Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a decisive episode in the struggle for naval hegemony in the Pacific Ocean, fought in June 1942. As a result of the Battle of the Coral Sea, which had taken place a month earlier, Japanese Pacific expansion had been temporarily halted. Now Japanese admiral Isoruko Yamamoto wanted to force a decisive clash in the Pacific before US industrial power was fully mobilised against Japan. His chosen location was Midway Atholl, a small and solitary archipelago northeast of Hawaii. Yamamoto knew that the US would defend Midway to the bitter end. If the archipelago fell, Hawaii would fall within range of Japanese aircraft, allowing Japan to invade within a matter of weeks.
Yamamoto knew that the US’s Pacific aircraft carriers would be despatched to protect the islands; he hoped to lure them into a trap and destroy them. The Japanese occupation of Midway was also part of a plan to push out her defensive perimeter after the Doolittle Raid: a dramatic propaganda air attack on Tokyo launched from the carrier USS Hornet. Furthermore, the Japanese hoped a decisive, humiliating and demoralising defeat in the Pacific would force America to negotiate an end to the war on terms beneficial to Japan.
Yamamoto’s plans were scuppered by two principle factors. Firstly, the Japanese underestimated the US’s naval strength. They were unaware that the US Yorktown - which had been badly damaged during the Battle of the Coral Sea - had been repaired and was back in action. Secondly, American code breakers were able to determine the exact date and location of the attack. This allowed US Admiral Chester Nimitz to weave an elaborate web of decoy tactics and to plan a deadly pre-emptive ambush. This main US attack, which began at 10:26 on the morning of 4 June, took the Japanese by surprise and succeeded in destroying four aircraft carriers in a matter of hours.
The US Navy inflicted irreversible and debilitating damage upon the Japanese fleet. In contrast, the US lost just one aircraft carrier and a destroyer. Although a number of Japanese pilots did survive, many of the highly trained maintenance teams who ensured the efficiency of ships and aircraft perished in the battle. These heavy losses permanently weakened the Japanese armed forces. While the US continued to construct ships and train new pilots at a huge rate, Midway inflicted losses on the Japanese from which she could not recover. From this point on, the US enjoyed indisputable naval superiority in the Pacific.
Guadalcanal
At dawn on 7 August 1942, 10,000 US soldiers landed at Guadalcanal, the easternmost island of the Solomon archipelago. The island, which had formed part of the British Empire from 1568 until the Japanese occupied it in May 1942, would take on immense strategic importance. The Solomon Islands were the gateway to northern Australia, which was now vulnerable to Japanese invasion. And when the Japanese began building an airfield on Guadalcanal, from which they could attack supply routes between the US, Australia and New Zealand, it became vital for the Allies to retake the island.
The Guadalcanal Campaign was the first major Allied offensive against Imperial Japan. Lasting from August 1942 until February 1943, it consisted of a series of fiercely contested battles at sea, in the air, and on the ground. In the latter arena, US Marine and Army troops with little combat experience faced an enemy which hid in the jungle, launched attacks at the dead of night and obeyed a strict code of honour in which death was preferable to surrender.
US landings on Guadalcanal met with great initial success. The outnumbered Japanese defenders were quickly overwhelmed, and the airfield under construction (which would be named Henderson’s Field) was captured. Between August and November 1942, the Japanese, who were taken aback by the speed and strength of the Allied offensive, made several attempts to recapture the airfield. They used fast ships to ferry reinforcements and supplies to the island by night, so avoiding Allied air attack from Henderson’s Field. These nightly deliveries were known to the Allies as the ‘Tokyo Express’.
The struggle for the island culminated in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal: the decisive moment in the Guadalcanal Campaign and a key turning point in the Pacific War. Between 12 and 15 November 1942, the Japanese staged a last ditch attempt to recapture the airfield, organising a transport convoy to ferry 7,000 troops to Guadalcanal, and sending several warships to shell the airfield. US forces, having learnt of Japanese plans, sent their own naval forces to intercept them.
Although the US suffered more losses than the Japanese, they succeeded in turning back Japanese warships send to attack the airfield. Air attacks carried out by Allied aircraft also managed to sink a great number of Japanese troop transports, preventing the bulk of the Japanese troops and equipment from reaching Guadalcanal. Although the Japanese did not finish evacuating their forces until February 1943, the Allies effectively won their victory in December 1942, when the Japanese abandoned any further attempt to recapture Guadalcanal.
Burma
In December 1941, the Japanese invasion of Burma opened what would be the longest land campaign for Britain of the entire war. It began with defeat and pell-mell retreat, as Rangoon fell to the invader in March 1942. British, Indian and Chinese forces were driven back into India. The fighting would stretch on, over a varied terrain of jungles, mountains, plains and wide rivers, stopping only for the monsoon, until Japanese surrender in 1945.
After the initial retreat, the British began to rebuild their army and resources from Assam in north-eastern India. This process was slow because priority was given to the war against Germany. The British position was also complicated by discontent in India, the result of British failure to clearly address the issue of post-war independence. The Japanese capitalised on this anti-British sentiment, recruiting captured Indian troops into the 40,000 strong Indian National Army, commanded by Subhas Chandra Bose, that fought alongside the Japanese.
With most of the Chinese coast under Japanese control, the Burma Road was the main supply route available to the Chinese Nationalists, fighting the Japanese in China. This gave the Burmese campaign great strategic importance. In December 1942, a limited British offensive to capture the Arakan coastal region met with failure. The only glimmer of hope came from the Chindits, long range penetration groups which waged guerrilla war in the Burmese jungle. Despite limited military success, their exploits boosted public morale.
Throughout 1943, the horizon looked bleak for the British, who lacked the resources and organisation to recapture Burma. In November 1943, the South East Asia Command was formed to centralise and organise Allied forces. General Slim slowly rebuilt morale and forged an efficient offensive combat force: the cosmopolitan Fourteenth Army, made up of British, Indians, Gurkhas, and East and West Africans.
The Japanese had also been regrouping. On 7 March, Operation U-Go was launched. Although this bold attempt to invade India surprised the Fourteenth Army, new tactics and growing confidence ensured that they maintained their positions on the crucial roadways to India. When Slim’s forces found themselves surrounded at Imphal and Kohima, an epic struggle ensued. The British Commonwealth forces, thanks to air resupply, managed to drive the Japanese into retreat, causing the largest defeat ever suffered by the Japanese army. Of the 85,000 soldiers, 30,000 were killed.
The Fourteenth Army now went on the offensive. By October 1944, it had crossed the river Chindwin and was approaching Mandalay and Meiktila. After two months of arduous combat in a coastal zone of reservoirs and river deltas, Meiktila was taken on 4 March 1945. Two months later, an ambitious amphibious operation allowed Slim’s army to re-enter Rangoon on 6 May 1945. Although this was effectively the end of the campaign, the remaining Japanese forces in Burma did not surrender until 28 August 1945.
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