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Intermediate Japanese - Free Online Course
TAIHEIYŌ SENSŌ
太平洋戦争
The Pacific War
From the Japanese perspective, the conflict known as World War II can be divided into two distinct phases. The first phase involves Japan’s war in China (known in Japanese as Nitchū Sensō / 日中戦争). The second phase concerns the country’s war with the Allies. This wider phase is known as the “Pacific War,” since Japan was not significantly involved in the war in Europe.
Early Japanese Victories
Japan significantly expanded its territory after successful wars with Russia and China during the late nineteenth century and through the early 1900s. The Japan-Qing War (1894-1895) brought Taiwan under Japanese control; and Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) led to the annexation of Korea.
Throughout these years, Japan was also eying the northwestern Chinese province of Manchuria. In 1931, the Japanese army staged the sabotage of a train that it was guarding, and used the incident as an excuse to attack Chinese troops. Victorious over the Chinese defenders in the area, Japan seized Manchuria. They renamed the province Manchukuo, and installed a descendent of China’s deposed Manchu Dynatasty, Pu Yi, as a puppet emperor. The League of Nations condemned Japan’s actions as unwarranted aggression, and Japan quit the league in 1933.
Japan’s war in China expanded in the 1930s, leading to more tensions with America and Great Britain. By the summer of 1940, the Second World War was raging in Europe. Japan’s ally Germany had already taken France and the Netherlands, and Britain seemed on the verge of collapse. Proclaiming the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japan turned its attention to Southeast Asia. In July 1941 the Nazi-backed puppet government of Vichy France agreed to allow the Japanese occupation of Indochina.
America was now tightening the screws on Japanese expansionism. President Roosevelt arranged an international oil embargo that would choke Japan’s army as well as its domestic economy. The Americans simultaneously supplied the Chinese resistance forces with military supplies below cost. After negotiations stalled, Japan launched a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 4, 1941. A string of Japanese victories followed through early 1942. Japanese forces overran the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Burma, and even threatened to invade India.
The Tide Turns Against Japan
In June 1942, however, the war turned against Japan when the U.S. Navy sank four Japanese aircraft carriers at the Battle of Midway. This left Japan unable to halt the Allied “island-hopping” strategy. Island-hopping referred to the Allied capture of one key Pacific island after another. This allowed the Allies to disrupt Japanese supply routes, and eventually launch air attacks on Japan itself. In 1944 the Americans captured Saipan, which is only 1,200 miles from downtown Tokyo. The Americans now had a base from which they could bombard Japan at will.
In March 1945 Tokyo was devastated by incendiary bombs dropped from 300 U.S. B-29s. About a half million M-69 incendiary cylinders rained down on the city. The total number of casualties from the bombing and subsequent fires was estimated to be between 85,000 and 100,000.
By now Japan was all but beaten. In April the U.S. Marines landed on the island of Okinawa, a prefecture of Japan since 1879. In July the Potsdam Declaration called for Japan’s unconditional surrender, with the only assurance being that the Japanese “would be neither enslaved as a race nor destroyed as a nation.” Japan’s government ignored the declaration, and the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities in August 1945.
Hardliners in the Japanese government wanted to continue the fight to the death. Preparations were already underway to field a civilian army to attack the inevitable American invasion force. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8th, 1945, so Japan now faced the possibility of invasion by two foreign armies.
Emperor Hirohito himself intervened to break the gridlock, informing his cabinet of his preference for surrender. On August 15th the Emperor’s surrender address was broadcast to the entire nation. It was the first time that the Japanese people had heard the emperor’s voice. The formal surrender documents were signed by representatives of the U.S. and Japan aboard the U.S.S. Missouri on September 2nd, 1945. American troops would occupy Japan for the next seven years.