Japanese

A Gamble for Peace: Ellis Zacharias & the South Pacific

By Todd Raffensperger

“I submit that it was the wrong decision. It was wrong on strategic grounds. And it was wrong on humanitarian grounds.” Read more

Japanese

Unnecessary Hell: The Battle of Peleliu

By Eric Niderost

In the predawn hours of September 15, 1944, the official start of the two-month Battle of Peleliu, a powerful fleet of U.S. Read more

Japanese

Top Flying Tiger: General Claire Chennault

By Michael D. Hull

Laden with 500-pound bombs and incendiaries, 10 Japanese twin-engine Mitsubishi Ki21 Sally bombers took off from the Hanoi airfield in Indochina on the morning of Saturday, December 20, 1941. Read more

Japanese

The Long Lance Torpedo at Guadalcanal

by David Alan Johnson

The bogey man of the U.S. Navy during the Guadalcanal campaign was not the Zero fighter or the I-class submarine. Read more

Japanese

The Battle of Peleliu: Was it necessary?

by Eric Niderost

If Peleliu was one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Pacific Theater, it was also one of the least known until recently. Read more

Japanese

Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki: Underwater Peril at Pearl Harbor

By John Perry

During the early hours of December 7, 1941, five midget submarinesof the Imperial Japanese Navy waited to enter Pearl Harbor, the anchorage of the U.S. Read more

Japanese

The USS Panay: First Step on the Road to War

By Eric Niderost

Around 10 o’clock on the morning of December 13, 1937, New York Times correspondent Hallett Abend received an unexpected visitor: Rear Admiral Tadao Honda of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Read more

Japanese

World’s First Smart Weapon: the ‘Bat’

By Alan Alpers

On May 27, 1945, U.S. Naval Reserve Lieutenant Leo Kennedy was patrolling from his station at Yonton Field in Okinawa. Read more

Japanese

USS Rasher: The Legendary Undersea Warrior

By Kelly Bell

At 12:30 am, October 9, 1943, Commander Edward S. Hutchinson spotted his first targets as a submarine commander. Read more

Japanese

Hollywood’s Dream Factory During World War II

By Herb Kugel

World War II came to the Hollywood motion picture studios, the “Dream Factories” as they were sometimes called, the day after Pearl Harbor. Read more

Japanese

Rescue at Ladd Reef

By Paul Farace

As the submarine USS Cod left Apra harbor, Guam, on the afternoon of June 26, 1945, for her seventh war patrol, her crew of 97 officers and enlisted men were all but certain that their new assignment was to be junk hunting—a thankless and dangerous job that in the words of one Cod crewman saw “Uncle Sam risk a seven million dollar submarine and crew to sink a leaky sailboat not worth more than $20,000!” Read more

Japanese

USS Astoria Sunk: The Disaster Off Savo Island

By John Domagalski

Admiral Ernest King could not believe what he was reading. The graying 63-year-old chief of U.S. naval operations had been awoken from his sleep. Read more

Japanese

The Shinano Carrier: How Allied Forces Sunk Such a Secret

By Kelly Bell

The first torpedo struck the Shinano carrier farthest aft. Over the next 30 seconds three more warheads detonated against the massive aircraft carrier’s hull, working their way forward. Read more

Japanese

The Battle of Cape Esperance: A Sorely Needed Naval Victory

By David Alan Johnson

“One large, two small vessels, one six miles from Savo off northern beach, Guadalcanal. Will investigate closer.” Read more

Japanese

Japan’s “Diving Shells” in the Battle of Cape Esperance

By David Alan Johnson

The eight-inch shell that penetrated the cruiser’s hull and threatened to blow up her forward magazines was a Type 91 armor-piercing shell, which had been designed to continue through the water when it fell short of its target and penetrate the ship’s hull below the waterline. Read more