Talk:Pacific War

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An event mentioned in this article is a September 9 selected anniversary.

Notice: This is a daughter article of World War II - It was taken from the mother page made to alleviate the size of the older article. WhisperToMe 07:23, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Contents 1 Japanese/USSR border fighting 2 US bias 3 Old talk 4 communists in shaanxi, not shanxi 5 Each Allied nation? 6 Doubt 7 Attacks on the Continental United States 8 strategic bombers 9 japanese attack on pearl harbor 10 pacific war U.S. strategy 11 guadalcanal 12 lines of communication 13 late stages 14 pacific war 15 Germany first 16 For the duration 17 help 18 add more naval history 19 Referring the Americans as 'Yankees' 20 Image:WW2 Iwo Jima flag raising.jpg 21 Discuss military history in Wikipedia at Society for Military History meeting 2007 22 Article omits one campaign of the Pacific War 23 Silly little thing. 24 New subsidiary/theatre articles 25 Reality

[edit] Japanese/USSR border fighting

Is there a reason the border clashes between Japan and the Soviet Union (occuring prior to the outbreak of the Soviet/German conflict on one hand and the Japanese/American war on the other) are not mentioned here?

[edit] US bias

"with eventual victory going to the United States." This is US bias, more apporpiate would be "With eventual victory going to the allies." I'd simply change it, but I'm guessing there's probably a lot of statements like this throughout the articile.

in discussion of land battles on Guadalcanal it seems appropriate. No UN troops there (there were some very helpful Aussie coast watchers involved, and of course the small Australian navy joined in the naval battles). Rjensen 06:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. This was almost entirely an American show, especially for sea and air. The presence of other allied forces, as Rjensen mentioned is practically token. Wallie 23:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

If you're talking about the Guadalcanal campaign, it should say Allied, not U.S, victory. U.S. general Vandegrift stated that the US Marines largely owed their victories on Guadalcanal to the Australian coastwatchers who provided almost daily early warnings on the approach of Japanese aircraft and ships. Also, Australian personnel directed the efforts of the Solomon Islander scouts and police forces that provided much of the crucial intelligence that U.S. forces used in preparing for Japanese attacks during the campaign. Furthermore, Australian and New Zealand warships were in the middle of several large naval engagements during the campaign, with one Australian cruiser being sunk. You can say that the campaign was primarily conducted by the the U.S., but it was an Allied (team) victory. Perhaps some of the other campaigns in the Pacific were 99-100% U.S.-run such as the Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, and Iwo Jima, but the Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, and Southwest Pacific campaigns, as well as the Battle of Okinawa, were definitely team efforts. Thus, the overall victory in the Pacific War was an Allied victory, not only a U.S. victory. Cla68 03:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Old talk

Question: did any French nationals fight in the pacific theater after the liberation of Paris?

Yes, they did. A French battleship actually fought with the other Allies in the Indian Ocean but was probably not the only instance of French participation in east Asia. Please feel welcome to research the subject and add details about French participation in the Pacific campaign to the appropriate articles and entries. 152.119.104.71 13:28, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

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I moved this from Asian Theatre of World War II as that was a poor title: (a) because hardly anyone uses that phrase, and (b) because "Pacific" more accurately describes the location of the war than "Asian". Initially I moved it to Pacific Theatre of World War II, although reluctantly, as that is just as much of a mouthful and almost equally rarely used. Just the same, I decided not to be over-bold and move it to the place where it really ought to be, which is, of course, Pacific War. I did create a redirect at Pacific War though - and then discovered that Wikipedia editors are not stupid: Pacific War, which up until then had been a pointles redirect, gets more links than any other posible name for this page. QED. Tannin

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The Japanese need for aviation fuel in May 1940 and the related dynamics of their campaign for Indonesian trade, should be critial elements of this article. I must also admit that until I read this article, that I had not thought of it as a economic policy by Japan; a view point which Henry Ford, his family & Foundation no doubt also studied from. In that light it is much easier to understand where they got their ideas for Indonesia and modern 'globalisation' from.

A look at Ford's history from WW-I to 1947 and one must wonder why the RAND & CIA organisations ever listen to his wacky Foundation, but he was the Bill Gates of his day and they assumed he must have been a genius with only good ideals for post-war OSS or US covert foreign policies.Daeron

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The Pacific War more specifically describes the battles on or near the Pacific Ocean. Since this theatre contains Burma and fighting within China, I think the original title of Asian theatre is more appropriate. Oberiko 10:02, 1 May 2004 (UTC)

The standard naming policy, Oberiko, is to place articles at the most obvious place - i.e., under the title that will cause the reader the least surprise. It is clear from the "what links here" list that this place is indeed Pacific War. Naturally, I agree with you that not all of the action of that war took place in or near the Pacific. However, that is no real problem: after all, we talk about the European portion of WW2 quite happily and a good deal of that action took place in Africa, in the Middle East, in mid-Atlantic, and even off the coast of the USA. Tannin 14:24, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

As is we've got three large sections: The overall war with Japan, the American battle with the Japanese at sea and on the islands, and the British campaign in Burma. Clumping them all together is equivelant to lumping the Eastern Front, the Western Front and the Italian Campaign together as just the European Theatre of World War II. I assume since you merged them, you have an idea as to how they can be distinguished? Oberiko 23:09, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

"Pacific War" is an imperfect name, but it is widely used and does reflect the two major adversaries, and the main geographical feature of a unified struggle which stretched from Mongolia to Australia, and from Ceylon to Alaska. By comparison, "Asian War" is not a name that is widely used in relation to WW2. "Asian Theater" is too ambiguous. Also, the word theater/theatre, in relation to war, is basically an American usage; other English speakers tend to refer to "the Asian campaigns". Grant65 (Talk) 03:01, May 26, 2004 (UTC)

As the article grows, it probably should in turn be broken up into something like Pacific Theater, Asian Theater and Southwest-Pacific Theater (possibly Burma Theater too) --kudz75 03:58, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

See South-East Asian Theatre of World War II it covers two interlinked campaigns: Burma Campaign and the American support campaign called the China Burma India Theater of World War II. I am not supprised that it has been ignored so far as the major army, the British Fourteenth Army is known as the Forgotten Army! BTW earlier in the war the British designated the command as the Far Eastern Theatre, the name was changed when Winston Churchill replaced Wavell with Lord louis Mountbatten as supreme allied commander of the South East Asia Command (SEAC) Philip Baird Shearer 20:28, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

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There's an excellent article about the Japanese bombing of the US mainland at about.com. It was originally published in Aviation History magazine.

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Isn't the neutrality of this article a little too much on the Allied side?

I've got to second this, there are countless places in this article where glaring biases and decidedly anti-Japanese interpretations interrupted the flow of my reading and made me want to close the page.

---

I think "resist-Jap. war" is not a very good translation of "kang-Ri zhanzheng". It is true that /ri/ is the first character 日 (meaning "sun" or "day") in 日本 (meaning "Japan", Chinese /ri-ben/, Japanese /ni-hon/), and that both languages commonly abbreviate by using only part of a compound of characters (for example, 日中 "for Sino-Japanese"); however, in English "Jap" is highly derogatory and I suspect that the above translation is adding a spurious meaning to the original term.

[edit] communists in shaanxi, not shanxi

commonly confused

[edit] Each Allied nation?

From the ending para: "The surrender was accepted by General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Allied Commander, with representatives of each Allied nation" - were there really all representatives? Polish, for example? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 21:09, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Probably not. It should probably read "representatives of the Allied nations with forces in Asia and the Pacific". So the Polish govt in exile did officially declare war on Japan? Grant65 (Talk) 05:54, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Doubt

I'm not sure if "kang-Ri zhanzheng" is the name in China for all the Pacific War or only for the Sino-Japanese War. Toya 16:27, 6 August 2005 (UTC) I can't leave this in wikipedia. Toya 06:44, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Re: "Conflict Between China and Japan"

The following paragraph is NOT a matter-of-fact description but rather a one-sided personal/governmental opinion/viewpoint. Thus, it is definitely POV and should be removed or, at least, replaced with arguments from both sides.

-"There is no evidence that Japan ever intended to directly administer China or that Japan's actions in China were part of a program of world domination. Rather, Japan's goals in China (strongly influenced by 19th century European colonialism) were to maintain a secure supply of natural resources and to have friendly and pliable governments in China that would not act against Japanese interests. Although Japanese actions would not have seemed out of place among European colonial powers in the 19th century, by 1930, notions of Wilsonian self-determination meant that raw military force in support of colonialism was no longer seen as appropriate behavior by the international community."-

[edit] Attacks on the Continental United States

I tried to clean up the section that someone put in regarding attacks on the Continental U.S.. Considering how little of an impact these attacks had I'm wondering if we shouldn't just stick the individual incidents into the relevant chronological sections. In fact, most of the incidents in the new section, such as the fire ballons were already covered in other sections of the article. In the meantime, I have temporaily commented out the section. -Loren 05:11, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] strategic bombers

JCS controlled the B-29s, by way of (ultimately) Curt LeMay; Kenney's Fifth Army Air Force and Thirteenth Army Air Force (commander of which I cannot recall) also owned strategic bombers, maninly B-24s. I deleted this: "US strategic bomber forces in the Pacific reported directly to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff." control by JCS through LeMay I saw (I think) in Alperowitz's 'Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb'. Trekphiler 12:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] japanese attack on pearl harbor

It was a massive strategic blunder. Quite aside arousing a dormant U.S. in a rage against Japan, the plan (by Fuchida, as I recall) omitted crucial targets, not least the power station (without which the base could not function) and the tank farms, which contained (in all) 530 million liters of fuel oil. Beside the stupidity was Nagumo, who disobeyed orders to achieve victory if it risked half his carrier force, and (as a battleship admiral) lacked the wit to attack shore targets with his heavies, which they were far better suited to than aircraft. (He, or the planners, repeated the mistake at Midway.) Trekphiler 12:23, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I have repeatedly read that they might have achieved far more, if they had fully appreciated their desperate situation of fighting so much larger a country, and their great tactical advantage at the time. It seems to me, also, that the battle ships could have been used, either by first attacking the defensive guns by air or by risking their effect. The battle ships no longer needed to be ready to fight surface ships. They did not even sink all of the American battle ships. It seems inconsistent with such desperate fighting later on. David R. Ingham 03:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] pacific war U.S. strategy

The Doolittle Raid was a stupid stunt that put two precious carriers thousands of miles out of position when Japan struck for Port Moresby; the Coral Sea should have been a crushing victory that made Midway impossible.

The contribution of intelligence from intercepted and decrypted Japanese naval radio traffic was crucial at both battles. The crypto intelligence unit, codenamed Hypo (for the phonetic "H", Hawaii) was commanded by the brilliant Commander Joseph J. Rochefort.

The influence of crypto, and especially radar, at Midway is often overstated. Nagumo had inadequate reconnaissance aircraft, because they were aboard cruisers escorting battleships, which were some one thousand kilometers away, thanks to Yamamoto's (frankly) stupid dispositions.

There, as for most of the war, submarines get too little credit. It was 'Nautilus' firing at a Japanese carrier, and being counterattacked, that put a destroyer out of position, forcing her to run back to the task force, to be detected and followed by McClusky. And Pacific Fleet Submarine Force was counterattacking off the coast of Japan less than ten days after Pearl Harbor (when Joe Enright's 'Gudgeon' arrived). (At least, I'm PRETTY sure it was Enright and 'Gudgeon'...) Trekphiler 12:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I have read that strategic bombing was not effective until there was about 50% destruction. The Dolittle Raid's greatest effect must have been to make the Japanese at home more aware of the war, and work harder. The B25s might have been useful in China, if things had gone better, but not as much use as DC3s would have been.

I have read that submarines were critical in the Pacific, as well as in the Atlantic. (Remember that there is now an attack submarine named Dreadnought, so they are now the capital ships.) It was the submarines that kept the Japanese from getting enough oil to the home islands to train more good air crews. David R. Ingham 03:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree on all your points. I also want to add that America was guilty of the most flagrant hypocrisy imaginable in regards to the submarine war. The official American position before the war was that submarine warfare was a violation of the laws of war unless conducted under a strict code that entailed stopping merchant ships, allowing their crews to get off, then sinking the abandoned vessels. Unrestricted sub warfare by the Germans was considered a terrible crime against humanity in WWI, and was given as one of the main reasons that America went to war. After Pearl Harbor, once it became in America's interest to sink Japanese ships on sight, suddenly the U.S. government shut up about sub warfare being a crime. If American naval officers had a shred of moral consistancy, they would have refused to obey orders to engage in what until Pearl Harbor had been called a war crime by their own government. Drogo Underburrow 03:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

• • Hypocrisy? no--sailors don't make the rules. International conferences do and in 1920s it was decided NOT to make subs illegal. Japan especially wanted subs. The main issue in ww1 was neutral rights--US policy was same in both wars: try to not sink neutral ships. Rjensen 08:24, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Not illegal? Nice fantasy you have there. In fact, the rules where even more stringent than I said. The 1930 First London Naval Treaty, specified that "...except in the case of persistent refusal to stop on being duly summoned, or of active resistance to visit or search, a warship, whether surface vessel or submarine, may not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant vessel without having first placed passengers, crew and ship's papers in a place of safety. For this purpose the ship's boats are not regarded as a place of safety....".

Now, if I may quote from the the Nuremburg Principles:

Principal 1: Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment.

and

Principal 4: The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

It is clear that the only reason U.S. submariners were not convicted of war crimes is that the U.S. won the war. The Germans lost, so their man in charge, Admiral Doenitz, was convicted. Quoting from the Wikipedia article:

Article 22 of the 1930 Treaty of London relating to submarine warfare declared that international law applied to them as to surface vessels. Also merchant vessels which did not demonstrate "persistent refusal to stop" or "active resistance" could not be sunk without the ship's crew and passengers being first delivered to a "place of safety". The 1936 treaty confirmed that Article 22 of the 1930 treaty remained in force, and "all others Powers [were invited] to express their assent to the rules embodied in this Article" [1] [2] It was this provision which was used at the post war Nuremberg Trial of Karl Dönitz for ordering unrestricted submarine warfare. Drogo Underburrow 09:11, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

- Drogo Underburrow 09:11, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

better read up on international law of sub warfare--I recommend Naval Weapons Systems and the Contemporary Law of War. by James J. Busuttil - Oxford UP -(1998)- with about 100+ pages of analysis of the sub policy of every major country. The question was whether there was any 100% civilian shipping in the Pacific war zone by Japanese merrchant ships. The Japanese policy was to use all available shipping to support its military operations, and therefore its merchant ships were NOT covered by the London agreement. (see p 129) Europe was different (there were neutrals in Europe). Rjensen 09:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to further fill this talk page debating the subject with you, as you retreat into technicality-based arguments trying to prove the sun isn't hot, with re-definition games like that Japanese merchant ships were not merchant ships and submarines could sink them without warning. You want to be an apologist for American hypocisy, be my guest. The fact remains that the United States was a sanctimonious critic of unrestricted submarine warfare, right up to the minute that it became in America's interest to engage in it, then it shut up about it, and then became the biggest sub warfare criminal on the planet. But hey...America's never in the wrong, right? Drogo Underburrow 20:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Take it easy, Drogo. I think you're basically correct here, but please (everyone) note that it was unrestricted submarine warfare by the Allies, i.e. British and Dutch submarines also operated in the Pacific throughout the war, mostly from bases in Australia. One consequence of the Allied policy was the death of many Allied POWs in transit, see e.g. Montevideo Maru. Grant65 | Talk 00:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Good example. Rjensen will argue that the Montevideo Maru was a legitimate military target - after all, there were armed Japanese on board guarding the prisoners, no doubt. Drogo Underburrow 04:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

It was a Japanese army transport. The WW1 debates were about scheduled civilian passenger liners like the Lusitania, which did not exist in the South Pacific. -- not many tourists headed to Guadalcanal. Rjensen 04:32, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

See, I told you so. Drogo Underburrow 04:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] guadalcanal

"Both sides poured forces in"? Japan never poured anything into Guadalcanal, and the U.S. was scarcely able to, because of higher priorities in Europe. Japan never believed the U.S. had the number of men ashore Vandegrift in fact had, so she landed batches and driblets, scores and hundreds, when an entire division or two, which was available (43d or 51t, or both), would have pushed the U.S. off the island entire. Trekphiler 12:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] lines of communication

Nimitz would have been better advised to leave Rabaul to wither on the vine by cutting Japan's sea lines of communication at the Luzon Strait, by concentrating on interdicting fuel (tankers), and by judicious use of mines and direction finding.

He could not do the first, because the dividing line with MacArthur's SWPA ran right through the middle of the Strait; there was too much risk of fratricide to Pacific Fleet and Seventh Fleet submarines. He did not do the second until late, apparently not seeing ships and aircraft are expensive junk without fuel. He did not do the third at all, for a hostility to mining; instead, he used precious submarines on close blockade at heavily defended harbors, watching for fast, strongly protected warships--a recipe for futility, and for complete waste of submarine effort. --kdf

[edit] late stages

Tarawa was rather early to be calles "late stages", and Iwo and Oki were very much less important than the Gilberts and Marianas. Notably, the fall of Saipan was such a shock in Japan, it brought down the government. Trekphiler 12:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] pacific war

Yamamoto's dispositions at Midway and fall of Saipan bringing down Tojo's government are in 'Barrier and the Javelin'. Submarine effects are in Blair's 'Silent Victory'. Nimitz's hostility to mining is in 'Weapons that Wait'. The DD at Midway is in Lord's 'Miracle at Midway' (I think).

B-29s are in Alperowitz's 'Decision to use the Atomic Bomb'. Comment on Downfall is based on Skates' 'Invasion of Japan'. Rochefort is from Blair, Wilmott [sp?] ('Barrier'), & Jasper Holmes' 'Double-Edged Secrets'.

Nagumo's orders (and battleship background) are in 'Barrier' (& also Prange's 'Pearl Harbor: Verdict of History', I think}.

Anything not strictly factual is my own conclusion. Trekphiler 12:25, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Germany first

I deleted "The United States, recognising that Germany had a significant industrial output, quickly decided on a 'Germany first' strategy." This had been decided before Pearl Harbor jointly between US & Britain (at Arcadia?). Trekphiler 12:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] For the duration

Not mentioned, but maybe it should be: the war lasted 1346 days, 5 hours, 44 minutes. Trekphiler 13:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] help

when did ww2 end and begin?

[edit] add more naval history

the naval war needs more detail. I added a section on Midway. Rjensen 23:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Referring the Americans as 'Yankees'

there are numerous instances where the article refers to Americans as Yankees - I counted five. One instance:

"To trick the Yankees Yamamoto split his fleet, with a large force sent north to attack the Aleutian Islands off Alaska"

I'm not sure if that's something that should be in this article and may be seen as 'biased' or derogatory towards Americans depending on which way you look at it.

the colloquial version was "Yanks" but "Yankee" seems the right degree of formality. It is not in any way pejorative or ambiguous. It was used on all sides as a synonym for Americans. Rjensen 04:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh ok, I was just checking. I've never actually encountered an encyclopedic article using the word Yankee to describe Americans and it seemed a bit amateurish to use it instead of referring to them as simply Americans.

the goal was to get inside the mind of the japanese senior command. Rjensen 22:51, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Americans are non phased by the term "Yankee", after all, the New York Yankees are one of the country's most predominant baseball teams. Sgt Simpson 07:56, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, international usage aside,... I think some folks from south of the Mason-Dixion Line might have some issues with the term. -Loren 08:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:WW2 Iwo Jima flag raising.jpg

I think this image needs to go for copyright reasons: please consult the image information page and the talk page Image talk:WW2 Iwo Jima flag raising.jpg for more detailed information. No fair use rationale has been specified for the image's use on this article and AP specifically denies that fair use is available for this image. Hence, we need to be very, very careful when making fair use claims for it. As per Wikipedia copyright policy, "by permission" usage of an unfree image (even one only unfree for commercial purposes) is unacceptable unless it is merely in addition to a good fair use claim. TheGrappler 06:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The publisher (AP) is not allowed to control fair use--that right belongs to Wiki. The rationale is that the photo itself established the importance of the Iwo Jima campaign. Rjensen 10:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discuss military history in Wikipedia at Society for Military History meeting 2007

The Society for Military History is considering a session on Wikipedia at its annual meeting (Frederick Maryland, April 19-22, 2007). Any active editor who would like to be a panelist please contact rjensen@uic.edu Thanks Rjensen 00:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article omits one campaign of the Pacific War

Since Pacific War seems to be the name that Wikipedia is going with for the World War II theater that includes East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Ocean, then this article should probably also provide an overview of the entire Second Sino-Japanese War which it doesn't currently do to any great extent. Cla68 07:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Silly little thing.

I can see why Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Union of South Africa are listed seperately from the colonies of the Empire because they were dominions and self governing, and India is seperate because because of her size, but what of the other non-colonies that were part of the Empire (in theatre operating under the British flag but participating in their own right) Southern Rhodesia*, Betcuwanaland (now Botswana), Nigeria and Swaziland for example.

I know that Southern Rhodesia is a bit iffy because it was never clearly defined as colony or dominion, but it declared war on Germany before the UK (I've seen the clip in the national archives in Harare). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.83.30.7 (talk • contribs) .

I'm guessing that you meant to make this comment at Talk:World War II(?) Declarations of war on Germany are neither here nor there in relation to the Pacific War. And I must admit I find it hard to believe that S. Rhodesia declared war on Germany before the U.K.... Grant65 | Talk 06:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Were Fiji and Tonga independent countries at the beginning of World War II? They supported the Allied side during the conflict and provided personnel, including some combat personnel, to at least one of the campaigns (Solomon Islands). If so, they might should be included in the infobox as two of the combatants. Cla68 02:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Tonga was officially independent. Although Fiji contributed an infantry brigade which served in NZ and Australian formations, it was controlled politically by the UK. I have tried to include a fuller list of independent countries in the infobox and other editors have rejected this because their contributions were minimal. I guess I can see the logic. Grant65 | Talk 04:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I understand Tonga lost some personnel due to combat in the conflict. I don't think they would call that "trivial." I can understand where those other editors are probably coming from, but why not list the smaller contributors down at the bottom of the list, kind of a "mostest to leastest" list. I do that with the battle articles I work on. I might remove Fiji from some of the WWII battle articles since they were under UK control at that time. Cla68 06:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Oops --- I just checked Tonga, which says: "Tonga became a British protected state under a Treaty of Friendship on May 18, 1900, when European settlers and rival Tongan chiefs tried to oust the second king. Within the British Empire, which posted no higher permanent representative on Tonga than a British Consul (1901-1970), it was part of the British Western Pacific Territories (under a colonial High Commissioner, then residing on Fiji) from 1901 until 1952."

I don't agree that we should remove colonial states like Fiji or Tonga from WW2 battleboxes. I mean we include (e.g.) India/the Indian Army in many WW2 battleboxes, and India was no more independent than Fiji or Tonga. Grant65 | Talk 09:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New subsidiary/theatre articles

Just to let everyone know, because of the way this article is growing, I have started articles entitled South West Pacific theatre of World War II and Pacific Ocean theater of World War II to match the two main Allied commands. These complement the South-East Asian Theatre of World War II article which has existed for some time, and Second Sino-Japanese War, which covers China.

If this seems "Allied-centric", consider that Japan had only one command in S.E. Asia and the S.W. Pacific, the Southern Expeditionary Army and it makes no sense to combine events in Burma with those in New Guinea, for example.

In part, my reasoning is that I don't think we are going to be able to sustain the level of detail we have, at present, on individual battles like Midway, Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf and people will not want to jump from one article to another to get the full narrative.

I am also currently splitting up old categories into new cats based on the above theatres. Grant65 | Talk 02:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reality

The US was by far and away the biggest player. Most of the significant events which took place were betwwen the US and Japan. India should rate a mention too, having fought many large land battles aagainst the Japanese. Wallie 23:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)