Japan’s biggest advantage in the Pacific was knowing the terrain. Volcanic atolls being what they are, there are only a few places in the whole South Pacific that can be turned into airfields. Not only that, but there are only a very few approaches to those places, and the Japanese knew them all. If you’re outmanned and outgunned, a strategy of digging in deep and selling your lives as dearly as possible is the only way to go. Bleed the enemy white.
And lord knows the Americans took the bait, more than once. If “bait” is really the right word, because if you’ve got no choice … the early campaigns in the Solomons were so legendarily nasty for that reason: You have no choice but to go right up the pipe to seize an objective, and if you do, the enemy has no choice but to go right up the pipe to get it back.
The genius of the later American strategy — and credit where it’s due, few people have a lower opinion of MacArthur than I, but this was brilliant — was to simply go around. Heavy bomber strips are a must, and in the even fewer places in the Pacific that can take heavy bombers, the Americans had no choice but to go right up the chute … but carrier airpower can do a hell of a lot, particularly when it can move about completely unmolested by the enemy. Thus the Americans turned all those guaranteed meat grinders the Japanese had set up for them into big open-air POW camps, without bothering to go in there and force them to surrender (which, of course, they wouldn’t). Have fun starving in your bunkers, boys; we’ll just leave a covering naval detachment, to make sure you can’t evacuate; see you when the war’s over.
Severian, “Strategy”, Founding Questions, 2021-11-21.
April 27, 2025
QotD: Fighting against Japan in the Pacific
April 24, 2025
“Call for Admiral Ackbar! Paging Admiral Ackbar. Admiral Ackbar to the white courtesy phone, please.”
What a wonderful, heartwarming story: those cuddly folks in Beijing are reaching out to Canada to “partner with” as a way of warding off American “bullying”. How nice! What a great idea! With the best possible intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
China’s ambassador says Beijing is offering to form a partnership with Canada to push back against American “bullying”, suggesting the two countries could rally other nations to stop Washington from undermining global rules.
“We want to avoid the situation where humanity is brought back to a world of the law of the jungle again,” Chinese Ambassador Wang Di told The Canadian Press in a wide-ranging interview.
“China is Canada’s opportunity, not Canada’s threat,” he said through the embassy’s interpreter.
Wang — whose office requested the interview with The Canadian Press — said that China and Canada appear to be the only countries taking “concrete and real countermeasures against the unjustified U.S. tariffs” imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We have taken notice that, faced with the U.S.’s unilateral bullying, Canada has not backed down,” he said. “Instead, Canada is standing on the right side of the history, on the right side of international fairness and justice.”
He said Beijing and Ottawa should work together to convince other countries not to placate the Trump administration and to make Washington pay a price for breaking global trade rules.
Roland Paris, who leads the University of Ottawa’s graduate school of international affairs, said Beijing has long sought to reshape international institutions to advance its own interests — efforts that often have put China at odds with Ottawa’s foreign policy.
He said Canadian businesses should take a cautious approach to China, where they still face the risk of import bans and arbitrary detainment.
“The mercenary use of tariffs and non-tariff barriers that we’re seeing from the Trump administration has been practised for a long time by China in different forms,” Paris said.
“China has played its own version of hardball and abused trade rules in the past to coerce countries, including Canada, that have dared to displease Beijing.”
As the rivalry between the U.S. and China has intensified, Canada has generally followed Washington’s lead on restricting certain types of commerce with China.
Last fall — in an effort to protect Canadian auto sector jobs and allay American concerns about threats to supply chains — the federal government imposed 100 per cent tariffs on imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles that all but banned Chinese EVs from the Canadian market.
Canada alleged unfair trade practices including “a state-directed policy of overcapacity and oversupply,” and “lack of rigorous labour and environmental standards”.
Beijing retaliated by imposing large tariffs on Canadian canola and pork — duties Wang said Beijing is happy to drop if Ottawa drops its own tariffs.
In totally unrelated news, a Conservative candidate has been advised by the RCMP to “pause in-person campaigning” in the current federal election campaign due to threats originating in the People’s Republic of China:
Joseph Tay, the Conservative candidate identified by federal authorities as the target of aggressive Chinese election interference operations, paused in-person campaigning yesterday following advice from federal police, The Bureau has learned.
Two sources with awareness of the matter said the move came after the SITE Task Force — Canada’s election-threat monitor — confirmed that Tay is the subject of a highly coordinated transnational repression operation tied to the People’s Republic of China. The campaign seeks not only to discredit Tay, but to suppress the ability of Chinese Canadian voters to access his campaign messages online, via cyber operations conducted by Beijing’s internet authorities.
Now, with six days until Canada’s pivotal vote — in an election likely to be decided across key Toronto battleground ridings — it appears that Tay’s ability to reach voters in person has also been downgraded.
Tay, a journalist and pro-democracy advocate born in Hong Kong, is running for the Conservative Party in the Don Valley North riding. Federal intelligence sources have confirmed that his political activities have made him a top target for Beijing-linked online attacks and digital suppression efforts in the lead-up to next week’s federal election.
Tay’s need to suspend door-knocking yesterday in Don Valley North echoes concerns raised in a neighbouring riding during the 2021 federal campaign — where The Bureau previously uncovered allegations of Chinese government intimidation and targeting of voters and a Conservative incumbent. According to senior Conservative sources, Chinese agents attempted to intimidate voters and monitor the door-to-door campaign of then-incumbent MP Bob Saroya in Markham–Unionville.
Update: Spotted on the social network formerly known as Twitter:
April 23, 2025
The Korean War Week 44 – Mac’s Lies Boil Truman’s Blood – April 22, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 22 Apr 2025The stage is set for the Chinese Communist Forces’ next big offensive in Korea, but that is not where American eyes are fixed this week. Instead, focus swings to Washington D.C. where the recently-fired Douglas MacArthur arrives and proceeds to address crowds and Congress alike. It soon becomes clear that he will not go gentle into that good night.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:58 Recap
01:46 Soviet Intervention?
04:22 Operation Rugged
07:01 Task Force 77
09:36 South Korean Porters
11:02 MacArthur and McClellan
13:55 Summary
14:13 Conclusion
(more…)
April 22, 2025
Rise of Japan: 1st Sino-Japanese War 1894-95
Real Time History
Published 18 Apr 2025In 1894, tensions are rising in East Asia. There’s trouble in the small but strategically-located Kingdom of Korea, as rival factions in the royal family fight for power and against popular uprisings. Shaken by a major revolt, Korea’s King Kojong calls on China for help – but Japan intervenes, setting off a war that will devastate Korea and upend the old order in Asia.
(more…)
April 21, 2025
The Battles That Broke the Chinese Nationalists – W2W 22 – 1948 Q2
TimeGhost History
Published 20 Apr 2025This episode, we see the Chinese Civil War turn decisively against Chiang Kai-Shek. Mao’s Communists score great victories on the battlefield while the Nationalists face economic collapse. How much longer can Chiang hold on?
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April 20, 2025
Did Britain Bomb The Wrong Targets in WW2? – Out of the Foxholes Live
World War Two
Published 19 Apr 2025Today Indy and Sparty answer questions on the French colonies, Pykrete and iceberg aircraft carriers Japan’s invasion of India, and they talk about Britain’s misguided strategic bombing strategy.
(more…)
April 19, 2025
QotD: Allied air and sea operations won WWII
The Allies won the war by using air power to destroy the German and Japanese capacity both to produce military equipment and to transport it to the battlefield. By 1944-45, the Germans and Japanese could not use their economies to arm and supply their armies on the battlefield, leading to their inevitable defeat.
In the European war, American and British airpower: (a) directly destroyed a significant amount of productive capacity, (b) rendered remaining capacity far less efficient, (c) made it impossible for the Germans to defeat western ground forces, and (d) compelled the Germans to waste tremendous resources on air defense and exorbitant, ultimately ineffective vengeance weapons.
In the Pacific, the United States used carrier-based airpower, submarines, and bomber-deployed mines to isolate Japan from the resources of the empire it conquered in 1941-42. American bombers also directly destroyed factories and transportation systems, leading to similar levels of economic dysfunction as in Germany.
Anonymous, “Your Book Review: How the War Was Won“, Astral Codex Ten, 2024-08-09.
April 17, 2025
QotD: Explaining mid-century American support of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Republic of China
PR: Because the missionaries in China had decided that it was going to become their great project, channeling that global do gooder impulse that had lain dormant since the end of the Civil War as their Great Cause — the missionaries were the grandchildren of the abolitionists and they took their fanaticism straight from that movement. China was to be “saved” from paganism, Catholicism and colonialism and they formed some kind of proto-NGO, ensuring that their views were made the policy of the government. It is not a coincidence that both Chaing and his wife were Protestant Christian converts (at least nominally) That impulse to “nation build” China into a facsimile of Progresssive Christian America (excluding, of course, the Old Confederacy) is the source of the drive to make their fantasy real, like that Utopian impulse we described the other day that is a bedrock of the Juggalo mindset. To find the roots of the China obsession you have to understand the power of the missionary movement. Nothing to me sums it up better than Kenneth Wherry, who became a big player in the China Lobby, with his mix of naivety, pathological altruism, and religious fervor-
With God’s help, we will lift Shanghai up and up, ever up, until it is just like Kansas City …
[…]
That’s an important point — the Protestants never had the same fervor to make Vietnam or Cuba or even the Philippines (even though it was OUR colony) into Kansas City, because they were either already Catholic or had a minority Catholic elite. China, however, gave them that sweet Protestant fix in making a new China with the “right” kind of Christianity. It’s also why they hated Japan so — Japan had slammed the door on Protestant missionaries pretty hard and their Christian minority (in Nagasaki, ironically) was Catholic.
From the comment thread on “WNF: A Twofer”, Founding Questions, 2025-01-15.
April 16, 2025
The Korean War Week 43 – Truman Dismisses MacArthur! – April 15, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 15 Apr 2025It’s finally happened, President Harry Truman has relieved Douglas MacArthur of command. If you’ve followed us lately you’ll know the why, but today you’ll see then how, when, and where. But the fight in the field goes on- this week fighting for control of the Hwacheon Reservoir.
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Food in the Japanese-American Internment Camps of World War 2
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 3 Dec 2024Tuna noodle casserole made with spaghetti, and rice with canned apricots for dessert
City/Region: Topaz War Relocation Center, Utah
Time Period: 1943In 1942, anyone of Japanese ancestry in the United States was forcibly sent to live in incarceration camps. Food was often in the form of leftover military rations that was augmented by crops grown by the people living in the camps, but there were also canteens that sold food and sundries. These items were great luxuries as the Japanese Americans living in the camps made only about 1/5 of a typical wage and included things like Ovaltine, apple juice, and canned tuna.
This recipe, from a newspaper printed in the Topaz War Relocation Center, makes a tasty, if basic, tuna noodle casserole. I would add more of the paprika, or really some more spices in general, but I really like the lightly crunchy texture of the bread crumbs and the celery.
If you’d like to serve this forth with dessert, as I did, then you simply need some cooked white rice and some canned apricots with syrup.
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April 14, 2025
Huế: Battle for the Heart of Vietnam
Army University Press
Published 22 Nov 2024The Battle of Huế is known for urban combat, destruction, and anguish. The city of Huế mattered to all the combatant forces. The city and its people paid the price. Interviews with noted subject matter experts Drs. Pierre Asselin, Gregory Daddis, James Willbanks, and Cpt. Wyatt Harper are augmented with archival audio and film, and detailed maps. This documentary places the Battle of Huế within the context of Hanoi’s 1968 Tet Offensive. How North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States perceived the Vietnam War in 1967 and 1968 are central to this documentary. Covered are the key moments of the battle — including the People’s Armed Forces of Vietnam (PAVN) and People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF) planning and assault on Hue. The responses of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), Vietnam Marine Corps (VNMC), the United States Marine Corps (USMC), and the U.S. Army (USA) are addressed to offer insight into an informative example of urban warfare.
0:02:39 – Why the Tet Offensive
0:10:53 – Why Huế
0:15:53 – Military Decision Making Process | Doctrine
0:26:51 – Warfighting Function | Doctrine
0:27:59 – Paralysis by analysis | Doctrine
0:33:15 – Courses of action | Doctrine
0:38:22 – Weather and operations | Doctrine
0:40:52 – Huế Massacre
0:41:18 – My Lai
0:46:05 – Huế and Modern Warfare
April 9, 2025
The Korean War Week 42 – Seize Hwacheon Reservoir? A Dam Good idea – April 8, 1951
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 4 Apr 2025Operation Rugged is in full swing, and it’s taking a decent amount of territory, but Matt Ridgway is worried about the possibility of the enemy blowing the dam at the Hwacheon Reservoir and flooding his army, so he gets set to try and soon take it. Meanwhile there’s an explosion in Congress in Washington DC, when the Minority Leader openly reads Douglas MacArthur’s letter of his plans for the war that are diametrically opposed to those of President Harry Truman. Truman realizes that he’s going to have to remove MacArthur from UN command.
Chapters
00:57 Recap
01:31 When to Fire MacArthur?
03:53 Joe Martin Speaks
07:11 Operation Rugged
09:23 The Hwacheon Reservoir Dam
13:35 Summary
13:51 Conclusion
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Battle of Saipan 1944: Total War in the Pacific
Real Time History
Published 15 Nov 2024In June 1944, an armada of warships and landing craft is getting ready for D-Day. Thousands of American soldiers are about to attack a prepared enemy with formidable defenses. But this isn’t Normandy, this is the island of Saipan. And the bloody battle there will bring total war to the Pacific.
Chapters:
00:00 Why the US Landed on Saipan
01:46 American Plan for Saipan
03:38 Japanese Defenses on Saipan
05:08 Preparations for D-Day on Saipan
06:39 D-Day on Saipan
08:46 Marine Combat Shotguns on Saipan
14:48 Japanese Counterattack
16:30 D-Day Plus 3 on Saipan
17:01 Battle of the Philippine Sea
20:45 D-Day Plus 7-9 on Saipan
22:33 D-Day Plus 11-15 on Saipan
24:10 Japanese Banzai Charge on Saipan
26:46 Civilian Casualties on Saipan
27:57 End of the Battle of Saipan
28:48 Battles of Tinian and Guam
30:04 Epilogue
(more…)
April 8, 2025
What did Alexander the Great eat?
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 26 Nov 2024Game hens roasted with a hazelnut and herb sauce
City/Region: Rome | Macedonia
Time Period: 1st CenturyThrowing lavish feasts was one foreign custom that Alexander the Great was all too happy to adopt. We don’t have any recipes from Alexander’s court, so I looked to the ancient Roman cookbook, De re coquinaria, to find a recipe that used ingredients that Alexander would have had.
The herbs and seasonings in the sauce combine to form a new complex flavor that is delicious. The hazelnuts are prominent and form a wonderful crust on the game hens, and the garum adds its distinctive savory umami note. You can either make the sauce and serve it forth with poultry that you’ve already cooked, or roast the birds with the sauce like I did.
Aliter Ius in Avibus, Another Sauce for Birds:
Pepper, parsley, lovage, dried mint, safflower, pour in wine, add toasted hazelnuts or almonds, a little honey with wine and vinegar, season with garum. Add oil to this in a pot, heat it, stir in green celery and calamint. Make incisions in the birds and pour the sauce over them.
— Apicius de re coquinaria, 1st century
April 5, 2025
Troops, Tanks, Trucks: What’s Inside A Division? – A Korean War Special
The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 4 Apr 2025Who exactly is fighting in Korea? What’s changed under the hood since the start of the war? How many showers do you need to keep 17,214 soldiers smelling like roses? Today Indy breaks down the units that make up the frontline and answers these questions, looking at American, North Korean, Chinese, South Korean, and British units and what they consist of.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:44 Benefits and Limitations
02:04 A US Division
06:12 The Communist Forces
09:56 Other UN Forces
13:00 Conclusion
(more…)
