WW2Pacific Theatre

1942 - 1943

Review

• Japan was isolated from the West for most of the last thousand years.

• After Perry’s visit in 1853, Japan embarked on imperialistic expansion and by 1905 was a world class power having defeated both China and Russia.

• During that period, Japan modeled its army after the Germans and its navy after the British, but much of its civil and economic structure came from the US

• Japan’s stated Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was designed to drive out Western imperialism and replace it with Japanese imperialism

Review• Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and took possession of

Germany’s Pacific colonies as part of the Treaty of Versailles

• The Washington Naval Conference of 1922 limited the Japanese Navy to 60% of that of Great Britain or the US

• In 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria and during the next several years fought numerous skirmishes with China

• The 2nd Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1938. By 1940 Japan had conquered much of the Chinese coast.

• The Fall of France (1940) provided Japan with an opportunity to invade and occupy French Indo China

• That same year Japan formally aligned itself with Germany and Italy (Tripartite Pact )

Review

• In 1941, Japan signed a neutrality pact with Russia protecting herself from a possible two front war

• The Us/Japanese relationship began deteriorating after the Treaty of Portsmouth. Significant misunderstandings between the two nations contributed to the tensions.

• The US applied every increasing economic pressure on Japan in the late 1930s and early 1940s in an attempt to force Japan “to behave”. By mid 1941, Japan had decided that war with the US was inevitable

Japanese Expansion 1853 - 1941

1940

Japanese Mindset• Faith in their own master of divine “leading race” exceeded

Hitler’s belief in Aryan superiority• Truly believed themselves to be superior• Thought Americans would surrender quickly because they

were weak and decadent• Thought America was a nation of frightened housewives,

labor agitators and greedy plutocrats• Thought Americans were selfish and mongrelized• Thought Americans lacked the stamina required for long

stretches of submarine duty; so Japan neglected anti-submarine warfare

• Thought that Americans were not smart enough to break Japanese codes, so the Japanese were lax about changing them

US Mindset

• Japs are near-sighted, buck-toothed, yellow skinned, little monkeys who make inferior goods, eat fish and bow obsequiously.

Comparison: New York to LA = 2,450 miles

Pacific Scope

• New York to LA = 2,450 miles

• London to Berlin = 580 miles

• Berlin to Moscow = 1,000 miles

• Entire European War fought inside an area ~1600 miles wide by ~1200 miles tall

• Pacific War fought over a scope 3x as wide and 3x as tall