Chiang in 1943
(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
Chiang Kai-shek in 1907
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945
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
Sun Yat-sen and Chiang at the 1924 opening ceremonies for the Soviet-funded Whampoa Military Academy
Japanese troops entering Shenyang during the Mukden Incident
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
Chiang in the early 1920s
Japanese Empire's territorial expansion
Wartime poster for the United Nations, created in 1941 by the U.S. Office of War Information
Chiang (right) together with Wang Jingwei (left), 1926
A baby sits in the remains of a Shanghai train station on 'Bloody Saturday', 1937
Wartime poster for the United Nations, created in 1943 by the U.S. Office of War Information
Chiang and Feng Yuxiang in 1928
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.
British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft (bottom) flying past a German Heinkel He 111 bomber aircraft (top) during the Battle of Britain in 1940
Chiang during a visit to an air force base in 1945
Japanese landing near Shanghai, November 1937
British Crusader tanks during the North African Campaign
Chiang and Soong on the cover of Time magazine, 26 October 1931
Japanese troops in the ruins of Shanghai
British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal under attack from Italian aircraft during the Battle of Cape Spartivento (27 Nov 1940)
Nationalist government of Nanking – nominally ruling over entire China in 1930s
Soviet embassy in Nanjing is being burned down by arson on 1 January 1938.
British soldiers of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in Elst, Netherlands on 2 March 1945
After the breakout of the Second Sino-Japanese War, The Young Companion featured Chiang on its cover.
A Chinese POW about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer with a shin gunto
Free French forces at the Battle of Bir Hakeim, 1942
Chiang with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in Cairo, Egypt, November 1943
National Revolutionary Army soldiers during the 1938 Yellow River flood
FAFL Free French GC II/5 "LaFayette" receiving ex-USAAF Curtiss P-40 fighters at Casablanca, French Morocco
Chiang and his wife Soong Mei-ling sharing a laugh with U.S. Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell, Burma, April 1942
Map showing the extent of Japanese occupation in 1941 (in red)
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 Kai-shek and Mao Zedong in 1945
Theaters (military operational regions) of the Chinese National Revolutionary Army from late 1938 to early 1940
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).
Chiang with South Korean President Syngman Rhee in 1949
Wang Jingwei and officers of the Collaborationist Chinese Army
Soviet soldiers and T-34 tanks advancing near Bryansk in 1942
Map of the Chinese Civil War (1946–1950)
Chinese soldiers in house-to-house fighting in the Battle of Taierzhuang, March–April 1938
Soviet soldiers fighting in the ruins of Stalingrad during the Battle of Stalingrad
Chiang with Japanese politician Nobusuke Kishi, in 1957
National Revolutionary Army soldiers march to the front in 1939.
Soviet Il-2 ground attack aircraft attacking German ground forces during the Battle of Kursk, 1943
Chiang presiding over the 1966 Double Ten celebrations
Eighth Route Army Commander Zhu De with a KMT "Blue Sky, White Sun" emblem cap
American Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber aircraft attacking the Japanese cruiser Mikuma during the Battle of Midway in June 1942
Chiang with U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in June 1960
115th Division of the Eighth Route Army Lieutenant General (NRA rank) Lin Biao in NRA uniform
U.S. Marines during the Guadalcanal Campaign in November 1942
The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a famous monument, landmark, and tourist attraction in Taipei, Taiwan.
War declaration against Japan by the Chongqing Nationalist Government on 9 December 1941
American Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber aircraft during the bombing of oil refineries in Ploiești, Romania on 1 August 1943 during Operation Tidal Wave
Chiang's portrait in Tiananmen Rostrum
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Madame Chiang with Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell in 1942, Burma
U.S. soldiers departing landing craft during the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 known as D-Day
Chinese propaganda poster proclaiming "Long Live the President"
A United States poster from the United China Relief organization advocating aid to China.
Philippine Scouts at Fort William McKinley firing a 37 mm anti-tank gun in training
A Chinese stamp with Chiang Kai-shek
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill met at the Cairo Conference in 1943 during World War II.
Soldiers of the National Revolutionary Army associated with Nationalist China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War
Chiang Kai-shek and Winston Churchill heads, with Nationalist China flag and Union Jack
H. H. Kung and Adolf Hitler in Berlin
Soldiers of the First Workers' and Peasants' Army associated with Communist China, during the Sino-Japanese War
Statue of Chiang Kai-shek in Yangmingshan National Park, Taiwan
I-16 with Chinese insignia. The I-16 was the main fighter plane used by the Chinese Air Force and Soviet volunteers.
Victorious Chinese Communist soldiers holding the flag of the Republic of China during the Hundred Regiments Offensive
Duke of Zhou
Flying Tigers Commander Claire Lee Chennault
Members of the Belgian Resistance with a Canadian soldier in Bruges, September 1944 during the Battle of the Scheldt
Chiang Kai-shek with the Muslim General Ma Fushou
A "blood chit" issued to American Volunteer Group pilots requesting all Chinese to offer rescue and protection
Norwegian soldiers on the Narvik front, May 1940
Chiang Kai-shek as Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim
Free Thai, American and Chinese military officers in China during the war
Pilots of the No. 303 "Kościuszko" Polish Fighter Squadron during the Battle of Britain
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
The India–China airlift delivered approximately 650,000 tons of materiel to China at a cost of 1,659 men and 594 aircraft.
Polish partisan of the Home Army (AK), "Jędrusie" unit, holding a Browning wz.1928 light machine gun
Yao Yecheng (姚冶誠, 1889–1972), who came to Taiwan and died in Taipei
French colonial troops retreating to the Chinese border after the Japanese coup d'état in March 1945
Partisans and Chetniks escorting captured Germans through Užice, autumn 1941
Chen Jieru (陳潔如, "Jennie", 1906–1971), who lived in Shanghai, but moved to Hong Kong later and died there
Chinese Muslim cavalry
Partisan leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito with Winston Churchill in 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
Chinese Muslim soldiers
Chetniks leader General Mihailovic with members of the U.S. military mission, Operation Halyard, 1944
WWII victory parade at Chongqing on 3 September 1945
Romanian soldiers in Transylvania, September–October 1944
Japanese troops surrendering to the Chinese
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 Chinese return to Liuzhou in July 1945.
The first version of the flag of the United Nations, introduced in April 1945
Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong in 1945
A British poster from 1941, promoting the greater alliance against Germany
China War of Resistance Against Japan Memorial Museum on the site where the Marco Polo Bridge Incident took place
U.S. government poster showing a friendly Soviet soldier, 1942
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

Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, he mobilized China for the Second Sino-Japanese War.

- Chiang Kai-shek

China had already been at war with Japan since 1937, and formally joined the Allies in December 1941.

- Allies of World War II

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

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.

- Second Sino-Japanese 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

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.

- Second Sino-Japanese War
Chiang in 1943

5 related topics with Alpha

Overall

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.

Global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945.

The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930
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
World War II deaths
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.

The exact causes of World War II are debated, but contributing factors included the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts, the rise of fascism in Europe and rising European tensions since World War I.

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

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.

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".
Cooperation with Germany
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
Beiyang Army troops on parade
The NRA during World War II
Boat traffic and development along Suzhou Creek, Shanghai, 1920
A 10 Custom Gold Units bill, 1930

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.

Nation-building efforts yielded to fight the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 when a skirmish between the National Revolutionary Army and Imperial Japanese Army culminated in a full-scale invasion by Japan.

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.

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.

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
The Empire of Japan at its peak in 1942:
 style = padding-center: 0.6em; text-align: center;
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
Ōura Church, Nagasaki
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
A 1-yen banknote, 1881
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.
Japanese Pan-Asian writer Shūmei Ōkawa
Rebel troops assembling at police headquarters during the February 26 Incident
A bank run during the Shōwa financial crisis, March 1927
National Diet Building, 1930
Political map of the Asia-Pacific region, 1939
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).
War flag of the Imperial Japanese Army
Naval ensign of the Empire of Japan
Flag of the Japanese Emperor

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.

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

Pacific War

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The theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania.

The theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania.

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
Political map of the Asia-Pacific region, 1939
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theater from 1942 to 1945
A mass grave of Chinese prisoners killed by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre
Chinese casualties of a mass panic during a June 1941 Japanese aerial bombing of Chongqing
USS Arizona (BB-39) burned for two days after being hit by a Japanese bomb in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Japanese aerial photo of battleship HMS Prince of Wales (top) and battlecruiser HMS Repulse under attack.
British forces surrender Singapore to the Japanese, February 1942
The Bombing of Darwin, Australia, 19 February 1942
Surrender of US forces at Corregidor, Philippines, May 1942
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.
US General Douglas MacArthur, Commander of Allied forces in the South-West Pacific Area, with Australian Prime Minister John Curtin
Japanese advance until mid-1942
A B-25 bomber takes off from USS Hornet (CV-8) as part of the Doolittle Raid.
The aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) explodes on 8 May 1942, several hours after being damaged by a Japanese carrier air attack.
under attack by B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers
US Marines rest in the field during the Guadalcanal campaign in November 1942.
Chinese troops during the Battle of Changde in November 1943
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and General Joseph Stilwell, Allied Commander-in-Chief in the China theatre from 1942 to 1945
Allied attack routes against the Empire of Japan
American forces landing at Rendova Island, June, 1943
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
The torpedoed, as seen through the periscope of an American submarine, USS Nautilus (SS-168), in June 1942
The, the largest non-nuclear submarines ever constructed
Chinese forces on M3A3 Stuart tanks on the Ledo Road
British Indian troops during the Battle of Imphal
Marines fire captured mountain gun during the attack on Garapan, Saipan, 21 June 1944.
US Marines during mopping up operations on Peleliu, September 1944
The Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku and two destroyers under attack in the Battle of the Philippine Sea
The four engagements in the Battle of Leyte Gulf
General Douglas MacArthur wading ashore at Leyte
US troops approaching Japanese positions near Baguio, Luzon, 23 March 1945
Royal Marines landing at Ramree
British soldiers patrolling the ruins of a Burmese town during the advance on Mandalay, January 1945
Iwo Jima location map
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.

It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast Pacific Ocean theater, the South West Pacific theater, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Soviet–Japanese War.

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.

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.

Official campaign portrait, 1944

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.

American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.

Official campaign portrait, 1944
Eleanor and Franklin with their first two children, 1908
Roosevelt in 1944
Roosevelt supported Governor Woodrow Wilson in the 1912 presidential election.
Theodore Roosevelt was Franklin Roosevelt's distant cousin and an important influence on his career.
Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1913
Cox and Roosevelt in Ohio, 1920
Rare photograph of Roosevelt in a wheelchair, with Fala and Ruthie Bie, the daughter of caretakers at his Hyde Park estate. Photo taken by his cousin Margaret Suckley (February 1941).
Gov. Roosevelt with his predecessor Al Smith, 1930
Results of the 1930 gubernatorial election in New York
Roosevelt in the early 1930s
1932 electoral vote results
Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law, August 14, 1935
1936 re-election handbill for Roosevelt promoting his economic policy
1936 electoral vote results
Roosevelt with Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas and other dignitaries in Brazil, 1936
The Roosevelts with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, sailing from Washington, D.C., to Mount Vernon, Virginia, on the USS Potomac during the first U.S. visit of a reigning British monarch (June 9, 1939)
Foreign trips of Roosevelt during his presidency
1940 electoral vote results
Roosevelt and Winston Churchill aboard HMS Prince of Wales for 1941 Atlantic Charter meeting
Territory controlled by the Allies (blue and red) and the Axis Powers (black) in June 1942
The Allies (blue and red) and the Axis Powers (black) in December 1944
1944 electoral vote results
Official portrait of President Roosevelt by Frank O. Salisbury, c. 1947
200x200px

In response, the US formally joined the Allies and entered the European theater of war.

Assisted by his top aide Harry Hopkins and with very strong national support, he worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin, and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in leading the Allied Powers against the Axis Powers.

When Japan invaded China in 1937, isolationism limited Roosevelt's ability to aid China, despite atrocities like the Nanking Massacre and the USS Panay incident.