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China Burma India Theater (CBI) was the name used by the United States Army for its forces operating in conjunction with British and Chinese Allied air and land forces in China, Burma, and India during World War II.<br/><br/> Well-known US units in this theater included the Flying Tigers, transport and bomber units flying the Hump, the 1st Air Commando Group, the engineers who built Ledo Road, and the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), otherwise known as Merrill's Marauders.
Several of these aviators were among the top Japanese aces, including: Saburo Sakai (middle row, second from left), Toshio Ota (far left, second row) and Hiroyoshi Nishizawa (standing, first on left).<br/><br/> The Tainan Air Group was formed in October 1941 in Japanese-occupied Formosa (Taiwan) and was one of the best known and most successful air groups of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service.
'Flying Tigers' was the popular name of the 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941-1942. The pilots were United States Army (USAAF), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC) personnel, recruited under Presidential sanction and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault; the ground crew and headquarters staff were likewise mostly recruited from the U.S. military, along with some civilians.<br/><br/> The group consisted of three fighter squadrons with about 20 aircraft each. It trained in Burma before the American entry into World War II with the mission of defending China against Japanese forces. The Tigers' shark-faced fighters remain among the most recognizable of any individual combat aircraft of World War II, and they demonstrated innovative tactical victories when the news in the U.S. was filled with little more than stories of defeat at the hands of the Japanese forces.
The Battle of Balikpapan was the concluding stage of Operation Oboe. The landings took place on 1 July 1945. The Australian 7th Division, composed of the 18th, 21st and 25th Infantry Brigades, with Dutch East Indies troops, made an amphibious landing a few miles north of Balikpapan, on the island of Borneo. The landing had been preceded by heavy bombing and shelling by Australian and US air and naval forces. The Japanese were outnumbered and outgunned, but like the other battles of the Pacific War, many of them fought to the death.<br/><br/> Major operations had ceased by July 21. The 7th Division's casualties were significantly lighter than they had suffered in previous campaigns. The battle was one of the last to occur in World War II, beginning a few weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki effectively ended the war. Japan surrendered while the Australians were combing the jungle for stragglers.
The January 28 Incident or Shanghai Incident (January 28 – March 3, 1932) was a conflict between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, before official hostilities of the Second Sino-Japanese War commenced in 1937.<br/><br/> In Chinese literature it is known as the January 28 Incident, while in Western sources it is often called the Shanghai War of 1932 or the Shanghai Incident. In Japan it is known as the First Shanghai Incident, alluding to the Second Shanghai Incident, which is the Japanese name for the Battle of Shanghai that occurred during the opening stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937.
During the war, the IAF played an instrumental role in blocking the advance of the Japanese Army in Burma where its first air strike was on the Japanese military base in Arakan.<br/><br/> It also carried out strike missions against the Japanese airbases at Mae Hong Son, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in northern Thailand.
On December 7–8, 1941, Japanese forces carried out surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, attacks on British forces in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong and declared war, bringing the US and the UK into World War II in the Pacific.<br/><br/> After the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender on August 15. The war cost Japan and the rest of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere millions of lives and left much of the nation's industry and infrastructure destroyed.
'Never was so much owed by so many to so few' was a wartime speech made by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on 20 August 1940.<br/><br/> The name stems from the specific line in the speech referring to the ongoing efforts of the Royal Air Force crews who were at the time fighting the Battle of Britain, the pivotal air battle with the German Luftwaffe with Britain expecting a German invasion, as well as starting the dangerous bombing campaign over Germany.
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel (Russian: Барон Пётр Никола́евич Вра́нгель, Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Vrangel; German: Freiherr Peter von Wrangel; August 27 1878 – April 25, 1928) was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.
Kamikaze ('divine wind') were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible.<br/><br/> Kamikaze pilots would attempt to crash their aircraft into enemy ships in planes laden with explosives, bombs, torpedoes and full fuel tanks. The aircraft's normal functions (to deliver torpedoes or bombs or shoot down other aircraft) were put aside, and the planes were converted to what were essentially manned missiles in an attempt to reap the benefits of greatly increased accuracy and payload over that of normal bombs.<br/><br/> The goal of crippling as many Allied ships as possible, particularly aircraft carriers, was considered critical enough to warrant the combined sacrifice of pilots and aircraft.<br/><br/> These attacks, which began in October 1944, followed several critical military defeats for the Japanese. They had long lost aerial dominance due to outdated aircraft and the loss of experienced pilots. On a macroeconomic scale, Japan experienced a decreasing capacity to wage war, and a rapidly declining industrial capacity relative to the United States. The Japanese government expressed its reluctance to surrender. In combination, these factors led to the use of kamikaze tactics as Allied forces advanced towards the Japanese home islands.
The Second Indochina War, known in America as the Vietnam War, was a Cold War era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the U.S. and other anti-communist nations. The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and part of their wider strategy of containment.<br/><br/> The North Vietnamese government viewed the war as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. U.S. military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive.<br/><br/> U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the US-Vietnam War.
The Second Indochina War, known in America as the Vietnam War, was a Cold War era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the U.S. and other anti-communist nations. The U.S. government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and part of their wider strategy of containment.<br/><br/> The North Vietnamese government viewed the war as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the U.S., and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a U.S. puppet state. U.S. military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive.<br/><br/> U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the US-Vietnam War.
A military coup occurred in Cambodia in 1970 which brought about the removal of the monarch and head of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, after a vote in the National Assembly on 18 March, 1970. Emergency powers were subsequently invoked by the Prime Minister Lon Nol, who became effective head of state. The coup led ultimately to the proclamation of the Khmer Republic later that year, and was a turning point in the Cambodian Civil War. The pilots in the photo are loyal to Lon Nol.
The Condor Legion (German: Legion Condor) was a unit composed of volunteers from the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and from the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) which served with the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War of July 1936 to March 1939.<br/><br/> The Condor Legion developed methods of terror bombing which were used widely in the Second World War shortly afterwards. The bombing of Guernica was the most infamous operation carried out by the Condor Legion. Hugo Sperrle commanded the unit's aircraft formations and Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma commanded the ground element.
Flying Tigers was the popular name of the 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941-1942. The pilots were United States Army (USAAF), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC) personnel, recruited under Presidential sanction and commanded by Claire Lee Chennault; the ground crew and headquarters staff were likewise mostly recruited from the U.S. military, along with some civilians.<br/><br/> The group consisted of three fighter squadrons with about 20 aircraft each. It trained in Burma before the American entry into World War II with the mission of defending China against Japanese forces. The Tigers' shark-faced fighters remain among the most recognizable of any individual combat aircraft of World War II, and they demonstrated innovative tactical victories when the news in the U.S. was filled with little more than stories of defeat at the hands of the Japanese forces. The group first saw combat on 20 December 1941, 12 days after Pearl Harbor. It achieved notable success during the lowest period of the war for U.S. and Allied Forces, giving hope to Americans that they would eventually succeed against the Japanese.
Shuinsen, or 'Red Seal ships', were Japanese armed merchant sailing ships bound for Southeast Asian ports with a red-sealed patent issued by the early Tokugawa shogunate in the first half of the 17th century. Between 1600 and 1635, more than 350 Japanese ships went overseas under this permit system.<br/><br/> Japanese merchants mainly exported silver, diamonds, copper, swords and other artifacts, and imported Chinese silk as well as some Southeast Asian products (like sugar and deer skins). Pepper and spices were rarely imported into Japan, where people did not eat a great deal of meat due to the local preponderance of adherents to the Buddhist belief system. Southeast Asian ports provided meeting places for Japanese and Chinese ships.<br/><br/> In 1635, the Tokugawa shogunate, fearful of Christian influence, prohibited Japanese nationals from overseas travel, thus ending the period of red-seal trade. This measure was tacitly approved of by Europeans, especially the Dutch East India Company, who saw their competition reduced.