Pacific Theater of Operations

This article is about the United States military command area in World War II. For the portion of that war fought in the Pacific Ocean and East Asia, see Pacific War.

For naval operations in the Southwest Pacific area including the Netherlands East Indies, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, and New Guinea, see South West Pacific theatre of World War II.

A map of the US Pacific Theater of Operations showing its component areas and its relationship to South East Asia Command.

The Pacific Theater of Operations can be utilised as a term to describe the area of operations of U.S. forces during the Pacific War of 1941-45.

From mid-1942 until the end of the war in 1945, there were two U.S. operational commands in the Pacific:

• Pacific Ocean Areas (POA; divided into Central Pacific Area, North Pacific Area and South Pacific Area), commanded by Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief Pacific Ocean Areas
• South West Pacific Area (SWPA), commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander South West Pacific Area.

In addition, during 1945, General Carl Spaatz commanded the separate U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific.

Because of the complementary roles of the United States Army and the United States Navy in conducting war in the Pacific theater, there was no single Allied or U.S. commander (comparable to Eisenhower in the European Theater of Operations) in the Pacific. Indeed, the organizational structure was rather complex, requiring the frequent involvement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Army and Navy commanders each reporting to both the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy.

Allied Pacific theater command structure.

The Japanese Combined Fleet was led by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, until he was killed in an attack by U.S. fighter planes in April 1943. Yamamoto was succeeded by Admiral Mineichi Koga (1943–44) and Admiral Soemu Toyoda (1944–45).

Major campaigns and battles

Japanese naval aircraft prepare to attack Pearl Harbor.

Okinawa, 1945. A U.S. Marine aims a Thompson submachine gun at a Japanese sniper, as his companion takes cover.

• Central Pacific Theater
  • Attack on Pearl Harbor 7 December 1941
  • Battle of Wake Island 7–23 December 1941
  • Doolittle Raid 18 April 1942
  • Battle of the Coral Sea 4–8 May 1942
  • Battle of Midway 4–6 June 1942
  • Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign 1943–44
    • Makin Island raid 17–18 August 1942
    • Battle of Tarawa 20 November 1943
    • Battle of Kwajalein 1 February 1944
    • Battle of Eniwetok 17 February 1944
  • Mariana and Palau Islands campaign 1944
    • Battle of Saipan 15 June 1944
    • Battle of the Philippine Sea 19–21 June 1944
    • Battle of Peleliu 15 September 1944
    • Battle of Angaur 17 September 1944
  • Volcano and Ryukyu Islands campaign 1945
    • Battle of Iwo Jima 19 February 1945
    • Battle of Okinawa 1 April 1945
• North Pacific Theater
  • Aleutian Islands Campaign 1942–43
  • Battle of the Komandorski Islands 26 March 1943

References

• Cressman, Robert J. (2000). The Official Chronology of the U.S. Navy in World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-149-1. 
• Drea, Edward J. (1998). In the Service of the Emperor: Essays on the Imperial Japanese Army. Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-1708-0. 
• Kafka, Roger; & Pepperburg, Roy L. (1946). Warships of the World. New York: Cornell Maritime Press. 
• Miller, Edward S. (2007). War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945. US Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1591145007. 
• Ofstie, Ralph A. (1946). The Campaigns of the Pacific War. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. 
• Potter, E.B.; & Chester W. Nimitz (1960). Sea Power. Prentice-Hall. 
• Silverstone, Paul H. (1968). U.S. Warships of World War II. Doubleday and Company. 
• Hakim, Joy (1995). A History of Us: War, Peace and all that Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509514-6.