How many islands in the pacific did Japan manage to conquer

Discussions on WW2 in the Pacific and the Sino-Japanese War.
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zstar
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How many islands in the pacific did Japan manage to conquer

#1

Post by zstar » 02 Oct 2005, 08:48

How many did Japan occupy?

Was it only the strategic islands such as Midway, Tarawa etc

Did they ever occupy islands that were not strategically important to the war but might've provided resources?

Larry D.
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#2

Post by Larry D. » 02 Oct 2005, 15:22

How many did Japan occupy?
Many, many, many. I have never seen a number. First you must define "occupy." Does this mean for 3 years, or 2 years, or 1 year, or 7 months, or 2 months, or 3 weeks or 2 days, etc., etc.? Do you see how difficult it would be to arrive at an exact number, and why no one (to my knowledge) has done this before?
Did they ever occupy islands that were not strategically important to the war but might've provided resources?
Yes, certainly some. But here again defining "strategically important" is highly subjective. What might be a strategically important island or atoll to General X might not be to Admiral Y or Prime Minister Z, especially if you try to determine this on various dates between 1941 and 1945.


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Michael Emrys
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#3

Post by Michael Emrys » 02 Oct 2005, 20:48

BTW, Japan never occupied Midway. I thought you might want to know that.

Graeme Sydney
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#4

Post by Graeme Sydney » 03 Oct 2005, 01:09

"strategic islands" The Japanese thought New Britain/Rabual was pretty strategic and put 200,000 plus aircraft plus naval resources and stores on it. The Americans bypassed it by leap frogging 400klm's to the lightly defended (100?) Los Negros one of the smallest islands in the Bismarck sea (but big enough for an airstrip). If you had the transport for the troops and the naval air and surface power, as well as land based air support, you could make these ‘leap frog’ moves. Macarthur called this ‘advancing the air bases’.

The 200,000 on New Britain were still there and starving at surrender, ‘45. Ditto the leap Hollandia to Wakde etc etc.

And you can multiply this by hundreds if not thousands of small groups of Japanese left isolated on small islands. Indonesia and the Philippines may be five or seven major islands that show up on the atlas but in reality are nations of thousands of islands. The Japanese occupied many and patrolled the others. To understand this is to understand the very nature of the War in the Pacific. At Los Negros there was a larger island 2 klms away (Manus) with several hundred IJA defenders who could take no part in the defense of Los Negro.

The problems that the Allies had in not having enough troops to cover all possibilities and not knowing where the enemy was going to strike next in 1941-42 was the same problem that the IJA/IJN had in ’44-45. The Allies returned the favour in spades!!!

Cheers, Graeme.

TRose
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#5

Post by TRose » 07 Oct 2005, 02:48

Also depends on what you call an island and how you define occupy. for example in the Philippines alone there are 7,100 islands, and Im willing to bet most where never permantly occupied by the Japanese but only saw patrol every now and then.. If an island with small fishing village got visited once a month by a Japanese patrol craft, would you considered that occupation?

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Michael Emrys
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#6

Post by Michael Emrys » 07 Oct 2005, 10:42

TRose wrote:If an island with small fishing village got visited once a month by a Japanese patrol craft, would you considered that occupation?
If they were the only military force in the vicinity during the whole period, then yes, I suppose I would. Consider a comparable situation in Occupied France. A small farming village, no permanent German garrison. But once a week a patrol swings through just to keep an eye on things.

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Peter H
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#7

Post by Peter H » 07 Oct 2005, 17:20

Nauru and its phosphate resources were a major Japanese acquisition.

http://www.janeresture.com/nauru_history/

http://www.janeresture.com/nauru_battle/

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Peter H
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#8

Post by Peter H » 09 Oct 2005, 13:26

Bypassed Japanese island garrisons,1944-45:

http://www.geocities.com/dutcheastindie ... rison.html

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