Role of Japan in WWII (contd-1)

(Egyptian hieroglyphs, which have their origins as logograms.)
Logographic systems, or logographies, include the earliest true writing systems; the first historical civilizations of the Near East, Africa, China, and Central America used some form of logographic writing.

 Hiragana (平仮名, ひらがな^?) is a Japanesesyllabary, one basic component of theJapanese writing system, along withkatakana, kanji,

 The kanji that make up Japan's name mean "sun origin", and Japan is often called the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Role of Japan in WWII

 The world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany  by France and the United Kingdom. 
But actually, War in Eastern front had started when the Japanese invasion of Manchuria began on September 19, 1931, when the Kwantung Army of theEmpire of Japan invaded Manchuriaimmediately following the Mukden Incident. The Japanese established a puppet state called Manchukuo, and their occupation lasted until the end of World War II.

During the era of the weak emperor Taisho (1912-26), the political power shifted from the oligarchic clique (genro) to the parliament and the democratic parties.

In the First World War, Japan joined the Allied powers, but played only a minor role in fighting German colonial forces in East Asia. At the following Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Japan's proposal of amending a "racial equality clause" to the covenant of the League of Nations was rejected by the United States, Britain and Australia. Arrogance and racial discrimination towards the Japanese had plagued Japanese-Western relations since the forced opening of the country in the 1800s, and were again a major factor for the deterioration of relations in the decades preceeding World War II. In 1924, for example, the US Congress passed the Exclusion Act that prohibited further immigration from Japan.

After WW1, Japan's economical situation worsened. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923

 This earthquake devastated Tokyo, the port city of Yokohama, and the surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, and Shizuoka, and caused widespread damage throughout the Kantō region. Its force was so great in Kamakura, over 60 km (37 mi) from the epicenter, it moved the Great Buddhastatue, which weighs about 93 short tons (84,000 kg), almost two feet.

Estimated casualties totaled about 142,800 deaths, including about 40,000 who went missing and were presumed dead.

 and the world wide depression of 1929 intensified the crisis.

During the 1930s, the military established almost complete control over the government. Many political enemies were assassinated, and communists persecuted. Indoctrination and censorship in education and media were further intensified. Navy and army officers soon occupied most of the important offices, including the one of the prime minister.

Already earlier, Japan followed the example of Western nations and forced China into unequal economical and political treaties. Furthermore, Japan's influence over Manchuria had been steadily growing since the end of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05. When the Chinese Nationalists began to seriously challenge Japan's position in Manchuria in 1931, the Kwantung Army (Japanese armed forces in Manchuria) occupied Manchuria. In the following year, "Manchukuo" was declared an independent state, controlled by the Kwantung Army through a puppet government. In the same year, the Japanese air force bombarded Shanghai in order to protect Japanese residents from anti Japanese movements.

In 1933, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations since she was heavily criticized for her actions in China.

In July 1937, the second Sino-Japanese War broke out. A small incident was soon made into a full scale war by the Kwantung army which acted rather independently from a more moderate government. The Japanese forces succeeded in occupying almost the whole coast of China and committed severe war atrocities on the Chinese population, especially during the fall of the capital Nanking. However, the Chinese government never surrendered completely, and the war continued on a lower scale until 1945.

In 1940, Japan occupied French Indochina (Vietnam) upon agreement with the French Vichy government, and joined the Axis powers Germany and Italy. These actions intensified Japan's conflict with the United States and Great Britain which reacted with an oil boycott. The resulting oil shortage and failures to solve the conflict diplomatically made Japan decide to capture the oil rich Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and to start a war with the US and Great Britain.

In December 1941, Japan attacked the Allied powers at Pearl Harbor and several other points throughout the Pacific. Japan was able to expand her control over a large territory that expanded to the border of India in the West and New Guinea in the South within the following six months.

The turning point in the Pacific War was the battle of Midway in June 1942. From then on, the Allied forces slowly won back the territories occupied by Japan. In 1944, intensive air raids started over Japan. In spring 1945, US forces invaded Okinawa in one of the war's bloodiest battles.

On July 27, 1945, the Allied powers requested Japan in the Potsdam Declaration to surrender unconditionally, or destruction would continue. However, the military did not consider surrendering under such terms, partially even after US military forces dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, and the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan on August 8.

On August 14, however, Emperor Showa finally decided to surrender unconditionally.

Role of Japan in WWI

Japan declared war on Germany on the 23rd August 1914, although Japanese ships had joined with the Royal Navy in attempting to prevent Admiral von Spee's German Pacific squadron from escaping from Kiaochow.

Japanese troops joined British forces from Wei-hai-Wei in besieging Kiaochow, the German colony on mainland China, which was taken after a 2-month siege on 7th November 1914.

Meanwhile, Japanese troops moved to occupy the German Pacific islands of Palau, the Marianas, the Marshalls and the Carolines on 6th October.

Japan gave naval assistance to the allies throughout the war.  On 4th May 1917, the British troop-ship Transylvania was torpedoed.  The escorting Japanese destroyer, Matsu rescued 2,500 soldiers from the water.

Japanese soldiers duly took their place in the international victory parade in Paris on 14th July 1919.

Japan participated in World War I from 1914 to 1918 in an alliance with Entente Powers and played an important role in securing the sea lanes in the West Pacific and Indian Oceans against the Imperial German Navy. Politically, Japan seized the opportunity to expand its sphere of influence inChina, and to gain recognition as a great power in postwar geopolitics.

Japan in World War I

Results of WWI

William Orpen's The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors: the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in 1919

the Treaty in front of the Reichstag building.After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, between Germany on the one side and France, Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other, officially ended war between those countries. Other treaties ended the belligerent relationships of the United States and the other Central Powers. After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919, between Germany on the one side and France, Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other, officially ended war between those countries. Other treaties ended the belligerent relationships of the United States and the other Central Powers. The western Allies' substantial accession to Japan's territorial ambitions at China's expense led to the May Fourth Movement in China, a social and political movement that had profound influence over subsequent Chinese history. The May Fourth Movement is often cited as the birth of Chinese nationalism, and both the Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party consider the Movement to be an important period in their own histories. The dissolution of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and (earlier) Ottoman empires created a large number of new small countries in eastern Europe. Internally these new countries tended to have substantial ethnic minorities, which wished to unite with neighboring states where their ethnicity dominated. For example Czechoslovakia had Germans, Poles,Ruthenians and Ukrainians, Slovaks and Hungarians. 

WWII in South East Asis

 The South-East Asian Theatre of World War II was the name given to the campaigns of the Pacific War in Burma, Ceylon, India, Thailand,Indochina, Malaya and Singapore. Purposes of the conquest of these countries included the securing of natural resources such as rubber and petroleum from the European colonies in the region. Conflict in the theatre began when the Empire of Japan invaded French Indochina in September 1940, the war went to a new level with the Raid on Pearl Harbor, and simultaneous attacks on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Malaya on 7/8 December 1941. The main landing at Singora (now Songkhla) on the east side of the Isthmus of Kra preceded the bombing of Pearl Harbor by several hours. 

The Allies suffered many disastrous defeats in the first six months of the war. Two major British warships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were sunk by a Japanese air attack off Malaya on 10 December 1941. Following the invasion, the government of Thailand formally allied itself with Japan on 21 December. Japan invaded Hong Kong in the Battle of Hong Kong on 8 December, culminating in surrender on 25 December. January saw the invasions of Burma and the Dutch East Indies and the capture of Manila and Kuala Lumpur.

The Japanese Southern Expeditionary Army Group's 1st Raiding Regiment (also known as the 1st Parachute Brigade) was used with good effect in the seizure of Sumatra (see Battle of Palembang).

Japanese forces had invaded French Indochina in September 1940, as did Thailand in January 1941. By December 1941, the area had been mostly "pacified."

 Japanese forces met stiff resistance from III Corps of the Indian Army, the Australian 8th Division and British units during the Battle of Malaya, but Japan's superiority in air power, tanks and infantry tactics drove the Allied units back. After being driven out of Malaya, Allied forces in Singapore, under the command of Lieutenant General Arthur Percival, surrendered to the Japanese on 15 February 1942; about 130,000 Allied troops became prisoners of war. The fall of Singapore was the largest surrender in British military history.

The Japanese Indian Ocean raid was a naval sortie by the Fast Carrier Strike Force of the Imperial Japanese Navy from 31 March to 10 April 1942 against Allied shipping and bases in the Indian Ocean. Following the destruction of the ABDACOM forces in the battles around Java in February and March, the Japanese sortied into the Indian Ocean to destroy British sea power there and support the invasion of Burma. The raid was only partially successful. It did not succeed in destroying Allied naval power in the Indian Ocean but it did force the British fleet to relocate from British Ceylon to Kilindini near Mombasa in Kenya, as their more forward fleet anchorages could not be adequately protected from Japanese attack. The fleet in the Indian Ocean was then gradually reduced to little more than a convoy escort force as other commitments called for the more powerful ships. From May 1942, it was also used in the invasion of Madagascar — an operation aimed at thwarting any attempt by Japan to use bases on the Vichy French controlled territory.

In 1942, Madras City was attacked by a Mitsubishi Rufe, (the Zero's seaplane version) operating from the carrier Ryūjō which dropped a single bomb near the St. George Fort.The physical damage was negligible, though the public response was major and the city was evacuated because of fears of subsequent Japanese bombing and invasion. Many rich families from Madras moved permanently to the hill stations in fear.

Also in 1942 in preparation for a possible Japanese invasion of India, the British began improvements to the Kodaikanal-Munnar Road to facilitate its use as an evacuation route from Kodaikanal along the southern crest of the Palani Hills to Top Station. Existing roads then continued to Munnar and down to Cochin where British ships would be available for evacuation out of India.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (8,293 km² on 139 islands), are a group of islands situated in the Bay of Bengal at about 780 miles from Kolkata (known at the time as Calcutta), 740 miles from Chennai (known at the time as Madras) and 120 miles from Cape Nargis in Burma. On 23 March 1942 a Japanese invasion force seized the islands and occupied them until the end of the war.

On 29 December 1943, political control of the islands was theoretically passed to the Azad Hind government of Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose visited Port Blair to raise the tricolour flag of the Indian National Army. After Bose's departure the Japanese remained in effective control of the Andamans, and the sovereignty of the Arzi Hukumat-e Hind was largely fictional.^[8] The islands themselves were renamed "Shaheed" and "Swaraj", meaning "martyr" and "self-rule" respectively. Bose placed the islands under the governorship of Lt Col. A. D. Loganathan, and had limited involvement with the administration of the territory.