Pacific Theater

The Pacific Theater during World War II is generally regarded as the area of military confrontation between the Allied powers and Imperial Japan. The Pacific Theater consists of the entire operational expanse of the war from the Aleutian Islands in the north to Australia in the south, including island chains such as the Solomons, Gilberts, Marshalls, and Marianas. The China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater is also considered a major component of the Pacific Theater.

A Japanese balloon bomb in flight during World War II. The Japanese launched some 9,000 such weapons, one-tenth of which reached the continental United States.

Pacific Theater

Project Fugo: The Japanese Balloon Bombs

By Allan T. Duffin

On Saturday, May 5, 1945, three days before the end of World War II in Europe and just three months before the Japanese surrendered, spinning shards of metal ripped into the tall pine trees, burrowing holes into bark and tearing needles from branches outside the tiny logging community of Bly, Oregon. Read more

Under attack five days after Pearl Harbor, shore installations and U.S. Navy barges at Cavite in the Philippines burn furiously following a Japanese air raid.

Pacific Theater

A Suicide Mission From the President?

By Ron Gilliam

As he read the decrypt of the radiogram from Admiral Harold Stark, Chief of Naval Operations, several things bothered Admiral Thomas C. Read more

Approximately 80 miles north of Lashio, Burma, American infantrymen engage Japanese troops in a fight for control of a section of the Old Burma Road. The overland link was a vital supply connection for Allied troops fighting in the China-Burma-India Theater.

Pacific Theater

Yankee Guerrillas in Burma: The Story of OSS Detachment 101

By Dr. Carl H. Marcoux

A small group of Americans, operating behind the Japanese lines in Burma from 1942 until mid-1945, played a major role in neutralizing a large enemy force. Read more

Manning a Bren gun position along the forward line of C Troop, 2/4 Commando Squadron covering an area known as Snags Track, troopers McGowan, Sherring, and McDonald cast a wary eye toward Japanese positions. These Australian commandos were ashore near Tarakan, Borneo, on May 13, 1945.

Pacific Theater

Ralph Coyne: The Dark Blue Double Diamond

By Ken Wright

“We shall not be content with a defensive war,” stated British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during his speech to the House of Commons immediately after the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Forces from Dunkirk on June 4, 1940. Read more

A flight of famed North American P-51 Mustang fighters flies in tight formation.

Pacific Theater

P-51 Mustang: The Untamed Beast of the Skies

By Sam McGowan

If a single airplane has captured the public imagination more than any other, it is undoubtedly the North American P-51 Mustang fighter. Read more

Pacific Theater

Was It Right to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima & Nagasaki?

By Sam McGowan

The most controversial decision of the 20th century—probably in all of history—was the one reportedly made by President Harry S. Read more

Pacific Theater

Night Battle: The Barroom Brawl Off Guadalcanal

By David Alan Johnson

November 13, 1942, was a Friday, which sailors aboard the cruiser USS San Francisco noted with anxiety. Read more

Pacific Theater

Hell’s Own Cesspool: Okinawa in WWII

By John Walker

On Easter morning, April 1, 1945, the Pacific island of Okinawa trembled beneath an earthshaking bombardment from American combat aircraft overhead and ships steaming offshore in preparation for an amphibious landing of unprecedented magnitude. Read more

Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki did not contest the landings at Attu in May 1943; instead, he ordered his 2,300 troops to establish strong positions in the mountains from which they could fire down on the Americans. Pictured are U.S. troops at Massacre Bay.

Pacific Theater

Fog of War in the Aleutians

By Colonel James W. Hammond, Jr.

For decades Americans have been spoiled by the instant coverage of war in the media. Read more

Pacific Theater

Garand’s Wonder Weapon

By Michael D. Hull

A variety of outstanding weapons and pieces of equipment affected the course of World War II for both the Allies and the Axis powers. Read more

Dressed in traditional garb, a lone Chinese man seeks the protection of a sandbag barricade in the International Settlement of Shanghai on August 12, 1937. Adjacent to the civilian are a British soldier and two American Marines who have donned their helmets. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)

Pacific Theater

A Memorable Marine Mascot

By Eric Niderost

Soochow was a mongrel dog with a remarkable gift for self-preservation. A homeless stray, he attached himself to some U.S. Read more

Pacific Theater

Were P-47 Thunderbolt Aircraft Really Formidable Fighter-Bombers?

By Sam McGowan

Since the end of World War II, the aviation press has made the North American P-51 Mustang into the superstar Allied fighter of the war. Read more

A Navy corpsman gives a drink of water to a wounded Marine on the island of Guam in the Pacific. In addition to the thousands of casualties treated by U.S. Army medical personnel, the U.S. Navy also trained many for the war effort. (All photos: National Archives)

Pacific Theater

The U.S. Army Medical Corps: Caring for the Casualties in World War II

By Glenn Barnett

For centuries wounded soldiers of every nation were responsible for much of their own care. Medical attention was primitive and often not a high priority for military planners beyond the officer corps. Read more

Pacific Theater

The OSS and the Fourth Dimension of Warfare

By Bob Bergin

Major General John K. Singlaub was a young airborne lieutenant when he took up an offer from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to become engaged in “hazardous duty behind enemy lines.” Read more

In this bleak painting by American combat artist Mitchell Jamieson, members of a Naval Armed Guard contingent load and fire the forward deck gun aboard a merchant ship in pitching seas. (Naval Historical Center)

Pacific Theater

Hazardous Duty with the Naval Armed Guard

By Russell Corder

They have been called “the other Navy,” the “Navy’s stepchildren,” and perhaps most fittingly, “the forgotten Navy.” Officially, however, they were the Naval Armed Guard or more simply the Armed Guard (AG). Read more

During the action at Surigao Strait, U.S. Navy PT boats engage Japanese warships intent on reaching the invasion beaches on the Philippine island of Leyte. This painting is by American combat artist Dwight Shepler. (Naval Historical Art)

Pacific Theater

How the Battle of Surigao Strait Brought Revenge for Pearl Harbor

By David Alan Johnson

At 2:43 pm on October 24, 1944, one day before the Battle of Surigao Strait, Rear Admiral Jesse B. Read more

In this classic photograph, Brigadier General Orde Wingate is next to Brigadier Derek Tulloch at the far right. Majors Philip Cochran (back facing camera) and John Allison are on the left. Major Alison is holding a map with Brigadier Scott, who wrote an account of this informal gathering. Air Marshal Baldwin and Brigadier Michael Calvert stand between Scott and Wingate. (Imperial War Museum)

Pacific Theater

British General Orde Wingate’s Blurred Legacy

By Jon Diamond

British General Orde Wingate is one of the more enigmatic World War II commanders encountered in a number of biographical and military historical accounts. Read more

American Marines armed with a Browning .30-caliber water-cooled machine gun and other light weapons pose during efforts to evacuate former Japanese Army personnel after their surrender in China following World War II.

Pacific Theater

Caught in the Chinese Conflict

By Eric Niderost

On September 2, 1945, Japanese representatives boarded the battleship USS Missouri, riding at anchor in Tokyo Bay, to sign an instrument of unconditional surrender. Read more

U.S. Marines from the 3rd Marine Amphibious Corps consolidate their positions along the shoreline during the Second Battle of Guam, July 21 to August 10, 1944. Whenever there was an enemy-held island in the Pacific that needed to be taken it was usually the U.S. Marine Corps that was called upon to take it.

Pacific Theater

U.S. Marine’s Legacy of Valor

By Dick Camp (Colonel, USMC, Retired)

The war in the Pacific was a bloody, protracted struggle between the Empire of Japan and the United States and her allies. Read more

U.S. Navy Lieutenant Alex Vraciu holds up six fingers signifying the number of Japanese aircraft that fell to his guns during an eight-minute span on a single mission.

Pacific Theater

The Setting Sun

By David H. Lippmann

Once again, the Japanese regarded an upcoming naval engagement as the “decisive battle,” but it had been two years since her aircraft carriers and battleships had emerged from their Inland Sea lairs to menace the United States Navy. Read more

Pacific Theater

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