Foreword

Summary

The root cause of The Pacific War lay in Japan's invasion of Manchuria and China for eventually this led the United Stated to restrict its exports of oil and scrap metal on which Japan was heavily reliant. This policy was intensified after Japan joined the Tripartite Pack with Germany and Italy and a total ban on all strategic materials was imposed by Britain, Holland and the USA after Japan had occupied parts of French Indo-China in 1940–41.

This development left Japan with only two real choices – to withdraw from China and Indo-China as a condition for the lifting of the sanctions or to make itself self-sufficient by seizing the remaining territories of the South-East Asia. The weakness of the Western powers following the German victories in 1940 then encouraged those who favoured what was thought would be a short war and on 7 December 1941 Japan launched her secret attack on the United States’ fleet based at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. This was largely successful so that although the American aircraft carriers escaped damage as they were out of port the Japanese established temporary superiority at sea. However, what was regarded as an act of treachery had the effect of uniting the American nation and it became grimly determined to defeat Japan and its European allies.

At about the same time Japanese forces began landing in Thailand and were quickly able to advance down the Malayan Peninsula. Japanese tactics were then to prove so decisive that on 15 February 1942 Singapore itself had been captured. These victories were achieved at relatively little cost due to the weakness of the British armed forces which was partly due to most of their intended equipment – especially aircraft and tanks – being diverted to aid Russia. However, this very success created its own problems for the Japanese authorities. In Singapore these were caused by the very large numbers of troops taken prisoner for whom little or no preparation had been made.