World War 2 in the Far East
1941 to 1945.
Since 1931 Japan had been at War with China, in various stages, following the infamous Rape of the City of Nanking where Japanese Imperial Troops are reported to have murdered over 300.000 people, through to 1937 with the attack in Wuhan (yes that Wuhan) which then effectively started the Japanese/Chinese war full time through to 2nd Sept 1945.
So this part of the world had been in turmoil for some time.
As the War in Europe developed now with Great Britain alone and her colonies standing alone, clearly the Japanese could see an opportunity to expand the Empire, possibly without too much opposition, equally they needed to take the USA out of the equation because the USA was blocking certain supplies.
So on the 7th of Dec they started a well-planned series of attacks to practically take Great Britain and the USA out of influence in this region.
On the 7th Dec 1941 they attacked the American Base at Pearl Harbour on the Island of Hawaii, destroying over 160 aircraft, sinking many ships including 5 Battleships, and killing over 2000 servicemen and women without declaring war, truly as the US President remarked and act of infamy, and this was but the start.
The Pearl Harbour attack was planned and ordered by Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
At one time he had been Japanese Naval Attaché at their Embassy in Washington, he had warned his fellow Commanders that the attack would unleash a sleeping giant, and it did.
An order was given from US Presidential level to remove Yamamoto, and following a lot of planning and secret intelligence it was found he was flying to the Solomon Islands for a meeting, The Americans sent fighter planes to intercept his aircraft and it was shot down so on the 18th of April 1943, Yamamoto paid the price for his treacherous action.
On Dec 8th 1941 the Japanese attacked the Philippines at Manila and over a period of time the Americans had to surrender 80.000 of their people, General Douglas MacArthur just managing to escape eventually to Australia.
On the 10th of Dec it became the turn of Great Britain to be attacked when the Battle ships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse were sunk by Japanese air attack, and on the 25th of December 1941 following days of action, where British Indian Troops of the 14th Punjab Regiment and the 5/7th Rajput Regiment alongside the Royal Scots did their best to defend Hong Kong, the islands defences faced the sea, the Japanese attacked via the Chinese mainland and through Kowloon.
No British Officers on the defence force survived, many of the Indian Officers were killed and 1164 Indian soldiers are known to have died.
And on 8th February 1942 the Japanese attacked the Island and British Base of Singapore, which again had defences pointing to the sea, and they came through the jungles of Malaya
They had started the attack on Malaya again in line with their attack on Singapore on the 8th of February and advanced through the jungles to join the Singapore attack.
and on the 15th of February General Percival surrendered 136.000 troops making this the biggest defeat in British History, this very controversial act is discussed even today, with suggestions we had 3 times as many troops, and that the Japanese after days of fighting were about to retreat, this final act of early 1942 saw the Japanese in full control of the Far East, after taking most of the islands in and around the Philippines, Java etc.
So they have thousands of American, British , Australian, Indian Prisoners, of whom the stories of their brutality, cruelty, simple murder, is well documented, tens of thousands of these men would die over the next 3 years.
For example in Singapore as Japanese’s soldiers entered the Alexander Hospital they murdered the entire staff, Doctors, Nurses and Patients, mostly by bayonet, the sign of things to come.
What is often overlooked in this area and these times, that these overseas colonies, had lots of Civil Servants and their families, lots of the Armed Forces people had their families, civilian workers in the Army, Air and Naval Bases also had families, in Singapore the Rubber plantation people from Malaya all with families, were all rounded up, put into camps, men in one women and children in another, they would not meet up again for 3 years, some sadly would never meet up again, because the brutal regimes were also used in these camps as well as the POW ones.
Exactly the same in Hong Kong and the American bases in the Philippines, a huge human tragedy was about to unfold.
This was also the area of the Dutch East Indies and many Dutch families were also interned.
On Feb 19th 1942 the Japanese ran a large bombing raid on Darwin Australia, and sent an invasion force into Papua New Guinea to attack Australia, the Australians got wind of this and sent a task force that forced the Japanese away.
And so after around 6 to 8 months, both the British from their Stronghold In India, that was also under attack from Japan, to the US Base in the Pacific we began to slowly recover and fight back, there are many books written about this time, about the actions taken, the bravery of many in conditions far worse than anything seen in Europe, jungle fighting, monsoons, terrible heat, terrible diseases, no space here to go into all this.
Perhaps the most infamous of many terrible events was the so called Death Railway
Between Thailand and Burma, built by POWs and forced local labour, it was to supply the Japanese army in fighting the allies in Burma, it is said for every railway sleeper someone died, of starvation, beatings, disease, in total it is estimated between 180.000 to 250.000
Were forced to work on the railway and 102.000 allied troops died of which 6904 were British out of the 30.131 British prisoners working on the railway or 23% died.
So here now is a timeline of what happened when all this was coming to an end, The Americans led by General Douglas Macarthur were moving through the Pacific area Island by Island with terrible losses, the British fleet had moved to join them following VJ day, and all were under attack from Kamikaze attacks as Japan desperately tried to stop the advance of the Allies.
In India the 14th Army under General Sir William Slim were driving the Japanese back out of India and Burma and at Imphal and Kohima the British Army with largely Indian Battalions had beaten a much larger Japanese force, and that was the beginning of the end of the war in that section.
See detail on the Kohima Battle, where a force of some 2000 British/Indian Soldiers beat a Japanese force of 20.000 giving them 4000 casualties, and sometimes fighting across an area the size of a tennis court.
The Battle of Kohima was the turning point of the Japanese U-Go offensive into India in 1944 during the Second World War. The battle was fought in three stages from 4 April to 22 June 1944 around the town of Kohima, the capital of Nagaland in northeast India. From 3 to 16 April, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the besieged British and Indian troops of IV Corps at Imphal were supplied. By mid-April, the small British and Indian force at Kohima was relieved.
From 18 April to 13 May, British and Indian reinforcements counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. The Japanese abandoned the ridge at this point but continued to block the Kohima–Imphal road. From 16 May to 22 June, the British and Indian troops pursued the retreating Japanese and reopened the road. The battle ended on 22 June when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109, ending the Siege of Imphal.
The battle is often referred to as the "Stalingrad of the East". In 2013, the British National Army Museum voted the Battle of Imphal and Kohima to be "Britain's Greatest Battle".[7]
The Battle of Kohima was the turning point of the Japanese U-Go offensive into India in 1944 during the Second World War. The battle was fought in three stages from 4 April to 22 June 1944 around the town of Kohima, the capital of Nagaland in northeast India. From 3 to 16 April, the Japanese attempted to capture Kohima ridge, a feature which dominated the road by which the besieged British and Indian troops of IV Corps at Imphal were supplied. By mid-April, the small British and Indian force at Kohima was relieved.
From 18 April to 13 May, British and Indian reinforcements counter-attacked to drive the Japanese from the positions they had captured. The Japanese abandoned the ridge at this point but continued to block the Kohima–Imphal road. From 16 May to 22 June, the British and Indian troops pursued the retreating Japanese and reopened the road. The battle ended on 22 June when British and Indian troops from Kohima and Imphal met at Milestone 109, ending the Siege of Imphal.
The battle is often referred to as the "Stalingrad of the East In 2013, the British National Army Museum voted the Battle of Imphal and Kohima to be "Britain's Greatest Battle".
Chronology Surrender of Japan
• April 1 – June 21, 1945: Battle of Okinawa. 82,000+ US military casualties, and 117,000+ Japanese and Okinawan. Approximately one-fourth of the Okinawan civilian population died, often in mass suicides organized by the Imperial Japanese Army.
• July 26: The Potsdam Declaration is issued. Truman tells Japan, "Surrender or suffer prompt and utter destruction."[18]
• July 29: Japan rejects the Potsdam Declaration.
• August 2: The Potsdam Conference ends. With Churchill, Stalin, and Truman in agreement.
• August 6: The US drops an atomic bomb, Little Boy, on Hiroshima. In a press release 16 hours later, Truman warns Japan to surrender or "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth."[19]
• August 9: The USSR declares war on Japan, and invades several Japanese-held territories. The US drops another atomic bomb, Fat Man, on Nagasaki.
• August 10: At the direction of the Emperor, the Japanese Foreign Ministry notifies the Allies (via Swiss diplomatic channels) of Japan's intention to surrender unconditionally in accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, providing the Emperor be permitted to remain in place.
• August 11: The Allies notify the Japanese government (again via Swiss diplomats) of their willingness to accept Japan's surrender as offered.
The Kyūjō incident was an attempted military coup d'état in the Empire of Japan at the end of the Second World War. It happened on the night of 14–15 August 1945, the Coup was led by Major Kenji Hatanaka
just before the announcement of Japan's surrender to the Allies. The coup was attempted by the Staff Office of the Ministry of War of Japan and many from the Imperial Guard to stop the move to surrender.
The officers murdered Lieutenant General Takeshi Mori of the First Imperial Guards Division and attempted to counter an order to the effect of occupying the Tokyo Imperial Palace , They attempted to place the Emperor under house arrest, using the 2nd Brigade Imperial Guard Infantry. They failed to persuade the Eastern District Army and the high command of the Imperial Japanese Army to move forward with the action. Due to their failure to convince the remaining army to oust the Imperial House of Japan, they performed ritual suicide. As a result, the communiqué of the intent for a Japanese surrender continued as planned
So the surrender very nearly didn’t happen on that day.
• August 14: Allied governments announce the surrender of Japan, and the Emperor informs his people of the fact in an unprecedented radio broadcast. The date is described as "V-J Day" or "V-P Day" in newspapers in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
• Japanese reaction
• On August 15 and 16, some Japanese soldiers, devastated by the surrender, committed suicide. Well over 100 American prisoners of war were also murdered. In addition, many Australian and British prisoners of war were murdered in Borneo, at both Ranau and Sandakan, by the Imperial Japanese Army.[15] At Batu Lintang camp, also in Borneo, death orders were found which proposed the murder of some 2,000 POWs and civilian internees on September 15, 1945, but the camp was liberated four days before these orders were due to be carried out (Note that Japanese forces remained in combat with Soviet forces on several fronts for two weeks following VJ-Day).
• Ceremony aboard USS Missouri[
• The formal signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender took place on board the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, and at that time Truman declared September 2 to be the official V-J Day.[17]
The return of the Captured Colonies took place over a number of months, the Philippines between July 1944 and March 1945, Hong Kong was retaken 14th of August 1945 and Singapore Sept 12th 1945.
British and Indian Troops attached to the 14th Army were Commanded by the much respected
General Sir William Slim (Uncle Bill).they fought through India into Burma.
USA General Stillwell and his Chinese troops were also under General Slim