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
No foreign army in the 5,000-year history of Japan had ever successfully conquered Japanese territory. In late 1944, American war planners were about to challenge that statistic on the tiny Pacific island of Iwo Jima. Read more
Pacific Theater
The concept of a ship that could submerge beneath the water and then resurface dates back as far as the late 1400s, when Italian Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci claimed to have found a method for a ship to remain submerged for a protracted period of time. Read more
Pacific Theater
Despite more than a decade of triumphs in Asia and the Pacific, by the spring of 1942 the Japanese military establishment was in a somber mood. Read more
Pacific Theater
The first recorded encounter between American forces and Koreans in the Central Pacific during World War II came at Tarawa Atoll in November 1943. Read more
Pacific Theater
Today, Bukit Timah, meaning “Tin Hill” in Malay, is a residential and business neighborhood in the center of the island of Singapore approximately seven and one-half miles northwest of Singapore City. Read more
Pacific Theater
By Colonel Dick Camp (USMC, Ret.)
In the summer of 1944, the 5th Amphibious Corps under Marine Lt. Gen. Holland M. Read more
Pacific Theater
The American military presence in China, which stretched back to the 1850s, came to an abrupt end in November 1941. Read more
Pacific Theater
It was the largest warship ever built up to that time. It carried larger guns than any warship before it. Read more
Pacific Theater
By 1944, the Japanese still had no long-range bombers to match the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. And a great many of Dai Nippon’s warplanes and aircraft carriers were lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Read more
Pacific Theater
The curious coincidence was obvious to everyone. April 1, 1945, was both Easter Sunday and April Fool’s Day. Read more
Pacific Theater
The nation of Japan was hopeless before the invading force. They were outnumbered, and the enemy was about to land on the shores of the Imperial Home Islands. Read more
Pacific Theater
On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The next day, the United States declared war on the Empire of Japan, and the following day President Franklin D. Read more
Pacific Theater
In the minds of many military enthusiasts, there was only one bomber in the United States inventory during World War II. Read more
Pacific Theater
After six years of global destruction, suffering, and death, World War II was almost over in the Spring of 1945. Read more
Pacific Theater
The campaign to reduce the importance of the major Japanese base at Rabaul on the island of New Britain—begun more than a year earlier at Guadalcanal and Buna, New Guinea—was finally in its last stages by November 1943, as U.S. Read more
Pacific Theater
On the night of November 11, 1940, an event occurred that would change naval warfare for all time. Read more
Pacific Theater
Ungainly, slow, and lacking armor, the escort carriers of the American and British navies were the versatile, unsung workhorses of the second half of World War II. Read more
Pacific Theater
The Japanese attacked the Australians near the remote village of Kokoda in New Guinea in the middle of the night on July 29, 1942. Read more
Pacific Theater
By James M. Scott
On the early evening of March 11, 1942, General Douglas MacArthur, his wife Jean, and the couple’s four-year-old son Arthur walked out onto Corregidor’s north dock in preparation to escape the battered Philippine island. Read more
Pacific Theater
Thirty-five Boeing B-17C Flying Fortress bombers of the 7th Bomb Group happened to be on their way to Asia the morning the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Read more
