The Pacific — 1943

In early 1943, Australian troops, fighting in dreadful conditions, extinguished the Japanese beachheads of Buna, Gona, and Sanananda Point on New Guinea. The Casablanca conference that January suggested that one-third of Allied resources should be deployed against Japan, but the British felt unable to agree to a fixed formula. The U.S. Joint Chiefs agreed a broad strategy, with MacArthur and Admiral William F. Halsey pushing on through the Solomons and along the New Guinea coast, while Nimitz “island hopped” across the central Pacific towards Japan.

An Australian forward post (above) near Sanananda, less than thirty yards from the Japanese. The robust and reliable .303 Bren was the light automatic weapon in British and Commonwealth infantry sections.

Australian infantry, assisted by a Stuart light tank, during the final assault on Buna.

The battle for Buna sorely tried the U.S. 32nd Infantry Division, which had not been trained for jungle warfare and was poorly equipped: it lost almost ninety per cent of its strength from battle casualties and sicknesses. But it was a disaster for the Japanese: this photograph shows Japanese bodies on the shoreline.

Japanese prisoners were very rare. These, both badly wounded, were taken when Gona fell.

After expelling the Japanese from southern New Guinea, the Australians moved northwards. In September 1943, the Japanese strongholds of Lae and Salamua were taken. Here U.S. paratroops jump into the Markham Valley in an effort to block the Japanese escape from Lae.

New Zealanders had already played a distinguished part in the war in the Western Desert, and added to these laurels in the Pacific. Here, New Zealand troops (in their distinctive "lemon-squeezer" hats) land from U.S. landing craft on Vella Lavella in the Solomons.

Rabual, on the island of New Britain, was a powerful Japanese air base. It was so heavily defended that a decision to capture it was reversed at the Quebec conference in August 1943, and it was so badly hammered from air and sea that the Japanese substantially scaled it down. Here a U.S. aircraft attacks with a white phosphorus incendiary bomb.

On November 1, 1943, the Americans landed on Bougainville, strategically placed between MacArthur’s and Nimitz’s areas of operations. The Japanese held a tiny part of the island to the very end of the war, but most of their positions had been taken in this sort of knock-down drag-out fighting: a flame thrower scorches a Japanese bunker while riflemen give covering fire.

Almost all Japanese preferred suicide to surrender. These infantrymen on Tarawa have shot themselves in the head, using a toe to pull the trigger.

This essence of the war at sea: a Japanese torpedo-bomber is hit by short-range fire from a U.S. carrier, December 4, 1943.

The Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway was a major naval battle widely regarded as the most important of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. It took place between and June 4-7, 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States Navy decisively defeated an Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) attack against Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese navy and seizing the strategic initiative. Above, U.S. Douglas Dauntless planes fly high above a burning Japanese carrier.

The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, aimed to eliminate the United States as a strategic Pacific power, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It was hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to negotiate an end to the Pacific War on conditions favorable to Japan.

The Japanese plan was designed to lure the United States’ few remaining carriers into a trap. The Japanese also intended to occupy Midway Atoll as part of an overall plan to extend their defensive perimeter in response to the Doolittle Raid. This operation was considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji and Samoa. The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of American reaction and poor initial dispositions.


The carrier U.S.S. Yorktown at Midway under air attack which damaged her badly, leaving her to be finished off by a submarine on June 7, 1942.


American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to set up an ambush of its own. Four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser were sunk in exchange for one American aircraft carrier and a destroyer. The heavy losses, particularly the four fleet carriers and their aircrews, permanently weakened the Imperial Japanese Navy. Japan was unable to keep pace with American shipbuilding and pilot training programs in providing replacements.

The Battle for the Pacific

Japanese strategy in the Pacific was initially successful, and a shortlived ABDA (American-British-Dutch-Australian) Command collapsed before the Japanese advance. But although the Japanese won the battle of the Java Sea in February and hammered the British Admiral Somerville's Far Eastern Fleet on a raid into the Indian Ocean in April, they lost a carrier in the Coral Sea in May. The following month they lost four large carriers at Midway, and with them the prospect of maintaining the initiative in the central Pacific.

Above, the cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and Cornwall under air attack, April 5 — both were sunk. So great was the superiority shown by Japanese aircraft on the Indian Ocean raid that Somerville sent his elderly battleships to safety in the East African port of Mombasa.

The Battle of the Coral Sea was the first major naval action in which opposing warships did not sight one another. American aircraft sank the light carrier Shoho, but the USS Lexington — “Lady Lex” — was hit by bombs and torpedoes and sank after a huge internal explosion. Here members of her crew can be seen
jumping from the stricken vessel.

In May the Japanese attacked the island of Midway, then America's most westerly outpost, having first diverted part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet to the north. On June 4, Japanese aircraft attacked Midway, doing widespread damage and killing these servicemen (above).

Pearl Harbor

In mid 1941, America reacted to Japanese occupation of French Indo-China by freezing Japanese assets. In October Prince Konoye's moderate cabinet was replaced by a government headed by General Tojo, and, despite the recognition by several leading figures that she could not win a long war, Japan prepared a devastating strike. On December 7, carrier-borne aircraft struck the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Surprise was complete, although the Americans had received warnings which should have enabled them to meet the attack. American losses were heavy, but aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped the carnage.

Above, Battleship row at Pearl Harbor. From left to right are the USS West Virginia, Tennessee and Arizona. All three, along with the battleships California and Nevada eventually sank, but only Arizona and Oklahoma were total losses.

Anti-aircraft fire bursts among Japanese aircraft attacking the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The Japanese lost 29 aircraft.

Small craft rescue survivors from the battleship USS California, sunk by Japanese aircraft. The Americans suffered over 3,000 casualties in the attack.

Roosevelt denounced December 7 as “a date which will live in infamy,” and, here, grim-faced, signs a declaration of war against Japan. Some historians have suggested that the Japanese attack gave him a pretext for action he wished to take in any event, but the extant evidence does not prove his complicity in what may best be seen as “the ultimate intelligence blunder.”

To the Shores of Iwo Jima — Part 2

To the Shores of Iwo Jima — Part 1

“To the Shores of Iwo Jima” is a 1945 Kodachrome color short war film produced by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. It documents the Battle of Iwo Jima, and was the first time that American audiences saw in color the footage of the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima.

The film follows the servicemen through the battle in rough chronological order, from the bombardment of the island by warships and carrier-based airplanes to the final breakdown of resistance — though, after it shows the taking of Suribachi, it then switches to the footage of the second flag raising.

The film ends by acknowledging the 4,000 men who died in the month-long battle, and tells the audience that their deaths weren't in vain, showing a bomber aircraft taking off from the island for a mission over Japan.

Four cameramen, including Bill Genaust, who shot the famous flag raising sequence, died bringing this footage to the public. Ten were wounded. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.

One Year On Board the U.S.S. Yorktown — Pt. 7

For some unknown reason, the host of Part 7 of our series on the U.S. Navy carrier “U.S.S. Yorktown” has not allowed us to embed the final installment. It can be viewed, however, by following this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovorGgLIP5Q&feature=related

One Year On Board the U.S.S. Yorktown — Pt. 6

One Year On Board the U.S.S. Yorktown — Pt. 5

One Year On Board the U.S.S. Yorktown — Pt. 4

One Year On Board the U.S.S. Yorktown — Pt. 3

One Year On Board the U.S.S. Yorktown — Pt. 2

One Year On Board the U.S.S. Yorktown —Pt. 1

A Dark Day at Pearl

Dense black smoke from the wreckage of U.S. warships damaged or sunk that morning is seen filling the sky in an ominous way following the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

“Friendly Fire” in Hawaii

One of the aspects of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that is rarely publicized or discussed are the incidents of “friendly fire” (casualties caused by American forces) to the civilian population on the island of Oahu. Because no attack was obviously expected, much of the ammunition and artillery was not prepared for battle. While returning fire against the attacking Japanese planes, the anti-aircraft shells were not set for the proper detonation, and as a result didn’t explode until the shells came down in the midst of the residential and business districts outside of the naval and air bases.

In today’s photo, the bodies of dead men, killed by the anti-aircraft fire we described above, are slumped inside a shrapnel-riddled car in Honolulu.

Capsized U.S.S. Oklahoma

The U.S.S. Oklahoma was moored in Pearl Harbor’s Battleship Row on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked. Outboard alongside U.S.S. Maryland, she took three torpedo hits almost immediately after the first Japanese bombs fell. As she began to capsize, two more torpedoes struck home, and her men were strafed as they abandoned ship. Within 12 minutes after the attack began, she had rolled over until halted by her masts touching bottom, her starboard side above water, and a part of her keel clear.

Many of her crew, however, remained in the fight, clambering aboard the Maryland to help serve her anti-aircraft batteries. 429 officers and enlisted men were killed or missing. One of those killed — Father Aloysius Schmitt — was the first American chaplain of any faith to die in World War II. Thirty-two others were wounded, and many were trapped within the capsized hull, to be saved by heroic rescue efforts.

The Destroyed U.S.S. Arizona

The exposed wreckage of the American battleship U.S.S. Arizona, most of which is now resting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, is seen following the surprise Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. The Arizona (BB-39) was a Pennsylvania-class battleship of the United States Navy. She was commissioned in 1916 and saw action in World War I. The U.S.S. Arizona is best known for her cataclysmic and dramatic sinking, with the loss of 1,177 lives. The wreck was not salvaged, and continues to lie at the floor of the harbor. It is the site of a memorial to those who perished on that day.

Pearl Harbor — December 7, 1941

On this 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, we will commemorate the occasion by featuring a series of images from that fateful event for the next several days. The unprovoked attack thrust the United States into the Second World War against the Japanese Empire — and two days later, Germany declared war against America as well. After over two years of aiding the Allies through material shipments, we were now involved in the battle for freedom across the world. The Isolationists were no more... we were all in it together to fight and win.

Thanksgiving 1943

Thanksgiving in 1943 fell on Thursday, November 25th, two days after the island of Tarawa was “secured.” The Tarawa invasion, was also the second time in the war that the United States faced serious Japanese opposition to an amphibious landing. Previous landings met little or no initial resistance. The 4,500 Japanese defenders were well-supplied and well-prepared, and they fought almost to the last man, exacting a heavy toll on the American Marines.

In order to set up forward air bases capable of supporting operations across the mid-Pacific, to the Philippines, and into Japan, the U.S. needed to take the Marianas Islands. The Marianas were heavily defended, and in order for attacks against them to succeed, land-based bombers would have to be used to weaken the defenses. The nearest islands capable of supporting such an effort were the Marshall Islands, northeast of Guadalcanal. Taking the Marshalls would provide the base needed to launch an offensive on the Marianas but the Marshalls were cut off from direct communications with Hawaii by a garrison on the small island of Betio, on the western side of Tarawa Atoll in the Gilbert Islands. Thus, to eventually launch an invasion of the Marianas, the battles had to start far to the east, at Tarawa.

The Japanese forces were well aware of the Gilberts' strategic location and had invested considerable time and effort fortifying the island. The American invasion force was the largest yet assembled for a single operation, consisting of 18 aircraft carriers, 12 battleships, 8 heavy and 4 light cruisers, 66 destroyers, and 36 transports. The force carried the 2nd Marine Division and a part of the Army's 27th Infantry Division, for a total of about 35,000 soldiers and Marines.

Only one Japanese officer, 16 enlisted men and 129 Koreans were alive at the end of the battle. Total Japanese and Korean casualties were about 4,713 dead. For the U.S. Marine Corps, 990 were killed and a further 2,296 wounded. A total of 687 U. S. Navy personnel also lost their lives in the landing attempts, giving a total of 1,677 American dead. Although the United States forces were seven times larger than the defending garrison, the Japanese were able to inflict substantial damage upon the U.S. force.

These heavy casualties sparked off a storm of protest in the United States, where the high losses could not be understood for such a tiny and seemingly unimportant island in the middle of nowhere. Writing after the war, Marine General Holland M. Smith asked,"Was Tarawa worth it?" "My answer," he said, "is unqualified: No. From the very beginning the decision of the Joint Chiefs to seize Tarawa was a mistake and from their initial mistake grew the terrible drama of errors, errors of omission rather than commission, resulting in these needless casualties." Thought Smith, "[We] should have let Tarawa 'wither on the vine.' We could have kept it neutralized from our bases on Baker Island, to the east, and the Ellice and Phoenix Islands, a short distance to the southeast.”

Getting Well on the U.S.S. Yorktown

An image showing part of the U.S.S. Yorktown’s sick bay is the subject for today, photographed around November 1943.