Sword, commonly known as Sword Beach, was the code name given to one of the five main landing areas along the Normandy coast during the initial assault phase, Operation Neptune, of Operation Overlord. The Allied invasion of German-occupied France commenced on 6 June 1944. Stretching 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from Ouistreham to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, the beach proved to be the easternmost landing site of the invasion after the abortion of an attack on a sixth beach, code-named Band. Taking Sword was to be the responsibility of the British Army with sea transport, mine sweeping and a naval bombardment force provided by the British Royal Navy as well as elements from the Polish, Norwegian and other Allied navies.
A division is a large military unit or formation, usually consisting of between 6,000 and 25,000 soldiers.
The Battle of Leyte in the Pacific campaign of World War II was the amphibious invasion of the island of Leyte in the Philippines by American forces and Filipino guerrillas under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur, who fought against the Imperial Japanese Army in the Philippines led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The operation, codenamed King Two, launched the Philippines campaign of 1944–45 for the recapture and liberation of the entire Philippine Archipelago and to end almost three years of Japanese occupation.
Operation Downfall was the proposed Allied plan for the invasion of the Japanese home islands near the end of World War II. The planned operation was canceled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet declaration of war, and the invasion of Manchuria. The operation had two parts: Operation Olympic and Operation Coronet. Set to begin in November 1945, Operation Olympic was intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island, Kyūshū, with the recently captured island of Okinawa to be used as a staging area. In early 1946 would come Operation Coronet, the planned invasion of the Kantō Plain, near Tokyo, on the main Japanese island of Honshu. Airbases on Kyūshū captured in Operation Olympic would allow land-based air support for Operation Coronet. If Downfall had taken place, it would have been the largest amphibious operation in history, surpassing D-Day.
The Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II in which the Allied forces invaded the island of Sicily in July 1943 and took it from the Axis powers. It began with a large amphibious and airborne operation, followed by a six-week land campaign, and initiated the Italian campaign.
The Eighth Army is a U.S. field army which is the commanding formation of all United States Army forces in South Korea. It commands U.S. and South Korean units and is headquartered at the Camp Humphreys, in the Anjeong-ri of Pyeongtaek, South Korea. It is the only field army in the U.S. Army.
The Invasion of the Kuril Islands was the World War II Soviet military operation to capture the Kuril Islands from Japan in 1945. The invasion, part of the Soviet–Japanese War, was decided on when plans to land on Hokkaido were abandoned. The successful military operations of the Red Army at Mudanjiang and during the Invasion of South Sakhalin created the necessary prerequisites for invasion of the Kuril Islands.
The Battle of Guam was the American recapture of the Japanese-held island of Guam, a U.S. territory in the Mariana Islands captured by the Japanese from the United States in the First Battle of Guam in 1941 during the Pacific campaign of World War II. The battle was a critical component of Operation Forager. The recapture of Guam and the broader Mariana and Palau Islands campaign resulted in the destruction of much of Japan's naval air power and allowed the United States to establish large airbases from which it could bomb the Japanese home islands with its new strategic bomber, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress.
The Commonwealth Corps was the name given to a proposed British Commonwealth army formation, which was scheduled to take part in the planned Allied invasion of Japan during 1945 and 1946. The corps was never formed, however, as the Japanese surrender obviated any need for it. Under the proposals the corps would have comprised Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand forces.
The Far Eastern Front was a front — a level of military formation that is equivalent to army group — of the Red Army during the Second World War.
The Battle of Luzon was a land battle of the Pacific Theater of Operations of World War II by the Allied forces of the U.S., its colony the Philippines, and allies against forces of the Empire of Japan. The battle resulted in a U.S. and Filipino victory. The Allies had taken control of all strategically and economically important locations of Luzon by March 1945, although pockets of Japanese resistance held out in the mountains until the unconditional surrender of Japan. While not the highest in U.S. casualties, it is the highest net casualty battle U.S. forces fought in World War II, with 192,000 to 217,000 Japanese combatants dead, 8,000 American combatants killed, and over 150,000 Filipinos, overwhelmingly civilians who were murdered by Japanese forces, mainly during the Manila massacre of February 1945.
This article covers the Japanese garrisons on the by-passed Pacific islands from 1944 to 1945, including the Japanese mandated territory of the South Seas Mandate.
Marine Air-Ground Task Force is a term used by the United States Marine Corps to describe the principal organization for all missions across the range of military operations. MAGTFs are a balanced air-ground, combined arms task organization of Marine Corps forces under a single commander that is structured to accomplish a specific mission. The MAGTF was formalized by the publishing of Marine Corps Order 3120.3 in December 1963 "The Marine Corps in the National Defense, MCDP 1-0". It stated:
The following is the order of battle of the forces involved in the Battle of Shanghai, during the opening stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
The 2nd Parachute Brigade was an airborne forces brigade formed by the British Army during the Second World War.
Below is the order of battle for the Battle of Beiping-Tianjin, called the Peiking-Tientsin Operation in pinyin spelling, a series of battles fought from 25 July through 31 July 1937 as part of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was called the North China Incident by the Japanese.
The Battle of Labuan was an engagement fought between Allied and Imperial Japanese forces on the island of Labuan off Borneo during June 1945. It formed part of the Australian invasion of North Borneo, and was initiated by the Allied forces as part of a plan to capture the Brunei Bay area and develop it into a base to support future offensives.
At the start of 1939, the British Army was, as it traditionally always had been, a small volunteer professional army. At the beginning of the Second World War on 1 September 1939, the British Army was small in comparison with those of its enemies, as it had been at the beginning of the First World War in 1914. It also quickly became evident that the initial structure and manpower of the British Army was woefully unprepared and ill-equipped for a war with multiple enemies on multiple fronts. During the early war years, mainly from 1940 to 1942, the British Army suffered defeat in almost every theatre of war in which it was deployed. But, from late 1942 onwards, starting with the Second Battle of El Alamein, the British Army's fortunes changed and it rarely suffered another defeat.
The IJA Amphibious Brigades were marines brigades of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. They were established in 1943. Although the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia had been completed at the time of their founding, the Imperial General Headquarters saw the need for flexible countermeasures to defend strategic islands in the Pacific Ocean from impending Allied invasion as the war situation deteriorated for the Japanese Empire.
The Seishin Operation, also called Chongjin Landing Operation, was an amphibious assault on northern Korea between 13–17 August 1945, carried out by the forces of the Soviet Northern Pacific Flotilla of the Pacific Fleet during the Soviet–Japanese War at the end of World War II.
