The Japanese invasion and conquest of Burma concluded in May, 1942. The campaign marked the beginning of Japan’s years-long campaign in the South-East Asian region in the Second World War.
In the image below, Japanese troops can be seen lined up at the Burmese border in January, shortly before the invasion began.
The Doolittle Raid, a series of US bomb attacks on Japan, took place on the 18th of April, 1942. Also called the Tokyo Raid, it was seen as retaliation for the Pearl Harbor attack a few months before.
The USS Franklin, an American aircraft carrier, was struck by a Japanese dive bomber on the 19th of March, 1945.
While many on board were thrown into the water or killed, some stayed voluntarily and saved the ship.
It is thought over 800 people were killed in the attack.
The first of Japan’s Second World War attacks on Darwin, Australia occurred on the 19th of February, 1942.
The same fleet that bombed Pearl Harbor bombed the Northern Territory, but considerably more bombs were dropped on Australia than in the US.
Darwin Post Office destroyed X
The attack came in two waves, and hundreds of people – including civilians – were killed. It was the beginning of many Japanese attacks on Australia (there were approximately 100 more attacks), who had been involved in the conflict since the beginning of the war.
The Chungkai Camp was operated by the Japanese during World War Two, and prisoners – including soldiers from Britain and the Commonwealth – were made to work on the Burma–Thailand Railway.
This “Christmas card” is in the collection of London’s Imperial War Museum, and was created in either 1943 or 1944. It depicts Father Christmas in a loincloth, carrying a sack of presents through a bamboo fence.
It was very dangerous to make images while a prisoner in the camp. One prisoner, Jack Chalker, reported his sketches of camp life being discovered by a Korean guard. Chalker was beaten for days as punishment.
Halfway through the Second World War, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States joined the conflict, American citizens and legal US residents of Japanese descent were moved to internment camps for the remainder of the war.
Construction of the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona began in May 1942.
A few months later, in the same year, the camp hosted a Christian service and then a Harvest Festival parade on Thanksgiving Day. The holiday fell on the 26th of November that year.
On the 21st of November, 1894 Japanese soldiers massacred at least a thousand Chinese servicemen and civilians in Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou), China.
A Western media illustration of Japanese soldiers mutilating the bodies. X
The Japanese left only thirty-six people alive to bury the bodies. However, the number of people killed is highly disputed, with estimates ranging from a thousand to twenty-thousand.
The massacre was part of the First Sino-Japanese War, which was largely fought over the control of Korea.
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