Pacific Theater
Daring Doolittle Raid Survivors
By Joseph ConnaughtonThe first good news in the war for the United States had been the Doolittle Raid on April 18. Read more
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.
Pacific Theater
Boyd Wagner: Early American Ace
By Sam McGowanCommon wisdom has long held that Japanese pilots and aircraft, particularly their fighters, were superior to the American, Australian, and British counterparts they faced in combat in the Philippines and Southeast Asia in the opening months of U.S. Read more
Pacific Theater
Island-Hopping at Tarawa
By John WalkerRear Admiral Keiji Shibasaki, commander of the elite Japanese garrison entrenched on tiny Betio Island in the central Pacific Ocean, boasted in mid-1943 that his heavily fortified island redoubt could hold out “against a million Americans for a thousand years.” Read more
Pacific Theater
General Douglas MacArthur’s Navy
by Glenn BarnettIn November 1941, the U.S. Asiatic Fleet weighed anchor in Shanghai, China, for the last time. Alarmed by the growing hostility and aggressiveness of the Japanese, Admiral Thomas Hart ordered the outnumbered and outgunned American vessels moved to the relative safety of Manila Bay in the Philippines. Read more
Pacific Theater
FDR’s Dilemma: Did Politics Trump Strategy?
By Robert A. RosenthalIt was late November 1943, almost two years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II. Read more
Pacific Theater
Fateful Decision: The Dropping of the Atomic Bomb
By Flint WhitlockOn August 7, 1945, the day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, President Harry S. Truman announced, “The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. Read more
Pacific Theater
Newly Identified Remains from the USS Oklahoma Makes News in Hawaii
By Michael HaskewOn the morning of December 7, 1941, the battleship USS Oklahoma was moored along Battleship Row at Pearl Harbor, outboard of the battleship USS Maryland. Read more
Pacific Theater
Hell’s Own Cesspool: Okinawa in WWII
By John WalkerOn 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
Pacific Theater
Ernie Pyle: Fated at Ie Shima
by Roy Morris Jr.Ernie Pyle did not want to go to Okinawa. He was too old, too tired, and—some said—too jaded for yet another American invasion of ferocious enemy territory. Read more
Pacific Theater
The Marine Corps’ Ka-Bar Fighting Knife
by Mike HaskewWhen Private Clarence Garrett of the 28th Regiment, 5th Division, United States Marine Corps, clung to the loose black volcanic sand on the sloping beach of Iwo Jima on Feburary 19, 1945, he probably had no idea that his photograph was being taken. Read more
Pacific Theater
The Tokyo War Crimes Trials
by Roy Morris Jr.When the Tokyo War Crimes Trials opened in the former hilltop headquarters of the Japanese military at Ichigaya on May 3, 1946, American-born chief prosecutor Joseph Keenan faced a difficult task. Read more
Pacific Theater
Fire Control at the Battle of Surigao Strait
by David Alan JohnsonOne of the main reasons for the success of the battleships West Virginia, Tennessee, and California at Surigao Strait was their Mk 8 fire control radar, which was used in conjunction with the Mk 8 rangekeeper computer. Read more
Pacific Theater
World War 2 Casualties & Caring for the Wounded
By Jon DiamondThe U.S. military employed an organized system for the treatment of soldiers severely wounded while fighting in the Pacific, including their evacuation stateside if needed. Read more
Pacific Theater
Sugar Loaf Hill Survival: U.S. Marines in the Okinawa Campaign
By John WukovitsThe grimy, weary Marines heard with little emotion the instructions shouted by their officer. He wanted them to mount yet another charge to the top of the nondescript hill blocking their way, another collection of rock housing an enemy that tried to halt their advance. Read more
Pacific Theater
Clash in the Sibuyan: David McCampbell
by John WukovitsThe most decorated naval aviator of the war, David McCampbell entered the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea with the reputation as an ace. Read more
