Pacific Theater
Bridge House Hotel: Crimes of the Kempeitai in Shanghai
By Eric NiderostBy the 1930s, Shanghai was already a legend in its own time––the most modern, populous, and decadent city in China. 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
The Kempeitai: Japan’s Dreaded “Gestapo”
By Eric NiderostIn Western countries, “military police” are associated in the public mind with keeping order among off-duty personnel, such as arresting drunken servicemen. Read more
Pacific Theater
U.S. Army Heritage Museum
By Mason B. WebbIn the heart of Pennsylvania, not far from the Civil War battlefields of Gettysburg, stands the U.S. Read more
Pacific Theater
Heroic Fight for Wake Island
By Joshua Donohue“All hands have behaved splendidly and held up in a manner in which the Marine Corps may well tell.” Read more
Pacific Theater
The U.S. 3rd, 5th, and 4th Marine Divisions: Uncommon Valor at Iwo Jima
By Nathan N. Prefer“You know,” said Marine Maj. Gen. Clifton B. Cates to a war correspondent on the eve of Operation Detachment, the invasion of Iwo Jima, “if I knew the name of the man on the extreme right of the right-hand squad of the right-hand company of the right-hand battalion, I’d recommend him for a medal before we go in.” Read more
Pacific Theater
Battle of Tarawa: Don Crain and the First Marine LVT Assault
By Durk SteedHe wore the clothes of one of Tarawa’s most well-known and decorated heroes, but his name will not be found in any history book. Read more
Pacific Theater
Japanese Internment: Behind the Barbed Wire in America
By Richard Higgins“We were stunned when we entered the camp,” Yoshio “Yosh” Nakamura said, remembering the day when he and his family, from El Monte, California, were herded through the main gate at the Gila River Relocation Center—a Japanese American internment camp 30 miles southeast of Phoenix, Arizona—carrying only suitcases into which their worldly possessions had been crammed. Read more
Pacific Theater
Four Marines on the “Green Hell” of Guadalcanal
By Adam Makos & Marcus BrothertonOn August 6, 1942, the men of Maj. Gen. Alexander Vandegrift’s U.S. 1st Marine Division watched from the railings as their troopship, the USS George F. Read more
Pacific Theater
Marines in the Air: The Story of Joe’s Jokers
By Allyn Vannoy“As a returning flight of Marine SBDs, dive bombers, were setting down on the airstrip, one of the planes lost a bomb which had failed to release during the mission. Read more
Pacific Theater
Two Typhoons Crippled Bull Halsey’s Task Force 38
By Michael D. HullAfter two grueling months of action in the Pacific, Vice Admiral John S. “Slew” McCain’s powerful Task Force 38 retired in late November 1944 to the big Caroline Islands base of Ulithi Atoll for a 10-day breather. Read more
Pacific Theater
To Die with Honor
By Patrick J. ChaissonUnder a midnight moon, hundreds of soldiers crept forward into position along the riverbank. Fields of tall reeds helped conceal them from observation but could not muffle the sounds of weary men slipping in the mud. Read more
Pacific Theater
Desmond Doss
By Mike HaskewOn April 1, 1945, the American X Army landed at Okinawa, just 340 miles from the home islands of Japan. Read more
Pacific Theater
The First Victory
By David H. LippmanBoth sides needed reinforcements.For the Japanese and the Americans in October 1942, the battle for Guadalcanal was turning into a bottomless pit, demanding more and more scarce resources—in the air and at sea and, most importantly, on the ground. Read more
Pacific Theater
Saipan’s Maritime Heritage Trail
By Jennifer F. McKinnon & Della A. Scott-BretonSaipan’s shallow, tropical lagoons are a veritable waterpark for World War II enthusiasts who do not mind getting wet. Read more
Pacific Theater
A Good Samaritan
By Jon DiamondThe iconic photograph the Blinded Soldier, New Guinea taken on Christmas Day 1942, reveals a wounded and barefoot Australian soldier, Private George “Dick” Whittington of the 2/10th Battalion, being led down a path through a surrounding field of tall kunai grass to an Allied field hospital at Dobodura in Papua, the eastern third of the world’s second largest island, New Guinea. Read more
Pacific Theater
A Soldier Remembers the Pearl Harbor Attack
By John Sanford BairdAt about 8 am on the morning of December 7, 1941, I stood on the third-floor deck of a red brick barracks that looked across the Schofield Barracks golf course toward the infantry barracks that housed much of the U.S. Read more
Pacific Theater
Incident on the Yangtze
By Michael D. HullWhile America and Europe struggled through economic depression and nervously watched the spread of fascism in the second half of the 1930s, the situation was far more ominous in the Far East. Read more
Pacific Theater
Sen Toku: Japan’s Underwater Aircraft Carriers
By Steven D. LutzAs soon as Colonel James Doolittle’s B-25 raid struck Japan in April 1942, Japan sought to wreak revenge on the United States, but by 1944 devastating aerial bombings on Japan by the Americans had become all too regular. Read more
Pacific Theater
Tragic Surrender
By Mark SimmonsOn Saturday, December 6, 1941, a Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed Hudson bomber on a reconnaissance mission from Khota Bahru on the west coast of Malaya was flying northwest over the China Sea toward the Gulf of Thailand. Read more
Pacific Theater
Bloody Brawl on Guadalcanal
By Mike PhiferThe column of sweaty, exhausted Japanese soldiers trudged single file through the thick, dark jungle. For days they had been pushing inland from the western end of Guadalcanal. Read more
