Sinking the rising sun

On the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan, Charles Harris looks back at the 14th Army’s extraordinary campaign and the remarkable characters who shaped it

At the climax of fighting in the Pacific, the USA revealed its ultimate weapon and ushered in a new era of warfare

Although war with Germany’s ally Japan was thought likely, and its ambitions of seizing natural resources it lacked were well known, the surprise air attack on the US Navy’s base at Pearl Harbor on Oa

In the final month of WWII, the Red Army launched a devastating strike into Manchuria, opening a new front with Japan and threatening invasion of the Home Islands

At the end of WWII the Japanese Imperial Army Air Force was conscripted into the Royal Air Force in Southeast Asia

In the days and hours before October 7, intelligence that should have made its way up the IDF chain of command didn’t reach people who could have connected the dots