The Japanese had been planning for war in the South Pacific for months. As the battle lines in Russia became static yet stable at Lake Baikal, the Japanese went on the defensive in early July 1941 and began withdrawing troops for the coming assault south, supplementing their positions in Siberia with Mengjiang and Manchukuon soldiers.
To protect their western flank in Burma, the Japanese ( as well as the Germans) had been supporting Subha
s Chandra Bose, delivering arms and economic aid to him in what would lead to a minor rebellion the Japanese hoped would ignite a general conflagration. Bose had fled India at the outbreak of war between Britain and Germany but returned to India following Britain's armistice with Germany in 1939. He quickly built up the Indian National Army (trained and supplied by German and Japanese officers covertly), attaining followers from all corners of the subcontinent who became increasingly hostile to British rule; many were still bitter over Britain forcibly declaring war on India's behalf. Bose became famous for the quote: "Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom!" Ghandi found himself sidelined as the pre-eminent leader of the Indian independence movement, his followers disillusioned by the failures of the Indian National Congress to attain any measure of self-rule. When the Japanese began invading British territory, Bose tied down the bulk of the British Army as it tried to hold onto India.Thus, British and Dutch forces, already drained of personnel and matériel following war with Germany, were unable to provide much more than token resistance to the battle-hardened Japanese in the opening phase of the war (October 1941 - March 1942). The Allies suffered many disastrous defeats in the first six months of the war. Two major British warships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales were sunk by a Japanese air attack off Malaya on October 10, 1941. Siam surrendered within 24 hours of the Japanese invasion and formally allied herself with Japan on October 21, allowing her bases to be used as a springboard against Singapore and Malaya. U.S. bases on Guam and Wake Island were lost October 25.
The Allied governments appointed the British General Sir Archibald Wavell to the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM), a supreme command for Allied forces in South East Asia. This gave Wavell nominal control of a huge but thinly-spread force covering an area from India to the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. Other areas, including Australia and Hawaii, remained under separate local commands. On November 15, Wavell moved to Bandung in Java to assume control of ABDA Command.
In January, Japan invaded the Dutch East Indies, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and captured Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Rabaul. After being driven out of Malaya, Allied forces in Singapore attempted to resist the Japanese during the battle of Singapore but surrendered to the Japanese on December 15; about 130,000 British, Australian and Dutch personnel became prisoners of war. The pace of conquest was rapid: Bali and Timor also fell in December. The rapid collapse of Allied resistance had left the "ABDA area" split in two. Wavell resigned from ABDACOM on December 25, 1941, handing control of the ABDA Area to local commanders and returning to the post of Commander-in-Chief, India.Meanwhile, Japanese aircraft had all but eliminated Allied air power in South-East Asia and were making attacks on northern Australia, beginning with a psychologically devastating (but militarily insignificant) attack on the city of Darwin on December 19, which killed at least 243 people.
At the battle of the Java Sea in late February and early March, the Japanese Navy inflicted a resounding defeat on the main ABDA naval force, under Admiral Karel Doorman. The Netherlands East Indies campaign subsequently ended with the surrender of Allied forces on Java.
In January and February, a raid into the Indian Ocean by a powerful Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier force resulted in a wave of major air raids against Ceylon and the sinking of a British aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes as well as other Allied ships and driving the British fleet out of the Indian Ocean. This paved the way for a Japanese assault on India.
In the midst of these Japanese victories, cooperation between the Chinese Nationalists and the Communists waned from its zenith at the Battle of Wuhan, and the relationship between the two became sour as both attempted to expand their area of operations in occupied territories. Most of the Nationalist guerrilla areas were eventually overtaken by the Communists. On the other hand, some Nationalist units were deployed to blockade the Communists and not the Japanese. Furthermore, many of the forces of the Chinese Nationalists were warlords allied to Chiang Kai-Shek, but not directly under his command. Of the 1,200,000 troops under Chiang's control, only 650,000 were directly controlled by his generals, and another 550,000 controlled by warlords who claimed loyalty to his government; the strongest force was the Szechuan army of 320,000 men. These warlords were beginning to tire of the unending war with Japan as well as the civil war brewing between the communists and Chiang. It would not be long before Wang Jingwei's offers began to seem too easy to pass up.Filipino and U.S. forces put up a fierce resistance in the Philippines until March 8, 1942, when more than 80,000 of them surrendered. By this time, General Douglas MacArthur, who had been appointed Supreme Allied Commander South West Pacific, had relocated his headquarters to Australia. The U.S. Navy, under Admiral Chester Nimitz, had responsibility for the rest of the Pacific Ocean. This divided command had unfortunate consequences for the commerce war, and consequently, the war itself.
The one bright spot for the Allies in the first six months of war would be the Battle of the Coral Sea which saw Allied forces turn back a Japanese invasion force.
SOURCE: Webber, Julius The Gathering Storm: The Opening Stages of the Pacific War
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