Through December 1944, the islands of Leyte and Mindoro were cleared of Japanese soldiers. During the campaign, the Imperial Japanese Army conducted a suicidal defense of the islands. Cities such as Manila were reduced to rubble. Around 500,000 Filipinos died during the Japanese Occupation Period.

The Japanese-occupied towns were returned to French control and all French prisoners were released. The occupation of southern French Indochina did not happen immediately. The Vichy government had agreed that some 40,000 troops could be stationed there.

On July 26, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China. President Roosevelt swung into action by freezing all Japanese assets in America. Britain and the Dutch East Indies followed suit.

The United States responded with shock and dismay at the brutality of the war in Asia. Rather than send troops, US and European leaders called for economic sanctions and warned that harsher steps would follow if Japan continued its aggression.

And although the Japanese government never believed it could defeat the United States, it did intend to negotiate an end to the war on favorable terms. It hoped that by attacking the fleet at Pearl Harbor it could delay American intervention, gaining time to solidify its Asian empire.

Let’s face it. Imperial Japan stood next to no chance of winning a fight to the finish against the United States. So Japan could never have crushed U.S. maritime forces in the Pacific and imposed terms on Washington. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t have won World War II.

The Japanese attack to Pearl Harbor had caused a tremendous loss for the US side. They failed to damage any American aircraft carriers. It was because by a stroke of luck, some U.S. aircraft carriers having the base in Pearl Harbor during the time of attack were still available at the sea.

The blame for the attack on Pearl Harbor cannot be laid solely on intelligence failures. The Pearl Harbor investigations affixed plenty of blame to faulty leadership, inflexible policies and procedures, and overall complacency after more than two decades of peace.

Yamamoto’s meaning was that military victory, in a protracted war against an opponent with as much of a population and industrial advantage as the United States possessed, was completely impossible, a rebuff to the Kantai Kessen Decisive Battle Doctrine of those who thought that winning a single major battle against …

one that has great but unrealized

Yamamoto was Japan’s most prominent naval officer during World War II. Despite his relative inexperience at sea in the years before Pearl Harbor, his contribution to naval strategy lies in his early recognition of the effectiveness of carrier-based aircraft in long-range naval attacks.

Isoroku Yamamoto

He was the commander-in-chief during the early years of the Pacific War and oversaw major engagements including the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway….

The mission of the U.S. aircraft was specifically to kill Yamamoto and was based on United States Navy intelligence on Yamamoto’s itinerary in the Solomon Islands area….Operation Vengeance.

Yamaguchi′s carrier force was part of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He subsequently participated in the Battle of Midway, where he was killed in action, choosing to go down with the aircraft carrier Hiryū when it was scuttled after being crippled by aircraft from USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown.

Weighing 72,800 tons and outfitted with nine 18.1-inch guns, the battleship Yamato was Japan’s only hope of destroying the Allied fleet off the coast of Okinawa. But insufficient air cover and fuel cursed the endeavor as a suicide mission. Struck by 19 American aerial torpedoes, it was sunk, drowning 2,498 of its crew.

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Yamamoto Isoroku (1884-1943) was Commander-in-chief of combined Japanese fleet, who was Japan’s greatest naval strategist in World War II.

It was the first air operation to strike the Japanese archipelago. It demonstrated that the Japanese mainland was vulnerable to American air attack, served as retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and provided an important boost to American morale….Doolittle Raid.

The rest went down over China or along its coast. In all, Chinese soldiers, guerrillas and civilians saved more than 60 of the 80 Raiders. The Doolittle Raid was a smashing success — for U.S. self-esteem. The Japanese ended up killing 30,000 Chinese troops and an estimated 250,000 civilians.

Three of the 80 Doolittle raiders were killed in crash landings or while parachuting. Eight others were captured by the Japanese. Three of them were executed, another died of disease and starvation in captivity, and four survived more than three years of solitary confinement and brutality.