". In April 1941, the British Commander of the Far East, Popam, held two meetings in Singapore with representatives of the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, and formulated an agreement known as "ADB", with the strategic deployment "requiring the concentration of Singapore as the main base, while holding the two forward bases of Hong Kong and the Philippines, and blocking and attacking Japan from these two places" at the same time. However, the United States rejected its strategic scope and too many obligations, and the plan of the United States and Britain to take joint action on the defense of the Far East once again failed.

Before the outbreak of the Pacific War, China and Britain had realized the importance of Burma's strategic location and the possibility of being attacked by Japan, and began to plan a joint defense plan, signing the Sino-British Mutual Defense Agreement on the Burma Road on December 23, 1941, but at the beginning of the Pacific War, Britain refused to allow Chinese troops to enter Burma on the grounds that "formal alliance is enough to ensure the security of Burma", and it was not until February 1942 that Britain realized that it could not guarantee the security of Burma on its own. Chinese troops were required to enter Burma to fight.

In the face of Japan's pressing aggressive posture, the United States and Britain have adopted corresponding economic sanctions against Japan. On July 26, 1940, the United States announced the imposition of a "moral embargo", "export license", "economic embargo" and other measures on Japan, and after Japan entered Indochina, it implemented a scrap steel export license system for Japan, and the United Kingdom also reopened the Burma Highway on October 18 and began to transport supplies to China. On July 28, 1941, the United States and Britain froze Japan's capital in the United States and Britain, which was "the first time that the two countries have resisted Japan's aggression since Japan began its aggression and expansion in 1931, and it is the first coordinated action of the two countries." But from these sanctions, the United States and Britain are still unwilling to overstate Japan, especially without an embargo on oil. From July 26, 1940 to January 15, 1941, the United States signed a 7 million barrels of oil export licenses to Japan, of which 3 million barrels of oil had been imported into Japan, accounting for 1/3 of the average export rate from 1936 to 1939. It was not until August 1, 1941, that the United States announced an oil embargo on Japan, and in September the United States and Britain ceased all trade with Japan.

From March to December 7, 1941, the United States and Japan held a nine-month "marathon" of negotiations, which bought time for Japan to start a war. During this period, Japan completed the deployment of southern combat troops; improved its armament production capacity, and in 1941, Japan produced 6 million tons of pig iron, 5.5 million tons of steel, more than 5,000 aircraft, and 48 launched ships (including 5 aircraft carriers, 1 battleship, and 1 cruiser), completing the final preparations for war.

• Colonial rule in Southeast Asia

On the eve of World War II, all other countries in Southeast Asia, with the exception of Thailand, were colonies of Europe and the United States, including the British occupation of Burma, Malaysia and Singapore; the Occupation of the Philippines by the United States; the Occupation of Indochina by France (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia); the Dutch occupation of Indonesia; and the Occupation of Timor by Portugal. Because of their own weakness and inability to get rid of the status of colonial rule, some government leaders and nationalists in Southeast Asian countries pinned their hopes for independence on Japan, believing that Japan was their ally against Western colonial rule, and fantasizing about using Japan's strength to overthrow European and American colonial rule. The colonial rule of European and American countries created conditions for Japan's "southward expansion," and Japanese spies spared no effort to infiltrate Southeast Asia. In early 1941, Japan favored Thailand on the pretext of "mediating" the dispute between Indochina and Thailand, prompting Thailand to lean toward Japan and preparing conditions for Japan's offensive into Burma and the Malay Peninsula. In early 1941, the Burmese People's Revolutionary Party signed a secret agreement with Japan, asking Japan to help form the "Burmese Independence Army" and sending 30 young people to Taiwan and Hainan Island in China for training.

Warring nations

ally

China, Soviet Union, United States, Great Britain, British Indian Empire, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Dutch Government-in-Exile, Free France (Government-in-Exile), Korean Government-in-Exile, Philippines.

Axis Powers

Puppet regimes established by Germany, Italy, Japan, Romania, Finland, Siam (Thailand), and Japan included the puppet state of Manchukuo, the Jidong Defense Communist Autonomous Government, and the Wang Jingwei regime.

The war went through

On October 16, 1941, the Konoe Cabinet was replaced by the Hideki Tojo Cabinet. On 5 November, the Japanese Imperial Council decided to launch an offensive against the United States and Great Britain. The attack was scheduled for early December, and the Army and Navy would have to complete war preparations and military deployments before then, waiting for orders. Japan submitted to the United States on November 20 a proposal known as the "B" case, which was considered an ultimatum by Secretary of State Hull and others. It demanded that "neither Japan nor the United States enter Southeast Asia and the South Pacific (excluding Indochina) by force" in exchange for the lifting of the embargo and the cessation of aid to China by the United States, which the Japanese side claimed was an "absolute final proposal." On November 26, Hull submitted to Nomura the Basic Outline of the U.S.-Japan Agreement, the Hull Memorandum, which included one requirement for Japan and nine joint demands on both sides.

In the comparison of the forces of the army, navy, and air force of the two sides before the war, there were about 250,000 Japanese combat units on the army side and about 350,000 combat units of the allied forces of the United States and Britain; on the navy, Japan dispatched a total of 232 ships, including 10 aircraft carriers, and the Allies dispatched a total of 219 ships, including 3 aircraft carriers; about 1,540 Japanese first-line combat aircraft and about 646 Allied forces, but 35 B-17 long-range bombers, which are known as "air fortresses." Before the outbreak of the Pacific War, the Allies' defense forces in Southeast Asia were mainly local mercenaries, lacking advanced weapons and equipment and due combat quality. There are about 130,000 defense forces in the Philippines, of which only 1,200 are regular U.S. troops, and the rest are Filipino mercenaries and militias. The vast majority of the 88,000 defenders in Malaya and Singapore were local troops from India, Australia, and Malaya, with poor equipment, training, and combat effectiveness, and no tank support. In Burma, there were only 2 divisions of troops before the war, many of the officers were filled by white lawyers, merchants and plantation owners, and the soldiers were mostly Burmese natives, making it difficult to resist the well-trained Japanese army.

• Attack on Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese army sneaked into the US naval and air base Pearl Harbor, announcing the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japan dispatched about 360 aircraft, 55 warships, led by Nan yun Zhongyi, two consecutive raids on the US warships and airfields in Pearl Harbor, sinking and injuring 19 warships, including 8 battleships, destroying and injuring more than 260 aircraft, the US military was caught off guard, and the main force of the Pacific Fleet was almost completely destroyed, killing and wounding more than 3,000 people. This is an important step in Japan's southward expansion policy.

Pearl Harbor declared the bankruptcy of U.S. isolationist diplomacy and defense policies. In order to effectively prevent the Japanese army from continuing to advance southward, the United States on the one hand hopes to use China's abundant manpower and resources to drag and deplete the Japanese army to the greatest extent, and on the other hand, to place the battlefield of counter-attacking Japan in the southwest Pacific.

In March 1942, the Anglo-American Committee of Joint Chiefs of Staff reached a divisional responsibility agreement, with the United States taking charge of the Pacific Ocean and British control of the Indian Ocean and Sumatra. In April, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands agreed to establish a military command in the Southwest Pacific, while developing and promulgating guidelines for the conduct of the Commander-in-Chief. At the suggestion of the Australian government, General MacArthur was appointed by President Roosevelt as Supreme Allied Commander in the Southwest Pacific Theater.

The Southwest Pacific Theater of Operations included Australia, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and the Dutch East Indies. The rest of the Pacific is the Pacific Theater, with Admiral Nimitz, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, serving as commander-in-chief of the theater. In order to curb the expansion of the Japanese army in the South Pacific, the U.S. military also formed the South Pacific Force, commanded by Vice Admiral Gormley, under the jurisdiction of the 61st and 62nd Task Force Formations, with 3 aircraft carriers, 1 battleship, 14 cruisers, and 32 destroyers, under the Pacific Theater of Nimitz.

• Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia

On December 7, 1941, more than 400,000 members of the Japanese Southern Army, commanded by Shouichi Terauchi, attacked Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Burma in several ways. On December 8, it invaded Thailand and bombed the Philippines, on the 9th it invaded Malaya, on the 10th it landed in the Philippines and attacked Guam, on the 19th it broke into Hong Kong, and on the 23rd it attacked Wake Island.

Hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombed the city of Davao in Mindanao, followed by Clark Airfield and The Caveat Naval Base. Manila was bombed on December 9, 1941. On December 10, 1941, two days after the Japanese landed in Appali and Vigan in northern Luzon, they landed at Regaspi in southern Luzon. On December 24, 1941, the main Japanese army landed at Renyayin. On the same day, the Japanese landed at Atimonan and then launched a centripetal attack on Manila. On January 2, 1942, the Japanese occupied Manila. The American and Filipino defenders under MacArthur's command were unable to resist and retreated to Bataan. Later, in order to avoid MacArthur becoming a prisoner, the U.S. government ordered him to transfer command to Wainwright and go to Australia as commander of the Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific Theater, commanding the Allied forces in the region.

On 9 April 1942, MacArthur's successor, Jonathan Wainwright, led the Bataan defenders to surrender. At this point, Japan had complete control of the central Pacific, and the line of communication between the United States and the Philippines was cut off by the Japanese. The Japanese invaders brutally treated 70,000 U.S. and Filipino prisoners and forced them to carry out a "death march" from Bataan to the Karpas concentration camp in Tala Province, where about 10,000 Filipino soldiers and 1,200 American soldiers died on the road.

At the same time, Japan dispatched the first mobile force with aircraft carriers as the core to march into the Indian Ocean, successively sinking a number of British ships such as the British aircraft carriers Athletic, the battleship Prince of Wales, and the battlecruiser Counterattack, and attacked Sri Lanka, severely damaging the British Far East Fleet and reducing its sphere of influence to the western part of the Indian Ocean.

On January 23, 1942, Japan occupied the island of New Britain and built the port of Rabaul and the nearby airport into the most important sea and air base in the South Pacific. This new base, along with the large Japanese base in Truk, became the center of Japanese forces in the South Pacific. But to the japanese's dismay, the bases were too close to those in Australia and allied forces in New Guinea. Although the Japanese military rejected the plan to conquer Australia, it supported the occupation of the remaining islands of New Guinea with the goal of crushing any Allied counteroffensive. In February, the Japanese captured the Ademinalti And Book Islands in the Solomon Islands. On March 8, the Japanese advanced into the interior of New Guinea; on the 10th, the Japanese were counterattacked by American ships, and seven transport ships were damaged. In May, the Japanese captured Tulaj Island, located in the southern part of the Solomon Islands, on the edge of the radii of fighter combat based in Rabaul, about 30 nautical miles south of Guadalcanal, the second largest island in the Solomon Islands, and next to Florida Island to the north, which was the hub of sea and air transportation in the South Pacific, originally garrisoned by Australian troops, after which the Australian army voluntarily withdrew due to the deterioration of the war situation. After the Japanese occupied the island, they began to build an airfield.

On 15 February 1942, The British commander of Singapore, Percival, signed a letter of surrender, and Singapore abandoned it. On March 9, 1942, the Dutch army in the Indonesian archipelago surrendered. On May 6, 1942, more than 70,000 U.S.-Philippines troops surrendered in Bataan and the Philippines fell. On May 8, 1942, the important town of Myitkyina in northern Burma fell, the Chinese Expeditionary Force and the British and Indian armies withdrew in full force, and Burma fell into the hands of the Japanese army. China's land communications with its allies were completely cut off, and aid was only available for air transport on the Hump route.

In May 1942, Japan invaded and occupied strategic points such as Singapore, Burma, New Guinea and the rest of the Solomon Islands, and achieved almost all of the original strategic objectives. After conquering Southeast Asia and the southwest pacific, Japan controlled the region's population of 150 million people and 3.86 million square kilometers of land. Together with the previously encroached areas, including Korea, the Occupied Territories of China and Indochina, the total area of 7 million square kilometers and the population of about 500 million people have formed a huge colonial empire from the Aleutian Islands in the north to Australia in the south and the Indian Ocean in the west, basically realizing the expansion plan of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".

The Japanese strategic defense system in the Pacific ocean was a chain of three islands formed by a series of islands. The first island chain, from south to north, is the Gilbert Islands, marshall islands, Wake Island, and Aleutian Islands; the second island chain is the New Guinea Islands, the Mariana Islands, the Iwo Jima, and the Ogasawara Islands; the third island chain is the Philippine Islands, Taiwan Island, the Ryukyu Islands, and then connected by the east-west Caroline Islands, forming a spider-web strategic defense posture. The Japanese attempted to use these islands to deplete and exhaust the U.S. fleet, and at the right time to dispatch a combined fleet to fight a decisive battle at sea, forcing the United States to recognize Japan's supremacy in the western Pacific and achieve a decent peace.

Just after the Japanese army completed the initial occupation of the Pacific islands and formed a three-island defense chain, Japan began to show signs of weak offensive strength and defensive dislocation in strategy. In a hurry, Japan's marching route was too long and it was in trouble in the Pacific Theater. Six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese suffered consecutive setbacks in two key battles, providing an opportunity for a full-scale Allied counteroffensive.

• Doolittle airstrikes

On April 18, 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle led 16 B-25 bomber crews from the naval aircraft carrier USS Hornet to successfully bomb Tokyo. The material damage caused to Japan by this airstrike was negligible. But psychologically, it greatly shocked the Japanese government and the opposition. The Doolittle airstrikes have been called the first victory of World War II. In fact, the Losses of the Japanese side were: 50 deaths, 252 injuries, 90 buildings destroyed, The Japanese Diesel Engine Manufacturing Enterprise, the Yokohama Manufacturing Warehouse of the Japan Iron and Steel Company, the Nagoya Aircraft Factory, 1 Arsenal, 1 Naval Chemical Plant, an airport, 1 Temporary Storage Depot of Ammunition, 9 Power Buildings, 6 Fuel Depots, 1 Garment Factory, 1 Food Storage Warehouse, 1 Fuel Company, 6 Wards of the Nagoya Second Provisional Military Hospital, 6 Elementary or Middle Schools, and countless non-military residences. Material damage in Japan amounted to $3.2 million. This airstrike did have a profound impact on the war. It led directly to the later Battle of Midway.

• Battle of the Coral Sea

During the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 3–8, 1942, U.S. aircraft carrier fleets attacked Japanese forces stationed in Port Moresby. This naval battle was the first confrontation between US and Japanese aircraft carriers in the Pacific Theater, and the two sides participated in the battle in equal strength and suffered similar losses. From a tactical point of view, there is no difference between victory and defeat; but from a strategic point of view, the US military actively faced the results of the battle, which effectively encouraged the confidence of the Allied victory. Forcing the Japanese to abandon their attempt to capture Port Moresby, the Japanese's southward advance was stifled. From June 3 to 6 of the same year, the Japanese Navy dispatched all the main forces of the combined fleet, counting 350 ships, 1,000 aircraft, and 100,000 troops, launched a large-scale Battle of Midway, and attempted to entice the remaining Aircraft Carrier Fleet of the United States in the Pacific. As a result, the U.S. fleet sank 4 Japanese aircraft carriers, 1 cruiser, and 250 aircraft; the Japanese killed 3,500 people, including many pilots. Due to the loss of 4 aircraft carriers, Japan was forced to turn to strategic defense.

In the face of the US-Australia alliance, Japan is under sharp pressure to counterattack, and if Japan wants to counter-attack, it must occupy the southwest Pacific islands and cut off the strategic ties between Australia and the United States. This heralded the harsh test of war in the southwest Pacific, and its importance was highlighted by the head-to-head confrontation between the Allies and the Japanese. Therefore, in the summer of 1942, the Japanese base camp adjusted its operational policy to: occupying important islands in eastern New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, consolidating the control position of the Japanese army in the southwest Pacific, cutting off the communication lines between the United States and Australia, and protecting the important military bases of the Japanese army in Rabaul and Truk, so that "Australia will not be able to rely on American assistance to enhance its ability to resist the war in the future, the United States will lose its counter-offensive position against Japan in the South Pacific, and the connection between the United States and Australia through the Pacific will be paralyzed."

In the face of the strategic adjustment of the Japanese army, in July, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff also issued a new battle plan in due course, preparing to retake New Britain, New Ireland, solomon islands and eastern New Guinea with a limited counterattack. The Japanese also landed on many islands, trying to seize the point, but most of them were fruitless. At the same time, heavy Japanese troops landed at Gora on the northeast coast of Papua to attack Port Moresby. The Japanese were well trained in jungle warfare, and they managed to cross the equator and wage a war that was completely foreign to australian soldiers. During a month of deadly fighting, the Japanese reached a ridge just 22 miles from Port Moresby. Due to the difficulty of supply and the stubborn sniper attack of the Australian army, the Japanese army was forced to retreat and regroup.

The Japanese attack on Port Moresby was the longest and most painful operation in the entire war. The Battle was the first Allied land victory in the Pacific War. In order to ensure contact with Australia and establish a counter-offensive base against Japan, the United States decided to seize Guadalcanal. On August 7, U.S. troops landed at Guadalcanal and captured the nearly completed airfield. In November, the Japanese Navy suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Solomon, sinking and destroying 1 battleship, 5 cruisers, and 12 transport ships. From February 1 to 7, 1943, about 10,800 Japanese troops withdrew from Guadalcanal in three batches, Guadalcanal was occupied by the American Army, and the Japanese counterattack was thwarted. In the six-month-long offensive and defensive battle for the island, the United States and Japan fought more than 30 naval battles, large and small. The U.S. Pacific Fleet, in coordination with allied forces, has participated in the battle with more than 60,000 troops and more than 5,000 casualties, and about 35,000 Japanese troops invaded Guadalcanal, with about 24,000 casualties on the battlefield alone. The heavier blow was the loss of at least 600 Japanese aircraft and a large number of trained pilots. In this deadly battle, the Japanese army not only suffered heavy losses in the navy and aviation, but even the army, which had never lost since the beginning of the war, but also suffered huge losses, especially the losses of the Japanese army's large warships, aircraft, and well-trained pilots, which were even more difficult to make up in a short period of time.

Through the battles of Midway and Guadalcanal, the Allies not only gained military superiority in counter-attacking Japan, but also established psychological superiority in counter-offensive against Japan, gradually reversing the passivity in the early stage of the war and seizing the strategic initiative. After winning the battle of Guadalcanal and other battles, the Allies began to prepare for the second phase of the joint offensive. In mid-1943, the U.S. Army was about to launch an attack on the Japanese forces in Rabaul, and its first strategic goal was to capture the New Georgia Islands in the central Solomon Islands and bougainville Island in the northwest. In early October, after the U.S. occupation of New Georgia, japan strengthened the defenses of Boo Island, and the number of defenders increased to 60,000. On November 1, U.S. troops began to land on Boo Island, and were sniped by the Japanese. Although the US military did not occupy the whole island, the Japanese army on the island was isolated and helpless, and it was difficult to make a difference. Victory in the Bougainville landings established a nearby base for the U.S. army to further capture Rabaul, the Japanese defensive center in the southwest Pacific. On the 11th, the United States again attacked Rabaul, and Japan returned fire in the air, but the losses were serious. In order to put pressure on the defense of the Japanese mainland, the Allies decided to attack the Marshall Islands, but to take the island, they must first take the Gilbert Islands in the southwest Pacific, and then use it as a base before launching an attack. To this end, the US military began to carry out the construction of forward bases in a planned manner, starting from samoa and gradually advancing along the Tuvalu islands to the Gilbert islands. In late November, the Allies occupied the Gilbert Islands.

In February 1944, U.S. forces liberated the other islands in the Marshall Islands. On 20 March, U.S. forces landed on the Bismarck Archipelago, completing the encirclement of the Japanese fortress of Rabaul. Since March 30, long-range bombers of the U.S. 5th Air Force stationed in Cedore have launched heavy air raids on Japanese bases off the coast of New Guinea, and the Japanese airfield has been bombed in turn, and about 40 Japanese aircraft have been destroyed on the runway of the airport. In the Battle of New Guinea, MacArthur successfully implemented his original "cross-island tactics", using only a limited number of troops to achieve the strategic goal of recovering the entire island of New Guinea. Although japanese remained in the mountains of inland New Guinea and individual Japanese strongholds, their presence was no longer a threat to the main Allied operations due to the severed contact with the outside world.

• War in Southeast Asia

In May 1942, the Japanese occupied all of the Philippines, the United States lost an important base in the Pacific, and the connection with China's southeast coast was cut off, making it difficult to deliver supplies to the Chinese army. Second Route: On the same day, a group of Japanese aircraft from Taiwan began an attack on Hong Kong. While the Japanese planes were bombing Hong Kong indiscriminately, the well-equipped 38th Infantry Division attacked Hong Kong with the cooperation of the Japanese 23rd Army stationed in Kowloon. The British garrison in Hong Kong consisted of only 6 infantry battalions and a small number of volunteers, and there were no fortifications at the base or port. As soon as the two armies engaged, the British army threw away its armor and collapsed.

On December 25, 1941, the Japanese army became the new ruler of Hong Kong with the record of killing more than 1,200 British and capturing 12,000. Third Route: On the morning of the 7th, the Japanese 15th Army in indochina attacked Thailand and Burma. The Japanese encountered no organized resistance and occupied Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, the next day. The Thai government was forcibly tied to Japanese chariots and declared war on the United States and Britain in January of the following year. When the Japanese occupied parts of Thailand, they concentrated on capturing Burma. The purpose of the Japanese invasion of Burma was, first, to cut off the last line of communication between China and the outside world in order to isolate and encircle China;

From the west, a defensive barrier was established for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. From 23 to 25 December, the Japanese conducted air raids on Yangon, and on 8 March, the Japanese captured Yangon. At this time, the Japanese troops assembled in northern Thailand also began to cross the Thai-Burmese border and launch an offensive into the interior of Burma, eliminating one of the Kuomintang troops fighting in Burma, cutting off the retreat of the British army retreating from Rangoon and the rear road of the other Kuomintang army. The collapsed British and Nationalist armies had to break up and retreat to India at the end of May. Fourth Route: The Japanese 25th Army in Indochina attacked Malaya and Singapore. The British colony of Singapore was the choke point from the Pacific Ocean into the Indian Ocean and was a major target for the Japanese offensive. The defeat of the United States in the Pacific was also a serious setback to Britain's defense in the Pacific, and in order to strengthen its defensive forces in Asia, Churchill sent two battleships, the Prince of Wales and the Enemy, to Singapore. On 7 and 8 December, the Japanese landed on the Isthmus of Kra and Gothabaru, and the Air Force bombed Singapore intensively. With the cooperation of the navy and air force, the Japanese ground forces attacked south along the railway. The British garrison in the north of Malaya retreated to Singapore in a panic. On December 9, the British battleships Prince of Wales and Enemy sailed from Singapore in order to eliminate the Japanese landings in Kuantan, and on the morning of the 10th, when approaching Kuantan, they were attacked by Japanese bombers and torpedo planes and sank, and the commander of the British Far East Fleet, Phillips, also sank into the vast sea with the ship. At this point, Britain completely lost its air and sea supremacy in the Pacific region.

The Japanese landings in Malaysia continued their offensive southwards, occupying Kuala Lumpur in 1942. At the end of January, the entire Peninsula of Masilia fell. On 14 February, Singapore was besieged and fresh water was cut off. On the 25th, 80,000 defenders became prisoners of the Japanese. In this way, the sea passage connecting Asia, Africa, Europe, and Australia fell into the hands of the Japanese. Fifth Route: The Japanese 16th Army stationed on Hainan Island attacked the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). Due to weak resistance from the Dutch colonial army at the time, the Japanese occupied the islands of Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Timor and Sumatra in February 1942. After that, the American, British, Dutch and other armies attempted to attack the Japanese fleet in the Java Sea, but they failed miserably. The Japanese army took advantage of the victory to land on the island of Java, occupied Bandung on the 9th, and officially surrendered to the Dutch governor on the 12th. Important islands in the Dutch East Indies and their rich strategic resources all fell into the hands of the Japanese army.

In addition, in the southern Pacific, in order to cut off the sea communication line between the United States and Australia, the Japanese invaders dismantled the vast base of Australia, which may later become a springboard for the United States to carry out a counter-offensive, and launched an attack on this area at the beginning of the war.

In January 1942, the Japanese army from Caroline Island occupied the New Guinea Islands and the Solomon Base successively, and built airfields on Bougainville and Guadalcanal. This posed a great threat to the sea lines of communication between the United States and Australia, and could potentially push the war to the Australian mainland. So far, from the first day of the war, the Japanese army has concentrated its forces on the main direction of attack, concentrated its forces to carry out surprise attacks, quickly grasped the air and sea supremacy in the vast areas of the western Pacific, and then carried out coordinated operations between the army and navy, completed the predetermined operational plan, and gained temporary superiority in the early stage of the war. Together, it controls more than 7 million square kilometers of land and a population of up to 150 million. On a front of more than 10,000 kilometers stretching from the Aleutian Islands in the north to Australia in the south, from the Indian Ocean in the west to Midway Islands in the east, there was a fierce competition with the United States.

• Battle of Guadalcanal

On August 7, 1942, the U.S. army began a local counteroffensive, landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, and engaged in a long-term scramble. Around the battle for Guadalcanal, Japan and the United States fought more than thirty large and small naval battles in six months, including six large-scale naval battles, 24 battleships of destroyers or more lost by both sides, about 3,300 american navy killed and about 2,500 wounded, and the Japanese navy suffered as many as 25,000 casualties.

In the ground operations on Guadalcanal, the maximum number of US troops participating in the battle reached 60,000, 1,592 killed and more than 4,200 wounded, the Japanese army put into Guadalcanal was about 36,000, about 14,000 were killed in battle, more than 9,000 people died of wounds or illness or were unaccounted for, a total of nearly 23,800 deaths, and more than 1,000 people were captured.

In the air battle for air supremacy on Guadalcanal, the "Cactus Air Force" Marine Corps air force stationed on Guadalcanal alone had six fighter squadrons participating in the battle, and ten famous ace pilots emerged, especially Captain Fox of the 121st Fighter Squadron, who shot down 26 Japanese aircraft between August 1942 and January 1943 and won the Congressional Medal. During the six-month air battle, 427 Japanese aircraft were shot down and the U.S. lost only 118. Together with those shot down by anti-aircraft artillery fire, the Japanese lost a total of 892 aircraft and 2362 pilots. The U.S. military lost about 250 aircraft.

In this protracted battle, the U.S. army lost about 5,000 people, wounded 6,700 people, lost 24 warships, 3 transport ships, and about 250 aircraft. The Japanese lost about 50,000 lives, losing 24 warships, 16 transport ships, and 892 aircraft (600 according to some sources). The Japanese army not only suffered heavy losses in the navy and aviation, even the army that had never lost since the beginning of the war, the most elite 2nd Division and other units also suffered huge losses, especially the losses of the Japanese army's large warships, aircraft and skilled and trained pilots, which were even more difficult for the Japanese army to make up, and the superiority of the Japanese army at the end of the battle was gone, and the strategic posture of both sides also changed,—— the defeat of the Japanese army in the Battle of Midway was a turning point in the Pacific theater in World War II. The war situation began to develop in a way that was unfavorable to Japan and beneficial to the United States, and the strategic initiative of the Japanese army was gradually lost; and in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Japanese army not only failed to realize the operational attempt to regain the strategic initiative, but on the contrary, its military strength was further weakened, and finally it completely lost its strategic initiative and fell into a passive situation. Since then, the Japanese army has had to change from a strategic offensive to a strategic defense, fortifying everywhere, and passive step by step until it is defeated. Through the Guadalcanal Campaign, the United States, on the other hand, gradually improved its unfavorable strategic posture, gained time to mobilize manpower and material resources, and created favorable conditions for the strategic offensive that will soon begin on the Pacific theater. The remnants of the Japanese army were forced to withdraw from the island in February 1943. After the Battle of Guadalcanal, the situation was relatively quiet, and the U.S. army launched only a limited offensive in the Pacific (such as the recapture of Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in May 1943); the Japanese counterattack was futile. Due to the code being deciphered, in April 1943, the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Isoroku Yamamoto, was ambushed and killed by American planes on his way to inspect the front line on Bougainville Island.

• Naval Battle of the Philippines

In June 1943, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff formally issued an order to capture the Marshall Islands.

From November 22 to 26, 1943, China, Britain, and the United States met in Cairo and signed the Cairo Declaration, which confirmed joint operations against Japan until Japan surrendered unconditionally.

In October 1943, in order to cooperate with the war situation in the Chinese battlefield and the Pacific region, the Sino-Indian communication line was reopened, and china and the United States jointly launched the Counter-Offensive Campaign of Northern Yunnan in Northern Burma, and by the time of the capture of Myitkyina in July 1944, the Japanese army was completely driven out of northern Burma and the battle was completely won. This victory not only opened up the land communication line between China and the Allies, but also opened the prelude to the Allied counterattack against the Japanese army in the Asian battlefield.

In November 1943, the U.S. army launched the Battle of the Gilbert Islands (code-named "Operation Electric") and eventually occupied Tarawa and other islands, although the losses were relatively large, but the U.S. army gradually gained amphibious landing experience and applied it to the subsequent battles.

From January to February 1944, the US military successively organized "flintlock" and "bailiff" operations, seized Kwajalin, Roy Island-Namur Island, and Enifitok Atoll, creating conditions for the next step of attacking the Mariana Islands. At the same time, the US military summed up the famous "frog jump" tactic.

In March 1944, the U.S. Military decided to carry out operations to seize the Mariana Islands. The US military has invested more than 600 ships, including 15 aircraft carriers, 14 escort aircraft carriers, 7 battleships, 25 cruisers, 180 destroyers, and 35 submarines, including 2,000 aircraft, four divisions and one brigade of the ground force, and 150,000 people. The battle codename is "Grain Collector". On June 15, according to the scheduled plan, the U.S. military organized an amphibious landing operation on Saipan. At the same time, the Japanese Combined Fleet, led by Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, responded with a fleet of 9 aircraft carriers (439 carrier-based aircraft), 5 battleships, 14 cruisers, and 31 destroyers.

On June 19, the two fleets encountered each other in the western waters of mariana, and a fierce naval battle broke out (the Japanese called this the "Battle of Mariana" and the U.S. military called the "Philippine Naval Battle" or "Mariana Turkey Hunting"). The Japanese invested all the capital ships of the combined fleet and most of the shore-based aviation, hoping to turn the tide of the war in one fell swoop, but unexpectedly ended in a fiasco. Only 2 U.S. carriers, 2 battleships, and 1 cruiser were lightly wounded, none of them sank, and 117 carrier-based aircraft were lost. The Japanese were sunk 3 aircraft carriers, 2 oil tankers, 3 damaged aircraft carriers, 1 battleship, cruiser and oil tanker each, and the loss of 404 carrier-based aircraft, accounting for 92% of all carrier-based aircraft; 247 shore-based aircraft were lost, almost completely destroyed; in addition, 20 of the 36 submarines dispatched by the Japanese were also sunk. Although the combined fleet luckily escaped the fate of being annihilated, but the loss of aircraft and pilots, the Japanese army can not be replenished in a short period of time, after this war, the Japanese army can be said that the core strength of its navy suffered a devastating blow, the central Pacific sea supremacy and air supremacy completely fell into the hands of the US army, from then on, the Japanese fleet lost the air support for ocean-going operations, making the Japanese army more passive and difficult in future wars, and the US military gained strategic initiative and theater sea and air supremacy. Being able to calmly choose the next target of attack and gain greater initiative.

During the three-month landing operation in the Mariana Islands, the US military successively captured Saipan, Guam, and Tinian Island, and basically annihilated about 70,000 garrisons on the three islands, resulting in a serious deterioration of the Japanese strategic defense posture in the Pacific, the "absolute defense circle" stipulated by the base camp was facing collapse due to the loss of the core area, the Japanese mainland would be directly attacked by US B-29 bombers flying from the Mariana Islands, and the US military would be given a forward base for continuing to march in the central Pacific. The fall of the Mariana Islands greatly shocked Japan, exacerbated the internal contradictions of its ruling class, and the distrust and antipathy of the Tojo cabinet that started the war grew, and under great pressure at home, the Tojo cabinet stepped down in the middle of the campaign.

On June 16, 1944, U.S. B-29 bombers took off from Chengdu, China, bombed Kyushu, Japan, and the war burned directly to the Japanese mainland, and this strategic bombing continued until the end of the war, and the major Japanese cities except Kyoto and Nara were destroyed. A total of 8.5 million of Japan's urban dwellers fled to the countryside, and the absenteeism rate of factory workers had reached 49 percent by July 1945. Japan's wartime economy has reached the point of exhaustion — refining industry production fell by 83 percent; aircraft engine production fell by 75 percent; aircraft hull production fell by 60 percent; electronic equipment production fell by 70 percent; and more than 600 major military factories were either blown up or severely damaged.

On the Burmese battlefield, on January 7, 1944, the Japanese headquarters issued the Imphal Battle Plan code-named "U" under the order of "Mainland Finger No. 1776", in an attempt to occupy LinkedIn Pal and Kohima, and then control the entire East Indies. The Japanese were tasked with attacking by the 15th Army of the Burmese Front, commanded by Lieutenant General Mutaguchi Rinya, known as the "Little Tojo", and commanding the 15th, 31st, and 33rd Divisions. The British garrison in imphal and Kohima was the 14th Army under the command of General Slim, with the 4th, 15th and 33rd Armies under its command. Due to poor logistics, the Japanese attack was a complete failure, about 100,000 people at the beginning of the attack, the result was that more than 53,000 people died or disappeared in the battle, and more than 20,000 people were injured, and the Japanese army was defeated and returned to the original attack. The 15th Army, the main force of the Japanese Burmese Front, no longer had the combat effectiveness of a campaign corps. The Allies in the Indo-Burmese battlefield turned to a strategic counteroffensive.

In July 1944, two U.S. commanders in the Pacific proposed their own plans, MacArthur proposed to attack the Philippines first, then Okinawa, Japan, and Nimitz proposed to take Taiwan first and land on the east coast of China. From a military point of view, Nimitz's proposal is more reasonable. But MacArthur made a political argument that bypassing the Philippines would be tantamount to acknowledging Japan's rumors that the United States had abandoned the Philippines and was unwilling to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers to save the Filipino people, which would be extremely detrimental to the prestige and influence of the United States in the Far East. And persuaded President Roosevelt to carry out the Battle of the Philippines. The US military has successively invested in the ground forces of the US 6th Army, the 8th Army and the Australian 1st Army; the Navy has the US 3rd Fleet and the 7th Fleet, including 16 large aircraft carriers, 18 escort aircraft carriers, 12 battleships, 11 heavy cruisers, 15 light cruisers, 144 destroyers and 25 frigates, including more than 800 combat ships, about 1700 carrier-based aircraft; the aviation forces participating in the battle include the US 5th, 13th Air Force and Australian Air Force. More than 1,000 aircraft. MacArthur was in charge of landing operations command, and maritime support was given by Nimitz's Pacific Fleet.

The Japanese responded with the "Jie I" battle plan, forming the Army's 14th Front In the Philippines, commanded by Army General Yamashita Fengwen, nicknamed "Tiger of The Malay", with nine infantry divisions, an armored division and four independent mixed brigades, totaling about 350,000 people; the Navy organized all the remaining warships into four fleets and put them into operation; the aviation forces in the Philippines included the 1st Air Fleet of the Naval Aviation Corps and the 4th Air Force of the Army. Among them, the 1st Air Fleet, which was lost in the just-concluded Battle of Mariana, is being rebuilt by Lieutenant General Tsuyoshi Teraoka as commander, with about 250 aircraft stationed in the Philippines; the commander of the 4th Air Force, Lieutenant General Kyoji Tominaga, has been transferred from northeast China to the Philippines since June, and by the beginning of October, about 300 aircraft have arrived in the Philippines, with a total of about 550 combat aircraft. Considering that the aviation force in the Philippines was still relatively weak, the base camp decided to draw aircraft support from the Japanese mainland, Chinese mainland and Taiwan once the campaign began.

In September 1944, the battle began. The U.S. army first captured The Islands of Peleliu and Morrotai, eliminating the flanking threat. From September to October, the U.S. military dispatched a large number of shore-based aircraft and naval carrier-based aircraft to carry out large-scale air strikes against Japanese airfields in the Ryukyu Islands, Luzon, Taiwan and other places. In particular, the successive air raids from October 6 to October 14 cost the Japanese 1,093 aircraft, leaving only 200 in the Philippine Army's 4th Air Force, only 35 in the Navy's 1st Air Fleet, and 230 in Taiwan's 2nd Air Fleet. Before the battle had even begun, the Japanese had lost their counterattack power in the air. Only 102 U.S. aircraft were destroyed or shot down.

• Naval Battle of Leyte Gulf

On October 20, 1944, U.S. troops landed on Leyte Island, and on the afternoon of the same day, MacArthur, accompanied by Philippine President Austina, came ashore with knee-length waters, and at fourteen o'clock on the beach, MacArthur delivered the famous "I'm Back" speech to the world through high-power radio.

Prior to this, on the 18th, the Japanese Combined Fleet judged the intention of the US Army, and the commander of the Combined Fleet, Toyota, immediately ordered the implementation of the "Jet One" plan, and the Japanese Navy's 1st, 2nd and mobile fleets were all dispatched to carry out a centripetal combined attack on the LANDING beachhead of the US landing in Leyte Gulf, thus breaking out from October 23, 1944 to October 26, 1944, the world's largest naval battle to date - the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

In this sea war, the US military participated in the battle with 16 aircraft carriers, 18 escort aircraft carriers, 12 battleships, 11 heavy cruisers, 15 light cruisers, 144 destroyers, 25 frigates, 592 transport ship logistics auxiliary ships, and nearly 2,000 aircraft. During the battle, 1 aircraft carrier, 2 escort carriers, 2 destroyers, and 1 frigate were sunk; 4 escort carriers, 2 destroyers, 3 frigates, and 1 submarine were damaged; 162 aircraft were lost, and the casualties were less than 3,000.

The Japanese army's participation in the war can be said to have all of them, with a total of 4 aircraft carriers, 2 air battleships, 7 battleships, 14 heavy cruisers, 7 light cruisers, 32 destroyers, and about 600 aircraft. During the battle, 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, and 10 destroyers were sunk; 1 air battleship, 4 battleships, 3 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 3 destroyers were damaged; 288 aircraft were lost, with more than 10,000 casualties.

After this naval battle, the Japanese Navy almost lost the ability to fight in the ocean, and thus lost the right to control the sea on the battlefield, thus leaving the 14th Front Army on land isolated and helpless.

In January 1945, U.S. forces landed in Rengain Bay, northwest of Luzon, and the Japanese used kamikaze for the first time to carry out suicide attacks on the U.S. landing fleet during the fight against the landing. U.S. forces occupied Manila on March 4, and in the ensuing battle, the Japanese 14th Front was annihilated in the Philippines, with 450,000 Japanese casualties and captures. In the entire Philippine campaign, the Japanese lost 68 warships, including 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, and 13 destroyers; 42 transport ships, about 170,000 tons; more than 7,000 aircraft, including 700 suicide aircraft of the Kamikaze Special Attack Team. The U.S. military suffered 62,000 casualties and lost 17 warships, including 1 aircraft carrier, 3 escort carriers, 9 destroyers, 1 frigate, 2 tank landing ships and 1 minesweeper; 6 transport ships, about 60,000 tons, and more than 900 aircraft. Dozens more were damaged.

Battle of Iwo Jima

The Japanese garrison suffered 22,305 casualties and 1,083 prisoners, for a total of 23,388. Other Japanese losses were more than 90 aircraft and three submarines.

Americans lost 6,821 (including 5,324 Marines), 21,865 wounded, and 28,686 casualties.

The ratio of casualties between the United States and Japan was 1.23:1, which was the only time in the Pacific War that american casualties were greater than the Japanese.

The heavy casualties of the US military on Iwo Jima made the top brass of the US military realize that if they attacked the Japanese mainland, they would inevitably encounter more stubborn resistance than on Iwo Jima, and the casualties of the US troops would be even heavier.

• Battle of Okinawa

A total of 13,000 U.S. Army 4,600, 4,900 Navy, and 3,400 Marines were killed, 18,100 Army, 4,900 Navy, and 13,600 Marines were wounded, and 26,000 non-combat casualties totaled 75,000. 763 aircraft were lost, 404 ships (32 ships were sunk and 368 damaged, of which 13 carriers, 10 battleships, 5 cruisers, and 67 destroyers were seriously injured. ), 372 tanks.

The Japanese suffered 110,000 casualties and 9,000 were captured. 7830 aircraft were lost. Sixteen surface ships and 8 submarines, including the battleship Yamato, were sunk.

In addition, more than 100,000 civilians died on the island.

The battle was called "one of the most intense and famous battles in the history of war" by Churchill.

From March to June 1945, the U.S. military occupied Iwo Jima and Okinawa at a heavy price, forcing the Japanese mainland. In May, Germany surrendered unconditionally. In order to preserve the mainland and Korea, Japan carried out an unprecedented mobilization for war, shouting "decisive battle on the mainland." The United States also plans to organize amphibious landing operations in southern Kyushu And the Kanto Plain in Japan, code-named "Olympic" and "Crown.".

U.S. casualties: Due to the superiority in weapons, the U.S. military killed 120,000 people and suffered 430,000 casualties, which as a whole accounted for a great advantage.

Death toll of the Japanese army in the Pacific Theater: According to the investigation of the Japanese Economic Stability Headquarters, the Japanese army died a total of 1140429 deaths in the Pacific theater and 414879 navy, and this data is also published in Liu Tinghua, deputy director of the World Military History Research Office of the Military History Research Department of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, "China's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and World War II Chronicles and Statistics (1931-1945)" (Haichao Publishing House, January 1995, 2nd edition), p. 367.

War effects

After the Pacific War, the United States became a member of the world's anti-fascist allies. In June 1942, the Chinese and American governments signed the Sino-US Lend-Lease Act, which provided the National Government with a total of $840 million in leased materials. In addition, the United States provided a total of $747 million in government loans to the National Government. Through these loans, the United States imported a large number of military supplies into China, and a large number of China's strategic minerals and agricultural products were exported to the United States through barter trade. The main export commodities in the Guotong District are designated for barter to repay debts. Between 1942 and 1945, 51.3 percent of the minerals were shipped to the United States, and the remaining 48.7 percent were shipped to the Soviet Union. The export trade of major agricultural products is similar to that of mineral products, and it is mainly exported to allies such as the United States and the Soviet Union in the form of barter trade to repay debts.

After the Pacific War, the southwest international communication line was completely interrupted, and the foreign trade routes in the national unification area were only the China-India air route and the northwest road to the Soviet Union. The Japanese army intensified its military offensive against the Kuomintang, especially the indiscriminate bombing of Chongqing, in order to force the Nationalist government to surrender and end the war in China as soon as possible. At the same time, the Japanese army intensified its economic plunder of China in order to achieve the purpose of feeding the war with war. The National Government was in serious economic difficulties, the area of the national unified area was constantly shrinking, there was a shortage of finances, material shortages, inflation was severe, industrial production and agricultural production were hit hard, and the number of agricultural and sideline mineral products available for export decreased.

The main general

Us: Douglas MacArthur, Chester Nimitz, William Halsey Jr., Spruance, Holland Smith, Peter Fletcher, John Buckner

Hikata: Isoroku Yamamoto, Taki Yamaguchi, Nobufumi Yamashita, Hitoshi Imamura, Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Chuichi Minami