It is a story that every village near a centre in PNG could replicate but few if any will. It is not a memoir as only the preface, a personal note and an epilogue are used to fit the Maddocks family into the picture. Dr Anthony Radford with the help of his wife Robin has produced a massive memoir. Singsings, Sutures and Sorcery starts with his initiation and isolation at Chuave in followed by the years they spent first in Kainantu then Saiho and back to Kainantu.
As a scion of the Kent Hughes medical family, Anthony had an advantage over those who were the first doctor in a family. He had family models and guidance when he chose to devote his life to the people of PNG. I remember my interviews in Adelaide in and the outstanding academic record of Anthony and others who sought appointed as cadets. Anthony recalls the planning behind his post graduate education to achieve his personal objective. The memoirs emphasize the relationships they developed with the staff and students in the Papuan Medical College and the University.
The last section covers his involvement in PNG and elsewhere as an international consultant and his distress at the effect of corruption on the health of the people of PNG. I commend both books for their interesting historical content and the galaxy of photographs of an historic era. I think it is fair to say that in recent years Kokoda has come to have the same emotive effect on the Australian national psyche as Gallipoli. It defines Australians as individuals and as a nation. However, after having read The Kokoda Campaign —Myth and Reality, by Dr Peter Williams, one has to ask how much of that definition is based on myth and how much is based on fact.
I have read any number of books and articles on the desperate early days of the Pacific War, when Australians feared their survival as a people and as a nation might fall to the overwhelming force of an upstart Asian nation less than a hundred years on the world stage. It seems almost every year of late another book about Kokoda comes out. Almost all of them retell the story of how Australian citizen soldiers, poorly trained, underequipped and overwhelmed managed an almost textbook-like fighting retreat over the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea, slowing and then eventually stopping a Japanese force estimated at—depending on the book—two-to-one to six-to-one, thus saving Port Moresby and also Australia.
Dr Peter Williams, in his five-year research on Kokoda, has done what all historians should do when researching and writing on any topic of historic significance. He wiped the slate clean and started almost from scratch, questioning every aspect of the campaign that others have repeatedly expounded upon as if it were part of some holy grail. To begin with, enlisting both Australian and Japanese documents, Dr Williams dispels the reader of the notion that the Diggers saved Port Moresby. He then cites numerous sources pointing to the fact that contrary to most books and articles written on the subject, the Japanese knew that Kokoda was a track and not a road, and that it led over a high mountain range.
The Australians fighting against the Japanese troops of Nankai Shitai South Sea Force were not pushed back because they were outnumbered.
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Meticulously consulting Japanese sources, Dr Williams, doing the math, shows again and again that during each stage of the retreat Australian forces were up against numbers equal to what they had. Dr Williams also points out that the Japanese on Kokoda did not eventually retreat because they had run out of supplies and were starving. They were ordered back, at least temporarily, due to the turn of events on Guadalcanal that required the full attention of the Japanese military before they could focus their attentions once again on earlier objectives.
Without making this too long, briefly, Dr Williams also dissuades the reader of other myths such as the use of airpower in defeating Japanese forces on the trail and the supposed better medical care received by Australians. None of the above should be seen as a denigration of the Australians of that generation who saw their fight at Kokoda as a do or die situation that would decide the fate of Australia. Most thought, like Brigadier Potts, that they were hundreds up against perhaps thousands. Douglas MacArthur and Gen. Thomas Blamey, two rather enigmatic yet controversial individuals.
Dr Williams also reminds the reader that Kokoda was not a battle of and within itself, as if it was something organic. Marines that landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August , and their subsequent defeat of all Japanese attempts to remove them. Order from the publisher or purchase from your local bookseller. Many of us, I'm sure, have taken the opportunity of walking in the cloisters of the Australian War Memorial's Roll of Honour. There are 40, names, or thereabouts, of the Australian dead of the Second World War.
As I've often lamented, it is impossible for each of us to know the details of even more than a handful of these men and women. Chinese launched a counter offensive to retake Guangxi which was the last major Japanese stronghold in South China. In August , Chinese forces successfully retook Guangxi. The largest and bloodiest American battle came at Okinawa, as the US sought airbases for 3, B bombers for the intense bombardment of Japan's home islands in preparation for a full-scale invasion in late The Japanese, with , troops augmented by thousands of civilians on the heavily populated island, did not resist on the beaches—their strategy was to maximize the number of soldier and Marine casualties, and naval losses from Kamikaze attacks.
After an intense bombardment the Americans landed on 1 April and declared victory on 21 June. US losses totaled 38 ships of all types sunk and damaged with 4, sailors killed. The British Pacific Fleet operated as a separate unit from the American task forces in the Okinawa operation.
Its objective was to strike airfields on the chain of islands between Formosa and Okinawa, to prevent the Japanese reinforcing the defences of Okinawa from that direction. Hard-fought battles on the Japanese home islands of Iwo Jima , Okinawa , and others resulted in horrific casualties on both sides but finally produced a Japanese defeat. Of the , Okinawan and Japanese troops defending Okinawa, 94 percent died.
The US Navy proposed to force a Japanese surrender through a total naval blockade and air raids. Japanese industrial production plunged as nearly half of the built-up areas of 67 cities were destroyed by B firebombing raids. On 9—10 March alone, about , people were killed in a conflagration caused by an incendiary attack on Tokyo. LeMay also oversaw Operation Starvation , in which the inland waterways of Japan were extensively mined by air, which disrupted the small amount of remaining Japanese coastal sea traffic. This ultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction.
On 6 August , the US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in the first nuclear attack in history. In a press release issued after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Truman warned Japan to surrender or " More than ,—, people died as a direct result of these two bombings. Another argument in favor of the atomic bombs is that they helped avoid Operation Downfall , or a prolonged blockade and bombing campaign, any of which would have exacted much higher casualties among Japanese civilians. It promised to act 90 days after the war ended in Europe and did so exactly on schedule on 9 August by invading Manchuria.
The Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation began on 9 August , with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and was the last campaign of the Second World War and the largest of the Soviet—Japanese War which resumed hostilities between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace. The USSR's entry into the war was a significant factor in the Japanese decision to surrender as it became apparent the Soviets were no longer willing to act as an intermediary for a negotiated settlement on favorable terms.
The effects of the "Twin Shocks"—the Soviet entry and the atomic bombings —were profound. On 10 August the "sacred decision" was made by Japanese Cabinet to accept the Potsdam terms on one condition: At noon on 15 August, after the American government's intentionally ambiguous reply, stating that the "authority" of the emperor "shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers", the Emperor broadcast to the nation and to the world at large the rescript of surrender, [] ending the Second World War. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.
In Japan, 14 August is considered to be the day that the Pacific War ended. Following this period, MacArthur went to Tokyo to oversee the post-war development of the country. This period in Japanese history is known as the occupation. There were some , American casualties: The US protectorate in the Philippines suffered considerable losses. Military losses were 27, dead including POWs , 75, living POWs, and an unknown number wounded, not counting irregulars that fought in the insurgency. According to official Chinese Nationalist statistics, losses to the regular National Revolutionary Army totaled 3,,, with 1,, killed 1,, wounded , missing.
The soldiers of the Chinese Communist Party suffered , casualties, of which , were killed, , missing, and , wounded. This would equate to a total of 3.
Military history of New Zealand during World War II
Neither total includes the considerable number of irregular guerrilla fighters sworn to regional warlords who fought the Japanese. The casualties break down as 1. China suffered enormous civilian losses in the war. Estimates vary wildly, though there is a general consensus that civilian deaths were in the 17 to 22 million range, mostly from war-related causes such as famine. Between the Malayan Campaign , discounting some 20, Australians , [] Burma Campaign 86, , [] Battle of Hong Kong 15, , [] and various naval encounters, British Empire forces incurred some , casualties in the Pacific Theater, including roughly 82, killed 50, in combat and 32, as POWs [] The Royal Navy lost 23 warships in the Pacific and Indian oceans: These included 3 million deaths in the Bengal famine of and 0.
Australia incurred losses of 45, not including deaths and illnesses from natural causes such as disease: Of the ethnic Dutch troops, were killed in action and 37, became prisoners. Similar to the Dutch, the 65,strong French colonial army in French Indochina 16, European French and 48, colonial disintegrated at the end of the Japanese invasion.
According to a report compiled by the Relief Bureau of the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare in March , combined Japanese Army and Navy deaths during the war —45 numbered approximately 2,, men, mostly against either the Americans 1. The losses were broken down as follows: The IJN lost over warships, including 11 battleships, 25 aircraft carriers, 39 cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, almost entirely in action against the United States Navy. Japan's ally Germany lost 10 submarines and four auxiliary cruisers Thor , Michel , Pinguin , and Kormoran in the Indian and Pacific oceans.
On 7 December , 2, non-combatants 2, neutral military personnel and 68 civilians were killed and 1, wounded during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Because the attack happened without a declaration of war or explicit warning, it was judged by the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime. During the Pacific War, Japanese soldiers killed millions of non-combatants, including prisoners of war , from surrounding nations. Unit was one example of wartime atrocities committed on a civilian population during World War II, where experiments were performed on thousands of Chinese and Korean civilians as well as Allied prisoners of war.
In military campaigns, the Imperial Japanese Army used biological weapons and chemical weapons on the Chinese, killing around , civilians. A widely publicised example of institutionalised sexual slavery are " comfort women ", a euphemism for the , women, mostly from Korea and China, who served in the Imperial Japanese Army's camps during World War II. Some 35 Dutch comfort women brought a successful case before the Batavia Military Tribunal in According to historian Mitsuyoshi Himeta, the scorched earth campaign was responsible for the deaths of "more than 2.
The collection of skulls and other remains of Japanese soldiers by Allied soldiers was shown by several studies to have been widespread enough to be commented upon by Allied military authorities and US wartime press. Following the surrender of Japan, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East took place in Ichigaya , Tokyo from 29 April to 12 November to try those accused of the most serious war crimes. Meanwhile, military tribunals were also held by the returning powers throughout Asia and the Pacific for lesser figures. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Pacific War disambiguation. For other uses, see Pacific Theatre. Map showing the main areas of the conflict and Allied landings in the Pacific, — Western Pacific Ocean a Indian Ocean b. Roosevelt —45 Harry S. Mackenzie King Peter Fraser A. Attack on Pearl Harbor. Battle of the Coral Sea. New Guinea campaign and Solomon Islands campaign. Allied submarines in the Pacific War. Battle of Saipan and Mariana and Palau Islands campaign.
Battle of the Philippine Sea. Battle of Leyte Gulf. Battle of Iwo Jima. Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Soviet—Japanese War and Soviet invasion of Manchuria. The Imperial Rescript of 15 August []. French Indochinese forces faced Japanese forces in a coup in The commando corps continued to operate after the coup until liberation. The Vichy French allowed the Japanese to use bases in French Indochina beginning in following invasion. In addition, Germany and Italy both contributed small naval forces.
What had been for so long a war between two countries now became part of a much wider Pacific conflict. After the war, when moralistic doubts about Hiroshima and other raids on civilian targets were loudly voiced, no one criticized Roosevelt's submarine policy. Retrieved 30 September Global Logistics and Strategy — p. Third Report to the Secretary of the Navy p.
The Second World War p. Loss of the Netherlands East Indies". Retrieved 31 August Japanese strength is given at 4,, in the Home Islands and 3,, abroad. A Statistical Reference", Vol. Albertson, "Beneath the Southern Cross" p. Retrieved 15 June Retrieved 23 April Race and Power in the Pacific War. Retrieved 31 October An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation.
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Warfare and Armed Conflicts: Disaster into Triumph, —, p. Ritual and Memory" Japan Focus. Retrieved on 5 June Bruce Reynolds, "Aftermath of Alliance: However, an account by M. Millett, A War to be Won: MacLeod, Science and the Pacific War: Hsiung and Steven I. Levine, China's Bitter Victory: The War with Japan — , M. Retrieved 1 December Archived from the original on 19 March Archived from the original on 9 January Stalingrad on the Yangtze.
Battle for a Doomed City. Taierzhuang — Stalingrad Insight into a blind spot of WW2 Series. War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China. University of California Press. Modern China's Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West. Retrieved 28 June Apologies in International Politics ".
Cornell University Press, p. Rummel 31 August Genocide and Mass Murder Since Retrieved 6 May — via British Newspaper Archive. Naval Institute Press, The Global War", p. United States Naval Institute Press, Archived from the original on 26 September Retrieved 3 May Retrieved 10 September A Study of Crisis. University of Michigan Press. The Dutch East Indies Campaign — See Battle of Timor.
Dutch East Indies Campaign website. Retrieved 20 April Retrieved 29 April Retrieved 15 December Japanese submarine operations against Australia — Retrieved 18 June Reynolds, Command of the Sea: The History and Strategy of Maritime Empires Archived from the original on 15 September Archived from the original on 17 November Retrieved 6 December Day By Day , pp. United States of America: Retrieved 21 May Silent Victory New York: Navy in World War Two. The Netherlands East Indies — Risa Brooks, Elizabeth A.
Continuum International Publishing Group. A Military History of Australia. The Viking Press, China Whampoa Academy Net. Alexander, The final campaign: National Science Digital Library. Statement By The President". Retrieved 15 August The End of the Pacific War: The Soviet Manchurian Campaign, August The Pacific Historical Review , Vol. The Imperial Rescript of 15Aug45".
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 27 September Retrieved 25 July Imperial Japan's World War Two. Studies on the Population of China, — Harvard University Press, The Fall of Singapore. Not the Slightest Chance: The Defence of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press. National Museum of the Royal Navy.
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This does not include tanks that only sustained light to moderate damage, or ones lost due to mechanical failure. Archived from the original on 5 May Retrieved 11 July The Quest for Power. Retrieved March 4, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: Harvard University Asia Center.
McCaffrey 22 September Genocide and Mass Murder since ''' Chapter 3. The End of the War Against Japan". The Issue of Compensation by Japan. Supranational Criminal Prosecution of Sexual Violence. Abe ", The Japan Times, 2 March Fire in the Sky: The Air War in the South Pacific. Lippincott, submarine war. Bond, Brian; Tachikawa, Kyoichi A Biography of Admiral Ernest J. King Naval Institute Press, A Biography of Admiral Raymond Spruance.
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War with Japan, — Uses editors parameter link Channel 4 UK. Hell in the Pacific television documentary series. Cleaver, Thomas McKelvey From Leyte Gulf to Tokyo Bay. University of Chicago Press, Guadalcanal to Saipan, August to July The Battle of Leyte Gulf: Fighting in World War II: In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. University of Nebraska Press.
The Pacific War Encyclopedia. Facts on File, But unlike the other Dominions , New Zealand did not insist on its aircrews serving with RNZAF squadrons, so speeding up the rate at which they entered service. In total, around , New Zealand personnel served overseas for the Allied war effort, and an additional , men were armed for Home Guard duty. At its peak in July , New Zealand had , men and women under arms excluding the Home Guard and by the war's end a total of , men and 10, women had served in the armed forces at home and overseas.
Conscription was introduced in June , and volunteering for Army service ceased from 22 July , although entry to the Air Force and Navy remained voluntary. Difficulties in filling the Second and Third Echelons for overseas service in , the Allied disasters of May and public demand led to its introduction. Four members of the cabinet including Prime Minister Peter Fraser had been imprisoned for anti-conscription activities in World War I, the Labour Party was traditionally opposed to it, and some members still demanded conscription of wealth before men.
From January , workers could be manpowered or directed to essential industries. Access to imports was hampered and rationing made doing some things very difficult. Fuel and rubber shortages were overcome with novel approaches. In New Zealand, industry switched from civilian needs to making war materials on a much larger scale than is commonly understood today.
In winter the government hastened work on docks and repair facilities at Auckland and Wellington following a British request, to supplement the bases and repair yards in Australia needed for the British Pacific Fleet. The New Zealand authorities deployed the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force for combat in three echelons — all originally destined for Egypt , but one diverted to Scotland it would arrive there in June following the German invasion of France.
In April , after a period training in Egypt , 2NZEF's New Zealand 2nd Division, stationed in Egypt, deployed to take part in the defence of Greece against invasion by Italian troops, and soon German forces too when they joined the invasion.
This defence was mounted alongside British and Australian units - the corps-size Commonwealth contingent under the command of British General Henry Maitland Wilson known together as W Force, supported a weakened Greek Army. As German panzers began a swift advance into Greece on 6 April, the British and Commonwealth troops found themselves being outflanked and were forced into retreat. By 9 April, Greece had been forced to surrender and the 40, W Force troops began a withdrawal from the country to Crete and Egypt, the last New Zealand troops leaving by 29 April.
During this brief campaign, the New Zealanders lost men killed, 1, captured and wounded. Two of the three brigades of the New Zealand 2nd Division had evacuated to Crete from Greece the third and division headquarters went to Alexandria. New Zealanders bolstered the Crete garrison to a total of 34, British and Commonwealth soldiers 25, evacuated from Greece alongside 9, Greek troops see Crete order of battle for more detail.
Evacuated to Crete on 28 April having disregarded an order to leave on 23 April , the New Zealand General Freyberg became commander of the Allied forces on Crete on the 30th. With this knowledge, General Freyberg began to prepare the island's defences, hampered by a lack of modern and heavy equipment, as the troops from Greece had in most cases had to leave only with their personal weapons.
Although German plans had underestimated Greek, British and Commonwealth numbers, and incorrectly presumed that the Cretan population would welcome the invasion, Freyberg was still faced with the harsh prospect that even lightly equipped paratroopers could overwhelm the island's defences. Most of the New Zealand forces were deployed around this north-western part of the island and with British and Greek troops they inflicted heavy casualties upon the initial German attacks.
Despite near complete defeat for their landing troops east of the airfield and in the Galatas region, the Germans were able to gain a foothold by mid-morning west of Maleme Airfield 5 Brigade's area - along the Tavronitis riverbed and in the Ayia Valley to the east 10 Brigade's area - dubbed 'Prison Valley'. Over the course of the morning, the strong New Zealand 22 Battalion defending Maleme Airfield found its situation rapidly worsening. The battalion had lost telephone contact with the brigade headquarters; the battalion headquarters in Pirgos had lost contact with C and D Companies, stationed on the airstrip and along the Tavronitis-side of Hill see map respectively and the battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie Andrew VC had no idea of the enemy paratrooper strength to his west, as his observation posts lacked wireless sets.
Not knowing whether C and D Companies had been overrun, and with German mortars firing from the riverbed, Colonel Andrew with unreliable wireless contact ordered the firing of white and green signals - the designated emergency signal for 23 Battalion to the south-east of Pirgos , under the command of Colonel Leckie, to counterattack.
The signal was not spotted, and further attempts were made to get the message through to no avail. Faced with a seemingly desperate situation, Colonel Andrew played his trump card — two Matilda tanks , which he ordered to counterattack with the reserve infantry platoon and some additional gunners turned infantrymen. The counterattack failed — one tank had to turn back after suffering technical problems the turret would not traverse properly and the second ignored the German positions in the RAF camp and the edge of the airfield, heading straight for the riverbed.
This lone tank stranded itself quickly on a boulder, and faced with the same technical difficulties as the first Matilda, the crew abandoned the vehicle. To Colonel Andrew, the situation seemed bleak; ammunition was running low, the promised reinforcements seemed not to be forthcoming one got lost, the other simply did not arrive as quickly as expected and he still had no idea how C and D companies were. The two companies in question were in fact resisting strongly on the airfield and above the Tavronitis riverbed and had inflicted far greater losses on the Germans than they had suffered.
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By midnight, all of 22 Battalion had left the Maleme area, with the exception of C and D Companies which withdrew in the early morning of the 21st upon discovering that the rest of the battalion had gone. This allowed German troops to seize the airfield proper without opposition and take nearby positions to reinforce their hold on it. Although the landings were extremely hazardous, with the airstrip under direct British artillery fire, substantial reinforcement was made.
The attack was hampered by communications problems and although the New Zealanders made significant advances in some areas, the overall picture was one of stiff German resistance.
Battle of Tsimba Ridge
On the night of 23 May and the morning of 24 May, 5 Brigade withdrew again to the area near Daratsos , forming a new front line running from Galatas to the sea. The relatively fresh 18 Battalion replaced the worn troops from Maleme and Platanias, deploying men on a two kilometre front. Pink Hill so named for the colour of its soil , a crucial point on the Galatas heights, was attacked several times by the Germans that day, and was remarkably held by the Division Petrol Company, with the aid of Greek soldiers, though at a heavy cost to both sides. The Petrol Company comprised poorly armed support troops, primarily drivers and technicians, and by the day's end all their officers and most of their non-commissioned officers had been wounded.
They withdrew around dusk.
On the second day, the New Zealanders attacked nearby Cemetery Hill to take pressure off their line, and although they had to withdraw, for it was too exposed, the hill became a no man's land as Pink Hill was, relieving the New Zealand front. Day three, 22 May, saw German soldiers take Pink Hill.
The Petrol Company and some infantry reserve prepared a counterattack, but a notable incident pre-empted them - as told by Driver A. Out of the trees came [Captain] Forrester of the Buffs , clad in shorts, a long yellow army jersey reaching down almost to the bottom of the shorts, brass polished and gleaming, web belt in place and waving his revolver in his right hand [ Forrester was at the head of a crowd of disorderly Greeks, including women; one Greek had a shot gun with a serrated-edge bread knife tied on like a bayonet, others had ancient weapons—all sorts.
Without hesitation this uncouth group, with Forrester right out in front, went over the top of a parapet and headlong at the crest of the hill. Days four and five featured only skirmishes between the two forces. Luftwaffe air raids targeted Galatas on 25 May at 8: The New Zealand defenders, though prepared, suffered from a disadvantage: The fighting was fierce, especially along the north of the line, and platoons and companies were forced to retreat.
Brigadier Lindsay Inglis called for reinforcement and received 23 Battalion, which, along with an improvised group of reinforcements scraped together at Brigade headquarters including the brigade band and the Kiwi Concert Party , stabilised the north of the line. South of Galatas, only 18 Battalion and the Petrol Company were defending - 18 Battalion was forced to withdraw, and the Petrol Company on Pink Hill followed suit after eventually becoming aware of this. These forces withdrew past Galatas, as no defenders were in the village to link up with. By nightfall, German troops had occupied Galatas, and Lieutenant-Colonel Howard Kippenberger prepared a counterattack.
Two tanks led two companies of 23 Battalion into Galatas at a running pace - heavy fire was encountered and as the tanks went ahead towards the town square, the infantry cleared each house of German soldiers as they worked inward. When the infantry caught up with the tanks, they found one out of action.