U.S. Navy Offshore Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands • March 26, 1945 Late in 1944 Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi, recently appointed commander of the First Air Fleet in Japanese-held Manila, the Philippine’s capital, championed a special attack force (tokubetsu kogeki tai, abbreviated as tokkotai) that would inflict maximum damage on Allied naval vessels squeezing the island empire: Japan’s…
Tokyo, Japan • March 24, 1945 On this date in 1945 the Japanese Deputy Minister of War, Lt. Gen. Kaneshiro Shibayama, informed the Japanese Diet (Parliament) of the formation of a militia for the defense of the Home Islands. A home militia was critical to the nation’s survival because 60 percent of the roughly 4.6 million Japanese combat…
Tokyo, Japan • March 9, 1945 Apart from Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle’s April 1942 raid on the Japanese capital, Tokyo, early air raids on Japan focused on military and industrial targets with disappointing results. So, U.S. Army Air Forces Maj. Gen. Curtis LeMay, a veteran of the Eighth Air Forces’ horrific air campaign over Nazi Germany, filled…
Manila, Philippines • March 3, 1945 On this date the monthlong Battle of Manila ended when U.S. and Filipino forces captured Manila’s Finance Building. It was the last set of government offices in the Philippine capital still occupied by a scrum of Japanese sailors and soldiers serving under the fanatical ex-Rear Adm. Sanji Iwabuchi, a…
Bismarck Sea, Southwestern Pacific Ocean • March 2, 1943 The Battle of Midway (June 4–7, 1942) was America’s first strategic victory against the Japanese Navy and a devastating defeat for the warlords ruling that Asian nation. Lost were 4 of the 6 Japanese aircraft carriers (the bulk of the Japanese carrier fleet) that had taken part in…
Tarawa, Gilbert Islands • November 20, 1943 On this date in 1943 the Alligator LVT-1, or Landing Vehicle Tracked‑1, made its first combat debut. Actually, the LVT‑1 saw use in landings on Guadalcanal and the adjacent islands of Tulagi, Tanambogo, and Gavutu over a year earlier, in August 1942, but only as a logistical support…
Off Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands • August 8, 1942 A United States naval task force carrying Maj. Gen. Archibald Vandegrift’s First Marine Division arrived off Guadalcanal, in the eastern Solomon Islands, on the morning of August 7, 1942, and launched Operation Watchtower, the first American offensive of World War II. Two days later the Marines had captured the…
San Francisco, California • July 15, 1945 On this date in 1945 the USS Indianapolis, a fast Portland-class cruiser in California for repairs, received orders to pick up some special cargo at Hunters Point (predecessor name for the now-closed San Francisco Naval Yard). Eleven days later, on July 26, Indianapolis unloaded her mysterious cargo—a large crate…
Manila, Occupied Philippines • May 6, 1942 On Monday, December 8, 1941, Japanese forces attacked the Philippines, a largely self-governing U.S. possession, formally known as the Commonwealth of the Philippines. (December 8, Manila and Japanese time, was Sunday, December 7, east of the International Date Line, the day Japanese carrier-based planes attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a…
Washington, D.C. • April 9, 1983 On this date in 1983, National POW/MIA Recognition Day, 31 of the 67 Army and Navy nurses who had been captured by the Japanese in 1942 and interned at the Santo Tomas and Los Baños internment camps in the Philippines were honored at a White House ceremony by President Ronald…