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23 February 1944
US carriers carry on their program of destruction, this time their pilots unleashing their firepower in raids on the Marianas. US Navy pilots down 168 aircraft and sink two freighters while losing only six aircraft.
19 February 1944
US forces under Nimitz continue westward through Micronesia toward Japan. Another atoll is taken when Eniwetok is invaded and taken by the 2nd Marine Division. More than 250 men are killed, light when compared to Tarawa.
17-18 February 1944
Borne by carriers of the fleet of Admiral Marc Mitscher, Navy aircraft conduct a series of raids on Truk (now Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia), a major Japanese naval installation in the western Pacific. One raid was the first nighttime bombing mission by the Navy. Japanese losses from the raids are heavy; 275 aircraft, 10 […]
7 February – 7 March 1944
US campaign seizes the Admiralty Islands, north of Papua New Guinea. US forces now greatly hinder Japanese supply lines from Rabaul in the south Pacific to Truk (now Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia), Japan’s major naval base in the central Pacific. The path is clear for the capture of the Marianas.
1 February 1944
The drive by US forces through Micronesia and the central Pacific continues. In the Marshall Islands, the 4th Marine Division and the Army’s 7th Infantry Division attack Japanese forces on Kwajalein and on Roi Namur. Also invaded and captured is Majuro, the atoll which is the present day capital of the Republic of the Marshall […]
26 December 1943
Forces under MacArthur achieve landings at New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago. From there, MacArthur begins to secure the western Solomons, New Guinea, and eventually the Philippines. With the operations of MacArthur and Halsey complementing each other in the southwest Pacific, the Allies mount another offensive to nearly parallel Nimitz’s path through the central Pacific […]
20 November 1943
Nimitiz begins “island-hopping” in the central Pacific through Micronesia. The 2nd Marine Division invades heavily fortified Tarawa, and the Army’s 27th Infantry Division lands on Main (both part of Kiribati, formerly the Gilbert Islands). The battles in this eastern-most part of the Micronesian Region are costly; while only 60 men were killed at tiny Makin, […]
1 November 1943
Still trying to isolate Rabaul, US forces under Halsey invade Bougainville; among the units involved is the 3rd Marine Division, destined to invade Guam. Securing Bougainville takes until April 1944 but the operation sustains US superiority in the region.
30 June 1943
With the Navy securing control of the Bismarck Sea in March, MacArthur, landing in New Guinea, and Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, his forces coming ashore in the eastern Solomons, put into motion Operation Cartwheel. The operation, which establishes airfields from which to bomb the major Japanese base of Rabaul, takes months to accomplish but dooms […]
30 May 1943
US forces land and retake Attu, in the far western Aleutian islands, from the Japanese, who occupied the island and nearby Kiska since 7 June 1942. (Kiska was taken 15 August 1943 without a battle because Japanese had evacuated secretly under the cover of fog more than two weeks earlier.)