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The Pacific War

The Pacific War was an aggressive war launched by the Japanese fascists during the Second World War. It was one of the main battlefields of the World War II, having witnessed the outbreak of the largest clash between the democratic power and the fascist forces in the world’s vast seas. It lasted for over four years from December 7th 1941 until September 2nd 1945. The flames of war were spreading across the Pacific, Indian Ocean, East Asia and Southeast Asia areas.

Japanese military attacked Shanghai in 1937 killing countless innocent Chinese

Japanese entry into Nanking to commit one of the worst atrocity in human history

 

Witness the destructions brought about by the Japanese Imperial Army in China

 

U.S. Declared War on Japan

On December 7th 1941, the Japanese navy suddenly waged sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the US naval base in the Pacific, without issuing a declaration statement. In the meanwhile, the Japanese fascists launched attacks against Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines in the western Pacific. Afterwards, in coordination with Britain and China, the United States immediately declared a formal war against the Japanese. Accordingly, the two European axis-- Nazi Germany and Italy in alliance with Japan also issued the declaration of war against America, hereby, touching off the infamous Pacific War. 

The US army recaptured the Philippines and captured many islands around the Japanese archipelago successively by 1945. Afterwards, the US army began to wage a strain of  large-scale bombardments against the Japanese navy, and declare strict supplies blockade on the Japanese invaders. On August  6th and 9th 1945, the US army dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan for quickly ending the war. Consequently, the Japanese authority announced  the unconditional surrender on August 15th, and  later on signed the Instrument of Surrender on September 2nd. Thereafter, the Pacific War was over. 

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Nagasaki

Hiroshima

In reality, different from the European War Theater, the Pacific War started with the outbreak of the Chinese anti-Japanese war in 1937. The Chinese people had built up a wall with their blood and fresh since the outbreak of the war, having tried very hard to prevent the Japanese invaders from spreading the war to the Pacific, and meanwhile crushed its attempt to conquer the world. 

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1945 FDR State of the Union Speech

On January 6th 1945, president Roosevelt mentioned in the State of the Union to the Congress, “the United States will never forget the suffering of the Chinese people going through in the past seven years when they resisted the savage onslaughts of the Japanese invaders, successfully pinning down the enemy in Asian war theatre from marching towards other battlegrounds.”

The Chinese army undertook boldly the mission of pinning down the Japanese main force in the China Theater. At the first beginning of the Pacific War, 35 Divisions of 51 Japanese army Divisions were caught in the resistance war in the China Theater. Hereby, Japan could only spare a strength of 11 Divisions to cooperate with its navy operations in the Pacific war. By the end of the war, there were still more than 1,860,000 Japanese soldiers within Chinese territory.

 

The Chinese army killed more than 1,800,000 Japanese soldiers, accounting for 70% of Japanese total casualties during World War II, in the eight years of protracted anti-Japanese War, having successfully pinned down two thirds of the Japanese army force in the China Theater. 

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The Chinese army and civilians made enormous sacrifices in the eight years War of Resistance against the Japanese invaders. According to incomplete statistics, more than 3,700,000 Chinese officers, soldiers and civilians laid down their lives for the country in the war, among which over 300,000 civilians and patriots were brutally slaughtered in the Nanking Holocaust.

Calculated in accordance with the exchange rate of RMB against dollar in 1937, the Japanese invaders caused direct losses of $100 billion and indirect losses of $500 billion to China during the eight years or resistance war. 

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