Early on the morning of December 8, 1941, the Second
World War in the Pacific was begun with an amphibious attack by Imperial
Japanese Army troops on the Northeast coast of British Malaya. Within hours
they pushed their way inland despite heavy transport losses at the hands of the
few British aircraft that were in the area. Other attacks at locations across
the Pacific followed in rapid succession, the largest of them aimed at the
giant American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where it was still December
7.¹
Over the following days a meticulously planned campaign
unfolded as Japanese forces launched themselves against key American, Dutch and
British Commonwealth units in the Philippines, Siam, Malaya, the Dutch East
Indies and China, the ultimate goal of which was Japanese control of eastern
Asia and the western Pacific. The Japanese government believed that once these
regions were firmly under their control, the Allies – especially the
United States – would sue for peace rather than fight a bloody war in
distant lands. The Japanese however, did not anticipate the angry backlash
which came as a result of their use of force at Pearl Harbor. A negotiated
settlement of the type envisioned in 1941 became impossible. In the end, a
grimly determined Allied coalition fought its way back across the Pacific,
island by island, until the twin spectres of nuclear bombardment and war with
the Soviet Union forced Imperial intervention and the end of war.
1941 - The Start of War The
Japanese offensives of 1941 were composed of several bold moves across the
Western Pacific Basin, something never before attempted on such a large scale.
This military solution called for the complete occupation of Southeast Asia and
the Dutch East Indies in order to secure much needed raw resources. The most
famous part of this plan was executed with a dawn attack against the American
Army and Navy bases located on the Pacific island of Oahu, Hawaii. Most
technical goals for the attack were achieved with clock-like precision by the
cream-of-the-crop of Japan's naval aviators. They did not however, catch any of
the priceless American aircraft carriers in port, nor did the Japanese task
force commander authorize a second round of sorties which were strongly
recommended by his flight officers. This second sortie could have destroyed
valuable American oil reserves which lay in vulnerable surface storage tanks
immediately next to the harbor. The attack itself united American public
opinion in ways that the U.S. government could never have achieved. Even the
Japanese later acknowledged that the core damage caused by the sensational
attack – the sinking of a few older American battleships – was not
worth the sustaining effect it had on the American war effort.
As news
of the devastating raid against Pearl Harbor was telegraphed to Washington,
orders were sent far and wide to American and Commonwealth forces in the
Pacific "...a state of war exists... commence hostilities." American General
Douglas MacArthur lost a golden opportunity to blunt the effects of the pending
Japanese attack on his Philippine command. Unbeknownst to him the Japanese
bomber fleet in Formosa had been delayed by weather, allowing an eight-hour gap
to occur in the tight Japanese time table. MacArthur wasted this precious
window of opportunity by failing to put extra fighters into the air. He didn't
scramble his bombers to alternate airstrips. He did not even move the hundreds
of aircraft under his command off of the open tarmacs where they were arrayed
in neat rows. Virtually no action was taken despite the very recent knowledge
that the German Luftwaffe had devastated grounded enemy air fleets in the
opening minutes and hours of a campaign.
When Japanese bombers finally
arrived late over the Philippines, they were surprised to discover no extra
resistance, no extra fighter opposition, and best of all the entire American
bomber fleet lined up neatly in rows. The war was certainly off to a good start
for them. Within two days Japanese infantry landed in Northern Luzon and by
December 22 an entire army had successfully come ashore, triggering the allied
evacuation of Manila and a fighting withdrawal to the Bataan Peninsula in
southwestern Luzon.
| Pearl Harbor : Battleship Row |
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For the British and their commonwealth allies,
December 8 was an equally bitter day. War sightings arrived furiously as a
series of Japanese convoys landed troops along the coasts of Malaya and
Thailand. The first shots of the war were fired by the Japanese when they
downed a British plane attempting to shadow their Malaya-bound troop convoy.
The main warship presence in the area was the Royal Navy’s Force Z,
centered on the new battleship Prince of Wales, and the elderly battlecruiser
Repulse. Both vessels were originally sent by the British government as a
warning to Japan of Royal Navy might. But as of the evening of December 8, even
the pugnacious Winston Churchill admitted that he had become concerned about
its safety. This concern came too late, as Japanese bombers caught the two
battleships as they retired to Singapore and sank both of them within a few
hours. By late December, the British garrison at Hong Kong was forced to
surrender, as had a tiny U.S. Marine garrison on the central Pacific island of
Wake. The American Army was pinned in place on the Bataan Peninsula in the
Philippines, and the British defenses on the Perak River in Malaya had been
penetrated. This last loss triggered another retreat south into Singapore. The
year 1941 ended on a very grim note for the Allies as Japan's military machine
swept everything from its path.
1942 Early 1942 saw the Japanese
complete the execution of their war plan. On January 10, Imperial forces began
the second phase of conquest by landing in the northern areas of Dutch East
Indies. By the middle of the month, Burma was invaded and in early February
after a brief defense, British General A.E. Percival surrendered Singapore to
the Japanese. A disjointed defense was prepared for the southern Dutch East
Indies, but this was quickly overcome by meticulously orchestrated blows
delivered by the Japanese Army and Navy. The local allied fleet was virtually
wiped out during the Battle of the Java Sea and its aftermath. As the sea-lanes
were cleared of allied naval threats, multiple landings took place throughout
the key southern islands of Sumatra and Java, completing Japan's advance to the
edge of the Indian Ocean. On April 8, the American Army in the Philippines
surrendered to Japanese troops besieging them at Bataan, and on May 5, the
harbor bastion at Corregidor also fell.
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