A report on Allies of World War II, Chiang Kai-shek and Pacific War

The Pacific War Council as photographed on 12 October 1942. Pictured are representatives from the United States (seated), Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, China, the Netherlands, and the Philippine Commonwealth

The Allied leaders of the European theatre (left to right): Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill meeting at the Tehran Conference in 1943

Political map of the Asia-Pacific region, 1939

The Allied leaders of the Asian and Pacific Theater: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill meeting at the Cairo Conference in 1943

Sun Yat-sen and Chiang at the 1924 opening ceremonies for the Soviet-funded Whampoa Military Academy

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theater from 1942 to 1945

Wartime poster for the United Nations, created in 1941 by the U.S. Office of War Information

A mass grave of Chinese prisoners killed by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre

Wartime poster for the United Nations, created in 1943 by the U.S. Office of War Information

Chiang (right) together with Wang Jingwei (left), 1926

Chinese casualties of a mass panic during a June 1941 Japanese aerial bombing of Chongqing

British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft (bottom) flying past a German Heinkel He 111 bomber aircraft (top) during the Battle of Britain in 1940

USS Arizona (BB-39) burned for two days after being hit by a Japanese bomb in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

British Crusader tanks during the North African Campaign

Chiang during a visit to an air force base in 1945

Japanese aerial photo of battleship HMS Prince of Wales (top) and battlecruiser HMS Repulse under attack.

British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal under attack from Italian aircraft during the Battle of Cape Spartivento (27 Nov 1940)

Chiang and Soong on the cover of Time magazine, 26 October 1931

British forces surrender Singapore to the Japanese, February 1942

British soldiers of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in Elst, Netherlands on 2 March 1945

Nationalist government of Nanking – nominally ruling over entire China in 1930s

The Bombing of Darwin, Australia, 19 February 1942

Free French forces at the Battle of Bir Hakeim, 1942

After the breakout of the Second Sino-Japanese War, The Young Companion featured Chiang on its cover.

Surrender of US forces at Corregidor, Philippines, May 1942

FAFL Free French GC II/5 "LaFayette" receiving ex-USAAF Curtiss P-40 fighters at Casablanca, French Morocco

Chiang with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in Cairo, Egypt, November 1943

Dutch and Australian PoWs at Tarsau, in Thailand in 1943. 22,000 Australians were captured by the Japanese; 8,000 died as prisoners of war.

The French fleet scuttled itself rather than fall into the hands of the Axis after their invasion of Vichy France on 11 November 1942.

Chiang and his wife Soong Mei-ling sharing a laugh with U.S. Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell, Burma, April 1942

US General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of Allied forces in the South-West Pacific Area, with Australian Prime Minister John Curtin

The fall of Damascus to the Allies, late June 1941. A car carrying Free French commanders General Georges Catroux and General Paul Louis Le Gentilhomme enters the city, escorted by French Circassian cavalry (Gardes Tcherkess).

Soviet soldiers and T-34 tanks advancing near Bryansk in 1942

Chiang with South Korean President Syngman Rhee in 1949

A B-25 bomber takes off from USS Hornet (CV-8) as part of the Doolittle Raid.

Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of Stalingrad during the Battle of Stalingrad

Map of the Chinese Civil War (1946–1950)

The aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) explodes on 8 May 1942, several hours after being damaged by a Japanese carrier air attack.

Soviet Il-2 ground attack aircraft attacking German ground forces during the Battle of Kursk, 1943

Chiang with Japanese politician Nobusuke Kishi, in 1957

under attack by B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers

American Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber aircraft attacking the Japanese cruiser Mikuma during the Battle of Midway in June 1942

Chiang presiding over the 1966 Double Ten celebrations

US Marines rest in the field during the Guadalcanal campaign in November 1942.

U.S. Marines during the Guadalcanal Campaign in November 1942

Chiang with U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in June 1960

Chinese troops during the Battle of Changde in November 1943

American Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber aircraft during the bombing of oil refineries in Ploiești, Romania on 1 August 1943 during Operation Tidal Wave

The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument, landmark, and tourist attraction in Taipei, Taiwan.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and General Joseph Stilwell, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945

U.S. soldiers departing landing craft during the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 known as D-Day

Allied attack routes against the Empire of Japan

Philippine Scouts at Fort William McKinley firing a 37 mm anti-tank gun in training

Chinese propaganda poster proclaiming "Long Live the President"

American forces landing at Rendova Island, June, 1943

Soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army associated with Nationalist China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War

The Allied leaders of the Asian and Pacific Theaters: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill meeting at the Cairo Conference in 1943

Soldiers of the First Workers' and Peasants' Army associated with Communist China, during the Sino-Japanese War

Chiang Kai-shek and Winston Churchill heads, with Nationalist China flag and Union Jack

The torpedoed, as seen through the periscope of an American submarine, USS Nautilus (SS-168), in June 1942

Victorious Chinese Communist soldiers holding the flag of the Republic of China during the Hundred Regiments Offensive

Statue of Chiang Kai-shek in Yangmingshan National Park, Taiwan

The, the largest non-nuclear submarines ever constructed

Members of the Belgian Resistance with a Canadian soldier in Bruges, September 1944 during the Battle of the Scheldt

Chinese forces on M3A3 Stuart tanks on the Ledo Road

Norwegian soldiers on the Narvik front, May 1940

Chiang Kai-shek with the Muslim General Ma Fushou

British Indian troops during the Battle of Imphal

Pilots of the No. 303 "Kościuszko" Polish Fighter Squadron during the Battle of Britain

Chiang Kai-shek as Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim

Marines fire captured mountain gun during the attack on Garapan, Saipan, 21 June 1944.

Polish partisan of the Home Army (AK), "Jędrusie" unit, holding a Browning wz.1928 light machine gun

Mao Fumei (毛福梅, 1882–1939), who died in the Second Sino-Japanese War during a bombardment, is the mother of his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo

US Marines during mopping up operations on Peleliu, September 1944

Partisans and Chetniks escorting captured Germans through Užice, autumn 1941

Yao Yecheng (姚冶誠, 1889–1972), who came to Taiwan and died in Taipei

The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku and two destroyers under attack in the Battle of the Philippine Sea

Partisan leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito with Winston Churchill in 1944

Chen Jieru (陳潔如, "Jennie", 1906–1971), who lived in Shanghai, but moved to Hong Kong later and died there

The four engagements in the Battle of Leyte Gulf

Chetniks leader General Mihailovic with members of the U.S. military mission, Operation Halyard, 1944

Soong Mei-ling (宋美齡, 1898–2003), who moved to the United States after Chiang Kai-shek's death, is arguably his most famous wife even though they had no children together

General Douglas MacArthur wading ashore at Leyte

Romanian soldiers in Transylvania, September–October 1944

US troops approaching Japanese positions near Baguio, Luzon, 23 March 1945

The dead bodies of Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and several Fascist leaders, hanging for public display after they were executed by Italian partisans in 1945

The first version of the flag of the United Nations, introduced in April 1945

British soldiers patrolling the ruins of a Burmese town during the advance on Mandalay, January 1945

A British poster from 1941, promoting the greater alliance against Germany

U.S. government poster showing a friendly Soviet soldier, 1942

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, an iconic photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945, depicts six United States Marines raising a US flag atop Mount Suribachi.

USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) burns after being hit by two kamikazes. At Okinawa, the kamikazes caused 4,900 American deaths.

US Marines pass a dead Japanese soldier in a destroyed village on Okinawa, April 1945

US LVTs land Australian soldiers at Balikpapan on 7 July 1945.

American B-29 Superfortresses drop incendiary bombs over the port city of Kobe, June 1945

The mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 60,000 feet (18 km) into the air on the morning of 9 August 1945

Pacific Fleet marines of the Soviet Navy hoist the Soviet naval ensign in Port Arthur, on 1 October 1945.

Douglas MacArthur signs the formal Japanese Instrument of Surrender on USS Missouri (BB-63), 2 September 1945.

American corpses sprawled on the beach of Tarawa, November 1943

Indian prisoners of war shot and bayoneted by Japanese soldiers

IJA soldiers after a suicide charge on US Marine positions in Guadalcanal

Charred remains of civilians killed in the 10 March firebombing of Tokyo, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, which killed an estimated 100,000 people, March 1945

Australian POW Sergeant Leonard G. Siffleet of M Special Unit being beheaded by a Japanese officer, Yasuno Chikao, on 24 October 1943. AWM photo.

A Filipino woman and child killed by Japanese forces in the Manila massacre

A young Chinese girl from a Japanese 'comfort battalion' being interviewed by a British officer. Rangoon, Burma, 1945

American stretcher party carrying a wounded soldier through a devastated Manila street, 23 February 1945

The damaged by American carrier aircraft in the Sibuyan Sea.

The Pacific War saw the Allies pitted against Japan, the latter aided by Thailand and to a lesser extent by the Axis allies, Germany and Italy.

- Pacific War

As the leader of a major Allied power, Chiang met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Cairo Conference to discuss terms for the Japanese surrender.

- Chiang Kai-shek

However, its policies of brutality toward the Chinese population, of not yielding any real power to these regimes, and of supporting several rival governments failed to make any of them a viable alternative to the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek.

- Pacific War

The Soviet Union intervened against Japan and its client state in Manchuria in 1945, cooperating with the Nationalist Government of China and the Nationalist Party led by Chiang Kai-shek; though also cooperating, preferring, and encouraging the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong to take effective control of Manchuria after expelling Japanese forces.

- Allies of World War II

China fought the Japanese Empire before joining the Allies in the Pacific War.

- Allies of World War II

With the attack on Pearl Harbor and the opening of the Pacific War, China became one of the Allied Powers.

- Chiang Kai-shek

4 related topics with Alpha

The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930

World War II

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Global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.

Adolf Hitler at a German Nazi political rally in Nuremberg, August 1933

Benito Mussolini inspecting troops during the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935

The bombing of Guernica in 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, sparked fears abroad in Europe that the next war would be based on bombing of cities with very high civilian casualties.

Japanese Imperial Army soldiers during the Battle of Shanghai, 1937

Red Army artillery unit during the Battle of Lake Khasan, 1938

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano pictured just before signing the Munich Agreement, 29 September 1938

German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (right) and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939

Soldiers of the German Wehrmacht tearing down the border crossing into Poland, 1 September 1939

Soldiers of the Polish Army during the defence of Poland, September 1939

Finnish machine gun nest aimed at Soviet Red Army positions during the Winter War, February 1940

German advance into Belgium and Northern France, 10 May-4 June 1940, swept past the Maginot Line (shown in dark red)

London seen from St. Paul's Cathedral after the German Blitz, 29 December 1940

Soldiers of the British Commonwealth forces from the Australian Army's 9th Division during the Siege of Tobruk; North African Campaign, September 1941

German Panzer III of the Afrika Korps advancing across the North African desert, April-May 1941

European theatre of World War II animation map, 1939–1945 – Red: Western Allies and the Soviet Union after 1941; Green: Soviet Union before 1941; Blue: Axis powers

German soldiers during the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Axis powers, 1941

Soviet civilians leaving destroyed houses after a German bombardment during the Battle of Leningrad, 10 December 1942

Japanese soldiers entering Hong Kong, 8 December 1941

The USS Arizona (BB-39) was a total loss in the Japanese surprise air attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Sunday 7 December 1941.

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British PM Winston Churchill seated at the Casablanca Conference, January 1943

Map of Japanese military advances through mid-1942

US Marines during the Guadalcanal Campaign, in the Pacific theatre, 1942

Red Army soldiers on the counterattack during the Battle of Stalingrad, February 1943

American 8th Air Force Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombing raid on the Focke-Wulf factory in Germany, 9 October 1943

U.S. Navy SBD-5 scout plane flying patrol over USS Washington (BB-56) and USS Lexington (CV-16) during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, 1943

Red Army troops in a counter-offensive on German positions at the Battle of Kursk, July 1943

Ruins of the Benedictine monastery, during the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italian Campaign, May 1944

American troops approaching Omaha Beach during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, 6 June 1944

German SS soldiers from the Dirlewanger Brigade, tasked with suppressing the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi occupation, August 1944

General Douglas MacArthur returns to the Philippines during the Battle of Leyte, 20 October 1944

Yalta Conference held in February 1945, with Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin

Ruins of the Reichstag in Berlin, 3 June 1945.

Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.

Ruins of Warsaw in 1945, after the deliberate destruction of the city by the occupying German forces

Defendants at the Nuremberg trials, where the Allied forces prosecuted prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany for crimes against humanity

Post-war border changes in Central Europe and creation of the Communist Eastern Bloc

David Ben-Gurion proclaiming the Israeli Declaration of Independence at the Independence Hall, 14 May 1948

Bodies of Chinese civilians killed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Nanking Massacre in December 1937

Schutzstaffel (SS) female camp guards removing prisoners' bodies from lorries and carrying them to a mass grave, inside the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 1945

Prisoner identity photograph taken by the German SS of a Polish Catholic girl who died in Auschwitz. Approximately 230,000 children were held prisoner and used in forced labour and Nazi medical experiments.

Polish civilians wearing blindfolds photographed just before their execution by German soldiers in Palmiry forest, 1940

Soviet partisans hanged by the German army. The Russian Academy of Sciences reported in 1995 civilian victims in the Soviet Union at German hands totalled 13.7 million dead, twenty percent of the 68 million persons in the occupied Soviet Union.

B-29 Superfortress strategic bombers on the Boeing assembly line in Wichita, Kansas, 1944

A V-2 rocket launched from a fixed site in Peenemünde, 21 June 1943

Nuclear Gadget being raised to the top of the detonation "shot tower", at Alamogordo Bombing Range; Trinity nuclear test, New Mexico, July 1945

It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers.

In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific, including an attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor which resulted in the United States declaring war against Japan.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai, but after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell.

(clockwise from top left)Imperial Japanese Navy landing force in military gas masks in the Battle of Shanghai

Japanese Type 92 heavy machine gunners during Operation Ichi-Go

Victims of the Nanjing Massacre on the shore of the Qinhuai River

Chinese machine gun nest in the Battle of Wuhan

Japanese aircraft during the bombing of Chongqing

Chinese Expeditionary Force marching in India

Second Sino-Japanese War

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Military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945

Japanese troops entering Shenyang during the Mukden Incident

A baby sits in the remains of a Shanghai train station on 'Bloody Saturday', 1937

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek announced the Kuomintang policy of resistance against Japan at Lushan on 10 July 1937, three days after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident.

Japanese landing near Shanghai, November 1937

Japanese troops in the ruins of Shanghai

Soviet embassy in Nanjing is being burned down by arson on 1 January 1938.

A Chinese POW about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer with a shin gunto

National Revolutionary Army soldiers during the 1938 Yellow River flood

Map showing the extent of Japanese occupation in 1941 (in red)

Theaters (military operational regions) of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army from late 1938 to early 1940

Wang Jingwei and officers of the Collaborationist Chinese Army

Chinese soldiers in house-to-house fighting in the Battle of Taierzhuang, March–April 1938

National Revolutionary Army soldiers march to the front in 1939.

Eighth Route Army Commander Zhu De with a KMT "Blue Sky, White Sun" emblem cap

115th Division of the Eighth Route Army Lieutenant General (NRA rank) Lin Biao in NRA uniform

War declaration against Japan by the Chongqing Nationalist Government on 9 December 1941

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Madame Chiang with Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell in 1942, Burma

A United States poster from the United China Relief organization advocating aid to China.

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill met at the Cairo Conference in 1943 during World War II.

I-16 with Chinese insignia. The I-16 was the main fighter plane used by the Chinese Air Force and Soviet volunteers.

Flying Tigers Commander Claire Lee Chennault

A "blood chit" issued to American Volunteer Group pilots requesting all Chinese to offer rescue and protection

Free Thai, American and Chinese military officers in China during the war

The India–China airlift delivered approximately 650,000 tons of materiel to China at a cost of 1,659 men and 594 aircraft.

French colonial troops retreating to the Chinese border after the Japanese coup d'état in March 1945

WWII victory parade at Chongqing on 3 September 1945

Japanese troops surrendering to the Chinese

The Chinese return to Liuzhou in July 1945.

China War of Resistance Against Japan Memorial Museum on the site where the Marco Polo Bridge Incident took place

The Taiwan Strait and the island of Taiwan

Casualties of a mass panic during a June 1941 Japanese bombing of Chongqing. More than 5,000 civilians died during the first two days of air raids in 1939.

Japanese war crime against a Chinese POW

Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces with gas masks and rubber gloves during a chemical attack near Chapei in the Battle of Shanghai

Chinese suicide bomber putting on an explosive vest made out of Model 24 hand grenades to use in an attack on Japanese tanks at the Battle of Taierzhuang

The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Theater of the Second World War.

Later in the same year, Zhang decided to declare his allegiance to the Nationalist government in Nanjing under Chiang Kai-shek, and consequently, China was nominally reunified under one government.

The Foochow (Fujian Province) was scouted as a potential staging area and springboard for the future military landing of the Allies of World War II in Japan.

Empire of Japan

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Historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent formation of modern Japan.

The Empire of Japan at its peak in 1942:
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The Naval Battle of Hakodate, May 1869; in the foreground, and of the Imperial Japanese Navy

Prominent members of the Iwakura mission. Left to right: Kido Takayoshi, Yamaguchi Masuka, Iwakura Tomomi, Itō Hirobumi, Ōkubo Toshimichi

Emperor Meiji, the 122nd emperor of Japan

Interior of the Japanese Parliament, showing the Prime Minister speaking addressing the House of Peers, 1915

Prince Aritomo Yamagata, who was twice Prime Minister of Japan. He was one of the main architects of the military and political foundations of early modern Japan.

Baron Masuda Tarokaja, a member of the House of Peers (Kazoku). His father, Baron Masuda Takashi, was responsible for transforming Mitsui into a zaibatsu.

The Tokyo Industrial Exhibition, 1907 (Mitsubishi pavilion and Exhibition halls)

Marunouchi District in 1920, looking towards the Imperial Palace

Thomas Blake Glover was a Scottish merchant in Bakumatsu and received Japan's second highest order from Emperor Meiji in recognition of his contributions to Japan's industrialization.

Prince Katsura Tarō, thrice Prime Minister and the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan. Katsura commanded the IJA 3rd Division under his mentor, Field Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, during the First Sino-Japanese War.

Map of the Japanese Empire in 1895. This map was issued shortly after the Japanese invasion of Taiwan and is consequently one of the first Japanese maps to include Taiwan as a possession of Imperial Japan.

Marquess Komura Jutaro, 1911. Komura became Minister for Foreign Affairs under the first Katsura administration, and signed the Boxer Protocol on behalf of Japan.

French illustration of a Japanese assault on entrenched Russian troops during the Russo-Japanese War

Japanese riflemen during the Russo-Japanese War

Count Tadasu Hayashi was the resident minister to the United Kingdom. While serving in London from 1900, he worked to successfully conclude the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and signed on behalf of the government of Japan on January 30, 1902.

Port Arthur viewed from the Top of Gold Hill, after its capitulation in 1905. From left are the wrecks of Russian pre-dreadnought battleships Peresvet, Poltava, Retvizan, Pobeda and the protected cruisers Pallada

Emperor Taishō, the 123rd emperor of Japan

Topographic map of the Empire of Japan in November, 1918

Native Micronesian constables of Truk Island, circa 1930. Truk became a possession of the Empire of Japan under a mandate from the League of Nations following Germany's defeat in World War I.

Commanding Officers and Chiefs of Staff of the Allied Military Mission to Siberia, Vladivostok during the Allied Intervention

Groundbreaking ceremony of Ginza Line, the oldest subway line in Asia, 1925. Front row, right to left: Rudolf Briske, Noritsugu Hayakawa, Furuichi Kōi, Ryutaro Nomura.

Count Itagaki Taisuke is credited as being the first Japanese party leader and an important force for liberalism in Meiji Japan.

Count Katō Komei, the 14th Prime Minister of Japan from June 11, 1924, until his death on January 28, 1926

Emperor Shōwa during an Army inspection on January 8, 1938

Tokyo Kaikan was requisitioned as the meeting place for members of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei Yokusankai) in the early days.

Rebel troops assembling at police headquarters during the February 26 Incident

A bank run during the Shōwa financial crisis, March 1927

Japanese troops entering Shenyang, Northeast China during the Mukden Incident, 1931

The Japanese occupation of Peiping (Beijing) in China, on August 13, 1937. Japanese troops are shown passing from Peiping into the Tartar City through Zhengyangmen, the main gate leading onward to the palaces in the Forbidden City.

IJN Special Naval Landing Forces armed with the Type 11 Light Machine Gun during the Battle of Shanghai, 1937

Signing ceremony for the Axis Powers Tripartite Pact

Founding ceremony of the Hakkō ichiu (All the world under one roof) monument in 1940

A map of the Japanese advance from 1937 to 1942

Victorious Japanese troops march through the city center of Singapore following the city's capture in February 1942 (Photo from the Imperial War Museum)

Imperial Japanese Army paratroopers are landing during the Battle of Palembang, February 13, 1942.

A model representing the attack by dive bombers from USS Yorktown (CV-5) and USS Enterprise (CV-6) on the Japanese aircraft carriers, and in the morning of June 4, 1942, during the Battle of Midway

Group of Type 2 Ka-Mi tanks on board of 2nd class transporter of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1944–1945

The rebuilt battlecruiser sank at her moorings in the naval base of Kure on July 24 during a series of bombings.

The Japanese archipelago and the Korean Peninsula in 1945 (National Geographic)

A drawing depicting a speech in the Imperial Japanese Diet on November 1, 1945, the end of the Second World War. In the foreground there are several Allied soldiers watching the proceedings from the back of the balcony.

From left to right: Marshal Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō (1848–1934), Field Marshal Oku Yasukata (1847–1930), Marshal Admiral Yoshika Inoue (1845–1929), Field Marshal Kageaki Kawamura (1850–1926), at the unveiling ceremony of bronze statue of Field Marshal Iwao Ōyama

Population density map of the Empire of Japan (1920).

Population density map of the Empire of Japan (1940).

Japan's armed forces initially achieved large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and the Pacific War.

Japan invaded China proper in 1937, beginning a war against a united front of Mao Zedong's communists and Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists.

The United States entered the European Theatre and Pacific Theater in full force, thereby bringing the United States to World War II on the side of the Allies.

Republic of China (1912–1949)

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Commonly recognised as the official designation of China from 1912 to 1949, when it was a country in East Asia based in Mainland China, prior to the relocation of its central government to Taiwan as a result of the Chinese Civil War.

Land controlled by the Republic of China (1946) shown in dark green; land claimed but uncontrolled shown in light green.

Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China.

Yuan Shikai (left) and Sun Yat-sen (right) with flags representing the early republic

Major Chinese warlord coalitions during the "Nanjing Decade".

China had been at war with Japan since 1931.

Chinese Nationalist Army soldiers during the 1938 Yellow River flood

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and Xichang (Sichang) before arriving in Taipei.

Nationalist government of Nanking – nominally ruling over entire China during 1930s

Boat traffic and development along Suzhou Creek, Shanghai, 1920

General Chiang Kai-shek, who became the Chairman of the Kuomintang after Sun's death and subsequent power struggle in 1925, began the Northern Expedition in 1926 to overthrow the Beiyang government.

In 1945, at the end of World War II, the Empire of Japan surrendered control of Taiwan and its island groups to the Allies; and Taiwan was placed under the Republic of China's administrative control.

After its entry into the Pacific War during World War II, the United States became increasingly involved in Chinese affairs.