Taking a Stand in The Pacific: Fighting The Empire of Japan During World War II Patrick Fisher Senior Division Historical Paper Paper Length: 2044 Words
On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy launched an air raid on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii, designed to cripple the U.S. pacific fleet. Despite the gallant actions of many soldiers, fighting to protect themselves and their brothers from the aggression of the Imperial Japanese, many ships were critically damaged or sunk and thousands lost their lives. Meanwhile in Asia, the Chinese were being pushed back by the Japanese. Any soldiers left behind were typically shot-on-site. The civilians in the region were forced to endure a campaign of terror. Their valuables were stolen, women were raped, and some were forced to endure extraordinarily cruel scientific experiments conducted by Japanese scientists. In total many millions of soldiers and civilians died during the war. The Japanese initiated a brutal military campaign in Asia and the Pacific with the goals of conquering other nations for their resources and becoming the supreme power in Asia. However, because of American, British, and Chinese forces taking a stand, Asia today is free of the Imperial Japanese. (Hoyt, Edwin P. Japan s War: The Great Pacific Conflict) How were the Japanese able to wage war against their neighbors on such a scale, as seen during their conquest of China? In 1868, the Japanese started the Meiji Restoration, which lasted until the beginning of the Great War. The restoration modernized and industrialized the nation, making it one of the most powerful countries in Asia. The restoration also shifted power from the Shogun back to the emperor. (TOKUGAWA PERIOD AND MEIJI RESTORATION) Even though much societal and cultural change occurred in Japan during the Meiji Restoration, Japan continued to have many traditions that they followed closely. These include the customs of bushido, which is a set of moral customs followed by the Japanese soldiers. Bushido dictates that one must die honorably rather than be captured by the enemy, which is why there were so few Japanese prisoners of war. They usually fought to the last man or committed ritual suicide. (Hoyt, Edwin P. Japan s War: The Great Pacific Conflict) The reasons as to why Japan invaded China and ultimately brought the United States into the conflict, creating a second major front in WWII, are rooted in centuries of Japanese history. Historically, Japan was an isolationist state, largely avoiding foreign affairs. This changed when U.S. Navy Commodore, Matthew C. Perry sailed to Japan. He disturbed the Japanese Nation profoundly when the country realized it was not as powerful as the technologically advanced forces of the U.S. and other western powers. This started the Japanese on the road towards the Meiji Restoration. The Japanese also creating colonies around the pacific. Starting with Korea and modern day Taiwan, the Japanese eventually also captured many pacific islands as well as Manchuria in an attempt to come to par with the Western powers. In addition to the credibility and prestige of having colonies and being an empire at the time, the Japanese also required their colony s resources to fuel their industrialization and growing military. (Hoyt, Edwin P. Japan s War: The Great Pacific Conflict)
In 1937, a border clash between Japanese and Chinese forces, known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, escalated tensions between the Chinese and Japanese. It should be noted that although most consider this the start of the Second Sino-Japanese war, no war was actually declared at the time. Over the next few months, the Japanese advanced across the northern border of China. On August 8th, 1937, the Japanese captured the former Chinese capital of Beijing. Soon after their victory in Beijing, the Japanese advanced into Shanghai. The Chinese sustained extremely heavy casualties. The Chinese capital of Nanking (or Nanjing) fell to Japanese forces on December 13, after they encircled the walled city and fought their way through its gates. As the war continued, the demoralized Chinese continued to be beaten back. Over the next year, the Japanese captured much of China s northeastern territory. Beginning in late 1939, the Chinese launched a disastrous counter offensive. After losing enormous numbers of men and capturing no major objectives, the offensive ended in 1940. (Sino-Japanese War) (The History Place World War Two in the Pacific) Even though Chinese forces were being pushed back, the Japanese did not win every battle. In the air, a group of brave American volunteers known as the Flying Tigers were having incredible success. After they trained in Burma, the 1st American Volunteer Group, as they were officially known, saw combat two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Using new and innovative tactics, they destroyed 296 enemy aircrafts but only lost 14 of their own. They accomplished this by avoiding the very maneuverable Japanese aircrafts in turn fights, when the pilots both perform steep turns and other maneuvers to get on their enemy s tail. The American pilots took advantage of altitude. They always zoomed down and then dived away. This tactic was known as dive-and-zooming. The pilots painted the now famous shark face art on the noses of their Curtiss P-40 fighters. The nose art was adapted from British planes who stole the design from an air wing German heavy fighters. Because of their victories during one of the darkest parts of the war for the allies, many soldiers and civilians maintained hope in winning the war. ( Wings Over China The Story of the Flying Tigers in China - China s Forgotten War. YouTube.com) On December 7, 1941, Imperial Japanese pilots took off from several aircraft carriers to launch a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base of Pearl Harbor. Although the Japanese intended to declare war before the attack, the declaration was not delivered by Japanese diplomats in time, thus, the attack was a surprise. The primary purpose of the attack was to destroy the American aircraft carriers, which provided the U.S. Navy considerable strength. This would allow the Japanese to wage war in the Pacific without having to face the American Naval air fleet. Although the mighty battleships inside the harbor were either sunk or damaged, the carriers were nowhere to be found. A day later, the U.S. would declare war on Japan. (The History Place World War Two in the Pacific)
The Japanese did not only attack Pearl Harbor. Aso attacked were other strategic targets in the Pacific, such as Wake Island and Guam, as well as Shanghai in Mainland China. Soon the Japanese forced General Douglas MacArthur who commanded forces based in the Philippines to retreat from Manila to Bataan. The Japanese then started their own island hopping campaign, capturing islands in what is today Indonesia. They also captured islands such as Wake Island and Guam in the middle of the Pacific. The U.S. aircraft carriers mobilized and began an offensive against the Japanese in the early months of 1942. During this offensive, the first U.S. carrier, the Langley, was sunk. As they had expected, the Japanese won the first naval engagements of the war, winning the battle of the Java Sea. The Japanese also forced Gen. MacArthur out of the Philippines. Although Gen. MacArthur escaped, most of his forces were captured by the Japanese and forced to march 60 miles with no food or water and in very hot weather. Thousands of Americans died. (The History Place World War Two in the Pacific) Despite the initial success the Japanese had in the war, the tides began to turn. On April 18, 1942, Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle led 16 medium bombers on a daring air raid against Tokyo. They took off from the carrier Hornet. After flying across much of the Pacific, they eventually bombed the Japanese capital of Tokyo. This mission, although not causing much physical damage, boosted the morale of U.S. troops, and also made the Japanese question whether they could defend their home islands. Soon after the raid in early May, American forces emerged victorious for the first time against the Japanese Navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Then on June 4, 1942, the U.S. secured a decisive victory against the Japanese during the battle of Midway. The U.S. aircraft carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown sank four Japanese aircraft carriers, a very sizable part of their carrier fleet. The U.S. lost only one carrier, the Yorktown. The Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. However, they were unable to use them strategically and eventually they retreated about a year after they were captured. Two months later, on August 7, Marines performed an amphibious landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. It would take several months of bloody fighting before the Japanese finally received official orders from the emperor to retreat off the island on December 31, 1942. However, Japanese resistance on the island didn t stop until February of the next year. (The History Place World War Two in the Pacific) (Aleutian Islands War June 3, 1942 - August 24, 1943)( The Official Website of The Doolittle Tokyo Raiders)(Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Islands.) As 1943 dawned and the battle of Guadalcanal came to a close, the U.S. continued its island hopping campaign. In June, the U.S. began using its submarines to more aggressively attack Japanese shipping. As the U.S. advanced the Japanese situation slowly became more desperate. The Japanese started executing prisoners of war as they withdraw. In September, the
Allied forces started to recapture parts of New Guinea. (The History Place World War Two in the Pacific)(OPERATIONS AND TACTICS GUADALCANAL) In 1944 the U.S. invaded Kwajalein, part of the Mariana Islands chain, in early February. In April and May, the allies attacked the islands of Aitape, Hollandia, and Biak in New Guinea. Soon after on June 19, U.S. planes shot down 220 Japanese planes while only losing 20. This event is known as the Marianas Turkey Shoot. At this point in the war, the Japanese no longer had experienced pilots and were forced to rely on untrained and demoralized new recruits. In July, Marines invaded Guam and in less than a week, the island was completely liberated. Finally, in Early August, all of the Marianas Islands had been captured by American forces. On October 20, U.S. forces invaded Leyte in the Philippines. This lead to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which resulted in another decisive U.S. victory. Later that month, the Japanese would launch the first of thousands of kamikaze attacks against allied ships. After Leyte, the U.S. began to prepare for an invasion of the Japanese home islands. (The History Place World War Two in the Pacific) (Marshall Islands Campaign) On February 19, 1945, U.S. Marines invaded Iwo Jima. Later that year, in April, the U.S. invaded Okinawa. Even after the many years of war and the bloody battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Japan was determined to fight to the very end. Japan would never accept unconditional surrender. However, on August 6, 1945 a B-29 bomber flown by Col. Paul Tibbets dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. This happened only two days after the U.S.S.R. invaded the Manchuria, easily defeating the already weakened Japanese forces. The next day, August 9th, the second atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki. After seeing the power of these new atomic weapons and realizing that they were losing the war on all fronts, the Japanese finally accepted unconditional surrender on August 14th. Over the next few months, Japanese forces slowly began to accept defeat and surrendered one by one throughout the Japanese occupied territory. Their last forces did not surrender until mid-september. (The History Place World War Two in the Pacific) (BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI.) (Dollinger, Hans. The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: A Pictorial History of the Final Days of World War II.) Today, Japan as well as the rest of Asia are very different because of the Japanese involvement in World War Two. Japan is now a democratic nation and has adopted many western ideals. This is the product of many years of U.S. occupation, as well as U.S. aid towards reconstruction after the war. Since the war, Japan has become a United Nations member and an ally of the U.S. Another often forgotten fact about the Imperial Japanese occupation of China and other parts of Asia, is that they killed and tortured many innocent civilians. An estimated three million to ten million civilians and prisoners of war were killed by the Japanese in labor camps, through human experimentation, and in massacres such as the rape of Nanking. If the
Japanese were allowed to stay in power in China, as well as other occupied islands in Asia, it is likely tens of millions more noncombatants would have been killed. After the war, Japan lost all of its colonial and occupied territory. This changed significantly the political appearance of Asia, and along with the Soviet occupation of Manchuria, contributed to Communism s hold in much of Asia. Human history is influenced greatly by war and conflict. It is important we learn from our nation s stand in the past so we may take a stand in the future. (Japanese Treatment of World War II Prisoners of War (POWs).)
Works Cited Aleutian Islands War June 3, 1942 - August 24, 1943. ExploreNorth, www.explorenorth.com/library/military/aleutian_war-usarmy.html. This resource describes the Japanese Aleutian Islands campaign during WWII. Battle of Midway and the Aleutian Islands. World War II Database, ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=6. This webpage tells about the battle of Midway, a major battle in the Pacific. BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI. History, www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki. This resource gives information about the atomic bombings of Japan during WWII. Dollinger, Hans. The Decline and Fall of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan: A Pictorial History of the Final Days of World War II. New York, Bonanza Books, 1982. This source describes the fall of the Empire of Japan in detail. The History Place World War Two in the Pacific. The History Place, www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/pacificwar/timeline.htm. This source gives a timeline of the events of the Pacific War. Hoyt, Edwin P. Japan s War: The Great Pacific Conflict, 1853 to 1952. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1986. This book describes what happened to Japan both before, during, and after the war. Japanese Treatment of World War II Prisoners of War (POWs). Children In History, 26 July 2005, histclo.com/essay/war/ww2/pow/pow-jap.html. This source details war crimes committed by the Japanese during WWII. Marshall Islands Campaign. World War II Database, ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=73. This source gives information about the Marshall Islands campaign, one of the major island hopping campaigns of the war. The Official Website of The Doolittle Tokyo Raiders. www.doolittleraider.com/. This site gives information and details about the Doolittle Raid.
OPERATIONS AND TACTICS GUADALCANAL. Lone Sentry, www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt07/guadalcanal-operations.html. This source describes the battle of Guadalcanal. Sino-Japanese War. History, www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-ww2/sino-japanese-war. This source provides information about the Second Sino-Japanese War. TOKUGAWA PERIOD AND MEIJI RESTORATION. History.com, www.history.com/topics/meiji-restoration. This source describes the Meiji Restoration and its effects on Japan and Japanese society. Wings Over China The Story of the Flying Tigers in China - China s Forgotten War. YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3yiq5c-xze. This documentary gives information and details about the the Flying Tigers, one of the most famous air wings in WWII.