From outbreak to surrender: World War II in the Pacific

The biggest winners of the Pacific war were : United States, the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist party! All three of them gained much from Japan's reckless war!

US: Gained total superiority of the Pacific Ocean and foundation her military presence in Japan

USSR: Riddance of a situation for fighting with two frontlines which is very diverse that was unflavorable the Soviets! Japan was a danger to the Russians in the far east!  Stalin wanted to take revenge of the humiliation by the Tsarist Russia's losing the Russo-Japanese war!  That helped boosting his image!

Chinese Communist Party: Weaken the strength of the KMT(Nationalist Party) of Generalissmo "Chiang Kai-Shek" regieme,taken huge amount of weapons leave by the Kwantung army!  Gained stronghold in Manchuria,a foundation later liberating the whole mainland China, today's Peoples Republic of China!

The US is not a racist or even and imperialist nation, it is a nation comprised of many different immigrants, races and religions and as a collective in as a country that I am very proud of, we are not perfect, we have made mistakes, every country has made mistakes, but at the same time we have the absolute right to defend and protect ourselves and as a result we should always learn from war and because of the tragedies of war we should try never to have another large scale world war like this ever again.

Japan was embargoed because they invaded neighboring sovereign nations under the lie of the greater east Asia co-prosperity sphere when in actuality they invaded purely for economic and political reasons. They were the aggressors. They started the war with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbour. There are so many who have no idea about their country’s own history and this is the result of educational whitewashing. Just some of the posts here is proof.

Not by Saint Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Democrat Party savior? Say it ain't so Toasted.

Responsibility lies with the PotUS, as head of the racist and imperialist US. Whatever sham party they lead.

It's good that America is getting chewed by the Dragon it saved LOL

"Nope, it rests on the shoulders of the imperialist and racist USA, who imprisoned their own citizens, as well."

Not by Saint Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Democrat Party savior? Say it ain't so Toasted.

By the way, WWII is considered to start on 1st September 1949. No need to try to revise history.

Hmmm.

Toshihiro: "History will always be written by the victor and the losers will always be depicted as the antagonists"

I call invading Pearl Harbor pretty antagonizing, but let me guess... you're one of those people who think that Pearl Harbor was "self-defense", right? That colonization of Asia was a "good thing" and taught people how to bathe, read, and write. Nanking never happened, sex-slaves were all just super-willing prostitutes who got paid well and treated right, Okinawans weren't forced by Japanese troops to pull grenades in groups, or forced off the Ottoman cliffs in a war of attrition, there was no Unit 731, no sword contest to chop off 100 heads, the Baatan Death March was just a casual jog with the IJA cheering on the athletes, etc. Nah, they did absolutely nothing to bring on what happened. Nothing at all.

Article is very oriented :

Japan did a sneaky attack on Pearl harbor, declaring war the day after

Japan did many atrocities in addition to batan march, like Nazis with concentration camp where prisoners had no right to live. Unit 731 is an example.

Again like Germany, Japan forced its civilian population to die for its head of state, ie the Emperor.

Worse, kamikaze were created to die for honor with the aim to create maximum of casualties.

Last but not least, civilians never made organized resistance against their government, so absence of even a drop of democracy was established.

Use of atomic bombs : at the time of first use (Nagasaki was first use of plutonium atomic bomb), there were so many unknowns and USA soldiers were diying by thousands each months while Japan was not accepting defeat and preparing children to use bamboo spears.

So easy to criticize with hindsight for all of us.

Conclusion : everyone loses in a war hence never to start another one.

By the way, WWII is considered to start on 1st September 1949. No need to try to revise history. History is organized stories, not one continuous story of truth.

Glad we can celebrate the horror of war today together, with the great Japanese people to never forget all war atrocities.

From August 1, deliveries of oil and gasoline from the US and Dutch East Indies to Japan were stopped.

The point was why were these deliveries stopped.

Peter NeilToday  08:14 am JST

It could also start as far back as the London Naval Disarmament Conference, when the US and UK limited Japan's navy even though Japan fought with the Allies in WWI. Or when the racial equality referendum sponsored by Japan and overwhelmingly passed was "vetoed" by President Wilson, who had absolutely no authority or standing in the League of Nations.

Or the Japanese Exclusion Act in the US that banned Japanese immigrants from having any path to citizenship.

Or the Japanese understanding their position in the world, that they were surrounded by European and US colonial powers and who simply occupied Asia and the Pacific by edict. Japan had been on the bad end of trade deals for 60 years and would have to adopt the colonial mindset as the Europeans and US had done, or be overtaken and colonized.

Or that the US embargoed oil, gasoline, metal and seized bank accounts and assets of Japan.

The Japanese followed the history of European and US methods to power. Seize nations like The Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam, butcher Native Americans, overtake sovereign nations like Hawaii, declare Indochina, India, South Pacific nations as colonies under their control.

Lot's of places to start history...

Yes. And the method of leveling crippling sanctions is still employed, as are the accompanying media campaigns which satirized the people of this country as sub-human buck-toothed [ J*ps ] back in the day.

Only Anglo-Saxons are allowed to have empires

Most empires in history were not Anglo-Saxon.

They were stopped in support of China which was being invaded by Japan in a war of aggression. As Japan refused to cease hostilities they faced an oil embargo.

Yes, that is what I was highlighting.

The responsibility for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is squarely on the shoulders of Japan.

Nope, it rests on the shoulders of the imperialist and racist USA, who imprisoned their own citizens, as well.

So why would anybody think slaughtering some more with nukes was going to change their mind? It makes no sense whatsoever to say they would fight to the last person, then say they surrendered because some people got killed. Make up your mind.

Vanessa, it became clear to the japanese leadership, though it required TWO separate atomic bombings, that the A bombs were capable of totally destroying Japan ( and them) and there was nothing to prevent it. The US bombed Hiroshima and waited. The japanese government still did not surrender. The responsibility for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is squarely on the shoulders of Japan.

Japan's Emperor, military & politicians were a evil, vile lot, yeah aligned with Hitler!! 

They were an evil lot so even when the Japanese military was already broken America dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese civilians--defenseless women and children.

And for good measure they later dropped another, different atomic bomb on more defenseless women and children, just for testing.

@dbsaiya

Yes, the reason they remained is because many of them were needed to operations. Most Japanese troops in other countries were repatriated to Japan whether they wanted to go or not.

From August 1, deliveries of oil and gasoline from the US and Dutch East Indies to Japan were stopped.

They were stopped in support of China which was being invaded by Japan in a war of aggression. As Japan refused to cease hostilities they faced an oil embargo.

Tangerine - Thanks for the info and added information, but the source I used was from direct Japanese soldiers who were interviewed in Vietnam. They remained and taught truck maintenance and other technical things needed in the war effort.

The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, invasion of China in 1937 that was the real start of the Great Pacific War and the Battle of Okinawa are often omitted in the history books.

No doubt Japan does not wish to remember or acknowledge these events.

As for the Battle of Okinawa, Japan sacrificed Okinawa and the Okinawan people to buy time to prepare for the anticipated invasion of homeland Japan. Japan has never admitted this or apologized.

While Japan technically lost the war, in a way, they won at the end, because unlike Germany, which had a complete denazification, the Japanese elite was allowed to remain in power.

The rebuilding of Japan followed the German model. While the top ranks of the Nazi's were tried and either hanged or imprisoned, other high ranking Nazi's and those who believed in fascism created the new core from which west Germany was created and run. In many cases they were the only one's with the required experience to run all the different aspects of government and civil life.

Perhaps the conversation ends because they don't think they can discuss it with someone so uninformed on the topic that they think there was a blockade?

From August 1, deliveries of oil and gasoline from the US and Dutch East Indies to Japan were stopped.

On the other hand, many Japanese soldiers fighting in Indo-China became disillusioned with militaristic Japan and remained in Vietnam to help the Vietnamese in their fight for national liberation.

This is not quite true. It had nothing to do with Japanese troops becoming disillusioned.

Once the Japanese forces in Indo-China had been defeated, they became prisoners of the British. Once the war had ended, the British were given the task or repelling Communist forces in Indo-China. Because their forces were stretched so thin over Asia, the British allowed Japanese prisoners to reform their units, gave them their weapons back and sent them on operations under British command.

Not many people know that British and Japanese soldiers who had been fighting each other a few weeks before, then fought together. According to the British command, the Japanese troops performed well.

Here is a video on the subject by Mark Felton for those interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w-cv2CJbfI

I have often noticed that when people say Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in response to the being sanctioned (although that is not the real reason), when asking them why there was a blockade of resources to Japan, the conversation ends.

Perhaps the conversation ends because they don't think they can discuss it with someone so uninformed on the topic that they think there was a blockade?

It's complicated. Unfortunately, too many Americans think that Japan woke up one day and decided to attack Pearl Harbor for no reason.

And Adm Leahy was not the only five-star officer who thought using the atomic bombs was wrong. Five out the six five-star officers at the time thought the same thing. Only George Marshall (the political DC general) supported the bombing. It should be noted that Marshall was a young officer in The Philippines at the end of the Philippine-American War - the war Americans know very little about where 200,000 to 1,000,000 Filipinos were killed for having the nerve to want independence from the the land of the Declaration of Independence and freedom from the land of the free USA that ruled The Philippines with an iron fist.

I'd like to see Japanese students taught why there was an oil embargo and why Japanese assets were frozen.I have often noticed that when people say Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in response to the being sanctioned (although that is not the real reason), when asking them why there was a blockade of resources to Japan, the conversation ends.

THIS times 10,000. There were DAMNED good reasons for blockade!!! Of course you will NEVER hear about WHY in Japan!!

As for the bombs, of course there were MULTIPLE reasons for their use! To end the war, to show Russia etc well DUH!!

Japan's Emperor, military & politicians were a evil, vile lot, yeah aligned with Hitler!! THEY are the ones who are to blame for the death & destruction of JAPAN PERIOD!!

And here is a little math for you. It is believed Japan killed between 20-30million people. Hiroshima 140,000 initially died.

Using the lower number of 20million that means Japan was killing the same number of people each month for just shy of 12 YEARS......NON STOP! Let that sink in!!!

Japan sadly to this day doesnt have the stones to admit what IT DID!! Japan has only itself to blame.

And yeah the BEST thing that happened was that Japan LOST, its people were FREED from from its evil military & politicians!

Some Japanese soldiers refused to surrender to the Soviet red army and continue to fight in Manchria until the first few days of October in 1945! They knew the consequences  of captured by Russians: Siberria!

Only Anglo-Saxons are allowed to have empires.

I'd hoped to see the Japanese version which showed the petroleum blockade, froze Japanese assets inside the US, Konoe resignation and how a new "War Minister" took over in October 1941 - -pre-war (as far as the US was concerned).

I'd like to see Japanese students taught why there was an oil embargo and why Japanese assets were frozen.

I have often noticed that when people say Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in response to the being sanctioned (although that is not the real reason), when asking them why there was a blockade of resources to Japan, the conversation ends.

The YouTube channel WW2 who do a real-time, week by week study of the Second World War have done excellent coverage on this topic recently.

@dbsaiya that is a well rounded excellent post.

Not to mention Hirohito allied Japan with Adolf Hitler.

Historians and military differ on whether 1945 bombing ended the war and saved countless lives – or was an unconscionable act of brutality

Opinions may differ on whether or not it ended the war and saved lives but it is without question an unconscionable act of brutality.

The timeline starts in the middle of the Pacific War, only when the US finally became involved.

No, it should start as far back as the the power balance in Asia before and after the opium wars and when Perry forced Japan to open. Japan had to either join the race or become colonised. Unfortunately that meant that she too had to expand throughout Asia. Looking at WW2 without background and context is stupid at best.

Using the bombs was seen as the kindest way to end the war for all the other Japanese people.

May be true in your mind but reveals your sadistic nature in your choice of expression.

History will always be written by the victor and the losers will always be depicted as the antagonists, while the soldiers of the winning side will always be glorified as heroes and those from the losing side will always be seen as war criminals.

The westward expansion in the US is not glorified and neither are the victors in dropping the atomic bomb. This kind of “Shoganai” thinking blames human nature and avoids taking responsibility. That Japan lost isn’t why it was the villain. Even if it had won it would still have been the bad guy, and the same with Germany.

Just in case, as an FYI, there are still many things being discovered about WW2 and there is still a lot of information that is secret because it ties into the following Cold war period which still has its effects on modern history. To fully understand the war, it shouldn’t be seen from only one country’s perspective. So bear with me. Americans are led to believe that it was MacArthur who defeated Japan. It wasn’t McArthur who won the war in the Pacific; it was Nimitz and the U.S. Marines, and Japanese historians would tell you so. The Soviet Japan non-aggression pact signed in 1941 allowed the Japanese to fight in the south and allowed the Soviets to concentrate against Operation Barbarossa. After Hiroshima, the Soviets entered the war against Japan and Japan began secret talks of a peace treaty with the Soviets. The U.S. as with all of the other powers was already planning for the eventual war with the Soviets, aka Cold War and rather than having Japan surrender to the Soviets, bombed Nagasaki. Debates continue about Hiroshima, but the Japanese were going to fight to the very end if there was an invasion of the mainland. The Marines could easily tell you how much more bloody the battles were as they approached Japan; the losses at Iwo Jima, and Okinawa were horrific. Even my mother as an elementary school child was practicing with bamboo spears. In that respect, Hiroshima could be rationalized. Nagasaki on the other hand, was an experiment and totally unnecessary. Whether with the Soviets or the U.S.,Japan was ready to surrender. Truman wanted to hasten the surrender to the U.S. side and also wanted to test the plutonium bomb on Nagasaki; Hiroshima was uranium. Post WW2 planning steered many of the actions late in the war and as such, LTG Reinhard Gehlen who was a Wehrmacht intelligence officer on the Eastern Front eventually became associated with the CIA. Wernher von Braun, the “father of the U.S. space program” belonged to the SS and developed the V2. So as with Germany, the U.S. used many of the Japanese militarists in post war Japan to make an anti-Soviet ally. On the other hand, many Japanese soldiers fighting in Indo-China became disillusioned with militaristic Japan and remained in Vietnam to help the Vietnamese in their fight for national liberation. WW2 and the bombings should not be simplified.

Iwo Jima made it clear that they had to fight to the last man because the US was still not taking prisoners at that time. Japanese who surrendered were killed, their bodies desecrated as souvenirs. What would you do? Fight and die or surrender and be executed?

The entire history of Iwo Jima battle is a myth. There was no strategic value and the US could simply go around it since no supplies or people were going on or off the island. When the American public read the accounts, the families of those killed and wounded were outraged. Massive demonstrations were held in Washington DC, demanding to know why so many of men were sacrificed for no reason. The government backtracked and tried to say that the airfield was a strategic asset and would be used to escort bombers to Japan.

That turned out to be false. Fighter couldn't fly that far, or that high with the bombers because of no pressurization like the bombers were equipped with.

Iwo Jima is studied every year at the USNA and the conclusion every year is that it was an invasion without a cause. However, the romantic notion of raising the flag and the USMC song was worth it to recruit more men to use as cannon fodder in future wars.

Seems like history is repeating itself with China, only a lot more lives are at stake.

Here are some key events of World War Two in the Pacific

The timeline selection are missing a few remarkable events. I suggest adding:

The Tokyo air raid: Killing far more people over night than in Hiroshima under a-bombing.

The battle of Okinawa: Said to have affected the later US landing strategy.

It could also start as far back as the London Naval Disarmament Conference, when the US and UK limited Japan's navy even though Japan fought with the Allies in WWI. Or when the racial equality referendum sponsored by Japan and overwhelmingly passed was "vetoed" by President Wilson, who had absolutely no authority or standing in the League of Nations.

Or the Japanese Exclusion Act in the US that banned Japanese immigrants from having any path to citizenship.

Or the Japanese understanding their position in the world, that they were surrounded by European and US colonial powers and who simply occupied Asia and the Pacific by edict. Japan had been on the bad end of trade deals for 60 years and would have to adopt the colonial mindset as the Europeans and US had done, or be overtaken and colonized.

Or that the US embargoed oil, gasoline, metal and seized bank accounts and assets of Japan.

The Japanese followed the history of European and US methods to power. Seize nations like The Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam, butcher Native Americans, overtake sovereign nations like Hawaii, declare Indochina, India, South Pacific nations as colonies under their control.

Lot's of places to start history...

“History will always be written by the victor and the losers will always be depicted as the antagonists”

If you don’t want to go down in History as aggressors, don’t invade other countries, don’t commit war crimes, don’t fight wars you cannot win.

I’m referring to Imperial Japan. Seems like pretty good advice for America as well.

If Japan surrendered much earlier, no atomic bombs would be dropped there. Those tragedies were Japan's fault. It took many days to surrender.

@Toshihiro

History will always be written by the victor and the losers will always be depicted as the antagonists,

No it isn't. The Vietnam War, to name just one example The Japanese revisionists always trot that out and it's not even true. Shows how desperate they are.

The fighting on Iwo Jima made it clear that Japan was going to fight to the last person, including women and children.

And so did the Battle of Okinawa and the firebombings of civilians cities such as Tokyo, Kobe, Toyohashi and Shizuoka. Separate firebombings raids often killed more than the nukes. So yes, it was clear the Japanese leadership would fight on so long as there were Japanese civilians left to be slaughtered. So why would anybody think slaughtering some more with nukes was going to change their mind? It makes no sense whatsoever to say they would fight to the last person, then say they surrendered because some people got killed. Make up your mind.

As for the US politicians using atomic weapons, if dropping a bomb or two or ten saved even 1 American soldier's life, then they had a moral obligation to the voters and parents to use them.

They had a moral obligation to follow the rules of war. The rules of war say combatants fight combatants and must avoid the killing of non-combatants. Nukes (and firebombs just as heinously) did nothing but slaughter a clear majority of noncombatants, such as women cooking breakfast, children playing with toys and babies lying in cribs. It was mass murder. It was a war crime. It was embarrassing to real soldiers and even American military leaders such as Eisenhower, MacArthur, Halsey and Nimitz.

Worse, they didn't save any American soldier's life. Nimitz said Japan was already beaten by that time. And as a man largely responsible for beating them, he should know.

The timeline starts in the middle of the Pacific War, only when the US finally became involved.

It should probably start back in 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria...

Or 1937 when Japan invaded the rest of China and full scale war started with them...

Or when Japan also tried to invade Russia in 1939...

Or in 1940 when Japan invaded French Indochina...

Or back to 1905, to the people of Korea, when Japan colonized their country!

This is an American version of history, and it's only because they "won" that their version takes precedent.

As for the US politicians using atomic weapons, if dropping a bomb or two or ten saved even 1 American soldier's life, then they had a moral obligation to the voters and parents to use them. It was expected that only 1 bomb would cause Japan to surrender. Why it took days and a 2nd bomb?

Why didn't they surrender after the Tokyo firebombing March 9-10 that killed 100,000 and injured a million and made a million homeless?

History will always be written by the victor and the losers will always be depicted as the antagonists, while the soldiers of the winning side will always be glorified as heroes and those from the losing side will always be seen as war criminals. 

The saying "History is written by the winners" is incomplete. It should be "History is written by the winners.. first". The losers' version of history is then branded as "revisionism" and "propaganda". While Japan technically lost the war, in a way, they won at the end, because unlike Germany, which had a complete denazification, the Japanese elite was allowed to remain in power. The same people who ran the Empire formed the new post-war government, and got an image makeup from the US government, free of charge. Not only was Japan allowed to keep their almost entire elite in power, not only did the US literally restructure and reformed their entire political and economic system in a democratic and market oriented way, but as a bonus for good behavior, the Korean war happened, which benefited the Japanese industries tremendously. It's easy to see how Japan was the winner of the war with the minor inconvenience of having to become a subservient State to America.

Above appears to be the American version of the events.

I'd hoped to see the Japanese version which showed the petroleum blockade, froze Japanese assets inside the US, Konoe resignation and how a new "War Minister" took over in October 1941 - -pre-war (as far as the US was concerned).

FDR needed an excuse to sell to Americans so he could enter the war formally in Europe. Americans were aware, but Europe is a long way away. They didn't want to become too involved. Pearl Harbor changed all that - FDR got his mandate.

As for the US politicians using atomic weapons, if dropping a bomb or two or ten saved even 1 American soldier's life, then they had a moral obligation to the voters and parents to use them. It was expected that only 1 bomb would cause Japan to surrender. Why it took days and a 2nd bomb?

The fighting on Iwo Jima made it clear that Japan was going to fight to the last person, including women and children. Using the bombs was seen as the kindest way to end the war for all the other Japanese people.

We were taught not to hate the Japanese soldiers following orders, but to hate the leadership. I've never considered the soldiers of Colonel and lower rank to be war criminals. Having zeal for killing the enemy (at the time) is something I'd expect in any soldier. The fault lies with the Japanese military leaders, politicians of the day and the Emperor. Overall, I really like Japanese people - why else would non-Japanese people be commenting here if we didn't have some interest in Japan?

History will always be written by the victor and the losers will always be depicted as the antagonists, while the soldiers of the winning side will always be glorified as heroes and those from the losing side will always be seen as war criminals. 

@Toshi - Um.. no.

Japanese and the Germans were the aggressors, regardless of the outcome of war.

Nice try though.

The timeline starts in the middle of the Pacific War, only when the US finally became involved.

It should probably start back in 1931 when Japan invaded Manchuria...

Or 1937 when Japan invaded the rest of China and full scale war started with them...

Or when Japan also tried to invade Russia in 1939...

Or in 1940 when Japan invaded French Indochina...

war is never pretty no matter how much media and literature attempt to glorify it. History will always be written by the victor and the losers will always be depicted as the antagonists, while the soldiers of the winning side will always be glorified as heroes and those from the losing side will always be seen as war criminals. let this anniversary be a reminder for countries not to be hasty to let the bullets and missiles fly and talk things over first.