Empire of Japan and Related Topics

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

From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan (along with other countries later on).

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.

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

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

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

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 Second Sino-Japanese War between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China had been in progress since 7 July 1937, with hostilities dating back as far as 19 September 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

(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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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 Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan.

Clockwise from top: under fire at Port Arthur, Russian cavalry at Mukden, and gunboat at Chemulpo Bay, Japanese dead at Port Arthur, Japanese infantry crossing the Yalu River

Russo-Japanese War

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An anti-Russian satirical map produced by a Japanese student at Keio University during the Russo-Japanese War. It follows the design used for a similar map first published in 1877.

Chinese generals in Pyongyang surrender to the Japanese, October 1894.

Troops of the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900. Left to right: Britain, United States, Australia, India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Japan.

Japanese infantry during the occupation of Seoul, Korea, in 1904

Bombardment during the Siege of Port Arthur

Japanese assault on the entrenched Russian forces, 1904

Retreat of Russian soldiers after the Battle of Mukden

An illustration of a Japanese assault during the Battle of Mukden

, the flagship of Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō at the Battle of Tsushima

Negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905). From left to right: the Russians at far side of table are Korostovetz, Nabokov, Witte, Rosen, Plancon; and the Japanese at near side of table are Adachi, Ochiai, Komura, Takahira, Satō. The large conference table is today preserved at the Museum Meiji-mura in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

Japan-Russia Treaty of Peace, 5 September 1905

Japanese propaganda woodcut print showing Tsar Nicholas II waking from a nightmare of the battered and wounded Russian forces returning from battle. Artist Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1904 or 1905.

Punch cartoon, 1905; A cartoon in the British press of the times illustrating the Russian Empire's loss of prestige after the nation's defeat. The hour-glass represents Russia's prestige running out.

After the Battle of Liaoyang: Transport of wounded Russians by the Red Cross (Angelo Agostini)

Postcard of political satire during the Russo-Japanese War

Japanese general, Kuroki, and his staff, including foreign officers and war correspondents after the Battle of Shaho (1904)

Getsuzō's woodblock print of "The Battle of Liaoyang", 1904

Painting of Admiral Heihachirō Tōgō on the bridge of the, before the Battle of Tsushima in 1905

The Russo-Japanese War (日露戦争; Ру́сско-япóнская войнá) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1905 over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire.

Imperial Japanese Army

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Ukiyo-E, depicting the retreat of shogunate forces in front of the Imperial Army (Kangun). Yodo Castle is shown in the background.

The Koishikawa Arsenal in Tokyo, inaugurated in 1871, soon after the Meiji restoration.

Prince Aritomo Yamagata, a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and twice Prime Minister of Japan. He was one of the main architects of the military foundations of early modern Japan. Yamagata Aritomo can be seen as the father of Japanese militarism.

Barrack of the Imperial Guard, circa 1940

Marquis Nozu Michitsura, a field marshal in the early Imperial Japanese Army. He was appointed as chief of staff of the Imperial Guard (Japan) in 1874.

Marquis Jutoku Saigo, a general in the early Imperial Japanese Army. He is the nephew of Saigō Takamori, the leader of Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. Many of the rebels were incorporated into the Imperial Army after the failure of the armed uprising.

Commander-in-chief Saigō Tsugumichi (sitting at the center) pictured with leaders of the Seqalu tribe.

Count Nogi Maresuke, a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and the third governor of Taiwan

Type 13(Top) & Type 22(bottom) Murata rifle. Murata rifle was the first indigenously produced Japanese service rifle adopted in 1880.

Japanese troops during the Sino-Japanese War

Count Akiyama Yoshifuru, served as a cavalry regimental commander in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, he led his troops against the Cossack cavalry divisions of the Imperial Russian Army.

Prince Katsura Tarō, three times Prime Minister of Japan. Katsura was the Vice-Minister of War during the period. He commanded the IJA 3rd Division under his mentor, Field Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, during the First Sino-Japanese War.

Type 30 rifle was the standard infantry rifle of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1897 to 1905.

Ōshima Ken'ichi, Minister of War during the period

Japanese riflemen during the Russo-Japanese War

The Type 38 rifle was adopted by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1905

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

IJA amphibious assault ship Shinshū Maru, the world's first landing craft carrier ship to be designed as such.

Army uniforms between 1941 and 1945 (US Army poster)

Type 97 Chi-Ha, the most widely produced Japanese medium tank of World War II

Indonesian child recruits being trained by Japanese officers as human shield, 1945

Many thousands of Indonesian were taken away as forced labourers (romusha) for Japanese military projects, including the Burma-Siam and Saketi-Bayah railways, and suffered or died as a result of ill-treatment and starvation. Pictured is an internment camp in Jakarta, c. 1945

Disposition of the Imperial Japanese Army in Japan at the time of its capitulation, 18 August 1945

IJA Taiwanese soldier in Philippines during World War II

The Imperial Japanese Army (大日本帝国陸軍) was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945.

First Sino-Japanese War

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Caricature about the dispute between China, Japan and Russia over Korea, published in the first edition of Tôbaé, 1887

Woodblock print depicting the flight of the Japanese legation in 1882

Kim Ok-gyun photographed in Nagasaki in 1882. His assassination in China would contribute to tensions leading to the First Sino-Japanese War.

Itō Sukeyuki, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet

The French-built Matsushima, flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Sino-Japanese conflict

Empress Dowager Cixi built the Chinese navy in 1888.

Depiction of the sinking of the Kow-shing and the rescue of some of its crew by the French gunboat Le Lion, from the French periodical Le Petit Journal (1894)

Japanese soldiers of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan, 1895

An illustration by Utagawa Kokunimasa of Japanese soldiers beheading 38 Chinese POWs as a warning to others

Revisionist depiction of Chinese delegation, led by Admiral Ding Ruchang and their foreign advisors, boarding the Japanese vessel to negotiate the surrender with Admiral Itō Sukeyuki after the Battle of Weihaiwei. In reality, Ding had committed suicide after his defeat, and never surrendered.

Satirical drawing in the magazine Punch (29 September 1894), showing the victory of "small" Japan over "large" China

Convention of retrocession of the Liaodong Peninsula, 8 November 1895

Western Powers tried to divide their interests and influence in China in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War.

The First Sino-Japanese War (25 July 1894 – 17 April 1895) was a conflict between the Qing dynasty of China and the Empire of Japan primarily over influence in Joseon Korea.

Meiji (era)

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Era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912.

The fifteen-year-old Meiji Emperor, moving from Kyoto to Tokyo at the end of 1868, after the fall of Edo

Interior of House of Peers, showing Minister speaking at the tribune from which members address the House.

Ceremony for the Promulgation of the Constitution by Wada Eisaku, showing the Emperor presenting the Constitution to Prime Minister Kuroda Kiyotaka at a ceremony in the Imperial Palace on 11 February 1889 (Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery)

Display of a painting of a nude, Kuroda Seiki's Morning Toilette, at the Fourth National Industrial Exhibition in 1895 caused a stir, captured by Bigot

Outer kimono for a woman (uchikake) with hanging scroll motifs, 1880–1890

Hokkaidō Development Commission Sapporo Main Office (Historical Village of Hokkaido)

Tsuruma Park, 1910; in January 1873 the Dajō-kan issued a notice providing for the establishment of public parks, that of Ueno Park following shortly after

Japanese soldiers in front of Kankaimon gate at Shuri Castle at the time of the so-called Ryūkyū Disposition

Marquis Saigo Tsugumichi commanded Japanese expeditionary forces as a lieutenant-general in the Taiwan Expedition.

Commander-in-chief Saigō Tsugumichi pictured with leaders of Seqalu (Native tribe) in Taiwan Expedition 1874.

Photograph of Atayal men taken by Torii Ryūzō in 1900.

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

Mythical group in bronze by Otake Koriyuni, the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art

Flower and bird pattern vase, by Namikawa Yasuyuki

"Waves" maki-e panel by Shibata Zeshin, 1888-1890

One of the Twelve Hawks by Suzuki Chokichi, 1893, bronze, lacquer, casting, gilding, and inlay

Earthenware bowl by Yabu Meizan, circa 1910

Basket of Flowers. circa 1900. Khalili Collection of Japanese Art.

A composite imaginary view of Japan: textile artwork

Byōbu Dragon and tiger (竜虎図) left side, 1895, by Hashimoto Gahō

Byōbu Dragon and tiger right side, 1895, by Hashimoto Gahō

The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization by Western powers to the new paradigm of a modern, industrialized nation state and emergent great power, influenced by Western scientific, technological, philosophical, political, legal, and aesthetic ideas.

Soviet gains in North East Asia, August 1945

Soviet invasion of Manchuria

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The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, formally known as the Manchurian strategic offensive operation (Манчжурская стратегическая наступательная операция) or simply the Manchurian operation (Маньчжурская операция), began on 9 August 1945 with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.

Basic map showing the Soviet invasion plan for Manchuria

An IJA Type 95 Ha-Go of the Manchuria Tank School

Soviet troops crossing into Manchuria, 9 August 1945

Soviet troops enter the city of Harbin following its liberation on 21 August 1945

Soviet Red Army Martyrs Cemetery built in Manzhouli after the war

It was the largest campaign of the 1945 Soviet–Japanese War, which resumed hostilities between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace.