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N0KFQ > TODAY 10.12.16 15:45l 51 Lines 2397 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 15542_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Dec 10
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 161210/1342Z 15542@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ6.0.13
1941
Japan becomes master of the Pacific and South China Sea
On this day, 4,000 Japanese troops land on the Philippine
Islands, while Japanese aircraft sink the British warships Prince
of Wales and Repulse. Guam, an American-controlled territory, was
also seized. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill finally
exclaims, "We have lost control of the sea."
The attack on Pearl Harbor was only one step in a larger plan to
dominate the Pacific, which entailed knocking out first American,
then British, naval opposition. Japanese bombing raids on Guam,
Midway Island, and Wake Island followed the attack on the
American fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor. American airfields there
were destroyed, as were Clark and Iba airfields in the
Philippines, wiping out more than half of the United States'
aircraft dedicated to the Far East. These bombing raids were
followed up, on December 10, by 2,000 Japanese troops that landed
on the Philippine island of Luzon in the north, and another 2,000
that landed at Vigan on the western coast. And in Guam, 700
Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces invaded and occupied the
American-controlled military outpost of Guam after only a
25-minute military engagement, resulting in the capture of 500
Americans soldiers.
The United States was not alone in its struggle for the Pacific.
Great Britain had also declared war on the Empire of Japan on
December 8. The next day, Japan occupied the capital of Thailand
and then landed in the Malay Peninsula, which could not be
repulsed by the outmatched Australian and Indian troops. Britain
responded by dispatching Force Z, their Royal Navy unit dedicated
to supporting Singapore, when Japanese bombers spotted Z's
battleship, the Prince of Wales, and its sister ship, the
Repulse, sailing for Kuantan on the eastern coast of the Malay
Peninsula, on the erroneous belief that the Japanese had just put
troops ashore there. The bombers rained down torpedo bombs on the
British warships, sinking them and killing 840 men. "In all the
war, I have never received a more direct shock," Churchill
lamented.
And the Japanese were far from finished: The humiliation of the
United States in the Philippines and a more extensive occupation
of Indochina and the South Pacific were still to come.
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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