The Imperial Japanese Navy lost most of its remaining capital ships in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which paved the way for MacArthur to return to the Philippines in October 1944. In the Pacific, the Americans seized Saipan in the Northern Marianas and Guam, putting their B-29 bombers within reach of the Japanese homeland. Map of the military situation in the Pacific near the end of World War II, from Life magazine (June 11, 1945) The Allies deliberately avoided a decisive naval battle, waging submarine warfare instead and depriving the Japanese of critical oil supplies.Ī doomed 1944 invasion of India further weakened the empire, allowing Mountbatten to take back Burma. Allied victories at Midway and in Guadalcanal led to a leapfrogging, or island-hopping, strategy: heavily-fortified Japanese positions were sidestepped in favor of lightly-defended islands that could nevertheless support the advance on the Japanese home islands. The liberation of the Philippines would have to wait. His ambition was to drive for the Philippines, where he had served as chief military advisor before the war, knocking out flanking Japanese island bases on the way. This more or less supplementary role was not MacArthur’s idea, Time knew. Between them, General Douglas MacArthur would advance along New Guinea to a position which could threaten the East Indies. From Honolulu, Admiral Chester Nimitz could attack with carrier forces and amphibious troops across the Pacific. Chapin Jr., from Time magazine (October 4, 1943)īy late 1943, the Allies had seized the initiative and Time magazine was speculating about where they would go on the offensive.įrom India, it suggested, Lord Louis Mountbatten could direct a campaign against Burma. Then the Japanese thought they would have time, behind their outer defenses, to exploit their new “southern resources zone” for raw materials which they needed to complete their hopelessly deadlocked war in China. The strike on Pearl Harbor was only meant to immobilize the American fleet so the Japanese could take the Philippines, Guam, Singapore, the East Indies and Wake Island. Basing itself on “captured documents” and interviews American officers had conducted with their Japanese counterparts, the magazine reported that the empire’s goal was always a negotiated peace. Life revealed as early as December 1946 that the Japanese never had any intention to invade the continental United States. No plan to invade the United States Japan’s plan to conquer the Far East as reported by Life magazine (December, 9 1946) The surprise attack had the opposite effect: the United States not only declared war on Japan Japan’s European allies declared war on the United States, making the war a world war that would crush the Axis powers in the end. Japan hoped that by disabling the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, it could keep the United States out of the war and defeat the British and Dutch in Southeast Asia. The next step in the Japanese expansion would ultimately prove its undoing. Map of the route used by the Japanese fleet to attack Pearl Harbor on Decem(United States Army) Attack on Pearl Harbor
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