World War II Pacific Theatre

is is the first study to show how the Royal Navy’s ideas about the meaning and application of seapower shaped its policies in the interwar period. Drawing on a wide range of unpublished sources, the author challenges the accepted view that the intellectual shortcomings of Britain’s naval leaders resulted in poor strategic planning and an inability to meet the challenges of the Second World War.

This book provides the first comprehensive survey of the navy’s strategies for dealing with possible wars with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and even the United States. It argues that the “Singapore Strategy” has been widely misunderstood, that there was in fact more than one strategy developed for war with Japan, that the navy’s war plans placed greater emphasis on maritime economic pressure than decisive sea battles, and that the influence of Alfred Thayer Mahan on the interwar navy has been greatly exaggerated.

The author also reveals how the “One Power Standard” did not fundamentally affect the outcome of the navy’s ongoing struggle with the Treasury for funds, how the service’s interest in “showing the flag” abroad was linked to its concerns over the health of the naval armaments industry at home, and how the navy reluctantly employed propaganda between the wars to revive its popularity with the British public.

The book argues that naval leaders possessed a more sophisticated and flexible understanding of the strengths and limitations of sea power than previous studies have recognized, and that Britain’s strategic position during the 1930s would have been stronger if their advice had been followed. The author concludes that the navy’s efforts to shape British grand strategy were largely unsuccessful, however, because civilian decision-makers often had different views about the role of sea power in the modern world.

Visual and cultural analysis of Meiji shōnen kaiko 明治少年懐古 (Reminiscences of a Meiji youth, 1944), an illustrated book that nostalgically recalls Japan's late nineteenth and early twentieth century period of modernization. The book is in the Pulverer Collection of Japanese illustrated books of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC and is featured on The World of the Japanese Illustrated Book website. My commentary, along with a complete set of readable images of the book, may be found here: http://pulverer.si.edu/node/440/title/1.

The role of neutrality during the War in the Pacific has been overlooked by World War II scholars and researchers of neutrality alike. The reason for that is somewhat understandable; to the European neutrals, Japan was far, far away. Why worry about a belligerent that did not matter militarily nor economically when the existential threat to life and liberty was right in front of their doorsteps? The dangers that European neutrals were exposed to and the question how their neutrality helped them to escape the carnage of the battlefields has crowded-out more subtle considerations for the systemic aspects of neutrality. This chapter rectifies the situation by outlining in what ways neutrality impacted Japan and its enemies. It argues that valuable insights in multilateral aspects of the war are gained by distinguishing different types of neutralities; namely Great Power Neutrals and Small Power Neutrals. Further distinctions such as permanent, differential, and even belligerent neutrality are important to understand the many facets through which neutrality impacted the international system of warfare in Asia-Pacific.

L’expression de « Sphère de coprospérité de la Grande Asie orientale » est un doux euphémisme, une expression de propagande inventée pour donner un idéal à ce qui n’était que la mise en coupe réglée de la région Asie-Pacifique par le Japon pendant la Guerre du Pacifique. À partir du mois de décembre 1941, il s’agit pour le Japon de bâtir un bloc économique apte à lui procurer l’autonomie vis-à-vis des États-Unis en matière de ressources naturelles et, ainsi, la capacité de résister à la contre-attaque de ce pays.
Si l’échec militaire est cuisant du fait de l’incapacité du Japon de protéger une zone trop vaste à partir du moment où il perd la suprématie navale, et si la relation de coprospérité est, de fait, une relation d’exploitation par le Japon de la région à des fins largement nationales, la Sphère de coprospérité n’en constitue pas moins la première tentative sérieuse de politique régionale étendue à la plus grande partie de la zone Asie-Pacifique, ainsi que le point de départ de de la décolonisation dans la région, voire dans le monde. Si elle a laissé un souvenir souvent douloureux, parfois ambivalent, aux populations locales, elle a fait germer dans l’esprit des peuples d’Asie et d’Océanie le rêve de l’indépendance, l’espoir d’un développement politique et économique indépendant de l’Occident. À cet égard, un peu à la manière de l’unification éphémère de l’Europe par Napoléon, la Sphère de coprospérité a constitué le premier jalon vers une intégration régionale de l’Asie orientale et de l’Océanie.

The author states that the "Europe First" strategy of the United States in World War II was more a political statement that a military strategy.  He asserts that the U.S. effort required to defeat Japan has been underestimated by many historians.

This chapter considers the sinking of Japanese hellships carrying prisoners of war such as the Montevideo Maru and Rakuyo Maru within the wider context of the global war. It discusses international law, efforts by the Red Cross to protect prisoners transported by sea, and the ramifications for POWs - of all sides, in the Atlantic and the Pacific - of the practice of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Second World War.

This paper argues that while Britain has been portrayed as the main variable in the Bengal famine, it was in fact caused by a combination of British actions, cyclones, drought, and Japanese aggression, particularly their interference with traditional Burmese trade routes. It argues against unitary causation and against genocidal intent on the part of the British to establish the Japanese invasion of Burma as the primary cause.

Quartered Safe Out Here is the personal account of George Macdonald Fraser on his time as a rifleman in Slim’s 14th Army during the Burma Campaigni. This most excellent memoir brilliantly recounts the frontline action he saw while serving as a young soldier during the British army’s savage campaign against the Japanese. The authenticity of his story, merged with the talents of a gifted novelist, result in an unforgettable read. There is little doubt that soldiers of all ranks and experiences will find great resonance with the humor, horror and camaraderie described.

Este artigo analisa as representações sobre a Segunda Guerra Mundial, veiculadas em livros didáticos japoneses para a escolarização básica, produzidos entre 1993 e 2002. Discute a omissão do Estado em relação aos crimes de guerra cometidos pelo Japão e as diferentes memórias produzidas por indivíduos de diferentes gerações, dentro e fora da escola que resultam em dois grandes modos de compreender o referido evento: o pacifista, para os mais jovens, e o nacionalista, para os mais idosos.

Despite leaning against the Paci c Ocean along more than 3,000 km, Japan has not been strongly linked to the ocean during most of her history. In fact, during most of its history, the sea has been generally considered as a source of danger and only the Seto Inland Sea has been perceived positively as a kind of Japanese Mediterranean. If the sea was a source of civilization from the continent, it was also where the danger could come from, with the Mongols in the 13th century, and the Europeans – “Southern Barbarians” – in the 16th.
This is why, after having developed its relations with Southeast Asia during the 16th century, Japan closed itself during next two centuries. When the “Black Ships” of the Commodore Perry arrived in 1853, seclusion was not an option anymore and Japan decided to get modernized according to western rules and using western technology. From the end of the 19th century, she followed her new models in becoming a military and colonial power. However, despite the conquest of Taiwan from China in 1895, Japan continued to focus on Northeast Asia. This is only her failure against the USSR at the end of the 1930s, the evolution of the war in China as a quagmire and, above all, the opportunities created by the defeats in Europe of France, the Low Countries and the United Kingdom that opened to her the “southern seas”. Until the middle of the year 1942, Japanese armies were unstoppable and conquered an immense area from the Indian border to Australia and the Aleutian Islands.
Nevertheless, she was unable to resist the US counter-attack and, in August 1945, had to accept the defeat. Japan became a kind of American dominion, and it was only in 1972 that she recovered her last territory, Okinawa. Since this time, Japan had to face a new challenge with the rise of Chinese ambitions and naval capabilities. The security of Japan is still nowadays determined by the US protection, However, the uncertainty brought by the new Trump administration could lead Japan to reshape her policy in the Pacific.

Roland B. Gittelsohn, the first Navy rabbi assigned with U.S. Marines, served in the Pacific during World War II.  In his wartime memoir, written in 1946 but only published in 2021, he related his odyssey from doctrinaire pacifist to "pacifist no more," his training, and his ministry to Marines and sailors on Iwo Jima.  His sermon at the dedication of the 5th Marine Division cemetery riveted all Americans, even though it would only be heard by a small gathering that day.  Woven though his account are reflections on morale, service, leadership, and interfaith understanding.  Donald M. Bishop edited the volume, which includes a foreword by Rear Admiral Harold Robinson, Chaplain Corps, U.S. Navy (Retired) and a preface by Ronit Y. Stahl, Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.  (Copies of the print book may be ordered from the Marine Corps University Press at no cost. Email mcu_press@usmcu.edu.

Any Australian who lived through World War II would remember the frightening posters warning that 'Enemy Agents are Listening' and 'Loose Lips Sink Ships.' The Fifth Column was the name given to the Axis agents believed to be lurking in Allied countries. Their mission was to carry out acts of sabotage, cause fear and confusion and spread rumours on the home front. The Fifth Column was attributed with being responsible for the Allies defeat of 1940 and also for the Japanese victories at the start of the Pacific War. Yet, for all this hype, the Fifth Column never truly existed as it was imagined. In Australia the Fifth Column panic began in 1940, was sustained into 1941, before being fiercely reignited at the beginning of the Pacific War. It affected the home front and the troops fighting on the front line and was characterised by widespread fears, accusations and rumours concerning an array of individuals and groups that reveal much about existing prejudices in Australian society.

This project seeks to explore the relationship between Claire Lee Chennault and Gregory “Pappy” Boyington and their respective units. By carefully studying Claire Chennault and Gregory Boyington and the strategies they implemented within their units for missions one can better understand what made their units so successful. By extension, this project also seeks to understand how popular culture has continued to bring their stories to the forefront for a new generation and the influence it has in expanding the legends. By examining personality traits, leadership skills, and the command policies of the commanders outside of missions, it is hopeful that serious consideration will demonstrate what made these units inspiring for generations. Chennault and his American Volunteer Group (AVG) Flying Tigers entered the war against Japan long before Pearl Harbor but were the morale booster that Americans needed when December 7, 1941, occurred. Gregory Boyington and his Black Sheep squadron carried out what some might consider the improbable with just twenty-six pilots and fifteen planes. They achieved ninety-four confirmed enemy kills plus equal probable kills along with land-based destruction. In World War II, the leadership and dedication of Claire Lee Chennault and Gregory Boyington propelled their units into the history books as two of the most significant aviation units of the War in the Pacific.

Reviews the historical debate regarding the withdrawal of the American carrier task forces from the immediate vicinity of Guadalcanal on August 8, 1942, the day after the successful Allied invasion of that island.  Vice Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, who ordered that withdrawal, has been severely criticized for so doing by numerous earlier historians of the Pacific War, including Samuel Elliot Morison, but a more balanced view has recently emerged from the historigraphical debate.  It is now clear that Morison's criticism, and suggestion of cowardice on Fletcher's part, was unjustified.  Fletcher's decision not to jeopardize his carriers to Japanese aerial attack from Rabaul was reasonable, based on the information Fletcher had and the situation presented to him, and he was not responsible for the ensuing debacle at Savo Island.  More liability should attach to the amphibious force commander, Rear Admiral Turner, for not keeping Fletcher informed of delays in unloading and of the high losses the Japanese had sustained in attacking Turner's force.

The island of Bougainville in the South Pacific was the site of one of the largest and most gruelling campaigns fought by Australian forces during the Second World War. During the offensive against the Japanese from November 1944 to August 1945, more than 500 Australians were killed and two Victoria Crosses awarded. A veteran later described Bougainville as 'one long bloody hard slog'. Despite this, little is known about the campaign, which was dismissed as an unnecessary and costly operation. In the first major study of the Bougainville campaign since 1963, Karl James argues that it was in fact a justifiable use of Australia's military resources. Drawing on original archival research, including wartime reports and soldiers' letters and diaries, James illustrates the experience of Australian soldiers who fought. Generously illustrated with over forty photographs, this important book tells how this often overlooked battle played an important part in Australia's Second World War victory.

Guadalcanal, in the words of Marine veteran Lester Clark, was "an unlikely arena" for the first major offensive undertaken by the United States Marine Corps as an amphibious fighting force. Instead of an opportunity to prove the theories put forth in the 1930s, Marines found themselves engaged in a "small war" that more closely resembled campaigns in Haiti and Nicaragua. The necessary adaptations to fight a protracted land battle – and with serious deficits in training, supplies, and operational intelligence – were made on the fly, and helped to shape the practical doctrine of the Marine Corps in the war against Japan.

This paper was submitted and accepted as a capstone thesis for a Master's Degree in Military History at Norwich University in 2015.

This Explorers Club Flag Expedition report covers a 2013 expedition to Ambae (or Aoba) island in north central Vanuatu.  This island is proven in the report to be the real "Bali-ha'i" (or Bali Hai) of James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific."  (However, a possibly secondary inspiration, namely Wala island, is identified.) The report describes Ambae, its WW II air wrecks, the bizarre ethnographic practices on the island, especially the pig-killing chiefly cult and the chief's stone moving ceremony (never before described), and the island's dangerous volcano and poor emergency plan.  Recommendations are made to improve the emergency preparedness of the island.  A particular focus is solving the mystery of a WW II air wreck on the north shore of Ambae -- the previously unknown pilot is identified, the plane type is provided, and the family of the pilot is tracked down.  Transcripts of interviews with islanders are provided on these topics, as are relevant pictures and maps.  (The report is 228 pages long.)

This report presents the results of terrestrial archaeological reconnaissance survey of Ebon Atoll, Marshall Islands.  The Ebon Atoll archaeological and anthropological survey was conducted from February 17 to March 6, 2014 by staff from the Republic of the Marshall Islands Historic Preservation Office (HPO). This report discusses archaeological methodology, limitations of research, previous archaeological work on Ebon Atoll, and a brief cultural and environmental overview. The core of this report provides data on the archaeological and historical sites on Ebon, archaeological site maps, and recommendations for the RMI National Register. Fieldwork for this report took place shortly after José Salvador Alvarenga drifted to Tile Islet on the eastern edge of atoll, attracting international attention to Ebon. This report offers information on the vibrant history of the Marshallese people of Ebon now known across the world.

Kantai Collection is a media-mix phenomenon that has taken Japan by storm since the online videogame was released by DMM.com in 2013. Encompassing manga, anime, game spin-offs, figurines and  a wide array of related merchandise, Kantai Collection attracts a  broad consumer audience. In Kantai Collection, warships are anthropomorphized as highly sexualized young women. The Kantai Collection megatext is highly political in terms of theme, representation of women, and enactment of war memories. This paper examines the manga, anime and game as part of a popular politicization of WWII by Japanese artists, also seen in blockbuster revisionist films from Japan. Kantai Collection depends on a masculinist construction of history in which the woman’s body is put to ideological use, deeply indebted to prewar kokutai philosophies. The hyper-sexualization of women in Kantai Collection contributes to the exoticization of war as distant and unreal, in a context of controversial war memories in Japan vis-à-vis the Asian mainland.

The question of the specific role played by Japan in the process that led to the independence for the three nations of former French Indochina – Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia – has been seldom studied by historians. The central position of the Pacific War for American and Japanese specialists, the crucial importance of the Indochina War for French researcher, and the language barriers are the main reasons for this lack of interest.
Nevertheless, if Japan did not create the independence movements in Vietnam, nor even the conditions that led the Vietnamese to seek independence, its role was essential. Its occupation of the Western colonies in Southeast Asia not only destroyed the domination system of the Western countries, it also annihilated their prestige and gave confidence to the local populations in their ability to conquer their independence and access to modernity.
If the case of Vietnam is particular, since French colonial apparatus was left untouched until 1945, the victory against French forces in September 1940, the presence of Japanese military on Vietnamese soil and the Japanese cultural propaganda towards Vietnamese population played an important role in eroding French might. If Japanese occupation does not explain everything, it was the real starting point of the process that led Vietnam to independence.
Japan began to put pressure on French Indochina from 1938, when the front of the Sino-Japanese War moved southward. Because Chiang Kai-shek refused to give up, Japan decided to blockade China. After Canton felt the 21 archOctober 1938, the main route that linked China to the outside world was the “French Indochina route”, a railway route that was linking the Indochinese harbor of Haiphong to the Chinese city Yunnan, Kunming. Under Japanese pressure, French government accepted officially to forbid the transit of goods from Indochina to China, but accepted in fact its continuation since it wanted to help China to resist Japanese move in the direction of Indochinese border.
France opposed Japanese pressure until German victories in Europe, from May 1940, disrupted the situation in Southeast Asia. France, isolated because of its separate armistice with Germany, could not defend Indochina anymore since British alliance was necessary against any external threat. Suffering a rebuff from the United Sates, the Governor General, Georges Catroux, had to close the Chinese border and to accept a Japanese control mission in Indochina, under general Nishihara Issaku. Catroux was replaced by the admiral Jean Decoux who, despite strong words, had accept Japanese demands. Despite several treaties and agreements, Japanese forces attacked French army in Indochina the 23 September and defeated them easily. This coup, often seen, till nowadays, as a local initiative, was in fact directed from Tokyo.
Japanese army got the right to station troops in the North of Indochina, to use air fields and to remove troops from Southern China through Indochinese territory. From this time, France will have to yield to every Japanese demand : the integration of Indochinese economy to Japanese empire sphere, the lost of two territories to Thailand, the occupation of the rest of its territory and, finally, a Japanese dominion over Indochina after the Pacific War broke out. Japan had decided, from July 1940, to enforce the new policy of Southward expansion, accepting the risk of going to war with the English speaking powers. The occupation of Indochina was a part of this policy and it played an essential role in the deterioration of the relations with the United States.
Japan needed French Indochina territory to attack British colonies. This is why Vietnam played a crucial role during the first campaign of the Pacific War, especially against British Malaya – which was attacked before Pearl Harbor. After the first phase of the war, Indochina lost its strategic position, but still provided rice and raw material. Despite its anti western propaganda, Japan decided to let France continuing its domination on Indochina. This situation was not an anomaly, but a rational choice based on the fact that the best and cheapest way to administrate Indochina was to leave the task to French authorities.
During most of the Pacific War, Indochina was under a dual domination, French and Japanese. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shigemitsu Mamoru, preached for the elimination of French presence. Despite the suppression of the Vichy regime and its replacement by an enemy of Japan – the Free France –, this is only the 9 March 1945, seven months later, that Japanese army attacked. The threat of an American landing and the will of Japanese army to secure a continental road from Southeast Asia to Korea led to the decision to put an end to French administration.
By making the three nations of Indochina proclaiming their independence and by annihilating French armed forces, Japan created a watershed. Japan, being seen as a defeated country, was not successful in administrating the country, lacking time and support. The Vietminh was able to fill the void left by French administration and to get the support of a large part of the population by acting against Japan. The latter played a last important act, after its surrender the 15 August 1945, by letting the Vietminh taking the power.
What would have happened if Japan had not destroyed French domination? Since independence movements were not in position to overthrow the French colonizers, and Japan had good reasons to consider keeping the status quo, this question is not a petty one. To think of it as an alternate history can be useful in letting us understand that everything was not decided from the start, that France could have left Vietnam differently, that non communist forces could have played a more important role and, last but not least, that the Japanese attack the 9 March 1945 was the decisive defeat that France could never overcome.

The present course examines the history of World War II in Asia and the conflicts and other problems it left in its wake. It examines roughly two decades of the history of all of East and South East Asia to understand the reasons why the war played out as it did and why the outcome manifested itself in the ways that it did. The course will introduce students to the major secondary works on the war in the theatre available in English as well as the major archival collections in London and published documents collections. The overall goal is to understand specifically the relationship between the experience of World War II and the postwar conflicts on their own terms instead of through the Cold War filter as historiography between the 1950s and the 1990s has tended to do until more recent revisionist historiography after the end of the Cold War. The course puts the military history of this period at the intersection of South, South East, and East Asia into its broader social, economic, and political contexts. It will show that many of the major developments, impacts, and controversies that arose out of the Asia Pacific Theatre of World War II, with serious implications for Asia, can only be fully understood by approaching the war as a phenomenon that was transnational and global from the beginning and not through national lenses nor through a later Cold War lens. At a general level, this course examines the relationship between the historical experience of World War II and the Wars of Independence that immediately followed in the region. Attention is devoted to the major players in the theatre, including Britain, the United States, China, India, Japan, and South East Asia, and how they viewed the conflicts within it and after in peculiar ways that were reflected in and reinforced by the historiography they produced both during and after the conflicts.

It was only in the early 20th century that the Jews living in the Dutch East Indies began to form a substantial community. On the eve of the Pacific War it comprised a few thousands members, mostly of Dutch origin, several hundred ‘Baghdadis’ as well as refugees escaping Nazi persecution in Europe. The Japanese occupation of the archipelago in early 1942 triggered the disintegration of the community. Within a few months the greater part of the Jewish community was interned, together with their fellow gentiles, for being Dutch civilians. In the latter half of 1943, however, most of the Jews who remained outside the camps were also detained, now for being Jews. This study offers the first detailed account of the fate of the community during the war together with an analysis of the abrupt Japanese change in attitude in 1943. All in all, unique circumstances led to this Japanese persecution: German pressure for harsher measures; determination to mobilise local support using, inter alia, an anti-Semitic campaign; and the earlier experience of the Java Kempeitai with a Jewish minority. As a result, the Jews of Indonesia experienced harsher treatment than that any other Jewish community received in the Asian territories under Japanese occupation.

This graduate seminar shifts the typical geographic focus of World War II from Europe and the Pacific to the borderlands of the British, French, Japanese, and Soviet empires. The goal of this seminar is to explore the different ways that comparative and transnational methodologies can help graduate students understand wartime and postwar phenomena such as mobilization, sexual violence, and decolonization. We will approach these issues by discussing books and articles that examine the wartime and immediate postwar histories of Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia. This course will acquaint graduate students with perspectives and methodologies useful for their own research projects while providing a solid foundation for a comprehensive understanding of postwar world history.

More than twenty letters of European Jews to the President of the Philippines Manuel Quezon, sent to apply for entry visas for over four dozen people, were recently found in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the National Library of the Philippines in Manila. The letters written in English, German, and Spanish are dated Spring-Summer 1939, when escape from Europe was still possible. Though several hundreds of Jewish refugees came to Manila via various ways during 1937–1941, the letters in question remained unanswered. All of them provide the exact time of the short-lived Mindanao plan, which proposed to establish an agricultural colony of European Jews in the Philippines, but got stuck in the very beginning. The databases of the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington reveal the tragedy, which many Jews anticipated: all of the Philippine visa-seekers, except for one person, found their death in various concentration camps, ghettos, and labour battalions. The article is dedicated to the memory of Jewish refugees, who were seeking in vain an asylum from the Nazis and their collaborators in the Philippines and other parts of the world. K EY WO R D S: Holocaust, Yad Vashem, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Euro

Wars end in a variety of ways. One of these is war termination resulting from one adversary’s use of superior force to induce or compel surrender. Among all the cases of war termination by such means, one stands out and is the focus of this thesis: the Allied use of force against Japan to end the Pacific War. The decision to drop the bombs, made by President Harry S. Truman in the spring and summer of 1945, was justified by Truman at the time on the basis of a set of claims about Japanese capacity and will to pursue the war. Japan’s capacity and will were such, Truman stated in addressing the American people, that unleashing the atom bombs on two Japanese cities was America’s only recourse to avoid prolonging the war, which if continued would lead to unacceptable losses of life, both for the U.S. and for Japan. Truman’s claims about Japan’s fighting capacity and will have long been disputed. Some have argued that Truman exaggerated Japanese capacity and will; others have embraced his rationale, even as they have deplored the use of the bombs themselves. Much of the information and analysis that formed the basis for Truman’s claims at the time, in the spring and summer of 1945, about Japanese capacity and will to pursue the war are not fully known. However, now it is possible to assess such claims retrospectively using a data source digitally published in 2014: The Gray Book, a 4,000-page compilation of granular data collected by the U.S. military on Japanese troop, sea and air actions, from December 1941 until August 1945. Before 2014, data in The Gray Book were too difficult for outside parties to access to be easily analyzable to verify the aggregated recommendations of Truman’s advisors; however, recently, they are digitized and available, making finer analysis possible. This retrospective examination concludes that the data generally support Truman’s claims about Japanese will and capacity. Granular analysis supports his arguments that, despite U.S. military forces pushing the Japanese expansionist front lines back 4000 miles in the years 1942 to 1945, levels of Japanese fighting will and resistance were high as of June of 1945 and were increasing as U.S. troops neared the Japanese main islands.

During the 20th century, some 35,000 Australian servicemen and servicewomen became prisoners of war. More than 4,000 Australians were captured by Ottoman and German troops during the First World War, and 30 were captured by enemy forces during the Korean War. In the Second World War, more than 30,000 Australians became prisoners of the Italians, Germans, Vichy French and the Japanese. The number who died in captivity was extremely high, particularly in the Asia-Pacific theatres: more than 8,000 of the 22,300 Australian prisoners of war died as a result of their captivity. Changi prison in Singapore, the railway cutting known as 'Hellfire Pass' along the infamous Burma–Thailand Railway, and the Sandakan death marches in north Borneo: all have become an integral part of how we remember Australia’s prisoners of war and the Australian experience of the Second World War. About 1,500 Australian civilians were also interned by the Japanese during the conflict. Fortunately, no Australians have suffered as prisoners of war during commitments to later conflicts in South Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

World War II marks the eclipse of the battleship as a symbol of naval dominance and the rise of the aircraft carrier in its stead. The medium for this shift was the Asian theater of war, namely the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, where the two major belligerents—Japan and the United States—employed a large number of carriers. It was only here that carriers were used as capital ships from the outbreak of the conflict, engaged each other in fierce duels, and ended up becoming a crucial weapon for victory. In contrast, carriers played a limited role in the European theater, partially due to the fact that Germany and Italy did not commission even a single carrier before or during the war. The naval warfare in the Asian theater demonstrates that the bilateral use of a new weapon system is likely to push its development forward rapidly. This article explores the reasons that made the Asian theater rather than the European theater become the arena in which the carrier reached maturity, and the impact this prominence has exerted on the naval arena ever since.

Chi erano veramente i giovani piloti che nel Pacifico si lanciavano con i loro aerei contro la US Navy cercando di fermare la potentissima macchina bellica americana? Fanatici portatori di morte o ragazzi che compivano con mezzi estremi il loro dovere? Quali furono le ragioni che portarono alla nascita dei reparti kamikaze, come operavano e quale fu il loro apporto alla causa del Sol Levante? Cosa è rimasto di loro? Questo articolo cerca di rispondere a tutte queste domande