Pacific War

The  (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) was the theatre of World War II which covered the fighting in Asia and the Pacific Ocean. It was fought primarily between the Allied forces of the United States of America, China and the United Kingdom against the forces of Imperial Japan, a member of the Axis powers together with Nazi Germany and Italy in Europe. The Pacific War predated and outlasted the war in Europe which broke out in 1939. It grew out of a conflict between Japan and China which began in July 1937 following by the Invasion of Manchuria in 1931. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, Log 384)

The war rose in intensity in December 1941 after the Japanese attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor (PROSE: Only Connect) and moved against the British Empire's colonies in the Far East. (AUDIO: The Forsaken) Hostilities concluded after the US unleashed the world's first nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Subsequently, Japan surrendered on 2 September, (COMIC: Sky Jacks) bringing a formal end to World War II as a whole. (PROSE: Base of Operations)

For the most part, the Pacific War was a parallel conflict to that in Europe, related mostly through the shared British and American involvement. Yet some developments in each theatre had far-reaching consequences for the other. The Pearl Harbor attack, for example, saw the entry of the United States into the war against the Germans. (PROSE: Just War, Fear Itself) Likewise, the creation of atomic bombs which ended the Pacific War was brought about by the initial research of German scientists in Europe. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)

As with the European war, the Pacific War saw many horrors unleashed upon the world, some of which the Seventh Doctor described as "crimes against the universe itself." Among them were the events at Pearl Harbor and Kwai, (PROSE: Just War) Zhong Ma Fortress and Unit 731, (PROSE: Log 384) and the war's catastrophic climax at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues, Endgame, COMIC: Sky Jacks)

The rise of Japan
Japan was a relative newcomer to the world stage by the time of the Pacific War. A long period of isolation locked the nation off from the rest of the world. This policy, known as Sakoku, or seclusion, was implemented by the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1630s owing to Japanese suspicion of Westerners and the spread of Christianity into Asia. This suspicion and fear was maintained and exacerbated during the long centuries of seclusion. Westerners became referred to as "barbarians" and any who ventured into the home islands were treated harshly by the vicious samurai who enforced the decree of the shogun. (AUDIO: The Barbarians and the Samurai)

In the early 17th century, Asami of Clan Rikushira used the technology of aliens she named the "Gaijin" to read Izzy Sinclair's mind and learn about the future of Japan. Izzy's memories revealed the destruction of Hiroshima and Japan's surrender in the Pacific War. The revelation drove Asami mad and she vowed to change history by wiping the "treachery of the West" from the face of the world before the Eighth Doctor convinced the Gaijin to stop her. (COMIC: The Road to Hell)

Seclusion ultimately served to stagnate Japan's growth. Some Japanese circles were conscious that they were falling behind the rest of the world and thought it best that seclusion be ended. An attempted coup in the 1820s aided by agents of the United Kingdom was launched to this effect but it failed. A few decades later, the United States sailed warships into Edo (later renamed Tokyo) Harbour and demanded a trade agreement with Japan. Refusal risked war with the US. The shogun accepted and Sakoku was ended after more and 200 years. The time of the samurai came to an end and the Japanese swiftly modernised as they established a place among the world players. (AUDIO: The Barbarians and the Samurai)

The government came under the control of the generals of the Imperial Japanese Army. (PROSE: Endgame) By the end of the 19th century, Japan had already partitioned some areas of China, (PROSE: Warring States) incorporating them into the newly established Japanese Empire. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) Japan fought in World War I (PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games) and by the 1930s sought to expand the Empire across more of Asia. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) The Japanese ultimately aspired to unite the continent under the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)

The decline of China
The ancient Chinese Empire, founded in the 3rd century BC, was on its last legs by the mid-19th century. Prior to the 1860s, China fought against the British and French Empires in the Opium Wars and lost. The foreign powers occupied parts of the country and crippled the corrupt Chinese Empire. (AUDIO: The Nightmare Fair, PROSE: The Nightmare Fair) The defeat and its consequences were looked on by the Chinese with shame. (PROSE: The Eleventh Tiger)

By 1900, China was prey to several foreign powers, but the south of China also depended on trade with those powers to stay prosperous. The Empire could therefore not mount an effective form of resistance to defend itself. The British Navy in Fragrance Harbour dwarfed the size of the entire Chinese fleet and the Americans had built up many thousands of troops in the Philippines. Russia and Japan had also partitioned some areas of China and sought after more. (PROSE: Warring States)

In 1911, an alliance of Chinese Nationalist warlords rose up against the ailing remnants of the Empire, then ruled by the boy emperor Pu Yi. The alliance, led by Sun Yat Sen, ousted Pu Yi, swept away the Empire and formed themselves into the Kuomintang (KMT), which became the governing party of China. Despite this, the budding republic entered a period of a long power struggle after the birth of the Soviet Union. The Soviets helped foster a growing Chinese Communist movement which began challenging the Kuomintang for control.

Sun Yat Sen's successor as the Kuomintang leader, Chiang Kai-shek, led the campaign against the Communists and succeeded in pushing them into the mountains of north and central China against the border of Mongolia. From there, however, it proved difficult to dislodge the Communists any further. The conflict devolved into a stalemate and order in the new China began to collapse in the face of the protracted struggle for dominance. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)

Manchuria
The construction of a new Russian railway connecting European Russia to the Pacific port of Vladivostok threatened the region of Manchuria in the north-east China with trade strangulation. This was to the detriment of both Chinese and Japanese economic interests, yet the ongoing Chinese power struggle presented the expansionist Japanese with an opportunity. In 1931, the Sakura Kai engineered a fight between the Chinese to justify the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, claiming the Chinese had attacked first. As claimed by Major Ryuji Matsu of the Imperial Japanese Army, Japan sought to restore order to China and help attract trade back to the region. The occupation gained Japan control of Manchuria's natural resources. The Japanese consolidated Manchuria into a puppet state named Manchukuo, governed by the former Chinese Emperor, Pu Yi. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) The occupation was completed by 1932. (PROSE: Log 384)

Japan's authority in Manchukuo was enforced by the Kwantung Army. The headquarters of Kwantung Army Intelligence was set up in Hsinking. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) Atrocities committed by the Kwantung Army against the Chinese deterred the local peasants from attempting to escape, and any who tried were shot. The peasants were forced to work on the construction of Zhong Ma Fortress, a prison and research facility where the Japanese conducted experiments intended to forward the development of biological weapons. These projects were headed by the young military scientist Ishii Shiro and sponsored by the Japanese Emperor himself. Prisoners were dissected, blood samples were taken, and subjects were deliberately infected with bubonic plague, so that the Japanese could learn more about how the human body reacted to it and how germs may be weaponised.

In 1933, Mai Ling was imprisoned in Zhong Ma, prompting the Seventh Doctor embark on a rescue mission before the Japanese unwittingly unleashed the ghost warrior within her, bringing untold chaos and changing the course of Earth's history. To gain the necessary support, the Doctor approached the factions of the British Security Services who were sympathetic to Winston Churchill and his warnings about the dangers posed by the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. The Doctor warned them of secret negotiations being conducted between the Nazis and the Japanese to discuss the terms of an alliance. The Security Services responded by recruiting operatives to send on a spy mission to Manchuria, not sanctioned by the British government, for which the Doctor recommended Edward Grainger. Grainger was a sceptic in regards to Churchill's warnings about the Nazis, so he was even more sceptical about the importance of the events unfolding in Asia. The Doctor assured him of their significance and the two departed on their mission.

Shortly after infiltrating Zhong Ma Fortress, the Doctor and Grainger were briefly captured by the Japanese and experimented on. They managed to escape captivity and rescued Mai Ling before fleeing the region. As Grainger recovered from the experiments, the Doctor put forward a recommendation for his actions in Zhong Ma, proposing that Grainger be recruited as an operative for the British Government, initially in an unofficial capacity that would to be made official in the event of a war. Major-General Vernon Kell sent Grainger the offer and he accepted.

The Japanese, meanwhile, continued their horrific human experimentation in Zhong Ma and its successor, Unit 731. (PROSE: Log 384)

Descent into war
Shortly after the invasion of Manchuria, Shanghai imposed sanctions on Japan in 1932. The Japanese responded by deploying soldiers stationed in the Shanghai International Settlement onto the streets and they briefly occupied the city. The situation threatened to spark a war. Areas of Shanghai were hit by Japanese air raids by aircraft launched from the aircraft carrier Hosho off the coast, and a number of the city's inhabitants were arrested and interrogated. Sung-Chi Li was captured by Ishiguro Takashi and interrogated by Ryuji Matsu, who promised Shanghai would fall under Japanese control. Li was becoming disillusioned with the capabilities of the Kuomintang to resolve the crisis against the Communists. Matsu convinced him that Japanese rule could restore the order the Kuomintang could not and the pair agreed on a partnership, Li becoming a double agent working for the Japanese. The crisis in Shanghai was eventually defused when the Western powers intervened to protect their own trading centres. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)

Yet the tensions over the Manchurian dispute did not go away. They persisted into 1935. (PROSE: The Year of Intelligent Tigers) In Japan, the government and the Army split into two factions over a disagreement on Japan's next steps and overall on the best course of action, although both sides held an expansionist ideology. One faction, the Kodo Ha, controlled by the Sakura Kai, pushed for further consolidation of Manchukuo and expansion into China to offset strategic advantages enjoyed by the Soviet Union. The other faction, the Tosei Ha, felt it better to adhere to more formal rules of engagement and achieve their ambitions while working within the political system. The Kodo Ha took a more active and extreme approach to the dispute. Commanding the support of the local commanders in Manchukuo, they used them to assassinate various government ministers, including prime ministers, between 1933 and 1935 in an attempt to influence government policy.

Eventually, in February 1936, the Japanese First Infantry Division sparked a revolt in Tokyo. Also supporters of the Kodo Ha and influenced by the Sakura Kai, the division murdered many government officials and civil servants. Ishiguro Takashi's brothers lost their lives in the revolt, causing Takashi to desert the Imperial Army and flee to China. The Kodo Ha was ultimately defeated when the revolt was put down by imperial order and the Tosei Ha maintained nominal control of the Army. However, the Kodo Ha maintained the support of the Manchukuo commanders. Their influence was sufficient enough for the Tosei Ha to alter their policy. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)

More fighting between the Chinese and Japanese occurred in 1936. Some of these soldiers were abducted by the War Lords and the renegade Time Lord the War Chief to participate in the War Games inside the Chinese sector. The survivors were returned home when the Second Doctor summoned the Time Lords to defeat the War Lords. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games)

Finally, in July 1937, the Japanese Manchukuo commanders, loyal to the Kodo Ha, provoked a fight between a handful of Chinese soldiers at Marco Polo Bridge. Using similar tactics which provoked the invasion of Manchuria, the Japanese claimed the Chinese troops had attacked first. The incident sparked further hostilities. With their troops were already in action, the Tosei Ha government was forced onto a war footing. The first phase of the Pacific War had begun. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)

War in China
The front lines opened up on the frontier between Manchuria and Shangdong province, almost 400 miles north-east of Shanghai. In Shangdong, a push by the Japanese Twelfth Army gained them control of everything north of Tai'an and the mountain of T'ai Shan. KMT troop trains transporting Chinese Nationalist troops to the north were harried by the Imperial Army Air Fleet's Mitsubishi A5Ms. The Nationalists were further weakened by the need to divide their forces, as the Communists still held the northern regions near Mongolia. Fortunately for the Nationalists, the Japanese sought at first to consolidate their hold on Manchuria rather than advance deeper into China. The fighting on the frontier therefore remained relatively light.

Imperial Army deserter Ishiguro Takashi fled the Sakura Kai in Tokyo to Hong Kong and then China and began plotting against the "traitors" running the Japanese government. Settling in Shanghai, he abandoned his own name and became known as Woo, a Hong Kong-born owner of Club Do-San. This was a cover for his true intention of building a united front against the Kwantung Army before they drove south from Manchuria. Bigger Chinese criminal organisations were already preparing to resist further Japanese invasions. Woo worked as a vigilante, who became known as Yan Cheh, cracking down on local crime. He saw this as a severe distraction at a time when China's ability to resist the Japanese military had to be as strong as possible. The threat the Japanese armed forces posed to the city was already being demonstrated by air raids launched from Manchuria against Shanghai using Mitsubishi Ki-15 single-engined planes. The Fourth Doctor explained the Japanese were doing this "just to prove that they can".

This state of affairs continued into August 1937. A larger-scale threat soon revealed itself in the form of Hsien-Ko and the Tong of the Black Scorpion. Hsien-Ko, the daughter of Li H'sen Chang, wanted to formally punish Magnus Greel for the death of her father by preventing Greel from travelling to 1872. Aware that this would change time, Hsien-Ko also believed success would bring further rewards, namely that she might be able to prevent the conflict between China and Japan that started with the invasion of Manchuria altogether. She killed a number of Japanese soldiers during her discreet travels to Shangdong, where the Tong, having affiliated themselves with the Kuomintang, had secretly constructed the world's first nuclear reactor inside the mountain of T'ai Shan. They aimed to use the reactor's power to yank Greel's time cabinet out of its original course through time and into 1937. However, the Tong's reactor was wrecked by Sung-Chi Li, Major Matsu's double agent, who tricked various Tong members into fighting each other. The Fourth Doctor and Romana I used the TARDIS to time ram Greel's time cabinet back on course before Hsien-Ko created a temporal paradox. Hsien-Ko herself was erased from time when her attempt at time manipulation was thwarted. The reactor was also prevented from going critical and potentially destroying the entirety of Shangdong province. The Doctor and Romana buried it under huge amounts of concrete inside the mountain.

Eventually, the Japanese Army moved into Shanghai. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)

The biological weapons developed by the Japanese in Zhong Ma Fortress and Unit 731 were put to use throughout the duration of the war. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese people were killed as towns and villages in China and Manchuria were hit by germ-ridden packages. (PROSE: Log 384)

World War
Japan sought to extend control over more areas of Asia, much like their German and Italian allies in Europe and Africa respectively. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) To this end, on Sunday, 7 December 1941, the Japanese launched a pre-emptive strike on the United States Navy anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The Americans were so unprepared that it was a civilian pilot, Ray Budnick, who became the first American in the war to engage the enemy as Japanese Zeros appeared in the air and fired on him during his morning flight above Honolulu. The Fourth Doctor considered Budnick as important a historical character as the US General and post-war President Dwight D. Eisenhower even though history would not remember him. Budnick escape the Japanese and survived but the American naval base suffered a bombing raid which the Doctor called "the greatest airborne attack [the 20th century] will see." (PROSE: Only Connect) UNIT's Bill Filer denounced the American performance at Pearl Harbor, describing the affair as a "series of balls-ups." (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune) Nevertheless, the Eighth Doctor noted the wider consequences of the event. The attack awoke the US from its "isolationist slumber" following the attack and precipitated their entry into World War II. (PROSE: Fear Itself)

Almost 48 hours later, the Japanese attacked the Philippine Islands. Unlike at Pearl Harbor, the Americans stationed in the Philippines believed they were sufficiently trained and ready to face to approaching Japanese forces. However, Lieutenant Terrence Moody was shot down and killed in his P-40 Warhawk above Luzon Island without ever seeing the Japanese pilot that dispatched him. He was reported as missing in action. (PROSE: Happily Ever After Is a High-Risk Strategy)

The Japanese eventually spread across many other islands throughout the Pacific. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon, PROSE: Endgame)

The President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became the target of rumours accusing him of knowing that the attack on Pearl Harbor was going to happen but he kept quiet about it so he could justify his country's entry into the war. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, having led the fight against Adolf Hitler's Nazis in Europe since 1939, allied Britain with Roosevelt and the US in a great transatlantic bond. (PROSE: Loving the Alien)

Japan's actions also had huge consequences for the war in Europe. Germany, having failed to defeat Britain, invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 but the gargantuan push stalled at the onset of winter before they could reach Moscow. The subsequent entry of the US into the war enabled vast amounts of resources to be mobilised to aid both the British and the Soviets. Germany now effectively fought the European war alone. (PROSE: Just War)

Yet the British now also had to expend parts of their war effort on facing the Japanese as the latter turned their attention to the Asian colonies of the British Empire. The resulting Far East Campaign saw the Japanese march towards Singapore in the second week of February 1942. The British and Indian forces were outmatched and began hurridly organising the evacuation of soldiers and civilians by sea. Hindu brothers Prem and Kunal were part of a section stationed in Singapore at the time of the Japanese invasion. The section found a boat on which to escape but Kunal was killed before he had the chance to join the others. His death was witnessed by the Thijarians. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)

As Singapore fell, the Japanese diverted some of their forces away from the main assault to capture the island of Kenga. Japanese scouting parties and air raids harassed the British during the week following the start of the invasion. Captain Clive Freeman and his men – Corporal Gibbs and Privates Lawson and James Jackson – encountered one of the many ambushes set up by the Japanese in the jungle as they awaited the chance to evacuate. Freeman was killed but his form was taken by the Forsaken, which infiltrated the party to feed on the fear of the other British soldiers and civilians. The Forsaken was defeated by the Second Doctor who caused it to feed on its own fear. Soon afterwards, the survivors were able to escape Kenga when another boat arrived to aid in the evacuation.

The fall of Singapore was described by Churchill as "the largest capitulation in British military history." (AUDIO: The Forsaken)

Fighting spread into Siam where India soldiers saw further engagement. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) Action also took place in the jungles of Burma (PROSE: Just War) where Major-General Scobie took part in numerous excursions. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)

The rapid Japanese conquests across Asia and the Pacific meant the Americans had to invade and recapture many islands from the Japanese before there could be any chance of reaching mainland Japan. Each island was held by thousands of Japanese soldiers who viewed death as preferable to surrender. (PROSE: Endgame) The jungles and mountains found on many of these islands offered ample places for the soldiers of the Imperial Army to find cover and attack their enemies. The Imperial Army Air Fleet and the US Army Air Force fought each other in dogfights above the fiercely contested islands, and occasionally they tried to bomb enemy ground positions. A sense of personal honour and a devotion to the Emperor held the Japanese morale. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon) Fearful of this Japanese devotion, the US government interned Japanese-Americans living in the United States in camps, even if they were patriotic American citizens. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)

Captain Botega's ship was surrounded by Japanese torpedo boats during the South Pacific Campaign. The ship was rescued from destruction when the Melovians abducted it from its own time and transported it to their planet, where it was made to battle other ships for the Melovians' amusement. Although Botega's crew survived, imperfections in the Melovian transporter beam caused them to undergo metamorphosis. The Third Doctor negotiated a peaceful resettlement but they could not return home to Earth. (PROSE: Fugitives from Chance)

The race for the bomb
The road to the eventual creation of the atomic bomb began in Germany during the interwar years. Scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, among them Albert Einstein, discovered how the split the atom. However, owing to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, Einstein was among the scientists who left Germany and headed for the United States. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) When the United States and Germany engaged each other in the war, they found themselves competing to be the first to develop atomic weaponry. The Seventh Doctor described it as "a close-run thing". (AUDIO: Colditz)

At Los Alamos in New Mexico, a team of Allied scientists converted a ranch school into a research centre where they performed work on the Manhattan Project. Led by Robert Oppenheimer and Neils Bohr, the team consisted of three dozen physicists and engineers. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...) It was a mixture of American and British scientists together with people of other nationalists collaborating against the Axis. (PROSE: Endgame)

In the early evening of one Saturday in March 1943, the Third Doctor materialised the TARDIS inside Bohr's office and inspected the professor's notes. He administered a number of discrete corrections to the notes and then departed, having ensured that the Manhattan Project would not fail. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)

The US achieved a monopoly on the nuclear project after the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich in May 1945 knocked Germany out of the race. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) The Pacific War continued, however, as the Japanese continued to fight on and a debate emerged about whether the new bomb should be deployed against them. Members of Oppenheimer's team were highly conscious of the unprecedented destructive power of their weapon and favoured a demonstration on an uninhabited island. This, they hoped, would be a sufficient show of force to compel Japan to surrender. They opposed direct use of the new weapons against Japanese targets. Conversely, Allied leaders feared that this would not be enough. It was estimated that continued engagement of the Japanese on the Pacific islands could extend the war for up to five years, leading to countless more deaths. Roosevelt died towards the end of the war and the decision fell to his Vice-President, Harry S. Truman. Advised that the Japanese would only surrender given a direct order from the Emperor, Truman ultimately decided to order the deployment of the bombs (PROSE: Endgame)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Three bombs were assigned Japanese cities as targets: Big Momma, Little Boy and Fat Man, although the first of these would become unknown to history.

On 5 August 1945, the Sky Jack took off from Iwo Jima and headed northwards towards Japan on a top secret mission to drop the first bomb, Big Momma, on Kyoto. Despite the secrecy, the Sky Jack was spotted by Japanese Zeros and attacked. All but three members of the crew were killed and the aircraft began rapidly losing fuel at a rate which meant it was not possible to reach Kyoto. The crew's only hope of survival was to reach the Ogasawara Islands but doing so risked the Japanese discovering the existence of the atomic bomb and potentially capturing it for their own use. Captain Lasseter ordered the pay load to be dropped into the ocean and hoped that the other two bombs would be more successful. Before the crew could dispense with the bomb, the Sky Jack suddenly fell into a black hole, where the crew spent three years before the Eleventh Doctor returned them home. Kyoto was spared and the details of Big Momma and the bomb run would remain a secret. (COMIC: Sky Jacks)

The second bomb, Little Boy, was designated the target of Hiroshima. The bomb run was successful and the bomb obliterated the city. The destructive power of Little Boy was roughly the equivalent of 13,000 tons of TNT. At least 100,000 Japanese men, women, children and babies burned to death.

Four days later, the Americans dropped Fat Man, an even more powerful plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki. (PROSE: Endgame) The city was also flattened. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) Approximately 150,000 more people were killed by the Nagasaki bomb, bringing the total number of dead to a quarter of a million Japanese civilians. (COMIC: Sky Jacks) Further deaths among people from both cities occurred later as a result of radiation poisoning. (PROSE: Endgame)

The destruction of the two cities ultimately convinced Japan's rulers of the need to surrender. The Japanese Emperor was forced to give the order to do so. (COMIC: The Road to Hell) Japan surrendered to the Americans (PROSE: Log 384) on 2 September 1945, (COMIC: Sky Jacks) ending the Pacific War and thus fully bringing World War II to its formal conclusion. (PROSE: Base of Operations) The date became celebrated as VJ Day (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) or Victory in the Pacific Day. The Allies celebrated the occasion with what the Eleventh Doctor described as "one hell of a victory party." (COMIC: Sky Jacks)

Fate of the belligerents
After the surrender, the Japanese attempted to destroy all of the Unit 731 biological warfare facilities before the American forces discovered them. When the Americans arrived in the occupied Chinese territory, they quickly found out. Deteriorating relations between the Americans and the Russians at the onset of the Cold War, however, worked to the advantage of Ishii Shiro and the other Japanese perpetrators. The US did not want the research to fall into Russian hands, and also saw the advantages of learning from research recorded in experiments that the US would never countenance. In exchange for the data, the Americans granted Ishii and the perpetrators immunity from the war crimes for which they were responsible. The medical data was incorporated into America's existing knowledge and biological weapons were even later deployed against North Korea during the Korean War. Some members of the Zhong Ma and Unit 731 research teams, meanwhile, went on to live out lives of wealth and power, achieving successful careers in academia and powerful organisations. These war criminals were never persecuted for their actions, (PROSE: Log 384) unlike their Nazi counterparts in Europe who were tried for war crimes at Nuremberg. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)

After the war, the United States did not return to its isolationist foreign policy. Instead, the Americans took a leading role in shaping the post-war world as the Cold War began. Such was the further-reaching consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbor. (PROSE: Fear Itself) Harry Truman remained a caretaker president after the war, then went on to win the election of 1948. During his presidency, Truman helped organise the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Marshall Plan to aid Europe in its post-war recovery efforts. (PROSE: Endgame)

The British Empire went into decline after the war, largely crippled by war debts, leading the UK to relinquish many of their colonies. (PROSE: Endgame) India achieved independence in 1947, which some Indian soldiers who fought for the British had hoped they would be rewarded with. However, tribalist divisions and escalating violence between the Muslim, Hindu and Sikh populations led to the partitioning of the country into India and Pakistan on 17 August. The tensions resulted in mass displacement and death. Hindu war veteran Prem lamented that the extreme divisions appeared to show that nothing had been learned from the war. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)

By 1951, China had fallen under the control of the Communists. (PROSE: Endgame) The new rulers viewed the United States as "imperialist" and the United Kingdom as a "barbaric country". (TV: The Mind of Evil) The Chinese even engaged the British and Americans in battle during the Korean War. General MacArthur went so far as to advocate dropping atomic bombs on China, for which Truman removed him from his post. (PROSE: Endgame)

The defeated Japan was humbled as a nation, stripped of its military and imperial prowess. (COMIC: The Road to Hell)

The nuclear age
The harnessing of the power of the atom also heralded the dawn of the nuclear age. The prospect of cheap and efficient nuclear power was met with much optimism in the immediate post-war period. By the 1970s, however, Jo Grant opined that this had been wishful thinking. She looked to the nuclear power plant of Durlston Heath as an example, as it housed an expensive and obsolete reactor which was likely to be decommissioned. (PROSE: Harvest of Time)

The primary concern of the post-war nuclear age was that of nuclear weapons. After the war, the US enjoyed a monopoly on nuclear weapons for four years before the Soviet Union was able to develop their own in 1949. The nuclear secrets had been passed to the Soviets by some of the scientists who developed the bombs. They had been greatly upset by their use against Japan and wanted to break the US monopoly. (PROSE: Endgame) The resulting Soviet nuclear programme led to the nuclear stand-off which characterised the Cold War, a stalemate maintained by the idea of mutually assured destruction. (TV: Cold War)

Despite the role of his third incarnation in advancing the Manhattan Project, (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...) the Eighth Doctor was unconvinced that bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified by the argument which claimed it shortened the war. (PROSE: Endgame) The Eleventh Doctor, who believed he had destroyed his own people in the Last Great Time War with a super weapon, called the bombing "needless", much to the objection of Captain Lasseter of the Sky Jack. (COMIC: Sky Jacks)

Members of the counterculture movement and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the 1950s and 1960s agreed with the later Doctors' views. As Harold Macmillan in Britain and Charles de Gaulle in France began to develop nuclear programmes in their own countries, some CND members expressed the view that an even longer war against Japan would have been preferable if it meant nuclear weapons were never created.

The Third Doctor, however, somewhat contrary to the attitudes of his later selves, believed there were times in human history where the possession of nuclear weapons would become necessary in order for humanity to defend itself from external threats. This was the belief that motivated him to nudge the Manhattan Project onto its proper course. He confided in Jo Grant that as long as human morality progressed in time with human technology, then the invention of nuclear weapons was no more a blight on human history than the invention of more primitive weapons such as the knife or the firearm. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)

Alternate timelines
In one alternate timeline encountered by the Fifth Doctor, the Pacific War stretched on until at least as far as 25 July 1963. The timeline was one of many alternate Earth's generated by the Monk and Autek's Ice Warriors. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) The Doctor met a Japanese soldier named Fuji, who, despite his devotion to honour and the emperor, was at heart a simple fisherman from Okinawa, and not as brave or strong as he or others liked to believe. Fuji was killed by an American pilot who crash-landed on the island (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon) named Angus Goodman who agreed to travel with the Doctor. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas)

Parallel universes
In one parallel universe later ravaged by the Inferno Project, World War II never took place. Consequently, the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was successfully established and represented Asia collectively as a member of the Conclave. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)

Marcus Americanius Scriptor explored many of the Known Worlds where the Nazis won World War II. In one such universe, Germania V, the United States remained strictly neutral in the war and Japan's sphere of influence was successfully expanded over Asia.

In another of the Known Worlds, the United States lost the war and was divided between Japan and Nazi Germany. The Americans were actually grateful for the occupation as they believed the Axis had rid the world of Communism. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)

Behind the scenes
There has yet to be a concrete distinction established in the Doctor Who universe between the Pacific War and the, the latter of which has yet to be named by any Doctor Who source. Log 384 largely treats the Sino-Japanese War and World War II (and by extension the Pacific War) as the same conflict.