What were the greatest battles of the Pacific War?
Midway tops our ranking of the Pacific War's greatest battles: on 4 June 1942 American dive bombers knocked out four Japanese fleet carriers and ended Japan's offensive in the Pacific. Next come Pearl Harbor, which opened the war, the six-month struggle for Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and the fall of Singapore, then Leyte Gulf, Okinawa and Bataan.
Our fifteen battles run from Pearl Harbor and the landings in Malaya in December 1941 to the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945, fought at sea, in the air and on islands, jungle tracks and plains from Hawaii to India. The war in Burma and India and in China after December 1941 belongs to the Pacific War, so Imphal and Kohima and Manchuria are ranked here; Japan's war in China from 1937 and the bombing of cities, from the Doolittle Raid to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are left out. The list is ranked by score, with most weight on how well each battle is known; see how we chose and ranked them.1
For the war as a whole, its causes, the sides, the campaigns and how it ended, see our guide to the Pacific War, 1941 to 1945.
1 Midway, 1942
- Where
- Around Midway Atoll, central Pacific
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Fleets
- US Pacific Fleet (Nimitz) vs Japanese Combined Fleet (Yamamoto)
- Strength
- 3 US carriers and the aircraft of the Midway base vs 4 Japanese fleet carriers
- Result
- US victory; 4 Japanese carriers sunk for 1 US carrier; about 3,057 Japanese and 362 American men lost
Six months after Pearl Harbor, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned to seize Midway and destroy the US carriers when they came out to save it. But Navy cryptanalysts in Hawaii had been breaking Japanese codes since early 1942. They knew the target was called “AF”, and when Midway sent out a false message that it was short of fresh water, the Japanese duly reported that “AF” was short of water.2
Early on 4 June 1942 planes from four Japanese carriers bombed Midway. While they were back aboard to rearm, dive bombers from Enterprise and Yorktown found the fleet and set Akagi, Kaga and Soryu ablaze. Hiryu, the only survivor, struck back twice and crippled Yorktown, then was caught herself that afternoon. Japan lost four carriers, a cruiser, hundreds of aircraft and about 3,057 men; the United States lost Yorktown, a destroyer, 144 aircraft and about 362 men. The Navy’s own historians call Midway the strategic high water mark of Japan’s war: after it the two fleets were essentially equals, and the Americans soon took the offensive. In 1999 the Chief of Naval Operations ordered the battle commemorated every year alongside the Navy’s birthday, and the fleet still receives an anniversary message, as it did for the 83rd in June 2025.3
Why it ranks here: It is No. 1 because it alone has full marks for recognition, decisiveness, consequence and certainty: in one day the dive bombers knocked out four fleet carriers and ended Japan’s offensive in the Pacific. Memory is 4, because the anniversary is kept mainly by the US Navy, and it is the only entry on 48.
2 Pearl Harbor, 1941
- Where
- US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Sides
- Japan vs the United States
- Strength
- 353 Japanese aircraft from six fleet carriers vs the US Pacific Fleet in harbor, whose three carriers were at sea
- Result
- Japanese success in the raid; 2,403 Americans killed and 19 US Navy ships sunk or damaged; the United States entered the war
When Japanese troops occupied French Indochina in 1941, the United States and Britain stopped selling Japan oil, four fifths of which had come from America, and Tokyo pushed on toward the resources of Southeast Asia. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto planned the opening blow, and all six of Japan’s fleet carriers crossed some 3,000 miles of ocean in secret to a point a few hundred miles north of Hawaii.4
At 7:55 on Sunday 7 December 1941, 353 aircraft fell on the Pacific Fleet at its moorings. In an hour and 15 minutes they sank or damaged 19 US Navy ships, eight of them battleships, and killed 2,403 Americans, 68 of them civilians. Half the dead were aboard USS Arizona, which still holds more than 900 of her crew. Yet the three American carriers were at sea on maneuvers and untouched, and a planned third wave never flew. In the same hours Japan invaded Thailand and the Malay Peninsula, the start of the campaign that ended at Singapore. The next day Roosevelt told Congress that 7 December was “a date which will live in infamy”, and war passed with a single vote against; on 11 December Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Since 1994, 7 December has been National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, marked every year at the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.5
Why it ranks here: Counted although it was a raid, because it opened the Pacific War and brought the United States into it, it has full marks for recognition, consequence, memory and certainty. It missed the carriers, which struck back at Midway, so decisiveness is only 2, and it is the only entry on 44.
3 Guadalcanal, 1942 to 1943
- Where
- Guadalcanal and the surrounding waters, Solomon Islands
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Sides
- The United States, with Australian and New Zealand forces, vs Japan
- Strength
- About 16,000 US Marines at the landing, later reinforced by the Army; about 37,700 Japanese landed in all (US Marine Corps estimate)
- Result
- Allied victory; Japan evacuated the island in February 1943
On 7 August 1942, two months after Midway, US Marines landed on Guadalcanal in America’s first major amphibious landing of the war and took an unfinished Japanese airstrip, which they named Henderson Field. The next night Japanese cruisers sank four Allied heavy cruisers off Savo Island, the transports pulled out, and some 16,000 Marines were left on the island short of supplies.6
For six months the island was fought over on land, at sea and in the air. Japan landed troops at night and hurled them at the airfield’s perimeter, at Bloody Ridge in September and again in late October, and lost heavily each time. Seven major naval battles were fought around the island, and so many ships went down that the strait became Ironbottom Sound. In December Army troops relieved the exhausted Marines. On 4 January 1943 Tokyo ordered the island abandoned, and in early February Japanese destroyers slipped the survivors away by night. A Japanese estimate printed in the Marine Corps’ 1949 history puts their land forces on the island at about 37,700 in all and their losses at about 28,600. For the whole Solomon Islands campaign the National WWII Museum gives the cost as about 7,100 Allied and 31,000 Japanese men, and calls Guadalcanal the first vital step in driving Japan back across the Pacific.7
Why it ranks here: Six months on land, at sea and in the air took the initiative in the Pacific from Japan for good, so decisiveness 5; consequence is 4 because Midway had already turned the naval war, and the name is less known abroad than Midway or Iwo Jima, recognition 4. It is the only entry on 43.
4 Iwo Jima, 1945
- Where
- Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, 660 miles (about 1,060 km) south of Tokyo
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Sides
- The United States vs Japan
- Strength
- About 70,000 US Marines vs 18,000 to 20,000 Japanese
- Result
- US victory; 6,821 Americans killed; almost the whole garrison dead
Iwo Jima is a small volcanic island 660 miles south of Tokyo. The United States wanted it to silence a garrison that gave Japan early warning of B-29 raids and to shut airfields used against the Marianas. Its commander, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, knew he could not win, so he dug his garrison into bunkers and gun positions linked by miles of tunnels to make the invasion as costly as possible.8
On 19 February 1945 the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions landed. On the morning of 23 February a patrol raised a small flag on Mount Suribachi. That afternoon a second, larger flag replaced it, and Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press photographed the moment; the picture won a Pulitzer Prize and became the model for the Marine Corps War Memorial. Myth vs fact: the famous photograph shows the second flag, not the first, and the Marine Corps has since concluded that two of the six men long named in it were not there. The island was declared secure on 26 March, after 36 days. The landing force lost 6,821 killed and 19,217 wounded, and of a Japanese garrison the National WWII Museum puts at 18,000 to 20,000, the Marines captured only 216. Twenty-seven Marines and sailors received the Medal of Honor for Iwo Jima, more than for any other campaign.9
Why it ranks here: The flag raising and the Marine Corps War Memorial make it one of the best known battles of the war, so recognition and memory 5. It took an island for bomber airfields and decided no campaign, so decisiveness and consequence 3; it is the only entry on 42.
5 Singapore, 1942
- Where
- Malaya and Singapore Island, at the tip of the Malay Peninsula
- War
- World War II, Pacific War (Malayan campaign)
- Sides
- Japanese 25th Army (Lieutenant General Tomoyuki Yamashita) vs British, Indian and Australian troops under Lieutenant General Arthur Percival
- Strength
- About 30,000 to 36,000 Japanese vs about 85,000 defenders at Singapore; some 140,000 British and Commonwealth troops in Malaya in all
- Result
- Japanese victory; Percival surrendered on 15 February 1942; about 80,000 captured at Singapore, 130,000 in the whole campaign
On 8 December 1941, in the same hours as the strike on Pearl Harbor, Yamashita’s troops landed in southern Thailand and at Kota Bharu in northern Malaya. With the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse sunk from the air, the defenders were driven down the length of the peninsula. On 31 January 1942 the last of them crossed to Singapore Island and blew up the causeway.10
The fortress had been built against attack from the sea, and its north coast had no fixed defenses. On 8 February a first wave of 13,000 Japanese crossed the Johore Strait and overran some 3,000 Australians in the northwest. Within a week the defenders were penned into a perimeter around the city with less than a day of water left. On 15 February Percival signed the surrender at the Ford factory at Bukit Timah, now a National Archives war exhibition. HistoryNet counts 80,000 captured; the National Army Museum gives 130,000 for Malaya and Singapore together, and quotes Churchill: “the worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history.” Myth vs fact: the popular story blames guns that could only point out to sea; the National Army Museum blames their shells, mostly armor piercing and of little use against infantry. The British came back to Malaya only in 1945, after Japan surrendered.11
Why it ranks here: Counted as one entry with Malaya, it settled the war in Southeast Asia until 1945, so decisiveness 4, with recognition and memory 4. Consequence is 4, not 5, because Britain returned and its Asian empire ended for many later reasons; it ties Leyte Gulf on 41, level on recognition and consequence, and goes above it as the older battle.
6 Leyte Gulf, 1944
- Where
- Waters around Leyte and Samar and the Sibuyan Sea, Philippines
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Fleets
- US Third and Seventh Fleets, with two Australian ships, vs the Japanese Combined Fleet
- Strength
- 282 ships (216 American, 2 Australian, 64 Japanese) and nearly 200,000 men
- Result
- Allied victory; Japan lost 26 to 29 warships, among them 4 carriers and 3 battleships
On 20 October 1944 American troops landed on Leyte, and General Douglas MacArthur announced by radio that he had kept his promise to return to the Philippines. Japan answered with Sho-1, a plan that staked almost its entire fleet: a decoy force of carriers under Admiral Ozawa would lure Admiral William Halsey’s Third Fleet north, while two forces of battleships slipped through the islands to smash the landing fleet in the gulf.12
Was Leyte Gulf the largest naval battle in history? By the usual measures, yes. Between 23 and 26 October some 282 ships fought, 216 American, 2 Australian and 64 Japanese, with almost 200,000 men across more than 100,000 square miles of sea, more ships than at Jutland. It was really four battles: in the Sibuyan Sea aircraft sank the giant battleship Musashi; in Surigao Strait the last battle lines of dreadnoughts met; off Cape Engaño Halsey sank all four decoy carriers; and off Samar escort carriers and destroyers held off Admiral Kurita’s battleships until he turned back. Japan lost 26 to 29 warships, among them four carriers and three battleships, and more than 10,500 men; the Americans lost six ships. The battle also brought the first kamikaze units into action, and suicide attacks would claim thousands of Allied lives before the war ended.13
Why it ranks here: By most measures the largest naval battle in history, it ended the Japanese navy as a fighting fleet, so decisiveness 5, but it is far less known and remembered than Midway, recognition 4 and memory 3. It ties Singapore on 41, level on recognition and consequence, and goes below it as the younger battle.
7 Okinawa, 1945
- Where
- Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, 340 miles from mainland Japan
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Sides
- US Tenth Army and the US Navy vs the Japanese 32nd Army and conscripted Okinawans
- Strength
- More than 60,000 US soldiers and Marines on the first day, against defenders of whom 90,000 to 110,000 were killed
- Result
- US victory, island secured on 22 June 1945; 49,151 American casualties, 12,520 of them killed or missing; over 100,000 to perhaps 150,000 civilians dead
On Easter Sunday, 1 April 1945, more than 60,000 soldiers and Marines of the US Tenth Army landed on Okinawa, only 340 miles from mainland Japan, in the largest amphibious assault of the Pacific. The Japanese had dug in to the south, around Shuri Castle and a chain of fortified ridges, and the fight to break the Shuri Line lasted until the castle fell on 29 May. Offshore, Japan launched almost 2,000 suicide attacks against the invasion fleet, and 4,907 American sailors were killed.14
The island was declared secure on 22 June, after 82 days. The Tenth Army’s commander, Lieutenant General Simon Bolivar Buckner Jr., had been killed on 18 June, the highest-ranking American general killed in action in the war. American casualties came to 49,151, of them 12,520 killed or missing. The National WWII Museum puts the Japanese dead at about 90,000 combatants, or some 110,000 counting conscripted Okinawan defenders. Civilian deaths cannot be counted exactly: estimates run from over 100,000 to as many as 150,000. When Truman met his commanders in June to discuss invading Japan, the price made him want to avoid “Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other.” Every 23 June Okinawa keeps Irei no Hi, its memorial day, at the Cornerstone of Peace, which bears more than 240,000 names of those who died in or after the battle.15
Why it ranks here: The largest amphibious battle of the Pacific and its deadliest island fight decided the campaign but not the war, which Midway and Leyte Gulf had already turned, so decisiveness 4. Civilian death figures run from over 100,000 to 150,000, so certainty 4, and it is the only entry on 40.
8 Bataan, 1942
- Where
- Bataan Peninsula, Luzon, Philippines
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Sides
- US Army Forces in the Far East (MacArthur, then Wainwright and King) vs the Japanese 14th Army (Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma)
- Strength
- About 12,000 American and 66,000 Filipino soldiers vs Homma’s army of about 100,000 for the whole of Luzon
- Result
- Japanese victory; King surrendered on 9 April 1942; about 75,000 to 78,000 men captured
On 8 December 1941 MacArthur’s air force near Manila was destroyed on the ground, and Homma’s 14th Army set out to take Luzon and Manila Bay. By 1 January 1942 some 12,000 American and 66,000 Filipino soldiers had withdrawn into the 25-mile peninsula of Bataan. Japan had planned to take the islands in 50 days. MacArthur promised that “help is on the way”, which was not true, and on 11 March he left for Australia on orders. They held out for four months while every other nation in the Pacific and Southeast Asia fell.16
On 3 April Homma launched his final assault, and on 9 April Major General Edward P. King surrendered against orders, so as not to see his men slaughtered. The Army’s official history gives his force as 78,000; the USO counts 12,000 Americans and 63,000 Filipinos taken prisoner. Either way it was the largest surrender of an American army. Then came the Death March, about 65 miles by the USO's count, though accounts run from 55 to 75 miles; the dead are given as at least 600 to as many as 750 Americans and some 5,000 Filipinos. Corregidor fell in May. Every 9 April the Philippines keeps Araw ng Kagitingan, the Day of Valor, led by the president at the Shrine of Valor on Mount Samat.17
Why it ranks here: The Death March and the Day of Valor keep it alive, above all in the Philippines, so memory 5, but it delayed the Japanese timetable rather than deciding the campaign, which ended at Corregidor, so decisiveness and consequence 3. The death toll of the march is disputed, certainty 4, and it is the only entry on 38.
9 Coral Sea, 1942
- Where
- Coral Sea, between New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and north-east Australia
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Fleets
- US and Australian ships under Frank Jack Fletcher vs the Japanese navy under Inoue Shigeyoshi
- Strength
- 2 US carriers vs 2 Japanese fleet carriers and a light carrier; 122 vs 121 aircraft in the strikes of 8 May
- Result
- Allied strategic victory; the landing at Port Moresby called off; Lexington and Shoho sunk
In the spring of 1942 Japan set out to take Port Moresby in Papua and Tulagi in the Solomons, to cut the sea lanes between Australia and the United States; World History Encyclopedia counts 60 Japanese ships in the operation. Forewarned by codebreakers, Admiral Nimitz sent two of his four Pacific carriers, Lexington and Yorktown, with Australian cruisers in support.18
From 4 to 8 May the two navies fought the first battle between aircraft carriers, and the first in which the ships never saw each other: every blow was struck by aircraft. On 7 May American planes sank the light carrier Shoho. On 8 May the carrier forces found each other; Lexington was lost, and Yorktown and Shokaku were badly damaged. Japan had sunk the bigger ship, a tactical edge, but its invasion force turned back and never reached Port Moresby. The air battle cost Japan 77 aircraft against 66 American, and the damaged Shokaku and the depleted air group of Zuikaku were missing from Midway a month later. Australians still call it the battle that saved their country, and the site where Lexington, Sims and Neosho lie has been placed on Australia's National Heritage List.19
Why it ranks here: The first carrier battle turned back the landing at Port Moresby and kept two Japanese carriers out of Midway, so consequence and memory 4, but the tactical edge went to Japan, decisiveness 3, and Midway overshadows it, recognition 3. It ties Saipan and the Philippine Sea on 36, all three on recognition 3; it goes above the Philippine Sea on consequence and above Saipan, level on consequence, as the older.
10 Saipan, 1944
- Where
- Saipan, Mariana Islands, western Pacific
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Sides
- 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions and the US Army's 27th Infantry Division vs the Japanese 31st Army
- Strength
- 71,000 US troops landed vs a garrison of about 30,000 to 32,000
- Result
- US victory; the garrison destroyed, 921 prisoners; about 3,000 to 3,500 Americans killed
On 15 June 1944 American Marines stormed ashore on Saipan to win airfields from which the new B-29 bombers could reach Japan's home islands. The invasion of the Marianas was the first breach of the inner defensive line of Japan's empire, and the National Park Service puts the garrison at about 32,000 men, twice what American intelligence had expected.20
After weeks of fighting through the hills around Mount Tapotchau, on the night of 6 to 7 July the Japanese made the largest banzai charge of the war, and the island was declared secure on 9 July. Only 921 of the garrison were taken prisoner; the park service counts nearly 3,000 Americans killed on one of its pages and almost 3,500 on another. From 9 to 12 July hundreds of Japanese civilians killed themselves, many by leaping from the cliffs at the north end of the island near Marpi Point, taught by propaganda to expect torture from the Americans; some were killed or forced to die by Japanese soldiers. Estimates of the civilian dead vary widely, and the park service suggests about 8,000. In Tokyo, Tojo's cabinet resigned in July to take responsibility for the loss.21
Why it ranks here: Saipan broke Japan's inner defense line, gave the B-29s their bases and toppled Tojo's government, so decisiveness and consequence 4, but it decided the Marianas campaign rather than the war, and it is known mainly for the civilian suicides, recognition and memory 3. It ties the Coral Sea and the Philippine Sea on 36; level with the Coral Sea on recognition and consequence, it goes below it as the younger, and above the Philippine Sea on consequence.
11 Philippine Sea, 1944
- Where
- Philippine Sea, west of the Mariana Islands
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Fleets
- US Fifth Fleet (Task Force 58) under Raymond Spruance and Marc Mitscher vs the Japanese carrier fleet under Ozawa Jisaburo
- Strength
- 15 US carriers vs 9 Japanese
- Result
- US victory; 3 Japanese carriers and 480 to more than 600 aircraft lost, against about 125 American planes
When the Americans landed on Saipan on 15 June 1944, the Japanese navy sent its carriers to strike the invasion fleet, in a plan called Operation A-Go. It was badly outmatched. The National Park Service counts 7 American fleet carriers and 8 light carriers against 5 Japanese fleet carriers and 4 light ones, and Admiral Ozawa counted on some 500 land-based aircraft on Guam, Rota and Yap; by EBSCO's account the Marianas had been left with about fifty.22
On 19 June, in what the park service calls the largest carrier battle in history, wave after wave of Japanese aircraft flew into American radar, Hellcat fighters and anti-aircraft fire, a slaughter that became known as the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. The same day the submarines Albacore and Cavalla torpedoed the carriers Taiho and Shokaku and on 20 June an evening strike sank the carrier Hiyo. Japanese aircraft losses are given as 480 by the park service and more than 600 by EBSCO; the Americans lost about 125 planes, 80 of them ditched or wrecked landing in the dark after the long strike of 20 June. Spruance had kept his fleet close to the landings, so most of Ozawa's ships escaped, but the trained aircrews could not be replaced, and Japan's carrier force never recovered.23
Why it ranks here: It broke Japanese naval air power for good, decisiveness 5, but Leyte Gulf finished the work four months later, consequence 3, and it is known mostly by its nickname and overshadowed by the fight for Saipan ashore, recognition and memory 3. It ties the Coral Sea and Saipan on 36, level with both on recognition, and goes below both on consequence.
12 Kokoda, 1942
- Where
- The Kokoda Track over the Owen Stanley Range, Papua (now Papua New Guinea)
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Sides
- Australian Army and the Papuan Infantry Battalion vs Japanese forces under Major General Horii Tomitaro
- Strength
- About 6,000 Japanese engaged vs at first one militia battalion and 300 Papuans, later AIF reinforcements of a little over 1,000, then 2,500
- Result
- Australian victory; the Japanese advance halted at Imita Ridge, Kokoda retaken on 2 November; more than 600 Australians killed
After the Coral Sea ended its attempt by sea, Japan landed near Gona on the north coast of Papua on 21 July 1942 and set off on foot across the Owen Stanley Range for Port Moresby. In its path stood the 39th Battalion, young and barely trained militiamen, and the 300-strong Papuan Infantry Battalion.24
Kokoda village was lost on 29 July, retaken and lost again, and the Australians fell back along the track, fighting for four days at Isurava, where Private Bruce Kingsbury won a posthumous Victoria Cross, the first won on Australian soil. They made further stands at Brigade Hill and Ioribaiwa and dug in on Imita Ridge, less than 50 km from Port Moresby, where the advance stopped: the Japanese, their supply line stretched to breaking point and with Guadalcanal now the priority, turned back on 24 September. The Australians followed them and retook Kokoda on 2 November. More than 600 Australians were killed and over a thousand wounded, and perhaps three times as many fell sick; the Memorial historian Chris Clark puts Japanese losses at about three quarters of the 6,000 men engaged killed, wounded or sick. Papuan carriers bore the supplies forward and the sick and wounded back. Today, the Australian War Memorial says, Kokoda stands second only to Gallipoli in the nation's sentiment.25
Why it ranks here: Kokoda is the Australian memory of the war that only Gallipoli outranks, memory 5, and with Milne Bay and Buna it decided the Papuan campaign, decisiveness and consequence 3; few readers outside Australia know it, recognition 3, and the strength of both sides is known only roughly, certainty 4. It is the only entry on 35.
13 Tarawa, 1943
- Where
- Betio, Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati)
- War
- World War II, Pacific War
- Sides
- US 2nd Marine Division vs the Japanese naval garrison under Rear Admiral Shibasaki
- Strength
- 2nd Marine Division vs a garrison of 4,836
- Result
- US victory in 76 hours; 4,690 of the garrison dead; 1,115 Americans dead or missing by our sum
Tarawa was the first major American action in the Central Pacific, and its key was Betio, the island with the atoll's new bomber strip. Its garrison numbered 4,836 men, and American intelligence rated about 2,600 of them first-rate naval troops; Alexander counts some 500 pillboxes, blockhouses and other emplacements.26
On 20 November 1943 the 2nd Marine Division came in over the reef, and waves of Marines were badly mauled as they struggled across it to the beach. Betio fell after 76 hours. Of the garrison, 4,690 died; only 17 Japanese and 129 Korean laborers were taken prisoner. The division's final count, in Joseph Alexander's account, was 997 Marines and 30 sailors dead, 88 Marines missing and presumed dead, and more than 2,200 wounded; added together, 1,115 dead or missing by our sum. The reports shocked the nation, and Time magazine wrote that the Marines had given it a name to stand beside the Alamo and Belleau Wood. The lessons, among them the use of amphibian tractors as assault craft, made Tarawa what the Marine Corps historian Henry Shaw called the textbook for every later landing in the Central Pacific. The search for its dead goes on: almost half of the known casualties were never found, and in 2023 the Pentagon's recovery agency identified another Marine killed on the first day.27
Why it ranks here: The 76 hours on Betio shocked the American public and taught the lessons of every later landing, memory 4, and it took the Gilberts and opened the Central Pacific drive, decisiveness and consequence 3. It ties Imphal and Kohima on 34 and goes above it on recognition.
14 Imphal and Kohima, 1944
- Where
- Imphal plain (Manipur) and Kohima ridge (Nagaland), north-east India
- War
- World War II, Burma campaign
- Sides
- British and Indian troops of the Fourteenth Army vs the Japanese Fifteenth Army, with a division of the Indian National Army
- Strength
- Japanese Fifteenth Army 85,000; at Kohima a garrison of 2,500 against 12,000 to 15,000
- Result
- Japanese defeat; 53,000 Japanese dead and missing
In March 1944 the Japanese Fifteenth Army launched Operation U-Go, sending four divisions, one of them from the Indian National Army, over the frontier hills to seize the British supply bases on the Imphal plain and cut the road to Dimapur at Kohima. The twin battles lasted from 8 March to 18 July.28
At Imphal, IV Corps held the plain with four Indian divisions, supplied by air. Eighty miles to the north, Kohima's garrison of about 2,500 faced a Japanese division that the Ministry of Defence puts at more than 12,000 men and the National Army Museum at 15,000. It held through 13 days of siege, at one point with only a tennis court between the lines. On 22 June the relief force linked up with IV Corps. Of the 85,000 men of the Fifteenth Army, 53,000 were killed or missing; an Indian study puts the dead at more than 30,000. The Kohima epitaph, “When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today”, comes from this battle, and in 2013 a National Army Museum poll chose Imphal and Kohima as Britain's greatest land battle, though in India, the study's author wrote, it had received “little to no attention”.29
Why it ranks here: Stopping the invasion of India and breaking the Fifteenth Army decided the Burma campaign, decisiveness 5 and consequence 4, scored as one entry; recognition 2 because few readers outside Britain and India know it, memory 3, and the Japanese toll ranges from 30,000 dead to 53,000 dead and missing, certainty 4. It ties Tarawa on 34 and goes below it on recognition.
15 Manchuria, 1945
- Where
- Manchuria (north-east China), northern Korea, southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands
- War
- World War II, Soviet-Japanese War
- Sides
- Soviet Union and Mongolia vs Japan's Kwantung Army and Manchukuo
- Strength
- 1.5 to 1.7 million Soviet and Mongolian troops vs about 1 million Japanese (1.32 million with allied troops by the Soviet count)
- Result
- Soviet victory; the Kwantung Army destroyed and Manchukuo ended; 12,031 Soviet dead and missing
At Yalta in February 1945 Stalin promised to enter the war against Japan three months after Germany's surrender. The Soviet Union declared war on 8 August, two days after Hiroshima, and in the early hours of 9 August its armies crossed into Manchuria, Japan's puppet state of Manchukuo.30
Krivosheev's tables put the Soviet force at 1,669,500 men, with 16,000 Mongolians; Asia Times gives 1.6 million against 1 million Japanese, and the Great Soviet Encyclopedia counts 1,320,000 on the Japanese side with its puppet and allied troops. The Kwantung Army, stripped of many of its best men, broke: by Max Hastings' account, as quoted in Asia Times, some Soviet armored units advanced 93 miles on the first day, and from 19 August the Japanese surrendered almost everywhere. Krivosheev counts 12,031 Soviet dead and missing; between 1.6 and 1.7 million Japanese surrendered to the Soviets in the weeks after 9 August, says the National WWII Museum. Historians still argue whether the Soviet attack or the atomic bombs weighed more in Japan's surrender; Soviet and American troops split Korea at the 38th parallel; and, Asia Times notes, the territory and the captured Japanese arms passed to Mao's Communists before their civil war with Chiang Kai-shek.31
Why it ranks here: The Soviet entry weighed with the atomic bombs in Japan's decision to surrender, decisiveness 4, and it set the division of Korea and opened Manchuria to the Chinese Communists, consequence 5; but it is virtually unknown in the West, recognition and memory 2, and the size and losses of the Japanese side are known only roughly, certainty 4. It is the only entry on 32, two points above the close calls.
How we chose and ranked these battles of the Pacific War
We counted a battle of the Pacific War, from the attack on Pearl Harbor and the landings in Malaya on 7 and 8 December 1941 to Japan's surrender in 1945, on land, at sea or in the air. The war in Southeast Asia, Burma and India belongs to it, so Singapore and Imphal and Kohima are ranked here, and so do China after December 1941 and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945; the war in China from 1937, such as Shanghai, came before it and is left out. A campaign known by one name, such as Guadalcanal or Malaya and Singapore, counts as one battle. Pearl Harbor was a raid rather than a battle that decided anything, but we count it, as our other guides do, because it opened the war; bombing raids on cities, from the Doolittle Raid to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are left out. The whole war is weighed in the greatest battles of World War II, the war at sea in the greatest naval battles, the American story in the greatest battles in American history, and Wake Island as a stand in the greatest last stands.32
We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of which battles of the Pacific War are the greatest and best known; decisiveness, consequence and memory count twice, and certainty once:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the name is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of decisive battles, 1 if only specialists know it.
- Decisiveness (×2). 5 if it decided a war or the fate of a state, 3 if it decided a campaign, 1 if it settled nothing beyond the day itself.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if it changed the map or the course of history for generations, 1 if it changed nothing beyond the war.
- Memory (×2). 5 if it is still a living tradition (a national day, a monument, a proverb, a march, a famous work of art), 1 if it is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if the numbers and events are confirmed by independent sources, 1 if they rest on one source or are disputed.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better known battle, then to the one with the greater consequence, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them. It explains, for example, why Okinawa, the largest and bloodiest battle of the Pacific, is only seventh: it decided the campaign but not the war, which Midway and Leyte Gulf had already turned, and the civilian death toll is known only within wide limits.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Decisiveness ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Memory ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Midway | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 48 |
| 2 | Pearl Harbor | 5 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 44 |
| 3 | Guadalcanal | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 43 |
| 4 | Iwo Jima | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 42 |
| 5 | Singapore | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 41 |
| 6 | Leyte Gulf | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 41 |
| 7 | Okinawa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 40 |
| 8 | Bataan | 4 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 38 |
| 9 | Coral Sea | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 36 |
| 10 | Saipan | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 36 |
| 11 | Philippine Sea | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 36 |
| 12 | Kokoda | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 35 |
| 13 | Tarawa | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 34 |
| 14 | Imphal and Kohima | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 34 |
| 15 | Manchuria | 2 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 32 |
Close calls
Four battles came close and did not make the fifteen:
Corregidor, 1942. Japanese troops landed on the island fortress on the night of 5 May 1942, and by the next morning, with enemy tanks ashore and about 1,000 wounded men in the Malinta Tunnel, Wainwright decided to surrender, the Army’s official history records, “to sacrifice one day of freedom in exchange for several thousand lives.” The surrender is well remembered in the Philippines, memory 4, but the fall of Bataan a month earlier had already settled the campaign, decisiveness and consequence 2, and Bataan takes the place for both: 30 points, two short of Manchuria.33
Peleliu, 1944. The 1st Marine Division landed on 15 September 1944 to cover MacArthur’s flank for the return to the Philippines and spent months clearing the caves of the Umurbrogol, “Bloody Nose Ridge.” The National WWII Museum counts some 9,600 American casualties, 1,600 of them killed, against 10,900 Japanese dead, and calls the airfield it won “a convenient but nonessential air link”, so decisiveness and consequence 2. The HBO series The Pacific, which follows Eugene Sledge through three episodes on the island, keeps its memory at 4: 30 points, level with Corregidor, which goes above it as the older.34
The Java Sea, 1942. On 27 and 28 February 1942 an American, Dutch, British and Australian squadron under Rear Admiral Karel Doorman tried to stop the Japanese invasion fleet bound for Java and was destroyed in a fight of more than seven hours, Doorman’s flagship De Ruyter among the ships lost; the Dutch forces surrendered days later. It decided the fate of the Dutch East Indies, decisiveness 4, but few readers know the name, recognition and memory 2: 29 points.35
Manila, 1945. American troops fought their way into the Philippine capital in February 1945, and the last Japanese defenders fell on 3 March. By the count in Ohio State University’s Origins, the battle killed a thousand Americans, 16,000 Japanese and 100,000 Manileños, a tenth of the population, and of the old churches of the walled city of Intramuros only San Agustin survived. The civilian toll rests on estimates, certainty 3, and the battle decided the fight for the capital but not for Luzon, decisiveness 3: 29 points, level with the Java Sea, which goes above it as the older.36
Why is Peleliu now a close call?
Peleliu was one of the hardest fights in the history of the Marine Corps: Clifton Cates, a future commandant, called it “one of the most vicious and stubbornly defended battles of the war,” and the National WWII Museum counts some 9,600 American casualties. But it was fought to secure MacArthur's flank, “if it ever was really threatened,” the museum writes, and the airfield it won became “a convenient but nonessential air link.” Decisiveness and consequence therefore score 2, and the battle ends on 30 points, two below Manchuria in fifteenth place.37
What was the turning point of the Pacific War?
Midway, in June 1942, is the usual answer. Before it, the US Navy's historians write, Japan held general naval superiority and could choose where and when to attack; after it the two fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive. The Coral Sea a month earlier had turned back the landing at Port Moresby and kept two Japanese carriers out of Midway, and in August the Marines landed on Guadalcanal, the first step in driving Japan back across the Pacific. Victory still took three more years: the Philippine Sea broke Japan's carrier air arm in June 1944, Leyte Gulf its fleet that October, and Iwo Jima and Okinawa showed what an invasion of Japan would cost. For these battles against the rest of the war, see the greatest battles of World War II.38
More from this war on Echoes of Battle: The Doolittle Raid
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