The China Lantern - AUGUST 15, 1945 - China-Burma-India Theater of World War II

TRUMAN

WEDEMEYER

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 - These were the terme Japan wa asked to accept:-
1) The Japanese Emperor and Government are to subject their authority to that of the Allied Supreme Commander. (Gen. Douglas MacArthu has been unofficially tipped for the post). 2) The Japanese Emperor is to order the surrender of Japanese troops in all theatres. 3) The Japanese Government is to transport prisoners and civilian internees to places of safety immediately. 4) The Japanese people are to be free to decide their ultimate form of Government. (Continued below)

VOL. 4, NO. 12, AUGUST 15, 1945 PRECENSORED FOR MAILING FOR U.S. ARMED FORCES

WASHINGTON, Aug 15 (ANS) - Japan has officially accepted the Allied terms for unconditional surrender without qualification, Pres. Truman announced last night.

Terms of the treaty provide that the authority of the Emperor shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, with the Emperor issuing such orders as the Supreme Commander requires.

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Won By Conquest, Jap Empire Annilhated In A Single Stroke

By RELMAN MORIN
PARIS, Aug. 15 (AP) - The document stipulating unconditional surrender by Japan is also the warrant for a lingering, but inexorably certain, death of the nation itself as we know it.
Japan cannot live without her empire.
That empire nhas been built within the last 50 years from territory torn from other countries. To lose all this means the death of modern Japan.
Within the three main islands of Japan proper there is nor even enough rice to feed the people. Ther eis no coal, iron or petroleum. There are virtually none of the raw materials and minerals or natural resources which are neessary for maintaining life in a modern manner.
All that has been coming to Japan from areas she won by conquest.
In three wars she ripped huge chunks of territory from China. She took south Manchuria and half of Sakhalin island from the Russians and north Manchuria and three gigantic provinces in the north of China from the Chungking government.
The whole China coast from Tientsin to Canton has been bitten off piece by piece in eight years since the present sino-Japanese war began. The rich Yangtse river valley is "Japanese."
Off the coast lie Formosa and Mainan and the Ryukyus and Bonina.
Below the horizon are Sumatra, Java and the Celebes group. Borneo and the Halmaheras....all Japanese possessions. But the physical size of this empire is nothing by comparison with the unbeloievable wealth it contains. If Japan had been able to retain possesion of it, she would become the world's richest and most powerful nation after the last shot was fired.
Without it she cannot live at all except as an importent little country.
This was clear fifty years ago to the far-sighted group of men who plotted the course for modern Japan.
It was equally clear to the man who charted the famoud blueprint for the conquest know as "Tanaka Memorial."
It was the greatest gamble in human history and it almost succeeded.
Forty months ago there was no effective fighting force within 3,000 miles of Japan and now, three years later, something this world has never seen before is about to take place - the annihilation at a single stroke of an empire.
Japan's empire will disappear, "vaporized," as if hit by an atomic bomb and the process of creeping death for modern Japan.

Japs Quit.. (Continued from top of page)

These terms were sent to the Japanese Government through Switzerland on Saturday afternoon in reply to the Japanese offer to accept the Potsdam terms on condition that the Emperor was allowed to remain.

POTSDAM TERMS
The Potsdam terms, set out in a declaration by Pres. Truman, Winston Churchill and Generalissimo Stalin, inckuded these clauses:
1) Japanese sovereignity is to be imited to the four main home islands to be determined by the Allies.
2) Allied troops are to occupy points in the country until a new order has been established.
3) Japanese armed forces are to be disarmed and sent home.
4) Japanese war industries are to be destroyed and reparations exacted in kind.

’Strat’ Happy Bombing is Over; Praises AAF, Chinese

HQ., AAF, CT - Lt. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, commanding general of the AAF in the China Theater, issued the following statement after receiving the announcement of Japanese capitulation:
"In this glorious hour of victory, the Army Air Forces in China rejoices that it can now halt its bombardment of buildings, storage areas, communications and other targets. The restoration and reconstruction of Chinese cities and towns which have been devastated by the Japanese aggressor can now begin.
"I can find no words strong enough to do justice to the Chinese people and their armies who have fought and suffered for

Stratemeyer

more than eight years in spite of tremendous obstacles against a well-equipped and fanatical foe. To stay in the fight, virtually cut off from the outside world, required steadfastness and courage of the highest order.
"I should like to pay particular tribute to the fighting Fourteenth Air Force, now commanded by Maj. Gen. Charles B. Stone, III, but which was led for so many years by Maj. Gen. C. L. Chennault. Although it served almost on a shoestring at times, it served as a perpetual thorn in the side of the Japanese aggressor. Making the most of their limited resources, the Fourteenth exacted a tremendous toll of Japanese libes, equioment, shipping and communications. The Tenth Air Force, under Maj. Gen. Howard C. Davidson, and now in China, compiled an equally distinguished record during its three years of service in India and Burma.
"THe cessation of hostilities came at a time when the full deployment of these two powerful American Air Forces was jkust beginning in the China TMheater. Plans were also well advanced for increasing the strength and effectiveness of the Chinese Air Force. Together we were about to launch a crushing aerial offensive in cooperation with the Chinese Ground Forces as they advanced on the various fronts.
"We are happy that it will not be necessary for us to proceed with those plans. We stand ready, however, to play our part in the enforcement of the peace terms in whatever capacity may be required of us. We are confident that the peace will bring a new era of prosperity and happiness to our Chinese Allies, and that they will forever be free from the threat of military aggression.

History Of The War Against Japan

1941 Dec. 7 - Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. On the same day (Dec. 8, East Longitude time) they hit Wake, Guam, Philippines, Malaya and Hong Kong and invade Thailand.
Dec. 8 - U.S. and Great Britain declare war on Japan. Japanese attack Midway, take Thailand, move into Malaya.
Dec. 25 - Hong Kong "fortress" falls to Japanese.
1942 Jan. 2 - Japanese occupy Manila and Cavite naval base.
Mar. 10 - Rangoon, Burma's capital, falls; Japanese conquer Java. U.S. carriers attack enemy bases at Salamaura.
Feb. 15 - Singapore surrenders.
Apr. 9 - Fighting ends on Bataan peninsula.
Apr. 18 - Doolittle's "Shangri-La" bombers raid Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya.
May 6 - Corregidor falls; organized Philippine campaign ends.
June 8 - Dutch Harbor, Alaska, is air raided. Landings in Aleitians (Attu, Agattu and Kiska) follow.
June 3-6 - U.S. Navy route enemy force in Battle of Midway, sinking four carriers, two heavy cruisers, three destroyers and one transport and damaging eight ships.
Aug. 7 - U.S. Marines land on Guadanlcanal and Tulagi in first major Allied offensive of the Pacific war.
Nov. 13-15 - Battle of Guadalcanal gives U.S. decisive naval victory as 16 Japanese warships and four transports are sunk.
1943 Jan. 24 - Organized Japanese resistance over at Sanananda, New Guinea.
Feb. 9 - U.S. forces completely occupy Guadalcanal. Enemy loses 50,000 men.
May 29 - U.S. captures Attu as organized resistance ends.
Aug. 15 - U.S. and Canadian forces invade Kiska to find Japanese have fled the idland.
Nov. 1 - Marines invade Bougainville.
Nov. 21 - Marines and soldiers land on Makin and Tarawa.
Nov. 23 - U.S. forces capture Makin, complete Gilberts conquest.
1944 Feb. 1 - U.S. invades Kwajalein atoll in Marshall Islands after heavy sea and air bombardment

BATTLE OF MIDWAY: It was here in June, 1942, that the American Navy won its first decisive victory over the Japanese fllet and turned the tide of war in the Pacific.

SUPERFORTS ROAR IN: The Japanese home islands were brought under a stedily growing air bombardment after the first attack by long-range B-29 Superfortresses in June, 1944.

INVASION OF GUADALCANAL: In August, 1942, the Allies began the long range road back with a andiong on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, it was a six-month job to conquer the island.

BATTLE OF IWO JIMA: A place to be known permanently in American history was this tiny island in the Volcanoes, where Marines paid an enormous price to clear the air road to Tokyo.
DOOLITTLE BOMBS TOKYO: Japan's capital city got its first pasting from the air in April, 1942, when a small number of bombers from "Shangri-La" (the USS Hornet) hit the city.

Feb. 10 - Yanks and Aussies win Huon peninsula campaign with 14,000 enemy casualties.
Mar. 18 - Americans and British landed from planes behind enemy lines in Burma, open first engagement with enemy.
Mar. 23 - India invaded by Japanese via Burma.
Apr. 22 - MacArthur's forces land at Hollandia and Aitape.
Apr. 24 - Yanks occupy Ujelang atoll to complete Marshalls operation.
Apr. 28 - Conquest of Hollandia completed.
June 15 - Ameicans land on Saipan as firt carrier task force strikes are made at Bonin and Volcano Islands.
June 16 - B-29 Superfortresses bomb Yawata, Japan, from China in first land-based raid on Japanese home islands.
June 20 - American carrier planes drive off enemy fleet near Saipan in First Battle of the Philippine Sea, sinking or damaging 18 warships.
July 21 - After bombardment by air and sea units which began June 19. Yanks invade Guam.
Aug. 3 - Myitkyina, impirtant base in north Burma, falls to Chinese and American troops after three-month siege.
Aug. 10 - Yanks win Guiam but mopping-up continues.
Oct. 20 - MacArthur "comes back" as his forces storm ashoee Philippines at Leyte.
Oct. 23-26 - U.S. Third and Seventh Fleets and submarines sink 24 Japanese ships including two battleships, four carriers and 12 cruisers in second Batlle of the Philippne Sea. American loses six ships. Navy calls engagement "one of the decisive victories of the war."
1945 Jan. 9 - Yanks land in Lingayen Gulf area of Luzon.
Jan. 10 - U.S. Army announces completion of Ledo Road to Myitkyina.
Jan. 23 - Ledo-BurmA Road is opened.
Feb. 19 - Marines land on Iwo Jima against fanatical opposition. Fleet pounds Kurile Islands.
Feb. 25 - Virtually all Japanese resistance at Manila ends.
Mar. 9 - Indian troops enter Mandalay.
Mar. 17 - Iwo Jima captured.
Apr. 1 - After ten day bombardment by Fleet forces, U.S. Tenth Army invades Okinawa. Yanks land at Legaspi on Luzon.
Apr. 5 - Russia denounces neutrality pact with Japan.
May 4 - British and Indian forces complete occupation of Rangoon.
May 24 and May 26 - Superfortresses devastate Tokyo with fire bombs.
May 27 - Chinese troops recapture Yungning to cut Japan's lifeline from north China to Indo-China and Malaya.
Aug. 6 - USAAF drops first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Aug. 8 - Russia declares war on Japan.

MacARTHUR GOES BACK: The U.S. General made good a ledge with invasion of the Philippines in October, 1944.

Japan’s War Exploitation Of Chinese Territory

Japanese economic devastation has followed military conquest in China. acrories which had escaped bombiong were systematically looted of equipment. Following the organized plunder came the imposition of the so-called "new order" on occupied China, which has been responsible for the steady deterioration of economic conditions. Both industrially and agricultually, what had not immediately been destroyed was appropriated to Japanese uses.

Plan To Close
I-B Theater
KANDY, Ceylon, Aug. 15 - Plans to begin closing the American India-Burma Theatre simultaneously with the ending of hostilities were formulated at a meeting in New Delhi, Monda, and are being sent to all outposts. The meeting was presided over by Lt. Gen. Raymond A. Wheeler, commander of the Theatre, who is also acting supreme commander of the SEAC in the absence of Lord Mountbatten.

Although warfare is always accompanied by some destruction of civilian possessions, in the case of the Japaanese invasion a great part of the damage was wrought after the end of the military action, when the enemy troops continued to burn and destroy Chinese industrial plants and other property. In Shanghai, for example, 30 percent of the factory workers were made jobless by the destruction of their plants during tghe invasion, more than 2,000 of which were damaged. About 98 percent of Shanghai's silk filatures were destroyed; 42 percent of the weaving and spinning mills; 34 percent of the spindles, as the Japanese themselves boasted in their Year Book of 1939-40. Chapel, an important industrial district, was almost totally razed, and over 80 percent of the industrial center of Nantao was burned.
After the destruction by incendiarism, the occupied areas were stripped almost bare of means of production. In Shanghai what property escaped damage from military operations was looted completely after the battle lines had left Shanghai, first the sheet metal was removed from iron shops. Then the machine stocks of all the factories were dismantled and removed. Finally privaye homes were entered and searched for metal, even the doorknobs and hinges being removed. Factories were reduced to shells of brick and mortar. Machinery that had escaped the bombardment was dismantled and exorted to Japan.

MONOPOLISTIC CONTROL

Occupied China, which was formerly the nation's most economically advanced region, has suffered severely from Japanese exploitation. The general Japanese policy is one of monopolistic control over every phase of economy. All the Chinese-owned industries, all communications and all finances were confiscated, expropriated and turned over to the so-called "development company for North China and the General China Development Company for Central China. The "development companies" are confiscatory enterprises built on loot for which the real owners received no recompense, and their main function is the holding of Chinese communications and the exploitation of heavy industries and the other economic assets to further the interestes of Japan's militarists and monopolists.
The silk industry in Kiangsu and Chekiang has been taken over almost entirely by the Cerntral China Silk Company, the Japanese subsidiary set up for the complete explotation of silk. All dealing in silkworm eggs, cocoons and raw silk is under the exclusive control of the Japanese company, and the few Chinese silk filatures not yet expropriated by the token payment of 10 to 20 percent of the real value have had to suspend operations since they cannot get the raw materials for manufacturing.
Because so many of the agricultural supplies of occupied China have been earmarked by the Japanese for provisioning their armies, the farmers produce as little as possible. As a result, what were once the richest, most fertile and densely populated regions of China are now uncultivated and neglected. The best lands have been seized by the Japanese, who retain the sole rights of sale and purchase and who sell only to the colonizers sent out from Japan. In the three north-eastern provinces (Manchuria) as much as 60 to 75 percent of the land under cultivation has thus changed hands, leaving the local populace without means of existence. In 1943, for instance, over 500,000 Japanese families were sent as colonizers to Manchuria.

OPIUM TRADE ENCOURAGED

Another destructive policy of the Japanese is the encouragement and extension of the acreage for opium poppy cultivation. By Japanese order, farmers are required to raise the opium poppy, and the Chinese opium suppression program was officially nullified. In Jehol, for example, the acreage increased by 62 percent in ten years of Japanese rule. According to the official report of the "People's Welfare Ministry of Manchukuo," by 1939 over 13,000,000 people, or more than one-third of the population of Manchuria, were confirmed opium smokers. Government-sponsored distribution of the opium drug and its derivatives, morphine and heroin, have been used to attempt the enslavement of the population of occupied China.

M-3 Fuse Explosion
Injures 15 Chinese

1339TH ATC BASE, China - Fifteen Chines emen, women, and children were injured recently at a village near this base from an explosion of a M-3 bomb fuse - None were killed but several were badly wounded, while others received only slight scratches. They were given first-aid treatment at the base dispensary.

Yanks Will Dominate
Occupation Of Japan

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 (AP) - The first forces to occupy Japan will be preponderantly Americans with British, Russians and Chinese possibly entering later as military observers, according to information here.
The task of accepting the surrender of all the Japanese troops in the Pacific Islands and Asiatic mainland will be tremendous and will entail the extensive use of naval forces.
Britiah and Australian troops in the Southwest Pacific are available for the occupation of Burma and the Dutch East Indies and Malaya states.
It is stipulated that Japan may be split up into areas of occupation following the pattern set in Germany.
Estimates of the number of troops needed for the occupation varies from 800,000 to 2,000,000. There are said to be 500,000 Japanese troops in the by-passed islands.

After 8 Years Of War

GENERALISSIMO CHIANG KAI-SHEK

China Smashed Nip GEA Saga

China has won her endurance contest. Her very survival equals a tremendous victory-at-arms for the Allies. Her survival is her victory.
China was preparing to contribute further with an offensive to be keyed into the general war plan of the Allies in the Pacific-Asiatic war zone. Not much can be said about this prospect except that China, with more American help than ever before, was getting ready. But th sudden conclusion of hostilities has spared her the use of the new preparations on a gigantric scale.
Indivisible from that of her Allies, the victory of China was assured regardless of what further inroads the Japanese might make in China in their eleventh-hour straw-clutching.

A U.S. SOLDIER in the Philippines examines a huge 50mm Japanese mortar believed to be the largest used by the enemy in the Pacific.

The day when Japan, confronted by the enormity of her self-chosen military task in the Orient, might have dickered her way to victory over a tired Chinese people had passed if it ever came. And it has been apparent for a long toime that even if the Chinese Central Government were driven from Chungking the resistance would not have ended.
It is notable that respnsible Chinese leaders counted their war as won, not merely after the Americans insular encroachment on Japan from the Pacific, but rather after December 8, 1941 (December 7, 1941 in the Western Hemisphere).
That was the day that Japan woefully complicated her future by attacking Pearl Harbor, Hongkong and other American and British establishments in the Orient. Up to that time she had been conducting only an undeclared war, and only on China. China, alone, had been fighting for more than four years, slowly losing in everything but hope and courage.
The "China Incident," as the Japanese liked to call it, had been and was to continue long to be a strange sort of war, marked by great Chinese retreats and minor Chinese victories.
For China, it was above all a grim bargaining in which she had to sell out of her vast space to buy time - time for herself and time for her Allies to recover waht they could from Japan while they defeated an enemy of more urgent prioroty, Germany, before turning full-force to the East.
While Japanese propagandists sought to anaesthetise the Chinese into dreams og Greater East Asia and Asia for the Asiatics, Japanese land, sea and air forces had blasted and slashed their way through North and Central China, laying hold to main lines of communication and the principal cities, blockaded the China coast against seaborne help and put forces ashore at key places.

THE CHINESE SOLDIER is capable of great endurance and splendid courage which has enabled him to stop the Japanese aggressor time and time again. This picture shows a typical Chinese task force about to entrain for the front.

They had captured - not without a fight but in a fight where the odds of modern armament and army organization were predominantly on the side of the attacker - virtually all of China of any immediate economic value, expecting the Chinese to capitulate. That was the situation before Pearl Harbor and it has prevailed up to now.

SOLE LIFE LINE CLOSED

China's backdoor supply route, the Burma Road, cut through formidable terrain by the labor of 160,000 men, women and children, was opened late in 1938, her only life line.
In 1940 the British in Burma closed the road for three months as a regrettable gesture of appeasement for Japan only to have the Japanese themselves close it in the spring of 1942 by invasion of Burma after they went to war against Britain.
China's resistance by that time had become a perplexing equation in logistics, with the resilient power of the people as one of the unknown factors. The United States pledged fullest possible assistance not only in supplies but in military advice and, through Maj. Gen. C. L. Chennault's 14th Air Force, on actual participation in battle.
Supplies for the Flying Tigers (the 14th Air Force inherited that nickname from Chennault's original American Voilunteer Group) as well as for the Chinese armies that couldn't be produced in China could be had no other way than by air. So that was the way they went, by air over the high Himalayan spur in Burma and Southwest China. With sweat and blood, the 14th Air Force and ATC have inscribed heroic pages in the history of the Battle of China. The former gave the Chinese their single superiority in modern arms while the latter flew into China, over an air route un-equaled for its hazards anywhere in the world, an increasing tonnage of essential foreign supplies and equipment for the Chinese and dtheir American allies.
Before the overland supply route was reopened through Burma the ATC was flying in more than twice as much as trucks carried over the old Burma Road,
But airborne tonnage were not enough. The overland supply line into China had to be re-opened - not the old connection with Lashio, the Burmese railhead, for that would be no use so long as the Japanese were in Burma, but rather by establishment of a link with the railheads in Assam, across Upper Burma.
And of almost equal imporatnce, there should be ;aid a paralleling pipeline that could carry the fuel of war in the bplace of planes. These things could be had by clearing the Japanese from upper Burma and the Yunnan border region of China along the Salween river.
These were the objectives framed and initiated by Gen. Joseph Stilwell, who commanded Ameican forces in the China-Burma-India theater and was concurrently Generalissimo Chiang's chief-of-staff. They and subsidiary objectives were based on Uncle Joe's oft-expressed opinion that the Chinese Laoping, properly equipped, fed, trained and led was a first-class fighting man.
Chinese and American troops, thrusting into the jungle from Ledo, the Assam railhead, gave first form to the Stilwell plan. Steadily they drove toward Myitkyina fighting for every mile of road that American Negro engineers laaid at their heels. Meanwhile in China a strange American military establishment, the Y-force, was helping to shape Chiona;s Salween armies, the Chinese Expeditionary Force, into an offensive organization.

STILWELL ROAD

Last May the CEF joined the battle with an offensive across the Salween river which, after cruel losses, carried eventually to the border of Burma and joijned with the Chinese and American tropps that had hacked their way from Ledo through Myitkyina China's overland blockade had been broken.
The new road was named, at Generalissimo Chiang's order, the Stilwell Road. Stilwell had been recalled to the United States and China, designated as a separate American theater with after Lt. Gen. A. C. Wedemeyer, then major-general succeeding to the China command.
Japan made her first real offensive drove through southeastern China, knocking out the most important forward bases of the 14th Air Force, forcing a reorientation of air force operations and threatening at one time to close the supplying from the China side by moving on Kunming.
The fear of handicapping her coastal preparations against the threat of amphibious operations from the Pacific must have figured in restraining the Japanese from trying to cut into south-western China.

CARRIER SPEARHEADED VICTORY OVER JAPANESE

Self-Sufficient ‘Ladies’ Revolutionized Amphibious Warfare, Provided New Uses For Protecting Battleships

Halsey Opened
New War Chapter
In Shelling Japan

   For the first time in the war, American warships steamed boldly off the coast of Japan on July 14, 1945, and poured shells into industrial installations on northern Honshu. While guns of the newest battleships, cruisers and destroyers of Adm. William F. Halsey's Third Fleet pounded the Imperial Iron and Steel Works rolling mill at Kamaaishi - 275 miles north of Tokyo - 1,000 carrier planes blasted Honshu and Hokkaido.
   The next day Halsey moved up to the coast of Hokkaido to shell Muroran, second-ranking steel-producing city in the empire. Then, with British warships, the Third Fleet moved down the Honshu coast to smash targets at Sukegawa, Hitachi and Mito and a cruiser-destroyer force hammered the entrance to Tokyo Bay.
   Despite the tremendous risks taken by the Allied warships in the operation, enemy oppostion was virtually non-existent. Japanese coastal guns were silent and only a few aircraqft got into the sky.
   Military spokemen heralded the strikes as dramatic proff of U.S. sea and air mastery even around the foe's mainland.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - American aircraft carriers, new to war before the Japanes eattacked Pearl Harbor, became one of the most powerful offensive weapons in the campaign against Nippon.
As the spearhead of every naval striking force the "flattops" shepherding fighters and bombers revolutionized amphibious warfare.

CLICK MAP TO ENLARGE

Carrier forces proved effective on both sides. But United States Task Forces - bolstered by British ships - were able to shower blows upon the enemy which in time neutralized Japan's sea and air power. They went on to attack island bases and the Japanese homeland, almost at leisure and certainly at will.
The damage these carriers caised and their ability to withstand punishment and increase the range of air combat by thousands of miles convinced naval experts that they were indispensable to victory.
Carriers were the core of the mighty task forces that roamed across the Pacific.
They were self-sufficient, with vast stores of high octance gasoline, large magazines of aerail bombs and torpedoes, replacement planes and pilots, and every other means of maintenance.
The carrier plane had four main missions - to search out and attack the enemy fleet; to help protect its own fleet fromattack; to serve as a strategic air force in attacking enemy bases and installations and, finally, to operate as a tactical air force strafing and bombing the enemy in support of ground troops.
Flattops provided new uses for the battleship whose guns protected the lightly armored carriers. On the offensive, battleships delivered the heavy blows after carrier planes had neutralized the enemy air force.
Moreover, while carrier dive-bombers were pin-pointing enemy targets, battleships loosed hundreds of shells to devastate the general area of the targets.
Because they never before had been tested in the ordeal of war, carriers had to prove their value the hard way.
In 1941 the Navy had only seven of them and four of these, the Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet and Wasp - were lost in the first year. In the early days, many critics at home contended that flattops were easy pickings for landbased planes. It seemed foolhardy - to try to match these flat, vuonerable targets with "unsinkable aircraft carriers" - a slang term describing the scores of key Pacific islands on which the Japanese has hoisted their flag.
But sea-gounf airfields were vital to the Navy's plans after Adm. William Halsey Jr., demonstrated he could send a carrier force against entrenched enemy positions and come back the winner, and after the first big naval battles were fought by carrier planes without contact by the main bodies of the fleets, not much doubt remained in the public mind that the flattop, the so-called "Fighting Lady" was destined to be the Queen of the Seas.
America built more and more of them by the end of 1943 some 50 carriers of all types were in service. That number grew steadily and by 1945 the Navy could count almost a hundred many of them in the 45,000 ton class.
They were heavily armed and capable of carrying heavier bombers than ever before.
The actions in which carriers participated became almost a roll call of progress in the Pacific.
Carrier planes turned back the Japanese fleet in the critical battle of thye Coral Sea and Midway. One United States official credited them with saving Guadalcanal when America's hopes for a comeback hinged i=on that little island.
By late 1943 they could go where they pleased, daring the enemy to fight.
They slashed at Marcus Island, 1000 miles from Tokyo, they ripped the Gilbert and Marshall island for the invasion parties. They moved across the Pacific raking the Carolines, Marianas and Bonins and struck right into the Japanese homelands.
By 1944 major carrier-based operations were built around the stupendous "Task Force 58" under the command of Adm. Marc Mitscher.
This fast and mighty armada had perhaps 20 carriers protected by battleships, cruisers and other warships of the f;eet.
The first announced strikes of Mitscher's Mighties, in a swing around the Maraianas and Bonin islands in June and July 1944, netted sensational results. Carrier planes sank 32 enemy ships, damaged 37 others and destroyed 767 planes. The United States lost was 157 planes, and only three ships damaged slightly.
That was merely a preview of what was to come.

ISLAND HOPPING PAID OFF FOR YANKS

MOVING IN - Mighty battleship guns throw tons of steel against enemy installations as amphibious craft head for shore. Sea-air bombardment usually preceded invasions.

GOING ASHORE - Out of their landing craft, dragging equipment, invaders dash onto the beach. This photo was taken at Iwo Jima, where Marines met furious resistance on landing.

SUPPLIES FOLLOW - Great numbers of landing ships soon aqre nosed up to the beach with weapons for the inland push. This and the next photo were made at Leyte in the Philippines.

SETTING UP SHOP - Experts keep supplies moving forward.

NEW YORK (AP) - One phrase unknown at the time of Pearl Harbor - sums up the story of victory in the Pacific.
The phrase is "amphibious operations." It means ability to send troops against strong fortified coasts and wrest them away from the enemy. It means the combination of sea, land and air power in a precise co-ordination never before seen in war.
Although history books can cite many previous landings in enemy territory, never were there so many in such short time as in the American sweep across the Pacific. And never have invasions been carried out agoinst such firmly defended areas.
The first United States amphibious landing was made at Guadalcanal in August, 1942. The technique was developed along the New Guinea coats, at Tarawa and the Marshalls, in the Marianas, the Philippines, Iwao Jima, Okinawa, and some 60 othe places along the 6,000-mile path from Hawaii to the Japanese mainland. To the lessons learned in "island hopping" were added the technique proved in north Africa Sicily, Anzio and the Normandy beachhead.
The series of Pacific invasions was necessary to establish advance bases along the route to Tokyo.
The Marshalls and Guam became great naval stations. Saipan, Iwo and Okinawa provided airfields for the bombing of Japan. The Philippines gave the land mass and harbors from which direct assault against Hirohito's homeland could be mounted. Other bases were taken to remove dangers to United States supply lines.
"Amphibious operations" followed a pattern that even the Japanese came to understand perfectly.
The enemy learned to worry about invasion when planes fromAmerica's vast carrier Armada began appearing regularly, bombing airfields and military installations and sealing off possible bqattle areas. Then the mighty guns of battleships and cruisers took over, pouring tons of shells onto enemy strong points while landing craft infantry pounded away with rockets. WShen the target was "soft," landing craft began darting toward the beach.
Often the pre-invasion bombardment was so intense that the invaders were well dug into the beachhead before the numbed Japanese answered back but sometime - as on Iwo Jima - the bombardment continued for days while the landing force struggled for a foothold.
Once the beach was cleared, bigger craft moved in, laden withtanks, heavy guns and thousand of other pieces of equipment needed for the inland push. Airfields were estab;ished, often within hours, and swarms of land-based aircraft took up the offensive. Once the foot soldiers gained a grip, the issue no longer was in doubt.
Many factors contributed to the success of these island drives. Guadalcanal's long campaign proved the need for complete sea and air mastery around the battle area. In succeeding operartions carrier airmen immobilized enemy airfields, slashing eney attempts to get in reinforcements.
Tarawa taught the need of unrelenting bombardment in advance of landings. Thereafter Japanese-held islands were battered to an extent never before possible in naval warfare.
The problem of co-ordinating all air, sea and land factors involved in an operation was solved with stop-watch precision. Some 1,500 ships were assigned to the Okinawa invasion, some coming from Guadalcanal, some Leyte, some from the Marianas, some even from the United States west coast. Despite great differences in speeds and distances, they got to their assigned places at the proper moment.
"Fleet Trains" - the almost incredible Armada of supply ships, floating docks and maintenance vessels that enabled the fighting ships to remain at sea for months - made it possible to make invasion after invasion with bewildering speed.
Most of the ingredients of amphibious action were unknown or untested before the war. The aircraft carrier reached its glory in this type of campaign. The rockets that blistered enemy coastlines were shortly before mere drawings on a blueprint. As the ocean sweep gained momentum, more than 60 types of landing craft were perfected to bring men and material ashore in fighting position. New methods to speed the unloading of supplies on open beaches were perfected.
Many military heads shook negatively back in 1942, when considering the possibility of amphibious war on such a stupendous scale. But there wass no other way. How well it worked can be seen in what remains of Tokyo.

ALLIED BOMBERS BLAST JAP BATTLESHIP HARUNA - U.S. and British carrier-based planes score direct hits onfantail of Jap batleship Haruna as she is moored in the Kure area, July 28. Near misses send geysers of water towering above the enemy warship. (AP Wirephoto from U.S.Navy)

FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD VET AND GIRL FRIEND - Pvt. Robert Kelso, 14-year-old veteran of combat in Germany, and his girl friend Gloria Neas, 15, drink a toast after Bob had returned home on furlough. The Houston, Texas, GI wears the Purple Heart and two battle stars. (AP Wirephoto)

JAP HOSITAL SHIP SEIZED - This Japanese hospital ship, loaded for routine check-up, was seized by American authorities when found to be carrying machine guns and ammunition in boxes marked "medical supplies" and "patients" who had no wounds beneath bandages, according to Signal Corps caption accompanying this picture received via radio from Manila. Ship was taken to an Allied port for further examination with its cargo of 1,500 men. (China Lantern, Aug. 11) (AP Wirephoto)

CORP. NEWMAN'S PARENTS - Mr. and Mrs. O. F. Newman, above, parents of Corp. James E. Newman, the soldier who came home to die after three years in Jap prison camps, look at a picture of the gallant soldiers in their Fort Worth, Tex. home. (AP Wirephoto)

GERMAN INDUSTRIALISTS IN JAIL - Three German industrialists, who were captured by American forces, chat in the courtyard of a Munich, Germany jail, where they are being held. Left to right, Herrn Paul Riedesell, manager of the Isar Life Insurance Co., Franz Popp, general manager, BMW Bayerische, Mororen Werke (automobile manufacturers); and Furst Henkel Donnersmork, owner of Silescian coal mines.

BERLINERS SEARCH FOR HOME - These Germans pull a cart, with personal effects and an aged woman atop the lead cart, through the streets of Berlin, Germany, as they search for their home.

Unless specifically stated, news and features appearing in the China Lantern do not necessarily represent the views of the War Department; the Commanding General, USF, CT, or any other official source. The CHINA LANTERN is the newspaper for the United States Forces in the China Theatre and is published three times weekly by Lt. Lester H. Geiss, Editor-in-Chief, for military personnel only. Lt. Harry D. Purcell, Managing Editor; Lt. Maurice Pernod, Production Chief. Editorial offices: Hqrs., SOS China Theater, Kunming, China, and Hqrs., SOS, Calcutta, India. Printed by Ajit Kumar Sinha at the "Amrita Bazar Patrika" Press, Calcutta.

AUGUST 15, 1945

Re-created from the original issue of The China Lantern

Better quality images of Pres. Truman and Gen. Stratemeyer have been used in this re-creation

Copyright © 2024 Carl Warren Weidenburner

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