PACIFIC WAR TIMELINE

JANUARY 1944


1 January: China: Chiang Kai-shek warns that the Europe first policy would leave China open to a new Japanese offensive.


6 January: Poland: Soviet advance takes them into Poland.


7 January: Burma: Battle of the Admin Box. A Japanese flanking attack on the British advance into the Arakan tests out Slim’s new tactics of ordering his troops to defend stockades that would then be supplied by air. The ‘Admin Box’ was the most famous of these stockade actions.


15 January: America: John Patton Davies Jr. suggests that Mao Zedong’s Communists are just agricultural reformers and should be supported by the US. Gives the idea for the Dixie Mission.


22 January: Italy: Allies land at Anzio in south west Italy.


31 January: Marshall Islands: US troops invade Kwajalein Atoll.


New Guinea: Battle of Shaggy Ridge. After a two-month battle General Adaachi’s forces retreat    toward the coast and Madang.


FEBRUARY 1944


1-7 February: Marshall Islands: Kwajalein and Majuro Atolls seized.


8 February: Burma: General Wingate starts LRP 2 (Long Range Penetration 2) his second guerilla campaign behind Japanese lines.


16-17 February: Truk Atoll: In Operation Hailstone Admiral Mitscher’s fast carrier group destroys Japan’s main Pacific garrison at Truk Atoll.


17 February: Marshall Islands: Admiral Spruance launches an amphibious landing on Eniwetok.


17-18 February: Caroline Islands: Admiral Mitscher’s fast carrier fleet destroys the main Japanese naval garrison at Truk Atol in the Carolines.


New Guinea: First engagement by Australian troops with Japanese forces at Saidor.


20 February: New Britain: Carrier and land based planes attack Japanese naval and aviation garrison at Rabaul.


22 February: Mariana Islands: Admiral Mitscher raids the Marianas in Operation Cherrytree.


23 February: Mariana Islands: Mitscher’s fast carrier group bombards the Marianas.


Burma: The siege of the Admin Box in the Arakan is finally relieved after six weeks.


24 February: Burma: Merril’s Marauders begin their march into northern Burma.


New Britain: General Matsuda orders all his forces to withdraw eastwards from Cape Gloucester toward Rabaul at the eastern tip of New Britain.


29 February: Admiralty Islands: MacArthur brings forward the invasion date by two weeks and makes risky amphibious attack on Los Negros Island on the northern lip of the Bismarck Archipelago.


MARCH 1944


5 March: Burma: General Wingate’s Long Range Penetration 2 starts operations behind Japanese lines in Burma.


6 March: Burma-India: General Mutaguchi launches Operation U-Go with the invasion of India’s eastern border.


9 March: Bismarck Archipelago: MacArthur secures spectacular and unexpectedly rapid victory at the Battle of Los Negros.


15 March: Burma: The Battle of Imphal and Kohima. General Slim’s 14th Army engages with Japanese forces invading India which ends with the annihilation of General Mutaguchi’s army three months later.


23 March: Bougainville: General Kanda’s suicidal counterattack at Empress Augusta Bay is destroyed with 3,000 soldiers killed in one night.


30 March: Bougainville: General Hyakutake requests permission from Tokyo to retreat from Empress Augusta Bay with his battere forces.


New Guinea: Devastating attack by 75 Liberator B-24s on Hollandia’s air fields, their main garrison on New Guinea.


31 March: The Philippines: Admiral Koga, Commander of the Combine Fleet after the death of Yamamoto, is killed when his plane crashes in a typhoon.

Next Section >
© 2009 - 2024 Francis Pike. All rights reserved.