Pacific War
The Pacific War (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) was the theatre of the Second World War comprised of the fighting in Far East Asia and the Pacific Ocean. It was fought primarily between the Allied forces of the United States of America, Nationalist China and the United Kingdom against the forces of Imperial Japan, a member of the Axis powers together with Nazi Germany and Italy in Europe. The Pacific War predated and outlasted the war in Europe which broke out in September 1939. It grew out of the Second Sino-Japanese War between Japan and China beginning in July 1937 after the invasion of Manchuria in 1931. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, Log 384)
The war rose in intensity in December 1941 after the Japanese attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor (PROSE: Only Connect) and moved against the British Empire's colonies in the Far East. (AUDIO: The Forsaken) Hostilities concluded after the US unleashed the world's first nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Subsequently, Japan surrendered on 2 September, (COMIC: Sky Jacks) bringing a formal end to the world war as a whole. (PROSE: Base of Operations)
For the most part, the Pacific War was a parallel conflict to that in Europe, related mostly through the shared British and American involvement. Yet some developments in each theatre had far-reaching consequences for the other. The Pearl Harbor attack, for example, saw the entry of the United States into the war against the Germans. (PROSE: Just War, Fear Itself) Likewise, the creation of the atomic bomb which ended the Pacific War was brought about by the initial research of German scientists in Europe. (AUDIO: The Alchemists, PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues) Adolf Hitler's ambitions for world domination also included establishing a German presence in Asia and the Far East, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) although these plans were largely thwarted in Russia. (PROSE: Just War, The Shadow in the Glass)
As with the European war, the Pacific War saw many horrors unleashed upon the world, some of which the Seventh Doctor described as "crimes against the universe itself." Among them were the events at Pearl Harbor and Kwai, (PROSE: Just War) Zhong Ma Fortress and Unit 731, (PROSE: Log 384) and the war's catastrophic climax at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues, Endgame, COMIC: Sky Jacks)
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Origins[[edit] | [edit source]]
The rise of Japan[[edit] | [edit source]]
Japan was a relative newcomer to the world stage by the time of the Pacific War. A long period of isolation locked the nation off from the rest of the world. This policy, known as Sakoku, or seclusion, was implemented by the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1630s owing to Japanese suspicion of Westerners and the spread of Christianity into Asia. This suspicion and fear was maintained and exacerbated during the long centuries of seclusion. Westerners became referred to as "barbarians" and any who ventured into the home islands were treated harshly by the vicious samurai who enforced the decree of the shogun. (AUDIO: The Barbarians and the Samurai)
In the early 17th century, Asami of Clan Rikushira used the technology of aliens she named the "Gaijin" to read Izzy Sinclair's mind and learn about the future of Japan. Izzy's memories revealed the destruction of Hiroshima and Japan's surrender in the Pacific War. The revelation drove Asami mad and she vowed to change history by wiping the "treachery of the West" from the face of the world before the Eighth Doctor convinced the Gaijin to stop her. (COMIC: The Road to Hell)
Seclusion ultimately served to stagnate Japan's growth. Some Japanese circles were conscious that they were falling behind the rest of the world and thought it best that seclusion be ended. An attempted coup in the 1820s aided by agents of the United Kingdom was launched to this effect but it failed. A few decades later, the United States sailed warships into Edo (later renamed Tokyo) Harbour and demanded a trade agreement with Japan. Refusal risked war with the US. The shogun accepted and Sakoku was ended after more and 200 years. The time of the samurai came to an end and the Japanese swiftly modernised as they established a place among the world players. (AUDIO: The Barbarians and the Samurai)
The government came under the control of the generals of the Imperial Japanese Army. (PROSE: Endgame) By the end of the 19th century, Japan had already partitioned some areas of China, (PROSE: Warring States) incorporating them into the newly established Japanese Empire, an empire symbolised by the blood-red sun emblem displayed on its flag. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) Japan fought in World War I (PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games) and by the 1930s sought to expand the Empire across more of Asia. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) The Japanese ultimately aspired to unite the continent under the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
The decline of China[[edit] | [edit source]]
The ancient Chinese Empire, founded in the 3rd century BC, was on its last legs by the mid-19th century. Prior to the 1860s, China fought against the British and French Empires in the Opium Wars and lost. The foreign powers occupied parts of the country and crippled the corrupt Chinese Empire. (AUDIO: The Nightmare Fair, PROSE: The Nightmare Fair) The defeat and its consequences were looked on by the Chinese with shame. (PROSE: The Eleventh Tiger)
By 1900, China was prey to several foreign powers, but the south of China also depended on trade with those powers to stay prosperous. The Empire could therefore not mount an effective form of resistance to defend itself. The British Navy in Fragrance Harbour dwarfed the size of the entire Chinese fleet and the Americans had built up many thousands of troops in the Philippines. Russia and Japan had also partitioned some areas of China and sought after more. (PROSE: Warring States)
In 1911, an alliance of Chinese Nationalist warlords rose up against the ailing remnants of the Empire, then ruled by the boy emperor Pu Yi. The alliance, led by Sun Yat Sen, ousted Pu Yi, swept away the Empire and formed themselves into the Kuomintang (KMT), which became the governing party of China. Despite this, the budding republic entered a period of a long power struggle after the birth of the Soviet Union. The Soviets helped foster a growing Chinese Communist movement which began challenging the Kuomintang for control.
Sun Yat Sen's successor as the Kuomintang leader, Chiang Kai-shek, led the campaign against the Communists and succeeded in pushing them into the mountains of north and central China against the border of Mongolia. From there, however, it proved difficult to dislodge the Communists any further. The conflict devolved into a stalemate and order in the new China began to collapse in the face of the protracted struggle for dominance. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
Manchuria[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: Invasion of Manchuria
The construction of a new Russian railway connecting European Russia to the Pacific port of Vladivostok threatened the region of Manchuria in the north-east China with trade strangulation. This was to the detriment of both Chinese and Japanese economic interests, yet the ongoing Chinese power struggle presented the expansionist Japanese with an opportunity. In 1931, the Sakura Kai engineered a fight between the Chinese to justify the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, claiming the Chinese had attacked first. As claimed by Major Ryuji Matsu of the Imperial Japanese Army, Japan sought to restore order to China and help attract trade back to the region. The occupation gained Japan control of Manchuria's natural resources. The Japanese consolidated Manchuria into a puppet state named Manchukuo, governed by the former Chinese Emperor, Pu Yi. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) The occupation was completed by 1932. (PROSE: Log 384)
Japan's authority in Manchukuo was enforced by the Kwantung Army. The headquarters of Kwantung Army Intelligence was set up in Hsinking. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) Atrocities committed by the Kwantung Army against the Chinese deterred the local peasants from attempting to escape, and any who tried were shot. The peasants were forced to work on the construction of Zhong Ma Fortress, a prison and research facility where the Japanese conducted experiments intended to forward the development of biological weapons. These projects were headed by the young military scientist Ishii Shiro and sponsored by the Japanese Emperor himself. Prisoners were dissected, blood samples were taken, and subjects were deliberately infected with bubonic plague, so that the Japanese could learn more about how the human body reacted to it and how germs may be weaponised.
In 1933, Mai Ling was imprisoned in Zhong Ma, prompting the Seventh Doctor embark on a rescue mission before the Japanese unwittingly unleashed the ghost warrior within her, bringing untold chaos and changing the course of Earth's history. To gain the necessary support, the Doctor approached the factions of the British Security Services who were sympathetic to Winston Churchill and his warnings about the dangers posed by the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. The Doctor warned them of secret negotiations being conducted between the Nazis and the Japanese to discuss the terms of an alliance. The Security Services responded by recruiting operatives to send on a spy mission to Manchuria, not sanctioned by the British government, for which the Doctor recommended Edward Grainger. Grainger was a sceptic in regards to Churchill's warnings about the Nazis, so he was even more sceptical about the importance of the events unfolding in Asia. The Doctor assured him of their significance and the two departed on their mission.
Shortly after infiltrating Zhong Ma Fortress, the Doctor and Grainger were briefly captured by the Japanese and experimented on. They managed to escape captivity and rescued Mai Ling before fleeing the region. As Grainger recovered from the experiments, the Doctor put forward a recommendation for his actions in Zhong Ma, proposing that Grainger be recruited as an operative for the British Government, initially in an unofficial capacity that would to be made official in the event of a war. Major-General Vernon Kell sent Grainger the offer and he accepted.
The Japanese, meanwhile, continued their horrific human experimentation in Zhong Ma and its successor, Unit 731. (PROSE: Log 384)
Descent into war[[edit] | [edit source]]
Shortly after the invasion of Manchuria, Shanghai imposed sanctions on Japan in 1932. The Japanese responded by deploying soldiers stationed in the Shanghai International Settlement onto the streets and they briefly occupied the city. The situation threatened to spark a war. Areas of Shanghai were hit by Japanese air raids by aircraft launched from the aircraft carrier Hosho off the coast, and a number of the city's inhabitants were arrested and interrogated. Sung-Chi Li was captured by Ishiguro Takashi and interrogated by Ryuji Matsu, who promised Shanghai would fall under Japanese control. Li was becoming disillusioned with the capabilities of the Kuomintang to resolve the crisis against the Communists. Matsu convinced him that Japanese rule could restore the order the Kuomintang could not and the pair agreed on a partnership, Li becoming a double agent working for the Japanese. The crisis in Shanghai was eventually defused when the Western powers intervened to protect their own trading centres. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
Yet the tensions over the Manchurian dispute did not go away. They persisted into 1935. (PROSE: The Year of Intelligent Tigers) In Japan, the government and the Army split into two factions over a disagreement on Japan's next steps and overall on the best course of action, although both sides held an expansionist ideology. One faction, he Kodo Ha, controlled by the Sakura Kai, pushed for further consolidation of Manchukuo and expansion into China to offset strategic advantages enjoyed by the Soviet Union. The other faction, the Tosei Ha, felt it better to adhere to more formal rules of engagement and achieve their ambitions while working within the political system. The Kodo Ha took a more active and extreme approach to the dispute. Commanding the support of the local commanders in Manchukuo, they used them to assassinate various government ministers, including prime ministers, between 1933 and 1935 in an attempt to influence government policy.
Eventually, in February 1936, the Japanese First Infantry Division sparked a revolt in Tokyo. Also supporters of the Kodo Ha and influenced by the Sakura Kai, the division murdered many government officials and civil servants. Ishiguro Takashi's brothers lost their lives in the revolt, causing Takashi to desert the Imperial Army and flee to China. The Kodo Ha was ultimately defeated when the revolt was put down by imperial order and the Tosei Ha maintained nominal control of the Army. However, the Kodo Ha maintained the support of the Manchukuo commanders. Their influence was sufficient enough for the Tosei Ha to alter their policy. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
More fighting between the Chinese and Japanese occurred in 1936. Some of these soldiers were abducted by the War Lords and the renegade Time Lord the War Chief to participate in the War Games inside the Chinese sector. The survivors were returned home when the Second Doctor summoned the Time Lords to defeat the War Lords. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games) Another account claimed that the War Lords did not take soldiers from time periods later than 1917 owing to the potential risks posed by their "greater technological knowledge." (TV: The War Games)
Finally, in July 1937, the Japanese Manchukuo commanders, loyal to the Kodo Ha, provoked a fight between a handful of Chinese soldiers at Marco Polo Bridge. Using similar tactics which provoked the invasion of Manchuria, the Japanese claimed the Chinese troops had attacked first. The incident sparked further hostilities. With their troops were already in action, the Tosei Ha government was forced onto a war footing. The first phase of the Pacific War had begun. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
War in China[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: Second Sino-Japanese War
The front lines opened up on the frontier between Manchuria and Shangdong province, almost 400 miles north-east of Shanghai. In Shangdong, a push by the Japanese Twelfth Army gained them control of everything north of Tai'an and the mountain of T'ai Shan. KMT troop trains transporting Chinese Nationalist troops to the north were harried by the Imperial Army Air Fleet's Mitsubishi A5Ms. The Nationalists were further weakened by the need to divide their forces, as the Communists still held the northern regions near Mongolia. Fortunately for the Nationalists, the Japanese sought at first to consolidate their hold on Manchuria rather than advance deeper into China. The fighting on the frontier therefore remained relatively light.
Imperial Army deserter Ishiguro Takashi fled the Sakura Kai in Tokyo to Hong Kong and then China and began plotting against the "traitors" running the Japanese government. Settling in Shanghai, he abandoned his own name and became known as Woo, a Hong Kong-born owner of Club Do-San. This was a cover for his true intention of building a united front against the Kwantung Army before they drove south from Manchuria. Bigger Chinese criminal organisations were already preparing to resist further Japanese invasions. Woo worked as a vigilante, who became known as Yan Cheh, cracking down on local crime. He saw this as a severe distraction at a time when China's ability to resist the Japanese military had to be as strong as possible. The threat the Japanese armed forces posed to the city was already being demonstrated by air raids launched from Manchuria against Shanghai using Mitsubishi Ki-15 single-engined planes. The Fourth Doctor explained the Japanese were doing this "just to prove that they can".
This state of affairs continued into August 1937. A larger-scale threat soon revealed itself in the form of Hsien-Ko and the Tong of the Black Scorpion. Hsien-Ko, the daughter of Li H'sen Chang, wanted to formally punish Magnus Greel for the death of her father by preventing Greel from travelling to 1872. Aware that this would change time, Hsien-Ko also believed success would bring further rewards, namely that she might be able to prevent the conflict between China and Japan that started with the invasion of Manchuria altogether. She killed a number of Japanese soldiers during her discreet travels to Shangdong, where the Tong, having affiliated themselves with the Kuomintang, had secretly constructed the world's first nuclear reactor inside the mountain of T'ai Shan. They aimed to use the reactor's power to yank Greel's time cabinet out of its original course through time and into 1937. However, the Tong's reactor was wrecked by Sung-Chi Li, Major Matsu's double agent, who tricked various Tong members into fighting each other. The Fourth Doctor and Romana I used the TARDIS to time ram Greel's time cabinet back on course before Hsien-Ko created a temporal paradox. Hsien-Ko herself was erased from time when her attempt at time manipulation was thwarted. The reactor was also prevented from going critical and potentially destroying the entirety of Shangdong province. The Doctor and Romana buried it under hundreds of tonnes of cement inside the mountain.
Eventually, the Japanese Army moved into Shanghai. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
The biological weapons developed by the Japanese in Zhong Ma Fortress and Unit 731 were put to use throughout the duration of the war. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese people were killed as towns and villages in China and Manchuria were hit by germ-ridden packages. (PROSE: Log 384)
World War[[edit] | [edit source]]
Asia and Europe[[edit] | [edit source]]
By September 1939, Europe had been plunged into its own war by Adolf Hitler's German Reich. The War Chief and the War Lords in the Black Coven sought to help the Nazis win the war and conquer the whole planet. As part of the grand strategy, the Coven favoured Germany establishing a presence in Asia and the Far East before attacking the Soviet Union, and neutralising China with atomic weaponry. Hermann Goering and the Seventh Doctor wiped out the Coven and the strategy was never enacted (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) but SS Standartenführer Joachim Wolff still considered the Chinese "subhuman." (PROSE: Just War)
In Britain's eastern empire, the training of soldiers was underway for possible later deployment against the Germans. In a letter dated 21 July 1941, Prem Barsar wrote to Umbreen about his and his brother Kunal's first month of training at the regimental centre in Lahore. A number of these Indian soldiers hoped that, by fighting for Britain, India would be granted independence after the war. The recruits spent much time speculating as to where they would be deployed after training, including many places Prem had never heard of. One popular suggestion was to Iraq, a relatively easy posting where the soldiers would be guarding oilfields. (PROSE: Letters from the Front)
In that same summer, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, (PROSE: Just War, Losing the Audience) with a future aim of reaching Asia. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) They never achieved this feat, however, as the Soviets fought the Germans to a standstill outside Moscow in the winter of that year. (PROSE: Just War)
Conquest of the Pacific[[edit] | [edit source]]
Concurrently in Asia, Japan sought to extend control over more of the continent, much like their German and Italian allies' designs for Europe and Africa respectively. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) To this end, on Sunday, 7 December 1941, the Japanese launched a pre-emptive strike on the United States Navy anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The Americans were so unprepared that it was a civilian pilot, Ray Budnick, who became the first American in the war to engage the enemy as Japanese Zeros appeared in the air and fired on him during his morning flight above Honolulu. The Fourth Doctor considered Budnick as important a historical character as the US General and post-war President Dwight D. Eisenhower even though history would not remember him. Budnick escape the Japanese and survived but the American naval base suffered a bombing raid which the Doctor called "the greatest airborne attack [the 20th century] will see." (PROSE: Only Connect) Half of the family of American weapons instructor, Jeff Kovacs, were among those who suffered during the bombing. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) UNIT's Bill Filer denounced the American performance at Pearl Harbor, describing the affair as a "series of balls-ups." (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune) Nevertheless, the Eighth Doctor noted the wider consequences of the event. The attack awoke the US from its "isolationist slumber" following the attack and precipitated their entry into World War II. (PROSE: Fear Itself)
Almost 48 hours later, the Japanese attacked the Philippine Islands. Unlike at Pearl Harbor, the Americans stationed in the Philippines believed they were sufficiently trained and ready to face to approaching Japanese forces. However, Lieutenant Terrence Moody was shot down and killed in his P-40 Warhawk above Luzon Island without ever seeing the Japanese pilot that dispatched him. He was reported as missing in action. (PROSE: Happily Ever After Is a High-Risk Strategy)
The Japanese eventually spread across many other islands throughout the Pacific. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon, PROSE: Endgame)
The President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became the target of rumours accusing him of knowing that the attack on Pearl Harbor was going to happen but he kept quiet about it so he could justify his country's entry into the war. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, having led the fight against Adolf Hitler's Nazis in Europe since 1939, allied Britain with Roosevelt and the US in a great transatlantic bond. (PROSE: Loving the Alien)
Japan's actions also had huge consequences for the war in Europe. Germany, having failed to defeat Britain and the Soviet Union, effectively fought the European war alone. The subsequent entry of the US into the war enabled vast amounts of resources to be mobilised to aid both the British and the Soviets. The developments put immense pressure on the already-straining German war effort. (PROSE: Just War) Upon hearing about Pearl Harbor, Kunal was the most optimistic among his unit of Indian soldiers, claiming the Americans were a "vengeful bunch" whose participation in the war would ensure the conflict was a short one. (PROSE: Letters from the Front)
Because members of his family had suffered during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Jeff Kovacs volunteered for combat hoping to be sent to the Pacific. However, he was part of the Americans forces who were sent to fight the Germans instead, deploying in North Africa and then Sicily. Many of them oversaw the rest of the war in Western Europe. Kovacs was greatly disappointed by this development on a personal level. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
Assault on the British Empire[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: Far East Campaign
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Although receiving aid from the Americans, the British now also had to expend parts of their war effort in order to face the Japanese as the latter turned their attention to the Asian colonies of the British Empire. In response to rumours of Japanese troop build-up in French Indochina, British and Indian forces were moved into Malaya in the days following Pearl Harbor. A showdown was viewed as inevitable.
Shortly thereafter, the Japanese did indeed march into Malaya. In a letter dated 30 January 1942, Prem informed Umbreen that he had been involved in fierce fighting against the Japanese ever since he arrived in the area. The British and Indian forces fell back through Malaya to Singapore. (PROSE: Letters from the Front)
Outmatched by the Japanese, the British began hurriedly organising the evacuation of soldiers and civilians from Singapore by sea in the second week of February 1942. (AUDIO: The Forsaken) In the chaos, Prem and Kunal's section found a boat on which to escape but Kunal was killed before he had a chance to join the others. His death was witnessed by the Thijarians. Prem attempted to locate Kunal but he was already dead. Prem fled at the sight of the Thijarian, whom he incorrectly believed had killed his brother. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)
As Singapore fell, the Japanese diverted some of their forces away from the main assault to capture the island of Kenga. Japanese scouting parties and air raids harassed the British during the week following the start of the invasion. Captain Clive Freeman and his men – Corporal Gibbs and Privates Lawson and James Jackson – encountered one of the many ambushes set up by the Japanese in the jungle as they awaited the chance to evacuate. Freeman was killed but his form was taken by the Forsaken, which infiltrated the party to feed on the fear of the other British soldiers and civilians. The Forsaken was defeated by the Second Doctor who caused it to feed on its own fear. Soon afterwards, the survivors were able to escape Kenga when another boat arrived to aid in the evacuation. (AUDIO: The Forsaken)
Many British and Indian soldiers became prisoners of war to the Japanese. (PROSE: Letters from the Front) The fall of Singapore was described by Churchill as "the largest capitulation in British military history." (AUDIO: The Forsaken)
Prem was only able to inform his family of Kunal's death on 15 March 1942. He enclosed Kunal's final wages with the letter. (PROSE: Letters from the Front)
Fightback[[edit] | [edit source]]
Fighting spread into Siam where India soldiers saw further engagement. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) Action also took place in the jungles of Burma (PROSE: Just War) where Major-General Scobie took part in numerous excursions. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)
The rapid Japanese conquests across Asia and the Pacific meant the Americans had to invade and recapture many islands from the Japanese before there could be any chance of reaching mainland Japan. Each island was held by thousands of Japanese soldiers who viewed death as preferable to surrender. (PROSE: Endgame) The jungles and mountains found on many of these islands offered ample places for the soldiers of the Imperial Army to find cover and attack their enemies. The Imperial Army Air Fleet and the US Army Air Force fought each other in dogfights above the fiercely contested islands, and occasionally they tried to bomb enemy ground positions. A sense of personal honour and a devotion to the Emperor held the Japanese morale. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon)
Fearful of this Japanese devotion, the US government interned Japanese-Americans living in the United States in detainment camps for the duration of the war, even if they were patriotic American citizens. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues) In Britain, there also developed feelings of anti-Japanese sentiment. This sentiment dated back to at least January of 1941, predating the opening of hostilities between Japan and the Western Allies by almost a year. Britain was more sympathetic to the Chinese struggle and considered China an ally. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness) Despite this, Toshiko Sato's grandfather worked for the British at Bletchley Park, helping to decipher the German codes. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts)
Captain Botega's ship was surrounded by Japanese torpedo boats during the South Pacific Campaign. The ship was rescued from destruction when the Melovians abducted it from its own time and transported it to their planet, where it was made to battle other ships for the Melovians' amusement. Although Botega's crew survived, imperfections in the Melovian transporter beam caused them to undergo metamorphosis. The Third Doctor negotiated a peaceful resettlement but they could not return home to Earth. (PROSE: Fugitives from Chance)
Another German attempt to continue their advance against the Soviet Union towards Asia was thwarted in the winter of 1942-1943 when they were defeated by the Red Army at Stalingrad. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad, The Shadow in the Glass)
At the start of September 1943, India suffered poor harvests. At the same time, Prem's platoon was stationed in Burma, where it suffered heavy losses. Hafiz and five others were killed by a sniper which Prem had failed to locate on a previous scouting run. Prakash Ahluwalia, who had become the platoon commander, renounced his position after these casualties began to take a toll on him.
On 8 September, the unit was briefed about the Indian National Army, a pro-Indian independence movement that was in league with Germany and Japan. The leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, who was already known and admired by many supporters of the Indian independence movement, claimed he had done this for the sake of India's freedom. British intelligence confirmed that the Indian National Army had been reinforced by Indian POWs who had been captured at Singapore and subsequently recruited by the Japanese. In a letter dated 9 September, Prem told Umbreen that he was no supporter of Chandra Bose, but he feared that his friend Ram, captured at Singapore, was among those likely to have joined the Indian National Army. (PROSE: Letters from the Front)
Allied momentum[[edit] | [edit source]]
In later months, Prem's unit was moved out of the Far Eastern theatre and sent to fight the war in Italy, where they saw further action in the summer of 1944. As a result, Prem was not present at Kohima, where British and Indian forces won a great victory over the Japanese and the Indian National Army, who fought hard but ultimately suffered very heavy casualties. In a letter dated 1 July 1944, Prem opined that the Japanese were "too smart, too good, too proud" to let even this big defeat deter them from later incursions, but he was at least pleased to hear that the war's momentum now lay solidly with the Allies. However, he was distressed to hear about the Indian National Army and the developments in the war which had led different factions of Indians to begin fighting each other. (PROSE: Letters from the Front)
In August 1944, an American bomber crew spotted a foo fighter while flying over the Indian Ocean. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues) It appeared as a flash of light which passed straight through the fighters. Japanese pilots encountered the same thing. Both sides thought it was a secret weapon developed by the other. (PROSE: Endgame) This was the world's first ever reported sighting of an Unidentified Flying Object thought to be a flying saucer. The Americans documented the sighting but it remained classified information. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
Japanese pilots adopted suicidal kamikaze tactics against their enemies. (PROSE: Island of Death, AUDIO: The Many Deaths of Jo Grant)
In mid-December 1944, the Allies in Europe were engaged in the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes forest in Belgium. Sergeant Jeff Kovacs, partly in jest, asked if one of the Sidhe could transport him to the front lines of the Pacific theatre before he was recruited for a raid on the Schnee Eifel. Galastel informed Kovacs this was not possible. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
In early 1945, an American GI was stationed in New Zealand while on his way to the war in the Pacific. He entered a relationship with a seventeen-year-old woman from one of Auckland's wealthiest and most influential families. When the woman fell pregnant, the GI abandoned her. Two weeks later, he was killed by friendly fire, leaving the woman to birth his illegitimate child. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
Conclusion[[edit] | [edit source]]
The race for the bomb[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: Manhattan Project
The road to the eventual creation of the atomic bomb began in Germany during the interwar years. Scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, among them Albert Einstein, discovered how the split the atom. However, owing to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, Einstein was among the scientists who left Germany and headed for the United States. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) The American Robert Oppenheimer studied at, among other places, Göttingen in Germany before the war. There he learned much in the field of physics by following the work of scientists like Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg. Oppenheimer returned to the US and taught what he had learned at Caltech and Berkeley. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
When the United States and Germany engaged each other in the war, they found themselves competing to be the first to develop atomic weaponry. The Seventh Doctor described it as "a close-run thing". (AUDIO: Colditz) Oppenheimer was brought in to assist with the Manhattan Project, where he was tasked with calculating the critical mass of uranium 235. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
At Los Alamos in New Mexico, a team of Allied scientists converted Los Alamos Ranch School into a research centre and built a compound around the area, known as The Hill, where they performed work on the Manhattan Project. Led by Oppenheimer (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues) and Niels Bohr, the team consisted of three dozen physicists and engineers. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...) It was a mixture of American and British scientists together with people of other nationalists collaborating against the Axis. (PROSE: Endgame)
In the early evening of one Saturday in March 1943, the Third Doctor materialised the TARDIS inside Bohr's office and inspected the professor's notes. He discreetly administered a number of corrections to the notes and then departed, having ensured that the Manhattan Project would not fail. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)
In 1945, Germany was knocked out of the nuclear race after the Allies invaded the country (PROSE: Made of Steel) and overran the Nazis' advanced missile sites and atomic research facilities. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The Third Reich surrendered unconditionally to the Allies in May of that year. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Japan continued to fight on, however, and the Pacific War continued. On VE Day in London, Winston Churchill spoke with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke. Although Germany was defeated, Churchill took no time to rest as he urged that Britain turn her full attention towards the Pacific theatre. Brooke agreed that Britain could commit more forces in due course but warned Churchill that the nation was exhausted by the German war and appealed to let the nation rest and celebrate for at least one day. Brooke claimed the Americans and Australians largely had the Pacific situation well handled and Japan's eventual defeat was considered a certainty. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) Churchill continued to focus on the war with Japan, as well as the new threat posed by the Soviets, in his post-VE Day general election campaign. Such a stance contributed to his defeat due to the exhaustion of the British public. Clement Attlee succeeded him as Prime Minister.(AUDIO: Subterfuge)
With Germany's surrender and the end of the war in Europe, Prem's unit was sent back to Lahore and disbanded. Prem received new work training up new soldiers to continue fighting the war against Japan. However, in a letter dated 22 May 1945, he stated his belief that the war as a whole would soon be over and that the men receiving his training would not have to do any fighting. He wrote a second letter to his brother Manish on the same day, encouraging him to campaign in the political sphere for India's independence, (PROSE: Letters from the Front) as yet unaware that the war and the very same politics was having an extreme affect on his brother. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)
The US continued with the Manhattan Project. In the summer of 1945, the exiled Hungarian physicist Edward Teller feared an atomic blast would ignite all the hydrogen in Earth's atmosphere and destroy the entire planet. He had a heated argument with Oppenheimer who was still willing to take the risk and continue with the tests. The detonation test, codenamed Trinity, took place at 45 seconds past 5:29 am on Monday, 16 July 1945 in the Jornada del Muerto desert. Teller, who had clung to his theories up until the moment of the Trinity detonation, was proved wrong. This caused him intense embarrassment and his arguments with Oppenheimer created a deep-seated resentment towards his American colleague.
The successful test concluded the Manhattan Project, leading the way for the final development of the atomic bomb. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Although the Allied nations had faith in Japan's eventual capitulation, the question became a matter of when. A debate emerged about whether the new bomb should be deployed against Japan to shorten the war and reduce casualties. Members of Oppenheimer's team were highly conscious of the unprecedented destructive power of their weapon and favoured a demonstration on an uninhabited island. This, they hoped, would be a sufficient show of force to compel Japan to surrender. They opposed direct use of the new weapons against Japanese targets. Conversely, Allied leaders feared that this would not be enough. It was estimated that continued engagement of the Japanese on the Pacific islands could extend the war for up to five years, leading to countless more deaths. Roosevelt died towards the end of the war and the decision fell to his Vice-President, Harry S. Truman. Advised that the Japanese would only surrender given a direct order from the Emperor, Truman ultimately decided to order the deployment of the bombs. (PROSE: Endgame)
Three bombs were developed assigned Japanese cities as targets: Big Momma, Little Boy and Fat Man, although the first of these would become unknown to history.
On 5 August 1945, the Sky Jack took off from Iwo Jima and headed northwards towards Japan on a top secret mission to drop the first bomb, Big Momma, on Kyoto. Despite the secrecy, the Sky Jack was spotted by Japanese Zeros and attacked. All but three members of the crew were killed and the aircraft began rapidly losing fuel at a rate which meant it was not possible to reach Kyoto. The crew's only hope of survival was to reach the Ogasawara Islands but doing so risked the Japanese discovering the existence of the atomic bomb and potentially capturing it for their own use. Captain Lasseter ordered the pay load to be dropped into the ocean and hoped that the other two bombs would be more successful. Before the crew could dispense with the bomb, the Sky Jack suddenly fell into a black hole, where the crew spent three years before the Eleventh Doctor returned them home. Kyoto was spared and the details of Big Momma and the bomb run would remain a secret. (COMIC: Sky Jacks)
The second bomb, Little Boy, was designated the target of Hiroshima. The bomb run was successful and the bomb obliterated the city. The destructive power of Little Boy was roughly the equivalent of 13,000 tons of TNT. At least 100,000 Japanese men, women, children and babies burned to death. (PROSE: Endgame) The Doctor, in one of his first three incarnations, saw the bright pulsating image of the bomb's energy imprint on the TARDIS scanner. (PROSE: The Heat-Seekers)
Four days later, the Americans dropped Fat Man, an even more powerful plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki. (PROSE: Endgame) The city was also flattened. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) Approximately 150,000 more people were killed by the Nagasaki bomb, bringing the total number of dead to a quarter of a million Japanese civilians. (COMIC: Sky Jacks) Further deaths among people from both cities occurred later as a result of radiation poisoning. (PROSE: Endgame)
The destruction of the two cities ultimately convinced Japan's rulers of the need to surrender. The Japanese Emperor was forced to give the order to do so. (COMIC: The Road to Hell) Japan surrendered to the Americans (PROSE: Log 384) on 2 September 1945, (COMIC: Sky Jacks) ending the Pacific War and thus fully bringing World War II to its formal conclusion. (PROSE: Base of Operations) The date became celebrated as VJ Day (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) or Victory in the Pacific Day. The Allies celebrated the occasion with what the Eleventh Doctor described as "one hell of a victory party." (COMIC: Sky Jacks)
Aftermath[[edit] | [edit source]]
Fate of the belligerents[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: Cold War
After the surrender, the Japanese attempted to destroy all of the Unit 731 biological warfare facilities before the American forces discovered them. When the Americans arrived in the occupied Chinese territory, they quickly found out. Deteriorating relations between the Americans and the Russians at the onset of the Cold War, however, worked to the advantage of Ishii Shiro and the other Japanese perpetrators. The US did not want the research to fall into Russian hands, and also saw the advantages of learning from research recorded in experiments that the US would never countenance. In exchange for the data, the Americans granted Ishii and the perpetrators immunity from the war crimes for which they were responsible. The medical data was incorporated into America's existing knowledge and biological weapons were even later deployed against North Korea during the Korean War. Some members of the Zhong Ma and Unit 731 research teams, meanwhile, went on to live out lives of wealth and power, achieving successful careers in academia and powerful organisations. These war criminals were never persecuted for their actions, (PROSE: Log 384) unlike their Nazi counterparts in Europe who were tried for war crimes at Nuremberg. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
After the war, the United States did not return to its isolationist foreign policy. Instead, the Americans took a leading role in shaping the post-war world as the Cold War began. Such was the further-reaching consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor. (PROSE: Fear Itself) Harry Truman remained a caretaker president after the war, then went on to win the election of 1948. During his presidency, Truman helped organise the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Marshall Plan to aid Europe in its post-war recovery efforts. (PROSE: Endgame)
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The British Empire went into decline after the war, largely crippled by war debts, leading the UK to relinquish many of their colonies. (PROSE: Endgame) As had been promised towards the end of the war, (PROSE: Letters from the Front) India was granted independence by the British in 1947. However, religious tribalism and escalating violence between the Muslim, Hindu and Sikh populations led to the partitioning of the country into India and Pakistan on 17 August of that year. The tensions resulted in mass displacement and death. Prem lamented that the extreme divisions appeared to show that nothing had been learned from the war, (TV: Demons of the Punjab) in which he feared such divisions had been seeded by the likes of Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army. (PROSE: Letters from the Front)
By 1951, China had fallen under the control of the Communists. (PROSE: Endgame) The new rulers viewed the United States as "imperialist" and the United Kingdom as a "barbaric country". (TV: The Mind of Evil) The Chinese even engaged the British and Americans in battle during the Korean War. General Douglas MacArthur went so far as to advocate dropping atomic bombs on China, for which President Truman removed him from his post. (PROSE: Endgame)
The defeated Japan was humbled as a nation, stripped of its military and imperial prowess. (COMIC: The Road to Hell) The imperial Japanese flag, the blood-red sun emblem, (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) was replaced by the post-war flag, which was a simple white flag with a red circle in the centre. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
The nuclear age[[edit] | [edit source]]
The harnessing of the power of the atom also heralded the dawn of the nuclear age. The prospect of cheap and efficient nuclear power was met with much optimism in the immediate post-war period. By the 1970s, however, Jo Grant opined that this had been wishful thinking. She looked to the nuclear power plant of Durlston Heath as an example, as it housed an expensive and obsolete reactor which was likely to be decommissioned. (PROSE: Harvest of Time)
The primary concern of the post-war nuclear age was that of nuclear weapons. After the war, the US enjoyed a monopoly on nuclear weapons for four years before the Soviet Union was able to develop their own in 1949. The nuclear secrets had been passed to the Soviets by some of the scientists who developed the bombs. They had been greatly upset by their use against Japan and wanted to break the US monopoly. (PROSE: Endgame) The resulting Soviet nuclear programme led to the nuclear stand-off which characterised the Cold War, a stalemate maintained by the idea of mutually assured destruction. (TV: Cold War)
Although he took a leading role in the creation of the weapon which won America the war, Robert Oppenheimer never received the trust of the American government. In his past, he had been drawn towards radical politics through his relationship with Jean Tatlock. His politics moderated following his marriage to Kitty Oppenheimer before the war but he was put on trial over the matter of his security clearance after the conflict. Edward Teller even testified against him at the trial and the two became mortal enemies. Teller's embarrassment at being proved wrong about the power of the atom bomb totally transformed his ideology. He became one of America's most ardent proponents of nuclear proliferation and became known as "the father of the hydrogen bomb". (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
Despite the role of his third incarnation in advancing the Manhattan Project, (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...) the Eighth Doctor was unconvinced that bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified by the argument which claimed it shortened the war. (PROSE: Endgame) The Eleventh Doctor, who believed he had destroyed his own people in the Last Great Time War with a super weapon, called the bombing "needless", much to the objection of Captain Lasseter of the Sky Jack. (COMIC: Sky Jacks) The Seventh Doctor also expressed revulsion for the forces first unleashed at Hiroshima on numerous occasions. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, Just War, Atom Bomb Blues)
Members of the counterculture movement and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the 1950s and 1960s agreed with the later Doctors' views. As Harold Macmillan in Britain and Charles de Gaulle in France began to develop nuclear programmed in their own countries, some CND members expressed the view that an even longer war against Japan would have been preferable if it meant nuclear weapons were never created.
Somewhat contrary to the attitudes of his later selves, however, the Third Doctor believed there were times in human history where their possession of nuclear weapons would become necessary in order for humanity to defend itself from external threats. This was the belief that motivated him to nudge the Manhattan Project onto its proper course. He confided in Jo Grant that as long as human morality progressed in time with human technology, then the invention of nuclear weapons was no more a blight on human history than the invention of more primitive weapons such as the knife or the firearm, (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...) a hope previously expressed by his first incarnation. (AUDIO: Out of the Deep)
Sarah Jane Smith found reports on every nuclear incident to have occurred on Earth since Hiroshima in Gregory Arkady's office in Tahkail, Russia on 25 April 2086. (COMIC: Black Destiny) In one of Earth's possible timelines, the ruins of one city reminded Sarah of Hiroshima. (PROSE: Categorical Imperative)
Alternate timelines[[edit] | [edit source]]
In one alternate timeline encountered by the Fifth Doctor, the Pacific War stretched on until at least as far as 25 July 1963. The timeline was one of many alternate Earth's generated by the Monk and Autek's Ice Warriors. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) The Doctor met a Japanese soldier on a South Pacific island named Fuji, who, despite his devotion to honour and the emperor, was a simple fisherman from Okinawa at heart, and not as brave or strong as he or others liked to believe. Fuji was killed by an American pilot who crash-landed on the island (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon) named Angus Goodman. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas)
In another alternate timeline, Germany invented the atomic bomb first and forced the surrender of both the United States and the Soviet Union by bombing New York and Moscow. The Seventh Doctor and an alternate version of his eighth incarnation averted the timeline. (AUDIO: Colditz, Klein's Story)
Parallel universes[[edit] | [edit source]]
In one parallel universe later ravaged by the Inferno Project, World War II never took place. Consequently, the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was successfully established and represented Asia collectively as a member of the Conclave. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
Germania[[edit] | [edit source]]
Marcus Americanius Scriptor explored many of the Known Worlds where the Nazis won World War II. In Germania V, the United States remained strictly neutral in the war and Japan's sphere of influence was successfully expanded over Asia.
In another of the Known Worlds, the United States lost the war and was divided between Japan and Nazi Germany. The Americans were actually grateful for the occupation as they believed the Axis had rid the world of Communism.
In Germania LD, the US reluctantly signed a non-aggression pact with Germany while the Nazis developed the atomic bomb.
Most victories enjoyed by the Japanese were undone after the Empire of Empires successfully liberated the Nazi-dominated worlds. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
The multiverse gambit[[edit] | [edit source]]
In one parallel world in which the war played out practically unchanged to how as it did in N-Space, the Chapel of the Red Apocalypse, a Japanese-American doomsday cult based in Los Angeles, California sought to interfere with the Manhattan Project to alter the outcome of the war in Japan's favour on a multiversal scale. Its leaders, Imperial Lee and Lady Silk, manipulated a gifted 21st century Japanese-American physicist from N-Space called Ray Morita, by exploiting his love of jazz music. He was able to research the possibility of the doomsday particle and unlocked a means of inter-dimensional travel. Ray, Lee and Silk were transported to the alternate dimension where Ray's knowledge of physics got him recruited to work on that universe's Manhattan Project. Their own counterparts from the new dimension – Raymond Morita, Stanley Wainwright and Silk's counterpart – were sent to N-Space in their place and imprisoned, so as not to cause a cosmic disturbance.
The cult planned to use Ray Morita's equations to amplify the effect of the atomic bomb when it was tested at Los Alamos in 1945. By applying the theory of the doomsday particle, then in line with the apocalyptic theories that worried Edward Teller, the bomb would set of a chain reaction that would destroy the whole universe by igniting all matter. The cult believed the resulting detonation would create a ripple effect, reverberating throughout the multiverse so strongly that any other history in which Japan lost the war would be changed, including that of N-Space. Imperial Lee reasoned that the Japanese people killed in the detonated dimension would be acting as kamikaze warriors, "honour[ably]" sacrificing themselves so that the Japanese Empire could stand victorious in all other universes.
The Seventh Doctor and Ace assisted in this dimension's Manhattan Project to combat the interference and root out the forces at work. They located the chapel in California where Lee's henchmen were dispatched by Major Rex Butcher. However, Silk and Lee escaped back to N-Space. They returned to the dimension and infiltrated the Los Alamos compound on the eve of the Trinity detonation – although in doing do, they fell into the Doctor's trap. Lee took the Doctor, Ace, Morita and Butcher hostage in Morita's apartment and had Morita complete his rogue particle equations at the precise moment of the Trinity detonation.
However, nothing happened, as the Trinity detonation in this universe had been delayed by one day, for Tuesday, 17 July 1945 at 5 o'clock on the dot, after the Doctor's calculations cast some doubt on the preparations. With the cultists in confusion, the Doctor paralysed Silk with a dart from his umbrella. Lee tried to escape by jumping out a window, falling two storeys and killing himself. The Doctor sent Silk back to her own dimension where she could warn the rest of her followers of the plan's failure, returning her innocent counterpart home in the process. Satisfied that there was no longer a threat to the dimension, the Doctor left it to Butcher to declare the case closed, on the condition that he clear the innocent Lady Silk's name as an unwilling victim of Lee.
The Doctor admitted to Ace afterwards that he very much doubted the Red Apocalypse's ambitions were at all possible, although he felt it better to deal with them just in case. The Doctor's real interest in this universe's Manhattan Project had been in convincing Teller his theory was wrong, to prevent the embarrassment that would transform him into an ardent advocate of nuclear weapons. In this, the Doctor failed. Ray Morita was returned to N-Space when the time travellers departed. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Technically, there has yet to be a concrete distinction established in the Doctor Who universe between the Pacific War and the Second Sino-Japanese War, the latter of which has yet to be named by any Doctor Who source. Log 384 largely treats the Sino-Japanese War and World War II (and by extension the Pacific War) as the same conflict. This theatre was first alluded to in the Target novelisation of The War Games (although not in the televised serial itself) and its origins are extensively explored in The Shadow of Weng-Chiang. It was first acknowledged on TV in the Torchwood Series 1 episode Captain Jack Harkness, where characters mention an alliance with China in a story setting which predates the Pearl Harbor attack. (An in-universe page about this theatre does exist on this wiki, although it is subject to some conjecture. See that article's "behind the scenes" section for further details.)
