Pacific War

Pacific War
Part of World War II
Clockwise from top left:
Date7 December 1941 – 2 September 1945[a][2]
Location
Result Allied victory
Territorial
changes

Allied occupation of Japan

Belligerents
Allies
 China[1]
 United States
 United Kingdom		 Axis
 Japan
Commanders and leaders
Allied leaders:
Chiang Kai-shek
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Winston Churchill		 Axis leader:
Hirohito 
Strength
  • 23,275,564+ troops (total)[3]
  • 8,926,500-9,026,500+ troops (total)[3]
Casualties and losses

Military:
5 battleships
12 aircraft carriers
14 cruisers
84 destroyers & frigates
63 submarines[16]
21,555+ aircraft[17]
4,000,000+ dead (1937–1945)

Civilians:
26,000,000+ deaths (1937–1945)[d]

Military:
11 battleships
25 aircraft carriers
39 cruisers
135 destroyers
131 submarines[26]
43,125[27]–50,000+ aircraft[28]
2,500,000+ dead (1937–1945)[e]

Civilians:
1,000,000+ deaths[f]

The Pacific War was a major theater that took place in Asia (especially the Pacific Ocean) during World War II from 1941 to 1945 between Japan and the Allies.

Second Sino–Japanese War

The Second Sino–Japanese War took place from 1937 to 1945 between the Republic of China and the empire of Japan. Although this was the first war to break out in Asia during the Second World War, it was not formally declared until December 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

December 1941

Main article: Attack on Pearl Harbor

On 7 December, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. Killing more than 2,400 Americans and heavily damaged US navy and aircrafts. The following day, 8 December, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan, alongside Germany and Italy, after years of American isolatism policies.

1942–1945

Six months later after Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese empire and the United States had an important and a turning point naval battle called the Battle of Midway, after the US defeated Japan, Japan's naval forces were weakened. With Lend-Lease operations, the US helped the Chinese army against Japan. During this time, the US, worked with the British, was developing nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project. After many US battle victories in Iwo Jima, Okinawa and taking some of the Japanese islands, the Allies planned to invade Japan under Operation Downfall that was eventually cancelled. After Germany surrended on 8 May, 1945, Japan was the only one left in the Axis powers. After a nuclear bomb was successfully tested in New Mexico, the US dropped nukes on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki on 9 August 1945 (the same day the Soviet Union invaded Manchuria), Japan was forced to surrender unconditionally on 15 August, and signed a peace treaty on 2 September 1945, ending the deadliest war of history.

Notes

  1. ↑ Although Japan had been invading and occupying parts of China since 1937, war was not officially declared. Japan would later attack Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, which brought the contained war in China into the wider global conflict.[1]
  2. ↑ Strength of the US Military in Asia and the Pacific as of war's end: Army: 1,770,036,[5] Navy (excluding Coast Guard and Marines): 1,366,716,[6] and Marine Corps: 484,631.[7] These figures do not include the Coast Guard or naval personnel in the China-Burma-India theater.[8]
  3. ↑ Not including the Royal Netherlands Navy.
  4. ↑ Estimates of 1 to 6 million Chinese civilian deaths (1937–1945);[18] around 4 million civilian deaths from the Dutch East Indies;,[19] 1–2 million Vietnamese civilian deaths;[20] around 3 million[21] Indian civilian deaths in the Bengal famine of 1943; 0.5 to 1 million[22] Filipino civilian deaths; 91,000[23] to 1,000,000[24] Burmese civilian deaths; 50,000[25] East Timorese civilian deaths; and hundreds of thousands of Malayan, Pacific and other civilian deaths.[19]
  5. ↑ 2,133,915 Japanese military deaths 1937–1945,[29] 1.18 million Chinese collaborator casualties 1937–1945 (432,000 dead),[30] 22,000 Burmese casualties, 5,600 Thai troops killed,[31] and 2,615 Indian National Army (Azad Hind) killed/missing.[32]
  6. ↑ 460,000 Japanese civilian deaths (338,000 in the bombings of Japan,[33] 100,000 in the Battle of Okinawa, 22,000 in the Battle of Saipan), 543,000 Korean civilian deaths (mostly due to Japanese forced labor projects),[34] 2,000–8,000 Thai civilian deaths[35]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ch'i 1992, p. 157.
  2. ↑ Sun 1996, p. 11.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Approximate calculations with Wikipedia data
  4. ↑ Hastings 2008, p. 205.
  5. ↑ Coakley & Leighton 1989, p. 836.
  6. ↑ "US Navy Personnel in World War II Service and Casualty Statistics". Naval History and Heritage Command. Table 9. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
  7. ↑ King, Ernest J. (1945). Third Report to the Secretary of the Navy p. 221
  8. ↑ "US Navy Personnel in World War II Service and Casualty Statistics". Naval History and Heritage Command. Footnote 2. Archived from the original on 9 March 2021. Retrieved 20 July 2015.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Hastings 2008, p. 10.
  10. ↑ "Chapter 10: Loss of the Netherlands East Indies". The Army Air Forces in World War II. HyperWar. Archived from the original on 9 September 2021. Retrieved 31 August 2010.
  11. ↑ Cherevko 2003, Ch. 7, Table 7.
  12. ↑ Cook & Cook 1993, p. 403.
  13. ↑ Harrison p. 29 Archived 7 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 10 March 2016
  14. ↑ Meyer 1997, p. 309.
  15. ↑ Jowett 2005, p. 72.
  16. ↑ NavSource Retrieved 25 July 2015; www.uboat.net Archived 9 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 25 July 2015; Major British Warship Losses in World War II. Archived 9 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 25 July 2015; Chinese Navy Archived 18 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 26 July 2015.
  17. ↑ Hara, Tameichi, with Fred Saito and Roger Pineau. Japanese Destroyer Captain (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2011), p. 299.Figure is for U.S. losses only. China, the British Commonwealth, the USSR and other nations collectively add several thousand more to this total.
  18. ↑ "Chinese People Contribute to WWII". Archived from the original on 26 May 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Dower 1986, p. 295.
  20. ↑ Koh, David (21 August 2008). "Vietnam needs to remember famine of 1945". The Straits Times. Archived from the original on 19 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2010 – via Australian National University.
  21. ↑ Sen 1999, p. 203.
  22. ↑ Gruhl 2007, pp. 143–144.
  23. ↑ Clodfelter 2017, pp. 527.
  24. ↑ McLynn 2010, p. 1.
  25. ↑ Ruas, Óscar Vasconcelos, "Relatório 1946–47", AHU
  26. ↑ Hara 2011, p. 297.
  27. ↑ Hara 2011, p. 299.
  28. ↑ USSBS Summary Report, p. 67. Archived 11 June 2023 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 5/26/23. Approximately 20,000 in combat and 30,000 operational.
  29. ↑ Bren, John (3 June 2005) "Yasukuni Shrine: Ritual and Memory" Archived 9 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine Japan Focus. Retrieved on 5 June 2009.
  30. ↑ Rummel 1991, Table 5A.
  31. ↑ Murashima 2006, p. 1057n.
  32. ↑ Clodfelter 2002, p. 556.
  33. ↑ Statistics of democide Archived 27 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine: Chapter 13: Death By American Bombing, RJ Rummel, University of Hawaii.
  34. ↑ Gruhl 2007, p. 19.
  35. ↑ E. Bruce Reynolds, "Aftermath of Alliance: The Wartime Legacy in Thai-Japanese Relations", Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, v21, n1, March 1990, pp. 66–87. "An OSS document (XL 30948, RG 226, USNA) quotes Thai Ministry of Interior figures of 8,711 air raids deaths in 1944–1945 and damage to more than 10,000 buildings, most of them totally destroyed. However, an account by M. R. Seni Pramoj (a typescript entitled 'The Negotiations Leading to the Cessation of a State of War with Great Britain' and filed under Papers on World War II, at the Thailand Information Center, Chulalongkorn University, p. 12) indicates that only about 2,000 Thai died in air raids."
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