Pacific war

Pacific war. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 marked the beginning of one of the largest and most complex wars in American history. Called the Great East Asia War by the Japanese, the land campaigns sometimes approached those in the Italian and North African campaigns in size, while in the naval campaigns there were more sea battles and more warships sunk than in all other 20th-century naval wars combined. In size, the theatre of war was immense, stretching from the Aleutian Islands in the fog-bound north Pacific south to tropical Fiji and New Caledonia, from Java in the Netherlands East Indies to Hawaii and Midway in the central Pacific.

Since before the First World War, Japanese and American strategists had planned and debated the possible course of a Pacific conflict. For the Americans, the principal problem was the defence of the Philippines, thousands of kilometres from the USA but only 320 km. (200 mi.) from Japanese bases on Formosa. The Philippines were well fortified but the US fleet was based at Hawaii on the other side of the Pacific. American war plans, the ‘Orange Plans’, called for an early offensive ‘primarily naval in character’, to establish American control of the western Pacific and relieve the Philippines. By the mid-1930s dozens of war games and studies had convinced the planners that a second offensive across the Pacific would be slow and difficult, a matter of years rather than months. Island bases would have to be captured along the way. The army proposed to cross the Philippines off the list. In case of war with Japan, US forces should withdraw to more defensible bases in Alaska, Hawaii, and Panama. The navy refused to give up the idea of an offensive in the Pacific, although they tacitly agreed that the Philippines would almost certainly fall long before relief could arrive.

The Japanese were well aware of the basic course that the Americans were likely to follow and designed their own strategy accordingly. They planned to seize control of the Philippines and Guam at the outset of the war and then wait for an offensive by the US Navy. Their submarines and aircraft would harass and wear down the American fleet as it made its way across the Pacific and the decisive battle would take place close to Japanese bases in the Philippines, the Carolines, or the Marianas, after the fleet had been exhausted and depleted by its long, costly voyage.

The Japanese counted on the superior toughness and morale of their men and intensive training in night fighting to even the odds against the numerically superior American fleet. They had also developed new tactics and instruments of war, notably a new type of oxygen-driven, 24-inch torpedo with a maximum effective range of over 19 km. (12 mi.), and an excellent array of night vision devices.

In the final months of peace both sides made some important modifications to their war plans. In early 1941 the Americans had agreed with the British that if the USA entered the war, the main Allied effort would be concentrated against the defeat of Germany with offensives against Japan to follow victory in the European theatre. This made the successful defence of the Philippines and their early relief appear even more unlikely. However, in July 1941 General MacArthur, one of the USA's best-known and most distinguished soldiers, was recalled to active service to command the combined US and Philippine Commonwealth forces in the islands.

MacArthur argued that with the large army planned for the Philippines and with modern military equipment, especially the USAAF's new long-range bomber, the B17 Flying Fortress, the islands could, for the first time, be successfully defended against a large-scale invasion. Agreeing with MacArthur's reasoning, the war department earmarked some of its most modern weapons and planes for the Philippines. In fact only a small proportion of these had arrived by December 1941, and the Philippine Army was still largely untrained.

Meanwhile the Japanese were also making modifications in their planning. At the outbreak of war, to obtain the oil and other raw materials they needed, they planned to seize not only the Philippines but Burma, Malaya, Thailand, Borneo, the Netherlands East Indies, and various island bases in the south and central Pacific. Admiral Yamamoto, C-in-C of the combined fleet, argued that success in such a war would be possible only if the US fleet at Hawaii were destroyed or disabled. The traditional Japanese strategy of lying in wait for the American fleet in the western Pacific was unsatisfactory. The Americans might not come out to fight until they had reinforced their fleet with newly constructed warships, or conversely they might take advantage of the dispersion of the Japanese fleet in South-East Asia to strike quickly across the Pacific. Only an attack on the US base at Pearl Harbor would eliminate the threat.

At Yamamoto's insistence Imperial General Headquarters (see Japan, 5(a)) agreed to a raid on Pearl Harbor by all six of the navy's large carriers while the rest of the Japanese offensives went forward. The Japanese planned to seize and occupy a vast area from Burma and Thailand to the Gilbert Islands and Wake in the central Pacific. The Philippines, Malaya, British North Borneo, and Hong Kong were to be attacked in the first stage of war, followed by the Netherlands East Indies and Burma.

Japanese successes in the first months of the war exceeded even their most optimistic expectations. The attack on Pearl Harbor sank or seriously damaged 6 battleships and 8 other ships, and destroyed almost 200 planes with only light losses to the attackers. During the next few days, Japanese planes destroyed over half of MacArthur's air force on the ground at Clark Field near Manila and sank the British capital ships Prince of Wales and Repulse off Malaya. Hong Kong fell on Christmas Day and British Borneo was occupied a few days later. In the Malayan campaign the Japanese combined powerful frontal attacks with skilful flanking movements from the sea and through the jungle to push the British defenders down the peninsula. In the first of the two Philippines campaigns MacArthur's plan for a beachhead defence of the islands quickly collapsed and the American and Filipino forces fell back towards the Bataan peninsula on the north side of Manila Bay.

The Japanese, obsessed with capturing Manila and expecting the Americans to fight for the capital, allowed MacArthur's forces to execute a skilful withdrawal into Bataan, but without sufficient supplies and food and medicine. They quickly captured Manila and then began withdrawing some of their troops for the invasion of the Netherland East Indies. The remaining troops proved insufficient to overcome the American defences on Bataan. With the Americans too weakened by lack of food and medicine to counter-attack, each side settled into a two-month stand-off. Meanwhile the Japanese pushed British, Indian, and Australian forces in Malaya back to Singapore. After a week of air and artillery bombardment Japanese troops crossed the narrow strait of Johore which separates Singapore from the mainland and, on 15 February, the supposedly impregnable fortress, which had long been seen as the corner-stone of British defences in the Far East, surrendered.

At the time of the fall of Singapore Japanese forces were already closing in on the Netherlands East Indies. A hastily established Allied ABDA Command, set up to co-ordinate the defence of South-East Asia, proved incapable of halting the Japanese advance. Allied naval forces defending Java were destroyed in the battle of the Java Sea on 24 February, and the Netherlands East Indies surrendered on 8 March. Rangoon had fallen to Japanese troops in Burma the day before.

On 3 April, as their troops pursued the British north through Burma towards the border of India, the Japanese opened a new offensive on Bataan with air and artillery reinforcements fresh from Malaya and Hong Kong. By 8 April the American defences on the peninsula had collapsed. The island fortress of Corregidor in Manila Bay held out for another month before succumbing to Japanese attacks on 6 May. MacArthur had left the Philippines, at the order of Roosevelt, on 12 March vowing ‘I shall return.’

With the collapse of ABDA Command at the end of February the USA assumed almost complete direction of the war in the Pacific. The British tacitly acquiesced in this arrangement; and while the Australians and New Zealanders complained loudly from time to time about the American monopoly, there was very little they could do to change the state of affairs (but see Pacific War Council), despite the fact that during 1942 and 1943 they provided a substantial proportion of the forces arrayed against the Japanese in the south Pacific. Indeed, in August 1943, the Australian component of the land forces available in the Pacific (one armoured and nine infantry divisions) was larger than the American one, and in October 1943 their comparative strengths were: Australian land forces 492,000, US land forces 198,000. The Australian air strength was also greater in total but the Americans had more combat squadrons available (59) than had the Australians (43).

It is also interesting to note that, despite the priority given to defeating Germany and Italy, there were, at the end of 1942, more US forces committed to the Pacific theatre than to the European and Mediterranean ones. In the Pacific theatre, including Hawaii, there were eleven American divisions, while in the North African campaign there were only six (a seventh was stationed in the UK). The US Navy, too, had the preponderance of its strength in the Pacific. Only the USAAF had more forces committed to Europe and the Mediterranean (47 groups) than it had in the Pacific and South-East Asia (23 groups), but this imbalance was largely offset by the seaborne air power of the US Pacific Fleet.

The Americans divided the Pacific into two principal theatres. MacArthur, having made good his escape to Australia, assumed command of the South-West Pacific Area, comprising Australia, New Guinea, the Solomons, the Philippines, Borneo, the Bismarck archipelago, and much of the Netherlands East Indies. Most of these territories were, of course, under Japanese control. The rest of the Pacific was left to the navy whose vast domain, the Pacific Ocean Areas, sub-divided into three separate theatres, was entrusted to Admiral Nimitz, who also commanded the Pacific Fleet. MacArthur and Nimitz received their orders from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), but King, the chief of naval operations, had a ‘direct line’ to Nimitz, bypassing the other members of the JCS. This was because King also held the position of Commander in Chief, US Fleet (COMINCH) and thus could issue orders and advice to Nimitz as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, through the ‘operational’ channel. General Marshall, the army chief of staff, had no such direct line to MacArthur, who himself could not directly command the army, air forces, or fleets under him as Nimitz could command the Pacific Fleet.

The immediate concern of MacArthur and Nimitz was stopping new Japanese offensives in the south and central Pacific. In May 1942 a Japanese invasion force sailed from Rabaul to seize Port Moresby on the south coast of the Papuan peninsula of New Guinea (see also New Guinea campaign). The Americans, warned by Japanese messages which they had intercepted and decoded (see ULTRA, 2), had a carrier task force waiting in the Coral Sea. In the ensuing naval battle, fought entirely by carrier aircraft, the Americans sank the small Japanese aircraft carrier Shōhō while the Japanese sank the large carrier Lexington, a destroyer, and an oiler. However, the two large Japanese carriers Shōkaku and Zuikaku lost most of their planes and aircraft and the Shōkaku was badly damaged. The Port Moresby invasion force turned back and returned to Rabaul.

Without waiting for the Shōkaku and Zuikaku to make good their losses, Yamamoto began a much larger operation aimed at the American base at Midway, an island about 1,600 km. (1,000 mi.) west of Hawaii. The object was to draw out the inferior American fleet and destroy it in a decisive battle after dividing its strength by luring part of it northwards to counter a Japanese invasion which began the Aleutian Islands campaigns. But the Americans again learned of the Japanese plan through ULTRA intelligence and had their carriers waiting in ambush north-east of Midway, out of range of Japanese search planes.

On 4 June 1942 the Japanese launched a large air strike at Midway and discovered the US carriers only after they were recovering their strike planes and fighting off attacks by bombers from Midway. As the Japanese completed hurried preparations for attacks against the fleet, planes from the US carriers struck. The Japanese lost three of their four large carriers and the fourth later in the day. Japanese planes managed only a single air strike against the Americans which damaged the carrier Yorktown which was later sunk by a submarine. The shattering loss of four big carriers in an afternoon ended Japanese hopes for further offensives in the central Pacific.

After the Japanese defeat at Midway, the JCS approved a limited offensive in the South Pacific by MacArthur and Nimitz's forces aimed at the Japanese base at Rabaul. The first phase of the offensive was to be the seizure of the islands of Tulagi and then Guadalcanal in the southern Solomon Islands, where the Japanese had recently established a base. At the same time, Mac Arthur's Australian and US forces were to begin an advance along the north-east coast of New Guinea. But the Japanese forestalled MacArthur by landing almost 16,000 men on the north-east coast of Papua near Buna and these advanced rapidly south along the Kokoda trail and across the supposedly impassable Owen Stanley mountains towards Port Moresby, the prize the Coral Sea battle had denied them. Desperate fighting by the Australians finally halted the Japanese on the southern slopes of the Owen Stanleys within sight of Port Moresby.

Meanwhile, on 7 August, the US attack on Guadalcanal had gone forward with little resistance by the unsuspecting Japanese. American marines assumed control of Tulagi and the unfinished airfield on Guadalcanal, which they named Henderson Field after an aviator lost at the battle of Midway.

The Japanese response was not long in coming. Two days after the invasion Admiral Mikawa Gunichi, with a squadron of cruisers from Rabaul, surprised the Allied cruisers and destroyers guarding the landing force in a night attack and the battle of Savo Island sank four cruisers and badly damaged a fifth without serious loss.

The battle for Guadalcanal soon developed into a six-month slogging match between the Japanese, determined to retake the island, and the Americans, determined to hold it. US possession of the airfield on Guadalcanal gave them a long-term advantage that the Japanese were never able to overcome. In general, they controlled the waters and skies near Guadalcanal in the daytime, while the Japanese ran in supplies and reinforcements at night (see Tokyo Express). There were a total of seven naval battles in which Japanese superiority in night fighting stood them in good stead. However, US aircraft and submarines tended to even the odds. The Japanese long underestimated the number of Allied troops ashore on the islands and fed in forces piecemeal to deliver uncoordinated attacks on the airfield after exhausting marches through the jungle.

In mid-November the Japanese put together a major effort to capture the island. Battleships and cruisers of the Combined Fleet would bombard Henderson Field while a reinforced division would be brought down to Guadalcanal aboard a fast convoy. But on the night of 12/13 November an American cruiser-destroyer force under Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callahan intercepted the Japanese battleships and turned them back in a desperate night action—known as the battle of Guadalcanal—which cost the US Navy three destroyers sunk and four other ships badly damaged.

The following morning planes from Henderson Field found the Japanese battleship Hiei limping away from the battle and sent her to the bottom as well as attacking the transports of the Japanese reinforcement convoy. A second Japanese attempt to bombard Henderson Field the next night was met by two new US battleships, Washington and South Dakota, and again turned back. The South Dakota was damaged and three US destroyers sunk, but the Japanese lost their remaining available battleship and the invasion convoy was decimated by air attacks the following morning.

These actions of mid-November decided the fate of Guadalcanal, although fierce fighting continued for several weeks. In the New Guinea campaign the Japanese effort had been weakened by the need to send reinforcements to Guadalcanal and Australian forces gradually pushed the enemy back to their beachheads near Gona, Buna, and Sanananda Point on the north coast. Fighting in some of the worst conditions of the war, Allied troops took almost four months to capture the last of these positions in late January 1943.

As American commanders realigned and refitted their forces, and integrated new units and equipment, the Japanese attempted to shore up their defences and plan pre-emptive strikes against the steadily growing Allied forces on their perimeter. No overall plan for the defeat of Japan had yet been agreed upon or even formulated, nor had the American and British High Command agreed about the nature of the Allied effort to be made against Japan before the defeat of Germany.

In January 1943, at the Casablanca conference (see SYMBOL), the Americans proposed that the Combined Chiefs of Staff agree, in principle, to allocate 30% of Allied resources to the war against Japan. The British refused to commit themselves to any specific formula but did agree that the Americans could go ahead with further offensive moves against Japan designed to retain the initiative. Back in Washington, army and navy strategists held the Pacific Military conference to discuss the implications of the Casablanca decisions and ponder their next move. All three pacific commanders, MacArthur, Nimitz, and Admiral William F. Halsey, who exercised a quasi-independent command in the South-West Pacific under MacArthur's general direction (see South Pacific Area), agreed that they lacked sufficient forces to complete the conquest of Rabaul in 1943. They especially wanted more long-range bombers which could reach Rabaul. But the USAAF, eager to begin the combined bomber offensive against Japan, also agreed on at Casablanca, was reluctant to make bombers available for the south Pacific.

In the end, the Pacific commanders did get some additional aircraft and troops, but not enough to meet their requirements for an attack on Rabaul. The JCS, accordingly, modified their objectives to include only an advance up the Solomons (see Map 83) as far as Bougainville and a parallel advance by MacArthur's forces along the north coast of New Guinea with both approaches converging on Rabaul.

Meanwhile JCS planners had drafted a broad blueprint for an overall strategy for the war against Japan. The plan called for the continuation of MacArthur's and Halsey's advances through the Solomons and along the New Guinea coast towards the Philippines. At the same time, it called for the opening of a new advance across the central Pacific, a region of thousands of tiny islands extending from the Gilberts near the equator north and west through the Marshalls, the Carolines, and the Marianas. This was a route favoured in the pre-war American Orange Plan for war with Japan. It was also the shortest route and one where the growing might of American naval and amphibious forces could be brought to bear most effectively.

At the Quebec conference held in August 1943 (see QUADRANT), the JCS presented to their British colleagues a timetable for their planned two-pronged advance in the Pacific. These drives were to be synchronized with a long-desired but still delayed British advance into Burma. Rabaul was crossed off the list of invasion targets; its neutralization by air was to be completed by May 1944, followed by MacArthur's westward advance towards the Vogelkop peninsula of New Guinea. Meanwhile Nimitz would follow his Gilberts assault with attacks on the Marshalls, Carolines, and the Palaus, all this to be completed by the end of 1944. The JCS failed to specify whether MacArthur's or Nimitz's campaign would receive priority, simply declaring that ‘due weight would be given to the fact that operations in the central Pacific promise more rapid advance.’

The long-planned American offensives in the Pacific finally got under way in June 1943 as MacArthur and Halsey's forces moved north and west against Japanese bases in the Solomons and on the New Guinea coast. In all, MacArthur and Halsey planned to carry out thirteen separate and sometimes simultaneous operations to isolate and surround Rabaul.

The capture of New Georgia, Halsey's first objective in the central Solomons, took over a month of hard fighting. Rather than begin a second slogging match Halsey decided to bypass his next objective, Kolombangara, and seize Vella Lavella, a little further up the Solomons' ladder, which was lightly defended but within range of Japanese airfields.

Halsey's gamble paid off handsomely. On 15 August, acting with speed and in great secrecy, he put 4,600 troops ashore on Vella Lavella within twelve hours. The large Japanese garrison at Kolombangara was now bypassed and incapable of stemming the American advance. In the months to come both MacArthur and Halsey would employ this island hopping technique to bypass and isolate strong Japanese garrisons and assault weaker ones. The technique, which depended on American control of the air and sea, was to be employed with even more daring over greater distances as the Pacific war progressed.

By December 1943 MacArthur and Halsey's forces had landed on Bougainville and had seized Cape Gloucester at the extreme western end of New Britain. From these bases and from New Georgia and Vella Lavella Allied planes began a systematic air campaign to knock Rabaul out of the war. By the end of January 1944 its spacious harbour was almost untenable by Japanese ships and by late February all serviceable aircraft had been withdrawn. The strongest Japanese base in the South Pacific had been effectively neutralized and its 100,000-man garrison left to wither on the vine.

The long-contemplated central Pacific drive did not begin until November 1943 and got off to a shaky start with an attack on Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands. For the assault, Admiral Nimitz had assembled a formidable force in the form of the Fifth Fleet under Vice-Admiral Spruance, the victor of the battle of Midway. His forces included battleships, cruisers, and almost a dozen new aircraft carriers. With 50 to 100 aircraft each and a formidable array of anti-aircraft guns firing proximity fuze shells, the carriers had already demonstrated their power in raids against Rabaul in early November.

US planes soon neutralized Japanese air bases near Tarawa and Spruance's battleships and cruisers moved in to pump 3,000 tons of shells into Tarawa in about two and a half hours pausing only briefly for air strikes by Allied planes. Yet Japanese defences, pillboxes of coconut logs and concrete and steel, proved able to withstand much of the bombing and shelling. If marines assaulting Tarawa suffered heavy casualties from the still-active Japanese gunners on the island, casualties greatly increased when their landing craft grounded on a fringing coral reef forcing the troops to wade ashore in the face of heavy fire.

After three days the atoll was secured but the heavy casualties, 3,000 dead and wounded to capture less than 8 sq. km. (3 sq. mi.) of ground, shocked the US public. Spruance and his commanders conducted a thorough critique of the operation which yielded valuable lessons and improved techniques for future amphibious warfare operations.

The lessons learned paid off well in the second phase of the central Pacific campaign, the assault on the Marshalls. At the beginning of February 1944, after carrier planes and bombers from Tarawa had crippled Japanese air power in the islands, Spruance's forces struck directly into the heart of the Marshalls seizing Majuro, Kwajalein, and Roi-Namur atolls. These bases fell so swiftly that the US troops were able to attack Eniwetok atoll at the extreme north-west end of the island chain six weeks ahead of schedule. In the process, Spruance's carrier forces attacked and crippled the principal Japanese central Pacific base at Truk in the Carolines.

The swift and relatively easy capture of the Marshalls enabled the USA to change the entire Pacific timetable and the assault on the Marianas was set for June 1944, instead of September. MacArthur, fearful of being relegated to a back seat in the Pacific drive, also speeded up his advance. In a daring gamble he seized the Admiralty Islands two months ahead of schedule, thus completing the encirclement of Rabaul and forcing the Japanese to yield more of the north coast of New Guinea. Then, in April 1944, in their most brilliant campaign of the war, MacArthur's forces ‘leaped’ 930 km. (580 mi.) to seize the Japanese base at Hollandia on the north coast of Dutch New Guinea, bypassing 40,000 Japanese troops and turning back a fierce Japanese counter-attack along the Driniumor river two months later. Meanwhile, other elements of MacArthur's forces pushed up to capture the Vogelkop peninsula at the extreme western end of New Guinea and the nearby island of Biak which the Allies quickly converted into a major air base.

As MacArthur's forces completed their conquest of New Guinea and Spruance prepared to seize the Marianas, the Japanese were suffering even more deadly blows from the cumulative effects of the US submarine campaign. At first dogged by faulty torpedoes and ineffective tactics, US submarines, by late 1943, were taking a heavy toll of Japanese shipping, aided by US signals intelligence (see ULTRA, 2) which directed them to lucrative targets. During 1944 Japan had lost more than 600 ships totalling over 2.7 million tons. It had begun the war with a merchant marine too small to sustain a widespread commitment, and its shipping was steadily whittled away by the conversion of many cargo vessels to wartime use. The limited capacity of Japanese shipyards and the Imperial Japanese Navy's neglect of anti-submarine warfare added to this predicament. As the Allies penetrated further into the empire, merchant ships also came under increasingly frequent air attack. By mid-1944, fuel shortages due to loss of tankers were so great that ships of the Combined Fleet had to be based close to oil wells and refineries.

The American attack on the Marianas in June 1944 struck at the inner ring of Japanese defences. From the islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, the new American super-bomber, the B29, could reach the Japanese home islands. The Combined Fleet, reorganized as a striking force of nine carriers, sallied forth to challenge the invaders. In the ensuing battle, called the battle of the Philippine Sea, the Japanese succeeded in finding Spruance's carriers first and launching four waves of air attacks while the Americans, who had hung back to protect their landings on Saipan, did not find the Japanese until late the following day. Yet the battle was a disaster for the Japanese whose inexperienced and outnumbered pilots were no match for the American fighters and the blizzard of anti-aircraft fire from the ships screening the US carriers.

Spruance's carriers finally located the Japanese fleet late on the afternoon of 20 June and launched 200 planes at extreme range against the retiring Japanese. They found the Japanese carriers just before dark and sank the Hiyo and damaged three others. The large carriers Shokaku and Taiho had already been sunk by submarines earlier in the battle. US forces secured Saipan on 9 July and Tinian and Guam by the end of the month. In September Nimitz's forces also seized Peleliu in the Palau Islands after one of the toughest island battles of the war.

The loss of the Marianas brought the fall of the Tōjō government and Japanese plans for a final all-out defence of the Ryūkyūs, the Kuriles, or the Philippines, with the last-named considered most likely to be the next target. The JCS, however, did not reach their final decision until October. Admiral King argued that Luzon could be bypassed, and American forces operating from bases in the Marianas could strike directly at Formosa or even the main islands of Japan, but MacArthur, was outraged at the thought of leaving any part of the Philippines under Japanese occupation.

Three developments finally settled the argument. Admiral Halsey, now in command of the Task Carrier Forces, raided the southern Philippines during September 1944, and found them to be only lightly defended. Acting on Halsey's report, Admiral Nimitz suggested to the JCS that the previously planned slow and deliberate approach to the Philippines be modified and that US forces strike directly at the island of Leyte. MacArthur quickly agreed, as did the JCS, who set the new date for the Leyte invasion at 20 October 1944.

From that point on events conspired to make a decision in favour of Luzon rather than Formosa all but inevitable. First, MacArthur informed the JCS that the new invasion date for Leyte would enable him to invade Luzon two months ahead of schedule, on 20 December 1944. Formosa could not possibly be attacked so soon. Then Washington planners discovered that the manpower needs for a campaign against Formosa far exceeded the number of troops actually available in the Pacific. By this point, also, Nimitz was urging King to consider an alternative plan: to neutralize Formosa by air attacks, then use the central Pacific forces to seize Iwo Jima and Okinawa which would provide far better airfields than Formosa for a final assault on Japan.

Finally, on 3 October, King gave in. The JCS directed MacArthur to invade Luzon on 3 December. Nimitz's forces, after providing naval support to the Philippine invasion, would invade Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Three weeks after that decision MacArthur and Halsey's forces converged on Leyte. At 1300 on 21 October, with fighting still raging near the Leyte beachhead, MacArthur and the Philippine president, Sergio Osmena, waded ashore. As cameramen filmed the dramatic scene, MacArthur proclaimed, ‘People of the Philippines, I have returned.’

While Allied troops fought to extend their beachhead, the largest naval battle in history raged in Leyte Gulf. The Japanese plan was to use their surviving carriers, now largely denuded of planes, to decoy the main US fleet away from the beaches, allowing two powerful battleship striking forces to converge on the landing forces. The plan came near to succeeding, though at great cost.

While MacArthur's forces began their campaign to retake the Philippines, American forces elsewhere—on Bougainville and New Britain, and in the New Guinea campaign—were gradually replaced by Australian troops to release US troops for the Philippines campaign; and in April 1945 the Australians, with US amphibious help, also started their own offensive to recapture the Netherlands East Indies (see Balikpapan and Tarakan).

The Americans needed over two months to secure Leyte in the face of determined counter-attacks by Japanese forces reinforced by troops from Luzon, Formosa, and Japan. It was not until early January 1945 that MacArthur's forces landed at Lingayen Gulf on Luzon in the face of fierce attacks by kamikaze aircraft, to begin the largest ground campaign of the Pacific war. Advancing rapidly, elements of the 1st Cavalry Division entered Manila on 3 February, but the Japanese waged a stubborn defence for almost a month which left the city in ruins. Meanwhile other US forces secured Bataan and Corregidor, and the Eighth Army, under General Eichelberger, rapidly cleared the Japanese from Palawan, Zamboanga, Panay, Mindanao, and Cebu. By mid-March the Americans had advanced into northern Luzon where grinding battles against the last Japanese defenders continued to the end of the war.

Meanwhile, Nimitz's forces had seized Iwo Jima in another costly island battle, and landed on Okinawa in the Ryūkyūs, the final stepping-stone to Japan itself. The Japanese defence of Okinawa was stubborn and protracted, the most skilful of the Pacific war. Offshore, kamikazes took a heavy toll of the invasion fleet which included the newly formed British Pacific Fleet (see Task Force 57). In Hawaii, Washington, and Manila, American military planners studied the Okinawa campaign and viewed the impending invasion of Japan with apprehension, but both sides were spared this ultimate ordeal when Japan surrendered on 15 August, following the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs and the entry of the USSR into the war (see Japanese–Soviet campaigns).

Ronald Spector

Bibliography

Maclntyre, D. , The Battle of the Pacific (London, 1966).
Spector, R. , Eagle Against the Sun: the American War with Japan (New York, 1985).