At the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, 80% of the Japanese Army's manpower was in China. Given that their strategic objectives include the natural resources of British Malaya and Dutch East Indies, what was the Japanese military's assessment of those colonial powers' military strength? How accurate was this assessment?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

The Pacific Theater comprised a very, very wide geographic area, where there are many different groups with competing ethnic, nationalistic, cultural identities. At the outbreak of war, decolonization was gaining momentum in many European colonies. The Chinese national revolution was ongoing, along with the Chinese civil war, and the Sino-Japanese war and various attempts to expand spheres of influence and puppet governments.

Did the Allies have a strategy to win the hearts and minds of the people of the Pacific rim? Was it a cohesive strategy, what with different Allied nations having their own interests and resources? How effective was the Allied effort compared to the Japanese's "liberation of east Asia" propaganda?

Thanks in advance for your answers!

There is a recurring theory that is controversial regarding the use of the Atomic Bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the United States which is that Truman used the bombs to "show" the Soviet Union. THat even further, that the bombs were not the true reason why Japan eventually surrendered and instead it was because of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. These theories are contested by historians.

My question then is, did the Soviets have a battle plan to invade the Japanese Islands, and further did they have the means? They certainly had a well-trained and well equipped fighting force at the end of the war in Europe. However, did they have an eventual plan to invade, and in theory, take Tokyo?

How did US naval surface operations compare to British RN surface operations? Was there a big difference in the way each side handled battleships, infantry support, aviation arm etc. Or were both sides pretty streamlined given that both probably drew a lot from the same sources when building and designing the ships and procedures?

How did the heavily racialized portrayal of the Japanese in American propaganda affect the treatment of Japanese POWs? How did it effect the treatment of Japanese and Ryukuan civilians?

I read an anecdote once about "Ice Cream Ships;" that is ships in the US navy that supplied ice cream to the fleets. Supposedly they were made from freighters and concrete ships (clean of course) that made ice cream and sailed with the various fleets (or were sent on station in safe waters).

Did these actually exist, and if so, how were they used? How did the US justify building ships for ice cream when we were in the biggest war had ever been in to that point? Did the US just have that much material and industry that they could expend some of it on build ships dedicated solely to making Ice Cream?

In a situation where the other side (Japan) was stetched to the limit (and beyond) trying to field enough ships, planes, and men to create a military force and hold territory, I find it amazing that the Us (if true) could spend time and resources on something that to me seems frivolous. I'm sure it benefited the morale of the men serving in the Pacific, but even then it's kind of surprising that we would go to that when we could have used it for something else (another transport barge, or spent the resources building more tanks or planes or even some escort carriers).

Edit: More questions and description added.

Hey!

I usually browse this subreddit (I never comment though) and I'm going to go ahead and and actually ask a question in hopes of a great answer! I'm not looking to win any contest here, but I've recently heard a lot about General Bill Slim and would like to know more.

Generally speaking, who was he? How vital was his role in Burma? Why did he become known as perhaps the best British general of the war?

Thanks in advance!

How did the USN receive the loan of the RN carrier HMS Victorious after the Battle of Santa Cruz? How did they want to use her, and what did they think of her? I know a bit about Victorious's operations in the Pacific, but only from the RN side.

Which were the most potent Japanese and U.S. surface ship class during the war other than the Aircraft Carriers? Also, what was the extent of British naval operations in the Pacific and Asia, and what would be deemed their greatest naval battle in the the theatre? Did the Dutch navy have any impact on the war?

I know nothing about the pacific theatre pretty much, so, I'll bite- when the Japanese invaded what was then British Borneo, to what extent did Iban (in particular) people support the occupation or fight against the occupation? Was there a 'dig for victory' campaign in Japan or occupied Japanese or Allied areas as there was in Britain?

Prior to WWII, Japan controlled the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan. From my understanding of the situation, the Japanese government embarked on a program of "Japanification" in these areas, trying to make them integrally part of Japan. Post war, of course, the general populations of these areas were very upset about this and accusations of previous collaborationism were important in domestic politics, especially in Korea, where the communists accused the South of still being run by the same people.

So, overall, a couple of questions:

1. How much of the populations of the countries saw themselves as being Japanese as opposed to resenting the identity forced upon them?

2. How common was it for people in these regions to volunteer for the war effort as opposed to being drafted?

3. Post-war, how were those people who had worked with (voluntarily or not) the Japanese viewed? Was there a difference between volunteers and conscripts? What about between men and women (especially 'comfort women')?

Comparing all the different battleship classes the USN and IJN fielded what was the best most balanced in the mods opinions?

My Grandfather served on the [USS Onieda ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oneida_(APA-221)) in the Pacific theater, as a cook. What would his daily experiences have been like?

If I recall his stories correctly, in battle he was assigned to one of the 40mm guns. What would his experiences have been like there? I know the ship was a troop transport, but I don't really know what that entails beyond the most obvious aspects (such as having a bunch of soldiers on the ship as it crosses the ocean).

After some of the tough fighting the U.S. Marines experienced in Cape Gloucester and Peleliu, was there any serious consideration of engaging in a siege of future islands like Iwo Jima and Okinawa? Since the days of Caesar and even before, basic military theory has always held that an investment strategy is the wisest course of action when facing a well-entrenched enemy that can be surrounded. With sea and air superiority over the Japanese, why not starve the defenders out?

My understanding is that the Japanese military was incredibly tribalistic, and even within service branches you would see serious competition between the various components - such as Cavalry and Infantry. This certainly was not a healthy state of things, but is it possible to analyze just how detrimental this was for their war effort when it came to the development of strategy, tactics, and weapons systems?

The Pacific war is often seen as a predominantly or even solely American operation. However, British imperial forces did do a significant amount of fighting: the Australians played a major role in liberating New Guinea and nearby islands, and even began liberating Borneo near the end of the war. The British Indian army, though forced to retreat into India, eventually regrouped and defeated a Japanese invasion of India and drove them out of Burma, inflicting the largest defeat on the Japanese army. However, these operations are often seen as not affecting the outcome of the war at all, in contrast to the American island hopping campaign that approached ever closer to the Japanese homeland in preparation for an invasion. Is this assessment accurate?

General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell seemed to play a second-string command role in the China-Burma theatre. There's not much known or written about him when compared to others in similar command positions in the Pacific. I read Tuchman's Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945 about five years ago. Are there straightforward reasons why he's not given the credit due for his WWII service?

The current issue of Military History Quarterly covers the Allies' demand for unconditional surrender from the Japanese and the debate about how to bring it about. Dropping the two atomic bombs moved the Emperor to agree to (mostly) those terms.

My question is: How likely is it that the Allies' would have brought about the unconditional surrender of Japan through either of the other two options being considered, namely Operation Downfall (invasion, as favored by the Army) or by blockade and strategic bombing (as favored by the Navy)? What objectives would be sufficient to bring about unconditional surrender that all (or almost all) of the Japanese forces in the field would buy in to?

What happened to the skulls and other body parts sent home as trophies? Were they seized or allowed to reach their destination? Were they hidden or put proudly on the mantlepiece?

As an Australian does the kokoda track and the battle for PNG really saved australia? would the Japanese have invaded Australia using png as base?!?!

Was Kimmel the only USN senior officer to be relieved of command in the wake of Pearl Harbor? Why or why not? How did any command changes affect early Pacific War naval strategy?

The battle of Leyte gulf and Philippine sea basically decimated the remaining japanese surface fleet and leyte gulf by itself is seen as one of the biggest naval battles in history. Now my question is, did Japan ever stand a chance at winning these battles? Were there some major flaw in Ozawas game plan that in hindsight could have been fixed? Also how much information reaches the civilians and what was the reaction to the defeat at home?

Had to write this on my phone so i appoligies for all grammer and spelling issuies.

As always, I'm interested in the interplay between the First and Second World Wars. As such, what were the main continuities and discontinuities in the Japanese infantry from the First to Second World Wars? Since I think the Russo-Japanese War often gets overlooked in the history of military doctrine and development, I'd like that conflict to be included as well.

My main areas of interest are leadership personnel and infantry tactics. How many of the Second World War Japanese field officers, general staff (and maybe even some NCOs?) were veterans of these two previous conflicts? Was there a cultural disconnect between those who ha experienced the earlier conflicts and those who had not? Second, I'm interested in the continuities and changes in Japanese infantry doctrine between the First and Second World Wars. I'm most interested in small-unit tactics, but of course would be interested in changes to operational and strategic planning as well.

Seeing that this is Osprey sponsored... Might as well ask an equipment question.

Osprey's book have in several times have illustrations of Japanese Paratroopers of different branches and period in various uniforms and equipment.

What is the camouflage color of the Giretsu Kuuteitai, the "Heroic Paratroopers" consisted of? There are many videos of them, but none of them are in color.

Of the 120 something men, only 14 landed on the field and they were wiped out. There is one extant example of a uniform recovered from the field that has painted with black ink. However, some former paratroopers (Those that had to return due to bad weather) have claimed it was green.

Which is it? Green or Black?

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is often considered to be one of the most competent admirals of the war and often get the "Rommel" treatment as in that he is seen as a good guy fighting for the bad guys. My question is, how was he in person and was he really such an extraordinary admiral.

Thanks for this opportunity, the pacific war has alwaysed intressed me.

Submarine warfare. How successful was US submarine warfare against Japan, compared to German submarine warfare against Britain in WWII?

Japan and Britain were both densely populated Island nations, dependent on seaborne trade for vital resources. Both nations had their sea lanes targeted by enemy submarines.

How did these submarine campaigns compare / contrast?

How many submarines were deployed by the Germans / Americans?

How many tons, and what percent of seaborne commerce did they sink?

How effective were the countermeasures taken against submarines by Britain, compared to those taken by Japan.

If one submarine campaign was more effective than the other, what made it so?

Howdy!

We were having a discussion with /u/bigbluepanda and someone else... maybe /u/DevilFish about Australia and the Pacific War.

What was the goal of Japan's raids on Darwin and subsequent raids on Australia? What did the raids do to Australian psyche, and did it have any long term effects on Australian policy/culture?

The differences in radar advancement between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the US Navy is sometimes brought up to highlight the disparity between the two forces, with the latter possessing superior radar systems and on a greater scale than the former. We know that the USN successfully employed radar on many of their ships for a variety of functions, but did the IJN ever try in earnest to integrate radar into their weapons systems on their ships such as anti-aircraft defenses, fire-control systems, and early warning detection?

We constantly read and hear about the atrocities commited against allied POW's in the Pacific theater, but were there some restrictions from the Japanese Army or was it a free-for-all in every camp?

The United States Navy put a lot of emphasis on the aircraft carrier wing of their navy, going against other countries emphasis on other capital ships.

What were the origins of this "carrier first" doctrine, and who were its critics?

If I can ask one more, what happened to those critics after carriers proved themselves so decisive in the battles of midway and other U.S. victories?

We all hear about the mighty Yamato and her sister ship the Musashi. Their big 18 inch guns were the largest fitted to any warship in history. But what purpose did they serve? They both hardly saw combat (the Musashi only survived one battle), they mostly spent time in dry dock getting refitted or repaired, and both ships were sunk by planes, not enemy ships. What is their purpose, if not actual ship-on-ship combat?

Did the Japanese ever consider only attacking British and Dutch territory, and avoiding attacking the Americans? Would that have kept the US out of the war?

The Pacific native populations get very little attention in the stuff I've seen about the Pacific War. Normally just a wee bit about civilians under Japanese rule, but even those are mostly from white people's memoirs in Hong Kong or the Philippines. How did each side treat them? Were civilian casualties considered important? Did the natives tend to favour one side?

Was there any explicit religious aspect to the war? At least in propaganda. Largely Christian allies against Shinto Japanese with varying native populations seems ripe for religion to become involved.

We have often heard about the heinous "experiments" conducted in Nazi concentration camps by people such as Mengele, yet most people don't know much or anything about the Japanese Unit 731. A quick google search explains most of what they did, but not much else. Why doesn't the western (I'm presuming it is more prevalent in "eastern" historial circles) history of WW2 or the media talk about this unit? Furthermore, were the men who participated in the unit tried like those at the Nuremberg trials, or were they able to go unpunished?

On November 24, 1943, USS Liscome Bay (escort carrier) was sunk as it stood off Makin Atoll by a Japanese submarine with a loss of 644 men. The U.S. Army (27th Division) was just wrapping up its successful capture of the atoll, and lost 66 men during the assault.

Marine Major General Holland Smith (among others) accused the Army of attacking too cautiously, thus exposing the Navy's ships to attack for a longer period than necessary. Marine strategy was more aggressive in its attack than the Army's, as a comparison of Makin and Tarawa might show. Others point to the lack of quality escort as the problem (one example).

Is there merit to Smith's claim? Though I know "Howlin' Mad" had little patience for the Army, its tactics, or anything else really.

What were major goals for Japan during WW2? What extent of Asia and the Pacific would they control and puppet. Also how would the rivalries in the military and government affect the continuation of the Empire and it's Holdings?

There is a lot of debate but would U.S.A. really stay out of the Pacific war if Japan never bombed Pearl Harbour and acted agressivley towards America? Also, I've heard that bombing the oil supplies and submarines instead of the battleships would have had a far greater effect on the U.S.

My Japanese grandmother was a teenager during the Second World War and she sometimes told me stories about growing up in 1930s-40s Imperial Japan. During the war, she said she had to go through military training with bayonets and rifles. Because of this, I was wondering how the American occupation was able to convince such a militaristic society (specifically the civilians militias) to accept peace, especially since it seemed Japan had been preparing its civilians to resist something like an occupation.

I always hear about island hopping as a major part of U.S. Strategy in the Pacific, but the example used is always Rabaul. How extensive were the bases bypassed? Did the Japanese have a counter strategy?

Was the decision by the Japanese to attack the European colonial holdings of the Pacific, instead of the seemingly much more vulnerable U.S.S.R., motivated more by the institutional competition of the Navy against the Army, or a more pragmatic and thought out design, like a need for resources (oil)?

I have a couple of questions on the infamous banzai charges. It is pretty well established that banzai charges is a horrible and wasteful tactic but is there any example of a sucessful banzai charge (against the americans, not counting the war in china) that achived some sort of an objective? Also from my understanding the japanese were missinformed regarding the US arsenal, thinking they were only armed with slow action bolt rifles such as the springfield. Is this true and did this have any influence on chossing to use banzai charges?

Finally did the USA anticipate the uses of banzai charges? Did the army command expect it and/or was there any specific training against a banzai charge.

Thank you all for your answers.

How did the logistics of the organized Japanese surrender work, especially in Mainland theaters where there were very few allied troop to accept their parole, confiscate the weapons, and arrage the logistics of transportinbg millions of Japanese POWs back to the home islands?

We know that the allies put at least some consideration in preserving cultural and artistic landmarks/artifacts in their operations in the european theatre, was there anything similar during the pacific island hopping? If not (or in any case really) what are the most important sites of this kind and how did they fare? Were some completely erased?

As I understand it, pre-war U.S. Army planning for the Philippines was essentially to fight a holding action while waiting for relief by the U.S. Navy (something that the USN was adamantly against in their planning). Was there ever any more realistic planning that acknowledged the inevitable loss of the islands and focused on training a partisan force to fight the occupation?

Off topic META chatter Top Post

The Ryukyus were incorporated into the Japanese empire in the 1800s. During WWII were there any organized anti-Japanese groups or were there any groups that saw the US invasion as a way to leave the empire? Also, did the battles that were fought in the Ryukyus have any effect on the decline in the usage of the Ryukyu language from the deaths of so many civilians?

Considering the very hot and humid weather conditions of the Pacific Theater, I assume that dehydration, heat stroke, diseases and others would have been constantly hampering all armies.

How did, both the Japanese and the Allied forces respectively, combat the extreme weather conditions?

How much did the weather affect wounds and other injuries suffered?

Did the weather have any direct effect on the morale of either side?

edit: How much of an overall effect did the weather have on the planning and the execution of operations?

Did anyone here listen to Isac Meyers 6 parter on the use of the bombs in his History of Japan podcast? Thoughts? He is a profesional academic historian and I think he brings a lot to the table.

Did everyone pack up and head home right after the treaty was signed at the end? How long did it take most soilders to come to shore in America?

Did the soldiers in the Pacific theater eat a lot of coconuts?

(Turned on the tv today to find memorial service for VJ Day, it got me wondering about British involvement in the Pacific theatre.

I hated my history teacher at school, so I didn't even study the subject at gcse level. As such, most of my WW2 knowledge is self taught, and I know next to nothing about events outside of Europe.)

Was hoping someone could give me a brief overview of what the British did in the far east during the war, and what effect it had on the country& the empire as a whole.