The dropping of the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki is usually considered the final act of the Second World War. It was not. Just hours before Bockscar took to the air with its single-bomb payload, the final offensive action of the war began.
When the war ended in Europe, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin began shuttling troops [...]
Archive for the ‘China/Burma/India’ Category
Manchuria: Breaking into an Empty House
Posted in China/Burma/India, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1945, Yalta Conference, President Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, Manchuria on August 9 | 2 Comments »
Burmese Jungles Become Battleground
Posted in China/Burma/India, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, Burma, Burma Road, Rangoon, Thailand on January 15 | Leave a Comment »
As I’ve mentioned before (and as many of you know), the time from December of 1941 until May of the following year was pretty much Japan’s “time on top”. They ran wild in southeast Asia. Thailand was invaded on the 8th (along with Malaya) and quickly fell, formally aligning with the Japanese on December 14, 1941. Hong Kong fell on [...]
Kuala Lumpur Falls to the Japanese
Posted in China/Burma/India, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1942, Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, Mitsubishi A6M Zero, Pearl Harbor, Singapore on January 11 | Leave a Comment »
The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor is the watershed event in World War II history for Americans. And rightfully so, as it brought the United States into the conflict. But from a Japanese perspective, it was a move largely designed to keep us out of the War and, as such, was merely an operation to protect the real [...]
British Learn “There’s a First Time for Everything”
Posted in China/Burma/India, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1941, Admiral Tom Phillips, HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Repulse, Pearl Harbor, Singapore on December 10 | 1 Comment »
With the Japanese attacks at Pearl Harbor on the December 7th, World War II ceased being mostly about Europe and Russia and became truly a global conflict, as the vastness of the Pacific Ocean now became a battleground.
As war with Japan approached, the British felt a growing concern for their territories in Southeast Asia. In late [...]
The Marco Polo Bridge
Posted in China/Burma/India, World War II (1939-1945), tagged 1937, Beijing, Marco Polo Bridge, Sino-Japanese War, Wanping Town on July 7 | Leave a Comment »
Many people believe that Japanese expansion in the Pacific Ocean began with the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941. But in truth, territorial conquests had begun more than a decade earlier in China. The Japanese occupied Manchuria in 1931 and had, over the next 6 years, moved steadily westward into the mainland. Many historians believe the [...]
