The Pacific War - week by week

Since the start of the Pacific War, we’ve been following one of the major theaters of the Japanese offensive: the Malayan Campaign. Two weeks ago, the campaign came to its near-end with the final retreat of the Allied soldiers towards the British fortress of Singapore. The Malayan Peninsula had been invaded back on December 8, and the defense of the colony had shown a total lack of readiness on th...

Barely a month ago, the fast progress in the Japanese campaigns across the Pacific had prompted them to start what was one of their most important operations of the war: the invasion of the Dutch East Indies. As we’ve seen, the main objective of this operation was the island of Java, yet the invaders first needed to take several airports and major towns around it, known to the Japanese as Java’s D...

We have been following the Malayan Campaign since the start of the war, seeing the British Empire continually prove that it was hardly prepared to defend its eastern possessions. After many lost battles and desperate rearguard actions, last week the complete pull out from Johor was finally ordered, signifying the fall of Malaya as the British defenders retreated into Singapore to protect their so-...

Last week, the Japanese had commenced their most important operation: the capture of the Dutch East Indies and the important resources that it harboured; yet this week, they would also start a new operation for the invasion of the island of New Britain, further trying to interrupt the lines of communication between Australia and the US. And as the invaders continue their advance across Borneo and...

After an entire month of fighting, and with both Malaya and the Philippines thrown against the ropes, the time had finally come for the final step of the Japanese advance. Now, the Dutch East Indies, the final link in their planned defensive chain across the Pacific, stood open for a Japanese attack. And as the Japanese prepared to execute one of their most bold and brilliant plans of invasion, th...

For the Japanese, the war was marching exceedingly well in these first few weeks. Poor preparations on behalf of the Allies had left their Pacific possessions in a very precarious state, with the Japanese rapidly capitalizing on this advantage to spread their rule across East Asia. The British in particular, focused on their front against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, demonstrated that they were...

In the previous week, we covered the fall of two of the first places the Japanese had attacked, Hong Kong and Wake Island, and we also watched General MacArthur’s forces start their catastrophic withdrawal into Bataan, where they would resist until reinforcements could arrive to save them. In Malaya, the British defenders were also in a difficult position, nearly thrown off the center of the penin...

For the last two weeks, the war had raged on in the Pacific after the unexpected Japanese attack against British and American possessions in the East. The Japanese soldiers had already achieved victory after victory, pushing their enemy back on Malaya, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the Pacific islands. But this week would be one of Japan’s finest hours in the course of the war, as they finally o...

On December 7, 1941, the war had reached the Pacific to the surprise of the Allied nations, drastically changing the course of history forever. After its first week, smoke darkened the horizons of Pearl Harbor, hundreds of British soldiers laid dead on the battlefields of Malaya and Hong Kong, the Philippines and Wake Island had tasted their first blood, and Guam and the Gilbert Islands had alread...

As the Rising Sun expanded across East Asia, the United States Pacific Fleet laid broken in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbor. The British colonies had also been invaded, suffering defeat after defeat both in Hong Kong and in the Malayan Peninsula. But this would not be the end of the Japanese aggression, as the strategic American possessions in the Pacific were now up for grabs. Today, we are go...

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7 would always be remembered as the day of infamy in which the Japanese started the Pacific War. But at the same time, the Empire of Japan also began simultaneous offensives against British, Dutch, and American possessions in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Today we are going to cover some of these attacks in mainland Southeast Asia, primarily focusing on...

As we’ve seen in the previous episodes, the Japanese Empire had decided on war with the West since the embargo enacted by the US in July, 1941. The plans to simultaneously execute invasions on the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines and Malaya, as well as a preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor to destroy the American Pacific Fleet, had all been drafted back in September, with preparations carried out...

With war raging both in Europe and in China, prying eyes around the world eagerly followed the events that were unfolding in front of them. In the US in particular, many still advocated for anti-war sentiment, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had decided that he was not going to tolerate anymore the aggressions of the Japanese or the Germans. In 1941, he would finally draw a line to stop Ja...

For four long years, Europe had been devastated during the First World War, leaving almost 30 million casualties along with many more dying of famines and disease. As such, the world had suffered enough, so another major conflict like that one was strictly avoided by the main Western powers. But in the 30s, all of this would change with the rise of fascism and nazism in Italy and Germany. While th...

China is a huge country, full of important resources and extensive farmlands, a huge population, and an important strategic and commercial position. This made it a desirable objective for expansion to European colonial powers, but also, to the rising Japanese Empire. Within China itself, revolutions, civil wars and warlordism plagued the nation as different factions fought to become the ultimate r...

So far in this series we’ve been mainly covering the history of the Japanese Empire prior to the start of the Pacific War; but what about the other major player of the war? What was the position of the United States after the end of World War One? What were their interests and strategies in the Pacific? And how did they feel about their future rival and its rise as a great power? Today, we are goi...

By the start of the 20th Century, Japan had turned from a pre-industrialized isolationist state into a modernized regional power, defeating both the Chinese and Russian Empires, annexing Korea and Taiwan, and expanding their sphere of influence across East Asia. But after the death of Emperor Meiji, new problems would arise, opportunities would be taken and Japan would continue to expand and devel...

In the first half of the 19th century, Japan was an agrarian country of tens of millions of rice farmers, a small minority of merchants, who benefited from their hard work, and the elite class of samurai, who, as peace continued, exchanged their swords for calligraphy brushes, working in a variety of administrative positions. Both the farmers and the samurai were indebted to the merchants and this...

Once a land of ancient empires and legendary rulers, Asia saw itself turn into a colony of the expanding European powers in the Early Modern period. Drawn to the Asian silk and spice trade, their colonization efforts were initially directed to harness the continent’s economic power. Eventually, the European states started to use more and more force, and by the start of the 20th Century, the Easter...