I was fortunate to work with Ito-san. He grew up in New York, and then moved to Japan around 1940 and joined the Emporor’s Imperial Guard. He witnessed Dolittle’s raid from the ground. Anyhoo, he was on the Japanese side in Burma. Recounted how at a battle against the British, there were only 6 left when the British retreated. He then showed his comrades how to eat the british tinned chese. He still had an Omega watch he had stripped off of a dead officer, which his son refused to wear.
At the end of the war, he and the other survivors marched across Burma to surrender in Thailand. He was one of the last Japanese to be repatriated from Thailand back to Japan because his English was great and he served as a translator. His english was archaic formal from 1930’s NY, and wrote words such as “your goodselves”.
Of his comrades, almost all of them lived into their 80’s.
He worked as a part time translator at UBS.
I set up a lunch with my WW2 Pacific Theater Combat Vet father. I was a bit nervous but they were two old war horses from other sides that were almost comrades in arms. They kept up an old fashioned letter correspondence for a few years. Ito-san came to my wedding in Tokyo. We lost touch. I loved that guy and can admit I’m crying as I write this.
Yes. As I understand things, the British complained that “the Empire is not helping enough” in Hong Kong, so Canada sent the Royal Rifles and the Winnipeg Grenadiers, both Canadian regiments. Hong Kong was taken by the Japanese, the Canadians who survived the invasion were made POWs, and went through hell in Japanese POW camps until the war ended.
My uncle served on a Royal Canadian Navy ship in the Battle of the Atlantic. He and his ship were redeployed to the Pacific Theatre after victory in Europe, but never got there, because the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended fighting in that theatre. I believe he and his ship went through the Panama Canal, before being ordered back to home base (which, for his ship, was Halifax, Nova Scotia, so he got to experience the Panama Canal twice).
And, of course, the Instrument of Surrender signed aboard the USS Missouri, that formally ended the Pacific war, was signed by the US and Japan. But it was also signed by China, the UK, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.
The Mediterranean Theater (North Africa/Sicily/Italy) seems to get forgotten, too, even though the US was heavily involved. Rick Atkinson’s books cover this well.
I read Barbara Tuchman’s book about Stilwell, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, and I would probably benefit from a good book on the military history of the China-Burma-India Theater.
The Allied flotilla in Tokyo Bay that day is a good example of the multinational nature of the Allied Pacific war effort.
For instance, of the ten battleships present, eight were US Navy and two were Royal Navy. The largest non-US non-UK ship in attendance was Australia’s HMAS Shropshire, and there were a lot of cruisers and destroyers from New Zealand and Canada too. There was a Netherlands hospital ship in there also.
Including lending an aircraft carrier when we were caught short while ramping up the Essex printer.
USS Hornet was sunk and USS Enterprise was badly damaged at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, leaving the United States Navy with only one fleet carrier, USS Saratoga, operational in the Pacific. In late December 1942, Victorious was loaned to the US Navy after an American plea for carrier reinforcement.[6] After a refit in the United States at the Norfolk Navy Yard in January 1943 and the addition of Avenger aircraft, Victorious passed through the Panama Canal on 14 February to operate with United States forces in the Pacific.
Not really. Hong Kong was the lowest on the totem pole for priorities by mid 1941, and if any other British, Dominion or British Indian troops were available, they were already committed someplace else.
The poor buggers sent there were bottom barrel stuff. By all accounts they were pretty useless in the actual battle.
This was because British carriers had repairable steel decks (lesson learned from action in the Med) while US carriers had wooden decks for reduced weight which had to go back to a yard to be repaired.
No, not really. Between 1919 and 1935, British warships were designed with the Pacific in mind simnce that was where the RN was expected to meet opposition.
You can see it in the design of HMS Ark Royal, no armoured flight deck, large complement.
Post-1935, as the Italian Navy grew in capability, it was realized that the vessels would be facing land-based aircraft in the Med, and this would not only greatly increase the likelihood of being hit, but since land-based craft carried significantly heavier armament the damage that thet would deliver was exponentially greater.
This is why the succeeding Illustrious class of carriers sacrificed air group size for armoured decks. This proved fortuitous since the battles in the 1944-45 Pacific campaign more resembled the Med, (threats from land based craft) rather than the pure carrier versus carrier battles of 1942 like Coral Sea, Midway, Santa Cruz, or the Indian Ocean raid.
The Army Air Corps ceased to exist in 1941, prior to Pearl Harbor. By the time the war started it was the United States Army Air Force, which it remained until 1947.
Well, I mean, no. As is pointed out in every thread on this subject, the Army did a huge amount of the fighting, certainly more than the Marines, plus all the bombing - it being the USAAF.
Yes the Marines have much better PR. In terms of participation and casualties the Army had something like 3 times as many. I’ve looked up the exact numbers several times in the past, too lazy to do it now. Many of the legendary Marine Corps battles were for little pieces of coral in the middle of the ocean that they wanted to use for airfields. The larger battles were mostly fought by the Army
Sure. In terms of numbers, no doubt the Army was way up there. However, without the Navy and Marines, the Army would not have been able to reach the battlefields, such as getting back to the Philippines (“I shall return…”).
Fun fact, I found out a few years ago that the man representing Britain for that surrender ceremony was something like a second or third cousin twice removed.
The Marines had zero to do with the ability of the Army to reach the battlefield. Sure, without the Navy the Army wasn’t going to be able to land anywhere, but the same was true of the Marines. The US Army conducted more amphibious landings in the Pacific than the Marines did - often landing alongside Marines in ‘Marine’ battles as bump noted upthread. The Army conducted every landing outside the Pacific (North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy) along with a great many in the Pacific (Leyte, Luzon, Biak, Aitape, Hollandia, Attu, Kiska, etc.) without any Marines in sight.
My Grandfather was there, and filmed it. I always look at pictures to see if I can see him, but he was a non-important civilian translator kept well out of shot. The film was later confiscated at a Japanese border.
The early campaign of the U.S. Army north of Australia was incredible. (New Zeeland?) Just marching through the jungle to attack the Japanese forces was a hard-fought battle against nature, let alone having to fight afterwards. It stacks up against any later island campaign.
Rear Admiral Gallery (he’s the one responsible for the German submarine on display at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry) once wrote that after a successful kamikaze attack, an American aircraft carrier had to be sent back for major repair. In the case of a British aircraft carrier after an attack, it was “Sweepers, man your brooms.”