![]() ![]() I’m sure I’m missing others, but I’m very tired. Not wanting to short shift other nations that fought in the Pacific, there’s the UK, India, the Dutch, Australia, New Zealand, China (the Nationalists, Communists, and puppet Japanese government forces), two divisions of West African commonwealth troops (the 81st and 82nd West African divisions), the Soviet Union in the final days, Canada (2,000 troops of the Hong Kong garrison on December 7th 1941 were Canadian). Twenty-two US Army divisions saw active combat in the Pacific compared to six Marine divisions, the totality of the divisions that the USMC raised during the war. However, the US Army played a much larger role in the PTO than the US Marines did. Generally yes, the primary combatants who determined the outcome of the war were the United States and Japan. Is this an accurate representation of the battles in the pacific? Did the US Air force or US army play a major role? Did other nations play a major role in the pacific theater? They still hold some islands to the north of Japan. So they got into the war just in time, while there was still a war. The commencement of the invasion fell between the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima on 6 August and Nagasaki on 9 August. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin agreed to Allied pleas to enter World War II in the Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. The Russians also participated in the Pacific - for a few days.Īt the Tehran Conference in November 1943, Joseph Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan once Germany was defeated. He demonstrated by putting a sheet of paper on the table, then swept it off with his hand and said “awadi!” They asked him “a lot of bombs fell on them?” They found an old cook and asked him what was happening. A few days later, all the guards were gone, nobody was supervising the camps. They would see the bombers in the sky from time to time - then one day, all the guards were quiet and huddled together. ![]() I remember hearing an interview with one, and he told the reporter about the end of the war. I remember in the late 60’s when I was growing up, campaigns to get more recognition and help for their special circumstances - the hunger and torture they went through for years as PoW’s was very debilitating later in life. There was a contingent of Canadian troops helping guard Hong Kong when the Japanese initially invaded the area. They were planning for the last big push, operation Olympic, the invasion of the Japanese home islands, when the war ended. Nearing the end of the war, though, the US basically had combined both advances against the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. It also could have allowed the Japanese to outnumber and defeat divided forces. It didn’t really cost the US, but the lack of interservice cooperation meant there was always competition for resources, and a single approach may have worked better. When I was a kid reading about World War II, this was presented as brilliant strategy, as “the Japanese would never know where the next advance would come.” The truth was that the Navy didn’t want to serve under MacArthur, who was senior to any admiral in the Navy. The US essentially had two advances against Japan: MacArthur’s and Nimtz’s. Submarines were very effective against Japan, and they were close to collapse before the A-bomb. When the war ended, the Japanese still had many troops in China, Korea, and Formosa (Taiwan). You can’t run a sea-based Empire without shipping, and the unrestricted submarine warfare pretty much reduced the Japanese ability to maintain their supply lines to zero. Who “beat” the Japanese forces? The Navy, Marines and…US Submarines. Then, they faced the US forces as described. They fought Australia in New Guinea and lost. The part they sent out into the Pacific faced British and Dutch forces at the start, pretty much removing them from the Pacific for good (Dutch Indochina, British Hong Kong and Singapore fell to the Japanese Army early on). That is where a huge portion of the Japanese Army was. ![]() It was also the Army Air Corps who intercepted and shot down Admiral Yamamoto (Japanese Navy) over Bougainville Island, on the NW end of the Solomons, while Guadalcanal is at the SE end.īut to your original question, in terms of numbers, it was largely Japan vs. While Guadalcanal was the first land battle won by the US Marines, the Army joined and helped out, ultimately taking over, as the Marines were needed elsewhere. land battles and land-based air power projection. The “Army Air Corps” (precursor to USAF) and the Army participated where they could, i.e. ![]()
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