Singapore Island, British Malaya · February 8, 1942 On this night and the next day in 1942 in British Malaya (today’s Malaysia) Japanese forces surged over and soon pushed the British-led defenders back to the edges of the 220‑sq. mile island of Singapore (the “Gibraltar of the East”), nearly 600 miles from the initial Japanese landing site….
Manila, Philippines · February 3, 1945 On this date in 1945, 35,000 soldiers of the U.S. Sixth Army under Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger, supported by 3,000 Filipino guerrillas, began entering Manila, capital of the Philippines, and soon liberated nearly 6,000 Allied and Filipino prisoners. Some of them, like the 64 U.S. Army nurses, were taken captive in 1942…
South West Pacific Area HQ, Brisbane, Australia · January 24, 1944 On this date in 1944 an advance party of the 93rd Infantry Division landed on the Pacific Island of Guadalcanal, the first African American (“colored” was the term used at the time) infantry unit to see action in World War II. Reactivated on May 15, 1942,…
Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia · January 23, 1942 On this date in 1942, over a month after Pearl Harbor, 20,000 Japanese Marines quickly overran the Australian garrison at Rabaul, New Britain, the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago (labeled “Niu Briten” on map below). Rabaul’s capture was important because of its proximity to the Caroline…
Casablanca, Morocco, North Africa · January 14, 1943 This date in 1943 saw the start of the ten-day Casablanca Conference at a seaside resort in Morocco between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and their Combined Chiefs of Staff. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had been invited to the summit but reportedly…
Washington, D.C. · January 9, 1941 On this date in 1941 in Washington, D.C., the U.S. State Department advised American citizens to leave Japan. Two summers earlier the State Department had informed Japan that it would not renew the 1911 Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between the two countries, leaving the U.S. free in January…
Tokyo, Japan · January 8, 1941 On this date in 1941 the Tokyo Gazette published the Imperial War Department’s newly adopted Japanese Field Service Code. It advised soldiers in part, “Do not give up under any circumstances, keeping in mind your responsibility not to tarnish the glorious history of the Imperial Army with its tradition…
Saipan Island, Northern Marianas · January 7, 1945 In early October 1944 the U.S. high command decided that, after securing the Philippine island of Leyte (done before the end of December), Gen. Douglas MacArthur was to liberate neighboring Luzon Island, while Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, from his station in the Central Pacific, would attack the…
Manila, Philippines · January 2, 1942 Japan intended to occupy the Philippine Islands as part of its plan for a “Greater East Asia War.” The nation’s Southern Expeditionary Army Group was tasked with seizing the islands, British Malaya (today’s Malaysia), and the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia) simultaneously with the Japanese Navy’s assault on the…
![The Pacific (6-Disc Blu-ray + Exclusive 7th Disc “War on the Home Front”) [Blu-ray]](https://ww2days.2020webganics.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/611zyZJvxRL-1.jpg)
This limited collector’s Blu-ray edition includes a bonus 7th disc entitled “War on the Home Front.”
The Pacific is an epic 10-part miniseries that delivers a realistic portrait of WWII’s Pacific Theatre as seen through the intertwined odysseys of three U.S. Marines – Robert Leckie, John Basilone and Eugene Sledge. The extraordinary experiences of these men and their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese in the haunted jungles of Guadalcanal, through the impenetrable rain firests of Cape Gloucester, across the blasted coral strongholds of Peleliu, up the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima, through the killing fields of Okinawa, to the triumphant, yet uneasy, return home after V-J Day. The viewer will be immersed in combat through the intimate perspective of this diverse, relatable group of men pushed to the limit in battle both physically and psychologically against a relentless enemy unlike any encountered before.
War on the Home Front: While the Marines were battling the Japanese in the Pacific theater, a different kind of war was being waged on the U.S. home front. Patriotism was soaring and the mood back in the states was one of a collective spirit, a great coming together was underway. From the perspectives of surviving veterans and family members, this featurette takes an in-depth look at life on the home front during the Pacific theater of World War II.