During WWII, after VE Day, were the soldiers fighting in Europe the majority of soldiers who then fought in the Pacific?

by RunHikeRepeat
DBHT14

Not at all!

In part because there were really only a handful of major land battles which Western Allied forces were involved in from May 1945 till the end of the war in mid August. And those which did stretch into the summer had mostly already be launched by the time VE Day rolled around.

For instance we can look at the US OOB for Okinawa as the last great island landing, which even then was launched on 1 April involved 7 US divisions(4 Army Infantry of the XXIV Corps and 2 Marine of the III Amphibious Corps) none of which had fought anywhere but the Pacific.

While at the same time in the Philippines or refitting on friendly islands elsewhere either engaged in mopping up shattered Japanese resistance were parts of another score of divisions(3 Marine and 15 or so Army of various states of readiness including the 1st Cavalry and 11th Airborne). While in Burma the British and Indian joint force was successfully retaking Rangoon and completing their multi year struggle from the borders on India and stood poised to retake the rest of SE Asia all the way to Singapore it was all with forces that were already in theater.

And while some unique units had made the transfer between theaters before VE Day, such as some of the British colonial units which had seen service in North Africa, the vast majority of combatant units had not.

While there were many plans to transfer both US and British units to the Pacific for a new wave of offensives in the Fall they were only partially complete by August. Only a small handful of units had made the trip from Europe to the US or Britain and then back out to the Pacific, like part of the 6th British Airborne Division and US 13th Armored Division.

However this was a small minority, and really the use of reallocated units previously having served in Europe was not penciled in to make an impact until 1946. For instance no new units were slated for OLYMPIC, the landings in Southern Kyushu on November 1st 1945, CORONET the tentative follow on landing on Honshu and around Tokyo in march 1946 though would have involved many more. That gave the units time to issue leave to their men, undergo a period of retraining and induction of replacements, travel to the Pacific and some additional in theater preparation before being asked to fight in theory.